Deeping Lore - 9. Chapter 9 - The Necropolis of Hurlothrumbo

The Black Dragon Assassin of the Silver Rose sat on the bed of green moss trying to figure out how exactly he got himself into this. He wasn’t upset…the sex had been mind-blowing to say the least. One thing was for certain, he couldn’t have asked for better looking partners. One glance at Dylan and his three Lieutenants more than confirmed that. His eyes, now completely free of the rut and returned to their deep brown color for at least a few hours, regarded Dylan and the three other knights with child-like curiosity. They were physically very powerful men with gorgeous adult bodies. Yet, they possessed in many ways immature minds that wanted to play ball, camp, and fish and if given the opportunity, probably tug on the pigtails of girls. It was so intoxicating, refreshing, and damned adorable that he was constantly twitterpated. And just how the hell did a Black Dragon Assassin become twitterpated? Kian had gone through the entire experience and still couldn’t answer that question. Maybe it started with the eyes that were windows, as it were, to the soul. And each of these men had such beautiful, loving, adoring souls that he couldn’t get enough. He sighed, watching them prepare a breakfast from some fresh fish that Ella Fravaugh and Henna had caught during the night. The four men, his lovers, were freshly cleaned from a dip in the pool, laughing, and having a good time; white corobidian armor sparkled in the fairy fire. And despite their conversation, he could see that in all their minds the one thought that they couldn’t get rid of was how thoroughly wonderful it had been to breed him last night. He was that special to them and just feeling that intense emotion and joy and knowing that they took such an interest in him was euphoria better than any drug he’d ever taken. But now that he thought about that, he did have to wonder how it might feel to fuck while high on cocaine or some other mind-bending drug. That in itself might be worth exploring and Kian was never one to shy away from new and even forbidden experiences.

Kian tightened the last buckle on his killsuit breastplate and once again assessed the foreign feel of the piercing in his slightly swollen and angry tongue. As he thought about it, Ephram crept over to him and crouched in silence. The knight stared at Kian’s face intently and found waiting there just for him, a sliver of displeasure. Normally, Kian would have been able to hide his feelings, but not so with Sir Ephram because of the way the feral rut worked. And he knew that the knight very much wanted him to like the piercings he’d done to his body last night and see them as an improvement to his overall perfection. However, Kian really wasn’t a piercings kind of guy and honestly was rather proud of his body that he really worked to keep in tip-top shape. He felt that the piercings added nothing, except pain and discomfort.

“I’m sorry,” Ephram said at last. “I won’t be offended if you remove them.” He hoped Kian wouldn’t be mad at him as if Kian couldn’t read those thoughts right out of his pretty head. The blond boy smiled at him, hair freshly wet from the warm spring, and skin sparkling clean, albeit with a little fresh Dylan musk. Kian looked up into Ephram’s soft light brown eyes. “I’m not taking it out,” he whispered. “Or, them out…actually.”

“Really?”

He nodded and then walked over to the Valion Knight whose expression was one of joy. Then Kian caressed Ephram’s brown hair with his armored hand and gave him a long tight hug. Inside the fold of his arms, Kian felt Ephram’s emotions radiate outward from his heart. Sir Ephram Callahan was profoundly in love with him, so much so that his hands trembled as he rubbed Kian’s shoulders with his gauntleted fingers. And, he’d been validated because Kian was accepting his mark. Ephram nuzzled at Kian’s metal collar with his sculpted narrow nose because it meant he’d accepted his ownership completely and now belonged to him in the same way as he belonged to Dylan. And Kian rolled his eyes in pleasure at the feel of Ephram’s breath, which was warm and brief on his skin around about the neckline.

"Thank you, Kian,” he said. Then he placed a kiss on Kian’s armored hand and went back to the others.

Boys.

Kian rolled his eyes…he was in love with four boys at the same time and they were in love with him. Ironically, all that love just might kill him in the end. He was now doomed to spend at least four hours on his back every night and then he’d need a full eight hours to recover or he’d be sick from anemia and lack of rest. Kian’s body was so athletic that before this, he had needed only four hours of sleep. Every lover that he’d taken on in the last few days had added one full hour on top of that in which he absolutely needed to regenerate to function. And whereas before, he slept like an assassin with one eye open, now he slept so deeply that he hardly stirred for that full eight hours. It made him vulnerable…weak. If the wolves didn’t protect him, he probably wouldn’t wake up even if something was gnawing on him. He’d given up so much for them and there was no turning back. This fact terrified Kian, but he swallowed the fear and accepted that the situation and times had demanded sacrifices from everyone. Dylan had lost five men…five gorgeous men to whom Kian wept inside. He didn’t even know them, yet knew that he’d want to coddle them, hold them while they died, and love them as long as he was able. It wasn’t fair that they’d gone to the great dark alone. These were boys in the prime of their lives that deserved love, respect, and admiration. And they’d been killed by the bastards of Zanda. That very fact made Kian so angry; he balled his fist in rage. No one…no asshole was ever going to hurt his boys ever again.

