Days of High Adventure (9 page)

A priest in the robes of Set stood forward, raising his arms high in praise. “Stop, ancient ones!” the man called out. “We seek only to serve the same
—ngh!” The arrow that plunged into his throat silenced his plea, seeming to settle the issue of religious loyalties.

“Guards!” Tronus yelled out over the din, “hold the slaves in! The serpents are just hungry! Let them eat of the slaves!”

Fallon grabbed the arm of the guard nearest to her, planting a resounding punch across his face with her free hand. Then she jerked his sword from its sheath, leaving him to fall away from her clutching his broken jaw. “We leave now,” she growled.

Eric caught her meaning. He tripped up another guard who came rushing by, then jumped on him to slam the man’s head down on the stone floor. Before Eric had snatched the guard’s sword, Fallon had
her blade embedded in another guard’s belly. His partner came in with axe and shield, swinging his weapon down on Fallon, but she pivoted and spun to place her victim’s body between herself and danger. She shoved the dying body off her blade with a mighty push, leaving his partner to deal with the awkwardness of his sudden weight; the distraction lasted only a second, but it was enough time for Fallon to bring her sword around in an arc at the other guard’s face.

Armed and ready now, Eric and Fallon stuck close as the wave of slaves rushed
past. The mob clogged the entrance tunnel, tangling in a panicked crush that trampled some to death and threatened to suffocate others. More and more serpent men emerged from within the temple, bringing down anyone who couldn’t get away.

“We’ll never get out through the tunnel,” Eric said.

“One need not outrun the wolves. Just the slowest prey. That way. The ropes.”

“We can’t do anything for the other slaves?” he blinked.

“Look at the forces at work, Eric. We cannot fight this. Some may follow our path, if they are lucky and smart. If you’ve a better idea than leading by example, be my guest!”

She led the way, shoving through slaves fleeing from
the serpent men. They ran parallel to the danger rather than directly away from it, which seemed counterintuitive to Eric until he realized there really was no place else to go.

Something
shoved Eric to the ground. He looked up to see Tronus looming over him with his sword at the ready. “Drop the weapon, slave!” he growled.

Eric
didn’t bother arguing. He spun away, swinging his blade out as he moved to catch the back of the overseer’s legs. No armor protected the back of his calves. Tronus cried out in pain and swung at Eric again, finding his blow parried as he fell to his knees.

On his feet now, Eric stepped back from Tronus just in time to see a serpent man tackle the overseer to the floor. Tronus cried out as his attacker’s fangs sunk into his neck.

Eric spun again, raising his guard fast enough to block the arcing lunge of another serpent man’s spear. Eric parried, sidestepped and caught the thing in the neck with a slash of his blade. Jerking his sword free, he saw his opponent clutch at its throat in desperation as blood spurted from the wound. The monster fell with a hiss.

Another came on, leaping over dead bodies with hungry eyes. It bore a leather-covered shield and a sword of bone,
with which it stabbed viciously at Eric. He spun away, trading swipes and parries until its shield went up too high. Eric caught it across its weird, barely-discernible knees with a low swipe, then slammed his shoulder against the thing’s shield as it stumbled. With the serpent falling onto its back, Eric had the opening he needed to stab down directly into its chest.

He had
no time to think. More enemies approached. “Eric!” Fallon shouted. She stood not far away, close to the ropes from one of the ventilation shafts. Dead serpent men and guards alike lay at her feet. She already had a guard’s sword and belt slung over her shoulder. “Come on!”

“Go!” he shouted as he ran. “Get going!”

Fallon cursed, but did as he said. She was the faster climber, anyway; he would only slow her down. The barbarian woman heaved herself up the rope with one hand, practically letting go of the rope before the next hand even caught hold.

An arrow flew by her as a serpent archer misjudged her speed. She kept going. There was a second missile, followed by a third, all of them narrowly missing Fallon in her erratic climb.

Though she didn’t slow in her ascent, Fallon spared a downward glance toward the archer. She could do only so much before it got a sense of her speed and landed a fatal shot. As she spotted her assailant, though, she saw it impaled through the stomach by a sword flung through the air.

Then Eric was at the rope below her. He was no longer armed, but it was just as well; he needed both hands to climb, anyway. Fallon continued up the rope, reaching the cavern ceiling in
seconds. No other serpent men or guards tried to stop them, distracted as they all were by more immediate matters all around.

