The Deviant of the Dar Ages

Chapter II: The Sorceress and the Maiden Fair

When Anna came to, her head felt like a lump of molten lead: heavy and searing with pain. It was the sort of hangover one would expect after consuming a whole barrel of ale—except Anna never drank enough to become intoxicated. In fact, she usually only sipped from flagons for the sake of appearance, as a lapse in judgement could be disastrous in her line of work. Unfortunately, this hangover wasn't something she could recover from by rolling around in bed for hours; in fact, she quickly realised she wasn't actually in her own bed, and she wasn't even able to scratch her nose, much less roll around.

Then she remembered what had happened and her eyes flew open. Two faces were looking down at her, neither of them sympathetic. They'd had the foresight to gag her, too: a bundle of silk was packed tightly into her mouth, robbing her of any vocal output above a soft mew. She needed to speak in order to work magic. Without speech, her years of training amounted to little more than threat evaluation—and she knew exactly how threatening her current plight was. For the first time since mastering the arcane, she was as helpless as any common girl off the street.

"Was the bruising really necessary, Ripper?"

"She fights," the manservant grunted.

"Of course she fights, you fool," the master replied coldly, speaking slowly as though to a dull child. "If you were a scared little girl and I assaulted you with a large metal stick, you would retaliate too."

Anna froze, her hopes lifting for the first time. If Richard didn't know of her magic yet, there might still be an opportunity to get the upper hand. So long as his dim-witted servant didn't spill the beans first. Of course, if they knew who she was they might just surrender to her anyway. But she'd better not risk losing the advantage.

"She fights," Ripper repeated. Clearly a more descriptive report was beyond him.

Richard sighed. "Truly, your company is as inspiring as always. Go torture a rat or something, would you?"

The bumbling manservant shrugged and left the room. Richard turned to Anna and sized her up, his eyes raking her clothed body as though searching for a concealed weapon in the ruffles.

"So, a combative soul, are we? Well, I would not dare question the intelligence of a lass who angers a brute thrice her size," he mocked her, "But as far as any quaint rebellion is concerned, a little dissuasion might not go amiss."

He walked over to the large wardrobe door that had drawn her gaze earlier and after a few seconds of fiddling with the lock, swung it open.

Anna choked into her gag. The stench of perspiration was overwhelming. Where an ordinary person would hang their clothes, no less than thirteen ruddy-faced women were hanging by their ankles, twitching in bondage. They were each gagged with sturdy leather harnesses, their wrists bound against their rears, and not a stitch of clothing was in sight. But her heart skipped a beat as she realised something else: each and every girl shared the same blood-red hair as her. Anna had always thought she was unique—now it seemed this perverted creep had just been abducting every other ruby-haired girl he could get his lewd hands on. Apparently he had a type, and by some sick twist of fate, she was it.

"You may consider these lovely ladies your predecessors. Each of them were, at some point or another, the jewel of my collection—until I grew tired of them and searched for a more lustrous gem. You might think their restraints excessive, so allow me to assure you that your evaluation would be correct." His fingers ran down the nearest perspiring body, spinning the poor girl gently. "Even supposing they slipped out of these wrought-iron shackles, freed their bound ankles, and dropped out of their suspended position without knocking themselves senseless, there is no power on Earth that could open this door from within."

Anna wanted to kick him. What right did he have to take these women from their homes and subjugate them into his sadistic fantasies? Then she realised the most remarkable thing: some of these girls must have been in this musty prison for decades, yet none looked much older than her. If not outright dead, they should at least be weak and malnourished. But to the contrary, they were the picture of health: their cheeks were as rosy as a blushing bride's, their curves as pleasing to the eye as any desirable young damsel's, and their muscles strained with tireless vigour against the strict bonds that held them. How could this be?

Richard slammed the door shut on their desperate moans and turned back to his latest acquisition, smiling. "One day, this cosy closet will become your home, too—but whether tomorrow or ten years from now is largely up to you." He paused between each closing word, emphasizing the assonance with a finger jabbed at Anna's chest.

