The Apple Tree Ch. 04

Rebecca was proud of herself for maintaining two magical processes that fooled both a master wizard and a major demon while controlling her fear. Her protection spell was keeping her warm despite her nakedness as well as protecting her from the demon's awful whip. An illusion spell was making red marks appear on her flesh, occasionally leaking blood, in response to the crack of the whip. The illusion wasn't hard to create in the dim light of the dungeon although having her hands stretched over her head in iron shackles didn't help. Lust of man and demon limited their sight as well. Controlling her discomfort as well as her fear kept her magic undetected and intact.

The situation resembled her mother's torture at the hands of Michael's brother. Occasionally the memory flashed through her mind, but she gave it no energy, returning to the image of the apple tree at home in full bloom laden with fruit to keep her focus.

"Tell me where the rebel headquarters is!" The mage was wearing a dark brown robe trimmed with bright red fur, and his dark booted foot tapped impatiently on the stone floor. His bright blue eyes glowed with range. The room was lit by two feeble torches, yet the light turned his bright red hair and beard vivid. His body was not thin, but not plump either; he was roughly the same height as Rebecca's father was, which was neither extreme. He was standing in a protection Circle permanently installed in the floor with tile: a brazier offered acrid smoke to fuel his magic.

The Demon Hamate glowered as he went about his work. His skin was light green, his eyes black with white irises, the end of his tail hovered above his head, and his muscular body sweated as he used the three stranded whip. Naked, his two phalluses bumped against each other in their excitement. His black tongue darted out to moisten his lips, and a low chuckle bubbled from between his needle sharp teeth. "It won't be long now, Master. She's taken more today than the past three months."

"You can't last forever, Rebecca. Sooner or later you will tell me. Sooner or later your miraculous power to heal yourself overnight will fail; magic has its limits." He signaled the demon who seem to lay three bright stripes across Rebecca's back. She moaned a little bit and wiggled, saying nothing. "Very well. No mercy, Hamate."

Rebecca took care to squirm in response to the whipping even though the leather never touched her flesh. Standing on her toes helped the tension on her arms a little: that was the greatest difficulty she had. The demon worked relentlessly, moving to cover as much of her pale flesh with his whip as he could. The mage parted of the front of his robe exposing his manhood, and began to stroke himself.

In less than a minute, sticky white rain fell on the floor, smoking slightly. His head leaned back and he groaned; the demon stopped to laugh at him and play with himself as well. Rebecca took the opportunity to shift her focus: not needing the protection spell, she reduced the energy she was feeding it and the illusion to work on the magical control the Mage wielded over the demon. It was like standing on a cliff above a dangling person in peeling away one finger at a time. She had already done the equivalent of peeling away six fingers, but the Mage didn't pleasure himself at her daily torture session every time, so she had to take each opportunity she when he lost control in orgasm.

She could feel his senses coming back and stopped her undoing. The other spells were back at full power when his eyes cleared and he grimaced at her. The demon continued with both hands until a black gusher shot from his double endowment, rewarded with a quick lightning shot to his genitals from the mage. "You hung on today, Rebecca. Tomorrow we will have to come up with something else. That is unless your Master Michael gives in to Lily's charms first."

"I don't know where the rebels are. I don't even know what a map of your empire looks like. You are torturing me for no reason other than your pleasure." Her statements were accurate: her contact with the rebels was only through extra dimensional suggestion and all she did was nurture their courage and will to resist. The Mage's Empire was brutal enough it spawned resistance easily.

The demon disappeared with a quick wave of banishment, and the Mage walked over to face her. "One can have multiple reasons," he said in a silky tone. He reached between her legs and tried to force his fingers inside her, but he yelped in pain and quickly put them in his mouth. Speaking awkwardly he said: "I'm amazed that the strength of your magic. For one so young, your control and tightness of focus is amazing. But I shall break you and you will be mine forever."

"Larry seems like such an odd name for a powerful Mage-Emperor," she said in an undertone.

He growled, took his hand out of his mouth and tried to slap her hard across the cheek. An electrical discharge made him scream in pain, jumping up and down with his hand between his legs until the pain subsided. He gave her a dark look and stomped out in frustration.

