ElyriasEcstasy (21 page)

Aphael Chav was glad, tonight anyway, that he hadn’t woven
elaborate lies to manipulate this unfortunate, broken soldier. Rale was simply
a distraction for him, an amusement. A curiosity, even. Naturally, Aphael’s
lofty position afforded him any carnal indulgence he could conceive of. His
every whim was subject to instant gratification.

In his own youth he, like most everyone, had dabbled with
both sexes. It was the odd individual indeed who didn’t test the erotic waters
thoroughly. By the time he’d been actively working toward seizing ultimate
power, however, he had found little time to gratify
any
prurient urges
he might’ve had. His quest had consumed him utterly. He didn’t regret that.

In fact, there was really only one person who still meant
anything to him since he’d become the Toplux. It wasn’t, oddly, the female he
had been involved with for a fairly substantial period some thirty years ago.
Her name had been Cynovar, and she had been a formidable and beautiful woman,
with striking brown eyes and dusky flesh. But he had tired of her, and she
meant little to him now, even as a long ago memory.

However, what had resulted from that particular
relationship, now three decades past…
that
had meaning for him.

The two men paused together at the edge of the huge raised
bed. Aphael had an arm folded over Rale’s shoulders. Need stirred in the
Toplux. In these his later years he had found his tastes reverting to those of
his younger days. He’d discovered renewed interest in youthful males. Rale’s
condition only sweetened the experience for him. It kept their sexual scenarios
from growing stale.

The damaged Weapon turned to him now. He was no longer
crying. Sometimes, on these occasions, Aphael told him about Nera’s
reassignment, sometimes not. Sometimes he invented terrible fates for the still
active Shadowflash. He had read Rale’s dossier, naturally. Shadowflash/Weapon
teams always formed strong connections, some even becoming lovers. Certainly
Rune and Urna had taken that to the extreme. It was the high level of peril
under which the teams operated that accounted for such close bonds. Weapons and
Shadowflashes had to be meticulously groomed for their roles. They had to be
carefully maintained, their mental stabilities monitored. The enhancing drugs
could have unwanted consequences, and it was necessary to control such
individuals. They couldn’t be permitted to dream, for instance. Even their
memories had to be regulated.

Rale had loved Nera. And he always would. The memory of that
love would never get the chance to fade.

“I miss him,” Rale said, as if addressing the Toplux’s
thoughts.

“I know,” Aphael said with apparent sympathy. “But he’s not
here. Let me ease your hurt.” He pulled the young male closer to him and set
his lips upon his. Rale stiffened but after a moment his mouth melted against
Aphael’s. He pressed his sleek, muscled form hard against the Toplux’s own trim
body. Despite his age, Aphael had kept himself in good physical shape. He
showed none of the deterioration that sixty years might bring to another
person. Certainly he wasn’t one of those sagging, gluttonous old monsters like
some among the Order of the Lux, imagining that the grandiosity of their social
status made them immune to the ravages of age and overindulgence.

Their kiss intensified. Tongues met and struggled. Rale was
grinding himself against the older man, his own need apparent. Aphael relished
the feel of the youth’s rock-hard crotch rubbing on him.

It was a mere matter of undoing a catch to undress the
retired Weapon. The sleeveless gown dropped away, baring his toned, gorgeous
body. So much training had gone into him, relentless hours of drilling, and the
effect of all that effort was still evident. Muscles ridged his thighs, his
biceps. His midriff was a flat, taut surface. Aphael looked him up and down.

“Do I please you?” Rale asked breathlessly.

It was a part of his psychological profile. In his
relationship with Nera, Rale had always assumed the submissive position. It was
how he was wired. Aphael Chav knew this.

“You please me,” he murmured, divesting himself of the loose
lounging clothes he was wearing. Naked now, he took Rale’s hand and tugged him
again toward the immense bed. “Come. Please me some more.”

They stepped up to the dais then climbed onto the bed
itself. Quantities of silken fabric spread everywhere. They fell together,
grappling, rolling, reveling. Aphael’s hard cock pressed on top of Rale’s
length. Their mouths found each other once again, tongues slurping thirstily.
Aphael could feel the heat rising from the younger male’s flesh. Crushing him
against himself in a fierce embrace, he felt Rale’s heart hammering rapidly in
his chest. He was easily aroused, the Toplux knew from experience. Sometimes in
his excitement he orgasmed before things got truly underway. Once, he had
erupted before they’d even reached the bed. That particular night Aphael had
ordered him onto his knees to lick his own seed from the floor. While he’d
obeyed, the older man had mercilessly fucked him, landing open-palmed blows on
his ass ‘til the skin glowed a fine screaming pink.

