The Pilfered Princess -- Part 3 of 5

The Pilfered Princess
Copyright A Strange Geek, 2006

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The sun again rose in its magnificent golden splendor across the lands of the Kingdom of Light, it's rays gently caressing the King's palace, arousing the members of the court out of their nightly slumber, until the castle itself swelled and quivered with the renewed passion to set about the day's tasks, which was sure to end in a climax of satisfaction of a job well done.

The King, however, preferred to sleep in, letting the others carry on the business of the Kingdom, so that by the time he did stir, he needed but to stamp the royal seal on whatever had been decided upon. This was the proper way to run a Kingdom. By not taking on the details of day-to-day running of the Kingdom, he could never be accused of being a tyrant, and Kings who are not tyrants are rarely overthrown. Yet this morning he was roused early by a most impolite banging on his chamber door.

"It is I, Joy, your Right Hand of Virtue!" came the reply from the other side of the door.

"Bloody well figures," the King grumbled. He sighed and forced himself to rise from his bed, grabbing a robe and closing it around his thick frame. "Enter!"

Joy let herself in, looking quite harried. In one hand she was carrying another slightly singed, dark parchment, it's seal of the Dark Lord still intact upon it. The other hand held a simple white scroll.

"Yes, your Majesty," Joy said, wrinkling her nose as someone else might do at an open sewer. She held it out to him, gripping it by only one corner, and only with thumb and forefinger. "Forgive me for not opening it and reading it first, your Majesty."

The King smirked and took the letter from her. Joy hastily shook her hand and wiped her fingers on her robe with a look of disgust, as if she had touched something slimy. He gave her an odd look, glancing over the letter as if expecting gobs of goo to be covering it. When he found nothing, he shrugged and proceeded to break the seal and unfold the letter. "Ah, this describes what they intend to do to Sarah today because I failed to bring down the Barrier."

"Hrm ... a bit cramped, that would be, yes ... " King Beneficus muttered as he read the letter. " ... now those would be rather nasty ... not the brightest brutes in the lot, either ... wonder how they got so many of them ... heh, that will be a work-out, aye wot?" he chuckled. He folded the letter up and tossed it aside.

Joy looked deathly pale, her eyes wide. "Is it ... i-is it as horrible as I believe it is?"

Joy appeared to relax. "Oh, good, your Majesty," she said. "Perhaps they have decided to go a little easy on her."

What the King did not tell her was that he did not think it was as horrible as she believed because she was incapable of believing anything that horrible. Nevertheless, it was nothing that he felt his daughter could not deal with, reminding himself that she once "entertained" the entirety of the ceremonial guard. "So is that all, Joy?" the King asked.

"No, your Majesty," Joy said in a more somber tone of voice as she took the scroll in both hands. "I am afraid there is a problem."

"Oh, but I am afraid it is," Joy said. She unrolled the scroll. "I have had a great deal of trouble trying to create your Army of Light."

"Ah, yes, my army," the King said with a small smirk. "And what have you managed to scare up?"

"Not much, I fear." She turned her eyes to the scroll. "30 swordsmen, 18 knights, 10 archers, 2 wizards, and one catapult. A small one."

"A small one, your Majesty. And that's only if the catapulter's rash clears up."

"Think I've gone bloody daft is what they'll do!" the King declared. "No, Joy, what we have will just have to do."

She rolled up the scroll and tucked it under an arm. "I must personally lead the army into battle."

"With such a small army, your Majesty, the only way they can succeed against the evil forces of the Dark Lord is if they are led by someone like me, so that they may be blessed with the benevolent influence of the divine."

"Ah ... right," King Beneficus said, though he was dubious about what kind of divine influence she truly had, considering that she was assigned down here rather than in afterlife. She was, after all, not quite a real angel. The job of guardian angel was not exactly a highly sought-after position, from what he knew. "Uh .... you're quite sure you want to do this?"

"Yes, your Majesty," Joy said. "Angels have traditionally led the charge against all manner of evil forces. There has never been a case of an army led by an angel losing the battle."

"Indeed, your Majesty. Now, if you will excuse me, I must prepare the army and myself to march on the Dark Lord's Tower of Doom by daybreak tomorrow. By that time, your daughter should be safely on her way back to the Kingdom."

"Ah, good," said the King in a neutral voice. "I take it that Smeltap as set out already?"

"Thank you, your Majesty," Joy said with a small smile before ducking out of the room.

The King shook his head as he closed the door to his chamber. He had to admit that the girl had spunk. She really took all this guardian angel stuff seriously. A real credit to her kind. He was sure he would miss her after she was gone.

Not that he necessarily expected her to be killed. It was simply this: the Barrier was not coming down for anything. Everyone that wanted to leave the Kingdom on this silly lark seemed to miss the point that when one leaves the Kingdom, the only way back in is to lower the Barrier for the person to pass. And the King had no intention of doing any such thing, not after the Dark Lord has been harassed not by just one lunatic who was daft enough to want to marry his daughter (which was reason enough not to let him back in) but by an angel-led army.

He sighed. Oh well. He could only hope that the Dark Lord would eventually give up and stop "torturing" his daughter.

Princess Sarah could feel her heart pounding in her chest, each beat punctuated by a dull throb of lingering ache from her nipples and sex, both of which still appeared slightly red from the torture she received the day before. The only sound was that of her own ragged breathing as she struggled to contain the panic that threatened to rise up from deep within her mind, and the occasional creaking noise of the heavy chain above her head as she swung slightly back and forth above the stone floor of the dungeon chamber.

This time, the Princess had been given no explanation of her fate that day. The incubus simply refused to speak to her at all, reserving what little words he did speak for his guards. She had been taken from her room to this chamber, where she had been forced into a very slim, circular cage. So cramped was the cage that she could only remain standing straight, barely able to lift her arms. The cage was lifted from the floor by a heavy chain, suspending her in her tiny prison several feet in the air. Then, Inferno and the two guards had simply left her.

It could not have been more than a candlemark since she had been imprisoned in this manner, yet she already ached to stretch her limbs. The cage was so confining that it became a fear in and of itself, rather than anything they might do to her. She could feel a dull ache in her nether regions, where the tender flesh of her sex still throbbed with lingering discomfort from her torture the day before. She kept glancing towards the door, expecting perhaps the Dark Lord's torturer to return with some new form of torment. Or perhaps they simply intended to leave her this way, trapped and helpless, until she begged for someone to release her.

Princess Sarah uttered a short gasp as she was surprised by a heavy metallic thud from somewhere beneath the floor. The next moment, her cage began to shake, making her heart leap into her throat, as a loud rumbling noise drowned out the sound of her own breathing. Looking past the bars of her cage, her eyes opened wide in surprise and renewed fear as the floor split and began opening beneath her. A breath of warm yet clammy air wafted up from the yawning opening, making her shift restlessly in her cage, her nose wrinkling as a pungent, musky odor was drawn into her nostrils.

Her cage jerked abruptly, dropping a handspan, banging her against the confining bars. There was a metallic clinking sound as her cage was lowered into the dark pit that had opened up beneath her feet. The air grew quickly warm around her body, the odor permeating her nose so strongly that she strained her face against the bars in a vain attempt at finding fresh air. She panted, feeling as if she were suffocating, as the smell of old perspiration and unwashed bodies grew ever thicker, the air more cloying and sticky, until her own body was bathed in sweat.

