Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2011 20:20:02 +0000
From: Michael Offutt <kavrik@hotmail.com>
Subject: Deeping Lore Chapter 9 - SF/F section

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Chapter Nine

The Necropolis of Hurlothrumbo

The Black Dragon Assassin of the Silver Rose sat on the bed of green moss
trying to figure out how exactly he got himself into this. He wasn't
upset...the sex had been mind-blowing to say the least. One thing was for
certain, he couldn't have asked for better looking partners. One glance at
Dylan and his three Lieutenants more than confirmed that. His eyes, now
completely free of the rut and returned to their deep brown color for at
least a few hours, regarded Dylan and the three other knights with
child-like curiosity.  They were physically very powerful men with gorgeous
adult bodies.  Yet, they possessed in many ways immature minds that wanted
to play ball, camp, and fish and if given the opportunity, probably tug on
the pigtails of girls. It was so intoxicating, refreshing, and damned
adorable that he was constantly twitterpated.  And just how the hell did a
Black Dragon Assassin become twitterpated?  Kian had gone through the
entire experience and still couldn't answer that question.  Maybe it
started with the eyes that were windows, as it were, to the soul.  And each
of these men had such beautiful, loving, adoring souls that he couldn't get
enough.  He sighed, watching them prepare a breakfast from some fresh fish
that Ella Fravaugh and Henna had caught during the night. The four men, his
lovers, were freshly cleaned from a dip in the pool, laughing, and having a
good time; white corobidian armor sparkled in the fairy fire. And despite
their conversation, he could see that in all their minds the one thought
that they couldn't get rid of was how thoroughly wonderful it had been to
breed him last night. He was that special to them and just feeling that
intense emotion and joy and knowing that they took such an interest in him
was euphoria better than any drug he'd ever taken.  But now that he thought
about that, he did have to wonder how it might feel to fuck while high on
cocaine or some other mind-bending drug.  That in itself might be worth
exploring and Kian was never one to shy away from new and even forbidden
experiences.

Kian tightened the last buckle on his killsuit breastplate and once again
assessed the foreign feel of the piercing in his slightly swollen and angry
tongue. As he thought about it, Ephram crept over to him and crouched in
silence. The knight stared at Kian's face intently and found waiting there
just for him, a sliver of displeasure. Normally, Kian would have been able
to hide his feelings, but not so with Sir Ephram because of the way the
feral rut worked. And he knew that the knight very much wanted him to like
the piercings he'd done to his body last night and see them as an
improvement to his overall perfection. However, Kian really wasn't a
piercings kind of guy and honestly was rather proud of his body that he
really worked to keep in tip-top shape. He felt that the piercings added
nothing, except pain and discomfort.

"I'm sorry," Ephram said at last. "I won't be offended if you remove them."
He hoped Kian wouldn't be mad at him as if Kian couldn't read those
thoughts right out of his pretty head. The blond boy smiled at him, hair
freshly wet from the warm spring, and skin sparkling clean, albeit with a
little fresh Dylan musk. Kian looked up into Ephram's soft light brown
eyes. "I'm not taking it out," he whispered. "Or, them out...actually."

"Really?"

He nodded and then walked over to the Valion Knight whose expression was
one of joy. Then Kian caressed Ephram's brown hair with his armored hand
and gave him a long tight hug. Inside the fold of his arms, Kian felt
Ephram's emotions radiate outward from his heart. Sir Ephram Callahan was
profoundly in love with him, so much so that his hands trembled as he
rubbed Kian's shoulders with his gauntleted fingers. And, he'd been
validated because Kian was accepting his mark.  Ephram nuzzled at Kian's
metal collar with his sculpted narrow nose because it meant he'd accepted
his ownership completely and now belonged to him in the same way as he
belonged to Dylan. And Kian rolled his eyes in pleasure at the feel of
Ephram's breath, which was warm and brief on his skin around about the
neckline.

"Thank you, Kian," he said. Then he placed a kiss on Kian's armored hand
and went back to the others.

Boys.

Kian rolled his eyes...he was in love with four boys at the same time and
they were in love with him. Ironically, all that love just might kill him
in the end. He was now doomed to spend at least four hours on his back
every night and then he'd need a full eight hours to recover or he'd be
sick from anemia and lack of rest.  Kian's body was so athletic that before
this, he had needed only four hours of sleep. Every lover that he'd taken
on in the last few days had added one full hour on top of that in which he
absolutely needed to regenerate to function.  And whereas before, he slept
like an assassin with one eye open, now he slept so deeply that he hardly
stirred for that full eight hours. It made him vulnerable...weak. If the
wolves didn't protect him, he probably wouldn't wake up even if something
was gnawing on him.  He'd given up so much for them and there was no
turning back.  This fact terrified Kian, but he swallowed the fear and
accepted that the situation and times had demanded sacrifices from
everyone. Dylan had lost five men...five gorgeous men to whom Kian wept
inside. He didn't even know them, yet knew that he'd want to coddle them,
hold them while they died, and love them as long as he was able. It wasn't
fair that they'd gone to the great dark alone.  These were boys in the
prime of their lives that deserved love, respect, and admiration.  And
they'd been killed by the bastards of Zanda. That very fact made Kian so
angry; he balled his fist in rage.  No one...no asshole was ever going to
hurt his boys ever again.

