Message-ID: <2370eli$9707291825@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Archived-At: <URL:http://www.netusa.net/~eli/erotica/assm/Year97/2370.txt> From: Caintigern O'Niall <Caintigern@deathsdoor.com> Subject: Tower of Light, pt 1, nc, rape, furry, mc, hermaphrodite Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d Path: qz!not-for-mail Organization: The Committee To Thwart Spam Approved: <usenet-approval@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Moderator-Contact: Eli the Bearded <story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Story-Submission: <story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Original-Message-ID: <33DE0C59.249D@deathsdoor.com> This story is one of erotic fantasy, intentionally produced with a heroic fantasy feel. I make no attempt to portray the realism of the dirt, grime, and disease of real medievalism. This story contains graphic sex. If you're under 18, don't read it. If sexual content offends you, there are plenty of other things you could be reading... what the hell are you doing in this newsgroup/archive? Being medieval fantasy, there is magic and stuff. This should not in any way be construed as condoning or informing about real life occult activities. There's a lot of plot here, and character development. Hope you don't mind. There's also a lot of nonconsensuality, mind games, mind control, and violence in this series. Consider yourself warned. This work may be freely distributed via electronic media, providing that this header and the byline is included. It may not be sold or included in any work of any sort that might be sold. Feedback! Send me feedback! -- CO The Tower of Light "You're bloody well outta your head!" Daggershim exclaimed, leaping up from the table and almost spilling everyone's drink. Vailin looked up at her mildly, his sedate expression and tawny eyes never shifting. "Were I insane, as you suggest, Dag, surely my gods would have taken my powers?" He tipped his head meaningfully toward Earisha, the warrior of the Golden Pride he healed only moments before. "I ain't going," Daggershim declared after a second. "That is," Vailin replied, "your choice." "But, Dag," Vailin's sister, Devana, said in a pleading voice, "we'll need your help just to get in!" "The Lady speaks truly," Royale, their overstuffed cavalier added. "Thy skills and thy cunning become our greatest assets. Of a certain, there is no other your equal." Vailin held up a broad, capable hand. "Peace, friends. The lady makes her own path, and if her path does not meet ours, then it is her fate, and ours." A card hit the table. The Shattered Tower. "Our Fate," intoned Kathardekar. Dag stabbed her finger at it. "Look, you'll win! The Tower will be broken and you'll throw it down and do your little dance of happiness all over it. See?" Another card crossed it. A skeleton pierced with thirteen swords. "Further explanation for the dim of view," the Reader explained darkly. The lithe cutpurse stopped, staring at the card. "Well, see? It's just like I told you. Death to go, death to try. Just stay here in town! They pay us to protect them, and we have three squares a day and real beds to sleep in! What else could you ask?" A third card. Six people, carrying heavy burdens, traversing a road made of broken glass to the top of a hill, where lay the great solar manse of Dorak, the sky lord, master of victory. "The path if you come with us," Vailin whispered, and Kathardekar nodded grimly. "Oh, fuck! You people are the best in the world at guilt-tripping!" Dag sat down with a thump. She took a long draught of her mug of ale. "Tell me again why we're doing this?" "Vengeance!" hissed Earisha. "Honor!" exclaimed Royale. "Defense!" said Devana. "Healing!" proclaimed Vailin. "Because it's there," Kathardekar said in a tired, bored voice. Dag nodded knowingly at Kath. "And why," she asked, as if she already knew the answer, "are we choosing to do it now?" "We have the power!" Royale said. "Nothing can stop us as long as we're together!" Devana cheered. "They ravage the land and pillage its people!" Earisha whispered. "They must be stopped!" Vailin declared. "Because we can," muttered Kathardekar cynically. Dag sighed. "Okay, fine, you've convinced me. But," she held up her hand to halt the cheers of her comrades, "I just wanna say that we're gonna regret this!" As the rest rose to go forth and make their preparations, Kathardekar cast one last card. A person, in the act of turning from the viewer, one arm cast across his/her face and tears dashing from the eyes. "Regret," he whispered. They'd been keeping the horses to the woods, mostly, because the soldiers of the Tower of Light swarmed the roads, "keeping travellers safe." Only once did they come into conflict with a road troop, and that was when Royale responded to cries for help and the rest of the group followed with varying levels of reluctance. The soldiers had halted a family roadcart, and were busily torturing the oldest man to death and raping everyone else, male and female alike. Royale descended upon them with the cry, "For the Silver Pike!!!" and slew them, every one, single-handed, his dark sword humming a dirge with each stroke. Devana and Vailin moved in to heal the survivors, while Dag, Earisha and Kath hung back, watching for reinforcements. Luckily, none arrived and the group only lost a little time escorting the cart to the relative safety of the nearby Imperial road. It was the seventh night out, an auspicious night according to Kath in one of his few upbeat moods. The moons each stood nearly full in the sky, casting the strange, muddy mix of silver and blood-red light that only happened a few days of the year. Against the eastern horizon, a golden light colored the sky, obscuring all but the brightest stars. At the peak of the glow, a pair of yellow points of light glared balefully down upon the lands, the eyes of the god Hansa Deven, the lord of light. "We're close," Vailin said needlessly. "Dag, are you ready for your part?" "As ready as I'll ever be," she replied, patting down her gear