THE ACCURSED CASTLE
By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM
The forest...stank. That was Prince Griom's reaction when he entered it astride the saur. He hadn't dared ride a horse into these woods for that reason, they reared upon its edge, refused to enter. Only the sturdy saur, the foul-smelling lizard-mount with its two powerful hind legs that made a rider feel he was astride a chicken, would ignore such a stench.
The forest stank with the decay of ancient evil. Many years had passed since these lands had been conquered by the Dark One, since the fall of the land of Dormire. On that day, when he had been a mere babe in his mother's arms, his father, King Moriom of Dormire, had sent them away to neighboring Conoman. That had been the last time anyone had heard from the King, from anyone in his castle. Only a few refugee peasants had arrived at Conoman Palace, telling how they had seen Castle Dormire engulfed in blue fire, fire that did not burn, fire that blazed night and day, that they had seen the light from miles away, burning on and on. The blue light of that burning had persevered for years; Prince Griom had seen it himself from the ramparts of a fortress on the border when he had been eight years old, the same blue fire consuming his home, consuming his father.
That light had gone out when he was twelve, but he hadn't seen that. He had been at the Fencing Academy of Mestrem, learning the ways of the blade. His mother had had to marry the King of Conoman, become his fourth wife, in order to gain him that admittance. He was a prince without a kingdom, his only hope was to become a master warrior. She had not said that he should try to restore his homeland...he'd read that in her eyes whenever she spoke of the old days.
It had been his dream, too. Dreams that had driven him during his days at the Academy, kept him in the training room when the others had finished, training that had turned his body into the powerful weapon it now was, the dream that had sent him plowing into this forest.
The night before he was to start his journey, to travel alone and in secret to Castle Dormire and see what remained of his home, he had received a visitor. He hadn't needed to see the diamond on her forehead to know she was a seeress, able to prophesy on the future. Her face was neither young nor old, beautiful nor homely...sane nor mad. It was somewhere in between.
She didn't speak after revealing her face and its mark, she didn't need to. She merely held out her hand.
One gold piece for each line of prophecy spoken, that was the rule. He fumbled hastily at his pouch, but only six pieces resided there. He poured them into his hand. He might go hungry on his journey...but he needed this woman's information.
"Six lines." he said. "Speak."
She closed her eyes and intoned.
"Within the forest lies the castle intact.
Within the castle lies a coffin, unopened.
Within the coffin lies your father, alive."
He gasped (his father lives!), but didn't dare interrupt her. He only nodded for her to continue, for she had paused.
"Upon your father lies a stone, burning,
Inside the stone lies the Dark One's power.
To remove the stone you must uncurl the madness."
He nodded and started to speak, was startled when she continued. No seeress spoke except for payment!
"Inside your heart there lives a lie.
Inside the lie there lives the truth.
Inside the truth there lives your happiness."
Before he could recover from his astonishment, she left again, leaving him alone. The troubles with prophecy were the same as he had heard, you knew their words would be true, but how to interpret them into something a man could use?
This much he knew. His father would be lying in that coffin under a curse, stones of power were used to control the flow of the evil forces, direct them to the Dark One's ends. He had to "uncurl the madness," whatever that meant.
The last three lines, he didn't understand at all! Where was the lie in his own heart? And how could finding the truth inside a lie lead to happiness?
Well, it didn't seem to impact upon his quest, he could live with the lie whatever it was, for now.
His reverie was interrupted by a foul screech and a burst of fury that darted down at him from the trees overhead, aiming filthy claws at his face! Above them were nasty, gummy feathers, and above that what could have been a woman's face. A harpy!
His sword, never far from his hand now he was in the Dark One's domain, flashed into action and before his saur had time to react, or the harpy had time to stop her plunge, he cut her in two. Foul black blood streamed onto his arm from her breast as she shrieked her death cry.
There was a rustle in the branches overhead, the rest of the harpy's flock had seen and decided to seek safer places to hunt. Prince Griom smiled grimly as he wiped the blood off his arm and sword...let the black forces fear him!
The smell did not decrease as he rode on, the trees were bent and gnarled into obscene shapes, the animals looked haggard, half-starved, desperate, the skies themselves seemed dreary and unpleasant. Little remained of the happy land which his mother had described to him by the hour...and yet there was that about this land which seemed to be lifting from its bondage. Here and there a flower raised its head in red or yellow splendor, above them hovered humming bees, twice he saw cheerful birds singing their happy notes. The feeling was that of the forest after it had been pelted fiercely by a storm, and the silence that lies upon it before the life stirs within it once again.
