Title: Judas Unchained - Hands of Fate
Author: Judas Unchained
Keywords: MF, FF, MF+, Oral, Anal, Viol
Summary: Atop towering Mount Orion, beings of great power meet to play
games of fate and prophecy, but not all participants have come with such
simple goals in mind.
Copyright 2016 Judas Unchained.
Email comments to judasunchained@googlemail.com
This is fantasy porn. In fact, it is double fantasy porn - it both has
magic and is not real. Don't read if it is illegal for you do to do so.
This is a txt version of 'Judas Unchained - Hands of Fate' and lacks some
of the formatting available in the HTML version. If possible, please read
the web version here:
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~~~
"Fate is not a game of chance" - Extract from 'The Games of Gods and
Other Powers' by Scholar-Priest Bi-Tan, Grand Library of Aimsmouth.
~~~
The shutters of the Only Inn banged and clattered as winds battered
Mount Orion. Storm clouds circled the mountain in a brooding ring and
within them screamed the assembled storm host. Lightning flashed. Thunder
sounded. Great bellows rung out.
The main door of the inn crashed open and Khor, King of Storm, strode
in. He was a giant of a man, with wild brown-blond hair and eyes that
crackled with electric energy. Tattoos of blue-white lightning covered
every inch of his otherwise naked body - whorls on his sculpted pectoral
muscles, jagged rings around his bulging biceps and marks of cult and the
deep mysteries of storm down his chiselled stomach. A sliver of lightning
pierced the head of his soft but massive cock.
A flurry of winds entered with him. They run riot through the room,
knocking aside bottles, upending chairs, and sweeping up every loose piece
of dust, paper and rubbish. Men and women were thrown off their feet and
sent sprawling across the floor.
Only the round table at the very centre of the room proved protected
against the storm's power. It say in a zone of calm, projected by the
beings arrayed around it.
One of the table's occupants looked up. "You're late." The words came
from a sour, pinch faced man. This was Malleus, Chancellor of the Dread
College.
"Khor is never late!" boomed Khor. "Khor is as the wind!" Winds once
more shook the room.
"And yet you are," said Malleus.
He crooked a finger and one of his acolytes, a pretty blonde girl
wearing a form hugging black robe and shining silver jewellery, pushed
herself off the floor and hurried over with a bottle. She poured and blood
red liquid fell into Malleus' obsidian cub.
"Oh behave, Malleus dear," said the woman sitting to Malleus' left. She
placed a hand on his arm and just her touch seemed to inject vitality into
the sour man.
All knew the Queen of Summer.
She was a radiant beauty, with soft gold-olive skin that shone with an
inner light. And there was a lot of that skin. She only technically wore
more clothes than Khor. A necklace of white gold hung around her neck and
covered part of her impressive cleavage; a bejewelled chain connected her
nipples; and a thin golden belt encircled her waist and hung from her wide
hips. Everything else was completely bare.
Between her legs knelt an initiate into her deepest and most personal
mysteries. In any lesser company the initiate would have been a prize for
kings to war over, with flawless bronzed skin and lustrous black hair, but
next to the Queen she looked almost plain. Her tongue worshipped at the
Queen's challis, licking, toying, pleasuring. The Queen rolled her lips in
pleasure and moaned softly.
Beside the Queen sat the Crone, an ancient hag and First Witch. Her skin
was like crumpled parchment but her eyes were hard like bog iron. Her hair
was spun cobwebs. Her long claw like fingers drummed on the tabletop. She
wore a formless black robe that hid most of her body.
Khor dropped his immense bulk into a seat next to the Crone. The simple
wooden chair groaned under him. His cock slapped with a fleshy smack
against the wood.
"It is so nice to see you again," purred Nyxanda from her place next to
Khor, "and it is especially nice to see this again too." Her silk-soft
fingers closed around Khor's turgid cock and squeezed it gently. She too
wore very little: a bikini made from interlocking golden scales that only
just covered the nipples of her huge breasts and a narrow thong of the same
material. Everything else was pale purple skin.
"Demon whore," grunted Khor as his cock jerked.
She leaned in close and whispered, "And I'd have it no other way."
"Behave, behave," sung Delirium in his sing song voice. "What is behave?
Up down, back forth, banana?" She cocked his head and her long white hair
fell over his insane swirling eyes. The man-woman giggled.
The Crone glowered at Delirium, her ancient eyes narrowing. None could
truly trust Delirium for she was insanity given form.
"Ooh," crooned Delirium as he turned to the woman on her left. "Play me
a song. A song of... A song of life, love and very bad things."
Euphony nodded her head and started to play. The song was everything
Delirium requested, at once joyful and haunting, wonderful and full of
life's greatest despairs.
Euphony's skeletal hands flew over her harp's string, plucking notes
that spoke to her very soul. Faster she went and more magical the music
became. Her story was an old one but still known to all present. She was
the first and greatest musician, so skilful in her art that her music
charmed even death. But her charm only lasted while she played and should
she ever stop, death would claim her in an instant.
Millennia of playing had reduced her fingers to polished white bones,
but her charm maintained the rest of her youth. She appeared a young woman
of perhaps twenty five, too hard of faced to be considered truly beautiful,
even in company that did not include the Queen of Summer, but not ugly, no
never that.
The only person at the table not taken in by her music was the Old
Emperor, the King That Was and first lord of man, who had ruled the world
when it was yet young. He was an ancient man, more than matching the Crone
in age, with heavily lined skin and hands covered in blue veins.
Or so it appeared.
Hidden behind the Old Emperor's rheumy eyes and concealed from even the
powers gathered at the table was Mor, the world's greatest thief who had
stolen the Emperor's place, role and face for the night.
"Now we are all gathered," said the Crone in a voice of crunching paper,
"we shall begin?"
There was no question as to the game. They would play Fate. When beings
such as these met to play, all games were games of prophecy and prophecy
was as much curse as precognition.
"Deal your cards, hag," said Khor in the voice of rolling storms.
Eyes hard, she lifted the deck in her reed thin hands and shuffled the
cards. They were old and puissant like her, made from stiff paper and
painted thick with oil paints. Faces flashed by - ghastly and beautiful,
holy and profane, erotic and chaste.
