Sword and the Spell 01: The Grey Robe Read Online Free Page A

blankets,” said the man, not
unkindly but with impatience. “You have delayed my journey long enough and I
must be moving on.”
    It was a command and the boy had learnt that commands
must be obeyed and quickly if a beating was to be avoided. He pushed the cloak
aside, enjoying the fine touch against his skin one last time and stood on
shaking legs which threatened to fold beneath him. Carefully, whilst his legs
became firmer, he brushed the dirt from the warm cloak and folded it into a
neat package. There was no sign of his own clothes so he supposed the man
wanted him naked. He walked to where the man sat in front of the fire and bowed
his head, partly in submission but mainly in fear.
    Shaking with fear of what was to come he stood and
waited for the man to command him and wondered if a few hours of pain might not
be worth days of warmth and hot food but he had promised himself a long time
ago that he would not give himself away that easily. It was the boy’s fear,
bludgeoning his senses, which alerted Maladran to the boy’s presence behind him
and he turned to face the boy with a frown as the waves of terror emanating
from him increased in their intensity.
    Maladran regarded the boy realising that he was taller
than he had at first thought, or at least he would be if he didn’t bow his head
or cringe. There was also something in the boy’s subservience which disturbed
him, like a stone in his boot which shouldn’t have been there and would have to
be removed. Without knowing why, he wanted to see the boy stand tall and run
and laugh and do all the things other boys did, all those things he had never
been allowed to do as a magician’s apprentice.
    Unaccustomed feelings touched him like he hadn’t felt
for an age. He wanted to look into those pale eyes and instead of seeing fear
he wanted to see happiness and strangest of all, affection, a feeling which had
been starved out of him when he was no more than this boy’s age. The force of
his own feelings, always kept deeply imprisoned by the discipline of his
training, made him feel light headed and he fought to push them back into the
inner place where they were normally confined. Only they no longer seemed to
fit and small scraps of emotion were left behind.
    The boy moved to hold out the folded cloak and he took
it without thinking or noticing the boy’s shaking hands. He moved behind him to
see how the welts were healing and in doing so placed his hand on the boy’s
shoulder. Fear and revulsion burnt his fingers as the boy flinched from his
touch. Unable to shield himself from his emotions, he withdrew his hand as if
he had been stung. He had felt fear like that before on those occasions when he
used his power to extract answers from those who had been brought before him, the
king’s soul searcher. He licked his lips in anticipation of the effect the
terror of others always had on his body and touched him again, lighter this
time and further down the boy’s back.
    Flesh tightened beneath his hand as he moved it down
the young body. The boy was sweating now as his hand moved down towards his
spine’s end. He longed to continue his seduction, allowing the dark side of him
to have free reign but the jewelled torc around his throat tightened and
instead he withdrew his hand and pushed those emotions too, firmly back into
place. Maladran shook out the dark cloak and placed it around the boy’s
shoulders so that it covered all his nakedness.
    “You have no need to fear abuse from me, boy, I have
no inclination for that type of pleasure from young boys or grown men.”
    The boy looked up in surprise and almost smiled but
then, as if he suddenly remembered his situation, he bowed his head again.
    “Thank you, master,” he whispered.
    Maladran frowned at the title but let it pass, his
charge was at the end of his endurance and the rules of subservience were
probably the only anchor which remained to keep his sanity. Carefully, as if
those chains might break or