The Pit and The Pendulum

I was sick, sick with the feeling of death. I heard the mutter of those who had questioned

me, the Inquisitors. I saw the lips of the black-robed judges, and they were whiter than the

paper that I am writing this on. They were thin, and tight, and they whispered things I could

not hear. I saw seven candles on a table beside me, and they shone like angels, but I knew

there was nobody to help me. I thought how sweet death would be, and then the men

around me disappeared, and the candles faded into darkness.

I woke up, and I felt more tired than was possible. My heart beat in my ears, and I saw

nothing, but slowly the memory of the trial came back to me. The air was thick and warm

inside the place, as if I was lying in a cooking pot, and I wondered if this was Hell. But I knew

this could not be true, because they had not killed me yet. I would know when it happened.

I had heard the stories. They burned the lucky ones. Others, they cut apart.

I stood up, and waved my arms around. They passed through the air, but I did not dare

move forward, as I thought I might find the walls of a tomb. I blinked, and moved my head,

hoping to find some small ray of light, but there was nothing but darkness.

I slowly began to walk, with my arms stretched out. Soon I touched stone, at least, what felt

like stone, slimy and cold. I tore off a strip of the rough clothes they had given me, and

placed it on the floor against the wall. Then I moved around, waiting to find the cloth, to

know the size of the room. It felt like I was walking for hours, but I knew it was merely

minutes. Finally, I reached the cloth. It had been about a hundred steps. However, I had

found many angles in the wall, and I couldn’t guess at what shape the room was.

Really, there was no reason to find these things out. They helped me in no way, apart from

satisfying my curiosity. But now that I had an idea of the place, I wanted to find out more. I

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decided to cross the room across the centre. I moved slowly, as the floor was slimy. Ten or

so steps in, the cloth got caught on my leg, and I fell, landing on my face.

But my face did not slam into the stone. My chin did, but the rest of my face hung in the air.

I reached out with my arm, and discovered I had fallen by the edge of a large, round pit. I

managed to find a small piece of stone, and threw it into the pit. There was a long moment

of silence, and finally a distant splash. At the same time, I heard a door open and close

above me, and there was a brief flash of light in the room.

It was only a second, but it allowed me to see the trap they had prepared for me. One more

step, and I would have fallen to my death. It was the kind of torture that people spoke of in

whispers, and many thought was made up. Nobody really knew what the Inquisition did. But

now I could see that the stories of cruel punishment were true, and I was in one of them.

The pit would be an easy death. I could jump in and end it right there. Except it could well

lead to a longer suffering, and I was far too much of a coward to take things into my own

hands.

I fell asleep again, and when I woke up, there was light.

The room looked much smaller, now that I could see it. It was, in fact, mostly square, but

there were a few angles in the walls which made it seem otherwise. It was not made of

stone, but iron, connected in huge sheets. It was painted with horrible images: demons,

skeletons, and tortured people.

Before me lay the pit which I had almost fallen into, but I could not see it well, as I was tied

up, laid out on a piece of wood. A long strap connected me to it, and I could only move my

head and my left arm. To my left, they had placed a plate, but there was no water. All that

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was there was a piece of fat, salty, oily meat. Of course, hunger was not my problem, but

thirst, and just the smell of the meat made my throat dry up.

When I looked above me, I was met by a human face. It was a painting, far above on the

ceiling, of an old man: Father Time. Usually he was shown holding a scythe, a curved knife

used to harvest crops. But he wasn’t holding a scythe, but a pendulum, like on an old clock.

It was hard to see, but it looked as if it was moving, and for a few minutes, I watched it like a

baby in its bed.

A noise came from nearby, and I looked to see several rats crawling along the floor. They

had come from the pit. They crawled up to the meat, and I waved my hand to keep them

away. This required a lot of effort, as I could only weakly move my arm, and the mice kept

growing in number.

A while later, I looked up again, and was amazed. Father Time’s pendulum was still moving,

making a wider arc in the air than before. Naturally, it moved more quickly, but what most

worried me was that it was lower. It was made of steel, with a sharp blade in the centre, and

it hissed as it swung through the air. Sssss. Sssss. Sssss.

I had escaped the pit, so they gave me the pendulum. I had been “lucky” to discover the pit,

and now an even bloodier death awaited me.

