Tales from Hyboria (Tara’s Tale) 3

“My Prince, a woman is here to see you.”

“A woman?” Prince Thanocles walked through the armory. He tossed his practice sword upon a table and began unstrapping his breastplate. “What?”

“Yes, Prince.” The steward bowed. “She said she is here from the Librarium. Do you wish me to send her off?”

Thanocles shrugged off his breastplate and let it drop to floor, soon followed by his tunic. “Nay,” he bade. “Send her in.”

He was sitting in the bath, arms propped upon the rim, eyes shut, and enjoying the steam when he heard footsteps on the stone floor. “My Prince,” greeted a female voice, low and soft, but with an edge. He opened eyes and smiled.

There stood Tara, hair tightly braided, wearing a black silk chasuble. Billowing, sleeveless folds whelmed her arms and scooped low until her girdle’s silver links gathered them at waist, thence falling over her hips. She bowed slightly, holding a scroll to her breast.

“The sorcerer’s daughter.” Thanocles’ eyes narrowed over his grin. “Why are you here?”

She held forth the scroll: “I was bidden to bring you this, my Prince.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Presumably, you wish to read it”

“I don’t read,” he declared. “I have scribes to do so.”

“Yes, Prince.” She drew apart the scroll’s spools. “You wish me to read for you?”

“I think not. I’ve asked for no scroll.” A smile played his lips. “What is this? Some pretext to gain my presence?”

Tara smiled and bowed slightly. “You’ve found me out. This was the best way I could find to reach you.”

“Indeed.” His grin leered. “Well, since you’re here, we may as well not waste it.” Within the bath he stood. His stout, muscled body rose glistening from the water until all but his calves lay clear to eye, wide shoulders, corded belly, and heavy manhood hanging restlessly.

Unmoved, Tara stood. She overlooked the prince’s nakedness, and then cocked her brow.

Thanocles watched her until silence stretched between them. He pursed lips. “Well?”

Her expression did not shift. “Well, what, Prince?”

“Wash me.”

“Ah. I see.” Tara’s bow dropped her eyes to the floor. “I shall fetch the bath-slaves for you.” She swerved backward and headed for the doorway.

“Nay! I don’t wish slaves. I wish you to-” His voice died as she left. He scowled and almost leapt from the bath, but his foot slipped on wet stone. Strong arms caught the bath’s edge and forstayed him a wicked fall. There he halted, water slopping over his knees and onto the floor while he watched her back disappear.

His frustration stewed until the bath-slaves came: a foursome of Brythunian maids matched in height, eyes, and brown-gold hair, clad in scant scraps of cloth twisted around their waists. One knelt before him, dried his loins and thighs, and glanced shyly upward at him,

“Stop,” he bade. When she obeyed, he reached down and raised her chin, looking on her face. Swiftly he compared her to the other three. Then he let her free. “Lean forward on your hands,” he ordered.

The bath-slave shivered and did as bidden, head down, eyes watching him sidewise.

Thanocles walked around to her rear swaying high. He stooped and cupped her buttock, dipped his thumb into her exposed quim, and plumbed her depth. In answer she gasped, and then began whimpering softly. He considered the sounds from her throat until they turned to a moan. then he knelt behind her and pushed his manhood’s bulb into her folds. He plowed her tightness from behind and soon was thrusting toward.

Then he looked up. There stood Tara right inside the doorway, watching him. He glared at her over the slave’s hips and back. Almost he commanded her to leave. Yet the pleasure-stroke overtook him. He gasped and squeezed eyes shut while ecstasy emptied out of him. When Thanocles opened them, Tara still waited, no longer bearing the scroll, hands folded within her chasuble’s folds. A bemused look, almost a smile, played about her pale eyes.

He slapped the slave-girl’s haunch, which sent her scurrying from the bathroom, leaving prince and sorceress alone.

“You,” he growled, “are an insolent wench. When I command, you shall obey.”

Tara’s head tilted. “Why?”

“Why?” he repeated. Unbelief widened his eyes. “You tread dangerous ground, girl.”

“Have you not enough bath-slaves and concubines to catch your seed when your lust seethes over?”

His glare fixed on her. “My word is law, and you and your withered old father serve at my pleasure. And when I say pleasure, I mean any and all that entails.”

