The Mage

In the Beginning…

Galreich moved through the ancient forest, the canopy swaying in the cold winds from the north seas. She was in search of the one. Her time was near, and she relished the relief it would bring her after so long on this earth. She came from the south following the star in the north skies as directed by the stones. Tightening the robe around her old thin frame, she moved over fallen tree, across shallow stream, and over the undulating terrain. She avoided most people, still so primitive, their language barely formed, so rudimentary in its descriptions, she wondered how they would survive when the time came for conquerors to arrive from a foreign land. When she knew not, but she knew the time would come and everything would change. 

Uttering small incantations, Galreich pushed the darkening night away from her, illuminating her immediate surroundings. It was such simple magic, one of the oldest, she thought nothing of it. But she knew its danger. To be found a witch would bring certain death. Those not cursed with this magic would always fear it, and what humans feared, they destroyed.

Galreich was of such age she no longer remembered the number of cycles the earth had made around its star. Most could not comprehend it, even getting it backwards, thinking the star circled the earth. Such foolishness, such ignorance, she longed for the day of enlightenment in humanity. Stepping across a stream, her leather boot interrupting the barely moving waters, she tried to remember, knowing the last time she had considered her day of birth, the day after the harvest moon, she had been nearly two hundred and twenty cycles. It was so long ago. She uttered a coarse phrase at her frustration, for the magic gave one a long life, far too long in her estimation. But she neared the end of hers, for she saw her last minutes in her dreams. It had been so peaceful, how she would lay at rest and just cease.

But first she needed someone to carry on the magic, one destined for the realm of magic and trained to control it. She had trained so many young girls over the years, but she remembered each one. Each having their own talents, their own strengths, and weaknesses. Some had been such a rewarding experience. To see them grow and learn the craft. But there had been two that had been frightening disappointments. Two who had abused their talents, used them for personal gain and power. One met an end of unspeakable horror, the other crossed the eastern sea and entered the old forest of the foreign land.

Mothol and Braan had been their names, Braan the one who escaped. But Galreich considered those that follow her teachings, those that are still out there, doing the good works, guiding events so they unfold as destined. Caong, Doaven, Maer, Brazn, Cwer, Fenature, and Feure. Seven who made all her efforts worthwhile. But there was to be one more. One that she had failed to see until only recently. It was still unclear, this final pupil, the one who was to be her last.

 

 

Another day was about to begin, the eastern sky beginning to glow with a new sunrise. Galreich came to the edge of the forest and stood by a stunted twisted tree that fought for purchase at the edge of the rocky break in the ground and looked down at the encampment of one of the tribes that wandered this region. Thin trails of smoke from smoldering fires and she could smell it, these remnants of fires from the day before, mixed with the scent of animals and unbathed humans. Scanning the temporary structures made of limb and hide, the corralled animals in makeshift pens, and meat from recent hunts hung to cure, she suddenly felt it, the presence of one who had the gift. It was strong but alien to her. Something about this young girl was wrong.

She knew this people, the distrust they held toward anyone not of their tribe and the danger it posed to her, especially if they were to discover she was a witch. She eased down the rocky slope, working around large boulders and small rocks until she was close enough to see clearly all that was within the encampment. The sleeping soldiers who were supposed to be on patrol, the movement of the animals in their makeshift pens, and off to one side, sitting on a rock staring at the eastern sky waiting for sunrise, a young girl. She had hair long, almost to her buttocks, and her robe fit loosely around her thin frame. Galreich tried to read her, for she was drawn to the young girl. There was magic there, ready to be nourished, cultivated, until the girl would become a witch of great power.

But something wasn’t right. The power animating from the young girl was different, had its own pattern, one alien to Galreich. She watched the young girl, wondering what was wrong, why her reading of the girl wasn’t as it had been with the others. Maybe she just needed to be closer, despite knowing there was something else at play. Moving silently across the open ground between the rocky slope and the lone rock the girl sat upon, she closed the distance between them until close enough she heard the girl sigh, then uttered something in her native tongue.

“Child; do not be afraid,” Galreich whispered.

But it was Galreich that became afraid, for the child turned and faced her and she realized her mistake. They eyed each other for a long time, then Galreich heard the child call to her, but not with words, for there was no movement of the mouth. She heard the child within.

You came. You came. You came.

“Yes,” Galreich whispered.

The child turned on the rock and slid off to the ground, and what Galreich had believed to be a girl stood before her, a young boy, not yet entered the change.

I’m not what you seek?

You are not what I expected, but you are who I seek. Galreich replied in the same manner of thought and saw the young boy smile. Will you come with me?

I’ve been waiting for you for a long time. I’ll go where you go.

The boy stepped closer and held out his right hand. Galreich took it, feeling the warmth of it.

We must go before anyone discovers us.

Galreich headed toward the rocky slope and the old forest above it and the boy kept pace with her. When she looked over, he would smile back, and when she had to negotiate through a narrow passage, he fell behind her, following the path she took.

 

 

Galreich had never heard of such. A boy. Not a young girl, but a boy. No prophecy or ancient history had ever mentioned such a thing. But she felt his magic, this inner power waiting to be brought forth. She questioned herself, wondered if she should do such a thing, train a boy in the ways of magic. She wasn’t even sure what to call him. A witch? Wasn’t that feminine in nature, for all that came before were female, not male. Was she being prejudiced, for nothing said a boy couldn’t be magical. She considered the old languages, the words to describe those with magic. None seem to fit the boy by her side. But a word came to her, one she had never heard before. Mage. The boy will be known not as a witch, but as a mage.

Was he the first? She thought so, but that seemed such a conceit, she dared not think it again. But the first thing she had to do was get the boy to some place safe, away from his tribe and from all the others of the country. She guided the boy through the forest, heading back to the south, away from the harsh northernly winds and away from the boy’s tribe. She knew he was orphaned, one used by the tribe for menial work, one considered an outcast for it was an omen to lose one’s parents. But he had value, the labor of watching the animals, and they would not want to lose him. A search was no doubt underway. She could sense it, and as she led the boy over a stream, she uttered incantations meant to confuse and deceive those in pursuit. She would lead them to the east and west of their path, send them in circles until they eventually gave up their pursuit.

Circling a large rock outcropping, they came upon a small pool of water, and Galreich led the boy to a flat grassy area to one side of it and sat down.

What is your name?

Dree.

Dree. A lovely name. Dree, I’m Galreich.

I know.

 

 

Dree had been ten when Galreich found him. Just a young boy, so very young, younger than the girls she had taken under her care, by two years or so. Stroking the fire in the old stone fireplace, she was amazed at how the last six years had passed so quickly. Her training of him had been so different from all those before. His talents were different. He struggled with incantations, but the magic that just needed a means of focusing the mind, he excelled. It hadn’t seemed logical, but Dree had created the object that would focus his mind. A simple shaft of wood, black alder the thickness of her index finger and about as long as her forearm. There was nothing special about it, or so she thought. But as Dree trained with it, grew more focused with his casting, she sensed a change in the wood. It was no longer a simple stick used to point, to draw in the dirt, or reaching high into a fruit tree. The wand, as she heard Dree call it, seemed to absorb some of Dree’s magic, to contain it for future release.

But the wand had been the least of her surprises. Dree learned her language at an astonishing rate, no doubt aided by their ability to read each other’s mind. He learned to write as well, soon crafting journals of his obtained wisdom. She struggled to make enough parchment, even now the skins of goats hanging under the eaves of their cottage to dry.

Looking out the window, she watched him herd their goats and sheep. Sitting on a rock under a witch elm, he waved his wand in slow circles and the animals gathered in a herd and moved toward the pen for safe keeping during the night. Did he know his power, she wondered as she watched how easy it was for him. A magic that some girls had taken decades to master. Then she considered his physical presence. It was hard to ignore, for in the last few months on their trips to the village she saw how the young girls watched him with longing.

Dree had grown tall, and despite his age and the lean body associated with it, it was obvious he would be a muscular young man. His long dark hair was tied back, revealing the features of his face, the most striking his vivid blue eyes. But there was something else. The girls had aged until their mid-twenties, matured into young women before the aging process dramatically slowed, giving them a very long life. But Dree, only sixteen, showed signs of his aging process slowing already. If true, she wondered how long the boy would live if already slowing before full maturity.

 

 

Dree watched the sheep and goats go into the pen, then waved his wand to close the gate. He felt Galreich watching him, and he knew she worried about him. He lowered his wand and slid off the rock, his long legs quickly placing feet on firm ground. He felt powerful, in a way he couldn’t describe. At times he felt like a god, other times he felt afraid, wondering about his fate in the world, especially when Galreich was gone. He knew without her telling him she had only a few years until it was time to cease. Her body was betraying her, aged from such a long life, one even he couldn’t read.

She had spoken of him one day finding his own path. Of finding a woman who he could love and cherish, someone to spend his time. But he knew the fallacy of such a dream, for he knew he had nearly stopped aging, and would outlive anyone he tried to bring into his life. He felt it was just as well, for he also knew his longings were not normal. The young girls in the village that tried to draw his attention created no stir within. No longing to know them. The butcher’s son, the blacksmith’s apprentice, and the shepherd boy who grazed sheep on Black Mountain and the valley below it was the focus of his attention. Their physical presences captured his eye and stirred thoughts too lurid for Galreich to be able to read.

Many of night he lay on his bed wondering if he were the only mage, the only male with the ability for magic. It seemed too fantastical he was the only one. If only there was a way to reach out to another, someone like himself, then maybe…

Entering the cottage, he saw Galreich set two steaming bowls on the table that took up nearly half of the room.

“Come, let’s eat,” said Galreich.

“Good; I’m starving.”

“Serves you right for wandering about when it was time for our midday meal.”

“I was…” Dree stammered, blocking out how he had been following Peja, the shepherd boy.

“When you block me out, I know you were up to no good.”

“That’s not true…I…”

“You were what?”

“Nothing,” Dree replied, picking up the spoon and starting to eat.

“When we finish, I think you should work on some incantations.”

“I’m not good at them.”

“That is why you need to practice.”

 

 

Practice Dree did, day after day. One ancient incantation after the next. He stirred the winds, made it rain, and healed injured animals. He created elixirs, potions that healed and potions that could take life. He worked with his wand, feeling it channel his power, focus his thoughts until he felt the air around him charged with his power. One year passed, then another, and he felt a change within, but in the mirror, he saw only the boy waiting to become a man. He felt a man, had the general body of one, but his smooth face and lean body spoke of someone still waiting for that final growth.

In the village, he thought of the boys he once sought out. Boys who became men. Over the last two years their bodies filled out and faces were framed with thick unruly hair and thick beards. The blacksmith’s apprentice had married, and the butcher’s son left, gone south to seek his fortunes. It left Peja, the shepherd, who now attended his own flock on Black Mountain. He was in the village for supplies and went to the herbalist, then the lady Muree for fungus and roots Galreich required.

The pack slung over his shoulder, he made a detour, taking the road out of the village that headed west instead of north, the one that went through the valley at Black Mountain. He walked with a fast stride, one that would carry him quickly to the mountain. With heavy dark clouds covering the sky, black mountain showed how it got its name, the dark silhouette rising before him, the sun low over its ridge. He saw the sheep moving down the mountain to the valley, the dogs keeping them herded and moving together. A whistle, then another, and Dree found its source, the flock’s shepherd, Peja coming along behind them.

In times past, Dree avoided direct contact with Peja, afraid his face would reveal his thoughts, but he was lonely, desperate for the companionship only another boy could give him. This time he made his way straight toward Peja, determined to speak to him, to draw him out, read the mind he had up to this point been afraid to do so. As he approached Peja, the flock split in two, half going to his left, half to his right. One of the dogs came up to him, sniffed him once, then took off.

“She usually barks at anyone who gets near the flock,” said Peja as he drew near.

“Maybe she sensed I’m no threat,” Dree replied, suppressing the desire to smile at Peja.

“You’re the old woman’s grandson.”

Dree grinned at the assumption so many in the village had made. It was a harmless assumption, one better than the truth.

“I’m Dree.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve seen you around, but you never were close enough for us to speak.”

“That is my fault. I’m afraid I’m not very outgoing,” Dree replied as he focused on Peja, looking into the green eyes seeking the inner thoughts within his mind.

“Funny, I thought you were older,” said Peja as he drew up close.

“I’m eighteen.”

“Seriously? You’re a young eighteen.”

“How old are you, Peja? No wait, let me guess.” He focused on the eyes and heard Peja think of his age. “You’re nineteen, soon to be twenty. Next month, I think.”

“How? You got that from someone in town.”

“If you say so.”

Dree focused on Peja, began to really read him. He saw confusion, a longing for another, then he saw an attraction where he was visible within it. Then there was the fear, the fear of being different, of being found out, and ostracized by the village.

“When you get your flock into their pens, would you like to go with me to Girron Burn. I’m going to camp and fish,” said Dree, making plans as he talked.

“You have a net?”

“No, I use a spear.”

“Spear? You can get fish with that?”

“Sure. Come, join me. I’ll wait for you at the fork,” referring to the place where two main roads come together before entering the town.

“Okay, I’ll meet you there.”

 

 

Dree saw the expression, one that had barely changed since Peja watched him spear two fish with ease. The fish were over the fire slowing cooking as night settled over them. Dree had a tent set up, rope stretched between two trees to hold it up, and underneath it blankets to protect from the cold night air.

“Can I ask you about Galreich?” asked Peja.

“Yes.”

“They say she is very old and not long left to live.”

“True.”

“What will you do when she is gone?”

“I imagine I’ll leave this place.”

Dree read Peja, some longing for the same. A desire to leave wound up with a desire to live a life of his own choosing.

“What about you? You going to be a shepherd all your life?”

“I…”

The hesitation, the fears that hovered right at the surface of every thought.

“You seem restless.”

“I guess.”

“If given a chance, would you leave?”

Peja looked up and Dree saw his answer in the green eyes.

 

 

Their stomachs full, Dree and Peja lay under the tent, blankets pulled up to their necks. They lay silent for a long time, Peja with his swirling confused thoughts and Dree waiting for him to calm himself. An owl called out, louder than all else. Then the night settled once again to the sound of insects and the breeze through the tree canopy, and with it, Dree reads how Peja settled down.

“Peja, are you cold?”

“Yes.”

“Slide closer. Let’s share the heat of our bodies.”

Peja moved next to Dree. Despite Peja being older, more mature, he nestled next to Dree as if a child seeking the comfort of an adult.

Dree lay still feeling the building heat between their bodies. He felt Peja eventually relax and breathing slowed to a steady rate. It was calming, the way Peja settled against his body. After a while he drifted off to sleep, the fatigue of the day overtaking him.

When Dree woke during the night, he felt a touch, one that moved over his chest. It was Peja, working a hand over his chest. He lay still, letting Peja touch him, the hand moving down over his stomach, downward until he felt fingers press against his abdomen just above his cock. He sensed the hesitation, the hand not moving any further. He read Peja, the fear to go further, worried he would wake and berate him for the touch. When the hand began to withdraw, he grabbed the wrist holding it in place.

“Peja, it’s okay. You can touch me,” Dree whispered.

The hand didn’t move.

Dree reached out and laid his hand on Peja. He felt the rough fabric of his coat, then the soft worn fabric of his inner garment, then with fingers working quickly with the drawstring at the neck, he slipped his hand within, down the chest over hardening nipples.

“Is this, okay?”

“Yes,” came a low whisper.

Peja’s hand moved, downward, until fondling Dree’s cock. Fingers moved along the growing length and over the head. They moved over the cock until it was hard as rock. Dree slipped his hand out of the loose neck then down the front of the inner garment. Over the heaving stomach he slid his hand down until touching a growing cock.

Suddenly Peja was moving, voracious in his appetite for another. He threw back the blankets and moved over Dree. There was tugging at clothing, the touch of lips, of hands, and utterances of someone desperate for the affections of another. Dree soon lay naked as his hardening cock was being fondled and lips moved along his neck.

“Take off your clothes,” whispered Dree.

Peja sat up and removed one garment after the next until he sat on Dree naked, cock hard as rock, and eyes that Dree knew were looking at his dark silhouette with a lust both felt.

A hesitation, an old fear resurfacing, and Dree sensed it. The dark silhouette of Peja was frozen in place. He sat up and embraced him; held the muscular body against his own. Hard cock pressed against his stomach and his own was pinned beneath him. He moved slowly, rolling Peja to his back as he shifted over him. He felt legs spread letting him settle between them. He sensed the desire, the want to please him. He moved forward, pressing against the upturned ass, and worked his hips rubbing his cock over it.

“Can I?” Dree asked, sensing the answer before it was uttered.

“Yes.”

Dree penetrated Peja, shivered with the tight squeeze on the head of his cock as he breached the opening. He sensed the pain Peja felt and held still letting him adjust. When Peja moved beneath him, pushed upward to take more of his cock, he sensed how Peja had relaxed to his penetration, and he sank deeper, pushed cock into Peja until pressed against the upturned ass.

“You have me,” Dree whispered as Peja shivered beneath him.

 

 

Dree fucked, steadily, thrusting into Peja’s depths over and over. His cock was so rock hard he hungered for release, fighting to control the pace of his fuck. Hands moved over his back then down over his flexing ass. Every touch was hot, the caress of skin against skin slick with the sweat of his exertions. He sensed his own body as never before. Its power and its lust, this need for another. He felt the most primitive aspects of his humanity, the animalistic desire for sexual satisfaction. He ran his hands along the more muscular body feeling the heaving stomach and sweaty skin. He kissed along one shoulder and up the neck, at times nipping the hot flesh. Beneath him, Peja moved with him. Their undulations in sync, body pressing against body, flesh caressing flesh.

After far too short a time, Peja was shuddering and jerking, shoving his ass upward roughly. Dree felt the flexing cock, then the hot cum around the spurting head. The scent of Peja’s release filled the tent, and the shuddering body revealed the power of Peja’s release. Dree shoved into his depths and kept jamming his hips against the upturned ass trying to sink deeper. Then he cried out, shuddered, and jerked, and came in Peja’s depths.

 

 

Dree arrived back at the cottage after dark the next day. He expected Galreich to have finished her evening meal and in the process of retiring for the night, but when he entered, she was setting a bowl of stew at his place around the table, then a bowl at her place.

“Come, wash up and let’s eat,” said Galreich.

“You waited?”

“Yes. A foolish old woman waiting for a more foolish young man who was with another.”

“You knew.”

“Of course. The shepherd boy: Peja.”

“You can’t-“

“I know. No one can know of this. It’s bad enough you live with me, the one they call a witch, but to lay with one of their own, another young man, well…”

Galreich looked up and smiled, one full of sarcasm and worry.

“Do you think less of me?”

“What? No. I just worry.”

Dree didn’t respond as he went over to the basin to wash his hands. He came back to the table, taking his seat across from Galreich. She looked up.

“There is so much about you I don’t understand, even when I read you. This has been one of those things. How you fawned over that blacksmith’s apprentice and that other one…the butcher’s son?”

“Lelih.”

“That’s the one. And of course, the shepherd boy. Oh, how you looked at each one with such shameless desire.”

“Galreich!”

“Being able to read someone is a powerful gift, and a curse.”

“Yes, it is.”

“You read the shepherd boy while you…”

“Please, let’s not discuss this.”

“Very well. But I have to warn you. You know your aging has slowed, more so than any other I have known. Peja will age normally and soon he’ll see the difference. He’ll be in his late twenties then thirties, and you, Dree, will still look a teen boy.”

“I know.”

“So, what will you do?”

“Tell him?”

“No one in the past has been able to do that and survive such a reveal.”

“Then what shall I do?”

“Enjoy this time with him, but before it becomes obvious, you have to leave.”

Dree stared at Galreich, knowing what she spoke to be the wisest course, but he was torn, afraid of what it would entail.

“Don’t fret about it tonight. Tonight, let’s enjoy this hardy stew and retire for the night, where I can get some rest and you can lay awake all night reliving your day with the shepherd boy.”

 

 

For the remainder of the summer and into the fall, Dree would find Peja and lure him into some secluded place. Their sex became more intimate, less rushed. The time they had together was fleeting, just an afternoon one day, or an evening another, or on rare occasion, an early morning on the side of Black Mountain while sheep and goats grazed its slopes, so they cherished each moment. Relished each touch, each kiss, every moment a naked body lay on the other. When Peja was busy with his work, Dree would be practicing his magic, learning new means of controlling some element or changing its nature.

