Prologue

 

Time is like a great river, carrying universes beyond number like bubbles along its swirling froth. In all but a very few instances, the inhabitants of each bubble smugly assume that their own cosmos constitutes all of creation, but all unawares, they are jostled by other bubble universes of which they know nothing, some containing worlds as like to their own as two identical peas in a pod, and others strange beyond their imaginings. In some places, the very laws of nature are changed, and the operations of magic replace those of science. This story takes place in one such universe.

 

One: Prisoners

 

She hung suspended and spread-eagled in the air, held there by the faintly glowing rings around her wrists and ankles. Her small, nude body was spangled with beads of sweat that flashed like stars when, from time to time a bright light, like a stroke of blue-green lightning, suddenly and blindingly illuminated the dark chamber for perhaps thirty seconds before disappearing. At those moments, the delicate-looking little blonde would arch up, every muscle corded and straining, while anguish that seemed too great for her small body to contain forced screams of torment from her throat, her toes curled and uncurled, her fingers clutched the air and her green eyes stared sightlessly. Then night would return to the chamber, and she would fall back again, to hang exhausted, her face deathly pale, strands of close-cropped golden hair glued to her perspiring brow, eyes closed, and the only sounds would be the receding echoes of her screams and the hoarse rasping of her labored breaths.

A tall hooded figure, almost invisible in the dimness stood watching, silent and motionless, except when he would raise a black metal staff cast in the shape of paired intertwined serpents, point it at the naked prisoner and whisper a certain word. Then a jagged tongue of blue-green fire would lance out from the serpents' ruby eyes, to play over some part of the captive's exposed body: a calf, under an arm, the pink nipples of her small, round breasts, her inner thighs or the triangular, pink-lipped delta between her legs. This last produced the most dramatic results and, possibly for that reason, was the hooded one's favored target. After a time, when the prisoner's remarkable resilience began to fail at last, it was only when the lightnings struck her in this place that she reacted at all.

After an unknown time that might have been hours, days or weeks (for she had long since lost track of the passage of time, and had nearly forgotten that there was more to the universe than the dark chamber and the flashes that heralded another shock of hideous pain), the hooded figure raised his snake-staff, aimed it in preparation for launching another bolt, as he had many times before, but noting the way the blonde's head lolled unsupported on her breastbone, frowned and lowered it.

"The endurance of the alvi is a thing of legend, and unlike so many other such legends, this one contains some truth, for I know no being, of whatever kind, who would live still had it undergone what I have inflicted upon thee," he told the unresponsive girl. "And yet, even the deepest well must have a bottom, and to the strength of anything that lives, there must be some limit."

He walked up to the blonde, lifted her chin with his hand and examined her face. She was, he judged, far gone into unconsciousness, and it was most unlikely that she could even feel the bolts from his staff any longer. "It would not do to have you perish so quickly, little alva, when we have only just met," he said as he made an abrupt, sweeping gesture with two fingers, causing the glowing circlets holding her aloft to vanish, then catching her in his arms when they released her. "We shall have many, many years to deepen our acquaintance, and much shall you learn of the infinite varieties of suffering, before I grant your heart's desire, which will be by then but one thing: death."

He walked out of the room carrying her as easily as if she had been straw-stuffed mannequin, and threaded his way rapidly through the maze of corridors, not troubled in the least by what to a human eye would have seemed pitch blackness, nor hesitating for an instant at any of the many, bewildering branches, forks and side-passages that led left or right, or slanted up or down, finally stopping before an iron grill door. The door opened at a gesture from the hooded one, and he strode into the room. There was a large glass basin with a heavy glass lid located along one wall. He laid the still form of the blonde on a wooden table next to the basin, slid off the lid of the basin, and carefully propped it up against the side.

