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Chapter 6

  Soon they and the rest of the princes and princesses, their advisors and councilors, and fifty-one of the most senior wizards and commanders were gathered in the Hall of Anticipation.

  Yazadril called them to order, and outlined what was known thus far, as well as what was being done to gain more knowledge of their foe. Then he called for comment.

  For several long moments everyone looked expectantly around at everyone else. Finally Mark cleared his throat, and spoke. “Look, I’m sure some of you have thought of this already, but the first thing you need to do, and as soon as possible at that, is to warn the leaders of every nation of every race that someone may be trying to instigate a war. It almost happened here, so it may be repeated elsewhere. They must know that if some great offense is committed against them, and it appears that there are obvious culprits who protest their innocence, that those protests are more likely to be valid than if none of this had happened. They must be urged to avoid all hasty military action, and to strive to their utmost to maintain the peace, at least until our enemy is caught, or they could be manipulated to their destruction. If war does break out, anyone could be drawn into it, or forced into it.”

  “Actually, I doubt any of us did think of it, Mark.” Jaromer mused. “I had of course planned to speak to Osbald about this, but I didn’t think beyond that yet, being most concerned with my own people, both of my race and of my nation.”

  “Yes.” Theramin nodded to Mark. “Your wisdom and insight do you proud. Particularly your urging of haste in the sending of warnings to the leaders of the world.”

  “I agree.” Yazadril nodded. “And so it shall be done.”

  “I’ll draft a scroll with our warnings. It will only take a few minutes, then the leaders among us will sign it.” Pimall stated. “We have enough wizards here to have copies of it in the hands of all the leaders of the world in minutes, and they will read it, if we have to get them out of bed to have them do so!”

  “Thank you.” Yazadril said.

  “I’ll begin now.” Pimall said, and turned to go to a desk at the back of the room.

  “Is there anything else?” Yazadril asked the group. He received only silence in return. “All right, as soon as the messages are sent, we’ll bid you good night.”

  “We can take care of it, Yazadril.” Jaromer told him. “You and Alilia should go sign the scroll, then you eight who have business in First Valley can go to it, so you can get the bride and groom retired for the evening before the sun comes up!”

  “Thank you. That’s considerate of you.” Yazadril nodded, then turned to follow Alilia, who was already headed for the desk.

  “Talia, I think it might be dangerous when I try Silaran’s... Whoa!”

  Silaran had appeared at Mark’s mention of his name, even before the next word was out of Mark’s mouth. He immediately realized the situation, and said; “Please, don’t let me interrupt.”

  “Ah. Well as I say, it might be dangerous when I try Silaran’s Translocation, and I don’t see why we should both be at risk.” Mark told his new wife. “Perhaps you should travel home by another method.”

  “There’s no risk for us, my beloved, the curse sees to that.” Talia smiled. “At worst, it will be very uncomfortable.”

  “See, I don’t understand how you can trust the curse to save us from anything!” Mark said in concern. “Even I know that they’re notoriously unpredictable! You think we’re immortal, so we can still be fulfilling it at the end of days, but I’m afraid it’ll turn us into ghosts or zombies or demons or something! I don’t see why that wouldn’t suit the curse just as well!”

  “Partly because we know Alilia, intimately, and her state of mind when she cast it. Curses follow the intent of the caster at the moment of casting; they do not play with semantics to match the words that were spoken. It will be fulfilled in the manner she intended, and she did not intend for us to be ghosts or demons or anything other than what we are. Not even old or decrepit.

  “Another unique thing about this curse is that it was not cast over a distance, but passed into me at the contact of Alilia’s fist with my face. The immense power of the curse is not floating about us, it is entirely within me. I felt its power leap from my body to yours when it saved your life. Now, the main difference between a spell and a curse is that the curse is less specific about how something is to occur, and they work by making a simple copy of certain parts of the mind of the caster, so that they can evaluate reality to the extent necessary to accomplish their aims. I tell you Love, the curse is getting to know me, and I am getting to know it in return.

  “And I can assure you of the certain and absolute truth, and give my word upon it as an elf to my sworn husband, that until the end of days, you and I will be alive, and young, and healthy, and of sound mind, and that you will rape me regularly and painfully as Yzandra described, and furthermore insult me when you do with the silly and petty things that human males tend to say in such moments, because that, all of that and exactly that and no more, is what Alilia intended when she cast the curse.”

  Alilia could only nod silently in confirmation, tears running unheeded, her face hard with rigid control. She succeeded in preventing her eyes from dropping in shame, but she had to stare to the side as she listened, being unable to meet the young couple’s gaze.

  Mark considered what Talia had said. Then a thought struck him. “The curse can think?!” he asked, astounded.

  Talia considered. “The curse can only be said to think if something as simple as an ant can be said to think, as it goes about finding food and mates and avoiding danger.”

  “She’s absolutely right about all of that.” Silaran commented.

  “Hi Silaran, thanks for coming, and sorry to ignore you like that.” Mark told him aloud. “And how do you know she’s right?”

  “I did not feel ignored, but rather was enjoying your fascinating conversation. And you should understand that you have a strong and rather guarded mind, and you think of our communication as ‘talking’, so I only hear the words you ‘speak’ to me, whether you use your mouth or not. But Talia is a trusting soul, and a wizard who is accustomed to purely mental communication, and she is very aware of my people’s history as a just and noble race. She trusts me rather completely, and allows me access to much of her mind, and so I can see the truth of what she said.

  “Much the same is true of Alilia, and she has had time to fully consider her state of mind at the moment of her casting, so she can verify it as well. You are immortal, within the limits of the power of the curse to accomplish, and there is no real risk to either of you in your testing of my Translocation, as that spell is very minuscule in power compared to the curse.

  “But, as Talia hinted, if it goes badly it may be very painful for the three of us.”

  “He’s right. You’re immortal.” Alilia nodded. “I only wish it did not require the death of a loved one filling me with overwhelming sorrow and rage to inspire me to the huge risk and effort of such a mighty bestowing. For a fraction of a second after I cast the curse, my own life was in danger, I was that depleted. It was an unthinking act and a horrible risk, and I couldn’t just decide to grant immortality to someone. Who knows? Maybe it would work, maybe it would annihilate a continent. Perhaps by the time I’m Yazadril’s age, if I reach it, I’ll be ready to apply such a spell to myself. No, not a spell, or a curse. A blessing. A blessing that restores your body, your mind, and your life from any injury, magic or mundane.” she mused.

  “Those are dangerous thoughts.” Yazadril stated firmly. “I will thank you all to never repeat them, anywhere. Such researches must be conducted in the highest state of confidentiality. There are human wizards and others who would gladly slay most of the world for such a blessing. And if such a thing became common knowledge, there would be a population increase that would choke the world in less than a millennium.”

  That caused a moment of silence.

/>   “I’m sorry, I’m still not convinced that the curse can be so trusted.” Mark said. “I mean, what about the other curse? That Yazadril and Alilia’s children would slay each other? Who would have expected what actually happened to come from a curse like that? If that’s not playing with semantics, I don’t know what is!”

  “But don’t you see, if the caster’s intent had really been that Dalia and Bezedil and I would slay each other, he would have waited until we were born, and then cursed the three of us to such a fate.” Talia explained. “But he cast it on Father and Alilia instead. The words he spoke are more easily detected by the information gathering spells Father used, but it’s obvious that the caster’s intent was that Father and Alilia’s children would die in such a way that they would each blame the child of the other for the death of their own, thus sowing strife between them. And it almost did cause that strife. Personally, I think it was only thwarted in that because Alilia’s will and power is so much greater than the power of the first curse, and that the first curse was limited to secondary effects that had to be the result of our deaths. Hopefully, its meager power is spent. If not, and some of it still lingers, and Alilia ever has another child, that child will be in danger from me, as I will be protected from her child by our curse.”

  “Yazadril!” Alilia barked. “Could she be right?! And is there a way to know if it still lingers?”

  “Don’t worry. We could drive ourselves mad wondering about every possible problem tonight. Add the question to our researches, Alilia. We will find out in due time. Certainly before you could have another child. Meanwhile, we will all speak tomorrow evening at nine, to consider new information and actions.”

  “The warnings are being sent as we speak, so that is one less thing to consider.” Jaromer stated. “Enjoy yourselves, and farewell until tomorrow, when we will speak again.” He bowed.

  “Goodbye, and thanks again!” Mark called.

  Jaromer disappeared.

  “Goodbye everyone! Thank you!” Talia called, as she waved and floated herself up to Silaran’s bare back.

  Many called their farewells and took their leave, while Silaran easily crouched with all four legs in a way that no horse ever could, allowing Mark to vault to his back.

  “Silaran, I’m thinking that if the Translocate may be dangerous, we should ride to the middle of the pass out of this valley before we try it.” Mark said after the unicorn again stood. “That way nothing else can be hurt or damaged except bare rock. And it should only take a few minutes.”

  “Wise thoughts, Mark.” Silaran agreed.

  “We’ll see you at your property.” Alilia said, and effortlessly Translocated herself there, along with Yazadril, Nemia, Theramin, Dilimon, and four who weren’t even in the room, being Hilsith, Gorsh, Yzell and Yalla.

  Mark waved goodbye to the remaining leaders and wizards as Silaran clopped to the door. The steed crouched again as he ducked low enough through the doorway to not risk his riders’ heads hitting it.

  They waved to the many remaining merrymakers as they rode away from the chapel, and Mark noticed the chair conveyance they’d flown to the wedding was flying home at high speed, high overhead.

  Talia leaned back against his belly, he wrapped his arms around her, and she snuggled within them.

  Soon they were past the major pavilions and the densest crowds, and Silaran began picking up speed. By the time they reached the edge of the forest floor he was galloping at amazing speed, and continued to accelerate as he climbed toward the pass. All his gaits were unnaturally smooth, and he had thick rows of muscle along either side of his spine that rose higher than his backbones, cushioning the buttocks of his riders, so they were very comfortable though they rode bareback.

  Though he had to slow a bit for the corners and curves in the trail, and lean steeply into them, his footing was perfectly sure and solid, as was his riders’ place upon his back.

  Only a few minutes later he slowed, then stopped. “I judge this to be the safest location. Shall we try the Translocate?” the unicorn asked.

  “We might as well, I think.” Mark agreed.

  “I think so too.” Talia nodded. “It will be of immense aid to us if we can both Translocate. Silaran’s Translocation spell is much better than mine in range and accuracy, and so helps me a great deal, but it’s even more important to you, since you would otherwise need to fly everywhere. That’s fine for getting around The Nine Valleys, but it would take us many hours or days to visit our various holdings that way.”

  “True.” he grinned. “All right Silaran, let’s give it a try.”

  There was a brief moment of extreme cold, and a flash that both Mark and Talia saw. Then they were standing on the grass in First Valley, within sight of Yazadril’s tree.

  “Are you both all right?”

  “I’m fine.” Talia nodded.

  “Me too.” Mark said as he blinked the stars out of his eyes.

  “Good. As for myself, I am just as well.” Silaran nodded, and began walking to the south side of the vast clearing, where many hundreds of elves were gathered into two groups, one having roughly twice as many as the other. “But I must say, that was the most unique sensation I ever experienced! There is definitely something very strange about you, Mark. Perhaps you would allow me to visit for a few hours, sometime over the next few days. I would like to bring my love Equemev with me, for she is a fine sorcerer. I’m curious to see what her reaction is to the sensation of Translocating with you.”

  “Your mate is a wizard as well!” Mark laughed. “That’s a fine thing, and a bit of coincidence! By the way, have you heard about Krago…”

  “AH!!” Talia sharply warned as she raised a quick hand, then continued calmly. “You’ll attract their attention if you speak their names, and it’s their wedding night too, in every way that matters. We don’t want to disturb them.”

  “I’ll say!” Mark agreed with raised eyebrows. “And thanks for the save, Talia! That was close! I was going to name both of them!”

  “You didn’t know, but now you do.” she said, and he caught a bit of her father’s teaching manner in her words. “You must form the habit of never naming any person of power, unless you want their attention. Most of them would not notice most of the time, but you never know. Look at the way you called Silaran minutes ago, before you were ready for a proper greeting.”

  “Good point. Thanks, love.” he grinned, and kissed the top of her head before he continued. “At any rate, Silaran, have you heard what happened at the gift presentation immediately after yours, involving a certain large red friend of yours, and the silver beauty of his affections?”

  “I have!” Silaran laughed. “And delightful news it was! Furthermore, I see your original point as well! Yourself and Talia, myself and Equemev, Big Crimson and Silver Beauty. Three couples of vastly different ages and races, yet as people, we are very similar. We are all practically immortal, and we are three young, strong, warrior males mated to three young, beautiful power wielders. Wizards and sorcerers aren’t quite the same, but the distinction is more important in a theoretical than a social sense, for they spend their time doing similar things.”

  “Exactly!” Mark laughed. “I can see the six of us visiting together in the years ahead! You, me and Big Crimson can practice combat moves and battle strategies, while the ladies swap feminine topics and arcane lore!”

  “And in the future after that, we could all get together for dinners, while our young all frolic around our ankles!” Talia laughed. “We’ll all marvel proudly at the growth of our young, and swap stories of the things they’ve broken around our homes in their playful antics, and laugh together like all young parents do when they gather with those of similar nature!”

  “How absolutely sweet!” Povon spoke in their minds. “Sorry to interrupt, but you called us Big Crimson and Silver Beauty. Very charming, but you named us in your minds, though you gave us each a new name to add t
o our collections. I’m rather sensitive to things like that, and I couldn’t help noticing. If you had said ‘the big crimson and the silver beauty’, remaining purely descriptive, I’d have probably not noticed, but those won’t work for that anymore now that you’ve made them names, so you’ll have to think of new terms for us for when you want to speak of us without calling our attention.

  “At any rate, Talia, that was just about the prettiest thought that anyone ever had about me! I think such visits would be fun, and that Hilsith might think them fine therapy for me. Don’t you think so dear?

  “Kragorram agrees, and sends his greetings.”

  “Why my dear, you mischievous little thing!” Silaran laughed. “Congratulations!”

  “Pardon me?” Povon asked with a giggle.

  “Equemev also sends her greetings!” Silaran laughed. “She has now reached such a level of psionic skill that she detected it when I spoke her name, though she is on the other side of the world! A far more rare accomplishment for unicorns than for dragons, even given that I am particularly well attuned to her! Since I spoke her name, she has eavesdropped on my conversation, pretty prankster that she is! And she also agrees that we six should meet and visit.”

  “Ah, she has contacted me now!” Povon announced. “Greetings and well done, Equemev! I look forward to meeting you!”

  “I have her as well! Hello Equemev!” Talia crowed proudly.

  “Well done Talia!” Povon giggled again. “That is mostly your power in that Link! We do make a fine trio of psionicists!”

  “Why thank you, Povon!” Talia beamed. “It means much from you!”

  “Oh, we simply must meet!” Povon enthused. “I have some fine things to show you, little sisters! I will call the day after tomorrow, and we’ll arrange something! But for now, Kragorram’s pectoral muscles are having quite an effect on my eyes again, so I think I will bid you all goodnight!”

  “Goodnight!” Mark and Talia called together.

  Silaran had been walking slowly to preserve the privacy of their conversation, but now he trotted happily forward to meet the crowd of expectant elves who had been watching their approach, many of whom had cast a mild light against the darkness. “Why don’t we leave the arrangements for our visit to the ladies, Mark?” he chuckled.

  “That would certainly be best!” Mark agreed as they came to a halt. “Thank you Silaran. I think some great friendships have begun today! It’s great to know I can be Translocated, and the ride from the chapel to the pass was quite a thrill as well!”

  He slid from the unicorn’s back, then reached up and took Talia in his arms.

  “Thank you. Goodnight then. Goodnight Talia. Call me if you want transport, and I will see you in a few days, if not sooner.”

  “Goodnight!” they returned.

  The great unicorn nodded to the assembled elves, and was gone.

  “So Yazadril, who are all these fine people?” Mark asked.

  “These fine people are some of your neighbors from here in First Valley, and a few from Kemsah Valley, the next valley over. They are here to welcome you to the neighborhood, and to see your new home made.” Yazadril explained, gesturing to the smaller group, who smiled, and some waved while some bowed.

  Mark and Talia smiled and bowed in return.

  Then Yazadril’s manner became stern as he indicated the larger group. “And these others are the fools who killed you during your wedding ceremony.”

  “Ah. Quite an experience that, and incredibly painful.” Mark calmly revealed, nodding. “You know, I actually felt myself die there for a moment. And of course, those of this group who were there because of the invitation that Talia and I extended above the Hall of Anticipation are forsworn as well, since they would have vowed to do nothing to disrupt the ceremony. I think killing me counts as a disruption.”

  His words pounded mightily at the guilt they were feeling, despite his conversational tone, and many flinched. By the last word, many were actually cringing. Many of the females and a few of the males were crying.

  “What do they want?” Mark asked.

  “They wish to make amends.” Yazadril told him. “They have told me what they wish to do, and I may allow it, depending on your answer to an offer I will make.”

  He pointed to the nearest one. “You. Sheramiv. Explain to him what you have decided.”

  That elf stepped forward, her face filled with remorse. “There is only one thing we can offer that could balance the magnitude of our mistake, and our shame.” she told him, her eyes downcast. “We wish to swear service to you. We will serve you in any way that you ask. For as long as we live.”

  “I think it fair, and I’m inclined to allow it.” Yazadril told him. “Except that I can’t have over sixteen hundred elves swearing lifelong unlimited obedience to a loyal citizen of a human kingdom, especially as most of them are of other elven nations, so their leaders would have something to say of it as well. Believe me, it’s just not politically feasible.

  “I was going to broach this subject later, but this is happening now, so here we are. What I propose is this; You could accept citizenship in The Nine Valleys, acknowledging the leadership, though not the lordship, of myself as your Prince and of the Council of The High People. In return, I will make you a Knight of The High People, and promise that we will never ask you to act against Finitra.

  “Then, if you so choose, you can accept the service of these fools. I suggest you start by having them carry their limit in rocks around the valley for a decade or so.”

  “Hmm. What’s the difference between leadership and lordship?”

  “If you can name a valid objection, you have the right to refuse the instructions of a leader, but not of the orders of a lord. And you have the rights to openly criticize a leader, and to campaign for their replacement, whereas you can do neither with a lord. Your individual rights would therefore be greater as one of us than as a Finitran.”

  “I see. And what are the duties of a Knight of The High People?”

  “They are much the same as those of knights of other lands. You would be on call to assist the Sentry Corps in our defense if that becomes necessary, to fight in our military should we be required by circumstance to take the offensive or to support our allies, to help keep the peace and to uphold the law, and rarely, to form an honor guard for leaders and diplomats at home and abroad. The position entitles you to a generous salary, to great respect, to the services of our people for your equipage, supply and support, and to the training of our armsmasters and battle wizards. It’s also expected that when you feel it is time and you find the right student, you will take a squire and pass on your knowledge and training. You will not be required to serve as a squire, since your apprenticeship and investment as a Finitran Ranger ensures that you already have the skills to become a knight of junior rank.”

  “I see. Well, I swore during my investment as a Ranger to uphold the Ranger’s code and the just laws of Finitra, but I’ve never taken service with the king, nor sworn personal loyalty to the crown. And I think that at this point, my life has far more to do with The High People than Finitra. So, I don’t see why not. I’ll agree. What do I have to do?”

  “You’ve just done it. No need to be formal about it tonight, we can save that for the occasion of your knighting.

  “You sixteen hundred and eighty-one idiots will now swear yourselves to the service of this man. To save time and effort when we would rather be doing more pleasant things, I will state the vow, and you will all respond by saying; ‘I do so swear’.”

  “And while you do, I will cast Compulsion upon you!” Alilia stated. “While it will not kill you, it will insure the complete sincerity of your vow, and I think that it is fitting that it be so!

  “That is, with your permission, Mark, Yazadril?”

  “I agree.” Yazadril nodded.

  “Thank you, Alilia.” Mark grinned, and gave a nasty chuckle. “These her
e will find that it’s no joy to have Compulsion cast upon you against your will, even if it forces you to do what you’d have done anyway! A pity they won’t feel how much less fun it is to have it happen by surprise, but then, we can’t have everything, can we?”

  “All right.” Yazadril said as he turned to the remorseful group. “I hope you have all picked out a nice, heavy rock.

  “Do you swear your service to Markhan Reginus Longstrider the Fifth, in whatever manner he should decide, for as long as you live?” he asked, as Alilia gestured forcefully.

  “I do so swear.” was spoken simultaneously by many voices, and the flash in Mark’s vision left bright spots against the darkness of the night.

  “Wow Alilia, you really gave it to them, didn’t you?” he chuckled as he rubbed his eyes.

  Then he saw that Yazadril, Alilia, Theramin and Yalla were all staring at the smaller group of local elves, and that Talia and Nemia were struggling to keep from laughing.

  “What is it?” Mark asked in puzzlement.

  “Some number of these High People took the oath of service to you! They spoke the words ‘I do so swear’ in response to the question, were caught in Alilia’s spell, and are bound by both the oath and the Compulsion!” Yazadril stated in consternation. “And for no reason, since they were not among the ones who offended against you at the ceremony!”

  “Oh? Who?” Mark asked.

  “These!” Alilia said as she gestured, and a very startled group was Translocated to a place on the lawn to one side of the other two groups.

  “Alilia!” Mark snapped. “I may be out of place for saying, but I think that was, well, it was impolite, since as far as I can see these people have done nothing wrong!”

  “Perhaps so!” Alilia retorted. “But they are sworn to you, and you wished to know who had sworn, so I was merely expediting their revealing of themselves!

  “And look at them! Not a one of them over thirty! They are a pack of adolescent fools, as I knew they must be, since only those would do such a thing without strong reason!”

  Mark surveyed the group, and pointed to one in the front. “You, the brash fellow in the blue. Would you mind telling me why you did that?”

  “Certainly, my liege.” that grinning youth said as he bowed with a grand sweep of his cloak. “I am Zayobod. My thinking was similar to that of the great drake who was hired as your bodyguard earlier tonight. My friends and I think that you will be at the center of great events, and we wish to stand beside you then. My conscience is clear in having done so, since the service of the noble dragon and his unicorn friend ensures that you will strive for justice.”

  “I see.” Mark laughed. “Is that the case for all of you? Did any have another reason?”

  An embarrassed black-haired boy stepped forward. “Uh, pardon me, my name is Holanam. Sir, uh, Mark, for my part, it was somewhat spontaneous. Perhaps I was simply caught up in the moment, but it certainly felt like the right thing to do when the moment came.”

  “Unbelievable! You just felt like it!? Even knowing you could be affected by Alilia’s Compulsion.?”

  “I knew I would be, sir.” the youth admitted.

  “All right, now I’m really curious!” Mark laughed. “Would all of you who are valiant glory seekers like the first fellow please stand to that side, and those who are unthinking impulsives like this lad please stand over there?”

  The group of young elves separated. Forty-seven stood to the left with the youth in blue tights, nine of them female. Another boy and three girls joined the black haired fellow. This left a group of thirty-one young and embarrassed females who hadn’t moved. One of them stood with her back to him, but he recognized her by her red hair and blue striped gown.

  “Balen? Is that you?” Mark asked.

  “Uh, yes Mark.” she said as she turned toward him, her eyes downcast. “But I was only allowed to come here tonight on the condition that I don’t bother you. When my parents hear about this, I’ll be scrubbing pots for a decade.”

  “Oh. And you swore the oath out of remorse for your spell, earlier?”

  “Uh. Not really. Mark. I, uh, I just want to be of service to you.”

  At this, Nemia and Yzell burst out laughing, and were soon joined by everyone else in his party except Yazadril.

  “What’s so funny?” Mark demanded.

  “Oh, I’m not going to tell you!” Nemia laughed. “I’ve already offended your tender sensibilities enough for one night!”

  “Balen is being evasive!” Yzell laughed. “She and the rest of these silly does have had their little libidos piqued by the thought of being, shall we say, romantically coerced, by such a huge and handsome fellow as yourself! They not only wish to be of service to you, they hope to be serviced by you! And if you command it by their vow, why, they cannot be blamed for getting what they want, can they, though it would be considered more than mildly scandalous for girls of such tender years to initiate such a liaison with a big human like you!”

  “You must be joking!” Mark exclaimed, and turned to the group of blushing girls. “That can’t be what you were thinking, is it?!”

  “We love you!” One of the closer girls told him tearfully. “You’re like a beautiful dream, and we know we can’t have your love or your vow of marriage, because you’ve already given them to Talia. So this seemed like the next best thing.”

  “Ah, admit it!” Nemia laughed. “Along with such romantic notions, every one of you has pictured yourselves squirming in rapturous obedience beneath his great and noble muscles! Any who have not may step forward and naysay me right now!”

  None stepped forward. A few began to cry.

  “Oh I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.” Nemia smiled apologetically, as she wiped tears of laughter out of her eyes. “It just struck me funny, so I was unthinking, and I apologize.”

  “Look, this is getting too bizarre.” Mark said as he shook his head. “All of you, I have no service for you. Stay and watch the house-building, and then go home. I’m flattered, very much so, but I don’t require anyone’s service. However, if any of you are too young to be legally responsible for yourselves as adults, you will inform your parents of what you’ve done.”

  “And what of these who transgressed against you?” Yazadril asked.

  “Them too. I think they were irresponsible and negligent, but I doubt any of them meant me harm, though that was the result because there were so many of them. Our displeasure has raked at their remorse, and they’ve suffered it for a while, and taken the oath, and I don’t see that they really deserve any more punishment than that. I don’t want there to be any more unpleasantness tonight. Let them be.”

  “So let it be, and may they be thankful for your mercy.” Yazadril nodded. “Now, Nemia my love, Alilia, Theramin? Shall we proceed with the business at hand?”

  “We shall indeed!” Theramin laughed.

  As those four started forward, Alilia gestured, and white outlines appeared on the grass. “All of you, be certain to remain outside this line until we emerge.”

  The four moved to the center of the clearing, joined hands, closed their eyes, and tilted their heads back as they began singing together in Elvish.

  As they began to glow brighter in Mark’s eyes, and the field of Power swirled in the vision of the other elves, those observing stepped back to be well clear of the lines. Most of the elves cast a bright Light now, so they could see the entire clearing.

  “This will be interesting.” Talia quietly commented. “The construction strictures of The Nine Valleys state that all above-ground constructions must be grown in the trees, yet this outline on the ground suggests a great building within a walled courtyard, both of them square.

  “You’re right.” Mark nodded. “This is like the floor plan of a typical castle in the northern kingdoms. See, those bulges around the corners would be turreted towers.”

  Trees began to grow along the line. At first they were
just sprouts, but in seconds they were saplings. As they reached Mark’s height they began to merge together in a strangely flattened way, their branches mingling with each other and their trunks growing together, and then the four casters at their center were lost from view.

  “This is so wondrous.” Mark chuckled. “Three days ago I’d have run away in terror at such a sight.” He chuckled again and gave Talia an extra cuddle.

  She cocked her head at him and smiled, then looked back at the walls rapidly growing together from living trees. She spoke without looking away as their new home took form. “You know, until you said that, I was only wondering what it would look like when it’s finished. Now I look at it and imagine it through your eyes, the eyes of one who has lived without magic, and I see that it is wondrous. That the process of making it is as beautiful as the finished product could ever be.

  “I have lived surrounded by magic my whole life, even more so than most elves because both of my parents are great wizards. And now a part of me wishes that I had not. I feel that my sense of wonder is jaded, and I envy you the discoveries you have ahead of you, as Jmia said. I tell you my husband, I have many wonders to show you! I will regain my sense of wonder, as you share yours with me!”

  “Come now, my sweet and pretty little wife!” Mark laughed. “Even your jaded sense of wonder must have been well stimulated by what we’ve seen and done today! As I remember it, you were no more unimpressed than I was when the white and pink fellow appeared, or his red friend either!”

  “Yes, you’re right.” she giggled. “I’ve been as boggled as you tonight, from beginning to end. Tonight could not have been a typical night for anyone. I’d wager that even my father, with his millennia of experience, felt amazement a few times today!”

  They laughed together as the walls reached full height and crenellations formed, and Mark knew without a doubt that he had correctly identified the design when the top of the keep rose above the walls.

  “As I thought.” Mark nodded happily. “Even with the leaves and twigs sticking out everywhere, the pattern of a northern castle is apparent. I really like it. The design is just graceful enough to be pretty, but it still has a bit of a military, businesslike appearance. It looks strong, defensible, keeping its occupants safe within. They say a man’s home is his castle, and this castle is obviously the home of a man.”

  “You’re right, it has both masculine and feminine aspects.” Talia murmured. “Pretty, yet strong. A human design, yet completely elven in its style of construction. I didn’t think anything could be more beautiful than our palace in Thon or The Queen of Waves, but I think this will be, for it will have the glowing beauty of a living being.”

  “Of many living beings, you mean!” Mark laughed. “There must have been over two thousand trees, when they were still separate enough to count them!”

  “Oh no!” she giggled. “That’s not Theramin’s style at all, and the horticulture of it is his. Besides, I feel the continuity of it. It is one tree with many trunks growing from the same roots. I would guess that they started with a seed, and the first thing they grew from it was a great root that grew horizontally, under the lines that marked the walls until its ends had joined, then it branched out in all directions for stability, and the trunks grew straight up from the main root. That sounds like Theramin’s style.

  “My father would have contributed the fine detail of the architecture and design, my mother the colors of the wood, the bark, the leaves, and the flowers, for I can guarantee that every part of our home will bloom at least once every year. She would also have chosen the species, therefore determining the shape of the leaves, and the shape of the flowers. Alilia would have supplied much of the raw power to grow it in a few minutes, rather than over decades, and I think the original concept was hers. That is, to grow a home of human design from a tree. A very People of Life kind of idea.”

  “We are very fortunate in our family and friends.” Mark grinned. “It’s almost finished. About twelve meters to the top of the walls, I think. Look! It’s blooming!”

  The living castle was finished, and its deep brown bark and dark green leaves were gradually obscured by flowers of every color of the rainbow, each five centimeters wide with five petals.

  “Now that is indeed wondrous!” he chuckled.

  “And so very pretty!” laughed Talia.

  A pathway was quickly marked out on the grass by two parallel bands of white flowers. They grew from the slate path that wound through the neighborhood to the middle of the south wall of the keep, where two huge flowered gates swung apart in an arched opening. The hauntingly beautiful four-part harmony of the song of the crafting spell gradually faded, and a few moments later the four constructors stepped forth smiling, and Mark and Talia went forward to meet them with the rest of their party.

  “Goodnight everyone!” Dilimon called to the crowd. “I’ll send a Reading while we tour the interior, and we’ll see you all another time.”

  “Well, what do you think? It is The Living Palace! “Yazadril asked with a grin as he turned and surveyed their creation.

  “It’s only fair that you gave this now.” Mark chuckled. “For I think even Mileemi of Thon would agree that the finest gift was given last! Surely, it will be a legendary home!”

  “It’s absolutely beautiful!” Talia agreed.

  “Come inside! You must see the inside too!” Alilia giggled, as excited as a schoolgirl as she gestured them through the gates and cast a bright light that lit up the courtyard beyond.

  The wood of the wall was four meters thick, as they saw when they passed through the arched opening that led under it. The inside of the arch was smooth heartwood of a rich, reddish brown hue, for no bark grew there. As they emerged in the courtyard they saw that the same was true of the inside of the wall. Fancifully railed stairways grown into the smooth red wood at intervals led to the wide walkway atop the wall, and to the spacious decks atop the turreted corners. The courtyard was wonderfully landscaped and gardened, symmetrical to the left and right of the main path, with smaller paths, benches, flower beds, hedges, and ponds, though different species had been used on either side.

  “We let twigs and branches grow up to a meter long on the outside of the outer wall, to help it blend into the neighborhood a bit.” Theramin revealed. “But we thought that the outside of the house should have a more finished look.”

  The bark on the outside of the house grew almost perfectly flat, and the stems of closely spaced rows of identical leaves grew directly from the bark at matching angles. From any distance, it gave the illusion of perfectly flat, dark green walls that rippled deep brown in the breeze. The many doors, windows, and balconies, the tops of the walls, and the round towers at each of the keep’s four corners were all outlined in cream-colored flowers.

  “It’s just outstanding!” Mark enthused. “Tell me, how did you manage glass in the windows?”

  “It’s not glass, but plant matter! It’s only transparent because it’s no thicker than heavy paper. On the one hand, it’s no stronger than heavy paper either, but on the other, it will grow back together if it’s torn or punctured, sealing itself in about an hour, and regaining even transparency in a few days.”

  “Miraculous! Thank you so much, all four of you!”

  “Yes, thank you!” Talia said as her eyes leaked happy tears.

  Mark sensed that she wished to be set down. When he had done so, she joined the four gifters in a big hug.

  “Come on, don’t you want a hug?” she asked Mark with a giggle as she waved him down.

  He went to one knee and crouched as low as he could to hug them. He found it awkward, so he gave a laugh and picked up all five of them, effortlessly but carefully.

  “Ooh, he’s a strong one, isn’t he?” Alilia laughed.

  “He is!” Nemia agreed.

  “Obviously, but I have my dignity as a great leader to think of!” Yazadril laughingly protested.
“So I will thank you to set me down, you great impetuous youth!”

  “And I as well!” Theramin laughed.

  “Well I will gladly take Theramin’s place!” Yzell giggled.

  “And I will take Yazadril’s!” Yalla interjected with a grin.

  Soon Mark stood with five giggling females in his arms.

  “Doesn’t he make you feel like a young girl again?” Talia dreamily asked.

  “He certainly makes you act like a gaggle of young girls again!” Theramin teased. “Come. Let’s look at the inside of the castle!”

  The inside of the building, like the inside of the surrounding wall, was smooth, reddish brown wood. Another way it differed from the human buildings that had inspired it, was that none of the inside surfaces quite met as corners, instead two walls met in a curved radius, as did the base of walls where they joined the floor, and the interior walls themselves were all almost unnoticeably curved. Some of them bore fantastic murals composed of millions of tiny flowers that grew directly from the wood of the wall. The exceptions were the occasional rectangular or oval areas of wall that were perfectly flat, and were obviously provided for the hanging of pictures or tapestries.

  The front doors of the castle led into the entrance hall, which had doorways to the rest of the ground floor, graceful curved stairways on either side that led to balconies on the floors above, and in each rear corner was a railed lifting platform. A huge round skylight was centered in the ceiling, four stories above.

  After a minute or so spent appreciating the entrance hall, they passed through doors in the center of the rear wall that led into a grand ballroom.

  “In a normal northern castle, this would be the throne room.” Mark observed, almost reverently. “And it would have two rows of columns instead of this great open space. I imagine there’s an anteroom behind this, with doors leading to yards in the rear of the house.”

  “You are correct.” Yazadril nodded. “The back yard has a great flat lawn, large enough to practice archery or to exercise horses upon it, with a workshop and a small smithy to one side and a stable to the other.”

  “You can see that later!” Talia giggled to Mark. “Let’s see the kitchens! Then the bedrooms!”

  “I think there is a thing to do before that.” Yazadril smiled. “Let’s move back to the doorway.”

  As they did so, he cast a Speaking. “Is everything ready, Mileemi?” he asked, then waited for the answer, and nodded. They were in the doorway now. “Go ahead, Alilia.”

  Alilia gestured, and their wedding presents appeared, along with Mileemi of Thon. The gifts filled the huge room and were stacked three meters deep in places.

  Mileemi approached with a smile, and handed a very large book bound in red leather up to Talia.

  “What is it?” Talia asked as she reached down to take it.

  “It’s your wedding album. The ruby on the front cover contains the Reading of the event taken by Kenesir of Sming, the famed recordist, and some excerpts from others’ Readings as well. Inside are selected still images of the event, listings of the principals and of the attendees, and an inventory of your gifts. Except for the ruby, which was given by Kenesir, the album is my gift to you.”

  “It’s beautiful! Thank you!” Talia said as she opened it to the title page, which was lettered with flowing script.

  “Yes, thank you very much!” Mark agreed as he and the other four elven lasses he carried read over Talia’s shoulder. “That makes two wonderful gifts you’ve given, along with your work on the wonderful gift presentation!”

  “Ha! It’s not as if I did that by myself!” Mileemi protested. “Hundreds contributed effort to that presentation! In fact, there is a separate listing for them, as well as a listing of those who helped with the decorations and the feasts, and one for those who volunteered with each of the pavilions outside the chapel!”

  “Wow! That’s thorough!” Mark told her. “What’s this list here? ‘Those who were Marked’?”

  “What’s that?” she asked, and Mark crouched down for a moment so Talia could show it to her. “Oh I’m sorry! To save time, I used a compiling spell to list those who took part in each activity! I didn’t realize that such a list would be included! Those are the ones who were Marked by Yazadril after they cast Compulsions on you!”

  “Now we could change it to; ‘Those who are Mark’s’!” Talia laughed.

  “Don’t remind me!” Mark laughed. “I only hope they won’t all hang around, hoping for a chance to be helpful!

  “And speaking of helpful, I wonder where our new pets are?”

  “I don’t know, but if you check the inventory, it will tell you.” Mileemi said. “Your gifts are all listed in the order they were presented, along with their present locations.”

  “And if they are moved?” Mark asked as Talia found the place.

  “Then the listing updates their location.” Mileemi nodded.

  “Stripe is listed as ‘prowling the walkway atop the encircling wall of The Living Palace’!” Talia revealed. “And Scout as ‘perched on the top edge of the northwest tower of The Living Palace’!”

  “It appears they are already on guard!” Mark laughed, then stifled a yawn.

  Talia noticed, and gave him a smile. “I already know which ensembles I want in the master suite here, and it’s getting very late. Let’s get those in place, then we’ll sit and chat with you all for a while before we retire, and we’ll leave the rest of the house to explore and furnish tomorrow. “

  “A wonderful idea, beloved.” Mark smiled.

  “And that concludes our tour for tonight. Goodnight everyone.” Dilimon said, and ended the broadcast of his Reading.

  “Let me see… These for the bedroom.” Talia said as she scanned the lists, flipping pages. “These, and… these for the living room. And these for the privacy.”

  “If you’ll point them out to me, I’ll be glad to bring them up to the suite once we’re there.” Alilia offered.

  “Thank you Alilia.” Talia smiled. “Have I told you lately how handy you are to have around?”

  “Thank you.” Alilia shrugged. “I’m not really so generous as I seem, however. I have to release a lot of the power everyday, one way or another, or it builds up in me until I develop a fever after about a week. So it’s either use it doing something useful, or spend ten minutes a day repeatedly lifting a sixty-ton weight by Movement. I haven’t found a faster way to release it without disturbing someone. That’s why your father asks me to help out so often when I’m here, instead of having Nemia assist him with such things, as he normally does.”

  “Oh.” Talia said in surprise, then returned to what she was doing. “All right, everything I want for the bedroom should be blinking red, everything for the living room blinking yellow, and for the privacy blinking green. If the suite has more rooms than that, they can wait till tomorrow as well.

  “Set us down please, love? And you may as well look around at gifts for a few minutes while we pick out the things for the suite. We’ll call you when we’re ready to go upstairs.”

  “I know what I’d like to look at first!” Mark chuckled as he set the girls down. “That great black sword, from the Magic Items of Special Significance!”

  “I admit to an interest in that myself!” Yazadril chuckled. “And I won’t need the inventory to show me where those nine items are! I can feel them from here!”

  He led the way down aisles between the gifts and unerringly found the nine items handsomely displayed on black velvet on the middle two shelves of the largest glass-fronted cabinet among the gifts. He opened it and took a small brass descriptive plaque from the velvet beside the black greatsword.

  “Great missing gods!” he exclaimed. “I can imagine it took the contributions of at least a few thousand to buy you this!”

  “What is it?” Mark asked as he reached within the cabinet and took out the ebon weapon. Its steel was the blackest any of them had ev
er seen, its design beautiful in its simplicity, with a wide T guard and an eight centimeter steel ball on the pommel. The entire thing appeared to have been cast as a single piece, rather than forged, the grip was as rough as used sandpaper, and there were no wrappings or decorations to interrupt the blackness of it.

  “Screaming Source above, be careful with that!” Yazadril exclaimed as he quickly stepped back twice. “In fact, don’t move it at all, at least until I’ve finished reading the plaque!”

  He did so, and whistled in amazement. “You’re holding it steady, right? Good.

  “Now, it’s in Grand High Draconian, and that tells you that its last owner was a dragon. It says;

  “Know that this is GrimFang, Sword of Verzaclon, who was Lord of Felion. Know that this is GrimFang, Wand of Dark Intent. Know that this is GrimFang, Blade of Irresistible Destruction. With this sword did Verzaclon, Lord of Giants, stride mighty upon the world in the Thirteenth Age. With it he slew over four thousand of the dwarven folk at The Battle of Zolox Range. With it he slew sixty-one dragons in The Taking of Bolum Pass. With it he destroyed the mighty walls of the city of Dewyn. With this sword did Verzaclon conquer a continent, and he did Lord over it for twenty-three thousand years.

  “Being of Bright intent or of Dark, with this blade may its bearer destroy at will.

  “Bright source, some dragon must have gambled away their trove to part with such a thing! From the way the plaque is worded, the sword has not been wielded in combat since Verzaclon! And in Draconian, the Thirteenth Age was half a million years ago, long before the first elves ever walked the world!”

  “Wow! The sword of a king of giants!” Mark breathed. “That’s why the grip is a bit thicker than I’d like! I’m glad I have big hands, even for my size. How big are giants?”

  “Three to four meters tall.” Dilimon told him. “Among them, such a sword would not be considered a two handed weapon. Most of them would wield it with one hand fairly comfortably, I think. Were that not the case, I’m sure the grip would be too thick for you.”

  “Wow! And I’m just barely big enough to comfortably use it two-handed! Call it what, almost two and a half meters of blade, another forty-six centimeters to the pommel? Yet it’s so light! Really, now that I move it around a bit, I realize it doesn’t weigh a quarter what it should!” He held it out at arm’s length with one hand and whistled the tip back and forth through the air with a quick twist of his wrist. “Not even an eighth what it should, now I think about it! It’ll take a while to get used to! Almost too light to swing properly, yet almost too long as well!”

  “Get used to it?!” Yazadril exclaimed, backing until he was far out of the sword’s range. “You don’t mean to practice with it, do you? I’m telling you, the thing is incredibly dangerous!”

  “No doubt it is.” Mark chuckled. “But I might have to use it some day, and if I do, I want my hands to be accustomed to it. And I am a trained professional, Yazadril. I haven’t hit anything with a sword unintentionally since I was six. Besides, in my eyes, it glows no brighter than your own sword.”

  “My sword is a weapon of terrible power, and it is a force of justice that cannot be wielded with criminal intent!” Yazadril retorted.

  “Whereas this one follows my own intent, regardless of the rightness of it. Or have I misunderstood your words? In fact…”

  With that, Mark took the tine band from his arm, slipped in onto his head, and plucked it.

  “It’s as I thought!” he marveled. “As Talia said about curses, this thing has a bit of a mind, or it has emotions at least, and it follows the intent of the wielder. It’s like it’s a puppy or a little kid that’s completely eager to please. In fact, I wonder if one of you could fetch me a soft cloth, and a steel bar?”

  “I’m curious enough to comply with that!” Theramin said with a wave, and produced a white silk handkerchief and a steel dowel. “These are things I had handy at home. The steel is a knife blank, meant for further forging, but still a very strong alloy.”

  “They’ll do fine.” Mark nodded as he took the steel in his free hand, and held it over the blade of the sword with his fingertips. “Now, I want the sword to cut the steel.” he said, and dropped the small bar three centimeters onto the blade. It was parted into two pieces by the keen edge without even slowing down. Mark handily caught them below the sword and handed them back.

  “As I told you, very dangerous.” Yazadril pronounced.

  Mark took the kerchief by two opposite corners in a loop around the blade. “I don’t want the sword to cut the kerchief.” he said. He let the weight of the blade rest in the cloth with an edge down, then sawed it back and forth, while applying increasing force on the silk, which none-the-less maintained its integrity. “So it doesn’t cut it. Then, when I want it to cut the kerchief but not the floor…” Suddenly the blade sliced through the cloth without resistance, and the tip knocked against the wood floor at the bottom of the stroke without leaving a mark.

  “You see?!” Mark laughed as he lovingly stroked the pommel. “Of all the swords in the world, this may be the very safest one to practice with! It’s an excellent sword, and a wonderful gift! And now that it’s been shown and used and appreciated, it’s well contented!”

  He replaced the sword in the cabinet and removed the tine band. “I can’t help but think it was meant for me, and that this other little sword was meant for Talia. I can’t read its plaque either; it’s in a different language that I’ve never seen.”

  “It’s in an outmoded form of Elvish, made even harder to discern by an exceedingly ornate style of script, and it doesn’t say much.” Yazadril mused as he peered at the tiny silver plate. “Let me see. ‘First Sword of Visinniria, Elven Mage, first and last woman of our race to become a goddess.’

  “Most peculiar. I don’t recall that The Goddess Visinniria ever used a sword, but then, I’m not very familiar with her story. If this was indeed hers, and I understand the meaning correctly, she used this in her early life as a mage, long before she achieved divinity.”

  “You mean there really are gods? And that they used to be elves?” Mark asked, incredulous.

  “There are, or at least there were.” Yazadril confirmed. “Two of them were born as elves, a male and a female, but there were gods who were of every race. There were at least five who were giants, seven were gnomes, twelve were dwarves, fifteen were humans, twenty-one were unicorns, and sixty-three were dragons. Nine were of the humanoids of Serminak. As well, one god was of a race from the bottom of the sea with a form somewhat like a spiny lobster, and he was the sole remainder of a people that hasn’t existed on this world for four hundred million years. Those are the ones we know of with certainty, but there were others we know little of, and we know that there were some that we know nothing about at all, except that some of those were from the races in Xervia who choose not to reveal their existence to the rest of the world.”

  “And you say ‘were’ like they were gone or something.” Mark noted. “Is that why some say ‘the missing gods’?”

  “It is, for only some thirty thousand years ago, at the same moment, they all withdrew from the world. That is the only consistent description of the event in the records of the temples, most of which are now abandoned. To our almost certain knowledge, none have manifested on Kellaran in any way since then.”

  “Huh. It seems strange, that only two gods were elves, and fifteen were human.”

  “Roughly, the numbers of the gods of each race reflect how long their race has existed on this world. Elves are the newest race, and we are an offshoot of humanity, as are the dwarves, the giants, all the other races with this general body type. We are all called ‘humanoids’ by the dragons and other more distantly related races, meaning ‘those who are shaped like humans’, because humans were the first of us, and we and the dwarves and so on are descended from them.”

  “We’re distantly related to dragons?”
/>
  “If you go back far enough, every form of life on Kellaran came from common ancestors. We are literally related to every living thing, even the grass and the trees, and generally, the more similar two life forms are, the more closely they are related.”

  He paused, then gingerly poked the handle of the light silver sword with his fingertip. “Yes, definitely the sword of a mage. It has… fifty-two magecraft spells embedded in its crystalline structure. Formidable ones, but Visinniria would have had little use for it near the end of her career, and none once she became divine.”

  “Fifty-two! Which ones?” Theramin asked.

  “Military, a good selection of them. Talia has little knowledge of the specialty, and of course she is a wizard rather than a mage, but with this in her hand, she would be a more than fair battle-mage.” Yazadril revealed. “It has one that is particularly nice, a short-range Translocate that will move a legion of a thousand along with their equipment, as long as the departure point and the destination are both within sight of the caster. Stationed in the air high above a battle, she could arrange some surprising troop movements. And like mine, this sword cannot be wielded with evil intent, or I should say, not with evil intent as Visinniria defined it in her youth.

  “Unlike yours Mark, which could be taken from you and used against you.”

  “No.” Mark said as he shook his head. “The black could be stolen from this case, but once in my hand it could never be taken from me against my will. I’m pretty certain of it, anyway.”

  “I see.” Yazadril nodded. “Well I’ll confess to having had a few experiences that left me a bit nervous about weapons of such power that can be wielded by our enemies. If it can be stolen but not taken, I suggest you get a scabbard for it and keep it close.”

  “Hmm. If I were displaying such a sword in such a cabinet, and there were a scabbard for it, I’d put it in the bottom drawer, here.” Mark speculated as he opened the drawer. “And here it is, along with one for the sword of Visinniria, and individual cases and containers for the other significant items.”

  He removed a great black sheath with two belts and strapped it diagonally across his back, then took the black blade out of the case and sheathed it with an expert motion, leaving the hilt in easy reach over his right shoulder. The scabbard was hinged along its length and held closed by clever springs around the hinges, like Yazadril’s, and the sword was sheathed by fitting the edge of the blade near the cross guard into a notch between the two halves of the sheath at the top, then sliding the blade sideways until it nested home between the two halves and was held firmly by the spring pressure. It was the only truly practical scabbard design for a sword with a blade-length longer than its wielder’s arm span.

  “You know, Stripe and Scout are a formidable pair of guards, and we stand behind the Wards of The Nine Valleys, and so I should feel your trove to be secure.” Yazadril mused as he looked around. “But for some reason, I don’t. I think before I go tonight I’ll add a few security measures to this property.”

  “Mark!” Talia called from across the room. “We’re ready to go upstairs!”

  “Coming Talia!” Mark called as they headed for the sound of her voice at the front of the hall. “Damn but it’s good to wear a sword again!” he chuckled to himself

  “Sorry we took so long! We spent some time looking at the big jewels!” Talia laughed as she rose up to hug him.

  “That’s all right. We spent the time well, investigating the swords we got in the magic items. Yazadril thinks I should keep this one close.”

  “You won’t be wearing it in bed, I hope!” she teased.

  “Of course not! I’ll tuck it under my pillow!” he laughed.

  “Oh! Well that’s all right then!” she giggled as Theramin led them out to the entrance hall, where they split into two groups to board the lifting platforms. They disembarked on the second floor and went to the west side of the palace, where the master suite took up that side of the story.

  Alilia led the way into the master suite, walked to the center of the living room, and slowly looked all around while the rest filed in. “It’s all exactly as you pictured it, Yazadril.” she smiled. “Your mind for detail. Beautiful. Casting this with the three of you was a wonderful and treasured experience.

  Talia had quickly walked through the rooms, looking around, then returned. “All right, if the rest of you will please remain over there by the door for a moment, I think we’re ready, Alilia.”

  “Give me a clear picture of it then.” Alilia nodded as she closed her eyes.

  Mark closed his eyes and waited, and had no trouble seeing the flash of Alilia’s spell through his eyelids.

  ‘Ha! Blocked it that time!’ he chuckled to himself. ‘I’m starting to get used to this!’

  He opened his eyes to see the room completely furnished and decorated.

  “Already, Yazadril, your daughter exceeds me in the intellectual ability to hold great scads of detail in mind.” Alilia remarked. “I could never envision the exact placement of so many pieces.”

  “I disagree, dear friend.” Yazadril smiled. “Your intuitive grasp of the things you know well is such that I would wager you could reproduce your own home exactly, complete to the last speck of dust.”

  “Yes, and my pearl pen would still be misplaced somewhere within it, along with a tenth of my items!” Alilia laughed. “Such subconscious knowledge is an altogether different thing.”

  “You two have been friends a long time, I think.” Mark chuckled as he looked around the room’s beautiful appointments with Talia.

  “For all but the first seventy-three years of my life.” Alilia nodded. “Over four thousand eight hundred years, have I been honored to be Yazadril’s friend and protégé. I think he has saved my sanity at least once every decade over that time.”

  “How so?” Mark asked.

  “My wife is a reluctant ruler, my friend.” Gorsh replied for her, as he went to her side. “That is, if I may call you that?”

  “You certainly may, Gorsh.” Mark nodded.

  “Thank you.” Gorsh continued speaking to Mark as he and Alilia hugged. “Though Yazadril and I have never had much to say, I have always valued the friendship and guidance he gives Alilia, for he has saved our marriage as often as he’s saved her sanity.

  “Alilia’s power has made her the center of attention since before she was even born, and though she has learned to accept that most of the time, she never liked it. So after we were married at twenty-six, in a wedding almost as stupendous and well attended as your own, she and I traveled the world in disguise, enjoying a life and a love that would have been legendary were it widely known, and improving our craft as wizards. Twenty-six is a very young age for two elves to marry, and we basically ran away after that. We then had twenty-five years of happiness.

  “Then word of the continuously increasing magnitude of her power trickled back to The People of Life, and they began to clamor for her to be Princess. Unfortunately, not because she was particularly well suited to the role, or even because any thought that she was. The aggressive among them wanted her as leader so that her power would serve our people against those who would contend with us, and the cautious wanted a dangerously powerful youth close at hand, where they could keep an eye on her.

  “At first she refused them, and I heartily agreed with her choice. But a nation of elves will not follow a leader if they cannot have the leader of their choice, and over a few years our nation began to fragment. Under this crushing weight of unwanted responsibility, she agreed to become Princess of The People of Life. Again I gave her choice my blessing; for I had no wish to see my people splinter and scatter either.

  “Well, I can assure you that the influential who hoped for a pliant leader to be no more than a power battery for their own pet projects were soon to reconsider, when faced with the somewhat indomitable nature of my beloved’s will. And often during the early months of her reign, she w
as less than perfectly diplomatic.”

  “Now you are truly being noble, my love.” Alilia chuckled. “For I was obstinate, stubborn, headstrong, altogether too young and proud, and possessed of a towering resentment. I hoped that they would reject me, but my people were as stubborn as I, and would not let me go.”

  “At any rate, Yazadril soon learned of the situation.” Gorsh continued. “He took Alilia under his wing, so to speak, and became her mentor in the art of leading an elven nation. Their alliance, and hence the more formal alliance they have crafted between our peoples, is one of the strongest political bonds in this world.

  “And I cannot help that I despise the fact that he has helped make her one of the most capable leaders who have ever lived, for it only makes more remote the day when she can finally retire, and we will have to be concerned with nothing but our love.

  “Things would be so much easier if I had another interest to occupy me while she spent her hours as Princess, but truly, I live only to love Alilia, as she lived only to love me before our people called her. Even wizardry truly only interests me when I am studying it with her. And it doesn’t help that my presence puts her in a mood that is far too tender and gentle for the hard choices of her unwanted leadership. I take away her edge, simply by being there, loving her as I do.

  “And so, though we are destined lovers, and our flame still burns brighter than any other, we are forced to spend much of our time apart, lest resentment poison our love.

  “And when she is so stressed from the million problems of her role that she is losing her mind, she calls to Yazadril. He helps her with her problems, and makes her take vacations, and he sends her back to me, just when my heart is breaking for the need of her.”

  “Oh Gorsh, my perfect love. As always, I am so sorry.” Alilia sighed.

  “As always, my Alilia, so am I.”

  “That is so sad.” Talia said, and hugged Mark’s leg.

  At that, both Alilia and Gorsh chuckled.

  “Ah, young Talia, do not cry for us!” Alilia said. “We have had a very long life together, and though our separations make us sad, our reunions are times of perfect joy. Only on rare occasions like this, that are both formal and personal, do we still feel the old pain. For we must be together, and I still must spend most of my attention on my duties. But our lover’s vacations have added up to more time than most elves ever have together, and we still hope for the day when my people will have mercy on me, and find another to lead them.”

  “My parents had a perfect love.” Mark quietly revealed. “They had only eighteen years together, before death took them.”

  “How petty my concerns seem, beside such tragedy.” Gorsh said after a moment. “It makes me count my blessings anew, for after almost five thousand years, I still hold my love.”

  Mark yawned, then tried to stifle it. Talia smiled and took his hand, and towed him toward the bedroom. “We’ll be back in a moment.” she told the others.

  “My husband.” she smiled up at him once the bedroom door was closed, holding both his hands. “It does not yet seem time for us to retire, and when we do, I hope to make love for hours. Yet you are almost asleep on your feet. If you would wear the tine band and give it a pluck, I will banish your weariness. Will you do this for me?”

  “Certainly.” he nodded, and smiled as he placed the band on his head. “Ready?” he asked.

  She nodded, he plucked the tines, and she cast with a whistled trill. “There. Is that better?”

  “Much!” he laughed as he swept her up in his arms and kissed her. “I’m very glad I married a wizard!”

  “And so am I!” she laughed as he opened the door and carried her forth.

  “What? You’re glad that I married a wizard?” he teased.

  “That too! I am also glad that I married a wizard!” she giggled.

  “Don’t be silly! I’m no wizard!” he protested as he sat in a huge armchair before the fire, and she settled on one arm of it, leaning against his shoulder.

  “You are indeed, or something very like it!” Talia insisted. “If you’d have seen yourself glowing when you sang tonight, as we did, you would agree without doubt!”

  “Now that’s a strange thing.” he nodded. “You say that I didn’t use the power field when I did so?”

  “You did not.” Yazadril affirmed.

  “Hmm.” Mark pondered for a moment. “You know, our white and pink friend said that his people utilize the power of the Source directly, rather than the power radiated by the rocks like those of these valleys. I wonder if I’m like that. It would at least partly explain things, wouldn’t it?”

  “What?!!! Say that again?!!!” Alilia barked.

  Mark looked at her in surprise, then noticed that Yazadril and the other wizards present except Talia were staring at him open-mouthed. “He said that unicorns used the direct light of the source to power their spells, or rather he said that the psionics that he and Stripe used worked that way. And that I vibrated at strange frequencies, and that since I could hear him communicating with me mentally, that I should be able to ride his Translocation spell. And that proved to be so. He asked to introduce me to his mate, who is a sorcerer, so she could try Translocating me as well. Talia and I are going to visit with them, along with our very large new bodyguard and his new mate. We plan to visit because of our similarity as people, warriors mated to wizards, and I don’t doubt that all three of our ladies will be sharing arcane lore and feminine conversation, as us three fellows are trading combat strategies, and they will between them have some apt observations about my status as a wizard or whatever it is I am.”

  “That can’t have been accidental, can it?!” Alilia demanded of Yazadril. “That after refusing to reveal the method of their power for half a million years, a young unicorn simply gave it away to a human in casual conversation?!”

  “No, it could not have been accidental. Mark, did your mount ask you to keep this confidential?” Yazadril asked.

  “Um, not exactly. I asked him if Talia and I could think privately with him, so that I could… Damn, this is getting complex, Yazadril! There are things you’ve asked me to keep secret that not everyone here knows, and I can’t tell you exactly what I said with Silaran without revealing why I asked him to speak privately. At any rate I did ask him if we could speak privately, and he told me of his people using the source directly for their psionics during that conversation, but I got no impression from him that he wished any of what he told me kept confidential. But I could be wrong about that. I certainly hope not, for if I am, then I’ve betrayed his trust.”

  “Well. I see.” Yazadril nodded, and looked about the room. “Well, look who are here; Yourself, Talia, myself, Nemia, Theramin, Yzell, Dilimon, Yalla, Hilsith, Alilia and Gorsh. A trustworthy group, and all reliable at keeping confidences.

  “If your mount meant for you to keep his words confidential, then to protect your honor, we must never speak of it again, not even to each other. But I sincerely hope that that’s not the case, for this information is of enormous theoretical value! We have always suspected that the unicorns and other Xervian peoples…

  “Well, never mind that now. We need to know, one way or the other! You must call your white friend, Mark, and learn whether you have inadvertently broken his confidence, and you must do so before we leave this room!”

  “I’ll call him now.” Mark nodded. “Silaran?”

  That huge unicorn appeared near the door, the only place in the room with enough open space for him. “Hello, Mark. Before anything else, I must ask to bring two more visitors of my people to your home, and that you clear enough room for them.”

  “Certainly, Silaran.” Mark said as he rose. “Just give us a moment to move some of these chairs and tables aside.”

  Most of the chairs and side tables had been arranged in a large semicircle before the fireplace, with couches and desks and cabinets along the walls, and a small, round breakfa
st table with chairs for four humans had been placed before the large windowed double doors to the balcony. Now Mark and the elves hurriedly moved everything close to the walls.

  “Thank you.” Silaran nodded as he moved to the center of the room. Two more unicorns appeared. At first glance they appeared identical, with the size and the long and light proportions of fine sprinting horses. Their spiraled horns, eyes, eyelashes, and hooves were bright silver, as were their very long and silky manes and tails. The rest of their coats were glossy midnight black. A moment later Mark realized that a few hairs around the muzzle of one were gray, not black or silver, and that the horn that one sported was much longer and thicker than the other’s.

  “Would you introduce your companions, please?” Silaran asked.

  Talia found her tongue before Mark, and formally introduced the other elves present, who all bowed respectfully as their identities were revealed.

  “Thank you.” Silaran nodded again. “I am very proud to present my love Equemev, Fifteenth Ranked Sorcerer of The People of Morning; those you would call unicorns.”

  The black and silver unicorn with the shorter horn bowed to one front knee. “Pleased to know you all.” She said in a light and feminine ‘voice’ that was so loud it was almost painful. She chuckled when she saw them flinch a bit. “Sorry about that. I’ll keep it down for you.” she added in a quieter tone.

  “I now very proudly present Equemev’s mother Tithian, First Sorcerer and First Magician of The People of Morning, famed Seer and Oracle, and Chief Justicer of The Grand Council of Xervia.” Silaran announced.

  As Mark and the elves bowed low, Tithian merely nodded.

  “Tithian contacted me a few moments ago and told me that you would soon call, and instructed me to do exactly as I have done.” Silaran told Mark. “Now I am to ask you why you called me here, and I am assured that soon after that, I will understand exactly what is happening, which I presently do not!”

  “Oh!” Mark nodded, then hurriedly explained.

  Silaran looked to Tithian, who nodded again.

  “I think that I have been maneuvered, no doubt for a very valid and just reason.” Silaran chuckled to Mark. “When I was approached by the elves who hired me as your mount, I asked Tithian whether I could take the position, and whether there were any restrictions on my conduct in that role. She assured me that there were none, and that I could speak freely with you. As I have had no contact with humanoids before, I was unaware of your ignorance of our methods.

  “Tithian? Would you care to enlighten us further?”

  Tithian didn’t answer right away, and instead spent a minute considering each of them individually. “Know that I am about to reveal Dangerous Truths.” She finally told them, her communication seeming a rich contralto. “A major turning point in history is fast approaching, and though there are many possible results, it is certain that Kellaran will be a very different place when that nexus has passed. All of us here have important parts to play in the years ahead, but two of you will be Key, and will make the difference between our world being devastated or enriched.

  “There was some small chance that you would learn what you needed to know from clues you gained from Silaran earlier tonight, but your conversation with him took other paths, necessitating my intervention. And now that the moment is here, I see that this is a far better path, so we have been lucky.”

  She paused, and turned to Yazadril. “You are first in ability and intellect among the wizards of all the humanoid peoples. And you, Alilia, are first in power among them. As I am First Sorcerer and First Magician of my people, there is much in the way of knowledge and technique to be learned from one another, and it is fair that we finally meet. We will speak in the days ahead, for we have much to do together, I now think.

  “But before that, you will have enough to deal with in what I now reveal.

  “You are a new race still, and though you have learned much of the rules of reality, some of your experimental results have been deliberately skewed by others, to hide the secret of our power. You are too closely associated with the humans, many of whom are not trustworthy, and what you learn, they eventually learn from you.

  “You have been led to believe that we used a power source that radiated from the center of the world. There is none such thing. What you have detected there does nothing more than counteract some of the pull of weight on our world, reducing that pull to one third of what it would be otherwise. Since this has been hidden from you, you have been unable to formulate workable theories of weight, or of orbital movements. Now you know why you could not make the mathematics of such things balance.

  “You have been led to believe that none could draw power from the light of the source itself, but that is what we do. That is also the nature of many of the peoples of Xervia. Dragons draw from both the light of the source and the heat of the stone that your wizards use.

  “Do you have any questions before I go on?”

  “Yes. Are we correct in assuming that the wizards of the dwarves, Sylvan, giants, and gnomes use the heat of the stone, as you put it, in similar ways to our own?” Yazadril quickly asked.

  “Yes. And Alilia, before you burst an artery, let me assure you that neither the Sylvan nor any others can eavesdrop on us right now. If you check your senses, you will find that The Grand Council of Xervia have placed this room in near-total reverse-stasis, and almost no time is passing outside it in relation to here.

  “As to your indignation at our having interfered in your people’s destiny, I suggest you ask Yazadril here what he did in Serminak about five thousand years ago.

  “Nice work there, Yazadril. The bravest and best thing ever done by one of your race. It has kept them off our backs for five millennia.” Tithian chuckled.

  “Well?” Alilia demanded of Yazadril.

  “After the last war with the Sylvan, I disguised myself as one of them, and spent about fourteen years on Serminak, living among them.” Yazadril told her as he stroked his chin, only half his attention on what he was saying, the other half following the implications of what Tithian had revealed about the use of the source. “I managed to spread an idea throughout their culture; the idea that everyone not of Sylvan or Serminak was so far beneath them, that to even breath the same air as outsiders was to associate with diseased vermin. Far better than having them think of us as prey. And as Tithian pointed out, that is part of the reason why they have left us alone since. The greater reason being that they were soundly defeated in their last three wars, once by humans, once by dwarves, and once by an alliance composed of humans, elves, and Xervian dragons, and that time the Sylvan were allied with some of the dragons of Serminak.”

  “All right, now I have to ask!” Mark burst out. “What the heck are Sylvan, and what’s Serminak?”

  “Let me make this fast for you.” Alilia said brusquely as she held out her hand, and his globe of Kellaran appeared on it. “We are here, The Nine Valleys.” she pointed out, and turned it around. “Here, north of Xervia, the continent of Serminak, land of Sylvan and Dark Dragons.”

  She handed him the globe, then gestured, and a life-sized Illusion of two naked figures appeared. Their graceful features, oversized pointed ears, and slim builds reminded him of elves, but their size was greater than that of most humans. The female was two hundred and eleven centimeters tall, the male two hundred and twenty-one, and his shoulders and the muscles of his chest and back seemed a bit too big for the rest of him.

  “Sylvan.” Alilia stated flatly. “They are a very uniform race; every adult with very few exceptions is within three centimeters of the height of these two, all with the same black hair, pale skin, glowing slitted golden eyes. They are sometimes called Dark Elves, though we despise the term, or High Elves, which we despise even more. They and we branched from the trunk of humanity in opposite directions in different eons, and we are less like them, and more distantly related, than we are to your people. It would be clo
ser to the truth to call them dark humans.

  “They are powerful and terrible, every damn one of them, for they have no remorse or regret or sorrow in their nature, none at all, and they have no reluctance to violence, not from the moment they are born. They are evil and anarchistic, for they believe that it should be among people as it is among animals, that the mighty can slay the weak, and that you have the right to do whatever you have the power to do. In each generation their strongest youths slay the rest, and that keeps their population down, else they’d have long since slain all others, for they breed like rats. Unfortunately, all who survive this winnowing are devastating warriors and casters of power, and there are perhaps six hundred million of them. Their mightiest are probably almost a match for me. They go to war for fun and excitement, and for the taking of slaves and plunder.

  “As power users, they are entirely intuitive, and know no theoretical basis for their power, nor would they care.

  “There are dragons who share the attitudes of the Sylvan, and they are the only other people on Serminak.”

  She dismissed the Illusion and sat back down. “If you say the word Sylvan while not under such special protections, some of them may notice. If you learn any of their individual names, the utterance of it would almost certainly call them down upon you. At least, such was the case before Yazadril’s little experiment in cultural manipulation.”

  “Thank you, Alilia.” Tithian chuckled. “An excellent summation! I might add that some think the Sylvan to be demons, and they are not, though their race was created by a demon as a tool against the gods. And a demon is a creature from a world far away in another kind of reality.

  “Mark and Talia, you are the Keys. For you two to achieve your potential, and for the forces of justice to remain dominant in this world, it is necessary that you know certain things that have previously been hidden from you. A Reading was Taken from Silaran without his knowledge, of his communications with you and his Translocation of you, and it was studied by the finest minds in Xervia, whose knowledge of the rules of reality is almost complete.

  “Markhan Reginus Longstrider the Fifth, you are a freak of nature, a cosmic fluke that theoretically shouldn’t happen by chance on a world this size more than once in a billion years, though it has happened a handful of times none-the-less. Know that there are many kinds of energy that blaze from our star, heat and light and the Source, and many others. You have access to one such; a power of higher frequency than the Source. You will be able to do many things with it. You will soon need to achieve many things that are now beyond you.

  “Yazadril, he draws from an energy that is of a frequency two and six-tenths times higher than the Source. I trust that with this knowledge, you can begin teaching him the basics of its use.”

  Yazadril nodded, his mind racing.

  “Good. Once you elves have given him the basics, the rest of us will join in coaching him, for his art will be different from all others, but it should still have some similarities to all the existing Arts of Power.

  “That is the gist of everything we know thus far. We yet have no idea what the nature of the coming events will be.”

  “Why has Xervia broken its silence?” Talia suddenly asked.

  Tithian considered her before answering. “The nexus that approaches will be the most important one since The Segregation, when the races of the world divided and separated from each other, to reside on the continents they now occupy. It is doubted that Xervia will be allowed to remain aloof and unaffected by what comes. It is a globally important turning point. All of those who stand for justice must stand together. All of us. Even those of us who wish to do so without revealing their existence to some of the others.

  “The curtain of secrecy about Xervia will be somewhat lowered, but it will not fall. There are races who are willing to spend every one of their lives to ensure that justice and happiness continue to hold sway over this world, but you will never know of them if they can prevent it.

  “If we all do everything perfectly, we will usher in a new era of greater co-operation, peace, and prosperity among all races. If we fail absolutely, every person of every race on Kellaran could die. Most likely the result will fall somewhere between those two extremes. If we are left with a situation that is no worse than the one now extant, we will be well satisfied.

  “Do you know when the nexus will occur?” Yazadril asked.

  “Most likely between one and three years from now. We will know with more precision as it approaches. Xervia is most unusually blessed at this moment in history with having three seers; myself, a dragon, and one of the hidden races. We are co-operating and bending all our will to learning what we can. Already we have more warning than was ever known before a nexus. We will share what we learn with you, since all of you will have major roles, being close to Mark and Talia, who are Key. You must decide among you who to share it with beyond that.

  “If things begin to happen, let us know, please.”

  “Things are already happening, and quickly.” Alilia stated. She produced a small sapphire, then concentrated on it, and held it out to Tithian. “As you share with us, so we share with you. It contains my Reading of what we learned and did today. If you agree to take it, you are committing your peoples to a formal alliance with all elves until the nexus has passed, and a new stability is reached. Everything in it and everything you’ve said here will be considered military secrets for the duration. We will also agree to respect the anonymity of the hidden peoples you represent.”

  “I agree, in the name of the Grand Council of Xervia. I will be our diplomat.” Tithian nodded, and the blue jewel vanished with the flash of the oath.

  “When possible, we will consult you before we act.” Yazadril stated. “We will prepare and exchange briefs of the resources at our disposal. All of our councils should discuss approaching the folk of Kletiuk and Felion with what we know, as well as whom exactly to speak to there. We will consider approaching the human royalty as well. We should strive to update everything we know of the various political, military, economic and social forces active in the world, and share this information. And of course, we welcome any assistance you could offer in solving our two mysteries; the identity of the caster of the curse upon Alilia and myself, and the source and nature of the forces that slew the residents of Shinosa Valley.”

  “Agreed. We all have much to do. If there is nothing else, I will take my leave and report to The Grande Council.”

  “Wait!” Mark called. “Why did you have The Lava Shapers give me a volcano in Xervia? And will I be permitted to go there?”

  “At the time I sent them my request, I knew only that you must have it. I still do not know why, but in light of what we have learned of your nature I can guess with fair surety. I surmise that the crater is roughly hemispherical and is composed of a material that is reflective of the power that you alone are able to use. There are similar places that reflect the Source, and when one of my people Levitates in the focus of such a huge reflector, we absorb much more of the Source in less time than we could otherwise. I expect you will be able to do the same above the center of your volcano. Remember, like us, but unlike these elves, you absorb power from the sun, and if you use too much of it during the night or while underground you can become depleted. Such large hemispherical reflectors allow a fast recharge, or a strong one. Remember that the focus of the reflector will move as the sun moves across the sky. If you can find a way to locate the focus exactly, the reflector will be of more use to you.

  “Yourself, Talia, Yazadril, Nemia, and Alilia, are welcome in Xervia at your volcano, and in the land of The Lava Shapers, the ports of The Sea People, upon the plains of my race; The People of Morning, and at the properties of Kragorram and Povon. Also, upon the condition that you pre-announce your visit by at least ten minutes, you are allowed to visit the area within five kilometers of The Hall of The Grand Council of Xervia, in the capitol c
ity of our government; Xerv-Upon-Loch-Croshia. The rest of the city, and of Xervia, is still closed to you.”

  “Thank you. Know that any of your peoples are welcome within The Nine Valleys, so long as our alliance holds.” Yazadril nodded.

  “And in the forests of The People of Life.” Alilia added.

  “Thank you. Now I must go, for this meeting has taken longer than we expected. My people will have concern, and I must deliver my report. They know precisely how long I should be gone, though it is but a tiny fraction of a second outside this room.”

  “The High Council of Elves will share a Speaking at nine hours after noon, by the time of The High People. Please include yourself.” Yazadril said, and bowed. “Thank you, and good evening.”

  “Thank you. Farewell till then.” Tithian nodded, and was gone, the reverse-stasis shield gone with her.

  “Quickly Alilia, before it is gone from my mind, help me with this!” Yazadril called as he closed his eyes.

  “Yes I see!” she said as she closed hers too. “I got a good grasp of it when she called attention to it!”

  “Better than mine! I give you what I can! Do it!” Yazadril told her excitedly.

  Alilia held out her hands, and a mirrored sphere thirty centimeters in diameter appeared between them.

  “Ah, this time your intuitive grasp of things made the difference!” Yazadril gasped. “And what I could add took a lot out of me!”

  “I’ll bite! What is it?” Theramin asked.

  “A reverse-stasis field. Done with elven wizardry.” Alilia told him smugly. “That was a good trick to make one in the shape of this room, though. I don’t see how they are made in any shape but a sphere.”

  “Talia, can I see you in the bedroom for a moment?” Mark asked as he picked her up and carried her off.

  “What is it?” she asked as the door closed behind them.

  “I feel like I’m losing my mind!” he told her, and she saw that he was badly shaken. “All this stuff that’s happening to us, and now I’m a cosmic fluke and we’re the key to the future of the world! I’m fighting the urge to just run away from here as fast as I can! Can you help me?”

  “I can.” she nodded. “I can cast Tranquility upon you, as my father did when you two met. I confess I’ve been using similar things on myself for the last few minutes. Suddenly I’ve had as much stimulation of my sense of wonder as I can stand for a while.”

  “All right, go ahead.”

  He’d put the tine band on and closed his eyes, and she cast as he plucked the tines.

  “Wow. Thanks.” he said with a deep sigh, and he hugged her. “Now I can probably deal with it. At least I can if we throw everyone out and go to bed.”

  “Source yes!” she agreed emphatically. “I think we can have them all out of here in ten minutes, without even having to be rude!”

  They went back into the living room, and found Hilsith waiting for them just beyond the doors.

  “How do you feel?” she asked. “You were looking a little shaky a moment ago.”

  “Better. We’ve used a mild Tranquility.” Talia nodded as they went back to their seats.

  “Uh, Hilsith?” Mark asked hesitantly. “Could I ask you to stay for a minute after everyone else leaves? I’d like to talk to you privately, as a Healer.”

  “Certainly.” Hilsith nodded as they sat.

  The other four couples of elves sat quietly, embracing and considering what they’d learned.

  The unicorn pair stood nose to nose, staring into each other’s eyes in silent communication.

  “We’re very pleased to meet you in person, Equemev. You and Tithian are very beautiful, as is our fine steed here.” Talia told her.

  “Thank you. I’m most pleased to meet you and Mark as well, and I congratulate you on your joining. You elves and your husband are also very beautiful.

  “On a more serious note, I think under the new circumstances, the exchanging of techniques we imagined doing with our dragon friends will be of greater urgency. And if there is anything we can do to help you, just let us know.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You are most welcome. We will take our leave now. Povon or I will contact you tomorrow. Farewell till then.”

  And the two unicorns were gone before her farewell could be returned.

  “We are going on vacation now, Yazadril.” Alilia suddenly stated with quiet conviction. “Gorsh and I. We need time to mourn our son. And from what we’ve learned, I will likely be unable to be away from my duties very often over the next few years. Best that we take some time now while we still can. We will take until Bezedil’s funeral at least, if we can take so long without some crisis intervening. Surely the world can spare us for three weeks.

  “Keep me informed, and call if you need me.”

  “Of course.” Yazadril nodded.

  “Alilia, Gorsh, I would be most pleased if you would join myself and Yazadril for a visit of an evening during your vacation.” Nemia smiled as the four stood. “A purely friendly visit, free of any discussion of politics or wizardry. And I would be very much delighted if you would both spend the night with us.”

  “A wonderful idea, Nemia!” Gorsh chuckled. “I have felt your allure since we met when Yazadril married you, and Alilia and I have discovered many very pleasurable techniques over our long lives that I look forward to sharing with you. No doubt Alilia and Yazadril have worked out a few things as well during their long association, and he would not have had time yet to show you all of them!”

  “I will have you know, my esteemed husband, that I have never shared erotic pleasure with Yazadril!” Alilia informed him with a smile, and she actually blushed.

  “Not even once, in almost five thousand years of friendship?” Gorsh asked, astounded.

  “Why ever have you not?” Nemia asked in profound surprise.

  “At first I was intimidated by him, and then for a while he was too much my mentor and more than a bit of a father-figure to me.” Alilia chuckled. “After that he had adopted his look of a venerable ancient, and I was no longer attracted to him that way.”

  “And now?” Nemia smiled as she embraced her husband.

  “Now? Now he is again a most handsome and noble figure.” Alilia giggled. “And of course you are simply delicious! But I doubt he would wish it, as he has never once approached me in that way.”

  Yazadril burst out laughing. “You must be joking, Alilia! I have desired you with great passion since the moment we met! My reasons for not saying so reflect yours, and it never seemed to be the right thing. Till now, that is!”

  “In that case, we will accept your invitation.” Alilia smiled.

  “Excellent. We will plan for a week from tonight, unforeseen events notwithstanding.” Nemia smiled.

  “Thank you.” Alilia smiled, and the four embraced.

  Then Alilia turned to give Talia a quick hug. “Stay strong, until we meet again. We will find ways to deal with the trials life gives us. Again, congratulations on your marriage, and know that we share your deep sorrow for Dalia.”

  She turned to Mark. He expected a hug or a handshake, or even a bow, but she only looked at him with a peculiar expression, and shook her head. Tears formed in her eyes. “I have some salve for my conscience for having cursed Talia, because of the curse cast against me. But I have no such excuse for having cursed you, for it was entirely my own choosing, and I did so out of prejudice against humans. Until I met you I hated your entire race. I still feel justified in hating almost all of the humans I have met from the kingdoms that surround my people. They are either despicable and belligerent, or so spineless and filled with fear of me as to be cringing and unable to treat me as a person. None of them have ever treated me with respect, as I judge such behavior. When I heard that a human had entered these lands, I demanded that you be killed immediately. When Yazadril said that he would not and could not, I volunteered to kill you myself. And I wou
ld have done it.

  “But having known you for only one day, I know that you are unlike any human I have ever met. I know that you must have come from a people who are as kind, and as decent, and as good, as you are. I’ve always known intellectually that some humans had such qualities, but I never felt that truth emotionally. Until today.

  “I am deeply ashamed of my prejudice now. I prejudged you, thinking you would be evil, and that you would consider what I had done to be a blessing. Instead you are decent and kind, and you are cursed. I am… so ashamed. So far as I know, the curse is the first crime I have ever committed. But as Yzandra said, in some ways it is the worst crime that has ever been committed. There is nothing I could ever do that could balance the scales between us, but I must do as I can.

  “I have existing relationships, and responsibilities, and duties. You must never ask me to shirk them or contradict them. Beyond that, and before these witnesses, I swear my life in service to you, and to Talia.”

  “AHHH!!!” Mark yelled and slapped his hands over his eyes, painfully blinded by the flash.

  “I’m sorry about hurting your eyes.” Alilia sniffed. “I’d have warned you, but I knew that if I did, you would try to convince me to not give my obedience. As it is I will be able to do little enough for you. My husband needs me and my people need me, and they must come first. But to balance my offense, I should stand ready to serve you at all times, in any way.”

  Mark shook his head and blinked until his vision cleared. He considered the ancient elven princess and wizard who had just sworn her life to him. At this moment, he could only see a crying tiny young girl whose soul was so wounded that she was willing to throw her life away to make it feel even a little better.

  “Oh Alilia, your poor little thing.” he murmured. He held his arms out to her, and when she moved into his embrace he picked her up, set her on his knee, and gave her a warm hug, soothing her exactly as he used to soothe his little sister when she cried.

  “Alilia, I like to think I’m a good man, though it’s recent that I came to think of myself as a grown man. As well, I feel that my mother’s spirit watches me, and I cannot shame her. I must be the man she hoped I would be.

  “So you must understand that there are only certain things I could ever feel comfortable with asking you to do. If I couldn’t bring myself to ask you for something, because I don’t think it’s an honorable or decent thing to ask, your vow of obedience doesn’t change that. It’s the same with all those other elves who’ve sworn to me. I am at heart a simple fellow. I have Talia as my wife, and I now have more treasures than I can count, and I couldn’t even ask you to wash my dishes as long as I can afford to pay a fair wage for the service and there is anyone who needs the work. You can’t bring back my family. So I have no service for you to perform, Alilia. I only ask that you try to put all these troubles behind you. Try to have a good life. And I will do the same.”

  “Please, you must have some punishment or service for me!” Alilia sobbed into his shoulder. “I’m begging you, there must be something I can do to atone for my crime, or my shame and guilt will fill my mind for all of my days!”

  Mark looked to Talia with a helpless shrug.

  “There are things you can do for my husband, Alilia. Your friendship is a treasure almost any elf would value above all else, and you give it to very few. Give it to him. As well, you are the finest intuitive wizard alive, and you give your training to fewer than your friendship. Given the truth of what Tithian said, Mark will need training in arts of power, and I’m sure that he is much more intuitive that methodical by nature, so your training will be of great value. Give that to him. Perhaps when you have done so, you will feel better.”

  “I will! I will, but that is no atonement!” Alilia sobbed.

  “Would you really feel better if you were made to undergo some discipline for what you’ve done to us?” Talia asked in gentle concern.

  “I would! I should have to endure something for what I’ve done! Anyone else would have to! Thus far my power and position have exempted me, and that is not justice!”

  “Hmm. You have a point there. Perhaps Mark could spank you, as he did me earlier.”

  With a deep sob, Alilia quickly slid down from Mark’s lap and lay over his knee on her tummy.

  For a moment, Mark stared down at her perfectly feminine little buttocks. In this position the tight black trousers of her Battle Wizard’s uniform did no more to obscure her curves than would a coat of black paint. He looked to Talia with an expression of helplessness. “I can’t do this.” he softly told her.

  “I will not slap you to make you do it this time.” Talia smiled. “But think of the things the curse will make you do to me. Imagine doing them. I will be crying and screaming. Can you still not give her the punishment any human child might expect for breaking a window?”

  “Perhaps I could, some other time. But not now, not with the sorrow we all bear still fresh in our hearts, and feeling so... unbalanced by everything that’s happened. And not like this.”

  “Like this?”

  “I’m… I’m so sorry, Talia. I am a foolish young male with no self-control. And Alilia is very much not a human child. Though it is but a shadow of what I feel for you, I am… affected by her allure. I can’t do this. Please, don’t ask me to do this.”

  “All right. Please don’t feel badly about your own nobility, my love, or for your natural instinctive desires either. I will punish her for both of us, though I have not your strength, so I will use a method that will be more disturbing to see. Why don’t you and Dilimon traipse down to the kitchen for snacks and beverages? This will be done when you return.”

  “No, if she is to be punished, I won’t hide from it like a squeamish child.”

  “All right. Why don’t you give her a nice hug while I punish her then?”

  Alilia had regained her feet when Talia had agreed to punish her, and now she stood between Mark’s knees with her thighs pressed against the front edge of his chair’s seat and threw her arms up around his neck, quietly sobbing against his chest. He hugged her around her shoulders.

  “Please sit back, Mark, or I may accidentally strike your knees.” Talia advised, as she gathered Alilia’s cape and passed it forward over the sobbing princess’s shoulder.

  He slid back until his lower back was tight to the chair back, and he and Alilia were both leaning forward to maintain their hug.

  Talia whistled three notes, and a wooden rod a centimeter thick and a meter long appeared in her hand. “I wish this to be no more disturbing than it must be, Alilia, and I will strike you with my utmost.” she stated evenly. “You will let yourself heal one second after each blow, but not before.”

  Alilia nodded.

  “I cannot watch this.” Gorsh softly declared. “I will search the pantry for snacks and beverages as was suggested.”

  “I’ll join you in that.” Theramin nodded as he rose, shaken and pale at the thought of Alilia being punished so.

  When they had left, Talia considered Alilia for a moment. “I find that I am not so noble or forgiving as I had thought, Alilia.” she mused. “To see you like this, vulnerable and awaiting great pain, truly brings home to me that I must stand this way before Mark, over and over again for millennia. That I am truly cursed to suffer this, and other torments far worse than this, at his unwilling hands. Until the end of days. Now I find that I want to punish you, almost as much as I want to punish the one who cursed you and killed Dalia and Bezedil.

  “You know this rod, Alilia. Your curse tells me that it is what you pictured when Yzandra described being struck by such, and so it is what Mark will have to use upon me to satisfy the curse, when it demands that I be whipped in this way.

  “Mark, this will be difficult enough if my aim is true, and worse if I strike where I did not intend. If she lacks the will to hold herself in place, you should do so.”

  “It will be we
ll if she is held in place for a further few moments after you finish.” Hilsith advised. “I will show you something that may be of great value to you in the future.”

  “All right.” Talia nodded. She drew the rod all the way back, and struck Alilia’s buttocks with all the strength in her arm.

  Alilia’s sudden sharp scream was muffled against Mark’s chest, and her arms tightened around his neck with surprising force as her feet frantically danced upon the floor, but she held her place.

  Talia knew that over the next second an angry red welt appeared on Alilia’s flawless pale skin beneath her trousers, then disappeared as she allowed herself to Heal, and Talia gave her another.

  At first it seemed to Mark that his new wife was no more affected by her efforts than a human housewife beating dust out of rugs on a spring morning. But after Talia had delivered four such blows, her manner increased in intensity. She stopped waiting for the last strike to heal before giving the next one, so for an instant Alilia felt the pain of two of them. Still Talia’s intensity and the speed of her blows increased, until Alilia’s self control broke when she was feeling three strikes simultaneously.

  She released Mark’s neck and her screams were suddenly shockingly loud as she twisted around in his arms.

  Talia gestured angrily and there was a relatively modest flash in Mark’s vision. She had cast Movement on Alilia’s wrists and ankles, and she wrenched the crying and screaming princess into a standing spread-eagle position with enough tension to hold her almost rigid. Another gesture brought a large knitted doily flying from beneath a vase and stuffed it into Alilia’s mouth, muffling her again. Now Talia held the rod with both hands and beat Alilia with even greater speed and intensity. Alilia could not help but struggle, but her physical actions at this moment were instinctive, and she still refused to make the conscious effort it would take to save herself from her ordeal by wizardry.

  “Sweet mother of mercy, Talia!” Mark finally cried. “Please, let it be enough!”

  “All right, after three more.” Talia nodded. “And Alilia, you will not let these three Heal by the power! You will allow them to heal naturally, as an ungifted human must. You may hide their appearance, however.”

  Alilia managed to nod.

  Talia took her time giving her the three blows, still swinging with both hands, putting extra effort into strength and accuracy. Then she released the rod and it vanished before it could start to fall. “Leave the gag in until she stops screaming, please.

  “Hilsith?”

  As Talia looked around, the expressions on the faces around her registered. She shook her head. “Perhaps I should not have done this while under a Tranquility, since my empathy is reduced with the rest of my emotions. At the end I was only wondering if I could color her with five marks in a second, before the first was healed. Actually, I think I have overdone it with my Tranquility. I think I should be feeling shame at my brutality right now, but I am not.”

  “I think it just as well.” Hilsith said as she stepped to Alilia’s side. “For Alilia must certainly feel sufficiently chastised. Now go sit with Mark, and watch carefully.”

  Alilia’s muffled voice was no longer screaming, but she was crying hard and squirming in her invisible bonds.

  Hilsith draped Alilia’s cloak behind her again, and began massaging her shoulders. “What I will do is done as a Healer, Alilia. It will help you to feel somewhat better, and it should be of great help in allowing Mark and Talia to effectively live with your curse. May I therefore have your permission to perform an intimacy upon your person?”

  Alilia frantically nodded, and Hilsith began caressing her torso and nuzzling her neck.

  “You are in a state of great tension at this moment, Alilia. I will help you to release it.” Hilsith told her, calmly and softly. One hand slid down Alilia’s tummy, and began caressing her loins through her clothing, the other stimulated the bound princess’s right breast.

  “I can’t watch this!” Mark declared as he abruptly stood, almost upsetting Talia from his chair’s arm. Tears of outrage, frustration, and emotional pain flowed down his face.

  Hilsith turned her head to catch his eye, as she continued her stimulation of Alilia. Her face and voice were stern. “You will watch and note every detail with all of your attention, Mark Longstrider, if you wish to ever have my services as a Healer in the future!” she lectured. “This is for her good and yours! You are an adult who aspires to be a knight! In the years ahead you will likely see the horrors of the battlefield, and the greater horrors of the surgeries! I once had to deliver the child of a woman who was impaled upon a spear, and if you cannot control yourself and your emotions at the sight you are faced with now, you will be of little use at times like those! Sit down!”

  Mark stared at her in shock for a moment, then abruptly sat.

  Hilsith turned her attention back to Alilia, who was still crying out behind her gag and squirming in her magic bonds. “Ah, she is almost ready. Release the tension, Alilia.” she crooned. “Let it go. You are close now. Let go.” She resumed nuzzling Alilia’s neck, and slid one hand beneath her cloak to caress her tortured behind. Alilia’s hips drove forward to escape the pain, and Hilsith’s caress upon her loins became firm, then forceful. “Now, Alilia, now.” She murmured, and gave the bound princess a short, sharp slap upon her pained buttocks, then another.

  Alilia’s cries changed in character, as did her motions. Her eyes flew open as wide as they could, and Hilsith removed her gag and kissed her full upon the mouth.

  Alilia’s spasms went on and on under the relentless stimulation, her cries muffled now by Hilsith’s kiss. Finally she strained so hard and still against her bonds that Mark feared she would part a tendon. A violent spasm passed through her straining body, then a final one, before she abruptly sagged bonelessly in her magic bonds, panting and softly crying, utterly spent.

  Hilsith hugged her tight. “Release her, Talia.” she asked, then effortlessly took the weight as Alilia collapsed in her arms. She carried her to the nearest divan, lay her on her side upon it, arranged her limp limbs, then she sat beside her patient and gently caressed her face.

  She glanced over at Mark and Talia for a moment, then spoke as she returned her gaze to Alilia and wiped her tears away. “Alilia achieved sexual ecstasy just now. I think you both realized that. So, what have you learned from what you have seen?”

  After thinking about it for a moment, Mark ventured an answer. “I can only think that yours must be the most skilled of caresses, to have brought her pleasure after such torment, and while in such pain. I think you mean for me to learn such techniques, so I can pleasure Talia after I have to hurt her, and so reduce the trauma of the ordeal.”

  “Well said, but not entirely correct, for my caresses are not so extraordinarily skilled in that way, nor did I use any but the most common of techniques. Talia? Any thoughts?”

  “Alilia must be one of those who are sexually aroused by such events, whether she wills it or not.” Talia speculated. “I have heard that there are those of every race who are affected that way, and that anyone might enjoy a bit of roughness and pain while in the throes of their strongest passion.”

  “You are entirely correct in your last two points, but completely wrong in your first.” Hilsith said. “On the contrary, the whipping Alilia received was an experience she truly dreaded, and she is less inherently predisposed to be sexually aroused by what she endured than most.

  “My point is that despite her aversion to the experience and her quite normal dislike of pain, she was still able to achieve ecstasy, for every kind of arousal causes most of the same reactions in our bodies. Whether it is fear or anger or sexuality or extreme joy, arousal is arousal. In their extremes, they all cause us to cry out, to make violent motions, to shed tears while our hearts race and our breathing quickens, and our sensitivity to pain is reduced. Every part of our bodies prepare themselves for action. It’s easy fo
r one of these forms of arousal to trigger another. Thus, some laugh upon the battlefield, some cry at weddings and births, and some feel desire with fear. This similarity is also reflected in the sound of involuntary cries, and the sounds some make while experiencing powerful pleasure and ecstasy can be almost indistinguishable from cries of pain.

  “I do indeed intend that you pleasure Talia while you torment her, Mark. And whether you wish it not, you will feel physical pleasure while you are raping her. Any of us can be conditioned in this way to enjoy such experiences, to lose our dread of them, to eagerly anticipate experiencing or administering pain and bondage. Talia will probably never truly enjoy feeling sexual pain, but if she always feels pleasure at the same time, her subconscious mind will become conditioned to associate sexual pain with pleasure, the excitement of it will add to her erotic excitement, and she will eventually be able to enjoy the experience as a whole. Thus can your curse become a blessing, if you have the courage to choose it. But it must be completely voluntary, for only then can you take pleasure from pain. If such an experience is forced upon you, either by an assailant or by your curse, it can only traumatize you. You must accept it, and more than that, you must embrace it, right from the beginning.”

  “I… I fear that if I do as you ask, such behaviors will eventually lead me to other cruelties, until my soul is lost to evil.” Mark revealed. “For a moment, I feared that was happening to Talia, when she was whipping Alilia.”

  “An understandable fear.” Hilsith nodded. “Know that those who genuinely enjoy inflicting pain for its own sake are indeed evil, and they tend to cruel sexual practices as well. But, most of those who only enjoy giving or receiving pain in a purely sexual context are good hearted folk, they have simply become jaded and bored with milder sexual activities, and they would never dream of sharing painful sexuality with another unless their partner was willing and eager for the experience. This happens more often with those who have lived long lives, for it is easy to become jaded after many centuries, and with those who have not found love, for being in love keeps the simplest lovemaking fresh and exciting.

  “While you two are both young and in love, you can still choose it. You can purposefully develop such propensities in yourselves. And I think that therein lies your best hope for happiness over the long millennia ahead, for you cannot choose to ignore the curse.”

  “Oh Hilsith, you have given me the strongest reason for hope I’ve had since I was cursed!” Talia cried emotionally as she hugged Mark’s neck. “Such a powerful thought, that my curse could become a blessing, if only I can accept it and embrace it, fully and whole-heartedly!

  “Will you do it for me, Mark? Will you always give me pleasure with what the curse forces us to do? Please tell me you will!”

  “I will. As well as I am able, I will do everything I can to lessen your displeasure, always. I promise it. But, please forgive me if I still dread it, both hurting you, and enjoying doing so.”

  “Again, such dreads are natural and understandable.” Hilsith assured him. “But if you are consistent in a program of treatments as we have described, your dread will fade in time, as you see that the pleasures you receive while fulfilling the curse have not caused you to become otherwise corrupted by evil, and that the rest of your character remains the same. Nor will Talia’s spirit be scarred by her part in it.”

  Gorsh and Theramin returned bearing cheese, sausage, bread, mustard sauce, white wine and ale. They set them all down on the nearest table, and went to their wives.

  “Take me home, husband.” Alilia murmured tearfully. “Take me home and make love with me, as gently as you can.”

  Gorsh slid his arms under her and carefully cradled her as he stood. He turned and addressed the room as he gazed tearfully down at her. “Know that I hold no blame or rancor for this, for I know she brought it upon herself. Farewell, until we meet again.” he said, his voice thick with emotion. Then they vanished.

  There was a long silence, then Theramin spoke. “It’s been a long day, and the sun will rise within minutes. Already the sky lightens, and we will also take our leave. I will see all of you tomorrow.”

  “Congratulations again. Feel free to call or visit at any time.” Yzell told Mark and Talia. “We will fly home, and perhaps enjoy the dawn before we retire. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.” Mark and Talia called, as the midwife and the horticulturist let themselves out the balcony doors.

  “Come my love.” Dilimon smiled as he stood and helped Yalla to her feet. “I hope that you will accept my invitation to my bed, for what remains of the night.”

  “I will.” Yalla absentmindedly answered. “I admit to being fascinated by what we’ve seen and heard. I wonder if there is a position where you could kiss my flower while giving me some light spanks on my behind, just enough to sting a little?”

  Then she looked to Mark and Talia to offer her goodbye, and chuckled. “I’m sorry, Mark. I see by your blush that I have scandalized you yet again. Yet I think that you would do well to abandon your prudishness. You are now long-lived and magical, married to an elf and living among us. In every way that matters, you are now an elf. Though one would never guess to look at you, of course! Try to be more open and accepting of words of sexuality, and its healthy expression. If you can, you will be much more content among us.”

  “Ah, I know you’re right.” Mark chuckled. “And my reaction is only partly one of being scandalized, as you elves put it. Though I was married in white, I like to think I have healthy sexual desires and fantasies, and some have been vivid indeed! But none more so than the picture I got from your question of possible positions, for I realized that with the ability to Levitate, the possibilities are endless!”

  “Not so much as you might think!” Dilimon laughed. “Only a very capable wizard could Levitate safely and with control while taken by the heights of passion! But then,” he chuckled as he eyed Yalla speculatively, “One who is concentrating on giving pleasure, while not receiving it, might be able to cast Levitate safely upon his partner!”

  “I think I could lift myself and my partner while giving pleasure!” Yalla laughed. “And I know I could control myself alone even during the most intense ecstasy, for I have experienced it while flying home from Sming a few years past!”

  “Amazing!” Dilimon laughed. “Well now we simply must hurry home and try it!”

  “Goodnight you two!” Talia laughed as she stood and offered them a hug. “Have you set a date for your wedding?”

  “Not soon, I think!” Yalla giggled as she turned to hug Mark. “I will let the splendor of your wedding fade from mind a bit first, else mine might be overly compared with yours, and it will be a long time before anyone else’s will equal that!”

  Mark appreciated that Dilimon offered him a firm handshake, arm-wrestling style as Rangers do, rather than a hug. The elf gave him a warm smile and clapped him affectionately on the elbow. “It might interest you to know that Yalla and I are the last to offer our wedding gift. We have a secret place of wondrous beauty that no others know of, for we were the first to discover it in forty thousand years, and it is about a kilometer from here. As our gift, we will share it with you. When you have a mood for privacy in a place of beautiful solitude, yet have no wish to travel far, call us, and we will take you there.”

  “Thank you.” Mark grinned. “I must say that I feel a strong affinity with you, Dilimon. I will have many great friendships here, but you are of my generation, and seem my most alike counterpart among the elves I’ve met. And Yalla and Talia are both wizards. I hope the four of us can share a close friendship.”

  “I’m sure we will, Mark, but I should tell you that among elves, youth is in one’s heart, in one’s attitude toward life, one’s behavior and style. I don’t wish you to be misinformed about us, so I hope it will not reduce your feeling of camaraderie towards us to learn that I am approaching my three hundredth year of life, while Y
alla has seen four centuries since her birth.”

  “Wow! I’d never have guessed! You seem so much my own age, a year or two more at most! And it’s strange that Yalla seems only a year or two older than you, as I would have judged her to be only a bit older than Nemia, who I already know to be two hundred fifty-eight!”

  “While I find it absolutely staggering to think that despite the poise, confidence, and maturity you have shown today, you are only sixteen years old!” Dilimon marveled. “No elf younger than forty-five could ever equal the quality of your behavior under such new and extreme circumstances! The majority of elves with twenty times your age seem childish in comparison! The speed of human development is amazing, but still, you must be a champion among them!”

  “Well, I’ll be seventeen in four days.” Mark chuckled. “Perhaps I’ll seem more like my age to you then. I’d like to have a small gathering of friends to mark the occasion. I’m not sure though. Since Ti… Since the unicorn diplomat’s revelations, it suddenly seems that we have much to do, and little time to do it in.”

  “We can spare at least an hour or two for a small birthday party, love.” Talia assured him. “Even the greatest cannot spend every waking moment on duty. We must take the time to enjoy life as well, or we will lose our effectiveness and our happiness both.”

  “So true.” Dilimon smiled as he moved close beside Yalla and put an arm around her waist. “I’m sure we’ll meet tomorrow or soon on one matter or another. Farewell till then, and to you also.” he nodded and smiled to the other three, who returned the gestures.

  “Goodnight!” Mark and Talia chorused in return, before the two sentries also left by the balcony door.

  “I wonder why Yalla’s a wizard, and Dilimon’s not?” Mark mused when they were gone.

  “Why would you wonder that?” Nemia asked.

  “Well, she glows no brighter than many I’ve met today who aren’t wizards, and Dilimon is a lot brighter than she is.”

  “Dilimon does indeed have strength in the Power, and he knows a few sentry-oriented spells that use all of it.” Yazadril nodded. “But his aptitude as a Sentry is even greater! His woodscraft in particular is almost miraculous! With no use of the power, he can stalk close enough to a rabbit to catch it by hand!”

  “Huh.” Mark grunted, and scratched his chin.

  “Your fingers expect the beard, eh?” Yazadril chuckled as he rubbed his own chin. “And you don’t seem particularly impressed by my revelation of Dilimon’s skill.”

  “I can do that.” Mark shrugged.

  “Amazing!”

  “Hey, it’s not every sixteen year old that can qualify as a Finitran Ranger, you know!” Mark chuckled. “Most are twenty-four when they complete their apprenticeship. But then, all I ever wanted was to be like my father, and I took to the activities of my profession like a fish to water. And my father gave me serious training from the very beginning, though he always made it fun. I first shot a bow the same week that I first walked, and I don’t mean a childish plink, either! He wouldn’t give me an arrow for the little bow he’d made me, until I had the proper procedure mastered; visualize, inhale, draw and aim, exhale, release with your eyes open, follow the shot so you can find your shaft if you miss. And though he knew I’d be too big to use them in only a few months, he spent as much care on my first weapons as he did on his own, and they were of professional quality and accuracy despite their tiny size. He used exactly the same words and motions to train me to the bow as a toddler as he used to train grown men he respected. I hit a pumpkin six meters away on my very first shot, and I thought that was a very fine thing at the time! As for woodscraft, I once stalked a canny wolf who was becoming a pest, and got close enough to take him with my knife!

  “Now, I know all that sounds like bragging, but I never mentioned it at home since they all already knew it. I just want you to know that I’m very serious about my profession, and that you can count on me if you need a Ranger who knows his business a sight better than most!”

  “Amazing! Our knights have a few surprises coming their way, I think!” Yazadril laughed. “And as for Yalla being a wizard, remember that one does not need to be able to wield a huge brush to be a great painter. Her aptitudes make her a perfect Sentry Wizard, and her skill in her specialty is impressive. Besides, she is very skilled at drawing power from her squad mates, whom she has worked with closely for decades, Dilimon among them.

  “I see. And I’m reminded that no one seemed to think Alilia should contradict you when you proclaimed yourself First Wizard, though her glow is the brightest, and yours is not.”

  “Exactly. Though there is no doubt in my mind that she is Second Wizard. And she is gaining ability faster than I. Most likely she will surpass me within twenty centuries, if we both live so long. But for now, her intuitive style and unmatched power are my perfect complement, and we make a great team. I would think the two of us working together could match any two spell-casters of any race, and I don’t exclude the dragons from that!”

  “By the missing gods, I now find it hard to believe that she let me whip her so severely, when she could have escaped it an any time, or blasted me to dust for that matter!” Talia declared. “Do you think I did wrong in it, Father?”

  “If I thought so, I’d have spoken at the time. I love Alilia like my younger sister, but there is no doubt that her assumption of unwanted and sometimes onerous duties have given her a mean streak. As well, you are my daughter and I love you very dearly. She may have been under a curse, but the idea of what she chose to do to you and Mark came from her own personality, not from that of our enemy. It nearly broke our friendship this morning in the Council Hall. If you and Mark hadn’t responded so well to the offense you’ve suffered, it still might have. I try to keep it in perspective, but the thought of what you will suffer because of what Alilia has done to you, after all that I have done for her, fills me with outrage! I will keep my friendship with her for now, and we will see how things work out. But know this! I felt nothing but satisfaction to see you whip her as you did, to see her squirm and cry as befits the colossally spoiled brat that she sometimes is!”

  “Thanks Pa.” she told him with a smile and a hug.

  “The wheels of justice turn slowly for us, unless there is pressing urgency.” Nemia stated thoughtfully. “But sooner or later, the Councils of The People of Life and of The High People will be discussing Alilia’s behavior with great seriousness. Her crime of cursing an innocent person is mitigated somewhat because she was under a curse herself, but it is compounded by being a crime of passion. No matter what happens, leaders of great nations are expected to control their emotions and work through proper legal procedures, even upon the death of a child and while under a curse, and to not lash out personally at those who are not under their jurisdiction.

  “Under the circumstances that prevailed when it was done, to curse Talia for a decade would have raised only interest and eyebrows, to curse her for a century would have raised voices and questions. To curse her for a millennium would have raised outrage and protests throughout the elven world. What she did is so far beyond people’s experience that they only wait to see what will happen. Her people will be feeling humiliated by what she has done, and ours will support a serious sanction.

  “She may have finally pushed her Council too far. Think about it, Yazadril. I think she has finally gotten her wish. They will keep her as First Wizard and First Battle Wizard of The People of Life, to keep her power harnessed to the good of her people. But they will almost certainly strip her of leadership for a millennium at least. And she would like nothing better.”

  “She would come here, and make her home here.” Hilsith stated with surety. “Her vow of service to Mark and Talia was as powerful as any I’ve seen given under informal circumstances. She would come here to serve them, even if she has to drag Gorsh along by his ear to make him accompany her.”

  They considered that.


  “You’re probably right.” Yazadril nodded with a shrug.

  “I wonder if she will work her way into their bed.” Nemia mused. “It’s obvious that she’s very attracted to both Mark and Talia. And Mark mentioned that she is one of two females he finds nearly as attractive as Talia.”

  “Oh? Who was the other?” Talia asked in surprise.

  “Why me, of course!” Nemia laughed, and did a joyous and impromptu pirouette.

  “Obvious in hindsight, if he prefers myself and Alilia!” Talia laughed. “We three are certainly of a type, even with Alilia’s lighter hair color!”

  “Yes. It’s too bad that his rural human attitudes caused him to reject me when I suggested I might spend a night with you!”

  “Yes, but then, he is very young. He will come to his senses after a while.” Talia consoled with mock-seriousness.

  “I will make allowances for the ways of other cultures.” Mark muttered to himself with exaggerated patience. “I will release my prudery. May fate give me strength.”

  He heaved a mighty sigh, then pasted a bright smile on his face. “Why Nemia, I do admit that you are a delectable little tidbit indeed! And, were it not for the fact that it would feel like a complete betrayal of Talia and Yazadril, no matter how they felt about it, I would love to mount you with great vigor and overwhelming passion until your exhausted cries had deafened me!”

  “Oooh, strong riposte, young man!” Hilsith laughed. “Yazadril never does so well when they are teasing him!”

  “You suffer this silliness as well, Yazadril?” Mark asked in exaggerated surprise and concern.

  “Sadly, yes.” Yazadril sighed. “You would think that my lofty position and impressive credentials would offer some protection from such trials, but alas, they do not.”

  “Alas!?” Nemia laughed. “Alas, you say? I think the stresses of the play do tell upon him, that he may even faint upon the stage at any moment!

  “Mark, on the other hand, seems a stronger target now, my pretty daughter! And since Alilia is now sworn to you, if she becomes irritating while loitering about and hoping to be of service, you can have Mark give her a more erotic spanking than the one she received tonight, and perhaps have him ravish her roughly until she swoons from it!”

  “That’s a thought!” Talia laughed, then adopted a thoughtful pose. “But he may refuse. On the other hand, I could bind her up again, and then...”

  “Hey! That’s enough of that I think!!” Mark declared with a headshake at their ribald audacity. “Yazadril, I’d appreciate it if you’d take your wife home and spank her, while I spank mine, and then perhaps they’ll adopt more serious attitudes than their present ones!”

  “I’ll hold you to that!” Talia giggled.

  “Will you, Yazadril?” Nemia teased. “Will you take me home and spank me?”

  “See if I won’t, mischievous wife!” Yazadril declared with a grin, and gave her a playful swat through the many layers of her gown. “Furthermore, I’ll give you as much of it as you deserve!”

  “Ooh! All right, but as Yalla said, you must kiss me while you do!” Nemia giggled, rubbing her bottom in feigned pain.

  “Fine!” Yazadril laughed. “Mark, Talia, I would invite you for breakfast, but no doubt we’ll all sleep through it, and besides that, breakfast or brunch in bed is traditional for newlyweds on their first morning. Why don’t you join us for a late lunch? We’ll all go down to my workshop after that, and see what we can do about awakening your latent abilities.”

  “We’ll be there, and thank you. Thank you all for everything.” Mark said as Nemia stepped over to give him and Talia a quick hug.

  “You’re very welcome.” Yazadril assured him as they shared a hearty handshake, then he hugged his daughter. “Be well, my dear.” he told her. “I love you so much, and I am so very proud of you.”

  Nemia took both her hands, and smiled. “Talia, on my wedding night, after we made love, I had trouble sleeping. I’d never spent the night at Yazadril’s, and it seemed like a big and empty and strange place, and I missed my old room at my parent’s tree. Of course I grew comfortable with our home in time, but in case the same should happen to you, know that you are both welcome to your room at our tree.”

  “Thank you Mother. I doubt I will, but we’ll see.”

  “Nemia, Yazadril, before you go, I wish to ask you something.” Hilsith smiled. “Do you think you will be going directly to sleep when you arrive home?”

  “Of course not! Look at my new Yazadril!” Nemia laughed. “He’s never looked like this since long before I was born, and though I’ve loved him dearly anyway, this new aspect of his is incredibly exciting! I intend to ride this stallion till he founders!”

  “And before that, I must inform our council and the other elven royalty that Alilia and I have committed them to an alliance with Xervia!” Yazadril chuckled. “Though with the look Nemia is giving me, it will be a very brief notice!”

  “As I’d hoped.” Hilsith smiled. “Nemia, you know how much we enjoyed each other, on the occasion that we shared. And Yazadril, since you emerged from your bedroom in that armor and sword, looking like a great leader and a noble warrior, I have throbbed with desire for you. I have never desired a couple so much as I desire you both at this moment, and I would be deeply honored if you would allow me to pleasure you.”

  “I think it would be our pleasure to pleasure you, Hilsith!” Nemia grinned.

  “It would, though Nemia, I did not know you had shared pleasure with Hilsith!” Yazadril exclaimed in surprise.

  “You never asked! It was during the early stages of my pregnancy. You were off at a Council meeting, and I was thinking of you, and she was examining me and coaching me on delivery techniques. One thing led to another, and we spent a very pleasant afternoon indeed! Then my parents came to visit just before you came home, and I simply never got around to describing it to you.”

  Hilsith smiled at the fond memory. “I will join you at your home in a few moments. Mark wishes to speak to me as his Healer before I go.”

  “All right. We’ll see you in moments, and you two tomorrow.” Nemia grinned, and she and Yazadril vanished in a light swirl of air.

  “Uh, Talia, is it all right if I speak to Hilsith alone for a moment?” Mark hesitantly asked.

  “If I can guess what you wish to ask her, can I stay?” Talia asked with a mischievous grin, and continued before he could answer. “You wonder if your mighty phallus will be too much for me, that our coupling could injure me, or simply be as impossible as passing a cow through a keyhole by kicking its behind! Am I right?”

  “I’ll be pickled! You are!” he exclaimed in astonishment.

  “Well, there is a saying among all humanoid women that Dalia told me.” she giggled. “If a woman is completely unready for mating, then the smallest male is too large, and when she is at the very peak of her passion, the largest male is too small! We must simply ensure that my passion is fully inflamed before we proceed. The curse and my elven healing will protect me from all harm, and since the curse will likely not strike me yet, I can cast upon myself to greatly lessen the pain. I suppose I could eliminate all my pain, but losing a girl’s virginity should not be like that. If a girl is not willing to endure a little pain the first time, she is not ready, and if she becomes pregnant she will certainly be unprepared to give birth. I will allow it to hurt as much as it would if you were the size of an average elf. No, more than that I think. As much as an average human girl would feel with you as you are now. Or perhaps a large human girl.”

  “Your saying about a female’s state of readiness is generally true, but not in the most extreme cases.” Hilsith pointed out. “Look at him, Talia. He is almost a giant, and he would not have to be particularly well endowed in proportion to the rest of him for it not to be the case for you. I know you are trying to reassure him, but the pain of it may be more than you can deal with. He may injure you repeatedly
with every thrust, and though you may Heal repeatedly, that is more Healing than I want to leave to you or to the curse. If the same tissue is injured and Healed too many times, even elven Healing can go awry, as the body tries to form scar tissue and is prevented from doing so. The tumors that can form under those circumstances are themselves magical in nature, and are the most difficult challenge a Healer can face.

  “Mark, I must know the size of your erect phallus. Please use your hands to show me its size, or simply tell me, if you’ve measured it since reaching your full growth. If it is truly too much for her, I have ways of correcting that, but I must know, for they are specialized spells that I will not entrust to Talia without years of training as a Healer. Be as exact as you can, neither exaggerating your claim nor diminishing it out of modesty.”

  Mark found the conversation almost too bizarre to be embarrassed about, and he was reassured by Hilsith’s professional manner, which helped him to be objective. He held the fingers and thumb of his huge right hand in a slightly open circle. “It’s that big around.” He held his flattened hands away from each other. “And about that long. That’s a bit harder to judge exactly.”

  “Great source above!” Talia quietly breathed.

  “Ah. You are only a bit more well endowed than average for a man of your overall dimensions.” Hilsith calmly pronounced. “I will not have to alter her pelvic structure or use any serious surgical spells, but that is more than Talia should deal with on her own. I can make it safe for her, but it is not a simple procedure.

  “It would be more practical to simply make your phallus smaller. Since my spells don’t seem to affect you, perhaps you could have Yazadril do it, as his seem to be able to. I would give him the spell, which is far simpler than those I would need for Talia, and with his skill and exactitude in the Power, he would be reliable with it.”

  The young couple stared at her, stunned by the idea.

  Mark nodded gravely, though he was obviously very uncomfortable with it. “I’ll do it. We should be able to make love without it paining her, and it will hurt her less when I have to, ah, hurt her.”

  “Absolutely not!” Talia stated feistily. “And I will not hear another word about it!”

  The healer smiled. “You are a noble couple. Faced with the same decision, I would expect most females to be in favor of that, and most males opposed.”

  “You can make it safe for me, I trust you completely in that, and I must have the complete procedures, for the curse will allow no less.” Talia replied. “I do not wish to know what they entail in any greater detail, and I see no reason for Mark to have to hear it. He is being brave, but he is looking a little green.”

  “You are right. “ Hilsith nodded. “Know that these spells will protect you from harm, so you will not require repeated Healing, but your mating with Mark will still be painful. So much so, that it will probably not be possible to block the pain completely without numbing you to all other sensation as well. Also, the activation of the spells will be a powerful sensation, felt in addition to other stimulations you are feeling at the time, so to leave your experience as natural as possible, they will not activate until they are needed. Their activation only requires the tiniest fraction of a second, a lag you cannot detect, so you will feel them and his penetration simultaneously.”

  “I understand. Proceed, please.”

  “All right. Recline upon this divan.”

  When she had, Hilsith cast effortless diagnostics, reading the state of Talia’s body as a scholar reads a page of print.

  She gathered power, achieved a state of perfect serenity, and cast with a quiet, complex humming.

  “Done. And flawlessly, if I say so myself.” she reported as she repeated her diagnostics.

  “Thank you very much, Hilsith.” Talia smiled.

  “You’re quite welcome. As always, as payment for my services I ask only that you make a contribution to healing research, in time or power or currency. In your case it can wait a few decades, till you’re less busy.

  “And now I’ll take my leave.” she said as she and Talia stood. She gave them both a quick hug, turned toward the door into the corridor, then reconsidered and turned back. “Talia, I’m not skilled at Flight or Translocation, and I confess to impatience right now. Would you Translocate me to your parents’ home?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Bye Hilsith!” Mark called as Talia whistled and gestured, and then, finally, he was alone with his bride.

  They smiled at each other for a moment, and her smile was mischievous, his shy, but both were also loving and affectionate.

  “Come.” she softly said as she took his hand, and she led him into the bedroom, closing the door behind. There were thick curtains closed over the windows, blocking out the growing daylight completely.

  “Please, sit on the edge of the bed.” she instructed, and looked around the room. “I think firelight would be beautiful.”

  “It would. Though I never need light to see you, my love, for I see you clearly by the glow of your own magic.” he quietly chuckled. “For that matter, this whole place has its own glow. Dim, but bright enough to go to the privacy in the middle of the night without a candle. It’s a good thing too. I figure you’ve all been using some kind of purely magical light spell since sundown, and I can’t see it. It hasn’t mattered, since I see so well by elf-light.

  “By the way, are you sure that’s safe?”

  Talia had been taking split firewood from a woodbox next to the fireplace and stacking it in the hearth. She paused and considered, just as she had been about to light it.

  “I mean after all, the fireplaces are made out of wood, the same as the rest of the place.” Mark continued. “I assumed they were purely decorative, and were included only because the castles this one is based on would have stone fireplaces in the same locations.”

  Talia tapped her fingertips against the wood at the edge of the hearth, then further away on the wall and back again, then softly laughed. “No, my father thinks of everything. The wood within a meter of the flame chamber and the chimney above has been petrified. It looks almost exactly the same as the rest, but it’s solid stone. I can guarantee that there will be a filtering spell inside the chimney, so that the rest of the neighborhood won’t have to smell our smoke. I’m sure it’s safe, and if I’m wrong I can extinguish it before it spreads.”

  “I should’ve known.” Mark chuckled as she started the logs blazing with a gesture. “And you look beautiful in the firelight.”

  “Thank you.” she smiled as she gracefully crossed the room to him.

  The bed he sat upon was huge in area but low, intricately carved from a close-grained medium-brown hardwood matching the rest of the bedroom furniture, four-posted and canopied with white lace curtains tied back with white linen cord. It was low enough that he only had to bow his head slightly to meet Talia’s kiss as she melted into his arms, and they gently embraced.

  Their kiss was tentative at first, then inquisitive and exploring of exquisite sensation, then breathlessly passionate.

  She broke the kiss and leaned her forehead on his shoulder, and her glow increased noticeably. “Ah, Mark, that was most fine.” she sighed. “And do you feel that?”

  “I do, and I recognize it from the moments after our vows. After I recovered.” he nodded. “It’s magic love. It’s beautiful.”

  “It is. My beloved, I wish to feel it entirely. I will remove my Tranquilities. Do you wish the same?”

  “Yes.”

  She began to let the spells fade, then gasped as Mark’s breath hissed in between his teeth.

  “Not so fast!” he whispered.

  She held the spell at that strength for a moment, then let it ever-so-slowly diminish.

  “Never has anyone felt such a love as this.” Talia whispered in amazement. “I can’t even imagine what it must be like for you, bolstered by many hundreds of Compulsions.”

  “I
t’s pretty intense.” he admitted, and took a few deep breaths.

  She leaned back enough to meet his eye, and spoke with warm sincerity. “Mark, there is a sequence of activities that I have imagined sharing with my husband on my wedding night since I was old enough to be interested in such things. I know that males like to take the lead on such occasions, but it would mean a great deal to me if you would indulge me, in allowing me to provide the sequence of our pleasures.”

  He chuckled. “Ah, Talia. I know how to kiss you, and I know certain caresses.” he murmured as he traced his fingertip along the line of her jaw, brushed it over her ear, then down the side of her neck.

  She shivered, then grinned. “You know them well.” she giggled. “That certainly increased my arousal!”

  “I watched my parents do that many times, and I follow my father’s example in all things. But they never allowed us children to see anything more, as is the way among humans. To be honest, all I know about what comes after that is what I’ve seen of the matings of beasts of field and forest. And I’m somewhat terrified that I’ll do the wrong thing, and spoil the moment or worse. So I gladly agree to your request, and with relief at that! I imagine you are far better informed and educated on such matters than I am. If you suspected that to be so, and made your request to spare us both from my amateurish fumbling, I’m grateful for that as well, though I’d just as soon not know if that’s the case!”

  “Thank you. Your honesty is wonderful.” she smiled. “It’s recognized among my people that there is one most-natural sequence of love-making, from the first kiss to the final cuddle, and my fantasies for tonight have only minor variations on it. I will add one more variation, inspired by our unique circumstances.

  “First, we will kiss some more. While we do that, you will caress me through my dress where you like, enjoying the feeling of my form, and you can show me all your caresses.

  “Then, I will step back into the middle of the room till I am well lit by the firelight. I will remove my footwear, then slowly undress. You are so polite that if I look at you while I do so, you will want to meet my eye. So, I will look away, and you will feast your eyes upon me while I turn slowly in the firelight.” She giggled. “Then I will dance naked before you and sing a love song, but it will be a short one.

  “You will remove your footwear. Then you will stand and undress, and while doing so will watch me as I recline upon the bed in various poses meant to fire your ardor as powerfully as can be done without touching you, and feast my own eyes on your magnificent nakedness being revealed.

  “You will lay upon your back on the bed, your head and shoulders propped upon the pillows and against the headboard. I will delight in examining your phallus and acorns from close range, then I will carefully take your rampant maleness in hand, and gift it with the deep kiss. Or in your case, perhaps I will lack the capacity to kiss more than the end of it. If so I will ask Hilsith to help me with a spell for it tomorrow.” She giggled again. “In any case it will not matter how much I can kiss, for at that point you will be in such a state of exquisite excitement, and your sensitivity at such a fine pitch, that you will reach ecstasy within a moment or two. When you do, I will drink your nectar, every tiny drop of it.

  “This is important. You will be a great warrior, a great wizard, perhaps a central figure in the world. It has happened that such males in the past have spilled their seed upon the bed, and it was later stolen, for it is still potent for a short time if left there, and for a longer time if magically preserved. There are many reasons why some would choose to breed your child without your knowledge and consent, and you must not let that happen. Your seed must never be spilled. You must always emit it within me, or within another elven female, or a human female whom you trust can drink your nectar. If you mount a human female you must make sure that any seed that is spilled from her within twenty minutes afterward is destroyed by fire, or another similarly thorough method.”

  “My seed can’t be, ah, spilled, from within an elven female?” he asked in surprise. “I mean, sometimes after breeding the livestock it was more than a little messy.”

  “It cannot, not in enough volume to be worth collecting. Take my word for it. You will understand when it happens.

  “After I have drunk your nectar, you will lay back and I will explore the great delightful vastness of you, pleasuring you everywhere with my touch and my kiss, and I may ask you to roll over for a while or otherwise pose for my inspection and your stimulation, until I return at last to your rampant phallus. I will bestow the deep kiss upon you there again, taking the time for both of us to enjoy every possible aspect of it, until I drink your nectar again.

  “Then, my body is yours to explore. You will touch me and examine me everywhere as closely as you wish, guiding me to turn this way and that, posing me in any position you find enticing, simply enjoying it, doing nothing that is specifically meant to pleasure me.

  “Then, when my anticipation is unbearable, I will tell you so. You will kiss me and caress me again, exciting me greatly, and I will guide your touch to my most sensitive places.

  “This is the part I have added tonight. When my excitement is high you will sit against the headboard, and I will lay across your lap on my tummy with my head to your left. You will reach beneath me with your left hand and stimulate my bosom and my flower as I show in the previous step, and with your right hand you will gently pat my behind. You will slowly use more force with that hand, and I will tell you when it starts to sting. As I near my ecstasy my natural pain tolerance will increase, and upon my instruction you will gradually spank me a little bit harder, and a little harder, and we will see how much I can handle without interrupting my passion or using magic. When I reach ecstasy you will rub my trigger very quickly, and continue to spank me until I finish my ecstasy and tell you to stop. You will then immediately lay me on my back, push my knees up to my shoulders, and bestow the deep kiss upon my most sensitive places, adapting the techniques I’ll have shown you for your hands and fingers. I will be so sensitive right after my ecstasy that when you kiss me there the pleasure of the lightest touch will be more intense than I can voluntarily withstand. You will have to hold me in place, or I will thrash and squirm out of your grasp, whether I wish to or not.

  “After I reach ecstasy the second time, you will again sit back against the headboard. I will stand over you, facing you with my feet outside your hips, and I will lower myself upon your maleness, slowly taking you within me, until we are completely joined. I will probably wail and cry like a little girl, as human males are wont to say, and I may even scream a bit, but you absolutely must not impede me!

  “When we are fully joined, we will both hold absolutely still until we have become somewhat accustomed to the intensity of the sensations of it. Then you will find, as I begin to move upon you, that you are in excellent position to kiss me or caress me anywhere and everywhere. At such times a female likes to be stimulated over as much of her body as possible, but spend more time on my mouth, face, neck, bosom, and behind, and be sure to caress my single most sensitive place regularly, if not constantly. Use your thumbs for that then, it is too awkward to use your fingers in that position.

  “When our passion burns hottest, you will scoot down the bed, straighten one of my legs, and carefully roll us over to that side, being sure that my leg is not trapped beneath you. Be sure to not break our joining as you do this.

  “Then you will be above, and I beneath. Normally we would move to this position much earlier, but with the difference in our size and height it will be difficult for you to caress most of me while in that position, and it will also be very difficult for us to kiss. So we will not move to that position until we are in the mood to abandon ourselves to the passionate animal within, and you will rut upon me with all your strength like the mighty stallion you are! At that point I will want all the vigor you can give me, so do not hold back! Do not worry, females of all type
s are surprisingly well designed for such play, and you cannot injure me in that way.

  “We will continue with that until one of us can no longer continue, for ecstasy after ecstasy, and I warn you, I mean for it to be you who first calls enough!”

  “I’ll take that as a challenge!” he laughed.

  “You’d better, because it is one!” she laughed in return. “At that point we will be hot and sticky and exhausted, but we will find the energy to open the bed stand, where there are two cloths in a bowl of cool pure water. We will lovingly wash the sweat from each other’s skin, and it will feel delightfully refreshing, and then we will dry each other with two luxuriously fluffy towels, also to be found in the bed stand. Then we will cuddle and enjoy gentle afterplay until we fall asleep.”

  “Well, you’ve included all of my fantasies in your plan, and much else besides, so I have nothing to add!” he laughed. “Though I must say, you are far more knowledgeable than I expected from a bride who wore white, even considering you’re an elf!”

  “Well, I have researched the matter exhaustively, and I have been fully sexual since I was twelve.” she smiled, then her expression faded. “Dalia and I triggered each other’s sexual awakening, for we slept in the same bed until she gave away her virginity on a whim when we were eighteen. We slept in our own rooms after that, for then she was wont to bring boys home for sex without warning me, and I would not share myself without love. I loved only her and my parents, who refused to share themselves with us that way until after we were married. Though Dalia and I were still lovers regularly after that. That is one gift that I always thought I would share regularly with my husband, at least after we’d been married for a while; the pleasure of having Dalia and I together. Because we were identical twins, which are even more rare among elves than among humans, and because we were judged by many to be quite attractive, I know for certain that having both of us at once has been the most popular sexual fantasy in The Nine Valleys for at least the last five years. And now she is gone.

  “Ah, I miss her so much. But I must put her out of my mind for now, before I cry, and get my mood back to what it should be on my wedding night.”

  She gave her head a bit of a shake and smiled at him, her eyes glistening. “Shall we continue?”

  “Oh yes!”

  And so they did, following the program Talia had described almost exactly.