Days of High Adventure
Warning: This story contains graphic violence, graphic pre-marital sex, violation of college housing regulations, graphic geekery, multiple dismemberments, impalings, bad language, nudity, drug references, consumption of alcohol, destruction of private property, paganism, theft, arson, slavery, reptile-on-human violence, improper placement of hazardous materials, money laundering, illegal immigration, tax evasion, poor workplace standards, unwed cohabitating couples, kidnapping, assault under color of authority, bearers of false witness, human sacrifice, desecration of religious sites, unsafe work standards and repeated, uncredited film references and/or quotes.
Based on the works of Robert E. Howard and certain roleplaying games falsely accused of Satanic influence. There may be dungeons and/or dragons.
*
"Know, O Prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of..."
Amanda read the first lines of Jason's email with an intrigued grin. The thread had already gone on for a few exchanges before she'd gotten to it. She was fairly conscientious about reading personal email at work, even if there was frequently nothing to do at the reception desk.
"As promised," the email went on, "I will be ready to run game on Thursday night. My summer class load is pretty light so I think this campaign can go the distance on my end. Because this campaign is set in Hyboria, there are several character creation restrictions..."
Hearing the office door open, Amanda fought the urge to close her email. This was her scheduled break, though. The one that she was supposed to be able to take away from her desk. She'd have been glad to leave the desk, if Mark would ever actually cover for her like he was supposed to.
It wasn't Mark this time, though. It was Karen and Linda, both striding out in heels and flattering skirts. Amanda spared a fleeting moment to wish she could make business casual look that good on herself. She looked up at them and offered a friendly smile.
"Hey, Sarah," Karen said, "you haven't had any calls for me, have you?"
"No, not today. Um," ventured the young receptionist, "it's Amanda."
"Oh. Sorry," Karen frowned, rolling her eyes. "Amanda. I knew that. Anyway, did he call? Anyone call for me?"
"Nope" Amanda repeated, returning to her bright smile. "It's been quiet today."
"Do we have anyone using the main conference room before lunch?"
"No," Amanda shook her head. "Not until one."
"Okay, well I'm gonna need you to set up the main conference room for a meeting right away," Karen said. "Mr. Nichols might be coming in, and we really need to make a good impression on him, okay? And try not to talk to him much when he comes in. Just smile and offer him a seat and let me know immediately, okay?"
"You've got it," Amanda said. Being told not to talk to clients was galling (really, what was she going to say that would offend them?), but she ignored it. "Anything else I can do?"
"Oh, I doubt it," Linda smirked.
"Anyway. We're going downstairs for just a few minutes," Karen went on. "But we'll be right back."
"I'm on it," Amanda nodded again, already picking up the phone to summon her boss.
"Thanks, Sarah," Karen finished as she and Linda turned to walk down the hallway to the elevators. Amanda winced but let it go. Sooner or later Karen--and a few of the other "wealth managers"--would doubtlessly remember her name.
She'd only been working there for five months.
Her break would have to wait. She closed up her email while she relayed the situation to her boss. "I'll be out to cover in just a minute," Mark told her gruffly. "Go ahead and get started."
She was quick about her task. She ignored the beautiful view of Elliott Bay from the conference room window, focusing instead on straightening up the room; apparently the cleaning crew had taken the night off. The table had to be wiped down, and yet the spray cleaner was missing. Amanda quickly headed for the supply cabinet in the women's restroom.
"...almost wish Mark would still be out there on reception when Nichols gets here," she heard as she opened the door. "Seriously, couldn't we hire a prettier receptionist?"
"Clients don't come here to oggle the receptionist, Karen," Linda replied dryly. Amanda froze. They were right around the corner, doubtlessly at the mirror. The last thing she wanted was to be caught eavesdropping, but she needed the stupid bottle of 409. "Anyway, it's not like she's ugly."
"No, but don't you think she could take care of herself better?" Karen frowned audibly. "I'd be in the gym six hours a day if I had a figure like that. And where'd she get her clothes? Penny's? Does she understand who she's working for?"
Amanda winced. She wanted to scream. Instead, she forced herself to open the closet--thankfully right next to the door--and retrieve what she needed as stealthily as she could.
"She's a college student," Linda said. "How much money do you think she's going to spend on clothes for a part time job?"
"Maybe that's the problem. Maybe we need a real professional. Someone should talk to Mark."
"Why don't you talk to Mark?"
"Mark stares at my tits every time I talk to him."
"Maybe you shouldn't put them on display like that all the time."
"And maybe I'll keep more of my clients if I do."
Linda grunted something dismissive. If anything, the conversation was just idle banter for her. "Masters in Finance from Duke and it still comes down to wearing a bra one size smaller than you need, huh?"
"Oh, like you're one to talk."
Slipping back out again, Amanda hurried to the conference room. The table was soon shining once again, clear enough for Amanda to see her reflection.
She wasn't fat. No supermodel, but certainly not fat. Nor was the face looking back at her from under very plain black hair an ugly face.
Nor could she remember the last time anyone had asked her out.
Amanda returned to the reception desk. Mark vacated her seat, saying only, "Let me know when it's time for your lunch," before he left.
Amanda thought less about lunch and more about hitting the UW gym again. She thought about rearranging her schedule so she could work out five days a week instead of three, and then thought about how much she hated herself for thinking about it. As Karen and Linda passed by the reception desk back to their offices, Amanda forced herself to return their fake smiles and hated herself even more for that, too.
With nothing to be done about it at the moment, she returned to Jason's email.
"Humans only. No dwarves, no elves, no exceptions." That was bound to raise arguments from Robbie, but what came next was an even bigger catch. "No Arcane, Divine or Psionic classes. Magic in Hyboria is typically for bad guys, and this is more or less a good guy campaign. Martial characters and Barbarians are fine, though. Bards are negotiable. In this world, 'civilized' and 'sophisticated' usually just means untrustworthy and evil."
Glancing down the hallway to the offices beyond, Amanda sighed to herself. "Ain't that the truth."
***
"Does an 18 hit?"
"FAILURE!!" bellowed Eric. His tone was both triumphant and accusatory, as if the tower guard's inability to strike Eric's character somehow shamefully invalidated its entire existence. As if in agreement, Jason buried his face in his hands and then sank behind the dungeon master's screen at the end of the dining room table.
"Guard misses the fighter. Alex," Jason went on, rolling another twenty-sided die, "does a 22 hit your character's Armor Class?"
"FAILURE!" Alex declared.
"You sound like a man now. I'm so proud, grasshopper," Eric grinned smugly. Barely old enough to drink himself, Eric was the true veteran of the gaming group. He had been happy to hand off the Dungeon Master's seat to Jason when he graduated high school, though, as he generally had more time to put interesting games together than Eric did anymore.
Alex rolled his eyes. "Gee, thanks, Dad."
"How'd you get your AC so high, though?" Eric asked. "Seriously, mine sucks."
"I got some help on an online forum," Alex shrugged. "Besides, you get Unarmored Agility for free in this campaign."
"That only helps if I don't have any armor," Eric said.
"You're wearing armor?" blinked Robbie. "What the hell for? This is Hyboria. The less armor you wear, the safer you are."
"That makes no sense," Eric protested.
"We went over this already," Jason sighed. "You don't see Conan wearing armor, do you?"
"He does it all the time in the actual books," Alex noted.
"I'm wearing armor," Amanda piped up.
"Yeah," said Carrie. "My rogue is wearing armor, too."
"That's different," Robbie shook his head. "You're chicks. Armor for you in Hyboria is like bikinis. Chain mail lingerie and whatever."
Glancing at one another for only a moment, Amanda and Carrie pelted Robbie with dice. "Jason!" Robbie snickered, "tell 'em I'm not wrong!"
"Yeah, Jason," Carrie goaded him, "go right ahead. Say I'm wearing chain mail lingerie. Say it and I'll cut you."
"That's it for the bad guys," Jason moved on, not wanting to test Carrie's threat. He looked up at the others in the dining room, knowing full well where the next round would lead. There were five miniature adventurers on the map of the sorcerer's tower in front of the DM's screen. The minis stood amid a half-dozen Skittles to represent "ordinary" guardsmen, two Hershey's Kisses that marked the sorcerer's remaining lieutenants and the mini-Reese's peanut butter cup that stood in for the sorcerer Bel-Danab himself. "Amanda, you're up," Jason noted.
"Um," Amanda stammered, looking from the map to her character sheet. "Sorry. Um. Okay, I move here," she said, shifting her warrior maiden closer to the Skittles, "aaand I go for Sweeping Blow." She rolled her dice and groaned. "Ugh. No way."
"No hits?"
"That was my only multiple-target attack, too. We really can't play wizards?" Amanda sighed. "I'm good with wizards!"
"Only if you want to be evil," Jason shrugged. He leaned forward, grinning at her with a sinister glint in his eye. "Do you wish to journey to Zamora? Vendhya? To demon-haunted Stygia? To read the iron-bound books of Skelos, and talk with unseen creatures in deep wells? Be my guest. You may not like the changes that such experiences make in you."
"Good paraphrasing Howard," Alex mumbled. "But you're totally glossing over things. Hyboria has white magic, too. The alien-elephant guy in 'Tower of the Elephant' said so."
"Oh God, Alex, you read one friggin' book and you think you know everything. And put away my Monster Manual! That's not for you."
Alex shrugged, handing back the book. "I was just checking out the pictures of the ridiculous demon chicks."
"So you're saying there are no good wizards in Hyboria at all? Isn't that a little discriminatory?" Amanda frowned.
"Sounds racist to me," Robbie said.
"Yeah, well, Jason's got a history of racial insensitivity," Alex noted.
"I do not!" Jason protested. "Wizards aren't a race! They're a class and you know it!"
"Oh, so it's class warfare?" Eric pressed. "You're a communist? Is that it?"
"Don't you have a class or something tomorrow?" Jason frowned. "It's your turn now."
"Nag, nag, nag," Eric sighed. He moved his mini into position. "Bait and Switch on Bel-Danab, and...crit," he declared with a grin as the die came up with a natural 20. "Oooh, and I have combat advantage. So that's max weapon damage plus max sneak attack...32 points."
"Dead," Jason said. "Feast upon your kill." As Eric greedily scooped up the mini peanut butter cup, Jason narrated the action. "It's as if everyone on the field knew when to look to their master to see his neck opened up right under his chin. He clutches at the mortal wound, falling backward onto the tiled floor. Yet his blood has only barely stained the dirty ground beneath him before the mystic masque falls from his face. This is not the evil sorcerer Bel-Danab at all! It must have been some minor apprentice!"
"That's not Bel-Danab?" Eric blinked.
"Shh!" Alex hissed, smirking. "Don't say his name! You'll summon him!"
"Oh Jesus," Robbie grumbled, "he's not fucking Volde--"
Amanda cut him off. "Bel-Danab! Bel-Danab! Bel-Danab!" she called out, waving her hands in the air. "What?" she asked, looking at the others. "We're here to kill him, anyway."
"You were that girl in preschool who really did call for Bloody Mary in the bathroom mirror with the lights turned out, weren't you?" Jason asked.
"She totally did," nodded Carrie. "Amanda, that trick only works if you're trying to summon Hastur."
"Anyway," Jason said, trying to get things back on track, "The lieutenants look at one another, seeing that the dead man is not truly their master. They call out, almost as if they know we meant to wrap up an hour ago, 'Retreat! Fall back!'"
"Wow," Eric snorted. "Those are some accommodating guards."
"Aren't they?" Jason smirked. "The other guards are clearly going to obey; do you wish to pursue?" His gaze was met with shaking heads. "Okay," Jason finished, "it's already pretty late. We should wrap it there."
"Seriously," Robbie grinned. "You people need to get the hell out of our apartment. Carrie and I need to go to bed."
Alex was already packing up. "I'm goin', I'm goin'," he said, scooping up his motorcycle helmet and leather jacket.
"Boo," Amanda pouted. "I wanted to kill Bel-Danab."
"Keep saying that name," Alex smirked, "maybe he'll show up in your bedroom tonight and you can have it out with him there."
"Ooooh," she giggled. "If he's cute, maybe we'll have something else out. Jason, is he cute?"
"Huh? What? Um, I guess so?" Jason shrugged as he put manuals and dice in his backpack.
"Bel-Danab! Bel-Danab! Oh, take me, Bel-Danab!" Amanda said, fanning herself while she swooned to one side. Strangely, she felt herself shiver.
"Don't hold back," Eric chuckled. "Let him know how you really feel."
"Out, people," Carrie said. "I need to get to bed. Shoo."
***
"Thanks for giving me a ride, Eric," Amanda said, looking out the window of his small, beat-up but entirely functional car. "I really appreciate it."
"Not a big deal. It's not like it's out of my way or anything." It was true enough; both lived in UW's adult student housing. "I just need to get some sleep. I've still got a final in the morning."
"Yeah. Sorry for that, too...I mean dragging things out earlier. I know people wanted to go. I just get having a good time with you all and I don't want to go home. Work was crappy today and I'm not looking forward to going back. It's nice to have an escape for a little while."
"I know what you mean. I'll be shocked if I can get any sleep tonight anyway. My roommates are all in party mode for the end of the semester already. All they want to do is get drunk."
Amanda snorted. "Mine just get wasted, too. Kinda sucks. I was happy to get away from my crazy foster parents, and so instead now I get to live with stoners."
"What happened at work?" Eric asked curiously as he parked outside her building.
"Oh, just...I got called sloppy and fat behind my back by women who are prettier and more successful than I'll ever be. Got treated like I don't know how to do my job, too."
"Damn. Amanda, you know that's not true, right?"
She shrugged. "Still. Sucks to hear people talk like that."
"It does, and it's bullshit. I think you're awesome and I know you better than they do. Look, some people just never grow out of high school, you know?"
"Yeah. Well. Here we are still playing the same games, right?"
"No, here we are still hanging out with friends doing whatever we think is fun."
"I guess. Anyway, I didn't mean to dump on you. It's nothing new. I'm not gonna let it get me down. Not long, anyway. Thanks for the ride," she said, getting out.
Eric followed. "Hey, let me walk you to your room, okay?"
The offer stopped her. "Um. Pretty sure I'm safe."
"I know, just..." he shrugged again. "Are you telling me to go away?"
"No," Amanda smiled. The prospect of her roommates seeing a guy walk her to her room made her blush. That would be kind of funny. By now, they'd probably have beer goggles or the stoner equivalent. "Okay. Come on."
Eric walked with her, wondering whether he should hold out his arm or not. He opted not to make it weird. Hearing about her treatment at work made him bristle, but there was nothing to be done about those people now. He could at least remind her that she had friends.
The foyer was littered with beer cans, discarded notebooks and the remnants of a piñata. The elevator was occupied by a couple sitting in one corner, lips locked and clothing disheveled. Amanda and Eric glanced at one another with slightly embarrassed grins, but said nothing until they left the pair once more.
"Two more years of the greatest time of my life," Amanda chuckled ruefully.
"What?" Eric asked. "You don't want to spend Friday night in a pile of foreplay in the elevator?"
"Actually, I wouldn't mind," she admitted. "Anyway. Thanks for giving me a lift. I'll see you next week. We'll get that dirty Bel-Danab yet."
"I thought you wanted to be gotten?"
She laughed. "Oh. Right." She threw her arms in front of her still-closed door. "Bel-Danab, Bel-Danab, take me, baby, Bel-Danab."
Again, Amanda shivered, but other than that nothing much happened. She noticed, though, that there was a green light coming from under the door, along with a strange smell. "Ugh. Yup. Stonerville, WA, once again."
"You could maybe crash at my place...?" Eric thought aloud.
"No, I'm good. Thanks," Amanda said. She pulled out her key and opened her door.
Emerald light and thick smoke greeted her, swirling from a vortex in the center of the living room. Amanda and Eric both looked on in awe. They had but a moment to register that it couldn't have been anything natural.
Then the tentacle, green and thick and covered in warts and boils, burst with lightning quickness from the center of the vortex. It wrapped itself around Amanda's waist. Eric immediately grabbed at it, trying instinctively to wrestle it free even as Amanda herself tried to pry the thing off of her.
It jerked backward with Amanda still firmly in its grip. Eric refused to let go; he, too, was pulled into the vortex. The smoke quickly disappeared. The emerald light faded away. All was quiet.
Poking her head out from her room, one of Amanda's roommates looked around with bleary, bloodshot eyes. She didn't bother to put down the joint in her hand. Kimberly simply strode across the living room to shut the hallway door once more.
***
Flung roughly to a stone floor, Eric found himself instantly winded and disoriented. Some awful, smoking smell filled his breath. He heard shouting, chanting and bubbling, all from different directions. Flickering lights in red, green and orange fought with dark shadows for space throughout the chamber.
He had just pushed himself up to his hands and knees when someone grabbed his shoulders. Eric was heaved upright to his second horrifying sight of the night: a tall, broad-shouldered, muscular man whose very flesh was boiling and burning away even as he moved. Wide grey eyes that could not close stared at Eric in seeming desperation. A mouth that no longer had lips tried to tell him something in a language he couldn't understand. An eerie green mist poured from his mouth, filling the air that Eric breathed.
Eric screamed in shock. The dying man shook him, trying to convey something but succeeding only in bleeding and melting all over him. Then a blade erupted from his chest, splattering blood all over the frightened young man.
The tentacles came into Eric's view again. This time, they grabbed the charred man and his apparent killer, who was himself dressed in chain mail. Both were jerked high into the air, held aloft with the armored man screaming until the life was squeezed from him.
Eric fell onto his back, watching in horror. He and Amanda were at the foot of some sort of pool inside a broad, round chamber with a vaulted ceiling. They were both soaking wet, though now Eric was also covered in blood and gore. Standing before them was a robed man, turned away from them with his arms raised.
A strange chalk circle filled with runes stood out on the stone floor next to the robed man. The silhouette of a tall man's body filled the circle, seeming to have been drawn in soot and burnt flesh. The robed man looked over his shoulder down at Eric with a cold sneer, then turned his attention back to the monstrosity before him.
There were six tentacles rising from within the pool, each of them reaching high above the robed man's head. One held the armored man's corpse; the other held the ruined body of the man who had grabbed Eric only a moment ago. Eric could make out the raised ceiling of the room largely by the green light given off by whatever was in that pool. It was the same light he'd seen in Amanda's apartment. The tentacles writhed and lashed, yet seemed to shrink back into the waters, dragging the two bodies with them.
The man in front of him wasn't alone. Several other figures were visible at the edges of the room, all of them standing up straight and still. Some held spears, while others had swords sheathed at their sides. All of them wore dark, flat masks and hardened leather armor.
Stairs rose up from either side of the pool to a raised platform opposite Eric and Amanda's landing place. Braziers burned at the sides of the platform. At the center stood a blond, well-built man in silken pants and an open robe. He, too, held his arms up and opened wide, holding aloft in his right hand a thick, ornate staff with a large red gem set in its top. He chanted in some language Eric couldn't possibly make out. As the tentacles receded into the pool, both robed men let their arms sink. Their chanting grew soft and finally ended.
"Twesh amet lor ness malek-Set?" asked the man on the platform as he descended the steps.
"Lo benit qal magrazz nandesh," the one closer to Eric replied. His gaze was back on the pair now, devoid of benevolence or welcome. Amanda gripped Eric's hand tightly. "Anandast?" he closer man asked. He was, they both noticed, closer to their age; the other one was old enough to be their father. "Cimmerian? Vanir?"
They recognized the words. The two wet, bewildered newcomers looked at one another in surprise. "Cimmeria?" the man with the staff asked them.
Eric shrugged. "No hablo, man," he said.
The older one snapped his fingers. A moment later there were two guards at the sides of each of the newcomers, gripping them by the arms. "What's going on?" Eric demanded. A guard punched him in the gut. Neither experienced in combat nor in the best of shape, Eric doubled over from the force of the blow.
"Leave him alone!" Amanda cried out, earning a sharp slap across her face.
"Ereng nast valamate garand," said another voice. It was raspier, growly and deep. Amanda and Eric blinked to see a third robed man, this one considerably shorter and rounder than either of the others. His body language alone spoke of his being inferior to both of them, yet his receding hairline and the flecks of grey in his goatee gave him a much older appearance.
The younger one in robes barked out a laugh. The other, seeming through sheer confidence to be the one in charge, waved a dismissive hand at the older man. "Carlist vanda quen vist," he said, seeming to come to a decision. He fixed Amanda with a severe gaze. "Olamto Bel-Danab?" he asked.
Amanda blinked. "I don't understand."
He nodded and gave another dismissive wave of his hand. "Demest," he said.
Both Amanda and Eric felt suddenly very sleepy after that. The guards began dragging them away, hauling the pair toward a doorway, then through it and to the long, spiraling steps beyond. Amanda managed to stay awake long enough to see a window. Through it, she saw out over a city lit by small fires and torches that only teased at holding back the night. They were very high above the city's nominal skyline; there were towers here and there, but most buildings looked to be no more than three stories high at the most.
Then it all went black.
***
She awoke with her head on Eric's leg. He sat with her on the stone floor, looking glumly at the bars and trying not to think of--
"Ugh, that smell," Amanda said, her nose wrinkling as her eyes fluttered open.
"Yeah," he nodded. "Pretty bad. I'm trying not to think of what it is."
Amanda opened her mouth to hazard a guess, but then closed it again. There wasn't much point in offering her suggestion. It would just make everything that much more uncomfortable.
She sat up, glancing down at Eric's legs as he bent and stretched them. "Thanks," she said.
"No problem. Wish I could do more, though. Like get us out of here. Mostly I keep hoping to wake up in my own bed."
"Yeah. No kidding." Looking around at their cell, Amanda quickly found that there really wasn't much to see. There were three walls of black stone blocks, a barred window too high up to see through, and iron bars separating them from the passageway beyond. She smelled smoke from a torch over the awful stench that polluted the air.
Soon, the two heard the sharp sound of metal grinding against metal, and then the squeal of hinges. Footsteps approached, shuffling closer and closer as the two felt their heartbeats pick up. They heard muttering, too--a growling, irritated mutter, once again in a language neither of them could understand.
