Witchseekers

Part 8 - Oberon

 

            A week in the damp, chill, claustrophobic confines of a lightless cell has done little to quell Oberon’s incessant ranting.  As he is brought to the torture chamber, his wrists locked in heavy manacles behind his back, chains clinking on his ankles, he lambastes and curses those guards escorting him – threatening them with agonising deaths for their disloyalty.

            But nothing prepares me for the look of pure venom on his face when he sees me.

            “Witch!  You scheming, double-crossing traitorous vixen!  Look at you, dressed like a shameless whore and salivating at the chance to throw me onto the rack!”

            Dressed like a whore?  Me?  I thought I had dressed appropriately for the circumstances.  A plain white sleeveless blouse, and a short black leather skirt, with calf-boots.  More or less what I might wear to the office.  Not much defence against the cold of the dungeons, but at least I look hot. 

            I decide to let Oberon's insult pass.  "Save your breath, old man.  You're going to need it once your questioning starts."

            "You gutless usurper, this has nothing to do with questioning!" Oberon spits.  "You just wanted the chance to be alone with me in this warped playpen of yours!"

            "If I wanted only that, you'd have been screaming on the rack days ago," I snort in reply.  Oberon's eyes dart, only briefly, to the dark wooden shape that looms on the far side of the room.  I know him well enough to see that he is afraid, despite his outward defiance.  I stand flanked by the bear-like Austin, and two guards.  Four more stand beside and behind Oberon himself.

            "I have nothing to say to you," Oberon says, and this time his voice hints at resignation.  "You've already condemned me."

            I nod.  "Perhaps.  The evidence against you is certainly strong, thanks largely to Tina.  But there is still much we need to discuss.  For example: on May twenty-ninth this year, you had Daffy, a confessed witch, burned at the stake.  On June sixth, the witch Allielle suffered the same fate.  And yet, we now know these witches never burned.  Why did you spare their lives?  What pact did you make with them – and who were the unfortunates who burned in their place?”

            Oberon remains tight-lipped, so I continue:

“On July sixth, three 'witches' were arrested by you, convicted and burned, after 'questioning by a trainee dungeon master' who was never named, and whom I doubt even exists.  Whatever happened to them during their time in the chateau, it certainly wasn't in the torture chamber."

Oberon's eyes reveal nothing.

"On July twelfth, you arrested a mother and daughter.  You burned the mother immediately at the stake, on the strength of her husband's accusation.  A day later you took it upon yourself, claiming that Tina and I were both otherwise occupied, to stretch the unfortunate daughter on the rack until she confessed.  Then, against all the rules of conduct, you dismissed the guards and assistants, and spent a number of hours alone with her.  The next day she, too, was burned at the stake.

"These five souls were not the only ones to suffer such treatment.  Where is your evidence to back up your actions?  For that matter, who were these unfortunate women?”

            “They were convicted witches who needed to burn,” Oberon says.

            “You see, I talked to Wendy Satin the day before she was to burn,” I say.  “She told me that you had spared the lives of Daffy and Allielle in return for their sexual slavery to you.  She told me that there had been others, too.  Some who gave their bodies freely to you on the promise of mercy, only to be burned at the stake anyway.  She told me that you had also had contact with Stacy Sambilay, an accused witch, seeking sexual favours?”

            “And you would believe the lies of a witch?”

            “I didn’t,” I say, “until she announced, the day after she supposedly burned, that she was alive - and that her own innocent cousin had burned in her place.  Nobody has the power to make that kind of switch – nobody but you, Sir!”

            “Is that the best your twisted mind could come up with?” Oberon growls.

            “So tell me what really happened, then.”  

            "I'm not telling you a damn thing," Oberon says.  "I don't recognise any authority in you."

            "Oh, you'll recognise it," I say calmly, then order the guards:  "Strip him."

            There is a long pause.

            The guards look at me.  I look at Oberon.  Oberon looks at me.  Then I look at the guards.

"Do we have to?" Austin asks me.

            I sigh.  "It's standard procedure in preparing a prisoner for interrogation, so yes, you have to."

            The manacles are unlocked from Oberon's wrists, and reluctantly, the guards pull the dungeon-grubbied robes from his body.  He's in good shape, considering; but that doesn't save him from looking suddenly vulnerable, even though he makes no effort to conceal his nudity, his flaccid penis, sleeping in its dark nest of hair.

            "Are you happy now?" Oberon growls at me.

            "Thrilled," I say.  To the guards: "bind his wrists, and bring him."

            Oberon isn't exactly old; but I doubt his body would have the resilience of the young witches he seems to favour.  So I have decided to avoid most of my usual methods of persuasion, at first at least, in favour of something less damaging, but still very unpleasant.

            The interrogation chair is a large iron construction resembling a barber's chair, with wide armrests, fitted with hasps and manacles.  Oberon's face is grim, a battle not to show trepidation as he is forced into the chair.  With his wrists bound before his body, he is helpless to fight as manacles lock his ankles in place, and an iron hoop is closed about his neck, to hold him firmly.

            I hold up the device in my hand, so he can see it.  "Do you know what this is, Oberon?"

            He nods.  A thumbscrew.

            So simple; little more than a couple of tiny iron bars on a threaded screw, which, when turned, closes the bars together.  It is no more than four inches wide, would weigh only an ounce.  And yet, as I'm sure Oberon knows, can be trusted to produce most effective results.

            I am so close that Oberon can smell my body's fragrance, his eyes flicking to the smooth bare skin of my shoulders and arms, then to my throat, finally returning to my eyes.  He swallows.  I have always known that he desires me, and now, to be naked and powerless in my presence, he is aroused.  I notice it in the slight stirring of the sleeping ogre between his thighs, the wavering of his gaze.

            But his arousal is about to be cruelly extinguished.

"Hold his arms," I order.

            As two guards grab Oberon's bound hands and pull them forward, grasping and twisting his hands so that his trembling thumbs are thrust out side by side, the disgraced Witchseeker General glares up at me.  "Be warned.  I will revisit every moment of this upon you, you scheming witch, and more besides!"

            "Whatever," I say, and fit the thumbscrew over his thumbs, pushing it beyond the knuckles.  It takes a half dozen full turns to close the iron snugly on; then I give another half-twist, and the little bars begin to squeeze.  Oberon scowls.  Another turn, and they crunch harder; one more turn, and Oberon jolts against his restraints, tries to pull his hands away from me.  The ends of his thumbs are already growing dark.

            I fix my eyes to his.  “This,” I tell him, “is going to hurt a lot.”

            I twist the screw again, and the thumbscrew compresses the bones of his thumbs.  Oberon sucks air through his teeth, and begins to shake.  Sweat suddenly appears across his brow.  I turn the screw slowly, now, knowing that every fractional increase in pressure brings intense pain.  Oberon grunts, his jaw tight, his cheek twitching.

            “What deal did you make with Daffy and Allielle?” I demand.  “Why did you let them live?  What of the mother and daughter you burnt?  What evidence is there that they were witches?  Who can verify that they were convicted?  What happened, when you questioned the daughter alone?  Talk, or suffer the consequences!”

            “Go to hell,” Oberon hisses through his pain.  I twist the screw, and he gives a gasp with the pain in his compressed thumbs.  A droplet of sweat slides down his face.  His naked shoulders and chest are shining.  “You can break my bones, it won’t make any difference!”

            “We’ll see about that,” I say, and turn the screw again.  Through a closed mouth, Oberon growls his reaction, enduring the agony.

            “Talk,” I demand.  “Tell me the truth!”

            “You don’t want the truth,” Oberon spits, “only what you want to hear.”

            “What of the three witches you arrested?” I demand.  "What happened, when you had them in your chamber?"

            “It's none of your fucking business,” Oberon grunts.

            “Let's make it my business!" I shout at him, and turn the screw.  There is a  crack from his right thumb, the sound of splitting bone, and Oberon barely stifles a shout of pain.  Composure, when it returns, takes all of his willpower.

            “Your time will come, Witch,” he sneers at me, though the sweat runs on his face.

            I can feel my anger rising, so I rise and turn away.  “Austin, secure him for the night.  We’ll resume this tomorrow.”

            The hasp is freed from around Oberon’s neck, the fetters from his ankles, and the guards wrench him up out of the chair.  With his wrists still bound and his thumbs agonisingly compressed by the thumbscrew, he stumbles with them, but when he sees the long suspension-chain that hangs from the ceiling, the heavy iron padlock dangling open on the end of it, he gives a shout of rage and anguish.

            “You bitch!  You sadistic goddamn bitch!”

            Flinching at the bone-deep pain that tortures his thumbs, Oberon struggles as the guards snap the hasp of the padlock through the middle of the thumbscrew.  Then Austin, at the winch, begins to wind in the chain.  Oberon gingerly allows his hands to be lifted up, the pain too intense for him to pull against it.  But he is only delaying the inevitable; as his arms are lifted higher, the strain begins to pull on his fractured thumb-bones, and the pain visibly hits him.

            Austin pauses the winch with Oberon’s arms stretched above his head.  He looks so helpless standing there; his face taut and shining with the battle to endure, tufts of hair in his armpits and a scattering across his bare chest, his nude body drawn and exposed.  His cock is a limp creature inviting the attention of my torture implements.  His belly shifts fast with shallow breaths.

