5 comments/ 33143 views/ 32 favorites The Wanderer and his Harem Ch. 01 By: DancingShadows This is a fantasy story filled with mighty creatures, wicked sorcerers, magical weapons, and of course beautiful women with long shining hair and a true Hero, controlling his women with an iron fist. Well, apart from the fact that he's not very heroic, and that the women mostly use their cunning ways to disobey him when they do not outright turn the tables on him... *** Chapter One. The Wanderer and his first slave *** Imagine the gloomiest city you have ever visited, or even seen. Then add incredible tall, dour, featureless buildings. Cover it with a thick cloud of cloying, sickly green-black smoke. Add towering, bare and ebony mountains. Cut it with a mournful, almost molasses-like river. And the piece de resistance, a population of humorless and cruel people; cold to the bone as they went somberly about in their gray cloaks, like they did in the City of the Dead. Yes, this was it. Welcome to Braghia, city of a thousand disappointments. Braghia, the city of shadows, is renowned throughout the lands as having the best slave market to be found on the Olthan Sea. And, despite not having seen any before, I could not help agree. It has been claimed that the Gods made seven times seven times seven races of Men, and a fair number of them must have been represented here. Small, lithe Mariners, the elegant Narmosh, wiry Highlanders, Dust Men, and even some Forest Dwellers slowly wilting as they were being kept away from their precious soil, and many more besides. There were strong, healthy men, prisoners of war having made the unmanly choice between drowning and bondage. Beautiful women of all colors and shapes, with long shimmering hair down their backs, bred to the arts of pleasing men, or raided from their homes. I found it all disgusting, but nevertheless I was here to purchase one. The problem was, I just did not know who, and why. The slave market was one of the few places in Braghia where one did not feel the claustrophobic pressure of the narrow, winding streets and the incredibly tall buildings, some rising more than twenty stories into the air. Worse perhaps, it was a place where the noise and jostling and stink and voices of a crowd of customers, vendors, and merchandise made me want to retch. It did not matter; whether in a shaded alley or a thick crowd, a knife could still be slipped into my back by a firedancer. From the most alluring queen to the oldest, disease-ridding wretch, there were slaves available for any need and purse, and the local Twilighters were circling around like buzzards considering their next morsel. How could I find the one the prophecy had urged me to buy in all this? And would I be able to stand the impact of the perpetual, raw misery of the goods on display without fleeing. Then, after a few minutes I found myself feeling conflicted emotions as I passed from holding pen to leashing post to metal cage. On one hand the despair of the slaves affected me, but on the other... Why did I feel so strange watching a prospective buyer examine a woman on a leash like she was a horse? What attracted me to this display of disregard for humanity? As I stood there, my ears red from shame, I heard another potential buyer discussing the advantages and disadvantages of a slave with her owner. "This slave does not please neither my senses, nor my eyes," the customer said. He was a native Twilighter, and with his pale white skin and jet dark hair hidden in his deep gray robes he did not look like a kind, welcoming master. Few of them did. "But look at those big black eyes!" The owner held the slave, a young woman locked in a cast iron cage with a few other wretches, by her leather collar, forcing her face close to the bars. With his free hand he pointed at her eyes. She looked like one of the Sea People, the vast, olive-skinned majority of the lands to which her owner also belonged. She looked like it, but she was not. There was something curious about her, apart from the fairly obvious things such as... "I told you, if I want someone to dally with, I will find an attractive, well trained specimen. A Green-eye, taught to fear the touch of men, for example. This... thing will be set to menial work, if she can be trusted, with that thieves' cross marring her face." "But that is the only blemish on an otherwise perfect skin. Look at the golden texture of it, sir!" The owner seemed oblivious to the rancor of the customer. "Yes, on a bald head, nonetheless. She is revolting." The aforementioned big black eyes fixed in fury on her tormentors. I drew closer, somewhat intrigued by all of this. "It will grow out," the vendor said, and added: "Seven krakens." "I'll give you three," the tall, pale customer added. I felt my pouch, for some reason that I could not explain. I had exactly five krakens and seven spiked wheels left to me in the whole world. "She's got a lovely smi-" the owner started, but then stopped short. "She does?" The sarcasm dripped off the customer's voice like puss from a festering wound. "Then let me see it." "No, never mind," the vendor said hastily. "Six krakens?" "Yes, I do mind. Let me see the perfect teeth of this pretty thing!" The young woman tried to pull away, and the official would have let her, but the customer stuck one hand into the cage and grabbed her neck, using the other to force her mouth open despite her vicious protests. I was now just a few feet away, and could cleary see the blinding white, even ivory of her mouth, marred only by a hole in the middle where her two front teeth should have been. With a display of ferocity the small, slender slave snapped out of the Braghian's grip and used her incisors to bite down on his hand, making him pull it away, clutching at his wound. With an oath he pushed the cage with all his might, making the woman tumble backwards, before he stomped off in furious anger. The official swore and gave the woman who was now struggling to rise a tongue-lashing while he loosened a leather whip from his belt. Her eyes narrowed, her face fixed in a grin caught somewhere between fear and resolute determination. "I-If you put another blemish on her, I will deduct a kraken from what I am willing to offer," I replied. The pair of them became aware of me now, the woman's face turning even more conflicted with emotion. But when her eyes met mine I felt a sensation of... Connection, maybe? A tinkle of recognition? Attraction? That beneath the scars, baldness, and missing teeth there waited the most beautiful woman in the world ready to spring forth into full bloom. Or if not the most beautiful woman in the world, then at least the woman I would hold in such a high esteem. There was no question now as to the true reason I had been sent to this slave market. I had to have her. "And how much are you willing to offer, sir? Snow Man, are you? From up North then, I guess?" He put down his whip and smiled at me, as he started making an professional effort to become friendly. "Cold there now, as always? Never been there myself, though." "Yes, I am," I replied. "Just arrived in this fine city. A little confused by all these tall buildings they have here and the crowds in this place..." We chatted a little, the purpose of which was to make the other feel bad about being harsh in the upcoming bartering. The shadow of the sky reaching, black Tyrant's Tower passed slowly across the market, letting everyone know that in the end they were all his slaves. The dark