As we reached the final row, Jonas was led away toward a cell. I struggled against the warden's grip, desperate to see which cell they put him in. I'd need to know that for when I came to get him out again, which I fully intended to do. By the time they got control of me, I hadn't seen exactly which cell they took him into, but I had a close enough idea. As soon as possible, I would come to rescue him.
The hallway ended there with only a single door ahead of us. This was the back room, where Governor Felling had apparently ordered me to be taken. I didn't know why, but it couldn't be for anything good. We entered an examination room, not too different from Doctor Cresh's office in Keldan. A fireplace was at the far end, with a lit fire inside, making the room a touch too warm. But a kettle was hung over it, and I recognized the scent at once. More medicine was being brewed, more poison. It had worked for over a year to keep the Colonists numb. Whatever happened to me, I doubted it would be as easy to fool them anymore. By tomorrow, when the medicine was ready, most of the people in that prison would already feel better than they had. They would know the medicine was an enemy to them. They'd know the governor was their enemy too.
The wardens would never persuade the Colonists to believe their lies again, no more than they could put all this rainwater back into the clouds.
But saving the Colonists wasn't enough. The governor could not be allowed to send anyone else here. Someone had to stop her.
I really didn't want to think about who that someone might be.
Another door stood at the far end of the room, letting in rainwater, so I guessed it had to be the infirmary's rear exit. Shelves on the walls held jars of herbs, liquids, and other ingredients. In any other physician's office, these jars might contain things to actually heal a person, or to improve their life somehow. Not here.
But my attention went to a more unusual sight, a wooden grate in the floor of the room. They already had cells in the rest of this infirmary. What would they need with a caged pit beneath the floor?
Maybe it was nothing. In the old days, when this place had been a prison, that had probably been used as an isolation cell. Before that, I couldn't imagine its use, and I was certain that I did not want to know.
Yet as they led me in that direction, I figured I was about to find out. I tried digging in my feet. Governor Felling had already ordered my sentence, that I would get enough Scourge to kill me. What was in that pit? My resistance was useless. Gossel grabbed both my arms, locking them behind me.
Brogg wasn't helping. He only stood aside, staring at our fight with sympathetic eyes. But sympathy did me no good.
"Help me, Brogg!" I cried.
He didn't move to help, but shook his head at Gossel. "The tests are one thing. This goes too far. I won't help you do this."
Gossel began dragging me toward the grate, and then I had my first clue of what was down there.
I heard hissing.
Snakes.
"This is wrong!" I yelled as I struggled against him. "You know this is wrong!"
"You left the governor no choice," Warden Gossel said. "How many times were you warned? Unlock that grate, Brogg. Do it, or you'll go in with the grub."
"Throw the keys into the pit," I told him. "Then neither of us will go in."
Brogg frowned at me, looking truly sorry. "It's not as easy as that."
"Follow my orders, or I will have you put inside, Brogg," Gossel said again. "Make your choice."
Without looking at me, Brogg knelt on the floor and unlocked the grate, pulling it open.
I squirmed again, trying to get free, but with my exhaustion and hunger, Gossel was so much stronger than me.
"Why did you take me in the first place?" I asked. "I've done nothing wrong. I wasn't even sick, not until the governor made me sick. Why?"
More lightning cracked overhead. Truly, this storm was getting worse. The caves would be entirely flooded by now. The main floor of the prison would have a lot of water too. The infirmary was downhill from the Colony square, though still protected by its thick doors.
Gossel used the distraction to push me backward into the pit, but as I fell, I grabbed the grate door, which came down over my head, nearly knocking me off as it crashed closed on the ground. Though I had a good grip on the bars, that was only a temporary solution. Not far beneath me, the dark ground was moving. I didn't know how many snakes were in this pit, but if I didn't keep holding on, I would find out.
"Lock it," Gossel ordered, and while still avoiding my eyes, Brogg did as he was told.
Gossel outright laughed at my attempt to avoid the snakes. "They say River People are strong, so maybe you'll try to stay up there for the rest of the night, but honestly, there's no point in trying. Governor Felling will be here in the morning to check on you. Even if you last that long, she will see that you get the Scourge."
"The Scourge is spindlewill," I said, almost to myself. "But you're running out of plants." Then I looked up at him. "You're going to use snake venom next?"
"Doctor Cresh is experimenting with the right dosage to mimic symptoms of the Scourge. You'll make for a good test subject, though I suspect you're about to get far too much venom to help us." Gossel's smi
le reflected his cruel heart, and his eagerness to get rid of me.