The Pyre
In Umbar Baharbêl, a Black Númenorean girl later known as Fajar attends a public execution by the Church of the All-seeing.
With cameos by @amarthiels' Ûrikali and @lesbiansforboromir's Nisar :) thank you for letting me include them! If you don't like to read 3000 word stories on tumblr, it's also here.
It was on a breezy, changeable spring day that Zôrzimril first watched a man be burned alive. She had never seen such a thing before, though she had heard of it. It was something children in the streets shouted at each other as a threat — I'm going to tell on you and they're going to burn you! — and were immediately chastised for by nearby adults. It was serious. Her father had been serious when he told her she must attend today.
"It is important for you to see," he had said, looking at her over the desk in his study. "To witness how even the worst offenders can be cleansed of their sins."
She had nodded, a little apprehensive but also proud that he thought her old enough to accompany him.
It felt good to be beside her father now, standing on the balcony overlooking the plaza with her hand clasped securely in his. She must have been deemed the only child mature enough to be present among the adults dressed in all their finery. Even Lady Ûrikali was there, the Living Saint who had been a friend of her mother, looking resplendent in her night-black silk. Everyone on the balcony was garbed in black, but the colour seemed darker and richer draped on her, in stark contrast to her bangles and necklaces of gold. Her robes rustled and shimmered with each of her little movements. Her face was shielded from unworthy eyes by a diaphanous veil, but even the suggestion of her profile was beautiful.
That was why it seemed like a ray of sunlight warmed Zôrzimril's chest when she saw Ûrikali turn and felt that gentle gaze fall upon her. The many friends who had come to their house every week for her mother's company had stopped visiting after she died. Even her maternal grandparents seemed to have forgotten she existed, but not Lady Ûrikali. She was the All-seeing's Grace personified. She smiled. Yet the Living Saint did not, as far as she could tell. Her eyes — she knew them to be grey, like her mother's had been — seemed to look down at her with concern, even sadness. Zôrzimril swallowed. Had she done something wrong? Perhaps her eyes had deceived her; it was hard to make out Ûrikali's expression clearly through the veil. But she could see that the lady's gaze had wandered upwards, meeting her father's; now she felt his hand on her back, gently turning her away from the Saint. She acquiesced, though something new and nervous fluttered in her chest, and looked out over the balustrade.
A great pyre had been erected on the plaza below. Chained to a stake at the top of it was the offender her father had spoken of, a middle-aged man with a well-groomed beard and a long braid which almost reached his waist. Though he looked like a merchant Zôrzimril knew he was a heretic, secretly hoarding knowledge forbidden by the Church. They had found many books in his cellar, books that should have been burned long ago when Dâr Jeraf, the House of Wisdom — the House of Lies, as her father called it — was pulled down. Some of them had been stacked beneath his feet or tucked between the logs of wood, a reminder of his crime and an easy firestarter.
Zôrzimril had little patience for books. Sometimes she liked to look at the ones from her father's study, if they had pictures of ships in them. Whenever her mother had read to her, tales of the Kings and few Queens of long-lost Anadûnê, she had listened intently. She had resolved to read to her little sister once she was old enough. But in the time since they had died, her sister from being born and her mother from birthing her, she had found it too laborious to work through those tales on her own.
"How was the man going to harm the city with his books?" she had asked her father on the way here. It had nearly been a step too far — he had given her a worried look before answering. "The same way the city can be harmed by thoughts."
Thoughts were treacherous, she knew. You could achieve perfect obedience in your deeds and still be rotting from the inside. That was how it must have started with the condemned man below — a little thought not thoroughly examined, left to fester. If you did not go to confession regularly and learned how to get rid of them, such thoughts could quickly overtake you. You would end up a husk, empty on the inside but for poisonous ideas which you spread with your every breath, infecting others. Then the only thing that could save you was the fire. Perhaps that was why the man chained to the stake stood so still, did not speak, did not beg. Maybe there was nothing left inside him but rot.
The crowd was pressed close around the pyre, a sea of bodies with constant ripples running through it. Yet as she watched it began to part and the hum of voices died away while a procession of priests was escorted through the middle. The one leading them bore a torch before him, he must have been carrying it all the way from the nearest shrine. The priests' faces were hidden behind masks, leaving only their mouths uncovered as they intoned a solemn hymn. She knew the droning melody from worship, but she never understood whatever black-blessed words were laid over it. The most perfect form of language, devised by the All-seeing Himself, did not come to Man naturally; you needed to be taught. To have received such knowledge was a mark of distinction, so of course the few people on the balcony who could sing along with the priests were doing so.
