EXPANSION

I saw the pants of his tunic slithering off his legs as smoothly as a philanderer giving in to lust, surrendering without any resistance the full beauty of his naked form to our waiting eyes. I tasted the tangy sharpness of blood in my mouth before I realized that I was biting the insides of my lower lip as if my teeth, the only part of me still conscious, was trying their very hardest to grip on to some semblance of sanity in the face of the awesome splendor not thirty feet ahead of us. The boy gently hooked the toes of his left foot among the folds of his discarded apparel and, lifting the foot, flung the clothes gracefully on to the higher ground behind him. The motion itself was breathtaking in the fluidity of its completion, the path that the limb took cut a swath of sparkling mist in the air that it made its passage through, and for a moment I almost believed that the foot had taken off like a delicate albino moth on its way to glowing eternity. Bathed in the strange turquoise phosphorescence of the pool, the boy sat himself down on a stool shaped rock and inched his right foot into the hungrily lapping water which greedily sucked up those gorgeous digits with licentious fervor. His profile, the left side of his face, was turned to us and, as we watched, he withdrew his inquisitive foot from the tested waters and pulled his right leg up to his burnished silver chest before resting his glorious chin on the upturned knee.

My eyes traced themselves deferentially from the crystal drops of water dripping off the toes of his elegant right foot up to the lyrical line of his firm calf and on to the alluring bend of his knee before gliding back down the inside of his right thigh whose skin was like the coolest stream of satin where even the harshest of lava would be transformed into icy foam when flowing through it. He hugged that knee to himself as he contemplated the water that foretold of the bath he was going to take inside that warm caressing liquid. His stretched arm reminded me of a cloud white monolith that stood in the boiling sea not far from the village where I was born, while sturdy in itself it was incredibly smoothened by the currents that had washed over it for past innumerable millennia. Swimming out to it as a boy there were parts of the rock I could rest and rub my tired face against without getting a single hairline scratch and even from this distance I could tell that his arms were exactly like that. The slight muscles of this arm curved easily into the niche of his elbow and then he straightened both arms to propel himself off the rock seat. His flank heaved a little and the delicate ribs that did not show while he was at rest surfaced briefly against the flesh of his side, the walls of his very flat stomach caving in just a little as his lithe form pierced the water as cleanly as a confident white wood arrow traveling to meet the winged prey.

From the sharp exhalation of his breath, I could tell that my companion had been holding back the air in his lungs all the while the boy was exposed to us and as I glanced at him I saw a magnification of the unnatural gleam that had reposed in his eyes from the first time we caught sight of the boy. The fingers that always rested in a relaxed yet vigilant manner on the hilt of his dagger twitched so uncontrollably that they caught my attention even though the lower halves of our bodies were hidden in almost pitch darkness. His breathing now came out as swift rasps as his gaze remained fixated upon the dark head of the boy who was bobbing through the fragrant gleaming water. Scratching the cloth of my pants at the groin area to relieve the tightness there, I licked the small trickle of blood away from my lips and turned my own eyes to the boy whose profoundly beautiful face, mesmerizing as the all consuming abysmal silence right after a mighty avalanche, reflected only supreme tranquility as he moved languidly through the teasing embrace of the water, totally unaware that his young life would be coming to an abrupt and violent end as soon as the two assassins hiding behind the pillars of rock just outside the circle of light from the pool revealed themselves and carried out their avowed mission.

But why should he be afraid? Like all the children born during the conflict, including those of my own people, the war to him was the only life he knew. The battle maneuvers of the soldiers were as normal as the fleet footed races I ran with my own boyhood friends. The bloodthirsty cries of men at war were like the laughter of the old men who used to spend their evenings relating the myths and legends of my clan to us children. The curfews, the scarcity of food, the negotiations that always failed were as natural as the seasons that passed, as familiar to him as the warm summers of the land that I grew up in was to me. He couldn't be more than seventeen winters in age, I remembered that I myself was seventeen when the word came through our camp that the enemy king had just had a new son. I recalled that my companions and I had bellowed lewd remarks about his parents and his parentage when his birth was announced, raucously yelling about what we were going to do to his family when we conquered his father's castle and becoming especially rowdy when we came to the part about what we were going to do to his female relations. Yes, we were spirited because we were young then and the siege was barely one full moon in age. Many of the young men who had laughed at the swimming boy were in shallow graves below us on the slope of the mountain, worn out by foul disease, the bitter winters, home sickness and long hard years of fatigue, bad food and the same punishing military routine day in and day out. I was seventeen when he was born and, as I crouched looking upon him, I suddenly realized that I had spent half of my life in his land waiting for just such an opportunity as the one presented to us right then.

The events that led to this opportunity were the doing of the man beside me, the one over whom I was still unable to decide if he was mad or not. He must be at least ten years younger than myself, because he arrived only one winter ago, though no one would have disputed it if I had said that he was as old as I. Even while his vigor and agility had put my older bones sorely to the test throughout the past days of the mission, his face told of tales perhaps too harrowing to repeat. Underneath the fresh sandy hair of an active young man, his left eye was slanted almost shut beneath a large fold of flesh covering a part of his left temple and eyelid. To the knowing eye of old soldiers, this fold of pink shiny flesh was once forehead and scalp but many winters before he joined our campaign, someone must have swung a sharp axe at his skull. Only the quickest reflexes could have saved his life but the experience embedded in his hard gray eyes the legacy of what must have been excruciating pain and left him with the horrible scar that wiped the youth off his features forever.

I didn't look at his face much because of the unspoken rule about letting be but whenever I did I would catch myself thinking that there must have been a short period of time when he was considered a handsome young man because there was that firm, determined jaw and that straight unerring nose on top of a rather sardonic looking mouth. We soldiers liked to talk about our wounds, in fact it was our second largest topic after sex and ahead of even food. The ones who didn't discuss their injuries were the ones who never recovered, many who received significant injuries went mad because they couldn't bear the loss of their limbs or the pain proved to be too much to withstand. We were wary of those who didn't talk about their scars and we were downright suspicious of those who didn't like talking at all. I must admit that my friends and I never liked Mennask because he was both, all at once. After a while, we left him completely to himself because he seemed contented mumbling quietly while sitting only near enough to the campfire so that his fingers didn't freeze and fall off.

I could never hear what he said under his breath and even now, after I became aware that there might be details of importance there, I still could not follow the frantic contest of words that fell over themselves as they chased one another out of his mouth like a muted fighting hoard. As the boy flipped himself onto his back and started traversing the length of the cavern pool like a playful translucent dolphin with the water sliding off his twisting body like sheets of aquamarine moonlight, the words grew in intensity but not in loudness. I glanced at Mennask and opened my own mouth with the desire to ask him what he was thinking and saying. But even in the dark, I could see that Mennask was lost, his words traveled to my ears from another plain of existence, one in which Mennask's soul, heart, mind and body were bound in thick chains by the vision of the bathing boy. His fist clasped and unclasped the hilt of his trusty dagger, the one which had been the bane of the enemy soldiers we had met after coming out on this side of the Thoriand Trap three nights ago, those who had not had the wisdom to ignore us and let us go on our way.

I felt a little lost myself because, reluctant though I still was, I had begun placing all my faith in Mennask, to trust unquestioningly in all the paths he took as we maneuvered through the Trap, to implicitly obey every one of his directives given in eloquent unvoiced gestures. I didn't want to carry out the coming decision, the one that was made a short time after we first saw the boy stealing out of his walled home in the middle of the night to visit this heated cavern pool secreted in the warm pulsing heart of the great mountain itself. I wished that my companion would break his silence and say that we could leave this task to another day, to another time far ahead in the future when the boy was older and had learned how to fight in battle and to defend himself. Some day far away when he was no longer so painfully beautiful. I felt Mennask touch my elbow and with a nod of his head towards the boy, he stood up slowly and at the same time unsheathed the cruel serrated blade. The words I wanted to hear would not come after all.

"It is a mathematical permutation." I remembered those being the first clear words I heard from Mennask in almost one full winter since his arrival at the siege and when we followed his upward gaze through the frigid night we saw that he was talking about the rock maze on the slopes leading up to Castle Thoriand. We ignored him because not only did we not know what he was talking about, the Thoriand Trap, as we called the maze, was a place that we would rather not mention even in casual conversation. Too many of our friends had been lost in there and sometimes, in the dead of winter, we would hear the anguished howls of these frustrated ghosts floating down to haunt the camp and jar us from our fitful slumber. The Castle Thoriand was built less than halfway up the southern slope of a tremendous mountain that stretched all the rest of the distance up to the midday sun; the land that it stood on was actually a large plateau with the cliffs of the mountain looming over it like a girdle circling the back of the castle. The castle itself was walled and majestic, a huge white sentry guarding the age old secrets of the mountain.

