Part 4B

Celes came the next morning to work with Danica. By mid-afternoon, Danica had mastered the spell. Celes cast a dispell over the room once Danica cast the Armor of Dispelling around her. Danica smiled wide when she found that her rings worked perfectly and that she could cast spells upon herself without them fizzling in the magic-eating enchantment cast upon the room.

Celes concentrated and released the dispelling magic. Danica then relaxed the shield of her spell as well.

"There — now ye should have no trouble with them doorways, Dearie," Celes declared.

Danica let out a sigh of relief. "Thank the gods. I don't want to have to go through the nightmare I went through last time when I have to return in a few weeks.

Celes nodded in agreement. "Ye have a plan on how to touch them two amulets together, don't ye? Yer gonna have a right hard time doin' that invisible, ye know?"

"The girl uses drugs," Danica revealed, and produced the vials she'd taken from the Princess' room to show Celes. "I'll have little trouble substituting a sleeping potion for one of these, and she seems to take them often."

"Sad. She's likely ta lose her mind an' her life both soon, usin' these vile things," Celes said, apparently recognizing the drugs. "What're ye about t'day? I see ye've been working." She nodded toward the lab and asked, "Will ye be back to craftin'?"

Danica smiled and answered, "Not today. My heart isn't in it." Pointed her finger in a warning gesture, she admonished, "No peeking. It's a present for you."

The old woman's eyes widened. "Fer me? Ye silly lass. I'm not for deservin' no presents."

"Oh, don't be silly. You'll take your present, and you'll like it Celes," Danica exclaimed, waggling her finger.

Celes cackled, "Fine, fine — but ye're wastin' yer talents on an old, dried up crone. Don't say I dinna warn ye. There are more deservin' people o' yer talents — not the least o' whom is yerself. Craft fer yerself an' make yer life easier an' more enjoyable."

"I will, but not until I've finished your present," Danica responded.

"Well, if'n ye're not busy, I could be usin' yer help," Celes admitted. "I'm for needin' ta get a special piece o' Art made, an' Damian's the best there is. I was hopin' ye could go with me an' persuade him ta craft it fer me, bein' as ye know him so well."

Danica blushed when Celes gave her a sly wink upon saying the last.

"Word gets around, Dearie," Celes continued, and laid a hand on Danica's shoulder, winking again. "Will ye do it fer me?"

"Of course, we'll go right now," Danica replied and led Celes to Damian's room.

Damian agreed to make the item, saying, "I'll get right to that," once Celes had described the item — an amulet that allowed the wearer to pass through walls on command. "I've not worked with the Passwall enchantments. It will be a fresh challenge."

"I'm fer thankin' ye," Celes said gratefully.

"Think nothing of it. The challenge alone is worth the work," Damian responded with a laugh.

The two women then left and returned to Danica's chambers. Celes expressed interest in watching Danica work on her crafting some time, as she had never undertaken the task herself. Danica agreed to work with her when time allowed them both to be together long enough.

Celes excused herself then, saying she had business she had to attend to for the crazy bastard, and left the room.

Danica decided to go to the corset maker and see how her garments were coming along. She was surprised to find them finished. She put the outfit on and grinned in delight. It was beautiful and cinched her waist without being uncomfortable. It held her bare breasts up high and close together. The other women in the workshop cooed, saying it would surely drive men mad. Such seemed to be confirmed when a man walked past the doorway of the shop and glanced inside at just at the right angle to see Danica where she stood some distance inside. He tripped and fell with a loud exclamation right in front of the door. The women all laughed, and the man scurried — red-faced — away from the doorway.

Danica changed out of the clothes and back into her robes. She returned to her chambers and put the new outfit carefully away in the closet. Danica looked toward the lab, but decided she was not yet ready to begin the intricate task of painting and glazing her present for Celes. She thought of the library, but her mind was not on study either. She decided to wander, and let her intuition lead her.

Danica walked past the workshops, the garden with its hedge maze, and past the pool opposite it. She chuckled when she thought she saw someone concealed in the bushes near the pool. She eventually arrived near the main gate, which led to the outside world.

What exactly is keeping me here? Zoraster's admonition not to leave? Danica walked slowly toward the gate. Two guards there conferred for a moment before walking to stand interposed between Danica and the gate.

Danica continued forward as if the men meant nothing, and then made a show of picking a particularly pretty flower from a spot along the trail, very near the gate. Her subterfuge complete, she wandered off away from the gate.

She sat down on a stone bench nearby and watched as several people entered and left the complex. Sometimes the guards conferred, and sometimes they didn't. Each time, the guards allowed the people to pass without a fuss.