gray walls of the city had seen many a poor sinner being hunted down and punished by the Shades, the sinister sorcerer-guards who maintained a cruel order in Braghia. "Now, about this beauty here," he finally said and we turned to look at the slave. She stood upright, looking as proud as any caged, little woman can possibly do under the gaze of two big men. "Her owner wants a full dragon for this one, but I feel bad for her and know you will take good care of her, sir, so I will let you have her for seven krakens." "Not too bad," I replied. "If she were whole, that is. Let's deduct one kraken each for the baldness, the thieves' cross, and the teeth. I'll give you four." "All right, I'll deduct one kraken for the cross," he replied with a smile as the woman stared blackly at me. I did not like that very much, and neither did I like words that were coming out of my mouth, but I had to get the price down to match my purse. "But you can just put a wig on her, and her mouth can stay shut, can't it? Nothing like a silent woman, eh?" We laughed, but I groaned inside as the woman's eye flung black fire at me. "All right, add the wig. But if she can't smile, then I will have to look at this silent frown for years and years instead," I gestured at her mask of fury. "Then we split the last kraken in half," he said and extended his hand towards me, "for a speechless and smile-less woman. Five krakens and six spiked wheels." "Deal," I shook his hand. I had just bought myself a slave. --- Then, five minutes later, I was left with a single spiked wheel in my pouch, and a small, angrily-looking woman beside me. "Sure you don't want a leash for her?" The official looked at me with something approaching sympathy in his eyes, now that he had his money. "My friend, for this one I would strongly recommend it..." I shook my head and awkwardly walked back into the vast maze that is Braghia with the woman beside me. She was indeed very short, and her bald head bobbed so low that it would have fitted perfectly under my chin if she had wanted to stay close to me. She did not want this, however. She was slender, almost famished-looking, but her body still managed to retain a somewhat feminine aspect to it, with nice, rounded hips and noticeable breasts. The strange thing about her was her baldness. It did not look at if her hair had been shaved off, neither that she had some sort of disease that had made her lose it. It was just a hairless head. I had heard stories of sorceresses whose powers was tied to their hair, that the longer their hair the more powerful they were, and that the way to defeat them was to cut it off. But then I had heard many stories. "So," she said casually as we wandered aimlessly, as I unfortunately had no idea where my hostel was in this maze, up a relatively wide, busy street with where there was a market, and where offers to buy fruits and fish and vegetables and even meat were announced in almost surreal quietness. "So, you usually buy damaged slaves?" "No, of course not," I replied hastily. "What's your name. Mine is-" "First time, then. I should be proud, I guess. Honored, even." "Look, I did not mea-" "I am your slave now, then?" She tugged at her leather collar and look up at me with narrow eyes. We stopped walking. People around us were shying away from her white slave robes, or maybe it was the thieves' cross that did it. "Yes, but wait until we get back to, eh, the Gutted Cod, on Shade Wharf, that's the hostel where-" "I must obey you, then, and be under your control? I have no privacy, no freedom? That's what 'slave' means, isn't it?" Her hands moved to her hips, which I was sure had to be a danger sign. "Well, yes, but-" "What luck I have to have been bought by you!" Even I could tell she did not mean that. "But, you have to be careful." "Why...?" "People rich enough to buy slaves are considered plum targets in this city." "But you were cheap," I protested in my stupidity. "By the blasted desert, yes I was, wasn't I?" Now she looked interested over my shoulder. "But still old Chark the marrowpricker would like to put his dagger into your back, I see." "Who?" I spun around and looked wildly about me. The people closest to us looked exasperated at me, but that was it. "See that man in the dark green tunic over there?" the slave's hand pointed to a short, wicked-looking man buying one of those small, fried and intensely spicy fish-on-a-stick that they sell in Braghia, the food being one of the few redeeming qualities of the place. "Is that Shark what's-his-name? How do you know him? What did I do to him?" "I have a thieves' cross on my forehead, you know, and I know many people in the city. I think what offends him is that your money is not in your purse." "But I don't have any-" "Let's watch him closely to see if he let's up who he's working with?" That was good advice. So I looked at the man in the green tunic. I watched him pay for his fish, eat it, bow in compliment to the woman who had made it, and take a look at the other stalls nearby before he sauntered away. I could see no secret signs or dubious eye contacts with anyone. When I turned around to tell my slave, she, of course, was long gone. --- I arrived at the Gutted Cod just as night fell, an actually quite decent hostel on the docks of Braghia. The staff had the characteristic unfriendly, yet courteous, behavior of Twilighters, and the room was clean. Hungry, my last spiked wheel spent on a frugal meal on the street, I stumbled wearily into my room. Everyone I had asked direction to the hostel had told me that it would take me ten minutes to get here, every twenty-something of the unwilling, reserved, almost hostile one of them. I was angry and frustrated. The slave, of course, could not be found, even though I had searched for her. I had traveled for five weeks to get to Braghia and buy her, and now she was gone. My mission would not be completed now. I was a failure and I hit the brick walls in fury. Deep inside me a little voice told me that she had every right to try to escape her bondage to me, but I never was one to listen to reason. Yes, she was my slave! Because, I muttered to myself, I had bought her! It was her duty to obey me, to meekly follow me around! These angry thoughts had kept my feet moving for the last few hours, but as I lay on the hard bed in the tiny room and rested, my feelings changed. Slave. For a moment I had owned a woman with big, black eyes. Still owned her, technically. Right now she could have been kneeling by my bed, her face to the floor, all in awe of me. I breathed in and out deeply and shook my head. Earlier today I had cursed the existence of the slave markets, and now I dreamed about having a woman on a leash... I sat up and drank a cup of water from the bucket that was filled by the maid every morning. 