We soldiers had a name for Mount Thoriand, we cursed it as the Hag's Breast; the peak was sharp as a nipple but the four slopes ascending to it bore uncommon resemblance to the wrinkled sagging breast of a hundred winter old witch. The southern slope was gradual but all other sides of the mountain were steep unforgiving cliffs narrowing up to that pointed snow covered summit. The front of the castle, the face that we had looked up at from our entrenched camp for the last seventeen winters, presided over a bare rocky slope of some nine hundred feet that was totally devoid of plant life and saturated on its upper region with a confounding system of wall-length boulders, artificial caves and man hewn tunnels. The slope itself was easy to navigate as its steepness was measured and might prove difficult only to children but not to grown men. When we first reached our camp site seventeen years ago, we had already climbed a good way up the mountain through lush emerald pine forests and emerged in a clearing that continued on to this maze. We thought that negotiating the rocky slope up ahead would take us at the very most the time needed to roast a mountain goat so that it was satisfactorily crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. The castle was within sight after having been hidden behind the trees of the forest that we had marched through and every one of us exulted at the prospect of capturing it by nightfall. The war which had started one winter back would culminate in this glorious victory and we would all be able to go home to our families. We sent out scouts to reconnoiter the maze while the main army settled down, set up camp and roasted our dinner. The scouts never came back and neither did the first assault party. The battle that was to end by nightfall became a siege that went on for the next seventeen winters. Such was the power of the Thoriand Trap.

Mennask stepped out rapidly around the pillar and nimbly climbed a minor incline of rocks that looked as if they were once underwater, heading all the while in the direction of the pool and its frisky dweller. I followed him quickly out of habit and, for my own safety, stepped in the exact places that he set foot upon, for Mennask had a mysterious instinct that had preserved his life and mine since the hour we crept behind enemy lines. The blade of his dagger shone like a torch and flung its evil glare on the shimmering walls of the cavern as Mennask and I proceeded noiselessly towards our target who was diving and thus failed to notice our swift unwelcome advance. Mennask bent to move beneath a low hanging boulder without slowing his pace and I did the same, casting a wary eye on the stone overhead as I did so. My moment of distraction would have been fatal had we been inside the maze as it slowed me down so that I had to run to catch up with Mennask who had never looked back since we emerged from our hiding place. I watched his feet carefully so that I would not make a single mistake in my step while in my mind the lingering screams of Bonruo filled the cavity of my conflicted head. I shuddered because even now I wondered if Bonruo was still falling, I never heard the thud of his body hitting bottom and I never heard him stop screaming. A splash interfered with the echoes of Bonruo's yells, the boy had somersaulted in the water and his buttocks reared up for a moment from the glass surface of the crater pool, they were creamy white and perfectly round like kanak, the fish paste balls the women of my clan so painstakingly pound and mold in the center of the village every summer when the harvest from the sea was too bountiful. I could literally taste in my mouth the tender yielding mildly spiced kanaks that my mother used to make, their salty sweet flavor so very fresh that, though mild, it lingered on as an unforgettable preservative of summer warmth even as we ate them with steaming hot vegetable soup in mid winter. I longed to be sitting in my aromatic kitchen once again, rolling the springy kanak over and under my tongue before clamping sharp teeth to neatly severe it in half. Suddenly, I had no doubt in my mind that the frolicking boy's supple buttocks would taste as delightful in my mouth as my mother's seasonal delicacy.

Bonruo's mind was on food too for he was chewing on his ration of stale bread when he stepped on the booby trap. The device that caught him was clever, it was designed so that an infiltrator walking in single file would throw himself back and hurtle into the person behind him and that person into the one behind him and so on. We were on a narrow ledge inside the Trap with the wall of the tunnel on our right and a dark bottomless pit on our left. Mennask held the flambeau and led the way, we had been walking incessantly for two days beginning with the stealthy inching of our way to the enemies' left flank, where their commanding officer was old and negligent, and breaking through the cordon of guards subsequently to reach the start of the maze in the form of a small tunnel. The Thoriand army had stationed themselves at the numerous entrances or, from their perspectives, exits of the maze, occasionally raining down arrows or catapulting large flaming rocks at our camp from their vantage point of higher ground. Whenever we gave chase, they would disappear into the Thoriand Trap and then the waiting would begin all over again. Over the winters, we had moved our camp back to behind the tree line so that the no man's land between the two armies ranged more than three hundred feet. We knew that they didn't dare charge into the forest for despite everything, we outnumbered them by far, our soldiers were valiant, and every one of us strong tall men who would kill anyone in sight to bring an end to the siege. They knew that we didn't dare follow them into the maze on foot, our horses and chariots were practically useless in this conflict, and if any of us was stupid enough to do so, they would ambush us and pick us off one by one like injured stags.

It was the first mouthful of food Bonruo had had in two days and with his eyes on the bread in his hands, his foot slipped into the crevice in the ledge that housed the mechanism that triggered off the contraption. There was a crack followed by a sound like falling hail and when I twisted my head around, Bonruo's body was already peppered with hundreds of pebbles shooting out at him from the wall of the tunnel. Bonruo choked on the bread, gave a muffled yell and took a step back, I heard Mennask shout 'Don't move!' but it was too already too late, Bonruo had lost his balance in his haste to evade the stinging missiles. I watched helplessly as Bonruo threw out both his arms in a futile attempt to hold on to the wall but as the loaf of bread arched through the air towards me, he began to fall.

My foot slipped and there was a sharp crunch, I had stepped on the pile of the boy's cast off clothing but more than that I had just crushed the little handheld wooden box that the boy had used to find his way to the pool. I looked down and saw a tiny black stone rolled away from the damaged box which was lying in a small puddle of unidentifiable liquid that was still seeping out from misshapen container. Mennask didn't turn back, he was looking at the boy whose head and shoulders had sprung out of the water at the sound of the breaking box, Mennask's mouth shifted slightly and it looked like he was gritting his teeth. I looked over quickly to the boy and my hand moved by years of training to the hilt of my short sword. Strangely, the black haired boy didn't look shocked or even mildly surprised, his eyebrows merely lifted a little into his marble forehead and his mischievous lips curled almost imperceptibly as he beheld us staring at him without any reserve.

At this close range, I was startled by the concentration of his beauty, the light brown of his perfectly shaped eyes looked as if it was brewed and distilled from a million cauldrons of the purest ancient magic, his full saucy lips were red with the blood of those savagely impassioned kisses siphoned off coupling lovers from all of romantic history, his nose stood regally on his fine oval face like a fair prince who was extremely proud of this domain of unsurpassable beauty and the skin that covered him was like the most diaphanous gauze veil of cream, shielding and at the same time showing off the magnificently healthy blush that suffused his whole form. When he spoke it was with an imperious tone as befitting his birthright but his voice, like the rest of him, was melodious and lovely, its notes stroked the listening ear forthrightly and yet was layered with a rich husky undertone that held in it the promise of a passionate nature.

'We will come when we please. You can go back and tell our Lady Guardian that. Go on. Leave us to our bath.'

I was about to say 'What?!?' when Mennask spoke in the Thoradine tongue with such purity of accent that it made me jump for the second time in a short while. I was chosen for this mission because I could speak some Thoradine from years of exchanging insults with the enemy soldiers and, to my chagrin, because I looked a little like a member of the enemy race. Unlike Mennask who was brown haired, lean but broad shouldered, and tall, I was a little shorter than my average countryman and had the dark hair and eyes of the Thorads. I must point out however, what I lost in height I made up for in build for I was a well muscled stalwart fellow in my prime. I didn't have the snowy complexion of the mountain people as I grew up by the sea and the ocean sun had infused my skin with a robust brown that it will never lose. I was sorry that Bonruo was not there because of the three of us, he looked the most similar to an average Thorad. Disguised in the uniforms of Thorad soldiers we had captured, I thought that we would rely on Bonruo when we came out from the maze into the vicinity of Castle Thoriand as I had assumed that only Bonruo spoke Thoradine that did not sound fractured and was thus marginally believable.

'My lord, we have merely come to ensure that my lord is safe from any form of danger. The times are unpredictable and the marauders are all around us.'

'The marauders can't get past the Annulus. They are so afraid of it they call it the Thoriand Trap.' With that haughty conviction he placed both palms on the edge of the pool and hauled himself out of the water. Before I could prepare myself for it, he had walked across to us, stopping about two feet away, and stood looking up at our faces. He gazed at our features for a long while as my eyes were pulled down on their own accord to his pelvic area. The breath snagged in my throat as I took in the resplendence of his youthful penis, tender like a springtime sapling biding its time till the day it would grow into a rugged tree and his testicles, fresh and soft like the bodies of fox cubs encapsulating a comparable hint of the young animals' fascinating vitality. As my throat constricted, I felt burning tears being squeezed out of my eyes and unfortunately, the boy noticed them too. Quick as a crocodile's sweeping tail, he turned to me and barked, 'You. Do you think the enemy can get past the Annulus?'

