The Son of Night

In a kneeling position, Alder's head was roughly forced up as the linen mask concealing the lower half of his face was torn away. He looked up at who these assailants were. He recognised them as the spellstriders. From what he could see, there were at least ten of them in the room; all hugely built, brute-like figures attired in their signature blue and silver armour that was immense and bulky on them, with masked helmets that rendered their faces anonymous, save for the vindictive malice radiating from their eyes. The spellstriders having wrestled down and restrained both he and Balthasar five-to-one, Lancelot pointed a finger at Balthasar and spoke.

'Take that one away to the northern laboratory. As for the other, leave him to the mercy of... the other dungeon, the one you don't talk about.'

At once the spellstriders that had restrained Balthasar hauled him up into their arms and -- after roughly stuffing his mouth with cloth - began dragging him away, kicking and screaming muffled. The sound was a new kind of torture to Alder's ears all the same. A feral rage -- a kind of primal despair - exploded in his soul. Alder fought desperately -- tooth and nail - to do... something? Anything? To get free? To grasp the freedom that may be about to be gone forever.

One of the remaining spellstriders took out a small cloth and -- with the assistance of the others holding him down - pressed it down firmly over Alder's mouth and nose. He immediately recognised the scent of the cloth as a watered-down solution of nightshade; not strong enough to kill, but certainly more than enough to incapacitate. Alder tried with all his remaining strength to limit his breathing to only the shortest possible, but one of the spellstriders grabbed him by the chin and forced his head further back, opening up his airway. It didn't matter what he tried, he was forced to inhale the sickly sedative fumes more and more deeply. With each breath, his head span faster, and the heavier his body felt. He could feel his consciousness sinking into a deep slumber. Even as his vison blurred, he saw one of them hold up their gauntleted hand as a green rune appeared in it. The moment the rune entered his sight -- his mind -- he felt his body go completely numb and limp in the arms of the spellstriders; a hibernating curse or the like. Finally his eyes expended the last of their strength in keeping themselves open, and they clamped shut, as fate swallowed him.

'Deeper... into the last...'

'...In'ahm khena'du na'lash...'

Words flickered in his mind, blowing out like candles. One by one, sensations drifted into his consciousness. He was laying down, face up and spread-eagled, supported by a hard and cold material beneath him. His eyes began to gradually drift open in their own time. Where was here? This was a different place than before... wait a moment, he was not wearing any clothes at all? The surprise of it cleaved through the groggy haze in his mind.

Immediately Alder tried to sit up, but coarse leather ropes and straps held him down: Over each of his ankles, shins, upper thighs. Around his waist and hips. Over his lower abdomen, over his stomach. Around his neck. Over his armpits, elbows and wrists, and one around his forehead. Completely strapped down to a stone table of some kind.

He could only look up and to the sides. The space was very dimly lit, almost completely dark, but with a soft purple glow hanging in the air. The chamber was not so large (How had he gotten here?) and circular in shape some thirty paces in diameter. The floor and walls were stone brick, but with intricate carvings all up and down the walls and multiple columns of marble that encircled the little raised platform in the centre where his table resided.

He saw figures in long hooded black robes kneeling in a circle around him at the edges of a runic symbol on the ground with him at the centre, their hands gripped together in prayer. They were whispering an invocation of some kind in absolute unison, a sound that -- bizarrely enough -- was soothing to Alder's ears.

'The wanderer beckons... Hu'ju dil ki kar nar'ahm... The animal inside calls close... Ve'nethis nar'ahm... Into this soul... Im'nahven Mara'dan... Become one... Ki'yeru Da'na...'

They recited this, over and over without end. The sound of the whispered chanting weaved its way into the air itself, making reality's fabric become like the softest blanket touching Alder's skin, which itself became more and more sensitive as this continued. His fear began to gently be wiped away, and in its place leaving a comforting sensation; that this was perhaps not such a bad place. Even his discomfort at the idea of being completely naked whilst strapped to a table -- or rather, an alter now he thought about it -- being completely unable to move and entirely at the mercy of whoever these robed figures were, had begun to morph into a pride of sorts for this body being on such intimate display.

They were certainly not like any priests Alder had encountered previously. Three more of them appeared from a shadowy place beyond the dim light of the chamber. They were the only ones standing upright and walked slowly -- reverently -- to the alter. The first carried in his arms a large, intricately carved stone bowl containing some unknown purple liquid. The second carried a small glass phial of purest black liquid. And the third, a strange looking metal rod. It had perhaps a forearm's length with a beautifully carved headpiece of a flawless amethyst.

'Hu'ju dil ki kar nar'ahm... Ve'nethis nar'ahm... Im'nahven Mara'dan... Ki'yeru Da'na...'