'Stop thinking these thoughts!' I told myself. But I couldn't. That woman had to be mine! Bald and branded and toothless... Her place was at my feet! "But you are gone," I whispered quietly, knowing that the memory of her would stay with me for a long time. Then, suddenly, I was interrupted by a sound coming from the small window high up on the wall. Fearing a firedancer had tracked me, I grabbed the ladle of the bucket in my right hand and tore the curtain aside. A pair of big, black eyes, irritated and weary, met mine. --- "You?" I asked incredulously. "Yes," came her annoyed voice back to me from outside the small window. I had a room on the first floor, because they were by far the cheapest ones. The Twilighters of Braghia all aspired to live as high up as possible to show their social standing making it shameful, and for me affordable, to live on the ground. "You came back?" "Obviously." "Why?" "Listen, can we discuss this outside? How long do you think a branded thief will be left in peace looking into your window?" One minute later we stood face to face at the corner of the hostel, or as face to face as was possible when she was about a foot shorter than me. It was night now, and the yellow flames of the whale-oil lamps did not do much to illuminate the darkness, but I could see that she was wearing a colored (blue, perhaps?) coat now, instead of the white slave robes I had seen her in the last time, and that a hood covered her thieves' cross. "Why did you return, slave?" I asked. Why did I add the 'slave', now? She flinched. "I am your slave?" Her voice was incredulous. "Yes," I breathed deeply. "Who are you?" She uttered the words in staccato, putting stress on the middle word of the sentence. "Where do you come from?" I hesitated. Feeling an urgent need to control the situation, I shook my head. No... "Why did you return?" "Look, You want to own me, and control my life? For real?" I paused. To control every aspect of her life. What she should wear, what she ate, when she woke and when she was allowed to sleep... What a horrible idea! Oh, and what a sweet, sweet idea. Had I ever felt these kinds of emotions before? Thinking back, a lot of conflicted memories suddenly became clear... I realized she was still waiting for an answer as my thoughts flew wildly between experiences with the women I had known in my life. "Why did you return?" I repeated, not because I insisted on getting my answer, but because I was not ready to answer her question. She sighed and looked a me from under her hood. With an almost unwilling movement she grabbed the cloth and jerked it backwards, revealing a head covered in shadow. I waited. "Yes?" she said. "Why did you return?" I repeated, confused. "Because of this." "This what?" She sighed and rolled her eyes. Then she stepped closer to me and bowed her head. "This." Her head was not covered in shadow, like the diffuse, weak lamplight had lead me to believe. It was covered by thick, black hair. Barely. The hair was less than a quarter of an inch long, but now that I realized it was there, I saw it made all the difference to her appearance. Her head, which had resembled that of a gnome and had made her firm eyebrows dominate her face while her ears had seemed to stick out, was far better proportioned now. She was lovely, I realized as she raised those enchanting eyes of hers to look at me. Long eyelashes, so long that a gaze sent demurely up at you from a hundred paces would make your heart skip more beats than a drunken, amateur drummer. But of course she did not gaze demurely at me or look at me in any other manner that could be interpreted seductively. Her face had an irritated air as she took a step back. "See now?" "You have hair." "Well spotted!" She clapped as briefly as possible to even create an irony of applause. Silence fell. "And?" I asked. "And? You don't think that is strange?" "Well, yes of course, but-" "No buts! Look here, I have lived on the streets for three years since I lost my position at the scullery back home; you know, since someone very smart figured out my baldness must be caused by a contagious disease. And now, with this cross on my face, I can never get another job. So my future is to keep stealing to feed myself, then be sentenced to slavery, and escape from the idiots who buy me. And all this in this filthy, ugly city! Do you, dearest owner, think that is any way to lead a life?" "Well, no. But I don't see how-" "Do you know anything of magic?" "Some. I am a Wanderer." "Which is a fancy name for a vagabond, I guess," she shrugged, "but it beats my professional title." Then she ran her hand over her head. "Twenty-two years, and never before a single strand of hair on my head. Never. Then I met you." "Me?" "Yes. I felt the prickling in my scalp from the moment you appeared. Just after I made you fall for the easy trick I pulled, I felt my head, and there it was. Since then I have been thinking..." "Thinking about?" "Something happened to me when I was with you. You understand? My life is a misery, and here is a chance to escape from it. To feel magic. If I stay with you. As a slave, if need be!" She narrowed her eyes. "Oh." I hesitated. Then I added, "You know, I have come from the far north just to find you." "You what?" "Yes. Well, it was like this... I was given a prophecy. A vision in the morning frost of the Lake of Seeing back at the Cloister where I lived. About journey to the south, to the City of Shadows, and a slave to be purchased. That is the short of how it was explained, though a friend of mine suggested the alternative interpretation that I was to spend the rest of my life as a mallard. But the slave from the prophecy? You." The Wanderer and his Harem Ch. 01 Her mouth fell open. "But why? Why?" "Magic," I winked at her. "That's not what I meant," she muttered, before her face brightened in a smile. Her hand instinctively came up to cover her smile along with her missing teeth, but she had high cheekbones that called forth some nice dimples instead. I liked it. "So you need me more than I need you," she said smugly. "In that case I think I want to negotiate my slavery." --- She did not finish her internal negotiations until later, and returned to peer through my window only just before dawn. I was awakened by her soft cries of "Mister! Mister!" "Mph?" I replied, still being in a dream where seductive women were doing very explicit things to me, with me placed in various sorts of predicaments I am ashamed to say. Then the fear of firedancers jolted me wide awake in an instant, and I fell out of bed while becoming entangled in my blanket. Three things struck me at once. The first was the amazement that this dingy, little room had floorspace enough for me to lie straight on it. The second was that any firedancer would have had ample time to make me die screaming in a blaze of flame. The third was that the unnamed woman found my antics extremely amusing. "What?" I said as I managed to free myself. "Nice legs," she said and winked at me. I grumbled, turned around and put my pants and shirt on. Coarse hemp stuff, dull beige, but far better in this warm climate than my woolen clothes. "Nicer buttocks," she grinned, covering her mouth. "What do you want?" I went over to the window. "I told you that I... That you still are my..." "Slave?" "Yes," I said, a bit embarrassed. "Can't we let the matter rest? Let me in, please. The sun will rise in a moment, and I still don't want to be caught staring in." I shrugged. Last night I had told her that I expected her to accept her slavery, and she had left in a fury. At the time I had been consumed by desire for that power I had seen displayed in the slave market. Now it all just seemed silly. "So," I said to her as she sat on the other side of my bed, "now you can tell me your name, maybe?" "Maybe," she smiles pleasantly. If being in a room alone with a stranger bothered her, or if the dark looks the hostel watchman had given her had stung, then her partly amused, partly defiant manner did not betray it. "But I think that your tale has to be far more interesting than mine." "Please begin," I said, determined to have my way. I had always been single-minded once I my mind