Author’s Note: A story set in a “water-wheel-punk” fantasy world. Not steam-punk, but something a bit more primitive, except for the anachronisticly advanced mechanical gearing systems. There’s also magic lurking in the background, but not terribly powerful or intrusive. I have to say that I like this background: I’ve done one additional story in it, and have some ideas for more.
Amanda of Silverden swallowed as she looked down at the Device. It was a thing of gears and circular brushes, of straps that not only buckled but also locked, and of a frame shaped to hold helpless a human body. It stood still for the moment, but shafts connected it to a waterwheel outside.
She was a plain young woman, thin, with brown hair that would have hung as straight as a yard of rainwater if it had not been braided and bound up about her head. Her matching brown eyes were magnified behind glasses that covered half her face, the legacy of a healing mage who had overshot when he attempted to correct her nearsightedness. Her white blouse bore no embroidery or other decoration, and the skirt that reached to her ankles was of dark, common cloth.
As a courtesy she was not bound, but of course the two strapping journeymen that escorted her, dressed in simple trews and shirt and smirking at what was to come, made bindings unnecessary.
Graybearded Russel Broadbelt, Master of the Guild of Mechaniks, shot a quelling glance at the journeymen. He was dressed formally, in a costume patterned on a workman’s smock, but expensively dyed, trimmed with fur, and embroidered with gold thread in a pattern of gears and pulleys. He stepped forward to whisper in Amanda’s ear. “You can still back out. Return your father’s notes to the Guild, and we will forget this affair.”
Amanda shook her head. Broadbelt stepped back, his glance gathering both the journeymen and the two other Masters present. He pulled a scroll from its case, and read from it in a voice gone formal:
“Whereas Amanda of Silverden has petitioned admittance to the Guild of Mechaniks, as the daughter and heir of Master Eric, a guildsman and Master of Mechaniks in good standing until his death.
“And whereas the Masters of the Guild assembled have denied this petition, on the grounds of said Amanda’s sex.
“And whereas the said Amanda has withheld the notebooks and texts of her father from the Guild, and has made appeal to the Mill.
“Therefore I, Master Russel Broadbelt, as presiding Master of the Guild of Mechaniks, do declare that the said Amanda of Silverden, being eighteen years of age and an orphan, shall be put to trial by ordeal in accordance with the bylaws of the Guild, that the Mill may judge her before these witnesses present.
“Master Steven: On your oath, will you bear witness?”
The tall master grinned. “I will.”
“Master John: On your oath, will your bear witness?”
“I will,” the shortest master said sourly. He had been the one most hotly opposed to Amanda’s initial petition.
“Journeyman Drew: On your oath, will you bear witness?”
“I will.” The young man’s words were a chortle, drawing glances of rebuke from all three masters.
“Journeyman Carl: On your oath, will you bear witness?”
“I will,” Carl said seriously. But after speaking he broke out in a huge grin.
Broadbelt tucked away the scroll. “Very well then. Put her in the Device.”
Both of them grinning now, the two journeymen stripped Amanda. She didn’t resist as they removed her blouse, her skirt, her shoes, her underthings, and her glasses. Nor did she resist when they lowered her into the Device. Straps were buckled around her spread-eagled limbs and locked. The head-restraint, padded like a knight’s helm, was fitted into place. This would prevent her from banging herself into unconsciousness, in the tickle-ordeal to come, and would keep her hair from being caught in the gears. It also blocked her eyes.
Now she could hear and feel, but could not see, the application of the thumb-clamps, toe-clamps, and finger-bars. These were carefully adjusted to hold her digits firmly, to render them completely helpless without being so tight as to cause pain. Then she could hear the two journeymen climbing out, and she suppressed a whimper as she lay on her back, nude, vulnerable, trapped in the Device with brushes and other implements of tickling poised inches from her skin.
She heard the sound of wood scraping on stone, the rustle of cloth, and her imagination supplied the rest. Three stools would be brought for the Masters, to sit on as they witnessed her ordeal. The journeymen would have to stand, or sit on the floor, for their witnessing. And as long as at least three of the five witnesses remained to watch, her tickle-ordeal would continue.
One of the journeymen would be standing by the clutch-lever. Amanda imagined Master Broadbelt nodding, and heard his single word: “Engage.”
The clutch engaged, and the gears of the Device began to move, powered by a rotating shaft that was in turn driven by a waterwheel outside the guildhall. Amanda squealed as cams descended and soft-bristled brushes stroked the skin of her arms and legs and belly. At the same time, a broom of stiffer bristles moved forward and swept over the bare soles of her feet. The Device picked up speed, and Amanda giggled helplessly as it stroked her with a variety of brushes, bits of fur, short strips of cloth and leather, and the tips of stiff feathers set in rotating balls.
The clockworks built into the Device advanced the mechanisms bit by bit, making each stroke, each touch, slightly different from the last. Repetition would not dull this tickling, and every bit of exposed skin would eventually receive attention.
