The Ring of Perliss Ch. 01: Queened

The merchants muttered unhappily. "They do not care to risk ghosts and vines again," Lela said, "and much time would be lost too. You promised them the pass, after all, and they expect you to get us past this wall, by fighting if necessary."

Lela no longer considered herself to be one of the merchants. She had declared herself openly to be Arden's woman, and often walked beside me during the day. "What do you think they want?" she asked. "A toll? Or will they deny all passage?"

"I'll go talk with them," Fenizir said. "Prepare the wagons in case we need to leave in a hurry."

He set off at a casual pace, without weapons, towards the wall. After a moment's indecision, I hurried after. In part I felt protective of Fenizir, since for two nights now I had slept in his tent, and done far more than merely sleep. But also, I was very curious to see the trolls up close, and if we did have to turn back, I might never get another opportunity.

"I would prefer you to stay with the others," he said, but I ignored him and pushed on.

Up close, the trolls were terrifying. Although only a little taller than Fenizir, they towered above me, and their limbs were thick as tree trunks. Their skin, if it was skin, looked like granite, and I didn't doubt it would be hard as rock. Their eyes glittered like crystal gemstones, and since they wore no clothing their mighty cocks were exposed, erect and proud and as threatening as the iron pikes they raised as we approached.

"None pass without the king's consent," said one in a deep, rumbling voice.

"None return having reached here," said the other, "without the king's consent."

"And how do we get the king's consent?" Fenizir asked.

"A horse, perhaps," said the first, shuffling his feet a little uncertainly. "Or two."

"The king is unwell," the second said firmly. "You must wait."

"I am a healer," I said quickly, and Fenizir scowled at me. I ignored him. "I know nothing about trolls, but let me get my medicines and I will try."

The two trolls conferred in rumbling whispers. "Very well," they said. "Heal the king, and you may rely on his gratitude. Should he die, we will dine on richer flesh than horse meat."

"You have doomed us all," Fenizir muttered angrily as we returned to the wagons.

Perhaps I had, too, but I was determined to try. I could only hope that trolls responded to human medicines.

*

The Troll King, Bdagr, had an iron crown atop his head and a cock hard and smooth as polished marble. He lay on a bed of rock in a subterranean chamber in the heart of the mountain. The trolls had no need of light to see, but a flaming torch led my way through dark caves and troll-built halls. It was cold and damp, and I was soon shivering as much from the temperature as my underlying fear.

The trolls had terrifying strength, and while the sight of their huge erect cocks was a pleasant distraction, knowing that I could be killed at any moment by some idle, angry gesture kept me far too worried for such distraction. Not all the trolls had cocks. The females were larger and somehow uglier, though their skin was smoother and glittered in the torchlight.

In the king's chamber was one such, and her crystal eyes studied me as I approached. "This is Bdagr," she said in a deep and halting voice, "who alone of troll kind has heard the song of the sirens. Perhaps it is their song that he hears now in his sleep, for this is no ordinary sickness. For two days now he has slept, and no clamour nor shaking can disturb him."

I felt like a mouse beside her, my voice tiny. "I know something of the healing arts," I said, "and something of witchcraft too. I will do what I can."

In truth, I would have thought Bdagr dead, a likeness of a man carved from the rock, were it not for his mate's insistence. If he was ill, it was an illness I had never seen. If it were magical...

I turned to the witch's book, and to the spell on the very first page. A spell to see, though what would be seen was unclear. So far, it was the only page in the whole book that I felt any confidence in understanding, and my need was desperate enough to try. I had the ingredients I needed too: mountain heather, gathered fresh; spring water, collected by moonlight; a drop of blood given willingly.

"I will try a spell," I said, adding the ingredients for this curious recipe into my mortar and blending them with the pestle, "to see what can be seen." I spoke the ancient words of magic, and the mixture bubbled furiously, producing a sudden cloud of hot, heather-scented steam to envelop me - and suddenly everything was dark.

