A War Dawning Ch. 04

The corner of his mouth turned upward. "I didn't say anything."

"Your eyes did." Her voice turned tender, "Your eyes always say much."

"I'm glad." He swallowed, "Because sometimes I'm not sure I truly say the words. Sometimes I'm not sure I have the right words to tell you and Neral how much you mean to me. You've given me life in more ways than you know and sometimes I think 'I love you' pales.

"It's enough," she assured him, their dance slowing a bit. "I dare speak for Neral when I say that she would tell you the same. We anchor one another and that security is a joy." She seemed to find this moment the right one to broach something that had remained on her mind since they'd entered the city. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"When you were speaking to Tahna earlier, you asked her if she had an other or others she shared the street with. Did you?" His time on the streets before being whisked away to Adar wasn't something he talked about much, and when he did, he often dismissed it with a quip and a subtle change of subject.

A bit of his boyish charm faded as his eyes drifted to his past. She felt his body tense a bit and she was just about to tell him to forget she'd asked when he uttered, "Brandt," so softly she almost didn't hear it over the music. "Alone on the streets is hard. With others it's a little easier...to make your way and to not be lonely. You could join a gang but...they tend to turn on one another if there is some good fortune."

He remembered more than one street brawl to illustrate the point. One or two together worked out best. We watched each other's backs. We were friends." His heart turned heavy. "He got sick with a fever. He got sick and I couldn't get a healer to him. I got food...water...herbs. I did what I could, but..."

Her hand went from his waist to his cheek. "I'm so sorry, Deres."

He took a deep breath to steel himself for the part of the confession that cut to the quick. "About a month later... I met mother and off I went. If he were still alive...I never would have gone. Mother might have taken him, too. She probably would have, but...that didn't need to be a choice."

She finished it for him, feeling his pain, "And so there is that place inside you that cannot get past the idea that his passing was a... good thing for you."

His eyes misted, coming closer to her, to hug her even as they danced. "I feel like I have...everything, and he just didn't get the chance."

"He was your friend. I know that he would be happy with your good fortune and your life. You honor his memory and that's one of the many reasons I'm proud to call you mine."

He just let himself float in the serenity that came with feeling her that close to him and they danced until a Court official that none of the trio had met bellowed in a loud baritone that filled the room announced the arrival of Governor Waylan.

Taking the cue, he walked out with a prideful smile. He was of average height with a hint of a belly that suggested that he liked his position. His long coat was deep blue with gold trim at the lapels. It walked a line between the modesty of the region and a desperate call for attention. His cheeks were full with the beginnings of jowls and his eyes scanned the room as he took in the applause, bowing humbly now and then.

It wasn't long after that that they were seated at the governor's table before a meal of fish, fowl, vegetables, and fruit imported from the corners of the known world that was sumptuous even by the standards of the Royal Court. Birthday wishes were exchanged and the governor made a blissfully brief speech, giving thanks to the assembled guests for joining him and speaking of his hopes for the prosperity of Idros and that achieving those goals would be his gift to himself and the people in the coming year.

Deres, with years of tutoring from Cassea, had learned to put on his best diplomatic face in Court, though he doubted he'd ever be completely comfortable with it. "I regret that we did not bring a gift on behalf of Queen Evaline. Had we known..."

"Think nothing of it, please. The queen sees to it that her gift arrives on time. It was received early this morning. Please convey my thanks when you return and wish her well, particularly after the reprehensible attack on her person. I do hope she is fully recovered from what was no doubt a traumatic experience. It is a terrible shame that Erette is so plagued with darkness and evil. If only it could take more of a lesson from Idros."

"She is." He was careful as to what to reveal about events and deliberately chose to ignore the slight. We come to you though because, as the last great example of civilization before the wastes your city is a hub for all manner of individuals to pass through. As that is the case, we seek an alchemist of great skill, yet one who works in the shadows. We don't have a name for this person yet. Honestly, we don't know for certain if it is one person or several in tandem. We have few connections in this area so we come before you because a fine leader such as yourself, or someone in your venerable staff might be able to point us in the right direction."

