A gust of wind blew over the island, and she hugged herself against the cold. Right, just because I was protected didn’t mean they were.
“Well, for now let’s get you all out of the cold. You can guest with me tonight, and we’ll discuss things.”
“Thank you, Adept Black,” Demetrios said smoothly. “We accept your hospitality. Don’t we, girls?”
There was a chorus of agreement from all three, although I noticed that Zoe still spoke in that language she and Demetrios had used before. Was that Greek? Italian? That might be a problem, although she seemed to be content to let Demetrios speak for her.
I led them up the ramp and across the island towards the keep, chatting about little things. They seemed impressed by the fortifications, especially when I told them this was only the beginning. Demetrios asked a few questions about the defenses, and I pointed out an armored skimmer and a platoon of recruits drilling with their guns.
As we walked, a marked transformation came over Pelagia. Her magic spread out into the ground, reestablishing some sort of metaphysical connection, and grew much stronger over the course of a few minutes. Her body underwent a similar transformation, her already generous curves becoming so impossibly lush that no one could have mistaken her for a human. Her long brown hair practically glowed with vitality, and her movements took on a preternatural grace that reminded me of Cerise when she went full demon. An aura of supernatural allure rose up around her, and then was quickly leashed and drawn in before it could cause more than a momentary flash of desire.
Even so, it took an effort of will not to throw her over my shoulder and carry her off somewhere private. It didn’t help that some niggling instinct in the back of my mind was telling me that she’d be overjoyed if I did just that.
Then Zoe underwent a similar transformation. She was older than Pelagia, and her magic much stronger, although physically she wasn’t quite as stunning. I realized then that this was their natural form. They were spirits of the earth, and what I’d seen on the boat was only a washed-out shadow of their true selves. But then, why hadn’t Corinna changed?
I got my answer a minute later, as we approached the keep and she stopped to growl in frustration.
“The whole island? Really? What arrogance led you to claim an entire island to yourself? Is this some kind of male ego thing?”
Huh. It had been long enough since I’d heard that kind of crap that I’d started to forget how annoying it was. I wasn’t entirely sure what she was talking about, but given their connection to the earth I could make an educated guess.
“The island is mine because I made it, Corinna. If you have a problem with that you can always leave.”
“You? Alone? That’s absurd,” she huffed. “This is some wizardly plot to drive a chink in my defenses, isn’t it?”
“Grow up, Cor,” Pelagia chided. “Not everything is about you. Now do you really want to meet the priestess looking like that?”
“Ugh. Fine, Pel, I’ll do it. But I’m blaming you if we all end up getting raped.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m safe on that count,” Demetrios put in dryly. “Now stop being a bitch before the nice wizard decides to take offense.”
Her transformation was similar to the other two, although her aura was a bit weaker. I could vaguely feel their connections to my land, and through it indirectly to me. Interesting. I’d have to look into that when I had the time. If I were actually some evil bastard who wanted to enslave them the link could probably be used to bypass their magical defenses, at least to some extent. But there were probably other, more useful things that could be done with it. Maybe I could feed them power without an amulet, or something.
There was definitely some kind of empathic aspect to it, though. Flickering, uncertain, just little flashes of emotional impressions that came a little into focus if I concentrated and faded from awareness the rest of the time. Was that impression I’d gotten from Pelagia real, then? Maybe. Zoe felt… taken. Polite, but not interested and hoping I’d respect that. Fair enough.
From the way she acted I expected Corinna to reek of disgust and hatred, but what I got instead was a tangled ball of confused emotion that I couldn’t begin to sort out.
Oh, great. One of those types. Well, whatever.
I gave her a minute to finish recovering herself, and then turned and led them into the keep. They stared in amazement at the architecture, my people stopped to stare in amazement at the nymphs, and I ushered them into the elevator quickly before one of the men worked up the courage to approach them and make a scene.
Demetrios looked a little green on the way up, and Zoe clung to him nervously. But Pelagia pressed her face against the glass I’d recently added, and looked down excitedly as the elevator rose.
“We’re so high!” She exclaimed. “But still connected to the earth. This is marvelous, Daniel. I mean, Adept Black. Sorry, I don’t see humans very often and I have to keep reminding myself of the customs. I mean no offense.”
“It’s fine, Pelagia. I only insist on the title in formal situations. Feel free to call me Daniel unless there’s a big crowd of humans close enough to overhear us.”
Corinna scoffed. “If we’re being formal she would be High Mistress Pelagia of the Grove of Red Thorns, and I’m the Black Fang of Vengeance.”
Demetrios sighed. “Sorry, Daniel. We passed through her grove on the way here, and I didn’t have the heart to leave her followers to wither and die in eternal winter.”
“I understand, Demetrios. Although technically it won’t actually be an eternal winter. Europe with thaw again in a hundred thousand years, give or take a few millennia.”
Pelagia and Corinna both shivered at that.
Then we arrived at my door, where a group of maids were waiting to greet us. They escorted our visitors off to a guest suite to freshen up before dinner, and I made my way back to the private dining room to see my girls.
Avilla greeted me with a hug, and a slightly worried smile.
