The Soothsayer - Testament

This is the written testament of Madeleine Mattiasssons in 1849. She was born Swedish and died in Angola at the age of fifty-one. She taught English to the local charity office, married twice and lived to see her generation of six children and eleven grandchildren.

Madeleine was an ordinary woman most described as 'warmhearted' and 'progressive' by people who loved her.

Madeleine was the only person whom recorded detailed journals about The Danish Soul Eater.

She was sixteen then.


With so many children to care for and a dead spouse, Mother was only an image of a gigantic back, forever shadowing our lives. She was poor all her life but wise. Wise people were always bitter and grew old easily. Mother died of dysentery and called us to her bedside with the roaring parade by the passionate revolutionaries imploring for Sweden to become a republic. The eldest of us was only seventeen and I never saw her again when my grandfather sold her to Great Britain to become a maid. I was lucky to finish junior school first in my grade and able to pursuit my ambition of becoming a newspaperwoman. But life was tough for female orphans like me, and despite making the grade, I was unable to become what I want. Doors are closed to me and I was forced to survive in those turmoil years in which King Oscar shot demonstrators and people talk about the Cholera and the German Manifesto that could liberate the world. I turned into prostitution for a while and worked mean hours in sweatshops for mere wages.

But I never stopped writing. Writing was the only I knew, it was the air that I breathe, the light which I believed in. I began and ended my day with writing. Mother taught me how to write at the age of four and called me to her bedside when she was dying at the tender age of thirty-two. Mother shoved me a fountain pen in the depth of my petticoat, kissed my forehead and told me not to tell my siblings as she had nothing to leave them.

I knew that to fulfil my dream and for people to take me seriously, I had to prove myself by coming up with the news of the century. Something grandiose and distant, yet powerful to inspire. Like my mother's back, my news must shadow over Cholera and Communism. When I heard about The Fire Monster in Denmark, I knew I had to be there.

Spending two months in the forestry mountains of Danish Winter, I was almost affirmative that I would not lived past my seventeen birthday. A relentless pack of wolves were hunting for me. I hid and cowered like a young doe. The chase continued for nights and I had lost and spent every possession I had.

One evening, the murky skies over snowed pines and dirty earth, the wolves cornered me. I wavered my fountain pen like a knife and prepared to jam my mother's gift of hope into my heart should the wolves started jumping.

Then he came. The Fire Monster. The wolves smelt him even before the blight. They cried in whimpers and ran away in tails. The burning flames emerged from the woods and the myth of the Danish mountains stood in front of me. Beneath the burning armory of his deadly flames, I could see a skeletal feature of a human figure. Perhaps there was a heart in that monster as well.

The Fire Monster didn't kill me and I followed him into the deep mountains to his den. It was a cottage of sticks and trees.

His glaze was deeply piercing, the crescent pupils gleamed with intense curiosity. We sat down by the empty field of dark rubbles, he was the bonfire of the wicked winter night. His presence possessed an impulsion to be truthful and honest. As if he was the almighty sun at the dark vacuum end, sucking at all hints of treason. As if he was burning bush of God, imploring one to submit one's will. He flared his vocal cords, throaty sound of an ancient well. He said that he knew why I was here. It was until weeks later when the Royal Assembly tried to trial The Fire Monster that I figured out how he knew what everyone was thinking.

The Fire Monster allowed me to stay in the cottage of sticks as long as I don't talk to visitors. And he said that his name was Eilert.

Myths had it that the terrible Fire Beast from the Northern Mountains would ride in fiery chariot across the skies into villages and ate little children. But I witnessed no chariot. Eilert doesn't eat nor sleep. He would often spent days in the scorched field to meditate. His meditation would last for days. It must be a powerful mediation because often the nature breathe along with him. The willows and the thin air swirled and pulled at each exhalation of his burning chest in perfect synchronization. The mountains remained warm during the heavy Danish winter.

