Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2016 12:54:44 -0700
From: Michael Offutt <kavrik@hotmail.com>
Subject: Chapter Two - The Orb of Winter - Gay Science Fiction

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				   *****

				Chapter Two

     Alexi tucked his small penis carefully between his legs and strapped
it into place before putting on a pair of pink lace panties. Every morning
at the academy began with this habit.  He got into his corset next and then
his dress. Growing his shiny mane long, wearing makeup, and applying salves
that got rid of any errant body hair had become routine.
     The first thing I do when I graduate is wear trousers again, Alexi
thought.  I miss boy clothes.
     He checked the calendar; the masquerade needed to see him through
another fortnight before graduation.  Alexi couldn't risk being discovered
as a boy until then because he was enrolled in the Lianon Pard Academy for
Girls, a school that specialized in the art of necromancy.
     Alexi slipped his long smooth legs into the delicate hose; then
followed with the heeled shoes expected of young ladies.
     "You're a sissy boy," his father said, slapping him.  Even after all
these years, Alexi could feel the sting on his cheek.
     "He has the gift," his mother said, shielding Alexi from another blow.
     "The gift?  All I see are curses!  He can't play sports of any kind,
he doesn't like fishing or hunting, and he's no good for hard work," his
father declared, sitting down in front of the fire in the manor house.
Alexi remembered it like yesterday.
     My father always smoked cigars...
     The man fumbled at the clasps of an oak humidor and lifted a cigar to
his lips, clipping the end off, and then lit it in the fire.  His scarred
and calloused hands hinted at a harsh life.  "The boy has no gift for
anything...no one knows we have a son.  They all think we have a daughter."
     "He has the gift," the mother said again.
     Alexi's father glared at him, eyes so abysmal they resembled rusty
drains.  "He's a necromancer?"
     His mother nodded.  "We must send him away...you must contact your
friend in the academy..."
     "I've spent seven years of my life in this shithole," Alexi said to
his androgynous reflection.
     Alexi sat down at the powdering table and looked at his soft hands,
better suited to playing a harpsichord than holding a sword. Outside, Zanda
bustled with activity while a chilly breeze off the ocean carried with it
the scent of salt and dead fish. Alexi loved flowery perfumes on his own
skin, but craved the musk and leather scent that he smelt on the male
athletes that competed in the Blood Bowl held each week in the Arena of the
Flayed Man.
     Then he heard a blood-curdling scream.  It came from beyond the
crumbling walls and sounded only once before silenced.
     "I hate this place," Alexi whispered under his breath.  Then he pulled
a shawl on to ward off the chill.
     Behind Alexi, girls started waking up in the sleeping porch they all
shared. Some wandered into the bath houses to get cleaned up before
classes. Alexi did all of that in the middle of the night, leading some
girls to call him prudish.  He didn't dispute that fact. Rather, he
encouraged it.  For one, he wore modest clothing every day.  It showed no
cleavage (unlike some of the other girls) and a collar that buttoned to
just under his chin, thus disguising a rather prominent Adams apple. Today
he'd chosen a brown velvet gown that fell all the way to the floor.  It had
long sleeves, a golden cord laced crisscross over his flat stomach, and a
matching belt made from hammered golden leaves came together to form a
diamond shape at his midriff.
     "You have such lovely black hair," a familiar voice said, stepping up
behind him.
     "Good morning, "Daphne," Alexi said.  She hugged him. "I had a dream
last night," she whispered. "It was the night of the Ball of Moon's Blood,
and my date was a Timeron knight in ebony armor from the academy across the
bay at Night's Watch. Everyone was so jealous. And that night, after the
dance, I got chosen for the Scarlet Chamber where he took my virginity in
front of everyone else. It was the best evening of my life."
     Alexi laughed. "Timeron knight? Fat chance. They don't like smart
girls. Everyone knows that."
     "By smart, you mean homely," she said. "Not all smart girls are
homely."
     Alexi smiled. "I know. But there's a reason why the girls here don't
have boyfriends.  Just look around you. This place has a reputation for its
homely girls."
     Daphne put a hand on her well-rounded hip. "I prefer to think of
myself as voluptuous. Not everyone can be skinny like you, Alexi. Some of
us," she said, looking in the mirror in front of them, "just have more to
offer. Here, let me comb your hair."
     "All right," Alexi said, letting her have the brush.
