Elf-Boy and Friends

Elf Boy and Friends

Part 7 of 10

by George Gauthier

Chapter 29. R&R in Elysion

After succeeding at his second challenge, the journeyman druid Dahlderon returned from the southern isles of the Great Inland Fresh Water Sea to vacation in Elysion. The raven haired elf-boy was welcomed to the home of his friends, Count Taitos Klarendes and his young lover, the sloe-eyed beauty and wir-panther, Aodh of Llangollen.

[Which, for the benefit of the uninitiated, or as a reminder to the forgetful, is pronounced like the vowels in "veil"]

Dahl really needed the peace and quiet of the secluded valley and the support of friends, while he recovered from his physical, psychological, and sexual ordeal in the lands of the Amazons. It had been a close thing whether the young druid would manage to escape his captors at all and return to civilization, much less complete his mission.

That afternoon, at the manor house, the count played host to an event to which all of Dahl's friends had been invited. For a change they came dressed for the occasion instead of running around in the nude as was their wont. Though bare to the hips, the human youths wore white linen kilts, while those of more exotic stock preferred silk sarongs. All went barefoot, the soles of their feet so callused from criss-crossing the continent to be as good protection as moccasins.

The guests included the twins Jemsen and Karel, still nineteen, if just barely, of fully human heritage, medium height, slender, crowned with cornsilk blond hair, and incredibly cute and sexy. Characteristically cheerful and optimistic, hardworking and amiable, the twins were very easy to like, except maybe by persons of a taciturn disposition who found them to be a bit much. It would be fair to describe them as incessant chatterboxes with an insatiable curiosity, forever asking questions about, well, just about everything.

Decorated for their service as scouts in the Commonwealth army during the Second War for the Plains, both of them had been awarded the coveted Military Cross for Valor, which entitled them to add "MC" to their names. No one was prouder of their achievements than their old sergeant Borden and Chief of Scouts, [pronounced Vrot-swaf]. The small tattoos on their left shoulders showed they had been recognized as both elf-friends and dwarf-friends for selfless service rendered to those two peoples. Either folk would automatically extend their hospitality and protection to them. Blest with good looks, brains, and stones, what was there not to like?

With them was their sometime runner in the army scouts, their Man (or was it Boy) Friday, and jack of all trades, the lovely elf-boy Randell (accent on second syllable), or Ran for short. Which he was. Short, that is. Barely seventeen and the youngest of them except for Artor, Ran was just five foot tall, lithe and svelte, his dark blond hair was evidence of his one-quarter human heritage. He too was marked as a dwarf-friend, for his service with the twins at the battle for Stone Mountain. More catholic in his tastes than the others, he fancied both pretty boys, like the twins, and pretty young lasses as well, human lasses especially, which had raised eyebrows, to put it mildly, on his home turf. Alas, after cutting a swath through the young ladies, Ran had been forced to flee a joint posse of vigilantes, both elf and human, and charged never to darken their doors again.

The unicorn Meirionnydd or Merry for short was also there in support of his protege and sometime lover Dahl. Also present was the giant Balandur, the unicorn's long-time ally and friend, on leave from the secret service of the Commonwealth of the Long River. Standing well over seven feet and powerfully built, red-haired Balan was one of the Dread Hands of the Commonwealth. The Hands were the chief trouble-shooters for the state. As its plenipotentiary agents, their authority could override that of any civil official or military officer. As always, Balan was dressed in his green and brown leathers.

Perhaps the most exotic of those attending was the boy who made his home at the manor house with the count, the shapeshifter Aodh. Not only could the dark haired youth morph into a black panther, the magical process of transformation healed all wounds and injuries and kept him perpetually young, looking no more than sixteen or even a year younger though he was actually eighteen. Of a height with Ran, which made him just an inch shorter than the other elf-boy Dahl, he was a boy so beautiful he took your breath away. Impossibly pretty, he was a melding of the innocent and the wanton, the epitome of a boy in the full bloom of his youth.

Small, skinny, and smooth muscled, comely as an angel, with a skin like porcelain, and looking utterly fragile and vulnerable, the epicene youth was easily twice as strong as he looked as well as being a master of the martial arts. All of them had some considerable skill along those lines, with Aodh and Ran in the lead. Dahl might fall a trifle short of their level, but his physical powers had been magically enhanced. He had three times the physical strength you would expect from a little fellow like him.

All of the young folks, save only the local youth Arik, were visions of youthful male pulchritude in the flesh or walking wet dreams come to life. It would be fair to say that Arik had ordinary good looks. Again save Arik but also the blond twins, all were blessed with extended life spans, at least prospectively. Though the way they threw themselves at danger all the time, their lives might suddenly be cut short by accident, foul play, or misadventure. Elves live for five or six centuries, compensating for their longevity by a very low reproductive rate that consequently directed the sexual energies of their males largely to those of the same gender.

Only giants and druids had a longer natural span of life, the druids youthful and ageless thanks to the automatic workings of their healing abilities. No one really knew why giants lived so long. Perhaps something to do with their size. The giants beasts called brontotheres, which so fascinated the young druid, were also reputedly very long-lived. Balan himself was nearly a thousand years old.

Wirs lived indefinitely, without a fixed span, never aging after their growth spurt, their very long lives ending suddenly by violence or misadventure. Everyone except the wirs themselves pronounced the name of their people with a 'w' sound. The wirs preferred a 'v' sound, which could still draw a raised eyebrow from Karel, devotee of phonetic spelling that he was.

No one knew how long unicorns lived, barring mishap, though their lifespan must at least that of the giants, but the white coated equines weren't saying.

Then there was the host of the affair, the handsome nobleman in whose manor house all the guests were staying, even Ran's old boyfriend, the brawny local youth named Arik, who always shared his bed during Ran's visits to the secluded valley. The valley of Elysion was a green bowl about eight miles across, closed off at its eastern end by cliffs. The only way in was through a rocky gorge. The chief denizen of that isolated domain was, to give him his full titles, The Honorable Taitos Klarendes, Chief District Magistrate, Dispenser of the Middle Justice and the Low, Lord-Zamindar of Elysion, and Count of the Eastern March.

To this group, he was simply Taitos. The people he ruled over usually called him "Captain". He had risen to that rank in the Army of the Commonwealth during the first War for the Plains and was now so addressed as the officer in charge of the local militia and volunteer fire-brigade, only two of the many roles the noblemen undertook for the benefit of his people.

Though in his mid-thirties, he looked a decade younger thanks to the large admixture of elven blood in his heritage which would likely grant him four or five centuries of life. Of medium height though taller than any of the youngsters, the handsome nobleman had the bearing and the lean build of the gentleman farmer, hunter, and sometime soldier that he was. He was also a powerful fire caster, able to throw even the white fire which the Commonwealth's war wizards claimed as their own special province.

Most sentients on the planet had a magical gift of some sort, and some had several. Many could call light, creating a cool globe of luminescence to hover overhead. More than a few women had the gift of healing. Some gifts were quite minor or even of little use in one's life or trade.

Fire casting fit right in with the count's vocation as a soldier. He had used it to great effect during his war. He was capable of turning an entire army to ash, though only once. He was careful not to use such power directly against sentients since the psychic backlash would kill him. Still it was always there in reserve for a final strike, if it came to that.

The twins had the gift of unerring direction. Here was a good match between gift and occupation. They always knew their way in both azimuth and elevation to any place they had been to, a great advantage for military scouts or the hunters they had originally been. In a manner of speaking, they could scout terrain before they even got there. Their gift enabled them to visualize a terrain map as if the twins were right there on the ground. So, in their mind's eye, they could trace the route of a road through the mountains as if they were actually trudging along it. The map gave them the critical dimension of true distance, when combined with their directional sense. And as archers, they could put their arrows unerringly into their target.

