“Rinse me,” he commanded.
The girl obeyed, and once he was clean, he stood. The girl read his movements perfectly and shifted her position to kneel on the pallet before him. Soren slipped his cock into her mouth, and she played along its length with her tongue, pressing even the hard tip down her throat. Soren leaned his head back, grabbed her by the hair, and held her lips against his balls. The girl caressed his thighs while she took him as deeply as she could.
Soren released her, and she took a deep breath before jacking him off while sucking on the tip. Sillara was out of danger, and Kamen would come soon with balloons. Soren would be reunited with his sister.
Soren lay back and commanded the slave climb on. She did so gladly, planting one knee on one side of his legs, and the other leg was raised up so that Soren could watch his cock disappear inside her. She was clean shaven like all slaves, so he had a clear view. She lowered herself slowly, and after the tip passed her pussy lips, she turned her gaze on him. Her eyelids were heavy with desire, her mouth formed into a silent moan. As she swallowed him with her pussy, she leaned forward and kissed his throat. Her skin was warm, her scent ginger and roses.
The slave placed her hands flat against Soren’s chest and rode him, moving her hips forward and back so that Soren’s cock slipped almost all the way out but not quite. She did what all his lovers eventually did: she traced the wide wings of the falcon inked across his chest. She reversed direction and drove him back to her deepest spot. Her mouth formed a thin line as she bit on the inside of her lips. Soren slapped her ass, which made her gyrate more. She tweaked his nipples and smiled down at him. Though she had no other function than to fuck and be fucked, she seemed to be enjoying Soren immensely. Soren's suspicions were soon confirmed when, having arched herself forward and worked his cock up and down inside her, she slammed her pelvis down onto him, leaned forward, and whined. She grabbed Soren by the horns as she shuddered in her orgasm.
Soren met her lips with his and slipped his tongue into her mouth. In his experience, women loved a passionate kiss just as their climax was receding, and though this woman was nothing more than a pleasure slave, she was still a woman—and Soren was an attentive lover, happy to give even this slave as much if not more pleasure than she was giving him.
The girl wrapped her arms around Soren's head and returned his kisses with equal fervor, and as her perky little tits rubbed against his chest, Soren reached up and caressed them, punctuating his strokes with a pinching of her nipples. This got her going again. She broke their kiss and bucked against him, coming even harder the second time. Soren's inner thighs were wet with her cum, and his own climax burned up his shaft. He grabbed her by the hips and slammed up into her, and with only a few more thrusts, her pussy, which flexed in its tightness against his cock, brought the cum rushing out of him. He filled her like a fountain, and as his cock spurted inside her, he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her mouth. She came again, adding her own pleasure to his.
The girl did not—as pleasure slaves normally do—pull off her lover, for she seemed to be in no hurry to empty herself of Soren. Instead she snuggled down on his chest.
“I wish my master would sell me to you,” she whispered. “I would serve you as long as you desired me.”
Soren smiled to himself and stroked her hair. His cock still twitched inside her. He had that effect on women. “I'll see what I can do.” He knew it was just words and that he would probably forget to talk to Konas about her. He was just so happy, so content that Sillara was no longer in danger. He knew he would see his sister soon.
From then the days passed in impatience, for Soren longed to be doing something toward the rescue of Sillara. In the meantime, he fucked that same slave as a consummate and attentive lover, and Soren sensed love growing in her. He gave her what he could—what she could handle—and no more, for he did not feel for her the way she was beginning to feel for him. So it was with many women whom Soren had encountered over the years, like the married woman at the orgy whose husband had watched him fuck with wild abandon. She had written to him, but he had not returned her letters nor shared her protestations of love.
One morning, when Soren thought Merieke would never return, he spied black dots against the late afternoon sun. They had come at last. Sillara would be saved at last. Kamen came with Ajalira, for she being Ausir directed her own balloon. Soren was surprised to see other Ausir, men he did not know, piloting their own balloons. He later learned that Kamen had commandeered them, paying them handsomely, of course, but really giving them no choice to decline. Darien also came, for he knew the desert better than anyone present.