quickly and glancing aside to Kath. The Fatetwister nodded slightly. "The trees break just over this rise," Earisha informed the troupe as she returned from her scouting, ears flicked forward, then back, moving constantly for stray sounds. The horses edged away from her predator scent. She unconsciously groomed some of her red-grey tabby fur with her free hand, a nervous habit to which they were all accustomed. "We wait here then," Royale said, his powerful voice kept low. "Go forth, sisterfriend, and give the signal when all is in readiness." Devana touched her arm. "I know you don't like the blessings of the Blue Circle," she whispered, "so please take what I can give, the blessings of Kamaashi." Dag inclined her head to Devana. The Avatar's cool lips touched Dag's forehead briefly and a warm, comforting buzz passed through the burglar's body. She smiled at Devana, dismounted, and vanished into the shadows under Kath's watchful gaze. The trees did break over the rise. What Earisha hadn't said was that they broke on the dam of a vast, barren plain, devoid of all life except occasional foot and horse patrols. The plain was once rolling hills, Dag recalled, and wondered at the power it took to make such things flat, painfully level ground. Her skill, her magicked cloak, her naturally dark skin color, and Kathardekar's twist of Fortune permitted her to cross the plain quickly and silently, passing virtually under the noses of several soldiers and actually through a pavilion of army-followers, their perfumed bodies sprawled in readiness for the next shift coming off duty. She reached the raw cliff that supported the Tower without event, and gazed upward. The Tower itself was a tapering golden rod stretched all the way to the sky, the glow near blinding at the top. She would have had plenty of light from the moons that night, but the combination of light from all three lit the land like the brightest of the three suns, though the colors were nauseous and rotten. Her hands reached for the cliff-face and touched wet, sticky heat. It disturbed her for only a second before she realized its was landsblood, the stuff of life running thick beneath the earth. The hills had been sheared, not simply cast down, and the land was bleeding. She mouthed a voiceless prayer to the Mother and touched her tongue to her finger. The landsblood was bitter instead of sweet, the sign of land that was poisoned and dying. She thought a vile curse at the denizens of the Tower above and began to feel for the door that supposedly existed here. The edges of the door were hard as stone, yet splintered, buried beneath a drapery of dying roots. She felt the circumference of the trolldoor and determined that even Royale, with his broad, armored shoulders, could pass through it if he crawled. Her next goal was climbing upward to the unsealed passage that supposedly existed. The Mother gave her what help she could in the shape of firm stones and thick, ropy roots not yet too dead and dry to use. Dag's own boots, made by the fey of the Lorn Wood, sought footholds where others might find none. Her gloves, a gift of the Readers of Fortune of the city of Blanss, gripped where her own strength might fail. Still, she thanked Kath again and again in her thoughts for his spell which made her Fortune greater than chance might have it. The opening gaped to her right, and she edged that way carefully. The lip of the troll tunnel gave way under her foot, so she stepped deeper, seeking firm ground. Once one foot had a stance, the rest of her followed naturally. The ruined tunnel remained typical of trollish masterworks. Smooth walls and arching ceiling, now cracked and crumbled, leaned just perceptibly to one side. The floor, though littered with pieces of stone and dirt, remained undamaged, a carefully crafted smoothness that included thin lines to provide traction on the downhill slope. She moved forward, her eyes adjusting to the dim light with the precision her fey ancestry bestowed upon her. It took very little effort for one instinctively familiar with trollish architecture — in her childhood, she'd been fostered to a troll village — to locate the downward shaft, drop down, and find the hidden doorway. The corridors were much shorter and closer than she recalled, and she had to advance in a tight crouch. She closely examined the edges of the door from the inside and determined that there were, in fact, no traps or pitfalls to be engaged by the portal. With quick, deft fingers, Dag unlocked the door. She drew a thin cylinder from one pocket, screwed a cap into place over one closed end, and squirted oil onto the hinges. She removed the cap, made sure the self-sealing end of the cylinder closed, then replaced the apparatus in her breeches' pocket. That done, she briefly tested the give of the door to make sure it would open, then scurried back up to her entrance. The descent went faster than the ascent, now that she knew her path, and she made her way to the halfway point of the field. There, she crouched. She stuffed her ears with wax and linen, cast upward the messenger stone, and then set the Siren's Horn to work. A few seconds later, she saw all movement in the various encampments and patrols cease as the sound that none could hear save dogs and fey penetrated their unconscious and commanded them to heed nothing but that sound they could not hear. Moments ticked by, and finally, she saw the rest of the troupe running across the field, heads low. She stood up right in front of Earisha, who was in the lead, and began to run toward the door. The Pridyth perked her ears at the movement, then altered her course to follow the running thief. The rest turned accordingly. Dag popped the door open, wincing just in case she'd missed something. No flying spears, no opening pitfalls, no crushing stones, so she stood aside and let Earisha lead the way, the Pridyth falling to all fours with as much facility as her cat cousins would. Kathardekar followed, then Devana, Vailin and finally, Royale. The knight grunted slightly as he forced his way in. At