Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2018 04:06:22 +0000 From: Nicholas Nicholby Subject: Boys Guild Chapter 2, Gay, SciFi/Fantasy, Adult Youth, Prolific Authors This story is a work of fiction. It never happened, it never will. The characters and locations are all make believe and any resemblance to any place or person, living or dead, is simply in the mind of the reader and totally unintentional. Situations and sexual activities of the characters are fantasy, don't try dragon riding at home. The story is also the first in a series of stories about Kind Draviad's Realm. Please let me know if you enjoy by email to nicholas6996 (at) hot mail dot com Copyright 2018 by Nicholas Nicholby, all rights reserved. Not to be distributed or duplicated without express written permission of the author. The author hereby grants the Nifty Archive a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, and non-cancellable license to use, modify or alter and edit copy for clarity or style, reproduce, display, make compilations of and distribute the work. The Boys Guild Tomas yelled across the square, "Zekial! Look to your purse!" Zekial quickly checked that none had clipped his purse strings causing involuntary liberation of his small horde. Finding nothing amiss he strode across the cobbles to where Tomas stood next to the antiquarian archivist and looked quizzically at the boy. Tomas blushed and averted his eyes, but spoke his thoughts, "This man has many stories on his shelf. I think they are rare and precious. I was thinking mayhaps we could grant him a small favor and share a smidgen of our bounty. The cost of booth and transport must be great?" Zekial knew that Tomas had a thing for well turned prose and that type and punctuation both almost raised the boy to orange orechasm when properly composed and strung correctly together. Smiling fondly at his special friend he hefted the leather pouch and ran the contents across his heightened inner sight. Two coppers for their lunch, a silver for the special amaranthus pollen he was tasked by the Wizard to obtain from the apothecary, three coppers held for sup and late day thirst, a copper spare. Zekial reached out to Tomas' ear and seemingly plucked a copper from the inner most regions of the boys often air filled head. Tomas smiled, the archivist gasped as Zekial handed the man the coin. Tomas made a bow, "Please sir, I'd like some more?" The archivist bowed in return, "Ah, that all could be so generous and share their wealth. Why even just a copper time to time helps keep our shelves so Nifty full and the Archive dusted, catalogued and available through the most modern lending schema. I'll mark your names down among the cognoscenti. I'd remind you too that should you find another thrupenny bit or even more you may join in Alliance and use the address http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html to get it to me quickly. Even the King will help betimes as Post Riders can deliver to Nifty Archive Alliance, PMB 159, 333 Mamaroneck Ave, White Plains, NY 10605, USA" Wide smile reflecting beaming happy thoughts of font filled orechasm on parchment and paper Tomas took Zekial's hand and the two boys skipped across the square and toward their fulsome future. Chapter 2 - Grinding Stones It was moments after the Master left that small hands were shaking Tomas' shoulder and giggles and whispers were urging him awake. Tomas tried to swat the hands away and burrow deeper into the press blanket. The hands weren't paying much attention. "Come Tomas! Wakey! Wakey! What a horny Devil you are to bed the Master right among his presses. Wake up! The ale will soon be gone," the two voices and the four hands were insistent and Tomas began to rise from somnolence. "What ale? How did you get in, I bolted the door?" Tomas rubbed his eyes and scratched around his sex. He brought his hand to his nose to sniff the gooey residue that he had found around his soft weapon and his stones. "How! Do you think a little thing like a bolt would stop me entering? The small cask of ale! We told you earlier, but you had your mind on sex it seems," the youngest, Clipper the Cutpurse's Stick, giggled. "When is his mind, or yours for that matter, not on sex," Jaxx, the older tween giggled back. The younger boy punched the tween in the arm and a small wrestling match around the press blankets started. Tomas stood and stretched and looked for where he'd dropped his new shirt and breeches. He skipped across to the desk to pick up his tattered shirt too, someone might need it for the coming winter. The tween pointed and laughed at the two lines of nectar and ass juices winding their way down Tomas' legs. The