I made my way to the temple of Tsathoggua, in broad daylight.
When you do something illegal, don’t try to hide it. Just carry on about your business as if you were changing a light bulb, or reading the paper. No one will notice you - you’ll clearly seem to have the right to be there.
Works in the 21st century, works in the Carboniferous Era.
The fortress grounds stretched out around me - a wide, largely open space. Tough, spiky weeds poked out of gravelly earth. Sand heaped against blocks of ancient, fallen masonry. Pathways had been cleared and cultists packed them, going about their business. I passed two Darfuri talking the highlander dialect, cultist tattoos on their faces. A slender, blonde, slave girl ran past me, a scroll in her hands. She had a cloth wrap around her waist and had ‘messenger’ tattooed on her back. Coming up behind me was a team of bare-chested men pulling a cart. They were sweating and red-eyed, one of them called out a cadence and they all answered as one. On the cart was a twelve-foot, wooden statue of a Mi-Go. They pulled the cart with metal hooks that were embedded right into their backs. I stepped aside for them, others cheered as the fanatics passed. No one gave me a second glance.
Before me was the temple.
The ziggurat at Ebugal, large as it was, had been in a much larger, temple complex. The temple of Tsathoggua however, was as big as that entire complex had been. Only the giant buildings of the 21st century exceeded it. It was the largest building I had seen on Hyperborea.
I could only imagine how it must have impacted the Hyperborean psyche.
It was shaped like a pyramid but with its top cut off. Instead, perched using the pyramid as its plinth, was a colossal statue of black marble. Part toad part bat, it looked down on us with half-shut eyes. The Tsathoggua seemed grown out of the stone rather than carved. Smoke rose from its open head: somewhere inside the pyramid were ritual fires.
There were no guards outside. I climbed what seemed like a hundred stairs, and came upon an avenue of arched entrances. Each was shaped like a toad’s open mouth. They opened into tunnels that disappeared into darkness. I watched a speck of light growing in one, coming towards me. It turned into a man carrying a flaming torch. He winced at the sunlight and handed me his torch, without a word. I took it, as he went down the stairs and about his business.
I entered the tunnel, torch in hand.
It was long - and cold. The light of the entrance shrank and finally disappeared. Ahead of me, there was literally no light at the end of the tunnel. After what seemed like forever I saw a red-orange glow. It grew till it became a brazier of hot coals at the end of the tunnel. I stepped out and past it, and beheld the inside of the pyramid.
Above ground, it was an open shaft - twenty stories tall, and as wide on each of its four sides. The stone walls of the shaft had no stairs or rope-lifts, though. They were bare, solid, walls. They tapered at the top, shrinking down to just a block-sized skylight. This was where the smoke was venting.
I looked down, following the smoke. The shaft continued down, going underground for what seemed like forty stories. At the very bottom was a field of lava. It glowed red and churned, slow as molasses. Cracks formed in dark clusters that sank back into the red. New chunks rose up, spilling bright lava, to take their place. I felt a wave of sulfurous air hit me - I stepped back, coughing till it passed.
“Is it not magnificent?” A man had appeared beside me. His skin was pale from lack of sun, scaly, and dry. I wondered how long he had been inside. “Every day, I come and marvel at it from here.”
“You bastards really go balls to the wall,” I said in English.
“Brother?”
“It is a great wonder, and we are gifted to live in these times,” I said in Low Hyperborean.
There was no way to go up, but going down was another matter. Stone steps and galleries had been cut into the sides. Shafts connected floors, and rope-lifts rode up and down. Along the walkways were openings. Some were large, toad-headed, archways with braziers lighting endless floors. Others were just little shrine alcoves with space for a single worshiper. Many were not lit at all.
“I am just arrived from Ebugal,” I said. “This is my first time here. Can you help me?”
“Of course Brother! Speak need and see it attended to.”
“Why are so many openings, dark?”
“Because no one goes to them,” he answered. “Ten times our number could live and work here. If you would go exploring the unvisited floors, be careful. We do not know what may yet lurk in stone rooms, awaiting the passing of aeons. You are a tomb raider?”
“No,” I replied. “I am supposed to help with the dark-haired slaves,” I chanced. “Do you know where they are?”
From somewhere below, I heard the faint but unmistakable sound of women’s screams.
“Follow their bleatings,” he laughed, his teeth were yellow and his canines looked like fangs. “Soon, all their cunts will be readied for the Arrival!”
Low Hyperborean has a literal tense and a metaphorical tense. He had spoken of their in the literal tense. At the time, I thought nothing of it.