In another room, Michael said: "Rook to King two, check."

Lily's brow furrowed and she regarded Michael's move. There were only seven pieces on the chessboard, White had one more than Black. Michael sat in a large overstuffed chair, placidly smoking a pipe. The game coincided with Rebecca's torture session at the Emperor's hands. Michael was moving his pieces from within his sphere of protection, which was a little bit lighter than the rest of the room, and its light blue tinge contrasted with the dark red hue the fireplace provided. She sat in another more spartan chair near the fire next to the table which held the chessboard. "So you really have had no contact with the rebels?" she murmured while pondering her position.

"You can sense that. I'm being completely honest with you."

"But you're not telling me all you know."

He shrugged his shoulders and looked his palms. "Who does?" Contact with the rebels was something he was letting Rebecca handle. His task was more subtle. "It takes all my power enable to maintain my mind's independence while you have my body constrained."

She laughed. "I'm amazed we caught you so easily. You are obviously a mage of great power and a threat to my husband and I. Surely you had a lapse in judgment to go sightseeing in our sphere of influence. Trust me, had you stayed at home on the other side of the world, we would not even have noticed you and your girlfriend."

Shrugging again, he said: "She wanted to travel, and experience it as ordinary people did. Visions in a scrying crystal were not enough. Come now, we were all young and impulsive once."

Her gaze returned to the chessboard as she considered her next move. After several minutes silence, she laid her King on its side in resignation. "That's the only wrong move I've known you to make the entire time you've been here. You over estimated your ability to keep yourself safe from us. I'm amazed."

"Come now, I haven't beaten you every night we played chess."

"But it's taken all my concentration just to draw with you. This is the third time you've defeated me; I've never defeated you."

"It's a matter of skill. Obviously I'm a better chess player then you are."

Her eyebrow furrowed and a slight smile creased her lips. "You are the only chess player who has ever mastered me. Perhaps we should play another game, Michael."

He blew a smoke ring and looked at her calmly. She stood up: a tall woman with waist-long blonde hair. Her hands were delicate, her fingers long, her nails painted red. She wore a deep blue gown the same shade as her eyes. Snapping her fingers, her garment disappeared. Gentle curves best described her, as well as grace and subtle strength. Her breasts were heavy and her nipples dimpled in the red light. "Perhaps this gambit will be more to your liking and my advantage, hmm?"

"Sculptors would advance a fortune to replicate you in stone; painters would sell their souls to re-create this picture. Lily, I do not need to tell you you're incredibly lovely, for you know that already."

"Thank you. And perhaps we can trade?"

"Tempting. Yet I would give up quite a bit just to touch you. I would have to banish all my protection. This would be unwise. Granted, your offer is still tempting, however I am more interested in self-preservation than gratification."

She smiled, putting the tip of her left index finger to her full red lips. "We could sign an agreement, secured any way you wish. You would be a powerful ally, worth my cultivation."

"I'm sure your husband, the Emperor, would not approve. Even though I'm sure you have a marriage of convenience, and neither one of you are jealous of each other's recreation. This would be much more."

The tip of her tongue snaked out to tease her finger. "He knows you're here and he trusts me to keep you under control. Seldom does he second-guess my means, as I seldom second-guess his."

The chessboard disappeared and a scrying crystal took its place. It revealed a dungeon, with a young woman seated on the hay. Rebecca was sitting crosslegged, naked, her eyes closed. "It seems your husband has made no great progress with her," he said blandly.

Her finger left her lips, and a deep frown filled her face. "My husband is less than subtle, but I have use for his inelegant means. She is formidable, and he is taking up all of her attention. This allows me time and space to deal with you. You I can spare; her I cannot. You understand I cannot tolerate a potential rival."

"Of course," he said crossing his legs and blowing out a smoke ring. "We can negotiate her fate?"

"Surely," she said, smiling sweetly. "If it would facilitate our dealmaking, we could come up with some arrangement that would leave her alive yet not a threat."

"You could send her home."

