The Tower

by Jean Johnson

  “Guardian Serina . . . that would be Guardian Milon?” Kerric asked. “Yes, I knew him. We used to talk about what being a Seer is like, and how magic can sometimes duplicate similar efforts in the short term through temporal scryings. And I can imagine you’ve been through a lot, between an attack and a Guardianship change. But back to my question. Do you have the exact timing of those events?”

  “Ah . . . I don’t actually know. I’m very new to this Guardianship thing. Tell you what; give me a few hours to let Brother Grumpy sleep a bit longer, and when he wakes up this evening, I’ll see if he can help me track down any such abilities. I think Serina accounted for exact timing of everything in her monitoring spells, but I’m not completely sure. I’ll ask her, too.”

  “Did the Fountain of Koral-tai get attacked as well?” Kerric asked, concerned.

  “No, but she did resume the Guardianship of it yesterday, and she’s still packing to head back to Natallia for a longer stay—it’s a long story,” Dominor dismissed. “I’ll tell you about my courtship of Guardian Serina another time. Suffice to say she’s the Guardian of Koral-tai, I’m the Guardian of Nightfall, and we’re married as well. We have been for a few months, though, so we’re not quite as grumpy about interruptions as Rydan and his wife might be.”

  “That sounds like one heck of a story,” Kerric offered, bemused by what had been happening on the other side of the Sun’s Belt while he had been busy risking his and Myal’s lives. “How about we arrange for a shipment of fine Corredai tea, and schedule a time where you and I can sit down, maybe open up a scrying mirror channel—away from your Fountain Hall, since safety is the Tower’s number one priority in its scrycastings—and we can have a nice long discussion about it over a hot cup or three?”

  “You have a deal. Let me go track down my wife, have a bit of a chat, and then wait for Rydan to wake up, feed himself, and maybe resemble something close to civilized. I’ll get back to you tonight—ah, it’s not quite an hour before full noon locally. So in about five or six hours?”

  “It’s just after the noon hour here,” Kerric stated. “Make it eight. I’ve had an extremely long day of my own, and need to sleep, even though it’s the middle of the day. We can synchronize timing systems at that point, since hopefully you’ll have the information I need by then. Until then, I’m going to go rest.”

  Guardian Dominor chuckled. “Well, don’t take after Rydan’s other bad habits. Sleeping during the daylight hours is merely the least obnoxious of them.”

  Kerric laughed. “Now I know you’re brothers. Guardian Kerric out.”

  Extracting his feet from the Fountain, he lifted the chair back up with a touch of the spell runes subtly carved into the chair arm, then turned it so that he could dismount. A glance at the pad in Myal’s lap made him quickly shut it off with a flick of his hand and a pulse of his will, honed through long attunement to the Tower’s many spells. Others had to use runes and such to interface with those spells. He was the Master. The hardest part for him was disciplining his mind enough to not trigger the wrong effect.

  “Thank you for that expert guidance, Myal,” he praised her, descending to the floor. “Since it looks like we’ll have to wait to get any results . . . would you like to retire with me to my quarters? Or should I send you to yours, so you may bathe and sleep?”

  Myal tucked the pad and unused pencil under her arm and rose. Cheeks flushed with her thoughts, she asked as boldly as she could, “Will we have time to make love again when we awaken, if I stay?”

  Catching her hand, Kerric lifted it to his lips. “My dear lady, it would be my distinct pleasure to fulfill your request, if you stay.”

  Lacing her fingers with his, he tugged her toward the alcove with the pale blue marble triangle embedded in front of it. Myal didn’t protest in the least. She remembered a conversation from back when she was a girl bordering on becoming a woman. A clutch of older cousins had been giggling and gossiping about young men, and all of them had agreed: the taller, the better. What fools they were, she scorned mentally, silently as he led her through to his quarters. As if height has anything to do with a man’s abilities in bed!

  The bed in question was as large as promised. Larger than Myal had imagined, actually. She had expected something that was a little longer than she was tall, wide enough for two people to sleep comfortably, maybe three. Instead, Kerric’s bed was a big, square, feather-stuffed thing twice as long as he was tall, and equally as wide. She stared at it blankly as soon as they entered his bedchamber, trying to figure out how many could sleep on it.

