Chapter 10

It wasn’t long before Kal and Sandy discovered that their activities while traveling were impractical for such a long journey. After a few stops, he pulled his pants up and respectfully declined the golem’s offered rear end, for now.

Though disappointed, Sandy accepted the promise of pleasures to come. The golem then secured him in the harness once again before dropping them into the floor of the small cave. After a quick pause to get her bearings, they continued their way north.

Later on, Kal was glad for the pleasant distractions as he took her up on her offer a couple more times. The three days with Gerda had been relatively dull, except for the run-in with the mushroom girl. The first half of his week with Sandy was turning out to be worse. If he could see through rock like the golems could, perhaps the trip might have been more enjoyable. It wasn’t long before hours of darkness became boring. The occasional breaks for resting and emptying his bladder soon felt like small havens for Kal’s sanity.

By the end of the third day, he was longing for the surface and running alongside Daxas and her pack.

It took almost three days for Elta to make all of the preparations necessary after Perra and the wolf sent her back to town. The oath had done little to disrupt her daily life as she continued to preach about the dangers of magic from a source other than the Goddess and the abomination that monster girls were. Since her experience with Perra and Daxas, those sermons felt empty and weak.

On the third day, she finished her prayers over the large magic circle she had drawn onto the floor of her home. She went over the large circle she had drawn on the floor, carefully making sure not even a single line was out of place. ‘Commune’ was a spell reserved for priests and priestesses who had been in the church far longer than she. Even so, the cleric had come to the conclusion that this was the only way out of her oath to the wizard’s woman. Only a God or Goddess could dissolve an oath of this nature and the only way they would do that was to ask them.

Bolting the door to her house, she washed herself in water she had boiled, filtered, blessed and infused with scented oils. Without drying herself, she stood naked in the middle of the circle, being careful not to drip on any of the symbols within. She began the spell’s chant while summoning two magic circles in front of her outstretched hands. She pressed one to her chest between her breasts and the other over her womb as the chant ended.

The circle on the floor lit up, beginning as a faint glow and growing in intensity until it became blinding. Elta’s eyes closed against the glare and a moment later she felt as though her entire body was violently jerked to the side. Unconscious, the cleric crumpled to the floor.

Perra looked to the south towards Telsin. While unintentional, something in Elta’s oath let the farmgirl sense where the woman was. Frowning, she wondered what the implications might be of the cleric suddenly feeling like she was extremely far away. Mere seconds ago, the woman had been in town.

Experiencing a small burst of pride, Perra couldn’t help the smile forming in the corner of her mouth. That Elta had somehow managed to get around all her safeguards was mildly impressive. At the same time, she worried about what troubles this might bring for her and her family.

As the light faded away the cleric found herself in a small field. A hundred paces or so in every direction the grass and wildflowers faded into a shining white mist. As she looked about, a voice called out from behind her.

“Ho, there child! I must say, I’m surprised you were able to get here so soon.”

Letting out a small shriek of surprise, Elta whipped around, covering her breasts and sex protectively with her hands.

“No need for all that little one, you’ll come to no harm here.” The speaker was an older woman who appeared to be closer to her mother’s age. Long brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail held in place by a strip of leather. Small wrinkles formed on the woman’s kindly face as she smiled at the cleric. The motherly visage was marred only by her piercing, otherworldly, crystal blue eyes. A loose tunic hung from her shoulders, the neckline of the large shirt falling off of one shoulder and threatening to expose one of her breasts. Elta stifled a frown as she noticed the woman wearing a man’s slacks. “I-I came to speak with the Goddess,” stammered Elta.

“So you did,” replied the woman. She waved a hand and a tree sprouted next to her growing to full size in a matter of seconds. “Sadly, the Goddess is a busy woman and you are here far earlier than expected.” The woman sat down in the shady area provided by the tree and patted the ground next to her. “Come, sit. Tell me what questions you had for the Goddess. Perhaps I can give you the answers you seek.”

