1 comments/ 5187 views/ 5 favorites Lords of the Wyld: Celestine Bound By: Endrael Mid-autumn is a time of year when the days are still warm enough to warrant summer clothing and the nights cool enough to justify winter apparel. It was early morning, and Elysande was bundled in cloak, shawl, and dense leggings and skirt as she trekked to the abbey. The sun provided some warmth, pouring its light into the village, but it had frozen during the night, and crystallized ice still clung to windows and frozen dew dusted the grass where the sun had not yet lain its gaze. The blazing leaves that had fallen from their arboreal homes had begun to turn a muddy brown, tattered detritus that filled the frozen puddles in the road ruts and the fields. Her breath was a billowing cloud, floating slowly toward the heavens in the still air, fading plumes of white that dissipated behind her. Her need of counsel had surpassed her fear of the Dwellers, and she plodded down the track that lead to the abbey, fearful of what would become of her. She knew the monks had no rituals of their own to aid her, but they did have the ear of the Celestines. She feared them, as well, powerful spirits, perhaps even demigods, and she prayed they would be able to help. She knew not what the cost might be, and prayed it was not unbearable. The lane that broke from the main road and plunged into a thick orchard of apple trees was the only indication of the abbey's existence if one didn't know it was there. The trees had been planted when the abbey was finished, several centuries earlier, and they provided reserves for the village during the long months of winter. The apples also provided ward against the Dwellers that named the surrounding forest theirs, a tithe of safety against disappearance and becoming ghosts, caught forever in the limbo of their emptied homes and streets. She stopped at the orchard's edge, surveying the abbey. The granite faces were a dull, weathered white, cleansed now of the bird shit that had accumulated during the summer months, passing reminder of the messenger pigeons the Abbot maintained. The morning light glinted in sharp contrast against the shadows, a mosaic of bright spots on the upper reaches of the building where it pierced through the skyward clutching branches of the trees. The plain oak door set atop the three humble steps was not yet illuminated. The sun wouldn't grace it for hours yet. She moved forward, leaving the apple trees behind and climbed the stair to the abbey entrance, banged the knocker three times and waited. She clutched her cloak and shawl tighter to keep the cold away, shivering as the tree-cast gloom stole the warmth the sun had granted on her trek. The door opened after some minutes and she was beckoned inside by friar Albrecht. "A welcome visit, Elysande," he said, leading her down the brief aisle of the nave to one of the hearths on either side of the altar. Their footsteps echoed faintly in the otherwise empty room, the hollow-eyed cross of Tammuz watching from above the altar. "What brings you?" She extended her hands to the fire, opening her shawl to recapture the warmth lost on the stoop and watching the flames as she considered how to phrase her concerns. "There are troubles with the Dwellers of the wood," she said at length. The hot spark and crawl of the embers made it easier to speak, and she kept her eyes on them. "They... steal into my room. I... They do not hurt me, but I worry on the things they do." "Has your family been making sufficient offering?" Albrecht asked, extending his own hands toward the fire. This was a worrisome revelation, perhaps even one the Abbot would need to be informed of. The Dwellers were never known to enter the homes of the villagers. "We have been, aye, milk and apple." She glanced briefly at him. Of course they had been. Everyone did. "I placed salt and rosemary across the window when they first began coming, but it does not seem to stop them. I don't wish to cause worry, so I've not spoken with others yet. I came here to seek advice in the hope that you have writings that can provide relief." Albrecht was quiet as he thought. Salt or rosemary alone should have stopped the Dwellers. They were simple spirits, easily stopped and easily appeased. Salt and rosemary together would stop most spirits, but what could be drawn to the village that could ignore salt and rosemary? There were no artifacts of any significance, even in the abbey, and even the burial grounds were quiet places. If there were places of the Wyld in the forests, it made no sense for those that would use them to bother anyone in the village unless some connection had been made with them. "What do they do during their visitations?" he asked at length. She pursed her lips and turned away from the fire to warm her back. She didn't want to say she enjoyed the visits, for she did. She'd never experienced such pleasures before, but admitting she looked forward to each night because of what it brought would almost certainly get her flayed and executed as a witch. Her main concern, though, was where such pleasures might draw her, especially since she feared she had instigated them, and the teachings of Tammuz were strict on such matters. "They are intimate things, and they weigh on me," she demurred. "I would rather not speak of them in detail." Albrecht nodded and changed tact with, "Have the Dwellers been given invitation to enter, perhaps?" "I don't believe so." She wasn't sure. Would her actions have been invitation? "The salt and rosemary would have kept them out even if they had been invited, wouldn't it? I don't know what course to take. I'm worried of what may happen if things continue on as they have." Albrecht made a quiet sound of agreement. This was beyond his knowledge, having never heard of the Dwellers doing anything like Elysande was telling him. He sighed. "I will speak with Abbot Lucian. I don't know enough of the Dwellers to offer advice beyond what's already been tried, I'm sorry to admit. He's more learned than I, and perhaps he'll know what to do." "Thank you, Albrecht." She leaned over and wrapped her arms around him in a hug. "I'm glad for the help." "You're always welcome here, Elysande," he huffed, but smiled at her. "Our ears are open to anyone who cares to talk. Return tomorrow and I'll take you to see the Abbot. Should Tammuz smile upon us, he'll know what needs to be done, though he may have questions." "I expect questions. They may help me understand what's happening, too." She pulled her shawl closed again, capturing the fire heat to keep herself warm on the trek back through the orchard. "I'll return mid-morn tomorrow." # The Dwellers arrived at midnight precisely every night, bringing othertime with them, sequestering themselves and her from the mundane and ensuring nothing they did during their visits ever woke any of the others in the manse. Such activity almost always involved sexual pleasures to the point of delirium, pleasures she'd grown increasingly fond of. She was certain such pleasures in-the-flesh were far too exhausting to engage in as frequently as she did each night, but she'd had no inclination to discover if that were true beyond using her own fingers, a habit she'd taken to each night, slowly bringing herself to the brink of orgasm as she dozed, waiting for midnight. A whisper over her skin brought her eyes open, a dark shadow moving above her, the features barely seen in the night gloom, long ears and wide