"I don't think so," she said shaking her head. "You would have to stay here, and her attachment to you would bring her back. It would have to be something else."

Michael nodded, knowing any agreement with Lily would not be kept. "Perhaps you should tell me how I benefit of an arrangement and persuade me."

Lily walked across the room as gracefully as a dancer. Coming up to his sphere, she raised her arms as to embrace it, parting her legs slightly and smiling at him: "You are an enigma. I can't sense what your emotional attachments might be. Gold means nothing to us great mages: we can summon whatever coinage we need to do business. I can tell power over others is something you do not long for either. You are coming to the end of a long life, so the promise of an ideal future has little appeal, either. So I must offer you something different: a challenge, a puzzle, something that will amuse you to try."

He blinked and drew on his pipe. "You are not interested in intellectual puzzles except chess," he observed: "You seek an ally, an ally against your husband."

"Controlling him is easy; living without him is not. Ruling an empire takes more than one, and Larry has provided me both the figurehead and brutality I've needed. You and I both know brutality has its limits. Your wisdom will help me provide a better control, and give me time to prepare for the next step: a single Empress."

He looked up at her, his blue eyes locked in her blue eyes. She licked her lips, and shifted her weight to make her breasts jiggle. His eyes glanced at the crystal, a movement she sensed instantly. "Michael, I will swear to you by whatever you want I will spare her. I will put her in stasis until my death. Do we have a deal?"

"I need time to think about it. Your offer is tempting on many levels. It would be interesting to rule the country without repression and terror for a short time. The other parts of your offer are appealing as well. But I must have time."

She stroked the sphere as if it were his thigh. "How long?"

"A day."

A wave of anger flowed through her mind, and Michael used the moment to send Rebecca a one-word silent message. Lily mastered herself quickly and stepped back, pulling her shoulders back and smiling. "I'm amazed you could wait. Your age is showing, old man. Larry took up my offer before I even made it. Very well: you have 24 hours." She disappeared and Michael was left alone.

The guards came for Rebecca at midnight. After three months of unclad captivity, Rebecca was no longer bashful being nude in others' presence. She didn't resist as they shackled her hands and led her through the cold, damp hallways, nor did she shiver. There was panic running through the castle: soldiers darting through the hallways in every direction and incoherent shouting in a distance. Emperor Larry was in his magic circle, hastily drawn on his command center floor, guarded by the Demon Hamate. "You lied to me, you've always lied to me!"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Giving him a calm look, she was calm and collected, her bare body relaxed. "You could tell easily if I were lying to you; your mastery of magic exceeds mine."

"Sure, right. Once again there isn't a mark on you after hours of whipping. Something else is going on here. But now you're going to tell me where the rebels are."

"I don't know. Like I said before, I don't know the geography of your country, I don't know the identity of the rebels or even what they look like. Does it look like I'm lying to you? You can read my aura as well as I can read yours."

The Emperor-Mage stamped his feet in frustration. Turning to the demon, he said: "Go down and protect the Front Gate. No one is to enter alive." Without a sound, the demon disappeared. A messenger ran in and gave his Master a piece of paper. Stamping his feet again, he screamed: "Seven provinces in full rebellion. Only two governors still loyal. The Fleet put out to sea without orders. Why are they all doing this now?" He turned toward Rebecca, pointing at her and wagging his finger: "You have something to do with this!"

"Yes, Larry. That I can admit to. But I've done very little, all I've done is feed a fire already burning. As history teaches us, uprisings like this can burst any given time, and snowball quickly once the momentum gets started."

"I don't know about that, I was never good at history. But you are going to be like everyone else who's opposed me: ground into the dust."

There was shouting outside the window and the chaos outside reached full cacophony. The soldiers at the window were firing arrows; one of them turned to the Emperor and said: "Your Majesty, we're outnumbered. We're too few to defend this castle, the troops barracked outside town have fled."

"Then will see how well the rebels can do against a Major Demon!"

The captain of the guards said: "No, your Majesty! You can't do that! No living mortal will ever follow you again!"