He spoke about them as if they were his property but in fact, he knew
different. They owned him; they'd marked him and divided him up like a
piece of meat at a dinner table. But he didn't mind...he wanted to be a
piece of meat as long as they wanted to put it into their mouths.  In fact,
Kian had chosen to accept all the marks from the boys because just like
Ephram's, if he didn't, they would question why he loved them less than the
others. That just wasn't the case. He loved them all equally, Dylan being
the lone exception.  The pack Alpha, his boyfriend, was on an entire other
level and Kian wanted to make certain Dylan knew this with everything that
he did. He didn't want Dylan to be jealous which he knew might be a danger
if the Alpha at all felt threatened that Kian was not entirely his
property. And of all the marks, he took the most pleasure from Dylan's
because it came from inside the man that made love to him. The man that was
the only one allowed to sleep next to him in human skin and to fuck him in
the morning, if Dylan so desired.

Heath's mark on the contrary was the most difficult for Kian to accept, and
he'd spoken to him about it with soft respectful whispers while Heath
cradled him lovingly in his arms to keep the blond Omega warm in the early
morning. Kian was submissive to all the ice wolves and Heath made him
promise that he'd try it out because the silver-haired knight really wanted
Kian to be absolutely smooth for him. When Kian agreed, Heath made him seal
the promise with a long French kiss that had left him breathless.

Now...Dylan offered to use the ointment that he'd thoughtfully grabbed from
the laboratory back at Alsamarax Keep.  However, Kian politely refused. His
argument was that he may want to be able to grow out his pubic hair again
if things worked out that he could do so without displeasing the
sensibilities of the knight who studded him. It was a concession Heath was
willing to allow as long as he never felt stubble of any kind. If that ever
happened, then Kian would have to use the ointment. Reluctantly, Kian
agreed to this measure because the ice wolf wanted it and Kian knew that
Heath needed to be loved. If he'd refused Heath, he was certain that the
knight would have felt put out and less loved and this wasn't
acceptable. What Kian wanted was second priority to what the knights wanted
because he was Omega. It was his duty to make them happy and strong. And in
turn, they would roll pleasure on his body every night beyond anything
experienced by anyone. He never thought for even a moment that anything he
did for them wasn't worth it. Their love making was simply that profound.

Heath had begged Dylan to be given the honor of denuding Kian in the pool,
and the pack Alpha had acquiesced as long as he could supervise the
procedure. With trembling fingers dipping into the warm water of the
spring, Heath had wet down Kian's only patch of soft yellow hair, worked
soap into a lather between his hands and applied it to Kian's tense groin
where shallow veins left lines crisscrossed on the white skin and muscles
supported his erection out and away from his body, scrotum dangling with
the weight of heavy balls that nurtured a future Atlantean boy. Gently, he
lifted and nudged Kian's swollen uncut phallus to get at the platinum blond
bush, and with strokes of the razor against Kian's skin, quickly removed
all trace of the troublesome hairs.  Kian was left with a body that looked
younger than eighteen but with pronounced muscle tone and nothing to stop
the eye from following the severe triangles of the torso straight into the
severe beauty of Kian's perpetually sweaty and glistening cock and
balls. The appearance of him like this almost seemed forbidden because it
had been essentially done without his permission and the one that had done
it meant it to be a mark that identified Kian as his chattel. Kian cried a
little when he saw the hair removed, but Dylan held onto him from behind,
naked hairy body pressed to his back and arm around Kian's muscular
hairless chest. Kian wanted very much for Heath to love him and doing this
for Heath made the knight so happy that he carefully took Kian from out of
Dylan's arms and rocked him against his own chest until his feet started to
prune from being in the water. All the while he sang softly into Kian's ear
and stroked Kian's blond head. Then Dylan retrieved Kian, washed him while
the others went to their separate pools, and as Kian dried, he marked him
with fresh urine behind the ears, his back, groin, and feet. Now as he
stood there adjusting his killsuit which seemed less tight because he'd
lost a little body fat, he realized he'd never felt this naked.  It was
going to take him awhile to adjust to the fact that he had no body hair
whatsoever from the shoulders on down to his toes. But at least the wolves
were happy; he could feel it in all their minds. It was a strange thing
that they believed he was undeserving of body hair, but this was the price
to pay when sleeping with ice wolves.