Princess Sarah's heart thundered, and she first glanced up in distress at the receding dungeon cell, and then down in despair towards whatever was awaiting her. The air seemed to become a miasma around her, the steamy air clinging to her naked body, coating it in a sheen of clammy moisture mixing with her own. She could see little but an undefined dimness below her, and darkness immediately surrounding her.

Then out of the sodden air she heard noises from below her. A nearly unintelligible, muttering in guttural, growling speech, punctuated by animal-like grunts and snorts. Princess Sarah tensed, her eyes wide as the sounds grew more distinct, and the smell grew increasingly musky and overpowering, making her feel lightheaded. She dropped her eyes downward slowly, afraid of what she would see, and when her gaze did penetrate the dimness, her breath caught in her throat.

Below her, lit only by feeble, flicking torches, was a large natural cavern. Shuffling around the bottom of the cavern where creatures that made her spine tingle in icy fear. They were cave trolls, large, brutish beast-men with hulking man-like bodies of frightful strength, yet with large-browed eyes that held little if any true intelligence. They were creatures driven purely by need, such as food and sex. And from the many large bones scattered about the ground, picked completely clean, it was obvious that of the two, food was not going to be a major concern.

Princess Sarah panicked as her cage approached the top of the chamber, moments away from being seen. She looked around her desperately for a way out. She pushed at the bars in front of her, her cage comprised of two pieces padlocked together. The locks would not give, and she succeeded only in making sufficient rattling noises that one of the trolls below her grunted an interrogative and glanced up.

The shout had attracted nearly a score of the horrible creatures, all clamoring around under the hole in the ceiling of their world through which the cage now steadily descended, many taking up the same chant. They piled into each other in a frenzy, pushing and elbowing each other aside, growing more rowdy and excited as her cage dropped. As she drew closer, she caught a glimpse of their increasing lust as thick, bulbous phalluses rose to stiffness between their legs, veins along their length pulsing with obscene anticipation.

Her cries went unheeded, the beast-men groping their beefy hands at the air, catching the bottom of her cage, causing the Princess to gasp as she was tossed about like a feather in a windstorm, banged against the bars on one side and the other. As she dropped further amongst the mass of now manic, sex-crazed trolls, they groped frantically at the bars of her cage, their small brains trying to understand exactly how they were supposed to get at this delectable female that that was dropping atop them. Sarah shrank back from them, terror in her eyes, flinching when one managed to touch her with a single, rough finger.

Finally the trolls grew frustrated, and they resorted to what they knew best: brute force.

They grabbed the cage by the bars on either side and pulled. The bars held, yet the padlocks, under Princess Sarah's horrified eyes, cracked, bent, and then snapped completely, the cage flying apart into two pieces.

Princess Sarah made a desperate lunge for freedom. A huge arm caught her around the waist, and she was pulled into the seething mass of beast-men. Huge hands the size of her head grasped her by the hips, lifting her into the air. She looked behind her, and saw the grotesquely thick and pulsing rod that lay between the beast's loins, and the look of pure, animal-like lust in the creatures dull eyes.

The Princess screamed as the phallus impaled her, stretching her intimate folds as it sank into her helpless body.

The sun beat down unrelentingly upon the parched lands, a cloud of dust rising high and wide behind the thundering hoof beats. In the distance, the heat shimmered from the endless sands and scrub, broken only by the occasional cactus and bleached bones of an animal or hapless explorer. The road itself was little more than a bare strip through the scraggly desert grasses. Directly ahead, the land fell away abruptly, and the road simply ended.

Smidlar the Brave straightened up in his saddle and pulled back on the reins. He slowed his faithful steed as they approached the cliff edge, the dust slowly settling in their wake. He brought the beast to the very edge and turned him sideways, bringing him to a halt. Casting his steely gaze downward, he looked into the yawning chasm that was Devil's Canyon. From the canyon floor rose craggy spikes of solid rock. In cracks along the edges of the canyon grew small clumps of spiny, dark green plants whose needles held the deadliest poison known in the lands. Far below a narrow stream tricked through the deepest depths of the canyon, stained a vile green color from the stinging acids secreted by the dreaded eelsharks that inhabited its waters.

Smidlar smiled, finding in himself no fear as he gazed upon this natural gauntlet of hazards too difficult for all but the most powerful wizards to cross safely. He lifted his eyes further, shielding his eyes with his hand, as he looked past the canyon to the far side, where even the meager vegetation of the desert gave way to vast wasteland. Far in the distance, shimmering and dancing in the thermals, rose the erect form of the Tower of Doom. Here again, he found no fear within his heart, even as he considered the ultimate aim of his quest.

How many men in the past have come to this point, he wondered, wishing to take on the Dark Lord, only to turn back because there was no apparent way across the canyon? There were no towns anywhere this far out into the desert, no major trade routes, nothing for many, many leagues in either direction. This was the only road to stretch into the wastelands around the Dark Lord's stronghold. Yet here it came to an abrupt end, and as he focused his gaze to the other side, it picked right up at the other cliff edge and wound off into the distance towards the Tower. Yet somehow the Dark Lord's minions had traveled across these same lands after they had kidnapped the Princess. How did they get across?

"How indeed," Smidlar said with a smarmy grin as he dismounted. He stepped up to the edge and gazed across to the other side, then down into the chasm. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied a small stone near his foot. He bent down and picked it up, hefted it in his hand a few times, then threw it into the canyon.

It sailed in an arc from his hand, but instead of falling into the chasm and out of sight, it suddenly appeared to bounce off something unseen, roll a few arm lengths, and come to a stop, hanging apparently in mid-air.

Moments later, the illusion spell broken, the rope-and-plank bridge spanning the chasm shimmered into view.

"Quite clever, Mallevelus," Smidlar said with a smug grin. "But not quite clever enough."

He pulled himself back up into the saddle, gave his horse a kick and a jerk on the reins, and slowly guided him across the creaking bridge.

Inferno was in a much more pleasant mood as he headed up to the Dark Lord's chamber, having witnessed the Princess' initial moments in the dreaded Troll Cave. He wished he had thought of using it sooner.

Just short of the chamber, his master's voice came booming forth from the open door.

"And now, my new subjects, you are entering a new era, an era that will be filled with promise. A promise of endless misery, unrelenting toil, and utter despair for all of you until the end of time! Insert maniacal laughter h ... oh ... " He began laughing, thunder shaking the rafters.

Inferno's lips twisted into a small smirk as he climbed the remaining stairs and entered the chamber.

The Dark Lord stopped laughing and looked back down to his parchment, catching sight of the incubus out of the corner of his eye. "Oh, Inferno, just the man," he said, turning towards him. "Here, give an ear to this next part and tell me what you think ... (ahem) And do not think for a moment that your suffering will someday insure a better future for your profanity!"

"For my rule is absolute and timeless, and your children, and your children's children, and your children's children's children, and your chi ..." the Dark Lord paused and scratched his head. "Hmm. Now why would I be concerned about how their descendants swear?"

Inferno stepped up to his master and snatched the parchment from his hands. "I believe that's meant to be progeny, my Lord," he said patiently.

"And if I may be so utterly bold, my Lord," Inferno said gently, "as to suggest that you stop at children's children."

"You think so? I do want to emphasize the point, you see. Their descendants having as bad a time of it as they and all that."

"Indeed, my Lord, but going all the way down to children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children is a bit much. You don't want to lose your audience, after all."

"Quite right, quite right." The Dark Lord scratched out a few lines with his quill. "So, Inferno, how fares the Princess?"