The oldest-looking of the robed men soon stood in front of their cell, hunched over and clutching at something in his hands that glittered with yellow light. Up close, they could see now that the man wasn't terribly old or decrepit. He was simply smaller and more haggard than the other two.
He grunted something at the pair, gesturing with his hands still closed around whatever glowed within for them to stand up. Then he squeezed, barked out a couple of words, and unfolded his hands. They saw gleaming flecks of some yellowish gemstone in his palms. The robed man blew across his hands at them, sending the cloud of sparkling dust into the cell.
"...tell me it will never work. Of course it will work. My ideas always work." He looked up at the pair with one eye squinting and the other open wide. "You understand me now, neh?" he asked.
Amanda and Eric both blinked. "I can--yes, I can!" Amanda gasped.
"And you are not mad?"
"What?" Eric asked.
"They said such a spell would drive you both mad. But you're not mad, are you?"
"I'm honestly starting to wonder," Eric answered.
"No! We're not crazy," Amanda said. She reached for the bars. "Please, we don't know what's going on, can you help us?"
"Hhhhah!" the older man said. "You are in the coils of the serpent now. The only help I could offer you would be a quick death, and what would either of you give me in return? Eh?"
He reached into a pouch that hung from his belt, fumbling around for a moment while muttering too quietly to be understood. From the pouch he drew a crystal, and holding it up to his eye, he gazed for a long moment at Amanda, then at Eric. His frown didn't lift, but he did nod with some small measure of satisfaction. Then he simply left, and they heard the sound of the door opening once more. This time, they heard the heavy footsteps of the guards.
***
"Across time and space, you called to me," said Bel-Danab from his grand chair. It was adorned in lush purple silks, situated upon a small dais and one end of the broad chamber like a throne. His staff leaned against the throne within easy reach. A pair of voluptuous women adorned only in jewels lay across the carpeted floor at Bel-Danab's feet. They looked on haughtily, as if their position was still far above that of the two prisoners standing before their master.
It was hard to determine his age. He certainly wore his years well. Bel-Danab was a handsome man. His short blond hair swept back from his head, revealing strong features and deep green eyes. It was an appealing face, except for its lack of warmth.
"We were in the middle of a deep ritual when your voice came to me. Ordinarily I would not have been diverted in such pursuits, but your voice called to me repeatedly. I would know why. Where are you from?"
"S-Seattle, sir," Amanda answered, feeling more nervous than ever. This wasn't just scary; it was embarrassing, too. She wondered if she was blushing. "We're from Seattle. As for why I called to you, I...I didn't think you were real. We were only playing a game. Joking."
"A game," Bel-Danab nodded. He pressed his hands together in front of his face, looking past them contemplatively. "You come from some far-off age. That much is clear from your dress and your manner. Your clothes seem made with elaborate skill, yet they somehow have the look of...commonality. You are neither lords nor priests of any god, are you?"
"No, sir," Eric shook his head. "We, um...we come from a very wealthy country, but we ourselves aren't rich or anything."
Again, Bel-Danab nodded. "And your flesh reveals weakness. Sloth. Soft hands, unmarked skin. You don't miss out on meals, either of you." Amanda bit her lip as the women laughed. She was getting a little tired of people commenting on her weight. "It would appear that there is little to look forward to in mankind's future but weakness and degeneration."
He rose from his throne, striding forward to look more closely at the two. Standing just behind them were Bel-Danab's two apprentices, Randast and Yaol. The latter was still gleeful over his success in bridging the language barrier; the former maintained a stoic expression, seeming indifferent to the whole situation.
"And what of Set?" asked the lord of the tower. "What of the gods? Whom do you worship in your Seattle? Mitra? Crom? What do you know of Set?"
Eric and Amanda glanced to one another nervously. He clearly wasn't going to like the answer at all. Neither of them felt good about their chances in lying to him, though. "Set's the god of death in a culture that isn't really around anymore," Eric answered. "He hasn't been worshipped in, uh...gosh...around two thousand years, I guess? Maybe a little less than that, but I don't think anyone really practices that religion anymore."
"I'm sure you could find a few," Amanda offered hopefully. "Seattle's a very open-minded place, there's gotta be, um...a couple...maybe," she mumbled, her voice faltering under Bel-Danab's gaze. She looked away from his cold green eyes.
"Neither lords nor wizards," Bel-Danab frowned. "I reach across a world and untold millenia, costing me not only a prize captive but also a captain of my guards as sacrifices, only to retrieve weak, babbling peasants. Set teaches us humility."
"Perhaps their ignorance of the god goes some way to explain their condition," suggested Randast.
"Perhaps. Regardless. I had expected that a call such as hers would require some arcane feat, yet there is no magic within either of them. Given the wantonness of her tone, I had thought at the very least to enjoy a pleasant dalliance. Instead I find...this," he said, waving his hand dismissively. "Hardly worthy as a concubine."
Embarrassment died and was quickly forgotten. If that was all he was going to say on the subject, Amanda was perfectly happy to let it go. The more this douchebag talked, the happier she was that he found her unattractive. The only worry was over what else might happen to her and Eric.
"She is a virgin, my lord," piped up Yaol.
Bel-Danab's eyebrows lifted slightly, yet no light came to his eyes. "Well. That will at least partly make up for the loss of our Cimmerian youth, hm? Not remotely the same value, but virgin adults can be hard to find in Stygia. Yaol, see what labor you can get from her until then. I leave her to you. Do not allow her to be harmed or defiled."
"And of the other?" Randast asked as Yaol grinned and nodded.
Indifferent to the wide-eyed panic plain on the two young faces before him, Bel-Danab merely shrugged. "There are always the mines," he suggested as he turned back to his throne.
"No!" Amanda shrieked. There were already guards at their sides once more. "No, don't send him away! We'll do whatever you--!"
"Shut up, girl," grunted a guard, clamping his hand over her mouth.
Eric was already being hauled away. "Amanda, stay safe!" he yelled out. "I'll try to--!" He, too, was cut off, but much more roughly than she was. The last Amanda saw of her friend was his head rocking back from the punches that came across his jaw.
Then there were only rough hands dragging her down dark hallways and the cackling laughter of Bel-Danab's apprentice.
***
"What the hell is this? Some nobleman?"
"Hardly," said the guard as he shoved Eric to the rocky ground. He had been roughly-handled on his way out of the tower. Eric's t-shirt had already been torn to shreds. Scrapes and bruises adorned his flesh. His cellphone had been smashed in a fall, rendered nothing but junk.
Eric found himself in a broad pit dug into a hillside hundreds of yards across. Here and there were simple tents of burlap or leather, piles of rock and debris and crudely-built horse-drawn carts. Torches scattered throughout the mining camp held back the night. Everywhere, Eric saw men in little more than loincloths toiling with shovels, picks and broad pans.
There were guards, too. More men in piecemeal leather and plate, with halberds, spears and whips in plain view. Most wore cloth masks. Those who did not were ugly enough that masks would've been an improvement.
The same could be said for the barrel-chested overseer who stood beside him. "Get up, boy!" the man barked. His head was shaved and his skin deeply tanned from long days in the sun. He folded his arms across his chest skeptically as Eric rose.
"I am Tronus. You will work or you will die. That is all you need to know.
"Oh. And that the camp is surrounded by archers," Tronus added. "Do not think of escape. You will be shot before you can even see the city. Have you handled a pick before? Or a shovel?"
"Not a pick," Eric shrugged. "Only a little with a shovel."
"Fah!" Tronus spat. He gestured to one of the other guards. He shifted to another language, in which he said, "Get him a pan and take him to the southwest shaft. He can haul rocks. Maybe he'll shed some of that flab, eh?"
Another guard laughed. He grabbed Eric and hauled him along.
Eric frowned thoughtfully. He could understand two different tongues here. Yaol had done something magical to him and Amanda to allow them to speak his language. Yet clearly he understood this other one, too. Eric wondered how many languages he could understand. He also wondered if it was worth it to reveal that to his new masters.
"Take this," grunted the guard. He shoved a large mining pan into Eric's arms. It was so big that Eric wondered if it had been pried off of a wheelbarrow. The guard, not taking understanding for granted, pointed to a nearly-naked man emerging from a nearby tunnel in the side of the hill. The hapless man bore a similar pan, only his was full of rocks and sand. He staggered out, dumped his load into a horse-drawn cart, and then returned to the shaft.
The guard then kicked Eric in the side, pushing him toward the same shaft. Eric bowed his head and followed instructions.
They weren't going to hurt Amanda. He had heard that much. The mine was only a few days away from the town by cart. Eric needed time to get oriented and to figure out who was who here.
He shuffled and stumbled down the mine shaft, resolving to watch and listen. There would be opportunities for escape. There had to be.
***
"They won't kill him, unless he is stupid. If he is smart, he will work and he will be fine. Slaves cost money. No sense wasting them." The strange, older man sat at a table covered in bound scrolls, small tools and crystal. His attention was on a particular green piece, into which he slowly drilled small holes with great care.
Amanda stood nearby, holding the handles of an iron kettle full of bubbling...well, she didn't really know what it was. It was important that she not spill. It was also important that she not get her nose too close to it. After a week of more menial toil, Amanda had finally been brought into Yaol's laboratory to help with manual labor.
"He could work in here with me," Amanda tried. "He's a good...good worker. We work well together." She did her best to sound meek. It was obvious that Yaol was thrilled to have someone to boss around. Why not two?
"Bah!" Yaol frowned. "Little enough work in here for one illiterate peasant."
Amanda bit back a retort over being called illiterate. His mistake for making assumptions.
"Here. Hold the kettle here. Steady, or I'll pour the whole thing out over your head." Holding the gem in a pair of large forceps, Yaol murmured sing-song words that Amanda strained to hear--something about snakes and renewal and shedding scales--before he placed it gently in the kettle.
"Now, take that out to the window where the sun will strike it," he said. "You will see where. Go," he waved before turning back to his table.
"Is this magic for you? Or for your master?" Amanda asked as she slowly moved away. Her eyes were on the kettle. The last thing she wanted was to spill any of this boiling hot concoction on herself.
"Being an apprentice does not mean I am not already a wizard myself!" Yaol barked. "Long have I studied. My power is great. Yet it is not so great as Set's chosen. Great am I, yes, but Bel-Danab is greater still! Set reveals to his faithful many secrets that cannot be found in these scrolls and books. Bel-Danab has power beyond power. Thus even one as great as I am is left to toil away for him."
His rant fell into mumbles as Amanda made it to the window. She strained to hear for a moment, but then decided to forget about it. It was hard to tell what to make of his claims; he clearly knew how to use magic, but it was difficult to believe he was as great as he said he was. Yaol sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
After setting the kettle where he had directed, Amanda stole her first good look out over the tower's surroundings and the city in the blazing summer daylight. As she had surmised earlier, the city was made up mostly of low buildings. There were other, more substantial things in the skyline: a few other towers, some large buildings that she guessed might be temples, even a few of what looked like walled manors or estates. The city's streets were narrow and full of market stalls, pedestrians, livestock, even statues. Beyond the city was nothing but desert, as far as the eye could see.
The tower itself was encircled by a high wall, with perhaps ten or twenty yards of garden space in between. A pair of small buildings jutted out from the base of the tower, both still well within the walls. One faced a gate with two armed guards posted on the inside. She wondered if there were more on the outside as well.
Turning from the window, Amanda kept her head hung low. She let her hair fall in front of her face. "One really learns wizardry from reading these books?" she asked. He nodded without looking up at her. "How common is that? The ability to read?"
Yaol barked out a haughty, cruel laugh. "I had to serve my first master for ten years just so he would teach me letters in Hyrkanian! It grew easier after that. But every language is different. You may be able to speak many tongues thanks to my spell, but reading? Hah!" He waved his hands at her as if brushing her away.
"Few know how to read. Fewer among them have the intelligence for magic. Yet for those of us who do...phaugh! You see that city out there? Insects! Dust! I laugh at them!"
Amanda just hung her head, hiding her face behind her hair while she bit her tongue.
Muttering to himself for a moment more, Yaol finally looked around his laboratory and came to a decision. "I go now to my chambers. You will clean this place up. Do not touch any of the materials! Just clean the dust off of the walls, the shelves and the floors. Do a good job of it, and don't stop until the sun sets!" he demanded, shaking his finger at her.
"Yes, sir," Amanda nodded.
"Sir. Hah! Yes. Sir." Yaol chuckled to himself, grabbing a few of his scrolls before he finally shuffled off. "The guard will come when it is time for you to go back to your cell," he called back just before he closed and locked the door.
Amanda couldn't believe her luck. He actually locked her in his laboratory. She could read every book just as easily as she could understand Yaol's speech. Amanda rushed through the room, looking over each of the books. Some were bound in leather, others protected in wooden boxes. There would doubtlessly be some false starts; it wasn't like anything there was labeled "Magic for Beginners."
Then she came upon a single, large tome, laid upon an ornate bookstand. It was bound in iron, with runes on the cover that spoke of Skelos. Fearing some sort of mystic trap, Amanda dared only open it with a stick. There was no explosion, nor did she turn into a frog or a rat. She stepped closer, reading the words on the first page with wide eyes. Then the next page. Then the next.
"Holy shit," she breathed. "Hyboria really does run on 4th edition rules..."
***
Eric kept his legs pumping. He hustled up the steep slope of the mine shaft, carrying his pan of rocks and debris in his arms. A cave-in at the bottom of one of the shafts that morning had virtually every slave performing this same task. With the sun high in the sky, though, there was little hope of recovering survivors. Men in robes had arrived an hour ago, speaking excitedly of a "breakthrough." Little thought was spared for the miners who were almost certainly lost.
After seven days of stumbles, falls and the bite of the whip, Eric had learned that he was capable of withstanding more physical hardship than he ever would have guessed. He endured the bite of whips, the blazing sun and numerous stumbles and falls in dark caverns, all while performing harsh labor with no end in sight.
Food and water were not hard to come by. Their overseers and guards apparently didn't see much use in keeping their slaves weak when so much hard labor had to be done. They were only allowed to collapse on the hard ground after the summer sun had set, and were usually roused before the dawn.
Exhaustion should have killed him. He wasn't built for this, nor had he ever been particularly athletic. Yet instead of falling apart, Eric grew steadily stronger. Instead of thinning out, he was actually starting to bulk up. He was outside enough that he had quickly developed a deep tan, and had quickly sweat off unwanted flab that he'd never been able to get rid of before. Seven days shouldn't have been enough to make such a difference, but his thickening arms and legs and his flattening stomach didn't lie.
Outside the mine shaft, the summer sun blazed down on the broad pit that served as their camp. Other slaves were around him, some ahead, some behind. Each in turn came to a cart, into which they had to deposit their load of rocks and dirt.
Eric shifted his grip to allow him to shoulder-press his pan up over his head and over the walls of the cart. He sighed as the rocks fell from his pan, but had no time to catch his breath. He had to trundle off back down his tunnel for more.
Something firm and wooden caught on his leg. Eric stumbled and fell, dropping his pan to one side and bumping into the man in front of him. Both went down, as did the slave following Eric in line as he tripped over them.
"Damn!" shouted one. "Watch where you're going!" complained another.
"Sorry," Eric grunted as he twisted around. "Someone tripped me." Looking up, he saw one of the guards standing over them all. He caught Eric's eye, grinning maliciously at him as he stepped back. He bore a tall spear, the shaft of which he slipped out from beneath the pile of fallen men.
"Bastard!" A huge, bearded slave kicked Eric across the face. Only halfway to his feet when it happened, Eric stumbled back onto the ground. Eric looked up at the bigger in shock, who returned the gaze with rage. "You tore my tunic!"
Eric wasn't entirely surprised by the other man's anger. Clothing was about all anyone here had, and even that wasn't much. His own jeans had been reduced to shredded cutoffs. "I'm sorry," Eric stammered as he sat up in the dirt. "I'll try to make it up to you."
"Give me those shoes," the man said, pointing at Eric's dusty Reebok's.
"What? You're way too big for these! Look, I didn't mean to bump you. The guard tripped me."
Someone else kicked Eric from behind. "Don't lie. Give up the shoes or we'll take them."
"I think someone should teach him some manners," grinned the guard with the spear.
Eric scrambled to his feet. Slaves were gathering around now, as were no small number of guards. All watched as Eric was surrounded by an inner ring of four--no, six--men with greedy, angry eyes.
"You're in for a beating, boy," the first angry slave said.
Eric didn't want to make a first move. Not only was he probably screwed, the situation itself seemed insane. Letting the slaves brawl after a cave-in that had the bosses all excited? How did that make any sense? If he could stall, maybe the whole mess would be broken up...
"I'm not giving up what's mine. Don't you see they're trying to turn us against one another?"
"Oh, shut up and fight!" another slave barked. He rushed forward, throwing out a wide right hook. Eric held up his broad miner's pan to block it. There was a sharp "clang" followed by a howl of pain from the man as he went down clutching his hand.
Another grabbed the pan and jerked it out of Eric's hands. A third came in with a punch to his gut. Eric shrugged it off, retaliating with the best uppercut, jab and snap kick combo that he could muster from a few short months of karate classes. It clobbered the man with surprising effectiveness.
Someone else grabbed him by the right arm, followed by another man grabbing his left. He struggled, finding within heartbeats that he was stronger than either man. Then there was another at his back, swiftly holding a shovel across his throat from behind. The big bearded one stepped in front of him with a raised shovel, ready to strike.
"Hold him steady," the bearded one demanded.
Eric kept struggling. There was a sudden "thump" behind his head. The shovel at his neck and the man holding it fell away. It happened just in time for Eric to twist to his left, pulling the man on his right between himself and the bearded man's shovel strike. The shovelhead fell against the slave's head with a crack.
Eric and the man clutching his left arm stumbled and fell together. The bearded man cursed, swinging his shovel down at Eric again, but found it blocked by someone else's shovel. Eric looked up to see a woman standing over him, wielding her shovel like a weapon. She was tall and dark-haired, with limbs whose muscles rippled like steel cables under tanned flesh. Like most of them, she was dressed only in a dirty tunic with a frayed rope for a belt.
"Cimmerian bitch," the bearded one spat, "this is none of your business."
"I find my business where I please," she said. The shovel that had restrained Eric had been snatched up by another slave in the ensuing tangle. The woman shifted her stance, keeping both opponents view.
Eric slammed his fist into the man restraining him. He heard the clank of shovels and grunts of fighting men behind him and the roar of the crowd all around them, but there was nothing to be done until he'd freed himself. Two more blows seemed to settle the matter; his opponent's abdominal muscles collapsed under Eric's punches, and he let Eric's arm go.
Scrambling around to track the fight, Eric saw a third, unarmed man fling himself at the woman as she held off the shovels of the other two. He landed face-first upon her elbow before stumbling to the ground, blood erupting from his nose. Both of the other two rushed her.
She advanced in a spin toward one while dodging the other. Her shovelhead smacked flatly against the side of the man's head. Then she pivoted in the opposite direction, as if bouncing away from the first blow. As she moved, the shovel twisted in her hands. The shovel's edge caught the bearded man right across the bridge of his nose in a sickening crunch.
Both men fell as Eric got to his feet. He was pretty sure the bearded one was dead. The woman remained in a fighting stance, her gaze sweeping the crowd. A hush fell across them all.
"That's enough out of you," spoke up one guard. It was the same one who had tripped Eric. He held his spear at the ready, its sharp edge pointed at the woman.
"Point that somewhere else," the woman said in a thick accent Eric hadn't heard before, "or I'll ram it up your ass."
The world seemed to freeze. Eric and all the other slaves watched the standoff. The guard glanced at his fellows scattered among the crowd before he looked back to the woman. "Get back to work," he said--but he raised his spear as he spoke.
Other guards yelled out the same. Fists and shafts of spears prodded the crowd off in different directions. Orders were shouted to pick up the pans and get the line going again. Eric heard the crack of a whip.
The dark-haired woman looked at Eric for a moment, her chin dipping in a short, single nod. Eric was stunned. Her face was no more delicate than the rest of her body, yet she was beautiful just the same. There was a wild pride to her blue eyes that he'd never seen before, a confidence that made her seem somehow older than her years--which couldn't be much more than Eric's own age. The woman threw her shovel to the guard and then started walking toward the collapsed mine shaft.
Numbly, Eric walked after her. His gaze was fixed on the shapely, powerful legs and hips of his savior.
Work at the bottom of the tunnel had continued at a feverish pitch despite the fight up on the surface. Most of the last of the rubble from the cave-in had been cleared away. As Eric had heard the overseers say in the morning, the diggers in this shaft had broken through to walls of stone blocks, all of them adorned with carvings and etchings of snakes. They had begun clearing away the rocks and dirt that obscured the walls when the ceiling caved in on them.
The camp wasn't digging for minerals. It was an excavation. All the shafts had been dug in search of whatever building included this wall. Rather than digging down to the thing from the surface, though, the robed men wanted the earth around it cleared away so that the structure would remain underground.
"Most of this fell away on its own," Tronus said, waving to the space between the stonework wall and the natural walls of the cave. "We lost eleven miners in this."
"Set demands sacrifice for these discoveries," one robed man said.
"Up there," another robed man in the tunnel said, waving to the top of the underground wall. "We need more of that cleared out up there. We may find an entrance up above. Get some of your people up there."
"We'll need ladders," Tronus said.
"Then get them!"
"We're working on it," Tronus answered. "They have to be put together down here. We can't get tall ladders down the tunnels. In the meantime we finish clearing away rubble."
"In the meantime you waste time," scowled the robed man. "You there! You! You! Get up there! Get up there and clear away the roof! Climb! Climb!"
The miners grimaced at one another, but set to climbing the wall before Tronus had his whip out. The dozen or so present tried to climb the wall, doing their best to find purchase among the carvings of runes and serpents. All found the wall much too steep. All except two.
Eric hardly even thought of the difficulty at first. He merely hoped to avoid Tronus's wrath. Yet he found himself a foot up off the ground, and then another. The climb was murder on the sneakers he'd just fought so hard to defend, as he had to jam his toes into what few jagged footholds he could find. Still, he managed to work his way into tiny, minor grooves and bumps in the wall as he pushed and pulled himself further up.
