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Message-ID: <43298asstr$1057752604@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: Toran Shaimist <toran29@yahoo.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} [Pirate]: Tale of the Banshee -- Toran and Valeria (BDSM, NC, viol) 
Date: Wed,  9 Jul 2003 08:10:04 -0400
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TALE OF THE BANSHEE

by Valeria and Toran

Electronic copying for normal UseNet propagation, and
archiving at free services, including ASSTR and
google, is specifically granted.  One copy in hardcopy
or electronic, for personal enjoyment, is allowed. 
Other uses are prohibited, without permission from the
author.

This is a collaboration between a wonderful new author
and myself - I won't give on who wrote what.  All
comments are appreciated and should be directed to:
toran29@yahoo.com.


    That summer morning in early June, in the year of
Phazur 1216, was bright and clear upon the hilltop on
which sprawled the Royal University campus, but the
heat was not yet in the day, for it was still but an
hour or an hour and a half past sunrise.  The streets
were quiet in the university city of Tropp, for most
of the university students and faculty liked their
late-night hours, and slept in late.  Still, a few
people were about the streets of the lower town, but
traffic thinned markedly as one ascended the hill onto
campus.  A few young, eager scholars walked about
leisurely, a groom was walking a horse, perhaps to
cool her after a dawn ride by his master.  University
nondescripts are unique to university communities, but
are nondescripts nonetheless.
    
    The lady scholar who walked at ease down the
middle of the broad street which turned into a
pedestrian paved walkway leading up to the main
entrance of the research library was no nondescript,
though.  And, she walked directly in the middle of the
street, not in fear of unseen lurkers among the side
streets or building alcoves, but as one accustomed to
walking where and when she wished, without fear.  Her
manner was easy and calm, but by no means unwary or
like that of someone unaware that the world could hold
dangers.  Rather, it was with the determination and
easy regard of one who has faced life's situations,
and managed them skillfully.  
    
    An unobservant passerby would not even notice her
unobtrusive guards, for they walked easily before and
behind her, but at a distance, seemingly unattached to
her.  They were no scholars, but clearly trained
soldiers.  The lady herself was of goodly height, for
a woman, and her build was probably slight.  Her
bearing was erect, but it was difficult to make out
anything more about her, for her academic outfit
consisted of a loose-fitting robe of rich stuff which
hid most of the details of her body.  The sleeves were
flowing and came to her wrists and the gown would have
fallen loose from her shoulders to her ankles, except
for the leather belt which wrapped her hips.  A
scholar's scrip, probably containing quills, inkpot,
and some small vellum pads or wax tablets and styli
depended from the belt, as did the habitual penknife
of a scholar.  But, so did a long dagger, apparently
worn out of habit, and an unusual weapon or tool, a
small steel-headed axe in a head sheath of ornate make
bearing her family crest worked into it in cutouts and
dye patterns.  
    
    For this scholar was the Lady Kiturai Fazir, heir
of Duke Elias, and the axe denoted her ducal rank and
that she held the position of his heir.  Aside from
the badge of this rank, and the dagger, the rest of
her apparel was in keeping with any scholar -- robe,
leather shoes, and her marks of academic rank, the
floppy, eight-sided hat which denoted her possession
of a degree from Tropp, and the light coif which
adorned her shoulders, acclaiming her a doctor of her
discipline, anthropology.  The tassels of the robe and
its color, cut, and shoulder-stitching showed, to
those who knew such marks, that the advanced degree
was awarded by this university, that she held highest
honors in her studies, and that she was an
anthropologist of note among her scholarly colleagues.
 
    
    Another embroidered patch on her left sleeve had
worked into it her family heraldic device, encircled
and quartered distinctively to show her exact rank in
the family, heir to the Duke.  
    
    As she approached the library, coming up from the
family house in the middle level of the town on the
hill, she met another scholar on his way out of the
library who was blinking like an owl, just exposed to
light.  His robes proclaimed him also to be a doctor,
but of history, and further, an emeritus professor. 
The badge on his sleeve was similar to hers, for he
was of the same family, but this one was un-quartered
and undistinguished.  His belt, old and worn,
supported only a scrip and penknife.  
    
    "Good morning,  Professor Paulus!" she said
brightly as they came close, but she did not proclaim
it,  out of concern that she would startle him out of
the reverie she suspected he was still in.  
    
    Paulus liked to stay up all night with books, and
came out at dawn to crawl home, his mind full, his
body dazed, and sleep away the bright hours which were
a bit painful to his old eyes, so used to peering at
parchment that the direct sunlight of a glorious
summer day was just too  much for them.  
    
    Clearly, he was in such a mental state as Kiturai
had seen him many a time before, for when she spoke to
him, he seemed to come fully alert in this world for
the first time.  He smiled broadly when he saw who had
greeted him.  
    
    "You are up early this fine morning, m'lady!"  His
voice was quiet but still resonant.  
    
    "Yes Professor, I am trying to clear up a few odd
details of my treatise on the indigenous religions and
cults of the Allaires Mountain region.  This is a
really offbeat reference, and to be honest, I believe
that it has to do with a religion which did not
penetrate into that area until recent centuries, and
thus, is beyond my scope, but I wish to be definitive
in my final writing and there is no reason to leave a
lead unexplored..." she explained.  
    
    It is dangerous for the hasty to inquire, even
lightly, about the business of a scholar.  They are
apt to get a short lecture, or a long one.  
    
    Paulus smiled wryly at her words, but his eyes
spoke approval of her tenacity and attention to
details, even unlikely ones.  
    
    "Well, good, then!  Since I am off home again, it
is only fitting that one of our family's contingent of
scholars be present in the library.  I think the place
would cave in if somebody attached to the Fazirs were
not inside all the time!"  He chuckled at his own
little joke, one which ran around the house of the
family in Tropp.  The part about the building caving
in may have been apocryphal, but the part about
someone from the family inhabiting the library at all
hours of all days and nights was essentially true.  
    
