The Inn

[Author's note and the story so far: Sorry to have been away for so long. I got a story request from a publisher and had to prioritize it to meet the deadline. I'll also confess to allowing some of the criticism here to undermine my enthusiasm. But ultimately, I decided I can't let the naysayers derail things for Simon and Leyna or for those who are enjoying the story, so I'm back now and hope to post two to four chapters a month until the story wraps up.

Our tale begins with author Simon Kettridge finding himself in the fictional realm of his novels, a fantasy series centered on bold heroine Juliette Ravendark. After meeting (and screwing) Ravendark herself, Simon realizes that his presence here has upended the plot of one of his novels, with potentially disastrous consequences. Thanks to his inadvertent meddling, Juliette and her adventuring companions will almost certainly be destroyed, leaving the book's villain, the arch-mage Necromanata, to conquer the world with a horde of zombies and orcs. Stuck at a quaint country inn, all Simon can do is attempt to manipulate events and recruit help with a series of letters to every potential source of aid he can think of - and letters cost money to mail, of which Simon has none. Luckily, the inn's entrancing serving girl, Leyna, doubles as a courtesan and shows Simon the ropes of earning shillings between the sheets. As his letter-writing campaign proceeds, Simon encounters an exotic spectrum of clients to service, while also growing ever more infatuated with Leyna. With the first of his letters having gone out almost a week ago, he is nearing the point at which the addressees might begin to respond ... ]

*****

The Highports' bet ended in a tie long after midnight, leaving Leyna and me each 24 p richer and very sore the next day. To make it an even later evening, inspiration struck me after Ferd released me from her bed, and I composed and addressed my next letter to Duke Phurl before crawling under the covers to sleep. Luckily, I had the luxury of sleeping in the next day.

My poor friend the serving maid, on the other hand, had to be up at sunrise to get the common room ready for the breakfast crowd. So when I trailed downstairs late that morning, I found her with her head down at one of the dining tables, its surface half-cleared from the meal of several now-vanished customers.

"Are you all right?" I asked. She looked up with dark circles under her eyes, but the sight of me put a weary smile on her face, which kept me from being too alarmed.

"The nobility are always the worst at wearing me out," she groaned, her cheek in one palm to prop her head up. "They've no grasp at all of a proper bedtime."

Since she made no move to rise from her seat, I took the chair opposite her and settled into it, looking around cautiously. For the moment, we had the room to ourselves.

"Where's Burgham?" I asked, surprised that the burly, surly innkeeper wasn't at his usual station behind the bar. I didn't want her to get in trouble with her employer for slacking on the job, and somehow her exhaustion felt like my fault even though we'd both been separately hired to please our respective young aristocrats.

"Off for his weekly Dellerday visit to his mother out at her farm. It's why we do lunch late on Dellerday, here at the Goose. He left a bit ago and won't be back till well after noon, so I just thought I'd sit and rest my eyes a bit. That Lord Highport surely ran me through my paces. What an appetite!"

"His sister too," I said. "Although I think she had a considerably nicer attitude about it."

"Oh, he wasn't so bad," she responded. "One of those fellows something scared as a boy and he's been trying to make it up ever since. They've a lot of brash and bluster, those types. But I have to tell you, Simon, a girl doesn't always mind a man with something to prove ... especially not when it comes to bedmates!"

"So ... did he?" The question came out almost against my will. It seemed nosey and rude, and either way, the answer would probably make me dislike Cyrdin Highport even more. But I couldn't help myself, apparently. "Prove it, I mean?"

Her eyes and smile went sly. "If you mean was I faking all my racket - no, I was

not

. He had a way with his rhythm and a look in his pretty green eyes that was bushels more generous than what you probably heard in his talk."

"Well that's good," I said, not entirely sure how I felt about it.

Leyna rose up from the perch of her hand, unslouching and lifting an eyebrow. "

Simon

," she said. "You're not

jealous

, are you?"

The laugh in her tone made me flush. "No. Well ... all right, I suppose, yes. I thought he was an arrogant pipsqueak and should have treated you better, and now not only did he get to have his way with you, but you're full of nice things to say about him."

"Yes, but he had to pay to have his way with me, and you wouldn't."

I sat blinking a moment.

