Rising From the Ashes of Ascension
Chapter 10
Disclaimer: As much as I might wish, I do not own Stargate: SG1, Highlander: the Series, or any recognizable characters from either show. If I did, I wouldn't be working in the public schools system. However, any characters that are not from either show are mine and I will use and abuse them as I see fit. Everyone else will be returned eventually, for I am only borrowing for awhile, but they might end up a bit scuffed.
Warnings: Potty language, violence, and historical references to torture. Also, I do issue a strong caution with this chapter. I've done my best to keep it from being an M-rated chapter, but if I do need to up the rating, please let me know and I will. I also recommend not eating, especially anything fried, while reading this chapter.
Methos and Danil, also known as Kyros and Photius, posing as Greek traders, traveled through the countryside of what would eventually become the Russian Empire. They had heard rumors that the current tsar, Ivan Grozny, was insane and was taking it out on the commoners and boyars alike. They had seen mass graves and signs of public executions as they traveled, and had even seen in person several episodes of torturous executions by the Oprichnik. Despite the widespread terror caused by the demented ruler, much to Photius' (Danil's) frustration as a consummate gatherer of knowledge and stories, the people would not talk about the darkness that had blanketed the country due to their fear of the wrath of the Tsar and the Oprichnik would descend upon them and their families.
They knew things were bad, but they didn't know just how bad, especially since they had only been in the country for less than a year (communications weren't always the best in the spread-out country. Also, neither of them been in the region in a long time and were curious as to how much it had changed since their last visit, but since people were generally tied to the land, the spread of knowledge was limited. Currently it was early January in the year 1570, cold as all hell and snow up to their asses.
Ivan IV, as a child had been abused and terrorized by the boyars that were supposed to be loyal to him. As a child, he in turn tortured animals, exacting revenge by proxy against those that had hurt him. A he grew older he roamed Moscow with other youths, drinking heavily, throwing cats and dogs off the Kremlin walls, knocked over old people, and committing acts of rape. The rape victims he then had them hanged, strangled, buried alive, and thrown to starving bears to be torn to pieces. When he was thirteen years old, he had Prince Andrew Shuisky arrested and then thrown into a pit of starving wild dogs.
As he grew into adulthood, his madness only increased in frequency and creativity. Ivan the Terrible once had a boyar sit on top of a barrel of gunpowder, lit the fuse, and the man was subsequently blown to bits. He was also known to have the ribs of men pulled out of their chests with hot, sharp pincers. There once was a story about how he had a massive frying pan built and literally fried his supposed enemies to death. He was even known to impale his victims, ala Vlad Tepes-style: a wooden pole or sphere slowly shoved through one end of the body and out the mouth. One of his victims, Prince Boris Telupa was impaled and managed to last fifteen hours before he died. While he slowly died a horrible and agonizing death, the man's mother came to visit him. In a fit of madness, Ivan gave the mother of the prince to a hundred gunners and was raped to death. He had also reportedly drowned hundreds of beggars in a lake and had his treasurer boiled to death in a cauldron. From the lowliest serf to the highest of the nobility, nobody was safe from his acts of cruelty. He had even killed his own son, the tsarivitch, in a fit of rage.
They came to Novgorod, a city of some importance in the northwest part of the growing Russian Empire, having been in Pskov earlier. They had left the city after they had encountered a determined, yet stupid Immortal who decided to challenge Methos to a fight. Normally it wouldn't have been a big deal, but unfortunately several mortals had seen the resulting lightening storm and labeled him a devil and rallied a mob to roust and kill him.
Novgorod was a center of trade, attracting merchants from Greece, to England, to the Ottoman Empire, and elsewhere. It was located on the banks of the Volkhov, where the river took water from Lake Ilmen. The land frequently flooded, leaving soggy, yet fertile ground. Also, for the most part, the city had avoided the terror of Ivan the Terrible and his merry band of sadistic thugs.
"Why are we here?" Methos asked his friend on a Monday, 09 January in the year 1570 AD, as they sat at a local inn, located on the edge of the city, sampling the local foods, and more importantly the locally distilled vodka.
"What do you mean?" Danil asked, leaning back, checking out the innkeeper's daughter – a pretty girl with dark curly hair and flashing blue eyes. Not really his type, but she did possess a beautiful smile
Methos rolled his eyes. "It's only a matter of time before the Tsar turns an eye on Novgorod and the boyars in the area, not to mention its horribly cold here in this god-forsaken country. I miss the comfort, cleanliness, and warmth of my home in Greece. Instead I am ass deep in snow and mud, staying in a drafty, wooden building. I know you long for Egypt, don't you dare deny it. Hell, I could think of a dozen other places I would rather be than stuck in Russia during the winter. While I can appreciate their love of alcohol, it doesn't completely mask the fact that the land is a frozen arctic nightmare."