She set and cut the deck. She dealt the cards. Three cards thudded down
before each player.
Khor picked up his and frowned at what he saw. Others took similar
actions.
Malleus wore a small smirk. The Queen of Summer wore a benedictive
smile. Delirium was manic and despondent by the moment. The First Musician
strummed on her harp, seemingly unconcerned by the cards in her free hand.
The Old Emperor's face was hard and lined. Nyxanda preened, chest pushed
out so her massive breasts strained against her metal bikini top.
"First bets," cackled the Crone and looked to the Queen of Summer on her
left.
The Queen laughed like falling water and beckoned an initiate forward.
The initiate was a young, beautiful man with long blond hair and a white
toga that left half his sculpted chest free. He held a small chest made
from lustrous wood, polished until it glowed. He knelt before the Queen and
cracked the lid. From its shadowed depths, she pulled out a single platinum
rose.
"A rose from my garden," she said. Dew still clung to the stem.
The other players nodded. Khor grunted. It was early in the game and the
bets were understandably small. Such items formed the vulgar currency among
beings of power. For all that, the rose was worth a king's ransom.
Malleus offered a vile of potent demon's blood.
Delirium laughed and conjured a bottle of wine made from the grapes of
madness. Impossible colours swirled in the liquid's murky depths.
Euphony strummed a string with her skeletal hand and caught the note out
of the air. It struggled and wriggled in her grip. "A note pulled from the
Music of the Spheres, that which shapes the destiny of all beings, even
powers as great as those gathered here."
The Old Emperor reached into his aged decaying robe and withdrew a
handful of ancient stone coins, each one made, earned and spent in blood.
He dropped them to the table one by one, each sounding like a falling
tombstone.
Nyxanda produced a tiny vial containing the concentrated juices of Dark.
Her eyes smouldered as she held it, full of forbidden pleasures. She was
first daughter of darkness and a child of the eschatonic seed. When it came
to smouldering erotic eyes, few could match her.
Khor jabbed a finger. Winds swirled in the room and a miniature
whirlwind formed where he pointed. When it abated, a bottle sat on the
table. Within it brooded a trapped storm cloud.
The Crone nodded her head and accepted the bets. She took up the cards
and dealt the World for all to see.
First down was the Fortress, a looming black stone castle. Next came the
Lovers, this card showing the Queen of Summer entwined in erotic embrace
with her twin brother, her equal in fairness but lost long ago to the
Impossible Infinities. Finally she dealt the World Ocean.
The players studied the cards. It was a strange hand. The Lovers should
surely help the Queen but the Fortress and the World Ocean... Too much
could change.
The second round of betting started.
The Queen of Summer added a golden apple to her platinum rose.
Malleus withdrew and dropped his three cards into the Underworld,
unburnt. The players all looked. The Scholar was no surprise, no one else
would be dealt that card while he remained at the table, but the Tower,
that was a stranger draw. What could it mean? The third card was the Night,
too wide in scope to pin down.
Delirium laughed, added a Pinch of Passion to his wine of madness and
cast all but one of her cards into the Underworld. The Sun and the Moon, a
strong combination by any normal measure but he wasn't known for reasoned
play. The Crone dealt her two replacements.
Euphony, the First Musician, folded, and her bone fingers plucked a song
like tears from her harp. She burnt her cards, placing them face down in
the Underworld. With those threads of fate burnt, she wouldn't be drawing
them again any time soon but their were advantages to secrecy.
The Old Emperor met the bets with yet more bloodstained coin and dropped
the Thief into the Underworld unburnt. The Crone dealt him a replacement.
The Old Emperor picked up the card with his old-age worn hands and gazed
long and deep into its face. Good or ill? He gave not a single sign.
Nyxanda folded and burnt her cards. Her fangs showed as she smiled. Her
tail twitched.
"Khor matches puny bets," muttered Khor almost under his breath. He
glared at his bottled wind and a second container appeared beside it. This
one contained lightning brewed in the stills of hurricanes.
With the bets laid, the Crone moved onto the next public card: the
Ethos.
She picked up the deck and the thick cards rubbed loud against her old
dry hands. Her iron eyes scanned the players at the table one by one. Only
after examining the last power, did she deal the card.
The Youth.
The card showed a young shepherd, just on the cusp of true manhood and
beautiful in the way of some boys. It was a game changing card, a defining
card. The Youth was a greater archetype and written deep into the fabric of
the world. To be dealt as Ethos could be no coincidence. The powerful
destinies being gathered by the remaining players were already taking root.
The Queen of Summer again beckoned forward her initiate and a withdrew a
silver pear. As she held the strange metallic fruit in her long fingered
hand, she closed her eyes and moaned. Her great naked breasts heaved and
the chain between her taught nipples jingled. The female initiate between
her legs had clearly done something very pleasant. Indeed, after a few
moments, she reached down and patted her intimate on the head. "Such a good
girl," she crooned. "And such a skilled tongue."
"Not yet time," sung Delirium and dropped his hand into the Underworld.
Wrack, Ruin and Devastation, another fantastic hand so carelessly
discarded.
"Delirium, dearest," said Nyxanda in a voice of honeyed poison. "Are you
quite sure you understand the rules of this game?"
Delirium turned her gaze upon Nyxanda and the madness swirling there
made Nyxanda recoil.
"Oh, Shaitan," said Delirium. "I am the only one who does."
The Old Emperor once more reached into his robe and withdrew a handful
of dragon's fangs. He added them to the pile made by his coins.
Khor came last. He glared at his cards, jaw grinding. After a few
moments he added his bet. To his bottled wind and distilled lightning, he
added thunder pickled in storm brine. Next he dropped a card from his hand
into the Underworld and the Crone dealt its replacement.
The players still in the game looked closely. Heartbreak lay atop the
Underworld, the card showing a beating heart riven in two.
The Crone once more picked up the deck and dealt the final public card.
Between the Underworld and the Ethos, she laid down the River with a heavy
smack.
This round the River was the Broken Portal. The card showed a castle
gate smashed to kindling.
All were silent as they tried to work out the effect of the card. In
Fate, unburnt cards in the Underworld could still effect the game,
amplifying wanted effects or deadening unwanted. A strong River, like the
Wall of Swords or the Fortress, would render the Underworld near impotent.
