‘I believe,’ Brebbam said, pausing to pull in a deep breath, ‘that this stream comes out about five miles north of here. There are also a few other fissures which could connect to the cave system.
Ceri gave a growl of frustrated anger as she pulled on her top. ‘Well, going in after them would be incredibly stupid. We’d just be giving them a free meal.’
‘I’ll make sure everyone living near the cave mouths is in the village this evening,’ Merada said. ‘I’m not having another family tortured to death for the amusement of a bunch of animals.’
‘Make sure everyone in the village is indoors by dark,’ Ceri added. ‘They don’t seem to be afraid to get closer. If they can’t find easy food close by, they may try something riskier.’
The village leader nodded grimly. ‘In a way, I hope they do. We may get a chance to finish them.’
‘That’s risky too,’ Ceri said, ‘but it’s about all we’ve got unless we get some support from the city.’ And support from the city might bring its own problems; for Ceri and Lily anyway.
~~~
Ceri sat on the edge of one of the desks in the classroom and looked up at the remaining banks of equations hovering in the air. She sighed. ‘I can’t get any further without that figure for the local field strength.’
‘How’s it looking?’ Lily asked. Tooky and Ooda, sitting beside her, looked up with wide eyes as though hanging on the answer.
‘Tight, but possible. If the figure is low enough I can probably build up enough power to overcome your attraction to this world and slip you between dimensions. But… it depends on a relatively exact measurement. My estimation says it’s just possible, but if I’m out by less than a quarter of a thaum it’s not.’
‘And if that’s the case?’ Brebbam asked.
‘Well, the good news is that her connection to this world is weakening the more she feeds only on me. And the bad news is that my connection gets stronger the longer I stay which means feeding her becomes less effective, but we would still be able to leave before we were both stuck.’
‘How long would it take?’ Lily asked.
‘That depends on the local field strength.’
Lily swallowed. Ceri was hedging and they both knew it. ‘Best case?’
‘Four hundred and fifty-eight days. Here. It’s about two years back home.’ Ceri felt the surge of fear over their link. She felt something like it herself. ‘Speaking of which, I think we’ll go back to the inn and you can have your afternoon snack.’
Ooda looked quite seriously up at Ceri and asked, without the slightest hint of embarrassment, ‘You’re going to have sex?’
Ceri blinked and tried hard to avoid blushing. ‘That’s how Lilith feeds, yes.’ She was almost dreading the next question.
‘Can we watch? I want to be good at that when I grow up and I bet Lilith is the best.’ Lily choked off a giggle, her fear at being stuck for two years suddenly displaced.
‘I’m not sure your father would like that,’ Ceri said. ‘Perhaps when you’re a little older.’
Ooda was pretty good at pouting. Not to Lily’s standard, but still pretty good.
~~~
Lily lay beside Ceri on the bed, her head propped up on one hand. The other was busy playing; fingers strumming playfully over Ceri’s clitoris. The tail she had grown a few minutes earlier was curling and shifting inside Ceri as well. All Ceri could do was lie there and whimper, but Lily could talk.
‘If it turns out that you can’t get me back straight away, I want you to go home.’ The half-succubus’ voice was quite calm and there was none of the fear of earlier as she spoke.
‘No,’ Ceri said flatly.
‘Ceri, I’m not stranding you here for two years. I’m dangerous to bring back as it is. I could lose control and kill someone. Who knows how staying here that long is going to affect you. You have to leave me.’
Ceri’s hand landed on Lily’s. The tail stopped moving as Ceri turned a firm, even angry look toward her lover. ‘I said “no,” and I meant it. If I have to order you to stop being silly then I will.’
‘It’s too risky, Ceri, you…’
‘I’m not going to argue, pet.’ Ceri turned her head back and closed her eyes, releasing Lily’s hand. ‘I’m not going back without you and that’s that. You saved me from becoming something terrible and I thought I’d lost you. I couldn’t live with myself if I left you here to become something you’d hate.’
There was a pause and then Lily’s tail and fingers started moving again. ‘Yes, Mistress.’