The camp, which had been quiet for several days, was transformed into a hub of activity. Search parties were organized, but daylight was fading fast. The search would have to begin with the next dawn.
“We'll find her.” Merieke hugged Soren from behind. Her hands rubbed across his smooth, bare chest.
Soren reached up and held her hands against his chest. “I know.” He was certain of it. He did not need the hope she was trying to impart to him. “Thank you for this.” He felt Merieke rest her head against his back and sigh.
Soren turned around and took her in his arms. “You have done so much for the Itenu children. You gave Sillara her first orgasm. You quite surprised me with that vibrating egg—a singular pleasure, I must say.” He gave her a peck on her lips, and she smiled. “And you braved the desert alone to bring back help. You are a good woman, Merieke.”
Merieke wrapped her arms around Soren's waist and kissed his nipple. “I did it for a proper reward.”
“I'll reward you properly.” Soren took her by the hand and led her to his tent. The balloons could not fly tonight. He had time to fuck Merieke until she could not stand.
Chapter Fifteen
“Please, Your Grace, will you follow me?”
“Yes, of course.” Sillara followed Vaelus as he led her once more through the wide streets of Tambril's City. She and Konas had now been a week among these strange Desertmasters, and though she was now fully recovered from her ordeal in the desert, she was not sure yet about Konas's eyes. The injuries they had sustained during the sandstorm itself had been exacerbated by their two-day walk thereafter, despite the care she had insisted he take. She hoped that soon he would be well enough to attempt the return to Arinport.
“Does this please you?” Vaelus stopped before a large dwelling, easily half again as large as any building she had seen aside from Tambril's temple-tomb.
“It is a fine building,” said Sillara. “What is its purpose?” The week she had spent among these people was more than sufficient for her to have learned their tongue, particularly as it was so similar both to ancient Sunjaa and to ancient Fihdal, two languages she had studied thoroughly.
“It is for you. It is the Queen's house, the one prepared for you centuries ago. Oh, and Sir Konas may dwell there, too.”
Sillara smothered the smile that tried to form. No matter how often she told them that Konas's title was “Lord”, they refused to give him that honorific. She suspected that it was due to his pure-blooded status. She had noticed that the Desertmasters viewed themselves, as a mixed-blooded people, to be superior. It amused her that this racial pride, so prevalent among the Sunjaa, should have survived in a group whom the Sunjaa themselves would have shunned.
“But the house we have now suffices,” said Sillara. A sudden worry took from her any desire to smile. “For we will not be long among you. You need not have given me the Queen's house.”
Vaelus smiled, an indulgent, easy smile that struck Sillara like a dagger of ice. “That is as it pleases Abrexa and her Master.”
“You know Abrexa?” asked Sillara. “How long have the Desertmasters dwelt here?”
“For nearly one-thousand-five-hundred years,” said Vaelus. He opened the door and showed Sillara a larger, more open space than the small house where she and Konas had spent the past week. Again, however, she noticed that the
re were two beds, this time, in fact, in two separate rooms.
“And how do you know Abrexa?” asked Sillara. “For the goddess has been known to mortals for less than a millennium.”
“She is the River-goddess, the Lady of Lakes,” said Vaelus. “How should she not make herself known to us when Galadrin abandoned the waters?”
“True.” Sillara looked over the house as she spoke. “It is larger than two people need.”
“But you will need servants.” Vaelus led the way up the second floor. “For you are the Queen.”
Sillara's heart thudded painfully in her chest. Queen and Queen. Roses and roses. Why could she not be left alone? “Where I would be accounted Queen,” she said, “for I am of royal blood even among my own people, Queens have no servants. A King must be able to do anything for himself.”