“Of course, Sire. Forgive me.” She bowed slightly. “Yet let me ask you this: how am I to fulfill the task you bade if I am yielding my womanliness to your shaft?”

His brow pinched. “What task?”

“Finding your uncle’s spy.”

“I bid you hush!” he hissed, and quickly looked around. “What if the blackguard is listening in as we speak?”

“I assure you, Prince, we are quite alone. We may speak freely.”

While Thanocles regarded the gray-eyed lass, his frown deepened. He eyes were drawn to her breast, where, despite the black robe hiding her from neck to foot, two raised nubs poked out against the sateen silk, each wide as a gold coin and jutting a good inch out beyond her flesh. He tried to look off, failed, and shook his head. “What-” he stuttered.

“Speak on, Prince,” heartened Tara, “since doubtlessly you wonder at my coming here.”

“Yes,” he said, tearing eyes away. “Why did you come here? You and your father have stayed here nigh a month, and still no spy or aught else to show.”

“And that is just the problem,” she answered. “We can do little where we sit and wait.”

“Why not? Have I not given you access to my court?”

“Nay, Prince. You let us into the Librarium,” she corrected, “and that is not the court. It is not even in the palace, where we may not enter without leave. I shrive it betook me a swift tongue and no few lies to reach you here.”

“Which were sake enough to have you stripped, flogged and cast into the gutter,” muttered Thanocles.

“And yet how are we to find a spy in your court if we ourselves are not in it?” asked Tara.

“If you two are doughty enough sorcerers as you claim, it should not matter.”

“We claimed we could find your spy. We never promised to do so hamstrung.” Her eyes flashed.

He laughed. “You grow bold. Tell me: under what pretext am I to invite a middling alchemist with whiff of sorcery hanging about him and his nameless daughter among my nobles?”

“Simple, she read, while walking to a shelf, whence she drew fresh clothes: “do not try to hide it.” She shook out and undershirt and held it up before him. “Name my father your counselor sorcerous. Then we shall have standing enough to come and go as we need.”

“Now we come to the thrust,” he gleed while he caught hem and drew the undershirt overhead. “Such would doubtless further your father’s name, including your own, all without even a spy to show. I think not.” His head cocked. “Besides, I recall I have already granted you access to the court. My birthday feast happens in three days, and your father has promised lotus for the celebration. You may come to court then.”

Tara likewise held up the prince’s fresh jupon. “Very well.” She smiled hardly as he donned it. “Yet allow me at least the favor of overlooking the battlefield before the battle.” Her eyes batted. “Show me your palace.”

“What? Me?” he babbled, pulling his head through the neck hole. “Now?”

Tara nodded yes to all questions. She stretched a golden belt and knelt before him. “Show me as you see it.” She wrapped it around his waist and clasped it snug.

Prince Thanocles looked down on her, on her knees, head right on height with his loins. His dry mouth gaped. Almost he set to speak, but then licked lips and clamped them shut. Instead, he grabbed her arm and hauled her afoot. “Come,” he said roughly.

He led her out of the baths, back through the armory, and through the practice-yard where earlier he had faced his knights at swordplay. Thence he showed her the palace stables, replete with neighing destriers who tosses manes and grooms who hastily bowed as their prince passed. Then he led the way through the kitchens and past the stockrooms to the banquet hall, and from there to the gardens, where myrrh-shrubs vied with roses, and peacocks crowed among caged songbirds. He finished the tour in the hall of state, where he dropped her hand and sat upon his golden throne, whose arms were cast as rampant bulls, and set with purple canopy and rugs of far Vendhya.

“There. You’ve seen it.” His fingers drummed the throne’s golden arm. “Satisfied?”

Tara stood before the throne’s dais gazed around at the palace’s bell-like dome, the windows of stained glass letting light stream in, pennons hanging of honors and victories, and tapestries set upon the walls, which showed Koth’s history since its rude foundation on the bones of Acheron and the rise of its warrior-kings. “Thank you, Prince,” she inclined her head while continuing to look. “Yet is what you’ve shown me truly all?”

His head shook. “What mean you?”

A half-smile played her as she turned eye to him. “What of your personal apartments?”

He chuckled. “What? You wish to see even those?”

She nodded, gray eyes narrow. “Even your bedchamber.”

He grin grew toothy. “Careful what you ask, sorcerer’s daughter. I may grant your wish.”

“I’ll take my chance,” she replied. “Will you indulge me, Prince?”

