The Inn Ch. 13

[The story so far: Trapped in the fantasy world of his best-selling novels, writer Simon Kettridge learns that his presence has doomed the Phaeland Empire to destruction at the hands of an evil arch-mage, Necromanata. While trying to undo this disaster with a series of letters to powerful and influential people, Simon falls in love with Leyna, the serving wench/prostitute at the inn where he's staying. Then he makes the ironic discovery that she is Necromanata's long-lost daughter, and that the key to the sorcerer's destruction may rest in the burial plot of Leyna's mother. Enlisting the aid of a wilderness wizard, Simon and Leyna set out for Beadle's Bog, the haunted marsh where Leyna's mother was laid to rest ten years earlier.

Acknowledgment: a tip of the hat goes to anonymous commentator "FUN AT THE INN," whose suggestion last chapter got me thinking of some interesting tweaks for this installment.]

Chapter 13

I sat on a stump at the edge of the bog, waiting.

Of course, I wasn't just waiting – I was also thinking, and remembering, and speculating.

About way too many things at once.

Leyna, of course: the feel of her in my arms, the smell of her hair, the smell of her elsewhere ... the continual, light-headed awareness of what she meant to me ... the awe of knowing that I meant something similar to her ... the questions of whether it could possibly last, what kind of life we might have together as relative peons in a medieval fantasy world – whether we'd even have lives much longer, considering who her father was, our questionable plans to stop him, and how a few hours from now we'd be summoning up a ghost in the middle of a swamp from which an alarming number of people failed to return.

But as much as she dominated and overwhelmed my thoughts, Leyna didn't exist in a vacuum, and the context that had brought us together couldn't be ignored no matter how much I might want to hide my head in her sand.

For one thing, Beadle's Bog stretched out ahead of me, misty and dank from an on-again/off-again drizzle. The air hung still and cold, heavy with smell of flat, raw mud and rank vegetation. I couldn't see far into its sparse-treed islands before gloom and haze turned everything indistinct. Thinking about Leyna meant wanting her to be here, but once she arrived, we'd head out into that ill-omened sump in search of a ghost.

I hadn't written the Mistress of the Bog into existence the way I'd done with other parts of Phaeland. When I racked my brain hard enough, I thought that maybe I remembered naming a spot "Beadle's Bog" on one of my many hand-drawn maps. But deja vu might explain it just as well. All I knew about this swamp spirit, I'd learned from the folk tales Leyna told me, or from Yilma Greenwarden's reactions when Leyna repeated the stories for her.

Vengeful. After the folk of her village had sacrificed her, the legends said her spite brought the swamp up out of its lowlands to flood the farms and poison the soil for miles.

Ancient. The folklore about Beadle's Bog had no specific dates attached, but Piperville's town charter included rules about not venturing too deep into the fens, and a good hundred and twenty years had passed since the charter's writing.

Powerful. According to Yilma, a feat like the destruction of Ulumth would almost always result in the spirit either consuming itself or being bound so forcefully to the land that it could never escape to the afterlife. In the latter case, its abilities would grow year by year with the aging of its bond, and only the destruction of the swamp would prevent it from eventually surpassing any mortal arch-mage in strength.

And if that weren't enough, if we managed to find the Mistress of the Bog, if Yilma Greenwarden could keep her from obliterating us with magic, and if we convinced her to help us unearth the coffin Leyna's mother rested in, the possibility remained that the brooch wouldn't be there, or would require some even more daunting effort for us to destroy it.

So for forty minutes – from the time Yilma dropped me off to the time she arrived with Leyna riding her deer-shaped back half – I ping-ponged between the delirium of newborn romance and the specter of apocalyptic or ghostly annihilation. When the sound of hooves drummed me out of my reverie, I hopped up from the stump in relief.

"My goodness!" Leyna said when Yilma cantered to a halt before me. "I thought she looked fast carrying you off, Simon, but I didn't half know the truth of it until I got on myself!"

I moved over to help her down, despite Yilma's back being significantly lower than a horse's. Her hand squeezed mine excitedly as she swung her leg over and slipped to earth.

"Have you ever imagined you might go that fast?" Her wide blue eyes held such innocent wonder at having attained thirty or thirty-five miles an hour, I felt bad that I knew about cars and jet airplanes. Not that it hadn't been quite an experience, riding Yilma's half-human/half-deer form at breakneck speeds across the fields and over the hills from Piperville to Beadle's Bog, her doe's hooves thrumming across the ground and sometimes launching us into gazelle-like leaps over brush or streams.

