Guide from Madness Chapter 1 (tentative)

Hello Dreamers, Below is chapter 1 of Guide from Madness, if you wish to get an idea about the quality, pacing, and overall style of the writing, feel free to give it a read. Now, quick disclaimer this chapter is pending another editing pass and will have some differences in the final work. Enjoy.

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Chapter 1:

Helen watered the garden in Lord Baxter’s estate, staring at all the pretty flowers beading water from the iron watering can designed for this very purpose. From forget-me-nots in various colours, to lilies and lilics. Beds upon beds of hibiscus, roses, poppies, tulips, marigolds, and chrysanthemums. Especially on a warm, summer, day, much like this day. Ilia’s Garden. The pride and joy of Lord Baxter.

The soil moistened under the tiny, man-made, rain that Helen lovingly parted onto the garden. Especially the centre part marked with a bronze plaque green with age that read “In loving memory of Ilia, the angel of Utin. May this garden bless the lands with her rich soul.” Who Lady Ilia was, other than Lord Baxter’s mother, Helen did not know. Something about the flowers and the garden connected with this woman, a connection neither Helen, nor anyone else, questioned.

Still, being able to tend to Ilia’s garden filled her with a level of pride that, even while still be a lowly station in life, at least allowed her to see the fruits of her labour in full display for any noble visiting to see. A flush of pride as she overheard Lord Baxter conversing with Sir Cavaten and a visiting lord she never got the name of in the garden.

“You kid not, Baxter my man.” The visiting lord gasped. “This place is beautiful!”

“Great care is taken, no expense spared. It is only fair.” Lord Baxter had a smile on his face as he said it.

“Now, just to keep the inquisitors away from this place.”

“Do you think they would bother with this town of mine? There are no witches.”

“That you know of.”

The visiting lord walked around to the centre of the garden. He looked at the plaque and asked “Is Lady Ilia missed deary?”

“Of course!” Baxter replied without hesitation.

A sigh came over the lord. “Does it worry you?” He asked. “Those witch finders leave no stone unturned... and no person unbroken.”

“My Lord?” Sir Cavaten spoke. “These lands are well guarded and defended. This shouldn’t be an issue.”

The men were then too far away for their conversation to be within earshot.

For the day, under the warm sun, she watered, preened and weeded the garden. Partway she sat in the shade with a simple lunch of buttered barley bread and a sliver of bacon. All while the other servants in the estate spoke of their own gossip:

“Baxter’s son, Logan, is at it again! So I hear!”

“Oh, that lad will be the doom of us all!”

“Better than Matiti, who got dismiss for dosing off.”

The day over, Helen walked from the estate. She strolled along cobblestone roads that lead from the estate gate to the town square. Marking the centre of the square a statue depicting the robed and veiled figure of Miriam - her holy face looking up at the sky, her hands together in prayer. Surrounding this statue a wall of stone and paths leading away and within the town. Peppered along merchants from other towns harking their wares.

Helen navigated the scene before her, walking along stone paths that became matted dirt through a thin wood that eventually became the cleared homestead of Helen’s family. The modest home built from logs cut from nearby trees with a roof of thatch. Windows left to let in the air and a chimney where the fireplace would be smoking. She stepped into the house, greeted by her family, all having arrived home before her due to their own work schedules.

Her mother, father, and two brothers, all seated at the little table in their little house. Around them bread of barley, fish caught from the river, mashed peas. Sometimes coney stew with root vegetables. What ended up on the table depended on the season and how bountiful the harvest in the surrounding farms were.

While eating they talked. “Got onto the Smith’s furnace.” Her older brother, Jethro, said as he ate. “Perhaps I can work with iron.”

“Its great you have an apprenticeship.” Her mother replied.

“Yes, agreed.” Said the father. “Though following in my footsteps as a farmhand would be easy.”

“I know.” Jethro nodded. “I would like to make things, not just pick them from the ground.”

“I want to be a knight!” Helen’s younger brother, Peter, piped in. “Being a sweep is sooh boring!”