    Fully aware to the world he actually inhabited,
now, and not some far-off place from his readings of
the previous night, he commented upon the weather.  He
knew the weather patterns at Tropp well, for he had
been at the university for decades as student,
scholar, and professor.  
    
    "It is beautiful now, but, m'lady, the air is
heavy, and I'd wager that we shall have a
thunderstorm, if not this afternoon or evening, then
tomorrow afternoon at the latest."  
    
    He chuckled, "if I had anything to wager..."  And,
still chuckling, continued his way home.  
    
    He walked down the hill at an easier pace, now
that he was awakened to the fact that his body was
actually heading home, his feet moving.  He nodded to
the guards in a familiar manner, and they nodded or
waved slightly as any old friends might.  He had no
retainers with him.  
    
    Kiturai entered the library, and moved, with the
familiarity of long habit, out of the great gallery on
the first floor, at the entrance, down several flights
of stairs, and finally, into a vaulted chamber which
contained stacks of bookshelves and scroll racks.  
    
    Even as expert a scholar as she was, it gave her a
thrill, each time, to enter a true library.  The very
air, saturated with the smell of papyrus dust,
parchment bits, vellum scent, inks, old wood and
leather, seemed to cry "Knowledge!" to her innermost
being.  It raised her spirits, put her soul afire to
ferret out truths, and from them wisdom.  Here, truly,
were the great works of the human race.  
    
    She had already located her target for the day,
and went directly to it: a box of ornate wood, heavily
bound in old iron and locked.  
    
    She produced the key, acquired earlier from the
librarian, from her scrip, and carefully unlocked the
box. Inside lay a parcel, wrapped in some kind of hide
or ancient vellum sheet, with many writings upon it in
ink, and many wax seals.  Carefully, she lifted the
book, for it was a bound book inside that wrapper, out
of the box, placed the lock inside it, and closed the
lid again.  Taking the wrapped book under her left
arm, she turned and went to the end of the vault, up
the stairs again, and entered a solar with large
windows, many comfortable chairs, and several large
tables equipped with lamps and candles, although, at
this time of day they were unlit, for the light
streamed in through the windows of the reading room.  
    
    She went to a mid-sized table, with a wooden back
and shelf, a scholar's carrel for serious projects. 
She examined the wrapping, reading the legends penned
on it, and examined the seals.  All but the latest
seal were carefully broken, and each seal had a
notation beside it.  As a scholar used this book, he
or she noted when and where he had studied it.  Some
of those notations were many centuries old.  When the
scholar finished, he or she resealed the wrapping,
marking the seal with a signet.  
    
    Lady Kiturai noted each inscription, and
recognized many of the names as famed scholars in her
own discipline of older times.  Most of the signet
crests were those of simple commoner scholars, but one
or two belonged to scholars of great noble houses,
whose familial crests she recognized.  
    
    After her careful inspection, she slipped out her
penknife, and deftly lifted one part of the latest wax
seal which was currently guarding the sanctity of the
knowledge inside.  It had been placed there 170 years
before, by a scholar she did not know from her
extensive reading.  His notation said he was a student
of nautical history, which was far afield from her
area of expertise.  
    
    She opened the wrapping carefully, but it was
supple, despite its age, and folded back easily.  She
had already noted the date, year, and location of her
opening of the book, and a brief note about why she
was interested in its contents, and had signed both
her own, and her family name to the inscription on the
wrapping.  
    
    The ancient book was leather-bound, and had seen
hard history.  The cover was discolored from whatever
its original finish may have been, and the leather was
swollen and blotched in many spots.  It bore neither
title nor device.  
    
    She opened it, and found that it was written in
the script of the inhabitants of the islands of the
Bay of Tarisha, and was antique, to say the least. 
She had known from the inscriptions on the wrapping
that this manuscript would be centuries old, and after
looking at the first few pages, she estimated it at
about 1,000 years, perhaps fifty, more or less.  
    
    The book had originally been intended as a ledger
book of a merchant house, but after a few pages of
accounts concerning wines and grain and gold, the
reason for the weather-beaten appearance of it became
apparent.  It was now a ship's logbook, and within a
few pages, it became clear to the lady scholar that
the ship, named "Banshee, was engaged in no lawful
business, but sea raiding, plunder, and piracy.  
    
    Lady Kiturai's imagination shot off into other
dimensions, for a bit.  She held the log of a pirate,
the actual ship's log.  What could this have to do
with her quest for obscure religions?  Yet, her
references were clear, and there were three
independent citations which pointed to this manuscript
as having information of interest about a religion, or
cult.  Now, she suspected that if they were correct,
however, it would be one of the many sailor sects, or
a sea-based worship, and not something originating in
the mountains known as Allaires.  
    
    She began to read in earnest.  She read the hand
of the log keeper of the Banshee.  It was a different
ink than the accounts, but the same language and
script type, and of course, a different handwriting. 
Doubtless, the pirates had sacked the book during a
raid and found it useful.  
    
    It went on for many pages.  It contained the usual
information for a nautical log but, Lady Kiturai
noted, the sailors of that day did not have very
accurate methods for determining their location. 
There were careful notes on currents, water color,
landmarks, wind direction and intensity, and estimated
headway.  Apparently, these folk navigated the great
ocean based solely on these signs, plus the compass,
and the constellations.  Kiturai recognized the older
forms of the names of her familiar Western star
patterns, which were the same ones used, in translated
linguistic form, of course, in Fasaria in her time.  
    
    Interspersed with the logging of the voyage, which
meandered about the Bay of Tarisha, its islands, and
surrounding waters, were the short accounts of
encounters with other ships -- either enemy squadrons
escaped, or merchantmen attacked.  In most attacks,
the Banshee was successful, and the ship was either
taken as prize, or burned after the valuables were
taken off.  There were few references to casualties in
the crew of the Banshee, and no mention of survivors
on enemy vessels, except women taken as captives for
sale, and young boys impressed into the pirate crew or
else sold into slavery.  
    
