Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 18:04:23 +0200
From: wrestlr@iname.com
Subject: "Said the Spider to the Fly"

Said the Spider to the Fly
by Wrestlr

//Begin Standard Headers//
     Author: Wrestlr
     Title: Said the Spider to the Fly
     Summary:  A wizard conjures a devil in his quest to track down the
     secret of immortality
     Keywords: MC, MM, Magic
//End Standard Headers//

Disclaimer: The naked hypnotist strides confidently into your room.  His
lips curl in what might be a smile as he dangles his shiny crystal pendulum
before your eyes and announces, "Listen and obey.  If you are not of legal
age, or if you offended by sexual situations, you will leave this place
immediately.  From here on, no matter how realistic it may appear,
everything will seem like fiction to you, a pleasant dream where scientific
possibilities and laws may change according to my suggestion.  Now, if you
are willing, sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride."

Copyright - 2020 by Wrestlr.  Permission granted to archive if and only if
no fee (including any form of "Adult Verification") is charged to read the
file.  If anyone pays a cent to anyone to read your site, you can't use
this without the express permission of (and payment to) the author.  This
paragraph must be included as part of any archive.

Comments to wrestlr@iname.com

Wrestlr's fiction is archived at the following URLs:

   o http://www.asstr.org/~wrestlr (MC and general M/M stories)
   o http://www.mcstories.com/Authors/Wrestlr.html (MC stories)

*          *          *


*Said the Spider to the Fly*
by Wrestlr

From the moment that the shape started to emerge from the smoke that filled
the other circle, Nicholas Keter knew this ritual was not going the way
summonings of supernatural entities usually went.

At first, held in place by the magical barrier of the summoning circle, the
thick vapor obscured everything.  Keter caught a glimpse of something shiny
and black, like a shard of darkest midnight.  He had steeled himself for
any manner of hideous forms.  The ancient scroll he had taken without
authorization--his less tolerant faculty advisors might have said
*stolen*--from the university's Occult Sciences library provided a devil's
Name, *Xhenorey* being the closest equivalent pronounceable by the human
tongue.  A crude drawing in margin of the scroll--whether by the original
mage or some later user, he did not know--suggested a spider-like entity,
much like a giant tarantula with a human's head and face.  But what was
entering this plane of existence and taking shape before him--Well, as
Keter mused, trying to remain calm, one never knew what one would get when
summoning, anything from a body built from carrion and maggots to a cyclone
of blood.  Still, as the smoke began to disappear and the body reared up,
he was shocked by Xhenorey's actual appearance: Visible now from the waist
up, the entity was undoubtedly male, and beautiful, probably the most
beautiful man Keter had ever seen.  His naked skin was pale white, but not
quite so pale as to fall outside the human Caucasian range; his hair was
short and dark, his body muscular like a serious athlete's.

And then Xhenorey stood up, and up, and the fog obscuring the lower half of
his body continued to recede.  His head was now nine feet from the ground.
His torso ended in a man's groin, cock, and testicles--and quite a generous
cock and testicles, Keter noted, that stopped just shy of the upper human
limit.  Keter, who normally considered himself unoffended by nudity and on
the contrary quite the appreciative connoisseur of the undraped male form,
felt somehow discomforted at the display and was in the process of averting
his gaze in embarrassment when the lower body caught his attention.  The
devil's ass--oh, and his legs--Keter realized he had far many
legs--Xhenorey's human torso and genitals were borne on the body of a giant
spider, blending where his buttocks should have been into a spider's
carapace and abdomen, widow-black and shiny-smooth like polished armor.
His legs, those of a spider, arched in a way that made them seem more like
powerful weapons than limbs of articulated chitin.

Though only a doctoral student and teaching assistant in the Occult
Sciences program, Keter was already quite experienced with summonings and
was not often overwhelmed in the presence the supernatural; but overwhelmed
he was, and his mind recoiled from the beautiful horror before him,
retreating into the realm of cold scientific inquiry.  "Sir," he said
before he could stop himself, retaining enough of his manners to remember
that some people found his directness annoying if not mollified by
politeness, "forgive me for being so forward, but I'm curious: are you
homeothermic like a human, or ectothermic like an arachnid?  Your, ah, your
metabolism, I mean?"

The *sir* in question regarded him with an amused half-smile.  He did not,
however, answer.

"A mix of both, perhaps?" ventured Keter.

But the man-spider ignored him.  "Eck ... toh ... ther ... mick," it
repeated slowly, divorcing each syllable from its neighbors by a full
second of silence.  "Eck ... toh ..."

Was this devil a simpleton?--Or merely frivolous?  One never knew what one
would get when summoning.

"Eck-toh," the devil said, as though savoring the sound.  "*Eck, eck,
eck*."

No, Keter thought again, by any measure this was definitely not going the
way most of his summonings went.  He had both training and practical
experience in that direction and knew these spells to involve a great deal
of preparation, a precise understanding of the ritual's ontological
aspects, and much patience.  But this scroll--some sections of its obscure
language Keter could not translate, so he had been unsure what sort of
entity its incantation would summon.  Still, the pronunciation of the words
seemed straightforward enough, and Keter was confident that the summoning
circle he had carefully inscribed on the floor, plus the separate
protective circle in which he himself stood, would be sufficient.  The
sections of the scroll that he could translate hinted at an entity of great
power, and that was what he needed.  In this case, however, he had barely
begun the ritual before the concentric summoning and warding circles were
filled with a great deal of--he was unsure quite what.  Smoke, perhaps.
Some thick vapor, certainly, magically charged enough to activate the wards
that trapped the contents within the circle.  Keter had summoned creatures
from other planes in the past--lost souls, demons--what student of the
mystic sciences had not?--and this was not the first time he had broken
university protocols; but this was very much the first time he had broken
those protocols by daring to summoned a devil--a higher, more dangerous
order of demon with more autonomy than the common herd.

The choice had been forced upon him by circumstance.  If he summoned some
garden-variety demon, it might feel beholden to report his business to its
superiors or, worse yet, his instructors--the news might make its way to
Satan himself, which would never do.  Satan had a well-established
reputation of being entirely unsympathetic to human sorcerers these days,
and especially to Keter after that last time, an astral field trip when
Keter had led a small class of students almost all the way to the Third
Circle of Satan's domain and had barely managed to escape.  If Satan ever
gave the guards at the doors of Hell an all-access guest list for visiting
human sorcerers--an idea Keter decided might was not unlikely as it first
seemed--then his name surely was not on it.

Keter needed a devil, then.  A reasonably free agent that did its acts of
wickedness and subversion on its own recognizance rather than kowtowing to
the great Satan and his menagerie of generals in the lowest ring of Hell.
Keter had gone through the university's extensive Occult Sciences
library--not exactly lying about his authorization, but certainly letting
the librarians assume his search had more departmental endorsement than was
strictly factual--harvesting the true Names of any such things he could
find.  Then, by deduction and lot, he discarded most of them--until he had
happened across this dusty old scroll, with a Name not on the other lists.
This entity, he supposed, must be almost forgotten and therefore rarely
summoned; ergo, this entity would likely be more tractable to the wiles of
a cunning mortal such as himself.

The disadvantage of such a method was that he had found no indications,
other than the implication based on the marginal drawing, as to the nature
of the devil whose closest pronounceable name was *Xhenorey* but whose True
Name was riddled with ululations, glottal stops, and--unavoidably--sprays
of saliva.  Keter had therefore duly ululated, glottal-stopped, and spat
his way through the summoning--and been rewarded with the diabolical
manifestation that now stood before him, repeating "*Eck!*"

While advanced doctoral students had leeway to perform a wide range of
rituals as part of their researches, Keter had not bothered seeking
approval to conduct this one.  None of the faculty would give sanction to
summoning a devil.  And anyway, why should he need to their small-minded
approval?--He already had more experience with matters involving the Realms
Infernal than most of them.  They would have simply rejected his request
based on some impressively thick academic policy, and then he would have
had to find some way to proceed anyway without their permission.  So this
way, he reasoned, he saved time by skipping directly to the inevitable.

Keter had chosen to summon this devil in a workroom at the far side of the
university; the workrooms were located well away from the classrooms,
dorms, fraternity houses, and administrative buildings in case something
went awry.  This particular one, seldom used or checked by security, was
aligned to one of Hell's sundry back doors.  Given all the space, Keter had
decided to draw a larger-than-usual circle for the summoning, and the
serendipity of that action he now appreciated.  The candlelight glimmered
from the dark armor of Xhenorey's body and legs, and Keter realized this
devil was not an exact analogue of a true spider; something weapon-like
about the abdomen and limbs made them perhaps even more disconcerting than
the appendages of an unfeasibly massive arachnid.  Xhenorey's forebody
would have made him stand at least as tall as Keter's six feet, had the
devil been possessed of more conventional legs.  The spider-like aspect of
him made the entity stand in total a good three feet taller than Keter, and
the tips of Xhenorey's legs circumscribed the inner edge of the broad
summoning circle easily.

"*Eck*," the great man-spider announced one last time, as though finally
tiring of the novelty of human language.  The devil smiled wider.  "Such an
amusing sound.  I think I like you, mortal," he said.  "Wizards are usually
such damned serious lot.  But you're funny.  I don't believe I've met a
funny mortal before."

Keter hesitated; he was not accustomed to being considered comedic either.
"No, I didn't mean to ..."

The man-spider sighed.  "So why have you brought me here, little wizard?"

The devil seemed well-spoken, Keter mused, so it was probably not a
simpleton.  Perhaps just flighty?  Keter decided he could work with this,
simply a matter of binding the devil and keeping it--him--whatever--focused
on the required task.

