The Ring of Perliss Ch. 03: Goddess

Jien returned to the main room and laughed happily at the sight of me. "Put these on," she said, kneeling in front of me with a pair of shoes. I allowed her to fasten my feet into these shoes that had impractically high heels. "Now try walking."

I walked, slowly and tentatively, conscious with each step of my breathing and the swishing of my long tail. It was like walking on my toes, uncomfortable and nonsensical, but there was something undeniably sexy about the posture I was forced to adopt.

"It will come out by itself," Jien said, "as soon as it senses your ass is hungry for something thicker - which it will be and soon. It will also make sure you're nice and slippery for the main event." She left the room again, shouting as she went, "The tails are a specialty of the temple here in Benatek. A donation would be welcome."

Hanwe stood, and with a firm hand at my back guided me through to the now dimly lit guardroom where we had dined earlier - and then beyond into one of the cells. The air smelled of sex and incense, and I felt almost like a temple courtesan with a paying customer.

She pushed me against the wall and kissed me, and thrust two fingers roughly into my cunt - I was so wet it barely hurt. "I was worried," she said, "that with Perliss gone from you, your cunt would no longer be so deliciously wet for me."

"It's your cock I want, Hanwe, not your fingers." In the excitement, I was breathing harder, and my ass was clenching harder too in an incredibly distracting way.

She spun me round to face the wall, and spanked me hard. I would have complained except my outraged cry was followed by a sharp inhale, and a particularly intense tightening of my ass that made me gasp. Again she spanked me, and again, and I panted as my tail jerked rhythmically. I whimpered as the tail began to escape from me, the metal cone stretching me wide.

Hanwe plucked the tail free, and suddenly her silver-clothed cock was pressing against that virgin entrance. "Beg me for it," she growled into my ear.

The loss of the tail had left me with an empty ache inside, and right then I could think of nothing I wanted more than Hanwe's cock filling that void. "Fuck me," I pleaded. "Fuck my ass."

Even so, I was unprepared for just how much bigger her cock was than the tail. 'Fuck!" I cried. "Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck." She stretched me painfully wide as she pushed slowly in... but once in, she was able to thrust deeper with ease.

"How I wish I could finish," she murmured. "I would love to fill your tight ass with my cum. Your cunt as well, and your mouth." She reached around me to grab my breasts as she rammed her fantastic cock into my slippery ass.

It was all so good, but it wasn't enough. Not until her fingers sought out my clit did I finally ascend to that precipice of pleasure. I climaxed with a scream of ecstasy, my ass contracting wonderfully about her hard cock. "Yes!" I cried. "Yes. Fuck."

A long, intense, and desperately needed orgasm.

*

For reluctant breasts:

Mother's milk, warmed over burning oak with hawthorn and holly in the flame at dawn's first light. Speak malese tir alsum shankdun fekl and allow to cool. Drink to provoke or encourage lactation.

*

Dawn found Zar, Hanwe and me outside the temple of Veshla. "You agree to let me speak for you?" Zar asked for the third time that morning.

"The gods will not listen to me anyway," Hanwe said.

"I may not be Perliss," I said, "but I still look like her. I need that sword, Zar, and with the goddess's blessing. Minarwe chose you to speak to Veshla, and I trust you."

No, I wasn't Perliss, but it still felt disrespectful to enter Veshla's temple while distracted by the dull but not unpleasant ache in my ass.

Zar led the way in, and Hanwe and I followed. It was the first time I had seen either of my two warrior companions look so visibly nervous. The austerity of the temple, in contrast to the bright colours and welcoming atmosphere of Minarwe's temple, did nothing to lessen my own nervousness.

It was a grand stone temple with a central dome, the statue of Veshla at the centre. She was dressed in steel for war, with Ulaxr's silver blade at the ready. The walls of the temple spoke of Veshla's role as the goddess of trade. Detailed maps were painted of different parts of the world. I recognised Saruz and Alba, and a new map had been painted of Benatek and marshes where a forest had once stood. The inside of the domed ceiling was a map of the known world with Benatek at the centre, encompassing Saruz and the Iskreti in the south, Alba and the plains of the centaurs in the north, a rather fanciful labyrinth in the east depicting the Maze of Monsters, and deep in the western sea was mythical Atlantis.

I had seen only one tiny corner of this vast world, and the extent of it filled me with awe.

Zar knelt before the statue of Veshla. She had brought with her, wrapped in golden silk, the Dawn Blade. Its magic was ancient and deadly, but its purpose was obscure. The purpose of Ulaxr's silver sword, on the other hand, was brutally clear: Derushil had forged it by moonlight for the murder of witches. I dreaded to think what might happen if the two swords met in anger.

Hanwe and I knelt either side of Zar as she removed her cloak to reveal the beautiful silver scales of her divine breastplate. "Lady Veshla," she said reverently, "when you gave me this armour you also branded me a whore. I will not offend you by asking you to reverse that judgement. It was wrong of me to take what was not mine, and my punishment was fair. I do ask, without expectation, that you return the Eye of K'Dunhe to Arae, and take back your silver breastplate."