Who were the visitors? I asked him when we were admiring the dusky sunrise comprised the vast nothingness of the starless horizon.

They were good people, Eilert said softy, almost to himself.

One day, approaching the end of the long winter, a young couple drawn up a cart filled with their child. The boy was no more than ten, he was sick with green in his cheek and feverish red in his eyes. The boy was consumed by the devil, went the saying from where I was from. His parents then related the tragic condition of their only child who was bitten by a stray rabid dog and could only suffered endless convulsions until he die. The local physician advised to put him down to end his suffering. Each minute was askin to hell for the poor little boy. The parents heard about the mercy deaths that The Fire Monster could performed and pleaded with Eilert to burn their sick child into dreams.

Eilert refused and went deep inside the mountain forest. I invited the visitors into the cottage and served them tea. I did that all by hand signs because I was still forbidden to speak to strangers. The child cried and kicked helplessly. He vomited and threw fits for as long as he could bear. Out of desperation, his mother attempted to strangle her beloved son to kingdom come. Eilert appeared outside the cottage and called out to us. We brought the child to him. Eilert asked the feverish boy his name. The dying junior said that he was Aad.

Eilert whispered Aad's name as if trying to remember it for a long time to come. He put his flaming hand over Aad. Aad immediately burst into fire. But Aad didn't look suffered from the madness of the bite, instead he was smiling at an invisible thought. And Aad passed away.

That was my first encounter with Eilert's power.

Then Eilert began to change. Instead of providing more answers for me to write my story, Eilert would ask even more questions. He would ask about everything, as if my opinion was gold. I began to suspect he knew things that he shouldn't. Or anyone else.

They came with infantry, hundreds of them. The Danish Royal Assembly. The general wanted to bring Eilert to trial for crimes of massacre. The general said that resistance was futile because they had spent months spying Eilert. The Royal Assembly knew that Eilert could only burn people by touch. I wanted to tell Eilert that I wasn't in alliance with them. Eilert knew that. The Fire Monster could read mind.

Eilert asked if I want to know how he manage to read minds. He asked me to close my eyes and breathe in accordance with him. I did what he said. I could hear noises in the darkness of my blindness. Their heartbeat, the drying snow in the leaves, the shuffling of toes and their internal voices. They didn't just want to trial Eilert, they wanted to use him as a weapon against the Prussians.

Then the Germans, Eilert said softy with his eyes still closed. He said that when he mediate he could see wisps of smokes which were the very essence of the human souls. And following the wisps, he could hear the truth.

It's a very dangerous control, to see those things, Eilert said. He told me that sometimes he could almost touch those flimsy snakes of smoke.

I listened with my heart and we knew that the Royal Guards would then kill me to show that they were serious in bringing in the Danish Fire Monster.

Eilert seemed to be very furious at that murderous thought. His fire vibrated with intense glow and the ground shook and charred. I was very frightened, the mountains looked like it would be exploding in any moment. The Royal Guards could felt my fear too. Some of them were dropping their rifles in dread. The general yelled on, against the turn of nature, the fury of the supernatural. The general took out his pistol and wanted to shoot his guards for desertion. But before he could do that, the general burst into a huge combustion of fireball. In death, he dreamed that he was the Danish King.

We now realised that Eilert could burn people without coming into contact. The Royal Guards screamed and fled.

You could touch their souls? I asked in dirty mix of amazement and horror.

But Eilert was too deep inside his own mind to listen. He only asked in stone cold silence that would I like to know what was his profession before he swallow those sulfursticks?

Eilert said that he was God's servant. He was the soothsayer. He said that he now knew why he could see and burn people's soul. Why he could grant a moment of happiness and dreams. He said that it had all become clear to him that God gave him the power to take away lives were for a reason. To finish what he was born to do.

I never doubt him or suspect that Eilert was losing his mind. With such ability, I always knew that it was either him or mankind.

He turned and spoke to me for the one last time.

'Run, to the end of the world and never return!'



To be continued...