“I have a wife!” I countered, desperately. Blue Magic was potent and insidious.
“And I have a husband, alas,” she admitted. “But such details are trivial, in the balance. I see no benefit in disturbing our matrimonial status – yet – to secure this alliance. For all of his boorishness, Dunselen has his uses, and your wife seems young and pretty enough, yet. No need to take any rash action that isn’t necessary . . . don’t you think?”
“I . . . think you need . . .”
“Shhh, darling, don’t strain yourself,” she soothed. “This will only take a moment, and afterward you will hold me in your heart with the same regard you do any of your sisters.”
“You . . . don’t . . . know . . . my . . . sisters . . .”
“At the brink of insensibility, and still he jests! What a profound and admirable will, you have, Minalan. What a shame to bend it, even slightly. Such interesting men as you are so rare,” she sighed, sadly. “But let us begin.”
She began to read the scroll and set the spell. I would have been really interested, for professional reasons, to have observed the process with magesight, but my will had ebbed to the point where I could not even muster that simple cantrip.
She cast the spell with soothing words and a masterful command of the thaumaturgic action. I felt sinewy coils of energy enwrapped my mind, seductively burrowing into my brain and convincing me that Isily was among the most noble of women. I could feel my resistance and antipathy to the shadowmage slip away, replaced by a wholesome protective feeling. I found myself automatically well-disposed to anything she might say. I began to regard her wisdom, her insight, and her intuition with the same level of trust that I gave to Pentandra and Alya.
It wasn’t quite love, but it was close. There was even a stirring of passionate idealism strung in the spell. The psychomancer who built the spell was very, very good.
She was right – it didn’t take long. I had little experience with psychomancy, outside of some basic spells, but the magical compulsions that overtook my mind did so easily and with little resistance. I’m sure the poison helped. But when she was done, Isily put the scroll away and looked deeply into my eyes.
For at least ten minutes, she gazed into me, without me having the ability to blink of my own accord until her beautiful eyes seemed to engulf my soul. I don’t know what magic she was casting, or if she was just using some inherent feminine power to compel, but I could not tear my will away.
Finally, after centuries, she moved away. “That should do it,” she said, with an air of satisfaction. “You are bound to me now, my love. Even when you are between your loving wife’s thighs, it will be my face you see, my voice you hear in your ears.”
I hated her. And loved her.
Then she pushed my robe up and unfastened my underwear. With horror, I realized what she was after.
“You . . .”
“You didn’t think I’d waste this opportunity, did you?” she asked, fire in her eyes as she worked. “I am at my most fertile. I had all the world’s magi to choose from to sire my child, and through your works and by your power, you have demonstrated yourself the master of them all,” she said, with admiration, as she worked on disrobing me. “You alone are worthy of giving our daughter a sibling. And tonight, in the shadow of this glorious artifact, that is just what will happen,” she said, as she hiked up her skirts. She was bare underneath.
“Ishi’s—!” I began to swear, but then her mouth covered mine before I could complete the oath. She kissed me fervently as she settled herself upon my lap.
“Kiss me back,” she commanded. “Like you do your wife, but with more passion. Mean it!”
I did.
I didn’t have a choice.
Chapter Eight
Ishi’s Tits
I don’t remember a lot of what happened during Isily’s forcible seduction, due to reasons that will become apparent shortly, but a few things clung to my memory. Her delight and satisfaction for getting her way, for one. The way she reveled in how passionately I responded to her commands. The sense of triumph she had when I proclaimed my devotion and desire for her. I remember little about the event, now, but I do recall her triumph. It stung me like an insult.
I had a hard time moving, under any circumstances, but if she told me to do something, my body found the volition to move. If she bid me to speak, though the effort was titanic I spoke the words she wished me to say.
She had me as her toy for at least an hour. Enough time to get what she wanted from me. Twice. Then she kissed me, thanked me, assured me that this was the beginning of a long and prosperous relationship, and explained that I would be unable to move under my own power for another five or six hours – by which time she would be a long way from Sevendor.
Then she was gone. Leaving me to dumbly stare at the Snowflake, from my prone position, unable to do anything else. While my conscious mind spun in pointless circles the hypnotic, ever-changing Snowflake mesmerized my eyes and dominated my perspective. Considering the confusion and turmoil my mind was suffering in the wake of her violation, the Snowflake’s constant transformation was soothing to it. Soon the indignity of Isily’s assault was replaced by the serene pulsations of the thing. It consumed my attention to the exclusion of all other thought, blanking out even the most despairing thoughts that were racing in my head now.
An unfathomable amount of time later – thousands of permutations of the Snowflake’s six-sided simultaneity – I realized I wasn’t alone. Again.
My consciousness became aware of someone else in the room, someone standing behind the Snowflake . . . only from my vantage point, as mesmerized as I was, I could see the entrance to the room and knew no one had come in through the doorway. But there was a shape, and eyes peering at me through the shifting construct.
The other person quietly and with deliberation walked around the Snowflake to address me more directly. It was a woman.
A naked woman. The most beautiful naked woman I’ve ever seen.
