The girl banged her fist on the cottage door. "Hello!"
Her horse snorted, and she patted her neck. "Easy, Haela," she said.
A cloud rolled over the small clearing in the forest, and for a moment, Emily felt cold. It passed, and the sun came back out, brilliant yellow rays shining down on the little cottage and the stables nearby. Nothing seemed to happen for a moment, and then a bird fluttered away.
Emily frowned. This had to be the place.
Slowly the dark wooden door creaked open a crack. A young dark-haired woman in all-purple robes peered out from under a wide-brimmed purple hat.
"I'm looking for this man," said Emily, holding up a piece of parchment. A likeness had been drawn on it of a young man with a scraggly, square chin, a wide nose, gentle round eyes, and short messy hair that looked like it could defeat any comb brought near it.
The woman inside the door glanced at it. It was an excellent likeness.
"He disappeared from my village almost two months ago," said Emily. "I've been looking for him. Dalla said she thought she saw him leave with 'the sorceress who lives in the cottage in the forest,' but she wasn't sure. So have you seen him? Do you know anything about where he is?"
The door opened the rest of the way. "Well," said the sorceress, "I have. Come inside, let's have some tea, and I'll tell you everything I know. I'm Selena, by the way."
"Emily."
She tied Haela to a nearby hitching post, and then approached the doorway again. She stepped over the threshold.
The sorceress stepped back from the door and waved her hand. It swung shut behind Emily, startling her, but the purple-clad woman
was
a sorceress, after all. The room inside was dimly-lit by only a few candles, and it took a moment for Emily's eyes to adjust. There were shelves on every wall, laden with potion bottles and crystals and oddly-unsettling hairy and spiky and gooey objects that Emily didn't recognize. A kettle was dancing as it boiled over the fire, and the sorceress strode over to it, loosed it from its hook, and carried it to the table in the middle of the room. She snapped her fingers, and a pair of old wooden chairs slid up while some white ceramic teacups floated out from some high cabinets and landed neatly on the table.
"Please, have a seat," said Selena, waving her hand at one of the chairs.
Emily nodded and sat down, setting the drawing on the table. "So -- have you seen him?"
"I have," said Selena, placing a tea bag into each of the teacups. "Honey or lemon?"
"Honey, please," replied Emily. "Where was he?"
"Not far from here," said Selena, pouring the tea for her visitor.
"Can you take me there?" said Emily anxiously, sitting up.
"Tea first," said the sorceress. "He's not going anywhere, believe me." She laughed at what seemed to be a joke that Emily didn't follow.
"So -- then what is he -- " said Emily, lifting her teacup.
The sorceress waved her hand under the table, and suddenly the room froze solid. Selena stood up, pondering what to do with the nosy girl. She skirted over to one of the high shelves and plucked a clear, spherical crystal from it. She came back over to the table, where Emily hadn't moved, the steaming teacup still just inches from her lips.
"Now, let's see why you're really here," said the sorceress, holding the crystal over Emily's forehead.
It started to glow, and the glow grew brighter, and suddenly it seemed as if it was drawing light up from Emily's chest through her head and deep into its core somewhere. An image began to form inside it, and then another, and another.
"Well -- " said the sorceress. "And here I thought the boy was unattached. You really ought to have spoken up, lovey."
She lifted the crystal away from Emily's forehead, and walked over and set it back on the shelf, sighing. She swept around, glided to her chair, and sat down. She lifted her teacup and snapped her fingers, and suddenly the room whirled to life again.
" -- doing?" said Emily, finishing her earlier sentence as the teacup reached her lips.
The sorceress lowered her teacup to the table. "Mostly having sex," she replied.
"
What!?
" Emily stared, her jaw hanging open, and she nearly dropped the teacup, but quickly lowered it to the table.
"It's a shame he didn't know about you," said Selena. "But it can't be helped."
"What -- what are you talking about!? Are you -- are you and he -- "
"Centaurs," said Selena, sipping her tea.
"I don't understand anything you're saying!" said Emily, slamming her hand on the table. "Speak common tongue!"
"I needed a boy," said Selena. "Strong, strapping, virile, and unattached. Ah, well, two out of three isn't bad. It's my fault that I didn't know about that last one. You'd think I'd be better at this kind of research by now."
Emily leaned forward, glaring at her. "What did you -- do? Where is he? Did you hurt him?"
"I turned him into a centaur, lovey," said Selena, sipping her tea again.
"What's a '
centaur
?'" said Emily, her brow furrowed.
The sorceress sipped her tea, and waved a finger at one of the shelves. A tome floated down, wafting over on magic sparkles, and landed gently in front of Emily, opening to a middle page and then swishing a few times to the right place to stop.
"
That
is a centaur, love," said the sorceress, gesturing at the book. "Half human, half horse. Magical creatures, made by the goddess Arra five hundred years ago. Strong, fast, vital, and delightfully useful if only they'd spend any time interacting with other species, but sadly, they don't."
Emily simply stared. "You turned Jack into -- a
horse
?"
"Only half. More or less."
