Talla's Fallen Temple Ch. 31

Whatever she'd meant to say, she cut it short as a massive howl of rage echoed from behind them. The Enraged burst out of the rain by the dozens. Several of them sported arrows sticking out of their backs, the rain having hampered the normal accuracy of the archers firing down at them.

"Move!" Gillian shoved Zhair'lo toward the gap in the phalanx before turning to form up with what remained of her army.

'How did they get in?' Zhair'lo shouted into Talla's mind.

'Madra Zen,' Talla cursed. 'The sewers. They got in somehow. They must have followed us.'

'Me,' Zhair'lo replied. 'Followed me.'

They burst through the doors, Zhair'lo first, followed by his squad, then the Seconds and Shanata and Talla last. With her last look back through the entrance before they sealed it off, Talla saw Gillian forming her squads up in tandem with the women already present, all of them trying to construct some sort of flanking trap for the crazed, screaming mob hurling itself toward them.

-===================-

"Who is the Conduit?" a desperately hopeful woman spoke from the anonymous darkness.

"I am," Zhair'lo peered into the hallway. "The name is Zhair'lo."

Reflected torchlight came at them, bouncing from around a corner somewhere. Zhair'lo caught the sound of bending yew and realized more than one person waited in this anteroom.

"He's ours, Rhisi," the same woman said. "It's all right."

"Stand down," a doubtful voice replied.

A blindingly bright torch came into view, obscuring the person carrying it. The effect seemed intentional, as she carried the torch at eye level, virtually guaranteeing no one could make her out. The last remnants of the core of Gern's army discovered the shape of the hallway where they stood. Beshenna's engineers had concocted something quite different form Gern's maze. Zhair'lo and his entourage stood at the wide base of a room which narrowed and rose as it approached the far end. Every few paces, the walls of the room came in a metre or so with a half wall. Behind each of these half walls, ten down each side of the room, an archer lurked, securely protected and camouflaged with darkness.

The torch bearer lifted her light high above her head, revealing herself at last. Zhair'lo saw a thin orange gown, making her a woman of some importance, although the shape of her dress denied him ability to ascertain her actual rank.

"You are very young," her soft voice found no echo in the strange room as she addressed Zhair'lo. "My name is Alyss. The Goddess Ascending awaits you. The rest of you may come to the High Room with him, but no farther."

"I don't know how long they can hold that gate," Zhair'lo warned.

Alyss nodded, "Then we will run."

Holding the torch high, she led them deeper into the Goddess's Domain, through door after door, each of which some other woman sealed behind them. Zhair'lo noted the transparency of her flowing dress, so out of place among the swords and leathers. He judged, by her legs, that she belonged to Form. But what Form woman would be caught unarmoured at this point? Even her cleanliness singled her out in comparison to the blood spattered specimens of humanity who accompanied him so far this evening.

'I don't have much company left, do I?' he thought, looking around.

His squad remained with him, along with Shanata, Talla, the two remaining Sweetness Seconds from Gern, and a handful of other non-combatants Zhair'lo had never identified.

Alyss waved them through the Goddess's black marble bedchamber to a final set of doors guarded by a pair of imposing women in blackened leathers. Between those twin guardians, she turned to face them.

"The rest of you should remain here," she said. "If this room is penetrated, seal the door and defend it. We will complete the ritual as quickly as possible."

Zhair'lo moved to follow Alyss up the stairway while the others assembled at the door at its base. He spared one glance back, his eyes searching for and find Talla's. He sent a last, mental message to her, 'I have no choice, now.'

'Live well.'

-===================-

"Pay attention," Shanata shook Talla out of her distraction.

"What?"

"You stay closest to the doors," Shanata instructed. "If they have to be sealed, we'll stay on this side. You get up near the top of stairs, but stay out of the Goddess Ascending's line of sight."

"What, why?"

"When ... If ... she Ascends," the older woman whispered. "You can't be in her line of sight. That won't go well for you. It'll be hard enough down here."

"Why do you want me up there?" Talla shook her head, trying to sort out her feelings.

"For Zhair'lo," Shanata glared at Talla as if she was stupid. "That's why you're needed up there. Your bow won't be particularly useful down here. You go to him. Maybe you can save him."

"Save him?"

"Maybe ... if you can get him to safety."

"I - uh."

