Disclaimers:
Summary:
Warnings:
Notes:
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by
King Voden, Almighty Ruler of the Nords, Sovereign of Xith, Warlord of Chirangia, Warmaster of the Lingg, lolled with what should have been contented indolence against the hard, taut tummy of his lover (and, coincidentally, the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Warhorde). Hjalmar's breathing was deep and regular, but the fact that his fingers still toyed half-drowsily with Voden's blond hair told the King that his lover still held at least one foot in the land of wakefulness. Voden tried to focus on his lover's breathing, his regular, robust heartbeat, tried to drown out the shadows of rage, frustration, anxiety that never lurked too far beneath the surface, but found himself unable to do so. Even though Hjalmar had just ridden him to the point of oblivion and beyond (the purple and gold wall-hangings of the secret royal boudoir still seemed to echo with Voden's screams of "harder! faster! harder! FASTER!!!"), the face of the one whose defiance taunted and teased him daily, hourly, was never far out of range for the power hungry boy king.
Voden was the perfect example of a bossy bottom.
"Maddrake, Lord of Sleep, eludes your embrace, My Lord?" Hjalmar questioned in a low, tender voice, one finger drowsily tracing a circle round Voden's forelock.
Impatiently, the King slapped his lover's hand away, then caught it in his own soft, white fingers, heavy with the royal rings, and brought it swiftly to his strawberry-red lips. "Yes, Hjalmar," he purred venomously, with a twisted smile. "So long as the Beastmaster continues to OUTRAGE my authority, I fear repose can never be mine. But pray, don't trouble yourself on that account."
The final sentence was tossed off with just the sort of deliberate carelessness he knew was well calculated to stir his lover's ire.
"Sire," hissed Hjalmar into his royal catamite's ear, "let me take ten of my best men, and give me license to go after this ... this outlaw in my own way. I promise you, by nightfall I'll bring him to you ... in pieces." The soldier's bloodthirsty leer was precisely the sort of thing that made Voden go simultaneously hard and soft, but he kept a tight rein on his own passions.
"My poor darling," he crooned, stroking the swordsman's long, braided hair with deceptively tender caresses, "if only ALL those who served me were as eager as you to please their King. But it's not the death of the Beastmaster I crave," he mused, with an insidious frown. "I long to see him crawl ... to beg ... to GROVEL at my feet. Death is too noble a fate for such as he."
"That will never be-not in this world," Hjalmar observed thoughtfully. "The Beastmaster will never bow to another man. Not willingly."
"Not willingly..." Voden's hand had paused on his lover's shoulder. "And not in this world ... at least, not with the aid of this world... Hjalmar, you're a genius!"
"I, Sire?" The look in the swordsman's eyes was as disbelieving as the sound of his voice.
"Yes .. after your own fashion." Voden arose, his white body silhouetted against the hanging tiger skins that surrounded their private bower, reached down a hidden staircase off the royal bedchamber. "With your genius allied to my madness ... what worlds will we not conquer!" He drew on a white satin robe, trimmed with white fur and glittering sapphires. "I must go now, beloved. There are preparations to be made ... schemes to plot ... traps to lay! But these arts are none of your charge. Go you now to your chamber, and rest you. Tomorrow there will be much for you to do."
"But, my Lord ... surely ...?" Hjalmar's eyes, his whole body, completed the question his voice clearly did not dare to ask.
For answer the boy-king leaned in, his eyes gleaming with a dangerous, cruel lustre, and slowly, ravishingly engulfed his lover's mouth with his own soft lips and surprisingly hungry, ruthless tongue. Then Voden broke away, as Hjalmar fell back, a crumpled heap against the furs of their dark secret bed. "Tomorrow, my steed ... tomorrow we shall ride again ... to catch a Beastmaster within a tangled web ... a web of darkest, direst EVIL!" Voden's laughter, coiling, cackling paroxysms of grisly glee, echoed against the chill stones of the staircase as he strode away, up from the hidden room, on an errand kept secret even from his own lover.
Hjalmar watched Voden's retreating shadow, and could not resist a shudder. With all the violence he had witnessed in his own life, sometimes a mere smile from Voden was enough to make his blood run cold. *And this is the man with whose life my own is intertwined* ... he thought with grim unease. Sighing, he lay back against the silks and cushions, to rest for a few moments, breathing in what was left of his lover's smell. It was perhaps the last consolation left to him, at the moment.
**************************************************
"Dar!"
The Beastmaster turned, his smile as wide as the open sky, to face his lover. Tao stood on the shore waving at him happily, his hands filled with purple blossoms. Grinning at his scholarly better half (always on the track of some new treasure of the wild), he left the edge of the cascade where he had been bathing, and began wading over towards the rocks where Tao stood.
From where he stood, Dar looked like some divine being who had emerged from the healing waters of this magical place to bless the Earth, and to confer a special boon upon today's visiting devotee, Tao. So sheltered and secure was this glade at the edge of the waters that Dar had relaxed and spent the day running, exercising and now bathing without the customary protection of his loincloth. The sunlight danced shimmeringly over the taut, firm body of the nude Beastmaster, his nipples blushing a ripe, ruddy glow in the midday air, his long supple cock an irresistible focus for Tao's center of gravity. He felt himself blushing, and smiled with an embarrassment he was surprised to feel. "Look, Dar," he said happily, "this is a flower I have read about in the medical books of the Eiron sages. I can dry the petals and create a powder that will heal all poisons that afflict a man's soul. Why, with some of the other herbs I found yesterday, I-can-"
The reason for his faltering was the hands of the Beastmaster, clasped around his own waist, as Dar grabbed the bunch of flowers from Tao's hands, whirled them graciously away to a safe spot on the ground nearby, and moved Tao slowly around to face him. Holding Tao gently yet firmly in his embrace, Dar moved in slowly until his smile was just inches from his companion's surprised face.
"You were still sleeping when I awoke this morning," Dar murmured, stealing a quick kiss on Tao's exquisite nose. "I didn't want to wake you. So I went off to make the most of the morning."
"Oh, are you ready for breakfast now?" Tao asked, still uncertain of his lover's intent. "I made a porridge with the berries, it's still warm over by the, uh," Dar's tongue entered his lips and thrust for one deep, dizzying moment into his mouth, then thrust out again with snake-like swiftness, "fire," Tao finished breathlessly.
"I think what I'm ready for," said Dar dreamily, his eyes locked on Tao's, "is LOVE."
"Love," Tao began, meaning to quote one of the sayings of the ancient Eiron sages on the subject, but he was unable to continue because Dar's tongue was in his mouth.
Dar's arms were around his shoulders, as his tongue slowly slipped over and around Tao's tongue. Dar tasted of the freshness of the cascade, the sweetness of the meadows, the languid honey of the summer breeze. His hands, so big and strong, slipped down Tao's back and down into his trousers to caress and stroke his lover's asscheeks. A moan escaped Tao's throat as Dar stroked one finger between his cheeks, and his own budding hard-on pressed up to pulsate against Dar's own rock-hard member, already a little sticky with pre-cum as it was caught, rubbed, and roiled between their tummies.