Apparently, there was more than Zoraster's warning to prevent her from leaving here. The guards had certainly shown intentions of stopping her. She got up and followed the wall, looking up and noticing that no guards paced there. The wall was high, but far from beyond the reach of a levitation spell.

Danica looked around. She was far from any structures, and somewhat shielded by a small stand of trees. Falling into her magic, Danica levitated upward. She held her hand over a ring of feather-falling, prepared to release its fall-slowing enchantment should something force her to break the levitation spell, or stripped it from her by other magic.

Danica reached the top of the wall without incident. No alarms sounded, no spells flared to life, and no guards ran toward her. Nothing happened.

Danica leaned over the wall to look outward toward the town. When she passed over the line of the wall, she felt a faint humming from the amulet around her neck. She quickly jerked her head back, and the humming died. She leaned forward just a bit and felt the humming return. The hum from the amulet grew stronger the farther she leaned out over the wall.

"What are you doing, woman?" Danica heard a man's voice behind her say.

Danica whirled and found a man with an aura of magical power shining about him standing on the wall in a spot that was empty only a moment before.

"Surely you do not seek to raise the ire of your host?" He was about Danica's age, though he was thin and wan — almost corpselike — behind the dark hood of his robe. "Any guest of quality would not leave without paying a visit to the host of their stay first," the wizard warned in a haughty tone of voice.

"I was just looking over the wall," Danica snorted and turned her back on the man, walking along the wall in the opposite direction of where he stood.

Danica noticed he did not follow, but instead allowed her to go on her way. He had delivered his warning, and Danica's question had been answered beyond doubt. She was a prisoner here, and someone would prevent her from leaving in any fashion without permission.

She found a stairway plunging downward into the wall after a while, and curiously descended. She discovered a hallway and several rooms hidden within the wall. From time to time, she passed guards on patrol and the occasional servant, but none seemed to pay her any heed.

She found more descending stairs, and discovered there was a catacomb beneath the wall — and the entire complex within the walls as well. There were numerous doors, all very obviously locked tight and trapped, leading to unknown rooms. She saw ladders leading upward to what appeared to be trap doors, and stairs leading up to other doorways.

Tunnels branched out toward the city as well, lit by magical globes. Danica could not believe that this labyrinth was here. She wandered past one room and found several men lounging on comfortable pallets while drinking and staring up at the ceiling. When she looked upward, Danica discovered why.

The bottom of the women's bathing pool was an illusion. The men here sat gawking at the women above as they swam and bathed. More twisted entertainment for Zoraster's twisted servants, Danica thought with disgust.

The men never even noticed Danica, so intent were they upon the show above. She left the room — feeling disgusted — and continued her wanderings. She passed a dungeon, the purpose of the place betrayed by the bars and the sad state of the tunnels there. She heard moans of dismay and the occasional scream of pain as she drew near, and then passed by the area. She did not enter, or even look through the barred double gate as she passed it by.

Danica saw several men and women in black robes not long after, passing into and out of an open doorway. She knew immediately what the series of rooms was the moment she looked inside, though she had never seen one before.

The stench of blood and death wafted from the room. Skeletons and zombies ambled slowly amongst the wizards as they performed their foul experiments. Danica heard the endings of a dark, horrible chant, and saw a nude female rise up from a blood-caked stone slab.

The woman's eyes had the blank stare of a zombie, and her head lolled to the side to reveal where something had slashed her throat from ear to ear. Danica hurried down the hallway, covering her mouth and trying to keep her stomach under control. Between the scene and the stench, she found it difficult, indeed.

This place is as complex and insane, as the man himself, Danica thought, amazed that this had been beneath her feet all this time. She couldn't even imagine what she might find if she started opening the dozens of locked doors she'd seen in the corridors here and above.

Danica made her way out of the labyrinth, back into a main subterranean hall, and soon found her way back to the walls. She located a secret door, hidden from the outside, and exited back onto the grounds once more.

Danica walked aimlessly around the grounds a bit more, not really paying much attention to where she was going. She thought about what she had learned about this place today, and about her own entrapment in it.

Night was falling when she finally looked around to see where she was. She was near the pool on the grounds, very close to the wall. She looked toward the bushes where the young men had hidden that night and heard voices.

Danica crept closer, until she could hear the voices clearly and partially see through the bushes. Three of the speakers she recognized. They were the three she had made men that night on the very spot where they now stood talking. The fourth, whom she didn't recognize, was the next to speak.

"You're all lying. You made this whole thing up because you can't manage to get a real woman. This fire-haired wench who plays with herself in the pool is a figment of your collective imaginations."

