by Jean Johnson
He could be diplomatic and tactful, polite and discreet. But he also had a wicked sense of humor, wasn’t afraid to openly scorn the wrongful and the absurd, and was equally unafraid to show his admiration and respect. Part of Myal wished this gauntlet wouldn’t end. Not for the danger—never for the danger—but because the more they talked, the more she realized this was the unvarnished Kerric. The man behind the scrying mirror’s gloss. A man she wanted to know a lot better.
Opening the next door, Kerric led the way. The chamber beyond the defeated shards of skeletons smelled damp, echoed every sound, and reflected the beams of the suncrystal shafts in strange, veinlike patterns of their own. Just beyond a short hall, no more than a body-length, the passage met a broader one set at a right angle, one filled deep enough with water that the bottom could not be seen. Stairs led down to a small dock on the left, where a Mendhite-style gondola awaited them, each end swept up into fancifully carved beast heads from the mythology of Myal’s childhood.
Kerric gestured for her to board first, but Myal hesitated, remembering her mother’s lectures. Making up her mind, she greeted the ironwork at the prow with a bow. “Ava, Aichano Ferra.” Turning, she addressed the empty oarlock at the rear, bowing to it as well. “Ava, Aichano Forco.”
Only then did she feel right about stepping on board. Choosing the middle of the three bench seats, she looked up at Kerric, still standing in the dock. He had a puzzled look quirking his brows.
“What was that about?” he asked her.
Myal pointed. “Aichano Ferra is She Who Guards, a sort of minor demi-deity. Not a true Goddess, but a folk hero. That’s why all Mendhite gondolae have metalwork at the prow, to prevent damage from collisions. And Aichano Forco, her brother, is He Who Navigates. It is his strong arm and keen memory which propel the gondola through the water swiftly from place to place without error. My mother always said the prow must be sturdy and the oarlock must be strong, for the danger of either breaking would mean all the luck and the safety would drain out of the boat. So a good Mendhite greets both when she boards, and bids them farewell when she leaves.”
“Ah. Well . . . ava to both of you,” Kerric allowed, giving a short bow to the prow and the stern. “If you are ready, I will board.”
Myal held up her hand. He accepted it for balance, carefully stepping into the boat. Under normal conditions, the boat wouldn’t capsize at the start or the end, but these conditions weren’t normal. Moving slowly, he adjusted himself so that he could turn and settle onto her thighs. The moment he did so, the gondola started moving forward. Quickly, he slid his hands to her ears, and gently but firmly tucked his fingertips into each one. She did the same, cutting off all the higher-end noises, but adding the faint thrum of the blood rushing just beneath her skin.
“Good g . . . good woman,” he corrected himself, hearing his voice oddly this way. She smiled and chuckled, and the sight was so charming, he couldn’t resist. Moving carefully so that he wouldn’t dislodge her fingers from a sudden shift, he brought his head close to hers, and brushed their lips together. He did it twice more, then pulled back just enough to study her tattoos and the deep brown eyes they framed. He couldn’t shift his hands far, but he could caress her cheek with his thumb. “Beautiful.”
Blushing, Myal tried to duck her head. He wouldn’t let her, choosing instead to bestow another kiss. That one led to another, and a fourth, a fifth . . . At some point, the dim ambient lighting became brighter. Movement flickered and gyrated at the edges of their vision, but all Kerric could hear was the increased beating of his heart, the rush of his breath, the soft sounds she made as their mouths met, parted, and met again.
He almost shifted his hands away from her ears, but the moment one finger started to come free, she shook her head, frowning as she pulled back. Quickly stuffing it back into place, he kissed her in apology, dusting her cheeks, nose, and brow with his lips. She bit his bottom lip in punishment. Not hard, just enough to sting, and she did suck on it to soothe the nip.
It wasn’t easy, holding each other’s heads, plugging each other’s ears while their kisses grew more heated, more impassioned. Kerric managed to sneak peeks at their progress. One island-dotted, golem-filled cavern slid past, lushly festooned with jungle growth and dotted with richly perfumed flowers. The next one morphed into a cavern filled with a dark green forest, more temperate northern than tropical southern. He quickly averted his gaze from the gesturing constructs, and kissed Myal thoroughly.