With a growl, Dar hoisted his lover up, and Tao's legs went immediately around the Beastmaster's waist. Continuing to lave the inside of Tao's mouth with his hot, questing tongue, Dar slowly carried him over to a place a short distance away from the water, where the sweetgrass grew thickly in a wild, heady tangle. Dar slowly, lovingly lowered his mate to the ground, intending to remove Tao's trousers. Tao took advantage of their respective positions to capture the head of Dar's cock between his smooth, sweet lips. Hmmmm.... the brisk, clean, wild flavor that was Dar's unique scent was commingled with the sticky, salty edge of pre-cum and the lingering flavor of the tea Tao had been sipping in between his work with the herbs. Dar let out a loud, throaty growl, throwing his head back and burying his hands in his lover's hair. Tao responded by grabbing the Beastmaster's backside with his own hands, kneading those glorious twinned mounds of muscular flesh with his skilled fingers, deftly inserting his middle finger into the damp heat of Dar's crack. That added stimulus combined with his own aching, edgy need sent the Beastmaster right over the edge. His howls of pleasure as he savagely thrust his rampaging cock again and again down his lover's throat were fierce and intense. Tao sucked down the waves of hot sticky nectar flooding his mouth, deeply inhaling the taste and smell of his lover, feeling at one with him, finding that elusive peaceful consummation once again in Dar's speechless erotic transfiguration.
Dar collapsed on top of him, and for long moments neither of them spoke. Then, with a throaty yowl, the Beastmaster's nimble fingers moved to grasp the burning hardness that still tented Tao's trousers over his crotch. One gold-flecked eye gleamed hungrily as Dar met Tao's pleading gaze with a smile of sheer uninhibited lust.
The hush that reigned in the secluded glade was punctuated during the next two hours with groans, moans, growls, and, finally, screams of pure pleasure that ravished the air like the scent of mountain orchids in rampant bloom.
"Tao, this porridge is great," commented Dar much, much later. With his cute Sula accent, he pronounced the word "great" as "GRITE," one of the 2000 things Tao found completely adorable about his lover. Tao lay with his head in Dar's lap, while the Beastmaster alternated sliding spoonfuls of the fruity stew into his own mouth and his lover's. Tao thought a little drowsily of all the wonderful smells that surrounded them in this deserted place. All the flowers and herbs in bloom, the kind old trees that held the land in their safe grip, the soft breeze that wafted airily about, the rich goodness of the porridge as it slid down his throat, and, best of all, Dar's fresh, ripe smell against his cheek. He turned and kissed Dar's thigh while his lover stroked his hair beguilingly.
"We really needed this rest," Tao commented when the porridge was gone. "We've both been worn out with all this fighting and running. Dar, I wish we could just settle down ... make a garden ... have a HOME."
"I know, Tao." Dar's voice was low and intent, and his hands gently pulled his lover up to face him. "That was something I had always thought I'd have with ... her. " Tao felt his eyes go hot, hearing the pain in Dar's voice, and the ache that he heard there, shown outwardly only in the Beastmaster's reluctance to speak the name of Kyra. Mingled with these emotions came a quick, lethal flash of jealousy-the bitter sense of exclusion and rejection he'd felt before, most sharply when Kyra had returned to the Sanctuary. He'd sought to exorcise that bitterness with the cradle he'd made for Dar and Kyra's child-a child that never was conceived, much less born. New tears started to his eyes, but then Dar continued speaking, and the mixed feelings that had overwhelmed him were washed away in the surprise of his words.
"But the love I knew with her seems like something in a dream, long past." Dar's hand came up to touch Tao's cheek, his eyes holding Tao's gaze with the deepest devotion he had ever seen in any human's face. "The love I feel for you now, here, is real, is alive. Tao, you are flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone, blood of my blood. As surely as I live to draw breath, you will never see danger again. And if it is the will of the gods, soon we'll find a home of our own."
Tao flushed with surprise, and for once found himself unable to speak. The words sounded ancient, immemorial. Surely words from one of the rites of the Sula. A marriage rite? All he could do was hold on to Dar. He rested his head in the hollow between Dar's nipples, while Dar's hands slowly moved up and down his back, caressing him with a languid sense of possession. You belong to me now, that touch said. Dar rested his head in Tao's hair, breathing in deeply the scent of his lover ... his mate.
******************************
"Have you brought them?"
The woman's voice was imperious, commanding, and Voden stiffened involuntarily, a slashing retort bitten back on his lips. Even he hesitated to trifle with Angelique, High Priestess of Myvwyrn, the darkly enigmatic trickster god of the Nord. She stood there regarding him cryptically, her stormblue eyes flecks of ice, her blonde hair swept up in a high glacial wave set with the iron crown of power that she wore always at the hours of the waning moon when dark magicks of deceit and trickery were afoot.
"I have." He held the silver platter before him, his nose wrinkling slightly in distaste. They were alone; the rite they were about to perform was strictly forbidden, even to those who held the highest power in the realm of the Nords. Voden could bend the rules, but even he hesitated to flout such an ancient proscription before the eyes of his soldiers; previous kings had died in mutinies instigated when their meddling in the black arts had been revealed by treacherous advisors. Not a mistake Voden intended to repeat.
"Place the salver on the altar." One hand, its forefinger poisonous with a dusky emerald carved in the shape of a leering skull, thrust downwards through the suffocating spiral of foul vapours from the incense sacred to Myvwyrn, Dark Lord of Chaos, incense that swirled through the tomblike recesses of Angelique's secret shrine. "Show me." Her command clearly would not be gainsaid.
"Sporus, plucked from earth's bosom at the hour of the curdling scream, in the dark of the moon." He held the ropy tentacle-like plant up for her inspection.
"Tarquinia, gathered in the light of the grey moon.
"Mead brewed with the seed of seven father-slayers, thrice-damned by the Archimages of Abstymia.
"The deadly honey of Trebizond; the poisoned blossoms of Bahween.
"Violet nightshade; black Maddrake's root; the powdered stone of Siniquia.
"Toad's venom; eye of water-worm; virgin's blood. All these have I brought as you instructed, Lady." Voden bowed his head, as much to shield his sensitive nostrils from the stench that rose from the disgusting mass literally steaming on the silver platter, as in respect to the High Priestess.
"Good, good!" she trumpeted, gloating over the profusion of vileness he had brought in offering to her glory, her power, her majesty. "You have done well, my dear. A most apt pupil! Now to brew the potion. Go, leave me in peace, and return three watches of the night from hence, at the Hour of the Black Lizard. Then it will be time to cast the spell."
"And then ... the Beastmaster ...?" Voden licked dry lips hungrily in anticipation.
"Will be your SLAVE!" she assured him, and her shrieking cacchinations were joined with his own sinister laughter.
**************************************
The golden light of sunset bathed Dar in dazzling effulgence as he stood leaning on his spear watching Tao carefully working on his latest herbal preparation. The oils of the purple flower had miraculous curative powers, Tao had told him; but they had to be extracted with extreme care. Once finished, he would have a small bottle of precious fluid that would heal a man of even the direst soul sickness. The ancients had believed that the purity of this oil was such that even the darkest demons of the Night Places fled the scent in terror. It had once been hung over the cradles of newborn babes, used for sigils to mark doorways and windows, and combined with other powerful herbs to create a remarkable variety of remedies for many illnesses whose pathology was no longer fully understood. So much of the knowledge of the great Eiron herbalists had been lost; Tao and a few of his scattered friends had dedicated themselves to recovering as much of that learning as was humanly possible.