He heard a soft intake of breath behind him, and turned to see the naked girl chained to the far wall, crouching in misery with a fist pressed to her mouth, fear and grief written plainly on her face. While the girl he had been carrying was strikingly pretty, with, tomboyish cropped blonde hair, small breasts and immature-looking body that might have been taken for that of a human female of twelve or thirteen summers, no-one would considered applying the word "pretty" to the girl chained to the wall, any more than one would speak of a bar of white-hot iron as being "warm".

For she was lovely. In spite of the bruises on her white flesh, regardless of the disarray of her long, silver hair and the smudges of dirt on her face, the girl huddling on the stone floor was surpassingly, almost supernaturally beautiful, and although she was merely a human mortal, was as willowy, graceful and dainty as a fairy maiden out of legend. Her name was Ellyx, and she was a Princess, or at least she had been one, before the Black Magician Alaric had taken her from all she knew and loved, to lock a metal collar around her slender neck, and chain her up like a beast here in his stronghold.

"Oh no...!" Ellyx blurted in a half-strangled whisper, then fell silent and shrank back when the magician's gaze turned her way. She curled into a ball like a frightened child, wrapping her arms around her knees, and ducking her head down as far as she could to hide from his gaze. Ellyx had always been thought, both by herself and all who knew her, as a bold and fearless maiden, but a long day and night in the terrifying atmosphere of the Black One's house had undermined her spirit, and the when Alaric was physically present, the air of menace that surrounded him and the cold emptiness of his eyes robbed her of the last shreds of her courage.

"Fear not for your paladin, little one," he said. "She is but momentarily spent from her exertions, and shall be ready for a new round after a short while to rest and refresh herself. No feeble mortal like thee is this one, for she springs from a race whose endurance of both mind and body is far beyond that of human kind. Have I set your heart at ease, Princess?"

Hesitantly, she nodded, remaining in her defensive ball.

"Let me then do what I may to hasten the alva's recovery, so that I will be free to devote the whole of my attention to you," he said, turning away from Ellyx. He opened a pair of doors in the wall that had not been there a moment before, and removed a flask containing a bubbling liquid of a color that she could not discern in the dim green light provided by the grinning skull-lamps in set little niches around the walls. He tipped the flask over the basin, and although it could not have held a fiftieth part of the volume of the larger container, it soon filled the glass basin almost to the top with a dark, effervescent fluid. And yet, when he had finished, the flask appeared to be as full as before.

The magician replaced the flask in the cabinet, and removed a tiny crystal bottle cut in innumerable facets that caught and threw back the dim light in a bewildering variety of colors and more brightly by far than the light from the source.

"Close your eyes, Princess," Alaric warned, without looking around, "lest you lose use of them for a half-day or more from exposure to the Elixir of Peldrang, for it is made with the lifesblood of the Father of Dragons, and only one of his people may look upon its brightness without taking harm."

She obediently closed her eyes, but curiosity and concern for her friend caused the Princess to peek out between her fingers to see what would happen. Alas! She might with greater safety have stared directly at the noonday sun. Ellyx's eyes were struck by a flash so brilliant that it felt like a physical blow, and she fell back, clapping her hands over her eyes, and crying out softly in distress.

The dark figure did not look back when he heard her cry out, his eyes remaining on the basin and the faceted bottle in his hand, saying, "Next time, perhaps, you will pay closer heed to my warnings, for you now know that I do not speak without purpose." He carefully pouring a drop of the blazing bright liquid into the basin, and capped the bottle. The room, which had become almost unbearably bright, now reverted to the previous dimness. "Sightless you are, and sightless you shall remain until the morrow, or so I guess," he continued, placing the bottle carefully back in the cabinet, then picking up the unconscious blonde girl and lowering her slowly into the bubbling liquid of the glass basin, which now radiated a soft glow, allowing her to sink to the bottom.

"Before the Sun has finished her circuit, small one," he told the unmoving form of the alva, "your hurts shall be healed and your body renewed, and we shall resume our sport."

