The Far Realm Chronicles Anthology

by Annette Archer

  He found himself slowing, his feet stopping of their own, to listen to what this man had to say.

  “The woman’s flesh is a horrible wasteland of sin, my friends,” the grinning man said. Thanus couldn’t help but notice how rotten the guy’s teeth were: black and withered. He droned on, sucking on his teeth as he went. “I have counseled you against the temptations of the flesh. I have tried to lead you down the right path and show you that a woman’s place is at a man’s feet.”

  The woman who had been yelling about her husband earlier now clasped her hands before her face and nodded enthusiastically as if what the man said made perfect sense.

  Thanus shook his head, clearing away a fog that had settled on him with the words of hate and suspicion that were being spread out of the man’s lips. He was obviously a Temporalist, possibly even the head Temporalist in Damiste. Thanus sighed at the stupidity that people allowed themselves to be led into, and turned to walk away.

  The crowd parted in just the right way for him to see the woman laying on the ground at the Temporalist’s feet. Her eyes caught his breath. They were the color of pale lightning, shimmering bluish white. They pleaded with him for help as he stood there, stunned.

  There was only one person in the entire Far Realm who ever had eye coloring of that kind.

  Just as he was thinking that, the barking Temporalist raised a hand high to the heavens above and declared, “We will not tolerate this snippet from the lost Kingdom of Crelth coming here to entice our men to violate the just ways of the Maker! We will not allow her kind to taint our purity!”

  Thanus gasped. Crelth was the smallest of all the established Kingdoms. High up in the peaks of the mountains, the people of Crelth were something of a mystery, shrouded in fairy tales and legends. They were rarely seen, rarely spoken to, and rarely got involved in the matters of the rest of the Far Realm.

  This woman here was certainly involved now, and in a bad way.

  “I, Luciro,” the tall Temporalist continued, naming himself as if it justified anything else he said, “I alone have brought this path to the peoples of Damiste. You follow, because you know our ways are just. You follow, because no one else has the right and the justification from the Maker himself. You follow me now, and as you follow me, know that your souls will be cleansed of your past evils from this justifiable act.”

  Thanus cringed. This could not be good. Reflexively, he settled the weight of his sword on his left hip and his long knife on his right. He’d seen this before, in other places. Mob mentality never ended well.

  “Now we will dispose of this evil temptation.” Luciro brought his hand down violently to point a bony finger at the woman, who curled up on herself, expecting the worst. “We will cleanse our holy town and our holy flesh. We will destroy this horrid snippet.”

  No, this was not good. Thanus crossed the street into the middle of the mob as quickly as he could.

  “We will stone her,” Luciro went on in a frenzy, “until she is dead!”

  As the last word of his tirade rang out, he found himself staring down the point of Thanus’s knife.

  The man’s eyes crossed. No one spoke. No one so much as whispered.

  “Pardon me,” Thanus said in a polite, level voice. “I’m just a weary traveler hoping to get a drink and a place to stay for the night. I couldn’t help overhear what you were saying, though. Please, answer me a question. What crime has this woman committed?”

  Thanus saw the anger rise in Luciro’s dark eyes. “You dare,” he said, his voice gradually rising from a whisper back to his previous bluster, “to put a blade in my face!”

  “I thought this would be the best way to get your attention. You weren’t exactly listening to anything but your own voice, honored Temporalist.”

  The man didn’t know whether he was being insulted or complimented. He swallowed, blinked, and then slowly lowered his hands, his attention still on the sharp point wavering close to the tip of his thin nose.

  “I do not explain myself to foreigners,” he said at last.

  “You need to make an exception.” Thanus put a hard edge into his voice to show it wasn’t a suggestion.

  To his surprise, a slow smile spread across Luciro’s mouth, exposing those rotting teeth again. “Very well. You are new to our town, so please allow me to educate you.”

  He stepped back, and everyone else in the crowd followed his example, giving Thanus and the woman a little breathing space. Thanus lowered his blade, but kept it in a ready grip.