I nodded to him and left. I found a stairway and descended.
The scaly man hadn’t exaggerated. For every lit chamber or hallway I passed, there were eleven or twelve more that were unclaimed. Some had piles of rubble outside them. I saw a gold lamp poking out of a heap of broken stonework. No one had taken such a thing? I put it in my bag, becoming instantly rich. Other chambers had been marked outside in charcoal, with the Low Hyperborean ‘R.’ This was a letter that meant danger. I found a lump of discarded charcoal by one entrance - cold air - and moaning - came out of its darkness. I quickly hurried on my way.
I stopped outside a random entrance to have a breather. It was simple, about six feet wide and ten high. I could see the fittings where a large, wood or metal door would have once been. My torch lit grey flagstones that ran down a short hallway, that turned to the left. I listened carefully: the sound of trickling water came from inside.
I entered and walked down the hallway. My boots left imprints in the dust - I wondered if I was the first person there in a thousand years. The hallway turned and lead down a longer tunnel. At its end, it turned right. I followed it, and the sound of water.
At the right turn, a large, round, chamber opened up. It was about sixty feet in diameter and twenty high. What I took at first for the Hyperborean zodiac was on the chamber’s ceiling. I studied the carvings - the Fisher and the Wyvern were there, but their stars were misaligned. The Armored Shark looked more like a grouper. The rest were unfamiliar: different charts of a different age. It pained me that I didn’t have the time to stop and sketch them.
At the far end of the chamber was a fissure in the wall. Water flowed out, splashing into a large pool at the bottom. It rose about a foot before draining into another set of cracks. I studied them in the torchlight - the cracks were worn smooth as river stones. I tasted the water - it had a strong, mineral tang, but was otherwise good to drink.
From back outside, I heard women screaming again - followed by a roaring. I refilled my waterskin, and went back out.
***
The screams - and roars - took me to an archway of black stone. It opened up to a large floor of wide corridors and vaults. Statues of unknown and extinct monsters stood on plinths at the corridor intersections. Twenty-foot columns and walls held up the ceiling. They were lit by torches in wall-brackets. They created pools of orange-yellow light in the gloom.
I heard a woman begging for her life. I drew my sword and went towards the sound.
The floor seemed to go on forever. Behind me, the gate I had entered from, disappeared into darkness. I heard water dripping and soon found myself stepping into a standing pool. The water was ice cold, and rose to my ankles at its deepest. Further down, was an avenue of black statues that looked like gargoyles. They seemed to stare at me as I passed. At the base of each statue was a stone, sacrificial table. The flagstones in front of them were worn down - how many sacrifices had that taken?
New sounds; men yelling, and chanting.
I followed it to a ring of pillars that overlooked a pit. The pit was the size of three basketball courts and was two stories down. One story down, there was a wide, bare, stone perimeter. Stairways went down to the perimeter - but not from the perimeter into the pit. The pit was filled with sand. At its far end was the entrance to a huge tunnel.
The yelling and chanting were coming from down on the perimeter, clustered in one area. I put out my torch and approached, darting from pillar to pillar till I was overlooking it.
Below me was a group of thirty cultists in white robes. They stood in three rows like a choir, shaven heads lowered and their hands clasped. There was an unnerving quality to their chanting that made me uneasy. I kept looking over my shoulder, feeling watched. A large, bronze, brazier was in front of the choir. A priest with gold-trimmed robes stood before it with a bowl. He plucked powder from it and threw it periodically into the brazier. The incense flared as it burned.
Across from the choir on a stone dais, was a metal box as big as a yurt. The metal was blue-black with a rainbow sheen like spilled gasoline. The box had no openings or seams I could see. There were carvings along its sides; curling script and symbols. They looked the same as the ones I had seen locked away in Lukor’s tower, in Ebugal. I looked away from them before nausea could hit. One of the cultists came forward from the choir and climbed the dais. He flicked water from a bowl at the box’s metal walls.
This was nothing. What threw me, was the giant worm.
Down in the pit was a short, fat, worm the size of an elephant. It’s grey-white body gleamed and waves of movement rippled through its segments. Its mouth was a gaping hole banded with rings of fangs, each about the length of my hand. Growing out of its side was a tumor a third as big as the worm itself. Inside the tumor, something was moving.
