Sometimes, the voice wasn’t alone. Sometimes there were vague, inhuman presences working alongside it—sinuous, alluring minds to calm him and hold him at bay while the voice moved with freedom inside his head. Sometimes, during fleeting moments of lucidity, he’d see the shapely outlines of women above him—but not quite women, only creatures that wore the shape but churned on the inside with the fires of something else entirely. And sometimes he’d see the starkly beautiful face of a fellow Ydregi, frowning at him or leaning over him with intensity, his body hot upon Yhalen’s own, his power slipping out of him like the retreat of a spent sexual organ.
The sane part of him, the part not caught up in pain and madness, responded eagerly to that Ydregi face, falling back upon old memories and old treasured faces. He saw Yherji in his mind’s eye. Felt the heat of Yherji’s mouth and the pleasure of Yherji’s body. It was a dream more pleasant by far to fall back upon than the field of crows, and he let himself drift into the clutches of times gone by as he surrendered to Yherji and Y’drah and Yhuja—his closest cronies in the great forest. All of them closer than their parents suspected. All of them eager to explore the pleasures of the body.
Periods of darkness interspersed the dream of home, with fewer moments where the birds flapped down to torment him appearing. Yherji bent over him, urging his legs apart, and he willingly spread his thighs and made room for Yherji’s hard, smooth body. Lifting his hips when Yherji urged and falling into pleasure when Yherji entered, his mind lazy and open as Yherji slowly set up a rhythm, hands and mouth busy upon other parts of his body.
There was always a subtle presence in his head of crafty fingers plying the depths of his mind, but with his body shrouded in the pleasures of the flesh, it wasn’t so much of an intrusion. Not like before.
Things became clearer, the nightmares fewer, and when they came, there was awareness that the horrors they held were figments of times past.
He awoke in shrouded shadow, aware for the first time in what seemed a very long time of the here and now. Of the weight of windowless stone walls and the coolness of a room nestled below the surface of the earth. Of a vast but simple hearth, in which a low fire danced. Of a bed with four large posters, and him sprawled naked in twisted sheets. He couldn’t fathom where or why, his mind too newly cohesive to deduce such mundane things. There was a shadow by the hearth that moved towards him when he took note of it, and he thought immediately that it was Yherji.
Only Yherji was shorter and stouter, and Yherji had a head full of curly hair more yellow than bronze—and Yherji had never in all his short life possessed so striking a face....
Yherji was dead. Yherji was struck down, because Yhalen had been too unpracticed in the ways of real battle to stay and fend off their attackers. He drew breath, the claws of panic beginning to set in and bringing with them harsh reality. The Ydregi who was not Yherji put hands on his shoulders and pushed him into the pillows, fingers digging into his flesh.
“You will
not
fall back into that again.”
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Yhalen blinked up into a stern, beautiful face, recalling similar features, recalling a name in the back of his mind to go with the voice.
“Understand?” Fingers moved to grasp his jaw and Yhalen stared and breathed, unable to do more.
The grip let up and the fingers stroked his cheek, moved across his lips and down the column of his throat.
“I—I know you?” Yhalen’s voice came out hoarse, as if he’d not had reason to use it in a great while.
It was exhausting uttering those few words.
“You do.”
The man settled onto the bed beside him, dark robe falling open to reveal bare skin beneath. A thumb circled Yhalen’s nipple and though he felt some indignity at the presumption, he couldn’t quite raise a hand to brush it away.
The man took his shoulder and turned him over onto his belly, turning his cheek to the pillow, as if Yhalen hadn’t the wherewithal to keep himself from smothering. Perhaps he didn’t. He certainly didn’t have the energy to protest when the man swung a leg over to straddle his thighs. Yhalen felt the heat of soft testicles resting against the crevice of his upper thighs, felt the touch of fingers gathering his hair and twisting it to lie above his shoulder on the pillow, baring the back of his neck and his back.
He lay there, shuddering, under the weight of a stranger, who wasn’t so strange.
