The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate (44 page)

“I know that now,” Anaxantis yelled, crying. “You took me by surprise. I just reacted...”

“Reacted? Reacted? You almost killed me in blind rage. You had your knife at my throat.”

“I know, I know, I'm sorry,” Anaxantis wailed bitterly. “I'm sorry...”

His words died out in a soft whimper, and once again he pressed his fists to his eyes.

Hemarchidas had all his life been quick to erupt, but that had never prevented him from keeping his wits about him.

“There's something wrong here. Seriously wrong. He's devastated by what he just did. It's as if he wasn't in control of himself. What could have made him burst out like that?”

He took a few deep breaths. His anger was more caused by the surprise of being attacked by the one he had come to regard as a dear friend and maybe more, than by real indignation. It dissipated quickly under the mounting worry that there had to be something very amiss to have provoked this violent reaction.

“Anaxantis, I would never... not if you didn't want me...” he said in a much calmer tone. “Whatever gave you the idea that I was... that I even could—”

“Because it has happened before,” Anaxantis sobbed loudly. “It has happened before...” he wailed miserably.

“What do you mean it has happened before?” Hemarchidas said, cursing himself immediately after he had let the words escape.

“What do you think it means, genius?” Anaxantis bit at him through his tears.

“But how? When? Who?”

Anaxantis looked at him, undecided whether he should, whether he could tell Hemarchidas what had happened. And how much. He had never told anyone before. He saw that his friend was not angry anymore and had sat down, as if wanting to place himself at the same level. On an impulse he made up his mind.

“You're a good friend. You deserve the truth. I'm sorry to have to say that there are still a few things I have been less than completely honest about. But I'll tell you now. I'll tell you everything.”

He looked at Hemarchidas, who didn't react, but seemed to brace himself, and sighed.

“You remember how I told you that I had fallen sick a few days after we arrived at Lorseth? Well, that was what Ehandar told everybody to explain why I remained in our apartments all the time. Later we decided to keep to that story.”

“Story?”

“Yes, it was but a story. In reality he kept me a prisoner, with an iron chain around my neck, fastened to the wall. Like an animal. For more than three months. Every day he told me nobody had asked for me. That nobody would ever come to rescue me. That nobody was interested. How he could kill me and nobody would even know. Or care.”

“What?” Hemarchidas cried out. “I should have known it. I never did like him, not one bit. I knew he was rotten to the core. The bastard, the miserable, miserable, filthy, dirty bastard.”

He was visibly perturbed. He breathed loudly in through his nose.

“In a way it is good that you didn't tell me this earlier. I would have gutted the vicious dog and laughed in his face while I did it.”

“It doesn't stop there. I said I would tell you everything. You wanted to know. Well, you shall. So, now hear me out.”

Anaxantis's face became calm and neutral. He spoke in an even, matter-of-fact voice as if he was explaining some boring administrative details.

“One night he came home and I knew immediately that something was wrong. He was distraught in the extreme. He must have had some very bad news, and he had been drinking. I could smell it. I can still smell his breath reeking of wine. After all these months, I can still smell it. He tore my shirt off and tied me, belly down, over the table. There was nothing I could do. He was stronger, much stronger than I was. I never felt more helpless. Until then, that is, because later... Well, he started beating me on my back with his belt. I cried out in pain. I begged him to stop. He didn't. So I stopped crying and I stopped begging. And still he beat me—”

“Anaxantis, stop,” Hemarchidas said in a shocked voice. “You don't have to tell me all this—”

“Yes, I do. I said I would and I shall. He kept beating me, even after my back started bleeding, but I refused to cry anymore. So, he took that as a challenge. He pulled my pants down and started beating me on my bare ass—”

“Please, stop,” Hemarchidas, who had become red, said in a tortured voice. “There are things that nobody ought to—”

