The Tower

by Jean Johnson

  Which led to the irreverent thought of, I wonder if he would allow it, if it was just for the two of us to watch? It’s not like I’ve spent a lot of gold on other things . . . It was illicit, it was unusual, she wasn’t sure he’d go for it, and there would have to be safeguards against anyone else getting their hands on the scrycasting crystals which would record it, but it was a titillating thought. I thought I was too shy to even think of such things. I guess not!

  Though she loved the way he was making her feel with his hands and his mouth and his . . . the position itself wasn’t entirely comfortable for her. She had to slump and angle her legs, and the one thigh supporting most of her weight was starting to ache. His inability to be sated at this angle and speed might have a solution. Tugging lightly on his brown curls, Myal tipped her head to the side once she had his attention. “How about the floor? Better traction, faster speed?”

  He slowed his thrusts and released her breast, giving it a last lick. Considering the risks, he nodded. “Right. All fours?”

  She blushed but grinned. Disengaging, the pair repositioned themselves. Unsure if the rugs scattered on the stone floor were safe or not—as the cushioned lid of the chest had not been—she positioned herself with one palm and knee on stone, the other pair on the colorfully patterned, soft, thick, red-and-cream pile. Her poison-detecting tattoos would let her know which was dosed with something, if there was anything.

  Settling behind her, Kerric widened her stance a little with touches on her inner thighs. He, too, knelt half on a rug and half off. Such annoyances . . . I can’t wait to get back in charge, so I can make love to her without having to think about potential dangers. Gently, he gripped her hips and pressed back into her depths. She had a magnificent rump, one with a few tattoos on it. A corner of his mind wondered what the sun-in-glory one was about, but only a small corner. The rest was dizzy with the feel of her snug, slick heat clasping his flesh.

  Slowly, he rolled his hips, snapping that last little bit into her so that their bodies ground together. Pulling out partway, he swept his fingers over her rump, massaging and kneading it, then thrust in fast and deep, making her gasp. One thrust slow and prodding. Two thrusts fast and strong. He repeated the first pattern, then the second, and on the third slow invasion, he added three fast.

  The sound of her moans, the hoarse panting of her breath, the flush of sweat beading on her skin were all signs of her rebuilding arousal. She shuffled her hand and knee onto the carpet, so he did the same, and tormented her with one slow, four fast, one slow—and slammed into her hard and fast, not stopping for a dozen strokes. He started to resume a leisurely roll, but her inner muscles trembled and clenched, gripping his shaft.

  Instinct seized both of them. The angle was perfect, the range of motion unhindered, the balance and stability excellent, the bed far enough away that nothing short of the wildest movement would brush against it. Worries melted away. It was all hot, sweet, swift, deep. With her hips tilted down just so, she could feel his flesh slapping against hers in just the right way, as well as rubbing deep inside. Fingers clenching in fists, she moaned loudly, letting her pleasure sweep over her.

  The lusty sound that emerged from Myal’s throat tipped him over. Groaning deep, Kerric stiffened, pressed deep, and let his bliss drain out through his loins. Dizzy, breathless, he came back to himself, ears first picking out the sound of her heavy breathing, then his eyes the sight of her sweat-slick back. This room was lit by suncrystals overhead, not candles; it wasn’t bright, but it was enough to see her flushed, inked skin.

  Moving a little bit inside her, Kerric reached under and teased the little peak of flesh at the front of her folds. Myal jumped and sucked in a sharp breath, then let it out in a sound that might have been a curse in Mendhite, if she’d had a little bit more presence of mind behind it. Instead, she shuddered in a second orgasm. Smiling, he coaxed a little more out of her, then just cupped her flesh, feeling the little twitches that signaled a properly sated woman. He knew he was.

  However, if the far door—well, nearest by now—had unlocked at some point, Kerric hadn’t heard it happening. Sagging back onto his heels, he gently pulled on her hips as he moved, keeping them conjoined. She moved with him, settling her cheek onto her crossed forearms with a sigh.

  “You are really good at that,” she half-purred, half-sighed. “Thank you.”