last, Dag took a final look around, silenced the rest of the group, and deactivated the Siren's Horn, pocketing the tiny conch shell and slipping through the doorway. The door closed silently after her. "I had no notion it was going to be quite this... tight," Royale groused in a low voice, shifting one broad shoulder with a scrape against the wall. There was much rustling as he and the rest of the group unstopped their ears. "Be glad I insisted on those leather dampers on your plates," Dag hissed, "or you'd be striking sparks at every turn." She had misjudged his size a tad and realized that she should have entered the tunnel before him. With much squeezing and held breath, she managed to wedge herself between his legs — feeling his heat and muscular legs as she did so, and remembering a time long past when she welcomed the opportunity to rest there — and then past each member of the party in turn. Vailin was intent on what was ahead, Devana smiled and suppressed a giggle, Kath barely posited an obstacle at all, and Earisha grinned ferociously at her. "Where to?" Vailin asked from the rear. Earisha turned back, her ears flattening with one of the iciest looks she could bestow upon a human. "You mean, you /don't know/?" Vailin muttered, "I know that we go /up/, I'm not privy to the details of the inside of another god's work, just this area." After a pause, he added, "I was hoping that Daggershim, with her background, would be able to reason us a route." Dag was already unwinding a roll of thin silk cord and tapping one end of it into the flawed wall with a hammer and spike. "Come on, Ea, we have some scouting to do. The rest of you /don't move/ from here. This whole place is unstable and damaged, and any excessive moving around could bring it all down on us." Kath slid a small crystal into each of their hands. "This will give you a beam of light if you need it. I know you probably won't, but it might come in handy. Standard activation word." Dag kissed him on his thin cheek. "Thanks, Kath. We'll be okay." The Pridyth and half-fey headed off into the maze of troll tunnels, moving together with long-formed companionship and familiarity. With much traversing of stuffy corridors, they at last located one that led to a golden floorstone. It shifted, slightly, with their strength. Earisha laid an ear to the stone and reported that she could hear quite clearly through it, and she should be able to determine when the room or hallway it led to was clear. They attached their cord there and retraced their steps by the most direct route. The pair rematerialized from the shadows, drawing a gasp from Vailin, as always. "You have found a way?" the Blue Circle Priest asked. Dag nodded. "It's not actually far, we had to do a lot of pacing down hallways before finding it. Follow /carefully/." The group moved, and despite Royale's earlier grumping, he continued to wend his armor through the narrow passages with a great deal of skill and very little actual scraping. This was immensely fortunate for the group, as he was the cornerstone of strength that they would need to force the golden slate. He applied his shoulders to it when Earnisha told him to, and the stone shifted upwards with a distressing squeak. His lift continued, slow and sure, until Earisha, Dag and Devana could slip out beneath the edge, followed by Kath only seconds later. They watched the hall and helped Royale slide the stone with less noise than he might have to the side so that he and Vailin could emerge. At last they all stood in the hallway, looking one way and another. There were three heavily barred, golden, double doors and a passageway that seemed to lead to a set of stairs. "Treasure vaults?" Dag wondered in a whisper. "Tainted treasures, for sure," Vailin noted. Footsteps approached from the stairwell. A few years ago, they would have panicked, tried to break into one of the doorways to hide. Now they simply drew their weapons and strode forward to meet the welcoming committee. Soldiers in white and gold tabards over gilded chain mail appeared, stout maces in hand. Their faces lit up with surprise and the front three began a charge. Earisha met them first, her silent assault and her long, whiplike sword playing havoc with their sense of what battle should be. Her blade sought chinks in their armor they never knew existed, including one's faceplate. He reeled back, clutching at the bloody mess where his eyes once were. The cavalier moved forward thunderously, his sword out and singing. A single sweep amputated the sword arm of the center man, sending armored flesh clattering one way, mace in the other. <<ENOUGH>> a voice thundered. <<I WILL NOT HAVE MY LORD'S TEMPLE DESECRATED WITH BLOOD>> The party froze, their muscles locked in mystical paralysis, even Vailin's invocation to the gods of the Blue Circle frozen on his tongue. Kathardekar crumpled to the ground, unconscious, having had his mental scan detected and curtailed. "You will serve," a man's voice said from behind them, and with that judgment, a flash of pain blotted out the world. Vailin reached consciousness slowly, blinking at the searing golden light of the ceiling. A face obscured it for a moment, shedding cool shadows on his heated body. The man said, in a voice harsh with shouting, "He's awake, lord." "Good." The face moved away and Vailin could see his captor. The man was huge, tall enough to nearly touch the ceiling with his head. His skin was of smooth, golden light, his eyes fiery pits. He was draped in shimmering robes like flames that just barely concealed his body. The priest of the Blue Circle looked down at himself. Instead of his midnight and indigo tunic and breeches, instead of the tough leather boots and enameled blue medallion, he saw only his own ivory skin, the scattering of black hairs down his belly and the thatch of thick black curls between his legs. His manhood, he could feel, sagged out of sight between his thighs. He looked up at his captor, alarmed, and opened his mouth to speak. Something clenched his vocal cords tight, a band around his throat. He