by Brandon Fox
The old man scowled fiercely. “I’m the steward. Name’s Ivan. You’re the boys from Lady Tayanita’s place?”
Nicolai nodded. “Yes, sir. She said we could find work here for a couple of weeks while your staff is sick. We have an ailment ourselves and need some time off from Lady Tay’s house.”
“I don’t want to hear about it. And don’t you be yammering about whoring while you’re in this house. The commander’s got problems enough without having to explain you to his wife.”
“Lady Tayanita told us to be discreet,” Thane assured him. “We won’t be any trouble.”
Ivan reached into a pocket and produced a large key. He unlocked the door and allowed them into the courtyard, then carefully secured the door again.
“You’re sturdy boys,” he observed, looking them over. “More than I expected, considering your line of work. You’ll do fine for heavy labor.”
Thane gave him a roguish look. “You’ve never seen us at work. It can be very demanding.”
Ivan snorted. “You’ll have more demands than you can deal with if you don’t watch yourself. You’d do well not to let the men in the garrison think your services are available.” He led them to a woodpile at the rear of the house, then showed them where the axes were stored. “Come to the kitchen at noon,” he said. “Cook will ring a bell to let you know. You’ll eat with the other servants. And don’t be lax with your chopping.”
They set to work splitting logs into firewood. The labor was strenuous, but at least it kept them warm. Soon both were sweating heavily. They took off their shirts and continued working, sun glistening on their torsos. Nicolai wielded his ax with ease, swinging the tool with relentless strokes and never seeming to tire. Small bits of wood flecked his hair, and the healthy smell of his sweat mingled with the fragrance of freshly cut wood. Thane kept pace, his young body responding strongly to the challenge.
By late morning they had chopped a formidable pile and had attracted a small audience. Four soldiers assigned as guards to the commander’s household had come around to the courtyard to watch the new servants at work. They lounged against a wall where they were concealed from the house. Their muttering and laughing got louder as the sun climbed higher in the sky.
One of them began to rub his crotch as he watched. “Ain’t they ever going to take a break?” he asked one of his companions. “They’re working too damn hard.” He waved at Thane. “Hey, brown fox. Come over here and rest. I’ll give you something to put your head on.” He rubbed his crotch again, leering as Thane glanced in his direction. Thane turned back to his work, keeping his eyes turned down, and swung his ax furiously. Wood chips flew. The soldiers laughed raucously.
“I like the blond one,” another soldier said. “I had a girl from the north once, but she weren’t half as pretty. Those blue eyes look cold, but northerners are hot enough once you get inside.”
“I still favor the brown fox,” the first soldier replied loudly. “I can tell he wants it too.”
Thane’s knuckles were white, his jaw clenched.
Nicolai moved closer, turning his back on the soldiers. “Ignore them,” he whispered. “We’re not likely to win a fight. And we’d lose our chance to learn what’s happening here.”
Thane’s eyes narrowed to slits. After a few seconds, he took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly and glanced at the soldiers. They whistled and hooted, but he turned away. “I’d like to kill them. For what their kind did to Lucian and so many others.” He took another deep breath and wiped sweat off his forehead. “Don’t let me lose my temper. You’re right—we can’t afford it.”
The soldiers jeered and tried to coax him to turn around, but Thane ignored them, and they finally tired of the game.
AFTER lunch, Ivan gave them respite from splitting wood and put them to work in the stables. Cleaning stalls all afternoon left them starving and exhausted. They had to wash in a horse trough, in nearly frozen water, before Ivan would let them into the kitchen for dinner.
“You’ll sleep in the attic,” Ivan said as he served them bowls of vegetable stew and scraps of hard bread. The rest of the servants watched from the other end of the huge kitchen, their eyes wide and their heads bent together in whispered gossip. Ivan glared at them, then turned back to Thane and Nicolai.
“Remember, you’re to mind your own business. I don’t want you spreading crotch itch around this house, or doing anything else that might embarrass the commander.” The demand for silence regarding Lady Tayanita’s House of Companionship was clearly understood. Nicolai and Thane nodded mutely. Ivan brought them mugs of cider, then stalked off. His hostility only made the household staff more curious.
