Calvinus

The Strongest Poison

The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar's laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armour's iron brace

Auguries of Innocence
William Blake

Chapter 1

The bell rang for the end of the last period, and as the teacher dismissed the class, and I hurriedly thrust my history books into my backpack, swinging it onto my back and rushing out of the classroom, to the annoyance of Sara and Megan as I jostled them at the door. Serves them right for dawdling, I thought as I walked as swiftly as I could down the corridor without breaking into a run (which would have had a teacher calling me back).

"Wait up, loser!" Someone shouted, but I was not waiting. I picked up my coat and was out of the school gates before Tom managed to break through the knot of people congregating in the corridors.

"Rhys, wait up!" He shouted. I was not going to though. Bad enough that my cousin was in the same school as me – I did not want him walking home with me too.

This was the start of our second week in the school. All last week I had been under orders from my dad to walk Tom to our place where my aunt would pick him up when she finished work. That meant for an hour and a half every day I had to entertain him, talk to him, let him use my stuff and generally suffer him while we desperately waited for the time to be up.

Tom seemed to actually enjoy this arrangement. He was an only child, and was happy to have people to play with. For me and my sister it was a lot worse. Sian generally just shut herself in her room and played loud music, ignoring Tom's presence, and claiming that she always had way too much homework. I doubted there would be that much more homework when I was thirteen than there was now, at age eleven, but if I challenged her on it, she would just huff and say "Well Tom is a boy, so he is your problem."

I usually replied that Tom was not so much a boy as a space alien from the planet geek, or a robot programmed with the contents of Wikipedia but no personality circuits. It did not help though. Sian just shut herself away and it was me that was stuck listening to Tom wittering away about strange quarks and calabi yau spaces, whatever they might be.

It did not help that he always spoke down to me, calling me a loser or telling me I was thick, or talking about his own great intelligence. I don't think I was thick – I was somewhere about average in my class, but it seemed to me that I would rather have friends than a brain the size of a planet and none.

I could shut him up by letting him loose on my computer, but then I couldn't use it. And nothing could save me from the mind numbing conversations he had inflicted on me on our walks home last week.

Well enough was enough. Dad had forgotten to renew the instruction to walk home with him, and as he knew the way by now, he could just do it alone. Just him and the stupid voices in his head! He was seriously damaging my image.

Why did I have to be saddled with a stupid geeky cousin? If I had to have a cousin at the school, why couldn't it be someone cool like Finn. Someone who liked sport and made people laugh, and who preferably did not know a strange quark from an odd sock.

I walked quickly through the park, angrily kicking at fallen leaves or branches in the grass. I had a bunch of homework to do, and bloody Tom was not even good for that. If I tried cribbing off him he would shut his books and wag his finger and say "No Rhys, you have to understand how to do it yourself."

I mean what was the use of a geeky cousin if you could not even copy his work?

Tom had been bullied in primary school apparently. Well looking at him, you could see why. Small, nerdy and full of useless knowledge that he spouted when no one wanted it, he had a habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Today he had been hanging around me at break when he started telling some older boys to stop swearing. I was thinking like "fuck's sake Tom, shut your bloody mouth."

I think the boys would have said much the same to him, if Mr Barclay had not walked past at just that moment and reinforced the message, tousling Tom's hair.

Stupid teacher's pet. They all liked him, but they did not have to live with the annoying little nerd.

Just then I heard a sound of panting and looked round.

Crap. I had been too slow. Tom was doing his stupid flailing nerdy run to catch me up. He gasped out the words:

"Wait up Rhys."

I turned my back on him and was about to start running again, to try and reinforce the message to him that he was not wanted, when my attention was caught by a bright light. I looked towards it – this part of the park was covered in bushes and there was a small natural depression that dropped away to the pond. Sitting in that depression there was something bright and shining. I thought for a second that it was metal glinting in the September sun, but no the sun was not falling on it right for that. Whatever it was, it was glowing all by itself, but bright like sunlight.

I stopped up short and let Tom catch up with me.

"What is it?" Tom asked and I gave an exasperated sigh. If he did not bloody well know what it was, then why the hell should I?

"Strange quark," I replied.

"Don't talk soft, you cannot see quarks."

"Well I can see this one."

I stepped closer and Tom grabbed my arm.

"Wait up." He said. "That could be dangerous."

I looked around. There was no one else this close, but further back in the park I could see knots of children from the school all walking this way. We were at the head of them because of my attempts to get away. All the same, there were plenty of people around – some adults and a toddler on the far side of the pond, a man reading a paper on a bench up ahead. Everything normal. Normal except for this weird thing glowing in front of us.

"What do you think? Could it be a UFO?" I asked, making no attempt to hide my sarcastic tone, but Tom, as usual, seemed unable to detect sarcasm from sausages.

"It could be. You shouldn't get too close. We should call the authorities."

"Don't be a prick, Tom. You think the aliens are just going to land in a public park in a tiny little space ship, have a quick play on the swings and then go on to invade the earth?"

Tom bit his lip, but was still holding my arm. Maybe that was exactly what he thought. Maybe he had been reading too many textbooks about alien invasion and stuff, but I was not so gullible. This was real life. It was a sunny Monday afternoon in September, and we had just endured double history from the school's most boring teacher, talking to us about people who, being dead, were just about as boring as him – but not quite.

No this was not some science fiction film. This was just something odd someone had lost in the park, and I wanted to see what it was.

"The problem with you, Tom, is you are spineless. You are such a bloody wimp. No wonder people pick on you. Your are just a useless cocksucking nerd." I knew the words would sting, but all the frustration that had built over the last week was just boiling over. I didn't really think he sucked cocks – that was just an insult bigger kids threw at the smaller ones in school.

"Why can't you just leave me alone?" I asked him. "Why do you have to hang around with me?"

I shrugged off Tom's arm and walked closer. The thing in front of us was almost like a glowing ball of light, and it seemed to be hovering above the ground. How could it be doing that? Magnets?

I stepped closer again.

"Rhys, come back." Tom moaned, his stupid voice filled with the panic of the world's most timid nerd, and maybe quivering a little. Was he going to cry? Stupid soft twat, I thought and said as much under my breath – maybe loud enough for him to hear, but I was past caring. His fear was all the incentive I needed to get closer.

I stepped forward again, and just as I did so, Tom leaned forward and made a grab for me. I did not know if he intended to pull me back, or whether he was going to try hitting me, although I doubt he had the courage to engage in actual physical violence. He caught my backpack, and I felt it slipping from my shoulder. Well let him have it I thought, and was just letting it slide, when suddenly the light seemed to grow and expand.

In an instant I had been engulfed with it. Instinctively I reached up my arm to shield my eyes, and my backpack came off as I did so. I heard a squeal of terror from Tom, as he too was engulfed instantaneously by the light, and then I remembered nothing else, for how long, I do not know.

Chapter 2

"Oww!"

I opened my eyes, and blinked several times. The sun was bright, so very bright. I rubbed my arm where something had just hit it, and groggily stared at the sky, lost in that moment of waking when you don't know where you are.

And then I realised that I really did not know where I was. The sun was hot on my skin – hotter than it should be, and the last thing I remembered was that blinding all encompassing light that had swallowed me up.

One thing was for sure though, I was not in the park anymore. The ground was dust and rock, not mud and grass. As I looked around, I could see that I was on some kind of road or dusty track, but the edges of the road hardly sported more vegetation, with just scattered bare bushes clinging to a slope that dropped away from me, and beyond that there were rocky mountains.

Mountains? Not the mountains near home either. These were taller and the desert like terrain was a giveaway that wherever I was, this place was clearly hotter and drier than home.

I looked towards the slope, and there crouched by one of the bushes, someone was watching me. A small boy, maybe seven or eight years old was staring at me, but also holding a sling in one hand and some pebbles in the other. The pain in my arm was explained then!

What was he wearing though? Some kind of tunic? The cloth seemed coarse and it was tied with a simple rope belt, and under that he was wearing trousers that appeared to be made from leather, but were cut off below the knee. He had sandals on his feet. He might as well be dressed as a hobbit as a real boy, I thought.

Where the hell was I?

I saw a TV show about Lapland once, and what this boy was wearing could maybe pass as that national costume, just devoid of all the bright colouring. But this was not Lapland – Lapland was supposed to be cold.

"Hey!" I called out to the boy. "Where am I?"

For an opening line I felt the words were lame. Where am I? That was just the kind of thing I would put in the mouth of someone who had woken up with amnesia in a school essay. All the same, it turned out to be the question I most wanted answered. Other questions came to mind of course: how did I get here? Who are you? How do I get home? Is Tom here?

Tom. Where was Tom?

I looked around frantically, but there was no sign of him, or my backpack for that matter. Was Tom back home somewhere organising a rescue party? Was I even really here? Had I been knocked out and was I now hallucinating? Was mum sitting anxiously at my bedside waiting for me to come out of some kind of coma?

I pinched myself, again thinking that was lame. Ouch, it hurt. Does that mean I am really here or does that just mean I can feel pain in my hallucination? And if you can't tell the difference between reality and hallucination, did it matter? Except if I was dreaming, then closing my eyes and going back to sleep might be the quickest way for it to end.

As my mind was racing through these thoughts, the boy looked at me quizzically, as if studying my face closely, and then suddenly sprung away, darting down the slope of the hill.

"Hey, stop! Come back!" I shouted, but he didn't come back.

Crap! Now what was I going to do?

I sat up, slowly. My head was aching and I felt a little sick. I was also thirsty, I realised. I wished I still had my backpack. I had a water bottle in that – but it was simply nowhere to be seen.

I wiped my forehead. I was sweating buckets, so I rolled up my shirt sleeves. It had been a warm enough September day when I had been in the park, and I had not been wearing a pullover, but this heat was oppressive. I took off my school tie and stuffed it in my pocket, and then got unsteadily to my feet.

That made me feel ill again, and I stood still for a few minutes, trying to fight the urge to vomit. I lost the battle though and threw up the contents of my stomach, watching it splatter onto the road.

Crap, crap, crap. I hated being sick. And I did not even have any water to wash the taste away. I spat as much out as I could, and then started to walk in the direction that the boy had run away to.

I did not have to walk for long though, before I heard the sounds of talking and a clattering noise that resolved itself quickly into a group of three men led by the young boy. They were all dressed in similar odd clothing, but my stomach gave a lurch of fear when I saw what the men were carrying, and what was causing the clattering noise. Two of the men held spears. Real, dangerous looking spears like you see on the wall of a stately home, only less shiny and more worn. As they walked the spears were clattering against leather tabards the men wore, and the third man had a sword scabbard banging away at his size, the clink of the sword a rhythmic sound in time with his fast walk.

I stopped still. For a moment I hoped this was some weird medieval re-enactment, but these men looked rougher than actors, and I could see scars on the bare arms of the one carrying the sword that made me think he had probably used his weapon in anger.

When they saw me the boy pointed, and at once the men started to run.

I was still feeling sick, and I just wanted to go home, but my instinct to run overpowered any thoughts of trying to talk to these people. I turned tale and pelted back up the path.

I did not get very far though. I was hot, tired, and feeling ill. The men were fit and bigger and faster than me. Within seconds one of them was right behind me and then he leaped and sent me sprawling as he tackled me to the ground.

"Get off me!" I yelled angrily as I tried to roll on my back. The man was too quick though, and held me face down in the dirt, grabbing an arm, and pulling it up behind me. Moments later another man had caught up and was helping with my other arm as I thrashed around in the dirt, cursing them.

"Get off me you fucking weirdo. Let me go."

The men spoke to each other, speaking some words in a strangely melodic language that sounded nothing like anything I knew. What? I thought.

Again, I wondered where on Earth this was. What had happened? Had I gone back in time or something weird like that.

I tried to dismiss that idea as obviously nonsense. But then I came back to the thought: what other rational explanation was there? Could I really have journeyed back in time? But if so, to where, and when?

I kept struggling, feeling a rising sense of total panic.

"What do you want with me? Let me go!" I shouted the words uselessly. Could they even understand English? Apparently not.

They were tying my hands together. I could not see it, as my head was being held down now, my cheek pressed into the dust. I could feel it though. Tight rough rope biting into my wrists.

"Ouch! That hurts!"

Once my hands were bound, I was hauled to my feet, and the men started marching me back the way they had come, chattering away in their weird language, ruffling the hair of the small boy, and laughing and joking now. I tried several times more to communicate with them, talking slowly and in broken English, but to no avail. If they understood a word, they gave no indication of it. After a while I gave up trying and trudged along morosely after them.

We rounded a bend in the track and a small settlement came into sight that had not been visible before because of the slope of the hill to our right. Now I could see it, nestled into a nook in the hill, a mountain stream running right through its middle, clearly the reason for settling at this point, and clearly the source of irrigation for a few green fields I could see. I took all that in at a glance, but the settlement itself had me looking longer. There was a wooden stockade encircling the whole thing and inside were a number of long wooden houses with rooves that looked like they were made of thatch.

In primary school we had been taken on a visit to a reconstruction of a medieval saxon village, and that looked a lot like this. A bunch of houses, and one larger than the rest. Smoke was rising from some of the buildings, mostly coming out of rudimentary chimneys, but also billowing out of the thatch, as though the whole house was on fire, or at least all filled with smoke. The men seemed unconcerned by the smoke, so I presumed it was normal.

There were people walking around in the village, doing whatever things people had to do in such places. Carrying water or foodstuffs or chatting idly, or hammering away at something too far away to see. There were animals there too. Some pigs were just wandering around amongst the people, and chickens too.

Some people turned to look at us as we approached and I could here the jabber of voices as we got closer. No hope I would understand any of them though.

Someone pulled open the heavy wooden gates of the stockade. In a movie the gate would have swung open effortlessly, but the reality of what I was seeing hit me when I saw that someone had to crouch, put his back to the gate and lift before it would turn on its hinge. The gate had obviously dropped, and would drag on the dusty ground if not held up as it juddered open, leaving a dusty scuff mark.

We walked through the gate and the sword man barked some orders, and I was relieved when they untied my wrists. I could not understand a word, but it was clear by his tone that he was in charge here.

Suddenly and without warning, one of the spear men who had been escorting me kicked me in the back of the knees, and I immediately collapsed, falling heavily to the ground, jarring kneecaps against the rock that lay underneath a light layer of dust. God, that hurt. The kick itself was painful, but the crack on the knees had me yelping involuntarily.

I started to protests again, futilely I know. What was the point talking when no one understood? but what else was there to do? I swore at them too.

Then the boss man hit me across the face.

I was stunned. I flinched from the hand and heard it strike me with a crack and for a split second I just had a sense of unreality – this just could not be happening – before the pain hit me. Man that hurt! It felt like he damn near broke my nose, and at once blood started pouring down my face, into my mouth, and down my shirt. I cupped my nose with my hands, and started to shake.

This was not allowed. God, if this back home, that man could go to prison for doing that. But here he had done it in front of a growing crowd of maybe twenty or thirty people of all ages, and not a one of them moved to stop him. In fact some were just pointing and laughing at my evident distress as I held my bleeding nose, a worrying amount of blood running through my fingers.

They were speaking again and now one man was pulling at my shirt. I started to struggle as he pulled my hands away from my nose to get the shirt off, but when he raised his hand to strike me again, I flinched and gave up resisting. Fuck them! They could have my goddamned shirt. I seethed as they pulled it off and handed it to boss man. He was examining the fabric, and he called some women over and they too were fingering it and talking in almost a reverent tone.

It was only a goddamned shirt for heaven's sake! But looking at their clothing, I realised that the cloth was a whole lot finer than anything they were wearing.

Next they pulled at my shoes. I had a sinking feeling now, but I let the shoes come off. God, don't let them take anything else, I thought.

The shoes kept them occupied a long while. If the fabric had interested them, my school shoes doubly did so. They fingered the leather, sniffed them, and then examined the plastic soles, prying at them with a knife, and even biting on them. Eventually they tossed them onto my shirt, and now the men were pulling my socks off.