“Oh Peter...” The father shook his head. “We all want to be knights. Only a few virtuous among us will actually be one.”

“Doesn’t hurt to dream.” Helen spoke.

“Just don’t be disappointed when you grow up, finding these opportunities never come.” The father resumed his eating.

The night fell and the family went to bed. She had a mat to herself on the upper level of the house while her brothers shared the lower. In an adjacent room her parents huddled together. She let herself fall asleep, thinking and dreaming of all kinds of things. In theory she could end up marrying a knight, or a craftsmen, and have a comfortable life. She held no complaint for being a gardener, and hoped to still be one, no matter what fate had in store for her.

The next morning as she walked to the estate after a breakfast of buttered bread she saw them. Helen, as with most, couldn’t miss the entrance of buttoned up men in black with white collars and swords on their hips riding into town on well-bred horses. That moment in the square when the inquisitors from the Temple of the Highgod rode into the town of Utin mark the start of the dark days.

As she entered the estate she watched the group approach the gate on horseback.

“We request audience with the Lord of these lands!” One older man within the group of men in black said to the gate guard. “It concerns matters most dire.”

As she got to work weeding the garden one of the other servants, a Becca, approached with a bucket of water. “You saw those men, didn’t you?” She asked. “The... inquisitors?”

“Yes, I saw them.” Helen replied.

“Bad omen.” Becca simply said. “Wherever those men appear, death follows.”

Helen resumed her duties as Becca went on her way. Helen nodded, agreeing with Becca’s statement. Those armed priests gave her the chills just thinking about them.

Partway through the day the servants of the house, including Helen, were called to the front door. There she saw Lord Baxter standing in his round glory - shining green and blue silks made up his shirt and matching breeches. His hair grey and balding, and his fat face dotted with blue eyes.

Standing next to Baxter a taller men dressed entirely in black with a white collar. That man had a sever look in his brown eyes along a chiselled face with salt and pepper hair and beard. On his hip a sheathed sword. On either side of him other priests that were also buttoned up men in black with white collars and swords on their hips.

The armed priest called out to the crowd: “I am Father Brime. There is a coven of witches in this town!”

A hush came over the crowd as everyone there all started looking at each other with squinty eyes.

Lord Baxter called out in follow-up: “You are all to cooperate with Father Brime and his men with their investigation. In the name of the Highgod, and all that is holy.”

Father Brime stoke onwards: “To root out this blight we will check every, single, one of you, for marks of the devil. If you try to run, you will be killed. If you are not a witch, you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

“We shall have victory of this cult most foul!”

Lord Baxter finally called out “Dismissed!”

As Helen returned to her duties in the garden it didn’t take long before whispers echoed within the estate.

“You think it’s Glinda the midwife? Those herbs have to be foul magic!”

“I heard about the blacksmith’s jaw falling off and one of Morti’s men getting boils! You think the church heard of these events?”

“Its Helen!”

A kitchen drudge pointed to her during the lunch break. Helen just looked at her frowed in brow: “Excuse me?”

“You be that gardener! Those plants are in too good shape!”

“I ain’t the only person who tends Ilia’s garden! And I’m good at what I do!”

Helen walked home that night as several men from the town set up makeshift posts near the square. Each post had logs and kindling slewn along them. All this as Father Brime and two other priests supervised the assembly.

Helen kept her nose to herself even as conversations at home started being consumed by fear.

“One of those armed priests were looking at Teddy.” Father said. “Doubt they’ll find anything: the man’s built like an ox and as smart as cabbage.”

“He’ll be fine.” Mother replied. “When they realize he isn’t in league with the devil they’re leave him be.”

“Something’s definitely up.” Jethro chomped on some peas. “The Smith had to nail his jaw back onto his head - some witch cursed it to fall off!”

“You sure its witchcraft?” Peter asked. “People can get sick you know.”

“His jaw fell off! Jaws don’t just fall off your head.”

A pause hung in the air as everyone just ate quietly. Moments passed before Peter simply asked “Is it true that witches are burned on pyres?”

