by Adam Watson
Cupping him with one hand, the acolyte reached down and took his shaft in the other. His heart began to race, his breathing became erratic, and he writhed as the acolyte began to stroke him faster and faster.
Dray stared at the Oracle. He looked at her face and imagined himself kissing her sweet mouth - tongues intertwining with passion. He imagined sucking and licking her breasts, he imagined kissing her body, and he throbbed hard in the acolyte's hand.
The other acolyte was watching. He couldn't see her face, but somehow he knew she was. She poured a light coating of oil onto the Oracle's body and began to massage; first up the Oracle's legs, then over her stomach. Slowly making her way up, she could see the effect it was having on Dray - when she got to the Oracle’s breasts, she slowed down. He couldn't tear his eyes away, even if he wanted to.
This is too much. The pleasure was so good, but he was still so weak, he felt he could pass out, but the sight of the Oracle ... his beautiful Oracle.
The acolyte pulled him faster and faster, never letting up. He could feel the pleasure building up inside, and he wanted to cry out. He looked at the Oracle again and let himself go; shooting high into the air.
He felt tired now, so tired. He glanced at the Oracle's naked body one last time, savouring the memory, ingraining it into his mind and then exhaustion took him. He closed his eyes and drifted back into the unconscious realm.
***
It was a long time before Dray regained consciousness again. He was in a different room now, lying on a different bed and fully clothed. His new clothes felt soft, comfortable and clean - a lot different to the blood-drenched rags he was wearing when he arrived. How did he get in here? The last thing he remembered was carrying the Oracle through the streets of the night, wolf-beasts shadowing his every move.
He opened his eyes. The Oracle was sitting next to him in a luxurious, felt armchair; reading a book. He watched her for a while as she thumbed through the pages and wondered how long she had been sitting there. She now wore a green skirt and white blouse like many novices in the Temple. He thanked the gods, especially Tempus that she was safe.
He savoured the moment; the peace, the quietness, the sweet vision - he knew it wouldn't last. The Oracle crossed one leg over the other and thumbed another page, quietly humming an old tune called 'Marshes of the Glean' to herself. She had a quick glance over at Dray and was about to go back to her book when she suddenly realised that he had his eyes open. Dropping her book to the ground, she leant down.
"Dray? Dray, how do you feel? Are you all right?" Dray smiled, it made him happy that the Oracle was concerned for him.
"Oracle?" he whispered, looking up into her eyes. The Oracle smiled back - talking was a good sign.
"I'm here Dray," she answered, with a soft whisper, and ran her hand down the side of his face affectionately.
"Oracle?" he whispered again.
"What is it, Dray?"
"I-I need to know your name." The Oracle sat up, a bemused smile upon her face.
"Why, my name is Kayla," she answered. "But why do you want to know?" Dray was silent for a moment. Why did he want to know? He wasn't exactly sure, but he did know one thing.
"I don't want to die without knowing your name." The Oracle looked at him strangely. It was a rather peculiar thing to say, but in an equally peculiar kind of way, she found that she liked it. She looked down at the ring on Dray's finger; it was an ancient artefact imbued with power by Tempus.
"Dray, listen to me. You need to know that the ring can do strange things to the mind ..."
"Kayla," he whispered, closing his eyes. The Oracle watched Dray as he drifted back to sleep. He's smiling. He looked happy and content as if a great weight had been lifted from his mind. The Oracle decided he needed more sleep. He'd better get as much rest as he can, whilst he can. Once they left the Temple of Kara, who knew when they would be safe again.
"Is everything all right Mistress Faera?" It was one of the acolytes.
"Everything is fine, he still sleeps," she answered, with a big smile. The acolyte curtsied and left the room, and the Oracle’s smile left with her. The Karites may be the best healers in the world, but she knew better than to trust them. She and Dray had both been healed, but there was sure to be a price, and after all they had been through, the price was bound to be high. Tempus help us, she prayed, but she knew Tempus could not help them in this place.