"About time you were good for something, whelp!" Tronus shouted from below.
Eric didn't stop to look. It wasn't as if praise from Tronus made his work any more pleasant. Yet he thrilled to his achievement. He had never climbed anything more than a tree or a chain link fence, and not even that since middle school.
A hand gripped his wrist at the top of the wall. He took advantage of the offered aid, pushing himself up over to come to a rest at the top of the wall. He found, as he expected, that the stone blocks making up the wall were several feet thick. It was enough space to crouch down and catch his breath.
"Thanks," he grunted.
"You climb almost as well as one of my people," said the woman crouched down beside him.
Eric blinked as he raised his head. It was the same woman who'd just come to his rescue. She'd gotten to the top amazingly fast.
"Thanks for that, too, I guess," Eric huffed. "I didn't know I had it in me."
"Maybe you've got some Cimmerian in you, then," the woman said in a husky, thickly-accented voice. She clapped him on the shoulder with a strong hand. "I had thought you a weakling when you first turned up, but you seem to be getting along fine now."
"Why did you help me? Up there, in the fight?"
"You didn't back down to those men, even if they were more than you could handle on your own. Not many here stand up for themselves." The woman shrugged. "You could stand to learn to handle yourself better, but at least you have some guts. I'd hate to be the only one around here who isn't a coward."
"Hey!" Tronus shouted. "I don't hear any working up there! Just because you're out of reach of my whip now doesn't mean you'll escape it later!"
"You sent us up here without any tools!" the woman called back. "Want us to throw rocks down to you?" At that, the woman hefted a rough stone the size of her head up in one hand and tossed it over the edge. She laughed as Tronus barked at her to stop, dropping two more over the side before she obeyed. "There isn't enough room to swing a pick yet," she said. "Toss us some chisels and hammers."
Eric looked down as Tronus and the robed men barked orders at the other miners, trying to scrounge up the tools even as they got the other slaves back to work. "This should be good for a laugh," muttered the woman.
"Who are you?" Eric asked.
"Fallon. You?"
"My name's Eric. Are you...are you Cimmerian?" It was an easy enough guess. Cimmerians were supposed to be phenomenal climbers. There was also the thick accent and the wild look in her eyes.
"Yes," she said, grinning with a bit of pride. "Don't let the collar fool you. I can slip out of here whenever I please. These fools can't hold a daughter of the hills who wishes to leave." She watched a chisel fly up toward them, but didn't bother to reach for it as it fell short.
"Then why are you here?"
"I'm watching for someone," Fallon shrugged. "One of my tribe. I expect he may land here himself soon enough."
Remembering the tall, dying man from Bel-Danab's summoning room, Eric swallowed hard. "He's not, um...he's not named Conan, is he?"
"Conan? Who's that?" Fallon caught a chisel that finally came up within reach.
"He's a Cimmerian, too. I've heard stories about him."
"Never heard of him," the woman shrugged.
Relief washed over Eric. At least there was that.
"I don't know your accent," Fallon said. She handed him the chisel, along with the hammer that followed. "Where are you from?"
"A place called Seattle."
"Never heard of that, either," Fallon grunted. Once she had tools of her own, she turned away, keeping her head low as she crawled over to a crevasse between the cave and the wall. It gave Eric a rear view of her shapely hips and well-muscled legs, with her dirty tunic covering only enough of her ass to leave him dying to see more. "Best get to work. That overseer knows better than to try to whip me. If he suspects we're dallying, he'll doubtlessly take it out on you."
Eric glanced around and looked for a decent place to start. He started to grin. He was happy to find someone friendly to talk to; most everyone else around here was either a brow-beaten slave or a callous guard. Fallon's confidence was certainly infectious, too. From the moment he'd woken up in Bel-Danab's dungeon, Eric had resolved to find a way out of this mess. As he worked beside Fallon, though, he found the difference between resolve and hope.
***
Warm summer rains swept through the city of Luxur that night, falling so thick that it was impossible to see much beyond the tower walls. Over the weeks since Amanda arrived, she had developed the impression that very little rain fell in Stygia, or at least this part of it. Yet here it was, pounding the tower so hard that it could be heard even through the stone walls.
Amanda climbed the long spiral staircase that led to the top of the tower as she had been instructed. She had spent the time since sunset shelving books--at least as far as Yaol needed to know. As far as she was concerned, "shelving" involved an awful lot of reading. But then came the guard, conveying orders to go to the roof.
By the time she reached the trap door at the top of the stairs, the rain had stopped. She knocked twice, then thrice, all as she had been instructed. She knew full well that this was the trigger to unlock the magical seal on the door. Yaol hadn't told her that, but his books had.
As she emerged from the trap door onto the roof, she found Yaol, Randast and their master gathered around a wide bowl. It was at least ten feet across and as deep as a bathtub at its center, judging from its external shape. To look within the water, though, one would think that it was far deeper.
Amanda glanced around the roof, trying to take it all in. A short parapet, perhaps a yard tall, surrounded the rooftop, with glowing orbs embedded here and there to provide dim light. Bel-Danab and Randast stood on opposite sides of the bowl, wearing robes that were hardly damp despite the fact that everything around them was soaked. The gem in Bel-Danab's staff glowed with a bright red light. Yaol was there, too; unlike his master, he was dripping with water...and blood.
Chained to posts next to Yaol was a naked man--Amanda recognized him as one of the cooks--whose throat was slashed from ear to ear. Yaol held a bloody, curved knife. He raised one finger of his other hand, also covered in blood, to his lips as he looked at Amanda. There was a wild look in his eyes.
"Is there any other time to enact the ritual?"
"No," answered an unseen voice. Amanda saw ripples spread out from the center of the pool. "You must wait until the last days of summer. Only then will the stars be right."
"Is the sacrifice appropriate?" he asked, gesturing to Amanda without even looking at her.
"Your sacrifice is appropriate now, yes," answered the voice. Amanda's heart began to pound with fear. "A less pure sacrifice will be unacceptable."
Amanda swallowed. She didn't like the sound of that at all.
"What opposition remains?"
"Powers in Shadizar and Aghrapur know of your intent," answered the waters.
"Do they plot against me?"
"Yes."
Bel-Danab nodded. His gaze lifted from the bowl, leveling now on Randast. "We shall have to settle that very soon."
"Of course, master," Randast nodded.
Bel-Danab raised his staff over the waters with a flourish. "I release you, ancient one," he said, his voice taking on a smug note as he spoke. With that, Bel-Danab gestured to his favored apprentice to follow as he walked to the trap door. Both of them passed by Amanda without a word.
Shaken, Amanda looked to Yaol with genuinely fearful eyes. He was wiping off his dagger on the soaking wet hair of the dead man chained up beside him. "Clean this up," Yaol said casually. He then put the dagger back in its sheath on his belt and walked across the rooftop, murmuring a spell as he went. His robes dried out within seconds as he walked.
"You mean him?" Amanda blinked. Her voice wavered.
"It's just a body," Yaol said, waving a dismissive hand. "Oh. Here. The keys to his manacles," he said, placing a key ring in her hands. Then he grinned at her wickedly. "You may want to drain out the rest of his blood before you try to move him. Makes a body a little lighter. Anything else falls out of him as you haul him down, you'll have to clean it up. Lean him over the side there; it will all fall into the gardens. It keeps the roses red."
Laughing at his own joke, Yaol gave Amanda a hard slap across the shoulder before he left.
Trembling, Amanda stepped closer to the body. This man had been indifferent to her, but at least he hadn't been cruel. Part of her wished she knew his name. Part of her was glad she didn't. Even without being very familiar with him, though, this was a grisly, awful task. In principle, she knew how to deal with him through minor magic. In practice, her attempts at spellcasting were as likely to make a bigger mess as they were to clean one up. She had chanced it a few times, but she could only learn so much from books without anyone to coach her and with so few, brief opportunities to experiment. Every tiny attempt was a huge risk.
"Amanda," said a voice.
She gasped and stepped back. It was the water.
"Come closer, Amanda," said the voice, deep and ethereal. "You will not be harmed."
"I thought...I thought you were released," she stammered, gingerly moving closer.
"Released from the summons, yes. Yet I have reason to linger. I will go when I wish to go."
"Wish I could say the same," Amanda grimaced.
"Indeed. You belong here even less than I." That was all Amanda needed to know about the voice; anything more of its identity was best left unanswered.
"I want to go home. I want to find my friend and go home."
"I can show you your friend," the waters said. "Look into me."
Amanda paused. She had done more than a little reading when Yaol wasn't looking. There were prices to be paid for this sort of thing. "What do you want from me in return?"
"You are wise to ask," the waters said, sounding almost approving, "but for this, all I require of you is your silence. Speak not of me. Look. Look into the waters. Eric is here."
Swallowing hard once more, Amanda looked into the bowl. The waters looked dark and deep. At first she saw only the dark clouds overhead. Then there were shadows, and then light. She saw Eric then, crawling over rocks in some tunnel, pounding away with a hammer and chisel. He bore the scars from a whip on his tanned, well-muscled back.
Amanda inhaled sharply. She'd never seen Eric with his shirt off, but even so, she never would've guessed that he had such muscles. In fact, she was sure he hadn't had arms like that. He'd always had a bit of a gut, too, but he seemed to be well on his way to getting rid of it.
Eric was working hard, sweating like a pig...but also occasionally grinning. There was some woman next to him in that tunnel, performing the same task. They seemed to share the occasional jest or comment. He didn't look entirely happy, but wherever he was, at least he wasn't alone.
"How can he look so different?" Amanda asked. "We haven't even been here two weeks."
"On the night you were summoned, Bel-Danab had intended to claim the strength of a mortal mercenary for himself. You and Eric distracted him in his work. The mortal got loose, and Eric benefited from the vitality Bel-Danab had hoped to steal for himself."
"Where is he? What is he doing?"
"Bel-Danab works to reclaim a great power buried ages ago," the water answered. "It is not far from this city. Your friend may well have found an ally there.
"You, too, are in need of allies, Amanda."
The image faded away. Amanda found herself looking at simple water again, though the clouds above were already parting. She could soon see stars reflected on the surface.
"Can you get me out of here? Can you tell me how Eric and I can get home?"
"No. To return to your home, you will need Bel-Danab's staff, for it is keyed to the magic that brought you here. The staff is bound to him. For another to claim it, Bel-Danab must die.
"I cannot take physical action, but I can give you knowledge. You have already begun the path to your freedom. You have the intelligence and the strength you require. You have the courage. If you could act freely, you could learn what you need alone. You do not have that freedom, or that time. I can provide the guidance you need."
Amanda swallowed. She glanced at the dead man hanging from chains. "At what price?"
The waters chuckled. "I have no use for blood sacrifices. I want no souls. I share your desires. I would deny Bel-Danab that which he seeks. I want freedom. I want revenge."
Her eyes narrowed. She took another look at the body of the poor, harmless cook. Her gaze then fell upon the open trap door. She crossed the roof once more, closing the door and turning the latch before she returned to the bowl.
"Teach me."
***
"It's as if they fear a little bit of rainfall," Fallon shrugged softly. "Look. How many men do you see with bows over there by the tents? Aren't they supposed to patrol for escaping slaves?"
Eric took note of the cluster of guards near the larger tents. He and Fallon sat upon the back of a wagon, letting the rain pour down on top of them. The majority of the slaves slept that night in the mine shafts, doing what they could to avoid the water that ran in small streams down the tunnels and collected in pools at the bottoms. No one had stopped Eric or her Cimmerian companion as they strode out to find a spot to sit out in the open. No one cared.
Silence fell between them for a long moment. "I'm sorry about Hagan," he said finally.
Fallon waved it off dismissively. "He was a dog and a bastard, and I owed him a beating for cheating me in a deal in Zamora. I thought the Stygians had captured him, but if he was in that tower as you say, it is more likely that he hired himself out to them. If he's dead through Stygian sorcery, then more the fool was he."
"Still. If he did not sell out, he should be avenged. And even if he did...Bel-Danab should learn that treachery against a Cimmerian does not go unanswered."
After another long moment of silence, Eric finally couldn't hold it back. "You seriously stayed here in this slave camp doing hard labor just for the chance to kick a guy's ass?"
"I was going to do more than kick him in his ass," Fallon shrugged. She realized he was looking at her like she was very strange. "What?"
"So you've never, like...had a job or anything, have you?"
"I have taken on jobs," Fallon said with mild indignation. "I've served as a mercenary. An escort through wilderness. I've guarded caravans, recovered stolen goods, carried dispatches...I've worked from Aquilonia to Hyrkania and back again."
"And you're only twenty-two?"
"I left home when I was sixteen," Fallon grunted. "If you ask me, that's a late start. I should have left earlier. I was sick of snow and waking up cold every morning, anyway."
"That why you left home?"
"No," she shook her head. "I left home to avoid a blood feud. My sister's husband beat her. No one else was willing to deal with it. I did."
It was Eric's turn to grunt. "They'd put a man in jail for that where I'm from," he said. "If you can prove it, anyway."
Fallon looked up at him thoughtfully. He was staring at the guards near their tents again, otherwise he might have been surprised at the look in her eyes. "Bel-Danab wanted Amanda for something," Eric said. "Something about her being a virgin made her worth something at the end of summer."
"Probably as some foul mystic sacrifice. Or to be sold off as a slave-wife to some other wizard. If you care about her, you should rescue her."
"I mean to, but I just...I've never fought before. Not really. Life in my country is peaceful for most people. I took some karate in high school--er, I learned a little about fighting with my hands and feet, but not nearly enough. And nothing with weapons." Again, Fallon grunted. She wasn't looking his way. "Could you teach me?"
The barbarian woman's head tilted. She looked at him strangely, almost with suspicion. "You want to learn how to fight from a woman?"
"What difference does that make?" Eric blinked.
Fallon's blue eyes seemed to light up in the darkness as the rains parted. "You mean that?"
"I want--I need to learn from someone who knows what they're doing. I don't care if it's a man or woman. I care if my teacher is good. I want you."
Her face split into a fierce grin. "They don't teach you to be careful what you ask for in this country of yours, do they, Eric?"
His heart started to pound as she looked at him. She seemed to put a lot of pride in her homeland; maybe that was a place to find common ground. "They teach you not to judge people on appearances," he said. "Man. Woman. Any color. Any religion. Doesn't matter how you were born. Not everyone really learns that, of course...but it's what we teach."
"I think I would like to see this place you call home," Fallon grinned.
***
"Shem will not simply roll over for you," said the dignified man in silken robes and jewels. He sat at Bel-Danab's long dining table, flanked by a pair of clerks who sat at his sides. "Nor will Kush, nor Dafar...and those are just your neighbors." He sipped wine from the fine silver goblet, smiling serenely before putting it back on the table.
"It will not even go that far, Jagol" said the balding fellow opposite him. "Your own king and the nobles fear you. There are already whispers at court that your days are numbered." He had only a single companion, a blonde waif in a red sarong. She turned to claim a goblet from the platter Amanda held as she passed by, looking up at her with sad eyes sunken into a pretty face. The blonde sipped a little from the goblet, then after a moment placed it in front of her master.
Knowing there was nothing she could do for her, Amanda stayed silent. She simply gave the blonde a sympathetic look before she moved on to the next space.
All around the table were men in robes of various sorts, all of them sorcerers and priests. They had arrived from far-off places at Bel-Danab's table to speak of matters that Amanda couldn't entirely follow. There was something about unearthing an ancient temple to Set, of serpent warriors and some incarnation of Set that had slumbered for ages. Bel-Danab was making a power grab. That much was clear. He also had a number of people he didn't want standing in his way.
He had gathered them here under a truce to discuss his plans. He wanted Stygia and its neighboring lands. He also wanted to assure the gathered men that he would go no further.
Part of Amanda wanted to tell these people that appeasement never worked, but then, none of them looked all that kind or benevolent themselves.
"How kind of you to share these rumors with us, Lord Oellah," Randast said from his chair to the right of Bel-Danab at the end of the table.
"As if you didn't already know," put forth another guest.
"Indeed," Bel-Danab nodded, "and as if we have not taken this into account. But again, Lord Oellah's friendship has been noted." As usual, his staff was in easy reach. His women were conspicuously absent.
Oellah paused. He glared at his pretty attendant and then gestured to the wine. She took another sip from his silver goblet, paused, and then nodded before handing it to him. Oellah drank down a deep gulp, betraying only a slight tremor in his hands as he moved.
"My plans are already set in motion," Bel-Danab told them all. "Yet we with enlightenment beyond the ordinary nobility need not fight."
"Sorcery is not enlightenment, Bel-Danab," said Jagol. "Nor is it wisdom. What predator is forever sated by a single meal? There is the thrill of the hunt, the glorious feast and a time to bask in the sun with a full belly, but eventually there is always....always...ghk..."
Eyes went wide across the table. The guests looked to one another in alarm. "Jagol!" said one of the man's attendants. "Jagol, are you...arghk...gggnnhhh"
He, too, froze. In mere moments, each froze in place. From her spot standing at the end of the table, Amanda watched in horror as Bel-Danab's guests sat in mute, unmoving terror. Black bile seeped from their noses and mouths. Her platter of wine goblets clattered to the floor. Sorcerers and servants alike fell forward, collapsing in their seats. All except Jagol, who remained still and silent but bore no other sign of trouble.
Yaol appeared from thin air at the end of the table, having been concealed by a spell of invisibility the entire time. He plunged his curved dagger into Jagol's flesh again and again, but then Yaol stopped. There was no blood. There was only a flesh-colored goo that slowly bubbled from the corpse.
"A simulacrum," Yaol said, looking to his master at the end of the table.
"Puppetted from his sanctum, most likely," Randast scowled. "The connection will have been broken by now. He will no longer be watching."
"Nor will he think us capable of swift retaliation," Bel-Danab said mildly. "It's a long way to Shadizar, after all." He rose from the table and nodded to Yaol. "Excellent work with the poisons, Yaol. Jagol would have escaped any other ploy in the same fashion, yet we have at least cleared out the rest of our opposition."
Yaol bowed deeply, his voice crackling with excitement. "Thank you, master!"
Randast was already at the end of a curtain behind Bel-Danab's seat. He pulled it quickly, revealing a mirror well over seven feet in height. Bel-Danab murmured words of power, reaching out with his staff to touch the gleaming jewel at the end to the mirror until the glass rippled.
"We go now to finish this while Jagol believes he is safe," Bel-Danab said to Yaol. "We shall have to travel back here without the aid of such magic as the portal. Do try to keep things here under control."
"Yes, master!" Yaol said, bowing again with greater excitement.
Trying to keep hold of herself, Amanda rubbed tears from her eyes as Bel-Danab and Randast passed through the mirror. With that, they were gone. There was no further sound in the dining hall other than her sniffles and Yaol's gleeful chuckles.
"I knew it would work," he said to himself in his native tongue. "My ideas always work. Always!" He walked over to where Amanda had sunk to her knees. "You! Girl! Get up!"
"Did you have to kill the servants, too?" she sobbed. "What did they do to you?"
"Bah! Stop your whining!" He kicked her hard on the shoulder, knocking her over. Then he waved his hands at her with a sour expression. "Get up! You have a lot to clean up here. Go down and get the acid vat open and start bringing these people down there, eh? Before they start to stink." Yaol clinked a couple of rings together, invoking the magical spell that unlocked his laboratory.
Amanda got to her feet and backed away with revulsion plain on her face. Yaol laughed at her like it was funny. "Don't worry. I will check the bodies of the wizards. No telling what treasures they may carry. You could blow yourself up, or turn yourself into a bug. Eh?" His laughter followed her as she fled to the staircase.
Amanda ran to the window in Yaol's laboratory, collapsed by the windowsill and sobbed. She couldn't get the slave-girl's image out of her head. She looked so sad. So beaten down. What could she have done to deserve such a death? What of the other attendants? Amanda could presume that the guests themselves weren't the most honorable people, but for all she knew even they weren't all as awful as her captors.
Moments later, her sobbing stopped. Her anguish remained, but she had cried too many times already. Inevitably, she came to the conclusion that her tears changed nothing.
She'd only been in the laboratory for a minute, maybe more. Amanda looked around, taking the room in once again. She knew the laboratory well. She knew the enchantments, the artifacts, the curses. She was a fast learner--scholarship student, science major, voracious reader. Between the books, the scrolls and the guidance of the nameless spirit in the rooftop bowl, she had learned a great deal.
Perhaps it would be wise to continue to lay low, to study in secret, to filch more power and knowledge. She was rapidly catching up to Yaol, at least, though his masters were clearly more powerful still. She didn't know how she could handle them But at the moment, Bel-Danab and Randast were both gone, and wouldn't be back for days if not weeks.
Amanda made her decision. She rose from the windowsill and wiped the tears from her eyes.
***
Yaol cackled with glee as he shuffled down the stairs. Clutched tightly in his hands was an impromptu sack--really just a gathered-up cloak--containing the treasures looted from a half-dozen arcane masters, all now dead up in the dining hall. Enchanted jewelry, a couple of wands, a collection of rune stones and even a few ensorcelled coins were tucked away in the folds of the fabric. It was a pretty good haul.
Bel-Danab's guests had traveled with their defenses up, certainly. They had borne wards against steel and flame, had shielded themselves against all manner of magic. Bel-Danab had sworn to their safe passage, of course, and naturally his guests guarded against treachery just the same. As Yaol had guessed, though, they hadn't expected something as simple and subtle as slow-acting poisons.
It was how the mighty fell, after all. They always underestimated someone. It would be the same someday for Bel-Danab and Randast, too. They would both underestimate Yaol eventually, and he would strike. He would claim their power for himself. It was, ultimately, the way of things. Everyone underestimated the little guy.
Yaol came to his laboratory door, nudging it open with his foot, and shuffled inside, still grinning from ear to ear. Then his gaze lifted up from the floor in front of him and he stopped.