Dar loved to watch Tao work. Those skilled, lovingly attentive hands, to him the most beautiful hands he had ever seen, held such healing within them. Dar knew he was regarded by many they had met in their travels as a man of formidable strength; yet, in his own mind, the power he carried in his own hands paled before the healing magic of Tao's touch. He smiled at the thought of those hands so lovingly caressing his own body, and felt a familiar quickening in his loins that soon the failing light would find them sharing a simple supper, then cuddling around the fire.
***************************************
Black were the walls of Angelique's shrine, and precipitously high. Strangely muffled torches set in sconces high above them flared with an ominous cobalt coloured light. He stood, skyclad as she had demanded, and resisted the urge to hiss in distaste as she smeared the fresh spilt blood of the sacrifice in intricate patterns known only to her peculiarly arcane tradition of witchery around his nipples, his belly, his thighs, his sex.
She stood back and looked at him, her lips curling in a pale rictus which was what passed for a smile with her. "Now you are prepared," she murmured. "Incant after me!
"Darkness burning in deathless flames, Riot revelling in ten thousand names, Myvwyrn, Trickster Lord of Fear, Your aid invoking, we summon you here!
"By the black sword that you wield, By your dark sceptre, your poisoned shield, Offering we make of might and main To wither our enemies with your dark flame."
Her voice ceased, and his did as well. Her eyes fixed upon him, as she approached him, and he saw her hand glistening, her fingers smeared with some eldritch balm, and shivered as she wrapped her fingers firmly round his cock. Against his own natural inclinations, he hardened instantly, and a voice somewhere in the back of his mind told him that the herbs in the concoction with which she had anointed her fingers were working upon him. Gently at first, but with steadily increasing pressure, she milked his cock, a fierce, wicked smile aflame upon her lips, her eyes incandescent lamps of smouldering lust and fearsome power. With one boot she kicked at his legs, and he automatically spread them apart, then gasped in startled pain as with her free hand she shoved a specially oiled phallic wand into his most private orifice. She was right on top of him now, her white teeth gleaming powerfully, brilliantly into his face, and she shoved him back up against the altar. He whimpered, unable to speak, as she slowly but surely took complete possession of him, overpowering him. His legs spread wider, opening to her, his resistance crumbling before the onslaught she waged against his few remaining defenses.
A mad flame of sheer power and triumph soared like a beacon in her eyes, as, roughly and ruthlessly, she brought the incantation and the fuck to their twinned conclusion:
"Myvwyrn, come! We summon you here, In sacred lust and sacred fear, By royal seed and royal blood, Arrive! Reveal to us ... YOUR ... ROOD!"
The last line ended in a long, ragged, cacchinating scream rising to a mad arabesque of murderous exultation. Voden came volcanically, his seed shooting high and falling with a ringing tone into a tall bronze vessel Angelique had evidently set in a strategic position specifically for this purpose. As in a dream, he heard his own scream echoing in his ears, as she removed the Phallus as roughly as she had shoved it into him, and tossed the wand onto a paten placed to receive it on the altar.
Her voice, when she spoke, boomed with a deeper, even more imperious note. "Ha! The final ingredient for our elixir. The royal seed of the Nords! THIS will bend the Beastmaster to my fell purpose."
Voden raised himself up from where he had collapsed against the altar, to regard her with a groggy, but still kingly stare. "YOUR purpose? Woman, I-"
"YOU will say nothing until you are otherwise told," she hissed, grabbing his face with one scarlet-nailed hand. "Don't you realize, my dear kinglet, that my powers were given to me by the Lord of Chaos himself? Do you think you just thought this idea up in your little brain all by yourself? Hmmm? But don't fear ... Your *Majesty*." Even with the fear he felt, he scowled at the contempt with which she spoke that word. "You shall have the Beastmaster to play with. Then, when you've wearied of him, and decide he's better off dead-as I know you shall-" she bent down again, her terrifying smile gleaming ferociously into his face-"I'll take his soul. What's left of it ... and what's more important ... his powers!" Her laughter rang malevolently around the dark room.
"What-what do we do now?" he asked, feeling instinctively that it was the right question.
"Now," she pronounced, "we summon the Beastmaster. Drink!"
She held the chalice before his lips. He hesitated only a moment, then managed to swallow a mouthful. The poisoned liquid slithered gallingly down his throat, and he shivered, expecting the death-frenzy to shake his limbs with that fearful rattle, but all he felt was a sharp burning thrum all through his veins, as if he had taken a sip of the legendary wine of Antares. His senses felt enhanced, his breath drew fire into his body, his eyes seemed to see magenta flame playing about the altar and ringing round the head of the High Priestess.
"Good," she purred seductively. "Now is the hour, Voden! Reach out to the Beastmaster! Summon him, with your mind! Summon him to your bedchamber. He will be powerless to resist you. And as for the Beastmaster's little friend ... I will take care of him!"
Her glittering nails swept over the scrying basin where a small puddle of the mystic oil of Myvwyrn caught the firelight. The gleam shimmered, twirled, shifted, and rolled away to reveal a small but distinct image of Dar and Tao asleep in one another's arms. She held one hand over the face of the Eiron scholar, wrapping him round with the veils of deepest sleep, slumber as of the dead, sleep that could not be broken.
"Dar," Voden's voice cracked a little under the strain he was feeling. "Beastmaster. I summon you. I call upon you. You cannot resist. You must follow my voice. Obey me, Dar. Come to where I lead you. Come to join me ... to join Voden ... come where I am awaiting you..."
In the glade Dar, half asleep, half awake, rose from his bed. Tao did not move. What was this strange voice summoning him, a voice he was powerless to resist? It sounded strangely familiar ... yet he seemed unable to stop and try to understand ... try to figure out just who was calling him, or even where he was going. Startled, Sharak watched Dar walking away from his mate. He called to Dar with his mind, but Dar did not seem to hear him. Concerned, Sharak rose with a short screech into the sky. It was a night of no moon, but his keen eyesight, assisted with a little magic, easily penetrated the darkness to follow the Beastmaster as he threaded his way through the woods. He could smell spellcraft in this ... Somehow, he would find a way to let Dar's mate know what had happened.
"Dar," the dark, smouldering voice drilling into his brain demanded, "come quickly. I'm awaiting you. Follow my voice. You know you cannot resist me. You know that you want me. You know that you need me, Dar ... I who will soon be your new master ... I, Voden, who will soon be your new lover ..." *****
Angelique's smile was deadly, her voice a glacial purr.
"You have done well, Kinglet. The Beastmaster is deep in thrall. Exactly where I want him."
The Lady of Myvwyrn's mocking words scalded Voden's ears like acid. His chin came up with an involuntary jerk, and he found himself glaring at a non existent speck of dust roughly three handsbreadths above the Priestess's blonde coif. *Someday, Witch, you will pay*, he vowed with silent, deadly fury. *But not until you've done being of use to me..*
Aloud, he said: "We should go to my rooms now to await the arrival of our guest. My guards, loyal as they are, have shown how feeble are their efforts at keeping him out of my Palace."
Her smirk in response was icily aloof. "You go. I think you can welcome the Beastmaster better on your own. And I purpose to remain behind the scenes in this affair. But, stay, why not ask that guardsman you retain for your personal use of an evening to assist? Captain Hjalmar, I think his name is? Handy bit of crumpet. So surprisingly ... accommodating for such a virile man."