The first set down his bowl just next to Alder on the alter, and dipping a brush-like tool into it, set to applying it to Alder's skin on his stomach and chest; a painting of sorts. As the cultist with a firm -- but gentle -- hand drew the tool all over Alder's torso, he felt a cool, numbing sensation seeping into his flesh where the purple substance spread, becoming more sensual with every stroke. The second cultist assisted the first in the 'painting' -- for want of a better term -- by outlining the leather straps around Alder's groin and abdomen with the substance. Arousal gently awakened in his body. It spread like the tide slowly closing in on the shore, just a little further with every wave, every stroke of the brush. Soon, Alder could do little more than let out faint sighs of pleasure; it felt wrong -- sacrilegious somehow - to moan too loudly. The whispered chanting in the air felt as though it were massaging his skull.

As the first two cultists continued their work, the third took the rod and moved to the space between Alder's spread legs. He knelt down, prostrating himself on the spot while whispering an inaudible blessing -- or curse -- over the amethyst in the headpiece. Alder gasped as the third one took his gloved fingers and held Alder's arsehole wide open, and slowly inserted the rod -- amethyst first -- up into his anal sphincter. The moment the amethyst reached Alder's prostate, a deep throbbing sensation pulsated from it. There was a momentary pain at first, but he soon forgot it as the pleasure flowed freely through his entire body.

'Hu'ju dil ki kar nar'ahm... Ve'nethis nar'ahm... Im'nahven Mara'dan... Ki'yeru Da'na...'

A sweet scent drifted on the air, and despite his body engulfed in lust, Alder's breathing slowed to a crawl. It was now that the painting of his torso and groin resembled large runes -- including one directly over and around his heart -- that once completed began humming an incredibly deep sound so soft and low the frequency caused his skin to oscillate with only more pleasure. He did not flinch at all as one cultist began drawing runes on Alder's face; on the centre of his forehead and around. The sensations stimulated his now fragile consciousness into overdrive. A loud, primal cry of pleasure from the depths of his soul escaped his lips, and his mind sank down further into a transcendent state of both wild arousal and deep Zen. A volcanic orgasm was perhaps seconds away. He knew it. He felt it.

Five.

Four.

Three

Two.

One.

The third cultist -- still kneeling -- grabbed hold Alder's rock-hard cock at the last moment, and no matter how much arousal ran wild in his body, no orgasm occurred. Frustration ignited in his chest, which mingled into the firestorm of sensations whirling around his body and mind. But the pleasure never stopped increasing. His balls -- and sanity - would surely explode at this rate, but it felt so good... so good...

'Just give in to never ending pleasure... ' a dark, prophetic voice whispered in his mind. Alder's eyes wrenched their way open, and he was alone. He was still strapped tightly to the alter, but there were no longer any cultists near him. Whether or not this was real or a hallucination was no longer Alder's to know. He was in such a deeply unconscious state of wild trance that it didn't matter. Unreal levels of arousal still burned fiercely in his body. He saw the eyes of one of the bas reliefs on the ceiling light up a bright magenta, and a long tendril of blackish purple mass extended down slowly toward the centre of his forehead. Coming closer, the moment it made contact, Alder's consciousness imploded in a maelstrom of arousal, and his world was gone.

No sound.

No scent.

No sight.

Barely a body.

Just a thought, a pinprick of awareness in an infinite darkness, but the arousal remained, and the voice -- or was it his? -- continued on.

'Embrace the shadow, little lost son of the night... Deeper... into the last... Surrender your body, mind, and soul to this pleasure... to me... let the animal inside become you... let me... become you... become one with me... give in to never ending pleasure, and destroy everything that hurts...'

'Hu'ju dil ki kar nar'ahm... Ve'nethis nar'ahm... Im'nahven Mara'dan... Ki'yeru Da'na...'

'... eternal pleasure awaits... just sleep... let go of everything... and feel the essence of a god enter you from the deepest place...'

Alder was not aware of the large cock wedged in his throat, nor of when hot, sticky ejaculate forced itself down into him; reality was no longer of any concern to him.

Something he could feel -- perhaps the only thing left to feel -- was his consciousness and his being expanding a thousand fold in scope; as if his soul was leaving his mortal body behind and becoming so much more than a man.

A god?

He spoke, or rather, they spoke.

'Now... we are one...'

Alder's eyes opened, and he was now standing up in the same ritual chamber he had just been in. He looked down at what had once been his mortal body, shattered and lifeless, still strapped to the alter.

He laughed, a hearty raucous sound that raked the air with a mocking of how fragile his human body had been. He gloried in his new body. Perhaps seven feet tall, with absolutely immaculate pecs and an immensely built chest and shoulders. Catching his reflection in the stained glass on the walls, pleased to discover that he retained dark red hair, the colour of blood. His mind began to run wild with infinite possibilities. He noticed the cultists were still there, prostrating themselves on the ground and kneeling before him.

'I am Alder, and now I am become Ve'nethis: The God of Pleasure.' He declared, in his newly sonorous voice.

'Go minions... Go to the place called the Magister's Retreat, and retrieve for me two men. The one called Balthasar, that I may bestow this gift upon him.

...and the one called Lancelot, that I may punish him.'