            I draw close.  My eyes are at the level of his throat.  I put my hand to the firm plateau of his chest, stirring the hair with my fingers, looking up at him.  “How does it feel now, Witchseeker General?  To be as helpless as those women you tormented?”

            Oberon does not answer.  His eyes fix straight ahead, in an effort to ignore my proximity.  I smile, kiss my own fingertips and touch them to his tensed lips.  Finally, I step back and nod to Austin.  He hauls on the winch, the chain rattles in, and Oberon, by his own compressed thumbs, is drawn up onto his toes.  He grunts in pain; a moment later, his body stretches out, and he is raised up off the floor.  The pain is intense, and his head rocks back, a loud gasp of pain escaping him.

            “Oh – God!”  His feet kick, his toes automatically reaching for the floor; the pain of hanging by his thumbs is quite unbearable.  His body twists as Austin cranks him higher and higher.

            “We’ll give you some time to think on your predicament, now, Oberon,” I call up to him.  “Perhaps by morning you’ll be a little more cooperative.”

            Oberon gives no reply, only a grunt of pain; so, leaving two guards to watch over him, I lead the others from the torture chamber.

            As Oberon is left swinging and gasping, I wonder what thoughts are going through his mind - if indeed any can form amidst the constant roar of agony that will be shrieking through his thumbs and arms.  He must know that he will break; he has seen enough tongues loosened by my expertise.  Does anything but a dogged sense of stubbornness keep him from blurting out the truth?

            In the comfort of my chamber, I pour a chilled Chardonnay, switch on the monitor, and zoom the camera in on the suffering man.  His entire weight borne by two little iron bars crushed onto his thumbs, Oberon hangs, unable to remain still.  His head lifts and rocks, his feet pedal.  His taut body gleams with sweat, and his muscles are stark and pumped from his struggles.

            I am no sadist.  But beneath my blouse, I feel my nipples harden; I feel the unmistakable thrill between my thighs as I watch him.  The play of light across his body, the intensity of his expression.  It's not hard to see how, in the course of his duties, Oberon was seduced by the shining, writhing, suffering bodies of the young witches he had caught.

            Enough.  I switch off the  monitor, and turn to my paperwork.

 

            By morning, my monitor shows a different picture.  Oberon no longer struggles.  After hanging for twelve hours by his thumbs, he is exhausted by the pain.  Over his long hours suspended, the fiery lava of agony has spread, from his tormented thumbs, down through the muscles of his arms, the joints of his shoulders, down his back.  Ripples of pain that seem to gnaw along the bones, until he would shear his own arms from his body if he had the choice.  And while the agony is great, his ability to fight it has all but gone.  His head droops, his toes point loosely towards the flagstones below him.  His body, still oiled with sweat, is motionless.

            While the fallen Witchseeker General remains in agony, I take my time getting ready for the day ahead.  A long shower, shave my armpits and legs, wash my hair; then dress in a barely-there pink baby-doll dress with spaghetti straps, so damn short that if I do so much as shrug my shoulders, they'll know the colour of my panties.  Hell, it seems a shame not to flaunt legs as good as mine.

            I take my time over breakfast - a bowl of cereal and fresh fruit - then, just before seven, make my way down to the dungeon.  It's freezing cold, and for a moment I regret my choice of clothing as my nipples go high-beam through the dress.  But one must sometimes sacrifice comfort for image, and, suppressing shivers, I press on into the gloom.

            As I near the chamber, a whistle, from behind me.  “Check out those legs!  Baby!!”

            I look back over my shoulder with my brightest smile.  It is the mountainous shape of Austin, dressed in black, with leather fingerless gloves and a cloak to defend against the cold.  I am careful to accept his compliments graciously; they seem innocent enough, but always, in the back of my mind, I wonder what if?  What if, by a simple twist of fortune, it was me chained naked in a dank and lightless cell?   Austin has often spoken of his hunger to ‘play’ with the young witches in his care.

The thought makes me shudder.  I can feel his eyes on my bare shoulder blades, the nape of my neck, and as we reach the door to the torture chamber, I unconsciously clasp my own arms around my body.

“You must be cold,” Austin rumbles.

“I’m fine.  Really,” I tell him. 

            He opens the heavy iron door.

            There, in the orange-lit cavern of the torture chamber, hangs Oberon.  Naked, his toes two feet from the ground, his body shining and limp, like a carcass of meat.  His head droops onto his chest.  His ribcage is stark, his belly drawn and hollow.

            Two guards stand nearby.

            It is a relief to provide Austin with a distraction from my relative lack of clothing:  “Bring him down.  We shall resume as soon as the scribe gets here.”

            When the heavy winch turns, Oberon’s head lifts; his face is a picture of fatigue.  Dark circles beneath his eyes, creases in his cheeks.  He has chewed his own lips in his efforts not to scream out, and they are encrusted with blood.  When his bare toes hit the floor, he is too exhausted to stand, and slumps into the hands of the waiting guards.

            Austin releases the padlock from the thumbscrew, and Oberon is dragged bodily back to the interrogation chair.  He is far too weakened by his ordeal to attempt escape, but the iron hasp is fastened around his neck regardless, his ankles shackled to the base of the chair.  Austin grasps the rope that still binds Oberon's wrists and jerks his arms forward, presenting the wretched man’s tortured thumbs to me.

            They are a hideous sight.  Black, grotesquely swollen, the slim iron bars of the thumbscrew all but buried in the turgid flesh.  The swelling from cracked bones has only heightened the agony of the screws; and I can see that the tendons through his wrists are swollen from the unaccustomed strain of his own bodyweight.

            Bending in front of him, I grasp  the thumbscrew, and twist it about, wrenching his crushed thumbs.  Oberon gives a yelp, a flood of adrenaline making him jolt, his eyes flying wide.  He sees me as if for the first time, and a flicker of despair crosses his exhausted face.  But then he averts his eyes and clenches his teeth.

            “You look rested,” I remark with sarcasm.

Oberon’s head shakes.  “You evil bitch,” he rasps.  “Goddamn you.”

            “Oh, come now, Oberon.  A hardcore advocate of torture such as yourself should be impressed by my technique!”

            “You can go to hell.”

            I wrench his thumbs about again, and this time Oberon gives a grunt of pain, all but breaking his neck on the iron hasp in his twisting reflex.

            “Yes, it hurts.  There is much I can do to you,” I say grimly.  “and whether you like it or not, you will answer my questions truthfully.”

            “The scribe has arrived,” Austin says, from behind and above me.

            Releasing Oberon’s tortured thumbs, I straighten and turn to address the approaching scribe.  “You can begin your notes with this: the idiot still refuses to talk."  I glance at Austin.  "Take that thing off his thumbs.  It's a waste of time."

            Oberon winces as the thumbscrew is loosened.  The cracked bones shift, the circulation floods back into his blue-black thumbs.  He tries to move them, but the pain is too great, and he simply lets his bound hands drop into his lap.

            I say, "there is no option but to proceed to the next stage of torture.  Take him to the rack.”

            "Goddamn you, bitch!"  As the fetters are removed from Oberon's neck and ankles, a mixture of anger and panic enters his voice.  He has seen the rack work its terrible persuasion many times, and I know that he is afraid of what it will do.

            For that matter, so am I.  I don’t know how resilient he will be.

            As Oberon is dragged across the torture chamber, he puts up a fight; but he is weak from hanging for so long, and it is easy for the guards and Austin to lift Oberon onto the mighty bed of wood.  Iron manacles are fastened about his ankles and his wrists, until he lies on his back, limbs stretched out, naked and exposed.

            When he is secured, I stand alongside the rack and look down at him.  I make sure my eyes show every bit of the gloating triumph I feel.  This is a game, and I have won; I want to savour my victory, I want him to feel the sting of his defeat.  That was the purpose of dressing the way I did, today.  I want Oberon to see me as a goddess; beautiful, desirable, sexual, and yet all-powerful and merciless.  He wants me as much as he fears me.  The dress I'm wearing is so short, Oberon can see the tops of my bare thighs, the skirt flirting against the light tan of my skin.  I lift my hair back from my face with both hands; raising my arms accentuates my breasts in their light embrace of pink.

            I make sure Oberon is looking directly into my eyes as I tell Austin, "torture him."

            Standing at the foot of the rack, Austin takes hold of the wheel and turns.  The heavy axle groans and rattles, drawing in chain, and, by the ankles, Oberon's body is shifted on the wood.  I am smiling as I watch his limbs straighten and pull into place, the manacles bedding against his hands and feet, the chains drawing taut.

            Austin heaves.  The roller turns.  The chains wind in.  Oberon is pulled tight … and then a little tighter … and then a little tighter still.

            I hold up my hand, and Austin stops.

            "I'm tired of asking you, Oberon," I tell him.  "We both know you've been corrupt all this time.  We both know you've been abusing your power; to fuck helpless women, then burn them.  Frankly, I already have enough evidence to chop your head off tomorrow if I want.  But I still want to hear it from your own mouth.  I'm going to make you say it.  You're also going to tell me where Daffy and Allielle are; and the moment your headless corpse has stopped twitching, I'm going to burn them both at the stake, the way they should have burned months ago."