Voden's breath was growing more ragged by the moment. He forced his features to remain calm and steadied his voice with the iron rigor of a training he had known since infancy. "Very well, choose to lurk here if you wish. I will deal with the Beastmaster ... in my own way."
Her smile grew still more silken. "Good," she purred. "Happy hunting."
With an abrupt, wordless swish, he was gone from her presence. Her smile grew thoughtful, as she paced slowly back to the scrying stone. She might not be physically present for the Beastmaster's reception, but she fully intended to see the fun with her own eyes.
This was one initiation she was eagerly awaiting.
***********************
Dar's bone spear crashed with a loud thud against the bared skull of the last Nord warrior who stood between him and the torchlit entrance to Voden's bedchamber. Somewhere, buried deep within his mind, he wondered exactly WHY he was being compelled to enter. Killing was not in his nature, and he hardly cared for paying a social call upon the power-crazed boy-King. His previous encounters with Voden had not been experiences he desired in any way to repeat.
But the voice dinning into his mind could not be ignored. That voice, like a glimmering, dancing thread, alluring him through the moonlit shadows of his own consciousness, cajoling, demanding, ORDERING him to go through that door. To enter and meet his Fate.
Straightening his shoulders, ignoring the small cut beneath his left nipple with its drying trickle of blood, his spear held at the ready, he pulled the richly broidered tapestry to one side and threw his weight against the door.
It gave way immediately, because it was not locked. The interior was dark and ... highly scented. Small lamps set on little stands provided pools of illumination, evidently meant more for atmosphere than aid in seeing. The air was thick with the smoke from thuribles coiling heavy perfume into the atmosphere. Startled at his own dazed reaction, Dar put one hand to his head, bewildered. He was expecting a challenge of some sort. Some new adversary, more deadly, more horrifying than the spider witch, more devious than Nakinja, more barbarically ruthless than Zad himself. Instead, he had found his way to an empty room, thronged with shadows.
No, not quite empty, he realized with a start. "Close the door," a languid, seductive voice crooned with childish distemper. "You're letting in all the cold air."
He stepped backwards a moment and did as requested, wondering why on Earth he was obeying this command so instinctively.
"That's better," the voice told him, its lolling plaintiveness almost sleepy. "Now come closer, so I can see you better. Come here, Dar."
He walked slowly forward, his steps halting. He wanted to resist; knew instinctively, somehow, that he was walking into a trap, knew that he should be on his guard. But, as he approached the bed, the spear slipped from his nerveless fingers and fell with an abrupt clatter to the floor. His eyes widened in disbelief as he saw who was waiting for him on the bed.
King Voden, mighty leader of the Nords, lay nude, one leg raised, a pale hand coiled lightly around his surprisingly formidable cock with its dark blond mantle of fur, a strangely worked and ornamented chalice held poised in his right hand, which he was holding as if in invitation towards Dar. The Beastmaster's eyes took him in with a hunger that seemed to ravage his own soul. He knew not why, but he wanted Voden--needed him with a desperation that it seemed he had never known. His love for Tao felt to his stupefied senses like the most insipid infatuation compared to this all-consuming, keening, caterwauling PASSION.
With a half-articulate cry, he launched himself onto the bed and fiercely ravished Voden's mouth with his own trembling lips. The King opened instantly to the Beastmaster's questing, demanding tongue, lapping his own tongue fiercely over the Beastmaster's lips, nipping Dar's tongue softly, then more wildly with his teeth. Dar groaned through the burning heat of the kisses. He was burning up. Voden was a fire, a hecatomb, a conflagration that was reducing him body and soul to a mass of steaming, whirling ash. And he didn't care. Greedily, compulsively, he deepened the kisses, groaning to press his full length against the ivory-white softness of Voden's slighter, sylph-like frame, relishing the hardness thrusting up from the King's center to rub tormentingly between his legs, his own cock straining agonizingly against the binding fabric of his breechclout, till he thought for sure either the fabric or his own body would explode from the tension.
With a husky giggle, Voden pushed him away, breaking the surging force of their kiss. Dar groaned in agony, his eyes welling with tears of sheer torment.
Voden's smile was smug. "Impatient lad, aren't you? You'll have your fill of me soon enough. First, my love, you must restore your strength. You've done a lot of running, a lot of fighting. You had to defeat my entire personal guard single-handed, remember? Drink this. It will ... stiffen your resolve."
The word "resolve" came to Dar's lips, but died. He was incapable of speech. He took the flagon from his lover--his LOVER, he thought, shaking his head in utter disbelief at the arrant MADNESS of such a thought--and gulped down its contents, completely incapable of even thinking about what he was drinking.
The draft was bitter, fiery, stinging. He gasped, shuddered, tried to scream, but the scream died in his throat. Vaguely he was aware of cool ivory fingers holding his head, of his arms thrashing, flailing, of soft laughter in his ear as his body knew the threshold of pain and succumbed.
Dar, the Beastmaster, lay silent and unmoving in his captor's arms. "Excellent, Beastmaster," Voden murmured, his eyes drinking in the sight of his enemy, helpelss and prostrate. "Excellent." Moving the weight of the inert Beastmaster carefully to one side--he wanted to be sure Dar was in full health for what he was planning--he rose from his bed and moved to the embroidered sash that hung next to it.
Outside the Palace, Hjalmar was waiting in his tent. The bell which hung by his bed on a cord attached to a rope that wound its improbable way to Voden's chambers chimed softly. He grimaced in disbelief. Voden had told him his plan, but he had dismissed it as the most demented yet of his lover's fantasies. Now he was being summoned, and seemed as if his royal master's madness had become reality.
"The Gods save us all," he murmured involuntarily as he moved out into the night.
************************************
"Ah. The sleeping beauty is awakening."
The low, mocking voice was vaguely, irritatingly familiar. He attempted to open his eyes, but managed nothing more than a blurry squint. Dim though the illumination was, the light still hurt his eyes, and he spent an anxious moment or two blinking cautiously until he was relieved to feel his eyes adjusting themselves to the light again.
He ached. That was one physical reality for which he needed no comfirmation. He attempted to lower his arms, to relax, and that was when he realized that he was chained. And not just chained, but ... spreadeagled.
He groaned, involuntarily. A soft tongue licking his left nipple (suddenly sharply erect) with a fierce, covert greed turned the groan into a gasp, as teeth followed that warm tongue with a neat little nip that had Dar gasping for more. There was a sharp, short sound--a slap, but not on him; on someone's face.
"Kelb!" That voice again, pitched higher with aggravation now. "Haven't I told you about manners! Honestly! We are not in the stables now. You have been invited to a royal banquet. I won't have you snitching from the appetizers."
A guffaw of masculine laughter. Dar looked about, blearily. His neck felt a bit tight--some sort of leather collar clasped round it, but at least, his head was not chained, only his arms--and his legs, spread wide. For what purpose? With a sinking heart, and a hardening cock (traitor!) he began to guess.
He groaned, at once miserable and excited, and inhaled deeply, the chains clanking as he strained against his shackles. He looked down. He was naked apart from the collar, a pair of black leather wristbands around which manacles had been fastened over his wrists, and strangely fashioned pointed leather boots on his feet around which a similar pair of shackles had been locked on his ankles. Despite the chains, he lay comfortably enough on a vast bed, its cushions covered in savage animal skins, spotted pelts draped and tied at the posts. The shackles, attached to gold chains which were fastened evidently to solid rings welded to the walls of this secret dungeon, Voden's private playpen, kept his legs and arms apart, but only hurt if he struggled against them.