brought his hands to his throat and found a circlet of metal. "Yes," the fiery vision said, "you have realized that your powers are sapped with this device, for you cannot speak to invoke your gods, who require you to cast your physical voice to them. You possess... regrettable taste in your choice of deities." Vailin tried to leap to his feet, enraged, but found that his collar was attached to a chain, and the chain attached to the ground after only a very short length. He slammed back to the ground, smashing the back of his head on the rocky floor. But in that short elevation, he glimpsed something at the other end of the room. He craned his neck to see, despite the throbbing of his skull. Spreadeagle on a broad, golden wheel was his sister, Devana. She sagged in her bonds, still unconscious, naked like himself. The black-feathered wings that appeared as a sign of her divine power were pinned out, and her long, wavy black hair curled across her pearlescent breasts. A dark triangle of fur crested her outspread legs. A thin sheen of fire, like that of their captor's robes, glimmered over her body. The gilded man did not laugh at Vailin's vain attempt to express his anger, but followed the cleric's gaze to Devana. "Though she is but an Avatar of a minor demigoddess, she contains much divine energy," he informed Vailin. "The Wheel is a sacred item to Hansa Deven, all glories to His Name. On the rare chance that we capture Avatars, its purpose is to draw forth their energies to feed His Light. The last stayed on the Wheel a week before he perished." Vailin blanched. His one weakness was ever his sister, her wellbeing and survival. The thought of her death brought him to the edge of despair. Their captor showed no recognition of Vailin's reaction, but continued to eye Devana studiously. "She should last at least as long, I think. I suspect, however, that she will become far less pretty by day's end." He looked at Vailin. "The Wheel tends to wither them somewhat," he informed the cleric in a studiously clinical voice lacking all traces of mockery. "Though we might be able to make her last a little longer. She is the Avatar of Kamaashi, is she not? There are two aspects to Kamaashi, if I recall correctly. She is a paradoxical demigoddess, both of virginity and sex. Though perhaps that is not such a paradox as it may seem. At any rate, I'm sure that you as a Blue Circle priest understand the energy donation involved in intercourse... so much so that you eschew it utterly. She should be able to process and utilize energy so given to keep herself alive and our Lord well supplied. And it will please the soldiers." Horror seized Vailin, a horror born of the idea of his sister being despoiled by soldier after soldier, rape after rape. He shook his head violently, trying to keep the tears from his eyes. "No?" the man asked, raising one flickering eyebrow. "What will you do to stop me? I must do everything in my power to give the utmost to Hansa Deven, all glories on His Name. If the Avatar has a means by which she may survive, then I will give it to her." He narrowed his eyes slightly. "Unless, of course, you wish to fill the position yourself." Confused, Vailin sought the meaning in his words. Then his eyes widened as he realized that the priest of Hansa Deven was asking him to despoil his own sister. His gaze travelled back to Devana. Despair filled his breast. He shook his head, clinging to his faith. The other priest shrugged. "Very well. Captain, you may be first to partake of the Avatar." A broad man smelling of leather and horses stepped into view, his heavy scale mail rattling slightly. He shifted aside the short skirt of the hauberk and removed his codpiece, letting his already hardening cock bob out into Vailin's view. It was long and thick, the foreskin leathery, veined and marred with obvious white scars, probably from some disease he picked up at a whorehouse somewhere. The soldier spat in his hand and started to stroke himself to complete stiffness. Vailin's heart quailed at the sight of this unwashed peasant about to take his sister like a common whore. He sought the volcanic eyes and shook his head violently, pointing at the captain. An indifferent eyebrow rose again. "You have your choice, Priest." The soldier began to advance upon Devana, and the Wheel was lowering into a horizontal position. The golden man crouched next to Vailin. "Don't tell me you've never thought of it, Vailin. Taking your sister's virginity. You did everything in your power to keep her virgin, though you knew the nature of her deity, you knew that you were denying her the greater part of her power. You just didn't have the courage to finish the deed you masturbated about before your vows took that release from you. No one must have her if you can't." His eyes burned into Vailin's amber eyes. "I possess the Light of Truth, Vailin. There is no use to denying your fondest wish. It will be taken from you forever by that grimy hired killer in just a few seconds." As the priest of Hansa Deven spoke, Vailin felt long repressed memories breaking into his body. Nights of spilling his seed on the floor of his tiny cell at the Blue Circle monastery, and even, before that, into a strip of cloth he kept beneath his pallet at home for that purpose, which began shortly after he and his sister reunited from their separate foster families. Days where he stared and stared at his sister's body, learning to fight down the hardness at his groin that grew whenever she smiled at him. Forgotten heat seared his body, erecting him to the hardness of steel in just moments. Wild-eyed, he looked to where the soldier was in the act of parting his sister's darkness his his hands and managed to cry out in a choked, rasping, wordless exclamation. "Leave off, Captain," the man said, and immediately, the soldier desisted, walking back toward them, cock bobbing in front of him. "Take that down to the training room, I'm sure they'll need it." "Yes, m'lord." The chain that held Vailin to the floor released. He rolled to his feet with trained fluidity. Without