     As Daphne combed through his gorgeous black locks, he thought about
her and the other girls here at the academy. In total, there were 170
students in his class.  All but ten were girls; the others were boys like
himself wearing disguises to "blend in" as girls. The reason: they all
displayed some natural talent for magic, which happened in only 1 in every
100,000 Zandans. In fact, the "gift" (as it was sometimes called) had been
debunked by sages. Most people didn't even think it was real. They simply
said, "Only girls have the gift of necromancy."
     The school's headmaster, Ivan Boritsii, was a powerful merchant prince
and necromancer, and he was the only one in the entire school that knew
there were in fact male students enrolled here. Parents paid well to keep
this secret, and Ivan's corrupt and greedy nature made him uniquely suited
to exploit desperate men eager to bury the shame of their families away
from the light of day. But Ivan didn't just turn a profit once.
     No, Ivan in turn sold this information to men in the community that
wanted to "deflower" a boy during the Ball of the Moon's Blood but not risk
a whit of their reputation among fellow Zandans (who openly decried
homosexuality) even though they raped their slaves behind closed doors.
Rather, they would see men enter the "Scarlet Chamber" with a girl in
hand. Alexi knew that Daphne stood no chance of being admitted to the
Scarlet Chamber on that special night. But Alexi also knew that he did. He
knew that some man...some stranger...could win his hand to the dance and
then rape him much to the revelry of others. And this had caused Alexi
nothing but sleepless nights.
     Just thinking about it made Alexi want to cry.
     Is it too much, god, to want my first experience to be with someone
cute?
     Alexi's god did not answer him.  Milbar, god of magic, had no business
in Zanda.
     The men that came to the academy (and that had looked over the
students like prized cattle while they bustled in-between classes) had for
the most part disgusted him. Those few that didn't immediately set off his
gag reflex did not seem interested in Alexi.
     In fact, he'd overheard the conversations they had with the
Headmaster.
     "The boy is too plain, too unremarkable, too boring. The boy's too
thin...he seems gangly...he doesn't have good dick-sucking lips.  I'd be
embarrassed to have her as my date for the ball."  The awful things they
said to Professor Boritsi had stabbed at Alexi's heart like a dagger.
     Alexi didn't participate in paddlesail, the school's sport, and he
didn't buy drugs from the vendor in Slippery Squib down by the docks. In
fact, he had no vices at all.  Good looking men wanted their partners to
have vices.  They wanted their partners to be attention-grabbing.
     The academy did have those few transvestites that fit the bill, but
they formed their own terrible clique.  Ones that Alexi called "the fab
five" comprised an attractive lot that possessed full plump lips, red,
brown, and black hair in varying lengths, and bodies they'd used spells and
drugs on to provide the curves that satisfied certain "tastes."  These
teens had actual breasts with large nipples.  They had hips and long
painted nails.  All of it made Alexi gag because he could never alter
himself like that. They wore the most revealing dresses, purchased from
boutiques where they spent trust money bequeathed to them by ashamed
parents. They had "become" women except for the dicks they tucked between
their legs. And the best looking closeted queers that came to the school to
do research before the ball, slavered after the Fab Five.
     However, the Girl's Academy of Lianon Pard wasn't without heart. If
any "girl" during the initial lineup at the start of the ball had more than
one suitor, then the ball chaperone would use an Auditor of Eilustriel to
determine who the girl should be paired off with right in front of
everyone. The auditor was a gift from the college of beauty and was many
decades old. A magical device capable of rendering a judgement on a
man—rating him from a one to an unheard of ten—the auditor had never
once been used in the school's history. Most girls in the academy dreamt of
being deflowered by a "5." Alexi set his sights slightly lower at a "4." He
wanted to keep his expectations in check.  A "5" meant that slightly more
than 30% of the population of men in the entire world of Wynwrayth had this
level of beauty. A "4" widened that even more to 50%, which he thought of
as "average" like himself. And the school had a rule that any man that
rated a six and above on the scale had to dance with the girl completely
shirtless so that all in the room could watch.
     "I want a `6' to deflower me," Daphne said as she braided Alexi's long
locks with a silver cord.
     Alexi stared into her brown face and laughed.  "Only 10% of human
males meet that level. And that's also assuming you have more than one
suitor at the ball."
     Daphne yanked on his braid, and it hurt.  "Stop it," she said. "Let me
have my fantasy, will you? I know all this already...I memorized the
rankings in our sexuality class. He'll have 13% body fat at the lowest.
But he'll be tall and packing at least a six-inch dick.  He'll be in the
prime of his life, and no more than twice my age."