  “Educate me, then, on how this woman deserves to die,” Thanus said.

  “All women are evil,” Luciro began, a twist to his lips.

  And that was enough for Thanus.

  He went to jab forward with his blade only to find Luciro had ducked under the thrust, but not of his own doing, however.

  The woman on the ground, the woman that Thanus had thought was defenseless and in need of rescuing, had bounded up from her crouch and taken Luciro’s legs out from under him. The man fell like a tall birch tree with a very undignified shriek. His purple cloak tangled around his body in odd shapes.

  The woman bolted.

  Thanus watched her scamper through the crowd like a rabbit and run away down the street, disappearing between buildings before anyone could stop her. He couldn’t help himself. He burst out laughing. Shoving his long knife back into its sheath, he made a low bow to the still prostrate Luciro.

  “Thank you, honored Temporalist, for educating me so thoroughly.” He almost wished that he’d had a hat to doff. It would have completed the picture.

  Ethelia

  Chapter 3

  Having left the stunned crowd staring and mumbling among themselves, Thanus walked down the street until he located the hanging sign that advertised the Flying Hog. A painted pink pig, fat and happy, flew with wide, white wings below the Inn’s name. The front of the building was freshly painted and the windows were all intact. The planks of the front stoop were swept and clean.

  It was a decent enough place, to be sure.

  Inside, he found himself in a long room lit by hanging chandeliers of fat candles. Round tables were lined up in two orderly rows, four or five chairs around each, set with plates and silverware. A bar stood in front of one wall, glasses stacked up on shelves next to brown bottles of different brands of liquor. A stairway on his right led up to the two upper levels where Thanus assumed the guest rooms were.

  “Good day to you.” A scrawny man in a garishly purple shirt and a white apron tied around his waist came hurrying up to Thanus. “A room for you? Or a meal, perhaps? We have a fantastic spit of boar roasting in the back.”

  “The Flying Hog serves boar?” Thanus asked with a witty smile, still riding the humor of the tall Luciro being toppled by a little woman.

  “That we do, sir!” the innkeeper said with a smile of his own. His long dark hair was held back in a ponytail and, in spite of his youthful face, that hair was graying at the temples. “So, a meal, then?”

  “You talked me into it,” Thanus said to him. “A room first, however. I wish to freshen up a bit. It’s been a long ride.”

  “Excellent, sir, excellent. I have a host of rooms free at the moment, and I can offer you a fine one for a half silver.”

  Thanus nodded. That was about the going rate for a room in most places nowadays. Times were getting tough all over, and even smaller places like Damiste here charged a fine coin for what travelers needed most.

  He handed the coin over and took the key that the Innkeeper gave him in exchange. Number four, second floor up. Thanus nearly gave him the same fingers to temple salute he had given the stable master, then thought better of it. The fewer people who knew him as a Prince of Sargenia, the better.

  The room had been prepared some time that morning. Apparently the rooms were readied every day for travelers just in case. The narrow bed was turned down with fresh sheets. The washstand had a deep ceramic bowl on it and a white pitcher next to it full of water, as well as
a hunk of sponge for washing. He’d seen worse.

  Shutting the door behind him, he stepped across the creaky floor to the window that looked down upon the street. He could see Luciro down there, along with several other Temporalists, scurrying about, probably trying to find that woman. He snorted in derision at them. There was so much energy and time put into this one woman. Didn’t they have other concerns in this town?

  Thanus wanted to wash some of the road dust off him before he went down for his dinner. Taking off his weapons belts he hung them off the foot of the bed. His feet protested as he took off his boots. His shirt and pants he folded and set on the floor next to his boots. His smallclothes came off next, and then he was naked in the room. The mirror on top of the washstand reflected his rippling muscles, his lean form.

  “You’re dirty, Prince. Perhaps you’re trying too hard.”