“The attic,” Thane said, picking up his spoon. “The other servants probably have quarters in the basement. Is he really afraid of rumors about us, or is there more?”
“Like what?” Nicolai asked between bites. He was concentrating on his food like a famished wolf.
“Maybe he’s afraid of us hearing rumors.” Thane took a bite of stew, then blinked in surprise at the surge of hunger that swept through him. He joined Nicolai in devouring the simple but well-prepared meal. No sooner had they put down their mugs than Ivan returned to their table carrying two threadbare blankets.
“They’re not much,” he said, handing them the blankets. “I’ll burn them when you leave. Don’t want your damned diseases around the house. You’ll have everything you need in the attic. This way.”
They followed him up a flight of servant’s stairs, narrow and steep. Doors at each landing were shut; the only light came from a candle the steward carried. The stairs emerged directly into the building’s attic. A faint breeze blew through slit windows at each end, whispering past in dusty zephyrs. One corner was empty save for a thin straw mattress and a chamber pot. The rest of the attic was filled with chests and crates, piles of rusting armor and cracked pottery.
Ivan pointed to the mattress. “You’ll have to share it. I only want to burn one, and you’ll stay warmer sharing a bed anyway.” He looked at them contemptuously. “You’d probably be in the same bed by the time I got back to the kitchen anyway. Whoever heard of whores sleeping alone?”
Thane glared, but Nicolai gave the steward a cool gaze. “Your jealousy is showing, Ivan. But don’t even think about it. You couldn’t afford us.”
Ivan spat, almost hitting Thane’s boots, then went back to the stairs. “You’ll start back to work at dawn.” He slammed the door when he left, and they heard the loud click of a lock being turned before he stomped down the stairs.
Nicolai went to the mattress and inspected it before sitting. Thane joined him, and they sat quietly, tired from their labors, watching the light fade. “Spying isn’t going to be easy,” Thane said at last. “I think Ivan plans to keep us too exhausted to get into trouble.”
Nicolai grunted. “What I don’t understand is what he’s got against companions. Even back home in Norvaal, I never saw anyone get so nasty about it.”
“Maybe it’s just because northerners are so polite. A lot of them don’t like companions but just don’t say so.”
“Perhaps. Sometimes we’re too reticent.”
Thane stretched, arching his back. “That sounds like a hint. I know how your mind works.”
Nicolai’s attempt to feign innocence was unconvincing. “I wouldn’t want to suggest anything. Your body is only nineteen. You need your sleep.”
“Come here, you.” Thane pulled him down on the mattress and rolled on top of him. “I’ll never be too tired to tumble with you. Besides, this is probably the best way to start our quest. Maybe we can use the art to explore.”
“Is that wise? What if we’re discovered?”
“We won’t enter the kei. I’ll just look around the edges, stop at the first sign of danger.”
Nicolai shrugged. “I trust your judgment. And as you say, we can make love even if we can’t use the art.”
Thane gave him a hearty squeeze, then stood and began slipping out o
f his clothes. Nicolai did the same, and in seconds they were nude. They faced each other in the nearly dark room, already hard, and moved into an embrace.
“Stay alert for danger,” Thane said as he cupped the solid muscle of Nicolai’s buttocks. “We’d best keep it simple. Perhaps just kisses and caresses. Would that suit you?”
Nicolai didn’t need words. He put his arms around Thane’s back and pulled them together tightly. They sank to their knees without breaking the embrace. Nicolai eased back until he was sitting and let Thane settle into the space between his legs.
Thane wrapped his legs around the northerner’s waist and pulled their crotches close. Nicolai reached between them and held their cocks together. Their kiss intensified as tongues explored and their bodies shared heat. Nicolai leaned back, looking content. “It’s good to feel you against me. But I know we have a task. What’s your plan?”
“I’ll enter the fringe of the kei,” Thane said, his lips an inch from Nicolai’s. “If I’m in a waking trance, I should be able to sense danger in time to avoid it.”
