Fearing he might be caught, Hiram crawled away, back to the corridor he knew would lead him to the dungeon. He scrambled through the darkness, entered the rows of cells, and rushed back to his own. He glanced across the passage at the place he’d last seen the maiden. Glittery eyes stared back at him, a hint of reddish-brown limning them.
“I couldn’t find it,” he said, sounding apologetic. “I’ll look again tomorrow night. I promise.”
The eyes blinked.
“I won’t leave without you.”
Hay shushed and scratched in the opposite cell. The dark eyes vanished. Moments later, the maiden came forth, her fair skin glowing a faint blue in the sliver of dawn shining down from a high window. “Kiss me,” she whispered. “To seal your vow.”
Hiram swallowed his words and strode across the steps parting them. He wished he could truly kiss her through the bars, but even this small touch swelled his chest. He placed his hands at either side of her face, leaned in and pressed his lips to the prison parting them.
Her lips met his, warm, wet and tempting. The two lingered there, apart and together, Hiram overwhelmed by the tiny contact.
She moved back and regarded him. Her dark eyes sparkled with light, but he decided it must have been from the sunlight above. “What is your name, my savior?”
“Hiram Oversher from Pig’s End.”
Her full lips twitched with unspoken mirth. “Pig’s End. You’ve been a naughty one. You crossed the rift.”
He nodded. “I went through the portal too.”
“Will you go back?”
His eyebrows knitted together. “I don’t want to go back.”
She placed a hand on the bars, flat against where his palm rested. The maiden sucked in her lower lip while she regarded him. Letting it loose in a teasing way, she spoke once more. “I am called Secret.”
“Secret?” He breathed in her scent, a musky, feminine perfume he longed to taste. “That’s your name?”
“It is the name Beorolf gave me when he captured me and my kind.”
Metallic clunks thumped out in the hall, interrupting them.
“I want you,” Secret murmured before she backed into the shadows. “Beorolf comes to us now.”
Hiram returned to his cell where he fumbled with the golem-finger key. Beorolf’s voice echoed in angered shouts as he approached.
The finger slid in.
The lock clinked and turned.
Hiram forced the key out and tossed it into the hay behind him, afraid he might be searched.
The rustling in the other cells increased in one organized sound, which reminded him of when he’d gotten too close to Olath Nilgim’s bee skeps.
Lord Beorolf burst in. “Silence!” he barked.
The dungeon stilled.
The half man, half golem tyrant marched along, his lighted eye examining all that he passed. “Ah, you are awake.” He crossed his mismatched arms over his chest, glaring in at Hiram. “I like my specimens to rise with the dawn. You may well make an apprentice to me one day.”
Hiram opened his mouth to speak, but Secret’s voice drifted into his thoughts. Be quiet.
He nodded.
Beorolf’s one good eye widened. “Have you learned humility already?”
He nodded once more.
The lord grinned halfway. “Good.” He puffed out his chest and raised his arms. “All of you would do well to learn from this one’s example.” He turned and faced Secret’s cell. “Especially you.”
For a long while the lord watched her prison. Nothing moved within. No sounds, no glittering eyes, no lovely maiden appeared.
Hiram looked around the lord’s shape, hoping to catch sight of her, but he couldn’t see Secret. The darkness in the dungeon struck him as unnatural. Maybe she’s a sorceress, he thought.
A stray voice confirmed his guess. Maybe I am at that.
Beorolf chuckled to himself. “After I break my fast, boy, I will send a golem for you. You must bathe and come to me in the clothes I provide. You must not speak.” He held one finger up to demonstrate his meaning. “Or I will have you thrown back in here and here you will stay with these other things until I forget you…as I have forgotten them.”
Hiram bowed his head until his chin touched his chest.
Good. He will believe you. He is easily fooled.
Secret, he thought, how far from you can I be and still hear your voice in my mind?
My powers extend throughout Beorolf’s hold. When I leave this place with you at my side, the keep will crumble.
