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CHAPTER TWO - OUBLIETTE OF BLOOD
When Nkem awoke, he was still naked, but this time tied upright to a great stone. His arms were pulled back and up, and he could tell he was bound to the irregular black rock by numerous leather cords that bound not only his arms but also crisscrossed his deep chest at random. His legs were free, but he was bound low, so that he was forced to kneel.
His long, soft, uncut cock swung between his legs. He shook his head, and long ropes of hair fell past his eyes. He was clean; his skin was smooth and fresh, his hair cleaned, and he smelled faintly of dava-root, that numbed pain and was often used on cuts. His muscled torso was scratched and marked by lizardman claws, but none of the wounds were deep enough to be stitched, and none bled. He could rarely see the bite on his shoulder, still livid around the puncture wounds from the poisoned fangs but otherwise looking almost healed.
The area was dark and cool, and he could feel the faintest whisper of air moving on his heated skin. Light came from a crumbled hole far above his head; otherwise, the area surrounding his place of captivity was dark, with hints of fallen cyclopean blocks and statues. Another part of the ruins, it seemed. In the distance he could hear water dripping. A pool lay nearby, shaped from the stone, and a trickle of water ran into it from a pipe hammered into the walls.
The entire place stank of lizardman.
He struggled, testing the cords, and as he knew it would, the pleasure of being so bound caused his manhood to rise. He grunted as he fought the cords, then had to rest. His erect cock gleamed with a trickle of precum, and he felt an intense urge to feel one of the monster's slick and agile tongues stroke his length or his hole.
The barbarian youth controlled himself and soon his cock was soft again, it's hood back in place, the silky skin drooping low past his large glans.
"Few come through their attention so unscathed," said a voice, and Nkem's head snapped up. He hadn't heard anyone approach. There were not many who could catch him unawares.
A man, a human, stepped from the shadows. He was slender and clothed in a blue-and-white-striped toga that fell to his ankles; Nkem curled his lip at the sight. Only indolent Imperial idiots dressed like that. Though not a massive slug like so many of them, this man had obviously never done actual work in his life; his hands almost shone with their smoothness, and his long fine fingers were unbent by labor.
His large eyes were such a pale grey they were almost colorless. Nkem started when the man spoke again because he could then see that the man bore a pair of short snake-like fangs behind his lips!
"But then, they seldom have so handsome a youth to play with," the man said as he walked forward and knelt beside Nkem. He produced a small jug of water and Nkem strained against his bonds when he saw that. It awoke a raging thirst in him.
The stranger held the jug to his lips and Nkem drank in slow measured swallows; he didn't want to throw it all up after gorging himself. The water was sweet and tooth-achingly cold, and it seemed to flow down to fill every crevice of his body. He drank until the stranger pulled the jug away.
"Too much at once and you'll be sick," the man said. He put the jug aside, then took a cloth and blotted water from Nkem's mouth, then dried where drops had splashed on his broad chest.
Nkem grunted softly when the strangers fingers wandered, to tease and then stroke one of his dark nipples until it rose up as a hard little nub. He hissed in pleasure as the stranger played with it and felt himself getting hard again.
"Magnificent," he heard the stranger sigh as the hand dropped to stroke up and down the veined length of his cock.
"I'm surprised they let you keep your manhood; they normally castrate prisoners. They savor human testicles above all other foods, it seems. Who can tell with them?" The stranger said, as his fingers left off their explorations of Nkem's shaft to slide gently over his foreskin and draw it back, revealing his large glans. Silk-soft strokes on his cock-crown rewarded the man with a large pearl of precum that he rolled between his fingers.
"Who are you?" Nkem said as he tried to control himself.
"Xol-Tah," the man said. "Scholar and sorcerer, late of High Atlan. Now, sadly, a prisoner much as yourself, young man."
"I am Nkem, of the Kir," Nkem said. The man had freely given his name, so how could he do less?
Xol-Tah reached up and stroked Nkem's cheek with two long ivory fingers, savoring the rough stubble he felt there. This youth fascinated and aroused him, a rugged and helpless young barbarian, and so well endowed! He imagined that ebon shaft penetrating him to the point that he shivered. There were several uses he could imagine for the bull-shouldered young man, but first... he had to escape this infernal pit!
"I am surprised. The Kir seldom leave their mountains," Xol-Tah said.
The youth's look turned sullen and defiant. "I am outcast, a jackal," he said after a pause.
Xol-Tah let his fingers drift over the youth's lips, then pushed back his hair from his eyes. "Let me untie you, at least," he said.
"You can do this? These cords are--"
"Ia! N'kraath!" Xol-Tah crooned, and the cords slithered away like frightened snakes, their water-tightened knots dissolving.
Nkem rubbed his wrists as he stared at the man. The words... the forbidden language of ancient Atlan. At least now he knew what flavor of sorcerer he dealt with.
He should strangle the man now, but instead he gave a slight nod. "My thanks," he said. He had no sword and the temple was still full of lizardmen. Sorcery might be the only way to win free at this point. But no. If that were true, Xol-Tah would have left long ago.