A weak river like the Broken Portal on the other hand...
One final round of betting remained.
The Queen of Summer retrieved the last item from her chest. A peach of
bronze gleamed in her hand, still wet with the dew of her garden. A single
still living green leaf sprouted from the top.
Khor eyed it hungrily.
The Old Emperor folded and burnt his cards.
That just left Khor. He looked into the flushed face of the Queen of
Summer. Even now she bit her lip, eyes wide and dilated, as her initiate
licked at her sex. She moaned oh-so-sweetly.
Khor summoned a fourth wager. With a clunk, a chest of cloud seeds
landed on the table. It was a prize perhaps worth more than the round
warranted but Khor didn't care.
"Play your hands," said the Crone and smiled a toothless smile, "make
your destinies."
The Queen of Summer laid her hand down first. She played the Ship, the
Chains and Bridal Ribbon.
In words of power unspoken, she told a tale. Of lovers young and
passionate. Of a quest to prove love. Of a young man who journeyed across
the sea to find a prize worthy of his lover. Of the trials he faced. Of the
imprisonment he suffered, bound for years in the dark tower of a dark
fortress. Of freedom at the hands of a thief. Of his return and joyous
reunion that mended hearts broken. And in that union marriage.
She let out a breath as she finished. Though she'd said not a word, all
gathered could see the story in the cards, in the interaction of her hand
with the World, Ethos, River and Underworld. Power pressed out from them.
This prophecy, or perhaps curse, was potent indeed.
Khor put down his cards one at a time.
First came the Host. "They came from the sea," he said in a low almost
skaldic voice and his power crackled like lightning along the cards. "A
horde of destruction, of violence, of plunder."
He played a second card: Battle. The card showed armies fighting. Swords
flashed, axes swung, spears stabbed. "They raided for many days and armies
rose to oppose them. They broke those armies. They broke the fortresses.
They broke the towns."
He played his final card: the Hero, the terminal archetype. Even
captured in oil paints, the hero's face never stayed the same. He wore a
thousand faces, ever changing, ever shifting. "A hero arose. His heart was
fire. His lover burnt at the horde's hands. Her death fuelled his broken
heart. By night and day, by moon, star and sun, he fought them. And
finally, he won. He won the land but only wrack, ruin and devastation
remained.
"So is the prophecy of Khor, King of Storm."
The two prophecies seeped into the cards but only one could last. They
pressed against each other, fighting, growing in power as they battled.
With a crash of thunder the Queen's collapsed and Khor's surged to victory.
Its power sung in the cards and already the world changed to accommodate
it.
"The King of Storm is victorious," said the Crone, though all present
could see. She picked up the cards on the table and shuffled them back into
the deck.
The Queen of Summer wore a slightly petulant frown but made no comment.
Khor gathered up his prizes and had his winds secret them away.
~~~
With the first round done, the Crone performed her final act as dealer.
She drew the first card from the deck and turned it upright for all to see.
The Harp. That could only mean one thing. Crone passed the deck to Euphony.
She would be dealer this round.
Euphony smiled a wan smile as she took the deck. Her curse was to never
stop playing, so even while she cut and shuffled with her right hand, she
plucked a haunting melody from her harp with her left.
"Will all present play?" she said, voice distilled harmonies.
Everyone nodded or otherwise marked their assent. Khor grunted and bit
into his bronze peach. It crunched between his teeth and crumbs of fruit
dropped to his bare chest. The juices spat and crackled as they hit his
lightning whorl tattoos.
"So it shall be," she said and began flicking out cards. They flew from
her bone white skeletal fingers like arrows from a bow.
As Euphony dealt, Nyxanda, first daughter of darkness, leaned over and
rubbed against Khor's side. "Big and skilled," she said in a hushed whisper
that reached every corner of the room. "Just how I liked them." Her eyes
sparked. "And so very, very big. Would you like to share your fruit with
me? I'm sure that we could... Enjoy it together." She rubbed his inner
thigh and then his cock proper. The immense organ stirred.
"Demon whore want prize," he grunted. "Demon whore should play better.
If want, Khor fuck hard. Maybe skill like pox."
Nyxanda hissed and turned away.
Once everyone had their three cards, Euphony turned to the Old Emperor.
"Will you place a bet, Emperor?" she asked.
The ancient man slowly nodded.
"I pledge the service of Old Powers - the dark things in caves." He
placed a totem on the table. It was made from stone, a crudely shaped
figurine with a great gaping mouth. Unseen shapes moved behind his rheumy
eyes." He burnt all three of his cards and drew replacements.
Nyxanda looked long at her cards but finally shook her head. "Woe is
me," she said and fluttered her full, smoky eyes at the table; her gaze
turned sour when she reached Khor, though. "I do not like the feel of my
cards this round." She placed the cards in the Underworld - the Tower, the
Hanged Man and the Virtuous Savant.
"Khor gives service of thane," bellowed Khor. "Khor promises a year and
a day's service of Black One Eye, Killer of Storms, Slayer of Mountains,
Razor of Cities!" Bet placed, he swapped two of his card. Discarded were
the Miser and the Broken Crown.
"Crone?" asked Euphony. "Will you play?" Her harp hand plucked a
haunting refrain.
The Crone masticated her toothless gums as she cradled her cards in her
dry old hands. "Oh yes, oh yes indeed I will. I am a wizened hag, old and
weary, but I yet have my vassals, oh don't I yes. Why just this day, the
Queen of the Ichthyophagi and Troglodytae offered up to me her first born
child and all I needed do was curse the painted whore who sought her crown.
That child then. Blood of kings, blood of sea, blood of stone."
She discarded one card, the Burning Eyes, and cackled over its
replacement.
The Queen of Summer pulled the initiate from between her legs. "Rise,
Lybie, rise."
"Mistress," she whimpered, lip trembling. A sheen of sex juices made the
olive skin of her face shine.
"Oh hush, you," said the Queen and kissed her initiate's forehead. "I
shall try my hardest to win." She looked towards the table. "I wager my
initiate Lybie. She is skilled in many of my magics and talented in the
arts of love."