A team of about fifty men was holding the worm down with ropes. Bare-chested and yelling, their feet slipping in the sand. Some hammered wooden pins into the ground. Others tied the ropes to the pins. Ten men jabbed at the worm with pikes. Clustered around their grips were the same purple, grub-like, battery creatures I had extracted from the Mi-Go-created giant. Blue sparks erupted from the tips as they goaded the worm. It shrank at their touch, trying to retreat into the tunnel. A few minutes later, the monster was tied down in place. Most of the men climbed out of the pit. A few brave souls stayed behind by the ropes, axes held ready.
Directly across from where the worm had been secured, and next to the metal box on the dais, was a stage. It was made from iron rods forming a mesh, thick enough to stand on or walk across. Below the stage, open drainage pipes faced out over the sandy pit. Attached to the stage, and forming a wall ten feet high, was a second iron mesh.
Chained in a row along the mesh wall, were six, dark-haired slave girls. Each slave was stripped naked, their bodies shackled to form an ‘X’. One girl tugged at her shackles and made a primal, hard, scream. She looked at the giant worm and screamed again. Another girl was begging, her voice pleading and tears on her face. A third girl just stared ahead, numb, eyes glazed. A pile of chains and cuffs lay in a heap beside the stage. Standing by it, carrying small rods, were two slave handlers. The rods looked like smaller versions of the shock pikes the worm-handlers had.
All of a sudden, it became very cold. The braziers almost went out. The chanting grew louder, and all eyes went to the metal box.
From inside it, lights began dancing. It was as if flashlights were being shined from the inside, on to tissue paper. They were the same as the lights I had seen on the hill outside Aymund, and later at the bandit camp.
The cultist with the bowl kept flicking water. It froze as it hit the box. He turned and stepped down from the dais.
From inside the box came a sound like clockwork ticking. A doorway formed along invisible seams. Air hissed out from overpressure and the door slid open.
What came out had been a man, at some point. The hands had been removed, bolted to his arms was a metal cylinder. It was made of the same, rainbow-sheened, blue-black metal as the box. The top half of the creature’s skull was gone, a flat plate had replaced it. Where a face had been was a ragged, black, cloth. The rest of the creature was naked, its skin dry and skull-white. Surgical scars marked where its penis and testicles had been removed. Steaming exhaust pipes fed out from its kidneys. The smell of piss filled the air. The creature walked down the dais.
A second being stepped through the box’s doorway. It was another once-man. One shoulder had been completely amputated. Risen in its space, like a corpse floating up in the water, was a second face. It was an adult man’s, but it began making a baby’s laugh. The laughing did not stop. The arm from the intact shoulder was long and moved like a crane’s neck. Its fingers had been fused into two clumps - ending in long blades. Flapping rags were knitted to its waist. The creature’s (first) head had had its lower jaw removed. Its eyes stared about, bloodshot, eyelids removed.
The clockwork ticking grew louder.
Flat Skull and Two-Heads left the dais and climbed on to the stage with the slave girls. All the girls except the numb one, began screaming. Urine ran down one girl’s leg. Another began to hyperventilate.
Flat Skull stood aside, while Two-Heads walked up and down the row of girls. He stopped in front of the one who pissed herself, reaching for her face with his blade fingers. She looked away, eyes closed.
“No! Please, no!”
It stabbed her through the eye, the blade sinking deep into her brain. The corpse convulsed and was still.
It went to another girl. She tugged and struggled at her cuffs, I thought she would dislocate her limbs. Two-Heads parted his blades around her throat, like a pair of scissors.
Slik
The girl’s head fell to the platform and rolled off into the pit. Blood gushed out and down the chest. It flowed down the legs and dripped through the mesh floor. From there is followed the drain pipes, and poured into the sandy pit.
The second head kept laughing through blood-stained teeth.
Two-Heads went to the numb girl, peering this way and that at her with both heads. The slave stared past him, unresponsive. A foot-long tongue snaked out of the subsumed head, twisting like a snake. It licked the slave girl’s neck and cheek. Thick, grey, drool hung from the girl’s face. Still, she did not react.
The tongue slithered back in. The head didn’t laugh again. Instead, Two-Heads stepped back, alongside Flat Skull.
From the box, the clockwork ticking grew still louder.
Out of it stepped a third and final being. It was taller, about 8 feet tall. It wore a goggled, beaked, metal mask like a plague doctor’s. Its feet were blue-black metal and ended in hooves. Breathing holes flared and closed down its spine. Around the waist was a black, ragged, skirt. The ribs and spine showed through, pressing against stretched skin. An extra pair of arms were grafted on top of the shoulders, like spider legs.
One hand ended in a scalpel. The second in a metal gripping tool. The third held a bone flute which its fingers began to play. Sound came from the flute; harsh, hollow notes without rhythm - or reason. Nothing blew on the flute, but still, it played.