Vaelus stared. “Royal among—you are indeed the gift of Abrexa to us! For we had thought that it would be strange to you to be a Queen, not that we would be taking the Queen of another people from them.”
Sillara squared her shoulders. “But is this house the only reason you brought me out this morning?”
“No, Your Grace.” Vaelus's embarrassment was clear in his lowered eyes. “We would like for you to bless those who have taken ill with the water-sickness.”
“Water-sickness?” Sillara did not even hesitate at the suggestion she should touch the ill. It was too much a part of her life, wherever she was, for it to surprise her. “What is this?”
“It is a fairly recent thing, Your Grace.” Vaelus, having shown her through the two large bedchambers on the upper floor, bedchambers for servants Sillara had refused, now led her back down and outside. “The water from the well does not always agree with us, but we dare not drink too deeply of the lakes.”
Sillara understood. To drink too much of the lakes would make them vulnerable to the desert winds, and the water would be lost altogether. “Who designed your well?”
“It was Tambril's own creation,” said Vaelus. “And we who attend it—and all his other designs—are the priests of Abrexa's Master.”
An Ausir, or half-Ausir at any rate. Sillara said, “Show me, then, his designs. And do you also give to Lord Konas any collection of histories you might have, for if I am to be your Queen, I must know of you.” Sillara had yet no clear intention of being the Queen of the Desertmasters, but she hoped instead to find a reason in their history for refusing this crown. She knew, too, of course that Konas, with his bandaged eyes, could not even try to read the documents, but she would do that herself later.
“Of course, Your Grace.” Vaelus took her back to the temple-tomb of Tambril, and there he opened for her skillfully concealed crevices where plans had been stored. They were not, as the Sunjaa records usually were, on papyrus, but rather on a parchment the likes of which Sillara had never seen. It was neither sheep nor calf-skin, but she could tell that it was of something that, like calf-skin, could have been treated differently to produce leather.
“And these are all?” Sillara looked up, hearing the distant footsteps of three approaching men.
“They are, Your Grace.” Vaelus was clearly puzzled that she did not look at him.
Sillara sighed when she saw that it was three acolytes, all attired like Vaelus, in the official cloaks of their order. Underneath the cloaks they wore only the skin loincloths that all Desertmasters wore. “Do you serve Tambril himself?” she asked.
“No, for he was only the instrument of Veirakai.” Vaelus, now that his acolytes were with him, spoke the name of Abrexa's Master openly. “It is from Veirakai that all craft springs.”
“True enough. You do not take these out of the temple.” She turned her attention back to the stack of parchments. “Fetch light, please, for these are faded with much time.”
“You heard Her Grace.” Vaelus sent the acolytes scurrying, and soon Sillara was seated at a table, surrounded by oil-lamps, with the parchments before her. Behind her rose the steps to Tambril's sarcophagus.
She smiled wryly up at the sarcophagus. “Did you think,” she murmured in Ausir, “whoever you are, that your works would become the relics of a cult of Veirakai? One that would worship your craft?”
Shaking her head, she bent her attention on the parchment. She soon saw that Tambril must have been a very skilled craftsman indeed, as well as an engineer, for the pumps he had designed were brilliantly executed. She could find only three places where they might have been improved, which was fewer than in any design she had seen before. She and Soren had often played with designs before he went to sea, taking turns pointing out where the designers could have improved their plans. She felt her throat tighten, and she wished Soren were here with her now. He would have loved to see something so well-designed.
Sillara leaned her head down on her arms and let the tears flow. Konas was safely sleeping, for his eyes were still bound, though the bandages were due off that evening. She did not weep before him, for she did not wish to seem to reproach him for having carried her off into the desert. How could she blame him for loving her? But she missed Soren with an unspeakable ache. It was not like her fear of death, for that she knew that Soren had felt from her. She expected he could feel this, too, for she felt his impatience to see her, too. This was like what she had felt when he had first gone to sea, but it was worse in that there was no set end. When Soren had gone to sea, she had wept for a week. Each day thereafter she had marked off, counting down until his return, but how could she count now? When could she see him again?