He spoke about them as if they were his property but in fact, he knew different. They owned him; they’d marked him and divided him up like a piece of meat at a dinner table. But he didn’t mind…he wanted to be a piece of meat as long as they wanted to put it into their mouths. In fact, Kian had chosen to accept all the marks from the boys because just like Ephram’s, if he didn’t, they would question why he loved them less than the others. That just wasn’t the case. He loved them all equally, Dylan being the lone exception. The pack Alpha, his boyfriend, was on an entire other level and Kian wanted to make certain Dylan knew this with everything that he did. He didn’t want Dylan to be jealous which he knew might be a danger if the Alpha at all felt threatened that Kian was not entirely his property. And of all the marks, he took the most pleasure from Dylan’s because it came from inside the man that made love to him. The man that was the only one allowed to sleep next to him in human skin and to fuck him in the morning, if Dylan so desired.

Heath’s mark on the contrary was the most difficult for Kian to accept, and he’d spoken to him about it with soft respectful whispers while Heath cradled him lovingly in his arms to keep the blond Omega warm in the early morning. Kian was submissive to all the ice wolves and Heath made him promise that he’d try it out because the silver-haired knight really wanted Kian to be absolutely smooth for him. When Kian agreed, Heath made him seal the promise with a long French kiss that had left him breathless.

Now…Dylan offered to use the ointment that he’d thoughtfully grabbed from the laboratory back at Alsamarax Keep. However, Kian politely refused. His argument was that he may want to be able to grow out his pubic hair again if things worked out that he could do so without displeasing the sensibilities of the knight who studded him. It was a concession Heath was willing to allow as long as he never felt stubble of any kind. If that ever happened, then Kian would have to use the ointment. Reluctantly, Kian agreed to this measure because the ice wolf wanted it and Kian knew that Heath needed to be loved. If he’d refused Heath, he was certain that the knight would have felt put out and less loved and this wasn’t acceptable. What Kian wanted was second priority to what the knights wanted because he was Omega. It was his duty to make them happy and strong. And in turn, they would roll pleasure on his body every night beyond anything experienced by anyone. He never thought for even a moment that anything he did for them wasn’t worth it. Their love making was simply that profound.

Heath had begged Dylan to be given the honor of denuding Kian in the pool, and the pack Alpha had acquiesced as long as he could supervise the procedure. With trembling fingers dipping into the warm water of the spring, Heath had wet down Kian’s only patch of soft yellow hair, worked soap into a lather between his hands and applied it to Kian’s tense groin where shallow veins left lines crisscrossed on the white skin and muscles supported his erection out and away from his body, scrotum dangling with the weight of heavy balls that nurtured a future Atlantean boy. Gently, he lifted and nudged Kian’s swollen uncut phallus to get at the platinum blond bush, and with strokes of the razor against Kian’s skin, quickly removed all trace of the troublesome hairs. Kian was left with a body that looked younger than eighteen but with pronounced muscle tone and nothing to stop the eye from following the severe triangles of the torso straight into the severe beauty of Kian’s perpetually sweaty and glistening cock and balls. The appearance of him like this almost seemed forbidden because it had been essentially done without his permission and the one that had done it meant it to be a mark that identified Kian as his chattel. Kian cried a little when he saw the hair removed, but Dylan held onto him from behind, naked hairy body pressed to his back and arm around Kian’s muscular hairless chest. Kian wanted very much for Heath to love him and doing this for Heath made the knight so happy that he carefully took Kian from out of Dylan’s arms and rocked him against his own chest until his feet started to prune from being in the water. All the while he sang softly into Kian’s ear and stroked Kian’s blond head. Then Dylan retrieved Kian, washed him while the others went to their separate pools, and as Kian dried, he marked him with fresh urine behind the ears, his back, groin, and feet. Now as he stood there adjusting his killsuit which seemed less tight because he’d lost a little body fat, he realized he’d never felt this naked. It was going to take him awhile to adjust to the fact that he had no body hair whatsoever from the shoulders on down to his toes. But at least the wolves were happy; he could feel it in all their minds. It was a strange thing that they believed he was undeserving of body hair, but this was the price to pay when sleeping with ice wolves.

Dylan allowed Crispin to feed Kian in the morning while he buckled on his armor. Kian licked the fresh fish from Crispin’s open palm, the platinum stud on his small pink tongue made a dull scrape across the red-head’s leather glove. Crispin stroked Kian’s hair as he ate; muttering “Good boy,” occasionally and it gave Kian a warm feeling in his chest. Several times, he caught Crispin looking at his armored feet and smiled; he found the knights fetish amusing and adorable in its own way. He’d taken extra time in making sure that his feet were absolutely clean before donning his armor. That way, at the end of the day, there’d be only the product of a full day’s exertions awaiting Crispin’s tongue. The red-haired knight could sense this and just like the other marks, the fact that Kian planned to wear his boots from here on out without pausing to take them off, even during breaks, was proof to Crispin of his ownership and Kian’s love.