The last hand ended in a 2-foot, insect-like, stinger. Seven, grey, testicles clustered at its base like a bunch of grapes. The testicles looked identical to those of the giant we killed back at the bandit camp.
Flautist glided down the dais and up the stage to the numb girl. Focus returned to her eyes and she stared at its goggled mask. She whimpered and tugged at her cuffs, half-heartedly. Flat Skull reactivated and stepped up beside Flautist.
Flautist’s stinger limb extended, the tip dragging down between the slave girl’s breasts. It scratched down her belly and stopped over her hairless pelvis. The slave girl began to sob, head down.
She cried out as the stinger stabbed into her. Blood welled up from the cut and dripped down her leg. Then, a moment later, it was done. The stinger retracted and the bleeding stopped. The flautist peered forward, it’s metal beak in the girl’s face.
The girl threw her head back, grunting. Saliva dripped down the side of her mouth. She stared at the creature, squirming again at her cuffs.
Flautist waited.
The squirming became weaker. The slave girl’s head bobbed, as is she was trying to stay awake. Finally, she let her head loll. Her limbs went limp and she was still.
Using his bladed and gripping hands, flautist got to work. He cut a ‘+’ shaped incision in the girl’s lower belly. Blood poured out and down her legs as he pinned the skin flaps aside. He cut in deeper, and the top of Flat Skull’s cylinder opened.
Flautist’s gripper dug inside the reproductive region of the slave and pulled out material. He put it into the cylinder, which closed itself.
They left the dying girl, climbed down into the pit, and went to the tied-down worm.
Flautist stopped in front of the immense tumor. Something inside it seemed to sense him and strained against the tumor’s skin. Flautist stroked the skin with his gripper as if petting a cat. Then, he slit the tumor wide open.
Gleaming with slime, a giant, Neanderthal-like head with tusks, pushed through. Arms like small trees followed and the giant pulled itself out. It pooled on the sand, breath rasping as it gasped. Spilled out with it were Mi-Go, electrical parasites, flailing, and dying.
The newborn giant got to its feet like an unsteady foal. Then it threw its head back and roared.
Flautist looked up at it like a proud parent.
Men jumped into the pit, carrying shock goads and chains. They rushed to the giant, some barking orders.
The giant batted one away, who went flying and rolled in the sand. It grabbed another and bit into his chest, breaking bone. It shook its victim like a dog with a rat. It snarled as men stabbed it with shock goads from all sides. It crumpled to its knees and men with chains, swarmed it. It threw one off; the man’s neck broke as he landed on his head. Another fixed a chain to the giant’s arm. Then another arm was cuffed. Limb by limb, they secured the beast. It roared and bucked, but the chain teams held it in place. Step by step, they dragged it out of the pit, and away. I shrank behind my pillar as the whole carnival passed.
I heard the snip-snap of giant, razor-sharp, blades. I looked back to the chamber. Only the choir (silent after Flautist’s arrival); a few attendants; the axemen by the ropes; and the three, once-humans were left. Two-Heads had been busy while all other eyes were on the giant. It had cut the three, dead, slave girls into pieces and was mounting them along the wall mesh. It was the same sort of pattern I’d seen at the bandit camp and Zatander’s farm.
Flautist turned back to the giant worm’s tumor. He reached inside it with his blade and grabber, arms hidden by the cut skin flaps. He pulled out a cylinder, identical to the one carried by Flat Skull, and tossed it to the sand.
Flat Skull stepped up to him. Flautist took hold of his cylinder and pulled. The metal cylinder popped free of Flat Skull’s arm stumps. Flautist shoved it inside the open tumor, closed the skin flaps, and started stitching them shut. I say stitching but I saw no sutures. When he was done, there was no visible cut or scar. It was as if the tumor had rehealed perfectly.
Flat Skull shoved his stumps into the used cylinder’s ports. He picked it up and all three creatures withdrew, back to their box. The axemen cut the ropes holding the worm and scrambled out of the pit. The worm roared and retreated into the tunnel, trailing ropes. A few moments later it returned, fangs bared. Then, it crawled to the dead men and swallowed them whole. I could see the darkness of their bodies inside its translucent, white, segments. It crawled forward and swallowed the blood-soaked sand under the butchery stage. Only once it was all gone, did it slither back into the tunnel.