“Enough, Sillara.” She spoke to herself sternly. “Would you drag Soren down with your weakness? He will come for you as soon as he can.”
“Sillara?” Konas's voice made Sillara glad she had already dried her tears, despite the fact that he was still being led by the hand by one of the Desertmaster youths.
“Yes, Konas?” She rose and went to him. “Did they bring you the histories I asked for?”
“So that is what those stacks of parchment were.” Konas smiled, enfolding her in his arms. “What does Vaelus want of you now?”
“I have been looking over the designs of their well.”
“Your Grace, if you have a moment, those with the water-sickness would like for you to touch them.” Vaelus, whose departure Sillara had been too absorbed in the designs to notice, now swept back into the temple-tomb.
“I will go.”
“Sillara, we have to talk,” Konas whispered in Ausir.
“I know.” She understood his fears, and after what Vaelus had said earlier, she shared them. “But first I must help these Desertmasters.”
“Supplicants,” said Konas. “How else to describe them?”
Sillara felt tears well up in her eyes, but she blinked them back. Soren had always known about her supplicants. In fact, he had gone with her to greet them until he had gone to sea.
When she stepped out into the brilliant sunlight, Sillara was dazzled, and for an instant she could almost imagine herself back in her father's courtyard. There was the same diffident, hopeful look on the faces of the gathered people. But here no one wore linen; instead all wore simple skin loincloths, with the women wearing an additional strip tied across their breasts.
Sillara moved among them. Touch and touch. Kiss a child. Pat the hand of an elderly man. Touch and touch. Bless and be gone.
“Is it over?” Konas, who had had to wait by the temple door as she attended to the Desertmasters, asked.
Sillara went to him. “Yes, and we have a new house.”
“Abrexa's cunt.” Konas's oath was so low that Sillara, despite the keenness of her hearing, only barely caught it.
“Yes.” Sillara dismissed Vaelus with a wave before he could approach her again. “Konas and I are going to retire to our new house for the afternoon. When the evening comes and we can work, I will show you what to do about the well.”
Konas did not speak again until Sillara closed the door of their new house behind them.
“Do not take off yo
ur bindings yet,” said Sillara, forestalling him. “Wait until the sun goes down. You should start with moonslight before you try the sun.”
Konas nodded, but he held out his arms to her. Sillara went to him, and the feel of his arousal pressed against her belly delighted her.
“I will wait only long enough for you to speak of what you have learned,” said Konas, skimming his hand up her side.
Sillara laughed as he, despite his lack of vision, unerringly caught her nipple between his fingers and pinched it lightly.
“What I learned from Tambril's designs is that he built their well to last—but not quite so long as they have been using it.” She led Konas to a low chair, and he sat down, pulling her into his lap.
“It is the Ausir way to design something to last his whole lifetime, that he need not return to it again.” Konas nuzzled her neck.
“And this well has been used for well over an Ausir lifetime.” Sillara sighed her pleasure as Konas nibbled the flesh of her throat. “Doubtless some of the pipes are no longer functioning well, are perhaps clogged or dirty. That would explain the water-sickness.”
“You can fix it?” asked Konas. “After only looking over the schematics for a morning?”
Half a morning, thought Sillara. “Yes.”
Konas slipped his hand inside the strip of cloth that covered Sillara's breasts. “I like these Desertmaster fashions,” he said. “They are even easier of access than Sunjaa gowns.”
“You,” said Sillara, “would have me go about naked if you could.”
Konas chuckled. “Hardly. I like to have your charms veiled, that I might have the pleasure of revealing them.”
“So you would wait until you can see my face then?” Sillara kissed Konas's nose. “Then I should change my seat.” She rose, and she heard his groan.
The Lotus Ascension Page 16
