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That night, Tony ties Strange to a tree and puts hobbles on his ankles before setting up camp. After jogging behind Tony’s horse all day he shouldn’t be up to any kind of escape attempt, but Tony’s not taking any chances with the Kingdom’s most dangerous sorcerer.
Once camp is set up, Tony releases him from the tree but not the hobbles and helps him sit down at the fireside. Crouching down next to him, Tony meets the sorcerer’s gaze. His expression is bleak, rather than defiant. It’s nothing like Tony expected, but it is in keeping with his earlier grief.
Tony pushes aside a thread of unease. “My goal is to get you to the capital alive,” he says, “So I’m going to remove gag so that you can eat and drink. But if you speak a single word I don’t recognize, if I think for a second you’re trying to cast, I will put it back and let you suck water out of the material. Understood?”
Strange nods.
Tony removes the gag. Strange raises his bound hands and rubs at the corners of his mouth with the backs of his hands. When he lowers them, he looks at Tony for a moment. “Why bother keeping me alive?” he says. “They’re just going to execute me.”
“There will be a trial,” Tony argues, but he’s not surprised when the sorcerer just snorts.
“I’ve seen the trials sorcerers get.”
Tony scoops stew into a tin mug and hands it and a spoon to Strange. He doesn’t untie the sorcerer’s hands. “The evidence is always overwhelming,” Tony says.
“It’s not the evidence I question,” Strange says. “It’s the crime.”
The tin spoons rattles against the sides of the cup as Strange struggles with his bound and shaking hands. He doesn’t ask for help. He doesn’t ask for his hands to be untied. He doesn’t give up. He just persists, until he gets a laughably small amount of stew into his mouth.
“Sorcery is dangerous,” Tony says, watching.
“So are swords.” Strange gets to work on a second mouthful. “And warhorses. But neither blacksmithing nor horse training are outlawed.”
“Blacksmithing and horse training can be used for good,” Tony tosses back.
Strange raises an eyebrow. “And sorcery can’t?”
“No.”
“Fool,” Strange snorts. He turns his full attention to his food.
Tony frowns. Sorcery is inherently corruptive. It destroys everything it touches. Destruction is in its nature.
Everyone knows that.