Conquests and Crowns

by S E Meliers

  He leant against a haphazard but surprisingly solid fence and sighed. Maybe the loft was not the best place to spend the night considering the heat of that little house with so many bodies and a fire. He regarded the stable with a considering eye but quickly dismissed the idea as no doubt the soldiers and the serving men were going to be sleeping there too, between watches.

  ‘Cannot bear the hovel, either, Necromancer?’ the Hallow leaned against an apple tree, almost invisible in its shadow.

  ‘Hmph,’ he snorted. ‘The poor live poorly.’

  ‘Yes, but the poor here at lease have full bellies and fertile fields,’ she replied.

  He shrugged. ‘Their house is still a hovel. It might be better to sleep in the open tonight.’

  ‘The Lady Patience would probably disagree.’

  ‘Well, she is the one with the only bed and her own door. Even she will be feeling the heat in there, however.’

  ‘The night will soon chill the house,’ she stretched, pose casual, but he was not fooled, it was the stretch of a big cat, a predator, not of indolence. ‘Your companions; one is dead and the other is… other.’

  He was surprised; the two facts were not normally evident to others, and those who did notice did not typically raise it as a topic for discussion. This Hallow was either confident that her skills placed her above the dangers he and his arcane companions offered, stupid, or brave. ‘That is so,’ he acknowledged, provocatively sparse on information.

  Her eyes gleamed in the darkening evening. He was sure she was amused, and wondered at her confidence and whether it was warranted. ‘She does not talk;’ she said bluntly.

  ‘No, she does not,’ he stayed with the same tactic.

  ‘Hmmm,’ she shot him a glance. ‘She can talk, however.’

  ‘Yes,’ he confirmed. Curiosity got the better of him: ‘You have a fascination with mutism?’

  ‘Not in particular,’ she shrugged. ‘I am simply intrigued by your mute and the reasons she would choose to stay silent.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ he swatted a mosquito. ‘She is not a spy.’

  ‘No, but she would be effective as one, I am sure,’ she commented. ‘I bet torture would loosen her tongue,’ she added idly, ‘would you like to find out?’

  ‘Song’s person is sacrosanct,’ he glowered. ‘I would gouge the eyes out of any person who would try.’

  Her eyes showed no fear. She regarded him solemnly with mysterious intent: ‘I am sure you would. What is your business with the Lady Patience?’ she changed topic suddenly.

  He regarded her trying to discern her motives. ‘I am merely looking for the Prince’s mercy,’ he answered, ‘he has reason to be displeased with me over Lyendar.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ she regarded him then looked out over the fields. The sun was a faint glow on the horizon and the night sky was a star studded curtain over their heads. ‘There is legend of a land where secrecy is so valued that a spell has been cast to ensure that its location cannot be passed from person to person. It is said that once you step foot on their soil, you are bound by this magic, and that if you wish to return, when you leave you must not utter a single word or the memory of how to find your way back will be lost.’

  ‘What a pretty story,’ he said blandly. ‘But such a spell could be easily foiled through the simple application of ink and paper, so hardly believable.’

  ‘I am sure that a people so precious about their privacy would have contingencies in place to prevent such circumnavigation of their spell,’ she began a slow stroll back to the house. He matched her pace. ‘And it would certainly explain such esoteric selective mutism as your companion exhibits if she were the native of those legendary shores.’

  ‘I am certain the reason for Song’s silence is far more mundane,’ he replied pleasantly. ‘Besides - not to pick holes in your entertaining tale, but how would such a story originate if everyone who leaves that land loses their memory of it if they speak of it?’

  ‘Ah, they do not lose their memory of it, just how to return to it,’ she corrected as he opened the door to the hovel.

  ‘Oh, good!’ the dark haired EAeryman exclaimed on seeing her and preventing Shade from having to respond. ‘Dinner is ready; we worried it would be cold before you returned.’ As they ate, Shade watched the Hallow from the corner of his eye, careful to present a nonchalant façade. She did not appear to pay him any further attention. He wondered, therefore, if her story was just that, or if she were privy to Song’s origins, and what her motivation was in letting him know that she knew.