She looked up at her father. He was moving his lips silently. It was only natural for him to know the words to the hymn, most likely he could even pronounce them correctly. Though he had obeyed the Heirs' call to serve as their Harbour-warden, though he had then married her mother and loved her more than words could say, sometimes she wondered whether her father would not have liked to be one of the All-seeing's priests instead. He knew Him and loved Him as much as any of them. But as things were her father would never claim the honour of having learned the Black Speech, since it had not been bestowed upon him officially. It was important to be aware of the space you were allowed to occupy. That too was a part of obedience.
The singing stopped. The priest carrying the torch stepped forward.
"From now on you must watch closely, Zôrimith," her father said from the side. "Bear witness."
She nodded dutifully, keeping her eyes on the scene below. The priest moved the torch up to one book in the pyre, then the next. Crafted with the purpose to protect the words inside from harm, their leather bindings did not take to the fire immediately — but the pages welcomed it like they had been waiting for its touch. They must have been aware of the traitorous thoughts they carried; they must have been yearning to be purified.
Zôrzimril felt a shiver run through her when the fire reached out hungrily from within the books and caught on the oil-drenched wood. In the blink of an eye flames raced up the pyre, joined each other in a shower of sparks, crackled with joy to be fed. It was beautiful. When they got to the man they licked at his feet and found them naked, stretched their fingers a little higher and took hold of his robe. He began to scream.
Zôrzimril did not know what she had been expecting. He had been so still, so silent, a part of her had begun to believe he would burn like that, the way a wooden log is consumed in the hearth with only a quiet crackle. But a man is made from flesh, from animal meat, and when words fail him he howls like an animal too. He screams until his throat is raw, until his lungs give out.
It was horrible. It was terrifying. She recoiled and covered her ears. Of course her father would notice, but the sound was unbearable. Prompted by the slip of her hand, Zimrathôn's concerned glance found her staring at her feet. She gave him a desperate, apologetic look as he crouched down beside her. His fingers grasped hers quite tenderly and slowly pulled them away from the sides of her head; she pressed her lips together as the screams became louder again.
"Are you frightened, Zôrimith?" he asked, gently. She nodded. A terrible smell was beginning to waft up to the balcony too, making her stomach clench even harder. "I know it seems frightening. But the All-seeing asks us not to close our eyes to suffering, as the other Powers do so callously. Nor our ears, for that matter." He smiled. She tried to concentrate on his voice and not the man's.
"In the end the pain and fear is only a passing thing," her father continued. "He will be purified by the flames, his falsehoods burnt away. Like this he can hope to stand before the Eye and be made anew. It is a mercy."
He looked over in the man's direction and reverence flickered in his face, a near-wish to stand on the pyre and be cleansed himself. Then he turned back to her.
"Do you recall what you learned after your mother and sister died? It is hard work, to wrestle with one's treacherous, doubting soul. But you must do it. I know you can."
She remembered what the priests had taught her. Obedience in thought and deed was the goal. Obedience in deed was quite easy — you just did what you were told and didn't do what you were told not to. She managed that on most days. Thought was much harder. And yet there was a way you could change even your thoughts. It involved praying and reflecting in the dark and praying again, and confessing your thoughts to a priest every week so they could measure your progress. If you said you were sorry but you weren't really, they could tell; and the same if you were sorry but not sorry enough. The only right way was to make yourself truly feel it. Otherwise the rot would set in.
But her father was right; she had wrestled with her doubts before, and she had won. It was not the All-seeing's fault her mother had died, and her baby sister Bêlzimril along with her. It was not His duty to have prevented it. He protected them from the Powers of the West who had drowned their ancestors, He watched over them, His knowledge of their thoughts guarded them against threats arising from within. He even held sway over death — the first time the priests had told her this she had asked the wrong question in response and erased a whole week of progress — but it was not a power He would put to selfish use. She had worked hard to understand it, and even harder to make herself regret ever thinking differently. Obedience in thought. It had been good to see her father's relief when he knew she had achieved it.
Now he looked proud when she nodded once more. "I can do it, attô. I promise."
As she turned her gaze back upon the wretched thing on the pyre her father caressed her cheek and then stood, holding on to one of her hands. Zôrzimril let the other hang at her side inconspicuously and curled her fingers only a little bit. Now if she folded her thumb into her palm she could dig her fingernails into the side of it. It was less obvious than balling her hand into a fist, and the sharp pain provided a focus point from which she could attempt to channel her thoughts in the right direction.
