The Warden's Guilt - Dark Fantasy Short ...

The Warden's Guilt - Dark Fantasy Short Story

Mar 28, 2022

Olac’s body was a prison of flesh contained within one of stone, and neither offered any chance of escape. He could hear screams, they started within and then echoed off the walls, yet only the audible ones were his.

‘I am an old man.’ said Olac, speaking to the guard on the other side of the bars. ‘Tell me… Why am I here?’

‘You are here for your own protection,’ said the guard, keeping his distance.

‘My protection? Ha! I am a prisoner here. I can still feel the lash of the whip.’

‘You have never been whipped Olac, that I can promise you.’ The old man closed his eyes, the memory was vivid and he jerked his body from side to side. His back was bleeding.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked, recovering from the sensation.

‘Yes.’

‘But I have been tortured?’ The guard came closer to the bars and smiled.

‘Olac. Your very existence is an important service to the community. The oath that you took and what that entails. We would not torture you.’

‘But I have been tortured,’ repeated Olac resolutely, ‘and still am…’

Time passed, even if the concept of time was slowly becoming lost to him. There was only the past and even though he wished to forget, it tormented him in absolute clarity. He had seen so much death in his life, and the visions, compounded, multiplied, were too much for one man.

‘These shackles are cutting into my skin,’ he called out to the ever-present guard.

‘You are within these walls for your protection Olac. The shackles are mine.’

‘Do you really think that I would hurt a fellow jailer?’ he asked, secretly struggling with his bonds. Testing them once again for any weakness. There was none.

‘I know you would not mean to Olac, but you are sick. They must stay until your illness passes.’

‘I am not sure that a cure exists for my particular condition. No doctor has seen what I have seen, nor have they experienced my burden.’

‘I will not argue that with you, but I have seen others in this state. It is a struggle, but it can be beaten.’

‘You may be right, but I’m so very tired.’

Olac withdrew back into himself, within his internal world of memories and voices. He remembered then a young woman, condemned to death for the murder of her husband. He saw her clearly, her white dress covered in the red of his blood. She pleaded for mercy, that it was done in defense of her own life, and Olac believed her. He knew murderers, their actions, their very thoughts, and knew that justice had failed this woman. Yet he did nothing. It was not his place. He watched the beheading, and then did his job, and every day since struggled to live with his conscience, and with her. Out of all his memories, hers were the most frequent, and caused him the most pain.

His thoughts, his world, suddenly came back to the present. There was a commotion, movement, hurried voices.

‘The Count has been captured! He is close to death.. We need Olac. Quickly!’

‘It could kill him. Is there anyone else?’ pleaded the guard.

‘The other vessels are out with the army. We have sent word but they are too far away. Count Vomungu is going to die at any moment.’

‘Then let him… Chase his spirit down later if the need arises.’

‘This is insanity! Precious time is passing and he must be contained tonight.’

The door to his cell opened and two men walked in, his guard, and a Queen’s soldier.

‘Your special skills are needed Olac.’ the guard said, releasing him. It felt good as the chains fell away, but then he realized what was to come…

‘I am not well sir.’ he pleaded with the soldier.

‘I’m sorry, but there is no other course of action. We all have a job to do, and you have taken the same oath as me to serve Queen and country.’

‘Yes,’ said Olac, ‘but that was a long time ago…’

He was a young man then, unaware of the consequences of his decision, of what he was signing away for a steady income, for the honor. He said nothing more. The soldier grabbed his arm, and Olac knew that he must comply. Before he had time to think his cell clothes were replaced and he was soon dressed in his uniform of death. He stood for a moment like a ceremonial grim reaper, a staff, rather than a scythe held in his hands. He has bustled out of the prison and onto a horse-drawn carriage, which suddenly moved at speed as the driver cracked his whip. Olac could feel every bump, every rock, his body bounced and jarred and it took all his effort to remain on the carriage as the horses galloped upon the dirt track road, traveling at such speed that he felt as if they were chasing time itself.

Olac kept looking behind him, he knew what it was like to be chased, to flee in the night worried for his life. He also knew the thrill of the hunt. The memories within him, sights, sounds, gripped him with an equal sense of exhilaration and fear, which grew stronger as the carriage stopped, and he was forced to disembark.

Dead lay upon the open ground, but Olac had seen enough of death to realize that the bodies were not lying in such a way that suggested an ordered battle. This was a patrol that stumbled across the enemy, one caught equally unawares. The fighting was sudden, quick, and violent, and only in the aftermath did they discover the importance of their victory.

Olac was taken to a tent in the center of the field. Inside a medic was treating the wounds of a man as three soldiers and their captain watched on.

‘I feared that you were going to arrive too late, but he lives.. Our medic has done just enough to ward off his death. He deserves nothing more.’ Olac knew little of the Count other than what he had read in the papers, that he sought the crown for himself, that he had been accused of committing atrocities against prisoners of war, and possibly even his own people. He was supposed to be vile, a demon, but lying on the ground, close to death, he looked like any other man.

‘Has his execution been authorized?’ asked Olac, getting to business. ‘Have you sent for a Judge?’ ‘No. A battlefield court will suffice,’ said the Captain. ‘There is no question of his guilt.’ Olac’s head was suddenly filled with a multitude of voices crying out in displeasure, his the loudest of all.

‘This is highly unusual. I must insist on a proper judge.’ The procedure was important. Rules and protocol were essential to his job, for without them he would not have the moral strength to live with what was to come.

‘Your feelings do not matter Orlac. I am giving you an order. Men! Bring the prisoner outside.’ Olac watched as the soldiers lifted the count to his feet, and marched him out of the tent.