It seemed as though a massive hand slammed the captain against the wall. He hung there for a moment nine feet above the floor, then slid down silently never to move again. "You're next!" the Emperor screamed, and gestured Rebecca's direction. Her hair was blown straight back by a strong wind, but her body was untouched. "You've definitely concealed the extent of your powers from me. If I'd known you could resist me like this I would've tried other means to break you." Summoning a whip from the air, he left circle and began hitting her.

Rebecca stood her ground, a look of defiance in her eyes. The whip kicked up sparks as it appeared to touch her skin, discharges of electricity crackled in the air, but her porcelain skin was unmarked. This was the moment she prepared for, and she shifted her energies.

Michael's voice rang in her ears: "When you go from submission to defiance you must trust the magic you've already laid and put all your effort into the Unbinding. There is risk if your protection comes apart first, but this can't be helped. You must continue to push until the important task is done, even at the cost of pain." The noise outside grew wilder and wilder, one of the soldiers shouted the demon was slaughtering dozens. Her magic was about to go, but Rebecca remain focused on lifting the last finger from the cliff's edge.

There was an earthquake that shook Michael from his meditation. Looking around, he saw Lily standing by the fireplace wearing a long red gown. "Your little friend has done it now. She undid Larry's control over the demon. We must get it back again to banish him to the Pit he came from." Her body was quaking with fear, and her eyes spoke of inner terror.

"I believe we should chat about this. There will be some conditions."

"What do you mean conditions? We don't have time! We must tame this demon now!"

Michael put his palms together and then opened his arms wide. The scene shifted from an upper room in a castle tower to a greenfield in broad daylight. "We'll be safe here and we have all the time we need."

Lily sat down on the grass with a grunt. "I seem to have miscalculated you. Just like our chess games, you always let me carry out my plans and then hit me with an unexpected rock-crusher. We didn't capture you, did we?"

He shook his head slowly in negation. "It will take two of us to banish the demon. The aftermath will not be so good for you, will it?"

"Of course not. Most of the Empire is in rebellion, most of my troops have deserted me, and once the demon returns to the Pit, I will be in danger from there as well." She smoothed the wrinkles of her dress spreading it out as a blanket. "I offer you everything for your help: a place at my side as my consort, a guarantee of safety for you and everyone you care for, the freedom to do anything you want, and I will adopt your partner Rebecca as my heir. I will sign this agreement in my blood."

Michael smiled and shook his head no. "Your offer earlier tonight tempted me, and your offer tempts me now. I must be honest with you about that. But I've never sought to rule over others, and I don't want to begin now. Ordinary people can manage their own society without manipulation. My counter offer is simple: a sanctuary."

Lily had a puzzled look on her face. "What kind of sanctuary do you mean? What can you offer me?"

"A dimension of my own creation beyond the perception of anyone. You can shape this reality to your own liking, populate it as you wish, make it your own completely."

"I've only heard of two other magicians who could do this. From what I understand you can only do this once in your lifetime, and you're willing to give it up to me?"

He nodded. "Yes, I'm willing to do this so the world can be a better place. You will be safe forever, never aging or weakening beyond time and space. I have accepted my Fate, and do not need this. What do you say?"

Her dress disappeared, and she parted her legs, offering him her body completely. For a couple of moments he stood there; he could see the reality in front of him, that this body was the real thing in all its beauty, slightly prolonged in youth by magic, and fully desirable. After a moment, he nodded and disappeared, leaving her there.

It took a month for Michael and Rebecca to return home via ship. It was summer when they returned, one year after she kept the Vigil. She summoned a tent under the apple tree, and they spent the night together in each other's arms making love. When the sun rose, she banished the tent. They were sitting naked under the tree, his back against the trunk and her head in his lap. "Did you enjoy our journey?" he inquired.

She gave his thigh a playful slap. "Enjoy is probably the wrong word. We saw many sights and did many things, but it seemed we spent most of her time ridding the world of great Evil."

"It was necessary. The Evil at work in the world would've intruded in our peace in the next three decades, so was best we confronted it now."

"Shannon of Westfall was a minor player, and Larry's Empire would never have reached our continent."