Chapter 2

It seemed to Paula that she had been walking for an eternity, that ever since the beginning of time she had done nothing but walk, nothing but walk surrounded by these half-human monstrosities.

It was getting dark now, so dark that Paula was tempted to think that it was midnight or perhaps even later. She had been goaded farther and farther into the very heart of the forest, and was chagrined to learn that the woods were much thicker than she had always thought them to be. In addition to the rapidly-falling darkness it was also getting quite cold, and several times the stark-naked Paula shivered. Her teeth were chattering in her head and it was an agony for her to continue.

Ahead of her was the mysterious figure of Bertie, gliding along seemingly a fraction of an inch over the grass on the forest path. Paula wondered how the man managed to move like that, to walk without appearing to walk. Bertie had led the blonde girl and her demented captors into a part of the forest that she had not known existed, along a path that was so thin Paula would never have known it was there if it hadn't been shown to her. Farther and farther the poor girl plodded, and there was nothing she could do but shiver in the cold and wonder what these maniacs were going to do with her once they let her stop walking. She was sure that she was going to be murdered, to be put to death slowly and painfully, but just how and when Paula had no idea. But it would probably involve multiple rape; these men looked a little too lecherous to kill a girl like Paula without raping her at least once. With this unpleasant thought uppermost in her mind, Paula kept walking. Every so often she stumbled, and when that happened there would always be a prod in the spine from Veena's spear to send her stumbling forward again.

The most agonizing part of the ordeal was not the pain, the coldness, the humiliation or the doubt as to her fate. For Paula the hardest thing to take, the factor that added insult to injury, was Estrogen. The short, rancid-looking man was continually leaping and capering on either side of her, babbling like a child and casting lascivious glances at various parts of her feminine anatomy.

Paula gritted her teeth and kept walking. It was bad enough to be accosted in the midst of making love to her boy friend Carl, it was bad enough to be attacked and abducted without explanation, it was bad enough to be made to walk stark naked and shivering cold for miles towards her own undeserved doom at the hands of madmen. Paula could take all that, she could suffer it in silence. But she was damned if she had to put up with this bastard Estrogen at the same time.

Estrogen was leaping about from side to side a few feet to the left of Paula and slightly behind her, so that he had an excellent view of her succulent buttocks. The demented pervert was keeping up a running monologue about how sexy he was, about how many uncountable millions of women had gone to bed with him and about how many further millions had pleaded for a chance to do the same. Paula wept with rage and hungered for one chance to hit this man, one chance to lash out and stuff his teeth down his gibbering throat. Paula was not much of a tighter, but even so she had no doubt that it would be extremely easy for her to spread this bastard all over the landscape. If she only had the chance....

Estrogen had stopped babbling about his conquests and was concentrating on the subject of Paula and his chances of bedding her. "You have nice titties, bitch," the dull-witted man prattled. "I'd like to fuck you, you know that? I'd really like to fuck you. I'd like to bend you over a table and stick my big meat right up your...."

Estrogen's tirade was cut off abruptly-as the man named Tish made a gesture with one hand. "Stop talking, Estrogen," Paula heard Tish mutter firmly.

Estrogen shook himself free of the other man's grip. "I'll talk if I want to. and when I want to...."

This time Estrogen was confronted from two sides at once; Tish to the left and Frog to the right. "Stop talking," Tish repeated, and Frog added: "Leave the lass alone." Then they both turned away from him and kept on walking.

Paula had taken advantage of the respite to do some very heavy thinking. She knew that she was being taken to an unknown place, to have unknown obscenities forced upon her body. She knew that the farther away from civilization she allowed her tormentors to take her, the less chance she would ever have of getting out of this alive.

I can't walk any farther, Paula said to herself. If I collapse right here what can they do to me? Kill me? They're probably going to kill me anyway; I'm sure of it.

The blonde girl gave out a pale, helpless groan, and a moment later she had stumbled and fallen face downwards. She did not look as though she would be able to rise.

Instantly the six men formed a circle around her, ready for action from any quarter. But Veena held out her spear and herded the men to one side.

