Bound in Stone 3

by K. M. Frontain

  He twisted half off the cot. Kehfrey retaliated and smote the back of his head. Marun’s mind blackened, and as he moaned his pain and dizziness, Kehfrey took him. He cried out in protest. There was no gentleness. It hurt. It hurt so much. Flesh dry and unprepared. And then the blue of Kehfrey’s power washed over them both.

  “You lying bastard!” he heard Kehfrey curse. When his abuser plunged in hard, Marun felt nothing but acute pleasure. The blue racked him with every angry, punishing thrust.

  “Oh!” he cried. This wasn’t for Ugoth. This! This was for him! Abuse and hate and—! And love! He shook with another unendurably wonderful chastisement.

  “You liar!” Kehfrey hissed again. “You …!” He stared down at the scars etched on the sorcerer’s back. They hinted such pain, so much torment. And endurance. Implacable endurance. They were … exquisite.

  “Tehlm Sevet!” he whispered.

  He erupted. The azure corona expanded and lashed them both. Marun screamed. Soldiers rushed into the tent. Laughing cruelly over the sorcerer’s bent figure, Kehfrey blasted the intruders dead. With the stench of charred humanity in his nostrils, he rose from off the subdued man, a sizzling, crackling god.

  “This isn’t my tent!” he roared. “Where the hells am I?”

  Marun lifted to his knees. He gaped down at himself. He glowed! His skin seethed with blue snakes! “Gods!” he breathed.

  Kehfrey whirled. He threw himself onto his knees and curled his fingers about Marun’s intimate anatomy. The glow over both their bodies flickered out. There was nothing left of the surreal. Cold deadly reality gripped Marun literally.

  Kehfrey tugged upward slightly. “Up! Sit!”

  Marun lifted himself. He settled onto the cot, shivering uncontrollably. Kehfrey’s hands never left him.

  “Please, Kehfrey!” he whispered. And he didn’t know for what he begged. More of the pain? More of the pleasure that came with it? The touch was all that mattered, the touch and the sureness and the dominance of this creature that had been a slave, but that had returned an entity of peril.

  “You shit! I know you! I know I do! Why do you feel right and wrong at the same time?”

  Marun stared at him in trepidation. Wrath fired Kehfrey’s eyes brighter.

  “Answer me!”

  “I took you back from your lover,” Marun said. “You were mine before. But you left.” Tears once more pricked his eyes. He knew Kehfrey sensed his turmoil. The emotion reflected back toward Marun, wrapped in mystification.

  “Then why do I love you? If I left you, why do I still love you?”

  Marun shivered. He couldn’t answer this.

  Kehfrey squeezed. Marun hissed with pain, but his cock became a hard rod that mocked the lie of contorted features. He wanted this, however Kehfrey gave it to him.

  “Our souls rest in the same stone. You’ve always loved me! You told me yourself!”

  Kehfrey stared at him blankly. Beyond, Marun perceived movement at the entrance. His gaze darted over.

  “Tell whoever it is to stay out!” Kehfrey snarled.

  “Quei! Stay out! He’s not quite under control at the moment.”

  “Something of an understatement,” they heard a deep voice mutter.

  Kehfrey grinned evilly at Marun. “I think I like whoever that is. I’ll let him live.”

  “Please, Kehfrey!” Marun whispered. “I beg you! I have lived for nothing but this day! I love you!” Once again Kehfrey stared at him without expression. Marun stared down anxiously. And then Kehfrey was kissing him, and the fingers were pressing just so. “Oh!”

  “Dance for me!” Kehfrey said. “Dance!”

  Marun arched back and obeyed. Uncalled for, the green surged up from the earth beneath his feet. The luminosity curled around his legs and washed over the man above. An answering corona of blue erupted from Kehfrey’s skin. Entwined together, the fires danced.

  Kehfrey’s mouth settled over the sorcerer’s shaft, and Marun lost the little control he had left. Shadows filled the pavilion, his shadows released by his loss of restraint. Green fire, azure lightning, darkness, all twisted in the space about them.

  Their hearts thundered in unison. The power in the depths cried welcome. Marun listened to the deep call of his Dark Mistress and remembered peril. He stared blankly upward and chilled with dread.