Had the Dark One left this land behind? Was all this blackness, all this oppression, the leftover detritus of his parting? Had he trained all this time, only to arrive after the foe had flown?
Was this the lie the seeress had spoken of? But it wasn't within his own heart, this was his homeland, and one he knew only from stories!
The feeling of...emptiness...remained even as he approached, for the first time since his infancy, Castle Dormire. He moved carefully through the gatehouse, its gate long gone, the walls now impotent against any trespasser.
Foulness had lived there, laughed in its halls, drunk in its rooms, there were disgusting remnants of evil acts everywhere...but there was nothing living, nothing active. The stones rang with his every move, but their answer was hollow echoes, and nothing more.
Where had the Dark One put his father? As he came to realize that the castle was deserted entirely, he moved with more intentness, his guard relaxed.
It was only one of many rooms in a row all alike, he had no reason to expect it to contain anything more than the others had, so he was surprised when he opened the door.
A giant blue snake, fangs over two feet long, eyes glowing with a reddish light, darted at him and again, his swift action with the sword was what saved him. Blessed be the old master who had trained him so that the reaction had become instinct, that he didn't have to think where his sword was, he only had to grab, and the act of grabbing was automatic, he saw, he drew, and he slashed!
The head was severed, it should have destroyed the beast. But another head immediately formed out of the trunk and fangs grew and dripped with venom! A magical beast! The creature darted at him again!
He could not prevail here, he knew, even as he cut the head once again after fending off two strikes. He should flee this room, seek to elude this being...then he saw the coffin in the center of the room, a crystalline box, and the figure inside it, a man who could only be...his father!
So he fought on. The snake was not especially cunning and the immense size was a handicap in this small room, the snake could only move with difficulty. Perhaps he could continue to kill it thus, and it would lose its ability to regenerate, or at least diminish in size.
It did neither. His arm was tiring, his skill was losing its edge. He finally did break off and flee the room, looking back. He was not being pursued.
He paused, panting, looking at the open door, hearing, smelling the snake that was coiled about his father's coffin...nay, not a coffin if his father lived!
He needed more than his sword arm to defeat this menace. The words of the seeress came back to him, he needed to uncurl the madness.
Uncurl? Uncoil? The snake's tail was coiled about his father. Did it gain its strength from the stone that held his father captive?
He could but try. A small shield was to hand, detritus from some soldier's unhappy fate. He took it and, sheathing his sword, sheared up his courage and returned to the room.
The snake was there still. It struck but he only blocked it with the shield from hitting his body. The impact jarred him, but he waded on through. There were moving shafts under his feet, thick sections of the snake's body, that made his footing treacherous and he couldn't watch constantly because he had to fend off those dangerous fangs. They didn't need to be poisonous to kill him, they were long enough to impale him utterly!
In this mass of shifting snake-body, there had to be, somewhere, where was it...there! The tail. The snake hadn't followed him because it couldn't, that tail was anchored to the crystal coffin, and the tip of it touched his father's flesh!
Uncurl the madness. As the snake struck the shield yet again, and as it withdrew its head to strike once more, he threw caution to the winds and dropped his shield, and with both his hands, he grasped the snake's tail at where it entered the coffin and he yanked upon it, hard!
If he had been one iota less strong, if his muscles hadn't been what they were, huge mounds of flesh that bent to his will, he would have failed. But he had just enough strength to move that tail, tethered by more than flesh, to bring it taut and after a hesitation, there was a sort of snap and the tail came loose!
The snake howled, and it was as a human voice, a man screaming in agony! The snake tail writhed in his hands...no! It was shrinking!
Its size had been magical, its ferocity had been part of the spell, as it shrank in size due to the loss of its magical tap, it dwindled into timidity, and when it was shrunk down to a common snake, less than two feet long, its only thought was to get away from him.
Yowling in triumph, Prince Griom swung the snake over his head by its tail until it was a straight line and with a sharp snap of his wrist, he flung it from behind him to before him and pulled back, and the head popped off and the fearsome foe was no more. Merely a length of dead snake.
His heart burning, he turned to the crystal coffin. He could open it now...but it had no openings, it was of a single piece. As he fumbled it, he saw the man inside move, looked inside and saw the eyes that looked into him. "Father." he whispered and determination gripped him.