Again he led the way, back through the banquet hall, to the guarded doors she remembered from the feast. At Thanocles’ wave the porters opened, and prince and Tara strode through. There waited the same marble hall with doors, each to a room appointed with silver lamps, ebony tables, exotic rugs, and skins of zebras, lions, tigers, and other wild beasts.

At last Thanocles leaned against the doorway next to last. “I believe you’ve seen all now,” he observed, “except the bedchamber. He tapped the lintel whereagainst he leaned and nodded for her to enter.

Tara shunned his eyes. Instead, they settled on the door at the hallway’s end, the one she had been forbidden to follow during her astral exploration. “What lies herethrough?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he answered. “Wait. Do not go there!” he warned. Yet Tara did not wait. She scampered through ere he could catch her, and pushed through a bangled door-shroud.

She found herself in an enclosed court with gallery around the edge, open to the sky. Orange trees and a pool waited in the garden like midst, though smaller than the palace’s pleasure-gardens. Tara looked around, even when Prince Thanocles hustled through the door after her. She took in not only the bronze and onyx statues of naked houris and pillowed benches, but also the half-dozen women dressed in jewels and silken shawls.

“A seraglio,” she spoke.

“Indeed,” said Thanocles, “and therefore not somewhere anyone may simply enter without leave.”

“Still, if I were to yield you what you wish, then maybe ’twere meet I see this,” she reckoned.

While Tara spoke, the tall, spare woman she recognized from her astral spell strode forth, halted, and bowed to the prince. “Mira, greeted Thanocles, “forgive the intrusion. We have an unexpected guest.”

Tara spared a glance at Mira, and then for the other women present. Their sight made her pause. Most all their bellies swelled to varying widths, from middling to so great that one might bethink her ready to give birth, all but Mira’s and one whom Tara recognized as Titiana. The golden lady retained her slimness, though a bruising welt marred an eye and cheek.

“So,” said Tara, looking around the small court: “Is this to become my fate, should I yield my favors? If I get a babe from you, will I be kept here?”

“Nonsense!” said Thanocles. “My seraglio is fit for noblewomen only.” He waved hand at the women: “You behold here daughters of some of the greatest houses in Koth. Vivia is daughter of Prince Almuric, King Strabonus cousin on his mother’s side, executed for rebellion ten years ago. Pulcheriahere is daughter to Count Minas, who surrendered with Yaralet, and whomfrom I took her as hostage. Livia and Livania here are twins, offered me by Sir Pelion in exchange for the stronghold at Bar-Golga, along with its estates, and we are already laying bets as to which drops her babe first.” Then he paused. “Lady Mira here is my first concubine, whom I’ve had since youth,” he told, looking to the spare woman. “As such, she oversees the seraglio.” When Tara eyed her, Mira bowed, but did not meet her gaze.

“Which brings us at last to our newest addition,” summed the prince, waving at the golden lady Tara already knew, who huddled in a corner: “Titiana here was naughty. She believed the favor I had shown her was not enough. On the night she entertained me, she chose not to drink the potion Lady Mira gave her. What’s worse, she hid the deed and lied! Then she misses her moon-blood, and next her father is asking me awkward questions.” He strode to her. “We like not ladies who do not what they’re told, and neither do we like liars!”

The golden lady’s hand shielded her bruised eye and cheek.

“So what think you?” The prince turned to Tara: “Is curiosity satisfied?”

“But one question more,” answered the gray-eyed lass: “If I am not worth the seraglio, then what would become my fate?”

“Well, I suppose I’d send you back to your father.” The prince shrugged: “Or if he will not have you, we would guest you at some house, either in the city or at a lord’s estate.”

“How thoughtful,” said Tara. She again surveyed the garden-court, paying especial heed to Titiana’s bruised face. “I understand this is more than I could hope for.” Her words dripped wryness.

“Yet it could be fun,” said Thanocles, licking lips.

“I’m sure,” she answered. “Thank you, Prince. I’ll now take my leave.” She bowed.

“But wait!” he called. “You haven’t seen the bedroom I promised.”

“As you’ve already said, Prince, I’ve seen enough. I’ll stay with being a sorcerer’s daughter.” Tara strode to the door.

“Wait!” he called after her. “I bid you-” Yet she did not wait. She left through the doorway, hiding a smile.