Dylan allowed Crispin to feed Kian in the morning while he buckled on his
armor. Kian licked the fresh fish from Crispin's open palm, the platinum
stud on his small pink tongue made a dull scrape across the red-head's
leather glove. Crispin stroked Kian's hair as he ate; muttering "Good boy,"
occasionally and it gave Kian a warm feeling in his chest. Several times,
he caught Crispin looking at his armored feet and smiled; he found the
knights fetish amusing and adorable in its own way. He'd taken extra time
in making sure that his feet were absolutely clean before donning his
armor. That way, at the end of the day, there'd be only the product of a
full day's exertions awaiting Crispin's tongue. The red-haired knight could
sense this and just like the other marks, the fact that Kian planned to
wear his boots from here on out without pausing to take them off, even
during breaks, was proof to Crispin of his ownership and Kian's love.

As Kian donned his helmet and slid his sword Bloodbane into place to ready
for the day, one thought entered his mind. Relationships were so
complex...how on earth was he to manage four boyfriends? He decided that
there was no answer, and buried this question behind the mental wall he'd
built where it supposedly was safe from all prying thoughts including
Dylan's.

"I think that we should begin by exploring this city," Ella Fravaugh spoke
up, hopping along the dock area while Henna flew on butterfly wings next to
his right shoulder.  The pixie's large belly made her look out of
proportion with her wings and it almost made Kian laugh, which would have
been rude.

"As long as it follows the same general direction that we need to go,"
Dylan said, "I've no problem with it. It may be to our advantage as we'll
be off the road and out of the weather. The biting cold I know is agreeable
to ice wolves, but, I'm concerned for Kian's health and of course, you
two."

"Noted," Ella Fravaugh stated.

Dylan packed up the tent with the efficiency of a man who has done so on
countless military campaigns and his men moved up the dock and onto the
edge of the dark city. They wore their full plate armor which clacked as
they moved, helmets on, and visors down. In their primary hand they held
gleaming longswords, in their off-hand the ribbed and deadly Valion
gauntlet that with their strength could probably shatter the bones of an
Ogavran-Kor ribcage. Kian invoked the quantum sidestep and reappeared near
the edge of the city atop a large capstone belonging to a toppled column of
some primeval edifice. Other fluted columns still rose into the gloom,
almost forty feet; wooden doors ornate with strange symbols lay shattered
on the ground amidst pebbles and concrete boulders. The street continued on
past the portico and onto a central square a ways in and away from the
shoreline. The whole of the city was quiet save for the jingle of Valion
spurs.

Dylan raised a hand to signal his men to stay back while Kian investigated
ahead. They stopped where they were, crimson and black cloaks swirling
about their feet. Kian walked forward scanning the dark buildings for any
sign of life; alleys between the buildings were carpeted with webs which
hung like drapes from the rocky prominences of the roof. His boots caused a
dry dust to puff up around his ankles, underneath which was a dense rock
that resembled black marble. However, Kian knew it was something different
because Bloodbane whispered to him to be cautious.

The rock beneath his toes was Byssian Stone.

Kian crouched and examined the rock closer, moving aside the gray powder
which fled before his gauntleted hands in puffs of fine smoke. Byssian
Stone was not supposed to be able to be shaped...it was too hard. Natural
walls made of Byssian Stone were proof against all kinds of magic and bare
skin contact with the stone was said to result in instant death.

"Don't touch any of the rock with your skin," Kian cautioned. "It's Byssian
Stone."

"What's that?" Dylan asked him.

"Very nasty stuff," Ella Fravaugh stated. "It comes from the Beyond...in
the Shadowlands that lore tells us is the birthplace of demons. The rock in
this foul place is proof against fire, cold, and magic, for it must contain
the Godless ones."

"Godless ones?" Ephram asked. "What's that exactly?"

Ella Fravaugh sighed, "I suppose your religious lessons skip over history
courses in favor of athletics?"

The Valion Knights shrugged helplessly. "Growing up as knights we are
hunting and playing sports ten-hours of the day. The other knights teach us
everything that we need to know about physical conditioning as well as how
to read and write. But what we learn to read and write is basically how we
are divinely chosen by God and that women are put in the world to bear our
seed," Heath said. "You know, it's considered shameful for a woman in
Valion society to come to the altar as a virgin. It means that she was too
ugly to be impregnated by a Valion knight. Women who are deemed worthy all
make it to the Tower of Women by the time of their first blood where we can
go to bequeath our seed to them. If the ladies are lucky, they'll end up
with one of our children growing in their wombs that future husbands of
theirs can raise as their own."

"How nice," Henna said sarcastically.

"I know," Crispin agreed. "I think I've given at least four women some
children. Hopefully they ended up boys. Just knocking them up like that
spared them from the drudgery of marrying peasants...I think all of them
are nobles."

"One woman I knocked up was able to marry a Duke's son," Heath stated. "I
think if I hadn't, she'd probably ended up rotting away in a scullery
somewhere."

Henna rolled her eyes. "That's so chauvinist."

Crispin regarded her strangely and looked at the other knights. None of
them understood at all what she meant.

