Duvan opened his eyes to a torch-lit room with an arched stone ceiling, the amber-colored bricks streaked with soot stains. He immediately counted four people in the room, although there could be more behind him.
The woman who had spoken was an elf, slight of build, and she had short-cropped blonde hair. Duvan guessed she was in charge. Standing closer to him, just to his right, was a dark-skinned human man in white clerical robes wearing a pendant that bore the symbol of the Order: a stylized, flaming, blue eyeball. The man’s milky cataracts gave him a reptilian look.
No sign of Slanya. Hopefully, she was spared this indignity. I don’t really suspect her of betraying me, do I?
Behind the cleric stood Beaugrat, his plate mail polished to a silver shine. The big man’s eyes were on the blonde elf. And behind Beaugrat, by the archway that led to the stairs, stood a single guard-a spellcaster by the looks of her loose-fitting silk clothing. This guard woman was genasi, her skin the color of the ocean, and she had a spellscar that manifested as flowing tributaries across the hairless, aqua skin of her skull, just above her pointed ears. Duvan could not tell by a quick glance what sort of spellcaster she was, but she would no doubt be powerful.
The blonde elf spoke, her voice like silk-covered glass shards, all smooth but with a sharpness underneath. “It is good to see you are whole and alert, Duvan. I am Commander Accordant Vraith.”
Duvan realized abruptly that his hands and limbs were not bound, but even so he could barely move them.
“You are our guest here,” Vraith continued, “until we decide to let you go. And I assure you that your mundane escape tricks will not work.”
“You have an interesting definition of guest,” Duvan said.
“You should see how we treat intruders,” Beaugrat said with a laugh.
“Enough!” Vraith’s eyes fluttered as though she wasn’t quite in control of herself. “We are going to conduct some tests, Duvan. These tests may pose significant danger to your body and mind, but they are necessary. And we have our best healer here to ensure that you will be able to endure them indefinitely.”
“You know,” Duvan said, “while that sounds incredibly inviting, I think I’ll have to pass this time. I really do have someplace else to be.”
Beaugrat gave a chuckle at that.
Vraith, however, failed to see the humor. “Let’s begin,” she said.
Beaugrat grew serious then pressed his wrists together, palms facing Duvan. Gauzy blue flames ignited from the big warrior’s shoulder spellscar and sheathed his arm and hands.
Duvan took a slow breath. Hadn’t he been here before? This was a waste of time.
Beaugrat concentrated and focused. The translucent energy gathered into a ball of twisting folds near the big man’s hands, then shot forth like a spray, directly at Duvan.
Duvan watched as the flames dissipated before they hit him. He didn’t want to flaunt his ability, but other than the challenge of escaping this place, which seemed highly unlikely without help, he was bored.
Gasps and whispers came from onlookers behind Duvan. He could not turn to look, but he heard two more people in the room.
“This was as we expected,” came Vraith’s voice. “Let’s try a stronger dose.”
Beaugrat nodded then took a deep breath. He gathered a larger ball of gauzy flames and sent them lashing out at Duvan again. The light flashed searing white this time, casting the room in sharp shadows.
The familiar melting gut feeling triggered inside Duvan’s abdomen. And again, the wild magic weakened and faded before it could touch him. The coherent burst of white disintegrated into an ineffectual mist when it neared Duvan, then vanished completely, dissipating into nothingness.
More murmurs and gasps from the gallery.
“You know, I could save you some time,” Duvan said. “I have been thoroughly experimented on already.”
“Hold off for a moment, Beaugrat,” Vraith said. After a relieved nod from the plate-clad warrior, she stepped slowly up to Duvan. Her blonde eyebrows narrowed as she looked down on him. “When was that?” she asked.
“A few years ago.” Duvan’s mind flashed on his tenure in the Wildhome cage, huddled against the elements inside the border of the Plaguewrought Land, miserable and waiting for Rhiazzshar to come take him out.
“What can you tell us?” Vraith asked.
“I can tell you the extent of my ability,” Duvan said. “I’m sure we can come to some agreement.”
“Why would I trust you?” Vraith said. “You work for Tyrangal, and she has been less than cooperative.”
“I am a man of my word.”
The faintest of smiles tugged at Vraith’s thin red lips. “Oh, perhaps you are,” she said. “But then again, if you weren’t, you’d say the same thing.”
“True,” Duvan admitted.
“We both know how this is going to go. You are not in a position to negotiate at the moment.” Vraith’s hint of a smile faded completely, and she retreated to stand back out of the way.
“I could agree to stay far away from your operations,” Duvan offered. “I could agree to help-”
“Beaugrat,” Vraith said, ignoring Duvan. “Resume the testing. More power this time.”
Lashing blue-white fire struck out at him again. Then once more. Over and over, with increased intensity, each successive attack. Each time, he felt no hint of an effect. Nothing.
Finally, Beaugrat collapsed to his knees with exertion. “That’s all I can do.”
“It’s enough,” Vraith said. “He is immune to the Blue Fire.”
Duvan sighed. “I could have told you that and saved poor Beaugrat some embarrassment.”
Ignoring Duvan, Vraith said, “Let the next stage of tests begin. Guraru, you’re up.”
A dark figure stepped out from behind him-a dwarf with a brilliant red beard intricately plaited down his portly front. The dwarf nodded, the dry brown skin of his balding head stretched over his skull like aging parchment. “Let’s try some heat,” he said. The dwarf muttered an incantation so softly that Duvan could not hear the words, while at the same time his hands traced the lines of an invisible glyph in the air.
Suddenly Duvan was on fire, his skin blistering and blackening from the heat. Agony took hold of him, his whole being burned. Duvan clenched his jaw, trying to resist the urge to scream. He didn’t want to give them the satisfaction. But he felt like he was being drowned in a vat of boiling oil. His skin singed and blackened. His eyeballs seemed to melt in his head.
He gave in. He let out a guttural scream that was at least as much anger as it was pain. This dwarf must be stopped. Duvan would happily kill him to make the pain go away. Duvan would kill them all. He screamed and screamed, and he wished he could pass out from the pain.
“Heal him.”
Duvan breathed a sigh of relief as the searing diminished to an afterimage of the burning agony. Then he was whole and sound again. But while the reprieve from the pain was a welcome numbness, his mind flinched from the residual memory of the torment.
“Again,” came Vraith’s voice. “I want exact measures of his tolerances.”
Duvan started to speak. He could tell them. There was no reason to keep testing him. He had no resistance. Fire and ice and dread and mind magic all worked on him. But he never got the chance to speak before the fire engulfed him a second time.
The first attack was a mere hint of the crisp, soul-searing agony that consumed him the second time. The fire erupted everywhere at once: inside his chest, all over his skin, under his fingernails. His hair burned. His skin blistered and blackened. And all of it happened in the briefest flare of the sun.
The world went dark around him, and Duvan found himself fluttering like silk in a gray wind. All around him was a flat, dark plane, only discernible in shades of gray. He could not move of his own accord, could not step through onto the plane; his presence here was insubstantial.
Against the backdrop of gray, Duvan flashed on Talfani’s frail and emaciated body as he held her in those last moments. He remembered curling around her, holding her, and stroking her hair gently so it would not fall out in chunks.