As I Lay Dying: The Balance of Justice (3) (706 hits)
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Rating: 2 on 16 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Axolotl .58 (View user info) at 2006-09-04 12:36:03 EDT
AS I LAY DYING
(1) Unto Dust, and story information: http://www.ubersite.com/m/92393
(2) Pillar http://www.ubersite.com/m/92560
Well, it's Labor Day, and summer's nearly over. Hope all of you of school age enjoy the last days of freedom. Have a fun holiday, off to a barbecue now.
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Looking back on it, Virgil would always remember the smell. The incense hanging in the air, stuffy and overwhelming, the long pallid candles hissing and popping as he was shackled to his seat before the panel of Judges.
The room was small, buried underneath St. Peter's Square several hundred feet, in the bowels of the Inquisitorial Court of Discipline. Four Swiss Guards had led him in and strapped him down with chains, bolts, and leather to a seat on a platform in the middle of the chamber. He could sense the pikes and rifles at the back of his head, and could hear his mother sobbing somewhere in the stands, weeping for what the Magisterium would do to her son.
There were five Judges, one being the main Judex of the branch of the court with authority over all the rest. Many laypeople were watching the trial behind the stands; it wasn't every day that they had a real devil-worshipper.
"Attention," said the Judex Primus. "My name is Cardinal Patrick Wye, and I shall be heading these proceedings. Anyone who disturbs my trial will be ejected from this court."
Patrick Wye was an American Cardinal, frail and wiry, but with a kind face. As he shuffled his papers on the desk, he smiled down at young Virgil; Virgil was uneasy and frightened. The Judges beside him were cold and harsh-looking. Cardinals Jones Parker and Eoin Sylvester were to Wye's right on the panel, and were both known for their hatred of heretics. To Wye's left was Cardinal Juan Cortes and Father Søren Vasa, the latter of whom was a Protestant Judge, a part of the Magisterial Council for Interchristian Cooperation. He was tight-lipped and grey-haired, and was known to inspire fear in the city that he controlled.
"Before we start the trial in five minutes," Cardinal Wye said softly, peering past his spectacles at the audience of about forty. "Let me remind you—and the Honorable and Eminent Judges—that the defendant, Master Virgil Kasabian here, is fifteen years old. Let us not hate him, but pity him and believe him because of his tender age. Give him the benefit of the doubt that comes with youth."
Virgil nodded, his hands shaking in their cuffs. The only light in the room was coming from the candles stationed all around, and the dramatic shadows cast on the Judge's faces only heightened the fear.
"How are you doing today, Virgil?" Cardinal Wye asked kindly, giving a short cough. Vasa and Sylvester sneered maliciously.
"I'm...well as I could be right now...Your Eminence," Virgil said softly, lips trembling.
"Kasabian...what name is that? From what country, I mean?"
"My father was Hungarian, Your Eminence," Virgil replied in almost a whisper. "He's away on business right now, but he's heard about my...my...he's trying to return as fast as he can."
"Don't worry, Virgil," Cardinal Wye said, smiling. "We'll have all this—" he coughed again loudly, covering his mouth. Taking his hand away, he saw blood on his fingers. "We'll have all this cleared up before today is done."
At this Wye began to cough again, spitting blood onto his hand. Turning to Sylvester on his right, he said, "I'm fine. I'm fine."
And the trial began.
"We begin this trial at three o'clock in the afternoon," Wye started, his voice hoarse from his choking coughs. "Upon the fourteenth day of February, in the year of our Lord, two thousand and—"
Wye snorted involuntarily, and coughed viciously into his hands; Cardinal Sylvester got up and patted Wye on the back. There was some murmuring from the crowd, but Virgil was numb to the world right now. The panel discussed something quietly and briefly, then Wye got up and walked quickly out of the door in the back of the room. Sylvester followed him, rubbing his back as Wye hacked and spat.
The door opened again and Cardinal Eoin Sylvester sat down in Wye's place. Now the crowd began muttering even louder.
"Silence!" Eoin barked. Sylvester was a round-faced man of about fifty or sixty, and very high-up in the Courts. He wore a red skullcap and gold pectoral cross and the green emblem of a crucifix on his left shoulder designating him as a member of the Inquisition.
"There will be no talking in my court! And no crying either!" Sylvester snarled, pointing at Virgil's mother. Virgil turned his head slightly; the Swiss Guards were behind him, and beyond them was his mother in the stands, giving a final sob as she buried her face in her hands.