As before with Minarwe, I sensed a gathering awareness, a vibrant energy expressed in mystical symbols and, this time, a statue coming to life. "You are wise not to presume," the goddess said. "I know that you find my breastplate a torment, but you have grown much in the fifteen years since you desecrated my temple in Saruz. I will grant your requests, Zar."

Before my eyes, the silver scales were absorbed into Zar's flesh and simultaneously emerged from Veshla's marble exterior. Her steel breastplate turned to dust at the same time, so that the goddess was revealed in gleaming silver.

Zar hastily wrapped her cloak about herself to conceal her newly bare breasts. "Thank you, Lady Veshla. I have another request to make."

"Indeed?" the goddess said, the word echoing ominously.

"I wish to make a trade. I offer you the Dawn Blade in exchange for Lady Ulaxr's sword."

"A worthy trade," Veshla said approvingly. "But I wonder what the Black Queen has to say for herself. We have not forgotten what she stole from us."

"Lady Goddess," Zar said quickly before Hanwe could speak. "The Black Queen requests that you return to Lady Ulaxr what was stolen, and she will willingly surrender Lord Uxur's bow and the Unsleeping Eye of the North."

"Is this true, Hanwe of Lliria?" the goddess asked.

"Yes, Lady Veshla," Hanwe said. "I did much that was wrong, and I am seeking to make amends."

"Your thoughts are not honest, Hanwe of Lliria, but I will take Uxur's bow in exchange for Ulaxr's blade, and I will return to my sister the cock you so callously took from her."

"Thank you, Goddess." Hanwe placed her bow at Veshla's feet, and the goddess knelt to take it.

"As for this one," the goddess said, staring down at me. "I recognise your face. It is good that my sister dealt with Perliss. I would have been less kind."

I dared say nothing, but my head was full of questions. How was I to find the three witches, for one. How could I defeat them, for another. "You will need more than a sword," she said. "The metal the witches seek to forge their cauldron anew is found only on the island of Atlantis. There you will find the answers to many questions."

And with that she returned to being merely a statue, and Zar laughed with relief. Ulaxr's silver sword fell to the floor, the hilt within Hanwe's reach, and she studied it carefully, swinging it to test its balance.

Outside, on the temple steps, Hanwe turned and, with a dramatic flourish, offered me the hilt. "Your sword, My Lady," she said.

"I know nothing of swordplay," I said, taking the heavy blade from her. "Will you teach me?"

"I will," she said with a laugh, "but I would sooner use it myself. It is an excellent weapon."

"Then take this instead," Zar said, offering Hanwe the silk-wrapped Dawn Blade. "Your need is greater than mine, and you are sent with my goddess's blessing."

"Thank you, Zar," Hanwe said, cradling the sword in her arms as if it were a swaddled infant. "I am honoured by your trust."

*

A divination spell, should one dare, to dream of Lord Uxur's passions:

Daisy kissed by the rising sun and cunt-moistened. Speak bakse tir alos menevir prakl, and swallow to dream of sun-cock's idle lechery.

*

A month had passed since putting on the Ring of Perliss for the last time and setting out on an adventure. I had hoped then to see distant places and strange, magical creatures, and perhaps one day wield a weapon of the gods. How strange and wonderful it was to have spoken with the Troll Queen and seen across the River of Tordunh, to have spoken with not one goddess but two, and now to be given a sword forged by the Divine Smith.

But terrifying too. I had felt the power and hatred of the three witches, and I was at least partly responsible for their resurrection. My uncle, I guessed, had used the ring only for scandalous nighttime adventures, but I had embraced being Lia with a passion, had even slept through dream-filled nights as her, until Perliss's memories had become almost more real than my own as Orin.

What the witches would do with their magic and hate, I had no idea, but it would not be good. If even the gods wanted the witches dead, and so much so that Derushil had forged a blade for that very purpose, then the world itself was surely in great peril.

The gods had tasked me with confronting them. I who knew so little of the world, a mere novice of witchery, entirely unskilled with weaponry, was somehow to confront an evil so ancient and powerful even the gods seemed to fear.

"To Atlantis, then," I said. "But how? How to get to an island that sank beneath the waves so long ago no one believes it really existed?"

"We find a ship," Hanwe said, "with a captain mad enough to believe in its existence, and hope that somehow between here and there we find the means to pay him."

"Where, though? Saruz?" Saruz was, after all, famous as a trading port. Often I had longed to see the great sailing ships arriving from distant lands to the north and south, or even to be on one such, setting out in search of fortune and adventure.

"Alba," Hanwe said. "It is to Alba that the first people came when Atlantis was lost. If anyone knows where to seek Atlantis, we will find them in Alba."

"If anything's left of it," I muttered.

We headed north from Benatek, following the highway, but first we spent the morning in Benatek's thriving market. It was a riot of colour and noise. I had never seen so many people in one place, and I was quickly lost. Hanwe, cloaked in black and hooded, guided me through the labyrinth of shops and stalls while trying also to be unobtrusive. Not that anyone was looking at her. Everyone was busy buying or selling.