Books were missing from the shelves. Chests were open and empty. The book of Skelos--admittedly just a copy, but still invaluable--was missing from its space on the oaken bookstand. Practically every dangerous potion and alchemical agent was removed from its safe storage and arrayed on shelves along the walls, even near the window.
That stupid girl was wearing one of his old enchanted cloaks. She stood in front of a shelf that should have been full of books with a sack at her feet. There was a cold fury in her eyes. His mouth opened to roar out a demand, but she was already pointing a wand at him with one hand; with the other, she had pointed three fingers at him, but now curled them back like talons.
Green mist burst from Yaol's chest, streaming toward her wand. The mist seemed to carry away all of his strength. His bundle of loot clattered to the floor. "What...what are you doing?!" he blinked.
She had the drop on him. Before Yaol could react, the girl launched another attack, this time throwing out shimmering bolts of force that drove him to his knees. Yaol gasped in pain.
"You're a monster," she said flatly. "I'm gonna kick your ass and take all your stuff."
"Guards!" he shouted. "Guards!" Yaol raised his hands to cast a spell, but hesitated. Though his first instinct was to blast the girl to bits, he couldn't risk setting off the potions around her.
Precision counted. Freezing blue light burst from his fingers, leaving a momentary trail of frost in their wake before striking the girl. He realized his mistake almost as soon as he'd made it. The girl's first strike had left him weakened, and that old cloak was enchanted to protect from cold and heat. His magical rays hardly harmed her at all.
The sound of rushing footsteps from above and below filled the stairway behind him. He had to stall her. Just for a moment. "Wait! You don't know what you're tampering with, girl!" Yaol snarled. "These powers...they are more complicated than you realize!"
"I was reading at a college level when I was eleven, dickhead," Amanda scowled. "If anyone's got a learning disability here, it's you."
Yaol grimaced. A heartbeat more, then another, and then he wouldn't be alone...
Amanda reached out with her fingers fanned out wide, the wand deftly twirled between a couple of them as her thumbs touched. Yaol's heart jumped as the guards burst into the entrance behind him. He recognized the spell as she cast it. Yaol couldn't risk throwing wide, blasting spells into his laboratory. Amanda, however, stood where she didn't have the same problem.
Flames blew from between her fingers as if carried on fierce winds. Yaol and the guards alike screamed under the terrible heat. Men died around him as he flung himself to the floor, crawling away as best he could from the raging blast.
He scrambled out of the laboratory, onto the landing, and then flung himself down several steps. The awful smell of his own burning flesh filled his nostrils just as the pain coursed through his entire body.
Yaol did his best to focus past it. He had but a moment to choose between fight or flight against an opponent who seemed to have planned her ambush perfectly. Her tactics were fiendish. If escape were her plan, she could've done it before he came in. She clearly meant to kill him. He wanted to turn invisible again, but he couldn't manage that feat twice in one night.
He heard more footsteps rushing up from below, along with the clatter of mail and steel. More guards were coming. His spirit lifted, his panic abated...if he could just get one solid shot in on her to turn the tide.... Yaol fumbled for the wand tucked in his belt. He would have to fight. The scorched, bloodied wizard lay in wait on the stairs for the girl, ready to hurl a devastating spell at her the moment he saw her emerge.
Instead of the girl, though, Yaol saw a small ceramic ball fly from the doorway. It struck against the opposite wall with a blinding flash of light. Yaol screamed, recognizing his own work too late to shield his eyes. Brilliant, colorful spots haunted his gaze even with his eyes closed. He squinted and winced, trying to focus. As soon as he saw her silhouette move through the doorway, he struck. A great snake of lightning flashed from his hands, leaping forward and striking at his foe.
All he caught with his spell was the cloak he'd carried from the dining room, which floated across the stairway landing under a simple cantrip. It suffered terribly under the wrath of Yaol's electric snake, falling lifelessly to the floor as the lightning faded. Then more guards were at his side. One reached out to grab Yaol's shoulder, helping him to his feet. Two others pressed forward, squeezing around him on the wide staircase.
Amanda stepped out from the doorway. Bright green liquid, conjured from thin air, shot from her hand like an arrow at Yaol, striking him dead in the chest. The protective enchantment of his robes was not enough to withstand the acid that had drenched him. It splattered all around when it struck, catching his saviors in turn. All in the stairway shrieked in pain under the liquid assault.
He fought to strip off the remains of his robes, to get to his feet, to flee. Yaol's ruined body moved with such torturous pain that it was quickly growing numb. Dying on his feet as acid ate away at what flesh hadn't been burned by flame, Yaol saw his would-be saviors lying dead around him. The girl he'd thought only a meek slave stepped through the bodies.
"You're not an all-powerful wizard," she said. "You're not even a bully. You're just a bunch of experience points."
Yaol tried to ask her what that meant, but his ruined lips couldn't manage it. The last thing he ever saw was her fist as it came straight at his nose. There was a flash of red, and then a falling sensation, and then his pain and his dreams of power ended.
***
The door to Bel-Danab's throne room was blasted from its hinges by a thunderous shockwave that carried the last of the guards along with it. Amanda strode in after them, not waiting for the dust to clear. The only two occupants within the room cowered behind the throne itself, wanting no part of any battle with her.
Amanda hardly even looked at Bel-Danab's concubines as she passed. She spared them two words while crossing the chamber toward the other door: "Bitches, leave."
They hastened for the demolished exit, looking back in fear at the girl they had earlier discounted as a waste of space little more than a month ago. Amanda continued on her way, moving to the second staircase and then on up to the rooftop.
Warm summer winds blew all around the tower, whipping through her hair as she walked toward the great bowl. An ordinary-looking backpack was slung over one of her shoulders, while a hefty pouch hung from one hip on her belt. Both held far more treasures than any ordinary bag of similar volume could contain.
Amanda looked into the waters, seeing only the reflection of her own face and the stars above. "Are you there? Can you hear me?"
Silence was the only answer she received. Amanda took in a deep breath, looking out at the night sky and then back to the bowl. "I don't have the power to call to you like Bel-Danab did," she said. "You know that. I don't even know who you are. But if you can hear me, I'm going to end this. At least for you. As best I can. I don't know if I'll have another opportunity."
"You have struck back," the voice came once more, rippling through the waters.
Amanda swallowed hard. She really didn't know who or what she was talking to. From all she had read, though, chances were good that it wasn't entirely benevolent. All along, she understood that it only really helped her for the chance to harm Bel-Danab. Yet help her it had, and she could certainly sympathize with its goals.
"I have," she said. Her voice wavered. Facing Yaol had been frightening, but in the end, he was only a man. They were all only men. This was something else.
"You have a plan beyond this?"
"I do," she said. "I need to ask you something. A couple of things. Will you tell me?"
"That depends on your questions."
"If the tower is destroyed...will that free you from Bel-Danab?"
There was a long pause. "The collected treasure and power of Bel-Danab's unnaturally long life is held in this tower. If it is destroyed, Bel-Danab will not be able to call upon me...until he rebuilds, or finds another way. It will free me for a time, yes. To truly free me, Bel-Danab must die."
"Yeah. Well. I'm gonna work on that," Amanda said. "He left, though. He went away. I don't think I'll have another chance to do this, so I'm gonna take what I can get."
"You haven't the power to destroy a building such as this yet."
"I have a plan," she shrugged. "Can you tell me who else is in the tower? Is it all still just guards? Are there slaves still in the tower?"
Again there was a silent pause. "The slaves and some of the guards have left the tower. They hide among the walls, near the gate. They have heard sounds of your battle and seek refuge."
She nodded. "Can you tell me how to find Eric?"
"He remains in the mines. He is safe. Amanda," the voice said deeply, "Eric has begun to find his strength. He has begun to adapt to this world. Worry not about him. Let him find you. You must look to yourself. If your plan succeeds, I will have no further need of payment. I will, in fact, owe you, yet if you succeed I will have no way to balance the scales. Will you accept my last guidance?"
She started to shake. Warm winds blew all around her, yet Amanda felt herself shiver. "If I've already paid," she said, "then yes."
Wind blew over the tower again, from behind Amanda and across the water. "You are not yet ready to face Bel-Danab, Amanda. Nor is Eric. You both need time. You must hide from our enemy. You must study and grow."
"How long?"
"Bel-Danab's plans must not be allowed to culminate. When he returns, he will likely rush to finish them. Until that time, you must hide. Without the resources of this tower, his ability to find you will be limited, yet he is still a powerful sorcerer and a chosen servant of a god."
Amanda grimaced. She had hoped knocking out the tower would be enough. In hindsight, she realized that was foolish. "How do I hide from him, then?"
"The only thing that can shield you from the eyes of a god is another god," the water explained. "Seek refuge in the temple of Derketo."
"Won't there be a price for that?"
"Nothing is ever free," the water answered. "Yet you have already found one ally whose price was in your own interests. Even some of the gods of this age can be dealt with thusly."
Amanda nodded. She looked out over the city, then over the tower, making sure she had her directions straight. "Thank you," she said simply.
There was nothing further from the bowl. All she heard was the whistle of the wind.
For all the lightning and flame of her battle with Yaol, her next step was the truest test of her power. The spell was short and simple, yet precise, and the cost of failure was dire. Amanda breathed in deeply. Screwing up anything else along her way here would have cost her life just the same. Tracing a simple pattern in the air, Amanda let out her breath, inhaled again, and stepped over the parapet into the night air.
Her heart was in her throat for the first moment of her descent, but then her spirits soared. She fell, but only slowly, buoyed along by the wind. To be sure, she couldn't fly, nor levitate, but she fell as light as a feather.
Laughing for the first time in weeks, Amanda decided to make an effort at steering herself. There was little control, but she managed to at least turn herself to let the wind blow her further away from the tower. She came to land well outside the walls, finding herself on the roof of a nearby building. In this new spot, she was merely a couple of stories from the ground.
She had a good view of the window to Yaol's laboratory, high above her. It was less than halfway up the tower. Taking another deep breath, Amanda pulled the haversack down from her shoulder, drew from it a wand different from the one she'd used in her fight, and pointed it toward the window. She steadied her aim and recited the words to the spell over and over again. Unlike her fall, she had more than one shot at this, but it was a long shot just the same.
Amanda barked the key word of invocation. A silvery bolt of force streamed from the wand up to the tower, striking against the stone near the window. She cast again, coming closer. A third attempt struck a bit high.
She heard shouts from the street below. Her activity had caught the attention of the many people out late that night. Amanda put it out of her head. Wizardry required nothing if not concentration. Once more, she fired.
Her silvery missile struck home, smashing into the rack of alchemical solutions and concoctions she had arrayed near the window. Most were dangerous enough in and of themselves. Many of them were never meant to be mixed, let alone set off together.
The explosion pulverized great stone blocks from above and below the window and blasted loose still many more. Even from her spot many stories down, Amanda felt the shockwave as it passed with a thunderous boom that was heard for miles. She was forced to look away for a moment, closing her eyes, but when she looked back she saw that the damage was even more dire than she expected. Shouts and cries of terror erupted all around. Amanda saw the guards at the wall had wisely flung open the gate to save themselves. Everyone from Bel-Danab and Randast's concubines to the lowliest slaves ran for their lives.
Amanda felt a sharp pang of relief at that. It was no less than she expected, but just the same she had worried. Looking back up as more and more debris fell from the tower, Amanda felt herself taking instinctive steps backward along her rooftop. The hole she had made was huge. Further explosions ripped through the tower as more of Yaol's raw materials reacted. In a room near Yaol's laboratory were his acid vats, now surely overturned and spilling everywhere.
There were loud, frightening cracking sounds. An awful grinding. The tower buckled around its giant, gaping hole. Amanda's heart raced as the top of the structure began to collapse under its own weight. The impact of so much mass falling from above was too much for the floors and walls below. Like so many others in the city that night, Amanda watched in awe as the Tower of Bel-Danab came crashing down within the high walls around it.
The cloud of dust created by the destruction of the tower was predictably immense. Amanda turned away as it rose, pulling up the hood of her cloak as she fled. She needed to take advantage of the chaos and all the eyes turned toward the understandable distraction.
Beside this two story building was a shorter one. Amanda hopped down onto that roof, fled across it, then moved toward the next. Eventually she found a place to climb down and shadows in which to hide. While others ran to see what was going on, Amanda moved further away, putting as much distance between herself and the disaster she caused as she could.
Amanda crept through dark, empty streets, looking for any abandoned space she could find. She discovered a simple shop, its wares hauled away at the end of the day rather than being left behind for thieves. She slipped inside, closed the shutters behind her and reached into her haversack once more.
The green gem that Yaol had given to Amanda to place out on the balcony of his laboratory had doubled in size since she had first seen it. She hadn't known its purpose then, but she had come to understand it once she'd had a chance to look over Yaol's notes. The wretched man had gone to great trouble and expense to gather the components required in making it and even more in working its enchantments. The effect itself wasn't more dramatic as other, similar spells and magical treasures...but its effects were permanent.
Amanda slipped out of her cloak and her tattered clothes. She had to be naked for this to work. She raised the gem above her head before squeezing it in her hands. It was crushed almost instantly, showering Amanda with tiny flecks of emerald that glittered in what little light was present in the mostly empty storefront. She breathed slowly, in and out, concentrating on the effect she desired.
Quiet moments passed. Amanda felt a tremor run through her body, then another. Her skin soon felt tight and dry, yet her muscles ached for movement. She found herself stretching this way and that in slow, flowing movements. The irritation of her skin was quickly overwhelmed by the pleasurable sensations running within her. Amanda continued to stretch, laying on the floor and pushing against the wall while reaching backward with her legs as far as she could.
She felt a light, almost distant tearing sensation at one shoulder, then the next. She glanced down to see her desiccated, almost scaly skin had parted like fabric tearing at a seam, yet with soft, healthy flesh underneath. She found herself grinning, feeling too good not to enjoy this. Amanda writhed on the ground, crawling away from herself, leaving behind the old, dried-out, discarded flesh of her former shell.
Minutes passed. The process was not instantaneous, nor was it remotely natural, but Amanda found herself enjoying it. Languidly running her hands across her body, Amanda freed herself from dried, dead flesh like a molting snake.
The Amanda that emerged was dramatically shapelier. Her legs and arms were toned and smooth. Her figure took on a shape she had only dreamed of having weeks before. She even pulled away excess flesh from her face, tearing it off as if she had been wearing a mask.
Satisfied that the process was done, Amanda stood and stretched once more. She ran her hands over her new body, finding the results excited her. Ultimately, she had needed a way to alter her appearance so that it would be difficult for Bel-Danab's minions to recognize her. If she could become strikingly beautiful along the way, she decided, she certainly wouldn't mind.
It was a simple enough trick of magic to vaporize the shed skin of her former self. Looking at her discarded clothing, she decided to get rid of it, too. She had snatched up enough other clothing to disguise herself as a local before leaving the tower. Amanda dressed, gathered her things, and slipped back out into the night.
She found the temple shortly before dawn. Torches mounted to either side illuminated the steps from the street to the tall pillars marking the temple entrance. Her head still enshrouded by the hood of her cloak, Amanda walked up the steps to the small shrine within the pillars and knelt. The shrine itself was a simple white lion statue under a white marble arch. Upon the lion sat a dusky-hued woman wearing little more than jewelry and beads who watched serenely until Amanda's head was bowed.
"What brings you to Derketo, child?" the woman asked. She was herself hardly older than Amanda, but she spoke with self-assured elegance.
"I seek refuge," Amanda said. "I was abducted from home and taken here against my will. I escaped, but they hunt for me. I need a place to hide."
"Refuge we may grant," the woman said, "for Derketo values freedom. Yet hiding is not the way of Derketo, or her daughters. We practice our faith openly. We abhor shame."
"It isn't shame that drives me to hide," Amanda replied. "It's danger."
The woman sitting on the lion nodded. She turned to ring a small bell sitting beside her. A minute later, two more women emerged. They looked about Amanda's age. They were almost as lovely as the woman sitting in the shrine, with similarly dark complexions and similarly scant clothing.
"Refuge is granted," said the woman on the lion, "until the dawn. The high priestess will speak with you then. Hide nothing from her, nor from yourself. Leave behind both shame and fear upon these steps."
Amanda bowed again, not really knowing the etiquette for this, and followed the other women inside.
***
"Left. Left. Up again. Faster. Remember your feet. Trust your instincts. Faster--no! Too slow," Fallon snapped. She ducked in under the swing of Eric's cloth-wrapped stick, sliding hers across his right thigh right at the hip and then his left right over the knee in a single slash.
"That would cripple a man," Fallon said, rising again. Their only light in the cave was a small lantern, making it hard for Eric to make out the expression on her face. Her voice didn't convey disdain, but there was no approval in it, either. He wished he could make out her eyes.
They slipped into the abandoned shaft a few hours before dawn every night to practice, ever since that first rainy night. They practiced with simple sticks and bare hands, sparring until the oil ran out in the lantern, as was happening just now. The flicker of the lantern's light warned them that it was time to return to the surface, and then to another day's toil in a different cavern.
Fallon cast her sparring stick aside. "Let's go," she grunted before walking out.
Eric dropped his stick and followed. They had only a short distance to cover, then out into the camp, creeping past guards and overseers as they went. Before he met Fallon, Eric had never thought himself particularly sneaky. It turned out that he only needed a little coaching from her. After that, stealth seemed to come naturally.
Already up before the dawn, Eric and Fallon were the first to grab at the bread and cold meat cast out to the slaves as they awoke all over the camp. They lingered briefly on the surface, watching the guards for any changes in their routines before inevitably returning to the underground dig.
"More guards now," Fallon noted as they headed down the main tunnel. "And the priests of Set have looked troubled for the past few days. Something must have happened outside the camp to put them on edge. They speak of some disaster."
"Must be outside," Eric nodded in agreement. By now, the last of his original clothing had fallen apart. He, too, was in little more than a loincloth and crude sandals. "They were pretty pleased up until a couple days ago."
"They're almost inside the old temple," Fallon shrugged. "Could be there any day now."
"Fallon," Eric said finally, having worked up the courage for his question over the last couple of nights. "Why are you still here?"
"Hm?"
"You could slip out of here whenever you want. You said so before, and by now I completely believe it. Why are you still here?"
Fallon said, looking at him like it was a silly question. "Because bringing you with me would slow me down," she said. "I could get away on my own, yes. We could not escape all these guards and cover all this distance together. Not without a better opportunity than we have yet seen."
"But that's what I mean," Eric pressed, stopping in his tracks. "Is it really worth all this bullshit just to stay here with me?"
The barbarian woman's brow furrowed deeper. "Yes," she said simply.
Eric blinked. "Why?"
"You asked me to help you."
"I'm grateful. I'm really grateful. I just...I keep thinking of how much I owe you and how much happier you'd be to get out of here, and I can't understand why you stay for just me."
Her mouth turned into a frown. "I left Cimmeria alone, and have been mostly alone for all the years since. Hardly any man has looked at me without either disdain or fear until I met you. And you may be from some soft age, but you are neither cowardly nor weak. Perhaps I expect much of others, but I will not lower myself to expect less. Friends have always been the hardest of treasures to find."
Eric was stunned. Guilt had been eating at him for the last few days. He had meant to encourage Fallon to move on, but now he was simply floored by her blunt statement.
"You there!" growled Tronus. He came stomping down the tunnel from the entrance, flanked by a pair of guards. "Get down there and get to work. This isn't a tavern!"
Fallon didn't bother to look at the overseer. Her gaze was still on Eric. "Although my patience with this place does wear thin," she added.
Grinning with her, Eric turned and headed the rest of the way to the main dig site. They arrived to find the main bulk of the slave labor force already at work in what was now a huge, broad cavern. Space had been cleared out all around the ancient temple, as Set's priests demanded full access to every rune on every wall before continuing. Further cave-ins had occurred, freeing space between the temple's roof and the ceiling of the cave and removing the need for at least some of the harsher digging, though at the cost of other slave lives.
Light was now plentiful in the cavern. Holes had been bored from up above to provide bright shafts of daylight as well as ventilation. Ropes dangled from each hole to enable slaves up above to lower buckets of water without having to traverse the tunnels. There was much more supervision, too. Scattered around the cavern were priests of Set studying all of the ruins in detail, along with guards and overseers to keep the work force in line.
A scream split the cavern air as Eric and Fallon arrived, resounding clearly from within the temple's outer walls despite the noise of the ongoing dig. There was another, and then a third, and then a rush of screams as slaves ran from the ruined gate through the temple's outer walls. Panic and terror were evident in their cries, which quickly spread through the crowds of slaves beyond.
Fallon gripped Eric's shoulder. "There is some foul magic at work here," she growled. "I knew these fools would unleash something better left buried."
Within heartbeats, Fallon was proven right. As guards rushed in to control the crowd and slaves fought to get out, the pair saw one last man emerge from the temple walls. Clinging to his back was another man, or something close to it--except for the green, scaly skin and the snakelike head atop its thick, long neck. It reared back with its fanged mouth open wide before clamping down on the slave's skull with a fatal bite.
Even as the man staggered and fell, more snake men appeared. They bore spears and bows, with shields covered with black leather and swords fashioned from some ancient creature's bones. There were dozens of them, then dozens more, all rushing out to fall upon their human prey without mercy.
A priest in the robes of Set stood forward, raising his arms high in praise. "Stop, ancient ones!" the man called out. "We seek only to serve the same--ngh!" The arrow that plunged into his throat silenced his plea, seeming to settle the issue of religious loyalties.
"Guards!" Tronus yelled out over the din, "hold the slaves in! The serpents are just hungry! Let them eat of the slaves!"
Fallon grabbed the arm of the guard nearest to her, planting a resounding punch across his face with her free hand. Then she jerked his sword from its sheath, leaving him to fall away from her clutching his broken jaw. "We leave now," she growled.
Eric caught her meaning. He tripped up another guard who came rushing by, then jumped on him on the ground to slam the man's head down on the stone floor. Before Eric had snatched the guard's sword, Fallon had already dropped two other guards. By the time he was on his feet, she had slain two more.