And his cock, he noted with a certain grim amusement, was rock hard. A long, hot tongue, attached to a wickedly grinning young man with startlingly dark eyes and a vicious smile, his torso a delirious mass of rolling rock-solid musculature (clearly a favored guardsman, Dar thought in a rare moment when he COULD think), descended on the furiously aching head of his member to engulf him in an all-too-brief moment of wet, luscious heat.
Angrily, Voden grabbed his playmate by the hair and dragged him, panting, off from where he had been gorging on the Beastmaster's cock. "Kelb! That was your FINAL warning! Persist in this rude behavior with our guest, and I'll not only throw you out, I'll order you flogged!!"
"Really?" The excitement in Kelb's voice was audible.
"Enough!" Voden's stinging bitch-slap sent Kelb reeling back over the floor. "Go divert yourself with Hjalmar over there. I need to have a word with our guest. IN PRIVATE, Kelb!"
Heaving a sigh, the husky young soldier shrugged and moved to join Hjalmar, who had been watching the whole proceedings with an inscrutable mixture of arousal and contempt.
Kelb looked up at Hjalmar from his position on the ground, the aching need in his eyes so palpable, the swordsman hissed with a sudden savage squall of convulsing lust.
"So, Voden had you save the best for last, Kelb."
Without another word, he grabbed Kelb by the hair and forced his mouth down onto his own pulsing hardness. Kelb deftly took his senior in whole, and his tongue worked wonders around the base of Hjalmar's rod, while the swordsman showed his appreciation with little lust-yanks on Kelb's hair.
As their moans and the reek of their sex assaulted the air, Voden moved closer, his eyes and mouth hovering less than a handsbreadth from Dar's sweat-soaked face.
"So, my love, we meet again," purred the Nord King. "I'd say the slipper is on the other foot now, eh, Beastmaster?
"What kind of a game are you playing at?" Dar managed, struggling to master himself. Voden's delicately toying fingers, pausing to tweak a tit here or brush lingeringly below his navel there, made it very difficult to concentrate on anything but his own pressing need--which the potion, whatever it had been, that Voden had somehow tricked him into taking, had clearly made sharper, more unontrollable, than he had ever known.
"This isn't a GAME, Beastmaster," Voden purred, his eyes flecks of ice, his hands weapons of heat as they wandered maddeningly down Dar's torso. "This is about robbing you of your will ... stripping you of every scruple you've ever held dear ... ripping open your heart so the darkness comes pouring in ... and making you ... my ... SLAVE." The final words were punctuated with a sweetly loving kiss, as Voden's teeth ran shiveringly over Dar's ripe, swollen lips, and his fingers stroked the Beastmaster's rampant cock with an excruciatingly slow, sensual seduction.
"But ... how do you know ... I won't resist?" Dar gasped, summoning up every atom of what remained of his will, his breath raggedly panting the words into Voden's open, smiling mouth.
"You won't be able to, Pet." Voden licked along one shoulder blade, his teeth grazing the Beastmaster's sweating bicep. He looked up and held Dar's eyes with his own. Dar shivered, because as evil and unnatural as Voden was, at that moment, he WANTED him more than anything on Earth. Even his own soul.
"You see," Voden continued conversationally, as he hoisted one leg between Dar's thighs, to rub his hard, straining cock gently with his own hardness, "you've been given one of the most powerful poisons known to the ancient science of the Nords. But this poison has a rather unique target. It doesn't poison your body ... it poisons your SOUL. Which shortly shall be mine. I can't imagine a more delightful plaything ..."
"And--Kelb--and--Hjalmar? Why are they here?"
"Why, to insist in your initiation, of course! I always say--double your pleasure, double your fun!" Abruptly, the King clapped his hands twice, and Hjalmar (with a groan he was unable to suppress) yanked Kelb off with a sharp pull on his forelock. Licking his lips, Kelb turned, crawled across the floor, and began to move back onto the bed towards Dar, like a gorilla in search of a particularly ripe banana. Hjalmar followed, but maintained his dignity as an Imperial Swordsman should, though the high scarlet flaming on his gaunt cheeks showed with what a struggle he maintained his self control.
"That's right, boys," the King panted, his pupils dilated both from the drugs he himself had consumed, and the excitement Dar's physical and spiritual subjugation gave him. "I want every particle of him to be ravished tonight. He is going through the throes of being born again--the ecstasy--and--the--AGONY!" His voice was shrill, as he coaxed Hjalmar into position, then moved to take the Beastmaster's blooming rose for his very own.
Kelb's tongue was back, insinuating itself shamelessly between Dar's thighs. Involuntarily, Dar hoisted his legs higher and higher. Voden positioned himself above the Beastmaster, his legs straining with unlooked-for effort, and grabbed Dar's cock in the hot palm of one hand. As Dar moaned loud and long, the King slowly, deliberately lowered himself onto the point of the Beastmaster's rock-hard cock, his tight, greased hole engulfing Dar's hot hardness with one fell swoop. Voden screamed, his eyes rapt shut in an ecstasy beyond feeling or knowing, but paused only a moment before he began to ride the Beastmaster's seemingly inexhaustible manhood, as Dar's hips immediately began to buck up and down with a rhythm that matched the King's. Meanwhile, Hjalmar, his face livid with concentration, shoved his own swollen dick squarely into Dar's mouth. Sweaty, salty sweetness engulfed the Beastmaster's senses as his throat gagged helplessly at the invasion, but his arms were shackled and all he could do was struggle to control his breathing. The sound of men moaning, straining, and pumping began to fill the room. Dar felt as if he would explode. Every fibre of his being was under relentless, harrowing erotic assault. With a grunt, Hjalmar pulled out of Dar's mouth, craweled over the Beastmaster's flailing torso, and shoved Kelb out of the way. Careful not to disturb his royal lover's rhythm, he worked his legs under Dar's straining back, grabbed the Beastmaster's ass with one hand, and brutally shoved two fingers into his sweat-soaked hole with his other hand. Satisfied that the Beastmaster was beyond ready, he put his arms gently around Voden's waist, slammed his thighs against the Beastmaster's ripe, straining asscheeks, and reamed his tight, shivering hole with one siingle stroke. Dar howled in miingled pain and pleasure as he found himself ridden fore and aft, Voden rocking up and down on his cock, and Hjalmar leaning back to thrust his dick again and again into Dar's sweaty, insatiable passage. Dar screamed, parting his legs as widely as his shackled would permit, as scalding heat began to engulf his entire body.
Kelb, after enjoying himself licking and nipping stray bits the Beastmaster's right tit, which leapt and throbbed under Kelb's tongue and teeth like a wild thing, eventually lowered himself over Dar's face, his hotly straining cock (even larger, heavier and wider than his master's) immediately finding a hot home inside the Beastmaster's all-too-willing throat.
How long did it go on--the panting, moaning, gasping spectacle of four men so avidly, insatiably intertwined, their legs thrusting in purposeful concert, their bosoms heaving, their cheeks rife with rivers of sweat, their eyes alternately closed tightly in a blissful half-swoon, or wide open and staring in lustful concentration. It seemed as if Myvwyrn, Dark Lord of Chaos himself were present in the room, and only a darkly divine intervention kept the walls themselves from being blasted asunder by this rising tide of thrusting, heaving, exploding male passion.
