"Really, Lisanne." Inquisitor Eldric held up the stubby rod of smooth white hexagonal crystal, a disappointed expression on his face. "Haven't you set your sights just a little bit higher than this... apprentice's tool yet? I mean, I suppose it was clever enough of you to attempt to infiltrate the master's sanctum without anything that would trip his detection wards, but I frankly don't know why you ever thought you'd get anywhere with this thing. Might as well channel your magic through an old chicken bone."

Lisanne had done that and more in her time, but she knew better than to boast about it to Archmage Kolos Rameth's handpicked interrogator. He was trying to bait her into revealing her plans, her co-conspirators, anything he could use to ferret out the secret resistance movement that harried his reign over the kingdom of Ristendell, and his insults were a taunt designed to provoke her ego. Lisanne couldn't deny he was getting under her skin, too, even if she had too much discipline to let it show.

Still, that very discipline was proving to be at least as much a hindrance as a help. Eldric had to notice her stoicism in the face of his taunts and goads... and the implements of persuasion he had set out so precisely on the table next to the chair she was shackled into. He couldn't simply assume she was displaying the kind of futile defiance his master took such great joy in crushing, not when his life and position depended on breaking Lisanne's spirit and using her to lead him to the next link in the chain leading back to Darrig and the rest of the rebels. He had to assume she had a plan to escape despite her obvious helplessness.

Which only made it that much more difficult to implement the incredibly clever plan of escape she actually had. They'd taken her spellbooks upon capturing her, assuming it would render her unable to cast magic once the spells she memorized faded from her consciousness after a night's stay in the dungeons... but as with so many Academy-trained mages, their imagination was limited by their hidebound and rigorous training. They had no idea that Lisanne had a spell tattooed onto the sole of her foot with the same inks she used to inscribe her tomes, an incantation that would allow her to slip any bonds or shackles and open even the most tightly locked doors. She'd meticulously memorized it every morning of her captivity, and it didn't require even the slightest gesture to cast.

But it did require an arcane focus. And hers was an infuriating two feet out of her reach. Time to dip into a different bag of tricks, then. "Surely you recall your elementary training, Eldric," she murmured, pitching her voice low and seductive as though speaking to a new familiar. "Every crystal has its own special properties, each resonating with a different school of magic. Ruby for evocation, onyx for abjuration--"

Eldric rolled his eyes. "And quartz for enchantment, yes. Was that your plan for the master, then? Were you going to bedazzle him with a few charms, leave him swooning like a lovesick schoolboy at the sight of you? You have to know he's protected from that sort of thing, just as you are. Otherwise we could skip all the unpleasantness of torture and conduct this conversation under more... pleasant circumstances." Lisanne tried not to let her expression betray the skin-crawling revulsion she felt on seeing his thin-lipped, leering smile--the depredations of Rameth and his cabal were well known across a dozen kingdoms, and it was well-known that the women he chose for his entertainments thanked him for every agony he inflicted. She had no doubt that Eldric used his spells to turn his prisoners into compliant, vacant thralls to suffer at his sufferance.

But she couldn't let herself think about that right now. "Charms aren't the only enchantments available to a wizard," she cooed, her tone insinuating a sly and secret knowledge she knew would keep the interrogator's attention squarely on her. "And there's more uses for an arcane focus than simply casting spells, for one who's truly penetrated the secrets of the Witch-Queens as well as the lore of the Academy's ivory towers. Take a closer look at that humble quartz rod, Eldric. Look deep into the cloudy crystal, and I promise you, you'll find it most rewarding."

The willpower of an high arcanist kept Lisanne's face from cracking into a smile as she watched the inquisitor look down at the stubby quartz rod in his hand, his eyes narrowing as he examined it for cracks and imperfections. "I don't see anything," he snarled, his voice filled with mistrust. "Is this some sort of witch's trick? Because I--"

Lisanne cut him off with a knowing scoff guaranteed to cut at his insecurities. "Don't look with your eyes, Eldric. Look with your mind. The power of the quartz resonates with the mind, after all, exerting its power on the will and the imagination. Focus your attention on the crystal and imagine your thoughts drifting beneath the surface, down into the heart of the stone where its true potency lies. Assuming a will as distracted and divided as yours can focus that deeply, of course."

Lisanne knew the effect her words would have on him before she uttered her first syllable; she remembered Eldric from her academy days, a dullard and a try-hard who puffed himself up with memorized facts and rote recitation of theories he loved to repeat but never understood. He'd do anything to prove his intellectual superiority over her, even in a situation where he had nothing to gain and everything to lose by allowing her to steer their interaction, and it didn't surprise her at all that he responded to the obvious goad by intensifying his stare even further. "It's child's play for me," Eldric muttered, his brow furrowing in furious contemplation. "I, I'm already inside."

