Disclaimer: (Sex scenes types. Warning - spoilers.) This story contains explicit gay sexual content including a group masturbation circle (jerk circle), cockring forging, extreme size difference, underwear and bulge worship, cock worship. All characters are adult men. All sexual activity between protagonists is consensual. The body-fluid transformations are magical and fantastical. No underage content.
The Mountain's Cock
The grass thinned at the third bend of the road. After that it was gone.
Joren's stride changed. The road beat had been packed earth one hour. Now it was rock. Not broken rock. Smooth, the colour of old stones from a riverbed left out a long time. Pale. Grey-white. The boots struck it with a flatter sound.
"The ground," I said.
"I know," he said.
"It's gone all stone."
"I know."
The nest moved against him as he walked. The cloth shifted against the side of his cock with each step and I shifted with it. The skin around me was drier than it had been an hour back. The thighs were warmer than the air but the warmth was different. Cooler at the edges. The air pulled the heat off the surface.
I checked the toe. He had walked all the way from the inn with the left boot striking softer than the right. The crystal in the little toe still there. Still hard. I felt it through the rhythm. One. Two. One. Two.
The last trees had gone past two ridges back. Stunted scrub. Bent. They had been leaning back toward the road we came from. None of them had been leaning the way we were going.
Vesper walked a pace behind. He held his right hand out from his side. The thumb was crystal. Still. His fingers curled around it loose, his palm tipped up.
Lirael walked last. His hands in his sleeves. They had been there since the elven gate.
Garrick spoke from inside Vesper. The sound reached me before it reached the air. Garrick's voice travels that way when he is inside Vesper.
"There is nothing here," Garrick said.
"I know," Vesper said.
"I mean nothing. No vegetation. No insects. No birds. The air is dry."
"I know."
Lirael lifted his hand. The gesture stopped us. He did not look at a map. There was no map. He looked at the rock ahead.
"The directions ended a ridge back," he said. "Something is supposed to be here."
We stood. The rock ran flat. No feature. No entrance. No sign. Bare grey stone all the way to where the eye gave up.
Vesper folded his arms. He shifted his weight to one hip. I watched the line of his trousers move.
"There is nothing here," he said.
The sky was paler than it should have been at that hour. Not white. Not blue. A washed colour. The air came into my nostrils dry. The nest fabric moved against Joren's cock and the cock did not move. He was waiting. He always knew when to wait.
His hand came down. The fingers found the bulge through the trousers. They pressed once where the head was. I felt the pressure flatten me against the underside of the head. Then he moved on. Some men whistle. Joren touched himself.
"Still here," I said.
"I know," he said.
Vesper broke it. He looked at Garrick over his shoulder.
"Rank the crew," Vesper said.
Garrick's voice came up from inside him. Tired.
"No."
"Bulges. Best to worst."
"No."
"Garrick."
"There is no point."
"There is a point. The point is I am bored and the wind is dry and we are looking at nothing."
Garrick said nothing.
"Use the glasses," Vesper said.
Joren had not turned his head. His hand was still on the bulge. He took it off.
"Use them," Joren said.
Garrick made a sound inside Vesper. The glasses came out from his small pocket inside Vesper's shirt. I felt him shift size from across the camp. Garrick was on Vesper's shoulder. The brass frames went on. The lenses had a small hum that I felt in my teeth even from where I was.
He looked at Joren. He looked at Vesper. He took a long pause.
"Joren," he said.
"Obvious," Vesper said.
"Not sure which comes next. I'd go for Spark. When he's big."
He did not finish. His eyes had moved off the crew. Off us entirely. He was looking past my head, past Joren's shoulder, at the rock that was not there.
I climbed up to the waistband. I peeped over.
Garrick's mouth was open a small amount.
"Garrick," Joren said. He turned to follow the look. He looked where Garrick was looking. He stopped.
Vesper turned with the shoulder. He could not see what Garrick saw because the glasses were on Garrick.
"What."
"It's a body," Garrick said.
"What is."
"The mountain."
Vesper looked at the mountain. He could not see anything special about it. I looked too. With my own eyes. No shape. Only a mountain.
"Garrick," Vesper said. "Use words."
"The whole expanse ahead of us. It's a cock. The mountain has a cock. The mountain is a cock. The shape of a cock in his trousers. Two balls and a shaft. The head is faintly suggested at the top. The scale is..." He stopped. "Stand this close and it just looks like a mountain. The glasses are the only way."
He took them off. The bulge went away. He put them back on. The bulge came back. He did the others.
Vesper put them on. He looked at Garrick first. Hard. At the bulge through the trousers.
Garrick's neck flushed. The colour went vivid against the dark blacksmith skin. He turned his face away.
"Stay serious," Vesper said. "Look at the mountain."
He looked. His posture changed. The arms came uncrossed. He took a small step back.
Glasses to Joren. He put them on. He looked. The rock resolved into the bulge. I felt the shape build behind his eyes. Then he brought the glasses down to his crotch. The lenses shrank as they came. Brass frames the size of my hand by the time they reached the waistband.
---
I put them on. They fit my face. The hum was louder this close to my teeth.
The world opened.
It was the bulge. Two balls and a shaft and the head at the top, faintly suggested through the cloth of the world. The scale of it broke me for one second. The shaft was as tall as the sky. The balls each as wide as the horizon. The head a long way off.
"It is a cock," I said.
"It is a very large cock."
"It is."
I gave the glasses back. They grew as they left my hand. By the time Joren passed them to Lirael they were full size.
Lirael put them on. He stood looking at the rock for a long moment. He nodded once. Then he took them off and gave them back to Garrick.
"It is a body," Lirael said. "We will need to read it."
The elves had used that word. A body at the threshold. Read what it tells you. We had not understood it then. Now we were standing in front of a mountain-sized cock with no idea what reading it meant in practice, or who among us had the knowledge to do it.
---
The crew turned to Garrick. Garrick on Vesper's shoulder, in the open air, no longer pretending he was elsewhere.
"I'm a blacksmith," he said. "I know materials."
"Garrick," Joren said. "We need you."
Garrick looked at Joren a long moment. Then he nodded once.
"Be yourself," Vesper said. "Talk us through it."
Garrick turned to face the mountain. He started to talk.
His voice changed. The hesitation went out of it. The blacksmith came up.
"Vesper first," he said.
Vesper raised an eyebrow.
"Face on the dickhead. The inhale. The tongue touches. The taste. Your cock is precise. Deliberate. A man thinks about it because it rewards attention. Then the spot. Left of the head, toward the thigh. That is where precum and sperm and piss drops collect. The best smell on you."
He paused. He looked at the mountain.
"The head of a cock is where it announces itself. If this body has anything to say about what it is, the head is where it will be loudest. Vesper reads precise. He will not miss it."
Vesper's face did not move. He was listening. Filing.
"Well, for example," Garrick said. "If I was touching Joren's bulge."
He held his hands up. They shaped the air. No body in front of him. The hands knew what they were measuring anyway.
"You've all put underwear on your face. This is where your nose was."
"I sleep there," I said.
"Then you know it better than any of us."
He moved his hands. They shaped a thicker shape now.
"Joren. Base of the shaft. From above. Where you push the cloth down and feel the start of the cock. You can size up how thick it is from there. The way it rises out of the body. The weight."
I felt Joren stir against the nest. His cock got a little heavier. He was listening too.
"The base is where the cock connects to the body. Where the structure starts. If there is a way in, it will not be at the surface. It will be at the root. Joren finds roots."
"Then underneath," Garrick said. "Between balls and arse. The space where your head goes when the rest of the man is above you."
Lirael's eyes were on Garrick's hands. He had not moved since Garrick started.
"That space holds heat. Holds smell. It is the most hidden part and it gives the most away. Lirael reads what is hidden."
"Spark," Garrick said.
"Balls," I said.
"Balls. Take hold. Feel the weight. Play."
"I can scale up. I can grab the balls of a mountain."
"Then you do."
He looked at the balls on the horizon.
"The balls are the source. Weight tells you the health of a body. A cock with empty balls reads different from a full one. We need to know what this body is carrying."
The mountain was behind him. Vast. Silent.
He laid the mapping out. "Vesper at the head. Joren at the base of the shaft, from above. I'll take the spot. Spark at the balls. Lirael at the base. Underneath."