But he wasn’t in such a mood tonight. He actually felt
affectionate toward the unlucky male.

Rale had reached between them to take Aphael’s cock in his
grip. The Toplux felt the blood beat heavily in his own member.

“Please…” purred the gray-eyed male. “Please, let me suck
it.”

Aphael had rolled onto his back. The silky sheets were
already tangled. Music from a pre-Black Ship Elyria streamed throughout the
cavernous chamber. He smiled at his lover.

“Get down there and put your mouth on it,” he said.

Rale eagerly scrambled over his chest and stomach, settling
between his opened legs. The first touch of lips caused Aphael to draw a sharp
breath. He’d felt a coldness, but it was only that Rale’s mouth was already
wet. Moist heat enclosed his swollen head. The tongue he’d already tasted now
swirled over his crown, flicking deliberately across his slit. No doubt finding
his first salty drizzle.

Muscles loosened in Aphael’s shoulders. He looked down as
those cinching lips descended his erect shaft. Wanting to see better, he
reached to brush aside the shimmering black hair. He cupped Rale’s ear with his
palm. The mouth sucked him down to the hilt.

Then Rale’s head lifted. Dropped. Lifted. Dropped. The
timeless cocksucking rhythm, as reliable as the thump of blood in one’s
arteries. The young man maintained a perfect suction around Aphael’s cock. His
tongue stayed active and eager. Aphael held Rale’s sides with his thighs.

The head rose and did not descend again. A chill came, as of
breath on a spit-slick cock.

“Is it good?” Rale wanted—
needed
—to know. The urge to
please was there to read in the hopeful cast of his eyes.

Aphael gave his long dark hair a stroke. “It’s good,” he
assured. But he didn’t feel like coming in the man’s mouth. Not tonight.
Instead he shifted, pushed Rale over onto his back. Getting into position, he
said, “Hook your feet over my shoulders.”

Rale complied, eyes alight, taking the attitude the Toplux
wanted.

Aphael set his saliva-lubricated cock to the hole his lover
was so enthusiastically offering to him. Rale’s cock lay thickly upon his belly.

Hunched over the lithe, beautiful male, Aphael started
stroking into him. Rale’s hole gripped him exquisitely. Fierce pleasure took
hold of the Toplux. With each downward lunge he buried himself inside the
younger man. Rale, for his part, writhed and groaned. His cock twitched on his
firm stomach.

Aphael fucked him harder now, increasing speed, slotting
himself again and again into the inviting passage. The music he’d chosen soared
higher and higher, coming to its culmination, a great eruption of sound. Horns
blaring. Strings shrieking. Drums and cymbals crashing.

Rale’s head whipped from side to side on the silken covers.
His long black hair lashed, falling over his contorted face. Suddenly his gray
eyes sprang wide and his cock jetted pearls of viscous white across his
abdominals and chest.

In that same instant Aphael’s excitement crested. He loosed
his liquid ecstasy into the onetime Weapon’s ass. Spurt after spurt. He let out
a cry that neatly accompanied the final climactic crescendo of the music, just
before it went silent. The moment held, and held, then at last relented. Time
resumed its normal pace.

He disengaged himself and lay back languorously on the huge
bed. A peaceful drowsiness came to him.

After half a minute or so, he heard Rale sitting up. Aphael
lazily slit open his eyes to see the young man looking about. Blinking.
Confusion and fear taking slow hold of his lovely features.

“Where is this?” Rale asked, looking down at Aphael Chav. He
touched the residue on his chest, raised slick fingers and gazed at them
perplexedly. “What’s happening here?”

A recessed door had already opened on the far side of the
expansive chamber and a pair of attendants were gliding quickly across the
carpet. Aphael watched in disinterested fashion as they neatly collected Rale
and led him out. The young male’s cycle had finished and a new one had started.
They occurred as regularly as clockwork.

The drugs they gave the Shadowflashes and Weapons were
potentially dangerous. Those elite soldiers had to be in peak condition to do
what they did. Thus, the enhancements. They also had to be controlled. That was
why the doctors used narcotics as well, to keep the subjects addicted, keep
them taking their doses without any complaint. But memory and dream suppression
were key also. Those minds had to be governed.

What, after all, could be more dangerous than one of those
walking killing machines thinking for himself, acting on his own?

Urna. Especially him. Considering the extraordinary
circumstances of his childhood. He and Rune both, though the Shadowflash was
still obediently taking his memory suppressors, so all reports indicated. What
would happen, however, if Urna regained the recollections of his early youth?
It would mean disaster.