I looked straight ahead, trying not to meet anyone's eye, although I knew everyone was looking at me. I had seen their expressions: curiosity, but also something else – anger maybe? fear? As for me, well I could feel the redness of my cheeks, and my eyes were watering now, but I tried not to betray any other emotion as they pulled off my school socks, and quickly added them to the growing pile of my clothes.

The man who had crouched to pull off my socks got up now, went around to my front, crouched again and was inspecting the button on my school trousers. He unbuttoned them, but looked at the zipper on my fly with evident confusion. For a fleeting moment, I wondered whether the zipper would defeat him. If he could not get the trousers off then I would just have to stay in them.

He prodded the zipper and spoke to the others, and I managed a small smirk. It was short lived though. The second spear man simply yanked me to my feet from behind and the first one tugged hard at the legs of my trousers and the zipper sprang, and they came down.

Now I started to struggle again. I mean, wouldn't you? being slowly stripped of your clothes in front of men, women and children in some weird saxon village in a desert mountain region. It was not exactly a situation that called for quietness!

"Get off me, you fucking pedo. Let me go! let me GO."

This time they punched me in the stomach and I doubled over, gagging and dry heaving. I would have spewed if I had not already done so earlier.

I started to cry in earnest now. I am not proud of that. I was eleven years old, and crying was for little kids. It was not cool to cry, but right now there was nothing I could do to stop it. I sobbed in front of everyone as I was held up, bent forward, stomach aching, knees bruised and my nose still bleeding, dressed only in my stupid camo briefs that had seemed cool when mum had bought them.

I did not keep the briefs on for long though, and these were pulled down and thrown onto the clothing pile, leaving me stark naked in the hot sun in some godforsaken place, in front of a jeering crowd of onlookers.

Having the men see me naked was bad enough, but there were women and girls here too, all pointing and laughing and chattering away in their stupid language. One of them even touched me down there, and I swore again, as he gave my foreskin a tug.

I was pushed to the ground now and one of the men held my head so that I was looking at the floor. I knew this was a submissive position, but the rebellion had gone out of me for now. I just kneeled there, sobbing miserably, enduring the humiliation, and hoping this would all be over soon.

Someone was touching my ear lobe.

I had a stud in there. Mum had allowed me it on my eleventh birthday. I remembered the conversation Tom had with me about it at the time. "Why would anyone want a hole in their ear?" he had asked, and I had not bothered answer him. Tom would not know cool if you stood him in a refrigerated room and tied him to an ice block.

God they were even going to take my stud out. Of course, the stud itself was gold – or at least it was electroplated with a little gold. No doubt they wanted that too, the thieving bastards.

But no, they didn't take the stud. They did not even try. They just fingered it and jabbered away and touched it again and then seemed engrossed in some huge argument.

Finally they grabbed me by my ear – the other ear, which had no stud, and yanked me to one of the smallest buildings. I was taken inside, and there was a wooden pole. I was forced to kneel in front of the pole and my hands were bound behind it. So too were me feet, restraining me in the kneeling position.

After that they left me. For a long time.

Chapter 3

The sun was setting by the time someone entered the hut I was in. I could see the light turning gold outside the door and the shadows lengthening. I don't know how long I had been left but it felt like hours. And let me tell you, hours can feel like a very long time when you are feeling lost and alone, and you have been forcibly stripped and are tied up in a kneeing position. Naked, humiliated, frightened and in ever increasing discomfort.

My nose was sore. I could not touch it, but I could smell the dried blood and it felt stuffed up, like I had a bad cold. My knees and back hurt too, and the ropes were chaffing my wrists badly whenever I tried to move to a more comfortable position. I had tried using the post for some support, but it was small comfort.

Over and over again I had been wondering what had happened to me. At some point, as the afternoon had drifted into early evening, I had conceded that as all the explanations I could come up with were equally crazy, that I just had to settle for the fact that something crazy had indeed happened. I was either hallucinating the world's most vivid dream, or I had been flung back in time, or something equally unbelievable. I just had to start believing the unbelievable.

What had happened to Tom? He had been with me when this happened. Why wasn't he here now too? Was he still out there on the hillside, feeling equally lost and alone?

God, I hoped not. He may be the world's most annoying nerd, but all the same, I hoped he was at home, helping the authorities with what had happened to me so that some kind of rescue could be launched.

I did not think Tom would last long out here if he was on his own. I mean he could hardly tie his shoe laces without help, and knowing about quadratic equations was really not going to help him much when these people started beating up on him.

All the same, I wished someone, anyone, even Tom was here with me. I needed someone to talk to. I needed to see a friendly face. Even Tom's.

The face I did see next was not unfriendly, but it was not Tom. In fact it was a girl, her hair long to her shoulders, and her clothing plain and not dissimilar to the boys. She too wore a tunic, but it hung lower on her hips, and she wore no trousers. She had a necklace of sorts, made from wooden beads and a bangle on her wrist made from copper – or at least it was a copper colour. She had no other make up though and looked like she was well used to the rigours of a farm life.

When she entered the hut I blushed again. I could not hide my nakedness with my hands behind my back, and the first thing she looked at was my small penis, uncircumcised and hanging over my eleven year old balls. Nothing much to boast of down there, and her smile seemed to confirm her assessment of me.

She was carrying a wooden bowl though, and I could smell something pleasant from it. Sure enough, as she came over to me, I saw it contained a broth, with plenty of vegetables in it – carrots, onions, something green I could not identify and also a few strips of meat. No potato though. Not that I cared – all I knew is I was ravenously hungry, having thrown up earlier, having not eaten in who knows how long, and having all the appetites of an eleven year old 'growing lad' as my grandma called me.

The girl gently lifted the bowl to my lips. No spoons in this place I guessed, but I was past caring and began to sip, and then use my lips to worry the solids in the broth into my mouth, gulping it down hungrily.

All too soon it was gone though, and I was far from satisfied. My stomach growled as she set the bowl down.

"More?" I asked, trying to form a question with my face, but I don't think I succeeded as she just sat down in front of me cross legged and looked at me with a grin.

I tried a different tack, and bobbed my head, trying to indicate myself.

"Rhys." I said, and then bobbed my head towards her. "you?"

The girl put her head on one side as if considering and then she pointed at me.

"Caypu" she said, or at least that was what it sounded like. Then she pointed at herself and said "Efrii"

Efrii. Was that her name? I tried repeating it but she shook her head with a giggle and said it again. I tried again, but again she shook her head and said the same word louder. I was sure I was saying it the same, and I tried once more.

Now she just sighed and pointing to herself, she said "Efrii" again. What was I doing wrong? I tried again and she threw a handful of dust at me from the floor in clear exasperation. Once again she repeated the word, and now at last I caught something. She was raising the tone as she said the word, almost like she was singing it.

I thought about it. Yes, each time she had sung the name, so I tried the same, saying the word using the same tones she had used. She clapped delightedly, and I smiled and repeated the word, seeing her nod encouragingly.

Now I bobbed my head at her again

"Efrii," I said, and then nodded to myself. "Rhys" I said.

Efrii shook her head and pointed at me and said "Caypu". I frowned. Was she saying my name was really Caypu? I shook my head, indicated myself and said "Rhys" again, but again she said "Caypu".

Maybe Caypu was not a name, and maybe Efrii was not either. Perhaps it meant "boy" and "girl". I thought about it and then indicated myself and repeated "Caypu."

The girl collapsed into giggles now. I did not see what was so hilarious, but clearly something in the way I had said the word had amused her. She said the word again and I repeated it, again trying to get the tones right.

Now she nodded and repeated the word in agreement. "Caypu" she said.

I nodded at the bowl and gave her a questioning look. She looked at it too, and then said a word. I repeated it, and she seemed to think I had it right first time this time. That was progress. So now I also knew the word for food. Well, unless that was actually the word for bowl, I thought… or maybe it meant empty. I sighed, realising that learning a language this way was going to be tough work.

***

It was slow going learning the language, but the girl was a reasonably patient teacher. She remained with me for the rest of that evening, only leaving when it was full dark outside. I was glad when she did go though, as I was desperate for a pee, and did not want to do it on front of her. Once she was gone, I had no option but to pee on the floor in front of me, making a muddy pool in the dirt floor. Some of the mud splashed onto my legs, and once again I wished I was at home and having a bath.

I was dog tired too. It had been afternoon when I had been in the park with Tom, but it had been earlier in the day when I woke up. Had I shifted a few timezones? Or had I been unconscious a full day? Either way, my body was telling me it was long past time for me to sleep.

Sleep was not easy though. You try it! Bound to a post, wrists pulled tight behind you, and your feet tied to its base, so all you can do is kneel. It does not make for a relaxing position. I tried resting back against the post, and I tried to get my head to the ground. In the end I settled for flopping my head forward and sleeping with my arms pulled taught against the post.

It worked for a while, but I woke up in the night – probably not much later in the night – to find my hands numb, my wrists sore, and my neck aching terribly. After that the night was spent in one failed position after the other, and when the first light of dawn came I did not feel like I had managed much sleep.

The girl came back with some water and a bowl of some kind of porridge that again I had to suck from the bowl, and we resumed our attempts at communication. Sometimes other people would look in on us, and they would talk together, and gesticulate and point, and I would pick up a few words now.

I had learned the words for everything I could see now. When the girl had pointed at my penis and named it I had blushed, but I remembered the word, so when the boss man was in the room with another, talking, and he looked between my legs and said that word, I blushed again.

A full day of nudity had allowed me to slowly get used to being stared at by whoever decided to look in on me, but it did not mean I liked it. What did they want with me?

I had discovered the girl was not called Efrii. In fact she was called Awen. Efrii, it seemed, was a name for everyone but me. All the people were Efrii, and I guessed it was a name for their tribe or something. I alone was Caypu, whatever that had meant.

The next morning when she had brought me a bucket and pushed it under my bum. With some hilarity she had mimed pooping, complete with a very strained facial expression. We had both giggled over this, despite my embarrassment at having my bodily functions spoken about. Awen just had such funny facial expressions.

When she had pointed at the bucket and said "Caypu", I understood why she had giggled at my mispronunciation the day before. The difference between the word for the shit bucket and the word she had used for me was purely melodic, and nothing to do with letter sounds. It appeared I had called myself 'shit bucket' by accident.

What kind of stupid language had two words meaning something totally different that sounded so similar? All the same, after I got over my fresh wave of embarrassment, I started to giggle too.

At the end of the second day they released my feet. My hands were still bound but at last I could stretch out, and I slept much better the second night. Nothing much else changed though. My day consisted of two meagre meals, a shit bucket in the morning, but nowhere to pee, and enough water to keep me alive but not comfortable.

Awen was a friendly face but no one else was friendly, or even paid me much attention. Without Awen teaching me language I would have been bored to tears though. But over the days I was beginning to get the hang of the language, just enough to communicate. I occasionally tried to find words to tell her I came from far away and needed help, but she did not seem to understand when I tried this.

So by the third day, when the chief came in and spoke, Awen at his side translating to single words I could understand, he was able to make himself understood.

"Stand!" He ordered and I did, but it was not easy with my hands still tied behind the pole, and my legs feeling weak from hunger or lack of use. I somehow wobbled to my feet and stood, back against the pole for support.

"Caypu Imra come." He said, or something like that. Imra was not a word I knew, but Awen searched around for ones that might help.

"Imra is chief." She wobbled her hand in an expression that meant that was only half right. She tried again. "Caypu belong to Imra."

Someone was coming, but they were going to be disappointed, I thought. I was not really of the Caypu tribe. Obviously I was not from any tribe around here, so this would be no chief of mine. All the same, if someone was coming from that tribe for me, then there was at least the possibility they would treat me better.

I nodded at the information. I hoped the Caypu tribe spoke the same language as the Efrii. I tried a question.

"Caypu speak Efrii tongue?" I hoped the word for language could be translated as tongue. Perhaps not though as Awen was looking at me with a confused smile. I tried again.

"Imra tongue Efrii speak?"

"Yes." She confirmed, but she was giggling now, with an expression like that should have been obvious. "Imra is Efrii." She said something else that I think meant 'obviously'.

Now I was confused. Was Efrii the name of the tribe? How could Imra be Efrii and Caypu at the same time? I tried something else.

"Is Imra Caypu?"

Now both chief and girl roared with laughter, and I was left looking confused while they exchanged looks of shared mirth at something I had said. Some other people entered the hut, clearly asking what was so funny, and when I heard my words repeated by the chief, I saw them roar with laughter too.

Awen looked at me and said:

"You Caypu, Imra is Efrii. Imra is Caypu chief. You shit bucket."

I turned bright red as everyone burst into laughter again, tears of mirth running down the faces of some of them. Seething with frustration I swore profusely in English. They did not understand my words but they understood the anger in my tone.

"Shit bucket shut mouth." The chief said. And with that they unfastened my bindings. As I was able to see and rub my wrists for the first time in days, I was distressed to see the raised scabs where the ropes had cut into me. I looked at them angrily, still feeling my face burn with shame and seething with hatred for these people who had kept me this way for three days.

I was led out into the open, blinking in the bright sunlight. As I was led out, I whispered to Awen.

"Why you say me Caypu?"

Again she looked at me like I was stupid, but then she pointed to my ear.

"Ear hole. Stud. You Caypu."

And that was the last words she said to me, as I was marched into the centre of the village where Imra, whoever that was, was waiting for me.

Chapter 4

When I was led into the centre of the settlement, still naked, I saw a boy of about my age dressed in my clothes. Looking at him I quickly realised he looked just like the chief – no doubt his son, and inwardly I seethed. Here I was, being paraded around naked and this boy was wearing my bloody clothes. Bloody literally. They had tried to wash the school shirt but the blood stains were still visible in the white cotton.

The chief said something that I did not catch and the boy scurried away. I pointed at him as he went and tried to mime the wearing of clothes to the chief but he just shook his head and raised his hand as if to strike. I got the message and gave up.

Plenty of people had gathered to watch me being taken to wherever we were going. The centre of the settlement opened up into a space that was large enough for everyone to assemble, and many of them had done just that. As I was led into the open space, and I saw Imra for the first time, a few words suddenly clicked into place for me.

Standing in the open space was a large man dressed in better clothing than any of these villagers. He had a red cloak draped over his shoulders made from fine spun wool, and his tunic was a good fabric, woven finely too. I did not know cotton from linen or any other fabric very much, but I could see that this was way better than anything these villagers had.

He was also wearing leather bracers on his wrist and a rich leather belt with a silvery metal buckle. The cloak was joined at his neck by a gold clasp. All in all he cut an impressive and dangerous looking figure against these villagers, and his sword in a well serviced scabbard added to that feel.

But what actually caused the vocabulary to click was not him, it was two boys he had with him. These boys had no such finery. In fact they wore no other clothing at all, and their heads were bowed as they stood submissively behind the Imra. Both had leather collars around their necks, and hanging from the collar was a chain that joined them together. But one thing they did both have very obviously, was a golden ring through a large hole in their left ear.

I was Caypu because of the hole in my ear, Awen had said.

Crap!

Crap, crap crap!

Efrii clearly just meant something like 'person', or maybe just 'human'.

And caypu clearly meant 'slave'.

As soon as I took all this in, I stopped dead in my tracks.

"No!" I shouted in English and then again in the Efrii language. "No! Not caypu! Not caypu."

I tried to run, but they had been expecting that, and one man just grabbed me by the hair and started to drag me towards the waiting Imra. The waiting slave dealer. I screamed and cursed and called them shit buckets, but they were just laughing at my futile struggles.

"Go caypu!" They said to me. "Go slave. We not want you here." And they sent me sprawling at the feet of the man who had come to take me away. I tried to stand, to run, but the man kicked me between the legs and now I just folded up and sobbed, clutching my balls as my stomach and groin exploded in agony.

I was vaguely aware of the Imra passing over some metal token. I glimpsed through my tears a small strip of golden metal. It would not be right to call it a coin, but I supposed it served the same purpose. The Imra saw me looking up and casually kicked my head. I squealed with the sudden pain, and the shock of the brutal blow, but I got the message. I was supposed to be looking down, like the other two slave boys had been doing.