Lirael nodded once.
"How long to walk it," Joren said.
"We do not walk it," I said.
Joren turned to me. The crew turned to me.
"Spark places them."
Garrick looked at me. Then up at the mountain. He worked it out.
"You grow," he said.
"I grow."
Garrick looked at the head. He looked at the base. He looked at the balls, wide and low and the size of hills. His hands were still in the air from the mapping. He brought them down.
Joren considered it. He looked at the mountain. He looked at me. His hand came down. The fingers found my hiding place. They pressed the head of the cock through the cloth. Ghost. He moved on.
"Go," he said.
I climbed out of the nest. I climbed up his chest. Onto his shoulder. Then down his arm to the rock. I started walking away from him. Past where his feet would be if I grew. Far back. The rock was bare under me. Joren was a small figure behind me. Then smaller. I stopped.
I started.
I knelt. I set the hand flat on the ground in front of them. Garrick walked onto the palm first. Joren next. Vesper last. Lirael stayed on the ground. He started walking toward the base. His robe was a dark shape on pale rock.
"Index for me," Garrick said. He pointed. "Middle for Joren. Ring for Vesper."
They walked to their fingers. Each man sat. Each man got a grip on the skin.
I grew again. This time I went to two hundred and eighty-seven times. Slow. I watched the mountain come down. I watched the smell patch on the rock. When the index lined up with it I stopped. My hand was big now. Garrick on the fingertip was a thing the size of a beetle.
I looked at the patch. The rock there was steep. Smooth. No place for a man to stand. I worked my thumb into the stone next to the patch and scratched the rock with my nails. At this scale, my nails were hard enough to scratch the rock. A small ledge took shape under the patch. Wide enough for him to stand safely. Flat.
I tilted the index. Slow. Garrick slid. I held the angle. He slid more. He reached. His hand found the rock above the ledge. He held on. His feet found the ledge. His weight left the finger.
I straightened the hand. I grew again. Just a little. Four hundred and twelve times. I could have reached up with my hand to drop Joren at the cock base. I did not want to reach. So I grew until the palm lined up.
The base of the shaft was a curve. Round. Steep at the underside, easier at the top. Joren was going on top. I pressed my palm flat against the upper curve. The rock gave under the heel of my hand. I left a flat patch behind, the size of a small courtyard, set into the curve. Wide enough for Joren to stand and stretch his arms across the girth.
I tilted the middle finger. Joren slid. He held. He grabbed the rock at the edge of the flat patch. His boots found the level. The middle finger stayed out after he left it. Pointed at the mountain. I noticed. I did not move it.
I grew again. This time was a big one. Nine hundred and sixty-three times. The mountain's tip was high. I went up and up. The crew on the ground were dots. Lirael was a dot. The walking dot reached the base and stopped.
Vesper on the ring finger gripped harder. His hands clamped on my skin. His weight pressed in close. I was scared. He did not say anything. I felt him through the finger.
I slowed. The dickhead was round. I worked the tip with my fingernail. A slit opened. Small. Shallow. Just wide enough for Vesper to set his hands flat on each side and stand with his feet in the cut. The slit held its shape.
I tilted the ring finger. Very slow. Vesper slid. I watched his speed. He slid more. He reached. He had the rock. His hands went to either side of the slit. His boots found the cut. I waited. I waited longer than I had waited before. Then I lifted the finger away.
I looked at the small dot on the stone. The dot moved a little. The dot stopped. The dot was Vesper.
I grew one more time. The last time. Three thousand and seventy-one times. Just over four miles tall. The mountain came up to my waist. I put my hands under the balls. I cupped them. They fit in my palms.
The air up here was different. Thinner. I felt it in my chest. The breath went in but it did not give as much. My skin was colder. The wind moved different at this height. It pulled sideways across me, slow and steady. The sky was darker. A deeper blue. The sun was sharper. The horizon curved away on both sides. I could see the ground curve. I could see past the mountain to where the trees still were.
I held the balls. The stone in my palms was the only warm thing.
I spoke quiet. I kept it low. They heard me.
"Garrick. Look at the patch. Sniff it."
"Joren. Stretch your arms across the base. Measure the girth."
"Vesper. Hands on the rock. Caress it. Tease it like a cock."
"Lirael. Mouth on the stone."
I held the balls.
The detail was too small from where I was. The crew were specks on the mountain. The mountain was a thing I held against my legs. I could not see what they were doing.
Joren took it for me through the bond.
"Garrick has his face on the patch. He is sniffing. He is moving along it slow. His glass is on the rock."
"Vesper is on the head. Both hands. He is working the stone slow. Top to bottom of the slit."
"Lirael is down. On his knees. Mouth on the stone. He has not moved."
"I have my arms across the base. I cannot reach all the way around. The girth is more than my reach."
A pause.
"I feel it under my palms. The stone is warmer than it was."
It came up through the rock into my palms. A weight that moved through the whole stone. Lirael was praying. With love. For Pisson. The feeling had a shape. Tender. Slow. The mountain took it in. The stone in my hands warmed by a little.
Garrick spoke first through the bond.
"The patch smells. For real. It smells like Pisson."
Joren after.
"There is warmth. Under my arms. Almost like flesh."
Vesper had to shout. He was far up. The voice came faint across the air.
"My fingers are wet. The rock is leaking. Precum. The dick is leaking precum."
Then a different thread opened.
Not Joren's bond. Not Garrick's. Something else. It came in through the ground.
It was Pisson.
I had felt him once before. A short time. One breath and he was gone. I had not understood it then. I did not understand it now. But I knew the thread. I knew the shape of him the way I knew the shape of Joren and the shape of Sprinkle.
Lirael's love crossed the ground and went to Pisson. Pisson was receiving it. I was between them. The thread ran through me. Pisson was feeling Lirael's love. Pisson was answering with his own.
I did not understand how I was there. I had no business being there. I am bonded to Joren. Pisson is not in my bond. Sprinkle is not in my bond. But the thread was open and I was on it.
The certainty came with it. The crew was fine. The work was right. The Stone Realm was holding.
The mountain was about to do its work and I had a job to finish.
The rock softened under Garrick's face. Under Joren's hands. Under Vesper's palms. The stone gave.
The stone in my palms stayed firm.
The face of the mountain turned. Long. Shallow. The slope was not steep. It became a path. A wide, gentle curve down through the rock.
Garrick went first. His slide was a chute. He rode it fast.
Joren went almost the same moment. A little after. On his feet most of the way down. Controlled.
Vesper went last. He was far up. The mountain knew. His slope opened slow under him. His eyes were shut at the start. The slide took him in long soft turns. Curves wide enough that he barely felt the fall. After a long stretch his eyes opened. After more time he laughed. The laugh started small. Then it got bigger. He went down laughing.
I watched from four miles up. The slides took time. Not seconds. Minutes. I started shrinking.
I shrunk slow. Casual. I came down with them. I matched their speeds loosely. I aimed for where Lirael was kneeling at the base.
I shrunk past three thousand. Past one thousand. Past four hundred. Past three hundred. Past forty-eight. The horizon rose back up to me. The air got thicker. The cold left my skin. The wind dropped to a normal wind. The mountain grew back to its mountain size. The crew on the slope grew back to crew size. By the time my feet found the level rock at the base I was at human size. I stood next to Lirael.
Lirael had not moved. His mouth was still on the stone.
Garrick got down first. He landed on his feet and stood with his hands on his knees. Breath coming hard.
Joren a beat after. On his feet the whole way.
I knelt beside Lirael. I put my hand on his arm.
"Lirael."
He lifted his face from the rock. His lips were pale where they had been pressed.
"Spark."
"When I had the balls in my hands. I felt your praying. The love you sent across the ground."
Lirael looked at me. His mouth did not move much. But the corner of his eyes did.
"You felt it."
"I felt it. And Pisson felt it. He was receiving you. He was sending it back."
Lirael went still.
"He felt me."
"He felt you. I was sensing it between you. I do not know how. The thread came through Pisson. I have felt him before. Once. Short. I did not know what it was then. I still do not know how it works."
"You are bonded to Joren."
"I am bonded to Joren. This was different. It came and it went. I do not call it."
Lirael was quiet a count. His face changed. Small.