Armed and ready now, Eric and Fallon stuck close as the wave of slaves rushed by. The mob clogged the entrance tunnel, tangling in a panicked crush that trampled some to death and threatened to suffocate others. Meanwhile even more serpent men appeared from within the temple, bringing down anyone who couldn't get away.
"We'll never get out through the tunnel," Eric said.
"We needn't outrun the wolves. Just the slowest prey. That way. The ropes," Fallon said. She led the way, shoving through slaves fleeing from the serpent men. Eric followed, watchfully guarding her back. They ran perpendicular to the danger rather than directly away from it, which seemed counterintuitive to Eric until he realized there really was no place else to go.
Something struck him from the side. Eric fell to the ground, looking up to see Tronus there with his sword at the ready. "Drop the weapon, slave!" he growled.
"Are you nuts!?" Eric snapped. "They'll kill us all!"
Tronus didn't try to argue. He raised his sword high to bring it down across Eric's fallen body. Eric spun away, swinging his blade out as he moved to catch the back of the overseer's legs. No armor protected the back of his calves. Tronus cried out in pain and swung at Eric again, finding his blow parried as he fell to his knees.
On his feet now, Eric stepped back from Tronus just in time to see a serpent man tackle the overseer to the floor. Tronus cried out as his attacker's fangs sunk into his neck.
Eric spun again, his guard up quick enough to block the sweeping blow of another serpent man's spear. Eric parried again, sidestepped and caught the thing in the neck with a slash of his blade. Jerking his sword free, he saw the thing clutch at its throat in desperation as blood spurted from the wound. The thing fell with a hiss.
Another came on, leaping over dead bodies at Eric with hungry eyes. It bore a leather-covered shield and a sword of bone, which it stabbed viciously at Eric. He spun away, trading swipes and parries until its shield went up too high. Eric caught it across its weird, barely-discernible knees with a low swipe, then slammed his shoulder against the thing's shield as it stumbled. With the serpent falling onto its back, Eric had the opening he needed to stab down directly into its chest.
There was no time to think. More were coming. "Eric!" Fallon shouted. She stood not far away, close to the ropes from one of the ventilation shafts. Dead serpent men and guards alike lay at her feet. She already had a guard's sword and belt slung over her shoulder. "Come on!"
"Go!" he shouted as he ran. "Get going!"
Fallon cursed, but did as he said. She was the faster climber, anyway; he would only slow her down. The barbarian woman heaved herself up the rope with one hand, practically letting go of the rope before the next hand even caught hold.
An arrow flew by her as a serpent archer misjudged her speed. She kept going. There was a second missile, followed by a third, all of them narrowly missing Fallon in her erratic climb.
Though she didn't slow in her ascent, Fallon spared a downward glance toward the archer. There would be only so much she could do before it had a sense of her speed and could land a fatal shot. As she spotted her assailant, though, she saw it impaled through the stomach by a sword flung through the air.
Then Eric was at the rope below her. He was no longer armed, but it was just as well; he needed both hands to climb, anyway. Fallon continued up the rope, reaching the cavern ceiling in mere moments.
Eric wasn't long in catching up. Before he got to the shaft, he looked out across the cavern floor to see the chaos below. As he had guessed, the serpent men cared little for who was a guard and who was a slave. They struck down anyone in their path. Dozens waded into the press of slaves still trying to get out of the tunnels, while others were already devouring the fallen. The serpent men couldn't swallow a whole man, but they could clearly cut one into small enough pieces on which to gorge themselves.
Fallon had paused in her climb mid-way through the shaft, bracing her legs against its walls. She waited until Eric was similarly ensconced by the rocks. "There will be panic above," Fallon said.
"Yeah," Eric huffed. Then, in spite of himself, he laughed. "Snakes," he said. "Why did it have to be snakes?"
"Do you think they will continue up to the surface?"
"I do, yeah," Eric nodded. "They look hungry."
"Then we make a break for it. We slip through one of the supply tents. The guards will have their hands full. We take what we can carry and then slip out of here. If there are still archers patrolling the outskirts in all this, we'll have to make short work of them."
"Right," Eric nodded. His voice was a bit shaken. He could hardly believe he'd pulled off the physical feats he'd just performed. "Was this the kind of opportunity you were waiting for?"
"Yes!" Fallon said with a triumphant note. "If we are lucky, Bel-Danab will think you dead!"
***
It was certainly easier to study in the temple than it had been in Bel-Danab's tower. Not only was there no need to hide her activity, there was private space to practice and experiment. Food and drink were plentiful, and little was expected of Amanda. She could keep mostly to herself, letting her time be consumed with her studies. Though there was ever more to learn, Amanda found her power grew quickly here.
That said, distractions were plentiful as well. Derketo, as it turned out, was a fertility goddess--blessing humanity as well as the fields. What's more, she and her disciples were quite uninhibited about it. Indeed, they were uninhibited about virtually everything.
Once granted sanctuary by the high priestess, Amanda was given a spare room of her own and even clothing that fit better than anything she had swiped from Bel-Danab's tower. Amanda was now the proud owner of two rather abbreviated silken sarongs, if they could be called that. She was more inclined to call them scarves. Yet though they took care of the more vital concerns of modesty, Amanda soon found that few within the temple wore even so much as this.
The men of the temple, all of them healthy, young and deferential to the women, largely wore only loincloths. The women wore about the same; some kept their breasts covered with silken halters, while others left them bare. More than a few wore elaborate jewelry that served only to draw attention to their naked flesh rather than cover up their naughty bits. Amanda did her best not to stare, though she soon realized that her gaze never resulted in less than appreciative smiles in return--and, more often than not, invitation.
She wasn't used to that, either. Men and women alike plainly admired her body and commented openly on her sensuous body and her lovely face. She was pleasantly surprised to find that for all the dramatic impact of her magic makeover, her face was still reminiscent of her old self to be recognizable. The gemstone had done its work very well. At first, she thought it had perhaps worked too well...but as time went on, the more comfortable she became.
Perhaps it was the wine. Perhaps it was the incense in the air. Maybe it was the warm, friendly smiles and soft touch of her hosts in passing conversation, or the constant music wafting through the air, or the frequent, barely-muffled sounds of passion...but the longer Amanda stayed, the more the nature of her distraction shifted from discomfort to interest.
Reclined on her bed of silk sheets and pillows, Amanda tried hard to synthesize the lore provided in a pair of scrolls unfurled before her. It was tough work; the languages were different, the authors were five hundred years removed...and not far down the hall, two women were having a very, very good time.
"More, Paulus!" one of them wailed. "You drive me mad! More!"
"Take her, my stallion!" the other urged Paulus, whoever he was. She let out a long, loud moan. "Her passion drives mine! Take her!"
Amanda let out a deep, amused breath. She had to laugh a little: weeks of toil and fear, only to escape to the Temple of the Forbidden Orgy. The dialogue made her cringe, and yet the tone of their voices left her in no doubt that it was all genuine. Alone in her small chamber, Amanda allowed her hand to slip down across her bared belly and then between her legs. Her fingernails traced up one thigh, which she spread for herself, fingertips gently slipping under her sarong to touch tender, moistening flesh...
"Amira?" came a low, feminine voice. It was the name Amanda had given everyone in the temple. Amanda's hand jerked from her sex as she inhaled sharply. There wasn't much privacy to be had here; she had only a thick curtain of beads to separate her room from the hallway. Amanda kept forgetting that.
"Yes?" Amanda replied, sitting up on her narrow yet comfortable bed.
"May I enter?" the voice of the high priestess wasn't difficult to recognize. Salatis had shared only a few conversations with "Amira," seeming to respect her privacy. The high priestess had seemed at once kind and hungry every time she spoke to Amanda; the former was a relief after all she had been through, while the later made Amanda feel more than a little excited.
Amanda had wondered for a long time if she might be attracted to other women. Salatis and the rest of the temple acolytes had settled that question for her quite firmly.
"Of course," Amanda said. She brushed back her hair, reclined back onto some pillows to allow her sarong to fall from her legs, still slightly parted--and then caught herself. She sat upright. What the hell was she doing?
The beaded curtain was parted by a slender, elegant hand. Stepping into Amanda's room was the most majestically beautiful woman she had ever seen, dark-haired, deeply tanned and endlessly confident. Her dark eyes seemed to see straight through Amanda. For all her newfound arcane power and inner strength, this woman left Amanda feeling small and vulnerable.
"How does the evening find you?" Salatis asked, her voice taking on a note of kindness once more.
"I'm fine, thank you," Amanda answered quickly. She found herself mesmerized by those dark eyes. Breaking herself of the reverie, Amanda resolved to focus on something else, then found her gaze falling to the high priestess's chest, and then forced herself to look in the other woman's eyes again.
Salatis tilted her head somewhat. She reached out to touch Amanda's dark hair, running her fingers through it gently. "More half-truths," Salatis said.
Amanda swallowed hard. Despite her comment, though, the priestess showed no change in demeanor at all. "I'm sorry," she explained nervously. "I just don't know...I don't really know what I should say."
"Is that why you keep to yourself here? All alone?" Salatis glanced down at the scrolls on the bed, then gestured to the enchanted backpack and Amanda's other tools stacked in the corner. "I know only a little of wizardry and the arcane arts, yet even I know that these things alone are not enough to fill anyone's life. No one but madmen," she added softly.
Looking up at Salatis with pleading eyes, Amanda found herself at a complete loss. "I've been alone for weeks," Amanda said, "and even before I came here, I..." She swallowed, trying to figure out how to express herself without giving away too much. "I have friends far away from here, but even so, I've been lonely for a long time. Maybe I'm just used to it."
"You are used to your fear," Salatis said. "You have felt the sting of rejection. Mockery. Betrayal. I can see that as plainly as I see your eyes." Her fingers continued to stroke through Amanda's hair. "And you are only now finding your strength."
Amanda just nodded. "Can you understand, then...why it's hard for me to trust? I don't want to insult you. You've all been so kind to me, and I--!" Her words came out in a rush, but were halted by a single finger laid upon her lips.
"Do you know the relation of Derketo to Set, Amira?" the priestess asked. Amanda shook her head. Given everything going on in the temple, she had been afraid to ask much. That was one particular question that she wouldn't have even dared. "Set sees Derketo as his. As his wife, as his whore...ask any priest of Set of Derketo's place and you will quickly come to understand his view of women.
"Yet as with any woman, Derketo is more complicated than a simple, meek, submissive wife. She has her own goals. Her own interests. Were there perfect harmony between Derketo and Set, there would be similar harmony between her priests and his...and yet the priests of Set would love nothing more than to drive us from this city.
"They cannot. They haven't the power. They call us licentious whores and they deride our celebrations of mortal flesh and intimacy. They resent us. And yet we stand.
"Now, tell me, Amira...when a young, budding wizard appears at our doorstep, the very night that the tower of the most favored servant of Set himself has come crashing down, what are we to think?"
Amanda just stared into her eyes. The answer was obvious. She half-expected--more than half--that the priestesses would guess exactly what happened. She figured that they might have their own reasons for sheltering her, though. Reasons that didn't involve waiting to turn her over to Bel-Danab. Yet now she felt stupid for even hoping for such a thing.
"I'm sorry," Amanda whispered.
Salatis gently shook her head. "We think that Derketo belongs to Derketo," she finished, "and that she will do as she chooses. We think that if the priests of Set wanted more cooperation from us, they would show it in their own actions.
"You are safe here, Amira. Whatever you have done, it has pleased Derketo. Bel-Danab and his minions are not allowed in here. Nor has anyone guessed as to your identity or your purpose but me. We do not see a wizard, or a foe of a mighty sorcerer. We see a guest."
Her voice dropped as her face crept closer to Amanda's. "A very honored guest...who should know our appreciation."
Amanda's resistance crumbled the moment Salatis's lips brushed against hers. Her mind went virtually blank for a moment as the other woman's kiss slowly widened and deepened. Tingling pleasure erupted from her tongue, rippling from there throughout her limbs and down to her core.
"You have a lovely body, Amira," Salatis murmured when the kiss finally ended.
"I do?" A tremble ran through her. "I didn't...I didn't always." A small part of her was relieved that was all she said. Her first thought had been to say, "Really? Thanks, I just got it."
Cool, electrifying fingers traced across her shoulders, then along her collarbones. "You have never enjoyed it, have you?"
"No. No one has ever...ever wanted to be with me."
"Then they were fools," came the soft whisper against her ear. "Everyone in this temple would gladly lie with you."
"I didn't always look like this," Amanda repeated.
"There is so much more than appearances. There is the mind. There is spirit." A heavy, nervous but delicious feeling filled Amanda through her center. "So many with less gifts than yours find love. Pleasure. Have you never searched?"
"I've always felt..." The words trailed away. She wasn't ugly. She knew she hadn't been ugly, or fat. She knew that. There was something else. "Shy."
She could feel Salatis grin against her neck. "You will learn to remedy that here."
Amanda whimpered. "This place...you..." The grin turned to a kiss. Amanda leaned into it, wanting more, wanting to return it, but still afraid. "This place makes me more shy than ever inside."
"There is no need to feel shy here. No one knows who you are. No one need ever know you were here."
It was as if Salatis had spoken some sort of magic words. Her fears diminished, leaving only hunger and need. Amanda reached up to touch the other woman's shoulder, then her neck. Salatis turned her face toward Amanda's, letting her take a little bit of initiative to make her cooperation in this real. The priestess received her kiss, letting Amanda invade her mouth with her tongue. She came forward, sliding one knee up along Amanda's thigh to rest on the bed.
Amanda tugged gently on Salatis. The whole world beyond this woman and this bed faded away. She felt the other woman's hands deftly slip free the knot that tied Amanda's sarong together. Every moment excited her more, yet robbed the strength from her limbs. Salatis seemed to know it; she guided Amanda back, letting her lay on the bed while she moved in over her.
Pleasure rushed through her as Salatis slipped her hands under the loose sarong to explore Amanda's breasts. They'd always been sensitive, but never like this. Amanda moaned as Salatis gently squeezed and caressed. Her partner's lips came down to hers again, kissing her while those hands continued to show Amanda just how arousing a woman's hands upon her breasts could be.
Salatis then kissed her way down Amanda's chin and neck, slipping her knees down further on the bed. Amanda wondered, excitedly, just how far down her partner would go. The sudden lick of that tongue across one nipple as the other was gently pinched destroyed any thought beyond her need for more and more.
Salatis twisted a bit, slipping her hip between Amanda's legs, then twisting back to lay flat and make Amanda spread wider. The younger woman didn't fight it. Breathing heavily, Amanda simply surrendered herself to the loving treatment received by her breasts, her neck and her belly. When Salatis slipped one hand away, Amanda simply sighed with pleasure at the feeling of her sliding it down Amanda's side. Dimly, she realized that Salatis had caught the clasp of the jeweled belt that held her skirt together, unfastening it. The small bit of fabric covering her hip fell away.
Her heart pounded as Salatis pulled up away from her. The priestess slipped away the folds of Amanda's skirt still covering the younger woman's front. Naked and vulnerable now, Amanda trembled at the smile that spread across her partner's face. "Very lovely," Salatis grinned approvingly before her head and that wonderful mouth descended once more.
Kisses on her inner thigh set Amanda's body on fire all over again. Salatis teased and explored all around Amanda's sex, leaving her panting and ready to plead to be taken by the time that wonderful tongue finally brushed across Amanda's warm, wet lips. She threw her head back against her pillow, crying out in ecstasy as she was touched for the first time by someone else.
"Hold nothing back, Amira," Salatis told her with a sultry voice. "Enjoy your body."
That tongue descended once more, licking the full length of Amanda's lips. She moaned again, feeling like she could come at any second. Salatis took her time, though, licking up and down one side of Amanda's flesh, then the other, pushing inside so slowly yet relentlessly as to drive Amanda mad.
Her pulse raced as her mind and body were flooded with pleasure. Salatis continued her tender work, invading Amanda's body first with her kiss, then later with a gentle, skilled finger when it was time for that kiss to move up Amanda's lips to tend to her clit.
When Amanda finally erupted with orgasm, feeling her body wracked with spasms of bliss, Salatis didn't stop. The older woman merely softened her touch, extending Amanda's climax and then gently bringing her down from the height of pleasure without ever fully letting her go. "Thank you," Amanda whispered deliriously when she could speak again. "Thank you."
The mouth pulled away, briefly, but Salatis's fingers remained within her. The priestess looked on Amanda with a satisfied smile as she reached with her free hand for a small bell nearby. When Amanda opened her mouth to whimper out a protest, Salatis merely stroked her in just the right place to leave her young partner gasping with pleasure yet again.
She heard the beaded curtain part. "Yes, mistress?" a girl's voice asked. Amanda glanced up to see two lovely young women, both her age, standing in her room. They smiled pleasantly but otherwise seemed utterly unbothered by the lusty scene before them.
"Adina. Nishan. You will tend to our guest's comfort and pleasure for as long as she remains here," Salatis said. Amanda breathed hard as the two women both nodded, smiling as if this was good news. "Nishan, please take her belongings to my chambers. She will sleep there with me until she wishes to leave us. Adina, her breasts are very sensitive. Aid me."
Amanda gasped once more as the one called Adina turned and knelt beside the bed with a sweet smile. Nishan moved into the room, collecting Amanda's belongings. Before she could object, though, that mouth was on her pussy once more. Nishan's delicate hands swept across Amanda's chest, heightening her pleasure. Soon there were two mouths on Amanda's body, driving thoughts of anything but sensual joy from her mind.
The last coherent thought she had for a long time was the hope that the voice in the water was right about Eric, and that he was alright wherever he was.
***
The ambush went perfectly.
Eric had his doubts at first. His doubts grew as they lay in wait for two days for the riders who would bring the regular payment in gold to a camp full of guards now dead and eaten. Not wanting to irritate Fallon, though, he held his tongue and followed her plan. When their quarry arrived at the river's edge, rearing up on their horses to call to the ferryman from where he sat on the shore fishing just off from the road, they had complete surprise.
Eric sprang from dry brush just off the road, slashing his sword wide across the side of the head rider, then continuing on to get in a surprise stab at the one behind him. Fallon came at the two columns of riders from behind, spear in one hand, sword in the other. A ten-against-two fight quickly became six against two, made even less threatening when the priest of Set at the center of the column lost control of his panicked horse and found himself crashing into his closest bodyguard.
Javelins thrown by two of the remaining riders flew past Eric, while another wheeled his horse around to charge. He faked left, then spun right just as the horse passed, and caught the rider across the spine with a high swing that bit through his hardened leather armor. He turned back to the others to see one turn to run while the other fell, clutching at a dagger that had appeared in his throat. Fallon was beside Eric then, snatching up a javelin and rushing in pursuit of the fleeing rider as his horse sped away. Her throw was spot on; the rider fell with the javelin impaling him through the center of his chest, dying even before he hit the ground.
Recovering quickly, the priest's bodyguard loyally put up a stiff fight. He and Eric circled one another in several exchanges before Eric's superior strength won out. A blow to the bodyguard's skull ended the battle.
Jerking his blade free, Eric saw the priest cut down by a sword stroke through the belly. Fallon looked back at him, glancing at the horse of the rider he'd cut down with a frown. "Why didn't you take down the horse?" she asked curtly.
"What?" Eric blinked. It still shocked him how casual she could be about all this. Men were still bleeding out and already she was critiquing his tactics.
"The horse," Fallon said, pointing at the now wandering creature with her sword. "Leaping across the path of a charging horse is a risk. You could have swung low, chopped at its legs. The rider would've been thrown."
Eric let out an exasperated breath. "What did the horse do to me?"
Fallon looked at him like he was insane, but finally laughed. "You are a strange one, Eric."
He walked forward, plodding along with adrenaline still coursing through him. "Hey, I don't feel good about any of this. You know that," he scowled. He looked on as Fallon tore a scarf adorned with runes and snakes from the dying priest to wipe the blood from her sword. "Where I'm from, this is robbery and murder."
"Aye," Fallon nodded, grinning madly, "that's what it is."
Her casual attitude drove him mad. "You understand this isn't okay where I'm from? You don't just jump people on the road and kill them. This isn't normal."
"No? Not normal?" Fallon asked, still bearing something of a grin as she squinted at him in the sunlight. "Shall we talk about normalcy?"
The barbarian reached down to grab at the priest's robe, forcing him into a sitting position. He clutched at his gaping stomach wound, whimpering in pain. "Tell us, priest," Fallon hissed into the man's ear, "how many times you've laid some frightened girl out on an altar to your god and cut her heart out more slowly than I opened up your gut?"
Half-mad with pain, the priest growled through gritted teeth. "Set demands sacrifice! Set will rise once more!"
"Sacrifice. Yes. Where I come from, you can only sacrifice something that belongs to you. Would you care to be sacrificed to your god? I could take care of that right now."
The priest's only reply was spat out across Fallon's face. She half-smiled up at Eric again. "That is normal for these men," she said. "Virgin sacrifices to dark gods are glorious deeds to these 'civilized' folk." With that, she shoved the man's face down into the dirt, standing straight once more. The barbarian clapped Eric on the shoulder as she walked past. "Save your compassion for those who understand such a thing," she suggested.
The Cimmerian strode over to the man sitting on the shore. "Ferryman," she said, "we'll take our leave of you very shortly." She reached down to pull up his cloak, allowing her to cut the ropes that had him tied in his seated position. "We will give you a small share of our loot for your troubles. If you're smart, you'll take that and a horse or two and take your family far from here immediately."
The ferryman scowled at Fallon as he rubbed his hands, letting his empty fishing pole fall away. "You are too kind, Cimmerian," he grumbled.
"Indeed," she replied with a chipper grin. With that, she returned to Eric's side, helping him gather the horses to search their packs.
"I'm sorry," Eric said finally. "I didn't mean to snap at you."
Fallon simply shrugged. "You aren't used to battle, or hard living. I think I can find it in me to forgive you." She tossed him a serious look. "A warrior must be able to decide quickly when to fight and kill, and to do so without regret. But I would not think much of one who could kill lightly, regardless of how fast."
Reaching into the saddlebag of the priest's horse, Fallon was quickly put back into high spirits. She pulled out a large, heavy sack that tinkled with the sound of coins. "We'll feel better after we've had a few drinks in a city of snakes."