The lord snorted and left Hiram’s cell. As he crossed the long corridor, he tapped his metal fingers over the bars to taunt whatever manner of prisoners resided within. The door closed in a resounding slam.
“You must help me,” he called across the passage. “Make sure I don’t mess up and end up back in here.”
The shadows receded. The beauty stepped forth, her lips curled with a mischievous smile. “I will do all in my power to bring Beorolf misery.”
Hiram wanted to ask her more questions, to open the cell’s lock and try to kiss her through the cold, unyielding metal again, but a golem soon opened the door and clomp-clomped it’s way inside to retrieve him.
Remember to stay silent, she advised.
The gate creaked open. Silver hands cinched over his shoulders, forcing him out. He tried to keep pace with the metal monster, but it walked fast, its red eyes flickering and a faint buzz in its innards.
When Hiram reached the outside hall, he tried to look back at the maiden. A glow of faint blue light hovered in midair before her cell and then poofed into memory. His skin broke out in goose bumps.
I will dream of you while you’re gone, my savior. Do you want me to share my dreams with you?
Yes, he answered.
A feeling of calm settled over him. As the golem ushered him away, Hiram was gifted images of a forest thick with vines, and the illusion of loam crushing beneath his feet. His heart picked up its pace. His lungs drew in the tasteless air in the hold, anticipating the lush scents of the wilds.
I dream of my old home, Secret told him. I dream of mating with you there in the bushes among the ferns.
An image of her pressed into his mind. She reclined on the leaf-laden earth, naked, her nipples firm, her curves inviting. He saw himself approaching, parting her legs and kissing his way up her thigh. The perfume of her arousal called to him. He couldn’t catch his breath.
Just then, the golem pushed him into a bath of ice cold water.
Chapter Three
The Forest in Her Dreams
Hiram let out a scream of surprise. Water soaked through his clothes, and felt like it went through his skin as well. He trembled and sputtered as he found his footing and stood. It wasn’t a small tub like the one back home, but a large trough-like cylinder, forged of the same metal as the keep. The golem stood nearby, spying at him with its emotionless eyes.
“You could have warmed it a bit,” Hiram grumbled.
In the back of his mind, he felt Secret’s amusement.
A thick bar of yellowy soap sat beside the cylinder’s edge. He scrubbed himself clean, lathered up a fair amount in his hands, and washed out his curly, black hair. It needed a trim or a strap to hold it in place, but he doubted the golem or the lord would oblige him for either.
His body washed and awake—more awake than he would have liked, he climbed out and took the drying cloth the mechanical monster offered him. Great way to ruin a good fantasy, he thought as the golem offered him a pair of soft spun trousers and a lace up tunic. He dressed and thought of Secret in her cell, wishing he could go back to her now.
“Can you speak?” he asked the golem.
It shook its silver head, no.
Hiram sighed and combed fingers through his hair.
The golem didn’t wait long before taking his wrist to lead him elsewhere. They climbed levels of stairs, passed countless passages until they came to an iron door. The same wolf emblem decorated
the entrance in gold and copper leaf.
The golem opened the door and stood aside for Hiram to enter. Lord Beorolf leaned over a massive cedar worktable, hammer in one hand and a pair of wire tongs in the other. He pounded away at a sheet of silvery metal in a unified rhythm. He wore the same clothes as Hiram did now. His one eye was set to the task, but Hiram couldn’t help but think that the lighted eye was watching him approach.
Say nothing, Secret warned. He will test you.
Clang, clang, tink. Clang, clang, tink.
“Ah my ambitious servant has arrived.” The hammer stopped. Beorolf rested it on its side.
For a fleeting moment, Hiram wondered if he could be quick enough to snatch up the hammer and beat the lord’s head in. He had never considered murder before now. The idea felt unnaturally planted in his mind.
I can’t do such a thing, Secret, he thought.
If you free me, I will.
He shuddered and tried not to think about her grim wishes.