    For her purposes, though, as exciting as these
very short notes on sea fights of centuries ago might
be to her imagination, there was nothing useful in her
quest for information about religions and cults.  
    
    Then, the tone of the manuscript changed, at the
turn of a page.  The last citation was one of
location, again based on dead reckoning and the signs
such as current and landmarks.  Then, a mention of the
sighting of a merchant ship.  But, when Kiturai turned
the page to read its fate, she was deeply surprised.  
    
    The ink was the same, and probably the pen being
used.  But, the hand which wrote the letters was now
different, and the style had turned to narrative --
wordy narrative.  
    
    It read:
    
    
    I write this journal, unafraid that it will be
read by my fellow crewman, or even my Captain.  None
of them know the symbols that are used to put thoughts
to parchment and that matters little.  All of them are
dead, and even the most learned of dead men can't read
or write.
    
    I keep this journal as a talisman against the
dreams and haunting that the demon bitch cast on me. 
And maybe, as a record of what befell the Banshee,
proud ship of the Alliance of Tarisha Bay and Western
Seas.  For the Banshee is no more - again the work of
the Lucchene demon bitch.  The haunting and dreams are
real, of that I am certain.  Not of flesh and blood,
not able to rip muscle or tendon, the claws of these
apparitions cut and gouge at my mind, so that I am
ever wanting to dive into the calm and dark sea that
lies just beneath the small wooden boarding ship that
is the last piece of the Banshee that hasn't been
banished to serve the Dark One Below.  My hope is
that, when I do finally flee the things that invade my
mind while Mother moon is full and Daughter moon still
a sliver, and leave this small longboat for my fate in
the next life, that this journal will be found, and
read, and put to use in destroying the abomination
that is the demon bitch's way and craft so that the
evil that crept from her skin like sweat will hurt no
more.  That is my hope.
    
    Crow's nest saw the small merchantman long before
anyone on deck.  It was a small transport, of sorts,
creeping around the horn of mainland Fasaria, not
willing to do battle with the sea.  To my Captain, a
ruthless man who would swallow a pound of gold before
giving a shaving to a beggar, the transport meant
loot.  Many a nobleman, wanting to taste the sea salt
for a day, set sail in the small private yacht that
was bound for no more than a few lengths from the
coast.  Noblemen, merchantmen, it didn't matter - they
all had such wealth as to carry a small fortune with
them at all times.  The plan that worked best was to
bring a fully loaded longboat to bear between the
coast and the transport, blocking out escape, then to
herd the smaller ship further out to sea, where the
Banshee waited, with her full compliment of crew.  And
this is was the plan that worked too well the day the
demon bitch was captured and taken.
    
    But this was no ordinary wealthy merchantman.  I
commanded the longboat, my men already worked into the
fever pitch of battle.  As we sliced into the void
between the safety of the coast and the transport,
there were no indignant shouts of warning.  There was
no scrambling of sword-bearing crew.  There was no
herding out to sea, for the merchantman merely
floated, passively awaiting the boarding and looting
that was sure to follow.  As we drew near, my men
slowly ceased the cries of war and blood, for the ship
was manned by only a few crewmen, and all dressed in
the midnight blue robes of the Lucchene priests of the
abominable constellations and gods they worshipped. 
Three there were, two men and the demon bitch,
although at the time, I saw the raven haired woman as
a healthy bedwarmer and worthy recipient of my whip -
the Luchenes were always a bad omen, though their
women, once captured, seemed to take to the sting of
rawhide naturally.  The three somberly watched our
approach, arms at their sides, unmoving.  This was
what quieted my men.  Under other circumstances,
seeing such a large merchantman guarded by so few
would have been cause to do the job right and swiftly,
the fever pitch of approaching battle raised.  And
surely, as we drew closer, many minds wondered if
there were others, non-Luchenes, below deck, waiting
with swords.
    
    But there wasn't anyone below deck and as for the
Luchenes, they chanted.  That was what kept my men's
voices silent.  The three merely stood and chanted,
voices low and carrying, words foreign and unnatural. 
The tallest man was making small gestures with his
hands and that was what caused one of my men, in the
ensuing battle, to lop off both arms with two clean
blows.  But for now, as we drifted ever closer to the
merchantman, my men were struck with fear that they
would be facing not sword and steel, but magic.
    
    I cried into the stillness and that broke the
spell.  With one final thrust of oars we pulled
alongside and boarded her.  The tallest priest lost
his arms immediately, and died a silent death, his
lifeblood staining the decks that had before known
only saltwater.  The other priest was beaten to his
death, and this man did cry out, only once, using the
horrible and unnatural words that seemed to be their
language.  The demon bitch was surrounded.  Even
though she wore the robes of the priest, her breasts,
full and young, as well as the flare of her hips
beneath the worn and dirty fabric caused my men to
stop and take in her beauty.  Long raven hair cascaded
down her shoulders, a few tresses swirling around big
brown eyes.  Her full lips neither trembled nor spoke
the demon words, but that was even more fetching, as
she thrust her chin out defiantly.  She was stripped
of her robe and made naked and a great cry went up
from my men, for she wore a hideous serpent, in the
shape of one of the abominable constellations about
her body.  Tattooed in many colors, the reptile curled
across her body, claws perched atop her breasts, long
serpent body curling towards the mound of her sex, its
forked tail poised at the mouth of her flesh.  For a
moment we stared at the horrible beauty, then bound
her with the cords that would be her only adornment,
save for the whip marks and welts of hard lust that
would follow.  All knew that this beauty was the
Captain's and that once aboard the Banshee, her flesh
would be parceled out only at his discretion.  And as
with all things, the Captain gave little to nothing to
anyone regardless if it had serpent painted on its
flesh or no.
    