"I definitely haven't had a ride like that before," I said. "Much better than hiking all the way here from town, that's for sure."

Yilma stood beside us, turning her antler-crowned head this way and that to peer out through the murk as she caught her breath. She'd barely seemed winded after dashing me here from the Nestled Goose, but the additional two trips must have taxed even her magically altered body, because her lungs worked like bellows, and a fine sheen of sweat covered every inch of her human half, gleaming where her skin lay bare and turning her tight white top slick and translucent across her breasts. I made a point of not looking too directly at the deep brown areolas laid visible by the wet fabric over them. Only a few hours had passed since I'd palmed those nipples and caressed the delicate swells they topped, with my belly against her furry tail and my cock jammed fully up into the very human, womanly cunt beneath.

Going into a dangerous supernatural bog while distracted by that kind of memory probably wasn't a good idea.

"Give me a moment to get my wind back," said the hindaur, turning from the swampy vista to face us. "Then we can head out. Assuming you both are ready?"

I looked at Leyna and she at me. For the first time since I'd met her, she wore pants – a pair of tan breeches in a denim-like material. Above them, she had on a woolen tunic cinched about the waist by a belt, while below she wore high black boots well-scuffed with use. On someone else, the outfit might have looked like peasant garb. But with her pixie-cut hair and bright eyes, the contrast to her normal dress-and-corset ensembles gave her a look of adventure. My fantasist's brain wanted to see her with a bow and arrows or a quarterstaff, swashbuckling against the thuggish minions of some wicked feudal lord.

"Ready as ready gets," she said to Yilma.

"Me too," I added.

"All right," Yilma said. "Another moment or two, then, and we'll set off."

Leyna put her hands to her waist and peered off into the swamp, her face determined and alert, yet uneasy at the same time. "Don't let us rush you ..."

Shaking her head, the greenwarden took a final, deep, recuperative breath. "It's not you that puts me in a hurry. We'll need to find our way well into the bog before starting the summoning, and I prefer to do so before nightfall. I can make my way in the dark through most any wilderness, but it wouldn't do for either of you to take a wrong step from lack of light."

"Right," I said.

We'd headed out from the Nestled Goose in late afternoon, after Leyna negotiated an evening off from Burgham the innkeeper. ("Half a week's bed money for missing a single dinner rush!" she'd complained. "I'd say it was robbery if I didn't feel bad abandoning him on such short notice.") By ferrying us at breakneck speed, Yilma had shortened a two-hour hike to an hour of deer-quick dashing back and forth. But even so, we had no more than an hour and a half or two hours of good light remaining. And traveling the swamp didn't exactly promise to be a speedy affair.

Yilma opened up her satchel before we moved out, produced several powders and ointments from within. She dusted or dabbed us with each, explaining the various stinging bugs and serpents and prehensile vines from which we needed protection. Then she passed around a waterskin for us each to drink from – and I noticed that it didn't seem to lose any volume or weight as I drank or even when Yilma tipped it up for a long guzzle.

Then: the bog.

We'd gone to the general store and purchased some hiking boots and heavy pants for me in preparation for the journey, and I quickly found myself glad to have them. Though Yilma kept us from what she said were the most treacherous stretches of ground, we still trudged ankle-deep in mud on a regular basis or had to forge through rasp-edged grasses higher than my knees. Periodically, the ground would fall away entirely, and the greenwarden would have to carry us one-at-a-time across open, brackish water that she bridged by summoning lilypads to her bidding.

It made for hard going, and despite the declining temperatures as dusk approached, I found myself sweating with the sustained exertion.

Little did I know.

As the already-spare sunlight dimmed and threw the bog into shadow, I asked Yilma how much farther she thought we needed to go.

She kept her voice low. "We've been deep enough in the swamps a quarter hour or more. But I'm sensing something, very close now, and it has an allure of vibrance to it."

"Mm," said Leya, "I like the sound of 'allure of vibrance!'"

"I like the sound of 'very close now,'" I mumbled. Leyna's shoes must have fit her better than mine did me, or else her day job kept her more used to staying on her feet for long periods.