breeches had blotted the upper mess, but below the short pant endings the lines continued down the legs and almost to the toes of the bare feet. "Come on," the youngest boy began dragging Tomas towards the door. "The baker's boy brought burst pastries and we saved you one. That is if Zekial hasn't gotten greedy and made it disappear." Tomas pulled back and surprised the boy. He grabbed him in a quick hug and gave him a sloppy lips to lips kiss and then pushed him towards the door. All three boys were racing across the press room and out the back and down the courtyard to their Guild Hall patio where they had created some tables and benches to sit upon. During the day these same tables and benches had been appropriated by the journeymen and apprentices from the shops and craftsmans' ateliers. The carpenters apprentices had even improved them some and shown the boys how to do a better job in the future. There were still some benches that the goldsmith apprentices and the journeyman bakers and butchers wouldn't use, but they were big men and the little boys thought it was probably smart that they not test the strength of the scavenged lumber. Tonight the little impromptu cafe included Cobar the Baker's Boy, the two boys from the stables, the Rag Man's Urchin, the Shipschandler's Boy Jaxx and his Tallow Boy Flame, Clipper the Cutpurse's Stick, the Weaver's Bobbin Boy, the Apothecary's Runner, the Physician's Leech, the Butcher's Boy and his Hide Boy, and Zekial the Wizard's Boy. The ale was being divided out in small wooden cups that had appeared from somewhere and it was obvious that a couple of the youngest boys had not had much practice with their ale. They were trying to walk and falling down and generally giggling as they tried to crawl and claim another draught. Zekial grabbed Tomas and pulled him close and gave him his own cup. "Was this as you wanted it?" Zekial clenched a hand around one of Tomas' bum cheeks and squeezed. "You were not forced?" Tomas giggled at Zekial's concern. Once a sailor had forced Tomas to bend and he had gone crying to Zekial. That night a great storm had wracked the docks and the sailor had disappeared overboard. The boys had laughed about bad luck, Tomas knew Zekial had taken their revenge. "No, it was what I wanted. Yes, I was not forced. Zekial!" Tomas turned in his excitement to tell the boy, "By Waterday I will have a silver!" "Not for this I hope," Zekial jiggled the bum he was still holding. "For fun is far different than trying to make a living." "No, this was for fun. The silver will be for work! I am to help the Master on a project for the King! Oh no! I promised not to tell! Please Zekial, keep my secret better?" Tomas implored the young teen. "Mayhaps I should spell your tongue so it binds to the roof of your mouth to help you mind it?" Zekial looked sternly at Tomas. "But how then would I eat?" " 'Tis only till Waterday you say, there is enough fat here to tide you over," Zekial jiggled the bum some more. "No, please no, what if you have not learned the unbinding spell?" Tomas was a little afraid of what Zekial could and could not do. "Ah, well, yes, that is true," Zekial smiled. "I guess you will just have to be more careful. Mayhaps I'll just put a moment's delay between tongue and lips. That should give the brain time to wake itself," Zekial screwed up his face, closed his eyes and then nodded with an over exaggeration and re-opened his eyes. "There, that should help." Tomas didn't even have time to protest and now he was spelled! He hoped Zekial knew what he was doing. He took a long sip to be sure his tongue and lips and mouth and throat still worked correctly. "Th-Thank you," he managed to squeak out when he realized he better see if he could still talk too. It did seem that his brain had thought the words long before his mouth managed to stutter them out. "You are welcome, that is a nice clean new shirt you have, but your breeches are like three times sticky and soiled. Finish your ale and pastry, we'll sneak out the postern gate and have a little swim to clean you up or by morning you'll be as ripe as the Hide Boy," Zekial pulled Tomas back into a cuddle and the boy did finish his cup, then squirmed free and got a refill from Jaxx. He downed the cup quickly and then scampered back to Zekial and grabbed his hand and began pulling the boy towards the alleyway. They hugged the shadows as they flew from their safe courtyard through the streets of Liivka. Most everything at this end of the town was small businesses and craftsmen. They skirted the warehouses and the docks and soon were squeezing through the space at the bottom of the postern gate where in rainy times the