The Inquisitor

How long had he been in this place. How long had it been since his eyes beheld light? Days, years? Time had lost all meaning to him. His world was all darkness, a tiny ledge above a bottomless pit.

Why do you not kill me? He screams into the void. Better to die under the sword than suffer such isolation. He screams and screams until there is no sound.

He collapsed against the smooth stone behind him, tears of despair flowing free. In his mind, the idea of stepping into the black, the great fall into the great beyond... To his mind, it seems more and more appealing.

It was at his lowest ebb, that a new sound reached his ear. It is laughter. Laughter! Not the gentle kind laughter of a child or friend. No. The reproachful coughing cackle of mockery.

It echoes out of the darkness, seeming to come from the very pit itself.

Who's there? He commands, only to be greeted by another coughing chuckle.

Scream all you like! Smiles the voice from the dark. T'will not avail you...

All is silence and darkness. Think you the only wretch here in this desolation? asks the voice. Think you the only Forgotten?

Who's there! He commands, on his feet, fist out before him.

Heh, heh. Echos the voice. Look at you! Fool! Think you to leap across this void... to pummel me with your bare fists?

As the voice speaks, a small spark of blue light leaps out in the black. A tiny round orb of light. In the blue flame he could make out a shape. As the flame rolled about in a blue-silver ball above his fingertip, the shape resolved into a man. In an instant he could distinguish the person, a man of age, but not dottered.

He was broad shouldered, but bent by starvation and neglect. He inhabited a ledge just like his own, on the other side of a great chasm separating them.

Who... who are you? He asks of his new-found neighbor.

I am Syr-va-ahl. At your service. Stand not amazed, my fellow... we share a wretched place, from which there is no escaping. Not alone at least.

Escape! The word rang in his ears like a talisman. Escape... to flee this horrible pit, to wage vengeance upon his captors... to once again see his homeland and his love.

He begs his new friend to tell him how, to show him the way up the sheer face of the wall behind him, or some safe path down to the floor below. Another round of mocking laughter is all that is returned.

Climb? Ha!... says the man. I have been here for a very long time... and have watched in silence as many who have stood upon you side have tried that very thing... only to fall to their death. The craftsman who built this place of forgetting were very... steadfast. They did their duty too well. Even if you could find foothold enough to climb... many measures above, and the same below, the rock has been shaved smooth, so you may climb no further. After a while of hanging, unable to go up or down, their strength always gives out... they always fall... no one can escape here by climbing!

He slumped down against the smooth wall in depair.

Then there is no hope. He sighs, forlorn.

Fool! spits the man from across the chasm. There is ALWAYS a path. If you remember nothing I teach you here, remember that!

No, my new friend, you cannot escape by climbing. The only escape must come from a long rope lowered down.

No-one will let down a rope for us... they have left us here to perish!

The man across the divide cackles with glee. He reaches down his hand to a small pile of black sand, gathering it up in his fist; holding it out for him to see, tiny grains of darkness slipping through his outstretched fingers.

No one will lower it to you... of that you can be sure! Ah... but with what I will teach thee... you will lower it to yourself!

- - -

The Queen's eyes flickered in the lamps of her chambers, all the while circling the still Chrysanthemum.

"Your son perished not by my hands, sister!" answered the maid. "He died by your own. Your own milk poisoned him... poisoned like your own heart, by the evil you invited in!"

"Silence!" cried the Queen. "Do you think I know nothing of your spells? The companion who dwells within me was not my son's undoing. T'was your own jealousy!"

The Queen voice had risen, her words low and dire. Outside, the tempest howled with frightening strength.

"You knew I loved Him from the first! You could never stand for me to have something so fine. You coveted him,. Though he loved me first!"

"You.... My dearest sister," spat the Queen, her words filled with venom. "You coveted Him. And you beguiled Him... to think He would have ever chosen you as His bride!" She threw back her head and issued an evil laugh.

"Beguiled, my sister?" spoke the maid "It was you who beguiled him. You who took him in our very bed... you who fondled and caressed him with your spells, your magick chants, your foul mouth."

