The Inn Ch 14

[The story so far: Simon's a fantasy writer. He's been transported to the world of his novels. Leyna is a serving wench at the inn where he's stuck. She's gorgeous and clever, and Simon falls hard for her even after finding out that she moonlights as a prostitute. But there's Big Trouble in the form of a necromancer out to destroy the whole realm. Simon's only hope of stopping him is to write letters from the inn he's stuck at, trying to use his authorial knowledge to influence just the right people in just the right way to undo the necromancer's plan. It doesn't go well ... but then he learns a secret even Leyna doesn't know herself - that she's the arch-mage's long-lost daughter, and may have access to an artifact that could destroy him. When it turns out the artifact is buried with Leyna's mother, they set out for the haunted swamp where she was laid to rest. An ally of Simon's accompanies them - Yilma Greenwarden. Her nature-born magic will, they hope, let them summon the spirit that rules the swamp, without whose help the burial place will never be found. Along the way, they're delayed by an orgy of mythical creatures.

Author's note: Just a heads-up that this chapter is a little shorter than most, and is all story. Hardly any naughty stuff at all. Sorry ...]

*****

The bed of fog covered every inch of grass in the clearing, deep enough that Leyna's naked form beneath me lay half-hidden, her face and breasts islands above the mist, her throat and shoulders and chest deeper and hazy, the crooks of her elbows invisible where they rested on the ground.

Standing where a gap broke the ring of trees around us, the Mistress of the Bog extended seamlessly up from that mist - or more accurately, I suppose, it extended seamlessly outward from her form at the ankles. She wore nothing, but the colorless insubstantiality of her body left the details of her nudity difficult to pick out from this distance. One moment, I thought I saw a hint of triangular bush above the juncture of her legs, and the next I realized I was seeing an

actual

bush on the other side of her.

"Have I missed quite a bit, then?" she asked. Her voice had the tone of a whisper echoing off brackish water.

Loonce flitted over to her on his sprite wings, barrel-rolling just before he stopped. "Nothing I can't spin together for you in a heartbeat!"

Over next to Yilma, Mordwith the satyr grinned and patted the greenwarden's furry deer bottom.

"Nice job with the summoning spell," he said.

"Actually," said the nature wizard, looking at her dripping and cum-slathered upper body, "I hadn't started the rite yet."

"Urk," I said, trying to keep my nose from wrinkling at what we'd put her through, apparently for nothing. "Sorry, Yilma."

"Why would you be sorry?" Genuinely puzzled, she raked her fingers through the mixture of minotaur and satyr and sprite and human spew upon her breasts, put the tips in her mouth, and sucked. Then, licking them one at a time, she said, "I'm a greenwarden - I find no displeasure in receiving the stuff of life."

The Mistress turned her fog-faint head from one to the other of our convocation's strange membership. Her spectral hair caught up slowly with the movement, trailing like wisps of smoke.

"A summoning?" she asked. "Am I desired for some reason?"

Loonce flew in and hovered right at her breasts, flitting from one to the other and then down to her crotch like a hummingbird. "You're desired for lots of reasons! But I suppose specifically ..."

Darting back from her, he looped around me, Leyna, and Yilma in two quick circles.

"... these three have come looking for you." A quick glance at the greenwarden, grooming semen from her torso, made him add, "Ha! Made a joke without even trying - they

came

looking for you!"

"Hilarious, Loonce," rumbled Drog. The bullfinch remained near Yilma, his enormous pizzle still half erect and dangling a final strand of viscous liquid.

"We do seek a boon, Milady," Yilma said, rising to her hooves and then bowing. "But our business can certainly await your leisure, if you'd prefer to engage in the diversions here first."

I didn't necessarily agree with that - especially since I didn't know if Leyna or I had it in us to do any more of the orgy arbiter's bidding - but I held my tongue. It seemed like negotiating with a ghost of vengeful reputation was probably best left to the expert.

"Hmmm," intoned the Mistress, her voice now the sound of wind blowing through a hollow log. "I do enjoy these parties very much. But it's much rarer that the living enter Beadle's Bog in search of me. For the moment, my curiosity exceeds my concupiscience. What boon would you ask?"

With another, deeper bow, Yilma gestured to the girl beneath me and said, "This young woman seeks her mother's burial spot."