  “Games, games and more games,’ he grumbled to himself; first Calico’s silence over the Monadic Priest, then boys spying and reporting to a supposedly deceased Charity, and now a too-knowledgeable Hallow telling tales by moonlight. The self-same Hallow that Calico had warned him about no less. Who, therefore, was ally and who enemy, he wondered.

  The Hallow lifted her eyes as if hearing his musings and met his gaze baldly. ‘What shift would you like, tonight, Necromancer?’ she asked. All eyes turned to him.

  ‘I will take the graveyard shift,’ he bared his teeth in a smile that was not. ‘It is the most appropriate.’

  ‘As you wish,’ she divvyed up the remaining portions of the night, assigning two soldiers to keep watch with him, the EAerymen and herself taking the last shift of the early morning, with the third soldier and the two serving men taking the easiest first shift of the night until midnight. The meal consumed, the party separated, some to their beds and others to their posts. He joined Song in the loft. There was no sign of Sorrow.

  As soon as he was sure they would not be overheard, he whispered: ‘I had an interesting conversation with the Hallow.’ She raised an eyebrow in enquiry. ‘She told me a story about a legendary land where memory on how to return can be lost if a person leaving those shores speaks.’

  Song considered for a moment then put the fingers of her right hand in the middle of her forehead significantly.

  ‘Third eye?’ he guessed. ‘As in, a seer? A Prophet like our friend Calico?’ She bit her lip and nodded. ‘I do not know… she does not seem the type. But then, what type are they, really?’ he corrected himself. ‘I suppose it may be possible. An interesting thought. Do I need to kill her?’ he asked. He hoped not. He found himself rather liking the arachnidan Hallow.

  Song paused for a long moment, consulting her own arcane sources, but shook her head.

  ‘Very well,’ he settled back. ‘We will watch her however; I am intrigued as to what sort of fly this spider seeks to catch in her web.’

  Rogue

  The folded stalks made a springy mattress beneath the spread blanket. Coal used a rock to hammer three stakes, roughly carved into points in order to dig into the ground; one above her head and one at each ankle. To each of these stakes, Ash secured her bound limbs. She was not tied so tight that she could not escape, were she inclined to do so, just enough that there was resistance should she try to move. Naked and stretched between these points of affixation, she felt exposed and vulnerable. The stalks of the crop formed a curtain around them over which the bright moon peaked, a nocturnal voyeur.

  Coal tied a strip of cloth over her eyes. Naked, bound and blind, she was tense and taut, straining to remain passive - helplessness was not a state that Hallows took to well – but she understood it to be what it was for the EAerymen; a symbol of her trust in them. ‘You push me to my limits,’ she warned them, however.

  A night bird called a soft tune somewhere overhead, and to her left a small rodent skittered through the undergrowth. Her senses heightened by her blindness, she could feel the warmth of Coal’s body along her own, and Ash by her feet, hear the shuffle of the horses in the stable, and a snore from the house. Her lips quirked as she wondered if the snorer was the necromancer.

  Coal kissed her, just alongside her mouth. ‘We know, and we are proud of you.’

  ‘We know how much trust in us this demonstrates,’ Ash agreed squeezing her ankle gently with his big warm hand. ‘
Now: shhhh.’

  ‘Hmph,’ she grumbled to herself. Coal kissed her compressed lips feather-light then drew his tongue across her bottom lip so she opened to admit him. He explored the contours of her mouth, stroked tongue against tongue, letting the kiss heat between them so she pulled against her bindings, seeking to hold and touch for herself. He withdrew and she cursed, panting. ‘Tease,’ she told him.

  He laughed: ‘Only if I had no intention of following through.’

  Something tickly drew a circle in the palm of her left hand before whispering down the inside of her wrist and forearm to her elbow. At the same time, something cool and wet painted a line across the base of her right foot and between each of her toes before running up the inside her ankle then her shin. Torn between the two sensations, she found her skin was alive with anticipation causing her to shiver, her nipples contracting. She had not realised that there were nerves connecting such ordinary areas of her body to her groin.

