Calvinus

The Strongest Poison

Chapter 20-32

Chapter 20

The following morning was different from usual. I was kicked to wakefulness by one of the kitchen staff and led out of my cell. It was still dark, although the eastern sky was a less inky black of pre-dawn. I felt like I had hardly slept, as I crossed the courtyard, but I was not taken in to the kitchens to work. Instead I was told to wait outside and a few moments later I was doused in icy cold water that had me sucking in breath, and would have had me yelping had I been able to make a sound.

Shivering and wet, the cook threw me a harsh brush, like the ones they used to scrub vegetables.

"Wash yourself and make sure you get every spot," she commanded, and went inside. I picked up the brush and started scrubbing away. Where the restraints were on my legs always attracted extra dirt, and I worked hard to scrub at these, but even though the sky was getting lighter now, it was hard to get clean when you could not even see the dirt.

Another bucket of water was thrown over me and I wanted to swear. I was shivering and dripping, and looked angrily at the cook who was smirking at my discomfort.

"Clean your bum too. And your mouth. Maybe in the other order," she commanded, pointing at the brush and indicating I should put it in my mouth. I narrowed my eyes but did as I was told, using it like a giant bristly toothbrush, trying to get my teeth clean. One of my canines was loose and as I worried it, it came out. I frowned as I thought about the last tooth I had lost, and how mum had left money under my pillow, telling me it was from the tooth fairy. She knew I knew it was her but still would keep up the facade.

I missed my mum.

The new tooth was already growing through my gum, and it did not bleed much as I finished cleaning my teeth and then started scraping my bum clean, just in time to be dowsed with yet more water.

"Dirty puppy. I don't know why they are even taking you. It is not like you are allowed inside."

I wanted to ask where, but even were I able to voice it, I doubt the cook would have bothered to answer me, as she went off inside, muttering to herself.

By the time I had finished washing, the sky was light enough to see that my skin was pink – whether from all the scrubbing or the cold of the several more buckets of water I had been rinsed with were not clear. On the other hand this was the cleanest I had been in a very long time.

By now there were more people awake, scurrying around, talking quietly but with an air of excitement that made me want to strain to hear what they were saying. There were a lot more people awake than usual now, and when Mori came for me with a small black boy from the school in tow, I looked at him expectantly, waiting to hear what was going on.

Mori did not help much though. He pushed the boy towards me. He was about eight years old and also clearly excited, fidgeting and looking uncertain, but also something of a haughty expression on his face.

"Slave, you will be looked after by Timron here today. You will do everything he tells you, or you will feel my whip on your back. You will obey his every command. Do you understand?"

I looked at the boy and felt like sighing, but I nodded obediently. An eight year old as going to boss me around all day? One of the boys who liked to ride on my back or hit me with sticks? I could see his little excited smile and more than anything I wanted to bite him.

Mori was looking at me quizzically now. It was like he knew what I was thinking.

"I have to warn you, slave, that there are worse things that could happen than the sting of my whip," he said quietly, and rubbing his chin, he paused for a moment before telling me more.

"Today we go to the temple of the goddess. Today is a festival day where the Efrii celebrate the goddess' care over her people. This household will go and make sacrifices and Arawn himself will be officiating in the temple. You will come too, but the law absolutely forbids slaves from entering the temple. If you cross the temple threshold you will not live to see another sunrise.

"You might also consider, when you are waiting outside the temple, that this would be a good time to run away from your master. If the brands on your flesh are not sufficient reminder to you, all I can say is that those punishments will be mild compared to any punishment given should you, a branded thief and runaway, try to escape once more.

"So Timron here has the unfortunate duty today of not just ensuring your obedience, but trying to keep you alive, and with all your limbs still attached. For your own good you will obey Timron, and you will not even think of disobedience. Any connection you thought you had with Arawn's son will not save you otherwise.

"Do you understand me?"

I nodded, shivering now. It was still cold, but the shiver came when he said "with all your limbs attached," I did not doubt that these people were brutal and nasty enough to do just about anything to me.

"Good, and you will obey."

That last was more an order than a question and Mori did not wait for me to nod, turning away and leaving me with Timron, who immediately climbed on my back and ordered me to carry him to the rooms adjoining the kitchen that served as a canteen. I would stay knelt at his feet while he had breakfast, occasionally throwing me scraps of food that I wolfed down hungrily.

***

The temple was not a long journey away, no more than twenty minutes walking through the city, but the journey was still a painful one for me. My back ached all the time these days from having to go on all fours like an animal, and the restraints chaffed my skin. Having a boy riding me like an animal did not help, especially when he hit me with a stick – a makeshift riding crop – to make me go faster. People watched our procession, and I could see them looking at Arawn and Tom with something like awe. They saved their derision for me though, laughing at the puppy boy being ridden by his little master.

I tried not to look at the people laughing at me, but I could feel their gaze tugging at my attention. I was very glad when we were within sight of the temple.

The temple itself was impressive. I could not help but look in awe at the large circular building, looking like it was carved from a single giant piece of marble. A flight of steps led up to a colonnade that opened into a grand entranceway of the raised circular temple. The entrance itself could have allowed people six or seven abreast through into the precinct beyond. The roof of the temple was vaulted like a cathedral.

We approached the steps, which were already swarming with people, many dressed in coloured tunics with flowing capes behind, although others were dressed in white robes. As we approached Timron jumped off my back.

"Stop, doggy," he commanded and I did so. I wanted to see inside this temple, but the warning from Mori was fresh in my mind.

"You have to wait over there," timron pointed and I saw a line of buildings running at a tangent to the curved edge of the temple. The buildings were white, but not the polished white marble of the temple. Instead these appeared to be lime washed timber framed buildings that looked a lot like stables. I went over to where I had been directed and Timron came with me.

As we approached the buildings I saw a man, barely older than Tom was now, dressed in the brown tunic that was more usual for people here. He seemed bored and waved me in through a door.

"Arawn's slave," timron said to the man, who seemed perhaps just a little more interested but said nothing. I entered the room and immediately realised I was not alone. Packed into this space were scores of slaves, all naked of course although I was the only one in restraints that forced me to walk on all fours. They did not smell as bad as I expected though, and even in the dim light I could see that they all looked clean, with their hair combed and tied back. My own hair had not grown long enough to tie back yet, but most slaves had shaggy mops of unkempt hair. The people in this room looked almost like the Efrii though, except for the rings in their ears, the naked bodies and the circumcised penises.

Someone stirred as I entered, and there was a little gasp. The man leading me in shot a glance into the gloom to silence whoever had moved, but I had seen. I crawled my way past a knot of bodies, earning a disgruntled kick in the bum as I went, but there was nothing that was going to stop me crossing the room.

Nothing was going to keep me from him.

As I scampered the last metre, I felt him throw his arms around me, his warm skin against my skin, hands feeling the scars on my back, but stroking me gently, lovingly.

For a long time I just lay there in the arms of Arion.

Chapter 21

Arion seemed to know and accept that I could not speak. I suppose he already knew of the scorpion poison and its effects. This was Arion though, the boy who most understood me in all this world, and he knew what I wanted to know.

He spoke in the faintest of whispers. One of the first things he told me that it was forbidden for slaves to speak, but I could see that we were not the only slaves huddled together and ignoring the restriction. It would appear that whoever was supposed to enforce this rule did not care just so long as the voices were not loud enough for him to hear. Instead he stayed outside, no doubt watching the festivities and wishing he was a part of it instead of watching a slave pen.

"We are here for the choosing," Arion whispered. "Pray that you are not the one chosen."

I looked at my friend, trying to ask a question with my eyes. Arion understood, whether he saw my expression or not, and he explained quietly that twice a year at the festival of the goddess she would choose one slave to be the sacrifice. That slave would be dressed in a white loincloth and led into the temple – the only time a slave could enter. Although he had never seen the sacrifice, no slave had ever returned.

There were rumours, of course. Some said that slaves were tortured mercilessly, having their skin flailed from their bodies. Some said they simply had the throats cut and their blood offered to the goddess and drunk by her priests. Some claimed to have heard the scream of slaves driven mad by the agony over many days after the festival. All Arion knew for sure, though, was that once a slave crossed the threshold of the temple, they were never seen again. Not alive, nor even their dead body.

I shuddered. I supposed Mori's warning made more sense now. If I had disobeyed and entered the temple, would I have offered myself as the sacrifice? Or would they have treated me to the same fate, and still taken another?

As if anticipating my next question: how was the unfortunate slave chosen, Arion went on.

"After the feast, the slaves are brought out to sit around the fountain of the goddess in the square in front of the the temple," I had seen this fountain when we had arrived, and nodded to Arion. "Our service to the Goddess dictates that we must wait there at each festival until someone demands our service. We must then offer them our bodies… you know what I mean."

I shivered and nodded. My body had already been offered often enough for me to know I was nothing more than a whore now. I looked at the floor, not liking to admit what I had become. What Tom had made me.

Tom! If my dad could ever have found out what he had become, I could only imagine – and relish – what would have happened. I imagined him being kicked hard in the balls by my father in a temper. The image almost brought a smile to my face, even though I knew it would never happen.

"We may not leave the fountain until we have been chosen and served someone, although our masters may claim us the following day. If you are ugly or diseased you may escape serving someone, but that will bring shame on your master. The ugly slaves should not be brought to the festivals, and if you are not chosen by anyone then you are as good as dead too."

I fidgeted. Arion still had not told me the thing I really wanted to know. He was not finished though.

"At midnight the high priest selects one of the Efrii. They say that before the invasion these Efrii were all from a certain caste, and that the caste had to submit themselves as sacrifices. One of them was chosen by lot at each festival and it was this person who became the sacrifice, but now the members of that caste are the ones who choose slaves to enjoy, and they may then send the slave they chose in their place. Of course this ensures that they all choose a slave – even most of the ugly slaves get chosen because they all want a substitute to be sacrifice in their place."

I shivered again. So that was it? But there were many slaves here – at least 50 in this pen and another pen next to this. The chance of being the sacrifice were small. I wondered whether it was safer not to be chosen to service someone and hope for some mercy from Arawn, or whether it was better to be chosen and then hope the odds did not fall against me.

It was a long time before I found out though. The festivities took place throughout the day. Arion explained they had long ceremonies in their temple that he knew nothing about, as well as a market and fair that took place in the temple gardens. Much of the afternoon was taken up with food and feasting, and it was evening time before the slaves were called on to take their part. That was a very long time to be waiting in the stalls, although we were provided water to drink. I was not bored though. I was with Arion, and just being with him again made this day a special.