"It is acceptable," said Euphony as she plucked at seemingly random
strings. "Chancellor?"
Long shadows brought out strange lines on Malleus' pinched face. He
burnt his cards. "I shall follow our demonic companion and forgo this
round. There is an ominous pallor about it."
"Very well. Delirium?" said Euphony. Strange disharmonious notes entered
her music that threatened its very structure.
Delirium let his head roll from side to side. Her eyes swirled with
impossible possibilities. His neither male nor female face appeared wrecked
in indecisions.
"I shall," she said. "I shall... Have a drink I think!" He flipped over
the back of his chair like an acrobat and padded towards the bar.
Euphony gathered up Delirium's cards and put them in the Underworld
unburnt. They were the Starving Man, the Oases and the Turncoat. Prophetic
indeed.
"I shall now deal the World," said Euphony and laid out the first
grouping of public cards. Each hit with a sharp crack as her bone fingers
pressed it down.
First was the Black Forest. The heavy oils showed great brooding pine
trees, growing so thick that no light touched the ground inside.
Second came the King's Road. The card showed a long and well maintained
road winding through the country.
Finally was the Axe. The card depicted a great iron axe, half impaled in
a tree.
"Emperor?" asked Euphony.
"I again pledge Old Powers - the never-seen monsters of the forest." He
withdrew a second totem, this one made from the thigh bone of some great
animal and covered with tiny tool marks.
He discarded two cards from his hand, the maximum allowed during the
second round of betting and burnt both. The First Musician dealt the
replacements and his eyes narrowed slightly at what he saw.
Khor squinted as he stared at his cards but finally chucked his entire
hand into the Underworld.
"Khor doesn't like the wagers this round," he muttered to himself.
Discarded were the Western Sky, the Lion and the Black Storm Cloud, a
potentially potent combination but perhaps not for this World.
"Crone?" said Euphony.
"Yes, yes," said the Crone. "I pledge three favours from the Sisters of
Night, the secret coven who rule at the heart of that decadent state
Lemuria."
"Queen?"
Smiling slightly, the Queen of Summer burnt her cards and placed them
face down in the Underworld.
"Mistress!" wailed Lybie. Tears clung to her large smoky eyes.
"No more talking, dear." She pushed Lybie back between her spread legs.
"I have a better use for your tongue and you're mine for a little longer
yet."
"Ethos," said Euphony, "the actor. The subject of our prophecies." She
drew a card and laid it next to the World. The smiling face of the Child
looked out, a messy haired boy with rosy cheeks.
The Crone and the Old Emperor were silent as they considered the card.
An archetype like the Youth, the Child would define the fates to come. To
go against its nature would be to weaken the working and surely lead to
defeat
"Emperor?"
"I pledge the third Old Power - the shadows in deep water." He withdrew
a fish-bone talisman, the individual bones connected by hand beaten river
copper. It swung in his ancient trembling fingers, the bones appearing to
swim like a living fish.
He discarded a card and for the second time that night placed the Thief
unburnt into the Underworld. Murmurs travelled round the table. Euphony
supplied a replacement.
Euphony turned to the Crone and her music rose in a rising terminal,
mimicking a question.
"Old and haggish, I may be," said the Crone, "but rich in other things I
am. By blood, bone and older debts, I bind to the winner of this hand the
monster Rrendel, slayer of heroes."
Euphony nodded. "And so the final card." She drew it and placed it face
down on the table. "The River defines course and action in prophecy. The
River accepts or rebukes the Underworld. The River can destroy and create."
She flipped the card with her bone fingers and pushed it to the table with
an audible click.
The Liminal Warden. An indomitable guard to the edges of all things and
a strong River, to be sure. The Underworld would have little effect on the
coming prophecies. Before those prophecies could be made, though, there was
one final round of betting.
The Emperor sat still as stone in his chair, ancient robes loose around
his decrepit body. "I pledge the kingship of wolves," he said.
The shock was palatable.
"Too much," hissed Nyxanda. Even to the first daughter of darkness and
child of the seed eschaton, this was a shock.
Malleus, Chancellor of the Dread College, looked at the Emperor from
darkly questioning eyes.
Khor grunted.
Euphony turned to the Crone. "Will you match this bet?" she asked.
The Crone narrowed her bog iron eyes. "Evil, cunning man," she said in a
low whisper to her cards. "We have duelled of old but to barter this?" She
looked up and said, "I pledge my place as polemarch of ravens."
Euphony nodded slowly and tension entered her music. "Crone, Emperor,
make your destinies."
The Old Emperor moved first. In a voice of graves, he said, "To know the
past is to know the future so I shall speak legend.
"I remember when men were young. The world was a dark place, then, and
we were prey not hunters."
He placed down the Hunter card, showing a fearsome warrior armed with a
throwing spear.
"The land was a single great forest and we huddled around fires against
its terrors. Dark things moved and lived beneath the trees. They lived
under the earth, beneath the water and in the sky. And we learnt that only
blood could keep them at bay. I was king so I commanded the blood. I
decreed the sacrifice."
He placed down the Sacrifice. The card showed an offering burning before
a statue of a great god.
"Once every year, when the sun was low and the day was at its shortest,
I commanded my subjects come to me. They came at my word and at my command.
They came with their families, with the young and the old, the strong and
the weak, the great and the common.
"And from among those gathered I chose a sacrifice. That year, the year
of the Red Sky and the Ice Rains, I chose a child. The blood needed to be
strong. The blood needed to be pure.
"My warriors brought him to me. They were powerful and there was no
escape. We placed him on the stone and as the sun failed, I brought down
the axe. His blood fed our protections. His blood paid our debts. His blood
let us grow. His blood averted ruin."
He placed his last card down: Ruin. The card showed a village raised and
set aflame by unseen dark terrors in the night.
Prophecy finished, the Old Emperor slumped into his chair. His old bones
were tired and he watched through milky eyes as his prophecy moved through
the cards. It was slow and sluggish, and to the senses of the assembled
powers, weak.
The Crone cackled to herself as she readied her cards.
She placed down her first card, the Plague.
"A pox to drive the child from his home,
"A road totake him far from hearth and stone.
"A dark forest to contain a cure,
"Or is it only a lure.