streets washed out and into the estuary of the Parroti River. Just as they moved towards the rocky beach on the upstream side Clipper popped under the gate and came dashing over. "Can I bathe too? I daren't come here on my own." Zekial clasped the boy's shoulders and turned him and untied his hair and then pushed him at Tomas. "Of course, now you two get starkers and we can wash those filthy breeches first." All three boys peeled off and Clipper cast around for a moment and came up with some discarded soap from the women's wash day. Laughing and splashing the boys beat their breeches on the rocks between trying to get each other as wet as possible. Zekial grabbed Tomas' tattered shirt and Clipper's rags and took his own shirt and began to clean them too. Tomas and Clipper had moved into deeper water and were intent on trying to tip each other in. It would appear that Tomas should have no trouble with the tiny boy, but Clipper was amazingly fast, wiry and flexible. Just as the two were about to call it a tie Zekial swooped in and all three of them were tipped. Zekial held the two boys to him and they melted against the older tween's chest. Starting with Clipper Zekial began a spirited lathering of the soap slice and soon the boy's long hair was held out in all manner of shapes by the suds. Zekial would turn him for Tomas' approval and they all three would laugh and Zekial would suddenly dunk the boy and do it all over again. Clipper's tiny lance was at attention and Zekial made a motion to Tomas and Tomas knelt in front of the boy and sucked it in while Zekial began soaping the small boy's crease and hole. As a slippery finger breached the tiny entry Tomas fluttered his tongue strongly and Clipper squealed and collapsed consumed in Red Orechasm in Zekial's lap. "The younger they are, the harder they fall," Zekial laughed and arranged Clipper in his lap so the boy wouldn't drown in his soporific state. Indicating Tomas to come over Zekial began at Tomas' head and had his hair lathered and glistening. As he worked the arms, chest and stomach he scrubbed very hard at the printer's ink stains and finally gave up in disgust. "You could almost be a black-a-moor. Be sure to doff that new shirt if you have to climb up for the ink plate or the chase." Tomas nodded his head, he had done that when the last shirt was newer, but had gotten out of the habit as the shirt began to age. "Now, let's get that butt hole scrubbed and those love lines off your legs," Zekial said and turned the boy and pushed down so he was hole up and head down. Tomas groaned and squealed as Zekial's fingers washed around and over his crack and hole and then squawked as several fingers plunged inside without much warning. He didn't squawk much because the yellow of first orechasm was taking over his brain. The fingers retreated and with a small mewling Tomas returned from the yellow to the present. Zekial's hands were scrubbing down his legs along his thighs and then across his knees. It tickled at the back and he squirmed a little. "Hold still, wiggle worm," Zekial said. The hands moved down across his calves and then lifted one foot at a time and scrubbed the scribbled line of nectar off his ankle. The ground-in colors of the dirt of all eight birthmoons of Tomas' life would probably never leave his feet, Zekial himself had dark foot soles even though now he usually wore light flexible boots. The almost tattoos of printers ink that snaked around Tomas' toes and up his legs too would not yield to the sliver of soap. Satisfied with his handiwork Zekial told Tomas to slither under the water and wash the soap away. As Tomas slithered Zekial gave himself his own quick bath. Tossing the greatly reduced soap sliver up on the rocks he lifted Clipper and he and Tomas gathered the wet clothes to lay out to dry back at the Boys' Guild Hall. Just as they reached the postern gate and began to get ready to send Tomas under first and then push and pull the comatose Clipper through before Zekial worked his own way under, Clipper stirred in Zekial's arms. "Wait a moment. Let me down, I don't want to get dirty again yet," Clipper told Zekial who set him down. Fishing around in the wet clothes Clipper found his breeches and from somewhere hidden inside pulled out a length of wire. Taking the wire to the gate he fiddled it around at the lock and with a small click the lock was sprung and Clipper opened the gate for the other two. "Oh! Don't ever let the watch know you can do that. They wouldn't take kindly to this gate being compromised so easily," Zekial said seriously to Clipper. "Nah, they know already, the Commander showed me how, said it was better to have me know the right way