            Oberon is utterly helpless.  I can see it in his eyes.  He knows that suffering is inevitable, and yet he is too proud to give in.  "You can shove it up your ass, witch.  I'll never talk."

            I put my hands on my hips.  "So be it.  Austin; stretch him."

            Austin heaves on the wheel, and the roller turns again.  This time, as the great, creaking machine stretches Oberon's body, he winces.  Another notch, and I see his belly draw hollow, his ribcage lifting as the strain builds.  One more notch, and he gives a soft grunt.  I can see that every muscle is rigid in a battle to defy the power of the rack.

            "Hold it," I tell Austin.  "Scribe, note that we will now pause for a time.  We return in four hours to resume the questioning."

            "Goddamn you," Oberon groans.

            When it comes to the rack, Oberon probably has more experience in its use than I.  He has wrested the truth from many unfortunate witches with its slow persuasion.  But I know he has never before suffered on it.

            I have.

            So I know, as I watch from the monitor in my office along the passageway, exactly what Oberon is suffering as he lies there, an hour after being put upon it.  And, contrary to what one might assume, the first torment of the rack is nothing more than fatigue.

But what exquisite, overwhelming fatigue.  Being stretched is not something the human body willingly accepts, and the automatic response is to resist the stretch, to take any strain off the ligaments and joints by tensing the muscles.  The consequence of relaxing the muscles is immediate pain, a hot, burning sensation that seems to flash along the very bones.  It is deeply unpleasant.  So the muscles tense again.

            I can see that tension now in Oberon's legs.  His arms, exhausted from a night spent hanging in the thumbscrews, have already lost the battle.  But his thighs and calves are taut with the effort to stave off the growing ache deep in his knees and hips; the muscles of his belly are tight as he tries to avoid the flashes of hot pain along his spine.

            It is a battle he will lose.  He knows it as well as I.  And he knows that I am watching  him as his strength ebbs and he begins to weaken.  Cramps spear through his body, accompanied by the burning of ligaments as they protest the strain placed on them.  Sweat begins to show on his bare skin, and his fingernails dig into his palms in an effort to endure silently.

            But as the hours pass, I find myself watching the clock on the wall, increasingly nervous.  I can feel sweat under my arms.  There are butterflies in my stomach.  This is more than just another interrogation.  I have taken on the Witchseeker General, the most powerful man the movement has known.  Everything I do will come under scrutiny; and if I make a mistake, the consequences will be more than just a public caning.  It will be torture - most likely, I will be tortured to death.

            I must not fail.  I must break Oberon.

            Another glance at the monitor.  Spreadeagled, stretched, naked.  Exhausted and suffering.  And yet, he still looks powerful.  Still has not let go of his composure.  Still has his pride.

            I hug myself against the cold, and the deeper chill of doubt.

            The time finally comes, and Austin's tap on my door signals our return to the task.  Wearing the strongest face of confidence I can muster, I lead Austin, the scribe, and two guards in a return to the torture chamber, where Oberon still lies, taut and shining with sweat, upon my rack.

            "I hope you've finally seen sense," I say coolly.  "Tell me what I need to know, and it will go no further.  You'll be able to walk, instead of being dragged, to your execution."

            Oberon's chest shifts rapidly.  His face shows the strain of long hours of pain.  But his voice is steady.  "I have nothing to say to you, witch."

            "Then let this loosen your tongue!" I snarl, and, moving to the wheel at the foot of the rack, crank it over.  I have to haul with all of my weight against the resistance of Oberon's muscle and sinew; the roller turns, the ratchet clicks three times, and Oberon's exhausted body is truly stretched.  But despite the agony that must explode along his limbs, he makes no sound at all.

            I force another notch, and his head rocks back as his body is stretched fractionally further, but still he says nothing. 

            A fifth notch, and I can hear the creaking of his joints as the rack does its terrible work.  Oberon grunts, his teeth clenched, but does not cry out.  I watch in disbelief.  I can see the tension in his body, his hands crunched down into the iron manacles, his feet the same.  His muscles are stark and defined, although not an ounce of strength remains.  The strain must feel like red hot coals bedded in his joints and along his bones, and most victims would be screaming.

            Oberon gives the softest grunt, but refuses to cry out.

            Now I'm the one sweating.  I look up at Austin.  "Take the wheel," I say, and move again to stand alongside the rack, looking down at the drawn Oberon with disdain.  "Talk, or it gets worse."

            Oberon moves his lips.  It takes a moment for him to find the strength to speak, and I realise that he genuinely is in agony, but bearing it incredibly well.  "I'm not one of your hysterical victims, Smart," he hisses through clenched teeth.  "Do what you will."

            Goddamn you, I will!  "Austin, rack him two more notches."

            The rack creaks and groans like an old ship, and Oberon's taut body stretches again.  With the second click of the ratchet, I hear deep popping sounds from his spine, and he draws breath with a gasp, another groan escaping his throat.

            "You're too old for this, Oberon," I tell him.  "This veneer of bravery will only get you into more and more agony, until you beg me to stop - but by then it will be too late."

            "Fuck you," Oberon gasps.

            "Fine."  I shrug.  "We'll play it your way.  Austin, another notch."

            I am sure I catch a momentary look of panic in Oberon's eyes; then the roller groans over another notch, and his jaw clenches as the grassy creaks of stretching ligaments and tendons signal a new height of agony.  But still he doesn't scream.

            I feel a droplet of sweat slide down my spine. 

            How many more notches can I give him before I have played my entire hand?  Do I start instead with the hot irons?  But they might send him into shock, give him a heart attack?  Nothing would make me look more incompetent than for him to die under torture.

            Could that be his intention?

            I suddenly feel lost.  For all my years of experience, I feel helpless and fragile.  What am I thinking, standing here in my little-girl dress, threatening the Witchseeker General?  Breaking witches is one thing, but Oberon seems beyond my abilities.

            I could grab the needle-nosed pliers and tear out his toenails!  But compared to the agony he is already feeling, they would be mere bee-stings.  I have no choice but to continue, to call his bluff, and to hope and pray that he is only one more notch away from breaking.

            "Again," I tell Austin.

            The wheel turns, and Oberon releases his breath with a hiss as another fraction of an inch is wrested from his tormented frame.  Again I hear the creaks and groans of his ligaments and muscles as they near breaking point.  The sweat sits in fat droplets over his skin, runs from his furrowed brow.  His jaw is so tight I half expect his teeth to break.

            But still no scream.

            Now I'm the one losing my composure; I realise I have been pushing my hands through my hair in growing agitation, and it is a mess.  There are growing sweat-circles in my dress, beneath my arms.  I am chewing my lip and glancing at the scribe and guards, who are also becoming restless.  Only Austin, the patient giant, seems unaffected.

            "Another notch?" he asks.

            What do I do?  Another notch?  Or give the rack time to do its work? 

            "No.  We will adjourn, and return in an hour."  I lean over Oberon, and grasp his face in my hand.  Even that seems a feeble gesture; my hand so small against the strong shape of his jaw.  "When we return, I promise, you will scream for me.  I will pull your joints apart, one by one, and laugh as you beg for mercy."

            "I won't give you the pleasure," Oberon snarls through his pain.

            I turn away quickly, and signal for Austin and the scribe to follow.

 

            I stand on the balcony of my room, looking out over the open space below.  The large amphitheatre, which Oberon himself commissioned, to accommodate the ever-growing audiences at witch-burnings.  I can see the scaffold, on which hangings and whippings and Kathy Linyd's gruesome breaking-on-the-wheel have all been carried out.  Nearby, the great circle of scorched earth, where so many witches have screeched in the flames.  I fill my lungs with the fresh outside air, exhaling the bitterness of fear and angst.

            It's all in my head.  Oberon is a master of mind games.  Somehow he has found the energy and the strength to hold back his screams, for one reason only.  He wants me to lose my nerve.  And he almost succeeded.

            Slowly, calmness returns, and with it, resolve.  I will not be defeated.  He is just a man, and like every man, he has his breaking point.  I will find it.  I will hear him beg for mercy.  And I will have his confession.

            It is with a new calmness and resolve that I return to my office in the dungeons.  The goddess again, sexy and aloof, calculating and ruthless.  I quietly write up my report on Oberon's questioning.

            From time to time I glance at the monitor, and I can see that Oberon is suffering.

            I can see his head turning from side to side.  I can see the constant shine of sweat.  I can see the occasional spasms of his belly as he chokes his own cries of pain.  Let him suffer, I think to myself.  Let every minute feel like an hour; when the torture resumes, he won't be so defiant.

            I make my return to the dungeon with confidence and energy.  Austin and the scribe are again with me, and, this time, the Witchseekers' physician.

            "It is time to bring your naïve game to an end, Oberon," I say dangerously.  "Talk, or suffer the consequences."

            The stretched, creaking man on the rack turns his head, although his eyes seem to have lost their focus.  His lips are bloodied and cracked.  His hands and feet are dark, almost blue with strangled circulation; his naked body is hideously tight, spread, vulnerable.  He looks wretched.

            "Fuck … you …" he whispers hoarsely.