The ghost's dark eyes turned toward us. Leyna patted at my chest, and I hurriedly let her up and rose to my feet beside her.

Awkwardly, nervously, my naked serving wench girlfriend gave a curtsy. She kept her head down as she spoke. "It was about ten years ago that we brought her casket out here. Her name was -"

"Dwinvara Lovio Eltespernon," said the fog spirit. "That one has been among the few mysteries to intrigue me in my recent years."

"She has?" Leyna blinked at her, blue eyes too surprised to remain downturned.

The Mistress of the Bog nodded and held up one hand, rotating without moving feet or legs until her outstretched arm indicated the gap in the trees through which she'd appeared.

"Concupiscience lags behind lust farther still. This way."

We looked at one another, and at Yilma as well, and each took a hesitant step in the direction she bade us. Then Leyna stopped and darted her gaze around the mist-shrouded clearing.

"Our clothes ..." she said, unable to see where anything lay through the fog. "Can we take a moment to fetch them?"

The ghost turned her hand over, then over again, and our things flew up out of the blanketing cloud and wrapped themselves around us before we could flinch.

Leyna coughed, wide-eyed and skin going a shade paler than normal.

"Shall we hold the festivities until you return?" asked Yndicir the dryad, conductor of the orgy.

"If you please," said the Mistress, "but not beyond an hour. I don't want to delay Fwill's release overlong."

"Tricorns are triply patient," replied Fwill with a casual shrug. I assumed he must be right, since he'd rested calmly on his miniature pony belly with his human arms crossed through over an hour of gyrating and partner-shifting sexual ménages.

Nodding to him, she glided backward out of the clearing, rotated to change her facing, and headed deeper into the swamp. Leyna, Yilma, and I hurried to follow.

"Are we close to where she ... well, to her coffin?" asked Leyna.

The spirit faced us again - not stopping, legs motionless as ever. The effect disconcerted me. With the clearing behind us and Loonce's sprite glow long vanished, a faint blue illumination extended from the fog that made up her body and hid our feet and the ground nearby.

"Time and distance have less meaning for me here, in the swamp, than they would for a mortal. We will reach the spot shortly."

When she turned away once more, I felt an immediate relief. Her features and shape, up close, had an unearthly beauty in their foggy indistinction. But the dark shadows that served as her eyes gave me way too much of a horror-flick vibe.

We moved on in silence, three of us walking as the fourth floated in the lead. I tried to keep my eyes on the ground at first, but the mist obscured it so completely, I couldn't see my footing to mind it. Unnerved, I switched to watching our wispy guide.

A few minutes on, Leyna tugged my hand, then pointed around us with her eyes.

The motion focused my view outward, where I saw trees flying by at a speed far greater than a walk. On top of that, I now realized that I felt none of the mucky resistance to my footsteps that had made our earlier march through the bog such an effort - and my boots gave off no noise when I set them down or lifted them up either one.

I squeezed Leyna's hand, more to acknowledge the bizarreness of the situation than in hopes of reassuring either of us. She gave me a look of mixed resolve and incredulity, and we both just kept walking. I wondered what would happen if I let my feet stop - whether the mist beneath us would carry me onward just as quickly. But I didn't have the balls to try it.

"We near the heart of the swamp now," said the Mistress. "It is not much further."

I opened my mouth to say something innocuous like, "Oh. Well, that's good." But before the words could come out, an island swept up out of the darkness, making me realize we'd been moving across water for some time. My jaw clamped itself shut.

On the island stood a single tree, and bound to the tree was another figure as misty and unreal as our guide.

The Beadle

, I thought, readying myself for the distraught, eternally cursed wails that Leyna's folk tales said to expect.

Instead, he lifted one hand, trailing a foggy chain, and waved.

"Evening, Lismada!" he said, voice eerie and cheery in equal measures.

"Hi, Beadle!" our guide replied. "Off on an errand and then to the weekly genitalia social after that. Care for me to stop by later on and fill you in?"

"Yes, delighted, if you please!"

Our movement never stopped or slowed, and the Beadle vanished behind us as his final words came out. The Mistress - Lismada - had simply panned to keep facing him as we sped by.

After a few beats of silence, Leyna said, "Was that ... isn't he the one who had you killed?"