than to mess up the gate's mechanism trying different ways that would just fill the tumblers with trash and garbage that would block them," Clipper laughed. "Well, don't let others know. You'd be kidnapped first if the enemy found out you knew the secret. I don't think they're smart enough to just have you show them either, they'd probably try to torture the information from you," Zekial advised. Clipper shuddered at that thought and nodded his head that he would keep the secret close. On the other side he repeated the process to lock the gate and the three naked boys once again clung to the shadows to return to their safe Boys Guild Courtyard. The ale was gone by now and the after effects had many boys more or less passed out on or under the tables. Tomas and Zekial moved the youngest of the boys inside to the nearest shelves. They wouldn't be able to protect themselves drunk or no outside. The others might wake with a sore butt, but no one would do more than take their pleasure. As Tomas crawled into his shelf Zekial scooted behind him. "Oh yes, wash me good and then proceed to foul me once again," Tomas said seriously although he had a smile on his face. "No, we'll just sleep, you know that when the Wizard is away I always sleep so much better when you are near," Zekial answered. "Yeah, because your stones are empty and your mind is radiant with orechasm." "Mayhaps," Zekial conceded. Long habit had Tomas awake again at the early predawn hour. He stretched and felt that Zekial had left sometime in the night. His skin told him his butt hole was still clean and shiny, so Zekial had indeed just slept. Tomas would not have believed it possible to be part of the nectaring of stones without knowing about it, but one time of too much ale had shown him how a boy could have a sore butt in the morning with none of the pleasure to show for it. This night he had simply cuddled with his friend. As he scampered for the middens he worked through the days in his head. Yesterday was Windday and the big work of the week was finished. That determined this was Queensday. The printing press would shut down early today and tomorrow as Kingsday only he and the Master would be in. Usually he just tended the fire on Kingsday and perhaps swept if he had not been able to get to it in the postnoon of Queensday. This Kingsday he had the work with the Master to consider and the following day on Moonsday the King's man would return. Mayhaps he and the Master would then print late Moonsday or more likely on Fireday which followed. By Waterday or Earthday at the latest he'd have a silver coin. Oh what he could do with a whole silver just to himself! Dreaming of his candy filled life while sleeping on a soft goose down bed he carried in the four arm loads of firewood and made the fire ready. The water was drawn and set in the various bowls, urns and pitchers. The press blankets were picked up from the late night reveling and the room made ready for everyone to begin the short day's work. Most times on Queensday postnoon Tomas and some of the other boys would find a place to laze and sometimes whittle or simply lay in the sun and gaze at passing clouds. This day he and Cobar, the Baker's Boy, had agreed to accompany the baker out of the town to the Miller's where the flour and grains were ground. Tomas had never seen the mill and he was excited for the day to end at the printers. Of course the day dragged on and on. The Master was in a bad temper and yelling at everyone. The imposer could not get the quoins to lock and a whole job had fallen out as the chase was moved to the trolley. That of course sent the compositor screaming at the Demon Titivillus and the Printer's Devil as his present incarnation. The hellbox overflowed and it was all Tomas could do to quickly sort out the heads so the job could be re-set. Finally the day concluded. The Master confirmed that Tomas would be ready in the morning to help with the special project. The Master himself stomped off to deal with whatever had him in such a foul mood at home. Tomas again swore completely off girls, they seemed to be nothing but trouble all the time. As opposed to his Master the Master Baker was all smiles and cheery laughs as Tomas tore back to the courtyard of the Boys' Guild Hall and then through the wood-yard passage to meet up with Cobar. Cobar was a few birthmoons older than Tomas and stayed in a small cubby near the ovens where his major job was to drag in the wood and coke with which they were fired. He was a stocky and sturdy boy with no nonsense sensibilities who always tried to find the leftovers and second breads to take to the other Boys' Guild members. He also helped in the mixing