The Lycian Prince 12

The guards took Anthonius back along a myriad of passageways and down stairwells deep into the dark chilly innards of the coastal fortress. They eventually came, at the foot one narrow flight of stairs, to a single wooden door, which one of the guards unlocked and opened. Anthonius was thrown inside and the door closed behind him. The boy found himself in a large empty square stone cellar, windowless but illuminated by a single wall torch. There was another door directly opposite the one through which he had been pushed. He tried both doors but only confirmed that both were locked. It was cold so the now shivering naked boy cowered for warmth in one corner, arms wrapped around his legs, wondering what the potentially fatal test was that he had to face. He knew that he had to pass the test but not for fear of his own life. He had to somehow survive and return to the Emperor for what would happen to Lycia if he did not? Time passed slowly, cold and discomfort making it difficult to sleep. The boy also had to suffer the indignity of having to urinate in the opposite corner when he could not restrain his bladder any more.

Anthonius had just managed to slip into fitful slumber when the door through which he had entered opened and the Arab walked in accompanied by one guard. “Now for your test, whore,” he said, unlocking the other door, “as through here are eight more chambers and doors through which you must pass to live. You can, of course, choose not to try but then you will soon die. If the cold doesn’t kill you, lack of water will. However, I hope you live as I have some lovely punishments ready to inflict upon your body. Goodbye!” He and the guard then left the way they came. Anthonius stood up to try the door through which the men had exited before opening the other. He was amazed by what he saw inside, another chamber similar to the first, with a door at the other side, but its floor was covered by a mass of metal spikes. The spikes were all cone-shaped but of different heights and separation. Closer examination of the nearest showed that the points were exceedingly sharp and covered with a clear liquid. Anthonius instinctively knew that the liquid would be poisonous. The first of the eight tests that faced him was clearly to pick his way somehow through the forest of spikes to the other door, but the tiny spaces between the conical bases meant that he could only do so on tip-toe. Anthonius shuddered and not with the chill. It was going to be a very difficult task but he accepted the challenge. He planned out what he thought would be the best route and, praying to his gods, gingerly started his precarious journey.

Anthonius found that it was even more difficult than he thought to retain his balance as he was forced to place the front of his soles on the curved bases of the deadly cones, and slipped on two occasions. However, he managed to avoid impaling himself by gripping the middles of some of the spikes below the level of the poison. On the second occasion, his head just avoided one spike and he saw that his scrotum had avoided being pierced by another by less than the width of his little finger. He was also forced to retrace his steps three times as the spikes ahead of him became too compacted but, with luck and by moving carefully and remaining calm, he eventually reached the far side. It had taken almost two hours. He dutifully thanked his gods for his survival and rested awhile before opening the next door.

The new chamber was split in two by a wide trench deeper than his own height. The floor of the trench was covered by sand and initially Anthonius could see nothing disturbing. Then, he noticed that the sand was not still. He saw a small stone at his feet and picked it up. He threw it into the trench so that it would skip across the sand before coming to rest. Anthonius recoiled in horror when he saw several small scorpions jump from under the sand where the stone landed before burying themselves again. He realised that the whole pit was infested with them and he sat at its edge, arms again holding legs for warmth, to try to work out how he could possibly reach the other side. He eventually concluded that there was only one way. He would have to try to emulate the stone. He would take a running jump as far into the pit as possible before quickly skipping across to leap onto the far face. He hoped that any scorpions immediately under foot would be crushed without stinging him and that any reaction from their neighbours would be beaten by his speed of foot. He stood and measured his run up so that he would be leaping with maximum affect, prayed again and made the jump. His plan seemed to be working until he hit the far face and reached for the far ledge. His body rebounded slightly causing one hand to slip. He found himself hanging on with just the other and with his body facing the wrong way, feet dangling just above the surface. Looking down, he could see that the sand was moving as if it was an ocean. However, somehow he avoided falling in and managed instead to spin round, regain his grip and clamber onto the ledge. He was out of breath with the exertion and fright and it was some time before he could bring himself to check his feet. When he did so, he was relieved to find no stings or puncture marks, but his relief was to be short lived for he now passed through the next door.