As Kian donned his helmet and slid his sword Bloodbane into place to ready for the day, one thought entered his mind. Relationships were so complex…how on earth was he to manage four boyfriends? He decided that there was no answer, and buried this question behind the mental wall he’d built where it supposedly was safe from all prying thoughts including Dylan’s.

“I think that we should begin by exploring this city,” Ella Fravaugh spoke up, hopping along the dock area while Henna flew on butterfly wings next to his right shoulder. The pixie’s large belly made her look out of proportion with her wings and it almost made Kian laugh, which would have been rude.

“As long as it follows the same general direction that we need to go,” Dylan said, “I’ve no problem with it. It may be to our advantage as we’ll be off the road and out of the weather. The biting cold I know is agreeable to ice wolves, but, I’m concerned for Kian’s health and of course, you two.”

“Noted,” Ella Fravaugh stated.

Dylan packed up the tent with the efficiency of a man who has done so on countless military campaigns and his men moved up the dock and onto the edge of the dark city. They wore their full plate armor which clacked as they moved, helmets on, and visors down. In their primary hand they held gleaming longswords, in their off-hand the ribbed and deadly Valion gauntlet that with their strength could probably shatter the bones of an Ogavran-Kor ribcage. Kian invoked the quantum sidestep and reappeared near the edge of the city atop a large capstone belonging to a toppled column of some primeval edifice. Other fluted columns still rose into the gloom, almost forty feet; wooden doors ornate with strange symbols lay shattered on the ground amidst pebbles and concrete boulders. The street continued on past the portico and onto a central square a ways in and away from the shoreline. The whole of the city was quiet save for the jingle of Valion spurs.

Dylan raised a hand to signal his men to stay back while Kian investigated ahead. They stopped where they were, crimson and black cloaks swirling about their feet. Kian walked forward scanning the dark buildings for any sign of life; alleys between the buildings were carpeted with webs which hung like drapes from the rocky prominences of the roof. His boots caused a dry dust to puff up around his ankles, underneath which was a dense rock that resembled black marble. However, Kian knew it was something different because Bloodbane whispered to him to be cautious.

The rock beneath his toes was Byssian Stone.

Kian crouched and examined the rock closer, moving aside the gray powder which fled before his gauntleted hands in puffs of fine smoke. Byssian Stone was not supposed to be able to be shaped…it was too hard. Natural walls made of Byssian Stone were proof against all kinds of magic and bare skin contact with the stone was said to result in instant death.

“Don’t touch any of the rock with your skin,” Kian cautioned. “It’s Byssian Stone.”

“What’s that?” Dylan asked him.

“Very nasty stuff,” Ella Fravaugh stated. “It comes from the Beyond…in the Shadowlands that lore tells us is the birthplace of demons. The rock in this foul place is proof against fire, cold, and magic, for it must contain the Godless ones.”

“Godless ones?” Ephram asked. “What’s that exactly?”

Ella Fravaugh sighed, “I suppose your religious lessons skip over history courses in favor of athletics?”

The Valion Knights shrugged helplessly. “Growing up as knights we are hunting and playing sports ten-hours of the day. The other knights teach us everything that we need to know about physical conditioning as well as how to read and write. But what we learn to read and write is basically how we are divinely chosen by God and that women are put in the world to bear our seed,” Heath said. “You know, it’s considered shameful for a woman in Valion society to come to the altar as a virgin. It means that she was too ugly to be impregnated by a Valion knight. Women who are deemed worthy all make it to the Tower of Women by the time of their first blood where we can go to bequeath our seed to them. If the ladies are lucky, they’ll end up with one of our children growing in their wombs that future husbands of theirs can raise as their own.”

“How nice,” Henna said sarcastically.

“I know,” Crispin agreed. “I think I’ve given at least four women some children. Hopefully they ended up boys. Just knocking them up like that spared them from the drudgery of marrying peasants…I think all of them are nobles.”

“One woman I knocked up was able to marry a Duke’s son,” Heath stated. “I think if I hadn’t, she’d probably ended up rotting away in a scullery somewhere.”

Henna rolled her eyes. “That’s so chauvinist.”

Crispin regarded her strangely and looked at the other knights. None of them understood at all what she meant.

“Henna,” Ella Fravaugh said, “it’s their culture. It’s been that way for thousands of years. It’s a male dominated society; if you’re looking for a female dominated society then I suggest you look to the Empire of Sulasia or perhaps the lands of the Sun God. Honestly, my dear friend, do you expect anything less from men that worship the God of War and Wolves? Think about what happens in war...rape, pillage, plunder. There’s a reason for that.”