His tone was friendly if gently scolding. "While I would be pleased to be able to offer any sort of help in this matter were I able, I simply would have no idea where to point you, and, to be blunt, I would be aghast if anyone on my staff did either." Waylan looked around to see jutted chins and looks of pride and approval from the table so he continued. We simply do not deal with that sort or allow those dealings within the city. Someone in the frontier may be able to help you, but I do not know who that might be, though I wish you luck in your quest."

Deres paused, leaning into the table slightly. "Surely a man such as yourself...a man with such power and influence that he governs one of the great cities in Erette..." One of Cassea's first lessons, one that had proven more true than not in the intervening years, was that there was no such thing as too much ego stroking.

"I realize that more," he groped for a word that would not offend, "cosmopolitan areas such as the capital can have an underbelly filled with all manner of crime, filth, and general immorality, but this is something Idros has largely escaped. People can walk the streets at night in near perfect safety and security."

Bryana couldn't help but notice the qualifier from her seat opposite Deres and next to Elan, "Near?"

"Yes. We aren't completely bereft of crime, but that's a testament to our own flaws in the eyes of the Goddess." He went on to quote the Works, "The greatest enemy of the soul is the frailty of its vessel." Waylan looked almost sad and many at the table either shared the look or nodded in agreement. "By resolving to live to the teachings of the Goddess and creating an environment where others can do the same we have eliminated many of the ills found in the world."

He proudly puffed a bit. "By embracing progressiveness, one embraces permissiveness. That permissiveness leads to sin and the evils that go with it." His tone took a slightly darker edge. To know any of those types of people or to knowingly allow them to congregate here endangers our persons and our souls. That I will not allow."

His voice carried and, when he finished, soft applause could be heard from the table with the others following suit.

It was a rather effective little political speech, and that's all Deres thought it was. Certainly, he may not have been involved with the unseemly parts of society, but to be completely ignorant of them and their workings and their needs would endanger his position, particularly so far from the capital. Mage guilds had the virtue of wanting and needing to be buried from all the eyes of society and to limit contact. Most counterfeiters, thieves, and the like didn't have quite the same luxury as they were a significant portion of the local economy even if few saw them.

"Things are better here than the likes of Erette or Calos," Lady Besche told them, looking around the table, almost daring anyone to dispute her. When no one did, she continued, "Idros is clean. I cannot walk through the streets and see gambling dens, harlots, and waves of drunkards fighting in the streets."

Deres looked at her trying to keep from laughing, "So if you don't see them they aren't there?"

Besche managed not to roll her eyes, but did talk down to him a bit. "I'm sure they can be found here, but we don't embrace that sort of behavior. We quash it when we see it so they stay in their little corners of the world and away from civilized people. Permitting those people to run unchecked poisons the rest of society if you let it. Normalizing it only leads to the degradation of the body and the spirit to the point where families themselves are tainted."

Bryana tilted her head, "Families? How so?"

She now squirmed somewhat uncomfortably as she contemplated it. "A man and wife and...the Lord has had children with the maid, the Lady runs to meet with the stable hand. It is wanton sin and that's not even discussing the appalling nature of the adultery itself, they act as if it's all somehow permissible before the Goddess. 'Unto the Goddess a man and woman are bound', she said firmly. "Works 1:8."

"Her love lives boundless in the souls of all who have seen Her light and follow Her path, Works 1:6." Elan began, her voice firm from growing up in study of the Works and being pushed by the priestess to make herself heard. Now it was heard as resolve and Deres liked the sound when it came. She was one more for quiet contemplation, so, when she had that tone, it was driven by conviction.

Besche's brown eyes flashed surprise. "That which is bound to Her will forsakes all other paths, for they lead away from the Goddess and to the Depths. Works 2:12."

"Her love is boundless. As Her vessels, share it without reservation, for its light leads to Her joy and righteous hand. Works 4:1."

Bryana looked between Elan and to Besche with some pride. "She can do this as long as you can, Lady."