The devil, appearing not to notice Keter's frown of concentration,
continued, "Do you have some particular whim you want me to fulfill?
Or"--Xhenorey stroked one hand sensuously across his bare human chest, and
Keter found himself suddenly wondering what that nipple would feel like,
taste like, under his tongue, what that finger would be like to
suck--"perhaps a young horny stud like you finds my form comely?  I tried
to choose a form that you would find ... appealing."  Keter imagined the
rasp of his tongue against that neck--

Keter felt himself blushing as he snapped out of his near-daydream,
suddenly aware of his erection constrained in his trousers, hoping it did
not show.  What had he been doing?--Ah, yes.  He needed to regain control
of this situation, and quickly.  "I abjure thee, O spirit, to be bound by
this covenant!" announced Keter in his firmest voice, the one he used to
show freshmen in his *Intro to Ritual Magic* seminar that even a teaching
assistant like he brooked no shenanigans.  One had to be firm with
students, demons, and, he presumed, devils.  "By the power of the Great
Names, I--"

The devil glared at him in astonishment.  "Are you trying to bind me?  You
are, aren't you?  You're trying to bind me!"  The expression shifted to a
smirk and a flirtatious wink.  "You naughty boy."

"There is no 'trying' about it, sir," said Keter.  "You're not leaving that
circle until I have guarantees as to your obedience and my safety."

"Well, here's the thing, stud.  I know we haven't been properly introduced
yet, but you don't mind me calling you 'stud,' do you?  If I were a demon,
you'd be doing the right thing.  They're all tangled up in those confusing
castes and fealties and duties to one another.  Terribly feudal, I know
but, hey, it seems to work for them.  So, you call in favors from the
higher-ups to gain power over somebody lower in the chain, right?  That's
what a binding is, right?  The problem is, a devil like me, I'm a free
agent; at least that's the best analog you mortals can understand.  The
summary version is that the Great Names can go fuck themselves for all I
care--which might be fun to watch, come to think of it.  But you can't bind
me, stud.  Sorry."  Xhenorey shrugged, crossed his arms over his chest, and
seemed genuinely saddened.

Keter was nonplussed.  His plan depended on having a devil as an agent.  He
could not see how to proceed if such a simple prerequisite as binding
turned out to be unavailable to him.  "Oh," he said, and sat on the floor
in his protection circle.  "That ... is disappointing."

Xhenorey again shrugged sympathetically but offered no suggestions.

Keter wondered aloud, "If what you say is true, I don't understand how
devils can be bound.  If I have no way to bend your obedience to my will,
how do I ensure your cooperation and my safety?  I've read of devils
helping wizards many times."

"Ah!" said the entity, raising his index finger to highlight the important
point Keter had inadvertently raised.  "That's just it, stud.  'Helping.'
This is just a thought, but you could always try asking nicely."

"Asking?  Nicely?"  Keter shook his head wearily.  "Sir, I am tired and
dismayed.  Do not mock me.  I am not in the mood--not at all."

"I'm not mocking you, stud," Xhenorey said, slightly offended.  "I'm
perfectly serious.  Look, you want a guarantee?  A devil's word is his
bond, just as much as it for demons.  We're far more reliable than humans
that way, and yet somehow *we're* the evil ones?"  He shrugged again at
such injustice.

Keter found his interest piqued.  "You mean, a negotiation?"

"Exactly."  Xhenorey smiled pleasantly.  "Give me what I want, and you can
have what you want, which includes my promise that I shall not hurt you,
magic you into a toad, or otherwise ruin your day."

Keter rose and stared at the entity.  "And what would you want?"

The devil looked off as if in deep thought, his expression that of a child
eagerly formulating a wish list for holiday presents.  "Well," he said
after some moments of consideration, "that spell you used to call me here
made certain promises.  I'm hungry, but especially I'm bored.  I haven't
been summoned in a very long time.  Whatever you want me to do, make sure
it's interesting.  Also, it would be great to eat a few people like the
spell promised.  So ...  Yes, those are my demands: fun and food."

Keter looked up at the spider-devil Xhenorey and scratched his head as he
considered.  "Sir," the wizard said slowly, "I believe we have ourselves a
deal."

# # #

As so many quests do, Keter's began with the search for immortality.  His
interest was largely academic, a research project which he perhaps hoped to
turn into his doctoral thesis or an article for a scholarly journal.  Life
offered incentives for action precisely because it was brief, in his
opinion, and he had studied enough history and folklore to know that the
past was too full of cautionary tales of immortality attempts gone horribly
wrong: living forever but growing older and frailer by the day, for
example, or perhaps being frozen in time while the world went on all
around.  Keter had decided that life robbed of its brevity was also robbed
of its necessity for action, and so he considered immortality to be a type
of breathing death.

Still, of course, the failure of great minds before him to find immortality
meant the search was difficult and therefore worthy of his intellect.

Historically, people who earned great acclaim by announcing the secret to
eternal life tended to disappoint their fans by inevitably dying.  Still,
in his fine-toothed research, Keter had turned up a few stories that
warranted further investigation.  One such--as Keter informed Xhenorey,
who, upon a nest of folded legs, listened with gratifying patience--was the
Egyptian sorcerer, Amun Toth, who lived some four thousand years ago.
Toth's reputation had not weathered the storms of history well; most
references to him also contained the words *charlatan* or *fraud*.  He was
attached to the court of some Pharaoh or other--which Pharaoh exactly
tended to vary in the muddled history--for the express purpose of making
contact with supernatural entities that would furnish him, and thus the
Pharaoh, with the secret of living forever.  During a retreat in which he
was to make such contact, Toth was shadowed by a spy of the Pharaoh, who
observed the great sorcerer walking alone at a time when he would later
claim to have been conferring with the spirits.  The Pharaoh was profoundly
unamused on hearing this, and Toth was executed horribly for his breach of
trust by being sawn in two at the waist.

This the history books told Keter and, so far as the story went, the
academicians seemed to make the unspoken assumption that Toth therefore
must indeed have been a charlatan, because clearly no such thing as magical
immortality existed.  But to Keter's mind, such an assumption was
fallacious.  The only way to be sure, of course, was to ask Amun Toth
himself.

Twelve weeks beforehand, Keter had organized a small séance, having
first polished his Old Egyptian dialects so he would have a decent chance
of being understood by the dead man's spirit.  These preliminaries proved
unnecessary; he could not find Amun Toth's spirit in order to converse with
it.  This by itself was not unusual; most dead people enjoy the taciturnity
of eternity and do not care to chat.  At first Keter assumed this was the
case, but subsequent ventures with lot and circle confused him.  Calling
Amun Toth simply did not result in any connection whatsoever on the other
side.

Keter knew that sometimes the dead are entirely unreachable or undetectable
in the afterlife, usually in situations where their souls have been
consumed by powerful otherworldly entities, but Keter also knew such to be
a rare situation.  Why this should happen to Amun Toth caught Keter's
curiosity, and he proceeded with a series of experiments to find the truth
of the affair.  As he embarked on these experiments, he noted that small,
odd things were befalling him.  As a wizard of some skill, he was not
unaccustomed to small, odd things befalling him, but these were odd even by
his standards.

First, a group of crows attempted to murder him.  Keter had been walking
home from the university when a parliament of perhaps fifty of the birds
had decamped from a pair of yew trees and tried their best to peck him to
death before he reached the safety of his apartment.  The flock broke off
its attack to retreat back to the yew trees, where the birds proceeded to
indulge in a great deal of cawing at one another, glowering at his window
well into the night.

That was odd, but the next incident was extraordinary.  Keter had been
running a hot bath and had withdrawn to his bedroom to retrieve fresh
clothing.  On returning to the bath, his sense of smell told him that
something was amiss, and his stinging eyes reinforced this.  He closed the
taps and stared with dismay at the disintegrating remains of his loofah
breaking apart in the bath water.  He left the room quickly, coming back
only when he was swathed in protective gear, rubber gauntlets, and a
military-surplus gasmask.  A brief investigation demonstrated that the bath
water was no longer anything of the sort, but was now highly acidic.
Laboratory testing demonstrated it to be a mix of acids of disturbingly
high molarity.

Keter knew that many people and supernatural entities would delight in his
death, but he was intrigued to know who had felt the need to visit such an
outrage upon his loofah, and thus he began a process of deductive
reasoning.  While his list of enemies, mostly ex-boyfriends, was
extraordinarily long, the majority of them fell into categories
characterized by a markedly lack of magical talent in general.  Indeed,
Keter's devotion to his workings in magic were what earned their anger in
the first place--that, and the occasional unauthorized grave-robbing for
spell ingredients.  So these enemies, he decided, were unlikely to resort
to sorcery even if to try to kill him.

Enemies with magical skills were far fewer, mostly fellow teaching
assistants, academic rivals, and the occasional former professor.  And
those capable of penetrating the defensive wards about his apartment
brought the short list down to none at all.  Deductive logic having failed,
Keter was forced to conclude that the perpetrator was some new enemy, and
one of great power.  He wondered what he might have recently done to
aggravate such a person, when the only thing he was currently engaged upon
was the hunt for an Egyptian sorcerer dead for approximately four
millennia.

The realization dropped upon him like an anvil.  "Oh," he had said, "so
that's the way it's going to be?"

Xhenorey said, "So you're saying that this dead Egyptian fellow
disintegrated your loofah, whatever a loofah is?"

"I am," said Keter, "and he did so with the intention that I would be
scrubbing my back with it at the time.  If I hadn't taken a moment to fetch
my clothes, I would have been in the bath when the water was transmuted
into hot acid."

"I see.  Well, this Amun Toth certainly has a little creative pizzazz about
him."

"I'm not here to award points for originality," said Keter.  "I'm trying to
find out why he's being so damnably defensive."

"Mysterious, isn't it?  Well, stud, it's interesting enough, but what about
the feeding?"

"Yes, I was going to ask you about that.  Why specifically do you wish to
eat people?  You don't strike me as especially cruel."

"Oh, I'm not," Xhenorey said, seemingly irked at the accusation.  "Demons,
imps, and that sort may go in for petty sadism, but we devils have more
... refined tastes.  As for the why: to be exact, I'm hungry.  I can last a
long time on a small snack, but a boy likes to indulge in a buffet now and
then."

"You really intend to eat them?"

"Not exactly," Xhenorey replied, and smiled charmingly.

"I cannot promise that there will be opportunities for killing and eating
..."

"Aww ..."

"But there is a good likelihood of souls for the devouring, if that's what
your intent truly is?"

