Day #3 - Tanissnal
Summary: The children of Tanissnal dare each other to wade into the boiling lake with disastrous consequences.
Written for Story A Day, Runaway Tales, and Wriye
Rating: Mature-ish
Warnings: Accusations of witchcraft, burning at the stake (of a child), genocide (sort of)
Universe: Story behind Swim in Boiling Seas
Prompts: SAD: vermilion & musky; RaTs: only those who were born to hang are not afraid of the water; what a lovely way to burn; in stone; WriYe: not enough;
Notes: Well that escalated quickly. And this isn't even tumblr! So, I read my sister the original version of Swim in Boiling Seas and she immediately thought it was some kind of ritual sacrifice. She challenged me to write the story behind it, so I did. You're welcome, sis! Now go write more words!
Once a year the hot springs beneath Tanissnal island overflow. The heavy downpours of summer rain flood the island and the boiling water of the springs bubbles up. The lake in the middle of the island (where the gods had stepped, it was rumored) would be scalding hot instead of lukewarm, but only for a day.
The entire thing was quite the event for the people, strange as it was. Everyone would pitch in to cart hot water into town, filling up waiting washbins. Nobody was ever as clean as when the springs boiled over. For those not fit for hauling water, there was plenty of washing to be done.
Even then, the children of the island always found time to play with fire. They would sneak down to the far corner of the lake where hopefully they would avoid a scolding and taunt each other. Daring one another to wade out into the water so hot you got a steam bath twenty feet away.
Rarely did anyone mange to get in above their ankles, but it was fun to tease anyway. Despite the very real threat of serious burns, they never failed to make their trek to the lake.
This year was like any other. After the hauling had gotten well underway a large group of the children snuck off down towards the lake. They gathered at the bank, marveling at how warm the dirt got as it transitioned into mud. They joked and rough housed, threatening to shove each other in or splash everyone. It didn't take long before someone called out "you're not scared, are you?" And then it began.
They would charge into the water in waves, vowing they would only enter if others did. More often than not, they scrabbled out far faster than they raced in; driven by the scalding water lapping at their ankles. Sometimes one would manage to stand there for a moment, but they paid for it all day with sore and blistered feet.
Although they joked about pushing people in, they all knew very well if someone fell in the chances of them escaping alive were slim.
Hinet didn't know why she'd even come. She wasn't stupid enough to put her life at risk by going wading and she had no desire to watch them all jockey over who was the bravest or the strongest or the stupidest or whatever title it was they were vying for. It didn't matter her mother wouldn't let her help with the washing (which she knew she should be grateful for, but resented anyway), she should have stayed with her mother and avoided all of this nonsense.
This thought was cemented when the other children realized Hinet wasn't going to partake in their fun. "Come on Hinet!" One of them called, "it's fun!"
She scoffed, tipping her head to the kids sitting in the grass nursing their blisters and quirking an eyebrow.
To this day, no one knows, or perhaps, more precisely, no one will admit to knowing, who shoved her forward towards the lake. All that anyone knows is that one moment, she was standing arms crossed several feet away. The next, she was propelled towards the lake, trying desperately to regain her footing, and then she landed with a splash.
No one will admit to being the one that screamed, either.
She didn't fall in more than calf deep, not enough to submerge her, but surely deep enough to burn her to the point of being unrecognizable.
Which was why everyone gasped when she came up spluttering, pushing wet hair out of her face, completely unblemished.
"I'm going to kill whoever did that," Hinet called as she pushed herself up.
Suddenly, everyone took that statement at face value.
You could see the exact moment that she realized what had actually happened. Realized that she'd face planted in a lake of boiling water and had treated it like any other time of the year. Her eyes had blown wide and she'd looked at her hands, a pasty white as always. Even her feet were, despite being underwater just above her ankle. There wasn't a bit of reddening as she wriggled her toes in the mud.
For all the signs her body was displaying, the water wasn't hot at all. It surely didn't feel like it to her. How could that possibly be? How could the water not be hot? Everyone else had fled immediately because they couldn't stand the temperature. She hadn't felt the need.