eyes, thin lipped mouth with pointed teeth, and a narrow, defined body that belied the strength it possessed. Thick tufts of hair like manes ran from its head down its shoulders and back, and two more tufts sprouted from its elbows. She pulled her fingers away from the juncture of her legs and spread her arms to either side, arching her back and clutching her bedding as her orgasmic tension pulled higher. She needed release, was ready to climax already at the slightest touch, but knew her torture had just started in earnest. Black skinned hands with long nails, thick and almost claw-like, brushed over her, her night wear dissipating at the touch and leaving her naked, replaced with the smells of green earths after the spring rain. Her skin erupted in goosebumps as the cold night air washed over her, amplifying the radiant heat from her sex and making her nub harden to a painful, throbbing point between her legs. The black hands ran over her body, smoothing away the goosebumps like warm air from an oven, an ethereal caress that strayed downward, pausing at her breasts to squeeze her nipples. She arched upward, humming as her nipples were pulled, the pressure increasing as her breasts were drawn to a point, and then they were released, the warm hands continuing their twin paths over her stomach to her hips, her thighs, and then grabbing her ankles. Her legs were pulled up, pressing against her shoulders and raising her ass off the bed as the dark figure leaned over her. A hardness pressed against her sex, settling against her slit and rocking slowly, pulling her nub from under its hood as it moved. She moaned as her desire built again, straining to press harder as her orgasm approached even though she knew it was futile, that she'd be brought right to the edge and it would stop, waiting until her desire had ebbed momentarily before finding a new way to again bring her to the edge of ecstasy. Tonight was different, though. Tonight her lust was prolonged, an extended dance right on the edge of climax, seconds, minutes, and then the figure took her wrists, pulling them up beside her head as it brought its mouth to hers, her legs over its shoulders. She opened her mouth eagerly, grabbing the tongue with her own as it darted in and using the kiss to release her building, tortured desire. She was pressed deeper into her pillow, the kiss becoming a hard, deep thing of warring tongues and pointed teeth as the hardness working itself against her sex was briefly pulled away and then plunged into her in a single, swift thrust. She cried out into her lover's mouth as his cock buried itself in her, filling her and swelling even more as it was pulled almost completely out before slamming back in. She tried to break out of the kiss to give voice to her impending climax, but was unable. She clenched her hands into fists as another thrust drove her even closer, and then she was being fucked fast and deep, pushing her over the edge into orgasm. She screamed, muffled by the mouth on hers, as she shuddered and twitched, her orgasm ripping through her in hard, wrenching waves that pulsed through her body, exploding outward from her sex and fading only slowly as the cock pounded her in time with her spasms. She gasped in a deep breath as her lover broke the kiss, breathing hard as she shivered in orgasmic aftermath and giving soft moans as he continued to slowly fuck her. "Your worries drove you to the abbey this morning," he said, his voice a rumbling, almost wild deepness, like the thunder of a heavy spring rain against leaves and rock and water. "Why?" "This frightens me," she whispered, pulling her hands free of his and running them up his arms, "after it's all done. I shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't have started it." "Yet you're willing, and that continues it." "I know." Almost inaudible, and she brought his hands to her breasts, her desire building again from the slow fucking. "I don't know how to stop, and I need to stop, before they learn about this and burn me." "And you think the abbey and the Abbot will not." She arched and clutched at her thighs, spreading herself wider as he sped his thrusts and squeezed her breasts. Her moaning increased as her second orgasm approached, and she cried out as he stopped, left her teetering right on the edge as he pinched her nipples hard and pulled. "They think I'm unwilling," she breathed when she'd caught her breath again, squirming as he resumed thrusting. "Their Celestines will know, and if that is the council you seek, you must know what they will do." He grabbed her wrists again and leaned back down, moving faster in her until she'd again reached the edge of climax, stopping and pressing deep into her before she could go over. She quivered and squirmed, moaning as he flexed in her as her insides twitched and spasmed in frustrated denial. He watched her face as she rode her blissful torture, waiting. "Will you listen to what I have to say about the Celestines?" "Will you leave me needing if I don't?" She squeezed hard on his cock, rocking slowly against him. "No, but you will be unprepared for what they will do. They do not trust." "Why is that important?" "Because you must." "Trust you?" "You must trust yourself. When you are able to do that is when you will be able to read the honesty of them and those of the Wyld." She was quiet while she thought, gasping as he began moving in her again, long, slow thrusts that pulled her toward the edge once more and held her there, wanting and needing. He pulled her hands up into the air, holding them in front of him while he teased her, slowing or speeding his fucking as he needed to keep her tantalizingly close to climax. "Will you listen and memorize what I have to say?" he asked, reaching down as he pulled almost completely out of her, taking her nub between his fingers and pinching slow and hard. "Yes," she panted, arching her sex into his fingers, shaking and whimpering as he increased the pressure on her nub. "Tell me, please." "I will let you orgasm again when you have memorized everything." He began fucking her again, not releasing her nub until she was back at her edge, and then kept her there for the next hour. # Her shawl had proven unnecessary on her return trip to the abbey, and it was stuffed unceremoniously into the small basket of food stuffs she had brought to serve as her mid-day meal. The Abbot and friars would have gladly provided for her, but her parents clung steadfastly to the christic belief that accepting charity was a pernicious sin if one could provide for oneself, as if the kindness of others was somehow a moral affront. She was in no rush, however, thinking heavily on what she had learned during the night. Did she really wish to turn her back on the Dwellers when it was they who maintained the earth they lived on? Could she really ignore the Wyld and the things she could learn from it? Wouldn't that be disrespectful of that which provided her, and her villa, life? She stopped and stared across a fallow field at the forest, a charm of finches flittering and bursting among the stubby weeds that had taken up residence until next year. Was her desire to understand the land around her responsible for her visitations? The childhood tales of monstrous forest spirits and water terrors seemed so much ignorance to her now, with unexpected discoveries answering her curiosity over the past months. She had never thought a trimming of her hair left in the milk bowl