Everyone came at once. The screams, shouts, groans and moans were enough to rip the walls asunder. Dar's mind slammed into a vast wall of pleasure so massive, so delirious, so all-annihilating and all-exploding, it overwhelmed him. He lost his senses for the second time that evening in a sizzling burst of blinding white light. He gave one final, desolate groan as the darkness possessed him, and a new life began to quicken in his sweat-soaked, sex-streaked limbs.
When he awoke again, a terrible beauty had been born.
*****
A soft breeze, lightly caressing his cheek. Was that the brush of surprisingly gentle fingers ruffling his air? Tao smiled, his eyes still shut. Dar could be so considerate of his occasional need for more sleep, but the Beastmaster DID have a most passionate nature, and Tao felt his own body stretch exotically in arching anticipation of another morning lovemaking romp with his randy, rustic lover.
So it was with a start that his eyes popped open to see ... no one. What was this, some new teasing game? "Dar?" he queried softly, convinced that the Beastmaster must be hiding close by, though, as he looked around from the grassy alcove where they had fallen asleep the previous evening, there was really nowhere for Dar to conceal himself.
Groaning slightly, he raised himself up, swung his legs round, and slowly stood up. "Dar?" he repeated, a little louder this time, and then, with a shout: "Dar!"
The only reply was the swish of the wind sweeping through the dangling willows.
He sighed. He was sure that Dar was just out foraging, or helping a wounded animal, or swimming, or-- NO. His intuition told him that something was wrong. Something nasty. He shivered, wrapping his arms around himself, though the morning sun was warm, and the birds were singing.
He grabbed some fruit and began eating while he headed down the path towards the pool. Perhaps he would find a clue on the way. Or maybe Dar himself would turn up. He could only pray to the gods that Dar was safe and unharmed, wherever he was.
******************************************************
Enthroned in white satin, King Voden, Ruler of the Nords, sat upon his throne in the Hall of Audience in his palace in Xinca. His assembled Generals, Lieutenants, and selected soldiers of special rank awaited their King's latest pronouncement with that mixture of dread, fascination and sheer curiosity that had been the hallmark of the young King's reign. "Whatever will he think of next?" was the languid inquiry of more than one society matron, lavendar lorgnette in hand, as she reached for her copiy of the latest Nord Bulletin back at home.
The Imperial Herald pounded his gilded staff three times on the pavement of the Throne Room, and uttered the immemorial words announcing audience:
"The Light of the World shines upon you all. Proclaim your loyalty to him in submission!"
Dutifully, the assembled throng bent their right knees as one man, the ritual response booming as a basso, mingled growl around the room: "We submit most humbly to His Dawning! All Hail, O King!"
From chapped but still silken-smooth pale lips came the soft words of the ancient royal reply: "Your obedience We receive. Your love, We accept. Your lives, We grant for this day."
Voden's army rose and stood, the scraping of muddy boots and the muffled swish of cloaks being adjusted filling the pause as his soldiers waited to hear their King's latest commands.
Unwaveringly, the King's eyes swept the room. "We are cognizant of your efforts in our war to conquer and rule this degraded, unhappy region. With your might and your persistence, Wee have brought some measure of justice to these uncouth savages, these rude ... barbarians.
"As you have known, many have stood in Our way. Among them, one there is who We first courted as an ally ... then came to regard as a dangerous, powerful enemy. You know this man as the Beastmaster." He paused, allowing the rippling murmur to drift aroudn the room as his army acknowledged this adversary they knew all too well from skirmishes of the past months. A couple of the less disciplined soldiers spat at the mention of that hated name, only to have the silent fury of their commanding officers glare them into contrition.
"I have a surprise for you," the King continued. "The Beastmaster has submitted himself as completely as possible to Our royal authority. He has placed himself at Our disposal, and has begged ... BEGGED for the chance toredeem himself in our favor. Knowing, as We do, that many of you will doubt his sincerity, We have arranged this little demonstration, so that he might demonstrate his loyalty to all of you in Our Presence. We summon him to Us by his new name--Darkthorn!"
There was a sense of men anxiously holding their breath, and as the sound of boots clattered in the great hall leading to the chamber of audience, more than one man's hand went to his sword, strictly forbidden though it was by custom to draw arms in the King's Presence. A dark shadow tilted forward in the arched doorway, and then ...
There were gasps all round as Dar (or Darkthorn, as Voden had commanded he now be called) entered the room. The Beastmaster had always been an imposing, dignified figure, carrying himself with quiet strength and understated majesty. Now, an almost spectral aura of malevolent energy radiated from him. Hjalmar, standing at Voden's right hand, found himself stifling a furtive shiver that crawled up his back as he looked into the flecks of golden ice that were Darkthorn's eyes. The King's new Champion wore a startlingly tailored, single-piece black leather harness. Leather straps came over his massive shoulders, supporting glistening black leather rayonnes that culiminated in discs that shielded each of the Champion's nipples, each tipped with a wickedly sharp black iron spike. The leather flared round the center of Darkthorn's chest and his taut, rippling stomach muscles, ending in a flamboyantly constructed breechclout that supported the Champion's sex as if his manhood were the ultimate weapon in his armament. Darkthorn's cold, calculating smile showed his cool appreciation of the stares his unusual gear was attracting. The outfit was completed with a pair of thigh-high boots intricately studded with gold and silver ornaments, and an immense black leather cloak with a high, stiff collar whose pointed backdrop framed the Champion's face to stunning effect. On his head, a peaked bronze vizor, lacquered shiny black, came out to a wicked point above his acquiline profile, oddly enhancing Darkthorn's resemblance to a huge, lethal bird of prey.
Darkthorn paused barely a moment to acknowledge the stares that would have pinned a lesser man against the wall as a butterfly is pinned on the tip of a needle by a lepidopterist. With one fluid, seamelessly coordinated movement, he turned, fell to one knee, took Voden's right hand, and quickly pressed his lips to it.
"My King." The words were spoken softly. Darkthorn's eyes looked up adoringly into his Master's coolly appraising, grey Nordic gaze.
"Darkthorn." Though spoken barely above a whisper, the King's acknowledgement was heard clearly in the back of the room. "You are prepared to carry out Our will?"
"Without question, Majesty." The Champion spoke the words to his King's boots.
"Excellent," Voden commented with a sly murmur. He glanced at Hjalmar, whose jaw twitched alarmingly. *Jealous, are we?* thought the King, with a delighted inner purr of sheer wickedness. Aloud, he commanded: "Let the prisoners be brought in."
The Herald stepped out from the room, and uttered a command, which was echoed and echoed again from far down the corridor. Almost instantly, the sound of booted feet marching in formation, accompanied by an undercurrent of groans and sobs, and a dismal clanking of chains, drifted into the throne room. The sounds were shortly followed by a troop of soldiers dourly escortng a rabble of chained men, bruised, dirty, many of them sickly.
Hjalmar stepped forward. "Are these the deserters?"
"Yes, sir!", the major replied smartly.
"Deserters," Hjalmar muttered, clearly disgusted. "Summary execution would be too good for the lot of you! By the gracious mercy of His Majesty King Voden, you are all to be conveyed to the royal silver mines to labor for the greater wealth of the Nord Empire you so cowardly deserted! But first, the King's Champion will teach you all a lesson. Kneel!"
