Ch: 255 In A Gadda Da Vida
A massive green armored figure stood in the doorway, holding a long, wicked scimitar in one red skinned fist. She bellowed her rage, defiance and fury into the room and raised her terrible sword high. The booted feet took a single step on those gleaming, waxed floorboards and shuddered.
Her form and armor dwindled and dissolved into an elaborate green lace wedding gown, trailing across the floor in delicate, shimmering floral forms.
The slim, beautiful red woman wearing the gown sighed in absolute misery, as her mighty sword became a bouquet of snowdrops and fern fronds. “I hate my job.”
“You seemed to be enjoying yourself a moment ago.” The dark girl muttered crossly. “What happened to: ‘face the wrath’... was that all bluster?”
“Gods damn it, child!” She snarled at the pretty young girl and all her friends. “You can’t hurt me, it’s been tried a thousand different ways. I will get my harp back, even if I have to wait a few decades and rob your grave for it. Just return my property and I will depart.”
“No, you won’t.” She answered sadly. “You didn’t go to all this effort to steal and enslave my brother, to just give up. If we give that back, you’ll be back before long, with your full powers.”
“The body I was using?” She asked in confusion. “It’s nice and all, but I don’t want him.”
“Ye played wi him! An tried tae run him off wi thee!” The giantess snarled, leaning over the bar, as if to vault it and come after her.
“Shai, you know you’re the only girl for me…” A soft lyric voice whispered, which filled the entire room in a really creepy manner. “Let’s cut our friend a little slack, she didn’t get away with it or hurt anyone… directly.”
The speaker was a large brown haired boy with sorrowful brown eyes, leaning on a bronze handled cane of gray wood.
“It’s a similarity the way our souls are… damaged.” He whispered. “I wound up broken and scattered, but somebody did this to you. I’m gonna work on that, but until then you and I need to be careful how we interact. We kinda vibe already and Ducky says it’s quantum something, blahh blahh…”
He slowly slipped into a couch by the fire and sighed. “Shai’s gonna put me back on the ‘blood and loins’ menu after this.”
“Aye, tis haggis an beef liver… an mayhap I’ll collar thee, wi a tag saying: ‘Return Tae Shai If Found’, see if I won’t!” She scolded him fondly as she joined him in the sofa.
“Sit down, so we can talk, like people do.” He spoke firmly and gently to her… and for some reason, she complied. The small red woman dressed for her wedding day, slowly walked over to a wing chair by the fireplace and sat down.
“I’m in your power and my mistress’... Whatever happens here bodes ill for me, human. Get on with whatever unpleasantness you have in mind.” She snapped, while admiring her gown of elegant floral lace. “What is this made of? Shadows and Will? How interesting…”
“I know…” Willow enthused. “I was discussing this with Ellie, recently…”
“Riiiight.” The man said softly. “I’m pretty tired, so let’s cut this noise. In this house, I am the law. If you want to have a rough time, keep pushing me. You played with my dick and tried to run off with me.” He grumbled. “Flattering, but it puts our relationship in a tough spot. I will work on your problem. Either way, I’m fixing this.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but he ran right over her with a harsh glare.
“If you give Shai your parole, I’ll let you roam freely in the house and garden.”
“And if I refuse?” She demanded. “If I resist?”
“I can imprison you… all I have to do is play your harp.” His smile was cold and creepy. “You played with my weiner, hah hah, very funny!” He snarled, his face twisting into an expression of rage and disgust that made him seem a different person.
“Listen close, nameless creature… I can strum your very soul… I can’t imagine how violating that would feel. Don’t make me be that guy.”
“I’m off to bed. Negotiate with Becky. Fuck up and I’ll bottle your ass and let the ooze eat your sand construct. He can’t devour your soul, but I bet it’ll feel horrible.” He barked, while toddling back down the hallway.
The red woman turned her head back to the small dark girl, this ‘Becky’. “What does he mean, ‘work on my problem’? Who is this creature?”
“That’s Gary. He’s weird, don’t piss him, or me off. You’ve already gotten on Shai’s bad side, that’s a tough one.” The slender, dark girl took the man’s seat, as the two giants staggered away. The woman kept glaring daggers at Damsen the entire time she was in view.
“I’m Becky, You met most of the gang already… don’t try and get clever, it won’t work out for you.” She trickled a few more notes from her remarkable instrument.