‘Kneel!’ said the Captain and Count Vomungu did so. He looked old and tired. The Captain stood behind the prisoner, the three soldiers stood in front, and Olac stood to the side, preparing himself for the coming task, for the words he has heard countless times before..

‘You have been found guilty of treason against the kingdom of Oprex. The sentence of this battlefield court is death and imprisonment. Death in this life, imprisonment in the next. Your spirit shall not rise to the halls of our ancestors, nor shall there be peace for your soul. Any last words?’

‘No! I didn’t do it! I did! I’m sorry. I’m innocent. I won’t do it again! Please, sir, let me live…’ Olac had heard so many, and they came to him now all at once. The count, however, shook his head in silence, nothing more. The Captain raised his sword.

‘Olac. When the deed is done. You do your job or you damn us all. Understand?’

‘Yes,’ he said. The soldiers moved back for the decapitation to occur.

The Captain’s experienced blow was clean, the head separated from the body, blood spurting, before falling to the ground. A sight that Olac had seen so many times, living those final seconds of the condemned as if they were his own. Hearing the beginning of his own words. Those that he was now unable to speak. Would not speak…

Olac closed his eyes, just for a moment.

The soldiers screamed at him, bringing him back to the present, as the headless body of Count Vomungu flew up in the air and hovered above them. The sky began to rumble like a violent storm, the ground tremored, and then flashes of lightning struck the Count's lifeless body, over and over again.

‘Speak the Incantations!’ demanded the Captain but Olac no longer knew the words. He could sense a great evil all around him. The Count's body rose higher in the sky, and from it, came dark retribution. Incorporeal, like a vengeful spirit it flew from soldier to soldier, eating their bodies from within. Olac screamed. Energy flying wildly from his staff in all directions. He could do nothing, for all his training, his composure, had deserted him, and faced with the demon he unleashed, he fled, leaving none alive.

Olac knew fear. Most of his prisoner's lives it had been all they known. Fear of getting caught. Fear of punishment. A fear that caused them to do things abhorrent even to them. He could feel all their fear as he ran from the beheaded body of the Count. A spirit of guilt pursued him, following his every change of direction, matching his speed, neither gaining nor falling away. Never relenting.

The sun began to rise in the sky and Olac was still running. The trees were illuminated like ghosts, his surroundings had an eerie familiarity.

You have been found guilty of treason against the kingdom of Oprex. The words echoed in his mind, as he saw again the Queen’s soldiers in their death throes, their bodies twisted with contorted faces. He had failed them. The Count Vomungu was too powerful and he that was Olac, weak…

Zanzi, the bride, had only been protecting herself. She wasn’t much more than a child. She had only met her husband once. She didn’t understand what he wanted from her. How she could displease him so soon. Why she would need to defend herself with a knife. Why she would be blamed and punished. She was running with Olac.

Bukja knew he was doomed from the very beginning. His father was a murderer and before long so was he. He was born to it, there was never any other path open to him. Where he lived you became part of a gang almost from birth. If there was another way Bukja might have taken it, but he had killed many people before he had even considered the possibility of a different life, and then he was caught. When his punishment came, beheading, the memory of each and every murder came back to him. He was running with Olac too.

And there were many, many more, all running with him, none of them knowing anymore why they were running. Only that they were in pain.

‘Olac!’ a voice called out. He stopped and listened until the call repeated. It was real. For the first time, he was able to look at his surroundings. He had come, without conscious thought, to a graveyard. There were many human-shaped statues, all of which were cast without heads, and among them were creatures of horn and wing, and twisted combinations of humanoid and beast. There was an altar in the center of it all, and there was a blade coated with flesh blood.

He was bleeding.

The source of the voice emerged into the clearing. A young man, an exact image of himself at the age when he first answered the call.

‘No! Leave us! I beg you…’

‘You know I can’t do that,’ said he. ‘The Queen’s soldiers are dead Olac. You killed them…’ It took a moment to realize that he was a murderer, like those he held within.

‘So you have come to imprison me.’

‘You are not at fault Olac, or at least I don’t believe you to be. I am here to help you. Take you back to the tower. You need treatment.’

‘I am not going back there, anyway It is too late for me. Much too late, for I am already mortally wounded. Tell me your name?’

‘Dashell, although people call me Dashe’

‘How many live within you?’

‘Only five. I am strong enough to keep them at bay.’

‘You are so young, even for five. I have more than one hundred tarred souls within me, and one who did not deserve her fate. I can not be her jailer anymore. I am no longer fit to hold any of them.’ Olac picked up the knife from the Altar, and held it up to his heart.

‘Don’t do it Olac. You have been pushed too hard. They should not have called on you…’ Olac agreed, but what was done could not be undone.

‘Dashe, I beg you, run and don’t look back, or you will become like me.’ With those final words he stabbed himself with the blade, repeating until his strength failed him.

He fell to the ground as the life ebbed away. Dashe was standing over him. His mouth was moving, his staff glowed as the incantations rung out. From within Olac, his body vibrated and burst open. The air around them was filled with black spirits, screaming as they left one prison for another. Dashe’s stood strong as they entered him, their experiences, their every thought, memory, and deed becoming part of him. Even in death, Olac knew the sensation that Dashe must have been feeling, and then…

Olac was free of the spirits, all bar one, for the young bride still remained.

I’m sorry.

He hoped she understood, but before he could get an answer Olac’s mouth opened and two white orbs emerged. He rose, together with her, looking down at the scene below.

Dashe, crouching low to the ground, his youthfulness taken from him, was looking up and offering a prayer, as the two spirits ascended into the heavens.


End.

This story was inspired by PTSD suffered by prisoners, their jailers, soldiers, and those who suffer in the service of their country.

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