Winter arrived early, the north winds howling night after night, and soon snow covered the ground. It seemed the whole region fell into a state of hibernation. All except Galreich. She became aged in a manner that spoke to her life nearing its end. She became feeble, requiring Dree to cook and take care of the cottage while she slept. As the temperatures plummeted, she grew weaker. It was if her slow progression in aging suddenly changed to a fast one.

When the full moon returned to the sky, visible through clouds rushing across within the winds, Dree came in with wood for the fire and he sensed it. Galreich’s time was drawing near. He saw her stir, then called his name.

“Galreich, shhh, rest.”

“Dree, my time to truly rest is near. But we have one final lesson. Bring me a knife.”

Dree hesitated.

“Go on, we don’t have much time.”

Dree crossed the small room and picked up the knife, one freshly sharpened. He went back to where Galreich lay and handed it to her.

“Your left hand, the one that sides with the heart,” Galreich uttered in her strongest voice since she became bed ridden.

Dree held out his left hand and felt the dry nearly lifeless skin of Galreich’s left hand take it holding the palm up.

“This will sting,” Galreich uttered, cutting the palm quickly before Dree knew what she meant to do.

“Your blood…now mine,” she whispered as she cut the palm of her right hand. “The side away from the heart.”

“What is this ritual?”

“It is more than some mere ritual,” she replied holding out her right hand. “Your left hand, take mine.”

Dree took the outstretched hand, and he felt the warm blood of Galreich mix with his own. Then he felt something else. A growing warmth within, something that was making his heart race.

“Yes, it works,” Galreich uttered with an amazed tone.

“What works? What are you doing?”

“Transferring my power to you.”

Dree immediately felt it, what was happening, and he tried to pull his hand away. But Galreich’s grip was shockingly powerful for he could not pry his hand loose.

“Galreich! No, not yet. I’m not ready.”

“You’ve been ready,” Galreich whispered. She lay back and closed her eyes, then Dree felt her grip loosen, then her hand fall away. She was gone.

Dree stood by her bed. She appeared to be sleeping but he knew she was truly gone. He read nothing from her, no final regrets, or a last-minute lesson. Only the darkness of a life ceasing to exist. He straightened her body, laid her hands on her chest, and straightened the blanket over her. He wanted her to appear at rest. He eased down on the rough stone floor and touched her arm, some final contact between them that he would maintain until morning.

At first light, he pulled down the old scroll, the parchment stiff with age, and read Galreich’s request for her once death finally came. He read the ritual she had described in handwriting that was neater and didn’t appear as hurried, the letters not angled forward as if in a race to the other side. He had never seen her write with such neatness and knew this was from a day when Galreich was younger, much younger.

Then he attended to her request. The preparation of her body, covered in oils and a mixture of minerals, then wrapped in her blanket. Outside he built a plinth of stone with a recess he filled with oil. He stacked firewood on top until it was shoulder high. Across the top, he lay oil-soaked pine.

Then he sat on a rock and looked at the funeral pyre as tears finally came to his eyes. He was exhausted. He was sad, heartbroken at Galreich’s passing. It made him feel alone.

Back inside the cottage he tried to eat some warmed-up stew, then laid on his bed and drifted off to sleep where he dreamed of the day Galreich came into his life, of days learning about the power, then of her lessons of late, each one having the tone of being a final one.

 

 

Dree sat up, alert to some strange noise, then he sensed him at the door. He climbed out of bed and went to the door where he found Peja standing bundled up in many layers.

“I felt something was wrong and came to check on you,” said Peja.

Dree stepped forward and hugged Peja, then he pulled him inside. Tears came again, cascading down his cheeks as he tried to tell Peja of Galreich’s passing. The words wouldn’t come, only a gasping of breath.

“What’s wrong?” asked Peja, then he saw the bundled body, how a blanket was tied around it, and he knew. “She has died?”

“Yes,” Dree managed to utter.

“I’m sorry,” Peja replied, then took Dree into another embrace, holding him tight as he felt him shudder with grief.

 

 

“I saw the funeral pyre when I first arrived, but pushed the idea from my mind,” said Peja as Dree and he sat at the table. “When will you do it?”

“Once night comes.”

“I’ll stay with you.”

Dree wanted to tell Peja to go home, not sure how the burning would work with the preparations he had made per Galreich’s wishes. He feared some power would be revealed. Despite his fears, he couldn’t force Peja to leave. He wanted him there.

They sat in the cottage, quiet most of the time, just letting the time pass. The day dragged on, seemed to take much longer than usual, but Dree suddenly realized sunlight was no longer shining into the cottage.

“Dree, its time,” said Peja, crossing the room to come stand in front of him, hand out to help him stand.

Despite his fears, Dree got Peja help him carry Galreich’s body to the funeral pyre. The western sky went dark as he made the final adjustment to her body. When he stepped down and back, he stood next to Peja reaching out to take his hand.

“I can’t believe she’s gone.”

“How old was she?” asked Peja.

“I don’t know. Ancient.”

Dree stood staring at the wrapped body. Peja squeezed his hand, then let go.

“Dree, its time,” said Peja holding out a torch.

“Will you, do it?”

“If you so desire.”

“Please.”

Peja stepped up to the funeral pyre and eased the torch into the base of the wood until brushing the surface of the oil. It lit, and flames raced across the bottom. When he stepped back, he was surprised by how quickly the wood caught fire. He stood transfixed, watching it quickly turn into a fiery blaze.

Dree was just as surprised at how rapidly the fire rushed through the wood. Then he recognized the power behind it, how Galreich was demonstrating her power one more time. He also realized Peja was too close, far too close, and he rushed up to him and pulled him back from the blazing heat.

“Peja, you were too close.”

“Dree, what is this…magic?”

Dree watched the flames go from yellow and orange to a hot blazing white and blue. The body was consumed in the fire, burned bright and hot, the blue flames changing to green. It was otherworldly, the green within the blue and the heat that radiated outward.

“Dree? What is this?” Peja asked again.

“Peja, Galreich was a witch. The rumors were true.”

“A witch,” Peja uttered just loud enough for Dree to hear.

Dree knew he needed to explain, to tell Peja the truth and find out if he could trust him.

“Peja?”

“Dree,” said Peja turning to face him, their faces glowing blue and green.

“She was a mentor, had been for a very long time.”

“She taught others magic?”

“You can’t teach magic, but when she found someone with the ability, she taught them about it, then how to control it and enhance their ability.”

“And she was your mentor?”

Dree looked at the funeral pyre as the wood settled, fell to a fraction of its original size, noting the body was consumed.

“Yes.”

“You’re a witch?”

“I prefer mage…but yes.”

“You can do magic?”

Dree nodded, then looked at the surprised expression on Peja’s face.

“Does this change things between us?”

“I…don’t know.”

“Please don’t tell anyone? I’ll have to leave if you do.”

Peja looked at the funeral pyre, how it was falling into a pile of hot coals, nothing left of the wood and body.

“I shall keep your secret, but I have to go.”

Peja backed away from the funeral pyre and Dree until lost in the darkness of night, but Dree could read him, sense the confusion and fear, but also trust his secret would be safe.

 

 

The next day, Dree scattered the ashes through the woodland around the cottage, then he began to go through Galreich’s things, organizing them wondering what he would do with everything. A small wooden box, one he had seen from time to time, he found a few personal effects. Two rings, an uncut gem, and a necklace that held a polished stone with an engraving on it. A circle within a circle. Such a simple image, one that had no meaning to him. Galreich had never referred to it. Holding the necklace, it was the one thing that stirred his senses. It was the one thing he knew to protect even if he didn’t know why.

Once the wooden box was put away among his personal effects, he began to go through the minerals, the dried fungi and plants, and the elements that Galreich had mixed together. He knew most were used as ploys, something to distract while performing the real power from within. But a few possessed the ability to focus one’s power, or to enhance it. These he put aside, discarding everything else. He had no time for embellishment, no patience for it either. He would remove the useless rituals, the theater of performing, taking his ability down to its essence. He would become the mage he always envisioned.

 

Five days passed before Peja reappeared. Dree had sensed his approach and before Peja could rap knuckles on the old wooden door, he opened it with a smile.

“You came back.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not scared of me?” asked Dree, already knowing the answer, but wanting Peja to have the opportunity to say it aloud.

“No. I knew you before and…you’re the same now as then. I just know a secret about you that must be kept.”

“Will you come in?”

Peja stepped over the threshold and Dree felt it, an intensity he had not felt before, some longing that was different. A hand took his hand and led him across the room to his bed. Peja undressed him, slowly, at times caressing newly exposed skin or kissing it so gently that the feel of the touch lingered long after Peja had continued disrobing him.

When finally naked, he let Peja touch him, feel his smooth skin, trace the contours of his body, and fondle his sex. He grew aroused, cock angling upward, hard and flexing. Then he watched Peja take him with his mouth. He held his head back, eyes closed, and savored the feel of it. The warmth and slickness of the mouth as it moved on his cock.

When he was close, so close his cock ached for release, he pushed Peja off and pulled him to his feet.

“Not yet,” Dree whispered as he undressed Peja, who offered no resistance. Soon Peja too was naked. Dree touched him as Peja had done him. He felt the muscular body, one that looked more mature, older in every way. The hairy chest, the trail down the stomach, the way the body was broader, thicker, more masculine. He kissed him while manipulating the cock, making Peja just as aroused.

Peja held Dree by the waist and pulled him along, backing to the bed. Dree let him guide him until he hovered over the prone body. He moved between the legs, upward until he could kiss him and push his cock along the side Peja’s cock. As they kissed and caressed each other, Dree felt Peja shift and move beneath him. Knees rose and spread wide apart. His cock went from sliding by Peja’s cock to pushing against the upturned ass.

“Dree…please…”

Dree penetrated Peja slowly, gently, sinking into his depths. Fingers dug into his sides; their grip desperate. It spurned Dree to fuck, to work into Peja’s depths. He felt the connection between them, his cock deep within Peja. He fucked slowly to feel his every move. The push and tug through the tightness, the soft heat that enveloped his cock, and the way Peja undulated beneath him, pushing his arousal, pushing him to keep fucking.

“Harder. Fuck me harder,” Peja uttered.

Dree reached for Peja’s hands, pushed them upward over his head and held them down. He pushed himself up, hovering over the prone body and began to fuck harder, faster. He fucked until his muscles burned from his exertions. Below him, Peja moaned and grunted and begged him to keep going, to keep fucking.

Dree kept up his steady pace, the rhythm of a man’s fuck, the undulation of the body and the thrust of cock into the depths of Peja’s ass.  

Then he shuddered, slammed his cock into Peja’s depths, and came. He jerked and shook with every ejaculation until spent.

Dree hovered over Peja as drops of sweat dripped onto him. Then he eased down kissing him. He pressed their lips together, tongues dueling, while sliding one hand down until holding Peja’s hard cock. He kissed down the neck, over the chest, tonguing the nipples, then moving further down until the leaking cock rubbed his cheek. He held it up and raked it over his lips and face, then tongued it capturing the sweetness drooling from the slit, then slipped his lips over the head and pushed down.

He sucked and tongued the cock. He worked his lips along its length until Peja began to work his hips, pushing upward as he pushed down. The cock swelled thicker, flexed against the roof of his mouth, then filled it with cum.

 

 

Dree sat next to Peja on a rock by the stream below the cottage. They watched the slow-moving waters while Dree talked of his life, telling of Galreich coming to him when he was just a young boy, an orphan with no respect from his tribe. An outcast who was viewed as cursed. He told of coming to terms with his emerging power, of Galreich training him, pushing him to learn control and new abilities.

“What can you do? Can you show me?” asked Peja.

Dree looked at Peja and nodded. Then he slipped his wand from its hidden pocket within his right sleeve seeing Peja look on wide-eyed, surprised to see him bring it out so easily and quickly it seemed to appear out of thin air. He looked across the stream at one of the rocks, one the size of a man’s torso. He pointed the wand at it and focused his power on it. The rock rose and hovered in the air. He moved it across the stream and set it down at their feet.

“That looked so easy,” said Peja.

“I don’t feel the weight of the object.”

“How far can you move it?”

“Any place I can picture.”

“That could be so far away.”

“But I move it differently.”

“…”

“Watch. I’ll put the rock back into its original place.”

Dree saw Peja turn and stare at the rock. He knew he was going to show him something that not even he understood. Galreich had tried to explain it, this moving an object from one place to another but not through the physical realm around them, but through a realm not seen, a space not visible.

The rock was just a rock. It sat on the bank of the stream, unmoving, static, inert. Then it disappeared and just as quickly reappeared in its original location.

“Oh, the gods,” Peja exclaimed. He stared at the rock, then slowly turned to Dree. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

“There is much.”

“Can you cure illness?”

“Some illnesses, but some are so severe that to attempt a cure uses a dark power that can’t be controlled, and the results are never satisfactory.”

“So, you have your limits.”

“Yes. We all have our limits.”

“But if the village discovers your secret…”

Peja didn’t finish, let his voice trail off, unable to consider the repercussions.

“I’ll have to flee the area,” said Dree.

After a long silence, Peja stared at the slow swirling waters and spoke in a low voice. “You can’t leave me here.”

 

 

The days passed, cycles of the moon went through the sky, at times during daylight, but mostly at night. Dree passed them at the cottage or met Peja on Black Mountain, watching the dogs keep the sheep and goats herded in place while grazing over the mountain. When alone, he practiced his magic, working to gain greater control. He tested himself on the size of objects he could move or lift, lifting larger and larger rocks. He studied the elements, the potions Galreich had shown him how to make, then use.

It was a cloudy afternoon, the sky covered with their dark grey swirling masses, and Dree was with Peja on Black Mountain. They had fantasied about going to foreign lands, of taking off one day and traveling across the sea to the east going to the land beyond. Then Peja brought their talk to Dree’s abilities, of how his training was coming.

“How large of a rock can you move?”

“One of frightening size,” Dree whispered.

“Show me?”

Dree looked over the rolling mountain to a rock outcropping some distance away. To one side was a rock the size of a cottage, a massive boulder no man could possibly move. He knew he didn’t need his wand, but it helped him focus. He slipped it out and held it out, pointing at the rock.

The massive rock rose, higher and higher, until higher than the trees nearby.

“Dree,” Peja uttered.

Dree set the rock back into its original place, knowing no one could find it moved.

“You did that so easily,” said Peja.

“It feels simple enough.”

“Have you tried larger?”

“No.”

“Can you lift yourself?”

Dree smiled, then looked over with a mischievous smile nodding his head.

“Seriously?”

Dree laughed.

“Can you move…through that other space?” asked Peja, knowing such magic seemed impossible. Maybe it was something like curing a serious illness, something beyond Dree’s power.

Dree stood in front of Peja, then disappeared, reappearing further away almost instantaneously.

Peja burst into laughter as Dree walked back and sat down next to him.

“Will you come to the cottage tonight?” asked Dree.

“Of course, but it’ll be after dark.”

 

 

Dree cleaned up after his evening meal and stirred around the small cottage, rearranging vials, putting away scrolls, and took down dried skins that were ready for final processing into parchment. He kept trying to sense Peja’s approach, beginning to worry that something had come up to prevent him from coming. It wouldn’t be the first time and knew it was always possible.

On the table was his latest written work, a journal of his training, and what he understood about his increasing power. He sat down and took up the quill, dipping it into the ink Galreich taught him how to make. Quill hovering over the parchment, he suddenly sensed Peja’s approach, and just as quickly knew something was wrong.

The door swung open, and Peja rushed into the cottage.

“Dree, Dree, they know.”

Dree read Peja, the fear and knowledge of the situation.

“One of the boys was on the mountain when you…”

“I know.”

“You have to go!”

Dree read how the village was gathering the men and making plans to come to his cottage at first light.

“I have some time.”

“But you have to get away from this place.”

“What about you? You were with me and…we talked about going together.”

Peja fell still, looking across the room at Dree, suddenly realizing the situation. What lay before him was two vastly different futures. The one with the biggest unknown was staying. How would the others come to view him since he had publicly befriended Dree, and secretly as far as he knew had an intimate relationship. The other was to go with Dree, to be by his side on a journey to some unknown place.

“I’m scared.”

“As am I.”

“Do you really want me to go with you?”

“Of course. More than you can know.”

“I can’t go back for my things.”

“Is there something you really need back there?”

“Just a few garments and a knife given to me by my grandfather.”

“Where is it, describe the place it is hidden.”

Peja closed his eyes, pictured his corner of the room he shared with his siblings. The roll of blankets, the small wooden box, crude in its construction, but within his most prized possession.

“Peja,” Dree whispered.

Peja opened his eyes and saw Dree holding the knife.

“Now help me pack. I need those vials and the scrolls in the top three shelves.”

“How will we carry all of this?”

“We won’t.”

 

It was late in the night, a time when the winds died down and there existed a silence in the woodland broken only by the sound of insects. Moving through the woods, Dree led Peja, an artificial light leading them. They didn’t talk and not once did Peja look back. As the first light pushed away the darkness, they came to the road far north of the village. Hidden from view within the woods sat their belongings.

“It’s here,” said Peja sounding surprised to see it.

“You doubt me?” asked Dree with a humorous tone.

Peja smiled. “Just surprised how easily it is for you.”

“We need to leave it here until we get someplace to the east.”

“You can only move it to places you can visualize,” said Peja, spoken as fact.

“Yes, so let’s get to the east coast, then I can move this to where we find ourselves.”

 

 

Days later they came to a small village on the banks of a river just before it flowed out into the sea. It was a fishing village, a wood dock running along the riverbank with boats scattered along its lengths. The village was a spread of small buildings up the grade from the dock. Peja and Dree walked through town to the dock and strolled down it, seeking someone who might take them across the sea.

“The sailor at the that boat,” said Dree pointing at the next to last boat.

“You think he’ll take us across?”

“Not without first getting something from us.”

Dree moved ahead until standing on the dock at the bow of the boat. He saw the nets neatly stacked within, and oars along each side. The man sitting in the stern repairing a net had not noticed Dree presence.

“Excuse me, but might we discuss a business arrangement?” asked Dree.

“I’m sorry, but I’m currently not going out,” the man replied barely looking up to acknowledge Dree.

“Might there be something I can do for you to gain your assistance?”

“Only if you can heal my son,” the man replied with such bitterness and sadness that Dree didn’t need to read him to know the severity of the illness of his son.

“I have some experience in healing.”

The man stopped, holding the net still. He laid it down gently and rose to his feet and moved up the boat until at the bow looking up at Dree.

“Of the fevers?”

 

 

Dree followed the man into his small cottage, one near the riverbank with the front door facing east toward the sea visible in the distance. Behind him Peja followed. Inside the cottage was the wife and three girls and a boy, none of them ill with a fever. The man nodded toward his wife.

“This is a healer who seeks to cross the sea to the land in the east.”

“Can you heal Joron?” the wife asked, looking at Dree with desperation in her eyes.

“I might be able if the body is not too consumed,” Dree replied. “Can I see him?”

“This way,” the man replied, moving through a curtained doorway into a small room in back.

Dree followed as Peja went to the wife to comfort her. He knew the room had been the man and his wife’s room but was now a sick ward where a sweating shivering young man lay in the bed on the floor.

“He is the oldest and the one who is able to help with the fishing.”

“How old is he?”

“Fifteen.”

“How long has he been ill?”

“Eight days.”

Dree moved down next to Joron, felt the forehead feeling the heat radiating from within. He listened to the heart, hearing it race in the boy’s chest. He set his satchel next to the bed and pulled out some vials and leather bags. It would be a ruse, a little lie to distract the boy’s father while he performed the real cure using his power that he knew would terrify him. The illness was not great, but it was threatening to the boy’s life. It had gone on too long and the boy was weak.

He mixed a potion, one that would put the boy into a deep sleep for he could not have the boy wake right away cured his illness. It had to appear to take time for the boy to heal.

“Joron, can you drink this?” asked Dree.

Joron opened his eyes and looked up. He was so feverish he didn’t comprehend Dree was a stranger, just knew he was someone wanting him to do something. Dree helped him to sit up, then brought the cup to the boy’s lips. Slowly Joron drank until the cup was finally empty, and Dree helped him to lay back.

“It’ll take some time for the potion to work,” said Dree as he laid a hand on the boy’s chest feeling the illness within, how it coursed through the blood stream, lined the lungs, and caused the body to overheat. He focused on it, closing his eyes, letting the man think he was saying a prayer. Instead, he focused his power until he knew the illness was breaking apart. In no time, the fever would break and when the boy awoke the next day he would feel well.

“I think the fever will be broken by tomorrow morning, if not sooner,” said Dree as he put everything back into the satchel and rose to his feet. “Is there some place we might find lodgings for the night?”

