his story is set in a time before time, in an England of legend that may never have existed, in the realm of a majestic lord, Malinov. Magnus the Great was his court magician, a powerful figure, respected (and a little feared) by all. To help him attain this pinnacle of power the Great Magnus had chosen to be celibate all his life. Until, one day, he took in a waif as an apprentice...

"I'm so tired... so very tired," he groaned, squinting at the manuscript propped up before him on the cluttered table. The wind was moaning through cracks and crevices in the ancient tower room, causing the fire to dance in the grate.

Magnus of Malinov Heap rubbed his tired eyes. He felt used up, a dry husk of his former self. He had seen so much, done so much, much that was too horrible to be mentioned. Everything he had done had been for the good of the realm, and he wouldn't do it differently even if he had the chance.

Nonetheless, the Oracle had issued a frightful prophecy of his passing, revenge for what he'd done to her and to her allies. 'A court magician's fate can be cruel,' he mused.

Now that the winter solstice had arrived, the prophecy would be fulfilled; he knew this, but still had no idea what form it would take. He'd worried about this day for many years, ever since the witch-thing had pronounced his fate. Her words rang in his head like swords clashing in battle. "Thou shalt feel the heat of the stroke of youth upon thy body, as thee passes over the threshold of life. This shall come to pass at the twenty-second hour of the twenty-second day of the twenty-second year of the Great Malinov's reign. Make thee ready, for thou canst not change thy fate, for it shall come to pass on this earth, on that day, and at that time o' year."

The magician sat at his table, the cold creeping into his bones, as if deathly fingers were tightening their grip upon him. He could hear faint sounds of feasting far below in the great hall, but was not in the mood for merrymaking. 'Let them make merry. One day their doom will come and they won't even know it has arrived,' he thought bitterly.

He rose with a sigh from the table and shuffled across the room to the door of his study. His voice creaking, he called out: "Kat, where are you, lad? Bring me drink; I'm as parched as a winter's field."

'Where is that boy?' he thought. He was a good lad, and the magician wasn't quite as upset with him as he appeared to be, but he was thirsty and needed a drink.

Just then the young apprentice burst through the door, breathless and distraught. "Noble Magnus, please forgive me! I was watching the lords and ladies and knights below; they're so delightful and gay. And I lost track of the time! Sorry, master!" He held up a steaming mug of mulled-wine with both hands, as if in supplication, worry and concern in his eyes.

The magician looked at the youth's clear, shining face, and thought, for the hundredth time: 'Why does this lad pull at my heart-strings so?'

At first, Magnus had simply been attracted by the boy's winning manner, and his willing and intelligent nature. It was why he had taken him on as his apprentice in the first place. As time passed, however, his feelings for the lad became something more. Magnus tried to deny it, but what he felt for the apprentice was... sexual.

He still found it difficult to accept, and shook his head to himself in silent denial. He hadn't actually had physical relations with another person...ever, not allowing himself to get close to any woman; they were all dangerous, and full of intrigue.

Deeply melancholy, he thought about all the warring and death he'd seen in his life and sighed again. Returning to his worktable, he caught the youth looking at him with shining eyes. He was momentarily confused. The boy made him feel... aroused. That was the only word to describe how he felt.

Ashamed of such feelings, the magician took the mug proffered by the lad and turned to his table with a tightening in his throat.

Kat moved to the magician's side, looking worried. "Master, you seem tired today."

Magnus wanted to tell the boy to let him be, but could not.

Kat reached out and touched the magician's arm. "Master, are you all right? You look flushed. Have you been worrying about the prophecy again? You mustn't, you know! I wouldn't let anything happen to you, I promise. I'll watch over you tonight, and every night."

The tired magician smiled at his young servant, trembling slightly with a sense of premonition. He had a strong impulse to reach out and kiss the lad, to hug his handsome young body to his own. Such thoughts made the magician's heart beat faster; he could almost feel the blood coursing through his veins.

The youth misinterpreted Magnus's worried countenance as fear, and stepped up close, to fold the wizard in his strong young arms.

Magnus yielded to the youth's embrace, the touch of his skin and the lad's fresh scent, which he inhaled deeply. He began to cry silently as the youth hugged him tightly to his breast. Before he knew what he was doing, Magnus was pressing his lips against the boy's mouth.