“Three nymphs and a satyr, Daniel? I asked for volunteers in case they don’t behave themselves until dinner, but we can’t possibly expect them to keep to themselves overnight. They’ll seduce half the staff before dawn, and no one will have the energy to get their work done.”
“Don’t forget the dryads,” Cerise observed. “Armor, weapon and shield makes three for each of them, and I think the satyr has one too. Sounds like a hell of a party.”
I frowned. “I was assuming they’d be able to show a little restraint.”
“In close quarters with a bunch of humans they haven’t sampled? That’s like asking us to please stop breathing for a while. Maybe they’ll hold off until after dinner, but overnight would take a miracle. Even if they decide to have themselves a little private orgy instead, the noise and magic will draw in everyone around them.”
Avilla nodded in agreement. “Not many men could refuse a nymph, and dryads are almost as bad. Satyrs don’t have the allure, but they’ll chase anything in a skirt and the ones they catch never mind afterwards. If you want them to stay here you’ll have to put them in a place of their own, and make rules about who can visit them.”
I was a little skeptical about that at first, knowing the crazy stories that bigoted people back on my own world like to spread about foreigners. But dinner forced me to reconsider.
The meal was held in my private dining room, where the girls didn’t bother trying to hide their various oddities. Cerise showed up in full demon-girl mode, with her horns out and her nails sharpened into claws. Tina was in hybrid form, with quite a bit of fur showing, and I invited Elin to join us as well.
“In public we try not to attract too much attention from the temple,” I told our guests when they arrived. “But here in private we’re free to relax and be ourselves.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Demetrios responded. “Keeping my horns in for hours at a time gets uncomfortable.”
His form blurred for a moment, and developed goat legs and horns th
at were superficially what I’d expected. But modern fiction tends to portray satyrs as harmless, almost comical creatures, and there was nothing harmless about Demetrios. When his wooden armor shrank into an amulet it revealed tanned skin stretched taut over hard muscle, crisscrossed by the faint trace of old scars.
That would have been fine, except that the nymphs followed suit. When their armor shrank away it left Zoe and Pelagia clad in filmy, translucent toga-like garments more like lingerie than real clothes. Corinna ended up in a fur halter top and loincloth, and she actually let her allure aura unfurl for a moment before Zoe slapped the back of her head and said something disdainful to her.
Needless to say, I ended up spending half the meal thinking about sex.
At least I tried to stay focused, and their small talk about life among the dryad groves was actually pretty interesting. But Cerise flirted shamelessly with Corinna and Pelagia all through the meal, and the maids Avilla had assigned to do the serving seemed fascinated with Demetrios. I’m not sure if that was magic, or just the fact that he was no longer wearing pants. Thank god the table was in the way, because I did not need to see that.
I was actually a little worried for Avilla in that situation, but she handled it with surprising aplomb. Her eyes may have been drawn to the buffet of semi-exposed nymph flesh a little more than was strictly polite, but she barely flirted with them and showed no interest at all in Demetrios.
Tina was adorably excited to be included in a gathering like this, and alternated between listening raptly to the conversation and breaking in with breathless questions about inconsequential details. The nymphs were quite taken with her in return, and Corinna in particular was fascinated to meet a ‘were-cat’.
Elin seemed completely unaffected by our guests at first, and her polished manners and scholarly intellect were of considerably help in keeping the conversation going. But her manner grew a bit strained as time went on, and it belated occurred to me that putting the homely girl in a room with three nymphs in addition to my own companions was a bit unkind. She was bound to draw unflattering comparisons, especially with all the flirting that didn’t include her.
I made an effort to keep her involved in the conversation after that, despite Pelagia’s subtle efforts to capture my attention and Corinna’s far less sophisticated outbursts.
Finally we reached the end of the meal, and politeness allowed me to broach the important topic of conversation.
“So, I’m sure you didn’t brave the dangers of Fimbulwinter just to sample my sterling dinner conversation. What can I do for you?”
The nymphs all looked to Demetrios at that.
“Ahem. Yes, that. I’m sure you know things have been increasingly bad since the snows started, and especially since word started getting around that it wasn’t going to stop. The groves can survive a harsh winter well enough, but this kind of weather is another story. Especially with bands of monsters roaming the countryside, and dark elf slavers taking advantage of the chaos.”
“Everyone with a connection to call on has been praying for help, or at least advice. My Zoe here has some skill at witchcraft, and about a week ago Hecate-”
Zoe punched his shoulder.
He sighed. “Right. Dark Hecate, the Dread Mistress of the Night, deigned to answer her. She said you might be willing to give us shelter if we meet certain conditions, although I’m not sure how that would work. Nymphs can live like humans if they really have to, but dryads can’t survive without their trees.”
“I have a plan for that,” I assured him. “You’ve seen the scale of my earth magic, and with Elin’s help water isn’t a problem either. So we can build you a shelter big enough to protect a whole grove of trees from the weather, and enchant it to provide sunlight and water so that plants can grow inside. Would that work?”
“That’s an impressive feat of magic, Daniel. Yes, if you can do that I think it would work. But how could we repay you? All I‘ve got to offer is dryads and nymphs, and let’s face it, even willing nymph concubines aren’t worth enough to buy that kind of magic. I’ll do a lot to save my girls, but only if it’s actually going to save them.”
