Dragon Sweat: Scroll 5

Hal cleared his throat and spoke: "Uh, sorry, Ymir, you took me by surprise. I'm ready now, though."

The words came bouncing back at his ears from different directions, somehow louder and much distorted in the humid air. Much more disturbingly, tiny red eyes were beginning to appear in the surrounding darkness like embers carried out of a bonfire on a strong wind. Ymir scuttled forward, Hal said a rude word and had to rush forward to keep up with the familiar.

"Slower, slower, or I'll fall over on these rocks."

If the beetle slowed, it wasn't by much. Which wasn't surprising. Ymir was probably still bearing a grudge for being blown out of the sky and into the turd filled moat.

"Hey, Ymir, if I break a leg I won't be able to perform at this ceremony the way that Morgana wants me to."

That line of argument seemed more successful. The beetle's pace dropped, although the sarcasm evident in the deliberate movement of each pair of legs was obvious. Of all the humiliating things that Hal thought might happen to him in his life, it had never occurred to him that one of them might be having the piss taken out of him by an insect. Still, there were worse fates than that around: just ask the Gulburton brothers.

Hal only hoped he wouldn't have any such chance. He kept glancing over his shoulder, afraid that three skeletons with backpacks of rotting wickerwork might be tiptoeing up behind him. But there was nothing except the dwindling circle of sunlight at the cave's entrance, quickly lost from sight as Ymir came to a junction in the passageway and turned left. Now there was only the light cast by the beetle on the surrounding walls and a roof which came lower and lower as they moved onwards. Underfoot, more and bigger rocks appeared and the sand became wetter, oozing out from underneath Hal's sandals.

Another turn, and then another, the cave growing ever smaller, the air becoming as hot as the castle kitchen with every spit roasting, as damp as rising fog, and smelling of exactly the kind of smell your nose would expect to find in a place called the Devil's Arsehole.

"Oh, yes, very romantic," Hal muttered in self scorn under his breath. "What a wonderful place this is for a lovers' rendezvous. I chose really well here, didn't I?"

The beetle suddenly stopped, its stag like antenna poking out over the edge of a pool of pitch black water. It was as if a puppy had pushed its nose into a bed of stinging nettles and didn't know which way to turn next. Some measure of pleasure came back to the boy.

"Go on then, you clever little bastard, show me how well a beetle can swim."

Ymir turned left, walked up the wall with a clatter of claws, hung upside from the top of the cavern and walked forward again as easily as he had done down on the ground.

"Fuck me," Hal said in disgust and waded into the water.

It was like stepping into a slab of polished black marble: at least, until the ripples from his movements began to disturb the absolutely smooth surface of the pool. He was wet to the top of his thighs when he came out the other side. Ymir continued to show his contempt for the human's clumsy steps by keeping to the cave's roof as he moved on. At least it was easier to see the way with the light above Hal's head; what he didn't enjoy was noting how many more of those glittering red eyes were lurking in the patches of moss growing on either side of the cave. Fria und Odin, there were more spiders here than ants in a nest!

If walking along this pathway without a light was what the Gulburton brothers had been willing to do to make some quick florins, they deserved every penny of whatever they'd earned before fate foreclosed on their borrowed luck. Hal wouldn't have come back into this cave a second time for a backpack of gold coins, let alone one filled only with medicinal mud.

More turns, more pools, two of them, the second up to his waist again, another turn . . . Hodur, god of darkness, he'd never be able to find his way out of here on his own now. Then ahead, two or three steps further on, there was a pile of boulders, with a trickle of water running over the top and down the front of the lowest of them. The rocks made a barrier right across the width of the cave and came up to Hal's chest. The thing which immediately caught his eye was the grove worn into the top of the rock by the gentle runnel of water -- this wasn't the wear of years, this was a mark left by passing centuries.

Ymir passed over the barrier of the rocks, dipping up and down as his beetle shape crossed the gap in the roof the boulders must have dropped out of, so long ago that perhaps giants had still walked in these mountains when the fall had happened.