"A black witch to make a threat,
"And powers potent to make him fret.
"But to get her magic to cure the pox,
"The child will need be cunning, like a fox.
She placed down her second card - the Spellbook, the card showing a
leather bound tome of arcane knowledge.
"He goes to her cottage and is welcomed in,
"But is it truth or does she want his skin?
"He spies her arts and he spies her lore,
"And in her books he learns far more.
"But the witch finds out and sets pursuit,
"And all the child can do is run from her brute.
"Through forest, road and village he flees,
"Until all he can do is stand and wheeze.
She placed down her third card - the Saviour, a glittering knight in
silvered armour.
"But a saviour comes, a woodsman true.
"And using his axe cuts the brute clean through,
"And with his stolen knowledge of magic,
"The child cures the pox and averts a fate truly tragic.
The Crone's completed prophecy swept away the Old Emperor's like chaff
in the wind.
"The Crone has won," said Euphony as she gathered up the cards on the
table and set to shuffling the deck. "To her go the spoils."
The Queen of Summer drew Lybie from between her legs and pushed her
towards the Crone. "To your new mistress, now. Go!" She swatted the girl on
her shapely rear.
For her part, Lybie jumped at the contact and scurried over to the
Crone. She knelt before the hag and lowered her head. A cascade of black
ringlets fell down, baring her olive neck.
"Mistress," she said. "How might I please you?"
The Crone slowly rose from her chair on bony legs and stood hunched over
Lybie.
"Rise, girl, Rise."
Slowly Lybie stood. A hopeful expression showed on her face. It
disappeared when the Crone drove her taloned fingers through Lybie's chest
and into her heart.
The Crone changed. Her paper thin skin gained a healthy glow. Her hair,
once spun cobwebs, turned black and lustrous. Her face tightened and the
wrinkles disappeared. White teeth broke from her bloody gums. Her breasts
grew pert. She stood straight, back unbent for the first time in decades.
The very opposite happen to Lybie. She jerked as the colour drained from
her face. Her body spasmed as her very vitality was robbed from her. She
collapsed to the ground, barely breathing, her body a near desiccated husk.
Her youth was gone, stolen.
Over her stood the Crone-no-longer. Now she was a witch in the prime of
life and power.
"Was that really necessary?" asked the Queen of Summer, a slightly
exasperated tone to her voice. "If you only wanted her youth, I could have
supplied someone just as young and saved myself a skilled servant."
"Yes," said the witch. "The time when a meagre meal might revive my
youth are long past. Only those of power will satisfy me and even then,
only for so long. I will exhaust her youth in a day and then be the Crone
once more. But for now I am the Witch Queen again."
The Queen of Summer huffed but didn't push the point.
"Might I suggest a short break," said Euphony, "before we continue for
the next round? I think such will serve to sooth nerves." On her harp she
played notes like running water.
"A fine suggestion," said the Witch Queen, "but first?" She pointed to
the deck.
Euphony finished collecting the cards and shuffled one handed. After a
few seconds, she dealt and flipped the top most card: the Scholar.
All eyes turned to the Chancellor of the Dread College.
"Malleus," asked Euphony, "will you deal the next hand?"
Malleus nodded. "I will," he said, and the table broke for their break.
~~~
The Only Inn stood alone on the flattened summit of Mount Orion. Too
high for all but the bravest or most foolhardy mortals to reach, it was the
province of powers and was stocked to match.
Its kitchens were managed by a minor hearth goddess of the Theolalic
tradition; its cellars contained casks, bottles and amphora gathered over
multiple millennia; its beds were lined with spider silk sheets and stuffed
with the fantastical feathers of sun, moon and star birds; upon the walls
behind the bar were carved the recipes for every drink ever concocted; and
the barman himself was an artificial construct created by the long gone
Sobak people.
"Khor thirsty," boomed Khor as he strode towards the bar. The aids and
attendants to the assembled powers broke before him. "Khor buy best ale in
biggest mug."
"You could drink," said a breathy voice by his ear, "or we could enjoy
ourselves."
The voice belonged to the Crone-come-Witch Queen, a First Witch of
fearsome potency. Khor turned and leered at her newly invigorated body. Her
lips were the colour of dogwood berries and just as poisonous. Her large
pert breasts strained against her formerly formless black robe. Forced to
contain her newly voluptuous body, it didn't quite do the job.
The Witch Queen idly waved a hand and her robe disappeared into mist,
leaving her completely naked. She was spectacular, every inch of her
arsenic white skin smooth and unblemished. Her long midnight hair fell to
the small of her back and a small patch of hair of the exact same colour
guarded her sex. Her nipples were large, sharp and hard, and the same shade
of dark red as her lips.
"I will not have this body for long and it would be a shame not to make
the most of it," she said in a black cat's purr.
Khor growled. His cock grew hard and thunked against his stomach. The
bolt of lightning through the tip shot sparks.
"Now this does look tasty, yes," said the Witch Queen and slowly dropped
to her knees. She took the meaty member in both hands and felt the heft of
its weight. "When I was a girl... Well, it is strange the things you miss."
She lent forward and licked the head.
Khor, King of Storm, stared down at the Witch Queen with hungry eyes and
grunted in pleasure. Even as her tongue navigated his girth and length, he
reached forward and rested his large meaty hands on her skull.
The Witch Queen took the hint, made a ring of her lips and forced the
huge head between her jaws. Her tongue worshipped around the cock invading
her mouth.
To Khor that was good but not good enough.
"Khor fuck puny woman," he said and fucked his hips forward. The Witch
Queen struggled for a moment, gasping, but managed to swallow his assault.
Her throat bulged at the intrusion.
Khor clenched his ass, withdrew his cock until the head pulled against
her lips from the inside, and then slammed back in. He moved with all the
force of a raging storm and great swathes of his cock disappeared into the
Witch Queen's clutching gullet. Her cheeks bulged and the hot wetness of
her throat clenched down. The Witch Queen gave back just as good. She
battered forward with her head and forced the cock deeper still. Drool fell
from her mouth and chin. In the brief moments the cock left her mouth, it
shone with spittle.