A rock was to hand, long fallen from one of the walls or the ceiling, he picked it up and smashed that coffin into pieces! Perhaps the stone that had bound him was among the shards, it mattered not, for his father was rising up!
"It is you." Prince Griom said in a tone of wonder.
Until now, he hadn't had a chance to look at his father, other than to know that the figure inside had to be him.
The magic had preserved his father, he had not aged a single day in the twenty years it had been since he had fallen to the Dark One's power. He was looking not at a man who should be well past forty, his face lined, his hair turning white. This was a man in the prime of life, not more than a bare handful of years older than himself! The body was not as large as his, but was well-filled, the arms strong and clean, the body taut and muscled. This was his father, the King of Dormire, who had fought off the Dark One and won his kingdom and had married his mother feeling that the danger had been past, the evil defeated for his time.
He wore nothing but a simple loincloth, the traditional clothing of a warrior, the same as Prince Griom. Only his bearing as he placed his feet upon the floor and looked at his son, did Prince Griom see the man who had ruled this land.
"You have rescued me." Was the first words. "I am grateful to you, warrior. Whatever I can give you to repay you, I shall."
Prince Griom knelt. "Then give me your blessing, for I am Griom, your son."
"My son?" his father seemed startled. "Surely I have not been enslaved for so long?"
"It was twenty years." Prince Griom affirmed. "Our lands have languished, its people fled, but the memories of Dormire still hold strong, and your people wait only for you to rejoin them and they shall return."
A warrior must first be practical. "What of the Dark One?"
"I know not." Prince Griom answered. "I came here without untoward incident, nothing opposed me." A minor nuisance like a harpy could not count, not when one expected to meet armies of monsters instead. "My greatest obstacle was the spell he had cast upon you. The castle is otherwise deserted."
"Then the Dark One sleeps." his father said. "Or has turned his attentions to other lands, other prey." His father looked back, and only then did he see Prince Griom. "My son." King Moriom said, wonderingly. "Yes, I see your mother's face in you. But my eyes."
"Father." Prince Griom said and his father extended both hands, Prince Griom placed his own in them and stood up.
And then they were hugging each other, Prince Griom felt his father's arms, his father's body, his father was alive, alive! "Father!" he said again, and this time tears danced in his eyes.
"My son, my son!" King Moriom said.
Then his father pulled back, only those hands remained upon Prince Griom's body. "Let me look at you."
Prince Griom did that, and feasted his own eyes. For so long he had only sought vengeance, to exact payment for his father's death. Was this the lie the seeress had spoken of? Had he now learned the truth? He was certainly happy enough!
When his father had looked upon him enough, held him tight once again, he said, "Your people wait for you in Conoman. We must go to them and lead them back here, restore our kingdom."
"Let us go." King Moriom agreed.
As they walked through the halls, Prince Griom talked on, feeling giddy and careless now that his quest had ended. "You can see how they have stripped the castle of everything of value, but the castle itself is still strong. It will take but a short time to restore it. The lands about, as well, need only to be tended once again, the fields are not overgrown beyond restoration, the peasants are eager to return to their own lands...."
"It is not enough." King Moriom said.
Prince Griom stopped, looked at his father. "I do not understand." he said. "We have won. You are free and the lands, can't you feel how it is free of the Dark One?"
"It is not free." King Moriom said. "I thought the same as you when I built my castle, married my wife, had my son for an heir. I thought it was over. You have seen how wrong I was."
Prince Griom considered this. "What then do you say we do, my father?"
"We must destroy the Dark One." King Moriom said. "Only then can we return and restore my kingdom."
"Destroy the Dark One?" Prince Griom was astonished. "How can we do that. Armies have gone before him and been vanquished!" He had not thought beyond his own personal vengeance, and the restoration of Dormire. But the Dark One.... "The Dark One's fortress lies many leagues beyond Dormire." he said. "How can we raise a force sufficient to overcome him, and get them to his domain, and once there, sustain them through the siege?"
"We shall not raise an army. You and I alone shall go there."
"Alone?" Prince Griom said. "Just the two of us?"
"And why not?" King Moriom said. "There will be weapons in the castle still. The Dark One will not expect only two to enter his realm, and will not expect such a bold assault, we can hope to surprise him."
Prince Griom thought over what he knew of the Dark One. It had at least the virtue of never having been tried...or had it?
He was about to mention this to his father, when he turned and looked at him. This was no elderly parent he was with, this was a man in the vibrant power of his youth and eager for adventure. "We can go a ways further and see what there is." he agreed.
