Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2000 14:53:44 EST
From: Tommyhawk1@aol.com
Subject: PofD4:Secret.of.the.Turtle.Men.20

		   SECRET OF THE TURTLE MEN, CHAPTER 20
			  "Under Canopus' Light"
			   By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM

     Three days of peace.  That was what Pavel had, as the plans they had
made after the banquet were set in motion and came to fruition.
     He was no warrior; he let Mahmoud handle the details and settled for a
briefing at regular intervals.  He spent the rest of the time getting to
know Pelen.
     For Pelen was now a man without a country and without a belief system,
for with the Turtle Men both were embodied by the Angels, and he had seen
their underlying face.  He had resolved this, for now, by focusing upon
Pavel.  The devotion he showed was borne of an underlying desperation.  No
man can live entirely alone.
     So they talked.  Pavel told of his home valley and Pelen drank it all
up with the fervor of a convert.  He began to refer to Facilitata as "home"
and the Angel Valley in just those words.  Even when he talked of his
father's house, he called it that.
     For himself, Pavel found a strengthening bond of love for this
orange-haired, beautiful young man.  The days here, when he could have any
man that he wanted, when they would beg for the chance or be proud of being
chosen, and he clung solely to the young Pelen instead.
     Perhaps it was only because they were both so far from home.  They
needed each other.  They were wrapped up in each other.  That was the way
it felt.
     Mahmoud noticed it, of course, but his culture didn't care about such
things, at least not with Pavel's station.  And Mahmoud had his own lovers.
As wazir, he had the servants and guards of the palace, all of whom were
available and most of whom had been selected for their physical beauty.  As
Pavel's husband, he also had access to Pavel's concubines, including those
two men he had married before Pavel.  And above all, he had the power and
the chance to use it.  When he spoke of the battle to come, it was clear
that he expected this to gain him a place in history, for his talk was of
an epic struggle.
     The skies of the Arab plains were speckled with the Ifriti and had
been since yesterday afternoon.  Pavel felt that they must have emptied
their home valley, that all of them save the very Council members, had come
here.  And well they should, for Mahmoud had promised an Arab servant for
the clutches of each group of Ifriti who helped in the battle to come.  And
their dismay at losing the promised help for ferrying men over the
mountains was dispersed as Mahmoud showed by his messenger and
package-carrying assignments that there were many more uses for the Ifriti
on the plains than that.  So they flew messages and small gifts back and
forth across the plains, summoning the sons of Allah for the battle to
come.  All who wished to gain honor in life and paradise in death, gird
yourself, take your blades and come, for His hand would bless all who
heeded the call!
     It was dusk of the third day.  The battle would begin before long.
Pavel and Pelen had lain together, bathed in the afternoon mist, and now
relaxing in the even-better afterglow of post-coital intimacy.  Pavel
stroked the hair, such a vibrant color that glowed like the hearth of a
fire, and said, "Well, my love, it is time for me to get dressed.  As the
sultan, I must lead my men.  Mahmoud will be by my side, but he cannot lead
so long as I am here.  I am only his voice, but I must be that voice."
     Pelen smiled and his hand cupped one of Pavel's breasts.  "You don't
think I'm letting you go alone, do you?  Someone has to be around to make
sure you don't get skewered by a Djinni stinger."
     Pavel shrugged and cocked his head.  "Well, with you holding a
ward-shield for me, I should be safer than anyone else on that field.  I
just hope we can get in quietly."
     The servant called to them softly from beyond the tapestry.  "My
sultan, it is time."