Then the familiar stopped, illuminating a rough dome shaped section of cavern overhead. A myriad of other lights sprang up around the glowing wing case, but not spider's eyes, not these. Blue, green, yellow, from the size of a fist down to a tiny speckling, all different kinds of minerals or precious stones which caught the faintest of light and returned each ray brightly burnished in a shiny new color. It was like looking up into a cloudless night sky filled with a mass of many hued stars. And it was a beautiful sight.

Hal could have stood and stared with his mouth hanging open a lot longer than he did. He would have done so except that the beetle's legs began dancing with impatience again.

"All right, all right, I'm coming."

He splashed into the puddle at the bottom of the rocky barrier and found several projecting ledges where he could place his hands and feet. One step up and Hal was looking out over a circular pool trapped between the barrier of fallen rocks and the wall which marked the end of the tunnel. Perhaps ten paces across and as dark as the other pools he'd crossed, but not as smooth, because there seemed to be some kind of disturbance in the middle of this one, where every few seconds a bubble or two would emerge and break, sending out a hatching of ruffled water. That must be were the spring water came up, still hot, for wisps of vapor hung above the pool. And all around the water's edges was a ring of mud, as black as the water itself and only distinguishable by the lack of tiny ripples which the breaking bubbles threw out.

Obviously, the trickle of rising water had been bringing up silt since time out of mind, silt which had settled down as the mud deposits while the water itself had continually escaped over and down the rocks he was standing on. Hal leaned forward and cautiously put the tip of his finger into the mud pressed up against the barrier. It was not cold, not hot. He reached out further and dabbed just as cautiously at the edge of the pool: the water was warmer, as warm as milk straight out of a cow's teats. Overhead, the glowing beetle was hanging like a crescent moon, a moon which was still quivering with impatience.

"All right, I'm coming. Watch me!"

Hal undid his jerkin, his shirt, and took them off. Then his sandals and breeks. Wrapping all together, he added the drawbag from around his neck and used the cord to secure the bundle. Then he carefully eased his naked body over the rocks and into the mud. An exploring foot found a shallow rocky bottom on which he easily stood, his knees about on a level with the top of the mud. Which was fine, though taking a step forward set Hal waving his arms to keep his balance.

"Fria!" he grunted, in fear of falling over.

The beetle walked down the wall, stopping just above the mudbank on the far side of the pool. It was clear that Ymir was showing the boy where he was to wait for the women. A goal easier indicated than reached, at least for somebody handicapped by a human body.

Hal struggled to keep steady on his feet as he moved forward. He felt happier as he reached the water and the top of the pool rose up above his waist to his chest. Now he had something to help him keep upright. Which was fine until the water was almost level with his shoulders while his legs were still half buried in the mud. It was impossible to make progress through such a morass by walking.

Fortunately, he could swim, after a fashion, a few desperate strokes with his arms as he dragged his legs free and let them trail behind him, until he was across the pool and sprawled out on his stomach on the mudbank at the end of the cave. Hal felt like a spawning eel trying to crawl along a riverbank past a blocking weir. And even land bound eels didn't have the problem of dragging a bundle with them. His scraps of clothing were now no more than a tangle of mud plastered rags, dirtier even than when he'd worn them whilst emptying the castle shit pots.

Grunting with the effort Hal crawled forward on his hands and knees, his fingers spread out wide to keep them as much as possible from sinking into the mud under his weight. Luckily, the rocky edge at the back of the cave was only a pace or two away and he was soon able to haul himself onto it, though his arm and leg muscles had to work hard to break free of the mud.

In fact a lot of it came with him, stuck to his body, and with no clean water within reach to wash it off with. Furthermore, it wasn't the kind of mud he was used to, the usual clumpy admixture of water and earth. This cave mud had no lumps in it at all, it was as smooth and consistent as a bowl of rich man's porridge, only black instead of white. And, like the pool water, it smelt of sulphur but not strongly enough to be an irritant. Yet, with his bare buttocks trying to find somewhere comfortable on the stone ledge, and almost all of the rest of his body plastered with the gooey mud, Hal was having trouble in believing that this place was at all healthy -- except perhaps for a boy who needed a totally secure tupping place.

And even that idea dwindled as rapidly as the overhead light when Ymir suddenly spun around and scampered back up the tunnel roof in a rustle of legs, leaving the pool and the surrounding walls in the dark. Dark! What was left behind wasn't any kind of normal darkness, it was as black as the bottom of a filled grave, a suffocating blackness so complete it filled Hal's eyes, his ears, even his mouth as he bellowed out in shock.