"Beadle Bilvert, yes," said Lismada. "Poor fellow doesn't get to roam about like I do."

Leyna's brow furrowed. "You seem on awfully good terms with him, considering!"

The ghostly shoulders shrugged. "Well, he

is

my only human neighbor, and we've had quite some time to patch things up."

And then our movement stopped. I continued forward a couple of steps, nearly running into Lismada before I realized she'd halted. Around us lay an almost featureless dark. At the edge of vision, I could make out trees in a great, far-off ring, their branches small and shadowy. A half moon rose just higher than the trees to the east, its reflection visible in a great stretch of water between us and a distant shore.

"We're here," said the Mistress of the Bog. "The Lake of Rest."

Leyna looked down at her feet. "So ... we're standing on water?"

"I wouldn't think on it overmuch," suggested Yilma Greenwarden from behind us. To our spirit guide, she said, "Can you raise her to the surface for us? I could do it with time and a few rites, but I sense a great many auras of warding below, and I'm not certain I'd pick the right one."

"I can," said Lismada. "But I would like the story first, to assure me that bringing her up is right and proper. And I require a payment too, though we can discuss that after the tale is told."

Oh, great. Now I'm going to have to fuck a ghost.

But as unnerving as that idea might be, I realized I should probably hope it was the right conclusion to jump to. Bartering with immortal spirits could be dangerous in Phaeland - I'd written that into some very dark scenarios several times in the series.

"Which story do you want?" asked Leyna. "Mine, and my mother's? Or Simon's?"

"It is all of a piece, or you would not be here together."

"Oh."

I put my arm around her, gave her a little squeeze, and then straightened my shoulders to address the ghost.

"We're here because Leyna's father is an arch-mage," I said. "A nasty one who lives up in the Fell Reaches. He's working right now to raise an army of the dead and to ally himself with the orcs of Sutherdun so he can sweep across Phaeland and wipe it out. Only he has a weakness, a focus of power that he lost possession of. He created it years ago with a part of his soul. If we destroy it, his magic will collapse. He might die too ... I'm less sure of that. Our guess is that Leyna's mother took this focus when she left him. We think it's in the coffin with her, wherever she's resting."

Lismada nodded slowly. "But she is not resting."

"She's not?" asked Leyna.

The Mistress turned to her. "Your portion of the story, please."

"Well," she said, looking more off-balance than ever. "I don't know what there is to tell. All I remember is Mother showing me everything she could of the world. Different towns, different people. We would live here for a bit and there for a bit, traveling through all manner of places in between. And then when I was nine she told me she wouldn't always be here, and I should start to prepare for that."

I could see and hear the emotion of old memories weighing on her, and I held her a little tighter.

"I thought she meant the same as any parent might say ... that I'd have to make my way in the world without her someday. But a year later, she fell into a terrible weakness and ... she died." She paused and sniffled and rubbed her nose, then straightened up and continued. "In the last few weeks, she sold everything she could to pay Burgham to look after me - everything but her dress to be buried in and the brooch she'd always kept in a box."

"And you, Greenwarden?" asked Lismada, her dark eye-hollows now aimed at Yilma.

"I'm a hireling only," the hindaur said, "with no knowledge to contribute to this story, I'm afraid."

"Think a moment more."

Yilma's expression went curious. Then she nodded thoughtfully. After a couple of finger-taps to her chin, something dawned on her.

"These two can be trusted," she said. "The woman has a taint of ill parentage, but I tested her and found her clean-souled herself. There's something pure between the two of them, something rare to see and sense, and even though they have it, they're willing to put themselves at risk with this venture."

My chest warmed from deep inside at those words, and I had a sudden thrill at Leyna's presence in my arms.

"Thank you. That is enough for me to proceed. On, then, to my fee." Raising one arm, the Mistress of the Bog pointed directly at my chest. "To disturb the dead, I ask a life."

* * *

You know that feeling you get when you've just heard something so wonderful it floats you halfway to heaven, but then a moment later there's an incorporeal specter reaching its ghostly hand out for your soul, so that it can drag you off to eternal horror and bereavement?

No?

Well, I learned what it was like right then, and it absolutely froze me.

The fuck? Are you - she can't really mean - godfuckingdammit! Seriously?