She nodded, “you actually keep the women in a tower?”

Ephram shrugged. “It’s always been that way… and there’s more than one tower. They have one in every major city in the five kingdoms. Without that, we’d have no convenient means of release except with ourselves and sometimes that’s problematic.”

“Problematic?”

Ephram nodded. “Our God and the priesthood stresses how important and valuable the product of our loins is. It really is the most amazing semen in the world, if you must know the truth. We’re products of thousands of years of selective breeding to be stronger, faster, and smarter than other men with an emphasis on athletics as opposed to academia. The only race that was more beautiful than us were the Atlanteans but they’re extinct—“

“—almost extinct,” Sir Dylan Avery corrected.

“Sorry, present company excluded. But we’re forbidden to masturbate because that would result in a spillage that would be wasted. And we’re also forbidden to cum during anal sex because again, it’s wasted semen. If anything, a blowjob recycles the product of our loins as poor nutrition but is at least condoned by the church. But the one blowing us has to swallow or we commit a sin. Essentially, the only way we can really have intercourse and not sin is to do so with a woman for procreation.”

Henna looked confused. “What about what you do with the blond boy?”

Ephram’s eyes lit up as well as the other Valion Knights. “He’s the lone exception. Omegas can use our seed and create what Dylan calls the Heat. When we drink the blood, it makes us stronger so our seed serves a distinct military purpose. We’re allowed to have anal intercourse with Omegas to ejaculation, and, as often as possible. It’s encouraged even…which is why one probably hasn’t lived more than a few days…at least that’s what the legends say. But it’s so liberating not having to pull out, to have the activity knowingly blessed by our church, and able to knock up the same person every night so you can build a loving relationship. Oftentimes with women, it’s a one night thing. Once they get your seed they’re taken by the clergy to allow it to gestate and you rarely if ever see them again.”

“So, prior to Kian, you guys have never had this kind of intercourse?”

“I didn’t say that. And I’m not suggesting that we are without sin because all of us here have wasted our seed. It’s just considered bad and it makes us feel guilty when we sin against Thomas. But no one is perfect…we just try as hard as we can. Some are just in confession a lot more than others.”

“Dylan was in confession every week,” Crispin teased.

Dylan gave him a dark look, but didn’t dispute what the knight had said. Kian suddenly found himself feeling a little jealous. However, Dylan sensed that and gave him the puppy dog eyes that melted his heart and without having to say it, conveyed to Kian that he was special amongst all of his partners. The difference was that Dylan was actually in love with him.

“Oh,” Henna said, blushing. “I’m traveling with a bunch of sinners.”

“Guilty as charged,” Dylan uttered, followed by several “here here’s,” from the men. “But none of our sins,” Dylan added, “are in the grievous category. My men are upstanding Valions to the core and I’m very proud of them.”

“Thank you sir,” Heath said. “I’m proud to serve under you.”

“Agreed,” both Ephram and Crispin stated.

Kian had been listening to the discourse with some fascination, watching the cheery-eyed knights banter with Henna about cultural differences between obviously what the fey considered appropriate and what Valion knights knew of the world from their upbringing. Still crouched on his haunches, he fingered some of the dust and rubbed it between thumb and forefinger. It occurred to him that it was incredibly fine…too fine to be dust.

“I don’t think this is what I originally thought it was,” Kian stated.

Dylan looked at him from a few paces away. “What is it then, Kian?”

“I think it’s ash.”

“Ash and Byssian Stone?” Ella Fravaugh asked. “I don’t think I like this much.”

Kian thought for a moment, recalling the song that his unborn son had lilted to him in his beautiful soprano voice a few nights ago. He said it under his breath, more or less to recall its tempo so that he’d get the words right, and it didn’t come out nearly as pretty. “In twilight world of darkness gray and sentinel of ash and fire, beyond door of chaos and temple pray, beneath eye of crone, the tome of the liar.”

“What’s that?” Dylan asked walking up to him. His boyfriend crouched next to Kian and gently touched his shoulder.

Kian turned his head and popped his visor open. “I had a vision a few nights ago…umm…I think it was my unborn son actually, if that makes any sense. He said in twilight world of darkness gray and sentinel of ash and fire… Well, this is a twilight world, here and the floor of this city is covered in ash which means somewhere near, there’s a fire. I think we’re close to something important…it was no coincidence that we found this place.”

“And this place is what exactly?” Dylan asked.

“A place of madness night with stars and fire in the sky shining bright in a time of terrible light,” Kian finished. “Those are more of the ghostly lyrics…I hope I’m not creeping you out.”

He shook his head. “Hardly…not after what we’ve seen together. But, I don’t see any of that,” Dylan stated, looking up at the cavern ceiling.