To his amazement, Kat didn't pull away in disgust, but kissed him back with youthful passion. They maintained their intimate embrace for a long while, kissing and hugging each other, until Magnus managed to bring his emotions under control.

He stepped back from his child apprentice and said solemnly: "Young Kat, this isn't right. I mustn't behave in this unholy fashion towards you. I mustn't take advantage of your youth, or of your love for me as your master. Please forgive me, and forget what I did just now."

His apprentice came up close to the old man and whispered: "Master, 'tis true that I love you, and that I am young. But you've done nothing here today that I did not desire. I have pined for you since the very beginning, when we first met."

The wizard turned away to conceal his tears, but Kat reached out for his shoulders, turning him so that they stood face-to-face. "Master, my only desire is to lie with you this night. I wish to please you, to make you a gift of my youth. It is all I have to give, but I sense that it may take from you the melancholy that I see in your eyes."

Magnus was shocked by these words, but at the same time he felt a lust for this youth growing deep within his body. He had thought such feelings had been banished many years since. To his surprise, however, he suddenly felt young again, seeing himself through the eyes of the youth who stood before him. Lust was written on the apprentice's smooth face, proving that he had not spoken merely from pity.

Nevertheless, he looked just like an angel, his long shiny hair framing a clear-complexioned face. How lovely he is! was the magician's guilty thought.

The boy slipped a slender, shapely hand under the Magician's robe, touching him tentatively, almost shyly, before wrapping his fingers around the older man's tumescent member.

The magician gasped when he felt Kat's cool hand on his organ. It was a strangely exhilarating feeling, one he'd never felt, nor ever expected to feel.

The apprentice looked up enquiringly at his master and smiled a beautiful smile, quite disarming the older man.

Magnus thought: 'How could I not see how beautiful he was all the time we've been together?'

As if reading the magician's mind, Kat moved closer to him, and pressed soft lips against those of his master in a deep, passionate kiss. Then, without saying a word, he bade the older man stand and led the bedazzled wizard to his bed chamber, lightly massaging his swollen organ as they went.

Magnus couldn't believe what was happening to him. His mind and body were both in a kind of helpless daze. Sex with another male had never previously entered his head, but he was like putty in the hands of this lad, and fully prepared to do whatever was asked of him. He must accept his doom, no matter what it was. The slightest touch, or kiss, even the smell of the boy's arousal, took away his will. He couldn't resist, nor did he want to resist. He welcomed the sensations that his young lover was bestowing so freely upon him.

He didn't care that the fame and reputation he had built over many years might be destroyed at once by an illicit love affair. He wanted only the youthful pleasures this boy was offering him.

As the apprentice put his master's robe aside, the old magician thought wistfully that if only he'd employed a female it would at least have been respectable in the eyes of his lord, and of the other nobles of the heap.

Magnus closed his eyes and lay back to receive the attentions of the man-child, now so dominant in their relationship. He was deliberately letting this happen.

The magician opened his eyes long enough to reassure himself that love and desire were truly written on the handsome face hovering over his own. He ran through the prophecy again in his head. "Thou shalt feel the heat of the stroke of youth upon thy body, as thee passes over the threshold of life. This shall come to pass at the twenty-second hour of the twenty-second day of the twenty-second year of the Great Malinov's reign. Make thee ready, for thou canst not change thy fate, for it shall come to pass on this earth, on that day, and at that time o' year."

Was this what it meant? Was this lad going to bring him to ruin, and take his place as Magician at Malinov Heap?

He jerked as his love began manipulating his straining member once more. He still couldn't believe it was really happening, but when he opened his eyes Kat was crouched over him, young and innocent, earnestly intent on his work. He tossed his long hair gracefully over one shoulder, tucking the remaining golden strands behind an ear. To the magician's amazement, the apprentice leaned forward and encircled the older man's cock-head with soft full lips, which then slid down to engulf Magnus's organ to the hilt.

The magician's mind was reeling, overpowered by overwhelming sensations. His recent cares were quite forgotten as he began uncontrollably to lurch his hips toward his young lover's mouth.

The decadent scene went on for many minutes, until curtailed by the youth pulling his soft, sucking lips from his master's rampant member. "Master, there's something I must tell you..."

