Hiram's Secret

Hiram’s Secret Anastasia Rabiyah Published By Purple Sword Publications, LLC Romantic Speculative Fiction HIRAM’S SECRET Copyright © 2011 ANASTASIA RABIYAH ISBN 978-1-936165-83-4 Cover Art Designed By Anastasia Rabiyah Edited By Traci Markou and D. Thomas Jerlo This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.

Dedicated to Carol McKenzie and Claudia Regenos. Also special thanks to S.D. Grady. It was her idea on the gremlins, after all.

Chapter One Key in the Dark Hiram climbed into the back of Old Lysen’s mule cart, planning to make a new start for himself by leaving the village of Pig’s End behind. He plotted to ride along past the rift and through the forbidden portal. Lysen always went the same way, and Hiram watched the cart drive on through with no trouble at all every three months even though no one in his village dared to try. He shoveled himself beneath the pile of cured hides. Settled in, he pushed some aside so he could peek out at what he would soon abandon. As always, the clouded sky and mist from the nearby Gordian Forest combined to make a grim, hopeless scene. Worn mudhouses, crooked and in need of repair after the last rain, would not be missed by him. Failing pig fences awaited his father’s mending. A shadow of guilt crossed over his heart for abandoning him, but he set his hopes on the prospect of a new village, the possibility of being taken as a furrier’s apprentice, and maybe even finding a bride. It would be better to leave behind the mischief of his youth and set out on this new adventure. Old Lysen hobbled out of the house, his thin, gray beard bouncing on his lanky chest. He tossed three goat pelts on the cart with a huff and bypassed Hiram’s hiding place, none too wise of his added cargo. The trader grumbled before he eased his crooked body into the seat, weighing the cart in a slight way. A whip cracked. The ancient mule brayed. Wheels turned and Hiram grinned, his escape underway. The young women in Pig’s End tended to marry outside the rundown village or worse, they looked too much like their fathers. Hiram licked his lips and dreamed of a beautiful maiden waiting for him beyond the rim and the portal—a maiden with rounded hips, a waist he could grasp, and breasts ripe for his plundering. The cart bumped over ruts in the road, and Lysen didn’t make any more stops. The acrid stench of the burning fields on the rim

soon became a memory. Hiram peeked out when they passed through the portal, its murky haze always a mystery to him until this moment. Fear tingled in his fingers. Childhood stories about the portal and what lay beyond had him on edge. ‚Anything is better than Pig’s End,‛ he said, assuring himself. The haze passed through his body, waking his senses, alighting nerves and causing an embarrassing feeling of arousal. He felt alive and vigorous, as if anything were possible. The cart passed on. The road smoothed out. The burst of energy pulsed in his body. He pushed his way out further, the better to see what the other side of the portal looked like. Strange metalworking decorated the sides of the even stranger road. The workings resembled suits of armor, only larger than a normal man could possibly wear or bear. Shiny lights lit the eyeguards, sparkling with a latent vivacity. One of the metal things started to walk in stilted motions. Hiram gasped. He swallowed back his fear and stared at the thing. It lifted a pile of wood and went on its way as if it ought to walk around like a living creature. There were more wonders, horses made of metal drawing fanciful carts much unlike Old Lysen’s run-down one, lanterns glowing green in the windows of metal-made homes, and flying creatures also made of the same shiny, silvery element. Hiram began to wonder though, where all the townsfolk might be. He didn’t see any fair maidens or any ugly ones for that matter. Lysen’s cart gained on a smooth incline. Curious, Hiram sat up to see where the mule led them. A fortress, squared and gleaming in the reddish evening light, stood atop the high hill. It too, appeared made entirely of metal. This is promising, he thought before ducking down into his hiding place once more. In a keep there will be serving wenches. He licked his lips before grinning wide. His future could change soon indeed. When the cart stopped, he tried to slip out. A knotted staff rapped against the side of his head, halting him.

‚Boy! What have you done?‛ Lysen glared at him, his wrinklemottled face shriveled with bitterness. ‚I wanted to—‛ ‚Nonsense! You’ve crossed the rim! You’ve entered the forbidden realm. You can’t go back now, not ever again! You fool.‛ He clucked his ancient tongue, furrowed his two bushy gray brows and lopped another cruel smack to Hiram’s head. ‚I don’t want to go back to Pig’s End. There’s nothing for me there.‛ Lysen snorted. He hobbled a few steps away and glared back over his shoulder. ‚You will want to, Hiram Oversher; you will.‛ Hiram rubbed his sore skull as he took in his surroundings. Just within the first wall of the hold, more metalwork creatures went about chores. A massive iron gate lowered, closing off the way they’d entered. He didn’t feel trapped. He felt inspired. Here he’d make his way. ‚Lysen!‛ he shouted, jogging after the old trader. ‚Do you know a furrier here?‛ The old man stopped by a metal tree, leaning on it. ‚Furrier? In Golem’s Keep? You’re a fool, I say. What need would there be for a furrier in a place where the horses are made of metals? Unbreakable metals at that.‛ Hiram bit his lip, thinking this over, for it made no sense. ‚Well, who makes all of these magnificent things then?‛ A light glittered in Lysen’s faded blue eyes. He rubbed the scraggly scruff on his cheek. ‚Hmm.‛ Hiram recognized the look the old trader wore before he’d strike up a bargain. He tried not to smile and give away his excitement. ‚Lord Beorolf. He makes them.‛ ‚Does he need an apprentice? I know a little about metalworking. I’m not lazy; I’ll work hard.‛ A bony hand curled around Hiram’s wrist. ‚Come.‛ With that one word, he followed and hoped for new wonders to be revealed to him.

The keep’s inhabitants drew Hiram’s attention as the old trader led him through the city. ‚What are they?‛ he finally asked, when a particularly massive metal creature stomped past carrying a slab of marble. ‚Golems,‛ Lysen answered. Hiram had never heard the word before that day. ‚Golems…‛ he repeated. ‚Are they…alive?‛ ‚Not exactly.‛ Lysen gave Hiram a stern look when they reached an ivory door with scrollwork over its face. ‚Let me do the talking. Got that?‛ ‚Yes.‛ He pursed his lips. The trader rapped the gold knocker on the door three times. A green golem answered, thin and wiry with a purple cloak over its shoulders. It resembled a sickly human. Its eyes glowed brighter while it looked over Lysen and Hiram. ‚Who goes?‛ it asked in a monotone voice that buzzed like bees in a hay field. ‚Lysen Drimwitch of Devany.‛ ‚Who goes?‛ the golem asked again. Lysen cleared his throat. ‚And my ward.‛ ‚State your business,‛ the golem droned. ‚Here to trade with Lord Beorolf.‛ ‚Enter the shrine.‛ The golem stood aside to let them pass, the lights in its eyes flashing off and on. Hiram followed Lysen through a portal similar to the one on the outskirts of the rift. The cool liquid mist flowed over his skin, burning his mind with licentious thoughts of a nude woman, her body stretched across a finely embroidered coverlet. The passage went on long enough that he saw her part her legs, revealing the secret between them. He blinked. The mist receded. The vision abandoned him and he wondered where it had come from. Hiram touched his crotch, self-conscious of the heat lingering there.

‚Ah, Brother, you have brought me something of value?‛ Half man, half golem, the strange wielder of the voice approached them from a shadowed room. He had one eye, the same shade as Lysen’s and his half of a beard scraggled and hung in the same way as the trader’s. ‚I do, Beorolf. This boy wants to be your apprentice.‛ The old man offered a wan smile. Thump-clank, thump-clank. Lord Beorolf approached. He stopped before Hiram and glowered down, inspecting. ‚Boy? I have no need of a boy.‛ ‚I’ve seen nineteen winters. I’m a man.‛ He couldn’t stop staring at the greenish black eye in the golem side of the lord’s face. It never winked out, glaring in its strange way. ‚Hardly.‛ Beorolf and Lysen exchanged a cold, pointed stare. ‚Please, sir…Lord…sir, I’ll do anything for you. I know how to work metals. I can be—‛ The golem-man snorted. ‚You need to learn to hold your tongue. Your kind aren’t allowed to pass through the portal. You have no right to be here in my city. I should send you to the dungeon to rot.‛ ‚But Lord!‛ ‚Silence!‛ Lysen backed away, an awkward grin spreading over his wrinkled lips. ‚He is yours, Brother. Enjoy. Consider our score settled.‛ Beorolf snarled. ‚Very well.‛ He waved his hand, dismissing the trader. Turning on Hiram, he motioned to a bulky, silver golem in the corner of the dim room. It lurched forth, its feet battering the stone floor. ‚Take him to the cells. I will not see him again until he learns the blessing of silence.‛ Gruff metal hands clenched Hiram’s shoulders. He wanted to protest, to shout that this was unfair, for he hadn’t known it to be unlawful to cross the rift and pass through the portal. He’d thought it a tale to frighten children into staying close to home.