knowing how, he came to Devana's side. She still lay with her eyes closed. Her hair had fallen back from her breasts, which gently settled to either side of her chest. "They are yours to touch, Vailin. Unless you fail. At which time, I'm sure I can find someone even more unsavory than the Captain to fill the need, so to speak." The cleric barely heard his threats. Crazed, grief-stricken, flooded with unwanted memories, the unreasoning Vailin cupped his hands under Devana's breasts and squeezed gently. The flesh was soft and warm, gave with the slightest pressure, strangely velvety for all its substantial volume. He brushed a curious fingertip across one of her nipples and watched with fascination as it slowly contracted and tightened, thrusting upright at his touch. Devana moaned softly, rolling her head. Her wings shifted uncomfortably in their restraints. His hands glided down over her belly, around her generous hips. He paused at the outermost curls of fur until she whimpered slightly, as if in her sleep, and rocked her hips gently. Then, taking it for permission, he slid his fingers into her flesh, finding the warm cleft and deeper, slick, hot skin. He explored, parting her, breathing in her scent, touching gently the center of her heat, then the center of her pleasure. She moaned again and started to move rhythmically against his questing fingers. Her musky scent thickened, her sex moistened further. He leaned forward and nuzzled into the black thicket, eliciting a gasp and a buck of her hips. His nose brushed her clitoris and he pressed at the wetness with one hesitant finger. Her flesh gave way under the pressure and his finger pushed home. Her inner walls grasped at him tightly, hot, wet folds clasping. His cock, near bursting, pushed his patience to the limit. He would have time to explore later. He withdrew from her sex, leaving her whimpering. He heaved his lean body over her and kissed her neck, her throat, her jaw. She stirred, reaching to kiss his lips. They met with a hurried passion, tongues racing against each other. He freed one hand to cup her breast again, toying with the nipple. She undulated under him, her hips pumping upward to meet his, but not able to close the distance with her legs tied. Her fists clenched and unclenched, trying to reach to touch him. Her eyes remained closed for the most part, though they sometimes fluttered open, revealing a gaze as uncomprehending as it was passionate. At last, he shifted himself, fumbled more clumsily than he would have liked, and thrust himself into her. She screamed with pain, then subsided rapidly under his arrhythmic, desperate strokes. Her body moved with his instinctively, and finally, her motion brought him to a fast, steady beat of hard thrusts. Tears dripped from his nose and chin as some part of him wept for them both, but a ragged shout tore itself from his throat as he emptied into her. His pleasure passed into her and she cried out, her legs spasming against their bonds, her body arching as best it could. Vailin shuddered atop Devana, feeling himself soften and slip from her depths. A hot hand pressed against his back. "You'll know when she needs you again, Vailin," the man whispered in his ear. "She will begin to moan and cry out. At that point, her energy is failing and she will begin to wither shortly. If you fail to help her, you know what will follow." Vailin nodded, burying his face in Devana's hair. Earisha woke to being slapped hard. Without opening her eyes, she unsheathed her deadly claws and leaped for her assailant. "Bad kitty," a harsh voice said from behind her and something around her neck kept her from leaping. It hurt. She opened her golden eyes and looked. Around her were possibly fifty large, dirty human males wearing various bits of armor, weapons, and other oddments that betrayed their warrior occupation. Beyond them, she could see and smell that they all were in a courtyard before a stable. One man stood behind her, holding a chain that ran through a bracket on a nearby stone, then up to the back of her neck. Around her neck was a thick steel collar, spiked to keep her from getting a grip on it. Her hands and feet were bound by manacles of the same material and style. "Stay clear of the teeth and claws," the man behind her said. "Lift her by the manacles and stretch her... don't give her an ounce of slack to her body. These kitties are damnably flexible, and they'll rip your prick off with one good rake." Six of the men came forward and seized the manacles by the chains, narrowing avoiding her claws and her fangs. They carried her slung between them, her middle body unsupported. She found herself bent over a broad barrel and chained down so that she could not move her body except her head and her tail, both of which lashed from side to side. Growls rumbled from her body, deadly warning growls. "I win!" one man called from a small knot of men at the edge of her vision. Several men cheered, but some grumbled. "All right," the man in charge, who still held her chain, "go to it then, Wark." Earisha flicked her ears to follow Wark's heavy footsteps. He pulled part of his clothing off as he walked. At last, it occurred to her... he wasn't going to /rape/ her, was he? That was a human thing to do to other humans, or at least, the other humanoids related to humans. Humans would not /dare/ such a thing to a daughter of the Golden Pri... "WRRRAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHH!" she screamed as he pushed his full, monstrous, human rod into her. After the initial shock of agony, she settled into gritting her teeth against the racking, tearing pain. Only particularly hard thrusts even elicited the slightest grunt from her. She could feel blood trickling down her legs. "Hey, Muldos," Wark said after a few, "she's dry as the desert and about as comfortable to fuck. How 'bout that thing his lordship gave ya?" Muldos, the man holding the chain apparently, grunted and walked around in front of Earisha. Her ears pressed, if possible, flatter than before. He held out a small jewel set in