"Quite the fuck minx, isn't she?" said a husky voice by Khor's ear. It
belonged to Nyxanda - demoness, first daughter of darkness and a child of
the eschatonic seed. "When she was young, she whored herself before my
mother's court. Cocks, cunts, tentacles, things you can't imagine, anything
for power. She nursed on my clit more times than I can count."
Nyxanda set her sharp teeth against Khor's earlobe and bit down hard.
Blood swelled around her fangs and Khor slammed himself almost balls deep
in the Witch Queen's gasping throat. Nyxanda unlatched her jaw and licked
her blood smeared lips.
The power of storms raging through him, Khor set up a hard rhythm as he
punish-fucked the Witch Queen's throat.
As he did, Nyxanda stepped around Khor. Metal clattered against wood as
she unlatched her golden bikini top and thong panties. They fell away from
her body to reveal her demonic form in all her glory. Her skin was pale
purple and her released breasts, huge, taught and round. Her hips flared
wide and her legs were long and toned. Even barefoot she walked on the
balls of her feet, as if wearing the highest of heels. Her long sinuous
tail swished behind her. Her sex was bare of hair but not bare of hypnotic,
entrancing power.
She knelt behind the Witch Queen and reached around the woman's body.
Her hands found the witch's hanging breasts and squeezed them tight. Her
fingers deformed the flesh, biting deep, and the Witch Queen groaned around
the cock filling her throat.
"Paint the bitch," hissed Nyxanda. She let the witch's breasts drop and
took hold of her head. She held it tightly between her hands, pointed dead
forward.
Khor clenched his jaw, pulled his rock hard cock from the Witch Queen's
throat and exploded. His lightning tattoos blazed blinding white, the
lightning bolt through his cockhead spat sparks and a stream of cum
plastered the Witch Queen's face. Nyxanda held the witch in place, so she
couldn't even move away.
And the cum just kept on coming. Blast after blast left Khor's twitching
balls and shot from his volcano like cock. Cum dripped from the Witch
Queen's face, every inch covered and sodden with sticky white goo. It
filled her eyes and covered her nose, It pooled in her open mouth and
dripped in gooey strands over her lips and down her chin.
Finally Khor stood panting as the last few drops fell from the head of
his cock.
"Yes," hissed Nyxanda. She leaned forward and drew her forked tongue up
the side of the Witch Queen's face.
For her part, the Witch Queen was out of it, eyes dazed and mind fuck
drunk. She didn't resist as Nyxanda dragged her to one of the small tables
in the room and dropped her onto it.
"Now fuck her," said Nyxanda. She pulled the Witch Queen onto her back
and spread her legs. With two purple fingers, Nyxanda spread the witch's
alabaster cunt to show the pink inside.
Khor, King of Storms, gave his cock a few pumps in his meaty fist and
grabbed the Witch Queen's legs. He threw them up over his shoulders,
positioned his cock so the head split her cunt and pushed inside.
The Witch Queen moaned as the pleasure cut through the fog clouding her
mind.
"Fuck me!" she murmured. Then louder, "Fuck me!"
Khor slammed in and out of her clutching cunt. Her body writhed and
bucked under him. Each thrust sent her tits bucking and bouncing.
"Khor fuck puny witch," he muttered as his great powerful hips worked.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" she cried.
"Less talking, more licking," hissed Nyxanda and dropped her dripping
cunt onto the Witch Queen's cum plastered face. She rolled her hips until
she found the witch's tongue and then groaned with pleasure. "Mmm. This
takes me back."
Khor, Nyxanda and the Witch Queen weren't the only powers indulging in
the physical pleasures.
Without Lybie, the Queen of Summer had turned to more masculine
pleasures and rode her male initiate like a horse-mistress of the Anomandie
steppe breaking a young stallion. His young pretty body bucked under her as
she fucked up and down. Her great breasts shook with her effort and the
chain between her nipples chimed like bells. He sweated, panted and
groaned.
Such debaucheries were like nothing compared to Delirium. She'd enticed
a half dozen people, men and women both, into a confused orgy of tangled
flesh and groaning bodies right on the inn floor. A pretty blonde girl
wearing the black robes of the Dread College turned darker and darker as a
hulking demon choke fucked her. A pretty red-headed musician squealed as
her own flute entered her pussy while she beat off men with both hands. A
storm thrall grovelled under the makeshift whip wielded by a pissed off
attendant of the Queen of Summer.
And in the middle of it all was Delirium, his both male and female body
covered with sweat, cum, spit and grime. She squealed as one of Malleus'
attendants, an overly tall gangly man in his mid twenties, forced his long
curved cock up Delirium's ass. It was the safest hole when it came to
Delirium, for his pussy appeared and disappeared at random intervals to be
replaced by a throbbing cock. When the cock was there, an ebony maid who
belonged to the inn took full mouth slobbering licks.
Not all powers partook in the erotic games, of course. Malleus seemed
content to enjoy his blood red wine in peace. The Old Emperor sat like a
corpse in his chair, face grave dust. Euphony perched alone at the bar and
played a haunting melody with both her skeletal hands as she watched the
festivities.
Khor grunted as he neared his second orgasm. With the Witch Queen's legs
thrown up over his shoulders, his strokes were long, hard and incredibly
powerful. With each thrust, his hips met her ass.
The Witch Queen came and came on the cock spearing her body. Her body
jerked, her cunt clenched as if trying to crush Khor's cock as it stretched
her to her limit and she screamed bloody murder into the cunt mashed to her
face.
That cunt belonged to Nyxanda and the demoness came almost as much. Her
purple thighs clenched around the Witch Queen's head and ripples of
pleasure pulsed up and down her demonic body.
With one final bellow, Khor rooted himself and orgasmed. Boiling white
cum blasted into the Witch Queen's body until no room remained and frothy
white foam forced its way out. The three participants collapsed into a
sweaty pile.
~~~
It took some time but the game eventually resumed.
All eight players gathered around the table.
Delirium was the first to return of those who had left. She slipped out
of the pile of sweating heaving bodies and skipped to the table. Between
one step and the next, his clothes returned. She now wore a stylised
version of jesters motley.
Euphony sat with her harp in one skeletal hand. She plucked strings
seemingly at random but somehow produced an eerie melody, as if a dance of
ghosts.
