Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:05:14 -0400
From: bertmck@aol.com
Subject: Crystal Throne/Power of the Dark Lord 3

POWER OF THE DARK LORD
Copyright 2010 by Bert McKenzie

This is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance to any character living or dead
is coincidental.

Chapter III

"So where is Rood?  I haven't seen him all day," Scott said as he and Alex
lay side by side on their beach towels while their partners frolicked in
the surf.

"He's around somewhere.  Honestly, you'd think you were their mother."

"Sometimes I feel like it," Scott replied as he rolled over onto his
stomach.  "Alex, you have no idea how naive they can be.  In many ways
they're just like innocent children."

"I've never been a chicken hawk," the red head replied as he rolled over
too.  "I don't know about Robin, but believe me, Akuta's no child!  He
wants to go dancing tonight, but I'll be lucky if I can walk after
yesterday."

"Still, I wonder where Rood went," Scott said, returning to his first topic
to change the subject.  "He's supposed to be Robin's guard.  It's not like
him to just disappear."

"In the first place, I don't think Robin needs guarding out here on the
beach.  And in the second place, I saw Rood talking with some beach bimbo
in a bikini a while ago.  If he's like any other straight guys I know, he's
probably boffing her right now."

"Alex!" Scott said in shock.  "Rood wouldn't do that.  Is that all you can
think about?  Sex?"  He suddenly had the wind knocked out of him as a body
landed on top of him.  Scott struggled to roll over to see his attacker,
but was effectively pinned to the ground.

"And now, Dark Lord of the Human World, I shall take my revenge on you for
all your past liberties and indiscretions with the King of Tuatha," an all
too familiar voice said.  Before Scott had a chance to react, strong hands
grabbed his swim trunks and yanked down, stripping him.  "Behold, a trophy
of my conquest!" Robin shouted as he leaped onto a nearby rock and waved
Scott's trunks in the air like a pennant.

"Robin, give those back!" Scott shouted as he quickly wrapped his towel
around his waist and headed for the rock.

"No.  I won them fair and square," the elf king laughed as he dangled the
trunks just out of Scott's reach.

"Robin, I'm warning you."

"Very well, a bargain then.  I shall consider returning this valuable item
if you show me what you are hiding beneath that towel."  Akuta had joined
Alex and they were laughing and cheering while Scott jumped at Robin, one
hand grabbing for his trunks and the other hand clutching the beach towel.
"Show me, Dark Lord!  Show me the rapier I know you hide beneath your
garment!"

The action came to a quick halt when the men heard a distinctly feminine
giggle.  Turning, they saw Rood standing nearby with a very well built and
very tan girl in a very tiny bikini hanging on him.  "Hi, guys," Rood said
as he tried to imitate a human accent.  "This is my new friend..."  He
turned to the girl with a puzzled look on his face.

She pushed her stringy, blond hair from her eyes and giggled again.
"Shawna, silly," she said as she playfully slapped his chest.

Rood beamed and turned again to his companions.  "This is my new friend,
Shawna Silly," he said as the girl burst into giggles.  "Allow me to
present my friends and companions, Akuta, Alex, and Scott, and my lord
Robin."

Shawna opened her eyes wide and headed right for Robin who had just hopped
down from the rock.  "Are you really a king like Rudy says?" she asked in a
breathy, Marilyn Monroe like voice as she grabbed his arm.

"Well, yes, my lady," Robin replied a little uncomfortably as Scott grabbed
his shorts and glared at the beach bunny hanging onto his lover.

"I've never met any royalty before," the girl said breathlessly.  "Except
for my cousin who won Miss Surfer Girl last year.  But I don't think that
really counts.  Do you?"

"Shawna Silly has invited us to a party," Rood said, trying to recatch the
girl's attention.  "We should find appropriate attire."

"Oh, Rudy," the girl giggled as she still clung to Robin.  "It's just a
beach party.  You can all wear what you've got on."

"Except for Scott," Alex smiled, causing his friend to blush.

"I've got a lot of girl friends who would just love to meet you guys,"
Shawna said as she rubbed her hand across Robin's chest.

