Retribution [a tale of Avayevnon]

[Seraph]

Retribution
By Aaron J. Fagan

In the grim grey morning Proditus woke, wheezing.  Visions still flitted in and out of his head, flashes of a dream that would not fade from his mind.  They were screams of terror and the memory of a sadistic glee.  Who were these people?  He did not know.  Nor did he care.  They were heretics, unbelievers, and so they must die.  He could hardly remember last night's inquisition, there were so many and one villain flowed into the next.  That defiant flash of eyes might belong to the baker's daughter who brazenly refused to believe that there really was a One God who watched over all we do, or perhaps it was owned by the occult demonologist whose proceedings were interrupted as he attempted to worship that horrible beast.  As his head throbbed with the images of despairing guilt splayed across the faces of the damned an unearthly iron voice he knew to be his own echoed forth its creed: Thus always for the Heretic.

He could not remember who these people were or even what sacrilege they'd done.  What he did remember was the string of heresies following the capture of the little bread wench.  The swine had gathered a full-fledged mob in front of the church.  Their shamelessness in protecting an unbeliever was sickening.  He had never seen so rash and so suicidal an expression of blasphemy.  In his disgust he could not help but also feel a twinge of triumph.  His lip curled at the edge as he contemplated with hungry longing the apprehension of such a mob.  Then remembering his duty and his place turned to his superior.

'Lord Pontiff, what action shall I take against these impious apes?

The aging but formidable man considered for a moment and responded: 'The will of the One God and Bethor must be done.'

'And what is their will?'

'The One God will not allow his potency denied, nor mercy on those who would deny it.'

This was all that Proditus needed.  He marched from the room exerting every effort to contain his excitement.   He barked quick commands to the church guards and the Inquisitors present.  His attendants rushed to don his Inquisitorial Vestments, his armor and his deep crimson robes.  Weighted down with plate mail Proditus found himself possessed with a new vigor and the blood red tunic and robes filled him with a lust for blood itself.  Finally, his mask.  An altar boy strode forward with a mahogany case with clasps of a cold looking steel.  With frightful fingers the boy unlatched Pandora's Box.  He knew the havoc Proditus could wreak; he knew the wicked man grew heartless when he donned his iron mask.  The lid retracted and so was revealed the consummation of the Inquisitor's transformation, staring back at him with eyeless slats of sockets cut from an expressionless orb-like thing that should have been a face.  Proditus lifted the thing from its velvet bed and placed its concave side up to his face, fitting the back strap around his shaven head and dropping the cowl of his cloak to shade his iron face.  The transmutation was complete, and though it could not be seen through the mask, Proditus smiled.

                                    *                 *                 *

The square before the church was pandemonium.  Frightened protestors fled for their lives, run down by red robed horsemen, slashed and beaten, bloodied and killed mercilessly.  It had already begun when Proditus arrived.  He watched the panicked scurrying of the heretics and thought how much like animals they were, trying to escape the hunter's trap, colliding with one another and fighting amongst themselves to reach salvation.  But there was no salvation to be had, only death.  A bloody peasant sped past Proditus, and the inquisitor thoughtless drew a crossbow from the saddlebag of his obsidian haired horse Nachtfaust, firing a quivering bolt into the back of the terrified serf.

Proditus galloped forth into the stricken crowd, felling first one man and then another.  He turned and saw a woman, babe in arms, the child wailing at the noise and fear, the mother caked with the blood of her husband and countrymen.  Her eyes met his and she fell back trembling, tripping over a corpse and crawling back.  Proditus advances on her, his blood hot with ecstatic anticipation as he drew closer and closer to her helpless form.  Woman stared unblinking at the iron face of her death bearing down upon her, all the more imposing from its towering height and jet black steed.  Proditus looked back at her face, where seemed to mingle fear and defiance and maternal protectiveness.  It was the defiance that he loved.  A challenge.  Though they both knew that she would die and thus defiance but a shallow gesture, the spirit in his quarry aroused him.   The muscle in his chest increased its tempo as he lost himself in bloody fantasies.  He saw her face beneath him all revulsion as she kicked and struggled under his weight.  The vision faded out but her face remained swimming between fantasy and reality, where the backdrop melted from bedroom to bloody square and she was there beneath him, not struggling but paralyzed with fear.  He spoke to her in hoarse and tinny, rasping voice:

'Rise'

She did so instantly, on his power, not on hers, obeying mindlessly from fear.  She knew her fate was no longer in her hands, and at the same time she knew nothing.  Proditus could see in her eyes the overwhelming desire to run, and run fast, but the fear that was induced at least in part by the simple fact that her legs refused to carry her, they would not follow her command to run.  The back of his neck tingled and he had to contain his shudder of glee.  

'Know thee this face?'

The woman did not respond, could not.  Proditus repeated, drowning the sounds of the massacre around them.  It was not a question but an order that must be obeyed.  Deep within the soul it reverberated, so that in the end one could not possibly remain ignorant.

'Know thee this face?'

The woman nodded.

'Know thee this voice?'

Again the woman nodded, vehemently.  It was the last thing she did.  A column of fire enveloped the woman and her baby, who screamed in pain for but a moment before the life was snuffed completely from them both.  Their flesh melted from their bones in seconds, their muscle tissue fused together into a useless blob before burning away, leaving nothing but a charred husk of ash as evidence that either of the two had ever existed.

In his voice of grating metal Proditus proclaimed:

'The sinful shall be purged in the cleansing fires of Retribution, and Bethor shall speak forth his word and all that is dark will die, and all that is light shall live.  And the darkness will be never was, for where there is light there never can be darkness.  Thus always for the Heretic.'

[Numinous]

Disturbing, but some nice imagery.  I especially enjoy how the good is bad, and someone who hates can feel desire for that which he despises.

one thing I noticed, there's a typo in the first paragraph after the break, last line.  

"inquisitor thoughtless drew"

Perhaps a comma after "thoughtless" or add "-ly" to the word.

Anyway, good work man.