Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 23:53:24 EST
From: Tommyhawk1@aol.com
Subject: The Accursed Castle

			    THE ACCURSED CASTLE
			   By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
		      WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM

     The forest...stank. That was Prince Griom's reaction when he entered
it astride the saur. He hadn't dared ride a horse into these woods for that
reason, they reared upon its edge, refused to enter. Only the sturdy saur,
the foul-smelling lizard-mount with its two powerful hind legs that made a
rider feel he was astride a chicken, would ignore such a stench.
     The forest stank with the decay of ancient evil. Many years had passed
since these lands had been conquered by the Dark One, since the fall of the
land of Dormire. On that day, when he had been a mere babe in his mother's
arms, his father, King Moriom of Dormire, had sent them away to neighboring
Conoman. That had been the last time anyone had heard from the King, from
anyone in his castle. Only a few refugee peasants had arrived at Conoman
Palace, telling how they had seen Castle Dormire engulfed in blue fire,
fire that did not burn, fire that blazed night and day, that they had seen
the light from miles away, burning on and on. The blue light of that
burning had persevered for years; Prince Griom had seen it himself from the
ramparts of a fortress on the border when he had been eight years old, the
same blue fire consuming his home, consuming his father.
     That light had gone out when he was twelve, but he hadn't seen
that. He had been at the Fencing Academy of Mestrem, learning the ways of
the blade. His mother had had to marry the King of Conoman, become his
fourth wife, in order to gain him that admittance. He was a prince without
a kingdom, his only hope was to become a master warrior. She had not said
that he should try to restore his homeland...he'd read that in her eyes
whenever she spoke of the old days.
     It had been his dream, too. Dreams that had driven him during his days
at the Academy, kept him in the training room when the others had finished,
training that had turned his body into the powerful weapon it now was, the
dream that had sent him plowing into this forest.
     The night before he was to start his journey, to travel alone and in
secret to Castle Dormire and see what remained of his home, he had received
a visitor. He hadn't needed to see the diamond on her forehead to know she
was a seeress, able to prophesy on the future. Her face was neither young
nor old, beautiful nor homely...sane nor mad. It was somewhere in between.
     She didn't speak after revealing her face and its mark, she didn't
need to. She merely held out her hand.
     One gold piece for each line of prophecy spoken, that was the rule. He
fumbled hastily at his pouch, but only six pieces resided there. He poured
them into his hand. He might go hungry on his journey...but he needed this
woman's information.
     "Six lines." he said. "Speak."
     She closed her eyes and intoned.
                                       "Within the forest lies the castle
intact.
                                       Within the castle lies a coffin,
unopened.
                                       Within the coffin lies your father,
alive."
     He gasped (his father lives!), but didn't dare interrupt her. He only
nodded for her to continue, for she had paused.
                                       "Upon your father lies a stone,
burning,
                                       Inside the stone lies the Dark One's
power.
                                       To remove the stone you must uncurl
the madness."
     He nodded and started to speak, was startled when she continued. No
seeress spoke except for payment!
                                       "Inside your heart there lives a
lie.
                                       Inside the lie there lives the
truth.
                                       Inside the truth there lives your
happiness."
     Before he could recover from his astonishment, she left again, leaving
him alone. The troubles with prophecy were the same as he had heard, you
knew their words would be true, but how to interpret them into something a
man could use?
     This much he knew. His father would be lying in that coffin under a
curse, stones of power were used to control the flow of the evil forces,
direct them to the Dark One's ends. He had to "uncurl the madness,"
whatever that meant.
     The last three lines, he didn't understand at all! Where was the lie
in his own heart? And how could finding the truth inside a lie lead to
happiness?
     Well, it didn't seem to impact upon his quest, he could live with the
lie whatever it was, for now.
     His reverie was interrupted by a foul screech and a burst of fury that
darted down at him from the trees overhead, aiming filthy claws at his
face! Above them were nasty, gummy feathers, and above that what could have
been a woman's face. A harpy!
