Slither

2/01

~~~~~~~~~~~

Slither.

Slap.

Slither.

Slap.

In the flickering torchlight of Lea Monde's crumbling mines, Ashley's eyes narrowed. One hand tightened reflexively on Fandango's hilt and with the other, he brought half-gnawed piece of vera root to his lips. The bitter juice hidden in the tough fibres of the plant made his salivary glands want to curl up and die, but it smoothed out the sour taste of unease rising in the back of his throat.

The vera root, unfortunately, did nothing to take away the strange, rhythmic, wet sounds following him. The ghost city was full of disturbing sounds. Half-formed things that may have been groans.. laughter.. music. Snatches of a past that refused to die.

He'd thought he'd first heard this particular sound in the catacombs, but he'd gotten focused on battling the creatures, dead and alive, that roamed its corridors. He'd thought he'd heard it's whisper again in the city above, almost lost in the sea breezes and the cry of gulls.

He sighed softly as the vera juice tingled down his nerve endings, easing the jitters and brining the world back into reasonable clarity. Whatever was following him, it had to do with Sydney.

He could taste it. The cult leader's boyish face hinted at too many secrets.. too many answers, and Ashley could've never explained to Callo how badly he needed/didn't want to hear them. And he could've never explained how that need was driving him through these sweltering mines infested to the roof with stinking goblins.

Cautiously, the world refined to diamond clarity from the root, Ashley rounded the next corner, slamming back against the rough wall as a bolt whizzed past his head. (speak of the little devils) he thought without much humor as the stench of goblin filled his nose and they descended on him with chittering shrieks.

The techniques came to his hands unbidden, like the spells to his lips, and they fell before him. Ashley felt as if someone else was using his body, and he was just a disembodied spectator, until the last one crumpled in a stinking, hairy pile at his feet, and the world around him snapped back, filled with pain.

He staggered back, feeling bile rise up in his throat, wounds seeping through his clothes where the goblins had scored their hits upon him, unfeeling in his battle-rage.

He fumbled blindly for the clay phial filled with restorative in his pack, even as the words formed in his mouth. "doch..tiel..aes..ta'ruiphl…" They were words from an old grimoire in the catacombs, scratched in monkish hand. But it was no monk of Iocus that had penned them, but something older, from Lea Monde's dark, pagan past.

The words comforted him, though, filled him with shining silver music as whatever shadow gods they called to, listened and responded. A different music seemed to linger when his head cleared. A boy's clear voice, sweet and knowing, and Ashley sprang to his feet. Sydney. Sydney was taunting him, leading him on. He gritted his teeth and followed the echoing song to another spur of the mine, empty, except for the softly echoing sound.

It was rounded out, the walls worn smooth from work and water. The latter dripped from stalactites, dribbling down the pallid vines that somehow clung to life in the bowels of the mine. Ashley snorted, irritated. (led astray). He wiped the sweat from his brow, feeling it trickle down his throat to collect in hollows and grooves of his leathers. Hot. It was damnably hot in here, making the patiently dripping water seem all the more inviting.

Cautiously, Ashley held out a hand, letting the water collect in his palm before sniffing it. There was no stink of lime or other undrinkables, and with relief he lapped at the tiny puddle in his hand.

His tongue was taking up the last of the lukewarm water when he heard the soft laughter, the light voice singing again, and he looked around, sword at the ready in a blur of motion. There was something else as well.

Slither.

Slap.

Moving wetly down the walls, pale tendrils. Not vines, but something different.

Something alive.

He lashed out, Fandango's battered blade slicing away at the first approaching tendrils, their white tips falling, twitching on the stony ground, quivering stumps oozing thick pink fluid. There was a low sound, a thoughtless moan of pain. Ashley felt a grim smile twitch at his lips and he fell into a stance. The thing trembled, and he thought it might retreat, but it lashed out, and even as he cut away it's seemingly endless limbs, others took their place, snaking around his ankles and his wrists.

He twirled Fandango's hilt in his hand to strike backwards, the blade sinking into more pale strands, just as another spell began to ready itself in his mind. One of the strands twining around his neck forced it's way into his mouth as he opened it for the incantation and he gagged.

It was covered with a sweet-salty viscous ooze that made his mouth tingle and his gag reflex go numb after a few moments. His arms strained against the binding strands around his wrists, the veins bulging at the effort. One arm was yanked unnaturally behind him as the thing proceeded to slam him into the rough stone wall until he could taste his own blood in the back of his throat, and his vision greyed at the edges.

"Now now.. don't be petty. He was only defending himself." He heard the sweet boy's voice say. The beating promptly stopped, leaving Ashley dangling. He tried to speak, but the tendril filled his mouth further, pulsing faintly as others slithered across his body.

Sydney laughed brightly. "Hardin says I shouldn't waste my time playing cat and mouse with you. But I always enjoyed building a better mousetrap." He paced towards Ashley, leathers creaking softly, apparently uncowed by the Riskbreaker's virulent glare. He was close enough for Ashley to see the pulse in his throat, beating in time with the soft pulse of the pallid arms entwining him.