Meanwhile, the choir had been chanting again. The braziers died down again and the wave of sudden cold returned. The dancing lights began again inside the box, then slowly faded away. Once gone, the chanters stopped. They began patting each other on the backs and nodding. Some laughed and one lifted back his hood. Slowly, at ease, they and the other men made their way out, after the giant-handlers. I hid again as they passed.
I waited about ten minutes more, in case any returned. The only sound was the weeping of one of the three, surviving girls.
I came out from behind the pillar, and went down to the perimeter.
The weeping stopped and all three regarded me, eyes wary. I crossed over to the butcher’s stage and climbed it. Its metal frame rang with each step.
One girl was tall, about 5’10”. Her skin had a healthy, warm tone - midway between a little pale and well tanned. Long, black, shining hair fell behind her, thick and below her shoulders. I admired the athletic tone to her body, and her generous behind and breasts. Her large eyes grew alarmed as I stepped up to her. They were dark brown and intelligent.
“Where are the dark-haired girls being kept?” I whispered.
She looked surprised, and then over at the slave next to her. She too looked just as surprised.
“Slave,” I clamped by hand around her throat - it was warm under her iron collar. “Where are they keeping the others?”
“Down below, Master!” her accent was slum Darfuri. “All the way at the bottom!”
“The bottom? Where the lava is?”
“Yes!” she nodded. Her breasts jiggled, perky, and large - they would fit my hand well. She had light brown aureoles and nipples. “Overlooking the lava is a large vault. They keep us in it. When they need us, they bring us up here for - for breeding.”
“If that was breeding, then human sacrifice is a fucking kids’ party game. How many of you are still down there?”
“I’m not sure, Master,” she pulled at her cuffs and rose up on the pads of her feet. She had large, shapely feet - I imagined how they would look, bound together. “But, when they took me this morning, I heard a master say over a thousand had to be prepared before the Arrival.”
“Christ, a thousand!” How was I going to find Naya out of so many? Was she even alive? “What is this Arrival they keep talking about?”
“The Mi-Go are coming.” said the next girl. She was a small-made, slender beauty with dark, heavy eyes. She had an Anatolian accent - a landing beast immigrant.
“Keep your voice down, Slave. I don’t want to deal with those things,” I indicated to the metal box.
“The surgeons are gone, Master,” she replied.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“They come and go, with the lights,” said the tall beauty with the lovely feet. “The priests summon them, then send them back.”
“Back where?”
“To Yarth-Tanophk.”
The Mi-Go grub batteries and shock prods were one thing. The advanced medical and genetic engineering of the giant-breeding was another. But teleportation? That violated Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle - physically impossible.
So were Gods.
“What were you saying earlier, about the arrival?”
“The Mi-Go are coming,” she repeated. “Not just another one, but hundreds.”
“Another one - So there’s only one here?”
“Yes,” said the tall girl. She had high cheekbones and an oval face. “It works in the vault. It - it makes things.”
“What sort of things?”
“Things like the surgeons,” she jerked her head towards the metal box. “It uses slave girls, and sometimes men. At night, you can hear its creatures coming out; moving, calling to each other, sometimes fighting. And then, if they break into a girl’s cage, the screams.”
“Do you know if they are keeping children anywhere?”
“Yes, there is a school on the surface,” she replied. “I saw when they brought me here. There are Runa women attending children, as if they were their own.”
I regarded the third girl - she had the Caucasian-Asian blended features of an Armanean-Shang mix.
These girls had nothing in common.
“Why are they using you for this?” I demanded. “What makes being white with black hair so important?”
“They won’t use other girls, Master,” said the Anatolian.
Melanin in skin, and eumelanin in hair (which turned it black), had nothing to do with reproduction. There’s also very little genetic variation within our species (that’s what happens when a supervolcanic eruption bottlenecks you down to one last tribe in Africa). This meant there was no scientific reason the Mi-Go should only by using pale-skinned girls with black hair, for their experiments. No reason at all.
Could I just not see it? Or was I trying too hard to understand the motives of monstrous and powerful creatures?
“Master,” the tall beauty’s voice was pleading, “please, get us out of here! I know we are slaves, but have mercy and pity on us! I beg you!”
The other girls began imploring as well.
“I’m sorry,” I stroked the tall girl’s cheek, her skin was soft. She looked about twenty-two or twenty-three. “I can’t risk getting caught.”
“Please!” she clenched her fists and pulled at her shackles. The others began to wail. “Please do not let us die like this!”
For a moment I wondered about just saving the tall beauty. I felt ashamed instantly afterward.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “We will save you when we save everyone. I can’t do better than that, too much is at stake, for too many people. I-”
I heard the clinking of chains coming from the passageway.