Magnus felt such keen disappointment that his apprentice had stopped his wonderful sucking that he pleaded in a whisper, his breath coming in gasps: "Please, Kat, don't stop now. Please... Please..."

Kat looked down at the magician, love and care in his clear blue eyes, and shrugged. Pulling his coarse robe - the robe of a servant - up to his thighs, he moved up the magician's body until the old man's organ was pressed against his crotch. He reached down a hand to caress the magician's now-slick member, smoothing fluids over and around the cock-head, while Magnus writhed under his attentions.

Then, amazingly, the old man felt his shaft engulfed by something moist, and warm. He opened his eyes, wondering how his young lover could reach him with his mouth while sitting so far forward on him.

His eyes went very wide when he saw that the boy was rhythmically riding his erection. Somehow the he was making normal sexual love to him. Magnus was confused, but the feelings of his aroused body soon overpowered his reason.

He had reached a level of pleasure never before experienced during his celibate life. He reached out for the youth's hips, running his hands up either side of the boy's waist, underneath his robe. The feel of the boy's skin gave him great joy. Such freshness was truly a gift, the older man mused, his body surging beneath that of his young student.

The magician explored the youth's body, bouncing rhythmically above him, with trembling hands. The young flesh felt delightful to his touch; Magnus had never felt anything like it before. He ran his hand up to the youth's chest, intending to help support the boy's weight, but the palms of his hands encountered large, swollen nipples. This fleetingly struck the magician as being a little strange.

He felt his seed stirring from deep within, his apprentice's energetic sexual activity bringing him to an unfamiliar peak. Beginning to lose control of his own body, he moved his hands downwards to cup the boy's soft breasts. (SOFT BREASTS!!)

Was that really what he'd felt? Was the boy, then, not a boy after all? He looked into his lover's eyes, and she smiled back lovingly, increasing her pace on top of him.

As full realization dawned on the old magician, his hips bucked violently. Sperm spasmed from his depths, spurting out of his jerking body into the apprentice's nubile one. Spasm after spasm racked the wizard's body, and he fought for breath.

Meanwhile, the young woman mounted on top of him kept up her relentless pace, rubbing her young mound frantically against his, as if trying to draw the last drop of his vital fluids out of him.

He couldn't breathe, and he was becoming light-headed; darkness finally enveloped him as he lost consciousness. The last thing he saw or heard was the young woman's crying out as she orgasmed at his passing...

His last thought was: "Thou shalt feel the heat of the stroke of youth upon thy body, as thou passes over the threshold of life...

he sun shone in dusty streams through the high, glazed windows. The tower room brightened with every passing moment. A stray beam of sunlight fell across the young woman lying carelessly naked on the bed. Her beautiful blue eyes fluttered open as the warm sun played across her perfectly-formed body.

She yawned and stretched contentedly, and looked over at her sleeping lover. Reaching out to caress his cheek, she then bent close and kissed him awake.

"Wondrous woman," were his first words, "how could I not have known? Look at you! You're beautiful! What am I to call you now!? Surely Kat no longer?"

"Master, my real name is Katherine, and Kat suits me very well. I would have told you about myself last night, but you were too impatient," she said, lovingly stroking his cheek.

"Well, lovely woman-child, let us go down to the great hall and greet the day! Suddenly I feel like celebrating at the Solstice feast, and won't Lord Malinov be surprised when I present my new apprentice at court!" he chuckled.

Kat wrinkled her nose with a lovely smile before taking on a serious expression and reciting the first line of the ancient prophesy that had plagued the old magician for so many years.

"Master, she intoned, "Thou shalt feel the heat of the stroke of youth upon thy body." Her face brightened, and she giggled delightfully. "I certainly felt the heat of your strokes last night!"

Both laughed, and they hugged each other. The magician thought: 'I care not, just so that I live one more night. That will be enough, and should any more days be left to me, they will be more valuable than any that went before.'

hey didn't actually make it down to the great hall until the early afternoon of that day. When, however, they did reach the ground floors of the Malinov Heap, they added their cheerful voices to the general merriment, and received many an amazed stare.

(The moral of this story? - 'There's no fool like an old fool').

All my thanks... to Stephen for his encouragement and proofing and to Ian for doing such a good job editing my little story.