Her heart pounding with barely-contained dread, Anna glared at her tyrannical captor. How wonderful it must be to possess eternal youth and beauty—yet how horrendous to spend that eternity bound in the stale closet of a ruthless sadist! The only bastion of hope that stopped her from plummeting into total despair was the knowledge that she was not like those other girls; she had the power to overcome that fate, if only she could expel this infernal gag from her mouth.

No amount of optimism could wipe away the image now etched into her mind, however: thirteen desperate girls, their youthful features alike enough to be sisters, their enviably-flawless figures inverted and dripping with warm perspiration, mouths clamped around stiff leather gags, their faces as red as their vibrant hair draped below, and each of them staring back at Anna with wide, pleading eyes mixed with pity and despair. She would not accept that fate. Moreover, she would free those girls before she burned this accursed place to the ground.

Richard walked back towards her, put an arm around her and pulled her close to him. She bristled against his strong arms, fearful of the man who'd subdued so many girls before her.

"Come now," he murmured into her ear in a more soothing tone. "You don't truly believe I would risk damaging that fine dress, do you?"

He laughed and pulled away. "It bestows a resplendence matched only by the beauty it once lavished on them," he added, gesturing to the wardrobe filled with silenced captives. "But, regrettably, its presence is required elsewhere. We must always be prepared to welcome new visitors, after all."

A minute later the tightly-laced finery had been carefully removed and folded neatly into a pile. It seemed he took better care of the dress than he did of the women who actually wore it. Were they just lifeless dummies to him? At least now without the corset she could breathe freely, though being naked and spread-eagled before this psychopath was doing little to calm her nerves.

In truth, Anna had never been with a man, for the cost of keeping her powers was remaining pure in body and mind. If she were defiled, even against her will, her magic would leave her. If she turned to using her powers for evil, taking the life of an innocent, her magic would leave her. But mercifully Richard appeared to have no interest in taking advantage of her open thighs just yet. To her surprise, he instead proceeded to loosen the ropes that held her arms and legs to the corners of the four-poster bed. Then he deftly retied her wrists together behind her back and pulled her to her feet.

For a moment Anna considered running. She was no longer encumbered by a ruffled full-length dress, and there was no obstacle between herself and the open door. But how far would she get with her mouth gagged and arms pulled back uncomfortably behind her? Even if she could outrun her arrogant captor, his hulking manservant could be waiting just outside. Considering what she'd just seen, it was a foolish risk to take, and one that could easily sentence her to an eternity of inescapable bondage with no one but gagged sympathisers for company.

So she just stood there, waiting. This choice bothered her: she'd never been one to stand idly by or give in, especially to such an abomination. She was a trailblazer, a free spirit, a crusader against evil. Her proper name, Annabeth, was spoken in awe by the masses, and her powers were unmatched in all the lands. It was a sign of how grim things had become that her best option was to play along with a soulless deviant like Richard—if indeed that was his name.

As he grabbed her shoulder to lead her out of the room, she noticed for the first time just how strong his grip was. As she thought about it, she realised Richard was not just a well-knit man, and his dark manservant was not merely a mountain of muscle. Their brawn seemed to far outweigh any plausible level of human strength. The only explanation was that they were somehow more than human. And then it struck her.

Richard and Ripper were her targets. She'd come to Lumina seeking to solve the mystery of their dwindling population and hopefully deal with the person or creature responsible. Her young informant had been vague, but she'd made it clear that there was a great evil in the town that needed to be stopped. An individual so ruthless he would smile as his victims screamed their last. And by the way the distraught young woman had spoke, Anna shuddered to think how close the girl had come to being one of those victims herself. This was precisely the sort of threat Anna dedicated her life to eliminating, so she'd taken the job without so much as a name with which to begin her search.

After months prowling the streets of the unwelcoming city she'd began to lose hope. There was injustice on every corner, but nothing deserving of the gruesome end she was to deliver. Until she'd met Richard. Or rather, until she'd been enslaved by Richard. His charm had seduced her: never in her wildest dreams had she imagined such a cruel deviant could masquerade so convincingly as a chivalrous gentleman. She'd only been looking for one suspect, but if Ripper was Richard's accomplice than he was her target too.