"Close enough," said Xhenorey.  "I'll trust you.  You have an honest face."

"Uh ...  Thank you," said Keter, frowning.  "I feel so very validated now."

"Super!" said the devil, impervious to sarcasm.  "Now if you'll let me out
of this circle ...?"

"Not so fast, sir.  I still need your word and bond before that happens."
He produced a notebook and an ink pen from his pocket, selected a fresh
page, and proceeded to write.  He regretted not having prepared a document
earlier, but he had not expected to need one.

Xhenorey wrinkled his nose.  "You're not writing up a contract, are you?
How boring.  Can't I just say I'll help you, I won't harm you, I won't look
for any of those annoying loopholes demons are so obsessive about,
blah-blah-blah, and then we can just start this adventure?"

Keter's pen paused.  He slowly looked up at the devil.

"Guide's honor," Xhenorey added, raising two fingers together in a
benediction of sorts.

"You will forgive me, but one should use a long spoon when one dines with
the devil."  Keter returned his attention to his writing.

The spider-devil considered this for a moment, brow furrowed.  "Why?"

The pen paused again.  Keter was beginning to believe he would not be
getting much peace to write.  "'Why what?"

"Why would you use a long spoon when dining with Satan?"

"It's a metaphor--about trust.  It means one should be cautious."

"I know it's a metaphor, stud.  I'm not an idiot."  A theatrical roll of
the eyes.  "I don't understand it, though.  Do your elbows not work
properly in this metaphor or something?  How does a long spoon keep you
away from Satan at this metaphorical dinner party of yours?"

"I think perhaps the idea is that both the devil and the person are dining
from the same pot."

"How do you know you're gastronomically compatible?  The things Satan eats
sometimes would turn your mortal stomach.  Would you really sup out of the
same pot as he?" said Xhenorey in astonishment.

"No," admitted Keter, "I wouldn't."

"Then this 'long spoon' of yours"--Xhenorey somehow managed to make *long
spoon* sound like sexual innuendo--"isn't going to help."

Keter frowned and assessed this.  Then he sighed, ripped the page from his
notebook, and discarded it.  "Guide's honor?" he asked.

Xhenorey raised two fingers together in a salute.  "Guide's honor," he said
solemnly.  "Swear, swear, swear.  That means I claim you and won't let
anyone harm you during this adventure."

Not without misgivings, Keter walked to the edge of the protective
summoning circle, considered a moment more, and then scrubbed out part of
the perimeter with his foot.  A bit of wind brushed his clothes as the air
pressure inside the circle and outside equalized.  "I suppose now is when
you leap out, call me a foolish mortal, and eat me?"

Xhenorey glared at him.  "I swore," he groused, sounding offended.

"My apologies, sir," said Keter.  "You did indeed swear."  He rubbed his
forehead.  "Shall we go?"

"Where exactly are we heading, stud?" asked Xhenorey, using that nickname
lightly and without permission.  The spider devil paused and sniffed the
air. "I smell ..."  He inhaled again.  "Is that chaos?"

Keter nodded.  "It is.  You have acute senses."

"Well, I *am* a devil.  Certain things ..."  He regarded Keter warily.
"Perhaps I should have asked a few more questions before agreeing to this
expedition, like: where are we going, and why exactly do you want me
along?"

Keter nodded.  "Those would have been wise questions to ask."

"I'm impetuous sometimes.  Anyway, I shall ask them now."

"Simply put, we're going to Hell, and I need you as my guide and
protection."

"That's sensible, given that you're asking to enter Hell, and it's a big
place.  Lucky for you, I'm somewhat familiar with the Abyss.  That's where
we're going, isn't it?  You've been probing, and little bits of chaos have
bled out through your scrying spells.  Nowhere else smells like that."

"I require that you guide me into Hell and into the Abyss," confirmed
Keter.

"Hell," said Xhenorey, "is an orderly place--rules and regulations;
hierarchies and so forth.  But the Abyss is a pit of chaos.  We don't like
it very much because of that.  Terrible place for a tourist hike, much less
a campsite.  My point is, your Amun Toth simply can't be in there.  The
chaos would have torn him apart long ago."

"Very true, sir.  If he were exposed to pure chaos for any length of time,
his soul would have been shredded and eventually dispersed.  There is,
however, one place ..."

"No!"  Seeing a devil distressed must be a rare occurrence.  "We *can't* go
there!  If Satan finds out ..."

"I thought you were a free agent, Xhenorey?  Go where you want, do what you
want; the infernal embodiment of footloose and fancy-free?"

"That does not give me carte blanche to go larking around in Satan's
grandest mistake!  It is absolutely forbidden!"

"Is it?" Keter said it lightly.

"Yes!  Well, no, not exactly forbidden--he didn't actually *say* that.  But
he dumped it in the Abyss, and he made his displeasure very--"

"Hell is an orderly place," quoted Keter.  "Rules and regulations.  Do any
of those rules expressly forbid entrance to the Abyss?"

"No ...  But no one would be insane enough--"

"Do any regulations declare Pandemonium off-limits?"

"No.  No, they don't."  Xhenorey smiled suddenly.  "Ah, I see.  Really
can't complain, then, can he?"

"Assuming he even finds out.  I surely won't be telling him."

Xhenorey said, "I've never actually been inside Pandemonium, stud.  You
realize that, don't you?  It was dropped into the Abyss before I was even
born."

Keter frowned as he picked up his backpack of useful tools for the field
trip and shouldered it.  "I admit some familiarity would have been useful,
but that's a small matter.  I am more curious about the idea of a devil
being born.  I thought that you and your kind are essentially eternal,
since the original creation?"

"Oh, no.  For the original fallen angels, yes, and there are a lot of them.
But the rest of us were spawned from the sins of the world, and slowly we
gained form and personality."  He took a deep breath and smiled.  "But
enough nostalgia.  Onward.  Pandemonium-ho!  Come here, little wizard, so I
can carry you."  Almost too quickly for Keter to realize what was
happening, Xhenorey leaned his nude torso forward and held out his arms to
Keter.

"Hold on," Keter yelped, recoiling.

"Is there a problem?" the devil asked.

"Sir," Keter replied, "do you think you could possibly wear clothes first?"

Xhenorey looked at him curiously.  "Such as?  Mittens?  Boots?"

"I was thinking more of the human part of you.  Your torso is naked--most
indecent."

"Do you not find me comely?" Xhenorey said, back in flirtatious mode.  "I
chose this form because I thought you might find it handsome."

"Your handsomeness is not in dispute.  But it *is* distracting.  Surely no
decent--"

"Oh, don't be a prude, stud."

"I am no prude.  Far from it, I rather enjoy--"

"Be calm, stud.  This is for your own protection."

Something about Xhenorey's voice made Keter feel odd, disoriented, but his
fear seemed to drain away.  Before he realized what was happening, Xhenorey
had seized his shoulders and lifted him with inhumanly strong arms,
spinning him rapidly, weaving white webbing around him.  Keter had a moment
of horror as he wondered what forward organ produced the webbing, and a
quick whirling glance confirmed his fears before the threads began to cover
his face.

"Take a deep breath and hold it, little wizard," Xhenorey instructed, and
Keter did.

Inside his cocoon of webbing, Keter felt the sudden shift across planes as
Xhenorey began his descent into the Realms Infernal.  Keter's previous
journeys to Hell and the nearby areas had involved a more traditional
approach, sending his spirit, his soul, out of his body and through the
plane of Limbo, and from there to Hell's border crossing, and then sneaking
past the gatekeeper.  That route was of no use to him now, since going in
through the front door would certainly bring him to the attention of Satan
and thus was to be avoided.  Too, the Abyss was not accessible through the
standard Nine Circles of Hell geography.  The chaos of the Abyss was
dangerous, and Hell was more alert to health and safety than one might
expect: after all, one cannot enjoy an eternity of damnation if one were
torn to tatters by unbridled chaotic energies.

Thus, the route was obscure and untraveled, which suited Keter very well
indeed, and he needed a guide to ensure he did not become lost.  And he had
not fully expected that Xhenorey would transport him physically, body and
all, to hell.  Why, the amount of raw supernatural power required--and to
expend it so casually--

Xhenorey's voice filtered through the webbing.  "We're getting close to the
Abyss.  Won't be much longer."

They were indeed.  Keter could feel the oppressive heat and dry rasp of the
wind even through his cocoon.  His previous trips had been astral, and his
soul-self did not need to breathe, so this first physical experience of the
air in Hell shocked him.

The threads around him began to loosen and fall away, and Keter looked
around.  Around them, the dark gulf of the Abyss boomed and echoed, every
sound ricocheting from the steep, rocky walls.  The shifting scale and
something about the very nature of the place threatened insanity upon him.

"You can breathe again, stud," said Xhenorey, inhaling deeply himself.
"Bracing, isn't it?  Nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here."

"Yes ... I ...," said Keter, speechless, disoriented and overwhelmed, his
mind sent reeling into irrationality by the environment.  Up, down,
distance--even those elementary concepts seemed to mean nothing here.

Xhenorey sighed.  "Mortals.  You just can't take the slightest collapse in
the laws of causality across the planes, can you?  Still, shifting your
body across into Hell must be more discombobulating than the child's-play
astral methods you probably used before.  Come along, little wizard; let's
get you somewhere more probable."

In the looming shadows, amid forms too chaotic to be merely random,
Xhenorey pointed to an edge, straight and true.  Keter found gauging any
scale impossible--the edge could as easily have been an inch long or a
mile--but it was the only regular form within the Abyss.  Xhenorey lifted
him again, holding Keter like a babe against his muscular chest, and leapt
without hesitation toward edge, trailing a silken thread behind them as
they fell, the devil a model of concentration, and Keter babbling nonsense
in multiple languages.

Through the Abyss they plummeted, or possibly rose.  Xhenorey was, Keter
realized as his faculties began to acclimate and return, enjoying himself.
The very quality of obscurity that Keter had sought in selecting Xhenorey
must have rendered the devil's existence boring.  Xhenorey seemed too proud
to lower himself to prodding the spirits of the damned as they basted in
liquid brimstone, but neither was he often summoned.  Perhaps the rare
occasions when some magus or another called upon him had resulted in few
repeat performances.  Perhaps--and here Keter remembered the devil's desire
to eat people--through the centuries Xhenorey had left a trail of dead magi
behind him, more as a matter of his nature rather than from any animosity
toward them.