"A sprite was hearing it," he said. He said it like he was naming a thing he had wanted named for a long time. "And Pisson received."
"Yes."
"Thank you."
He put his hand on top of my hand on his arm. His hand was cold from the rock.
The wait for Vesper was long. The slope was working him slow.
Garrick brushed dust off his trousers and looked up the mountain. Joren stood beside him. They watched the slow shape of Vesper still tracing his way down.
When Vesper finally came down he was still laughing. He stopped at the base, breath hard, dust on his trousers.
He looked at me. He looked me up and down.
"Your suit."
"What about it."
"You were four miles tall."
"I was."
"And now you are not."
"I am not."
"And the suit fits."
I looked down at the Sprite Skin. It sat on me the way it always sat. Seams clean. No tear.
Vesper shook his head.
"The Master Seamstress knew her work."
Joren looked at the suit too. He did not say anything. Garrick was still bent over his knees. He heard Vesper. He smiled once. He said nothing.
Vesper finished.
"I have seen a lot of strange things. Cloth that holds at four miles is up there."
Then it hit me.
My legs went. I sat down on the rock. My hands shook. The growing had pulled something out of me I had not noticed pulling. Four growths. Five if I counted the shrink. The last one had been the biggest by far. The hold of the balls. The air thin at the top. All of it had been work. The work was over and the body knew it.
Joren saw me first.
He crossed to me in three steps. He went to one knee. His hand went to my back.
"Spark."
"I am tired."
"Get in."
I did not stand. I shrunk where I was. Down past human, past child, past bird, past mouse. Thumb-size. Joren's hand came around me. He lifted. He tucked me through the waistband. The silk closed around me.
I was in the nest.
The store was there. Sealed. Sixty-seven men's contribution still held in the fabric. The smell strong around me. The whole night layered in.
I reached for it. I broke the seal on the first fold.
I fed.
I went through the elders first. Twenty-two of them. Each note distinct in the catalogue. The plant-sweetness of the oldest one with silver at his temples. The mineral edge of the elder who had betted on the game. The thin grass-end of the elder whose attendant had used the throat-lock and let the cum fall from his mouth. I took a small pull from each. Twenty-two.
Then the head servant himself. He had taken his own attendant's release into his mouth at the very end of the night and added it to the silk. He counted. Twenty-three.
I held a moment. I did not feed more yet. I was tired and I was filling and I knew what I wanted to finish on.
I went to the deep seam. The fold in the cloth where it met itself. The closed-off place.
The king.
The king's cum had gone into his attendant first. The attendant's spine had arched on the king's cock. Then the attendant had pushed it out of his own body into the silk. Warm and thin. Mixed with his own. I had set it aside in the catalogue then. A single jewel in the seam. I had not touched it.
I opened the seam.
The taste was sharper than the others. Cleaner. The plant-sweetness of elven release but old, root-deep, an elder tree tastes deeper than a young one. The king's note. Held by the seam for days.
I took it in.
The warmth came back to my limbs. The shake left my hands. The body knew the work was over. It started to mend.
I curled in the nest. The silk around me. The store sealed again at the broken folds. Joren walking. His hand finding the bulge through the cloth. His palm settling over me.
Outside, far away, I heard Vesper.
"The cave is open."
The cave was there. Where Lirael had been working. The mouth of it. Open now. The stone parted where it had been solid. The opening was the shape of an arse.
"Of course," Vesper said. "We've got to get into the arse. What else."
The tunnel went back into darkness. Far down it, a long way, there was a pinprick of light. Pale. The same colour as the sky we had come from.
Joren looked at Lirael.
"Yes," Lirael said.
We went in.
The light from the mouth dropped behind us. Joren walked first. Lirael behind him. Vesper next. Garrick last. The tunnel was tall enough to stand. Wide enough for two.
The walls were not stone. Joren's hand brushed the wall to his right. He stopped.
"Garrick."
Garrick came forward. He put his hand on the wall. He looked at it with the eye behind the glass.
"Gold," he said.
The wall was a sheet of it. Not veined through rock. The wall itself. The first stretch of the tunnel was gold from floor to ceiling, both sides, the arch above. The light from behind us caught it. Yellow, warm. The colour you see in a king's coffer. The colour you see in a wedding band.
"All of it," Vesper said.
"All of it."
We walked the gold. The light from the mouth dimmed as we went deeper. The gold held its own light. It glowed soft from inside. Joren ran his hand along it as he walked. The metal under his palm did not move. Solid.
The gold ended. There was a line on the wall where one metal stopped and the next began. Sharp. No mix. No seam I could see. Joren stopped at the line.
The next stretch was silver. White metal. Cool. The walls turned mirror at this point. I could see myself in the silk against Joren's body. I could see Joren reflected back. I could see Lirael's robes. The light from the silver was a different light. Whiter. Cleaner.
"Silver," Garrick said.
We walked silver. The reflections moved with us. Five of us, multiplied. The mountain showed us back to ourselves.
The silver ended. Copper next. Red-orange, warm, the colour of an old kettle. The walls glowed softer here. The light from the copper was a sunset light. It put red on our skin. Joren's beard looked darker against it. Lirael's robes turned the colour of dried blood. Vesper's crystal thumb caught the copper and held it for a moment, then let it go.
"Copper," Garrick said.
We walked copper.
The copper ended. Brass next. Yellow but greener than gold. Brighter. A harder light. The walls had a high polish here. The brass was newer-looking than the others, a brass instrument looks newer than a gold ring even when they are the same age. Vesper touched it.
"Brass."
"Brass," Garrick said.
We walked brass.
Then the last stretch. The walls turned dark. Not stone-dark. Metal-dark. A blue-black sheen with copper-red shifting under the surface when the angle changed. The light from this metal was almost no light. It drank what came near it. The tunnel went dim. Our reflections were ghosts in it now, dark shapes against dark.
We stopped. Vesper put his hand on the wall.
"What is this."
Garrick came up beside him. He put his hand next to Vesper's hand. He looked a long time.
"Shakudō."
"Shakudō."
"Copper and gold. Mostly copper. A small part of gold. You bath it in a solution and the surface turns blue-black. The gold under the copper makes the colour shift. You have to get the ratio right or it goes wrong. Three to one. Sometimes four to one."
Vesper looked at him. "You have made this."
"Once. A long time ago."
"For who."
Garrick's hand was still on the wall. "A man came to my forge. He was old. He had a lover, also old. They had been together forty years. When the lover was young he had travelled. He had seen a shakudō dildo in a foreign market and never bought it. He had carried the memory of it all his life. He had told the story to the man many times over the years."
Vesper was still looking at him. "Did you make it."
"I made it. He paid in gold dust. I had to send for the copper from two valleys over. The bath took three nights. The first one came out wrong. The second one was right. He cried when he picked it up."
We stood in the shakudō tunnel for a moment.
"Did the lover like it," Vesper said.
"He sent word a year later. The lover had died. He had given it to him three months before. The lover had held it every night until the end."
Vesper looked at Garrick. He did not say anything. He took his hand off the wall.
We walked the shakudō. The pinprick of light was getting bigger now. Pale. The same colour as the sky we had come from. The dark metal walls fell behind us.
"Joren," I said silent.
"Yes."
"You smell roasted. Toasty. Warm and familiar. Like bread."
"Good."
"Lirael." I waited. I checked again.
"What."
"He is fading."
Joren did not answer at once. "How fading."
"I can smell the piss crystal in his bulge. The one on his underwear. It is growing. I can smell it more than I can smell him. He is becoming less present."
"Tell me again later," Joren said.
"Yes."
I caught Vesper next. "Vesper," I said.
"Yes."
"Cum. Sharp. Unmistakable."
Joren spoke aloud. "Spark says you smell of cum."
Vesper stopped walking for one step. "Surely there's a top note."
"I'm telling you what's there," I told Joren without speaking. Joren passed it on.
"Garrick," I said.
"Yes."
"Metallic. Hard to read. Not threatening. Just metal."
Joren passed each one on as I gave it. The crew received the information. No one knew what it meant. We came out the other side.
The landscape was the same. Pale rock. Pale sky. No vegetation. No visible change. We had walked through the mountain and come out into a place that looked identical to the place we had left.