Somewhere in there, they transited to the third cavern, the gondola swept forward by its spell, weaving this way and that to hopefully give the music-based enragement spells enough time to work their will on its passengers. Myal, however, was very good at keeping his hearing stoppered, and aside from that one slip, Kerric stayed equally careful. The third cavern was bright and cheerful, filled with colorful butterflies that fluttered, trying to catch their eyes. Aside from one brief glance, he kept his closed. She didn’t open hers.
In the fourth chamber, all three songs were combined into one glorious piece of ultimate aural annoyance. Matching it visually, the golems danced in great, tiered ranks of choreography lining either side of the now narrow but still curving canal. The spell didn’t translate through scrying mirrors—otherwise this trap would have been too dangerous to scrycast—but even so, the songs and the dancing and the gestures about the bunny had been known to annoy and irritate viewers anyway.
Neither of them noticed.
In fact, Kerric didn’t even realize they had come to a stop in a dark and quiet place for several long minutes. Kissing—just kissing, without the ability to caress—was both frustrating and exciting. He learned he could have kissed her all day, and would have kissed her all day, except it was getting hard to breathe. And hard to just sit, literally as well as figuratively. Pulling back, he focused on his breathing for a moment, then dared to glance around.
Plain granite stones, dim lighting, no dancing or singing. Sighing in relief, he looked at Myal. She gingerly pulled one finger free, removing it from his right ear. Hearing nothing, he nodded and removed his own fingers. She sighed, too, removing her hands completely. Then grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him close for a heated kiss, before clutching at his back. He returned it for a few moments, then reluctantly pulled away.
“We . . . we have to get out. Or it might reset. I think,” he added under his breath. “I know the boat resets; I don’t know if it does so only when we get out, or if it’s on a timer.”
Resting her forehead against his, Myal laughed softly. “So the great Guardian doesn’t know for sure?”
“I have thousands of rooms, tricks, and traps to keep track of,” he reminded her dryly. Rising, he climbed carefully onto the dock, then held out his hand to assist her out of the boat.
As soon as she reached solid stone, Myal turned and bowed to the stern and bow. “Vala, Aichano Forco; Vala, Aichano Ferra. Thank you for bringing us safely to our destination.”
Kerric nodded as well. He felt a little silly, but he nodded at the boat. Mounting the steps—identical in every way to the ones they had descended—he used his lock-picking tools on the door in the alcove-sized hall. Dimness gave way to bright light, making both of them blink and wince from the difference. The scent of damp, murky water gave way in turn to a hundred different smells, each one mouthwatering. This chamber was long and somewhat narrow, a good sixty feet long, and filled with a very long, very heavily laden dining table.
Chairs lined the table, and place settings with plates, bowls, glasses, and various eating implements from the delicate forks of Fortuna in the far east to the chopsticks of Mendhi in the far west. Behind the chairs to her left sat four doors down one long side, and a single door at each end. Across from the wall with the doors was a long wall filled with glazed windows. If she pressed herself to the glass, shading it from the suncrystal lights, she knew the view would show the starlit sky outside and perhaps a glimpse of lights from the village of Penambrion. But the re
al view lay down the middle of the table, save for a single stand in the very center with one of the ubiquitous bronze plaques: the table was burdened with dish after dish after dish of food.
At the near end sat all the things that needed to be kept hot; platters of roasted meats, tureens of soup, Natallian pasta dishes and casseroles, and hot beverages; in the middle were salads of greens, mounds of breads, trays of cheeses and fruit, pitchers of drinks, and at the far end, fifty feet away, everything that had to be kept cold. Flavored ices and iced creams, aspics, chilled meats, parfaits, puddings, sorbets, and even a bucket with chilled sparkling wine awaited consumption.
Myal had seen this place and knew what to do, but she wasn’t going to take any chances. Before she touched a single morsel, she moved down the side of the table until she could read the plaque and be absolutely sure. Some of these rooms seemed to be duplicates of each other, but there were subtle variations to each, some dangerously different.
