The Fierce and Merciless Beast of Voldya

See all 2 photos

Throughout known history humans have relied on propaganda to support the elimination of those things they fear most. But the most effective type of propaganda, historically, has been to portray the subject as being somehow a threat to the morals and/or safety of the youngest members of the society. Socrates is the prime example of the classic victim of this kind of propaganda. His opponents, bent on having his controversial ideas and philosophies utterly erased from memory, were not satisfied with simple denouncement of his views or even his banishment. His upstanding conformist Athenian peers charged Socrates with impiety, and worse, as being a corrupter of the youth. He was thenceforth condemned to die by poison by his own hand. Socrates, being Socrates, carried out his obligation to his judges. Now while his enemies may have believed they had cause to celebrate, Socrates' death provided a few things the high-minded hadn't counted on. Firstly, his persecution failed to silence his words or example. Secondly, his life exemplified the courageous person who doesn't accept the status quo just because the State says to. Thirdly and just as importantly -though perhaps less often pointed out- is that the manner of his trial demonstrated that the single most successful tactic in getting rid of one's enemy is to claim that individual is a threat to the young.

One would hope that our time is a more enlightened one, and that such tactics the stuff of a nightmarish past only pertinent for the lessons that can be learned by unjust incidents. Unfortunately, this is not the case, not in the West nor anywhere else. Even in the United States, where liberty is supposed to count for something, we all too often find the non-conformist maligned in the name of decency. It is true we don't have Socratic Paradoxes popping up to question authority any more. We don't have the Inquisition or Cotton Mathers or even Joseph McCarthy leading their causes with fanatical twists of truth or outright lies. Our modern tyrants are more subtle, less shocking and yet much more insidious by the very nature of their tactics. For these tyrants are the heirs of Socrates' enemies and they know the secret to conclusive results: that to utterly quash an enemy he/she must be portrayed in no less terms than a real-life depraved Pied Piper .

In defining the things they fear and hate these campaigners continue where the ancient Athenians left off. The campaigners have a myriad of contrasting aims: whether it is to overhaul traditional gender roles, undermine parental authority, spit on the graves of gay war heroes, take prayer out of school, keep birth control education out of schools, remove Harry Potter books from libraries, rid the world of Barbie dolls, or force businesses to fire homosexuals, ect. One thing they share in common is the tactic. In making an example of the accused Pied Pipers they believe, earnestly, they will succeed in transforming the rest of the world into appalled and terrified compliance. The scary thing is that it is very likely they can succeed at exactly this. For they know how to create a daunting specter out of sheer smoke; in the ascending weightless tendrils are the Piper's image alluded to and out of the surreal are his features whispered to be seen. Thus today do makers of soda pop and cookies carry the maleficent aura once shouldered by the mythical Blue Beard while Ellen DeGeneres has been chosen by the self-righteous as the embodiment of social and moral iniquity.

On the other hand, the other scary consideration for the campaigners is that while carrying on the tradition of Socrates' enemies they become vulnerable to falling victim to their own exaggerated sense of moral policing.

The following story is purely fictional. An earlier version of it appears in the ebook, Adieu, Bonjour, the last work I published under the pen name of Desiree Erotique. I don't pretend to be a moralist, but I hope you can take something positive out of this story. And I leave you with the wish we can all learn to be good to one another and pass along to our children what is most important in life :)

The Fierce and Merciless Beast of Voldya

"Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth-- more than ruin, more even than death."
-Bertrand Russell

The city of Voldya was more wholesome than most, and the pride of its citizens and leaders. The Voldyans had long ago vanquished the last of their forebears and spurned all reminiscences of their decadent past. A new priesthood had risen in the ashes of that past, proponents of a simple and temperate faith. There was no tolerance to be found in enlightened Voldya for superstitious idols or mementoes. Most notably scorned was any written word about antiquated practices. For like all virtuous people the Voldyans held that the surest path to moral degeneracy lies in the reading of it.

Thus it was the ambition of every Voldyan city leader to ensure that their people were the most exemplary models of morality. Criminal offenses –which had become many since the embrace of the new faith –were dealt with swiftly and without tolerance. So virtuous a reputation did Voldya earn that the infirm and old kings of the land often came to live out their last days there. It was said among the foreign to die in this Voldya was to prostrate one’s immortal soul before the very steps of Heaven.

It came to pass that one day a band of thieves descended upon the fair streets of Voldya. In disguise of travelers they visited the shops along the avenues, taking small items here and there, which they hid inside their clothing. Onto the market place in the town square the thieves proceeded, where they stole what they could lift under the very eyes of the merchants. So skilled were these thieves at their pilfering that no one suspected the amount of precious trinkets hidden inside their vestments. They became bold in their talk as they gathered in the alley near a private home to compare their individual successes for the day, and discussed their plans to return on Sunday. Their plan was to rob the richer homes while the citizens were praying at the Temple. Unbeknownst to the thieves this home belonged to the Mayor of Voldya, and in their boasting they had failed to note that one of the windows was open. The scrub woman was standing just inside and she overheard their conversation. At length she went to the Mayor and told him about this conversation. The Mayor crept out the back door and went to the sheriff with the news. At once the sheriff’s men rounded up the thieves as they dallied on the steps of the council house.