The golem dragged him along a narrow corridor with green lanterns in hollows along the wall. The metal monster did not speak. Hiram tried to get a better look at it. Where a mouth should be there was a smooth metal plate. Its eyes glowed in shades of deep purple, lighting a blinking path in the growing darkness. ‚What’s to become of me?‛ Hiram questioned. The dungeon smelled of stale straw and mildew. Shadows peered out from behind bars at him as he passed. Clawed fingers gripped the metal, but nothing spoke or made more than a rustling sound. The golem took Hiram to the last cell in the grim prison, opened the gate, deposited him inside and turned its finger to lock him in. It paused there, the color of its eyes pulsing to blue before it turned to go back the way it had come. Hiram sank down onto the floor. He cradled his head in his hands and began to cry. ‚Everything’s gone wrong,‛ he whispered. ‚How will I ever get out of here?‛ No one answered. The wraiths in the other cells said nothing. Curling up in the old straw, he tried to sleep and to come up with a plan to escape. He stared at the metal wall until his eyes slipped shut. The vision of the woman he’d seen when he passed through the castle portal filled his mind. A beauty with long, black hair and piercing eyes, she rose from the bed. Her nudity aroused Hiram. Every part of his body tingled with heat and anticipation. He wanted her, desired her lips across his own. She approached him, holding out one hand. He stepped toward her, feeling his modest clothing slip away. Breeches shimmied down his legs to rest over his feet before he kicked them off. He needed the woman, and she looked like she needed him as well. Like opposite forces drawn together, their paces increased, their gazes intent and locked. He reached for her fingers, meaning to tug her to him. Something clattered from her palm onto the floor.

It plinked and came to rest against his foot. Cold. Hard. It felt real. Hiram woke and looked down. He frowned at the strange object resting against his foot. It looked just like the golem’s fingers. He sat up and grasped it. Unusual threads of metal snaked from one end of the mysterious thing. Across the dungeon, straw rustled. He thought he heard someone snicker, but the noise sounded too small to be human. ‚Hello?‛ he called, squinting at the cell opposite his. No one responded. He stood and brushed off the bits of soiled hay from his pants. The object in his hand remained cold, like a dead thing. Hiram edged to the door of his cage and slipped the metal thing into the lock. It clicked, turned, and the gate creaked open. He swallowed and stepped out, unsure of where to go. A pair of black eyes glittered in the shadows in the cell nearest him. He approached, thinking maybe his savior had tossed him the odd key for the cell had no lock and the bars were placed far closer together than his own had been. The eyes slipped shut and he could discern no true shape in the darkness there. ‚Hello?‛ he asked again. ‚Did you give me this key?‛

Chapter Two Maiden She stepped from the shadows much as she had in his dream, a vision of beauty beyond his imagination. Her fingers pushed at the bars of her prison. ‚Yes,‛ she answered simply. He came closer. Thankful for her aid, he touched his fingertips to hers through the tiny span of space allowed. The contact set something alight in him, a heat much stronger than the wave he encountered when he passed through the portals. This sizzled and burned through his body. His cock thickened and reached for the maiden, pressing against his itchy wool breeches. ‚Thank you,‛ Hiram said, his voice cracking as if he were a youngling again. ‚But how can I help you get out too?‛ Her face leaned in until her full lips touched the bars. ‚Number eleven. Take its eye.‛ Hiram’s brow crinkled. He moved his face near hers, wishing he could kiss her lips. Her dark eyes and skin taunted him, so different from his features. ‚What do you mean?‛ he asked her. ‚Eleven. Take its eye and bring it to me. Hurry. Beorolf sleeps now. You must return before the dawn breaks.‛ ‚But what is number eleven?‛ His forehead pressed to the bars. He felt her warm breath across his lips. So close and still unable to meet. Locked away. He wondered why Beorolf kept her in the dungeon. ‚A golem made of copper. There is only one like it.‛ ‚All right,‛ he whispered. ‚I’ll find it for you.‛ She pressed a kiss to the bars. He stared down at her mouth, thinking lurid thoughts of other places he wanted her to press it to. ‚Hurry,‛ the woman in the dungeon repeated. Hiram crept through the long walk between the cells. The muffled rustling grew louder. Shadows darted this way and that, but nothing showed itself. Determined to free the mysterious woman and make an escape with her, he pushed open the door and peered into

the hall he remembered the golem leading him through. The green lanterns no longer burned. As silently as he could, he crept up the passage and entered the shrine room where he’d last seen Beorolf. It was blacker than before, the long table to one side with its single chair looming like a malformed monster. No golems waited there to stop him, at least none that he could see. The shimmery haze from the portal glowed blue when he passed it. His body tingled, and he felt dizzy for a moment, grasping the wall for support. Beyond the shrine room, he found a wooden door. He opened it slowly, praying it would not lead to the lord of the keep. Gray light lit the chamber. Along the walls, alcoves bore the silent shells of the golems. None moved or regarded him with glowing eyes. They seemed to be asleep or turned off. He could not be sure. Fear niggled at the back of his mind. What if I’m caught? Will he throw me back in the dungeon or do something worse? Being trapped in this hold made him feel helpless. He examined the first golem in the line, trying to remember the symbol for eleven. It might not be the same here as at home. An emblem etched into the thing’s chest bore the marking of a stylized wolf and two symbols. Hiram turned his head to the side. ‚Ah, number thirty-eight.‛ The numerals looked familiar if not flourished. He hurried along the rows seeking the curved lines that represented eleven. Most of the golems were silver, a few gold and some a mottled greenish color that might be a result of tarnish. Hiram reached the end of the line. He heaved a sigh, his shoulders drooping. Number eleven wasn’t in any of the alcoves. Sprinting back past the entry, he paused and stared at the portal that led to the outer part of the keep. Its surface twisted and swirled like a river. Colors appeared and vanished. Nearing it, he pondered leaving now, forgetting the imprisoned woman and finding his way out of here. He didn’t want to go back home, but thought maybe there could be other villages besides this one. He held his hand out. His fingertips grazed the haze, dipping inside. A wave of sensations overwhelmed him, heat, lust, desire and a burst of sensual images…him coupling with the woman, entering

her, crushing his hardness inside her tight warmth. He lurched backward in the throes of the vision, and fainted. In the darkness of unconsciousness, he heard her calling to him. Return to me. The sun rises. Beorolf wakes. Her voice shivered through his mind, twining in his muscles. His eyes pushed open. He stared at the ceiling. Light danced across it. Footsteps thumped in the next room where he had been with the golems. He turned his head to the side. Lord Beorolf, wearing a long sleeping shirt, paced along the hall before his golem menagerie placing something into each one’s chest. Fearing he might be caught, Hiram crawled away, back to the corridor he knew would lead him to the dungeon. He scrambled through the darkness, entered the rows of cells, and rushed back to his own. He glanced across the passage at the place he’d last seen the maiden. Glittery eyes stared back at him, a hint of reddish-brown limning them. ‚I couldn’t find it,‛ he said, sounding apologetic. ‚I’ll look again tomorrow night. I promise.‛ The eyes blinked. ‚I won’t leave without you.‛ Hay shushed and scratched in the opposite cell. The dark eyes vanished. Moments later, the maiden came forth, her fair skin glowing a faint blue in the sliver of dawn shining down from a high window. ‚Kiss me,‛ she whispered. ‚To seal your vow.‛ Hiram swallowed his words and strode across the steps parting them. He wished he could truly kiss her through the bars, but even this small touch swelled his chest. He placed his hands at either side of her face, leaned in and pressed his lips to the prison parting them. Her lips met his, warm, wet and tempting. The two lingered there, apart and together, Hiram overwhelmed by the tiny contact. She moved back and regarded him. Her dark eyes sparkled with light, but he decided it must have been from the sunlight above. ‚What is your name, my savior?‛ ‚Hiram Oversher from Pig’s End.‛

Her full lips twitched with unspoken mirth. ‚Pig’s End. You’ve been a naughty one. You crossed the rift.‛ He nodded. ‚I went through the portal too.‛ ‚Will you go back?‛ His eyebrows knitted together. ‚I don’t want to go back.‛ She placed a hand on the bars, flat against where his palm rested. The maiden sucked in her lower lip while she regarded him. Letting it loose in a teasing way, she spoke once more. ‚I am called Secret.‛ ‚Secret?‛ He breathed in her scent, a musky, feminine perfume he longed to taste. ‚That’s your name?‛ ‚It is the name Beorolf gave me when he captured me and my kind.‛ Metallic clunks thumped out in the hall, interrupting them. ‚I want you,‛ Secret murmured before she backed into the shadows. ‚Beorolf comes to us now.‛ Hiram returned to his cell where he fumbled with the golemfinger key. Beorolf’s voice echoed in angered shouts as he approached. The finger slid in. The lock clinked and turned. Hiram forced the key out and tossed it into the hay behind him, afraid he might be searched. The rustling in the other cells increased in one organized sound, which reminded him of when he’d gotten too close to Olath Nilgim’s bee skeps. Lord Beorolf burst in. ‚Silence!‛ he barked. The dungeon stilled. The half man, half golem tyrant marched along, his lighted eye examining all that he passed. ‚Ah, you are awake.‛ He crossed his mismatched arms over his chest, glaring in at Hiram. ‚I like my specimens to rise with the dawn. You may well make an apprentice to me one day.‛ Hiram opened his mouth to speak, but Secret’s voice drifted into his thoughts. Be quiet. He nodded.