The cleric shook her head as she walked the short distance to the tree. She let her hands fall to her sides, the lady before her had just made an entire tree but hadn’t given her clothing. Apparently, she was to remain naked. “Only the Goddess can help. I’ve been trapped in an oath and she’s the only one who can remove it.”

Still smiling, the woman shook her head. “She won’t.”

Elta’s face fell, “Why not! That whore of a woman threatened to kill me if I didn’t accept!”

The woman nodded, “And you chose life instead of coming to join us here.”

The cleric was appalled, “You would have rather I chose death?”

“Absolutely not. I’m saying that you had a choice. You chose to live under the terms of the oath. The Goddess will not free you from that.”

Crestfallen, Elta sunk to her knees, “That makes sense, I guess.”

The woman raised an eyebrow. “This is a pleasant change, I’m used to more pleading and bemoaning of one’s fate. What else did you wish to ask, child?”

Giving her a weak smile at the compliment, she asked, “Are monster girls evil?”

“Some are, but I think the question you were trying to ask is if they are evil in nature and the answer is no.” The woman sighed, “I hate answering that question. So often it means that the one asking it will be lost to us shortly.”

“Then why does the High Priests and Priestesses say that they are abominations?”

“Because they are. You know already that they were created by a wizard’s spell and not by a god or some natural process. Some of the nature deities are petitioning the rest of the gods to see the monster girls as part of the new natural order. However, the first generation was born of magic and not a womb, so the Goddess’s opinion is unlikely to change.”

“Then why allow the church to lie to people?”

“She doesn’t care about monster girls, how the humans decide to deal with them is entirely up to them. Laying waste to the soulless creatures would be no more than restoring balance.

“They truly don’t have souls?” Something about what the woman said felt very wrong. Elta had traveled and bathed with the wolf and dog girls. If they didn’t have souls it seems she should have been able to tell.

“The new ones may have them but that’s only after hundreds of years of stealing small pieces from human men and passing them on to their children.”

The woman’s words could have been copied from one of Elta’s religious texts. Still, something didn’t settle right with her. “‘One shall not punish the son for the father’s transgressions’,” she quoted, “is this phrase not true? If previous generations were the ones to steal parts of men’s souls should this generation of monster girls be vilified for it? What about the immortal ones or those with very long lives who have only seen a couple of generations? What about them? Do those not have souls?” Elta put a hand to her head, feeling a headache coming on.

“All of your questions are irrelevant,” said the woman. “No monster girl worships the Goddess. Therefore, she has no interest in them. Change that and she might hear you out on changing the decrees of the church. Show her there is some benefit to making changes which could damage the foundations of her church.”

Elta blinked rapidly in surprise, she hadn’t considered the consequences of such a declaration. There was no nation or demon army standing against the church. Monster girls were touted as the biggest threat to humans. Men came to the church believing that it would save them from kidnapping. Women often joined to get back at monster girls because one stole their man.

The church’s attitude towards monster girls propagated through this constant litany of fear and hatred. She was actually one of the few in the capitol who found solace in the Goddess’s teachings without having some monster girl related tragedy. How many would be lost if it became known that the Goddess now accepted what had been previously declared demonic and evil?

“You are beginning to understand, I see. Change must first come from the humans and monster girls before you will sway the Goddess. While she would accept the monster girls if they were to begin worshipping her, the goddess will not sacrifice those who have already declared their faith.”

“Why would she accept them? You said she considers them soulless and useless,” Elta’s hand went back to her head, the headache was getting severe.

“The Goddess wasn’t always what she is today. Do you know what she was originally a goddess of?”

“No, what?” she said wincing at the pain caused by her own voice.

“She was the goddess of fertility. Knowing what you do of monster girls can you see now why she would accept them?”

Elta nodded, the pain in her head making her drop to her knees next to the woman.

“Come, child,” she said lifting up one side of her shirt and baring a breast. “Drink from me and restore yourself, you’ve been here too long.”