Inwardly I seethed with outrage. I was not a slave boy. What right had this man to treat me this way? Why were they doing it? What happened to kindness and decency? They were in pretty short supply here. Other than Awen, I had not seen a kind face since I woke up on the mountain side.

I was kneeling on the ground, head forward, not daring to look up now, and my cheeks wet with tears again, and the Imra had walked around behind me, talking away quickly to the other people – far too quickly for me to catch any of what they said. He leaned down, still talking and casually passed a strip of leather around my throat, and pulled it around behind my neck. I started to choke. It was too tight. He was strangling me.

I grasped and clawed at my throat, trying to pull it off.

"Stop… too tight." I said, but in English as I did not know that word yet, so they did not understand what I said. They understood my clawing at it though, but the man just spat on me, and did something behind my neck. I felt something pinching between my neck and the collar he was attaching, and then a grunt as he seemed to apply a lot of effort, and then he pulled the instrument free and at last I could breathe again.

I could breathe but the collar was still bloody tight, and it felt as though it was constricting my airflow. I realised that I could breathe, but it did not feel as though I could do so freely. God this thing was unbearable. How long was I going to have to wear this?

Next I heard a rattle of chains, and more messing with the collar and suddenly a weight pulling down on it. Then a command – a word I knew.

"Stand."

I stood up unsteadily, glowering, but not meeting anyone's gaze. I guessed that it was safer not to, and in any case, the shame of my nakedness and that they thought I was a slave was too much. Tears of shame were running down my cheeks. Oh God I wanted to go home now.

No such luck though. My chain was fastened to one of the boys, and now the three of us were chained together by our necks. Then with a few last words to the chief man here, the Imra gave an order – a word I had not learned but clearly it meant 'walk' as that is what the other boys did, and I immediately followed suit as the chain started to tug.

I needed to learn this language fast. They had to understand I was no slave. I had to tell them I came from some better place.

Chapter 5

We walked for most of the day. The chains that connected our collars pulled heavily and were awkward, but slowly we fellow into a rhythm that allowed us to match pace with each other so there was less tugging. I was at the back of the chain, so I had plenty of time to observe the two boys in front of me as we trudged silent and dispirited along dust tracks and rocky paths.

The boy directly in front was about my age and height. Thinner than me, he seemed fit. His skin was a darker shade than mine, but still he would pass as European, if Europe even existed in this place. His hair was almost black, and cropped short. I only saw their backs, so I did not see much of his face, but when he turned I could make out prominent cheeks and a short nose and brown eyes. Mostly I was staring at his bum, which was rounded, atop thin legs and hips.

The boy in front was older – certainly in his teens, and a similar skin colour to the other boy. I had seen a dark mass of pubic hair on this boy around his large and thick circumcised penis. They were both circumcised, I had noticed when I had first seen them, but again I saw more of his butt now. His legs were hairy, and the hair on his head was longer and lighter than the other boy. Not blond, but a lighter brown, and tied back in a pony tail, being longer than his companions. I guessed he was maybe 15 years old.

As we walked the barren land slowly gave way to patches of greenery. We were generally heading downwards, off the mountain slopes and into a valley, which was dotted with streams, and then clearly a river, around which there were trees and shrubs growing.

We stopped only twice, and each time were given water, but no food. As the sun was lowering in the lengthening late afternoon, I was thirsty, hungry and tired. All the same, when we reached a place where the land seemed to drop away to afford a good first view of the valley below for some time, I could not help but gasp at the sight.

There below us, maybe a mile away, but no more, there was a city. We could not see all of it – it clearly extended off ahead, following the wide river at this point, but what we saw, compared to the settlement we had left, made me briefly wonder if we had jumped through yet another ball of light.

This city was beautiful, sparkling in the sunlight, all manner of colours coming from stone columns and towers. It was not like any city I knew – there were domes like an asian city, but also round towers and turrets and a sprawling suburb of houses largely made of white stone. There was a huge plaza area, and I could see the green and blue of a park that, festooned with multicoloured shrubbery.

Surrounding the city there was a huge wall. As high as a castle wall in places, it was the width of the wall that really made it stand out. It was wide enough to sport a roadway running right down its middle – a roadway that was in use by very many people.

Other than the fact that it was not all green, the impression I had was that it was like the city of Oz, and this dusty path was the end of the yellow brick road. Well okay, it was nothing like that really, but that was the sense of awed otherness I felt as I looked at it. It just seemed too big, to spectacular, for the barren landscape.

Over the last few days I had become resigned to the fact I was stuck in this other place, and perhaps there would be no rescue from home. But only now did I feel with a heart wrenching tug, quite how out of place I was here. Where the fuck was this place?

***

I slept well that night. Not because I was any happier – I definitely was not. When we had entered the city through a huge gate, guarded by men in armour that consisted of plates of metal fastened to leather tunics, and who carried large swords and pikes, we had been jeered at and gawked at by crowds, mostly of children. We had been led in this manner through the streets until we turned down a narrow side street and were confronted by a row of cages that stank of piss and worse. Many of the cages were empty but some contained people – women and children, but no men. Every one of them was naked, but I could see every one of them had some kind of ring or chain dangling from their left ear.

We were pushed into one of the empty cages and a simple iron door was slammed shut and a chain used to fasten it, that was sealed with something that looked almost familiar. Padlocks apparently looked a lot like padlocks here – but then, I wondered, how different could you make a padlock?

We were still chained together and the two other boys were kneeling down, tugging me down too so I had little option but to follow suit. I saw they were kneeling at a trough of brackish looking water though, and as they started to drink, my revulsion at the smell coming from the trough was overcome by my thirst, and I followed suit.

After this they had lain down to sleep, exchanging a few quite words with each other. I could not really follow what they said, but it was clear we were here for the night, so I closed my eyes, thinking I could never sleep, overwhelmed by all that was happening, and my hunger too.

I must have fallen asleep almost at once though. Tiredness from lack of sleep on previous nights and from the exhaustion of the day's walk in a hot sun had taken their toll and I slept soundly, without so much as turning over in the night, until I awoke to someone kicking me the following morning.

"Up!" I was ordered, and I had little option but to obey as the other boys were already pulling on my chain. I stood up and almost at once gasped as the man who had woken me dowsed me in a bucket of cold water. He imitated scrubbing, and I looked at the dirty smears running down my body where the dust had turned to mud and was running off. I started to use my fingers to scrub myself clean, and the others did likewise as the man came back with another two buckets of water and dosed us again.

When he was satisfied we were clean, he tried to speak to me. I looked blankly at his flow of words, and one of the other boys said something – presumably telling him I did not speak their language. When would they realised that I was not one of their slaves?

I tried to explain it to them.

"Me." I said, pointing at myself. "Not caypu. Me Efrii"

The man just spat in my face with disgust. As spittle ran down my cheek, he pointed at me and tried a few short words for me.

"You run go." He said, miming running away. He was telling me I was a runaway. He said more, but I did not understand it, but from his mimes of someone searching, I gathered he was saying someone was looking for me. I shook my head in denial.

"No Imra look you?" He asked. I guessed the word was 'look' based on his continued mime of someone with hand above their eyes, searching the horizon. I shook my head again. No Imra nor anyone else was looking for me. No one here even knew me. God, I hoped my parents were looking for me, but I doubted they were going to find me here.

"No." I confirmed. "No Imra."

The man's eyes narrowed, and he looked more closely at my ear stud. Maybe now he would realise that was not one of the caypu earrings. Maybe he would realise his mistake. But no, instead he said:

"You caypu." As he pulled on my ear.

"Not caypu." I replied angrily. I made to unfasten the stud, but the man swatted my fingers away from my ear.

The other boys were looking at me, eyes wide – perhaps because I had raised my voice. Perhaps because they thought I had lost the plot. I pressed the point, insisting I was not a slave, I had no master or Imra. They had to realise I was a free boy.

The man looked thoughtful, and then my heart leaped when he came over and unfastened the chain from my collar. I had done it! I had convinced him.

He led me out of the cage, closing the door behind me and I followed eagerly. Finally I was getting through to someone.

The man went and spoke to the Imra who had brought us here yesterday. They spoke quickly, and both men kept looking at me. At last the Imra spoke to me directly.

"No Imra?"

I shook my head. Now he poked at my penis.

"Penis not cut?" I looked down at it and blushed. That was obvious! So what? Were only slaves circumcised?

"Not a slave." I reiterated. "Me efrii, like you."

The man laughed, slapped my face casually and as I clutched my burning cheek, he roared.

"You not efrii. You caypu with no imra. You runaway." Then the man smiled and said. "Me Imra you now." And with that he grabbed my hair and forced me to kneel, as the other man fetched something. I struggled as I was then pushed onto my back. When I saw the other man had brought a knife I struggled more and started to shout and curse. What were they going to do?

The imra straddled me, sitting on my stomach with his back to my face, grabbing my arms and pinning them down under his legs as I tried to struggle free. The other man was down by my feet, holding my ankles apart. Oh God, what were they doing?

There was a sudden sharp pain from my penis. The Imra was pinching my foreskin, and I could feel him tugging. That pain became suddenly ten times more acute though as his other hand moved quickly, and in a deft movement he cut my foreskin away.

I screamed in agony and outrage as my now circumcised cock dropped out of his hand and he held up my foreskin. I watched in horror as he tucked the small piece of bloodied flesh into a little pouch he wore on his tunic belt.

"Me Imra you caypu." He told me, asserting firmly and finally his new ownership of me. "Me own your penis skin."

I was still yelling and swearing when he lifted his body a little and turned me onto my front. I shrieked as my sore penis touched the dusty ground. Now he was standing up, keeping a foot on my back to keep me down and as I screamed I saw the cloth of his tunic fall to the ground. He had taken off his tunic. Oh God, why had he done that?

I found out moments later as his now naked form straddled me again, and he grasped my collar, pushing my face into the dust, and then I felt him climbing between my hips. I felt his hard penis push against me, and still I could not comprehend what was about to happen. I was eleven years old. I had done sex education is school last year, but I had never thought about how men had sex with men. Now my sex education was being completed, as with a sharp jerk of his hips I felt him force his hard shaft into my virgin hole.

I screamed to high heaven, and I was vaguely aware that my screams had brought some people to watch. Why didn't they stop this? This was not right. This was rape. This man should be locked up, but no one intervened. In fact they seemed to be actually approving, laughing, jeering. Someone spat on me and with horror I realised it was a boy hardly older than me, but he was playing with his crotch, wagging his bulge in his tunic trousers at me as he jeered.

There was a girl with him watching too, and she was smiling as a sharp thrust sent me howling again. I felt the cock drive deep into my gut – so deep I felt my stomach distend and push against the ground. The pain in my penis was dwarfed now by the grinding sharp pain in my bum, as something tore and I felt hot blood lubricating the shaft that was raping me.

My whole body rocked to his thrusting rhythm, and each thrust felt worse than the last. I sobbed, howled and writhed, closing my eyes, wishing I could be somewhere – anywhere but this. Had I died and gone to hell? Surely even hell could not be this terrible.

It did not take the man long to reach his climax, and for that I should have been grateful. With a roar he started to orgasm in my bum, pulling and clutching at my collar, making me choke as his seed shot deep inside me, mingling with the blood in my bum. I screamed in pain and outrage, but at last his thrusting stopped, and slowly he relaxed and the tightness on my throat reduced as he let my collar go.

The Imar put hands down either side of me and pushed, withdrawing from my bum. It felt like I was pooping as the cock slid out, and I was left lying on the ground, my raped bum hot, sore, aching and bleeding, my cock sore too and all around people clapping as if this was a job well done as I sobbed for my lost virginity and innocence.

This was surely the worst thing that could happen to anyone in all the world. Surely my life could not get worse than it was right now, I thought.

But sadly I was wrong. So very wrong.

Chapter 6

The next weeks were hard. I was taken with my new master to some kind of barracks, built right into the city wall. I had passed through large iron gates into a compound that was literally crawling with soldiers, all dressed as the ones I had seen walking on the city wall itself. There was a grassy area that constantly rang with the sounds of weapons training, grunts and cries of pain and triumph. There was a smithy, which glowed with hot fires, and the hammering of two smiths constantly repairing or making new weapons or equipment. Smoke from the fires drifted across the compound and the whole place smelled like a bonfire, mixed with sweat and horseshit.

As well as the training areas there were stables, filled with dozens of horses, and other buildings set off into the compound walls, housing washrooms, canteens, kitchens and more. I took much of this in at once, but it was many days before I really understood just how many different areas there were in the compound that was to become my new temporary home.

I was taken to the stable and the Imra had words with someone who, like me, was clearly also a slave. He had the earring, and he too was naked, sporting a sizeable teenage circumcised penis. I guessed he could be 15 or 16 years old.

He listened to the Imra, and nodded and then when we were left alone I was handed a fork. He led me to a stable that had clearly housed a horse rather too long. He showed me how to start mucking it out and then indicated I should do the same, speaking almost gently to me as he did so.

I started to do what I was told, reasoning that this boy was at least a slave like me. There seemed no reason to get him into trouble for the sake of it. And so I started mucking out stables, and then when that was done I was given tack to polish, and after that we fed horses and then rubbed them down… and on and on it went until it was already getting dark and I was fit to drop, when finally we stopped.

The other stable boy had been speaking to me throughout the day and all the time I was learning new words, but there was one word he had not told me yet. I pointed to myself and said "Rhys" and then I pointed to him, my face asking the question. The boy looked back at me, puzzled, and then simply said "caypu". Surely he had a name. I could not call him slave forever, but he did not offer me a name, nor did he try to sound out mine.

He took me to the kitchens, and we both waited outside now in the gathering gloom, joined by another nine girls and boys, all of us naked, all sporting earrings and nothing more, and all the boys were circumcised. If only caypu were circumcised, why had my Imra not realised I was not one? I supposed he just did not care. All he had wanted was to own and rape me. All through the day's work I had been constantly remembering his cock pumping into my still sore bum, as people watched and cheered.

I was bleeding a bit in there, but I guess it was not as bad as it felt. All the same it would be many days before I could feel no pain from where the man had violated me. I constantly imagined what I would do if I ever had a knife and the Imra alone. I had already imagined myself killing him in a dozen different ways, usually involving me cutting bits off him first.

There had been water as we worked, but now, in the evening, this was the first food we were getting, and when it came, I would have turned my nose up at it if I had not been so damned hungry. A cook opened the kitchen door and set down two large buckets of what could only be described as slops. Here were all the scrapings of people's plates, and all the peelings and off cuts of food, including a few strips of raw meat – mostly fat. There was also something greyish, and something blood red, and I recognised animal entrails – also uncooked. All of it mixed together, contaminated and smelling less than fresh.

All the same the moment the buckets were put down, all the slaves made a dive for them and there was much pushing and shoving for the best bits. I was too shocked to get in early, but when I realised that this was all that I was likely to get, I dived in too, and pushed a girl out of the way to grab some of the slops and shove it in my mouth. She kicked me in the balls for that and I groaned and clutched myself, and by the time I had recovered enough to get some more, what was left was already looking decidedly soiled. All the same I pushed my way in again and grabbed some more and swallowed it down, only vaguely aware of the amused smile of the cook as the slaves fought over these scraps like a pack of animals.

When it was all gone, we walked back to the stables, but as I looked up at the sky, I stopped and stared, mouth open.

Gone was any thought that I had gone back in time. Why hadn't I noticed before? but of course, this was the first time I had actually been outside and awake after dark.

I looked at the sky and realised I really was a long way from home.

I realised this as I stared up. At both moons.

Chapter 7

Life became a routine after that. A difficult routine. We were up at dawn and set to work. We worked through the day, hunger a constant gnawing companion, and then late in the evening we fought for our evening meal, before going to bed still hungry. I was losing weight, and I could see my ribs clearly, although I was putting on muscle from all the work. The Imra did not rape me again, which I supposed I should be grateful for. He like most people in the barracks largely ignored us slaves. If we got in someone's way we might receive a hard slap or a kick in the bum, but for the most part we were invisible to them.