Here Xhenorey was, however, on some desperate mission whose particulars
Keter had intentionally kept vague, grinning gleefully as he rappelled into
the Abyss in the company of somebody who had admitted to being on Satan's
voluminous shit-list.

Xhenorey reached a leg to a parapet and hooked the tip around the edge
there, drawing himself and his burbling cargo onto the tower top.  As he
gained a proper footing, Keter became less shattered by degrees until he
was able to say, "*That* was not at all enjoyable."

"*That* was the most fun I've had in ages," said the devil Xhenorey.

Keter found Pandemonium to be surprisingly ordered.  Then again, against
the backdrop of the Abyss, he decided that the point of Pandemonium was
never chaos, even though its name had become synonymous for it.  Back in
the early days, when they was full of pep and their Fall was still fresh,
Satan and his lieutenants had created Pandemonium in an hour, though Keter
supposed time perhaps worked differently here.  Back then, Satan regarded
himself as something of a *laissez-faire* captain, a nominal leader,
generally to be respected but only turned to for direction during times of
crisis.  With that egalitarian view, meant to demonstrate that God's
notoriously hands-on style of obsessive hierarchy and micro-management was
unnecessary, even patronizing, Satan built Pandemonium as a parliament for
his devils.  Here they would gather, discuss the issues of the day, and
enact policies and laws, all intended to be democratic.  Just because he
and his fallen angels had been a little uppity in the face of God was no
reason to doubt that they could govern themselves like sensible, thoughtful
entities.  Thus, thinking of how university department meetings often
likewise degenerated, Keter quite understood how as a prideful entity like
Satan must have felt when he realized that he could not fill a large
parliamentary building with devils and demons and expect them to behave
like a sensible beings.  The drinking.  The animalistic growling and
squawking and endless noise.  The vomiting.  The flows of excrement.  Thus
far, Keter mused, this parliament of Hell was probably indistinguishable
from most human equivalents, but their refusal to get down to any real work
must have galled Satan.  Finally he admitted that Pandemonium was a
terrible error, strapped the great building to Leviathan's back, and told
it to dump the short-lived parliament into the Abyss.  This Leviathan did,
and that was that.  Now Pandemonium, lodged against one wall of the chaotic
Abyss, was the great unmentionable error that Keter kept mentioning.

"So, this is Pandemonium," Keter muttered, scratching his head in an
unconscious habit.  "It's, ah, bigger than I expected."  Its full size was
difficult to grasp, since distance and perspective seemed to fluctuate in
the chaos of the Abyss, but the building seemed at least twice the size he
had expected.  Still, Keter's gaze was drawn to a great spiked tower on one
corner, with empty gibbet-cages hanging from the ends of long iron poles
and flailing in the chaos-storm of the Abyss.  He watched the cages thrash
for some moments, then said, "If I know anything about sorcerers--and I
do--Amun Toth will have made himself at home up there."

Xhenorey followed his gaze to the tower with an expression of mild
uncertainty.  "What makes you so sure?"

"I'm not entirely sure.  But I've read plenty of history, and there's a
consistent thread there.  Before the modern era, sorcerers seemed
fascinated by towers, mountaintops, and high places.  Give them a tower to
hide in and they were up the stairs like a weasel up a drainpipe.  Towers
exert a strange attraction for sorcerers.  Caves too, but only if a tower
isn't handy."

"Even for you?"

Keter scowled at Xhenorey.  "I have never had an urge to take up residence
in a tower."

"But I bet you would if a suitable tower presented itself, though."

Keter suddenly realized that the Department of Occult Sciences at the
university was in the topmost floor of a tall building--and his own
apartment was on the top level its building.  Not exactly towers, but
close.  He coughed and looked around, and pointed.  "I don't see a way to
access it directly from this rooftop.  If we go down those stairs, perhaps
we can search forward from there."

# # #

Presently Keter and Xhenorey walked down a broad corridor.  Inside, the
harsh heat was slightly more bearable, but only slightly.  Keter in his
previous visits to Hell had been spirit-only, and he had not felt the heat
or had to breathe the rasping air.  The dimness of the high-vaulted passage
was illuminated partially by the lightning flashes of uncertain existence
outside and by flickering candle-like lights of eternal hellfire in
shoulder-high sconces here and there along the way.  Above them loomed a
deep darkness, the monstrous architecture of the building occasionally
revealed during the flashes from outside.  Keter found himself thinking
that Satan should definitely have hired a better architect.  From the large
windows, they could see the Abyss below, and the Abyss above.  Keter found
that looking into the Abyss for more than a few seconds threatened to give
him a headache.  He had better things to do than sightsee in any case, and
they progressed at a brisk pace in the direction of the tower.  Keter was
walking in the lead, and Xhenorey politely crept along behind him, although
Keter suspected the devil could gallop along on his many legs far faster
than any running human.

After a long stretch of walking, they reached a corner that surely led to
the entrance of the tower.  Keter signaled to Xhenorey to wait, while he
advanced on tiptoe to peek around the corner and reconnoiter.  To his vast
satisfaction, he saw the door he sought.  To his equally vast irritation,
he saw proof of occupancy: the door to the tower was guarded.  Oddly, the
two guards were human--or appeared so.  Either way, the men were heavily
built, nearly naked except for loincloth-like wraps about their waists for
modesty and what appeared to be light leather-and-chainmail armor around
their shoulders and upper chests, the brevity of their garb probably a wise
decision in this heat.  Both guards stood, and each cradled a huge, ornate
sword in his arms.

To be able to stand guard like this for long periods and especially while
holding a sword was in itself a great feat, both mentally and physically.
Keter wondered whether they were under the influence of some charm that
enhanced their ability to stay focused and stave off boredom, potentially
their stamina too.  He calculated the men's likely strength to be an
obstacle in his ongoing mission to locate Amun Toth, find out what he knew
of import about immortality, and then chastise him for his little pranks
involving murderous crows and hot acid baths.  Keter's list of possible
chastisements began with *kill* and ended there too.

"What's going on?" whispered Xhenorey, spooking Keter who jumped back to
find that the devil-spider had soundlessly snuck up close behind him.
"What's the plan?"  Xhenorey was unable to hide his glee at being out and
about.

"This is to be an infiltration, followed by an interrogation, and then, in
all likelihood, an execution," said Keter, also in a whisper.  "If you
could please avoid acting like we're a pair of children sneaking off behind
Mommy's back to spy on the neighbors, perhaps this would all feel a little
more professional."

Xhenorey put on a serious expression.  "What's the plan?" he asked again,
this time half an octave lower.

Keter sighed.  "Discipline doesn't come naturally to you devils, does it?"

Xhenorey slowly lowered himself until his head was more or less at eye
level with Keter's, and Keter found himself unnerved at the raw lust in the
devil's expression.  "You must teach me all about discipline, the very
first chance you get."  Xhenorey smiled hungrily and licked his lips.

Keter was disconcerted and flushed with bewildering arousal and
embarrassment.  "Uh--the plan.  Ah ..."  He peered around the corner again.
"We have two guards perhaps a hundred yards away.  Beside the one on the
far side is a warning gong.  In no way do we want him to strike it.  I
think the best way to--"

Keter looked around for Xhenorey, only to discover that he was gone.  Given
the devil's size, this was a remarkable disappearance in itself, and Keter
wondered if the storming chaos outside were somehow to blame.  This theory
he discarded quickly, and then feared that perhaps Xhenorey had actually
gone to engage the guards instead.  The moment that thought struck him,
Keter braced himself for the booming of the gong, but the alarm was not
sounded.  Cautiously, he looked back around the corner.

Xhenorey, hanging upside down from a slender thread of penis-extruded
webbing, descended from the ceiling above the guards.  Before Keter could
react, the guards noticed the motion and looked up.  One raised his sword.

Instead of attacking or sounding the alarm, the guards simply froze; they
stood and stared at the spider.

"That's it," Xhenorey murmured, descending further.  "Come closer, my
friends.  Closer."

The guards shuffled nearer, making no sound, still staring.  Xhenorey
shifted the webline.  He wrapped an arm around each guard, pulling them
both against his chest, swords and all.  In a blur of motion, the
spider-devil was gone, disappeared into the shadows at the ceiling.

The gong hung unattended and silent.

Keter cautiously poked his head out further.  He saw no sign of either the
guards or Xhenorey.  He tiptoed out quietly, so as not to alert any
potential horde of guards on the other side of the door.  He progressively
heard and saw nothing, and soon he stood in front of door himself.

"Where the blazes are you?" he whisper-hissed into the darkness overhead.
A sound in the shadowed rafters gave him something to focus on, off to one
side, and there he thought he saw a glistening chitinous form moving.  He
squinted harder but could not discern what exactly he was seeing, other
than that it was comprised of three shapes.  "What are you doing up there?"

"Busy!" whispered Xhenorey from above.  "Be with you shortly."

Something fluttered down from the shadows and landed on the floor nearby.
After a moment, Keter recognized it: the loincloth worn by one of the
guards.  "What the--?"  Keter began to realize and gave a disgusted snort
and turned away.

He walked away a few steps, but he could not escape the noises from above.
One guard whimpered--the speaker could hardly be anyone except one of the
guards--and then the other sounded out too, soft cries at first of fear,
then of ecstasy, sometimes of both.  They sounded muffled, as though
partially cocooned in webbing.  Keter recognized the rhythmic, wet sucking
sounds; the sounds, along with the discarded loincloth on the floor, left
little doubt as to what was happening in the darkness above.  Though his
mind felt a sort of revulsion, Keter felt his penis respond instinctively
to the thought, thickening, hardening, as prickles of arousal ran across
his skin.