I felt such a fool - I’d been talking when I should have been listening. The clinking was close; too close to risk running back to find a pillar. I looked about - I could get behind the box the surgeons were in, or down into the pit.
I was not going anywhere near the box.
“If you betray me,” I said, moving to the edge overlooking the pit, “I will kill all of you.”
I jumped down into the pit. In my rush I grabbed at the side of the pit, and cut my finger on a rough stone. It was a tiny cut; I sucked my finger and wiped it on my tunic. The wall of the pit was tall enough to hide me. I stood with my back against it, no one would see me unless they came right to the edge.
The rustlings of chains grew louder and men’s voices joined them.
“It was a good breeding today,” said one. “Only two of ours dead.”
“The Mi-Go be praised,” said another, “but they’ve got some mean fucking children, eh?”
“With today’s birthing, there’s 30 of them,” said First again.
“No way they can get a thousand baking before the Arrival.” said Second. “Alright, little bitch-” A girl cried out. I heard a chain clattering on the stone floor. “Up against the mesh with the other collar cunts. Don’t make me have to use this. Good girl.”
“We have the girls,” said First.
“We don’t have the worms,” said Second.
“You don’t know that.”
“No one knows that. That’s the point. And we can’t - what did I say? What did I say?” I heard the sound of a shock goad going off. Following it was the scream and miserable moan of a girl. “Spread those legs, worthless bitch! And we can’t keep sending men into the tunnels, looking for worms.”
“You wouldn’t risk your life for the Mi-Go?”
“No. No, I fucking won’t, and don’t you pretend you would, either.”
“But other men will. And they’ll be sent. And if there aren’t enough of them,” there was the sound of a slap and a girl cried out, “Arsim will get some ‘volunteers.’”
“If High Priest Lord Razkur makes the call, you and me are hiding out on one of these floors. No one will find us, and they won’t bother with looking.”
“Except that they will, and then it’ll be the lightning gun for us! We can’t hide.”
“Sure we can! Check those anklets, they look loose to me. We take some food, some wine, and there’s water dripping all over the place. Take us two or three collar cunts like these, and we’re fine. Come out when it's done, say we got lost. Who’s to know?”
A rumbling came from the tunnel.
Fucking hell, not now.
“What’s that?”
“What do you think it is?” Second’s voice came closer. “A worm is coming!”
“How? There’s no blood!”
I looked at my bleeding finger. A chill ran through me.
“Maybe there’s still blood in the sand. Who cares? Come and see it!”
“I’m not getting close to that. Come away from there!”
“Oh don’t be a - there it is!”
A worm emerged from the tunnel - smaller than the last, and without any birthing tumors. It opened its mouth and seemed to taste the air, panning from side to side. It stopped and faced me at the second pass - and charged.
“Get back!”
“Did you see you that? Did you see that? Bastard wants to eat me!”
“For the love of the Mi-Go, will you get back from there?”
“He can’t get me! See? I can even go right to the edge and look-”
I grabbed the man’s leg and yanked him into the pit. He tumbled past me, screaming, landing in the sand. He looked up at me as I hung clutching the same jutting piece of stone that had cut me.
The worm, barely five feet from him, turned and devoured him.
I hauled myself up and back on to the perimeter.
Three, new, dark-haired slave girls had been chained to the mesh wall. Standing in front of them, barely six feet from me, was a huge man with a shock prod hanging from his belt. He snarled at me and drew a wicked, curved, knife.
I dodged and nearly fell back as he swung. The blade caught my tunic and cut the sleeve. I tried to draw my sword but he bull rushed me. We went down on the stone floor and I bashed my head. Adrenaline dulled the pain but I still saw stars. I caught his hand just as he forced the knife at my throat. He gritted his teeth and turned red, pushing down. The knife quivered next to my face.
With my free hand, I grabbed his shock goad. I ripped it away and shoved its business end into his eye.
The man screamed and I shoved him off. I drew my own dagger and stabbed him in the chest. He gasped and grabbed at the blade, strong even as he died. I pulled the blade free and shoved it into his throat.
There was a roaring behind me, and I smelled rotting meat. I turned and saw the worm, mouth open, fangs bared.
“Here you go,” I shoved the dead man over the edge. It caught him, and dived into the sand. I watched the sand in the pit subside and quiver as the worm made its way back to the tunnel. It burst to the surface, spraying sand, and then disappeared into the tunnel.
I sat on the floor, taking a much needed moment. I looked over to the metal box.