***
The next time Dray opened his eyes, he found that the world still remained dark. Every time I waken the world changes. It certainly had this time, now he was seated and tied to a chair. Thick ropes bound his arms, legs and body - a cloth hood covered his head.
His first thoughts were that of the Oracle. He was sure something bad had happened to her as he could no longer feel the bond. Where was she and what had happened to her? Was she in danger? Was she dead? The thought that she could be sent him into a rage. He struggled violently; the ropes digging in as he thrashed about.
"Kayla!" he yelled, trying to break free, but the bindings were too strong.
"Your mistress is not here heretic," came a voice from the darkness.
"Where is she? If you've hurt her, I'll kill you!" He rocked from side to side in an effort to tip the chair, but it held fast - tightly secured to the ground.
"You're in no position to make threats to anyone heretic." Heretic? Dray's mouth curled into a snarl.
“WHERE IS SHE?!!” Suddenly someone had him by the throat and was choking him.
"I ask the questions, and you answer them,” hissed the unseen man. “You don't speak, you don’t talk, you don’t say a word unless you are answering my questions … do you understand?" Struggling for breath, Dray nodded. "Good … then we are making progress." The unseen assailant released Dray's throat, and he gasped for breath. If I get free, you’re a dead man.
"Now, tell me who you are." It was an order, direct and to the point. Dray wondered why he was being questioned in this manner, why was he bound to the chair … surely the Oracle would have explained what had happened to them. The mere thought of her sent him into another rage. What had happened to her? Why could he no longer feel her presence?
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH KAYLA?!” he screamed. A rope went tight around his neck, and his head slammed back into the chair; he desperately tried to gasp for air but to no avail.
He could feel the rope digging into his neck, crushing his windpipe, cutting off his breath. He struggled and thrashed, but his bonds held tight.
“You haven’t been listening, have you?” Dray could feel himself on the verge of blacking out. “I ask the questions, and you answer them.” Dray’s head dropped down as he began to lose consciousness. ‘THWACK!!’ A hand slapped hard across Dray’s face; his eyes went wide and his mind back to full awareness.
“Not yet,” mused the voice. “Not … yet.” The rope released its grip and Dray could breathe once more; gasping desperately, he sucked the air in hard. He could hear the man walking to the other side of him before he spoke again.
“You should listen to me, you know,” stated the unseen man. “I know it's hard to take orders from an unseen captor,” he continued. “… but it doesn’t have to be that way.” The man walked around Dray, circling him and bent down to whisper in his ear every time he spoke.
“I know that you want to resist me, and you think that by resisting me you will show me that you are strong. You think that your strength will cause me to deviate and change my course of action but know this … it won’t.” The man paused just long enough for his words to sink in.
“I will hold you on the edge of life and death. I will hold you between worlds. You will never sleep, never wake, you will know only turmoil. You won’t know peace, nor rest again until you have answered all of my questions.” Dray could feel the man grasping his shoulders as he leant in from behind. “So choose your fate wisely.”
Dray thought about his situation as he contemplated the man’s words. He had no doubt that the unseen
assailant meant what he said - he would torture Dray until he broke, and he would break … eventually. There was nowhere for him to run, nowhere for him to escape - even death wasn’t an option. He knew that if he spoke out, he would feel the pain … but he had to know what had happened to the Oracle – so he rolled the dice and took a chance.
“Tell me where Kayla is and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.” He braced himself for the backlash, but instead of backlash the man seemed to consider his words.
“She is somewhere safe.” There was a silence, a pause. Dray was almost afraid to ask the next question, for fear of what the answer might be.
“Is she alive?” he asked softly, almost a whisper.
“For now,” came the answer. It was hardly reassuring, but Dray breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t care what he told them now, she was alive, and that meant there was hope of saving her.
