My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 02

My sex aches for her to touch me there again, but she does not. Her skilled fingers tease at my nipples while she kisses a trail from my lips down. When she takes a nipple in her mouth I moan aloud and my hands try to force her lower, but she does not move. The gentlest nip of her teeth warns me not to rush her. She licks her way to the other tip and the slow teasing stimulation starts again, until I think I'll not stand it any longer. Finally she's satisfied in her work and she resumes her kissing, licking journey lower. She pauses again at my navel but I am distracted by the surge of hope as her hands pull my skirt down and I can kick it off.

I try to pull my wet knickers off and her strong hands force mine away as her lips have reached my needy cunt. She takes a long, slow lick of the drenched fabric, and another before she pulls them slowly down my legs.

Finally I am laid open before her. My hands pull her head toward me and for once she does not resist, lowering her lips to my cunt with a lust almost the equal of my own. I gasp as she gives me a long deep lick, more for her pleasure than mine and then she settles her wonderful lips deep into my thick delta of hair. She eats noisily, wetly at my dripping cunt and I'm lost in pleasure, writhing under her stroking tongue, I grip great handfuls of the rugs and cushions, I shudder wonderfully as her upper lip caresses the hood of my little clit and cry nonsense as her tongue encircles the point itself.

Agonisingly, she backs down before I can come, her lips slow, her tongue retreats and for long moments she she slowly teases me down from the hight of ecstasy. She sucks on my outer lips and laps at the juices dripping freely from my overheated honeypot.

I look down, her face is buried in my hairy cunt but her eyes look straight into mine. In that moment her tongue laps at my clit and I come, my eyes locked with hers until I fall back, squirming and crying out.

The air is sweet with perfume, I'm warm and comfortable and I don't want to move. Soft sounds of birdsong and gentle movement invade my ears along with a rhythmic striking sound that I think must have woken me. Wait, where am I?

I open my eyes. It's morning, sunlight streams through the cottage's small windows. I'm in bed, Lecto's bed! I freeze expecting creeping horror to overcome me but somehow, it does not. I feel barely a tremor as everything of last night comes back to me. Clytemnestra is lighting the fire, she sees that I am awake and smiles sweetly.

"Sleep well?"

"What happened?"

"You fell asleep, so I put you to bed. I think you were a bit overcome."

"Overcome isn't the word I'd use," I say shedding the blankets and standing, naked.

"Well, I'm not one to boast."

"That's not what I meant," I gather up my clothes.

"Even so, you had a stressful experience. I thought it best to take your mind off of it, the best way I know how. Things like that catch you up eventually. Wait, wait, don't put that on."

"You're insatiable! Can't I at least have a drink first?"

Clytemnestra laughs and shakes her head, "That's not what I meant. I've been going through some of these things. Most of the sorceress's clothes should fit you and you can't wear the same thing every day."

"You do," I reply half-heartedly, looking through a modest selection of clothes that Clytemnestra has set out. It looks like every garment Lecto owned was some shade of red. I pick up a pair of her knickers and smell them. They are clean, but there is that unmistakeable, exciting scent of woman.

That gives me pause as I realise what it is I'm doing. I'm smelling the knickers of a dead woman, one I killed, and I'm getting hot. Clytemnestra slaps my bum.

"Get dressed, naughty. There'll be time for that later," she ducks out of the door.

Chastened, I slip the red knickers on along with a long wine-coloured dress and my white boots. I feel... conflicted. I don't feel the horror that I should, though. There is something, some sense that what I did last night was wrong, but I feel distant from it -- as though it happened years ago, as though I've had all the time I need to come to terms with something that no one should ever do, and why I did it.

I am troubled, but not by what I did, or how I feel about it, but by the lack of feeling.

As I pull my boots on Clytemnestra comes back in with a big clay pitcher of well water.

"I think we can call this a win from almost any angle," she says pouring the water into an iron kettle which she hangs over the small fire she's made, "We made this wood a little safer for everyone else, we found you something to wear and unless I miss my guess, some of this stuff will fetch a pretty penny in the city."

I don't care about that right now, Clytemnestra is boiling a kettle! "Is there tea?"

"There certainly is! I thought you'd be happy about that."