Lately they had been turning their attention to a new way to show elevations on maps, which would eventually lead them to inventing contour lines.

Balan had several magical gifts, some of which he liked to keep to himself, to give him an edge. As his badge of office, he could hold up his right hand and trigger a small magic, creating the glowing outline of a hand in his palm. Like many others he also could call light, manifesting a cool ball of blue-white light which floated overhead and followed his movements or his will. For such a big man he was phenomenally quick thanks to a magical gift that doubled his already prodigious strength.

All druids could call light of course. Senior druids were healers as well, though males could not match the power or finesse of female healers, who in any event were much more numerous, spread widely across the continent, and well organized, operating a mutually supportive network with herbal healers, midwives, chirurgeons, and others to extend medical knowledge and best practices.

Merry did not have magic so much as he was magic, a wholly magical creature with many talents. Though not a firecaster, he could kindle a blaze with the touch of his horn or run like the wind, seemingly forever. With mind speech he could contact virtually anyone over long distances, an ability he shared with the druids and Balandur. In addition, his seed had energized his lover the young elf-boy Dahlderon, starting him on his journey to becoming a druid. And he had other powers, that so far he had not had to call upon in his dealings with the group of adventurers.

Dahl's mentor, the senior druid Owain, another lover, had sent his regrets. He had welcomed the elf-boy to the home of the druids in the Great Southern Forest, and helped him recover well-enough to continue on to Elysion. As one of the most powerful magic wielders on the planet, he was the master of plants and animals and of the elements. He could call the winds and even levitate. Though he could not fly like a bird he could send part of his mind to meld with an avian aloft to see through its eyes, giving him literally a bird's eye view.

With only seven full druids on the continent, Owain simply could not get away from his other commitments. As ever, the druids had their hands full countering the machinations of their adversary and his Dark Prophet as well as handling natural disasters That was why, more than a year ago, they had recruited fifteen apprentices, all of whom were now journeyman druids, except for the dwarf Xebrek, Dahl's close friend, who had fallen at the battle for Stone Mountain, losing his own life while destroying an evil wizard.

"Gentle beings, please join me in a toast to my eldest son, the handsome and talented Artor, the apple of my eye and artiste extraordinaire, whose fine drawings are now going on exhibition in the public access hall of the manor, alongside the painted portraits of my ancestors. Instead of noble countenances and stern visages and powerful bodies garbed in sumptuous robes or armor, this new exhibit is a tribute to the band of heroes that came together about two years ago to help the Commonwealth and the druids in their endeavors."

"I refer of course to those intrepid adventurers who stand here among us: Dahlderon of the elves and now a journeyman druid, Meirionnydd a prince among the unicorns, Balandur part giant, part human, all soldier and a Hand of the Commonwealth, the human twins, Jemsen and Karel MC, hunters, scouts, archers, mapmakers, and, almost unique in the history of the continent, ennobled as both elf-friends and dwarf-friends, which takes some doing, as you can imagine."

"Then there is their friend and companion, the incomparably lovely elf-boy Ran or Randell, note the emphasis on the last syllable, and please, never call him Randy, even though he often is just that. Cute, courageous, sexy, and well-known for his trademark impertinence, this lively poplet is both a master of the martial arts and a jack of all trades. As handy with a kukri or sling as with a frying pan, quite a combination, don't you think? And if he has more than his share of mischief in his soul, it is the sort that makes you want him around. He is good company."

"And lastly, though not part of their expeditions, at least yet, is our local lad, Arik, the skilled carpenter whom Ran asked be included in his formal portrait and a good neighbor who is always welcome in this house."

"As you will see, each personage is depicted in two drawings, one a formal head and shoulders portrait, the other a full-length image of its subject engaged in some notable action. I think you will agree that the sore muscles you got from holding your poses for so long was worth the trouble. I did make one stipulation to Artor when he first broached the idea to me. No silken robes or armor, please. The subjects of these pictures were to be shown in all their glory, a fancy way of saying naked. Which is only realistic given how little time any of them spend clothed. Much to the delight of their hordes of admirers, I might add."

"Our good friend Balan, characteristically modest that he is, allowed Artor to depict him bared to the waist but dressed in trews and sandals. I think the artist captured the musculature of his upper body quite well, but you must judge that for yourselves."

"So gentle beings, raise a glass and join me in congratulating my son on his artistic achievement. As a father, I don't mind admitting that I was gratified he found something to distract him from his many girlfriends. Not that I begrudge him his amorous adventures, not at his age. At seventeen, my heir is still too young to settle down with one girl and produce his own heir and a spare, as I did in my day. This is his time, his salad days. The juices are flowing, so let him make the most of it and us of him and his talent. I give you, Artor Klarendes, future Count of the Eastern March, though hopefully not anytime soon."

This essay at humor drew polite chuckles.

"Wow, your father really got going, there, Artor" the young wir whispered. "What was that he once quoted to me, something about 'orotundity of speech'. Now I know what he is talking about."

"Yes, Father can get carried away while in full oratorical mode. He is a judge, after all, and a politician too, though he would never admit it. Still, his words were well chosen."

"Indeed."

Artor had depicted his father in the act of using white fire to blast open the overflow tunnel at Stone Mountain. The artist had drawn Aodh crouched behind the count in his panther form, which was simply not true, and distorted the geography to get one of Stone Mountain's soaring peaks into the frame. Everyone agreed that made it a better composition, regardless.

Klarendes' oldest also took artistic license with a comical image showing Ran carrying dispatches during the battle, with masses of soldiers locked in a death struggle behind him while an enemy arrow was caught in flight, just as the arrowhead grazed his bare bum, drawing a red streak across his left cheek, and causing the startled elf-boy to yell out something like "Yikes!" To Ran's raised eyebrow, Artor explained blandly:

"OK, maybe this scene isn't exactly true to life either. He did take two arrows during the battle, but neither to the rump. Still I like to think that my picture was at least inspired by true events and is an oblique allusion to Ran's love life, if you take my meaning."

For the twins, Artor created a diptych, the left side showing Jemsen and Karel poring over their maps, the right panel showing them wielding kukris in hand-to-hand combat, the muscles of their slender nude bodies straining with their efforts.

Dahl was shown gesturing dramatically while the vines he commanded wrapped themselves around the necks of human soldiers and strangled them to death, making their tongues protrude and their eyes bulge out horrifically. Here was yet another picture more "inspired by true events" than by literal accuracy. He had wrapped vines around their legs and ankles to immobilize them while the dwarves shot them with their crossbows. At the battle Dahl had worn a druidic tunic and cloak and had not been completely naked as Artor had depicted him, but here the artist's eye had the truth of it. If ever a boy deserved to be portrayed in the nude it was lovely Dahlderon.

Balan had not been at Stone Mountain, so Artor showed him in action against the dark riders of the western plains. He was on foot, they were mounted, at least till swept out of their saddles by mighty blows from the giant's quarterstaff. Here again Artok had taken artistic license. Balan had used his sword in that fight, swinging with one hand a brand any lesser man needed two to wield effectively.

Finally there was the dramatic depiction of Xebrek in close combat with the enemy wizard, caught in the act of smashing a blow with his maul to his opponent's shield, staggering his foe with his tremendous power.

Behind him was Merry caught impaling a foe with his horn, blood streaming from his own wounds. What few knew, and what Artor could not have shown very well in an image anyhow, is that the unicorn had called upon one of his hidden powers, his so-called killer neigh, during the fighting at Stone Mountain.

Really an intolerable screech much like the one made with fingernails drawn across a slate only far worse, it startled, pained, and distracted his foes. Men recoiling like that cannot handle their own weapons effectively. They put their hands to their ears, making them vulnerable to the unicorn's natural weapons, his horn, hoofs, and teeth, not to mention his sheer bulk. A simple enough power, but surprisingly effective in battle for both defense and offense.