     Their plan was simple; the Ifriti would fly in at night, trying to
arrive just as the men came boiling out of the gate.  Avoiding the pink
mist, the Ifriti would guard the arrivals until they could get clear of the
mist (and until after they could finish fucking away its effects) and form
a guard in turn for those who would come after that.  But this required
careful timing, and there was not a watch or clock to be had within these
domains.  So to aid in this, Mahmoud's brother, the Royal Astronomer, Sheik
Hassan bin-Hadid, had been enlisted.  He came up with a simple device that
reflected back an image only directly overhead when held level (measured by
a bubble in a tube on its side fitting exactly within two marks).  It was
decided that when Canopus (one of the brighter stars in the firmament,
named by Hassan after the one which had graced the skies of Mankind's past)
was directly overhead, the raid would commence.  There would be no moon to
give them light, and it was hoped this would hinder the Djinni more than
themselves; they had torches but these would not be lit unless the battle
was joined in earnest and all surprise was lost.  The men congregated in
the hallway and the cavern outside, would dive into the pink mist and the
Ifriti would land to protect them.  And the battle would be fought, and won
or lost, by the light of Canopus.
     It would take only a single Djinni spotting all their preparations to
turn this into a horrendous bloodbath (for the Djinni could be counted on
to attack like so many kamikaze bombers, with no regard for their personal
survival) instead of a hopefully bloodless raid.  Jethro was still
pessimistic, but present for the fray.
     It was Pavel's proud duty to stand with this raiding party/attack
group with Mahmoud, Pelen and three others holding ludicrously large
shields designed to let them hunker behind it for safety while still
present and issuing orders on the battle.  Pavel would, that is, for
Mahmoud had his sword and made it abundantly clear that he intended to be
in the forefront of battle.  "For a sultan it would be forbidden to lead
such an attack, but for a wazir such as myself, it is permitted." Mahmoud
said.  From the gleam in his eye, he was looking forward to this!
     So Pavel stood within the hallway, waiting for the relayed call of
when Canopus would be firmly in the cross-hairs of Hassan's star-clock.
     Sounds did not travel through the doors.  Pavel knew it was time when
a young soldier darted in and gave the simple call: "Now!"  And Pavel
turned and dashed into the door into the Djinni Valley.
     The downhill slope nearly caught him off guard, he was blinded by the
darkness and the thick pink mist he was in the moment he stepped through
the door.  He stumbled, nearly fell, but recovered and looked around.  Pink
mist everywhere, he turned and moved to the side and free of it, and now he
was in only blackness, and the dim light of the stars overhead.
     He shuddered, dizzy with rampant lust!  He had lost his comrades in
the mad, blind dash!  No shield, no Mahmoud, no Pelen!  Where were they?
He didn't dare call out.  But he was alone, alone!  Madness to be alone on
Desire with the mist about you!
     There were figures moving about him, human figures.  Pavel, blinded by
the lust borne of the mist and hindered by the darkness, determined to plow
back into the mist and take whomever came first to hand.
     But there was Pelen!  Pelen, carrying his shield and panting, came
toward him.  He still held onto the shield as it was strapped to his limp
left arm, but it warded nothing in its angle.  For Pelen, too, was caught
within the urgent need of the concentrated passion.  Pavel caught Pelen in
his arms and lowered Pelen to his knees, the shield's edge came down onto
the ground and Pelen held it so, a small barricade behind which they could
make love.
     Pavel and Pelen kissed, and their hands sought eagerly out the other's
groin, to fish into the loose clothing.  When Pelen's sweet hand fastened
upon Pavel's prong, Pavel moaned into Pelen's mouth and grasped Pelen's pud
firmly, and they stroked each other while clinging tightly to each other.
     Pavel pressed his hips towards Pelen and their cocks brushed against
each other, and Pavel gripped and held them together.  Pelen crooned a low
cry and embraced Pavel with his right arm as Pavel pumped their dicks
together, the foreskins gripping and catching on each other before ironing
out into a smooth interlocking clutch, so that as Pavel's hands moved and
his cock's foreskin was crumpled atop his glans, Pelen's was stretched back
taut, and Pavel's foreskin stroked Pelen's cockhead and the tender skin
just below it.  Then as Pavel's hand came back, Pelen's foreskin returned
that silken touch to the underside of Pavel's pud, so that it was like
being brushed on his cock's bottom with a fine velvet cloth, only this
cloth was warm, warm and almost moist in a way that velvet never could
attain.