Eric wasn’t long in catching up. Before he got to the shaft, he looked out across the cavern floor to see the chaos below. As he had guessed, the serpent men
saw little difference between guard, priest and slave. They struck down anyone in their path. Dozens waded into the press of slaves still trying to get out of the tunnels, while others were already devouring the fallen. The serpent men couldn’t swallow a whole man, but they could clearly cut one into small enough pieces on which to gorge themselves.

Fallon paused in her climb mid-way through the shaft, bracing her legs against its walls. She waited until Eric was similarly ensconced by the rocks. “There will be panic above,” Fallon said.

“Yeah,” Eric huffed. “Those snake guys look hungry. Probably chase down anyone they see.”

“Then we make a break for it. We slip through one of the supply tents. The guards will have their hands full. We take what we can carry and
escape. If the archers still patrol the outskirts despite all this, we’ll have to make short work of them.”

“Right,” Eric nodded. His voice was a bit shaken. He could hardly believe he’d pulled off the physical feats he’d just performed. “Was this the kind of opportunity you were waiting for?”

“Yes!” Fallon said with a triumphant note. “If we are lucky, Bel-Danab will think you dead!”

***

It was certainly easier to study in the temple than it had been in Bel-Danab’s tower. She found space to practice and experiment, all without a need to hide her activity. Food and drink were plentiful, and little was expected of Amanda in the two weeks since she’d arrived. She could keep mostly to herself, letting her time be consumed with her studies. Though there was ever more to learn, Amanda found her power grew quickly here.

That said,
the temple offered plenty of distractions. Deyallah, as it turned out, was a fertility goddess—blessing humanity as well as the fields. What’s more, she and her disciples were quite uninhibited about it. Indeed, they were uninhibited about virtually everything.

Once granted sanctuary by the high priestess, Amanda was given a spare room of her own and even clothing that fit better than anything she had swiped from Bel-Danab’s tower. Amanda was now the proud owner of two rather abbreviated silken sarongs, if they could be called that. She was more inclined to call them scarves. Yet though they took care of the more vital concerns of modesty, Amanda soon found that few within the temple wore even so much as this.

The men of the temple, all of them healthy, young and deferential to the women, largely wore only loincloths. The women wore about the same, casually showing off their curves and their skin. More than a few wore elaborate jewelry that served only to draw attention to their naked flesh rather than cover up their naughty bits. Amanda did her best not to stare, though she soon realized that her gaze never resulted in less than appreciative smiles in return—and, more often than not, invitation.

She wasn’t used to that, either. Men and women alike plainly admired her
appearance and commented openly on her sensuous body and her lovely face. The hardships of her weeks of captivity and slave labor had some minor effect on her weight, but when she looked in the mirror, her body looked much as it had ever had. The face that stared back at her was still the one she’d always known. She wondered what others saw in her now.

For all the madness she’d been through recently, she had to admit to herself that it was nice to be looked at like this.

Perhaps it was the wine. Perhaps it was the incense in the air. Maybe it was the warm, friendly smiles and soft touch of her hosts in passing conversation, or the constant music wafting through the air, or the frequent, barely-muffled sounds of passion...but the longer Amanda stayed, the more the nature of her distraction shifted from discomfort to interest.

Reclined on her bed of silk sheets and pillows, Amanda tried hard to synthesize the lore provided in a pair of scrolls unfurled before her. It was tough work; the languages were different, the authors were five hundred years removed...and not far down the hall, two women were having
an awfully good time. Given the thick curtain of beads separating each room from the hallway, it wasn’t as if anything muffled the sounds.

“More, Paulus!” one of them wailed. “You drive me mad! More!”

“Take her, my stallion!” the other urged Paulus, whoever he was. She let out a long, loud moan. “Her passion drives mine! Take her!”

The dialogue made her cringe, and yet the tone of their voices left her in no doubt that it was all genuine.
Amanda let out a quiet laugh at her situation: Weeks of toil and fear, only to escape to the Temple of the Forbidden Orgy.

For all the awkwardness, though, she couldn’t help but fantasize about joining in.

“Amira?” came a low, feminine voice. It was the name Amanda had given everyone in the temple.

“Yes?” Amanda replied, sitting up on her narrow yet comfortable bed.

“May I enter?” the voice of the high priestess wasn’t difficult to recognize. Salatis had shared only a few conversations with “Amira,” seeming to respect her privacy—such as it was in a place like this. The older woman had seemed at once kind and hungry every time she spoke to Amanda; the former was a relief after all she had been through, while the later made Amanda feel more than a little excited.

