The Femdom Witch and her Concierge Ch. 03

Magic has waned in the world. In the past, magic was a prevalent and powerful force, wielded by individuals and groups who held significant influence and power. However, as time has passed, the use and practice of magic has diminished greatly. The number of individuals who possess magical abilities has greatly decreased. The remaining practitioners of magic are mainly limited to a small group of women, known as witches.

One such sisterhood of witches is Meridin, Lenore and Romlyn

***

Romlyn had woken Colm at dawn, just as she had the last three days. She was strict and methodical as a taskmistress. She'd repeated more than a few times that she didn't want to leave a single stone in the town unturned and had then laughed to herself at the sheer preposterousness of what she'd just said. Wilton was an alpine town. The ground was strewn with granite rocks and stones in every direction. Checking under all of them would take a lifetime.

Colm sighed as he got dressed and headed out to help Romlyn and Lenore begin their search for the day. Thus far, their search for any clues that might help them discover the causes of the earthquakes had been fruitless.

As Colm walked out into the cold, misty mountain air, he momentarily wished he was in the other search party, with Meridin and her other thrall, searching the hills. Meridin had explained her rationale for splitting their group of five into two groups, and while it did make sense to him, he couldn't help but wonder what it would be like in the mountains with Meridin and Gaven.

The terrain around Wilton was rough. Rocky, steep, and with mountains on all sides, the land around the town was thick with alpine pines, but very sparsely populated. Looking around at the mountains surrounding the town, Colm understood why Meridin thought it best that she and her other thrall, the athletically built Gaven, should be the ones to explore the mountains surrounding the town; they were the two most physically fit of their crew, after all. Part of him understood that his people skills, honed from years working as a concierge, made him perfectly suited to questioning people, not scouring mountaintops. He just wished he didn't have to do it under the orders of Romlyn, the Red Witch. The other witch in their party, Lenore the Woodland Witch, he quite liked; although she was occasionally scattered, her innate curiosity and her earnestness in pursuing new knowledge above all else lent her a certain charm.

Romlyn was a different story. Colm found her a little bit scary, although one wouldn't think that to look at her. Everything about her was petite apart from her anger. The red dress and hat she wore everywhere was the only hint of her barely concealed fury. Despite her tiny frame, even the roughest-looking timber workers of Wilton had found her intimidating. Colm was very glad to be on her side, rather than up against her.

They'd started their investigation down at the lowest-lying areas of the town, by the river. Although the area itself had very few trees, its location next to the river made it a local industrial hub, with a sawmill and timber yards that produced timber to be sent downstream to the larger cities. Their search of the area yielded nothing helpful, and Romlyn had to sharply remind Lenore that they were there to find the source of the magical earthquakes, not write the history of timber production.

Colm found his eyes drifting uphill as he listened to Romlyn's biting remarks The thought of having to scale the sheer granite bluffs took the edge off any jealousy he was feeling towards the other group.

Despite being an unlikely crew, the trio fell into an easy habit. Colm would start the conversations; his gentle nature would put people at ease while he and Lenore questioned them. Colm made sure to ask them how they felt and entertained the rumours they'd heard and speculation they'd engaged in about the earthquakes, the nearby hills, and anything else they considered to be strange. Lenore studiously wrote down every detail in a notebook with "Investigation" scrawled down the spine. She carried it with her everywhere, but Colm had often seen her pull out other notebooks, seemingly out of thin air, whenever she'd found anything else interesting. She seemed to have a book for everything. In the last three days he'd seen her pull out volumes for trees, birds, and flowers.

Romlyn, the focused, standoffish Red Witch, would listen intently from a somewhat greater distance - and a little off to one side - as people answered, listening intently for any gaps or inconsistencies in their stories. Though she would never admit it aloud, she came to appreciate the benefits of Colm's approach, and of him being the trio's face and primary voice during interviews.

The people who lived in the low area of town by the river offered little useful information. Their lives were centred on the river, so the tall tales they'd heard from the nearby mountains were always secondhand at best. They, like everyone else, had felt the ground rumble, but their stories were no different to the hundreds of similar accounts Lenore had already collected in her notepad from dozens of other interviews she's conducted in her month-long travel up the mountain range.

