Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 19:16:35 -0700
From: Trewin Greenaway <trewingreenaway@cronnex.com>
Subject: A TALE OF WIZARDRY (jessan-14)

            JESSAN  - A TALE OF WIZARDRY Chapter 14

Copyright 2006 Trewin Greenaway All Rights Reserved

To learn more about me and the genesis of this tale, visit my website
http://www.cronnex.com/ .

I try to post a new chapter every Saturday if possible. If you're enjoying
the story, do let me know!

		   ooooooooooooo0000O000ooooooooooooooo

				Chapter 14


There was no moon this night, and the way was pitch black. I wished, like
Grysta when she came to fetch me as a baby, that I could have brought a
lantern. But on such a trip even a small light would be too risky. I would
have to stumble along as best I could, weakly cursing Onna for taking my
vest, for the wind came off the sea, and was damp and cool.

Even so, I found my eyes adjusting to the dark in a way that seemed new to
me. If I kept to a slow pace there was little risk, at least, of falling on
my face. I easily found the track that led up the hill and soon, once
again, I was above the trees, with Gedd spread below me, albeit as a great
darkness. At this hour light showed from hardly any window. This was not a
town where people were given to stay up late.

After a bit, I saw the flicker of a small watch fire ahead of me, and as I
approached closer, saw five or six sleeping forms arranged around it.
However, I didn't see the soldier detailed to serve watch until I was
almost upon him, alerted by the glint of the fire reflected from his helmet
when he turned his head toward me. I turned and walked directly to him.

"What do you want, boy?" he asked, but in a soft voice. "You know this
place is forbidden."

"Have you been over the crest to see it yourself?" I said, answering his
question with another.

"No," he answered, "although in truth, I would greatly like to. But it's as
much forbidden to us as anyone else."

"That's a shame," I said, "for it's truly a magnificent thing. Will you not
accompany me there? For I can also take you inside, something you'll never
regret."

The soldier shook his head. "Even if I could do so without being found out
- for if I were it would cost me my life - I couldn't break my oath to the
king, to fight and to obey."

I nodded. "If I might ask, what is your name? You're well spoken for a
soldier."

He smiled. "My name is Caelas, and I'm no mere soldier, being high born and
possessing hereditary rank."

I smiled back. "And I, as you already know, am the Nithaial Galgaliel,
rightful inheritor of Sondaram. Yet you haven't seized hold of me nor
roused your men."

"I was brought up well," Caelas answered proudly. "I know that the Nithaial
are above the king and that their coming augurs great change, eventually
for the better. I wouldn't lay a hand on you. Neither will I stop you from
entering Sondaram. But I can't accompany you there, no matter how much I
might wish to."

"Fair enough," I said. "But what do your orders actually say?"

"That no soldier is permitted to gaze at Sondaram from the top of the
hill," Caelas answered.

"Well then," I said, "the solution is simple enough. We'll bind your eyes
with a cloth and I'll lead you there by hand. Once we're inside, you cannot
see the palace any better than you can from here."

"But if my men were to awake...," he began to say.

"Caelas," I answered. "I am a Nithaial. They won't wake again until you
shake them from their sleep."

I turned to where they lay and raised my hands, immersing the soldiers even
deeper into the great inner sea where they now floated in their
sleep. "There," I said. "If you don't rouse them, they'll sleep on for
days."

I took his hand and said, "Just close your eyes. There's no purpose to
binding them." I led him past his sleeping men and up over the crest. At
that point the road was paved, and we could move without
hesitation. Sondaram glowed with a soft blue light, very much like what
Grysta had described when she recounted finding me here. Except now it
embraced the entire palace, yet so gently that it did nothing to drown out
the stars that glittered brightly above us.

I led Caelas into the entryway and let go of his hand. "You can open your
eyes now," I said. "Remove your armor and set down your weapons, for
Sondaram is a place of peace."

He nodded and began unfastening his sword belt. His fingers fumbled for he
couldn't take his eyes away from the sight before him. At night Sondaram
proved doubly magical, for the rooms were lit without any visible source of
light. It was as if the very air glowed, energized by the pulsating mass of
energy that swirled and flowed at the center of the great hall.

I removed my shirt and stood naked before him. "I'm going to bathe in the
force," I said, "which you must not even touch. But wander everywhere else
to your heart's content. In this place, time stands still, so don't worry
about the hours passing. We can stay here as long as you wish."

I left him to his undressing with no more ado, since I was already
preparing myself for the immersion. I stepped into the flow and let it lift
me up, feeling my spirit hungrily absorb it, letting it pulse through every
particle of my being. It tossed me about like a leaf in a stream as it
ebbed and flowed and I let it do so without struggle, my head fallen back,
my mouth agape, my eyes open but seeing nothing.