I put my arms around Cerise and Avilla. “I’m not exactly lacking in companionship, Demetrios. No, I’ve got a different kind of price in mind, and it doesn’t involve blood sacrifices or anything crazy like that. What kind of influence do dryads actually have over growing things? If I build a suitable place for it, could they help my people grow ten acres worth of crops on an acre of land?”
Zoe nodded, and said something to Demetrios.
“Yes,” he translated. “More than that, if the soil is good. You’ll need humans to do the sowing and reaping, though. Dryads are no good at that kind of thing.”
“Hmm. If Zoe can understand me why isn’t she talking?”
Demetrios grimaced. “Caught that, did you? Sorry, she just doesn’t speak Danish very well. We have a link that lets her sort of share my understanding, but she’s embarrassed to talk.”
“Am sounding like stupid,” Zoe agreed. “Lingue cambiano così in fretta, non riesco mai a tenere il passo con loro.”
“She said re-learning languages every couple of centuries is a hassle.” He pulled her into a hug, and reached under her toga to grope her affectionately. “Yeah, my girl’s an intellectual and proud of it.”
She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t quite fight down a smile. He squeezed harder, and she nestled up against him with a happy sigh.
“Anyway, we could agree to something like that,” Demetrios went on. “It would be a drain on their magic, but as long as you’re not doing anything else to burden the land their trees are planted on they can manage it. I’m not sure how many people we could feed, but I think it would be a lot more than I’ve seen here.”
“We can figure out the details as we go, as long as they’re willing to work for a living. My goal here is to create the most secure refuge I can, and we’re going to need our own food supply in the long run. That’s actually going to be one of our most important resources, so if we come to an agreement your grove will be in the middle of the island where it’s as hard as possible for an enemy to attack.”
“The other big thing they’ll need to agree to is the issue of leadership. I know there’s a tradition in Europe of the different races living off in their own settlements away from each other, and each governing their own affairs. But we’re going to have to work together a lot more closely than that to survive, so we aren’t going to be able to do things that way here. This is my stronghold, and I’m in charge. I’ll listen to your advice, and I intend to mostly leave you alone to manage your own affairs, and you’ll always be free to leave. But as long as you’re under my roof you abide by my rules.”
“That’s fair,” Demetrios conceded. “But my girls are mine, and the same goes for my sons and their families. If you’re in the grove one day and want to fool around with the dryads that’s one thing, but no taking them away as familiars or pets or anything. It may seem strange but, well, they’re my girls. I love them.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear you say that, actually. I’m not the sort who’d do that to women against their will anyway, but it gives me confidence that you’ll understand what I mean when I say the same applies in reverse. If your girls want to fool around with some passing soldier that’s one thing, but if people start disappearing into the grove permanently I’m not going to be happy. The same goes for getting the serving girls pregnant, or stirring up trouble by seducing married men’s wives.”
“What if they stay willingly?” Pelagia asked, concerned.
“If they’re charmed by your beauty and womanly wiles that’s fair game,” I told her. “If you use magic to befuddle their wits to the point where they don’t remember their own names, that isn’t. If you’re going to play games that blur the lines, make sure it’s clear that they consented to it before you get to that point. I don’t care what you do for fun, just don’t let it cause trouble.”
; “Oh, and obviously I expect everyone who can fight to be prepared to help defend this place,” I pointed out. “I’m training more human troops and arming them with magic, and I expect they’ll be the ones doing most of the fighting. I have to admit, they’re more replaceable than your people. But you’ll need to take part in the defense planning, and if a mission comes up where you’re needed don’t be surprised if I call you up.”
“I can agree to all of this,” Demetrios said, sounding relieved. “We will submit to your rule and lend our magic to your cause, to grow food or whatever else may be required, and fight for you so long as you do not spend our lives recklessly. In return you will provide for us a refuge of eternal summer where we can replant our grove, guard us with your walls and men and magic, and afford us citizenship in your realm. Is that the whole of it?”
“Sounds right,” I agreed. “How many people do you have, anyway?”
“I cannot speak for my esteemed companions,” he replied. “But my own band includes Zoe and her three sisters, my two sons and their wives, two dozen dryads and a hamadryad. So thirty-four of us in all. Show us our place of refuge, my lord, and we shall swear our allegiance.”
“Agreed. I take it your people are waiting across the river? Then I’ll have Captain Rain take the skimmers across to fetch them tonight while I build your refuge. There are a lot of monsters lurking around the city, and there’s no need for them to rough it another night.”
“I… thank you, Daniel. I had assumed such a major working would take days of preparation.”
“Nope. Although I’ll need one of you to stay here and help me make sure this place is big enough for your whole group. So, Pelagia, Corinna, what about your groves?”
Pelagia started to answer, but Corinna leaped to her feet
“Hah! That old goat may not have a spine, but the Fangs are different. I have fourteen seasoned warrior dryads under my banner, and we will never submit to a man!” She declared.
Black Coven (Daniel Black Book 2) Page 26