would have opened such vistas to her. What else did she not understand? Was it worth the possible torture and execution if her nightly activities were found out? A hawk dropped like a hammer from the sky before pounding into the air again from the middle of the field with a dangling, writhing snake in its talons. It landed in a tree not far from her, tearing at the snake as it squirmed. It stopped briefly as she began walking again, watching her as she passed. Maybe she was like the snake, already caught. She only had one course if she wished to discover if her flirtations with the Wyld would be her death, and so she continued on. The sun had just begun to touch the abbey's entry when she arrived, the door patched with wet where the night's frost had melted in the warming morning air. The knocker still retained the night's chill, and she rubbed her hands together after banging it. Her wait this time was less than the day before, Albrecht greeting her once again and beckoning her to follow. A candle had been lit in the eye of the altar's cross, marking the day as mid-week, and she wondered passingly what tradition had begun that practice. "The Abbot has little to see to this week, so your timing is fortunate," Albrecht said as he led her into the north hall that branched away from the nave behind the altar. "He spent much of yesterday exploring our meager library. I'm afraid he didn't find much that could be of help while I was aiding him. He may have found something after I left, however." She'd expected as much. They didn't even have moon charts, yet had maps aplenty of places she would never see nor likely hear tale of, material the Florentines had deemed unnecessary to take with them when they had abandoned their outposts, leaving even the abbey behind them. That had been long before her birth, though, not long after the abbey had been finished. All that remained were stories of their military display, synchronized to lock step after years of arduous training, and the seemingly endless phalanxes as they marched northward to battle the Norse, and then retreated south again, in victory or defeat or for other reasons was unknown. "Did the Florentines build the abbey?" she asked, interrupting Albrecht in his apologetic monologue. He stopped and looked at her, blinking stupidly. She was studying the architecture of the hall, tracing with her eyes the lay of the floor stones and the masonry of the walls and ceiling. This and the south hall encircled the hinter rooms of the abbey from the nave back to the quarters of Abbot Lucian and the friars, Albrecht and Senach. Between them were the library, store rooms, kitchen, prayer rooms, and various others whose purposes varied depending upon need. "I believe so, yes." "And they brought Tammuz with them?" "Their preachers taught us of Him, yes. I do not believe they brought Tammuz himself, only his teachings and his story." "Would they have known of the Dwellers before they arrived here?" She looked at him. "I don't know. I'm unaware of all they knew before they came." She nodded and studied the windows, thick glass held in metal frames set firmly in stone. "It seems strange, that we never knew of Tammuz before the Florentines." "Perhaps it is strange, but all news takes time to travel. Tammuz is from a land very far from here and very different." He lightly grasped her arm and began walking again. "Come, though. Abbot Lucian is waiting in the library." She followed obediently and they entered the library in silence. It was a spartan room, filled more with empty shelves than books or papers, and there were inks and writing implements of various sorts stashed where books and papers weren't. The Abbot was in a chair, bent over a portable writing stand and carefully flipping pages in a slim book that had long ago passed the stage of well cared for. She clasped her hands before her, holding her food basket, as Albrecht called for the Abbot's attention. Lucian beckoned her to the chair next to him with a wave and dismissed Albrecht with an absent, "Thank you, Albrecht." Once Albrecht had left, he gingerly turned the pages back and closed the cover on them before lifting his attention to her. "Albrecht informs me you have been encountering difficult visitations from the Dwellers. Your family has been laying out the appropriate nightly offerings and you have placed lines of salt and rosemary to ward against them, yet they continue. When did these visitations begin?" "Mid-spring, I believe." She set her basket down between her feet and unclasped her cloak. "Perhaps earlier. I don't remember exactly." "How did the visitations begin?" He straightened and arched his back, spine crackling, then settled back, folding his hands over his stomach and watching her. "I don't remember very well." Was he asking what caused them or what happened during the first visits? She remained silent a moment before opting for the latter interpretation. The first was still too dangerous to openly acknowledge until she knew better how things were going to go. "They didn't do anything the first week, maybe two. They just watched, I think, and they've grown much more... forward as the visits continued." Lords of the Wyld: Celestine Bound "Forward? Albrecht informed me that you said they do you no harm. In what way are they forward?" "They..." She had to pause, torn on how much to admit. She looked down at her basket, hoping for inspiration, but none issued forth. Food was famously recalcitrant about being muse for anyone. She sighed. "They are increasingly sexual. I fear where it might lead." "And we are not in territory occupied by any daemons of lust," he said after a moment, absently. He drew a deep breath and traveled the shelves with his gaze. "You can not read these." "Perhaps some, depending on the tongue in which they're written," she answered, shaking her head. "Must I?" "No. It's not necessary. I was older than you when I learned these languages, and it has proven both a blessing and a burden." He pushed out of the chair to retrieve another book from the shelves. "Regretfully, we do not possess much information about the Dwellers other than what has been collected from local lore. The best I can do is cleanse your home, but if that fails to work, the only option I can offer is requesting the aid of the Celestines. There is no guarantee they will help. My experience with them has proven them fickle." "What's a cleansing?" "We clean, splash some water around, and say prayers," he laughed, tilting a worn but otherwise intact tome off a shelf. "I must be honest and admit that I do not believe it will work if what you have tried has not. I am not as blindly devout as many of those who have made pilgrimage to the desert cities of the East that I will dismiss entirely the effective teachings of the people." "We'll contact the Celestines, then?" "Contacting the Celestines is not easy." He returned to his seat and set the tome on the writing stand, flipping it open and paging through it. "But we can try." She leaned forward to better see what was on the pages but understood none of it. It was all symbols and drawings she didn't recognize, illustrations of fancy looking circles and implements. "Is that for contacting the Celestines?" "This book contains several rituals, two which call the Celestines, yes. The calling ritual is easy, but contacting the Celestines is not. I shall gather materials and bring them to you in one of the prayer rooms. Find Albrecht and he