"Are the stenographers ready?"
Several nuns of the Order of Saint Claire had typing machines up and at the ready in the corner. They were not kind-looking; now that Virgil had thought of it, no one he had seen so far had been kind-looking except Cardinal Wye.
"Master Kasabian," snapped Cardinal Sylvester. "You have been charged with being an accomplice to the murder of an agent of the Church, and with consorting with the devil. How do you plead?"
"I—I didn't—I've never—" Virgil stammered.
"You either answer guilty, or not guilty!" roared Sylvester. "And you will address me as 'Your Eminence!'"
Virgil would have protested a few weeks ago, but his imprisonment had taken the life out of him.
In a rejected and depressed voice, he said:
"Not guilty, Your Eminence."
"May I remind you that if you are proven to have submitted a false plea—that is, to say that you were innocent when you were really guilty," Sylvester said coldly. "You shall be executed...most painfully. We will burn you to purify your sins, but your plea will decide whether we burn you before or after your execution..."
Virgil vomited on the stand, the shackles and straps straining against his heaving gorge. The unloving food the guards had given him was now all over the stand before him.
"Disgusting boy," Sylvester said.
The guards did nothing. Virgil sank down, but was held up by the chains. The nausea of his imminent death swirled around his head.
"On the thirteenth of December, Father Cornell Svenson, a priest and an agent of the Holy Church, was murdered in his home by a boy your age," Sylvester said, reading the report on the desk. "The boy, who gave his name as Albert Burns, was taken into custody, but after his interrogation, escaped by the most extraordinary means. Can you possibly imagine how Master Burns made his escape?"
"No, Your Eminence," Virgil responded.
"He transformed into a bat-like creature with leathery wings and a red glow, so the eyewitnesses say," Sylvester growled. The crowd gasped. "Burns knocked unconscious his captors and flew off into the night, leaving a trail of pestilence behind him. He was the devil, we are certain. And do you know what he told us in the questioning? Could you possibly guess?"
Mind numb and swimming, Virgil replied in the negative.
"He told us that he had killed the priest. He had strangled him in his sleep, because the priest had discovered his true identity. And do you know how he found out where the priest lived?"
Something clicked in Virgil's mind, and he said unthinkingly, "I told Albert where the priest lived."
The crowd gasped again, but this time louder and more scandalized. The nuns crossed themselves. From somewhere in the back a man called out, "Satanist! Heathen!" The Swiss Guards promptly removed him from the courtroom into the hallway, where he continued screaming until a muffled thud sounded out from a guard heart-punching him.
"You told the devil himself where his victim lived..." Cardinal Sylvester snarled, puffing himself up in rage.
"He was just a child..." Virgil pleaded. "I thought he might have been a relative of the priest, or maybe just looking for some help?"
"Well you thought wrong!" barked Sylvester. "A man lies dead because of you! You are no better than a common killer! You deserve to be hung by your ankles over a tub of acid and have your flesh seared off! You should be burned alive at the stake! And you are to address me as 'Your Eminence!'"
"There's a mistake!" Virgil shouted, his anxiety turning to anger against the system that had betrayed him. "There must be—you can't kill me because I gave directions!"
"Mistake? Mistake?" sniffed Sylvester, his eyes narrowing. "We are the Magisterium! We are the Catholic Church, the Pope, the Papacy! We are infallible. Are you saying that we are fools then? Are you calling the Court of the Inquisition idiots then, or buffoons? And you will call me 'Your Eminence,' boy."
"Never, sir!" Virgil begged. He would have fell to his knees, but the chains would not allow it. "I'm just saying it must be—I mean, to kill me over something as...as...I..."
"For the last time, you address me as 'Your Eminence!'" Sylvester screamed, pounding his gavel and spraying spit into the air. "Omit those two words again and I'll make sure you are sent to the basement!"
The crowd shuddered, and Virgil's mother let out a quickly stifled wail. Downstairs was the padded and soundproofed rooms at the extreme bottom of the Vatican City, where heretics were 'questioned.' This usually involved electric current, several sharp knives, a rack, and thumbscrews. Virgil fell silent.
"In answer to your insubordinate question," Sylvester sneered. "Maybe in the place where you come from, you can't kill a boy for giving directions—but here we are in the Vatican! We operate by the holy laws of Pope Urban X!"