At last, though, I had my fill and brought myself down. Caelas was waiting
for me in his military tunic with its regal embroidery, sitting
cross-legged on the stone ledge that went around the room. When he saw me
emerge he stood up.

I hadn't paid much attention to him before but now I saw that he was
solidly built, with sturdy legs and muscular arms. His great mane of dark
hair was tossed back behind him, revealing his features, which, beneath a
short and well-trimmed beard, were finely chiseled. His posture was
easy.Our eyes met as I came to him.

The force still flowed about me and I felt no shame at my nakedness. I
walked up to him and ran my hand on the front of his tunic. "So Caelas," I
said, "shall I put on my shirt - or would you rather remove yours?"

Without a word, he pulled his tunic over his head and dropped it to one
side. I stood on my tiptoes, threw my arms around his shoulders, and leaped
up, wrapping my legs around his muscular frame. He then placed his hands
under my buttocks and held me up, so that I was free to run my fingers
through the great tangled mass of hair that covered his chest.

I had never felt anything like it before, and I found it hard to drag my
fingers away. But eventually I wrapped my arms around his neck and we began
to kiss. Unlike Alfrund, who was as gentle in kissing as in everything,
Caelas was entirely the warrior. Our tongues dueled for but a moment until
mine surrendered, and his took possession of my mouth.

When we finally broke away, I bent down slightly and began sucking on one
of his nipples, which were as firm and erect as a child's fingertip. As I
did so, I felt something large and hard rise and press itself into the
cleft of my bottom. Caelas gently spread the cheeks apart, allowing his sex
to press stiff against the most tender part of all. The sensation was so
powerful that my body shuddered all over.

I sensed a hesitation in Caelas. I let his nipple slip through my lips and
raised my head to look at him. His eyes had a quizzical expression, as if
waiting for an answer that he had already silently asked. I felt a flash of
understanding, looked him in the eye and, more shyly than I might have
wished, said softly, "Use me as you wish."

He looked back at me for a moment, then said, "In that case," he answered,
"you'll have to release me."

I did so. He set me down gently and went to the heap of weaponry and gear
he had left in the entrance hall. Out of it he plucked a leather wallet
that had hung from his belt, opened this, took something out, came back,
and handed it to me.

It was a small container, carved of sandalwood. I twisted off the top and
discovered it contained a smooth and aromatic salve, smelling gently of
tamarith and oil of cerelet.

"The Warrior's Friend, we call it," said Caelas, without irony. "It eases
chapped hands, soothes sores and scratches, and provides ease of movement
in intimate moments."

I scooped out a little with two fingers and began to rub it onto his
shaft. It was dark in color, so thick around I could barely enclose it in
my fist, and hard enough to have been carved from wood.

Intoxicated as I was from my immersion in the force, I still began to feel
qualms about inviting this monster inside me. But fear of humiliation is
almost always stronger than fear of pain, or few wars would ever be
fought. At least, I thought, the salve was extraordinarily slippery. I
wiped the residue in the crack between my buttocks and, nervously, reached
up to wrap my arms around his neck.

This time Caelas bent down as I did so and swept me up, lifting me so that
my legs clasped him even higher around his waist than I had been before. He
looked directly into my eyes as his hands spread my buttocks apart. I felt
the blunt end of his shaft in the crease, and moved my body slightly to
guide it, my eyes telling him when it had reached its goal. Caelas then
began gently but firmly working it in, pushing his groin upwards even as I
wriggled down against it with my buttocks.

He entered me, opening me wide. Some pain attended this, to be sure, but it
was nothing compared to the rush of sensation as he worked his way deeper
and deeper inside me. I realized that Caelas could see in my widening eyes
the effect this had caused and this excited me even further. I began moving
myself to meet his strokes, pushing down when he shoved up; clenching the
ring of muscle when he pulled back. My body was covered with sweat; my own
sex, tumid and quivering, rode between our sweaty bodies.

His quickened his rhythm and the sensation became so strong that my eyes
glazed over and my mouth moaned. I could feel the coarse hair of his groin
between my legs when he came up, the knob at the end of his sex pushing
against my clenched butt when he pulled back. The flesh there shivered in
spasms of pleasure and I began to whimper.

Then, with a final thrust, he spent. I could feel the heat of it as it
spurted inside me. The feeling so overwhelmed me that I did not even notice
that I had come, too, a long sticky trace that reached up to his chest.

Caelas reached up one hand and wrapped it around me to hold me and squatted
down and spread out his tunic with the other. Than he kneeled and laid me
on top of it and sprawled down on his back on the floor beside me.