Beorolf’s one good eye widened. ‚Have you learned humility already?‛ He nodded once more. The lord grinned halfway. ‚Good.‛ He puffed out his chest and raised his arms. ‚All of you would do well to learn from this one’s example.‛ He turned and faced Secret’s cell. ‚Especially you.‛ For a long while the lord watched her prison. Nothing moved within. No sounds, no glittering eyes, no lovely maiden appeared. Hiram looked around the lord’s shape, hoping to catch sight of her, but he couldn’t see Secret. The darkness in the dungeon struck him as unnatural. Maybe she’s a sorceress, he thought. A stray voice confirmed his guess. Maybe I am at that. Beorolf chuckled to himself. ‚After I break my fast, boy, I will send a golem for you. You must bathe and come to me in the clothes I provide. You must not speak.‛ He held one finger up to demonstrate his meaning. ‚Or I will have you thrown back in here and here you will stay with these other things until I forget you…as I have forgotten them.‛ Hiram bowed his head until his chin touched his chest. Good. He will believe you. He is easily fooled. Secret, he thought, how far from you can I be and still hear your voice in my mind? My powers extend throughout Beorolf’s hold. When I leave this place with you at my side, the keep will crumble. The lord snorted and left Hiram’s cell. As he crossed the long corridor, he tapped his metal fingers over the bars to taunt whatever manner of prisoners resided within. The door closed in a resounding slam. ‚You must help me,‛ he called across the passage. ‚Make sure I don’t mess up and end up back in here.‛ The shadows receded. The beauty stepped forth, her lips curled with a mischievous smile. ‚I will do all in my power to bring Beorolf misery.‛ Hiram wanted to ask her more questions, to open the cell’s lock and try to kiss her through the cold, unyielding metal again, but a

golem soon opened the door and clomp-clomped it’s way inside to retrieve him. Remember to stay silent, she advised. The gate creaked open. Silver hands cinched over his shoulders, forcing him out. He tried to keep pace with the metal monster, but it walked fast, its red eyes flickering and a faint buzz in its innards. When Hiram reached the outside hall, he tried to look back at the maiden. A glow of faint blue light hovered in midair before her cell and then poofed into memory. His skin broke out in goose bumps. I will dream of you while you’re gone, my savior. Do you want me to share my dreams with you? Yes, he answered. A feeling of calm settled over him. As the golem ushered him away, Hiram was gifted images of a forest thick with vines, and the illusion of loam crushing beneath his feet. His heart picked up its pace. His lungs drew in the tasteless air in the hold, anticipating the lush scents of the wilds. I dream of my old home, Secret told him. I dream of mating with you there in the bushes among the ferns. An image of her pressed into his mind. She reclined on the leafladen earth, naked, her nipples firm, her curves inviting. He saw himself approaching, parting her legs and kissing his way up her thigh. The perfume of her arousal called to him. He couldn’t catch his breath. Just then, the golem pushed him into a bath of ice cold water.

Chapter Three The Forest in Her Dreams Hiram let out a scream of surprise. Water soaked through his clothes, and felt like it went through his skin as well. He trembled and sputtered as he found his footing and stood. It wasn’t a small tub like the one back home, but a large trough-like cylinder, forged of the same metal as the keep. The golem stood nearby, spying at him with its emotionless eyes. ‚You could have warmed it a bit,‛ Hiram grumbled. In the back of his mind, he felt Secret’s amusement. A thick bar of yellowy soap sat beside the cylinder’s edge. He scrubbed himself clean, lathered up a fair amount in his hands, and washed out his curly, black hair. It needed a trim or a strap to hold it in place, but he doubted the golem or the lord would oblige him for either. His body washed and awake—more awake than he would have liked, he climbed out and took the drying cloth the mechanical monster offered him. Great way to ruin a good fantasy, he thought as the golem offered him a pair of soft spun trousers and a lace up tunic. He dressed and thought of Secret in her cell, wishing he could go back to her now. ‚Can you speak?‛ he asked the golem. It shook its silver head, no. Hiram sighed and combed fingers through his hair. The golem didn’t wait long before taking his wrist to lead him elsewhere. They climbed levels of stairs, passed countless passages until they came to an iron door. The same wolf emblem decorated the entrance in gold and copper leaf. The golem opened the door and stood aside for Hiram to enter. Lord Beorolf leaned over a massive cedar worktable, hammer in one hand and a pair of wire tongs in the other. He pounded away at a sheet of silvery metal in a unified rhythm. He wore the same clothes as Hiram did now. His one eye was set to the task, but

Hiram couldn’t help but think that the lighted eye was watching him approach. Say nothing, Secret warned. He will test you. Clang, clang, tink. Clang, clang, tink. ‚Ah my ambitious servant has arrived.‛ The hammer stopped. Beorolf rested it on its side. For a fleeting moment, Hiram wondered if he could be quick enough to snatch up the hammer and beat the lord’s head in. He had never considered murder before now. The idea felt unnaturally planted in his mind. I can’t do such a thing, Secret, he thought. If you free me, I will. He shuddered and tried not to think about her grim wishes. ‚Come closer, boy. I have work for you this day. If you do well, I will let you do more tomorrow. If you do poorly, you will find yourself in the dungeon.‛ Hiram nodded. Beorolf pointed to the sheet of shaped metal. ‚I make my golems to serve me. They have the potential to live forever.‛ He waved a hand in the direction of the east wall where a line of seven unfinished golems stood. ‚They do not speak unless I program them to. They do not complain. They work as I bid them. So, as you can imagine, I have no need for the likes of you.‛ He wanted to ask the lord if he got lonely and where the other people could be. But, as he glanced over the unfinished projects, he understood. Beorolf must like his solitude. He had imprisoned Secret away. Hiram knew if he were a lord, he would never lock away a woman so beautiful in a dungeon. Women were made for better things than that. Beorolf taught him to form the chest plates for his army of golem servants. All day, he toiled over the metal, shaping it to the right proportions against a wood mold. He ate a small loaf of bread and drank a flask of weak wine, hurrying as Beorolf eyed him the entire time. The lord did not eat or seem to tire. Unlike Hiram, Beorolf’s forehead—at least the part that was human—did not bead

with sweat. He toiled in solemn silence, never slowing, ever persistent in his work. Exhausted and no closer to finding number eleven’s eye, Hiram found himself dragged back to the dungeon for some well deserved rest. Secret had remained quiet in his mind most of the day save for reminding him to hold his tongue and remember his place. He didn’t see her or the shiny black eyes that sometimes stared up at him from her cell. As soon as the golem that escorted him in took its leave, Hiram curled up in the hay and closed his eyes. The forest enveloped him in his dream. He walked, nude and aroused through the ferns and undergrowth, seeking out his prize. Far ahead, he saw Secret running from him, her dark hair shining blue-black in the pregnant moon’s light. He knew he ought to be frightened to be out in the wilds so late. Mist curled and twisted around his ankles. He glanced down at it, past his thick erection. The mist was not a fog as he was used to seeing, but something like the portals, a swirling, colorful sort of magic surging with energy. He bent to touch it with his fingers. His body filled with the need for release. ‚Secret!‛ he shouted, and started forth at a run. He saw his target pause and look over her shoulder at him with those mysterious eyes of hers. He raced faster, chasing his prize. She slowed and allowed him to catch up and keep pace. Together they sprinted up a hill toward its crest, two wild things in a timeless dance of chase and catch. At the hill’s top, they stopped, both out of breath and panting. ‚Is this real?‛ Hiram asked. ‚Are you real?‛ She giggled and stepped close to him. Her arms curled around his waist, pulling his hardness to her abdomen. She swayed, seductive with her ripe breasts crushing into his chest. His heart beat faster. He knotted his fingers at the back of her head to draw her in. Lips met and parted. Tongues dipped inside to taste. Skin ran along warm skin until their hearts beat as one and they breathed in time.

Secret’s voice hummed in the back of her throat with delight. Hiram knelt a little so he could let his cock slip against her folds. She parted her legs and allowed his hardness to graze over her body, slicking him with her arousal. He felt like he might burst with release before they could start. They kissed harder with growing urgency. Her hands explored his lower back and made their way to his backside to squeeze and fondle, urging him to press her for more. He bucked, soft in his aggression at first, until she stepped away to a birch tree. There she straightened her back against the trunk and smiled at him. ‚Take me here, my savior. I want to feel you inside me.‛ Hiram couldn’t find his voice. He didn’t need words to obey. Their bodies met and ground together. Her small hand pushed between to grasp his thickness, guiding him to her sex. The head of his cock breeched her entry, and he found it tight and unforgiving. ‚Please,‛ she pleaded. Both of her hands settled over his backside again. ‚I want you.‛ ‚Yes,‛ he breathed the word. ‚Yes…‛ Planting his hands on the tree at either side of her head he thrust his hips and entered her full force. She gasped and pinched her eyes closed. ‚Did I hurt you?‛ he asked. Secret caught her breath. She whimpered in a meek way, but clung to him. Her fingers clenched until her nails bit into his skin, causing him to push forth. ‚Mmm,‛ she moaned and opened her eyes to stare into his. He felt trapped there in a delicious way, in a snare he never wanted to escape from, no matter the consequences. Without speaking, she urged him to continue. Her hips circled in measured motions, easing him out and back in, deep up inside her moist, tight body. His balls twinged to warn him he neared his end already. She kissed him, her tongue invasive, her breasts so tight against his chest he couldn’t draw in a proper breath. The tickle in his cock