  The tickle at her elbow sketched a soft circle before travelling to her armpit. As it drifted along her collarbone, down her sternum and across the planes of her belly, it caught on each fine hair on her body, causing the web-thin follicles to stand upright, sensitizing the skin. It circled her belly button; she tried to pull her knees together instinctually, only to come up against the ropes binding her ankles.

  The wet drew a line up her shin, along the inside edge of her knees so she shivered and pulled against her bindings again in an abortive effort to draw her knees in and cover her exposure, but it skimmed up the middle of her thigh to her hip and did not even near her sensitive sex. She was getting confused between the tickly and the wet sensation as they drew patterns across her skin, never crossing breast or groin. The emissions only heightened her awareness of those areas of her body. There was a slight breeze that drifted across her skin every now and again, catching and cooling the wet lines, so she tingled with sensation.

  ‘You are killing me,’ she moaned. ‘What is wrong with directness?’

  ‘There is much to be said for directness,’ Coal agreed, and the tickly (feather? she wondered) sensation swirled around her left breast. ‘But why not indulge in indirectness when the opportunity presents? It does have its own benefits…’

  The wet drifted up her inner thigh and her hips lifted in invitation of their own accord. It drew a line in the crease between leg and labia before cruising up her belly. She realised she had been holding her breath in anticipation and released it, exasperated. A mouth closing over her right nipple caught her by complete surprise and she cried out. The cry became a moan as a rough tongue rubbed across her sensitive flesh before licking a path down the soft curve of her breast.

  ‘Direct enough?’ Ash’s lips moved against her skin.

  ‘Arrrgh,’ she could not find words as Coal licked the inner ankle bone on her left foot. Her inner core twitched with need. ‘More direct,’ she urged, nudging Coal with her foot, encouraging his attentions upwards. He laughed; the vibration of his throat against her toes. ‘Ah, Monad,’ lust was thick in her blood, and she was losing the ability to identify how it would be sated, her erogenous zones confused by the sensitivity of areas she had not known to be so connected. Her stomach muscles were clenched, her breath unsteady. The feather wielded by Ash skimmed from perineum to clitoris. ‘Damn!’ her hips bucked. ‘Damn.’

  Having elicited such a successful result, Ash revisited the same area with the same reaction. Coal pressed kisses along her leg, belly, and breast before taking her nipple into his warm mouth and grazing it with his teeth. She moaned, writhing and pulling against her bindings in blind pursuit of their touch. Ash discarded his feather and pressed his forefinger into her. She pressed her face into her arm to muffle her cries lest they raise the watch, or the sleepers.

  His hand withdrew as he moved between her knees, his cock notching into place before pressing into her. She was slick; their slow seduction successful, her body strung tight and seeking. She raised her hips in welcome, moaning against his throat as he settled into place, her body full and stretching to accommodate him, his weight and heat against her belly glorious, the points of hips and spring of pubic hair erotic. ‘What have you done to me?’ she complained groaning and pressing up against him. ‘I am sooooo… wanting.’

  He kissed her forehead, her nose, nuzzled against her cheek. ‘Good,’ he said against her lips. She bucked against his weight, trying to make him move, the need impatient within her. He chuckled, and moved ever so slightly, so she hissed and tugged against the bonds on her ankle, dragging a stake loose so she could hook her ankle around his hips and force movement. Instead, her free leg was caught and her body tilted as Ash rolled her to one side and Coal fitted in behind. Ash withdrew from her body, and Coal pushed in, coating himself in her before withdrawing and positioning himself at her nether entrance and easing himself past the ring of muscle there so she hissed and bit Ash’s shoulder at the pressure. Ash added to the invasion by pressing back into her vagina, pinning her between them.

