Toly and the Dar Apollo

Toly and the Dark Apollo

By Alexander de Barr

_______________________________________

Toly gripped the trim of her dress and rubbed it nervously between her fingers.

"What you did, Miss Verdier, is unspeakable."

The curly-haired blond didn't dare look up. She was seated before an emergency disciplinary council, headed by a most displeased Professor Fullington.

Alexavier Silverwood, the professor of martial and psychic defences, leered at her with a hawk-like glare: she was in his sights.

"What you and your friends did was downright sadistic. You knowingly put another student in a situation that could have ended catastrophically."

Heiliger, the professor of alchemy, was seated to Silverwood's right. He spoke: "What's more, we would have carried out the sentence. You would have made us instruments of your sadism."

Toly had locked Lydia Weatherlee, a troubled freshman student, in a broom closet at a time when she risked expulsion if late to a critical appointment. Expulsion from the school carried with it the sentence of erasure of one's memory, a rare practice necessary to protect the institution's secret arts. Miss Weatherlee had since become a protégé of Heiliger's, one he'd become quite fond of. Now Toly would have to face the consequences of her actions.

A palpable knot of anxiety kept the head girl constricted inward, her eyes down and off to the side. She couldn't face this reality.

"How could this have happened? I'm good! Everyone knows that! How could this happen?"

"I... but, but...," she stammered.

"Understand this, Miss Verdier: the only reason you were not expelled immediately is because of your impeccable academic record."

Professor Silverwood was careful not to mention the damage that this incident would do to the school's name. The present staff all knew it, but none dared say it: this was a scandal.

That their most capable student would behave like this, showing so little judgement and empathy towards another, would tarnish the school's reputation for a generation.

Expelling the second-year head girl, one with so many academic accolades, one who'd become the face of the school at several international events, would be too much bad press. This matter had to be addressed discreetly and decisively. Even a school of mysticism was not immune to the ravages of adverse publicity, despite the public here being only a handful of furtive schools strewn about across the globe.

"Miranda! Penelope! It was their idea, I swear it!" Toly said. She'd say anything at this point.

"Your two friends have already been questioned. We know you act as a sort of ring-leader, Miss Verdier," said Professor Fullington. Her distant, imperturbable tone kept Toly off balance.

Silverwood interjected, "You should know. Your friends have already been expelled."

Toly's eyes widened. An existential dread crept over her, grabbing her by the throat. Her brow became sweaty. She gulped down nervously as adrenaline flooded her veins. Her heartbeat became sharp and painful.

Professor Heiliger had had enough: they'd been here for two hours already, and he'd had his idea of what to do from the start. As the Master of Order, now was his time to put an end to this. After all, matters like these were his domain.

"Miss Verdier. In light of your past academic performance and outstanding work for the school, we will offer you a choice: you will either leave, which, for the official record, will be of your own volition..."

"No! I will not fail like this and have my memories taken from me! I belong here. I earned this. They should be thanking me!"

"...or..."

Time froze. Toly's breathing stopped. Tears welled up in her eyes. She trembled in her seat.

"...or you will voluntarily undergo one of my disciplinary regimens."

"A way out!"

"Yes!" she blurted, almost laughing.

Heiliger paused, then smirked a little.

"I warn you, Miss Verdier: this will not be pleasant. It might be worth just leaving."

"I've worked too hard! I won't lose to that harlot!"

"I'll do it. Anything. Just let me stay!"

"How hard could it be? Just play the good girl, right?"

The professor sat back, folded his arms and examined her up and down. It's the only way.

"You will keep this off my record, right?" she asked nervously.

"Oh, Miss Verdier," Heiliger said as he leaned forward, a toothy and ominous grin on his face. "My disciplinary measures don't go on any record."

He took a deep, pensive breath and turned to his colleagues. "How does the council feel about this?"

Silverwood nodded. He'd never liked this girl, having always sensed something wrong, something fake, about her, and he knew what she was in for: it would do her some good.

"I."

Fullington smiled. She wouldn't deny Heiliger his simple pleasures. Besides, the girl clearly had some deep-seated issues. Dealing with them now would save her and them trouble in the future. And it would take the matter off her hands...

"I."

Silverwood spoke: "Then it's settled. Toly Verdier, please stand."