The thieves, as brazen as their plan had been, were young men all and had never been arrested. They did not know that Voldya custom dictated that all thieves were penalized by public hangings. In hope of finding lenience they easily confessed to their crimes and affirmed the plans they had made for the night to come. The Mayor, however, was indignant about their boasting of a crime committed so close to his own house, and ordered them sent to the torture chamber under the town hall. Here, the young men were sent, and the Mayor himself ordered their various tortures: the rack and the burning of their flesh, denial of food and of sleep. The tortured were forced to confess all the things their inquisitors asked. The Mayor hoped for some information about the criminals’ land of birth and individual families, and in particular if they had family who might consider retaliation on Voldya when news of the hangings came to be known. In the end, however, the Mayor was not concerned about most of the information confessed by the thieves, for it was discovered that most of them were either orphans or had been abandoned while very young. Only one of them had anything that aroused the Mayor’s interest.

This particular young man had a tattoo of a black rose on his chest. He had been born in the woods on the hills outside of Voldya, the son of a woman who had lived alone since the death of her lover. She had died when her son was still a child. She had also been a follower of the old Voldyan religion. Shrouded in myth was this ancient religion, a faith considered vulgar by the modern priests, and its rites for generations had been denigrated as nothing less than the veneration of demons and evil spirits. While the young man’s companions were sent to the public scaffold, the Mayor goaded him to confess all he remembered about his mother and the old rites she’d practiced. The youth eventually recalled everything he could: that his mother had been a devotee of Od, and that she had a wolf which she believed relayed her prayers between earth and the abode of her god. The particulars of her faith her son could recall was only foolish practice in the eyes of the Mayor and the inquisitors, but one item did rouse their interest: that from time to time this woman entertained in her humble abode men dressed in wolf furs. The son recalled that underneath these furs the bodies of these men were adorned with red markings. Upon further inquisition the thief conceded that perhaps these markings were blood, and under further torture, he avowed firmly that, yes, the markings had to have been blood! He was compelled thus to say that when these men came to visit that his mother also entertained them in her bed, for the mornings following these visits it was his mother’s customs to bathe straight-away.

The priests among the inquisitors took this information as proof that she had glorified in some gory rite. They further claimed the information was proof that the old gods were not only demons, but that their followers, such as this woman, were murderers. All manner of vile concoctions they deduced from the final confessions of the young man. He was nearly starved by the time the inquisitors were finished with him, and his body ravaged by the wounds of his torture. And though his confessions may have sounded like the ramblings of the ill to others, the inquisitors delighted in the foul charges against his mother that they interpreted in his words. The Mayor, contented at last, proclaimed the youth was a heretic and sorcerer and ordered his execution. But the youth was not to be sent to the gallows; he was sentenced instead to be burnt alive in the town square.

Now the Voldyans who came to witness the burning were much aghast at this method of ending the young man’s life. Thief that he was, they were not used to seeing such brutality. Some of the more prestigious Voldyans, friends of the Mayor or well-associated with the privileged councilmen, applauded his body being consumed by fire. But more appalled than the populace were the priests that had tortured the young man. For just before the first faggot had been lit the youth looked upon his accusers and proclaimed that Voldya would be devoured by a fierce and merciless beast.

The priests took this as evidence that the youth’s demons had been summoned to take retribution on his account. The Mayor tut-tutted their fears, but there were some amongst the councilmen who, upon listening to the priests, agreed full-heartedly that the youth had spoken something about the curse of the Black Rose.

By the end of three days, when the faggots had cooled enough, the ashes of the youth were swept up and taken to a ditch at the end of town and there deposited and covered over with lime. And when night had descended many of the Voldyans who had thought the Mayor’s verdict had been savage came to pay their last respects, while others came out of simple curiosity. Later, these mournful talked about the thief and his mother, and a general interest in the old religion was cultivated. The youth’s life story was turned into a saga by the city storyteller, who sold editions of this tale at a price inexpensive enough that anyone could afford to read it. The local troubadours were inspired to write a new ballad titled, The Black Rose and Her Son. Even the guild of actors wrote new plays to immortalize the same Black Rose. A popular form of commerce it came to be for the shield makers to create plaques painted with stylized icons of groups of men, all wearing wolfs’ skins and dancing in a circle. Just as popular were the more sentimental icons of The Black Rose strolling through the wood on the arm of her son. The Voldyans were delighted by all these things the artists and writers produced, which seemed like nothing more than harmless entertainment.