Tara wove through the palace hallways, by mincing courtiers and guards slouching boredly, out through the main door. She then crossed the front square leftward to a hall domed with stained glass. She strope up the steps and nodded to the steward, who nodded back as if he knew her.

She found Theophobus in an empty ramshackle wing that looked used to store spare shelves and rotten scrolls. He stood amidst borrowed furniture, whereon a brazier burned, a kettle bubbled, and a copper horn caught the steam and thence led to a twisted tube. From its mouth dripped a bilious oil into a vial. The old man watched this distillation dribble to its goal and looked up at her entry.

“We may have a problem,” told Tara. “The prince grows impatient with our spy-hunt.”

Theophobus stepped back from his alchemy. “Thanocles quickens matters more than I forehoped.” He sighed. “What would you?”

Her gray eyes frowned. “We need a sterner stroke.”

He nodded. “If a secret be whispered in Yaralet, but be heard in an ear within Korshemish, then there are things we may summon, which can trace that path,” he bethought, lips narrow. “Yet we must take care. Tsotha-lanti rules the king’s court from his scarlet tower. If he wits our night-thrall, he will deem us ill.”

“Know you Tsotha-lanti?” she asked.

He smiled through his beard. “He is the reason I left Korshemish, and count myself both lucky and alive thereby. He is beyond my power.”

Tara nodded, eyes dark. “What must we betake to keep our hunter secret?”

“Wait until the Prince’s birth night in three days, on the next new moon” read the old man. “Prepare for that night, for then we shall call our whisper-hunter. Until then, help me ready this lotus, since it buys us the Prince’s goodwill.”

“Very well,” agreed Tara. From a bag she plucked dried citrine blossoms and put them in a sieve. Gently she shook it over a bowl, causing a faint dustlike pollen to fall.

xxxxx

Smoky stench floated through the palace’s pleasure-hall, a cloying billowiness that stung nose and dulled all other smell. It hung aloft as a dirty haze, along with song from lute and harp, which played slightly off step. Here came Prince Thanocles, flanked by lords his boyhood friends. At his entry the revel-guests, lords and ladies bleary-eyed and already half-naked, stood and cheered, full of well-wishes for his birthday, whereat he waved acknowledgement. He strode among his companions and ministers, nodding at the noblewomen who bowed and let cleavage gape.

At last he beheld the stinging haze’s source: a waist-high brazier, on whose red embers Theophobus sifted an amber like dust. As he did, forth wafted a new harsh, heavy smoke-cloud. The Prince strode to the brazier, where-around revelers held reeds, whose ends they reached out and held over the combusting powder and sucked smoke through. He nodded to Theophobus’s bow, and then looked around. “Master Sorcerer, I trust this batch of lotus came out well?”

The sorcerer lowered head and stretched his arms, gesturing at the smoke billowing. “The best, Prince. A blend of my own concoction. If you misdoubt, ask your loyal subjects who have already partaken.”

Thanocles followed his lead and glanced at the bodies filling couches throughout the hall, with wide but droopy eyes, slumbery under lotus-smoke dreams. Others half or altogether naked writhed together in serpent like knots, including a lady who sat upon a man’s lap, wherein openly drove his manhood, to onlookers’ exhortations. The prince appreciatively eyed her bouncing haunches until he turned back to the brazier.

“You guarantee its potency?’ he asked the sorcerer.

Theophobus nodded. “The pleasures this lotus summons are unrivaled. Moreover, despite these ecstatic heights, it has the curious outcome of hindering a man’s release, which causes not less but more pleasure, for all parties involved.”

“Enlivening.” The prince grinned. “For such an offer, Master Sorcerer, I have no choice but to partake!”

He picked a reed from a stack beside the brazier, stuck its end over the burning powder, and sucked deep. Thanocles’s eyes shut while he breathed smoke. He sneezed as it scoured his nostrils.

Then his eyes opened. The world around him blurred, glowed, and wavered. His pupils widened uncannily, even while his face reddened. He swayed, and from his lips escaped a moan.

When his eyes again focused, Tara stood across the brazier, wearing a scarf twisted and wrapped over breast, leaving her shoulders and belly bare. A girdle’s skirt hid her hips and loins, through slits let peek her thighs. She watched him, a half-smile musing her lips.

“Insolent wench,” he greeted.