She did as ordered.

"To make amends for your misdeed, you have chosen to undergo ritual disciplinary measures with the master of order, here present, Maximilian Heiliger. The council hereby accepts your decision. The sentence is to be carried out without delay."

Heiliger spoke: "Tomorrow, Miss Verdier, you will meet me in ritual room eleven, at midnight and in light ceremonial attire. You will not attend your usual classes of the day. Instead, you will prepare yourself with meditation. Skip dinner. Shower and be presentable. Do not be late, or you will be expelled. No excuses." He dismissed her with a wave of the hand.

"Thank you, professors. I'm so sorry for the trouble I've caused."

Toly hid a smirk as she walked out the door. I outsmarted them. I won.

Silverwood was gathering his papers: "She's very good, that girl, at hiding the ugliness she has inside."

"No worries, Alexavier. My friends will be more than happy to excise it," Heiliger said with some satisfaction. He paused. "You were always good at that?"

"At what?"

"Seeing what others are hiding."

"It's my speciality, Maximilian. That girl is deeply disturbed and emotionally immature. A classic case of narcissistic sociopathy. Left untreated, her wounds are hooks for future addictions, possessions even."

"I'll be careful, Alex."

Silverwood continued. "Not to mention that she's a danger to others. Look at what she did! Who knows what she's gotten away with so far..."

"But she's still young. Her mind is still forming," Fullington interjected. "Don't be too harsh."

"That's up to them, Della," Heiliger said. "My friends will only give the girl what she can handle."

It was ten to midnight when Toly arrived at the ritual floor, deep underground. Like most floors within the school, it could be accessed via a steam-powered mechanical lift that was reserved for staff members. As the best student, Toly had been given special accreditation to use it whenever she liked, which was often; it reminded her of how far she'd come.

"How few people had ever ridden in a lift, even outside Profiterole? Does that make me special? It certainly makes me better than most..."

In her mind, all the hard work she'd done had made her deserving of such modern luxuries.

Her slippers pattered against the moist stone floor as the breeze licked her hair, still damp from her evening shower.

The hallway was cold, and her clothing didn't help. Heiliger had specified light ceremonial attire, which was nothing more than a white robe and slippers. No underwear, no socks. Toly felt nude as she made her way down the corridor. This garb was best worn when one was looking forward to uncomfortable magical work.

"Where is room eleven?"

She turned a corner and saw a light. A door was agape in the distance.

"That must be it."

Heiliger was already there, getting everything ready. As Toly neared the room, her confidence, born of arrogance and denial, receded, making way for nervous doubt.

"What 're we going to do down here? Is this safe?"

She got closer until she heard footsteps and the crackling of firewood. She pressed against the door, which was heavy, like that of a dungeon cell, and took a peek inside. Heiliger, his back turned to her, was busy setting up a ceremonial altar. A warm fire was burning in a stone stove against the wall. The room was dank stone, and the ceiling was high and arched.

Something in Toly enjoyed that her professor didn't know that she was there, spying on him. She held her breath to be more discreet, enjoying this small nibble of power.

"Maybe I can sweet-talk him into letting me go? He probably wants me, the pervert--"

"I know you're there, Miss Verdier."

"Professor!" - Toly nearly fell flat on the floor. She came in swinging from the door handle.

""Come on in, and watch your step, young lady," he said, amused.

She got to her feet. He motioned for her to come closer.

"Professor, um?" - She twirled a lock of her golden hair and made big, seductive eyes at him as she spoke: "I was, well, I was wondering if there was some way that..."

He looked at her with a steady smile, motionless. She crossed her arms and pressed her breasts together.

"I mean, maybe we could do this some other..."

His aura was like that of some impenetrable monolith. Her attempts ricocheted off him. This wouldn't work. Toly was left feeling powerless.

"Put your arms out. Form a cross," he commanded, calmly yet forcefully.

She hesitated before doing as instructed.

He grabbed the sleeve of her robe and pushed it up to her shoulder, baring her delicate arm. He then fastened an iron manacle around her wrist. She felt the weight of his grip against her girlish frame as he worked. He then did the same to her other arm.

"Um?"

The professor ignored her. Once done, he pointed to a chalk circle that he'd drawn on the ground.