"I'm sure she can," Waylan interrupted gently, trying to avoid escalation "but there's no need for that. We can agree that there are different interpretations of the will of the Goddess and they each have validity as witnessed by the fact that Erette the city as well as the kingdom prospers, as does Idros." His green eyes gave Besche a sidelong glance as if to end the discussion, which it did, though she stiffened in her chair and couldn't stop looking annoyed.

Deres clenched his jaw for a moment. They needed what they needed and he was the best chance to get it without spending who knows how long looking under rocks. On top of that, he simply didn't like the piety. If people wanted to live to a different standard, that was fine, but to lord that over others was a step too far for him. They were no better than anyone else and a lesson to drive that home might be required.

Both goals might be attainable via a single action.

He looked to Bryana, who seemed to read his mind even if only through the mischief in his eyes. She gave a slight nod, ready to back him no matter what he chose to do. Elan knew that look as well and waited with some interest and excitement to see how it might go. Deres opened himself to see the threads of life and how they coalesced in the bodies of each individual in the room. How that life coalesced into the unique person could be described as a ball of energy, each feeling a colored bit of energy that melded with the whole as a mass of hues that one could read, pick apart...and play with if you had the skill.

Some had almost luminous reds and greens that told him him they were generally energetic, intelligent, and fun-loving. In others those notes were muted. Others with darker green shadings were more emotional. They all melded in unique ways so that no one was simple and they all melded together with one another in a sense. It was how a few strong voices in a crowd could get a mob to join them, and why man was a social creature in the first place. That energy mingled together even if they didn't realize it.

He sought the maroon tones of passion muted and desire hidden. They existed in all of them because they existed in everyone everywhere; desires unrealized and secret lusts not acknowledged, much less sated. In a repressive culture like this one they were almost threads of swirling black the maroon was so restrained by the gray of will and yellow of shame. Others had maroon in brighter tones which made Deres wonder what fun they had behind closed doors. Looking at Bryana, he saw her working the other end of the room, her magic, weaving, binding, and preparing.

"Everyone has temptations, don't they, Governor? I mean, you do like to shop, for instance."

He shrugged. "It's a harmless vice. I don't spend beyond my means and there are so many lovely baubles to be had."

Deres looked thoughtful before he conceded the point. "That's true, I suppose. Temptations though, yes?"

"Benign ones."

"Still..." Deres looked around as he watched and listened to the murmur of conversations and laughter. There were, of course a fair share of mature, established nobility, but there was an abundance of examples of the young and beautiful there. Idros had more than its share of tall and chiseled, "temptations" all the same. "Temptations are wonderful things, Governor."

He gestured under the table, tweaking the energy he sent out, just enough to dull the grays and yellows and blow on the embers of maroon. "Baubles are lovely, but not particularly forbidden and I have to say, I find the most forbidden temptations the sweetest."

"They are," Waylan agreed, "but also the darkest because they lead one from the light of the Goddess to the depths."

Bryana looked around noticing the subtleties of the spell's effects beginning to take hold at the tables. The murmurs had died down somewhat and people leaned into one another more closely either to hear what was said or, Bryana suspected, just to get closer to one another. The maroons brightened as the grays slowly paled. One man two tables over inched his hand over to caress the back of his wife's and Bryana watched her passion flare before strands of gray clamped down upon it. Outwardly, she stiffened, but Bryana noted that she didn't move her hand from his reach. Even the servants were beginning to react to what they were feeling and what was going on around them; the women adding a certain come hither sway to the hips and the men puffing their chests outward.

"Erette has found a good balance, if I may say," Elan said, her warrior's eye seeing the subtle clues from the people around her, including the slight swagger in the demeanor of the mages, so she decided it might be helpful to nudge that along. "To prove stronger than temptation is a grace of the Goddess; to be immune to temptation is divine, Works 8:15. It is always there. She knew it always would be and that we flawed creatures would succumb more often than not."

She unbuttoned herself at the collar and let another one go with it, improper, though not quite immodest. "Much of both city and kingdom accepts that. We are weak and mortal and occasional gluttony feels good." She let her voice carry without seeming to shout. "Blind lust feels good. It simply does. Denial weakens you."