            I put my hands on my hips.  "Ha!  Still defiant!  Austin, give him another notch."

            Austin puts his big hands on the lever, and hauls.  The roller shifts, and as Oberon stretches, I hear a familiar squeak from his left shoulder.  A moment later, there is a deep and muted crack and the entire joint shifts violently, his body skewing slightly on the rack and his arm visibly lengthening.  Oberon's head tips back, and he groans,

            "Oh - God!!"

            For a moment, I think he is going to scream.  But somehow he stifles it, even as the increased tension now rips his right shoulder out of joint.  Crack!  Austin rotates the roller a fraction to take up the extra length, putting terrible strain on Oberon's agonised ligaments.  His armpits are up around his ears.  Fresh sweat beads up across his face, his jaw trembles, and he makes soft grunting sounds.  But no scream.

            I lean close to him.  "You're coming apart, old man.  It's over.  Talk!"  I grasp his arm and rock it from side to side, agitating the dislocated bone and twisting his torn muscles.  Again, the barely-stifled groans and whimpers, quick and shallow breaths hissing through his nostrils, but Oberon refuses to break.

            "Another notch," I tell Austin.  "Make it slow."

            Austin pulls on the wheel again, and as the roller shifts, I hear creaking from all along Oberon's spine.  The agony must be terrible, like red hot hooks tearing deep into his flesh.  Now I hear the warning sounds of his hips and elbows nearing dislocation.  Oberon groans.

            "Can you feel it?  Your body, tearing apart?  Don't think this is as bad as it gets?  Once your joints are dislocated it is a hundred times worse!  But I can stretch you further, and further."

            Oberon is fighting not to scream.  Somehow, through his rapid gasping for breath, he manages to force a single word:  "Witch!"

            "Austin, another notch!"

            As the roller turns, Oberon's left hip pops from its joint with a nauseating sound.  His belly gives a spasm with the shock of agony, and he lets out another groan, his eyes squeezing tightly shut, and his mouth opening in a silent gasp.  I watch as his right hip-bone is wrenched from its socket, his leg extending visibly.  Austin is quick to rotate the roller and accommodate the dislocation, sending fresh shards of white-hot pain through Oberon's lower body.

            I fix my hand in Oberon's hair, forcing his head around so that I am staring straight down into his watering eyes.  His lids are fluttering, his face is pale.

            "You can bite down on your screams, but you can't hide your pain from me, Oberon.  I am breaking you.  It's over."

            Oberon gives no reply.  There is not even any sign that he has heard me.  His mouth is still open, and I realise that his breathing has become a faint snuffling sound.  There are flecks of foam on his lips.

            "Kirsten," the physician warns.

            I feel my frustration return.  "I know!  I know … dammit … he's not getting any air!"

            Oberon has been stretched so tightly, his diaphragm can barely shift.  He is suffocating on the rack, right before our eyes.  For a moment, I feel a surge of rage; I want to tell Austin to turn the lever, to pull the bastard apart.  Instead, I let his head drop, and say, "okay, enough.  Loosen him."

            Austin releases the tension on the rack, and Oberon gasps breath, his belly and ribcage heaving again.  Quickly, the physician directs several of the guards to help guide Oberon's joints back into place, as, notch by notch, the stretching eases.

            It takes fifteen minutes to fully unwind the roller.  When it is done, Oberon lies limp like a rag doll, exhausted, wet with sweat, his joints already swelling from the racking.  He coughs, almost vomits, still breathing hard.  Hours of torture on the rack, and not a single scream.

            "Bring him," I tell the guards.  "We're not done yet."

            I catch the eye of the physician, who sends me a warning look.  But to give Oberon time to recover would be to give him strength to resist.  As the manacles are removed from his bruised and grazed wrists, I tell the guards to bring him to the torture frame.

            It is iron, made of cris-crossed iron palings, like a garden trellis, eight feet square, suspended on chains from the ceiling so that it can be angled to suit my needs.  There is a shackle-and-chain at each corner, which can be tightened by screws, like tuning a guitar.  Too weak and in too much pain to resist, Oberon is laid spreadeagled on the frame, shackled to it.  The chains are tightened until his ruined joints are again put under agonising strain; his feet are a yard-and-a-half apart, his wrists similar.

            In all this time, Oberon has not said a word.  Secured, he lies on the hard iron frame, his chest still heaving. 

            "I don't know, Oberon," I say, as I sort through the implements I have prepared.  "Maybe you're a masochist.  Or at least too damn proud for your own good."

            "Give up already," Oberon finally groans.  "You won't break me."

            "We'll see."

            My selection is a device employed by Tina with great effect on the unfortunate Bubba: the ball-crusher.  Two opposing, slightly-concave spoons which can be clamped together with the turn of a handsomely engraved screw. In the middle of each spoon are two spikes, about half an inch long.

            My preference is always to avoid such gross methods of torture.  But Oberon has left me no choice.  It is among the most psychologically distressing to a man, but seldom fatal, unlike the pear.  I regard his limp cock, soft and vulnerable in its nest of hair, and the delicate eggs of his balls hiding beneath.

            With gentle fingers, I take one warm, round orb between my fingers and thumb, and Oberon jolts in surprise at my touch.  When I close the cold, heavy iron of the first crusher over his ball and begin to tighten the screw, he gives a whimper.  He is unable to struggle or writhe, but his head lifts, and for the first time, I see fear on his face.

            "What … are you doing?"

            "If you're so fucking tough, let's see how you enjoy having the juice squeezed, little by little, out of your lemons!"

            "Oh God - no!"

            I think, for a moment, he is being sarcastic, expressing mock dread.  But as I compress the second crusher onto his other ball and twist the screw, just enough for the spikes to lightly press on his testicle, he gives another wail of horror.  "Stop!"

            "Not a chance," I say, and twist the screw.  The cups close, the spikes probe and the pain leaps from his squashing ball.  Oberon's eyes bulge and he gives a shout.

            "No, dammit, no!  Stop, please, stop!"

            I look up at him.  "Are you … begging me?"

            "Yes!  Kirsten, I'm begging you!"  Oberon's face is twisted in horror and nausea.  Fresh sweat floods his face.  He is pale.  His fingers claw uselessly beyond the manacles that hold him stretched; he is trying to see down between his legs, where the crushers hug his testicles like iron clams.  "Oh god, please, don't turn the screw!"         

            I give a laugh of delight.  "You mean - like this?"  I twist the screw, and as the spikes push cruelly on either side of his testicle, Oberon gives a long shout of terror.

            "I'll talk!  I'll talk!  Anything!"

            I glance over my shoulder.  "Scribe, are you getting all this?"

            "Yes, Miss Kirsten."

            I lean forward, and tink-tink-tink with my fingernails on the iron surface of the ball crusher.  "Go on, then, Oberon.  I'm listening."

            "I admit it!  They weren't all witches!  Oh God, take it off, please!"

            "Not yet.  Keep talking."

            Oberon nods frantically.  "Okay!  Some of them were witches, but some weren't … at least, I wasn't sure … we suspected …"

            "What did you do to them?"

            "Anything I wanted!  It was so easy," Oberon says.  "They would do anything to avoid torture.  That mother-and-daughter … I burned the mother … then promised the daughter freedom, if she would have sex with me!"

            "And then you burned her anyway?"

            "She knew too much!  She had to burn!"

            The truth is sickening.  I press on.  "The women in the dungeon now?"

            "Suspected of dabbling in witchcraft," Oberon says.  "I was going to question them privately."

I sigh.  "And so … to Daffy and Allielle?"

            Oberon's head falls back.  "I let them live, in exchange for their services."

            I feel my lip curl in disdain.  "'Services?'"

            "They gave themselves to me, as sexual slaves, in return for my protection.  Please, take those things off me!"

            "Not yet," I say.  "Tell me about Wendy."

            "I made the same deal with her.  We decided to burn her cousin in her place."

            "What about Stacy Sambilay?"

            "I tried … I offered to save her from interrogation … but she wasn't interested.  Please, Kirsten, please, take them off!"

            I would, but this is just too good.  After quite literally making me sweat in fear of failure, the mighty Oberon has been undone by a single nut.  I have absolute power over him, it is right at my fingertips.  I gently agitate the turnscrew of one crusher, so that he can feel the spikes digging into the sides of his ball.  "Can you direct my men to Daffy and Allielle?"

            "Yes," Oberon gasps.  The hair beneath his arms is soaked with the cold sweat of absolute terror; his eyes are huge.  "Oh God, yes … anything …"

            "You will ratify and sign your confession?"

            "Yes, I swear!"

            I pause.  Tempted.  Do you think I'm sexy? I could ask.  Or, who is the Witchseeker General now, bitch?  I could make him fawn and beg and degrade himself, simply for my own enjoyment.  But in truth, my work is done.  He has broken, he has confessed.

            I loosen the crushers.  "Return him to his cell.  Give him food and water.  Then take his full confession, and make sure he signs it."

            As I stand, Austin gives me a congratulatory smile.  I smile back - then, despite my reservations, give the big man a hug.

 

            If today had theme music, it would be military drums.