“There is a widower who takes in travelers.”

“If you could be so kind as to direct us to her.”

 

 

Two days later, Dree and Peja found themselves on the man’s fishing boat heading out from the coast. Dree sat in the bow, his face concealed from the man and his friend who agreed to help with the rowing while his son continued to recover. He looked at the sky, dark clouds threatening the calm, but he knew no harm would come to them for he was responsible for the calm, continuously pushing back the more violent winds coming down from the north. He split them, forced them to pass around their position. Peja sat behind him, distracting the men from noticing what Dree was doing.

Once out in open waters, the men lowered the simple square sail, and a calm wind pushed them eastward. The small boat moved over the water with surprising speed, allowing the oars to be placed within the boat and the men to rest.

Dree continued his chant that allowed him to keep his mind focused, to keep his manipulation of the air ongoing. As he did so, he also replayed the conversations of the last two days with Peja. Their plan was to head east into the unknown land. Their foreignness would always be a problem, but it would also be their shield, a means of keeping separate and unknown.

 

 

Like the Wind

Dree stood on the lake shore, looking across its calm surface and the beautiful mountains on the other side. Looking down he saw his reflection, one that still shocked him to see. Peja was nearing fifty years in age, now an old man, but in the smooth surface of the water, he saw the reflection of a young man who still looked like a teenager. Over time, they let people assume he was Peja’s son, for at no time could the truth be known. A relationship between two men was not accepted by most people.

Dree brushed the toe of his boot across the surface obliviating his image, then he stepped back before it could return. He headed to the village with its noise and smells of human endeavor. In a small room over a tavern Peja would be waiting for his return. Dree was fearful of Peja’s health, for over the last few years it seemed he became ill more often. It was why they had taken a place within the village, where Dree could get the supplies he needed to make cures and drugs that enabled Peja to sleep.

It was a cruel fact he would live long after Peja ceased to be a part of his world. It pained him, made him lay awake at night wondering how he would cope. To spend such a long time with someone, someone he loved, and know they were near the end of their life while he was destined to survive for generations. How long he would live, he had no idea. Galreich had said he would live longer than her. It frightened him to think of it. He never knew her age, but she had made references that spoke of a life measured in centuries, not decades.

 

 

Up the narrow stairs, several of the wood treads squeaking beneath his feet, Dree came to the landing where he entered the door on the left. It was the room he shared with Peja. He sensed Peja, and stepping into the room he saw him propped up on the bed, a blanket pulled up to the neck. The eyes opened slowly, and Peja smiled.

“You’re back,” Peja whispered.

“Yes. Can you eat something?”

“I think so.”

“I’ll go down and see if Xenon still has some of that stew.”

Dree came back with a bowl and eased down on the side of the bed. Peja sat up and reached for the bowl.

“Let me,” said Dree scooping a spoonful then blowing on it to cool it.

“You spoil me.”

Dree smiled as he held out the spoon. “Come on, eat.”

Dree spoon fed Peja, watching how it was a struggle to swallow each one. He tried not to think of it, but it was too obvious. Peja’s health was deteriorating. The fever had come back worse than before, one that Peja first became infected nearly a decade ago in the hot coastal region to the south. Dree hoped their current location would benefit Peja with its milder climate. But men of this age were lucky to live into their forties and any illness was severe.

Once Peja had eaten what he could, Dree moved onto the bed next to him, holding the frail body next to his own.

“When I’m gone, you should go east like we had planned to do,” whispered Peja.

It surprised Dree to hear the suggestion for he had thought Peja was asleep.

“Shhh, let’s not discuss such a thing.”

“Don’t be foolish. It’s not like you,” Peja uttered.

Dree didn’t respond and soon he heard the rhythm of breathing he recognized when Peja had finally drifted off to sleep.

 

 

 

Dree walked along the wood lane looking at the city on the horizon. It was a people who would move civilization forward. He could sense it. The rocky coast was such a different environment, one that Peja and he had visited years before.

Peja.

Dree thought of him again. It had been five years since Peja passed. There were times he still tried to sense him, to find some lingering reflection of who he had been. But Dree knew when a body died and the consciousness ceased, that person was no longer of this world. Gone. Left only in the memory of those that knew them.

Walking among others heading toward the city on the coast of the sea, Dree blended in, gave no hint to the others how he was different. A man over fifty who looked fifteen. He kept looking to his right at the shimmering waters of what the people of the region called The Great Sea or Our Sea. Across the sea, he knew another great empire existed, one that would have influence on many civilizations for eons to come.

He had considered going to that faraway empire, but as he came into Athens, he knew he would keep heading east, through Lygos then the land of the old Babylonian empire to what some called the far east.

 

 

Land of Bod

Dree stood on the narrow terrace overlooking the valley below. The small settlement clung to the side of the mountain, a place of such an elevation that it had taken a long time for him to adjust to the thin air. It had been such a foreign land when he first arrived. He had traveled along the coastline through old Babylon, to Bharata where he lived for fifty years. Within that land he traveled from town to town, never able to stay very long in any place because he didn’t appear to age, still looking only fifteen. Once he was ready to continue his travels, he continued east to the land of the Lac people that lived along a coastal land facing a vast ocean to the east, not the south like the lands he had traveled up to that point. He lived there for a time, until his unchanging appearance became a danger to him, then he traveled in the only direction left to him; north.

To the north he found the vast Han Dynasty in the land of Chin. With so many cities spread over a vast area, he was able to live for hundreds of years within its civilization. But he kept to himself while learning the native languages, allowing him to blend in. He never trusted himself to really integrate into the local cultures. Despite the passage of time, far more than anyone else would ever experience, he still felt foreign. He looked different, stood so much taller than the people, his physical being spoke to his difference. Then there was the loss of Peja. So long ago, but still a knot in the chest whenever he really thought of him. Those quiet moments when alone, sitting on the bank of some river or pond, on a trail in the mountains, or standing on the shore looking out at the vast sea to the east.

Looking down at the small terrace area below, Dree saw Tenzing tending to one of the gardens. Tenzing was one of the oldest, someone who had been at the temple all his life, arriving as a young baby. He had been left at the gate by a mother unable to care for him. Tenzing tended the grounds and the gardens, that allowed him to work alone. He was a quiet man, so quiet some assumed he was deficient in some manner, but Dree knew Tenzing was introverted, a modest man, but one of wisdom some only dare dream of obtaining.

A voice called his name and Dree turned to see Kelsang coming his way. Young, too young, only eighteen or nineteen, depending on who you asked. A boy, he thought, knowing he looked no older to the men of the temple. Kelsang was attractive and modest and always pleasant, easily smiling. It had been a long time since someone captured Dree’s attention, and he feared it, tried to push the thoughts from his mind. But seeing Kelsang, the lean body partially exposed by the robe, one shoulder fully revealed, a nipple coming into view with certain movements, and the arms always exposed during the warm days on the mountain, it became more difficult as the days passed.

“Dree, Gyatso would like to speak to you,” said Kelsang.

“Then let’s not keep him waiting,” Dree replied, stepping away from the low wall and falling in beside him. He was a head taller, but Kelsang was a large presence when this near. He felt him, sensed how the boy’s heart raced when near him, and how it confused Kelsang, troubled him with how it made him feel.

They crossed the narrow terrace and entered the building finding Gyatso coming down the stairs. Gyatso was one of the youngest priests. Dree knew he was only in his mid-thirties and very popular with the young men who lived at the temple to be educated and trained in the old ways. In another time and place, Dree knew he would have looked upon Gyatso differently.

“Dree, I see Kelsang found you,” said Gyatso as he stepped off the last tread.

“I was just outside,” Dree replied.

“Khando says you know not only how to handle the spear and sword, but you know the weaponless fighting.”

“Shoubo. The people of Chin call it shoubo.”

“Shoubo.  Yes, I’ve heard this term. Can you teach it?”

“Teach it?”

“Cering thinks it would help focus the minds of the younger men.”

Gyatso referred to one of the oldest priests, one most of the others deferred. If Cering promoted something, it would be difficult for anyone to refuse, even him.

“When would he like me to start?”

“Right away. How about in the morning after first meal?”

“I’ll prepare.”

Gyatso turned to climb the stairs but stopped and Dree knew he had more to say.

Without turning, Gyatso spoke in a low voice. “Dree, you are such a mystery to most, but I see you and know you are of far greater wisdom and…power, than you admit.”

“I’m embarrassed by this.”

“Don’t be,” Gyatso replied, then climbed the stairs.

Dree turned to Kelsang seeing the black eyes stare back and a smile that made his own heart race.

“Where shall we do the training, do you think?” Dree asked.

“Cering says the weather will be nice for a few more days, so why not out on the main terrace?”

“The main terrace? Don’t you think it too public?”

“Why not let the priest see the training?”

Dree smiled, nodding his head. “Why not,” he replied, then daringly placed his hand on Kelsang’s shoulder,” shall we go find drink and a place to plan? You’ll assist me, will you not?”

“Yes, Dree. I would love to assist you,” Kelsang replied, then turned away trying to hide his smile.

 

 

It was night, and the air quickly cooled on the mountain. A fire burned in the fireplace, and the torches for light added their own heat, but in the middle of the old room, it was not enough. Dree sat at his writing table and next to him sat Kelsang. They had an evening meal in his room and now were finished with his lesson plan for the next morning. He looked over at his bed, the blankets that would provide warmth and comfort but not the comfort he was beginning to desire. Kelsang yawned again, then stretched his arms out and Dree struggled not to stare.

Dree knew how it looked. Two young men, only a couple of years apart, if that, but he knew the truth, how he was nearly five hundred years old and Kelsang was to his way of thinking still a boy. But he knew how he felt. He felt seventeen or eighteen, matching his appearance. He was strong, quick, and flexible. He was also finding those old desires resurfacing with an intensity not felt in a long time. He looked over at Kelsang and felt an attraction, one he knew was mutual. Whether or not Kelsang would be willing was something he didn’t know. He sensed how Kelsang felt but how would that change if faced with something real, faced with a physical aspect of the desires being felt.

“Kelsang, it is late. Would you like to stay the night instead of going back to your quarters?” asked Dree, wondering if the sleeping quarters for trainees on the far side of the temple was enough of an excuse.

Kelsang looked over at Dree’s bed, then at the door of the room, weighing his options. Dree read him, sensed how intensely Kelsang wanted more than anything to stay. But Kelsang feared he would not be able to keep his hands to himself. He pictured himself reaching out in the dark and touching Dree with a desire he didn’t fully understand.

“It has been a long time since I shared a bed with someone,” said Dree as he pushed back from the table.

“Did it bother you to have to share your bed?”

“No, not at all. The companionship was…”

Dree didn’t know how to say what he was thinking. How much to reveal and how much to conceal. A hand came down on his leg and he looked down at Kelsang’s hand.

“I think of it. This companionship between men. I don’t know…I want to…what is possible,” whispered Kelsang.

“Do you think of it with me?”

Dree read him, how his heart raced until near bursting. How all the old fears rose almost suffocating him. Then he sensed a determination, one he had sensed long ago and in another land.

“Yes. All the time.”

 

 

The torches extinguished and the fire in the fireplace down to glowing embers, Dree lay next to Kelsang in the narrow bed. When they first lay next to each other, Dree got Kelsang to speak of his life, how he came to be at the temple, a story he already knew from Gyatso. But he wanted to hear the voice, the soft cadence of it, how the words escaped the lips. Then Kelsang asked of his life, the things not yet told among the men in the temple. He told of being part of a tribe that did not want him, and how someone rescued him, educated him, and trained him their old ways.

“You must have been so young, for I heard Gyatso tell Choekyi that you had traveled for years to get here.”

“I did seem so young at the time,” Dree replied, looking in the direction of the voice within the darkness.

Silence engulfed them, and it lasted far too long, but Dree dared not be the one to break it. It was up to Kelsang. He had to be the one. Dree had to know for sure Kelsang wanted more than mere companionship.

“Dree?” came a nervous whisper.

“Yes, Kelsang.”

“I like you.”

“I like you.”

“But I don’t think in the same way.”

“But I think so.”

“Really?”

“I’m struggling with my desire to reach over and touch you, to know you’re really here, next to me.”

“I am struggling too.”

“Do you want to touch me?”

No answer, but Dree sensed it, a hand moving toward him.

 

 

Kelsang was on his back, his garments dropped on the floor next to the bed. Dree moved over him, he too naked, cock hard with desire. Kelsang reached between them and once again took Dree in hand. Clumsily he stroked Dree, then guided him to move forward until touching him there. At his opening, one he had dared touch when alone just to know what it could feel like. One that had only been penetrated by a finger. A brief memory of how it felt, how it stroked his desires until he covered his chest and stomach with his release. He wanted to feel what it would be like to be penetrated and he wanted it to be by Dree. He wanted Dree. His sex. He wanted to feel the heat of his body against his own.

“Dree, you can put it in me,” Kelsang whispered in the darkness.

Dree heard the plea, felt it, sensed it at a level that would have embarrassed Kelsang if he knew. And he felt his own desire, one so long unfulfilled. The anxiousness not unlike that felt before his first time. A gentle push and he penetrated him. An inch, then another, then another, until half buried inside him.

He sensed Kelsang’s fear and arousal, then the desire for their sex. Fingers dug into his sides, and he felt the desire in a physical way. A push deeper, then a tug outward, over, and over until in the steady rhythm of a fuck. Moans and grunts and soft pleadings from Kelsang, then hands moving along his sides and over his back.

“Dree, don’t stop,” Kelsang uttered, breathlessly.

Dree increased his pace, fucking faster and faster until Kelsang moaned and grunted far too loud. In the darkness of the room, it echoed off the wood of the ceiling, walls, and floor. For the first time in hundreds of years, he felt alive, human, sensing his own sex and the desires it developed within him.

Dree shifted, moved Kelsang in front of him, back to his chest, and he slipped back into him. On his side, he felt the hot body against his own as he pushed into its depths. He felt every inch of his cock as it squeezed through Kelsang’s tightness. Over and over, fucking until his muscles burned from his exertions. Gasping for breath, aroused until his cock ached for release, he fucked.

“Dree,” Kelsang uttered, starting to move his ass, a push back with Dree’s push forward.

Dree tightened his hold on Kelsang and thrust all the way into his depths and came.

 

 

Dree moved gently from Kelsang, laying him on his back. He reached out, blinded by the darkness, until touching hot sweaty skin. He rubbed over the chest, down the stomach until holding hard cock. He moved to it, slipped it into his mouth, and worked lips up and down the shaft and tongued the head. Only a few moves up and down and Kelsang pushed upward, cried out in the darkness, and came. Dree felt the cock flex within his mouth as it ejaculated wad after wad until he had to swallow.

 

 

For days, the moon going through cycle after cycle, Dree found himself teaching young men the ways of fighting, of defending themselves, of controlling their minds to maintain control during stressful situations.

Early one morning, a day that was cooler than the prior days showing a change in the season, Dree moved through the men as they trained. He was proud of the work they had done. How their bodies were becoming more muscular, their movements more graceful, their minds more focused. At the back right corner of the group, Kelsang moved through the ritual of their training. Looking at him, Dree felt more than just proud. He felt his sexual desires, the longing for another man, and when his guard was down, when he didn’t think anyone was looking, he allowed himself to think of Kelsang in more intimate ways.

For some time, there was no pretending anymore. Kelsang was now residing in his quarters, sharing his bed, and by his side most of the time. It wasn’t unusual among the men, but most knew that for Kelsang to be with Dree, there were secrets, things not known to them.

Dree moved through the men, giving instruction then watching to see if they could carry out the next exercise or ritual movement. He came around the back side and stood behind Kelsang watching the bare upper body flex and move. He looked on with lust and desire and pride that Kelsang was among the best of the men.

He wondered how much Kelsang really understood when he had confessed to him several days prior, how he had been wandering the lands for hundreds of years and it had been a long time since he had been with anyone. It sounded unbelievable to his ears, but Kelsang believed in magic and spirits and the superstitions of the region. To go from those myths and legends to his reality was a short step for Kelsang.

Dree had told him for he felt like he was taking advantage of the younger man, but Kelsang just looked at him with longing, then asked if Dree could love him when he grew old.

Moving toward the front of the men to call it a day, he saw Kelsang look his way and smile as he passed. The image of Kelsang when he had told him he had done it before and knew he could do it again, the smile that seemed to take over his entire face. Even the eyes seemed to smile.

Dree felt safe and wanted at the mountain side compound, but he worried the day would come he would have to leave. Partly to conceal his very slow aging, but mainly to protect them. He had heard travelers telling of a magician, a warlock in some cultures, who traveled the lands doing curses and evil. He knew it was a corruption of his encounters, the helping of someone poor or weak against marauders and thieves, only to become the one that had done wrong. To use his power always seemed to create fear in others, even when he had used it to help them.

“That is enough for today. Everyone continue with your practicing, and we’ll meet in two days,” said Dree as he faced the men. He saw them nod in appreciation that the training was over, and he was giving them a day off, then he saw their eyes move to his right. He sensed Cering coming his way.

“Dree how was today’s training?” asked Cering as he stepped up next to him.

“Good.”

“I can see their improvement and in such a short time.”

“But you didn’t come to talk of the training.”

Cering laughed, nodding his head.

“No, I came to talk to you about something else.”

“About the rumors the travelers are telling when they pass through.”

“Yes. I know there is much you have not divulged to me or the others, and I know it is best I not ask. But I know you could be in danger if someone found out from where you came.”

“And if I’m in danger, then everyone is in danger.”

“Yes.”

“When do you want me to leave?”

“I don’t…but-“

“Cering, I’m no fool. I knew my time here was limited. I have just one favor to ask.”

“If it is acceptable for Kelsang to leave with you?”

“Yes,” Dree replied looking at Cering smile up at him.

“It is up to him. We don’t hold anyone here against their will.”

“I just thought you might dissuade him for his sake.”

“I think you know as well as I, when it comes to a connection being created between two people, call it love if you will, then nothing can wedge in between them.”

“I disagree, for I know there are ways to break people apart, but I understand what you mean.”

“Yes, I’m sure there are ways so mean spirited or evil, but let’s not think of such right now. I think you should stay through winter. Then when spring arrives on the mountain, you will have good traveling conditions. Have you thought of where you would go?”

“Back west. It has been such a long time that no one will know me, and I can travel freely.”

“Dree, might I ask, just how old are you?”

Dree exhaled, then looked down at Cering. “Will you believe me if I tell you?”

“There is much in the world most men do not understand, and I’m not too proud to admit there is much I don’t know. But as to you…nothing will surprise me.”

“I think-“

“Think?”

“I’ve lost track some time ago. Didn’t think it mattered.”

Cering laughed.

“You think it is funny?”

“Yes. Most men labor over their age, count the years as if precious in some way, only to waste most of them on foolishness. But you have an abundance of time and give little thought to it.”

“That is not true. I think of it all the time, especially when I’m with Kelsang. It is keeping track of the exact years I fail to find importance. But to answer your question, I think I’m somewhere between four hundred and eighty years and five hundred, but that is merely a guess.”

“Nearly five hundred years…that is amazing.”

“Please do not tell anyone.”

“It’ll be our secret.”

 

 

Another with the Gift

“Xenak!” called out Aarn, wondering where his only son had sneaked off to this time. For years, the boy was like a wild animal, unwilling to stay close to their dwelling, instead roaming the woodland around them. He was just a boy, but unknown to Aarn and Mitlie, his wife, one entering puberty. The boy would soon be thirteen, and he worried the boy wasn’t getting the training and education he needed to survive in the world. How to hunt, what plants were edible, and which were poisonous. How to treat wounds, broken bones, to pull a bad tooth, and calm a burning fever. He knew the boy was cunning, smart, and just needed a firm hand, but keeping him close, taking him out to lessons about the woodlands was difficult. He knew the boy sneaked off to see Leslieh, the old widow woman who lived upstream from them.

Aarn knew the rumors about Leslieh, that she was a witch, an evil sorceress who would place curses on anyone who crossed her. He didn’t take stock of the rumors, for Leslieh had always been nice, coming to their aid when needed. Once Xenak was born, she was more attentive to them, bringing herbs and fungi and potions that cured any manner of disease. Aarn knew Xenak was drawn to her, loved to help in her search for the items she needed on the mountain side and down in the valley along the stream.

Aarn wondered if that would be where he would find Xenak now, up at the widow’s dwelling. He turned to see Mitlie come out under the porch.

