The Eye Of Aphisis

This story contains: MF, fantasy, furry.

This story is copyright 1998 by Pulp Fan; you can contact me at the email address in my profile. I originally wrote and submitted this piece to an erotic story site (the now defunct "Lust So Stories") under the name Mr. "E", to distinguish it from the pulp pastiches I'd written to that point. Since I've never used Mr. "E" for anything else subsequently, however, I'm now letting it loose under my usual penname. The ending has been modified slightly from its original appearance.

* * * * *

Corbus had heard it said that you could lead a horse to water but you couldn't make it drink. The same could not be said, he reflected wryly, of cats, as he observed his companion quaffing her third mug in little more than ten minutes. Of course, to be fair to the horse, it had to be admitted that what his companion was drinking was not simply water. Nor, in all honesty, was she a cat.

Selane observed Corbus staring at her and looked up, an inquisitive expression in her feline eyes, foam dotting her whiskers and chin fur. "What are you thinking about?" she inquired, licking around her lips with a dainty tongue.

"Ah, nothing, Selane, nothing," stammered Corbus, as he directed his attention to his own beaker. His first, it was still nearly half full.

"Well see, there's your problem," she replied, taking another swig from her mug. "Here you are, the second greatest thief in all Kubladesh, about to embark on an exploit which will make you famous from the shores of Hadriak to the peaks of Calustius, and you're thinking of nothing. While I, on the other hand, have been thinking of little else but our soon-to-be famous heist. Of course, that may be due to the fact that I am _the_ greatest thief in all Kubladesh," she added, somewhat immodestly Corbus felt. He preferred to think of himself and his partner as the two greatest thieves in Kubladesh--leave it to posterity to sort out who was better.

His musings were interrupted as his companion continued, her long tail swatting at an annoying insect. "In fact, seems to me that I've been doing so much of the thinking, I ought to be receiving the--shall we say, lion's share?-- of the profits of this one!" Selane smiled, pleased at her little joke, baring her sharp fangs just a little bit.

Though his companion was lovely, Corbus always found it a bit disconcerting when she smiled that way. Not that he actually thought she'd ever try to hurt him--they had been through too much together, each saving the other's lives on more than one occasion. However, it was a good thing that Selane could hold her liquor, as he wouldn't want to face her if she was drunk and angry with him for some reason. The Fe-Larn were a beautiful and graceful race, with both their males and females universally acclaimed as being among the most handsome of the many sentient species that inhabited the lands around the Inner Sea. They were in high demand as concubines, though few took them against their will, as lurking beneath their soft fur were muscles of steel. Their outward beauty masked the fact that beating beneath their breasts, there pulsed the heart of a hunting cat, swift and deadly when they desired, fond of toying with their prey when it was cornered. Seeing her fangs bared, even though in jest, always made Corbus glad that he was not Selane's prey. Though he was an accomplished swordsman, he had seen her in action more than once, and he had little desire to test his skill against hers.

"I'm afraid that's quite impossible," he laughed. "A deal's a deal. Besides, on all the hauls where I was the mastermind, I don't recall you offering to cut me a larger slice of the pie!"

The Fe-Larn laughed with him. "Maybe if you ever were the mastermind, I would!" she retorted. "That's all right though. With this one, we both make our fortune!" Tossing down the last of her ale, her green, slitted eyes glittered with excitement. At least Corbus hoped it was excitement, though he had known Selane long enough to know that it would take much more than the few drinks she'd had to even begin to get her inebriated. The thought of the theft they had planned, the danger they could face--these were the things that Selane got drunk on.

And who could blame her? For after tonight, the Eye of Aphisis would be theirs!

Around them, the noisy tavern bustled with activity. Busy serving wenches, their bodices cut low and revealing hints of the treasures beneath, moved to and fro carrying trays of food and drink, squealing as a stray hand reached out to pinch their behinds or to pull them onto their owner's lap. Cloaked figures put cowled heads together, shady deals were cut in the smoky air. Boisterous drunks roared out their laughter, occasionally pitching down on the wooden floor in a stupor. In short, it was a night like any other night, at any one of the inns of Kubladesh, crown jewel of Shahdara.

But although secrets were bought and sold at the Scarlet Raptor almost as swiftly as the tavern sold refreshments, it seemed that no man--nay, no being of any of the Twelve Races--had any inkling that the two thieves seated at a corner table planned that very night to deprive the temple of the goddess of love of that most lustrous of gems men called the Eye of Aphisis.