Inferno had to really concentrate to refrain from bristling. "No, my Lord, I did not," he said curtly. "And, frankly, I truly do not understand why that is considered the be-all and end-all of torture around here."

Inferno clenched his teeth. "My Lord, must we go through that again?!" he thundered. "I have made it quite clear what my orientation is!"

"Of course! Certainly!" the Dark Lord said quickly. "But if it was a problem, I'd understand, that's all I'm saying."

Inferno took a deep breath. "Should we perhaps check in on this Smidlar person, my Lord?" he said with a steely voice of forced calm.

"Hmm? Oh, yes, good idea." Mallevelus stepped over to his farseeing mirror and waved a hand over it. The mists swirled within and an image of the golden-haired man appeared. He stood at the edge of a chasm, dismounted from his horse, looking across its depths.

"I could not say, my Lord," Inferno said. Which was true. He could not say what he wanted to say, which was that he hoped he would puzzle over it for a few moments, shrug, and then turn back.

The man had picked up a stone, and after a brief pause, fired it straight ahead of him into the chasm. Inferno sighed as he saw the stone bounce, stop, and the bridge appear. Bugger, Inferno thought. A clever one. Just what we need.

The Dark Lord chuckled wickedly. "That's right, Smidlar the so-called Brave! Come to me. Come to my domain. Come meet your doom!"

"Your pardon, my Lord," Inferno said quickly before his master could begin laughing diabolically again. "But would it not be easier to simply snap one of the ropes of the bridge from here and send him to his doom now?"

"Oh, come now, Inferno, where is your sense of sport?" the Dark Lord said. "Anyone can do that!"

"Well, you could time it to send him into the water," Inferno suggested. "He might survive the fall and then you could have the pleasure of hearing his screams as the acids in the river slowly dissolve him."

For a hopeful moment, it appeared the Dark Lord considered this. But then he shook his head. "No, Inferno, I much prefer for him to meet his demise at my hands. So much more satisfying that way."

The Dark Lord waved away the image in the mirror, causing it to go dark. "It will be awhile before he gets to the Tower," he said. "More than enough time to continue practicing my speeches. Care to stay and listen, Inferno?"

"Ah ... no, my Lord, I have urgent business. Organizing your army and such, you see."

Mallevelus grinned wickedly. "And tending to the Princess, no doubt. Oh, how I envy you, Inferno!"

"Quite so. You know, I was quite the torturer myself in my day, I'll have you know, before I became the Dark Lord. Sometimes I quite miss that, you know? To hear the screams you know you've inflicted directly yourself. It just gives one a real sense of satisfaction, a job well done."

"Er, yes, well," Inferno said, shifting nervously. He hated it when his master waxed nostalgic like this. "Perhaps the next Princess we take you may ..."

The Dark Lord sighed dramatically. "Oh, hellfire, you know there won't be a next time, not after I conquer the Kingdom of Light. There won't be any more princesses to kidnap any longer." He looked at Inferno. "Perhaps I should avail myself of this opportunity with Princess Sarah ..."

Inferno made a face. The last thing he needed was the Dark Lord trying his hand at torturing someone whom he fancied. "I do not think that would be wise, my Lord," he said carefully.

"Oh, not at all, my Lord," Inferno said quickly. "In fact ... ah, you may be too good at it."

Another pause. Then a small smile came to his face. "Well ... I was rather ruthless, you know."

"Definitely, my Lord," Inferno said. "And might I remind my most Dark and Diabolical Master that even though there will be no princesses, there will most certainly be buxom young underground resistance leaders."

"Yes. Yes, indeed!" the Dark Lord exclaimed, his eyes glittering. "And they are frightfully tougher than a mere princess!"

"Right you are, Inferno! Oh, as soon as I am done with my speeches, I must start thinking up all sorts of fiendish tortures for those resistance leaders. What a grand time we'll have, Inferno!"

"Indeed, my Lord," Inferno said with a sly smile, recalling fondly the reaction of the Princess as she was dropped into the Troll Cave. "Indeed we will."

The only thing that prevented the Princess from screaming until her throat shattered was the fact that a bloated troll phallus had been thrust into her mouth. The troll held her tightly by the hair, forcing her head to bob up and down on his thick manhood. Behind her, another troll grunted in glee as he violated her from behind, his body pounding against hers mercilessly as his thick beastly flesh drove hard into her intimate tunnel.

She had already climaxed twice, streams of troll-seed dripping from her sex, her body shaking with a wanton lust that was almost a match for the trolls that were methodically raping her. After her first climax, the caves had echoed with her screams, the throbbing paroxysms from her sex so intense from the tightness of the troll's phallus in her tunnel that she saw stars dance before her eyes. Now she rose again, the nub of her womanhood pressed against the rod of brutal invasive flesh in her sex.

Suddenly the phallus in her mouth seemed to explode, shooting hot globs of his sticky seed into her mouth, so much that it was impossible to contain it all, dripping out around her lips and down the side of his manhood.

"Mmmph!" Princess Sarah cried in a bubbling nasal whine as she felt as if she were drowning in his seed. With a loud grunt, the beast-man let go of her and withdrew his now less-engorged member from her. More seed dripped from her mouth before she could tilt her head back and swallow, panting to catch her breath, crying out stridently as she rose to another climax. Yet at the moment she was about to reach her crescendo and let out another scream, another troll seized her by the hair and plunged her head onto another phallus waiting to be sated.

Inferno faced the three barrel-chested guards as they stood more or less at attention before him, looking at their master with baleful eyes as he paced back and forth before them.

"Now, I want you to listen well," Inferno told the one in the center. The guard blinked, as if in surprise. "You are to make sure all entrances to the Tower are covered come dusk. Put extra men on it if you need to. I want nothing getting in without us knowing about it. Do you understand me?"

"Why you tell me?" He jerked a beefy thumb over his shoulder. "Him captain of guard."

Inferno rolled his eyes. "Oh, bloody hell," he grumbled. "With those sodding helmets I can't tell one of you from the other. Look, do I have to repeat what I just said or did you hear it?" he said to the real captain of the guard.

Inferno slapped his forehead. "I meant, don't let anyone in the Tower!" the incubus shouted in an exasperated voice.

"I want someone in every corridor," Inferno said. "And unless there's an intruder in the Tower, you are not to leave your assigned corridors! Is that clear?"

The captain of the guard grunted something that sounded like an affirmative. At least Inferno hoped so. "Fine. Any further questions?"

"Jobapoirks. Like, uh, when ya torture her an' stuff. Extra stuff. More'n yer pay."

The incubus grumbled. Great, he can't tie his shoes, but he can negotiate employment contracts, he thought. "Look, I'll think about it, okay? Maybe later. If you, uh, do a good job. Now, carry on."

He turned and walked away from them, shaking his head. He lamented now having concentrated so much on the quality of their manly equipment and so little on their brains. Surely if he had been a little more choosy in his hiring, he could have acquired guards with marginally more intelligence than this!

Inferno entered the corridor that went past the front entrance of the Tower. He walked over to the tall iron gate, standing just to the side of the "No Soliciting" sign as he peered between the iron bars, and between the two massive boulders laying as silent but deadly sentinels on either side. Looking past the boulders, he watched a small bird perched upon the branch of a tree, chirping merrily. An insect buzzed past the beautiful, bright-blue plumaged bird, causing it to lunge after it, flying from its perch with a quick burst of movement from its wings. It dived and quickly caught up with the little bug, snapping out its wings into a graceful dive as it snatched the insect in its beak. As the bird made short work of its snack, it flew between the two boulders.