The Toplux watched as Rale was escorted out the door. The
man’s peculiar state of memory failure had doubtlessly been caused by the
drugs. Mistakes happened.

Urna was a wholly different category of Weapon, however. He
was
the
Weapon. The ultimate. Without him, and without his partner Rune,
the Weapon/Shadowflash division wouldn’t even have existed. They had been the
template, a duo linked in fantastical fashion, invested with amazing natural
powers. So far the doctors and technicians had been unable to fully duplicate
the abilities of the two, true. But it could, and would, be done. Eventually.

So the leader of the Lux had been promised, again and again.

He believed it could be achieved. He believed that one day
he would have his army of Urnas and Runes, rather than the cadre of hopped-up
pretenders that currently constituted the rest of the Shadowflash/Weapon
program. Those others did a good job, granted. They slaughtered their share of
Passengers and protected the salvage teams that went into the Unsafe to collect
the resources of ancient Elyria. But Aphael wanted the
best
.

And he wanted those best for that day when the Order of Maji
finally rose against the Lux.

Sleepily he drew the silk covers around himself. The search
for Urna was proceeding. The Guard commanders had high hopes of success. But
Aphael Chav didn’t live on hopes. Urna was his property. And he meant to
reclaim him.

At any cost.

Chapter Eleven

“Here,” Bongo said, grinning and pointing down the tunnel.
“Here comes one now.”

Urna, chilled by the underground dank, rose to his booted
feet and squinted into the shadowy distance. He had been crouching on the
litter-strewn platform for half an hour at least. He had barely believed what
Bongo had said about this place. It wasn’t that he distrusted this man who’d
engineered their escape. It was, rather, that what he said about the
underground network sounded too fantastic to be true.

An underground. A
literal
underground. Not just
would-be revolutionaries agitating ineffectively against the might of the Lux.
This, then—so Bongo claimed—was a means of movement throughout the Safe that
the Guard knew nothing about.

They had abandoned the repair van about ten miles outside of
the town where Virge Temple had her laboratory. Bongo had then led Urna on foot
over some rocky countryside, until they’d reached a spot screened entirely from
view by a ring of ocher standing stones. There, Bongo had pried up a hatchway
of rusted metal and the two men had descended flaking rungs. The air tasted
stale and damp. Bongo had a lantern in his own pack of provisions and he’d lit
it. It burned still, on the platform.

Urna clearly saw the bead of light now. He heard the humming
of something mechanical. A long tunnel passed this platform on one side.
Earlier, Urna had looked both ways down it, unable to see where it led.
Presumably, this was a route they could take, even if he had no real idea what
this passageway was. Something very old, it looked like. Something forgotten.

When he’d asked why they weren’t starting off along the
strange tunnel, Bongo had given him a wry smile, green eyes sparkling in the
lantern’s light. “We wait here. A transport will be along to collect us
eventually.”

And so Urna had waited, growing impatient but holding his
tongue. Wherever they were, they seemed safe for the moment.

Bongo picked up the lantern, swinging it back and forth out
over the passage. The approaching light slowed and the mechanized whir changed
pitch. Urna, fascinated, watched a vehicle of some sort come gliding into the
open area where the platform lay. Glancing down, he saw metal rails on the
floor of the tunnel. The transport was evidently riding on top of the twin
ribbons. Those rails gleamed. The steel was new, or at least newer than
anything else he’d seen in this old, crumbling underground so far.

The vehicle was an open-air affair with three rows of seats.
Only the front row was occupied. Urna looked past the bright lone light fixed
to the nose of the sled-like contraption. He saw a face peering back at him.
Rugged-looking, male, bearded. Wary eyes. With a final squeal the railed
transport halted.

Before Bongo could speak, the driver produced an
old-looking, long-barreled pistol and leveled it at the two men on the
platform. Urna was confident he could move fast enough to elude the shot. His
reflexes and acute combative talents would allow him to make his leap the very
instant the bearded man’s finger started to squeeze the gun’s trigger.

Bongo, however, had no such reflexes.

Nevertheless, the blond-haired man showed no fear. He merely
smiled at the driver, still holding his lantern. “Let the grace of the Maji
ease your troubles,” he said.

The wary eyes regarded Bongo steadily a moment. Then, in
gravelly tones, the man said, “The Order shows the way.”

Order of the Maji again, Urna noted silently. Did these
people really imagine they were some kind of appreciable force to counter the
Order of the Lux? They were fucking crazy if they did.