  A price. There was always a price to her favours.

  “Never give her everything she wants!”

  Terrified, Marun grasped crimson hair and attempted to force Kehfrey off, body wrenching in an agony of repulsion. Kehfrey lifted his face and stared.

  “Get out!” Marun hissed at the goddess beneath. “Get out of me!” He pressed the shadows down. They resisted. He released Kehfrey and clawed at the blankets beneath.

  Let me feel him!

  “No!” He shook upon the cot. “Leave him alone!”

  He belongs to me!

  “No! Not to you!”

  You fool! Did I not just fill him with power? There is work he must do before I take him.

  Such a promise. Marun felt sick and all the more determined to fight his goddess. “Leave him be! Leave him be, or I destroy the army you have pulled together! I will take every last ounce of power in me and send it flying! I will forsake you! I will renounce you!”

  You love him, she uttered in astonishment. You really do love him.

  He laughed, near maddened beyond endurance, at that moment willing to throw away the gains of eight years of political manoeuvring and warfare, willing to waste it all for his Kehfrey.

  The power beneath the earth grew still as she considered this risk. Reluctantly, the goddess receded. The lights, the shadows, they all faded. Marun gasped with weakness on the cot and listened.

  Silence. Nothing but silence.

  He had won!

  He lifted himself onto his elbows, panting from the exertion of the battle. Kehfrey was on his knees, staring fixedly. “Kehfrey?” Marun whispered. “Are you well?”

  “Yes,” he answered.

  Marun caressed his pale cheek. “I love you.”

  “I know,” came the answer. It was filled with wonder. “I know it now.”

  Marun shifted until he knelt before him. He kissed him with all the love he had been forced to contain for nearly eight years. His effort was rewarded by a long, uncouth groan. Against Marun’s mouth, Kehfrey’s lips curled into a smile. Then the protesting stomach shouted again. Marun’s lips quivered upward. He pulled away reluctantly.

  “Food,” he remembered. He rose, lifting Kehfrey with him. He smiled at the man the boy had become. Ah gods, but he’d changed and he had not. He was Kehfrey grown and all the more desirable as such. Damn him for wanting to eat now!

  Kehfrey flushed. “A body has to eat,” he mumbled in protest.

  The sorcerer laughed softly. “I love you,” he said.

  “And I you.”

  Marun shut his eyes and sighed in utter happiness. He was back; Kehfrey was back.

  ***

  The terrible lights had ceased to flash within the pavilion, but Quei lingered, watching for yet more signs of uncanny battle within the canvas structure. He had caught a glimpse inside just before lightning had blasted his soldiers. He’d seen the flame-haired man using Marun viciously while surrounded by a nimbus of arcing azure. Then the flying corpse of one of his men had thrust him backward from the entrance. And just now, he had listened to Marun shout as if to the captive, but the words hadn’t made sense. The sorcerer’s last utterances had threatened the destruction of the army.

  Briefly, Quei had been filled with hope and fear at the same time. But now there was silence, and he stared at the canvas, wondering what happened within the sorcerer’s pavilion, hoping the Shadow Master was dead or at least burnt to ashes.

  “Gods!” he whispered a plea. What had Marun brought into this camp? Whatever the slight man was, Marun wasn’t in control of him, not like with his other slaves.

  The flap was thrust upward. The sorcerer peer
ed out, dressed only in trousers. He seemed less cold somehow, less evil, but definitely not dead, not even close. Quei had never seen the son of a bitch look healthier.

  “Quei?” the Shadow Master inquired.

  “I have soldiers to bury!” the disappointed king snarled in his own tongue.

  “Leave them. I’ll will them to the others,” the sorcerer responded in Stohar, his accent light.

  “No! No more ghouls! No more of mine!”

  Visibly, Marun grew cold again. Quei tensed for the confrontation.

  “Ghouls?” a voice called from within the tent. “Not ghouls! I hate ghouls! They stink!”

  Quei blinked. “He speaks Stohar?”

  “He speaks everything!” Marun spat. He turned toward Kehfrey. “This is not your decision.”

