Thrall of the Warrior Witch

Chapter One-2

“Come, small one. Into slave cage.”

Hobbled by leg irons, cradling his equally heavy manacles to his breast, Drake stumbled off the raised dais. Unperturbed, his tattooed captors hauled him along, toes dragging. Though he kept his eyes timidly lowered, he saw the circle of women part. Between two of those impossible braziers sat a long, low, narrow cart built to tow a row of five cages the size of an average telephone booth – if maybe half the height.

One was already occupied. A naked fat guy was wedged inside, unconscious despite the no doubt great discomfort of his cramping. Taking in the conservative buzz-cut and deep indentations at the bridge of the nose from a lifetime of wearing heavy glasses, Drake had just enough time to wonder if this too was an abductee from reality – or Earth, or wherever the hell he’d come from to get to wherever the f**k he was. He should have watched more Star Trek, or read some fantasy literature. Too late now, as he was being shoved into the adjoining box.

Thanks to his size and limberness, Drake fit almost comfortably by comparison. He couldn’t stand or even straighten his legs, but he managed to sit in a passable lotus position again despite the restriction of his shackles.

Perhaps he could deal with this insane situation by resuming his interrupted meditation.

Drake chuckled a bit giddily to himself. What the hell else could a person do but go into screaming hysterics? For a moment these actually seemed close. But then the slighter of his jailors thrust a metal goblet through the bars.

“Drink!”

The proffered draft was murky and musky and smoking slightly. Still keen to keep his thumbs (how else could he ever jerk off again, oh wait, oh s**t that cage) Drake quaffed it in a swallow regardless.

He gulped lava and belched brimstone. Then he went under again as though clubbed.

***

Awareness returned more slowly this time, more gradually.

Blissful oblivion became infected by unconscious discomforts. Pain in many places insisted on recognition. A lulling rocking was interrupted by jostling, the movement violent enough to finally jolt Drake awake. He revived to find himself outside, if still chained in a mobile cage.

This one was bigger at least.

He was penned in the back of a wagon with over a dozen other naked men who’d been similarly restrained. They sat leaning back against the sides facing inwards, some talking gibberish to each other, some lost in private despondency or just unconscious.

Through the bars above him Drake saw the same old blue sky with puffy white clouds. Birds flitted across it. His wagon was part of a long train, all drawn by oxen with enormous horns. The trees to one side of the road were towering temperate old growth, a mixture of conifers and broadleaf varieties. When a mounted warrior with armor and sword cantered past on some errand, he was followed by a pair of pugnacious-looking war dogs similar to the Rottweiler.

Birds, horses, oxen, dogs; blue sky and yellow sun: this sure looked like Earth. He hadn’t been whisked away to another planet, so f**k Star Trek. Still where (or when) the hell was he? This was obviously an army on the march, but of the preindustrial variety. And the balmy air tasted impossibly clean and sweet, even with the unwashed stink of their scruffy wagon-mates to contend with. Drake highly doubted there was a giant floating garbage dump the size of Texas in any of this Earth’s oceans. Plastic hadn’t even been invented here yet, say hooray and okay.

“Hey. Hey you. You’re awake, right? Say something, d**k-weed.”

Startled to be addressed, and in English, Drake turned toward the words.

He was seated near the front corner of the wagon. The man beside him was asleep; the one sitting kitty-corner was the fat nerdy guy he’d noticed earlier. Now he was peering myopically at him, obviously absent a pair of glasses. The indentations by his nose looked redder than ever. In contrast to all the other dirty, weathered men, and Drake’s own California tan, this dude looked ghostly white, as did the unconscious fellow in the corner. Drake guessed the three of them (the only three wearing chastity cages as far as he could see) had similar stories to share – if Tubby could just stop blubbering.

“What’s going on here? What’s happened to us? I know you’re not one of them.”

“No, I’m not. I’m Drake, from LA. America, you know, land of the Big Mac. You?’

The guy didn’t answer. He was still gibbering and quivering like a mound of Jell-O.

Drake supposed he couldn’t blame him. He was scared pretty shitless himself. But he’d done enough psychoactive drugs to know that the only way to get through a bad trip was to keep as calm as possible and just ride it out. Gently he extended a shackled hand to shake but the guy cringed away. Well, he started this conversation. Drake tried again.

“I was home meditating. I got sick, felt itchy, felt agony and blacked out. I came to in that weird tent with all the women. I don’t know what’s happened or where we are now. But as Dorothy said to Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

“I was praying.”

The guy between them had revived too. Shifting stiffly in his chains, he raised a prematurely balding head to cast a glance between them. They all seemed to be about the same age, though where Drake was whipcord thin and Tubby a bit obese, Baldy was merely portly. And where Drake immediately pictured Tubby planted before a computer screen twenty-two hours a day, this studious fellow would look more at home in a library or indeed at church. He reached to shake hands unhesitatingly.

“I’m Jeff, from Wisconsin. I’m a seminary student there, still a novice. The same thing happened to me. I was praying, perhaps more fervently than ever in my life. I was asking the Lord to ease my torment, to take temptation away.” Jeff shook his head helplessly. “If this was his response, he’s got a cruel sense of humor. All those half-naked ladies…”

He trailed off, dropping his head again. Drake turned back to try Tubby one more time.

“You’re an American too?” He rattled off the date, the name of several pop stars and the most recent winner of the Super Bowl. When Jeff nodded support and added “Coca-Cola and Donald f*****g Trump,” their mutual compatriot settled a bit and nodded too.