"Henna," Ella Fravaugh said, "it's their culture. It's been that way for
thousands of years. It's a male dominated society; if you're looking for a
female dominated society then I suggest you look to the Empire of Sulasia
or perhaps the lands of the Sun God. Honestly, my dear friend, do you
expect anything less from men that worship the God of War and Wolves? Think
about what happens in war...rape, pillage, plunder. There's a reason for
that."

She nodded, "you actually keep the women in a tower?"

Ephram shrugged. "It's always been that way... and there's more than one
tower. They have one in every major city in the five kingdoms. Without
that, we'd have no convenient means of release except with ourselves and
sometimes that's problematic."

"Problematic?"

Ephram nodded. "Our God and the priesthood stresses how important and
valuable the product of our loins is. It really is the most amazing semen
in the world, if you must know the truth. We're products of thousands of
years of selective breeding to be stronger, faster, and smarter than other
men with an emphasis on athletics as opposed to academia. The only race
that was more beautiful than us were the Atlanteans but they're
extinct—"

"—almost extinct," Sir Dylan Avery corrected.

"Sorry, present company excluded. But we're forbidden to masturbate because
that would result in a spillage that would be wasted. And we're also
forbidden to cum during anal sex because again, it's wasted semen. If
anything, a blowjob recycles the product of our loins as poor nutrition but
is at least condoned by the church. But the one blowing us has to swallow
or we commit a sin. Essentially, the only way we can really have
intercourse and not sin is to do so with a woman for procreation."

Henna looked confused. "What about what you do with the blond boy?"

Ephram's eyes lit up as well as the other Valion Knights. "He's the lone
exception. Omegas can use our seed and create what Dylan calls the
Heat. When we drink the blood, it makes us stronger so our seed serves a
distinct military purpose. We're allowed to have anal intercourse with
Omegas to ejaculation, and, as often as possible. It's encouraged
even...which is why one probably hasn't lived more than a few days...at
least that's what the legends say. But it's so liberating not having to
pull out, to have the activity knowingly blessed by our church, and able to
knock up the same person every night so you can build a loving
relationship. Oftentimes with women, it's a one night thing. Once they get
your seed they're taken by the clergy to allow it to gestate and you rarely
if ever see them again."  "So, prior to Kian, you guys have never had this
kind of intercourse?"

"I didn't say that. And I'm not suggesting that we are without sin because
all of us here have wasted our seed. It's just considered bad and it makes
us feel guilty when we sin against Thomas. But no one is perfect...we just
try as hard as we can. Some are just in confession a lot more than others."

"Dylan was in confession every week," Crispin teased.

Dylan gave him a dark look, but didn't dispute what the knight had
said. Kian suddenly found himself feeling a little jealous. However, Dylan
sensed that and gave him the puppy dog eyes that melted his heart and
without having to say it, conveyed to Kian that he was special amongst all
of his partners. The difference was that Dylan was actually in love with
him.

"Oh," Henna said, blushing. "I'm traveling with a bunch of sinners."

"Guilty as charged," Dylan uttered, followed by several "here here's," from
the men. "But none of our sins," Dylan added, "are in the grievous
category. My men are upstanding Valions to the core and I'm very proud of
them."

"Thank you sir," Heath said. "I'm proud to serve under you."

"Agreed," both Ephram and Crispin stated.

Kian had been listening to the discourse with some fascination, watching
the cheery-eyed knights banter with Henna about cultural differences
between obviously what the fey considered appropriate and what Valion
knights knew of the world from their upbringing. Still crouched on his
haunches, he fingered some of the dust and rubbed it between thumb and
forefinger. It occurred to him that it was incredibly fine...too fine to be
dust.

"I don't think this is what I originally thought it was," Kian stated.

Dylan looked at him from a few paces away. "What is it then, Kian?"

"I think it's ash."

"Ash and Byssian Stone?" Ella Fravaugh asked. "I don't think I like this
much."

Kian thought for a moment, recalling the song that his unborn son had
lilted to him in his beautiful soprano voice a few nights ago.  He said it
under his breath, more or less to recall its tempo so that he'd get the
words right, and it didn't come out nearly as pretty. "In twilight world of
darkness gray and sentinel of ash and fire, beyond door of chaos and temple
pray, beneath eye of crone, the tome of the liar."

"What's that?" Dylan asked walking up to him. His boyfriend crouched next
to Kian and gently touched his shoulder.

Kian turned his head and popped his visor open. "I had a vision a few
nights ago...umm...I think it was my unborn son actually, if that makes any
sense. He said in twilight world of darkness gray and sentinel of ash and
fire... Well, this is a twilight world, here and the floor of this city is
covered in ash which means somewhere near, there's a fire. I think we're
close to something important...it was no coincidence that we found this
place."

"And this place is what exactly?" Dylan asked.

"A place of madness night with stars and fire in the sky shining bright in
a time of terrible light," Kian finished. "Those are more of the ghostly
lyrics...I hope I'm not creeping you out."

He shook his head. "Hardly...not after what we've seen together. But, I
don't see any of that," Dylan stated, looking up at the cavern ceiling.

