… the Eye of Dagon!

I started the Eye of Dagon almost 20 years ago and never finished it, a purple prose pulp pastiche that received mixed reviews. Gonna try and finish this here!

The Eye of Dagon

Part 1

The Assassin and the Ass

Warmed by Stygian ale, Kilis tipped the buxom barmaid with amorous largess, fancying himself a likely suitor for her feminine charms. A lopsided grin swam upon his lips and he swatted her pert behind then watched her sidle enticingly back to the bar, the wicked strut of her hips at once lewd and lustily enticing. He had a few nights to kill before his rendezvous with Amra and this wench promised to make them memorable.

Pleasure before business was a new concept to him. He and Amra had received a handsome down payment to steal into one of the cities many ancient strongholds, assassinate its lord and abscond with some mysterious curio. Amra was to advise him of the particulars when he arrived.

But that was anon. His simple device for this evening was to woo and bed this comely barmaid and, given her ready response to his wandering hands, he harbored few doubts as to his success in this diversion.

Yet his drunken debauch had left him without a whit of sense, a fact which the gutter trash that peopled the slums of Hrus Throst had readily noted. Like beady eyed rats the filthy guttersnipes loitered in the swill-houses darkened nooks and crannies, avid for the healthy bulge of his purse. The irksome vermin turned to their leader Rigo who in turn eyed Wila the flirting barmaid. She was undecided whether she wanted to sleep with the drunken warrior or lure him to some rank ally where Rigo's cutthroats could brain him and loot his corpse.

Contemplating the muscular charms of the bravo she decided that the first option would not be unpleasurable. Taking him up to her boudoir loft could be rewarding in other ways, particularly as he would pass out after the deed, allowing her to pilfer to her hearts desire. Not divvying up the nights spoils was attractive.

Wila cast a glance over at deadly little Rigo and her blood froze in her veins. One look at those pitiless grey eyes decided her. She had no desire to be found in the gutter with her pretty throat slit ear to ear; and that was what those eyes promised. She swallowed hard and nodded to Rigo, sealing the warrior's fate.

The would-be killers bided their time. Wila was soon happily settled upon his lap and giggling at his japes. She allowed his eager fingers to unbutton her bodice and slip beneath the folds of her dress. For a moment she was tempted to take him upstairs for a bit of dalliance but Rigo's foreboding silhouette in the doorway swayed her otherwise. A suggestive whisper in Kilis' ear and a grinding wiggle upon his groin hinted at earthly pleasures to come. With a ribald grin she led him eagerly out the door through which Rigo hed exited but a moment before.

The pair held each other close against an air that chilled the desolate streets with a grave stillness. The sky unrolled in vague and immeasurable darkness but for the waxing crescent moon which shed an abysmal light upon the narrow and winding guttered alleyways. The empty city was palled by night and through it the pair careened.

They paused in a door arch, fingers exploring each others physiques in the dreamy darkness. She was willing and responded to his drunken touch with evocative eroticisms. Her ruby lips and pearly white teeth flashed with a wicked blurred smile in his eyes as his mouth explored the fine muscles of her neck and he inhaled her fragrant perfume of lilac and jasmine oil.

A shifting of shadows in the unlit alley was the only warning of attack, but even in his grog addled state it was enough for a skilled and seasoned fighter such as Kilis. He pushed the girl away drunkenly into the presumed safety of the doorway and with a strangled oath he drew his own blade to fend off a sudden attack by one of Rigo's men. His disemboweling riposte was blinding and deadly.

At the same instant Rigo leapt from a shadowed nook only to find his flanking attack thwarted by the barmaids flailing body. He snarled as he pulled his sword from the barmaids back and then charged, his blade lashing out in a blinding whirl.

Just as quickly Kilis turned from his first downed foe, blocked and thrust, his sword streaming blood as it cut deeply into Rigo's arm. The rogues snarl of fury turned into feeble cry as blood spilled upon the filthy cobbles. The three other rogues eyed the dauntless mercenary for a moment then, sensing that this was no easy prey, slipped like rats back into the hemming shadows.

Rigo took measure of the warriors blood stained sword and ready stance. With a serpent hiss he spat a venomous malediction at Kilis before disappearing after the others into the shadowed alleys of filth and feculence.

Kilis glanced towards the fallen brigand then to the barmaid, unaware in his dreamy languor of the mortal wound dealt her by her ally. He hiccupped, scratched his head and took a dose of his bottle. Distantly an alarm sounded but it did not impinge upon the man's drowsiness. "Hey, girl, get up." There was no answer. Kilis took another draught and sat down to continue to wake his love.

Shortly thereafter the city watch arrived to discover Killis struggling to rouse the bargirl, blood slick sword forgotten in his hand. They turned her over to find a long gash through the back of her robe, from which her lifeblood had long ceased to well. Determining that her drunken lover had killed her and the other man they escorted Kilis away.