“Come closer, boy. I have work for you this day. If you do well, I will let you do more tomorrow. If you do poorly, you will find yourself in the dungeon.”
Hiram nodded.
Beorolf pointed to the sheet of shaped metal. “I make my golems to serve me. They have the potential to live forever.” He waved a hand in the direction of the east wall where a line of seven unfinished golems stood. “They do not speak unless I program them to. They do not complain. They work as I bid them. So, as you can imagine, I have no need for the likes of you.”
He wanted to ask the lord if he got lonely and where the other people could be. But, as he glanced over the unfinished projects, he understood. Beorolf must like his solitude. He had imprisoned Secret away. Hiram knew if he were a lord, he would never lock away a woman so beautiful in a dungeon. Women were made for better things than that.
Beorolf taught him to form the chest plates for his army of golem servants. All day, he toiled over the metal, shaping it to the right proportions against a wood mold. He ate a small loaf of bread and drank a flask of weak wine, hurrying as Beorolf eyed him the entire time. The lord did not eat or seem to tire. Unlike Hiram, Beorolf’s forehead—at least the part that was human—did not bead with sweat. He toiled in solemn silence, never slowing, ever persistent in his work.
Exhausted and no closer to finding number eleven’s eye, Hiram found himself dragged back to the dungeon for some well deserved rest. Secret had remained quiet in his mind most of the day save for reminding him to hold his tongue and remember his place. He didn’t see her or the shiny black eyes that sometimes stared up at him from her cell.
As soon as the golem that escorted him in took its leave, Hiram curled up in the hay and closed his eyes.
The forest enveloped him in his dream. He walked, nude and aroused through the ferns and undergrowth, seeking out his prize. Far ahead, he saw Secret running from him, her dark hair shining blue-black in the pregnant moon’s light. He knew he ought to be frightened to be out in the wilds so late.
Mist curled and twisted around his ankles. He glanced down at it, past his thick erection. The mist was not a fog as he was used to seeing, but something like the portals, a swirling, colorful sort of magic surging with energy. He bent to touch it with his fingers.
His body filled with the need for release.
“Secret!” he shouted, and started forth at a run. He saw his target pause and look over her shoulder at him with those mysterious eyes of hers. He raced faster, chasing his prize.
She slowed and allowed him to catch up and keep pace. Together they sprinted up a hill toward its crest, two wild things in a timeless dance of chase and catch. At the hill’s top, they stopped, both out of breath and panting.
“Is this real?” Hiram asked. “Are you real?”
She giggled and stepped close to him. Her arms curled around his waist, pulling his hardness to her abdomen. She swayed, seductive with her ripe breasts crushing into his chest.
His heart beat faster. He knotted his fingers at the back of her head to draw her in. Lips met and parted. Tongues dipped inside to taste. Skin ran along warm skin until their hearts beat as one and they breathed in time.
Secret’s voice hummed in the back of her throat with delight.
Hiram knelt a little so he could let his cock slip against her folds. She parted her legs and allowed his hardness to graze over her body, slicking him with her arousal. He felt like he might burst with release before they could start.
They kissed harder with growing urgency. Her hands explored his lower back and made their way to his backside to squeeze and fondle, urging him to press her for more. He bucked, soft in his aggression at first, until she stepped away to a birch tree. There she straightened her back against the trunk and smiled at him.
“Take me here, my savior. I want to feel you inside me.”
Hiram couldn’t find his voice. He didn’t need words to obey. Their bodies met and ground together. Her small hand pushed between to grasp his thickness, guiding him to her sex. The head of his cock breeched her entry, and he found it tight and unforgiving.
“Please,” she pleaded. Both of her hands settled over his backside again. “I want you.”
“Yes,” he breathed the word. “Yes…”
Planting his hands on the tree at either side of her head he thrust his hips and entered her full force. She gasped and pinched her eyes closed.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked.