Tara did not bow. Neither did her mien change. She strolled around the brazier and its crowd of lotus-smokers until she reached Thanocles. “How find you the lotus, my Prince?”

At her shift before him and need to look downward at her, Thanocles’ head wobbled again. He blinked as his loudening heartbeat made her nymph like chest bulge bigger. “Fine,” he muttered, and then added: “Very good quality.” He frowned while trying to focus his words. “Yet expect not your father’s skill shall forgive your insult.”

Tara clasped his arm. At her touch alone, he groaned and shut eyes, almost swooning. She steered him from the brazier. “Come, my Prince. Let us discuss this matter,” she bade gently.

When he drunkenly accepted her lead, she brought him to a pillar where against sat a bench, and seated them both. “I should tell you something about my father’s lotus,” she revealed. “He mixed it with both the black lotus of the swamps of Southern Stygia and the yellow lotus from far eastern Khitai. This has the effect of bringing not only the euphoria and dreams wherewith you are familiar, but also a curious side-effect: those under the lotus-smoke’s power become highly biddable to other’s commands.”

“Truly?” Thanocles laughed. “Were I to bid you strip your gown before the whole hall, would you do so?”

Tara smiled and squeezed his hand, whereat he again groaned headily. ” I have not partaken. Yet you, Prince, have. I wonder. What trial of the lotus’s power shall I put to you?”

He grinned and scoffed. “You cannot command me.”

“Are you so sure? Let me ask, Prince: have you ever worshiped your concubine’s womanliness with the same loving care they lavish on your manhood? Have you ever given your lover lip-service to her own pleasure?”

He shook his head. “Nay.”

“So I thought.” Under the smoke’s influence her gray eyes glowed. “Let me ask, Prince: what would happen if I bid you kneel before me right now, draw aside my skirt, and lay bare my womanhood before your eyes?”

Thanocles’ grin grew as his hand reached for her girdle. Yet she blocked it. “Nay, Prince. I said you must kneel.”

He scowled at her, but then glanced downward and halted when he realized he had half-risen from the bench. He gaped, scowled, and swiftly stood to unsteady straightness. “What devilry is this?!”

Tara leaned forward to keep his hand and stroked it. “As I said, the lotus make’s the smoker biddable to others’ will.”

At her touch he moaned, but then shook his head, which under the smoke’s influence made him stagger. “I obey none, man or woman!”

“And yet, Prince, if you wish to behold my most intimate midst, then you shall kneel,” she whispered, “and do it now!”

Heavily the prince panted, as if running a race. Then while gritting his teeth, he lowered first one knee to floor, and then the other. There he knelt before Tara sitting abench. He looked at her befuddledly, a plea as if for help in his eyes.

“Well done, Prince.” Tara smiled. “For such a deed, doubtlessly you deserve a reward. Tell me: would you agree if I bid you lift my skirt, part my thighs, and spread me wide to your eye?”

Thanocles shivered. He set hand on her knee and shoved it aside. The he grabbed the silken scarf whelming her loins and shoved it askew. There lay bare Tara’s waiting folds, naked but for a trimmed patch of hair upon her pubis. He breathed deep again, set hand on her inner thigh, and spread her cleft, revealing her rosy depth.

“Very good, Prince,” she sighed. “Now a last thing: I earlier spoke of lip-service.”

Thanocles’s pounding head lowered, but then halted as again he shivered. “I- I have erenever done this,” he stammered.

“Truly?” asked Tara. “Of all the many scores of women you’ve enjoyed, have you never given pleasure for her sake alone?”

He shook his head, breathing as if fighting a battle. “But- but the taste… I fear it will be piss.”

“I assure you, Prince, I am well bathed and rinsed. Now bow between my legs and set your tongue to use.”

A great sigh left Thanocles. He crouched and lowered head to her open sex, wherein he licked tongue through her moistening slit. Softly Tara leaned against the pillar. Her hand reached forth and played with his curls.

She looked upward and across the hall spotted Lady Mira the head concubine. She was watching Tara and the prince kneeling between her legs. Shock froze the spare woman’s face. Tara matched her gaze while her teeth gnawed lip.

Then she turned mind back to Prince Thanocles working tongue between her legs. “That’s it, my Prince,” she encouraged. “Now shallow, now deep,” she groaned. She clutched his head, twisting her fingers in his curly locks.