“Yes, that is so.” Father replied. “It is the only way to truly kill a witch.”

“Sounds terrible.” Peter went back to eating.

Helen worked in the garden on one warm day when she overheard Lord Baxter shout “Fathers! You’ve checked some of my subjects and all of them where witches?”

Overtaken with a cat’s curiosity she walked through the grass to mask her footsteps while still holding her watering can, where she got a better ear to the entrance of the estate.

Father Brime turned to the red and shaking landlord. “There is much evil in you’re lands, right under your nose!” The armed priest said.

“That child... that small, small, child... a witch?” Baxter’s voice trembled.

“Witches can be anyone, my lord. The devil consorts with all.”

“Maribelle, a witch? She’s the most pious person I know!”

“To better blend in.” Father Brime spoke, mater of factly.

“And Teddy? He’s a dunce... I swear the trees are smarter than him! He can’t operate a key, and he’s dancing with demons?”

“Anyone, my lord,” Father Brime’s voice became stacotta. “Any... one...”

A rumbled sigh left Baxter as he said “You better be right... these are my paying subjects you know!”

Helen scuttled back to the garden hoping no one noticed that she had been easedropping behind a hedge. No one needed to tell her that inquisitors didn’t play around. Still, for them to be outing so many witches that Baxter was starting to complain gave chills down Helen’s back.

“I saw witchcraft!” a kitchen drudge said while the servants ate. “I saw Becca pointing down as she prays to the devil himself!”

“There is no way!” Another drudge replied.

“Oh, but there is!”

When Helen walked back home that day she saw two armed priests escorting Glinda down the cobblestone. They shackled her hands and feet together and the men kept pushing at her to move forward. The older woman struggled with the impatient men, soon tripping upon the cobblestone. Upon this sight, these men of the cloth, the exemplars of the Highgod, just glared at her with malice contorting their eyes and raising their cheeks. One bend down to lift her up by the collar of her dress, almost ripping it, while the other barked “Get up!”

Once they stood her up they resumed their march. One priest gave a rude glare in Helen’s direction. “Move along!” He barked as they walked past.

Helen did as he told her: she looked away and kept walking back home. At the table everyone ate in near silence as Helen said “I saw them take Glinda.”

“Of course they did.” Mother said. “I’ve heard they take anyone that appears to know anything about herbs and medicine.”

“Did they at least find the witch that made the smith’s jaw fall off?” Jethro asked.

“Buggered if I know!” Helen replied. “I only know what I saw and heard.”

“Feels like the whole town will be taken before the end of it.” Father huffed.

The next day a macab sight beheld itself within the town square. Helen walked towards the estate to see, among others, a pyre set up with smouldering embers. The air felt off.

“They’re dead.” Becca told her as she did her duties in the garden.

“They weren’t... even Teddy?” Helen gawked, slacked-jawed.

Becca nodded. “Anyone found to be a witch is tied to a stake and lit up.”

While tending to the garden a rumbling and muffling sounded. The closer to the wall where the square would be the louder, and clearer, it was. Crackling fire and screams.

“In daylight?” Helen uttered while tapping her forehead, then her stomach, then each side of her chest. “Hangings are ghastly enough... burnings are just torture.”

“There be that many people caught, I’ve heard.” Alla, another gardener spoke up. “Throughout the day and night, they have to keep the pyres fuelled.”

“Why so many?” Helen tried not to well up tears.

“Brimey there did say a ‘coven’ was here. That’s a group of witches!”

“How many more people will be checked?”

She shrugged. “As bad as it is, well, having witches loose in the community would be worse.”

Is it though? Helen couldn’t help but think to herself. After all, before the inquisitors arrived her life was peaceful as always. She got up, ate breakfast, went to tend the gardens, then came home. While life was hard she never had reason to think her neighbours were cursed monsters trying to harm her or the community. People got sick and hurt, sometimes die, but that was nothing compared constantly hearing people scream in agony over roaring fires.

Every. Single. Day.

The walk back home wasn’t much better.