Don’t misunderstand me – I’m enraptured by my wife’s face and form, and I have a fine appreciation for feminine beauty I’ve inadvertently cultivated since I was old enough to appreciate it. From surreptitious peeks at forbidden flesh behind the millhouse to watching with unabashed delight the grand white beaches of Farise, where bronzed commoner and pale noblewomen alike doffed their clothes to bathe in the warm ocean surf, I’ve enjoyed every element of feminine beauty I’ve witnessed.
But she surpassed them all. The wholesome beauty of Alya, the winsome allure of Pentandra, the intoxicating exotic glamour of the transgenically enchanted forms of the Alka Alon emissaries . . . even, damn her, Isily’s seductive charms paled in comparison. This woman was the pure perfection of the human feminine form. Her face, her golden hair, her bright blue eyes, her perfect lips, her utterly flawless proportions, and her exquisitely ideal breasts. Indeed, apart from her eyes, the two globes that hung near-weightlessly in front of me captivated my attention.
She noted my staring. She glanced down at them, then looked back up to me and smiled. It was the most beautiful smile I have ever seen.
“Go ahead and look,” she said, in tones like liquid love. “You deserve it. You’ve mentioned them often enough.”
“Huh?” I managed. It was about the most eloquent thing I could muster, under the circumstances . . . that is, paralyzed, despoiled, and laying in a cave with my willy hanging out in front of a strange, naked woman.
“You are the famed Minalan the Spellmonger,” she said, walking toward me slowly, her hands behind her back like a schoolgirl reciting in temple. That made her boobs push out in the most delightful way. “Greatest wizard of your era, creator of this marvelous mountain, defender of humanity, savior of the Kasari, and, apparently, well on your way to single-handedly siring an entire new generation of magically-gifted children.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t know what the hells to say.
“You may not know
me, personally, but I suppose you could say we’re acquainted with each other’s work,” she said, smiling provocatively, her blue eyes twinkling merrily. “You are, of course, familiar with the basic procreative process. And I have been made aware of your recent experiments in enneagramatic cohesion. So . . . I thought we could perhaps work something out . . . which, I’m realizing,” she said, rolling her eyes, “would be easier if you weren’t under the influence of all of that mess.”
She leaned over me, crawling up my body from below, until her incredible bounty rested fully on my chest in the most utterly pleasant way possible. She smelled profoundly intoxicating. As her beautiful face came closer to mine, I could feel my heartbeat quicken despite the drug in my blood. All memory of Isily’s violation was blotted out. All memory of my wife’s beauty was chased away.
Then her lips touched mine. I could taste her breath. She whispered something in a language I didn’t know into my mouth as she kissed me . . . and suddenly my brain kind of exploded into a blast of bliss the likes of which I had never experienced. I could move again. And think.
And speak.
“Ishi!” I exclaimed quietly as her lips broke away.
“In the divine flesh,” she acknowledged, springing back to her bare feet with a playful bounce that made her considerable charms gyrate merrily. “Goddess of Love, Sex, Beauty, Feminine Sexuality, Glamour, Deception, Seduction, Procreation, and all that goes with it.”
“How did you . . . ?” I asked, confused.
“You invoked me, silly boy!” she pointed out. “You invoked me, and then had the good sense to screw in front of that thing,” she said, glancing at the ever-evolving Snowflake. “I’ve been keeping an ear out for your summons for awhile. When the chance came, I figured it was time to introduce myself.”
“It really wasn’t my decision,” I said, wryly. I glanced down. My hose were still pulled down along with my underwear, revealing my procreative organ. I embarrassedly pushed it inside and pulled up my hose.
“Oh, don’t bother on my account,” she chuckled. “I consider it a due honor. But I hope you don’t mind me taking the trouble to negate the effects of the poison. It’s just temporary, but it does make actual conversation easier. And we have much to discuss, Spellmonger,” she said, with a mixture of playful seriousness.
“We do?” I asked, struggling to my feet.
“Why yes, we do,” she cooed, folding her arms under her boobs. If she was trying to hide them she was doing a poor job. “You have something I want. And, now, I have something you want.”
I sat up, slowly, my head still spinning. She may have abated the effects of the poison, but it was still in my system. “What do you have that I want?” I asked.
“Why, understanding and power, of course,” she said, serenely, as I put my clothing back together. I felt shaken and shocked by what had happened, but I also understood that my focus and attention needed to be here right now. Ishi had a reputation of getting her way through confusion and misdirection. Whatever my trauma, I had to focus on what she was saying or risk the consequences. “You need the understanding, and of course you need the power.”
“What understanding?” I asked, still shaking off the taint of the poison.
“Understanding how men and women work – how human hearts collide and combine.”
“That’s Pentandra’s specialty, not mine,” I said, warily. “At most I’m a talented amateur. Who is also happily married.”
“Yet that didn’t stop you from enjoying what just happened,” she pointed out. “Some part of you, at least.”
“That’s not entirely true,” I said, my heart hardening. “That was not pleasure. That was assault. She stole something from me.”
“Your precious virtue?” the goddess of love mocked with false sympathy, leaning on her arm and wiggling her juggs at me. “Your battered fidelity? Your innocence? You’ve had small claim to any of these, Spellmonger. Just what did you lose from her seduction?”