Lisanne chuckled knowingly. "If you were really that focused, Eldric, you wouldn't even be trying to converse with me. Your mind would be so intent on the mysteries you found that my voice would be a mere noise in the background, unworthy of your attention in comparison to the secrets you've uncovered. Secrets of the mind, secrets of true control over the wills and thoughts of all those you seek to dominate. So long as you continue to devote your time to me, Eldric, that goal will forever elude you." Naturally he gazed even more intently at the quartz crystal. There was really no other way he could do anything else.

If she was feeling charitable, Lisanne might have acknowledged that it wasn't just ego luring him into the trap she was laying. Theirs was a world of true magic, of enchantments and spells and arcane mysteries, and the subtle arts of mundane persuasion were rarely considered worth studying in comparison to a few muttered words that could compel a man to slay his own lover at your behest. Only the Witch-Queens, devotees of the secret god of slumber, took an interest in the tricks Hypnos taught them to play on waking minds... and although Lisanne found her other tactics swifter and more reliable, hypnosis worked even on wizards with warded minds. And she could use it even when her sorcerous power was fully depleted.

"If you're having difficulty finding your way in, Eldric," she suggested, her voice coaxing him with its dulcet lilt, "perhaps you can find a single imperfection to focus on. A bubble in the quartz, something you can use to narrow down your attention yet further. Let your eyes remain locked on that bubble, let all your other thoughts slip away so you can picture sinking deep down into the very heart of the stone. When you can manage that, even my voice will become a distant dream. Nothing but a rush of sound that you can tune out easily, effortlessly, hearing but not listening because you're so deep in the crystal now."

Eldric nodded, and Lisanne knew he was beginning to fall under her spell because he didn't even seem to realize he was doing it. His head simply drifted up and down, automatically and unthinkingly, while his gaze took on the indolent cast of someone no longer truly seeing what they were looking at. Her plan was working... and she already knew exactly how she was going to play on his weaknesses next.

"Your will is entering into convergence with the crystal, Eldric," Lisanne cooed, her voice taking on the silvered tones of a sweet, sensual lullaby. "Those extraneous thoughts you struggled to tame just moments ago now drift past without any effort at pursuing them, as the stone consumes more and more of your focus, your attention, your mind. My words no longer matter, they're simply another thought that you let past into the deepest recesses of yourself, because they mystery of the quartz is so much more fascinating to you now. You can feel yourself beginning to fully understand it, can't you?"

Again that distracted, absent-minded nod. It was easy to believe that Eldric would convince himself he understood a secret he truly had no comprehension of; it was how he'd treated magic his entire life in some ways. "Feel the power the quartz holds over the weak-willed," Lisanne husked out seductively, refusing to let even a trace of amusement enter her voice as she watched the man who fully believed himself to be an exception to that category begin to spot his robes with drool. "You know you can use it to dominate, to control, to enthrall and to enslave, don't you?"

His hand drifted down to the bulge between his legs as she spoke, thoughtlessly rubbing at his erection, and she knew what passed for thought in his empty head without needing to be told. His body language on seeing her like this, apparently helpless and in his power, told her everything she needed to know about his character... and all she needed to do was lay out the slightest insinuation that he'd be able to use the power she was promising to capture her mind along with her body and he would walk into fire to obtain it. It wasn't hard at all to appeal to his debauched and desperate lusts.

"The secret to its strength is to assert that dominance physically as well as mentally. To thrust into them with the crystal and your will at the same time." She lowered her voice to a hushed whisper, a sly promise of pleasures and power yet to come. "Your potency is in penetration, Eldric, why not the stone's as well? You know it to be true. Thrust the quartz into your victim. Push it into them and channel your desires, and you can have everything... everything you ever wanted."

He nodded again, eyes glassy, and Lisanne confessed to herself a moment of anxiety as he lifted the loose and ragged shift her captors had given her to reveal her bare body. She didn't relish the thought of being touched by Eldric when he was in the grip of his lusts, not even for an instant, and even though she knew her spell by heart there was a tiny instant of dread at the notion that he would have somehow anticipated even this gambit from her. It was something she would look back on with a tiny shudder once her mission was complete.

But instead the quartz rod touched the smooth, pale skin of her thigh, and arcane energies flared up as she swiftly chanted the spell to herself. She slipped her bonds in an instant, wrenching the stone from Eldric's hands while he stared flabbergasted at her as if waking from a dream... and although Lisanne had no other magics available to her, the Witch-Queens had taught her many secret uses for crystals that the Academy had never even considered. She clocked Eldric in the temple with it as hard as she could, taking fierce satisfaction in the way he toppled to the floor, and then she took the longest, sharpest blade she could find from his arsenal of tools and pressed it to his throat.

She did have a mission to complete, after all. And as weak and gullible as he was, Eldric could still raise an alarm if she gave him a chance.

THE END