OneShoot written some time ago for the HeroesSpain website. OC.
Disclaimer: This story is a fanfiction inspired by the Heroes series. All characters from the Heroes series belong to its creator Tim Kring and he has full rights to them. The rest is my own invention.
Spoilers: There are no spoilers of any kind, as this is a story outside the Heroes chronology. I wrote it for a Challenge on the HéroesSpain website about original characters with powers. I hope you like it and that you leave reviews.
Author's Note: I don't speak (or write) English, so I had to use Google translate. Sorry.
Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches' Hammer)
The priest walked unsteadily towards the inmate's cell, accompanying his superior in the order. He observed the solid, stone vaults of the town hall as they entered the smelly, damp dungeons.
They reached the door, the only one locked and guarded by two guards day and night, waiting for them to proceed with its opening.
"Gabrielle, are you still alive?" the older of the two clerics snapped, approaching the crumpled figure.
"I'm not a..." the damned thing complained.
"Save your breath!" she immediately contradicted him when she began to proclaim her innocence. The woman raised her face defiantly, and if it hadn't been for the fact that her smooth white skin was covered in dirt and her reddish-brown hair was disheveled, she would have made the man look either cautious or frightened. "You are doomed, you will die without a remedy. But I see that you want to confess your sins."
"I have no sins to confess," the woman declared imperturbably, in exquisite Provençal French.
The cleric's face showed a hint of doubt for a few moments, he mumbled something incomprehensible in the Breton dialect he barked and turned perplexed to his acolyte with a slight flutter of his priestly vestments. He realized that the latter had lied to him white-heartedly.
"Your disciple has more faith in my innocence than you do," Gabrielle exclaimed arrogantly, rising from the cold, stinking straw-covered floor. A smile played on her lips as she took a step closer to her Inquisitor. The ecclesiastic was able to gaze closely into the witch's beautiful teal eyes illuminated by the dawn that entered through the tiny barred window. She was challenging him even now, just before her execution was to take place.
"Save your soul, at least!" the younger of the two clerics exploded, seeing that he could not change what had been decided. "Do not drag your sins around..." His superior silenced him with a brusque gesture of his hand, although he had done it with such vigor and impetus that it seemed more like a slap.
"Fiat voluntas Dei [God's will be done]" she exclaimed in Latin, addressing the neophyte, falling to the ground, struck down by the blow she received. She felt her lip, split by the ring of her upper lip, and spat out a trickle of blood as she stood up again.
"Don't dirty His Name, witch!" he corrected her, pointing to the guards who should shackle her. She showed no resistance, she had been in that cell for too long without a proper meal or a bed to rest on, although her will remained unbroken. Meanwhile, outside, in the Lunel assembly hall, she had been tried without his presence for crimes she had not committed. Pacting with the Devil, attending covens, kidnapping children and infanticide, she thought would be the charges against her. The ones that were always alleged by perfidious accusers and confirmed by frightened or false witnesses.
She had always been devoted to the Lord, fulfilling his commandments with equal measure and fervor. She had been an exemplary daughter who adored her father and honored his memory. She had been the wife of one man and had not broken her vows. She had been fair and good to the servants who were her property, providing them with food and shelter in exchange for their unconditional service. Always...
She had always tried to be as her father had told her to be. But now, because of an old insult, she was going to be condemned and punished as the worst of God's creatures.
In the central square of Lunel, preparations began at first light. The area around the pyre had been cleared of leaves and debris. An improvised stone platform a few feet high had also been set up where her bare feet would rest, so that the whole town could contemplate the burning figure and the agony of this Devil worshipper.
The summer morning was calm, the heat had not yet fully set in until midday. But the sun hurt her delicate teal eyes, which had grown accustomed to the dimness of the cell, when she came out accompanied by the guards.
She looked like a beggar, a monstrosity compared to even the humblest peasants in the square. The few torn and stained clothes she wore did not call for mercy. She understood immediately: she had to play a role before she died and that was her disguise. The whole trial was a proclamation of God's power over the Devil, a way of giving security and peace of mind to the people of Lunel with a just punishment.
"WITCH! GO TO HELL WHERE YOU COME FROM! WITCH!" the villagers shouted in insult, agitated and emboldened as they gathered in a faceless crowd. Gabrielle saw in the peasants a repressed and misdirected hatred. They wanted to take revenge for her misfortune, her life of sacrifice and hardship, by punishing her.
As she was forced to approach the pyre, she observed the faces of the few people who had really known her. Faces such as the foreman of the fields or her valet, among others. They looked at her asking for mercy and she guessed the reason: they had been forced to lie in order to sentence her.
Gabrielle felt a momentary relief when the guards removed her shackles and she was able to soothe the burning pain on her wrists and feet. But they immediately proceeded to tie her to the post.