room as he could and was learning more and more about baker's secrets. He had privately confided to Tomas that the biggest secret so far seemed to be the bottle of strong spirits that the Master Baker kept hidden in Cobar's cubby where he could take a quick nip often throughout the day. Cobar's most important job it seemed was to keep that bottle replenished from the private stock at the Black Swan Inn. Today the rosy cheeked jolly Master Baker still wore his apron which gave off small white clouds whenever he pressed his hands to his hips or middle. The Stable Boy met them at the back door with a wagon and soon they were off on Tomas' adventure. The Master Baker rode on the wagon seat beside the Stable Boy and Tomas and Cobar tried to find a comfortable way to ride in the wagon bed. They finally just sat at the tail and dangled their legs off the back end. An occasional bump would send one or the other of them flying up and off the wagon, but as the pace was slow it was no problem to dust oneself off and scramble back up again. It became a game after a while to see if they could land on their feet and run completely around the wagon before remounting. It seemed the Master Baker did not travel without his strong spirits and he had not neglected the boys' needs either. A small box that Cobar had slung aboard soon yielded cheese and various breads and three bottles of small beer. Cobar seemed to think this was the way things were all the time, Tomas thought it was very nice of the Master Baker while the Stable Boy thought the Master Baker delightfully mad to offer him food and drink. The main road curved around the town walls and then the Stable Boy directed the horses down a lesser road that angled towards the river far upstream of the laundry beach where Zekial, Clipper and Tomas had bathed last nite. As the road began to twist through the trees the sun was blocked and it was slightly chilly and there began to be the sound of a deep undertone in the air. Tomas was too enthralled with the birds who all seemed to be singing and flitting from tree to tree. He heard the rumble, but thought not much of it. The wagon popped out of the woods and into a clearing and suddenly the rumble was a roar and Tomas was looking around trying to see if it was a dragon attacking or a giant fire raging or what could be making this noise hundreds of times louder than the blacksmith's forge. The roar simply got louder and louder and Cobar and Tomas had to yell to make themselves heard. The Stable Boy pulled the wagon up close to the mill house and the Master Baker climbed down and waved Tomas and Cobar to join him. He opened the mill house door and as Tomas stepped through he entered a world he had never imagined. The door was small with a high stoop and one had to both duck their head and lift their leg to enter. As soon as the door shut the roar was deadened back to just an undertone rumble, but it was augmented with a different pitched rumble that was obviously coming from the huge turning stone in the middle of the room. The room was high and open with the rafter girders being very far above them. The opposite wall and the upstream wall were a whole row of windows, so the stone and the floor were bathed in light, but the upper reaches of the room were only penetrated by occasional beams of sunlight coming through small openings in the wall or roof. These sunbeams were alive with the swirling dust motes inherent to the Miller's trade. Two smaller stones were turning near the upstream windows and their higher notes were added to the overall grumble that seemed to actually rattle Tomas' teeth inside his mouth. Tomas' lance rose as the vibrations of the stones communicated across the floor and rubbed his breeches against it in ways that were not familiar. >From just inside the door Tomas could see out the upstream windows the giant cataract that thundered over the huge ledge of rock. He was drawn to the windows like a moth to candle flame. He and Cobar stood with mouths open to see the lazy Parroti River that they swam in and the fisher boats dredged be the angry splashing waters shooting across the crest of the rock ledge. The Master Miller's Boy came in and grabbed them by the arm and led them twisting and winding over beams and through turning rumbling geared shafts and to a small door on the river side of the mill. Coughing a little at the dust the boys followed and suddenly found themselves outside on a small platform. The roar of the water fall was deafening, there was absolutely no thought of talking or even yelling to each other. The Miller's Boy pointed down below the platform and Tomas could see the flume that brought water from the