The Wicked Tower Pt. 18

Vel's breaths became deeper. He clenched and unclenched his fists. "I... I feel better." Vel lifted himself up onto his elbows and then swung his legs off the edge of the bed. He sat next to his mother and put an arm around her slender shoulders. "You fixed me. You have the magic, thank the gods. Now wish us out of here."

"Okay." Cassia closed her eyes and tried to summon the same forces. She wished for them to be far away, outside the city walls. When she opened her eyes, she still sat in her son's chamber with his arm around her. "Can you walk? We must go by the secret stairs."

"I think so." Vel stood. His body felt quite well. It was now only his soul that suffered from the torment of what the queens had done. He followed her to a wall and watched her bend down. The sound of grinding stone filled the room again. A line of warm, yellow light grew wider and wider until a door stood before them with a flickering oil lamp on the floor just beyond the doorway.

"This is it. I think there may be a tunnel at the bottom that will take us away from the castle. But we'll have to find it." Cassia picked up the lamp and ushered her son into a narrow stairway. Her brain was a thorny tangle of emotions now. The more she tried to stuff down her sorrow and fear, the more tightly they seized her. To make matters worse, the magic seemed to have awakened her baser instincts. Her body was responding to Vel's presence. She hit the switch for the door and led Vel by the hand down the stairs. The enchanting heat of her son's touch trailed into her body and burrowed to her core. Her mind grew all the more confused. How many more steps before the snarl of emotions overwhelmed her? "Vel?" They continued to descend.

"Yes, Mother?" He watched the back of her shoulders tremble, outlined as they were by the lamp she held. He knew she was crying and understood her pain well.

"Let's stop for a moment. I... I..." She turned to him. He was taller than usual standing on the stair above her. She stepped around him so that she stood on the stair above him, only slightly looking up into his face. "I need you to hold me a moment. Just hold me." She put the lamp down behind her and held out her arms.

"Of course, Mother." Vel bent a little at the waist and hugged her around the shoulders. He was glad she had healed him, for the force of her embrace was strong enough to have crippled a weaker man. They stood in each other's arms without saying anything. Vel felt her body rack with quiet sobs. He could sense she needed more comfort from him, so he lifted her into his arms until they were face to face. He kissed away the tears on her round cheeks.

"Vel... Vel..." Cassia's breath evened out. "I need to feel you." She could feel his hardness press up against her. "Let me forget... if only for a moment... the pain of this day." She reached under him and worked at his robes, tunic, and underwear until his leviathan was free. "I want your strength." She pulled her stola out of the way and moved her underwear to the side. "I want your life inside me... I... aaaahhhhhhhhh." Cassia slowly impaled her vagina on him. She wrapped her legs around his hips. "Plow under my fields and sow... ugh... something beautiful. New life... so that... I... ugh... do not have to think... of... our plight." She held him tightly by the shoulders and moved her hips in a steady rhythm. The heat of him was now a vortex at the center of her.

Vel grunted in response, but didn't know what else to say. She wanted him inside her pussy. And she wanted his cum. If this helped her with her grief, so be it. And... her tight pussy and the pressing curves of her body chased some of the torment from his soul. His hands moved down to her ass cheeks. He supported her in the air as she humped him. He could tell from her squeals that she was already cumming. He hoped that the walls of their secret passage were thick.

After her third orgasm, Cassia's mind lost track of all but a single focus. To coax new life out of their joining. Her feet flopped in the air, sandals brushing against either wall. "Please... Vel... fill me... sow me... fill me..." She could tell by his grunting that he was close. "Uuuuggggghhhhhh." She threw her head back as he emptied himself inside her. Just as the last of their quivering thrusts subsided, the lamp blew out. They were cast into darkness. She didn't care. Blissfully, she didn't care about anything but his cock twitching inside her. She hugged him tight, still suspended in air, but no longer moving.

When Vel had recovered some, he took hold of her hips and slowly slid her off his cock. He gently placed her on her feet and put his clothes back in order. The darkness was complete, so he reached out and found her hand. "We should go now, Mother."

"Yes. Of course." Her grief crept back in little waves, but she found it to be a burden she could bear. "I have nothing with which to relight the lamp."

"Well, then we will find our way in the dark." Vel grasped her hand tightly and traced the wall with his other hand. They descended.

The stairs ended and Vel almost walked right into a stone wall. "Are we at the bottom already?"

"It doesn't seem far enough. But it's hard to tell." Cassia felt the familiar heat of him move up her arm from their clasping hands.

"There is a wall here. Hold on." With his free hand, Vel felt around for some way through. His finger depressed a small button. The wall spun. He blinked at the bright light beyond. Through the gap he had created there was a long room. A small man in a strange suit of clothes sat reading in an armchair. He looked up and smiled at Vel and Cassia. Behind him, on the wall, was a tall, ticking device. Its mechanisms were open to the world and truly horrific. The gears were made of broken bone and gristly sinew. A pendulum hung from ropes of intestine. And the pendulum's bob was a human heart that beat with each swing. Blood spurted from the thing every time it pulsed, pooling at the base of the machine.

The man's smile faded as he took in their faces. He turned to look where their gaze fell, then turned back to the new arrivals. "Oh, that." He shook his head. "Not our doing, I assure you. But when life gives you lemons..." He shrugged.

"Where are we?" Cassia stepped through the doorway with her son and looked around the room. Was it a library? The walls were covered in shelves, and the shelves were covered in books and other miscellany.

"Good question. You are a sharp woman," the man said. "I've always liked that about you. You are... you are in my home."

"But this is our castle." Vel finally pulled his gaze away from the dreadful mechanism, tick-tocking away. There were worse horrors in the room. In a far corner near the fireplace, stood a woman who didn't seem fixed. She was dark as a starless night but also white as northern snow. She was a small, decrepit thing. At the same time, she stooped as her head pushed up against the high ceiling. Her face was ugly, and beautiful, and animal, and woman. It hurt Vel's mind to regard her.

"You're in my home." The man looked around the expansive room. The coved ceiling was painted like the nighttime sky. "And you can see that you're not the first guests to arrive tonight. I wouldn't look at her too long, lad. Pure chaos is tough to take in."

"That is Discordia." Cassia looked away from the abomination in the corner. She reached up and turned her son's face away as well. There was another woman that she had somehow first missed, sitting in a chair opposite the man. She had one face, but also three. The woman was difficult to look at, but not like the woman in the corner. Azure light faintly glowed on her skin. "Who are you?"

"I am from a pantheon unfamiliar to you." The man nodded at the woman next to him. "This is my friend Hekate, and you are correct about Discordia. I'm afraid she can't talk. The poor goddess is a bit damaged by recent events."

"We are dead. This man is Pluto." Vel felt strangely calm.

"Wrong pantheon, Vel. I am your friend. I've helped you already and wish to continue." The man winked. "Come sit." He motioned to two vacant armchairs by a roaring fire. "We have much to discuss."