The Blue Light

I woke up late the following morning, more tired than I had been before going to sleep. Every limb ached and my head pounded. Flashes of what had occurred the previous night assailed me and I winced. Had it truly happened? I flung the sheet aside and scrutinized my body. There were deep scratches in my thighs, fresh and tender to the touch. It had happened. Mirta was a witch. I have nothing against witches as long as they leave me alone, but I doubted that this one had anything good planned for me. It did not seem likely that she would simply give me a pack of supplies and send me merrily on my way. But what choice did I have other than to play her game?

I dressed myself and left the little room, going in search of some breakfast. I found it and Mirta in the front room, and I took the bowl of porridge from her without speaking. "You'll be going down into the well this morning," my hostess said. "It shouldn't take you long. All I need you to do is retrieve something that was dropped down there a long time ago. Then I'll consider your obligation to me paid and you can be on your way." There was a smug satisfaction underneath her words, and I did not trust them one whit.

"What is it that I'm going down there to get?" I asked.

"A tinderbox," Mirta said.

"A tinderbox? That's all?"

"Yes."

I stared at her, but as usual her face was unfathomable. "Does it have some special value to you?"

"It has been in my family for a very long time," Mirta said. "Someone tried to take it from me many years ago."

I grunted and finished eating the porridge, beginning to get a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was starting to doubt that Mirta had any intention of letting me back out of that well once I was down it. Still, I couldn't very well refuse, and perhaps my suspicions would prove to be groundless. When I finished off my food I said,

"Shall we get started?"

"Follow me," Mirta said, and walked to the door of the cottage. I followed her, my aching muscles pulsing with every step I took. It was really beginning to wear on my nerves taking orders from this woman. Witch or not, I would have dearly loved to turn her over my knee. Somehow I doubted that she would submit to such treatment for very long. I remembered the strength with which she had held me captive the previous night. I remembered the way he cunt had clamped down on me as she came, squeezing so hard that I thought I would fracture into a thousand pieces. I realized that my eyes had fixated on the enticing sway of my hostess's backside and I forced them upwards, scanning the glade for the site of my next task.

The well was on the edge of the tree-line, nothing but a crumbling circle of moss-covered stones. It looked as if it had dried up a century or more ago, and the hole yawned cold and dark. A rope had been tied to a stout branch overhanging the well, and it fell down into darkness, its end nowhere in sight. "I want you to climb down this rope," Mirta said. "Take this." From a bag she had slung over her shoulder, she handed me a small oil lamp and a box of matches. "The item you are looking for is a small silver tinderbox. It has a pattern of vines carved on the outside. You are to bring it to me, but do not use it."

"Why not?" I asked. I couldn't foresee any reason for having to use the tinderbox when I had a few dozen matches at my disposal, but the insistence in her voice caught my attention.

"It's an antique," she snapped. "You might damage it."

I went over to the edge of the well and picked a stone up off the ground. I dropped it into the hole and waited for quite a long time before I heard the soft click of it hitting the bottom.

"When I bring you this tinderbox, you'll give me some supplies and send me on my way?"

"I have a pack already made up." Mirta said, flashing me a smile. The sweetness in that smile made me more wary about this venture than anything else thus far.

"Then I may as well get started," I said, and took hold of the rope. Despite the soreness of my muscles, I had a fairly easy time making my way down into the well. It's always easier getting down than getting up. I lit the lamp and tied it so that it dangled from my side, tucking the matches back into my pocket. Then I began to move downwards, the thick fibers of the rope scratching at my hands. It took a long time to reach the bottom, and if I hadn't gotten there when I did, I'm fairly certain that I would have fallen the rest of the way. Climbing back up was going to be no mean feat.

The only indications that the circular chamber in which I now stood had once been a well were some scattered puddles of water on the floor. I untied the lamp lashed to my side, but as I did so the box of matches fell from my pocket, landing directly in the largest puddle. I cursed and fumbled to save some of them, but they were all soaked beyond salvation. It was when I was groping on the floor that I discovered that I was not the only human being to have been down this well. A skeleton lay stretched out across the floor directly in front of me, wrapped in the decaying remnants of its clothes. The sight gave me pause, but I was used to encountering dead bodies. In a soldier's line of work it is quite a common occurrence. I dismissed the skeleton and turned once more to the task before me.