was firmly fixed upon something, and this woman nourished this part of me like a mug of beer did a drunk. She sighed theatrically and shifted her legs. She had a way of moving that I liked. Not very elegant, almost slightly clumsy even, but with an inner energy that spoke of a fiery soul. "My name is Moonshine." "Because of-" I began. "Because of the baldness, yeah." She passed her hand over her new-grown hair. It was at least the fourth time she did this since she had entered my room, and the only time she had done it consciously. "The light of Which of the Seven they refer to I am not sure, probably all of the less fortunate ones." "Has it grown more?" I asked. What kind of race was she really, this strange woman? There were bald people in the far north-east of the world where they say that the fabled Pearl Islands lie like so many paradises int the glittering seas that were seething with fish. "Yes," she nodded. "Half an inch it is now. I felt the tickling sensation when I told you my real name. I never did tell people my name since I came here because, well you know. But lying to you... It is so hard somehow..." She shook her head almost irritable. "How about a new one?" I smiled as she started creasing her brow in frustration. "A new what?" "Name. How about... Nightbreeze?" "Why?" She looked intensely at me. "Well, now your head is dark like the dead of night, but there is also a feel of... wind about you?" Now why did I say that? "Was that a missing tooth joke?" Her eyebrow shot up like an interrogator out of his chair when the accused man being questioned claims he has 'done nuttin'. "No, no. It was a reference to flowing hair that is to come." We looked at each other for a few moments, and then she gritted her teeth to unsuccessfully hide a little smile. "And what is your name? I'll see if I like it. If not I will have to change it at my whim." "Sleetspray." "Huh? What kind of name is that? Why were you given that one?" "Because I am thought to be persistent and annoying," I smiled. "Really? I would never have guessed." "Yes. My older siblings gave it to me as we grew up. It was," I sighed, "decided quite early on that I was to become a Priest." "What kind of Priest? Why should you want to become that?" "To weave the Eternal Spell of Winter, that's their job. Some lunacy about containing the Beast of Flame, which is supposed lie sleeping in a dead volcano on a dull, little island. They take their dreary rituals and chanting so seriously, though. I was sent to their Cloister on an even smaller, even duller island to keep me away from home and to teach me discipline, open-mindedness, and patience." "And are they more successful with their rituals?" she asked with a straight face. "Well, considering that they probably have bored the Beast of Flame to death with their endless recitals of forgotten spells and formulas, I should say 'yes'." She laughed. That laugh was so full of emotion and life that I felt the edges of my mouth twitching in response. I would have to make up a lot of jokes now, because I had to keep this woman laughing! That would be a hard task, as I was not known for my sense of humor in particular. "But you are not a Priest, are you?" "I am a Wanderer." "A vagrant," she interjected. "A Wanderer is a traveling mystic given a charge by the Gods." "A tramp." "Having no home or ties to any country or faith or even family." "An outcast." "With no house and no earthly goods." "A bum." "Led by prophecies and the callings of the Gods themselves." "Aha! Madman! That was the name I was looking for! Thanks!" I ignored her taunts with a rising sense of irritation, but then she broke out in an almost convulsive laugh. "And I thought being a bald, toothless, branded thief was bad!" She kicked her legs about in a childish manner as she looked at me. Then she winked and grinned, passing her hand before her face. "So, you came looking for me? No-one has ever done that for me as far as I can remember." "Yes, but now it is your turn to talk. Tell me about where you come from, and how you managed to end up here. You are Sea People?" "Did you dream about finding me, like a prophetic dream? Hey, it was not one of these wet dreams that men have, now was it?" "Where do you come from?" I smiled. "And how did you come to be here? Are you of the Sea People?" Our eyes met. She narrowed hers, but I did not blink. I had had staring contests before. In some ways my life had always been a long, long staring contest. "By the Kings of the High! You are so stubborn! All right, mister stubborn owner! I am from the Great Slope. My mother was a Longleg," she said, referring to the race of tall, black men that dominate the rough, southern lands, "and my father, too. Well, obviously he was not my real father as you can see. He left her when he saw I was not his child. So, I was working the fields of my mother's family for many happy years until the Carmacians burned the land," her eyes glinted a little. "Then I was beaten, my teeth knocked out, and I was driven away as a bad omen by the village elders. My mother stayed because she had four others to care for. I worked as a scullery maid in Port Maygo until I was offered a position in the kitchen that another girl wanted. Suddenly I was a bad omen once more. The first cut I got was for stealing a duck, and then the cross was completed for nicking a blanket in winter, which can get cold even there. Third time was a loaf of bread, and then I found myself on a slaver bound for lovely Braghia." She looked at me for, I guess, any sign of emotion that would offend her. "So," I said slowly, "old Chark the marrowpricker doesn't exist, does he? And neither does his knife?" She laughed. "You didn't figure that out until now? I never left the cages until you bought me. I spent hours even finding this place! Thank the Kings you are so cheap you accepted the shame of staying on the first floor, because I was never a good burglar nor climber." "But," I said, "your race?" "Interesting question. Bur more interesting still..." she sniffed and turned towards the low door of the room. "Why do I smell burnt wood all of a sudden?" --- Firedancers! That was my first and only suspicion as the gray smoke began seeping into the room. It was no drunken patron having knocked over his candle in the night, no badly cooked breakfast being served. The firedancers had found me! The woman, Nightbreeze, rose at once when she saw the fear in my eyes. As I grabbed at her she grabbed at the bucket of water. Then, as the door in matter of seconds went from dry wood into a blazing inferno that roared and unnaturally flung a vicious fire tongue at the bed where we had just been sitting, we lay soaking wet in the farthest corner. Which I could tell by the intense burning pain in my face and throat was not far away at all. I understood at once that if we had been sitting on the bed our bodies would now be contributing to a cozy, crackling fire. Cinders flew wildly across the room, but our wet clothes shielded our bodies. Once I felt a searing sting on the top of my head, but I pawed fervently at it, and it left nothing but a mild irritation. Then the flames died away like a candle being snuffed out, leaving a black carpet of orphaned smoke that was slowly pulled through the small window to join the poisonous smog of the greencoal-fueled, huge furnaces that heated every floor of the sky-reaching towers of the city, contributing to the Brooding Cloud that ruled over even the Tyrant himself. Through the door, a