Chapter 24

Friday – the last day of the Mage Renaissance festival. On the top of my list of things to do today is returning to the castle to receive my reward for bringing in Sidney. I really think that today is the day. Finally, I can break the petrification curse and restore life to Nadine.

With Katherine in tow, I return to the small chamber with the bored knight in it. As always his mood is less than spry. “Good morning,” I say to the knight. “I completed the death mage quest a few days ago. The king’s apothecary was supposed to make a cure for the petrification curse for me. I came to see whether it was ready or not.”

The knight in chainmail places a form and a quill pin on the counter in front of me. “Sign your name at the bottom.”

I sign the form and hand it to the knight. In turn he hands me a small paper envelope. I open the envelope to find a script inside. I read the script over carefully. It’s a script for the Status Guard spell. The Status Guard spell is a unique spell that only someone who is both a grandmaster level life mage and a master level script mage can cast. The spell temporarily makes the target completely immune to all status spells and curses. It’s an extremely impressive script that I received; however, it’s not what I needed. “I’m sorry,” I begin. “This isn’t what I wanted. I need a cure to reverse petrification not prevent it.”

The knight shrugs his shoulders indifferently. “That’s what he gave me, so that’s what you get.”

I try to remain calm, but I’m about to lose my cool to say the least. “No, you don’t understand. I need a cure to reverse the petrification curse.”

“And I need a girlfriend, but you don’t see me complaining.”

I kick the base of his counter angrily. “Listen you lousy piece of mill fodder, you filthy good for nothing so and so, either you get the apothecary to give me what I want, or I’m going to burn this whole castle down!”

The knight stands up from his stool and draws his sword. “Get out of here before I call the guards!”

I start to raise my staff, but Katherine catches my arm. “No Master. Let’s just go. Before you do something that you’ll regret.”

Determinedly, she pulls at my arm nudging me towards the exit. I scream furiously at the guard and exit the chamber. Once in the hallway I bash my staff into the floor repeatedly screaming at the top of my lungs all the while. Katherine wraps her arms around me to calm me down. For her sake I breathe in deeply until my rage subsides. “Katherine I can’t take this anymore. My hope has been dashed to pieces so many times. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“It’ll be okay Master. I know you’ll find another way.”

Katherine is right. If this plan of mine won’t work, then I’ll just have to think up a new plan. Nadine is depending on me and I’m not going to let her down. I fluff my jacket and straighten my cravat. Trying to sound dignified, I say to Katherine, “Come then Katherine. Let us see what is happening in town.”

I present my right arm to Katherine in a loop. She interlocks her arm with my own and we set off together. Once we’re out of the castle, we journey towards the town center. As we near its vicinity, I see that there is a large crowd gathered. Apparently something big is happening.

Katherine and I reach the edge of the crowd, which is huddled together in a large circle around a scaffold in the center. Standing on the scaffold are Chief Inquisitor Rupert des Chevaliers, an executioner wearing a black mask over his head, and carrying a large poleax, and the frail figure of Sidney Butterfly. Sidney is dressed in brown sackcloth and trembling with fear.

I try to push through the crowd to get closer, but the people are bunched together too thickly for me to get through. When the Chief Inquisitor raises his hand into the air, the crowd quiets down. From the side of the scaffold, a judge ascends the stairs and takes center stage. In his hands he holds a scroll with a list of charges against Sidney. He reads, “Sidney Gale Butterfly, age 19 years, you are found guilty of heresy for the study and practice of black and foul magic, you are found guilty of the assault and forced containment of servants of the law, you are found guilty of the kidnapping of an innocent child, you are found guilty of the defilement of the good name of the prodigious Butterfly family, and you are found guilty of being an abhorrent scandal upon all of high society. For these crimes, it is with a heavy heart, that I sentence you to execution by beheading.”

“What?” That’s not what we agreed on! Panic-stricken, I once more try to force my way through the crowd, but I’m still unable. As I struggle futility, the judge speaks again. “If anyone objects to this sentencing, then let him speak now or forever hold his peace.”

I shout, “I object!,” but the judge cannot hear me from my spot in the crowd.

Rather, it is the Chief Inquisitor who catches the judge’s ear. “I object on the grounds that the prisoner be granted the Rite of Penance. Should she renounce her foul ways and agree to read an Amnesia Scroll thus removing her Death Magic powers, then let her life be spared. Yet, should she refuse, then let be done to her what justice demands.”