The other Immortal looked exasperated. "I like seeing how cultures and people change over time. The icons in the churches and cathedrals are exquisite, not to mention the architecture. The connection to Greek Orthodoxy is amazing," Danil elaborated, his eyes alight with passion.
"Well, no shit. Where do you think the Russian Orthodox Church came from? Out among the heavens maybe?" Methos snipped at his friend. While he could understand Danil's love of knowledge and learning, he hated the cold, plus the rumors that Novgorod was next on the Tsar's hit list were making him nervous.
"Fine, we'll leave as soon as it's safe for the horses. While we might survive a night of freezing temperatures, the horses won't," Danil relented. "Plus, we should be fine if the Tsar decides to come after Novgorod. We aren't nobility and we can disappear better than most of these people. Why would that τρελλό άτομο1 come after us?" he asked, careful to mask his critical words concerning the tsar. It wasn't healthy to openly call the Tsar of Russia insane least you end up the latest victim in one of many his purges.
"What do we do in the meantime, springtime won't be here for several more months," Methos demanded.
Danil shrugged and took a sip of his vodka, not really liking the taste of the potent alcohol. "Well, one of the boyars is in need of a tutor for his sons. I am sure something will pop up to help you while away the days between now and then," Danil said, shrugging.
"Они приходят! Бог покидал нас!"2 a man screamed, bursting into the inn, shattering everyone's peace.
"What are shouting about? Who is here?" Danil asked in rapid Russian, jumping to his feet, his hand on his sword that was hidden in the folds of his clothing. He absently noted that Methos was mirroring his actions.
"The Oprichnik is here and supposedly the Tsar is with them!" the man, his barrel shaped chest heaving in exhaustion and fear.
"Oh gods no," Danil whispered. "Go, warn the others, but do it quietly, don't ring the bells. Get others to help you."
Unfortunately, warning the people of the city made no difference. The Tsar ordered a wall to be built to surround the city, preventing anyone from escaping. People were rounded up on a daily basis to be paraded in front of the Tsar and his son, another serial killer in the making, before they were executed in varied and horrific manners. Ivan believed that the boyars were going to defect to Poland and his over-developed sense of paranoia and psychosis felt the need to kill his enemies before they could act against him.
Danil and Methos, along with several other nobles and wealthier merchants that resided in the city, did their best to hide for a couple of weeks, always staying a step ahead of the Oprichnik, clad in their flowing black robes, heavily bearded, looking like messengers from the bowels of hell, immersing themselves in religious regalia, all the while indulging in sadism and debauchery.
Unfortunately, their luck did not hold out forever. They were caught on 30 January, a Sunday afternoon. One of their companions had been caught while foraging for food and had been forced to betray the group, telling the authorities where the others were located.
The Oprichnik surrounded the house and set it on fire, forcing everyone to run, least the burn to death. Danil, having been burnt to death already once before, did not want to repeat the experience. He and Methos escaped the flames that licked at their clothing, doing their best to ignore the flames that licked at their clothes. One woman wasn't so lucky. Her dress went up in a blaze, trapping her in a burning hell, literally. They could smell the burning flesh and hair; her torturous screams filled their ears. Danil, taking pity on her, swiftly ran her though with his sword, killing her instantly and ending her agony.
Once outside, they found themselves surrounded, unable to escape.
"What now?" Danil asked his old friend, gripping his sword in his hand, his eyes ablaze with a fury that he hadn't experienced since his time riding with the others, acting as their malicious little brother, or even during his dark time after fighting with Alexander.
Methos never got a chance to reply as a pike was rammed through his chest, killing him. His blood splashed obscenely against the purity of the snow, staining it forever. His body, dead, hung there limply, the sharp end of the weapon going all the way though his body and out his back. The Ancient Immortal's sword fell from his lifeless hand and was soon snatched up by his greedy murderer, unable to appreciate the simplistic beauty of the weapon. He only saw it as something to have, a trophy.
One of the acolytes of the Tsar laughed as he and others hoisted the pike up and planted it firmly vertically in the snow and ground to display the horrific sight of the impaled body, as a warning to the (remaining) already terrified citizenry. The idea was for the body to dangle there while gravity slowly worked its magic and allowed the body to slide down the shaft of the weapon while impaled. Luckily for Methos, his killer killed him immediately, otherwise it would have been a slow and agonizing death for the Immortal that would have lasted for hours as he hung there, skewered, all the while, bleeding as the pike tore him apart.