The daylight above did nothing to illuminate the chamber and the lamp's glow only reached a few feet in each direction. I was going to have to find this tinderbox mostly by feel. The next few hours were dull and frustrating. I sifted through rocks and dirt and old bones, not all of them animal. Several times I came across full human skeletons. It was not until I came to the very back of the chamber that I found the tinderbox. I almost missed it. There was a skeleton huddled up against the wall, and in its bony hand it clutched a tarnished silver box with vines etched across the surface. I reached out, and the moment I touched the box, a wave of heat jolted through me. I staggered, and my foot came up against the lamp, knocking it to the ground. The light went out and I was plunged into utter darkness.

Luckily, my hand was clasped around the tinderbox. At least I had some way of striking a light. Mirta had said not to use the box, but how else was I going to be able to find my way out of here without breaking my neck? The wave of heat that had seized me when I touched the box had evaporated as soon as it came, and I dismissed it as my imagination. After some fiddling, I managed to get the box open, and then I struck a light.

The moment I did so, a brilliant blue flame erupted from the tip of the bit of tinder I held. It was so bright that I could see the patterns of dirt on the far wall of the chamber. I heard a faint shriek from high above me, but at the time thought nothing of it. My attention was fixated on the person who had appeared out of the blue flame. He seemed solid when I first looked at him, but then I realized that I could faintly discern the shapes of our surroundings through him. He was a youngish man, dressed in old fashioned clothes of costly fashion. His hair was long and dark, and his eyes were the same bright blue of the flames from which he had sprung. He was looking at me with some surprise.

"Who are you?" the specter asked.

"I'm Rolf," I said. "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm the servant of the light," the apparition said.

"And just what does that mean?" I asked.

"I am bound to obey the master of the light," he gestured at the tinderbox in my hand. "Which I suppose would be you. What do you command, Master?" His tone was faintly bitter.

I stared at him blankly for a moment. "Well, what can you do?"

"Anything you ask of me," replied the servant.

"What do you want? Gold? Fame? The love of a beautiful woman?"

"Well, those sound nice, but right now, I think I want to get out of this well unharmed. I believe I've figured out why Mirta told me not to use the tinderbox."

"I suppose you have," said the specter. "The witch was the one who put me here, so if you would like to command me to rip her body into a thousand pieces, I would be happy to attend to that straight away."

"I don't think so," I said, tilting my head back to look up at the tiny dot of light far above me. Mirta was waiting up there, I had no doubt. She would probably be quite happy to add my bones to the collection of skeletons which she had already accrued down here. That was something which I wanted to avoid. "Can you get me out of this well?" I asked. "Without Mirta noticing?"

The servant of the light smiled. Then he took hold of my wrist. I felt as if a hook had been slipped round my middle and suddenly I was being pulled violently upwards. I felt light as air and transparent as rainwater. In a matter of seconds I was standing once more upon the surface of the earth, in the fading light of the afternoon. The sensation of lightness and transparency lingered, and I realized that the spirit had made be invisible. It was a good thing too, because Mirta was standing right beside me, and in her hand she held the heavy axe I had used to chop firewood the day before. I realized that I was still clutching the tinderbox, and I slipped it deep into my trouser pocket. The servant of the light appeared beside me.

"She looks the same as she did a century and a half ago," the specter said, looking Mirta up and down.

"Could you kill her, if I asked you to?" I asked, not really considering the idea, but curious as to the answer.

"Yes," the spirit replied. "With great pleasure."

"Well, I don't want you to kill her. Imprison her somewhere, spirit. Somewhere from which it will take her a long time to escape."