exploded inside her in bursts. He groaned and quivered, his whole body a tense mesh of muscles. She held him there, her kisses softening, her fingers not as harsh in their hold. Wake up, my savior, Secret whispered in his mind, and he opened his eyes to find the dream ended and the darkness complete in the dungeon. He let go his tight hold on his emptied cock and hurriedly pulled up his breeches. Hiram sat up. Across from him, Secret stood in her cell, one of her hands over her womanhood. She wore a half-smile, and her eyes glittered. ‚Did you like that dream?‛ she asked. He swallowed. ‚Yes. How do you do that?‛ Her hand moved up and down, fingers combing through the curls of her mound. ‚I think of you, imagine how I want to be with you…and I touch my body.‛ ‚Oh.‛ He couldn’t think of anything more to say. It flattered him in an odd way. No woman back home would ever be so forthright. Not that any had the ability to send him dreams at all. ‚Will you find the eye tonight?‛ she asked. Hiram nodded. He ran his hands through the hay to find the golem finger and free himself. In a rush, he met Secret at the gate of her cell and kissed her without asking. She kissed back, as much as she could through the tight bars. He pushed two fingers through the opening and touched the back of her hand, still wedged between her legs. ‚Can I watch you do that next time?‛ Her eyes narrowed with wickedness. ‚Only if I can watch you, too.‛ Her free hand pushed at the bars until three of her fingers slipped through to graze the bulge in his pants. He wondered if he could fit his cock through enough to pleasure her, and felt a fool for thinking such a thought. ‚Do you know where number eleven is?‛ he asked, hoping he wouldn’t have to wander through the keep much this night.

‚Beorolf keeps all his most precious things locked away.‛ Her index finger circled his still aroused hardness. ‚He keeps his secrets well.‛ ‚You don’t know then?‛ ‚Not a clue.‛ He wanted to play these teasing games longer, but more than that, he wanted to release her from her prison and find the place in the woods he saw in her dreams. ‚I’ll be back for you,‛ he promised. ‚I’ll find it this time.‛ She nodded. Her fingers withdrew. Secret stepped away, swallowed by the dark shadows in the rear of her cage. Hiram squinted, but could no longer make out her shape. Determined, he left the dungeon to creep about and hunt down a golem eye.

Chapter Four The Eye He searched Beorolf’s workshop, behind storage doors, in the back of cluttered piles of scrap metal and even the shelves where the lord kept his molds. Exhausted and no closer to his goal than when he’d started, Hiram sunk to his knees to rest. He ran his fingers through his hair. Sighing, he noticed a glimmer of copper beneath the scrap pile. That’s it, Secret told him, or what’s left of it. A twirl of melancholy mingled with her mind voice. He never meant to free me. Hiram crawled forth on all fours to examine the piece. As carefully as he could, he tugged it free. Sure enough, it was the head of a dismantled golem, the eyes missing, the face charred on one side. What do I do now? he asked. Secret’s thoughts remained silent for a time. As she contemplated her answer, Hiram poked his fingers into the empty eye sockets. He wondered if golems had brains inside and how they moved. This whole keep and the man who ran it boggled him. He set the head back in its former place. Secret? You must free the others and leave me behind. He couldn’t do that. Hiram stood and went to the shelf where Beorolf kept the golem eyes awaiting a shell to inhabit. Can’t we try another of these? A wave of joy passed through him. Yes, of course. Find one the size of a fist and make sure it has the number eleven on the backside or it won’t work. He found three of that approximate size. None bore numbers at all, though. Can I etch the eleven into it? You know how to write? Yes, Hiram answered, my mother taught me.

His father hadn’t been keen on the idea, but indulged his wife and son as much as he could given their meager conditions. Hiram remembered being tired from a day’s work on more than one occasion when his mother would jab him in the side to keep him awake to learn. He reached across the worktable for a chisel and small hammer. Etching out the symbols proved a challenge because the eye kept slipping. He wedged it between a vise and tap-tapped until he figured he’d done his best. Secret’s excitement flooded him. Hiram sprinted back to the dungeon and the darkness. The wraiths, or whatever they were in the other cells, were unusually quiet. He felt them watching as he hurried to Secret’s cell. ‚What do you think?‛ he asked. She strode forth to examine the eye. Her mouth twitched just before she bit her lip. ‚Place it in the lock.‛ Pale fingers pointed to a rounded gouge in the junction of bars. He obeyed. The eye flickered to life. It glowed red-orange. ‚Is it working?‛ Hiram asked. ‚Should it do that?‛ Secret shrugged. The eye twisted and turned as if seeking to focus. It stopped, the dim pupil in its center fixating on Hiram’s face. It sees me, he thought, startled. He took a step back and then another. The eye blinked off and on and began to spin with a slippery whirring noise. ‚It’s working!‛ Secret shouted. With a sickening pop, the golem eye shot from its perch. The gate groaned and swayed open. The maiden stepped forth, free at last. She leaped at Hiram, her smile somehow sinister in its glee. ‚You did it!‛ she shouted. Gushes of emotion overwhelmed him. He staggered, but managed to hold onto her. She was a head shorter than him, her weight slight. She smelled delicious which made no sense being locked away as she had been.

Kisses bedecked his cheeks and neck. Her tongue tested his skin. The heat she brought to life made his legs weak and his balls prickle. He crumpled to the ground, his maiden atop his lap, and for the first time in his life, Hiram felt like he’d done something powerful. He wanted to laugh, to dance round and jump for joy. He’d done it! Anything was possible. Secret’s kisses became insistent. She pawed at his tunic, pulling the laces free and working the front open where her mouth suckled and tongue licked his chest. She bit at his left nipple like an animal. He cringed and combed a hand over her thick hair. ‚Slow down,‛ he whispered, his breath catching when she twisted his nipple with her lips. ‚Shouldn’t we leave the keep first?‛ She tilted her head up. Those dark eyes regarded him. She giggled and shook her head from side to side. ‚I want you here, now…to taste you.‛ Lips and tongue roamed lower. Fingers unlaced his pants, forcing them down over his breeches. Those too, she tugged away. His cock, thick with the excitement of the moment and the prospect of finding a proper sheath, sprung up to meet her lips. She kissed him there, licked and teased with a wet abandon he had never known. Her mouth sucked the head of his length into her warmth. His voice caught in his throat. In and out, she guided his thickness, her tongue twirling and tickling. He curled his fingers at the back of her head and tried not to force her to go faster. Hiram closed his eyes and saw her forest. He couldn’t hold back, but feared coming in her mouth. Trying to lift her away, he was shocked when she sucked harder. His seed burst free and she swallowed it down. Every inch of his thickness became fiery and sensitive. She continued her ministrations, licking him until he could not take the succulent torture. ‚Stop…please.‛ She slowed. ‚Secret, please…‛

She groaned and lifted her head. With the back of one hand, she wiped her wet mouth clean. ‚Did you like it?‛ He nodded. His minx of a maiden climbed away from him to crawl on all fours. She rifled through patches of old hay, seeking something. ‚What are you doing?‛ She grasped her target. ‚I need the eye to free the others.‛ Claws scrabbled over stone and metal. Small voices squealed and chirruped from the remaining dungeon cells. ‚Others?‛ She stood and nodded. Before he could question her further, Secret inserted the golem’s eye into a lock-slot. It lit and spun in a similar fashion as it had before. When it popped out, she caught it with a dexterity Hiram found unsettling. The maiden was much more than she seemed. The gate swung open with a terrible screech. Small, black creatures came scurrying out. There were so many, he lost count. They ran past Secret’s ankles, some reverently touching her with their sharp-looking, dark fingers. Soon they all fled through the door and vanished. Gate after gate his maiden unlocked. Hoards of the things escaped. ‚Why don’t they look like you?‛ Hiram asked. She giggled and tossed the golem’s eye away. ‚I’m different, my savior. I’m Beorolf’s Secret.‛ She pushed her hair from her shoulder, turned her back on him, and ran off down the aisle. ‚Wait!‛ he called. He scrambled to stand and pull his clothes back on. A sickening sense of foreboding welled in his chest. ‚What have I done?‛ Hiram whispered. He ran out to the hall only to find it empty and his maiden with her peculiar charges missing as well. Their dingy footprints marked the stone floor. Tiny, filth-stained fingerprints tainted the metal wall. Hiram followed in their wake. He emerged in the shrine room where a path of destruction and carnage showed what manner of beings he had freed. Lord

Beorolf’s throne lay on its side. Bits of stuffing were spread here and there. Books had been torn apart, their pages scattered all over every surface. He edged toward the room where the golem alcoves stood. There the little creatures busied themselves dismantling the metal monsters. Forged arms fell and clattered on the floor. Heads ripped free to be rolled back and forth in a macabre game of kickball. One of the dark creatures had hold of a large stone. It sat atop the table in the midst of the hall, bashing away at whatever lay atop its surface. He stopped by the table and reached to snatch up one of the objects. His fingers narrowly escaped a barrage of hammer whacks. The small piece felt like stone or perhaps clay. Hiram held it closer to his face. Writing decorated the rectangle’s surface, mysterious and not a set of symbols he understood. The thing on the table hissed. Hiram looked down. It tried to reach for what he’d saved, so he shoved it in a pocket and moved away from the little thing’s snarling teeth and sharp claws. ‚Secret?‛ he called as he went further into the labyrinth of the keep. ‚Secret, where are you?‛ Pottery crashed against a wall behind him. Hiram glanced back to see one of the creatures scurry away, chortling in an evil way. Secret? he thought, hoping he could reach her somehow. Please, let’s leave this place together. Come with me. Her voice didn’t slip into his mind, but a faint flicker of revenge registered in his thoughts. It came from her. A set of stairs led him into a squared tower. He became aware of the connection he shared with the maiden, as if a thin wire bound them. He had only to reach for the wire and follow its path. He came to the end of the stairs and a door that was slightly ajar. Dipping inside, he found his maiden pinned to the floor by the golem lord. Be silent, she cautioned.