At some point Arion started playing with me, and I got instantly hard. My penis had been stiffening ever since I lay with him, but when he touched me there I moaned. He put a finger to my lips and I looked with concern at the doorway, but no one came in. Another slave near us was looking at us though, and I felt my cheeks colouring with shame, but he shook his head, smiling and looking away.

And so it was that here, in a room full of people, trying to avoid any noise that would give us away, although everyone could see what we were doing, Arion stroked and then sucked on me, until an explosion of pleasure engulfed my senses and it was all I could do to orgasm silently into his mouth, after which I did the same for him.

When we were done and snuggling in that post coital afterglow, feeling a little ashamed, but not much, considering what some stranger would do to us soon, my head laid on Arion's chest, that someone finally entered the room and told us it was time for the choosing.

***

I shivered as I felt a chill in the evening air. I had been at the fountain a while now, and had watched as people dressed in white tunics had come, one by one, to select a slave, taking them away into quiet spots of the temple gardens to make love with them, or else simply raping them in full sight of everyone.

One slave boy was younger than me, maybe only nine years old, if that. The man who chose him simply bent him over a bench and violently entered him. The boy's screaming was terrible, and when the man had withdrawn, there was a lot of blood. The boy had been taken away after that, back to the pens, but there seemed to be a lot of movement down by the pens – people being fetched, and someone coming out covered in blood and shaking his head.

I watched the whole thing from where I waited at the fountain, and hoped that whoever chose me was gentler than that. Now though the numbers were dwindling and I supposed that people were not choosing me because of my chains, holding me in the puppy position. Or maybe it was the brands on my feet and hands, or perhaps something else.

I was starting to worry that maybe I would be left unclaimed. At least then I could not be chosen by the goddess, but what punishment would await me if no one claimed me at all?

As I was fretting over this, a big black man dressed in a white tunic approached me. It was funny that the Efrii thought themselves one people but had black and white people in their nation, whereas all the slaves, who were supposedly another race, were all white.

I was chosen now though and the man beckoned me to follow him. I followed him into the gardens, thinking that was a good sign. Maybe he would go gentle on me, I thought.

Sadly that was not to be though.

I cannot think of that rape now without shuddering still. Over and over I had been raped by men and women in this place. From the first time in the slave cages to now, I had lost count of how many people had used my body, but this man was huge, and he made no concessions to my smaller size. In fact it was quite clear he enjoyed hurting me, first with his hands and then thrusting in his giant cock, making me open my mouth to scream with agony. My screams were silent, but he must have known the excruciating pain he was causing me. He seemed to enjoy it, and he let out a shout of triumph as he ejaculated inside me, and withdrew.

I knew I was bleeding too. I just hoped it was not as bad as the other boy I had seen. I lay still, sobbing, violated, my bum aflame and the agony reaching deep inside me. If I had not shared that moment with Arion earlier in the day, I am sure I would have gladly ended my life right now.

I was half dragged back to the pen to await the choosing, and left there, still sobbing, but then Arion was there, holding me, speaking soothingly in the softest of whispers, telling me it was all over now. Telling me that I was safe now, that it was done.

He was wrong though.

Later that night a temple priest entered, and with him was the man who had raped me. The man pointed me out, the priest nodded and then I was being lifted up and carried out.

The last I heard from the pens was Arion shouting.

"No! Not him! Leave him be. Take me. Not him… take me instead."

And then there was a thud and a groan of pain, and Arion said no more.

The temple doors were the largest doors I had ever seen. Made of wood, each beam was almost a whole tree trunk, carved ornately and fastened together to form a door that was surely taller than even a giraffe or elephant would need. Just opening those doors would need a small team of people, and the doorway could have admitted two rows of cars without a problem. I had seen huge cathedral doorways in the past, but this was something else. I would have marvelled at it had I not been so distraught. I was not struggling now – I knew the futility of resisting these people, but my mouth was dry, my heart hammering and I was sweating, and shivering all at once. What would happen to me once I entered through those doors? Arion had said no one ever came back. Once again I felt the pain of being ripped from the one person I cared about, and the terror of being led like a sacrificial lamb to what was likely to be certain death.

As I passed through the doors, they began to close. No one was pushing them from the inside and I looked for the mechanism being used to shut them. There must be some kind of chain or pulley system, but I did not see it immediately, and as I turned my head to look, a man dressed in temple white grabbed my hair and tugged painfully to indicate I should follow him through an inner door and into a grand chamber that echoed with our movement.

There were three men with me now. The one who pulled my hair and the priest and the man who had raped me earlier walking behind. None of them spoke, but they all stopped together when we were in the centre of this circular room. Above me was a dome, much like a cathedral dome. The floor was polished marble, and all around there were doors, each looking much alike, ornate stone arch ways around them.

We waited for several minutes, the silence now feeling oppressive as none of these men spoke. Terrified thoughts were running through my head, and in the silence of that room, I could hear the blood rushing in my ears. It is strange, but I felt that silence was itself loud. The lack of noise longing to be filled. I wanted to speak just to break the silence, just to ease the tension, but no sound would come from my useless throat.

And so eventually the door directly ahead of us opened, and two people walked through. A woman dressed in a flowing white gown, wearing some kind of head-dress that reminded me of the Egyptians, and beside her, Arawn, dressed in a red gown. They walked towards us and stopped having crossed half the distance. At once the man who had raped me moved forward, knelt before Arawn and what must surely be the high priestess, and bowed his head, his hands outstretched. The high priestess touched his head and at last broke the silence.

"Your sacrifice is accepted. Go in peace," she said and the man stood, but his head still bowed, he literally walked backwards past me, and there was a rustling sound as the priest who had been with me moved too. I turned my head to look, but the remaining priest grabbed my hair again, holding my head forward and down so that now I was just looking at the feet of Arawn and the high priestess.

"He does not look like much," the priestess said as I kneeled, head bowed, before her. She spoke more quietly now, her tone almost conversational rather than the theatrical tone with which she had spoken to the man whose semen was still inside my sore bum. When Arawn responded, it was in the same casual way.

"I assure you that he is the one. There can be no other now the gateway is closed."

The high priestess stepped forward, and then crouched down in front of me, and with a hand that was gentle, almost kindly, she lifted my chin and looked into my eyes. Her eyes were grey/blue, and reminded me of the colour of gun metal. Not that I had ever seen a real gun, but every boy who had ever painted a model soldier or airfix model knew what colour gun metal blue was. That was the colour that was looking at me, and the association made me think of another word to describe her gaze: steely.

She let my chin go and stood up again, walking around behind me as I let my head lower again submissively.

"How long until he can speak again?" she asked.

"Some weeks yet. Maybe longer. It could be never. Some people never regain their voice after two doses of the red scorpion poison, as you know," Arawn replied, matter of factly, not sounding as if he cared one way or another. "It does not matter. The prophecy never says he has to be able to speak."

"The prophecy is vague on a number of details," the priestess replied. "Nevertheless it does not say he cannot speak either."

"He is the one. I am certain of it. If he cannot speak then he won't need to," Arawn sounded slightly irritated now.

"Very well," the high priestess moved around me to stand with Arawn once more. "Boy, let me tell you what will now come to pass. Let me be quite clear that if Lord Arawn here is wrong about you, then you will soon be dead, or you will wish that you were. Lord Arawn believes you have it within you to escape that fate, but no one who has ever undergone the trial before has ever succeeded.

"You will have heard tales of what befalls the sacrifice here each year. Those tales perhaps bear no resemblance to the truth, because we never allow a sacrifice to return to the city beyond these walls. Yet not everyone who comes in here dies, and of those who do die, some do linger on for a very long time. Do you understand me?"

I raised my head a little, but did not know how to answer. No I didn't understand her, because she hadn't told me anything yet other than nasty threats. On the other hand it may not be a good idea to shake my head – that might invite punishment for insolence. I hesitated and the priestess laughed.

"Arawn, you are wrong about this one. He has no wit at all."

Arawn, for his part, made a slightly exasperated grunt, and the priestess laughed.

"Very well, Lord Arawn, we will see if the witless boy can succeed where no one else has. I do hope that if he fails, the goddess takes his balls but not his life. I would like a new eunuch to serve me, although perhaps not one that is so… damaged.

And with that she flicked her hand and the priest behind me stepped forward, pulled back my hair so my head snapped upwards, and then forced fingers into my mouth. My instinct was to bite, but although I applied pressure with my teeth on those fingers, the priest did not flinch, and then the priestess was raising a phial of some blue liquid to my lips and pouring it in. What this time? I wondered for a fraction of a second, and then the room began to swim. I did not notice the man release me, nor my collapse to the floor, although I was aware of the pain as my head cracked against the stone, the sound thundering into my brain, and the thunder would not stop.

Chapter 23

Sand. All I could see was sand, and the hot sun on my back. I blinked, and tiny grains in front of my eyes seemed to dance away. The sand was so close that I could see the individual grains, not yellow like the whole, but all manner of colours. There was red, brown, white, even a greenish colour. Each a tiny grain of rock, millions of them – no, billions, and billions of them lying together, all mixed up and stretching away into the distance. I looked into the distance and could see only sand, built up into dunes, stretching off into the distance, beneath a blue sky. The world was just sand and sky for as far as I could see.

I sat up, and realised that the restraints on my legs had been removed. I was completely naked now. The desert sun shining on me. How long had it been shining? Would I get sun burn? I tried to stand and quickly realised my legs were going to have to get used to that idea as they refused to co-operate. Instead I sat in the sand and looked around. I was alone.

This was not good. I may have wanted to be alone and away from all the people of the Efrii for good, but everyone knew about the danger of the desert. The sun was hot, and I was sweating. How long before I got sunstroke? How long could I go without water? Already I was thirsty.

I had to find shelter, but where? in which direction? And could I even walk? I would have to crawl as if I was still in my restraints.

I sat down on the sand and buried my head between my knees. Oh God, what was I supposed to do now? This was some kind of test – that was what the priestess had said but it was a test no one had ever succeeded in, and I was willing to bet that most of them had been able to walk better than I could.

I looked at the grains of sand, and remembered going to the beach with my family. I remembered happy hours spent damming up rivers, or burying dad, or building sand castles.

That was not like this though. The beach sand was wet, and this stuff was dry. I scooped up a handful of it and let it run through my fingers, a light breeze blowing the stream slightly to one side. So many grains of sand.