***
It was three full days before Amanda could seriously focus on magic again. In that time, she hadn't worn a stitch of clothing, nor had she been alone. She had enjoyed Salatis many times, and Adina and Nishan, individually and together. There were others as well. Amanda was bathed, massaged and adored at every turn by the women of the temple.
She learned to give pleasure as well as receive. Salatis took sensual delight in teaching Amanda to bring a woman to arousal and ecstasy. Seduction became not only an experience, but an education.
As Salatis had promised, no one asked her who she was. Only the priestess and Amanda's two "attendants" (to whom Amanda frequently attended in turn) had any clue of her arcane practices. To others within the temple, she was simply Amira, a beautiful young woman new to the ways of sexuality. She was to be educated and welcomed.
It was a thorough education.
Returning to her studies required no small amount of willpower. Salatis could not always be around; she had a temple to run and a faith to represent among the powers of the city. Adina and Nishan were constant presences, though, and further lovely company was only a spoken whim away. Yet as much as she wanted to throw away the world outside and remain in the temple forever, there was too much else at stake.
She spent a full day practicing, finding her power and control had grown despite her lengthy distraction. Salatis resided in wide, spacious chambers. As long as Amanda did nothing that left a lasting mess, her hostess had no concern about such work being performed there. That meant no flames or acid, of course, but not every spell in Amanda's growing repretoire was so destructive to an environment.
Nishan reclined on Salatis's bed while Adina sat nearby on a velvet couch, both of them watching in amazement and glee as their nude companion worked her wonders. Against an old, tattered tapestry brought in for just this purpose, Amanda hurled bolt after bolt of silvery magical force. A small goblet of water floated around Amanda in circles as she worked, under her control the whole time.
"Why the water, Amira?" Nishan asked. "What is the point to it?"
"Wizarding is thirsty work, I imagine," Adina suggested wryly.
Amanda continued to throw her blasts of force. The goblet kept moving. "Concentration," she answered calmly. "Endurance. I need to get used to doing several things at once with magic. Need to see how long I can sustain the effort."
"You look like you could create those magic darts all night," Adina said. "You practically have."
"Sorry if I'm boring you both," Amanda said, but she kept up her mystic workout.
"No, it's not boring at all," Nishan giggled. "Though it's just not as fun as...other things."
Amanda grumbled, but grinned at the same time. She literally had to command them both to keep their hands off of her so she could practice. She adored them for it, too.
"Can you show us something else?" Adina asked.
The constant barrage of magical blasts ceased. The goblet reversed direction, glowed brightly, and changed color.
"Bravo," Adina said. Nishan clapped.
"I could put you both to sleep," Amanda offered with a shrug.
"What fun would that be?" Adina asked.
"Do something else," Nishan urged.
Accepting the challenge, Amanda turned back to face the tapestry. Swiftly, she clapped her hands together once and outstretched her fingers. A broad rainbow of light burst from her hands, engulfing the entire tapestry. Amanda turned and smiled. "You like?" she asked.
Her companions stared, dumbfounded by the swirling colors. Both were mesmerized by the bright patterns. They were slack-jawed and stunned, unable to speak even after the lights faded a second later. It was several heartbeats before either of the pair blinked, shaking their heads to clear the cobwebs away.
Amanda smiled. "Perfect."
"I am glad to see you back at your studies," came a sultry voice from the doorway. Salatis entered with a serene, approving smile, coming to kiss Amanda deeply in greeting. Their hands roamed as they touched. The priestess had Amanda swimming in arousal almost instantly. With Salatis, nothing was forbidden. Nothing was too familiar.
"I thought you wanted me to stay occupied with other things," Amanda said, breathing more heavily now that those hands were caressing her breasts once more.
"I would be happy to see that, too," Salatis smiled. They stayed together, enjoying their natural attraction and freedom to explore. "But I would see you grow in power. Confidence. As a wizard, yes, but also as a woman."
"You've already helped me with that," Amanda said. "You all have. So much."
"Allow me to help you more," Salatis suggested. Her hands continued to roam. "Pleasure can be instructive...but it can also be a challenging distraction."
She kissed Amanda again, deeply, while her fingernails dug lightly into Amanda's back. She then kissed along Amanda's neck, slowly bending at the knees to sink down with her mostly naked body sliding all along Amanda's. "Work your magic now," Salatis beckoned.
Amanda's breath shuddered. Those lips were on her breasts again, teasing and exciting her. "You want me to ignore that?" she whimpered.
"Ignore or enjoy," Salatis murmured casually. She slipped one hand up Amanda's inner thigh, coming maddeningly close to the warm wetness above but then slipping over her hip to pinch at her ass. "Pain and pleasure have much in common. They can overwhelm the senses and the mind, if we let them. Master one and you may build the willpower to overcome the other when you must.
"Surrender yourself to me, and I will give you what your body needs," Salatis offered with a seductive grin. "Or learn to master your body, and enjoy its pleasures that much more."
Tiny earthquakes shook the younger woman. Salatis said no more, turning instead to arousing her with those expert fingers and that talented mouth. Forcing herself to act in spite of her desires, Amanda took in a deep breath, lifted her hands, and concentrated on the words and motions of magic.
She lifted the corner of the tapestry with an invisible hand created by a simple spell. She turned the tapestry a bright shade of purple, then made it glow, then gave it a strong sent of lavender. Salatis pinched the nipple of Amanda's breast between her lips, giving Amanda a jolt of excitement. Amanda's hold on the tapestry wavered, but she maintained it. She summoned up a bolt of force and hurled it at the tapestry, causing it to billow and shake.
"We should have helped you practice like this all along," Nishan grinned.
"What is your most difficult spell?" Salatis murmured. She sank down further against Amanda's body, kneeling before her. The priestesses nose brushed against her belly, just above the soft patch of hair between Amanda's legs.
"Uhm..." Amanda's eyes fluttered with pleasure. Salatis guided Amanda silently to spread her legs a little more where she stood. Knowing what was coming, Amanda grew even more excited. "Ffffffireball," she said.
"That sounds a touch too destructive for my chambers," whispered the mouth that hovered just below Amanda's sex. She could feel her partner's breath upon her wet lips.
"Webs," Amanda blinked. "I can conjure webs. They'll go everywhere but fade in moments. Aahhh," she sighed. The tongue that crossed over her labia left her shivering with delight. "It's just as...just as...oh...just as hard to cast."
"Then perhaps you should try it," Salatis suggested before her mouth was fully occupied with her delicious work.
Amanda groaned. She had experienced a great deal of this over the past few days, but it certainly wasn't getting old. If anything, she was learning to enjoy it more and more. She reminded herself that enjoyment wasn't the point here, though. The point was to think past it.
Though her head swam with pleasure, Amanda recalled the words to the difficult spell. There weren't many, but she had to get them just right, along with the motions of her hands. Amanda ran through the proper gestures, mouthed the words without voice, gently pressed herself more against that wonderful mouth that gave such rapture...
Amanda spoke the words aloud. She twisted and bent her fingers just right, feeling all along like she was going to explode, riding both the pleasures of her body and the power of her magic all at once as she threw the webs all over the room. Thick, sticky strands too strong to be cut by blades filled the chamber, covering everything around Amanda.
Adina and Nishan both let out yelps of surprise. The one was amused, the other a bit annoyed. "You could have told us to leave the room!" Nishan complained.
"Ohh, no," Amanda moaned, placing her hands on the head between her legs. "No, I couldn't."
There was the briefest pause in Salatis's work. "Practice, dear one," she coached. "Practice."
"Mmh," Amanda grinned. "I like practicing."
***
"I don't know what happened to her when the tower fell!" gasped the beaten man. He sat slumped against the stone wall, his arm broken and his sword fallen away. Eric and Fallon had made short work of him and his compatriots, who lay strewn about the alleyway in various states of defeat. "Bel-Danab and his apprentices held a gathering of sorcerers from nearby lands and slew all but one, who escaped. The master and Randast left to pursue him. Then there was some terrible battle up above. Yaol was slain, but I saw not by whom."
"You didn't bother to look?" Eric snarled. He stood over Bel-Danab's former guardsman with a bloody sword in his hands. Fallon was at the other end of the alley, watching the street for trouble.
That their battle had been heard by the neighborhood was not in question. It was a rough place, though; nobody seemed interested in summoning the town watch. Just the same, Fallon remained on guard for anyone who might feel compelled to investigate.
"I didn't want to die," the guard said. "When I reached the site of the battle, I saw what had been done to Yaol and the other guards. Some had been burned, others melted. How does any man fight such magic?" He gritted his teeth in pain. "Had I remained within, I would have died when the tower fell."
"But you don't know what caused it?"
"We saw blasts of magic from a rooftop hit the tower," the man groaned. "They seemed harmless against the stones at first, but then a great fireball erupted in the middle of the tower. It started to collapse, and so we ran. No one saw who did it."
"And you've been hiding out in taverns ever since?"
"Waiting for the master's return. He will find me. He will, and then you will...you will pay."
Fallon hissed sharply. She retreated from the edge of the alley, her sword at the ready. "Trouble," she murmured.
"Hey!" came a shout from the street. The speaker was a tall man, scruffy and dangerous-looking in a dark cloak. He was flanked by several other rough-looking men. "You can't rob people here! This is our alley!" It was plain from his manner and tone that his concern was less about injustice than it was about turf.
"Think we can handle these guys?" Eric asked in a low voice.
The leader of the thugs whipped out a dagger, hurling it straight at Eric. He lunged to one side, clearing the dagger's path. It landed squarely in the throat of the man he'd been questioning.
"Is there any need?" Fallon asked with a shrug.
"Not really," Eric frowned. The thugs came rushing down the alleyway with a roar.
"Then let's not make any more noise than we already have," Fallon said. Eric's partner and mentor leapt up to catch the top of the wall of the dead-end alleyway. She swung herself up and over with hardly a pause.
Eric wasn't far behind. He sheathed his sword, then stepped up onto the shoulder of the dying man sitting against the wall for a boost as he launched himself up after Fallon. They fled across the rooftop together, leaping to the next and then down into a wide, nearby alley less crowded than the one they had just vacated.
Less than half an hour later, they were on the other side of the city, slipping into the room they rented above a busy tavern. It was a decent enough place. With the gold they had taken from the priest of Set in their riverside ambush, Eric and Fallon were able to afford better blades, better gear and a comfortable place to stay. It was hot, of course, but then they were in the middle of a city in the middle of summer. The inn had been built with ventilation in mind, but even clever construction could make only so much of a difference.
Eric sat down on the bed, pulling his sword and sheath off and dropping it to the floor. His shoulders slumped almost as low as his spirit.
"You don't know if she's dead," Fallon said simply as she wedged their door shut. She turned back to him, looking on as he stared at the floor.
"Sure looks that way," Eric muttered. "I keep thinking...I keep thinking that I was too late."
Fallon came over to him, sitting beside him on the bed. "You have done everything you possibly could," she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "There is no shame."
He shook his head. "I'm not worried about that," he muttered. "It's not guilt. I mean yeah, there's that, but...I'm worried about her. Not about me or how I should feel about it. God, she's had such a rough life. I just wanted her to be okay."
"You knew her well?"
Eric shrugged. "I guess. I don't know."
"Did you ever face danger together? Hardship?"
He let out a bit of a laugh. "Only in games," he said. "Unless you could call high school a hardship. Amanda is... She never wanted to lean on anyone. Always wanted to take care of things herself. But I think she was always kind of lonely." He sniffed. "But she's smart, you know? Smarter than anyone I know. Tough, too. Inside. She hurts, but she doesn't let it stop her."
"Listen to yourself," Fallon said. Eric looked up at her quizzically, finding Fallon's confident grin once more. "You speak of her as if she is still alive. In your heart, you know she is. We'll find her." She gripped his shoulder encouragingly. "If she is all you say she is, have faith in her. Perhaps she brought down the tower herself."
It drew from him another small chuckle. "What would I do without you?"
The woman beside him shrugged. "Probably been beaten to death by the other slaves," she mused. "Or been eaten by serpent men."
"Oh, as if you wouldn't have been shot climbing out of that cave?" Eric grinned.
"I'd not have been there," Fallon said, shoving him a bit. "I'd have left already."
"No you wouldn't have," Eric retorted, nudging back. "You'd have still been waiting for your Cimmerian cousin or whatever to show up."
"Not likely. I'd have given up waiting by then." Her eyes seemed to dance as she looked at his. "I'm not a patient woman. I won't wait long for what I want."
Words failed him. Eric just stared at her for a moment, stopped cold by that beautiful, fearless face. Everything before now had been a matter of running, hiding, fighting or otherwise surviving. Only since getting to the city had they found a moment to catch their breath, and now here they were, together and alone and very much alive.
He knew it was the most dangerous thing he had ever done or likely ever do, but there was no way he could ever forgive himself for not trying. Eric leaned in to kiss her.
Fallon's lips met his with instant hunger. Her hands were on his shoulders immediately, grabbing him fiercely as she devoured his kiss. A moment later, she was in his lap, still fiercely kissing him as she ran her clawing fingers over his arms and his back.
She had his blood up in no time. Fallon attacked him with all the same energy she showed in battle. It was as infectious as her laugh and her confidence. She made him crazy in all the best ways. Eric's hand slipped up her back, holding her body against his before he grabbed her neck and firmly twisted around to pull her down onto her back on the bed. One moment she sat in his lap; the next, she was on her back. Their lips were locked together the entire time.
The only snag in Eric's plan was the fact that it left his gut practically impaled on the hilt of the sword still in its sheath on her belt. He groaned, pulling off of her as she laughed at him.
"I think we can fight this one without blades," Fallon said. She smoothly undid her belt from its rings, looking in his eyes with an expectant grin the entire time. Her sword and belt fell to the floor next to the bed with a thunk.
Eric held her gaze for a long moment. One hand ran through her black hair, the other still sliding up and down her back. He felt her undo his belt without breaking their shared stare. "You're pretty good at that," he noted.
"I've thought it through quite a bit," Fallon admitted. She tugged at his tunic, slipping it free from his shoulders. Her grin only got wider as she looked him over, running her hand over his pecs and his flat, tight stomach. Below that was a hardness she liked even more than the rest. "And this," she added.
Fallon pulled the dagger from the sheath strapped to her calf in a swift motion. Before Eric knew it, the blade was on his thigh, then up under his hip and finally slashing out to cut through the side of his loincloth. The fabric fell from his hips, leaving Fallon grinning triumphantly.
The blade fell from her hand. She wrapped her fingers around his cock then, stroking it slowly and shamelessly. She tugged at his hair with her other hand, pulling him down onto the bed beside her. Fallon straddled him, looking down at him invitingly without releasing her grip on his cock.
Eric's hands caressed her tightly-muscled legs. His fingers slipped around the crude underwear beneath her tunic, then pulled in opposite directions to rip it apart. Fallon only laughed and kept stroking him. Her eyes danced as Eric pushed her tunic up from her sides. She released him only long enough to slip her arms under the simple outfit's short sleeves. Her hand had found his sex again before Eric had it up over her shoulders and over her head.
He amazed at the sight of her naked body. She was more beautiful and far more feminine than he had imagined. "You like what you see?" she asked softly.
"I do," Eric smiled. "I really do."
"You have that look," she accused playfully.
"What look?"
"You wish to say something you know will be stupid."
He laughed. "How do you..." Eric shook his head, reaching out his hands to slip them up her sides and then touch her breasts. Fallon smiled approvingly, enjoying his touch, but waited for his silly question. "You don't need to wear anything to support these?"
Fallon blinked. "Support?"
"Yeah, I mean..." She was certainly well-endowed. Eric had figured she wore some sort of primitive bra. Now he stared in wonder. "Shouldn't these sag without support?"
"Do all women in your country have weak breasts?" Fallon asked.
It made him laugh. He wanted to crawl all over her, but he honestly wanted to stare for awhile, too. Fallon was hard-bodied and lean without bulk. He had seen enough of her arms and legs to have a good idea of how she would look, but even so, he was thrilled at just how feminine she really was. Even the outline of her abs, rather than turning Eric off, looked incredibly hot.
Fallon let go of his cock. She sat fully upright. "Take me," she dared him.
He didn't know whether to be stunned or thrilled. He opted for the latter. Eric surged up, trying to grab her arms. She fought him off with a grin that went from ear to ear, shoving him back a little without really trying. Eric wrapped an arm around her waist, caught hold of her wrist, and flung his companion back down onto the bed.
She wasn't really fighting him. He knew it. She was, however, putting up more than enough resistance to drive him wild. Fallon allowed kisses, but retaliated with soft, playful bites. She clawed at his back, pulled at his hair, growled and laughed all at once. Eric had always figured his first time would involve a lot of gentle caresses, soft kisses and murmured affection. Instead, Fallon made him work for it, and along the way got him incredibly turned on.
The turning point came when he finally managed to get both his legs between hers. Rather than fighting harder, Fallon only looked at him with wild, excited eyes as he spread her open and brought his harder-than-ever cock up against her very wet opening. He had to keep her wrists pinned to the bed, which occupied both of his hands; he couldn't spare either of them to help guide his cock into her.
Fallon let out a pleasured breath as his dick slipped up against her lips. "You'll have to aim better than that," she taunted him. Then she shuddered as he got the angle right. Much of the resistance went out of her wrists. "Oh yes," she gasped. "There. More. Harder...take me, dammit!"
Eric thrust into her hard. Fallon cried out, half in pain and half in joy. He was surprised at how much resistance there was within her. She wrapped her legs around his hips, holding him in closely as she winced. "Hold," she hissed, "just...just hold..." She lay there underneath him, breathing deeply.
"Did I hurt you?" Eric asked, suddenly concerned.
Fallon's fierce grin returned. "Only as much as you had to," she replied.
"This is your first time, too?"
"I've never wanted any man enough before you," Fallon said. Seeing the surprise in his eyes, she shrugged her shoulders as best she could with her arms pinned over her head. "I wanted a man who saw me as an equal. Whom I could see as such, too. Someone strong. Decent. Sweet."
Eric was floored. "I'll never be as cool as you," he breathed in amazement.
"Whatever that means," Fallon grinned. She rocked her hips against his, shuddering at the pleasure of it. Eric loved it, too, and couldn't help but thrust into her again. "Gods," she moaned. "Don't talk to me, lover. Fuck me."
Having sex for the first time, let alone with a woman like this, was thrilling enough. But to hear her say those words, knowing her as he did, completely blew Eric away. He felt like his heart would burst from his chest. There was something he should say in return, but was it too soon? Did she really mean what she said? That was stupid; Fallon always meant what she said. But did she mean it the way--?
His hold on her wrists weakened. With her legs still wrapped around Eric's waist, Fallon broke his grip, reaching up in a lightning quick move to snatch hold of his hair on both sides of his head. She yanked him down to her, forcing him into another wildly passionate kiss. Her legs pulled him in again, as deep and as close as she could get him.
The hell with sweet nothings, Eric thought. He thrust into her, eliciting an approving grunt, which he brought out of her again and again. She didn't want soft and sweet. She didn't want a candlelight dinner and a massage. She wanted this, as animalistic and passionate as they could get, and the more Eric pounded her the less he thought and the more he enjoyed.
For the first time, Eric heard a tone from Fallon that seemed almost pleading. He kept at her, holding her closely while he fucked her for all he was worth. When their kiss broke, he was in a relentless, irresistible drive. She felt too good to stop or even slow down. She felt better to him than anything ever had in his life.
When she bit into his shoulder, whimpering and clawing into his back, Eric hardly felt the pain. It was all just excitement. "Yes, Eric," she moaned, "yes! Don't stop...more! Oh! Oh!"
Fallon didn't scream when her first climax hit. Her breathing grew heavy and came in bursts in time with her spasms. Her grip on him finally loosened, but she coaxed him with affectionate tones to continue. It was just as well; he was in such a state of ecstasy he couldn't bear to slow down now. He could barely register words.
It was just as well. Had he been more coherent, it might've thrown him off when Fallon's second climax had her calling out to Crom.
***
Ripples of pleasure coursed through Amanda's body. Her breath became labored and her body glistened with sweat. She knelt on the bed, straddling Adina's face as her attendant licked and penetrated Amanda with affection. The acolyte did all she could to distract and delight her partner.
It was Nishan, splayed out in a luxurious chair across the room, who had Amanda's attention. The dusky-hued woman moaned in appreciation of the strokes and penetrations of the small marble phallus that worked her sex, floating in mid air under Amanda's control.
"Yes!" Nishan called out, her chest falling and rising now with dramatic breaths. "Yes! Mnh! Yes!"
Amanda grinned, adoring the sight of her intimate friend in the grip of orgasm. They had played like this for days. Adina and Nishan were more than happy to aid Amanda in her "studies," now that they had found a more active role to play.
"She's good now," Adina grinned beneath Amanda. "Your turn?"
The kneeling wizard groaned happily. "I suppose if you insist," she sighed.
"You may want to stop for the moment," Salatis said from the chamber door. Recognizing the serious look on the face of the priestess, Amanda slid off the bed and walked to her. Salatis offered her hands, taking Amanda's with a gentle squeeze.
"He has returned to the city," Salatis told her bluntly. "His men search for a girl named 'Amanda.' I suspect I know her," the priestess said with a bit of a smirk, "but I have told his emissaries that no one of her name or her description has come here."
"Thank you," Amanda said gratefully.
"I never liked him," Salatis shrugged. "He will continue to search for you, but I believe he has more urgent matters. Bel-Danab has called upon the priests of Set to demand troops and support. They will give him whatever he wishes. He intends to march in the morning."
Amanda took a long, deep breath. "Then I have to go after him."
***
There was little secrecy to the march of Bel-Danab's men. There really couldn't be for a force of such size. Even in a city as big as Luxur, one could not quietly gather hundreds of men with armor, weapons, packs and provisions without people knowing. It happened quickly, fast enough that spies within the city would have had to scramble to do anything to effectively warn their masters, but there was little need for secrecy. No force within three hundred miles would have been sufficient to pose a threat, anyway.
At least, no human force.