"Me either," Kian agreed. "However, keep your eyes peeled for the symbol of
chaos."

"And this is what, exactly?"

Kian drew a finger in the ash, "It'll be a circle with eight points to it
like arrows radiating outward or something akin to it. This symbol is at
the root of all the holy places of Zanda and forms the base of the holy
symbol of the Coatlicue that worship the mad God of Illusions." He gazed
about in the gloom, searching the stone buildings that held ornate windows
and marveled at the detail and craftsmanship that had been raised from
Byssian stone. "This city is incredible." Ella Fravaugh hopped up next to
Kian and stood there, ash circling up around his boots. Henna sat in his
pocket looking down at the stone with a fearful eye. Kian saw that she was
clearly nervous and winked at her. "Just do what I say and I promise that
no harm shall come to you."

She smiled at him and folded her arms under her double chin.

Kian lowered the visor on his killsuit and walked toward the center of
town, following the road through a narrow canyon of buildings that rose up
around them. By the light of Henna's fairy fire which floated a few feet in
front of Kian so as not to be in his eyes, he saw the town square come into
view. There in the very center was a mountain of human skulls that rose
almost to the ceiling. Byssian rats scurried from empty eye sockets and
left trails in the ash...these were large black rodents with razor sharp
teeth. On one side of the square was a towering statue of black rock cut to
resemble an obese satyr with the head of a ram complete with a pair of
colossal horns that depended from the brow. Henna hid her eyes; Kian had no
idea to what he was looking. The thing had no hands, but in the place of
forearms grew forth octopoid tentacles as thick as tree trunks.

"This is the Demogorgon," Ella Fravaugh said. "The most ancient evil in
Hell, said to rule the plains of Maladom and birthed from the waters of the
River Styx. He's the ruler of the Godless Ones and before you ask what that
is again, sir knight, allow me to explain before we get sidetracked in
conversation again."

"Please do," Ephram swallowed, "and I didn't mean to derail you earlier."

"The Godless Ones," Ella Fravaugh said, "were the races of men who would
have worshipped Inzilbeth who was killed by the terrible weapon known as
Deeping Lore. When this event came to pass, it drove them insane and they
became demons...powerful servants of evil who view society as a thing that
must be corrupted and destroyed. They invented evil, gave it life, and
their hellish deeds are recited by mothers around the cosmos to frighten
children and keep them in line. To see the statue of the Demogorgon here so
prominently displayed in the shadow of a mountain of skulls, gives me an
idea as to the nature of this place. I think I know what all of this is."

"Do tell," Kian said, visibly shaken.

"Legends speak of a place known as Devil's Finger—a repository of such
wickedness that it is said to be the entrance into Hell and named thus
because it's like a finger from the hand, beckoning for you to come
closer. That we came across it here and now and are wandering its streets
does nothing to ease my mind. I cannot believe we slept on its doorstep
without being disturbed. I know I shall not be able to do so again."

"Sometimes," Dylan said, "evil sleeps until it's disturbed. This ash
doesn't look to have been troubled in a long time; it could be that we are
the first visitors to this place in years."

"Or even centuries," Henna offered.

Kian swallowed pensively. Life without Tethyr's love terrified him. He'd
heard his God's voice once and it had warmed his soul so much that he swore
then and there to devote the rest of his days to his teaching, wisdom, and
guidance. How an entire civilization must have felt when they were suddenly
Godless because their deity had been struck down was unimaginable.

While he was preoccupied with these thoughts, Kian heard something that
resembled the rubbing of scales against stone. It wasn't close, but he'd
familiarized himself with the sound as there was a time in his career when
he'd taken contracts to kill dragons. He peered around in the strange gray
twilight and then made a motion to Henna to kill the fairy fire. The little
pixie waved her hands and the golden light dimmed and winked out. The other
knights cautiously crept forward and stared at him through their visors,
waiting for him to make the first move. He closed his eyes and opened his
ears to any noises that might originate within the city. Then, he heard it
again, coming from somewhere to the west. He signaled to them that he was
going to investigate; they knew what he was thinking only because they had
insights into his conscious mind. They all wanted him to be careful. Dylan,
in particular, didn't want him to go alone. "I'll be fine," Kian
whispered. "Just let me take a look. I've a lot more experience doing this
than you."

Dylan accepted what he had to say without objection because it was the
absolute truth.

Kian flickered with the quantum sidestep onto the edge of a roof a few
buildings down and peered into a side road. He saw only thick webs coated
with the gray ash. However, from his new vantage point, he saw a ruddy
orange glow rising above the buildings from two streets over. He flickered
again and landed silently on the shoulders of a colossus made of Byssian
stone. He crouched in the shadow of a huge collar shaped into a curved tube
with two openings that wrapped around the back of this thing's massive
head. The statue's possessed no hair. Instead three long tentacles sprouted
from the forehead and lay draped on the surface of the tube-like
collar. From both openings of the tube on either shoulder, a tentacle
dangled and wrapped around the neck. The body and face of the statue were
skeletal, the stomach was a skull pressed tight behind skin, and the legs
were cloven hooved emaciated things. The head of the statue was a bony,
shrunken thing; lips appeared sliced off. Bare teeth clenched in an eternal
grimace stood in the place of a maw. The neck was carved to resemble ripped
flesh, eyes were sewn shut, and hands were clasped over the body in
peaceful, death-like repose.