  As they began to stroke counterpoint to each other, a constant flow of motion within her, she lost herself in the juxtaposition, reduced to a primal version of self, animalistic in her pleasure. Ash shifted angles so his pubic hair rubbed rough against her already sensitised clitoris and she came apart, her body pulsing with orgasm until she was unsure if the darkness of her vision was due to the blindfold or if she had died of pleasure. They twitched within her as they came, and their bodies were warm and moist with sweat about her, their breathing ragged so she was sure she still lived, the experience being too earthy and sinful for the Monad’s realm as proclaimed by the Priests.

  They untied her and removed her blindfold. Her body felt floppy and replete and she made no effort to aid them, just watched through half closed eyes until they settled on either side of her, blanketing her in their warmth. ‘The necromancer’s companion is other,’ she murmured.

  ‘Which one?’ Ash yawned. ‘All three are other, really.’

  ‘One dead, one connected to death, and the other is what exactly I wonder?’ Coal speculated into the night.

  ‘She is Devashyn,’ Rogue supplied.

  ‘No,’ Ash denied. ‘That is legend.’

  ‘No, truth,’ she insisted. ‘There is record of it in the Great Library tomes. The Priests caught one once and tortured him into talking. He described it as an island rung on three sides by mountains, the fourth a beach of incredible beauty. The homes are built into the mountains, made of clay bricks tinted pink, blue, green or white, so that from the beach they are a stunning rainbow display broken by the greenery and overhung by an azure sky. They have a water system that runs to each and every home, and they know no poverty, hunger or disease. All their children attend school, and everyone knows how to read, write and count. They have machines powered by water and steam, and they can cut a man open and fix his insides and sew him back up and he will live. They are so rich that every window of every home is paned with glass and they think nothing of it if it breaks.’

  They were silent for a long moment. ‘Sounds nice,’ Coal ventured hesitantly.

  ‘Nice?’ she raised her eyebrows. ‘What is EAery like that these luxuries are simply nice to you?’ she shook her head in wonderment.

  ‘So, once they speak, they lose the way home?’ Ash asked, seeking to take attention from her question she realised and stored the thought away for later investigation.

  ‘Yes, some spell to protect them from invasion. Any who sees the island from afar forgets it, any who steps upon its soil will only remember their way back if, when leaving it, they remain mute.’

  ‘What is to stop them from leading an invading army back? You do not need to speak in order to point,’ Ash pointed out.

  ‘Or to write down directions,’ Coal added.

  ‘Devashyn is thought to be legend, and people are mute for many reasons,’ she shrugged. ‘I guess not many people hold a mute prisoner and force them to write down directions on the off chance they are f
rom there and know how to return, and not many are likely to follow the pointed finger of a mute man; most people connect muteness to madness. This man was being converted, and only admitted his origins after converting, by which time, and in doing so, he lost the memory of how to return. The Monad Priests have since been determined to find another Devashyn to guide them there; to convert such a rich and cultured people is the dream of the Priest’s Council.’

  ‘Will you tell them about this girl?’ Coal asked quietly.

  ‘No,’ she yawned. ‘But I am sure she is one. There is an otherness about her which combined with her muteness and the necromancer’s reaction when I suggested as much confirms it for me. I am intrigued and a little enchanted to be so close to legend. I also wonder what affect she will have on the future – her feyness is such that she is outside my visions. It may be something native to her people, or an effect of the spell…’

  ‘A wildcard,’ Coal noted.

  ‘Indeed,’ she smiled. ‘I like wildcards. They open up so many possibilities.’

  Praise

  The air was thick with cloud, wet and cold. She could barely see the tip of Ember’s nose and did not know how he could navigate. Breathing felt laborious; as if she was not getting enough using her normal methods. She felt heavy and lethargic from the effort and the cold that permeated her furs. She had dressed appropriately, in fur lined leather trousers and jacket over heavy woollen stockings and tunic. Her boots reached to her knees and were oiled without and lined with sheepskin within, she wore gloves, a hat over her braided hair, and a thick cloak wrapped around her shoulders. Across her back was slung a sack in which Ember’s clothing was kept for his man-form, though he would not feel the cold as much as she did, being dragon and more temperature tolerant.