I looked at the palm of my hand after I had let it go. A few grains remained, stuck in the pits and rises of the scar of the thief's brand indelibly marked into my flesh. I hated that mark, just as I hated the way my penis looked now, and the marks on my feet too.

I looked at the grain of sand, and imagined it was a planet spinning around a sun. If I could invent my own world I would invent one without slavery, where all the people loved each other, and where I could be with my family again, with football and beaches and ice creams and everything else I remembered, except perhaps maths. And in that world, Arion would come to, and he would be a best friend and a protector and more. We would share those moments we had shared together, and no one would care, and all would be happy forever.

That would be the world I would imagine.

I looked up and sighed.

Instead I would die in this desert, a failure, unable to work out what the goddess or this damned test wanted from me. I was so hot, and tired, and all I wanted to do was sleep.

I lay down on the sand, a single tear running down my face as I closed my eyes and slept.

***

I woke up in the stable where I had been kept in Arawn's property. I could smell all the stable smells, and although there was only the grey half light of dawn, I could see where I was. I could feel the straw underneath me, and the wooden walls around me. The shackles were still gone, though. I was still able to move my legs freely. I was still completely naked.

Was this part of the test? Had they taken me from the desert and placed me here to recover? But they had promised me I would never leave the temple again. Had they lied? or was this some elaborate hoax?

Maybe this was not the same stable they had kept me. Maybe this was some other place, like a room inside the temple.

There was one way to know. I thrust my hand into the pile of straw I had slept on, and rooted around until I found the floor boards beneath it. There they were, and as my finger traced the board, I could feel the loose one exactly where it should be. I had ripped nails pulling that up, but now it was nice and loose, and I lifted it and felt in the small cavity beneath. My hands closed around the cold metal of the key I had hidden there.

So I really was here, in the stable. What now then? I was not chained up, so could I just walk out of here?

Again I tried standing, and again my legs were not really ready for me. I would have to crawl.

I began to crawl for the entrance, but someone was coming. I stopped still, and listened. Oh god, was that the woman from the kitchen and her boyfriend coming? But how did they even know I was here? Were they going to rape me again?

I closed my eyes. Please don't let them see me. Please don't let them find me.

***

And then when I opened my eyes, I was not on the stable. Instead I was back in the room where I had seen the high priestess, but I was alone now and it was darker. I could make out the various doors that seemed to radiate around the central circular area of the room, but I could see nothing else in here. No people, nor things, just a polished stone floor, and me in the middle of it.

I must have been hallucinating. I was never in the stable. That was not possible.

But as I thought that, I felt the key in my hand. If I had been hallucinating, then I still was. I had the key, and there it sat in my scarred hand.

I looked up at the doors and sighed. Well if I was hallucinating all this, then it was my damned dream, and I was going to take control of it. I rose to my feet and this time I commanded them to take my weight. If I was hallucinating, I could damned well hallucinate walking, and not crawling around like a fucking puppy dog.

It worked. I could walk. But my hallucination must have bitten back because it also hurt like hell to walk like a human again. My branded soles were sensitive, and my muscles seemed to scream in protest at being used this way. I wanted to walk sensibly but instead I staggered to the door directly ahead of me, and tried it. It was locked.

Of course it was locked, but this was my hallucination, and I had a key. I pushed the key into a hole in the door, and commanded it it work. If I was imagining this then I was bloody well going to see what was on the other side of this door. You will open, I said in my head, and turned the key.

I felt the mechanism resisting the key but it turned, and the door swung open.

Chapter 24

"Dad!" I shouted, not knowing how I had managed the sound. My voice had worked! but I did not stop to think about it and just ran. I was in a garden that looked like our garden at home but brighter and more colourful. I could smell hyacinths and roses and there in front of me, dressed all in white in clothing that I had never seen before, was my father, smiling. I crossed the ground between us in seconds and threw myself into his arms. My father kissed me, and then took my hand.

And then I felt like I had just dived into a swimming pool, and I was sinking as water pressed around me. I could hear the distorted underwater sounds as I held my mouth shut and tried to look. Where had dad gone? what was I doing underwater. I looked up and saw some light through the gloom. I kicked my feet and swam up.

I broke the surface with a gasp, my limbs hurting from the exertion. I panted in air and looked around. I was in some kind of cave, but I could see light coming from where the entrance must be. That was the light I had seen. All around me was dark water, and as my eyes adjusted to the gloom I could make out a low rock ceiling and rock walls all around me.

There was a slight current in the water – nothing to worry about, but it was pulling me towards the rock wall and away from the entrance, so I swam against it and quickly found rock and grit or sand under my feet. I staggered out of the water, and collapsed on this underground shore.

What had happened to my father? I knew I must still be dreaming, but the water felt wet enough, as did the goose bumps forming on my flesh in the underground coolness. How could the dream feel so real if it was all in my head?

The light in the cave dimmed and I looked towards where the entrance was and saw a figure standing there. Was that dad again? No, it was a woman. A woman I recognised and my heart quickened

"Your father was never here. That man was someone else," my mum's voice spoke the words, squeezing tears from my eyes.

"Mum? Is it really you," I asked.

"You know it is, Rhys. You have always known. I have looked for you for so long, but now we are together for just a little while."

I shook my head. That was stupid. If she was here, there was no way I was ever letting her go.

"I want to go home. Take me home," I pleaded, dragging myself forwards.

"That is impossible Rhys," mum's voice was sad, but the tone was firm. That was the voice she used when a matter was settled, and I knew no amount of whining or pleading could ever change her mind. But how could it be impossible? Why couldn't she just take me home now?

I looked at my mother, biting my lip, feeling renewed despair as tears ran freely down my cheeks. Even my hallucinations were telling me it was impossible to go home. What use was that? Couldn't she just pretend to take me home at least? I mean, if I was dreaming this, couldn't I just force her to do what I wanted, in my head, like how I had made the key work in the door.

"The key worked for you because that was the door it opened," mum replied to my unspoken thoughts. "I cannot take you home, however, because you no longer have a home to return to."

"Why not? What does that mean?"

She came towards me now, as I knelt on the beach in the cave at the water's edge. She seemed to have no trouble seeing her way in the half light, although I could hardly make out her form until she was in front of me and crouching down, so she was looking into my eyes. It was dark, but I could still see mum's eyes, there was no mistaking them.

She reached out a finger and touched me by my eye, brushing away the tear.

"Rhys, sweet Rhys, if it were possible for you to return to your home, I would tell you it were so, but there can be no return there. Look!" And with that word she pressed her hand to my head, her other hand reaching behind me, holding me steady and secure. As she did so the room around me vanished again. Now I was still kneeling, but in front of me was a gravestone.

"In loving memory of my darling Rhys Thomas. Born May 23 2002. Died September 9 2013 aged 11 years," I read, and under that there was a line that seemed more freshly chiselled, with stone flakes lying beneath it, reading "The Little Boy Found," which made no sense to me but was probably just the kind of thing mum would have put on my gravestone. My vision was blurring again as I read this and I looked up to see the lady who was and was not my mum, holding out her hand. I took it and then found myself back in the cave again.

"You and two others were killed in a petroleum gas explosion. The report says that there was a leak from one of the tanks in a petrol filling station next to the park you were walking through, and the petroleum leached into the ground and then formed a vapour in an underground void. When it ignited, the fireball instantly engulfed you, your cousin Tom and another person walking in the park at the time. The blast also caused some minor injuries to others farther away.

"The police report recommended prosecuting the garage owner for not reporting leak in his tank. It claims he knew he was losing fuel but did not investigate the issue fully and promptly."

I shook my head, crying freely now.

"But that is not what happened. You know that. Help me get back and we can tell them. I am not dead. Mum! Please. Please take me home."

"Rhys, it is not as simple as that. Your bodies were all recovered at the scene. No one doubts you died there, even though they were hideously burned. "

"But I did not die. I am here. I am alive. I want to go back. Please, let me show them I am alive."

"There is no going back. You can go forward, but you can never go back. What is done is done."

"What does that mean?" I demanded, angrily. I did not know what was true or false anymore. I did not know what was real and a dream. I realised I knew so damned little about anything, but at least, right here and now, there was someone who was actually talking to me. And how was it I could actually talk?

"Listen to me Rhys, because the time is short, and I cannot answer all your questions. Listen to me and remember."

I looked at her sullenly. I wanted answers to my questions. I wanted to know how I got here. I wanted her to confirm that there had been no explosion. I wanted to ask so many questions about my family, and this place, and who she was, and what was happening, that the questions felt like they were all tumbling around in my head. Instead she was going to tell me what she wanted to tell me, and not what I wanted to know.

"Rhys, you are more powerful than anyone could know. Your cousin Tom, and Arawn both know something of it. They think they know all you are and can be, and they seek to control you. They may yet control you too – that future is unwritten, and they may well succeed. But know this, they do not yet fully understand all you are capable of. They have a prophecy as a guide, and that prophecy will now come to pass. The road ahead is hard for you Rhys, my child, my darling. If I could make it easier I would, but all I can give you is what I give you now.

"Rhys, you saw how things are here. The world you are in connected with the world you came from for just the briefest of instants, and then they moved away again. In the infinity of worlds, they will never meet again, and even if they did, it would not be at the same point in space or in time. Rhys, I am and always will be your mother, but I last saw you such a very long time ago. I have wandered through many a lonely dale looking for you, and now after all my searching, our paths can cross for but a few more heartbeats.

"In a very short time though, I must leave, and I will not be able to meet you again while you live. Arawn seeks a key, but he has not yet understood the true nature of the key he seeks. He knows you are important. He realised long ago that it was not your cousin who held the key he sought, and that only left you to find it for him. He hopes that you will bring it back to him now, and his hopes will be answered, but he may not understand it."

I looked at my mother and sniffed. She was speaking words that I could understand, and yet it was all a riddle. Nothing made sense in this place. Was I really dead? was this hell? Because it sure felt like hell with the continual and brutal rape and all the punishments and everything else.

"You are not dead Rhys. Never believe that. In this world you are very much alive. You are more alive than you could know. This is not hell – it is just a place, a possibility in an infinite sea of possibilities, and you Rhys – you are a navigator on that sea," she answered my thoughts again. Mum had always liked poetry and flowery language, but since when had she spoken in so many riddles?