Those who hesitated were shoved to their knees by the soldiers standing behind them. Darkthorn stepped forward, a strange, livid light dancing in those chill golden eyes. The air whistled and the hangings wheezed as he brought the long single-tailed whip up and cracked it with a fearsome snap. Some of the men, knowing what was about to come, instantly began screaming. The whip was weighted with shards of broken metal. The Champion threw back his head, a lurid look in his eyes, and laughed, an evil sound, like the clattering of bones rattling over a gibbet. A few men in the audience shifted their weight nervously. Others clutched protective amulets, convinced that the King's new Champion was possessed by a malignant spirit.
Then Darkthorn began to flog the prisoners. By the second stroke, blood was spattering the walls of the audience hall. The screams of agony echoed against the ancient walls in this capital that had been built by men devoted to wisdom and harmony. Voden leaned forward, leering, as the flogging continued, and one white hand dangled out of sight into the royal lap. Hjalmar, without moving, shifted his gaze to a painting that hung by the window, flinching involuntarily as three drops of blood spattered his cheek. The only man in the room who remained completely silent was the King's Champion, who carried out his task with deadly, unstoppable efficiency. By the time he was done, five of the prisoners were dead. Many more would not survive the journey to the mines.
Hjalmar shivered, unable to help himself, reflecting that the ones who were dead were fortunate. He'd heard stories about the conditions in the mines. The conditions there were so grisly, the mines made Voden's torture chambers seem like a house of pleasure.
There was silence in the Throne Room as the surviving prisoners were dragged out by their guards. Darkthorn turned to Voden. The Champion's face was the face of a madman, his lips frozen in a rictus of demented glee, his eyes staring, lit with inner witchfires. Both his harness and the King's white satin regalia were spattered with blood. Voden was in a state of almost unbearable excitement, his palms sweating, as he stared hungrily at the heavy bulge in Darkthorn's breechclout. tilted up at a sharp, throbbing angle.
Voden's mouth was dry. Licking chapped lips, he informed his Court: "We trust that you will all now recognize Our Champion for the loyal servant of the Throne that he is. Now I have some special instructions for Darkthorn that I must give him privately. Soon you will all be informed about Our next campaign. Return to your quarters and begin to make ready ... for War!"
There was a lusty cheer as the King and his Champion exited the Throneroom. The Herald shouted the ritually prescribed instructions as Hjalmar watched his lover's rapidly retreating back. His mouth was twitching, and he didn't know which emotion was stronger-his sense of fury or disgust. "Gods save me," he thought, genuinely prayerful, "for I am lost to this world."
Mournfully, but efficiently, he moved to the task of organizing the work the King had given them. Perhaps he would seek Kelb out later. The young man had a surprisingly good--and adept--head upon his shoulders ...
**********************************
Alone in the royal bedchamber, Voden was proving himself wilder than any tiger the Beastmaster had ever faced. He raged to rid himself of his once beautiful raiment, now bloodied and torn. Darkthorn was more agile in slipping out of his harness. "My King," he whispered softly, as Voden's mouth, hungry, ravenous, descended upon his wildly throbbing mansword, the King's fingers pulling and pinching at his Champion's truly magnficent asshcheeks. "My King," Darkthorn said softly again, as he thrust more and more deeply, harder and harder still, into the wet dark warmth that was his new lover's throat. Voden's teeth grazed and nipped the flesh of his cock as he sought to pull more of his Champion into himself, inarticulate, braying, gutteral sounds emerging hoarsely from the royal throat. They were both in a world where no one else could exist, a world of blood, empire, cruelty and mad dreams. The servants, undismissed, stood trying to ignore the epic, untrammeled fuckiing that went on before their eyes, awaiting the King's eventual command for hot water and his bath. The water was already being boiled, and the special tub, large enough for two, being carried by four stout footmen from the special room where it was stowed behind the kitchen.
********************************************************************
In the forest, Tao dropped to his knees. "Gods!" The blackness welling before his eyes, the agony searing his soul, the despair clutching desperately within--what was its source? He could not even guess. He rolled around on the wet grass, moaning, weeping, darkness and vague horror overwhelming him, irredeemably alone.
But, when he was able to regain his composure, the strange attack over as swiftly and suddenly as it had begun, he found he was not alone. The Young Sorceress stood watching him sadly, a compassion in her dark beautiful eyes he had never expected to see there.
"You must be strong, Tao," she said quietly to him, as he lay back looking up at her, his body still trembling from the force of the sobs that had wracked his slender frame, his eyes streaked with the torrents of tears he had shed.
"Dar ... is gone, isn't he?" Tao croaked. He could barely speak; he felt as if an army of Voden's soldiers had just beaten him to a pulp, but he had to know the worst.
She shook her head slowly, a brief smile visiting her face. "He is not here, Tao. But he still lives. Be strong. Gird yourself. Prepare your herbs. Dar will have deep need of your healing arts at their strongest and most subtle."
"Where--where is Dar?" he managed.
"In a dark place," she told him, "a place where, for the time being, even my powers cannot reach. We must work together, Tao, for the balance of life and death, light and darkness, has been dangerously disturbed. More than just your life with Dar is in peril--the fate of the world itself stands upon the threshold. We must work together. And first, we must summon one who will aid us--one who was your teacher--one you last saw in Mydoro..."
"Solon?" Tao asked, wondering. "But Solon is--"
"Dead?" She smiled a bit more hopefully now. "Dead to your world, yet his spirit still hovers upon the astral. Tonight, the moon is at the crescent, and you and I will sit together. We will call him back. And with his aid, we will begin to fight. To bring Dar's soul back from the dark enchantment that holds it. Don't despair, Tao. Dar needs all your hope now--and all your love."
Tao wiped a fugitive tear from the corner of his eye. "He has that ... always. No matter what," he declared, his voice already getting back some of its old strength.
Her smile brightened. "Good. Now, let 's start with gathering fruits, nuts and simples for lunch. You skipped breakfast ... never a wise idea when embarking upon a quest. And, Tao, you and I are set upon a Quest--the redemption of Dar's soul is your Grail! Come, dear Tao!"
The crescent moon shimmered with promise in the deepening purple twilight as Tao and the Sorceress sat across from one another on a marginally comfortable patch of grass. At the enigmatic woman's suggestion, Tao had built a small fire, and arranged a few herbs beside it. As the band of gold over the horizon slowly faded into silver-grey and violet, the Sorceress nodded, and Tao lit the bittersweet-leaf herb at the fire. As the long tassle flamed briefly, Tao quickly stood and moved to the North.
"As this smoke is pure, let this Earth be pure." He waved the smoking brand in a spiral shape, then turned to the East.
"As this fragrance is pure, let this Air be pure." Again, he made a spiral gesture, then walked to face due South.
"As this flame is pure, let this Fire be pure." A third time, he wove the gray smoke in the sacred spiral, then walked to the West.
"As this ash is pure, let the Great Deeps be pure." A spark flew out into the void as he waved the brand in the spiral, then completed the circle by walking to the North, turning, and standing in the center near the fire.