Oh, shit. Does she mean, "You wouldn't do such a thing," or "You wouldn't have to pay?"

But before I could figure out how to ask her, the front door of the Nestled Goose swung open behind me.

And Leyna screamed.

* * *

Sulking in the lowlands between orcish Sutherdun and the wastelands ruled by Necromanata's sepulchral fortress, the Swamps of Dor are an unfriendly place peopled by an unfriendly race called Septra's Children. Aside from being religious fanatics, and sworn enemies of the Phaeland Empire, and possessed of highly venomous fangs, and literally cold-blooded killers, they're not really so bad. I had them play the heavies a couple of times early in Juliette Ravendark's adventures, but by the later books, she'd found a way to make peace with them, and the bad blood turned out to mostly be ancient misunderstandings.

Mostly.

But at this point in the history of Phaeland, the average inhabitant of the empire considered the serpent-folk near devils - and in truth, not too many Phaelanders had ever met one and lived to talk about it.

So Leyna probably couldn't be blamed for her alarm at seeing the inn's doorway filled by an enormous snake-man, a great curved falchion in one hand, eyes of solid black, skin pale green and his tail so long it trailed away out of sight down the steps outside.

I, on the other hand, really had no excuse for squawking the way I did when I turned and laid eyes on him.

Despite his enormous blade, he seemed guarded rather than threatening, turning his head this way and that to sweep the room with eyes like polished onyx. The gleaming gold and silver hauberk he wore also should have put my mind somewhat at ease, rubies of high rank imbedded as insignia in an ornate torc about his neck.

But for whatever reason, I couldn't help scraping out of my chair and almost knocking it over, then positioning myself between the snake-man and Leyna, despite the fact that he could obviously have gone through me like a paper doll.

Fancy armor ... big sword ... not saying anything ...

My brain tried to put the pieces together and index them against my encyclopedic knowledge of Juliette Ravendark's world. It failed utterly.

I heard a stammering sound, realized it was coming from my mouth, and tried to shut it off or turn it into something coherent. Before I could manage the trick, though, the Child of Septra withdrew, vanishing back outside and around the obstruction of the door. I looked at Leyna, saw her mouth agape and blue eyes wide, no more able to say anything to me than I'd been able to speak to the serpent-man. Then her eyes flicked back to the door and widened even further.

In political terms, Septra's Children organize themselves as a theocracy, beholden to the six Temples of Scale, each headed by its own priestess. In every generation, six females are born marked, their scales iridescent and patterned to match the temple of their destiny. The snake-woman who now replaced the falchion-bearing guard had a widow's peak of opalescent purple crowning the light jade of her face, purple-black hair in wings and waves that flowed far down her back, and shoulders and upper arms intricately diamonded with the same shade as her forehead. Her clothing consisted of nothing more than a gleaming golden brassiere from which a lavender veil descended in sheer curtains down her belly. She rose as tall as her guard had - and then entered the room and rose taller still.

Leyna gasped as the priestess swayed up just shy of the rafters. But seeing that movement finally snapped me out of my transfixed state, because I knew what it meant. The viper-folk range between twenty and thirty feet long, and they only need about five feet of tail to balance on. So even the slightest of them can make themselves twice a huge man's height if they want to. I shifted around the table, eyes on the looming reptilian the whole time, and bent to whisper in Leyna's ear.

"

She's just trying to intimidate us. I don't think we're in any danger.

" Then, straightening up with what I hoped was a decent amount of spine, I said aloud, "Greetings, Eesia. You honor us with your manifest divinity."

My peripheral vision caught the blonde girl's face going startled at me, but I kept my gaze on the priestess of the Second Temple of Scale, whose head tilted ever so slightly as she appraised me.

Then she hissed.

"Are you a wizard, or just a highly skilled guesser?" came a voice from behind her. Her hair rustled, and a fronded black-and-orange iguana crawled out of the dark tresses and settled on her left shoulder. In androgynous tones, it said, "I certainly know we've not met before."

"Let's just ... say ... I'm very well informed." I think I managed to keep my voice level. As I spoke, the iguana tilted its head toward the snake-woman's ear and aimed a stream of sibilance there. I went on, "Purple is the color of the Second Temple, and our mutual friend Kizaah told me that 'Eesia' was the name of its most exalted majesty."