Caught off guard by his abrupt questioning, I gasped and coughed as in my blind panic I tried to swallow down all the desire that was making me lightheaded. Recovering only after a long while, I replied, 'No. I don't think they can.'

My response was greeted by complete silence and when no one spoke after a considerable amount of time I turned and found that Mennask was staring at me with a murderous fury in his gray eyes. I returned my eyes to the boy and saw that he was looking at us very grimly. My heart sank rapidly and, to my horror, I finally realized that the 'No' I had put in my reply was said in my own language.

'So, you have eluded the Thoriand Trap.' The boy took a step back as he quietly pronounced this, the statement was made even more poignant by the fact that it was spoken in my own tongue with only the whisper of an accent.

Mennask took a step forward, quickly closing the distance between himself and the boy. In a very low voice pregnant with fearsome threat, Mennask said to him in Thoradine, 'The Thoriand Trap isn't that difficult a riddle. Your father would have to find other ways to keep my people out now, my lord.'

'How did you solve the riddle? Did you capture one of my father's generals and make him tell you? No one other than the generals knows the full answer to the Annulus's riddle.' Even now, the boy was remarkably unafraid, in fact, he looked as if he was more curious than frightened as he stared boldly back at Mennask while waiting for the quick answer he was accustomed to receiving from his subjects.

'Your generals would rather die than tell.' Mennask raised slightly the fist that was grasping the dagger. He was being deliberately slothful with the speed of his response. 'So I solved the riddle myself.'

The riddle, as the two antagonists so casually termed it, had claimed the lives of many good men including that of my cousin Edgyn who must have either starved to death or lost his mind in the dark before falling to his death inside the maze. Edgyn was one of those eager young men who were supplied to our campaign every summer when the roads were hard enough for the hooves of their horses to carry them here to Mount Thoriand. Every summer, without fail or variation, there would be a group of foolhardy young men who boasted among themselves on their long journey here that they would be the ones who would finally tame the maze and steer successfully through the Trap. The advice of their elders were treated with derision and hurled off along with loud mutterings that the older men had lost their nerve and should just leave the winning of the battle to the younger ones. The warnings of the commanding officers to stay away from the Trap only served to increase the amount of bets placed on the ventures. I myself have won much to be put aside for my old age at the expense of those who never came back from their sally into the Trap. Those who have put their wages on these young mens' success were usually silenced when I came around to collect what was due to me. Despite all this, when Mennask disclosed to our unit his newly drawn map of the maze, most of us believed him and to this day, I don't know why I did. Perhaps we were desperate to try any solution that made sense and Mennask's did with an intellectual logic that escaped the grasp of my mind.

'It is a mathematical permutation. The expanded multiple of the sum of three triangular windows and seven square windows. The final expansion is the sum of 81 times four multiples of triangular windows and 756 times three multiples of triangular windows as well as one multiple of square windows...' I heard him tell this to the boy using a didactic tone identical to the one with which he had instructed us before Bonruo and I were picked by our unit to accompany him through the maze. He had used much simpler explanations when he talked to us in the presence of our unit's Leader. He said that the windows on the façade of Castle Thoriand provided the clue to the maze and as we looked up at the stone wall of the castle, he pointed out that there were four levels to the gargantuan building. Each level had ten windows, and though they were in random order, three of these ten windows were invariably triangles while the other seven were squares. This caused him to think that the three should be added to the seven and the sum of that multiplied by itself four times for the four levels. '(3t + 7s) * (3t + 7s) * (3t + 7s) * (3t + 7s)' he wrote into the ground at our feet. When we stared back at him without the slightest comprehension, Mennask shook his head and said, 'That is not important. What's important is the fact that the key to the maze is the last expansion of this form. What you must remember is this.' He wrote the following in the ashes of an old campfire before sketching out a drawing of what he showed in words.

8_1_ the fourth triangular door. 7_56_ the third triangular door or the first square door. 26_46_ the second triangular door or the second square door. 41_16_ the first triangular door or the third square door. 240_1 _ the fourth square door.

'From consolidating the reports given by those who have managed to come back from the maze after wandering around in it for days, I believe that you can enter the maze from any entrance at the bottom of the slope but once you have walked a certain distance, you will be faced with a large number of holes, doors, tunnel branches or openings to passageways. The first time, always choose the eighth opening from the left. It should take you to another clearing with a new series of doorways. This time, choose the first from the left. You should be led to a chamber with a series of doorways or tunnel openings in the shape of triangles or squares. Choose the fourth triangle from the left no matter where it actually stands in the entire order. Next, choose the seventh door and then the fifty sixth followed by either the third triangular door or the first square door. Don't worry if you feel yourself descending for I think that the creator of the maze retained intention to confuse even those who are going the right way. Do this until you complete the sequence that I have written out and you should congregate at the same point on the plateau where the castle stands no matter which entrance you used to get into the maze.'

The boy smiled wryly. 'Yes, and for those who do not choose the doors that you proposed?'

'They will wander around in the maze in a never ending circle.'

The boy's smile widened into a splendid grin and he clapped his hands, producing sweet echoes that bounced around the walls of the secret cavern. 'And that is why we call it the Annulus. Not for the solution but for the failures.'

That elicited a smile from Mennask. 'A wise idea for you must never trust the people around you to be too clever.'

The boy shrugged lightly. 'We cannot trust them to be too loyal or. . .to be able to withstand the tortures that you Uicans are famous for.'

He was right, for Heaven knows we have tried but we never did manage to get any useful information from our Thorad prisoners. This time it was Mennask's turn to shrug.

'There is no need for any more questioning, my lord. The war will end soon enough and Thoriand will pay due homage to Uica.'

The naked boy inclined his head. 'Unless I am very much mistaken, you and your friend here are only scouts and not the whole army. As we all know, there have been many scouts before you. Are you so confident that your generals will believe that you have succeeded where so many others have failed? Are you so naïve as to think that I will value my own life so much as to let both of you walk out of here alive to return to your Uican mob with your knowledge of the passageways?'

The two rivals had taken to speaking to each other in the enemy's language, the boy in the coarse unrefined Uican tongue which was incongruent with the rest of him and Mennask in the poetic Thoradine that did not match his rugged demeanor.

Mennask drew a deep breath. 'There is little need for concern about all of that, my lord. It was too simple a matter to resolve for I brought along a hound and have released it back into the tunnels bearing a handful of the needles from the Thoriand Striped Pine that grow only around Castle Thoriand. My leader would already know about my success and should be preparing the army to strike even as we speak.'

That was only a half truth for Bonruo's hound became desolate after its master's death and was still wandering the maze looking for our deceased comrade. Mennask and I were unable to get it to follow us and our cajoling only made it back further away into the caves. There would be no messengers going back to camp other than ourselves. Nevertheless, the lie made the boy's face change and some of that spectacular blush drained away from his visage.

'Then there is nothing more to say. I will fight the both of you to the death and, God willing, I will kill you or die in the attempt. I have my sword among my clothes and if you have any honor at all, you will let me arm myself for combat.'

Mennask did not appear at all uneasy in the face of such courage. He chuckled and turning slightly, roughly kicked all of the boy's clothes along with its accessories into the pool. I heard the sword hitting an underwater rock with a loud clink and imagined that it was sinking rapidly to the bottom. Mennask smiled complacently at the boy who was shaking with unbridled rage.

'You brutes!'

'We came to murder you, my lord. Why would we want to waste any time in childish play?'

The boy launched himself at Mennask with the velocity of a pouncing mountain cat and leaping up, wrapped his fingers around the older man's throat. The violence of the attack threw Mennask back a step or two and it took a while before the Uican could manacle both of the boy's wrists in one fist and find purchase around the Thorad's windpipe with the other. He held on until the boy had worn himself out after struggling for what seemed like an eternity. When the boy approached a lull, Mennask suddenly placed a hand on the small of the prince's back and pulling him into his arms, lowered his mouth to the boy's before giving him a forceful but achingly tender kiss that seemed to suck all the air out of the humid cavern. When they finally broke apart after much too long, shock had not completely left the boy's face but he licked his lips tentatively as if fishing for the remnants of that unexpected kiss. Mennask held the boy even more tightly than before, his hands wandering down now to fondle the prince's beguiling buttocks.

Bewildered by these bold, intimate touches, the boy gasped repeatedly while struggling unconvincingly to get away. 'What are you doing? Free us from your wicked Uican hands.' He watched weakly as Mennask's fingers began kneading his sensitive nipples, until they protruded painfully with erotic excitement, and muttered, 'There is evil Uican magic in this.'

'No magic at all, my lord. It is only your own desire that makes it seem like magic.' His industrious hand reached under and between the boy's buttocks to rub at the enchanted spot of flesh between prince's tantalizing balls and his concealed asshole causing the Thorad to bite his lip and buck with fierce pleasure.

'Oh, you barbaric Uican. You wish to dishonor us with your indecent touches.'

'If they are offensive to you, then give the command and I will stop at once, my lord.'