If her theory was true—and she was confident it was—it meant that Richard was responsible for far more disappearances than the number of women hanging in his wardrobe. Most likely he'd killed the others and kept those for whom he had a depraved fetish. Anna was beginning to look forward more and more to doling out vengeance.

One pressing question remained, however. What was he? If not human, then what? She'd dealt with all manner of monstrous creatures throughout her colourful career, but never a manlike being who flirted by day and murdered by night. His primal lust was so convincingly masculine that she had to keep reminding herself he was not a man, but something else entirely. It didn't really matter what—he would die all the same.

As these realisations all clicked into place, so did Anna. She'd been led into a room cluttered with barbaric torture devices, and Richard was now shoving her head-first into a thick metal shackle just large enough to close snugly around her neck. The collar was held vertically in place about a metre above the ground by a solid metal frame, so she had to get on her knees and lean forward to fit into it. Once it was closed she was stuck staring at the cold stone floor. She felt her arms being raised up behind her into a strict strappado. She tugged them back in protest, but they were already chained to the ceiling and she found no reprieve for her aching shoulders.

A slim metal pipe was then slipped just behind her knees. She felt Richard's hands fiddling with a leather belt around her legs, and then her ankles were pulled tightly against her thighs, holding the pipe firmly in place. Then he turned his attention to her chest. She didn't consider herself a particularly full-chested woman, but after several coils of rope had been wrapped around her breasts, they were as plump as melons and beginning to look just as red.

The purpose of this rope soon became clear: he lifted up the pipe to her protruding mounds and secured it there, bringing her knees up with it and pulling her bust out in front of her vision. Now she was squatting on her toes, her back hunched over painfully from her horizontal neck to her vertical hips, and every twitch of her knees tightened the coils of rope encircling her sensitive mounds.

What had started as merely an uncomfortable position had turned into full-blown torture, and she was powerless to resist or even protest as her jubilant captor continued to add to it. Wooden clothes pegs were applied to her nipples, a muffled scream escaping her gag as her sensitive buds were cruelly crushed. Her arms were pulled even tighter together until her elbows touched. A cold slimy object was pushed against her rear and her eyes widened in shock as it lodged firmly within her. Her flaming hair was then pulled back and connected somehow to her wrists, tugging painfully on her scalp whenever she tried pulling her arms out of their brutal strappado.

Richard slipped his hands around her as she rocked back and forth on her tiptoes, feigning sympathy for the brutal predicament he'd subjected her to. Tears rolled silently across her cheeks and onto her breasts, unnoticed by her sadistic captor, as she lamented her plight and cursed the man who had his lascivious hands wrapped intimately around her bare waist as only a lover had any right to do. She couldn't move a muscle without it straining another, and Richard was in no hurry to let up on his beautiful bound slave.

"Anna," he said thoughtfully. "A lovely name for a lovely specimen," his hands exploring every inch of her bronzed flesh.

***

As the days slipped by, Fira began to realise her sister wasn't going to free them as she'd promised. In fact, as time passed Sara only seemed to grow more content with their cruel enslavement. Ever since their abduction she'd been acting differently, shrugging off injustices that would have outraged her in the past and turning a blind eye to Fira's welfare. If someone was going to get them out of here, Fira knew it would have to be her—if Sara even wanted to leave when the opportunity arose.

They were kept apart for most of each day, not that day or night had any meaning down here. It was just a cold, unending existence, peppered by occasional meals and frequent abuse. Fira only saw her sister for what their eccentric host called "play time"—a period of a few hours where the two were dragged out into a shared cell to be stripped and humiliated. Fira seemed to be his favourite toy, and fittingly enough, they were treated as little more than glorified toys. She didn't mind this too much, for she'd never been one to bridle her lust in the past—with the notable difference that she herself was always the one who'd done the playing, and not, despite Sara's frequent criticism, any of the men she hung around with. The humiliation instead came because of her company. Moaning in pleasure was one of Fira's favourite pastimes, but doing it in front of her sister brought on an entirely new level of discomfort.