    I sent two men aboard the merchantman to get the
bounty but all thought of loot was forgotten as the
bitch was laid in the prow of the boarding ship and
fucked, bound and naked by every man left.  We didn't
know it at the time, but each of these men would be
the first to die - horrible writhing deaths in which
the flesh that had come to thrust inside her rotted
first, the rot spreading until the body could no
longer pump blood through the wasting meat.  Many
hands cupped her breasts, many fingers thrust into her
pussy and ass, many mouths sought to kiss her full
lips.  She neither fought nor complained, and this in
itself brought my men to frenzy.  Not even the serpent
on her flesh deterred them.
    
    I alone did not fuck her and this was only luck at
first, and not fear of reproach from my Captain - he
would know from the seed running down her leg when she
was presented to him that she had already been used
and, were the thought to take him, all deserving would
walk the plank.  But that was the oddity of my Captain
- he cared not who had her first, so long as no one
touched her after she became his.  So it was not he
whom I feared.  It was her.  The demon bitch.  For as
she was getting molested, her flesh bound and washed
with the spray of the sea as well as the cream of my
men's seed, she looked at each one, whoever was inside
her at the time, in such a way that, were her
assaulter not preoccupied with the thought of friction
inside her flesh, he would have seen the hatred and
malice that touched her eyes.  And each and every time
one of my men tensed, the pleasure of her body taking
him, she would murmur a word and then spit sidelong. 
It was I alone that seemed to see this and this is
what saved me from the rotting death, if the life that
I now live is worthy of being considered saved.
    
    I heard the first scream from the merchantman,
though barely heard above the noise of a woman being
plundered.  I looked west, towards the merchantman and
the setting sun.  There was a second scream, much
louder, and that caused the din in the longboat to
quiet.  Against the flaming ball of the setting sun, a
second flaming ball erupted, from the merchantman's
bow, followed by a deafening explosion.  Both my men,
afire, suddenly appeared and jumped into the water. 
We were pulling them aboard the longboat when the
second and final explosion rocked the merchantman,
lighting the darkening sky with flames that would burn
for half the night.  The two crew that had gone aboard
her said that deep in the bowels of the ship lay a
heavy wooden statue of such hideous contortions and
vile wounds and torture that were it not for a table
of gold jewelry laid before it, they would have run. 
As soon as they came near the statue they had heard
the same chanting as the priests had chanted, before
they met their deaths.  The noise came from the walls,
the floor, even the statue itself.  My men barely
escaped the damned room when the first explosion
pushed them up and above deck.
    
    The rest of the men listened in silence - a few
even remembering their god and making appropriate
signs against evil omens.  And then the demon bitch
laughed, softly, and in other times it may have been
taken for a pretty laugh.  But here and now, with the
merchantman afire, the glow from the flames causing
the serpent painted on her naked body to seem to move
hideously - that laugh chilled every man to the bone. 
It went on for some time, neither getting louder nor
softer, until one of the men closest to the bitch hit
her so hard she bled from the mouth.  She spat blood
at the man, a burly and strong sea-faring man, and he
hurriedly wiped the spittle from his arm, signing the
evil ward.
    
    She was taken to Captain's quarters and fucked,
long and hard, at least that is what we assumed.  From
the screams and cries of other women that had
previously found their way inside his quarters, bound
and ready for plunder, the Captain did not have an
easy way with female flesh.  Whether it was the length
or girth of his ramrod or the sharpness of his nettled
whips, few women were without voice when inside and
alone with him.  At least, in the beginning.  Many
times, there would be one final scream, then silence,
save for the occasional grunts of a man using flesh
still warm - and even in those times, the grunts would
stretch over a few hours, sometimes stopping for a
time, only to resume again with renewed vigor.  What
was left when the Captain was done would eventually be
tossed overboard to feed the sharks that seemed to be
in abundance always around the Banshee.
    
    The demon bitch made no sounds.  The grunts began,
then stopped, then began again in earnest, only to die
down again.  Then there was the swish and slap of whip
hitting flesh, and by the duration of those noises and
the lack of any cries of pain or helpless sobbing, it
became apparent that the whipping had turned into a
battle to make the bitch scream.  But only silence,
save the whip, was heard.  My men snickered.  Was
Captain finally in bed with someone who needed to feel
the whip as much as he needed to swing it?  There were
bets of copper pieces on whether he had actually had
his way with her or whether her big brown eyes, filled
with strange emotion, or that hideous serpent, had
stopped his rod cold.
    
    In the end, she was thrust out of his cabin, with
orders to be bound to the mast, especially her hands
and fingers, and gagged securely - for she was a
witch, a demon woman, my Captain cried, and she
wouldn't be creating magic with her words or her
gestures.  For two days she stood bound, slumping in
sleep when her body needed.  I alone was charged with
caring for her, though I wanted that job not at all.  
At first, there were those that touched and prodded
her full breasts, admiring the bound flesh, the
serpent coiled about her body, an ill-protection.  For
there is no sight in the world that rivals a bound
woman, save the sight of a bound woman being whipped,
but we were forbidden to do that nasty work.  A few of
my men stood before her and worked themselves into
frenzy, eventually shooting their seed onto her belly
or thighs.  She merely watched them, without sign of
hatred or any other emotion.
    
    But the constellations in the sky were changing,
the abominations slowly rising from the outer arc and
settling upon us like a thunderhead.  An ill omen,
even in the best of weather, those constellations made
their way across the sky like poison in a cup of wine.
 My men, fearful that dark magic was afoot, were
reduced to spitting on the captive bitch, which seemed
to bother her not.
    