With a deafening sound of thunder, the two boulders smashed together, throwing dust and pebbles in all directions. A single blue feather wafted up on a thermal and out of sight.

Inferno allowed himself a small, self-satisfied sneer as the boulders slowly separated, the crushed remains of the bird no more than a stain on the smooth surfaces of the boulders. Surely even the King's Champion would not get past that. Surely even the likes of Smidlar the Brave shall not pass these deadly sentinels without feeling their crushing embrace.

But then he remembered the trick that Smidlar used to get over the bridge, and his smile faded slightly. Oh, but anyone can think of that! Certainly. No one need read a book to know that trick.

The barren wastes that lay in the Forbidden Lands past the chasm became craggy and broken as the sun began to slip towards the western horizon, the road twisting and turning insanely hither and yon, the path so narrow and the rocks along the sides so sharp that Smidlar had to slow his steed to a slow walk, letting him pick his way cautiously lest the poor beast break his leg. All the while, the Tower of Doom thrust up towards the sky in the distance, as if taunting him, enticing him to come closer to the pure evil hardened within its stones.

It was with relief that Smidlar saw the road straighten out before him, but it was short lived, for now the smell of sulphur came to him, the breeze suddenly blowing the heat from a furnace against his face. Sure enough, from up ahead, he saw a bright red glow stretch out like a river across his path, but instead of water, this river was filled with molten lava.

As Smidlar approached the flowing stream of molten rock, his eyes followed the road to its edge. There, a bridge of smooth stone, like hardened lava, stretched in a perfect arc across the incendiary river, more than wide enough to accommodate his steed and hold them a safe distance above the deadly liquid hellfire below.

Smidlar gave a small smirk as he stopped his horse a short distance from it and dismounted. He walked up to the start of the bridge and tested one end with his foot. It felt quite solid under his heel. He took a few steps, ready to leap backwards if anything happened. The bridge remained still.

He backed up to shore and scratched his chin. He glanced around him and chanced upon another small stone. Smiling to himself, he picked it up and chucked it towards the bridge. It struck it at a point about a third of the way across, and then skipped and rolled forward until it came to rest more or less in the center of the bridge.

A great rumbling sound arose, causing his horse to whinny nervously and back up further from the edge. Thousands of cracks appeared on the bridge, radiating throughout the center span, until the entire bridge broke apart and collapsed, great chunks of rock falling into the lava and sending small plumes of liquid fire into the air. After a short pause, the lava appeared to change direction, rising in two narrow steams on either bank, curving back in towards each other. They formed an arc over the molten river and instantly hardened into a solid bridge once again.

Smidlar laughed. "Jolly good, Mallevelus, but still not good enough!" he said with great mirth. He looked off to either side, his gaze tracing a path along the lava. Finally, he spotted what he was looking for in the distance, downstream of where the bridge trap stood: A steep cliff filled with many large and precariously balanced boulders on the other side of the molten stream.

"That should do the trick," Smidlar said with a grin as he mounted his steed once again. "I will wager that a well-thrown rock should bring that down and make a nice crossing for us!"

"The stone to dispell the bridge-out illusion, page 32," Inferno said, ticking off items on his talons. "Using rock to test for trap on stone bridge, page 45. Tossing stone to start landslide to ford river, page 62."

The Dark Lord waved a hand of dismissal. "No matter. No book will help him one jot when he confronts me in my own domain! And then, this tower shall live up to its name, for it will indeed be his Doom!"

"I'll go check on the Princess, my Lord," Inferno muttered, though he was barely heard over the thunder.

Princess Sarah felt every intimate area on her body ache, ever muscle in her body strained with the contortions into which she was forced to satisfy the unquenchable lust of the cave trolls. The needs of these creatures grew no less intense the more they molested her. Indeed, they grew yet more demanding, each one becoming more and more impatient waiting for a fellow troll to be done with her, until finally she had been pinned to the floor with no fewer than three of the brutes atop her, one spearing her sex, one mashing her breasts over his manhood, and the third with his flesh rod impaled in her mouth.

Yet even this was not enough to satisfy them. Each of her hands was curled around a massive troll phallus, stroking them as quickly as her fingers would go, the trolls grunting and urging her hand even faster. Her body was splattered with troll-seed nearly everywhere, her nose thick with its heady odor.

From the corridor far above her, just outside the door that led to the chamber in which she had been placed, the Dark Lord's Right Hand of Terror observed the Princess through the Seeing Eye orb mounted just on the wall.

First he saw how her mouth sucked eagerly, and how her hips rose against the troll's raping phallus. He clenched his claws into fists.

Then he heard her moans of lust. His teeth ground together with a horrible metallic-like screeching noise.

Next he heard her muffled moans of ecstasy as she approached another climax. His eyes blazed white-hot and black smoke began to pour from his ears.

And then he saw how she gulped down the troll's seed when he climaxed in her mouth. He began to shake with rage.

Finally, the troll at her mouth left her, and the Princess threw her head back and screamed at the other troll, "Oh gods, oh gods, don't stop! DON'T STOP!"

Inferno rammed a fist into the glass orb, shattering it, its released energies crackling around him as bolts of green lightning. He then kicked viciously at the solid metal door to the chamber, breaking the lock and sending it cracking off its hinges. He grabbed it with his hands and hurtled it against the far wall of the corridor with a deafening clang that echoed up and down the corridors of the Tower, twisting it into an almost unrecognizable lump of metal.

Two of the slow-witted beasts arrived at his side, then backed up a step as they felt the furnace-blast heat that was the incubus' fury.

"I want you to get the Princess out of the cave," Inferno snarled to them. "Get her up here, get her cleaned up, then take her to sodding room, and ... and ..."

The guard's eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground, stone dead. Another dutifully took his place. "Den wut to we do wid her?" asked the replacement.

"You will take her and ... then you'll ... and ... but ..." Inferno clenched his teeth and then let go with another loud scream of frustration. "Do nothing to her! What does it matter?! Nothing works on her! Do you hear me? Do nothing! JUST FUCKING LEAVE HER THERE!!"

Inferno stomped away in rage, venting his anger on another passing guard by setting him on fire.

Just as the last sliver of the bloated red sun disappeared over the distant hills, Smidlar the Brave and his noble steed climbed to the top of a hill, watching as the Dark Lord's edifice of evil rose boldly erect over the crest of the hill, stretching long into the yielding sky, thick with the evil contained within its hard walls. Scattered around them lay the crumbling ruins of a long forgotten prosperous kingdom not unlike the Kingdom of Light, forever destroyed when the vile and foul Lord Mallevelus seized its throne and turned it into his own vision of hell on earth, obliterating all trace of the former goodness of these lands and earning the name of the road on which they traveled, the Road to Ruin.

"We are here at last!" Smidlar declared. "Yes, my trusty steed, therein lies the Foul One himself, the coward who so callously holds the fair and pure ..."

" ... Princess hostage. And so, what to do first? How to assault such a stronghold of most malevolent evil, hmm?"

And then the King's Champion touched the small pendant around his neck and grinned a most clever grin, and when he spoke again, he spoke loudly and clearly.

"Why, by waiting until the cover of darkness, that's how. It would be sheer madness to attack such a place now, even with the paltry light of dusk." He swept his gaze across the ruined landscape. "Ah, there we go."