I climbed out of the nest. I grew on the way up. By the time I was on Joren's shoulder I was bird-sized. I turned to look back. The tunnel was closing slowly. The arse sealed shut without sound. The opening tightened and then it was rock again.
"No way back," Garrick said.
"No way back," Joren said.
The crew stood on the bare rock. The light was going. Evening coming on. I said the thing that needed to be said.
"What I smelled on each of you seems to be coming from your dicks. Each of you should jerk off. See what comes out."
Vesper looked at me. He raised an eyebrow.
"Last to come cleans everyone else's dick."
"Vesper."
"I am serious. That is the rule."
He was not serious. He was Vesper. He stepped into the circle anyway.
They made an old-fashioned circle. Five of them, facing each other on the bare rock. Trousers open. No embarrassment. These men had done everything together. This was data.
I sat out at first. I do not jerk off often. I do not need to. I live where I live and the nest does the work. I watched.
Lirael went first.
He did not put his hand on himself. He just parted his robes and let the cock hang free. He stood with his feet apart. He took one breath. He waited.
The water came. Clear. Cold. It flowed out in a continuous stream. No pulses. No end. It was tap water leaving a tap. No climb. No build. The fluid was just there and then it was leaving him, in volume, falling clear onto the pale rock.
I watched the pool form. The water did not soak in. The rock did not take it. The pool spread. The puddle was the size of a wash basin in a minute. The size of a small bath in two.
The stream did not stop until Lirael decided. He looked down at himself. He looked back up. The flow ended.
"Water," he said.
His mouth was a flat line. His eyes were still. He had known.
The piss crystal in his bulge was visible through the cloth. It had grown. I could see the bulge of it from where I was. The bulge was full where it had been half full a week back.
Garrick next. He stepped into the circle one pace. He took himself in his hand. The grip was a hammer grip. Practical. Certain. He worked himself once. Twice. The hand moved fast. He came in eight strokes.
The metal poured from him. Molten. Hot. Silver-bright, glowing faint at the edges. It came in a thick stream and the stream did not pulse. It just poured. He looked down at it as it came. He shifted his stance once so the metal would clear his boot.
It hit the rock. The hiss came up. The sound of heat meeting stone. The metal solidified the moment it touched. The puddle was already cooling at the edges before he stopped pouring. By the time the last of it left him, the pool was crusted silver-grey.
He stood looking at it.
He bent down. He picked up a small piece from the edge of the pool where it had cooled first. He turned it in his fingers. He brought it close to the eye behind the glass. He looked at it a long time.
He looked back at the cooled puddle. He looked at the rock around it. He looked at the tunnel we had come through. The five colours behind us. Gold. Silver. Copper. Brass. Shakudō.
His hand closed around the small piece.
"Silver," he said.
He opened his hand and let the piece fall back onto the pool.
"I thought silver. When it was pouring. I was thinking about silver from the tunnel."
He looked at me.
"It came out silver."
He was quiet a moment.
"Try it again," he said. To himself. He took his cock back in his hand. The grip was the same hammer grip. He worked himself. This time he was thinking. I could see it in his face. The eye behind the glass was working too. He came in seven strokes.
The metal poured from him again. This stream was different. Red-orange. Warm. The same colour as the copper wall of the tunnel.
It hit the rock. The hiss was the same. The puddle cooled the same. By the time he was done a copper coin's worth of metal sat next to the silver puddle. Copper.
He looked at it.
"Copper. When I thought copper."
Garrick does not speak much in any case. He spoke now. Quiet. Working it out as he said it.
"I think it. It comes."
He looked at his own cock in his hand. He looked at the two puddles on the rock. He looked at the tunnel walls.
"I can make any metal. If I have seen it. If I have worked it. The body remembers the work and the colour and the temper. The cock pours what the mind holds."
He let himself go. He tucked himself back into his trousers. He stood a moment longer.
"Pour without strike. His jaw was set. His eyes moved across the metal surface. Then back to the tunnel. Then to me.
Vesper next. He stepped into the circle with the same dry face he wore when he was about to make a comment about something. Then he worked himself. The cum came out. Sharp. Unmistakable. Pooled thick on the rock. The volume was wrong from the first spurt. He kept going. He did not stop.
Vesper looked down. His eyes registered the volume before his mouth did. Then his mouth opened.
"Cum," he said. "I get cum."
"It is three times your usual volume," I said.
"Three times."
"At least. Closer to four."
The cum was still coming. He had not edged. He had not built. He had touched himself once and that was all the body needed.
"Boring," he said. "Everyone else gets a transformation. I get more of what I already have."
"Test it," Joren said.
Vesper looked at Joren. His eyes narrowed. He tried to edge. I saw it on his face. He stopped his hand and brought it back to start. He gripped his cock at the base. He squeezed. He breathed out slow. The pressure should have walked it back. Vesper edges. Vesper has always edged. He once edged in the middle of a council meeting in the Lesbian Realm and held it for two hours. The cum kept coming. He squeezed harder. The cum kept coming. He pulled his hand off his own cock and stepped back. The cum kept coming. He could not stop. The moment he wanted to come, it came. No control. No holding back. His mouth opened a small amount. His eyes went still.
"I can't edge," he said. "I can't hold it."
"Then come when you come," Joren said.
Vesper laughed once. The laugh had no joy in it.
"Edging is what I do," he said.
"Not here," Joren said.
Vesper looked down at the pool he had made. It was big. It was bigger than the metal pool. It was almost as big as the water pool. He shook his head once. He put his cock away. The trousers were already wet down the front. He gave up trying to keep them dry.
"Lovely," he said. "I am a tap."
Joren last. He stood in his place. He had not moved through any of the others. He had watched each man come. Steady. Present. He took himself in his hand. Standard grip. His morning grip. I had felt it from inside the nest a thousand times. The hand closing around the shaft from outside, the small adjustments, the moment the breath changes. Today I was watching it from the front. Different angle. Same body. He came in twelve strokes.
The lava came out. It came orange-bright. Glowing. Thick. It poured from the slit slow and viscous. Not the gout of fresh blood. Not the stream of water. A pulse. Then another. Then another. The first pulse was the biggest. It hit the rock in a long arc and lay there glowing. The colour was the colour of a sunset that has gone bad. Bright orange at the centre. Darker at the edges. The lava began to cool the moment it touched stone. A thin skin formed on top. The centre stayed bright. The pool glowed. Heat shimmered in the air above it.
Joren watched it. His face did not change. He shook the last drops loose. He looked at the pool.
"That came out of me," he said.
"It came out of you," I said.
"I felt it as cum."
"You came as cum. It became lava in the air."
He looked at his own slit. There was no glow there. The cock was the same cock. The skin was the same skin. He touched the slit with one finger to check. Nothing burned. The slit was warm and slick. The same as after any other coming. He looked back at the pool. The pool glowed.
"Spark," he said.
"Yes."
"We will figure it out."
I did not answer. I was looking at the pool of lava and I was looking at his cock and I was failing to put them in the same mental frame.
The crew stood around the four pools. Lava. Metal. Water. Cum. Four men, four substances. Each one bright on the bare rock in the evening light. The shadows of the men fell long across the pools. The pale sun was low. No one spoke for a moment.
"This is what the realm has done," Lirael said. "It has taken what we make and made it the realm's substance."
"Lirael's water," Vesper said.
"My water," Lirael said.
"Garrick's metal. Joren's lava. My cum."
"Yes."
"And cum is not transformed."
"Cum is not transformed."
"Why."
"I do not yet know."
I looked at the pools. I looked at the men. I looked at my own hand. I was still small. I had not joined the circle.
"Joren," I said.
"Yes."
"Your cum is lava."
"I know."
"I live in your underwear."
"I know."
"I sleep against the slit. Sometimes I sleep with my mouth on it."
"I know."
The familiar ten inches were in front of me. Thick, straight, symmetrical. Joren's cock. The same cock I lived against. The same cock I knew the shape of with my eyes closed. The skin was unchanged. The veins along the underside were unchanged. The pulse beneath the surface was unchanged. The slit was warm and slick and normal. And lava came out of it.
I reached for my own cock.
I stepped into the circle. I grew on the way. By the third step I was at human size. Small adult, the size I take for sex with the others. I stood in the gap they made for me. I worked myself.
