Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 16:19:09 +0000
From: Michael Offutt <kavrik@hotmail.com>
Subject: Black Dragon Rising Chapter 10 - Gay Science Fiction

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                                    *****

                                 Chapter Ten

      My eyes dart open, and I stare at the prison walls around
me. Angelaria's skin is filmed with sweat, and Talen's hair looks a little
dusty. I swallow a few mouthfuls of cool water. I don't know how long we've
been trapped here, but it seems like days. The three of us are living like
caged animals, using a cooking bowl for a chamber pot that's now
overflowing. I'm already oblivious to the smell. Our potable water's
running short, and we've rationed what little food remains in our stores.

      My armor feels loose now, and I know that isn't a good sign. I never
had much body fat; with it gone my muscle will be next.

      Five times a day, I rap on the walls with my fist hoping that someone
in the keep will hear us and help us to get out of this trap. But it's
difficult to hold onto such hope when (from my perspective) it's clear
we've been buried alive. Once, while my friends slept, I crept up the walls
and tried clawing at the stone again using my dual cibrian wrist
blades. Dust from my efforts sifted down upon my companions, and the sharp
knives did little more than leave gouges in rock that for all I know could
be several feet thick. I'd hoped to sway the pit back onto its pivot but
nothing I try will even move it slightly, even when all three of us press
on the walls near the top. It's like the corridor is now locked into place.

      Angelaria wakes from her sleep a few hours later, and I offer her the
last of my water. Talen shrugs off his sleepiness and lays his head on his
folded arms. His stomach growls and I give him some of my food. I avoid
mentioning that it comes from my ration. He chews on it quietly while
staring at the stone walls around us.

      Another day passes. I don't want to die here. This is all my
fault. They wanted to leave and it was I that convinced them to follow me
into the keep. I apologize as best as I can but it does nothing to assuage
my guilt.

      "Shut up, Kian," Talen says. "This isn't your fault.  We could have
said no."

      Angelaria nods, then says with a dry voice, "I agree. What's done is
done."

      Despite their words, the only thoughts that occupy my mind have to do
with the complete mess I've made of things.

      When the first scratch comes, I think I've imagined it. Talen's
sleeping with his head on my shoulder. I peer around, see nothing, yet it
happens again. This time it feels like a fingernail has been drawn across
the surface of my mind.

      Honestly, it's not the kind of thing I can describe easily. A few
minutes pass and it happens a third time. It's stronger than before and
almost hurts. Angelaria's eyes jerk open and she casts them about wildly,
flicking first to each of the walls and then to the floor. I touch Talen on
the shoulder and rouse him as delicately as I can. Crusty-eyed, he rubs his
eyes before realizing that something weird is happening.

      I see a flicker at the corner of my vision, and a figure
appears. It's dressed in sweeping robes of royal purple. A misshapen head
crowns its humanoid body, and a writhing mass of long slick tentacles drape
down in front of its torso. This creature stretches forth a hand hung in
rich jewels and bands of gold and silver. A second and then a third appear;
I once again feel the scratch, harsh and abrasive, and it hurls me to the
floor. No matter how hard I try, I'm unable to control my legs or my
arms. Talen and Angelaria look as if to cry out but two of the creatures
sweep them up in their arms and disappear with them. The last grips a hold
of my helmeted skull and lifts me off the floor. A swirl of light follows,
and I realize I must be traveling through the stone itself.

      Horror of horrors! I've never felt anything so strange and so
disconcerting.

      It's as if my heart leaps into the roof of my mouth. I gasp but am
unable to breathe and my body feels like it's been stuffed with lead
pellets. My lungs burn with sweet longing for even a single gulp of air but
it never comes. But right before blackness takes me within its folds the
torment ends, and my vision clears.

      I'm in some underground place.

      The creature tosses me like a sack of turnips onto the floor. A sharp
rock bounces against my killsuit; sparks flash and that's when I see the
others: the human beings who've been caged here in this land of eternal
night.

      When I've caught my breath again, I stand. All around me are hundreds
of cages. They contain human beings...men and women...and they all face me,
some with expressions that fill me with fright. Three are missing limbs and
eyes, several more drool from the mouth and look dim- witted. Yet all of
them no matter what their condition now cower before the purple master that
stands over me. They do so even though they are protected behind bars of
steel. The purple master raises himself to his full height of seven feet,
and his tentacles writhe about a circular and serrated maw that resembles
the jaws of a lamprey.