The older stable boy spoke to me constantly and I was quickly becoming fluent in the language. As I moved from halting sentences to a usable level of skill, I began to piece together more of what this place was, able now to actually ask questions. The stable boy asked me questions too, and I slowly came to understand why people behaved this way towards slaves, and also why all the slaves I had seen were so young, or were women.

The Efrii were the people of this land. The word just meant 'people', but it was like a nation. They were all one nation, and those of us who were made slaves were not. I had immediately seen my mistake at calling myself an Efrii to the Imra. Of course he knew I was not Effri – I could not even speak their damned language. Apparently there had been a war, and the Efrii had won it, taking over lands and villages. The defeated people were not called caypu. That was a word that just meant 'slave', and the similarity to 'shit bucket' was deliberate after all. Caypu literally meant 'carrier of shit buckets'. I asked what the people were called who had been defeated, but the boy told me "it is forbidden to say their name".

Names, it seemed, were important here. This boy surely had a name other than just 'slave', but that too was forbidden. I tried saying I was called Rhys and the boy had warned me never to say that again. A boy could be whipped until the skin hung off his back, just for using his own name. I had no reason to doubt about the whipping either. I did not see anyone being whipped, but maybe half of the slaves in the compound sported vicious looking scars on their backs from past chastisement.

After the Efrii had defeated the unnameables, they had enslaved the entire remaining population of the defeated settlements – every woman and every child was stripped of all their possessions, and taken to the nearest door post where an awl was driven through their ears. They then had earrings fastened and hammered in by blacksmiths so they could not come out without special tools.

When I had made to remove my stud, saying it would come out quite easily, the boy had gone white and quickly told me to leave it alone.

"It is forbidden to remove it. They will cut off your hands or your balls or stick you on a stake to die if they see that. Never take it off." He had told me. But in that moment I had, in any case discovered something strange – I could not get it out. Somehow the stud had become stuck in my ear. I shivered and was not sure if it was this discovery of just the casual brutality that was meted out on fellow human beings in this place.

"Why do they treat us this way?"

"In the war, they say our people did many evil things. They believe the curse of the goddess is on us. They say the goddess defeated us and made us hers. They think we are like animals and should be treated like them. The goddess has declared we are not human anymore.

"They may be right about the curse. We were winning the war, and then something terrible happened and all our forces were slaughtered in a day. The goddess really did fight for the Efrii."

I did not know what to make of that. Talk of gods and goddesses sounded like pagan superstition to me, but it was a bit hard to believe the world was completely rational considering everything else that had happened to me

The unnameables had spoken another language than the Efrii one, and that too was forbidden to use. Now I was learning this language, I was told, I must never speak words in my own language or again I would be beaten or worse. It did not matter to the Efrii that I did not speak the same language as the other slaves. No, to them it just showed that I too was of the unnameables – clearly one who had escaped. They assumed I had somehow escaped after receiving my ear stud, and before I could be circumcised.

All the slaves had been circumcised. Every last one, male and female, had undergone circumcision, and the skin that was cut away was retained by a master and sold with a slave. That just seemed barbaric to me. I was not sure how a woman could be circumcised, and I did not ask. All the same, it made me shiver as I remembered the painful cut of the knife.

My penis looked different now, of course. I looked at the pink glans, exposed for all the world to see. Most boys back home were not circumcised, but one boy in our class was, and I had seen his penis when he showered after sports. I had thought it looked ugly, and I had not changed my mind.

I asked whether any Efrii were circumcised. Surely some might be. What if they had an accident and it had to come off? The other boy shrugged and tugged on his earring. I got the message. You could be circumcised and not be a slave perhaps, but you could not be a slave and not circumcised.

There had been women and other girls and boys in the cages I had been kept in on arrival in the city. I asked about that and was told that those slaves were awaiting sale in the slave market. Apparently my new master had felt I was not yet ready for sale, and needed to learn the language and my place as a slave. Apparently there were matters to be dealt with once I had the language skills to understand. This boy had been instructed to teach me. I shuddered at this news, imagining going back there and being sold as a slave. I did not want to go back there. At least here I had a friend of sorts.

The boy was curious where I had come from though. He knew I was not from the unnameables. I had tried to explain to him about another world, another planet, who knew where and when – maybe not even in this universe. I had tried to explain about all the modern world had to offer – planes, guns, computers, television… but it was clear none of it made any sense, and eventually I gave up trying. We agreed I was just from another land.

I tried asking about what would happen in the future, and the boy shrugged.

"If you are lucky, each day you will wake up, muck out the stables, care for the horses, do other chores, and go to bed with some food in your stomach."

I looked at him, bit my lip and asked:

"And if I am unlucky?"

"If you are unlucky, you should hope the future is at least short."

Chapter 8

We slept in the stables with the horses, curling up in piles of hay in a corner after the evening slops. The nights could get cold, and the hay only provided some warmth, so when I first joined the stable boy, I started to snuggle up to him for warmth more than anything. He did not object, and we probably both slept sounder for it.

I hated our enforced nudity. The first days had been the worst. Like so many boys my age, I had not really liked anyone seeing my naked body, and enforced nudity in front of girls and women had been especially hard on me, not least because of their jeering and laughing at my shame.

By the time we had reached the city, though, this had lessened, and other than the shame of my rape, I had not felt so exposed as I had before. I was very conscious of the little circumcised head on my penis for a while, but again after a few days that had not seemed so bad.

What really hurt about the nudity was how it was setting us apart from the Efrii, who went about their business laughing and joking. Kids came and went, playing chasing games, or kicking around inflated pig bladders, which they used as balls. If they saw me watching they would call some rude word and the stable boy would hurry me along, warning me that if I rose to anything they said, I would feel a whip on my back.

I missed playing football.

Something else I missed was pockets! You don't realise how much you use pockets until you spend weeks in enforced nudity. If I found a pebble I liked, or wanted to keep some food for later, or wanted to carry some small fastenings for the horse harnesses, I would invariably miss the ability to thrust these things in my pockets.

But nights were the other time I wanted clothes. The days were hot, and we worked hard. We were always dirty and covered in horse shit and dirt, and had I been wearing anything more than a pair of shorts at such times, I would have taken them off. But nights were cold, and so I would cuddle into the stable boy and he would sleep with a protective arm around me.

That is how it started out at least. The warm embrace of my only friend in the world. Someone like me – a few years older, but just as trapped by the circumstances. He was my mentor and my teacher too, and I found myself looking up to him.

So it was that when one night his embrace became more than that, I did not object. When he touched my circumcised penis, I felt my body responding, and when he repositioned himself so that our bodies were in closer contact, our thighs rubbing together, I let out a little moan of pleasure. I had never felt anything like that before, and in any other circumstance I would have been running a mile now. But this was the boy I slept with each night, and my only friend, and when he touched me, it felt good.

God, did this mean I was gay? I liked the way he was touching me. I pushed that thought right out of my mind, and let him guide my hand on to his cock, which was stiff and large now, and pressing against my thigh. As I touched it, I felt something wet and sticky, feeling precum with my fingers for the first time. I hesitated and he felt my hesitation.

"You maybe like girls." He said. I didn't know whether to confirm or deny it. I did not want to admit I was gay, but I had never reacted this way to a girl or a boy before. I liked Finn at school, but that was different. Finn was cool, and I liked being around him, but I had never wanted to touch his body like this… had I?

I did not know what I liked, and my hesitation was more confusion than anything else. I did not voice that though, and the boy went on, misjudging my hesitation for confirmation that I liked girls. "This is not so bad if it is all you can get. You will learn to like it."

With that he guided my hand over his cock, and I learned to caress it, and then he used his tongue on mine and my head nearly exploded with the mixed up feelings I had. Oh God, why did that feel so good? Please God, never let him stop!

The next half an hour was a time of exploration and discovery beyond anything I had ever known before. The time was short, the hour was late and we were tired, but in that short time I learned more about myself than I think I had ever learned before, and I discovered that moment of perfect joy that cannot be described, but has to be experienced, and I managed to give the same gift to my friend, only to have him leave his seed all over my naked body. I had not produced seed, and this was a surprise that would have been unpleasant and unwelcome just weeks ago, but now, having lost everything I ever had, and everyone I ever loved, I looked at the white trail glistening on my hand and stomach, and the boy whose passion had caused it to erupt on me, and I felt like this was a shared gift from a perfect shared moment.

I cannot say I was entirely unashamed of what we were doing, but in that moment, none of that mattered and our two hearts beat fast together, our skin pressed against warm comforting skin.

For a short time we were not slaves lost in an evil and insane world. We were just two boys discovering the heights of love and companionship together.

And then it was done, and as I snuggled into his warm embrace, feeling loved and protected in a way that had been lacking for too long now, the boy whispered in my ear.

"My name is Arion. That is my true name."

After that we slept soundly in each other's arms.

Chapter 9

The next day I spent a lot of time smiling. I could not help it, and Arion and I shared some jokes and spent a lot of time giggling over things that would not have seemed so very funny at any other time, but to us the horse that peed on my foot as I rubbed him down, or the grumbling of Arion's empty stomach or even the high pitched shrieking from someone on the training grounds were all suddenly the most amusing things imaginable, and we spent so much time giggling that our master even took a moment to notice us and warn us we would be whipped if we did not work harder.

Even that was something to laugh about as I imitated his barked commands – after he was well out of earshot of course. Today was a day that nothing could darken.

The work was no less hard, the day no shorter, the meal no better, but when that was all done, there was the embrace of Arion to fall into, and we lost no time deepening our experience together, and when I was done, I slept in his arms again.

I want to say I was happy, which sounds odd. I still was a slave, I was still lost in some other world, still kept naked and worked to exhaustion, and fed on pig slop. I was still a long way from home, and I knew deep down I was never going back there. All those things should have weighed against me, and if I thought about them, they did.

But it is a strange thing that over time we can become used to the way things are, however hard, and the novelty here was that despite all that was being done to me, and all the injustice and uncertainty and loss, I had discovered friendship, love even, and each night a few stolen moments of perfect joy.

Over the ensuing nights we began to experiment more widely. Arion, of course, had sucked me on the first night, but it was many days before I could bring myself to do the same for him. I wanted to, of course. I knew how it felt, and I knew what it would mean to him, but I could not get over my revulsion at putting that part of the body in my mouth, and the fear of having my mouth filled with his seed, and how that would taste.

But one night, maybe two weeks on from the first (although these people did not count their days in sevens) I took the initiative. As Arion lay on the straw in the stable, I knelt at his feet, ran my hands slowly along his thighs until I grasped his buttocks, and then I kissed his tummy button, and ran my tongue down to the top of his pubic hair.

He smelled of sweat, grime and horses, but that was his smell, and every touch from him was right. How could his scent be wrong? So I slowly put my lips to his exposed glans and kissed. I heard him moan with pleasure as I opened my mouth, I felt his cock slide in. Now I tasted his hot smoothe and salty cock for the first time, and taking his bum cheeks in my hands, let him push. I felt the muscles in his bum tensing as he thrust and I sucked, tasting the cock on my tongue, as I ran it over the hard shaft. I almost gagged, as it rode to the back of my throat and then felt a moment of panic as I felt like I was swallowing it. I choked up the cock, and tried again, and again, and as he spoke soft words of encouragement, and his hands massaged and played with my hair, I took the cock deep into my mouth, and let him fuck me there.

He was not long in coming, but his gasps of joy were louder and fuller than any before as I suddenly felt the rush of his seed and tasted cum for the first time. I nearly choked again, and swallowed it down quickly. The taste was strange, but not as bad as I had feared. I did not like it, but as his cum slipped down my throat, I knew I had given him a gift. One he repaid minutes later, when he had recovered himself enough to do the same for me.

As we lay together that night, me lost in his loving embrace, I felt some nagging guilt at what we were doing, and some queasiness too, but mostly I felt like nothing else in the world mattered as long as we could do this again and again forever.

But it was not to be, and that turned out to be the last night I would lie with Arion.

Chapter 10

The next day the master came and told me to follow him. Nothing else. Just follow.

I obeyed of course. I had seen the marks on the back of some of the slaves where they had been flogged so badly the scars would never heal. Arion had no such scars, but as half of the slaves did, I knew the way to remain in the unmarked half was unquestioning obedience. I did not so much as glance at Arion, thinking that whatever I was needed for would not keep me away for long. I thought I would see him again before nightfall.

It was only as I was led out of the compound that I began to fear that I may have been wrong. When we reached the street of cages I started to tremble and tears game unbidden to my eyes. Arion had warned me this day might come, but I had been so lost in the happiness I had found with him that I had not considered it, and certainly had not thought it would come so soon.

I was led into a cage of my own. There were a few other slaves here, none of them that I recognised from my last time.

After waiting fretfully for what felt like hours, someone came with a bucket of water. I knew the drill and washed as I was dowsed in cold water. The water that ran off my body was a grey colour, and I had not realised how much of my natural skin colour had been obscured by dirt. Even after washing I was aware my hands were still stained with dirt, and my finger nails black, and the rest of my body not much better. The slaver who had washed me looked at me and sighed and fetched another bucket of water, throwing that over me too.

Cleaner, but not clean, I stood shivering until the warm sun dried me. I was standing around a while longer before two people, the slaver who had washed me and an older one dressed much the same, came for me.

"Come with us." The older one told me.

"Where too?" I asked and the slaver lifted an eyebrow. Slaves were not supposed to ask questions unless given leave to do so. I stumbled after him, feeling growing trepidation, which was not alleviated when I saw my master standing beside another figure, seated on a plinth in a public market place.

My heart sank. I knew I was not going back to the stables really, and that was why I had been crying, but all the same, to be here now seemed so unjust, and to know I might never see Arion again hurt me more deeply than I could ever have expected. I wanted to protest, or scream, or run away or insist I was not a goddamned slave. I wanted to hit them or bury my head in the ground or take on superhero powers and defeat them all.

I wanted my mum.

But none of that was going to happen. Instead I followed meekly and silently, led up onto the podium in a market place full of people – hundreds of people. People gathered around the podium, many adult men and women, but also children my age and younger laughing and chattering and pointing. There were people changing money in the crowd, arguing and bargaining like they were placing bets or bartering a price. Not everyone was gathered around the podium though, not by a long way. There were other stalls selling foods such as breads, smelly cheeses, roasting nuts and sweetmeats, as well as egg and milk sold from a large container that was being in ladled into customer's cups and canteens.

There were people arguing, children playing, even what looked like a school class of boys a little younger than me, sat around a teacher near a public fountain.

God I missed school. I even missed history. I would give anything just to be in detention in a real school one more time.

My master addressed the crowd now, only glancing at me occasionally. At first I thought this was a slave auction, and that I was to be sold, but I quickly realised with a sickening feeling of dread that it was something much worse. He spoke slowly and clearly, and although my language was still not perfect, I understood well enough what he was saying now and my mind could fill in any gaps in understanding.

"This boy was recently captured by the people of the settlement at Imratha. One of the tribute to the goddess of the unnameables.

"As you can see," he went on, tugging at the stud in my ear, "this boy had received his tribute mark, but he escaped, no doubt in the confusion of the days immediately following the destruction of their pillaging army at Sethanacheren. He somehow managed to escape after receiving his tribute mark, but before his skin was given in offering to the goddess, which itself is a grave offence of theft of the goddess's property.

"Thus running away from his destiny, he has lived ever since as an outlaw in the mountains, these past five summers. Long have the people of Imratha complained of thefts of stock, food and equipment. Now at last they have captured their thief and I provided them compensation from my own purse for their losses.

"His theft was proven at capture, when he was discovered to be wearing stolen clothing, and clearly was well fed as only a thief in the mountains could be. He fought his captors and tried to run from them, thus further proving his guilt."

I heard this all feeling a mixture of confusion and anger. Had the people who captured me made all this up? Was my master making it up? Did they really think that I was some escaped slave? They knew I had denied it, and I understood perhaps why they did not believe the denial, but to say I fought them was certainly embellishing the truth. My resistance of their capture of me had been futile and small compared to their casual brutality towards me. My master was not finished speaking though.