  Kerric, hands gently rubbing her from the small of her back down to her hips and her rump, chuckled. “My pleasure, believe me. So, the floor has a lust potion smeared on it, too?”

  “What?” Myal asked, blinking a little at the question. The way he stroked back up toward her spine made her want to melt into a little puddle and ask him to keep rubbing up the length of her back. She focused her thoughts on his question. “Uh, no. The rug just gave me more padding to rest upon.”

  He snickered. She rose up on her elbows, twisting to look back at him. Kerric patted her backside. “There’s a saying out at Senod-Gra, the City of Delights.” He deliberately squeezed her nether-cheek and smirked. “It rhymes in their language, which makes it funny, but in Aian, it just basically means ‘more padding for the thrusting.’ Personally, I can see why a lady’s bottom should be so pleasantly rounded . . .”

  Since his fingers were still caressing her bottom, tracing out its roundness, Myal decided she would be more flattered than offended. She did, however, express her earlier desire. “Could you . . . rub further up my back? Up along my spine?”

  It was not the first such request he had received, though it had been a long while. Nodding, he rubbed his palms along her muscles, kneading and stroking them. That pressed their groins together, though he had softened considerably, and she was no longer quite as slick. The angle didn’t allow him much length, though. Carefully parting their flesh, Kerric knelt up and leaned over her for a more thorough, if brief, massage.

  Mindful of the passing of time, he only gave her a minute or so, then patted her rump. “Up you get, and mind the chest and bed. The next section is an empty hall, so you can check the door if you like. Of course, I do feel rather sated, and you look it yourself.”

  “I feel it,” she agreed in a murmur. Stretching a bit like a cat, she shifted and regained her feet. Padding to the door, she tested the knob. It turned freely, the panel opening a little. “It’s unlocked . . . toss me a boot or something?”

  Searching briefly, Kerric tossed her one of her boots. She wedged it in the now open doorway before returning to join him. He didn’t question why; many of these traps reset if a door was opened and shut just once. In fact, he thought it rather clever of her to remember that, despite the way she kept smiling to herself in a silly, happy way.

  That smile plagued him. He struggled to put on his armor, trying not to be affected by it. Not just because of the threat of his lust being re-aroused, but because he wasn’t supposed to . . . Wasn’t . . .

  Kerric almost sat down on the chest lid again as the realization struck him. I don’t have to avoid a relationship with her. She’s not interested in children, I’m not interested in children, we both agree little floor-rats aren’t what we want in life, though neither of us would deny they’re necessary for the survival of our kind . . . I could court her, date her, be with her, and not have to worry about contraceptives this, parental longings that.

  The thought was strangely liberating. Exhilarating. He finished dressing in a much lighter mood, almost jolly, and even leaned up and kissed her on the cheek as he passed through to the corridor beyond. Then helped steady her while she pulled her boot on, completing her outfit. When she straightened, and sighed, he asked, “Ready to go?”

  Myal nodded. She wanted another bath—she wanted a real bed for her and him—and she wanted this too-long gauntlet to be over. She had plans, vague but slowly forming, on what she wanted to do with her life once this particular run was over. If Kerric was still willing to explore the possibilities she could see. “Right. What room is next?”

  Wordlessly, he dug
through his gear and held up the crinkly-wrapped object from earlier. Myal wrinkled her nose and dug out her own. It took her a full minute to find it. When she did, she tucked it into her cleavage.

  “. . . Ready.”

  Nodding, Kerric opened the door. The two of them stepped through . . . and each from the other’s perspective vanished. Myal found herself in a plain but oddly triangular room with a creamy, plush carpet woven with intricately detailed plants. Three giant trees sprawled out of each corner, eventually forming a lacework bower in the center of the design. Lifting her gaze, she saw that the walls had been paneled in subtle patterns of wood, making the place feel sort of like a chapel or a cathedral. Movement off to her left showed a line of Kerrics striding in through the other door. They lined up along the diagonal wall and gave her grim looks.