The man was still burning. It is a mercy. Before her eyes his agony reached new heights. His long braid had caught fire, and after they had consumed it the flames reached the skin of his face; he was writhing, contorting, shrieking.
It is — she couldn't do it. She averted her eyes, careful not to turn her head, but letting her gaze sink lower until it rested on the throng of people surrounding the pyre. She focused on them instead of the sound. Some had the same expression as her father — silent awe, sacred reverence, perhaps a hint of longing. Some looked revolted, but a few were smiling almost hungrily, which she found disconcerting. But most of them were turning away, even hiding their faces in their hands. A young man was sobbing on an older woman's shoulder. Another man stood pale and trembling, his eyes squeezed shut and his hands over his ears, shutting out the whole spectacle.
Zôrzimril felt a sting of anger. How come they got to be so obvious in their fear and revulsion? These people were all older than her, so they should have learned about obedience by now. Her father said the people of Umbar loved the All-seeing, and it certainly seemed like it at home — they all prayed together once a day, her father and her and all the servants. Were some of them standing in the crowd now, looking disgusted and being disobedient when they thought her father could not see them? But she could see them. In a way she was doing a good thing by not looking at the man as he burned. Someone needed to watch for threats from within.
She let her gaze wander over the crowd. She found the people who were making the most egregious show of their disobedience and made sure to memorize their faces. If one of them ever tried to find work in her father's house, she would tell him. The man's screams were not so loud in her ears now. She was keeping them all safe.
Her eyes snagged on a point of stillness among the wavering mass of bodies. It was a woman, standing close to the pyre despite the heat and the smoke and the smell, planted in her space like a pillar of stone. Zôrzimril did not know this woman, but her expression felt intimately known to her — a mask of neutrality on the verge of slipping. Her mouth was too hard, her eyes moved too little. Her arms were crossed but she was digging her fingers into the muscle. She was trying to keep control of herself, like Zôrzimril so often did. She was doing her best to be obedient.
She followed the woman's gaze straight to the pyre and only then noticed the man's voice had finally died away. His blackened body was still contracting horribly, but what had once been his head, with a face that could laugh and cry and scream, had lolled onto his chest. His pain and fear had passed, dissolved into smoke. Looking back she saw the woman's brown face contort suddenly and violently, with grief and rage so potent she must have inhaled some of the man's soul as it floated away from him. So she was disloyal after all, disloyal like the rest of them, unwilling or unable to tame her treacherous emotions. But at least the other people had also looked afraid. In this woman's face there was no trace of fear at all.
It was infurating— she should be scared, they all were, even her father, or perhaps her father most of all — and yet Zôrzimril felt compelled to watch her. Though she looked very ordinary, the woman seemed to possess something they all lacked. She had not turned away, not even on the inside. If the Lidless Eye had been looking down on them in this moment this woman could have met its gaze head-on. Perhaps she could even have defied it.
Comprehending the thought felt like being turned inside out in an instant. A terrible crushing pressure on her spine, organs colliding, nerves shrieking with danger — she twisted her whole head away from the source of that thought, trying to get rid of it, to undo it. Her hand must have clenched in her father's grasp because he looked down at her again.
"Zôrzimril… were you not watching?"
He sounded disappointed. The awful sensation had gone but her still-whole body remained a vessel, and it was quickly filling with terror and shame. She had been disobedient in deed, she had averted her eyes, but there had been a good reason — she had not just thought that — she must not give him cause to worry.
"I was, attô," she said tremulously, "I was, but I saw that woman over there." She pointed a finger towards her. "She scares me, attô… I think she has some kind of plan…"
Her father's eyes followed the accusing finger to its target. The woman had mastered her feelings, was staring at the charred corpse with no expression at all. "She has a suspicious look to her," he said. "Ever do our enemies try to hide themselves in plain sight... I will alert someone of her presence." He came down to her level again, smiled and kissed her brow. "You did well, Zôrimith. I know it was hard, but did you see the peace that took hold of him in the end? His spirit is pure and ready to bask in the All-seeing's merciful gaze."
"I saw it." At her faint but convincing smile he rose, a gentle hand on her shoulder telling her to stay where she was while he spoke to the nearest priest or guard about the woman. She dared not look back to see if she was still there. Instead she stared at the floor until the waves of fear had passed, until everything had settled into more muted dread. She would have to tell them about averting her eyes during her next confession; there was no way she could hide her guilt. Maybe if the sin was bad enough it would go back to the way it was after her mother and sister had died — prayer and confession and prayer again, until she was judged fully repentant. But it would only be a few weeks. She was getting better at obedience, in deed and in thought, because there had been no thought. No thought at all.