"Wha --? Why -- would you -- "
A vial floated over and landed gently on the table. A soft white liquid filled it, gently glowing and pulsing. "The
seed
of a male centaur is one of the best ingredients a sorcerer can have," said Selena, sipping her tea. "Pure white magic, incredibly powerful."
Emily's face went pale. "Is that -- that isn't -- "
"Every last drop." Selena sipped her tea.
Emily swallowed hard. "I don't even -- why -- why did you -- "
"Do you know how
hard
this is to get?" said the sorceress. "The first ounce I ever got took five years to come by, and I didn't even get it firsthand. Bought it from a shady vendor in Abekreul, and the gods only know where
he
got it."
"So you turned Jack into -- into -- for -- " Emily's jaw hung open, and she was almost visibly shaking.
"I thought he didn't have anyone. Orphan boy, raised in a barn by a farmer who didn't especially care for him. Would have been a good use for him, really. Shame about you, though."
"How could you -- you --!" She stood up, shaking the table, and the teacup and chair both fell over.
"Calm down," said the sorceress, and the words echoed around the cottage louder than they should have.
Emily glared at her, and then looked at her balled fists and loosened them. Slowly she righted the chair and sat back down. "Just -- change him back," she said.
"I could," said Selena. "I have plenty of magic now." She tapped the vial with a long fingernail. "But -- I really
do
need a centaur, and your boy is otherwise a good choice. So perhaps -- let me make a different suggestion. A compromise, perhaps, between our needs. It's a little unusual, but I think you might accept it."
Emily's eyes narrowed. "And what is that?"
* * *
The last of the hay landed on the cart, and Jack wiped his brow. He was hot and tired after the work, but he was still satisfied that he'd accomplished something. The north field was clear, and it had been a lot of effort, but he had to admit that he wouldn't have been able to pull it off if he'd still been human.
Not that he hadn't thought about asking the sorceress to change him back. Jack was getting used to this body, but it was still far too strange. And doing what the sorceress really
wanted
him to do was even stranger. He'd get back from his chores, and there'd be an illusory centaur girl standing there, this one with red hair, that one a blond; and at first, he'd recoiled at the thought of mounting an illusion just to -- well,
produce
. But after some weeks, it seemed like a normal end to a day. And as weird as it was, the sorceress insisted that what he
produced
was far more valuable to her than any of the other chores he'd accomplished.
But looking out over the north fields as the sun began to set, he felt a sense of satisfaction at having accomplished something that didn't involve his genitals. This hay would help keep both him and the sorceress's horses fed at least into the fall, if not all winter, and it was actual work, the sort of respectable activity he'd once done on the farm.
Jack heard hoof-clops in the distance behind him, and he turned. A figure was approaching on horseback, and the sorceress walked beside it. As they neared, he began to wonder if the sorceress had brought a centauress illusion out here. Usually, she waited for him to get back, and only then would she spawn an illusory girl for him to mount. But -- maybe she was growing more aggressive about her interests.
The dark-haired centaur girl that was trotting toward him was pretty: Long, wavy hair trailed down her back, and her lower body was a dark, rich deep brown to match. She had bright green eyes and a mischievous smile set in a round face that just barely peeked out from the frame of her hair. She looked strangely familiar -- but then a lot of the illusory girls did: The sorceress tended to base their designs on girls from the villages around the forest, so perhaps this was based on a girl he'd seen before.
The sorceress stopped walking, and the illusion trotted closer and stopped a few yards away, her round face glowing in the setting sun. She was bare, her front locks of hair doing nothing to hide her pink, perky nipples or soft, full, round breasts, and she was smiling. She was pretty, in a plain, friendly, tomboyish kind of way, and Jack had concluded that he preferred a "plain" girl over the girls who wore too much makeup and jewelry. He could almost imagine being friends with a girl like this -- if she were real. The sorceress had definitely chosen a good look for him this time.
"Hello," she said.
"Uh -- hello," he replied. The illusions didn't usually speak. After all, if the only goal was to get his semen, what was the point of either him or the sorceress pretending that the illusion was a person?
"It's been a while," she said.
"Uh -- okay. That's -- a weird way to say hello."
"Jack, I know we didn't really know each other, but -- my name's Emily," she said.
He blinked, and looked past her to Selena. "Selena, what are you -- trying to do with this girl?"
Emily grinned. "We had a little talk," she said, patting her side.
"A talk? Wait a minute -- are you
real
?"
She nodded, smiling sweetly. "And I'm just like you."
His hand tightened around his pitchfork, and he reared up, shouting. "Selena, you-- you did this to someone else!? What the
hell
!? What are you -- "
"Calm down," said Emily, taking a step closer. "I -- I asked her to."
He landed on his hooves, throwing up a cloud of dust, and stared at her, aghast. "What!? Why would you -- how the -- why would you do something like that!?"
She took another step closer. "I liked you so much," she said. "But I was too shy to do anything about it, and you never even knew I existed. And then one day you disappeared." She took another step closer. "Well, I
exist
," she said.
"I -- uh -- "
"Selena and I had a talk, and she offered me an --