But the Voldyan priests were anything but delighted. The brotherhood implored the Mayor to do something to stop the citizenry’s fascination with the Black Rose and her heathen followers. They reminded the Mayor that idols and mementoes of the depraved were not to be tolerated; and to stress their concerns they repeated the curse issued by the condemned youth. Now the Mayor, for the service of having burnt the heretic, had been rewarded with a great cross of silver from the thankful Archbishop who resided in the lands to the south. And from the King the Mayor received the title of Earl and given lands far in the north. The Mayor mused over the priests’ request for some days, and eventually saw the opportunity of enhancing his reputation further by taking some measure or more to curb the activities of his citizenry. His would not only be a wholesome component of a wholesome kingdom, his would be, without doubt, the most wholesome.

Thus the Mayor issued the order that interest in the Black Rose, her son and her heretic religion was prohibited. The citizens were given two days to bring all manuscripts and icons to the public square to be thrown into the pyre built just for the purpose of destroying the outlawed material. The troubadours were no longer allowed to sing about the Black Rose, and the actors were banned from performing any play that referred to her or her heretical religion. In a move to show the public he meant business, the Mayor placed heavy fines on the storyteller and the authors of the plays. Their works, he declared, were only literary promotion of delinquency. Anyone caught with these items in their possession would be, from hence forth, subject to heavy fines as well. The Mayor confiscated one of the icons and gave this to the Sheriff. This icon the Sheriff hung in his office so all the deputies in the future would know on sight what one of the outlawed icons would look like. The Mayor, upon confiscating the original copy of the entire storyteller’s saga, stored the manuscript away in a chest in his office. This he did in case the King –considered liberal by the priesthood- might ask for evidence of the lurid nature of the cult of the Black Rose which had dictated such harsh measures.

The Mayor was proud of the results of his decrees, now had icons and copies of the saga burned by the hundreds. As the bon fire grew higher the priesthood had taken to the streets to listen to the conversations of the crowds coming and going to the bonfire. They heard the disgruntled words of the Voldyans, and deemed that the fascination with the old religion still clung to popular interest. They knew that some had secretly hidden icons in their homes, and a few even possessed copies of the saga. Thus, the priests conceded that the Mayor’s decrees were not enough, nor ever would be as long as the old religion held interest for even one Voldyan.

So the priesthood convened in their temple to discuss a means which would scare the unrepentant populace into disdaining the Black Rose once and for all. They knew that the real details surrounding the old religion had been lost in the mists of time, but they also knew that ignorance was no great hurdle for the devout. They whiled away the hours of the forthcoming night by weaving tales of how it must have been during the ancient times.. of the inequities played out by the old heathens and of the sins they surely had committed. Each priests’ tale was more lurid than his brother, and by the time dawn appeared they were so frightened by these stories that they were quite relieved to see the light of day. They had come to the conclusion that the old heathen ancestors were immoral indeed, practitioners of the most heinous of crimes. They had their scribes record every tale they weaved in a great scroll. But which of these crimes, they asked one another, would most likely be found the most persuasive upon their flock?

As they pondered this question one of the priests happened to peer out the temple window that overlooked the street. His attention was sidetracked by a mother and small child, walking hand in hand along the pedestrian by-way. A large boar, apparently escaped from its pen, scrambled up the by-way from the opposite way. Upon seeing the woman and child its ears lowered and it grunted and swung its tusks angrily. At once the mother whisked the child into her arms, and several men came up and threw stones at the animal to drive it back the direction it had come. The beast snorted and turned, and as it began to run, one of the men told the woman that he would tell its owner of how the animal had behaved. “Surely,” the man assured, “if the farmer is to slaughter any of his herd this year, then he will choose this one, lest it harm a child.”

The woman kissed her child and the priest saw how very relieved she appeared. He turned to his brethren and told them what he had just witnessed. The priests were excited, for now they knew which of their grisly tales they should tell their flock in order to encourage fear and dread and most importantly, compliance.

So they went to the streets of Voldya, a priest to every street corner and two more at the doors of the town hall. They divulged to every listening ear the horrible tale of how the old heathens had indulged in an appetite for the flesh of young children. There was, the priests declared, an annual selection by lot of one child amongst all the progeny of the city inhabitants. This child was killed, they said, and roasted and served at a banquet for all the adults to enjoy. But this practice, the priests warned, had not been enough for many, for the heathens regularly laid in wait in the places where the children customarily played. When chance arose, the priests elaborated, these men and women would pounce upon the unsuspecting. The bodies of the murdered children were then dragged to the homes of their killers and there prepared as dinner.