I spied there the merchants I had travelled north with. We exchanged greetings and I asked after Fenizir and Arden, but they had not been seen since the wagon train had arrived safely at the city.

I had collected many herbs and roots along the way, and had crafted a good stock of various medicines, and I was able to barter these for food and a number of rare and unusual ingredients. Various pepper seeds, for instance, promised to spice up our meals, but had magical potential too.

We returned to Minarwe's temple for a brief lunch and to bid farewell to Zar and Jien. "Scabbards for your swords," Zar said, presenting us with two newly made leather-and-steel sheaths. "Keep to the road in centaur lands. Alba riled them up and blood has been spilt on both sides."

"This is for you, Lia," Jien said, handing me a leather pouch. I peeked inside and saw the white hair of the horse tail I'd enjoyed the night before.

"Thank you," I replied, my cheeks burning with embarrassment, and Hanwe laughed at the sight.

"What's cruel about it," she said later, once we were on our way, Benatek in the distance behind us, "is that you will have to live without the use of my cock. Lady Veshla has taken my silver cock, and now the belt denies me even an erection."

Cruel indeed. I had been looking forward to many repeats of the night before. "What did she mean?" I asked. "Lady Veshla said your thoughts were not honest."

Hanwe laughed. "I have many regrets from my life as the Black Queen, but stealing Ulaxr's silver cock for myself is not one of them. There's an intoxicating pleasure in having your enemies worship your cock."

"Well, I need no divine silver to make me worship it," I said with a cheeky grin - and then sighed with frustration. "There must be something we can do."

And maybe there was.

*

A seduction spell?

New moon jasmine and crushed peppercorns, mulched with midnight blood. Speak dilakse tir alsa tenkoda prakl, and blend into a fine paste. Apply lightly to lips for a kiss to defy all chastity.

*

Casting that first spell of seeing, deep in the heart of the mountain, had opened my eyes to a whole new mystical way of understanding the world around me. The same symbols that my witchy senses could sometimes perceive, the symbols that suggested a connection between the magical world and the mundane, were the same symbols that threaded through the book of spells dropped by the witch I had struck.

Pages that had once baffled me entirely now seemed to hint at possible meaning, and some spells that I had been on the cusp of understanding were now almost obvious. There was nothing evil about these simpler spells, some of them even being variations on the medicinal and fertility spells Abab-Baria had taught me. Some suggested divination, in the very particular sense of studying the moods and movements of the gods.

At midnight, while Hanwe slept, I dripped blood from my wrist onto peppercorns and jasmine petals. Abab-Baria had often had me collect jasmine beneath the new moon, and I had brought a pouch of the dried petals with me all the way from my village. The peppercorns I had found in Benatek and purchased on a whim, and how fortunate that I did.

"Dilakse tir alsa tenkoda prakl," I murmured, over and over, as I blended the jasmine, pepper and blood with my pestle and mortar, and gradually it turned into a dark red paste. The magic I could sense in the mixture matched the symbols in the witch's spell book. It was done. I applied some sparingly to my lips, and tested it with a gentle kiss on Hanwe's cheek.

Hanwe gasped, awakening at once. She sat up and reached for the hilt of her sword, staring all around in alarm, though there was nothing to see in the dark beyond the firelight. Her other eye, of course, the black Unsleeping Eye of the North that she kept hidden with a patch during the day, could see approaching enemies even in the dark - but there were none of those, I hoped.

She relaxed and stared at me in confusion. "What did you just do?" I answered her with a kiss on the lips, and she cried out in surprise, forgetting her sword and clutching instead at the belt that denied any intimate touch of her cock or her cunt. "What witchcraft is this?" she demanded.

I answered by lifting her vest and kissing the sweet mounds of her breasts, adoring their curves with my lips, teasing her by avoiding the swollen tips that brushed against my cheeks in my slow exploration. "Oh, you are cruel," she cried, and my hand, when I reached down to feel between her thighs, could feel her cock straining against the moonsilver guard, and the wetness of her cunt could be felt even through the mesh.

"Shall I stop?" I murmured, and she laughed. My kisses circled inwards until my lips caressed her nipples, sometimes one, sometimes the other. Each the gentlest touch provoked a whimpering cry from her lips, her hips thrusting restlessly and uselessly at my hand.

Her hands pulled my head down, forcing my mouth onto her breast. "Suck it," she demanded. "Bite it. Make me come, Lia. Please make me come. I'm so close!" And I could deny her no longer. I could deny myself no longer. I needed her to come almost as much as she did. I sucked on her nipple, holding it between my teeth as my tongue worked it with determination. "Fuck!" she cried out, her body tensing and vibrating beneath me like a bow string. "Fuck! It's working! Don't stop! Don't fucking stop!"

She screamed her ecstasy into the night, and I could feel the pulsing victory of her cock within its silver guard. Fluid gushed from her cunt as she convulsed beneath me, and I felt beneath my palm the sticky, slippery oozing of cum from her still confined cock.

My head released at last, I moved to kiss her on the lips, but she pushed me away with a laugh. "Let me rest a little," she said, though she was happy to kiss me elsewhere, tenderly, lovingly. "Thank you," she whispered, again and again. "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."