There was no clicking. No dancing lights. No ice.
Teleportation.
I took a long drink from my water skin and studied the shock goad. It had what seemed a button where my thumb naturally rested on the grip. Beside it was a slider - I wondered if it affected the intensity. Mi-Go power grubs were anchored on the goad like ticks on a dog.
I looked at the six, dark-haired slaves. They said nothing, but their eyes said enough.
“Alright,” I got to my feet. “Let’s do this then.”
I went to the tall girl and studied her shackles. They were crude and simple, easy to make - but also to pick. Using the dead man’s curved dagger, I picked the fetter around her ankle. I forced it open and she pulled her long, athletic, leg free.
“Thank you, Master!” she was so happy she sniffed back tears. The other slave girls were similarly excited - here was something unexpected. Here was hope. “Thank you!”
I caught her by her slender ankle. Her foot was shapely, exquisite.
“You’re not a ‘collar cunt,’” I stroked the sole of her foot, “you’re a ‘collar candy’.”
The tall girl blushed and the other slaves tittered - perhaps it meant something funny in Hyperborean. I picked her other shackles and pushed her down on her hands and knees. Then, I retrieved some chains from the heap to the side.
“Hair,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” said Tall Girl. She rose up on her knees, thighs apart and toes pointed. Then, she lifted her hair up and out of the way.
I placed a large, heavy collar around her throat, and snapped it shut. It had rivets that I tightened by hand. Next, I pulled her wrists behind her back and cuffed them. Lastly, I fitted a chain to her collar, to serve as a leash.
“On your belly, Slave,” I prodded her with the goad, “or I figure this out on you.”
“Yes, Master!” she lay down flat on the ground. Well-conditioned, she spread her legs apart and pointed her toes. It was, after recent events, a most welcoming sight.
“Now you,” I went to the Anatolian.
One by one, I removed each of the dark-haired beauties from the mesh, and collared, cuffed, and leashed them. I made all lie on their bellies, till I had them in a coffle.
“Stand, Slaves.”
They all got to their feet, the chains hanging from one collar to the next, swinging and clinking.
The tall girl was in the front. I took hold of the leash chain and wrapped it around my hand. In the other, I carried the shock goad.
“What’s your name, collar candy?”
“Ibreris, Master.”
“Hell no. I’m in no mood for any Hypeborean bullshit today. You look like the glamour model, Jessica Jackson. That’s your name now.”
“Yezigajaksa?”
“No, Jesicca.”
“Yeziga.”
“Christ. Just say Jess.’”
“Yez?”
The other slaves began trying. I heard Yezga, Keziga, and even, Kezika.
“Fuck it. Your new name is Perfect Feet.”
“Yes Master,” Perfect Feet blushed. The other girls tittered.
I lead the slaves off the floor, and back upwards. No one challenged me - when doing something illegal, don’t try to hide it. I was just another slave-handler. I took them to the zodiac chamber I had explored - it seemed as safe a place as any.
“Remain here, and be quiet,” I said, unshackling the last girl. They were on their hands and knees, buttocks resting on their heels. Shackles seemed unsafe, especially if they had to hide. I left their collars on though - they were slaves.
“Yes, Master,” they replied.
“There is water here, and here is some food,” I handed the Anatolian the travel rations from my bag. “There might be cave insects you can eat, in the water, too. Don’t leave here until I come back for you, do you understand?”
They nodded.
“Thank you, Master,” said Perfect Feet.
One by one, they all thanked me.
I went to the pool and refilled my water skin. I watched the slaves as they crouched by the water’s edge, cupped their hands, and drank from it. From how they reacted, it seemed the best thing they had tasted in a while.
Perfect Feet knelt beside me and took hold of my slashed sleeve.
“Slave?”
She tore a strip of fabric free.
“Hey!”
She wadded it into a ball and dipped it into water. Then she squeezed it out and crouched behind me.
“Keep still, Master.” She dabbed my head where I had bumped it.
“Ow!”
“Keep still,” she squeezed my arm. “There is blood.”
I waited on the dubious health benefits of a naked twenty-something, cleaning a wound, using mineral saturated water of an unknown origin.
“Ow!”
“Master is the bravest of warriors, facing demons and their servants alike,” she put the cloth away, “But you are also, as a mewling, ill-tempered, baby.”
It was the first time I’d been told off by a slave girl.
She clutched my arm with both hands and kissed my shoulder. Then, she got down on her elbows and knees, pushing her fine behind upwards.
“I don’t really have time for that,” I said, as she began removing my boots.