One guard cried out softly, one last time: a long moan, filled with dark
pleasure and release.  Then the other guard groaned similarly; his lasted a
full minute, far beyond the normal capacity of human lungs to maintain,
Keter thought, but the guard was in the process of discovering that perhaps
Xhenorey had the ability to extend some human capacities far beyond the
norm.

Then the cry dwindled, and stopped.

Xhenorey emerged from the shadows near two cocooned shapes and clicked
lightly down the wall.  He smiled slyly at Keter, who glared stonily back.
"You're being all judgmental, aren't you?" Xhenorey purred, wiping the
former of his mouth.  "Well, I told you I was hungry, and transporting you
here to Hell took a lot out of me.  Plus they were in the way.  Two birds,
one stone, to borrow another of those human metaphors you love some much.
I mean, really, did you have a better plan?"

Beyond the door, no further guards--just another hallway and more stairs.

As they walked, "I thought," said Keter with pointed emphasis, "that you
said that you don't eat people."

"I don't," Xhenorey agreed smugly with a half-smile.  "Well, only sort of."

"So," said Keter, "you're an incubus?"

"Incubine," Xhenorey corrected him.  "It's more of a general category, a
method of feeding.  Incubi and succubi are the examples you humans always
think of, but they're really the same organism, since we devils can assume
either male or female form.  Many demons and devils eat flesh in addition
to souls or have venom and enzymes to suck out liquefied innards."  He
grimaced.  "A bit uncivilized, if you ask me.  Lacks the personal touch."

"Your refined sensibilities suit you well, sir."

"You think so?  You're such a sweet man, stud.  I'm glad I swore.  We're
having a lot of fun together, and I haven't killed you yet.  That's a nice
change of pace."

Keter paused on a step and looked back at him.  "Against all common sense,
I'm think I'm beginning to like you, too," he said.

"Even though I'm a devil, have a lot of legs, and devour pieces of the
souls of my prey through orgasms?"

"So far, on this trip, I have yet to see any of those as bad things."

Xhenorey slapped him lightly on the back.  "You charmer!"

They continued up the stairs.

"I've met more than a few demons in my time," said Keter.  "You're not at
all like them.  I didn't realize that the difference between a demon and a
devil would be so distinct."

"Don't take me as a typical example," said Xhenorey.  "Devils are a varied
lot, and I'm my own creature."

"But still evil?"

"Oh, yes," he replied absently.

They climbed in silence a little further.

Then Xhenorey said, "Well, I *suppose* I'm evil, at any rate.  We devils
don't think of ourselves in terms like 'good' or 'evil'; but I'm a devil,
so evil is the safe assumption.  I devour people's souls, after all."

"For sustenance."

"Yes, but I don't have to eat them at all if I don't want to.  I'm
immortal, after all, though I become a weak thing if I don't snack on an
obliging young man now and again."

"Obliging?"

"Unresisting, which ends up being much the same thing.  I do have my
charms, after all."

"And men only?  That seems somewhat unfair."

"Oh, I can prey on women, in theory."

"In theory?  How does the practice vary?"

"The few times a woman summoned me, we ended up chatting, and after a while
eating their souls seemed impolite.  Besides, almost all of the mortals
who've called on me have been men."

They walked in silence a little further.  Then Xhenorey said, "You're
wondering how it works, aren't you?"

"How a giant spider-devil can seduce a human, or how you absorb his soul?
Yes.  Both mechanisms intrigue and perturb me in equal measure."

"'Mechanisms'?  Stud, you're such a romantic.  What say I let you watch
next time?"

"Sir, I'm not a voyeur."

"It's not voyeurism," Xhenorey teased.  "It's science!  And don't pretend
you didn't get aroused back there with the guards.  I can sense such
things, you know.  An erection is a perfectly natural reaction to all the
excess sexual energy being unleashed when I feed."

Keter preferred to remain silent as he pondered this.

As they climbed, Keter continued to forego bantering
pleasantries--diverting though they would have been--and concentrate on the
trial to come.  The soul of Amun Toth had gone to considerable trouble to
hide in Pandemonium.  Why?  Why would Toth have gone to such pains to avoid
the attentions of Satan?  Had Toth's soul simply shown up at the gates of
Hell, Satan probably would have welcomed him and perhaps given him a
position in middle management.  Back then, Satan was very happy to delegate
day-to-day matters whenever possible.  Even if that didn't happen, recent
restructurings in the processes of Hell meant that it simply was not the
pit of eternal punishment that it once was.  No, Amun Toth seemed to have
put in a lot of effort at staying hidden, especially here in Pandemonium,
since using it as a hiding spot would certainly earn Satan's wrath should
he ever find out.

Yet here they were, inside Pandemonium, and it was most definitely
inhabited, almost certainly by somebody of pre-industrial origins, given
the loincloths and armor and impressive swords of the guards they had
encountered.  And the guards themselves--a thought suddenly occurred to
Keter.

"Xhenorey, enlighten me.  When you have captured your prey, you, ah, feast
upon his soul, yes?"

"Yes.  And sometimes a few bodily fluids as a consequence of the sex act,
but that's more a matter of personal preference than necessity.  You
humans--almost everything you do with your bodies involves messy fluids of
some sort or another."

"Lovely," he said, distracted.  "When you devoured those guards, one of
them lost his loincloth, and I saw you left two bodies in cocoons of
webbing, correct?"

"Yes.  Didn't I just explain all that?  Is my memory going?  So sad, and
I'm still so young and handsome, aren't I?"

"Please set aside your vanity and consider the facts.  You devoured part of
the guards' souls."

Xhenorey sighed.  "Yes."

"Leaving behind their bodies."

"Yes, yes.  I *have* done this before, you know."  He stopped on the
stairs.  "Ah.  Yes, stud, I see your point, now."

"How, if the guards were true inmates of Hell, souls of the damned, would
they have bodies to leave behind?  Exactly my concern."

"They were alive.  Mortal men physically in hell."  Xhenorey looked at
Keter as if this were some clever trick of his.  "So how are mortal men
physically in Hell?"

"It is not," said Keter, "without precedent."

"Yes, but the energy needed for more than one ...  And the rules to be
bypassed ...  For you this is just a day-trip, but they appeared to have
been here a while.  I can't see Old Man Satan being at all happy about
that.  So you think your sorcerer brought a retinue with him."

"An even more pertinent question is: Why would a dead sorcerer need living
men as his retinue?"

"Well, Amun Toth's clearly not dead, stud.  That's obvious.  Have you only
just now worked that out?"

"I was working up to it," sighed Keter.  "I had planned it to be a 'eureka'
rhetorical flourish."

"Oh," said Xhenorey.  "Sorry to spoil your moment.  But hold on--what about
his ...  What do you humans call it?--Those things mortals have?"  He
clicked his fingers triumphantly.  "Ah, right!--His life span!  Wouldn't he
be really old for a mortal by now?"

"He would, yes.  We will have to find him to determine whether, for first
question, he is a living man or merely a spirit; and for the second,
assuming he is alive, how old he appears.  In any case, he will have
demonstrably discovered a path to human immortality.  I'm curious to see
how much vitality that secret lends him.  According to the folklore, many
of his predecessors were not very lucky in that regard."

They passed a number of doors on their way toward to the tower top and
dutifully checked each of them.  All were unlocked, and all were empty of
guards or sorcerers.  Many rooms showed signs of recent habitation,
however, and Keter calculated that Amun Toth must have at least twenty
unaccounted-for guards or other servants lurking around the seemingly
abandoned structure.  "And you know what that suggests?" he said, risking
another rhetorical device.

"Lunch!" guessed Xhenorey.

"No--an ambush."

"I don't see those as mutually exclusive, you know."

As they neared the topmost floor of the tower, Keter grew more cautious,
while Xhenorey became more enthusiastic.  He had agreed not to dine on or
kill Amun Toth unless Keter gave permission, but Toth's guards and staff
were fair targets.  "Just try to be, you know, discreet," said Keter,
though he was unsure what *discreet* meant in this context.

"I will, stud.  I will very discreetly suck the souls out of each and every
one of them."  Then more soberly, Xhenorey added, "But as much as I enjoy
the occasional orgy--or feast, depending on your perspective--I'm concerned
by the numbers.  If this sorcerer has twenty friends with him, I can hardly
ask them to take a number and wait patiently until I get to them, can I?
My charms have their limits.  If they rush us all at once in an ambush,
that may present us with a few difficulties."

Keter had been thinking along the same lines.  "I know a few spells," he
admitted.  "I *am* a sorcerer, after all.  I usually specialize in ritual
magic, and I haven't had much time or talent to spend beyond learning the
basics of off-the-cuff enchantments.  Something about them has always
struck me as frivolous or unscientific.  But I think the proximity of the
chaos stream may magnify whatever skills I have in that direction."  He
reached into a hidden pocket sewn in his trousers and slid out a few inches
of ebony wood, thin and gleaming.

Xhenorey smirked.  "Is that a wand in your pocket," he said, "or are you
just happy to see me?"

Keter sighed and slid the wand back into concealment.

As they reached the top of the stairs, the attack came.  The
guards--fourteen, Keter quickly noted--charged down the stairs as Keter and
the devil were still some twenty yards from the top and therefore at a
tactical disadvantage.

Years of reflexive conditioning had Keter fumbling for his wand in its
hidden pocket.  Xhenorey meanwhile hollered, "Hello, boys!" in undisguised
delight as he waded into the attackers.  His earlier concerns about being
outnumbered had been disingenuous, Keter noted, as Xhenorey was most
definitely a fighter as well as a lover of the more soul-sucking sort.
Powerful arachnid limbs shot out and caught guards hard enough in the
stomach or chest to knock them from their feet.

While Keter was still wrestling his wand out of his pants pocket, Xhenorey
was scuttling up a wall, a struggling guard dangling by the scruff of his
neck from a hind leg.  "No time for that!" shouted Keter, finally clearing
the wand from the cloth.

"Hush, stud," came the reply.  "I know what I'm doing.  Buy us time.  Wave
your little woody-thing at them."

Keter truly hated wands.  Now that the wretched thing was in his hand, he
felt as he always had in the very few previous instances when he used one
outside of a classroom: foolish.  Clearing his mind before using it was a
pleasure, as it allowed him to ignore how silly he must look.