To say the least, I am. It's rich and dark and aromatic, and not any variety that I recognise, but it's real tea, perfect and cleansing for to a troubled soul. I drink it slowly savouring the heady steam and the bitter, earthy aftertaste while Clytemnestra watches occasionally, smiling at the pleasure she's brought me.

She is rattling around the room opening chests and scanning shelves, examining Lecto's stolen possessions, sometimes selecting something and laying it on the bed. She seems to be selecting things based on saleability, she's gathered a goodly amount of jewellery and coin, almost all the firearms, a couple of handsome leather books and anything else that looks more valuable than bulky. The books prove to be, for want of a better word, spell books. Hand written records of Lecto's magic. They are incomprehensible to me, but just the idea is thrilling.

"You should take one of these for yourself," she waves at the guns, "It might be good for both of us," she rubs her flank where the blow she'd taken from her own rifle butt is swollen and sore looking.

"I'm sorry about that, I really didn't mean to..."

"I'm honestly glad you did. You saved both our lives and that gun was never intended to be used by anyone your size. I think we both came out the other end better than we had any right to expect."

"Does it hurt bad?"

"Yes. Yes it does."

I stammer and she sweeps me closer to plant a kiss on the top of my head, "All the same I'd feel better if you had a gun made for small, breakable people."

There's not much to say to that, and in fact, after last night I would feel better armed. I look over the firearms and select a lever-action rifle with a beautiful polished walnut stock furnished in silver. I'm not sure Clytemnestra is as impressed by it as I am. Her own rifle is much more utilitarian, but this one fits my shooting stance perfectly and if the finely adjustable sights are anything to go by, it'll prove highly accurate. Clytemnestra scrounges up the cartridges that go with it and the tube-magazine accepts six of the two dozen she finds. I'm inclined to keep the magazine charged.

I genuinely do feel better for being less helpless in what I now know to be a potentially deadly world. I'm even a little tempted to take an attractive rapier, but I know nothing about swordplay, and I'm not quite dumb enough to think I can wing it. But I do see something I can use, and it excites me far more than it probably should.

"What's that?" Clytemnestra asks, seeing my pick up the brass disc, grinning like a child.

"A slide-rule!" I show her how the cursor rotates about the disc.

"What's it for?"

"Maths!" I ask her for a couple of big numbers and multiply them together, then divide them. I think she's impressed in an abstract sense, but she clearly doesn't share my excitement.

"It's a good job you're pretty," she concludes, leaving me to my toy.

It is a very nice rule, though, both aesthetically and in terms of function, having both trigonometric and root functions as well as the normal log scales.

A good portion of the morning has slipped us by by the time we've packed up everything we want to take and I've zeroed the sights of my rifle as best I can without wasting more than six shots. Clytemnestra makes me bring the spent brass with me. All of my clothes, a good sized canteen, my slide-rule and almost a pound of tea go in a tough-looking leather pack with the brass. Well, almost all of my clothes.

"Clytemnestra," I call, while packing, "Where are my knickers, my old white knickers?"

"Maybe someone's put them in her own bag... For when she's alone."

And she'd called me naughty.

It's fair to say that Clytemnestra is carrying far more than I. Everything except my pack and my new rifle is lashed from her broad back and, even accustomed to her feats of strength as I am I wonder if she hasn't underestimated the difficulty of hauling all this stuff for more than a week.

Nevertheless, she never complains about it as we walk. Even I, now carrying a rifle and a canteen and a pack full of clothes feel lighter putting that place behind me. The path from the cottage takes us directly to the wider way we've been following since the lake and we resume our slow progress northwards. Clytemnestra says I look good in red and better with a gun. She says it wouldn't do for a centaur to fall for someone who cannot shoot, but all I hear of that is 'fall for'.

"Centaurs learn to shoot as soon as we can hold a gun. We're the best hunters, the best markswomen and the best gunsmiths in the world. Humans overcomplicate things. I could have guessed you'd choose that gun, I've never seen a more human looking gun in all my days. No matter though, follow me and you'll cut an apple's stalk at a hundred yards."

I'm a fair shot, or at least I was when I was younger, but that seemed unlikely. I let her go on though. I just plain like the sound of her voice.