    That she ached from being bound so long was not
apparent, and this only fueled the feeling of dread
that had planted itself in my stomach since we boarded
her ship and taken her captive.  Even then I had it in
my mind that she was part woman, part demon, and that
evil magic was about her.  And yet, I was drawn to her
still, as the others had been.  It was not her beauty,
though I thought that this was the only hook in the
case of my men.  It was not her helplessness, which
was likely enough to draw me in other times.  It was
her eyes.  For sometimes, when I loosed her legs long
enough to let her void her bladder or bowels, she
looked at me with warmth, as if thanking me for the
little act of kindness that I alone had shown her. 
Gagged as she was and starving, no doubt, she seemed
to cling to the only tenderness that was allowed her. 
At those times, pail of her piss in one hand, the
warmth of her fleshy thigh in the other, I was caught
by her brown eyes.  She was more than just flesh and
blood when she regarded me with her silent, beautiful
eyes, more than just tied captive - even more than the
demon bitch that I knew she was, deep down inside. 
She was life and death and pain and pleasure and love
and hate.  She was all those things, all at the same
time.
    
    Was I under her demon spell?  Yes.  With all the
time in the world, now, to think, I have to know that
I was under her spell - cast as a safeguard against
what was to follow.  For all plans must have
safeguards and in her plan, I was to protect her from
the tentacles of death that she had sent out, bound
and helpless as she was, but that would soon come back
to try to take her by the hands of my rotting and
dying men.  So, yes.  I was under her spell, though I
knew it not.  Not then, anyway.
    
    The Captain died first, suddenly, in a sound that
was close to the painful grunts that had graced his
cabin so many times before.  But those in the boarding
party were already rotting and moaning by that time. 
With the Captain's passing, I was the new Captain, and
my first job was to prevent mutiny.  Maybe then, when
things may have still been saved from the fate that
was now hanging over the Banshee like a death cloud,
maybe then I could have averted disaster by slitting
the demon bitch's throat and throwing her to the
sharks.  Even as we bound the body of my Captain and
rolled him overboard to the Dark One Below, there were
murmurs to cut the bitch down and end her life - this
was a cursed ship and only the death of the caster of
the curse could save us.
    
    And I did hold a knife to her throat, her eyes big
and brown and unafraid.  My men stood about me, the
hot sun beat down upon us; the sea was unusually calm.
 And death hung in the air.  But looking into her
eyes, her spell rising up from her skin and saturating
my being, I suddenly wanted to feel her flesh, to be
inside her, to hold and caress her bound body, to make
her helplessness tremble with my power.  Before I knew
what I was doing, I had un-gagged lips that had been
gagged for days, and kissed her, tasting her, feeling
her, loving her.  Behind me, the mutiny had begun -
the men had seen all that they needed, for they knew
that it would not be my knife slicing into the tender
skin of her neck, not while my lips kissed hers.  And
I knew that there would be no one to help me.  Those
that hadn't already been touched by the rotting
disease were caught in the frenzy of fear - a cursed
ship is a doomed ship.
    
    They came for me, screaming in the way that they
knew to scream when blood was to be spilled.  But I
lingered, my flesh pressing hers, our lips locked,
joined as if by the gods and fate and every power that
was, and I felt her enter me.  Like a fog that creeps
along the calm waters of the morning sea, she flowed
into me with a coldness and a hatred that caused me to
recoil.  And yet, our lips never broke contact, not
until her power was inside me and commanding my flesh.
 Then, at the last second, before the first of their
steel blades could slice at my back, I whirled and
struck down my own men.  
    
    It was the beast, the demon, and it was loosed
inside me.  I saw only blood and ripped flesh and
heard only screams of fear and pain, all the while
feeling her the way I'd never felt anyone before.  She
was in me, this I was sure, for I suddenly knew her
name.  I knew her longings and desires and above all I
knew her passion.  And that is why I call her demon
bitch.  For when I knew her passion, when I saw the
blackness that lived in her heart, when I knew that
her soul was forever damned and owned by the beast, I
was drawn to her in the way that a tuna is snagged by
a fisher's net - I knew that she would eventually
devour and consume me.  As the beast was consuming me
now.
    
    When my blade finally slowed to a halt and I held
it in a lifeless hand at my side, there was no other
living being aboard the Banshee, save me and the demon
bitch.  I had killed my crew.  My Captain was dead. 
Only the sorceress of death was with me now, and I
knew then that I was forever damned as was she.
    
    That was when she spoke the first words I had ever
heard pass her lips.  "Fuck me now, while the blood is
still wet on your hands."  She had a soft and
beautiful voice, and were it not for her words, I
would have covered her lips with another kiss.  I
whirled on her, ready to finish the parade of death
once and for all, my blade tip poised at her breast. 
Her eyes stopped me and after a few moments, she spoke
again.
    
    "Life and death isn't the mystery.  Only passion."
 She smiled and her face radiated dark malice.  "Now
fuck me while the passion is upon you.  Or kill me. 
Both are the same in the eyes of fate."
    
    I dropped my blade, fire in my eyes, fury in my
heart and ripped the heavy leather belt from my
trousers.  I raised my arm and brought the first blow
down across her heaving breasts and she inhaled
sharply, like the blast of a dolphin blowing out air. 
Again I hit her, this time crossing the angry red mark
across her breasts and belly with a second.  Again she
sucked in air and this time grunted, but I saw her
hips bucking against the ropes that held her waist to
the mast and that fueled the fire inside me.  My arm
became a blur, much the same way I had used my knife
to cut down my men, but this time I was beating a
woman, a witch, and the beast that she had loosed
inside me was now causing her hurt.  She began
screaming at some point, the thing that my captain had
been unable make her do, loud braying that punctuated
the steady beating I was giving her flesh.  Her hips
beat the wood of the mast like a demon caged, but the
flush on her face told me she was taking a pleasure
from the pain I was causing her.
    