The cleric was in no shape to argue. Leaning over, she let the woman guide her head to a nipple. The first flood of milk into her mouth made her forget about her pain. Within moments her eyes closed in sleep though her mouth kept moving. The woman took a moment to situate the suckling cleric’s body more comfortably then leaned back against the tree wearing a happy smile.

“You could have let me take care of that,” said a woman who appeared next to the tree. Looking down at the human she asked, “How much are you going to let her keep?”

“Not much, only her desire to be free of the oath. The rest I will bury inside her mind and see how she acts upon it.”

“What makes this one so special?”

“The woman who trapped her in this oath is bound to a young wizard who strongly believes that monster girls and humans can live together. I’m curious if he is right.”

“And the cleric?”

“She will need to learn to accept herself for who she is and accept monster girls as well. I believe the wizard’s woman has already taken steps to take care of the first part. If the wizard’s settlement comes about, I plan to have a presence there. A human with a libido that rivals those of the monster girls will be a perfect envoy.”

“Then why tell what you thought about them back when they were first created?”

Piercing blue eyes gazed tenderly down at the suckling woman, “To keep her safe. If she went running to a High Priest or Priestess with what I want her to do she would be branded a heretic and cast out or killed. Now she has enough doubt that she will move cautiously. As I told her, I won’t sacrifice those who believe in me already.

“Her body is having difficulty from being here for so long and this will take some time. Go back and make sure she will be safe. Now leave me, altering memories is difficult and I don’t wish to be distracted.”

“As you wish, Mother,” said the second woman before vanishing.

The Goddess enjoyed the feeling of her breast emptying for just a few more moments before diving into her task.

Elta awoke in her bed, and unfamiliar form lying next to her. It only took a moment to guess it was Perra by the large belly pressing into her back. She sighed heavily at the knowledge that she was still trapped in this damnable oath.

“Yer a right fool ye are, cleric,” came the voice of the female innkeeper. “Winter’s on the horizon an’ we find yer sorry arse dripping wet an’ nearly shiverin’ ta death from the cold.” Raising her head, she saw Kahrin sitting at her dining table, illuminated by the light from the fireplace. Confused, she looked at her door to see the bolt had been ripped out of the wall. That explained Kahrin’s presence, Bren was the only man in town strong enough to destroy a lock in such a manner, by himself at least.

“I’m not knowin’ how Lady Perra knew ye were in trouble. She kept mumblin’ ‘bout ye bein’ her responsibility ev’ry time I asked. Don’t make no difference, without her ye’d be dead on the floor right now,” she said taking a sip of some steaming drink.

Elta just nodded and laid her head back down. Behind her, Perra mumbled something in her sleep and draped an arm over the cleric protectively.

Kahrin warmed her hands on the mug of spiced cider as Elta’s breathing became deep and regular. Despite Perra’s insistence that the woman was no danger to her, the innkeeper wasn’t about to let her pregnant friend and occasional lover be alone in the same room as the hateful cleric. Taking another sip, she looked out the window. It was going to be a long night.

Kal stretched as he got up from his bed. It had been a long boring night with the golem resting up for the last leg of their journey. Sandy allowed him to sleep as they traveled, only waking him up as they entered the medium-sized cavern. After releasing him from the harness, she gave him a quick grope through his trousers and promised to take care of him after sleeping for a while. The golem then walked over to a wall and promptly made a stone cocoon similar to her sister’s. He was slightly surprised that her tiredness managed to override her sex drive.

With nothing to do until Sandy got up, he asked Ria for his tent. He figured he may as well get some work done as he threw the fabric square on the ground. Speaking the command word, Kal watched as the shelter began to unfold and assemble itself.

Entering his magical abode, he stopped for a moment at the bottom step. Disappointment that he was the only one there seeped into his expression as he looked about. For the last few months, it had been unusual to see the shelter empty. Feeling a touch of sadness, Kal went around and spoke the elven words to take down the walls and dismiss the extra beds.