Yilma shushed us, then led us forward. Perhaps a hundred paces on, I spotted a glow through the trees ahead – faint and green, but steady enough I didn't doubt my vision.

"There," Yilma pointed before I could open my mouth to say anything. "That's it. Come quietly."

Leyna and I followed her. The light grew and condensed into a single unwavering source in a clearing up ahead. At about the same time, I heard voices from the same direction, though I couldn't make out specific words. Yilma raised a hand to stop us, then cupped it and her other one around her mouth.

"Halloo!" she called out. "We approach with good intent – would you mind us joining you?"

The voices consulted amongst themselves before a very deep one responded, "Approach!"

Leyna and I looked at each other and at Yilma. The greenwarden gave a reassuring smile and motioned us forward with a tip of her antlers.

In the clearing, we found the most peculiar gathering I'd seen in Phaeland yet.

Four figures lounged around a central, hovering glow – and after a moment, I realized that the glow itself came from a fifth figure, no more than a foot and a half tall, suspended in midair by the beating of its mothlike wings. Is that a sprite? Then, quicker than the word passed through my head, the tiny creature swung through the air in a thirty-foot arc and wound up just a yard or so in front of Yilma. Up close, he threw us into bright light and left his comrades back in a pool of shadow.

"What ho – a hindaur!" he exclaimed with a grin that split a neat van dyke beard. "Don't often see one of you ..."

His outfit had a hint of Errol Flynn and a dash of Robin Hood to it, except that his tights ended at mid-calf and left the feet bare. In the green glow, I found it hard to determine his exact hair color – it might have been dark brown or auburn. His ears rose to elfin peaks, and he had sinuous antennae sprouting from his hairline.

"Actually a transformed human," Yilma replied. "I don't mean to give a false impression; it's just a form that travels well."

"Bring them back here, Loonce," said the deep voice. When I glanced its way, I saw a hulking, horned figure reclining on the ground, but with Loonce's glow up close, my eyes wouldn't readjust to let me see any more detail. "You've left us all a-gloom."

"Sorry," the sprite said before wafting back to his companions at a speed we could comfortably match. Yilma kept pace with him, so Leyna and I went as well.

The other four figures turned out to be a dryad, a satyr, a tricorn, and the deep-voiced one: a bullfinch. The dryad, female, had skin the color of oak bark, a gymnast's figure, swirling rose blossoms in place of hair, and an orchid between her naked legs. The satyr had spiraling ram's horns, the traditional goat legs, and, like the dryad, no clothes. The bullfinch was essentially a minotaur with bird-wings. And ...

Jesus, atricorn? Really?

Tricorns had not and would never appear in the Juliette Ravendark books. I guess they existed in the same world because I'd pulled a lot of the Phaeland races and backstory from a high-school D&D game I ran. The game had included any number of adolescent jokes designed to amuse or embarrass my friends, and tricorns won the prize for my most juvenile creation ever. Imagine a shetland pony centaur with a bald head and curved erect penises growing from his temples like horns. The hilarious part of the joke was when the guys playing the game argued that it wasn't a tricorn if it didn't have three horns, at which point I asked them if they wanted to inspect his third "horn."

"Greetings to you all," said our greenwarden guide, bowing her human half at the waist. "I apologize if we're intruding, but we seek the Mistress of the Bog, and my senses told me this might be a ripe area for summoning her."

The bullfinch gave a snort through his bovine nostrils. "Nothing to intrude on. We're still at the talking stage of our get-together, and Mordwith excels at talking well past the point everyone else wants to move on."

The satyr replied in a hurt tone. "If you find my words so exhausting, I'll be happy to hold my tongue henceforth."

"Oh, Mordwith," said the dryad in a flower-petal-soft voice. "Don't let Bullfeathers get under your pelt. You know he's as fond of your tongue as any of us. And Drog," (this she addressed to the winged minotaur), "can you try not to embarrass us all in front of new company with that tired old joke of, 'I was only trying to get his goat'?"

"Hah!" laughed the sprite. "It's racist, but it's still funny every time."

"Please pardon my undignified friends," said the tricorn. With his penis-horns swaying as he turned to face us, I had a difficult time blanking my reaction to his use of the word 'undignified.' I think I mostly managed it, though, or else he ignored it as he continued, "They are swamp creatures and have all the decorum of such."

"Anyway," said Drog the bullfinch, "the Mistress of the Bog. You're looking for her?"