She recognized one neighbour, an older woman from one of the steads weeping while tied to a post in the middle of a raging bonfire. Gagged her screams were muffled, little comfort as Helen knew the rope and cloth keeping her silent would soon burn off. Next to her a farmhand she had seen work with her father, half-charred and hanging limp of his post. A third form on a third post Helen couldn’t tell who it was for the fire charred the body that badly.

All while inquisitors guarded the pyres with neutral expressions on their faces, completely unfazed by the sight and stench before them. Unfazed as neighbours were charred beyond recognition, where still squirming while muffled until the gags burned as well, or were being tied to a newly set up pyre to start it all over again.

“It was horrible...” Helen cried that night to her parents. “I know some of those people from day to day. How could they be witches? What did they do to deserve this?”

“Well, they are doing the lord’s work.” Mother replied. “These people would curse us if left unchecked. In the Highgod’s name...” She looked down to her plate of salmon and peas, her expression pinched.

“I still can’t believe that Teddy... TEDDY! Of all people... a witch!” Father exclaimed.

“Could the inquisitors be mistaken?” Peter dared ask.

“No... they can’t be...” Father replied automatically. “They are sent by the Papacy from the Temple. They are trained in the ways of witch finding! If they say... well...”

A few days past. This day it rained. Thank the heavens for this mercy was all Helen could think as she served her duties in weeding and pruning. Only having to hear the rain falling. At least I didn’t need to water anything, she also thought while working in the uncomfortable conditions. More blessings.

As she worked she saw two priests approach Becca while she got water to clean the floors. The men simply gripped her by her sweat-stained dress.

“Fathers! Please!” Becca screamed. “I’ve done nothing wrong!”

“Except another servant told us of your communion.” One priest said.

“What communion?” She protested. “I’ve communed with no one!”

One of them slapped her across the face. “We know you are lying wench!” He said while reaching into the collar of her dress. “Now, where is that mark?”

The two priests ran their hands along her. Helen, ducked behind a flowerbed, saw it all as they lifted up her skirt and fondled her. The one priest then said “Found it!” while pointing at her bare bottom. The second priest leaned over to take a peek and nodded. “Indeed, she lies.” All he said as they dragged her off through the garden, making their way off the estate.

Certain they had left Helen laid down her pruning saw and started crying. Becca, why Becca? The thought raced through her mind, paralyzing her to the ground, her tears covered by the rainfall.

All that broke her thoughts in that moment were men shouting: “I even had a knight follow Glinda around - all she did was pick flowers and leaves! Now, off my lands!”

The horse voice of Lord Baxter. Irate.

“Baxter, you don’t have a choice!” The voice of Father Brime shouted back “This is under the edict of the papacy of the Highgod! I’ve shown you my seal!”

“You mean by orders of the Pope you can execute my paying subjects?”

“If they all have a mark...”

“Oh, piss it! Check them again! I have guard and knights patrol these lands...”

“Clearly they don’t know how to keep the evil out... or worse are in cohorts with them!”

“My knights are not witches you slanderous...”

“Well, we shall see!” Father Brime’s shoes then clanked on the stone paths as he walked away. Helen felt coldness creep all over her body as the eyes of Father Brime looked in her direction.

Damnit! Did he see me?

Helen walked through the wet gardens to the centre point as the clouds broke. Along the plague dedicated to Lady Ilia she sat, resting her back against the stone the plaque had been placed and nailed in. There, she cried until it hurt.

The next day the ground became dry enough to resume the burnings. Helen just let herself be numb as people screamed, and burnt flesh filled the air. The next few days after that she barely remembered, just not wanting to remember hearing the screams, seeing the corpses, or hearing about who was taken next at the dinner table or among gossip with other servants.

One evening, as she walked from the gardens of her work, she saw Becca. Gagged and tied to a post. The two locked eyes as Helen bowed her head. I want to just climb in there and cut her out but... the inquisitors have swords and know how to use them!

Helen simply tapped her head while saying “In the name of the Highgod...”

Then her stomach: “The Christ...”

Finally both sides of her chest: “And the Divinity within All of Us.”