‚Lord Beorolf!‛ Hiram shouted. The lord growled and heaved his captive up. ‚How did she escape?‛ he grumbled. ‚I destroyed the key!‛ Whirling around with Secret in his grasp, he faced Hiram. All manner of courage he felt when he had let his maiden out vanished. His heart skipped a beat. Lord Beorolf’s golem eye glowed bright red with fury. ‚Well, speak, boy! ‚I know not,‛ he lied. ‚When I woke she was free and all the doors in your dungeon were open.‛ ‚What!‛ the lord bellowed. ‚No! Impossible!‛ He held Secret by her wrist with his golem hand. She winced when he started toward the door, dragging her along. ‚Wait, my lord…sir…‛ Hiram went after Beorolf, running to keep up with the man’s angry strides down the staircase. He feared the lord would injure his maiden or worse, toss her down the stairwell to die. Beorolf’s mechanical leg made his gait quick. He left the stairs and raced along the hall ahead to his workshop. There, Hiram caught up to him. ‚Curse you all!‛ the lord cried in anguish. ‚Damn gremlins. I should have killed you when the thought struck me.‛ Secret gasped and tried to pull away. ‚I don’t understand,‛ Hiram said, hoping for some explanation. Beorolf ignored him. He went to the worktable and retrieved a hammer. Placing Secret’s wrist on the vise, he held her in place. ‚No!‛ she wailed. ‚Father, no! Have mercy!‛ Father? Hiram burst forth, unable to fully comprehend. The shadows of the gremlins converged along the edges of the wall. ‚I’ll teach you to meddle in my affairs, to disobey me and release your abominations into my hold.‛ The hammer began its descent.

Hiram leapt through the air, intent on knocking the lord to one side. Secret’s body twisted and turned, a gaseous mist encircling her shape. Her terrified shriek changed to a haunting cry—the foul voice of a beast made from unnatural magic. As Hiram crashed into the golem lord, he was set upon by the clawed creatures as well. They tumbled together to the floor, squeaks and growls ringing in his ears. Beorolf flailed in his effort to escape. Gremlins scratched him with their claws. The distinct pain of teeth clamped onto his ankle. He screamed and rolled off Beorolf. Sitting up, Hiram looked around, hoping to catch sight of his maiden, but she was gone. He rose and left the workshop to find her. ‚Secret!‛ he shouted, hoping she’d answer. At the portal in the shrine room, he paused. He stopped to stare at the surface of the magicked passage. Green and black shimmered and swirled there. He reached to touch it. His fingers came closer, closer, and halted a breadth away when Beorolf’s voice broke into the silence of the room. ‚Stupid boy!‛ he grumbled. Click-clank, click-clank, his footsteps sounded. ‚Did she bewitch you like her mother did to me?‛

Chapter Five Lord Beorolf Revealed Lord Beorolf’s skin showed off the attacks he’d undergone. Blood stained his sleeping gown and scratches and small bite wounds tainted every visible patch of skin on his body. Hiram and the lord sat at the righted table in the workroom, saying little. The lord dressed his wounds with care, groaning every so often in obvious pain. ‚She’s your daughter?‛ Hiram asked. Beorolf tore off a piece of linen and wrapped it over his wrist. Somewhere in the shadows, the small sounds of gremlins scratched and creaked. ‚Secret is my only child. Conceived before this happened to me.‛ He waved his human hand at his golem body. ‚She is too much like her mother…like them.‛ He eyed the corner of the room with disdain. A small chunk of twisted metal flew from the very spot he watched to land at his feet. Beorolf glowered. ‚It doesn’t matter. I’ll catch all of you again and this time, it won’t be the dungeon where you find yourselves.‛ ‚How could you…?‛ The lord hissed. ‚How could I what? Lock away that halfling?‛ ‚But she’s your child, your daughter.‛ ‚She’s a gremlin who can shape herself into a human, a changeling, a vile, evil creature bent on causing mayhem and mischief, just like her mother was.‛ He still couldn’t understand the man. ‚But she’s your child. You locked up your own child?‛ ‚I should have killed her.‛ He snarled and leaned forward. ‚Just like I did her mother.‛ Hiram sat back, pursing his lips. He stared at Beorolf’s golem eye until the lord went back to mending his wounds. He tore off his ruined sleeping gown, revealing a body that no longer held the

parts a man needed between his legs. Instead, a metal plate covered most of his lower abdomen and the place where his cock should have been. Hiram shuddered. Thick scars, old and rippled by time, wormed along his skin near the place where the metal met it. ‚What happened to you?‛ he whispered. Beorolf sat back in his chair, glaring at Hiram. ‚She did this to me. Secret’s mother. We had a pact and she broke it…‛ ‚How erm, how did you meet her?‛ The question made the lord’s face change. His anger and bitterness slackened until his expression became wistful. ‚It was a long time ago,‛ he began, ‚long before this keep and the golems. I was just past boyhood when I passed the boundary of the rift and entered the woods beyond. My mother told me never to go into the woods, but I was a brave lad then, brave and stupid.‛ He scratched at his half beard. ‚I lost my way. The shadows swallowed me up. I wandered for days and nights seeking my way out, or a new, better life than I had in the poor village I’d been born in. I found Okil by the river.‛ Beorolf’s eyes slipped shut. Hiram noticed his golem chest and a symbol scrawled over the plate that, he guessed, must open as all the other golems’ chests did. ‚She was a wild thing, tall and dark, with thick hair and glittery yellow eyes. I feared her.‛ The lord’s hand strayed to the metal between his legs as if remembering what it was like to be a man once. ‚She held me down and tore away my clothes. It was a primal mating, like animals.‛ He opened his eyes and crossed his hands over his chest. ‚That’s all she was! An animal!‛ Hiram swallowed. ‚And she…she was like…‛ ‚She was a gremlin, boy! Just like the others. They can take many forms if they choose. Or no form at all!‛ With that, he stood and started toward the hall that led to his bedroom. ‚And now they’re free in this realm again. Gods help us.‛

Beorolf left him alone with the shadows and the chattering sounds of the gremlins. It surprised him not to be resigned to the dungeon, and he didn’t know what to make of it. When dawn peeked through the high window in the workroom, he found it too late to sleep. A stray gremlin, green and scaled as if it had severe mange climbed up onto the table before him. It sat cross-legged and began to chew on the rags the lord had left behind. It stared directly at Hiram as it tore away bit after bit of blood-soaked cloth. ‚Where’s Secret?‛ he asked the creature. It lowered its bald head, eyes aglow with mischief. ‚Do you know where she is?‛ The gremlin cocked its head to one side, picked a knot of fabric from its sharp teeth and cackled. Hiram pushed away from the table and trudged out. He had come to this place in the hopes of finding a new life, but all he’d discovered was misery and an old tyrant who’d become one of the lifeless creations he made. He didn’t want to stay any longer. He wanted to go home and forget he’d ever left. Mending pig fences and marrying a manly woman might not be such a bad fate after all. In the shrine room, he stopped in front of the portal. It pulsed with greenish light, luring him to pass. Closing his eyes, he stepped through.

Chapter Six Stretching Bench Falling into a blackness he had not expected, he screamed in terror. The other side of the keep should have been there when he passed through, but instead he’d entered a void. No stars bedecked the black. When he finally made contact with the earth below him, it smelled of compost and rain. Hiram rolled onto his back to stare at the emptiness and wonder how he would find a way out. Secret, he thought, I need you now. He couldn’t hear her clearly, but he sensed her thoughts, muddled and drawn with sorrow. Hiram crawled toward where he thought she might be. The emptiness he traversed gave him no solace. He called out for her time and again, but to no avail. No sunlight came to light his way, no moonlight, no sensual images of the maiden he’d freed. He stubbed his toe on something hard before he finally stopped. Exhausted and alone, he felt the shape in front him. Cold and hard, it seemed to be a bench of some sort. Hiram lay across its unyielding surface and closed his eyes. Sleep washed over him, but like the nights he’d spent in the dungeon, he dreamed in vivid, erotic detail. Secret stood over him, her body backlit by silvery moonlight, her curves appealing and her full lips parted in a small smile. ‚I need you,‛ he told her. She waved three fingers of her right hand. Vines curled from the ground beneath the stone bench to twine about his wrists. They tightened in place, holding him still. ‚You would betray me…like my father.‛ ‚No,‛ he said. She waved her fingers a second time. Vines encircled his ankles, gripping him so tight that he whimpered.