  This curt admonition garnered a dramatic response. A tight orb of blue whizzed above Marun’s head. It burnt a round hole in the canvas and sizzled up into the sky. Quei stared up in dismay. The orb flew skyward an immense distance before it faded out. Presently, the stunned monarch realized shouting issued from the tent. He turned, filled to his marrow with awe.

  “Not my decision? I can put down whatever you raise from the dead! If I say no more ghouls, you say yes!” the voice blasted.

  Marun stared back at the unseen captive. “Yes,” he said.

  Quei gaped. This slave was no slave at all!

  He stomped forward and thrust the flap higher. The captive stood naked before the cot. Cleaned up, he was more obviously beautiful. The metallic hair was a burnished crown on his head. Quei once again thought of elves of similar coloration. If the man hadn’t those utterly human hazel eyes, he would have named him half elven. His slight stature certainly fit the species, although he seemed a little taller than most males of the breed.

  “Hello,” the stranger said. His nudity apparently didn’t concern him. He made no effort to hide it, which was such a perfectly elven attitude that Quei had to wonder if it were possible for a half elf to have a dull eye colouration.

  “Hello,” Quei said back. “I’ll just be getting the bodies dragged out.”

  “Fine,” came the answer. “I don’t suppose you could find clothes my size, whoever you are?”

  “I am the Stohar king!” Quei barked, insulted.

  “Oh. Well. Never mind, then. Nakedness doesn’t seem to offend the Stohar king,” arrived a sarcastic response.

  Quei’s lips quivered upward momentarily. “I’ll see what I can do,” he offered.

  “Thank you,” the young man replied.

  Definitely not an elf. Elves were never so polite to humans. Quei looked at the sorcerer. Marun was glaring at him. “Oh, be calm! I prefer women!”

  “Jealous bastard, isn’t he?” the stranger remarked. “I prefer women too. Didn’t seem to do me much good for some reason, though I can’t seem to remember why this is so.”

  Quei regarded the man in bemusement. “You prefer women?”

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “Liar!” Marun snarled.

  His captive laughed. “Liar I might be, but not about that.”

  “You don’t prefer women,” Marun insisted.

  “Bugger off! Or better yet, come over here and I’ll bugger you for you.”

  “Shut up, Kehfrey!” Apparently defeated, Marun stomped to the rear of the tent. He drew out a tunic from his trunk and threw it on. Quei stared at his scarred back until the cloth hid the sight.

  “Are you changing your mind?” the stranger goaded the sorcerer. “Do you want to send me back to this unremembered lover of mine?”

  Marun ignored him. Damn him! He still had a sharp tongue. And once more Quei eyed him with too much interest. “The bodies!” Marun reminded angrily.

  “Oh! Yes,” Quei muttered. He waved soldiers forward.

  “Yes. Get rid of them before I eat them,” the crimson-haired man said. “I’m hungry enough to consider trying human flesh.” He shook all over. “Gods! That’s disgusting!”

  He subsequently glared in an expectant manner at Marun. Marun stomped back to the entrance, avoiding the soldiers milling around the bodies. He shouted for his manservant.

  “I’m here!” the servant cried. “We are blocked off at the moment! We have food!”

  Marun cursed, thumped back to his trunk and threw trousers at Kehfrey.

  “Get dressed!”

  “Better to wash first. Been somewhere. Remember?”

  Marun flushed. Kehfrey grinned. “Didn’t expect that, did you?” he taunted. “You were perhaps thinking taller meant topside?”

  “Shut up!”

  “It’s funny. Somehow I remember you larger. Why is that? Have you shrunk?”

  “I knew you as a child.”

  “You as a child or me as a child?”

  “Stop it, Kehfrey!”

  “You’re not used to being teased, are you?”

  “Gods!” Marun hissed. How had he forgotten this?

  The dead bodies were carted off. Quei yet remained in the entrance, watching in fascination. He had seen nothing like this. Marun was almost helpless against this single man.

  Marun caught his stare and glowered. “Go away, Quei!”

  “Let him stay,” Kehfrey differed. “He’s interesting. He’s got one cruddy big scar on his forehead. How’d you get that?”

  The servants pressed past the king and settled trays of food on the table. Kehfrey observed them a moment, and then his eyes flashed enquiringly back to the Stohar monarch.