Kian swallowed and looked around. Forty feet beneath him lay an ancient
graveyard choked with tall nightvine; crypts and mausoleums dotted the
landscape. A dreadful white mist rose up from the earth and circled lazily
about the feet of the stone colossi. There were five of these huge statues,
towering monstrosities that flickered in the orange glow coming from a pit
of smoldering coals on the far side of the cemetery. There in that saffron
light were two naga. They stood in the presence of a strange door comprised
of nested stone rings that rubbed against each other as they moved and
whirled about a central point of absolute darkness. It appeared that this
thing was some kind of circular portal in the wall of some bleak
fortress. Walls of Byssian Stone gleamed in the light, smooth and
featureless, extending into the distance and rising from the floor of the
cavern all the way to the ceiling. The interlocking rings of stone produced
the sound to which he'd been drawn and they moved rapidly enough to provide
the illusion of a sphere.  The innermost of the rings had inward facing
points that looked like the tips of dangerously sharp arrows. The ground
underneath the strange door was stained red with blood.

Never before had Kian seen anything like this. The only thing that he did
know about it was that this kind of door might be a dreaded
chaosphere. Once, he'd killed a pedophile that preyed on young boys in the
imperial capital of Kandaleya. The man had been a high ranking government
official and had used his influence to put himself in a position where he
could pick and choose the kind of victims he preferred from an orphanage
where deaf and mute children were reared. It was the perfect hunting ground
for this monster because his victims had no voice with which to plead for
help. Kian recalled the day he found him hard at work in his laboratory,
and strung him upside down from the wooden rafters. Before slitting his
throat, the senator had told him of a vile invention involving seven rings
of Byssian stone nested one within another. It had come to him in a dream
for he'd been visited by a faceless lord, a demon of shifting countenance,
whose body was ooze and pudding but still flesh. This faceless lord had
promised him great power in exchange for an uncorrupted soul, a thing free
of the vices of men. The faceless lord had told this man that he was
trapped behind a moving gate designed by the seven angels of virtue.  This
gate was comprised of seven rings devoted to one of the seven cardinal
sins. They were in order: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and
gluttony. He said that the chaosphere was the door into Hell and that the
rings would only be stopped by one who had not committed a cardinal
sin. The irony was that in stopping them, the passage was open for those
that were trapped on the other side to escape imprisonment in Hell, evil
unleashed into the world by the act of an innocent.

His eyes moved to the naga. The monsters had the lower body of a serpent
and the torso of a man.  The serpent's tail stretched and coiled behind
them some twenty feet and was covered in suggestive marbling reminiscent of
stonework. Their torsos were powerfully muscled and wrapped with steel
straps. They wore bracers on both wrists, a chain on one arm attached to a
massive shield; in the other hand they held a sword with many wicked points
and odd angles to the blade. Their eyes glowed with yellow fire and horns
stretched outward from their foreheads. As they moved, empty shells on the
ends of their tails rattled together producing an eerie and terrifying
sound.

Kian saw eddies in the fog a thousand feet from where he crouched on the
shoulders of this strange monolith to the north. The movement would have
been well away from the discerning eye of the Naga who peered hatefully
into the mist but never dared to stray from the circle of ruddy light that
extended a mere thirty feet or so. He brushed his tongue against the pad on
the inside of his visor and increased the magnification of the low light
and saw on the very edge of his vision, a gate made of wrought iron. He
caught the glint of something shiny and looked to see if there were some
kind of purchase on which he could alight and gaze down with insistent
curiosity. He discerned ornate eaves coming from a long abandoned tower
that rose two stories above the cemetery grounds. Black stone carvings
formed the shapes of faces with mouths that were exaggerated smiles and
frowns.  Kian flickered and reappeared on the roof, holding the weight of
his athletic body perfectly still with the strength in his long toes. From
down below, just over the lip of the rooftop, whispers rose as if carried
on ghostly wind.  Carefully, Kian peered over the edge. The roof was so
ancient, a few chips were knocked loose by his shift in weight but he
caught them with his hand out of thin air and set them carefully at his
side. It was a tense moment and he reminded himself to be cautious.