Anthonius immediately heard the roar as the animal nosed fresh food. He carefully approached the edge of the pit that also divided the next chamber only to see a tiger leaping up at him. The boy ran back to the door but realised that he had not been followed. The pit was deeper than the one he had just been through and was seemingly too tall for the creature to escape. He returned to the edge of the pit to observe the hungry tiger’s loud and frantic but fruitless efforts to reach his feast and, as he watched, he formulated his plan. The boy rapidly recognised that the problem was essentially the same as in the previous chamber. The tiger was much larger and fiercer but there was only one of him. Anthonius therefore remained standing at the edge of the pit to bate the animal and wait for it to tire. He knew that, in its obvious hunger, it was unlikely to sleep, especially when his meal could be smelt nearby, but he hoped that it would eventually calm and lie down, which it did. However, it remained alert to every movement and lifted its head when Anthonius disappeared from view until contented that the tender boy flesh had not gone too far. The animal was just in the process of returning its head to the ground between its huge paws when its eyes noticed a shadow suddenly appear above and its nostrils the delicious smell of fresh meat rapidly approaching, but its brain did not detect danger until too late. Having carefully appraised the leap he would have to make this time, Anthonius had taken a short run up and jumped, crashing down perfectly on the tiger’s head. By the time the stunned creature had recovered its senses, the boy had clambered up to the other ledge.

The fourth test was something quite different for, through the next door, there was no chamber, just a long narrow and bloodstained passageway. Swinging across the full height of the passageway were a number of huge heavy but razor sharp blades, moving in different sequences and at different speeds. The test was obvious. Anthonius would have to advance down the passageway avoiding the blade immediately in front of him whilst also evading the next, but this would be far from easy as the distance between each was little more than the width of his body. Anthonius took a liitle time to compose himself after his adventure with the tiger before facing up to the first blade. He grasped his genitals tightly. Although his cock was soft, he did not want to chance any accidents. He looked at the floor to where he estimated he had to place his feet together to avoid the first two blades and observed the movement of the first very carefully before finally stepping forward. The fact that a second later he was still alive and undamaged was proof that his judgement, on this occasion, had been fine. However, the strong draughts on the front and back of his body, that produced goose pimples all over, was testament to the proximity of the deadly blades, both to him and to each other. He also estimated that there were about twenty more blades beyond the next one, some moving much faster. Slowly but surely he advanced, adopting throughout the same judgement technique before moving. Sometimes he had had to move very quickly indeed and once he almost fatally lost his balance but he eventually came to the last blade. This was the fastest of them all and Anthonius recognised that its edges had been moistened with what he presumed would be poison, so that even a little nick from it could mean death. Assessing when was best to move was impossible, so he put his life in the hands of his gods and, closing his eyes and murmuring a prayer, jumped forward. When he re-opened his eyes, he found that his gods had been with him.

It was back to creatures in the next chamber, and this time of the slimy, slithering kind. Anthonius knew what they were from their loud hissing before peering down to see that the floor of a wide and very deep pit was a mass of writhing snakes. However, the route to the other side had seemingly been mapped out for him for there was a series of about twenty tall narrow stone pillars, about a pace apart, acting like steppingstones. Anthonius wondered for a while whether they could be a trap but saw no other way to proceed. He could not treat the snakes in the same way as the scorpions and tiger, and so he eventually found himself cautiously reaching for the top of the first pillar with his right foot. As he stood with one foot on the ledge and the other on the pillar, he looked down towards the snakes. They seemed aware of his presence because many of their heads were pointing upwards at him. As the boy looked down, he also saw that his cock had become hard.

Anthonius carefully moved his left foot to join his right on the pillar and almost lost his balance before recovering to stand with his feet close together on the cramped flat surface. He gingerly moved on and, after about half an hour, he found himself half way across the pit, legs splayed between two columns. He also found that, despite or more likely because of the dangers of his situation, he could not resist his raging hard-on any more and he began to masturbate himself. His climax came quickly and copious amounts of white boy seed fell onto the creatures below, but his orgasmic pleasure almost caused him to lose his balance again. This re-awaked him to his jeopardy and he mindfully resumed his progress, but now full of guilt that he could find his predicament so sexually arousing.