     "You haven't met him and you already sound like you're ready to have
his kids."
     "Maybe I am," Daphne said. "But a nice cock will make everyone jealous
of him."
     "Six inches isn't all that uncommon," Alexi said.
     "I said it would be `nice'; not `big.'  But since you bring it up,
maybe it'll be longer.  Eight inches.  That'd be the biggest one the
school's ever seen."
     Alexi gulped, trying to keep from laughing.  "Since when did you
become size queen and keeper of knowledge on all things dick?  Size isn't
everything, you know."
     "It is at Lianon Pard, with these necromancy whores," Daphne
said. "Who are you kidding?  Half of them are here just to learn the
graduation spell.  You know, the one that raises a corpse from the dead.
It's the only way half of these hags are going to get a stiff one between
their legs."
     That last quip made Alexi burst out laughing.
     Daphne grabbed his hand.  "Let's get to breakfast."
     The Girl's Academy of Necromancy at Lianon Pard squatted on the
bleakest bluff overlooking the wicked seaside city of Zanda on the
peninsula of Mythgol. Built on the southern end of a natural fjord, it
faced black walls of the Keep of Anghul (operated by a legion of Timeron
knights) just across the bay. The academy occupied only 20% of its enormous
complex of ten thousand rooms, much of which lay in ruin. Those sections
outside the main schoolyard were explicitly prohibited to any student. Some
of Alexi's friends had disappeared wandering those forbidden corridors and
hallways, their bloodied clothing left behind as a hint to their ultimate
fate. The professors at the school said that necromancers throughout the
centuries had filled the wings with undead to keep the student body
safe. The undead would never venture into the occupied portion of the
academy. But lo be to him that disobeyed this fact and went looking for
trouble.
     The study of necromancy itself both fascinated and repulsed Alexi.
     Much of the early magic that students learned centered around anatomy
and physiology.  It delved into the biology of living organisms, their
sexuality, and gave most third years a passing chance at being a decent
field medic.  Every other class also came with a lab, and Alexi excelled at
dissecting with a scalpel and sewing with a thread.  He learned that flesh
was as malleable as iron; that it could be forged and made stronger.  He
knew these things long before he ever encountered his first war ghul.
     But true enlightenment came in his sixth year at the academy. This is
when he discovered that he had a rare and powerful gift: Alexi could not
only animate a corpse without the aid of a spell, but he could also control
it.  He'd stumbled across the ability completely by accident, when he found
a dead sparrow on his walk through the great cemetery.  He recalled the
day: spring wind had thrown fresh sleet on the yellow grass between the
headstones and there it lay...the bird: brown feathers wet with water and
blood, head hanging limp to one side and with one wing broken.  It rose in
his palm and looked at him with crimson eyes, Alexi knew what he had done.
     The effort cost him, drawing blood from his ears and mouth.  But he
knew the power came from inside him...a cold knot that formed in his
intestine.  Sometimes it twisted his guts and the pain drove him to his
knees.  But this is the first time it had given him something back.  He
loathed the tightness.  It scared him and made him vulnerable for hours.
To make it more bearable, he named it Drago, which meant "dragon" in
Zandan.  He didn't feel so powerless when a dragon dropped him to the
floor...when "Drago" bit him.
     Am I a master necromancer?  Only one in an entire generation can do
the things I can do.
     The legends speak of the founder of the school: a man named Lianon
Pard. They said he filled catacombs under the city of Zanda with an undead
army called "The Hunger," but no trace of them had ever been found. When he
perished in the Battle of Mon Karza, a soothsayer prophesied that Lianon
Pard would rise again, and that he would be able to read the minds of the
living and the dead.  This rare gift, called "necroscoping" would be
unlocked when he made Living Death fall in love with him.  And in his
return, the army of undead would be his and his alone to control.
     Thus far I've failed to make anyone love me, especially death.
     Alexi arrived at the great hall, parted hands with Daphne, and took
his seat at a long table populated with his peers. In front of them pewter
plates laden with fresh rolls, biscuits, scrambled eggs, and platters of
bacon rested.  At the front of the hall, Headmaster Ivan and the professors
of the academy dined at their own table.  Unlike the teenagers, they ate
with fine silver and porcelain.  Golden light from torches filled the bleak
stone area with warm light while outside the wind picked up, and a winter
storm rolled in.