Day 21
‘Happy Christmas,’ Ceri said as Lily opened her eyes the following morning.
‘Christmas?’
‘Assuming a linear progression, yes. It’s around about Christmas Day… sometime today anyway. I figure we might as well have a thirty-eight hour Christmas.’
Lily giggled and then sobered a bit. ‘It’s not the same without Twill and Michael, but I suppose it’s something.’
‘Twill! Do you know where she went? Alec said something about her going away…’
Lily’s face fell further. ‘She went back to Otherworld. Twill is Gloriandel Wintergreen. She ran away from an arranged marriage and she went back so she could get her family to help us with the dragons.’ Ceri opened and closed her mouth a few times, no sound coming out. ‘The Black Lady told me when I hid out with her.’ This time there was a small squeak. ‘Oh, I owe the Lady a favour at some point when we get home.’ A groan this time. ‘There’s really nothing we can do about it until we do get back though.’
‘Uh, no, not really,’ Ceri managed to get out.
Shrugging, since there was nothing to be done about the situation back home until they had resolved the situation here, Lily reached out a hand toward Ceri’s breasts. ‘Happy Christmas, Mistress?’
~~~
Lily spotted Ceri’s werewolf form sniffing around a fence on the edge of the village and quickened her pace. They had spent the last hour circling the village, Ceri in wolf-form searching for any sign of the Cheldeg while Lily followed along with her clothes. Now it looked like Ceri might have found something.
‘You got a scent, Mistress?’ Lily asked. The title was probably not necessary, but Lily was taking no chances that someone might overhear her being disrespectful.
Ceri growled back. They were here. Way out same way in. No further.
Lily nodded. ‘Not enough pressure to find food yet.’
Ceri nodded in return and then set off away from the village, leaving Lily to trot along behind at a more human pace. The scents were not as strong as the ones from the day before and Ceri suspected that was because there were fewer Cheldeg in the party. Her suspicions were confirmed when she found the rocky outcrop with its small cave mouth which the creatures had come from. Here, at the point where the cave system emerged closest to the village, they had come up in full strength and then sent out a scouting party.
She shifted back to human as Lily came running up. ‘They were scouting last night,’ she said. ‘Checking the distance to the village, seeing what they came across first.’
‘You think they’ll come back in force tonight?’
‘I think it’s a likely possibility. I’m wondering about lying in wait for them here.’
‘I think that’s tactically risky. They may be smart enough to use a different exit.’ Ceri nodded grudgingly as she sat down to pull on her trews. ‘Could you maybe put some sort of trap on the cave mouth?’ Lily suggested.
Still half-naked, Ceri climbed to her feet and looked over at the mouth of the cave. ‘It’s fairly narrow. I can set a fire trap to go off when something big enough goes through. Come here.’
Lily stepped closer; not that there was much distance to cross. Ceri reached out a hand to rest on her shoulder and pulled power through her demon. Lily let out a little moan as the energy surged through her core and then pushed out through Ceri’s other hand as a flicker of light. There was an answering shimmer just inside the cave mouth and C
eri smiled. ‘That should do it.’
‘Mistress?’ Lily said, her tone a little pleading.
‘Mmhmm?’
‘Could you either put some more clothes on or take those trousers off?’
Ceri took her top from Lily and pulled it on over her head. ‘You had a good breakfast.’
‘I’m hugely attracted to you. You push all my buttons and you just pulled several thaums through my Tantric median. I’m aroused. So sue me.’
‘Huh… Sorry. Should have thought of that.’ She sat down to pull on her boots.
‘Don’t apologise, especially to me,’ Lily replied quite without rancour. Ceri looked up at her with a raised eyebrow. ‘No Lady would apologise to her slave, or even her pet. They wouldn’t apologise to another Lord or Lady if they thought they could best them in a fight.’
‘I’m not…’
‘You have to act like one, if you want to survive this place. The villagers like you, because you help them, but they also know you’ve got a load of power which stops them taking advantage. They’ve met Lords who act nice before. Those ones just used nice to get what they want without having to kill lots of people. And it’s not the killing which bothers a Lord like that, it’s the expenditure of energy.’