They moved out with the bulk of the army on foot. Officers and specialists had horses, while considerable food and water stores were carried on camel-drawn carts. A special unit walked with one cart, carrying a cage covered in a thin, white muslin shroud. The unit was comprised of soldiers and priests bearing the symbols of Set, for only the faithful could be trusted to guard the god's intended virgin sacrifices.
Some livestock was brought along, mostly chickens in a cart, some pigs, a few goats. The important people in the column would want fresh food, after all, and not the bland rations carried by the common soldiery. There were also plenty of slaves, brought along to carry this or that and to provide a work force for whatever needs might arise.
There were scouts and outriders, messengers and a rear guard.
They weren't exactly difficult to track.
Were it not for all the treasures she had looted from Bel-Danab's tower, Amanda never could have kept up on foot. She had always worked out faithfully in college, and was if anything in even better shape after her metamorphosis. Yet a steady march in a scorching summer desert was well beyond her experience.
The magical cloak that had protected her from Yaol's spell of frost provided her supernatural protection from the heat of the day and the chill of the night. It was perfect for this sort of thing. Her backpack carried far more than enough provisions while remaining lighter than any bookbag she'd carried in school. The long walk had her exhausted by the end of the first day just the same, but staying hidden was a much bigger challenge than keeping up.
Several times, she was nearly spotted by trailing elements of the rear guard. Amanda quickly learned to trail the army from off to one side, too, as she was almost caught by a rider from the city bearing late messages of one sort or another. Still, she was careful, quick-thinking and disciplined. Through her natural wits and magical aids, she avoided discovery.
Until the third night of the journey.
Sleep was a risk, but a necessary one. Her cloak kept her quite comfortable when it came to temperature, and in the end she could live with the hardness of the dry desert ground. Wisely, Amanda took the trouble to arrange for magical protection from discovery. She cast a warding spell, arranging it to produce the howl of a jackal to warn of the approach of any danger.
Just such a sound awakened her on the third night. Amanda promptly popped the lid off the flask that she slept with every night in the desert, downing its contents without hesitation. It was all of this particular potion she had found among Yaol's many bottles, but if it saved her from discovery here, it was worth using. An instant later, she was invisible.
Amanda snatched up her backpack, bringing it both within the folds of her cloak. She rose and stepped away from where she'd slept, moving off to one side as the illusory howl of the jackals ended. Knowing she couldn't be seen, Amanda held very still, waiting in the darkness of the desert night with a spell ready on her lips.
For long, tense seconds, she heard nothing and saw nothing. Amanda kept still. Had it been animals that had stumbled into the range of her mystic ward? Had it been some person, scared away by the howls? Her invisibility would last only minutes. All she could do then was trust in the darkness of the night.
Then she saw the woman slip into view, crouching low, prowling close without a sound. She had her black hair held back from her forehead by a leather headband, revealing a strong, beautiful face. The woman was dressed in hardened leather armor, bearing only a simple backpack and a long, slightly curved sword.
The woman looked right at and through Amanda. Her gaze swept the area, seeming deeply suspicious despite seeing nothing. Amanda waited, hoping she would go by before the potion wore off.
Staying right where she crouched, the woman pulled a dagger from a sheath tied to her calf and held it up in the air. Turning it to catch the moonlight, she waited a moment, then put it back in its sheath. Then she waited.
Amanda winced. Clearly, she was going to have to face this. Slowly, she reached into the folds of her cloak to pull her wand from her belt. Then she saw another form come into view. This one was a man, dressed in armor similar to the woman's. He, too, carried a large blade, and moved almost as silently as his companion.
The woman touched her finger to her nose. She glanced to her companion, who merely nodded, gripped his sword, and turned Amanda's way.
Her heart stopped. She couldn't believe it. "Eric?"
Both prowling warriors turned to the voice, shifting their guarded stance. They looked ready to pounce. While the woman's face was set in grim seriousness, though, the man's eyes were wide with surprise.
"Eric Felton?" she asked again, her voice becoming desperate.
The man's face turned from surprise to disbelief. "Amanda?" he replied quietly.
She let the invisibility fade. The woman warrior didn't drop her guard. Eric didn't, either, but he no longer looked ready to spring. "Ohmygod," Amanda breathed, her eyes welling up with tears, "Eric, put down the sword, it's me."
He stood up straight. The sword turned away. He blinked in surprise, looking at this girl who, other than her cloak and sandals, was dressed only in a silk bikini top and a short, silken skirt slitted up both legs. It was dark, but even so, Eric found that this young woman barely resembled his friend. Yet he had changed, too. "Amanda?" he asked again.
Amanda rushed forward, throwing her arms around him. She buried her face in his shoulder, laughing and sobbing uncontrollably. "Oh god, I was so afraid I'd never see you again."
Turning to glance at Fallon, Eric saw his lover and partner looking at him with a quizzical expression. He held his hands up to protest his own confusion. "Keep your voices down," Fallon hissed. "Noise carries at night. We're too close to their encampment as it is."
Hesitant at first, Eric finally put one arm around Amanda, holding her close. "How do I know it's really you?" he asked.
She sniffled, then let out a tearful laugh. "If I was a mind flayer in disguise, I'd already have my tentacles all over your brains by now."
Eric snorted. Mind flayers had always been a running gag in their games, ever since high school...and with that thought, Eric put his other arm around her. "I was so worried about you," he said. "I've been looking for you for weeks!"
"I'm fine now," Amanda said, letting go only to hug him again.
"You look, um..." Eric faltered. Even in the moonlight, he could see how much she had changed. He'd never have called Amanda unattractive, but he could understand why she was frustrated with her figure and her weight. Now she had a body built for absolute sin and was dressed to show it. "You look good?" he managed.
"We should pull back," Fallon noted, "unless you want to let others into this conversation."
"She's right," Eric said quietly, "we've gotta move. Are you alone out here? Do you have all of whatever stuff you've got?"
"I'm good," Amanda said. "All set. Just not so good at stumbling around in the dark."
"Hang on to my hand," Eric said. "It's pretty flat out here, but I'll help you. Fallon?" he asked. He was guiding Amanda away even as he spoke.
"I'll be right behind," his companion murmured.
"Who's...who's this?" Amanda asked.
"This is Fallon," Eric said. "She's, um..." He found himself at a loss for words. They hadn't really discussed titles. Fallon was all about being direct and speaking plainly, and as a result he had no idea how to address this tactfully. Notably, she wasn't offering any suggestions. "She's kind of my girlfriend?" he ventured.
Amanda stumbled. Fallon snorted in protest. "I am no mere girl!" she hissed.
"I didn't mean...oh God," Eric groaned.
"You have a girlfriend?" Amanda asked in disbelief.
Fallon's brow furrowed. "What does that word mean?" she demanded.
Eric looked back at her apologetically, quickly finding himself flustered. "It means I'm in love with you and we're sleeping together but we're not married," he whispered quickly.
"Why don't you just say that?" Fallon frowned. "Are you embarrassed?"
"What? No! I just--I just wasn't sure how else to say it!"
Amanda had stopped in her tracks. She looked at the two of them in awe. Seeing her longtime nerd buddy with a woman like this, regardless of how physically fit he looked in the moonlight and all the other craziness that had happened, simply didn't compute.
For her part, Fallon looked at Eric with a puzzled expression, too. Finally she turned to Amanda. "He is mine," she said simply. "Do you need to know more about it?"
"No no," Amanda said, shaking her head. "I'm good. It's all good."
"Keep moving," Fallon grunted, waving them on.
Eric glanced at Amanda as he got walking again. "She's kind of direct," he mumbled.
***
"Once they're down the tunnel, we could likely slip around the rest of these dogs easily enough," Fallon said, gesturing to the assortment of soldiers and slaves who remained in and about the dig site below. The majority of the army had already headed down the main tunnel. From the looks of things, very few would be left behind to watch after the horses, carts and other baggage. The slaves were gathered in a large group, all left sitting down in the morning sun under the watchful eye of several archers. "The question is whether or not we want to."
The three of them crouched low in a rocky outcropping just beyond the periphery of the campsite. There wasn't even much invested in patrolling the perimeter. A few sentries had been sent out to walk the grounds, but Eric had spotted them right off, allowing for easy evasion.
"Whatever Bel-Danab wants is down there in that temple you saw," Amanda whispered. "He's invested too much into this for us to allow him to get it."
"Yeah, but you didn't see the snake-guys that came flooding out of it," Eric frowned. "They killed and ate pretty much everyone in sight. I mean you can see the wreckage around here."
"Hence marching in with an army," Fallon shrugged. "I doubt that he expects a warmer welcome from them than his digging crew received. Watch...see how the tail end of the army moves? They've likely met with resistance already."
Her observation was spot-on. There had been a decided shift in the attitude and movement of the columns of soldiers. Calls were relayed back and forth up the line. Men tensed and had weapons at the ready. The pace picked up.
"Well," Amanda grimaced, "doesn't really change what we've gotta do. Slip in there, kill the bad guys, take that asshole's Magic MacGuffin Staff and get the hell out."
"What's in that cart covered in cloth?" Eric asked. It sat near the entrance, still ringed with soldiers and priests of Set.
"Virgins for sacrifice, most likely," Fallon shrugged.
Eric and Amanda shared a short glance. "Right," Amanda nodded. "Slip in there, free the virgin sacrifices, kill the bad guys, take the Magic MacGuffin Staff and get the hell out."
Fallon frowned in confusion. "What does that mean? MacGuffin?"
"It means I'm lampshading," Amanda muttered.
"What?"
Eric buried his face in his hand. "It means she's talking about this like it's ridiculous, because it is," he explained.
"They're about all in there now," Amanda said. "How close do you think we could get without being spotted and causing a fight? Just walk right in?"
Thinking for a quiet moment, Eric finally cocked his head at a curious noise. He slipped over to the side of the outcropping, looking down the rise to spot a small patrol of soldiers armed with bows and spears passing close by.
He turned back to the other women with a grin. "One does not simply walk into Mordor."
***
"To think I used to wish for these tits," Amanda muttered as she walked alongside Eric and Fallon into the camp. About the only thing that didn't feel silly about the stolen armor and accoutrements was the cloth mask over the lower half of her face and the black helmet on her head. At least they covered up her face. She looked only vaguely, remotely male in the uncomfortable ensemble. "This breastplate is killing me."
"We don't have to wear them long," Fallon replied. "It's just to get us close." She walked beside Amanda, similarly dressed in the clothing and armor of the men they'd just slain outside the camp. The Cimmerian carried the bow she'd taken from one of the fallen in her left hand. A quiver of arrows was slung over her shoulder.
Eric walked in front, toting a spear in his right hand. He looked the least abnormal in the armor, though even his was ill-fitting. They strode through the camp, doing their best to look casual about it. No one seemed interested in stopping them, though out of the corner of her eye Amanda could see more than a few of the slaves looking at them oddly.
Nearer to the muslin-covered wagon, they could hear the thunder of battle echoing up from the tunnel beyond. They could also make out the silhouettes of three women within the cart, all of them sitting quietly and only occasionally moving. The soldiers and priests who ringed the cart watched warily as Eric and the others approached.
"Why do you break from your patrol?" asked one of the soldiers. He stepped forward, plainly displeased at this irregularity. The jewels on his helmet implied that he was an officer.
"News from beyond the camp," Eric said, getting closer.
"What news?" the officer demanded. "Where is your salute?"
By way of answer, Eric leveled his spear with a snap movement before plunging it into the officer's chest. The force of his thrust pushed the spear's head straight through the man's armor, his torso and out his back.
The rest of the guard detail was quick to leap to action, but Amanda was quicker. Every foe to Eric's right was knocked from his feet by a thunderous blast. Several went flying back, while others fell where they stood.
Fallon spun around, nocking an arrow and looking for any target at all. She didn't have to look long. The nearest soldier soon found himself clutching the shaft that flew into his gut, impaling him straight through his armor. The man next to him drew his sword as he rushed forward, hiding behind his shield, but took an arrow to the leg for his trouble. Fallon finished him with another shot as he fell. She didn't pause to assess the damage; there were too many other targets for her bow.
With Amanda clearing the men on the right and Fallon watching their collective backs, Eric had only to deal with the few men on their left. One was a priest, who tried bravely to attack Eric with his curved dagger and was struck down by Eric's sword for his trouble. The others were well-trained fighters; he turned to take a swinging blow from one on his shield, still slung over his left shoulder, while parrying desperately against the other.
A swift feint and sweeping leg from the first of Eric's opponents had him on his back. He banged his helmeted head on a rock as he fell, then took a cut from another that slipped just deeply enough through his armor to draw blood across his chest. Two more men were coming up from behind them, too, having rounded the other side of the cart to join in the battle. It was all happening too fast.
Then there was a blinding flash of light and color over Eric's head. The rainbow seemed to flash straight from Amanda's fingers from where she stood beside him, washing over the men in a dazzling rush. The late-comers staggered and fell; Eric's immediate foes blinked and shook their heads, but withstood the assault on their minds.
The confusion brought on by Amanda's spell was all the distraction Eric needed to save himself. Eric swung his blade in a low arc that chopped straight through the leg of the man to his left. Eric forced himself to his feet as the soldier fell screaming, recovering in time to trade blows with the man who'd cut him. In the exchange that followed, Eric suffered a bruising blow to his shoulder that thankfully didn't pierce his armor before he finally ran his foe through.
Turning to see what else was going on, Eric found that Amanda and Fallon were taking care of the remaining soldiers scattered among the camp quite handily with spells and arrows. Several slaves broke and ran; most flattened to the ground and covered their heads. Moments later, the only soldiers left alive were either clutching wounds or fleeing into the desert.
"Are you okay?" Amanda asked, seeing her friend bloodied and battered.
"It's not true what Jason said," Eric grunted, shaking his head. "Armor totally helps."
"Maybe for you." With the fight settled, Amanda finally had a chance to free herself from the restrictive bits of hardened leather tied tightly around her. She slipped free of it piece by piece as she moved over toward the gathered slaves. Removing her helmet and the mask around her face, Amanda cast her gaze over the frightened men and women to figure out whoever looked the least panicked.
She was oblivious to how majestically beautiful she looked to them in that moment. Eyes widened and jaws dropped as fear was quickly replaced by awe.
"You," she said, pointing to the largest, most fit-looking man. "You," she said, looking to the next. "Tell me your names. Now."
Eric moved over to the cart as she spoke, lifting the muslin to ensure that the women in the cart were alright. The three young women, all in simple white dresses, reared back in fright at the sight of him. "Don't worry," Eric said, "we're here to free you, not hurt you."
"I am Valen," answered the first slave. "Ajaga," said the second.
"You are free," Amanda declared. "All of you are free. You are to take the army's provisions and head back to the city immediately.
"Valen, Ajaga, you have one special task. Take these girls back to their families," she said, gesturing to the cart as Eric opened up the cage to let them out. "If that cannot be done, bring them to the temple of Derketo. Do you understand?"
The men both nodded. Amanda's eyes narrowed. She waved her wand at both of them, speaking loudly enough to be heard by all. Both of the men briefly glowed with a soft blue shimmer that quickly faded. "You are my servants in this," Amanda said. "Any here who hinder you in your task or touch the maidens will die screaming. You bear my mark. Abandon or betray your task and I will find you and turn you into newts!"
Both men quickly bowed. So did no few of the other slaves.
Shedding her appropriated enemy armor in favor of putting on her own, Fallon looked to Eric with a concerned frown. "Would she really turn them into newts?" she asked.
Eric shrugged. He suspected it was a bluff. "They'd get better. I think."
***
Much as the three had expected, the cavern floor was littered with dead and dying men and serpent men alike by the time they reached the underground temple. The walls and many of the bodies bore the scorch marks and ozone smell of destructive magical forces, but clearly the greater weight of the fighting was handled with muscle and steel. Creeping into the periphery of the main cavern, the companions found that after incurring heavy losses, Bel-Danab and the remnants of his army had forced their way into the temple.
"Doesn't look like there's much chance of the snakes taking care of our problem for us," Eric observed.
"No," Fallon agreed, "but they'll have worn him down."
"I hope," Amanda said grimly.
Fallon shrugged. "It is what must be done, yes?" She looked to her companions, seeing them both nod. "Then decide that you will see it done. It matters not how strong or powerful your foe is. It matters only that he will fall." With that, she took the lead, creeping through the underground battlefield with her bow at the ready.
"Wow," Amanda blinked.
"Yeah. I'm totally in love with her," Eric said, following not far behind Fallon.
"Where can I get one?"
Coming around the temple's great walls to its outer gate, the trio saw even more carnage and destruction. It was increasingly obvious that the serpent men had taken a great toll on the human army, only to be countered by greater sorcerous power from the army's leaders. Serpent men had fallen here in broad groups, burned with magical fire or cast aside by supernatural force. Rising above the scene were the walls of the temple itself, dominated at the front by great, tall bronze doors now battered and thrown open.
Neither Fallon nor Eric had worked inside the temple complex's outer walls once the excavation had broken through. They hadn't gotten a look at the temple itself, until now. All were struck by what they discovered: the hinges and crossbars on the three-story-tall doors were on the outside. The temple had been constructed with an eye toward keeping something in, rather than keeping anyone out.
A tiny garrison of human soldiers remained at the walls, comprised mostly of the walking wounded remnants of the army. One had a horn; he raised it to his lips as soon as he spotted the unfamiliar warriors, only to die with an arrow in his lungs. Eric rushed forward to close the distance between himself and the rest, sword and shield at the ready, while silvery bolts of force sailed over his head to thin out his opposition. Fallon added her arrows to Amanda's barrage. By the time Eric vaulted up the temple steps, only two wounded soldiers remained. Both immediately threw down their weapons, knelt and raised their hands in surrender.
"Start talking," Eric demanded with a growl. "What's going on in there?"
One of the men swallowed hard and looked away, refusing to take surrender to the point of betrayal. The other, battered and wide-eyed, was not so firm. "Bel-Danab and his apprentice work to open a great seal in the floor with their sorcery!"
"How many soldiers remain?"
"But a handful," the man said. "We died in droves. Bel-Danab pushed us on until the serpent men came in fewer numbers. Men say he can devastate armies, and I have seen now that he can. Yet he hardly took part when he would have saved lives."
"Quit whining, you fool," snapped the other man. "It is our duty to die in Set's service."
Eric grabbed the defiant one by the shoulder plate of his armor. "Fine, I'll kill you later." He dragged the man to the edge of the steps as he spoke, then hurled him away roughly. Eric returned to the cooperative one as his companion tumbled down the stairs between Fallon and Amanda.
"You need a new boss," he said to his remaining captive.
"I do," the man nodded with a whimper. "I truly do."
"What else can you tell me?"
"I only went a short distance inside," the man said. "All I can tell you is that the statues inside depict a great reptile, but it is not the image of Set. It is not Set at all. The serpent within has legs and a great body, and...and wings. The priests who survived the battle called it blasphemy, said the temple is no home to the god at all. Bel-Danab destroyed them for their protests."
"Alright," Eric snarled. "Get the hell out of here. Find a new line of work and a new god."
The demoralized soldier didn't need to be told twice. He scrambled away from Eric, slowing as he ran only to half-bow before Amanda and Fallon and then never looked back.
"You hear all that?" he asked.
"We did," Fallon nodded. "I'll take the lead. You two follow, quietly as you can. Steel does not often count for much against sorcery, but surprise may make the difference."
There was little else to say. Fallon crept inside the tunnel with Eric and Amanda following not far behind. Lanterns and discarded torches gave off enough light to see by, while providing plenty of shadows to aid in stealth. As the soldier had warned, the depictions of Set all over the outside of the tunnel were replaced inside by carvings and statues of dragons. Fallon spared hardly a glance at the foreboding artwork, but her companions shared a troubled look as they moved.
A second set of great bronze double doors awaited them, once barred but now opened in the same fashion as the first. Weird green lights flashed from within. Two deep voices carried from beyond the doors, chanting in an odd cadence and tone. Despite his fluency with Hyboria's languages, Eric couldn't understand any of it. Amanda was more familiar with the world's ancient lore; they were not words so much as invocations of names of old, forgotten powers.
Fallon set her bow and arrows down in front of the entrance. She looked back to the others, holding up two fingers and then pointing to either side of the doors. She gestured for Eric to come up behind her. He put a hand on Amanda's shoulder, then silently moved forward.
She watched the two slip in past the doors. For a moment that stretched all-too long, Amanda waited, wondering what she was supposed to do. Then she saw Eric reappear and wave to her with an arm covered in blood. Amanda rushed forward, finding Eric unharmed with two dead soldiers at his feet on a round walkway over a huge pit. To her right, Fallon was already moving off along the walkway in the other direction, leaving another two dead men behind.
The chamber was shaped in a huge, wide circle, with the raised walkway surrounding it. Several staircases were carved into the walkway, each leading down to the center of the room. The heart of the room was a flat stone floor, devoid of furnishings or statuary. Runes carved in spiral patterns covered the heart of the circle, with all of them pulsating in the same green light that Amanda and Eric had first seen in her doorway in Seattle.
The only structures in the pit were a pair of altars on opposite sides of the great circle. Atop one stood Bel-Danab, flanked by a pair of armed warriors, wielding his staff and chanting steadily. Atop the other was Randast, wearing green robes and a golden skullcap. He, too, was guarded by two men.
Amanda looked on with a pit in her stomach. She thought of the vast gap in knowledge and power between herself and these two sorcerers. Then she saw Fallon crawling low along the walkway, getting into position to strike somehow at Randast. It was too late to back off now.
"Your slumber ends, ancient one," Bel-Danab rumbled. His words should have been alien, but once more Yaol's linguistic enchantment made it easy for Amanda and Eric to understand. "We come to bring you out of your prison. We come to call upon your power. We bring gifts. We bring the blood price."
At that, Bel-Danab's gaze lifted from the glowing runes on the floor to Randast. The apprentice nodded, giving an order to his pair of guards. The men bowed in turn, then moved off to hustle up the stairs. Randast lifted his arms again, a glowing orb in one hand and a curved dagger in the other. He resumed the chant while Bel-Danab continued on with a mixture of flattery and vague, expectant declarations of sharing power.