He nudged his horse into a leisurely walk across to a pile of fallen marble columns. Several of them had collapsed in such a way that they formed a small, enclosed area. He dismounted his horse and urged him into the protected space, giving him an affectionate pat on his flank. "There now, my loyal companion," he said. "Now here we stay and wait. We wait until full and complete darkness has descended upon these lands, and not a moment sooner. Until then, we rest."

Smidlar the Brave, a small smile still etched in his face, turned towards a sheltered corner where several of the columns had converged as they fell so long ago. Into this small niche he crawled, another column forming a ceiling over his head, as he squeezed into a space that was not much bigger than Princess Sarah's cage. He looked off to the side, where a wide triangular gap lay between the ground and the fallen pillars.

He glanced in front of him. His horse stood near the opening of the niche, blocking line of sight from the only direction that was open. His smile broadening, he slowly unclasped the pendant the Lady of Lesser Virtue had given him and placed it gently on the ground.

The Dark Lord's lips curled into an eager, malevolent smile as he gazed into the farseeing mirror, just as his quarry disappeared into the stony niche. "Smidlar the Brave," he said with an amused sneer. "Smidlar the Fool is more like it! Little do you know I have been watching and hearing everything you do or say! I now know your entire plan! And to think, it was all because you trusted a woman, a woman who played to your most base desires, your most primal lust. Try as you might, Smidlar, but you cannot escape the fact that you are a man, only a man, with all the weaknesses of a man, and now when you enter my domain, I will be ready for you, and I will destroy you!"

The Dark Lord Mallevelus lifted his arms and looked up towards the ceiling, and let loose with his loudest, his most evil, his most satisfyingly diabolical laughter of his life. The thunder was again called down from the heavens, bright green lightning cracking, the booming reports echoing through the chamber and the Tower, and rolling across the ruined lands.

The thunder came to the ears of Smidlar the Brave as well, shaking even the mighty stone columns that formed his protection. He grinned, then quickly flattened his body against the ground and shimmied out through the space below the columns. As soon as he was on the other side, he leapt to his feet and bounded away, running back towards the road and the main entrance into the Tower.

On the farseeing mirror, Smidlar appeared from under the columns, and then was gone in a flicker of moment, leaving the image as it was when the Dark Lord looked back down at it a moment later. "Yes, you rest, Smidlar," Mallevelus sneered. "Rest for your appointment with death!" He started to turn around. "INFERNO!" he bellowed.

"Gah!" the Dark Lord cried, startled. "How did you do that? I only just called you."

"I heard your, ah, diabolical laughter, my Lord," he said evenly. He had to force himself to stay calm. It had taken four barbecued guards before enough of his anger had drained for him to even attempt to be civil towards anyone, even his own master.

"Oh, right. Anyway ... he has arrived, my Right Hand of Terror!" the Dark Lord declared. He swept an arm dramatically towards the mirror. "Behold!"

Inferno stepped forward, peered, and raised an eyebrow. "Er ... begging my most Diabolical and Evil Lord's pardon," he started slowly. "But what am I looking at?"

Mallevelus rolled his eyes. "No, the Pink Pixie Queen. Yes, I mean Smidlar the Brave!"

"Of course not. He has hidden himself behind those columns. He is waiting until darkness falls completely, and not a moment sooner. His exact words, Inferno! Not a moment sooner!"

"Hah! He thinks we will have our guard down just because it is dark! What a fool!"

"Then shall I double the guards at the entrance, my Lord?" Inferno asked hopefully.

Inferno took a deep breath, his claws clenching again. "Because, my most Esteemed and Brilliant Lord and Master, such an action might have the effect of capturing or killing Smidlar before he penetrates this lair very far, which I thought was the general idea!"

"You are forgetting, Inferno!" Mallevelus declared. He sauntered over to his throne and picked up his Scepter of Infernal Power. "I wish the honor of destroying him myself!"

Bloody git, Inferno thought vehemently. "In that case, my Lord, we have some time before Smidlar attacks, and I have an urgent matter to discuss with you."

"Not now, Inferno," the Dark Lord said with a dismissive sweep of his arm. "I simply must prepare a speech for when I stand over his broken and dying body."

Inferno clenched his teeth. He counted to ten. It didn't help. "Please, my Lord," he practically hissed. "This is really important."

Smidlar crept cautiously to the end of the Road to Ruin, just at the shadow of the massive boulders that rose over him on either side like dark, forbidding cliffs. Between them lay the iron gate into the Tower, and upon it was a small white sign that he could just barely make out. He squinted, leaning forward, but it was just far enough for him not to be able to read it. He started to take a step ...

Smidlar furrowed his brow. "Hmmm ..." he murmured thoughtfully, scratching his chin, glancing from one of the boulders to the other. Very faintly in the failing light he could see a small discoloration on the surface of one of them, facing the path. He looked at the other and saw a similar stain at the same exact location.

"Very curious," he commented. He glanced around him and spied a stone near his foot. Grinning to himself, he took it in hand, stepped back a respectable distance, and tossed the rock towards the gate (as instructed on pages 123 and 124 of the book).

The boulders came together, thousands of tons of mass crashing together with explosive force. There was a pause, and then the boulders slowly came apart with a low rumbling noise, dust wafting to the ground, the remnants of the stone he had tossed, not having even made it halfway to the ground.

"As I thought!" Smidlar declared. He peered towards the gate again, stepping to one side. The gate was recessed into the wall. "Looks like there's enough space," he commented to himself. "But ... the question is ..." He reached down and picked up two more stones. " ... does it wait, or does it react again right away?"

As soon as the boulders pulled back far enough for him to toss the other stone within, he did so. It fell to the ground and bounced a few times before coming to rest as the boulders continued to reset. But the moment they had returned to their original positions, they again came together and pulverized the second stone as well.

Smidlar grinned. "This should not be terribly difficult," he said, and prepared to fetch another stone.

"Are you quite serious, Inferno?" the Dark Lord said, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

"It not a joke, my Lord!' Inferno yelled. "I wish to the nine levels of Hell that it was!"

Inferno snarled. "Listen to me, dammit!" he bellowed. "I've been ignoring your orders! I've not relayed a single one of your wishes to go easy on her! Not a single one! And still it does not matter! It does not matter!"

Mallevelus frowned deeply. "Now, Inferno, this has got to stop," he said, shaking his Scepter at him. "How can I maintain discipline among my minions if I let you go off on these larks disobeying my orders? How's it going to look to the others if when they disobey I toss them into molten lava or boiling acid, and you I give a reprimand? Come now, Inferno, I ..."

"You're not listening to me!" Inferno screamed. "Sod the bloody discipline! I'm trying to get across to you that this Princess we have here has not been affected one jot by anything we've done to her! We can torture her from here to the end of time and it would not matter! She still enjoys it! She still bloody well enjoys it!"

"AAAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!" Inferno shrieked. Furious, he snatched the Scepter from his master's hand and thrust it towards the first thing he saw, the Farseeing Mirror. A bolt of lightning shot from the end of the Scepter and exploded against the surface of the mirror, shattering the glass into dust and cracking the frame into a dozen pieces that fell into a singed clump on the floor, acrid smoke wafting up from the ruins.

Smidlar the Brave felt the wind of the passing boulders against his back as he stood pressed against the iron gate, breathing hard from the mad dash he made between the boulders as they reset from the stone he had again tossed between them. He broke into a sly smile at his own cleverness. The next moment, however, he heard footfalls on the other side of the gate. Quickly he twisted himself around, pressing his back into one side of the door archway, in the shadow created by the boulder on that side.

