Scared Stiff

by Laura Baumbach, William Maltese, Josh Lanyon

  * * * *

  There had been people in the past who called it magic—but...

  There were those even now, in a world of increasing nonbelievers, who would have still called it magic—but...

  It wasn't magic.

  It was merely an automaton: one of the tricks of the trade, like knowing the healing qualities of certain herbs, and the aphrodisiacal nature of some plants.

  Generations of magicians, out to fool, had built wondrous mechanical marvels—orchestras, birds, otters, fish, owls...

  This particular automaton was in accordance with Xilium's Schematics for an Android Head. Delimar-Gloo had, once upon a time, thought to combine it with Grinwalk's Instructions for Construction of an Iron Man, but the chore proved too daunting—or Grinwalk's instructions had been intentionally faulty to keep the secret his.

  Gillium Head (for that was what Delimar-Gloo called his automaton), had become the magician's sole companion in recent years that had seen magic (real magic) in deeper decline, more gods and demons having gone elsewhere, more worshippers and believers having stopped worshipping and believing. Who could blame the defectors? The outcomes of none of the world's recent dallin-de invasions, and there had been many, had seemingly been influenced by magic. With dallin-de genocides on each and every horizon, it was little wonder that every man and woman trusted more in himself and herself than in mere superstition.

  As far as companions, at least sexual companions, Gillium Head was far superior to some of the sucking mouths of men and women come to the Maridian Cave Complex for assistance—when assistance was still assumed something the Magician Delimar-Gloo could tangibly provide. The very worst cocksuckers, of course, were those who had never sucked a dick and who, consenting to do so for favors, assumed their amateur siphonings commensurate with the best cocksuckers. Their's was the I may not suck cock but if I could suck cock I would suck cock better than anyone could suck cock syndrome. Second worst were those who, although never having sucked cock themselves, had had the benefit of someone, at some time, swinging on their dicks, as if their cocksuckers’ expertise somehow, via miraculous osmosis, suddenly provided each and every suckee with similar cock-sucking skills. Straight men, of course, didn't have a fucking clue! Straight women went about it too namby-pamby, as if too hearty sucking would damage the goods and/or too much licking would dissolve prick like ice-cream. Guys who liked guys were the true gurus of cock-sucking, but they had been few and far between. At times, Delimar-Gloo had been tempted to go out into the countryside to offer up favors to any gay man who would provide the magician with but one of the cock-sucks Delimar-Gloo so enjoyed and wanted. At such moments, however, all odds said that no gay was likely, any more than anyone else, to be persuaded to service any magician, no matter how loudly that magician might profess a continuing ability (hah, hardly likely!) to cast spells.

  "Fucking Gillium Head is just fine with me, thank-you very much!” Delimar-Gloo informed himself and the automaton, although he was the only one who heard himself speak. This automaton did not hear, did not speak, did not reason; did not have a clue as to what it did, and why it did it. A switch was merely clicked, gears were put into motions, vacuum pumps were activated. The cock was inserted...

  It was hard to tell Gillium Head wasn't part of someone whose body existed in another dimension, as Delimar-Gloo, thighs wide, kept the sucking machine securely anchored over magician's dick.

  "Eat me, eat me, stud-muffin ... eat me!” Delimar-Gloo commanded instruction. When Gillium Head's mouth responded with more moisture, and Gillium Head's cheeks fluttered more intensely against the cock shoved inside it, and Gillium Head's tongue curled to more greatly compress the slide way upon which magician's cock rode, none was in response to what Delimar-Gloo said. It was only the end result of what Delimar-Gloo had previously programmed into the small computer chip that controlled automaton responses. For this section of the session-in-progress, Delimar-Gloo had programmed for a harder and more forceful sucking, a firmer pressing of lips around the roots of the magician's burgeoning pecker, a deeper vibration of Gillium Head's throat in purr about the magician's impressively pulpy cock corona. “Mmmmmm,” Delimar-Gloo appreciatively responded and one-hand screwed his sex toy more firmly over his groin. With his free hand, he fondled his grey-haired testicles much the same way he used to caress globes of rock crystal to tell fortunes.