"That sounds like my son." King Moriom said approvingly. He clapped Prince Griom on his shoulder and said, "Though saying that to a man my own age is an odd feeling."
"I have the same feeling." Prince Griom admitted. "I thought only to seek vengeance for your death. When I was told by the seeress that you were alive, I thought only of rescuing you. Then I saw you as the age of King Polor, white-haired and wrinkled. I did not expect that for you, not a single day has gone by. You seem more my brother than my father."
"I see you not as a child, but as a fellow warrior." the hand had not left his shoulder. "One who can stand by my side as I take back my kingdom."
Prince Griom said. "You are my king, my lord and my liege. My heart, my soul, my life, is yours to command."
"Say, instead, that my life is yours." King Moriom said. "I must beg your forgiveness, my son, for all I have said before was my testing of your spirit, but now I see it is true, I shall speak plain to you. I owe you everything, for know this, that twenty years have gone by, and you are the first who has come to rescue me. The Dark One, when he imprisoned me, said that he would show me how little my people cared for me, that any who came would find it easy to free me."
"Easy?" Prince Griom said. "The snake...."
"The snake would never have harmed you. It was only there to make the rescue frightening and difficult, require a man of courage to come through. It would have missed striking you no matter how poor a swordsman you were. Had any of my men but tried, they could have freed me in a matter of days. He even came to me, woke me, said that he was turning off the fearsome blue fire, make it less threatening. And still nobody came! And now I find it has been twenty years! Twenty years!" the King roared. "And nobody came, until you, and you my own son!"
"We can take our revenge still, upon the Dark One." Prince Griom said. "We can journey into his lands and...."
"No." King Moriom declared. "Even were we to prevail, when armies have fallen in the attempt, what would we gain? I thought I had thousands of men who would fight for me. I was wrong!"
Prince Griom didn't know whether to feel disappointment or relief. The Dark One was too powerful. Maybe, someday, a warrior of sufficient strength and bravery could defeat him.
"So, then, my king, where do we travel?" he said.
"Let us walk." King Moriom said. "Away from this castle, build upon the lie of loyalty. There, we will speak."
Prince Griom followed his father and king, his mind churning. The final three lines of the seeress' words! Was this the lie within his heart?
The saur would not seat the two of them, he led it behind him as they walked away from the castle. Prince Griom looked again at the land, seeing it now as a land abandoned rather than blighted. If evil reigned here, it did so with the sufferance of good.
What then was his destiny?
"Here." said his father. "Here is far enough away."
Again he laid his hand upon Griom's shoulder. Griom turned and when he did, this time, his father's arms went around him, and they were not the arms of a father! There were bare arms around him, touching his own bare skin, the loincloth was ineffectively barring that hot column of man-flesh that burned against his thigh!
"Father!" he breathed. He could not pretend disinterest, his body was pressing against his father and his response had been proclaimed at once, as his glans reached up and cuddled up against his father's balls. "Father!" he sighed again.
"You, my son." King Moriom whispered to him. "You shall be the beginning of my new army, one that is truly loyal to me. One that can stand against the Dark One. He rules through fear and hate, he cannot stand against love. Never against love! Love shall be the crux of my army, upon which I shall base my renewed kingdom. Let Dormire slumber on until that day, when it can stand against all the Dark One can bring against us!"
"Always, my father." Prince Griom said. "I shall follow you."
"Say instead we'll always be together." King Moriom said as he reached to kiss him. And he reached up and grasped Prince Griom's prong with one sword-calloused hand!
Prince Griom groaned as his father kissed down his body, across his breasts, lingering hungrily upon one nipple, tasting him, all of him, and he was helpless as though under a spell as his father's lips reached the leather tie at his waist, undid it and let the loincloth fall its ineffectual way to the ground.
His father knelt at his feet, those lips that had savored him now touched his manhood and his life, the thrill that raced through his body was that of sheer, raw power! As his father's mouth worked upon him, drawing passion from every move, Prince Griom could only stand and let the pleasure wash through and over him. This was his father, this was his king, this was his fellow warrior, this was...totality!
That galvanized him into action, he groaned once again, this time louder and reached down to pull his father upwards, now he was slathering his lips upon his father's neck and shoulder, feeling that power underneath the strongly salty skin, relishing the raw masculinity that was embodied there, tasting it, taking it into himself. When he reached the waist, there was no loincloth to be undone, his father mut have removed it himself earlier. He only had to take that strong pud, the column that had sired him, take it into his mouth and it seethed and boiled salty strength onto his tongue.
