She awoke to the sudden sensation of ice cold water dumped on her, like frigid needles driving into her nerves. She screamed into the gag that was stuffed into her mouth and strained against the restraints. It was an automatic reaction. She knew better. In the end it just ground the iron manacles deeper into the skin of her wrists and ankles. She swayed with the slight amount of leeway the bindings would allow, suspended in mid air in a torturous contorted position. The sound of the water dripping down on the floor mixed with the creak of leather and jingle of the chains.
Helwahawen no longer knew how long she had been there. Time had ceased to exist. Her existence was one impossibly long moment of immeasurable duration. She was not allowed to sleep. Though she had occasionally slipped into unconsciousness from the pain, she didn't know how long she had been out. It could not have been long, as her nerves still shrieked for exhaustion. Every muscle ached from the agonizing position she had been suspended in. Her back was an inferno of howling nerves from the lashes of the neural whip.
"Lost you there for a moment, witch," His voice cut through her mind like a knife. The voice was amplified by his psychic power, hammering through her crippled defenses. "Your heart stopped there for a few seconds. I had to revive you." She heard the echo of his boots on the concrete floor as he paused, "I must say I'm surprised…and a little disappointed. I expected better from you. I didn't think your body would give out so soon…"
She felt his hands on each side of her face and instinctively she tried to pull away. He knelt so his forehead touched hers and he whispered, "We can't have you dying on me yet, witch…so I suppose we'll switch from body to mind…" Her body began to tremble as she knew what would come next. His psychic power crashed through her skull like a hammer and flayed her mind open as though hundreds of tiny scalpels were carving into her brain.
The pain was so great, she couldn't even force herself to scream…
Gaius coiled the neural whip in his hand. The versatile weapon had two settings. The "killing" setting energized the whip in a field that could crave through the best armor made as though it was no more than paper. The "stunning" setting sent signals along the nervous system of the unfortunate target, causing a kind of pain that was indescribable…
The "killing" setting was considered far more merciful…
He walked to the captive Farseer, now suspended upside down from the ceiling. The building had once been part of the Imperial Guard motor pool, a repair facility for Trojan and Chimera transports. He had chosen it for its thick permacrete walls and floors, as well as the cranes and rigging from which to suspend his prisoners. It was also some distance from the rest of the Point Phobos, surrounded now by a graveyard of crippled vehicles.
She was shivering with cold, and the continual agony of the Confession machine, electrodes placed across her skin, pulsing signals of continual pain through her nervous system. As befitting the cleansing of her daemonic xeno soul, he had the setting to "Fire". To the Farseer, it felt as though her flesh was being seared from her bones continually, without end. He reached over casually and flipped off the switch, and Helwahawen's body relaxed in the restraints. Her breath was quick and ragged as she hung limply.
Gaius slid a chair up and sat next to her head, crossing his legs and leaning back comfortably, "Let's talk some more…is that okay with you?" He inspected his manicured nails as he continued, "To most humans, Eldar history is shrouded in the mists of rumor, conjecture, and superstition…but I know a considerable amount…" He leaned forward to whisper in her ear, "…straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak."
"Yours is a dying race, Helwahawen. Your empire is long gone, and your people tainted by the sins of your past." He raised an eyebrow, "Oh…I can feel your thoughts. You think we humans are corrupt, detestable, barbaric. That's truly the pot calling the kettle black." He chuckled. "The sins of my race pale in comparison to the debauchery of the Eldar. Your civilization became so corrupt…so debased…so vile, that the Chaos Lord Slaanesh was born of the psychic residue of your decadence. A psychic holocaust of such magnitude, that it ripped a hole in space, creating the Eye of Terror, and birthing a Daemon Lord."