She bent her knees, one hand reaching to the unseen loam. When she stood up, Hiram noticed the shine of a dagger in her fist. Secret’s eyes flickered with amber light like the embers of a fire. In a motion anything but demure, she reached down, took hold of the hem of his breeches and poked the tip of the blade straight through. Fabric tore. Hiram’s eyes widened. ‚What are you doing?‛ he choked out. ‚This is the stretching bench,‛ she explained. ‚The forest does not know you, just as it didn’t know my father.‛ She cut his tunic and tossed away the ruined fabric. Secret stepped up onto the stone and stood over him, her parted legs revealing the pink of her folds. Despite his fear and the bonds holding him down, his cock reacted. His mind still longed for her, remembering the warmth of her mouth clamped to his length. He wished he were free to reach for her hips and ease her down to his growing hardness. Her gaze left his face, travelling over his chest, his abdomen. Her smile faltered and her brow creased. She knelt over him, her moist cleft grazing his cock. ‚What’s this?‛ she whispered, staring into his eyes. He moaned, at a loss for words with her so close. Hiram tried to buck his hips, but the vines crept across his body to hold him in place. Secret swayed from side to side, the soft heat of her body teasing him. She dropped her free hand to his chest to pinch his nipple. He winced. The vines thickened. Thorns pierced his skin. Leaves tickled him in an annoying itch. He tried to twist away, to escape, but he couldn’t move at all. The dagger lowered to his chest, inching down across his skin toward his erection. The edge bit into his skin and he screamed. His eyes opened. He was alone. Hands rushed to his body, to his cock still safe and hard in the confines of his unharmed breeches. He glanced around. No vines cut into his skin. The dark place in which he

reclined had lightened ever so slightly to reveal the outlines of massive tree trunks. Above him, a whisper of sunlight peeled through the dense canopy of leaves. ‚Secret?‛ he asked, tentative and unsure now. The foliage on the forest floor swayed and shivered. Small creeling sounds tittered nearby. He peered into the ferns and saw a pair of black eyes watching him. ‚Secret?‛ he whispered. ‚Is that you?‛ The eyes blinked. A black mist swirled over the eyes, obscuring the gremlin. In moments, Secret came forth, nude and as beautiful as he remembered her. Her smile was knowing and rent with mischief. ‚Did you dream of me?‛ ‚Yes,‛ he answered. ‚It was a nightmare.‛ She crept closer until she reached the edge of the bench. He slid his legs over the side and looked up at her amberrimmed eyes. ‚Did you send me that dream?‛ ‚Yes.‛ She took his hand and placed it over her right breast. ‚You must understand what I am before I claim you. You must accept me.‛ He cleared his throat. His breath caught, still harried by the nightmare. ‚I—I understand that you are Beorolf’s child…that your mother…‛ ‚She was a gremlin, like the others. You saw them.‛ He nodded. ‚Do you still think you want me?‛ He bowed his head and touched it to her soft abdomen. Things were strange in this land past the rift. ‚Yes,‛ he murmured. ‚A thousand times over, yes.‛ He kissed the skin above her small bellybutton. She pressed her body closer. Hiram’s hand caressed its way down her side until he gripped one hip. His other hand followed suit until he had her waist. Turning her as he stood, he guided his maiden to the bench. She

sat, colors dancing in her wide eyes. ‚I want to taste you as you tasted me.‛ She nodded, lowered her back to the bench and parted her legs to allow him access. He dipped his mouth to her entry. Never had he been allowed to do such an act at home. He had watched from a darkened corner when his neighbor, Ilshem, had affairs with a widow from the far lane. Hiram parted his lips and licked at Secret’s womanhood. The sweet scent of her, like musk and wildflowers tempted him. He sucked in the nub of soft flesh at her center. She flinched. He rode his tongue in circles over the sensitive area, causing her legs to tremor at either side of his head. Working faster, he reached up and traced the wet hole of her entry. He wanted to plunge his fingers in there hard, but resisted. Instead, he rubbed the place until a forceful quake overtook her. She moaned and thrashed. He pushed his forefinger inside her body, finding it tight. He pulled out slow, still pleasuring her clitoris, and pushed in once more. Working up a steady rhythm, he dared to push in a second finger. She cried out with pleasure. Her juices pooled inside her body, making his invasion slippery. Hiram held still while she quivered. His cock felt about ready to burst. ‚Again,‛ she pleaded. ‚Do it again.‛ He sat back and pushed her legs up onto the stretching bench. Hiram stood, undid his breeches and kicked them away. Without asking her leave, he climbed atop her body, his knees at either side of her waist, and buried his face against her mound to begin once more. Small hands grasped his hanging cock, tugging it down to her waiting lips. She kissed and licked along his length, drawing his attention from the task before him. He groaned when his balls tingled. Her fingers cupped them and she sucked him down inside her mouth. He couldn’t resist or halt his seed. It burst forth.

He laved her clitoris, determined to make her come a second time. She did, her voice humming around his sheathed sex. He plunged his tongue inside her body to feel the frantic contractions within. After she recovered from her orgasm, he crawled over to rest beside his Secret. He closed his eyes, the flavor of her on his tongue, the scent of her in his nostrils and the warmth of her spooned against him. Hiram had never been happier.

Chapter Seven Behind the Golem’s Face She opened the portal with her mind. That much, Hiram understood. Secret knew magic, to what extent, he didn’t know or care. His dilemma now was how to get her to come away with him and leave her vengeance against her father behind them. ‚Come,‛ she said, gripping his hand. ‚It only stays focused for a little while.‛ He planted his feet in place. ‚I don’t want to go back to the keep. Can’t we stay here…in your forest?‛ Her grim expression answered for her. ‚Come,‛ she repeated. Together, they walked through the swirling mist. His body pulsed with sexual awakening as it tended to do when he crossed these strange gateways. His mother had told him of such things, fairy doors to other worlds and places, but until he’d passed through the one outside the rift, Hiram hadn’t believed her. They came out the other side in the village below the keep. The metal horses and golems lay cast aside in heaps near the edges of the brick roadway. No green lanterns burned in the windows of the buildings they passed. Nothing moved or made a sound, except the chirps or twitters of the greenish black gremlins that darted into the shadows. The village was destroyed now, and Hiram felt responsible. ‚I’ll be the one to kill him,‛ Secret stated, ‚so don’t worry, my savior.‛ ‚It’s too dangerous,‛ he warned. ‚Come away with me. We can go back to the woods, back to Pig’s End even. I don’t care where we go, just as long as you’re with me.‛ She stopped to face him, her eyes clouding over with tears. ‚You would take me to the land of your father?‛ He drew her into his arms. ‚Yes, if that will stop you now. I’ll go back. I’ll be happy there if I have you.‛

Secret ‘s eyebrows tensed. Her full lips pursed as she thought over his offer. ‚You know little of me, Hiram. Not enough to offer what you do.‛ He combed his fingers through her thick hair. ‚I want to know you. Let me find out who you are.‛ She took a step back, escaping his embrace. A cool breeze scathed his skin with icy fingers. Goosebumps prickled over his body. ‚I must do this. I must avenge my mother’s death. It is my deed to do.‛ She took another step away from him. ‚Wait for me here.‛ He shook his head no, but she shifted, her body nothing more than vapor, until she became like the others, a gnarled gremlin, as tall as his knees, spikes protruding from her green back. Without another word or even a shared thought, Secret scurried away from him. He watched her lithe, little form as she raced up the hill and vanished at the portal leading into the keep. She had abandoned him in a way. That much he understood, and he doubted she’d be successful. The image of Beorolf readying to smash her small hand in the vise made him shudder. He glanced the opposite way of the keep in the direction Old Lysen had come when they’d entered the village. Glimmering like a beacon of hope, he saw the portal that led back home. It called to him in its own faint way. His feet shuffled him toward it. He moved faster until he broke into a sprint. Beyond the bleary mists, he saw the rift with its bonfires and trailing smoke. He smelled the fresh hay and dung in the pig fields and he remembered his father’s face. He was needed at home. You should go back now, a voice said in his mind. Only it was not Secret’s sweet tone, but the gruff voice of a man. It went on, You don’t belong here, boy. Go home and forget you ever came to this place forsaken by the Gods. Beorolf’s words halted Hiram. He glanced over his shoulder at the high keep where his maiden had gone. He had to have her

before he went back home, otherwise, all would have been for naught. ‚Mother? What should I do?‛ he asked her spirit. As always, no one answered, but he felt her distant presence watching over him. He lifted his fingers to the portal’s surface and touched the incandescent mist. No trill of passion overwhelmed him. No images, save that of pigs and memories of toiling beneath an unforgiving sun, gave him reason to pass through. His hand fell away, down to his side, brushing the lump in his pocket. He reached inside and pulled out the clay tablet he’d stolen from the keep. It rested in his hands, small and insignificant, the writing there holding no meaning to him. He shoved it back into hiding and turned to go find his maiden. **** The keep smelled like burned hair. Hiram passed through its empty halls and rooms calling out her name. No one answered. Even the gremlins were silent, if they were there at all. He searched the entire building to no avail. In the south wing, he came to an open door and a garden beyond. Labyrinth hedges and herbs arranged in intricate patterns made him shake his head in disbelief. Gardens were for growing food, not to be made into art. He walked along the stone path, his gaze scanning every shadow. ‚Secret!‛ he shouted. The magnetic pull of her mind finally reached out to him. He began to run. Beneath an arch draped with flowering vines, he found them. Secret and Beorolf locked in a battle, both choking the other. She looked sinister and beautiful, nude and angry as she squeezed at her father’s throat. The half-man, half-golem looked terrible. His face contorted with rage and his non-human eye blazed red.