"Miss Silly, is that your real name or are you an actress?" Alex asked as
he stood up and pulled the girl away from Robin who visibly relaxed and
took a step closer to Scott.

The girl looked definitely displeased at being pulled away from the king.
"It's just Shawna," she said in annoyance.

"Shawna, I don't think we'd be interested in your girl friends.  You see,
dear, we're gay," he explained.

The girl pulled back from him like she'd been stung by a bee.  "All of you?
The king too?"

"Yes," Alex replied.

The girl suddenly opened her eyes wide and looked at Rood.  "But not Rudy
too.  He can't be.  I mean, we just..."

"No," Alex interrupted her.  "Unfortunately, he's the bad apple in the
crowd, disgustingly straight."

"Oh," she said with a sigh of relief and stepped back to the tall guard's
side, grabbing his arm protectively.  "Well, come on over to the party
anyway.  I know a couple of gay guys down the beach I guess I could
invite."  She pulled Rood across the sand after her.  "Why didn't you tell
me you worked for a bunch of fags.  Doesn't that give you the creeps?  I
mean, as hot looking as you are, aren't they always after you?"

"Put on your pants and let us go to this party," Robin said as he smiled at
Scott.  The other two hooted and hollered as Scott dropped his towel and
bent over to step back into his shorts.

"Alright, enough," Scott growled.  "You know, I don't think this party is
such a good idea."

"Why not?" Alex argued.

"Well what if someone finds out we aren't all human?  And besides, we don't
know these people or what kind of party this will be, or..."

"Don't be such a whiner," Alex teased.  "I've seen the girls on the beach
here a couple of times.  They seem like very nice air-heads.  Now you guys
go on and I'll just run up and lock the house and grab a key."  He turned
and started jogging back to the steps heading up to the house.

"Let us go, love," Robin said as he tugged at Scott's hand.  "We came to
this world to enjoy ourselves.  Let us do so."  The three of them started
off down the beach in the direction that Rood and Shawna had taken.

* * *

The party was a crowded, noisy affair with lots of booze and tons of
people.  It soon became obvious that Shawna and her girl friends had
invited not only just those they knew, but everyone else they had ever seen
on the beach.  Loud music blared from oversized speakers in the house and a
number of tanned, young guys and girls were dancing on the wide, flat
terrace behind the building.  As Scott and his friends walked up, a
curvaceous brunette with a bikini that was so small it didn't quite cover
her nipples, came rushing up to them.  "Hi, I'm Kitten," she said as she
draped herself around Akuta.

"Hi, we're...Rudy's friends.  Shawna invited us," Scott explained.

Kitten's expression rapidly changed from happy to disappointed.  "Oh, you
must be the fags from next door," she pouted.  "Nothing personal, but it's
just such a shame to waste all that sex appeal.  Booze is in the kitchen.
Mingle."  She quickly disappeared into the crowd.  Scott headed toward the
kitchen to pick up soft drinks for his friends, while Robin seemed quite
content to watch the strange dancing.

A few minutes later, Scott returned with three cans of Coke only to find
Akuta missing and Robin sitting awfully close to a gorgeous man who
appeared to be wearing a deep tan and a posing strap.  They were talking
quietly as Scott joined them.  "This is Jeff," Robin said as he introduced
his new acquaintance to Scott.  "He would like to boink me."  Jeff quickly
choked on his drink as Scott grabbed Robin's arm and pulled him away into
the crowd.  "I know not that word.  Is to boink a bad thing?" he asked as
he accepted the can of soda.

"It's a slang term," Scott explained.  "It means to have sex with."

"Oh," Robin replied.  "Then I would not boink with him.  I save that for
you."  He thought a minute then added, "Is this the same meaning as boff
and fuck?"

This time it was Scott's turn to choke on his drink, shooting cola out his
nose.  "Where did you hear that?" he asked when he had finally managed to
regain his composure.

"Four women and one other man asked me while you were away," Robin
answered.  "It seems that this party is a thinly veiled excuse to perform
such acts.  I understand it not.  They seem not to care for or love each
other.  They only wish to boink, boff and..."