"When he was found, he still did not speak the language of the true people, the Efrii. To ensure that he could stand trial and know the gravity of his own crimes, I have kept him in the East fort for several cycles of market days, until such a time as he had come to understand the language of his masters.

"The three fold thief stands before you now, and today the nobel magistrate, Kar Arathon, will serve judgement on him for his crimes. This boy stands accused of theft of his tribute from the goddess in running away, theft of his service to the Efrii for the same reason, and theft from the people of Imratha over the course of two years."

There was some muttering, and I opened my mouth to speak a denial, but a sharp look from my master led me to close it again. I would bide my time. Now at last I might be able to tell someone who would listen that they had made a mistake. This was clearly a trial of some kind, after all. All the same, I was under no illusions about the gravity of the situation. I was being accused of crimes, and I had already seen and received enough brutality from these people to know this could have serious consequences. I remembered the slaves with the marked backs, and shivered.

The magistrate began to speak now. Actually I never understood the difference between a magistrate and a judge, so maybe the word they used for him meant judge. Either way, he was conducting the event now.

"The law states that unnameables offered in tribute will remain in servitude for life. To escape that servitude is a grievous crime, worthy of severe punishment. Coupled with the theft and violent nature of this boy, we would naturally consider a sentence of death."

I shuddered and felt a need to pee. The magistrate was looking at me now, and I felt anger and terror warring in me for control.

"Nevertheless we acknowledge that Kar Emer has recompensed the people of Imratha for their loss, and we would see that money returned through the sale of this boy, which will take place next market day. The proceeds of the sale to recompense Kar Emer.

I felt my legs shaking. I was reprieved the death sentence, and my heart thumped in my chest as I felt a sense of relief, but still I was terrified. Being sold was what I had feared earlier. Never seeing Arion again. And yet now it felt like relief. It was short lived though.

"The law still demands justice for the goddess and the people, and so we pass sentence on this boy-no-longer for his misdeeds. We sentence him to be taken from this place and flogged in the market square. When the flogging is complete he shall then be processed as a runaway ought. His thieving hands will be marked with the mark of a thief, and the soles of his feet that he ran on will be branded with the mark of a runaway.

"When the branding is done, the boy-no-longer will be fitted with all the restraints to make him what he has now become – an animal, less than a dog. When he is sold at market, he will be sold as an animal, a beast of burden but not a boy. If he proves himself worthy, learning submission and humility, his master may be pleased to allow him to enjoy the priveleges of being a slave boy again. That will be for his master to decide.

"This is our judgement and the judgement of the goddess. This is a boy-no-more. Take him away!"

No! I thought. No, this could not be happening. They had not even let me speak. What kind of trial was this?

"No! I am innocent. I am not an unnameable. I am not a thief! I am not a slave!"

The Magistrates face turned dark with anger, mirrored in my master's face. Someone – one of the slavers – clapped a hand over my mouth so I could not speak. I struggled and tried to break free.

"See how this animal shows his true colours already." The magistrate roared as I struggled and was gripped in the bear like embrace of a slaver. "I warn would be buyers, your work will be cut out breaking this one. I further order that he be prevented from speaking like a human until he has earned the right to be one. His vile words defile our noble language"

I peed myself now and people laughed as I was hauled away. Moments later something was being forced in my mouth and tied painfully behind my head, pulling at the corners of my lips. I tried to yell as soon as the hand was removed from my mouth but the leather strap that they had put in there now effectively silenced me.

Now I was being hauled to a large wooden frame, and my hands were being tied at the wrists with more leather bonds, before they were hauled above my head and the end of the leather thrown over the frame. One of the men pulled down on the dangling end and I was lifted to tiptoes. He then tied it off, and I was left dangling, as the crowd moved from where they had watched the proceedings with the magistrate to a better vantage point surrounding this frame.

One of the men had a whip now, and I looked at it in terror, trying to scream and shout my protests, but all that came out was muffled cries. I felt tears of frustration form in my eyes as people watched and laughed like they had watched and laughed when I was raped. Once again my naked body was on display to a jeering crowd. Now I understood it a little better, but I liked it even less. Why wouldn't they listen to me! Oh God, why was this happening to me.

The first crack of the whip came so quickly that I had not been expecting it. Instead the first I knew was the sound, and for the barest fraction of a second, I felt the leather of the whip connect with my skin and thought – well that does not hurt so much. But a fraction of a second later the pain followed as leather bit deep into my skin, tearing a gash so deep that it would scar me forever, and at once began to bleed. The biting deep pain felt like a burn, or the sting of a swarm of wasps, stretched out in a line across my back, and I tried to scream, the gag hurting more as I contorted my face, my whole body tightening as the terrible pain exploded inside me. I peed my bladder dry now, and when the next lash fell and the one after that I writhed and felt like my whole back was being ripped apart.

Lash followed lash, on my bum too. Not every blow was as deep and cutting as that first one, but every single blow hurt more than the last as pain was layered on pain and I was left dreading the next blow, my whole body shaking in a way I had no control over. If I had not been gagged I would be begging mercy, terrified as I awaited each new agonising blow, wondering how much whipping a boy could take before it killed him.

I tasted blood in my mouth and my whole back and buttocks were a roiling mass of agony. My head lolled forward and as I lost consciousness, I felt someone lifting my head, looking at me and saying "Enough."

And then the world went black.

Chapter 11

When I woke up, for a brief second I did not remember the pain, but the moment I tried to move, my back exploded in agony again. My skin felt too tight and so sore, it felt like someone had run over it with a hot iron. I sobbed, still gagged, making only choked noises to express my misery. It was enough to bring over the man who had whipped me though. He lifted my head from where it lay on dusty ground in a cage, and then brought me some water. He unfastened the gag and poured it over my lips and I swallowed gratefully, but in moving my head to get more water, my back ached and seemed to scream its pain.

When he was done, he squatted beside me.

"We have a long day, puppy dog. Much to do, and it must be done quickly if you are to be well enough to be sold next market day."

Market days were ten days apart. I could not imagine my back being healed in a month or more, let alone ten days, and I just moaned miserably where I lay. I felt sick from the pain.

The man lifted my left arm, as I was lying on my right side, and turned it so that my palm was open in his hand. He looked at the palm.

"We will do the brands later. We can concentrate on other things first."

"Please!" I croaked. "I am not a thief. I did not run away." My voice was hoarse and ragged, but I am sure he understood my words, although he affected not to hear them. Instead he held my jaw and looked at my tongue.

"It would be easiest to take this right out, but that would affect your resale price. I am told I have to keep it." He mused, as he ran a finger over my tongue. I tasted a salty metallic taste, and it did not taste good, but his words were worse.

He indicated to someone outside the cage and the door opened, and another slaver came in. They hauled me to my feet again and I groaned in agony. I groaned more when once again my hands were tied and I was hauled back into the tip toe position under the cross piece by the cage door. I tried to struggle but my body was so stiff that the movement just made me cry out in pain.

Now the slaver pulled my jaw open again and pulled a small bottle from his belt that glinted and in the sunlight. I groaned. What was he going to do? The bottle was small and made from some kind of metal. It was stoppered with a metal clasp that he removed with his teeth.

The other slaver shook his head. "You should be careful with that stuff. You would not want to swallow it."

The first slaver smiled, holding the bottle up now, and winking at me.

"I wish my wife would drink it sometimes. Imagine, thirty days of silence."

"What is that?" I asked, trembling now as the slaver looked at me, his hand still holding my jaw.

"Godess and the twins, this one just does not get it does he. He just keeps on talking!" And as he said this he poured the contents of the bottle in my mouth and pushed my jaw shut, covering my mouth with a large sweaty hand, watching my face as I tasted something foul, bitter, metallic. I tried not to swallow, but as I kept the acrid stuff in my mouth, I could already feel my tongue burning, and my gums and cheeks, and then they were getting numb. I tried to spit it out but the hand on my mouth was firm. I tried to struggle, and my back awoke in fresh agony. I looked into the face of the slaver, and saw no pity, just amusement.

"You know," He said to his friend, "it always amuses me that they won't swallow it. It works faster and harder when it is kept in the mouth."

Shit! Was he just saying that to make me swallow it? Or was that true? My mouth was suffused by the foul taste and felt like someone had stuffed it full of nettles. I sobbed, struggling, desperate to spit the stuff out, and then swallowed it.

"Good puppy." The slaver said, as I felt tears running down my face. He released my mouth now and went to wash his hands in a bucket, dropping the empty bottle into the same place.

"What was that?" I wanted to ask, but when I tried to form the words, no sound came out. My tongue felt heavy in my mouth and numb, and the stinging sensation suffused me. I sobbed silently.

"No doubt you want to know what that was, puppy." The man said. "It is a nerve toxin harvested from the red scorpion. No expense spared for you, boy. The nerve toxin will affect your tongue and vocal chords. The muscles will work still but only slowly, so you can breathe with a little effort, but talking will be impossible until it wears off in some 30 days. It will also have most amusing side effects for a puppy like you. Your breathing will become loud, and panting like a puppy, and your tongue will tend to hang out of your mouth unbidden.

If you have not learned your place in 30 days, your new master may choose to repeat the toxin, but as it is not cheap, he may just muzzle or gag you or perhaps even have your tongue removed or your mouth wired. If I were you I would work very hard at being obedient if you want to avoid that.

As I felt my tingling tongue fall out of my mouth and hang just as he had said, and my breathing did indeed already sound laboured, I moaned and then retched, my body trying to eject the toxin. My stomach being empty, though, I just dry heaved as the men laughed.

"Next we will fit you with your restraints, puppy." The older slaver said and the two men left me for a while before returning with a bundle of mixed chains, leather and metal cuffs. I tried to fight back the tears of shame that ran down my cheeks now as I hung naked, suspended by my wrists, my raw back aching and sore. Breathing was frightening just now, as I had to work hard to breathe without choking on my saliva. Panting really was the easiest way to breathe, but I sobbed with the shame of it, and for the horror at the loss – even if it was temporary – of my voice.

The men were now slowly fitting some kind of cuff just above my right knee. The cuff had a large ring on it which they positioned behind the knee before doing the same on my left.

"Look at that! The little animal likes it!" The younger man said, pointing at my pre-adolescent erection. I blushed, and more so when they fingered me there, and I felt some of that tense desire that I would feel when Arion touched me there, or his tongue ran over me there. I felt so angry and frustrated now as my body disobeyed my desire to have my erection end. I did not want them touching me there. I did not want to like this, but now they were playing with me, deliberately making me stiffer, watching me as I felt a sudden urgent longing for release warring with a desire to scream at them to stop. Not that I could scream any longer.

They did stop, sensing I was approaching my climax, they stopped stroking and left my penis pointing directly at them, as if begging to be played with more. Instead they went behind me and started to fit ankle cuffs around my legs.

When they were done with that they picked up a length of chain, and using some kind of long armed tool, they fastened a length of the chain to a ring on the ankle cuffs, and then pulled the chain taught so my legs bent at the knee, my lower leg at nearly 90 degrees to my upper leg, as though kneeling. In that position they fastened another ring of the chain to the cuff above my knee, locking my legs in that bent shape.

"Until your master says so, puppy dog, that is as much as your legs will straighten now. Some puppies find they can just about walk upright in that position, but your master may whip you for it if you try. You are to go on all fours until you are allowed to be a boy again."

I moved my legs. I could bend them upwards so my feet could touch my bum if I liked, and I could move them side to side a bit, but no matter what I did, they would not straighten beyond the 90 degree angle. I bit my lip and exhaled in exasperation. It might have been a growl if I still had a voice. The men just watched and laughed.

They gave me some water then, explaining that the sun was hot and a whipping could sap water from the body. They did not want to damage my sale price by making me ill. I drank gratefully, but my arms were increasingly agonised now as I dangled from the frame, suspended by them.

When they did unfasten me I almost cried with relief. The younger man picked me up and carried me, rather than letting me fall and I cried again, remembering being carried up the stairs by my father. The movement hurt my sore back, but the touch still felt good. I almost thought this man was being gentle with me until I was laid down on a low bench, in a kneeling position, and my chest and head on the bench.

I could hear hammering, and feel heat from a fire. I recognised the sounds of a smith now. Not the smith from the fort I had seen each day for however many weeks I had been there. This was a different smith, but even as the hammering stopped, there was no mistaking where I was.

"Barto, we need you to heat up the brand for a thief and the brand for a runaway. Bring them hear when you are ready." The older slaver called and a voice shouted back in an accent that made it hard, with my limited language skill, to understand.

"Right you are Galba. Want me to apply them too?"

"That would be great. Vito will hold him still for you. I will have other things on my mind."

The smith barked a laugh. "You old pervert. I bet you will."

Galba laughed too, and with that, he grabbed my left wrist in his right hand, pulling it up painfully behind my back, and then grabbed my hair with his other hand, pushing my head down to the bench, cheek pressed against cold stone. I found myself staring at a pile of rusting tools and a larger pile of logs, as the man knelt behind me and started moving his hips up and down so that I could feel his penis running up and down my bum crack. I could tell it was stiffening, and I started to cry with fear and shame. Not this again. Please not this.

Mum and dad used to take me to church most weeks, and we even said grace at Sunday lunch. I used to get bored by the services, and never spent time outside of church worrying about my soul or praying or anything like that. Since I had got here though, I had tried praying to go home. Praying had seemed like the only thing left to me and even if I did not think it was likely to work, it was worth a shot.

Well I was not home, so I should have known praying would not work. That didn't stop me praying now.

God, please don't let him rape me.

God, please strike him dead.

God, please take me back home, and I promise I will never complain about church again and I will read my Bible and everything.

Now I could feel Galba letting go of my hair to line up his penis. It was pushing against my hole, and I felt terror making it constrict.

God help ME!

At that moment the man pushed, and the unlubricated stiff cock slowly broke and tore its way inside my resisting hole. I opened my mouth to scream, but only air came out. I screamed silently and my whole body started to convulse as it felt like he was tearing a new hole into my gut. Did this hurt more than the last time? I don't know but if not then I had forgotten how excruciatingly painful it had been.

My vision fogged with tears as they ran down my face, which was contorted with the pain. Galba was laughing.

"Take that, you slut." He roared and Vito laughed too.

Now I was being ridden hard and furious by the man, my body rocking to his thrusting movements.

"Oh for the goddess, he is tight." He moaned, and I felt fresh waves of pain as my butt was ploughed deeper. And in all this, I realised with horror, that I still had my stiffy, and something he was doing was actually making me feel stiffer still. I sobbed and hoped they would not realise, but then Vito's hand was touching me down there and I nearly felt that moment of release… but not quite.

"He is loving it. Ride him harder."

I would have shrieked and begged for mercy, but I could do nothing. With my arm locked painfully behind my back, all I could do was take it. I was vaguely aware of chattering as some people came to watch. What was it with this place that people wanted to watch people being raped?

I thought things could get no worse, but then I heard Barto's voice.

"Feet first. Hold him still Vito." And as Vito lifted my leg, and Barto stood behind me, and took my foot in his hand, I suddenly felt the worst pain I had experienced yet. The red hot brand was applied to my foot and it felt like they had set my foot alight. I gagged and convulsed, every muscle in my body going instantly rigid and then spasming, and I exhaled another silent howl of agony, an explosion of air and spittle flying from my mouth.

"Goddess, that felt good. He went so tight when you did that. Quick do the other one."

And as my other foot was branded and the pain redoubled, my body spasming and my bum tightening around the thrusting penis, Galba let out a howl for me. Not a howl of pain but of ecstasy as he unloaded himself inside me, pumping me full of man semen, which mingled with my blood in my injured bum hole, and became a part of me. A few more thrusts in the grip of a terrific orgasm, and then Galba was done.

As he slowly withdrew from my aching butt, I felt the tears of shame and agonising pain running freely down my face. Thank God it was over I thought. But I guess God was still not listening.

"That was a great fuck. Vito, you have a go while we do his hands."

I sobbed and screamed silently as Vito took up where Galba had left off. The entry of the second man lubricated by blood and cum, but still just as painful in my torn and ravaged hole.