"You cannot return to your world. Your world has moved on and you were not a part of it. You cannot go back, only forward," she repeated what she had already told me. "You are not dead, but Arawn has made this place a hell for you because he fears what you could become. He seeks to make you both angry and also subservient. He seeks to break and control you. He seeks power he does not hold, so he would take yours that he may wear the laurel crown.

"Rhys I can feel our time is gone, and I still have so much to say. Rhys, you are about to meet the goddess, and she will demand much of you – so very very much. Beware the goddess. She is not evil, but neither is she good. She is not your friend, but don't make her your enemy. Do what must be done, and I trust and have faith that you will reach your destiny.

"Beware also Arawn and beware Tom, who seeks the same thing. They are infected with the goddess' poison, ensnared by it so it infects their actions. Nothing deforms the human race like the armour's iron brace. Take care, Rhys, my son. Don't forget the story of the Roman, Julius Caesar, who betrayed his friends and family to gain power, and make himself ruler of the world.

"The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar's laurel crown."

As she spoke those words, the mum kissed me on my forehead and then simply vanished and so did the light of the cave, and all around was inky blackness and silence other than the sound of my sobbing as I cried more freely than I ever remembered crying.

Chapter 25

"So you are the one they send me this year?"

Had I fallen asleep again? Or had I just been hurled into yet another location? Because now I was standing in a room of white marble, so brightly lit that I had to squint, but it seemed like there was no light – just the reflection from the white marble. My eyes hurt, but as I squinted I could make out an even brighter area, and in that area was a lady, but this one was not my mother. In fact I had no doubt who stood there, although I had never met her before and had not believed she existed. Now I was face to face with the goddess and my whole body was electrified. My legs gave way and I fell prostrate before her. I could not have moved if I tried.

"Your life is forfeit to me. You understand this boy?"

I had known that I was an offering to the goddess, but I had assumed that this just meant some terrible ceremony and sacrifice. Now I was before the goddess herself and the enormity of what was offered was hitting me. I had been given to this goddess as a sacrifice… this actual goddess who stood before my prostrate form, and could do to me whatever she willed. I understood that she could take my life… but a thought occurred to me. Mum had said I would not see her while I was alive, but if I died here now in front of the goddess, would she take me to my mother?

She is not your friend nor your enemy. The warning my mother had given to me. What did it mean? She is not evil but neither is she good.

Was the goddess waiting for me to answer? I nodded by way of reply.

"Before I decide what I will take from you, I have a question for you. What did you see in the grain of sand?"

The grain of sand? What bloody grain of sand, I thought to myself? Was this some kind of test?

"No, boy, this is not a test. You have already passed the test that no other could pass, but you are simply unaware of it. So tell me, in the desert, what did you see in the grain of sand?"

I remembered. I had thought about the world I would invent as I had contemplated the grain of sand. A world without slavery, where all the people loved each other, and where I could be with my family again, with football and beaches and ice creams and Arion. That was what I had seen in the grain of sand. I pictured it all again, more vividly than I had before, and I thought as I pictured it I heard the goddess sigh.

"Your life is forfeit to me, but I give you back your life, such as it is, slave boy," the goddess spoke quietly. "I give you your life, but I still take my due. There is a price to pay, and you will pay it. But not now. Now you will sleep."

And I did.

Chapter 26

I woke up back in the room in the temple where I had last seen Arawn and the high priestess. It was dark now, with just a flicker of orange light from lamps set in the walls. I seemed to be alone.

I groaned, tried to sit up, and felt a wave of queasiness. I supposed it was the after effects of whatever drug or poison the priestess had fed me with. I held my head in my hands and moaned. Had it all been a dream? Did any of that actually happen?

I blinked and peered into the gloom. There were no restraints on my legs anymore. Had those come off? But also, I had spoken in my dream. Could I? I wondered. I tried it, feeling self conscious.

"Hello."

Why couldn't I think to say anything more intelligent than 'hello'? But it served the purpose. I heard my voice, perhaps a bit gravelly, but definitely my voice. I could speak again.

But had it been a dream? I felt around me in the darkness and as my fingers ran over the stone of the floor, they settled on something cold, metal, familiar. The key was still here.

What now? I tried to get to my feet, but the movement hurt and I let out a whimper of pain. I don't know whether the whimper was what prompted it or whether they were coming anyway, but at that moment one of the doors opened and Arawn and the High Priestess strode in, two more priests close behind holding lamps.

"He lives!" The Priestess looked at me, eyes appraising with something I had not seen before. Was that perhaps respect?

"He has a key," Arawn said, and he strode the short distance between us and reached down, pulling the key from my grasp. I let it go, and watched as he lifted it to the light to examine it.

"How can something so powerful look so ordinary?" he asked. The High Priestess looked at the key and then back at me, and when she answered, her eyes were fixed on mine.

"So the prophecy is true. The key is found. The gateway of worlds will be opened and the goddess will walk free," she spoke in a hushed voice, but in the all but empty room, it carried well enough that all heard. I looked at the key in Arawn's hand, and the greedy look in his eyes, plain to see even with the poor light.

"What about me?" I asked, my voice rasping from lack of use, but still my words brought a look of surprise in Arawn's face, and the Priestess continued to regard me with a thoughtful expression.

"You have regained your voice. Tell me, boy, what else did the goddess say to you."

I looked at the High Priestess, not wanting to share what I had seen and heard, and yet the goddess had said so little to me, what did it matter if I shared that? What my mother had said, I would never tell them though. When the Priestess started to look impatient, I made the decision and told her.

"She said my life was forfeit, but she gave it back to me. She said I would pay a price later."

"And that is all?"

"Yes," I lied. I did not care to tell them anything more.

"Every other sacrifice to the goddess has either simply died or else been changed. We come back to this place and find them raving like idiots, or screaming for mercy, as though they are forever in great pain, or else blinded, deaf and mute, or castrated.

"Never before has someone returned from the goddess with more than when he was offered. The goddess returned you your voice, gave you a key, but took nothing, or nothing yet. The price she will demand of you – that is interesting indeed."

I shuddered as I heard what had happened to those who had gone before me, but I still wondered what happened now. I had returned from the goddess with the key they wanted – and yet wasn't that just the key some unknown person had given me in the night? All the same, I had done what they wanted and survived. What would happen to me now? still branded, still circumcised and still, I felt my ear just to check, with the stud welded to my flesh to mark me out as a slave.

The Priestess saw me touch my ear, and frowned.

"Yes, you live, but you are no longer useful. You have served your purpose, and we cannot let you out of this temple. Maybe that is what the goddess meant about the price you must pay. Maybe it is for us to dispose of you now."

I frowned, not liking the tone of her voice.

"Take care," Arawn spoke quietly. "We have the key, but I wonder. I have always sensed the boy's part to play extends beyond this moment. He opened the gateway once before, and he had no key to do so. I do not understand how he did it, and neither does he, but if we discard him we may come to regret it."

The High Priestess' eyes bore into mine. There was something else in her expression I could not read. Some kind of uncertainty. I shivered as the two discussed my future, but my mind raced when Arawn said I had opened the gateway once before.

I had opened no gateways since I had come to this place, and I was not stupid. I could hear what they were saying about the gateway of worlds, and also I knew what they did not know. I knew what I had seen that seemed to satisfy the goddess and pass her test. I knew what my mother had said to me, and things were falling in to place for me. This all sounded like a load of mystical nonsense, but the brutal realities of this place anchored the mystical nonsense in reality, and I realised what Arawn was saying.

I had opened the gateway. I was the one who had brought Tom and myself to this place.

Tom, myself and one other, I reminded myself. My mother had said there was one other. Who could that be?

Did I create the ball of light? was that really me? or was Arawn simply wrong? It was what he believed though, and my heart quickened in my chest to realise what he believed of me.

"Very well," the High Priestess said, after a pause to consider. "We will not kill the boy yet, but he may never leave the temple, and if he is to serve, he will do so as a eunuch."

The word they used for eunuch was a new one to me, so I did not understand it at that moment, but I understood the tone, and I saw Arawn's face cloud for a moment. His answer explained the term for me, which did not help my fear.

"If we cut his balls off, we may yet damage his usefulness. I have often wondered whether the changes of a boy becoming a man are what triggered his ability."

"No slave in the temple is allowed to keep his testicles. You know that, Lord Arawn. What would you have me do? set him free and make him an acolyte instead?"

"No, we cannot make him an acolyte. The goddess could have set him free, but he still bears her mark in his ear, so she has chosen to keep him a slave. That is her will, so a slave he must remain."

"In which case his testicles are forfeit. Only eunuchs serve in the temple, and if the goddess did not take them, then surely this is what she meant about the price he must pay later. It is the will of the goddess that he be made a eunuch."

Arawn through up his arms in a gesture of surrender.

"Maybe you are right. Maybe it does not matter. I have been working with my son on a way to channel his power in any case. It may be better that he has no adolescence – we suspect it makes him more… malleable."

"It is decided then," the High priestess turned to the priests behind her and spoke to them. "Take him to the hospice and have him gelded at once. Take care to do it safely. He must not die from the operation."

The priests nodded and then took me by my arms, and as I tried to struggle free I began to shout and swear.

"No bloody way! Get your hands off me. You can't do this. Don't do this. Please."

"And if he does not stop talking," the High Priestess said ominously, her voice loud enough to carry over my shouts of outrage. "Then you will administer his third and permanent dose of the red scorpion poison to ensure he never speaks out of turn again."

Tears ran down my face as I was dragged, quieter now but still resisting, from the room to the hospice where they were going to cut my balls off!

This could not be happening. Of all the things that had happened so far, please God not my balls. Please don't let them take that from me. Not after what I had experienced with Arion.

Please!

I struggled as I was dragged down the corridor, tears pouring from my eyes. I did not dare open my mouth again for fear of the red scorpion poison, but I pulled and writhed and attempted to slip the gorilla grip of the priests who held me, but to no avail.

They took me into a small chamber through a heavy wooden door. The chamber had chains fastened to the wall, and as I kept struggling, they fastened first one arm and then the other into the manacles.

Now I was dangling on tip toes, hands pulled above my head, and they then proceeded to fasten one foot and then the other into a bar that spread my legs apart. Most of my weight was on my arms and almost immediately it started to hurt.

I wanted to beg, and even opened my mouth to do so, but it was as if one of the priests read my mind, and crossed the room to pick up a phial from a low table. Maybe it was the red scorpion poison, and maybe it wasn't but the look he gave me seemed to challenge me to speak. Somehow – I do not know how – I managed to stay silent.