dagger aflame in his hand, came an old yet hale man of my own race, a long beard a-flying, dressed in the fiery red garments that I had been dreading to see for so many weeks now. With terror I saw that in place of his eyes he had two gaping pits of molten lead that seemed to be in turmoil from some inner rage. Even his dagger-wielding hand seemed to be consumed by fire. His movement was carried on to a lunge at the charred, smoking bed, snarling "Flaming flesh! Fire in the heart!" While I was gasping for breath and the firedancer was off-balance, Nightbreeze was moving. I noticed vaguely that she had risen, but then I lost sight of her actions in the smoke and confusion of the situation. "Argh!" The firedancer suddenly screamed, a scream of pain and fear, and he seemed to almost topple over towards me, the fire of his jagged blade going out. The woman's teeth were at work again, fastened to the man's free hand like she were a dog of war. If she was able to be as vicious as this with two teeth missing, I dreaded the one who would have to face her with all her ivory in place. The firedancer fixed his wrinkled, evil face fixing on the woman and the flickering tongues of fire from his molten lead eyes almost covered his countenance. With a growl he lifted his flameknife up high, shouting "Fire in the heart!" in a harsh voice. With a blinding light the cruel, jagged blade lit up again, a white-glowing instrument of slaughter. And merely a foot or two away was Nightbreeze's exposed neck. In the light from the deadly dagger I saw two other men hovering on the threshold behind him. This was it. They had found me, and it was time to die and end my two month long career as a Wanderer. The only thing remaining to me was to try to show a small fraction of the courage which Nightbreeze had just displayed. There! The bucket she had dropped after soaking us! Fumbling, losing my grip for merely an instant I caught hold of the rim. It was the only heavy thing in the room that he had not yet burned. I swung it. The blow hit him on the side of the head with all the force I could muster. The knife, about to strike at the woman who was still locked to the firedancer's hand like ferocious badger, fell to the floor like a smoking brand before extinguishing. My blow could not have hit true, because he lashed out a fist at me, narrowly missing, before he starting beating his tormentor savagely on her head. I swung the bucket, again and again. I was never much of a fighter, but the weight of the thing and the pressure of the horrible rage and fear filling me was enough to send him senseless to the floor after a few hits to his head and jaw. There was a scuffling at the door, and I raised the bucket to defend myself against the two other men. They were gone. Peeping my head out into the long, gloomy hall with the bare, stone walls, a typical expression of the twisted and dull tastes of the Braghians, I saw two street ruffians running headlong down the corridor, pushing past the hostel watchman running the other way. Of course. They had no desire to be bitten or hit by buckets, especially not when their employer had been taken down. I had no time to thank Nightbreeze, who was wiping her mouth clean of blood on the firedancer's shirt, before the hostel watchman rushed into the room. He was fat and sweaty and angry, unlike most of the Twilighters who were invariably gaunt and composed in their wickedness, and he held a wooden club with an heavy-looking metal head in his hand. Why had we let criminals into his hostel, he wanted to know. And then he told me the price of a luxurious four-poster bed with goose-feather pillows, and claimed that it was the worth of the now burned-out little bench I had been sleeping on. I asked him in turn why he had let criminals into his hostel, and informed him of a sum that was perhaps somewhat in excess of what my now charred belongings were worth. He became angry and pointed at Nightbreeze's thieves' cross and claimed it was her who had let the men in. Then I became angry and point at his large belly and claimed it was that which had prevented him from coming to our rescue. Then he made some inappropriate comments about my mother's reproductive customs, and I countered by making some inaccurate comparisons of his mother with various domesticated animals and their habits. At that point our newly formed friendship deteriorated, and only Nightbreeze's appearance between us as well as her assertion that we would leave at once prevented me from getting my head caved in by his club. A small voice of reason made me refrain from demanding back the rent I had paid in advance, and the woman ushered me past the watchman who puffed out his chest and stared at me like a bull at his worst rival. I, a learned man of peace, of course also puffed out my own chest and stared at him like some other masculine protector of territory, all the while praying he wouldn't hurt me. --- The street outside was, like most others in Braghia, drab and dreary; the gray unadorned walls had begun to grate on my nerves by now. From a window high up on the other side came the scream of a young man. A servant failing some task or a slave being made to play his master's cruel game. The sunlight only reached a few stories down, and where we were the mid-morning was nothing more than a feeble dawn. Only the typical tall, black carts pulled by sweating, running slaves were narrow enough to fit through these alleys, and woe to the man who did not find a portal to hide in when they passed. Somber, robed shadows passed us as Nightbreeze and I looked at each other, she finishing cleaning the blood from her mouth and I passing from fuming anger to depression. "Here we are," I said, kicking at the cobbles. "Wet, sunburned, hungry, and broke." "We can seek the warmth of the sun!" she grinned red-cheeked at me, hand covering the mouth. "And your skin is so fair that a little color won't hurt it! And you could stand to lose a little weight," she winked at me pleasantly. "And money?" I asked, feeling my belly. It was not big, now was it? And could I do anything about the sunburns? I suddenly got a funny feeling, a prickling in my fingers. "Well, I..." she began. Then her face twisted, and she seemed to suffer some internal turmoil. After a few seconds she growled angrily and jerked a money pouch out of her robes. "All right! The idiot who tried to kill us had this! Take it! Take it all! Feel free, and don't mind me!" She almost threw it at me. "What do you mean?" I caught the pouch before it fell onto the clean, large cobbles. It was heavy, far heavier than the one I had started out with. I knew the worshipers of the Eternal Fire Below were renowned for their wealth, but this... "Why can't I lie to you, Sleetspray? Why can't I keep the lion's share to myself and tell you that the remainder was all there was? The Kings only know you would buy it!" "I didn't force you to-" I begun. "Of course you didn't. I did. Me and my stupid head. I can't lie to you!" "Your hair has grown," I observed. It had, the shining black hair was now long enough to even seem a little tousled. "I bet it has," she groaned and felt it with an irritating wave of her hand. "I wonder if it is worth it. Maybe I should just leave you here and seek my chances among those whom I can fool and deceive?" She looked defiantly at me from a head down and two feet away. Beautiful now, despite the sunburn and the thieves' cross and a few traces of blood around her mouth. So beautiful