Ch.13: Reformed Wizard
Remzain had been asked by King Charlerion to approach the wizard using Grigor as intermediary. Grigor travelled to Bricas, where they had located him, posing as a merchant from the continent of Animar. Grigor wore a merchant's dress, and was accompanied by attendants who looked after his wares. They carried special items from the northern continent.
Grigor came to a public bath house in Bricas, where Charlerion's spies had found the wizard often came at the late afternoon time of day. It was a place where the two opposing sexes might meet openly and without shame. As such it rivalled the Temples of the Goddess. However this was no place of religion or of magic. The people who came here were citizens who desired relaxation and cleanliness, a swim or a chance conversation. But they might also use it, in this open society, as a place where casual acquaintances could be made and enjoyed, as it was very much a place for both of the sexes. Only adults of 18 years were allowed to use these baths however. Children and younger people were not allowed here at this hour, so that adults may not be encouraged to exploit their youth. Friends chattered sociably, but men and women who made each other's acquaintance often found themselves connecting in the darkened corners of the pools, and in the adjoining rooms where there were tables, mats and pillows for sexual congress.
Aribor came here often to wash, which he had rarely done when he served King Guthelm in Grumandria and other parts of Animar. There bath houses were almost unheard of, and smells and dirt accompanied most people. He held court sometimes to people of Bricas who remembered the help he gave them when the Dark Wizards attacked their city. He came for conversation and companionship. Sometimes he found that some Shalirionite woman, overflowing with gratitude for the things he had done for the city, would offer herself to him, as a way of thanking him, or so that she could claim to have communed with the now famous saviour of the city. Sometimes he found that the women who came to him were desiring his magical services. As a protector of the city he had found a new role for his magic. Instead of being a creator of powerful dark magic for the purpose of war, or to prise information out of unwilling prisoners, or to make someone subservient to the purposes of his King, or to be used by his King in some scheme; he was now being invited to save souls drowning in depression or misery, to bring them back from a personal hell, or to fill them with the love of Shalirion's Goddess.
Although the Goddess belonged not to his own people he found the connection he had made on that fateful night of the Wizards' Terror, with the Shalirionites' Goddess had brought her light and her magic to him. Her influence poured into him on that night and frequently after. He found himself channelling her strength and her goodness into others. He could draw her power and influence into the minds of subjects who were in need of her. He who had not been a believer, and had not even known of her existence, now found himself in alliance with her, for the good of his subjects. Somehow, miraculously, she was using him for her purposes, and he found that he was her willing servant. It felt good to him when he was able to channel her power and love into her people. He knew that the darker arts would no longer be his way. He had a new purpose and a more positive role in life.
Animar
One magical art of spells, which had been a speciality art of his had begun for very selfish reasons in his Dark Wizard years. As a sexually motivated wizard he had sought suitable women as a predator. In addition to the use of female captives or females he found on campaigns or after fighting, to acquire suitable women he began to sometimes use his magic. He turned older women back into young beautiful nymphs for his own pleasure, then after discarding them they were returned to their aged or 'ugly' states, at some cost to his subjects. Now he found further use for this knowledge.
Lands in the East had been conquered by Guthelm and his horde. The people spoke a related but different language to his own. At first as they capitulated easily to the Grumandrian King. They were allowed to keep their lands and possessions, and the people were not made slaves, in return for their fealty to the King. But, confident in their position, rebels sought to return the land to their own rulers. Guthelm came back to their lands and punished them, impaling the rebels on sticks and watching them die, allowing his soldiery to take what they wanted from the forsaken people of this once proud land.
As a wizard Guthelm drew magic from the dying men, collecting their blood and their anger and despair as they died. Howling winds were created, which smashed the defences of another resistant town not far away. His prime task completed for now, he had gone into the ruined villages, looking for his own pleasure. He found women huddling in the burned ruins of their villages, or running in the forests nearby. The women in the burned village he came to had been raped and passed around by Guthelm's soldiers, who had passed on, leaving them to whatever further fate might befall them. Guthelm selected two young women, already bloody and bruised from their earlier abuse. They were frightened he would kill them, but had no wish to run.
In return for their lives he ordered them to attend to his needs, and to be good to him in turn, holding his whip in one hand and grasping their buttocks with the other. While he mounted one, he instructed the other to stroke and massage him. Clumsily he came to orgasms upon both of them, grunting and spluttering as he savoured their relative youth, and their fear of him. Even then he had no desire to kill for the sake of it. Away from the purposes of his masters he sought sexual fulfilment, and took it in a variety of ways. These two he had enjoyed, and he let them have their lives as reward. Even if he had not enjoyed the women he would only have killed them if they turned against him or refused to let him have his way.
Afterwards, not completely satiated by the desires in his head, he sought further sports. There was an old woman there, who had cowered in fear like the others, and watched from a distance while he took his pleasure. He assumed she must be one of the family or why would she hover around when there was so much danger to the family. She wished to protect her family, or to be protected by them. He wondered whether she was the women's mother or even grandmother, and he troubled himself to find out, asking the younger ladies he had just despoiled.
He asked the young women, "Who is she, that woman over there?"
The women were slow to respond, as if reluctant to answer. Surely they did not think he was going to harm the woman, whoever she was. They had just been raped by him, perhaps they thought he might rape her too! But she was an older woman, and why should he? They had seen casual butchery earlier, like all the survivors. It was no surprise that they should fear the worst. He looked at the older woman over there. She was dirty and blackened by the smoke of the burned buildings, and soiled by the earth. He looked at her and saw concern and anger in her eyes, but she was afraid of him too.
"Is she your mother or your grandmother? Please tell me," he demanded.
The young women looked at each other, as if to agree which story to tell. "She is our mother. She should be hiding. Please do not harm her."
"I will not harm her if I have no reason to." It occurred to him that the young women were sisters. He had never thought about that while he enjoyed them, but there were similarities between them. It excited him perversely to think that their mother had been watching him while he deflowered her daughters, although he had evidently not been the first to do so.
This was a land, like his own, where parents watched closely over their daughters, keeping unwanted suitors away until a safe and suitable marriage could be arranged. The punishment by Guthelm's soldiers was threefold. The killing of their husbands and menfolk, the burning and destruction of their homes and property, to be followed by the rape of their daughters. This was the last horror or humiliation to be visited upon them. Of course it was the least of the horrors. The deaths of the menfolk and the razing of their property took away their livelihoods and stripped them of nearly everything. But the final humiliation of rape to these people, petty though it may seem to Aribor, was a punishment to them. He did not really think it was a punishment to all of them. Young women, who spent much of their lives waiting for a husband, or who might have only experienced the lust of one husband, probably found some interest or even pleasure in being used by soldiers and wizards. He had taken women sometimes who he had been able to bring to their full pleasure, even though in law they were being raped. Even these two young women had participated quite well in their own rape, although he had not brought either of them to any conclusion. As ever he focused on his own pleasure. Theirs was no real concern of his.
"Call her over," he ordered. "I won't harm her!"
"Mama come over. He says he won't hurt you," called out one of the daughters.