will escort you to one of the clear ones." She nodded as she stood and left the room, finding Albrecht feeding wood into the hearths in the nave. He was all too happy to show her to the prayer room closest to the nave, which was, like the library, spartan, with plain walls, a drab, circular mat in the middle of the floor, and several small shelves and cavities for candles and other instruments protruding from or carved into the walls. With nowhere to sit, she knelt on the mat. She'd not expected things to go so quickly, or with so little contest. Perhaps it was the Wyld she should be listening to, after all, with all she'd been told having been right so far. She still wanted to see this through, simply to rest her worries, and she hoped that it would be finished with this. Lucian came in some minutes later with a small collection of items - candles, flint and tender, a pungent block of leafy incense, chalk, and a simple looking medallion in the shape of a sun, a brilliant piece of polished yellow stone set in the center. He gave her the chalk and the medallion before arranging the other items on the shelves, the incense on a shelf in front of her and the candles on shelves to her right and left and another set behind the incense. "You must draw a circle in which to kneel," he explained, striking sparks into the incense. "The circle is to protect you from any Celestine which may come to your call. The medallion is to focus your attention, and you must use it as a channel for your call for attention from the Celestines." "How do I do that?" She turned the medallion in her hands, tracing her fingers over the metalwork and the stone. It fit neatly in her palm, easily hidden if it needed to be. "However you wish." He blew on the incense, then struck more sparks. "The incense is no more than Brigid's leaf. In the desert cities, they burn the seeds of a flower called harmala, but it is too cold here to grow it." She set the medallion between her knees and pressed the chalk against the floor in front of her, twisting around to draw a circle. She picked up the medallion again when she'd finished that. "That's all I need to do? Is there nothing else?" "There is nothing else." He blew again on the incense, then pinched it together once he was satisfied it was burning. "It is a very simple ritual, but it must be performed alone." "How long does it take?" "You will know when you are finished. I pray you are provided with the help you seek." He pressed his hands together before his face and drew them down to his chest before stepping out, closing the door as he went. # She sat blankly for some minutes, watching the smoke rise from the incense in lazy, curling tendrils and wrapping her mind around the simple lack of guidance that had just been thrust upon her. She returned her attention to the medallion, tilting and rotating, and realized of a sudden that the candles hadn't been lit, that the light in the room emanated from the stone. It didn't extend beyond the confines of the circle, leaving her contained in a column of faint incandescence, which struck her as unreasonable. If the medallion was supposed to help her call a Celestine, what was the sense in constricting its light to the circle she had drawn? She reached down and scrubbed the circle away as best she could, the medallion's light spilling into the rest of the room at the first smudge. She sat back on her heels and waited, beginning to feel the light-headed effects of the incense as she continued to study the stone. There was a reflection in it, a spark, it seemed like, and she squinted at it, lifting the medallion closer to her face. A Celestine spark? "You're there, aren't you?" she whispered, circling her fingers around the edges of the sun she held. It felt like the stone was watching her, and she tilted her head at it. "But you're waiting. Why? Or do you just not care about those who aren't from your home? Your priests brought you here, didn't they? Don't you serve them?" Nothing. The incense smoke coiled around the room, drifting upward before falling back to her in an acrid haze. It was almost a physical thing, filling her lungs and entangling her thoughts, leaving her floating, disconnected and free-falling from her own physicality. She'd lost track of time, as if she'd been dozing, but the scant light that crawled its way under the door had not brightened noticeably. She pulled in a deep breath and let it out in a sigh, turning the medallion in circles before setting it back between her knees. "I suppose this can be ignored, can't it? The worries of my like must seem trivial to like as you. There's little compassion in that, I say." The spark of the stone flared, a sharp, brilliant explosion of flame and burning heat, and the candles lit in a burst as she felt herself pulled into othertime, staring into a blinding, scorching light that engulfed her vision. She screamed as she was yanked upward, held above the floor in a pressureless, immobilizing grasp, and she flailed, hitting nothing but feeling her hands and arms pass through a chilling warmth as she did. "You think the Wylder have taught you," a voice spoke, crackling fire and shuddering ice. "You know nothing but defilement, coupling with beasts, yet you come begging of us, on your knees like a mewling. We have no patience for this temerity." "But you're here, aren't you?" she challenged, unable to see anything but white, a featureless, terrifying luminescence brighter than the sun that devoured her vision. She was shaking, heart thundering as she tried to keep control of herself. This was nothing like she'd anticipated, forceful and overpowering, and painful tingles began to prick at her skin. This was too sudden, the onslaught expected but so fast to come that she was rattled, grasping almost blindly for what she'd been told the night before as she fought the dissociation the incense had sucked her into. "You have to serve, don't you? That's what the medallion is, isn't it? It binds you." She cried out again as her arms were pulled hard, stretched straight out and held immobile, and then her legs. Anger and derision washed over her, outside of her, and she shivered, casting about frantically for an anchor to hold herself to before disorientation left her incoherent. Trust. Trust. Gods. She couldn't see! Felt like she was being torn apart, and the pin pricks had become needles of fire. Her shoulders felt like they were about to dislocate and she fought to pull her arms back to herself, struggling against the pain howling from her over-taught joints. Trust. "I'm right, aren't I? Aren't I?" She was screaming now, desperate and almost sobbing. And then she was on the floor, thrown down hard and cutting her elbow open, the stone as frigid as ice in the aftermath of the frightening heat she'd just endured. She lay still, still blinded and shaking, but she knew, felt she hadn't been left, that the Celestine was still there. "I can't see," she said once she'd calmed herself after some minutes and could raise herself from the floor. She extended a hand, disoriented searching. "You won't. The chyldlings never can. You are the least of us, ignorant and blind, destitute of your power." The voice was still as burning and freezing as when it had first spoken. "But we can bind you, so there is some power in that, isn't there?" She climbed carefully to her feet and straightened herself, her elbow smarting. Her arm was sticky with her own blood. She held out her other