If they had known of their intent, most would have likely spat and called them mad. The allure of the Eye had drawn more than one thief, secure in his or her knowledge and skills. Legends claimed that he who held the Eye of Aphisis held the power to sway men's minds, to charm them into doing anything they desired. It was well known among the shadier denizens of Shahdara that many thieves had entered the temple of Aphisis in search of her sparkling prize. It was equally well known that none had ever emerged or been seen again. How they had been ensnared remained a mystery, known only, perhaps, to the goddess herself and her most trusted priests.

While Selane and Corbus were, of course, familiar with the tales of the failed efforts of their predecessors, they were also, of course, the two greatest thieves in Kubladesh. Where lesser mortals had failed, they would succeed. Or so they believed...

As they sat at the table, once more going over their plan in hushed whispers, a hand fell on the shoulder of Selane. "Hey there, little lady, lookin' for a little fun?" came a drunken voice behind her.

With a snarl, she rose from her chair, whirled to see who had addressed her. Though standing a few inches below six feet, her lithe frame was slender but solid. Her attire, consisting of some dark cloth wrapped around her waist and chest, did little to hide the rippling muscles playing beneath her spotted fur or the fullness of her breasts. The Fe-Larn disliked wearing clothes, though did so when frequenting areas populated mainly by humans. Since the sight of a naked Fe-Larn, whether male or female, had a predictable effect on humans, they had become accustomed to wearing them. A short sword hung in its leather scabbard at her side, swaying with her movement.

"I think you'd better leave..." Corbus started but was cut off by Selane.

"I know you'd better leave!" Selane corrected, fairly spitting at the man who had accosted her. Clad in a silken shirt, with tanned trousers and a rapier hanging from his side, her admirer towered over her.

"Aw, come on, love. I bet you know some great tricks with that tail! How's about you and me go somewhere and you can show me a few?" he leered, reaching towards her again. That action proved he was either extremely drunk or extremely stupid. Few people who weren't either messed with a Fe-Larn when they weren't in the mood.

Corbus bolted upright. "No claws!" he cried. Here they were, on the eve of their greatest theft. It would be just like Selane to do something that would bring the watch down on them, like slicing this drunkard up with her claws. From his dress, though intoxicated, he seemed a man of some means.

Corbus had no need to worry. Both Selane's claws and sword remained sheathed. She pirouetted. One black spotted leg lifted off the floor, a slim foot smashed into the drunk's head. With a strangled cry he spun and fell backwards, crashing against a table before hitting the floor. Though he still breathed, he didn't stir.

When Selane made no further move towards him, the tavern, which had been momentarily silent as the patrons watched the scene unfold before them, resumed its low roar.

Corbus, still standing, quickly finished his drink. "Well, I think it's best we're off. The moons are down and we've wasted enough time here."

Tossing a few coins on the table, he and Selane made their way to the door. "Thanks for not killing that guy," he told her, half serious, half in jest.

"No problem," she replied as they walked out onto the street. "Let's do it."

Turning their steps towards the temple of Aphisis, the pair moved swiftly down the cobbled street. The darkness caused by the momentary absence of the Three Sisters in the sky was broken only by the light of an occasional flickering streetlight and the stars. Most folks were already in bed or, if not, taking up space in an inn somewhere, leaving the streets chiefly deserted.

Intent on what lay before them, neither of them noticed that a cloaked figure had risen from its seat at the Scarlet Raptor as they left and had begun to trail them, staying far back in the shadows. Though the hearing of the Fe-Larn was legendary, Selane gave no indication (nor did Corbus, for that matter) that she was aware the duo was being followed.

* * * * *

"Took you long enough," grumbled Corbus softly. Though she knew he was joking, Selane scowled at him.

The two thieves stood in a darkened attic in the uppermost reaches of the temple of Aphisis. Like many of their feline cousins, the Fe-Larn were excellent climbers. Reaching the temple unnoticed, the pair had gone around back. There Selane had commenced to scale the wall, climbing upwards on the stone face towards a window high overlooking the city. The climb had been a slow and arduous one, for the stone wall offered little purchase. Indeed, it was likely that none but one of the Fe-Larn could have scaled its face. Down below, Corbus had kept an anxious watch, but they had chosen their time well. No one had wandered near where they were working.