He counted almost fifty men and nearly all of them were Timeron
Knights...the sworn enemy of all Valion Knights the world over. They wore
black corobidian armor instead of white, with cloaks of silver and white as
opposed to the cloaks that Dylan and his men wore which had been sewn from
stunning red and black cloth. He saw that every single one of these was a
razor cloak, the preferred weapon of the Timeron Knights who trained and
perfected the art of cape dancing. Kian had seen first-hand how effective
the cloaks were when wielded with skill. He'd witnessed a Valion Knight
disemboweled right through his breastplate and eyes cut from his forehead
in one single deadly maneuver. Now, this kind of thing could only be
accomplished if the ribbon sewn into the hem of the cloak was made of
cibrian metal and Kian seriously doubted that just anyone would have access
to this rare and wondrous material. However, there was one below that
possibly could have a cibrian-lined cloak.  Kian studied him fixedly; noted
that he walked with purpose amongst the knights, head uplifted, and was as
handsome as Dylan, only with dark, brooding features that chilled the
assassin to the bone. When he turned to speak to one of the men, Kian saw
his eyes were rimmed with lightning that sparked inside his irises. He
swallowed nervously because only one thing could look like that...a blue
dragon in the form of a man. Kian realized that this was Skellhaundar
Romax, and he was a Darkglory in the service of the Night's Daughter. It
was the same dragon he'd seen in his vision beneath the Blades Acuuarum in
Zanda. But what was he doing here on Vas of Kleef? And with fifty men in
this ancient and abandoned evil city?

Kian held his breath, conscious that all of his thoughts were being fed
silently back to his Valion Knight teenage lovers who had not moved from
their spots and were watching things unfold through his eyes.  He could
feel their hatred for the Timeron Knights rise from invisible places within
himself and linger along the line of his perfect lips. It didn't matter
that these evil paladins outnumbered them more than ten to one. Still, he
never sensed fear from any of them. Rather, he was awash in confidence from
his boys, as if they felt they could kill them all if only Dylan would
allow them to do so. It set his teeth on edge because it would hurt him too
much to lose even one of them to death. His heart had been entwined to
their fate and this troubled Kian because for the first time in his entire
life, he truly cared for someone other than himself.

"What if the angel was wrong?" One of the knights asked Skellhaundar.

Angel? Then Kian remembered the tortured angel in the cage...a beautiful
female whose eyes had glistened with tears of pride. Yet, her life had been
cut by unholy weapons and her raiment of gold armor spattered and drenched
with blood. She had not spoken in his vision, but she must have been of
some importance to be featured thus and now, the men beneath him were
speaking of her directly. What had she told them?

"She wasn't wrong," Skellhaundar stated. "This is the necropolis of
Hurlothrumbo said to lie within the City of the Demogorgon. I wouldn't have
taken you through miles of underground tunnels filled with savage beasts to
a place I wasn't sure existed."

"Darkglory," another of the knights addressed using the title of
respect. Kian saw that they were all exceptional looking men, taller than
he was with broad shoulders and armor that hinted at the muscled body and
sinew that lay underneath. He grimaced, imagining them eating the
dead. They practiced cannibalism on those that they defeated for it was
widely held by the religious followers of the Queen of Demons that to do so
would steal the power of their enemies to use as their own. "The child
begins to stir. Should I give the boy another draught of the sleeping
agent?"

"No," Skellhaundar said, "Just keep him quiet until we find the
chaosphere. He's the only one that can open the gate for us and we will
need his body to placate the Faceless Lord on the other side who has a
taste for innocent flesh. Somewhere in this necropolis is the fortress of
unbreakable walls guarded by two naga who have the ability to reduce living
tissue to ashes. They are keepers placed by angels centuries ago to guard
the entrance to Hell against those that would seek to trespass on this most
unholy earth."

"How will we escape if the child is killed? Will we not be trapped inside
the fortress for all eternity?"

"It's a possibility so we must be quick before the Faceless Lord realizes
that a tasty morsel has been brought to him to enjoy. If we are not done
retrieving the book by then, we are finished.  However, I would rather
suffer an eternity in the pits of Hell than disappoint the Night's
Daughter."

The Night's Daughter...Kian recalled the image of the smoky haired disciple
of the Queen of Demons within her immense throne room that overlooked the
blazing desert sand of the Great Norem Desert. Her countenance had been
dispassionate and cruel despite the beauty that lay about her features and
the skin of her face.

"Why do we wait outside?"

"We're waiting for the moon to rise. Only in the gray light of Hurlothrumbo
will the seal before the door become visible. Sarilor said that the child
must stand within the seal for the rings to stop spinning. Then, his flesh
must be cut by a knife used to sever the wings from an angel...this knife,"
he said, producing a blade that was as long as Kian's forearm. It was made
from black steel, with wicked carvings along the handgrip that bore fangs
and wild eyes near the point where the blade joins the handle.

There was still red blood on the blade...angel's blood.

Kian thought about the naga...were these the sentinels of ash and fire? If
so, then the Chaosphere was the door as mentioned in the lyrics sung from
the golden child's throat. Somewhere on the other side of that door was a
temple in which the long descent to Hell itself would be found. In its
chambers was the Tome of the Liar—the tome of the God Zandine which he
had previously thought was within the Library of the Living Books. This
meant that the wizard Korga was searching in the wrong place or was reading
the incorrect book! The one that Skellhaundar was after...this was the
original Tome of the Liar and somewhere within its pages were secrets about
Deeping Lore not meant for mortal eyes to see. The beings whether holy or
unholy who had built this place had known this fact; the one that they'd
tortured in the City of Dek Lek Thukar no doubt had suffered much before
any of this lore had passed her lips. What on earth they could have used to
wring it from the beautiful creature in the cage was beyond Kian's
understanding, but it had no doubt destroyed her.