            Although there is no real threat to the current Witchseeker leadership, armed guards in camouflage patrol the Chateau grounds, many more in the surrounding woods, marksmen posted on the roof.  A helicopter thunders overhead, flying the grounds' perimeter, scanning with infra-red and radar for any sign of witches seeking to rescue their doomed sisters.  Not that any of the guards will see any action: the seething crowd has come for one thing only.  To watch Oberon and his two satanic concubines burn.

            The first two rows of the huge crowd are people with a special interest in this day.  They are the relatives of the innocent women abducted, tortured, raped and burned at the stake by Oberon.  Husbands, mothers, brothers and sisters.  Also here are the families of those unfortunate innocents who were burned in place of Daffy and Allielle.  Oberon claimed the victims were witches; but they were never questioned, never given trials.

            In the raised ground at the centre of the amphitheatre, the instruments of execution have been assembled.  Three wooden X's – Saint Andrews crosses – already fitted with manacles.  A large brazier, from which bristles long-handled irons and pokers.  A sturdy table, on which are laid various pincers, crushers and screws, mallets and iron bars; instruments of torture ready for use.

            Behind the crosses is a large bonfire-pile of wood and straw, with three tall stakes erected at its centre.  Chains are laid ready nearby.

            It is a nice day; only a small breeze, and the sun is shining.  I am wearing my black camisole top and black skirt, the executioner's colours; although with the option of a red blazer if the chill should get too much.  After all, this isn't a day of mourning, but one of celebration.

            I stand on the scaffold, thirty feet from the waiting crosses and stakes, ready to make my address.  For the first time, a microphone has been set up so that I don't have to strain my voice to be heard by the several thousand spectators.

            On time, the execution party emerges from the Chateau.  Word quickly travels through the crowd and voices rise into the afternoon air.  Twenty guards, led by Zell, Austin, and Steve, in grey cloaks with hoods.  Kelley skips alongside them, in a breast-plumping corset and side-split skirt, a coiled whip in her hand.  Shuffling in chains are three naked figures; Oberon, Daffy, and Allielle.  Seeing their approach, a chorus of boos and hissing rises up from the crowd, jeers and taunts hurled and screamed at them. The voices of the bereaved are the most fierce as the condemned trio shuffle towards their execution site.

Oberon is first, his hands shackled behind him, more fetters about his ankles, the short chain restricting him to small steps.  Behind comes Daffy, and then Allielle, their wrists also manacled behind their backs.

            Oberon looks the worst for wear.  For all his posturing and bravado while locked in his cell, he looks a broken man already, with his thinning hair and sagging posture.  I almost feel sorry for him; but a scream rises from the amphitheatre towards which he shuffles.  I look, and see a woman in one of the forward rows of seating, dressed in black, clutching her own hair and shrieking in grief and rage at the man who had raped and burned her daughter.  The girl had not been a witch, but an innocent young woman whose body had caught Oberon's attention and stirred his lust.

            Behind Oberon is the young auburn-haired witch Daffy.  Susannah is her true name; she is slim and petite and beautiful, and it's easy to see why Oberon, in his lascivious frenzy of torture, murder and sex, decided to spare her life.  Even condemned to death and about to suffer the terrible agonies of the stake, hands manacled behind her back, there is a haughtiness to her walk.

            Behind Daffy, Allielle is a gorgeous redhead, full-breasted.  She is statuesque and long-limbed; and it is only through dire threats and manipulation that Oberon could ever have had a woman such as her.

            The condemned are led to the scaffold.  At the foot of the steps, Oberon briefly looks up; seeing me, and immediately behind me, the gallows from which Tina's corpse twitched its last, just one week ago.  A snarl of defiance twists his features, and as the guards try to guide him up the wooden steps, he throws himself backwards, trying to twist away.

            "I won't go down without a fight, you bitch!" he shouts.  "Damn you all!"

            The guards are quick to catch his bound arms, seize his legs; and, held struggling by four men, Oberon is physically carried up to the scaffold.  The crowd mocks and jeers as Oberon twists and curses.  Daffy and Allielle climb the steps sullenly, holding on to their dignity for at least a little while longer.

            On the scaffold, the three are made to kneel along its forward edge, hands still behind them, naked, facing the crowd.  It is an exercise in sheer public humiliation, to be openly displayed as captives, presented as one might show off a new piece of art.  It is an open invitation for everyone to ogle the bodies of the two women in particular, and many in the crowd have binoculars.

            Allielle and Daffy have no choice but to kneel in shame as thousands discuss their bodies; the size and shape of their breasts and nipples, the shape of their thighs or hips or arms, the firmness of their bellies.  Denied the luxury of razors or even bathing for weeks now, both women's pubic and underarm hair has grown unchecked, only adding to their humiliation.

            The attention is not solely on the two young women, however.  Oberon, too, is laughed and jeered at.  Forced to kneel naked, he too is on show.  Warranted or not, insults are hurled at the insignificance of his flaccid penis, his dangling balls.  I know, as Oberon does too, that soon it will not only be words that batter his precious manhood.

            I can't resist the opportunity to bend close to Oberon, so that only he can hear my words.  With my lips next to his ear, I say, "how does it feel, baby?  Today I am going to have you killed.  I'm going to watch as you die … and I'm going to relish every moment of it."

            Oberon doesn't react, so I return to my place by the microphone.  I couldn't resist it; it has been a game of taunts, and I want him to know that I am the one with power over him.  I am the one who will be victorious when this day is over.

            When Zell, Austin, Steve and Kelley have taken their places on the scaffold, when the guards are standing watch, and when the crowd has had its fill of ogling and abusing, I step close to the microphone.

            "Hello," I try, and my voice echoes across the Chateau grounds, chased by a small squeal of feedback.  An expectant silence settles.  "… Ladies and Gentlemen, Witchseekers one and all … today isn't just another execution.  Today, we end the evil curse that has plagued the Witchseekers group, and welcome the beginning of a new era!"

            There is a cheer, but I hold up my hands for silence.  "For many of you, I know it will have seemed as if the Witchseekers group was falling apart at the seams; but the truth is that we are now stronger than ever.  Today, the last of the corruption will have been purged forever, and we will be able to focus on the one true purpose: witch hunts!"

            An even bigger cheer.

            "Let me remind you why these three are to burn today.  First, Oberon.       On May 29^th, he burned an innocent woman at the stake, claiming that she was the witch Daffy; on June 6^th, another innocent woman burned in the place of the witch Allielle.  In a betrayal to all decent men and women, both witches had been spared, in return for becoming sex slaves of the vile Oberon.

            "On July 6^th, on July 12^th, and on many other occasions, innocent women were arrested, forced into sexual submission, and then burned at the stake for Oberon's perverted pleasures.  While the rest of us tried to rid the world of evil, Oberon spawned it."

            As I read the charges, the crowd react with boos, hisses, shouts like burn him! and cut off his balls! 

            "After she had been 'recaptured' after her supposed execution, Wendy Satin gave evidence not only that Oberon had spared Daffy and Allielle, but that he had made the same promise to her; and hence Wendy's own innocent cousin had been put to death by fire in her place.

            "For these crimes and others too many in number to mention, by the power vested in me as Witchseeker General, I sentence Oberon to be given fifty strokes of the whip, then to be tied upon the St Andrews Cross, where he shall be branded with hot iron, before those who lost their loved ones to him will be allowed to wreak their retribution upon his flesh."

            There is another cheer.  In front of me, kneeling on the scaffold, I see Oberon's shoulders slump as the reality of the horror ahead sinks in.

            "For their crimes as Witches, and for their complicity with Oberon, I sentence Daffy and Allielle to be given thirty strokes of the whip each, then branded, then given over to the relatives of those they betrayed."  Another cheer.  The three kneel motionless, their faces down; but I know that their hearts are pounding, their bellies churning with fear at the hideous torments that are about to begin upon their flesh.

"Finally, when the punishments have all been carried out, all three will burn alive at the stake."

The crowd roars approval, and as I step back from the microphone, I nod to Zell that the punishments may now begin.  By three guards, Oberon is hauled up onto his feet, spun around to face the rope that dangles from the gallows.  It takes only moments to release his hands from behind him, but bind them again in front of his body to the suspending-rope.  Austin and a guard draw on the gallows rope, so that Oberon's arms are drawn upwards, higher and higher; stretched over his head, until he can barely stand on the tips of his toes.

I move to where he can see me.  His face is taut with strain and fear, flanked by his own upstretched arms and the tufts of hair in his armpits, his chest inflated with the stretch in his body.  I smile and poke my tongue at him.

It is Kelley who takes up the whip; with a flourish and a flick of her long hair, she stands behind the condemned man, measures the distance, then throws the whip forward.  It snaps across his flesh with a sound like an axe hitting wood.  Oberon is thrown off balance by the impact, and gives a shriek of pain.  A bright red mark scores his pale flesh, quickly punctuated by beads of blood, and Kelley whips him again.

Each stroke of the whip must feel like the touch of red-hot iron, a savage and intense pain, and lash after lash falls on Oberon's undefended flesh, as he twists and writhes on the end of the rope like a hooked fish.  He yelps and squeals as the lash curls about his torso, snaps at his naked buttocks, flicks tiny chunks of flesh from his body. 