When only his bedroom remained, he went to Ikuno’s alchemy station. Mixing the mushroom girl’s aphrodisiac powder into a mild solvent he set up a distillation apparatus to purify it. In a couple of hours, he would be able to tell if it was of a high enough quality for his inks. Kal wasn’t expecting much as mushrooms were fairly common on the surface. However, glowing fungi were rarer, so it was worth looking into.

With the flask simmering over a magical flame, he made his way over to the library next. Memories of the last moments before Ikuno returned to her shrine caused his breath to catch as he walked in. When setting up the room he put the bookshelves and table in the same positions as when they were in Ikuno’s cave. Now, every time he entered the room, he felt that might have been a mistake. Even so, after all of these months, he still had yet to change it.

Grabbing a book down from one of the shelves, he removed a large piece of folded parchment from the cover. Laying the paper out on the table, Kal looked down at what he had put together for the beginnings of his flight rune.

The book he’d stored the flight rune in was a novice’s tome at best. The drawings were shoddy, and the spell descriptions ranged from poor to incomprehensible. Luckily, he could see the flows of magic. This granted him the ability to take a rune that was so poorly made it barely worked and turn it into something functional. It also made even this sad excuse for a grimoire a valuable resource when searching for the missing components of the flight rune.

Unfortunately, that particular book, as well as the next, failed to offer up anything new. Most of the literature currently on the shelves was like this. For many, this was the first time they ever sat on Ikuno’s bookshelves, spending centuries useless within the oni’s bag of holding. The third book was of equally poor quality as the first but focused solely on detection spells. Kal hadn’t bothered much with detection spells yet. His ability to see magic worked as a means to both detect magic and see things made invisible with it. So far, he hadn’t had any real need for things like detecting evil or lies. Back home there was little worry about his women being evil and the people of Telsin were an honest folk.

Still, something caught his eye. Kal looked closely at a glyph common to most of the runes. Its name was Scio or ‘know’ and it acted to give information back to the caster. The author used the sigil in everything he could from telling temperature to the caster’s depth. However, he wasn’t going to learn anything from this third-rate spellbook. Kal recognized the rune from when he first touched on detection spells, back when he began learning magic. He needed some of those tomes.

“Ria,” he called.

“Yes, Master Kal? How may I help you?”

Kal frowned. He considered Ria as more of a friend than a magical item and the honorific didn’t sit well with him. “I think I know the answer to what I’m about to ask. I’m looking for one of the original books on the shelves that dealt with detection magic, the glyph for ‘Scio’ specifically. Is there any way for you to retrieve it?”

Ria started shaking her head before he finished. “If you knew what book it was then I could pick it from your thoughts and get it. The best I can do right now is getting all of the books that were on the bookshelves when you first stored them.”

The mage groaned. “That means I’m going to have to go through them to find the one I saw this in,” he said tapping a drawing in the open book in front of him.

“Sorry Kal, it’s the best I can do at the moment,” said the sprite.

Kal looked up at his companion. There seemed to be a bit more sadness than necessary in her voice. “Are you okay, Ria? I wasn’t really expecting you to be able to do that for me. I was only asking in case you had some special exception for books.”

“It’s not that,” she said waving off his concerns. “I seem to have gotten a little spoiled flying alongside Dax and the girls. I didn’t realize how much freedom you gave me as we were coming back. Now it feels like I’m cooped up in there.”

“Sorry, Ria. There isn’t much I can do until we get back to the surface or to the dwarven stronghold.” He examined her face closely, “For some reason, I feel like there’s more to it than that.”

The small avatar flitted up and kissed him on the nose, “There is, but it will have to wait until we are traveling alone.”

Kal dipped his head in acknowledgment. “If you want to wait, I’ll respect that. Just keep in mind I’m still concerned about you.”

“I appreciate that, very much. Now let’s get those books you were needing.”

Ria changed out all of the lower quality books on the shelves with Ikuno’s good ones. The mage spent the better part of the next hour paging through tome after tome until he finally found the one he had been thinking of earlier. Flipping the spellbook open to the section about detection magic, he began carefully studying the different runes. ‘Scio’ showed up in every rune so the author of the other grimoire at least got that right.