"What the fuck! Come back here, Ymir, you little bastard!"

Nothing, no answer, no response, only the memory of a last quenched out flicker of light as the beetle shot around a far bend of the tunnel like a hunted hare dodging a close running hound.

"Oh shit! Oh, Fria!" Hal wailed.

It had never crossed his mind that Ymir would leave him down here in the bottom of the Devil's Arsehole. But within a quarter of the time it took for a snowflake to melt in a fire it occurred to him that the witch had found an excellent way of ridding herself of an unwanted Master. And he'd been the fool who had made it so easy for her. A mouse who had walked up to a cat and bitten its nose would have been smarter than Hal had been.

"Oh, fuck!"

Oh, fuck indeed.

Here was a tale indeed to take to the halls of the dead. Hal imagined himself standing on a high stage, looking out over an audience of faces extending to the very edge of infinity, the face of every person who had ever lived and died, and having to explain to them the details of his own demise.

'Well, there was this witch who had to do everything I told her to. And she wanted me to fuck a whole lot of the best looking women in a castle to cast some spells, and we were going to do it inside a magician's tower where their menfolk wouldn't dare enter. But I had a better plan, and it worked out so well I ended up dying of starvation in the bottom of a cave without even being able to see a single ray of light, let alone a woman.'

Odin himself would fall off his throne laughing at such a tale -- nobody had ever been such an idiot before, not even Hagar the Hungless, who'd drunk so much ale one night he'd gone to sleep in the pig pen and woke up at daybreak to find himself lying in a pool of bloody ice. Aye, and with his cock at the other end of the pen being chewed between the teeth of his biggest sow. But on a measure of stupidity Hagar's mishap didn't even weigh in as a grain of wheat compared to the orders that Hal had given out. From now on, whenever the name of Merlin was mentioned amongst wizards and warlocks they would all piss themselves laughing at the memory of the stupidest apprentice ever to don a magician's gown. There was no way, no way at all that things could be worse than they were.

And just as he thought so, Hal's cock hardened, stiffened and reared up like a knight's lance being raised aloft at a joust.

"Fria, please, no. Not that, not now."

Hal's fingers tore open the top of his bag and felt inside. They found the vial, but not the cork which should have been stoppering the end of it. Somehow it had come loose as he'd been fighting his way across the pool and all the dragon sweat had leaked out. Leaked out into the sheepskin wrapping, through the sheepskin and the bag and into the pool. Where his body had touched it as he'd floundered through the water. Which was why he was now entering a state of raging arousal with no means of satisfying it except the one means at hand -- his own hand. A relief he would have to use over and over again every time he attempted to cross the pool.

So now he couldn't even die peacefully of starvation. He couldn't even talk in the afterlife of being tricked into death by a witch. No, what Hal was going to have to confess to the assembled multitudes in eternity that he was the first male ever to masturbate himself off the mortal coil. The first case ever of a boy who beat himself to death with his own club. He, Duke Merlin, Hal O'The Shitbuckets, was going to be entered into Heaven's Roll as the biggest wanker of all time. In a Valhalla full of heroes who had fallen on their own swords, he was going to be renowned as the numb nut who committed suicide by falling on his own prick. Great!

Hal stared into the complete curtain of surrounding blackness, sighed, and spoke to himself: "Well, if I do go blind, at least it won't matter now."

But what he was really pissed off about was that he hadn't given Mary Gorlas a good seeing to when he'd had the chance. Oh Odin, the sight of her huge tits falling out of her torn dress and the feel of them in his hands. If only he'd known he was going to die next day he'd have had her there and then. . . Hal's fingers worked against his tightly drawn shaft as he dreamed about what might have been. If only he could be there in the hall again, he'd sit down on the King's own high chair with Mary impaled on his lap, shaking her fat bum at all the assembled aristocrats and her gigantic teats bouncing in his face . . .

Or if he'd known how to work that levitation spell properly, like Morgana could, he'd have arranged Mary floating at waist height, face down and hanging onto the edge of the table as he took her from behind with her udders swinging around underneath every which way . . . Oh Gods! What a chance he'd missed!