"Why the sword, then?"

"What?"

"Why do you have that sword? I can't imagine it's more useful than a gun?"

"People, of course."

"People!?"

"You were lucky with the sorceress. Close range and maybe she hadn't even shielded herself, who knows, but you can't rely on that."

Clytemnestra explains, she's surprised that she even needs to, that most people, at least, most people who are at all likely to be shot at, are protected by spells. Magical shields that any sell-spell will cast for a small fee. She says such spells will turn most bullets, almost all of them beyond point-blank range but have a much harder time turning the blade of someone trained to fence against them.

It's the sort of thing that everyone should know and my ignorance is clearly out of place. It's also disturbing to my recent feeling of confidence. I really am lucky that Lecto was so close when I fired, and that Clytemnestra's rifle is so large a calibre that her shield could not turn it. Clytemnestra says she has such a spell on her and is worried that I do not. It'd never occurred to her to ask.

We stop for the night at a picturesque stone bridge which flies in two short arches across the river we'd seen leaving the lake four days ago. It's perhaps still a little early to stop for the night, but we think we won't find a more agreeable spot. I'm glad of the halt and though she doesn't say it, I think Clytemnestra is too. She shucks her load with every sign of pleasure and splashes into the river to sooth her tired muscles. I am more tired than I have been before at the end of day on account of the extra weight I'm carrying. I can but reflect on how poorly I'd be bearing up if my body were as it should be, rather than this fit, strong form I'm wearing here.

I prepare a fire while Clytemnestra bathes. I'm getting pretty good at fire making, though Clytemnestra's firesteel is sized for a centaur's hand and is a touch unwieldy for me. I should have tried to find one amongst the travelling gear at Lecto's cottage. Ah, hindsight. Clytemnestra comes back to me, wet and naked and lovely.

It really is surprising the difference between clothed and naked on her. The only things she ever wears are her halter top and that belt, most of her body is never covered, and yet... Somehow, to me there is a profound psychological difference between her naked and clothed states. A difference that I cannot fully explain.

Centaurs have no shame about their bodies, she'd told me before, and will happily go naked at all times. Clytemnestra regards humans' clothing as a harmless, slightly adorable cultural foible and only wears a halter top to stop her breasts bouncing painfully when she needs to move.

The fire and the late evening sun glisten off her wet, dark skin in a most attractive way and if I were not so tired and hungry I think she'd have to watch her back very carefully. Clytemnestra relaxes on the soft grass while I boil water for tea and play with my slide-rule for the simple mechanical pleasure of it. She watches me like I'm a baby who'd rather play with the box than the Christmas present that came in it.

"May I see the books we took?" I ask her presently.

"Of course," she hands them over, "I guessed you could read when you got excited over that toy."

"Toy... wait, you can't?"

"I'm no scholar."

That's interesting. I suppose literacy isn't something I should take for granted, even amongst demonstrably intelligent people like Clytemnestra.

"They're spellbooks, aren't they, I bet?"

I nod, "They seem so."

"Thinking of learning sorcery, are you?"

That's... That's an interesting question. In fact I'm simply curious. I want to see if they say anything about the shields Clytemnestra had told me about. That and just again to see real spell books.

"Can people? Can one just... Learn sorcery?" I ask.

"They must be able to," she says,, "Else how could anyone become a sorceress?"

"Is it that simple?"

"I doubt it."

I open the smaller book at the beginning. It's akin to some kind of work book or research journal. Most of it means nothing to me, less than nothing, but there are notes, margin scrawls, points of conjecture and such that I can read. I scan through page after page. Here and there, reading everything that I can. The whole book is the same, as is the other, larger volume, though this one is unfinished, the last two thirds blank paper waiting to be filled. I go back the the smaller book and start at the beginning again.

Clearly, this is not the first book Lecto ever used for this purpose, the first pages are little different to the last, rather than showing any kind of growing complexity like one'd expect from a learner.

"Why'd you take these if you're not thinking of learning sorcery?"

"Spellbooks are probably worth something to someone, and I didn't want to leave them laying around to fall into just anyone's hands."