The chaos outside the walls provided a constant background hum of magical
energies, the least ability of which was to cause blinding headaches.  The
trick was to let the rolling static of creation flow through his
consciousness without letting it catch on any of his thoughts along the
way.  Chaos was impressionable and easily picked up on the mind's desires,
but like a feral thing it tended not to interpret those desires the way the
channeling mind intended.  While one might desire to see one's enemies
knocked backward, for example, chaos might accomplish that desire by making
one's cerebellum explode with the force of a grenade.  No, Keter knew, the
best plan was just to push the stuff in the direction where it could cause
the most trouble and then leave it to its own devices.

Chaos spurted from the tip of his wand like a lazily drawn line, curving
gently in long sinuous waves as it snaked up the stairs and struck a guard
squarely in the chest.  The guard must have been thinking that he did not
want to trip and bounce head-first down the stairway, because his feet
zipped out from under him as though the steps had become greased, and he
skated down the stairs on his ass like a child on a playground slide.  This
would have been a tactical coup if the guard had been to the rear of the
attackers, in which case his cascade might have knocked several off their
feet.  Instead, the guard was in the lead, and so only Keter had to dodge
the sliding man and hold his position until the guard passed.

The guards, all identically dressed and equipped, came on, swords slashing
at Keter, and he retaliated by slashing the air with his wand, all the time
keeping his mind clear of any violent thoughts.  Twenty or thirty black
blobs of chaos in varying sizes spat from the wand, to ricochet harmlessly
off the guards' armor--which was probably enchanted against chaos as a
precaution--although at least the spray brought the charge to a premature
halt.

A guard raised his sword, probably thinking to run Keter through with it,
and stepped on a chaos-blob; immediately a longsword sprang up through his
foot.  The guard's cry was cut short as he tripped forward and the tip of
his own blade caught in the flesh of his throat and then drove through with
the force of his tumble.  The body clattered toward Keter, who reflexively
stepped back, tripped, and himself fell.

As he turned his attention to the possibility of being killed by bouncing
down several stone steps and revised his defensive options accordingly,
Keter caught a glimpse of something multi-limbed and almost gleeful
descending from the dark upper reaches of the ceiling on a silken cable.
Xhenorey plucked one of the soldiers off his feet with a foreleg and threw
him offhandedly up into the shadows from whence the devil had come.  The
guard did not come down again.

Xhenorey's further actions were lost as Keter continued his fall.  Happily,
he went sliding down only a few steps before he caught himself to a halt.
He clambered awkwardly to his feet, bruised but unbroken.  The guards,
except for four who had stepped on fatal chaos blobs and now stood or lay
impaled, were all gone.

Keter blinked, confused.  He walked painfully up a little way, recovered
his dropped wand, and then continued to the top landing, cautiously
avoiding the remaining blobs.  Once satisfied that he was clear of
immediate danger, he looked up into the shadows and braced himself for what
he might see there.

Xhenorey descended the wall, leaving behind him a large and ragged web,
clearly assembled in great haste.  Scattered about it were multiple
cocooned forms.  A guard's foot stuck out of one.

"Won't they suffocate?" asked Keter, out of curiosity rather than concern.

"Never have in the past.  Anyway, they tend to breathe deeply and slowly
once I've given them a taste of my special charms."

"'Special'?"

"Special," Xhenorey confirmed.  "I've entranced them into comas, with
pleasant, priapic dreams to charge their souls to the brim with sexual
energy.  Useful if I want a snack later.  Now, stud, shall we proceed?"

The great double doors of the topmost chamber were unlocked, a lack of
precaution that Keter ascribed to their quarry's overweening arrogance.
The doors slammed open with a satisfying crash when Xhenorey shoved his
forelegs against them.  Keter advanced, the wand tucked back into its
pocket, held ready for a rapid draw by the guise of him strolling in
nonchalantly with both hands in his trouser pockets.  "Amun Toth," said
Keter in his best Old Egyptian, "we have come to talk with you.  Please
stop sending your men to attack us.  We have better ways to spend our
time."

A swirl of smoke, and Amun Toth stood before them, dressed in the style of
a noble of his dynasty.  He seemed to be in his forties, sleek and smooth
in a manner that troubled Keter.  Toth seemed too confident.  A memory
nagged at Keter; something about Toth disturbed him, but he could not quite
remember what.

"You," said Amun Toth in a surprisingly high-pitched and youthful
tone--perhaps a side-effect of his longevity, thought Keter, though he was
more impressed that Toth had replied in unaccented modern speech.  "You
speak the language of my people"--he folded his arms--"as if your mouth
were an asshole with lips."

Keter was not sure how to respond to that.

"That's a bit harsh," said Xhenorey in perfect Old Egyptian.  "I thought it
was a good try, for a beginner.  Well, a decent try, anyway."

"Could we discuss my linguistic shortcomings later, please?" grumbled
Keter, lapsing into modern speech himself.  To Toth, he said, "Sir, our
journey here has been one of much trouble and many difficulties.  I come to
you simply as a fellow occult scholar and seeker of deep secrets.  I would
greatly appreciate if you would stop trying to kill me."

"You are both a child and a fool," said Amun Toth.  "You came here to steal
my secrets, but you will find only your death."

Keter sighed.  "Just once, I would like to meet a fellow traveler upon the
same paths of mystic research who doesn't wish me dead on sight."

"You get a lot of this, then?" asked Xhenorey.

Keter sighed.  "You have no idea."  He addressed Amun Toth once more.  "I
can understand your prior attempts to kill me.  The crows and the acid
bath.  You simply wished to be left alone.  I sympathize with that.  I
might have done similar things myself.  I understand and forgive them.
Now, however, I am here, and we can perhaps help one another."

Amun Toth glared at Keter, and in Egyptian said many hurtful things,
proposing a long run of bestiality in Keter's ancestors, along with some
enthusiastically sexual career choices for his mother that Keter knew to be
untrue.  Only when Keter's family tree dating back four generations was
thoroughly doused with vitriol was Toth convinced that Keter had been
sufficiently insulted.

Keter pursed his lips.  "And," he said, "that is your final answer?"

Toth's mouth curled into a curved and sleek sneer.

"Very well.  I see you have your laboratory here.  Your writings shall have
to suffice.  I am more than done with you.  Xhenorey, be so kind as to suck
the soul from this ...  shit in human form."

"Sounds so appetizing when you put it like that, but a boy has to eat."
Then to Amun Toth, he said, "Look into my eyes, lover.  You're about to get
the sex of your life."

Toth's sneer not only failed to vanish, but instead deepened.  "I know what
you are, monster.  An incubine demon.  A poor sort of parasite."

Xhenorey was astonished.  He looked at Keter.  "Did you hear that?  He
called me a *demon*--to my face!  I'm about to off him in any number of
interesting ways, and he insults me!"  Xhenorey looked back at the wizard,
eyes narrowing and a snarl growing on his face.  "I was going to make it
quick and pleasant, but you are going to linger, little man.  I am going to
drag the life from you, a nibble at a time, and you will beg me to finish
you.  And when you have pleaded for the thousandth time, you will still
have nine thousand more to go before I first say 'no' the first time."

It was an impressive threat, although the terrors it promised seemed a bit
time-consuming for Keter's schedule.  Amun Toth, however, seemed splendidly
unconcerned.  Somehow, he managed to deepen the sneer still further.  Good
thing that Toth's complexion was so very sleek, thought Keter, or he would
have torn his face by now.

Then Keter remembered where he had seen somebody that plump and smooth
before.

"Your charms cannot harm me, demon," said Amun Toth.  "Behold!"  And,
unexpectedly, he drew up his robes to expose himself.  "The energies that
you feed upon were sacrificed long ago to give me my magic!"

Xhenorey's anger turned to surprise.  "Well, that's just rude."

Keter found himself beholding that which he would much rather not have been
beholding.  "A eunuch," he said.  Of course Amun Toth was a eunuch; many
priests of the Pharaoh were--it was written right there in the histories.
Keter had read it and disregarded it as irrelevant.

Amun Toth mercifully dropped the edge of his robe, and snapped an
incantation, the high tone of his voice now making perfect sense.
Everything grew dark.

"Well, this is just embarrassing," said Xhenorey as sudden dark energies
swirled around them, "and I say that as somebody who once gang-banged the
Macedonian army."

# # #

Xhenorey and Keter were prisoners.  Whatever incantation Amun Toth had cast
at them had laid them both out, and Keter had awoken to find himself and
the devil in a great cage, his pack taken from him and his wrists in
manacles.  Xhenorey too was manacled and his legs hobbled in a series of
ensorcelled chains until they formed a cage of their own.  He lay on his
side in what looked like a very uncomfortable position and even Keter,
unused to sympathy, felt a little sorry for the devil.  This, he decided,
was thoroughly discourteous of their host.

Keter had just finished comparing Xhenorey's embarrassment against his own
when the door to the dungeon opened and, preceded by guards, Amun Toth
entered.  At first he pretended not to notice his prisoners and instead
walked to a table in the corner where the contents of Keter's pack had been
dumped and arranged.  Toth sneered his way along the display of surgical
instruments, syringes, notebook, binoculars, and other useful apparatus for
a student sorcerer-at-large.

"Ridiculous," said the Egyptian wizard.  "You came here thinking to destroy
me with such things?"

"I came here to ask you to stop trying to destroy me, and perhaps to share
our researches.  I see now both errands were a waste of time.  You have no
great power other than what you have learned to focus from the Abyss.  The
historical records are incorrect.  You may have been sentenced to be sawn
in half, but it was never carried out.  Instead, you somehow escaped to
this place; they were never able to find you, and so they claimed to have
executed you to save the Pharaoh a bit of embarrassment.  This is an
ingenious hideout, I grant you.  I don't underestimate the difficulty of
purifying its energies to a state where you can focus and use them, and I
applaud you on your success.  But it is a useless discipline outside the
Abyss.  You are trapped here, because if you were ever to leave, your
powers would dwindle away.  Am I correct?"