Danil, unable to do anything for his friend, was grabbed by several men and had his sword, not his Jain but a Spatha he has saved from his life in the Roman Empire. The Jain was being held for him at the home he maintained in Egypt, along with several other key possessions. A family that he had known through the ages lived in his home and kept the place, his belongings, and secrets safe. In exchange for their protection of his belongings and privacy, he allowed the family to live there generation after generation free and clear. He would show up every few years and stay there for several before it became too obvious that he did not age like the others. Before he left each time, the house and all of its secrets was entrusted to one member of the family and were put in charge of the fields, the house itself, and the storage area below the main structure. It was a good arrangement that benefited him greatly. It gave him a place to go and rest, and keep on to items that had sentimental or practical value to him.
He was marched with others to one of the smaller churches to await their fate. They had to wait there for several hours. Many of the faithful spent their time kneeling, praying to God to save them. Danil, however stood there, his arms crossed across his body, thinking of a dozen ways to escape but realizing that since he was literally surrounded by Ivan's nutcase personal henchmen, escape would be futile. At one point he considered deliberately getting himself killed by one of the guards, but was afraid that if he did, the madmen would cut off his head, resulting in him being lost forever. He didn't fear death; he feared being forgotten. Also, he worried that if one of Ivan's people, or worse, Ivan himself, saw him heal and come back to life things would get infinitely worse for him and other Immortals everywhere. In the meantime, he busied himself by hating the Tsar and his psychotic death squad.
Gods, I should have listened to Methos and gotten the hell out of this blasted country, he berated himself. But no, I just had to be fascinated by the culture and art. I swear if I get out of this thing with my head on my shoulders, I am to spend the next fifty years in nothing but a warm climate.
After waiting for what seemed like forever, Danil and the others, about fifty in all (apparently it was a slow day for executions) were marched out of the church and into the large town square. There they found the Tsar, with his son by his side, sitting on a throne, laughing gleefully at was about to come.
Danil looked around, looking for pikes or a hangman's noose, expecting to just be killed and have it done and over with. Simple executions, while never pleasant, were not unfamiliar to him. Unfortunately he did not see anything like that.
What he saw was a giant fire pit dug into the ground and over the fire was a man-sized giant cast iron skillet, filled with boiling fat.
When he saw that, he tried to make a break for it along with everyone else. Several were lucky enough to be killed instantly, but he wasn't one of them. His captors had too firm of a grasp on him. Despite his best efforts, using nearly four thousand, five hundred years of experience at escaping from impossible situations, he couldn't break away. He even dislocated one of his shoulders, hoping that would allow him to slither away, but it only resulted in a flash of fiery pain lancing though his arm and shoulder. No matter how much he struggled, kicked, spit, and twisted, he could not get away. The men in the long priestly robes dragged him literally kicking and screaming closer and closer to the fire and enormous pan.
He could smell the animal fat, hear it pop and sizzle as it exploded out of the pan and hit the fire. Danil was also able to make out the charred remains that looked vaguely human-like that were piled up to the side of the grotesque cooking fire. He could even smell the sickening stench of flesh, hair, and excrement that permeated the air.
What really unnerved him was the maniacal smile plastered across the tsar's face, underneath his dark, bushy mustache. He sick fuck was getting off on hearing the people scream for mercy and terror. His son also had a matching disturbed smile on his face. The rotten apple didn't fall from the diseased tree apparently.
Dear Gods, please let me die quickly, Danil thought desperately as he was drug closer and closer to the pan.
Danil tried everything he could think of, but the Fates were conspiring against him. He could not get away.
When they drew close enough, his Oprichnik captors heaved him, literally throwing him into the oil. Another individual held a heavy, long handled pole with a rock on the end of it, holding him down, preventing him from jumping out of the pan.
The agony was beyond anything Danil had ever experienced. His skin boiled and bubbled. His internal organs cooked. His hair caught on fire. All he could do was shriek and scream as his body seized uncontrollably. He could smell his body cooking; fortunately the pain had lessened since all of his nerve endings had been destroyed. He could hear above the roar of the fire below him and the sizzling of the oil his slowly dying body was lying in the screams of the terrified people that were sure to follow him and the sadistic laughter from Ivan the Terrible.
While Terrible was not an exact translation of the title Grozny, it aptly fit him at this moment. Only someone so terrible, so vicious and vile could do this to another person.
This was his last thought as his body finally gave it up and let him die, sending him into oblivion.
SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1
"Holy fucking shit Daniel!" Jack yelped, horror clearly written across his face. What his friend had just described had made his time in that stinking Iraqi prison look like a vacation at Disneyland – well, almost. Fucking Saddam, he thought briefly, momentarily flashing back to that horrible time in his life, briefly remembering his own experiences in the art of torture: the beating of the soles of his feet and them being made to stand at attention for hours, the electric-shocks, and being subjected to mock executions.
"Jack! Jack!" Daniel said, shaking his friend gently. "Come back from there. It's okay."