It was midmorning before they heard a version of events that differed from the one they'd been hearing all day. They were talking to a man named Chet, a retired timber mill worker. Once again, Colm tried to put the man at ease and get him engaged by asking about his personal experiences first. Most people loved to talk about themselves; he'd learned that very early in his former career.

"How have you been dealing with the earthquakes?" he asked.

The man shook his head and downplayed the effects on his life, as many old men do. "Oh, I can't complain. Five moons of the ground shaking isn't enough to rattle old Chet. People around here are made of stern stuff, you know. You have to be, to survive up here."

Romlyn had been standing on the periphery of the conversation, but suddenly launched herself into the centre of it, sensing she'd caught the man in a lie. "Did you say five moons? Everyone else has reported that it's been three months or three moons since the earthquakes started. And now you're saying you've been feeling them for two whole months longer than everyone else? Explain yourself." To Colm's ear, Romlyn's tone conveyed a sense of impatience similar to how an adult may sound when frustrated with a child's inability to accomplish a straightforward task.

The old man was visibly shaken. His face jumped back in fright, making his wrinkles momentarily disappear. The old man took a deep breath before trying to de-escalate the situation. "Three moons? Maybe that's what it was. Time gets a bit harder to judge at my age. If other people are saying it was that long, go with what they're saying. Don't trust an old man like me."

Colm shot him a look of apology. "No worries Chet. We all make mistakes from time to time. You have a good day, now." The old man began to shuffle away, and Colm breathed a sigh of relief when Romlyn didn't doggedly pursue.

As they watched the old man shamble down the road, Romlyn muttered under her breath. "Using his age as an excuse; if he only knew."

A thought occurred to Colm: if Meridin was over 200 years old, maybe Romlyn could be the same age, or perhaps even older. It occurred to him that Romlyn might very well feel like she was dealing with children, because, in a sense, she was. That thought caused new respect to blossom for Meridin in his heart. She must feel a similar level of impatience, he thought, but unlike Romlyn, she at least hides it.

The rest of the morning passed without any incident, and by midday, they found themselves back in the middle of the town where the inn sat. Its obnoxiously large size and stone walls made it stand out from the timber-built town. Opposite the inn was the market square, with stalls lined with local produce.

Frustrated at another day without a single lead to go on, Colm paced around the market square. Something felt not quite right with the market, he couldn't quite figure out what, so he kept pacing - not searching any stall in particular, just for anything out of place. Between two cool-climate vegetable stalls - beets and broccoli on one side, pumpkins and potatoes on the other - sat one that was completely empty. Colm searched his memory and realised that it had been empty for the entire week his trio had been in town. Some other stalls had closed for a day or two here and there, but only that one had been vacant the whole week; that was unusual.

Colm went back to the witches and asked Lenore to come with him while he investigated further. "I think I might have found something. Or rather, not found something. Each morning, we walk past the market square, and I've noticed one stall has been empty every single day. Something about it just doesn't seem right to me. Did someone just abandon their stall? Or did they go missing? Let's ask around."

Colm went to the vegetable seller, Brar. Out of all the market stall holders they'd spoken to, he was the friendliest, even though he'd offered no useful or even novel information.

"That empty stall next to you," Colm said. "Does someone usually sell from there?"

"Oh yeah, that's old Hendrick," Brar replied. "Usually sells rocks and old coins, that kind of thing. He hasn't been around in a while."

"How long has it been since you've seen him?"

"Oh, I'd say about three months or so. Maybe a little more. Yeah, I think I would have last seen him just before the earthquakes started."

Lenore was flabbergasted. "You mean to say a man disappeared right before the earthquakes started and you didn't think to say anything when we asked you about the earthquakes yesterday?"

"I suppose I didn't think of it," Brar replied. "Hendrick is always travelling here and there. He keeps finding old coins and such foraging around the mountains, but there's not much demand for them around here, so he heads off for months at a time, down the mountains to the city to find a buyer."