Nestled within her slick loins, Thanocles halted. “My tongue tires,” he complained.

“Worry not, Prince,” she read. “Suckle on my bud there as you would your mother’s nipple,” she urged. “Oh,” she moaned when his lips obeyed and found her sex’s crown. “Just like so.”

Her body curled forward so she could press her face against his dark, perfumed curls, and legs lifted from floor and squeezed his shoulders. Her hands pushed his head further and harder into her weeping, churning womb. Then a mewl strangled from her lips.

At last he broke suck and gasped breath. “Give mercy!” he begged. “My lips are numb, and I can lick no more!”

Tara shuddered breath, ran fingers through his hair a last time, and let him free. “Very good, my Prince!” She stirred to sit up, but he held her thighs and kept them spread. “Ishtar and Derketo be kind!” he groaned, and fumbled with his tunic’s hem. “I must take you!”

“Nay!” she hissed. Her hand found his while it freed his upright manhood from clothes. She shoved his aside and took his shaft within her grasp. She squeezed, forcing another moan from his lips, but held him fast, not letting him come nearer. “Stay,” she bade in strong whisper.

Again Thanocles shuddered. He groaned as if dying, but stilled.

“Good boy,” she crooned. “You now understand the lotus’s power?” He nodded, and she said: “Perhaps you deserve some reward for your service. You can use the lotus for your own welfare.”

Thanocles rose and surveyed the smoky hall, where under the lotus’s influence, the mass of dream-ridden eyes and naked, twisting bodies had grown. Hand caressed buttock, and tongue stroked breast. His blurring eyes settled on an older woman who stood at the brazier, smoking through a reed. Her eyes wandered the hall, dwelling on each man in turn.

Tara rose, resetting her girdle, and followed his gaze. “Who is she?” she asked.

“Lady Eudoxia,” he told. “In my youth newly come to manhood, I lusted for her, though later learned she is a great slattern, unworthy of a prince’s taste.”

Tara studied him. “And yet I wonder whether some part of you still wants her.” She leaned near, stood on tiptoe, and whispered in his ear: “Let me ask: if you could do something that she has never done before, and may even shock her, what would you?”

Thanocles gaped, and then a grin split his face. “I would swive her rear like a catamite.” He laughed boyishly.

“So have her do,” urged Tara. “Go unto her, speak in her ear what you would have of her, and she shall.”

Prince Thanocles strode forward, staggered as the lotus continued to blear his mind, and crossed the hall. He set hand on Lady Eudoxia’s shoulder right as she set down her smoking-reed. When she turned and smiled, he leaned forth and whispered in her ear. From where Tara watched, her face blushed scarlet. Then she shivered and bowed to the prince. Taking his hand, she led him toward an empty couch.

At the couch Tara met them, where she handed the prince a clay vial. “You will need this,” she advised.

Thanocles took the vial and rested his wobbly legs against the couch’s edge, whereonto Lady Eudoxia had climbed. There she crouched, presenting her wide round rear to the prince. He fumbled besottedly at her gown’s hem, and so failing, ripped it open. The lady’s apple-like haunches rose bare to the whole hall’s sight. He stared a breathtide, contemplating her exposed dimpled sex, the deep crease rising, and his tight target winking within. He lifted the vial, unstopped it, and poured oil onto her rear, where it trickled down the crease and over her holes.

Tara came behind the prince and set hand on his shoulder. “Go gently,” she bade. “You are about to enter somewhere unnatural for so great a size as yours.”

Prince Thanocles raised his jupon. Hand oily from the vial, he slickened his manhood’s shaft. Then he pressed its bulblike head against her tight waiting hole.

Lady Eudoxia squealed against the prince’s thick invasion, surrounded by lotus-smokers watching, though did not shirk. She gritted teeth while his hands found grasp on her hips, and his shaft slowly sank within her. At last he halted within her netherness while they both gasped.

Tara walked around the couch while the prince’s and lady’s bodies adjusted to each other. She paused when she spotted Lady Mira, who was again watching her. The spare woman witted her gaze and shifted to the couch, whereon the prince had sunk his full girth into Eudoxia’s rear, to the crowd’s cheers. Tara strolled to her and bowed. “My lady,” she greeted.

Lady Mira’s eyes flickered at her. “What will you?” she demanded.

Tara shook her head. “Nothing but my compliments.”

