Sufferance Ch. 12

I grinned. "Oh, no need. You were glorious to watch. I wanted my turn with you there and then. But other than fighting, much as you do in battle, it didn't tell me a lot."

"Tell you a lot," she repeated. "About what?"

"You under pressure, near the breaking point." My voice had turned softer, more intimate and level, and I noticed she focused harder to grasp my meaning. "Instead I saw you out in the wilderness, running on pure adrenalin and willing to cause yourself harm to get revenge on the Duergar who hooked you with that barb. You used my smaller dagger to dig it out, didn't you, rather than your short sword? You knew that would still ruin your leg, didn't you? But you didn't care, you were tough, you were going to prove it."

Jael had tensed up at my vivid description as though she was seeing and feeling it again. She tried to lean back from me but I caught her shoulder and held her.

"And you attacked his genitals. I don't mind telling you that as many times as I've been forced, that actually isn't my first choice for revenge—"

Her lips tightened and a muscle in her jaw flexed as I spoke.

"I was on the ground, it was the most vulnerable spot I could reach!" she interrupted quickly, stubbornly, and I closed my mouth to let her talk. "And I told you...I already knew I couldn't make it back. I ruined my leg to give *you* the chance to kill them! He was doing something to you, to your mind, and the one behind you was getting too many close swings."

Her voice got tighter and her eyes a bit brighter as she kept speaking. "If you fell, I could only look forward to capture and worse torture from them than that barb. I wanted to die more easily than that. I didn't know why you were there in battle with me again, or whether you were only there to test me more, but...I wasn't too far gone to see you were my best chance to die while still free."

I'd described only what she'd done, in detail. She had felt the need to give me her motive...and I could understand it. As much duress as she'd been under, I was impressed she had recognized me even then. That she aided me to aide herself was natural. I had chosen the hands of the Sisterhood over the denizens of the wilderness as well.

"Then I woke up, and you winked at me." Jael stared at me. "I couldn't be sure it was you who healed me, but...later, they said it was. You weren't supposed to do that."

"Maybe. There was still one Duergar alive in the area, you said so, and I was supposed to keep *you* alive until they were all dead. My orders by Elder Rausery, actually." I smiled.

"Hm." Jael's mouth slowly became a small, wry curve. "Working within the rules... so giving away your last healing potion to a non-Sister was the lesser sin?"

"Compared to failing Rausery's given objective?" I asked. "Absolutely, and you can tell that to Thena and any others with something stuck in their craw. The fact that you're here shows that Rausery can appreciate the command decision I made in the field—fulfill her orders even over my own security. It's probably one reason Qivni accepted you, too—because arguing about it would imply she thought I should have failed Rausery rather than give you my potion. And she would never think that."

Jael nodded slowly. "Is it always like this? The ranking politics?"

"Yes. Some play harder than others."

When at last Jael let that rest, I asked again, "So what was different about that third trial—?"

"ARGH!" she growled in frustration. "You aren't going to let that go, are you?!"

"Not as long as the caverns have stalactites."

She gritted white teeth at me, sitting up to cross her legs and put her elbows on her thighs. I sat up with her, trying to see her face. She was unhappy, frustrated, angry...and shamed?

"I climaxed, alright?" she cried. "I didn't want to, I didn't! It just got to be too much and...it caught me suddenly, I...screamed even around the...there was one in every hole..."

When she closed her mouth, I ran my hand up lightly up her bare back and she stiffened and went quiet. "And after?" I prompted.

She ground her teeth. "Another three. These didn't know my name. I fought them harder, hated it, hated them, hated the Sisters and the Priestesses...still climaxed again. I don't know why... Made me go a third time, like they wanted to be sure or something, and I...I just let it come that time..."

I remembered Jaunda's bark of a laugh when I'd asked her if Jael had withstood the final test:

*No, she broke. But she stood back up again...That's what counts.*

She broke. Not as in weeping or mentally retreating and lying as a cold fish, but...having orgasms by the creatures she hated most. More than just once.

I scooted to massage her shoulders a little, rigid as they were. She emitted a squeak of protest but stopped fighting me after a moment.