Oblivious he fell asleep chained to the wall upon a moldy straw pallet, a far cry from the bed in which he had hoped to spend the evening.

* * *

A single majestic minaret rose loftily in the morning sky and by its very grandour taunted the blasted city that lay huddled about its feet. Within the marble walled splendour of the ancient purple spire Ashir Diir ruled the outré city of Hrul Throst. It was legended that the High Preator was immortal, having survived the dust and ruin of countless cycles by the spinning of devious magics and the making of hideous pacts with unspeakable creatures from beyond. Regardless he maintained dominion over the handful of souls that abided in the desolate streets of his doomed city through daunt and manipulation. The gaunt figure of the ruler crouched within a shrouded chamber of antique wisdom, spindly and deadly in the lamp light. From his sinister appearance he could well have been undying.

An immense retainer came before him, an oily figure of chorded muscle, bulging paunch, scarred flesh and slovenly tufted hair. This was the High Praetor's surly jailor and slave master. "Excellence there was an altercation last night which left a cutthroat and whore dead and their killer in our custody," the obsequious Queeg explained to his master.

"A matter of small import," the sallow Praetor noted with suave arrogance as he broke fast upon a foul gruel, a concoction of night creatures which was said to fuel his sorceries and sate his twisted appetites.

"So I thought, until I discovered that he is no other than Kilis the Assassin!"

"Assassin?" Ashir peremptorily queried as he fastidiously licked brackish ichor from his long ductile fingers.

"Yes, he is known to travel with Amra the Outlaw whose head is worth its weight in gold. He carried this," so saying the jailor threw a purse upon the table. Like a serpent uncoiling a wave of Stygian Skala's slithered forth, the red gold glittering menacingly.

"Really? How very interesting," the Praetor pronounced with a gently baleful voice. Their import was clear, for these coins came from the coffers of Hrul Throst. Doubtless a wealthy noble had paid handsomely for a foreigner to commit murder. But whom? Judging by the amount of coin the target must be someone powerful, perhaps as powerful as the Praetor. This hinted at dark politics, treachery and amusement. "Thank you for bringing this matter to my attention. I should like to know the identity of our killer's patron..." his meditating eyes glimmered in slitted lids.

"Should I put him to the thumbscrew and rack to loosen his tongue?" unsettling relish tinged Queegs question. A repugnant animosity towards all living creatures abided in his black eyes.

The gaunt Preator grinned bleakly at the naked evil evidenced within his servant, but shook his head in denial. "Whilst I adore the aroma of matutinal auto-da-fé, I shall attend to this matter personally."

* * *

Someone was prodding him. With a groan Kilis awoke, opened his sleep gritted eyes and stared. A hypnotic crimson eye gripped his attention. It was like no eye of man or beast he had ever beheld. The otherworldly eye was encased in solid amber that gleamed with an eerie light. That frozen eye enfolded his mind within its ancient power. At the edges of his vision the prison chamber in which he had awoken seemed to waver and become less real. He could do naught but stare into the heart of that mesmerizing eye. It was as though the eye were expanding. His consternation at being unable to move deepened into bewilderment. There was a most freakish sense of shrinking, of losing of self, of funneling through that alien orb.

"Look into the eye my nescient creature... Yes... that is it. Lose yourself. Your limbs are dwindling. Your stature is diminishing, your muscles are softening and shriveling, your limbs are becoming elfen. Enjoy the sensations as they course through your body. Don't fight them. Welcome the transmigration. This is more than death, it is rebirth," a cultured voice soothed with mesmerizing power.

The prisoner frowned in alarm as his sense of mental dislocation grew. He distantly felt his clothes grow looser upon his body. In confusion he perceived that his entire form was becoming smaller. And unexpectedly pliant, he realized, as he felt a weird shifting of his facial features and a subtle play of underlying muscle. His cheekbones became higher and more prominent, their lines softening to more refined contours. His proud square chin shifted and was delicately reformed as were his lips, which swelled as though bee stung. His nose became small and pointed. Angry dark eyes blinked away growing tears beneath thickening lashes. In the merest twinkle they were replaced by lucid blue eyes which glimmered wide with new born innocence. Lashes lengthened in upward sweeping arcs leaving heavy lidded eyes that would fire the veins of even the most jaded debaucher.

He felt a curious vibration in his chest and groin which was not altogether unpleasant but also left him vaguely uneasy. Then the mercenary sensed emerging from his malleable chest the weight of what could only be described as ultra feminine swellings. A fear such as he had never known, bordering on hysteria, grew within him. He gasped involuntarily as his waist became slender and immeasurably more mobile. His hips broadened to present a set of firm and slender curves which delved into long shapely legs. His arms too were narrower, daintier, as though they had never lifted a warriors sword to the chin in salute; except perhaps to challenge in the bed.