“Me either,” Kian agreed. “However, keep your eyes peeled for the symbol of chaos.”

“And this is what, exactly?”

Kian drew a finger in the ash, “It’ll be a circle with eight points to it like arrows radiating outward or something akin to it. This symbol is at the root of all the holy places of Zanda and forms the base of the holy symbol of the Coatlicue that worship the mad God of Illusions.” He gazed about in the gloom, searching the stone buildings that held ornate windows and marveled at the detail and craftsmanship that had been raised from Byssian stone. “This city is incredible.” Ella Fravaugh hopped up next to Kian and stood there, ash circling up around his boots. Henna sat in his pocket looking down at the stone with a fearful eye. Kian saw that she was clearly nervous and winked at her. “Just do what I say and I promise that no harm shall come to you.”

She smiled at him and folded her arms under her double chin.

Kian lowered the visor on his killsuit and walked toward the center of town, following the road through a narrow canyon of buildings that rose up around them. By the light of Henna’s fairy fire which floated a few feet in front of Kian so as not to be in his eyes, he saw the town square come into view. There in the very center was a mountain of human skulls that rose almost to the ceiling. Byssian rats scurried from empty eye sockets and left trails in the ash…these were large black rodents with razor sharp teeth. On one side of the square was a towering statue of black rock cut to resemble an obese satyr with the head of a ram complete with a pair of colossal horns that depended from the brow. Henna hid her eyes; Kian had no idea to what he was looking. The thing had no hands, but in the place of forearms grew forth octopoid tentacles as thick as tree trunks.

“This is the Demogorgon,” Ella Fravaugh said. “The most ancient evil in Hell, said to rule the plains of Maladom and birthed from the waters of the River Styx. He’s the ruler of the Godless Ones and before you ask what that is again, sir knight, allow me to explain before we get sidetracked in conversation again.”

“Please do,” Ephram swallowed, “and I didn’t mean to derail you earlier.”

“The Godless Ones,” Ella Fravaugh said, “were the races of men who would have worshipped Inzilbeth who was killed by the terrible weapon known as Deeping Lore. When this event came to pass, it drove them insane and they became demons…powerful servants of evil who view society as a thing that must be corrupted and destroyed. They invented evil, gave it life, and their hellish deeds are recited by mothers around the cosmos to frighten children and keep them in line. To see the statue of the Demogorgon here so prominently displayed in the shadow of a mountain of skulls, gives me an idea as to the nature of this place. I think I know what all of this is.”

“Do tell,” Kian said, visibly shaken.

“Legends speak of a place known as Devil’s Finger—a repository of such wickedness that it is said to be the entrance into Hell and named thus because it’s like a finger from the hand, beckoning for you to come closer. That we came across it here and now and are wandering its streets does nothing to ease my mind. I cannot believe we slept on its doorstep without being disturbed. I know I shall not be able to do so again.”

“Sometimes,” Dylan said, “evil sleeps until it’s disturbed. This ash doesn’t look to have been troubled in a long time; it could be that we are the first visitors to this place in years.”

“Or even centuries,” Henna offered.

Kian swallowed pensively. Life without Tethyr’s love terrified him. He’d heard his God’s voice once and it had warmed his soul so much that he swore then and there to devote the rest of his days to his teaching, wisdom, and guidance. How an entire civilization must have felt when they were suddenly Godless because their deity had been struck down was unimaginable.

While he was preoccupied with these thoughts, Kian heard something that resembled the rubbing of scales against stone. It wasn’t close, but he’d familiarized himself with the sound as there was a time in his career when he’d taken contracts to kill dragons. He peered around in the strange gray twilight and then made a motion to Henna to kill the fairy fire. The little pixie waved her hands and the golden light dimmed and winked out. The other knights cautiously crept forward and stared at him through their visors, waiting for him to make the first move. He closed his eyes and opened his ears to any noises that might originate within the city. Then, he heard it again, coming from somewhere to the west. He signaled to them that he was going to investigate; they knew what he was thinking only because they had insights into his conscious mind. They all wanted him to be careful. Dylan, in particular, didn’t want him to go alone. “I’ll be fine,” Kian whispered. “Just let me take a look. I’ve a lot more experience doing this than you.”

Dylan accepted what he had to say without objection because it was the absolute truth.