  “I fought a troll in my younger days,” Quei said. “Clubbed me in the head and near took off my face. A monk managed to get to me before I died. Couldn’t quite get rid of the scar.”

  “Troll …!” Kehfrey said. He frowned in vexation. “That—!”

  “Kehfrey!” Marun distracted him. “Go wash. The food is here.”

  The servants had fled the tent. Kehfrey walked toward the washstand and poured water out of the pitcher. He washed his privates, but his brows remained furrowed with worry. He didn’t like this not remembering. It frustrated him. It filled him with dread.

  He turned. Marun was just behind, there to thrust the trousers at him a second time. Kehfrey sighed and pulled them on.

  They were too large. He tightened the laces as much as he could. He crossed to the table, but after two steps, the trousers began to slip off his hips and the legs to drag. He paused to pull the garment up again and then froze, an expression of dismay solidifying over his features. “Why is everything so familiar?” he whispered down at the garment. “And so … wrong?”

  King Quei stared at him. Marun stared at Quei.

  “Quei,” Marun called. His voice was deceptively soft. The king turned to him. “Go!”

  Quei knew the sorcerer wouldn’t brook further interference. He dropped the flap and left. He’d distanced himself from the pavilion by only a hundred feet when the water witch stepped out from behind a tent. He halted warily. “What do you want?”

  “The boy? Is he under control?”

  “Not exactly.”

  She squinted at him. “What does he remember?”

  “Not much apparently. What did Marun do to him?”

  “He confused him. He set his new lover’s vibration inside himself, the man’s taint, an echo of his essence.”

  “I see,” Quei said. A man’s taint. “He said he preferred women. Yet he has at least two male lovers.”

  “He does prefer women,” the witch said. She laughed stridently over his disbelief.

  “Why do you say that?” he asked.

  “Because he dances for the mother of them all,” she whispered conspiratorially. “Never let him dance for you, king. You will prefer him too after. No one can resist him. No one!” She laughed again and walked away.

  “What the hells?” He stared after her and then called for attention. “Wait!” He rushed to catch up. “Wait!” She paused and looked back. He almost flinched away. She radiated evil. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded, hiding
his apprehension.

  “Nothing! Nothing! Forget it!” she said impatiently.

  “Will Marun answer me?”

  She laughed. “He’s stupider than you! The Great Mother caught his mind in a vice years ago.” She turned dismissively.

  This time Quei watched her stalk off without protesting. “The mother of them all,” he repeated. “What does she mean by that?” He stared back at Marun’s tent. “Who is that man?”

  The witch knew. But she wasn’t telling.

  ***

  Marun would have tarried the entire day in the tent, but Kehfrey refused to remain confined. After two hours of frantic lovemaking on the sorcerer’s part, Kehfrey shoved the man off. “Get me some gods busted clothing that fits!”

  “Kehfrey! Please!”

  Marun pressed forward. Kehfrey stepped sideways.

  “You’ve had enough.”

  Marun followed after him. “No! I’ll never have enough of you!”

  Kehfrey’s fury made of his eyes a bright threat. “Leave off, or I’ll knock you cold and walk from this tent without you.”

  Marun backed off and glowered. “I’ll get you the clothes,” he said resentfully.

  Kehfrey heaved an impatient breath. “I love you! You know that. We have time for this.”

  Marun laughed derisively. Time! He’d lost almost eight years of it. Thinking this, he wanted to seize Kehfrey and hurt him.

  “The clothing!” Kehfrey reminded flatly. He had felt the lash of anger and lust. He was having none of it, at least not now.

  Marun stomped away to wash himself. Kehfrey followed and did the same. The sorcerer could not resist looking as Kehfrey handled himself. After a moment, he averted his gaze. “You could at least have waited for me to finish, you tease.”

  Kehfrey grinned, but the smile faltered and became a confused frown. Marun hurried to distract him with a kiss. Kehfrey shoved him away. “Get off, I said!”

  “Fine!” Marun averted his face before Kehfrey saw the dread in his eyes. He tamped it down in his psyche. Everything reminded Kehfrey of King Ugoth. Gods! He had to be so careful. The potion was working, but it wasn’t.