    Power flooded me - I could do anything to the
woman bound before me.  Her body was mine, her pain
was because of me.  She could neither run away nor
stop me.  My heart raced and seemed to speed up with
every explosion of my belt on her flesh, every scream
that came from her lips and it was the bucking of her
hips that spurred me on.  I wanted her to feel me
hurting her, to look at me through the flurry of the
belt as I beat her and see through her pain that I was
the beast, that her death was at my whim as was the
depth of her misery.  I grunted as I put the weight of
my body behind each swing.
    
    The serpent tattoo on her reddened breasts began
to writhe and the small part of my mind that was still
sane wondered how this could be.  But the part that
was ruled by the beast acknowledged the vile reptile
as it seemed to crawl across her flesh.  Its claws,
once perched at the top swell of her breasts now
circled her nipples and with every stripe I left on
her skin it dug deeply into the sensitive flesh of the
erect buds.  The hideous tail that slithered down to
lay just outside the lips of her sex now had a life of
its own and the forked spikes at the tip plunged
deeply into her with a rhythm that matched my swinging
arm.  The witch was being beaten by me and fucked by
her talisman and where my belt left red welts, the
serpent left blood.  And it was the sight of her blood
that made the belt stop.  Her words, just a pained
chant above my grunting, now were clear and assailed
my ears.
    
    "Fuck me, fuck me, my Master, my Beast."  Her hips
were as parted as the ropes that bound her ankles to
the mast would allow and the line of blood that
trickled down both legs from the assault of the
serpent's tail on her sex beckoned me.  For what I did
next, I know I am eternally damned.
    
    The belt slipped out of my hand and I went to her,
my lips finding hers, my fingers digging into her
breasts.  The serpent seemed to slither away from my
digging fingers but it mattered not.  I was the beast
now and the tattoo was just a minion.  We both sought
to destroy the woman that was bound and helpless.  I
loosened my trousers and my rod found the tunnel of
her sex easily.  I thrust into her and she pounded her
hips into me.  She moaned into my mouth, inhaling hard
whenever I crushed her nipples between my fingers, but
we found a harsh rhythm and all the fires of hell
couldn't pull me off her.  She accepted my invasion as
she had accepted my belt - with an animal hunger.  And
what I gave her in return was not human, for we were
both animals now, both beasts, both driven by primal
urges that melted pleasure into pain.  I twisted her
nipples and rammed into her and she moaned into my
mouth and writhed as much as the ropes allowed and all
the earth seemed to stand still in that moment under
the hot sun with the bodies of my friends and crew
strewn about us and nothing but the empty sea and
sentence of eternity before us.  I felt her shudder
against me and then I exploded into her with a final
gut wrenching thrust and her sex seemed to grip me, to
hold on to me and not let me go and just as the tide
pulls away violently, leaving a void only to be filled
with the next crushing onslaught, she flooded my mind
as I flooded her flesh.
    
    I saw visions.  Things that will haunt me forever
and follow me into the next life.  Chained women
hanging from hooks sunk in their breasts, burned over
a leaping flame until their flesh was charred and
smoking.  Men, bleeding from every inch of skin held
up from beams in the deepest cave from the leather
rope that bound their rods and balls, the tender flesh
at the point of ripping and sending their bodies back
to the blood soaked ground beneath them.  A woman
eating another woman's breast, a man eating another's
rod.  And through it all, waves of pain and pleasure
and power that flowed from the helpless victims like
the heat of a thousand fires.  I felt the power seep
into me, the torment and ecstasy like molten metal
from a forge burning my skin and searing my soul.  I
was too close.  I, like the victims who gave their
last breath to add to the sea of power, now was
consumed.  And damned.
    
    I felt myself pull out of the witch and stumble to
the wooden deck.  I know not whether I fell on one of
the slain crew or whether my head hit hard but it was
only blackness that greeted me and for that I was
thankful.  I would have gladly welcomed the cold ice
of death in place of the images from the heat of hell
that wanted to linger in my mind.
    
    It was night and the Mother and Daughter moons lit
the sky.  I woke as if from a dream and my gaze found
the demon bitch, bound to the mast as she was meant to
be.  The image of the serpent that graced her body was
once again perched with claws atop her breast and
winding tail poised at the mouth of her sex.  It was a
calming sight.  Her head was tilted to the sky and she
sang a low and soft song in a language that was both
horrible and alluring.    All seemed normal and as I
followed her gaze up to the stars I found the points
of light that made up the abominations, now fully
overhead and seemingly out of their benign arc.  They
were beautiful, their meaning clear.  It was very
simple now, what I had to do.  One glance around me at
the bodies and stillness of a dead ship told my heart
what my mind had already realized.  I got up and
without looking at my tied captive, went below deck to
fetch the oil keg.  It was a task normally reserved
for two crewmen, but I had seen to it that there was
no one left alive to help me roll the heavy keg up the
steep stairs to the deck.  At one point, I wished for
the strength of the beast to help me, but quickly
banished the thought.  The beast had done enough with
me.
    
    Her eyes registered nothing, and she continued
singing her horribly beautiful song, even as I tapped
the keg and began to pour the dark oil about her in a
large circle.  By the time the keg was empty, the
pungent smell of oil-saturated wood filled the air and
I was only one torch away from doing what had to be
done.  And I should have done the deed right then -
maybe that would have kept the haunting from my
dreams, for it surely was the words that she spoke
then that cast the spell of the demon upon me for the
rest of my days.
    
    I needed one more kiss, one more taste of her
lips, even though I would kill her soon after our lips
parted.  Maybe I was mad then, too.  She stopped
singing as I approached and the smile was back,
although, in the wane light I thought that it was a
real smile, perhaps a beautiful smile, and not a smirk
that graced her lips.  I touched her breast, cool from
being naked and tied, patted the serpent's head that
lay against the crook of her neck, followed its tail
down her belly to the mouth of her sex, wanting
nothing more than to cut her down and take her, feel
her power once again - welcome the beast that was
inside her, inside me.
    