Kian flickered with the quantum sidestep onto the edge of a roof a few buildings down and peered into a side road. He saw only thick webs coated with the gray ash. However, from his new vantage point, he saw a ruddy orange glow rising above the buildings from two streets over. He flickered again and landed silently on the shoulders of a colossus made of Byssian stone. He crouched in the shadow of a huge collar shaped into a curved tube with two openings that wrapped around the back of this thing’s massive head. The statue’s possessed no hair. Instead three long tentacles sprouted from the forehead and lay draped on the surface of the tube-like collar. From both openings of the tube on either shoulder, a tentacle dangled and wrapped around the neck. The body and face of the statue were skeletal, the stomach was a skull pressed tight behind skin, and the legs were cloven hooved emaciated things. The head of the statue was a bony, shrunken thing; lips appeared sliced off. Bare teeth clenched in an eternal grimace stood in the place of a maw. The neck was carved to resemble ripped flesh, eyes were sewn shut, and hands were clasped over the body in peaceful, death-like repose.

Kian swallowed and looked around. Forty feet beneath him lay an ancient graveyard choked with tall nightvine; crypts and mausoleums dotted the landscape. A dreadful white mist rose up from the earth and circled lazily about the feet of the stone colossi. There were five of these huge statues, towering monstrosities that flickered in the orange glow coming from a pit of smoldering coals on the far side of the cemetery. There in that saffron light were two naga. They stood in the presence of a strange door comprised of nested stone rings that rubbed against each other as they moved and whirled about a central point of absolute darkness. It appeared that this thing was some kind of circular portal in the wall of some bleak fortress. Walls of Byssian Stone gleamed in the light, smooth and featureless, extending into the distance and rising from the floor of the cavern all the way to the ceiling. The interlocking rings of stone produced the sound to which he’d been drawn and they moved rapidly enough to provide the illusion of a sphere. The innermost of the rings had inward facing points that looked like the tips of dangerously sharp arrows. The ground underneath the strange door was stained red with blood.

Never before had Kian seen anything like this. The only thing that he did know about it was that this kind of door might be a dreaded chaosphere. Once, he’d killed a pedophile that preyed on young boys in the imperial capital of Kandaleya. The man had been a high ranking government official and had used his influence to put himself in a position where he could pick and choose the kind of victims he preferred from an orphanage where deaf and mute children were reared. It was the perfect hunting ground for this monster because his victims had no voice with which to plead for help. Kian recalled the day he found him hard at work in his laboratory, and strung him upside down from the wooden rafters. Before slitting his throat, the senator had told him of a vile invention involving seven rings of Byssian stone nested one within another. It had come to him in a dream for he’d been visited by a faceless lord, a demon of shifting countenance, whose body was ooze and pudding but still flesh. This faceless lord had promised him great power in exchange for an uncorrupted soul, a thing free of the vices of men. The faceless lord had told this man that he was trapped behind a moving gate designed by the seven angels of virtue. This gate was comprised of seven rings devoted to one of the seven cardinal sins. They were in order: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. He said that the chaosphere was the door into Hell and that the rings would only be stopped by one who had not committed a cardinal sin. The irony was that in stopping them, the passage was open for those that were trapped on the other side to escape imprisonment in Hell, evil unleashed into the world by the act of an innocent.

His eyes moved to the naga. The monsters had the lower body of a serpent and the torso of a man. The serpent’s tail stretched and coiled behind them some twenty feet and was covered in suggestive marbling reminiscent of stonework. Their torsos were powerfully muscled and wrapped with steel straps. They wore bracers on both wrists, a chain on one arm attached to a massive shield; in the other hand they held a sword with many wicked points and odd angles to the blade. Their eyes glowed with yellow fire and horns stretched outward from their foreheads. As they moved, empty shells on the ends of their tails rattled together producing an eerie and terrifying sound.

Kian saw eddies in the fog a thousand feet from where he crouched on the shoulders of this strange monolith to the north. The movement would have been well away from the discerning eye of the Naga who peered hatefully into the mist but never dared to stray from the circle of ruddy light that extended a mere thirty feet or so. He brushed his tongue against the pad on the inside of his visor and increased the magnification of the low light and saw on the very edge of his vision, a gate made of wrought iron. He caught the glint of something shiny and looked to see if there were some kind of purchase on which he could alight and gaze down with insistent curiosity. He discerned ornate eaves coming from a long abandoned tower that rose two stories above the cemetery grounds. Black stone carvings formed the shapes of faces with mouths that were exaggerated smiles and frowns. Kian flickered and reappeared on the roof, holding the weight of his athletic body perfectly still with the strength in his long toes. From down below, just over the lip of the rooftop, whispers rose as if carried on ghostly wind.

Carefully, Kian peered over the edge. The roof was so ancient, a few chips were knocked loose by his shift in weight but he caught them with his hand out of thin air and set them carefully at his side. It was a tense moment and he reminded himself to be cautious.