Mira focused on the couch, whereon Thanocles and stripped Lady Eudoxia’s breasts and squeezed them while his loins’ stride gradually quickened. “I know what you’re trying to do,” she spoke. “Let me tell you that others have tried samely. You, like them, shall fail.”

“Fail at what?” asked Tara.

“At winning his highest favor.”

“Such is not my aim.” Tara stood beside the spare woman, where together they watched the prince thrust within the lady’s buttocks. “I full wit I can at best divert him for a short while. I have no wish to displace you.” Her gray eyes looked sidewise at her neighbor: “From the Prince’s own word, you have known him first and longest.”

“We were in love,” said Mira.

Tara nodded. “I see. Yet then started coming the other concubines, as gifts from the king and other princes seeking to buy his favor, to say nothing of the household slave-girls, nor stray noblewoman who would draw his eye. The Prince got a taste for female fresh and found it easy.” Her gray eyes narrowed. “So after his ardor for you waned, you chose to become his bawd, manage his stable, and clean up his mess.”

“Someone must,” growled the spare woman.

“Even so,” Tara agreed. “So let me reap what I can for the short while I hold his interest. When you give me a potion, I shall drink it, and I will support you.”

“How support me?”

“Even if I hold his favor among women but shortly, I will still remain at court. I am the sorcerer’s daughter and apprentice. I shall be no concubine to be set aside or pawned off when he grows bored.”

“Lofty words,” observed Mira, who kept eye on her prince rutting against Lady Eudoxia’s riven rump, a fierce grin twisting his face. “It bethinks me that your father’s standing here is not so certain as you might forethink. We shall see whether you stay at court long enough to support me.”

Tara nodded. “Your words hold truth. I reckon the only thing to do is prove my standing.”

She left the spare woman’s side and sauntered through the guests still able to keep their feet, reached the couch where Prince Thanocles sundered Eudoxia’s rear, and stood at its head. Here she faced the the lady who crouched and shuddered on hands and knees, mouth open and grunting from the force shoving into her, and also faced the prince, who looked up from her round buttocks jiggling from his every fevered thrust, and found Tara’s bright gray eyes meeting his wide, drug-hazed stare. A moment his rhythm slowed, as if he almost stopped.

Tara set a knee upon the couch without breaking his gaze and stroked Eudoxia’s hair. “Think on me, Prince,” she bade grinningly. Then she bent low, caught Eudoxia’s head, and drew her mouth to hers in a full, open kiss that tasted lips, tongue, and everything.

Thanocles roared and jerked Eudoxia’s nethers hard to his hips. His muscled belly bulged, his arms clenched, and his lips curled back while his manhood spilled into her bowels. He panted gruntingly as he at last relaxed. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, his lids shut, and lotus-dreams claimed him.

Tara rose to see him droop sleepily over Eudoxia’s wide haunches, whose eyes the lotus-smoke were also already dimming. She strode away to the brazier, where Theophobus still sifted dust upon the coals and oversaw the revelers smoking. She came beside him, stood on tiptoe, and whispered: “Is it time?”

“Yes.” His beard wagged. “This is the last lotus burning. I must stay until the smoke clears and all fall asleep, but go you to the laboratory and prepare,” he bade. “I will join you ere the first bell after midnight.”

“Until then, old man,” she agreed. “I may have bought us some time tonight, but we must not fail.” Then she left the hall.

* * *

A lone lamp lit a room in the Librarium’s unused wing, floor swept clean and clear of all waste; shelves and stools shoved outside or against the walls. Upon the floor a broad ring of chalk and charcoal was drawn, twisting glyphs written between the light and dark lines. At its edge sat Tara cross-legged; the lamp aglow between her knees. The room’s darkness swallowed all light after but a few yards, leaving shadows to rule the corners. With her black gown, only her face glowed palely.

Theophus hustled in, muttering through his beard. He glanced backward once, as if fearing follow, and then looked around the room. “Is all ready?”

Tara stood, raising the lamp with her. She nodded.

Together they lit candles, four on each side, on the circle’s rim, and a ninth on the southernmost edge, where they stood, and then snuffed the lamp. Thick tallowy smoke filled the air, which smelled samely as the candles they had used in Kirut’s depths.