"Just do as you're told," Shanata waved Talla away in frustration.

"Yes, Mistress."

-===================-

Zhair'lo followed Alyss up the stairs, only far enough back that the train of her dress didn't flap in his face as they mounted the steep, marble stairway. He realized almost instantly, with the slight coverage at the top of the stairs, that they approached the roof of the Goddess's innermost sanctuary. The scent of ash in the air told that tale, in spite of the three or four storeys of advantage they had over the street.

At least, Zhair'lo thought, we don't have to smell the dead bodies up here.

They gained the roof and Zhair'lo stared at the altar in front of him. While nothing as grand as the galleries of the Augmentation Chambers surrounded the altar, the structure itself dwarfed any ceremonial structure he'd seen before, taller by half than the Initiation Chamber where he'd ejaculated over several different Virgin girls. Three obsidian pillars formed an equilateral triangle, ten metres to a side. These supported a trio of gold-painted beams, high above his head, to form a kind of giant pavilion with a gently sloped roof of clay shingles. The darkness kept Zhair'lo from telling the colour of the clay, for the women had only placed torches in the sconces, three of which they'd attached to each pillar.

The pavilion could have sheltered some fifty people, though only seven women waited there, standing abreast across the nearest side of the triangle, silhouetted by the torchlight. As he approached, he began to make out that six wore the long, white skirts of recently inducted Virgins. The last, towering over them in the centre of line, wore the red of a Queen. The torchlight shimmered off the amber highlights in her hair, making her head into a torch of its own, even as it clashed with the deep red of her snug, practical clothing.

"Will you need assistance?" Alyss murmured as they continued their approach.

"What?" Zhair'lo wondered. Hadn't he already cleared up that he could walk just fine?

"There is no time for proper Priming,"she explained, "and I have several Facial upgrades, so if you're having diffi-"

"No," Zhair'lo closed his eyes so she couldn't see them rolling as he cut her off. "I'll be fine."

How many nights has he held the magic with him? It ached to get out, even if he knew most of his life would slip out at the same time.

"This will kill me, you know," he let the words out, acknowledging his forthcoming death, without even thinking.

Alyss took a breath before she replied, simply, "Yes. Many have died."

Many had died, and they intended to play the pawn, Zhair'lo M'han, as another sacrifice for the greater good. He couldn't even fault their logic.

"How did this happen?" he wondered aloud.

"The Queen of Endowment struck against Sweetness," Alyss replied as they walked. "We aren't clear why."

By this point, they had reached the Queen of Form and her attendants.

"Highness," Alyss spoke. "I present Zhair'lo ... ah ..."

"M'han," Zhair'lo filled in.

"Zhair'lo M'han, Conduit of Gern, here to restore the Perfection of the Temple of Beshenna."

"Long though we've waited," the Queen's sonorous voice rang through the night. "Zhair'lo M'han. Come to me and let's see this thing done."

At close range, with her body in motion and little of it covered by her outfit, he watched her massive muscles twitch and stretch as she turned her back to him.

"Queen of Form," he spoke his thoughts aloud, remembering Zoe. "Form doesn't ascend often. You must be Iron or Tight."

Zoe had told him that much: that even when Form Ascended, no one ever allowed a Sorceress from Facial to reach the Obsidian Throne.

"It is our way," she spoke down to him over her shoulder as he came abreast of her. "Do you know the saying? In Stability: Sweetness."

"In Expansion: Endowment," he added.

"In Strife: Form."

In his mind, he fit the last piece of that equation together, sending it mentally back to Talla below him.

"Your mind is busy," the Queen turned to face him and leaned against the low, black altar at the centre of the pavilion.

Zhair'lo looked up at her, wondering if she sensed his link with the girl by the stairs.

"My body aches," he demurred. "I've carried this thing inside me for four days now."

"Don't bother complaining to me," the Queen rolled her eyes. "My breasts burn with three Perfection upgrades, my genitals with two ... and now they must endure a third."

Zhair'lo remembered Areese, suffering through her duty and allowing him to penetrate her for the good of this burning city. He saw her dying in his arms ...

His mind snapped back to the present as the Queen unlaced her top and set her breasts free. Large by any measure, they also stood out from her chest, the result of her recent upgrades irritating and swelling the skin and the flesh behind. From Talla, he received an image of her own breasts after her first upgrade, swollen and aching with the stretching of skin.

