Chapter 8

Crissa slipped the orb into a pocket of her dress, peering about the room.

Peris was examining the witch's body closely, but moved as if fearful.

"She's quite dead," said Crissa. "I slid a dagger between her ribs."

The petite noblewoman looked over her shoulder at Crissa, almost as if for the first time, truly seeing the tall, golden-haired sorceress.

Crissa was nearly staggered by the fear she felt from Peris. The girl was afraid of her. A demon-beast lay on the floor next to a formerly invisible sorceress, and Peris was afraid of Crissa.

A smaller measure of that same fear came from Kennet. It was vague, thought, and may well have simply been general fear, which was perfectly reasonable.

"Peris," said Crissa, suddenly very desirous of the girl's trust, "I only did what I had to."

The girl moved the sorceress' body into a loose approximation of a funereal pose, with her legs together and arms crossed over her chest. She then covered the corpse with a sheet from over one of the cabinets which were all draped against dust. Blood immediately soaked through the thin cream-colored linen.

Kennet did much the same for the demon's body, if simply to remove it from sight.

The mood in the room was somber, and the fear was almost palpable to Crissa, and it smelled bad to her, almost made her angry. Her showing anger right now would only amplify that fear, she knew.

"Pack your things back up, we're leaving," said Crissa.

"To go where?" asked Kennet. "We've fled from spot to spot, and nowhere seems safe."

Crissa curbed the flash of anger that welled up inside her with an effort, an effort both her companions saw. Though he had questioned the order, Kennet was shoving loose items into a sack. Peris had not even questioned her, she was even more fearful of Crissa.

A motion in the corner of her vision caught her eye and Crissa turned to see that the piece of furnishing that Kennet had fished off a cloth from was a small wardrobe, out of place in the common room. It had a tall, slender mirror on the top. Regarding her reflection in the mirror, she saw a tall, stark woman with callous, angry eyes staring back at her.

Do I truly look like that? she asked herself, and the reflection softened the tiniest fraction with a trace of worry. One save me, no wonder they are fearful. She had little reassurance to offer them, though, and no comfort.

"That's all of it," said Peris, standing from her packing, lifting a rather meager looking sack of goods.

Crissa had managed to stuff all she had brought with her back into the sack, which was still spilled across the floor from the fight. They pulled on their cloaks, again, kindly provided by Charel, and slipped from the apartment. The people across the hall were peering from behind a cracked door, and she knew the watch was on its way.

Such a disturbance in a law-abiding home would bring down the watch with certainty.

With haste, they slipped across the street into the very alley in which had lurked the witch prior to her attack on Crissa. The sounds of booted feet came clomping up the cobbled street as they moved hastily through the muddy alleyway. "Move quickly," hissed Crissa, wanting to change directions again as soon as possible. Surely the helpful neighbors in the building would soon point the guards toward that alley.

"In here," said Crissa in a low voice and they turned into another alleyway just as three guardsmen stormed into the muddy alley. Two had torches and flickering light illuminated the alleyway.

Crissa stood at the mouth of the side alley, as if she were denying the existence of the guards and the main alleyway. Her arms were outstretched and her fingers splayed, along with her long legs. Even her toes pointed outward. It was as if she were a cat, trying to make herself larger than she really was.

Peris watched the concentration on Crissa's face as she stood.

The guards ran right past them, though they were not ten feet away, and easily within the illumination of the sputtering torches.

The guards stopped at the far end of the alley and their voices came drifting back. They sounded oddly muffled, like they were speaking through a wall.

"One's blessing, what was that thing?" asked one of the guards.

"Looked like a skinned dog to me," said a second.

The third barked a laugh. "No dog I've ever seen has teeth like that," he said. "It was a magical beast."

The other two nodded assent. "And the woman with the dark hair?" asked the first again, apparently full of questions.

"No idea Derlen, no idea," said the authoritative-sounding one. "But, mark my words, she was a sorceress, you saw the markings."

Crissa saw her companions look fleetingly at her. With her arms stretched for the sky, her sleeves had slid up to her shoulders. No markings marred her smooth, fair skin.

The guardsmen moved away from the mouth of the alley, their torchlight with it, casting the trio into darkness. Crissa slumped forward and lowered her upstretched arms.

"You hid us?" asked Peris.