“Dignity? Respect? A sense of security?” I countered, angrily. “That was a deliberate and calculated assault, not a drunken moment of passion. Surely you know the difference,” I said, accusingly.
“Of course I know the difference!” she cooed, indignantly. “But all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals. And that girl plainly loves you, bless her insane little heart. When she realized that you did not hate her, during the other night’s truthtelling, her plans shifted. She had originally planned on seducing one of your colleagues, but when it came to light that you were working on this,” she said, nodding toward the Snowflake, “she couldn’t help herself. She succumbed to the erotic temptation of making you her tool. Literally.”
“And impregnated herself without my consent!” I reminded the goddess, angrily. “She stole a child from me!”
“Yet you’ve experienced naught that many a maiden half your age hasn’t,” she pointed out, coolly. “And as far as the child goes, it’s hardly the first bastard you’ve sired unwillingly, if not unknowingly. You’ve three children in the world you have never met,” she said, smugly. “You certainly conceived them consensually. Though the occasion might have been unpleasant in its execution, it is by no means rare or even uncommon. How many poor maids have endured worse than that, on a regular basis? How many innocent lads?”
“That does little to sooth my wrath,” I said, darkly, holding out my hand for her assistance.
“It wasn’t intended to,” Ishi pointed out, helping me to my feet – and nearly causing a collision between my face and her bosom. “It was to help you appreciate the experience in a wider context. When it happens, it is a violation of the lifeforce, regardless of the sex of the victim. But as it is also an act of love and pleasure – to Isily, at least – then it falls under my sphere of influence. So . . . here I am,” she said, presenting herself in her glory.
“To what end?” I asked, though I could not take my eyes off of her. “Or do you just like to watch?”
“Oh, more than anything but doing it,” she agreed, dreamily. “But it wasn’t professional curiosity that brought me here to witness your ravishment. It was merely an opportunity. I wish to plead with you to use your craft to bestow upon me the same gift you gave to Herus and Briga,” she asked, respectfully.
I considered the matter, while my eyes remained focused on her assets. “They each pledged assistance for my desires,” I pointed out. “Can you do likewise? If so, how would you?”
“Me? I control the waxing and waning of the human heart and erotic desire! How could I NOT help you?” she asked, sounding a little hurt.
“Because I do have some knowledge of your methods,” I replied smoothly, settling back into my chair. I wasn’t certain of my knees’ capacity to support me, right now. I suppose I was in a state of shock. “I know just how chaotic your work can be.”
“Oh, that’s just the conservative clergy spreading false propaganda!” she demurred. “I am at the heart of every baby born. Of every young love. Of every marriage that is sustained by passion. How could I be a force of chaos?” she asked, innocently.
I wasn’t convinced. Apparently my face showed it.
“You’re just upset because you had a bit of a bad night,” she pouted prettily. “If I had interrupted you and your wife, this conversation would be going in a far better direction!”
“Ishi, you’re one of the most popular and prominent goddesses among my people,” I sighed. “Everyone loves you, except a few small sects. But what you do is hardly orderly. By giving you continuity, I am unleashing the raw libido of human sexuality on the world in a way that even I can see would be problematic.”
“But what if I could promise you love?” she countered.
“I’ve got love – more than I deserve,” I answered evenly. “And ‘love’ is what inspired my attacker tonight. If you want to prove your value to me, strike her down. Undo what she has done to me,” I pleaded. I was starting to think I’d do just about anything to keep the shameful episode from
happening.
Ishi shrugged apologetically, once again sending that magnificent rack into a highly distracting gyration. “I cannot, Spellmonger. Alas, she has transcended my sphere, after tonight.”
“Wait,” I said, confused, “I thought you had dominion over all sex and love?”
“Aye,” she admitted, “but when there is a conception involved, my sphere ends and Trygg’s begins. In this particular case, the child you just conceived is going to be special. So it’s ‘hands off’.”
“You . . . know all of this already?”
She shrugged again. It was even more distracting. “In a manner of speaking. Isily’s assault brought a new life into the world. Until it is delivered, I cannot touch it – or her.”
“Well, that seems a pretty lousy way to run a pantheon!” I objected.
“Gee, you think so?” Ishi shot back, putting a hand on her bare hip indignantly. It was sexy as hell. “That’s what happens when you have powerful gods with no continuity! We become mere archetypes, without consistent goals or personality. Without history and experience we are limited merely to what humanity’s collective unconscious provides us. Do you have any idea how frustrating that is?” she asked, tossing her hair. “It’s like waking up every morning with the same set of memories you did the day before . . . and the day before that!”
“I understand your frustration,” I soothed tiredly. “But . . . I’m not exactly in a mood to be magnanimous, right now,” I said, darkly.
“Oh, I do understand that emotion!” she nodded, her smile not entirely pleasant. “But we must do what we must. I need this continuity, Minalan the Great, and only you can provide it!” She faced me defiantly, legs spread, her pure, unstrained and unrestrained sexuality radiating from her. But I was not, as I said, in the mood.
Enchanter (Book 7) Page 13
