The Magicians: Time in Hell

Just listen:

Quentin woke up off Earth, in Fillory. He woke up blind, and with his sense of smell critically compromised. His hearing, too. He couldn't speak. And there were ... worms, worms that encased his entire body to prevent him from moving, from trying to escape, which, with his magic crippled, he could not have done even had he been unrestrained.

Despite his mummification, and even with his brain struggling against the pressure of the fluids the worms were hosing into his sinuses, Quentin had a sense of his surroundings. He still had a feebly magical sense of touch, and with it he could feel through the worm cover to the mossy, cobbled stones that pressed into his feet and into his back, and he could feel the hot humidity that kept the worms moist and the slime he stood on healthy. It all told him that he was in a dark place, likely subterranean, and likely to be his home for a long, long time.

It was the prison chambers, the dungeon, of a chapel the Beast had consecrated to himself, and it was here that Quentin would be tortured, and mocked, and starved, and so on by the Beast for months and months on end. Of all the times Quentin had spent and would spend with the Beast, this was undoubtedly the most painful for the young magician. This was the worst. This was time in Hell for him. This was time in Hell.

The Beast did every perverse thing he could to hurt Quentin. He used his magic to cut, bruise, and bleed the young man in ways that can't even be imagined; caused Quentin more pain than anyone can even contemplate. People speak of the anguish Christ felt as the Romans led him to the cross — that was nothing compared to the torment Quentin endured at the hands of the Beast once known and beloved as little Martin Chatwin.

Quentin spent days without air, weeks without blood, months without food. He was kept at the edge of death the entire time he was under the Beast's watch, and the Beast watched Quentin around the clock. He filled Quentin's genitals with Hellfire. He raped Quentin with missiles of magical ice. He stretched Quentin's innards around every inch of his enormous corner of Fillory. He did it all, ceaselessly, and without saying why.

Quentin received no reprieve from his torments, not a moment's rest, just every ounce of misery the Beast could muster against him, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

It was seven months into Quentin's torment that the Beast finally gave Quentin a break. It wasn't kindness or fear that Quentin would die that made Martin let up on torturing him, and it certainly wasn't exhaustion or lack of enthusiasm on the wayward Chatwin's part, either. He obviously hated Quentin, had the means to sustain Quentin's vital functions despite beating the piss out of the young adult, and he never found harming Quentin boring. Even when the bites, and stabs, and burnings, and such fell into a rut, Chatwin still loved watching Quentin writhe in pain and choke on the bits of flesh his body consumed to keep itself alive. The Beast loved it, yes, truly.

But seven months into his sick, depraved treatment of Quentin, he did stop. He scraped the worms off Quentin's flesh, he flushed the poisoning spells from Quentin's system, to differing degrees he healed a number of Quentin's injuries, and he restored Quentin's senses. He didn't allow Quentin to speak for whatever reason, but he did permit Quentin to limp around his environment, though due to the exhaustive trauma Quentin had suffered as well as the Beast's incomplete efforts to heal him, for the first week or so after the magician's torture concluded, Quentin could not take more than a few steps at a time before collapsing into painful unconsciousness.

The Beast did nothing to help Quentin bear the anguish of his recovery. He didn't feed him. If Quentin wanted food, the Beast told him, he "would have to cooperate." If Quentin wanted drink, he "would have to cooperate." If he wanted opiates for his pain, or maggots for his gangrenous wounds, or ointments for his burns, or antibodies for his infections ... cooperate.

"And if you want all of this to end, Quentin," he told him, "you will give me your power, every ounce of it known and unknown."

Quentin rejected his offer, of course.

And then everything went black.

* * * * *

"Comfortable, Quentin?"

It was the Beast's voice that brought Quentin back. The magician found himself in his cell, of course, but this time lying atop a lush bed crafted of various male and female organs. Strong with the Beast's magic, the organs restrained Quentin and sensually rubbed against him. Some fellated him, and some played with his asshole.

Quentin, still mute, made no attempt to respond to his enemy's query. He was stimulated, but not comfortable. Every pore of his body throbbed, and his spirit was as dejected as he hoped it would ever get. He was in too much agony to respond; he wouldn't even if he could have, of course. He had no interest in playing the Beast's game.

"All I want," the Beast said while gently caressing Quentin's cheek, "is what's inside you."

Quentin marshaled his full, pathetic amount of strength and broke free of his restraints. He lunged for his enemy. The Beast saw Quentin's attack coming from a mile away and caught him in a tight grip about the throat.

"You attack me?! You attack me?! I am your God, you little twat!" the Beast howled at Quentin. "And if you won't give me what I want," he continued as he pulled Quentin's face toward his own, "I'll rape all of Creation with my shit!"

The Beast laughed and tossed Quentin back onto his bed.

"Here," the Beast said as he twiddled his fingers in the air, restoring Quentin's speech. "Speak."

Quentin said nothing. The Beast scratched his chin and smiled; then opened a blazing portal to Earth.

"I'll be sending you back now," the Beast said as he telekinetically guided Quentin to the furious doorway home, "with a week to decide and to gather your strength for the transfer, Quentin.  I need you strong for it to work."

Quentin writhed in pain as his body entered the portal.

"If you say yes," the Beast continued, "if you cooperate and surrender your power, all your wonderful, untapped power, our affairs will conclude amicably. But if you say no, if you keep it all to yourself, I will do things to you, and to your people, and to your planet that you can't even pretend to conceive."

That was enough. Threatening him was one thing. Threatening everyone else was another.

And so Quentin screamed, and he thrashed against his invisible bonds, and he leveled as many threats against the Beast as he could en route from Fillory to Earth.

And of course the Beast wasn't moved by any of them, by any of Quentin's threats. He wasn't impressed by them at all. He just waved them all away.

"Stay safe," he told Quentin as the portal closed around the incensed mage.

"Ta."