     His sword, never far from his hand now he was in the Dark One's
domain, flashed into action and before his saur had time to react, or the
harpy had time to stop her plunge, he cut her in two. Foul black blood
streamed onto his arm from her breast as she shrieked her death cry.
     There was a rustle in the branches overhead, the rest of the harpy's
flock had seen and decided to seek safer places to hunt. Prince Griom
smiled grimly as he wiped the blood off his arm and sword...let the black
forces fear him!
     The smell did not decrease as he rode on, the trees were bent and
gnarled into obscene shapes, the animals looked haggard, half-starved,
desperate, the skies themselves seemed dreary and unpleasant. Little
remained of the happy land which his mother had described to him by the
hour...and yet there was that about this land which seemed to be lifting
from its bondage. Here and there a flower raised its head in red or yellow
splendor, above them hovered humming bees, twice he saw cheerful birds
singing their happy notes. The feeling was that of the forest after it had
been pelted fiercely by a storm, and the silence that lies upon it before
the life stirs within it once again.
     Had the Dark One left this land behind? Was all this blackness, all
this oppression, the leftover detritus of his parting? Had he trained all
this time, only to arrive after the foe had flown?
     Was this the lie the seeress had spoken of? But it wasn't within his
own heart, this was his homeland, and one he knew only from stories!
     The feeling of...emptiness...remained even as he approached, for the
first time since his infancy, Castle Dormire. He moved carefully through
the gatehouse, its gate long gone, the walls now impotent against any
trespasser.
     Foulness had lived there, laughed in its halls, drunk in its rooms,
there were disgusting remnants of evil acts everywhere...but there was
nothing living, nothing active. The stones rang with his every move, but
their answer was hollow echoes, and nothing more.
     Where had the Dark One put his father? As he came to realize that the
castle was deserted entirely, he moved with more intentness, his guard
relaxed.
     It was only one of many rooms in a row all alike, he had no reason to
expect it to contain anything more than the others had, so he was surprised
when he opened the door.
     A giant blue snake, fangs over two feet long, eyes glowing with a
reddish light, darted at him and again, his swift action with the sword was
what saved him. Blessed be the old master who had trained him so that the
reaction had become instinct, that he didn't have to think where his sword
was, he only had to grab, and the act of grabbing was automatic, he saw, he
drew, and he slashed!
     The head was severed, it should have destroyed the beast. But another
head immediately formed out of the trunk and fangs grew and dripped with
venom! A magical beast! The creature darted at him again!
     He could not prevail here, he knew, even as he cut the head once again
after fending off two strikes. He should flee this room, seek to elude this
being...then he saw the coffin in the center of the room, a crystalline
box, and the figure inside it, a man who could only be...his father!
     So he fought on. The snake was not especially cunning and the immense
size was a handicap in this small room, the snake could only move with
difficulty. Perhaps he could continue to kill it thus, and it would lose
its ability to regenerate, or at least diminish in size.
     It did neither. His arm was tiring, his skill was losing its edge. He
finally did break off and flee the room, looking back. He was not being
pursued.
     He paused, panting, looking at the open door, hearing, smelling the
snake that was coiled about his father's coffin...nay, not a coffin if his
father lived!
     He needed more than his sword arm to defeat this menace. The words of
the seeress came back to him, he needed to uncurl the madness.
     Uncurl? Uncoil? The snake's tail was coiled about his father. Did it
gain its strength from the stone that held his father captive?
     He could but try. A small shield was to hand, detritus from some
soldier's unhappy fate. He took it and, sheathing his sword, sheared up his
courage and returned to the room.
     The snake was there still. It struck but he only blocked it with the
shield from hitting his body. The impact jarred him, but he waded on
through. There were moving shafts under his feet, thick sections of the
snake's body, that made his footing treacherous and he couldn't watch
constantly because he had to fend off those dangerous fangs. They didn't
need to be poisonous to kill him, they were long enough to impale him
utterly!