After another half an hour, Anthonius only had two more columns to travail but he was wary of both because their tops seemed to damp, and he was right to be circumspect for his right foot slipped as it made contact with the first. Fortunately, the boy had the good sense to attempt to leap as he began to fall and his stomach landed squarely but heavily on the column, temporarily knocking the air from his lungs. However, he kept a tight grip on the sides of the column and, once he had recovered, managed to scramble into a sitting position on top. He now realised that the damp was in fact a grease-like substance. There had been a trap after all. Anthonius sat for a time, contemplating his next move for it would be too dangerous to try to stand on the column he was on or the next. He concluded that there was only one action that he could take and, after scrupulously weighing up his task and assuming the required but awkward crouch-like stance, feet tightly gripping the column’s edges, he made a leap for the last. This again landed him on his middle but this time his momentum caused his body to keep moving on the confined greased surface and he slipped off. Luckily, a trailing hand prevented him from falling headlong into the snakes below and he somehow found himself dangling by that one hand from the column. His body must have rubbed some of the grease away for the hand was gripping a rough surface. A mighty effort saw him first wrap his other arm and legs around the column to stabilise his position and then climb methodically towards the top to resume another sitting position. A further leap like the previous one eventually brought him to the far ledge, with the middle of his body displaying a vivid round redness around his young tummy.

Anthonius now realised how weary and thirsty he was. He could rectify the former with sleep but was worried by the affect that the chilly atmosphere would have on his naked body as he slept because he was sure that he would do so for many hours. He knew that he could not rectify the latter. The boy therefore decided that he could not delay and entered the sixth chamber. He immediately found the solution to his worries about the cold. The floor of the chamber was covered by spikes, similar to those that comprised his first test, but between them glowed red-hot coals. A series of chains with metal rings on the end were suspended from the roof. Like the pillars previously, they mapped out the route to the other side. Anthonius would be required to swing from one ring to the other to reach his destination, but he did not think that he now possessed the energy to succeed, and rest would only exacerbate his thirst in the heat. However, he knew that he had no choice. He had to try without delay. If this was were his gods wanted him to die, so be it. Anthonius jumped up for the first ring, which was suspended just before the leading edge of the spikes and coals, and inauspiciously his grip slipped. The boy just managed to prevent himself from toppling into the deadly mixture. He quickly realised that the ring had not been greased. It had been the sweat in his hand that had caused the accident. This realisation, and the conviction that some of the rings were bound to be sabotaged with grease, made him burst into tears. He had just survived the horrors and hazards of five tests but surely this sixth was impossible. He suddenly felt what he was, a tired, lonely and terrified 14 years old boy.

It was a while before Anthonius regained his composure and, having rubbed his sweaty hands in the dirt of the floor, jumped again for the first ring. He grasped it with one hand and then with the other so that he too was suspended from the roof. He swung on the chain and reached out for the next ring with one hand whilst retaining a hold on the first with the other, before transferring it as well. Now he was above the spikes and coals and a fall would surely mean a slow and agonising death. However, he managed to exclude this thought from his mind and, knowing that speed was essential if he was to prevent his arm muscles from reaching exhaustion and have any chance of survival, quickly swung again to enable him to reach out for the next ring. Somehow, he speedily developed a rhythm, was suddenly re-energised with the gradual growth in confidence this imbued and miraculously soon found himself clinging to the penultimate ring. His arms were now very weary and he was confronted by a major problem before he could bring both relief to them and safety to himself. He had seen that the last ring was smeared with grease and his hands were now virtually devoid of the dirt that had protected them from his own sweat. He had to act speedily before his arms gave way so he swung mightily on his chain and at its highest apogee released his grip. He was thrown high into the air before coming to ground just beyond the edge of the spikes and coals. The boy burst into tears again, but with relief instead of despair.

