"Will you need me for anything else tonight?" he asked.
"No, Galen. Get some rest. We'll see about everything else tomorrow."
"Good night then, Serana."
"Good night, Galen." She smiled. "I think you will sleep well tonight."
He answered his smile with a grin of his own as he took one of the candles.
"If I don't after today, I suppose nothing will do it."
"Oh, trust me, you will. Sweet dreams."
"You too."
He left the kitchen and she heard the sound of the door of his room close behind him. Serana sat back down at the kitchen table, staring into the embers of the banked fire. Today had been quite a day. She felt younger, somehow, and more alive, than she had for many, many centuries. She hadn't felt this good even after the first infusion of Galen's Energy had revived the spell that restored her youthful appearance and vigor. She had so much Energy right now, after he had poured himself out into her that afternoon. She felt almost bubbly, as if something inside her danced with joy. When had she last felt that way?
She laughed softly at herself. Who was she fooling? There was no denying it: she felt this good for the first time in centuries because this was the first time in centuries she'd been fucked this well. She rarely used that word because she didn't really like it, but there was a time and a place for everything, and this was it. She'd wanted this. She'd needed it. It felt strange to admit it, but she was honest enough with herself to realize it was the truth: she'd given in to her desire because she'd really needed a good
fuck
. And Great Mother, had he given her one!
She also realized that such a rare treat would have to remain just that: rare. The Great Mother had sent this lad to her for a reason, which meant she had a job to do. And feelings, wants and needs like this would only get in the way. Yet there had been a closeness between them this afternoon, a joining on a whole different level than just the physical and the Energetic, and that was something she simply couldn't deny. She could only hope the Great Mother would give her the strength to deal with it in the proper fashion.
There was no doubt in her mind that she would need all her strength and skills before her work with Galen was done. What he'd told her that afternoon was more than sufficient proof of that. For his spirit to leave his body and encounter the Great Mother as it had, that was rare enough, but the Vision that had followed confirmed that the whole thing had not been a coincidence. The Great Mother had a way of making things happen when She needed them to happen.
A gust of wind moved the leaves on the tree behind the house, and the slowly flickering shadows on the walls of the kitchen danced and swayed as some of the wind made its way through the cracks and stirred the air inside. Suddenly one of those shadows caught her eye. It grew still, while the other shadows continued to move. Then it deepened, until it was darker than a normal shadow had any right to be. Slowly it grew, and then, somehow, it seemed to come nearer, or maybe it was just her attention that was being drawn closer to it. It began to solidify, and suddenly the shadows and the kitchen wall were gone, and with her inner Vision she beheld a bleak landscape with dark mountains and deep crevasses. Stunted, blackened and dead-looking trees stood here and there, and the rocks were covered with an unwholesome looking sort of lichen that made them appear almost diseased. A clammy, cold sensation permeated her as her Vision moved forward, and the land grew darker and darker as she went. But it was not a normal darkness, this darkness; it was not just the absence of light. It was as if the very rocks themselves exuded a miasma of blackness that clung to the ground like an unnatural, poisonous fog.
Then, at the heart of that darkness, rose up before her the dark citadel she had seen in her Vision, on the day Galen had first come to her. Dark was the ground upon which it stood; dark were the stones in its walls; dark were its towers. But at the same time it had a strange radiance about it, an unwholesome glow as if the very walls themselves were rotting somehow. She recoiled from that glow.
As her Vision retreated from the dark towers and her awareness rose higher, she noticed something else: a dark road led to the fortress, and on that road, in single file, people were slowly making their way to it. They shuffled rather than walked, and there was something dead in their eyes; their faces devoid of any expression, as they moved almost mechanically, each slow step taking them inevitably closer to that dark, dark building, as if the darkness drew them, like a magnet attracts filings of iron...
With a shock she found herself back in her kitchen, and she shuddered. Great Mother! Her initial feeling of inner joy had evaporated and was now replaced by a cold feeling of dread. Some of the Energy she had had inside her since that afternoon had gone as well, used as it had been to power her Vision.
Whatever it was that she had seen matched Galen's description far too well for comfort, not to mention her initial Vision. This time she had seen more than he had told her, more than she had seen in that first glimpse. And there was no doubt in her mind that even this was only a tiny glimpse of something very serious, something very big and very bad.