Kian closed his eyes behind his helm and flickered back to his spot amongst
the Valion Knights who were crouched in the shadow of a mountain of human
skulls almost a mile away from the dreadful gathering of the Timeron
Knights. He reappeared and they stood. Having seen the things in their
minds that he had observed, there was no need for further explanation. Kian
lowered his head respectfully before Dylan. He wanted to investigate
further, but he wasn't going to upset his boyfriend again...Dylan was in
charge and he would defer to the Alpha for direction from here.

"I'm not going to see the boy harmed, if we can help it," Dylan said.

Kian nodded. "I won't go against your orders, D. I gave you this promise
when I licked your boot when you came through the hole in the ground to
find me. I'd a lot to think about in those hours when you didn't speak with
me and I don't want to be away from the fire of your love ever
again. Whatever you decide, I'm with you `til the end. I love you and
well...that's all I'm going to say about that."

Dylan walked forward and hugged him tightly and held him for a long
moment. The other boys followed suit, giving him warm hugs. Kian was
aroused in just this brief contact, even through armor, for he could smell
their musk floating in the air, emanating from their powerful
loins. "Alright. Men, let's go kill some bastard knights," he
stated. "Kian, you lead the way."

Kian smiled, shifted a little to adjust for physical discomfort in the
presence of these fine men, and motioned for them to follow behind him as
he wended through the convoluted streets of the dead city. Up ahead, the
assassin saw the first trails of ivory mist that originated from the
cemetery and as they walked up into it, the clouds swirled about the ankles
of the armored men forming fingers and hands that brushed aside cloaks and
tugged at their feet. The ghastly non-corporeal fingers felt cold, and left
spots of ice on his flesh that took his body a few seconds to reheat.

Kian trudged forward with a light step, instinctively searching out a path
with his dexterous feet that was free of debris and strange outcroppings
that might be hidden by the thick fog. The white armored knights moved
quietly behind him, the jingle of spurs from their handsome boots made the
only sound that echoed quietly from the stone walls on either side. At the
end of the road on which Kian traveled, rose an ironwork gate some twenty
feet tall. Large stone pillars carved with the faces of leering demons that
swallowed children's heads with the bodies dangling from mouths stared down
at them. The tops of the fences were sharp points of rusted black steel
shaped to resemble human phalluses that pointed toward a ceiling that
sparkled to resemble a night sky. Something in the south rose above the
graveyard...it was an eerie moon, but Kian knew that this was impossible
because they were underground. No, this was instead some kind of malevolent
being that had taken the shape of a moon that floated near the top of the
cavern and slowly, purposefully made an orbit across the faux sky.

And the face of it was a leering, naked skull.  Kian surmised that it was
several hundred feet across in diameter with eyes that burned in black
fire, pinpoints of blue forming the very centers of those horrific
sockets. >From between its teeth emanated a beam of gray light that spread
outward in huge conical swath that was probably a thousand feet wide.

"Stay out of the gray light," Kian warned.

"Why?" Crispin asked, a tuft of red hair dangling in front of his hypnotic
viridian eyes.

"Just do it. I was warned in a vision. The actual words were, `In the land
of Ash, gray light shun...'"

Heath swallowed, lifting his visor. "Whatever that thing is," he stated,
"It's no moon. Look, something rises from the mist under the gray light."

Kian watched in abject horror as naked limbs of bone, dripping rotting
flesh and tattered robes emerged from the fog. They latched onto the stone
outcroppings of graves and mausoleums and hoisted up skeletal bodies and
half decomposed fleshy things that breathed again in some obscene and
putrid unlife. Moans erupted from the darkness as a cacophony of voices
raised by the undead filled the air. From everywhere, Kian heard the
whispers and guttural utterances of the dead and these were not made by
those that had left life in a peaceful way.  These were the animated
corpses of vile, unspeakable men and women, of monsters raised by powerful
necromancy that uttered "flesh...blood..." and "we smell the living." These
were the damned souls of godless beings that had been murdered or who had
themselves murdered others. These were the rotten stink of humanity that
had drank the blood and consumed the flesh of the living. When they had
died, their refuse had come to rest here, in this forgotten place of unholy
power where Hurlothrumbo, the orbiting demigod above them, forced each of
them from their grave to do a wicked dance for his amusement for all
eternity. Kian swallowed spit in a mouth that had been left dry as
freshly-picked cotton and with trembling hands lowered his visor and
reached for the gate where mist roiled through the gaps in the iron and
swirled in eddies about his waist.


End of Chapter Nine:

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