After everyone had oohed and ahed at the artworks, the count lead his guests to the west parlor, the most comfortable room in the manor. Servitors brought in light refreshments.

Also joining them, inevitably, despite the lack of an invitation, was the true mistress of the manor, the ginger cat Esmeralda, still sleek and lovely at five years of age and despite four litters now. For the occasion, she ensconced herself on the mantlepiece, just behind and looking over the good count's left shoulder, assuming, justifiably from her point of view, that she herself was the real center of attention. And it was true that Esmeralda had only to turn on the charm to get anyone to do her bidding. Whether she was truly psychic or not, they were all in her thrall. Look how she had charmed Artok into adding her picture to the exhibition.

Klarendes announced that Dahl had recovered enough to give an extended account of his recent misadventures. The elf-boy whetted their appetites, telling his audience that the climax of his tale was a charge by brontotheres that he had led against against an army of Amazons.

Having hooked his audience, Dahl started off by explaining what originally drew him to southern isles of the Great Inland Fresh Water Sea, and specifically the Ashokan Archipelago. It had all started when alarming reports of the depredations of an invasive species called the Emerald Ash Borer reached the druids, along with a plea for help. The islanders depended on their forests, composed mostly of ash and beech trees, to protect their watersheds.

Careful of chopping down their forests and thereby denuding the land like some islanders had unwisely done in the past, the good folk of Ashokan imported much of the timber they used for construction. Unfortunately, with the logs or planks in the cargo holds came the creature that looked likely to make their continued tenure on their islands impossible. In no more than ten years, the forests that shrouded their hills would be gone. The sun would beat down and bake the earth, the rivers and stream dry up, and dust would blow where currently lush croplands supported a population of tens of thousands on eight close-set tropical isles.

The druids dispatched Dahl, this time alone, to face the second of his three challenges as a journeyman druid. With all his training in biology and ecology and agriculture and forestry, the outline of a solution was obvious. Import a biological control, a species that had co-evolved with the borers and kept them in check in their natural environment. The problem lay in identifying the origins of the borers and the control species. The control had to be inimical to borers but to little else, lest the islanders exchange one plague for another. As the number of borers fell, so too should those of the control species.

So Dahl had sailed forth, young and eager and full of hope, confident that, even going it alone this time, his growing abilities, physical, magical, intellectual, and interpersonal would let him resolve the problem. Perhaps he was overconfident, but then he was barely eighteen. He can be forgiven a young man's optimism. Or maybe he expected everyone on the planet to be in awe of a genuine druid, even a journeyman.

Chapter 30. Up the Amazon

Dahl's first step once he reached the Ashokan Islands was to find out where the pests had come from. He interviewed sea captains, sailors, importers and merchants. That helped him narrow the time when the infestation had occurred. From what he learned about the foreign trade of the Ashokan Archipelago, only one shipping route had opened up back then. That new trade route to the mainland led up a major river called the Amazon.

In the past very little trade had passed up and down the river because of a chain of rapids and shoals near its mouth. These days the river ran deep enough to take seagoing ships and capacious barges a long way upstream. It seems the city fathers of the port at the mouth of the river had dreamed of turning it into a major entrepot between river and sea. They had hired a water wizard to clear the navigational obstacles that kept the river from realizing its potential as a transportation artery.

The grounded snags and sandbars presented little problem for the wizard. The rapids though were much harder to deal with. The white water there was a result of the river flowing around large boulders which had been dropped in that spot ages ago carried on an immense flood down to the Inland Sea.

The wizard used his water magic to squeeze the river channel more and more, forcing the flow to move faster and faster, making it push harder to get past the boulders, while also scouring away the remaining sandbars and shoals. Gradually the water shoved the boulders against the far bank of the river where the town stood, stabilizing it. A rather good job the water wizard made of it too and well worth what they paid him.

Anyway, it was from the newly opened interior that the tainted timber had arrived from upriver some years before. However no one knew anything about the country of origin. The river was so long that cargoes might pass through several hands before reaching the islands. There were rumors about a country far upstream where women ruled over men, though how likely was that. Regardless, the river route was the young druid's best lead.

It was not like he was heading into a wilderness where he would leave no trace of his passage. The archipelago was well within range of the Great Southern Forest for mind speech. The distance between was little more than half that to Stone Mountain. However the far reaches of river would be quite a way beyond that. So he left a sealed message with the port captain in case anyone came looking for him, a sensible precaution in the circumstances.

The voyage across the sea and upriver was quite pleasant to begin with. With a local boy hired as a servant and factotum, the druid had little to do but to stretch out in the sun, to relax and read and take in the view as first a sailing ship and later a river barge propelled by oars and poles carried him inland. Their captains and crew mostly left him to his own devices. The local boy was willing enough, capable at his simple tasks, though largely a cipher. The shy and silent type, he spoke only when he had to.

Since the barge was a charter, the captain was answerable to his passenger. Dahl had them stop off every so often to check the trunks of trees for the characteristic holes made by the Emerald Ash Borer. No holes, no borers, no controls. What he was looking for was not so much an out-of-control infestation like in the islands, but evidence the borers were present but regarded as just one more minor pest among others.

The sailors warned him not to wade the shallow waters near the river banks nor to venture into the gallery forest that lined the banks. Though usually safe enough, the country thereabouts supported a goodly population of predators, both terrestrial and aquatic, who might find an elf-boy made a tasty meal.

Despite their warnings, there he went, poking his nose everywhere, unarmed, empty handed except for maybe a note tablet and stylus, unshod and totally nude. At least the boy wasn't too proud to get his hands dirty, or his legs or his bum too when he slipped in the mud. All right, he was no sailor but no soft-skinned city slicker either from his callused hands. So they were prepared to meet him halfway. Besides, he was paying the freight and not interfering with the operation of their craft, which they appreciated.

So the captain was willing to keep sailors aloft in the shrouds even when they stopped and anchored. The lookouts were to keep their eyes peeled for creatures that might come swimming along and take after the pretty youth with the sexy little body who surely deserved something better than to wind up in the maw and the craw of some river monster, of which there were several types, the Scaly Long Mouth being the worst. Four times the length of a man, a Scaly, as they were called, might conceivably be a threat to a fair sized boat, though not to their own stout river barge.

Sure enough, there came one of them, headed right for the heedless lad who was wading crotch deep in the river with a belt of tough reeds between him and the sandy bank, which, anyway, offered no real refuge. Did the clueless youth even know how to climb a palm tree?

What a shame. With that firm round rump that invited fondling, that deep cleavage that inspired exploration, those nicely formed shoulders and the chevrons of his ribs that begged to be stroked, and those pouty lips that begged to be kissed, he would be a grievous loss indeed. All they could do was ring the gong and call out a warning and break out their weapons to take revenge on the monster should it come within reach of their anchored craft

The boy turned with a look of mild surprise and absolutely no fear. As the beast got to within two of its body lengths, jaws yawning menacingly, the boy simply pointed and said:

"No!"

To everyone's astonishment, the beast instantly turned and swam away, no longer interested in the taste of druid. Clearly Dahl's powers had grown, especially his influence over animals. When he got back, he would surprise his mentor.

The incident reminded Dahl that he had better recruit animal sentinels to watch his back. No good candidates presented themselves except a class of territorial birds, so he had them keep an eye out for him. He would have preferred a mammalian species.

Eventually, many days upriver, past wide timberlands, the barge captain pointed upstream and told the young druid that he could proceed no farther. Beyond the trees a swamp of tall reeds spread out before them, with only one open channel through it, and that one an artificial canal, laboriously dug over who knew how many years. A small fort guarded the entrance to the channel.

"No, sir, young druid. Not only is my barge too large to enter that narrow canal, the soldiers here won't let anyone sail past, no matter who, no matter what. Whoever built that canal is in complete control of river traffic from here on. Their purpose is to keep a monopoly of trade."