that I almost did not recognize her as the sorry thing I had bought yesterday. She meant it. I knew it. She was ready to leave. There was no joke in her eyes. A clean cut is the easiest, my lovely, I thought. Then I opened the pouch, took out one of a few golden dragons that was in there, and tossed the leather bag back to her. "Thank you for saving my life. I wish you a happy one in return," I said, bowed, and turned to leave. After only three paces I was hit in the back by a small, leathery object. "Damn you to burn! Come on, let's go eat. I am hungry." --- She had lied to me, even though she claimed she couldn't; She wasn't hungry, she was famished. She filled her thin, thin body with stew at the little taverna by the sea in the Magnoran quarter, filled it to excess. I had finished eating long ago, and was studying my new friend, my first slave. How long since she last had been fed properly? The hood of her robe covered her cross and unfortunately also her big, black eyes, but now and again she looked up at me and smiled. I found myself waiting for these moments. In one hand she held a wooden spoon, shuffling the hot stuff into her mouth, which she put layer upon layer in her belly together with groa, the thin, soft bread that the Magnorans love so much. Her hands were still red from the heat of the fireball which the door at the hostel had turned into, and they had to be aching, just like mine were. Indeed, mine were still prickling, prickling with a desire to take those damaged hands in mine. Not in any romantic fashion at all, but with a desire to cure her. To heal. "Give me your hand," I said to her after some time as the prickling did not continue. "Mrpmh?" she asked, looking up at me. I held out my right palm, and after moment's hesitation and with a confused look she laid her left palm on top of mine. I did not feel her soft skin, only the hurting. With my remaining hand I covered hers and, as she lifted her glass to drink while still keeping an eye on me, released the tingling that I had felt. I released a soothing, a cooling, the touch of a tender velvet glove, of an ointment made from strange plants harvested under the stars in distant lands. And the soothing spread, I could both feel it and see it, from her left hand to the other, and to her face and neck. The sunburn disappeared, the lovely olive skin beneath resurfaced. Nightbreeze choked and gagged on her cider. The Wanderer and his Harem Ch. 01 "What?" she said after she had gotten her breath back. "What did you do? Wanderer! Madman and mystic, what did you do?" "I, well, I... Your skin was-" "Yes, I got that," she rolled her eyes. "But how come you never told me about your funky Wanderer abilities before?" "I didn't know I had any." "But now you know." "Yes." "And? Tell me about them?" There was queer look in her eyes, an attempt at carefully concealing a hungry look beyond that for mere food. I was about to start explaining about the tingling, made a false start or two, before I realized what she was asking. Missing teeth. Two old cuts, slashed and smeared with tar and now healed to become a permanent feature of her face. "I don't think so," I sighed before I reached out to touch her forehead gingerly. The strange, tingling power to cure was still there, I could feel it. But it was not enough, I knew that as surely as if I had tried to wipe the cross off her brow with a damp cloth. "Thank you for trying." Her face fell. Somehow that pained me more than my own sunburn. "And thank you for healing my skin." Then she grinned again, expertly covering her missing teeth with a piece of groa. "How about yourself, lobster-man? The pink shade you sport was a novelty, but now I find I prefer the paleness. Makes your blue eyes stand out, you know." I nodded, and as she finished eating I let the tingling fill my own body. Slowly the hurt lessened, and by her smile I knew my skin was healed once more. "Now," she said as she put her stew bowl aside and looked around. The taverna was possibly the best foreign place to eat in Braghia, with chairs and small tables instead of the long benches found in most places. This gave Nightbreeze's thieves cross the privacy it required. A white cloth covered our table, and the cutlery was of metal. From here we could see out onto the still, sad waters of the fjord surrounded by those tall, dark mountains that held so many secrets in their midst. "Now, you know," Nightbreeze said. "I used to dislike the sea breeze and the howling wind of the Great Slope, but now I find it pleases me. Maybe it's the salty smell of freedom, if I indeed am free?" She raise those nice eyebrows of hers with a little glint in her eyes. "I am always seasick," I noted. "Me, too." She grinned. "But now," she fixed me with a business-like stare, "you owe me the answer to a few questions." "I do?" "Yes, you do," she fixed her eyes on me, and suddenly I felt the touch of her foot on the inside of my lower leg. "Yelp!" My mouth dropped open. I looked at her. I looked around. A few of the tables were occupied by wealthy merchants deep in discussions probably involving huge sums of money. The waiters were discreetly leaving us alone, and the entire taverna was raised on a small dais to get the best possible view of the harbor and keep the patrons away from the passers-by. No-one could see what happened under the table-cloth. "I like the look on your face now," she snickered. "Mindless, almost! I've always wanted to do this, you know, have a man look at me like that, like I was the only thing that mattered in the world. But I've been ugly for so many years, and I never... Anyway, Now may I ask a few questions?" "All right." My throat was dry all of the sudden. Her right foot was naked, and her big toe was casually resting on my knee by now. "I'll ask them in increasing order of importance. Who was that man? Why did he try to kill us? How much money did he have? Remember that half of it is mine! And finally, do they serve dandelion tea here?" I started laughing. A lot of emotion that had been closed up inside me since this circus begun was released. I had bought a slave. I had been attacked and attempted murdered. And my calling as a Wanderer had been, with the appearance of my strange healing powers, truly confirmed. I laughed so much that Nightbreeze had to order the dandelion tea herself, that sweet, spicy beverage so treasured that all but the more common, hardier variety was worth more than gold. But we were wealthy now, fair compensation for an attempted murder as we both agreed. "He had quite a bit of money," I confided to her. She merely blinked at that, and somehow I got the feeling she was not too interested. But her eyes still held mine from underneath her hood, and her foot returned to my knee. "And why did he- Or even, how did he do the fire thing? The door burst into flame like a bonfire that was bathed in oil by some enthusiastic, drunker reveler! Who can do such a thing?" "He was a firedancer," I said, almost as if it did not matter now. I wore nothing under my pants, and I could feel blood flowing down to my groin like a waterfall fills up a... Whatever, I don't know. Fills up something hard and slightly twitching. "A what now? I didn't see him do any dancing until you started banging him on the head with the bucket. You sure know how to keep a rhythm!" She almost forgot to cover her mouth as she grinned at me. I loved that smile. It was the kind that flows from the mouth to every part of one's face. And when it reaches