He counted almost fifty men and nearly all of them were Timeron Knights…the sworn enemy of all Valion Knights the world over. They wore black corobidian armor instead of white, with cloaks of silver and white as opposed to the cloaks that Dylan and his men wore which had been sewn from stunning red and black cloth. He saw that every single one of these was a razor cloak, the preferred weapon of the Timeron Knights who trained and perfected the art of cape dancing. Kian had seen first-hand how effective the cloaks were when wielded with skill. He’d witnessed a Valion Knight disemboweled right through his breastplate and eyes cut from his forehead in one single deadly maneuver. Now, this kind of thing could only be accomplished if the ribbon sewn into the hem of the cloak was made of cibrian metal and Kian seriously doubted that just anyone would have access to this rare and wondrous material. However, there was one below that possibly could have a cibrian-lined cloak. Kian studied him fixedly; noted that he walked with purpose amongst the knights, head uplifted, and was as handsome as Dylan, only with dark, brooding features that chilled the assassin to the bone. When he turned to speak to one of the men, Kian saw his eyes were rimmed with lightning that sparked inside his irises. He swallowed nervously because only one thing could look like that…a blue dragon in the form of a man. Kian realized that this was Skellhaundar Romax, and he was a Darkglory in the service of the Night’s Daughter. It was the same dragon he’d seen in his vision beneath the Blades Acuuarum in Zanda. But what was he doing here on Vas of Kleef? And with fifty men in this ancient and abandoned evil city?

Kian held his breath, conscious that all of his thoughts were being fed silently back to his Valion Knight teenage lovers who had not moved from their spots and were watching things unfold through his eyes. He could feel their hatred for the Timeron Knights rise from invisible places within himself and linger along the line of his perfect lips. It didn’t matter that these evil paladins outnumbered them more than ten to one. Still, he never sensed fear from any of them. Rather, he was awash in confidence from his boys, as if they felt they could kill them all if only Dylan would allow them to do so. It set his teeth on edge because it would hurt him too much to lose even one of them to death. His heart had been entwined to their fate and this troubled Kian because for the first time in his entire life, he truly cared for someone other than himself.

“What if the angel was wrong?” One of the knights asked Skellhaundar.

Angel? Then Kian remembered the tortured angel in the cage...a beautiful female whose eyes had glistened with tears of pride. Yet, her life had been cut by unholy weapons and her raiment of gold armor spattered and drenched with blood. She had not spoken in his vision, but she must have been of some importance to be featured thus and now, the men beneath him were speaking of her directly. What had she told them?

“She wasn’t wrong,” Skellhaundar stated. “This is the necropolis of Hurlothrumbo said to lie within the City of the Demogorgon. I wouldn’t have taken you through miles of underground tunnels filled with savage beasts to a place I wasn’t sure existed.”

“Darkglory,” another of the knights addressed using the title of respect. Kian saw that they were all exceptional looking men, taller than he was with broad shoulders and armor that hinted at the muscled body and sinew that lay underneath. He grimaced, imagining them eating the dead. They practiced cannibalism on those that they defeated for it was widely held by the religious followers of the Queen of Demons that to do so would steal the power of their enemies to use as their own. “The child begins to stir. Should I give the boy another draught of the sleeping agent?”

“No,” Skellhaundar said, “Just keep him quiet until we find the chaosphere. He’s the only one that can open the gate for us and we will need his body to placate the Faceless Lord on the other side who has a taste for innocent flesh. Somewhere in this necropolis is the fortress of unbreakable walls guarded by two naga who have the ability to reduce living tissue to ashes. They are keepers placed by angels centuries ago to guard the entrance to Hell against those that would seek to trespass on this most unholy earth.”

“How will we escape if the child is killed? Will we not be trapped inside the fortress for all eternity?”

“It’s a possibility so we must be quick before the Faceless Lord realizes that a tasty morsel has been brought to him to enjoy. If we are not done retrieving the book by then, we are finished. However, I would rather suffer an eternity in the pits of Hell than disappoint the Night’s Daughter.”

The Night’s Daughter…Kian recalled the image of the smoky haired disciple of the Queen of Demons within her immense throne room that overlooked the blazing desert sand of the Great Norem Desert. Her countenance had been dispassionate and cruel despite the beauty that lay about her features and the skin of her face.

“Why do we wait outside?”

“We’re waiting for the moon to rise. Only in the gray light of Hurlothrumbo will the seal before the door become visible. Sarilor said that the child must stand within the seal for the rings to stop spinning. Then, his flesh must be cut by a knife used to sever the wings from an angel…this knife,” he said, producing a blade that was as long as Kian’s forearm. It was made from black steel, with wicked carvings along the handgrip that bore fangs and wild eyes near the point where the blade joins the handle.

There was still red blood on the blade…angel’s blood.