The prince opened his mouth but no words came out of it as his eyes followed the wily hands of his captor. Mennask smiled knowingly.

'My lord, this may seem a strange time to say it but I greatly admire all things Thoriand.' The boy responded only by looking away as Mennask pressed on with his assertion, now manhandling the creamy buttocks which were quickly turning into a delightful shade of pink. 'I love your music that soars to the sky and skims the earth in tandem with the dance of the wind. Compared to yours, Uican music is earthbound, heavy without the inspiration of the heights which your race live on. Your literature and your arts contain the passion of the lava underneath the mountain tempered by the pristine snow on the slopes. Your mathematics and sciences have climbed to the heavens and consorted with the stars because you are so close to the heavenly bodies. Your laws are the lifeblood of ancient sages who would have been gods were they still in existence today. Look at the clothes which I just threw into the pool, look at the fineness of the weaving, the softness of the layered wool, and then look at our rough Uican robes. You can feel how prickly and crude it is. I am ashamed that your precious skin has to make contact with this vulgar and primitive apparel.' The soldier reached behind and under again, and finding the boy's gonads dribbled his fingers around and between them as if he was attempting to select the choicest cherries. Closing his hand on them, Mennask retracted his arm so that the prince was lifted up into the air by the strong but measured support under his testicles, with the older man's coarse hand sinking into the crack between the boy's buttocks. The Thorad was thus pulled up for another jawbreaking kiss that lasted till the boy began to whimper.

I could only frown at this sudden ardent declaration and wondered where Mennask intended to go with all of this. The soldier and interpreter of riddles didn't talk much when he was at camp and I never suspected he was capable of such pretty speech. The panting boy watched Mennask's moving lips intently as if waiting for brilliant spells to fly out of it. When the prince spoke next, his words were still fighting ones but most of its belligerence had given way to a shy trepidation.

'Stop your babbling and let us go. Fight us, man to man.'

The words had almost no effect, being severely compromised by the fact that the naked beauty was sitting astride the warrior's rough hand with his legs swinging powerlessly off the ground. The prince tried valiantly to alight from this intimate human straddle but every struggle he made only succeeded in helping the Uican's hand submerge more deeply into the divine ass crack and in grinding his scrotum into the older man's trap of sly fingers. The young one's handsome body began to glow from the unsolicited stimulation and I saw his legs part a little so that he could sink even more into the snug love seat. Mennask's other untiring hand grazed the boy all over so that the recipient of his caresses now began to squirm frantically with sensual overload, the boy was actively pushing himself into Mennask's demanding hands, and every now and then would give a feeble moan.

'But you're not yet man, my lord. You are a boy, a beautiful and desirable one at that. And if my army comes up through those tunnels tomorrow, you may never get to become man. Thoriand will be wiped from the face of the earth and along with it, you, your father, your subjects, your culture, your language, your history. Think about that, my lord. Reflect on the coming annihilation of all that you've ever known, all that you've ever loved. All the songs of your good people will be wrenched from their throats, the dances slashed from their knees, their warm houses burned with their young children still inside, their unique knowledge perishing in their bludgeoned heads, the Striped Pines chopped down to be made into stakes that will drive your father and brother into the ground. Even if you are not afraid for yourself, have pity on your people. I know that you love your people because if you're even a little bit like your father, you are a good and compassionate prince. I have heard that your father would lay down his life for his people and that his sons would do the same.'

This seemed to subdue the boy and he became quiet as catastrophic thoughts ran through his troubled head. I was surprised when Mennask gently let go of him and set him down slowly on the rock stool. Mennask was as tender as a mother with her infant child and the boy didn't resist as Mennask knelt in front of him and placed his large hands on the boy's soft thighs, captivatingly close to the prince's bashfully peeking sex. The boy looked down on Mennask's rough hands which had started to stroke the sensitive flesh very slowly as the older man leaned in close and began again to speak, all the while looking deep into the Thoriand prince's beautiful downcast eyes. Mennask's voice was soft amidst the boy's increasingly heavy breathing, attributable to either his earlier exertions or to Mennask's sensuous attentions.

'I am half Thorad, my lord. By birth, I am one of your subjects. I have a birthright to your love and I claim it now. Yes, you are my sovereign lord and you have a responsibility to love and protect me.' The boy's eyes jerked up and searching Mennask's, saw the truth there. Mennask smiled and nodded. 'My mother was a Thorad noblewoman who left your land early in her youth to follow the man whom she loved. She didn't mind the unsophisticated and hard life of the Uicans because she loved my father too much. Like how you love your people.' To the questioning look in the boy's eyes, Mennask shook his head, 'No, she didn't know the key to the Annulus but she taught me the mathematics I used to solve the riddle. My mother also taught me Thoradine and the native songs of your land.

Thoriand's hair is the snow brushing the slopes His legs the roots of the mount planted in earliest rock His arms the mighty ravines stretching to the ends of time His chest the cliffs challenging the heights of heavens His heart beats deep in the pool of his own sacred blood Pulsing to feed the craving of the mountain that never dies And his manhood the labyrinth that draws man in Never freeing him until he has yielded everything To Thoriand's foremost desires.'

The boy was mouthing the words that Mennask sang in a low growl that seductively carried the melancholy weight of the singer's heartfelt yearnings. The prince's eyes were closed even as Mennask's foraging hands drew closer to the sensitive labyrinth of this young Thorad.

'That song is not allowed in our land.' The boy murmured this as one trembling hand sought the support of Mennask's steady shoulder.

'Yes, my mother told me that too. The song came down from the ancient Thorads but is now forbidden because it suggests of sexual pleasures no longer acceptable in your land. Your father saw to that law.' Mennask took the hand gently and kissed the tips of the tapering fingers. 'And yet, you know the song well. I would think that you love the song as much as I do. Perhaps tonight I shall teach you to draw men into the wonders of your own labyrinth.' The prince did not say anything so Mennask continued with his whispers.

'My father died here on the slopes of Thoriand when I was thirteen. He was a brave soldier but disease claimed him and left my mother and me to fend for ourselves. Look, my lord, look at my face.' He took the boy's fingers from his lips and touched them to his gleaming scar. The boy's eyes opened and followed. 'I got this because I am half Thorad. Yes, my lord. I have this testament of my love for my mother and for Thoriand. My neighbor, the father of my best childhood friend, fought alongside my father. He brought us the news of my father's death on his trip home because he himself was ill with a cough that drew blood. While he was in my home, he dishonored my mother. I was out at play with his son and when I came home, my mother was a bloodied sobbing form on the floor. I ran all the way to the center of the village to seek help in bringing the villain to justice. But do you know what the village elders told me, my lord? They said that my mother deserved no justice because she was a Thorad, the enemy of the Uicans. They decided then to cast my mother and myself out of the village because now that my father was dead, we were no longer legitimate Uicans. My father was a good man and a strong leader when he was alive and they had never dared lift a finger against us because of him. That night, I crept into my neighbor's house and stabbed him with this dagger that you see by my side, my father's dagger. I put a large hole in his chest but it wasn't enough to kill or even slow him. He swung at me with his battle axe and here you see the scar from that fight. My mother and I ran away and she died a short while after when the hardships and sorrow overcame her. I trained to be a soldier in the great Uican city of Pilli and joined the Uican battles in other lands before coming here to the slopes of Thoriand last winter.'

'What is your name?' The boy asked this with a heightening of the red in his already flaming face for even as he spoke, Mennask had gently pushed the prince's unresisting thighs apart so that all the glory of his unprotected sex lay vulnerable and quivering, for his penis had hardened irrevocably by now, before this tough and seasoned Uican soldier.

'Mennask, my lord.' The rugged seducer closed in on the young trembling rod, until his mouth was a kiss's length away from the tender vibrating crown, then pursed his lips and blew softly on it till the boy's eyes rolled into his head from the unendurable treat. It was a long while before the boy could gather his wits together to speak.

'We have heard your story, Mennask of Uica. You are Uican and you are Thorad. You fight for Uica and yet you would kill an Uican to avenge Thoriand. You are a clever man who lives a rough life but appreciates all the finer things of the Thoradine culture. You are strong and aggressive yet tender in your embraces. You are ugly yet indescribably beautiful. Your kiss would shut off our breath and still strike a strange warmth into our soul. What will you have us do for you seem to be withholding some element of great significance? You seem to have left something unsaid.'

'I have come to give what Uica can offer.'

'You yourself know that there is nothing Uica can offer that Thoriand might want.'

'There is something, my lord.'

'What? Brutality? An uncouth way of life? A warlike soul that is never appeased?'

'You forget peace, my lord.'

'Peace? But you said that the Uicans are already on their way to destroy our people and our land.'

'I know for certain that they are not yet on their way, my lord. Would you be interested to listen to my solution for an end to the siege and that at no great harm to the Thorads?'