"I am not trapped," said Amun Toth.  "I may leave at any time, and have
done so several times.  How do you think I learned your language?  My
powers are greater than you surmise, barbarian.  But you are correct that
here I am unassailable.  Even the Great Devil that built this palace could
do nothing to me if he dared confront me here."

"Why don't you say that to his face?" said Xhenorey from the floor.  "I'd
like to see how that works out for you.  He has a terrible temper, you
know, you little ball-less wonder."

"I am invulnerable here, demon," repeated Amun Toth slowly.

"Demon!" snarled Xhenorey, filled with outrage.  "Did you hear that, stud?
He called me a lowly demon again.  Defend my honor!"

Keter looked over his shoulder at the devil, considered for a moment, and
turned back to Amun Toth.  "You have insulted my friend.  I suggest you
apologize."

The wizard laughed, a shrill, unlovely sound.  "Or what?  Even if you were
free, you can do nothing to hurt me.  In this citadel, no harm may befall
me.  No weapon may spill my blood.  No poison may work on me.  No magic may
cause me injury or harm.  All will be humbled before me."

Amun Toth swept out, tittering unattractively, followed by his guards.  The
door slammed shut behind them, and Keter and Xhenorey were left alone.

"What an ass," said Keter.

"You were so sweet, defending my honor like that," said Xhenorey.  "A demon
he called me.  So hurtful.  Assuming that stony expression of yours means
that you're busily thinking up some clever escape plan, I shall have to
give you a proper thank you when we're free.  I'll try really hard not to
kill you with it."

Keter regarded him dryly.  "I notice you're not swearing."

Xhenorey held up his wrists.  "Manacles.  They impede my swearing, as well
as my strength and my magic."  He lowered them again and looked seriously
at Keter.  "*Do* you have a plan, stud?  The awful little man was telling
the truth; Satan himself would be hard-pressed to harm him here."

"I don't intending to fight him," said Keter.  "To the contrary, I came
here with the intent of sharing information and helping him."  He smiled a
cold, hard smile.  "And so we see the cost of failing to search somebody
properly."

He had needed a little time and a great deal of concentration, but Keter
had been making headway with the wand.  It had been lying snugly in the
special hidden pocket in his trousers throughout their initial encounter
with Amun Toth and had remained undiscovered in their subsequent defeat and
incarceration.

# # #

While a useful focus for Keter's spells, the raw chaos around them still
made the wand profoundly unpredictable.  The first hour of attempts to
materialize a key to unlock their cell had produced a stunning array of
objects, none of which were useful their purpose.  Rubber balls, nesting
dolls, unsuitable shoes, and a collection of old newspapers littered the
cell, along with other equally useless items.

Xhenorey had been distracted from his supportive early comments first by
the appearance of a cashmere scarf that he claimed on sight, as if there
was much chance of Keter wanting it.  Unhappily, Xhenorey was unable to put
it on because of his manacles, and it dangled from a hanger on the bars
beside him while he consoled himself by reading ancient advice columns in
the newspapers.

Finally, Keter took a break from trying to conjuring a key from chaos, to
consider what he was doing wrong.  "The power available here is immense,"
he said, looking ruefully at the wand, "but something is diverting it from
my intent.  Toth must have developed some ward or charm for this cell that
interferes with others' attempts to utilize chaos for their magic.  He
suggested that his power here is absolute and, if he's managed to channel
the energies outside effectively, I fear he is correct.  Claiming to be
able to defeat Satan here might not be an idle boast."

"These people talk such nonsense," said Xhenorey, ignoring him.  "They
claim to offer advice in this column, but all they do is make people's
lives more complicated.  And their attitudes to sex are so repressive--they
talk about it like it's a bad thing."

"Sex with you *is* a bad thing."

"Not for me, it isn't.  And anyway, I'm a special case.  I swear, next time
I'm on the mortal plane with some free time, perhaps I'll start a campaign
to change people's minds about sex."  He threw the newspaper aside and
looked disconsolately at Keter.  "Haven't you made anything useful, yet?  I
thought we'd be out of here in a flash, possibly with a puff of smoke for
dramatic effect."

Keter regarded Xhenorey icily.  "I am working on it."

"While you're working on it, could you whip up a wooden hanger for my
scarf?  Which is lovely, by the way; thank you so much.  The wire one it
appeared with will play havoc with drape of the fibers, though.  A soft
material like that needs to hang from a smooth, rounded surface.  My
muscular shoulders ideally, but that's a problem until we get these
manacles off."

"Sir," began Keter, "don't bother me with such trivia.  Anyway, in this
infernal heat--pardon the phrase--why would you want to wear a scarf?  It's
not the most masculine of ..."  He paused, and looked at the item where it
hung.  "Wire, you say?"

Shortly thereafter, the scarf carefully folded to Xhenorey's
specifications, and its wire hangar liberated and unwound and bent to form
an impromptu lock pick, Keter grunted with satisfaction as he freed his own
wrists from their manacles.

"I like the way you grunt; you sound so ... sated," said Xhenorey
seductively.

Keter ignored him.

Presently, they were freed of their manacles, shackles, and of their cell,
the locks being of a uniformly unchallenging archaic design.  "It pays to
invest in updates," Keter had commented as the cell door swung open.

Now they stood, resolute, liberated, and--in Xhenorey's case--wearing a
cashmere scarf.  "I presume the plan is to run away quickly and quietly?"
he said in vain hope.

Keter shook his head.  "No.  Amun Toth will continue to badger me with
assorted curses until one of them sticks; I have no choice but to deal with
him now, once and for all."

"We're talking about a powerful wizard who feels quite confident that even
Satan can't hurt him here.  I think that bears repeating."

"Yes."  Keter looked around him, deep in thought.  "His defensive wards and
barriers are near impervious.  My spells will have little effect, and he
has proven he can resist your 'charms.'  We cannot harm him."  He paused as
a new thought struck him.  "Ah."  He grinned savagely.  "Come along,
Xhenorey.  We have a wizard to defeat."

The doors of Amun Toth's sanctum once more crashed open under the impact of
large spider legs.  "Hello!" Xhenorey announced to the surprised sorcerer.
"Let's try this again, shall we?"

"Impossible!" yelled Toth, which struck Keter as an odd thing for an
immortal eunuch living in Hell's abandoned parliament building to say.

"Only highly improbable, as it happens," said Keter, walking past the
Xhenorey to confront Toth.  "But if you will insist on living in a boiling
cauldron of chaos, you have only yourself to blame."

Amun Toth recovered his confidence.  "So you escaped.  It will do you no
good.  I will simply return you to your confinement.  Guards!"  No clatter
of armed men came in response, only the distant groaning of chaos in the
eaves.  "Guards!" called Toth once more.

"They're indisposed," said Xhenorey.  "Meaning, they're all in a deep coma
and won't be waking up any time soon."

"No matter," Amun Toth.  "I will deal with you myself."

"Actually, I was thinking perhaps we could have an old-fashioned duel,"
said Keter.  "My magic versus yours."

Amun Toth laughed, as uncharismatic a sound as ever.  "You?  Your feeble
skills are no match for mine, barbarian!  Even the Great Devil can't--"

"Yes, yes," said Keter dismissively.  "We heard you brag about that before.
Personally, I doubt you will survive long after my first volley."

"My defenses are perfect," Toth said with one of his complicated sneers.
"You can cause me no hurt.  No man nor any demon," and here he pointedly
looked at Xhenorey, "can bring me harm.  Your words are empty, fool."

"Well, then."  Keter drew his wand.  "Defend yourself."

Amun Toth smirked, an unpleasant expression on that buttery face.  With a
few short syllables of power, the air around him thickened as wards and
barriers gathered to protect him from any conceivable source of violence.
Even as that was happening, Keter looked at the wand in his hand, hoped he
had judged things correctly, aligned his thoughts, and cast his spell at
Toth.

The results seemed disappointing.  A barely visible golden light glowed
around the tip of the wand and sputtered out after a few seconds.  Keter
glared at the wand once more, pursing his lips.  "Ah ...," he said.

"Ha!" shouted Toth.  "That was your best?  Now, prepare for an agony of
slow death, fools!"

Keter put away his wand and crossed his arms, awaiting certain annihilation
patiently.

Toth waved an arm theatrically.  "I call upon the powers of the Abyss!  I
summon the forces that were old when the Earth was formed!  I--" He
coughed.  "I call upon--" He coughed again.  "I--" He touched his throat,
plainly concerned.

"Don't worry," said Keter.  "It's perfectly normal."

"Impossible ...," Amun Toth croaked.  "What have you done to me,
barbarian?" Around him, the air flexed and the distortions of his defenses
faded slowly.

"Well, I haven't done you any harm, if that's what you're concerned about.
You were quite right.  Those were impressive defenses.  I certainly have
couldn't hurt you through them.  So instead, I did quite the
opposite--something your defenses were never intended to stop."

"I ...  feel strange ..."  Toth suffered another coughing fit.  "What is
happening to me?"

"Oh, your throat?  That will pass soon.  It's just your voice breaking.  It
happens to all the boys.  Time works differently here.  You're just going
through roughly ten years of puberty all at once."

Toth froze.  His eyes widened.  "No ..."

"Yes.  I didn't even try to hurt you, Amun Toth.  I healed you.  You should
be grateful.  Oh," Keter feigned exasperation, "I am so forgetful.  Of
course, your magic depended on you being a eunuch, didn't it?  Silly me.
Never mind.  I meant well."

Amun Toth looked around frantically, suddenly becoming all too aware of an
unfamiliar weight between his legs.  "A knife!  There must be a knife
somewhere!  I can--" He stopped, glaring wildly at Keter.  "The demon!
Where is it?"

Some prickling premonition made him look up.

"Hello, lover," said Xhenorey as he descended on a silken cable, an
unsmiling monster in cashmere.  "That's it.  Look into my eyes.  All of
puberty and four thousand years of denied sexual energy crashing into you
all at once?  You're going to be a *delicious* banquet.  Oh, and just so
you know, you really should have apologized when my human friend here asked
you to."