  So, maybe, head from Gillium Head wasn't quite the same as head from a real human being, but it was better than most, and far less bother. What's more, there was no magic to be performed that Gillium Head demanded, in return, that Delimar-Gloo likely wouldn't be able to provide. Sex without obligation had a helluva lot to recommend it. All Delimar-Gloo needed was just a few more minutes, his dick melded with this mechanical marvel of soft and hard plastics, soft and hard leathers, soft and hard plexiplast that resembled a not too unhandsome young man, and...

  "Ohhhhhhh, yessssss, yesss, yesssssss!” Delimar-Gloo said and gave his testicles one final squeeze to provide delicious pain in accompaniment and enhancement to the pleasure of his cum leaving his gonads and cannon-firing through his gun-barrel dick into the sucking orifice programmed to collect each and every drop.

  * * * *

  Glynen was fascinated by the light. Not only because it was the first he'd seen since he'd entered the Maridian Cave Complex, but because it had strange and hypnotic color-shifts from white to grey to light blue. It flickered enticingly in the distance, where, before, there had been nothing by way of greeting, friendly or otherwise, within these subterranean rooms, galleries, and tunnels, with their great rocky phallic spikes up-jutting from the floor and down—from the ceiling.

  Glynen had a torch bright enough when tested at cavern entrance but now hopelessly darkness-swallowed. More than once, he had been positive its scant illumination had indicated an uncluttered passageway, only to find a gauntlet of sharp stones. So difficult was his journey into the earth, to get him where he was, he was about to call off his little expedition and turn back, empty-handed and unenlightened, when the distant glow had clicked on.

  The beckoning shift of illumination continued to offer the possibility of tantalizing release from the gloom, but it remained such an illusive destination that Glynen soon came to suspect it would always remain too far distant; at which time, a ray of that light shot from its source to spear the distance to Glynen; walls, floor, and ceiling became cum-cream white, then shifted to pale-pale blue.

  Glynen expected the light to retreat or switch off. It didn't. It remained a luminescence to follow. Follow it, he did.

  His eventual destination was reached with surprisingly speedy ease. It was a large subterranean room with a basin completely filled to near spilling with...? Glynen wasn't quite sure whether the basin contained water ... or milk ... or cream ... or cum ... or ... Whatever it was, it was in constant flux; whorls of variegated whites shifted amid pale-pale blues. It wasn't transparent.

  He walked to the edge of the liquid, leaned over it, more than a little curious. He was tempted, to dip his fingers into the broth to feel its consistency by way of possibly determining its identity. Instead, his attention was diverted by the vague outline coalescing upon the surface. Was it his reflection contorted by currents in perpetual slow-motion, or...?

  He squinted to better see the materializing vision that he...

  "And who, I wonder, might you be?” someone asked from close-by.

  Glynen elevated from his kneeling position like a bird flushed from the bush by beaters before being pulled viciously back to earth by piercing arrow and cruel gravity.

  What he mistook for magical levitation soon enough collapsed him on stone not nearly as soft as it was beautiful.

  "And what, I wonder, brings you here?” the same voiced asked its second question.

  Glynen couldn't believe that the old man actually sat a rock not more than three-feet away. Surely, Glynen hadn't been so occupied in his silly need to see his own reflection that he'd failed to noti
ce when he'd been joined.

  "I am Glynen Gaval,” he said, “and I have business with Delimar-Gloo."

  "Have you, now?” The old man's laugh produced no accompanying echoes from the surrounding walls. “On what possible business could that be?"

  "I desire to know magic,” Glynen said.

  "Magic? You silly young pup. Have you not heard that magic is a thing of the past? It needs gods that have deserted it. It needs believers who now worship other things. It survived as long as it could without sustenance, and it finally died.” He opened his arms wide, palms upward, as if he'd just released a ceremonial dove. “Everyone knows of magic's demise, so when and why and how were you left out of the loop?"

  "Is not Delimar-Gloo still called magician?"

  "You may call a horse's cock a dog's cock, but that doesn't make it so. What is it you hoped for, then? Some magic elixir to incline some young girl's favors in your direction, or—” His sudden smile was lecherous. “—coax some young boy to be yours? If so, perhaps, Delimar-Gloo can be of assistance, in that such small simplicities are still possible, on rare occasions, likely because the laws of botany don't rely upon that belief-system known to you as magic and known to me as some-men-merely-once-knew-more-about-natural-phenomenon-than-did-the-majority."