hand, palm up, trying to keep it from shaking. "Please. I wish to see you." She felt a scowl, a frown of scorn given air to engulf her. "So simple you can not understand what you claim you can not see. What are your demands, chyldling?" "If I promise to unbind you, will you speak true?" She was turning slowly, trying to discern where the voice was coming from. Scorn again, and angry laughter. She took a tentative step forward, impossibly blind. "A defiled chyldling promising to unbind? It can not be done." "Then cleanse me," she challenged. "You have that in your power." She was met with silence, but her hand met cold warmth. She grabbed the open air and pulled toward herself, and the cold warmth came with her hand. She was still shaking, but she had control of herself again, for which she was glad. "Cleanse me and I will unbind you. You know I speak true." A vague face made of light, white against white, formed before hers. It gave no indication of speech, was simply there. "You do not know the challenge." "Would you rather stay bound to this stone?" Silence again, and then she was in the air, arms and legs spread as warm pin pricks washed over her. She felt her clothing crumble, falling off her in a slow shower of ash, and then a baking heat clutched at her sex, the pin prick tingling engulfing her nub and driving her into arousal. She gasped and strained, unable to even shake as the sensation pushed her toward the edge. "There will be pain. If you orgasm, the cleansing will fail." She drew in a sharp breath and nodded, a nervous, anticipatory thrill coursing through her as the proclamation was given, and then burning cold hit her chest as the tingling on her nub intensified. She cried out, barely catching her orgasm before it could unleash itself and engulf her, and she clenched her sex tight, pulling in fast, shallow breaths and shuddering as she fought to hold her climax. The cold intensified before it split, engulfing her breasts in a frigid grasp and forcing her nipples into painful, agonizing points that also began to tingle. She cried out again, the tension in her sex building at the added layer of pleasure, and she tightened further. She had no bearings for this, had never endured such constant stimulation under orders to hold back her orgasm and already her need was unbearable. She realized she was begging for release, but the cold sweeping over her body maintained it's unwavering pace, leaving agonizingly sweet tingling and an almost painful heat in its wake, down the length of her arms, her stomach to her legs, and upward over her head. She tried arching her hips backward to get away from the stimulation of her nub but was held unmoving, and her sex was becoming painfully tense, an aching, ever building tension demanding its culmination in orgasm, but she couldn't let it. The cold finally passed over feet and fingertips and scalp, left her with nothing but tingling, the sensation consuming all her being and demanding her climax, unyielding. The tingling on her nub and nipples ceased, and she gave a gasp of relief and disappointment, almost delirious now, and then she was bent over, her arms held behind her back and pulled upward, reigniting the soreness left in her shoulders from her earlier assault. Furious heat pressed into her, filling her sex and leaving it a glowing, pulsing warmth in her belly, and then it spread, engulfing her entire body as the tingling on her nub and nipples began again. She whimpered and moaned, digging her fingers into her palms as she resumed her fight against orgasm, battling to keep her sex from achieving its release even as she felt the Celestine begin to fuck her, a release she knew she could not have if she wished to prove her truth. How long? How long? Seconds, minutes, eternity, her entire focus narrowing until all that existed of her was that desire, that maddening, overwhelming need for climax, for fulfillment, and she could not have it, must not have it. All the secrets she had glimpsed, that had been teased into her sight and upended her world, every door to learn them would close if she let her body claim its need. She screamed as fire exploded in her, a radiant, agonizing sun consuming her insides and washing through her sex, spilling out in scorching waves that poured down her legs, amplifying the heat of her body. The tingling subsided and the Celestine's heat pulled out of her, but still she was kept immobile, her sex spasming as it was denied its goal, the tension of climax dwindling slowly and leaving her desperate for completion. The ache of arousal still coursed through her, and she squirmed in frustration, trying in vain to reach beneath her and finger her nub, but she was held fast. She was straightened so she was again standing, and some of the heat still in her sex leaked out, coursing down her thighs and calves to puddle beneath her feet. Warm peace trickled through her, curling outward from her sex and filling her with a lucid calm, a tranquility that she sensed somehow had been tied to the raging clamor of her arousal. "I expected less of you," the Celestine said, speaking only after her desire had abated. "Chyldlings have little control. There is greater desire in you than the simplistic carnality of your kin. What do you wish of me?" "That seemed little like cleansing to me." She turned her head, still unable to see anything but white. "There are many forms of cleansing. It is not possible to bind or unbind a Celestine or a Wylder if you are tainted with the other." "Why was I not allowed release?" She was still sweating, and she felt it on her, a light, wet chill. She ran her hands over herself, trying to abate it, but could not bring them near her sex to quench the hungry ache that still pulsed through it. "To prove your control of yourself. What do you wish of me?" She drew in a breath to speak, holding it instead. Was that what this was about? Discovering self-control by trusting her judgment? "That is what it's about, isn't it?" she murmured, running her fingers up her thighs and bringing them up to her mouth. She tasted only her own skin in the wetness of the Celestine's leavings. "Is that what I needed to learn?" "One of many. Learning only ceases when one desires it to." She stood thinking, then knelt and groped blindly for the medallion, finding it at last on the mat. She climbed to her feet again and looked around, held it out toward the almost invisible blur of light that was the Celestine. "How do I unbind you?" "To keep your word? On the summer solstice we must go to the Wylder." "But that's past. The next is not for months yet." "It is a long wait only for those with short lives." # The candles had melted into ill-colored puddles of wax, the holders solidly encased and the unburned wicks tightly wound spools in the candle holes. The incense was still burning and the smoke had buried itself in her head, making her feel surreal as she stood, and then wonder when she had gotten to her feet, all memory of having done so gone. She glanced down at the medallion in her hand, her encounter with the Celestine, at least, etched into her mind in vivid detail. The stone's spark swirled as if in affirmation. Time. What was the time? Why could she still see? She blinked, feeling her eyes dry like sand, and blinked several more times until the burning had gone. The door of the prayer room was still closed. Was the Celestine providing her light? Or had she gained some kind of glamor from the encounter? The