The boy smiled without much conviction. 'I know you are very intelligent, Mennask of Uica, but even you won't be able to put a hasty halt to the hostilities that began before our birth. No one even remembers what the two sides are fighting about but ask any Uican if he's willing to lay down arms and go home. The answer you will get is no.'

'Unless you become king, my lord.'

'What? Tread carefully Mennask of Uica for we love our Father the King and our Brother the Crown Prince.'

'I have it on good authority that your love for your brother is not reciprocated, my lord. In fact, the good Crown Prince wouldn't mind if you accidentally drowned in this pool tonight or were assassinated by Uican spies. If I conjectured correctly, his animosity is great due to the fact that your father as well as the people love you more than they do him because of your kindness and your cleverness.'

The boy's eyes flashed but he said nothing. Mennask held his peace for a time, saying nothing but gently using two fingers to stroke the pulsing sex of the Thorad prince. I moved closer to get a better view as a drop of clear liquid lengthened from the slit of the penis' head and joined the rough stone of the seat he was perched on. Mennask collected this emission on his finger tips and returned the liquid to the massage of the shaft which it had run from. Then, still without a word, Mennask lowered his mouth and took the corona of the penis into his mouth. He rotated his head all around the crown and then I saw his tongue scraping the underside of the penis' head in quick snake-like motions. I saw his cheeks hollowing as he sucked on the crown before his raking tongue zeroed in on the slit of the head. As Mennask burrowed his flexible serpentine tongue into the crevice, the panting prince grunted urgently and lifted his hips off the rock to feed more of himself into Mennask's mouth. Both of his hands were yanking at the back of the soldier's neck as he labored to deliver the whole of his needy rod to Mennask's minute ministrations but the older man merely withdrew his mouth and leaned away from the reddening pole.

'Was my surmise on target, my lord?'

The boy was impressively composed even as his frustrated staff waved before Mennask's nurturing mouth. 'So what if it is?'

'If there is indeed truth there, then I shall assassinate your brother...'

'No!' The boy tried to jump up from the seat but Mennask's hands on his thighs were too weighty a burden so that his flight was cut off very abruptly. 'No. You can't do that.'

Mennask grinned roguishly. 'What a forgiving soul you have, my lord. After all, you spurned the advances of this half brother of yours and gazing at your beauty now, even I can understand what a great loss he must have felt. The dejection had no place to turn to but rage and the man has now become a constant threat to you. But of course, you were right to reject him for he attacked you in a drunken fit. The Crown Prince was really rather unwise for I have seen him and he is not without physical charms which he could have leveraged for his amorous quest.'

The boy shook his head. 'He is our brother and his imprudence must be disregarded. We will not hear you speak of assassination again.'

'Alright then. As you wish. I shall ambush and kidnap him two nights from now as he goes through the maze. I know of his nocturnal activities too, you see. I know of how he likes to join the Thorad soldiers inside the maze to gamble and to drink the wine of the Striped Pine. I know how, after they get drunk, they like to make ghostly noises to strike fear into the hearts of the bravest Uican. I shall capture him and transport him far, far away from here. And then, you shall be Crown Prince.'

The prince considered this under a furrowed brow. 'What will you have us do after we are Crown Prince?'

By the look on Mennask's face, I knew that he was already triumphant in whatever strategy he was pursuing. Sooner or later, everyone listened to Mennask of Uica. The dispenser of solutions got up from his knees and sliding his arms under the prince's body, he lifted the boy gently before seating himself down on the seat just vacated. The prince was lowered lovingly into his lap where one of Mennask's arms circled the boy's waist while the other hand continued their intimate game with the prince's sex. He nuzzled the young Thorad's neck for a while before continuing.

'When you are Crown Prince, tell your father to take an Uican advisor into his court.'

'You are asking us to commit treachery.'

'No, I am asking you to be clever. I am asking you to bring an end to this siege so that everyone can have peace, so that all my Uican brothers can go home and all of Thoriand can reside in the tranquility of the mountain as before you were born. Your brother is too proud but your father is weary and he listens to you.'

'How do you know all this?'

'Even if they do not have the key to the maze, they are keepers of much valuable information. The Thorads we captured become quite loquacious after a while.'

'Vile torture.'

'Necessary, my lord. After seventeen winters, your people still do not understand the nature of the Uicans. Uica is a warlike nation, full of passion for the fight, ready to brandish sword and draw blood. What they want is merely to win their quarrel and if you submit to them, they will be happy enough to end the siege and go home. As I was saying, your father will listen to you especially if you are Crown Prince. Tell him to take an Uican advisor, send annual bounty to Uica and live in peace. But here's the actual ruse that Thoriand would do well to employ. The Uicans may be good soldiers but fortunately, they are not good governors. In the years to come, Uica will not interfere with Thoriand if you are wise enough to keep just beyond their reach. Be quiet for a few years, pay your dues and when Thoriand is strong again, banish the Uican advisor over some matter or other. If you remain overtly submissive, Uica will not take the trouble to pursue this matter. I know because my mother and I were never pursued when we ran away.'

'Is it wise to compare your personal experience to this big war?'

'The Uicans love to win while the Thorads love peace. Can you find me a better compromise, my lord?'

'How about your friend there? Would he agree?' The boy nodded towards me.

'I don't think the common soldier is very concerned about the details of victory as long as he can go home after seventeen winters.'

The lovely prince glanced at me suspiciously before returning his gaze to Mennask. Not finding any more direct answers there, he leaned back into Mennask's strong embrace as he contemplated the solution that the soldier had offered. The cavern became silent as he focused his thoughts on the different aspects of the compromise, debating points over and over again in his mind while Mennask's untiring hands soothed his restless skin. I felt my eyelids drooping so I put my head against the wall, stretched out my legs and promptly fell asleep.

I was awakened by a moan after the most delicious sleep in which I dreamt that I had cornered the prince and was just about to pop my prick into his inviting pinkish anus. Looking up, I saw the boy and Mennask engaging in the most furious of kisses seemingly without the need to take in air. The prince was moaning uncontrollably now as Mennask's hand held his penis prisoner, firmly jerking it with a momentum that made me dizzy keeping track. My hand went to my own crotch to relieve the tension there and my movement caught Mennask's eye. He tore his lips away from the prince's and grinned at me, his eyes dancing with libertine abandon.

'You are just in time, my friend. The young prince has just agreed to my solution but before any further action is taken, he wants to know what else Uica is willing to offer.'

'Why? What else can Uica offer?'

Mennask winked at me. 'I told him that these two Uicans will offer him unimaginable bliss as a token of our good will. At the risk to our own selves, we will show him the unfettered pleasures which are no longer tolerated in his land. Are you going to help me make good on my word?'

I couldn't believe what I was hearing or the extent of my good luck. 'I...I don't understand.'

Mennask sighed. 'We are going to fuck him until his body can no longer withstand the joys of the climax. Come over here and we shall start immediately.'

I bound up and almost tripped over my feet in my haste to get there. Mennask started to guffaw.

'Just take off all your clothes before you come over. I need you as a bed for the prince.'

I did as I was told without any further questions and as my pants went down, my very thick and hefty prick leapt up and hit my stomach with a loud slap. I hurried over and Mennask passed the trembling prince into my longing arms, the boy's eyes never left Mennask's face and I didn't know if he was even aware of my presence in his passion for the other Uican. I didn't care however as I hugged this precious burden to my bare chest, relishing in the thought that, soon, I would be pounding my aching rod into his wondrous relieving softness. Mennask made me sit down on the rock stool and arranged the prince's body so that his buttocks rested on the strong plain of my stomach and groin. The boy's beautiful head went into the hollow right below my chin and his thighs rested on the end of my hips.

'Lean back a little so that the prince is in a reclining position.'

I did so and then finally realized what Mennask meant by bed. The rocky surface all around us was much too hard and sharp and Mennask wanted the boy to be comfortable as he was fucked by the Uicans so I have been relegated the duty of becoming the boy's human bed while Mennask mounted him. I prayed that I would get my turn soon.

'Hold his thighs far apart and secure him so that he can't move about. Don't let him get tired.'

I placed a hand under each bend of the boy's knees and pulled his legs wide apart, making sure that the weight of his legs rested entirely on my hands. The boy lay trembling and limp on my broad sweaty chest, his fingers straying to stroke the excited penis that Mennask had abandoned temporarily. Mennask smiled as from his vantage point he must be beholding what must be the most breathtaking sight of the prince's virginal rose anus. It was a long while before he could detach his eyes and raise them to the boy's face.

'Do you want this, my lord? Do you want me to pierce your body with mine? Do you want to know the secret pleasures of being the receptacle for another man's virility?'

The boy gulped and said weakly. 'Yes,' before adding the command, 'and be quick about it.'

Mennask grinned and said to me, 'This is your lucky day, my friend.'