  Maybe. He didn’t have to take this trip to Rikketh. He could have delegated it to any number of his loyal subjects, but he had to see this through himself. The fate of his people meant that much to him. There was no one else he would trust to do it for him.

  Picking up the sponge, he poured a generous amount of the tepid water into the bowl and soaked it up. Starting with his chest, he let the water roll down his body, down his abdomen, into the stiff short hairs of his crotch. It felt good to scrub the day off his skin. Not as good as a soak in a hot tub would have felt, but this would do.

  He was just rubbing the sponge over his shoulders when the door rattled and then flew open.

  He spun, naked body tense.

  The woman from the street, the one who had bested Luciro, stood there, pushing the door closed with her back. Her quicksilver eyes flashed as they looked him up and down, starting at his toes and gradually making their way up, pausing at his exposed crotch.

  She quirked an eyebrow at him when she finally found his face. “I feel like I should apologize.”

  He relaxed, standing with a hand resting on his hip, not bothering to dress. She’d already seen everything he had. “Apologize for bursting in on a man while he’s bathing, or for using me as a distraction to escape a mob?”

  “I suppose I could say either, although at this moment I’m not sorry for being in this room.”

  “I’m afraid I’m at a loss, Madame…uh, I don’t have your name.”

  A smile wisped over her lips and was gone again. “My name is Ethelia.”

  He bowed to her, suddenly very aware of the air stirring between his legs as her eyes drifted there again. “A pretty name, Ethelia. I’m still at a loss to explain why you’re here in my room.”

  She swallowed then, just a hint of uncertainty on her pretty heart-shaped face. He saw again the rips in the sleeves of her gown, the dirt and stains and tattered hem.

  “I am in need of help,” she said in a low voice. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone else in this town willing to help…someone like me. No one. Except a stranger passing through.”

  “Me, you mean.”

  She looked at him with a tilt to her head that told him she was less than amused. “I am serious. I need your help.”

  Thanus scrubbed at his face and neck with the sponge. “Well, perhaps if you told me how I could help you?”

  “You might start by giving me your name in return for mine.”

  Thanus tried to reach his upper back with the sponge, but couldn’t quite bend his arms that way. “My name is Thanus.”

  He heard her gasp. Of course she’d know his name. He really would need to start using an alias while he was travelling. As he continued to wash himself, he heard her reach behind herself to turn the door’s lock.

  Then she stepped over to him on quiet, bare feet, and took the sponge from him.

  Standing behind him, she slowly washed his back, working her way down the line of his spine, while he stood there, hands braced against the washstand, luxuriating in the feel of her hands against his flesh. At the same time, he tried not to be aroused by this singular moment. His cock had a mind of its own, however, and it throbbed to life as Ethelia’s fingertips trailed along behind the sponge.

  “You’re a prince,” she said to him, the sponge going lower now, to the curve of his ass.

  “I am.” He’d already washed there. He didn’t tell her to stop.

  “My need is great.”

  The sponge went down the line of his buttocks, lower, between his legs, brushing against the sensitive area there, causing him to spread for her. She began rhythmically circling the sponge against his balls. His manhood responded by popping to attention.

  “You have yet to tell me what this…need is,” he said, in a whisper.

  “I’m sure that once m’Lord has heard what it is, you will not hesitate to help.”

  “I won’t know until I hear—” He went to turn, and she pressed the sponge in her hand hard up into his sack, and at the same time dug her fingernails into his side. It was intensely erotic.

  Leaning up on her tiptoes, her body pressing against his back, she breathed into his ear. “Allow me to render payment to m’Lord first.”

  She slid down his back, her mouth trailing along his wet skin, her tongue flicking out gently to taste him. That tongue was warm, and longer than he thought possible, and he longed to watch her do these things to him. Although, he certainly wasn’t against just standing here and letting it happen.

  The sponge dropped to the floor with a wet and heavy thud.

