Acolyte of the Pleasure Goddess Ch. 08

"Bryn fingered me within an hour of knowing me," Delyssa said.

"He did?"

"I did," said Bryn.

Delyssa thought for a moment. It was so easy, so natural for her to be so open with others. It wasn't just for play. When she laid with someone else, when their bodies met together, she felt like she could see them fully, with more clarity and sympathy than a dozen evenings spent in conversation. The idea of giving that up felt like losing speech. Had she always felt that way? Was that something undiscussed she learned at the Temple of Shevlana, where pleasure was the common tongue?

"I don't think I would give this up," she said eventually. "I think this is who we are. Vael might not be like us, might not love in the same way as we do, but he can still be with us. I think he'll see that. He just needs some comfort."

"I guess we'll just have to catch up with him, then," said Bryn.

Delyssa looked up. The sun was risen now. In a few days they would be in sight of the Riversea. A few more and they would be at the Emerald Bridge. She recalled the morning light through the window of her room in the Temple's dormitory. It seemed like ages ago, now, since she woke up to that warmth, but was really just a few weeks. As she stood to break camp along with the others, she wondered who she would be when she returned to that place.

#

Kruit found Jahroud in a shady corner of the Temple gardens, sitting among the roots of a tree. He was wearing just a thin loincloth, and held a long wooden flute to his lips. Next to him was a young man in a tunic and trousers, holding an identical flute. He had at his hip an engraved horn made out of bronze, the symbol of Tegora, the Goddess of Music and Arts, and Kruit realized that he must be another acolyte from the neighboring temple from down the Street of Souls. The domains of the two gods overlapped slightly, Love and Beauty from Shevlana and Art and Music from Tegora, and so it was not uncommon for the worshipers of both to mingle together.

He waited at a distance as the two played, the Tegoran acolyte often interrupting Jarhroud to correct some part of his playing, his posture or fingering. The music that drifted over to Kruit was a pleasing duet, and he got the sense that some of Jahroud's mistakes were merely excuses to get the other boy to reach over and reposition his fingers over the flute's holes. When it was clear that the lesson was over, he walked over to the pair.

"May I speak with you?" he said to Jahroud after nodding to the other boy, who stood off behind Jahroud, clutching his instrument before him. Jahroud nodded and passed the flute back to his companion. The two exchanged a few words before the Tegoran hugged Jahroud and left towards the side entrance, though Kruit caught one quick glance down at the bulge beneath Jahroud's loincloth before departing. Kruit waited until his whistling faded out of earshot before turning towards the acolyte.

"I've been trading lessons with him. I think I'm getting pretty good," said Jahroud.

"And what have you been teaching him in exchange?"

Jahroud smiled. "He's going to be the best kisser in the Temple of Tegora, I bet."

Kruit chuckled. "Well, that's more benign than I feared, to be honest. Nothing that will get Mother Corporeal a stern missive from their high priest about luring away members of their sect."

"Does that happen?"

"All the time."

Jahroud laughed, then shrugged. "Well, I can't guarantee that she won't get one of those regarding me at some point. What can I do for you, Brother Kruit?"

"I've had a long talk with Mother Corporeal," he said. Jahroud just raised an eyebrow, an irritatingly skeptical gesture from someone less than half of Kruit's age. "Maybe more of an argument," he allowed. "I want to go out and find Delyssa. At first Corporeal wouldn't hear of it, but I managed to talk her into it on a few conditions, the main one being that I wouldn't go alone. I heard you two were close, so I wanted to extend you the invitation."

For a moment, Jahroud's cool demeanor broke. "Is she alright? Has something happened?"

"Yes and no. I'll explain more if you accept. But she's fine and in good health as of last night. Our worry is more... philosophical."

"I don't understand."

"She has stumbled onto a path we did not anticipate, and we worry about its destination."

"So, we're going to bring her back here?"

"If she can be convinced of that, then yes. If not... then we might have stay by her side for quite some time. I'll be honest with you, Jahroud, it might be some time before we return to the Temple. You have every right to refuse."

Jahroud just crossed his arms. "When do you want to leave?"

"In the morning."

"Well, that's all the time I need. I have a few chores I need to do today, then I need to make some goodbyes." He thought for a moment. "Maybe for the rest of the evening."

Kruit just sighed. "Just don't stay up too late. I'll find you in the feast hall tomorrow. Early. We're going to head out with the dawn."

