Kullen the Shaman

***

No enemies hounded Kullen on his way to the Tower of Shades. That alone put him on edge. He would have expected a wizard's tower to have better protection. He presumed that fear rather than security kept people away.

They had the right to. The Tower shone darkness and shades hid in every corner, every shadow, peering from all the windows. Kullen wanted to run.

The gate to the tower had no obvious entrance. Kullen remembered how Joslie opened the vault gates. Touching his hand to a seam, he let magic into him and through his hand, not using his staff. The seam lighted green and spread into the outline of a gate framed in green. It opened for him.

Inside the tower looked much like Joslie's home, filled with magical trinkets. Wesix's trinkets were scaled up and much like the vault, the walls were runed. Not just the walls, but the floors, the furniture, everything. Whatever Wesix did here, it required the warding of anything that could break.

Kullen searched the rooms of the first floor of the tower and again found no sign of Joslie or Wesix, not even the hounds. He calmed down and focused. Breathing steadily, Kullen closed his eyes and remembered the feeling of Joslie close to him. Not just her touch but what came with it, the power.

That feeling guided Kullen, tugging him as if a rope were tied to him. When he opened his eyes, he stood in the seemingly unused kitchen, staring at its wall. The only wall with no counter or table by it.

Touching it, Kullen activated the door, and it opened in a light of green. Then he heard the screaming, Joslie's screams.

On an altar of black stone, Joslie fought her bondage. Hounds howled around the altar in celebration of what Kullen knew was a sacrifice.

Kullen knew this because he himself suffered on such an altar not too long ago. Joslie's eyes met his, and she said nothing. Not cursing or praising his arrival. She knew he would come. Why? Why did she have such faith in him when he did not?

Wesix was there as well, standing over her with an ornate dagger, its curves of crescent ready to descend into Joslie's supple flesh. He looked up, noticing Kullen. "It is too late shaman. Hounds!"

If it was too late, Wesix wouldn't have sent the hounds. For the first time, Kullen took the danger as hope. He had time to save Joslie.

Though it burned and strained and tired him, Kullen let more magic into himself. Purple streaks hammered into the hounds, but still they padded onward. Kullen had to show at least as much determination as the foul beasts.

Morphing his staff into a spear, Kullen forced his weak knees toward them to engage them in combat. He swung his spear in a wide sweep, hoping to catch all of them. At once, all four hounds crouched on their paws, rose once again, and jumped at him. Kullen dropped his spear in seeming fear.

As he hoped they would. Before ever gaining his staff, Kullen used magic the old-fashioned way: with his hands.

Arm extended, palm outward, and his other hand gripping his wrist, Kullen let forth a flash of burning purple light.

The hounds howled, no longer in celebration. Kullen picked his spear back up and pierced each hound as it desperately tried to regain its sight.

"It is still too late, shaman. The ritual will soon finish and I will control the shades of Resk and with them, the city itself and all the power within it." Wesix cackled like the mad evil wizard he was.

"If it was too late, then Joslie would be dead."

"Will you stop me? Cowardly wretch! Take him, shades!"

As the wizard commanded, shades hovered into the room, their ghostly forms coming in from the cold night. Fear unbalanced Kullen but not of the shades. The thought of such a man as Wesix gaining the power of the heartstone, Joslie's heart, scared him. For with such power, Wesix would have control of the magical trade of the city, usurping the human crime lord of the city.

A wizard in control of Resk could start a conflict that would see the already ruined city turned to dust and grim history. That fear drove him forward, not backward. He did not come to the Tower of Shades without a plan.

Kullen called out to Joslie while fending off the shades. "Joslie, give him the magic. Give it to him and live."

Still writhing on the altar and failing, she responded, "No, Kullen. You heard what he plans. I will not give up." To show it, she made a renewed struggle with her slim legs and arms. She was too weak, however strong of will.

"Please Joslie, this has to end, Wesix already drains the magic from you even without the ritual completing. Just give it to him."

Wesix had his hands in the air, and his fingers gesticulated wildly, the apparent movement needed to summon and control the shades "Listen to the coward, Joslie. Give up and your life may yet be spared."

Kullen didn't believe him for a moment. The power of Joslie's heart would be greater than anything she could give while alive. Wesix would want that eventually.

"Yes, I'm a coward. I want to live and so do you Joslie. You thought I could protect you. Then let me do so. Let the wizard use the magic. Let him use the magic!"

Joslie's form stopped its struggles and her eyes peered into Kullen's. She lay her head back down on the altar and closed her eyes.

A gasp came from Wesix. "Yes! Oh yes! With this power, this power..." he went on like that, speaking of all the horrors he would inflict on the city, then the world.

As magic filled Wesix, his eyes glowed green and his body began to grow. Then his body swelled and his eyes shone until they had the appearance of a lantern bursting with a green fire.

Wesix's speech stopped and transformed into screams, his gaping mouth exuding yet more light. His ears, mouth, eyes, all had rays of green shining from them.