Crissa was breathing as if she had run a mile. "Yes," she said between gulps of air, "but I didn't know if I could."

"Invisibility," said Kennet, awe filling his voice.

A weak smile formed on Crissa's lips. "More like a blanket, really," she said. "They expected alley wall, so I just made it somewhat more real."

The fear the two had for her was abating somewhat, replaced by respect and some wonderment. This felt much better to Crissa. She would rather Peris keep lusting at her than be afraid of her.

A few minutes later, they slipped out of the alley and down another street. The guard was not making a great effort to apprehend the killer of a obvious sorceress and her monstrous minion. Crissa idly wondered if her death would be regarded as much a favor as a crime.

The village by night was cold, and fog had begun to roll in off the river that bisected it as night wore on. Peris was shivering. As fine a tailor as Charel was, he could not make clothes good for warm and cold weather at the same time. As it was late spring, he was crafting clothes for the upcoming summer, and these garments were meant to be worn then, not now.

They skirted the lamplight in front of several inns. To Kennet's curious looks, she said, "I'm well known in many inns, and do not wish to be remembered passing by."

He let that go without asking other, more uncomfortable, questions. Peris simply smiled slightly and a reassuring wave of lust toward Crissa moved out from her that made Crissa blush for the first time in hours. You did say you'd prefer it, she thought.

It was surprising how many folk of Norboro were up and about at such a small hour, even Crissa. Though she moved in the night, she almost was never still out after midnight, usually closeted away with a partner by that time.

"Where are we going?" asked Peris.

They moved around another corner and were across the street from a half collapsing old building. "There," she said.

"Hardly a comfortable home," said Kennet.

"Master Marrat owns that lot," she said. "He was given it for some services to a merchant."

They moved quietly across the darkened street, a dog barking in the distance, though probably not at them and amid the tumble of wood and rock. "Wenn and I looked it over for him and it has an intact basement."

She looked around in the darkness until her eyes spotted the particularly darker patch of black and made for it. The other two followed and she led them down some rough-hewn stairs until they all came to a stop, bumping into each other. There was a door. Crissa opened it and they moved into the utter black beyond. The door thudded shut and she pulled out a light stone, saying, "Light," as she did so.

The blue-white glare of the stone momentarily blinded them before their eyes adjusted to it. The chamber was about twenty feet to a side, with massive oaken timbers supporting the mastonry roof. Moisture glistened on one wall and a drip could be heard from in the back corner, at the edge of the light stone's illumination.

"It's hardly palatial," said Crissa. "But almost no one knows about it, and it's scryguarded."

"Scryguarded?" asked Kennet.

Crissa knew Kennet knew a little of magic, and things magical, and she regarded him. "You know what it means," she said.

"Yes. I asked more as to why," he said.

A wan smile formed on the sorceress' lips. "I have my own, very personal, reasons, for wards about," she said. "Let me just say that they protect those without, rather than those within."

"There is a barrel of water back there, follow the dripping sound," she said. "It's under a fountain, so should be drinkable. There are no beds, sorry, but we have blankets, and the floor is more or less dry."

Kennet sat down and pulled out the second light stone, repeating the light command, and more light filled the chamber. Crissa smiled to see Wenn's handiwork being put to good use.

Peris moved to the water barrel and cupped water into her mouth, pronouncing it fine to drink, unless it was bad in a very subtle way.

The tensions of the night caught up with Crissa and she knew that she should either go to sleep or find a cooperative person to work them out with.

Eyeing Kennet with a appraising look, she decided on the former, to maintain equanimity in the trio.

Kennet, however, approached her as she unfolded a blanket onto the floor. "You said the elven woman would see me agian, but how will she find me?" he asked.

Crissa blinked at the question for a moment before her mind caught up with his words. "Well, elves have a way with things like that, I guess," she said.

A slightly dubious look came into Kennet's features and he said, "Elves have few senses we don't. They can see better in the dark, but overall, it's still sight."

"She's a shaman or some such," explained Crissa, trying to rewrap his mind with the elven imagery she had filled it with. "I don't understand their workings."

He nodded. "I thought as much," he said. "That's how she healed us."

Crissa gave him a curt nod and started to lie down. "Almost I wish I had not seen her," he said wistfully, causing her to open her eyes again and half turn over to face him.

He was now sitting beside her, on the bare stones of the floor.

