Torquemada is enchanted by Maria's beauty and subjects her and her husband Antonio to heinous tortures hoping to prove that his own desires for her are a result of her magic, and that she has "bewitched him". With the help of Esmerelda, Maria's cellmate and confessed witch, Maria must find the power to save her husband from Torquemada's ultimate machine of torture: the inevitable, razor sharp PENDULUM poised over the inescapable PIT of hell.