“You know this spell,” said Theophobus, face lost in shadow. “So you shall lead, and I will assist. But one thing remains.” He went to the wall and opened a box, whence he withdrew a small parchmentlike flap. When he brought it back, it glowed translucently over candlelight: “Caul from a babe stillborn,” he explained, and handed her it: “As offering, and to give it shape within our world.”

Tara took the focus and ran finger over its oily dryness. Then she stood over the southernmost candle, shut eyes, and breathed deep. Then she opened eyes and spoke: “I call to the night-haunts who steal in upon the wind,” she intoned, loud and low: “Lillitim and Soulless Ones, breath-stealers and seed-thieves, I pray you come now!”

She began a low, throaty chant full of names that had died millennia ago. Theophobus took it up roundlike. When she reached the end, she threw the caul within the ring, where it skittered over the floor. Then she repeated the litany echolike with the old man, wherever one croaked aloud while the other breathed.

Almost imperceptibly the candles dimmed, or rather the shadows in the corners grew. Within the sorcerous ring the tallow-smoke thickened, a dusky cloud that did not grow outside. Then windlessly the cloud stirred, as if a stirring within troubled the smoky loft. Where the cloud clumped, a shape almost showed visible.

Tara witted the half-shape and raised a hand. “Mazzrag I name thee!” she cried. “Mazzrag I bind thee! Mazzrag I bid thee to my will!”

Within the circle the cloud stilled. The shape darkened almost solid: a skull-like head, but whose body was lost to smoke. Seemingly it looked downward at the floor.

“Tell it your bidding,” read Theophobus quietly. “Wait too long, and it will try to shake your will.”

“Mazzrag, seek the nightwinds to Korshemish, which lies westward, but go not near the Scarlet Citadel where Tsotha-lanti dwells,” she outlaid. “Seek the whisper of Prince Thanocles’ name in King Strabonus’ ear. Bring me the whisperer’s name, of him who brought it from Yaralet, and of him who first whispered it here, and thou shalt be free.”

The shadowy skull within the ring did not stir. Still it stared at the floor, almost as if ignoring her.

“It tests you,” warned Theophobus. “Careful, and do not waver!”

“Mazzrag!” Tara shouted. She clenched a fist. “By word, flesh, and will I bind you! Hear me, and obey!”

For the first time the shadow-thing within the ring stirred. The skull-like shape rose, as if lifting its gaze. Where its eyes should be, emptiness danced, the blackness beyond the stars where gibbering abominations crept, and glowered forth like peepholes into madness.

Despite herself, Tara gasped.

Soon as she did, the skull-shade’s flew forward. It struck the ring’s edge and halted, as if against a wall, and then struggled forward. Suddenly it lunged at her. It fanged jaw snapped while she leapt aside. When it missed, it wheeled at Theophobus. Yet the old man scrambled backward, cursing.

The shadow-fiend turned, questing as if on a scent, toward Tara. Yet instead of cowering, she met it, head high, and holding her silver girdle unclasped in hand. When the demon brunted at her, she whirled the girdle and struck. At the silver’s touch the fiend recoiled.

“Ahiiya sayethravsh iao vshtashish!” shouted Tara as the shadow-fiend reeled back into the ring. “Iigh hyariiv thragira! Vshtashigh yavar yaveo!” She brandished the silver girdle like a weapon. “Do as I bid thee, night-child! On your name and my will, Mazzrag, or I shall hold thee thrall forever! So mote it be!”

The skull-shade gathered itself into the ring’s midst. It hissed hoarsely and seemed to grow. Then it spoke a lone word like metal twisting. With a gusty blow it vanished and doused all the candles.

Slowly the room turned to a natural level of darkness. Theophobus ran from the room, but soon returned with a new lamp. He found Tara knelt beside the ring and panting, covered in cold sweat. “You did it!”

“It’s done,” said Tara. She tried to stand but staggered and fell back to her knees. “Now all we must do is wait.”

“I have never seen a demon so bent to will after it breaks spell-bond,” he mentioned. “We are lucky we be not dead or driven mad.” Grimly he smiled. “You did well, girl.”

“Help me up,” she groaned, and rose on strength-less legs while she hauled on his arm. “We should bar the room to keep anyone from entering and disturbing the ring. We should take shifts at watch until the night-child- Oh!”

Suddenly she twisted and doubled over. Her already shaky legs buckled. She clutched her belly while something writhed inside.

THE END OF CHAPTER THREE