He peered cautiously past the gate. Ahead was an intersection of the wide passage that led to the gate, which itself lay shrouded in darkness not far into the Tower, and a narrower passage that ran across his line of sight. It was through this passage that a burly guard wandered into view.

Smidlar examined the guard, his gaze focusing on the man's face-obscuring helmet. "Hmm," he murmured to himself.

Smidlar looked around him and found another stone. He tested the gate, and found that it opened for him easily. He stepped back into the shadows and waited. Not long after, the guard passed again in the other direction. As soon as he passed out of sight again, Smidlar opened the gate and hurtled the stone into the dark corridor (page 75). It bounced loudly on the stone floor and came to rest somewhere in its dark recesses.

"Huh? Wut?" the guard grunted, popping back into view and looking into the dark corridor, his back to Smidlar. "Who go dere?!"

The guard heard the movement behind him, but it was too late. He had barely started to turn around when something hard and stony was smashed against the back of his head (a technique from a different book: 101 Ways to Bash a Skull). He fell heavily to the floor with a loud thud and was still.

Smidlar had to move fast. He knew that someone might check on the guard soon. He quickly grabbed the brute under his armpits and dragged him more fully into the darkness.

"Well, thank you very much!" the Dark Lord shouted. "Do you know how much I paid for that?! That's coming out of your cut of the treasure we loot from the Kingdom of Light, I can tell you that!"

"My apologies, my Lord," Inferno said in a more contrite voice, tossing the Scepter onto the Throne. "But you have no idea how frustrating this has been!"

"I know what you suggested!" Inferno bellowed. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "My point, my Lord, is that it would not matter if I did it. She would find some way to enjoy it!"

"Now hang about," Mallevelus said. "That cannot simply be true. No one can like being raped by an incubus."

"Please listen, Master!" Inferno pleaded. "She has already been raped by several of the guards. She has been tortured most evilly by your own Madam Agonusa. Every sensitive part of her body involved in the sexual act has been tormented until it felt a pain that would drop a basilisk! And yet she still enjoyed it!"

The Dark Lord appeared to puzzle over this. "The only thing I can think of, Inferno, is that Madam Agonusa was simply not merciless enough with her."

"I mean, anything less than that wand she uses ... oh what's it called, has the little tine thingies that spark ..."

"Well, she seemed to be quite in the proper agony at first, my Lord, but when she was touched in those areas, she enjoyed it."

Smidlar peered around the corner cautiously, adjusting his helmet. He stripped out of his clothes and put on the guard's loincloth and helmet, his naturally strong physique making him look much like any of the others with his normal clothing removed. He straightened up, and emerged into the corridor. Now, he had to find the Princess.

He traveled a short distance down where the guard had originally been walking and found another corridor intersecting this one. When he peered down it, he saw a spiral staircase at the other end. Between him and it was another guard, walking slowly in his direction. Smidlar fell into step, emulating the loping movements of the other guard, hunching his shoulders slightly. He grunted a likely sounding greeting at the other guard, who grunted back in kind.

Yet a moment later, a dim light illuminated in the back of the other guard's mind. He grunted again and turned. "Hey, youse!"

Smidlar stopped. He paused a moment, cleared his throat, and turned. "Yeah?" he said, forcing his voice an octave lower than normal.

"Wut you leave for?" the guard demanded. "Man in every cor ... corgi .. codr ... hall. Me here ..." He pointed a thick finger to the floor. "You dere ..." He pointed back to the other corridor. "Dem's orders."

"Big boom out dere," Smidlar said, pointing towards the entrance. He raised his fists and held them apart a foot, then brought them together quickly. "Boom! From big rocks."

"No bird dis time," Smidlar said, cracking as evil-looking a grin as he could manage. "Wuz bigger."

"Oh, yeah, dat guy," the guard said with a toothy grin. "Da one dey wanted ta cover da winders for."

"Uh ... yeah," Smidlar said, some uncertainty creeping into his voice. "Anyway ... uh ... so I go now. Off duty."

Smidlar looked aghast. "Rape?!" he cried in horror. Quickly he recovered, and dropped back into his fake voice. "Uh, yeah, dat's right ... uh, rape her, yeah." He paused. "Uh ... so where she is?"

The other guard laughed. "Where she is?" he cried. "Dat's funny! Where she is, 'e says!"

"Ever'buddy know she in stateroom on third floor in da back," the guard said, still chuckling.

Smidlar smiled slightly. "Yeah, of course ... I remember dat now ... uh, so I'll see ya."

"Now do you see what I'm talking about?" Inferno cried. "I don't get it either! Each time, it starts out great. When she was first raped by the guard or when she was first tortured. She screamed the most beautiful cries of suffering and torment, and then the moment she gets aroused, it all falls apart!"

"Well, Inferno, I hate to be the one to tell you how to do you job, now ..." Mallevelus said with a smirk.

"Oh, please do, my Lord," Inferno said sardonically. "It cannot possibly be any worse that what has already happened!"

The Dark Lord gave the incubus a dark look. Once the light level in the room came back to where they could see each other again, he continued, "But I was a great torturer in my day, and I would say that the simple solution to this is if pain alone is not working, you must instead go for the mind! Make her reel in disgust and revulsion! Overwhelm her senses"

"Associate the very sexual act with something vile and gross, something to make her go utterly mad if it did not stop, something ... something brutal, unyielding ... something like ..."

"Oh, that's a cracking good idea! Nothing like a bunch of hulking, sex-crazed, brutal beasts with huge phalluses that ..."

"Does it mean she enjoys it when she shouts, and I quote, 'oh gods, oh gods, don't stop, don't stop'?"

"Let me save you some time, my Lord," Inferno said. "The trolls were perfectly healthy. She was lowered far enough down. She was left in more than long enough. They know to, ah, use their equipment. And it was big equipment as well. Everything was done perfectly, everything worked as it should. Except that she ultimately enjoyed it."

Smidlar the Brave emerged on the third floor and after a short walk down the narrow hallway spotted it. A large iron door, leading to a room facing the rear of the Tower, flanked by two more guards. He glanced back the other way for a moment, checking to see that he remained undetected in the Dark Lord's fortress. He allowed himself a small smile before letting it go blank and dumb before marching up to the guards.

The two looked at him with disinterest as he turned to face them. "Open door fer me," he said in what he hoped was what passed for a commanding voice to these dim-witted brutes.

"Yeah, we don't get to do nuthin' wid her," the right one lamented. "Told us ta jus' leave her alone."

The two grumbled some more under their breath, but dutifully began undoing the bolt. Smidlar felt his heart race, both from the excitement of his quest and the chance to see the beautiful princess he had so admired from afar for so very long.

Smidlar boldly stepped into the stateroom, and his breath caught in his throat as he beheld the lovely vision that was the Princess.

Princess Sarah had been lying on her side, napping lightly, a faint smile on her face as her dreams replayed the fantastic erotic pleasure she had felt only a short time ago that day. She stirred lazily at the approach of the "guard", blinking languidly as she rose gracefully to a seated position on her bed, the chain from her iron collar clinking softly. "Oh, my, another rape?" she said in a wistful voice, a sultry smile playing about her lips.

The door closed behind Smidlar with a clang, leaving him alone with the Princess. He continued to stare at her for another moment, and only then realized the great impropriety he was committing. "Oh, Your Highness, forgive me!" Smidlar called out in his normal voice, placing a hand across his eyes.