It occurred to Ceri that, while her prices were low and well within the means of the occupants of East Ward, no one had ever even tried to avoid paying. No one had even suggested they would pay her later. They usually paid her in advance! ‘I hate this. You saved me from becoming some sort of puppet queen of Earth so I could come here and be something just as bad.’
Lily smiled. One hand stretched out to stroke Ceri’s cheek and they both ignored the electric spark of desire the simple gesture generated. ‘Here it’s just a role you need to play, love. We both know it’s not you.’
Ceri smiled back and took her shoulder pads to strap on. ‘You may know. I just hope. I’m glad you have faith in me though.’
‘Always.’
~~~
The attack, when it came, caught everyone off guard. It was about an hour after dark and they came from the south. In fact, they might have got into the village, grabbed some captives, and run off if it was not for someone spotting them coming and running for the inn.
Qualiksh grabbed his sword from behind the bar as Ceri and Lily opened the doors. He turned to his wife before following them out. ‘Bar the door behind us. We’ll take care of them.’ Ebalim looked worried, but she nodded and gave him a quick kiss before allowing him to go.
The two women had a good head start on him, but he had long legs and he caught up with them as they charged down the southern road. ‘Brof said they were attacking Korig’s house,’ he said as they ran. ‘It’s the most southerly, to the right of the road.’
‘There!’ Lily snapped, pointing ahead to where three figures were standing beside a wooden building. They were not large, their size made smaller by being bent over. They had long rear limbs, shorter front ones, but arms and legs were thick, heavily muscled. The head was reptilian, long in the snout. As they got closer it looked like they had scaly skin and a long, thick penis hanging between their legs. Ceri realised, with a lurch in her stomach, that it was probably an ovipositor rather than a male sex organ. The creatures let out a hissing cry as the three defenders ran toward them and suddenly there were three more of them to contend with.
Ceri pulled to a stop. ‘I don’t like the odds. Let’s change them.’ The head of her staff flared into light, the sky opened up, and a beam of blazing sunlight fell upon the Cheldeg. The creatures raised their heads and let out high pitched shrieks, darting back from the light. Ceri thought she saw smoke rising from their hides.
Qualiksh let out a yell that could have been joy or rage, and charged through the beam of light, his sword swinging. One of the blinded Cheldeg was never going to know what hit it; Ceri saw blood arcing through the air. The surprises continued as Lily moved forward, thrusting her hand out and sending forth a stream of flame which caught two of the creatures entirely off guard. From the look on Lily’s face, she was a little surprised at her success as well.
Ceri rounded the corner of the house to see the front door smashed in and two Cheldeg emerging from it. Each held the leg of a woman who they seemed to be dragging. Ceri’s staff thrust out again, the sphere on the top burning white, and the inside of the building was filled with light. The two dragging their victim dropped her and rushed out. A couple more of the things ran from the building, but they were stumbling, moving randomly, obviously blinded. Ceri dropped another beam of light in the path of the two runners and they shifted direction instantly, turning and running to the west. Ceri’s lips curled into a grin and she turned toward the door of the house.
The woman was moving, turning onto her side as Ceri stepped over her to check inside. There was a man lying crumpled and wounded on the floor. That was presumably Korig and he looked like he was breathing. Around him were half-a-dozen Cheldeg, or the smoking remains of them. They really did not like daylight.
A sound drew Ceri’s attention to a door in the side of the room. She slammed it open with the heel of her staff and was met by hisses from the lone Cheldeg hiding at the back of the corridor behind it. She looked at it and it looked back. That long snout came with a mouth full of very sharp teeth. Its limbs ended in claws which must have made it easy to do the disembowelling she had seen the results of. Unlike lizards back home, its eyes faced fully forward; this was a predator. It fed on fear, but Ceri did not fear it and, like most bullies, it was a coward when faced with a real threat. It made a bolt for one of the doors and Ceri moved. Her hand whipped around, launching a ball of blue white energy which caught the creature in the side of the head. It let out a scream which cut off sharply as raw thaumic energy burned through its brain like hot acid.