  "I seek apprenticeship."

  "Oh, my! What mole-hole did you say you have been living in for these last many many years while magic was eclipsed and died? Not, mind you, that I necessarily bemoan its dying. It has died many times before, only to be resurrected. It is the way of things. Here today, gone tomorrow. Here day-after-tomorrow, eventually gone again. Such things are cyclical in nature, as is life in general. You are familiar, I suppose, with the Grunlinean Calendar?"

  "Of course."

  "Everyone to die at the end of this next cycle, come a thousand years from now. End of the world. Apocalypse. Extinction. A grand finale. Followed, by yet another beginning, yes?"

  "Yes."

  "You have come to seek an apprenticeship at a time when magicians, those few who still remain, are too busy unlearning what doesn't work any longer. Magicians, including Delimar-Gloo, are simply way too busy trying to cope with these latter-days to try and relay suddenly useless information to out-of-touch young men."

  The old man shifted slightly on his seat, stone visibly seeming to adjust to his repositioning. His eyes narrowed, just as Glynen's eyes had narrowed while trying to figure out the reflection—his, then not his—within the pond.

  "Then, again, maybe I have magically solved my quandary,” the old man decided with a wry purse of his lips. “Of what clan are you, Glynen Gaval? Surlulean? MacDilyson? Riin?"

  "Riin."

  "Certainly, then, your little adventure is for naught. There is no longer any way to save you and yours. That book has already been written. Like magic, you will die and need be resurrected another time."

  "So says you; maybe, Delimar-Gloo sees it otherwise."

  "Silly boy! Think very hard, now, and ask yourself: Who other than Delimar-Gloo would you think to stumble upon, here, within Maridian Cave Complex? Some other magician? Even in the best of times, we magicians weren't so fond of one another that two or more of us would likely hole up in the same cave. Consorting with the competition, don't you know?"

  "But, I know for a fact that Delimar-Gloo, not all that long ago, made the magic candle that killed our King Luuk Riin and his lover Marl Bas."

  "Oh, that old wives'-tale,” Delimar-Gloo pooh-poohed. “Such nonsense."

  "Not according to my father who was there."

  "Excuse, please, but it was my understanding that the room, with only those two men therein, was locked from within. Did not the door have to be splintered to gain access to the bodies? Rather indicating, I would surmise, a killing and a suicide; not all of this candle nonsense."

  "My father was Melick Gaval, King Luuk Riin's steward, and personally fetched the candle from the vault that fateful night. He heard the door's bolt being thrown. He heard the whistle of malimuk crstline and the howl of dolinian wolf coming from within."

  "I repeat: Was not the room occupied only by king and lover? Two malimuk fighters and a dolinian wolf somehow there, too, then disappeared? Poppycock!"

  "Who said anything about two malimuk fighters? I mentioned only the distinctive whistle of but one sword."

  "So you did. I plead to having mixed up your father's tale with one I once heard of two malimuk fighters and a dolinian wolf having been the price paid for the candle in question. Just showing how these ‘things’ morph in the constant telling."

  "I want to know the secret of such candle-making,” Glynen confessed. “Will you teach me?"

  "Even if the magic necessary still remained, not yet seeped into oblivion, to what purpose would you make of your acquired skill? I shall tell you exactly as I told the Warlord Den-Den Lou. Such a candle will not turn the tide of events as they have been written in the Great Book. We are all due for extinction, and soon: that is a fact. One magic candle, or two, or three, however many, will not turn the finger of fate. That I finally caved in to Warlord Den-Den Lou's request was only because his notion wasn't to prevent history from taking its natural course—which, as I've said, would have been futile—but merely to punctuate the inevitable with a bit of old-fashioned revenge. His family and that of your king had been embroiled in bloody feuds for generations. That your king's death-by-vengeance inadvertently delayed the demise of his kingdom was only because his son, Cal, proved far more industrious at war games than anyone could have expected. Even Cal, though, was but a burp in the line of fate already laid down, for where is he now? Dead? Where are all of his people? Either dead or, as you bear witness, exiled and suddenly attached to other clans who have yet to be dallin-de plowed under, as all who are not dallin-de will be plowed under."