It felt like days passed as I watched it come down, hiss hiss hiss, each time an inch closer

than before. It blew air at me like a fan, and when it got close enough, I could smell the steel

with each swing. I prayed for it to come down faster, to end it all with one movement, but it

remained painfully distant.

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The human body is remarkable. Despite my torture, my stomach still ached with the need

for food, and I was forced to reach for the meat to my left. Only a small part remained—the

rats had eaten the rest. As I ate it, I felt a flash of hope, and I held onto it like an idiot. I

looked back up.

Down it came! The pendulum would slice across my chest and into my heart. First, it would

cut through the cloth, bit by bit, until it left my skin exposed, and then it would bite through

skin and bone.

Down and down! Father Time laughed at me, and I laughed back, roaring like a tiger. It was

ten inches away from my chest now. I struggled, and tried to free my left arm—it was only

free from the elbow down. But the strap was tight, and I only made myself weaker.

Down, down, down! I shook and sweated. My eyes followed the blade from side to side.

And yet, I still felt a sick kind of hope.

As the pendulum came ever closer, I realised something. The strap around me was not

several, but one. It was wound all around me, but it had no ties in the middle. When the

pendulum sliced through it, I could unwind it with my left hand, and free myself.

But by that point, the steel would be too close to me. And surely, the torturers had thought

of this. I moved my head, to look down at my chest, and saw that where the blade would

slice, the strap did not pass.

And then, out of the darkness, came a mad idea. For several hours, the wooden frame on

which I lay had been covered with rats. They stared at me with red eyes, waiting for their

food to be ready. They had finished the meat, and now I was all that was left.

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My left hand was oily, covered with salt and spices from the meat. The rats had been trying

to bite and lick it, and I had moved it away from them each time. Now I rubbed it over the

strap and waited. The rats moved back in fear, but then one or two brave ones jumped

forward, and smelt the strap. Suddenly, the rest followed. They jumped onto the strap, and I

felt hundreds of tiny mouths working furiously, and the strap grew looser.

But the pendulum was close now, only inches away. I lay as still as I could, praying for the

rats to work quickly. Then, suddenly, the rats moved back and I felt I was free! The strap was

torn apart. The pendulum sliced across, biting into my clothes. I waited for it to fly high into

the air, and then rolled over, off the wooden frame and onto the floor.

I was free! Free, but still in the hold of the Inquisition. A door opened above, and the

pendulum began to rise, pulled away into the ceiling. I had escaped the pendulum, and who

knew what awaited me next?

I looked around at the iron walls, and I realised where the light was coming from. At the

bottom of the walls, there was a small gap through which it shone. I leant down to try and

see through it, but it was too low. When I got up, the paintings on the walls shone with a

new light. I looked closer, and saw that they had indeed changed. Every eye of every demon,

skeleton, and suffering human, was redder than before, as if lit by a candle. I looked around

the room, watched on all sides by the demonic eyes of the Inquisitors.

And then came the smell, of burning iron. A wave of red passed over the paintings, and

steam began to rise. Now I saw the death they had planned for me, beyond even the

pendulum in cruelty. I ran towards the pit, from which cold air blew. I stared down, and the

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light of the fire showed what was below. There was water, and hundreds of eyes belonging

to hungry rats. I could not bring myself to jump.

I looked around again, and noticed another change. The room, which had been square, now

had two walls pushed into it, breaking the shape. As the fire grew, I saw the gaps between

the plates shiver, and in a moment they had moved again, with a loud noise, pushing the

room into a diamond shape.

The walls glowed bright red now, and I felt their heat even beside the pit. That was my fate:

to choose the fire of the prison, or to be eaten alive by the rats of the pit.

The room grew smaller again, and I felt my skin begin to burn. I could hardly see for the

steam and flames, and the eyes on the walls shone like hot coals. I was pushed back towards

the pit, and finally, with hardly an inch between myself and the wall, I began to lose my

balance.

And then, I heard the strangest sounds. Voices shouting. Trumpets blasting. Weapons

clashing against each other. The fiery walls went cold, and rushed back to their original

place, and an arm reached out and pulled me from the pit.

I blinked at the change in light. Before me stood a man in a military uniform. He smiled at

me.

‘You’re safe now,’ he said.

It was the French army, I realised. They had invaded the town, and the Inquisition was

defeated. I felt a wave of joy, and passed out.