He turned and went over to the cowering Ellyx. "Until then, you and I shall pass the time engaged in another sort of sport, Princess," he said. "Come, my child. You must surely be weary of sitting on cold stone all alone in this, waiting to learn your fate. Let us away to my bedchamber, where you shall share your sweet vitality with me, and in exchange I shall in share something of my knowledge in the erotic arts."

The now-sightless girl raised her hands defensively and slid back away from the voice as, stopping only when she felt the cold stone of the wall against her back and could go no further. "No, no..., please don't... please don't touch me..." she begged softly, hopelessly.

The Black One ignored her pleas. He stooped over the Princess, and touched a finger to the lock of the metal collar around her neck. It sprang open and fell to the floor, with a clang that made Ellyx start. His hand stroked her cheek, and she shuddered at unnatural smoothness like the cool, dry scales of a serpent, instead of warm, human flesh. The Princess gasped when the hand closed around her throat, and pulled her roughly to her feet with incredible strength. She desperately clutched at his forearm, which felt as big and tough as the branch of an oak tree in her hands.

"Your modesty is most appealing, Princess," he said, "but even one of far less wit than you must guess the reason I have brought you here to my demesne. My patience for maidenly foolishness is not great. But then, it may be that you are thinking less clearly than usual at present. Perhaps your thought processes have been unsettled by the unusual events of the past day or so. Is this the case?" He asked.

The girl's answer "Ehhhh!" was not as clear as she wished, as the grip on her throat was too tight to permit plainer speech, but she was able to communicate her agreement with a nod of her head.

The hooded one sighed, as if disappointed that his guess had been confirmed. "Then I shall expect you to take no active part, until you have had a chance to settle your disturbed thoughts." He reached into the air with his free hand, spoke a single word "Semperoth!" and when his hand came down, it was holding a long, undulating tube. "Bind her!" He commanded, draping the rope-like object (or was it a living creature? She could not tell) over Ellyx's shoulder.

The thing moved so quickly that it momentarily became an indeterminate blur. When it stopped and became plainly visible again (although not to Ellyx, who could see nothing but a red glare since she had unwisely ignored the magician's warning), the Princess was bound in a fashion that combined discomfort and vulnerability in equal parts, in what is commonly, if inelegantly, referred to as a "hog-tie." All four limbs of her limbs were drawn closely together behind her back by one loop, and a second encircled her neck just below the chin, then returned back to the first, leaving no more than a foot between the back of her head and the bundle of hands and feet. As a consequence, Ellyx was bent backward in a dramatic arch, and was obliged to struggle to maintain the position with all her strength to avoid strangulation.

"If you are not prepared to participate," the Black Magician told her, cradling her lightly in one arm, "your role must of necessity be passive, at least in the beginning." He carried her without any apparent effort, balanced on one powerful forearm, with her head tucked between his elbow and hip. As he walked along, his scaly fingers casually stroked the lips of her virginal girlhood, causing them to swell to life.

"No...ehhhh," Ellyx began to protest, then was almost instantly stifled, when the living rope flung another coil through her open mouth, wrapped itself twice around the base of her skull and finished with a noose that went from the crown of her head to her chin, and forced her jaws together so tightly that her teeth very nearly met in the rope between her lips.

"I ask for no counsel from you at present, Princess, nor do I need any," the Black One remarked. "From my many dalliances with mortal maidens over the long years, I have gained an understanding of the ways of human females greater that of any other living being, be they ever so long-lived or even immortal, and one that is far, far beyond the comprehension of an innocent such as you. See now how readily you to respond to my touch?"

To her horror, Ellyx discovered that he spoke the truth. A powerful, warm and compelling sensation was flowing up from her loins, and the waves grew stronger and more insistent each time the Black Magician's finger touched her secret place. Without any conscious wish on her part, her hips had begun to make slow, fluid movements in response, her nipples had hardened, and she was breathing faster, as a kind of excitement she had never before experienced raced through her body unchecked.

