The woman nodded. “They are gathering your strength.”
“I thought they were having a little snake dance in my honor.” Chandra scowled.
But Chandra understood. This was dark magic. These strange creatures were sapping her strength. She could feel the direct assault on her energy now that she knew about it.
And they were effective. Considering how exhausted she felt, she suspected they could quickly turn an ordinary mage into a useless husk.
Chandra glared at the telepath. “Your friends tried to read me, and they died for their efforts. Quit while you’re ahead.”
“I can be patient,” the woman said coldly. “You may still be strong enough to resist now. You may even be strong enough to resist on my next visit. But you’re much weaker now than you were yesterday, and tomorrow you will be weaker still. And when you are weak enough, we will succeed. You will not be able to conceal it from me then. I will find out what you did with the scroll.”
“The scroll? That’s what you want? I don’t…” Cold surprise washed through Chandra.
The scroll.
“I don’t know where it is,” Chandra said, baffled by how they couldn’t know this.
“You seem convinced of that, yes. But there are many corners in the mind, many places for things to hide,” said the telepath, her clear blue eyes radiating in the dark of the room. “You didn’t succeed in killing everyone who was in the Sanctum of Stars, you know. Four soldiers survived. They saw you flee into the city streets with the scroll.”
“Uh-huh.” She wouldn’t let herself think about what had happened. Truth be told, she was too tired to think about it, anyway.
“If you want the scroll back,” Chandra said, “why not talk to the man who got it back last time?”
“The Prelate says he’s gone.” It was obvious the woman was only answering because she was curious to see what Chandra’s reaction would be.
“Gone where?”
“I do not question the Prelate.”
“No, of course not,” said Chandra, using the same tone of voice the telepath had used moments before.
“Where is the scroll?” the mage demanded, realizing she was being mocked.
“Why does it matter so much to you?”
“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.