"I suppose there is no way around?"

"Not on water nor on land, either, I am afraid. The rate of flow across this grassy basin is imperceptible, slowed by flat ground and strangling reeds. As the saying goes, it is too dry to sail and too wet to walk upon."

"Nossir. If you want to go upstream, you will have to deal with the soldiers and that shifty looking under-officer and maybe someone above him. Good luck talking your way past. You might try a bribe."

"Since this is your charter, we will wait here for two days while you dicker with the authorities. Then either take you back downriver or return without you if you can talk you way forward. If you do proceed upriver and later return to this point, we won't be here, of course, but you can take one of the timber barges to the Inland Sea. Dunno what else ye can do, youngling, I mean sir Druid."

"One thing more. You talk to that officer, you might want to put some clothes on first. Look official-like yourself, as becoming a druid and an ambassador and all instead of some rich man's catamite or bum boy, no offense."

"None taken. That is good advice."

So he dressed in his best druidic regalia, green tunic and camouflage cloak. With his ashplant staff thumping the ground with every other step he strode along the wharf up to the guards and assumed the most official looking stance he could, feet just over shoulder-width apart, cloak blown back with a wind he called, the bottom of his staff planted next to his foot, the long shaft angling away from his body, gripped near the top at arm's length. Dahl was confident that he struck quite a imposing figure, even if one only an inch over five feet tall.

If so, the effect was lost on the surly looking under-officer.

"Hey, aren't you that nekkid kid what come up on the barge? All gussied up now, eh. I suppose you wanna see the Captain?"

"Yes, I do, fellow. Make it so." Dahl hoped that was the right tone to deal with the churlish soldier who by rights should have shown him more respect.

Out of the door of the main building set back from the channel emerged quite a different sort of man. A real soldier by his bearing.

"All right kid, or should I say sir? State your business."

Dahl started out by introducing himself. "I am Lord Dahlderon, Dwarf-Friend and Journeyman Druid of the Exalted Order of the Druids of Haven."

There. Count Klarendes wasn't the only one with a mouthful of titles to his name.

Dahl then explained his mission in a few simple sentences. The captain did not know anything about Emerald Ash Borers, but he did know the rules.

He explained that no vessels passed through this checkpoint except the river boats and crews who originated upriver. Visitors were not welcome there, were resolutely discouraged in fact, and warned that they entered at their peril. Entry by foreigners was not actually forbidden, but they could not ship anything on their own account, either in or out, but only through native intermediaries. Meaning they would have to take on native partners.

"Anyway, you cannot pass the checkpoint in that get-up or anything at all really, especially not a young male like yourself. That is definite. Males don't go upriver unless naked and unarmed. You can check your clothing and weapons here and pick them up on the way out, if they let you out. No guarantees they will, understand? Pretty as you are, little one, you might find yourself enslaved and set to work in a boy brothel.

No hard money goes upriver either. You exchange coin for script with the finance office next door. Understand? Don't cause trouble or you will be in big trouble. Understand?"

Not liking it at all, but unwilling to turn back now, the young druid stripped and handed over all his belongings. What kind of a country made all male visitors strip naked? Were they just making it impossible to carry a concealed weapon or to smuggle contraband? Or was he taking a first step toward sexual slavery?

All right, he did look like a juvenile and a youngish one at that, and males his age went about naked in many lands including the Commonwealth itself, humans as well as elves and others. But so did slaves in those benighted countries that still tolerated the institution. This sounded like one of them, languishing in barbarism, far from the reach of the Commonwealth's benign and progressive hegemony.

And physically Dahl was just the sort slavers would target. With his androgynous if wiry physique and fine-boned features he fell far short of normal male standards in height, muscular development, and secondary sexual characteristics like beard and body hair. He might not taken seriously as a male but viewed as a pretty boy toy just begging to be mounted.

Anyway, the captain made it sound like boys his age had no choice about perpetual nudity at least once they had reached the bloom of their youth and became attractive and sexually active. Was this another society where same gender relationships were the norm at least for younger males with each other or with older males as their mentors? He was only surprised the guard did not do a cavity search, but none of these men seemed attracted to pretty boys. Or maybe they were just lazy.

How was he supposed to present himself as an ambassador now? A small nude elf-boy without a feather on him anywhere was not exactly ambassadorial timber. More like a bum boy trolling for custom. True, he had never had much use for clothing. Maybe perpetual public nudity had not bothered him when he had first started out on a life of adventure, but he was older now, more experienced, and had a greater sense of personal dignity. Not that he didn't like to show off, but preferably on his terms. Best he use a cover story to explain his presence while he took soundings rather than announce himself to the authorities right off.

It got worse. The financial "script" they gave him was not paper currency as you might expect but a small temporary tattoo stamped on the inside of his wrist. All transactions were executed magically, with a small device called a dongle, that added or subtracted value and changed the tattoo accordingly to reflect the new balance. If that balance fell to zero, that made you a vagrant. You could and would be arrested and put to work. In shackles, if you resisted.

Still Dahl felt he could take care of himself, even naked and unarmed. He knew martial arts. His burst strength was three times what you might expect from someone so small, and that advantage would be increased by the element of surprise. Which was why he never showed off, never let a potential foe realize just how strong he was. He could have picked up that surly soldier one-handed and tossed him into the canal as long as he set his own center of gravity right.

Anyone who came at him with a weapon and serious intent to harm might get the belly-ache of a lifetime or maybe a heart attack. Now if he were confronted by a body of troops, then he would cast around for a herd of brontotheres. Half-jokingly he had asked about them and was delighted to learn that the beasts were common in those parts. Brontotheres at last! He couldn't wait to see them. The great beasts were considered bothersome to farmers but not especially dangerous unless provoked.

"Ditches. That's the solution." Dahl asserted confidently. "As a way to prove my bona fides, I think I will mention that to your rulers when I finally get to the capital."

Dahl was surprised to learn that the guards and the boatmen were not natives of the country upriver. Just mercenaries. They ignored all his other questions, just telling him he would find out for himself soon enough. So Dahl got on board a river boat, parked his bare butt on the gunwale, and let himself be carried to..., to what he didn't know. His destiny? That sounded far too highfalutin for a simple farm boy like him or even a journeyman druid, however many his grand titles.

Chapter 31. Land of the Amazons

The trip through the reeds took almost two days. To pole the narrow river craft forward boatmen started at the bow, pole poked into the river bottom the other end braced on the shoulder, then walked toward the stern, thereby pushing the boat along with their feet. Dahl's boat frequently encountered other canal boats going downstream. Around mid-morning of the final day, the reeds petered out and they entered the upper valley of the river, a manicured land of prosperous villages set amid lush fields and orchards. Everything bespoke the fecundity of the land and the large populace it must support.

Soon the riverboat reached a town and tied up at the docks. It was quite a pretty town. Beyond the quays of the river port it was laid out with wide streets lined by sturdy and well-maintained dwellings and lined with shade trees. No dirt, no trash, no beggars or such riffraff. Though not much street life or spontaneity either: no cafes, no beer gardens, no places of entertainment, all of which Dahl had always though was the whole point of living in a town. Cities and towns are where you would encounter the unexpected, meet strangers, be exposed to new foods, new tastes, new customs, and new ideas. This town was too perfect and sterile in its uniformity.

As he expected the younger males went around entirely naked, so he fit right in, nude as he was. What was unusual was that all of the local males were short in stature and slight of build, nearly as small as Dahl himself. The males generally stood no more than a couple of inches taller than Dahl. The females reached six foot or more. Not giants or giantesses, just big women, but they stood head and shoulders above the diminutive males.

Now most sentient species, like humans and elves and giants, though not dwarves, are sexually dimorphic. Males and females are clearly different in size and strength. That held true in this land as well, only in reverse.