  Her hands felt in between his legs now, her fingers gently grasping his balls and rolling them and squeezing them. Her mouth found the top of his right ass cheek, and her teeth bit into him. He gasped, and then moaned, as she brought him surprisingly close to a climax in such a short time.

  Licking at him where she had bit into his flesh, she tickled her left hand around his hip, to reach around front, and when she found his cock and grasped it there was no doubting how close he was to going off. His body began to tense, and the familiar flutters in the pit of his stomach grew stronger.

  He went to turn into her, again to have her grab him roughly and insist he stay where he was.

  This time, he wasn’t having any of it.

  Forcefully he turned into her, grabbing her hands, forcing her back toward the bed. It was then that he saw what she didn’t want him to see. Her eyes blazed, the color of lightning during a cold rain. Her skin had darkened to a rich honey gold. And her tongue…

  Her tongue.

  She leered up at him, desire and abandon clearly written across her face, and perhaps it was because she had forgotten herself so completely that she had let this secret slip. Her mouth hung open, and from it her long and gracefully tapered tongue lolled. When she finally realized he was staring at it, she pulled it back into her mouth and angrily fought against his grip.

  “Let me go!” she demanded. “There. You’ve seen what I am. Are you happy? Will you throw me into the street again to be mocked by those idiots?”

  She was spectacular, he thought to himself. Beautiful and strong and fire-tempered. She was also strange and exotic. How could such a woman exist?

  “Well?” She prompted impatiently. “What will you do about me, prince of Sargenia?”

  He knew exactly what he wanted to do with her. Holding to his grip on her wrists, he pushed her down onto the bed, falling on top of her, her legs wide around his hips, his cock buried into the folds of her dress.

  “What I will do,” he said to her, talking with his lips buried into her neck and feeling her shiver from it, “is this. I will take from you what you have offered. Then we will discuss the rest of it.”

  She struggled a few seconds longer, then she felt her body melt and mold to his and he knew that he had somehow ignited the fires in her, too.

  She pushed up under him to bring her face close to his and nip at his ear. “Then perhaps m’Lord should strip this dress from me.”

  Ethelia

  Chapter 4

  Thanus had lain with several women. It might even be possible to say more
than his fair share. Some had thrown themselves at him for either love or ambition, while others he’d had to pursue to win over. All of them had shown him different styles of love making. Some had been wild, some modest, all of them singular in their orgasm.

  Ethelia was something entirely different in his experience.

  She had helped him strip off her clothes, had shown him where she wanted him to lie on her, how hard to thrust into her, even how she liked her nipples gently bit. In the end, she had climaxed three times before his own release. He’d felt this surge rush through him when it happened, and his mind had gone fuzzy with pure, molten heat. When he came back to himself, he found Ethelia under him, her arms wrapped around his neck, her smile showing how pleased she was with herself. And with him.

  When they had lain next to each other for several minutes, panting and waiting for their heart rate to slow, Ethelia rolled over and wrapped herself around him. “I could do you again, if you’re ready.”

  “No, oh no,” he laughed. “You’ll have to give me time to recover before you do that again. So I can enjoy it.”

  He put his arm around her, surprisingly comfortable with her. This was certainly the strangest trip to Rikketh that he had ever taken. Time unraveled around them. Finally, his hand idly tracing patterns against her bare shoulder, he brought them back to the issue at hand.

  “So tell me, Ethelia of Crelth. What could a prince like myself do for you?”

  “You mean other than what you’ve already done to me?” She moved her legs in a very suggestive way.

  “What I’ve done, and what I intend to do again tonight. Yes. Other than that.” He sat up a little, bringing her with him until they were facing each other on the bed, him propped on an elbow and her laying with her arms up over her head, her breasts luxuriously displayed. “You should start by telling me why the Grand Buffoon Luciro wanted you stoned.”

  She laughed at the name he had given the Temporalist. “He is telling people that I came here to Damiste in order to play the whore. That I came to entice men into my bed for money.”