“You brought echinde leaves? I thought we were going to leave all implements of the art behind.”
“I can enter a trance without the smoke. You and Sorel probably could too. You’re skilled enough. It’s just one of those tricks you have to discover, like keeping your balance while walking along a stretched rope.”
“You can lie on your back, if you’d like. It might make it easier to maintain the trance. I’ll attend to you.”
“No,” Thane answered softly. “I’d rather stay in your arms. Sharing your pleasure is far better than making the journey alone.”
Nicolai squeezed with his heels behind Thane’s buttocks, pulling them more closely together, then put one hand behind Thane’s back to help hold him upright. “I can hold you like this a long time,” he said. “You’ll feel my pleasure, never fear.”
“Let’s begin, then.” Thane closed his eyes and reached between their bodies with his right hand, wrapping his fingers around Nicolai’s phallus.
Thane paused to feel the throb of Nicolai’s pulse in the thick erection. With his eyes closed, the shaft seemed even more hefty than usual. He explored it with leisurely familiarity. He knew it intimately, as he knew his friend’s capacity for pleasure and the movements that made him feel best. Moving his lightly clenched fingers no more than an inch, he worked the foreskin back and forth over the crown of Nicolai’s glans. He was rewarded with a fresh outpouring of slick fluid that coated the glans and trickled down the shaft’s underside.
Nicolai matched his movements stroke for stroke.
They used their long-established rapport to bring each other to the brink of climax and then stop at the precipice, a steady ascent based on control over pleasure that only an adept of the art could fathom. They strained against each other, panting, as flesh screamed for release. The movement of their hands on each other’s slippery cocks slowed to nearly imperceptible movements as they trembled on the brink of orgasm.
As his body’s demands swelled, Thane channeled the torrent of sensation in a new direction. It flowed through him, echoing and rebounding between his aroused body and his mind, amplifying in intensity. He could feel the pleasure throbbing in Nicolai’s phallus, felt it in the slickness that coated his fingers as they ascended the peak together. Even though his eyes were closed, he could sense the red halo surrounding their bodies. As pleasure soared, his mind burst into a different reality, a realm woven integrally throughout his body and extending to infinity.
He let his consciousness drift. He was aware of his body, focused on the stimulation of Nicolai’s stroking hand, and was dimly aware of his friend’s thick phallus in his own grip. But he also seemed to float above the crude mattress. In his mind’s eye, he could see their bodies: two athletic youths, entwined and vibrantly aroused, outlined by a red glow that beat in time with their hearts.
He turned his vision back to the kei’s swirling colors and sensed something stirring. Using the detachment inherent in his trance state, he split his attention between maintaining the bond with Nicolai and extending his awareness toward the disturbance in the kei. His mind expanded, quivering with tension that was driven only in part by his body’s ecstasy. The disturbance took on a more distinct feel, like the slithering of scales over rock. He smelled blood.
Swirling colors coalesced into a shape, a colossal red serpent with the head of an obese man. Bloody fangs stabbed below his lower lip, and his eyes were flat like a snake’s. A large crystal, sparkling brightly, pierced the scales just below the point where the head joined the body. The coiled body rested on an ornately carved ebony chest. Rotting corpses lay around it in twisted and torn heaps. The creature’s head swayed with slow deliberation.
The serpent’s gaze turned in his direction. He froze, blanking his mind, observing without trying to understand what he saw. Unblinking serpentine eyes seemed to peer into his own. But instead of the attack he feared, Thane sensed only a guarded watchfulness. Unbidden, a new image flashed through his mind: a large desk with a locked center drawer. A key protruded from the keyhole, with beams of violet light streaming out around it.
The creature hissed and lifted its fanged head as if to strike. Thane stopped thinking, his consciousness merging with lines of force flowing through the kei’s unseen dimensions, becoming part of the flux. After a few moments, the serpent resumed its regular swaying, its head raised as if sniffing the air for the scent of prey.