This time Galba held my hands as Barto fetched the other brand and as the red hot metal was pressed deeply into the flesh of the palm of my hand the second time, I mercifully passed out. If Vito felt short changed, I did not know it as the blackness of oblivion took me once again.

Chapter 12

The next few days were a haze of pain and misery. I was kept in a cage and given water and after the first day some food – a kind of porridge that was at least not as obviously rotten as the stuff we would have in the fort. Any movement hurt. My back was agony, but that was matched now by the palms of my hands which exploded in renewed pain if I tried to move my fingers. I could not walk on my feet, even if I could have straightened my legs, and instead shuffled along on knees and elbows, which also hurt – just not as badly as putting weight on my brands.

My hands were wrapped in clean cloth when I first woke up. This was changed daily by Galba, who explained that it was important the mark was clear, so infection had to be kept away. He also washed them, almost tenderly and applied ointment.

The first day he did this, I looked at the marks. Still swollen, puffy and blistered, it was nevertheless clear that there was a circular depression in my hand, and inside that a symbol. I could not understand the writing of these people, but Galba told me it was a symbol that meant thief in writing. Likewise the symbol on the soles of my feet meant runaway, although it could also refer to a coward who flees from battle.

More than the pain, these brands hurt as I realised they were permanent. Like the removal of my foreskin, these were permanent signs of my submission to these people. My body would be forever marked to my dying day. I could never open my palm without someone seeing I was a thief – even if I wasn't!

The brands on my feet might be a little less visible, but they were more painful. It would surely be a long time before I could walk without pain again, and again they would always be there.

Other than the cleaning and the feeding, I was mostly left alone. At first I spent a lot of time trying to sleep, but ten days can become a very long time if you have absolutely nothing to do.

I spent a lot of time curled up in my cage, contemplating what this place was, and how it could be that I could be taken so abruptly and permanently out of the real world into this nightmare. Not for the first time, I wondered if Tom was here too. If he was, he would surely be dead by now. He would not have been well suited to this place at all.

I hoped he was at home doing his nerdy things and getting beaten up for being annoying and nerdy in school, rather then here. I never liked him much but I would not wish this place on him.

I started imagining ways I could get myself free too. Galba had explained that if I was caught thieving again, the best I could hope for was to have them take my hands right off, and likewise my feet if I ran. I did not know whether to believe him, but when he told me a tale of a slave boy who had been caught thieving twice, and ended up castrated and impaled on the city wall, I decided that it was best never to find out what would really happen to a repeat offender.

Even if running away was dangerous, surely I, with my 21st century knowledge, and all that I knew about modern science, could find a way to outwit these primitive people.

That was easier thought then done though. I realised that I might know how to surf the internet, and use mobile phones and stuff, and although I knew the basics of how car engines worked, and how electric circuits worked, I did not, in fact, know enough about anything to be remotely useful. What good was it knowing that the Internet was made up of computer servers in a world that did not even have electricity as far as I could see?

What did I possibly know that could be the slightest bit of use to get me out of this place? It was not like modern technology had a way of opening up gates to other worlds.

It struck me I was trying to think of stuff that was just too modern. What about gun powder then? That changed the world. What if I just invented gun powder, and made them think I was some kind of wizard.

Another bucket of cold water on that idea though – I never paid attention enough in class to work out how to make gunpowder. It had something to do with collecting pee, and probably sulphur… after that I was lost again.

Crap.

And so on and on I cast around for something that would give me an edge, but at the end of ten days, I still had nothing.

Galba fetched me and led me out to the market – the same place where I had been tried last market day. Now I was crawling on all fours, my tongue still lolling out of my mouth disobediently, and I was still panting like a puppy as I was led to a wooden platform.

Galba introduced the proceedings by reminding everyone of my history as it had been told last week. Again the accusations that I was a thief and a runaway, but now a suitably punished one. He told the expectant crowd all that they had done to me, lifting up my branded palm to show people. The marks on my back had mostly healed now, although some of the cuts would leave permanent scars. The brands too were pink but no longer open wounds at risk of infection. They were sore to the touch but not fresh.

And then bidding started. I knelt on all fours, feeling ashamed as people I did not know offered to pay money to a man I knew just a little and hated for the right to own my body. It was not right. It was my body. I was not an animal to be sold. I thought that ruefully as I panted like a dog.

Three people were still bidding for me. A man holding on to a young boy, no more than eight years old. There was another man dressed in a black tunic, and a woman, dressed in white but with a blue piece of cloth hanging over her shoulder.

More people were gathering now as the bidding went on, and then the man with the child threw up his hands in exasperation, and shook his head. Galba was clearly getting excited now as the remaining two bidders slugged it out, and as the bids went higher and higher, the crowd grew quieter and quieter as though straining to hear.

At last the man in black made an offer that was clearly so high that it drew a collective gasp from the watchers. The lady looked at me, and her face darkened in anger. She turned tail and stalked away.

"Sold to the Ker Arawn." Galba shouted and the crowd erupted into an excited babble. I gathered I had fetched a higher price than any of them had been expecting. I wondered what a Ker was – perhaps like a noble or a knight or something.

"Well puppy boy, I hope Arawn enjoys you for the price he paid. That was a lot of money for a convicted thief and runaway. More money than sense."

And with that I was led down to join my new master. Arawn looked down at me, his eyes so dark they were almost black, like his clothing. He ruffled my hair, almost a friendly gesture, but there was no softness in his voice when he told me to follow him. He set off at a quick walk, the crowds parting for him as they went but pressing behind us, as all wanted to get a look at us. Did they want to see Arawn or the expensive slave boy loping after him, panting like a puppy as his hands and feet hurt with each step.

I followed my master through the city streets, feeling the shame of being not just a naked slave boy now, but one forced to walk on all fours, with no voice for another 20 days or so at least. I was aware of a hum of gossip that seemed to go with us, and some children who were running to keep up.

When we finally passed through the gates into some kind of household, I was more than glad to leave them all behind.

As he entered through the gates, Arawn beckoned a man standing inside, in a small courtyard.

"Get the boy settled and washed. Teach him his duties."

"Yes master." The man replied. I looked at him quizzically. He wore a plain tunic, and was not naked, and he had no pierced ear, yet he called this man master like I was supposed to do. I supposed he must be some kind of servant. Before I was led away by him though, Arawn spoke to me directly, squatting down so he could make eye contact.

"I have been looking for you for a long time, boy. I have to go and see to some business now, but when I return, I will bring my son. We will speak then."

I looked at him, feeling confused. How could he have been looking for me? He must have mistaken me for someone else. I would have told him this if I had been able to speak at all. Instead, I was as mute as a bloody swan. Still, if he had a son, maybe I was destined to be some kind of playmate. That would not be so bad. God, I might even get something to eat that did not taste of slop.

Arawn walked away and the other man beckoned me on.

"Here puppy. Heel!"

Chapter 13

My new master did not return for at least 20 days. I lost count somewhat of time, but I knew when the 20 days were up when I managed to make my first faltering sounds again.

Prior to that life was not as hard as it had been in the stables, but in many ways it felt worse. The man I had been entrusted to was named Mori, and he turned out to be the chief steward of the household. As I had surmised, he was no slave, but a servant contracted to work and paid for his efforts. From him I learned a great deal over the following days, as he seemed eagre to teach me. He filled in gaps in my language knowledge, using new words and concepts but explaining them whenever I looked confused. He also taught me more of the history of this place. I, of course, could ask no questions, but he seemed to sense when he had confused me, and would go over lessons again and again until I had them.

I was housed in a stable, and tied up by my collar at night to prevent me wandering. The smell of horses and hay was familiar now, and although I longed for a warm bed indoors, I did not resent this as much as I might have. I missed Arion though, and often tears ran down my face in the darkness as I longed to see him again, and to feel his touch.

Because I was chained up, if I needed to pee I had to do it pretty much where I lay. I tried not to pee at night, but it soon became evident that if I needed to pee in the day, I also was expected to do it out in the open, like an animal. I was given no privacy whatsoever.

My days started with being woken close to dawn, and it was at these times Mori spent most time with me, talking as he would take me to wash myself at the cistern, and to have the first of the two meals I was now allowed a day. That felt like a luxury too, especially as the food, although plain, was not waste, but actual recognisable food. Bread, water, sometimes even some cheese and beans.

Lessons would last well beyond the meal, and for a few hours each morning, I felt like I was at school. I wondered why I was being given this education – after all, wasn't I supposed to know the history of the war? Why did they feel the need to teach me about it?

I learned that the unnameables had started the war. At least that is how Mori told it. I wondered if the unnameables would say the opposite. In his version, though, I learned that they had led a deep incursion into the lands of the Efrii, and that they fought mounted on ponies, using bows of considerable more power than the Efrii had back then.

The invaders had ravaged a whole city further to the north west, up river from here. The city had fallen so quickly that word of a siege had hardly reached here, the capital of the Efrii nation, before the slaughter had begun. Crops had been burned in the fields, men had been put to the sword and women and children raped. The Efrii had no slaves just five years ago, I had been told. It was only after their own people were enslaved by the unnameables that slavery had been made legal.

The law now said that no Efrii could ever be a slave, and no unnameable could ever be free, and as a mark of their slavery, the unnameables would have their ears pierced and their genitalia circumcised.

Mori had got lost in an anecdote at this point of a husband and wife who had quarrelled, and the wife had threatened to leave him, and the man, in a fit of anger, had pierced the ear of his own young son, driving a nail through his ear and leaving him attached to a door frame, and then circumcising him.

"Now your son is a slave!" He had declared and so she had made a complaint to the magistrates. In the end they had decided that the boy, being Efrii, could never be a slave, but as he would always be mistaken for one, that two new stipulations were to be enforced.

After this no slave was allowed to wear clothes in public, and any Efrii who had a piereced ear must go to the temple of the goddess, and on proof of his status as a free person, receive a codicil that must be carried always and presented if ever challenged. The boy in question now wore that codicil around his neck as proof of his status as a free boy.

The man that had done this, meanwhile, was executed for attempting to subvert the will of the goddess.

Despite myself I was fascinated by these tales, but there was so much more I wanted to ask. Of course I could do no such thing, and each day when Mori felt he had spoken enough, I was taken to my next duty.

The next part of the day was an easy one, but far and away the most humiliating. It seemed that Arawn ran some kind of school in this house, and each day it was filled with eight boys, ranging in age from abut 7 to 9. I was never allowed to join them in their lessons, but they were allowed a recess after their first lesson, which coincided with Mori's release of me, and now washed and fed, I was given to them as a puppy to play with.

They loved me, but they treated me like a puppy. They would jump on my back and demand rides. They would pull my hair or pat my head. They played with my body, often pulling my penis and watching it stiffen and seeing how my face changed when they did. They threw sticks and made me fetch them with my teeth. They demanded I chase them, or made me lick their hands or their feet, or worse places.

On the first day I was not too obedient. My back and brands still hurt a bit and I would not carry them or fetch sticks. Minutes later one of them had fetched Mori, who was carrying a large piece of wood with a flat edge, and in front of all the assembled boys, he spanked my bum, until tears were running down my cheeks, and my face contorted with pain as I opened my mouth in a silent howl.

I was paddled twice more for disobedience, until I learned that whatever these boys demanded, I had to obey instantly.

After the recess the boys went back to work, and I was set to work too – usually light duties that involved fetching and carrying. They hung a saddle bag over my back so I could carry loads around, or take messages from place to place. Some of the time I was left with nothing to do, and was just chained up in the yard.

Afternoon saw another recess with the boys, and after this I was sent to help in the kitchens, mostly washing up utensils, of which there were always a great many – and not all of them to do with food. I presumed the pestles and mortars, and flasks and other strange items were to do with the school, but I washed them all thoroughly, and did whatever else I was told by the kitchen staff, before a plate of food was set down for me in a corner and I got to eat my second meal of the day, biting and lapping it up like a puppy at a food bowl.

After that I would be taken back to the stables and chained up for the night.

If I was lucky, I saw no one until the following day. Most nights I was not lucky though, and i would have nocturnal visitors who would come and force their penis into my mouth and make me suck them. The third time this happened, I discovered it was not a man but a woman who was making me put my tongue into a place I did not want to put it. If I resisted, I was spanked or kicked until I did.

In the darkness I was not always sure who was forcing themselves on me, but I know Mori never came and did this – I would have recognised him. The woman was one of the kitchen staff, I was certain, and she certainly seemed pleased with herself the following day, giving my bum a playful swat on more than one occasion.

Only once was I fucked in the bum though, and whoever did that was careful not to let me see their face.

And so the days went past, and I learned about how the unnameables had threatened to destroy the whole Efrii nation, but then how the capital had stood firm, under siege for months, with no prospect of relief from any quarter, but the Efrii would not lie down and be defeated.

I learned that Arawn himself had been involved in the defence of the city, and that Ker apparently meant wizard, as he had, everyone agreed, called on the dark arts of magic and perhaps the goddess herself to turn back the invading tide. I really wanted to know how he had done that, but on this point Mori was curiously light on detail, and I was still unable to ask.

I was greatly priveleged, I learned, to be enslaved now to one of the great council of the Efrii. The council consisted of 20 city elders representing all walks of life, and Arawn represented the magicians. Many felt that he was the greatest of the council, the most powerful man in he land of the Efrii, and subservient only to the daughter of the goddess, who lived in the temple. I also learned that he had enemies as well as friends.

And then the day came when my voice came back, and when I croaked a question "why?" to something Mori was saying, he looked up, startled by the noise.

"Ah so the puppy is becoming a boy again. Let us hope you have learned your lessons well. I have heard that if the scorpion venom is used too often, the voice can be lost forever. You will do well to remember that. Arawn does not brook disobedience."

I swallowed and did not try to speak again until night fall and I was alone, when I whispered to myself, just to see if I really could.

Two days later Arawn returned. There was something of a stir in the morning recess when he walked into the courtyard, where two boys were sat astride me, kicking me and telling me to gee-up as the others tried to get me to race around a track they had made. At once the boys leapt off my back and were crowding around him.

There was someone with him too. Nearly as tall, but slighter built. I could not make out much of his features as he had a hood pulled up and right over his face. He looked like a magician, I thought, in his tunic and hooded cape.

Arawn greeted the boys by name, patted their heads, spoke to them, but then told them firmly that he needed to speak to the puppy.

I was still on all fours. With the restraints still on my legs, and unable to straighten them, any attempt at standing looked ludicrous and was very uncomfortable. All the same, I was not panting now. My eyes met the deep black eyes of my master, whom I had not seen since the day he bought me, but about whom I now knew a great deal more. Was he really a magician? What kind of magic did this world have? I no longer doubted magic was possible – I was here – that seemed proof enough of that. Magic was possible, but I had seen no sign of magic to date. How dangerous was this man exactly?

"I understand you can speak again, boy."

"Yes master." I spoke the words, and heard a murmur of surprise from the boys. I had not spoken in their presence and they had assumed I could not still. Arawn looked at me silent for a long moment, before nodding his head.

"Good. And you have been taught some history too I hear. That is good. So you know now why the unnameables are enslaved, and you know of the unspeakable atrocities they committed."

Arawn paused and seemed to await a response. What should I say? I was not sure I had all the information, but that was what Mori had been teaching me. Some of the acts of violence committed on the Efrii truly were horrific if true. What I had suffered paled in comparison against the sick mutilations and atrocities that had followed the unnameables. But didn't the victor write the histories? I could not say any of that though. Instead I answered:

"Yes Master."

And as I answered I again wondered why he felt it necessary to educate me if he thought I was one of the unnameables.

"Good. I also see your wounds have healed nicely and you have learned a measure of obedience."

"Yes Master."

"Then it is time I introduced you to my son." He waved at the person beside him, who was lowering his hood to reveal a mop of sandy hair. Somewhere around 16 or 17 years old, this boy was tall and lanky. All older teens look big and strong when you are 11, but this one was no blacksmith's boy – more wiry than that. But also very familiar looking.

"I understand the two of you have already met."

I wanted to say that was stupid. Of course I knew no one in this world. But captivated by this face in front of me, I felt my heart quicken in my chest.

What the fuck?

No, it was impossible.