"Kneel."

"There's no way out. Whatever this is, I'll just have to go through with it. I can do this. How hard can it be?"

She kneeled in the circle. The floor was bare wood, uncomfortable.

Heiliger came to her side, some chains in hand. He restrained her arms to a thick metal hoop bolted to the floor behind her.

Toly, kneeling, veiled in white robes, chained with her arms behind her back, felt like a virgin sacrifice being offered to some beast. To be alone now with the professor in this place made her both nervous and lightly aroused.

He picked up a small glass vial from the altar, one filled with a wine-coloured substance, took a few drops in a pipette, and squirted them onto his tongue. He filled the pipette again and came to the delinquent schoolgirl. "Stick out your tongue."

She did as she was told.

He disgorged the liquid into her mouth. It was oily and bitter. She swallowed, after which he took a seat, cross-legged, palms on his thighs, behind the ceremonial altar.

"Professor," she asked sheepishly. "What is this?"

"What you did, Toly, is very serious," he replied. "I don't think you realise just how badly things could have ended."

"Uh... sure, professor, I do." -- Utterly unconvincing.

"I'm going to introduce you to some friends of mine. They're going to take you to some dark places... places that few of us would go to willingly, but sometimes, we must. I will be there to accompany you so you don't get lost. Whatever happens, whatever they do, let it be your lesson. Be warned, however: my friends can be a little rough."

Those last few words stuck in the air, resonating in her head like the reverberations off a drum. Colours evanesced: only the washed-out red of the fire remained.

Toly's mind quieted. It was only then that she realised how noisy it was most of the time, running around in circles, attaching a story to everything, and quieting down only when she studied.

The minutes went by, and things began to change. Reality became blurry and malleable, like water in a stream. The heat of the fire grew and grew until it was like a furnace. Toly wanted to disrobe but couldn't. The chains held her arms firmly in place, and besides, she'd be naked with the professor. It wouldn't make much difference anyway: the rising heat was coming from within.

A moment passed, and things cooled off. The room took on a pale bluish hue, which wrapped around the girl like a silk drape and soothed her soul.

She tilted her head back and let herself go, becoming like a soft breeze blowing under the cool moon. Leaves and flower petals blew through her, dots of pink and orange sailing on the gentle waves of the sea that she'd become. Flocks of birds danced soundlessly through her, turning her into a living canvas of life and beauty. Soothing bliss.

"This is no punishment," she thought to herself. "I'm loving it! So soft..."

She looked down at the world around her. Some ways off in the distance, standing atop a lonely rock, was a virile young lion. Toly knew in that instant that it was Heiliger.

"You're here? With me?"

No answer. He gazed back at her without judgement. How he could see the wind and the waves that she was was a mystery, but she knew that he'd seen her.

It was in that most exquisite quietude, with the serenity of a guardian watching over her, that Toly could completely give herself to the experience. The weights and burdens of her mind fell away like rusty bits of old armour. Layer upon layer cracked, peeled, and evaporated, leaving her utterly pure and exposed. In that instant, she remembered who she really was, deep down inside, something only a lucky few ever do.

And then, a new presence made itself known. A man, carved of marble like a Greek god but darker, his skin smeared with volcanic ash, materialised from behind and took her, the wind, the water, the moonlight, the birds, and the leaves, all in his arms.

A voice boomed from within the deepest recesses of her mind: "This is what you could be."

It all ended in a flash.

A dark presence was now in the space. Toly tried to open her eyes, but there was black in all directions. She could no longer feel her body in Room 11. She was somewhere else, seeing with a different set of eyes: it was the dream world, her inner world, and something foreign had just penetrated it, along with a clawing fear that soaked into her like blood into cloth. That wonderful feeling of serenity was smothered, extinguished, like the former flame of a burnt-out candle.

The lion reappeared just long enough to remind her that he was there before fading again. The fear seeping into her slowed its growth when she saw him: a vacant space was left within her, waiting to be filled, but with what?

The ashen man spoke again, his voice deep and piercing. "Hello, my dear."

Darkness took form. A pair of smooth, firm hands crept up Toly's back, like sentient shadows, and wrapped around her shoulders, ran up and around her stomach, down to her thighs, and back up to her hair.