“I bet he is at that widow’s place. You should go get him. I don’t like him up there,” said Mitlie. She didn’t wait for a response, turning and going back inside.

Aarn knew what his wife thought of Leslieh, even though she tried to conceal her belief the widow was a witch. He knew how it alarmed her for Xenak to visit her, and to go with her on gatherings on the mountain.

The day was coming to an end, and darkness would soon cover the mountain. Aarn went inside to put on a coat and get a torch to light once it got dark, then he headed up the narrow trail that paralleled the stream taking him to Leslieh’s dwelling.

 

 

Xenak watched the rock hover in space, then with his wishing it, moved around the small dwelling while Leslieh laughed and cheered him on. She had told him years ago he had the gift. That one day he would have a power that none other possessed nor would be able to defeat.

“Very good Xenak, very good,” said Leslieh. “Now put it back on the table.”

The rock moved back to the center of the room where the table dominated it, hovered a second over the center of it, then floated down until at rest.

“Do you practice in the woods like I showed you?”

“Yes, Leslieh.”

“Very good. You are doing so well.”

Xenak smiled, pleased at the praise. His parents praised him too, but for more mundane accomplishments, things he didn’t care about. It was Leslieh’s praise that mattered most. She knew of his gift, and had shown him how to control it, to make it more powerful as he grew older. In the last few days, he had noticed significant improvement in the strength of his power and his control over it.

“Xenak, hurry and put everything away. Your father is approaching,” said Leslieh.

Xenak looked in the direction of the trial, staring at the old wooden door, and suddenly he sensed his father’s approach. He hurriedly put away the potions and elements of their magic. He rolled up the old scroll with all its ancient secrets and put it on the shelf with the others, including the one that was darkened with age and forbidden to him. Leslieh said it was evil magic, uncontrollable magic that only brought harm to those who had tried it.

She had tried to destroy it, but the parchment was treated in some way, probably part of the dark magic like that contained within it, and everything she tried, from burning to acid failed to harm it.

With everything put away, Xenak sat at the table as Leslieh sat a sweet bread before him. He knew it was a rouse, a way to trick his father into thinking his visit was innocent, and he quietly played his role, taking a few quick bites just before his father…

A loud rap at the door.

“Leslieh, its Aarn. I know it is getting late but is Xenak here by chance?”

Leslieh opened the door and smiled up at Aarn. “Yes, yes, Xenak is here. He is eating some fresh bread. Would you like some?”

“No, no, Mitlie is preparing our evening meal and we should arrive with an appetite.”

“Yes, you must not offend your wife. Xenak, leave the remainder and go with your father.”

 

 

Xenak and his father approached their dwelling seeing a group of men standing in front. His mother stood at the door, and he could see her talking in an animated manner. He focused, sensing her emotions. Fear, anger, a desire for revenge. It made his own fear rise, an anxiety about what his mother was telling those men.

He slowed, fell in behind his father as they neared the house. The men took off in a fast walk before they arrived and passed them with only the merest of glances.

“What did they want?” Aarn asked.

“Nothing.” Mitlie’s response was too quick, too short, and Xenak knew she was hiding something. “I have evening meal prepared, so wash up and get to the table.”

After washing their hands, Aarn and Xenak sat at their usual places around the table as Mitlie set bowls steaming hot before each one of them. She retrieved her own bowl and sat across from Aarn. They ate in silence, Aarn seemingly oblivious to how Mitlie kept looking at Xenak as he glanced back, time and time again.

Once finished and the dishes washed, everyone went to bed. There was a partition between Aarn and Mitlie’s bed and Xenak’s bed, but it did nothing to stop sound. He lay silent, waiting, knowing sooner or later his father would ask again. When he heard his father whisper to his mother, he held his breath so not even the sound of his breathing would keep him from hearing.

“What did those men want?”

“Can’t you let it go?”

“Mitlie.”

“They were looking for that witch. They knew of her and were seeking her out.”

“Mitlie! You didn’t tell them?” Aarn’s breathless voice struggling to keep to a whisper.

“Of course, I told them. She’s evil and I don’t want Xanek around her.”

“They’ll kill her.”

“I hope so.”

Aarn didn’t respond and the room fell silent.

Xanek struggled to lay still, knowing he had to wait until his parents were asleep. He waited, tears coming to his eyes. His own mother betrayed Leslieh, and in turn, betrayed him. He didn’t know how that reasoning worked; he just knew it was true.

After what seemed a long time, he slipped out of bed, eased across the room, and out the door. He didn’t know his father was still awake and had watched him, wondering if he should stop him or not.

 

 

Xanek held the torch up and moved as fast as the flame would allow. It spurted and nearly went out a few times, as he made his way up the trail. As he neared her dwelling, he heard voices, men cheering and shouting. He put the torch out and moved along the trail by the moonlight, going toward the glow of light over the rise.

At the peak, Xanek gasped. Before him he saw Leslieh tied to a tree, body slumped in such an unnatural manner he knew she was in a very bad way. When he tried to sense her, there was nothing. The men were gathering around to leave. One tossed a torch against the wall of her dwelling, ignited limbs and dry leaves piled at the base of it. As flames ran up the wall, the men started down the trail, forcing Xanek to hide. As soon as they were down the trail out of sight he ran to the old dwelling, knowing there was nothing he could do for Leslieh. He raced inside as smoke began to fill the interior, wondering what he could save. The herbs and jars of potions and elixirs would be too heavy and bulky to carry, but the parchment he could carry easily. He rushed around the table and pulled them down quickly then wrapped his arms around the bundle and raced out. He started for the door, then stopped, looking at the small basket tucked underneath her bed. He pulled it out and took out the coin she had stashed. Among the coins, he found gems, red, green, one blue, and he slipped them into his pocket, then rushed to the door as flames spread overhead through the roof structure.

Safely away from the burning dwelling, he set the parchments on a rock and went to attend to Leslieh’s body. He cried as he untied her, then he closed her eyes while wondering how he could give her a proper burial. He looked at the ground surrounding him seeing it was rock or tree rooted soil. He looked at the burning dwelling and knew that letting it consume her body was the best option. He dragged her across the ground, struggling with every pull until he felt the heat of the flames at his back. Then he pulled and pushed her to the door, rolled her inside, and pulled the door closed as flames began to curl around the head of it.

 

 

Hiding behind a tree just up from his own dwelling, he watched the men hand his mother something and he sensed it a reward. A reward for betraying Leslieh and he sensed her glee, her satisfaction in getting vengeance against Leslieh. Would she do the same to him if she knew of his gift, the powers Leslieh praised, began to teach him how to control, and to not be ashamed. He knew she would have him killed just as easily, without any forethought.

Mitlie went back inside and Xanek stayed hidden, wondering if he should go inside his own home with a woman he no longer trusted. A woman who had betrayed him. A woman who was complicit in the murder of Leslieh. The sky began to brighten, day once again coming over the land, and Aarn came out, looked around, then started up the lane. Keeping out of sight, Xanek watched his father pass close by, knowing he was going in search of him. He waited, watching his father follow the old lane up the side of the mountain until disappearing around a curve, then he eased down to his home. He used a limb to jam the front door in place, then stepped back from the old wood structure. He sought the power, let it build within him, then he ignited the old wood structure around its base.

As the dwelling burned, his mother banging on the door to be let out, Xanek followed the lane down the mountain, scheming on how he could take revenge against the men who killed Leslieh.

 

 

Escape

“Dree, this way,” Kelsang uttered breathlessly.

Dree ducked under a low limb as he followed Kelsang along the side of the mountain. They were off the main trail avoiding everyone, not sure who was friendly, and who was a threat. Gyatso had come to Dree and Kelsang’s room late the night before in a panic. A traveler had arrived talking about a party of men looking for someone matching Dree’s description.

“Where are we going?” asked Kelsang.

“We’ll go east until the land ends,” Dree replied as he led Kelsang silently through the woodland.

Dree knew the danger if they got caught. He was confident of his ability to defend himself, but it was Kelsang he worried about it. And the fact word would spread if he took out a large group of men who were pursuing him. It was best to disappear, as he had done before. Become a ghost, or a myth. A legend.

They kept up their hurried pace, keeping high on the mountain for a few days. Then he led Kelsang down into the valley, continuing their eastward journey. It wasn’t a straight path, one that often pulled them south for days at a time, but eventually they came to a land of dense forest that was filled with all manner of wild beast. Elephants, monkeys, tigers, and other animals that meant they must exercise caution.

One morning Dree got careless, more focused on what Kelsang was talking about than listening out for other men and animals they needed to beware. They climbed a slight slope until standing on a small flat area. He froze and Kelsang ran into him.

“What is it?” asked Kelsang.

“Shhh,” Dree responded in a hush whisper.

Before them was a tiger. A large male that was blocking the path. At first, Dree felt fear, then he felt awe at the majesty of the animal. He focused on it, felt its instincts, the need to hunt, then the curiosity of the current moment. He fed into that curiosity, used it to calm the animal, sending out how they were no threat.

The tiger moved off the path and disappeared into the forest.

“Wow, we got lucky,” whispered Kelsang, looking into the forest for the tiger.

“Yes, lucky,” Dree replied.

Late that day, tired from their days of travel and feeling as if they were being followed, they stopped to make a proper camp for the night. A roaring fire, meat grilling over it, and a mat of leaves for a bed for the night.

 

 

Dree had Kelsang’s clothing undone, the shirt binding the arms behind the back, the pants around the ankles. With knees up and spread, he had Kelsang bound and pinned to the ground. He moved over him, within him, every touch, every push into Kelsang’s depths increasing his arousal. He felt the hot exhales on his neck, then the desperate kisses that moved along his neck. There was a nip at the skin, just a light bit, and he moaned while shoving into Kelsang’s depths all the way.

He felt the heat of the body beneath him, how it undulated with his own movement. The curve of the torso, the push with the ass, the caress of hands along his own body. He pushed into it, deeply, feeling his cock buried inside him, then he tugged outward, at times so slowly he felt every inch slip free of the tight opening. When too aroused to slow, he worked his hips furiously, simply savoring the stroke of his cock through it.

Slipped free, cock hovering between them, Dree got to his knees and manuevered Kelsang to his knees, pushing him over until head and shoulders rested on the blanket. Holding the arms by the twisted shirt, he penetrated him again and fucked.

“Fuck me…fuck me, Dree,” Kelsang moaned.

Dree fucked until his upper body was covered in sweat, glistening in the moonlight. He pulled Kelsang to his knees, bearhugged their bodies together while continuing to fuck. He shoved into Kelsang, pushed cock inward until hips smacked against ass. The sound of their fuck echoed in the woods surrounding them. Only Kelsang’s cries were louder.

Dree stroked Kelsang’s cock as he fucked. Faster and faster, hand working cock while his own cock thrust into Kelsang’s depths. Kelsang shuddered, shoved back on his cock, the shoved cock through his fist.

“OH, fuck,” Kelsang exclaimed as his cock flexed in Dree’s fist. It spurts wad after wad, raining cum down on the blanket.

Dree feels Kelsang’s release and he shoves into his depths and comes.

 

 

 

Far to the west, young Xenak moved down the mountain, scrolls held tight to his chest. He didn’t look back, not at the smoke rising from the side of the mountain, or the sense his father was out there looking for him. He kept his attention on the trail, seeking the men who killed Leslieh. He came to the place the trail bridged over the stream and stopped to quinch his thirst.

It was mid-morning when he came into the village. The people were stirring about, some loading carts for the market, others working the fields, hammering hot metal, or working flour for fresh bread. As he walked along the main trail through the middle of the village, he sensed the men. They were jovial, celebrating their killing of Leslieh. They were in the small tavern; a place men drank to celebrate or forget. Or to simply get nourishment. He wanted to see the men again, knowing they knew nothing about him. He pushed open the old wooden door and entered the dark interior.

“Can I get something to eat?”

It was one of the women who worked in the tavern. He saw her suspicion, a young boy entering alone. He read it, how she was aggravated.

“My father has business to attend, so I’m to get something to eat while I wait.”

He gave her his most innocent expression, and the woman smiled at him assuming it were true.

“It’s a coin for a bowl,” she said.

Xenak pulled the appropriate coin, the one he saw her picture in her mind, and held it out.

“Take a seat and I’ll get your food.”

Xenak looked around the room until he saw the men at a table on the far side, all five of them crowded around it, drinking beer. They were jovial and it made Xenak’s fury rise. He took a seat at a table in the front corner, the furthest from them but where he could keep watch.

A bowl of stew was placed before him, along with a cup of water, and he was left alone. He ate slowly, watching the men, reading them, sensing the satisfaction of their cruelty. After another round of beers, the other woman approached their table.

“Your room is ready.”

“We needed two rooms,” one of the men exclaimed, acting like he was going to jump up to accost the woman.

She stood her ground, leaning closer.

“We just got the one. Take it or leave it.”

A few minutes later, Xenak watched the men go through a doorway in back, tucked at the end of the bar. He finished his food and eased out the front door. He roamed around the village, just killing time, until he knew the drunken men had to be asleep, then he eased around the tavern, down a narrow alley, to the back. He moved around the trash and slop that had been tossed out the rear door, coming up to one small window. He placed a wood box on the ground and stepped up to peer in.

Four of the men were asleep, but one sat on the floor, his back against one of the small cots, playing with his knife. Xenak read him. A man of great jealously and superstition. A man easily manipulated. He entered the man’s mind, gave him images of the other men in acts of betrayal. Stealing from his purse when he was asleep. Eventually planning on leaving him, or worse, killing him. The image swelled and became full color in the man’s mind. Xenak saw it, how the man looked at the others with disgust, mistrust in them increasing.

You need to strike first. Take advantage of this opportunity. Xenak put the thought in the man’s mind. He made it seem like a conscious thought, the man’s own resolution. The man got to his feet, knife in hand. He turned to the man behind him and slit his throat. One quick cut. He moved to the next cot, and the next, until he had circled the room, leaving each man to bleed out quickly, dying in their sleep.

Xenak pulled the window open and floated up and through it. He hovered in the air just inside the room. When the man looked up at him, he froze, and Xenak read the fear.

“What are you.”

“Your daemon.”

The man staggered back, tripped, going down hard on the floor. He kicked and scrambled until his back was against one of the cots.

“I saw what you have done. It brings me pleasure, but you have failed to complete your task.”

“Wh-wh-what do you mean?”

“You. You need to join your friends.”

At the mention of the other men as friends, Xenak allowed the man to see. Gasping and choking, the man went to his hand and knees.

“No, what have you done to me?” the man asked.

“Only allowed you to fulfill your deepest desire. But you need to use the knife one more time,” said Xenak, taking control of the man, making him come to his feet. He stared at him, focused on his control over him. A shaking hand brought the knife up until at the throat.

“No, please,” the man begged, then Xenak made him cut his own throat.

 

 

Xenak left out through the window, gathered up his belongings, and headed south. He didn’t look back as he entered the forest below the village. No one saw him leave and the darkness of the woods engulfed him as if he had never been there.

 

 

Dree led Kelsang into a village where they found a place to stay for the night and grab a hot meal. When darkness settled over the village, the sound of waves lapping gently along the shoreline, they retired for the night, easing down on the pallets on the floor.

“I’m so tired,” Kelsang whispered, then laughed.

“Me too,” Dree uttered in reply.

Kelsang looked over at the dark silhouette next to him. “You’ve been here before.” It wasn’t a question but stated as fact.

“I have, a long time ago.”

“How long will we stay here? You mentioned going west, not east as we have been doing.”

“I just wanted to throw off anyone following us. I’m thinking we stay a few days, let people see us, and if anyone comes looking, they can truthfully say we were here…or had been.”

They fell silent and soon sleep overtook them.

 

 

The first light of a new day, just enough to see one’s surroundings, and Kelsang stirred awake. He was snuggled against Dree, whose arms were holding him in a loose embrace. He moved against him, half awake and half aroused. He turned his head and saw Dree open his eyes.

“You awake?”

“I am now,” Dree replied playfully.

“Do me?”

Dree leaned to Kelsang and kissed him, then guided him to his back and moved over him. Lips and hands touched bare flesh and tugged at garments. Soon Kelsang lay back naked watching Dree remove the last of his garments. He reached out and took Dree in hand, stroking him to full erection. He felt the cock slide through his fingers, and when he rubbed the head with his thumb it made Dree shiver. Dree lifted his legs, resting them on the shoulders while moving over him. He folded in half, and Dree’s cock raked across his ass, then pumped up and down between his spread cheeks.

“Fuck me,” Kelsang uttered as he took Dree in hand again guiding him to his opening.

A push, then another and Dree breached the tight opening. Kelsang threw his head back and moaned. Dree pushed deeper and Kelsang clutched at the straw pallet. He felt Dree push into his depths until pleasured by the familiar fullness of being penetrated.

Dree hovered over him as cock began to move inside him. A tug then a push into his depths, over and over, until Dree was in a slow steady fuck.

Dree lasted a long time, the sun suddenly coming through the window and his body glistening with sweat. His breathing labored but his pace increasing, thrusting with greater urgency, until the soft slap of flesh against flesh echoed in the small room.

Kelsang took it, every thrust, as his own cock flexed and drooled onto his stomach.

Dree shifted position, then began to fuck harder, faster, until stifling a desire to cry out. He slammed into Kelsang’s depths and came.

Dree slipped free and moved down Kelsang’s body until he was between the legs. He held the leaking cock up, every aspect of it now familiar, and he leaned to it licking the head, then slipped his lips over it and sank it into his mouth. He moved his mouth up and down until there was a push up, a hard thrust as the cock swelled thick, flexed against the roof of his mouth, the filled it.

 

 

For three days, Dree and Kelsang relaxed in the village, walking the beach, moving through the small market, and finding places to serve them two or three meals a day.

On the morning of the third day, Dree paid for their room, then they went to have a hot meal. They were unhurried, for Dree sensed no danger from anyone around them, hadn’t since they arrived. Appetite sated, Dree led Kelsang back into the interior of the country, following a narrow lane until they were out of sight of the village and no travelers nearby.

Dree pulled Kelsang next to him, the two of them holding their packs to their backs. Then he pictured a place, one he had not been to in centuries. A place of old forests and a culture he didn’t know if he missed or not. He knew it would be an adventure for Kelsang. A new culture in a different landscape for him to explore.

The air around them stilled and not a sound could be heard. Everything blurred, then began to come back into focus.

Kelsang stepped back from Dree and looked around with an expression of shock. Dree had told him what to expect, but the reality was far stranger, for nothing was recognizable.

“Where are we?” asked Kelsang.

“In a strange land,” Dree uttered as he looked around while trying to read someone, anyone that might be nearby. It was not the place it had been when he was just a boy and living with Galreich. Nearly five hundred years had passed, and he knew some of the history. How the Romans had tried to conquer the land, and last reports they had succeeded about three hundred years ago. But since then, he knew other people had come into the land. There were the Scotti from the west, the Picts from the north, and from the across the sea to the east, the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. Who controlled the area, he wasn’t sure, but it wasn’t the same as when he left. The forests were mostly gone, for they stood in an open meadow.

“This is your homeland?”

“It was,” Dree replied. “Come on, we need to find lodgings and food.”

For two days, they passed few travelers, and only a few settlements, villages with small populations. In between the villages, they passed other villages and country houses long abandoned.

“What happened? Why are there so many abandoned places?” asked Kelsang when they passed another empty dwelling.

“War and conquest.”

On the third day, they came to a deserted village, one with a large wood structure at its center, with a fenced in courtyard area. It was surrounded by smaller wood structures, mostly dwellings, but one was a stable and one separated from the others had been a blacksmith’s shop. There were eleven structures in total, two of which had burned, all were left to deteriorate.

“Another deserted village,” said Kelsang as they entered it.

“Yes. Let’s look around this one,” said Dree. He didn’t know why, but the place felt different.

They looked in the smaller dwellings, the stable, until at the center of it where the large wood structure stood. Dree pulled a door open, having to lift it to get it to swing properly. Inside they found the building consisted of two smaller rooms on one side, and one large room on the other with benches sitting in a circular formation.

“I think we set up here,” said Dree as he stood in the middle of benches and spun slowly around. “This will do nicely.”

“But we don’t have supplies and…”

“I’ll provide.”

Kelsang looked at Dree, at first surprised by his response, then he saw the casual demeanor and knew Dree would do as he said.

“Okay, how do we do this?”

“I think we take the two small rooms as our dwelling; one for meals and one for sleeping.”

“And all those other dwellings?”

“I have plans for those. I sense there will be a need for them.”