Besche took a deep breath that quivered slightly on the exhale. There was a quote of the Works that countered what Elan said, but she couldn't quite remember the words, which she found odd, but, no matter. "So you rush to the depths happily?"

"You accept that you will occasionally stumble, as the Goddess accepted it because we'll never be divine," Elan countered smoothly. "One proves stronger than their temptations when they do not surrender to them forever, when they choose this sin over another and another and do not follow the path. She wished and expected us to do the right thing more often than not. She does not expect perfection."

Elan admitted to herself that the slow descent into lust that was happening around her was beautiful in its own way, more so because Deres willed it. She tried not to think of the latter much or she'd melt all on her own. Across from her, she saw a noblewoman with sandy blonde hair delicately remove the pins from her hair, letting the tresses fall halfway down her back before running her fingers through it. Elan noted the look on her face that was a mix of shame and relief. That small act was a breaking of chains, and more would follow.

Following suit, Elan let her own snow white hair go free. "Sharing love is not sin. It's not filth. How could love be a filthy thing?"

Bryana looked around the room with a mage's eyes. She was still feeding the atmosphere with her own magic as was Deres, but more and more of the guests were feeding that energy themselves. The more they acted out or permitted others around them to made their magic that much easier to spread. The husband who was holding hands with his wife pushed the plates to the floor, several of which shattered as he lunged forward to press his lips to hers. As the others at the table gasped, some of those sounds were more of lust than shock. In response, her hands went up as though she'd met an attacker in the dark for long moments before she whimpered in surrender, now using those hands to hold his head to her.

Even as Bryana looked around her, Besche was struggling to answer the question, focusing inward. It's so warm in here. How did...how did it get so warm in here? She was feeling prickly all over as she reached to unbutton her own dress. The air hit the damp skin of her upper chest and she shivered, the full body shake reminding her forcefully that there was heat settling inside her that was beginning to demand attention.

Waylan looked around the table and then around the room. Things seemed...off somehow. The usual talking had more or less stopped and more and more of the touching going on seemed strangely inappropriate. It was like watching the situation through a thin layer of gauze. "Does...does anyone else see anything strange?"

Bryana spoke in a casual tone as she walked to stand behind Deres who was still seated. With some sense of relief herself, she began to shed her formal attire, slowly revealing the tattoos that marked her guild and enhanced her power. They were intricate, beautiful, and hypnotic in their own way. Most of the men tracked her, though she wasn't offended by the fact that two of them, maroon tones now bright and dominating were looking at each other over their own wives. "Nothing strange at all, Governor. They are simply showing love."

Some sense of normality pulled itself back to the front of his mind with the sight of her. His mind couldn't make the leap to mark her as a forbidden mage, but he did grasp the closest thought to mind. "Sin. Sin all around." His eyes drank in the sights and his ears bathed in the sounds of sex. One woman now had her bare feet over the shoulders of a now shirtless noble as his ass pumped in jackrabbit thrusts, anxious to seed his mewling partner.

At another, a noblewoman was nowhere near noble she was pushed over her table, bracing herself on both hands as one man plowed, grabbing the wadded dress still bunched around her in both hands as leverage while another woman slapped and bit her heavy, hanging breasts. The mauler giggled while the woman moaned as milk sprayed from those full tits into the mauler's waiting mouth.

Before his eyes now was a naked Elan, her pale body a testament to the power one could train into a small frame, pulled Besche's chair away from the table and turned it so that Besche's confused, dreamy eyes faced him. Elan's creamy white ass faced him as well and, while his mind actively entertained how long he might last before he filled her with seed, she helped Besche squirm from her own dress. The woman herself was plain in appearance and outwardly unremarkable, but as Elan kissed down her body on her way to the floor Waylan's cock pressed against him with ferocity when he realized she had just the body he liked, breasts that were firm handfuls and a hint of soft at the belly, thighs and ass. She's so...feminine. Her marriage dissolved some time ago and Waylan was waiting a respectable length of time before asking to court her, but there she was now in all her glory.