a smooth, wooden handle and wrapped with what looked like a Pridyth pelt. "You recognize this?" Her eyes went wide, her mouth dry, the back of her neck went ice cold. "Mraowmaome?" she pronounced in a whisper, terror seizing at her stomach as Wark paused his incessant pounding. Muldos' scarred face crinkled into a grin. "His Lordship's never wrong," he said lightly. He reached it forward and touched the gem to the center of her skull as she twisted, trying desperately to escape. A rush of energy surged through her. She could feel every change, every switch, every trigger as it touched every cell of her body. Then she felt the heat of her loins. Each nipple swelled against the rough wood, tingling painfully as every motion dragged them forward and back. Wetness ran freely around the enormous human penis inside her. Against her will, her hips pressed back, her tail flagged to the side, desperate mewls slipped past her lips. With more humiliation than she knew possible, she heard her own voice begging Wark to continue. A chorus of laughter raked her sensitive ears, and all the men began to disrobe and draw lots. Wark pummelled away at her now welcoming insides. She shrieked with an orgasm that shook her body, seized her muscles tight. Wark yelled and emptied his human seed into her in great, searing jolts. As she hung limply across the barrel, panting, he withdrew, leaving her open, empty, barren, white flowing from between her legs and onto her fur. She mewled, the hot fury of her desire unsated. Another man stepped up behind her, shoving in hard and immediately setting up a teeth-jarring rhythm. As she felt another orgasm seeping forward from his thrusts, she looked around. As her voice was begging them all to fuck her , her only comfort was that it was in her own language and none of them understood. Then she glimpsed, back behind the laughing soldiers, a tall, lanky, black-maned Pridyth in a collar, watching her with something like pity in his green eyes, though she spied desire and condemnation there too. She looked away, wishing she had the human comfort of tears and fighting the rising orgasm that threatened to seize her and shake her like a terrier with a rat. Something had died in his mouth. He was sure of it. Royale groaned and sat up, looking around. The first thing to catch his attention was his lack of armor and the fact that the only thing between him and complete nudity was a loincloth of something that felt about as comfortable as burlap. He itched abominably. He wondered idly where he was. A man leaned over him, also wearing a loincloth, but it was made of something that looked reasonably comfortable, like linen. "How're you doin', new guy?" The cavalier peered up into the fellow's solicitous face. "I am... feeling mildly ill." In truth, his stomach seemed to be a single, large knot of pain, his head throbbed, and his skin ached. The fellow laughed. "That's how we all feel, comin' here for the first time." He extended a dark, wiry hand. "Hand up?" They clasped hands and Royale found himself drawn to his feet with miraculous strength. He looked around at the smooth, curving walls and extraordinarily high ceiling. "Where are we?" Royale's companion looked around with him. "Prison," he explained simply. "Sealed in with no way out. They transport food down to us at regular intervals and when our sentences are over, we disappear. We don't know whether those who've disappeared ever reappear anywhere else or not." He shrugged. "Anyway, you just gotta survive as best you can here. I'm Aziz, by the way." He grinned, his brilliant white smile splitting the dark skin of his face. "Royale." They shook like brothers. The knight gestured upward. "Does the light ever go out?" "Nope. Something about all our sins in the light." "Hmph." "Hungry?" "Starved." "Come on." The pair made their way across the cave, wending around shelters and knots of men -- many of them easily as huge of body as Royale, some moreso. They arrived at last at a shelter that was half-tent, half-lean-to. "Home, sweet home!" exclaimed Aziz proudly. Royale surveyed it pleasantly and nodded approval. They entered, and Aziz put a bowl of hot stew in front of him. "We kind of have to do our own cooking. They send us the raw materials, and we even grow some stuff down here, but it all has to be assembled." He set mugs of ale down on the makeshift table, and flopped down himself with a bowl of stew. They ate in companionable silence, Royale devouring his meal and receiving seconds, then thirds, to fill his empty gullet. "You're an excellent cook," he observed jovially as he mopped the dregs of the stew out of his beard. "Thanks. So what do you do for a living?" "I'm a knight," Royale replied. Aziz' face fell somewhat. "Damn," he muttered. At Royale's puzzled frown, he looked up and smiled again. "Sorry, it's just that... well, you know, for us to keep alive down here and not just slip into savagery, everyone has to do their part. I'm a cook, and kind of a healer, so I get my own shelter and stuff. Knights," he chuckled ruefully, "knights, I'm afraid, are a dime a dozen down here. And there's not much fighting as goes on here, unless it's for one of the Protectors. You have any other skills?" "I've always made an admirable living this way. I suppose I could bang some wood together as well as any other man." Royale was feeling a bit nervous and defensive. He'd never found his combat skills a liability before. "Perhaps one of the Protectors would find me useful? Or, perhaps, I can escape." He said the last with lowered voice. The other man laughed. He laughed so long and loud and hard that the knight was beginning to question his sanity. "Oh, Royale!" he gasped at last, wiping tears from his eyes. "Escape? Where to? This cave is sealed. Only tiny airholes pumping air in and out and five narrow springs of water keep us alive. We don't know night from day, week from month, year from year. There's no predicting who will be released... if, indeed, they are released. What will you do, pray tell? Break down the walls? It's been tried, by