“Now tell me who you are and why you are here.” Dray sneered; inside the hood the sneer could not be seen. He had to let this man think that he had won. Yes, Dray would talk, Dray would give him answers … but they did not have to be true. On the other hand what had the Oracle already told them?
“My name is Dray Amora, I’m a Lieutenant in the Amalician Royal Army.” He could hear the man slowly circling him; evaluating his worth, judging him, assessing him, deciding what his fate would be.
“And who is Kayla? What does she mean to you?” Dray stopped for a moment, surely they had already gotten this information out of the Oracle. Something was wrong, something didn’t add up. He was bound for a reason, and the Oracle was missing. He tried to think what might have happened when he was unconscious.
“She’s a cleric at the castle, we ran into each other trying to escape the attack.” The footsteps went behind him, and he could feel the man looking over his shoulder.
“Is she a Tempurian Cleric?” he asked softly. Dray could tell from the disdain in the man’s voice that he didn’t think much of ‘Tempurian’ Clerics, but he had already said that they met in the castle … so what else would she be?
“Yes.” The man paused for a moment perhaps disappointed with the answer.
“So you run into each other in the castle when the attack is taking place … how did you escape?”
“Through the window.”
“Through the window?” asked the man, his voice full of doubt.
“Yes, we jumped out, we had no choice, but luckily there was a haystack below that broke our fall.” Dray could hear the man snort in disbelief.
“A haystack broke your fall?”
“Yes, we were near the stables, the hay was for the horses … we were lucky.”
“Hmm, very lucky indeed. Why does this ‘Cleric’ mean so much to you?” Dray thought about it. Should he tell them? Should he tell them that she was the Oracle and that it was his mission was to protect her? No. Not yet, he couldn’t tell them that yet. Who knows what would happen if this man found out she was the Oracle. He didn’t even seem to like that fact that she was a cleric of another order let alone the order’s highest power.
There was a problem though, what else could he tell them? He had already told them that they just met in the halls of the castle. His unseen captor wasn’t likely to believe any kind of story that they were romantically involved, but it was clear enough from Dray’s rantings and demands of her whereabouts that she did mean more to him than just a stranger that had run into him in the hallways.
“She is the betrothed of my Commander: Commander Galleon. He was with us in the hallways when we met. There were shadow-spawn everywhere and we had to fight our way out - at one point the fighting got too much and he was overwhelmed. He ordered me to protect Kayla and take her away from the city just before he died … that’s why she means so much to me.”
“Hmm … with your commander dead, you feel it is your duty to protect her now.”
“Yes.”
"I see, so you jump out of the window and take this 'Kayla' out into the city with you … what happens then?" Dray was wondering where this was all leading. I've already given too much away. He had a bad feeling that if he said the wrong thing it would lead to a very painful place.
"Out in the streets it was chaotic, there were people and creatures everywhere. All we could hear were people screaming and crying for help. Somehow, the horses must have broken free ... we both climbed up on the back of one and rode for the gate."
"Were there other people riding for the gate?" Who in the Seventh Hell was that? Someone else had spoken in a deep voice. Dray slowly turned his hooded head to see if he could hear anything else. It shocked him that he hadn’t noticed that there was more than one person in the room.
"Yes, there were hundreds of people trying to get through the gates, some on horseback, most on foot. I got shot off my horse by a crossbow." He smiled as he thought about the horse cantering through the gates, splashing hot oil around its hooves and giving him a cheeky wink on the way out. The fucking horse made it!
"And what happened after that?" Dray thought about the situation. They still hadn't told him where the Oracle was or what had happened to her. They hadn’t told him why he was bound or why he was being interrogated. He decided that was all the information they were going to get … for now.
"Someone was on the gate screaming orders. They poured boiling oil from the top, everyone started screaming and running back into the city ... when I looked up the gates were closed." The fucking horse made it! "I lost consciousness just after that. The next thing I remember was waking up in this chair with a hood over my head."
Dray was starting to tire of this farce. Now that he had time to think about what might have happened since he went unconscious one scenario held itself above all others.