“I, Judge Rosenthal, accept these terms. Let her head be placed in the chopping block that she might choose her own fate.”

The Chief Inquisitor leads Sidney to a wooden device with a hole in it. He then places her into the device with her head protruding from the hole. The executioner steps to the side of the chopping block and raises his axe while the Chief Inquisitor repositions himself in front of Sidney in a kneeling position. He holds a sheet of parchment outstretched in front of Sidney’s face. “Sidney, if you accept the Rite of Penance, then read this scroll and renounce your Death Magic powers. Otherwise, your head shall be removed from your shoulders. Which is your preference?”

Sidney’s whole body shakes terribly. I can only imagine how frightened she must be with the executioner holding his axe over her head. I want to help her, but there is nothing that I can do. Sidney answers the Chief Inquisitor. Her voice is still the unnatural double voice from before but only this time it’s saturated with fear. “I will read the scroll.”

“Then proceed,” he answers.

Sidney reads from the scroll:

I, Sidney Butterfly, denounce and reject,

The crimes of my guilt, my faults and defects.

I have committed wrongs and travesties,

I have loved filthiness and savagery,

All in the name of darkness,

and in the power of death.

Yet I pledge now to be sunshine

Let my wrongs be undone

And I pray you remember:

The night is often darkest

Just before the dawn.

Thus I, Sidney Butterfly, vow to amend my ways,

Knowing should I fault again, with my head shall I pay.

I ask that the people forgive me,

For all that I have done.

I sincerely plead now to have

my death powers withdrawn.

Chief Inquisitor Des Chevalier rises to his feet and moves behind Sidney. He then takes the Amnesia Scroll and presses it to her right hand. “Channel your Death Magic energy into the scroll,” he tells her.

Sidney complies. Right away, a black explosion of mana emits from Sidney. The force of the blast is so strong that it shoves the crowd back. The executioner, who had been right next to her, goes sailing through the air like a stone out of a catapult. Des Chevaliers, being a human mountain, is merely repelled a few steps back. As for me, I’m pushed back with the rest of the crowd, yet I force my eyes to remain glued on Sidney all the while. The black mana that escaped from her body takes the form of bats and flies off in every direction. Sidney is still conscious, but she looks pale and drained.

After a brief moment of worry, the onlookers recuperate their wits. Some of the people had been afraid that the bats would attack us, but in reality, the bats were not living creatures. They were only a reflection of Sidney’s mana.

Up on the stage, the Chief Inquisitor now holds a small blade in his hands. I’m not sure what he intends to do with it. He approaches Sidney’s front side. Then he tells her, “This day you have escaped the executioner’s axe, but this blade shall remind you of your near brush with death.”

Suddenly, he grabs Sidney by the hair. Then he scrapes the blade against her skull cleaving off her long platinum blonde hair. With every swoop of the blade, Sidney screams and cries out loudly. My heart aches with each patch of her hair that falls to the floor. Mercilessly, the Chief Inquisitor continues cutting until Sidney is completely bald. Then he orders her to be taken out of the wooden device. Two inquisitors hold her in front of the Chief Inquisitor while a third inquisitor brings him a black kettle. He then takes the kettle and dumps the soot and ashes inside of it all over Sidney’s head. She wails in agony as the ashes touch the fresh cuts on her scalp. Now I really want to do something, but I figure that for the moment, it’s best if I just watch patiently.

Next, the inquisitors lock iron fetters around her wrists. The fetters are linked to a long chain. Holding the chain an inquisitor leads her down from the scaffold. Just when I think that her suffering is over, the inquisitor then takes her on a tour around the city. I follow behind her in the distance as she’s herded around town. The people she passes on the street mock her and spit at her. They say all sorts of bad things about her, her family, and her bald head. The entire time tears rain out of Sidney’s eyes. I want to go to her and tell her that everything will be okay, but now I’m starting to feel guilty for recommending the Rite of Penance to her in the first place.