The protest went out of me as I watched the lovely, tall, dark-haired beauty get to work. Her hands were soft and cool. She washed my feet and then dried them with her hair. It was like soft silk running over me. Then she warmed my feet in her hands and massaged them. Lastly, put her head down and kissed them both.
She looked up at me, smiling.
I retrieved a length of chain and fastened it to her collar.
“The only thing lovelier than a naked, beautiful girl, is a naked, beautiful girl, on a leash. I’m sorry that you ended up in this terrible place, but it’s pleasing that a girl like you is a slave.”
“Thank you, Master,” she smiled.
I gripping her hair, bunching it. My other hand pulled down my pants. She looked at my erect penis and squealed. Her eyes became wide and she rose on her knees.
“Finish what you started,” I shoved my penis into her mouth.
The warmth and softness of her mouth enfolded it; such a welcome, familiar, reassuring feeling. She looked up at me and made an appreciative moan.
“Did a man own you before?” my hand left her collar and stroked her jaw, cheek, ear. “Did he put you on your knees, often?”
She replied by moving her head back and forth. She gripped my legs for balance. The other slave girls became quiet. One, on her knees in the ankle-deep in water, stopped and watched open-mouthed. Water poured from between her fingers, forgotten. A second girl sitting cross-legged reached between her thighs and starting fondling herself. The Anatolian girl bit her lip and grabbed the fifth girl by her ankle. The girl looked back at her, then felt the sixth’s arms around her neck. She turned to her, and both closed their eyes and kissed.
Cruel men had broken these submissives down to helpless, begging, meat. Meat that answered to ‘slave,’ ‘bitch,’ and ‘cunt.’ Then, they rebuilt the meat into Pavlovian reflex-trained, sex slaves - Just the sight of a cock aroused them.
Perfect Feet crooned and pumped her head faster. She cupped my testicles, rolling them back and forth between her long fingers.
“Come,” I beckoned to the Anatolian.
The other girls gave her dagger-looks, as she rushed forward and knelt beside Perfect Feet.
I released Perfect Feet’s hair, and pulled her head back, by her collar.
“Nngh!” she protested and glared at the Anatolian. Strings of thickened spit stretched from her lips and broke.
“Share,” I commanded.
Eyeing each other like rivals, the two put their lips to my cock. Perfect Feet licked the side of the shaft. The Anatolian sucked the head. She pushed back the foreskin with her lips and started licking the head clean.
I forced her head forward. My penis went in deep, pushing past her tonsils. Perfect Feet took my testicles into her mouth. She cooed as she stroked them with her tongue; first one, and the other.
I grabbed the Anatolian by the hair and forced her head back and forth. Her mouth made a wet, sucking, organic noise. The Anatolian moaned, so of course, Perfect Feet had to moan, louder.
“Jealous slut!” I slapped her.
She stopped, startled.
Then, I slapped the Anatolian. She cried out and starting choking. I pulled her off and jerked her head back. She gasped and coughed, staring at the ceiling. Saliva ropes fell down her chin. They stretched, quivering, to her throat.
Perfect Feet started sucking me off again. This time, I let her continue. When I was ready to cum I pressed her head to my groin and gripped her throat.
“Do not swallow!”
I came, pumping her with semen. I pulled out slowly and wiped my cock on her cheeks. She looked up at me, mouth full.
The Anatolian cried out as I pushed her off her knees. She fell to the floor and tried to get up. I put my boot on her neck and kept her lying facedown on the floor.
“Spit it out, down her spine,” I ordered. “let it pool on her back.”
Perfect Feet crawled next to the prone girl. She pressed her lips between the Anatolian’s shoulder blades and slowly spat. Semen mixed with saliva flowed down the Anatolian’s spine. It collected in the small of her back.
“Come,” I waved to the other four girls. “Eat.”
They crawled on their hands and knees around the prone slave. One girl held her hair out of the way as she dipped her head. Another girl licked with her tongue, like she was eating a lollipop. A third girl pressed her lips, nose, and chin right into the semen, closing her eyes.
Perfect Feet’s swallowed, wiped her mouth, and sucked her fingers clean. She leaned against my leg, head pressed against my thigh, watching the feeding girls. Then, she turned her head to my penis and licked it clean.
I stroked her hair and let the beauty take her time.
“Remain here, and do not make a sound,” I pulled up my pants and broke free of her grasp. “And they will not find you. Whatever happens, and whatever you hear, do not come out till I come back for you. Understand?”
“Yes, Master,” Perfect Feet looked sad.
I kissed her forehead and left.