But the exchange seemed to ease the tension of the moment a
bit. Probably just some ritual code sign, Urna guessed. The driver, though, still
had his weapon aimed their way, eyes flicking back and forth between the two
men. His gaze finally settled on Urna.

“You,” he croaked. “Take a step forward, into the light.”

Urna did so, aware of the firearm concealed in his coat.
Were it his own pistol, the familiar one he’d taken into the Unsafe on so many
missions, he felt sure he could draw and fire it accurately before this man
could blink.

“By the Farsafe!” gasped the bearded man in dramatic
fashion, eyes springing wide.

And in that same tiny increment of time Urna saw the finger
move on the trigger, and instinct took him. He made his leap, nimble muscled
body moving with a breathtaking speed and fluidity. He vaulted past Bongo,
pivoted, soared and came down on the seat next to the driver, pinning the man’s
hand and weapon tightly against the forward edge of the vehicle. He had crossed
the dozen or so intervening feet as easily as a regular individual might take a
single step.

“Finger off the trigger,” Urna growled next to the man’s
ear. “Or I’ll break this wrist.” He gave it a good squeeze for emphasis. Up
close like this he didn’t even need his own gun. If need be he could snap this
guy’s neck.

“What the fuck are you doing!” Bongo yelped, voice echoing
through the dim, man-made grotto. “Don’t hurt him!”

Again with the call for leniency, thought Urna. Just like at
the checkpoint, with that fat Guard.

The bearded man, however, had complied, taking his finger
from the pistol’s trigger. Urna snatched the long-barreled firearm away and
tossed it onto the platform, where it skittered across the gritty floor a few
feet past Bongo, who made no move to pick it up. It was an old weapon and not
in very good repair, Urna judged in that quick instant.

He took a step back from the transport’s driver, who gaped at
him like he was still absorbing what had happened over the past few fast
seconds.

“You’re Urna.” Eyes remaining riveted on him, he went on,
“Why are you with this—Lux Weapon?” His gruff voice was incredulous.

The question, obviously, was meant for Bongo, who replied,
“He has fled the Citadel. He’s AWOL. He no longer works for the Lux.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“Not in so many words, exactly. No.”

Again people were talking about him like he wasn’t present.
Annoyed, Urna said, “That’s the truth. The Lux don’t own me anymore. I’m on my
own. I’m free.”

The bearded man regarded him a moment. Thoughts seemed to be
skipping quickly behind his eyes. At last he said, “Might be true. Or you might
be on a mission right now.”

Urna barked a laugh. Even understanding this man’s
suspicion, he was amused by his evident ignorance. If anybody were to try to
infiltrate the revolutionary elements of the Safe (and presumably this man
shared some kind of fellowship with Bongo; that blather about the Maji
confirmed it), it would be the
Guard
undertaking that action, not the
military. The Guard handled all domestic disturbances within the Safe. It was
their jurisdiction, something they were very protective about.

“I’m not on any mission. I’m not under anybody’s orders.”
Urna nodded over a shoulder toward Bongo. “Ask my friend here about the Guard I
wanted to shoot a while ago.”

He waited while Bongo quickly related the story. The driver
sagged back into his seat, shaking his head in wonder now. “So, Urna the Weapon
has turned traitor. I like that.”

Urna didn’t quite like the sound of that word.
Traitor
.
But he supposed it applied.

“We’re outbound,” Bongo said. “Trying to get as far from the
Safe’s center as we can.”

The driver nodded. “Hop in. I’m taking this thing some
distance.”

Urna climbed over onto the seats of the second row. Bongo
retrieved the long-barreled pistol and stepped aboard. Urna watched as the
driver set the weapon on the floor by his feet. He worked the controls set
before him and the transport, humming anew, slipped off away into the yawning
tunnel ahead. The ride was very smooth. The forward light showed the vaulted
ceiling and gleamed on the metal rails.

“What is this place?” Urna asked Bongo, who had settled next
to him. The Weapon kept an eye on the driver, though he didn’t think the man
was going to cause him any further trouble.

“Ancient railway system,” Bongo said. “Parts of it have
caved in but the rest is carefully maintained. There are crews that live down
here, tending to it, keeping it functioning.”

Urna shook his head, impressed, as they glided rapidly
along. “I never knew this existed.”

“Good. It’s
supposed
to be a secret.” Bongo suddenly
yawned. He rubbed a knuckle into the corner of a green eye.

