z THE DARK ONE
Greetings all. I have been in a hiatus for far too long. Here is another story that popped into my head one day. Too much Tolkien reading, I guess. :) I haven't decided when and where to put the erotic content, so don't drop your pants for this one. Please feel free to e-mail me with any comments. Thanks, David.
The Dark One
Chapter 1
Put it away, his common sense told him. It's nothing but trouble. You've heard the legends, if that's what that blasted thing even is. It probably is just an old iron sculpture. Leave it alone. The boy sat down on the grassy knoll and sighed. He hugged his arms around his tattered tunic.
He reflected upon the past month. He used to be a courtier in King Calamon's great court. And here he was, walking about on a graveyard. He sighed amidst his self-pity. His removal was slow and deliberate, and happened not to his knowledge, nor to his moral father's, or even to the king's. The boy now realized that his king was being used as a toy for the Dark One's purposes.
The Dark One, he thought with a shiver. How happy life had been for him until that moment five years ago when Mørkt Servio arrived at the king's side as his new counselor. Slowly and surely, Mørkt began to bend the king's will. Many courtiers whispered of it, but were helpless to act upon their worries. The Dark One eventually overtook the king, and the king did whatever Mørkt wanted.
And that was exactly how the boy came to find himself expelled, wearing naught but tattered clothes. But if this iron thing before him was what he thought it was - then a great many things would happened if he spoiled its current beauty. Things both light and dark.
Before he had a chance to examine the object further, the boy's reverie was interrupted by the pounding sound of a horse in full gallop. He looked behind him and gasped as he saw a rider coming at him, lance extended. The boy jumped up and ran down into the crypt. He heard a brutish voice exclaim, "Halt! Just give it t'me boy and they'll be no more trouble. You might even get to return to ol' Daddy, 'eh? Sound good?" The boy closed the entranceway immediately and looked around. The crypt was dark and reeked of death. Bones were scattered about on ledges carved away centuries ago. In the distance, water dripped slowly into a pool.
The boy started to run. The door began to squeak. Slowly. It groaned and scraped the floor as the rider opened the entranceway. The boy blindly felt his way down the crypt's corridor. Was this to be his end? Killed by some roguish servant of the Dark One? The boy dropped the object, and fell to the ground, half gasping for breath and half sobbing.
Where was that humming coming from? The boy glanced over at the object and brushed the tears from his now-reddened eyes. It was glowing. This cannot be, he thought. The rider's footsteps grew louder now. He too had seen the glowing. He was running. He was running right to the boy. He drew a rapier. "Give it t'me boy, or I'll cut out yer innards and 'ang in ol' Daddy's room!" The boy was paralyzed with fear. He couldn't move. Not one muscle. The rider now stood before him. "Hand it over to me. Now," he bellowed. But the boy couldn't. He was too scared. He felt a warm trickle down his leg. His fear had given a physical response.
"Li'l flower boy scare 'o me sword? Spoiling your only pair of rags?" He laughed to himself. "Give it to me," he repeated.
"Take…. it," the boy managed to say.
"No," the rider said, less assuredly. "It has to be given," he continued, "willfully." The rider then pressed his rapier against the boy's neck. "Just do it and this will all be over."
Jonathan lurched as he sprang awake. His body was covered with beads of sweat. He suddenly shivered from the cold. He could see his breath forming before him in the air. He yawned lazily and jumped on the icy springboard floor, walking over to his thermostat. Damn, he thought, it's forty degrees in here! John switched on the heater which jumped alive immediately, making that sucking sound as it pulled the gas in. A few minutes later, heat was pouring into the ventilation systems, distributing overpriced gas-powered heat to his small apartment.
Jonathan returned to his mattress and plopped down gracelessly. He sighed fitfully. He hated being poor. What time was it anyway? Geez, 7:25 am. Enough to make you puke. He awoke again after a brief nap. John shook his head furiously. Time for a shower. He jumped into the shower and removed the filth that had collected overnight. As John was drying his tall, lanky body, the telephone screamed for attention. Goddamm bastard, John mumbled to himself, he keeps changing my ringer to the most irritating one possible! "Hello?" John answered with an irritated tone. A cheerful voice replied to his grumpiness. Melinda, of course.
"Hey girl," John said in a fatigued voice that was only partly put on, "What's up?"
"Not much," she happily replied, "I was just going to go look at some squirrels."
"Oh my god," Jonathan replied in his best cheerleader voice, "That's just frightening."
"Well I figured I'd turn into a butch dyke for you. One of us has to be looking at the chicks and wear the pants!"
"Excuse me girl," John retorted in his feyist voice, "No estrogen lurks here."
"But of course."
"But of course not, you mean." John corrected.