Somewhere in the back of Hal's mind a voice spoke, small but clear. Hadn't Morgana said something about him being responsible for lifting Mary off the floor? That somehow he'd been able to expand and use the levitation spell that Morgana had created? And hadn't she insisted that he had the makings of being a great magician -- could there be any truth at all in that? Or had she just been totally bullshitting him?

And what about all her words about sex and magic being connected? Certainly, he was in no position to do any fucking right now but if just thinking about sex was any help the dragon sweat certainly had him in the right frame of mind. Was there any chance of maybe using magic to help himself in this situation. And, if there was, what did he want?

That was easy, what he really wanted a female to fuck. But creating a girl out of thin air was probably not the sort of thing he should try for his first attempt at magic. Even if he could do it, you wouldn't want to stick your cock into the first result, not in the dark without any idea of what you'd actually made. Even Hagar the Hungless's sow might be a sexy good looker in comparison.

No, light of some kind. That was what he most needed, here and now. Wasn't what that one of the things the Christian monks used to read from their book? Yes, that was it, that was one of their sayings, 'let there be light'. And their god was called Jesus Christ, so maybe Hal should pray to him as he tried to make light.

But how to do that? Especially as he couldn't stop wanking himself off and his mind was full of pictures of a gasping, shrieking Mary Gorlas.

All right, he was tupping Mary, and she was on her back on the dining hall in the great hall and a brilliantly strong light was shining down into the hall -- the roof had disappeared, a summer sun was directly overhead, not a cloud in the sky, the sun was getting bigger, getting closer, the rays were pouring down, filling the room with a light that was so bright, brighter than anybody had ever seen, as bright as the rainbow bridge that led to the home of the Gods . . .

There was a kind of a popping noise and a big fat spark shot out from the slit of Hal's straining prick, hit the tunnel roof, bounced off it, hit the cavern wall, shot away like a falling star, hit the opposite wall, flew off again at a crazy angle, slammed down into the pool and disappeared in a puff of steam.

"Jesus Christ!" Hal gasped. The shock had been so complete that for that second he'd even forgotten about Mary Gorlas's body.

He realized immediately that it was a turning point in his life. For the first time ever, Hal had totally impressed himself by his own abilities. After all, there he was, only an ordinary shit pot cleaner, and it turned out that all the time he'd had some kind of a raging thunderstorm swinging around between his legs.

What about those nights at the tavern when Karl the Head House Carl had filled himself up with ale and proved it by bending over in front of a candle and letting loose a fart which burst into a jet of flame? Hadn't he impressed the shit out of everybody? By Odin, the next time he tried it Hal would laugh, pull out his cock and jerk off a shower of sparks to go flying around the taproom. That would leave high and mighty Karl with his breeks and his jaw hanging down.

Fucking right, Hal might only be a poor surf but what was being poor when you had more lightning in your donger than Thor had in his hammer? If that wasn't a trick that got you invited to parties, what would? And wait until he showed Josephine, she'd go white and orange spots with laughing at a human coming it the flame throwing dragon!

But, impressive as it was, a single spark wasn't going to get him out of the Devil's Arsehole. He needed something different. So what by Fria's skirts could he do now to create a sustained light. Think of a girl, think of fucking her, think of light. But maybe a different girl -- or girls. Maybe two cunts were better than one . . . the riding net, with Chelinde and Caelia.

Which one had he had first -- Caelia, that was right, jammed in between him and the dragon's belly, with Chelinde scratching his balls as he rammed her sister. Oh, Fria, it had been so good, as good as being a god himself. The sky, the sun, the suns, all around the dragon, all beaming so brightly as he fucked Caelia, all lighting up every strand of her hair, every freckle, reflecting back from her eyes. . .

A pearl of glittering light popped out of his cock this time, an tiny incandescent pearl which floated upwards as lightly and erratically as a butterfly. But as small as it was, it lit up the mud ring and the nearer part of the pool water. Overhead, the blackness became speckled again from the minerals reflecting in the rising light.

"That must be what they call ball lightning," Hal giggled, as near his wit's ends as any village idiot. And then the drifting bead of light winked out like a closing eye.