"We are not," one of the young men spoke up. "She was here and she let us all fuck her. She told Jonathon that if any of our friends wanted to fuck her, to come here at night and the might get lucky."

One of the others added, "Besides, oh high and mighty apprentice wizard, I don't see any notches in your bedpost. Though, I bet your right arm has more muscles than the rest of your body." He made an exaggerated masturbation sign with his hand when he finished speaking.

"Bah," the fourth young man scoffed and then whispered words of magic. An image of Danica appeared to stand near the boys batting its eyes, and swaying its hips seductively. "That's more real than any woman you've had, on this spot or any other."

The other three's mouths dropped open, and their eyes went wide. They then exclaimed in near perfect unison, "That's her."

Danica covered her mouth and stifled a chuckle from their comedic response to the appearance of the illusion.

"Liars," the young apprentice accused. "That's that fire-haired lap-licker who wanders the halls, ignoring any man who tries to speak to her. You're all making it up, just like that Aaron in my study group who says he had her too."

Danica smiled, absently remembering that Aaron was the name of the young man she had found studying with the apprentice whom she had originally come here with so long ago. She was apparently becoming a legend amongst the younger male population within the walls. Her brow furrowed a bit when she considered the young man's tone — especially when he said lap-licker. She thought this one probably needed to be taught a lesson. An idea formed in her head, and she shuddered as she licked her lips thinking about it.

They argued a bit more and then the doubting apprentice said, "You may as well give up — all of you. It's utterly inconceivable that this woman would let any of you even touch her — let alone fuck her. You're all a bunch of pussies, but she wouldn't touch you unless you actually had one."

Danica smiled wickedly, noticing that the illusion of her was directly between her and the assembled students. She fought down a laugh and said, "Part of weaving magic is making the inconceivable reality, young man."

All four turned and stared at the illusion, which was still going through its programmed motions and fading from view. The apprentice's mouth was open wider than the others, because he knew the illusion hadn't — couldn't — have spoken.

Danica sauntered out from behind the bushes. Three young men smiled, and one maintained his open-mouthed stare as she walked through the last faint traces of the illusion of her to stand before them.

She walked up to each of the three young men in turn, kissing them and caressing their manhoods with her hand through their trousers — moaning as she did so.

"I told you all that you'd had your turn, but your doubtful and rude friend here has changed my mind. Maybe he might get a turn, if he's patient." She turned to look at the still wide-eyed apprentice when she finished speaking.

Danica looked back at the three young men and locked eyes with one of them. "You were the last before, weren't you?" she asked. When he nodded in the affirmative, she informed him, "Well then, you get to be first this time." With that, she opened her robe and let it drop to the ground.

Danica moved in close to the young man, four sets of eyes locked on her body. She slid her panties down and kicked them away as she reached him. "Now, let's see if you paid attention during your last lesson. Consider this a surprise test. I hope you don't disappoint me."

Danica kissed him and slowly dropped down to her knees. She tugged at the waist of his trousers, and continued downward to lie back on the grass.

The young man quickly pulled off his clothing, and then dropped down to his knees in front of Danica. He leaned forward onto his hands and lowered himself down.

Danica moaned and parted her legs wide. "You're doing very well, so far," she said, and punctuated it with a moan as his tongue slipped between her labia.

"Mmm, yes — you certainly seem to have understood your lesson," Danica moaned playfully as he stoked her inner fires with his tongue. Danica was pleased that she had little need to guide him. His memory, and improvisation, served him quite well.

Danica looked over at the other two young men with whom she'd lain with the same night. "Why don't you get undressed? It will save some time and I want to see your cocks. It will give me something more to look forward to."

They undressed immediately. Danica let her lip curl into a crooked smile when she saw the rude older apprentice standing off to the side and looking uncomfortable.

Danica gave the young man a few suggestions between moans, which he quickly followed. She soon dangled over her precipice, then tumbled over the edge with a loud cry.

The young man rose smiling from between her legs as she continued to quiver from aftershocks. "Did I pass the test?"

Danica chuckled, "You certainly did. Now, let's see if you know how to use that hard young cock of yours."

He mounted her and Danica purred as he pushed inside her — with no fumbling about. "Mmm, get me there before you fill me up and you've passed the last test."

Danica reached behind her legs and pulled her knees up toward her chest. It had exactly the effect she wanted, allowing him to penetrate her deeper and more quickly. His fast, youthful thrusts were quickly stoking her internal fires. Danica could see the strain in his face and knew it would be a close thing, though.

The young man passed his final test as he spurted inside Danica, simultaneous with her own shuddering orgasm. Danica gave him a few moments to gasp for breath, as she needed the time as well. She then slapped him playfully on the ass, and followed it with a gentle nudge indicating he should get off her.