As if something heard her Becca started kicking. A flailing that others had done before her and would do after her. However, Becca slipped just enough that, while she couldn’t break free, her feet made contact with the logs in the fire. Helen, alongside other bystanders and the inquisitors, watched burning embers and flames fling out from Becca and at them. The inquisitors scrambled, trying to keep the fires contained while trying to subdue her.

The maid. The one that predicted death coming. Goating an inquisitor up on the bonfire, sword drawn. With a quick swoop he cleaved the blade into her neck. The first swing stopped her screaming and kicking while a second swing took her head off. In doing so, the inquisitor’s clothes lit ablaze, and in his panic he leapt from the bonfire and ran about flailing like a headless chicken.

Helen’s eyes never left the rolling head, singed, with a trail of fire behind it. Only made to leave when more people started screaming.

The inflamed inquisitor helped the kicked embers set the square on fire. The fires engulfing nearby wooden structures and surrounding grass in moments. Mass panic made people, neighbours and inquisitors alike, flee. The braver racing for the well to get water. Others away.

Immediately Helen sprinted back into the estate. Several paces in she checked for any signs of fire on herself. Satisfied she herself wasn’t on fire, she fled into the garden. Within Ilias’s Garden, the holiest place nearby, she knelt before the plague dedication to Lady Ilia and stared crying. The sweat from the encroaching fire clung to her as she took shallow, chocked breaths.

Helen found a voice within herself. She took a deep breath and said “You want to kill me? Just kill me! Mercy! I don’t want to burn!”

Moments passed. “Uh... father, he’s the landlord...” she heard the voice of a young man say.

“Meaning, if a witch, these lands are compromised, and will need to be cleansed!” Replied the booming voice of Father Brime.

Helen ducked into a bush adjacent to the plaque. She might have been a lowly peasant who could barely read, but she knew enough to know that ‘cleansed’ was code for ‘burned.’ Purification through flames.

“He’s a witch!” Screamed Father Brime. “Round everyone up!”

“But father, the fire...” The young man, likely a priest, replied.

“These lands are compromised! No one is to leave alive!”

“Bad, this is bad.” Helen said out loud, needing to hear a voice in that moment, even if she spoke to herself like a lunatic. “We pay our tithe for the land and the use of the walls of the estate. A wall meant to protect from marauders and savages, not the church! We should run in the outer estate and wait for the knights to deal with this. Oh Highgod, its inside. The attack is inside! It isn’t bandits burning our town down: its priests picking us off in the name of the Highgod!

“It will be a matter of time before the witch hunters come in here.”

She could smell smoke rising. The burning wood and refuse drowning out the burnt flesh. The sound of the roaring flames almost deafening as she cried. In the distance, people screamed. Had the fires leapt from the square, spreading elsewhere?

“What do I do? Will anyone from my family survive? The homestead, shall it be spared?

“Oh the screaming! That crackle! That fire sounded like no fire... it sounded of the devil himself. Summoned by Becca?

“Or is it the Highgod? Purging the land of sin! Cleansing it to start it anew?

“Please, Highgod, please spare us. We can’t be that far gone. Please.

“No... the inquisitors! Will they come for me? Find me here?!” She rambled on. “Then what? Am I witch? Am I a WITCH?

“They will burn me! Burn me so! Oh... oh... my family! Will my family burn?! Lord Baxter? Would they burn a lord? They would! They totally would! Everyone’s a witch, everyone but me...

“No, that means mother’s a witch! Father’s a witch! Jethro and Peter are witches! No... they can’t be! They can’t be!

“Sooner or later, they will come here... they will come here, and they will take me! Oh, Highgod! Where’s my family? Are they dead?”

As the air around her became hazy, forcing her already tearing eyes to cry more in irritation, and the sun became blacked out by the smoke, she screamed as she choked: “Lord most High! I am not a witch! Please! What do I do? Help me!”

From the path leading to the plaque she saw a faint orange light through the haze. Her own breathing quickened as she debated in that moment what to do next. Is that an inquisitor?  Helen thought to herself.