"I get the picture," Scott added hastily.  "By the way, where's Akuta?"

"He was concerned by Alex's continued absence and went back to find him,"
Robin replied.  "Is to do crack also to have sex?  They are doing this as a
group somewhere within."

"I think we should go," Scott said.  "This isn't really the kind of party
where..."

"Hey, gorgeous.  I thought you were all supposed to be fags."  It was
Kitten.  She had reappeared next to Robin and began rubbing his chest.

"We are," Scott said angrily and began to pull Robin away from the
aggressive girl.

"Well at least one of you's bi.  He's upstairs screwing my roommate right
now," she shot back.

"Rood," Scott exclaimed.  "Come on, Robin.  Let's find him and get out of
here."

"What is screwing?  Is it the same as boffing and..."

"Yes, will you come on?"

"We cannot just interrupt him and his lady," Robin argued.  "It would not
be polite."

"She isn't a lady," Scott countered as he headed into the house and fought
his way through the crowded rooms to the stairway.  In a moment he was
standing outside a closed door.  Sounds of moaning were coming from the
other side.  "Come on, Robin.  I might need help," Scott said as he grabbed
the knob and charged in.

What he saw caused him to stop short.  Four naked men were all joined
together in the act of a passionate and energetic orgy.  "They all do it
together and at the same time?  This is certainly different from our
world," Robin said as he looked over Scott's shoulder.

"Hey, big fella!  You and your little chum want to join in?"  It was Jeff
who Robin had met downstairs.  He had looked up while the other three kept
going.

"Where, and how?" Robin asked, a little unsure of where he and his lover
would fit in the unusual arrangement of naked and throbbing bodies.

"Sorry, wrong room," Scott said quickly and yanked the door shut.

"Damn," Jeff replied, then focused his attention back on the two men
nearest his face.

Scott walked down the hall to the next door and opened it a little more
cautiously.  He was hit in the face with a thick cloud of smoke from
within.  It had the sweet stench of burning marijuana leaves.  Again he
pulled the door shut and walked down the hall.  Only one closed room
remained.  Scott slowly opened the door and peeked in.  Sure enough, he had
a perfect view of his friend's backside as the captain of the guard made
love to the girl from the beach.  Scott quietly closed the door and turned
to Robin.  "This is the right room.  They're in there doing it."

"Doing what?" Robin asked.

Scott blushed.  "You know," he replied.

"Boinking, boffing, screwing..."

"Yes, yes.  Just interrupt them, get Rood and let's go."

"Why should I interrupt them?  You are the one who does not wish Rood to do
this.  You may interrupt them if you feel so strongly."

"He's your guard," Scott argued.

"You are my consort.  That makes him your guard as well, love," Robin
countered.  "Why is it that you want him not to make love with the woman of
his choice?"

"There's so much you don't know," Scott replied.  "What if he gets her
pregnant?  What if she has a social disease?  What if..."

"What if his two friends argue just outside the door?" a different voice
interjected.  Rood was standing in the open doorway looking at Scott and
Robin.  He apparently had gotten out of bed and came to interrupt their
debate.  He wasn't wearing anything but a crooked smile.

"Forgive the intrusion, my friend," Robin said as Scott stammered and
blushed.

"If my lord Scott feels so strongly that we should leave, we will do so,"
Rood said.  Shawna joined him at the door, still nude, and handed him his
swimming trunks.  She reached up to stroke his hair, and pulled his long
blond locks back away from the side of his head, revealing the
characteristically elfin shaped pointed ear.  The girl then kissed him
passionately as she traced her finger around his ear.  She then turned and
headed back into the room, closing the door behind him as Rood stepped into
the hall and pulled on his shorts.

In a few minutes they were walking back up the beach toward their own
house.  "Worry not, my lord," Rood said to Scott.  "She will not conceive a
child."

"Famous last words," Scott grumbled.  "You don't know if she was using
birth control."

"She did not need to control anything," Rood answered.  "She cannot
conceive if I did not give her fertile seed."

Scott was confused.  "But we saw you in the middle of...well..."

"Yes, we did make love."