  “Six people,” Kerric stated, making her blink. “That’s if you put one down at the bottom crosswise to the rest.”

  “How did you . . . ?” Myal asked.

  He shrugged and gestured at the massive piece of furniture. “Because that was my first thought, too. Who wouldn’t be wondering?”

  He had a point. Myal tipped her head, considering the massive mattress, then turned to him and asked, “How many have you had on it? Six?”

  “Two. But mostly just the one, me.”

  “All that space, for just you?” Myal asked.

  He shrugged. “I get hot, I roll over and find a cool spot.”

  “I get cold, and wrap myself in blankets,” she countered. A thought crossed her mind, making her smile and elbow him. “Maybe I’ll wrap myself in you?”

  Blushing, he grinned. “Maybe. On with the tour. This door leads to my dressing room—yes, an entire room for clothing, how absurd,” Kerric said dryly, mocking his lifestyle, “when my bedchambers alone are almost as big as whole tenements in Penambrion. I didn’t build this place, though. That door leads to the refreshing room, and this one in the middle is for the bathing room. It connects to the other two.”

  Opening the door, he gestured for her to enter. Myal’s tenement was luxurious in one respect: she had a bathing tub of her own. Sometimes she used one of the town’s two bathhouses, but mostly for swimming in the big pools. This tub wasn’t quite large enough to swim in, but it was five times as large as the one she used, making it not quite half the size of Kerric’s bed. It was also already full.

  A glimpse through the open door to the right showed shelves of clothes and other belongings in a well-lit room. “Whoever built this place loved to bathe and admire his clothes. Or her. What is the little tub in the corner for? The one with the scrolls on the edge?”

  She nodded at a tub not quite large enough to bathe in, but bigger than a kettle. Kerric, following her gaze, chuckled. “That’s a clothes-washing tub. It’s an Artifact, enchanted with several complex spells. Put your things into the tub, twist the knob on the faucet to add water, pour in a dollop of softsoap, tap the starting rune, and put a basket on the floor behind those ‘scrolls’ to catch the clothes. Which aren’t scrolls, by the way. They’re drying presses; they press and suck the moisture out of the clothing when the washing and rinsing spells are done.

  “Speaking of which . . .” Without any show of modesty, Kerric started stripping off his remaining clothes and tossed them into the tub. “If you want to add yours, now is the time. My plan is to wash these, take a bath, and then curl up on that big bed of mine with you. Since we have time to kill before we find out what the new and old Guardians of Nightfall know, and we might as well spend it doing pleasant things, right?”

  About to agree verbally, Myal found herself distracted into merely nodding. The sight of his naked body distracted her from higher thoughts. Tight buttocks, great thighs and calves, trim waist and hips, flat stomach . . . Nothing rippled with over-bulging muscles, but then she wasn’t one of the female adventurers—or the many, many lady patrons—who swooned over someone like Nafiel. Kerric’s muscles showed when he used them, and relaxed when they weren’t needed, giving an overall impression of strength with the ability to yield.

  He nudged her elbow. “Myal? Strip. You must be more tired than even I am.”

  Blushing, she started removing her garments. “I was thinking about yo
ur body. Physique. That’s the word.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment, then. Do you like really hot baths, hot baths, or merely warm baths?”

  “Medium-hot. I don’t want my muscles to tighten after such a long day,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t be able to move in the morning.”

  “Done,” he promised, twisting a lever on the edge of the tub. Runes started glowing in golden-orange hues along the inside. “One minute to the perfect temperature . . . You know, I heard a rumor that some lands don’t even have a sense of time beyond a vague grasp of ‘morning,’ ‘mid-morning,’ ‘noon’ and the like. I couldn’t work that way—the Tower doesn’t work that way.”

  “Mendhi is that way. We have hours, and quarter-hours, but no minutes or seconds,” Myal stated. “We’re very close to the Sun’s Belt, so our days and nights are similar in length all around the year. When I came here, I had to practice counting how long a second was, and memorize how many in a minute.” The air in the bathing room grew warm and humid as she spoke. Myal relaxed a little. She sighed in a soft hum, closing her eyes. “This feels like home. Heat and moisture.”