Soft-bristled brushes moved over her arms. Leather fingers on rotating wheels grabbed at her sides. Silk strips brushed over her belly and breasts, followed by the tips of bunched feathers. Bits of fur on rotating rods touched her behind her knees and between her thighs. The soles of her feet were treated to a medley of stiff brushes and soft brushes, of silken touches between the toes and knobby wooden rollers running over ball, instep and heel. Amanda could not resist. She could only strain against bonds that allowed nothing beyond the slightest of squirming. And the laughter poured out of her as the tickling sank in through her skin.
It was the second hour of the Ordeal. Amanda had thought she’d known what to expect, but she was wrong. This was worse that she dared dream. Ten times worse. A hundred times worse. She longed to surrender, to make it stop, but she knew that it was impossible: If she begged for mercy, she would fail the ordeal - and the tickling would not stop. The masters would keep the Device going to punish her for her presumption. They might even keep it going for even longer than they otherwise would. So she forced her mind away from any thought of begging. But that was hard to do when a spinning puffball of wool brushed right over her belly-button and two more pressed against the insteps of her feet.
The puffballs withdrew, to be replaced by brushes and feathers: Implements now cringingly familiar from an hour of repetition, but still new in their tickles as the Device, tireless and inescapable, clicked through its variations. The broom once again swept across the soles of her feet, and Amanda howled with laughter. The soft strips of cloth and leather wiggled in new patterns, and Amanda giggled. Soft brushes suddenly reversed course, driving Amanda wild. But nothing Amanda could do or say would stop the Device from fulfilling its function.
It was the third hour of the Ordeal. The Device stopped, its implements pulling back, and Amanda sagged in relief as she heard someone step down toward her. He offered her a few swallows of water, and she drank greedily. He soothed her abused skin with cloths soaked in spirits of wine. He placed a pan beneath her and demanded that she piss. It was only when she heard him climb back out that she realized that her Ordeal was not yet finished. She had not been released. She heard Master Broadbelt give the command to re-engage the clutch, and she screamed as the Device resumed its tickling.
The respite had not been an act of mercy, Amanda realized. She’d been allowed to relieve herself because the Masters didn’t want the metal clockwork of the Device to be corroded, and the pause had allowed her skin to regain the sensitivity it had lost. The worst part, Amanda managed to think as she writhed weakly in her bonds, was that a fraction of this tickling would have been pleasant. Delightful, even. But the Device overwhelmed her with dozens of gentle touches. It kept on and on and on, scores of devices rotating in turn to tickle arms and legs and belly and breasts and every part of the soles of both her feet. Thought became impossible; there was only the tickling, and the laughter, and pulling uselessly at her bonds in a futile attempt to escape the inescapable tickling.
It was the fourth hour of the Ordeal. The journeymen played with the clutch, at the order of the Masters, and the speed of the Device varied. Sometimes the soft strips of cloth and knobby wooden rollers moved with excruciating slowness as they tickled her sides and her feet. Sometimes they moved with shocking swiftness as they stimulated her arms and legs and belly. But never did they stop.
Again and again soft-bristled brushes painted her arms and legs with giggles. Again and again a stiffer broom swept laughter across the soles of her feet. Again and again the tips of feathers meandered over her breasts and belly, flooding them with gasps and titters. Again and again and again. Each time different, as the clockworks of the Device marched through their paces. And each stroke tickled, remorseless and irresistible.
Now the Device was set back to a constant speed, just a little faster than before. Amanda felt as if she were being dragged through a thicket of tickling, pulled along too fast to keep up. But of course she could hardly move at all: The locking straps held her down, impossible to escape, and the restraints kept her exposed and vulnerable to the tickling that the Device imposed upon her.
It was the fifth hour of the Ordeal. All the world had become the Device, the mechanical Judge administering the tickling that Amanda had brought upon herself by demanding her right of appeal. The tickling that seemed to sink in from the soles of her feet up her legs, from the skin of her limbs into the marrow of her bones, from her ribs and belly and the exquisitely soft touch on her nipples into her very being. Sometimes it made her giggle softly, sometimes it made her scream. The touch of the sundry devices that made up the Device might be rapid or creeping slow, might be soft or firm, might be broad or narrow. The cycles of the Device were endless as the brush-rimmed wheels teased her torso, as the knobby wooden rollers applied a pleasure-torment to her soles, as the soft leather strips wiggled to make her giggle, and as it began all over again in yet another variant. It seemed like it would last forever.
And yet, it didn’t. The Device halted, and its tickle-implements withdrew. Amanda heard someone come down again into the Device, felt the restraints holding her being unlocked and unbuckled. The head-restraint was pulled back, and her far-sighted eyes could seen the clutch-lever on the wall of the chamber, disengaged and unattended now. But the Master before her was fuzzy in her vision.
Master Broadbelt put her glasses back on her face. “Congratulations, apprentice Amanda,” he said.
fin