The priest nodded and turned again to pick up something else. I looked at the implement and felt sick with terror. It was a small but clearly very sharp knife, and as he crossed back to me, the other priest took my penis – my small circumcised penis – and lifted it up, holding it against my body to reveal my balls.

Despite my terror, touching me there made my body react in the way it did when Arion touched me, and I could feel myself stiffening against his hand.

The priest with the knife knelt down, and stroked my scrotum.

"Say goodbye to your sex life, boy," he said, raising the knife until it touched my ball sac. I was frozen now with terror and the expectation of pain, and I closed my eyes.

I knew the cut was about to happen that would permanently unman me, but when it came, I felt a sharp stab, only to be followed by a clattering sound and then the priest falling against my legs.

I opened my eyes and looked down in horror. There was a small incision in my scrotum that was bleeding a little and hurting more than it should, but it was barely more than a graze. The knife was on the floor, and so was the priest, and sticking out of his back was a black feather dart.

Even as I saw that much, I saw the other priest, the one holding my penis, crumple and fall to the floor.

For a moment I just watched the two priests, as though they had just fallen asleep on the job, but seconds later someone entered the room, and my heart leaped.

"Arion?"

How could that be?

Arion tucked the blow gun he was holding into a rope belt of the loincloth he was wearing. Arion was wearing clothes? Carrying a weapon? How could he be here? And why was he soaking wet?

"No time for questions, Rhys," he said, and looked at the manacles. They were fastened with a screw rather than a key, and as quickly as he could he unfastened them. Despite his protestation, this took a minute or so and I used it to ask questions anyway.

"How did you get in? How did you get away? What will happen when they find you?"

Arion brushed the questions aside.

"Rhys, later we talk. Now you follow me and do exactly what I say. We need to be quiet."

I nodded, and as soon as I was free I followed him out of the room and down a corridor.

"They will investigate soon why they do not hear screaming," he told me, as we turned right down another corridor. Arion seemed to know where he was going, and quickly we found ourselves by a staircase, which he ran down, and I followed.

As we went down the stairs I could hear water.

"The river goes right underneath the temple," Arion told me. "This is so the people in the temple need never leave to gather water and they flush all their waste away down it."

I nodded as he scurried down another passage, the sound of water getting stronger, but where I expected to find the river flowing through some kind of tunnel, we came up short against what was more like a well, complete with a bucket and rope.

"We have to jump down there," Arion told me and I looked down the shaft. There was the river, some 15 metres below.

Now maybe 15 metres does not sound like much, but when you are confronted with the need to jump 15 metres into inky black water, going God only knows where, and all around you as you fall are rock walls, let me tell you that is a scary prospect.

"Can we climb down?" I asked, looking at the rope.

"There is no time. It took me a long time to climb up and people will be looking for you very soon."

I nodded.

"You first then," I whispered in a shaky voice. Arion shook his head.

"You must jump first. When you jump, dive down and swim with the flow of water. Do not try to come up until you see light. The water passes through a tunnel until it reaches an outflow.

"When you see light, then you come up and breathe quickly. There is a grill there, and you cannot climb out, so instead you climb onto the ledge where they send slaves to inspect the grill. Someone will be there to help then."

I nodded and made to jump, but I could not bring myself to do it.

"I can't do it," I said, my voice cracking with panic.

That was when Arion pushed me, and I fell to the water below letting out an astonished cry.

Chapter 28

I swallowed water, floundered, gasped for breath in the blackness. The water was shockingly cold, and I could feel the current tugging at me. I knew what I had to do. There was Arion above, I could make him out peering into the hole, and I knew he could not jump until I was out of the way, or else he might land on me and hurt me.

I sucked in a lungful of air and dived down into the water, kicking my feet as I let the current take me. Almost at once I collided with a stone wall and almost panicked – maybe I would not find the way – but then the current tore me past it and I felt myself being carried along. I could see nothing, and as I tried to surface, my head hit the ceiling of the flooded shaft the river was running through. I kicked on, already feeling desperate to breathe.

I swam on, and my lungs were burning, but then I saw the blackness turn purple blue, and all at once there was light. I broke the surface of the water, gasping with relief, sucking in lungfuls of air, as my body pressed up against a grill, just as Arion had said. I saw a stone ledge by the grill, and pulled myself towards it with my hands, putting one hand and then the other on the stone ledge and heaving myself out.

Someone stepped out of the shadows beyond the ledge, uncovering a hooded lantern and I nearly jumped right back into the water.

Tom!

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I asked, my sudden fear giving full vent to my pent up anger at him, so that I quite forgot that my circumstances were meant to be more humble than his.

"Helping you escape, you wombat," he replied, but my face must have betrayed my incredulity, so he went on. "I was the one who got your boyfriend here and helped him in. I would have come myself but I knew you would never trust me enough to escape."

"Too fucking right I don't trust you enough," I shouted. "Tom, you have done nothing for me since I got to this place. You let me be enslaved, and you left me to be branded and fucked and taken to this bloody temple, and you… it was you who gave me that poison that took my voice away… you fucked me Tom. Oh God, you fucked me like… like…"

My voice cracked and I looked away. Tom was looking at me quietly now, and only when I had stopped talking did he try to answer.

"Yes, I fucked you. I am sorry, I had to do that. You are a slave of the goddess, and it was not me that let that happen Tom. You have met the goddess now, so you know it. You understand now."

I shook my head. I didn't understand anything. Those visions or whatever they were with the goddess could be anything. I could not deny there was some kind of magic to this place, but even if there was a real goddess and that was her, then she had hardly made things clearer for me. I had brought back their stupid key – but that was just some key that someone had given me. I had passed some test I still did not understand, and the goddess had said I would pay some price, but if that was my balls, Arion had stopped that just in time – which meant the goddess was not in control – so what actually made her a goddess?

"What did the goddess say to you?" Tom asked. I looked at him and narrowed my eyes.

"Why do you ask? Are you going to make me spill all and then feed me more of that poison to take my voice right away?"

Tom shook his head.

"Not here, no. You have to know I had to do what I did. Arawn would have expected it of me, and anyway you blasphemed the goddess, and you have met her now, so you know that will not go unpunished."

I almost blasphemed the goddess again. I almost shouted out that he could go fuck her, but some sense of unease held me back. What if he was right? If the goddess had said my life was forfeit and she would exact her price, was that because of what I had said? or was it just because she was vengeful? I did not know, but another question struck me.

"How do you know I saw the goddess?"

This rescue must have been mounted long before I had even returned from wherever I had been. I had no idea how long I had been in the temple, but in that time Tom had found Arion – how had he known I would trust him? He had helped Arion escape, convinced him to break into the temple, and got himself in position to wait for me. How had he known where to find me even?

"Did you see her?" Tom countered.

"I asked first. How did you know?"

"Because it was always prophesied that you would."

I growled. Prophecy. What was that? Mum had said the future was unwritten, so how could there be a prophecy if she was right?

"If there was a prophecy, why didn't the high priestess know I was the one?"

"Because," said Tom, scanning the water as a shape emerged near the grill. "Because the high priestess did not know you as well as I do. Quick, help me with your boyfriend."

I reached down a hand and Arion took it gratefully and I dragged him onto the ledge. As he gasped for breath like a beached fish, I squatted down, looking at the water.

"Tom, why did you get…" I stopped. I had been about to use Arion's name but I realised Tom had not used it, and probably did not know it. He had not called me by my name either. Names were still forbidden and I was not trusting Tom with Arion's. "Why did you get … him into this?"

Tom looked at Arion and then back at me.

"I told you, you would not trust me."

"So you just went to his master and asked to borrow him to break me out of a temple?"

"Of course not," Tom could not hide his sneer and my blood went cold. "I took Arion to one side and asked him what he would give to save you. I asked him what lengths he would go to get the boy he loved out of the temple. You know what he said?"

I nodded, but my emotions were a tangle of happiness and fear. I knew that Arion would give anything. He had offered himself in my place, and he still would. He did not need to say it because after all, he was here, exhausted but looking uncertainly between us both. He had come for me, and saved me from an unthinkable future.

I knew what lengths Arion would go to, but did Tom care? What risks had he made Arion take on my behalf? I turned to Arion.

"What will they do to you if they find you?"

Arion shrugged and drew a finger across his throat, and it was Tom who filled in the detail.

"If he is lucky they will make it quick. More likely they will torture him and kill him slowly as an escaped slave, as well as for his entering the temple, which is forbidden to him."

"And you let him risk that for me?"

Tom turned and started moving along a ledge, beckoning for us to follow, quickly and quietly. Arion started to move, and I did so too. We were still inside the temple somewhere, we had not escaped yet, and my heart was beating hard with terror at the situation.

As we walked, Tom answered my question.

"Who else was there Tom? Who else would you have followed?"

Chapter 29

"You can't trust him," I whispered to Arion as we followed him down a winding path deep under the temple. I could not help but feel the quickest and best way out was to somehow get past the grill itself. Where was Tom taking us? why such a convoluted way out? and what were these tunnels anyway?

"What choice do I have?" Arion whispered back. "My master will know I am gone, so now I am an escaped slave. The punishment will be more terrible if they knew I had been here."

I bit my lip angrily. Why had Tom got Arion into this? I had already learned that running away was a terrible crime, and every step I took, I could feel the brands on my feet as a constant reminder of that. They did not hurt much now, it was more that the scar itself had no feeling, and unused to walking as I was, the feel of that felt strange.

They had told me any repeat would be punished more harshly, so I supposed I was under the same sentence as Arion. The only difference was that they had been about to castrate me, and so the risk of punishment had to be offset by the reprieve from that fate.

Arion had chosen this though, and he had chosen for me. Somehow that made me feel responsible for him, and I was terrified that we would be caught and would both be worse off than when we started.

I pulled at his loincloth and Arion turned to look at me with a wry smile.

"You look good with clothes on."

"I needed something to keep the blowgun and darts in," he whispered back.

"How did you know where to find me?"

"Master Tom told me," I cringed as he used the deferential form for Tom. In the language of the Efrii that we were speaking, he did not actually use the word for master, but used a suffix to the name that had the meaning of someone in authority, worthy of respect. That was not how I felt about Tom.

"How did he…?" I started the question and then thought, well screw that, I would just ask my rapist cousin himself.

"Tom, how did you know where to find me?" I asked, pointedly not using the respectful form of his name.