# # #

Keter observed the first stages of Xhenorey's feeding process out of
scientific interest--the tearing away of Toth's clothes, the initial
engagement with Toth's resurging erection, so like oral sex between humans
and so not at the same time--and made a few notes.  The excess sexual
energy Xhenorey had mentioned proved distracting; Keter's penis stayed
distressingly, distractingly stiff the entire time, and he repeatedly
entertained a fantasy of tearing open his trousers and presenting his own
cock to the devil for snacking--but, no, he had to stay disciplined.
Xhenorey really did appear intent on dragging out Amun Toth's sexual
quietus to great length, so Keter pulled himself away from the sight and
wandered off to do what he usually did when he found himself in the home of
a rival sorcerer: he looted it.

The guards they had fought earlier still hung from the web above the
staircase.  Toth had made no attempt to rescue them.  Perhaps Toth had an
inflexible attitude toward failure, and Keter imagined the wizard had meant
to leave the sluggishly writhing bodies up there as a warning to the new
intake of guards when he recruited them.

Keter's search took several hours and netted him several useful
chaos-focused items, yet Xhenorey was still nowhere near done with Amun
Toth when he got back.  Keter might have felt some pity for the Egyptian,
but the memory of his disintegrating loofah prevented any such sympathy.
Rather than disturb Xhenorey's meal, Keter gave in to his exhaustion, went
off to find a suitable bed, and slept for a while.

He awakened when a giant spider leg prodded him.  "Rise and shine,
sleepyhead!" said Xhenorey.

"Amun Toth?"

"Dealt with.  Permanently."  The spider-devil smiled a smile that was not
in the least nice.  "Grab your pack and we'll be on our way.  I'm bored
with this place."

# # #

The departure from Pandemonium was leisurely.  The thread they had used
earlier to reach the parliament building was still in place, and Xhenorey
climbed along it with astonishing agility, with Keter clinging to his back,
hugging him around the waist and enduring Xhenorey's commentary the whole
way about why all of Hell prized cashmere wool.  At least Keter had
developed the mental skills necessary to avoid the disorienting effects of
the raw chaos, which he found to be a relief.

The shift back to the earthly plane of existence was likewise uneventful,
and then they were back where they first met.  The candles around the
summoning circle had burned less than an inch in their absence, as though
they had been gone only a half-hour, earth time.

Xhenorey said, "That was fun, stud.  I haven't had that much excitement in
centuries.  I'm so glad I didn't jump out of that summoning circle--I could
have, you know--and eat you the moment I arrived."  He regarded Keter
fondly, as one might a stalwart companion or perhaps an amusing pet.  "I'm
sorry you didn't find what you were looking for."

Keter smiled wanly.  "Yes, well, Amun Toth's 'secret' of immortality was a
disappointment.  Living forever castrated in chaos isn't really a helpful
avenue for my research.  Still, it was a useful investigation, and maybe
someday I can turn it into an article for a scholarly journal."  He felt
awkward and uncertain, and he cleared his throat.  "I am very pleased to
have made your acquaintance, Xhenorey, but it appears we are at a parting
of the ways," he said.

"You're trying to send me away?" the spider-devil replied.  "But we still
have the rest of our agreement to fulfill.  You can't renege now."

Keter looked up at Xhenorey.  "The rest?" he echoed.  "What more ...?"

And he found he could not look away.

"That's it, little wizard.  Gaze into my eyes."  Xhenorey's tone was smooth
as honey, and his was a predator's smile.

"Promised ..."  Keter struggled to speak as his mind filled with a pleasant
torpor that made any thought or movement difficult.  He was very much aware
of his cock hardening, pressing its neediness against his trousers.  "Not
... hurt me ..."

"Hurt you?  Don't be silly, stud.  I'm not going to hurt you.  After all
we've been through together?  Of course I remember my promise; a devil's
word is its bond, and all that.  I even swore, didn't I?  A little nibble
on your soul won't hurt a bit, and all that repressed sexual energy inside
you should be quite tasty.  Just think of this as another kind of bonding
experience, or perhaps immersive research.  Plus, I think you'll enjoy the
... clarity it can bring."  Xhenorey moved closer and grinned wider.  "Now,
enough foreplay.  Admit it, stud--you do find me attractive, don't you.  I
have a sense for that sort of thing, you know."

"Yes ..."

"Well, then, just relax and let me take care of everything."  Xhenorey's
hands grasped Keter and lifted him easily into the air.

Keter felt as through some other web was being woven around his mind, too
fine for his thoughts to grasp, too intricate for him to unravel.  His will
had disappeared, and he could do nothing except lie cradled in Xhenorey's
grasp, every limb limp except for his stiff cock.

"Don't worry," Xhenorey chuckled as Keter found his shirt and trousers in
the process of being deftly unfastened by hands and forelegs, "I'm only
taking enough to enthrall you.  An agreement is an agreement, but I need to
ensure you won't use that clever mind of yours to try to send me away
before I've eaten my fill, don't I?"  Keter's shirt and shoes fell away.
"You really should make sure you understand every single word of a
summoning spell before you cast it, little wizard.  In this one, you
promised I could dine until I've had my fill; it isn't a loophole if it's
written right there in the language."  Keter's pants and socks followed.
"Didn't you think to ask questions about quantity?--Even after I mentioned
the Macedonian army?  Sometimes you do fail to notice the important
details."  Keter's underwear, his last garment, slipped away.  "You can't
expect a hungry devil like me to be satisfied with just Amun Toth and his
henchmen, can you?--Though I admit Toth was particularly tasty."  The
spider-devil lifted Keter's naked body, bringing his erection closer to
Xhenorey's mouth.  "Here's one detail even you can't miss, stud: you are
about to be very, very glad that you're not a eunuch."

That mouth opened, and Keter felt a cool, wet tongue--too cool to be
human--glide across his erection.  *Definitely ectothermic*, some tiny part
of him decided, before that mouth engulfed his member and began to suck,
and he lost all remaining capacity for scientific thought.

He felt as though he were bobbing on ocean waves of pleasure.  Keter had
received blow-jobs before, of course, but Xhenorey was doing things no
partner, no matter how skilled or enthusiastic, had ever done to him
before.

Images came unbidden to his mind.  Gymnasiums.  The public baths.  Military
barracks.  The monastery outside of the city.  Dormitories.  Places where
men congregated.  Xhenorey was searching through his memories, Keter
understood, looking for the best hunting places where prey would be
plentiful and he could feast.  Fraternity houses.  Dorms again.  One dorm
in particular, the one nearest this building.  Yes, Keter understood,
Xhenorey had made his selection: a nearby place filled with hormone-packed,
horny undergraduates, young men who would be particularly vulnerable to the
spider's eroto-based charms.

And suddenly Keter felt his back arch.  His balls and cock seemed to
be--yes, were experiencing that familiar climactic fire and more--every
muscle tensing--every nerve burning--pleasure building, building,
spiraling--

His orgasm detonated, obliterating everything except the ecstasy blazing
through his body.

Soaring, soaring, peaking, holding, holding, then slowly descending,
fading, slipping back down to reality.

The web clicked shut around his thoughts.

Keter felt himself deposited on the ground again, and he steadied himself
to stand naked before Xhenorey.

"Yummy," the spider said.  "You human sorcerers are always so tasty.  I
trust you enjoyed it too."

Xhenorey's statement did not seem to be a question, but Keter replied,
"Yes, sir."

Xhenorey beamed.  "Always so polite.  I liked you well enough before, but I
think I'll like you much better this way.  Much more tractable, and none of
that peevish arrogance you human sorcerers all seem to have.  And it didn't
hurt you a bit--don't you agree?"

Keter considered this.  Xhenorey had said it, so it must true.  He didn't
feel hurt in any way.  He felt like himself, only ... happy?  Was that what
he felt?  Yes, but not exactly.  He felt post-orgasm blissful, yes, but
also--he searched for the word--devoted,
perhaps?--respectful?--obedient?--all of those?  Yes, but something more.
Some willful and rebellious part of him had been quieted or taken away, and
in its place was a new feeling.  *Expectant*.  Yes, that was what he felt:
anticipation, eagerness.  Would Xhenorey feed on him again?  He very much
hoped so and would do anything his new friend asked, obey any instruction,
in order to win Xhenorey's favor and prove himself worthy of being fed on
again, even just a little snack.  He felt such adoration for Xhenorey, who
deserved his awe and obedience and worship and more.  Was this the feeling
that led ancient peoples to construct temples for their gods?  Would
Xhenorey ask him to build such a temple?  Keter considered the idea of a
temple devoted to the spider-devil and smiled as he imagined what it would
look like, how he would design it, how he would labor with his own two
hands to construct it.  But for now, the barely noticeable web around his
thoughts tugged at him, urging.  Xhenorey had asked him a question and
expected his answer.  "Yes ...," Keter managed.  When Xhenorey smiled at
him in return, Keter felt a warm satisfaction fill his mind and body, and
he was pleased to have pleased his master.

"Excellent.  Now, get dressed, little wizard.  It's dinnertime, and my
first courses await.  I'm famished--positively insatiable!"

Xhenorey's instructions must be obeyed; so Keter began to reach for his
discarded clothing.

"How do I look?"  Xhenorey asked.  He had discarded the scarf and changed
his shape.  The spider portion of his body had receded, becoming a human
ass and two human legs.  The black carapace armor had flowed over
Xhenorey's form, becoming a dapper suit of the current fashion, the design
likely pulled from Keter's mind too.

"Beautiful," Keter said, because indeed Xhenorey looked like his ideal man,
wearing a suit that flattered everything about him.  Keter felt a fresh
flush of enthusiastic arousal run through him, as though he were an
always-randy teenager again.  Yes, he very much wanted Xhenorey to lift him
again, right now, and put that mouth around his cock again and--

"You're still a charmer, stud," Xhenorey purred, smiling, which made Keter
flush with happiness to have pleased him.  "Now, if you would be so kind,
escort me to this dormitory and let's get the feasting underway.  I haven't
had a wizard caught in my web in a very long, long time, especially not one
as strong as you.  Think of the mischief we'll cause!  Oh, stud, you and I
are going to have so much fun!"

*          *          *