"I think that was what they wanted to see," I said. "I'll tell you that I never had a female lover at Court, because of my sister. I had an...aversion."

Jael let me continue to massage her, and she was still listening even if she wasn't looking at me.

"I handled my trials with the male tests so well...they knew it wasn't a real test. When D'Shea uncovered my distaste after ordering one of the Sisters to clean me with her mouth"—Qivni, actually, but that wasn't important now—"she required that I not only accept it but show my gratitude by responding to her. That was...difficult, Jael. But I managed it. I am glad now not to be burdened by the aversion any longer, and even at the time, I knew that I could survive it and it was far from the worst thing to happen to me."

The youngest Red Sister listened to me talk and let me touch her but said nothing. I'd finished my little parallel tale, having decided to hold back the more shocking story about the Duergar for now—even though it was probably much closer to Jael's experience with the Draegloth, truth be told. For now I used my mouth for more interesting purposes, kissing her shoulder and nibbling her ear. She tilted away slightly.

"You don't expect me to grow to enjoy those beasts the way you grew to enjoy females?" Part question, part statement.

"I have few expectations at the moment," I murmured, licking the warm spice of her skin and she relaxed a little. "Apart from convincing you to demonstrate something for me."

"What?"

"How you made that stock trainer squeal so in the House stables that one time."

She huffed a laugh, and I thought her muscles had finally become reasonably pliable under my hands. I moved to her breasts next.

"So you were watching then, too?" she asked.

"She had a brass choker around her neck and sometimes asked for the animal crop on her stomach and thighs, right?"

"I guess that answers my question." She turned toward me and slid her hand deliberately up my sticky thigh.

******

Rausery received her novice back before she came looking for her, and no other Sister interrupted us again. The Elder let it be afterward, not asking me my opinion or any questions, which baffled me. I went out on smaller, different errands for D'Shea than I'd been doing for the last year.

For now my own Elder seemed to be keeping me away from House Itlaun. I could see why, my being so much more recognizable to the House now, although some other Sister collecting the reports from Auslan made me jealous. The very fact that it did meant it was a good choice that I was being given something else to do. D'Shea may not have realized how much so, given my neglecting to mention certain conversations, but I didn't fight it.

It was easy to distract myself with watching or hearing about Jael's progress as well, whenever I could. In the meantime, I had a few of my own bargains to make good on—Jaunda's Hunt for me and Gaelan's straight fight-and-fuck. Both happened soon as I could manage, and both seemed to put me in their better graces once again—though I knew Gaelan would be much more vigilant around me regardless. That I could not undo.

Gaelan's was a fierce wrestling match done in private; we'd hit our heads in the small room a number of times. If not for the fact that she had taken something to numb pain in general, and thus was partly immune to pressure points, she would not have dominated me that night.

Not that I blamed her for cheating. In any event, she paid for it. Even with the Feldeu she'd managed to get her hands on, the pain-numbing had the side effect of preventing her from achieving climax until the drug had begun to wear off. By then, of course, I'd been thoroughly fucked and was worn out from my own orgasms, and her endurance was sorely taxed. It was easier for me to resist further rather than allowing her to simply saw in and out of my hole until she finally lurched over the hill.

Oh, no, I was rarely that passive, and she had to prove to me how badly she needed it...

I would say that we ultimately ended up on even ground.

D'Shea honored my agreement with Jaunda as well, and let her and me off for a cycle. My Lead anticipated her Hunt much more than she had our occasional fight before, and I knew she would be impossible to evade forever. There was a point where, if I reached it, I'd won and she couldn't touch me, but she knew some shortcuts that I didn't and had blocked me several times as I searched for a crevasse or tunnel or crack to give me the chance to slip past her and sprint back toward the outskirts of the City.

And if I couldn't find a way, I was at least determined to see what secrets she might feed to me as she took her reward for catching me.

As I streaked across a basin a couple klicks just outside of the City boundary, I knew that she was mostly playing and choosing her time. I was allowed one blade, just like the first time, to be able to defend myself if I ran into a threat aside from Jaunda. The largest creature I ran into before the end was a juvenile lizard, either escaped from a pen or was one of the rarer wild ones, so mostly spent my time in constant motion on silent—and much tougher—bare feet. I could have tried for a defensible place and hide instead, but that wouldn't get me any closer to my "safe point" and I did not really want to be cornered and dragged out of a hole by my ankle like some furry yuru.

At one point I had climbed farther up and then down again into a smaller cavern, still searching for that path that might lead me home, when I thought I sensed a ward nearby. Walking by a boulder streaked with exposed quartz, which made it look a bit like a gash wound in the stone, I paused and soon was sure of what I felt.

*Danger. Threat. Leave.*

Fairly forthright message. But a ward by itself right here, in an otherwise bare cavern? I had been going for several marks now and had not seen sign of Jaunda in almost one; I didn't know where she was or how close. It was not good to stop for long and I wondered whether I might be able to come back when I had my bracers?

Or I could test myself, just out of curiosity...

Touching the stone hurt, sudden and sharp, but I tried to apply some of what I already knew about the pain not being real—without the aid of the bracers—biting the inside of my cheek to keep from making any noise. I couldn't manage more than a few moments of this and got up to sprint several long strides away, quivering and breathing harder when I'd stopped.

At least I had been able to resist the urge to run and not stop until I was very far away. That was something, at least.

I kneeled out of direct sight behind a larger stone where I could still see the quartz and remained in place for much longer than I should have. I kept looking at it, trying to glean anything more about it as if my dark vision could pierce right through to whatever hole it was hiding—I was assuming it was a passageway, otherwise why place a ward there?—but knew no more after the shaking had stopped than I had when I'd touched it.

I heard a subtle scrape in the dark and went still. Then I looked up first; in the Underdark, one should always look up.

As my vision adjusted to see beyond however it had been cloaking itself, I thought first, *That is a very large spider leg—*

I gasped. Oh, fuck.

A Drider can no longer speak as the Drow it had once been, but it could shriek. And Lolth, this one shrieked as if nine voices of the Abyss were trying to sing in disharmony as I started to run. The purpose was to freeze its prey with fear, I knew that, but I would be dead if I gave in to the effect. Running wasn't much better—a Drider was fast and could climb cavern walls with acrobatic speed—but I had to move or I would freeze in place.

A Drider was guarding that ward! I was so fucked.

I ran toward a lower tunnel, opposite of where I'd climbed in. There would be a point the monster wouldn't pass if it had indeed been placed here by Auranka the Shifter, the only Priestess blessed by the Valsharess and Lolth to control the Driders.

The creature behind me was the physical form of Lolth's worst curse, afflicted as an ultimate punishment by the Valsharess. The mind was reduced to the very basic elements of hunting and killing, with no self-awareness, no memories, no true will. A beast of pure instinct and empty thought with—the legends said—only the lingering sense that it never wanted to see what it had become.

The lower part of the twisted form was the thorax of an enormous spider, the upper half was mostly that of the Drow she had been from the waist up, her face somewhat recognizable as an Underdark elf, except for the mandibles warping the mouth, the extra set of eyes, and the deformed hands with fingers that had fused together to form pincers. Some hair on the head remained on this one, but it was matted, unkempt, and seemed to be coming out in patches while growing in again randomly. In the dark, veins of tainted energy pulsed through the neck and also where the malformed waist met the bulbous abdomen.

When she screeched again, I shuddered at the pure hunger and rage that I heard in the sound. I didn't know how far she might follow me out of the cavern.

The chances weren't good, but might be improved with a little light...

Against every fighting instinct I had, I closed my eyes and gestured over my head. "Lucinitrel!"

The next scream almost made my ears bleed, but enough of my sight was preserved to gain some distance. Driders hunted in the dark normally so it wouldn't be long before she came after me blind and I didn't have any tools to slow her down. Maybe I'd only live if I found a small tunnel into which she couldn't fit before she caught up with me.

Jaunda and I ran headlong into each other coming around a curve and she cursed luridly as we caught our feet. I was so glad to see her even as she cuffed my ear hard.

"Are you fucking crazy?!" she bellowed, shoving me hard to the side and out of her way.

"Apparently," I quipped but she didn't have time for a reply.

My Lead already had something in her hand before she'd run into me, and I recognized the tough bottle of the alchemist's fire. She snapped the round top off and squeezed the powder inside down into the bottle as I heard the Drider skittering full speed down the tunnel toward us. Jaunda pitched it immediately and didn't have to tell me to run.

I heard the whoosh and the shriek at the same time, catching the scent of chemical fire and feeling the scalding air caress the skin of my back. The fire would burn on the rocks for some time and drain the tunnel of breathable air fast. The Drider would not have the will to approach the fire anyway, but regardless would have to retreat to its own cavern or suffocate. Though cursed by a goddess, it still breathed air like the rest of us.

I was coughing a bit more than my Lead, my lungs burning, when we'd reached a larger cavern with more air. I thought the Hunt had ended; she'd caught me, and I waited for her next move.

That move was to gesture to the right.

Jaunda signed, *Take the second right and keep moving, I'll catch up.*

I stared at her a moment and she scowled.

*NOW!*

I left, following her directions while trying to remain aware of other threats. I listened for as long as I could to the sounds behind me. Before long I couldn't hear the fire or the Drider or Jaunda. I actually didn't know whether she had gone back to see to something particular, or if she simply just didn't want the Hunt to end quite yet.

Mine was not to question why. Not right now. Not of her, not of that stone, not of that ward.

Eventually the path led me to a familiar part of the great cavern that was Drow territory; I was still up high but realized that down below was the camouflaged cave where Gaelan had taken me after capturing me at the farm. There would be softer places to recline inside.

I played with the idea of going inside and lying down to wait for Jaunda to find me. She had saved my ass and caught me, technically. The fact that she and I had collided meant she had probably heard the Drider screeching and had been close enough to run toward us.

Another thought had me thinking that Jaunda might be disappointed if I did just give up and wait for her. I was on the wrong side of the cavern for my safe point, but I could try to cut across the basin and gain a lead on her. I could conceivably still make it.

I climbed down and reached the great cavern's floor, which slowly turned from bare rock to silt to actual, useable soil warmed from beneath by the world's core. The ground was much softer on my feet and I surged forward at a forced, barely sustainable pace, for once going in a straight line toward my goal.

Jaunda had to catch up within the next mark or I would reach the only spot where she couldn't fuck me.

I didn't look back because that would slow me down, so I didn't know exactly when she emerged from the tunnels into the basin. About halfway across, however, I knew she was back there and gaining on me. I pushed myself harder, feeling my lungs and the soft flesh beneath my tongue beginning to ache as my air debt increased. Every muscle was tight and coiled, pushing and sending me forward through brush and across creeks and open fields, and still I did not hear her boots striking the earth behind me.

As I closed the gap with my safe point, I was high on adrenalin and felt as though I was flying over the ground. My ears remained my primary sense of what may be behind me but not once did I look back. I heard something whizz through the air behind me, and then the small, round stone missed my right shoulder—barely.

I resisted the urge to go to the left. I veered right instead and heard Jaunda's single burst of laughter behind me. I thought I recognized the sound—she was pleased, and excited.

In going right I found the much easier place to leap over the next creek. Just off to the left—where Jaunda had tried to steer me—was a sharp bank that would have slowed me down. The path I'd taken was level and narrow as the water flowed by. It was rather nice when your Lead showed you where to go, if you knew her well enough.

The final push would be the most difficult, the last test. I could just make out ahead the short but hazardous climb up a slide of shale. I could scale it on four points of contact, but my feet would sink in the loose dirt and shards of flat, light stone would move beneath my hands. I judged that I had enough distance to beat my pursuer to the top if one of two things happened: I did not stumble even once, or Jaunda did.

If she failed to catch me now, I could make another arrangement with her to help my status among the Sisters. However another part of me also knew I was making such progress regardless, and I almost craved what she'd do to me if she caught me, what she'd say or what she might talk about. I knew by now that it was not a bad trade to open up my hole so that I could listen to what came out of hers.