     Alexi's best friend "Paulina" (his real name being Paul) settled on
the bench to his left.  Alexi looked into Paulina's chocolate irises.  They
mirrored his own fright: the impending doom of graduation and the Ball of
Moon's Blood made to celebrate those girls who had become women and could
now bear children.  Paul and Alexi uncovered each other's secret in the
Headmaster's office when Ivan Boritsi disclosed to them (and eight others)
that they must do their best to remain unnoticed by the girls and the
faculty.  It was imperative that the ruse succeed, or they would shame
their families further by being thrown out of the most prestigious school
of necromancy in the land.
     "I'm scared, Alexi," he whispered. "This is our last year. I think I
saw the man that intends to take me during the dance. He's awful...fat as a
warthog and so old he's lost nearly all his hair. He smelt like pig shit; I
think he owns one of the slaughterhouses down in Slippery Squib."
     Alexi swallowed hard and grabbed a biscuit, spreading soft butter on
it. "Try to look at the bright side."
     "What bright side?" Paul asked him.
     "All that you've learned.  We've been taught forbidden things.  Only
girls can be necromancers.  Only girls can raise the dead, speak with the
dead, and are trained in surgery.  Only girls can create the war ghuls, the
flesh golems, and burn men to ashes with but a touch."
     Paul laughed.  "Show me a girl here that can do all that, and I'll
show you a road through the Bone Wall, and we'll escape from Zanda
together."
     "There's no escape from Zanda," Alexi whispered.
     "Aye, but there is.  There's the sea."
     "But every ship is searched by the Blades who use hell hounds to
ferret out stowaways.  And then there's the All Seeing Eye of Zandine in
the Tower of the Dreaded Irtemara.  Nothing leaves Zanda without the
permission of the Israfil.  Nothing.  You know that."
     Paul swallowed, and then nodded yes.
     Alexi put a hard-boiled egg on his plate and poured a bit of orange
juice into a small glass. He knew he'd have to force it down because he'd
lost his appetite, but the school's counselor had already warned him to
gain some weight. He glanced around at the fat girls, the pimply-faced
ones, and the ones wearing thick glasses and eating with their mouths
open...he hated most of them because they could just be who they were and
the world knew no different.
     "Remember Chapter Six in the Book of Chagidiel. The man you please
could be a `golden,'" Alexi said.
     "I never read Chapter Six," Paul replied, taking a bite of porridge.
     "Well you should," Alexi said. "It's the chapter on munch parties and
the creation of shadow demons within a host of flesh.  There's a footnote
that tells you in Zandan society, only a man is allowed to have any body
hair at all.  It also says that a "golden" will be revealed the moment a
necromancer smells his boots.  If you have managed to remain pure, your
eyes will change from brown to gold.  It's because his body can produce
something precious called royal jelly, see?  If the man has sweaty feet and
you lick them clean, a small hymen will grow over your hole, and it's very
specific about this.  It doesn't say it's a pussy, so I think it means it
could be a man as well as a woman.  This flap of skin...it's filled with
delicate blood veins. If the golden takes you and cums inside you, the
power in his royal jelly will mingle with your blood unlocking your mind
and soul to the raw power of the schism."
     "That's a fairy tale," Paul said. "You're talking about the Prophecy
of Lianon Pard. That a necromancer of great power will be born and can
control the undead and call the Hunger from their hiding place deep under
Zanda.  And that the chosen one will be able to pierce the minds of the
living and the dead and there's nothing anyone can do about it.  All
secrets will be laid bare before him.  With that kind of knowledge,
anything is possible.  The Israfil of Zanda have been looking for the
`chosen one' for a thousand years. No golden has ever been
discovered. Ever. Royal jelly is a myth because all the Atlanteans are
dead."
     "Do you think they are?" Alexi asked.
     Paul stared at him for a few seconds and then said, "Are you serious?
Alexi they had natural white-blond hair.  That hair color doesn't even
exist in the world anymore unless its dyed that way.  And rarest of all,
they had eyes as blue as robin's eggs.  There's every shade under the
rainbow on Wynwrayth, but not blue.  Not any longer.  Not without magic.
Let me put it this way: if one does exist then he's hurting inside more
than anyone can possibly imagine."
     "Why?" Alexi asked, suddenly feeling sad.
     "Because he's the last of his race.  He's all alone in the world.  And
if he is a mythical golden, then everyone in the world that knows about it
wants him dead."

*****

The next part is available on my website at
http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/discussion-board-for.html under the label
"Chapter Two" if you care to read ahead.