“Uninvited guests will be poisoned,” she read aloud, and looked at the Master of the Tower. It was the same room she knew about, but she couldn’t help commenting on it. “Cheerful thought.”
“Myal, I cordially invite you as my guest to sit and eat this fine feast,” Kerric stated, giving her a courtly bow. He raised his brows at her, waiting.
“Kerric, I invite you as my guest to sit and eat this fine feast,” she returned, equally politely. Both pulled out chairs at the same time, sat, and reached for whatever was closest of their favorites. For Myal, it was a pair of grapes, which she popped into her mouth and chewed. For Kerric, it was something slathered in melted cheese and what looked like little crumbled bits of bacon.
Chewing and swallowing, he nodded. “Okay, we should be fine to get up and move, now. The thing is,” he added in an aside, “this food is never poisoned during the normal runs. That’s because everyone who enters the Tower on a normal gauntlet has been invited to do so. But since the Tower’s in lockdown mode, like the gondola, I don’t know for sure if it was or wasn’t altered. But I do know all of this food is completely safe for us to eat now.”
“How so?” Myal asked, shedding her backpack. She picked up the nearest plate and rose with it in hand, intending to hunt for her favorites in this rather bountiful feast. Movement out of the corner of her eye proved to be him pointing at one of the casserole dishes.
“The paprik vanished from that one. I have a mild allergy to it,” he confessed. “Not enough to kill me, so it’s technically not a full-on poison, but it is enough to make my eyes water, my nose run, and my mouth burn a little too much.”
“Pity,” Myal murmured. “I like paprik. Makes my mouth feel alive.”
“What, and my kisses don’t?” Kerric quipped right back. “Because if they do, I’d happily substitute them for you, day or night.”
The absurdity of that, and the suave charm inherent in his offer, made her tip her head back with a laugh. The soft chuckle echoed off the windowpanes, which showed a shadowy version of herself moving down the length of the table in one direction, and an equally shadowy version of Kerric moving the other way. She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Careful. I might eat you for dessert.”
That earned her a grin. Plucking a few slices of roast beef onto his own plate, Kerric focused on serving himself a hearty meal. “Make sure you eat well. I’ll be sleep-spelling us as soon as we’re done—oh, I should secure the doors to this place so we’ll be safe for the fifteen or so minutes we’ll be locked in the spell.”
“How rested will we be, compared to a full night’s sleep in our own bed?” Myal asked. Then blushed, realizing she hadn’t made that a plural beds. He didn’t seem to catch it; instead, Kerric had set down his plate and dug into the backpack resting on one of the chairs.
Fishing out a piece of chalk, the Master of the Tower went from door to door, marking a trio of runes on each panel with just a few practiced slashes and squiggles. The door at the far end, opposite the one they had used, bore the smiling mask of a refreshing room door, but he marked it as well. Only when he was done concentrating on focusing his power into the chalked symbols did he answer her question.
“If you normally sleep eight full hours, it’ll feel like a little over six. If you sleep six, it’ll feel like five, or thereabouts. But it’ll be solid-seeming sleep, even if you don’t normally sleep well,” he said, replacing the chalk in his pack. Dusting off his hands, he returned to piling food on his plate. “We’ll need the food, too, since the spell speeds the body’s healing abilities along with everything else. Once we wake up, a trip to the refreshing room, another round of food, and we’ll be able to keep going for another twelve to eighteen hours.
“The only thing this spell doesn’t do,” he stated, spooning something made with vegetables in a lemon butter-scented sauce onto his plate, “is restore my magical reserves in a comparable amount. It’ll be more like I slept for only three hours out of six, or four out of eight. But that’s more energy restored than I currently hold, so it’s worthwhile.”
Myal finished serving herself little egg-pancake rolls stuffed with chilled fruit, and headed for the hot end of the table. A glance from Kerric ended with his brows rising. She defended her choice. “I like to start with something sweet, and end with something salty.”
To her surprise, he flashed her a grin. “I think I can provide that.”
She stared at him blankly for several seconds as she came near him. Then the innuendo hit her. Blushing, she shook her head, stopping next to Kerric. “You are naughty-minded.”