Anthonius entered the seventh chamber and immediately thought that he would be able to cure his thirst. However, a quick taste of the deep water in the wide pool that divided the chamber showed that it was seawater and therefore undrinkable. The boy wondered what horrible beast or beasts lay in wait under its surface and so sat on the edge to look for signs. None were visible for the pool remained completely calm. Anthonius dipped the fingers of his right hand into the cold water to cause a disturbance before quickly withdrawing them, but nothing happened. He became bolder and disturbed the water with his whole hand and then half of his arm but still there were no signs of life, even after a full hour of observation. The boy was now very tired, thirsty and cold, with the water causing the atmosphere to be even chillier than usual. He knew that he could wait no longer and slipped his nude form into the pool. He had had to choose whether to swim fast or slow. If the creatures were somnolent, the former might awake them. If the creatures were just biding their time, the latter would provide them with more time to pounce. However, he had chosen the latter and his teeth chattered continuously as he gingerly swam through the freezing water towards the other side constantly fearing the sudden feel of the sea creatures. He was amazed when he found himself climbing out of the pool, dripping wet and shivering with both cold and fright but unharmed. The boy was never to learn that the pool contained only water. The test had been to overcome the fear of what might be there and a fair proportion of the few who had survived the first six tests over the years had failed the seventh, their terror making them simply curl up before the pool and allow death to overtake them.

The shivering Anthonius opened the eighth door. He was surprised to see the obese Arab waiting for him in the next chamber, accompanied by two guards, and standing next to a square bondage frame, several paces in front of which, but not directly, stood a large mirror. The Arab smiled banefully and said “Congratulations, whore, you’ve somehow survived seven of the eight tests and I thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment. I particularly liked the falls that almost sent you to your doom, and the tears in chamber six were very touching. However, my favourite was when you decided to produce your seed for some of my snakes to drink.” Anthonius flushed as he realised that the man must have been carefully watching his progress, presumably through hidden spy-holes. The Arab continued “I shall now personally subject you to the last test.” The two guards walked forward and grabbed the boy, who soon found himself tightly shackled spreadeagled to the frame, his helpless form reflected back at him by the mirror. They then collected an object that resembled a tall but narrow wooden sign, with a round hole in the middle, and two large hammers that had been resting against one of the walls. They embedded the spiked legs of the object deep into the ground, worrying Anthonius by making sure that it was immovably fixed in place with the hole immediately in front of his genitals. The legs of the thin wooden object now reached up to the level of the boy’s splayed knees and the top of the object itself to the level of his nipples. Anthonius looked down, saw that it was about two finger widths wide and, with trepidation, was clearly some form of hollow mechanical contraption and was heavily bloodstained at the front around the hole. Something was being held in place at the top, between the front and rear wooden covers, by two slats protruding from the sides. The boy soon discovered what this was when a guard produced an orange. He fitted it into the hole and pulled very lightly on a little ring positioned directly in front, held in place by a short cord whose ends disappeared into tiny cavities either side of the hole. The slats suddenly fell to the floor and Anthonius heard something heavy run down the inside of the device before slamming into the bottom by his knees, leaving the two halves of the perfectly sliced orange to join the slats on the floor. The guard returned the obviously weighty and extremely sharp blade to its original position by pulling some strings, invisible to the boy, along the edges of the device. He then pushed Anthonius’ bare rump from behind, forcing the boy’s loins to press against the wood, whilst the other grasped the boy’s flaccid cock from in front to pull it and his balls through the hole. Two leather strappings, tying the top and bottom of the boy’s buttocks firmly to the contraption, meant that it was impossible for him to withdraw his genitals. Finally, the little ring was attached to the head of his soft penis. Anthonius could not prevent himself from urinating in dread as the guards stood back for the Arab to inspect their work.