‘Two of them got away.’ Qualiksh’s voice from the doorway drew Ceri’s attention away from the dying Cheldeg. ‘I saw them run off…’
‘Toward the cave they came out of last night,’ Ceri said. ‘Lilith and I will go out tomorrow and check that they died. I trapped the cave mouth.’
‘You… pushed them into a trap?’
‘Fire trap, yeah. They get to run for miles, think they’ve escaped, and then they get their butts blasted through the tops of their heads.’ She crouched down beside Korig, her mind filling with a map of his injuries.
Qualiksh’s lips curled into a malicious grin. ‘Appropriate.’
‘I thought so. Check her, or get Lilith to. She’s trained in first aid.’ Korig had claw wounds to the stomach and left arm, and major blood loss. Ceri’s hand shone as she moved it over the fallen det, knitting skin back into place as she went.
Lily’s voice came from the doorway. ‘She’s basically okay. In shock, a few claw marks, but not badly hurt.’
‘He’ll need rest,’ Ceri said, indicating Korig, ‘but he’ll be fine.’ She climbed to her feet. ‘Not as bad as it could have been.’
Qualiksh frowned at her. ‘We’re alive, they’re dead. And the power you used… I’ve not seen anything like that since I was in battle with Molech’s army.’
Ceri wanted to ask him about Molech, but what she said now was, ‘If we’d had more time and forces we could have stopped them getting this close.’
The innkeeper laughed. ‘Take it from an old warrior, Lady, any fight you can walk away from is a good one, and we did amazingly well with three against over a dozen.’
Ceri gave him a grin. ‘I guess I have high standards.’
~~~
It was after they had celebrated their victory in the time honoured fashion and they were lying, sweaty and content, in each other’s arms, that Ceri said, ‘You did really well with that flame spell. I didn’t know you could do that one.’
Lily gave a little giggle. ‘Dad taught me it, but it’s always been a little unreliable. It seems to come easier here.’
‘It probably does. The high magic field helps a lot.’ She gave Lily a kiss on the forehead. ‘You
r medians are showing more development as well. You’ll probably find magic is easier back home too. Barnes really made some alterations to you and I wouldn’t say all of them are for the worse.’
‘Well if we can go home tomorrow I’ll forgive his atomised corpse.’ She gave Ceri a poke in the ribs; most un-pet-like. ‘Besides, you’re only saying that because you like my tail action.’
Ceri giggled. ‘I’m not saying you’re wrong. And tomorrow Yeland should have the thaumometer ready. We could be home tomorrow night.’
‘Well, I’m trying not to be hopeful. If we can’t I don’t want to be too disappointed.’
Day 22
There was a noticeable difference in the village the following morning, at least as far as Ceri and Lily where concerned. Everyone they met on the way over to the schoolhouse smiled at them. Many bowed their heads and offered thanks for defeating the Cheldeg and saving Korig and his wife. But there was something else there too; everyone was just a bit more respectful, and a little more afraid.
Even Ooda and Tooky, who refused to allow that little touch of extra fear stop them from sitting and watching what Ceri was doing, were quieter than normal. Brebbam seemed less affected by it than the others, but Ceri could tell he was fighting it. He knew she was human and his rational mind was telling him that she was not like the Lords he knew of. More basic parts of his brain were scared.
‘The story of what you did to the Cheldeg got around the village pretty quickly,’ he explained as Ceri sat at his desk making tiny adjustments to the mechanism of her new thaumometer. ‘I dare say that the tale got embroidered a little with each retelling. No one has ever seen anyone with that kind of power, except Qualiksh, and that was Molech.’
‘What do you know about Molech?’ Ceri asked. She summoned up a ball of thaumic energy and watched the needle on the meter rise before nodding and making another adjustment. ‘I’ve only heard stories, really. He was supposed to have been banished to some place beyond the Mountains of Khedra.’
Thaumatology 10 - The Other Side of Hell Page 11