  “If I could afford the time away—which obviously I cannot,” Kerric lamented dryly, “I’d love to visit Mendhi. I’d love to visit the Great Library in specific—what mage wouldn’t? But I’d love to see it through your eyes as well. I mean, I’d show you Penambrion, but you’ve already lived here, so you know all about it already.” Testing the water, he cut off the glow with a twist of the lever. “There, that should be good.”

  At a gesture from him, Myal tested it, then quickly climbed in. It was good; hot enough to relax, but not hot enough to overheat or even turn their flesh pink. The tub was also deeper than she was used to; it had a bench seat with a comfortably sloped back. She shook her head, then quickly worked on unbraiding her now-damp hair. “I feel like this is for soaking, not for cleaning—is there a current?”

  She could feel the water moving past her skin. Kerric nodded. “You can see the small holes here and there for the water to flow in, and to flow out again. The whole thing gets cycled in about half an hour, I think.”

  Thinking about that, Myal finished unplaiting her hair. When Kerric picked up a comb—silver, not wooden, and not likely to turn into a dense bramble thicket—she turned her back to him so that he could brush out the tangles.

  “I think, before this last day, I would have wondered at so much luxury for such a seemingly easy job. You, the Master of the Tower, do not run the gauntlets day after day. Yet when you do have to adventure into the Tower, it is in the most deadly of runs. So perhaps this luxury is earned,” Myal asserted. She peered back over her shoulder, smiling at him. “Thank you for sharing it with me.”

  Leaning forward, Kerric hugged her with one arm . . . conveniently cupping her bared, floating breast. “You’re welcome. Thank you for getting me back in charge. Now with that said,” he murmured in her ear before kissing the curve of it, “remind me to have you put on that fancy pearl and diamond necklace you picked up. Just the necklace. Since I haven’t found you the perfect outfit to wear with it, yet.”

  She grinned at that, leaning back into his arms. “Mmm, I think I’ll do that. I do suggest you apply soap to your hand, though.”

  “Oh?” he asked, setting the comb aside in favor of cuddling her against his upper body.

  “If you do not focus on bathing, we will never get clean,” Myal warned him.

  “You have a point,” he conceded . . . then pulled their lower bodies into closer alignment. It was obvious he wasn’t thinking about soap anymore. “But I suggest getting very, very dirty first, so we don’t waste all that good soap.”

  Chuckling, Myal twisted in his arms, turning so that she could give him a kiss . . . and another . . . and both of them forgot all about the soap for a good while.

  SIXTEEN

  Kerric didn’t get much sleep. Not naturally, at least. He honestly wasn’t used to sleeping with anyone, lovemaking aside, and the way Myal cuddled him in her sleep, seeking the warmth of his body, was a bit distracting. Very distracting. But he could not bring himself to move her away, and his thoughts turned and tumbled the idea of keeping her with him, at his side, for more than just a gauntlet run. For more than just a day.

  After a handful of hours, he gave up and speed-slept, then dozed lightly in her arms. Eventually, he knew he would get used to her cuddling; all it would take was constant exposure. Practice, as it were. That thought left him smiling as he napped. He woke when she stirred, aware that she held herself still for a moment in that way that said she was assessing her surroundings warily. The feel of her muscles relaxing against him a few moments later made his heart skip a quick beat in pleasure.

  She didn’t stay cuddled up against his side for long, however. After several long seconds, she sighed and squirmed free. Lying there, feeling and listening to her squirm to get out of the bed, Kerric kept his eyes closed. He didn’t want her to see him, just in case his expression looked as abandoned as he felt. The sound of the door to the left of his bed told him why she had crawled free: that was the refreshing room door.

  Relaxing, he snuggled into the bedding as best he could on his back, given his sprawled position. He had visited that room earlier, himself; he couldn’t blame her for taking advantage of the peace and quiet. A faint frown creased his brow. Peace and quiet was something he wouldn’t have, once he rose and faced whatever remained of the day. Restarting the scrycasting channels will be interesting, if not an outright headache. Normally they’re staggered in the gauntlet runs, so that we aren’t trying to get everyone in and out all at the same time. Maybe if we staggered these ones as well?