"I know what I said." Melida replied, grinning ear to ear. "Anywho, we're going out to the park. Want to join us?"
"And who would us entail?"
"My multiple personalities and you, the queen of the grass."
"Girl, I don't do pot. But I'll meet you there in ten."
"Whatevah. Later!" she chimed, hanging up her phone.
Jonathan shook his head, smiling. Melinda always rose his spirits. He searched his wardrobe and dressed himself. He looked in the mirror and sighed. All those cute twink boys could get away with the most god-awful clothes, and he could barely get any clothes to work for him. Best to stick with the standard jeans and T-shirt. John grabbed his keys and wallet and dashed to the park entrance.
The boy breathed in and out quickly, fast approaching hyperventilation. The Dark One's brute pricked the boy's neck with his razor-sharp rapier. His putrid breath ran its ferment fingers over his face and into the boy's nostrils, drowning him in its impurity.
"Give it to me," the brute repeated. The boy weakly grabbed the object and tightly gripped it, both hands encircling its lower half. With what little strength he had left, he thrust the object into the air. A voice surged through the boy's body. He moved his right hand from the object and pressed it into the brute's chest. As if a string was tightly pulled on a ragdoll, the brute seemed to fly backward to the main entrance to the crypt. He fell down in a heap, knocked senseless.
The boy looked at the object and asked of it, "What do you want of me?"
The object told his mind: The deed has been started. A wrong has been made. It must be mended through time, or all things will meet their graves.
Jonathan cautiously entered the park, looking for Melinda in the usual place. Suddenly, a great weight jumped on his back, nearly throwing him to the ground. "Ah! Fuck!" yelled John in surprise.
"Time for your soap, young man!" Melinda teased in a motherly voice. John rolled his eyes in response. Melinda was a cute girl, though a bit heavy. She had a rounded face with shoulder-length brown hair, which curled just slightly at the bottom. John's straight friends would probably want to describe her breasts, but he never really thought about them. She had a cute little not-quite-flat belly that was just protruding slightly. She was dressed all in sky blue: shorts and shirt. And in an obvious fashion faux pas, she was wearing socks with her sandals.
John just grinned to himself. "Come on, dough girl. You dragged me out here. Let's get moving."
"Bitch," she replied.
"Cunt."
"Slut."
"Whore." The litany was again repeated.
They cut off and began their journey through the park. Since most people were working at this hour, or asleep! John thought to himself, there were few people in the park. They took a trail that they had never explored. Melinda glanced over at John, who was yawning, and certainly not up to his peak, and grinned to herself as she flew off in a sprint. John stretched his arms and saw her fly. He shrugged his shoulders in disinterest. Fine, he thought, leave me. See if I care. You're too busy with yourself and your own little world- "Ow," he cried in alarm, cut off in mid-thought as he fell on his face. John sat up and rubbed his head as he noticed the guilty root sticking up out of the soil. Then Jonathan heard a strange sound - not unlike a door being slid open. He looked above him and gasped. A man was leaning down towards John, extending his hand.
He was dressed in a white robe, with a pastel lavender hood ending in a triangle shape at the middle of the man's back. The man's skin was lily-white, his hair was long, curly, and even whiter. As the stranger was examining John, one of his tresses brushed against John's face. John just closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. That one touch gave him a comfort he had not known for many years. It was like slowly dipping into a sauna set at just the right temperature to relax you completely; like weightless and landing on a down-filled pillow. All problems, stresses, aches, were gone. Nothing mattered but that touch. Then the stranger spoke. His breath was cleaner than a light springtime wind, its gentle fingertips just barely touching your face. It was cooler than the freshest mint, and more loving than the softest, cuddliest, friendliest feline. "You are so young," the stranger's voice whispered, "and so unprepared for what comes to you." The stranger gently ran his long, bony fingers through John's hair. "And you are so beautiful. O why have the gods chosen you. For I am now too old to rightly feel the smoothness of your skin and softness of your hair. Or the fullness of your lips," he continued, tracing his forefingers around John's lips. "Good gods, why am I tortured thus?" The stranger craned his neck up towards the heavens in a look of centuries' worth of despair and sorrow.
The stranger did this for a few more moments, and returned his attention to Jonathan. He ran his hand down John's torso, though it was inches above the body. "You have not found it yet? For it is the only thing that can bring out your gifts. O, how it seems that you are blessed with many. But only it can decide which gifts you may posses. I have no power over that choice." He craned his neck again and said in a hushed tone, "I must leave you know, my sweet. We will meet soon, I fear." The stranger ran his over John's eyeslids, and was gone. John gasped in shock, as if a part of him was suddenly taken away. He shivered and sat up. He shook his head.
"Melinda!" he yelled out, "Wait up!" And with that, he went running after his very strange friend.