"Nnn! Nnnn!" she protested, twisting her lithe lower body in an attempt to draw her sex away from his hand. At least, the movements began that way; but somehow they turned into motions of cooperation, so that by the time they reached the Black One's bedchamber, Ellyx was enthusiastically thrusting her pelvis out to meet his fingers, unable to stop herself.

"Gently, gently, Princess," he said, removing his fingers, now shiny with her juices, from of her sex, and making her gasp in frustration. "When one as ignorant of these matters as yourself is in the custody of a master of the arts of venery, it is simple good sense to let the latter govern your conduct. Be not impatient, for you shall, in time, experience all the pleasure and pain of which you are capable before the end, but it must not be done in haste, lest your feeble mortal body fail prematurely."

He laid her face-down on the bed and snapped his fingers. The bonds around her neck withdrew, and she could at last breathe again without difficulty. Ellyx realized that she was now utterly exposed to the Black One. She expected him to forcibly take her maidenhood in the next few minutes, and she could do nothing to stop him. From some deep recess in her soul, she summoned the remnants of her courage, resolving to at least make a show of defiance, to let him know that he had not broken her will.

"Stay back, villain!" she said, twisting her head around to stare blindly at where she guessed he was. "Do not dare to touch me again with your foul claws, for I am a Princess of an ancient and noble house, and you have not the right to molest me."

The other chuckled, a rough, dry sound, like sandpaper being scraped over metal. "Your show of spirit is most entertaining, Princess Vixen of an ancient and noble house," he said, mockingly. He reached down between her legs to take the stiff little knob of flesh at the top of her fleshy pocket in the tips of his long nails, and began to twirl it lightly back and forth. "It is as if a sheep selected for thy father's table had told him as she was a most important sheep, a very Princess of sheep from an ancient and noble line of muttons, and commanded the royal butcher to be off!"

By the time he had finished this short speech, the Princess was completely in his power, her will overcome by arousal. Her hips moved as if of their own accord from side to side, back and forth, up and down in mimicry of the Black One's manipulations of the swollen button of flesh in his fingers. She was panting for air, and could feel the heat of a flush that had spread from her cheeks, down her neck to her rapidly rising and falling breasts. The excitement he had stirred in her earlier had returned, but it was now more powerful by far than before. The feeling was no longer like a great, swelling wave, but rather as if an entire ocean had risen from its bed and was on the verge of drowning her in the overwhelming sensation. In another second...

He stopped and Ellyx cried out again, this time making a wordless animal noise like "Errrrr!" She ground her teeth together, willing herself not to beg him to continue, producing a sound like porcelain plates clashing, but she failed.

"Please sir," Ellyx said brokenly, "I pray you resume touching me, I...I beg for it!"

He laughed again. "So flighty and changeable are you mortal maidens. One moment you make free with slights and names like 'villain', then straightaway, you turn about and demand service from the victim of your affronts," he said. "Perhaps your servants do as you wish when you use them so harshly, but no servant of the King of Seabourne am I." He gently squeezed her love knob as he spoke the last word, making Ellyx moan as tremor of sexual pleasure ran through her.

"Ohhh! Ohhh!" she cried, her body quivering with need, as he expertly brought handled her sex, making the fire in her flesh burn so hotly that she had great difficulty forming words, or even thoughts. "I...see now how... ungracious my...my words must have sounded," she said haltingly, "and I would gladly take them back, for I spoke in a moment of great...uhhh!... excitement, and so I ask you to forgive me, and...and to please...ummm... finish the service you had so kindly begun to offer." Her head hung low as she spoke these humiliating words, and tears glittered on her cheeks, reflecting the strange bluish light from flickering torches on the walls.

"Nay, it would be foolish to forgive the offence so lightly," Alaric said, "for if I did, you would surely come to expect the same leniency in our future dealings, and so would look for rewards for thy misdeeds, when punishment would be more fitting. Before I bestow my favor upon you, Princess, you must humbly request and gratefully receive the penalty you have earned with your impertinent tongue. Do so now."