The Queen would brook no more insolence, dealing her another tremendous blow, this one sending her spilling to the floor against the great bed. From above, the ladies in waiting clawed and pinched and pulled at her until she broke away.

"Desperate times, my love." Whispered the Queen. "I knew you bore his child within you... another birthright gone! So... I may have used my charms, to take his seed and conceive a child of mine own... but it was my birthright! I was first-borne"

The maid could feel another blow coming, but at the last second, the Queen reigned in her fury, returning to a calm façade.

"The child you took from Him was not conceived in love, but in deceit." Softly spoke Chrysanthemum.

"Perhaps, my dearest." replied the Queen. "But nevertheless, I would have him be King!"

"Yes, I know that is what you desired most, my sister." replied the maid. "Your jealousy would never permit me to sit upon the throne, to raise up a mighty king. Your black heart knew he would see you for what you were. He would have banished you!"

"Banished?" chuckled the Queen. "My dear sister... was it not you who were banished? She laughed so sweetly, but so hollow.

"Yes, my love. I took from Him a child, just as you did, with your second-borne, prudish sex. In me He could have fulfilled any fantasy, no request would I have denied Him. But you beguiled Him. Never did you grant Him the pleasure I gave him... So many times he cried out... forsaking you... He told me how you could not please him, how you never did!"

The Queens words stung her more than any blow could. For so long, Chrysanthemum had held on to the strong belief that He had loved her from the first, and that his heart had never been truly won by her. Her tears betrayed her darkest fears.

The Queen seized them and tore them further open. "Oh yes, my love. We shared so many laughs about your skills."

Drawing very close to the maid, she whispered into her ear. "He never loved you... not as he did me. It is no wonder he allowed you to be thrown down. In all this time, has He ever climbed down from His dark resting place to save you? No... He has allowed your humiliation... He delights in your instruction in pleasure... He laughs at you, all covered in the hot seed of other men, licking it with your impotent mouth. You never pleased Him as I did."

The Queen grabbed the maid roughly by the arm, yanking her to her feet.

"I know what is in your heart, my sister. I know of your schemes... trying to overthrow me. You are powerless against me. You are merely a plaything. A plaything I have grown exceedingly tired of!"

As she spoke, the Queen threw the maid upon the massive bed. All at once, her ladies in waiting pounced upon her. They harshly kissed and suckled and tore away her clothes as she desperately tried to escape them.

The Queen opened her robe and let it slip to the floor. Her naked body gleamed in the lantern-light. Slowly she made her way up the bed toward the struggling maid. Her ladies in waiting held her down tight, some locking their hot mouths onto her wrists, her breasts, her ankles.

At last, their strength overwhelmed her, pinning her to the firm mattress below. All at once, she ceased struggling, looking up at the Queen. The Queen smiled sweetly, standing tall over her, her long legs straddling either side of the maid's torso.

Slowly, she reached down and tore away the green bond-stone adorning the maid's neck. She held it up close, inspecting it with a sly smile.

"You see, my sister. Your feeble magick is no match for mine own." With a flick of the wrist, she flung the green stone far out into the raging tempest outside.

The ladies in waiting drew the maid's legs apart. Further and further they pried them, till her sex was completely exposed and open. Ever so slowly, the Queen sank to her knees till she was sitting upon the maid, just below her round breasts.

Ever so slowly, she sank down to kiss Chrysanthemum's neck, her chest... down her belly she sank, lighting small hot kisses upon her skin. The ladies-in-waiting held her, their mouths locked on her, sucking so hard the maid was sure her skin would bruise and blister.

At last the Queen reached the wide spread legs of the maid. She held her bright glowing eyes on the maid's, and ever so slowly, her mouth locked upon her wet sex. Her mouth clamped upon her like a great vise. All at once, the maid could feel her mouth pulling on her from below... sucking so hard, so very hard.

Though she tried to resist, she could feel it pulling, like the suction of heavy waves at the sea's edge before a storm. She felt her self grow dim, felt her essence drain... pulling and pulling and pulling so hard upon her... she felt her Self drain, sinking downward towards the Queen's hungry mouth.

Downward... deeper... and at last... darkness.