Helen waited. With a small voice she simply said “Father? Just kill me! I don’t want to burn! Please!”

She sat in resignation with her back to the plaque, head bowed, ice in her veins. Hoping against hope this person with no shown sense of mercy will show some.

Then, the air shifted. Something about it felt colder, calmer, darker. She looked up to see the source of the orange coming towards her: a figure in an orange robe. A robe that resonated as fire. The person got closer, and Helen could clearly see a feminine face with dark eyes staring back. Bits of black hair dangled from her head down her cheeks. With a pale hand she held it out for Helen and simply said in a steady voice “Are you alone?”

Helen’s nerves stood on end as goosebumps formed. A heaviness sat in her lungs. A faint, indescribable scent hung in the smoky air.

“Yes...” Helen replied.

“How come?” Mel asked in followup. “Its not good to be alone.”

“Family...” Helen sputtered, “I don’t know where my family is! I don’t know where they are. I panicked and ran. Ran in here! Don’t know what to do.”

“The fires have burned everyone you know.” Mel replied. “Soon. The town will be nothing but ash. You do not want to be alone.”

“No... please... no...” Helen cried more.

“Come with me, young woman.” All she said before taking Helen by the hand and pulling on it, trying to drag her out of the garden. Helen took the gesture and stood up. The two then sprinted through the garden, stepping on the manicured garden as they fled. I hope Ilia understands she thought while trampling her own handiwork. Once at the front of the estate they ran down from the cobblestone. While running she kept an eye out for her family: father lent his labour at one of the farm camps, mother tended to a merchant’s house as a maid, her younger brother swept chimneys and her older one a became a blacksmith’s apprentice.

They fled all the way to the palisade meant as the primary barrier against bandits. A barrier now worthless as the danger simply walked through the front gate with a seal from the Temple of the Highgod. Out in the fields near the woods they seized their running while looking behind them at the burning town they left behind.

“Did they make it?” Helen asked to no one in particular, her eyes fixated on the roaring demon of a fire they just escaped.

The orange-robed person just shrugged.

“Am I... alone now?” Helen continued musing.

“Nope.” Her new friend replied.

Helen turned to look at the pale woman. “Who... are you?” She asked, her voice shaking.

“Do you really need my name?” The woman replied. “When someone has your name they can command you. Such power shouldn’t be so causally given up.”

“So you rather I call you ‘Hey you?’”

“You think you need to command me?”

“Well, I guess if we part ways here, I don’t need a name.”

The woman huffed. “No. You shouldn’t be alone. They will come for you if you are alone.”

“So you plan to come with me?” Helen asked.

“Yes.”

“Then... won’t I need a name?”

“Will you give me yours?” The woman folded her arms and stared.

“Of course!”

“Sounds fair. I accept your terms!” She then took a deep breath and said “I’m... Mel.”

“I’m Helen. Now... what?”

“Dunno.”

Helen looked to the ground. Mel rolled her eyes: “What makes you think I have the answer?”

“I... I don’t know... I just...” Helen just looked at the fire roaring in the distance. It didn’t crackle like fire she had ever seen before - no it roared. Indeed something came upon the town, and deemed it unworthy.

Defeated Helen simply said “The night is falling. We need shelter.”

“You mean you?”

“Where are you going?”

“Woods. Where else?”

Helen looked away from the town and in the direction of the Nissal Forest. “Its better than nothing... I guess.” Helen muttered as she went on her way to the woods, Mel following behind her.

Several paces took them into the woods. The trees thickening the further they walked. The shades, a constant, hissing, haze even as the wood became so thick the sun got blocked out. A haze that could be seen in the darkening light, yet didn’t appear to glow. Hisses Helen could swear were forming words: “Lies... All... Lies...”

“They be talking...” Helen uttered.

“It sounds like it, don’t it?” Mel replied.

“Are they?”

“Whatever. They can’t hurt us.”

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Got to the end, perhaps considering backing the Kicstarter so you can learn what happens next: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shannonfrancessmith/guide-from-madness