They slid across his chest, under his armor in a damp embrace, leaving tingling flesh in their wake. Warm, compared to Sydney's elegant metal fingers raking his cheek ever so lightly. "I just want you to sit still and listen, Riskbreaker." He murmured. Two more joined the strands holding his ankles fast, one snaking up the leg of his trousers, the other slipping around his waist then back.

Of this sitting still, Ashley would have no part and he struggled until the vine around his neck tightened, making air a precious commodity. "Ashley Riot. You're difficult." Sydney demurred, his breathing quickening as one of the ghostly tentacles slid across Ashley's bottom, encircling the leather thong that ran between the taut muscles of his rear, before dipping in, probing like a teasing tongue.

Ashley heard a strangled moan, and realized it was himself. He'd been with other men, for Iocus' sake, he was a soldier.. but this.. this was different and it made him tingle and burn in its wake. Warm and slimy, it slipped in further, pulsing in time with Sydney's heart, filling out with each throb, filling him.

The other tendril tickled across his scrotum, teasing along the sensitive flesh before wrapping around his shaft, moist and faintly sticky. It pulsed too, like a hand or a mouth, teasing him. He shook his head, trying not to look in Sydney’s' eyes and trying to get the thing out of his mouth that cutting off his air.. that had to be drugging him.

A graceful armored hand fisted in his short hair, and Sydney leaned in close, the pink tip of his tongue ghosting over Ashley's lips as the fat, white thing surged in his mouth. "I'm not your enemy, Ashley." He purred, kissing up towards where anger burned in Ashley's eyes along with other, desperate need.

A second smaller tendril twined around the one pushing inside of him and began to move in slow, opposite motion, brushing just…there… as the first continued to surge, threatening to tear Ashley apart as it did. Sydney gasped in his ear, the boy's face burning like his own. "So.. wonderful.."

There were other sounds, pleading moans rising in Ashley's chest before becoming tangled with the throbbing object in his mouth. The room was spinning with heat, and sweat slickened the scant space between him and Sydney's slender body moving like a needy kitten. The tendrils slithered across him like a lover's caress, entangling Sydney as well, pulling them closer together, snaking against Ashley's overheated skin as the others pulsed inside of him, around him.

Sydney was lapping at the saliva trickling from the corner of his mouth, purring as Ashley felt himself going blind a need for release that wouldn't be denied a second longer. Release that would be, as pressure changed, motion ceased, and the orgasm was clamped off. The tendrils dragged him downwards, a marionette in their embrace, until he was on his knees before Sydney looking up with a mixture of rage and want. The fat maggot slithered out of his mouth and he drew a ragged, desperate gasp, his throat raw and strangely cold. Sydney stepped closer, unlacing the black leather leggings, and carefully freed his shaft, handling it delicately with sharp edged metal fingers. "Now, be a good boy, Riskbreaker." He murmured fondly, guiding it against Ashley's lips as the tendrils surged inside of Ashley again.

He took it in his mouth, the taste so invitingly musky, so sweetly normal in comparison to what he'd had down his throat a moment before, it was almost a relief. Ashley had a brief, half-functional concept of biting it off, but the thought was sidetracked as one of the tickling feelers inside of him brushed against the spot to set off sparks behind his eyes.

Above, Sydney gasped again, hagane and silver fingers tightening painfully on Ashley's shoulders, etching red lines on the slick, tanned skin. The creeping tendrils slid across his hips and down into the prophet’s leathers to twine around his shaft and slip back into Ashley's mouth and those wrapped around his own began their insistent undulation again. As Sydney began to thrust into his mouth, the ones inside of Ashley began to pulse and surge in time.

The Riskbreaker’s broad shoulders shook, his solid form trembling as the thrusts grew harder, more insistent, and the world, over-clarified by the vera-root, had been reduced to the sweet-salt taste of Sydney, and the driving want bringing him closer and closer to a release that felt as if it had been denied for a thousand years.

It didn’t come until his mouth filled with Sydney’s seed, and one fat tendril struck the sweet spot inside of him just… so… and everything drained from him in a single, titanic rush.

Consciousness was not spared as Ashley felt the floor, distantly, against his back, Sydney fading from his view in a growing haze. “Bon chance, mon amour…” the light voice echoing in his ears.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ashley Riot sat up with a sudden start, brain feeling several sizes too big for the skull it was entrapped in.

There was no water dripping in the hall, no tumescent slime lingering on his clothes or on the stones and if it wasn’t for the heavy languor clinging to him, Ashley would’ve doubted it happened at all. (Maybe it didn’t.. with Sydney’s powers… Gods.) It was a mind trick. It had to have been.

But at least nothing had come along and eaten him while he was unconscious. Ashley Riot had learned to be thankful for small favors in his line of work.

There was the distant chitter of goblins echoing through the hollow limestone corridors, and the Riskbreaker smiled thinly, rising to his feet. It wasn’t until he reached for Fandango that the twinging tear of pain in his shoulders gave him pause, fresh blood seeping through the five razor thin marks on each.

He tightened his hand on Fandango’s hilt, the smile growing fierce.

“Bon chance….”