"Oh, wow," I said, falling -

I was without body, in impenetrable blackness, deafened by a rhythmic thunder, like the clashing of mighty rocks...

Or like a troll king hammering his marble cock into his mate's receptive cunt.

I could not see, and yet could. I saw symbols that suggested meaning, and the meanings were lust and rock and royalty and mate, and something more, or someone more, watching, sleeping, awakening. Three someones, dead but not, alive but not, ancient and thirsting for life, and for power.

"You woke the witches," I said, my voice heard only in some future place.

The king was asleep, his mate too. There was a child within her, or the possibility of one. The symbols were unclear.

"Beneath us is Tordunh," I said. "You created life above a gateway to the underworld, and awoke those who should be dead."

The balance had to be paid, but just as the witches had not been truly dead, neither was Bdagr, but his spirit was trapped in the depths of the world.

- and fell to my knees with a cry, returned to the present and to torchlight.

"Then there is hope yet?" she asked.

"There is hope," I confirmed, my head swirling dizzily, "but a great evil has been unleashed on this world." An evil we had already encountered. The witches were still weak, freshly awoken from eternal slumber, but they would grow stronger in time.

"I care not about such things," she growled.

"When the gods play games," I said, echoing the words of some ancient hero, "our cares matter not."

*

By the time I reached open air again, night was falling and I was deathly tired. It was cold too, and I just wanted to wrap myself in a blanket and sleep, preferably with Fenizir's warm body hugging me tightly. Seeing my fellow humans again after hours in the troll's underground realm was a welcome sight indeed.

In the aftermath of casting that spell, I'd developed a splitting headache that really hadn't helped my mood at all, and there were moments as I was led back to the outside world when the torchlight gave way to echoes of the past that could not be seen but could be read in those esoteric symbols.

These lapses were brief, and I was too weary and too slow to focus my mind on their interpretation, but the moment I laid eyes on Lela, I flashed back to the fall of her wagon and the vine's attack. It was not a natural plant, but one born of magic and mischief, and a wisp of that mischief had been sown in Lela's flesh.

The moment Fenizir caught me in his arms, I was thrown back to the night of the witches, and to a dizzying maelstrom of symbols both sinister and esoteric, my overriding impression being one of hatred blended with lust. I had only scratched the surface of witchcraft; that ancient trio were far beyond my understanding.

I would have fallen if Fenizir hadn't held me. "What happened in there?" he demanded. "What did they do to you?"

"Will they let us pass?" someone asked.

"The Troll Queen will decide in the morning," I answered, keeping my eyes closed. I didn't want to see anything new. The pain in my head was worsening again. "We will be safe till then."

I crawled into the tent and hugged the blanket around me, and fell asleep between one breath and the next.

Only to be woken by Fenizir joining me, embracing me, his long, beautiful cock pressing hard against my back. "Use me as you wish," I murmured. "Just don't wake me up."

And he was glad to do so, rearranging my legs to give himself easier access to my cunt, and guiding that eager cock slowly into me.

*

I'm on my hands and knees, an utterly divine cock hammering deep into my cunt from behind, its gorgeous thickness stretching me exquisitely with each thrust.

"I have made what you asked for," he said, his voice itself sending resonant shivers of pleasure through me. "You will be immortal, Perliss, and your beauty will never fade."

"Thank you, Lord Derushil," I say, though it is difficult to think, let alone talk, while being fucked by a god.

"But," he growls, "for your trickery" - he tugs painfully on my hair - "you will never know love." His other hand, with the strength and delicacy of the Divine Smith, squeezes my breast and clamps tightly about my nipple. "Your cunt will be forever wet, and no mortal man will ever be enough to truly satisfy you."

His brutal cock stiffens within me, and I scream as my own ecstatic climax is achieved within this fusion of pain and pleasure. Derushil's divine cum pumps into my contracting cunt as my body writhes with orgasmic convulsions.

I don't care about his words and predictions. I care only that he has made the ring for me, and that the empire I have forged will endure and continue to grow under my leadership.

I have no need of love anyway.