“Bill Barkowski.’

He swallowed hard and looked around. A number of the other prisoners were watching and listening whether they understood or not, probably just for the distraction factor. Drake noted that a few of them actually were missing thumbs. Bill lowered his voice.

“I was just studying. I’m a grad student. Math. MIT. I’ve been working on some extremely esoteric linear algebra recently, super cutting-edge stuff.

“A proof like this could make my career – or at least get it started with a bang. I almost had it too. One minute I was so deeply involved I could taste the solution, everything coming together. The next I puked all over my shirt and keyboard. It felt like I was on fire. I passed out and woke up with that creepy kid hanging over me: no shirt, no shoes, no clothes at all, not even my watch or glasses. I can’t see crap without them. Where the hell are we?”

“Who knows? Looks like Earth but when?” Drake recited his observations: the yellow sun and blue sky, birds, horses, dogs and bovines. The untainted atmosphere and primitive weaponry suggested they’d possibly traveled into the past. Then again the impossible fires in the golden dishes hinted at some kind of super-advanced technology or magic, take your pick – to say nothing of the unknown means of their abduction. He admitted to being stumped.

Jeff kept his gaze down, perhaps mulling about God again. Drake let him be. Bill squirmed, scratching between rolls of fat. He reached up as though to adjust his glasses and whimpered at finding them gone. Perspiration gleamed on his already reddening skin. The land had opened out; the position of the glaring sun said it was about three o’clock. Casting his head back, Bill closed his eyes and spoke as if to that merciless sky.

“Maybe we’re caught in an alternate reality. You know, bouncing around the multiverse.”

“Come again?” Drake really wished he’d read his science fiction. He was strictly a Tom Robbins kind of guy. To his surprise it was the theologian that spoke up.

“It’s a fashionable theory in quantum physics right now. It says that our universe is but one of an infinite number of coexisting ones – the multiverse. That everything that could happen actually does happen in some other reality. So somewhere there’s a world where Trump lost, for example, or Germany won World War Two.”

“Huh.”

Now it was Drake scratching at himself. He suspected his fellow travelers were carrying some travelers of their own, and spreading them around. “So we’ve been taken to an Earth where the Enlightenment never occurred, where industry never advanced beyond simple metallurgy.” He sounded dubious even to himself.

“Maybe an Earth where magic writes the rules rather than science,” offered Jeff softly. Bill sniffed dismissively at this. Drake felt his own empiricism tested though. He was here after all, and he hadn’t taken any taxi to get here. Before he could follow up with Jeff however their discussion was interrupted.

***

“Magic! That be the word! The ones like you all use.”

A couple spaces down and across sat an old man, the oldest by far in the cart. He grinned slyly at them, showing all of three teeth. “Many time I see. Always hear.”

Drake shifted forward, excited to get input from the natives. He tried to be respectful although the smell of old urine, body odor and rotted teeth all made him want to retch.

“Tell me more, old father. You must be very wise. How do you come to use our tongue?’

Glad of a chance to show off, the old man moved over next to Drake. Equally eager for a show, the other prisoners made way for him. Several cast a glance at the whip-wielding driver of the wagon following theirs, then turned to observe the education of the newcomers.

“Name be Cor. We all slaves. Me slave many many…ages? You are special ones. Special of special, top of all ones brought here. Seen many, few now. Learn talk. Always you say ‘magic’ like…not real.”

The old man cackled. Others joined in hesitantly, earnestly trying to follow or learn. Less interested in metaphysics for the moment than in their immediate situation, Drake smiled agreeably back. Jeff and Bill deferred to his attempt at rapport.

“What others, Cor? You’ve seen many Americans, and other people too brought here? How is this done, and why?”

Cor searched for words.

“Many worlds. Many, many worlds. More worlds than…no can count all worlds.

“All worlds same, but different. Jia see worlds, take special men. A-mer-i-can best for her. Jia feed on them.” He smiled, his look sad and sly and somehow envious all at once. Bill gave a squeak while Jeff leaned tensely in. While it sure sounded like they might be onto something with this multiverse idea, the question of how they got wherever they were suddenly seemed less pressing than what was intended for them.

‘Who is Jia, father? What is this about feeding?”

Slowly growing more proficient as his grasp of their language returned, Cor began by providing a thumbnail sketch of his country. It seemed to be an island continent ruled for centuries (at least) by a sisterhood of powerful sorceresses. Their emblem of the eye signified an occult ability to see where others could not.

Beyond having the power to see and even access other realities, this psychic sight has guarded their realm from invaders for so long that the outside world has left them alone for untold generations. Perhaps understandably, gratitude and fear of ravagers have lately begun giving way to resentment of the sisterhood’s oppression. Yet so unchallengeable is their sight and might at home that only desperate lunatics dare to rebel – though apparently a band of these was slaughtered attacking the column from the forest just hours ago.

Currently they were on a regular patrol about the provinces to reinforce imperial control before swinging back around to return to the continent’s capital. And so after all this background the new slaves finally learned that their ultimate owner was the Empress Jia, the undisputed ruler of what was called Shatra and the head of this mystic sisterhood. According to Cor (and the uneasy nodding of those able to at least partly follow), she was a giantess, an unbeatable warrior-witch who had supplanted her mentor very young. After ruling for some dozen or so ‘sun-cycles’ now she’d already gained mythic status. All feared her exceedingly.