Wizard 42

**Chapter 42**

Denna and Richard are leaving Tamarind, but Queen Milena objects on the grounds that Richard maimed her daughter and she wants him dead. Denna dismisses her, so the Queen draws a knife and attacks. Richard's Magical Mystery Power flares up and, for some bizarre reason, he kills the random guard who was about to attack Denna. I guess he prefers torture to death.

Denna casually murders the queen with her +5 Riding Crop of Pain. The miscellaneous guards standing around do absolutely nothing, perhaps because they're cardboard cutouts.

Richard and Denna get in their carriage and travel somewhere, and Richard is a snivelling wreck of a human being. Well, more than usual, I mean. Denna is actually nice to him, feeding him and comforting him when the carriage jolts and scares him awake. When his happens, Richard starts to feel his Magical Mystery Power.

*“...he also felt the power in him come awake. He didn't try to reach it, to hold it: he only noted it. One time when it happened, he recognized it, knew what it was.* [Redundant much?] *It was the magic of the sword.”*

So it's pure rage, then?

*“As he lay against [Denna], feeling the need of her, the magic stood within him. He touched it, fondled it, felt its power.”*

Umm...did this story just turn into a *very different kind* of story or something? \~/

*“It was like the power he had called forth when he was going to kill with the sword, but different in a way he couldn't understand. The power he had known before, he could no longer feel. Denna had that power now, but this she didn't. When he tried to grasp the magic, it vanished, like vapor.”*

So it's rage, but different in a way he can't understand, and he likes to fondle it. Got it.

The journey takes several days, during which time Richard heals from his repeated torture. Eventually they reach their destination; we're not told where, but the architecture is *“elegant and graceful...imposing, but not harsh, not forbidding.”* There's marble and columns and arches.

Richard stares at Denna's braid and thinks about how lucky he is to have such a hot babe torturing and raping him. o\_o

*“Richard looked up at her braid, and thought about how pretty her hair was, how lucky he was to have such a fine mate. At the thought of his caring for her, the power rose up.”*

No, Richard, that's called an erection.

*“Before it had a chance to fade, the dim, locked-away part of his mind grabbed it, held it, while the rest of his mind thought about his affection for her. The realization that he had control of it made it made him stop thinking about her, and grab the hope of escape. The power evaporated.”*

How the hell does your dignity grab something? \~/ And wasn't his dignity locked away in the impervious hardened bunker of his head, or something like that? Wasn't that the whole point?

Next morning Denna takes Richard to “morning devotions,” which involve people kneeling and touching their foreheads to the ground as they chant. This seems *awfully* close to some real-world religious rituals, and once again I wonder if this was a deliberate slam or merely an unfortunate coincidence. For the moment, I will give Mr Goodkind the benefit of the doubt.

The people are chanting a phrase which I will share, since it becomes important later in the series for stupid reasons.

*“Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.”*

Richard and Denna join the chanting crowd, and they chant for two hours. That seems a bit excessive to be, but I'm not an Evil Overlord, sadly.

We meet Constance, who is another Dominatrix. Constance is a head shorter than Denna and stout, with dull brown hair. She is implied to be a lesbian for no apparent reason \~/ Normally I would either ignore this or call it characterization, but I find it suspicious that the first gay character we meet is a torturer. And the less sympathetic torturer, if that makes any sense.

Actually, I guess the pederast was the first gay character we met. My mistake.

Denna and Constance tag-team torture Richard. Denna won't let Constance torture Richard as badly as she wants to, for whatever that's worth. We learn that the +5 Riding Crop of Pain hurts Denna just as much as it hurts Richard, which strikes me as about the stupidest possible system for a torture device. \~/ Apparently only women become Dominatrices because only women can handle the pain. I'll let that speak for itself.

More implied torture-sex. \~/

Time passes. Richard gets tortured. Eventually he asks Denna to let Constance be the one to torture him, and she goes crazy and tortures him extra hard. He says he made the request because he knows how much the +5 Riding Crop of Pain hurts her and he wants to spare her that.

After this, Denna is weirdly nicer to Richard, making him sleep in the bed instead of on the floor and torturing him less. She's a saint.

We eventually find out how a Dominatrix is trained, and it's particularly unpleasant and unnecessary. In brief, a potential Dominatrix is tortured, then gets to see her mother tortured to death, then is forced to torture her father to death.

That's worth about six drinks. \~/\~/\~/\~/\~/\~/

Anyway, Richard and Denna have implied non-torture sex \~/ and that glimpse of hell comes to an end.

Drinks: 11

Torture-based Drinks: 7

Total Drinks: 18

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