And there was no doubt who was in charge: the women. The younger males, up to say mid-thirties went about entirely nude, the heads of their cocks locked to their scrotums by gold rings. Older males usually wore a loincloth or kilt. Women went about dressed in flaring skirts and tight blouses with the bodice open but supporting the bosom from below the better to display the female breasts and their rouged nipples.

Dahl frowned. He had nothing against women. As people he liked them well enough to make friends, but he had always disliked female breasts. A real turnoff for him. Too big, too soft, too jiggly, and too, well, too much in your face, if the truth were known.

He conceded women might say much the same about his own manly parts, dangling there in plain sight between his legs and even more in your face when rampant, but there it was. Dahl was oriented exclusively to other males. He found the idea of sexual congress with a female to be, well, unappealing was the least offensive word he could put to the notion. Frankly he did not know how his friend and fellow elf-boy Ran could straddle the gender divide. More power to him.

On the streets, a special class of enforcers, muscular females all, stood clothed in military uniforms but armed only with truncheons, kept the smaller males in line. Not that the lowly males looked rebellious or even acted like sullen slaves. They looked healthy and seemed cheerful enough or at least resigned to their station in life, as they went about their work. And they were very deferential to their female betters. Too deferential for Dahl's liking. More like subservient.

Marching past on a major cross street was a military formation, stepping smartly, well-armed, heads high, clearly an elite unit of the Amazon army, a company of tough looking women with sharp weapons, hard muscles and no nonsense attitudes. Nothing soft about those beauties.

So that was the set up. Social classes defined by gender. But how was it maintained? Why were the females on top. Why the reversed dimorphism of the sexes. Maybe this was another ecological imbalance or one alchemically or magically maintained. Something that needed looking into.

Dahl knew he had to be careful. Standing shorter even than the lowly local males, looking maybe fourteen or fifteen in their eyes, he might find himself treated like a native drone or as a child. It did not help that their dialect was so different from the lingua franca of the continent. It gave him a headache trying to make out what those around him were saying. He hoped he could make himself understood. There was too much room here for misunderstandings.

Since he was finally in the land beyond the reeds, the young druid checked the ash trees lining the street he was on. They did show signs of infestation by the Emerald Ash Borer, but one that was contained. There must be a control species at work here. But which one? The tissue under the bark might harbor many sorts of tiny critters. Which ones were keeping the bad bugs in check? Could it even be an insect or an avian species preying on the borers? Or maybe it was something at work at the roots or leaves, a chemical defense like so many plants used. Certainly something that warranted further investigation, but the young druid did not have the time just then. First he had to establish himself in this society. Make a place for himself as a base to operate from. He needed a place to stay and a source of food and drink.

Suddenly one of the enforcers barked something at Dahl and motioned with her truncheon for Dahl to join the work gang marching past. Rejoin it, in the mind of the enforcer really, for she assumed that the elf-boy had dropped out of formation to goof off for the rest of the day in the shade. One thing about societies with forced labor is that they encouraged malingering and sloth and discouraged diligence. The great advantage of free labor is that it worked with a will. No sabotage or intentional breakage either.

Waving his hands and pointing at his ears, Dahl tried to communicate with the guard, foreman, straw boss or whatever she was.

"No, I am not one of your people. I am a foreigner from the Commonwealth of the Long River. I come from a land far beyond the sea of reeds. I am not even human. As you can see, I am an elf."

The best tactic when communication is difficult is redundancy, saying the same thing in several different ways. That helps get your message across. People really hear only half of what you say anyway, even without dialectical differences. So that is what Dahl did.

The enforcer looked close at Dahl's ears then reached down and examined his un-ringed cock, giving the balls a squeeze just for the hell of it. Nodding her understanding she turned to one of the boys in the work gang and sent him off with a message, motioning to the elf-boy that he should stay put.

"Why are you in our city, young outlander?" the enforcer asked, enunciating slowly to make herself understood.

"I have come here to explore your land for useful and ornamental plants and to collect samples for my family's horticultural enterprise and for our natural philosophers back home to study. Please conduct me to someone in your government to whom I may proffer my bona fides."

In a short while the messenger returned with a patrol from the city watch, all big women, armed with short swords. The enforcer pointed to Dahl and spoke faster than the young druid could follow. The women of the city watch formed a double line around the elf-boy. He wasn't sure whether they were an escort or his captors. His uncertainty vanished as two of them stepped forward, ropes in hand to bind him. What was the elf-boy to do? Things looked to be getting out of hand.

He decided to submit to capture and try to talk his way out of trouble later. Yes he could resist arrest and escape easily enough, but then his journey would have been for nothing, his mission a complete failure. He knew he was on the right track, but he needed time in this Land of the Amazons.

So the elf-boy stood meekly while they bound his crossed wrists behind his back and pulled them up between his shoulder blades, taking a turn around his neck with the rope end and back to his wrists. He would choke if he struggled while so bound. Standard bondage for prisoners of war. The locals did not attempt to hobble his ankles, not when he would be marching between twin files of soldiers.

The female sergeant in charge leered as he tied a cord around Dahl's balls, wrapping it around several times, crowding the boy's testicles into a small reddened sack. With a dismissive flick of her finger to the boy's flaccid cock, she started his prisoner walking by dragging on his leash. A deliberately humiliating lesson in pain, submission, helplessness, and obedience. You cannot resist when they literally have you by the balls.

His destination turned out to be an interrogation chamber deep within a hulking fortress across town. The installation commander was another Amazon, a tall red head with a beautiful but cold face. She had his captors bring the elf-boy to a halt right in front of her. While the sergeant maintained tension on his lead, the red-head used a riding crop to slash the boy's unprotected balls. He hissed at the sudden pain. The women lay repeated strokes to his balls. Soon poor Dahl was weeping, knees buckling, held up by soldiers to either side. She finished with a final vicious stroke then spoke her first words to Dahl, her only words.

"This is how we treat spies, young outlander. Consider your situation. This treatment is just to soften you up in preparation for a severe interrogation. That will be much more unpleasant. When we meet again you will talk. You will tell me everything."

She walked off, head high. Dahl shook the sweat out of his eyes, and speaking through his pain said to no one in particular:

"She didn't even ask me any questions!"

Meanwhile a soldier put a noose around the boy's neck to hold him in place while another attached a spreader bar to his ankles and weights to his balls. Then they began whipping him, first his back and shoulders, then his chest and belly. Dahl didn't know which hurt more, the sting of the whips, the heavy weights on his balls, or the thorns piercing his nipples, leaving blood to trickle down his chest.

The poor elf-boy had never felt so miserable in his young life. His misery was made worse by the knowledge they he could escape if he wanted to. At the cost of total mission failure, something he was not prepared to accept, not yet anyway. So he allowed them to inflict fiendish torments on his bound and helpless body.

Courage comes in different forms. Battle courage burns with a white heat. Moral courage, the courage to endure the unendurable, maybe when you are alone and in the dark, that sort of courage burns cold. Dahl's ordeal was a test of his moral courage. Could he stick to his purpose and eventually find a way to save the islanders from destitution, maybe even overturn the unnatural social order of this terrible land, or take the easy way out and save himself and get clean away. Not an easy choice for a young elf, caged, bound, whipped and sexually tormented.

At nightfall they let him drink his fill, lest he suffer dehydration in the oppressive heat, then threw him into a cell, a cage really, barely tall enough to sit up and only long enough to stretch out in because of his slight stature. No mattress, just a flagstone floor strewn with a bit of straw, with a covered bucket in one corner for sanitary needs.