Reaching the window, Selane had quickly begun chipping at the mortar surrounding the bars of the window. This had been a regular task of hers for over the last month, as each night she chipped more and more of the mortar away, loosening the bars, filling the depression with a putty-like substance as she left each night in order to fool any eye that might glance out the window and gaze out over the towers and turrets of Kubladesh.

Tonight her weeks of hard work had finally paid off. Straining her muscles, she had wrenched the loose bars from their casings, creating a hole big enough to admit both her and Corbus. Entering the attic, she had dropped a rope down to her partner, who had quickly shimmied up it.

"So far, so good," muttered Corbus as he looked around, waiting for Selane to catch her breath. The attic was cluttered with oddly shaped boxes and furniture, much of which took on an eerie, otherworldly appearance in the dim light. "Lead on."

Her slitted eyes well adapted to dim light conditions, Selane padded soundlessly across the attic floor, Corbus following close behind. Opening the door, they emerged onto a landing, at the top of a staircase spiraling down. Set in niches every so often along the roughhewn walls, blazing torches gave off a flickering light, creating monstrous shadows that danced and swayed on the curved stone walls of the staircase.

The two thieves crept slowly, silently down the stairs. As they came to other floors, they continued their descent. The Eye of Aphisis was located on ground level, in the main worship hall, over a hundred feet below where they had made their entrance.

As they drew nearer to their target, the stone staircase came to an end on the floor above the ground floor. Slowly the pair crept down a long hall, exquisite tapestries covering the paneled walls, their footsteps silent in the night. Corbus and Selane glanced at the scenes portrayed on the tapestries and sighed, knowing that they were passing by a fortune. Each depicted Aphisis, nude in resplendent glory, her twin breasts firm and uplifted, crowned by elongated cherry-red nipples, her blond thatch soft and curly, hinting at the warm treasures to be found between her silken thighs, her long legs slender and seemingly begging to be wrapped around a lover. Her worshipers--mostly human, but there were representatives of each of the Twelve Races--cavorted around her, engaging in various physical expressions of love. One tapestry depicted a young woman in the throes of passion, pleasuring one man with her mouth while another thrust his cock into her pussy from behind. In another four nymphs lay in a daisy chain, their pursed lips pressed against their delicious slits, bringing each other to ecstasy with their mouths and tongues. In yet a third a man lay on his back while his lover slowly lowered herself onto him, impaling her asshole on his stiffened prick as it disappeared between her rounded asscheeks. Each tapestry depicted a different combination of participants and activities, illustrating the varied and diverse ways that Aphisis brought joy to the world.

However, while Corbus and Selane knew that the tapestries were each worth a small fortune, they also knew that the real fortune lay further ahead. And so they passed them by, stealing unwitting glances at them as they slunk ahead, becoming slightly aroused as they observed the erotic tableaus brought to stunning life by the exquisite workmanship of Aphisis' artisans. Corbus couldn't help but stare at Selane padding down the hall before him, her black-spotted fur shimmering with her tread, supple tail flicking alertly behind her as if it had eyes. Though their relationship had always been a professional one, his throat grew dry as his thoughts, inspired by the carnal scenes on the tapestries, grew very unprofessional indeed.

Suddenly Selane stopped. Behind her, Corbus followed suit. Ahead was a balcony, overlooking the ground floor. Sneaking over to the railing, they cautiously peeked over and looked down below.

Fifteen or so feet below them lay the marble floor of the entryway to the temple, from which rose a great oaken door. The two thieves knew that behind this massive door lay the chief worship area of Aphisis--the location of the mystical Eye. Standing at guard in front of this barrier stood four guardsman, dressed in chainmail hauberks, armed with scimitars. They seemed to be statues as they stood there, motionless, the flickering torchlight reflecting off their stern expressions.

