Ash of the Witches

You open your eyes. Instead of a familiar ceiling – blackened soot‑stained beams and bunches of dried mugwort under the eaves. Beyond the thin wall – a hoarse cough, the clanking of chains from the cellar, and the measured thud of an axe chopping wood for a new pyre. The air smells of burnt fat, incense, and damp earth.

You step out into the square and notice them. By the pillory stand two: a gaunt Dominican in a faded cassock, clutching a crucifix, and his assistant – a pock‑marked brute with a brand on his shoulder, idly sharpening a knife. Their gazes are heavy as lead shot. A little further off, by the town hall wall, a girl in a torn dress stands frozen – her fingers cramped, her eyes empty, yet she stares right through you, as if seeing your very soul.

Ahead – neighbours' denunciations, torture chairs, whispers of demons in the executioner's ears, and a terrible irony: you remember who will be the first to inform, who will burn as collateral, and which treatise will serve as the indictment. But you cannot change a single verdict. And you certainly cannot tell anyone that among the court officials there already walks a possessed one, wearing the guise of a pious monk.

Welcome to Europe during the "Great Hunt", wayfarer. Be careful: here the devil does not merely exist – he signs the protocols. And he needs new names.