There was simply no possible way for this to be happening. She must be dreaming, or something else of the sort. Maybe she'd died and the afterlife just picked up right where you left off?
Finally breaking her gaze from herself she looked up to the rest of the group on the bank, all of them staring slack jawed at her. Even though their stares made her self conscious and nervous, she tried to look at it from their point of view. They'd all run into the lake, figured out how hot boiling water really was, and skedaddled as fast as they could back out of the water. Then she'd gotten shoved in and hadn't reacted. Still wasn't reacting.
In fact, she was still standing in the water, as if it were nothing. Which all of them knew it most certainly wasn't.
After standing there for another moment, she decided it would probably be best if she got out, regardless of what her body thought of the water. But the moment she made for the shore, everyone panicked.
The amount of screaming and shouting was impressive, leaving no doubt in Hinet's mind that the adults would be there in no time flat. They couldn't possibly have missed all the noise people were making. How could anyone?
She tried to understand their panic, really she did. She was panicking herself, mind spinning all kinds of crazy theories as to what might have gone wrong, but surely they were over reacting?
True to her predictions, the adults starting coming into view, shouting worriedly to the children, trying to figure out the cause of the ruckus.
"Hinet fell in but she's not burning!" One of the children shouted, hysteria pitching the voice far higher than it needed to be.
Athtin, one of the younger members of the town council, halted jerkily and stared at her. After a pause, he cursed violently. Behind him, one of the other men gasped that one word that would lead to her certain doom.
"Witch."
"No!" She cried, retreating a step further into the lake; but it was too late. Strong hands attached to longs arms clamped down around her wrists and she was yanked forward, out of the lake. She stumbled into them, but they did nothing to steady her, like they would have only ten minutes earlier. Instead, they gripped her forearms and started dragging her back to town, Athtin leading the way.
It didn't matter they'd never caught one in her lifetime, she'd heard the tales. Witches were not to be trusted, horrible creatures that opposed their Goddess, all of them deserved the heaviest of punishments if caught practicing their dark arts: death.
She struggled and pleaded, begged and sobbed. But it had no effect, nothing she could possibly say now could ever be enough to save her.
By the time they made it into town people were crowding the streets. Everywhere you looked they were packed together, shoulder to shoulder, elbowing each other to get a better view at their captured witch. Yet the crowd parted in front of them and they passed through easily, everyone giving them a wide berth.
Not them, her.
They were all afraid of what she might do to them.
"Momma!" Hinet shrieked when she finally picked her mother out from among the masses. She too was being roughly dragged towards to the town square by burly men. Men that used to be friends and neighbors, who were now enemies.
"Hinet! Please, Hinet!"
"Momma!"
"Silence!" Athtin cried and everyone became quieter than a calm sea, the only noise to be heard the town's elders pushing their way to the center to stand by Athtin.
Hinet and her mother were both tossed at his feet, heavy hands pressing their shoulders towards the ground.
"Yistril," Athtin started gravely, voice projecting out over the crowd. "Your daughter, Hinet has been accused of being a witch. She fell into the boiling lake and exited unblemished."
People gasped and their was a flurry of whispers, in the chaos of the rapid journey into town very few people had heard what had happened. All they knew was that there was a witch among them.
"I saw it with my own eyes and so did many others," Athtin continued, addressing the elders momentarily before turning back to Yistril. "There is no denying it happened and no other explanation than witchcraft. Do you have anything to say in your defense?"
"Please," she sobbed, gazing up at him with pleading eyes. "Please don't hurt my baby. She's done nothing!"
"She is a witch!" He shouted, temper suddenly lost. "She is a witch caught preforming her twisted arts. The penalty for such a crime against our town and our Goddess is very clear. She will die today. The question now stands, do you die with her?"
There are rumblings and whispers in the audience again, but no one makes any objections to Athtin's pronouncement.
Hinet tries to reach for her mother, but the man holding her down strikes her arm away. Her sobbing intensifies and she squeezes her eyes closed, unable to hear anything but her mother's weeping and pleading. Not once does her mother plead for her own life, only Hinet's. A guilt that weighs heavily in Hinet's shoulders, eating away at her even as her world spirals out of control.
