Sworded Tales

A snorting chuckle followed from Cyric’s throat.  Head lolling back and forth, he shook with the indignity of his current imprisonment.  Thinking his rage had vanished some unknown number of days earlier, Cyric was pleasantly surprised to sense the return of the reddest of his emotions.  The rage blossomed in him anew, reborn through simple utterance of his now fruitless cause.

The feminine enigma above him leaned a few inches closer, nostrils flaring as she inhaled and released the breath with a delicious hum.  The purring vibration in her gullet gathered the humid moisture collected between her breasts and caused a single drop to roll down her rich flesh.  The crystalline liquid fell from her inverted form and splashed on Cyric’s cheek and chin.  He recoiled from the searing touch of the droplet with a shocked, feral grunt, as though acid had been dripped onto his already feverish skin.  The pain which was invoked shattered the illusion of her insubstantiality.

“What are you?” Cyric whispered through clenched teeth.

“I am your deliverer,” the woman replied smoothly, with no hint of sympathy.

“My…deliverer,” Cyric replied with fascination, “You are here to take me?”

“I am here to set you free,” she said firmly.

A spark of hope leapt into Cyric’s throat.  The adrenalin that surged through him brought a degree of clarity with it that he hadn’t felt since his first hours of struggle between the chains.  He knew better than to let the thought of escape worm its way into his consciousness.  The thought of such freedoms often brought his jailers to call, anxious to check on the status of their charge.  The response was rather extreme conditioning, the origins of which Cyric had as of yet been unable to identify.

“When?” the word came over his lips as little more than a whisper.

The grin which formed on his deliverer’s face was a sight toothier than he would have liked at that particular moment.  Seeking continued reassurance for his flickering flame of hope, Cyric tried to read the layers of subtlety beneath her joyous mask.  The falseness of the emotion was what triggered his internal alarms, almost as if the muscles used to create the mask she now wore were atrophied from inactivity.

“That is entirely up to you,” the woman responded to his question, “You are, after all, the one who summoned me.”

Summoned.

Cyric’s mind leapt away from her with a viper’s reflex, but his physical form simply maintained its rag doll state.  His mental gears fired into action, memories and patterns meshing with a stirring hum.  He had no recollection of utilizing any of his more artistic talents to call her forth, but the shattered moments of his life during the last few…was it weeks?…of his imprisonment could hardly be trusted.  Little could be done about what was, he flipped his mentality forward, looking for a way to handle the present.  If he did in fact summon forth this specter, he must tread carefully, for he was in no shape to engage such primal forces.  He could see the glistening skin of her chest, and fearing the scorching taste of that sheen, he began his struggle toward freedom.

“Indeed,” he stated, inflecting his tone to cover his uncertainty, “It would appear that your arrival is most timely, and that I was correct in choosing such a potent force to summon.”

The woman keened quietly at the implied compliment, but her gaze was steely when her pupils again found Cyric’s.  Her long legs slowly extended, and her lithe formed descended to within inches of his face.  Her head turned from side to side, devouring the peculiarities and details of his face.  The breath which worked its way across Cyric’s face was scented with aromatic spice and deep heat.  There was no doubt that this was a female who was thoroughly enjoying her current circumstances, well past the point of simple arousal.  Despite his esteemed training and the dilapidated state of his body, Cyric felt stirrings of his own beneath the tatters of his trousers.  He set his will against the physical pheromones assaulting his system, but the iron core of his being had been softened through the recent brutalities.

“Do not presume to enchant me with your musings,” the woman replied, emphasizing the final word with an insulting tone, “It has become quite clear that the balance of power has shifted due to your current state of…regression.  I have come to determine, to what extent this may be useful to us.”

Cyric’s eyes narrowed at the obvious threat.

“It was unwise to call me forth, under the circumstances,” she spoke with even greater condescension.

Cyric’s mind again rifled through the conscious events of his imprisonment, seeking even a tattered remnant of the energies he had put into play to loose this feminine harbinger.  So many of the recent recollections were filled with little else save screams in the darkness, that the entire string of his memories during his torture became little more than an amalgamation of horrific panoramas.  The twisted hulk of his own psyche caused him to mentally recoil, and he felt the flicker of hope within him dwindle against the coming shadow.

“I would choose your words carefully, wraith.  Mine is also the power to send you back from whence you came,” Cyric uttered, changing his tactics to a power based approach.

The beautiful face hardened, but not with the fear that Cyric had hoped, more so with renewed determination at what was to come.  One clawed hand cupped his cheek with cold comfort, her long hair cascading around his face with tantalizing wisps.

“There is but one way for you to embrace your freedom,” she cooed to the broken man, “Only one way to find the truth that you seek.  Will you accept my assistance?”

The potency of her words was painfully obvious to Cyric.  He could identify the nuances in a spiritual binding as well as any who have received training as extensive as his.  Lolling his head forward with fatigue, the pain welled up in him anew, and if not for his extreme dehydration, tears would have formed along the rims of his eyes.  Taking a deep breath, he prepared to make a deal that would free him from this imprisonment but that would put him in servitude of an altogether different kind.  Nodding weakly, Cyric gave his affirmation to the harpy lurking above.  He resolved to solve each problem as it came, when an opportunity was presented.  Time was, after all, always on his side.

The shapely female raised herself up and away from Cyric, taut legs providing the needed lift with unwavering strength.  The hand on his face trailed away slowly, the hooked nails scraping lightly along the drawn skin of his face.  His lips quivered to form a word of uncertainty, but her index finger quickly pressed against his mouth, silencing him with a knowing shake of her head.  A few silent heartbeats passed between them before her index finger withdrew from his lips.  Snaking its way up Cyric’s bruised arm, an anesthetic relief passed through his savaged limb wherever her claws made contact with his flesh.

Cyric’s head turned up and his eyes followed her as she coiled like a viper back into the shadows above him.  Almost vanishing entirely, he smiled at the notion that he had perhaps imagined the entire encounter.

“Time to go, my pet,” her voice seeped from the darkness and drained the last of Cyric’s hope.  The final trailing finger only inches from the shadows stopped and ticked once, twice, three times on the thick chain holding the man aloft.  Then, without a grain of resistance, the wicked claw passed effortlessly through a chunky link of the chain, severing the metal cleanly.

In the two seconds it took for the link to give way under the tremendous weight of Cyric and his torturous ball, the resilient man uttered a prayer to forgotten gods for his broken spirit and fettered soul.  As the darkness below consumed him with a wind filled rush, the giant sphere of iron delivered its final judgment.  Cyric passed into shadow wearing a smile of defiance.