Veena stepped over the prostrate body of the naked girl, straddling her inert form with both long legs, like some sort of omnipotent colossus. "Get up," said Veena simply and quickly. There was no threat attached to the words; the fact that Veena had said them was threat enough.

Paula did not move.

"You will get up," intoned Veena. It was not a request, nor was it a threat. It was merely a statement of fact, as though to remind the helpless girl that it was against the laws of Nature to disobey Veena. Paula did not move.

Veena stepped aside, and made a quick gesture towards the waiting Frog. "Work quickly, my bunyip," she commanded him.

Frog nodded obediently. He knew what was needed and he knew how to supply it with a minimum of fuss. Veena stepped to one side to allow her helper to pass.

Paula was still on the edge of consciousness, even in her exhaustion, and she was dimly aware of the fact that Frog was standing scant inches away from her, leaning over her with his twisted, wizened body.

"I know what you are thinking," she could hear Frog say flatly and quietly. "You think that if you do not get up we will either abandon you here or kill you, and that either fate would be preferable to the fate that awaits you at Ravenspur: slow and painful torture, centering on your erogenous areas."

One of Frog's hands was resting on the ground, helping to support his battered body. The other was slithering slowly, a fraction of an inch at a time, across his stained clothing. The man-animal was still speaking, and the sound of those words rattling about in that twisted throat was perhaps the most obscene thing that Paula had ever heard. She did not know which disturbed her most: the sound of Frog, the sight of Bertie or the smell of Estrogen.

Frog had not finished speaking, and his hand began to gather speed as he spoke: "Let me assure you, lass," he continued, "that we do not plan to leave you here. If you do not come with us, immediately and under your own power, then I shall be forced to put you to death."

Here it comes, Paula thought. Well, it was better to die now and get it over with than to die slowly and painfully at Ravenspur, whatever that was.

Frog's hand was moving very quickly now. It was creeping an inch at a time, crab-fashion, towards Paula's throat, which lay bare and exposed nearby.

"I shall be forced to put you to death," Frog continued. "But not quickly, not mercifully. For the one thing my mistress Veena does not approve of is mercy." The hand was brushing against Paula's throat now, and her heart was pounding in her chest as she felt the obscene touch of the fingers. "I shall kill you in the most exquisitely painful way I know," Frog was saying. "A small amount-of pressure against the vagus nerve, against the nerve that controls the entire body. The pressure gradually increases, and as it does so, so does the pain."

Paula could feel the fingers at her neck now, slipping easily into place around the proper nerve. Frog was a man who obviously knew what he was doing. A wave of pain shot through Paula's body, and in a moment she found it difficult to breathe.

"The pain increases," Frog whispered soothingly. "It increases oh, such a little bit at a time, until finally there is more pain than you can take, and it seems to you impossible that the pain could get any worse." Paula could feel the madman's grip tightening about her throat as he spoke. "But it does get worse, the pain DOES get worse. Until finally you will get up. you will walk, you will do anything at all if it means that the pain will be lessened slightly, for even a fraction of an instant."

Already the pain was more than Paula could bear, and she could feel the contents of her stomach welling up and threatening to disgorge themselves. She had to get up, she had to stop the pain, but there did not seem to be any way to do so.

Her eyes rolled in her skull like marbles and she flailed at the air with one throbbing hand. Already Paula could feel the blood vessels in her forehead begin to pound. "Let me up," she gasped, and then there was something warm spilling out of her mouth-saliva and blood and perhaps something else. "Please. Please. Let me up."

"Let her up, Frog," said the voice of Veena. It seemed to Paula that the voice was underwater, was speaking to her from thirty fathoms down. "Let her up."

"Aye, Mistress." The grip like iron was gone, but the pain was still there. Paula knew that it would be impossible for her to stand, impossible for her to keep walking, but she also knew that the agony would continue if she did not do so.

Slowly, slowly, shaking and throbbing with more pain than she had ever dreamt existed, Paula managed to get to her feet. At a sign from Veena, the girl's tormentors stepped out of the way, and then Paula was standing reasonably erect, gasping for air in great racking sobs that sent her head pounding back and forth against the apex of her spine.