He had momentarily taken fingers away from her love knob, but he now returned to capture it again, flicking and teasing to take her to the knife's edge of a titanic climax, then holding her there, until she thought she would go mad if he did not relieve her.

"Eeee! Yes, My Lord...ah, ah..., I des...deserve to be p-punish...punished ..., dear Gods above! Will you not release me from this torment?" Ellyx shrieked, momentarily losing the thread of what she was saying, the rip-tides of sensation tore through her with each touch of his scaly fingertips. With a great effort of will she managed to finish what she had started to say. "Ah, ah, I mean, w-will you then punish me, that I m-may gain your forgiveness, My Lord Alaric?"

"Face down and raise your nether parts for correction, Princess," he ordered. After she awkwardly elevated her buttocks as far as she could in her bonds, he made an obscure gesture with two fingers, causing tendrils to grow from the bed and wrap themselves tightly around her neck and several places on her arms and legs, pinning her to the bed and immobilizing her in this vulnerable position.

The Black Magician drew a long, thin lash from his belt, and ran it through his fingers while chanting something Ellyx could not make out. When he was finished, a reddish-orange flame ran down the lash from the handle to the tip.

"This shall help thee to remember to show proper respect in future," he said, swinging the red lash lightly down across the bared twin moons she displayed.

The pain was beyond anything Ellyx had ever imagined possible. The insubstantial cord felt like a burning brand combined with a saw-toothed knife on her delicate skin. Her breath froze in her chest, as every muscle in her body seized up in agony. Then she screamed, a terrible throat-tearing sound of suffering, and the scream went on and on, until her lungs were completely emptied and her face was dark from lack of air.

"Know that the power I that stroke was but a tenth or hundredth part of those I dealt to your protector, the alva, for had I..." the Black One said, while she drew in a new breath, then stopped to listen when Ellyx screamed again with renewed volume. When she paused for her next breath, he continued, "...exposed your human flesh to a single bolt of my Serpent Rod, you would have perished instantly."

As soon as she appeared to have recovered enough to speak, she opened her mouth to beg for mercy. Before Ellyx could say a word, he snapped the whip again up between her legs, striking a fiendish blow square on the lips of her sex and the brown star of her lesser entry. This time the Princess's world exploded, and she was carried far away to a place of indescribable torment, unaware of the way her body mindlessly flung itself back and forth under her hooded tormentor's approving gaze.

And so it went. Each stroke transported Ellyx to a universe of indescribable suffering, and after what felt like a long lifetime of pain, she returned to the normal world, he was waiting to deliver another stroke to her thighs, breasts, armpits or sex, and back to the pits of torment she would be flung. By the time that terrible flagellation had ended, Ellyx had been reduced to a near-mindless creature, who had forgotten the cause of her suffering, where she was and even who. Nameless and utterly spent, the Princess clung to the single idea and hope that someday, she might be permitted to die, so that the unbearable pain would at last end.

The Black One ran his hand over the nearly unconscious form of the girl sprawling on his bed, and wherever he touched, the ragged welts raised by the fiery lash vanished, leaving behind only thin, almost invisible pale lines in the flesh. When he finished this treatment, he gently patted Ellyx's cheek, and asked, "Are you satisfied, Princess, that the correction was sufficient to balance the misdeed?"

The girl groaned softly, stirred, struggled for a moment with her bonds, then turned her tearful face to him. "I...I do not...recall my f-fault... just now, My Lord, for I... I am not at my...best, and so cannot in good sooth...give you an answer...," she said, speaking with a considerable effort, "but I sh-shall endeavor to...do nothing to...displeasing in your eyes, sir...for I do not believe... I would still live after another...such chastisement." She closed her eyes and allowed her head to drop back on the bed, to lie as still as a dead thing.

"That will have to do for the nonce," he responded. "And now, you shall have the reward for which you asked before the correction."