What Dree had not told Kelsang, was he had been sensing others like himself. But he felt their confusion and fear, and knew they lived in hiding among the other people. There had only been a couple, but they had covered such a small area, he knew there had to be many more.

“What shall we call our new home?” Kelsang asked.

Dree slowly turned to Kelsang and smiled. “Soham.”

 

 

The Village Takes Life

Dree stood in the doorway of their private quarters watching Kelsang teach the children self-defense. He knew they would not need it, not when their power was harnessed, their control of it improved. But he knew firsthand how the training would build their bodies and focus their minds. A physical improvement aligned with the mental one.

It had been six years since Kelsang and he had taken over the village, and over the six years, had brought in three boys and six girls. They were all still aging in a normal manner, all except Tytil, the oldest among them and the one whose powers could match his own one day.

Kelsang tells the group to take a break, and Dree walks into the circle seeing the sweaty faces and fatigued bodies collapsing on the benches that are pushed back to the walls. He sees Tytil take up a water pouch and hand it to Aelfwynn, the oldest girl of the group, one only a few months his junior. Dree knew her power, he could feel it like he felt Tytil’s. He also knew they met in secret, two lovers who thought their relationship was not known to the others. Foolish boy and girl, Dree thought, for if Tytil and Aelfwynn just considered it, they would know there was no keeping secrets from him.

Dree scanned the others, reading them, knowing some still felt fear and anxieties, but most had found an inner calm over the last three to four years. It came with understanding themselves, and Dree knew those that were still struggling were the youngest, and it was only a matter of time before they found their own inner peace.

He considered each one. Tytil and Aelfwynn, the ones he knew possessed the power and intelligence to one day lead, possibly as husband and wife. They were nineteen, Tytil soon to be twenty and Dree knew their aging had slowed about three years prior. They still looked like teenagers, too young to be acting as adults, but Dree knew the reality and never interfered, only offering advice from time to time. Next to them was Cerdic, the youngest boy at only eleven. His parents had heard the rumors of the village, one for troubled children, and they had brought Cerdic last fall. They feared the boy and Dree knew from reading them Cerdic was already showing the gift, and a control that surprised even him. Cerdic was too shy, too timid, to ever be a leader, but he could be someone Tytil could rely on. On the next bench sat Wulfwynn and Hilda, the first to arrive at the village. He remembered how they came together holding hands and whispering back and forth to give each other confidence. Wulfwynn was fifteen and an orphan, had been since very young. She had to learn to support herself, even so far as to give herself a name. Sly and athletic, she was still the one the boys feared the most. Hilda was thirteen and the opposite of Wulfwynn. Meek and shy, always deferring to Wulfwynn. Her parents still lived in a village that was two days walk from their village, but when she had shown some ability, moving a plate of food within reach, her parents considered her possessed and sent her away. Wulfwynn had found her hiding in a stable and took care of her until the day they heard Dree’s call. The invitation to come join him. Like the others, they initially thought they were losing their minds. Hearing voices inside one’s head was a bad sign, even for those with the gift. But the voice was followed by images. Of Dree, Kelsang, and the village they were reestablishing.

On the opposite side of the room, crowded on one bench sat Godiva, Eadburg, Cwenhild, with Aelfgar at the end of the bench listening to the girls talk in hushed tones. Aelfgar liked Cwenhild, and he stayed close to her seeking her attention. The four of them were fourteen, all possessing the same abilities therefore always in competition with each other. Dree found their games humorous and Kelsang had often encouraged it establishing rules to keep it competitive.

“I’m going out to hunt,” said Dree looking over at Kelsang.

“Do you want someone to go with you?”

“No, let them rest.”

 

 

Dree walked along the wide trail that crossed the meadow until he came to a small wood. He found himself lost in thought, reaching out again for signs of other children, then of others like himself. It was a strange time with battles occurring all through the land among the different people. It led to gossip and rumor and eventually it would create legends and myths. He knew the weakness of man. He needed his stories, tales that gave meaning and purpose where very little if any existed. He had heard of tales of a new king with great knights, but there was so much corruption from reality, he knew it would not be long before a legend arose from the tales. But among the rumors and gossip there hid a truth. A small one, for now, but one he could sense. He knew it was another, like himself, one of great power.

He wondered if they should do more than sense each other, if they should try to connect in the physical realm, not just in the vaporous realm that surrounded them. As he focused himself, he could sense the old mage. Somewhere to the west, hiding in plain sight. A name came to him, Myrddin. It was a derivative of one he had sensed before: Marzhin. Or was it Merzhin.

He wanted to find the old mage, discover what knowledge he possessed, but then he considered his own being, one almost five hundred years old but still looking like a teenager. Was he so different? Did this Myrddin consider him an old mage?

Dree turned his focus back to the woodland around him, reading the area to find the game he sought. There were eleven mouths to feed, and although their gardens provided an abundance, everyone enjoyed the addition of meat in their diet.

He came around a bend, one that crested a small hill. He froze when he looked down below. In the trail stood a wolf. A large male, that once aware of his presence, began to growl. He sensed there was something wrong with it. The mind wasn’t right. It was ill with some sickness; one he knew turned an animal rabid. It took a couple of steps toward him, gaining confidence and looking for a way to attack. He knew it would, unable to stop itself. He didn’t want to do it, but he knew he had no choice, and he stopped its heart. It fell to the ground lifeless.

Dree came to the wolf, stooping down to run his hand over its fur.

“I’m sorry for this cruelty of life,” he whispered. He couldn’t leave it like this. Some purpose had to be given to it. He pulled out his knife.

 

 

That evening, pheasant, and rabbit roasted over an open fire in the small courtyard area, and a vegetable stew simmered over the fire in the fireplace in Dree and Kelsang’s private quarters. Everyone gathered in the main room, where Aelfwynn and Aelfgar sang songs, as Tytil played the lute. They played games, demonstrated some new ability with their power, or simply told tales making each other laugh.

Outside, secured to a wood frame, the wolf’s hide was hung to cure. Dree intended to make a cape with it, maybe even keeping the head as a hood. Something ceremonial Kelsang could use when he told stories to the boys and girls. It would give what remained of the wolf a purpose.

After the evening meal was finished and everyone turned in for the night, Kelsang led Dree to their sleeping chamber. It was the smallest of the three rooms and their bed took up much of the floor. They undressed each other, slowly, revealing familiar bodies. They caressed exposed skin, kissed lips, and down necks, and once naked, fondled each other into full erections.

Kelsang pulled Dree down on their bed, the lean body nestled between his raised knees. Despite becoming aware of their differences, how Dree still looked so young, he knew what lay within. The person who had seen so much, lived through ages he had no awareness. He still struggled with the language of this region, something Dree had been teaching him since their time in the great mountains far to the east. But it was a small inconvenience that allowed him a life he had never imagined possible. Dree was a mage, magical, at times seeming like a myth, only to wake to find it was real as Dree snuggled to his back.

He lay back as Dree moved over him, lips touching his neck, his chest, moving over hardening nipples, then down his stomach until closing around his cock. He gasped, pushed upward into the mouth, then fell back savoring the pleasure Dree was giving him. His cock grew rock hard, and it ached for release. He flexed in the suctioning mouth, then worked his hips in a slow fuck.

Then he clutched at their bed, pushed upward, and came.

Kelsang wrapped his legs around Dree’s waist as he felt him slip into position. Cock touched his opening, rubbed over it, then pushed against his tightness. He shivered with the penetration, Dree easing into his hole then slow fucking him. He held his head back, neck fully exposed to the lips that moved over it, with kisses and nips at the skin. His own cock stayed hard, pinned between their undulating bodies as Dree fucked deeper and deeper until pressing against his upturned ass.

Dree could last a long time, fuck with such varied rhythms, it would drive him insane with desire. He clung to him, uttering the pleadings that made Dree fuck harder, faster, increasing his own arousal. Far too soon, he came again, cum spreading out between them. Then Dree pushed inward all the way, and kept jamming against his ass as cock filled him with cum.

They nestled together, naked and exhausted from their day’s exertions and those that brought them pleasure. As was their way, they would sleep until sometime before daybreak, then wake fully aroused.

It was Dree who woke first and he rolled Kelsang to his stomach and moved over him. He moved over the prone body bringing it awake, softly whispering in one ear or the other, until Kelsang was awake.

“Fuck me,” Kelsang uttered.

Dree entered Kelsang, pushed into his depths and began to fuck. It was a desperate fuck. A hurried sense of urgency in his every move. The others would be awake soon.

Dree rose to his knees and Kelsang up on elbows and knees. As hips smacked ass with a steady rhythm, it spoke of their urgency. Dree held the narrow waist and fucked with determination, with the need to come. Beneath him, Kelsang stroked his cock as Dree plunged into his depths over and over.

Dree pulled Kelsang to his knees, bearhugged him to his chest while continuing to fuck. They moved as one, hips pushing forward and tugging back, and Kelsang stroked his cock with the same pace.

“Oh, Dree,” Kelsang gasped as his cock flexed, swelled thick in his hand, then sprayed the bed with cum.

Dree bellowed, pushed into Kelsang’s depths, and came.

Lying side by side breathing heavily, they smiled at each other. Kelsang moved first, rolling to his feet, and standing.

“Come on, another day is upon us.”

 

A few days later, Dree pulls down the wolf hide, checking to see if the brine soak and treatment had been successful. He smiled as he felt the hide, how it was soft, still pliable, and the coat rich and luxurious. He was going to take it in for Kelsang to try it on when he heard something. It was off in the distance, and he focused, searched for the source.

It took no time to locate the person trying to sneak up close. They were in the woodland to the north, somewhere on the hill that afforded a view down on their village. He sensed the danger, the intent that meant harm. A man who revealed fear and determination to be a hero to his village. The one who took down the devil of Soham. Dree scoffed when he read the man’s thoughts, already weary and impatient to end the threat. He moved around the nearest dwelling, out of sight of their interloper, then pictured the trail just on the other side of the rise, and he stepped from one realm to another then onto the trail. He realized he still held the wolf hide, and he slipped it over his shoulders and put head over his own. It sat low, just above his brow, shielding his eyes. Then he headed into the woods by the trail in search of the man.

He eased through the woods silently, moving from tree to tree, until he saw the man near the wood’s edge. The man was crouched down behind a tree, peering around its trunk. Dree was tempted to stop the man’s heart then dispose of the body, but he knew he couldn’t do it. The man was no real threat. Then he considered another option, one that could lead others to leave them alone. He stepped out arms out and growled.

The man turned and froze, shocked to see wolf and man as one.

“You dare trespass here!” Dree shouted, his voice projecting with greater power than was natural. Birds took flight and the air seemed to vibrate with each syllable. The man stumbled back, falling to his ass. Dree clapped his hands, and it sounded like thunder. He entered the man’s mind causing him to see what horrors could await him if he didn’t leave. A body torn to pieces, a hungry wolf biting into his living flesh as he screamed, then suddenly he felt pain. A searing burning pain that paralyzed him, left him shivering and shaking on the ground.

Dree floated down to the man’s feet and made his eyes glow red.

“Leave this place, for you are not welcome here,” Dree uttered in a low threatening tone.

The man regained the use of his body and he scrambled to his hands and knees, crawling as fast as he could until away from Dree, then he got to his feet and ran.

Dree stood still, focused on reading the man. He sensed the terror, the absolute fear animating from him. He saw the trail through the man’s eyes, how it passed quickly, the man in a full run. He tugged the wolf hide from his shoulders and smiled at the foolish display, knowing it had worked.

 

 

“You did what?” Kelsang asked, his fork hovering in front of his face.

“I scared him just a bit,” Dree replied.

Tytil, Aelfwynn, and Wulfwynn laughed. It was just the five of them at the table. The others doing chores in the garden or the pens.

“You used your gift and…wore the wolf hide?” Kelsang asked for the third time.

“Yes. I thought it would lend an air of mysticism to my little warning,” Dree replied.

“There’ll be a new legend about a wolf,” Wulfwynn interjected.

“Oh, the spirits,” Kelsang exclaimed, looking at Wulfwynn in disbelief, then over to Dree directly across the table. “She’s right, you know.”

“I hope so. Maybe it will cause men like him to not tempt it,” Dree replied.

“A wolf,” Tytil whispered, then looked at Wulfwynn and smiled, for he knew part of her name meant “wolf”.

 

 

The next day, Dree sensed it. A group of men heading their way. There was anger and fear and a vengeance seeking revenge for harm not of their making. The man hadn’t headed his warning, instead he had round up a group of men who sought conflict, the opportunity to take out their lot in life on someone else.

He summoned the wolf’s hide to him and headed to the woodland. He entered the minds of Kelsang, Tytil, and Wulfwynn, warning them, instructing them to get everyone inside. He raced to the woods, not wanting the others to see what was about to happen. He was furious, an anger he had not felt in a very long time. He knew there would be some men who would not stop, and riding toward their village, was just such a group.

He slung the hide over his shoulders, pulled the head over his own, and stepped into the other realm, then onto the trail on the other side of the rise. He stood in the middle of it and waited.

 

 

There were twelve men on horseback, armed with swords and crossbows. He sensed their approach, then he saw them come around the bend. The man from the day before was in front, crossbow in one hand. They pulled the reins of their horses coming to a stop. Only two perch away, Dree could see the men’s faces. They matched the turmoil of the minds. Arrogance and conceit and fear, all mixed into a deadly blend.

The man from the day before raised the crossbow, taking aim at him. He let the man aim, squeeze the trigger, then he incinerated the arrow, ashes floating down just in front of the man’s horse. Then he clapped his hands, the sound thunderous, causing the man’s horse to rear up tossing him to the ground. The other horses were spooked, stepping back as the man’s horse raced by Dree. The man came to his feet and Dree burnt him to ash where he stood. The wind carried it away as the other men looked down in horror.

“I warned you not to tempt fate by attacking us,” Dree uttered, his voice projected to come from above.

Then he dropped each man by stopping their heart, until only one remained.

“I’m King Wuffa, of Soham, and I defy any man to tempt the fates by trying to attack us. Tell all you see we are to be left alone. Otherwise, the same fate waits for them,” Dree exclaimed, his voice reverberating in the air. The dead men burst into flames. White hot and all consuming.

“Go!” Dree shouted, and the final man turned his horse and sped away.

A week later, a group of women showed up asking for protection by King Wuffa. They had no idea who this king was and didn’t believe it could be any of the young men that greeted them. But they sensed the power of the young man who came forward to welcome them to the village. Dree, he introduced himself.

And thus, the village grew. Others who sought the protection of the wolf king, the protector of Soham, arrived over the coming months. They built new dwellings with beautifully honed wood that appeared each morning ready for their construction. At first, it was mainly single women, then couples arrived, men who had been forced to labor for one declared king or another with nothing to show for it. In Soham they found a place that gave them a place to call their own.

Tytil aged until he looked early twenties and Dree declared him the leader of the village. The new residents called him king, for they knew no other label. It stuck and Dree encouraged it for it gave the people comfort. But Tytil and he knew it was symbolic, just a title.

Dree hid the wolf hide, not taking it out except when some group of men came with the intent of taking over. He would don the wolf hide and meet them in the woodland. He would always leave one, the meekest of the group, to go tell others of their fate. How the others dropped dead and were consumed by magical fire that burned white hot.

Dree and Kelsang talked of the rumors, the gossip that talked of a Wuffingas Dynasty, led by King Wuffa, the wolf. Dree cultivated the legend, allowing it to grow and take on its own power. It allowed their village to grow unmolested. It became a town, spreading out from the original meeting house and residence for Dree and Kelsang. They knew how the old cultures of the land viewed them. As pagans, part of the Saxons that came from the east, from across the sea. But they practiced no religion, built no temple or church to some god that didn’t exist. Kelsang practiced mediation and a spiritual belief of the world, one Dree couldn’t accept, but found no harm in it, unlike the religions with gods and man-gods, pitting man against man. Some of the others practiced Kelsang’s meditations, and some followed Dree and Tytil’s lead, of choosing to just do good.

When the time came that Dree’s slow aging process was going to draw attention in the surrounding villages and towns, Kelsang and he packed up, bid their little town farewell, leaving Tytil and Aelfwynn in charge with Cerdic responsible for the security of the town. They were considered husband and wife and had three sons. Raedwald was seven, Wulfstan was five, and Nichol was less than a year old, and all three would not have the gift. Raedwald had his mother’s dark hair and his father’s masculine features, and the day would come when he took his father’s place as king of a land far larger than the region around Soham. And with the slowed aging process, Tytil and Aelfwynn would disappear into the lands to the west, living among the people for a few years, then moving on, one place after next, never revealing how they didn’t age like others.

 

 

A Lost Soul

Xenak sat on the raised platform, the open windows overlooking the deep gorge behind him. The old stone structure had been fortified, a wall built on the exposed sides, the gorge a natural protection for the rear. The room was tall and open, with stone walls supporting a wood roof. The exposed roof was large timber beams spanning the room, with two lines of columns dividing the room into three bays, the central bay wider than the two along each side. His large chair, the base of stone and arms and back made of wood, nearly dwarfed him, made his youthful appearance even more pronounced, but it also gave him prominence. The others in the room were to defer to him in all matters.

He looked around the room at the guys who made up his little community. Young guys, guys who looked his age, or a little older, guys who had no gifts. He had tried to live with young men who had the gift. Men he could train and have in his bed, but they always became untrustworthy. They didn’t like his control over them. The first had been Attila, who eventually betrayed him. After such a long passage of time, Attila’s screams still haunted him for he had made Attila’s death last a long time. It would be some time before he tried again to have another in his life, and he thought Euric would be one to stand by his side for a long time. Euric had approached him. A reading of his gifts realizing he was more powerful, of a far greater age, and Euric had submitted to him. But the submission didn’t last for envy and jealously reared their heads, and he had stopped Euric’s heart during their last sex, when he would least expect it.

Before him now were young men who were no threat. Anduit and Oamer sat on his left feeding each other fruit. Hildirix, Dagila, and Vilimut on his right, lounging on the long bed that sat along the wall. They were still naked, their sexual desires sated for now. In the center of the room, down below him, Fridus was fucking Heldic. The smaller man was folded in half and pressed down on the floor by the larger. Fridus’ body flexed and strained with his exertion, as he drove cock into Heldic’s depths. They were physical in their fuck, the sound of flesh smacking flesh, and Heldic crying out and pleading to be fucked hard, and over him, Fridus just grunting with his exertion.

Everyone watched, including Xenak. He let his robe fall open revealing his body. His took his hard cock in hand and stroked slowly to the scene before him. Then he looked at Dagila, giving him a slight nod of the head.

Dagila was shorter than the others, with a body that looked younger than his nineteen. His cock hung heavy over the sac, still wet from where Vilimut had sucked him off. Dagila came to the base of the platform, got down on all fours and climbed up until between Xenak’s legs. He pushed the robe open all the way, forcing it down between body and chair. He looked up at Xenak, smiled, then leaned down to suck.

 

 

Xenak went to his private bath located in a cavern below the structure. From his private quarters, he took the old stone steps down to the cavern where a natural pool took up much of the space. He let the robe slide from his shoulders and eased down into the cool waters. The pool was waist deep and he lay back and let his body sink below the surface. He held his breath for as long as he could then sprang up out of the water, gasping for that first gulp of air.

Then he moved to the side and sat back, water up to his neck. He thought about how Dagila sucked him off, then got down on the floor on elbows and knees waiting to be fucked. Xenak wasn’t in the mood and looked to Anduit to come fuck Dagila. Anduit with the massive cock. It would make Dagila cry out when penetrated, then gasp and moan when being fucked. It aroused the others to watch, and soon Oamer came to them, got on his knees to have Dagila suck him off. To the side of the room, Hildirix and Vilimut were stroking each other’s cock and Xenak knew Hildirix would soon be fucking Vilimut. On the floor in the center of the room, Fridus was laying on his back with Heldic riding his cock. 

It was so predictable, how the men would partner up, and he knew even now, there were beds crowded with two or four men, and beds that were empty. He didn’t care, for he tired of their antics so quickly. They didn’t provide him with what he truly desired, whatever that may be.

 

Another Community, Another Time

The waves of the sea crashed against the cliffs below and the wind blew icy cold from the north. Dree looked out over the dark waters and cloudy gray sky and smiled. It had been thirty years since Kelsang and he left Soham, their first community, a safe place for those with the gift. He wondered how the old village, now a proper town, was doing. Raedwald was their King Wuffa, the one who led the region. Dree knew Raedwald was normal, a human without the gift, but he had secret support from those with it, maintaining so many of the legends and myths that had developed from his time there. Tytil and Aelfwynn had gone to the western shores, the land of the Scotti. He could sense them when he focused. Happy and carefree, the two living as a traveling couple out to the country, and one day, probably the world.

