The day after Mill’s punishment, he still waited in his cell, anticipating the moment when he would be released. Yet, time passed without a word or any attention being paid to him. It had all the appearance of him being entirely forgotten.
He discovered, though, that he had not been forgotten when the day after his cell was visited by the same guard that had always visited him, and he was hauled out of the prison into the same room of interrogation that he had visited before.
Janake was again there and he again sat across from Mill and explained the situation to him: “Aleck, we have brought you here to ask you a few more questions. It is my belief and the belief of some of my comrades that there is some information that might be relevant to us that is still hiding inside your head. So, if we might begin, I would like to ask you if you know when and where the next attack by the Omnia is scheduled to occur? Which village are they attacking and approximately how long before this is expected to happen?”
Mill squirmed in his chair as he heard this question and shouted back at Janake, “What is this? You were supposed to release me. That’s what you said! ”
“And there you are entirely correct,” Janake said, raising his eyebrows and staring at Mill with a fixed stare, “We are going to release, once you divulge all the information you have. So far you have been cooperative and we have given you a very lenient sentence in exchange. If you continue to be cooperative, then you’ll be out of here in no time. Now, as I was saying: where and when do you expect the next attack?”
“I don’t know,” Mill said, now squirming even more violently as he tried to pull himself out of the restraints that held him to the chair he was seated in. Mill rocked the chair back and forth and the guard had to hold him in place while Mill screamed through gritted teeth, “I’ve told you everything I know. If you’d just open your ears and hear what I’m saying. They told me almost nothing. I passed on information to them. Communication was entirely in one direction. Do you get it?”
As Mill spoke, Janake focused on carefully inspecting Mill’s face, which was red with rage. Once Mill finished, Janake simply sighed and said to Mill, “You’ve held things back from us before. Why should I trust you?” Aleck then gestured to the guard and told him, “Let’s start with the drowning tank.”
The guard untied Mill and led him towards the back of the room where the instruments of torture were located while Mill vigorously struggled against him. Janake explained as they walked, “I’m being quite forgiving today. The torture you’ll have to endure will do no permanent damage. But bear in mind that if you continue to resist, we will have to resort to some of the more brutal tortures, which will permanently disfigure you.” Janake then pointed to a screw press that was wide enough to put two legs through and explained, “That one, for example, will break your knees. You wouldn’t be able to walk anymore. I’d hate to have to use it. It’s really unpleasant for me to watch.” Janake pointed to another screw press that had a round cup on top and another smaller cup on bottom and he said, “That’s one for your head. People who get too intransigent in that one tend to lose all their teeth. Really ugly stuff.”
Mill was tied to a large ring while he stood vertically, his wrists and his ankles both securely affixed. He didn’t understand what this torture was about and was terrified with expectation. The ring was rotated so that he was horizontal and a water tank was pushed beneath him.
The guard lowered him, ring and all, into the tank. He squirmed about in a frantic attempt to free himself and get his mouth above the water. As the moments passed, the pain in his lungs intensified as his body screamed out for breath. He was abruptly lifted and he took a few quick breaths, which gave him a short respite, but then he was dropped back in and the torment began again.
When he was lifted a second time, Janake asked him, “Now are you going to talk?”
Mill immediately started spouting out anything he could think of that might convince them. He thought he remembered hearing of a small village even further summerward than Still Creek called Walton, and so he said, through rapid breaths that Walton was the next target and that they would be probably attacking after about twenty or thirty days.
Janake looked at him skeptically and said, “I’m not sure if I believe you,” and ordered for Janake to be dunked back into the water.
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