The black floor began to bubble before her. A pillar of molten rock gushed forth, each time higher than the last, until it reached the height of a great man. The heat was suffocating, but it didn't burn Toly's flesh: that wasn't the way things worked here, no. As the bubbling mass took form, Toly was seized by another feeling: a most base, most crass, and most savage lust. Such was the intensity of this overpowering eagerness that her legs gave out from under her, and she was brought to her knees.

The magma receded, the excess imbibed by the floor, and there he stood: the dark Apollo, a tall, ashen inversion of the classical ideal.

His eyes were bright red, radiating with the aura of roaring fire. His smile was playful and tinged with ardent sadism. His teeth, seemingly sharpened, gleamed like pearls. His smooth, rippling muscles flexed under his animate, sullied, marble skin. He towered over the petite head girl.

"Who... are you?" she stammered.

"We are the disciplinarian."

He grips me by the chin with two muscular fingers. Sharpened nails press into the rosy flesh of my cheeks.

"You have been a naughty little girl, haven't you?"

His claws grate against my skin, then he slaps me firmly across the face.

The impact ignites the simmering lust in my loins: where I thought that I'd cry in protest, I moan in delight instead.

He slaps my other cheek, then glides backwards into the void, whispering in my mind as he fades, "When we are done with you, you will beg for it like a bitch in heat."

"He's vanished. Where is he? I'm scared!"

A shadowy hand comes to rest on my head: he's behind me! I can't even feel him move. He's everywhere at once. If this place is me, then he's invaded me completely. It's already his, and there's nothing I can do. I'm at his mercy.

"Mercy!" I cry.

"No mercy for unruly brats," he says with cruel delight.

He grasps me by the neck and lifts me into the air. My feet lose touch with the ground, and, in an instant, the void beneath me becomes a mile-long drop. Gravity tugs at my feet. I'm petrified. "What the hell is this? Somebody help me!"

Just then, a beam of light cuts through the black. Clouds up above part, revealing a blue sky and bright sunlight: it's the lion! He looks down on me, regal and protective. He's still there. I relax in the grip of the disciplinarian's power.

"That's it," says the shadowy deity. "Good girl."

He fades out again, whilst I remain suspended in air. Up, down, backwards, and forwards have become meaningless.

"The lion always saves the naughtiest boys and girls for me."

"Heiliger?"

And again the ashen being appears before me. He raises a clawed index finger and presses it to my forehead. A cool breeze stirs my hair as he punctures my brow with the tiniest of pinpricks, and through this minuscule hole his will invades me. Golden threads surge from his fingertips and latch on to my mind, my thoughts, my will, my body, my feelings: he's taking control. Part of me yields instantly.

"We will mould you and shape you until you're ready to take your place in our harem, with all the other obedient little girls that have come before."

There's a flash of light. I have a vision of young women, millions of them, as far as the eye can see, all of them on their knees, all of them in rows and columns, their hands on their thighs, their heads upright, their eyes down, and all of them at peace.

Each girl's story is accessible at a glance: one had no father and lived in a cold, loveless world until she found her solace in servitude; another had been taught that her desires of submission were wrong and made her weak; she resisted them, thrashing about for years until her soul couldn't bear it anymore, and she relented. Am I to join them?

"No!" A petulant voice shrieks from within, "I'm better than all of you!"

"What is that? That voice is horrid!"

The voice is that of a little girl twisted by coercion and shame, an irritation that I can't reach or soothe.

"But it's so familiar! It's always there, so much so that it took me over. I want it out! I thought it was me, but it's not! That ugly little voice has been guiding me for so long."

"Give in to us, and we'll take it out."

The promise of release is too much: "Yes."

He slaps me across the face. I moan in delight again. "Say please."

"Please."

He slaps me on the other cheek. "Say please, masters."

"Please, masters."

He caresses my sore flesh. His grin grows wider, like a predator honing in on his prey.

"What a good little girl."

As he takes over, a growing part of me relishes the thought. I sigh and groan. Some kind of new climax is near. The golden threads reach deeper and deeper: my toes, my hands, my thighs, my tongue, my clitoris: everything. He's taking control of everything. As he does, so goes my fear. Deep down I want to be his puppet, his plaything.