Loonce flitted through an aerial loop. "Good chance she'll show up once we get to it."

"Fifty-fifty, at least," said Mordwith, nodding his ram-horned head.

"Better than that," said the dryad, "if we have fresh participants joining in."

"Uh ... joining in what?" I asked, not wanting to assume from their nakedness that they meant what I thought they meant.

The looks that went round between them said they meant exactly what I thought they meant.

Yilma stepped in, saying, "Our friend Simon is from a far land and not familiar with convocations of this sort. Please don't take his uncertainty as disapproval. If your words are intended as an invitation, and if we accept, would it be permissible for me to work a summoning magic at the same time, to ensure that we gain the attention of the Mistress?"

I glanced at Leyna – half out of possessiveness that Yilma would just volunteer us for an apparent orgy without asking us first, and half out of the rush of libido that the idea gave me. Leyna's fine blonde eyebrows bounced upward twice when she met my gaze, and her smile said she had absolutely none of the reservations I did. And why would she? I screwed all kinds of women the whole time we were falling for each other, and I've been fine with her keeping up her sex work even since we've been together. Why would she think there's anything odder about diving in here than about me fucking Yilma this morning?

Drog shrugged his enormous shoulders – twice as broad as mine and the color of dark chocolate. "Depends. Will the magic be a distracting sort? Will we have to stop for chanting?"

"No," said Yilma, shaking her head. "You won't notice any impact at all – though it would advance the rite significantly for as much seed as possible to be spilled on my upper half here."

Holy. Crap.

For emphasis, she stripped off her silken white top.

Loonce clapped his hands together and then rubbed them vigorously. "I am definitely ready for Mordwith to be done with the talking part of the evening!"

Raising his hand, the tricorn said, "I reiterate Loonce's declaration in the form of a motion to be put to a vote."

"I second Fwill's motion," said the dryad.

Drog stood ponderously, the movement causing his enormous bull's pizzle and scrotum to sway between his legs. "Motion raised and seconded, so ... vote. All in favor, raise your –"

"Genitals!" piped Loonce.

"– hands," finished the bullfinch with a glower to the sprite. Five hands shot up. I kept mine at my side, since Yilma's didn't move. But I saw Leyna give hers a momentary lift before whisking it back down when she noticed the other two of us weren't voting.

"Motion carries," said Drog. "Yndicir's turn as arbiter this week, I think. Care to assign us, Yndicir?"

"Hmmm." The dryad tapped her dark grey lips. "I believe I would like to see ... Mordwith, taking that one from behind. My apologies for not knowing your name."

Her apology and pointing finger both targeted Leyna, who pursed her lips and looked around.

"Do we vote on this bit?" she asked.

Drog shook his sharp-pointed horns. "The arbiter decides all. Just the two of them, Yndicir?"

"No. I'm thinking what she might do with her lips and tongue. Well, the look on her Simon's face has decided me. I think he should be involved or his feelings may be hurt."

I opened my mouth to say they shouldn't give me special treatment, but I didn't have the willpower to follow through. A part of me thought it would be hot to watch Leyna having sex as a voyeur, while another part felt profoundly uncomfortable at that – despite the fact that I'd listened in on her fucking clients at the Nestled Goose numerous times. At least if I'm involved, I'll have the blowjob to distract me, and I can watch her face if seeing the goat guy humping away at her is too much.

"Right, then," said Mordwith, "so I'm the one bookend and he's the other."

Not yet done, the dryad said, "And Drog shall relieve her of her clothing as I remove the man's."

My cock throbbed harder at that, especially as Yndicir moved closer and I smelled her. With her rosebloom coiffure and orchid pudenda, she had the scent of a garden – but a garden in heat, heavy with pollen and nectar to be spread. I couldn't help looking her up and down as she approached. She had fingernails of polished wood, and her eyes showed no whites – just glossy black orbs beneath dark grey lids. Her breasts hung in gentle curves, somewhere between Yilma's dainty size and Leyna's lush fullness. The areolas, now that I had a better look at them, consisted of enormous lilac petals flush against the grey of each tit, the nipples jutting out as cones covered in violet furze.

"You should relax," she told me, unbuttoning my shirt slowly from the top down. "Here within this circle of trees, we are all children of the fecund land, our bodies the hand of nature seeking ever to cover itself in beauty."