Kian thought about the naga…were these the sentinels of ash and fire? If so, then the Chaosphere was the door as mentioned in the lyrics sung from the golden child’s throat. Somewhere on the other side of that door was a temple in which the long descent to Hell itself would be found. In its chambers was the Tome of the Liar—the tome of the God Zandine which he had previously thought was within the Library of the Living Books. This meant that the wizard Korga was searching in the wrong place or was reading the incorrect book! The one that Skellhaundar was after…this was the original Tome of the Liar and somewhere within its pages were secrets about Deeping Lore not meant for mortal eyes to see. The beings whether holy or unholy who had built this place had known this fact; the one that they’d tortured in the City of Dek Lek Thukar no doubt had suffered much before any of this lore had passed her lips. What on earth they could have used to wring it from the beautiful creature in the cage was beyond Kian’s understanding, but it had no doubt destroyed her.

Kian closed his eyes behind his helm and flickered back to his spot amongst the Valion Knights who were crouched in the shadow of a mountain of human skulls almost a mile away from the dreadful gathering of the Timeron Knights. He reappeared and they stood. Having seen the things in their minds that he had observed, there was no need for further explanation. Kian lowered his head respectfully before Dylan. He wanted to investigate further, but he wasn’t going to upset his boyfriend again…Dylan was in charge and he would defer to the Alpha for direction from here.

“I’m not going to see the boy harmed, if we can help it,” Dylan said.

Kian nodded. “I won’t go against your orders, D. I gave you this promise when I licked your boot when you came through the hole in the ground to find me. I’d a lot to think about in those hours when you didn’t speak with me and I don’t want to be away from the fire of your love ever again. Whatever you decide, I’m with you ‘til the end. I love you and well…that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

Dylan walked forward and hugged him tightly and held him for a long moment. The other boys followed suit, giving him warm hugs. Kian was aroused in just this brief contact, even through armor, for he could smell their musk floating in the air, emanating from their powerful loins. “Alright. Men, let’s go kill some bastard knights,” he stated. “Kian, you lead the way.”

Kian smiled, shifted a little to adjust for physical discomfort in the presence of these fine men, and motioned for them to follow behind him as he wended through the convoluted streets of the dead city. Up ahead, the assassin saw the first trails of ivory mist that originated from the cemetery and as they walked up into it, the clouds swirled about the ankles of the armored men forming fingers and hands that brushed aside cloaks and tugged at their feet. The ghastly non-corporeal fingers felt cold, and left spots of ice on his flesh that took his body a few seconds to reheat.

Kian trudged forward with a light step, instinctively searching out a path with his dexterous feet that was free of debris and strange outcroppings that might be hidden by the thick fog. The white armored knights moved quietly behind him, the jingle of spurs from their handsome boots made the only sound that echoed quietly from the stone walls on either side. At the end of the road on which Kian traveled, rose an ironwork gate some twenty feet tall. Large stone pillars carved with the faces of leering demons that swallowed children’s heads with the bodies dangling from mouths stared down at them. The tops of the fences were sharp points of rusted black steel shaped to resemble human phalluses that pointed toward a ceiling that sparkled to resemble a night sky. Something in the south rose above the graveyard…it was an eerie moon, but Kian knew that this was impossible because they were underground. No, this was instead some kind of malevolent being that had taken the shape of a moon that floated near the top of the cavern and slowly, purposefully made an orbit across the faux sky.

And the face of it was a leering, naked skull. Kian surmised that it was several hundred feet across in diameter with eyes that burned in black fire, pinpoints of blue forming the very centers of those horrific sockets. From between its teeth emanated a beam of gray light that spread outward in huge conical swath that was probably a thousand feet wide.

“Stay out of the gray light,” Kian warned.

“Why?” Crispin asked, a tuft of red hair dangling in front of his hypnotic viridian eyes.

“Just do it. I was warned in a vision. The actual words were, ‘In the land of Ash, gray light shun…’”

Heath swallowed, lifting his visor. “Whatever that thing is,” he stated, “It’s no moon. Look, something rises from the mist under the gray light.”

Kian watched in abject horror as naked limbs of bone, dripping rotting flesh and tattered robes emerged from the fog. They latched onto the stone outcroppings of graves and mausoleums and hoisted up skeletal bodies and half decomposed fleshy things that breathed again in some obscene and putrid unlife. Moans erupted from the darkness as a cacophony of voices raised by the undead filled the air. From everywhere, Kian heard the whispers and guttural utterances of the dead and these were not made by those that had left life in a peaceful way. These were the animated corpses of vile, unspeakable men and women, of monsters raised by powerful necromancy that uttered “flesh…blood…” and “we smell the living.” These were the damned souls of beings that had been murdered or who had themselves murdered others. These were the rotten stink of humanity that had drank the blood and consumed the flesh of the living. When they had died, their refuse had come to rest here, in this forgotten place of unholy power where Hurlothrumbo, the orbiting demigod above them, forced each of them from their grave to do a wicked dance for his amusement for all eternity. Kian swallowed spit in a mouth that had been left dry as freshly-picked cotton and with trembling hands lowered his visor and reached for the gate where mist roiled through the gaps in the iron and swirled in eddies about his waist.