by Heath Pfaff
“You have been judged guilty of murder and sentenced to execution which will be carried out in five hours.” The woman began coldly, as though reading off a list of uninteresting information.
I opened my mouth to say something, to protest and beg for my life, but I met eyes with the Warden and a vice like grip seemed to settle around my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs. I couldn’t draw enough breath to speak. Was it fear? It felt like something profoundly more than just fear.
“Your head is to be removed from your body, marked with murderer’s ink, and hung from the wall of this prison as a warning to others who would dare question the Will of the king and the Iron of his laws. This is the penalty for the crime you have committed.” The warden’s tiny black pupils locked upon me, ripping through me as though I had no flesh to keep the invasive gaze out. “Now, you were so eager to speak, here is your chance. Why did you steal that dress?”
I looked at the woman incredulously as the terrible pressure on my chest eased. What did that have to do with anything? Why would that question matter at all now? “It doesn’t matter.” I stated flatly, wanting nothing more than to curl up into a ball and cry until there was nothing left of me. The line of questioning was pointless and upsetting. I didn’t want to think about the things that had brought me here. If execution was to be my end, what point did anymore speaking have?
“If it didn’t matter, why would I be here at all? Don’t continue to waste my time. Tell me. Why did you steal the dress?” The woman asked again, and I could tell her patience was wearing thin. What did she expect for an answer? What excuse did she want me to make? I had nothing.
“I wanted it.” I replied with the truth, a truth that had cost me everything. I was going to die because I’d wanted a stupid, frilly black dress.
“You wanted it so badly that you were willing to kill to keep it?” The woman asked. “The guard’s life, it wasn’t worth as much as that dress meant to you?”
“I didn’t plan on killing him!” I yelled in reply, my voice heated despite my fear. “I was just trying to get away. I didn’t want to get caught. I didn’t want to be in trouble!” Here I was now, in far worse trouble.
The Warden shook her head. “Escape was your only reason for murdering a man with a wife and three children? Those children will likely starve now. His wife was a seamstress, but her hand was damaged on one of the crafting machines. She can’t work, and he didn’t have enough set aside for them to survive. They’ll have coin enough for a few months, but that will dry up quickly. She’ll try and make a living selling her body, but she’s not very pretty. She didn’t have to be because her husband loved her. He was her world. If she’s lucky her oldest daughter will survive long enough to pick up a trade, or follow her into prostitution. So you killed that man and destroyed his family to get away with the dress? You like black dresses that much? You’re not very pretty. It wouldn’t have looked good on you anyway.”
The Warden’s words were knives, slicing through my flesh and cutting away at my heart, at the foundation of who I was. I hadn’t known any of this would happen. I’d never meant to kill the man. I didn’t want to hurt his children and his wife. I looked at the Warden and shook my head in silent denial, shame. “I didn’t want this. I don’t even care about the dress.”
The Warden lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, so you killed a man and ruined his family just because you felt like doing it? You didn’t even want the dress? That’s disgusting. You really deserve what you’re going to get. I feel bad for some of those heads out there, but yours won’t cost me any sleep when it joins the pile with the others. You’re a real piece of trash.”
My self loathing turned to rage in the face of this uncaring, unsympathetic woman. Sadness was swept away by anger at this terrible twist of fate. I was going to die soon. I didn’t have to take abuse from this woman too. “I didn’t want to be a slave! I didn’t want to listen to my parents, and I didn’t want to be forced into service labor. I just wanted to be free. If he’d caught me I would have been forced to work service labor, and then my parents would have locked me away until they could marry me off. I didn’t want to kill him, but I couldn’t give up my freedom!” I snapped off the words in a bitter growl. They sounded selfish. I knew my reasoning was selfish.
The Warden was quiet for a time. She nodded and then shrugged. “We’re all slaves to the Will. If you’d understood that before you’d acted, you wouldn’t be where you are now.” The Warden stepped back out of the cell and turned to a man who’d been waiting outside the door. “This one is a death head.” She turned back to me and smiled with an expression that never touched her eyes. “Execution is too good for you.” She said, and then the door slammed shut in front of me and I was left alone again, but this time with the added knowledge that I had been forsaken by my family and was already sentenced to death. There had been no trial, and of course there wouldn’t have been one in a situation where there was a reliable witness and clear evidence. I’d also confessed. My fate was sealed.
I wasn’t sure what a “death head” was, but it sounded like I’d made my own fate even worse by talking to the Warden. What did she mean that “execution is too good?” I couldn’t imagine a worse fate at that moment. A sudden surge of fear sprang up in me and I found myself pulling hard at the bindings on my wrists. I wasn’t sure what propelled me forward, or what I hoped to achieve, but I needed to be free. The metal cuffs cut into my skin, but I kept pulling. If I could get my hands free, I might be able to escape when someone came and opened the door next time. Escape was my only hope. It was a stupid plan, but it was all I had.