He held the old necklace that had belonged to Galreich, the stone with interlocking circles. He had long since stopped trying to figure it out or give it some significance. Maybe it was some keepsake she had possessed that reminded her of an earlier time in her life, as it did for him.

“Dree, evening meal is prepared,” said Kelsang, and Dree turned to see him standing behind him. Kelsang was an elder now, a man in his fifties. Those outside their community believed Kelsang was his father, or maybe even his grandfather. But those within knew the truth, so obvious with the shared room and how they engaged each other.

“Well, let us eat,” Dree replied with a smile. He turned and came along side Kelsang, a man he still loved with all his heart, knowing the day would come when Kelsang would cease, leaving him with only memories. Memories like those he had of Peja. It was the cycle of life; one he knew he had tricked with his gift.

They entered the main building, one similar to the one back in Soham, only there were no private quarters in it. Nerthus was serving the children, while the older ones served themselves. Nerthus had been mentoring two girls when Dree and Kelsang arrived. There had been a conflict with the locals, one far too familiar to Dree and Nerthus, and Dree pulled out the wolf hide and with a bit of his gift, gave those that wanted trouble reason to go elsewhere to find it.

Nerthus had her own legend that was materializing in the region, mixing her with some deity from the old country for the people of Diera. It gave her and Dree much in common and they laughed about it when talking about some new rumor.

Cross the room and taking their customary seats, Nerthus was soon sitting next to him.

“You keep looking across that sea as if expecting someone,” Nerthus uttered as she took up her spoon.

Dree laughed. “No, just letting the wind hit me in the face,” he joked.

He looked at their group, one equal in boys and girls, which surprised him. They had come to them, alone, in pairs, and one with their parents seeking a safe place. At one table there were the girls Aileas, Beitris, and Mairi, with Cailean, the youngest boy who sat between them. The girls were thirteen and fourteen and Cailean was ten. At the next table, sat Eilidh and Artair, the two oldest and now in a relationship. They were nineteen but still looked sixteen, the slowing of their again having begun.  At the third table, Iagan, Ruairi, and Tomas sat huddled up, whispering about some plan for the next morning. They were all fourteen, and Dree shook his head, wondering if the boys would ever realize whispering was futile. Nerthus and he had no trouble hearing them. The youngest child, an eight-year-old girl by the name of Mildritha sat next to Nerthus.

It was their group, their clan, all with gifts of various levels of power, all still in need of training.

“I think Cailean will be like you,” said Nerthus.

“What do you mean?” asked Dree, but he knew what she meant. He could see it, how the young boy looked at the older boys. Studying them, trying to work out why they fascinated him so. Why he was drawn to them, none more than Tomas, the one with black hair and emerald-green eyes.

“Don’t be a dalcop,” Nerthus replied, throwing out the insult making Dree look at her and shrug his shoulders. She laughed, leaning over until they bumped shoulders.

Dree loved Nerthus as a friend. She looked old, in her sixties and he knew with the slowed aging she was ancient. He never got her to reveal her true age, but she had mentioned watching Romans come ashore in the south for the first time.

“I sense two more will arrive tomorrow,” said Nerthus as she wiped Mildritha’s mouth.

“Yes, I sensed them too. I think they will be here by midday.”

“Then you know they are being chased.”

“Yes, and we’ll deal with that too.”

 

 

Dree hid behind a rock outcropping watching the two young men rush up the trail. Some distance behind them came men on horseback. There was no way the young men could outrun them.

Come this way, Dree spoke directly to each one. Lead your pursuers this way.

The young men turned right at a fork in the trail, leading them closer to the cliffs and the rock outcropping where Dree was hiding. One stumbled and fell, and the other quickly helped him up. They ran, increasing their pace despite their fatigue. Gasping for breath, they ran, each aware help was nearby.

Dree stepped out, the wolf hide draped over his shoulders and the head pulled up as a hood.

“This way,” he called out and the two young men looked up, then hurried to him.

“Get behind the rocks,” Dree exclaimed as he stepped forward to face the men.

The horseback riders rode up, stopping close enough Dree could see their eyes. They looked angry, mad, ready to extract revenge for hardships not of the young men’s making.

“The boys, give them to us and we’ll be on our way,” the one in front called out.

“I will not. You need to turn around and leave, and not come back,” Dree replied.

“This is none of your concern, whoever or whatever you are.”

“I’m making it my concern.”

Dree clapped, just once, but the sound was thunderous, so loud it reverberated the air. The horses reared up, causing three men to tumble to the ground. The man in front and two others held tight to their reins.

Dree looked at the three men coming to their feet. Suddenly they burst into white hot flames that quickly consumed them. There wasn’t even time for one to cry out.

Dree only wanted one to survive, and it was not going to be the leader. He read the three remaining men, sensing the one next to the leader was the weakest, the most fearful, and he knocked the other two from their horses and before they could get to their feet, he consumed them in the white fire.

The last man, fighting to control his horse, was shocked, and Dree knew he was ready to rush away.

“You go back and tell the others, those who would consider attacking us they will meet the same fate. Tell them Fenrir, the wolf, protects the people,” said Dree, referring to an old legend from the land across the sea. He would modify the myth to make it his own, and this would be the first legend created in that pursuit.

The man finally got control of his horse, turned it around and raced away, letting the horse run, run as fast as it desired.

The other five horses came to Dree, one that was solid black nuzzling up against him.

“Easy boy,” said Dree, smiling at the horse as he stroked the side of its head. “Okay, it’s safe to come out,” he called out to the two young men, turning to see them ease around the rocks.

“You’re one of the ones we’ve been sensing,” the older looking one said in a low voice.

“Yes, and the other would be Nerthus.”

“The old witch,” the other young man whispered.

“I’m Dree.”

“I’m Tristan,” the older one said, then pointing to the other, “and this is Bedwyr.”

“Tristan, Bedwyr, welcome to Diera. I sense it has been a long journey for the two of you.”

“We’ve been running for two moon cycles,” said Bedwyr.

“Well, you need run no more. Help me with the horses and let’s go meet the others. They are waiting.”

As they walked along the trail, each leading one horse, allowing the other two to follow, Tristan told Dree how they were from the north country and had fled south from one group of men only to be accosted by another, those that chased them back north, to here. He told Dree of their struggles with their own powers, not once calling it a gift.

“How old are you?” Dree asked.

“I’m twenty,” said Tristan, “and Bedwyr is eighteen.”

Dree looked at them, how they looked younger. If he had gone by appearances, he would have said they were fourteen, sixteen at most. It meant the two of them were experiencing the slowing of the aging process. He also sensed their friendship was much more than that. They were lovers, had been for some time, clinging to each other for comfort and safety in a world they didn’t understand. 

 

 

Dree sat at his usual spot watching Kelsang teach the younger one’s self-defense. On the far side of the room, Nerthus was teaching Eilidh, Artair, Tristan, and Bedwyr ways to control their power. Each with a wand helping to focus their power. He still practiced with his own, going out to the cliffs and casting bolts of power over the seas, feeling them grow in strength. Eilidh lifted Bedwyr into the air making him blush. Dree smiled, knowing how the couples liked to tease each other. It was funny how he always thought of them in pairs, always a couple, never individually. Eilidh and Artair initially took a little time, but Tristan and Bedwyr were always the male couple.

Eilisdh had the ability to read, Artair the ability to see into the future and the deep past. Tristan had the ability to step through the different realms, but it was Bedwyr that seemed the most powerful of the group. A simmering heat radiated from him, a power he had yet to release.

 

 

Tristan and Bedwyr

They never would have believed such a life was possible. How Dree and Nerthus protected them, gave them a home, and trained them in the ways of controlling their power, something Tristan began to think of as a gift. Bedwyr still was shy around the others, rarely initiating a conversation, but he quickly lost the sense of being an outsider, someone who didn’t belong. He had had enough of that feeling, and the ensuing need to flee from one place to another. He knew he would not have made it without Tristan, who was stronger, more daring, and someone he could not imagine living without.

Bedwyr entered their chambers first, slipping off his shirt and falling back on the bed, exhaling heavily as an expression of his fatigue. The practice of their powers exhausted Tristan and he more than the self-defense training with Kelsang. He watched Tristan strip off his shirt, then go to the pitcher for another drink of water.

The body hadn’t changed in five or six years. Still lean, the body of a teenager. But he knew the lie of the appearance, how a man resided in the body. A man he loved.

“Dree is worried about some other mage that lives somewhere across the sea,” said Bedwyr, rolling to his stomach sideways on the bed, his feet at the wall and his hands over the side.

“Did he say that to you?”

“No… I…huh…”

“You read him? Bedwyr, you shouldn’t do that.”

“I didn’t mean to read him. It just happened.”

“Be careful. We shouldn’t read either of them: Nerthus or Dree,” said Tristan as he came to the bed, sitting next to him. A hand on the bare back, rubbing up and down the spine. “Or Kelsang,” he added.

Bedwyr looked over his shoulder up at Tristan with a smile. “But he is so easy to read.”

“Bedwyr.”

“Okay, I’ll try.”

“Are you tired from our lesson?” asked Tristan, his voice lower.

Bedwyr felt the hand slide down his back, the fingers rake beneath his pants. Over the curve of one ass cheek, then the other. He held his head down. “No.”

“Roll over,” said Tristan as he removed his hand. “And take off your pants.”

Bedwyr rolled over and sat up. He raised his ass, slipping the pants down his legs. He sat back, unembarrassed with his nudity. With Tristan, he never felt embarrassed or shy, not after they had been together for some time. He watched the hand come down on one thigh, then slide upward until fondling his cock. He grew erect, cock curving upward, and he watched Tristan lean down to it. The warmth of Tristan’s mouth slipping over the head, the tongue that moved along the shaft and toyed with the head. He moaned and laid back. Tristan moved to the floor and between his legs. His cock was engulfed again, sliding deep into the warm mouth. He threw his head back and closed his eyes.

Tristan sucked his cock. Took it all the way or just toyed with the head until he cried out. Then Tristan was moving, up over his waist. He opened his eyes to watch how Tristan would move down to his cock, press against the head, then let it penetrate him. He watched the familiar act; the way Tristan took him, and he shuddered with the tight squeeze on the head of his cock. Tristan moved down slowly, stretching to take him. He held the thighs feeling the flex of muscle as Tristan rose, then eased down, over and over, taking more of his cock each time.

“I love you,” Tristan uttered as he sank all the way down until seated on his waist.

Tristan had always been the one to express himself so honestly, so passionately, and over the course of the last couple of years, Bedwyr had grown to feel as confident in his expression of how he felt.

“I love you.”

Tristan moved steadily up and down, sliding his ass on Bedwyr’s cock. He moved slowly, then faster and faster until sweating and breathing hard, then he would slow again. So slow Bedwyr could feel the exact line of tightness sliding along his cock. He would lean forward, kissing Bedwyr and leaving a trail of slick on the undulating stomach. But it was when he leaned back, resting on both hands, Bedwyr knew Tristan was going to fuck until coming. He watched Tristan take his own cock in hand and stroke it furiously as he pumped his ass up and down, at times so roughly the smack of flesh against flesh echoed in the room.

It pushed him over the edge as it did every time. Tristan’s ass working his cock so roughly, with such urgency, he could not hold back. He grabbed each ankle and held tight as he shoved upward. He cried out, shoved upward again, and spurt wad after wad into Tristan’s depths.

Tristan slammed down on his spurting cock, shuddered, then rained cum down on his own chest and stomach.

Bedwyr rolled Tristan over on his stomach next to him. He moved over the prone body, cock still hard, and entered him again. He worked his cock into the slick hole, burying it all the way, then tugging outward, slowly, feeling every inch. He moved heavily on Tristan, let him feel his weight and the heat of his body as he undulated and thrust into his depths. An arm around the neck and he held firm to Tristan, suddenly the aggressor and Tristan the submissive one. Tristan uttered profanities while pleading for him to fuck.

Their fuck would last a long time, his pace increasing then slowing. When he finally came, it would be with his cock buried into Tristan’s depths grinding his hips against Tristan’s ass as he pumped another load into him. When Tristan rolled over Bedwyr was always surprised to see the large wet spot and Tristan’s cock wet and slick.

If they had not been already fatigued, continuing would not have been unusual, but they were fatigued and Bedwyr snuggled up to Tristan, back to be the submissive one, and the two of them drifted off to sleep.

 

 

The Falling

Xanek looked around the room, not sure to be satisfied or disgusted. All around the room lay the dead bodies of the men. Young and old alike lying lifeless, eyes still open on most. One had questioned him, insinuated some wrong or slight. Xanek had been bored with them for some time. They had been no better than those that came before. The ones that stayed with him for a few years, then slipped out during a moonless night, thinking they had fooled him. He had let them go, each and every one. Now his weariness and the unease he felt during the quiet times pushed him to act. To rid himself of these mere mortals, for he knew he would live forever, and they would rot in the ground…eventually.

He strolled across the room and down to the cavern. Robe dropped on the floor, he entered the water, not sure if he would drown himself or simply relax. He submerged in the middle of the pool, then waded to one side to sit and relax.

A snake slithered by, searching for food, and he picked it up by its tail watching it squirm as it tried to get free. He wanted to be like a snake. To possess their senses. He wondered if he had the power to do it. He held the snake over his head, opened his mouth, and consumed it whole. He felt it move inside him, fighting to get out. Then a soft warmth spread through his body. He slid down, submerged in the pool while something within changed.

When he broke through the surface of the water he gasped for breath, then settled into a slow deep breathing. His sense of smell was far superior and when he stuck out his tongue, he could taste the chemicals in the air.

He laughed, head back and without holding back. He had done it and planned to do it again with another species.

 

 

Several days later, the putrid smell of decaying bodies hanging in the air, Xenak strolled out a side door into an overgrown garden. What had been originally planted was lost long ago to the native plants. He followed a narrow stone path, one packed so hard nothing could grow in it, until all he could see was the growth around him. He stood still, searching and seeking any sense of others nearby or any life. His robe fell open revealing his body, but he cared little about the exposure for no one was around to see him.

Movement caught his eyes, something small and dark crawling across the ground. A scorpion. The body, two claws, and curling tail were a dark reddish brown, but the legs were light, almost the color of the stony ground. He picked it up by the tail and studied it as it squirmed and twisted, trying to get away. Then he held it up as he tilted his head back. He eased it into his mouth, biting and chewing as he lowered it. The exoskeleton crunched between his teeth and the inner body oozed out inside his mouth. He swallowed and chewed until it was consumed. His stomach began to warm, then his whole body, as if burning with a fever. His skin darkened, then his finger and toenails elongated.

In five days, he would notice the tail. It would be segmented, growing longer and longer until it was longer than his body was in height. But it was thin, about the width of two fingers and with short segments, very flexible. At its end a stinger extended from the final segment, one redder than all the others.

In the cavern, he looked at his reflection in the pool. How his hair was falling out and his skin was getting darker. He raked his long nails across the surface obliterating his image. A sound, something moving quickly along the floor at the base of the stone wall, and he lashed out with his tail, striking it. When his eyes focused into the dark corner, he saw a rat lying dead, blood oozing from the wound.

He smiled with satisfaction, then climbed into the pool and eased beneath its surface.

 

The next morning, he woke up knowing it was time to move on. Everything about his current dwelling spoke of decay and rot. Even the air reeked of it. He slipped on clothing not worn in a long time, pulled on a long coat with a hood, and eased out the front door. He left it open seeing no need to close it. Following the narrow trail, he made his way down the mountain until on a trail in the valley, one that followed a stream. It was the one he passed when he arrived, but it looked different, the growth along its banks taller, the tree canopy denser.

He strolled on foot, not using his ability to transcend great distances. There was no hurry for he had nowhere he needed to be. Besides, he enjoyed strolling along the trail, then the lane it tied into at a bridge over the stream. He walked day and night feeling no fatigue until he came to an area of low rolling hills covered in grass and wildflower. Grazing along one hill were large sheep, some with large curling horns. He was curious about them and strolled up the hill drawing near. A male felt threatened by his presence and threatened to charge.

Xenak found it amusing, and he got closer. The male charged and he stopped its heart causing it to drop dead. He came to the body, brushed his hand over the soft fur, then trailed his fingers along one of the horns. He wondered if it was too late to take the rams essence. He slit through the hide easily with his nails, extracting the heart. After a few bites, he tossed the remaining portion to the ground. He cut through head behind the horns, hide and skull until exposing the brain. He extracted it and took a few bites. He felt it, the essence of the ram, how it warmed him from the inside. He lay back on the ground and waited.

This time it sent a terrible pain down his spine. He arced his back and cried out. Shivering and feeling feverish, he wondered if he had made a grave error. Then he felt it, how his skull seemed to throb with pain and his skin changed again, going from a reddish-brown to a dark red. Then the pain stopped, and he lay on the ground gasping for breath.

It was dark when Xenak woke, and he sat up looking around at his surroundings. He was alone. He rubbed his face and felt them. Two tiny, pointed nubs of horns breaking the skin on his forehead at the edge of his hairline.

He climbed to his feet, making his way back to the lane. Suddenly, impatient, he floated into the air and moved swiftly to the south.

 

 

Moving On

Tristan and Bedwyr checked their packs one more time, then looked around the room that had been home for a long time. It was time for them to move on.

A knock at the door and it swung open revealing Nerthus.

“Are you boys all packed?” she asked.

“Yes,” Bedwyr replied.

“Are you still heading west?”

“I think so,” Tristan replied.

Nerthus laughed, shaking her head. “You think so. Very funny. I know you aim to go to those foreign lands across the great sea.”

“Do you think the rumors are true?” asked Bedwyr.

“No rumors, those. The land is there, and it is vast,” said Nerthus, then she turned to Bedwyr. “I assume you’ll use your ability like Dree…this going through some other realm.”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t need to be able to picture it first, like Dree.”

“No,” Bedwyr replied, blushing, always embarrassed at his abilities. Some exceeded even Dree and Nerthus.

“It’s going to be rough at first.”

“Nerthus,” Tristan whispered, and she looked down. “I know; you’ll be fine. Take care of yourselves and if you ever come back this way, I expect a visit.”

“Of course,” Tristan replied, and he crossed the room and hugged her, rocking the two of them back and forth. “We’ll miss you.”

 

 

Tristan and Bedwyr stood in the middle of the room, with packs slung over their shoulders. As Nerthus watched, Bedwyr opened the other realm and they stepped into it, disappearing.

 

 

It was a narrow valley full of wildflowers. The mountains on each side were worn down and covered in dense forest. Birds flew overhead through the air and a herd of deer raced across the valley, splashing through the stream coursing down the middle of it. Suddenly the calm winds increased and an area in the middle of the valley swirled. The wildflowers and grasses pushed out and lay flat in the middle, then Tristan and Bedwyr stepped into the valley. They looked around at the unfamiliar landscape and laughed.

“It’s beautiful,” uttered Bedwyr.

“Which way?” asked Tristan.

“Let’s move over to the woods and head south.”

They crossed the valley floor moving away from the stream until moving along the edge of the woods. They looked up at the tall pine and a short distance later, at a group of oak trees that grew in a near perfect circle in the valley. As they neared the oak, two men stepped out of the woods and came toward them.

Bedwyr read them, saw the curiosity and some worry, trying to decern if Tristan and he were a threat. He held his hands up in a gesture of peace, showing no weapons. As they drew near, he studied their minds working out their language. In a slow careful pronunciation, he spoke to the closest man in his language.

“We mean no harm.”

“Then welcome,” the man replied.

 

 

Tristan and Bedwyr followed the two men, over the mountain following a trail through the woods that was barely there. They came into the next valley, one not as wide with a forest covering its floor. There was a small clearing and the smell of meat roasting over an open fire filled the air. The clearing was circled by triangular dwellings of long thin poles covered in animal hides. Temporary structures that could be easily relocated.

They realized the people were nomadic, moving from place to place. Over the course of the next couple of days they found themselves welcomed guests among the people. Each night there was a big meal with the elders’ telling stories. Bedwyr translated for Tristan, the two of them smiling at the mythical aspects woven into historical events. It was the third night, after becoming adjusted to their host’s traditions and rituals, they noticed two men retire for the night into one of the hide covered structures.

“Do you think?” asked Tristan.

“I know,” Bedwyr replied.

“No one seems to care.”

A woman looked over at them and smiled, and Bedwyr read her.

“It is not unusual to them,” Bedwyr whispered.