Veena made gestures to several of her followers. "Lead the way, Bertie," she intoned. "Estrogen, not another sound out of you for the rest of the journey. Tish and Hernandez, I want you two to walk on either side of our slave and make certain she does not fall again." Veena smiled thinly as she spoke. "It would be a pity indeed were she to die before we even reached Ravenspur. The two men fell into place at their mistress's command. "Frog and Cyclops, you are to walk beside me. I want my two bunyips close at hand in the event that I need them."

That was the second time that Veena had used that word, Paula noted. What in the name of God was a bunyip? Paula didn't know what the word was, but it sounded obscene. But then, practically everything about these people was obscene. There was an ever-lurking aura of filth and decadence that sent shivers of trepidation throughout Paula's innermost anatomy.

Veena made a gesture at Paula, and the naked girl turned obediently and followed Bertie's wraith-like form ever deeper into the forest.

Paula was desperately trying to learn all she could about her captors, to Figure out why they acted like this and why they served this woman. She guessed that Veena used Frog to do her killing, while Hernandez took care of the strong-man jobs and Tish and Cyclops were her attendants. And Bertie must be ... Bertie must be for scaring the hell out of people. And he's certainly succeeding, Paula reminded herself, shuddering inwardly as she saw the tall man continue his trek through the woods. It seemed to Paula that not a muscle in the man's body was moving, that he used his entire form as one solid unit.

And what was Estrogen for, Paula wondered, and how did he ever get a name like that? The man was too weak for physical jobs, too stupid for mental ones. Was he meant to serve as Veena's court jester, her personal fool? Paula decided that that was the only job which Estrogen looked remotely capable of, although even in that respect she had her doubts.

And who was Veena? Of all of these people she seemed to be the one that was least inhuman, physically at any rate. Paula cast a glance in the direction of the leather-clad dominatrix, and noticed that the two wing-like appendages on the back of Veena's clothing were beginning to flap, as though possibly they might really be wings. But surely that couldn't be true.

Or could it? After all that had happened to Paula so far she wasn't inclined to doubt anything.

"We are approaching Ravenspur now," Veena intoned as the eight figures continued their journey. "Frog, sound the call."

The creature named Frog nodded to show that he understood. From the hunched, lump-strewn garment on his back he withdrew some sort of sack-like object, into which he thrust some cylindrical wooden tubes. A moment later he was inflating the thing and skirling out a pipe tune that Paula estimated could be heard for miles around.

She began to wonder if there would ever be any hope of salvation, of being rescued by someone in the outside world. It certainly didn't seem likely. Ever since the moment when she had been led out of the clearing where she and Carl had made love, it had seemed to Paula as though the normal world of reality had ceased to exist. Paula's clothes, which were now being carried by Estrogen, were the only thing she could see that looked even remotely normal. Even the surrounding trees had been twisted and gnarled into frightening shapes, and the brilliant orb that burned and shone overhead looked like neither the sun nor the moon....

In the dimly-lit darkness Paula could make out a shape far ahead, a looming monstrosity in the form of a battered, broken-down edifice. In the eerie light of the not-moon overhead, and accompanied by the strains of Frog's pipes, the thing looked foreboding indeed.

"Ravenspur," Veena announced, and the word slashed through the still night air like the stroke of a butcher's knife. "We have reached Ravenspur at last."

Instantly Frog stopped playing, and even the prancing Estrogen seemed to be suddenly numbed with reverence for this awesome place. There was absolute silence now, and Paula could feel her own heart pounding inside her body as though it was desperately seeking escape. But there would be no escape....

Veena was leading the way now, carrying her flail in one hand and holding her spear on high with the other. Paula found that she was able to walk with less difficulty now, and she no longer needed to lean upon Tish and Hernandez for support.

The eight of them were walking across the surface of a bare stone pavilion, a flat plateau like a tabletop that jutted up towards the night sky. There were no trees to block the way now, and Paula could see the moon overhead. But it no longer looked like a moon. It looked more like an enormous bloodshot eye....

They kept on walking across the bare stone surface, and Paula could see that to either side of the stone's edge were upright columns, were stone menhirs rather like the pillars at Stonehenge. Occasionally there would be two erect columns right next to each other, with a third laid horizontally across them like a primeval lintel.