the eyes and they start to twinkle, then you are sure it is genuine. With eyes like hers the twinkling outshone even the cutest of dimples. "Well, I..." I begun, feeling ashamed for my violence earlier and falling silent. Her foot was now resting on my chair between my legs. I had my belly pushed all the way to the table, and pressed my groin forward towards her toes, but there was still no contact... I sighed, realizing that the only way I would be able to feel the touch I was craving was to keep talking. "Up north among the ice and snow where I come from there are many gateways to the fires in the deeps of the world. Huge, towering mountains of smoke, and bottomless fissures rending the landscape and releasing poisonous fumes. These places are taboo, for evil things of fire live there." "Such as...?" She was leaning across the table now, her face all eager. A toe, a single toe, brushed again my pants. Even that brief touch brought a gasp of pleasure from my mouth, and I hurried on with my story. "Such as flamewraiths. Devils of fire and wind, murderously raging across the snow, seeking out all that lives. And powerful and sinister cindermen, who are half fire and half men, offspring of the fires of the earth and human women, sorcerers of great powers. They make their abode down there in the heat if they are not casting their shadows on our towns. They say the red dragon are hatched there as well. Also you have glowmaggots, small, twisted dwarves that serve the cindermen, or they have their own chieftains; they capture and enslave humans." "Just like you," Nightbreeze winked at me, and sipped at the dandelion tea. "Mmm... I only ever heard of this before, but it sure is as good as they keep saying!" I wondered of that was a double entendre, because as long as I kept talking she was rubbing her big toe up and down my shaft, making my speech throaty and labored, like I was in great duress. And in a way I was. "And a firedancer is? A creature born of those eternal fires?" "No, they are their human worshipers. They serve the mightiest of the fireborn demons, who teach them spells of fire and flame, of fiery destruction." "And they don't like you and those priests chanting the spell of eternal whatsitsname?" "Right, right!" I nodded fervently as I felt her other foot starting to climb up my legs. "Eternal winter, yes! Yes, the Order of Ygrim, Lord of the Falling Snow to which I belonged, they are our saviors. But not the chanting priests like I was. The Giants, the supreme warriors of the North, who are granted gifts of arms beyond mortal men, seek out the fireborn and vanquish them wherever they are found." "Why didn't you become a Giant?" Slowly, slowly her feet were massaging my member, and her eyes glinted with pleasure as I kept talking despite my huge need to just sit still and enjoy her treatment of me. "Do I seem like a fighting man to you?" I blurted out and closed my eyes, caught up in the throes of desire as my trouser-clad member was caught in a grip between her two feet. "No, my mother and father knew I was not a warrior, and Ygrim himself knows I would not have been much use to him as a Giant. No, I was to become a Priest." "But you hated the chanting?" One of her feet was now on top of my head, while the other played with my balls. I felt I was closer to lying in my chair than sitting on it as I did everything I could to get more pleasure from her touch. "Yes, day in and day out I had to learn ancient, garbled verses by heart. Then there were the chanting, the processions, the dreary routing. I hated it. I love this!" "I can see that," she smiled and cocked her head. "But try not to show it as much. Please go on. The chanting was done to fight a flamingbeast or something with magic?" "The Beast of Flame. You see, on the small Island of Merdon in the middle of the Sea of Blizzards stands a tall, tall mountain. No-one can approach this island, for the icy wind blows all ships away that try to approach, and the bottom of the sea is full of the bones of vessels and men who made the attempt. But this mountain they say is hollow, and it is said to be the nesting place of the most cruel and powerful fireborn devil." "The flamebeast?" "The Beast of Flame, yes. No-one knows what it looks like, or rather everyone has their own idea of what is it supposed to look like." "Sleetspray, dear owner?" "Y-Yes?" "Please sit up in your chair. You are acting strange." She smiled sweetly. "Er?" "Sit up. You are almost falling down." "All right..." I sat up reluctantly, but thankfully her feet followed my member as I did so. "And don't move again." She chided me playfully. "No, I won't." I would do anything to keep her stroking feet from disappearing. "Good," she grinned and pushed her left foot straight at my swollen head, pushing it delightfully firmly. She added in a mock, strict voice. "Hands on the table now, palms down. Straight back. Good. Stay completely still, we don't want you to make a scene." "I won't", I repeated, doing what she said. "Where were we? Ah, yes. The flamingthing. You priest people chanted to keep it imprisoned there on that island?" "Yes. The small Islet of Merdinit is only a few leagues away from the island, and there the Cloister stands. Thirty monks in all live there, and all day long they keep chanting." "Well, it's an important job!" Nightbreeze was totally fascinated, and she had not taken her eyes off me as I talked, not even when she drank her tea and smacked her lips. "If, of course, the Beast of Flame exists." "Of course it does!" She rolled her eyes. "Does it? How do you know? The Cloister has been there for four hundred years. Not a single flame from that volcano. Not one." "You have no sense of wonder, Sleetspray," she said reproachfully and knocked both her big toes together, catching my head in the middle. The shock made me jump a little in my chair. "I told you to sit still, didn't I?" "Yes, you did! Please don't stop," I entreated. Her massage and the sight of her face were bringing me close to my release, and I was becoming more and more desperate. "Good, remember that now!" she chuckled and blushed, probably feeling proud and good that she was able to produce such emotion in me. "You have no sense of wonder and no realistic outlook on the world. Here we are, two people who have just had something magical happen to both of them as some evil sorcerer and murderer uses his unnatural powers to try and kill us." "Listen, I stared at a stupid frozen mountain for untold months and years! It is dead and empty of all but for cold, lifeless stone." I drew the words out against the direction of my lust and the need to simply agree with her. Come what may, I refused to change my opinion. Right now that was the only remainder of my old stubbornness left to me. "And that's that." "And that," Nightbreeze said with an open mouth while staring at something behind us, her feet gone in an instant leaving only an unsatisfied hope, "means the time for amusement is over. Turn around slowly now." --- I spun around. She groaned. But he didn't notice, the firedancer didn't, where he shuffled down the dock with his wounded hand wrapped with a bloodstained cloth and his head looking as blue and black as if he had fallen into an argument with a particularly ink-happy squid. I almost felt sorry for him. Then I remembered the red-dressed firedancers of my youth, how they had marched into our village, and the evil they had committed before the Giants had arrived. And I knew that this man