      Where is my boyfriend? I don't spot either him or Angelaria in this
strange pit. The rocky walls rise up behind the cages into darkness. The
only light emanates from glowing lichen and bioluminescent moss that clings
to the surface of the stone. It's so dim, that I can make out few details.

      The purple master dons a box of ornate metal and clasps it about the
throat. A moment later it speaks through the device; the voice is ghastly
and grates on my nerves. The now familiar scratch draws itself across my
mind, deeper and more invasive.

      "I am the Master Kierak..." the voice box intones. "You are my
slave. Do not seek to harm us with your weapons for you will fail. You will
use them in the arena for your protection and survival. If you live I shall
make you one of my thralls, and you will be afforded things that you
desire."

      I empty my utility belt of the knives and daggers I carry. I think
about the poison, and don't give any indication that I possess it. But then
the scratch in my mind returns and drops me to the floor, writhing and
unable to move.

      "This one thinks he can hide his thoughts from our psionic
detection. How amusing..." the voice box intones. "Hang him up by his arms
and let him feel the sting of the nettle flog."

      A figure moves behind the monster that calls itself my master. It's
human and wears two bands of leather that cross sinewy pectoral
muscles. The human is bald and has a mouthful of misshapen teeth. With a
grip like an iron vice, he clenches me tight by the back of my neck and
drags me into a cage recessed within the cliff walls. I can't even fight
back. Nothing in my body responds. I even drool on myself.

      The strong human male fumbles with the straps of my armor and after
several minutes, the breastplate comes off. He throws that and my helmet on
the floor but leaves the rest of my armor in place.  Naked down to the
waist, he turns me around and shackles my arms and legs into iron cuffs
stained with old blood. He tightens them down on my wrists and ankles with
a tool; sudden pain shoots through my forearms. But with the onslaught of
this pain, I realize Master Kierak has returned use of my limbs to me.

      Now, however, it's too late for me to act upon this newfound freedom.

      "Why are you doing this?" I ask. I jerk on the chains but no matter
how my muscles bulge and strain, I only fill the pit with the clank and
rattle of my struggles.

      "More questions," Master Kierak says. "New humans are always
difficult. You think because you build cities across the land that you are
somehow its rulers. Your perceived power is an illusion.  The first rule of
being a slave is to know your place. You will always obey, and you will
never speak unless addressed directly. You will accept these teachings as
truth, or live in pain every day of your miserable life."

      In the neighboring cages, the other human prisoners howl insanely. I
glare at the pen to my left; a bloated head with eyes spread wide over a
thick nose bridge greets me back. It's partially human, vaguely familiar,
but ghastly deformed. Then it comes to me: the man is Piggy escaped from
Soulwarden's destruction and now a slave like me. I wonder where the dwarf
Maven is, but I see him not.

      Piggy sticks his tongue out of his mouth and licks the iron bars,
laughing and grinning at me.

      I swallow my spit and try to get a good look at the brute behind
me. Is this what the tentacled-thing calls a thrall? He slaps me on the
back with rough hands and steps out of the cage to retrieve a whip made
from three long strips of leather and coated with fine hairs. The howls
grow even louder when he strikes; the weapon bites me across both
shoulders. Almost immediately I feel welts rise; the blood inside me
burns. He hits me again and again, across different portions of my back.
It feels like thousands of nettles are being rubbed on my skin and try as I
might, I can't get away.  I close my eyes tightly, but the searing pain
about my shoulders becomes a fiery inferno.  Somewhere between here and
there I lose consciousness. But I never scream, not even once.

      I wake up to a strange voice. I feel a hand clasp my shoulder; it
still burns from the angry welts. The stranger presses a pewter mug to my
lips. It's filled with cool water. I douse my thirst, but the cup contains
only a single mouthful and no more.

      "My name's Shar," the voice says.

      I look and see a man standing there. He wears the leather straps
across his chest and bears a tattoo of a kirin on his right arm. He's huge,
muscular, and stout of frame, outweighing me by almost two hundred
pounds. I'd guess he's nearly six inches taller than I.

      I try to speak but my tongue's swollen. "More water?" I manage to
whisper.

      He shakes his head. "Water must be earned. Only the thralls can have
water when they wish."  As if to emphasize this, he dips the cup in a
bucket at his feet and drinks deeply, throwing his hair over his left
shoulder. "The Master wants to see you."

      I try moving my fingers but can't. The tightness of the manacles has
cut off almost all the blood circulating to my hands.