The Old Emperor mouldered quietly. He was still as the grave in his
dusty moth-eaten robes. No longer king of wolves, no longer commander of
the dark things in caves, this game had cost him dearly, or would have if
not for his secret. From behind milky eyes, Mor, the world's greatest
thief, planned.
Nyxanda preened as if the prized peacock of the Lemurian Archon. The sex
had proved an invigorating intoxicant to her and her purple skin shone. She
hadn't bothered redonning her meagre clothing and her large breasts stood
high, proud, bare and loose.
Khor was likewise changed by their sex, but instead of enlivened, he
wore a sleepy smile on his wild face. The lightning tattoos that covered
his body slumbered, merely an electric blue colour rather than blazing.
Even the Crone-come-Witch Queen looked quietly pleased with herself. She
had put back on her clothes but the robe was different now. It showed the
cleavage of her restored breasts and a slit ran from the side of one leg to
her hips.
The Queen of Summer still looked mildly miffed at the fate of her
initiate, Lybie, but had recovered easily enough. Her male initiate had
taken Lybie's place between the Queen's legs. Judging from the occasional
moan that came from the Queen's lips, he was doing well enough.
Malleus, Chancellor of the Dread College, took the deck in his pale
hands and scanned the players.
"Fate," he said. "The game of power and prophecy. According to my
research, it was first played by the gods of the Sobak Dominion long before
mankind's birth. Their cards were different of course but from studying
surviving artifacts, it is undeniably the same game."
He started dealing cards, three to each player. Once done, he turned to
Delirium and raised an eyebrow.
Delirium smiled at her cards and rubbed his fingers together. A strange
glinting thing appeared and he placed it upon the table. "I bet an
impossible idea from a mad-man's mind." A valuable prize indeed. She
discarded Ruin and received a replacement.
From Euphony's harp issued a trill unto bird's song. A lesser musician
scampered up from behind and laid a rosewood case on the table. Euphony
flicked the shining brass catches with her skeletal fingers and opened the
lid. Inside, on a cushion of velvet, lay a set of wooden pipes.
"The pipes of Pag," she said and her harp spoke with her, resonating
notes. She stroked the worn horn tubes with the back of a bone finger. "I
won these twenty years ago in a contest of art at the Fields of Pyantha."
She flipped the lid closed with a tap of her finger and pushed the case
forward. "And now I offer them up to the winner of this hand."
She discarded a card and drew its replacement. The assembled players
gazed into the Underworld and saw the Straits of Epon. The skilled
brushwork of the card's painter depicted the location perfectly - a jagged
slash of water which broke Epon in two, marking a feud of powers in ages
past.
The Old Emperor let loose a dry cough and withdrew an ancient wooden
mask carved to show a snarling beast from his once-fine robe. He burnt two
cards and drew their replacements.
The first daughter of darkness, and now naked, demoness Nyxanda brought
her hands together. Purple light flickered between her palms and she
produced a ghostly silver coin. "Stolen from the Tree Periander."
"Souls?" said Delirium. She rolled her head so it lay on her shoulder.
"What would I do with a soul? I am Delirium. The mad, the desperate and the
young throw themselves upon me. If I want a soul, all I need do is reach
out and..." He plucked a ghostly silver coin from the air. "Take it." Her
eyes flashed with spiralling colours.
"Be that as it may," said Malleus, face pinched, "I judge it worthy. The
souls drawn to Periander are potent indeed."
Khor jabbed a finger. Winds swirled and when they retreated, a golden
horn sat on the table. "Khor mighty," he said. "Khor steal the Horn of
Winter from the Palace of Frost." Hoarfrost grew around the mouth of the
horn and wisping cold drifted out. He discarded a card, the Clash of
Armies, and drew a replacement. His lips moved as he considered it.
The Witch Queen sat back in her chair and fanned herself with a crimson
folding fan. After a few idle seconds, she tapped it closed and placed it
on the table. "The Crimson Butterfly Fan, stolen a hundred years ago from
the safe keeping of the Grey Monks of Lesser Int. There is a powerful demon
bound to it." She smiled at Nyxanda. "Perhaps it is a relative."
Nyxanda smiled back and showed her fangs. Her tail cracked.
"I suppose it once again comes to me," said the Queen of Summer and
squirmed in her seat as her initiate performed a particularly pleasurable
piece of tongue work. "The theme of the hand seems to be treasures won, and
far be it from me to break from such a tradition, even one so relatively
new." She raised a finger and one of her initiates hurried forward holding
a large chest. The initiate set it on the floor, turned a large bronze-work
key and stood back.
The Queen of Summer reached in and withdrew a ram's skull, the white
bone seemingly turned to stone in places.
"The skull of the Beast Bigbrey." She let her hand hover over the horns.
"A measure of that monster's fearsome powerful yet remains." She closed her
eyes and a smile lit up her gold-olive face. "Even after I ate his heart."
Malleus accepted the bet with a slight dipping of his head and dealt the
World. He did it fast, with practised motions, slap, slap, slap.
The Mountain came first, showing the snow capped peak of Mount Avar. The
stone crest merged seamlessly into a giant metal spike that pierced the
clouds.
Second down was the Lovers, returning from the earlier hand. It showed
the Queen of Summer entwined with her missing twin brother, their bodies so
close they almost seemed one.
Last was the Betrayal. The card showed a darkened room filled with
darker still figures. Each held a dagger behind their back.
That was an ominous hand. The players looked at each other through
questioning eyes and the faint pressure of power gathered in the room.
Only Delirium seemed unaffected. She laughed. "Oh woe is me, the cards
speak our doom it seems." His smile almost split her face. "I bet a True
Insight wrestled from the heart of insanity."
For long seconds the only sound in the inn was Euphony plucking a
musical heartbeat from her harp. It thrummed out, twang, twang, twang.
After the third such note, Euphony spoke. "In the Red Sea of Isai Minor,
their dwell sirens of potent prophecy. To hear their music is to go mad but
I braved and bested them. Within a cage of notes and walls of verse, I have
captured their song. I offer up this prize."
Wordlessly, the Old Emperor produced a blood soaked battle standard, the
cloth torn and ragged, the figure head split and broken.
As he had in every hand so far, he discarded the Thief and drew his
replacement.