must have followed me all the way from the North only to see me die with a flame in my heart, as a sacrifice and gift to his fireborn overlords. Almost I felt sorry for him, but only almost. I felt more sorry for myself, denied the pleasure that had just been a few minutes of Nightbreeze's love and care away. He was still feeble and confused from the treatment we had given him, bumping into other people as he walked towards us, veering from the majestic warehouses on one side of the dock over to the other where a dangerously slippery ten foot fall led down into the relatively calm, yet deep waters where all the tall, triple-masted ships lay at anchor. "We must follow him," I said abruptly, sense triumphing over lust this time. I did not want to meet this man again unprepared and uninformed. While laughable in his present state, a firedancer has powerful magic at his disposal and the flameknife was in a sheath at his belt. "Yeah!" Nightbreeze grinned from ear to ear, an almost childish delight in her eyes, and now she did not even care about hiding the missing teeth as her hands were busy assisting her in getting out of her chair. "Good thinking, dear owner!" I had never followed anyone clandestinely before, but I have a feeling that it would usually not be as easy as this. The man was completely oblivious to anything surrounding him, and on the short walk where he led us along the docks of the Magnoran quarter and then into the city proper again he was pushed aside by tall, burly dockworkers at least five times, stepped on four disgusting objects lying on the cobblestones, was nearly run over by three slave-driven carts (and once hit so hard on his shoulder that he spun round, still without seeing us), misunderstanding the business proposals of two prostitutes, and having his empty pockets unsuccessfully picked once. All the while we went tagging along after him Nightbreeze was smiling. Clearly she was unafraid and eager to be doing something dangerous and exciting. Now and then she cast a quick grin my way, and I smiled stupidly back at her. Never a very brave man, still I now found myself wishing to seek out peril wherever it may dwell, if only I could do it together with her and her opal eyes and red, smiling lips. Unlike their allies the Braghians the Magnorans were not averse to showing off their wealth and allegiances, turning the fronts of the tall, looming buildings in their quarter into a kind of colorful children's wonderland. There were lights shining through glass bulbs of different hues, woven banners hanging down from high above and nearly touching our heads as we walked, proudly proclaiming which merchant house owned which buildings. Even the walls bore house colors. I found myself wondering why I had chosen to stay in a hostel in Braghia proper instead of here where the Sea People, greedy yet friendly, offered far more pleasing accommodations. But the Braghians were cleaner, more quiet, and their spicy food was better. Still, that was all that could be said for them. I had had enough of this place. "The merchant house Garoth," I said when the firedancer stopped and looked up at a building dressed in dark red and orange stripes. The depictions of flames were prevalent upon the tapestries hanging down from the heights above. A dragon's head, almost charming in its tasteless pomposity, was placed above the massive column-flanked entrance portal. "I am impressed," Nightbreeze said as the firedancer chose not to enter the building through the portal, but rather disappeared into the alley on the far side from us. "How do you know the name of the house? There are so many of them!" "The sign." "Those fiery letters?" "Yes. 'The Garoth, the Glorious House of Fire'." "You can read?" She looked genuinely surprised as we walked quickly up to the mouth of the alley. "The priests at the Cloister have to spend hours studying ancient texts. I can read four languages, of which Olthian is the only useful one." "Showoff!" she stuck her tongue out at me before she peered into the alley while I stood waiting behind her. Her hair had grown even more in the short time since we had left the taverna. Two or even three inches I would guess, and the little light that reached down to ground level made it shine like black jewelry as she moved her head. Nightbreeze stepped into the alley, and I followed her. "There," she pointed. A door was set into the wall some thirty paces away. Here, in the little traversed alley, the Magnorans had not bothered to proclaim their greatness and the dull, dark gray of the Braghian walls made me feel small and exposed where I stood in their shadows. The door was low, narrow, and easily overlooked. It was a typical servant's door, but was there a distinctive unused feel to it? Maybe it was the lack of any traces of the many feet that should have traversed it? The furnace, I knew, would be in the cellar. And no Braghian gentleman would ever suffer the shame of being found under ground. But for the worshipers of the Eternal Fire Below, closeness to the sacred heat of the earth was more treasured even than the heat of a huge coal fire. "I heard and saw it slam shut," my companion said with excitement in her black eyes. Somehow having her here, close to me, made the shadows brighter and less threatening. "Should you or I do the climbing?" she said and looked up the walls. "I am not very graceful, but today I feel somewhat frisky and don't mind giving the windows a go. " "Cellar," I concluded. If they were not down there, then it was physically impossible for any of us to climb up on the outside. And the thought of sneaking unseen up countless stairs of a busy building in the middle of the day was impossible as well, probability-wise. "Why would he be there? Oh well, there no accounting for crazy people." She shrugged her shoulders and looked at me as if she wanted to include me among the crazy. Then, before I had time to make a plan, she opened the door. Inside there was a dark stairway, lit only by a small window high up on the wall, showing that it was possible even in Braghia to design an interior that was even more drab than the exterior. The stairs went both up and down, with a door leading into the building proper. As Nightbreeze tried to put a foot on the first of the steps descending into the darkness, I grabbed her arm. "Ask my permission first!" I whispered. "Ask what now?" she replied in a normal voice, trying to break free of my grip. "My permission." "For what?" "Before you attempt anything dangerous." I tried to show her that we ought to be quiet. "And by the Kings, why should I do that!?" Evidently, I had failed. "Because..." I began. I realized that 'because you are my slave' would not be well received, and neither was that the real reason I was angry. I did not have time to explore my strange desires with everything going on right now. No, my concern was the thought of a flameknife in her chest, or just a rough beating by a servant discovering her here. "Because I don't want you to get hurt." Her mouth turned into an 'o', and her eyebrows looked like they wanted to join her new-grown hair the way they moved up across her forehead. Then she give me a face like she wanted to lunge at the hand holding her and give me the same toothy treatment the firedancer had received. Finally she blushed ever so slightly and rolled her eyes. "Fine. Dear owner and master, I ask you permission to go down these stairs. Do I have to beg once for each step, or will a single request do?"