"I know just the place," said the servant of the light, and disappeared once more. A moment later Mirta began to scream. Her red mouth opened wide and she released a piercing wail of anguish and rage as her body was jerked upwards into the air. She began to rise so fast that she was a blur, and then she was shooting towards the well. She stopped then, hovering over the well's opening, twisting and writhing but unable to free herself from the spirit's invisible hold. He reappeared suddenly, his arms wrapped around Mirta's waist, constraining her as easily as if she weighed no more than an infant. "Now you're going to get a taste of what you put me through for the last two hundred years, wench." The spirit said. He let Mirta go and she plummeted down into the well. Her scream was cut off by a crash of thunder and a burst of blue flame and a sort of flaming seal formed over the top of the well. Then everything was still and silent once more. I felt the sensation of invisibility leave me. The spirit stared down into the well's opening for a few moments and then he drifted towards me. "Anything else I can do for you, Master?" he asked.

***

I tested the spirit's powers and found them to be everything I could have ever hoped for. I told him to take me to the next town and in a matter of minutes we were there. I asked him to fill my pockets with gold, and no sooner were the words out of my mouth than I felt the seams of my trousers practically give way against the weight of the coins they now contained. Then I told my new servant to return to the tinderbox. "If you need me, you have only to strike a light," the spirit said, and then he disappeared. I rented the best room at the most luxurious inn in town and ate and drank until I collapsed onto the feather bed in a stupor. The next day when I awoke, head pounding from too much wine, I began to think about what I should do now that I had the entire world at my fingertips. The first thing that occurred to me was revenge.

I had given my life to the King and in return he had turned me out on my ass to die. What better way to use my newfound power than to return the favor he had so kindly paid to me? I pulled the tinderbox from beneath my pillow and used it to strike a light. Immediately, the spirit was before me in a whoosh of cobalt flames. "Good morning," he said, nodding at me. "What can I do for you Master?"

"Can you cure this damn headache?" I asked, rubbing at my temples.

"I see that you had a good time last night," the spirit said, as he waved a hand before my face. The pounding in my head vanished.

"You could say that," I said. I stood up and stretched, fumbling on the floor for the clothes I had discarded the previous evening. "For someone who is supposed to be my servant, you are not very deferential."

"I was not always a servant," The spirit snapped.

"How did you get this way?" I asked.

"I was a sorcerer, and once upon a time I was Mirta's lover. She trapped me in the tinderbox when she found out that I was going to leave her. For years, she used me to wreak revenge on her enemies and to find out secrets."

"So how did the tinderbox get down to the bottom of that well if it was so important to her?" I asked, struggling back into my trousers.

"One of her new conquests tried to steal the box. Before he could escape, she cast him down into the well. He set a spell against her before he died and Mirta could not pass through the barrier to retrieve her treasure. It is that barrier which keeps her down there now."

"Well, I'll make a deal with you spirit," I said. "Or is there something else you would prefer me to call you?"

The servant of the light looked at me quizzically for a moment, as if he had never been asked such a question before. "My name was Aric," he said.

"Well Aric, if you help me to get back at the bastard who turned me out on the road, and help me to secure my livelihood, I'll let you go."

"And how exactly do you propose to do that?" Aric asked, staring at me with his cold blue eyes.

"You have to obey me in all things, right? Well, what if I command you to be free?"

The spirit was silent for a moment and then he said. "I have honestly never given that idea much thought before. I suppose it would work." His tone assumed an ironical air. "But I think you might find it hard to give up such power, once you've gotten a taste of it."

"I swear to you now," I said, holding up my right hand. "If you help me, I will free you."

Aric looked at me silently for several long moments and then he nodded very briefly. "Very well. What is it that you want me to do first?"

***

The first thing that the spirit did was find me a big manor house in the capital city, and make me a Count. Then he filled the house with every comfort and luxury the most jaded rich man could ever desire. I had decided that the best way to get revenge on old King Otto was to rob him of the thing which he valued most in the world: his daughter. There had been stories told for years about the old man's unnatural devotion to the Princess Ileana. She was said to be guarded day and night, practically a prisoner in her own castle. King Otto guarded his daughter's virginity more closely than he guarded his gold. He had not yet been able to bring himself to bestow her hand in marriage to any man, though she had come of age six years before and been courted by the most eligible princes on the continent. He was as jealous of her as a dragon is of his hoard, and protected her just as closely. What better way to get my revenge than to defile his most precious jewel?