I lay there for awhile, gathering my senses, and then I turned on my side
to look at him. His eyes were closed, his body relaxed, his arms spread
above his head. His sex, unlike any other I had seen, although it had
freely spent, had not pulled back into itself as mine had, or as Alfrund's
did after we made love.

I reached over and took it in my hand. It was limp but solid and heavy;
closing my hand on it I could feel the steady beat of his pulse. I gently
pulled back his foreskin, bent over, and licked the head clean. As I did
so, he reached one hand, closed it on my shoulder, and pulled me back to
him.

He kissed me and said, "It isn't manly to show such pleasure in being
taken, little Nithaial. You'll be much teased if you ever take up the
sword."

I smiled. "Do my wanton ways embarrass you, mighty warrior," I asked, "now
that you've taken your pleasure?"

He laughed, the first time I had seen him do so. It warmed his face, right
into his eyes, and filled me with love for him. "No, it quite excites
me. I've had my fill of manly men."

I ran my fingers again through the hair on his chest. "Well, I'm just
starting with them, myself," I said, "although it's true that you have
filled my need for the moment, both with your great staff and what it left
behind."

He smiled and wrapped his arm around me, pulling me against him. "Manly men
don't chatter away after sex, either. I find I'm starved for such
conversation."

"Unlike me, they're probably not bubbling over with questions, either," I
said. "To start with, are you a great warrior, Caelas?"

He sighed, and I thought for a second that I might have offended him. "I
think I'm brave and true enough," he answered finally. "But the fact that
I've been sent to this lowly station tells you that I'm not highly regarded
by my superiors. They think me troublesome and keep me safely at a
distance.

"Even here.... Well, those who have been brought here to find you are kept
quite apart from the rest of us. We have been told nothing and so have done
nothing, while they hunt in vain."

He cast a glance at me through the corner of his eye. "For instance, the
other day the Great Mage Orien, grimly self-important as always, passed me
on the street, and I thought to myself, 'now why would such as he come to
this place?'" He smiled bleakly. "The answer is obvious, but those who hunt
you are at once ignorant and uneducated and, worst of all, suffer from the
illusion that they're all-powerful. I'm happy to salute them as they push
blindly by, hurrying to their doom."

He turned his head toward me. "Now it's my turn for a question," he
said. "When you approached me in the dark, didn't you fear that I'd seize
you and haul you kicking and screaming to the Lord of the Fort? That would
have gotten me promotion fast enough, even an assignment back to
civilization."

I considered my answer, since I would be explaining it to myself as
well. "My powers have grown to the point where I need fear no man nor any
small group of them, such as you and your squad. I can't yet handle a crowd
or deal with distant attack, as from archers. But you would have found, if
you had tried, that you couldn't draw your sword."

"Really!" he said, and sat up, crossing his legs and looking down at
me. "You're not afraid of me at all?"

I reached out my arms and stretched my body. "Ah, I feel so good," I said,
"however much I may regret all this in the morrow." I smiled up at him and
then feigned a puzzled expression. "What did you ask?"

Caelas poked me with a finger between my ribs. "You're a fearless cub,
aren't you? So, if I'd attempted to skewer you, would you have struck me
dead?"

"Well asked," I answered, "since you did skewer me and I can't decide what
punishment you should receive for doing so. Perhaps I'll just have to
return tomorrow night and duel it out with you again."

"You'll find me well armed and ready," he said. "But seriously - as one
warrior to another."

"No, Caelas," I said, "don't even say that in jest. I've been brought here
to be a shepherd. I'm not afraid of killing, I think, and I certainly had
better not be. But kill you? How then could I learn who my enemies really
are? Discover that you, despite your uniform, are not?"

"I swore allegiance to the king, not Him," Caelas said bitterly. "And the
closer He bends the king to His will, the more my allegiance falters. Many
- no, most - in the army know nothing about the tradition of the
Nithaial. But they will turn against the king before they'll do His
bidding, let alone follow the orders of His demon lords, who are now taking
command of us everywhere. If this be treason, than the king will soon have
nothing else."

I pondered on this, then asked, "Have you heard of Gostranar?"

"Of course," he answered, "or at least its ruins. It lies at the heart of
the Wisferon, the Holy Wood."

"Caelas, when you hear that I've returned there, come and serve me. You'll
have no divided allegiance then, I promise you."

He looked at me in surprise, then slowly nodded. "If things continue in the
direction they're now going," he answered, "I'll come gladly, and bring
with me all who will follow." He looked at me softly. "You'll be a very
different boy when I come to kneel at your feet and offer you my sword."