  She had the sneaking feeling she would have to face off against at least eleven of the twelve in a fight if she couldn’t pick out the right one. As soon as they stopped, she counted slowly to twenty, just to be sure, then pulled out the object tucked into her cleavage. Unwrapping the papery skin, Myal bit into the fat clove and chewed. Chewed, and rolled it around the inside of her mouth until her eyes watered. Only then did she swallow it down, and rinsed her mouth with several swallows from her waterskin. It wouldn’t get rid of the smell, but at least it cleared out the little bits of chewed-up garlic.

  Carefully approaching the first, she covered her mouth, leaned in close, and sniffed at the illusion-Kerric’s face with her unblocked nostrils. She didn’t pick him, just moved to the next, and the next. Number Seven smelled extra garlicky, but she didn’t pick him right away. Continuing on to the remaining five, she checked them, then went back down the line again. Taking a third pass to be absolutely sure, Myal kissed Kerric Number Seven . . . and sighed in relief as the others vanished.

  Relief, and a wave of dizziness. Instead of standing along the diagonal edge of the triangular room, both she and Kerric now stood in the center, over the lacy vines patterning the center of the odd carpet. Both of them reeked of garlic, and he had the temerity to reach up and plant a kiss on her chin.

  “Good job! I’ll make it up to you later. Now, can you do that sound-masking thing?” he asked. “You don’t have to pick me up; I just don’t want the details scryable, later.”

  Nodding, she reached up and touched the tattoo at the base of her skull, then clasped his hand.

  “The Twin Triplets of Confusing Doom,” Kerric said, listing the first one as soon as she nodded. “We have to enter three rooms; the moment the first of us starts to go from the second room to the third room—let’s say it’s me—then I will appear to be entering from the first room to the second room behind us . . . and there will be a duplicate of you ahead of me and a duplicate of you behind the copied me, back in the first room. Both my evil twins and your evil triplet pair must be dealt with before we can continue.”

  “Evil twins and triplets?” she asked. “How evil?”

  “They will be able to do everything that we can do,” Kerric warned her. “All abilities, all spells, all tattoos . . . and the spells animating them will have learned from the techniques, weapons, and magics you and I have used throughout this whole gauntlet run. But they will not be created until the moment the second door is opened into the third room. Before that point, we’ll be able to lay the traps of the Comb, the Mirror, and the Ring on them, since we didn’t have to use them on George and Mandy—another reason for talking to that couple, instead of sneaking and fighting.

  “Beyond that is the Wine Press, which is a simple matter of you manipulating the lever back and forth quickly while I work on teasing open a very complex, spell-resistant lock. You’ll have to work quickly and watchfully to avoid us getting crushed to death by the rise and fall of the ceiling,” he murmured grimly. “That trap will be followed by Confrontation.”

  “So what is Confrontation?” Myal asked, peering up the hall when he paused for a drink from his waterskin. “A massive battle with something?”

  “A single foe, but an enemy that grows stronger, the more we fight it. So . . . we don’t. We refuse,” he instructed. “The next one after that is called the Printer’s Trap. We will have to cross it one at a time, and I will tell you the riddle now, so you have a chance to guess it before we get separated—since like some of these others, it will be as if I vanished and you were left alone, from your perspective. You’ll be confronted with a hallway of a certain length, covered in medium-large floor tiles, each one carved with an Aian rune-letter. Step on the right ones, and you’re safe. Touch the wrong ones, and they will crush you against the ceiling literally faster than you can blink.”

  Myal blinked at his claim, then blushed, realizing how fast a blink truly was. “Oh. What is the riddle?”

  “What belongs to you, yet others use it far more often than you yourself do?” Kerric recited from memory.

  “Oh! I know this one. Your name,” she stated, smiling. “Or rather, my name. So I spell out my name in Aian lettering?”