  This was not what Glynen had come to hear. Having heard it, he was determined to make lemonade when presented with a lemon.

  "I may have need of such a candle for revenge before all is over and done,” he said.

  Delimar-Gloo aborted his beginning of a wide smile only to say, “Such a clever, resourceful, and quick-witted boy. Maybe, there just might be enough forces left to conjure one final...” He shook his head. “I think not, though. You're just the kind of complication, so near the end of my life, that I've resolved to avoid."

  "Please."

  "With sugar on it?"

  "With sugar on it?” Glynen was confused.

  This time Delimar-Gloo's laugh came with hundreds of resounding echoes reverberated to the extent that Glynen had to hand-cover his ears.

  When the cacophony ceased, Delimar-Gloo said, “What have you brought me by way of recompense? No magician worth his salt works for free. If Warlord Den-Den Lou did not actually pay me, as legend would have it, with two malimuk fighters and a dolinian wolf, he did provide a sizable sack of gold. Unfortunately—” Delimar-Gloo's sigh was an audible hiss that fled the underground grotto like wind through a flue. “—my death so near, I've less need for gold now than I did in Warlord Den-Den Lou's time. Although I could, perhaps...” He paused and shook his head. “But, then, I doubt a straight young man like you would ever agree to the ending of that. Undoubtedly, you have a fiancée waiting in the wings somewhere. Yes?"

  "What is it you want?"

  "I was thinking that, before I die, I would like, one more time, to have my ass fucked by a real cock. In this time when moral scruples seem as ridiculous as the rest of civilized claptrap, as we rush pell-mell toward oblivion, do you find that payment too much for the asking?"

  Glynen was determined to come away with what he'd set out to obtain from this magician, within this cavern. That said, his ability to plug dick up the old man's ass was more a question of whether or not Glynen's body would oblige. His cock, as often as not, had a mind all of its own.

  "Ah!” Delimar-Gloo had an epiphany. “You think your cock might not harden for someone as old and decrepit as I?"

  Glynen didn't a
rgue. How could he? His cock was no harder now than it had been a few seconds ago.

  "There are aphrodisiacs, having really nothing to do with magic, that will do the hardening for us, should you agree."

  Glynen was encouraged. He had never fucked another man's butt, only fantasized fucking Krydon, but it suddenly seemed doable. Delimar-Gloo was right in his assessment that moral values hardly applied at the End of Days.

  "And just because I genuinely like you—how fucking long, after all, has it been since anyone has just dropped on by for anything?—I'm prepared to work a bit of additional minor magic to ... Well, just give a watch, but don't be too impressed, because the magic isn't really magic but a natural phenomenon known in the trade as hypnosis."

  Glynen was fascinated by whatever Delimar-Gloo proposed. While the magician was right that few laymen put much stock in the mumbo-jumbo of times past, Glynen was an exception to the rule, because his father had experienced the night King Riin so mysteriously died. Melick Gaval hadn't been a man to exaggerate, and he'd known what he'd seen, and he'd known what he'd heard; he'd been there when the bedroom door was splintered to reveal two horribly mutilated bodies and no apparent assailant or assailants.

  "No way,” Melick had insisted on more than one occasion, up to and including on his deathbed, "was what I saw and heard that night a murder and a suicide. King Luuk Riin and Marl Bas were too dismembered." Melick had heard the distinct whistle of one malimuk crstline, maybe two; his mother's people were from the Beluein Highlands, and he knew a dolinian wolf howl when he heard one. “Malimuk and dolinian wolf were gone, though, when the door splintered. Dissolved. Disappeared. Vanished. To where? What of the candle, suddenly mere puddle of wax? What candle of such a size would have disintegrated so quickly?"

  Glynen was anxious to know what part—if any—the candle played in summoning at least one malimuk-with-crstline and a dolinian wolf. He was distracted by the twirling something, bright and shiny, suspended on the thin gold chain, that the magician suddenly inserted between them.

  "Open your eyes,” Delimar-Gloo said.