“Now you tell us your name and explain very carefully why we shouldn’t bottle you in his jar of magic all-devouring snot.”
#
In the grotto, they sank into the pool together with a mutual sigh of relief.
“Babe, we should go fishing tomorrow.”
“Gary, we’er fer goin fishin’ taemorrow.”
Gary muttered, just as Shai made a decision, in perfect harmony.
“I dunno, maybe I have plans…”
“Mayhap I hae other plans lad…”
They both craftily angled for an advantage, with the same dubious move.
They giggled together for a few minutes, cuddled up and slipped off into dreamless slumber together, with Shai’s hand firmly around her toy.
#
Becky sat at the breakfast table, giving them the rundown; while everyone else was still sleeping.
“...sold as an indentured Adventurer to someone who claimed that they would Contract her, along with a few other orphans. That operation turned out to be a cult of demon summoners with access to cursed magical artifacts.”
She yawned so hugely it must have hurt and smiled sadly. “You can surmise the rest. She’s been enslaved to that demon for centuries, trapped in limbo when not needed. She’ll do anything to stay outside and has no choice but to follow her mistress’ orders.”
Becky sighed sadly. “We have her in a magic circle downstairs… She cooperated and went inside when I threatened to bottle her, but she can’t give her parole. Her secret orders won’t let her.”
“How much freedom does she have?” Gary asked, sounding much stronger.
“It’s a potent compulsion effect, she can’t reveal her orders or objectives, can’t even deliberately fail or suicide into the river…” Becky shook her head sadly. “She just has to endure, possibly forever.”
“Like I told her… I have a brute force solution. My ooze will consume the magical latticework that keeps her soul fractured into those grains…” He clutched his mug of coffee with an addict’s desperate need. “That would be unpleasant and needlessly cruel.”
“So what be the answer, lad? We kinnae keep her bound… An we dinnae ken her objectives, even.” Shai shook her head as well. “Tis a thorny bramble.”
“Her sand construct is a tough nut to crack, but I have some ideas. It’s a variation on the ‘Phantom Zone’ gag that I used on Skrigg. I can undo it, if she’s willing to do the work… or maybe…” He sank back down into his mug tiredly.
“Her Contract harp is another whole problem. That shit’s cursed. Beautiful, well made and neatly enchanted, but there’s an ugly barbed hook hidden under that sweet, sexy bait. That’s where the compulsion magic comes from; I’ll talk to her before I do anything permanent there, but that shit has got to go.”
The two women started clearing away their breakfasts’ remains, while he slowly ambled to the workshop door. “Gotta take a rain check on fishing, Shai… I gotta have a chat with our friend.”
Down in the workshop, in a circle of braided silk, decorated with tiny intricate baubles, tags and knots, the red skinned woman sat. She lounged in a plush sofa that didn’t really exist, wearing one of the green robes he’d been creating since first coming to this crazy place, almost a year before…
“My life has taken some twists and turns lately, so I’m going to try and start fresh with you, sister.” He said with a sigh.
“I would probably poke around too, if I found myself in a girl’s body. My lady and I just can’t seem to catch a break lately.” He settled into a couch that appeared right before he landed and smiled.
“Let’s talk about your problem. I can free you from the sand construct, that’s no problem. Whether you consent or not, your slavery ends in my house.” He said firmly.
“No mortal can kill me, boy. I’ve been scattered, burned, bottled, hurled off cliffs and buried alive.” She sneered, with a hint of ‘I dare you to’, hiding a faint hope.
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“This kind of ‘immortality’ is an offense against your very soul. Sending you to steal me is almost insulting, is there some deeper game in play?” He asked, leaning in closer.
“It won’t hurt… I promise. Whoever packed you up in that barrel didn’t plan on getting you back, you owe them no loyalty..”
“I put myself in that barrel, boy. For reasons of my own. Whatever weird nonsense keeps ‘entangling’ us is best left far behind and forgotten. Return my harp and I’ll be on my way.” Damsen insisted.
“Then swear to me that you mean no harm to any sentient in Wheatford duchy.” He replied coolly. “My sister says you can’t, here’s your chance.”
Her sullen glare was the only answer he got.
