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First my feet were broken. Then my ankles. After that it was my shins. The cudgels next targets were my knees, shattering them as well. I screamed, of course. I screamed with the first blow and I screamed with each additional one. How could any man being broken on the wheel not? Over my screams I heard the crowd that had been so exuberantly jeering for my blood silence themselves as if on command. For a moment it was only my screaming that filled the air. The moment did not last. Confess, Friedrich Hoffmann. Confess while you are still able to! The priest was once again demanding my confession. He had been the one to silence the crowd and momentarily stay the executioners hand. Using every ounce of strength I had I stopped my screaming so that I could answer him. Am I to confess to a crime of which I am innocent? I asked him through my ragged breathing. Especially a crime as wicked as the one of which I am being accused? Would that not be a greater sin? I forced myself to meet the priests cold eyes. Eyes that held not a drop of pity. You will die without absolution if you do not confess, he warned me in his thunderous voice. Your unredeemed soul to be condemned to Hell. Confess now! I looked away from him and did not answer. I could hear a grunt escape from the executioners lips and then my thigh

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bones were shattered. With that blow the roar of the crowd swallowed me up. Madness would have been a welcome release, but somehow it never came. Even after the executioner had broken my hips and moved on to my upper body, the madness stubbornly refused to rescue me. Deep within my heart I prayed. My beloved Johanna, you must believe that I am innocent of what they claim. Death does not worry me, only the fear that these false accusations will keep me from you. The blows from the cudgel had stopped. The priest kneeled by me so that his awful face was near mine, his lips moving in a cruel manner. I was beyond hearing. Instead I was engulfed within a cacophony of sounds. The roar of the crowd, the priests words, my own screaming, all blending together into a deafening roar. Soon the priest disappeared and the executioner took his place. Just as all noises had blended together, so too did all my pain blend together. I wasnt even aware that the executioner had sliced open my arms so that my mangled bones could be braided to the spokes of the wheel. It wasnt until the wheel was lifted and I was suspended by my broken arms that I understood that this had happened, but the pain no longer mattered. I was beyond that. I continued to pray. Please, Johanna, I beg of you, be there waiting for me. This death will be a blessing if only I can look once more into your soft, lovely eyes The hateful faces of the crowd dissolved into a gray blur. My eyes drifted upwards and I caught the flight of several black crows circling patiently overhead. Johanna, always, I promise, always. First the noises enveloping me disappeared. Then the pain. I found myself at peace and watched as the crows faded into blackness.

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I know I died then. Nothing else would have been possible. So where was I? Purgatory? It had to be that. How could it be anything other than that? I couldnt move. I couldnt feel. I couldnt see. Utter despair filled my being. If I were in Purgatory how would I ever see my beloved Johanna again? But then as if to calm my fears a golden haze appeared before me and within it an image took shape. A face. My vision was too blurry for me to make out its details, but I knew it was a face. Of God? Who else could it be? As quickly as the despair had earlier come, so too now the joy and rapture that lifted me. Words were spoken. The voice, though, was too soft for me to understand, and the words blurred together as if they were a hum intoned from far away. And then I was in darkness again. Time crept intolerably slowly after that. It was agony as I waited to know what had happened to me. Worse even than what the executioners skillful cudgel had been able to inflict. Was that truly the face of God Id seen before? And if it was, would I be reunited with my Johanna, or was I to spend eternity in Purgatory, or worse? My agony was suspended when once again the golden light filled my vision, and once again I was able to make out a face within its hazy glow, this time its features more distinct. The face appeared angelic, and my heart soared. And once more a voice spoke to me. While severely muffled, as if the speaker were underwater, I could make out the words. How are we now, my magnificent creation? Still unable to move? Not to worry. That will pass as you grow stronger. You can see me, can you? Oh how I wish you could answer me! Although his words confused me, his angelic counte-

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nance soothed my fears. If I were indeed in Purgatory, I would not be there for long. Darkness came quickly again, but this time I did not despair, although the loneliness I suffered had a heaviness to it that made me feel as if I were drowning. I concentrated to break this loneliness by picturing Johanna. Her soft hazel eyes, the rosiness of her cheeks, her golden flowing hair, the way her face would light up when she smiled at me. I tried to remember the way her hand fitted so perfectly in mine as we would walk along the woods outside of town, and the warmth against my lips when I would steal a kiss from her cheek. Something strange happened while I pictured my Johanna. I once again saw the same yellowish glow from before, but this time it was because I realized I had developed the strength to open my eyes. I let my eyes close and once again I descended into darkness. I forced my eyes open and once more saw the glow. I had believed the angelic face that earlier had appeared and the darkness that followed were caused by heavenly forces, but I realized that instead my eyelids earlier had been forcibly opened. That was why I saw that face peering into mine. It was only a man who had pushed my eyelids open, not God giving me a vision. As this knowledge became irrefutable within my mind, a horrible dread seized me. I had survived the executioners wheel. I wasnt in Purgatory, but instead still of this world. My body presumably lay wherever my host had brought me. Of course my body must be completely broken. But how was that possible? The executioner had shattered my bones, and yet I felt nothing. I knew the reason for this. My spine must have been broken as well as my limbs, so I could open my eyes, but otherwise I was in a state of paralysis. But still, it made no sense. It was not possible to survive the injuries that the executioner had inflicted on me. I was a chemist, a man of sci-

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ence, and I understood that as well as anyone. And yet I was alive. The glow that I had believed was the breath of God was in fact sunlight filtering in through a window. I struggled to keep my eyes open, and when the room later fell into darkness, I knew it was because night had arrived. My host returned again that night. From the faint flickers of light that showed, I surmised that he had lighted candles and had placed them around me. My senses were growing stronger for although the odor was faint to me, I could smell something foul and wretched. Possibly it was a salve that my host had placed over my wounds. As a chemist I was familiar with many compounds and I tried to detect what this one could have been made from, but the odor came from substances I was unfamiliar with. While I tried to solve this vexing puzzle, I heard my host chanting. His voice was too low for me to understand his words or even the language being used, but the rhythmic chanting felt as if it were something thick and oppressive. There was something unholy about it. After the candles were snuffed out and my host had departed, I understood the truth. That I was in the dwelling of a sorcerer.