Playthings of the Gods

Chapter 5: Fourth Trial – Obsidian

Dawn brought the familiar tapping of the guardian summoning Marcus to his next trial. Keron guided him to the main hall. No bed dominated the centre of the temple - overnight it had been magicked away by the gods. Aside from the canine figures on their gold-threaded dais the court was bare.

“Your fourth test begins,” intoned Keron, “Today you must pleasure the male with your mouth as you did before. When he is in the throes of his release you must use your tongue on his rear entrance as thoroughly as you pleasured the bitch. Then you must fill him with your emissions, whereupon you will gain your next powers.”

Marcus shook his head. Surely he’d mis-heard. There was no vulva to pleasure on a male. The black dog rose ominously from his throne and stalked toward the man. In a blink the human’s grey robes were gone leaving him vulnerable to the scrutiny of the monstrous head. When the beast turned away, presenting his rear with raised tail Marcus understood, “You… you want me to suck his cock, then lick his arse, and put my cock where he shits?”

Keron nodded.

Marcus recoiled, appalled. That was obscene! He couldn’t, he wouldn’t! There was no way he would sully his manhood in the anus of that monster. Doing so would corrupt the divine memory of the white goddess with a trauma of the demon’s butthole. And to taste that horror! Push his tongue into the beast? “No. You have already spoiled my manliness by making me taste his emissions. I cannot, I will not further debase myself, sacrifice my masculinity on some demon’s mad whim. You cant make me behave like some girly-man whore.”

“Very well. It has always been your choice.” Keron sounded disappointed. “Your clothes and belongings await you in the antechamber.” He gestured toward the entranceway. “Savour the memories of your time with the divine.”

Marcus strode from the great hall aghast, shaking his head. These gods are mad. Better to leave now while I’m still a man. Outside his pack and clean travel clothes were folded in a neat pile. He dressed and shouldered his pack shuddering at the horror he was escaping. He would return to the sanity of a human city.

The journey was made easier by liberal use of his powers. Each night he summoned a pile of dry sticks, set a fire with a thought, and ate a repast of fruit and bread. Water appeared in a pitcher with a wish. A gesture of his had cleared a level space for his bedroll. Every night in his mind he replayed the mad demands of the gods in disbelief, thankful he had made the sane choice to flee.

After seven days travelling the wilderness he came within sight of a small town. But as he approached something drained from him. He could feel it leaking into the twilight. Almost as though his soul were deflating, the eldritch powers left him. He wished for water, but instead got tears of loss and longing. The yawning void left by the absence of his powers made him fall to his knees.

But he would endure. Marcus clambered to his feet. He had the memory of fucking a goddess to sustain him. What man could say the same? What man had been in heaven and returned? How many man had tasted the power of godhood? He would return to his home city, regale people with tales of the divine, and be satisfied that his encounters with gods were in the past. A resolute man could build a life without magicks.

Four nights later he screamed into the darkness. It was intolerable! It was unfair – the gods had tricked him! He hungered to feel eldritch fire arcing through his limbs. He ached with the loss of something divine tasted, then stolen away. Returning to his impotent life was worse than if he’d never sampled power at all. Marcus wept. He railed at the night sky, cursing gods named and nameless.

He would have to return to the temple and fuck the demon.