The Voldyans were horrified by the priests’ tale. They did not know what to believe, and went to the Mayor for council. The Mayor, not notified of the priests’ secret meeting, was aghast and called for the High Priest. Tell me, he ordered, this tale of the old heathens’ cannibalism. And so the High Priest recanted the tale and the Mayor, ashen by the implications, asked for proof of these things. So the High Priest showed him the scroll in which the scribes had recorded all the tales, and after the Mayor had finished reading the last he reckoned that such a pious document could be nothing less than the chronicles of the Divine. That evening the Mayor sent out the town criers with the proclamation that the old heathens had been child-eaters, and that anyone -whether citizen or visitor- who held any interest in the old rites must be supporters of child-eating, or worse, secretly child-eaters themselves.

Among the Voldyans the consensus regarding the Black Rose now changed as quickly and as drastically as the priesthood had hoped. The majority began to attend the religious services with more gusto, in the hopes that Heaven would pardon them for their wrongful past sympathy with the old religion. More than this, this majority demanded harsher penalties against any and all suspected child-eaters. These demands the Mayor was happy to meet. Amongst the harsh preventive measures the Mayor approved were the laws governing the possession of Black Rose paraphernalia. Anyone caught in possession of the saga or the icons was condemned for degeneracy and sentenced to torture and death.

The majority of Voldyans were content and proud of the new laws. Wholesome was their kingdom, they deemed, for this strict outlawing of child-eaters. But it came to pass that the loom of the law was not enough to make the Voldyans feel safe. They judged it best and wise to stop any possible revival of heathen sympathy by silencing the original source. So they dragged the storyteller into the street and killed him with their pitchforks. Next, they sealed the actors in their guild house and set it afire. And before the smoke had cleared in the sky they rounded up the makers of the icons and dragged them to the town square. Here the former shield makers-turned-icon painters were put to the flames just as had been the son of the Black Rose.

But not even this was enough for the concerned citizens of Voldya. The citizens grew suspicious of one another; and saw evidence of criminal intent with each petty neighborhood quarrel and every family squabble. The police were kept busy day and night by accusations from the outraged citizenry, and soon there was a line to the torture chamber. All suspected child-eaters were led to the pyre to meet their last penalty, but the line did not stop. The time came that all the regular inquisitors and deputies of the law were accused. At length the sheriff was alone in his station and had to call upon the priests to volunteer their participation in running the torture chamber.

The priests were soon charged by those they tortured, and they in turn, accused those who tortured them, including the High Priest and Sheriff. This made for a great commotion in the torture chamber, a commotion and dilemma that eventually spread to the streets and worried those left in Voldya. Who is left, they asked, to torture and burn these last degenerates? They discussed the matter and came to the conclusion that it was indeed their responsibility as the only Voldyans remaining.

The Mayor was sitting in his office reading a missive recently received from the King. In this the King commended the Mayor’s handling of the child-eating epidemic that had apparently spread like wild fire through Voldya. For his good works the Mayor had been sent a medal and offered the hand of the King’s favorite daughter in marriage. The Mayor was so elated by his good fortune that he did not hear the door of his office open. But after a time he heard someone speak his name. Looking up from the missive he saw standing before his desk a large assembly of children. Their faces were sober and their demeanor solemn. Startled, the Mayor asked what had brought them to his office.

A youth amongst the crowd came round the Mayor’s desk. The Mayor pondered why this young man was so informal and without seeming respect to the station of a public officer. He wondered where his secretary was and how these children had even got past the man. He also wondered why these children were not at home with their own parents. All these things the Mayor question the youth about.

In response the boy took from his vest pocket a length of sturdy rope.

“My father was Sheriff,” the youth answered, “and next to the last suspected of the heinous crime of eating the young.”

The Mayor felt his skin prickle and asked, “But why are you here in my office? I am not responsible for the legal repercussions laid upon others suspected of child-eating.”

“No,” the youth said, “but he told us that you were the one who gave him the icon of the Black Rose which he had hung so flagrantly in his office. Thus you are suspected of child-eating, Mayor, and will allow us to search your office and home. If you are innocent there is nothing to fear.”

The Mayor watched as the children ransacked his office, and his heart plummeted when they found the original copy of the storyteller’s saga in the chest. At once the Mayor was seized by the children, who bound him securely and led him from his office to the torture chamber.

Under the torture the Mayor gave the children of Voldya a confession, and in turn they found him guilty of degeneracy. They cut out the Mayor’s tongue and broke every bone in his body, and afterward carried him to the pyre in the town square where they set him aflame. With the Mayor’s death the city of Voldya was no more. The children that had served as the remaining executors of the law changed the city’s name to dismantle all ties with the sins of their fathers and mothers. The city which they built was more wholesome than most, and the pride of its citizens and leaders. There was no tolerance to be found in the enlightened new city for superstitious idols or mementoes. Most notably scorned was any written word about antiquated practices. For like all virtuous people they knew that the surest path to moral degeneracy lies in the reading of it.