The Uican soldier began to disrobe slowly, shedding the heavy winter gear that consists of cap, coat, shirt, belt, pants, underclothing and boots while I made use of the time to burn my mark into the shaking beauty in my arms. The loud panicked gasp shooting out from the prince's throat made me raise my head from where I had been sucking and biting on the boy's face, neck and shoulders, indulging in the heady sweetness of his burning skin. I saw what made the boy gasp and my own jaw dropped at the sight of Mennask's naked form. Without much ado, the Uican was the most magnificent male creature I had ever set eyes on for the shape of his body could only be described as perfect. He had a tapering form, broad on top and narrow at the bottom but at such perfect proportions that there were no parts that called attention to themselves because of an incongruent ratio. His leanness was deceptive for under his clothes, the man was like the rarest sculpture of a master artist, his responsive muscles rippling across a great virile expanse of chest and shoulders, the brawns along his long arms and the veins that lined them bearing testimony to hard work and much physical labor, his long legs and calves hard as the boulders in the cavern. The man's body glowed with health, it was a vital golden that highlighted the stiff boards of his muscled stomach and revealed that here was a man whose body was the flawless complement to his active intelligent mind. From the neck downwards, I would say that Mennask was the flower of manhood, the champion of our species, the absolute master of the male kind. But then, that wasn't what made the boy shiver to his very soul with admiring disbelief. Looking down, I saw that Mennask's rod was not a rod at all but a club in all sense of the word, in thickness, in length and in weight. In its excited state, it was the length and girth of a man's full upper arm and as I gulped, I suddenly felt worried for the delicate prince for I couldn't see how he could be a pliant enough receptacle for this monstrous pole.

Mennask advanced the same question. 'Well, my little lord, are you still willing or should we just forget about this game?'

The prince stared at the throbbing club that Mennask had brought to push gently against the boy's shuddering anus even as the intoxicating envelope of musk that was swirling off the Uican's nude body became an aphrodisiac that would not disperse from around his fevered head. Breathing in deeply, the boy said resolutely, 'We would never forgive ourselves if this was not done. Mennask of Uica, you have our permission to enter our body.'

Mennask nodded but just when I expected that he would lunge his penis into the apprehensively waiting boy, he dropped to his knees instead and brought his lips to the rim of the prince's butthole. Before the rest of us could brace ourselves, Mennask's busy tongue had shot out and pushed itself into the sensitive hole, and the soldier started to lick, probe and forage around the insides of the helpless anus. He brought his lips forward and forming a suction cup, inhaled sharply and began to suck the heated flesh into his mouth without ceasing the activity of his lusty tongue which was darting purposefully all over the targeted area, twirling and churning, burrowing and digging, stirring deeper and deeper into the laid bare hypersensitive cavity. His raging tongue and cunning mouth must have opened up a whole new universe of sensations for the prince who began shouting with pleasurable anguish.

'Oh, what are you doing?!? Oh, we are dying! We are dying! What are you doing?!?'

The boy was bucking on my chest like a beached dolphin and only my grip on his thighs prevented him from flying right off. Mennask too held the royal hips tightly in place using both strong hands as he continued to administer the careful but energetic rimming and sucking of the prince's overwrought anus. The boy's hands were clasped tightly on Mennask's sandy head, his fingers gripping wildly at the brown strands, the digits heirs of the prince's colossal uncertainty of whether he wanted to keep Mennask's head in place and bear the risk of passing out or to wrench it away to bring a stop to this excruciatingly agonizing pleasure. Mennask had no such dilemma as he forged ahead with his tongue and his hungry mouth while the prince started to cry with near orgasmic distress.

'Oh, we cannot breath. We are going to explode. Ah, it hurts. Oh, sweet torture. So evil and yet so very sweet.'

I watched the boy's sex shiver furiously as it laid painfully erect on the smoothness of his fair stomach.

'Mennask, I think the prince is about to reach his climax.'

My little advice finally halted Mennask's extraordinary efforts. He came up to look at the sobbing boy who was too weak and overwhelmed to say anything. Mennask smiled broadly and raised his eyebrows at me.

'Then he is ready for penetration.'

I grinned at my chuckling comrade as the boy began to whimper quietly. Mennask leaned down and kissed the prince tenderly, using the back of his hand to wipe the perspiration soaked black hair away from the boy's tearful eyes.

'Shall I stop, my lord? You are tired already.'

The prince sniffled a bit and then shook his head. 'Bring it to closure...please.'

In response, Mennask went off and searched his discarded pile of clothing and when he returned, I saw that he had in his hands the pouch of whale oil that we had used to light the torch inside the Trap. He unknotted the pouch and inserted his hand until his palm was coated with globs of the oil which he then proceeded to rub on the entire length of his massive penis and the inside as well as around the opening of the prince's anus.

'If the pain proves too much, my lord, alert me and I shall withdraw.'

'Alright. You...may proceed.'

'Yes, my lord. Ready, my friend?'

'Yes, oh, yes.'

Mennask was nothing if not careful as he gripped the boy's hips firmly and edged the tip of his fist sized crown into the prince's well prepared hole. Looking up and smiling at his royal mate, he strained forward very slowly, his hips moving onwards and onwards as if against its own will, pushing the massive head of his organ into the lips of the young Thorad's anus.

'Aaaaahhhhh, you are too...big. Stop. Stop.'

The boy tried to inch away from the vanguard of the invader that was already stretching his nether hole like never before in his young life but Mennask kept his hold on the young royal and refused to withdraw as he had promised.

'Just a little bit more my lord. It will soon be in and you will enjoy it spectacularly. Why don't you close your eyes? Here, blindfold him with my belt.'

I smirked a little at the understatement in Mennask's assurance that the monstrous penis would soon be in as I couldn't see how that was physically possible. I did as I was told and using the leather belt, blindfolded the young prince so that he wouldn't see the progress of the painful intrusion. When it was done, Mennask signaled me to spread those beautiful thighs wider apart as he maintained his position at the entrance to the young unexplored body. Over the next half an hour, Mennask, with superhuman patience and self control, crept his way into the interior of the prince's rectum as the boy cried out and groaned at intervals, frequently asking if it was all the way in yet. Finally, almost to my disbelief, the whole enormous club went in with an ultimate heave and Mennask's great balls swayed brushing against my own anus as I lay right below the prince.

'Take the blindfold off. He should see this.'

The prince looked a little dazed when his eyes were released from the cover and he blinked at Mennask owlishly.

'It doesn't hurt as much as the start. Is this the end?'

We laughed and Mennask stroked the boy's chin gently. 'It's just the beginning. How do you feel, my lord?'

'We feel as if a giant fire-breathing dragon has pushed its monstrous snout into our buttocks and if he opens his mouth even a little, we shall be ripped apart. Nevertheless, we feel a strange desire to clamp down on the dragon's snout and see if we can tame the evil creature by stroking his nose.'

'Ah yes, perhaps the dragon might lick you and tickle your insides with his forked tongue.' Mennask patted the prince's quivering belly, gently poking at the constricting navel before returning his hands to grip the boy's hips. 'But what if the dragon were to roar and rear its head like beasts are wont to do, my lord? What would you do then?'

'Oh, we fear that we shall be flung about like a doll in the hands of a bad tempered child. We shall most certainly lose our life.' The young royal pondered this for a while. 'We shall just have to let the beast wear itself out inside our body. Perhaps it will be calm when it is fatigued.'

Mennask smiled. 'Let us see if that will all come true, my lord, for I shall make the dragon roar. Now, take care, everyone.'

With that, he was off. Off can't be the correct term for Mennask unleashed a furious power that would have caused diamonds to meld into each other. He hammered heaven and earth and pounded his way through the solid gold gates of Paradise. He started his thrusts with the speed and ferocity of a million charging fire dragons and went on to add the velocity of a billion rampaging hurricanes. I was almost flung off the rock along with the prince on top of me as he slammed into the boy, backed almost all the way out and crashed in again faster than the time needed to register pain. My mouth opened and wouldn't close as he drove into the boy so fast that the prince's reflexive grunts came out only on every fourth thrust. I felt the weight of a mountain come down on me every time Mennask rammed in, my lungs couldn't react fast enough when he backed out so that I too managed to draw a fresh gulp of breath only at intervals of every fourth or fifth shove. On and on he went and other than the periodic grunts, the prince said nothing, the breath must have been knocked out of him so that he won't be forming coherent words for a long time to come.

Mennask, on the other hand, laughed and talked the whole time as he fucked the prince into oblivion. 'Do you feel me inside you, little one? Do you feel my ramrod weapon overpowering every niche of your adorable buttocks? Have I filled every recess of your soul with my need for you? Ah, little one, the gods made you more beautiful than the fairest maiden so that all men would become fools when they look upon you. Every one of them would fall insensate at your pearly feet but only the kings among men would have the greatest fortune of protesting their crazed love between your exquisite thighs. And then the gods were kind as they made you male so that your body would endure the almighty lust of these many kings for once these potent lords rush inside you, most would lose their minds from the gluttonous ecstasy and forget that there is only the thinnest line between rough intercourse and brutal rape. Last of all, the gods truly smiled upon you for not only did they make your nether chamber hardy, they also designed it with your utmost enjoyment in mind. You will beg for men to lose themselves inside your labyrinth for your bliss will be ten times that of every man who ravishes you. Little one, you will be a river that never runs dry from the masculine essence that men will disgorge in you with the force of thundering waterfalls. There will always be abundant spilling over of lustful semen flooding down your thighs for as long as you live.'