Nkem stood up, relishing his freedom. Xol-Tah was a liar, but that went without saying for an Atlan. His clothes were too clean and neat, his unmarked countenance too fresh. He was no prisoner, here. Or at least, not a normal one, no.
He pushed back his long hair and as he did so he managed to brush his fingertips across his neck on either side. He found what he thought he'd find; the suggestion of two tiny wounds close together on both sides of his throat, right over the pulsing blood-rivers that ran there. They were seemingly long healed. Something you probably would not even see but could find only by touch.
"How long have you been trapped here?" Nkem said as he walked around the irregular stone he'd been bound to, running his hand over its smooth, cool surface.
"Months, it seems," Xol-Tah said in an exasperated tone. "I came with a group of others from Chotis, scholars and teachers who wanted to study the ancient ruins. The lizardmen were upon us before we knew what happened. I fear I am the sole survivor. For now, I think they fear my magic – as well they should – but I am uncertain how long that situation will last."
Nkem heard 'I came with a group of tomb robbers to plunder what we thought was an empty ruin, and I sold them out to save my own skin when the lizardmen attacked'. What did he offer the lizardmen after they gorged themselves on the rest of his crew, I wonder?
"The room we're in is a part of the old dungeons, I think; this would have been a sacrifice area or torture chamber, perhaps. Or maybe a prayer hall? After all this time, who can tell? There is just one way in; that stairway. At the top the lizardmen have fitted an iron gate that is quite impenetrable, even to my infernal magics.
Nkem paced and listened, until he came to the stairway. He went up the short flight and put his hands on the iron gate. Beyond was a guard room where four of the lesser green-scales drank and ate. They hissed when they caught sight of him but made no move to grab their weapons or even threaten him.
Nkem gripped the iron gate and looked at the lizardmen in their beady black expressionless eyes. He smiled.
"I'm going to kill each of you," he said simply. If they understood him, they gave no indication.
He tested his strength against the door, and the iron-hard muscles of his arms and chest stood out in sharp relief. The lizardmen did tense, then, standing and grabbing their spears. They watched him strain, though, and then began to laugh, or what he assumed was laughter: a kind of hissing cough-growl. They put aside their spears as he let go and stepped back from the bars.
He walked back down the stairs and Xol-Tah handed him the water jug.
"So why have you not escaped?" Nkem said between long pulls from the jug.
Xol-Tah shrugged and gestured to the room. "Aside from parlor tricks like untying the ropes, my sorcerous powers lie in a different direction. No war-spells from me, unfortunately. I might blind or hobble one or two, but then..." He shrugged again.
Nkem rolled his broad shoulders. "For you, it seems like this would be an easy prison to leave, vampire,' he said casually.
Xol-Tah went still, and Nkem watched him closely. Nothing really seemed to change except a certain... liveliness... left him, then. He became too still.
"You're a clever young man," Xol-Tah said.
"Observant," Nkem said. "And I could feel from where you'd fed from me when I slept. That's why you look so... fresh."
Xol-Toh smiled again, this time with the fangs. "It was necessary; I took as little as I could, in the hopes you might help me escape. Yes, I might could tear down the gate but I am weak. Lizardmen blood holds no nourishment for me and my, ah, comrades are dead, the strength they might have donated spilled on the altar of Sathas. Unknowingly, they are starving me to death."
"And even if I could win free of this prison and sneak my way past half a hundred lizardmen with senses keener than a man's? It is a four day walk to the nearest village with no caves or crevasses to offer shelter from the suns," Xon-Tah said as he walked slowly towards Nkem.
Suddenly his own eyes turned red as he met Nkem's amber gaze, met, caught, held the youth as if in a vice. Nkem could not look away. So easy, he thought.
"Now, my young jackal... you belong to me," Xon-Tah whispered. "You want to submit yourself. You hunger for my kiss."
Nkem's breathing slowed and he bowed his head, feeling weakened but also relaxed. Xon-Tah stood before him and unwound his toga, gradually revealing his trim, ivory-pale body. The vampire's skin almost glowed in the faint light, smooth and clean as the finest porcelain. He was well if delicately made, trim and sleek like a cat, each muscle flowing into the others. His cut phallus hung limp, tucked against his testicles, the pink glans the only spot of color on his whole body.
Save for those eyes. Red as the finest wine. Nkem wanted to fall into them.
As the sorcerer spoke, Nkem felt a languor steal over his strong frame, calming him, relaxing him. The man's words seemed so reasonable, so reassuring. Xon-Tah stepped closer, closer, then put hands on Nkem's broad chest.
"Such a beautiful youth you are," the vampire sighed, running his hands over the hard-muscled young torso in front of him. The Kir's golden eyes were heavy and wide, unfocused and watery. Xon-Tah whispered more platitudes, entrancing the youth as he walked around him. He had run out of his former comrades weeks ago and this ebon barbarian was the first human to stumble into this place since. It was so hard not to tear open his throat and wallow in the fountain of blood from it.