"Hello Loser. I have been waiting for you." My master's son said to me in a voice that was deeper than I remembered it, but still definitely the one I knew. How could this be? He should be 11 like me.

It could not be.

But it was. Standing in front of me, arms folded across his chest, looking down at me with a self satisfied smile, was a face I knew only too well.

Oh God!

Tom!

"Follow me."

We were inside the house now, in the master's studio. This was a room I had never been to, but when Arawn had bid me follow him, I had been too shocked to do anything but crawl after him, leaving the chattering class of boys outside in the courtyard. In through the main entrance hall, and through a pair of huge polished dark wood doors into a chamber big enough to fill a class of boys, which it no doubt did each day.

I was vaguely aware of the tables packed with pots and brushes and phials and littered with wax writing tablets and sheaths of animal hide paper. On any other day I would have stared at all these things, anxious to know what it was all about, but today I was looking only at Tom, walking beside me and occasionally ruffling my hair like a favoured pet.

Arawn sat down in a large wooden chair near a window filled with opaque glass diamonds set in a lead lattice. under the window was a wooden bench-like window seat, and Tom sat in that, the two of them facing me.

"Sit!" Arawn commanded. I looked around for a seat, but there was nothing close, and in any case, it would be tricky to climb onto a seat with the bindings on my legs, so I knelt on the floor in the way Mori had taught me, my hands on my knees, my head bowed slightly.

Arawn smiled at Tom.

So many questions were burning inside me and I started with the most obvious one.

"Tom, is it really you?"

Arawn's smile had faded as I opened my mouth.

"It seems you are still only half broken in, puppy. Since when did slaves speak without being spoken to?"

I bit my lip, and looked at the floor, mumbling an apology. But what was with that now? Tom was here. Tom knew I was not a slave, he could vouch for me, and get me free. And what was Tom doing as this man's son? what was that about? Why was he so much older? Where had he been? What did he know?

Tom finally spoke up.

"Yes, it is really me." I looked up, and my vision was misted by tears. What had happened to him? I opened my mouth to ask the question but Tom held up a warning hand. Instead I looked at Arawn, who drew breath through his teeth, shook his head slightly and then spoke to me.

"I will leave you alone with my son for a while, and he will tell you what you most need to hear. Nevertheless, I urge you to patience, puppy boy. You cost me a great deal of money, and I will not have my property showing insolence or forgetting its place."

Arawn fixed his dark eyes on me and I could not hold his gaze. I dropped my eyes meekly, and the man watched me a little longer before leaving the room.

After he had left, I listened carefully for his footsteps, trying to assure myself he had walked far enough away that he could not possibly be listening at the doors, but as soon as I thought it was safe, I lifted my head and looked directly at Tom.

"Tom, it is so good to see you. What happened? How did you get so old? You have to tell him I am not a slave."

Tom looked at me with his same old self satisfied smile that I found so annoying. It was strange how the smile, more than anything, made me realise this older teen in front of me really was Tom. The smile still had the power to annoy me though.

"But you are a slave, loser." He told me.

I narrowed my eyes and looked at him. Was he serious?

"My name is Rhys."

The effect on Tom's face as I said these words astonished me.

"Don't ever use that name again, you stupid boy. Didn't anyone tell you yet that it is forbidden to use your true name?"

My mouth dropped open. I mean, literally, I realised that my mouth was hanging wide, and closed it again, but I could find no words to answer that. I wanted to tell him not to be so stupid. This was us – Rhys and Tom, cousins from the same town on some other planet somewhere else in this or some other universe. Somewhere far away. But family!

And what the fuck did he think he was going to call me? Because if he thought he was going to keep calling me loser, I was going to kick him in the balls. Except, of course, the weedy 11 year old I once could have beaten up even if I had two broken arms was gone, and in his place was an older teen who could probably kick back a lot harder.

"Tom, I am not a fucking slave. You know I am not a fucking slave. I am not one of the fucking unnameables. I was born in the same hospital you were born in, and don't forget I am three fucking months older than you."

Tom looked back at me and that damned smile was back, not helping my burning temper now.

"You are a fucking slave – or a well fucked one, because the godess made you a slave. Arawn bought you and owns you and nothing is going to change that. My only fucking regret is I did not fuck you first, loser."

"They only think I am a slave because of this damned stud in my ear…" I seethed, and was about to tell him there was no fucking way my nerdy cousin was going to fuck me, ever, and more choice words, when he interrupted me.

"I told you it looked stupid. You never listened to me."

"Because you are about as cool as a penguin in Florida seaworld."

Tom laughed and shook his head.

"Have you tried taking it out?" He asked me. I frowned. I had, of course, just once.

"It is forbidden to take it out." I countered carefully, his warning about my use of my name still strong in my memory. How many other of the stupid rules these people had for slaves was he going to insist on? Was this some kind of test? Would he let me stew a while and then take these damned chains off, telling me it was all just a joke?

"It is forbidden to cut it out. It is impossible to just take it out. Go on, try it."

My hand went to my ear almost unbidden and Tom nodded to me, encouraging. I frowned again, but I had to show him. This was still the same stud that had been in my ear before I had been transported here. I felt for the clasp, but it seemed to be stuck.

I used both hands now, fiddling with the stud, but the damned thing was stuck fast. I worried it and pulled and played with it, but it was as if it was some kind of rivet in my ear, sealed on both sides.

"Help me with it will you?"

"Nothing I do will help." He told me, shaking his head. "The goddess has made you a slave, and her mark will not be easily removed. The only way to get it off is to cut off your earlobe, and that will mean certain death for you, so I don't really advise it. Arawn will be most displeased if you waste so much of his money."

I looked aghast at my cousin. What was he saying? that he would not help me be free?

"How can it be stuck on? That makes no sense."

Tom was still smiling his stupid superior smile, shaking his head.

"And everything else here makes so much sense to you?" He asked, and I hardened my face to a scowl. Well of course it did not make sense. Nothing made any bloody sense.

"So explain to me."

"I was wondering when you would get around to asking that." Tom smirked.

Chapter 15

"You remember the day we last saw each other, of course. For you it has been a couple of months. For me it was five years ago, but I still remember it well enough." Tom started speaking with his back to the window, settling back with arms folded, and only occasionally glancing at my kneeling form as he spoke.

"When that light engulfed us I thought there had been some kind of explosion, and for a fraction of a second it felt like the molecules in my body were being ripped apart. I lost consciousness almost immediately and when I woke up, and found myself alone by a river I had never felt so lost. I had your backpack, and mine, but other than that I had nothing more than the clothes I stood up in. To make it worse, it was pouring with rain, and I was drenched before I had my raincoat on."

As he spoke I was struck by thoughts of how typically Tom this all was sounding. I had gone through the same thing as him, but I never worried about my molecules being torn apart. All I knew was the terrible wrenching feeling. Typical Tom to talk about molecules. And just as typical that he had a raincoat in his backpack when we had been at school on a dry late summer day with no rain forecast. He always packed way to much rubbish in his backpack.

I did not interrupt though. I presumed he would amble his way through to the information I needed to know eventually, and so even though kneeling like this was getting uncomfortable, I did so attentively and waited for him to get to the point. Tom continued his story.

"The first person I met was Arawn. I just stood on the river bank shouting for help, and then through the rain mist I saw this person approaching me dressed in a black robe and hood. I thought he looked like death. I don't mean he looked bad. He looked literally like Death, the grim reaper, only without the scythe. I didn't know if this was a practical joke, or if I really was dead or what to think, and I just kind of froze in place until he spoke. Of course, I did not understand a word he said at first.

"He took me back to a cabin and gave me food and a dry tunic and trousers, and pointed out a second bed. It was like he had been expecting me – he had clothes in almost the right size, and the food was already prepared for two. Well, of course, that made no sense and the only thing I could do was try to learn the language.

"It took a while, and in all that time we stayed in or around the cabin. Of course I tried to explain I needed to get home. I tried using your mobile phone, but it never had any signal. I drew pictures of Britain to try to make him understand where I had come from, but that turned out to be useless too. During the days he let me wander, but I realised we were a long way from any other civilisation – there was literally no one around within miles of where the cabin was, and so I would come back to him before long and kept working on understanding the language.

"Slowly I began to understand where we had ended up, and how we got here."

"You know where this place is?" I asked, feeling my heart beat faster. What could that mean? what could he tell me?

"Oh yes! Haven't you worked it out yet?"

"Worked what out? All I know is it is some planet somewhere that has two moons and a lot of mean people who don't speak English."

Tom was shaking his head in a condescending way that made me want to swing for him. It was so irritating that he was now so much bigger than me. Where before I could give him the occasional kick in the bum with no thought of repercussions, I suspect if I had tried now, I would have been on the losing end of any ensuing fight.

"Oh Tom, you are so unobservant."

"What does that mean?" I demanded. "Spit it out."

But he didn't spit it out at once. Instead he started telling me about how he had looked up in the sky and seen the two moons, and thought he was so far from home. Well yes, that was true enough.

"But then I looked at the stars along the ecliptic. Did you do that?"

I did not even know what the goddamned ecliptic was, but I was not going to say that. I just shrugged.

"I guess you didn't because if you had, you would have seen what I saw. I found myself looking at the stars Castor and Pollux. The constellation I was looking at was Gemini.

I screwed up my face. I knew Gemini was a star sign but I had no bloody idea what it looked like. And so what?

"So this is some place in the galaxy near Earth?" I asked.

"Don't be soft! If it was anywhere else, the constellations would look different. The stars are set in 3D space you know, so the constellations would look totally different from any other solar system."

"So what are you telling me? What does that mean?"

Tom made a little exasperated noise, blowing air through his teeth.

"It means that this place is Earth."

Chapter 16

"Earth? with two moons? Now who is being soft?"

Tom held my gaze and said nothing, and I tried to stare him down. The silence lengthened, and I shuffled uncomfortably. Kneeling on a hard stone floor was getting extremely uncomfortable. What was worse was that I needed a pee.

Ever since my punishment I had been expected to pee outside in the courtyard. I had peed in the kitchen once and received a hard kick, and a screech of disgust followed by an order to lap it up. That humiliation had chastened me enough to ensure I had always clutched my penis and pointed to the courtyard whenever I needed a pee after that, and invariably I would be taken out to do my business, out in the open with anyone able to see, and usually a few people watching and laughing.

But I could speak now, and Tom was here. Maybe now at last I could use a latrine or at least a bucket like everyone else used. The problem was that I did not want to stop Tom's story. I needed to know what he knew, and the stupid nerd was doing his silent treatment that he would always try on me when I asked a homework question he thought I should know the answer to.

At last I gave up on the staring.

"OK so it's Earth, but it is not Earth. What is with the two moons? Did we go forward in time or something?"

"Not exactly." Tom replied. "You know quantum theory proposes an infinity of parallel universes?"

Of course I didn't bloody well know that.

"Yes." I lied.

"So we are in a parallel universe but it is still Earth. In this universe maybe the moon formed differently. Maybe the matter that formed the moon formed into two separate moons here, or maybe this planet captured some additional moon. But it is still Earth."

"And you arrived here five years before me?"

"Yes, and no." Tom replied, and I sighed. Obviously nothing was going to be simple with Tom. "The rift between our universes that swallowed us up has, in fact, only just closed. You see, time doesn't flow in other universes the same as in our own. Why would it? Time is just a dimension of spacetime, and that is a property of the universe. A rift that opened on our world for a matter of minutes connected our world and this one for forty years."

Tom was losing me like he always did. I did not care about spacetime and rifts and that guff. All I wanted to know was how to get home.

"The rift deposited me in this world five years ago. You came out of it two months ago, at the very moment it closed."

"So can we open it again, and get home?"

Tom shrugged. "Probably not. At least not to home as we remember it. There are an infinity of universes, and the chance of finding ours… heck there is no probably. Now the rift is shut, we will never find our way back."

I clamped my mouth shut and looked at him feeling something like despair. Here was Tom, my nerdy cousin, talking to me and finally giving me some answers, but he had been here five years already and he thought there was no going back home. I wanted to believe he was wrong, but if he didn't think it was possible then it probably wasn't. Looking at his face, I saw he was not too happy about that either.

"If the rift was open still," I asked, "why didn't you just travel back through that somehow?"

Tom smiled sadly, and this time it was not quite so condescending.

"Good question. I tried. I worked so hard to get back through the rift. It turns out I was missing a vital part of the puzzle, and I did not have the missing piece until it was already too late."

"What vital piece?"

Tom ignored me and looked out of the window.

"Tell me, Tom!"

Nothing.

"For fuck's sake Tom, it's me you are talking to. Just fucking tell me. Now!"

I had raised my voice in frustration and now he looked back at me, and his face was a mask of anger, his lips tight, his cheeks red. I watched in astonishment as he leaped to his feet.

"Don't fucking well tell me what to do, slave!" He spat the words out, vehemence dripping from his voice. Where had this come from?

"Don't call me a slave. My name is Rhys, I am your cousin and you know bloody well that I am not one of the unnameables at all."

"You are wrong, and wrong again puppy boy. I told you before, the goddess has made you a slave and nothing is ever going to change that. And I told you not to use your name again. Now I have to punish you, you stupid slave."

His anger shocked me but the injustice shocked me more.

"Fuck off, Tom. I am Rhys, your cousin. Your bloody cousin, so shut the fuck up about me being a slave and get me out of these bloody restr…"

Tom struck me hard across the face and my head twisted under the force of the blow. At once I could taste blood, and my cheek lit up in agony. I clutched it, letting out an involuntary wail of pain. What the fuck?

"It's all your fault!" Tom shouted, his voice giving full vent to his evident anger. "It's all your bloody fault. I told you not to go near that light. I warned you, and you didn't listen to me."

I held my burning cheek, my eyes clouding with tears, but I had no words. I had never seen Tom so angry before.

"Now the goddess has made you a slave, and you are fucking well going to have to get used to it."

I spat out some blood on the floor and retorted:

"Stop with the goddess thing. You know the goddess is just their primitive superstition."

Tom made to slap me again and I cowered away from his hand.

"Foolish! Stupid! You were always the same. You understand nothing!"

"What has got into you Tom? You don't believe in a goddess."

Tom had crossed to one of the workbenches now, and was rifling through some bottles. The one he picked up was stoppered with a metal clasp, and as he moved towards me, I cowered back with a shock of recognition.

"No! Tom! What are you doing?" I wailed as he unfastened the stopper. Fuck, I was not going to let him do that to me again. I scrambled onto all fours and tried to crawl for the door.

There was a bang, and in front of me the heavy wooden doors hammered shut. Tom yelled a word I did not know, and all at once I felt like my legs had gone to jelly, and every muscle in my body seemed to spasm. I groaned in agony as I fell on my side and lay there prone, my muscles not responding to my brain's commands.

I had never been tasered, but I guess that must have felt like what I was feeling now. Every sinew in my body seemed to burn with pain and not one of them would do what I wanted to. I was aware of hot pee splashing down my legs as I lost control of my bladder, and then Tom was squatting down beside my prone body, holding my head, forcing my mouth open, and I tasted the bitter acrid taste of the red scorpion poison. He clamped my mouth shut, although I doubt I had the command of my body to spit it out. I could not even swallow it properly, and once again I had the terrible sensation like my mouth was filled with stinging nettles as my tongue and vocal chords were robbed of all fine control.

"Did anyone mention to you, slave, that this poison can have a cumulative effect? Usually the second dose has no permanent effect. Usually. However, after a third dose, the recipient rarely regains their voice ever again. There was a case of one man who managed to croak like a frog, but he was probably just lucky. Or not. They say he choked on his tongue one day and died.

"So listen to me and listen to me good, if you want to speak again, and you are not unlucky enough to have already permanently lost your voice. It is forbidden to ever use your name again. It is forbidden to raise your voice to your masters. And it is most certainly forbidden to blaspheme the goddess."

I looked at Tom in terror now. Where had all this vehemence and hate come from? What had he done to me? What was he going to do to me now? Tears ran down my face as he spat on me.

"Let's hope that by the time you can speak again, puppy, that you have learned humility and obedience, because whatever else happens, you are always going to be a goddess damned slave."