The Colonel, hearing Daniel's gentle voice, came back from that terrible place in his mind. He now knew exactly why Daniel had always been the one that could reach him when he experienced flashbacks to the time he had been captured. Before he had found out about his friend's big secret, he figured that Daniel was just being a good friend, an ear that was willing to hear and support him. While Daniel was that, he also could relate to what it had been like to be tortured. He knew.
Shit, who in the hell did he have to help him deal with the aftermath of that, he wondered.
"I am so sorry, I didn't mean to bring back anything," Daniel said quietly.
"It's not your fault," Jack said, visibly shaking himself, releasing his mind through a physical gesture from the past. "What happened after that? Obviously you two got better," he waved his hand at the two Immortals.
Methos and Daniel shared a knowing glance.
"It took me awhile to heal. By the time I did and was able to hide myself from the Tsar and his personal storm troopers, the population in the city of Novgorod had been devastated. The reign of terror for the city ended on 12 February 1570. By then, the majority of the population that had survived the purge was forced to relocate to Moscow or elsewhere. I was able to finally pull the pike out of Methos' frozen body, which had been noticeably gnawed on by a pack of dogs. It took him awhile to heal. Even though our natural healing abilities will heal most injuries, it can take awhile for it to completely heal us, especially if the damage is severe," Daniel explained, sitting back on the couch, watching his friend's faces for their reactions, which ranged from rage, to sickened horror, to shock.
"So that's why you said that being whipped today was child's play," Sam observed, her voice small. Her face had drained of its color and her eyes looked like they were brimming with tears.
Daniel nodded and reached over to squeeze her knee. "It was a long time ago Sam. The worst part was that I was bald. While my quickening might heal my injuries, it couldn't grow my hair back any quicker than a normal person's," he groused with a hint of humor.
"What transpired after that DanielJackson?" Teal'c asked, his face an expression of shock that the Tau'ri had a history of cruelty that rivaled the Goa'uld. While he knew that the history of Earth was not always the best, it still shocked him that humans could behave so horribly. He had seen plenty shows on the History Channel with the archeologist to know about the darker side to human history.
Daniel shrugged. "We got the hell out of the country as quickly as we could. The Old Man here went back to Greece to his life of luxury with beautiful women, while I went back to Egypt and reveled in the warmth and sand of the desert. My home there had never been so wonderful as it was after spending the winter in Russia."
"Danny, I have a question," Jack said, leaning forward slightly in his chair.
"Yes Jack?" Daniel asked a faint smile on his face.
"You've been tortured more than anyone I know, even before we found about your Immortality. Do you have some sort of fetish about getting tortured? I mean, I could understand maybe if you had a ladies underwear thing or were into plushies, but for Christ's sake Danny, I don't get it!"
"Sometimes I get caught up in things. I think it's a part of my dharma or something, but it wasn't like I was waterboarded or worse every day. I have had some really wonderful moments in my life. But being tortured has given me a very unique education. I mean, get me alone in a room with someone like Anubis or Ba'al, hand me a pair of garden shears, a popcorn popper, and a roll of duct tape and I'll do my best evil MacGyver impression for you."
"You're twisted," was all Jack could say.
Daniel then proceeded to tell them a story about Narda, his first wife, while Methos added in a few amusing anecdotes to help lighten the dark mood that had descended upon the group.
A/N: Well, what do you think? Crap or not? Hit the shiny review button and let me know.
The information about Ivan the Terrible came from several sources. Some of it came from my class notes from the History of Russia: pre-history to 1914 (I take really good notes). Other sources came from a few text books, Wiki, the official site of the city of Novgorod, several other sites about Ivan the Terrible, torture, and the like. The bit about Jack's "experience" in Iraq came from the Smoking Gun and Amnesty International. Saddam and his sick fucks did that and worse to POWs, Kurds, and fellow Iraqi men, women, and children. Also, the bit about the giant frying pan did actually occur. I remember my professor in college talking about it and the sick things that Ivan did and relating it to the purges of Stalin and his contemporaries in other countries (members of the Axis Powers and Mao). Just so that you don't think I am a complete psycho, my senior thesis was on war crimes and crimes against humanity – I tended to pay attention to stuff like that. I don't know where and exactly when Ivan had a giant frying pan made and used, but it was something I wanted to use for this story. I hope this didn't upset too many people and if you were grossed out (as well as you should be) I am sorry. If it is any consolation, this was tamed down just a tad from what I originally had written. I know…ick.
Translations: 1) τρελλό άτομο crazy man in Greek supposedly; 2) Они приходят! Бог покидал нас! They are coming! God had abandoned us! in Russian supposedly. I am sure they aren't exact translations, but it was the best I could do and I stayed away from BableFish this time.
Thank you to Lorilei for pushing me to get busy and write. You are a great, yet sadistic cheerleader. Also, thank you to everyone that has taken the time to read my story, leave a review, or put me/the story on a list. Thank you to all of you from the bottom of my heart!