"Let the purity of our intention manifest here and now in this place that is no place, in this time that is no time. So shall it be!" With a solemn gesture, he tossed the herb into the fire, then knelt and took up a handful of ambermaid's-tears. "For strength," he murmured, as he cast them into the flames. "For manifestation," he added, throwing the magister-root in. "For pure love, and for destiny," he finished, as he cast a handful of dark-goddess-leaves over the fire. Tao and the Sorceress looked at one another, their eyes and energies meeting, joining hands around the fire, leaning in to inhale the sacred fragrance. She raised her eyebrows expectantly, and he nodded.
Taking a deep breath, the sacred fragrance rushing into her lungs, she intoned, "Spirit of one who dwells beyond the pale, beyond the veil! You whose wisdom we need now most desperately. Teacher of Tao, you who cared for him, Grand Master Solon, we call upon you now in this our hour of need!"
A chill ghostly breeze blowing out of nowhere wafted over her face. Without fear, she looked expectantly to a haze forming in the middle distance beyond the perimeter of their circle. There was a shimmering, dazzling glimmer of light, coalescing into a swirling spiral which shifted and stretched into a bright, shuddering square of light. With an abrupt blaze the square faded and in its place appeared the image of a tall stone pylon. In its rough-hewn gateway, a figure appeared walking as if from a long distance away. The figure was robed, hooded, bearing a staff. The young Sorceress took Tao's hands in her own and assisted him to rise. They turned together expectantly towards the Gate. Tao's face, furrowed and a little tense, broke into a glad smile as he shouted, "Solon! Praise the Gods, you've come!" Slowly, the image of the older man strode forward, stepping near enough to take Tao in his embrace.
"Tao!" Solon exclaimed. "If I weren't here, now, speaking to you, holding you, I wouldn't have believed it possible."
"Nor would I," the Sorceress admitted. "I'd hoped beyond hope you would be able to come to our aid-but how is it that you have been able to come to us like this?"
The elder scholar's face was serious. "The balance between the forces of light and darkness within the Universe has been seriously disturbed. The Beastmaster has been brought under the thrall of a sinister enchantment. Because of this, no one now stands to protect and mediate on behalf of the animal kingdom with the other forces of Nature, and the humans. And because of this, I have been released to aid you in redressing the balance-if it is possible to restore it to the equilibrium point."
"Solon, tell me truly," Tao said. "Is Dar--?" A sob caught in his throat, and he was unable to finish his question.
The elder's smile was fond, but concerned. "No, my son, your mate still lives. But he is deep within the darkness. We must begin our work now, this night, for the preparations to bring him back. We have much to do." He turned to the Sorceress. "And you will have an essential role to play as well, my dear. I'm already very grateful for your aid. I need not tell you, however, that if you continue to help us, the danger, for you especially, will be great."
She nodded. "I am well aware of the hidden forces at work here. And the risks to myself. But the Ancient One would have wished me to join this particular battle above all others. Meddling and gossipy though he appeared to be, he detested the interference of what he often called 'amateurs' in the cosmic order."
Solon's smile was wan. "Excellent. Now, Tao, there are some tasks you must begin immediately. And then we must take rest. Although I am not fully mortal, my energies on this plane must be marshalled carefully. It wouldn't do for me to be recalled back beyond the veil before our work here is finished."
Tao put his arms around his teacher's shoulders. "Whatever you say, sir. I just hope we can get Dar back before--"
This time, Solon put as much assurance into his smile as he could. "We will, my son. We will."
*********************************
Darkthorne's body was an endless paradise, an unending adventure of spoils and plunder for Voden. His new favorite seemed to have truly inexhaustible energies when it came to every sensual indulgence and ecstasy. Although Voden suspected that Darkthorne's experience before his "conversion" had been limited at best--what else could one expect of a man who had spent his entire existence in the company of beasts, reptiles, insects and some silly Eiron milquetoast?--the new young warrior showed an extraordinary flair for mastering new techniques of lovemaking.
At the moment Darkthorne was sprawled over a cushioned divan of an unusual shape which allowed him to lie with his legs raised while his head lay low closer to the ground. Voden suspected that the exotic item of furniture had been originally designed for the use of pregnant royal brides, but he found his own adaptation of it much more amusing. It allowed him to rest either thigh beside Darkthorne's head so that his royal member could be licked, nipped, ravished, and slowly swallowed by the ex-Beastmaster's swollen, beestung lips. Darkthorne groaned with sheer animal indulgence as he voraciously reamed Voden's cum-slit with his questing, eager, insatiable tongue, licking any stray drops of the royal seed the instant they rose to adorn the surprisingly robust crown of Voden's meaty, tumescent rod. Meanwhile, the King amused himself with his favorite pasting of nibbling, chewing, licking and teasing Darkthorne's huge, rockhard nipples. He had found that a whitish secretion began to ooze from them after he had worked on them for an hour--a rare phenomenon in males but one he had read about in some of the more unusual medical manuscripts of the royal library of the Nord palace. Darkthorne's milk was uniquely sweet, and very sticky. It left his lips even more sensitive and swollen than his lover's. The two of them often spent hours in this fashion, cumming again and again, summoning plates of fruit and delicacies to keep hunger at bay before beginning their bouts of lovemaking again.
It was with extreme annoyance on one of these afternoons that Voden looked up from the exquisitely prolonged attention he had been given to Darkthorne's exquisitely prolonged cock, at the sound of a repeated, judiciously polite cough. Darkthorne, busy exploring the inner recesses of Voden's ass with his long, extraordinarily capable tongue, did not even bother to hesitate in what he was doing. Voden's body seemed to put him in a trance, a trance in which only his King existed for him.
"Well, Hjalmar?" Voden asked, arching his neck involuntarily as Darkthorne's tongue plunged suddenly, ravishingly, into a particularly sensitive zone of his "vale of darkness."
"Your Majesty." Hjalmar's manner was more stiff and uncomfortable than the King had ever known it to be. Deliberately trying to provoke his swordsman, Voden raised one leg, fixed Hjalmar with one dazed eye, and let a long moan escape his lips as Hjalmar attempted to continue. "I-I wanted to say that the Raven Division is ready for your royal, um--"
"Inspection?" Voden continued languidly, since Hjalmar seemed incapable of getting the words past something unwieldy stuck in his throat. "That's all right, Hjalmar. Why don't you just run along and let them know that they're doing fine. I'm sure your ... ahhhhh ... inspection will be perfectly ... ooohhhh .. perfect. YES! Darkthorne! YES!"
"But, Sire, it's been almost a moon since your last audience, and--"
"Excuse me, Darkthorne," said Voden, as he lightly yanked one of his favorite's long blond curls and disengaged himself. "Nearly a moon, did you say? Hmmm."
His sudden movement was so quick, so unexpected, even the seasoned warrior barely had time to react before the tiny steel blade the King always seemed to have ready at hand was at his throat. "Hjalmar?" The word was the merest mew. Always a sign that the King was at his most dangerous.
"Sire?"
"I really do hope I don't need to remind you who is the King here--and who is the SUBJECT."
"Of course not, Your Majesty."
"That pleases me, Hjalmar. Now GO." The King's sudden release of his swordsman from his grip sent Hjalmar tumbling to his knees. He slowly rose and turned, to see Darkthorne smirking at him, his smile languid, his eyes half-closed in erotic disdain.
"And Hjalmar?"
"Yes, Sire."
"When I want to see you--I will summon you. Is that clear?"
Seething inwardly, the swordsman kept his voice steady, his eyes averted. "Clear, Sire."
TO BE CONTINUED
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