     Pavel was being kissed by Pelen and could see almost nothing, but he
felt a warm smoothness at his hand, pressing and cupping it, and he
released their two cocks to have them clutched and then wrapped in warm
coils, and Pavel smiled, released Pelen's lips long enough to look up into
the Ifriti who had joined them.  His eyes had adjusted to the dim light and
he could just make out the face above him.
     "Forgive me for joining you if I have intruded." the young Ifriti
gasped out.  "But the mist has brushed me due to a counter-wind that has
sprung up, and I must seek my own release."
     Pelen looked up into eyes and features that could only remind one of
the ancient demons of mankind and he gasped.
     "You are welcome." Pavel said.  "Pelen, don't be afraid.  This is
something you must experience, having an Ifriti cock wrapped around your
own."
     "Both of yours." the Ifriti affirmed.  "We three shall reach pleasure
together."  And the Ifriti began to tighten and lengthen his prehensile
prong, and then the coils began to slide back and forth, fully enveloping
both the hot young pricks and clutching them tighter and smoother than
their jointed fingers ever could.  It was like Pavel was fucking an ass
which had a cock inside of it, Pelen's cock, that was also surging and
pulsing within this wonderful even radiance of potency.
     And the head of the Ifriti's cock rose up and quested about like a
snake.  Pavel grinned at Pelen who watched this display in wide-eyed
astonishment, and Pavel caught the head with his mouth and sucked it in and
the Ifriti groaned and his sliding shaft speeded up around their cocks.
     Pelen moaned at this new influx of sensation and he reached out and
took the Ifriti dick bodily from Pavel's mouth and crammed the spit-shiny
head between his own lips and the Ifriti sped up still more, enjoying this
double-nursing of his cock.  Pavel reached out to lick the shaft and when
Pelen relinquished the pud to gasp for breath, Pavel took it back into his
hand, though his own cock was sending out more and more urgent signals.
     Pelen's gasp was more than that for breath, someone had come up behind
Pelen and his dark face just visible now, gave a sudden thrust of his hips
and Pelen groaned with the startled sound of one who has been peremptorily
impaled.
     The face was blinded in his lust and this gave it a nearly fierce
feature; he was squatting behind Pelen and hunching into Pelen's firm butt
with the posture of a proud Arabian stallion atop its mare, Pelen gave a
squelched cry and Pavel felt Pelen's jism pummel his ballsac, dousing his
balls with a heavy wash of thickly-sticking sperm, and Pavel felt the heat
of Pelen's cock as it drenched him and he sucked the Ifriti shaft back into
his mouth and sucked on it hard.
     And now he was the one suddenly grasped and having a hard cock pushed
into his ass.  It was long, athletic and giving a pulse as it entered, and
he wondered if a second Ifriti had entered their grouping.
     Then a pale hand reached out, the arm covered in a gray uniform over a
white shirt, and a strange voice said in panting need, "Uh, uh, forgive me
for just grabbing you, uh, uh!"
     "Glad you could join us." Pavel gasped out.  This stranger was good
news, for the Connobarans had not been able to promise to be present in
time though their aid had been sent for through the hall of doors.  At
least a small force of the gray-clad soldiers was now supplementing their
own force, and their odds were now better.
     But Pavel had no time to think of this, he had a talented Connobaran
cock in his ass, pulsing as only a Connobaran can do it, and a different
but more talented Ifriti pud still pumping his cock and Pelen's own
deflating prick, and his own needs were a boiling presence in his cock and
balls.
     Pavel groaned in his need, the Ifriti prong slipped out and a
blond-haired face reached over Pavel's shoulders and caught it, thrusting
Pavel slightly to one side, and Pavel had the sound of a hot Connobaran
mouth slurping a thick Ifriti prick filling his right ear, Pelen's
come-load was dripping from his balls and making the Ifriti shaft slippery
and somehow stinging in quality, Pavel suddenly felt his body surge with
electrical power all over and he groaned and, squelching his need to bellow
out his lust--he would give away their presence to the Djinni if he
had--squirted his load onto Pelen's now flaccid organ, spraying his young
lover with all the energy he had in him.
     The Arab fucking Pelen also gave a soft groan and his hunches into
Pelen took on an urgency and the face contorted with its pleasure as he
shot his wad into Pelen's buttocks.