incense had burned out, leaving a pile of blackened, fire reduced ash and leaves. She was done now, picked up the burner with the ashes and turned slowly, pulling the door open and stepping into the hall. Cool air, filled with the vivid, taught smell of apples, washed over her in a wave, and she took a deep breath. The leaf's intoxication began to unwind, uncoiling from her senses like a loose dress, but it would take hours yet for her head to be fully cleared. "We've been checking on you every half hour," a man said to her left, and she jumped, almost spilling the incense ashes. She had become captivated by the light through the windows and hadn't realized it. She looked over and saw friar Senach, obviously just come from the kitchen. "Every half hour?" she asked after several seconds, trying to get her thoughts back in line, to form coherency. "How long has it been?" "Two hours, I think, since Lucian informed us you were in the prayer room. Did it go well?" She dropped her eyes to her hands, holding the burned out incense and the medallion in front of her. Stone spark, and she nodded, not sure if she actually had or not. "I need this until the solstice in the summer," she said, closing her fingers over the medallion. "That's when I go to the Wylder." Her words slipped from her memory like water off oil cloth, and she had to concentrate to hold onto them. She turned back to Senach and held out the ashes to him, "Can you..." and then brought them back to herself, a whisper in her ear, in her head, the Celestine. "No. I need these. Where's the forest?" "Come. You may wait in the nave and I will find Lucian. He will take you." Senach turned and bade her follow, and she floated behind, feeling weightless, as if she were no more than a breath of air capable of thought and voice. He said something, but only the movement of his mouth remained in her memory. She nodded anyway, easier that way, and, with great care, set the burner on a pew and sat next to it as he disappeared. "Elysande," from her right, after how much time had passed she did not know. The Abbot was sitting next to her. "Is this forest visit essential? Brigid's leaf has-" "Yes." She clutched the medallion tighter and turned, lifted the incense burner. "I must have a cover. I need to tell the Wylder." "The Wylder?" The Abbot was standing already, perplexed, and she stared stupidly up at him, and then she realized. "The Dwellers." She got to her feet, careful to keep the ashes from spilling, and the Abbot placed a metal cap on them. "The Dwellers are the Wylder. We call them wrong, because we didn't know. We don't talk with them like we should." Lords of the Wyld: Celestine Bound "You were told this by a Celestine, were you not?" "No. He told me." She was following him out a door, exiting to the rear of the abbey, wondered passingly when she had made that trip, and then forgot her forgetting. Lucian glanced back at her. "Who told you if not the Celestine?" "The Wylder. It's why I need to tell him I need the Celestine until summer solstice. I need the ashes." They passed through a cleared stretch, short cut grasses and shrubs between the orchard and the forest, and she dropped her attention to the ground, kept herself from stumbling with the uneven footing and protruding roots of torn out bushes. The Abbot's words passed over her unheard, and she stopped in surprise as she came to the forest's edge. Her feet and the base of her skirt were filthy, and she looked back toward the orchard. She'd already come all that way? She shook herself and took a deep breath, trying to regain her focus and fight against the intoxication. "The medallion belongs to the abbey," the Abbot said again, and she shook her head, a warm tingling spreading over her body. "We will attempt the cleansing, and we will bring the medallion to you again on the summer solstice, but it is to remain here." "No, it won't," she said, feeling her head clearing as the warmth enveloped her. She took the cover from the ashes and dropped it at her feet, held the burner out in front of her, facing the woods. "The medallion isn't yours." She drew in a deep breath and blew it out, scattering the ashes before her, and then othertime descended on her and the Abbot, light and sound smothered to a dull background wash. A flaring glow enveloped her and then pulled away, coalescing into a vaguely humanoid form, an ever shifting, featureless persona that sparked and crackled. Out of the forest came a shadow, dark, rich blue like an ocean's depths, pointed ears and teeth and tufts of hair like manes. The Abbot's mouth dropped open and he fell to his knees, praying. "Does it satisfy your disdain to leave them believing that their gods are real?" the Wylder asked, kneeling before Lucian and taking hold of his face. The Abbot turned his shock to the Wylder. "You must now listen well and forget the traps you've been taught to close your mind to learning." "I'm going to unbind the Celestine," Elysande said, drawing the attention of the Wylder. "Will you help?" "Such has been the goals of my teachings. I will help, and will prepare the unbinding circle. The altar stone is waiting already." The Wylder stood and turned his attention to the Celestine. "Her lessons proved their worth, you must admit. She would not have made it through, otherwise." "You can not do this," Lucian blurted, getting to his feet. "This... this... consorting goes against the teachings of Tammuz! I can not let it continue!" "Tammuz was a heretic and is long dead," the Celestine denounced, scorn given force, and the Abbot blanched. "He claimed himself a god, binding to his will we of the Wyld. He was willful and lacked all wisdom and love for the world. His actions destroyed all places he resided, the bringer of drought and plague and discord until he was killed by torture, his body torn apart, and then scattered and burned, and his artifacts scattered if they could not be destroyed." "He bound you to the stone, didn't he?" Elysande asked, holding up the medallion. "Yes." "That is impossible!" Lucian jabbed a finger at the medallion and then at the Celestine. "I saw that medallion forged! It could not be that old." He cried out and hissed, clutching at his hand as his finger burned, and the Celestine pointed his own. "Lying was the favored method of Tammuz to attain his power, and his followers took it on themselves. They spin truth and turn it backward, as you do. You have seen their lies and been taught their denials. You have rejected some, but have not turned your back on them all. You cling still to the prospect that you may one day claim to have the power of the heretic you worship, but blind your sight to the truth that such power is built on the subversion of balance. It reaps destruction behind it, and will yield to you only sorrow." "No force or will can master the Wyld to make it what it is not," the Wylder said, turning the Abbot's face with one thick nail. "Only in balance can it work for you, or it will turn back on you and destroy all you care about. Perhaps not while you live, and perhaps not while your children live, but it will undo all your work in the end if ever you think yourself above it. "The stone must be broken and the Celestine freed. Such binding knots the balance and prevents it from flowing, like a dam in a river. It must be undone. Your choice in this is not yours. It must be let go." "You are using us as tools," Lucian scowled, "picking us up and then discarding us when you