“No. You wanted to know why, and what, and who. You shall... He used more force than on my back and this time there was nothing I could do to prevent myself from crying out. Loudly. And I cried. I cried like a little child. It hurt. It hurt terribly. And it was degrading. I thought I couldn't be more humiliated as I lay there being beaten on my bare ass by my brother. I was wrong. He turned me around and yanked my pants from my ankles and, now completely naked, he forced my legs back over my chest. He took his time to look me over. He looked long and hard at my naked body. At my private parts. At my ass. At my asshole. You see, Hemarchidas, it happened all rather quickly and yet it took forever. I was completely defenseless. Degraded. Humiliated. Treated as a thing. And he smiled. Or rather, smirked. He stared deliberately at my most intimate parts and then looked me in the eyes, to make certain I knew what he was doing. And he smiled, Hemarchidas. He smiled. I swear, Hemarchidas, he smiled...”

“By the Gods, Anaxantis, stop. Stop. Please, stop. I never knew. I'm sorry for yelling at you. I didn't know—”

“No, you didn't. I never told you. It's not something you tell easily. It's not an anecdote that you tell on a whim, to pass the time. Anyway... Then he forced my legs apart and put each over one of his shoulders. He lowered his pants and forced his member—”

“No, no, Anaxantis, stop, I don't need, I don't want to know—”

Hemarchidas felt an almost uncontrollable urge to put his hands over his ears and start humming, to drown out the droning voice that related these horrible things he had never suspected and that he had never wanted to know. Anaxantis looked at him and continued in the same monotonous voice, full of desperation.

“He forced his member in my... in me. I begged him not to do it. I implored him. He laughed and did it anyway. He didn't use anything to make it easier, nor did he do anything to prepare me, or to avoid hurting me. He just pushed, forced himself inside me. It felt as if I would split. It hurt excruciatingly, beyond words. And it was dehumanizing. I was nothing. Nothing but a piece of meat with a hole in to push his dick in. All the while he kept looking at me. At the least of my reactions. Smiling every time he saw he had hurt me. Laughing at my humiliation. At every twitch of my naked body, displayed for him to leer at. At my utter powerlessness...”

“No more, Anaxantis, please, no more, please, stop. I can't bear to hear anymore.”

By now every word Anaxantis spoke grated on his ears, every sentence was a cut in his flesh, every image a new, haunting nightmare. Tears welled up in his eyes.

“You can't bear to
hear
anymore?” Anaxantis said with a hollow sneer. He continued tonelessly, unrelenting. “And then he started fucking me. Fucking me. But even that was not enough. So, he grabbed my member and started stimulating it. He gave me an erection, an erection that I didn't want, but could do nothing about. Now it looked as if I was enjoying his... his ministrations. He moved his hand up and down, faster and faster, and there was nothing I could do. After a while I orgasmed without being able to stop it. While he looked down upon me with perverse satisfaction, enjoying himself, I writhed in an unwanted and unwelcome ecstasy, and I came. I came all over my belly. In spurts and shocks. Several of them. And he laughed. By now I was so mortified, felt so crushed, that I wanted to die, then and there, immediately. I prayed the Gods I don't believe in to take me. To kill me. To destroy me. To have mercy on me and let a flash of lightning burn me to a cinder. The only thing I could do was cry, cry and cry some more. That only seemed to stimulate him. It excited him. I felt it. He fucked me harder and harder, until he came in me...”

Hemarchidas by now was weeping and let his tears fall down freely. He wished he could go back in time and break the bastard's neck. He wished he could have been there, in time to tear that dirty, evil beast from the boy and break both his arms, and both his legs, and crush his ribs, and tear his guts out, and beat his face to a bloody pulp, and bash his skull in. With every detail Anaxantis told, he became redder in the face and sicker to his stomach from empathic pain. The pressure on his chest made breathing almost impossible.

“I wish I had never asked,” he managed to whisper.