Peris was spreading a blanket near the door, humming to herself and studiously ignoring the two of them.

"Why?" asked Crissa. "Don't you wish to meet elves, one day?"

He sighed deeply and gave a very tiny smile. "I have all my life, yes," he said. "But, here I am, doing exciting, adventurous things, with two beautiful women, and all I can think of is how lovely she was."

Crissa smiled at him, extending a hand to stroke his cheek. "You're a good man Kennet," she said, very soberly. "You might should think less on elves and more on the people you see daily."

In a infinitely tiny voice, he said, "I wish I could."

Crissa did not even notice what she was doing. Before she could stop, she had reached out with her mind and touched his, changing his perception of her, ever so slightly. Softening her features, and heightening her fair points.

She leaned forward and kissed Kennet, and he responded eagerly, returning the kiss and putting his arms around her. Despite his slenderness, he was a man who did perform labor, at least sometimes, and the arms were strong and the embrace with them.

A gentle pull brought him over onto the blanket with her, lying half atop her body. She felt his organ in his pants stiffen at the prone, intimate contact and smiled inwardly as their lips continued to press together. She let the mental illusion go, it having served its purpose of getting him started. Most men, once moving, did not stop easily.

Kennet proved no exception. She had invited him, and now he was responding. One of his hands, surprisingly soft, slid up her thigh, under her knee-length skirt. She did not resist him. She was in a safe place, she did not resist anything. It felt wondrous to let her feelings go, for the first time in many days.

His fingers felt hot on her thigh as he moved them upward, finally coming to the crux of her legs and moving over the slick wetness of her opening. She had eagerly anticipated this and was already halfway to being ready before he arrived, as any good hostess would be for unexpected guests.

Still, she sighed at the touch, so enthused and eager. This, more than any other reason, was why she took new lovers, for that fumbling, eager, discovering touch. It felt wondrous each time it happened. Some were skilled, others caring, still others clumsy and charmingly inept, but always they brought that feeling to their touch and mind.

Kennet, being a man of full years, and still a virgin, brought more of that feeling than most. She felt the waves of his pent passions flowing over her and they took her breath away in a way that no man, save Wenn, their first time, did.

Her hands groped at his belt, tugging at the clasp, every bit as clumsily as a girl who knew not how to handle a man. This was another feature of such lovemaking, she almost became a virgin with Kennet, so powerful were his half-fearful feelings.

Finally, though, the belt came open and her hand darted into his pants, groping for his stiffened rod. Her fingers found it and gripped, forcefully, the engorged thing, hearing the sudden gasp from Kennet as, for the first time he knew, his cock was touched by a woman.

She smiled at the mixture of shock and excitement on his face and pulled him down for a kiss as she started to stroke the cock in her slender hand.

Kennet's own fingers lost some of their clumsiness and uncertainty with her, and one moved into her, eliciting a gasp of her own as the digit parted her lips. "Rub gently at the top," she whispered hoarsely, just above the entry."

The now wet finger pulled out of her and moved over the nub of her clitoris. She arched her back and groaned softly at that and sighed, "There," as he moved back and forth.

Crissa's hand had fallen idle in her pleasure, and now she resumed stroking him. His pants were around his knees now and she moved around, twisting her upper body to bring her head to him.

Her warm, soft lips formed a seal around the head of his penis while her hand continued to stroke. She noted his finger on her clit had stopped moving. This was fine, as she had intended to surprise him.

When she looked up, she saw a stunned look of ecstasy on his face as he watched her. She kept her eyes upon his as she moved her head back and forth, leaving a glistening gleam on the shaft.

He seemed to have been holding his breath and released it in a shuddering moan and grunted, "One's blessing," even as he spent himself.

Crissa smiled at him, pulling back and letting his prick drop from her mouth. He had his eyes closed, his mind working furiously behind the lids. She could feel his emotions swirling there. Lust, desire, fear, pleasure, excitement, amid other, more subtle tastes.

A moment later, his fingers began experimentally moving over her entrance and she spread her long thighs apart to allow him freedom of motion. He looked down at her slit, then at her eyes. She nodded and he moved over and down, touching his tongue to her while she untied the skirt's bindings. She sighed as he made contact and began moving his mouth over her.