I summoned Aric forth from the tinderbox at the stroke of midnight two weeks after moving into my mansion. "What do you wish of me, Master?" the spirit said, sounding bored.

"I want you to bring me the Princess Ileana." I said.

"Right now?" Aric asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Yes." I said. "As she sleeps. Keep her in a state of half-waking, and make sure no one notices her absence."

"What exactly are you planning on doing with her?"

"Never you mind. Just go get her, and be quick about it." Aric bowed acquiescence, and then he disappeared. A quarter of an hour later he returned, his hand fastened over the slender wrist of Princess Ileana. I had heard rumors about her beauty, but they fell far short of describing the true loveliness of the creature standing before me. She was quite small, her head barely rising above my chest, her limbs slim and fragile. Her breasts caught my attention at once, not only because their shape was plainly visible beneath the thin white nightgown she wore, but because they were surprisingly large for a woman so slight. Her skin was the color of spilled cream and her hair was a deep honey gold plaited into a braid that reached all the way down to her lower back. She stood pliant in Aric's grasp, making no move to struggle and showing no response whatsoever to her new surroundings. Her eyes, the blue of robin's eggs, were half-lidded and vacant.

"Is she still asleep?" I asked.

"For the most part," the spirit replied, releasing the girl's arm and standing back to look at her.

"Although I doubt she would have put up much of a struggle, even if she were fully awake. She is an obedient young lady."

"She had better be," I said, and held out the tinderbox to Aric. He took the hint at once and disappeared inside, leaving me alone with Princess Ileana. I'd had an idea to speak harshly to her, to blow off a little of the steam of my anger, but something in her posture made me hesitate. Her eyes were still half-closed and dreamy, but her body was all trembling attention. My gaze fell to the rapid rise and fall of her breasts and saw her hard nipples poking against the fine white cotton of her nightdress. It almost was as if the girl was aroused by her current helpless position. I had to check to see if my suspicion was justified.

I yanked the skirt of her nightdress up to her waist, exposing Ileana's innocent young cunt to my curious gaze. She flinched and began to tremble, but otherwise stood quite still, even when I slipped one finger casually down the front of her slit. She gave a little moan then and her hips jerked, for a moment pressing me deeper inside of her. She was wet as April. A stab of lust so powerful that it was like a hammer blow went through me. My cock, which had already been half-hard, came immediately to full attention. I let go of the girl's skirt and tucked both of my hands inside the bodice of the flimsy gown. With one hard tug I ripped the garment clean in half and pulled it away from the Princess's ripe little body. She was a sight to behold, standing there, her hands clenched into fists at her sides, red-faced and trembling in her nakedness. I reached out and took one of her nipples in each of my hands, tugging at them and twisting until they were hard as stones and Ileana gave a mew of distress, pulling away. I allowed her to retreat, taking the opportunity to unbuckle my belt and slip it free from my waist. I folded it in half and slapped it a few times against the palm of my hand, relishing the swish and hard smack of the leather.

"Come here Ileana," I said, pointing to an embroidered footstool. "Lie across this." For a moment she looked as though she were fully awake, and her eyes widened with fear. Then they drifted back to half-mast and she started forward to do as she was told. She was certainly an enchanting sight, draped across the footstool with her surprisingly well-padded rump within ideal reach of the belt I held in my hand. "Do you know why I'm going to punish you?" I asked.

"No Sir," the Princess murmured. Her voice was low and very sweet, although slightly slurred with sleep.

"It's good to see that you know how to address your betters," I said, letting one of my hands trail down the path of her spine and lightly trace the cleft of her ass. Ileana shivered and wriggled on the footstool. "I am not punishing you because you have done anything wrong. I am punishing you because I wish to punish your father and this is the best way of doing it. If you are a good girl and take it well, then I will reward you." My original plan had been to have Ileana clean my house from top to bottom, shine my boots, chip her nails scrubbing the flagstones, blacken her face sweeping the chimneys. But that was before I had seen how she responded to being so helpless. It struck an answering chord in me, made me want to push her to see how far she would willingly go.