We ran giggling and laughing until just out of sight of the tavern’s glow of lights only to re-enter the next establishment’s which of course was another beer hall. Both sides of the street were lined with them, bodies moving back and forth, women stumbling over drunken men in the gutters.
A pretty blonde stepped out from the lit doorway to throw a pan of soapy water and just missed me. Her blue eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, excuse me, sir! Sorry!”
“S’okay,” I slurred, realizing I still held the neck of the bottle in my hand. I looked around for where to dump it and finally, tossed it out in the middle of the street.
“What’s the name?”
“Penny, sir,” she replied, smiling at me.
“No, no. The bar. What’s the bar’s name?”
“The Coaquinn.”
“Whazzit?” I was finding it difficult to command both my feet and my mouth at the same time. Marcus tried to tug me away but I resisted him. She was really pretty and older, more experienced. And I was feeling horny. Hell, it seemed like I was always horny.
I headed for the doorway in just as Marcus took hold of my shirt and tugged resulting in my blouse ripping with a sound like shattered silk.
“Raven, no. Not here. This is not a place young boys should be seen in,” he hissed and before I could ask why, the two men from the other place were standing behind us with daggers at our throats. Blood trickled down the tall man’s forehead and his eyes had the feral gleam of a rabid wolf.
Marcus shouted, stamped and ducked out from under like a greased eel. I attempted the same but the man punched me in the side of the neck. All I saw was a white flash, heard a burst of white noise and then the cobblestones hit me on the chin making me bite my tongue. I tasted the copper metallic of blood.
I was being dragged along an alleyway, thrown over a barrel where the splinters dug into my belly while someone cut my clothes off me. The air was cold on my backside. It felt like a dream, a really bad one but I couldn’t muster the energy to fight. Something was wrong with my head.
I gasped. Sobbed. Felt someone’s hands and fingers pawing at the most private places of my body and I couldn’t do anything to stop them.
“I’m going to fuck your ass and then cut your skinny throat, boy,” the tall man promised with a growl. I heard him drop his sword belt and fumble at his pants. He jammed his spit covered fingers in my butt and I screamed as he tore at thin membranes. Blood burned, made me slick. I heard a thunk, the hands holding me over the wooden barrel slid off and I fell onto the curb, curling in on myself crying in terrified horror for what was to come next.
Seven whirling balls of light. Bobbing, rotating in front of my eyes until I opened them. A man stood there. Incredibly tall, thin, slender made with an ethereal grace. White skin and long white hair pulled severely back from his face. He played with the silver spheres for a moment and then threw two at the rapists. As they collided with their bodies, the men simply melted away without leaving a trace of evidence.
He regarded me with pale silver eyes and there was no compassion or feeling in them as he stepped forward lightly, gesturing with another sphere. It floated towards me, touched me on the forehead and it was as if something huge had slapped my brains with a mallet. It hurt. I couldn’t breathe. Or move. Or see. Or anything. He took me.
***
Eyes open. I think. It was so dark I wasn’t sure if they were open or if I was blind. I was very cold. My fingers and toes ached. My butt felt raw and whatever I was laying on had my skin frozen to it. I tried to reach around and feel for clothes but all I could find were the remains of my blouse and tunic. My boots were gone, my underwear and my socks.
Slowly, I climbed to my feet and stretched my hands up. No ceiling within my reach. I could barely walk, a slow shuffle to decipher the size and confines of this hole I was in. I was terrified I might fall in a deeper hole if I was in a cave. I couldn’t think of a worse fate than to be lost in the dark underground with no knowledge of how to get out. Of wandering lost forever.
I cried for Murphy to come save me. For Ghostwheel to find me. I cursed God and even Marcus for tempting me to explore the city. I blamed everyone but myself for my own stupidity and because I didn’t even have the Trumps to call for help.
Gradually, the air brightened. An overall light that filtered through making the area a sort of twilight gray revealing a large chamber carved in rock with a ceiling ten feet over my head. Featureless, no tunnels, no holes, no windows or doors, just a squarish box in the ground in which I was entombed. I breathed through my mouth and saw my breath, it was cold enough to puff plainly and hurt my chest less than when I tried through my nose.
My fingers and toes were blue, my dick and balls tucked up as close as they could get without crawling inside. I took off the tunic top and wrapped it around my waist like a loin cloth and even that little bit of material was enough to provide some warmth so I didn’t feel like my nuts would crack into ice cubes.