“Then it won’t be unusual for us to retire early too.”

Bedwyr made customer replies to the people, letting them know they were retiring for the night. They saw the knowing looks, the smiles, and small gestures.

“I think it amuses them,” said Bedwyr, following Tristan to the dwelling provided to them.

The dwelling wasn’t large, its circle only a bit larger than Tristan’s height, but with the furs on the ground, it was comfortable. Tristan pulled Bedwyr down next to him and soon had him naked.

On his knees, Tristan pulled his own clothing off then eased down on the familiar body. They kissed, touched, and made the other aroused. Tristan raised his knees with Bedwyr between them. He reached between them taking Bedwyr in hand, guiding him to his opening.

“Bedwyr,” Tristan whispered.

Bedwyr penetrated Tristan, deeply, pushing until Tristan felt the fullness of it. Then he began to fuck, slowly, letting Tristan feel his every move, the tug outward, the push inward, over and over. When the hands on his waist tightened their grip, he knew Tristan wanted their fuck to become more physical, and he increased his pace, working his hips faster and faster.

Bedwyr fucked fast, slamming down into Tristan’s depths, then he fucked slow, grinding his hips against the upturned ass. He moved Tristan into different positions. The two of them on their sides, he behind Tristan driving into his depths. Laying on his back with Tristan on top, moving up and down on his cock. Tristan on his back, knees pressed against the ground either side of the torso as he hammered cock into his depths. Then he had Tristan balled up beneath him taking a slow steady fuck.

Bedwyr came first, trying to jam deeper with every ejaculation until finally spent. Then he slipped free and took Tristan in his mouth. Only a few moves up and down and Tristan filled his mouth.

 

 

“How long will we stay here?” Tristan asked.

Bedwyr looked toward the sound of his voice, knowing he could see nothing in the darkness within their dwelling. “I think we stay long enough to learn about the region and get an idea of what direction to go next.”

“Any idea from what you’ve read from them?”

“Winter is coming soon and snow to the north can be heavy. Either south or west, although there was a sense that going west might be just as bad as going north if we get caught in some great plain during winter.”

“Let’s stay a few days and see what we can flesh out.”

Four days later, after the early morning meal, Tristan and Bedwyr set out, heading south.

 

 

An Age Passes

Dree moves through the town’s market, people trading and bartering for vegetables, fruits, nuts, meat, and eggs. There were others selling clothing, rugs, candles, and small rolls of precious fabrics, allowing one to make their own clothing. Four women sat under a shelter, piecing together blankets with two draped over the low stone wall behind them ready for sale. For Dree, it gave him the illusion of normalcy, just another person seeking goods.

How long had it been since the days with Nerthus and his life with Kelsang, he didn’t know. He had long since stopped trying to keep track of the passing of time. It meant so little to him. Kelsang had lived a long life, the best he could give him. The healings and cures that kept Kelsang healthy for a long time, and in return he got the love of another. He thought of Peja, his first, then he thought of Kelsang, how the two had been so similar. Curious about the world around them and accepting of so much, accepting of things most would consider evil or unreal. They accepted his differences in a way most would not. Maybe it was because in their own way, they had been different from most men with their sexual attraction toward only the same sex. Dree knew the line between attraction toward the opposite sex and attraction toward the same sex was a thin one, and there were a great many who would cross that line when an opportunity presented itself.

He made his way through the market, purchasing a cut of lamb and picking up an apple, until on his way out of the town. He followed the road that crossed the small river and circled back into the old forest. Following the road as it climbed the old-rugged mountain, he considered how the land was the same as always, only those in temporary control were different. He was in the eastern part of the Carolingian Empire, and just to his east, so many smaller empires he didn’t bother to remember them. The Moraves were the closest, that much he did remember, but they, like all others, would be soon gone, some other group coming into power.

The road came out of the forest to the grassland of the upper mountain. Above it the snow-covered peaks. Dree turned off the main road, one that would cut through a pass in the ridgeline and continue to the northern territories, taking a small path, one only he transversed.  It cut over a low rise on the side of the mountain then dropped into an area that leveled out enough to allow for a natural lake. It was a small lake, with waters dark blue from its depth and coldness. Just beyond it, sitting on a knoll overlooking it, a dwelling larger than most of the region, but not excessively so. The original construction consisted of thick stone walls with small windows and a single door facing the lake. The heavy timber roof was steeply pitched and covered in wood shingles. He had added to it a heavy timber framed addition that extended from the southern side of the original. It was two stories, having two sleeping chambers on the upper level, and on the first, a large living area with a smaller room for storage of the elements he used from time to time. It was nothing compared to the one Nerthus had, and probably still had, but he didn’t rely on the elements as much as others. The original structure had a kitchen, with a large fireplace on the north wall, the focus of the room, and under the roof, two rooms for sleeping.

He had brought the material to the site through the realms, then went down into the nearby villages and towns searching for young able-bodied men to do the physical work. He had found three that were not only muscular, but also sexually attracted to him. They would be a diversion, a dalliance for he had no intention of having another partner, a lover, someone to truly share his life.

Leo had been down in the small town below, early twenties, dark skin, and black hair, like the people to the south on the great sea. He knew the sea had a new name, wondering if this one would hold: Mediterranean Sea.

Leo was a head shorter, with a muscular build, and an outgoing personality. He also was the most aggressive in bed.

Jonas was from a small village to the west. He was nineteen, the youngest child of eight and left to his own devices, for his family was poor. Shy and untrusting of others, Dree had read the longing and loneliness, knowing he was someone to bring back to the mountain. It had taken two days of food and drink and long conversations that eventually led to Dree taking Jonas to his bed. The boy had been timid at first, but once in the throws of his sexual arousal, he became aggressive, desperate, and passionate. Dree had initial reservations for Jonas was tall and lanky in build but since proven to have a stamina the others struggle to match.

The final boy was Borna. Dree found him to the south, roaming the streets of Venise. Like Jonas, he had a thin build, but Dree read the hard labors Borna endured to survive. Borna had been nineteen but turned twenty on the night of his arrival on the mountain. It had taken only one night in his bed for Borna to abandon the city for the mountain.

As he drew near the dwelling, smoke rising out of the stone chimney, he could read the three young men. They were in the kitchen preparing for the evening meal knowing he was to bring fresh meat from the town. He read their jovial banter, the joking and teasing, most of the latter aimed at Jonas for he was so quiet until in bed having sex, then he was the loudest.

The three young men shared two beds in the sleeping chamber across from his own, with him joining them or inviting one or the other to his own bed when he desired the affections of another. They considered him one of them, someone their own age, but he knew the lie of it. He was ancient compared to the three young men, having lived centuries compared to their having lived only two decades, if that. But he knew his own reflection, one that showed a man in his early twenties, fair skinned with a face rarely in need of shaving.

Swinging the heavy wood door in, Dree stepped into the kitchen feeling the warmth from the fireplace. Jonas stood on one end of the table with Borna and Leo at the other, the two of them covered in flour.

“I see preparations are not going well,” Dree joked as he set the cut of lamb on the table.

“Jonas started it,” Leo exclaimed, trying to keep a straight face.

“I doubt that,” Dree replied, causing them to laugh. “Why don’t you two get cleaned up while Jonas and I prepare the lamb for roasting.”

 

 

Dree sat next to Jonas with Leo and Borna across from them. He listened to the three young men talk about they latest project, a barn to the west of the dwelling. There was a place where a stone retaining wall could easily be built allowing level access to two levels, the lower one from the front, the upper one from the rear. Borna wanted a few sheep and Leo a milk cow.  The retaining wall was in progress and who to obtain the heavy timber for the framing was being argued. Dree knew the last two years had allowed them to get to know each other, but none knew of his gifts. In order to build the barn, it would be easy for them if he brought in the timber and other materials through the realms. To do so, would require him to reveal himself. He read them, as he did all the time, giving measure to their emotions and feelings, and the things they believed.

Looking around at Jonas, the one he had had the biggest doubts, he was confident Jonas was ready, as were Leo and Borna.

“There is something I’ve been meaning to tell you, something about myself,” Dree interrupted Leo, gaining their attention.

“Yes?” asked Borna.

“You have all heard the rumors and legends of people who can do things outside of norm.”

“Like witches?” asked Jonas.

The flickering of awareness radiated off Jonas.

“Yes,” Dree replied.

“You have magic?” asked Leo.

Dree looked at Leo, then Borna, then Jonas. He saw how they looked at him, curious at what he was going to reveal.

“Yes.”

“Seriously?” asked Leo.

Dree saw Borna and Jonas flinch, a small jerk back, then they leaned forward.

“Are you serious?” asked Jonas.

“Yes…I am.”

“I don’t believe it,” Borna exclaimed.

Dree looked across the table at the empty mugs and plates. He made them slip into the realm, vanishing from the table. They reappeared on the side table on the back wall.

“What is this?” Borna uttered as the other two sat stunned.

“Most people with these gifts…powers, are not evil. I’m not evil. There are some who abuse these powers, but most I have meet over the years have not done so.”

“Over the years? You make it sound like you lived a long time,” said Leo.

“I’m roughly 1,300 years old.”

“Bullshit,” exclaimed Borna.

“Look, forget my age. I tell you this for I can get what we need for the barn, and anything else we may need by passing it through this realm, like I did the plates and mugs.”

“You’re a witch,” whispered Jonas.

“I prefer the term mage, but yes.”

“This is some news,” Leo uttered, sitting back. “We have lived with you for two years, all of us have slept with you, and…” Leo seemed to have a sudden thought. “You didn’t lure us here with magic, did you?”

Dree laughed, shaking his head. “NO!” he exclaimed. “I’ve never forced you to do anything against your will.”

“Is this why you settled here on the mountain instead of down in the town?” asked Jonas.

“Yes,” Dree replied.

The sat in silence for a long time, the three young men looking at each other, then over at Dree. Leo began to laugh, making everyone look at him wondering what he was going on about.

“I’m sorry, but at the moment…Dree…” said Leo, as he struggled to stop laughing, then he set elbows on the table and leaned forward facing Dree, “I don’t know whether to tell you to leave me alone and let me think about it or tell you I want to fuck. I’m open to either.”

Borna laughed, then Jonas. Jonas put a hand on Dree’s arm.

“Why don’t we fuck?”

Dree let Jonas lead him up the stairs with Borna and Leo following. In the sleeping chamber the three boys shared, Jonas pulled Dree to the edge of the two beds on the floor. They were pushed together with blankets haphazardly laying over them. Dree watched Jonas strip, one garment after the next until naked. Behind him, he sensed the movement of Borna and Leo as they did the same. He went to his knees and took Jonas in hand, manipulating the cock until it began to harden, then he slipped his lips over it and let it slide over his tongue to the back of his throat. Borna came to his left side and Leo on the right, and he felt their cock rub his face. He sucked one cock, then another, until all three were wet with spit and hard as rock.

He rose to his feet and the three boys immediately began to remove his clothing. He raised his arms, then lifted one foot then the other, allowing every garment to be removed. He stood naked, half aroused, as the three went to their knees. He watched how they shared his cock, each taking a turn sucking it. He looked at the expressions filled with lust, and he read them, sensing the level of arousal in each one. Jonas surprised him for he was the most aroused, his mind thinking of nothing but getting fucked. He pushed Jonas to lay on the bed and moved down on his knees between the spread legs. He rested the legs on his shoulders while watching Leo and Borna get on their knees either side of Jonas’ head. As Jonas sucked one cock then the other, he stroked his own cock and fingered the tight hole. One finger, two, then three, stretching Jonas to take his cock. His hand became slick, and he could hold back no longer.

He moved over Jonas, sinking his cock into him. He slow fucked while sucking Borna as Leo pumped cock into Jonas’ mouth. Then he was fucking harder, faster, working his body until covered in sweat. Leo moved behind him and he felt the cock rub his ass, then press against his tight opening. He held still, head down, waiting.

“Leo,” Dree uttered.

Leo penetrated him, sank halfway into his depths. He shuddered with the breach then moaned at the fullness of it. He began to move slowly between Jonas and Leo, pushing cock into Jonas’ depth, then pushing ass back on Leo’s cock. He raised his head and took Borna’s cock, letting it fuck his mouth.

The room filled with grunts and moans as the men fucked, cocks in asses or in slurping mouths. They shifted positions, traded places, until Dree was on his back with Jonas riding his cock. Leaned back on his hands, Jonas worked his ass up and down with a steady physical pace. Ass slapped against abdomen and stifled moans escaped around Leo’s cock in Jonas’ mouth. Borna was on his knees stroking his own cock while holding his head over Jonas’ stomach letting the cock piston in his mouth.

Jonas came first, pumping cum into Borna’s sucking mouth. Then Leo came, holding his cock in Jonas’ mouth as it flexed with each ejaculation. Dree shoved upward as Jonas slammed down on his cock, and he came, crying out with the explosive feel of it.

Only Borna hadn’t come, and Dree watched as Leo and Jonas moved on him, pushing him down on the bed so they could take turns sucking his cock. It was Leo who got the first wad, and as the cock continued to spurt wad after wad, Leo let Jonas take it in his mouth to capture the last of it.

Dree knew it was temporary. The life they had together and how long each of the three young men had in the world compared to his own time. But he would savor every day of it as they built a home for themselves.

The old stone house would last for centuries, but when the day came Dree buried the last of the three, it would no longer belong to him. Before he left, he found two men living in secret in Venice and gave them the property. They had believed Venice would be accepting, but two men living together had been too much for some. Dree’s offer had seemed too good to be true, but once final arrangements had been made and they were standing by the small lake looking at the old stone house with its three barns, reality finally dawned on them. For Dree and the boys, it had been a place that sustained them, requiring so little from the nearby town, and it would be the same for Nicolo and Alexandro.

Dree would go south, across the Mediterranean Sea and leave no trace of his existence for a long time.

 

Death Comes

Nerthus walked among the young men and women she was training. There were only four, the fewest she had in her care in centuries. But she was beginning to feel old. Her joints ached and she didn’t have the agility she once possessed. Therefore, four was enough, for more would be too much of a responsibility.

“Anduit, use the wand to focus. That’s right; focus. Vilimut, very good,” she said, moving to the front of room. “Now practice until I have evening meal prepared.”

She left the room, crossed the courtyard area, entering her dwelling. She wanted a nap, just a shot one to feel refreshed. At the water basin she washed her face, using her hands to bring the cool water up to it. She was drying her hands when she sensed a presence at the door. She turned just as the door swung open. She gasped, then tried to defend herself.

 

 

Dree stood in a vast savannah watching a herd of elephants move across it. The sun was hot, blistering hot, but he didn’t notice, too consumed by the life surrounding him. Men called it wild, but he knew what wild meant, and it wasn’t here in this natural environment. He closed his eyes and focused his mind. He felt Tristan and Bedwyr, their presence always strong, bold, the two of them joyful in the faraway lands to the west. Then he felt Nerthus. A mix of feelings, mostly calm and comfortable, but there was a pain there too, and he knew it was the effects of old age. He sensed how it slowed her, frustrated her for not being able to do as she had done for centuries. Suddenly there was surprise then nothing. She was gone.

“No,” Dree whispered, then he struggled to breathe. He stepped forward into the realm, then into Nerthus’ dwelling. The front door stood open, and the room looked as if she had merely walked out a moment before. Then he saw her feet on the other side of the old table. He rushed to her but knew as he rounded the end of the table, she was gone. She lay with eyes open, an expression of shock from the moment of death.

Eilidh and Artair appeared in the room, then Bedwyr and Tristan.

“Dree, what happened?” asked Eilidh, tears already streaming down her cheeks.

Dree saw she and Artair were flushed of all color, both pale white and in shock. He looked to Bedwyr and Tristan, knowing they came for him, for they had not known Nerthus, not personally.

“I don’t know, but it is a power that killed her.”

“A witch or mage did this?” asked Bedwyr.

“No…no, no,” whispered Artair.

“Dree, did you sense them here?” asked Eilidh.

“No, nothing. Whoever it is, they can conceal themselves.”

Three more appeared, two women and one male. Students of Nerthus from before or after their time with Nerthus. Magale and Beaic were witches, both from a time before, and Toweic was a mage who had left Nerthus only the year before, one that still looked far too young. They huddled around Nerthus, all in shock, trying to deal with their grief.

“We must prepare her as she directed,” said Toweic.

“She left directions?” asked Dree.

“Yes. She said her time was drawing near and…” Toweic couldn’t finish, a chocked sob escaping from him as he moved to the back wall where old scrolls and leather-bound volumes lay on the top shelf. He reached up and took down a small volume, its leather looking new compared to the others. He laid it on the table and opened it, revealing Nerthus large, angled handwriting. Dree and Eilidh came to his side.

“She is to be consumed by fire on the first night after her death. No delays,” said Toweic.

“It will be dark soon. We have to do it tonight? It’s too soon. We-“ Artair was stammering until Dree cut him off.

“Artair. It is her wishes.”

Artair nodded in ascent.

“I’ll prepare the funeral pyre,” said Bedwyr. “You knew her personally and should be the ones to prepare her body,” he added looking around the room at the others.

“I’ll help Bedwyr,” said Tristan, following him out.

“Someone get a cloth,” said Magale as she used her power to lift Nerthus’ body and lay it on the table.

Tristan barged back through the door. “Dree, you need to see this.”

 

 

Dree stood outside Nerthus’ dwelling looking at the ground. Tracks came to the front door, but none left.

“Looks like they rode up on a horse,” said Tristan.

“No, this isn’t the track of a horse. The shape is wrong,” said Dree, stooping to look closer. “It looks like…but it is too large,” he mumbled to himself.

“What do you think?” asked Bedwyr.

“I have no idea.”

“This witch or mage has used power we were warned not to use. They have created some creature, mutated some poor creature to its foul intentions.”

“It moves on two legs, not four. Look at the track,” said Dree.

 

 

Night settled over the land, the full moon bright in the eastern sky, surrounded by a brilliance of stars. There was nowhere in the night sky void of the twinkling light of some star. Below Nerthus’ settlement, in a small clearing, her body rested on a funeral pyre. Wrapped in white cloth, the body seemed to glow in the darkness. Torches ringed the clearing, providing a low light around the perimeter.

The current class of students, Dree and those that arrived after her death, and so many others who arrived later stood in a circle around the body. Toweic stepped forward and the funeral pyre burst into flames. Blue, green, then white hot, the flames rose into the sky, then quickly consumed the wood and the body that lay on top.

Magale and Toweic came to Dree and Beaic as the last embers died. They brought the current students with them, gathering around Dree and Beaic.

“We’re going to stay and take up her work,” said Magale.

Dree looked at Magale, then Toweic. “Good. We can’t let them win. But before I leave, we need to discuss preparations for defensive measures.”

 

 

During the years, decade after decade, a witch or mage would disappear or be found murdered. And each time, there was no sign of the attacker, no witnesses or anyone to put up a fight. Dree maintained contact with others, trading information, and sharing clues. There were explorations into Africa, the dense forests of Mecklenburg and Brandenburg, the northern reaches of Scotland, Wattasid Sultanate, and so many other locales, all turning up nothing. Until one hot sultry summer night on an island in the Venetian Aegean, Eilidh and Artair entered a small tavern and overhead a sailor talking about the Black Sea and a black fortress only magic could have built.

 

The Adversary

Dree moved the old wooden boat across the waters. Under the cover of night, he pushed the boat to move swiftly, leaving a wide wake in his path. The old fortress soon became a silhouette on the horizon. The squared form of walls and towers extending higher than the trees and rock cliffs of the coastline. It sat on the southern coast of the Black Sea, made of rock not of the region. Black with veins of red and white, and polished to an impossible high gloss, that even in the darkness, a new moon phase with only starlight illuminating the sky, the walls had a shine to them.

After such a long time, they had finally found the mage who practiced such evil power. Eilidh and Artair had called out to him, summoning him to Istanbul. They told of the fortress on the Black Sea, one made of black polished stone that no one ever visited, all the locals nearby too scared to approach it. They feared the evil that resided there. Dree thought of all the names they used to refer to this insane mage. Baphomet, Mephistopheles, Prince of Darkness (one that amused Dree), and morning star, the last steeped in myth and legend in the old religions. But the name most often spoken was devil, or the Devil. If the descriptions were true, Dree understood how such names could come into use.

He brought the boat onto the shore just below the fortress and looked up at the towering walls. The devil would know he was there, and he was counting on it.