Came the dawn his second day continued in the same vein, starting with a brief visit from the red head interrogator to torment his balls, then by the soldiers with their standard repertoire of tortures. And still no questions. Just a demand that he first admit to being a spy. No way he was going to put a noose around his neck with his very first words. If it ever came down to a real interrogation, he would give out the story he had devised. He was rather proud of it in fact. He just hope he could deliver it plausibly. First though he had to get past this damn softening-up stage of the proceedings.

At nightfall, every night, they brought in a squad of enforcers to have their way with him. They donned strap-on cocks made of wood and leather and raped him time and time again till he bled out of his anus. They were delighted to have such a cute and sexy boy to work over, to prong, to impale and to fuck in the ultimate reversal of the role of sexes. This was the second half of the softening-up part of the process. What did they have planned for him once the real interrogation got started?

The only kindnesses he received were from the slops boy, a pretty blond lad named Paval who brought him his meals twice a day. The boy did not say much, but he did let Dahl examine his genitals as long as the elf-boy returned the favor. It was quite ingenious really, the way the rulers of this upside-down society had virtually castrated their males without surgical removal of organs. It happened at age thirteen. Practiced hands first passed the open end of a golden ring through a hole pierced in the underside of the young male's penis then out through the piss slit. Next came a smaller ring set horizontally through the skin at the bottom of the scrotum. Once the rings were joined and clamped closed, the boy's penis was unable to erect though it might swell as it pulled and strained with his arousal.

The slops boy wondered at the freedom of movement Dahl's organs had, eyes widening with delight at the elf-boy's sturdy erection his manipulations had stimulated. He explained:

"I want this too, but they only allow it now and then and not for all males. Only for the lucky few, when they want children, you see. The females use a simple magic to slip the rings apart, a magic males cannot work. They won't even let us play with ourselves! Or with one other, for that matter, not all the way, though we manage what we can, painful as that often is, with our cocks bound like this."

"Would you really like that, Paval? Sex with another male?"

"Yes Dahl. I have no feelings for women except repugnance. I wish we could make love, the two of us. You are so beautiful and sexy, even now after what they have done to you. There is the real crime, not our so-called illicit passions. Please, I know you are in pain, but could you please fuck me? I want that so very much."

Dahl acceded to his wishes. Over the next few nights he carefully introduced the innocent boy to the amatory arts. Paval was an eager pupil, ecstatic at finally being able to indulge and express his sexuality. And with such a pretty youth as Dahl and so expert in these matters.

Incarcerated in the dungeon, it looked like there was nothing Dahl could do to help himself, but the truth is the young druid was far from helpless. His main need beyond purely physical ones was intelligence, like the layout of the fortress and town plus. Dahl gradually built up a picture of the layout of the fortress from the observations of mice, rats, and a litter of kittens. It took him a week since he had to sleep. The town took longer, though he did have a bird's eye view thanks to some friendly robins lodged high atop a tower. Paval himself was restricted to the precincts of the fortress and knew little of the town around it. He gleaned what he could from listening in on the conversations of those who manned it. Or womanned it (was there really such a word?).

Chapter 32. Flower Boy

When his real interrogation began, Dahl had his story ready for the red-headed bitch.

Dahl spun her a tale, which actually had large elements of truth, the better to buttress its essential falsehood. He was quite candid about the ash trees and their connection with the Emerald Ash Borer. Knowing that bit of information would not give the Amazons any leverage with the world beyond their borders. The Ashokan Arcipelago was an insignificant state with no military at all and population of less than one-hundred thousand.

He said nothing about being a druid. No, this visit was simply a favor he was doing for a large shipping firm in exchange for free transport to this land. Their motivation? The shipping firm did not want to witness the destruction of the Ashokans or the abandonment of their conveniently situated ports. That would be bad for business.

"All right, that was their reason for sending you here, but what was yours for agreeing to come. What were you doing in this Ashokan Archipelago in the first place? What were you looking for?"

"Flowers."

"Flowers?"

Here is where Dahl's tale departed sharply from reality. It seemed that Dahl was the scion of a family long established in the floral trade. They were plant breeders and developers who sold to nurseries and governments and to large collections of botanical specimens. His job, the job of every generation of sons who reached his age, was to go off on a two year voyage of exploration, both geographical and personal, to sow his wild oats, and to bring back exotic specimens as seeds, bulbs, or cuttings that they could propagate and sell profitably. Here was where Dahl's knowledge of plants and horticulture came in handy. Along with his green thumb as he demonstrated later on in the garden out back.

"We have no interest in the retail end of the trade, which is too dispersed for ease of control, too capital and land intensive, and with too many people problems.

His story worked. The Amazons changed tactics. Instead of ever crueler tortures, they switched to a charm offensive. Not as good as starting out nice in the first place, with the threat of worse as the next resort, but the tactic was worth a try. Anyway, that was what the lady now in charge wanted.

To start the new regime of kindness, they cleaned the boy up, nursed his hurts, and provided him with light and airy quarters including a soft feather bed. Large window openings let in the perfume of sweet smelling blossoms from the private garden out back. With three good meals a day and a daily swim in the creek out back, Dahl was soon restored to health, faster than his captors had expected. They did not realize that druidical magic was at work helping the process along as much as the young druid could risk without discovery.

That took care of food and shelter. Obviously clothing wasn't an option. He would remain nude, though they spared him the genital rings. That was how he had arrived, hadn't he, stark naked, dick swinging freely, quite against the dictates of modesty in the Land of the Amazons. Anyway young elves went about nude or "skin clad" for their first hundred years. Many did so forever. In that respect not so different from her own land or indeed most societies around the globe. Public nudity for male youth was the rule rather than the exception almost everywhere.

His new interrogator, Lady Seerah, Councilor Seerah to give her her proper title, reasoned that the way her daughter had started out so hard and heavy-handed had been the wrong tactic. The rule was first try nice. You could always get nasty later, if need be. Seerah could be hard when necessary but had no use for the wanton cruelty of her daughter. Either way they would find out the truth soon enough. The boy's story was plausible, but only time would prove whether it were true.

Anyway it seemed that this captive boy was no threat himself, maybe not even the harbinger of a threat, but he did have to be questioned. The land of the Amazons was so isolated, they knew little about the lands beyond the reeds. Debriefing this traveler was an obvious way of filling in some of the gaps in their knowledge. As for the boy himself, he was an enigma that needed unravelling, for the security of the state.

Seerah finally interviewed Dahl in his quarters.

"You don't know me, young outlander, but I am responsible for your change of fortune. My name is Seerah. I am one of the five Councilors who rule this land."

"Your face looks familiar, Lady Seerah."

"You must be thinking of my second daughter, Rentah, your original interrogator."

"Aah, yes, the young lady who likes to apply a riding crop to a helpless boy's bound balls."

At least the councilor had the grace to flush as she glanced down at the organs in question.

"Yes, as to that, I am sorry for what happened to you at first. My second daughter is headstrong and prefers, shall we say, direct methods."

"Whereas you prefer indirect ones."

"I hope that is not a sign of habitual impertinence on your part, young man. Things can change pretty quick around here!" she warned, eyes flashing.

"You are right, I was impertinent just now, and I should not have been. I apologize. Don't worry, habitual impertinence is not my department. Now with my friend Randell, that is a different story... "

"Very well. I hope you understand that had I known what was happening, I would have brought your... your... "

"Ordeal? Is that the word you are groping for."

"No. Ordeal is such an unpleasant word. Let's just say I would acted sooner to end your recent tribulations, that is a better word."

"Anyway, had I myself not been away on a tour upriver, well, I would have become cognizant of your situation much sooner."

In Dahl's mind that was so much diplomatic speak for "We tried nasty. Now we are trying nice, so at least pretend to believe me."

At Dahl's nod of polite acceptance of her transparent falsehood, she started to question him. Who was he, where was he from, why was he here? What was with the ash trees anyway?.