“After he had come in me, he dragged me to my little room, kicked me in the ass for good measure and chained me to the wall again. I couldn't help myself. I started crying uncontrollably. Loudly. Very loudly. That bothered him, so he came back into my room. And he pissed on me. On my head. In my face. On my chest. On my private parts. He used me as a urinal. My mattress and beddings were soaked with his piss. I was dripping with his urine. As a wild animal he marked me, as his territory, as his possession. He said to shut up, or he would come back and beat me again...”

Anaxantis took a deep breath and remained silent, looking at the ground, supporting his head with his hands in his hair. After a long while, Hemarchidas looked at him, with tears still in his eyes.

“I'm sorry, Anaxantis. I didn't know. I didn't know. I wish there was something I could do. I wish I never, ever asked. I wish I could not know this.”

He scrambled half upright and put out his arms to embrace his friend, but caught himself in time.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry... I won't touch you.”

Anaxantis smiled wryly.

“It's all right, Hemarchidas. I know it's you. Don't let him take that away as well. Don't let him rob us of that.”

Hesitating, careful, as if he was afraid Anaxantis would crumble under the merest pressure, Hemarchidas put his arms around him, and he sighed with relief when he felt his friend's head resting against his chest and felt assured his embrace was welcome.

After a few minutes, Anaxantis resumed in the same detached voice.

“I knew then I wasn't master anymore over my own body. That I had totally lost control over my most basic and intimate functions. That I was completely at his mercy. And I despaired. I despaired like never before. I felt totally worthless. I thought I would die of shame and humiliation, as I sat there in the dark, stinking of his urine, wet, cold and hurting. The worst part was I felt dirty. As if it was my fault. I felt dirty for not having prevented him from using me like that. I felt dirty and guilty. I felt guilty for having come on my belly under his gloating stare. I felt dirty, guilty and worthless for having submitted to his demeaning treatment without doing anything. There are moments, every day there are moments I still feel that way... Then mother came to my aid. Mother and her harsh lessons. Like she had taught me, I let first my indignation and then my hate take over. I hated like I've never hated before, and I swore a thousand holy oaths and a thousand unholy oaths that I would get him for this. I didn't know how. I didn't know when. But, if I survived this, I was going to get him. I swore that I would repay him, not once but a thousand fold. That I would take everything away from him, everything he took from me and then the rest. Everything he had and everything he was. Piece by piece. Drop by drop. And it worked. It got me through the night and it got me through the long months that were to come.”

Hemarchidas plucked the dead leaves out off Anaxantis's hair and started stroking it.

“But eventually he let you go?” Hemarchidas half stated, half asked.

“I sort of made him. I seduced him, pure and simple. I did what I had to do. And if more had been required, I would have done that too. There was literally no limit to what I was prepared to do. Yes, eventually he set me free. After more than three months. A few days later I met you.”

“By the Gods, this is the boy I saw in the woods, hacking in on a tree, just a few days after he managed to get out of the clutches of that raging savage, that foul swine. The prince who I saw sitting on the ducal throne of Landemere, as if it was his birthright to do so and who browbeat proud Athildis into submission. The lord governor who dismounted to help a simple wounded soldier. The friend I berated because I was so petty as to feel he didn't trust me enough.

I never saw the wounded boy who all the while carried this with him.”

For the longest time Hemarchidas kept rocking Anaxantis in his arms. The tears had stopped, but the sorrowful look was still there.

“Well, some would say you fulfilled your dire oaths. You got him back. You made him renounce his name, his lineage, his status. He can't leave your apartments. He's in your hands. Powerless. Isn't it time to kill the venomous dog? To get rid of the vile monster? If you don't want to soil your hands by killing your own brother, I'll gladly do it for you. I will, you know. Quickly or slowly, just say how you want it done. It doesn't matter to me. Just say the word. It won't burden my conscience one bit to rid the world of that evil monster. And when I'm done, I'll toss his stinking remains into a watery grave.”