The boy's arms were hanging limply on both sides of his torso and flopping manically in rhythm to the fucking which was causing his body to be as slick with sweat as Mennask's penis was with the whale oil mixed with seminal fluids and perspiration. After about the five thousandth ram, I began to wonder if the boy was enjoying it as Mennask said he would be. Despite all the frenetic rocking, I managed to look down at the face tucked safely beneath my chin, the only part of him that was safeguarded from the mighty quaking that was trembling the very core of his being. His mouth was open but his eyes were squeezed tightly shut as if he was trying hard to remember something. Intermittently, I saw that his lips would quiver as if he was about to cry and then his forehead would crease followed by his unseeing eyes popping open so widely that I was afraid the eyeballs would fall out of their sockets. His face would become even redder if that was possible and at these times low guttural sounds would emerge from his windpipes accompanied by small yelps. At the same time, his body would begin shaking on its own without help from the man fucking the life out of him and his hips would jerk wildly as if the lower part of his body wanted to tear itself away from his torso. Last of all, his tremendously engorged youthful penis would grow a little more, lift off his stomach, shudder dangerously, turn even more purple and finally, prodigious spurts of milky sperm would erupt from the clit in his rod and go flying off into space.

This unparalleled climactic event happened over and over again so many times until finally, at the end of about an hour, the boy's eyes did not snap open even when his sex throbbed and spat semen on to his stomach. Mennask, despite being so apparently busy with the fucking and talking, had been watching the boy closely too and when he saw how the eyes remained shut, he leaned forward, pounded into the prince a few more times, shivered mightily and climaxed deep inside the royal receptacle.

Heaving a long satisfied sigh, Mennask withdrew his penis and looked up at me, the organ had not yet slackened in spite of the long workout it went through. I shook my head with wonder at his endurance for, as a result of his mammoth balls slapping against my private parts as he fucked the boy, Mennask had even succeeded in giving me, the bystander, a considerable orgasm that occurred shortly before the prince lost consciousness.

'Has he fainted?'

I released the boy's legs and held his face in my hand, his whole body was limp and lifeless while his facial features showed deep restfulness, like that on the faces of slumbering soldiers who have marched non-stop for the duration of one full moon cycle. I nodded and grinned, 'Yes.'

Mennask grinned lecherously as well and going to the edge of the pool brought back its water cupped in his hands. This he used to splash on the prince's face making the boy splutter and open his eyes in a hurry.

'My lord, are you alright?'

The boy was too exhausted to speak but slowly, his face blossomed with a smile that would take away the breath of soulless demons.

'Mennask of Uica.' He was whispering so Mennask had to lean in close to catch his words. 'Mennask of Uica, you have killed me with your thrashing.' I noticed that he had dropped the royal pronoun as well, as a result of the thrashing Mennask gave him. His smile became shy as the man who now owned his virginity kissed him softly on the lips.

'I said I came here tonight to murder you, my lord. Have I not kept my promise? Have you not been awakened, my lord? Do you not see and feel things more clearly now? Do you now not know what heights pleasure can attain? Have I not taken you beyond the unknown, my lord? Do you not trust me now?'

The prince of Thoriand smiled and held out his arms to Mennask of Uica. 'I trust you. I think I can do more than trust you. I think I can love you. You are my master now for I would live only for the want of your power moving relentlessly deep inside of me to conquer my very being. I can never dislodge myself from you now, Mennask. My soul will be empty whenever your masculinity is not wedged so tightly in me that I have no room for either shallow breath or lucid thought.'

Mennask lightly bit the tip of the fingers offered to him. 'I was already in love with you from the first moment I set eyes upon you, my lord. It took all my self restraint to stop myself from seizing you and taking you to a hidden place where I would ravish you to my soul's content, taking all the time in the world I needed. For even now, my soul is not yet satisfied and I would fight the most fearsome demons in Hell to go between your legs again and impale you with my insatiable desire. If I could, I would spend every instant of my life declaring my love to your body and filling you to saturation point with the life force of mine.'

'You have no need to wage war, Mennask. My thighs will always lay surrendered to you. They will always be open to you. Always'

Mennask smiled dangerously. 'Now that I have savored what lays hidden there, nothing will bar me from tasting that sweetness again, not even you, my lord.' To take some of the implicit malevolence out of his words, he tickled the prince's semen splattered stomach until the young man's squeals have stopped for want of breath before he continued solemnly. 'My lord, though I have emerged victorious from your secret labyrinth, I have yet to hear you scream while I wandered within. I am aware that I fucked all the words out of your mouth and air from your lungs but I cannot deny myself the imperative need to rock you till you begged for mercy because your life hangs by the happy thread of ecstasy.'

The Thorad grinned naughtily. 'Then you should gird yourself and prepare your next surge.'

'Yes, my lord. The very next time and the next and the next, I shall hold you down and break into you like a tidal wave demolishing a castle of sand. Then, you shall know the full extent of my strength for I was gentle today having regard that this is our first coupling.'

Undaunted, the prince replied, 'I shall pull on your buttocks with all of my might and help you vanquish me. Kiss me, my love.'

Mennask lifted the boy off my chest with a tight embrace that unequivocally affirmed their passion for each other and I let go reluctantly though I knew I had no part in their mutual love. Sitting down and placing the prince on his lap where his gargantuan cock still pulsated with superhuman need, Mennask worked the boy into a frenzy with mad kisses that blanketed every inch of the beautiful Thorad's flushing skin. As I watched Mennask at his enviable task, I realized that there was method to his seeming madness because every bite that his mouth took and every spot of burning flesh that his hands pressed on was carefully calculated to give maximum erotic pleasure to the sexually awakened boy who was again gasping with crazed delirium. I became alarmed that the young royal's mind might snap with too much of that perilous pleasure when Mennask slid three of his fingers into the boy's addicted asshole and began to finger fuck him with a murderous force that would have punched holes in stones. I grimaced as I watched the shouting prince lash dementedly about as the fingers plucked ruthlessly at his devastated rectum. And so it surprised me greatly when, even as he yelled in hoarse appreciation of this mindbending torture, the boy slid his own palms down and spread his firm asscheeks wide apart so that Mennask's fingers could go unhampered in their work.

Flinging his splendid head back with reckless abandon, the prince sobbed, 'My love, my love, take me to the brink again for when you push me over, I soar with the speed of lightning to an unknown place of blinding heat so intense that my body bursts into a billion particles of persistent agonizing rapture, never again to be reconstituted. Even now, my body is approaching that heat which I can see when I close my eyes.'

Mennask sank his clever mouth to the boy's graceful neck and biting it, growled, 'There is a sacred pledge you must take before I can convey you to those thrills, my lord. Without it, I am unable to arm myself with enough might to carry out your command.'

I listened to the soldier's words with cynicism for as far as I could see, his omnipotent cock didn't seem to need any magic spells performed on it to aid in its earlier indefatigable maneuvers deep inside the boy. The prince, however, was willing to believe anything that came from the lips that were studying his body like an overzealous scholar who had stumbled across the Book of All Knowledge.

'What must I pledge, my love? Tell me and I shall declare it at the top of my voice.'

The Uican licked one of the boy's rose nipples while adding a fourth finger to his exertions down below. 'From this day on, I will give you what you desire most only if you pledge that you will do as I bid. You must obey me or I will not help you soar to that delightful extremity which you crave. I will still ravage you but I will never let you reach your contentment. Do you understand?' To punctuate the seriousness of his demand, Mennask withdrew his versatile fingers from the restless rectum and ceased all the labors of his mouth and hands.

The prince of Thorad responded to this ultimatum by kissing Mennask hard on the lips. 'I will obey you from this moment on, my lord and my love.' As if to prove his obedience, the boy lifted his hips high into the air before lowering his buttocks on to the massive erection in Mennask's lap, the lips of the anus hurrying to swallow the tip of the penis' corona like a desert wanderer drinking at the well of an oasis.

A look of steely satisfaction flashed briefly in the Uican's gray eyes and I was not surprised for it was a tremendous concession on the part of the prince of Thoriand, one that was intrinsically unequal in the benefits to be received by both sides. I soon realized that I was a spectator to Mennask's cleverest solution to a difficult mathematical equation. The soldier allowed the boy to writhe in frustration, like a rabbit trying to escape into its burrow, in his desperate attempts to impale himself on Mennask's colossal stake. Smiling cruelly at the boy's futile struggles, due to the size of the spear and the inversely corresponding delicate size of the goal, Mennask stroked the prince's sweating body and occasionally tickled the boy's genitalia which were swinging with the wild motions of his twisting and humping body.