Around them, the Virgin attendants snuffed out the torches mounted on the pillars and lit two instead which they placed on two metre high staves on either side of the altar.

'There's almost no one here now,' Zhair'lo realized as all but one of the attendants disappeared below.

'It's not safe to be on the roof when the Goddess Ascends,' Talla told him. 'We've all been warned to stay down here until it's over.'

'And me?'

'Get out if you can,' she informed him. 'As soon as you're done.'

'The Queen hasn't bothered to warn me.'

Talla greeted this with an exceptionally dark version of a mental sigh.

The woman before him, meanwhile, had ceased to be a woman in red, having dropped her short skirt to the ground to present her naked, well muscled form to his eyes. Stripped of the awful red clothing, Zhair'lo's awe of her body increased. The yellowish-orange highlights in her otherwise red hair - a colour matched to the luscious red triangle between her legs - picked out the subtle reds in her complexion. An additional flush had overcome the woman, despite the urgency of the situation, and Zhair'lo knew the level of her arousal.

She sat down at the stone altar and spread her legs toward him, stretching far enough that her thick mat of pubic hair parted and he could see the line of cleavage between her puffy, reddened lips. The Queen had not kidded, Zhair'lo realized, when she spoke of the effects of her recent upgrades.

Unashamed of her nudity, she reached to her side where the last remaining attendant stood, holding a wooden chalice. Zhair'lo, awed by the Queen in front of him, hadn't even noticed the attendant removing her own clothing, which sat in a small white pile at her feet.

The skinny, naked girl handed the cup to the Queen who dipped two fingers into the clear liquid within. The Synergist came out like syrup, sticking to her digits. She let it drip generously between her legs, over her triangle of hair and between her lips. Gently, she rubbed it against her clitoris, making small circles as if to assure herself of her arousal.

"Nissi," she said to the attendant. "Help him undress."

"Highness!" the girl in white jumped to obey, rushing to kneel before Zhair'lo.

He removed his own shirt while the girl worked the ties on his shorts. Meanwhile, the future Goddess masturbated, pushing the Synergist up inside her vagina in a quick but cautious rhythm. Zhair'lo's erection pushed against his shorts, hampering Nissi's efforts. As she had just removed a full length skirt, he knew she wouldn't have the experience to find her way around a penis. Zhair'lo carefully helped her draw the waistband over his manhood so as not to scrape it.

"Thank you, dear," the Queen spoke, drawing Nissi back to the altar. She held out the chalice. "You're done here. Get below."

"Highness," the girl bowed, took the chalice and swept up her clothing in one smooth gesture before departing behind Zhair'lo.

"How will we -" Zhair'lo began as he closed on the altar.

"You will penetrate me," she said flatly. "You are clearly ready. The mesh will see to everything else. If you can manage it, leave the roof after you are done."

'If I can manage it,' he repeated inside his head, noting the doubt with which the giant woman had saturated her statement.

Zhair'lo held her hips in his hands and laid his erection against her belly, the base of it touching the red hair which shimmered in the scarce torchlight. The coolness of the Synergist brought a sense of relief to the underside of his penis. Meeting his eyes, she rolled back on her posterior, presenting herself to him as the tip of his manhood slipped along the syrup laden trail down to her vagina.

Nothing but this remained for him. He accepted that, in all likelihood, this sexual act, this sacrifice, would serve as the last act of his life. With ash in his nostrils, a near-Goddess at the end of his erection, and a pair of torches lighting a roof top altar, he would soon come to his own death. He had no emotion to spare. What would come, he decided would come.

The Queen's legs locked around his back, pulling him inward.

"You're a breast man, aren't you?" she sighed. When he nodded, she added wryly, "Try not to be too rough on them."

Zhair'lo slid his hands up from her hips to her burgeoning breasts, palms over her wide areolae and erect nipples, pushed himself into her Synergist soaked tunnel and, for the first time in his life, felt himself truly mesh with a holder of Perfection. Days had passed since they'd permitted him to mesh with anyone at all, never mind a near Goddess. After the weeks of Fighter training, with its implicit and constant sexual exhaustion, a hiatus of four days should have seemed like eternity. The march had kept him so busy, however, he hadn't had the time to notice.