"His Holiness the Pope is kind, Your Eminence," Virgil said timidly. "I do not think he would want me...to be..."
"It is not your position to speak for the Pope," Sylvester continued. "And besides, what the Pope does not know cannot hurt him. We are the Courts of Discipline! And Discipline is something that I especially excel at..."
"But you have confessed!" Sylvester added. "Which means you are a relapse and a liar."
"I never knew my charges, Your Eminence!"
"Master Kasabian," Sylvester said abruptly. "We will put it to a vote among the panel of Judges. Whosoever thinks that this heretic and devil-worshipper should be garroted and burned at the stake shall raise their hand?"
Every single one of the four judges raised their hand. When Sylvester pounded the gavel, the trial would be over and Virgil Kasabian would be damned. The Inquisition was known for its speedy trials.
With that, Virgil fainted.
It came upon him quickly like the rushing sound of a wave on the ocean, and Virgil fell into blackness, into the sweet oblivion of unconsciousness. It was heaven not to have to think.
"Quite a mess you are in, I see," said a cruelly amused voice somewhere in Virgil's head.
"Who are you?" Virgil thought. The intruder in his brain came into sight, as though it were a dream.
"Don't you recognize me? I'm Albert Burns, you know," said the figure. It was a tall man with dark brown eyes and brown hair. He looked nothing like the devil, but there was an evil glow about him, and his eyes were vessels of hatred and malice. His lips were twisted into a sick grin, and his fingers were abnormally long and sharp.
"Get behind me, Satan!" Virgil cried out in his mind, desperately trying to return to consciousness.
"You made a mistake, Virgil," the devil said. "I am not Satan, but just an ordinary demon. Sophopyron is my name, but for the few remaining days of your life you may think of my as Pyron for short."
"I'm dreaming," Virgil thought. "I fainted during my trial, and this is just a dream. I'll return to—"
"When you regain consciousness, you will be sentenced," Pyron said slowly. "If you're lucky they will break your neck before they burn you. If not, prepare for quite a painful experience. I should know...I burned in the fires of Hell for a long time."
"No!"
"But I can save you!" Pyron said. "Become my servant and I shall help you escape from this place! You can be free...all I need is your faith..."
"That's all?"
"And your soul." Pyron said maliciously. Virgil screamed inside his mind, the virtual sound reverberating around his head. "I will come to your cell to seal the pact, should you choose life over death. Goodbye, Virgil,"
With a painful bang, Virgil came back to life. He was in a tiny, cramped cell, a concrete square. There was a single door of iron in one of the walls, with a small slot for food. Virgil,
dismissing his nightmares as simply a fantasy, sunk to his scraped knees and opened the tiny slot.
"Guard?" he asked tentatively. "What was my sentence? What became of me?"
There was a short pause, then a foreign-sounding voice answered, "Death. You are to die. Two days time, prisoner. You die."
Virgil got up, the numbness overpowering him. He knew he should feel something, pity, grief, anger, but he couldn't feel anything right now except apathy.
"Not good, eh?"
Virgil turned around. Pyron was standing there, in the flesh. He looked entirely normal, just like a human being. He had on brown pants and a light shirt, with moderately expensive shoes. His hair was wavy and handsome, but his face was undeniably evil.
"I wasn't a dream, Virgil," Pyron said as Virgil gibbered madly, pointing dramatically at the demon. "I'm a devil. A creature of darkness and insanity, a master of the night. And I can save you from your fate."
"Anything," Virgil pleaded. "I can't die. Please, you've got to help me..."
Pyron produced a document from his pants. Virgil took it and read: "I, Virgil Kasabian of Augsburg, Germany, hereby do make the following deal with Sophopyron, a dark angel (demon.)
Whereas Kasabian is imprisoned and sentenced to die at the stake. He is in dire need of unearthly assistance to escape with his life.
Whereas Sophopyron is in need of a human soul to serve him.
Whereas Sophopyron will transport Kasabian to safety, and in return receive ownership of Kasabian's immortal soul and servitude as long as both parties are alive.
Both parties sign here, in blood____________ and ________________"
On the line, Sophopyron had already drawn a crude signature in his own blood.
"You next, Virgil," Pyron said with a sickeningly sweet smile. "Use my knife."