are done." "We are restoring the balance Tammuz disrupted. It will be done with your help or not." "I will teach her what you have not," the Celestine said, moving toward Elysande and enveloping her once more. "The solstice comes quickly. Be ready." # Winter swept in like a dragon, howling through the skies and scorching the earth in ice and snow, tumbling trees in wailing blasts of wind and ice and burying everything in a blinding cloak of snow. The solstice was a darkened sky of heavy cloud, another impending onslaught of biting cold and north-driven fury that dimmed the meager day to twilight. "This, too, shall pass," the Celestine repeated often during their nightly lessons, as if to make the frenzy of the winter storms less immediately threatening. He was much harsher than the Wylder, strict in demanding discipline where the Wylder would simply stop or slow as she reached the brink of orgasm. Her failures to control her climax were met with scorching heat, as if a fire brand had been driven into her sex and melted there, flowing through her insides and driving out all pleasure from the culmination of her desire. Such lessons were quick to teach, though, and stripped away her complacence that others might carry some of the burden of this task she had taken. Her desire she turned to fire, learned to draw it out and cradle it in her hands, a visible, shimmering energy that burned like the Celestine. Did this mean the Celestines were the passions of those like her, who had learned to channel their desires and give them form, released and given freedom from the ephemeral vagaries of flesh? There were no answers for that, both the Celestine and the Wylder being unaware of their own origins. Winter broke at last, the swell song of spring overriding the crystal passion of the north wind, and the melting snow slurried through the streets and fattened the streams and rivers, ripping gullets in hills and fields as it raced to the sea. Planting came late, rain drenching the lands and making them impossible to trudge through for seeding, making even the traveling birds weary of the downpour. On the equinox her lessons became those of endurance, denials of her climax for ever longer periods with ever more intense stimulation, building her passion to vivid concentrations of intricate flame and light, gyrating pools and tendrils that grew ever more complex as her desire built. But always they would culminate, screaming back into her and exploding in violent, thrashing orgasms that consumed her senses and left her insensible. Even the Celestine was unable to dim these, and the solstice was coming fast. "You must hold for longer if you are to break the bind," he told her, holding her hands behind her knees as he moved in her. "Your energy must be stronger than what you have held so far." "I can endure only so long," she panted, shaking her head furiously side to side at the painful, desirous ache in her sex that demanded release, clamoring ever louder with each stroke into her and engulfing her ever more in writhing flame and light. "You must stop. I can't hold much longer." "You must be able to hold for a month before the unbinding." "Stop! Please!" She strained against his hold, her fingers clutching aimlessly at the air, and she gasped and moaned as he did, pressed deep into her. The tension in her sex made her shake, whimpering at the sudden cessation of stimulation, and the passion engulfing her dimmed slowly. "I can not hold a month," she panted when she could speak. "Not like that. I need breaks so I can breathe and recover. Why a month?" "Your energy must be at its peak if you are to break the bind. Such undertakings require extended preparation and considerable energy concentrations, and there is little time for either." "There is time if done correctly." She tightened her sex on his cock, trying to pull it deeper into her or coax him to climax, but all she managed was to reignite her passion. She began rocking her hips as much as she could in her constrained position, riding the shaft buried in her. "If the stone must be destroyed to break the bind, we can start already. I have an ingot of iron which may be used as a bludgeon. We can make that a focus to store energy." "You are unprepared for the creation of artifacts." "Then teach me or help me, if we have so little time." "You must hold, and when you can hold no more, place the energy into the ingot and make your desire clear as to its purpose. If you do not, it will fail." The Celestine closed one hand as he began pumping into her again, then opened it and placed her ingot in her hands. She nodded and gasped as tingling engulfed her body, focusing especially on her most sensitive areas, driving her passion rapidly back toward the edge of climax and past, barely caught as she again began fighting her body to prevent her orgasm. # Elysande made frequent visits to both the Wylder and the Abbot in the month before the solstice, making excursions into the forest to put the final preparations in place. She had been assured by both the Wylder and the Celestine that Brigid's leaf was unnecessary if she were already able to contact them both, but she didn't wish to risk being unable to because of nervousness. It was an easy herb to gather, as it grew wild in many places, so it needed only to be picked and dried, which the Abbot did for her. He also prepared smelting tools, to melt the medallion and remove the stone, undoing his part in the binding of the Celestine, which was done on the solstice day. "I do not believe the church's emissaries will take kindly to this," he said, dropping the still warm stone into her hand. "They'll only know if you tell them," she said, rubbing the soot from the stone to return its luster. An easy task, as no stain seemed capable of holding to it. "But they have not come in years. They seem to have forgotten this abbey." "We are not wealthy in the things they value," he defended. "We have our own truths, Lucian. We don't need theirs. Tammuz never made it this far for a reason." She placed the stone in a pouch at her waist and checked her second for her ingot to ensure she had not forgotten it. In her carry sack was everything else she would need for the ritual and a covering for the night. "I'll return tomorrow, and will almost certainly be in need of food. Will there be a meal for me?" "Aye, there will be a meal for you. We will prepare it when you arrive." "Thank you." She wrapped her arms around him for a hug, then turned and made her way to the forest, crossing the same cleared stretch she had following her first encounter with the Celestine. It was a rather more difficult trek, the grasses and brush having exploded in growth from the winter melt and the spring rains, and even having cleared a path somewhat, she still was caught by clutching branches several times on her journey. The forest was cooler than the open fields, and she reveled in the shade as she made her way deeper into the wood. The summer thus far was as hot as the winter had been cold, a sensible time to break the binding of a Celestine. Greatest heat and longest day matched their nature, a sympathetic alchemy that should make the bind weaker, as it had been placed during the solstice of winter, when the Celestines were weakest. As she traveled, a tingling began to roam her body, starting at her nipples and her nub before radiating outward like ripples. They weren't strong enough to bring her to orgasm, but certainly were enough