mightier than you or me!" "I refuse to give in to despair," Royale said stubbornly. Aziz smiled. "Keep that attitude, my friend," he said sincerely. "It's the only thing that keeps us alive here." He reached into what Royale now perceived as a sash at his waist and produced two tiny cubes. Royale's eyes widened when he recognized the cubes. "Wysith Balm?" he whispered. His companion nodded. "Occasionally, we get 'luxury' shipments from someone that Vayspatha... my Protector... knows on the outside. Vay feeds and clothes his people very well, but things like this are incentives for excellent service." He slid one cube into Royale's hand. "I hate doing it alone." And he slipped his cube under his tongue. Royale hesitated briefly. Faded memories of cameraderie and youth. The cube glimmered in his hand, light from within giving promises and comfort in this strange place. The warrior glanced at Aziz' peaceful face, then dropped the cube under his tongue as well. Warmth spread through his jaw and throat. He inhaled the golden fumes, filling his lungs with tingling pleasure. Then it spread smoothly over his vision, his nerves, his whole body, relaxing muscles, setting his skin ablaze with sensation. He opened his eyes and everything was awash in a gentle golden glow. He could see Aziz' aura, a shining, flickering light all around him. He realized he was reclining on the floor, but didn't much care. "Good stuff," he murmured. "Yeah," Aziz replied. "Vay gets the best." "I'd always wondered what was under a mage's robes." The voice jarred Kathardekar awake. His dark eyes snapped open and he instantly perceived his surroundings in the fashion of Fortune Readers. The floor was covered in several layers of handwoven rugs. Nearby, a low, wide expanse of bed sprouted on thick, wooden posts from a mass of pillows and coverlets. The lighting was high and bright. A heavy aroma of myrrh lay thickly on the air. A woman in massive golden draperies lounged on the bed. Kath himself was naked, without robes or cards, or any sign of them nearby. The timelines twisted angrily here, knotting and unknotting like nervous hands, wringing themselves thinner and thinner. He rose slowly, awkwardly to his feet. He scanned the room. There was only one door, gilt leafed iron with intricate wooden inlays. The lock clicked into place as he looked at it. His gaze turned back to the woman. "What, no angry demands? No curiosity?" she asked, her voice mocking him. "You stand there naked in front of an unknown woman and don't even have the grace to blush? The shame of it all!" She fluttered a large, heavy gold fan at her heavily powdered face. He continued to watch her mildly, examining her timelines. They were gone; snapped, frayed ends dancing in the general chaos. "At least I have your attention now," she said, snapping the fan shut and resting it in her other hand. Each hand sported exquisitely painted fingernails. "Join us," she suggested simply. Kath glanced around at the twining timelines and realized that his own were getting caught up. "No," he replied distractedly and, fascinated, watched two threads snap. "No?" she repeated. "You have no ethical or religious bonds on you. You have no personal attachments. By Hansa Deven, all glories to His Name, why not?" "I have a fondness for the land," he said slowly, "which your sect lacks, and a fondness for life, similarly. I have little fondness for those which capture and hold me, unaware of the fate of my companions. And then there are those companions. No, I think that I shall not join you." Five more strands frayed, their free ends blossoming open like lilies on a warm night. "You are a fool!" she exclaimed. "I have been called worse." "You will be called worse." Her hand flipped up and an amber jewel flew from her fingertip to sear into his forehead. Kath staggered back, the pain and... something else... clouding his thoughts. He leaned heavily against a dressing stand and blinked at the approaching woman as if through a thick cloud of fog. Her hand closed on his slender rod and the soft, small sac behind them. Her fingers quested further and he gasped, feeling himself harden in response. "You are quite an odd one," she said with much amusement, her digits delving into the mysterious heat and wetness between his legs. "Could it be that you are neither man nor woman but somehow both?" She leaned closer, her perfume nearly smothering him. "Could it be that to achieve the powers of Fortune, one must become like this?" She spread his wetness along his shaft, then another liquid from the tip, and she stroked him hard, her other hand pushed inside him. "Quite tight," she informed him clinically, even as his knees were threatening to buckle. "I think that you'll be a great deal of fun, Mage. What interesting things your Order's robes hide! I think we shall have to come into possession of the entire Order membership, just for the pure amusement of you!" Dag awoke to the feel of something cold violating her private depths. She shouted and wrenched her body, but too late. The thin wand pressed deep into her. She was naked and spreadeagle, face down on a table that seemed especially designed for whatever was happening. Her face, cradled by small cushions to either side of, looked down at a polished, white marble floor. Her small breasts, outlined by circular holes in the table, hung down, padded clips clasped tight upon the nipples, brass weights pulling them taut. She struggled against her bonds. An ancient voice, possible male said, quite reasonably, "Remain still." When she refused to comply, she received the same warning in the same even tone. As one of the wristcuffs slipped just a fraction of an inch, the cold rod up inside her loosed a bolt of pain that seized her from the base of her spine to her skull, ending in an explosion of light and agony in her head. She screamed and went limp, panting. "Please remain still," the voice pronounced again and this time, to her credit, Dag lay still. At last the rod withdrew. The thief felt the table shift, lifting her upright, though she stayed bound