Secret caught her breath. She whimpered in a meek way, but clung to him. Her fingers clenched until her nails bit into his skin, causing him to push forth. “Mmm,” she moaned and opened her eyes to stare into his.
He felt trapped there in a delicious way, in a snare he never wanted to escape from, no matter the consequences.
Without speaking, she urged him to continue. Her hips circled in measured motions, easing him out and back in, deep up inside her moist, tight body. His balls twinged to warn him he neared his end already.
She kissed him, her tongue invasive, her breasts so tight against his chest he couldn’t draw in a proper breath. The tickle in his cock exploded inside her in bursts. He groaned and quivered, his whole body a tense mesh of muscles.
She held him there, her kisses softening, her fingers not as harsh in their hold.
Wake up, my savior, Secret whispered in his mind, and he opened his eyes to find the dream ended and the darkness complete in the dungeon. He let go his tight hold on his emptied cock and hurriedly pulled up his breeches.
Hiram sat up. Across from him, Secret stood in her cell, one of her hands over her womanhood. She wore a half-smile, and her eyes glittered.
“Did you like that dream?” she asked.
He swallowed. “Yes. How do you do that?”
Her hand moved up and down, fingers combing through the curls of her mound. “I think of you, imagine how I want to be with you…and I touch my body.”
“Oh.” He couldn’t think of anything more to say. It flattered him in an odd way. No woman back home would ever be so forthright. Not that any had the ability to send him dreams at all.
“Will you find the eye tonight?” she asked.
Hiram nodded. He ran his hands through the hay to find the golem finger and free himself. In a rush, he met Secret at the gate of her cell and kissed her without asking. She kissed back, as much as she could through the tight bars.
He pushed two fingers through the opening and touched the back of her hand, still wedged between her legs. “Can I watch you do that next time?”
Her eyes narrowed with wickedness. “Only if I can watch you, too.” Her free hand pushed at the bars until three of her fingers slipped through to graze the bulge in his pants.
He wondered if he could fit his cock through enough to pleasure her, and felt a fool for thinking such a thought. “Do you know where number eleven is?” he asked, hoping he wouldn’t have to wander through the keep much this night.
“Beorolf keeps all his most precious things locked away.
” Her index finger circled his still aroused hardness. “He keeps his secrets well.”
“You don’t know then?”
“Not a clue.”
He wanted to play these teasing games longer, but more than that, he wanted to release her from her prison and find the place in the woods he saw in her dreams. “I’ll be back for you,” he promised. “I’ll find it this time.”
She nodded. Her fingers withdrew. Secret stepped away, swallowed by the dark shadows in the rear of her cage.
Hiram squinted, but could no longer make out her shape. Determined, he left the dungeon to creep about and hunt down a golem eye.
Chapter Four
The Eye
He searched Beorolf’s workshop, behind storage doors, in the back of cluttered piles of scrap metal and even the shelves where the lord kept his molds. Exhausted and no closer to his goal than when he’d started, Hiram sunk to his knees to rest. He ran his fingers through his hair. Sighing, he noticed a glimmer of copper beneath the scrap pile.
That’s it, Secret told him, or what’s left of it. A twirl of melancholy mingled with her mind voice. He never meant to free me.
Hiram crawled forth on all fours to examine the piece. As carefully as he could, he tugged it free. Sure enough, it was the head of a dismantled golem, the eyes missing, the face charred on one side.
What do I do now? he asked.
Secret’s thoughts remained silent for a time. As she contemplated her answer, Hiram poked his fingers into the empty eye sockets. He wondered if golems had brains inside and how they moved. This whole keep and the man who ran it boggled him.
He set the head back in its former place. Secret?
You must free the others and leave me behind.
He couldn’t do that. Hiram stood and went to the shelf where Beorolf kept the golem eyes awaiting a shell to inhabit. Can’t we try another of these?
A wave of joy passed through him. Yes, of course. Find one the size of a fist and make sure it has the number eleven on the backside or it won’t work.
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