Night had been falling when they’d made their descent into
this strange, unsuspected underworld. Urna too felt the fatigue of recent
events catching up to him. But that wasn’t all. His drug need was starting to
gnaw again, cold tendrils of unease waking in his gut. With a hand that was
just beginning to shake, he reached for the vials Virge Temple had given him.
She’d explained what doses would keep off the worst of the withdrawal symptoms.

Before he could reach the pocket, however, Bongo asked,
“Feeling the bite again?”

For some reason Urna felt a little twinge of embarrassment.
Hell, it wasn’t his fault he was hooked on the dope. The goddamn military
doctors had seen to that. Even so, when he replied, “Yeah,” his voice sounded
small to his own ears.

“I’ll do you up another spell,” Bongo said. He started
rummaging in his pockets, no doubt looking for that weird piece of etched metal
he’d used before.

Despite that the peculiar little rite of earlier actually
had seemed to alleviate his withdrawal pains, Urna remained dubious. Magic was
a childish whimsy. Or, he presumed it was, not having any clear memories of how
his own mind had functioned when he was a child.

Then again, he wasn’t really all that anxious to try Virge’s
drugs, was he? As benign as she’d claimed the substances were, he’d already had
a lifetime of taking doses, from the start of his military career—which was
another memory he couldn’t quite nail down.

“Okay,” he said to Bongo. “Go ahead.”

The male produced a different object than last time. This
was a star-shaped thing, something that appeared to have been chipped out of a
hunk of pink crystal. Its facets danced as Bongo turned it this way and that.
He chanted all the while. Once again, Urna thought he detected words in amongst
the intonations but couldn’t be sure.

As before, his mind started to wander. He returned again to
the beach, to that vision of the Farsafe, which was also, it seemed, the image
captured in the photograph he’d found. That couldn’t be right, though. Could
it? No. No, that was stupid. The Farsafe was a comforting myth. Just like the
photo had meaning for him that it wouldn’t have for anyone else. The picture
touched something deep inside him. Some lost memory. Or maybe just a buried
longing that found its expression in that image of a child with his parents.

A hand touched his thigh, fingers squeezing his flesh
gently.

Urna blinked. “What…?”

“It’s done,” Bongo said. The crystal was no longer in his
hand. He yawned again. “How do you feel?”

Feeling for the drug craving, Urna found nothing. In truth,
all he felt now was sleepy. He could barely keep his eyes open. “It’s…better,”
he confessed, as surprised by the fact as last time Bongo had performed the odd
little ceremony.

He gave the Weapon’s leg another squeeze, then the hand
dropped away and Bongo slouched on the seat, which was made of old cracked
leather. “Good. I’m going to get some shuteye.”

Urna too had slumped back, making himself comfortable. The
rails hummed beneath them. The driver of this vehicle, he’d decided, was
trustworthy. Before he could even say any final word to Bongo, his eyes had
drifted shut and sleep was taking him into a tender, enveloping embrace.

* * * * *

He had no sense of time when he woke. Maybe it was something
about being underground, without view of the sky, but that couldn’t be it. His
quarters in the Weapon wing of the military compound at the Citadel hadn’t had
any windows and he had never risen from sleep with this same strange
disorientation. It was like time itself had left him behind, no longer
subjecting him to its implacable flow. He couldn’t even have said at that
moment how old he was.

It occurred to Urna as he sat up that he really
didn’t
know his age. Nor Rune’s. That was just another piece missing from the overall
memory puzzle.

Whatever else, though, he felt rested. He was still sitting
in the open-air carriage but it had stopped moving. Bongo was no longer beside
him and that gave him a little jolt. His military instincts asserted themselves
quickly, however, and he surveyed his surroundings.

The transport was halted at another platform. This one was
different from the first one. It was lit with several torches, which cast a
warm flickering ambience. And there were quite a number of people milling
about, some two dozen or so.

More than a few of these figures were looking at him.
Others, engaged in conversation with one another, sneaked periodic peeks at
him. The driver was no longer at the sled’s controls and Urna didn’t see him
among the crowd. He was much more concerned with Bongo’s whereabouts.

He rose and stepped onto the platform. It was clean, its
stony surface swept, though its age still showed. The light showed Urna how
blocky columns supported the roof. Symbols that he didn’t recognize were
painted on the walls. They had a bizarre artistic look to them and they were
drawn with vibrant colors.

Urna paused in his scanning of the scene when he spotted one
among the symbols that he did recognize, though it took a small mental effort
to realize where he’d seen it before. A complex curlicue. Just like that tattoo
Bongo had.

As if the thought had summoned him, Bongo stepped out from
behind one of the pillars and strode toward him, grinning.