Pyron handed Virgil a short blade from under his shirt. Virgil hesitated, then stabbed his middle finger with the knife. Wincing as the skin was torn on the rough parchment, Virgil wrote the initials V. K. on the paper.
With that he felt Pyron's hand on his head.
A burst of light, the sun shining down, the smell of sweet grass and the dewy evening air.
They were gone from the wicked Inquisition. Gone from death at the stake, and the cruel Cardinal Sylvester.
"We're..." Virgil said, marveling at the landscape. A stream ran by the glade, and the setting sun shone golden in the bright green leaves and glimmering off the babbling brook.
"We've escaped. Somewhere in the Italian countryside," Pyron said. "Now for your end of the deal. You will serve me in my campaigns against the Light, and I will teach you. When you die, your soul shall still serve me for the rest of eternity. You will never know rest, but I swear to protect you as my servant. You will give me loyalty, I will repay you with care. You shall give me eternal servitude, I shall repay you with protection."
"So...this is my...life," Virgil said.
"Hard to comprehend?" Pyron asked. "All so much, isn't it? Just a week ago you were an innocent schoolboy, two weeks ago you were a prisoner, now...you are a hellbound demon-in-training! I will teach you what you need to know to survive..."
"Thank you..." Virgil muttered. He felt it was appropriate, despite his reservations about serving this callous devil for the rest of time.
Pyron laughed.
"No, Virgil," he hissed as they walked down the grimy dirt road and out of sight of the green glade. The trees began to grow shriveled and leafless as they passed; or was it just a trick of the light?
"No, Virgil...don't thank me...I thank you..."
User Reviews
Submitted by St_Jimmy (user info) at 2006-12-18 13:07:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2006-10-25 13:56:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2006-10-16 21:29:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
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Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-10-03 15:09:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2006-09-13 12:54:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-09-04 23:52:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by ripple (user info) at 2006-09-04 22:45:48 (#)
Ranking: 2
i liked this one A LOT more than the others. the name of 'virgil' caught my attention right away ad invoked a strong inferno reference; did you choose the name intentionally? i thought that here, the plot was more compelling and the characters more believable. though i saw an error or two, i thought that you proofed this segment better as well. my only criticism is that you contradicted your complex view of angels with a simple view of demons, but ay just be misinterpreting an intentional development. well done. but read my thoughts on the 2nd one anyways (i was slow on the uptake and forgot about this series).
really good. very entertaining.
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I wrote this last August, and used Virgil because I wanted to develop a hell-related story, and Virgil was a good name for that. I also used Virgil as the name of the erratic, repressed, violent gangster in http://www.ubersite.com/u/axolotl/l/the_malleys
Angels and demons are the same creature, just on different sides of the fight. I'll get more into that in the next ones.
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-09-04 23:50:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-09-04 14:39:37 (#)
Ranking: 2
my cat bit me while i was readint this
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My dog's lying on the bed now, farting a storm up.
Submitted by ripple (user info) at 2006-09-04 22:45:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i liked this one A LOT more than the others. the name of 'virgil' caught my attention right away ad invoked a strong inferno reference; did you choose the name intentionally? i thought that here, the plot was more compelling and the characters more believable. though i saw an error or two, i thought that you proofed this segment better as well. my only criticism is that you contradicted your complex view of angels with a simple view of demons, but ay just be misinterpreting an intentional development. well done. but read my thoughts on the 2nd one anyways (i was slow on the uptake and forgot about this series).
really good. very entertaining.
Submitted by JMG114 (user info) at 2006-09-04 16:59:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
St. Awesome.
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-09-04 14:39:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
my cat bit me while i was readint this
Submitted by UnderOathMeal (user info) at 2006-09-04 14:02:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Very good.
I like following this.
Submitted by awesome_face (user info) at 2006-09-04 13:51:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I really liked the dialougue in this one.
Good work Ax
Submitted by goferforhire (user info) at 2006-09-04 13:38:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
stay classy, Axolotl
Submitted by Chroniclysm (user info) at 2006-09-04 13:24:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by professorfuckface (user info) at 2006-09-04 12:39:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
this has nothing to do with led zeppelin
I'm going to write a story called kashmir, it's going to live up to the original
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-09-04 12:36:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
This was adapted from a short story I wrote a year ago and posted on Uber. No self-plagiarism, just fitting this in with the rest of the series.
Anyway, I'm off.