Veena made a halting gesture, and instantly all of her followers stopped. Paula felt sure that she would collapse again, and an instant later she sank to a kneeling position. The naked girl winced in pain as her kneecaps struck the stone and a torrent of agony swept through her body.

Veena tilted her spear towards the waiting Bertie. "You know what to do," she informed him. "Get it and bring it here quickly."

Again not a muscle' in Bertie's body moved, but he slowly turned until his back was directly towards Veena and he was facing in the direction from which they had come. Then suddenly his arms shot over his head like catapults and he was racing back into the woods, his shank-like lower limbs pulsing up and down like pistons. It seemed to Paula's fevered brain that the man was running at a speed of ninety miles an hour. And in less than two seconds he was gone. The darkness had swallowed him whole and then winked shut again.

Veena prodded Paula with her spear. "Walk," she said flatly. "Walk into the Chamber."

Ever since they had entered Ravenspur Paula had felt her strength begin to flow back into her body, and now that her strength was returning her defiance was beginning to come back with it. "First I've got to get some answers from you," she replied. "Who are you people and what do you want with me? Why did you kill my friend Carl? What's a bunyip?

Where did that fellow Bertie go, and why can he run so fast and how can he walk without moving? Why...."

Something huge and heavy shot through the air like a cannonball, and a moment later Paula was flat on her back and Frog was towering over her. His claw-like hand was reaching for her throat, idly twitching in its desire to destroy her. "I could easily kill you, bitch," the half-man hissed. "I could easily send you into spasms of pain so agonizing that you would pray for swift and sudden death. But I shan't. Unless you continue to ask such foolish questions, I shan't kill you. Not yet, at any rate." He moved away from her and then turned towards Veena, eyes lowered humbly as though he did not dare to look her in the face. "I trust that I did not act hastily, Mistress," he hissed grotesquely.

"Not at all, my bunyip," Veena assured him, and there was a hint of a smile on her sadistic face. "There is nothing you or Cyclops can do that will displease me." There was an unholy silence for a moment, and then the woman spoke again: "But there is little time left. Come, let us enter the gates of Ravenspur."

Paula felt as though she were in the midst of a trance. She walked forward without being told, and there were no longer any questions in her mind, only submission. She knew that she had to obey these people, because there was no alternative. To disobey was unthinkable, if not impossible.

Frog was tugging out his pipes again and letting loose on long, thin blast of a note A moment later there was a sound like stones being pushed aside, like the earth itself being riven in two. "Walk forward," Veena commanded, and Paula found that she had to obey.

Ahead of her was a solid wall of insurmountable stone, and as the madmen prodded their prize forward Paula saw that the rock was beginning to shake, and then that its surface was beginning to split. A long thin line appeared down the centre of the stone, a line that began to widen as the party came closer. And as they approached Paula saw that the stone was not stone at all but two gates, two gates that were slowly opening to admit the arrivals.

Beyond the gates lay a staircase, a winding stone staircase that led down into the very depths of Ravenspur. Paula knew that once she went down that staircase she would never go up it again. She would be raped and tortured, and then slowly murdered. In her mind's eye she could see herself naked and writhing in a puddle of her own lifeblood....

The girl and her six captors moved forward, and as they passed through the gates the gates swung slowly shut behind them. Paula expected to find herself plunged into darkness, but instead the entire interior of Ravenspur glowed with an inner light, like those forms of phosphorescent toadstool that blaze and glow in their own greenish aura.

Veena was leading the way now, and she did not bother to see if her terrified female captive was following or not. She descended the stairs one step at a time, and Paula was not far behind. Her wrists ached painfully where they had been bound, and her entire body was a mass of perspiration.

Paula's mind was racing frantically now. She had to test the limits of her tormentors to find out just what they were capable of and what they weren't.

Paula was several steps behind Veena on the downward-leading staircase, while behind the naked blonde girl were the five men; Frog, pulling himself down one step at a time and flopping over each one as he did so. Hernandez and Cyclops, proud and erect, cool and ever capable. Tish, doggedly obedient, turning over and over in his mind some subject the nature of which only he knew. And lastly Estrogen, leaping and prancing like a little boy, itching to call out, to make noises, but not daring to do so.