I was positive that if I could get back on the streets I could make a life for myself without the need of my family. I’d been stealing for long enough that it seemed I could survive on the skills I’d acquired. I’d even made a few acquaintances on the streets who might provide me with a place to stay. There would be a price of course, and I was well aware of the price a young woman could pay on the streets to get what she needed. I’d learned that a year before when I’d needed a place to stay for a night after running away from home for the first time. If I’d known at the time that a warm bed was going to cost so much pain and fear I’d probably have slept on the street or just given in and returned to my parents’ home for the night. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience and the man who’d given me the bed had been dirty and mean. It had soured me on the concept of physical intimacy, but if that’s what it took to be free, I’d have given any of it to not be locked in that cell awaiting death.
There was a loud pop and searing pain exploded up my wrist and into my arm. A pained gasp tore between my lips as one of my wrists came free from the cuff it was locked into. I could see immediately that my thumb was broken, and my wrist was getting black and blue quickly, probably sprained or broken, but in my view of things I was halfway out of my imprisonment. I pulled and tore at my other wrist, using all of my weight to put pressure on the edge of my thumb. It snapped painfully, breaking, but didn’t break enough to let me free.
I screamed in agony for a few moments before I could clear my head enough to start trying again, tugging and ripping at mangled flesh and broken bones. It felt like my skin was full of jagged scraps of glass. I froze as a sound caught my ears.
Footsteps were coming down the corridor towards the cell. I groaned as I dropped all of my weight onto my still trapped wrist. I had to get free. Time was slipping away. Bone popped and snapped, and this time I did break free, but it was all for nothing, the door to the cell was opening. Two men grabbed me by the back of my dirty clothing and lifted me roughly from the ground as though I weighed nothing.
“Thought you were going to escape?” One of them said. He slammed his fist into the side of my face sending sparks of color and stars of darkness across my vision. I thought I might pass out. “No escape for a murdering bitch like you.”
“Lay off her, Scav.” The other man said. “She’s got enough trouble in her life now. Nothing you can d
o will make it any worse.”
The man the other had called “Scav” snorted and slapped me hard in the face again, this time with an open palm and the pain was inconsequential compared to that in my hands and wrists. “Fine, fine. She deserves it though. Murdering bitch. If it was my choice we’d be slicing her head off later with the others.” Scav leaned in close and spat in my face before smacking me hard again. “Damned ugly bitch isn’t even old enough to be any fun.
The one who’d defended her spoke again, sounding unamused but not all that bothered by the abuse his friend was dishing out. “That’s disgusting, Scav. Spit’s running down her face now. He’s not going to be happy with you.”
Scav laughed. “You’ve no sense of fun. I ain’t afraid of that prick anyway. He’s just a creepy old fucker what got his nose inna too much of my business. What say we just slip this one out the back and cut her to bits, deliver her in parts to him? We can say we found her that way.”
I pulled away from him reflexively, a strong desire to run filling me for a brief moment.
The other guard just frowned at Scav and lifted his sword point so it was pressed against the back of my neck. “Keep moving, girly, or I’ll listen to Scav’s suggestions. One less Deady ain’t going to bother anyone.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, girl. You wouldn’t be the first I’ve had to bleed out on this floor.” Scav added to me as my eyes caught his for a moment. “I might not get to cut you into bits, but that’s alright too. Wardens’re getting you. You’ll wish I pulled you apart still alive. You’ll be thinking back on all of this fondly.”
They again made reference to me not being executed, but if I wasn’t to be executed, then what was to become of me, and what’d it have to do with the Wardens?
Scav and the other man dragged me to a room at the far end of the hall from where my cell had been. There was a table in the center of the room with straps all over it that they roughly tossed me onto. For a brief moment I tried to struggle, but Scav grabbed one of my broken wrists and twisted it sharply, which sent a thousand sparks of bright light bursting in front of her eyes and a wave of nausea washing through me. I didn’t even realize I was screaming until a moment later when the sparks cleared. By then I was already being buckled into place, straps crossing all over my body until I could barely move at all.
My head was placed in a large clamp like device and the mechanism was tightened down until I couldn’t move my neck at all. I was locked staring up at the dark, black ceiling. The dungeon was deep in the ground. I could smell the dampness in the air, and hear water dripping from the ceiling, ground water seeping through the foundation.
“I’ll go get the artist.” The man who didn’t have a name said, and then the door to the cell opened and closed and I was left alone with the one called Scav. Fear pulsed through me and I trembled. I heard the sound of a knife clearing a sheath and a moment later Scav floated into view at the corner of my vision. He was holding a long, very sharp knife.
“I’m going to take a little souvenir from you, darling. Nothing you’ll miss, of course. I can’t take a leg or an arm ‘cause they’ll notice that, but a finger . . . maybe a toe or two, well no one needs all of those.” Scav’s voice was dark and vicious. He moved closer and I lost sight of him as I felt his hand on foot.
I screamed and tried to pull away, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t go anywhere at all. Cold steel touched my flesh, and pain exploded through me a moment later followed by a flood of warmth.
“Shut your mouth, you . . . Fuck.” Scav cursed quietly, jumping back from the table.