"Uh, ah!" his father sighed. "My son, my lover, my future and my heir. I could not take a hand in raising you up to manhood, but let me share this part of your life entire. Let me share with you, let me be with you, let me bond now, my son, my lover, my life."
Prince Griom released his father's cock and sat back upon the knoll nearby, formed by the protruding roots of a malformed tree. He lay back and said, "So bond with me."
His father smiled and knelt between Griom's legs, Griom lifted them higher and his father's cock.... "Oh, Gods!" Prince Griom sighed as King Moriom's prong touched his sphincter. He wasn't unknown to the pleasures of another man's embrace, he had been for ten years at the Academy at Mestrem, so many boys in their first blush of sexual potency had turned to each other. Even in his intensity, he had not been immune to such, indeed, his single-mindedness had drawn such contacts in its way. Still, as his father's dong slid into his body, he sighed and felt himself deflowered in a way that he hadn't been before. He was giving himself this time not for pleasure, not for the release of tension, but as the promise of more.
His father's prick pressed inwards until the entire length was imbedded within him, and then he was of a sudden caught up in the joy of the moment, he clutched his father fiercely and he used his heels to gain purchase upon his father's legs and he rocked his hips to drive that pud in and out of himself even though his father was yet unmoving.
And then King Moriom did begin to move back and forth and Prince Goriom groaned as the rush of pleasure streamed through him. His father's cock was driving him in a way none had ever before, each thrust into him was like an affirmation of his entire life, each move back was like an expression of complete trust.
How then could he help but be driven rapidly to the heights of passion. He clung to his father, clung with a ferocity normally reserved for clinging to a plank off a wrecked ship in the midst of a storm? His nails bit into his father's back as he moaned, his ass constricted tightly about his father's prick as he roared, his cock sprayed the both of them with hot streams of raw seed, he dug in, he clung tight, he pumped out vast splashes of jism and his father laughed as he brought his son to climax.
"Yes, my son, yes!" he urged Prince Griom on, "give it all to me, bathe me in your juices, let me be washed in your strength, and then I shall give you mine and we shall both be the stronger!"
Prince Griom sobbed with his joy as he expended himself, was left exhausted and panting, his strong chest heaving as though he had battled a legions of giant snakes. His father waited until he was done, completely over his orgasm, and then began to fuck him once again, this time there was a forcefulness to it that it had not had before, his father was intent now upon completing his own enjoyment, bringing himself to the peak, and Prince Griom held and caressed his father as he was pummeled by that hard dong, feeling his body beginning to respond once again as his father began to grunt, loud snarling sounds escaping his clenched teeth, and then the snarls fell fast upon each other, and they ended in a choking groan, and Prince Griom felt the strong body of his father spasm as his butt filled with his father's jism.
King Moriom fell heavily upon his son's body, and his breath was loud in Prince Griom's ear as he was raised up and down by the motions of their breasts which both expanded and deflated at the same time, so that it was like his father rode upon him like a man upon a galloping horse.
He would have stayed this way throughout the night, which was beginning to fall, it was now past the dusk. It was his father who raised up and pulled out of him, and sat beside him as he rolled off Prince Griom's body, and Griom raised up and said, "What now, my King?"
"Now we go to find men who know how to give loyalty the right way." King Moriom said. "I shall not be fooled this time by soft fools who will not stand and guard what belongs to them. The Dark One is not so powerful, he lives by a reputation he does not deserve. He is powerful, but not all-powerful, he can be defeated by a force that will stand their ground."
"I pray you are right." Prince Griom said.
"I know I am, and well. I saw how my men ran before the blue fire, and yet it is all light, no heat, no power, no meaning. Fear is his tool, he wields it well, but it is not a tool that will stand a brave heart and well-slung sword."
"We should start with Mestrem." Prince Griom said. "There are plenty of men there without allegiance, who hope to find fortune. I know, for I was one...I thought."
"I agree." King Moriom said. "Let us quit this accursed castle, though it be accursed only with cowardice. It was an edifice built upon a lie. Let us build a new one upon the truth." He stood up, smiled down at his son. "Come, my son, there is much for us to do."
Prince Griom smiled as he rose, to begin the new life.
The seeress' final lines were understood now. And even the final one was true. He was to live henceforth in happiness.
THE END
Comments, complaints or suggestions?
E-mail the Author at Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM