Chapter 10

"Sirinna, I, um, have a question for you."

Sirinna turned her platter around on the bed so that the apple slices were facing Amanda directly, as Sirinna did not care for them quite as much. Behind them, bright skies of cobalt blue stretched to the horizon, the clouds having cleared out overnight. "Sure."

"I was, uh, talking with Tanyee last night..."

Sirinna smiled. "Before or after you two had sex?"

Amanda's mouth dropped open and she blushed scarlet. "H-how did you... ?"

"I'm a Trainer, love. I know how to spot these things. Sorry if I embarrassed you."

"Oh, um, no, it's fine. Uh... anyway, when I talked to her... after... she said something about a muscle in your, er..." She gestured vaguely.

"Pussy?"

Amanda nodded wordlessly.

"Yes, what about it?"

"So there really is one there?"

"Oh, yes. Every world has its own name for it. Earth's is a mouthful. The pubococcygeus muscle. Most people from your world call it the 'PC' muscle."

"Oh!" Amanda said as realization dawned. So that's what that term means, she thought. She felt a little embarrassed that it took someone from another world to tell her about a term from her own that she should have known herself.

"With practice you can learn to control it and enhance your orgasms," Sirinna explained.

"Er, yes, I saw Tanyee do something like that."

Sirinna smiled. "She's rather good at it. One of my best Trainees in that regard. Anyway, I understand you're going to go for the Kaylaxxa treatment later?"

Amanda nodded, feeling a little flushed at the thought. "Not until later in the morning. Yanna said to come just before the midday meal, so there's no one else there."

"If you miss the meal, I'll save some for you."

"Thank you," Amanda said. She finished the piece of apple she was eating and glanced down at the tray. "I think I'm done. Tanyee can have the rest of the apple."

Sirinna nodded. "I was going to be taking Tanyee to the Circle this morning for more training."

Amanda sighed. "Are you going to tell me to stay in my quarters again, Sirinna?"

Sirinna looked at Amanda and realized she wouldn't have the heart to do that now. "Oh... well... I thought you weren't interested in seeing Tanyee train, so..."

"Yes, but I might want to take a walk or something, or..."

"Or what, love?"

Amanda glanced in the general direction of Tanyee's quarters, and then back at Sirinna. "Um... no, I... I'll go with you to the Circle."

Sirinna looked surprised. "Are you sure?"

No, Amanda was not at all sure, but she said so anyway. "Yes, I'm sure."

"Amanda, you're probably going to see a lot of sexual activity. Are you..."

"Yes, I'm sure, already!" Amanda said, exasperated. Please, just accept it before I change my mind! Amanda thought vehemently.

"May I ask why you're interested?" Sirinna asked gently.

"I'm just curious, that's all. You keep going on about how great a life it is here, so I guess I want to see what it's all about."

Sirinna paused. "Amanda, are you thinking about..."

"I'm not thinking about anything," Amanda said quickly. "I'm not. I'm not going to be a slave. But... that doesn't mean I'm not curious about it."

"Okay, Amanda. I'd be happy to have you along, and I'm sure Tanyee would also."

Roquan stared at the wizened old man before him with an incredulous gaze. "Three hundred? Are you insane?"

The Mage dared to let a small yet smug smile play on his cracked lips, the wrinkles of his lined and aged face multiplying, yet his dark blue eyes remained as clear as diamonds and as sharp as needles. The slight stoop to his posture made him smaller than his already diminutive frame, yet stature mattered not to one as skilled and as powerful in his craft as he; he felt no intimidation from the towering and indignant form of the Overlord. "Ah, but the delicate magicks of a Portal, your Lordship, require a steady hand and an easy touch," said the Mage in a voice of gravel, yet with words that flowed like oil. "Such things do not come cheap."

"Yes, I understand, but three hundred platinum? I could almost purchase a new one for that money, Q'yros!"

The Mage Q'yros smiled again and stepped forward. He a drew a wrinkled hand with knobby fingers from his flowing robes of black and held it palm up, revealing a blue pearl. He flicked a single finger and an image sprang into view hovering in the air just above his palm, an image of a golden orb suspended in a silvery column of energy, pulsing slowly. "I would be most happy to show you any of fine set of new Portal dewomers, your Lordship," Q'yros said silkily. "The Mage Guild of Oceanus is one of the best in Narlass."

Roquan angrily stepped forward and waved his hand through the image with a single cutting swipe of his hand, dispelling it. The Mage looked up with a placid gaze. "Spare me your sale's pitch. I am in no mood for it."

"Very well," Q'yros said, hiding the pearl on his person once again. "The price for my services still stands. Three hundred platinum."

"You will have it," Roquan said tersely. "When you have finished your work."

"I will be finished by this evening, your Lordship. However, I am concerned."

Roquan narrowed his eyes. "Concerned? About what?"

Q'yros paused, a gleam appearing in one eye. "I am concerned about my payment. I have heard rumors of your, ah, financial difficulties of late."

Roquan bristled. "You dare to suggest that an Overlord would refuse to pay?"

"Certainly not. Yet perhaps it would be best for you to check and make sure you have enough to cover such an amount."

"You mock me, Q'yros. You know well that an amount of three hundred can be made upon the contract of a single slave to the right client."

"Ah, but finding the right client, that is the trick, mmm, yes?"

Furious, Roquan jabbed a finger towards the door. "Get out. And cease your insults. Do the job, and you will get paid. Not a moment before."

Mage Q'yros paused and considered, as if wondering how much he could push the Overlord. He had originally mused squeezing an extra fifty from him, but this now seemed too much. Ah, well. He had more than he originally had quoted the Overlord, and that was all that mattered. It was more than enough to repair the Portal and compensate for his time.

Including the additional "adjustments" that he made for another client, though he had already been handsomely paid for that in advance.

"As you wish, your Lordship," Q'yros said with an oily smile as he turned and left the Overlord's quarters.

Roquan fumed silently in the Mage's wake. Three hundred!

What he had told the Mage was technically true. A good contract would indeed bring about that amount in payment. But what the Mage implied was also true, as much as Roquan did not wish to admit it. Finding the right client was going to prove difficult. Already, word of Roquan's discipline problems was spreading throughout his domestic clients, causing some to rethink their business relationships with the Overlord.

Yet it was not half as frustrating as being cut off from the Far West markets! With his only overland route to the Great Ocean closed to him due to Z'haas' infernal actions, Roquan was being forced to negotiate a new route through the many island nations further south, and each one wanted their cut, which would make transporting his slaves too expensive a prospect to expect to make any decent profit from it.

Roquan turned and looked off to the side of the hearth, opposite from where the instruments of bondage and punishment lay. There, a yellowing map was mounted within an ornately carved frame. He stared at it, as if hoping his eyes would bore into it and force it to reveal a solution to his troubles. Ultimately, it was useless, for the geography was against him. Nowhere to the west did he have a direct outlet to the Great Ocean that would not take him along the southern trade routes. The only open ocean was to the east, and in that direction lay only the Urisi as a major power. There were many other smaller nations that ringed it, but none that had the resources to give Roquan steady business.

Roquan's eyes hardened. He cared not for Rennis' warnings. He will not deal with the Urisi. There had to be another solution. If he did not find one soon, he would have to resort to what he had been trying to avoid as much as the Urisi Nation: selling off some of his slaves.

Amanda felt as if her breath was taken from her lungs as she stepped outside into the sunlight with Sirinna and Tanyee.

The rain from the night before had brought no relief from the heat. If anything, it had made it worse. The moisture from the rain lingered and hung in the air, heavy and sodden, the bright sunlight heating it until it felt like a sauna despite the early hour of the day. Amanda began to sweat immediately under her gown, her skin quickly feeling sticky and uncomfortable.

"Just so you know, Amanda," Sirinna said in a low voice as they turned down the path that led directly to the Circle. Tanyee walked before them as she did the day before, calm and willing, hands bound with the leather cuffs behind her back. "Training is a community thing. Other slaves come to watch, or to assist, or just to have a little fun."

"You mean have sex with each other," Amanda said.

"Ah, well, yes." Sirinna paused. "And, um, don't be surprised if someone fancies you and tries to initiate something."

Amanda stared at her and almost stopped walking.

"You don't have to, of course. Slaves are not obliged to enter trysts with other... er..."

Amanda gave Sirinna a look.

"Well, you know what I mean," Sirinna said with a sigh. "Anyway, you wouldn't want to do anything more than have someone use their hands, since you haven't had the Kaylaxxa..."

"I just want to sit off to the side and mind my own business," Amanda said quickly in a loud voice. "How can I do that?"

"Take off your gown."

"What?"

Sirinna gave Tanyee's chain a quick, light snap. Both mistress and slave stopped walking immediately. "Amanda, you stand out in that thing. And you're sweating profusely, so you cannot be at all comfortable in it. I can guarantee you that on a hot day like this, no one will be wearing anything. No one."

"But... !"

"Amanda, you said you wanted to see what it was all about..."

"Oh, all right!" Amanda snapped. She fumbled about and lifted her gown up and over her head and threw it down on a nearby bush in frustration. She turned back to Sirinna and lifted her arms once and let them down to her sides with a slap, making her breasts jiggle. "There, happy now?!"

"That's a loaded question, Amanda," Sirinna said with a sly smile.

Amanda blinked in incomprehension.

"You know I'm always happy seeing you naked."

Amanda blinked again, opened her mouth in surprise, and then blushed.

"I'm sure Tanyee feels the same way."

"Yes, mistress," Tanyee said with a small smile. "She is rather pleasant to look at."

Amanda's blush deepened, and she wrapped her arms around herself. "God, you two are horrible," she muttered, even as one corner of her mouth tried to turn upwards, part of her as immensely flattered as she was terribly embarrassed.

"Rennis, we are going to quickly get nowhere if we continue to dance in circles around each other," an exasperated Roquan lamented as he paced slowly about the circumference of Rennis' quarters.

And equally defeated Rennis threw down his quill onto the parchments that lay open before him on the small desk off to the side the bed. He hung his head over them, sighing dramatically, rubbing his temples. "Roquan, we simply cannot conduct any course of action without considering everything!"

"It appears to be rather strange to me that 'everything' appears to always start with some overture to the other Overlords. Why is that?"

"Because we cannot do this without their support," Rennis said, growing weary of repeating himself. "I have made that abundantly clear. One cannot move against an established Emperor without that."

"But how do we know that before we have even tried?"

Rennis leaned back in his chair and stared. "You're mad."

Roquan paused and narrowed his eyes. "I am what?"

"Mad! You have to be! To suggest that two Overlords... no, make that one, since there is no way I will abide by such an insane idea... can usurp the throne of the Emperor and install..."

"You wish to abandon this alliance?" Roquan asked in a low but cold tone of voice.

Rennis paused, his anger rising. He hated when Roquan did this, when he tried to turn a complex issue into stark black and white. "No, Roquan," he said, his voice strained. "And I tire of you trying to turn all my words against me like that."

"Then give me some words that will work!" Roquan declared, rushing up to the desk. As he placed his hands on the edge and leaned over Rennis, his foot kicked something hard under the desk. "Give me something that does not involve crawling like a beggar to the other Overlords!"

Rennis felt his heart thump as Roquan drove the satchel into his leg from the kick, something making a faint spraying sound against the inside. Gods damn it, he thought, glancing down before thinking to check himself.

Roquan followed the man's distracted gaze, first with a look of annoyance, and then one of contriteness as he saw what he had done. "Terribly sorry, Rennis," Roquan said sincerely. "I hope nothing of value was damaged by my negligence."

Rennis picked up the satchel and kept it carefully angled towards him so only he could see inside it. He parted the opening just enough to see that the drawstring around the pouch of Disalla powder had come undone, bits of the grayish-black powder sticking everywhere to the insides of the satchel.

Hellfire, Rennis thought. That will take ages to come off.

Disalla was good for one thing only, and that was to dissolve in one's bath, or to spread upon the skin prior to a bath or a wash, for a most prurient effect. Against all other materials and in all other situations, it was a menace, the least friction or moisture melting the tiny wax-like particles into thick, sticky paste. Perhaps this was just rewards for smuggling contraband into another Overlord's Manor, despite the good intentions behind it.

If he ever got Yanna back, he would make sure she made it up to him for this.

"Nothing of value," Rennis said tonelessly as he set the satchel out of the way, careful not to tip the now partially open pouch any further. "Now, Roquan, be reasonable. Overlords need a united front."

"Not when they choose to sabotage me," Roquan said darkly.

"We have no proof the other Overlords have done this."

"Rennis, you yourself said... !"

"What I said was that I would not be surprised!" Rennis said, his voice rising. "I stop short of openly accusing anyone! Do not go there, Roquan."

Roquan drew himself up. "And why not?"

"Without proof, you will indeed sound mad, that's why."

Roquan paused a moment, letting go a sigh through his nose. He turned away from Rennis, walking halfway towards the wall before clasping his hands behind his back in contemplation.

"I cannot continue to run this Manor effectively if this continues much longer, Rennis," the Overlord finally said after a long silence.

Rennis did not respond immediately. This was the first time he had heard Roquan ever express anything approaching doubt, or worse, defeat. Was the problem truly that bad? Was his fellow Overlord in that dire a strait?

Roquan wanted quick answers. He wanted a panacea. He wanted the problem simply fixed. With his slaves, he can give the necessary orders, or summon the needed Trainers, and everything works. This was growing beyond his capabilities, and he was loathe to admit it. Rennis wanted to help, but was unsure of how much Roquan would accept.

Yet he had to make the offer. His conscience would bother him endlessly if he did not.

"Roquan, do you have any slaves you care to discard?" Rennis asked evenly.

As cold a statement as it sounded, it was the traditional custom when asking another Overlord if he were willing to sell some of his slaves. It implied humility on the part of the potential buyer, that he would be satisfied with whatever scraps the seller would deign to throw.

Roquan paused for a long moment before responding. When he did, his voice was heavy and forced. "I may have a few."

"I am honored," Rennis replied, completing the opening ritual. From this point on, they were now free to bargain and negotiate as much as they pleased.

"I said I may," Roquan said in a harsh voice, though when he turned around, his eyes were less so. "I am not yet ready to take that step."

Rennis stood. "I will be ready whenever you are."

Roquan regarded him for a moment. "And I will begin to manage your expectations now. Sirinna will not be one of them."

Rennis gave the other Overlord a smirk. "Oh, but you can't expect me to not make an offer anyway."

"I expect you will."

"You should know this: Sirinna's name is oft mentioned by the other Overlords."

Roquan snorted derisively. "Indeed. I am sure they claim better Trainers."

"Oh, certainly. But when they speak of her, even if they disparage her, there is only ravenous envy in their voices. Any Overlord would secretly kill to have someone like her."

Roquan smirked. "Even yourself?"

"Had I know she would be such an excellent Trainer, I would never have sold her. You can expect me to try to buy her back until our dying days."

Roquan considered for a moment. "Rennis... would you be open to... a contract arrangement?"

Rennis looked at Roquan in surprise. "A contract? For Sirinna?"

"Yes."

"A contract for slave services to another Overlord instead of a client," Rennis mused. "I don't think that's ever been done."

"I do not wish to give up Sirinna. But if I cannot open new sources of revenue, or this disobedience issue is not resolved in a timely manner, I will need funds. As I have no new Captives to train..."

"Amanda?"

Roquan made a face. "Do not even suggest that in jest," he grumbled.

"Yes, I have heard she's a bit, ah, headstrong," Rennis said with a sly smile, having heard the rumors of the Overlord's conversation with the girl in the Circle the day before.

"That is a vast understatement. It is like suggesting that the Great Ocean is slightly damp."

Rennis could not help but smile, which just made Roquan all the more indignant.

"If she were to be a slave, I would hope to the gods she is not virginal. I shudder to think what her reaction to a deflowering ritual would be."

"Especially since you handle them yourself for the female slaves, do you not?"

"I am the only one I trust to do it correctly. I delegate Sirinna for the males."

Rennis grinned. "Anyway, the offer is very tempting, Roquan, even as unusual as it is. Certainly I would not mind the opportunity for the quality of my slaves to compete better with yours."

Roquan felt his spirits uplifted by that blatant compliment. Despite their alliance, they were still competitors, as all Overlords ultimately are, and Rennis had just admitted that Roquan had the upper hand in that area.