The motion was unfamiliar in my own hand. The body knew what to do anyway. The cock was small but it was a cock. It rose. It built. It came.
Amber.
It came in small round spheres. Not liquid. Not solid. Something between. The first sphere was the size of a pea. It struck the rock and rolled and stopped. The second one was the same. They kept coming. I came in pulses, each pulse produced a small handful of spheres. Different tones of amber. Gold. Honey. Burnt orange. Dark resin. A pale yellow one. About thirty pieces in total.
They scattered across the rock. They gleamed.
"Spark," Joren said.
"Yes."
"That came out of you."
"It came out of me."
Vesper looked at the pieces. He bent down and picked one up, rolled it between his fingers, brought it to his nose. He sniffed. "Smells like amber," he said. "You're showing off."
"I make it. I don't pick the colour."
He set the piece back down with the others.
I sat back on the rock. The cost of coming was already on me. Sprite ejaculation costs me double. Severe drain, size wobble, the body forgetting which shape it was supposed to hold. I held the human shape with effort. The world tilted at the edges of my vision. I sat back and put my hands on my knees and breathed.
Joren came over. He crouched beside me. He put one hand on my back. "Sit," he said.
"I am sitting."
"Sit longer."
He stayed there with his hand on my back while I steadied. The hand was warm. The hand was the same hand it had always been.
Joren reached out with the other hand. He put his finger in his own lava. "Joren," I said. The word came out sharper than I meant.
"It is warm," he said. "It does not burn."
He held the finger in the pool. Nothing changed. He pulled the finger out clean. The skin was not red. No mark. The lava came off his fingertip like warm honey. A small trail, sticky for a second, then gone. He wiped his finger on his trouser and the trouser did not burn.
Garrick walked over. Put his whole hand in the lava pool. "Same," Garrick said. He held it there for a long count. He pulled the hand out. He held it up. Not red. Not blistered. The lava had not touched his skin. It had treated him as something it would not harm.
Vesper touched Garrick's cooled metal. Warm. Solid. Lirael's water was just cold and clean. The materials did what they would do in the world. They did not harm the crew.
I looked at the four pools and the thirty scattered pieces of amber and the five men standing around them on the bare rock. I looked at Joren's slit. Normal. Slick. Warm.
I stood up. The size held. The wobble was passing.
I shrank to thumb-size and climbed back into the nest.
The thirst came up. All five of us at once. Deep thirst. Throats dry. Lips cracking. The jerk circle had taken something out of us that we needed back.
"Lirael," Joren said.
Lirael stood. He parted his robes. He let the water come. It came clear in the evening light. The arc held its shape. He stood steady.
Joren went first. He knelt. He put a hand on Lirael's hip for balance and put his mouth under the stream. He drank. He pulled back. He swallowed once more.
"Good," Joren said.
Vesper next. He drank. He pulled back.
"Never thought I'd say this about piss," Vesper said. "That's good."
Garrick next. He drank without a word.
I knelt. I put my mouth under the stream. Cold shock. Mineral taste. Clean. Not the taste of Lirael's old piss. Something else. The realm's water filtered through an elven body.
Lirael held steady the whole time. His mouth was closed. His eyes were on the ground. The stream stopped when we were done.
I shrank back. I went to the nest.
Night.
There was no fire. There was nothing to burn. The five of us sat on bare rock. The stars overhead were wrong. Not the same constellations. Or the same ones from a strange angle. No one said anything about it.
I looked up once. The pattern that should have been Joren's bow, the one I check most nights, the four-star arc over the western horizon, was not there. Or it was there and the spacing was different. I looked away.
Garrick sat apart. Knees up. Arms on his knees. He used to talk to Pisson. The two quiet ones. Now there was only one.
Vesper sat with his back against his pack. His cloak was wrapped around him. He had given up trying to keep the front of his trousers dry. He had leaked through the cloak by his hip. He had stopped looking at it.
Garrick went to Vesper and entered his ass.
He held.
Vesper looked down.
The cum had almost stopped. A drip. A pause. Another drip.
"Garrick."
"What."
"It has almost stopped."
"I see."
Garrick started to move. Slow.
"Slow only," Vesper said. "No coming. I do not want my arse moulded."
"I can hold."
"Good."
Vesper kept his hands on the rock.
"Welcome back," he said.
"Yes."
Lirael sat with his hands in his sleeves. The pose he had taken at the elven gate and had not let go of since. Tonight his shoulders were lower than they had been on the road. His mouth was a thin line. His eyes were fixed on the rock between his feet.
Joren sat at the centre of where the fire would have been. He had taken his boots off. His socks were folded inside the boots. His bare feet were on the cool rock. The crystallised little toe on his left foot was the colour of nothing. Not flesh, not stone, a clear thing with no light passing through it. He had not commented on it since the elves. He flexed the foot once. The toe did not move with the others.
I stood at the waistband. The nest was below me. Joren was inside. His cock was warm and present and exactly the same as it had been every other night. And lava came out of it now.
Joren did not push. His hand was on his bulge from outside. Colour pressure. The fingers settling where I usually rest. He waited.
"If it burns me, I'll know," I said into the bond.
"It won't," he said.
"You said it earlier."
"It only comes when I come. The cock is the cock. The slit is the slit. I felt it. Garrick felt it. The lava does not burn its own people."
"You are sure."
"I am sure. And if I am wrong you will tell me before it does damage."
"Yes."
"Climb in."
I climbed in.
The nest closed around me. The familiar dark. The familiar heat. The fabric walls. The warmth of his thighs. The weight of the cock against the fabric. I stood inside it and just breathed.
The cock was the same shape it had always been. Ten inches. Thick. Straight. Symmetrical. The skin was the same. The warmth was the same. There was pre-cum at the slit and I leaned in and touched my tongue to it. Warm. Salty. Clean.
I held there a long time.
Outside, the camp went quiet. Vesper had wrapped himself in his cloak. He was still leaking, a little, but he had given up trying to stop it. Garrick had pulled out and climbed onto Vesper's shoulder. Lirael sat with his hands in his sleeves. Garrick broke the silence.
"Almost smells like my forge," Garrick said. Quiet. "Back in the day."
The words came across the camp without force. He sat with his knees up and the smell of the cooled metal on his hand.
"Where was your forge?" Vesper said. He was still wrapped in the cloak.
"Outside Veranthi. Three years before I left."
"I knew you were a smith. I did not know you had a place."
"It was not a big place."
"It smelled like this."
"Like hot metal and rock. And sweat that comes only in a forge."
Vesper said nothing for a count. Then he said, "Did you make rings there?"
"I made everything there."
"Did you make rings?"
"Yes."
Vesper let the answer sit.
His eyes moved to Lirael's satchel. He looked at it for a count of two. Then he reached over.
"May I?"
Lirael nodded.
Vesper opened the flap. He took the baby out. He held it on his palm. Smooth limestone. Palm-sized. Pale. Faintly warm.
He held it closer to his eyes.
"Lirael."
"Yes."
"Has this changed?"
Lirael leaned over. He looked at the stone on Vesper's palm.
"I don't know."
Joren leaned in from the other side. He looked at the stone.
"There."
He pointed. One side of the surface. A line. A shallow curve cut into the limestone.
I looked from the nest opening. The line was small. It ran along the surface for the width of a fingernail. The curve was even. The ends turned up.
"It looks like a smile," Garrick said. "Or it doesn't."
"That's what I see," Vesper said.
"It was smooth," Lirael said. "I think."
"You think."
"I have not looked at it in a week."
"Memory."
"Yes."
"It might have changed," Vesper said.
"It might," Joren said.
"Or we are tired," Garrick said.
Vesper handed the stone back. Lirael put it in the satchel. He closed the flap.
Lirael started talking to himself. "Lava as heat. Joren provides the forge-fire. Metal as body. Garrick's substance is the raw material. Water as quench. Mine. And amber as the setting stone. Spark's. The materials are the crew."
He looked up then. "The five materials. One ring for each of us. The anchors the elders described. Garrick already worked it out at the pool. He can pour the metals. He can make the tool. He can make the cock rings."
The crew looked at him.
"The Oracle's anchor," Vesper said. He was sitting up now. "Parallel time."
"Yes," Lirael said.
"And the forging at the moment of entry."
"The mountain. We entered through the mountain. The forging happens on this side."