Tom did not answer so I grabbed his shoulder. He wheeled on me angrily and I thought he was about to hit me, but then his expression softened, as he took control of himself.

"How did you know when and where to find me? How did you know to send… my friend… with two darts? How did you know?"

"Not now. We need to hurry," Tom hissed.

"Why not now? How do I know you are not leading us into some giant trap? how do I know you are not just trying to get us both killed?" I put my hands on my hips and glared at him.

"If I wanted to kill you, I could have just done it. I don't want you dead."

"How did you know, Tom? How did you know?"

Tom sighed, and then spoke quickly and quietly.

"There is a prophecy about you. I knew it was about you because of where we came from. In the prophecy the one who brings back the key from the goddess is also the one who travelled across the gateway of worlds. No one here understood that except me and Arawn. Their priests interpreted it in a spiritual way, and so they thought that the one to bring back the key was simply someone they sent through the gateway to the goddess. They were wrong though, because it meant someone who had literally come from another world. Our world.

"For a long time I thought the prophecy meant me. I told you how Arawn found me, and said I was the one the goddess had said would save her people. I told you how we worked to defeat the invaders. I thought we were doing the will of the goddess, but I came to realise it did not mean me after all. I was not going to bring back the key.

"I met the goddess too you know? just once and not like you did. You were sent to her as an offering, but I was being initiated into the priesthood. All initiates wait on the goddess in a tiny little cold cell not far from where we are now. That is how I know my way around down here. I waited for the goddess and fasted and drank only water for two days, and on the third day of waiting I saw her, standing there in front of me. She spoke to me for just a moment, and you know what she said?"

I looked at him, and then shrugged.

"She said 'you are not the bearer of the key. The bearer will be one I have taken as my own,' and with that she was gone. Three days of waiting and fasting and praying and I finally see the goddess and all she could tell me was that I was not the key bearer at all."

When I opened my mouth to interrupt, he raised a hand with a warning look.

"You want to know how I knew where to find you? I knew where you were taken. I knew that you were being sent to meet the goddess and I knew you would succeed, and bring back the key. That was all prophesied. The High Priestess is wrong on something though. She thinks she understands the goddess but she doesn't. Not really. She has interpreted the prophecy without having the benefit of having come from a whole other world. She and the others made assumptions about the key, and those are wrong. So I knew once the key came back, she would try to kill or harm you, because they do not allow whole slaves in the temple.

"I trusted Arawn would keep you alive. He understands what I understand. He would keep you alive but he could not save you. He must defer to the High Priestess in the temple. So we already knew where you were and what would happen, and we came up with the plan together, even before we left for the temple."

"So Arawn is in on this too?" I asked, trying to control my feelings of distrust and anger.

"He has to be."

"I don't trust you Tom."

"I know," he said simply.

"You raped me and hurt me and treated me like a slave."

"You are a slave. The goddess made you a slave," he said with a shrug and turned back to walk down the passage. "You have a choice now. Follow me, even though you don't trust me, or stay here and get caught. I would not advise that though, because losing your balls would have been vastly preferable to the slow and agonising death you will suffer if they do catch you. And your boyfriend too."

What choice did I have, but to follow?

Chapter 30

"If we are escaping the temple, why are you taking us deeper in? Why didn't we find a way past the grill and escape through the river?" I was getting extremely agitated now. How long since we had escaped down the well in the temple? A good plan of escape seemed to be going awry. Was Tom just going to take us back to the priests and hand us over? We were in some kind of underground catacomb. Some of the tunnels had clearly been chiselled out of bare rock, but others wound around and were irregular, the rock worn smooth. I remembered going to limestone caves once, and suspected that was what we were in. The tunnels were not lit and I had to stick close to Tom with his lantern to see the ground in front of my feet.

"You think no one thought about escaping through the river before? That is why the grill is there – to stop people escaping, and where the river does emerge it immediately drops over a waterfall that you would probably drown in. Even if you survived that, can you imagine what people would do to a branded slave emerging from the river? Getting out of the temple is only half the problem. You have to find away to get away from the Efrii."

"So what is the grand plan then?" I asked, well aware that the bitterness I felt made my tone ascerbic.

Tom did not answer for a minute, and I almost stamped with irritation, but then he came to a wooden door, and pushed it open. The door had dropped on its hinges and made a scraping noise. As we entered the darkness beyond, I could not see where we were but something about the sound of the room told me that it was an open space. There was no echo of breathing, and perhaps the faintest hint of moving air on my cheek.

"What we do now, is we use the key."

"Sorry to disappoint you, but Arawn has the key," that was a miscalculation on Tom's part if he thought they had let me keep it. Where exactly was I going to hide it on my naked body?

"Like I said, Tom, prophecy is a tricky thing. That key you brought back? That was just a key to the temple door. I had to make sure you could find it, so I taught a slave your name and sent him in the night to bring you that key."

"You sent him?" I asked, ignoring the bigger question for now. "He told me you were a liar, and not to trust you."

Tom shrugged. In the dark I could hardly see the movement but it made the lantern move.

"You can't trust me. You said so yourself."

"And are you lying to me now?"

Tom laughed then.

"Oh if only you had been more into books and knowledge. You never heard of the liars paradox?"

I bit my lip. I suspected I knew what he meant but was not going to embarrass myself with my ignorance if I was wrong. I kept quiet.

"This is no lie, Tom. That key you gave Arawn is not the prophesied key."

"Does Arawn know that?" I asked

"I do," came a voice from the blackness, making me start. Arawn's voice. "Although for the sake of satisfying the high priestess I pretended I did not. Even now she is taking that key to her council of scholars to try to unlock its secrets."

"So then who has the key?"

Arawn laughed and I heard Tom's irritating snigger too. I fumed quietly. Why didn't they just tell me?

"Oh puppy boy, how can the goddess choose someone so… so dense," Tom sneered. I stood there in a silent rage. It had not escaped my notice that he still would not use my name, and now he was calling me puppy boy again, I felt all the anger at the weeks and months of pain and humiliation wash through me again.

As I looked at him silently, laughing as I was filled with fury I was vaguely aware that the light in the room was growing, like the first cold fingers of dawn touching the night. I could make out Arawn's shape, almost black against deep black. I could see Arion standing close to me, his head bowed a little, quiet and listening to all our discussion that he clearly did not understand. I saw Tom laughing at me like he laughed at me when he fucked me.

Where was the light coming from? It was like it was beginning to permeate the chamber, but I could see no glow of a light source.

"If I am so fucking dense, just fucking well tell me where the damned key is."

Tom laughed again before answering.

"You! You are the key, you stupid idiot," And as he spoke the chamber lit brighter, and there was Arion, and now he was looking at me, his face aghast in terror, and he was dropping to his knees in front of me as Arawn and Tom laughed.

Chapter 31

The chamber was bright enough now that I could see its size. It was as big as the one I had first been taken to in the temple – as big as a cathedral but round rather than rectangular. Although the far wall was still shadowed, I could see where it was now. There was no furnishing and just a stone flagged floor, but in the centre of the chamber was a large stone dias, shaped a lot like a church altar. Arawn was standing near the dias, near the centre of the room.

I looked at Arion and my heart wrenched to see him kneeling, head down, trembling with fear. He was brave enough to risk his life to fetch me from the heart of the temple, and now he was showing fear? Why?

And where was the light coming from? I did not understand why I could see so well, when there was no light source. I looked at Arion, and saw no shadow. I looked at the dias, but again no shadows to trace back to the light. How could there be light with no shadows?

And then I realised.

I had thought the shadows deeper in the chamber were cloying things like cobwebs making it harder to see further way, but they were not. The light really was weaker further away. I drew my hand to my face, and sure enough, the closer it was, the brighter it was.

The light was coming from me!

I felt a moment of panic and looked up at Tom, aghast. Tom was nodding slowly, and his lips were moving. Arawn to seemed to be talking under his breath.

"What are you doing to me?" I whispered.

"You want to escape still? You want to leave this place?" Arawn asked me. I turned to him, and Tom's mouth was still moving.

"I don't want to go anywhere with you!" I said, my voice raised more than I intended because of the uncertainty and fear I felt.

"Of course not, but what choice do you have, boy? You can wait here, but it will not be long before the priests and temple guard find you. You can expect to lose your balls then. You and your friend both. You won't much care though after they start to extract your other vital organs, one by one, leaving them to dry in the sun. The last one they will take is your heart, but they won't hurry. They will make it as slow and painful a death as anyone can imagine.

"You can choose death over escape if you wish, but they will not kill you first. They will kill your friend before they kill you. They will make you watch his agonised screams, knowing you had it in your power to save him.

"If you choose to save him though, then you must escape, and you will do it now. There is no choice, no option. It is possible to break in to the temple, but no one can leave that the goddess does not permit to leave. Not through those exits that is."

"Then how?" I asked, in spite of myself. "How do I leave?"

"You are the key. You simply open up the door."

"What door?"

Arawn smiled and pointed to the altar. Reluctantly I walked over to it. It looked like a slab of polished stone, not a door.

"And how do I open it?" I asked, looking at the rock in confusion.

"You don't have to do anything," Arawn replied, icily. "My adopted son, your cousin, and I know how to do so. All we need is your power, and that is not something you have learned to control yet."

Tom had moved closer and he was still chanting and I felt as if icy fingers were reaching in to my soul. What was he chanting?

I remembered the day he had become angry with me when I had tried to run. I remembered how the door had slammed shut. I had convinced myself it was chance and the wind, but now I recognised that same icy feeling – the one that had immobilised me with a word.

The light in the room was flickering and it was as though tongues of flame were leaving my body and running to the altar. I could see something like a fiery halo building itself, flame by flame above the black polished rock. I heard a moaning and saw Arion, head in his hands, kneeling down and rocking back and forth in terror.

"Stop!" I said. "Stop right now. I don't want to go. I am not going with you!"

The flames were flowing faster and I felt as though my insides were being ripped out. I dropped to my knees.

"You have not harnessed your power boy, but it is enhanced by strong emotions. Even before you went to the goddess, from the first moment I set eyes on you, I could feel the power in you, and I knew you were the one. When you became angry with Tom, that was when your power grew strong enough that he could use it. When he raped you, he captured a tiny bit of your soul, a spark of anger that runs so deep you may never be able to extinguish it, and that is why you cannot stop him now. Nothing can stop him.

"You have been so angry so many times, and each moment, and for every humiliation, Tom's reach inside you has deepened, and you never knew it. You never suspected for a moment that what we needed from you was the very fury you felt?"