‚Let him go,‛ Hiram said, creeping closer. ‚Let him go and we’ll leave this place.‛ Secret faltered. Beorolf used the moment to flip her to the ground. He fell atop her curved shape, crushing her beneath his deformed body. Her eyes bulged, and she gagged. He barreled forth to tackle the lord. They rolled together, arms and legs scraping against the stone path until they came to a stop in the bushes near a statue. Piles of long dead bouquets crushed beneath the lord. Their stale perfume wafted up to Hiram. ‚Leave her alone,‛ he growled. ‚Don’t touch her again.‛ The lord’s eyes narrowed. ‚She’s bewitched you, boy.‛ He heaved out a worn breath. ‚She’ll never love you. They can’t love.‛ He turned his head away, and Hiram followed his attention to the marble headstone nearby. ‚You killed her, Father,‛ Secret accused. ‚Not the other way around. It was you who could not love.‛ Beorolf snarled as he escaped from beneath him. Secret went on. ‚It was you! You who could not accept what she was…‛ She came closer, her fists clenched, her eyes narrowed. ‚You who pretended to love her while you stole her magic, her knowledge…‛ ‚She gave it to me freely!‛ ‚You stole her secrets and then, when she had nothing more to give, you killed her!‛ ‚That’s not the whole truth! You were too young. You don’t know what happened. It was your mother who killed me first!‛ Secret froze. ‚What?‛ she asked in a breathless whisper. ‚What did you say?‛ Beorolf crawled backwards until he rested atop the grave, his back pressed to the headstone. His chest rose and fell in harried gasps. ‚That’s right, child. She killed me. She destroyed my body in the process…‛ He waved a hand to indicate what had been done to him. ‚But you’re alive,‛ Hiram interjected. ‚You’re not dead.‛

‚Of course not.‛ He took hold of the small door on the golem side of his chest and unclasped it. Trembling human fingers reached into the knotted wires. ‚She brought me back,‛ Beorolf murmured. ‚Brought me back with the same magic she’d taught me. I could never forgive her for that.‛ He plucked out the small tablet within. His golem eye winked out. His human eye blinked once before widening. It went glassy after a few moments. The tablet fell from his grip, clattered against his metal leg and landed on the stone walk, broken in two. Lord Beorolf took what remained of his own life in the end. Secret sighed. It was over, Hiram realized, and he wished it hadn’t come to this. His maiden crouched to her knees and wept. She cried as he gathered her in his arms and carried her away from her father and the grave of her mother. Things had gone terribly wrong for that couple, and he didn’t desire the same for him. ‚You’ll come home with me now,‛ he said. ‚We’ll stay in my father’s house.‛ The gray sky began to weep along with the woman he bore. The more she cried, the harder the rain fell, soaking her nude body and causing his clothes to sag. He took her to the shelter of the keep and set her beside him. Though her eyes were bleary, she let him hold her in the doorway. Together, they watched the sky pummel the garden in silence broken every so often by her sobs.

Chapter Eight Beginning at the End In the middle of the night, rumbling thunder woke Hiram. He reached over for the soft shape of the woman he’d fallen asleep by to find her missing. ‚Secret?‛ he whispered. He sat up in the lord’s old bed and caught sight of her near the window. ‚What’s wrong? Come back to bed.‛ She shook her head. He rolled off the mattress, carrying the coverlet with him, for it was cold. He stood at her back and draped it over her shoulders. Her body was cool against his warm bare skin. ‚What’s to become of us?‛ she asked. He nestled his face in her hair, breathing in her unique scent. ‚We’ll live in Pig’s End and have children.‛ It was a simple answer, but the truth of it felt right to him. ‚But I’m not of your kind—not wholly. I’ll always be different from you.‛ She turned to face him, looking up with those ambercolored eyes that haunted his dreams. ‚One day you’ll tire of me, of what I am, or the other way around.‛ She touched his waist with icy fingers, the tips skimming along his naked hips. ‚I will never tire of you,‛ he promised. One of her eyebrows rose. ‚Never is a very long time where I come from.‛ He shrugged. She kissed him, parting her lips to invite his tongue to explore. He did so, tentative in his indulgence, afraid she might pull away. When he didn’t give her what she wanted, she took it from him, delving her tongue into his mouth to tease his. Her hands gripped his buttocks, squeezing until he moved closer against her body. Naked and at the cusp of arousal, he remembered Beorolf’s words. “It was a primal mating, like animals.” Her hips gyrated against him. His cock warmed to her coaxing. He wanted that primal mating, longed for it, and backed to the wall where she pinned him.

‚I claim you as mine, Hiram,‛ she said when their lips parted. ‚You are mine until the end of your days.‛ He nodded, mesmerized by her fierce expression. She slipped her hands across his chest to pinch his nipples until they rounded with excitement. Secret nipped at his lower lip, smiling between her small attacks. ‚I want to feel you inside me,‛ she whispered. ‚Deep inside me.‛ One hand slid down to his hardening cock, stroking him into full arousal. ‚I want you to keep me in your world, always by you, to remind me why I must stay in this form...so I do not become what my mother was.‛ ‚I’ll try,‛ he squeaked out. She guided him to her entrance, wet and hot, ready for this moment. Color flashed in her eyes, a warning of what was to come if he stayed with her. She was not entirely human, but a creature of the world beyond the portal, a thing his mother had warned him about. If the others back home found out what she was, they would call her a monster. Hiram closed his mind against such thoughts. He took hold of her waist and thrust himself inside her tight body. She moaned in his ear. He knelt and thrust again. Her feet twisted around his ankles until she clung to him in an awkward embrace, their bodies connected and pumping to meet. He turned in three quick steps, set her back to the wall and took hold of her legs, supporting her weight with his arms and parting her thighs wider. He delved inside, each time a little deeper, each time closer to his end. She stared at him with half-closed eyes, and lips that begged kisses. Hiram came in a rush of heat. He slammed into her as hard as he dared until she cried his name and knotted her fingers in his hair. ‚Make me forget what I am,‛ she pleaded when he carried her back to the bed. ‚I want to be what you are. I want to be human like you.‛ ‚Shh,‛ he said before he devoured her mouth. ‚You are what you are, and I will love you for the truth, not any lies.‛

**** They did not tarry in the keep the next day. The rain let up at dawn, leaving the dead village wet in its ruin. Secret held Hiram’s hand as they strode down the road to the portal leading home. She skipped in her merriment and hummed a happy tune. He admired the shape of her in the makeshift dress she’d made from Beorolf’s bedcurtains. For shoes, she had fashioned slips of leather into sandals and her hair was braided and bound by a leather thong. Hiram had never seen a woman more beautiful. ‚We must marry,‛ he told her as they stopped before the misty gateway to the world he hadn’t thought he’d want to go back to. ‚If we must, then let it be done soon.‛ ‚Maybe today,‛ he said, leaning close to kiss her cheek. ‚I’ll ask in the chapel by the wayside.‛ She giggled like a young woman in love should and together, they stepped through the cold void with no surge of passion or sensual tingles and came out the other end by the rift. Smoke trailed along the edges that marked the end of the world for the people who lived in Hiram’s village. He glanced around to make sure all was in order and it did seem to be. The couple made their way along the bumpy road and straight away to the chapel on the side of the small village. The pastor married them with a few kind words, his gray eyes fixed on the bride. ‚You are a lucky man indeed, Hiram Oversher, so very lucky. Your father will be proud of you.‛ ‚Thank you,‛ Hiram replied before he ushered his bride away. Nothing had changed at his father’s house. The fences needed mending and the pigs needed to be fed. He found his father raking the rows of the soggy garden behind the house. Secret stayed at her husband’s side, watching the older man approach. ‚I see you’ve come home now, my son,‛ his father said, squinting his one good eye to see better. ‚And you’ve brought someone along as well. Who is she and will she be staying long?‛

‚This is my bride, Father. I found her beyond the rift.‛ The old man’s face pinched for a moment, but only the tiniest moment of all. ‚It’s not nearly the safest place to find a bride,‛ he uttered and took a step closer. He wiped his hands on his pants and reached out to Secret. ‚What’s your name, dear?‛ ‚Secret,‛ she whispered. ‚I’m Hiram’s Secret.‛ ‚Aha.‛ His gaze roved over her as he clasped her hands. ‚You remind me very much of my wife. She was a beauty as you are, smart, smarter than most around these parts. And she didn’t come from Pig’s End either.‛ He cleared his throat and looked over her shoulder at the neighbor’s house. Hiram noticed Bigsly Jenks staring out the window at them. ‚But don’t you pay no mind to folks who go staring at you round here. They’re just jealous is all. And you go on and be yourself, and be happy in my home. It’s mine and yours as much as it is my son’s. Welcome to my family, small as it is now.‛ ‚Thank you.‛ She stepped closer and hugged Hiram’s father, closing her eyes and smiling in a sweet way. Hiram almost believed they would be happy now. At least he wouldn’t be alone and his father had approved of the match.