They both gasped when he pulled free from her, trembling from the intense shock of pleasure that shot through them as he did.

Danica sat up and kissed him as he knelt on trembling legs in front of her. "You did very well. You obviously paid attention last time. If you do that for a woman who likes you, she'll keep coming back for more. Stay away from the Nymph Dweomer — it's cheating. Only a woman who really wants you can make you feel that good, and enjoy it too."

The young man nodded with a silly smile on his face. Danica kissed him one more time and said, "Now get dressed and go."

While he dressed, Danica glided past the other two young men toward the pool. She touched both of their erections and licked her lips before continuing to the water to wash up.

Danica tested both of the other young men, and they proved they had learned their lessons well. The last exploded inside her just as Danica was nearing her peak, but he had the determination to overcome his sensitivity and continued stroking Danica's depths until she climaxed as well.

Danica whispered in his ear, which was easy to do since he had collapsed atop her almost as soon as she had started coming, "Don't worry — you pass the test too. I'm not that particular about the rules when I come that hard."

Her spent lover smiled weakly in response. Danica told him to get dressed and be on his way as well. She went to the pool for the third time to clean up, and then strutted toward the final apprentice. There was an obvious note of challenge in her bearing as she approached, her hips swaying seductively and water from the pool running down her nude body.

Danica studied the apprentice as she approached. He was really quite handsome, but something in his expression gave him an arrogant air that detracted from his appearance. His long, dark brown hair had a subtle curl to it, and he appeared to have a strong, youthful body beneath his robes.

"You judge people too quickly, and you are rude. How many women have shared your bed?" Danica asked when she stopped a couple of feet from the uncomfortable looking apprentice.

"Plenty," he replied with the sort of arrogance Danica had expected from him.

"Mmm hmm — and how many succumbed to your rude advances without you using magic to sway them?" Danica asked, putting her hands on her hips and cocking them at a seductive angle.

When he didn't answer, Danica said, "That's what I thought. I bet you've never even seen a woman reach her heights before now, have you?"

"Lots of times," he retorted.

Danica knew she had hit a nerve. She let out a derisive snort and said, "Perhaps under someone else's touch. You look like the sort that just ruts like an animal and is asleep a minute after he starts."

The apprentice blushed in an obvious combination of embarrassment and anger. "What do you know?"

"I know I'm standing here naked, and the only wetness between my legs right now came from the pool," Danica lied. The whole situation actually turned her on a great deal.

"You couldn't handle me," the apprentice snorted and crossed his hands over his chest.

Danica mimed a yawn. "Big words — have you anything to back them up?"

He grunted and jerked down the front of his trousers. His being angry and embarrassed obviously had no power to overcome the arousal caused by the sight of Danica's body.

Danica raised her eyebrows slightly. "Well, it appears to work. I suppose that's a first step. Now, why don't you go find a nice knothole in a fence and take care of it?"

"Frigid bitch," the young man growled.

Danica had originally meant to play hard to get, expecting that as any normal young man's would, the apprentice's desires would take control of him and calm his demeanor. She was really aroused, and had actually planned to try to teach him something by letting him take her — once he dropped his smug attitude. Now she knew he really was nothing more than a smug, arrogant, rude ass. The arousal she had felt drained out of her in an instant.

"Smug and rude to a fault," Danica said, moving in closer to him.

"Can't resist a real man, can you?" He taunted Danica, while pointing his cock at her with his hand.

Danica crinkled her nose. "On second thought, I wouldn't wish your clumsy advances on a knothole." With that, Danica gathered up her clothing and started to get dressed.

Danica heard the apprentice softly chanting the words of the Nymph Dweomer. She chuckled inwardly, knowing the simple spell would have absolutely no effect on her. The young man was supremely arrogant to believe it would have the same effect on her that it might on a barmaid or a female novitiate.

Danica had just finished pulling on her panties when he finished the spell. Danica felt its power move against her, and then felt it dissipate like smoke in the wind in the face of her will. Danica let a crooked smile grace her face for a moment, and then turned back toward the apprentice.

His smug look became even more so, seeing her walking back toward him. "Now, why don't you take those panties back off," he said as he dropped his trousers around his ankles.

He had just raised his eyes back up after glancing down to unbutton his trousers when Danica reached him and said, "You dropped something."

She then brought her knee up hard, directly into his crotch.

The young man dropped breathless to the ground after a long, pained moan. Danica chuckled at him, and then noticed laughter coming from the bushes. She looked over and saw that the three young men had either not left, or had come back.