Her eyes clenched shut she doesn't see the silent conversation passing between the elders or Athtin's signal. But she hears them fetching firewood and dragging haybales. Her skin crawls.
In the blink of an eye she is yanked upright, eyes flying open as they drag her towards their hastily erected pole. Her struggles are in vain as they tie both her and her mother to the post, binding their hands tight and far from one another. They scatter hay at their feet and stuff it between the lengths of wood surrounding them. The certainty that she is going to die shoves in around her and claws its way up her throat long before they shove the lighted wick into the hay and watch the flames spring to life.
Fear, despair, guilt, and rampant panic overwhelms her, she hyperventilates between sobs and screams. So focused is she on her own doom and the nearing flames that the music blindsides her and the chanting startles her almost into silence.
All around her, the people are praying. Praying as they watch her die.
All around her--surrounded on every side--everyone is praying, praying for their own insignificant lives while they watch her and her mother die. Not a one of them making any attempt to save them.
The fury comes from nowhere. Slamming into her with a force that would have bowled her over had she not been bound. The flames surrounding them spring suddenly, going from (relatively) harmless little flames to a blazing inferno in the blink of an eye. Even though it presses into her, licking at her skin, she doesn't feel the heat. Can't feel anything over the anger simmering inside her.
Fools.
All around her the fire springs to life, spreading out over wet, muddy grass towards the surrounding crowd. Pandemonium would be an understatement for the panicked chaos that followed.
Everyone flees, but it does them no good. The fire chases them, lashing out to everything within reach. One of the houses standing a little to close to the square goes up in flames, smoke billowing from the thatched roof and filling the air with a thick, acrid, musky aroma.
The skies let loose their own fury, rain pounding down and drenching everyone. Yet the fire continues, unhindered in the slightest by the downpour. The water just passes through, streaking vermilion trails behind it.
This drive to attack, this insatiable urge for revenge should shock her, should scare her; but it doesn't. It feels as natural to her as breathing. Maybe the people were right to be afraid. But that doesn't stop her either, the horror continues.
Until she hears her mother cry out.
Unable to feel the heat of the flames, she hadn't tried to shield herself from them, allowing them to crawl up her without any effect. But her mother had no such resistance.
"Momma!"
She tried to stop, really she did, backpedaling with all her might.
But her best wasn't good enough.
And with that certainly, the world fades away.
------------------------------------------
Eventually, the people of the main land start to wonder whatever happened to Tanissnal island. The heavy rains of summer made for stormy seas which wasn't conducive to sailing trips. It wasn't unusual to hear little of them until the rains had passed. But when the sun remained strong and bright, and the sea calm, and there was no word, people started to worry.
Typically their fishing boats littered the water between Tanissnal and the main land, but none could be seen. They waited some more, but there was still nothing.
Eventually, they packed a ship and sailed across the bay to investigate. Every ship was moored at the docks and the town appeared ghostly quiet, at least at first.
Then they went in deeper.
People were everywhere, running; eyes wide, mouths open, some looking over their shoulders, others covering their heads. All of them frozen in their panicked state, solid stone statues.
The closer they got to the square they began to see it, walls of fire chasing the people, engulfing those that stumbled. But they too were grey and hard, somehow captured in their undulating waves. These were not ordinary walls of stone though (if walls of fire turned to stone could be considered ordinary), they radiated heat, stifling in its intensity. The search party sweated profusely as they struggled to continue.
Eventually they found it, the scene that started it all.
Hinet, bound to the pole, eyes full of tears as she cried for her mother, who hung limply behind her.
Even though they too were solid stone, when one unfortunate soul laid hand to them, the sobbing and the screaming and the blazing of the fire washed over him and he fainted.
Even now the statues remain, the horrors of Tanissnal a quiet reminder of the danger that lurks just beneath the surface.
This story is copyright to Saya Dix (me) and cannot be republished/posted anywhere with my permission.