He stepped into the realm then on top of the highest tower, coming out next to a soldier on guard. Before the soldier could turn to face him, he stopped his heart and grabbed the falling body to ease it down on the stone floor. Behind him a stair that led down to a lower level that overlooked an interior courtyard. When he stepped off the stairs, he saw two doors, one to the right and one to the left. The latter led into the tower’s base and on the other side an open walk followed the interior wall. The door was a passage through the tower. He turned right and entered a small room with another stair going down and a door leading to further spaces within the wide main wall. He took the stairs, knowing the devil of this fortress would not reside in some high tower, but down in the basement where it was truly safe.

After descending two levels, the stairs landed in a large, cavernous room. The ceiling arched overhead, and across the floor, large stone pavers in a simple grid pattern. Torches in shallow niches lit the room and in the center of it, four simple armchairs on a square rug. It was all out of proportion, nothing quite right. He moved along the wall, passing one niche after the next until on the opposite side of the room. It was quiet, too quiet, for he could not hear or read anything. Someone or something was blocking him. His heart beat rapidly, a fear he had not felt in a long time swept through him. He began to move again and heard the shift of someone above him in the upper part of a niche that was deeper than the others. He spun around in time to see a dark tail whip out striking him in the stomach. Pain shot through him and when the tail pulled its barb from his stomach, he slapped a hand over the wound to slow the bleeding.

It staggered him, and he slowed his breathing while stepping away from the niche. In the upper half standing on a ledge, he saw him. The Devil. At first, he struggled to process what he was looking at, telling himself no such creature existed in the world. But he sensed the dark power emanating from it and knew it was real.

Naked, the flesh dark red, stood what looked part human and part animal. The claws extended from the fingers and the legs ended in black hooves, and curled over one shoulder a tail like a scorpion’s spoke of a corruption that no mage should try. He looked at the tail, realizing it truly was like a scorpion, then he couldn’t help but notice the cock for it was obscenely large and barbed at the head. No one could endure a fuck from it and live.

“Dree, we meet at last,” it said as it floated to the floor.

Dree realized the main body structure was of a young man, one that looked like a teenager. But he sensed the true age of the beast, knowing it had been in the world in one form or another nearly as long as he had been.

“I only know you by the names people have given you and do not know your real name,” Dree said, hoping to distract it.

“Oh, the names people have bestowed upon me. Have you heard of the one that church has given me? Lucifer!,” it replied, laughing at the mention of the name.

“No, for I avoid too much interaction with any of the religions.”

“Smart. They’ll betray you,” it said as it began to circle the room making Dree slowly spin in place.

“So, what is your name?”

“Xanek, or that is the name my filthy mother gave me.”

“She wasn’t a mother to you?”

“She betrayed me, took the one person from me that understood me. For that I burned her alive.”

“Why have you been killing witches and mages?”

“Why…why indeed,” it said as he took a step closer. “They are unworthy, that is why. They would have never bestowed upon me what is rightfully mine, and I sense how you would refuse me too.”

“What would I refuse to give you?”

“The ability to control this world, to make it mine.”

“You’re right. I can’t do that.”

The tail pulled back ready to strike. Suddenly the air in the room began circulate, harder and harder. A sphere of space distorted, then Bedwyr and Tristan stepped out. Bedwyr didn’t hesitate, did as planned. He opened the realm around Xanek and took him to the surface of the sun, where the burning body fell toward the roiling surface. The body was quickly consumed, not even Xenak able to protect himself from such heat. In the blink of an eye, it was over.

Dree stumbled, then held out his hand toward Tristan and Bedwyr.

“I’ll be fine. I just need to get back to my place and take care of this.”

“But Dree, that is a venom mixed with some power,” said Tristan.

“I know, but I can handle it. I have a few old potions I can use,” Dree replied, forcing a smile to his face hiding the pain. He didn’t think either could really help him and there were other tasks for them to do. “You must find that demon’s hiding place. The place he hid scrolls or bound journals on ancient powers and how to utilize them. We can’t let anyone else get a hold of it.”

“We search here first, but I don’t think they are here,” said Bedwyr.

“I’m afraid you’re right. I must go now, and you have to search this place, if not for those documents, then for any clue as to where they may be hidden,” Dree replied, then he stepped into the realm, then stumbled into the small living quarters he had been living in for the last five years. He staggered across the room, knocked the basin of water to the floor, shattering it, then he took down one potion then another until he found the one, he sought. It was blue and green and gold, the colors moving and mixing even after he set the bottle down. He uncapped it, wincing at the smell, then took a long swallow.

 

The Arrival

Dree lay on his bed, his shirt open revealing his chest and stomach. Just above the waistband of his pants, the wound. It had yet to heal, the puncture still oozing black pus and blood, and the skin around it kept turning black. He kept using his power to control it, but he couldn’t get the venom out, only stopped it from spreading. Pain shot up his spine and he clinched his teeth and shuddered as sweat beaded up on his forehead.

It had been two weeks since the confrontation with Xenak. He still felt shocked at the mutation Xenak had undergone. The monstrous transformation that made him look like the devil of man’s conjuring. How Xenak with his closed mind had tricked him. He never saw that tail until it was striking out. He shivered at the memory of the strike, how he felt nothing at first, but after the merest delay, the pain appeared, bringing him to his knees. If Tristan and Bedwyr hadn’t arrived, Bedwyr so much more powerful than he could imagine, then all would have been lost.

He reached for the mug of ale, hand shaking so hard, it sloshed out on the floor as he brought it to his lips. It was warm and stale, but he swallowed huge gulps seeking the small relief the alcohol would give him.

There were footsteps coming up the wood stairs, the fifth and eighth tread squeaking under the weight of the one who approached. Dree turned to the door and read the one who approached. It was one he had only glimpsed briefly, the last time very long ago. He eased to his feet and stumbled to the door as they knocked gently on it.

He swung the door open and looked at the man standing before him. A shaved head and a black beard with a sliver stripe running through it, one not from age but some magic. He looked into the face with its emerald-green eyes, one that showed someone in their late thirties or early forties, but he knew the lie of the appearance. He read him, the age that spanned centuries.

“Myrddin. Or is it Merzhin? No wait, I think the name given you now is Merlin,” said Dree smiling at the man standing before him.

The man scoffed, then smiled. “Merlin is fine. And what do I call you? Dree seems so…old fashion.”

Dree sensed Merlin could not read him, not like he could do, but he sensed other powers, so strong the air felt charged around him.

 “I’m currently using Damon. Seems to be a common name in this age. But call me Dree, for it is the name I’m most comfortable.”

“Dree it is. Now let me in so I can help you.”

 

 

Dree lay on his bed, shirt removed. The wound looked as fresh as the day he got it and the skin around it was once again fading to black.

“This is some dark magic,” Merlin uttered.

“You call it magic?”

“Sorry. When those fools out there use that term all the time, it kind of gets stuck in one’s head.”

“I don’t think there is a cure for this,” Dree uttered through a fresh stab of pain.

“You don’t need a cure. You need a host to draw out the venom and the power within it.”

“A host?”

Merlin went to the window and looked out as if in search of something. He held out his right arm and a moment later a large vulture landed on it.

“You will do. Thanks for giving yourself,” Merlin whispered to the large bird.

The vulture had light tan feathers around the neck, down the chest and around the legs, and when it spread its wings, displayed the dark feathers of each one and how the dark feathers covered the back and the made up the tail feathers.

“What are you going to do with that?” Dree asked.

“Draw out the venom.”

Merlin brought the vulture to the bed and flipped it to its back. He laid it gently over the wound, then focused on it. Dree felt a warming that built to a burning heat in the wound. He clutched the bed and clinched his jaw trying not to cry out.

“Just a little longer,” Merlin uttered.

The bird laid its head back, spread its wings, then turned black. Merlin lifted it with his power, not daring to touch it. He guided it out the window and high into the air where he ignited it into a burst of white-hot flame. White ash drifted down from where the vulture had been.

Dree fell still, breathing hard, but the pain was gone and the skin around the wound looked normal. Merlin came back to his bed and took out a small glass vial. He dripped a few drops on the wound, and it slowly closed then healed.

“Get some rest,” said Merlin, but he realized Dree had already drifted off.

 

 

Dree woke, eyes wide open, staring up at the exposed beams of the roof structure. He sat up and looked toward the window seeing it was nighttime, then he looked around to where the candlelight was coming from seeing Merlin reading a small leather bond journal.

“You’re still here.”

“Yes.”

“How long was I asleep?”

“For over a day.”

“I slept through a night and a day?”

“Yes. That venom was some nasty stuff.”

Dree eased up and went to the pitcher of water, pouring a mug. He took a few sips, eyeing Merlin as he did.

“I’ve sensed you over time. Here and there, just fleeting glimpses. Well, not when you were helping that king.”

“Yes, that was some endeavor.”

“How much of the legend is true?”

“Not much.”

Dree laughed. “What about that sword? Excalibur, was it?”

Merlin scoffed, then looked up shaking his head.

“Pure flight of fancy. Not sure what idiot put that sword in the legends, but Geoffrey of Monmouth sure played it up.”

“You know, I had believed you to be one of the oldest mages out there. When I caught glimpses of you, I just knew you were from the ancient times.”

“After you read me, you know that isn’t true.”

“You know I can read people?”

“Of course. I don’t have that gift, if you call it that, but I know when someone is reading me, and you were reading me earlier. By the way, how old are you?”

“I don’t know. Two thousand or so,” Dree replied looking at Merlin in all seriousness, then he started laughing and Merlin soon was too.

“You’ve aged well for such an old codger,” said Merlin.

“Thanks,” Dree replied. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to change out of these sweaty clothes.”

“Don’t mind me,” Merlin replied offhandedly, but Dree read him, the curiosity and attraction Merlin felt toward him.

Dree went to a low table with a basin, brought water through the realm filling it, then stripped off his pants and undergarments. He stood naked by the low table and used a small cloth to bathe. He glanced up from time to time knowing he would see Merlin look away.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Can I stop you?” Merlin replied.

“No. Have you ever had someone in your life? Not someone for a short time to take care of physical wants, but someone who was with you for a long time.”

“There were a couple. They were before the business with that king.”

“Not since?”

Merlin laughed, closing the small journal, and setting it on a small side table. He leaned back and looked brazenly at Dree. “Just the usual rendezvouses. And you? I know there was Kelsang for I heard his name mentioned more often than yours during that time you lived with Nerthus.”

“None as serious as him that were long term.”

“Long term…a few precious decades are what you mean.”

“Yes.”

“Never another with the power?”

“No, not that I would have ruled it out.”

“I think when we are young, just a few hundred years or so,” Merlin smiled across the room indicating he knew how that sounded, “two with the power need to be careful. Such competing forces at play.”

“But some have done it.”

“Tristan and Bedwyr, two adventurers those two, and then there was Tytil and Aelfwynn. A lovely couple who are currently living in Venice, if I’m not mistaken.”

“You’re not.”

“Then there’s Eilidh and Artair. I assume they seek the that devil’s lair?”

“Not how I would have said it, but yes. That was some old dark power he fucked with and no one else should have access to it.”

“I agree, but what if you can’t simply burn it?”

“I’ll call Bedwyr.”

“Can he really go into realms never visited?”

“And into realms off this world.”

“Fascinating. Frightening, but fascinating too.”

“Thanks for helping me,” Dree uttered in a low voice.

“We can’t have such a young fit man leave us too soon. A man in his prime, late twenties at best, and yet…”

“Two thousand and some odd years in age,” Dree joked, exaggerating each word.

Merlin laughed again, then looked at him. The muscular body, the bulging biceps with each movement, and the cock that hung heavy over its sac. “I must confess I find you attractive.”

“Are you flirting with me? If so, I won’t bother putting these on,” Dree replied, holding up a pair of clean undergarments.

Merlin smiled, came to his feet, and approached Dree. “Does that mean you find me attractive too?”

“I find you to be a mystery, even though I can read you. I find you to be my current hero, curing me of that venom. And I find you attractive and have been wondering these last few minutes if you’d be willing.”

“I’m willing. Oh, I’m willing,” Merlin replied coming up to Dree, cupping the back of then neck and pulling them together into a kiss.

 

 

Dree helped Merlin out of his clothes, touching and caressing each newly exposed area. He leaned to the taller man and kissed him on the neck, along the shoulder, and down the chest until toying with a nipple. He tongued it, put his lips over it and sucked, then he bit down on it making Merlin shiver and moan.

“You devil,” Merlin joked in a breathless whisper.

Dree kissed him again, then pushed him backward to his bed. He guided him onto it then got between the legs. He dragged his tongue up one thigh, over the loose sac and along the hardening cock. He tongued the head, sucked on it, then sank most of the hardening cock into his mouth. He sucked and manipulated the cock until Merlin begged him to stop.

Moving up, Dree slipped his arms under the knees and lifted. He brought them up then pushed them forward, spreading Merlin open, ass up, for his fuck. He worked his hips rubbing hard cock over the upturned ass, then he pressed against the tight opening.

“Let me in,” Dree uttered.

Merlin threw his head back and moaned, then pushed against the cock until it squeezed through his tightness.

Dree shivered from the tight squeeze on his cock head, then he grunted as he pushed into Merlin. With cock half buried in Merlin’s depths, he began to fuck.

“Your stomach is not sore?” Merlin uttered, shocked at the strength of Dree’s fuck.

“No,” Dree uttered, and he pushed the knees against the bed with greater force as he hammered cock into Merlin’s depths.

Merlin’s moans and grunts grew louder. Dree’s body glistened wetly from his exertions. And their fuck continued. Dree rolled Merlin to his stomach and laid on his back. Bodies bearhugged together, he pushed all the way into his depths, grinding his hips against the round ass. He worked his cock through the loosened opening as he kissed and nipped at the neck and shoulder.

“Take me,” Dree uttered into Merlin’s ear.

“Yes.”

Dree pushed inward all the way and kept jamming his hips against the ass trying to sink deeper into him, then he came, shuddering and jerking with each ejaculation.

Dree pulled free and rolled to Merlin’s side.

“Your turn.”

Merlin moved between Dree’s legs and saw the hard cock that refused to go down. Legs were held up, an offering to their sex, and he took each by the ankle spreading them wide apart.

“Fuck me…come on…stick me,” Dree uttered.

Merlin smiled, then pushed through Dree’s tightness and sank into his depths.

Merlin fucked, feeling his arousal increase. He had been so aroused and knew this fuck would not last a long time. He hammered his cock into Dree until the sound of hips smacking ass echoed in the small room. Then he came, burying his cock in Dree’s depths.

 

 

It would be dark before they exhausted themselves. They lay on Dree’s bed, smiling at the other while trying to catch their breath.

“You’re not bad for some two-thousand-year-old codger,” said Merlin while staring at the ceiling.

“Nor you,” Dree replied.

The room was silent for a few seconds, the two mages burst into laughter.

 

 

As Enlightenment Arrives

Eilidh and Artair moved up the side of the mountain as a bitterly cold northern wind rushed over it. They had sailed up the Hardangerfjord until Eilidh sensed they had arrived, then they had taken a road to the base of mountain, and now they climbed.

They had spent decade after decade following one lead after the next, until a vague reference by a Swedish official led them to the mountain. They knew not its name given by man, nor how far from the cold North Sea they had sailed up the fjord. It had been surprising how far inland the fjord went and when they had to circle around and found themselves heading not northeast, but southwest it spoke to the vastness of this northern land.

Eilidh led, cutting through the woodland until snow covered the ground.

“Do you think it is really here?” asked Artair.

“I hope so.”

Just above the tree line where the top of the mountain was exposed rock, much of it covered in snow, they saw the distortion, some old power concealing something.

“This is it,” said Eilidh.

They came to the large boulder and when Artair reached out to touch it, it disappeared revealing a tunnel. The sides were cut smooth, the stone almost looking like they had been melted, and the floor was smooth stone pavers that slowly descended into the mountain. Artair formed a sphere of light, and they followed the path into the mountain.

The air grew colder, then after a circling descent, grew warmer. Green veins in the rock glowed, illuminating the tunnel. Artair disappeared the sphere of light, instead using the green glow.

“Do you feel it?” asked Eilidh.

“Yes,” Artair replied. It was like sadness was overtaking them. All the bad events of the past came to them, especially the deaths. Vivid, cruel, feeling like it was just yesterday when each occurred.

“I’m calling Bedwyr,” said Eilidh, knowing what lay ahead might be too powerful for them.

“Good idea,” Artair whispered in reply, his nervousness evident in his voice.

A shimmering of light and Tristan and Bedwyr stepped into the tunnel before them.

“It’s here?” exclaimed Bedwyr.

“Yes, I’m sure of it,” Eilidh replied.

They circled around within the tunnel until finally coming into a small rectangular room.

“This is it?” asked Tristan.

The others knew what he meant, for it was nothing like what they expected. They had envisioned a grand space, one with statues and maybe some pool of water corrupted by the dark powers. But the space they found themselves was so small there was barely enough room for them to stand around the stone box set in the middle of the room. Eilidh ran a hand over the top noting how it looked like a cist or ossuary.

“Is someone buried here?” asked Artair.

“I doubt it, but let’s see,” Bedwyr replied, easily moving the top with his power.

They looked in the box expecting to see bones or artifacts but all that resided inside was scrolls, leather journals and an old wand. Eilidh and Bedwyr stood next to it, not daring to touch anything.

“This is it. Look at that scroll,” said Bedwyr, pointing to a dark scroll with dried blood smeared on one end.

“Get rid of it,” said Eilidh, backing away from the box. She sensed its power, and the curse of it in how it would control someone. It terrified her and she looked at Bedwyr with imploring eyes, hoping he sensed the danger of it and didn’t want to study it.

Bedwyr smiled at Eilidh, nodding his head. He slid the top back in place.

“Everyone should stand back. Maybe go back into the tunnel,” said Bedwyr.

Tristan was the last out of the room, looking back with concern. Bedwyr smiled, then turned to the stone box. He opened a realm, slipped it over the box, then closed it. The box was no longer in the room.

Bedwyr knew where he dropped it that nothing survived. The heat of the sun would consume almost anything, especially a stone box with old scrolls within it.

 

 

Back outside, standing at the mouth of the tunnel, everyone watched Tristan collapse the front sealing it from wayward explorers. They turned and looked over the fjord, each one shivering from the cold wind.

“I know this little place in Paris that serves the best hot tea,” said Artair.

“Sounds good to me,” said Bedwyr, and suddenly the group was stepping into the narrow street in Paris. “Lead the way,” he added, gesturing for Artair to show the way.

 

 

 

A Modern World

The old car attracted the attention of other motorists and pedestrians strolling the sidewalks. Its black paint was polished to a high gloss reflecting everything around it and its windows were tinted concealing the driver within. Within Buenos Aires there were a lot of old cars on the roads but the 1968 Mercedes-Benz 280SE stood out.

It cruised north on Ave 9 de Julio then turned left on Tucuman. After a block, it cruised by Plaza Lavalle, then two blocks later turned right on Uruguay. Uruguay was a narrow road lined with two to eight story buildings, most residential. A couple of blocks north, the old car passed one of the oldest apartment buildings, slowing to allow a garage door to open in the next building. It turned in, the door going back down once clear.

The car wound down, then under the old apartment building into a private garage. The driver’s door swung open, and Merlin climbed out. He looked fifty, hair graying at the temples. He was dressed in a custom-tailored black suit and white dress shirt, collar open without a tie. He retrieved two bags from the trunk and went to the elevator. The polished stainless steel reflected a distorted image back to him as he waited for the cab.

The cab opened on the top floor, the penthouse, into a private foyer. He strolled across the stone flooring into the living and dining room that overlooked the street below and the skyline of the city.

“Are you ready to eat some lunch?” Dree called out from the kitchen.

Merlin dropped the two bags on the dining table and passed through the butler’s pantry into the large modern kitchen. Dree stood at the open refrigerator taking out the ingredients for a salad.

“Yes, I’m starving.”

“Come help me get a sandwich and salad pulled together,” Dree replied.

“Let me go wash up,” Merlin replied, moving through the kitchen to the powder room next to the pantry. It humored him how Dree did so much without using his power. Dree had said there was something to the physical process of doing something that made it feel like an accomplishment. He wasn’t one to argue, but if Dree turned his back the salad would be done the easy way.

“I got reservations at El Baqueano for seven.”

Merlin came out, draped his jacket over the back of a bar stool, and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.

“What time will Tristan and Bedwyr arrive?”

“Around five.”

“It’ll be nice to see them again.”

“Yes; it’s been…” Dree turned and looked at Merlin with a shocked expression. “It’s been twenty years since we’ve seen them.”

Merlin laughed.

“Not so long, to us anyway.”