  He nodded. “And I will have to spell out my own. The walls are trapped to crush sideways if you try to climb them, and if you tried to fly or climb to the ceiling, the tiles will strike anyway. After that, it’s This Is The Ladder That Never Ends, but we already disabled the trap on it with, ah, Rick’s Favorite Fireball Trap. We just go up three floors, then back down one, and the door will open,” he paused, grimaced, and finished, “. . . onto another one of those Magic Will Not Help You corridors. On the bright side, that is literally the last stretch of the gauntlet to be run. On the far side of that corridor, the door opens up onto the Fountain Hall.

  “As soon as I’ve recovered from the corridor, I’ll be able to regain control of the Tower, and that will be that,” he finished, spreading his arms with a shrug. “You can relax in my quarters, have a meal and a bath, maybe a nice nap . . . and, luck willing, I’ll be able to join you relatively soon. That is, if you would like to stick around? You don’t have to, but I have been enjoying your company a lot. I’d like to enjoy more.”

  Myal blushed and ducked her head. She nodded. “Same here.”

  Kerric grinned. “Good! Then we just have to survive, and pray there’s no one waiting in the Hall to attack us the moment you drag me through. The Twin Triplets room is the first door on the right, here.”

  “Is there anything dangerous about the Fountain Hall itself I should know about?” Myal asked, following him to the door, which he started unlocking with his tools. While he worked, she dug around for the three objects collected much earlier in the run, the little silver hand mirror, the wooden hair comb, and the golden ring.

  “Don’t try to push past the shield wall. It’ll look like a curved bubble, but there’ll be more room between it and the outer walls than in that whole bedroom behind us,” he said. A glance over his shoulder allowed him to spot what she now held in her hands. “Good! You found them. Put the mirror on the threshold of the first-to-second door, leaving it open. It’ll form a lake which will suck the magical energies out of the air. That’ll take care of my evil twins’ attacks, and blunt the attacks of your triplets. The comb has to be dropped the moment the twins appear, when I jump back from the second-to-third doorway. That’ll put up a tough bramble thicket between us and the lead member of your triplets.”

  Myal peered into the first of the three rooms, though like her partner, she didn’t yet enter. They were largish, about twenty feet by thirty. Plenty of room for a fight, or a magic-made pond. “And the ring?”

  “Set it on the floor behind you before you lay down the comb. Then pick it up and throw it at each twin or triplet in turn—mine first, then whichever of yours makes it through the first barrier. Probably the lake one behind us,” he said. “It will bind them and render them instantly helpless the moment it hits, at which point we can kill our alternate selves. But we’ll have to move quickly and be ready to re-cast the ring. I’ve seen you in action, and I’d rather not have to fight you directly, even if it’s
only an evil version of you.”

  “Same here,” Myal murmured, letting her respect show in her eyes. “You’ve proven you’re a top adventurer. As good as I am, and the others.”

  Kerric grimaced. “I cheated. I have all the shortcuts and right answers memorized.”

  Lifting her hand, she tapped him lightly on the nose. Just the once, to get his attention. Smiling slightly, she explained herself. “I speak of execution, not just knowledge. You can say ‘roll under the first volley of spears, and leap over the second wave, then kick down the door, all within five seconds’ but to actually do so takes skill and steady nerves. You are a true adventurer, Kerric Vo Mos. I, Myal the Mendhite, say so.”

  Tapping him on the nose again, she leaned down and kissed him on the lips. He returned it, then sighed. “Alright, so I’m an adventurer. One with a very short and very private, non-scrycasted career, since I’ve learned enough on this one trip that I do not want to have to do this again—Seraglio segment with safety features reinstalled not withstanding, of course. Ready with the enchanted items?”

  She nodded, then winced. Her head was beginning to throb. Reaching up behind her head, she pressed on her tattoo again, shutting it off. “Hopefully that’s the last time I’ll have to do that.”

  “Hopefully, yes,” Kerric agreed. One last, quick kiss on her cheek for good luck, and he led the way into the last of the traps.

  THIRTEEN

  The first thing she did was peer warily through the door. The Fountain Hall shimmered with swirling, pearlescent green energies, making it difficult to tell what sorts of stone lined the chamber, other than several of them. Sizzling noises reached her ears, sparking the worry that someone was trying to invade the heart of the Tower besides them. But she saw no one.