"With the materials from the jerk circle."
"With the materials from the jerk circle. Of course."
He looked at Garrick. Garrick was already sitting up. His hands had been still on his knees. Now the fingers were curving.
"You'll need lava when the time comes," Lirael said to him. "And water. And amber. We give you what you need."
Garrick nodded. He was the blacksmith again.
"What about Vesper's cum?" I said to Joren, silent. "Does it go in too?"
Joren passed the question on aloud.
"Yes," Lirael said. "All five. We have not yet seen the role of Vesper's fluid in the work. But it is in the work. The realm gave him three times the volume. It did not do that for nothing."
Vesper looked at his own lap.
"Lovely," he said. "I am part of the chemistry."
"You are flux," Garrick said.
"Flux," Vesper said.
"You will see in the morning."
"In the morning," Joren said.
"In the morning," Lirael said.
Outside the nest I felt the camp settle. Vesper lay down. Lirael lay down. Garrick stayed sitting a little longer, then lay down on his side. He did not put a pack under his head. He used his arm.
Joren's hand stayed on the bulge from outside. The pressure held. His breath slowed. I felt the change in him as his body went toward sleep. The muscle of his thigh went loose around me. The cock grew heavier against the fabric. The heartbeat through the seam was slow and even.
I stayed inside. I tasted the slit one more time.
Still Joren.
Pale dawn. The crew rose.
The sky had not changed colour overnight. Same washed pale. Same dry air. The wrong stars were gone but no proper morning had come in to replace them. The sun was somewhere behind the haze, and the haze was the same shade as the sky.
I was hungry.
I had fed at the tunnel mouth on the elders and the king. The store was lighter now. The body wanted more. I climbed up out of the nest and looked across the camp.
Vesper sat on a flat stone with his trousers open. His cock was out. The cum ran down the shaft slow. It had been running all night. It was still running.
I climbed down Joren's leg, scaling up as I went. By the time my feet hit the rock I was human size.
I crossed the camp. Vesper looked up. He saw me coming. He did not move.
I jumped on him.
Hands on his thighs, mouth on the head of his cock. I did not stop. I started swallowing. The cum was already in my throat. He saw the angle of my body and reached down to hold the base of his cock. He turned the tap on. The flow doubled. Then doubled again. He was controlling it.
I swallowed. I kept the seal of my mouth tight around him so nothing went past my lip. The cum hit the back of my throat and I sent it down. Then the next. Then the next.
I did not breathe through my mouth. I breathed through my nose. The rhythm steadied.
After a minute it was too much. I put one hand up. Palm out. Stop sign.
Vesper laughed and eased the flow down to a trickle. I caught up on the swallow. I waved my hand at him. "Back on." He turned it up again.
I kept going.
The minutes stretched. Five maybe. I lost count. The flow did not stop. Vesper did not strain. He had been making it all night. The realm gave him three times what a man should make. The realm wanted him drained and he could not drain. He could only pour.
Joren watched from his bedroll. He was sitting up now, smiling. I saw it through one eye while my mouth was full. Joren does not smile much in the morning. He was smiling at me eating. His hand rested on his own bulge from outside the cloth. Not working it. Just resting there. Watching me feed.
Vesper looked down at me with my mouth on his cock.
"This is my raison de vivre," he said.
He said it dry. He said it to Joren, not me.
"To feed Spark. To be a cum fountain for Spark. The realm made me for this."
Joren's smile got bigger. Garrick was up now too, sitting by the cooled puddle, watching. Lirael sat up against a rock. Even Lirael's mouth moved a small amount at one corner.
I kept swallowing.
After what felt like long enough I pulled back.
I pulled back too fast.
Vesper's cock was still flowing. The stream caught me full in the face. Forehead, eyes, cheeks, mouth. He had not closed the tap before I left.
I sat back on my heels with cum running down my face.
I laughed.
I do not laugh often. I do not know what I sound like when I laugh. The sound came out of me anyway. It was small and dry but it was a laugh.
Vesper looked at his own cock, looked at my face, and laughed too. Joren laughed once, short. Garrick smiled. Lirael's corner-of-the-mouth moved a little more.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand. I licked the back of my hand. I stood up.
"Good morning," Vesper said.
"Good morning."
Garrick rose first to his feet. He stretched. He looked at the slab where yesterday's metal pool had cooled. The puddle was a flat grey disc on the rock, the size of a small plate. He walked over to it. He toed it with his boot. It did not move. It had bonded to the stone underneath. He nodded once.
He looked at his own hands. He flexed them.
"I need a forge," he said.
"Yes," Joren said.
He walked the camp first. He looked at the rock around the slab. He chose a long flat shelf of stone a few paces from where Joren's lava pool had cooled. The rock there was the soft kind. It gave under a fingernail.
He pressed his palm into it. The depression took the shape of his hand and held it.
He worked the shelf with his hands. He cut a long flat top to it. He cut the edges square. He set the legs into the stone where there had been no legs. He cut a lip along the front. A table. A working surface. The smith's bench.
He stepped back. He looked at it. He nodded.
He cut tool moulds into the stone next to the bench. A hammer-mould first. The line of the head, the deep cup for the body, the long narrow channel for the handle. Then tongs. Then a smaller hammer for finer work. Then a chisel. Then a file. The mould edges were crisp.
He stood. He looked down at his own cock.
"I need iron," he said. "For the tools."
He undid his trousers. He worked himself. Standing. Deliberate. He brought himself to the edge in eight strokes and held there for a count of three. Then he let it come.
The metal poured. Iron. Dull grey, glowing red-orange at the edges where it came out hot. He aimed the column at the hammer-mould first. He filled the channel, then the cup, then the head. He moved his hips to direct the flow. The hammer set. He kept pouring. He moved to the tongs-mould. He filled it. He moved to the chisel-mould. He filled it. He moved to the small hammer. He moved to the file.
He worked his cock through the pours. He came twice more to get the volume. The iron filled each tool clean.
The metal cooled as it touched the rock. Mould filled, metal set. The pours finished one after the other.
He shook the last drops out. He put himself away.
He bent. He pulled the tools from the rock.
The rock released them clean. The hammer came out solid. Heavy. The handle warm. The tongs came out with the jaws closed and the pivot stiff. He worked the pivot with his fingers. It loosened. The chisel came out with the edge dull. He would sharpen it on the file. The file came out with the teeth raised. The small hammer came out warm.
He turned each one over in his hand. He tested the weight. He swung the big hammer once through the air. He set them on the bench.
"That is the tools," he said. "Now the forge."
He walked to the front of the bench. He pressed both hands into the rock there. He worked a small basin into the stone. Not too deep. Wide enough for a good pour. Round. The sides smooth. He cut a channel from the basin to drain heat if it needed to drain. He cut another channel to feed water in.
"Joren," he said.
Joren came over. He undid his trousers. He worked himself.
"In the basin," Garrick said.
Joren stepped to the basin and came. The lava poured. Bright orange. It pooled in the basin and held the colour. The rock around it did not soften. The basin held the heat.
"Good," Garrick said.
Joren stepped back. He did up his trousers.
Garrick walked to the side of the bench. He cut five small rod-moulds into the rock in a row. Long narrow channels. One for each metal he would need. He stood over them.
He undid his trousers again. He worked himself.
"Gold first," he said.
The lava poured from him. Gold this time, not iron. Yellow-warm. It filled the first rod-mould.
"Silver."
The pour cut off. He breathed once. He worked himself back. The next pour came silver. White-bright. It filled the second mould.
"Brass."
The third pour. Yellow-green. The brass filled the mould.
"Copper."
The fourth. Red-orange. Warm.
He stopped before the fifth. He breathed. He looked at the last mould.
"Shakudō."
The fifth pour came blue-black with copper-red moving under the surface. It filled the last mould. He shook himself out. He put himself away.
He looked at the five rods cooling in the stone.
"Handy," he said. "I can piss the shakudō. The bath used to take three nights. The ratio had to be right. Three to one, sometimes four. I would send for the copper from two valleys over. Now I think it and it comes out."
"Yes," Vesper said. "You told us yesterday. And the day before. We were there."
"Mm."
He stretched his back. He walked back to the front of the bench.