Chapter Nine The Meaning of the Tablet For three months, they lived quite happily. Hiram and Secret worked side by side in the fields. They slopped the hogs and picked the root crops when the time came. The couple slept in a new bed he’d fashioned for them. His father had helped him add on a private room to the small house. It was just after dawn one day when Hiram crept out of bed. He pulled on the pair of pants he had gotten from Lord Beorolf, marveling at how well the unusual fabric held up. He stood by the window and didn’t watch the colors turn in the sky, but instead, looked at his wife, resting on her side, her dark hair spread across the pillow and the bed cover knotted at her ankles. He could just see the small swell of her belly where their child grew. A mule brayed along down the road outside. Hiram’s father was already setting to his chores for the day. Life in Pig’s End was hard work, but he didn’t mind so much now. He went off to cook some breakfast for his wife and himself. In the kitchen, he overheard his father shouting. It went on for a time, so he went out to see what the matter was. ‚You’ve got something that doesn’t belong to you! You’ll trade it to me as is the way of things.‛ ‚Our bargains ended after Malecer died. You know that, Lysen. Now begone with your cart and your mule and find some other old fool to swindle.‛ Hiram stepped into the street where the two men glared at each other. ‚You heard my father, man, be on your way,‛ he warned the trader. Old Lysen’s eyes brightened. He hooked his thumbs in his pants and flashed a crooked grin. ‚So, you survived my brother, you did. I suspect you had something to do with his death.‛

‚Your brother did himself in,‛ Hiram replied. ‚Be off now. You heard my father. He wants no business with you this day.‛ Lysen clucked his tongue. ‚No, but he did some twenty winters back, he did. We had a bargain then. I’d like to make one again now.‛ ‚My bargain to you was paid in full,‛ Hiram’s father interrupted. ‚My wife is dead, and she was a good wife when she was with me. I’ve no ill claim against you, and you should have none against me.‛ Lysen wheezed and eyed the house, his beard fluttering in the wind. ‚It’s a strange boy who lets gremlins free on a keep full of the very thing they’re driven to destroy.‛ Hiram narrowed his eyes. ‚A stranger man who locks away his daughter in a dungeon.‛ ‚Ah! So, it’s true! I knew the truth in the village gossip the moment they spoke of her beauty. You have my niece! Where is she?‛ He scurried toward the house as fast as his legs could carry him. Hiram followed, wary. ‚Secret!‛ Lysen shouted inside the doorway. ‚It’s time you get back to where you belong!‛ The trader went inside, clomping through the hall to the back rooms. ‚You get out of my house!‛ Hiram shouted, clenching his fists as he gave chase. A scream made him sprint. He found Lysen and Secret in the bedroom, the old man’s hands at his wife’s throat. ‚You’re a vile thing, and I’ll end you now. My brother didn’t have the brains to do it, but I’m not like him.‛ He snarled and pressed his weight down on her. She clawed at his face, her nails lengthening, her body shifting, but so slowly, as if she truly had forgotten how to be what was in her nature. Hiram took up the stool by the door and clubbed Lysen on the back of the head, sending the old man to one side. But he held fast to his target, choking the life out of her.

Secret’s eyes were wide and glassy. Hiram shrieked and beat the old man again. A pair of gnarled hands gripped Lysen by the shoulders and yanked him away. Hiram rushed to gather his wife in his arms before she could fall to the floor. Her silence terrified him. Secret’s face had gone blue. Her chest didn’t move at all. Red finger marks stood out on her fair throat where Lysen had choked her…to death. ‚No!‛ he shouted, over and over. ‚No, no!‛ He held her limp body to his chest and wept. Behind him, his father beat Lysen again. Silence settled over the house, and a sad melancholy thickened the air and made it hard to breathe or see through his tears. Hiram didn’t want to let go of her body. He couldn’t see placing her in a grave or covering her with the moist earth of the land. It seemed so wrong, so terrible a thing to do to someone he loved so much. ‚I’d do anything to bring her back,‛ he said. His father sat beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder. ‚I know you would, son. I would have done the same for your mother…if there was a way.‛ Hiram thought of Beorolf and the keep, the golems, and the lord’s misshapen body. ‚Her father knew a way,‛ he muttered. ‚If only I had stayed there longer, learned his trade, understood the magic he had.‛ ‚I’ll leave you be for a time,‛ his father said before he stood and dragged Lysen’s body out. Hiram set his wife across the pillows and stared down at her. He stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets, racked by a fit of sobs. His fingers closed over something he’d long since forgotten. He pulled out the small clay tablet. ‚It’s the key,‛ he said aloud, realizing what a treasure he had saved. This little trinket had brought the golems to life in Beorolf’s keep. At night, when the lord removed them, the golems were immobile. And in the morning, he had replaced them and the golems went about their chores. Hiram set his gaze on his wife’s motionless chest, and bit his lip. I have to try.

He went to the kitchen to find a knife, thinking himself mad for attempting such a thing. The golems were forged beings, not creatures of flesh, but Beorolf had been both. It has to work. His mind raced with thoughts of what might go wrong. Whispering a prayer to the Gods, he unlaced her nightshirt and pierced her chest with the tip of the blade. Blood dribbled down her skin in slow, crimson lines. Unsure of how the magic worked or how much of her would still be there, he slipped the tiny piece of clay past the cut and worked it beneath her skin. With her sewing needle and a length of thread, he stitched closed the injury he’d done and sat beside her to wait. ‚Please, Gods,‛ he begged, ‚Bring her back to me.‛ Outside, he heard his father digging a grave. The rhythmic shush-thunk of the shovel sounded like a heartbeat. He shuddered and prayed harder. Cold fingers slipped over Hiram’s knee. Secret’s eyes opened. ‚Can you hear me?‛ he whispered, fearing the same fate her mother had suffered. ‚Are you all right?‛ ‚Hiram?‛ Her voice came out in a weak gasp. She touched her neck. Bruises had started to form there, blue and gruesome, evidence of what Lysen had done. Her fingers reached lower to her chest, testing the small wound. ‚You…you…knew my father’s magic?‛ ‚Not really,‛ he whispered. ‚Not really at all. I just saw him put the tablets in the golems one morning. I saw them asleep before it and awake afterward.‛ She nodded and blinked. A tear rolled down one side of her face. ‚The tablet…is a soul,‛ she explained in a pained tone. ‚You’ve given me a new soul.‛ Tears burned their way down his cheeks. ‚Did it work? Do you…hate me for bringing you back?‛ She reached for him, her eyes glittering. ‚I could never hate you. You are my savior one more time. I love you, my husband. I will love you until the end of your days.‛

He lay down beside her and clutched her body close, imagining how his life might have been if he hadn’t saved that tiny piece of Beorolf’s mysterious puzzle. **** Breene was born late in the night, a large baby with coal black eyes and a screechy cry. Secret nursed their son and cooed to him while Hiram looked on, both proud and a little frightened. He saw the other side of his wife in their child, a side she had all but forgotten, and neither of them spoke of that past. The changeling infant shifted freely from human state to gremlin and curled his tail round his mother’s arm when she set him against her shoulder to burp him. Secret offered her husband a curious smile, as if she too didn’t know what to make of their offspring. Her attention turned to the doorway. ‚Oh, my,‛ Hiram’s father said as he stepped into the room and saw his grandchild for the first time. The oil lamp flickered, casting wavy shadows over the room. He hoped his father would think it the bad lighting and go back to bed, but he remained, and even came closer for an inspection. The old man nodded, rubbed at his chin, and made a drawn out, ‚Hmmm.‛ Hiram got up and went to his father, worried now of how to explain. ‚There’s something I haven’t told you about Secret,‛ he said, ushering his father out. ‚Something I—‛ ‚Shh,‛ his father shushed him in the hall. ‚The babe will grow out of it in time.‛ He scratched the back of his head, surprised by his father’s words. His grandchild looked like a gremlin for the whole time he’d been staring at Breene. Did he think it was some sort of disease, a disfigurement the baby would grow out of? ‚How do you know?‛ His father winked, chuckling to himself. ‚I’ve been beyond the rift, my son. You’re not the only boy who went looking for greener

pastures.‛ He stepped away, grinned wider and said, ‚Your tail fell off when you were about two summers old.‛ Hiram choked and gasped for air. ‚Now get some sleep,‛ his father chided with a raised finger. ‚Lysen’s ancient mule doesn’t do well with me at the plow. Best if you’re the one behind him. And don’t let the baby near my clock when he gets old enough to grab things. It won’t be long before that happens, so mind you remember that piece of advice.‛ He dipped into his bedroom grumbling, ‚Took me months to find all the pieces of it after you tore it apart.‛ In shock, he returned to his bed. He nestled beside his wife. ‚He doesn’t look like you at all,‛ Secret said, sounding a little sad about it. Hiram sighed. ‚According to my father, he does.‛ She turned on him, a question in her eyes. ‚What?‛ ‚He also said the tail falls off after two summers, so don’t get too used to it.‛ His wife covered her mouth to stifle her laughter.

About the Author Anastasia writes erotic romance, paranormal erotic romance, and dark fantasy. She often crosses genres in order to follow her muses into the darkness where they seek out destiny in all its forms. She believes in fairies, demons, angels, magic, passion, chocolate, supportive friends, e-books, and writing critique groups. Her deepest desire is to pursue her creative dreams and realize them. Every spare moment she devotes to writing for her haunting muses. Visit her online at: www.rabiyahbooks.com

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