Colm and Lenore looked at each other. It was the biggest lead they'd found and they both knew it. They asked Brar where Hendrick lived, thanked him, and ran off to tell Romlyn what they'd learned. Within a minute, they'd hastily walked to the door of Hendrick's house.

Colm knocked once and received no reply. He twisted the handle to see if it was unlocked when suddenly, an unseen force knocked him to the ground.

It took Colm a few moments to realise what had happened. He found himself on the ground beside the doorway. Romlyn was standing in the doorway, where he had been standing not a moment prior, her hands in front of her, sustaining a magical barrier. A spiked mace hung from a rope attached to the top of the doorway.

The door must have been booby-trapped, he thought, and Romlyn must have pushed me out of the way, saving my life in the process.

He looked up at her and was about to thank her for saving him, but she immediately cut him off. "On your feet, boy. Let's split up and search the house."

The house was deserted, but it was clear that whoever had lived here had left in a hurry. There was a half-packed trunk on the bed, and clothes were strewn across the floor. The only item of any note that they found was an old journal.

Lenore skimmed through it. "It's mostly journaling his search for the underground city. There's no mention of where he was searching, only what he's found. 'Day 115, found three quartz crystals' That sort of thing. But the last entry is far more interesting.

"Day 242 - Jackpot! Found a bracelet, connected to a ring. The ring has a diamond the size of my thumbnail, the bracelet has a ruby even bigger! The gems alone would set me up for life, but if I can find a buyer for the whole piece I'll live like a king the rest of my days."

"That's it, no more entries," Lenore said, as she flicked through the final blank pages in the journal.

Colm recognised a rare opportunity where he could offer some information. "I've heard of that underground city. Years ago, we had a man stay at the inn who had spent his whole life looking for it. He told me of its supposed location, and some of his theories as to why it was built underground."

"He was an idiot," Romlyn interjected rudely, "and you were an idiot for believing him. There is no underground city and there never has been."

Lenore took a more understanding tone. "What my sister witch means to say is that the 'Underground City' is something of a misnomer. There was an ancient city called Ank Alidair which was the heart of an enormously powerful empire. But the city fell to a natural disaster well over five hundred years ago. The city of Stockton was built in its place, literally on top of the ruins of the old city in some places. Some of the more structurally sound buildings - the Palace, the Great Library and the Gardens - are all still standing, but the poorer, outer areas were not so lucky. Most of them were smashed to the ground. The new Empire dictated that the city be rebuilt directly on the ruins of the old, so the term 'Underground City' is more of a dark joke about what happened to the old city. It's quite literally under the ground. Dig deep enough anywhere and you'll find it."

Colm felt slightly comforted by Lenore's explanation. It took the edge off the disappointment he felt from Romlyn's immediate dismissal, at least.

"It's interesting to note that the name change between the old and the new city tells you quite a lot about their relative importance. The old city was named for an empire, the new city after livestock..."

"Alright Lenore, save the interesting facts for your book," Romlyn said dryly. "This Hendrick obviously didn't find any underground city, but by the sounds of his notes, he did find something underground. We better tell the others and find out what."

With nothing else of interest to examine inside the house, they headed back to the inn. Romlyn retired to her room, saying she'd contact the others and brief them.

Colm was still trying to figure out the dynamic between the witches. Although he couldn't imagine Romlyn taking orders from anyone, she still seemed to check in with Meridin before making any major decisions. He hadn't figured out how they communicated over great distances. Meridin was still high up in the mountains, but Romlyn had some way to talk to her from the inn. He assumed it must be some form of magic.

Later that evening, after the sun had set and dinner had been served, Romlyn called Colm to her room.

Romlyn's call shocked him, as it came to him via the same method that Meridin's usually did: his thrall bond. It was the same bond that Meridin used so they could feel each other's emotions, or on occasion, for her to coerce him to do her bidding. How does Romlyn have access to it? Both the call and the question set him immediately on edge.