     In this mass of shifting snake-body, there had to be, somewhere, where
was it...there! The tail. The snake hadn't followed him because it
couldn't, that tail was anchored to the crystal coffin, and the tip of it
touched his father's flesh!
     Uncurl the madness. As the snake struck the shield yet again, and as
it withdrew its head to strike once more, he threw caution to the winds and
dropped his shield, and with both his hands, he grasped the snake's tail at
where it entered the coffin and he yanked upon it, hard!
     If he had been one iota less strong, if his muscles hadn't been what
they were, huge mounds of flesh that bent to his will, he would have
failed. But he had just enough strength to move that tail, tethered by more
than flesh, to bring it taut and after a hesitation, there was a sort of
snap and the tail came loose!
     The snake howled, and it was as a human voice, a man screaming in
agony! The snake tail writhed in his hands...no! It was shrinking!
     Its size had been magical, its ferocity had been part of the spell, as
it shrank in size due to the loss of its magical tap, it dwindled into
timidity, and when it was shrunk down to a common snake, less than two feet
long, its only thought was to get away from him.
     Yowling in triumph, Prince Griom swung the snake over his head by its
tail until it was a straight line and with a sharp snap of his wrist, he
flung it from behind him to before him and pulled back, and the head popped
off and the fearsome foe was no more. Merely a length of dead snake.
     His heart burning, he turned to the crystal coffin. He could open it
now...but it had no openings, it was of a single piece. As he fumbled it,
he saw the man inside move, looked inside and saw the eyes that looked into
him. "Father." he whispered and determination gripped him.
     A rock was to hand, long fallen from one of the walls or the ceiling,
he picked it up and smashed that coffin into pieces! Perhaps the stone that
had bound him was among the shards, it mattered not, for his father was
rising up!
     "It is you." Prince Griom said in a tone of wonder.
     Until now, he hadn't had a chance to look at his father, other than to
know that the figure inside had to be him.
     The magic had preserved his father, he had not aged a single day in
the twenty years it had been since he had fallen to the Dark One's
power. He was looking not at a man who should be well past forty, his face
lined, his hair turning white. This was a man in the prime of life, not
more than a bare handful of years older than himself! The body was not as
large as his, but was well-filled, the arms strong and clean, the body taut
and muscled. This was his father, the King of Dormire, who had fought off
the Dark One and won his kingdom and had married his mother feeling that
the danger had been past, the evil defeated for his time.
     He wore nothing but a simple loincloth, the traditional clothing of a
warrior, the same as Prince Griom. Only his bearing as he placed his feet
upon the floor and looked at his son, did Prince Griom see the man who had
ruled this land.
     "You have rescued me." Was the first words. "I am grateful to you,
warrior. Whatever I can give you to repay you, I shall."
     Prince Griom knelt. "Then give me your blessing, for I am Griom, your
son."
     "My son?" his father seemed startled. "Surely I have not been enslaved
for so long?"
     "It was twenty years." Prince Griom affirmed. "Our lands have
languished, its people fled, but the memories of Dormire still hold strong,
and your people wait only for you to rejoin them and they shall return."
     A warrior must first be practical. "What of the Dark One?"
     "I know not." Prince Griom answered. "I came here without untoward
incident, nothing opposed me." A minor nuisance like a harpy could not
count, not when one expected to meet armies of monsters instead. "My
greatest obstacle was the spell he had cast upon you. The castle is
otherwise deserted."
     "Then the Dark One sleeps." his father said. "Or has turned his
attentions to other lands, other prey." His father looked back, and only
then did he see Prince Griom. "My son." King Moriom said,
wonderingly. "Yes, I see your mother's face in you. But my eyes."
     "Father." Prince Griom said and his father extended both hands, Prince
Griom placed his own in them and stood up.