“Yeah, that sucks… Demons, well, outsiders in general don’t lie. They simply don’t get the concept, since to them reality and perception are fluid. Deceiving someone deliberately, by fabricating a false narrative is impossible for them to grasp. The result is that they usually build a compulsion to tell the truth into all their ‘mortal tools’, along with compulsions to conceal their goals and activities.”
He gasped for breath and pulled a steaming tea service from his Pockets!. After a very quick pour, he smiled at her sadly.
“In short, your enslaver won’t let you lie, I read it in the enchantments strung through your harp. Sorry about that.”
“Surmise what you wish, mortal. If you can slay me you should. I will resist and defend myself as best I can.” She snapped at him. She leapt to her feet and paced the limits of her prison. “I’m not powerless… human!”
“Yeah, that’s not what this is about.” His sad smile remained through her outburst. “I want your boss, not you. Whatever you’ve done, however things played out for you, this is the end of all that. From here, you join the rest of us in the great cycle of mortality. I want your boss’ ass and I’m going to get it. With or without your help.”
His smile turned hard and cruel as he held up a small vial of jet black crystalline sand. “This fellow came looking for me, my brothers and my sisters while I was out of town, kicking another outsider’s ass out of my plane of reality and ending their cult. Recognize him?”
“Is that all that remains of Juno?” She sighed. “I truly am the last. If you released him, release me. I’m prepared.”
“Your buddy met a violent end, while striving to do his slaveholder’s bidding. That’s a tragedy… I don’t work that way, sweetie.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and spoke slowly, as though she were hard of hearing. “Like I said: I. Want. Your. Boss.”
She stared at him in utter confusion for a few heartbeats. “You can’t kill a demon.” She also spoke slowly, as if to a mentally fading elder, or a very small child.
“No, you can’t kill a demon…” He said with a mad wink. “I’m a very special boy, my girlfriend tells me so.” Slowly, he got up and hobbled over to the workbench, where her poor harp was clamped down and chained in place.
“I’m going to ask your permission for some things. If you feel like you can’t give me an unconstrained honest answer, remain silent. Ok?”
“Very well…” She answered carefully. “What are you on about? I am in your power, why do you care what I wish?”
“Because you were and still are a human being, a sentient life form… a person. If I abuse you just ‘cause I can…?” He shook his head. “Back on topic… Nice harp. You like it?” He asked, off handedly. “You really play?”
“Yes and yes. I really like it and I play.” She answered with an exhausted sigh.
“Cool, how about your boss? How would you feel if I twisted them up into a knot and wore them like a thong for a while?”
The red woman giggled at the mental image… and this mad boy’s smile. “She resides in an ornamented skull on a pedestal… though if you were to stuff that juicy cock of yours inside her braincase and wear her as a codpiece…”
“Thanks?” He mumbled. “Wait, why am I embarrassed? You’re a member of an elite group you know… there are only three other Ballhandlers in the ‘Fellowship Of My Thing… Me, Shai, Esperanza and you. Just remember… Shai is the only one with ‘juicy cock’ privileges!”
“I’m composed of sand, boy.” She grumbled. “Pointy, coarse sand.”
“You aren’t.” He answered calmly, bringing her back into his field of expertise. “Your body is alive and well, in some form of suspended animation. Wherever it’s at, your body remains a living human, frozen in time.” He said softly, with his eyes on her harp.
“If I shatter the bond holding you here, the backlash will kill your body and undo the magic binding you in stasis.”
“That’s the brute force option, I think we can do better. Would you like to try for more than simply dying? I won’t judge you either way.”
“If there’s a chance…” She whispered softly, as her feet and fingers began to unravel in her distress.
“Not gonna lie, that’s the answer I was hoping for.” He started cracking open the vice holding her harp. “Your soul is the last bond tying your slaveholder here, I don’t want them to slip away and pop back up someplace else with fresh victims.”
He grabbed the hefty wrought iron chain that ran through the frame of her instrument, holding it to the workbench and pulled it apart into rusty, crumbling links. He sank back into his sofa beside her prison and sighed, clutching her precious instrument to him fondly.
“I need your permission… to play your harp.”
#
Jocomo sat in silence, locked in a cell across the room, while the man he’d killed had a pleasant conversation with a demon.