Paula knew that now, if ever, would have to be the time to act. Even in her weakened condition and with her hands bound tightly together she would be more than a match for Estrogen, but she knew that against any one of the other five she would die instantly. Frog and Tish, who looked the weakest of the crew, had proven that they were far stronger than they appeared to be. And Paula knew that even the tall stately Veena would easily outclass her in physical combat. So a fight would be useless, because Paula would be certain to be overpowered.

But wait a minute! All of these men seemed to obey Veena blindly, even though they were stronger than her and at least as smart. Did she exercise such strong control over their minds that, by destroying Veena all of the men would be helpless, like killing the queen bee in a hive full of drones.

Paula decided that it was worth a try. She took a deep breath of air and hurled her body forward, pushing it against the winged back of Veena, and a moment later both female bodies were lurching forward to tumble down the stairs....

What happened next Paula was never quite certain of. But it seemed to her that Veena's leather wings were FLAPPING, were lifting her just high enough into the air to allow Paula to hurtle past and tumble down the remainder of the stairway by herself....

When Paula reached the painful bottom her body was a mass of blood and bruises. When you are a naked young girl it is not the most pleasant of sports to fall down a stone staircase with your hands tied behind your back. Paula groaned inwardly, and felt a torrent of hot blood well up within her mouth.

Veena was standing beside her. "It was not wise of you to resist," she intoned. "Perhaps I should have one of my bunyips punish you for that. Frog could easily kill you, as you have discovered, kill you slowly and painfully. But Cyclops could give you more pain, and you would never die at all. You would keep on dying, but you would never die."

The flat of Veena's spearhead was pressed against Paula's shoulder, and she. whimpered in pain. "You will get up now," Veena murmured hoarsely, "and you will come to the Chamber. The Chamber awaits you."

There were those words again, Paula thought dully to herself: "the Chamber." She didn't know what kind of chamber it was, but she could just imagine.

Six pairs of eyes watched intently as Paula struggled painfully to her feet. Veena. nodded in what was apparently satisfaction. "Very good. You will now follow me, please."

And then Veena was walking down a stone corridor, spear held high and erect. Paula limped pain-ridden behind her, while the five men brought up the rear.

They walked on for several minutes in silence, until suddenly they came upon a twist in the passage, Veena turned it smartly, and Paula and the others followed. The corridor was a dead end.

A blank wall was all that met their gaze, and for a moment Paula felt like fainting. But then she saw Veena walking towards the wall and knew that something was about to happen.

Majestically and purposefully Veena reached the wall, then rapped on it smartly with the butt of her spear.

The wall slid to one side, and standing before them was a man.

Bertie.

Paula screamed. How had this man gotten here? He was frightening enough as he was, but his sudden reappearance here had scared the poor girl out of her wits.

Veena ignored the scream, turning instead to face the silent, grinning Bertie. "Did you bring to me what I wished you to bring?"

Bertie's head did not move, but still it seemed to Paula that he nodded.

"Excellent." Veena was obviously pleased.

She stepped aside from the doorway, and her tall mute servant followed suit. Gesturing imperiously towards Paula, the black-clothed woman said: "In here if you please. There is something that I wish you to see."

A nameless impulse held Paula back, but a second one pushed her forward. What would happen to her if she went into that room? Well, whatever it was, it couldn't possibly be any worse than what she had already undergone.

Or could it?

Paula stepped forward and into the room.

She was in a large, circular chamber, roughly resembling a medieval dungeon. Instruments and devices of torture lay scattered all about, and set into several crevices in the sloping wall were flickering torches, the winking light of which cast an unearthly pallor over the room.

Paula felt disturbed about something. A jangling noise reached her ears, a sound like that of shackles being rattled.

She turned to look in the direction from which the sound had come. On the opposite wall a figure lay, spread-eagled to the wall and moaning softly to itself, a figure that roughly resembled something that might once have been a man....

Paula found herself coming closer, trying to get a better look at the thing. Its head lay bowed down to its collar bone, but as Paula came nearer the thing gave a howl and raised its head so that it was looking directly towards Paula.

Suddenly she screamed. She was looking directly into the eyes of her boy friend Carl!