"If I may explain," Robin interrupted.  "My love, you understand it not.
We are not like the beasts of the wood that mate and reproduce.  Joining is
much more than just a physical function. With us, in order to conceive both
male and female must so desire.  Otherwise, a joining is only for the
couple's benefit and nothing can be produced but love."

"Wait a minute," Scott said, stopping in his tracks.  "You mean to tell me
you can decide whether or not to be fertile?  How?"

"It is an internal matter.  I cannot explain it more since you have not the
ability to understand, as your body is different inside from mine.  I am
sure a healer could tell you more.  We shall ask one when we return home."
The three continued on down the wide beach.

"Why didn't you ever mention this before?" Scott asked.  "All this time
when we've had sex I had no idea that it was different for you than for
me."  He somehow felt betrayed at finding out how little he really knew
about his lover's body.

"My love, I thought this unimportant," Robin apologized.  "After all, if we
both decided to have a child and my seed was fertile, you have not the body
to be able to conceive.  So it matters not that what I give you is not
fertile."

"Okay," Scott agreed and turned back to Rood.  "So you didn't get her
pregnant.  What about STD's.  Did you at least wear a condom?"

"What is a condom?" Rood asked.

"This isn't going to be easy," Scott muttered under his breath.

"I do have a question, lord," Rood said.  "What is a trekkie?"

"A what?" Scott asked.

"A trekkie.  That is what she called me when she felt my ears."

"Something is wrong!" Robin said suddenly.  They saw Akuta running toward
them across the sand.  It was quite evident that he was very upset.  "What
is it?" the king asked as Akuta approached.

"Alex, he is hurt," the blond gasped.  All four of them broke into a dead
run.

They found Alex on the couch in obvious pain.  Rood quickly checked him
over and found only a broken arm and possibly a cracked rib or two.  "It
was Bernie," Alex said through clenched teeth.  "You see, I owe him a bunch
of money and when I didn't do that movie...  His goons said this was a
first installment."

"I'll call a doctor," Scott said as he reached for the phone.

"No, I shall take him to a healer."  Akuta went upstairs to find his homing
crystal, hidden in his luggage.

"How much do you owe him?" Scott asked the injured man on the couch.

"About $10,000," Alex replied.

"$10,00 for what?!" Scott demanded.

"That's his 'discovery fee' for getting me into films."

By this time Akuta had returned.  In his hand he held a small lump of what
looked like rose quartz.  It was banded with silver filigree and attached
to a long, silver chain.  "Tell Ellenia that I shall return soon," Robin
said to his friend.  "Good fortune, my friends."  Akuta and Robin clasped
wrists, then the fairy reached over to hold Alex as Robin stepped back.
Akuta tapped the pink stone with his fingers and almost immediately he and
Alex began to grow transparent and fade from view.  The magic of the homing
crystal vibrated to Akuta's touch and pulled the two men out of the human
world, returning them to the palace in Tuatha.

Meanwhile, Scott was on the telephone.  He left a message for Jennifer to
call him.  When she returned his call an hour later, he asked her to obtain
a cashier's check for $10,000 and to bring it to them in California.  Money
was not a problem, considering the deposit from the Tuathan treasury that
Robin had made as a gift to Jennifer.  The three then began preparing to
leave.

* * *

Dave Strahan was in a grumpy mood.  He was getting nowhere with his
experiments.  He had tried every possible approach, but nothing seemed to
work, or even make sense.  And now he was called away from his work to have
a meeting which he thought was totally unnecessary.  If there was one thing
that bothered Dave, it was wasting time.  "So what did they say?" he
demanded.

"Well, apparently our funding will continue until they notify us
differently."  Emile Sorenson had just returned from the capitol and seemed
quite pleased with himself.

"And...?" Dave said.

"And I am acting administrator until the investigation is finished."

"Is that it?  You took two days in Washington for that?"

"Well, yes."  Sorenson's ego had been rapidly deflated by his colleague's
abrasiveness.  He was afraid Dave was angry with him because of his
appointment.  Strahan got up and headed toward the door.  "Just a minute,
Dave."