These people had to be Karite Inquisitors; it was the only thing that made sense. He had fallen unconscious in the heart of the Temple of Kara, which was perhaps the safest place in the city. If the Creed had somehow broken into the Temple, he would probably be dead now, not bound to a chair being interrogated.
The Order of Kara was known throughout the world for their green-robed inquisitors; religious zealots with a manic-like devotion to their goddess. They were known to be fanatically devout and saw the other orders as blasphemous.
It was all starting to make sense. The karite clerics had found Dray and the Oracle on the temple steps where he had collapsed, brought them inside and healed them. Everything had probably been fine until these dog-loving inquisitors got wind of it. Maybe they found out that the Oracle had ties to Tempus. They probably stormed in, accused the Oracle of being a blasphemer and then jailed her when she wouldn't talk. Now they were trying to intimidate him and make him relinquish the answers. Give them nothing.
Now that Dray had an idea as to what had happened, he knew that he had to answer his questions more carefully. They were trying to find out something specific, and at this point in time he wasn't sure what that something was, but to him, it didn't matter what they wanted, if the Oracle didn't talk, then neither would he. If they've hurt her, I'll kill them all.
He could hear the footsteps slowly circling to the other side. In the background, he thought he could hear another person breathing. There’s three of them, I'm sure of it. The footsteps stopped, and that same evaluating silence greeted him once more.
"You're keeping something from us." The deep-voiced one spoke again. He’s trying to intimidate you Dray, don't let him get to you. Dray remained silent, and the silence went on for so long that Dray began to wonder if they were still actually there.
Three sets of footsteps walked to the corner of the room, and Dray could hear their whispering.
“What do you think?” asked the unseen assailant, the one asking all of the questions.
“He’s lying,” answered the deep-voiced one.
“What the girl said makes more sense,” agreed the third voice. Lying? Dray thought. What were they talking about? What had the girl said? He assumed ‘the girl’ they were tal
king about was Kayla.
“What do we do with him then?”
“We find out the truth.” Dray listened intently as the three sets of footfalls made their way back towards him, and the unseen assailant began to talk again.
"How did you make it back to the Temple? If you had been shot off your horse and there were Creed all around, how did you make it back to the Temple in one piece? It is quite a trek from the South Gate back to the Temple of Kara don’t you think?"
"What are you trying to say?" Careful Dray, they are trying to make you admit to something. These kinds of questions were designed to entrap.
"We are not saying anything. We are just asking questions." The man sounded friendly, a little too friendly for Dray's liking. "How did you make it back to the Temple? That’s all we want to know." Dray doubted that very much.
"Well, I walked back, didn't I?" The words cut the air with a sting.
"And this 'Kayla' did she walk back with you too?" Dray wondered what the man meant by ‘this Kayla’ and where was this all leading?
"I had to carry her. She got knocked unconscious when we fell off the horse." You would be the first to die, you arrogant fuck.
"Interesting ... so you were able to carry her despite all of your wounds?"
“How else do you think we got to the Temple?”
"He's one of them," stated the man with the deep voice.
"Silence!" snapped the man, the one who was asking all the questions; everyone in the room including Dray complied. He’s one of them? What was that supposed to mean? Then suddenly things began to make more sense. He’s one of them? It appeared to Dray that for some reason the inquisitors seemed to think that he was one of the Creed. What else could ‘one of them’ mean? It had to mean Creed, but why would they think that of him? It was pure madness.
"So Dray Amora, how was it that you were able to carry this ‘Kayla’ all the way from the South Gate back to the Temple of Kara when you had sustained so many injuries yourself?” Before Dray could answer, the man continued. “Injuries that included a cross-bolt wound in the shoulder; a piercing wound that enters through the back and exits out the chest; a head injury that left the back of the skull caved in; a severely gored throat caused by a large, fanged creature; and last but not least, a back which appears to have been broken in no less than four places."