He told her, sticking to his prepared story about flowers and all. She recognized a slick sell when she heard it, but did not take offense. She decided that their verbal sparring might be fun. Here was someone she could fence with rhetorically, to talk to almost as with an equal. And he was a male, if you could believe it. Actually Rentah's father was the only other male she had ever respected. A good man, a fever had carried him off much too soon.

No, she would use her charm and her charms to get what she could from this pretty boy. Looking at him, she could hardly wait to take him to bed, but decided to hold off till they got better acquainted. That way, their tryst would seem less like a command performance than a joining of healthy bodies attracted to one another. Seerah was past mistress at this game.

Later, if the boy proved harmless, she would send him safely on his way, no hard feelings and with a bit of gold for his trouble. Seerah promised herself she would not let this engaging boy fall back into the clutches of her daughter. Even if Dahl proved to be a spy, she would have him killed suddenly, without warning, without fear or pain. He had had quite enough of that already, regardless. Seerah could be ruthless enough when she had to be, but she was never wantonly cruel. That was a weakness. Rentah's weakness in fact.

Rentah did not understand the difference between ruthlessness and outright cruelty. A ruthless person did bad things for a sane purpose such as to protect the state or loved ones. Cruel people did bad things for their own sake. They enjoyed the pain of others. That was both sick and wrongheaded. Thank the goddess that Rentah was only her second daughter. She made a mental note to warn her oldest Lavven to employ a second taster.

She would even set her people looking into this problem with the Emerald Ash Borer. Why not help a little country with their backs to the wall? From what the captive boy said, it could only help their foreign commerce.

As Dahl's dalliance with Seerah lengthened into many weeks, they grew quite fond of each other, regardless of the roles they had to play. The only serious difficulty was over sex, but even that was overcome.

The Amazon quickly discovered that Dahl not only was disinclined toward females, he simply could not perform normally with a woman, instantly wilting under pressure, as it were. Astoundingly, the strongest aphrodisiacs in their pharmacopeia had no effect whatever. Dahl simply used his magic to block their action and then purge his system of the drugs.

Seerarh was not interested fucking the sexy elf-boy with a strap-on cock. Instead Seerah used her captive for oral sex, taking her pleasure of the impossibly cute elf-boy with the exciting little body. Dahl responded strongly to her oral stimulation, erecting strongly and ejaculating copious amounts of semen, some of which the woman captured for artificial impregnation. It seemed he might soon engender sons and daughters in the Land of the Amazons. All the more reason then to overturn this unnatural system.

Under escort Dahl visited public gardens and nearby rural lands, supposedly in search of flowery biological specimens. He made a pretense of botanizing, carefully transcribing notes about locale and soil type and moisture, shade and sunlight and such. This was all part of his cover story. He gave no trouble to his guards. These enforcers were easy-going with their councillor's "flower boy" as they called him.

And then Dahl encountered his first brontothere, a huge beast that was happily raiding a truck garden on the outskirts of a town. Distraught male farm laborers were trying to drive it off with horns and trumpets and the banging of iron pots. The beast was magnificent in its disdain for the efforts of the puny humans even those who got quite close. The guards explained that though the beasts were hard to dissuade, they never got mean with humans nor attacked them unless someone tried to stick them with a spear, a fool's errand given their armored skins.

Which was when the Druid made a real contribution to the prosperity of the Amazons by relating what he had been told about how farmers in other countries built ditches around their farmlands to keep the beasts out of their fields and gardens. No fool she, Seerah immediately saw the wisdom of the practice and set her engineers to drawing up plans for a system of ditches and canals to keep the pesky brontotheres at bay without hurting or angering them. Bothersome though the beasts could be they kept the land blessedly free of large carnivores.

Dahl used his green thumb to improve the garden out back in every way. He wanted to leave Seerah something personal she would remember him by. He asked that the slops boy Paval be allowed to work with him in the garden. Once released from the gloom of the prison, the one-time slops boy bloomed. Good food and plenty of it, sunshine, fresh air, cheerful surroundings worked wonders on the physique and psyche of one who formerly languished in the dark but now flourished in the light of day. His skin went from pasty white to nut brown in a few weeks. Most of all, the boy had hope for the future. He was in no doubt whom he owed the nearly miraculous transformation of his life and his prospects.

Which was why Paval was so happy to spend so much of his time around his savior, the still mysterious figure who came from knew where. He never really bought Dahl's story, responding only with a non-committal "If you say so." anytime Dahl mentioned something about his supposed past. Illiterate and unsophisticated the boy might be but no dummy.

Naturally he never challenged Dahl on a story he considered preposterous. Not only from gratitude and love, but from caution, to protect his protector. Their quarters were in a large house adjacent to the palace whose walls no doubt were honeycombed with secret passages or listening tubes. He even found a couple of "secret passages", though Dahl told him they were just runs for the servants to come and go unobtrusively. Still it all went to prove that the walls had ears.

The two youths could be found many an afternoon working in the garden, just two bare-assed youths kneeling on the ground, browned cheeks resting on bare feet, lithe torsos bent over, genitals dangling between slender thighs, ribs and spinal bumps prominent as, trowel or short handled hoe in hand, they bent to their mundane tasks, firm muscles playing under their skin. The duo simply exuded vitality, two fine specimens of the human animal, bare and bronzed.

At fifteen Paval was a little young for Dahl, but he yearned for it so badly, the elf-boy took him to bed, teaching him as much as he could, handicapped as the local boy was by the cruel genital rings. Paval had learned to give head and enjoy it. Dahl returned the favor as much as he could, using his magic to slip his rings off the boy's imprisoned erection, bringing him to orgasm with something like normal pleasure. And Paval took to sucking and riding cock like he was born for it. He looked so happy these days. Dahl promised himself he would take the boy with him when he left and set him free. He hated having to reinstall the rings on the teenager after a night of pleasure.

Seerah turned out to be surprisingly well informed about the outside world. The rapids at the mouth of the Amazon had prevented large scale trade, not traders in small boats, books, wanderers and persons who were simply lost. She knew about the Commonwealth but knew it was no threat, nor did she harbor territorial ambitions for her own state. No, the four to five millions in the Land of the Amazons were all that its institutions could manage. She hoped to pass on to her daughters and their daughters the happy situation she had inherited from her ancestors, and so on, in perpetuity.

Unfortunately this was not to happen. Dahl had pieced the story together from the slanted histories in the palace libraries and from communications intercepts, as it were, from his animal agents. The situation in the Land of the Amazons was not natural. Nor was it of magical origin. It was a biological control. Certain herbs, taken together during pregnancy, ensured the birth of large females and small males. All else followed from that. Take that prop away, and the Amazons were in for a biological, social, and political revolution. Slow but inevitable. Give it three generations and all would be changed.

Dahl had already set things in motion, setting a slow acting blight upon the two rarer herbs in the birth control cocktail. By now it was unstoppable. He had learned that, for security reasons, only three gardens around the capital grew the herbs, which were quite different from their wild ancestors. Kill the herbs, kill Amazon society. Meanwhile he kept up his friendship with Seerah, one that was not entirely feigned. He genuinely liked the vivacious and intelligent woman.

Which made Dahl feel guilty even though he knew that what he was doing was right. No society should keep half its populace in a state of virtual slavery both physical and sexual. Whether it was women over men or men over women, like in some of the backward desert countries he had read about.

One day, came the good news he had been looking for. Seerah lead the elf-boy into the private garden and told him that the mystery of the Ash Borer was solved, and he was looking straight at the solution. She grinned as he puzzled over the ash trees in the garden, seeing nothing unusual. But then, there wouldn't be. The control species would be a natural part of the environment.

"Give up?" she giggled

"Yes, Seerah, I do. The suspense is painful. Tell me, please."