"Today, the third of July in the year sixteen hundred and two of Our Lord…" the Inquisitor began to proclaim, reading from a long piece of written parchment, reciting the sentence. Gabrielle paid no attention to those words, her gaze had been fixed on the author of her sentence. "Gabrielle de Lunel, you have been tried for crimes against the saint…" She felt strangely naked and outraged when the Inquisitor called her only by her first name, without the titles she had inherited from her late father, for being an only daughter. And she turned a hate-filled look again at the current Duke of Lunel, the pretender who had tried years ago to arrange her hand in marriage with her father, without success. She observed his cynical smile and his elegant clothes, convinced himself that he had won, as the morning sky began to cloud over.
Her father's judgment had been right; he was an evil man, capable of stepping on anyone to gain more power. A jealous man who could not bear the idea that a woman could have more than him. She closed her eyes, apparently resigned to her cruel fate.
"... you are condemned to die at the stake, for the glory of Almighty God. Amen." the Inquisitor concluded solemnly. A deathly silence fell over the place, as if foreshadowing the heart-rending screams she would bellow when the flames would engulf her body. The Inquisitor gave the order to the executioner to set fire to the pile of wood, soon it would all end amid a harsh and overwhelming aroma that would remain in the memory of those present. The executioner brought the burning torch closer and it was extinguished by a strong current of air, before igniting the wood.
"If I were you, I wouldn't speak in the name of God so lightly," Gabrielle exclaimed, opening her eyes and looking at the Inquisitor who was confused by the strange setback. "People of Lunel, God is not here. He is not with them, nor with you," she screamed at the top of her lungs, as the sky began to grow darker and darker. Her father had always told her to be cautious, to never reveal what she could do.
But they deserved it, they had wanted to judge a witch and now they had come across a real one. The wind began to rise in force, but her voice could still be heard above the rumble of the distant thunder.
"There is no divine justice here, not even mortal justice. There is only me, and you will know my wrath" Gabrielle proclaimed as the gale roared. She had never used her "Godsend" as her father called this family heirloom, to do harm. Only on rare occasions, to prevent a frost from ruining the crops or a prolonged drought from ruining the entire village. But a reddish veil covered her gaze, while her blood boiled with anger.
She remembered the biblical stories that spoke of how God had ordered the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah because of their fall from grace, and how had buried the Earth under water in the Great Flood.
"Dare! Come on, do it!" she challenged the executioner and the Inquisitor, who were prostrate with fear and kept making the sign of the cross, to dare to light the bonfire. Like the rest of the town, who were terrified and ran for cover when the rain began.
She would sweep the entire village away, stone by stone. They would be swept away like leaves by the wind. There would be no evidence of Lunel's existence, only a vague memory whispered from mouth to mouth. She was physically exhausted to the point of exhaustion, she would have fallen to the ground if she had not been tied, but she had saved all her strength for her revenge. In a few moments the hail and the lightning would arrive, she would still need a little more time to be able to unleash all her power. She would condemn her soul to hell, against her will, but at least it would be for a certain cause.
Until she heard something she couldn't believe, something that every mother always recognises no matter how long she has been locked away. The crying of her child. She opened her eyes and looked out over the crowded square. Among the agitated crowd she recognised the face of her husband and beside him the midwife in charge of the newborn. She had asked him to repudiate her, to ask for a divorce, so that he wouldn't get mixed up in the process and to cross the Pyrenees with the child to get as far away from the scandal as possible.
But he could not bear it and wanted to look at her one last time. He was a fool who loved her too much. Gabrielle had come to love him too, even though after the wedding she had hated him for being bound by her father's will in choosing her consort. She had come to appreciate him for the little things he showed her. Even though he was a nobleman of lesser lineage than hers, he had won her heart by dint of hard work.
Gazing at the calm face of her devoted husband, she had realized what she would lose for all Eternity if she committed such a barbaric act. Both he and her son had not yet reached their time. The Inquisitor looked at Gabrielle's face, realizing that something had changed in her temper. And she immediately noticed the perversity of his mind at work.
"No man will punish me!" she shouted, closing her eyes again. The sky turned blacker than a wolf's mouth, before a huge bolt of lightning struck the wooden pyre, setting it alight.
Everyone present was blinded and deafened by the roar of such proportions. They watched in stupefaction as the fire consumed the wood and a blurred figure collapsed silently into the flames when they regained their vision. They were too absorbed to notice how two people, one of them with a child on her back, were sneaking away.
Hours later, while the youngest and most inexperienced of those sent by the Inquisition was writing in his chamber by the light of the fireplace, his master entered violently.
"Give me!" he demanded, with his hand extended, holding out the notes the novice had taken.
"But..." began to reproach, but obeyed. He watched as his superior crumpled up that piece of cowhide.
"No one must know."
"But she was real," the young man contradicted.
"No, she wasn't. Witches die in fire!" he said, throwing the piece of parchment into the fireplace and leaving the chamber. A bitter, foul scent filled the novice's nostrils. It reminded him of the smell he had noticed at other executions, except this one. When they removed the incinerated debris from the wood, they discovered the corpse of Gabrielle de Lunel, her clothes charred and covered in soot. Once that layer of dirt was removed, they found her skin slightly blue but completely unharmed; she had died of smoke suffocation, her eyes closed in peace and a smile of triumph on her face.
END