            Kelley's pretty face is set in concentration, but her eyes shine with sheer pleasure at the task she has been assigned; Oberon tried to rape her, also, and this is her vengeance.  She circles him where he hangs helpless, making sure the whip's heavy lash smashes across his belly, his chest; cutting his nipples and digging welts under his arms, about his thighs.  With shouts and squeals of pain, Oberon tries to pick his knees up to protect himself; but Kelley simply snaps the lash lower, catching him across the buttocks.

            One such blow snags the dangling sack of his scrotum, nearly tearing it off as the whip is pulled free, and Oberon's scream is hideous.  His white flesh is now a cris-crossing mass of red and bleeding welts; blood runs with sweat on his body as he twists about in pain and humiliation.  Even Daffy and Allielle, kneeling nearby, have been splashed by tiny droplets of Oberon's blood.

            There is no danger that Oberon will receive any fewer than the full fifty lashes; the crowd makes sure of that, counting each stroke as it lands.  Kelley's skin shines with a glow of perspiration as she works her way around him for the third or fourth time, whipping him hard, whipping him cruelly.  If she could kill him with the lash, she would.

            But finally, it is done.  The whip slides back, leaving a smear of blood on the scaffold.  Oberon hangs with his head forward on his chest, his body running with bloody rivulets of sweat, exhausted and moaning.

            "Bring him down," Zell orders, "secure him on the cross for the branding."

            The wretch who called me Usurper is loosened from the gallows, and his heaving body drops to the scaffold floor.  He is scooped up roughly, and dragged down the steps, while the crowd yells and taunts him.

            Allielle is next.  The curvaceous redhead is sobbing as they reach for her, drag her to the gallows rope.  Her wrists are tightly bound, and then the rope is drawn in, until her body hangs several inches off the scaffold.  Zell accepts the blood-warmed whip from Kelley, stands ready, then throws the first lash.

            The whip sends a ripple through Allielle's flesh as it strikes her mid-back, the air is flung from her lungs with a shriek, and the crowd cheers.  Zell aims the second blow to cross the first, laying it across vulnerable flesh.  Soon, the thwack! of the whip and Allielle's screams resound in tortured rhythm across the amphitheatre.

            Below, Oberon has been secured to the X-shape of the St Andrews Cross; his arms shackled high, his legs outstretched, and his toes some inches from the ground.  His cock and balls hang down in the air, as vulnerable as cherries on the lowest branch of the tree.  He seems lost in his own private hell, oblivious to the ongoing begging and shrieking of Allielle as she is whipped senseless.

            Zell pays particular attention to Allielle's breasts; full and sexy, they make easy targets, and each lash makes them jiggle and jump, angry red lines like razor-scores across them.  As her breasts are whipped, Allielle loses all control, and pisses herself; a steaming dribble winds down her swinging legs, to spread in a puddle across the scaffold.  She shrieks in pain, while the tears of humiliation course down her reddened cheeks.

            When Allielle has received her thirty lashes, she is lowered, unbound, and dragged away to the St Andrews crosses for further torture.

            "Please, please, I beg you, kill me now!" she screams.

If I had the choice, I would execute her swiftly, mercifully; a blow of the axe to sever her neck, or a few minutes' swinging from the gallows.  I did not choose to become Witchseeker General; it was forced upon me, and contrary to the claims of those who oppose me, I do not relish others' suffering.   Except perhaps Oberon's.  Besides, examples must be made, and these three have to be properly punished for their crimes.  Allielle will not be granted mercy, and I say nothing as she is dragged to the X-frame and shackled to it.

            Daffy is secured for the whip, her toes just brushing the scaffold.  This time it is Austin's task, and he takes the whip eagerly from Zell.  Daffy, slender, petite, her auburn hair falling over her face as she hangs beneath the gallows pole by her wrists, is barely into her twenties.  She should be flirting with boys at the mall, or out clubbing, enjoying her youth.  Instead, she is living a nightmare, as the big man behind her takes a swing at her thighs with the heavy lash.

            Even Daffy, a powerful witch, cannot stop herself from screaming out with the pain of the whip, and it falls again and again on her body, scoring her flesh with savage lines, tearing her skin and leaving sweat-diluted streaks of blood down her ribcage.  Her breasts are small and high, but that makes them a challenge for Austin, and he shows frightening expertise, snapping at them with the heavy braided lash, drawing welts and blood with the dozen blows he lands.

            Other strokes of the whip land across her belly, her ribcage, her back, her buttocks.  Daffy twists and jerks, hanging by her wrists, shrieking with pain as the two before her also did; but she, too, is helpless, and when the thirty lashes have been given, she hangs sobbing and bloodied.

            She is dropped from the whipping-rope, and dragged down to join her fellow condemned, fastened spreadeagled to the third and final cross.

            "Let their condemned flesh be branded in their most secret places, as punishment for their fornication," I announce into the microphone, and the crowd gives a cheer of approval.

            Oberon is on the centremost cross; Allielle on his right, Daffy to his left.  It is Austin who draws out the first heavy branding iron, and goes without hurry to Allielle.

            "I beg you, please, no!" Allielle shrieks as he nears.  The brand trails smoke in the air.  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry for everything!" But she is spreadeagled and helpless, and no amount of tugging on the shackles that hold her wrists and ankles will break her free.  She stares in abject horror as the iron is brought close.  I know she would give anything in the world to escape this awful moment, but it has been decided that she must suffer, so she will suffer.

            The crowd cheers as Austin presses the phallus-shaped iron up between Allielle's legs.  Her red pubic hair smokes and singes as the red-hot iron burns into her vulva and clitoris, and Allielle bucks and shrieks and howls in agony on the cross.  She flings her head from side to side, the sweat appearing in fat droplets over her entire body as smoke curls gracefully up over her pubic mound from between her outstretched thighs.

            When the iron is withdrawn, smoking with the charred residue of her flesh, Allielle goes limp, her head hanging forward.  Austin returns the brand to the brazier, drawing out another instead.  This time, he goes to Daffy.

            As he does, Zell takes another tool from the brazier.  A great iron claw, sharp and glowing hooks on a heavy pincer-like implement.  The breast-ripper is hideous in name, and even more hideous in its application.  Invisible dust particles in the air crackle against the red-hot iron as Zell carries the device to Allielle.

            Austin pushes the red-hot branding iron up between Daffy's legs.  Daffy gives a terrible scream of agony as she is violated by the burning metal.  Austin twists and thrusts the brand, sending tiny skittering flames through Daffy's pubic hair, her sensitive flesh sizzling like pork on a barbecue.  He is all but fucking her with the iron, and she strains every muscle against her restraints, pumping her hips in a desperate effort to escape the torture.

            Her screams are suddenly echoed by Allielle's, as Zell closes the breast-ripper onto the unfortunate redhead.  The claws of the ripper sink into Allielle's breast, and as Zell twists and tugs, her breast seems to swell and grow with the heat and steam that fills it.  The whole cross to which she is shackled shakes as she struggles and howls.

            Daffy is hanging limply.  Smoke and steam still curls from between her outspread and shining thighs.  Austin returns the brand to the brazier; but fresh screams ring out as Allielle's remaining breast is suddenly ravaged by the ripper, her skin searing, agony beyond belief making her voice sound barely human.

            Kelley has the phallus-shaped iron, now, and looks directly at Oberon.  The ageing Witchseeker lifts his head and tries to muster a look of defiance, but his fear shows clearly through.  Without hurry, Kelley circles the St Andrews Cross on which Oberon is fastened.  Then, dipping as if into a curtesy, she thrusts the iron up between the lower struts of the cross, directly between Oberon's outspread legs.

            The term squeal like a pig comes to mind as Oberon lets out the most awful screeching; red hot iron slides up between his buttocks, then sinks up into his rectum.  He tries to arch himself away from it, but Kelley simply pushes upwards, driving the iron further up inside him.  Steam and smoke billow out from between his legs, and he lurches and thrashes about, his eyes bulging, screaming and screaming.

            Daffy screams too, as Zell now attacks her with the breast-ripper.  The crowd is loving the show, cheering with every touch of iron, taunting and calling for more.  Allielle is hanging spread-eagled and wet with sweat, limp and exhausted, her body covered in angry burns and welts.  As Kelley draws the iron from Oberon's ass, his screams linger, but he, too, is quickly sinking into shock.  As Zell sets about searing Daffy's remaining breast with the ripper, her squeaks and squeals of agony echo across the amphitheatre.

            I watch from the scaffold.  There is a beautiful kind of justice, in the fact that Oberon is now suffering in the amphitheatre he built.  His intentions were entertainment; he wanted to lure more people to come and watch as witches - and innocents like, he didn't care - were tortured and burned.  And never has there been a bigger, or more entertained crowd, than today.

            As Zell tosses the smoking breast-ripper back into the brazier, the three hang, panting and weak from their tortures, on the three crosses.

            It has been about forty minutes, now, since the tortures began.  To the three, it must seem to have gone forever, a nightmare from which there is no escape.  And it is not about to end yet.

            I should be feeling pity for Oberon, now, as I am beginning to feel for Allielle and Daffy.  But this man has not only gained his pleasures from others' suffering.  Even imprisoned, he has continued to hurl abuse and taunts at me and the other loyal Witchseekers, to threaten and bully as best he can.  In truth I would happily go down there and join in his torture, but my place is to watch over proceedings and make sure that all goes according to plan.