  She came back, crawled under the covers, and scooted her way back over to him. Kerric started to open his eyes, but felt the sheet and blankets shift oddly on his chest as she drew close. She was up to something. Unsure what it was, but willing to trust her, Kerric opened his eyes to the barest slits. Myal wasn’t visible as anything more than a lump under the covers.

  For a moment, he thought it was because she had grown cold during her trip. A moment later, he felt the real reason why she had ducked so low that not even her head showed. Her head, he discovered by the warmth of her breath and the tickling of her hair, was too busy centering itself over his hips.

  Clever gi—uhhhrrl oh Gods. Even with his eyelids closed, his eyes rolled up in his head at the soft, warm caress of her lips along his shaft. Heart thumping, he felt blood rushing to his nethers, filling and thickening the formerly quiescent flesh. They had made love in the oversized bathtub, they had snuggled in the bedding, they had slept together in the literal sense as well as the lascivious, and now she was making his favorite daydream come true. That a truly smart, sexy woman would worship his manhood first thing in the morning.

  Even if it was technically late afternoon.

  She also hummed as she did so, happy little noises as she nibbled with lip-covered teeth, before wrapping her tongue around the underside in a way that made his eyes roll up again. Kerric couldn’t hold still. Back arching, he pushed the covers down out of his way. Catching handfuls of her hair, he rubbed it over his stomach and stroked it back from her face in movements far more sincere than smooth-practiced.

  The head-bobbing did him in, it felt so good. Groaning, he dug in his heels and arched his body, her name a strangled grunt. “Myal!” If she kept going, it would be over too fast. “Myal, please!”

  Myal blushed at his plea. Not from embarrassment, but rather from an unexpected and rather heady sense of power that rose at his words. He’s begging me for something? The most powerful mage in . . . in hundreds of miles, and dozens of lands? The thrill that rushed through her veins at that realization was purely feminine, and it pooled warmth low in her belly faster than the taste and the feel and the thought of what she had been doing to him.

  Rearing up onto her knees, she pushed the covers completely off. The air in the bedchamber was a little cool against her flushed body, but all
that did was intensify the ache in her flesh, drawing her nipples into tight little buds and making her hips want to rock. The quickest way to sate her own need as well as his was to climb over his lap, which she did. And to grasp his shaft, which she did . . . and to position it just so, so she could sink down onto it. Which she did.

  Her lover lifted his palms, elbows braced on the bed and fingers spread, a pleased smirk curling his mouth. Despite her very physical position, the thought of clasping hands with him seemed very intimate. Smiling shyly in return, Myal slid her fingers through his until their hands interlocked, giving her some support and stability. Which she used, guiding herself while flexing her leg muscles to slide up and sink down. It felt good, so good that her brief shyness evaporated with each greater, quicker roll and flex of her body.

  Kerric couldn’t think of a sexier sight. Myal still had an uneven red line on her cheek from sleeping on a crease in the bedding, her long black hair desperately needed a brush, and her delightful breasts, each just barely a nice handful, were too far away for him to lick. But she was beautiful in her desire . . . and certain other parts were close. Freeing one hand, he reached between her splayed thighs and started murmuring.

  Bemused by the change, Myal slowed down her rocking on his shaft. She didn’t understand magical phrases, but she did recognize when a spell was being cast. Wary, she stilled, only to find him touching a finger to his tongue, then that same finger to her clit, and returned it to his tongue for a lick. He rubbed and stroked all around the erect little peak on the return touch, making her moan and shift, pausing every so often to touch his tongue, until it felt like he was still rubbing her when his finger wasn’t toying with her flesh.

  No . . . Not rubbing, she thought, eyes widening in amazement. Licking! She could see his tongue stroking around his lips, and feel it stroking between her nether-lips. He’s—oh Goddess—licking me! Pleasure bucked through her body, first tensing her muscles, then weakening them. Slumping over their rejoined hands, she moaned, but he didn’t stop.