The Arab laughed sinisterly as he saw Anthonius empty himself in terror and said cruelly “It seems that you realise what will happen if you now become hard.” He then nodded to one of the guards who left to return a short time later with two beautiful young women. The other guard now took up position behind Anthonius, moved both of his large hands to the boy’s head and, with practised skill, held it firmly in place whilst simultaneously keeping the lad’s eyelids open. Anthonius was not to miss any of the erotic action that had been arranged especially for him. The scene he saw was his own reflection from the mirror to his left, the Arab standing and grinning in evil expectation to his right and the two women beginning to divest themselves of their clothes in between. It was some while before the Arab came to realise that the two women, now naked and writhing together passionately on the floor, were not going to stimulate Anthonius. However, he was not at all disappointed to learn of the boy’s real sexuality for the women were soon replaced by two comely youths, both with brown hair and eyes and nicely tanned all over. To the Arab’s delight, their arrival apparently instantly stirred Anthonius’ interest for, as the youths undressed and started to make love, the boy’s cock was slowly rising and beginning to pull the ring and attached cord.

Anthonius’ terror, and his attempts to think of the saddest possible things to distract himself from what he was viewing, only slowed the gathering excitement in his loins as the handsome youths avidly enjoyed each other’s bodies in front of him. His hope, that the ring might slip down his cock, had quickly been dashed when it became obvious that its radius was too small. The boy became terrified that at any moment he would hear the click that signalled the fall of the blade, as he felt the inexorable growth in his penis continue to push the circlet. Then, suddenly, he did hear the click and the noise of the blade as it began its rapid descent.

Anthonius fainted and so the Arab wakened him by applying cold water to the boy’s face. It was with immense relief that Anthonius realised that the man was playing with his still attached boy genitals. “Didn’t I tell you that that was just a rehearsal?” the Arab asked rhetorically and cruelly, “a safety mechanism had been applied preventing the emasculator from falling through the hole. However, the emasculator has been reset with the safety mechanism removed so that we can put you to your final test for real. By the way, I’ve also reset the trigger. I noticed that it started the blade before you were fully hard. I’ve therefore estimated the size of your full erection and set it accordingly.”

The Arab then moved behind Anthonius, who now noticed that the guard was no longer holding his head or eyelids and that the two youths had disappeared. He looked down and was pleased to see that his cock had gone soft again. Unfortunately, its limp state did not last much longer for the Arab started to caress the boy’s back, sides and buttocks. Tingling sensations raced through the boy’s body and his penis immediately became semi-erect, again pushing the ring. Anthonius tried to prevent its further growth by bringing more sad thoughts to mind and this, along with the man’s stench, seemed to work for a while. Then, he felt the Arab prise his bumcheeks apart and the press of the man’s short but fat prick on his sphincter. Anthonius tried to prevent the invasion but the pushing was too strong and he felt his hole open up to allow entry. The Arab’s prick was much thicker than the other two that the boy had had inside him and the pain was acute as the initial resistance of his anal muscles was overcome. Anthonius screamed and begged the Arab to stop but this only spurred the man on to thrust more keenly. It was therefore fortunate for the boy’s rear orifice that the shortness of the prick meant that the final penetration did not go too deep.

Anthonius’ own cock had become flaccid again but this was to change as the agony of his rape gradually receded and the buggery became full but deliberately slow and rhythmical. Anthonius could not prevent his usual excitement re-emerging, despite the threat to his boyhood and the fact that the rapist’s short prick was not long enough to stimulate his prostrate. The Arab was skilfully making up for this inadequacy by giving the boy’s neck, upper back and shoulders the intimate attentions of his lips and tongue. The net result was again the relentless expansion of the endangered 14 years old penis towards full erection and its own demise. Meanwhile, Anthonius now appreciated the purpose of the mirror for the Arab had a clear reflection of what was happening to the boy’s front as he sodomised his rear.

Anthonius heard the Arab’s breathing become faster and knew that the man was close. The boy also knew that he too was close to full hardness and ejaculation. The Arab grunted and Anthonius felt his anus fill with hot sperm in about six separate and prolonged eruptions. He also felt his own cock begin its final act of life when it shuddered to full erection and its head began to emerge to spill his own seed.

As Anthonius was still shuddering in orgasmic climax, the Arab pulled his own softening prick out of the boy’s ravaged bottom, causing some semen to withdraw at the same time and run down the bumcrack. The man then went round to the front of the naked spreadeagled youngster to inspect the result of the test.

(To be continued)