Nyxanda folded and burnt her cards. The prophecy already writ in the
World was not one she would risk.
Khor, King of Storm, stabbed his finger again and a spear of ice joined
the Horn of Winter on the table. Cold rose from the permafrost blade. In a
voice of brooding storms, he said, "Khor tear puny stick from Winter's own
hands."
The Witch Queen joined Nyxanda in burning her cards, her eyes like iron
nails.
That just left the Queen of Summer. She smiled and again reached into
the chest by her side and pulled out a ruby that flickered with internal
flames. "I found it in the Beast Bigbrey's stomach, and while I do not know
its providence, there is power to it."
Malleus flicked the top card from the deck and placed it down as Ethos.
The Pantheon. It showed a gathering of gods and while few actual gods were
gathered in the Only Inn that day, the meaning was clear enough. Fate
wasn't a game of chance. It was a game of prophecy and this prophecy was
clear for all to see.
Delirium laughed the laugh of the broken and clapped her hands. From
their union dropped his third prize. An Unimaginable Thing thudded to the
table.
Euphony folded and burnt her cards. She wouldn't risk being trapped or
pulled into this hand, not even through the tenuous connection of a
discarded card in the Underworld. The Old Emperor did the same and even
Khor smacked down his cards with an audible grunt.
As the Queen of Summer made to follow their example, Delirium spoke.
"If you fold now, you will never know what I offer next."
The Queen of Summer paused with her cards half way to the Underworld and
turned her gaze on Delirium. Her blue eyes were impossibly deep. "An
Impossible Idea, True Insight, and an Unimaginable Thing, valuable prizes
true and dearly won I'm sure, but what do they mean to me? There are uses I
could put them, without question. From your Unimaginable Thing I could
fashion a new species to rival any in my garden. But worth the risk of this
unfolding destiny, I think no."
"Queeny, Queeny, Queeny," sang Delirium. "I have gone far and seen many
things. I have delved broken minds and thoughts twisted by the most
powerful intoxicants. I have travelled to realms only reached by true
tragedy or purest love. I have walked the spaces that exist between grains
of sand and skipped pebbles across seas into which our world would sink
without a ripple."
His impossible eyes swirled with the colours of madness cast with the
shades of insanity. She leaned forward and smiled.
"I have braved the Impossible Infinities themselves and returned. I have
your brother."
The Queen of Summer remained utterly silent for a moment. Then she
slowly rose and unveiled her power.
The legs of every chair, table and stool exploded as her will hit the
room like a gigantic fist. Even the Fate table dropped, scattering cards
and wagers as it shattered under her incredible power. Bottles exploded.
Kegs broke apart and vomited potent alcohols. Lesser mortals gasped and
writhed on the ground under the weight of her majesty, not even able to
breathe.
Delirium laughed at the display and leaped backwards out of his seat
just before it fell. She hit the ground with a hand and flipped to his
feet.
"Give him to me," spoke the Queen of Summer, and the words were no mere
words. She spoke prophecy, prophecy as strong as the roots of iron trees
and the memory of earth. Winds stirred up by her power battered the room,
sending her hair flying in every direction. "You will give him to me!"
Even the other powers gathered in the room might have fallen before such
a pronouncement and indeed, many did sway at the force of the words, but
Delirium was insanity incarnate. She laughed, and the words of fate rolled
off him like water from an oilskin.
Delirium flicked her hands out and the varies wines, ales, ciders,
spirits and stranger things rose at his command. Sprites of wine and
gremlins of whisky capered about the bar. Bogarts of musky beer and trolls
made from bubbling ciders stomped forward.
The Queen of Summer took a step towards the host and slashed out. Under
her burning gaze, the conjurations flashed-boiled to vapour.
"Give him to me!"
Delirium laughed once more and vaulted backwards again in a spinning
series of back flips.
The Queen of Summer kept advancing, driving the contorting, spinning,
dodging fool towards the far wall.
When Delirium had nowhere left to go, she leaped into the air as if to
flip but didn't come down. His body spun in a tight ball, faster and
faster. Light blasted from her glowing body. And the he was gone, vanished.
The Queen screamed and ripped open space with her bare fingers. Blinding
light blazed and then she was gone too, following Delirium down madness
wrought paths even powers feared to tread.
"Well," said Malleus, "I for one can't speak to the entertainment." He
frowned as he observed the devastation and twisted a silver ring on his
long pale finger. "I would declare this hand forfeit for all concerned but
the wagers seem to be missing."
The assembled powers jerked their eyes back to the table. Everything was
gone. No Horn of Winter or spear of ice, no partially petrified ram's
skull, no soul coin stolen from the Tree Periande, no anything.
Khor tried to summon his prizes from the first hand but they would not
come. No bottled madness or golden apple. Even his own treasures, such as
the pickled thunder, were lost to him. He threw back his head and roared.
The Witch Queen opened and closed her hands in shock. Already her youth
was fading. Veins rose on the back of her hands as her skin turned papery.
Her hair lost its lustre and fell from her head, leaving only spun cobwebs.
Her back bent and her teeth rotted in her mouth, leaving bloody gums.
The Crone said in a murdered whisper, "I am no longer king of wolves. I
am no longer polemarch of ravens."
"Who?" roared Khor. "Khor smash thief. Khor break bones and eat marrow."
"I can't help notice that we are missing three companions rather than
the expected two," said Malleus, the words containing a certain dry
sardonicism available only to those who had lost little, "and while I would
never normally question the logic of evacuation when powers war, the timing
in this case is somewhat suspicious. I draw your attention to the ruined
chair where once sat the Old Emperor."
Khor cast about and didn't find the ancient man. He roared again and the
storm circling outside answered in full. "Khor will find puny Emperor and
Khor will kill!"
He thundered towards the entranceway, pulled the door so hard it flew
off its hinges and leaped into the sky outside.
"With a thief in every pot," whispered Mor as he slipped into shadow,
"good old Mor has stolen the lot." The prophecy in the words was weak but
undeniably there.
In a few centuries, Mor might join the games of powers in truth, but
until then, he planned to ply his craft for everything he could. He shed
the Old Emperor's form, began the treacherous descent down Mount Orion and
fled into the night.