As he entered her room, Colm saw Romlyn seated in a chair, feet resting on a footstool in front of her. She didn't look relaxed; all of her joints were at right angles, her back perfectly upright as if she required perfect posture even at the end of a long day while in a comfortable chair. He was equally surprised to see that Lenore was also there, reclined comfortably in the chair opposite her, her big, half-filled book of sexual experiences resting open on the footstool in front of her.

"I've spoken to Meridin," Romlyn began. "She's very pleased with our discoveries today, and, as a reward for finding out such valuable information, she has given us Colm's services for the evening.

"She's even allowed me to have partial control over his thrall bond."

Although Colm had already felt her control his bond, the revelation still shocked him. Surely Meridin won't let this vicious witch actually control me?

"You look so scared, boy. Relax. It's only a partial bond. It just means I can sense what you are feeling, but I can't compel you or anything. Besides, I promised Meridin I wouldn't make you do anything you didn't want to do."

Romlyn leaned back on her lounge chair, kicked off her shoes, and rested her feet on the footstool in front of her. She indicated for Lenore to do the same, quite heedless of the book taking up the space.

"Freshen up our glasses before you start massaging my feet boy."

It was only then that Colm noticed the two empty wine glasses beside Lenore's big book. He took the bottle and filled both their cups with the sweet red wine that was native to the local alpine region. Then he knelt before Romlyn, beginning to massage her feet. He wasn't particularly keen on feet, or Romlyn, but he'd seen enough of her these last few days to know better than to disobey her.

"Fill one for yourself, too, boy."

He started to walk off to fetch another glass when she called him back.

"Uh-ah. I said 'Fill one for yourself.'" Romlyn used her foot to point at her shoes.

Surely not? Colm thought.

Romlyn sat silently, expectantly, waiting for him to pour the wine. He returned to his position beneath her feet, picked up the bottle, and hovered it over her left shoe. He waited for another signal, hoping against hope that she was making a poor jest... She gave him a single nod, so he started to pour. Romlyn kept nodding, so he kept pouring and pouring until the whole shoe was full.

Romlyn's shoes, like her dress and her hair, were a bright red, which matched perfectly the red wine one of them was filled with.

"Drink up little man," she said with a mocking, almost evil laugh. Lenore politely chuckled as well, but her laugh seemed to be less cruel. Lenore sounded excited more than anything. Colm wondered if what he was about to do was about to be included in her book.

He lifted the shoe to his mouth, resting the heel on his lip. He looked up at Romlyn and waited for her to tell him to start drinking. He waited, not wanting to risk further punishment by drinking without her express permission. She nodded at him, lifting her glass to her lips and starting to drink. Her eyes were locked on his as if her stare alone was enough to hold him down on his knees. He copied her, drinking for as long as she did.

The wine itself was beautiful, but the taste of her feet was not. Even though Colm suspected she had all manner of magical powers to stop her shoes from smelling, she had not used any of them that day. Her foul smell and taste mixed together with the wine's, rendering his drink a deliciously painful one to drink.

The taste was only made worse by the volume he had to drink. Romlyn still had her glass to her face, so Colm held his "glass" to his. She was only slowly sipping; her glass was down to its last half but draining slowly. He told himself he had to keep drinking as long as she did, out of fear of the punishment if he didn't. He had to slow his pace to match hers, but the smell of her feet was difficult to stomach. He tried to block it out as the shoe neared empty.

Romlyn giggled as the shoe hit empty.

"You enjoyed that," Romlyn said teasingly. Her eyes were drawn to the bulge in the front of his pants. To Colm's disappointment he was rock hard. The punishment of drinking from her shoe had done nothing to dampen his excitement of being bossed around by a powerful witch like her.

"Go back to your room, strip entirely naked and come back here for your reward."

Colm sullenly walked back to his own room, down the empty hallway. He hoped against hope it'd still be empty on his way back. He quickly stripped out of his clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor. Ordinarily he'd fold them, but today he rushed, not wanting to leave Romlyn waiting. Who knew how much more cruel she could be if he disappointed her in any way?