Delighted to help her friend she pointed to an epiphytic vine growing on the ash trees. It was not a parasite at all, deriving only physical support from the tree, which lifted its leaves into the sunlight. For the rest, the epiphyte derived nutrients from rain and the air. It seems that long ago, these plants, which always grew in association with trees like the ash, had developed a defense against borers of all kinds, and one the insects could not avoid by not eating the plants themselves. Tiny barbed thorns covered the stems and leaves. Borers crawling on the ash could not help coming into contact with the barbs of the epiphyte and be held fast till they died of dehydration. So an infestation never got out of hand.

"You are welcome to all the biological samples you can carry when you leave, sweet Dahlderon. I would have you remember me fondly."

That earned her a long kiss, one that would have turned romantic with other principals involved. Still she did love the press of his hard body to hers, even if the most important part was not hard at all, darn it.

Finally Dahl set out on his return journey with Paval, money, and his bogus notes and biological samples, both seed and cuttings. He reluctantly threw those over the side lest he somehow introduce another invasive species to the countries around the Inland Sea though he did save several botanical discoveries that would please the druids. The samples he really cared about were those of the epiphytic control species. He was confident that his cuttings should last long enough to arrive in the islands still viable. Indeed as a druid, he could guarantee it. As for the former slops boy, he had asked that Paval be released to him permanently and allowed to make a new life beyond the reeds. Title to the boy was in his hands the next day.

As his party emerged from the reeds and took passage on a barge down river Dahl handed Paval an important looking document. His companion was illiterate, but Dahl told him that the writing made him over as Dahl's property. The big red stamp and slanted writing at the bottom of the document set him free, forever. That included the boy's genitals, from which Dahl carefully removed the rings. Through tears of joy, the boy swore life-long gratitude and devotion.

Unfortunately, a second document reached its intended recipient rather sooner than planned. It was Dahl's confession to Seerah of what he had done, of what his moral sense had compelled him to do. He explained that he had carried out what he saw as his duty as a druid, despite the hurt he was inflicting on Seerah at a personal level.

She was devastated, both for herself and for her people. Devastated though not vengeful. That was Rentah's department.

Rentah sprang into action, organizing a pursuit force of several hundred of their best warriors. Her war boats quickly overtook the slow timber barge the fugitive travelled on. Seeing pursuers closing in, Dahl had the captain pull up to shore so Dahl could debark and draw them off. He unwisely left Paval aboard the barge thinking Rentah would ignore the barge and chase after him, Dahlderon the betrayer. He had not counted on her cruelty. In full view of the fleeing druid, she pulled up the the barge and took everyone aboard captive. Her first atrocity was to castrate Paval let him bleed a while before she gutted him and finally cut his head off. Then her soldiers slaughtered the crew.

Dahl turned into the jungle looking for a place to make a stand, knowing Rentah would pursue him. Unluckily an arrow caught him in his left thigh and another shaft gouged a furrow along his ribs but did not penetrate the chest cavity. He continued into the tangle of green, not trying to get away. He wanted the female warriors to surround him on open ground. The heedless Amazons came on implacably, hard at his heels, only to be brought up short when they found he was no longer running but calmly standing atop a low rise of ground, having taken the time to heal himself enough to stop bleeding.

Sure of their numbers, the women advanced, brandishing their weapons, shouting their hatred, confident that, with odds of four hundred to one and that one a small youth, wounded, naked, and unarmed except for a staff in his hand, the issue was a foregone conclusion. Suddenly they found themselves held in place, as vines came alive and motile runners and creepers wove their way around their lower limbs. This was a variation on the very trick Owain had used so long ago against the Frost Giants. With his victims fixed in place, the young druid went off in search of what he needed to carry out the second part of his plan for vengeance. For justice really, as he saw it.

Soon enough, he found just what he needed, a herd of thirty brontotheres grazing and browsing contentedly. Dahl addressed them politely and apologetically, asking for their help, making them understand that he was enlisting them reluctantly. He hoped none of them would take serious injury executing the task he was setting them. Vaulting aboard with his quarterstaff, Dahl straddled the neck of the herd leader and walked the herd toward the immobile Amazons who screamed in fear as they watched their doom approach. Dahl called out in a voice amplified by magic:

"Know then that I am Lord Dalderon, Dwarf-Friend and Journeyman Druid of the Exalted Order of the Druids of Haven, Envoy of the Druidic Council, and Dispenser of Justice: the High, the Middle, and the Low. For your crimes of wanton murder and cruelty, I sentence you to death."

Addressing his beasts, he raised his staff high and called out: "Charge!" He followed it with what he fancied was a fearsome war cry. The brontotheres did theirs much better, bellowing their challenge in with what sounded like a roar combined with the bell tones of a trumpet.

Now the charge of a herd of brontotheres is not done at a gallop. The best these ponderous beasts can manage is a rapid shuffle. Still, the animals came on quickly and unstoppably, not bothering to fight the Amazons, just ramming their horns into them and stomping them into the earth. Dahl directed his beast at the red-haired leader of the Amazon army and had the satisfaction of seeing her gored by his mount then trampled underfoot, her corpse nearly unrecognizable as human as other brontotheres followed in his path.

It took several passes for the herd to get at the entire Amazon force but the whole battle, if it can be called that, was over in minutes. The druid thanked his new friends and released them to go about their business unscathed.

Dahl got the feeling that the animals had rather enjoyed the fight. One of the advantages of being over eight foot tall at the shoulder and weighing close to ten tons is that you got to stomp all over anyone you cared to, anytime you cared to try. Especially when you were in a herd and could gang up on foes. Brontotheres were not aggressive but they did like to have things their own way. There was something very heady about being the juggernauts of the jungle. So everyone else should just pick up and get out of their way, if you please -- or if you don't.

Besides the great beasts did not like the idea of armed humans ranging over country the brontotheres claimed as their own. Why next thing you knew, the pesky two legs would be moving in, building settlements, and there goes the neighborhood.

As for Dahl, in retrospect, despite the murders of Paval and the sailors on the barge, he retained one fond memory of that otherwise dreadful day as the first occasion he had bonded with brontotheres, the species which would, in time, become his totemic beast.

As for Owain, once he heard the tale, he was satisfied that Dahl was already a senior druid. Had he not met two challenges, first the ash borers, the second the unnatural social order among the Amazons. These successes proved that the elf-boy had not only the power and the grit needed for the role, but the moral fiber as well.

That is what it took to endure torture when you could have slain your tormentor with a thought. Dahl had his special bad belly-ache technique, which wasn't all that original really. Pretty obvious once you set your mind to thinking along those lines. Besides, any druid could give a good heart attack. Dahl's power level might not be up there with Owain's own and would not be for decades, but even though oriented to plants he had controlled a herd of brontotheres. And healed himself well enough to get back for professional attention.

Which was why the senior druid had asked Dahl to return to the Forest for advanced training in druidical powers even before his third formal challenge.

But that is another story.

[Continued in Part 8]

Author's Note

If you have enjoyed this story and others like it, consider making a donation to the Nifty Archive. It is so easy. They take credit cards.

[The first chapter of this installment served two purposes. It gave all the major characters in the novel a cameo appearance in a long installment where Dahl acted alone the rest of the time. It also is a handy reference, a list of the cast of characters and their attributes and even the pronunciation of difficult names like Aodh and Wroclaw. An astute reader might bookmark it or snip out that section to keep handy.]

This is my first pure fantasy tale for the Nifty Archive. It is entirely fictional, with no resemblance intended to any person living or dead.

Readers who like these stories might want to try my two series 'Daphne Boy' and 'Naked Prey' in the Gay/Historical section of the Archive. My 'Jungle Boy' series of Hollywood tales is posted in the Gay/Authoritarian section. The newer series 'Andrew Jackson High relates the trials and tribulations of five of its gay students. For links to these and other stories, look on the list of Prolific Authors on the Archive.

Comments and feedback welcome.