            Austin has a black scarf.  Kelley has a small iron pan with several implements inside.  Together they go to Oberon, who is still half-senseless from his previous torture.  Kelley crouches in front of Oberon, between his outspread legs.  Austin, standing behind the St Andrews Cross, slips the scarf around Oberon's neck, and begins to twist it tight.

            Immediately there are calls of alarm from the crowd; some people think that Austin is killing the disgraced Witchseeker.  Oberon begins to choke; it returns him to full lucidity in an instant, only for his eyes to bulge, his mouth to open, and his muscles to tighten and tense as he begins a futile struggle against the strangling scarf around his neck.  In inevitable reflex, more reliable than Viagara, Oberon's cock begins to stir and swell.  Angel lust, it is called; the erection that arrives on men as they near death by strangulation.

            The crowd loves it.  They are cheering and whistling, and I find myself laughing at Oberon too, delighted at his humiliation, so helpless to his torturers that they can even give him a hard-on, simply to torture it. 

            Oberon's cock stands up out of its nest of hair, and Kelley is quick to wrap a thin cord around its base, cinching it tight as Oberon continues to strangle.  With his erection now trapped, Kelley signals Austin to remove the scarf.  Oberon, allowed to breathe again, gives ragged gasps as he draws air desperately.

            From her pan of tools, Kelley produces a foot of barbed wire.  She begins to wrap it around his cock, starting at the base, as if putting tinsel on a Christmas tree: but she carefully presses the barbs so that their spikes sink in to Oberon's turgid flesh.  Oberon yelps and screams.

            Around and around his penis,  the barbed wire is twisted and pressed, a gruesome adornment.  Little trickles of blood run down his erection.  The men in the watching crowd wince and squirm as Kelley's progress nears the sensitive head of Oberon's cock; when the little spikes are pushed into the purplish glans, Oberon jolts and screams on the cross.  But he is helpless, and Kelley is in no hurry as she completes her decoration.

            The next instrument she produces is a small, flat-barred vice.

            "No, oh, please, no!" Oberon moans as he realises what lies in store for him.  He tries to move his hips as Kelley goes to place the crusher over his testicles.  She giggles in delight, and plays the game, letting him jiggle his scrotum about, chasing it with the crusher, until eventually she gets impatient, grabs his balls in her fist and squeezes hard.  Oberon yelps and tries to pull away, but Kelley pushes them between the rough-faced plates of the vice, and gives the screw a quick couple of turns.  Then she lets go.

            The crusher hangs onto Oberon's balls, completing the Christmas tree image, and the crowd laughs and jeers as Oberon tries miserably to shake it free.  Even I have to chuckle at the sight.  Soon enough, Kelley catches it again, gives the screw another twist, then another.  Slowly, Oberon's testicles are compressed between the plates of the vice.  Little by little, Kelley keeps turning the screw.  Even when Oberon starts to scream with the pain, his balls horribly pressed, she keeps going.  He will have no further use for them anyway.

            Kelley tightens the crusher on Oberon's balls until there is an audible pop! from one testicle or the other, and Oberon's howl sounds barely human.  She takes that as her signal to stop, and return to join Zell and Austin, both of whom are looking slightly pale.

            Oberon, his cock braided with barbed wire, his balls squeezed to half-inch-thick patties inside the crusher, gurgles up a short spurt of vomit over himself.  His face is almost green, his body running with cold sweat.

            I step back to the microphone.  "I now call on those whose loved ones were lost, to find their retribution upon the flesh of the condemned."

            Another cheer from the crowd; and now, the first two rows of the amphitheatre rise to their feet, and begin to form three queues.  Finding these people, these boyfriends, husbands, mothers, sisters and brothers, was not easy.  In many cases, Oberon had not recorded the names of the women he kidnapped.  It was only by investigating missing-persons reports and eyewitness accounts that we managed to track most of them down.

            For Daffy and Allielle, the queues are short; perhaps a dozen people to each witch.  But for Oberon, the queue is perhaps fifty people long.  The rules are simple; they may use any of the implements laid out upon the table, or any of those heating in the brazier, for no more than ten seconds' duration.  They may not attack the prisoner's face.  And, in the case of Oberon, they may not tighten, nor remove, the ball-crusher.  This, a small measure to protect him.

            The first of the relatives are allowed to go forward.  Allielle's tormentor picks up a whip; Daffy's selects an iron from the brazier; Oberon's takes up pliers.  Seconds later, there begins a chorus of screaming and wailing and pleading.

            The lash lays into Allielle's flesh, striking across her wounded breasts, her belly and ribcage; the hot iron sears the inside of Daffy's thigh as she bucks helplessly screaming on the frame; the pliers crush and twist Oberon's nipple as he shrieks in pain.

            The next three come forward.  This time the pliers munch and mash Allielle's poor nipples, while Oberon feels the red hot iron against his ribcage, and Daffy's tormentor takes a wooden mallet and smashes her ankle bone with deft blows.

            The next three have their turn.  Allielle is branded.  Oberon feels the impact of a dozen mallet-blows to his already-compressed testicles.  Daffy has a toenail torn out. 

            And so it goes on as each of the bereaved and betrayed kin have their vengeance on the helpless, spreadeagled bodies of the three, to the cheers and encouragement of the crowd.  Some use simple methods; slaps, punches, blows with mallets or whips; toes and ankles and ribs are broken, toes are dislocated and the nails torn out, skin is torn in strips or burned with irons.  Trails of blood run from between the legs of the two women; despite the savage kiss of the iron, there was still flesh to tear and maim.  Daffy has been branded in her navel, on her breasts, on her feet and in her armpits.  Allielle's proud breasts have borne the brunt of her assailants' anger, nipples and flesh reduced to tattered and bloody ribbons.

            But Oberon is the most cruelly punished.  The whips and pliers and mallets have slashed and torn and hammered at his wire-braided, bizarrely-erect cock and half-crushed balls, red hot irons have scorched and seared his flesh, his feet and toes are broken, his shins are fractured and already swelling grotesquely.  His ribs are cracked.  His nipples have been burned and twisted and wrenched completely off, and his body is painted in his own blood.  It is a gruesome sight, and I would feel disturbed, if not for the knowledge that Oberon deserves nothing less than this.

            When the last shrieking mother has been dragged away from Oberon, still scratching the air with her fingernails and roaring in her grief, Zell looks up to the scaffold, from where I watch.  In a single motion, he beckons me.

            "Come on, Mistress Kirsten!  Your turn!"

            I quickly shake my head.  But Kelley, then Austin and Steve join in.  There are even calls from some in the crowd.  I begin to realise that they are right.  Oberon betrayed and deceived me as much as anyone else here; and his unceasing taunts and provocations from his cell over the last weeks have frayed my nerves.

            There is a cheer as I descend from the scaffold.  I go to the brazier, and draw out the same iron that had been shoved up the depraved one's ass.  It glows with radiant heat, shimmering in the afternoon air, and I briefly open my mouth and waggle my tongue at Zell.  He acknowledges with a nod.

            Oberon, hanging barely conscious off the X-frame, simply groans as Austin and Zell together lift his head and prise his mouth open.  But his eyes flicker open soon after, as he feels the radiated heat of the branding iron on his face.

            I stand before him, looking straight into his eyes.  "This is for all of your fucking taunts and abuse, you goddamn monster!"  Standing on tiptoes, I thrust the iron into his mouth.  Oberon's eyes bug wide as the metal lies along his tongue, pressing it down, and a sound like cooking hamburgers is followed, a moment later, by a hideous, hollow scream of agony.  His body arches and strains helplessly as steam billows out of his mouth, his head shuddering with his efforts to shake loose of Zell and Austin.

            I brand him for ten long seconds.  When at last I withdraw the iron, it seems to bring a good portion of his tongue with it, smoking remnants.  Oberon falls into a faint.

            "Clean them off , and prepare them for burning," I say.

            Pails of cold water sluice the blood and sweat from the three where they hang, and rouse them from their senseless state.  Allielle acknowledges her nightmare reality with a long wail of horror; Daffy and Oberon remain silent, although Daffy's face is filled with anguish and misery.

            Their shackles are opened, and the three are dragged to the stakes; none of them can walk any more.  They are held with their backs to the rough wooden posts, while their arms are wrenched behind and their wrists are bound together with thick rope.  Chains, then, are crossed over their bodies, pinning them to the stakes.  Allielle is pleading again, begging to be killed before the flames reach her.  Daffy sobs quietly, her eyes returning again and again to the sky; but whether she searches for solace or rescue, I can't tell.

Only Oberon seems impassive, unresisting as he is secured to the stake, still with the barbed wire embedded in his still-erect cock, his swollen balls bulging from either side of the crusher like squashed water-balloons.  From the way his head rolls and his eyes wander across the restless crowd, I suspect the truth is that he is so dazed and in such deep shock from his torture that he won't properly wake up until he smells the smoke.

They are secured.