“Ah, but I like to end with something sweet, and I think you can provide that, yes?” Kerric asked. He mock-snatched at her fruit pancakes.
She smacked the back of his fingers lightly, and found him hooking his arm around her waist instead. Quickly holding her plate out of the way so it wouldn’t spill, she realized she had left herself open to a kiss. Myal didn’t resist, though; when he rose on his toes, chin lifted, she dipped her head and met his lips with her own.
They didn’t have to keep their fingers in each other’s ears, but they did have to balance their plates. Neither could fully concentrate on the passion rising between them. Reluctantly, she broke away, and reluctantly he let her go, fingers sliding along her waist in a caress that would have been more effective if she hadn’t been wearing her armor.
“Right. Food first,” he sighed. Looking up at her, Kerric smiled slowly. “And then, dessert.”
He licked his lips, dropping his gaze first to her cleavage, then lower. Blushing, Myal couldn’t help the chuckle that rose up in her at his audaciousness. True, that was partially why she was here, to make love with him so they could safely get through the Seraglio section of this long gauntlet. But while she found him physically attractive, it was his personality that was beginning to charm her.
Including his sense of humor.
NINE
Searching for a way to tease him back, she spotted a small sausage speared on a toothpick in some sort of spicy brown sauce. Plucking it from the tray, Myal brought it to her lips. She sucked gently on the tip, tongue swirling out to catch the sauce as it threatened to drip from the tiny bit of spicy meat. All the while holding his gaze.
Kerric started to laugh. Shaking his head, he pointed at her. Or rather, at the little finger-sized sausage she was nibbling on so lasciviously. “Nice try, milady, but I am much bigger than that.”
With only a brief search to find what he wanted, he plucked a thick, long, slightly curved pickle from one of the other platters and saluted her with it, grinning. She couldn’t help laughing again. Turning back to the matter of food, she focused on stuffing herself fully. Not that it was a hardship; she had used her spine tattoo to heal herself several times so far, but that always came at a price. New tissue to repair or replace the old had to come from somewhere after all, and that somewhere always left her hungry.
There was more than enough to choose from, to sate that hunger. Meat that came from four-legged creatures such as lam
b and beef, and winged ones such as duck and quail. Fish from freshwater as well as the sea. Eggs cooked in a variety of ways, cheeses of a hundred different kinds. Vegetables familiar and strange, cooked and raw, heated and pickled and chilled. Scores of types of bread, made from grains and seeds like wheat and rice, barley and even quinoa. Sweets that were made from ice and cream, sweets that were hot and sticky. Foods meant to be eaten with a finger, others meant to be eaten with a variety of utensils, from chopsticks and forks to little hammers and prongs for digging out the meat of crustaceans from their shell-covered hides.
Neither of them took more than a spoonful or a nibble from any one dish; that wasn’t the purpose of a banquet like this. Thankfully, it was all spell-sealed to remain both fresh and at the right serving temperature for whatever it was. Indeed, each time Kerric scooped a bit of tender, flaky salmon onto his plate or plucked a radish carved to look like the unfurling petals of a flower, he could feel the faint tingle of his fingers breaching the stasis spells preserving each item.
The trick was to keep the food on or in the serving platters, bowls, tureens, and baskets. Once it was transferred to a plate, the spell ended, which meant the plates had to be checked and cleaned by Maintenance on a regular basis. If the food hadn’t been spell-preserved, it would have formed a tremendous waste as dishes were forced to be rotated in and out every few hours lest they spoil and cause stomach problems, or worse. A constant feast such as this would never have been possible without the sheer amount of magic harnessed from the singularity at the heart of the Tower.
Some of these foods were imported via the Fountainways. Special purchasing agents picked by Kerric’s fellow Guardians around the world looked for local delicacies and bought them for the Tower’s adventures. For a fee, of course. His own agents shipped local delicacies elsewhere, including crates of fine Aian tea. But thinking along those lines made him think of the Tower’s budget, which in turn made him think about how every minute they weren’t scrycasting was hundreds of gold they weren’t receiving from all their patrons.