    And I did kiss her, long and slow and gentle.  But
I broke away, the vision of what I must do suddenly
before me.  As I pulled away, my face hard with the
desire that would never be fulfilled, she spoke again.
 And though her words are with me always, at that
moment, when they were fresh upon my ears, they
carried the spell that will follow me to my end.
    
    "It is within all of us, the passion.  To fight it
means a slow death. To try to control it is a battle
lost."  She laughed, lightly.  "There is no good in
this world.  There is no evil.  Only the beast inside
you."  She drew in a shuddering breath, the only time
I saw fear cross her face.  "Now kill me, while the
passion is upon you.  And know that I will stalk you
in your dreams forever."  Her face contorted suddenly
and she spat on me.
    
    I stepped back and lit the flare that would turn
the Banshee into a towering fireball of flame, and in
that uneasy firelight, we looked into each other's
eyes one last time.  She was the only woman I would
love, the only woman I knew could see into the depths
of my soul.  I dropped the torch and set the ring of
oil afire.  She started singing again, this time with
a wavering voice and it was this that filled my ears
as I lowered the longboat into the water and set off,
away from the Banshee.  I saw her clearly, through the
smoke and flames, just before the deck collapsed and
set the other oil kegs to burning.  She stood, bound
in her ropes, the beauty of the death now touching her
face.  Then she was gone.
    
    The Banshee burned for an hour more before what
was left slid beneath the water to its final resting
place.  By dawn, there was nothing, not even
smoldering driftwood to show that the Banshee or her
crew had ever existed.  The Bay of Tarisha had taken
everything in her arms and drew her close.  Everything
save the passion of a demon bitch, which now lived
inside me.
    
    By my reckoning, I've been adrift for four days. 
The tides are not favorable and I don't think I'll be
seeing land any time soon.  My fate has been sealed,
my death a certainty.  Sometimes, I wonder if I
existed at all, save for the sole purpose of writing
this record.  But that thought is a grand thought, for
I know that when death finally takes me, when the
demon bitch finally breaks free of my dreams and
claims my flesh for good, that this journal will
become ruined by the salt water of the sea on which I
now float.  And all will have been for naught.
    
    Maybe she was right.  Maybe, at the end, there is
only passion.  But for now, there are dreams,
nightmares from which I awaken screaming.  I fear that
she will come to me this night as she did last night
and the night before that - a wraith in the darkness
that screams in my ear, keeping me from sleep.
    
    It is now six days, I believe, that I have been on
this cursed sea, though I'm not sure.  I sleep no
more.  She haunts me.  She presses her cold, dead body
against mine and robs me of rest.  I fear her, but I
fear the depths of the sea more, with fish tearing at
my flesh and seaweed growing over me.
    
    Time is.  Blurred.  There is sun and then bitch
moon and demon daughter.  And her.  It's her eyes. 
Cold.  Dead.  Daylight when I sleep.  She's here. 
Dreams.  Night.  She's here for real.  Wake up and
whispering in my ear.  Wants to eat me.  Tear off my
rod.  She's already eaten three, four toes.  I think. 
My crew.  They're out there.  In the water.  Summoned.
 Try to grab me, take me down.  Into the water.
    
    Eats me.  Good girl.  Kisses.  Nice.  Cold.  Nice.
 Fire.  Rod.  Teeth.  Water.
    
    Good.
    
    Anaal notvas, Utvas bethdnode.  Doch yiell nee
envaa.  Utvas bethnode.  Doch yiell nee envaa.
    
    Kiturai pushed the book away from her.  At the
time the log book text had transformed from the log of
a pirate ship into that penultimate, degenerating,
narrative of a capture gone wrong, it had been
mid-afternoon.  Now, as she came to the end, horrified
by the story she believed to be of the truth, it was
late dusk, and her soldiers had drawn in close from
outside, and had lit the lamps and candles in her
reading room. 
    
    The final words ...
    
    Anaal notvas, Utvas bethdnode.  Doch yiell nee
envaa.  Utvas bethnode.  Doch yiell nee envaa.
    
    ...changed the tone of the parchment text once
again, and with it, the tone of the reader's spirits. 
For, they were inscribed in blood, and she, an
experienced scholar who had seen blood-writing many a
time, could not recognize with what instrument they
had been written.  Usually, blood writing, a
signature, or a desperate addendum or note, was
written with a pen, or a fingertip, by a soldier or
adventurer desperate to record something in dire
circumstances.  And, usually, the hand showed the
strain of the writer, from wounds, stress, or imminent
danger, in poor penmanship, mistakes, and so on.
    
    But, this writing was perfect, and done with no
implement Kiturai knew in this waking world, and the
hand was clearly feminine.  Moreover, it was in an
ancient, ancient script and language similar to
ancient Ilean, from that great empire of the East.  If
that were true, the language used was as old as the
oldest of the holy writings of El, a principle
religion of that venerable culture, perhaps 6,000
years old, perhaps 10,000.
    
    Using the ragtag of her learning in ancient glyphs
and languages unfamiliar to her usual pursuits,
Kiturai pieced together what she believed was a
reasonable translation of that dread few lines.
    
    "I finish this story, and will wrap this book in
the hide of mine previous author."
    
    (This was awful enough, but was in plain, if
archaic, language.)
    
    "A blood-red lotus blossoms,
    wholesome and lovely,
    from the mud.
    Alas!  The mud remains filth."
    
    This last, Kiturai knew, was one of those
aphorisms which ancients in the East used to convey
great wisdom in a few words.  However much she puzzled
over it, however, she could not tell why the
mysterious last author of the manuscript had ended the
work with that saying.
    