      The thrall laughs. He reaches to his belt and pulls free the tool
that he previously used to tighten the bonds about my wrists.  He loosens
them slowly until I can slide my hands free. I fall to the floor almost
instantly, pressing my face against the filthy straw and wondering if this
is all a nightmare. I beg Tethyr to please let me wake up.

      "Rise!" Shar commands. He pinches me by my left arm and hauls me to
my feet. Eyes in the cells adjacent to mine watch on with curiosity, but
the faces behind those eyes say nothing. "Don your things. The master will
see you now."

      Feeling returns to my arms very slowly, and I slip my killsuit back
onto my back which is now covered with festering welts from the nettle
flog. The cool armor comforts my tender flesh.  Once I'm done, I follow the
thrall out of the cell with plodding footsteps. He ascends a narrow stone
staircase which eventually broadens onto an arena at the bottom of yet a
still larger central pit.  I glance upward to seats cloistered along the
walls and am greeted by the visages of hundreds of the purple-robed masters
watching a battle between a thrall wielding a sword and axe and an armored
Valion knight chained to a boulder. He has no weapon but his fists. A
single ray from above illuminates the death match in sparkling golden
light.

      So this is their sport.

      I watch only briefly, see a fist fly and a leg broken when it snaps
in three places. Screams from the pit tell me that the thrall has been
killed. Valion knights, even weaponless, are great warriors.

      I'm ushered past this spectacle to a shadowy place where the creature
that caught me now sits upon a chair of purple velvet. Then Shar kicks at
the backs of my knees to force me to the ground. The monster regards me
with lifeless eyes and dons the voice box. "You are lean of body, and I
choose you as my champion. You will fight sport today in the arena. That is
your only purpose now," the voice box intones. "If you live, you will earn
some of my respect, and I shall reward you.  You will find my generosity to
your liking. The rules are simple: you will not have any weapons.  Weapons
are reserved only for thralls. For this reason, you will fight without your
helmet as your helmet controls your suit." As soon as he says this, Shar
removes my helmet and places it on a pillow near the master.

      I watch for a minute while the combat in the arena starts
anew. Curiously, the purple masters exchange coins using the hollowed out
shells of abalone.

      "Who are you?" I ask him.  "Why are you doing this?"

      "More questions. I will permit it this once because you must be
thick-witted. You and those we found with you are the ones that invaded the
domain of the elder brain.  From the tone of your voice, I sense that you
expect mercy human.  I shall show you the extent of my mercy so that your
pathetic brain might understand and comprehend."

      At his command, Shar turns and leaves, striding back down the path
that we just walked only moments before. I wait on my hands and knees, not
daring to get up. The creature stands, tentacles writhing. They make a
hissing noise as they rub together. I note that this same noise grows all
around me; it must be their way of expressing mirth.

      Before too long, Shar returns with a woman I've not seen before. She
looks frightened and is taken roughly by the hands and forced to sit where
she is bolted to the floor by chaining her wrists to loops of steel driven
into the ground for such purpose. Immediately afterward, a plank of wood is
lowered over her head to rest on her shoulders. The creature places its
tentacles around the frightened girl's head, and she starts to scream. Her
eyes roll back into her head and her voice catches in her throat; her
knuckles flare white. "No!" she cries out.

      The thing, enjoying itself, slips its tentacles about her face and
moved them over her nose, stifling her breathing. I hear teeth chomping
through bone; blood flows in rivulets down the length of her brazen hair
and flesh. The tentacles fillet her flesh. They break the girl's skull into
pieces exposing the meat of the brain, all so that he can feast upon
her. She lives a few moments in complete agony, dropping memories with each
bite, losing control of motor functions, but the thing never deprives her
of the ability to see. Not until she's completely dead. Then Kierak sits
back on his cushion so that I can get a good look at what's just
happened. Her skull is bloody but empty; her brain is completely gone.

      He burps.

      My stomach seizes up as I stifle my own urge to vomit.

      "You will fight now," the voice box intones. "Yes?"

      I nod. Yes. I will fight.

      "Good. Perhaps you are not as stupid as I thought." Then Shar hands
Master Kierak a cloth with which to wipe his circular maw.

      "How is this contest scored?" I ask.

      Master Kierak stares at me for a moment as if dumbfounded. "Scored?
There is no score. All matches are to the death. Winning is all that
matters."

                                    *****

      I will post Chapter Eleven next week.