On my return to the scaffold, I take a moment to reflect on how far I have come.  Making my timid entry to the Witchseekers group, more than four months ago now.  Oberon's welcome to me had also been a warning, suspicion in his tone.  It was Tina deDance, ironically hanged just a week ago, who had reassured him, and I had soon found myself the group's Dungeon Mistress, interrogating many of the witches delivered to the dungeons by Oberon.  Other women, it seemed, were interrogated elsewhere, convicted with frightening speed - in some cases, arrested in the evening and burned by the next morning.

At that time, as far as I knew, Allielle and Daffy were both dead, burned at the stake by Oberon.  But soon, messages began to appear from both witches.  If they were still alive, who had been burned at the stake in their place?

As the weeks passed, and I became more familiar with the procedures of the Witchseekers, I began to grow suspicious of Oberon.  The arrests and burnings continued, and yet I saw few of the accused ever enter the dungeon.  Then, unexpectedly, Tina spoke out against Oberon - accusing him of corruption, of abusing his power - and of using his authority to sexually use vulnerable young women, then burn them for his own pleasure.  I had been working for a monster!

At first, I ran.  Fear of what Oberon would do now that the truth was out sent me fleeing for my life.  But then I realised that to do nothing was as bad as supporting Oberon in his spree of torture, rape, and murder.  So, gaining the support of a few loyal Witchseekers, I made my return - a coup of the Witchseekers group.  Oberon was thrown into the dungeon.  And, within days, Daffy and Allielle were also captured.

In his final week, Oberon finally snapped – claiming to be a witch, promising that he would return to life after his execution, more powerful than ever.  Where criminals facing death often make peace with God and seek forgiveness for their sins, Oberon turned to Satan in his terror of being judged.  But everyone here knows that fire will destroy his soul as surely as it does his flesh and bones.

And it is about to be done.

All three witches have been tortured to within an inch of their lives, and are bound, fearful, to stakes atop a pile of wood and straw that Steve, our foremost executioner, has prepared.  I look down at them from the scaffold; Allielle's shoulders are shaking as she sobs in dread.  Daffy is muttering to herself, her face still skyward.  Oberon is looking straight ahead, still with his macabre hard-on.  It looks for all the world as if he is smiling.

Smiling?  Damn him!

I step to the microphone.  "People, the punishments have been given.  I now order that the three - Daffy, Allielle, and Oberon – a self-proclaimed witch also – be burned alive at the stake."

A great cheer rises up.  Kelley, Zell and Austin stand watch with the assembled guards as Steve goes to the brazier and lights a tar-soaked torch, and carries its fluttering flame back towards the woodpile.

"Oh god, please, take it away!" Allielle shrieks.  "Don't do it, don't burn me, please!  Don’t burn me!"  But her pleas are lost in the jeering of the crowd, and Steve crouches to light the outlying straw of the pile, right in front of Allielle's terrified eyes.  He progresses around the edges of the great pyre, but Allielle, and the crowd, can focus only on the small flames that flap and curl where the torch first lit.  Smoke curls and eddies on the gentle wind, and the fire quickly spreads.

Allielle's screams, her wide eyes and hugely dilated pupils, are telltale signs that she is truly in panic; and as the fire leaps up towards her, she begins to struggle.  Deep in her DNA is a trigger that says all or nothing; the fight-or-flight reflex that wants survival at almost any cost.  She thrashes about with every last reserve of strength.  Her body writhes against the stake; her muscles strain until a sheen of sweat glistens on her bare skin.  Her hands tug and twist and jerk on the ropes.  Her teeth are bared in the effort.

But a simple knot about her wrists and a crossed chain over her torso is enough to hold her in place, and as Steve completes his circuit of the bonfire, and flames spring up all around the condemned three, Allielle remains held to the stake.  She cannot escape her death.  She can only scream.

Daffy, as if infected by the sounds she hears, begins to struggle and wail also.  Her attention is finally drawn from the heavens, and fixes instead on the growing hell that surrounds her, the flames' corkscrewing demons reflected in her terrified eyes, and on the sweat that polishes her naked body.  She, too, tries to pull her wrists free of their bonds, to tug her arms from behind the stake, but like Allielle, she is helpless.

To a chorus of shrieking from the two witches, Oberon finally regains his senses.  He begins to moan as the first drifts of smoke waft past him, sparks scurrying up as sap pops in the branches beyond his bare and tortured toes.

The flames spread and leap, and fire wraps itself around Allielle's leg with a crackling sound.  She screams in agony as her skin sears, fluids and oils boiling to the surface.  The fire caresses her legs, flapping and licking like a desperate lover, and Allielle shrieks out in her pain.  The crowd loves it; their jeers and mock-imitations of Allielle's screams echo back at her.

Daffy is next to feel the first touch of fire.  She screams horribly as flames flutter towards her skins, braising her skin and turning it red, blisters quickly expanding and bursting at the searing touch.  She struggles desperately, screeching, but the flames rally and return, tasting her for a second time.  The sweet smoke of burning witch twirls about on the rising currents, and the smell quickly fills the air.

Flames have wrapped themselves around Allielle's legs, and now force their way between her thighs, lapping up into her most secret places.  Even though hot irons have already seared away her flesh, there is still agony in the fire's invasion, and she bucks her hips in obscene reaction to the devouring flames. 

Daffy is trying desperately to lift her legs up out of the fire, but the flames jump up at her, hungry for her, and the steam and smoke drifts up from her flesh.

Finally, the first flames fold themselves around Oberon's feet.  At last he begins to struggle; but it is far too little, far too late.  His writhing only delights the crowd as the fire clambers up towards his knees, tearing at his flesh.  He gives a scream, then another, joining the shrieks of the two burning women beside him.

I hug myself against the unsettling sensation of a pounding heart.  Somehow this seems too good to be true.  Oberon, the terrible, fearsome, all-powerful Witchseeker General, finally giving voice to his agony as the fire eats into his body. 

Allielle's legs are alight.  Now that the oils are burning, she has become a human candle, and it is only a matter of time before she succumbs to it.  Flames race up from between her legs, eating whatever remained of her sweet sex, engulfing her buttocks and twirling about in the small of her back, stripping away her skin and searing her flesh.  She screams and howls in horrendous agony.

Daffy is still struggling, but fire has wrapped itself around her lower body, too, now; her legs engulfed, her pubic bush completely gone and her iron-seared sex now suffering the unbearable agony of fire.  Her firm belly is blistering and reddening.

As Oberon shrieks, I see his engorged and battered cock, still in its terrible cage of barbed wire, begin to blister and steam.  Flames lick at his agonised balls, too.  His feet and lower legs are ablaze, his flesh charring.  I wonder how many times he watched witches burning, never imagining that he would feel the harsh reality of that horrible torment himself.

The heat builds, the fire roars with a sound like distant thunder.  Allielle's body is surrounded in a twisting tornado of fire that engulfs her, wraps its terrible fingers around and between her tortured breasts, tears at her hands and arms and funnels fiercely up between her shoulder blades.  Her red hair erupts into flame and chars to her scalp.

Daffy throws her head about as the fire claws its way up her body.  She is calling out, although I can't distinguish her words from her screams as her small breasts blister and her flesh drips in fiery droplets into the maelstrom of flame at her feet.  Her hair, too, turns to flame.

Oberon is bawling like a baby.  Flames are tearing at his flesh.  His cock is charring before the crowd's astonished eyes, the barbed wire already beginning to glow red-hot.  The wispy hair on his chest smokes and then singes, and flames skitter up the post behind him, blistering his shoulders and neck as he thrashes and screams.

It is almost done.

Allielle, finally, is a twisting shape engulfed in flame.  Her breasts are melting, her face enfolded in fire, and even her screams are lost in the roar of heat and fire.  Daffy is almost fully wrapped in fire also, but still struggles dazedly, even though her burns are already fatal.  Oberon's legs and lower body are alight, and although he still thrashes about, he too has already lost the fight.

As the crowd cheers the demise of the three, I join the applause, exchanging smiles with Steve and Austin, Zell, and Kelley.  The final stage in purging the Witchseeker group of corruption and evil is complete.

Only a couple of minutes later, Allielle's struggles have stopped completely.  She is now just a black shape encased in fire.  Daffy is still moving, but no longer screaming.  Flames wrap her entire body too; they have torn away her hair and her face, and she has only minutes left to live.  The lone voice now belongs to Oberon, ever-weakening screams as the fire takes hold of him.  I smile, knowing that he gets to hear - and feel - the bones of his own feet splitting and cracking as the fire reduces them to blackened claws.

His screams become a death-rattle that seems to merge into the crackle and whine of the fire, the singing of sap and the hissing of burning bodies.  As the flames surge up in a spiralling whirlwind around Oberon's entire body, he finally slumps.  Now, the three are joined by fire, great twisting spires of flame jumping higher than the stakes themselves, chasing the rolling, oily clouds of burning flesh into the sky.

The crowd is cheering.  The guards and Witchseekers are hugging each other and shaking hands.  And I smile to myself, happy with my victory over Oberon.  His death is a joy beyond words to me, and I whoop in delight, dancing a little victory-dance before scrambling down from the scaffold to join my fellows in their celebrations.

The bodies will burn long and bright, but Steve will continue to feed the fire until even the bones are in shattered fragments.