Jahroud left back towards the main hall, and Kruit made his way alone back to his bedchamber in the mausoleum, below the opposite corner of the Temple grounds.

He had used the room very little since his sight returned to him. In truth, it felt like an alien place to him now. He could see all of the ways in which it was a reflection of who he was during that time: morose, lonely, forgotten. He hauled the chest from the foot of his bed onto the mattress, and fished the key to its lock from where it was hidden beneath a stone brick in the floor. His hand trembled a little as he twisted the lock open, and he glared at it, willing for them to still.

The rusty hinges of the chest creaked in agony as he opened it and stared at the contents within. The belongings of an adventurer, now old and dusty. There was a suit of chain mail, neatly folded, enchanted so as to keep from rusting. Alongside that was a bronze mace, narrow and knobbed at the end, the leather grip still tight and intact. Beneath these were mementos of past campaigns. Old maps, loose coins, pretty stones too worthless to sell. The accumulated detritus of a life of adventure. He turned the chest over, emptied all of these out onto the bed, then pried open the bottom of the chest, revealing a small compartment. Inside this was a bundle of cloth that filled the space so as not to rattle when the chest was moved.

He muttered a prayer under his voice as he removed the bundle, feeling the hard objects kept within around his fingers. He shook his head, changing the prayer to a curse as he suddenly shook the bundle open, spilling the contents out onto his bedsheets beside him. Four golden bracelets, each one thick, carved in ancient runes and studded with tiny gemstones. He almost laughed, looking at them. How small they looked now compared to how large they loomed in his mind.

He turned one around in his hands, running his thumbs over its surface. With a sigh, he tried to slip it on over his wrist, then frowned as it refused to fit past his knuckles.

"They fit someone else now," a voice said.

Kruit looked up sharply. The room was empty, and he wearily relaxed.

"You're far from my least favorite ghost, Mesembre," he said. "But you cause me worry like no other."

"I have faith in her."

"Like you had faith in me?"

"Exactly like I had faith you. Was I wrong then?"

"Yes. No. It just turned out that you need more than faith."

"Such heresy from Kruit the cynic." He could hear the smile in her voice.

"Nobody calls me that."

"Not back then they didn't. You used to be so committed to my cause. What changed?"

"What changed? I failed. Like you failed. Like every champion you had before me failed."

"And so you lost hope? It can never be done?"

Kruit was silent for a moment, his jaw clenched. "So are you now loosed upon the world?"

"Not the world. Just my champions. Past and present, it would seem."

"I suppose I'll just have to get used to your voice again."

"My power wanes. I am stronger in the dream world, and the ritual last night opened a door that closes more every moment. Soon I shall just be memory once more, don't worry."

"That's for the best. I won't want you over my shoulder every step to Dertath."

"It wouldn't be your shoulders I'm interested in," she said, and Kruit felt a pair of lips around his cock, which he pulled free from beneath his trousers, rapidly growing hard.

"Were you this insatiable in life?" he gasped.

"You can only imagine," the voice replied, the ghostly pressure around his shaft unceasing.

He curled his fingers into fists on the bedsheets beside him. "Just tell me that you really believe in her. That Delyssa isn't going to end up like me."

"You know I can't promise that. But I see such potential in her. Will you deliver these to her?"

Kruit looked down at the bracelets next to him, trying to focus through the pressure of sensation building in his cock. "Yes. I will. I wish I wouldn't. I wish I didn't have such faith in your cause. It will fail again, I know it. And yet..."

"Yet it's too good not to try, again and again, it must be tried."

"Yes," he closed his eyes. The pressure mounted and he soon came with a cry that echoed across the chamber walls and left him panting on the side of the bed.

"What kept me down here," he said after gathering his breath, "wasn't the curse upon my eyes. It was that I failed so soon upon that path you laid before me. You led armies to make the world more just. I led a band of coin-hungry adventurers across the land. I thought I was destined for greatness." He looked around the room. "And I ended up here. And now, with these eyes, I can see the world again. I see the world as you saw it, I think. Such potential. We live here in this little corner, a pocket, a grain of paradise in the desert, and I see that great change is possible, but I still can't see how. And that's the blindness that cost me everything. My friends. And I worry what will happen to Delyssa if she can't see it either."

He waited for a response, but none came.

"Mesembre?" he croaked.

He was now alone, the ancient rings of her bracelets cold in his hands.

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