A second perusal of the cave’s dimensions brought no new surprises, there wasn’t even a bucket to piss in. I doubted if any would stay liquid long; it would freeze as soon as it hit the floor. The walls looked like stone, not ice although they were covered with a hoar frost like ice. I was thirsty enough to try licking it and no, my tongue did not stick to the surface. It melted in my mouth, slightly metallic but quenching all the same.
I found a spot near one wall and sat, huddled around myself trying to conserve heat, trying to make sense of what had happened, trying to make a plan to help me escape. Somewhere in all my useless thinking, I fell asleep. Short ten minute snatches that exhausted me further and lowered my core body temp until I knew I was dangerously close to hypothermia but just couldn’t summon the energy to care.
That’s when the monsters came. Big, hulking ogres that drooled with green snot hanging from over-sized nostrils. Skin that seeped pus and smelled worse than three day old liver left out to rot. Warts with hairs growing out of them on lips and eyelids. Hunchbacked twisted demons with yellow skin and breasts that hung past their waistlines. Nipples the size of pencil erasers and split with rings and chains. Penises that would have made a stud horse green with envy and ball sacks as ugly as a wart hog. Not a one of them wore clothing nor seemed perturbed by the cold chill. All of them poked at me with claw and talon, fingers, bones and horns. Poking, pinching but none drew blood or actually hurt me.
Eventually, I fell over, my breathing slowed as a delicious warmth filled me. I floated in it and everything receded. Even the alarmed voices were a mere noise in the background. Screeching commenced. Interrupted my slide into coma and death. I was hauled up by one arm to dangle four feet off the ground in the grip of some horrific monster that looked like a cousin of Mothra and Sasquatch. The heat rose in the chamber and I was suddenly aware that I had ceased shivering and was cold.
My body went into spasms so violent I was afraid I would break bones and if the creature holding me had let go, I would have shaken to pieces. Instead, it kept me spread-eagled so that none of my limbs could move. I was on a rack and it breathed fire over me until I was finally sweating. That’s when the white-haired dude came back. He brought his furniture with him, a fancy chaise lounge on which he reclined, playing with those silver balls. Naked girls attended him, feeding him small pieces of meat and sweets while others danced around marble columns. I wasn’t sure if they were real or human, occasionally, an arm or a leg slipped into a massive limb with hair or feathers, or scales. I lay on the ground in a puddle of sweat, watching the rest of the room freeze beyond my circle.
“Who are you?”
He raised a finger and my throat closed up. I struggled, ripped at my lips and drew blood yet couldn’t open my mouth. I howled, a muffled yelp of pain.
“Speak only when you are told, mortal,” he whispered. “You live by my whim. What are you called?”
“Raven,” I gasped as my mouth unzipped. I cursed him and saw the spell splat against his chin. He wiped it off with an elf-like finger and stared slowly and dangerously at me.
Threw those silver balls at me. Instinctively, I blocked them with my hands. Some popped around me and did nothing, several others hit me on the chest, face, arms and legs throwing me to the far wall and slamming me into the very matrix of the rock. Bones cracked and organs crushed just before the lights went out in my head.
***
You can’t keep him here much longer, Mandor. The woman’s voice denied. He’s not Chaos bred enough to survive, he’s broken and damaged. He will die if you linger. The King will strip you muscle by muscle, tendon by bone, limb from limb if he finds out you have done this. Send him back to the Shadow world he came from or to Amber and let the humans find him.
I have plans for this mortal toy, the white-haired man denied. When he is broken, he will serve me, serve my dear brother up on a platter. He won’t die, his Amber blood will save him.
His heart is failing even now. He is only a child, not fully grown or mature. He was grievously wounded before, their forms are not as strong as our demons, he cannot take the damage that our demon flesh can, she insisted.
I felt something take hold of my heart and squeeze it. The rhythm faltered, skipped. I floated inside a cocoon where pain could not reach me. Saw the Unicorn and moved towards it only to find her fading away.
Cold steel wrapped my insides. A powerful spell worked its magic on my body, took over the very rhythms that kept me alive. Put chains on my blood and muscles, my flesh and my will, made me a puppet to his orders. He took back my death and sent me out to be his slave.