Despairing, the Thorad cried, 'Help me, my love!'

Mennask did nothing other than lick his lips with nonchalance. 'You will obey me, will you not, my lord?'

The boy threw his arms around his lover's neck and screamed in frustration. 'Yes, yes. Please, I beg you. Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me! I shall expire this instant if you don't! Oh my love! I can't wait any longer, you have to fuck me now! '

The soldier grinned. 'You will never defy my pleasure, no matter what form it may take?'

'Never, my love. I beg you. Come back inside where you belong and fuck me. My body is home to your manhood and it will only be whole when the master resides in it. Fuck me for it is my only desire in exchange for eternal submission to you, my lord. Oh, I would spend the rest of my life sitting in your lap and feeling you rule my body and soul. Fuck me, I beg you.' He pushed more and more of his needy asshole onto Mennask's glistening pike but remained stuck high above the soldier's lap.

'Pretty words but I am not easily convinced being the cynic that I am in the best of times.' In a very relaxed manner, Mennask grasped the boy's wasted cock and swung it like a pendulum, his casualness glaring in contrast with the boy's growing agitation. 'Here is the first test for you, my lord. It is my pleasure to let my friend over there take my place between your thighs. What say you?'

Surprised, the prince bit his lip and glanced over at me with much disapproval and even disgust before turning back to Mennask and sighing, 'Whatever you say, my love. Be it a hundred enemies who wish to ravage me, I will not resist them as long as it is your will that I do not.'

I did not bother pointing out that not too long ago, Mennask was the enemy as well because the Uican was already nodding briskly and standing up, unfastened the young beauty from his own cock head with a wet plop before carrying the boy over like a child, with his legs wrapped around the soldier's sturdy waist. He kissed the royal lovingly and then handed the prince back to me.

'My friend, I have not forgotten you. You have earned your reward and I give him to you for use as he is now mine to give. Bestow upon him all the pleasures you're capable of because his smiles now make me the happiest man in the world.'

I noticed that even as Mennask relinquished his charge to me, he wrapped a fist possessively around the prince's quiescent penis making the boy smile sleepily. Looking on this scene, I suddenly knew that the Uican had the young royal wrapped around his little finger, the boy was like a docile pet that lived for scraps of the soldier's love, begging for small caresses and hungering for his master's every little gesture of affection. Mennask arranged his cast off clothing on the rock stool and taking the prince from me, put him down before making him kneel in front of the rock. He made the boy, who was still pouting a little, place his elbows on the rock and then Mennask lifted the young Thorad's hips and spread his smooth round buttocks before gently pulling his thighs apart for the ease of my penetration. I looked at the prince's gleaming butt cheeks and the red yearning anus and felt my lust come galloping back like wild horses. But I hesitated because the boy might have had enough for one night. Smiling, Mennask took me aside patted me on the back.

'The boy was born for this, my friend. His body was made to be fucked. You were holding him and we both saw how much he could take. Did you not see how often he reached the point of no return? You and I would be lucky to get there three times a night. How many times did he attain climax?'

'Seventeen times. One for every winter he has lived. It was unbelievable. Magnificent. Perhaps it's a Thorad ability.'

Mennask laughed heartily. 'Don't you wish you were a Thorad then? Every time he had an orgasm, his insides squeezed my cock like a vice. A lesser man would have ejaculated too soon and missed the wonders of this boy's repeated sexual rite. Go on and enjoy him, my friend. Savor the first blood of the Uican victory over the Thorad. Take the boy as your first surrendered enemy.'

Urged this way, I dithered no more and hurrying back, knelt behind the boy, grasped his hips and entered him using all the force my lust had built in me. Oooooohhhhhhhh, it was everything Mennask said it would be and more. The boy's gridiron tight anus and rectum were like the narrowest gritty wormhole that was lined with a thick coat of superheated moss. The moist muscled walls gripped and chafed on every minuscule bit of my fat propelling cock, every nerve in my rod received a personal masseur that lovingly but assertively rubbed and pressed at my sensitive erection inside that luscious passageway, swiftly stoking every spark point until the fires of pleasure raged as a wild and uncontainable inferno. The boy was the finest thing that I had ever inserted my prick into, an unbelievable quicksand of reality surpassing sex that I felt myself drowning willingly in. Others may scoff but I would stake my life on what I now understood - even the boy's indescribable physical splendor paled in comparison to what could be found between his legs. The only thing in the world more beautiful than the boy's unrivaled countenance rested inside of the royal body itself. I could foresee horrific wars being fought so that the triumphant kings could spend just one night with this boy spreadeagled underneath them. On my every hundredth pummel or so, his rectum would spasm and strangle my prick with a satin chokehold so tight that it left me crying out with helpless gratification even though I was already breathless with amazement. Mennask bent over my back and poured down words of encouragement which I did not need.

'Yes, harder, my friend. Faster, much faster. Yes, that's it. Harder, as hard as you can go. He likes it that way.'

Heaving, I increased my speed and force until everything became a blur and I fucked the boy so savagely that my own sanity began fleeing me. As I slammed into him, I used my hands to pull at his hips so that every forward thrust was reinforced and magnified by a coordinated backward wrench that drove me deeper and deeper into the pleasure chamber. Soon, even that wasn't enough and leaning forward till my chest was glued to his back, I reached both arms around his waist and wrapped my biceps across his heated midriff. Locking him in this unbreakable bear hug I began to voraciously hoard all of the boy's superb treasures with sweeping arms and rapidly ramming obese cock. On my knees and having the prince pinned under me, with gravity and my powerful hips as willing assistants, I tore into the boy with a violent appetite I have never before known. The boy's each responsive grunt acted as a pace setter for my coming shove, a bravo to bring on the encore of my following plunge. I lost track of time, there was only one way to tell that time was moving on and that was by the boy's spasms which were increasing gradually and had begun tugging at my elated cock much more frequently and urgently than before. In my ardor, I bit his tender sloping shoulders and clasping opposing wrists with fists, hauled the boy into my pelvis so that he and I would be joined as one by the molten heat of my coursing sex inside his volcanic aperture. The young one's limbs left the ground and his joggling body was held up only by the squeeze and my ravenous buttress which was gobbling up everything in its path deep inside his delicious tunnel. I was fast approaching my own climax, my pleasure fountain was waiting to explode with enough power to tear my heart out of my chest and soon I would be stampeding to heaven transported by this angel beneath me. Mennask was speaking again but I hardly heard what he said.

'Did you know that the Thorads are an older race than the Uican, my friend? Did you know that when the Thorads were composing poems, the Uicans were only learning how to speak corrigibly? Did you know that the Uicans can never hope to achieve the beauty and culture of the Thorads? Not in a thousand years and we can't wait that long, can we? My friend, did you know that once lured into the tunnels, the entire Uican army could be poisoned with the fatal perfume made from crushing the cones of the Striped Pine? They would be paralyzed at once and then die a slow agonizing death, their bodies would then fall off the ledges into the abyss, did you know that? Did you know that that would be an even more effective way of freeing Thoriand than trying to kidnap the Crown Prince? Think about it, think how good it would be for peoples everywhere if the confrontational Uicans are wiped out in one fell swoop. Think of the peace to be had everywhere. Think of how people like the Thorads would thrive. Do you know how long I have wanted to reclaim my Thorad roots? I am a Thoriand nobleman by birth but an Uican peasant by the same. Different balances on two sides of the same equation. Which one would you choose, my friend? When the boy is king in the near future, I shall be right behind him, sharing his bed at night and his throne by day and together, he and I will rule this magical domain. With Uica weakened thus, I shall teach the Thorads how to fight and in no time at all, Thoriand will have military might as well as the sophistication to rule skillfully. The other nations will have become complacent in the absence of barbaric Uica and ultimately, there will be nothing in my way, nothing at all, when I become the conqueror.'

I couldn't understand what he was saying but it hardly seemed important when I was about to have the biggest orgasm of my life. I felt the familiar heat and the tightness rising in my groin, except this time they felt like a white squall compared to my usual drizzle, and I pounded even faster in my hurry to be ensnared in the storm. I was coming, I was coming, the climax whirled ominously just ahead. I reared up and my back arched to prepare for the climatic detonation while behind me, Mennask chuckled.

'Stupid and simple to the end. Uican to the very last. But at least, my friend, you will die happy.'

My orgasm burst out of me into the boy like an apocalyptic waterspout sucking all the oceans of the world up into the heavens and I screamed. And screamed because another sensation had jumped in with the mind splitting pleasure. It was pain. Unbelievable pain from my side where, when I had the presence of mind to look down, I saw Mennask dragging his embedded dagger from my side to the middle of my stomach. The pain and the pleasure mingled into a concoction of the purest light, I smelt blood and semen in the air, I tasted a strange metallic saltiness on my tongue, I heard the panting from my own labors, I saw the light implode inside my head and then I saw no more.