This sudden blossoming of breasts, thinning of waist and marked narrowing of shoulders and arms caused his shirt and pants to lose purchase and slip to the ground, leaving his feminized torso and nether regions embarrassingly bare. He wondered if he were going mad as these weird changes continued.

Dimly he was aware that long brunette curls burst abruptly from his scalp in gossamer fallses. Lustrous hair cascaded splendidly about the sleek decline of his neck and broke in foaming tousles about the soft curves of his naked shoulders and the generous swell of his breasts. The downward curving skin of his jutting chest was acutely sensitive and swayed before his eyes in an irresistibly erotic manner. The tickling caresses of the dark locks stirred him from his trance and he irritably pulled the offending strands back.

This voluntary movement signaled that the transformation was complete, that control was returned to his body. The evil amber eyes work was done. Where before there had stood a battle hardened mercenary now quivered a ravishing slave girl, a steamy wanton with pouting lips and dreamy eyes.

The girl whirled to her feet to look upon her body, her generous breasts bouncing so much she almost lost balance. She caught herself and froze. From her altered perspective the sheer size of those breasts was utterly disproportionate to her otherwise elfin stature. Neither could she ignore her lithe feminine limbs, the dulcet rise of her mons and the shapely arc of her waist. In registering her altered attributes an unmanning and dream-like bodily estrangement grew within her.

The Praetor handed Kilis the briefest of garments to cover the sweet curves of her newfound nakedness. Acutely aware of her nakedness she hurriedly draped the fabric over her lushly voluptuous body, the material cleaving like a second skin to her flesh and gathering in teasing folds upon the heart-shaped curves of her buttocks. She smoothed the clinging robe and discovered to her horror that it revealed more tantalizing skin and feminine curves than it covered.

The Praetor forced upon her fear stricken lips an ornate glass phial. She unconsciously swallowed a mouthful of the strangely bitter liquid before fighting off his hand, but the damage was done.

"The fun has just begun my toy... for you have things I wish to know. Now kneel before your new master," he purred, a smug grin upon his sharply angled face. In the shadows behind him lingered the obese muscular from of Queeg, his scraggily tufted silhouette menacing, his devouring eyes lambent with evil.

She scowled in defiance, but unbeknownst to her the alchemical concoction coursed like wildfire through her veins, rewiring neural pathways in a most disturbing manner. "What have you done to me?" she breathed, her heart thumping loudly in her chest. Whilst she could not articulate what was happening to her she instinctively sensed a blunting of her mental acumen and a corresponding increase in the volatility of her emotions.

The philtre throbbed in her temples and she swooned dizzily under its raw power. Ashir grinned evilly for he had oft witnessed the mental effects of the potion upon the human psyche. The victim fought to resist the complex and alien feminine emotions and desires which the elixir imposed. Kilis' masculine will grew ever feebler with each passing second.

"I should think that would be self evident my dear," Ashir commented as his thin fingers played upon the soft contours of her chest, eliciting not fearful protests but aroused moans.

The girls skin glistened with sweat and she gasped as a paroxysm of ravished pleasure wracked her ensorcelled body. "Stop," she quaked, fighting her heated arousal. She longed to lean eagerly into his caress.

"Then tell me who hired you."

"Who?" she asked, delirious with desire.

"Yes," there was power in that voice.

"I do not know. Amra knew... he was to meet me soon." Ashir gripped the girls mouth and looked into her eyes. There was no guile in those lost orbs. He snorted in disgust. This one was broken already, just by the potion. "Queeg. Make her ready for the auction block. I shall provide you with a copy of the assassins body for the market gallows. We cannot let the masses ever suspect..."

"Yes master," Queeg sneered cruelly as Ashir departed. The jailor's callused hand slid slowly down her body, tearing her meager garments from her body to better minister to the needs of her sensitive flesh. She mewed in a crazed frenzy and wiggled her supple upper body into his grasp. He liked what he felt.

With smacks to her smooth, supple buttocks and thighs he manoeuvred her roughly to a kneeling position on all fours as he desired her. Parting her legs he glimpsed a hint of the red engorged lips of her sex. He straddled her full rounded ass. He could feel her moist heat smoldering and steaming on his loins. Quickly he thrust into her. She whimpered and arched her back as he filled her to the brim. Her eyes glistened. Her ample breasts shook. Sweat beaded between the taut skin and acute angles of her shoulder blades. There was a shuddering frozen moment when all her masculinity slipped from her, when she became all woman.

Then it was past. The sound of the wet meaty slaps of his lap and her rump clapping together in regular spats echoed off the flat stone walls. He gripped her shapely waist in his meaty mitts and she squealed and struggled and moaned with desperate desire in his grasp. She trembled. Between frantic squeals she took short snorting jerking gasps of air. His muscles bulged. Her mouth hung open. The girl's breasts jounced to and fro with every thrust.