Did she actually enjoy these sessions? For all the salacity she displayed, it would be easy to think so, and she hoped that William at least was fooled by her empty smiles. But this was not a life she had chosen. William was a cruel master, and his toying often involved more pain than pleasure. In truth, it was all an empty experience to Fira, who did her best to detach her mind from the proceedings whenever one of his devious contraptions came into sight. She was at least kept well-nourished—the gruel that was forced into her cell was as bland as three-day-old pottage, but it kept her healthy and replete. Whatever William's nefarious purpose was for her, it was not to let her die of starvation in these hellish dungeons of his.

A sudden clanging on her cell door snapped Fira from her reverie. The metal door swung open to admit her maleficent captor, William, alone and unarmed in his usual opulent vestments. Though months of struggling against unyielding restraints had given Fira a robust, toughened physique, she knew better than to raise a hand against him. She'd learnt the hard way that his own lean build was deceptive: despite appearances, he was stronger and faster than she'd have thought humanly possible. On one occasion he'd lifted both sisters at once, one hand around each neck, as effortlessly as if they were stuffed dolls. Fira thought this advantage was monstrously unfair, but she'd soon conceded it didn't matter. Free and independent people had claims to fairness; slave girls simply submitted to their master's will. Not because they wanted to, but because they had to. Because they knew the cost of disobedience.

"More haste, pet," snapped William, standing in the doorway.

Fira scurried to her feet and dutifully shed her sleeping rags as she'd done countless times before. She stepped out of them carefully, taking care not to trip from the short length of chain between her legs. Her wrists and ankles were kept shackled at all times to prevent her from running or walking too fast—not that she had anywhere to go. The manacles also doubled as anchor points for any chains William decided to attach to her, much to her chagrin.

She stepped over to her master, holding her shoulders back proudly as though she still had some sense of pride over her shapely figure. It was what pleased William, and pandering to William's deviant tastes was all she could do to ease her plight. She suppressed the urge to flinch as he aimed a playful slap at her crotch.

They set off down the stone passageway, William pushing Fira from behind as she stumbled with her chained ankles. Most of the doors they passed held no new surprises for her—Fira had been subjected to more contraptions than she cared to remember, and was intimately familiar with the layout of these dungeons. She couldn't help but liken this walk to that of a criminal walking to his execution—and she was sure that one day that's where she'd be heading too.

But not today, it seemed. They stopped outside a small room with mirrored walls and a single item of furniture standing in the middle: an iron maiden. This was not like any other iron maiden, however: the spikes inside were short and blunt, intended to cause discomfort without injuring; around the waist there were thin leather pads instead of spikes; but most notably, the exterior was forged to resemble a maiden out of some hyper-sexualised lustful fantasy. Her curves were obscenely exaggerated: the bulging bust, narrow waist, and angled hips formed an idealised hourglass figure that a noblewoman would trade her rarest diamond for. The maiden's chest and navel were buffed to a dull sheen, emphasising her impossibly voluptuous figure. Whatever pain the victim was spared by the absent spikes would be more than compensated by the sensation of having their body squashed into a more curvaceous shape. The maiden was also smiling, her lifeless visage crafted with an air of naive beauty that radiated joy and pleasure, romanticising the extreme pain and discomfort her occupant would feel.

Fira became aware that William was holding out his hand towards the open maiden, gesturing for her to enter it. She looked between him and the sexualised metal prison with dread, wondering if her curves were not already pleasing enough to him or if there was something more she could have done to avoid this horrifying fate.

"Get in," he growled. She started inching towards the maiden before he grew any more impatient. When she was a few steps from it he spun her around and pushed her backwards. She slid unceremoniously into the metal shell, its polished interior cold against her smooth skin. Then he tucked her arms in beside her and swept her hair out of the way. It was almost comfortable—until William swung the main section closed, pressing it firmly against her body as he locked it in place.