There you go - Kizaah, our mutual friend. Nothing to worry about here, the two of us are just networking. Right?

The priestess slithered forward, letting out tail behind her as she came so that she arrived within arm's reach of me with her head just a few inches taller than my own.

"I am informed also," translated the iguana, its accent cultured and slightly throaty. Eesia spoke through noticeably pointed teeth, I noticed, the black fork of her tongue poking out with an occasional fluttering sound. "My information is that you're a bought thing of pleasure, not a 'friend' of Kizaah. She spoke fondly of you, but only as a delight of the flesh. Are you in the habit of overstating your relationships?"

Big strike on the networking.

Trying not to look at the talking lizard instead of its mistress, and trying not to let her ruffle me, and trying not to feel upset that perhaps my interaction with Kizaah had not been as personal as I thought, I said truthfully, "Maybe I'm just in the habit of considering people my friends more quickly than I should."

She swayed back slightly in thought and folded her long arms beneath her breasts, which I suddenly found distractingly magnificent.

Why the hell did I give snake people breasts, exactly?

The arms unfolded. Her hands settled where a human's hips would be. "A bad habit, from my perspective."

"I suppose it's one that a ruler can't afford as easily as a common fellow like me."

Her expression remained cold-blooded and unreadable. At last, she gave a shrug.

"Do you know why I am here?" asked the iguana, spelling out her hisses.

"Um, no," I said. "To be honest, I didn't expect my letter to bring anyone

here

from the Swamps of Dor, and I didn't think it would have any effect at all for several more weeks."

"Your letter. That, you see, is the matter."

My stomach fell.

Is she not going to let it be delivered? Oh, crap. If the serpent-folk don't stop Necromanata's envoy ...

I glanced down at Leyna, whose blue eyes goggled as she looked back and forth between me and the snake-woman, soft, pink lips parted with incomprehension. Unthinkingly, my hand went to her shoulder and squeezed. That brought her eye up to mine and furrowed her brow a little, but seemed to reassure her.

Not that it reassured

me

any.

"Look, I hope I haven't done anything wrong, but it's very important for that letter to get delivered ... uh ..." Fuck. Was I going to have to talk about

why

the letter was important, right here in front of Leyna?

"The letter has been delivered," Eesia said. Both her face and the iguana's tone were cold. "There is jubilation amongst all the highest echelons. If your message is true -"

"It is," I insisted, desperate for her to believe me. But the interruption brought a sharp hiss from the priestess.

The iguana cleared its throat. "If your letter is true," it repeated, more slowly, "then it is to the everlasting glory of the First Temple. And my sister."

Oh. Whoops.

Several days too late, my authorial knowledge of Septra's Children reasserted itself.

In my haste to make sure the letter got to the right authority, to maximize the chance of its success, I'd ignored the fact that the divinely marked priestesses all hated each other. I'd needed it to be that way for plotting purposes, because each of them, and all the upper heirarchy of their temples, wielded tremendous sorcerous power. Without their genetically entrenched rivalry, the Children of Septra would have long ago conquered huge swaths of territory around their swamps. But the clever means by which I'd kept them in check now looked like it might literally bite me in the ass. In passing a boon to the First Temple through the hands of the Second, I'd basically taunted Eesia with a glimpse of vast renown, and then handed that honor to her sister and arch-enemy.

"Are you

informed

," the viperous woman asked, "of Septra's eighth precept?"

Oh, fuck.

I'd written the precepts out somewhere, ages ago, but there was no hope in hell of dredging the right one up from the bowels of my memory right now.

Eesia must have seen it in my face. She went on, through her iguana, "Be not vengeful." Although off to a promising start, the precept raised my spirits not in the least. Because the first three words kick-started a recollection of the rest, and the rest was Not Good. "Vengeance is the purview and the station of the Temple Queens, in whose hands it takes the name 'Justice.'"

Oh, even worse fuck. In her eyes, she has the god-given right to kill me for crossing her. Why the hell wasn't I thinking about this shit when I wrote that fucking letter?