This Gary Ward witch dealt with beastmen, spirits, fae and even demons as if they were people… abomination was too weak a word! He uprooted the social order wherever he walked, Jocomo could feel it through his bonds with Order! The creature was a chaos agent, pure and simple.
“This could get a little awkward, so try and relax, ok?” The witch spoke gently to the creature wearing a woman’s form, despite her unholy nature.
“Watch closely, mortal child…” Willow whispered, suddenly standing close by, just outside his cage. “I’m told that his workings can be beautiful and tender to behold…”
They waited and watched together, as the man slowly began a gentle air on the harp on his lap. He played competently, but without any dazzling skill or true artistry. It was workmanlike and danceable. Rather than dancing to his tune, the red woman collapsed into a loose pile of sand.
The boy played on, repeating the same passage again and again with almost mechanical precision. He sat unmoving and kept playing, his face slack and eyes closed for long minutes that stretched on and on.
“Or perhaps there is not so much to see…” Willow remarked drily.
#
Uncieiellie of the Jeweled Sands was unhappy. She had stopped receiving any feedback or sensations from her last slave, some hours? Days? Weeks ago?… Time was a nuisance on this plane! In the darkness of her crypt, stillness and silence weighed heavily.
She had always had at least one slave still present, before this debacle. Now she had no memories to riffle through, no mortal sensations to enjoy, while awaiting further developments.
Damsen had always been her favorite to experience… her memories of music and dance… “Gahhh!!!” She shrieked into the empty cavern that was her ritual site. In the darkness, she looked over her empty sarcophagi and sighed. The cult kept promising more slaves and failing to deliver. Their demand that Juno fetch her new slaves was unreasonable, but she wasn’t finished on this damn plane yet!
Now here she was, risking her last slave on a fool’s errand, in hopes of fresh stock in the future. She raged alone, far below the surface world she longed to see for an unknowable length of this… time thing.
Even if the cult abandoned her down here, eventually some explorer, geologic event or random happening would disrupt her reliquary sooner or later… Was that a sound?
#
Gary woke up feeling icky, dusty, gross and super, super weird. He opened his eyes and slowly reached up to grasp the edge of his sarcophagus. Iron chains rotted into flaky rust as he stretched and yawned in the dark damp cavern. With a grunt, he reached into his Pockets! for a lantern or six, followed by a small stack of hot, damp cloths and warm towels, for a quick and very educational washup, ending with a warm, dry suit of clothes.
“Damsen, return to your coffin now, or I will punish you!” A female voice called into the chamber.
“You will suffer as never before you wretched worm!”
He ignored the screaming, impotent being. That was the worst torture for someone like her; to be powerless and at the mercy of another. That he refused to even acknowledge her tantrum made it even sweeter.
All around him in a loose ring sat twelve similar open topped stone coffins, strung with enchanted iron chains and filled with the dust of a humanoid body, fallen to time’s ravages. Beside each sat an empty pedestal or rack, presumably for the cursed item each poor soul had been bound to.
Gary strolled around, placing lanterns on a few pedestals and calmly assessing each coffin in turn. Satisfied that they were alone, he turned to the being at the center of the circle.
On a decorated stone plinth, a skull carved in white jade rested. She was decorated with silver jewelry and rare gems, arranged and crafted into a beautiful work of art. Only the lambent, flickering gaze of murky smoke told the casual observer that there was more to this skullpture than just morbid art.
The creepy runes and glyphs inscribed in long dried and faded blood all around the central plinth was another solid clue.
He strode over to the skull, smiling and whistling a gay little song. He kicked and scuffed his tiny bare feet on each rune, spoiling the delicate magics. With a satisfied wink, he folded his arms under his small, perky breasts and smiled, bouncing on his toes to make his boobs jiggle at the crystalline object.
“Damsen’s not home right now and I don’t answer to you… she has a message for you though: ‘I quit.’ She has the soul of a poet, that one.” He sighed. “Nice tits too.”
He pulled a battered leather bag from his backside and smiled. “I’m never gonna get tired of ending you clowns.”
She had continued making threats of doom and dire pronouncements right up until Gary stole her silver and amethyst necklace away, silencing her.
Songbird Call, enchanted necklace. Spiritual, etheric enchantments/occult. Further investigation and study required.