Sitting back in his chair he considered what kinds of things he might specifically need to know when flying. An image of Felli’s mountain came to him, along with the thought of crashing into it headfirst. Knowing how close to the ground he was would be useful, along with what was in front of him. Looking over at the parchment on the table he couldn’t help but smile, Kal could already see where it would go within the flight rune.

There was another place that used the glyph, but it appeared intertwined with two others. As he filled in the symbol for ‘Scio’ the other two began to look familiar. With a whoop of excitement, Kal drew more ink from the inkwell and filled in the symbols for magic and energy. Smiling, he sat back in his chair looking over his work with pride.

A moment later his expression turned to a frown. It was too complex.

Kal was confident in his abilities but looking at how the three glyphs intertwined into a single rune left him thinking there was no way he could have just come up with this on his own. He noticed that each of the runes he had filled in were ones he had been exposed to previously. Looking over the rest of the larger flight rune he could see two areas that tickled his memory. He knew that he had seen something vaguely similar but couldn’t remember where.

One area of the flight rune was an exception. The harsh angles of the glyphs were completely foreign to him.

Kal glared at the flight rune, his lips pursed together in anger. He thought back to the day in Ikuno’s pool when he received the flash of insight that let him begin work on the complex piece of magic before him. The mage had managed to come up with bits and pieces of the flight rune later that night when he finally had access to something he could write on. Unfortunately, time had taken a toll on his memory and he was only able to dredge up broken impressions of what went where. When he was done it hardly looked like a rune at all.

Now that things were starting to come together, he had a better idea of what he needed to complete the runic spell. He also knew beyond a doubt that he had never seen the angular glyphs before. Kal’s conclusion made him want to rip the parchment to shreds and throw it into the fire pit out in the main room.

The flight rune wasn’t his.

Standing up, he paced back and forth trying to cool his head. For the past year, he had believed the rune before him was a testament to his growing knowledge. Now he saw it as a handout, someone pitied the young and growing mage and handed him a rune to let him fly.

Stopping, Kal looked at the parchment again. No, that wasn’t right. Ikuno had said that making two runes work together was difficult. Getting three or four to mesh into a single spell was something only a highly experienced magic-user could do. The flight rune currently contained six runes and he had areas for three more.

He leaned over, his hands resting on the table as his eyes darted around the paper before him. This was far from pity. This was a challenge.

The mage had no doubt that many magic-users would have given up on this long ago. He had to admit that if he weren’t able to see how magic moved through and between the different glyphs, chances were good he would have given up as well. It wasn’t as though the symbols fit together like puzzle pieces, there were hundreds of potential orientations for each one. Seeing the magic flows let him align the glyphs, and sometimes even interlace them, so the rune wouldn’t shatter when powered.

Kal closed his eyes, recalling the day he got the fleeting image of the flight rune. That was the day of Adalena’s conception and all of the women were worked up because of it. Ikuno was actually the only one he didn’t make love to that day. Instead, they’d had the sparring match and that was the first time his eyes glowed blue...

That was it.

Given the extremely brief flash of the flight rune’s image, only someone with his ability, or a spell that mimicked his ability, could assemble and complete it from such little information.

Unless they were a prodigy, like Prentas.

The mage shook his head and sat down in his chair. Now he was comparing himself to the genius mage who created the monster girls. If he kept this up he’d be so full of himself he wouldn’t fit through the dwarven tunnels.

Questions flitted through Kal’s mind. Who gave this to him? Was it Ikuno? She was there when it happened so she would have had the opportunity.

He quickly dismissed the idea. Their bond didn’t allow her to keep secrets of this nature. She could hide her intention to jump his bones later if she wanted it to be a surprise, but Ikuno and Bea were open books when it came to bigger secrets.

The other big question was: Why? What was the purpose of giving away a rune so powerful that only one wizard, that he knew of, had mastered it?

Kal sat there and rubbed his temples, frustrated that he didn’t have any answers. Yet.