He looked at the five rods. He nodded once. Each rod was the right length. He picked up the gold rod with the tongs. He held it next to one of the others. He gauged the thickness. He gauged the length. He had cut the rods to the size each ring would need before they were rods.
He laid the gold rod on the bench beside the basin. The other four stayed in their moulds.
He looked at Joren.
"Ready when you are," he said.
The rhythm started.
Joren stood three paces from the basin. He undid his trousers. He took himself in his hand. He worked himself. He came easy. The first pulse of lava came out as he stepped forward toward the basin. Garrick directed his hips with one hand. The lava topped up the basin. The orange caught.
Garrick took the gold rod in the tongs. He laid the middle of it in the lava in the basin. The rod heated. The gold went from solid yellow to bright. He turned the rod with the tongs. He heated the length of it evenly.
He lifted it out. He laid it flat on the bench. He picked up the big hammer.
The hammer rose. The hammer fell. The rod flattened under the strikes. He worked one end of it first. He thinned it. He drew it longer. He worked the other end. He thinned that too. The middle stayed thicker. The gold brightened where the hammer compressed it. Each strike threw a small shower of orange-bright sparks that died before they reached his arm.
Heat. Hammer.
He dipped the rod back in the lava. He heated it again. He pulled it out. He worked it again. The gold went from straight rod to a long flat strip. Then he started bending. He brought the two ends around to meet. He shaped the strip into a circle. He sized it against Joren's measurement in his head. He closed the ends together at the seam.
He took a small piece of the gold from the thick middle of the rod. A pinch of metal. He laid it across the seam. He heated the seam. He hammered the join. The two ends became one. The seam closed.
Lirael stood at the other side of the bench. Robes parted. He pissed water in a thin stream. Directed. He aimed it at the ring. The water hit the hot metal and hissed to steam. The steam came up white in the pale air and dissolved. The ring set. The metal cooled into shape.
Heat. Hammer. Quench.
The first ring was Joren's. Gold. It cooled to the colour of a deep coin. Garrick lifted it from the bench with the tongs. He held it up. Round. Smooth-ish. He used the small hammer to true the inner curve. He used the file to dress the seam. He used the chisel to cut a socket at the front of the band for the amber. He cut four small prongs around the socket from the leftover gold of the pinch.
He set it aside. He moved to the next rod.
Joren stepped forward and came again. The lava topped up the basin.
Garrick took the silver rod in the tongs. He laid the middle of it in the lava. The rod heated. He turned it. He pulled it out. He laid it on the bench. He picked up the big hammer.
He was about to bring the hammer down and stopped. He frowned. The metal was flowing thick.
He turned to Vesper. Vesper had been leaking since the jerk circle. Trousers stained dark down the front. Standing apart.
"Come here," Garrick said.
"Why."
"Flux."
Vesper walked over. Slow. He had not been called over by Garrick like that before. He came to the bench. He stood at Garrick's elbow.
"What do you need," Vesper said.
"Your cum. The metal flows thick. I need it thinner."
"You want me to come on the metal."
"On the metal. As I work it. As often as it takes."
Vesper was already wiping at himself. There was cum on his hand because there had been cum on his hand for fourteen hours. He held the palm out. Garrick took the cum without ceremony and worked it into the silver between strikes.
The metal flowed easier. The rod drew cleaner. The strip lengthened. The ends came round to meet.
"I'm useful," Vesper said. "I'm flux."
"You're useful."
Vesper stayed. He wiped, he offered. Garrick took what he needed across the next three rings. Each time the metal needed flow.
Heat. Hammer. Quench.
Vesper's ring. Silver. White-bright. Joined at the seam. Trued at the inner curve. Filed at the seam. Socket cut. Prongs raised.
Heat. Hammer. Quench.
Lirael's ring. Brass. Yellow but greener than Joren's gold. Brighter. The colour of a horn in winter light. Garrick laid the brass rod in the basin, heated it, drew it long, bent it round, closed the seam.
Heat. Hammer. Quench.
My ring. Copper. Smaller than the others. The rod was the same gauge but Garrick drew it longer and bent it tighter. The ring came out at the right size for me at human scale. The colour was warm orange-brown.
Heat. Hammer. Quench.
Four rings done. Garrick rolled his shoulders. He had worked through with a complete focus.
"Almost there," he said.
I watched from the nest. I felt Joren's body settle into the work. The steady breathing. His part of the job was to come on command. He did it without fuss. He had jerked off most mornings of his life. This was that. With heat. Each time he came he stepped back, did up his trousers, drank a small mouthful of Lirael's water from the canteen Vesper had filled at the pool, and waited for the next ring to be ready. He did not seem tired. The realm gave him the cum. The realm gave the cum back as lava.
Garrick had not yet worked the fifth rod. He walked to the last rod. The shakudō. He picked it up with the tongs.
He held it a long count.
"This one I do myself."
He undid his trousers. He took himself in his hand. He worked himself slow. The strokes were measured. He watched the basin as he worked. He brought himself to the edge and held there. He breathed. He let it come.
His own lava poured into the basin. Bright orange. Joren's lava had been the heat for the others. This one was his own.
He put himself away.
He laid the shakudō rod in his own lava. The rod heated. The blue-black darkened, the copper-red moved under the surface where the heat came up. He turned the rod. He pulled it out. He laid it on the bench.
He picked up the big hammer. He struck once. The shakudō rang. He struck again. The rod flattened under the blows. He worked the surface. He drew the rod long. The metal brightened where the hammer compressed it, then cooled back to the dark.
Heat. Hammer.
Vesper was at his elbow with cum on his hand. He held it out. Garrick worked it in between strikes. The shakudō flowed easier.
He bent the strip round. He closed the seam. He pinched a small piece from the end to lay across the join.
Lirael stepped forward. He pissed water in a thin stream. The water hit the hot shakudō and hissed to steam. The steam came up white in the pale air and dissolved. The ring set. The metal cooled into shape.
Heat. Hammer. Quench.
Garrick lifted the ring from the bench with the tongs. Shakudō. Warm. He used the small hammer to true the inner curve. He used the file to dress the seam. He cut a socket at the front of the band for the amber. He cut four small prongs.
He held it up. He turned it over in his hand. He tested the weight. The blue-black caught the pale light and held it. The copper-red moved under the surface.
He looked at it a long time.
He set it beside the others.
Five rings on the bench. Five different metals. Five amber sockets. Five bands waiting for the stones.
Gold. Silver. Brass. Copper. Shakudō.
The same five as the tunnel walls.
Garrick looked at the rings. He looked at the crew. He looked at the pale sky.
"Now we need the amber," he said.
Joren put his on. He had to part the cloth at the base of his cock and slide the ring up over the head. The cock was soft when he started. The ring took the head fine. As it passed the head the cock began to fill. By the time the ring reached the base the cock was half-hard and thick. The gold ring seated. The amber caught the pale light. The fit was snug. He looked down once. He moved his hips a small amount to feel the weight of the band against the base. He nodded.
"It fits," he said.
"Of course it fits," Garrick said. "I made it."
Vesper put his on. Silver. Fitted snug. He had been leaking still, a constant slow drip down the front, and the ring went on with the cock already half-stiff from the day's frustration. He looked down. Nodded once. He shifted his stance. The leak slowed.
"Look at that," he said. "The drip slowed."
"The ring is the anchor," Lirael said. "It is doing what it is meant to do."
"Holding me."
"Holding you in time. The body is finding its rhythm again."
"My body has rhythm. My body has never lost rhythm."
"The realm took it. The ring gives it back."
Vesper looked down at himself. The drip had stopped. He took one experimental breath. He tightened the muscle that should have controlled what was happening. The muscle worked.
"It is back," he said. The voice was quiet. He was not making a joke.
Lirael put his on. Brass against pale skin. The yellow-green caught the light. The amber moved with him. His transformation had been different from the others. His body had become a vessel for the realm's water, and the change was deeper than ejaculate. But the ring took. He stood with the band at the base of his cock and his hands at his sides and he closed his eyes for one moment. He breathed out long. The smell came back.
I caught it from the nest. Lirael's priest-smell. The clean smell of old linen and elven body underneath, the smell I had been losing for days. It came back the moment the ring seated. The piss-crystal smell did not go away. But Lirael's body smell came back in alongside it.
"He is back," I told Joren without speaking.