The scientist turned at the door to face the pudgy little man.  "Look, you
wanted to be an administrator.  So administrate and leave me alone to do
the research I was hired for!"  Dave then stormed out of the office,
heading back to his lab.  Dr. Sorenson felt even guiltier than he had
before.  He was certain that the animosity his old friend felt was because
of his promotion.

Meanwhile, back at the lab, the crystal resonances that Dave had been
working on had turned into yet another blind alley.  He decided to knock
off and go for a drive to try and clear his head.  But once outside in the
car, he found the unseasonable heat of late October to be almost
unbearable.  On a whim, Dave headed his beat up Toyota toward the river,
hoping to get a cool breeze from off the water.  In a matter of minutes he
was driving down north Promenade.  The little park on the side of the
street looked inviting with its cool, green, shade trees.  Dave pulled over
and got out.  It was only then that he noticed that he had parked directly
across the street from a big, old, three-storied, Victorian house.  It was
the same house where the girl lived.

Two months ago Herman Blanc, the late head of the research institute, had
obtained what they thought was an extra-terrestrial.  While the strange man
with blue blood and pointed ears was being held for examination, the
institute was literally invaded by an army of such strange creatures.  When
they had seized the original alien, they had all vanished, fading away like
so many insubstantial apparitions.  Two people were left behind, a man and
a woman, who were apparently friends with these unusual creatures.  All
that Dave could find out from the two humans was that the aliens had come
from a world that existed in another dimension.  They had apparently
returned to their own land by use of some unknown vibratory resonance
caused by a strange crystal.  Dave had been working ever since, trying to
find some link between crystalline structures, vibratory resonances and
interdimensional travel.  However, his work kept leading him to dead ends.

And now here he was, standing across the street from Jennifer Sloan's
house.  He had called her a number of times, but always got a recording
saying she wasn't in.  He had not consciously driven there today, but
perhaps his subconscious was trying to tell him something.  Dave quickly
crossed the street, and walked up the path to the front porch.  He rang the
doorbell and waited, but apparently no one was home.  Dave slowly walked
around to the rear of the house, just in case she was in the backyard, but
there was no evidence of life.  He tried the back door, but it was locked,
just like the front.  He thought to check the garage to see if her car was
inside.

The separate building was actually an old carriage house with a garage
below and storage space in a second story above.  The garage door too was
locked.  Dave spotted a small, square window on the side, protected by a
very thorny rose bush.  With careful maneuvers, he was just able to squeeze
between the bush and the building.  Shielding his eyes against the dirty
glass, he peered inside but could see nothing.  As he leaned against the
window he felt it move slightly in its frame.  Carefully testing it, he
pushed up and the old casing slid open.  Seizing the opportunity, Dave
wriggled into the opening and landed in a heap on the dirty floor.

Inside, the small wooden structure revealed to be an unfinished building,
the wooden siding nailed up on the open studs and wall braces.  A small,
narrow, wooden stairway in one corner led to the floor above.  It was a
singularly unremarkable building, and Dave was wondering what had ever
possessed him to break into it when he noticed a curious thing.  A rope,
tied to a metal hook on the wall dropped down to the floor and snaked its
way to the back of the structure.  In the rear of the building, the rope
disappeared under a large folding screen which had been set up to block off
the back wall.  Dave couldn't imagine why anyone would put such a huge
folding panel on the back wall of such a dirty little building.  His
scientific curiosity getting the best of him, he walked over and began to
pull on the screen.  It folded back out of the way to reveal an even more
amazing sight.

Dave was confronted with an actual, physical impossibility.  Behind the
screen was a tunnel.  At the back wall of the structure, a huge, round
opening led into a long, dark tunnel which appeared to be carved into solid
stone.  This wouldn't have appeared so unusual if the building was located
next to a hill or set against a rock wall of some sort.  But Dave had seen
the outside of the structure.  The carriage house was free standing with a
small, paved alley running behind it.  This tunnel at the back of the
interior could not exist.

His heart beating wilding, Dave stepped forward into the stone opening.
Here at last was a doorway to another world!  It had to be!  There was no
other explanation.