Her earrings, tiara and mehndi jewel were all distinct magical items and interesting in their own right, with no sign of demonic craft or influence. They were most likely loot, used for convenience to give the entity senses. The earrings provided hearing if one were deaf, while the forehead jewel provided magical vision to a blind wearer. The necklace and tiara were stubbornly resistant.
The tiny crown of holly leaves wrought in silver on a verdigris bronze stem bore three trios of tiny jewel holly berries among the leaves each in a different precious stone.
Star sapphires of deepest cobalt blue winked among the silver leaves, a little farther along, rich, blood red rubies shone. Finally three perfect pearls, one white, one black and one iridescent with an oil slick rainbow of wild colors.
The skull itself was an artifact of distinctive craft, one that Gary slipped away into his not new, but very much improved, enchanted muffling and binding bag. “All right Damsen. I’m gonna leave a pack full of supplies and a bag of cash right here. If you wanna take ’em and start over, I understand. Pick a direction and start living.” He said to himself with a smile on his pretty, angular, almond eyed face.
He shook his short, straight black hair, ran his hands slowly and sensually down his lithe body. He smiled wickedly, before gently and fondly reaching into his shirt and cupping his pert, dark nippled breasts close. “Really nice tits, Damsen.” He sighed softly.
“If you come to Wheatford, be welcome… or if you see us on the road, stop in and say hi.” He pulled a delicately crafted and exquisitely lovely harp of rosewood and silver reverently from his bottom and carefully set it on the plinth where the skull once sat. “Much better.”
#
Gary landed back in his own body with a gentle start and a sigh. “Girls are awesome.” He slowly dragged his feet through the magic circle around a shiny pile of garnet sand and rolled his vacuum over to tidy up. “I have a nice clean barrel for you to sit in, until I find a use for you…” He said to the inert gemstones, with a paternal smile.
He was back upstairs in time for second breakfast with the kids.
#
“The fringe continues to thin, further reducing our buffer against the barbarians…” War fumed, While Craft fretted and worried.
Order placed a calming hand on the tabletop and spoke softly. “A new empress will be found. The guild has never failed in its task before.”
“The Whispers…” War’s high priest muttered angrily. “They’ve all vanished, every single one!”
“They are no matter, the empress is all that matters! She must be seated on the cubic throne! Either locate the former empress, or we must have a new one!” Craft squealed, his aged voice shrill with distress.
“Our best hope is to get embroiled with the barbarian duchies and then claim the empress was murdered in the confusion afterward. That should buy a few weeks before the legions get restive.” Order mumbled sourly.
“Bahh!” War scoffed. “We’re already having discipline problems… word’s gotten out about the fringe retreating.” He grumbled angrily.
“Some think it’s the end of the great war, others say the end of the world… Most are just tired and hungry.” Jasmine of Healer said softly. “Do we have any clues where my predecessor might have secreted the former empress… Light bless her bones.”
“None.” Craft sniffled. “A small canal boat was stolen and then set adrift… an unflagged trade vessel was seen lurking nearby, but it was too swift to intercept. Perhaps she was stolen by pirates?”
“As well blame the Ragamuffin’s Guild! Do you think she has been pickpocketed away by a sneaking band of orphan waifs?” War sneered in disdain.
#
“Get away from me you grasping, awful waifs!” Gabbie ran through the orphanage garden, pursued by a half dozen sprinting younglings with reaching hands.
Streamers of colorful scrap cloth flew behind her, each one knotted around a token for a prize in Gary’s little toyshop filled with trinkets and delights. She had a dozen of them tucked in her sash and the object of the game was to avoid having the tokens plucked away by grasping, childish fingers.
Gabbie was allowed to snatch them back from any child holding one. If she succeeded, that child had to surrender all their ribbon tokens… so the goal was to end up with each orphan holding just one. Play could become complex, as slow kids wound up holding several streamers, drawing the runner back into the crowd, before passing the tokens off to fast moving kids on the flanks to confound their elders.
The game ended when Gabbie’s endurance did. She sank to a garden bench beside the orphanage baths and gasped for breath in Becky’s arms. Wilf, Amy and Rio trotted back over and settled down among them with happy sighs. Esperanza and Shai watched from the sidelines, enjoying a fine morning out, while Gary got up to some kind of unpleasantness.
“Tis good tae be home.” She murmured warmly, curling up beside Ranza under a young, but thriving pear tree.
#