     And then they were hugging each other, Prince Griom felt his father's
arms, his father's body, his father was alive, alive! "Father!" he said
again, and this time tears danced in his eyes.
     "My son, my son!" King Moriom said.
     Then his father pulled back, only those hands remained upon Prince
Griom's body. "Let me look at you."
     Prince Griom did that, and feasted his own eyes. For so long he had
only sought vengeance, to exact payment for his father's death. Was this
the lie the seeress had spoken of? Had he now learned the truth? He was
certainly happy enough!
     When his father had looked upon him enough, held him tight once again,
he said, "Your people wait for you in Conoman. We must go to them and lead
them back here, restore our kingdom."
     "Let us go." King Moriom agreed.
     As they walked through the halls, Prince Griom talked on, feeling
giddy and careless now that his quest had ended. "You can see how they have
stripped the castle of everything of value, but the castle itself is still
strong. It will take but a short time to restore it. The lands about, as
well, need only to be tended once again, the fields are not overgrown
beyond restoration, the peasants are eager to return to their own
lands...."
     "It is not enough." King Moriom said.
     Prince Griom stopped, looked at his father. "I do not understand." he
said. "We have won. You are free and the lands, can't you feel how it is
free of the Dark One?"
     "It is not free." King Moriom said. "I thought the same as you when I
built my castle, married my wife, had my son for an heir. I thought it was
over. You have seen how wrong I was."
     Prince Griom considered this. "What then do you say we do, my father?"
     "We must destroy the Dark One." King Moriom said. "Only then can we
return and restore my kingdom."
     "Destroy the Dark One?" Prince Griom was astonished. "How can we do
that. Armies have gone before him and been vanquished!" He had not thought
beyond his own personal vengeance, and the restoration of Dormire. But the
Dark One.... "The Dark One's fortress lies many leagues beyond Dormire." he
said. "How can we raise a force sufficient to overcome him, and get them to
his domain, and once there, sustain them through the siege?"
     "We shall not raise an army. You and I alone shall go there."
     "Alone?" Prince Griom said. "Just the two of us?"
     "And why not?" King Moriom said. "There will be weapons in the castle
still. The Dark One will not expect only two to enter his realm, and will
not expect such a bold assault, we can hope to surprise him."
     Prince Griom thought over what he knew of the Dark One. It had at
least the virtue of never having been tried...or had it?
     He was about to mention this to his father, when he turned and looked
at him. This was no elderly parent he was with, this was a man in the
vibrant power of his youth and eager for adventure. "We can go a ways
further and see what there is." he agreed.
     "That sounds like my son." King Moriom said approvingly. He clapped
Prince Griom on his shoulder and said, "Though saying that to a man my own
age is an odd feeling."
     "I have the same feeling." Prince Griom admitted. "I thought only to
seek vengeance for your death. When I was told by the seeress that you were
alive, I thought only of rescuing you. Then I saw you as the age of King
Polor, white-haired and wrinkled. I did not expect that for you, not a
single day has gone by. You seem more my brother than my father."
     "I see you not as a child, but as a fellow warrior." the hand had not
left his shoulder. "One who can stand by my side as I take back my
kingdom."
     Prince Griom said. "You are my king, my lord and my liege. My heart,
my soul, my life, is yours to command."
     "Say, instead, that my life is yours." King Moriom said. "I must beg
your forgiveness, my son, for all I have said before was my testing of your
spirit, but now I see it is true, I shall speak plain to you. I owe you
everything, for know this, that twenty years have gone by, and you are the
first who has come to rescue me. The Dark One, when he imprisoned me, said
that he would show me how little my people cared for me, that any who came
would find it easy to free me."
     "Easy?" Prince Griom said. "The snake...."
     "The snake would never have harmed you. It was only there to make the
rescue frightening and difficult, require a man of courage to come
through. It would have missed striking you no matter how poor a swordsman
you were. Had any of my men but tried, they could have freed me in a matter
of days. He even came to me, woke me, said that he was turning off the
fearsome blue fire, make it less threatening. And still nobody came! And
now I find it has been twenty years! Twenty years!" the King roared. "And
nobody came, until you, and you my own son!"