“What do you think you’re doing, Scav?” A new voice spoke. I couldn’t see who was talking and I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or more scared, but it was hard to think with the burning pain in my foot, and the feel of my own blood trickling out over my skin.
“I wasn’t doing anything, Artist.” It was at that point that I realized “artist” was more than a job or a calling, it was a proper title. “I was just . . . I thought you’d be a little longer and I was just taking a bit of a . . .”
“Taking a piece of a living child? You cut off one of her toes?” The Artist’s voice dark and angry. “Are you aware that those we serve in this dungeon are the King’s property?”
Scav got defensive. “She’s a fucking murderer. She deserves worse than I’ve given her!”
“She’s a child, not even old enough to marry, and a client owned by your King. You’re no better than those we lock up here. You can be assured that this will be reported.” The Artist’s voice was cold, angry. I couldn’t help but think of it as the voice of my salvation. My sobbing had turned into crying tears of relief.
Scav didn’t reply again, but the door to the room slammed closed hard. The man known as the Artist sat down on a stool near the head of the wooden table I was strapped to. He brought over a strange source of light and hung it over my face. It hummed and had an odd blue tint to it. The light blocked my ability to see the details of anything. A dark shape leaned over me from above.
“Lillin, I am the Artist.” The dark shape said.
“Thank you for saving me.” I managed to say, though tears swept down my face.
“It’s not my place to judge you, or to punish you for what you’ve done. I am here to do a job, and that is all. I will be marking you as a death head, tonight. Do you know what that means, Lillin?” He replied, his voice strangely soft. He moved down to my foot, and for a moment there was a terrible, stinging pain in my severed toe, but then the pain grew numb. He repeated his question again. “Do you know what that means, child?”
I wanted to shake my head, but the bindings wouldn’t let me do so. “No.” I finally answered with my voice quivering in fear.
“When a person is beheaded we ink their face with a skull, letting any who see their face know that they were beheaded for a severe crime against the Iron Will. We call this the death mask. You have been spared from wearing the death mask by the Wardens, who have decided that you merit a second chance at life, but only so long as you are capable of finishing their training. However, your crimes demand that you be marked forever. A death head receives half of the death mask. If you are seen with a death head marking beyond the school of the Wardens before you obtain the title of Warden, you will be killed on sight by any authority of the realm. For others there are many opportunities to quit the training, but you will not be given any. You will complete the Warden training, or you will die. That is what it means to be a death head.”
“I don’t want to be a Warden.” I managed to say, my heart pounding in my chest. It was foolish, really. If it was that or die, could it be that bad?
“Then you’ll die, Lillin. There are no other options for you.” The Artist answered.
Not having a choice made me angry. It sent a fiery spark through me.
“They’ll make me a slave.” I spat the words angrily. “Death would be better.”
The Artist laughed dryly. “The Wardens are the only men and women who aren’t slaves, child. The path may be hard, but if you truly want to be free, there is no road truer.” He reached down next to himself and grabbed something from a small table at his side. “I’m going to begin my work now. It is going to hurt a lot, and it will take a long while. You can scream if you want, but the work will come out better if you hold as still as possible.”
I surged against the straps holding me in place once, but there was no moving. There was no give to the bindings at all, and I hurt so much. “I’m . . . I’m afraid.” I said, my words sounding small.
“Fear will defeat you. Don’t be afraid.” He said, and then he began. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but he worked with a small hammer and a set of rods that were sharpened on one end. The pain was terrible, and the process was long, but as the pain grew and my face ached with each pass of his instruments, I was finally able to block out the horror of what my life had become. The pain wasn’t the worst thing that had happened to me. Wardens were the only people that
were really free. That’s what he’d said. If that was true, than that was what this pain meant. It was a path to freedom and rebirth. It was my only path forward.
1.2
I was staring into a puddle on the floor of the stone shower. The water had been icy cold through the whole of it, but after almost a month in a cell with the only break in my imprisonment being the trip to the Artist to have my face inked, and then an occasional trip to an enclosed yard where I was run in circles to keep my body from atrophying, it was welcome. There had also been the trip from the cell in the city dungeons to the cell beneath the wall of the school, but the shower seemed so much better. It was a relief to have so much space. I’d had to shower carefully, and hadn’t been able to be as thorough as I would have liked with my wrists bandaged tightly from where I’d broken them, but I was still relieved to have some sense of freedom, and to have the walls so far away on all sides. There was room to breathe.
The trip from the dungeon to the school had been surreal, hazy and dreamlike. I’d seen it many times from afar, a massive compound surrounded by a wall almost half as tall as the wall that surrounded the city itself. The buildings contained within the wall were tall and bleak, gray like the Wardens they housed. Approaching it, shackled to a cart, forced me to accept the reality of what was ahead of me, and it was a stark and frightening reality to accept.
The central tower of the school had loomed above me, the massive fire burning at the top of the tower like an eye that was angrily glaring down at me, judging me as the criminal that I was. I couldn’t look away, and neither did I dare for fear that the whole massive structure might spring to life and stomp me from existence.