Amanda and Eric stayed silent until the two soldiers were up the platform and on their way out of the chamber. "Focus on the wizards," Amanda advised Eric with a whisper. She pulled out her wand, trying not to let her fingers shake. "Those guards are probably his best men, but if either one of the casters gets off a spell, we could be totally fucked."
"Gotcha," Eric nodded.
"Hey," Amanda said, catching his glance. She gave him an apologetic look. "Thanks for walking me home."
He took in a long, steadying breath. "What are friends for?"
"Right. Okay. So do we have some cue or a go sign?"
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, they saw Fallon leap off the platform behind Randast with her sword held above her head. Though the cut was deflected by his skullcap, the force of the blow left him twisting and sprawling against the altar. Fallon, too, tumbled to the floor, but forced herself upright in a leap that brought her sword down on him again in a furious chop. Her blade hacked into his shoulder with all her might, shearing the man's right arm clean off.
"Guess that's it," Eric grunted.
Bel-Danab's instincts were very good. As his apprentice fell from an attack from above and behind, he spun around, expecting the same. He was absolutely correct in his judgment, reacting just in time to dive forward in avoidance of the green blast of acid that streamed from Amanda's empty hand. His bodyguards weren't so lucky; both of them were caught by the resultant splash when the stream hit the altar. Neither fell, but both lurched away in pain.
Following his lover's example, Eric dove off the ledge. Bel-Danab was already reaching out his hand with some sort of spell. Rather than trusting to his sword as Fallon did, though, Eric led with his shield. He struck against the sorcerer with brutal force, driving him to the ground and disrupting his spell. Though Eric rolled with the impact, he didn't come away unhurt or unshaken. He forced himself to thin past the pain, rising as fast as he could.
Amanda threw another spell, trying this time with the first one she'd used against Yaol. She was more accurate with this one than with the acid. The same mist wafted from Bel-Danab that she had drawn from Yaol, sapping strength from the sorcerer's limbs and his will.
It saved Eric's life. Still on the floor himself, Bel-Danab reached out to Eric to seize him with a spell that slammed him to the floor, then pitched him into the air once more. Had Bel-Danab been able to muster more of his energies, it would likely have killed his target. Even so, Eric struck the floor on his back, winded, disoriented and thoroughly battered.
Across the chamber, Fallon had been blasted to her feet by an instinctive blast of magical force flung out by her wounded prey. She sprung to her feet again with her sword at the ready. Then she winced in pain; she'd come down hard on one ankle in her landing and found now that there was more to worry about with it than just severe discomfort. Her opponent certainly looked worse for wear, though. Randast was sprawled against the altar with his shoulder a bloody mess, gasping for breath with wild eyes.
He was quicker to react than she expected. With a wave of his hand, Randast conjured up a thin wall of raging flame between the two of them. It ran to the opposite edges of the circular pit and reached to the ceiling. The heat was terrible; burning her even as it did several feet away, Fallon realized there was no chance of surviving a charge through it to get to her target. She had no choice but to back off, limping as fast as she could to the closest stairs in hopes of getting around the wall.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Randast's two bodyguards rushing around the walkway. Both had their blades drawn, eager to avenge their liege. Limping on one foot and fleeing from the wall of flame, Fallon had little choice but to take them head on.
Worried that the fight was coming undone already, Amanda hurled her most damaging spell at Bel-Danab. The ball of fire that came from her hands struck squarely at his feet, yet he spun away and covered up in time to take the worst of it on his back. The edges of the blast still caught the pair of warriors rushing at Eric, singeing them both before they could land blows against him.
Eric was only ready for one, not both. Hurting from head to toe, he was halfway to his feet in time to block the sword that came for his head with his shield. He couldn't get entirely out of the way of the spear, though, which was only partly deflected by the hardened leather covering his thigh. The edge of the spear still tore into his leg; Eric was only fortunate that the spearman had too much momentum to stop before he had already stepped past.
The room shook as a great flash of green light swept up from the floor. Every stone tile now gave off the same light, which rippled and billowed like smoke until it seemed that the floor had become a thick layer of glass over some great green cloud.
In spite of his terrible wound, Randast was back on his feet. With his remaining hand, he had recovered the glowing orb that he'd held before Fallon's ambush. It glowed with the same color as the floor, beaming rays of light down at the stonework. "Master!" Randast called out, half-delirious with pain. "It is finished!"
Bel-Danab turned back to face Amanda with a look of fierce hatred. "You," he hissed, recognizing her now despite her changed appearance. Leaning on his staff, the sorcerer reached out to Amanda with the same motion he'd used to snatch at Eric. She was instantly caught in the spell's invisible magic grip. Amanda hardly even had time to scream as she was flung from the walkway out over the glowing green floor.
Her landing was nothing if not rough. She barely braced herself at all; though her outstretched arms and legs broke the worst of the fall, she still collapsed face first onto the rough surface. Blood streamed from her nose and from her cut and scraped limbs. She was very fortunate not to have broken bones or died altogether.
She focused past the pain, forcing herself to act despite how her body felt. There was blood here and there all over the floor, much of it hers. She could see drops of blood slip through the blocks to drip down into the light and clouds below. Then a rumble that shook the room came from the floor. Blocks at the very center began to fall away into the glowing cloud below. Amanda scrambled back toward the edge of the circle to get away in time.
"Mortal worm," boomed a furious voice. "You awaken me with a false gift?"
The sorcerer's triumphant expression suddenly cracked. "What?" he blinked.
Stones continued to fall away. Soon nothing would be left of the floor. "The blood price is unpaid!"
Bel-Danab was suddenly stopped cold. "What?" he asked again. "I brought you...I brought a virgin sacrifice..." Trying to make sense of it all, he looked around for some answer and saw only Amanda as she finally crawled clear of the edge of the circle of runes. Then he understood. He rushed forward, furiously grabbing her by the hair. "Vile whore!"
Rage carried Amanda through her fear and pain. She heaved back and planted a forceful punch right on Bel-Danab's nose, crushing it under her knuckles. "You asshole," she raged, grabbing him by his robes to pull him down onto the floor with her. She slugged him in the gut as he fell again and again. "You pull all this evil shit and then you freak out that I got laid?!" She grabbed his head and slammed her knee into his face. "Argh! Fuck you, clown!"
Bolts of silvery force struck Amanda's side, driving her onto the floor. They didn't come from Bel-Danab, but rather his apprentice across the chasm, who fought to stay conscious and aid in this fight. Randast struggled to stay on his feet, putting all he could into summoning up another spell to finish off the girl once and for all.
Something sailed just past him, large and heavy and covered in flames. It had very nearly struck him. Randast gasped as he recognized the burned body of one of his bodyguards. Instinctively he spun, facing the wall of flame he'd created to protect himself. He was just in time to see the body of his other bodyguard, run through on his own blade, as it came flying through the fiery wall to crash straight into him.
Randast and the flaming corpse tumbled over the edge of the pit. The wall of fire quickly faded. Fallon looked out from the walkway to see the chamber greatly changed. Nothing remained of the floor out to the edge of the circle of runes. There was only green light, smoke and a terrible rumbling.
On the other side of the chamber, her lover fought against the last two bodyguards. He slammed his shield into one, driving forward to push the man into the pit. His foe fell screaming in sudden terror, and then was gone. The other one, wielding a spear, rushed at Eric as if to impale him and drive him over the edge as well. Eric parried, sidestepped and continued the fight.
Eric took a couple of wary steps back from his opponent. The guy was good, and Eric was sorely hurt. He shifted to one side, hoping to stay further away from the pit while he tried to figure out how to take the guy out. Then the floor shook, like an earthquake only very close. A second shock hit, and then a third.
One massive, red claw of some reptilian monster reached out of the pit. Its man-sized talons drove into the stone floor between Eric and his opponent.
"Oh, fuck!" Eric burst. He spun away from the remaining bodyguard. The hell with that dude. This was well beyond his ability to deal with. They had to get out.
Turned around now, Eric found Bel-Danab leaning on his staff just a few yards away. The wizard seemed for a moment indecisive; his attention seemed split between the pit and the fallen form of Amanda. Rage twisted the sorcerer's face. He turned on Amanda, raising his staff high in the air as the gem at its top began to glow red. Eric sprinted forward with all he had.
Amanda was still moving, trying to recover. She managed only to roll over onto her back. "Wretched girl!" Bel-Danab cried. "I'll have your blood one way or another!"
Amanda reached out to him with her fingers spread wide. A prismatic blast of color shot from her hands, engulfing Bel-Danab in a swirl of lights. His eyes went wide, then shut tight. He shook his head to clear it from its confusion. It cost him vital heartbeats of hesitation.
As Bel-Danab brought the staff down on his hated enemy, Eric's sword slashed deeply through his side. Blood and gore flowed from the wound. Bel-Danab jerked in pain, then screamed in horror at the sight of how badly he'd been wounded. His staff fell from his hands into Amanda's lap.
Beyond them, a second enormous claw clamped down over the edge of the pit. The shockwave through the floor cost Eric his balance. He staggered and fell to one knee before he could finish off the enemy in front of him.
"No," Bel-Danab whispered.
In the heat of the moment, Amanda didn't see the staff as a tool of great magic so much as a nice big stick. Snatching it up, she turned and thrust it straight into Bel-Danab's chest with all her remaining strength. Amanda shoved the sorcerer off the edge and into the pit before finally collapsing onto the floor.
Bel-Danab's final scream as he fell was silenced by a terrible crunch.
Eric didn't stop to look over the side. He dropped his shield, wrapped his arm around Amanda and heaved her over his shoulder. "Hold onto that staff," he grunted.
She could manage that at least. "We got him?" Amanda blinked.
"Yeah," Eric huffed, already running for the nearest steps. The wound on his leg burned, but he had to ignore it. "You got him, Amanda. You beat the boss fight with rainbows."
"Rainbows?"
"Fucking rainbows, hon. Fucking rainbows."
"Wow." Her voice conveyed exhaustion and confusion. "Jason would be so mad at that."
"Come on!" Fallon shouted from the walkway. She stood over the fallen body of the spearman who had given Eric such trouble. "Move!"
"Stop!" roared a voice that shook the chamber. A blinding stream of fire erupted from the pit, blasting the entryway with enough heat to slag much of the stonework around it. As Eric reached Fallon, the three saw melted rock dripping from the ceiling around their only way out. All at once, they found themselves looking toward the pit.
Emerging from the smoke and flame was the huge, scaly red head of an immense dragon. "Wait," it said, blood and rags from what remained of Bel-Danab dripping from its jaw.
Fallon stepped protectively in front of Eric and Amanda, her sword at the ready despite the obvious futility of it all.
"Peace," the dragon rumbled. "I mean you no harm. You have done me a service here."
"Then why cut off our escape?" Fallon demanded. Eric glanced at her in awe. She really didn't back down from anything.
"I would have words, Cimmerian," the dragon replied. It certainly didn't have a mouth capable of human speech, yet it spoke clearly just the same. "I am in your debt. It is quite difficult to repay the dead."
"Hey," Amanda said blearily, "do I know you?"
"We have met, in a fashion."
"Eric," she said, "I think...I think maybe you'd better put me down."
Her friend did as she asked, setting her down gently while sharing a look of trepidation with his lover. "Allow me to allay your dread," the dragon said. With that, each of them felt a sudden rush of vitality and relief. Their wounds healed in seconds. Though still covered in the blood and grime of their battle, they felt as if they'd just gotten out of bed.
"Bel-Danab plagued my dreams for decades," the dragon explained. "He sought ever more knowledge, ever more power. His demands increased with each passing year until he determined that freeing me from my prison would force me into his physical service."
"So the snake people didn't worship you?" Eric asked.
"Not originally. Ages ago, the serpents who knew me for what I was built this structure as a prison. Cataclysm and war in the millennia since have polluted and distorted the knowledge of Set's disciples. Those who built the outer walls did not understand the true nature of what lay within. In his communication with my dreaming mind, Bel-Danab discerned the truth, and developed rituals to exploit the power of the prison itself to enslave me upon my release.
"He would have succeeded, had his magic been fueled as intended by virgin blood. Hence my suggestion that you seek solace in the temple of--"
"Okay," Amanda blushed, "we're done talking about my sex life in front of my friends now. Moving on."
"You wish to return home," the dragon said. "With the staff, you could accomplish this, but only after many years of study. If you were to give the staff to me, I could send you home in moments."
Fallon bristled with suspicion. "And then what, dragon?" she asked. "What do you intend to do now that you are awakened and freed from your slumber?"
The dragon's answer came almost with a yawn. "I have no petty desire for conquest and pillage. After all this time, I must tend to matters far from here of no concern to mortals."
"So you send Amanda home and that's it?" Eric asked. "It's all done?"
"'Send Amanda home?'" Amanda blinked. "What about you?"
Eric didn't answer right away. A pained look crossed his face. "I can't go, Amanda," he said finally. "I can't leave Fallon."
It was only then that the barbarian woman lowered the sword she'd held at the ready between her companions and the dragon. She turned to Eric, laying a hand on his chest. "You would remain here?" she asked him. "For me?" He nodded slowly. "You have family there. Friends. For all your wits and newfound strength, you are painfully out of place in this world. Yet you would remain with me?"
"Fallon," he said, "I'm never going to find someone else like you where I'm from. They don't make 'em like you out there. I miss my home, yeah, but...I want you."
She paused and turned to the dragon. "You will send me with them."
"I am in your debt as well, Cimmerian," the dragon agreed. "It will be as you wish."
"Fallon, are you sure?" Eric asked. "It's so different there. I can't even begin to tell you."
"Good," Fallon grunted. "It will be an adventure."
"Stuff like all this doesn't really happen where we're from, you know," Amanda warned. "You might get bored really quick."
"I will surely find ways to amuse myself," Fallon shrugged. Eric and Amanda shared an uneasy glance; they weren't sure whether to take that as a reassurance or a threat.
"Are we agreed?" the dragon asked.
Amanda nodded, stepping forward with the staff. Eric suddenly threw out one hand to stop her. "Wait!" he snapped.
The dragon rumbled. Amanda and Fallon looked at him quizzically. Eric turned to face the monstrous creature before them. "You said you'll send us home to repay us for getting rid of Bel-Danab."
"Yes," the dragon confirmed.
"But what about the staff itself?" he asked. "Isn't that a separate favor? What's a staff that reaches across time and space worth to a dragon?"
Another rumble came from the dragon's long throat. "Much," it admitted in mild annoyance.
***
Mark Hoffman found himself sitting at the reception desk once again, overcome with irritation. He didn't always have to do this. The old receptionist didn't bitch about her scheduled breaks, let alone pull out the company HR manual on him to win an argument. Come to think of it, the old receptionist didn't argue with him at all. She just did her job. Handled the phones. Took care of the mail. Took care of clients when they showed up.
It dawned on him that mid-September morning that he missed being able to let reception run itself.
He slouched at the front desk, clicking idly away at the stats on his fantasy football league to while away the time. Fifteen minutes. Every day. So annoying.
The elevator chime hit. Figuring it was either FedEx or the regular mail, Mark absently glanced up in greeting. Then his mind screeched to a halt.
She was tall, majestically shaped and dressed to show it off. She wore a red silk halter top that left her shoulders, her midriff and the tops of those magnificent breasts all on display. Her simple black skirt hung low and tight, leaving the bones of her hips visible. That face was absolutely to die for, too, staring at him with confident, familiar eyes...
"Amanda?" he blinked.
"Hello, Mark," she said calmly.
"Where've you been?"
"Summer vacation," Amanda shrugged. "I realized too late that I misfired the email with my resignation. Sorry about that."
"Um. Okay?"
"Two things. I left a few personal belongings in the bottom left drawer of the desk. Are they still here?"
Mark had to shake himself. He opened the drawer without thinking, looking down to see a Hello Kitty coffee mug, a couple of My Little Ponies, a comb and some dice. "Yes?" he blinked again.
"Good. I'll take those. Also, I need to talk to someone about liquidating several hundred pounds of gold coins and how best to invest the profits."
He looked up at her in shock.
"Discreetly," she said with a bit of a whisper.
The door to the main office opened. Linda and Karen walked out, laughing as usual, but then stopped in their tracks. Amanda looked back at them, looked them up and down, and then turned back to Mark.
"Not those bitches."
***
The dartboard was left swinging from the sudden, rapid impact of tiny missiles that crowded the bullseye. There was a moment of awed silence, followed by the loud, chagrinned groans of many men. "Holy shit!" one cried out. "Is she for real?" demanded another.
Fallon merely turned to look at Eric and ask in Cimmerian, "Are they saying what I think they're saying?" Her cut-off jeans and sleeveless, low-cut top struck a sharp contrast to the dozen businessmen in rolled-up shirtsleeves and loosened ties all around her.
"Probably," he said, accepting several twenty-dollar bills from gentlemen who'd made unwise bets. He hadn't thought that the lunchtime crowd would have gotten so rowdy, but then, Seattle wasn't normally this sunny this far into September. Apparently many people in downtown had decided to call it a half-day Friday and grab a few beers. "You want something else to drink?"
"Yes," Fallon smiled. "Something stronger than this watered-down piss," she added, gesturing to the empty glass at their table nearby.
"On it."
"Thank you, love."
"Hey, what's that language you're speakin', anyway?" asked one of the many men around her. Eric left her to it, knowing she could handle herself. Like many others, the man didn't do much to cover his leering at Fallon's figure.
Fallon turned her sweet smile to the man and said, "You smell of grease and lechery."
"Man, I've never heard that language before. What's your name?"
She tilted her head curiously, having recognized those last three words. It would take a good long while to master English, but she had a talent for learning new tongues. She stuck out her hand as seemed to be the custom here. "I am Fallon," she said in English.
"Fallon," the guy grinned. He spoke in loud, clear, slow words. "That's nice. I'm Dave. Hi. Wow, that's quite a grip you've got."
"Your hands are as soft as a newborn's," Fallon replied in Cimmerian, smiling widely, "and almost as strong!"
Pulling his hand back, Dave glanced over Fallon's shoulder to note that he had a moment before her boyfriend returned. "I am here every Friday...if you ever get tired of your friend," he added, dropping his voice somewhat.
Fallon nodded in understanding. Her smile remained undiminished. "You are barely a man, and unworthy of me. Go home to your weak-breasted wife," she advised in her native tongue.
A moment later, Eric was back with two pints of Guinness. Fallon took hers, pounded it, then took the other from Eric's hand. She caught herself before she drank. "Oh, love, is this one yours?"
Dave blinked. He slapped Eric on the arm. "Good luck with that," he muttered before moving away.
"You made a new friend?" Eric asked her.
"I think that man offered to buy me," she said casually. "I would have broken his neck, but I know you do not want trouble in your city."
"Yeah," Eric nodded, grinning in spite of how serious he knew she was. "No neck breaking. That's considered very rude here."
"Hey, you two," came Amanda's cheerful voice. They turned to see their companion striding forth with a small bag and several folders in her hand. "I see you kept yourselves occupied?"
"I have unmanned all of these men at a game of darts," Fallon nodded, throwing an arm around Amanda's shoulders. "And you? How did it go with your former employers? Have they use for our gold?"
"Oh, they've got uses," Amanda grinned. "About sixteen million uses."
Eric's eyes bulged. "How are they gonna keep that quiet?"
Amanda just waved a dismissive hand at his concerns. "Same way we're handling the missing persons reports. Same way we'll deal with Fallon's citizenship. Money and magic."
"That'll work for people who don't really know us, I guess," Eric said. "What about family? Friends? I'm sure your email looks the same way mine does. People were worried about us. You said you can't just alter people's memories or anything."
"We'll come up with one story or another," Amanda shrugged. "In fact, you know what? I think I'm gonna start dealing with that tonight."
***
Naturally, the knock on his door came right in the middle of his raid. Jason cursed under his breath, furiously clicking at his mouse to hold back the wave of zombie trolls that threatened to take out his whole team. He kept looking from his computer to the door and back once more. The knock came again. "Jason?" asked a woman from the other side of the door.
He blinked and looked at the door. One of his guildmates swore in frustration over Teamspeak as his shaman died. Then the wizard died. The cascade of failure began.
He heard the knock on his door once more. "Sorry, guys," Jason muttered before killing the speakers. He didn't need to hear the wave of nerdrage that would follow his leaving the fight, but this was the first time anyone had come over to his brand new apartment unannounced.
His mind ground to a halt as he opened the door. "I didn't interrupt anything, did I?" Amanda asked, leaning alluringly against the doorframe.
Jason's jaw dropped. "Amanda?"
"Mm-hm."
"You...wow."
Her smile broadened. She placed a hand on his chest. "Can I come in?"
"Y-yeah! Sure!" He stepped back, still staring in wonder as she followed.
"This is a nice place you have here," Amanda observed, glancing around. "I didn't know you were planning on moving out of your parents' place."
"Yeah, well, uh...things got kind of wild earlier this month," Jason stammered. "Some crazy stuff. I mean, uh, mostly stuff with, um, Alex. But it was cool when it was all over. I mean. uh. Look, you really wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"I could say about the same," she said. "I'm sorry I was away for so long without warning."
"Yeah, we were all really worried. Are you okay? I mean, you look okay. You look really great. Wonderful. I mean, just...wow."
"Thanks. I wanted to see you, Jason. I wanted to say thanks for running your game."
Jason blinked. "My game?"
"Yeah," Amanda nodded. "It was a little rough at first, but in the end...I'm really glad I played."
She shoved him back into the chair on his desk. Jason stared in awe as Amanda crawled into his lap, running her fingers through his hair before drawing him into a deep, lustful kiss. "You didn't have any plans for tonight, did you?" she asked softly.
"Plans?" Jason said to the valley between her breasts. "No...no plans. I wasn't going anywhere."
Grinning wickedly, Amanda tore his shirt open. Buttons went flying across his desk. "Good," she said before attacking his neck.
He would learn a day later that his microphone had been left running. On the one hand, he was mortified, but on the other, it got him off the hook for bailing on his guild on raid night.