    In the dark, even surrounded by her guards,
Kiturai felt the ancient evil of this tale, of this
last writing, and of the woman who, for whatever
strange reason, had skinned the "last author,"
probably the poor, accursed, mad pirate mate, and used
his blood to write the cryptic Eastern saying of
wisdom.
    
    Shuddering with it all, yet, she was a scholar,
and having gotten what she needed from this source,
and a good deal more which she had not sought, and did
not welcome, Kiturai, the scholastic lady, rewrapped
the old book in the human skin.  She bent to pull her
blue sealing taper from her scrip, and lighting it,
resealed and applied her signet to the cover,
horrified, yet fascinated, by her own detachment as
she handled the skin just like any other vellum.
    
    With a nod to her guards, she took it up again,
and accompanied by them, went back to the stacks,
after they extinguished the lights of the reading
room, and placed the book in its heavy casket, locking
it.
    
    She even shuddered as she dropped the key back
into her scrip, and ascended the stairway out of the
stacks, into the great hall, whose smell this time did
not refresh her soul and mind, and went, hastily, out
into the summer night, which was now fully dark.
    
    She tried to put the entire tale out of her head
as she went home.  The story was about the Lucchene
cult, which, she knew, had only entered the Allaires
Mountain provinces within the last two centuries, or
three at the outside.  So, it had nothing to do with
her project on indigenous cults and religions of that
region and its peoples.  Nothing.
    
    She became aware, again, that the constellations
were named with her familiar Western names for star
groupings in the text of the pirate's log, the very
ones she could see in the sky above her.  Then, she
recalled that the reptile, the one depicted in that
horrid tattoo on the witch-girl, was and is an Eastern
constellation, and another shudder ran through her. 
As she looked up for the comfort of picking out the
familiar patterns in their starry sky, all familiar,
all safe, the thunderstorm which Paulus had mentioned
as a possibility this morning (was it just this
morning?  It seemed so very long ago...) gathered in
the west, and began to blot out those very
constellations with its lowering mass, the squall
clouds preceding it roiling in the wan light of
Daughter moon.  The storm front was moving fast, and
she quickened her pace.
    
    She glanced up again as the storm squall wind
blasted by, and then the calm.  She and her guards
reached her home on the hillside just about as the
first, fat, almost lazy drops began to plop down. 
Within the short time it took them all to enter, the
downpour was in full earnest.
    
    Lady Kiturai called Amber, her love slave, to her,
to bathe and sooth her.  Amber was excited by the
approaching pyrotechnics of the electrical storm,
since both women were usually aroused by
thunderstorms.  The green eyes of the hot-blooded
little vixen seemed to dance with a lightning of their
own, as she fairly leapt upon her lady.  The cool blue
in the background of the badge of Kiturai's personal
heraldic device attached to her leather collar seemed
the only thing which was not glowing with hot
anticipation about the aroused girl -- red hair,
blazing eyes, red-hot nipples and labia, and a general
crimson flush to her, she was all for jumping into bed
immediately to enjoy the storm.
    
    She bathed her mistress and lady efficiently, and
sensuously, but spoke little, sensing in her lover
something tense.  After the bath, Amber offered to rub
Kiturai down with lightly scented oil, to relax her
for the night's exercises, and then, the refreshing
rest.
    
    Amber was able, skillfully, to rub and work most
of the tension out of the taut muscles of her vigorous
lady, and together, unclad, they retired to Lady
Kiturai's bed.  There, Amber, aroused beyond herself
by the crashing and din of the storm, the booming of
the thunder, the hammering of the rains upon the
shutters, and the bright flashes from without, gave
her lady great pleasure, and eventually, exhausted
herself with repeated crashing climaxes, her love
cries sometimes louder than the thunder inside their
room, and sometimes, triggered by the loud crashes of
the splendidly bombastic display of the Thunder God's
power.
    
    Kiturai was raised repeatedly into the heights of
the towering thunderheads, and rode the very electric
bolts to some great orgasms of her own, for her slave
was not only enthusiastic, but loving and skillful. 
Still, it was Amber who exhausted herself, and fell
asleep, totally satiated, while giving satisfaction,
but not complete annihilation, to her lady.
    
    Kiturai lay awake for a bit, listening with wonder
to the enormousness of nature.  She was a powerful
noble, among humans, and a great scholar, among her
kind, but, before the might of the gods, she was just
another of their creations, like the storm, like the
slumbering slave.  She tried to draw her mind away
from the evil she had learned about.  It had nothing
to do with her topic, she told herself, would not even
warrant a footnote.
    
    "Nothing to do..." were her last thoughts, as,
without noticing it, she slipped into light slumber.
    
    From which she was jarred awake by a very nearby
lightning strike.  So near that it appeared red
through her closed eyelids.  Red, like the burning
merchantman.  Red, like the reflections on the tattoo
as she lay there, as she was raped, later, as she was
screwed against the mast, later, as she, too, burned,
tied to a mast.
    
    And, the meaning of that last inspirational verse,
in its full import, came to the Lady Kiturai Fazir in
a flash like unto a lightning bolt.
    
    The red lotus, reborn from the slime, was the soul
of the mate.  He was a clean man, a clean soul, if
bloodthirsty.
    
    But, the filth, which, alas, remains, filth?  --
the soul of the Lucchene girl, forever slime, ever
evil.
    
    Then, Lady Kiturai shivered, in the warm summer
air, for who could have known of these fates of souls,
who could have written, with no mortal instrument,
that last, eldritch, passage?
    
    And, the Lucchene, a thousand of years later, was
now a cult in the higher reaches of the Allaires
Mountains of her own kingdom, Remaining filth,
eternally...
    
    Lady Kiturai, scholar and warrior, shuddered for
real, this time, very hard, and very deep, and did not
sleep the rest of that night, but kept the watch over
the slave who was hers, not just to love and own, but
to protect, trying to convince herself that what she
had learned had nothing to do with her project.
    
    Nothing.






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Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
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