"For continuing to gaze upon your stark nudity," Smidlar said. "Please, feel free to cover yourself with the sheet before we continue."

"Not at all! I shall endeavor to hold you so that your dignity is fully preserved as we make our way out the window."

Sarah paused as she was starting to wrap the sheet around her, raising an eyebrow. "Uh ... the window?" she asked in a small voice.

Smidlar dropped his hand and beamed. "Yes, Princess! Oh, terribly sorry." His hand shot back up when he saw one breast still exposed. "Please, finish covering yourself."

"Uh, right," Sarah said in confusion. When she had both breasts safely tucked away, she said. "Okay, you can look now."

Smidlar lowered his eyes and smiled. "You are still quite the vision of loveliness, Your Highness," he said softly.

"Oh! Well, uh, thank you ..." Princess Sarah said uncertainly. "Just one question."

With a flourish, he removed his helmet. "Smidlar the Brave, Your Highness!" he declared. "Sent by your dear father, King Beneficus, to rescue you from the clutches of the evil Dark Lord Mallevelus!"

The Dark Lord gave the incubus an odd look. "What, not that sodding stones and rocks book again?"

Inferno rolled his eyes. "No, my Lord, this one is Advanced Techniques in Torture, fifth edition. But never mind that! Every time, it starts out right, but by the end, her screams of torment become screams of pleasure!"

The Dark Lord appeared deep in thought. Inferno sighed when he saw this, trying to calm himself, knowing that the wheels in Mallevelus' mind tended to turn slowly. Evilly, but slowly. "So ... she starts out in torture, and ends up in ecstasy?" he said. "Is that what you are saying, Inferno?"

"Certainly not with the far better way you have just expressed it, my Lord," the incubus said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Inferno had to bite his tongue to hold back a retort as to precisely the sort of gift he had thought it was.

"Anyway, something must have happened in between those two points to change things."

"But the only thing that happened, my Lord, is that she began to climax! Which is the very thing that should have continued to cause her even deeper torment and horror! She should have screamed for mercy at the terrible violation of her body! She should have gone mad with mortification at her body being used like a common tramp! She should have howled with outrage and despair over his vile trespass of her most intimate and sensitive parts of her body!"

The Dark Lord laughed. "Unless, of course, she simply likes that sort of thing," he said with a careless smirk and a flippant gesture of one hand.

And then the Dark Lord's Right Hand of Terror suddenly stood bolt upright, his eyes flashing in the unmistakable look of inspiration.

The Princess' mind raced as Smidlar knelt behind her on the bed, working the heavy lock that sealed her collar to her neck with a small piece of metal. "Uh ... so, um, Smidlar, is it?" Princess Sarah said nervously. "You said my father sent you?"

"Er ... right ... of course ..." She listened to the soft scrape and clicks of metal on metal, her collar occasionally pressing against her throat as he fiddled with it. "Um ... you know, they said that lock was unpickable when the locked me in it," she lied.

"Please, Your Highness, continue to be brave for me for another few moments, I almost have this."

"Oh, uh, I just meant, well, why waste your time? I mean, you can always try again another day ..."

"We have but a scant candlemark or two, my Lady," Smidlar said urgently, glancing towards the window. Outside, the full shroud of night was not far from falling across the lands, the last bits of dark purple twilight glow chased from the western horizon. "Before the Dark Lord learns I have tricked him."

"Not at all, Your Highness!" Smidlar said smugly. "Not in the Tower, anyway. I shall be snatching you away right under his nose."

"Oh, but if the collar proves to be too tough for what I am sure are your otherwise masterful skills then ..."

There was a loud snap as the collar separated, and a clink of the free end of the chain falling to the bed behind her. "Ah! Success!" Smidlar cried.

"Sod it," the Princess muttered under her breath as she pulled the collar from her neck.

"Oh, uh, I just said, 'so good'. You know ... it was so good of you to free me," Sarah said weakly.

"Ah, but you will have a lifetime to thank me for that, Your Highness!" Smidlar beamed as he stood up. "Now, we must make haste, but we must be quiet and not arouse the suspicion of the guards."

Princess Sarah furrowed her brow as she watched him rush over to the window, idly fingering the heavy iron collar still in her hands. "Hang about," she said narrowing her eyes. "What do you mean, I'll have a lifetime to thank you?"

"Oh, well, that was just a joke, certainly no girl would actually like such a thing," the Dark Lord said with a chuckle.

"Or ... would she?" the Dark Lord said in astonishment, his eyes growing wide as well.

Smidlar the Brave leaned out of the stateroom window far enough to avoid being heard by the guards as he lifted his fingers to his lips and issued a shrill whistle. Faintly in the distance he heard his trusty steed respond and begin galloping towards the Tower. Below him, a thicket of ropey vines writhed and snapped, the rear guard sentinels of the Tower.

He turned back towards the Princess and rushed over to her, taking one of her hands tenderly in his own, gazing into her eyes. "Ah, my fair and beautiful lady," he said soothingly. "Everything will be quite right in a very short while."

"Because, in reward for rescuing you, your father has promised me ..." He smiled at her and squeezed her hand. "Your hand in marriage."

Sarah's eyes grew to saucers and her mouth dropped open. "My father promised you WHAT?!"

"Please, hush, my Lady!" Smidlar said softly. "Soon the guards will grow suspicious and any loud noise will alert them! I know you are beside yourself with joy over this happy conclusion to this quest, but we must not delay."

Princess Sarah was too stunned to reply for a few moments and let him pull her across the room and towards the window. Just short of it, she stopped and yanked her hand from his own. "I am so happy that someone bothered to consult me about these 'joyous' little plans!" she snapped.

"Your father has your best interests at heart, Your Highness," Smidlar said with a smile. "And I shall make you a good and kind husband, and watch over you for all of your days."

And then understanding dawned in the Princess' eyes. "Ah, I see ... watch over me ... mm-hmm ..."

"What? Out the window and down to the vines below? Are you daft?!" Sarah cried. "They'll throttle us in an instant!"

"Not so, my Lady!" Smidlar said with a smarmy grin. "For this particular variety of Throttling Vine is vulnerable to heavy blows. A heavy blow to it will delay its reaction time by five heartbeats! And the thick mass of vines below is enough to cushion our fall. We shall land upon them, breaking our fall, and while they are stunned, jump to safety onto the back of my trusty steed who now fast approaches!"

There came the sound of a horse neighing from below. "One moment, Your Highness, whilst I guide my horse to the proper spot. Oh, and put that collar down somewhere, but be quiet about it. It will alert them for sure if you drop it."

As Smidlar turned from her, the Princess looked down at the collar in her hand, and a slow smile spread across her face.

"Inferno, this ... this is perfect!" the Dark Lord cried. "This is most fortuitous indeed!"

"This Princess we have here, she is not the fair and pure damsel that we have been led to believe! No, Inferno! She is a tramp ... a slut ... a harlot!" the Dark Lord said, punctuating each adjective with a lustful emphasis, his eyes glittering madly. "She revels in her sexuality ... she swims in the murkiest swamp waters of her own lust ... she burns in the fires of her own desires ... she ...!"

"Because, Inferno, this Princess may very well be exactly what I have been looking for all of these many years!"

"Uh ... begging my most Hideous and Confusing Lord's pardon, but ... was not the conquest of the Kingdom of Light what you have been looking for all these many years?"

Mallevelus waved a dismissive hand. "Feh. That was but a means to an end for my greater goal!"

