Chapter 9

"Hello, Gabby." she doesn't answer, she just swallows hard with big eyes.

"I could feel her heart beating as wildly as mine. Our eyes were locked in a wonderful moment, until the longer and deeper she stared her smile started to fade. I blinked and looked away, not wanting to admit that even at the moment of the most precious and tender of my life, that the darkness could so easily be seen."

Christopher shuts his eyes seeing every curve, every bulge of her five foot four mark, one hundred stoneling pristine body. As his eyes remain closed for a second longer, a smile comes to his face because even now with his eyes shut he can see her beautiful blonde hair and blue eyes shinning up at him. Christopher is imagining all the ways he wants to share with her. How he wants to touch her body lovingly so that none of his torment will be passed on to this pretty sweet-hearted girl.

As they lay side by side facing each other on his bed, naked above the covers, he strokes her face and hair as gently as he can before leaning in to kiss her rose-colored lips. He slowly and tenderly starts caressing up and down her thigh, hip and waist. Christopher then moves his hand to her tummy, with his wrist nearly bent at a ninety-degree angle so as to be more comfortable for her. He moves his hand up and down on her tummy, and then with a supreme moment of hesitation he moves his hand down. As his fingers run through her hair and continue downward, Gabby opens her eyes and nervously smiles at him while turning over onto her back. While Christopher leans over and kisses her on the lips, Gabby brings her knees up and spreads her legs. Christopher has been holding a sword in anger for a long time now, so he makes sure to gently caress her womanhood. It is a moment he will remember far beyond the rest of his life. For it will be the only one of its kind, as is everybody's first time.

"Calandra?"

"Yes, Percius." she still calls Christopher by that name when they are alone, for she has no desire to dishonor the memory of her real son that he has borrowed his name from while in this place.

"I will be leaving soon. I just want you to know that you have treated me far better than I deserve, and that will always be a line that I can hold to. Thank you."

She smiles and her eyes well up as she speaks, "When?"

"A week, probably. I'll say goodbye now, for it may come without warning."

She accepts it for all that it is worth, and goes back to her life.

"I didn't tell Gabby that I was leaving, and I always looked out for her feelings, but I tried to make myself as scarce as possible as much as I could, for I could not get lost in her love, and maybe it would make it easier on her in the long run. I felt as if I wanted to cry, but I would not allow myself such a luxury. Hell was where I was heading, and self-pity only made things worse there."

It is all right. Though Christopher could never explain to her that his journey into darkness has become as much for her as it is about the tragedies that have been laid at his feet. In truth it will make no difference to her. As the days and months are to pass for her, all she knows is that Christopher is not there. Not knowing his fate is without a doubt a blessing to her, but the not knowing can be worse. Sorry.

"What is your real name?"

"Payne."

"Pain?"

"No, Payne."

"Oh."

"So, dark wizard, what do they call you?"

"Zend."

"The dark mage had started showing up again, and we talked about his plans and what my part in them would be. As if my eyes told the story, he said it would be death. I would come to wonder some times just how true that really was, and if he had any kind of inkling that those things were far different than I let on. The death part was true enough, so we came to a mutual understanding."

He definitely has the ability to sense things, but just how much Christopher can't tell. It doesn't matter, because his path is laid before him and his thoughts are dark and clouded. There is no more sense and time for clarity of thought. Christopher's very muscles and bones know what is coming, so he can afford to let his mind wander into a world of magic and immorality.

"I drank heavily, and he introduced me to something called hash, and there was but a glimmer of any real straight times after that."

Christopher, or Payne as he is now known, is under orders to oversee the gathering of the wagon train of which he is to be head security for all the way back to the mage's homeland. The Dark Mage still hasn't told Christopher the name of the true place where he has come from, he only says from Aden, which is nothing more than a puppet nation for the real master country, and where Christopher now finds himself preparing to go as if that very knowledge could some how undermine its strength. Bring a violent fall to his people and kind. Christopher will do his best to make that happen. But Christopher only allows himself to entertain such thoughts when the dark mage is not around. Just to be safe.

In the gathering darkness and his deepening moods, Christopher actually only kills one person in the preparing of the wagon train. The dark mage doesn't seem to mind; in fact it seems to reassure him that he has made the right choice. If the local authorities had thought to do anything about it, they never showed any interest in thwarting his man.

The wagon train is going to be about twenty wagons long, with another forty horse riding soldiers that fall under Christopher's command. They are not too happy to have someone they consider too young and unworthy to command them, but again, no one challenges the Dark Mage's authority.

As it will turn out, there will only be one true professional soldier among them, and Christopher puts him in direct command of them so he can watch over the whole wagon train. Even though he is his enemy, it is an honor he has earned and it makes the men more relaxed. Even though Christopher doesn't really care, because he'll kill any of them that challenges him, but this joining is simply a means to an end for him.

"It was about four days before we were to leave that I started to notice that I had become a part of something even darker than my dreams. Slaves. Slaves made up of women and little girls. That is, all but one. The other one seemed to be an old wizard in bright colored garb. His hands were always bound, and his mouth was sewn shut, plus he had something otherworldly hung around his neck. You could tell he was not pleased."

Christopher's blood starts to boil, but he reins it in, rationalizing that he will use it for that extra strength he is going to need to pull off the scheme that which his mind has begun to hatch.

"Still, would I allow this to happen? We'll see. Another atrocity lay at my feet."

The darker Christopher's thoughts turned, the more he sought out Gabby's company. They only find the time and circumstance to make love another half dozen times, but there is a calm familiarity between them that Christopher thinks is nice and pleasant. Something in another life he could have easily got used to. Gabby of course has fallen madly in love with Christopher. Their teenage hearts experiencing it like nothing else can.