to the tabletop. A wizened figure with a drapery of white hair moved gracefully to stand in front of her. Long, spidery fingers reached out and pressed a tiny, golden gem to Dag's throat, just above her voicebox. There was a brief pressure, a sudden heat, and the gem remained there when the ancient vision withdrew its hand. "There," it said with satisfaction. "Now, young one," it said, pale silver eyes meeting her own dark gaze, "you are for the tents. Behave, and you'll not feel another pain like that again. Struggle, and you will receive increasing levels from the spinal. Fight through that, and it is out of my hands how you are dealt with. You are exceedingly beautiful, and your beauty will be maintained with rigor. You run the chance of winning your way from the tents by winning some noble heart." The cool, parchment hand patted her cheek gently. "Behave, now." And it glided away. Large, heavy hands pulled her free from the table. She began to struggle against them, intending with all her heart to kill her captors and make free. The debilitating, bone-jarring strike from her spine came again, and she hung unresisting in the soldiers' hands as they dragged her from the room. "Not very bright, are you?" one of them sneered. "You've been requested," the other laughed. "The Major'll break you in right." "After /him/ you'll /love/ everything else!" The pair laughed raucously and dropped her ungently across a strange device. They quickly chained her wrists to thick posts sunk into the floor. Leather supports behind her thighs tucked her knees and lower legs into padded kneeling supports. Last of all, they hooked a collar around her neck and fastened it to the front of the device with a sturdy rope. "Have fun!" they yelled, slapping her ass and wandering out of the room. She had more time to study what little she could see. Rough wooden walls, dim lighting, straw on the dirt floor, the rich, pungent odor of horse manure... she was in a stable? Hoofbeats approached at a walk. "So!" a male voice thundered. "A new slave. Such marvelous skin! Such an athletic shape!" Dag bit her lower lip, determined not to respond. She heard hoofsteps approaching, assumed that the man was moving his horse forward to inspect her better. She couldn't bite back a cry of surprise as first one, then a second, hoof stepped up on the contraption, one on either side. They settled nicely into the niches with slightly tilted, treaded stops. She tried to lift her head, and only saw the thick, powerful legs arching above him. "I haven't even touched you yet and you cry out!" the voice said from directly above her. A huge, broad face leaned into view, fully bearded with chestnut curls, crowned with a thick black mane. Dark eyes examined his face jovially. "Such bravery!" With that, Dag felt something impossibly thick, wet and oiled press at her exposed cleft. Incredibly powerful muscles began to exert an inexorable force upon the opening there. "There's a difference," she panted, feeling hereyes dilate with terror, "between bravery in the face of someone you can beat with a dagger and stupidity in not realizing that one wrong move could kill you." "HAHAHA!" Massive lungs beat on her with sheer volume. The pressure increased. "Perhaps you do know your thing, oh, little thief, but let me teach you about pleasure." Dag's flesh gave out at last under the unstoppable force and she was pierced and split wide by the centaur's phallus, which slipped deep immediately. The pain joined with a sudden fierce pleasure that seized her. She screamed, but the sound was a blend of surprise, agony and ecstasy. The length filled her with comfort, the breadth tingled her muscles, the channel inside her embraced the massive rod lovingly. She bucked back ward with what little mobility she had. "Ahhhh, yesss," the stallion hissed above her. "So tight, so hot. What a marvelous little filly you are." His cock pulsed and thickened even more, and he began a smooth rhythm of withdrawing almost entirely and jabbing back in. She could only take the head and a short length of the shaft, but that seemed enough for him. "Gods," she moaned, feeling the wetness surge between her legs, hearing the liquid noises as he pressed himself into her repeatedly, smelling her own sex mingling hotly with the heavy, musky odor of the centaur. Her head swam with the pressure of pleasure growing throughout her body, centered wholly around the tip of the pounding rod inside her. "Tight enough to make me come fast," he told her through gritted teeth and his body bucked into her, a few more inches driving inside, stretching her to her pained limit but also pressing against a number of mysterious heated points that sent her into a screaming, clenching, dripping orgasm. He roared above her as her walls gripped him tightly and rippled along his length, bringing him to explode inside her, scalding heat oozing out along the sides of his plunging cock. The massive body above her slumped and withdrew, the sensation of the monstrous length slithering out of her bringing her to yet another orgasm, squeezing his seed out with her own wetness. She sagged, her heartbeat thumping between her legs, and whimpered at the emptiness and the awful ache that grew with each pulsebeat. His broad, flat hand stroked her back. "They'll come for you in a few moments. Perhaps I'll see you again, though I suspect you are destined for the Hounds." Hot lips pressed a brief kiss against her lower back. "Welcome to the tents." ...Think Royale got the best deal? Who's the other Pridyth? Wonder what's in store for Kathardekar? Want to see what happens when Devana wakes up and sees who is fucking her? And what about these mysterious Hounds? Keep an eye open for Part 2!!!!!! -- +--------------' Story submission `-+-' Moderator contact `------------+ | story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us | story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us | | Archive site +--------------------+------------------+ Newsgroup FAQ | \ <URL:http://www.netusa.net/~eli/erotica/assm/> .../assm/faq.html> /