Thane waited before allowing thoughts to form. Then he eased away from the apparition. It faded from his awareness like a bad dream. He retreated along his bond with Nicolai, letting awareness of their bodies grow as the kei faded.
The trance broke, and his double vision faded. He found himself nestled between Nicolai’s legs, held tight by the young acrobat. Nicolai was using a finger to gently stroke his glans, moving his fingertip in small circles through a thick coating of lubricant.
Thane’s cock was hard and aching, his balls pulled up tight. Full perception of his body brought a shocking jolt of pleasure, and his focus on controlling it had been lost. He cried out and wrapped his arms around Nicolai as a geyser of semen fountained between their bodies.
Nicolai squeezed their cocks together, using both hands. He grunted softly as his phallus spat ropy streamers to mingle with Thane’s ejaculation. Hot come smeared their chests and ran down smooth skin in long streaks.
As their orgasms subsided, Thane fell against Nicolai and pushed him onto his back. They lay together, chests heaving as they caught their breath.
Nicolai caressed Thane’s back, soothing, his gentle spirit still flowing through their bond. The mage sighed and let his weight press his friend into the mattress. They rested quietly for several minutes while Thane sorted through the confusing welter of images and feelings he’d encountered in the trance. He finally rolled onto his side.
“Did you learn anything?” Nicolai asked. “For a moment you stopped breathing. I feared you might have been snared by whatever’s loose in the kei.”
“Almost. I did find something, and it nearly found me.” He frowned as he thought about the apparition. “I don’t know.” His voice was hesitant. “The mind struggles to make sense of what it encounters in the kei. I don’t understand what I saw, the meaning behind the visions.”
Nicolai brushed his fingers through Thane’s short hair. “Just describe the visions, then. Maybe I can help.”
Thane rolled onto his back and nestled against Nicolai’s side. Slowly at first, then more rapidly as the words began to flow, he described the serpent, the ravaged bodies, the ebony chest, and the perplexing image of a locked desk. The different elements of the vision had to be clues, metaphors his mind had fashioned from some reality encountered in the kei, but he couldn’t see how they were connected.
“The serpent must be a sorcerer guarding the kei,” Thane said. “That much seems obvious.” He shook his head in frustration. “But it didn’t really seem to be looking fo
r me. When its eyes met mine, all I got was an impression of that desk and light coming from the keyhole. Did the vision come from the serpent or from somewhere else?”
“Maybe the sorcerer isn’t searching the kei at all,” Nicolai suggested. “He might be guarding something from the kei.”
Thane paused, then nodded. “Maybe. And that reminds me of something else, a feeling of closeness.” He shivered. “Whatever’s going on, I think we’ve come to the right place. But we’re going to have to get around Ivan somehow. We won’t discover anything if we’re stuck in the courtyard and attic all the time.”
Nicolai rolled onto his side and pulled Thane into a hug so they nestled together front to back. “Don’t worry, you’ll think of something. You always do.”
Despite his friend’s confidence, Thane wasn’t so sure. They were in enemy territory, under the supervision of suspicious eyes, and dared not use any strategy that might implicate Lady Tayanita. Was I foolish to think we could learn anything without using the art? But what else could we have done? He lay awake a long time, listening to the faint city sounds filtering through the attic’s windows and feeling the slow rise and fall of Nicolai’s chest at his back. Finally, his mind still troubled, he fell into exhausted slumber.
Chapter 6
ANDER looked at the swirling crowd of spice vendors on the street beneath his window, but he didn’t hear their haggling voices or notice the fragrant aroma of their wares. The scene had greeted him every morning for years and could not distract him from his real concern. Thane and Nicolai would be at the commander’s house by now, and there was no telling how well Lady Tay’s story would protect them. He rubbed his eyes, wishing fervently that he knew what was happening.
A soft knock on the door made him jump. He blinked and turned from the window. The door swung open, and Leif entered. He had just bathed, and dark-blond hair flowed over his shoulders. He still wore his robe and looked relieved. “I was worried you’d disappear again. I heard about your friends leaving before I got out of the wash house. I’ve never heard companions talk about visitors so much.”