to build her desire, and by the time she reached the altar stone and circle the Wylder had prepared, her thighs were slick with her juices. The Celestine coalesced beside her as she entered the circle, and the Wylder was not far behind, striding from the shadow of a great, hoary pine. She took the stone and her ingot from their pouches, set them on the altar, and then began removing her clothes with shaking fingers, beginning with her blouse before moving on to her skirt and leggings. She was more than ready to begin the ritual, her sex, and especially her nub, throbbing in time with her heart. She paused to run her fingers along her wet slit, circling her fingers hard on her nub and bringing herself to the edge of climax before pulling away with a frustrated breath. She squeezed her legs together as she sucked her fingers clean, riding the ebb of her need, and then gasped as she was bent over the altar, the Celestine pressing into her and beginning to fuck her. She grabbed her ingot and held to the altar, the stone smooth against her skin, as she rode her climbing desire toward orgasm. The Wylder erected the four candles around the altar, stepping toward her as they burst into flame as the Celestine erupted in her, causing her to cry out as pulsing heat pushed her to the edge, not quite close enough to grasp it and tumble into ecstasy, an agonizingly sweet tension. She trembled as the Celestine's spasms and spurts tapped her constantly back to the edge, and then he pulled out, the Wylder sliding into her a second later, a damp earth cold in shocking contrast to the Celestine's heat. He was still for a moment, waiting until her passion had receded, and then began moving in her, a fast, deep rhythm that increased the heat in her sex despite his coldness. As she reached sight of her climax, he pulled her onto him and pressed deeper, filling her with a shivering, spring creek chill, the circle around the altar flaring into a deep, midnight blue flecked with pricks and streaks of mossy green. She clutched harder to her ingot, the edges almost painful against her palm, her denial leaving her sex twitching and her thighs trembling. She lifted her head and glanced over her shoulder at the two, straightening her legs and raising herself off the altar so she was on her elbows. The world was still, captured in othertime, and she positioned the Celestine's stone beneath her, within easy reach. "Take me, both of you," she commanded, and then gave a long moan as she felt first the Celestine and then the Wylder press into her, an overlapping, bewildering warmth and chill that stretched her sex 'til she felt it couldn't be filled any more. She shook as her orgasm built even before they'd started fucking her, alternate rhythms that almost overwhelmed her, a cycling hot cold penetration, and then the tinglings began, rapid circles on her nub and nipples. She cried out, digging her fingertips against the altar as she fought to quell her orgasm, to keep it contained, feeling her breasts swaying beneath her. "Hold," she panted, tightening her sex on the cocks moving in her. "Hold. All at once. For it to work." She dropped her head to rest against her forearm, biting at her wrist to keep her focus and muffle her cries as she denied her climax, gathering her lust, her passion, and pouring it into the ingot in her hand, already a writhing sun of a spark, the stored energy of all her past passion. She screamed against her wrist, the shaking in her thighs spreading, her stomach trembling, her calves and arms shivering, holding that ever flimsier wall against the maddening crush of her desire. She squeezed her eyes shut and bit harder, felt her skin break and blood well into her mouth, but she didn't care, barely noticed as she lifted the ingot into the air above her head. "Now!" she cried, forcing her eyes open to see the stone before her, and let her climax claim her as she felt the Wylder and the Celestine release in her, a burning supernova of ice that flooded her body. She hammered the ingot down on the stone, channeling each pulse of orgasm into the ingot and slamming it against the stone in brilliant, blinding explosions, smashing the Wylder bind that held the Celestine and returning it to the one exploding in her. The stone screeched with each strike, splintering the air like fractured glass, and then it shattered, bursting and crumbling and sending a shockwave across the altar. She dropped her head back to her arm and shuddered, her whole body twitching and spasming as the rest of her orgasm tore through her, and then lay still, shivers coursing through her at intervals as her sex continued to pulse in its own aftermath. She was vaguely aware of othertime shimmering in and out, a faint cycle against the backdrop of her fading climax, and it only returned fully once she had gathered herself and straightened. It was full dark, yet the candles and ritual circle still burned, unchanged. The Celestine stood across the altar from her, still a vague body of light, but now wearing armor of gold and white, with a crown of flaming jewels and a sword at its waist that seemed forged of the sky itself, the bloody, mesmerizing wash of sunrise and the high blue of true summer. The Wylder stood to her left, gazing at the scorched altar and the remnants of the stone that had been undone. A long, hairless tail now swished the air from the base of its spine, a midnight black tuft of hair at the end, and horns as glimmering dark as the star washed sky curled up and back from his temples. "I did not expect success in this endeavor," the Celestine said, a crackling resonance. "You have proven yourself above the ignorance and pettiness of most chyldlings, and I am in your debt for the generosity you have shown. You as well, Wylder, for your aid enabled this. My service is yours until this debt is paid." "Are there other artifacts like the one that bound you?" Elysande asked, hissing as she scratched at her itching wrist and dug into the bite she had given herself. "You've said on many occasion that not all of Tammuz's artifacts were destroyed." "Many others, yes," the Wyldling said. "He bound a great many of us, and the bonds are scattered widely now. It has been hundreds of generations of your kind since the fall of Tammuz." He picked up the ingot and handed it to her, studying her face. "Are you thinking to find them?" "It would be the right thing to do, wouldn't it?" She glanced between the Wylder and the Celestine, squeezing the ingot. "And I wish to learn more of what you both have shown me. Would you both be willing to help me in the task?" "I am willing, but can go only as far as the sea. Though I came from the lands across the channel, it is beyond your skill to grant me passage across the waters that I may return." "Few will take kindly to a foreigner laying claim to their artifacts that she may destroy them," from the Celestine. "It is dangerous to unleash the powers of others." She nodded and brushed the broken stone off the altar so she could sit, parting her legs and running her fingers over the lips of her sex, spreading the wetness seeping from her. The bare touches to her swollen and over-sensitive nub, brief and light, fanned the dimmed sparks of her passion with each shiver her fingers ignited. Only a dozen strokes she allowed herself, pulling away from the distraction of desire to maintain her focus. "But it's not their power, is it? They just claim it. It's like a slave. Will you aid me?"