     "We can take our revenge still, upon the Dark One." Prince Griom
said. "We can journey into his lands and...."
     "No." King Moriom declared. "Even were we to prevail, when armies have
fallen in the attempt, what would we gain? I thought I had thousands of men
who would fight for me. I was wrong!"
     Prince Griom didn't know whether to feel disappointment or relief. The
Dark One was too powerful. Maybe, someday, a warrior of sufficient strength
and bravery could defeat him.
     "So, then, my king, where do we travel?" he said.
     "Let us walk." King Moriom said. "Away from this castle, build upon
the lie of loyalty. There, we will speak."
     Prince Griom followed his father and king, his mind churning. The
final three lines of the seeress' words! Was this the lie within his heart?
     The saur would not seat the two of them, he led it behind him as they
walked away from the castle. Prince Griom looked again at the land, seeing
it now as a land abandoned rather than blighted. If evil reigned here, it
did so with the sufferance of good.
     What then was his destiny?
     "Here." said his father. "Here is far enough away."
     Again he laid his hand upon Griom's shoulder. Griom turned and when he
did, this time, his father's arms went around him, and they were not the
arms of a father! There were bare arms around him, touching his own bare
skin, the loincloth was ineffectively barring that hot column of man-flesh
that burned against his thigh!
     "Father!" he breathed. He could not pretend disinterest, his body was
pressing against his father and his response had been proclaimed at once,
as his glans reached up and cuddled up against his father's
balls. "Father!" he sighed again.
     "You, my son." King Moriom whispered to him. "You shall be the
beginning of my new army, one that is truly loyal to me. One that can stand
against the Dark One. He rules through fear and hate, he cannot stand
against love. Never against love! Love shall be the crux of my army, upon
which I shall base my renewed kingdom. Let Dormire slumber on until that
day, when it can stand against all the Dark One can bring against us!"
     "Always, my father." Prince Griom said. "I shall follow you."
     "Say instead we'll always be together." King Moriom said as he reached
to kiss him. And he reached up and grasped Prince Griom's prong with one
sword-calloused hand!
     Prince Griom groaned as his father kissed down his body, across his
breasts, lingering hungrily upon one nipple, tasting him, all of him, and
he was helpless as though under a spell as his father's lips reached the
leather tie at his waist, undid it and let the loincloth fall its
ineffectual way to the ground.
     His father knelt at his feet, those lips that had savored him now
touched his manhood and his life, the thrill that raced through his body
was that of sheer, raw power! As his father's mouth worked upon him,
drawing passion from every move, Prince Griom could only stand and let the
pleasure wash through and over him. This was his father, this was his king,
this was his fellow warrior, this was...totality!
     That galvanized him into action, he groaned once again, this time
louder and reached down to pull his father upwards, now he was slathering
his lips upon his father's neck and shoulder, feeling that power underneath
the strongly salty skin, relishing the raw masculinity that was embodied
there, tasting it, taking it into himself. When he reached the waist, there
was no loincloth to be undone, his father mut have removed it himself
earlier. He only had to take that strong pud, the column that had sired
him, take it into his mouth and it seethed and boiled salty strength onto
his tongue.
     "Uh, ah!" his father sighed. "My son, my lover, my future and my
heir. I could not take a hand in raising you up to manhood, but let me
share this part of your life entire. Let me share with you, let me be with
you, let me bond now, my son, my lover, my life."
     Prince Griom released his father's cock and sat back upon the knoll
nearby, formed by the protruding roots of a malformed tree. He lay back and
said, "So bond with me."