“Ria, switch the books back out for the ones I was pulling from earlier please.”

The sprite sat on the back of the chair across the table from the young mage. She had stared wide-eyed at the human for the last few minutes, unwilling to speak as a range of thoughts and emotions ran through the wizard. It was a relief when he calmly tasked her with switching out the books. For a few seconds she had wondered if the man was about to explode with rage.

“Sorry you had to see that,” he mumbled in apology as specks of light flew to and from the bag on his hip. He felt bad that he had forgotten she was even in the room.

Ria only nodded in response, she could ask what had gotten him in such a state later.

Kal plucked another book off the shelf and began leafing through it.

There was a soft tapping at the door of the farmhouse. Perra already knew who it was as she opened the door.

“I’m leaving,” said Elta.

“Why?”

“I can’t ... I can’t do this. I can’t stand before the believers and tell them they should hate and fear monster girls. There’s no conviction behind my words, no purpose. I need to find my path in a world where the adversary in front of me has vanished and left me stumbling into the unknown.”

Perra reached over and lifted a thin belt off of a hook next to the door. She hadn’t been able to wear it in quite a few months because of her size. A small sheath held an equally small utility knife which she plucked out before hanging the belt back up. Elta let out a small shriek as the pregnant woman drew the edge across the tip of her finger.

“Heal me, please?” she asked, holding the finger out to the cleric.

In a flash, Elta summoned a magic circle and healed Perra’s finger. “What is wrong with you!? Why would you do that!?”

Perra stuck her finger in her mouth and sucked off the little bit of blood that was quickly drying. “Your goddess hasn’t abandoned you during this change of heart,” she said checking her finger. “Perhaps, she approves of your new direction.”

“Perhaps she thinks this is only temporary and is waiting for me to come to my senses,” snarled the cleric, still upset about the woman’s stunt.

“Do you really believe that?”

“No,” she growled through gritted teeth. The admission felt like a punch in the gut.

“I want to let you go, Elta, but I’m afraid to.”

“Why,” she sneered, “It’s not like I can tell anyone about you and what you do here.” The cleric’s face and voice softened, “Besides, I’m not really sure I want to anymore.”

“That’s a good sign, it means we are one step closer,” said Perra, moving around the other woman and stepping to the edge of the porch. Facing north she brought her hand to her mouth and whistled.

“Closer? To what?” asked the bewildered cleric.

“Releasing you from this oath,” the farmgirl replied.

“Why not just tell me to believe everything you say and to be your friend until I die. You know perfectly well you could do it and I’d happily believe my life is better,” said Elta, her anger plain on her face.

Perra sighed, “Yes I could, but I won’t. Ordering you to do something like that would have no meaning. I have no desire to destroy who you are, only to open your eyes.”

“You’ve already destroyed who I am. Why do you think I feel so lost?”

“Fair enough. But you are lost because you are still you...” Their conversation was interrupted by a high-pitched shriek of joy as Ruce landed in front of the farmhouse. The noise hadn’t come from the harpy with the falcon markings but from the ball of fluff hanging tightly to her back, who was now giggling with happiness.

“Down Lada,” said the harpy as she squatted. Lada let go of her mother’s feathers and slid down her back. The chick took a quick tumble as she hit the ground but bounced back up on her bird-like feet as if it hadn’t happened. Letting out another excited shriek she raised up her wing-like arms and wobbled towards Perra’s outstretched arms. “How can I help you, Lady Perra?” Ruce asked, glancing warily at the cleric.

“I mean you no offense, Ruce. But I need Kuto to take care of something important. Would you deliver a message for me?”

The falcon nodded and looked down at her daughter. “Careful, Lady Perra, it’s almost time for her next meal.”

“Scamp!” cried Perra, laughing as she pulled the little girl away from her chest. Lada’s wiggling had hidden the chick’s attempts to get at the meal contained within Perra’s dress. “That’s not for you little one but I won’t mind sharing once my own is here.”

“You would share your child’s milk with one of them?” asked Elta, incredulous.