“One more time, before I trust you in the real world.” A whisper against his neck before lips touched skin, causing a ripple of goose bumps that spread out from the source of ticklish pleasure.
Hands trailed down his ribs, trailing bliss in their wake. Utter bliss lanced into his flesh from the mere touch of fingertips. He moaned, sinking into the morass of sensation and pushing back against the weight with his hips. Pressure edged inside him, a comfortable length of heat that touched that wonderful spot, yet did not seem to fill his body to the capacity that he truly longed for. There was no edge of pain to the pleasure to drive him over the verge, no feeling of his guts stretched thin even when the body over his pressed in to the fullest. Nothing to make him lose himself to the utter sensation of being possessed. Of being owned.
Oh, but it did feel good. And there was that added sensation of ticklish fingers along the edges of his mind, probing, testing, looking for imperfections in the weaving they’d wrought.
I might take offense
, the voice whispered inside his head, as the body attuned with his on the physical level
,
had I not seen the cock in question. I enjoy a taste of pain myself, but that much discomfort
would be beyond even me. To each our own, I suppose.
Yhalen felt a stab of uncertainty, a piercing recollection of a big body, bloody and still, torn by the dagger of an assassin skulking in with the night.
Alive?
It was easier to speak inside his head than with his lips, although the question itself sent icy fingers of dread to the core of him, shrinking the hard flesh between his belly and the mattress.
You do not recall?
No. No no no no....
All he recalled was the nightmare and he fought off the traces of that with a passion.
Calm. You control it, not it you. Remember that, or my hard work was for naught, and believe me, there are
kings, emperors and pseudo-gods that would pay heavily for the time and effort I spent on you, kinsman.
Bloodravenbloodravenbloodraven?
Ah, your master. You long to writhe under his hand again, do you? Little wonder you kept the brand, when
you could have erased it easily enough with your skills at healing.
Elvardo!
He found he did recall the name after all, and with it came a wash of indignation and frustration.
Out of me. Off me. Offoffoff!!
The flittering of laughter in his mind. A few more lazy thrusts before the body atop him strained and released inside his own. Then Elvardo pushed himself off, and leaned back against one of the posters at the end of the bed, languidly stroking his softening cock.
It took an effort for Yhalen to turn, as if his body had lain dormant for so long that his muscles had gone soft and lax. But his mind, that was a different matter. He felt things that he had only been partially aware of before. The currents of power lay spread out before him—he only had to turn his attention their way to see what mysteries they held. Around Elvardo they ran dark and deep, straying into areas that Yhalen had no wish to explore.
“Answer—” he started to say, but his voice broke, and for the moment it was easier to demand 258
things with the newfound inner voice.
Answer my question.
Please.
What?
Ask nicely. I respond very poorly to ill-spoken demands.
He had given so much, that simple politeness was an easy enough sacrifice.
Is he alive, please?
Elvardo smiled at him, still pulling idly on the loose skin at the end of his cock.
I could come to truly
appreciate you, kinsman. He’s alive and busy. It’s doubtful he’s had the time to spare a thought for you, his
damaged property, what with dealing with his half-breeds and the king’s men. He’s probably found some other
flexible little human to satisfy his baser needs. Maybe one of those soldiers who think they have the run of my
valley.
Soldiers and half-breeds. King’s men and ogres, all with agendas of their own. And always, Bloodraven—weaving his way through their intentions with his own schemes, hiding the extent of his cunning beyond the facade of a roughhewn warrior. Yhalen held a moment of doubt—of jealousy perhaps, at the thought of Bloodraven taking another to his bed—but it passed, chased away by the absolute assurance that Bloodraven had found his focus in the realization of years of planning and would have little time for distraction. From either men or ogres.
Ogres. He saw a myriad of faces in his head, and this time it was not his own screams that echoed in memory, but theirs. That recollection was hazier by far than the nightmare of his own torment, however, and he was too tired to dwell on it. He lay back down in the soft tangle of sheets with the hearth-warmed air on his skin and shut his eyes, mentally probing at the watery weakness of limbs. It was no injury-caused weakness, nothing to wrap his skill around and mend, simply a frailty of muscle and stamina.