     His father smiled and knelt between Griom's legs, Griom lifted them
higher and his father's cock.... "Oh, Gods!" Prince Griom sighed as King
Moriom's prong touched his sphincter. He wasn't unknown to the pleasures of
another man's embrace, he had been for ten years at the Academy at Mestrem,
so many boys in their first blush of sexual potency had turned to each
other. Even in his intensity, he had not been immune to such, indeed, his
single-mindedness had drawn such contacts in its way. Still, as his
father's dong slid into his body, he sighed and felt himself deflowered in
a way that he hadn't been before. He was giving himself this time not for
pleasure, not for the release of tension, but as the promise of more.
     His father's prick pressed inwards until the entire length was
imbedded within him, and then he was of a sudden caught up in the joy of
the moment, he clutched his father fiercely and he used his heels to gain
purchase upon his father's legs and he rocked his hips to drive that pud in
and out of himself even though his father was yet unmoving.
     And then King Moriom did begin to move back and forth and Prince
Goriom groaned as the rush of pleasure streamed through him. His father's
cock was driving him in a way none had ever before, each thrust into him
was like an affirmation of his entire life, each move back was like an
expression of complete trust.
     How then could he help but be driven rapidly to the heights of
passion. He clung to his father, clung with a ferocity normally reserved
for clinging to a plank off a wrecked ship in the midst of a storm? His
nails bit into his father's back as he moaned, his ass constricted tightly
about his father's prick as he roared, his cock sprayed the both of them
with hot streams of raw seed, he dug in, he clung tight, he pumped out vast
splashes of jism and his father laughed as he brought his son to climax.
     "Yes, my son, yes!" he urged Prince Griom on, "give it all to me,
bathe me in your juices, let me be washed in your strength, and then I
shall give you mine and we shall both be the stronger!"
     Prince Griom sobbed with his joy as he expended himself, was left
exhausted and panting, his strong chest heaving as though he had battled a
legions of giant snakes. His father waited until he was done, completely
over his orgasm, and then began to fuck him once again, this time there was
a forcefulness to it that it had not had before, his father was intent now
upon completing his own enjoyment, bringing himself to the peak, and Prince
Griom held and caressed his father as he was pummeled by that hard dong,
feeling his body beginning to respond once again as his father began to
grunt, loud snarling sounds escaping his clenched teeth, and then the
snarls fell fast upon each other, and they ended in a choking groan, and
Prince Griom felt the strong body of his father spasm as his butt filled
with his father's jism.
     King Moriom fell heavily upon his son's body, and his breath was loud
in Prince Griom's ear as he was raised up and down by the motions of their
breasts which both expanded and deflated at the same time, so that it was
like his father rode upon him like a man upon a galloping horse.
     He would have stayed this way throughout the night, which was
beginning to fall, it was now past the dusk. It was his father who raised
up and pulled out of him, and sat beside him as he rolled off Prince
Griom's body, and Griom raised up and said, "What now, my King?"
     "Now we go to find men who know how to give loyalty the right way."
King Moriom said. "I shall not be fooled this time by soft fools who will
not stand and guard what belongs to them. The Dark One is not so powerful,
he lives by a reputation he does not deserve. He is powerful, but not
all-powerful, he can be defeated by a force that will stand their ground."
     "I pray you are right." Prince Griom said.
     "I know I am, and well. I saw how my men ran before the blue fire, and
yet it is all light, no heat, no power, no meaning. Fear is his tool, he
wields it well, but it is not a tool that will stand a brave heart and
well-slung sword."
     "We should start with Mestrem." Prince Griom said. "There are plenty
of men there without allegiance, who hope to find fortune. I know, for I
was one...I thought."
     "I agree." King Moriom said. "Let us quit this accursed castle, though
it be accursed only with cowardice. It was an edifice built upon a lie. Let
us build a new one upon the truth." He stood up, smiled down at his
son. "Come, my son, there is much for us to do."
     Prince Griom smiled as he rose, to begin the new life.
     The seeress' final lines were understood now. And even the final one
was true. He was to live henceforth in happiness.

				  THE END
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