side of the cataract along the high shore then across the back of the mill and into a large wooden pen where it dropped suddenly on the buckets of the gigantic mill wheel. Tomas had no idea if it was the force of the water or its weight that drove the wheel, but he watched in fascination as the water spilled and splashed and became the energy communicated through the shafts they had just jumped and climbed to turn the giant stones against each other and thereby grind the grain. In some ways it was like the wheels and shafts and gears of the presses, but on a massive scale. He wondered if there was a way to turn it on and off. If something smaller could be managed and it could be harnessed he could imagine it running the press and saving the printer's legs from the constant working of the treadles. The Miller's Boy stepped off the platform and began walking along the edge of the flume and toward the cataract. Cobar grabbed Tomas and was violently shaking his head. Tomas agreed, it might be easy for the Miller's Boy, but let him come and reach into the working press, or crawl almost into the baking ovens to get the farthest loaves. Somethings were best left to those that do them often. Tomas waved his hands and signaled the Miller's Boy they would not come that way. The boy made an exaggerated laugh and pointed back into the mill and then made signs which said go through and out and come up the land side and he would meet them at the top. Cobar needed no urging to get the door open and they carefully retraced their steps through the moving machinery and out the front door. Racing around the mill they found the boy naked and splashing in a backwater pool just out of the rushing waters. Tomas was game, Cobar was having none of it. Soon the two boys were splashing and frolicking and the Miller's Boy held tightly to Tomas as he stuck a leg out into the flow. It almost spun him around and grabbed him it was so strong. If the boy hadn't had ahold he would have been shot across the ledge or down the flume. It was enough of a scare. His lance retreated almost completely, his stones did disappear and he sat shaking with the fear of how close he had been to death. Splashing was over and as the sun dried the boys they pulled on their breeches and snapping their shirts at each other, well mainly at Cobar, they frolicked back to the wagon. The Master Miller and his apprentice were using the overhead pulley and crane to move huge sacks of flour from a high opening into the wagon. The Stable Boy was holding the horses steady and the apprentice was sweating as he did the final placement of the sacks. The rivulets of sweat were stark streaks through the flour dust covering the man. As the Miller's Boy pointed to them, he also pointed to Tomas' black streaked hair and arms and legs and made a motion which asked what they were. Tomas tried to tell him about his job as Printer's Devil, but it was just blank stares he got in return. Then seeing the bags Tomas jumped on the wagon and made painting motions at the writing on the bags and the boy seemed to understand that it had something to do with that. The Master Baker seemed to have what he wanted and carefully counting out the coins for the Miller he had the Stable Boy ready the horses and wagon for their return to Liivka. This time there were ample soft places to laze away the trip and the weight of the flour kept the sudden bumps much subdued. Tomas found Cobar actually napping. He leaned over the wagon seat and talked with the miller. "Why did the Miller's Boy never speak?" he asked. "That one has never spoken. The miller says sometimes at night he cries, so his voice exists, but he will not speak. He was hidden in a load of wheat and the miller thought the farmer was trying to cheat him on the weight, but the farmer soon made it clear he knew nothing of the boy. So now the boy stays at the mill and helps with what he can, he is a right monkey in the rafters," the Master Miller said. "What is a monkey? I've not ever heard that word," Tomas said. "Aye, 'tis a strange small long tailed animal that climbs and screeches. Sometimes a sailor will have one chained to his shirt and it rides about on his shoulders or his head. I've seen but a very few in all my birthmoons," the Master Miller took a long pull from his bottle. "Now get you back among the sacks. I might just rest here like smart Cobar is doing," the Master Miller finished. Tomas tried to think of what kind of animal could climb and screech and yet be chained to a man's shirt. It must be something like a small cat he decided as he too dropped off with the lulling sway of the wagon and the warm sun shining down now they were past the woods.