     Pavel had his own cock in his ass, this one not thrusting into him at
all, just pulsing in the Connobaran way, and massaging his prostrate with
ripples rather than more savage thrusts, and Pavel enjoyed the feel of that
in his post-orgasmic lassitude.
     The Arab man caught his breath and looked at Pavel for the first time
with eyes undimmed by lust.  "Sultan Al-Fajr!" he breathed.  "My lord and
sovereign, I...I did not know!"
     Pavel smiled as the Connobaran cock in his ass heated up.  "You were
welcome here." he said.  "As are all who fight for me this day."
     "I am honored." the Arab breathed and stood up, hastily shifting his
cock back into his trousers, and fled.
     "You're the sultan?" the Connobaran soldier gasped out.
     Pavel took the Ifriti cock in his hand, for the Ifriti was groaning
heavily now.  He pumped it as he spoke.  "Yes, I am."
     "Damn, I'm fucking royalty." the soldier breathed out.
     "And doing a wonderful job of it." Pavel agreed, grinning.
     "Ur-mph!" came the call from above them, and the Ifriti cock exploded
into the air and rained down on Pavel and the young Connobaran soldier.
The Connobaran gave a startled gasp of surprise and lust, and then his hard
cock was pumping its jizz into Pavel's ass, as the Connobaran bit back his
cries by clamping his mouth onto Pavel's shoulder and muffling it there.
     Mahmoud stepped up as the Connobaran was still sobbing out his passion
and the Ifriti's cock was still waving aimlessly about.  With him were the
other three shield bearers.
     "We have found you." he said with a collected tone that meant he had
already satisfied his own lusts.  "Can you guide us now back to the tunnel
from which you came?"
     "I can do that." Efram said, striding up from another side.
     "You're here?" Pavel said in surprise.
     "Wouldn't miss this game for the world." Efram affirmed.  "Never know
when you might need to buy something in a hurry."
     "We'll pay top dollar if it comes up." Pavel agreed.  "Lead us to the
tunnel, and hurry.  We don't have that long before the Djinni spot us."
     "They already have." Efram agreed.  "Can't you hear that rising buzz?"
     The air was indeed beginning to fill with the sound of angry Djinni
wings.
     "Hurry!" Pavel said.
     The darkness was yet an aid to them, they stumbled in darkness after
Efram and as many men as could be summoned to them.  Pavel could see
little, for the four shield-bearers flanked him on all sides, and for that
he was actually grateful.  Above their heads, the Ifriti could be heard
clashing with the Djinni, dark shapes writhing in combat against the
too-few stars.  Shapes fell about them as they ran, thankfully all Djinni.
     The Ifriti were better fighters.  But the Djinni were more numerous,
and the tide must be expected to turn soon.
     But the Arabs were not idle.  They had indeed prepared for this day,
and large bottles were being hurled about the valley of the emerging Djinni
as they broke out of their coffer-dammed holes with the aid of what could
only be described as small catapults some men wore strapped to their backs
and whom knelt down to form the base to let it be loaded and fired.  These
bottles exploded with an oily power about the Djinni, and Pavel could see
that the Djinni who breathed these bottles' contents began to stagger and
fall.
     "What is that?" He asked Mahmoud, who was with him and Efram in their
protective enclosure.  Now Djinni began to approach their group and Arab
and Connobaran fighters moved in to intercept them.
     "We captured a live Djinni some years ago." Mahmoud gasped out.  "We
studied it and learned that they breathe through many small tubes into
their body.  So they can't even hold their breath.  We use a poisonous
mixture under pressure.  It is not dangerous to you and I unless we breathe
a lot of it, but it killed the captive Djinni and so it does these as
well."
     But there were more Djinni than there were raiders, even with the
Connobarans' help.
     There came an explosion from the tunnel from which they had emerged,
the tunnel back to their homes.  The Djinni had blown up their escape
route.
     They were now trapped in the Djinni Valley.  And it was filled with
enraged Djinni determined to kill them all.

			     END OF CHAPTER 20