I follow along until the inquisitor arrives back at the town center with Sidney. When the Chief Inquisitors sees her, he orders the inquisitor leading her to do another tour around the city. Without question the inquisitor jerks at her fetters and leads her around the city on another tour. This time they pass by the busy marketplace. Sidney keeps her eyes lowered to the ground as she passes through a river of people divided into two sides mocking her from both with her every step. I continue following along silently. Now I’m determined to do something, but what I should do, I still don’t know. Around the home stretch of the tour, Sidney encounters a few female mages. One of them is a Witch just as Sidney is now that she’s reverted back from being a Vampire. The women see Sidney and start speaking to one another about her. One woman, an Aristocrat class mage decked in a frilly multi-layered dress, says to the Witch, “Look Eva. She’s a Witch mage just like you.”

The Witch responds, “Eww. If I were that ugly, I would kill myself.”

Her comment was one more insult than what Sidney could withstand. Poor Sidney’s heart melts in her chest, and she bursts into the most pitiable wailing that I’ve ever heard. My heart wrenches inside of me, yet still, I keep my distance.

Then finally, the second tour ends. The Chief Inquisitor has now setup a wooden gallows just offhand of the town center. The inquisitor takes Sidney and places her in the gallows with her head and two hands sticking out. She looks completely worn out both physically and emotionally. At least now she can rest.

Or so I thought. Just when it seems nothing more could happen to Sidney, a row of people line up in front of Sidney with spoiled fruits and vegetables.

As the first rotten tomato is thrown at Sidney, I fly over and swat it out of the air with my staff. The people boo me, threaten me, mock me, and throw fruit at me, but I refuse to move from my place in front of Sidney. “Sidney I’m here!” I say.

Sidney looks up and sees me. “Souladonis,” she murmurs faintly. It seems that Sidney is not doing too well. That’s all the more reason for me not to retreat from my spot.

When the people see that I won’t leave, they throw the rest of their fruit. For an entire five minutes, I endure every sort of rotten legume that the town can muster, but once the crowd runs out of ammunition, they go away grumbling. The Chief Inquisitor and the inquisitor who led Sidney by her fetters stand nearby observing me. “What should we do about him?” the inquisitor asks his chief.

“It’s no crime to stand in the town square. He can stay there as long as he wants. But I don’t think that he will want to much longer.”

“Chief?”

“Gather together a few men to go around town collecting all of the rotten food that you can find from the marketplace and street vendors. Then bring it all back here. Tell the people that it’s free for them to throw. Then we’ll see how long he sticks around.”

“Yes sir!”

The inquisitor leaves and sets about his task. I squint my eyes hatefully at the Chief Inquisitor. He simply smirks and turns his back to me. Then he walks off in the direction of the castle. I’m sure he’s going back to his office to relax nice and comfortably while Sidney remains out here stuck in a gallows having spoiled food thrown at her. I’d like to give him a piece of my mind, but I know full well that it’d be foolish to fight the Chief Fortissimo Colossus again. I’ll just have to settle for giving him mean stares and sliding hateful anonymous letters under his office door.

I call Katherine over to me. “Katherine, here’s enough money for lunch and dinner. I want you to go and do as you please, but I’m going to stay here with Sidney.”

Katherine glances over at Sidney and then looks at me. “But Master it’s the last day of the festival. Are you sure this is how you want to spend the day?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay then Master. Good luck.”

Katherine departs and leaves me alone with Sidney. I step directly in front of Sidney to see how she’s doing. As I suspected, the Chief Inquisitor wasn’t too careful about not nicking her head while he cut off her hair. I cast the Miracle Heal spell on Sidney. It’s probably overkill, but I don’t exactly need to conserve mana at the moment. “Are you alright Sidney?”

“No,” she answers faintly.

“I’m sorry Sidney. When I told you to accept the Rite of Penance, I didn’t know that all of this would happen. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s my own fault.”

“Well then maybe we’re both partially to blame. Regardless, I’m going to stay with you until they let you go. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I sit down next to Sidney. Around a half hour later, the inquisitors return carrying three large wooden crates filled with all sorts of nastiness. Accompanying the inquisitors is a large group of townspeople eager to lop the rotten food at Sidney. Can they not see that she has suffered enough? Is this cruelty even remotely necessary? Sidney was never a true death mage in the first place. She doesn’t deserve this at all. But I know that a mindless mob never listens to reason. I take my place in front of Sidney, twirl my staff around fancifully, and pose.