With this red-haired, muscle bound giant of a woman wrapped around his erection, the sensation of the mesh seemed doubly foreign.

She struck him as no other had. The amount of control she had over her body and mind astounded him. He considered the Queen of Form's strict organization in direct opposition to the craziness of riding V'shika's mental whirlpool.

But beyond rested a wealth of experience and knowledge, a certainty and maturity about the course of action to follow, and a resignation that, by this act, she also resigned herself to an early death.

'She'll die too?' he wondered, feeling Talla's presence in the mesh.

"I'm too old," the woman responded aloud, shaking her head as if slightly confused. "A Queen shouldn't Ascend this late in her life."

"How long -"

"A year, at best," she squeezed him within her, bringing him closer to the edge than he'd have thought possible in the few heartbeats since they'd begun. "Then my reign will end."

An emptiness welled up from Zhair'lo's belly and began to leech warmth from his chest.

"I won't last the day," he pointed out, also feeling the pressure build up inside his genitals, a result of the Queen's expert handling.

"Which we all regret," the Queen's sincerity flowed to him through the mesh, an utterly honest lament for the boy she used to restore her Temple.

Zhair'lo took a deep breath, willing himself to finish this act before his energy waned.

"That's it," she muttered to him. "Come inside me. Fill me up and I'll let it flow back down and upgrade me from the inside."

"Four days," he murmured back, referring to how long he'd stored up this orgasm.

"It will be enough," the Queen smiled a bit sadly.

The orgasm built with their bodies meshed together, her vaginal muscles twitching around him as he pushed and ground against her. He clenched as much of her giant breasts in his hands as he could, squeezing them far harder than he had originally meant to, but knowing that the pleasure of the moment outweighed any residual suffering the pressure might cause.

"Here it comes -"

"I can feel it," she arched her back to give him as much depth as she could take.

Joyfully, Zhair'lo exploded inside her, glad to push out the intrusive magic which had resided in his body for so long. She threw her head back, some mixture of pleasure and pain drawing a deep cry from her throat which she cast into the night air. His semen spurted forth into her belly, drawn out by swirling pattern of muscular contortions her vagina enacted upon him. Again and again, their bodies spasmed in unison, coaxing every bit of magic he'd brought on this long journey and every drop of semen his testicles carried.

At the same time, he felt the hollowness at the centre of his chest grow, absorbing everything inside his torso, taking his heart away. With the magic leaving, it seemed nothing remained to take its place. When the mesh released him, he stumbled backwards, his beleaguered erection yanked out of the Goddess's tunnel with too much force. The woman fell onto her back as well, a portion of his semen dripping out of her. Her hands rushed between her legs, trying to hold it in as her vagina continued to pulse and push it out, but her body went into a full spasm, arms and legs outstretched and rigid.

Zhair'lo slid backwards on his naked posterior, pushing himself away from the altar, knowing his survival lay in a stairway some thirty or forty metres distant. If only he could stand. He'd done his part in saving the people of Beshenna. He'd pumped more than enough semen into the Queen, despite how much dripped out of her vagina onto the altar. Nine hells, the woman had begun to glow blue where he'd penetrated her. Nothing remained for him but to avoid dying.

For a brief moment, he thought he could make it. He might just have enough energy to reach the stairs and roll himself down. A few cracks to his head, maybe a fracture or two, but he'd survive.

But then a golden glow began to emanate from the Goddess - for surely she deserved the title if her flesh had turned - and Zhair'lo's eyes went wide as her back arched upon the altar and a beam of golden light shot forth from her abdomen, through a gap in the roof of her pavilion, and split the clouds. Sparks of blue swirled around the beam, gathering a winding spiral of dirt and dust.

Then a wave of golden light burst forth from her tortured body in all directions, flowing down from the altar and racing across the ground.

The wave reached Zhair'lo, striking his head dizzy for a moment, after which he remembered nothing more.

-===================-

Down in the Goddess's sanctuary, the Enraged pounded at the entrance. Those in armour had formed a wall halfway between door and stairway. Behind them, Talla, Alyss and Shanata watched.

"How long will those doors hold?" Talla asked.

"They have never been broken," Alyss answered. "The hallway outside is shaped poorly for the use of battering rams and such devices."

Despite her assurances, Zhair'lo's squad and the last remaining guards stood uneasily as the door shook with the reasonless anger of those beyond.