From a small pouch he wore at his waist, Corbus retrieved a stoppered vial. Inside could be seen a bluish green powder, which seemed to glow eerily in the shadows. It was on this strange powder that Corbus and Selane had based the crucial element of their plan. It had not been easy to obtain--indeed, the tale of it was one worth telling, involving as it did a theft from a mage of no little reputation. While Selane had kept the wizard occupied with her toothsome figure, plying her erotic arts on the sorcerer and turning his thoughts, however briefly, from the realms of magic to the realms of the flesh, Corbus had carefully plundered the wizard's workshop. The mage, his hardened prick buried deeply in Selane's steaming pussy as she rode him, bouncing up and down on her muscular thighs, soft golden fur gleaming, her tail twitching bewitchingly behind her, had been unaware of Selane's partner in crime invading his laboratory and carefully extracting a small quantity of a certain powder whose properties the wizard had been unwise enough to reveal to his potential paramour. Selane considered the powder well paid for, as she had coaxed several exquisite climaxes from the body of their victim, while she herself had scaled the heights of ecstasy more than once as well, impaling herself on his rigid shaft, slickly coated with her love juices. When she left the mage, exhausted, the following morning, the wizard reflected that the famed sexual prowess of the Fe-Larn was no myth. And, having confined himself to taking but a small quantity of this powder and disturbing no other object, Corbus' theft remained undetected.

Corbus now unstoppered the vial and poured the glittering dust onto his palm. Pursing his lips, he blew the powder into the air, scattering it further with his hand as he tossed it above the heads of the guards. The eerie dust sparkled for a moment in the entryway, glowing in the fluttering light, before diffusing enough so as to be well nigh invisible. Corbus and Selane held their breath as the dust settled down upon the guards and the area in which they stood watch, but by neither word nor deed did the sentries give any indication that they had noticed that aught was amiss.

Exchanging a glance, the two greatest thieves in Kubladesh slowly withdrew their weapons, hers a shortsword, his a rapier. Nodding at each other, they gathered themselves and leaped over the balcony!

Both thieves had judged the distances perfectly. They each came crashing down atop a guard, sending them sprawling to the floor. Corbus and Selane rolled with their falls and sprang to their feet. The two sentries they had landed on, however, were not so fortunate, as their heads had come into swift contact with the marble floor and bounced off it. Only their helmets, absorbing much of the blow, saved them from serious injury or death. As it was, they lay senseless where they had fallen.

For the first time, the other two guards gave signs that they were alive, as looks of shock spread across their previously impassive faces. Their surprise was due not only to the sudden appearance of the man and Fe-Larn who know stood, armed, before them, but from the fact that the whole initial attack had proceeded in total silence! There had been absolutely no noise as the two hurtling bodies smashed into the other two watchmen, just as there had been no sound as their armored bodies crashed to the floor. The air should have been filled with the harsh symphony of metal striking marble, but instead it was quiet as a tomb.

Though they had received a rude surprise, both guard's reflexes were honed and automatic. Their blades came literally flying out of their sheaths as they shouted for help. Once again, however, silence reigned supreme. Although their mouths opened, no sound emerged, as if they had suddenly been stricken mute. If Corbus and Selane had been in the mood for a good laugh, they could easily have had one looking at the expressions of confusion flitting across the guards' faces.

If they had felt inclined, the pair of intruders could have provided the explanation for the supernatural quiet that enveloped the entryway. The secret lay in the dust that Corbus had sprinkled into the room, a magical powder which, for a short period of time, absorbed and deadened all sound around it. A full orchestra could be playing in that room, but while the dust maintained its potency, the audience might as well be deaf for all the music they would hear.

This was no time for laughter or explanations, however. Corbus and Selane launched their assaults.

A snarl on her feline face, sharp teeth bared, Selane hurled herself at the larger of their two opponents. Her blade licked out, to be met by that of the guard. In eerie silence she pressed her attack. There came no sound of clanging blades, of shuffling feet, of heavy breath. Instead they danced to a music which only they could hear, a dance of death as their swords wove curtains of steel before them.

Her opponent was no mean swordsman. Parrying one of her thrusts, his glittering blade flickered out, slicing in at her head. Only her Fe-Larn reflexes saved her as she barely managed to dodge the blow. Sweating from their exertions, they shuffled back and forth across the floor, first one, then the other, on the attack. Finally though, Selane got the opening she sought. Blades locked, the two foes stood near each other, each straining to force the other back. Selane's other hand flashed forward, razor-sharp retractable claws extended, slashing at the guard's face. Her blow laid it open, crimson blood pouring from the wound. The pain broke the guard's concentration for just a moment. His attention diverted, he was unprepared when Selane slid her blade off his and whipped it back, plunging it through his throat. With what would have been--under any other circumstances--a gurgled cry, the guard sank to his knees and collapsed on the floor, a red puddle rapidly spreading across the cool marble.