He heard the rustle of fine cloth as Elvardo padded towards the door.
“How long?” he murmured.
“Two moons. You were difficult.” And the door shut, leaving nothing but the soothing crackle of the fire and the heavy assurance of stone all around him.
The women attended to Yhalen’s needs. He insisted on calling them that, since the illusion was so perfect. Their demeanor was so very much like the female of the species that it was hard to think of them otherwise, even though he knew they were more and less than that. He shuddered to dwell on from what nether realm Elvardo had summoned them, or what power Elvardo had that held them to his will. Beneath the fleshy shell, Yhalen sensed capricious and unpredictable energies.
They were benign enough, though, to those in good favor with their master—gently flirting here, mothering there, and always turning up when one least expected them. They were not undesirable visitors, despite all that, pressing him not at all and never overstaying their welcome.
Their master was another matter. Elvardo’s presence was never benign, even when he came with no seemingly apparent purpose to mind. He didn’t so much frighten Yhalen as make him uneasy. That he had made use of Yhalen’s body upon more than one occasion during his incoherency was apparent, and Elvardo made no apologies or excuses. Strangely enough, that frustrated Yhalen less than the fact that Elvardo had little inclination to honor his requests to be taken outside of the keep, to see for himself what progress had been made at the other end of the vale. To see for himself that Bloodraven was indeed alive and well. It was a niggling little worry in the back of his mind that Bloodraven hadn’t come for him during all the time he had been here.
Perhaps the those things that Yhalen had done—things that were only snippets of memory to him—were vivid and horrible recollections to Bloodraven. Perhaps he no more wanted to see Yhalen than he did any other of the wizards of ogre legend that he’d spoken of. Perhaps Bloodraven was just as well rid of him.
Elvardo was no help in explaining the absence, reveling in cryptic innuendo instead of honest answers. Yhalen had attempted the stairs up from this lowest level of the keep where he was housed, but lacked the stamina to climb more than a few dozen before his legs gave out. He had to sink down to his knees, staring balefully up at what seemed an eternity of steps leading into darkness. One of the women found him, the dark-haired one, and with soft, encouraging touches helped him to his unsteady feet and down the stairs back to his windowless room.
“I want to go outside,” he complained to her.
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She smiled and patted his arm. “When you are able, you shall.”
“Has he been here? Bloodraven?” he asked as she was taking her leave.
She looked over her shoulder at him, slanted eyes shining from some inner light. “Ask our lord.”
“Your lord,” Yhalen muttered when the door was closed, “is an ass.”
He lay down in a sulk, but exhaustion overcame bad humor and he drifted into sleep. He dreamed restless, lurid dreams of big hands on his body that lifted and turned him effortlessly. Dreamed of the rough, sweet pleasure of callused fingers kneading his nipples, of a long strong tongue preparing the way for something larger.
He awoke in a sweat to the tread of light steps outside his door, and as was their wont, the door opened without a warning rap to admit the redhead with his supper tray.
“If you like, after your meal, I can take you to the baths.”
“Aren’t they beyond my reach?” he asked sourly.
“The large one, yes. There is a smaller pool at this lower level, with warm waters to soothe tired muscles. It will do you well.”
It was appealing. He nodded, hurrying through savory venison stew and fresh baked bread with honey-sweetened butter.
The lower bath was not far, though he might never have discovered it himself in this dark, narrow warren of lower chambers he had woken in. He felt for the surface, unconsciously using senses beyond normal human ken. The earth was heavy and thick above him, and its ponderous, pulsing energy seemed a handbreadth away. Right there, if only he wished to reach out and grasp it. Though it was not so quick to respond as the flame, it seemed a more comfortable energy to him. A less volatile one, and closer to the natural world that he felt so keenly.