"Tell me again later," Joren said.
I put mine on. Copper at the base of me. I was still at human size.
I held there a moment. The ring seated. The metal warmed. The amber piece at the front of the band pressed a small smooth lump against my skin. I let the body know what it was carrying.
The ring shrank with me at first. The magic in it followed. I went from human size down to child size and the ring stayed the right proportion. From child size to bird size. The ring stayed proportion. From bird size to thumb size. The ring stayed.
Then it stopped.
The shrink stopped working halfway through the last move. The ring kept following me down for a fraction of a second and then it could not follow anymore. I felt it as a sudden tightness at the base of my cock. Too much metal in not enough space. The ring tried to shrink and the metal had nowhere to go.
It shot off the band. The rest shrunk back with me.
The excess copper jumped off me with a small sharp sound. Not a clink. A small wet pop. The metal hit the slab next to my foot.
It pooled.
The puddle was the size of a small saucer. It glinted in the pale light. Copper-warm. It sat there for a count of two.
Then it stood up.
The pool gathered itself in one motion. It pulled inward. It rose. It made a shape.
The shape was small. Sprite-sized. The size of a hand-held thing. It was copper all the way through. The colour of a new coin. No clothes on it. The shape was not exactly a person, not exactly an animal. It had four limbs. Or four limb-ish things. They were floppy. They moved without obvious bone. The body in the middle was a soft round shape. The head was at the top, or the top end was where the head should have been. A face appeared at some angles and not others. Eyes that came and went depending on light. A mouth that was there when it needed to do something.
It bounced once. The body sprang up off the rock half a foot and came back down with a soft tap. The tap was almost cheerful. It bounced twice. Looked around.
It moved.
It went for Joren first. It scrambled across the rock on the four floppy limbs. Fast. Not graceful. The legs went in no clear order. It hit Joren's boot. It started to climb.
The texture of the climb was difficult. The boot leather did not give the small copper feet any purchase. It slid back. It tried again. It got halfway up. It slid back. On the fourth try it got to the top of the boot and disappeared into the trouser leg.
I watched the cloth move. A small lump worked its way up the inside of Joren's calf. Joren stood still and let it happen up to a point. The lump reached the back of his knee.
Joren reached down and into the trouser from the top and got the thing by the scruff, or by what was the scruff if it had one, and pulled it out. He held it up at eye level.
The thing licked his hand. The tongue was small and copper and warm.
"What," Joren said.
The thing wagged. The whole back end of it wagged.
Joren set it down on the rock at his feet. It immediately tried again. From the front this time. It went for the laces. It started to climb up the trousers.
Joren picked it up again. Gentler this time. He held it out toward Lirael.
"Lirael," he said. "What is it."
Lirael looked at the thing. The thing looked back. Or its eyes appeared in the place where they could see Lirael, and then they were gone again.
"I do not know," Lirael said. "It was not in the books."
"It came out of my ring."
"Yes."
"When I shrank."
"Yes."
"It is mine."
"I think it is yours and not yours. It came out of you. But it is its own."
Joren set it down again. The thing immediately went for Vesper.
It sneaked. The four floppy limbs went into a low crouch and the body got close to the rock and it moved sideways toward Vesper. A small animal stalking. It got to Vesper's boot. It started up the back of the boot. It worked up the leg.
Vesper stood very still. He had felt the thing reach his thigh.
"No," Vesper said. "Absolutely not."
The lump had moved past the thigh. It was now climbing the back of the trousers. It was heading for the arse.
"No," Vesper said again. He reached around and got the thing through the trousers and pulled it out by what was probably its scruff and probably its leg at the same time.
The thing wriggled in his hand. It twisted. It got loose. It ran up Vesper's spine inside the shirt. I saw the shape of it move under the cloth, fast. It popped out at the collar.
It came up out of the shirt at the back of Vesper's neck. It tickled the small hairs there. It nuzzled.
Vesper laughed.
Genuine. Unguarded. The sound surprised everyone in the camp including Vesper. He laughed for two full breaths. The laugh died into a chuckle and the chuckle into a grin. He reached up and got the thing off his neck.
"You are a menace," he said to it.
The thing looked at him. Or where its eyes would have been if it had decided to have eyes at that moment.
"Lirael," Vesper said. "Catch."
He tossed the thing.
It flew across the camp in a small copper arc. It came down on Lirael's shoulder. It scrambled. It immediately went into Lirael's sleeve.
Lirael looked at his own arm. The lump inside the sleeve worked its way up to his elbow, then to his shoulder, then down across his chest, then to his other elbow. It came out at the cuff of the other arm.
Lirael lifted the cuff away from his hand. The thing fell out into his palm. It looked up at him.
Lirael looked at it without expression for a long count. Then his mouth moved a small amount at one corner. Then it stopped.
He set the thing down.
"Garrick," Lirael said. "Your turn."
Garrick was already shaking his head.
"I do not want it in my clothes."
"It is going to your clothes anyway."
"Yes," Garrick said. "I see that."
The thing was already at Garrick's foot. It was looking up at Garrick. A dog at a treat. Garrick stood and let it climb. He did not stop it. It went up the boot fast. The smith's boots were rougher leather than Joren's and the small copper feet got better purchase. It disappeared inside the boot at the top.
It did not come out for a long count.
Garrick lifted his foot. He looked at the boot. He shook the boot. The thing did not come out.
He sat down on the rock. He unlaced the boot. He took it off.
He turned the boot upside down over his hand.
The thing came out into his palm. It was curled up. It was warm.
Garrick looked at it. He held it at arm's length. He looked at it longer.
"Mine?" he said. He did not look at me when he said it. He said it to the thing.
The thing made a small sound. Not a bark. Not a yip. The sound a small copper thing makes when it is comfortable and being held.
"No," Garrick said. "Not mine."
He held it out toward me.
I felt the new thread. Smaller than Joren's bond. Dumber. Warmer. I felt the thing's want first: to get inside something, anything, warm and dark. No reason. Just the want. Joren's bond is a river. This one was a puddle. But it belonged to me.
I could feel its position without looking. It was in Garrick's palm. He held it out. Its limbs trembled. It had run for a count of minutes. Small, and the running was a lot. It was hungry too. The hunger was different from mine. Mine wants cum. This one wanted to be inside warm cloth. Against a body. In a fold that smelled of someone.
The thing came to me last because the others had been right to send it. It climbed my leg. I let it. It went up the trouser. The four floppy limbs worked in their not-quite-rhythm. I felt it reach my knee, my hip, my collar. It came out of my shirt collar—same exit as Vesper's. It sat there, warm against my neck. The body was the size of my thumb. It curled. The four limbs tucked under. It put its head against the side of my throat. The thread in my mind hummed.
"That one's mine," I said aloud. "Sort of."
Vesper watched it at my collar. "Ass-me," Vesper said.
Garrick said flat: "Cockper."
Vesper took it. "Cockper." The thing bounced at the sound.
Garrick worked for himself last. The blacksmith's ethic: finish the work before you wear it. He measured himself. His own hands on his own cock. The half-hard rise. The balls' weight in his own palm.
He took the shakudō ring from the bench. The socket was already cut at the front of the band. The four small prongs were already raised. He worked a pea-sized round of amber out of the pile I had given him. Pale yellow. He set it into the socket. The amber sat flush.
He took the small hammer. He tapped the four prongs over the curve of the amber. One. Two. Three. Four. The prongs folded clean. The amber sat secure.
He held the ring up. He turned it. The blue-black caught the pale light. The pale yellow amber caught it back. The setting held.
He held the ring in his hand for a long moment. Then he slid it on.
It seated. The shakudō bit into the base of his cock. The first sensation was a sting: pain, sharp and immediate, as the ring pressed against the skin and the metal found its grip. His body resisted: a flinch, a tightening of the thighs, a breath held in the chest. The ring was a foreign thing, a clamp, a restraint. He felt the urge to pull it off. But he did not. The resistance softened as he exhaled, the muscles in his groin relaxing by degrees. A warmth spread beneath it—a low, steady pleasure, the pulse of blood held and returned, the cock filling against the shakudō. The pleasure was quiet, but it was there.
Five rings on five men. And suddently, the world changed.
If you enjoyed this story, consider supporting the author on Patreon.