Leyna stepped between me and the misty haunt. She said something, but it didn't even register in my brain, just bounced around my cochlea and then back out of my ear canal.

Her presence, though, and the realization that she'd just put herself between me and the outstretched hand of death, snapped me loose again.

"Leyna ..." I said, taking hold of her fiercely squared shoulders. "If we don't stop him, your father's hordes are going to kill us all anyway. We've got to get that brooch and use -"

"Oh my," said Lismada, pulling her hand back to flatten it across her chest. "I'm afraid I was being overdramatic there."

I just shut up and stood in place. I think my brain misfired at the prospect of being turned upside down again.

The ghost drifted closer, her posture no longer threatening and her faint features in ... a regretful smirk? "It is no literal life I ask of you. It is your life

there

. In your other realm, the one you were brought from by that artifact in your pocket."

"My ..." I followed her eyes to my breast pocket, and my hand came up without a thought to pull Lord Weltfordshire's heirloom pen halfway out.

Why the hell did I bring

that

along?

By all rights, I should have left my only semi-valuable possession back with my other things in the hayloft. It wasn't like I even had any paper to write on. But as I stood there, I realized I hadn't let the pen leave my person at any point since arriving in Phaeland, with the exception of the times I'd taken a bath.

"Did you not know?" asked Lismada, leaning in close enough that Leyna squirmed to one side to avoid contact with her misty non-flesh. "It's a thing of power. It carried you across the gulfs to this place, and it could carry you back ... except that its ink is near spent, and I would have you write the last of its magic on my behalf as your part of our exchange."

"Um ... if you say so," I told her, removing the pen so that its cobalt-blue barrel rested coldly in my hand. With all eyes on it, including a deer-bodied wood wizard and an ancient, bodiless soul, it did somehow feel heavy and almost electric to my fingers. "But if it's magical, it's a damn erratic magic. Pretty much everything I've written with it has gone in a completely different direction than I expected."

"You have not known how to use it," she said.

That's for damn sure.

Almost the first thing I'd done, once I realized that my presence had doomed Juliet Ravendark and her friends to a horrible death, had been to try to write my way out of the situation by scribbling out a few sentences about a magic teleportation ring under my bed. Result? Absolutely nothing. From there, I'd cranked out a slew of letters to people who might be able to do something about Necromanata. It ended up getting me poisoned by a snake-woman and almost killed by a mad assassin.

If I had a choice between Necromanata's power focus and a dangerous enchanted pen with only a few uses left in it and no idea how to make them count, it wasn't a hard choice to make.

"Okay, well, if you know how and you're willing to trade - " Or was it? "Wait. It could carry me back?"

"Wielded properly."

WTF. Seriously?

Lismada went on, her hollow voice shading the air with portent. "That is why I said I would trade for a life. If you take my bargain, you will have no ready way back to the existence you led before."

The way Leyna tensed against me immediately told me what a shit I was.

You wouldn't seriously consider it, would you? Blinking out of her life, leaving her and the rest of Phaeland to Necromanata's zombies and ghouls?

I blew out my cheeks. My attention had been so riveted to the task of saving the Empire from destruction, I hadn't put much thought into getting back home once it was done. A few vague notions of searching out a planes-traveling magician to carry me across the dimensions, assuming the right path could even be found - those aside, I'd managed to push into a back corner the subject of friends and colleagues, fellow writers, fans, and the few cousins I had who could be called family.

Air-conditioning.

Television.

Japanese food.

Curiously, though, the longer my list trailed on, the simpler the decision got. Commercials. Department stores. Word processors. Smog.

Twenty-four hour news channels covering twenty-first-century American politics.

Screw

that

shit.

"It wasn't a bad life," I said, with a shrug that felt unreal. "But I think I'm doing okay here. I'll make that trade."

"Very good," said the ghost. Turning in place, she addressed Yilma. "Have you any paper or hide in your bag that he might write on?"

"Either," said the greenwarden, pulling up her satchel to rummage in. "Is there a preference?"

"No."

The hindaur fished a small journal from her bag and held it out to me. "You can tear a page loose from the back."

I had to take my arm from around Leyna's waist to accept the little book. She watched it pass from Yilma's hand to mine as though something precious resided within. And it did, I realized.