That makes sense. I carry on reading, skipping between both books and find nothing that seems anything to do with a spell shield. Nevertheless I keep at it most of that evening, until the light starts to fade, and most of the next few evenings as I find I am beginning to comprehend what's going on in these opaque texts. I notice repetitions in the spell-writing. Phrases and strings that crop up together, or in related ways throughout the books. I begin to deduce that certain words are always associated with light, or liquid or pain.

It seems to me that magic is very much like a computer language, and spells are very much like programmes written in the language and executed by the universe. Those are the analogies I use to myself for magic seems to possess all the positive and negative traits implied by them. Magic seems to be utterly logical and complex only in the sense that it is usually an agglomeration of many very simple elements. On the downside it seems dangerously literal and most useful spells appear to require a very complex arrangement of those simple elements.

Real sorcery seems very daunting, certainly a lifetime's work, but I imagine almost anyone could come to grips with a 'hello world' sort of spell. I begin to create one. An essay in magic to test my theories and to prove that those elements I think I understand do mean what they seem.

I study in the evenings and we walk all day. The path now runs along the bank of the river, which has grown broad and calm. We stop only briefly every couple of hours. Clytemnestra often likes to sleep for ten or fifteen minutes during these pauses. When she does I read from Lecto's books.

Clytemnestra asks me if I really am teaching myself magic and I admit that it is so. She's supportive, but warns me against taking too much inspiration from books which belonged to one who clearly abused magic.

On the night of the eighth day I think I'm ready. Clytemnestra expects that we will find the edge of the forest tomorrow or perhaps the day after. We are camped on the riverbank and have a small fire burning as normal -- Clytemnestra has shot a bear and we're cooking the least tough meat.

"I think I'm ready to try a little magic."

"Are you certain?"

"As I can be," I say confidently.

Clytemnestra still looks skittish and I cannot blame her, though I'm only afraid of failure, rather than disaster. I cannot imagine any way the spell I've designed can go wrong, other than by simply not working.

I look into the fire, think the spell-machine I've designed and the flames turn purple-blue. Clytemnestra flinches, startled and my skin tingles just like the last time I was near magic.

She peers at the amethyst fire, "Is it safe?"

"Well... Not really. It's still fire."

"Is it safe to cook over it?"

"It's exactly as it always was, but for the colour."

"You're sure?"

"Without a doubt," and I am. The spell is very very simple, there's nothing in it that can alter any property of the fire but the colour of light it sheds. I can almost see the logic-processes at work beneath the universe - an endless logical flow of execute, if-then and go-to. Magic cannot do anything but what it is told, to the letter.

The flames burn purple all night, as I know they will. I'd set no end-condition in my spell so it will last as long as the fire does. Clytemnestra calls me her sorceress and holds me against her as we watch it burn, I can feel her pride.

I ask her to tell me about the north, and about the city we're heading for.

"I don't know what it's called. No one does."

"No one?"

"No one I've spoken to. Few travel the old forest road today, and with good reason, and if there is a road west of the mountains I don't know it. They say the north is a land of city states, every one a princedom unto itself. Some trade with one another and some likely plot war after the manner of princes everywhere."

"But there's one near here?"

"Perhaps. It's said this path joins some wider way and roads don't exist without places to go. Likely we will find our city, but I care not very much."

"You don't?"

"I've enjoyed travelling with you this little time, lady. I could stand to travel much farther in your company, and the world is full enough of good things to see that missing one city will not matter much."

"I've enjoyed travelling with you too," I say, snuggling deeper into her embrace, "More than I've ever enjoyed anything before."

"You'll make me vain talking like that."

"Will it be dangerous? The north?"

"I should think so, everywhere is in its right way. What have we to fear though? Are we not a markswoman of the Dawn Plains and a mighty sorceress?"

I look up at her liquid eyes lit by the flickering purple fire and can feel her lust for life, if not her confidence.

"Tell me about the south, then, if you can't talk about the north. Tell me about the Dawn Plains."

"Ah, you should see my country. Where the high plain lasts forever and the sky is so large you might never see it all."

I've never asked Clytemnestra about her past, self conscious of my refusal to share mine, but 'Dawn Plains' sounds romantic to me and there is obvious pride on the way she speaks.