And then Tom pulled his trousers down enough to let out his penis. A man size thick penis in front of a shock of pubic hair. Uncut, unlike my little circumcised one. Was he going to fuck me?

No. Worse. Tom proceeded to pee on my prone form, his hot stream splashing over my face, getting in my nose and mouth, washing my hair, and soaking my body. I lay there in utter misery as he finished up, pulled his trousers back up and walked to the doors. As he left he called back.

"When you can move again, you will lick up all that pee. Only when it is all licked up will you go and fetch a bucket and water and wash the floor. After that you will go back to your stable and stay there until Mori fetches you… tomorrow.

"And puppy, don't even think of defying me, or Mori will be whipping your subservient little hide until it is raw."

And with that he left me.

By the time I could move again, the boys had returned to their studies in this room. As they entered the room they had all made loud complaints about the smell. Some had kicked me, and one of them even peed on me too until Arawn entered and told them to go back to their studies.

Slowly I found my muscles were responding to me, and I managed to move a little. Arawn crossed the room from where he had been quietly instructing a boy and indicated the cold sticky puddle in front of me that had partially dried by now.

"Lick it up." He ordered, and I pulled myself into a kneeling position and did as I was told, all the while the boys around me giggling and making snide comments about the filthy animal that I was. It tasted rank – piss and the dirt of the floor, and it was all I could do to keep myself from throwing up.

When I had finished cleaning up and had returned to my stable, I lay down in renewed misery. A morning of hope had turned to an afternoon of humiliation and despair.

Chapter 17

That night I had two visitors at once. Any hope that this would stop now Tom had found me was quickly quashed when the cook and her boyfriend fucked me together. I was made to lick the cook with my tongue as I was bum fucked by her boyfriend at the other end. They did not make any attempt to keep quiet, giggling and laughing at the bad puppy that had been sent to bed in disgrace.

The boyfriend had one of the largest cocks that had fucked me to date and I would have squealed as he ejaculated had I any voice to cry out with.

When they were done, I was left silently sobbing, my bum achingly sore and the foul taste of woman's cunt in my mouth. I did not sleep well that night. I felt as lost and alone as I had when I had first arrived in this God forsaken place.

Fucking Tom. He was always a prick. What was with the goddess crap?

I tried again to get the stud out of my ear, but it was as if the metal was welded to my flesh. The stupid thing was stuck fast. It did not even turn in my ear.

And now I was here, voiceless for a month at least, and I was more than a little scared about the possibility it could already be permanent. I had very few answers to my questions, and as I thought on it, more questions than I had started with.

A rift that was open for 40 years? Arawn waiting for Tom? But then, why not waiting for me? What was with the welded in stud? Why did Tom end up here five years earlier? Was there really a goddess?

Too many blasted questions, and I could not ask or answer a single one of them.

Come morning, Mori fetched me and it seemed that we would restart the same old routine. My bum hurt, and so did my pride, what was left of it.

However there was a change to the routine after all. Instead of Mori giving me a lesson alone, Tom joined him.

I did not know whether I was happy about that or not. I would happily have kicked Tom in the balls right now, but on the other hand, he still held all the answers to my questions. I did not smile at him nor acknowledge him at all, but he came over and ruffled my hair, and then he sat down cross legged on the floor in front of me and carried on his story from where he had left off yesterday, as if the shouting and screaming and the pissing and the poison had not happened.

Despite my anger, I listened. I suppose I looked fairly sullen, but that did not seem to phase him today.

"So as Arawn taught me the language I came to understand some things. He taught me about the war. A week before I got here, the unnameables had marched on this city, the capitol, and laid siege to it. The other cities along the river had all fallen, and there was no hope of relief armies. The city had never fallen before, but it was only a matter of time. Already people were openly talking of surrender. Every day the unnameables publicly executed a captive and shot their bodies, one limb at a time, over the walls with ballista.

"Arawn had seen the army approaching and escaped the city quickly, but he maintained communication through birds. Even that was becoming sporadic now though, as the unnameables were using hawks to pick off messenger birds.

"But Arawn had a plan, you see. We were part of the plan."

Now he had my interest. How could we be part of the plan? What did that mean? And did that mean it was Arawn's fault we were here? I wanted to ask all these questions, but of course could not make a noise other than my panting puppy like breathing.

Tom knew what I would have asked. He could have answered the questions but now he reached over from his sitting position and lifted my right hand, turning it palm upwards, the mark of the thief branded there for all to see.

He traced his fingers over the mark, and I tugged my hand away. It was still tender to the touch, and his inspection just made me angry. Could he have stopped that from being done to me?

"Your little circumcised dick is cute you know."

I blushed. I did not like the look, the remains of my foreskin encircling my exposed glans. It was still small enough that you could see the flap of skin, but I had seen on Arion's bigger and thicker penis how the glans would one day look, with no sign of the foreskin but for a small scar around the head.

Tom reached forward and touched me there and I felt myself stiffening to his touch. My cousin then lifted my chin with his hand so that I looked him in the eye, unable to hide my pre-adolescent erection he had just induced in me.

"You like that, don't you, puppy boy." He said. I shook my head but my cheeks were colouring. I could not hide the way my penis reacted to his touch.

"Have you ever had an orgasm?"

My cheeks were redder now. I had been raped many times since coming here, and also had more pleasant experiences with Arion. The endless nudity and litany of humiliations had caused me to become less concerned about talking about sex – but this was still my nerdy cousin, Tom, asking. Something about the situation caused me to become very embarrassed. I did not shake my head or nod.

"Puppy, I asked you a question. Answer me or I will have you beaten. Did you ever orgasm? Did you or anyone rub you or suck you or do anything to you down there that led to the heights of passion? Yes or no?"

I scowled, not wanting to answer, but already Mori was crossing to the room and picking up a leather whip. I nodded, feeling ashamed.

"I need to know whether it was a dry orgasm or not. Did you produce any white cum?"

Feeling even more ashamed, I shook my head, keeping my eyes to the floor.

"Good. That is good. We will need to keep it that way. But first…"

Tom stood up and dropped his trousers, revealing his thick cock again, which looked stiff. He walked behind me, and then roughly pushed me to the floor, parting my legs and kneeling behind me before climbing on top of me. Oh God, I thought. Not Tom. Please not Tom.

Lying on my stomach, my legs apart, Mori watching on impassively, my cousin forced his way inside me with a grunt. I felt the biting pain as his unlubricated cock sank into me, and the familiar shame of being fucked was met with a flash of anger. How dare he! How fucking dare he.

My body began to rock under his thrusting, and I felt tears running down my face and splashing to the floor as my own cousin raped me.

"You think I never knew about all the stuff you said about me? You think I didn't care about the way you treated me?" Tom spat. "Well you fucking deserve this."

And with that he thrust harder and faster and quickly orgasmed, shooting his teenage cum into my bum hole as I lay sobbing with shame on the floor, unable to stop him, my penis pressed to the ground and inexplicably stiff as he filled me with his boy seed.

He lay on top of me for a while after he was done, lost in post coital ease. His ease, not mine, as my bum was sore, even though his cock was softening and slowly he withdrew it. I lay there feeling violated and totally alone.

Tom had become one of these monsters.

Chapter 18

"So we were part of the plan." Tom stood up and indicated for me to kneel as he spoke, seeming to pick up the conversation where he had left off before the casual interlude of my rape. I kneeled, and as I did so, he moved forward and pushed his penis into my mouth. With little control over my tongue, I could do nothing but lick him clean as he moved his penis around in my mouth. I tasted his cum, and blood and worse and felt sick as I cleaned him up. All the while he carried on talking, as though this was the most natural setting in the world.

"Arawn explained to me that he had been told of my coming ten years before by the goddess herself. He had been serving at the temple of the goddess and she had spoken to him, and told him of the boy who would appear and save their people. Our people.

"When he told me, that sounded stupid of course. How could I save these people? But he told me that he knew I had secret knowledge that would break the siege and rout the enemy.

"That was when I realised why the goddess had chosen me. I damn well wish she hadn't. I miss my family, and my home, and most of all I miss toilet paper. But I realised that there was something I could do."

I listened despite the humiliation of washing the cock that had just fucked me with my mouth. I listened as Tom now stepped back and pulled up his trousers. In spite of everything I was eagre to know how Tom had made a difference in the siege. I had wondered myself about using modern technology to tip the balance – was that what Tom had done? Was that why people thought he and Arawn were magicians?

"The breakthrough was when the weather got colder. I arrived here in the autumn, but it is late spring now. In the autumn it can get chilly – especially for slaves who are not allowed clothes, so be warned of that.

"Anyhow, it was on one cold morning, with an autumn mist over the river valley we were in that Arawn started a fire in the cottage. He went outside and I went with him and he took me to an area of peat bog and cut the peat, took it home, and burned it. That was damned smokey, but that was when I knew what to do. I mean it was so obvious, even you might have noticed it."

If I did not have the taste of Tom's cock in my mouth and a sensation of his seed seeping out of my bum, I might have managed a withering look. As it was, my eyes were down, and I just wished he would get on and tell me what it was about peat that was supposed to be so obvious. Firing burning peat turves from catapults maybe? But that was not exactly using clever technology.

Tom looked at me and laughed, and it was not a pleasant sound.

"Well I guess maybe you wouldn't notice it after all." He said, the tone of his voice conveying his disdain for my inferior intelligence. I wanted to growl, and to swear at him. Having no voice was bloody frustrating. "But I knew anyhow. Peat is a source of hydrocarbons. That is why it burns of course, like coal but a few million years too soon. There is probably coal here too, which would do just as well, but we found peat first.

"I remembered reading that if you boil peat at the right temperature you can distill liquid hydrocarbons. Not well refined ones, but all we needed was naphta – something that is liquidy and burns.

"I described what we needed and Arawn sent some birds out. The next day a wagon arrived and took us with a cart load of peat to a tiny hamlet upriver that had so far escaped the unnameables. They had a blacksmith's forge but also they had a distillery. People already were distilling alcohol see – every primitive society seems to know how to do that.

"Well it took a lot of experimentation and the smith had to remake some of the equipment for the distillery, but after a week of trial end error we managed to produce some actual flammable naphta. I remember I was ecstatic, and Arawn even more so. He hugged me and promised me he would adopt me if we survived the war."

So that was why Arawn called Tom his son. I was curious for him to go on, but also I was feeling disgusted by my cousin. Painfully aware of my having just been raped by him, and unable to speak because of the poison he had given me, and tasting the salt of cum and blood in my mouth, I found it hard to be in the same room as him anymore. I wanted to escape and I wanted to hear more, and given a free choice, I don't know which I would have chosen. I had no free choice though, and it seemed Tom wanted to tell me more, so I knelt in front of him, head bowed, half my mind imagining what my dad would have done to Tom if he found out about what he just did, the other half listening to his story.

"The Byzantines had a secret weapon called Greek Fire. In a book I read they suggested that this was probably Naphta shot through some kind of hose at the enemy. These people already had water pumps so we could shoot naphta from the city walls, but that was not enough. We had to trap the enemy in place. Also we had to get naphta back into the city.

"And that was where I came up with my other great idea."

Again Tom paused for effect. No doubt he would have made me ask what the idea was if I could, but that was not possible, so after a while he went on.

"I invented the two stringed kite. Such a simple idea, but no one here had ever seen a single string kite before. We spent a long time looking for a type of cane that would be strong enough but light enough for the frame, and once we had that we had to work hard to come up with suitable fabrics, but it was all available. I made a small demonstration kite to start with, and then we made some really huge ones – big enough to fly people over the enemy. Did you know they used those in the first world war?

"We flew at night and because no one thought to guard the air, we managed to drop messages and supplies onto the city wall. Eventually we managed to fly people in and out, once the people in the city got a kite working too.

I looked sceptical. A kite? the secret weapon was a kite?

But as Tom went on, describing how they had also created pump delivery systems and naphta bombs that could be fired by catapult, it became clear that over the course of some months the people under siege in the city had managed to create a formidable flammable arsenal.

When Tom described the day everything erupted into battle, it seemed like a foregone conclusion. The army was terrorised by the kites that were loaded with naphta and driven right into the enemy camp and beyond. Catapults had hurled a barage of the stuff at them too, and then the army had come bursting out from the city into the terror and disarray of the unnameables. As they ploughed into a half hearted defence, a cavalry unit had set off in another direction, and slowly flanked the invading army. The cavalry quickly set up more naphta delivery weapons, and instead of engaging directly, had merely rained down fire from behind the enemy lines.

The battle had become a rout, a decisive victory for the Efrii over the unnameables.

Every man who was captured was put to death, and the women and children enslaved. The army then rode quickly to relieve other cities and settlements, and the use of the naphta had ensured the unnameables had been pushed right out of the land of the Efrii.

The story left a few questions that I could not ask. Where had the unnameables come form? were there any left beyond the land of the Efrii? Was this why Arawn was called a magician? Maybe I would find those out another day, because now my time was up and I had to go out to the yard and play at being the pet dog for the children.

Chapter 19

The rest of that day was spent in the same cycle of drudgery and humiliation as so many before. I was made to play the pet for the class of younger boys, who today took to hitting me with a stick. I was given chores to do, allowed to take a piss in full view of everyone outside, and then more chores, more playing with the kids, then working in the kitchen until I was ready to drop.

When I got to my stable, exhausted and ready to drop, I lay down on the straw, only to hear someone entering.

Not again, I thought, and my bum was already tightening. I had been raped by my own cousin today. How many more people were going to have the pleasure of using my bum? And what damage might this be causing me?

God! did these people have AIDS?

I shuddered and tried to feign sleep. Maybe if the person thought I was sleeping he would leave me alone. Probably not, of course. Often enough I had been awoken from actual sleep by people wanting to fuck me.

Whoever it was was squatting down beside me now. I could hardly make anything out in the dark, but I could hear the rustle of his clothes, and then his breathing – he was that close.

"Listen carefully and don't make a sound." Whoever it was said, uselessly. It was not as if I could shout for help. I peered into the blackness but could not make out who was here, just a vague body blocking out the light coming through the cracks in the wooden slats of the stable wall. I did not recognise the voice either.

"You are in danger here."

Whoever this was seemed to have mastered understatement. Don't make a sound! You are in danger!

Of course I was in bloody danger. I had had my foreskin chopped off, my hands and feet branded, I had been whipped so violently that my back was probably permanently scarred. I had twice been poisoned to take my voice away, and I had been repeatedly raped by every damn person old enough to get their cock stiff. Even the kids were intent on raising bruises and maybe breaking my bones, and to cap it all, I was now wondering if I had contracted a sexually transmitted disease yet. Of course I was in bloody danger.

"We need to get you away from here. Your cousin is a liar. You cannot trust him."

I did not trust him already. I had never trusted Tom greatly, but any thought that family would stick together had been driven out the moment I had felt his stiff teenage cock drive its way into my preadolescent bum. Again I did not need this man to tell me I could not trust Tom, but a liar? Had he lied to me?

As for getting away from here – well again, this man was great for stating the obvious. I wanted to be as far from this place as it was possible to be. I wanted to leave this god forsaken hole of a city and go somewhere where people would treat me as a human again. I wanted, more than anything, to go home.

There was a problem though that the man had not bothered to notice: I was still chained up like an animal, forced to crawl on all fours. Even if they took off my leg restraints, I would still have my damned ear stud and the brands on my hands and feet. They had told me what would happen to a repeat runaway, and I was not anxious to find out if they meant it.

"There are people who can help you. There are people who need you – but before it is too late. You must be careful of your cousin – very very careful. He wants to make your power his. You must not let him."

My power? What power did I have anymore? power to be fucked and abused and humiliated. I wanted to shout at this man but instead I had to lay still as he spoke some more.

"Beware Rees."

That made me sit up in shock. This man had used my name, or at least a close approximation of it. How did he know my name?

Now the man was holding my hand, and he pressed something in to it. My hand closed on what he had given me.

"You will know when to use that." He whispered and then he stood up and left, leaving me behind, holding something in my hand. I could not see it, but I knew what a key felt like.

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