Blood dripped to the black stone ground and the rending of flesh reached Kullen's ears. Under Wesix's robes more glowing, rays of green now coming from the holes in his bleeding body.

Kullen had little time. He dashed to Joslie, using the spear tip to free her of bondage. She enclosed her arms around him and kissed him rapidly. "I knew you would return."

That made one of them. Though the usual escalate that came with her touch was there, it also came with pain. Kullen had pushed himself too far this night. He paid the toll with searing muscles and pounding heart.

It did not stop Kullen from carrying her out of the room. Without being told, Joslie closed the door behind them, trapping the shades and the exploding wizard in the room.

Kullen with hands on Joslie's pale thigh and squeezing a side of breast, ran out of the Tower of Shades. An explosion of green burst out, covering the dark tower.

Joslie had a look of utter satisfaction while she watched the death of her captor. She turned to him, arms still around him. "You don't use magic. Magic uses you."

***

Kullen intended to carry Joslie all the way home like a mighty hero but the night's events were too much. He collapsed in a heap and when he woke, Joslie lay over him, kissing him.

Kullen ran his hands through her blond hair. "One of the better ways to wake."

Joslie renewed her passionate kiss. "Life feels good. I live thanks to you."

"No, your own power saved you. One way or another Wesix and any other wizard would have died by your heart. All I did was remember an old saying."

Again, she kissed him and this time he took note of his naked body, and hers. She rubbed her bare chest against his, her hard nipples tickling his chest as she kissed his mouth and neck.

Unlike the other men of Wursk, he hadn't the thick build as they but his muscles were fit and in good health. Joslie seemed to appreciate it as she massaged her nimble hands along his body, shifting between tracing fingers along the lines of his body and peppering him with kisses.

A man could grow used to this. But he had more to say. "Joslie, you have to understand. I am not your hero." He sighed. "This reward is not needed, though much wanted."

Joslie halted at the worst time; her tongue had traced from torso to crotch. "You think this because you left me and wished to do so from our first encounter."

Kullen pushed himself off the bed, holding his upper body up with his elbows. "So, you knew."

"You hid it badly. I saw your hunger for escape as a man hungers for my body." She moved up from his crotch to cradle his face with her gentle hands. "Do not be ashamed. I have met many men. Many are brave and many are dead. What honor is there in failure and pointless death?"

"I traded you for money."

"A common thing." Kullen shifted as she moved her thighs pleasurably about his, straddling him, her bottom brushing against his hard cock. "But you attained victory where others would have failed." She reached behind herself and began stroking him, taking her time doing so.

Kullen's breath increased, and he grew hot with desire for her. He should close his mouth and let this happen but she had to know the truth about him. "All that I do is ruled by fear-ah!"

With a nimble rise of her hips, Joslie sat on his cock and wiggled on him. She pushed him back down so that he lay flat on the bed. Then she took his hands and placed them on her fine breasts. He cupped them eagerly as she began to sway.

Panting with head tossed back and mouth open she gyrated on him. She enjoyed how he plied her breasts as much as he did. Kullen could spend the rest of the night just watching her shift on him.

She fixed him with her eyes, catching his attention. "Fear also drove you to me, Kullen. You feared for my safety and my life." She embraced him, her hips never stopping their motion. "Let us speak of it no more. If you have something to say, show me instead."

Kullen took her supple hip in his hand and squeezed, urging her to bounce upon him. He bucked his hips upward eagerly, pushing all of himself deep in her warm, tight depth.

Joslie's hair tickled his neck and her lips were wet on his neck. They both had no more need of words. His balls were full and cock hard. Her sex was wet and ready. What more could they want?

The chill and dark of night only drove them. Together they felt warm. Together the darkness didn't matter, they could see each other's form.

Far too soon did Kullen feeling a pressure build. Joslie sensed it as well. She slapped her hips against his so hard it was heard above both their cries.

Screaming each other's names, he released himself and when he felt her tightening against him, so did she. She shook against him, thighs clenching his until her body grew limp and her breathing steadied.

With her breath acting as a soothing rhythm, Kullen drifted to sleep.

When Kullen woke, the room was empty. The magical trinkets were gone.

To his shame, Kullen checked for his ill-gotten coin and found it all there, but she had been there. Joslie left with something extra: the heartstone.

Kullen would rather she be with him. The women of his young life always left him with something before they left him.

Kullen dressed himself and left the cold room and went into the morning's light. He felt alone and headed to the tavern, knowing he would not find her there but he needed the drink and the food after a long night on the run from creatures of the night.

The streets were in an uproar, of course, a tower full of shades had exploded in a magical green night. It would have consequences; these things always did.

But for now, Kullen's only concern was filling his belly at the Armed Wench. He had plenty of money, enough to achieve the desires he thought about. Somehow, he knew he wanted more.

In the city of Resk, where smugglers of all sorts traded magic, Kullen, a banished shaman from the shrublands of Wursk, continued his search for a happiness magic could not bring him.