Inferno raised an eyebrow. "I know I'm going to regret this," he said. "But what, my Lord, is your greater goal?"

"Why, to find myself a consort, of course," the Dark Lord said with a wicked smile.

Inferno stared at his master in astonishment. "A ... consort, my Lord?" he asked, almost choking on the word.

"Yes, a consort. A woman that I may have at my side, loyal to a fault, sharing in my conquests, reveling in her share of my power, and ..." The Dark Lord grinned most lasciviously. " ... skilled in the deepest, darkest of erotic arts for my, ah, pleasure."

"Surely this one would satisfy that last requirement," Inferno said, making a face. "However, there is a problem."

"Perish the thought," Inferno said loudly, mainly to prevent himself from responding in any other way (like with what he really felt, that his master was battier than a vampire convention). "But there is one tiny issue with her, my Lord."

"Her loyalty, my Lord. I cannot guarantee you will have anything close to that."

And from the Princess' stateroom arose a loud banging noise as the metal collar fell to the floor and rolled towards the door, making a dull clang as it stuck.

The guards blinked and looked at each other. "What wuz dat?" they both said in unison.

Inferno and Mallevelus blinked and looked at each other. "What was that?" they both said in unison.

Brows knitted in thought like two fat, wrestling caterpillars. "Sound like ... sumthin hittin' floor."

"That's impossible," Inferno said. "I gave specific instructions to the guards to leave the Princess be."

Princess Sarah gave the door a small smile of satisfaction seconds before it burst open, the guards leaping into the room. A second later, she was abruptly yanked back by her arm and sent almost flying to the far side of the room, losing her footing and falling to the floor.

"Stand back, Princess!" Smidlar shouted. "For I, Smidlar the Brave, shall protect you from these perverted, raping brutes!"

"Oh, yes, please save me," the Princess said sourly, rolling her eyes. If I ever do see my father again, I am going to KILL him, she thought violently. Him and that great winged prude he has for a guardian angel. This was probably her daft idea.

Smidlar leapt forward, and soon the room by the door was filled with the sounds of heated hand-to-hand combat, fists, arms, and legs flying in a blur, punctuated with grunts, growls, and the occasional sickening crunch of something connecting with a sensitive area.

"Hear that?!" Inferno shouted as they pounded down the stairs. "A fight in the Princess' quarters! It must be Smidlar!"

"Impossible!" the Dark Lord cried. "He was not supposed to set out until nightfall, which just happened now! How could he get there this fast?!"

"He dares to play a trick on the Dark Lord Mallevelus?!" the Dark Lord roared. "I shall utterly destroy him for this!"

"Then I shall make his destruction a thousand times more painful! I shall have his liver carved out spoonful by spoonful! I shall have him slowly roasted alive over a burning pit! I shall cut him up, bit by bit, and fed to the basilisk! I shall ..."

"No, my Lord!" Inferno warned. "You did that to the last intruder. That's how the basilisk came down with the rash in the first place!"

Smidlar turned and hurried over to the Princess. "And now, Your Highness, we must make haste. Come!"

He took her hand and half-dragged her to the window. "W-wait a moment, I-I'm not sure this is a good idea ..."

But Smidlar had already draped one leg outside the window. "To insure your safety, Your Highness, I will drop first, so that I may be on the ground to pull you quickly from the vines."

The Princess opened her mouth to protest, but then closed it again, a slow smile breaking across her face. "Oh, okay," she said. "Yes, that will work. Though it is quite dark out there."

She glanced over at the metal collar, noting to herself that it was rather dark as well and likely hard to see at night. She grinned.

Smidlar leapt up from the window ledge. "A change of plans, Princess," he declared. He grabbed her arm and yanked her towards the window, causing her to yelp. "Our enemy approaches! You must make the leap to freedom first, and I will protect you!"

But Smidlar had already turned from her, standing between her and the door, spreading his arms out protectively just moments before the Dark Lord and Inferno burst into the room.

"So!" Mallevelus declared. "At last I meet the great so-called hero, Smidlar the Brave!"

"You are too late, Dark Lord!" Smidlar cried. "In mere blinks of an eye, the Princess will be out of the Tower and away from your evil clutches."

"And in the time that you do, the Princess will escape your filthy and wicked lair." Smidlar smiled. "I have defeated your evil plans, Dark Lord!"

"You foolish mortal! I can easily annihilate the two of you at once with the deadly magic of my mighty Scepter of Infernal Power!" the Dark Lord roared, bringing up his arm and thrusting it at them. He paused, blinked, and looked at his empty hand. With a snarl he turned to Inferno and bellowed. "Where is my Scepter of Infernal Power?!"

"Er ..." Inferno said uneasily, his leathery wings drooping. "Ah ... I believe it is back in your chamber, my Lord."

Smidlar whispered to Sarah. "Now, my Lady! Go out the window while they are distracted!"

The Dark Lord folded his arms indignantly. "Oh, really, now, Inferno? And I seem to recall that you had it in your hand because ...?"

"And so you decided to take the one object that is the source of all my most powerful magic, the one object that I cannot do without, the one object that could destroy me in the wrong hands, and you just leave it about wherever you please! I should sack you for that, I should! For that and for destroying my Farseeing Mirror!"

"Then do it!" Inferno shouted. "I've had it with this job anyway! Nothing is worth ..."

Smidlar started to laugh heartily. "As much as I would love to stay, my most evil Dark Lord, I have a Princess to return safely to her father." He started to back up. "Until we meet again, I bid you ... hey!!"

As he slid a foot back, it had connected with the Princess' outstretched leg behind him. He tripped, losing his balance as the backs of his thighs hit the window ledge. He tumbled back and out into the cool, night air.

There was a loud, muffled thud a few moments later. The Dark Lord and Inferno rushed to the window. Mallevelus thrust an arm out, pointing. "Look! My adversary still lives!"

Below, Smidlar quickly rolled himself from the crushed vines, only moments before they recovered and began twisting and snapping through the air towards him, getting away just in time. In one smooth motion he pulled himself up an into the saddle of his horse. "You may have won this round, Dark Lord!" Smidlar called up. "But I shall never give up! Fear not, Princess, and have hope that I will yet save you from this evil fiend!"

The Dark Lord let go with a diabolical laugh as soon as he and Inferno made it back up to the chamber.

"At the sheer irony of it, Inferno!" the Dark Lord declared, picking up his Scepter. "Smidlar the Brave, moments away from stealing the Princess away and thwarting my plans, and would have succeeded but for a fortuitous bit of clumsiness at just the right ..."

"Yes, my Lord," Inferno said. "Which only proves what I had been saying, that she has been enjoying what we've been doing to her and she wants more."

The Dark Lord slowly smiled. "Then perhaps she can become my consort after all!" he said. It quickly faded. "Oh, wait, there is that loyalty thing, isn't there?"

"Indeed, my Lord," Inferno said, his own mouth twisting into a wicked smile. "And I believe I have the perfect way to elicit this from her."

"Yes, my Lord, but whereas with others they wish it not removed, with one such as the Princess ..."

"Why, at dawn, of course," Inferno said with a sly grin. "After all, we did promise the King that her torment would continue at every dawn, now didn't we?"

Agonusa raised an eyebrow. "Next you'll be asking me to get her a nice, full-length dress," she snorted.

"Yes, I can get you one," she muttered. "You know how this is going to look to the other torturers when they find out about this? I'll be a laughingstock, I will!"

Inferno grinned wickedly. "Not if it gets the results I am hoping for," he said.

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