"Stop. Stop now!" I shouted, desperate, furious, and yet weak and powerless to stop whatever was happening.

"That is right! Be angry. We need your anger," Arawn said, encouraging me.

They needed my anger. If I could not be angry, would that stop them? I closed my eyes. Think calm thoughts. Don't be angry. Be calm, I told myself. Think of quiet moments with Arion.

Trying to calm yourself down as it feels like someone is raping your soul is not something I could say I had ever tried before. It was not easy, but I thought about Arion, and his lips touching mine, and his gentle hands holding me after I had been brutally raped in the marketplace. I remembered laughter and happiness together, and somehow something I did worked, because the flow of flames from my body seemed to peter out. It was working, and that realisation gave me hope. The hope made me elated, and the light in the room dimmed – the halo of flame too. Tom faltered in his chanting.

"That was foolish, boy. Very foolish," Arawn said. I did something I had not done for a very long time. I stuck my tongue out at him, and grinned.

"We need your anger," Arawn said coldly.

"Suddenly I am not feeling so cross," I retorted, laughing at him. He could not make me do this after all. He was not in control, whatever he said.

"Then this is on your head," Arawn said, and he stalked across the room to where Arion was still kneeling. Before I could say anything more, he had reached down, grabbed the boy by the hair and sunk a knife in his throat.

Arion's eyes went wide in shock and he opened his mouth as if to speak but only foaming blood came out. He reached up, clutching his throat, tearing the knife free in a shower of blood, and then slowly slumped to the floor.

"No!" I shouted, my voice breaking with despair and fury. "No! No! No!"

And the whole room exploded with light.

Chapter 32

I knelt on the floor, cradling Arion's head, sobbing and rocking back and forth. The room around me shone, but the shadows were plain now, as all the light came from the altar. Moments before, when the room filled with light, Tom had done something that drew all the light from me, like sucking water through a straw, and depositing it into a swirling glowing ball that now hung above the altar.

After that Arawn had turned to me, and bowed his head as if in thanks, before turning and taking Tom by the hand, the two of them had simply walked into the sphere of light and vanished. I had watched in shock, unable to believe what I was looking at. The ball of light was horribly familiar. This is what I had seen that day in the park in September. This was the same ball of light that had brought me to this place. Would it take me home? was that what this was all about? had Tom done all this just to get home?

I did not follow him through though. Left alone, I ran to Arion, knelt down and sobbed as I held him. He was already dead before I got there, his lips tinged blue, his body covered in spilled blood from his cut throat. I held my friend and lover, the only boy I cared about in all the world, and I started to cry bitter tears of grief and despair.

They had killed him. What had he ever done to them? and yet they had killed him just to make me angry.

I cursed myself too. If I had not tried to quell my anger, would Arion still live? and yet a small voice inside me told me the answer to that was no. They had always intended to release my fury in this way. That was why they brought Arion at all. It was nothing to do with my mistrust of Tom. They knew that they needed the one boy I cared about, and so they had used him, and taken him from me.

I stroked Arion's hair, and then I buried my face in it, sobbing pitifully.

I was vaguely aware of people coming into the room. There were hushed whispers, people moving, but I no longer cared. Without Arion there was no point going on. Tom had won. He had used me, and he had gone home, and now I was here all alone. Let them kill me, because I did not care any more.

I looked up at last, my face defiant and angry again, ready to tell them to do their worst, and do it quickly. The face I looked up into, though, was not one of the temple priests. Instead there was a slave looking at me, and three others hanging back.

The slaves were naked, as all slaves were, their only clothing the gold ring in their ears. My eyes flicked to the nearest man's penis, and I felt sick when I saw no balls hanging beneath it, the limp appendage hanging down too much, pointing towards the floor. He was a eunuch, although he had pubic hair and a penis that was as large as Arion's when flaccid. A temple slave then, and looking at the others at the edge of the room I saw they too were eunuchs. One of them had no pubic hair, and I supposed he had been cut when younger although he was as tall as the others.

"Rees!" A man's voice from the eunuch in front of me. I had expected a squeaky eunuch voice. Didn't all eunuchs have a high voice? and yet this man spoke with a deep voice that I recognised when he tried to say my name. The voice in the dark. The man who had given me the key.

"Fuck you!" I told him. "Tom told me he sent you. You betrayed me."

The man shook his head, came closer, and crouched down so that our heads were on the same level.

"Your cousin is a liar, Rees. I warned you of this. He did not send me." His voice was firm but quiet, kindly.

"Then how did you know my name? Tom said he taught you."

The eunuch nodded. "He did," he said.

"And he gave you the key to the temple door to give me."

Another nod.

"So he sent you. You are the liar."

"Did Tom say to you that he sent me?" the eunuch asked. I frowned, trying to remember the conversation. Yes. He said that. Or did he? I remembered my words. You sent him. That was what I had said, but did Tom agree? What difference did it make anyway? I shrugged and the man sighed.

"You have to understand Rees, that for that time Tom was simply the agent of the goddess. You had to have the key, and Tom was the one the goddess used to deliver it to you. Tom and then me."

I tried to take that in, but all I could feel was anger. The goddess. The fucking goddess. What did I care about the goddess? I remembered her words to me: "Your life is forfeit to me, but I give you back your life, such as it is, slave boy. I give you your life, but I still take my due. There is a price to pay, and you will pay it."

I looked at Arion, tears running down my face as I saw the life the goddess had taken in lieu of my own. It was not a fair exchange. Arion could not have known what he was getting himself into. Arion did not deserve this, and I hated the goddess for taking his life. I hated her, and all the sick and twisted people who followed her. I hated Tom and Arawn who had killed my friend, but I hated this eunuch too who had helped. It surely would have been better to never have the temple key, and he should have warned me about Tom.

He did warn me, I realised. He did exactly that, but still he had been working with the full knowledge of Tom. Why the subterfuge? why not just hand me the bloody key when they took me into the bloody temple? I asked that question angrily now.

"The High Priestess would never have allowed that, and in any case, only the True Key would have been able to retrieve that key from where it was left. It was a test, after all.

"Rees, you do not know how special you are. You have the power to pass between worlds. You have been doing it without even thinking, without even realising. The power has been growing in you, and only you could have placed that key in the location you needed to retrieve it from. You did not need to have the key, you merely needed to have touched it once."

The man was still speaking gently, but his voice had a hint of awe. I looked into his eyes, and wondered how old he was. I guessed still in his thirties but maybe a little older. Hadn't all the Caypu men been wiped out in the war? How was it that he was still alive then? I did not ask that question though. I did not want to talk to him. All I wanted was Arion back.

"Every evil your cousin inflicted on you, he did with a purpose. All those people who raped you at night? They were allowed to do that for one reason only. The same reason you were stabled in a public place, and given no privacy, and watched all the time. Your cousin knew that you had no control of your gift, but also that it was very much there. He wanted you to use your power, and he wanted you to do it without realising.

"Rees you have the power to walk between worlds. You were the one who brought your cousin and yourself and Arawn to this place…"

I thought I was too angry to speak, but that revelation jolted me into doing so.

"Arawn?" I asked.

"You did not realise?"

I shook my head. But then… There was another. My mother had said it to me. She had said there was another… I thought back to that day in the park.

"The man sitting on the bench?" or… who else? "The toddler by the pond with is parent?"

The eunuch looked at me and nodded sadly. "Forty years ago Arawn arrived here. Not among the Efrii. He was taken in by our people, the ones we are not supposed to name ever again. We lived in peace back then, across the Quiet Sea. He remembers nothing of your world, but he was always curious about where he had come from, and as he grew, our mage tried to teach him all he knew. That was how he heard of the prophecy of the temple in the land across the Quiet Sea. He learned of the three who would come from the land beyond all land, and of the key that would open the door to all worlds. He learned that those who wield the key would be the master of all worlds.

"As Arawn grew, and it became evident that the mages saw him as powerful beyond all they knew, his influence among our people grew too. Shortly after he arrived many of our people died of sickness, but miraculously he did not become sick. What was more, as he grew older and became old enough to start his studies, the sickness never returned. Many believed it was he who defeated the sickness."

I shook my head. That sounded wrong, but I was in no mood to argue the point. In any case the eunuch had not finished.

"As Arawn grew in power he learned all the spells of our mages and it was as though he was able to draw on a greater power to perform them. And then one day he simply vanished. He went out to the mountains and did not return. People searched for him, and then rumours began to circulate from across the Quiet Sea of a mage who had been taken to the land of the Efrii.

"We believed then he had been taken by force, and that is why we invaded. We wanted our most powerful mage back. Maybe there was some greed for the riches of the Efrii too, but it was Arawn's capture that united us and drove us on, stirred up by the teachings of a foolish and greedy king. Little did we know that Arawn had simply chosen to go with the Efrii. There was no capture, he simply had learned all he needed from us and now was insinuating himself into the Efrii, and our invasion was the perfect pretext for him. He helped us, you know? He sent people who told us where to attack and how, so that our invasion was swift and merciless, but then as we drew close to the capital, all that changed.

"Your cousin may have told you how he defeated our people, but there was always more to it than that. The people Arawn sent turned on us. Our water was poisoned, and our plans revealed, and when we saw Arawn stand against us at the last battle, it was that as much as anything else that led to our despair and defeat.

"So you see Arawn has a long history of harming our people, and Arion was just the last of many he killed."

I took all this in, a lump in my throat as I still cradled Arion's body. How did this man know Arion's name I wondered. Still the question was there that I had been wondering since seeing these men so now I asked it.

"If all the men were killed after that defeat, how is it that you are here?"

The man smiled wryly, shaking his head. "No man was left alive of our people, but a few of us were taken to this place and made to be not men. In that way they still speak the truth I suppose. We were the mages of our people. It was to us that the prophecy was given, not the high priestess of this temple. Arawn still needed us so he made sure we were here but neutered of our power."

"You mean castrated?"

"Castrated, yes. More than that. Rees you came to your power because your body is approaching puberty. That is why you formed the first gate that brought you here. Strong emotion and a body taking its first step to adulthood. It is a curious thing we do not fully understand but a man's aggression and passion is needed to stir the power within.

"Arawn knew that castrating us would limit our own powers, which were always so much less than anything you possess. The little magic we had was lost when we lost our balls, and our manhood. We can still get angry of course, but for some reason we do not understand, eunuchs may know about magic but have almost no ability to practice it."