And it would be up to them to do something about it. She had no idea what, but the Great Mother would not have sent Galen to her and revealed these Visions to them for no reason. Which meant she had a responsibility. And if these Visions were anything to go by, she'd better get on with it.
She sat for a few moments longer, but nothing else was revealed to her in the shadows on the kitchen walls. Finally she rose, took the candle and carried it into her bedroom. It was a long time before sleep took her.
* * *
And so Galen's training began in earnest, to say nothing of his indenture. His days were filled with mundane work, while in the evening his efforts, and Serana's, were focused on matters of a higher nature. The season progressed inexorably toward the time of harvest, and when the days began to grow cooler, an abundant crop filled the shed at the back of the cottage, along with a goodly supply of dried fish that Galen had caught in the river, using woven reed baskets that he planted in the stream overnight. Their food supply should prove amply sufficient to see them through the winter.
But the end of the season didn't mean the end of Galen's labors. There was a store of firewood to be laid in, and while the former store room where he slept would do for the moment, extending the small cottage a little would go a long way toward making it more comfortable. Stones had to be brought up from the nearby river bank, and before the first cold of winter made itself felt, Galen had made a start with the foundation for a modest but sufficient extension. His skills as a builder stood him in good stead, and Serana soon became convinced that he needed neither supervision nor help from her with any of it.
Their routine was well-established by now: Galen would spend most of his time working outside, while Serana busied herself indoors. As she had told him before, discipline and neatness are good traits for a mage, and she exercised her own by keeping every last part of the cottage scrupulously clean. They would conclude the day's work at sundown, which came earlier as the days grew shorter. Then they would bathe, have dinner, and then attend to the various aspects of Galen's continued training. He spent more and more time on the training bench as the instructed him in the arcane art of manipulating his inner Energies.
"The idea is to optimize the flow of the Energies through your body," she explained as she adjusted the position of the various parts of the bench. "We want them to run freely, but not engulf you. At this point in your training it is important that your head be raised above the rest of your body. The Energies don't exactly flow like water, but there are certain similarities, and keeping your head sufficiently raised helps to retain control while you develop your skills."
"Keep my head raised? Which one?" he asked, looking down with a smile.
"Both of them, young man, as you very well know," she admonished him, but the tone of her voice took the sting out of her words. "Now focus and turn your awareness inward."
As the weeks went by and the days continued to grow shorter and colder, she taught him more about the inner Powers that sexual desire and arousal can liberate. He became more and more aware of the forces within him, and gradually he began to achieve a rudimentary form of control over them. Night after night she used her hands and her mouth to bring him to the very brink of orgasm and then expertly held him right there, right at the edge of release, for the longest time until his rock-hard, weeping cock strained with the pressure of his blood within it and he groaned, sweated and shook with the effort of keeping his pent-up pleasure from erupting.
His first magical working came one frosty winter evening. His room did not have a fireplace, but the shed behind the cottage had held an ancient charcoal brazier which, after Galen had scraped off the rust and scoured it with sand, had proved sufficient to warm up the room to a point where it would do for the moment. A proper fireplace would of course have been so much better, but that would have to wait until spring at the very least.
That evening, as usual, Galen was positioned on the training bench, his arms and legs held in place securely but comfortably; his body reclining at a slight angle. Serana was kneeling before him between his spread legs, her mouth on his steely cock as her head gently bobbed up and down, her lips sliding back and forth across the most sensitive spots on the head, while her fingertips traced intricate patterns across his balls to send sparks of pure pleasure into his groin. He managed not to groan with the effort it took him to maintain control. Vocalizing, she had told him repeatedly, would cause some of his Energies to leak away and be wasted.
But tonight he found it difficult to concentrate. The previous night had been cold, and his bedroll on the floor on which he slept was not that thick, so the cold from the stone underneath managed to seep through it. It had been an uncomfortable night, and today had been a day of many yawns and more than a little fatigue. This evening the cold was even more severe, and although the charcoal brazier glowed merrily in the corner, he was acutely aware of the deepening chill that slowly crept into his naked body.