But I knew why - it was because the return of the Heart of Asp and the Great Pax with Phaeland had softened the Septrans from malevolent villains to Juliette Ravendark's occasional allies, and I tended to think of them as good guys now. Only

my

'now' wasn't Eesia's 'now.' The Heart of Asp still sat in the Thankortan Vaults, and at this point in the series, the Temples of Scale would just as soon skin Juliette alive as look twice at her.

"Ahhhh," the priestess said with a wicked smile. "You

are

informed, aren't you?"

"Listen, Eesia, I'm terribly sorry I didn't think to address that letter directly to you. But there are other things I know, things I could tell you ..."

None of them as big as how to get their holy diamond back though, Simon ... you are totally screwed.

The snake-woman's smile split into a grin, and her tongue came out along with a hiss that I didn't need translated to hear as a mocking laugh.

"Oh, yes. You are informed, I see. But you are also lucky."

The thudding of my heart felt like some parasitic spawn trying to break its way out of my chest.

"I am?"

With a nod, Eesia let her face take on a different kind of hunger. "You are. For even if Kizaah did not name you as a friend, she clearly adored you as a pleasure-thing, and expects further pleasure from you if ever she passes this way again. Since she is a companion of my heart, I would not give her disappointment through your death. So if she is right, and your skills are so noteworthy, I will console my unslaked thirst for mortal vengeance with a taste of what she praised in such high terms."

I blanked. No words came to me at all.

Lifting her right hand to reveal the jewelry on its fingers, Eesia went on, "I have no Phaeland coins, but I believe the silver in one of my rings would match the value Kizaah said she paid."

"Yes, of course," I said, my voice like the helpless squeak of a mouse caught in a viper's coils.

She smiled and said through her iguana, "Then lead the way to your chambers, and give me a tale to trade with Kizaah upon my return."

* * *

In the modest confines of my room, Eesia's size proved even more daunting. Her tail filled half the available floor space, even though she wound it back and forth into as compact a pose as she could.

"Light the fire," she commanded through her translator lizard. I shut the door behind us and maneuvered around to the far corner of the room, having to tread cautiously to avoid the priestess's coils and curves. "The climate here is chill," she explained, "and while I can warm myself with magic, I expect a better use for my concentration here in a moment."

"Sure, of course." I fumbled with the fire-starting kit and a couple of alchemically treated logs, got them going quickly enough, and closed the grated iron door on the pot-belly of the fireplace.

When I turned, Eesia had unhooked her brassiere and cast it off. The iguana hung draped across the back of my chair, its eyes wandering the room incuriously and its orange-and-black frills relaxed.

I swallowed at the snake-woman's nakedness.

Am I going to be able to get it up for this? And if I do, where does it even

go

?

With her hands at her waist and her shoulders back, Eesia's upper half dared me to find any comparable example of female sensuality within the realms of memory or imagination. The firelight sent waves of illumination across her skin and set shadows dancing along her shapely contours where, on her shoulders and forehead and lower belly, reptilian scales caught the light and glinted with it. Elsewhere the scales lay so fine that she might have just been a green-skinned woman with purple highlights, like the areolas and nipples adorning her breasts, full and as smooth as ostrich eggs upon her chest. Her face had a sculpted beauty - chin strong yet elegant, cheeks high and noble, lips of sparkling aubergine much too lush to make one think of a snake's smile.

But as much as her upper form entranced me, below the waist she was a python. Broad, flat jade scales ran in bands down her lower front, while glossy plates the size and shape of arrowheads adorned her flanks and overlapped their way around toward her back.

"Well?" the priestess asked, her iguana haughty in its tone. "Have you the will to please me?"

Come on,

I told myself.

She's not

that

much more intimidating than Kurga.

As if just talking to the orf woman hadn't put me completely on edge a couple days before.

You're supposed to be a professional, right? What would Leyna do in your shoes?

Act like it's an adventure.

I squared my shoulders - maybe too overtly - and reached for the buttons of my shirt to undo them.

"In all honesty," I said, working my way down from the top, "you're the most exotic woman who's ever asked me to bed. And I

do

regret causing you offense with my letter-"

A sharp hiss apparently carried its own meaning; the iguana remained silent.

"Sorry." Finishing the last of the buttons, I tugged loose my shirttails and rolled the garment back over my shoulders to strip out of it. "I'll say no more about that except that I'm a man who does his best to make things right. Which in this case looks like it will be a splendid experience."