"Arawn was going to let me be castrated though," I replied.

"No, he would never let that happen. He just did not want the High Priestess know what he knew. He knew you were the key, because we had told him this. He would not let you be castrated knowing that. Had he objected too strongly, though, the High Priestess would have suspected that you were a mage at the very least."

"So you betrayed me to him?" I glowered at the man, stroking Arion's hair. I did not add what I was thinking – that they had betrayed Arion too. Arion was dead because they had told Arawn that I was the key, and everything he needed to know to bring me to this place and force me to open the gate. The enunuch looked at me sadly, not answering.

No one said anything for some time then as I sobbed, rocking Arion's body clutching him to me.

"It is true," the man said at last, "But it was Arawn that murdered him, not us. It is also true that Arion gave himself for you.

"Arion knew that he would never leave this temple. Even when Tom came to him and offered him the chance to save you, he knew that would mean he would die."

"He didn't have to die!" I sobbed, hugging my friend.

"Rees, there is no way to leave the temple alive if you are a slave. Some slaves live in here, but we too know that we can never leave the temple and be allowed to live. Arion knew this too, but he believed in you. There is no place in this world you can go. Look at you, branded on your hands and feet, and the goddesses mark in your ear. How long could you live if you escaped this temple? There is no going back. Only forward."

I looked up sharply. Those were the words my mother had used when I had seen her. There is no going back. I could not go home, she had told me. There is no going back, only forwards. I looked at the sphere of light hanging in the air.

"What about that then? Didn't Tom go back home? isn't that what he wanted all along?"

The man shook his head.

"Tom did not go back home either. Your home is far away. When the first gate closed, our world and yours that had been joined but for a fraction of a moment, or for many years, were eternally separated. In the infinity of worlds, there can be no going back the way you came."

I took all this in, hugging Arion to me. The eunuch knelt down beside me, put an arm on my shoulder, and waited. I still had so many questions to ask, but I did not much want to ask any of them. Instead I sat there, crying quietly.

"Rees there is not much time. Soon we will be discovered here, and if the High Priestess finds you here she will have us all tortured and killed."

"I don't care." I said the words, but they were a lie. Some part of me did care. Some part of me wanted to escape, but not without Arion.

"He gave his life so that you would live, Rees."

My face clouded with anger.

"So what? Where do I go?"

"You must escape through the gate."

"What? the way my fucking cousin and that murderer went? No way," I growled, and then a thought struck me. "What if I change the gate? can I send it somewhere else?"

The eunuch shook his head. "Your cousin has leashed you to his will. Every action he took against you was calculated. Calculated to make you angry, calculated to ensure that you only had one friend in all the world, but also calculated to make you subservient to his will so that he could chain your will to his. The gate you see is made by you – it is your power that sustains it – but you do not control it, not anymore. As long as Tom lives, he controls your power now. He dictates where the gate leads."

"Then where did he take it?"

"We do not know. What we do know is that there are worlds beyond number – so many so that your cousin needed only imagine the world he wished to be taken to, and that world, or one so like it as to make no difference, would be his destination. Your cousin seeks to rule whole worlds, so wherever he has gone will be the place he has chosen for his capitol. That will be the place that was waiting for its new emperor to don his laurel crown."

"Then let him! At least he has gone from here."

"No, he has not gone from here. The gate was created here. This will always be his hub, so he will return here to take this place too, to hold the gate. As long as this gate exists he has the power to rework it now. He can come back here with an army and rule this place, and then from here he will launch an invasion of a thousand worlds – any place he imagines will bend to his will. Tom will be the greatest despot not just in our history, but in all histories."

"Then what am I supposed to do? I cannot fight him? look at me! I don't even own clothes! He has won already, so I might as well just give up. What if the High Priestess kills me? won't the gate die then?"

"No Rees, no it won't. If you die, your power will no longer be just leashed to Tom, but stolen by him. This is perhaps why he left you behind. He does not care if you die, because if you do, your power will be his."

I looked at the floor. I had not wanted any of this. Why had Tom turned into such a fucking git anyway?

The eunuch touched Arion's face.

"He gave his life for you, Rees. He did it because of the part of the prophecy we never told Arawn."

I looked up, my vision blurred from my tears. The look on my face must have shown my curiosity, even if I said nothing.

"There was one part of the prophecy that we never told Arawn because it was always meant only for the Key. You see, the Efrii never understood the nature of the goddess' seal on our people. Long ago they discovered that the goddess sealed us. They did not invent these." The man touched his ear. "The Efrii learned about the seal from us, and simply extended it. We always took the seal if we were devoted to the service of the goddess. The Efrii simply forced the seal on all our children, and took it to mean we were her slaves, and in a way perhaps we always were. We are her slaves but they were mistaken to think that made us their slaves too. Their conceit was to think that they were the people of the goddess, but Rees, that was never true.

"We are the unnameable, but in our language we are called Rapu Nor. We are the children of the goddess. We are forbidden from ever uttering that name, but that is who we are and always have been. Long have we been caged and subjugated, but that is at an end now.

"The prophecy speaks of three from the land beyond land, but only one would the goddess take as her own. Only one would become Rapu Nor. That one is you, and it falls to you to set free the children of the goddess."

I shook my head. "Why should I? How can I?"

"You must because it was for that reason Arion gave his life for yours. It was for that reason this moment has come."

"Arion didn't know."

"He did know, Rees. The goddess' hand was at work from the moment you set foot in this world. Arion was not just any slave boy. Arion was himself the son of a mage of the Rapu Nor." The eunuch was stroking Arion's hair, and as I watched, a tear fell from his face, and landed with a tiny splash on the boy's cheek. "Arion knew the prophecy. He would have suspected who you were from the moment he saw you. From the moment you were taken to the temple he would have known it for sure. When he came here to help you, he knoew the part he had to play in that prophecy. The prophecy always told of the one who the Key loved who would give his life to create the gate that would free our people."

I looked at Arion, and then I looked at the eunuch, his face miserable with grief. I had not seen it before, but now I did. His eyes. The eunuch had Arion's eyes.

"I never told you his name, did I?"

The eunuch looked at me, sighed, shook his head and then leant forward to kiss his son good bye.

Chapter 33

I stood up, feeling numb with the shock. I had blood on me. Arion's blood. I looked around, and was aware now of sounds outside. The eunuchs had shut the door to this room and someone was pounding on it, demanding entry.

"We have no time left. The time to act is now," Arion's father said to me. I looked up at him and then at the door, feeling as though the world was restarting having stalled a short while before.

"I don't know what to do."

"Rees, the prophecy says you will free the Rapu Nor. It does not say how, but the power is in you. You can channel it."

"But how? How do I do that? Do I have to become angry again?"

"Not angry. That was Tom's trick to strip you of your power. He has bound that to himself, so anger will simply feed his mastery of you now. Anger is not the answer. Remember that! Tom can always use your anger against you. To defeat him you have to find something deeper, something purer."

"Then what do I do now?" I asked, feeling angry now at my impotence.

"I can think of only one thing. You must pass through the gate."

"How will that help? All that will happen is that I will end up back in the hands of Tom and Arawn in the place they have chosen to be."

"Rees, you are the key. This gate is yours even if Tom has ensnared your will. You cannot change where it starts and where it ends, but there is one power that you still have that Tom has not suspected, because he thinks only of your power as an energy to be mastered. He never understood that it was a part of you. He never really cared about you.

"When you enter the gate, you will become one with it. It is yours after all, and as you hold infinity in the palm of your hand, so you will be able to manipulate it just a little. Tom has anchored this gate here and in some other place, but in the space between, there is wriggle room. I think if you enter this gate, I believe you have it within you to free the Rapu Nor. But only if you want to. It will be your choice, Rees. You can be angry with us, but that is Tom's trap, or you can forgive us… for Arion's sake, please forgive us."

"And then what? I enter the gate and…wriggle… and somehow free your people… but what then?"

"Take us with you."

"With you? to where Tom is?"

"You are the one the goddess has sent. We are the Rapu Nor. It is our destiny to stop your cousin. Take us with you, and you will have an army at your side when you arrive.

"This is what Tom never understood. This is the part of the prophecy he had no knowledge of. Arawn with Tom beside him will rule for a time – that future is fixed, but a robin redbreast in a cage puts all heaven in a rage. The goddess has chosen you as the Key and us as your army to put this to an end."

"I don't want an army! I don't want to fight. I just want to go home. I don't want to serve the goddess, I don't even know why she doesn't just… you know… stop Tom herself. I never asked for any of this!"

A splintering crash came from the door as someone hit it with something heavy enough that the hinges had buckled and all but broken. Another hit like that and the door would fly open. The other eunuchs were looking on in terror now, but Arion's father only looked at me.

"You cannot go home. You can only go forward. Or you can stop here and Arion, my son, will have died for nothing."

I looked at the gate, shining above the altar. A shout came from the door. Another crash and the door collapsed.

Here goes nothing I thought.

I stood up, took one last look at Arion, and then with eyes wet with tears, my vision blurred, I leaped into the light.

Epilogue

All was light, all was peaceful. I was suspended in a moment, all eternity in an hour. And I was not alone.

The goddess. She stood before me and bowed her head.

"Well done Rhys," She said, and I felt a warmth inside that I had not expected. She leaned forward and touched my head and just for a moment I felt like I understood everything. I saw that she was goddess of this world but there was more, so much more. I saw that even a goddess had limits to her power. I understood her love of her people, and her own sorrow and anger. Most of all I understood that she had loved Arion, and it was in that moment of understanding that I knew what I had to do. For Arion's sake.

And then all around me other people were walking towards me, as if emerging from a bright mist. There was Arion's father and the other eunuchs, but also others. All the Caypu… all the Rapu Nor were arriving, looking around in wonder. They were dirty, tired, hungry looking. Some had fresh welts, and others looked wet like they had been in the water, or covered in mud or panting from exertion as though they had all been ripped from whatever they had been doing and set down in this place.

Some fell to their knees, others started to laugh. A few ran up to me as if to hug me, and then stopped short as though scared to do so. And then some of them started to sing.

How had I done this? Was it really me? I did not know, but one thing I did know – the Rapu Nor were here with me, and wherever we were when we emerged from this gate, we would be there together, the people of the goddess.

The goddess looked at me. Did she wink just before she vanished?

I did not know what the future would hold, but at least it would no longer be a future in which I walked alone.

I smiled as I stepped out of the far side of the gate, into a new and unknown world.

The End