While not the finest at such things, the young man was more than adequate, and possessed of impressive drive. He mouthed her with a passion that bordered on mania and made small sounds of pleasure and excitement. The thoughts he harbored were more exciting than the contact to Crissa, though the two together quickly had her squirming and moaning beneath his fast moving tongue.

Her fingers moved to his curly hair, the texture thick and heavy, like corn silk. She was bucking upward, and held his head in a strong grip, the strong muscles of Crissa's arms holding his skull fast and allowing her to choose the positioning of his tongue with precision.

She came loudly, moaning and calling out her pleasure in incoherent words. Her praise just seemed to feed Kennet's fire and he mouthed her harder and faster, eliciting a second orgasm on the very heels of the first. "Take me now," she groaned as his tongue slowed. "Take me fully."

He moved atop her, running his hands along her long, slender waist. Her eyes flashed in the reflected light of the stones and she tried to smile reassuringly at his somewhat fearful look. "You're doing more than well, Kennet," she said. "Many men cannot make a woman climax, even with the full act."

A grin formed on his lips and he moved up slightly, pressing the soft head of his cock to her entrance. She strained upward to try to force entry, but he held back a moment, thought crossing his face. "Now," she begged, pushing up again with her hips.

He drove his cock into her. It was no timid motion of a novice lover, but the impassioned entry of someone sincerely wanting to take someone. She felt taken and the sensation was wondrous.

Their bodies found a rhythm quickly and they settled into it, straining together and both seeking the same goals while helping the other to their own. Crissa rarely felt a bond so close during her flings, and she revelled in the connection. Such links rarely lasted long, and she rode this one for all its worth.

When they came together, it was like a voice in an amphitheater. It reverberated between the two of them. His lust for her feeding into her emissions of lust outward, furthering his own. Their climax was both powerful and enduring, their bodies arcing into one anothers and their peals of ecstasy blending to a ear-splitting sound.

Then it was gone.

Crissa blinked open her eyes and looked down at the shock of curly hair on her chest. Kennet was breathing heavily, gasping in air. Her own breath was ragged and irregular. She moved her hands over his back, stroking his sweaty skin and sighing gently.

"Lover, count yourself one of few," she said in a low, husky voice.

Kennet lifted his head and smiled weakly. "Is it like that every time?" he asked, his eyes wide and staring.

"Not really, lover," said Crissa. She used that title for men after their passions for a long while, at least until they parted company. "Though once is enough, no?"

He nodded. "I could stand it to be a bit less - intense," he said, laying his head between her ample breasts. She continued to pet his back. He was soft now, his cock was, and she wondered how long she had been senseless.

"You could warn a girl," said Peris' petulant voice from the other side of the room.

Crissa's eyes shifted suddenly and she looked to where Peris sat on her own little pallet of blankets, staring at the two of them. "Oh, One save me," she said in a whisper.

Peris smiled at her, though, and her petulant look evaporated. "Be glad I did not ravish you myself," said the girl, looking at her body.

"What stopped you?" asked Crissa, rather startled by that very fact.

Peris sighed and her smile became lopsided with wryness. "A girl keeping her 'purity' for so long learns to handle matters," she said, but then her face shifted to one of seriousness. "Though it was a sore trial not to pull him off you and make use of him after you finished."

Crissa looked down. "I apologize, I didn't think before I started," she said. "And once I started..." A soft snore came from Kennet as he lay atop her. She grinned at him. "I think he's tired," she said.

"He should be," replied Peris, looking at the young man. "He went at you for almost half an hour after you went unconscious. I believe you climaxed in your sleep."

Crissa blinked at her for a moment, wondering if she were serious, but decided to let that remain Peris' own secret. A sharp soreness between her legs made her think that maybe she was speaking truth.

Gently, she moved Kennet off of her and he lay on the pallet, sleeping soundly while she rose and walked to sit beside Peris. "I apologize for exposing you to that," she repeated. "I know you're trying to keep your virginity."

Peris' hand stroked Crissa's long, straw-colored hair and she moved it on down over the sorceress' bare back. "It's okay," she said. "You got caught up in a moment, it was rather interesting seeing you really doing as you might."

A fresh surge of lustful feelings pulsed outward from Peris as she touched Crissa's bare flesh. The fingertips felt cool after Kennet's warm touch and she did not flinch away.

If Peris wished to touch her, after her exposing Peris to the rather unpredictable full release of her abilities, she would not stop the girl.