“You risked death twice to acquire it. Why does it matter so much to you?’”
“If I tell you where the scroll is,” Chandra said, “what then?”
“You destroyed the Sanctum of Stars, a holy place filled with Kephalai’s most precious artifacts. You killed soldiers, guards, and mages dedicated to its protection. You damaged more than property. You damaged the will of the people of Kephalai. You created a city-wide panic. The death toll has not yet been measured.” The mage’s gaze was hostile. “But if you cooperate now and tell us where the scroll is, your sentence will be lenient.”
“How lenient?”
“You will be executed. Quickly and humanely. Otherwise, we will leave you to the Enervants, and they are not know for their humanity.”
“Well,” Chandra said. “It’s always nice to have choices.”
“If you do not cooperate,” the mage said, “if you force me to wait until you are weak enough for me to probe your mind for the answers we seek, then you will no longer have a choice. We will learn all that we want to know. I, personally, hope you decide to help us find the scroll. The Enervants’ ways are are repellant to me. No one deserves what they have in store for you.”
“All that you want to know?” Chandra said. “What answers are you looking for, besides the location of the scroll?”
“For starters, who are you, and what did you plan to do with the scroll?”
“I don’t really like to talk about myself,” Chandra said.
“Where were you born? Who are your people?”
“And I especially don’t talk about my past.”
The mage looked at her for a moment longer, then said, “It doesn’t matter. Soon, I will know all that I want to know.”
“You won’t find out where the scroll is,” Chandra said truthfully.
“Yes, I will. But, in any event, you have made your choice. I will inform the Prelate: death by slow torture.”
“I look forward to it.”
“I’m sure you do,” she looked at Chandra with what seemed to be pitty. “These guards will remain outside the door should you decide to give us the answers we seek.”
“How will they know when to come in?”
“This one is Dirk,” she said indicating one of the guards. “Call his name, and he will come.”
Only after the mage left the dungeon did Chandra risk dwelling on what the woman had told her.
They don’t know where the scroll is.
It had been in Chandra’s hand when she lost consciousness in the city streets, and she had woken up in captivity. She had assumed her captors had reclaimed possession of the scroll.
There was obviously more to Gideon than she thought. She’d seen for herself that he was fast, that he moved quickly. So he must have had time to conceal the scroll from the soldiers after incapacitating her.
Things were in chaos at the time, after all. Perhaps Gideon had claimed, when turning her unconscious carcass over to them, that she didn’t have the scroll on her, and had planted the notion that she had hidden it somewhere.
Was that why he had let them capture her? So he could make off with the scroll?
I will kill him for this.
The rage felt good. It woke her up, cleared her head, and refreshed her senses.
She focused on her anger, on the fury in her heart at being duped by that man. She berated herself for the way he had taken her by surprise and overpowered her. She imagined him enjoying himself somewhere now, with her scroll, having a good laugh over her predicament.
Because of him, she was chained to a wall in a dungeon and being drained of energy by these snakes! Get mad, this is good. Anger is accelerant. Rage is fuel. Fury is fire.
She had to escape. Death by slow torture was no way for a planeswalker to die. More to the point, she couldn’t hunt him, she couldn’t get revenge on Gideon, if she died here.
A big boom would go a long way toward solving her current problem. But even with the reassuring glow of rage coursing through her now, she knew there was no way she could summon that kind of power. Not until she recovered from the sapping sorcery of the Enervants. And she’d only start recovering once she got away from them.
She had to act now. Immediately. The longer she was in their custody, the weaker she would get.
Chandra closed her eyes and focused on her breathing, concentrating, centering herself on the rage. She embraced the anger, nurtured the hot thirst for retribution. With each steady inhalation, she felt her tenuous mana bond become a little stronger, a little more within her reach. With each inhalation, she felt power coil firmly within her.
She targeted her attention on the seventh Enervant. He had moved to the side of the room where he was reaching into a box. From it he pulled what seemed to be a black, wriggling string. It was about a foot long and thin. He held it out with one hand and came close enough that Chandra could see that it was actually a snake.
“What are you going to do with that?” she asked.
The Enervant’s eyes seemed to glitter in response.
“It’s going to take more than that to crack me.” Chandra was trying to put up a brave front, but, truthfully the snake was terrifying. Suspended by its tail, it moved purposefully, as though it was slithering toward the ground, its sharp head intent on reaching a target. The Enervant held the snake higher and pinched it again beneath his other hand. He slowly drew his hand down the snake, stretching it taut. When he got to the head and let go, it remained as straight and stiff as a splinter of wood.
The black wizard held it out again, showing Chandra what he had done, perhaps taunting her with it, the dim phosphorescent light reflecting sickly in his eyes.
“Now we begin,” he said with obvious pleasure.
Chandra steeled herself, not knowing what to expect. The Enervant went to her right hand and inspected it for a moment, his tongue flickering gently from his mouth. Chandra balled up a fist in response, but in retrospect it was the wrong thing to do. The creature leveled the straightened snake at her knuckles, placed its head directly between her index and forefinger, and pushed. The thing’s head cut into her flesh easily, burning with a pain more intense than anything she had ever known.
Chandra screamed as the entire snake went into her hand, its form bulging beneath her skin as it began to slither up her arm. The pain was like nothing she had ever known.
“DIRK!” she screamed as loudly as she could. “Get in here now!”
Without any further promting, the two guards entered the room. “Get this thing out of my arm,” she cried. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
The guard called Dirk gave the command to the Enervant to do as she said. He produced a knife and made a small inciscion just above the snake’s head, which emerged without prompting. The Enervant took hold of it with his withered nails and pulled it out, spilling blood and interstitial fluid heedlessly. Both guards’ faces went ashen. Chandra was sure the one behind Dirk was on the verge of fainting. For her own part, the only thing that kept Chandra conscious was a fury as pure the heart of the volcano. But she knew she could not let this show. Instead she let her head drop as though she’d fainted.
The guard called Dirk collected himself. “Well, out with it, then. Where’s the scroll?” When Chandra didn’t answer he nudged her, but she still gave no response. “Get some water,” he told the other.
Dirk unshackled her right wrist and let her wounded arm hang. Although it was throbbing, Chandra didn’t feel like there was lasting damage. She remained motionless with her head hanging until the guard came back with a pail and ladle. At that, Chandra raised her head weakly and looked at the guard. He held the full ladle out to her and she cupped the bowl in her hand, bending her head over it as though to drink, her hair falling around it to obscure the ladle from view.
Chandra focused her rage on the water and called on her power to heat it. Within seconds, the small amount of water had come to a boil, and she threw it into the guard’s face, blinding him and scalding his flesh. He stumbled back into the Enervant, who dropped his knife and fell back, disrupting the path of the other enervants. The effect was immediate. Chandra could feel her strength returning, her power blossoming like a flower at the base of her skull and racing out to her extremities.