Amanda had wondered for a long time if she might be attracted to other women
as well as men. Salatis and the rest of the temple acolytes had settled that question for her quite firmly.

“Of course,” Amanda answered.

The beaded curtain was parted by a slender, elegant hand. Stepping into Amanda’s room was the most majestically beautiful woman she had ever seen, dark-haired, deeply tanned and endlessly confident. Her dark eyes seemed to see straight through Amanda. For all her newfound arcane power and inner strength, this woman left Amanda feeling small and vulnerable.

“How does the evening find you?” Salatis asked, her voice taking on a note of kindness once more.

“I’m fine, thank you.” Amanda found herself mesmerized by those dark eyes. Breaking herself of the reverie, she resolved to focus on something else, then found her gaze falling to the high priestess’s chest, and then forced herself to look in the other woman’s eyes again.

Salatis tilted her head somewhat. She reached out to touch Amanda’s
auburn hair, running her fingers through it gently. “More half-truths,” Salatis said.

Amanda swallowed hard. Despite her comment, though, the priestess showed no change in demeanor at all. “I’m sorry,” she explained nervously. “I just don’t know...I don’t really know what I should say.”

“Is that why you keep to yourself here? All alone?” Salatis glanced down at the scrolls on the bed, then gestured to the enchanted backpack and Amanda’s other tools stacked in the corner. “I know only a little of wizardry and the arcane arts, yet even I know that these things alone are not enough to fill anyone’s life. No one but madmen,” she added softly.

Looking up at Salatis with pleading eyes, Amanda found herself at a complete loss. “I’ve been alone for weeks,” Amanda said, “and even before I came here, I...” She swallowed, trying to figure out how to express herself without giving away too much. “I have friends far away from here, but even so, I’ve been lonely for a long time. Maybe I’m just used to it.”

“You are used to your fear,” Salatis said. “You have felt the sting of rejection. Mockery. Betrayal. I can see that as plainly as I see your eyes.” Her fingers continued to stroke through Amanda’s hair. “And you are only now finding your strength.”

Amanda nodded. “Can you understand, then...why it’s hard for me to trust? I don’t want to insult you. You’ve all been so kind to me, and I
—!” Her words came out in a rush, but were halted by a single finger laid upon her lips.

“Do you know the relation of
Deyallah to Set, Amira?” the priestess asked. Amanda shook her head. Given everything going on in the temple, she had been afraid to ask much. That was one particular question that she wouldn’t have even dared. “Set’s priests believe Deyallah belongs to their god. As his wife, as his whore...ask any priest of Set of Deyallah’s place and you will quickly come to understand his view of women.

“
They are wrong in each case. As with any woman, Deyallah is more complicated than a simple, meek, submissive wife. She has her own goals. Her own interests. Were there perfect harmony between Deyallah and Set, there would be similar harmony between her priests and his...and yet the priests of Set would love nothing more than to drive us from this city.

“They cannot. They haven’t the power. They call us licentious whores and they deride our celebrations of mortal flesh and intimacy. They resent us. And yet we stand.

“Now, tell me, Amira...when a young, budding wizard appears at our doorstep, only minutes after the tower of the most favored servant of Set himself has come crashing down, what are we to think?”

Amanda just stared into her eyes. The answer was obvious. She
had half-expected—or more than half, really—that the priestesses would guess exactly what happened. She figured that they might have their own reasons for sheltering her, though. Reasons that didn’t involve waiting to turn her over to Bel-Danab. Yet now she felt stupid for even hoping for such a thing.

“I’m sorry,” Amanda whispered.

Salatis gently shook her head. “We know that Deyallah belongs to Deyallah,” she finished, “and that she will do as she chooses. We know that if the priests of Set wanted more cooperation from us, they would show it in their own actions.

“You are safe here, Amira. Whatever you have done, it has pleased
Deyallah. Bel-Danab and his minions are not allowed in here. Nor has anyone guessed as to your identity or your purpose but me. We do not see a wizard, or the foe of a mighty sorcerer. We see a guest.”

Her voice dropped as her face crept closer to Amanda’s. “A
greatly honored guest...who should know our appreciation.”

Amanda’s resistance crumbled the moment Salatis’s lips brushed against hers. Her mind went virtually blank for a moment as the other woman’s kiss slowly widened and deepened. Tingling pleasure erupted from her tongue, rippling from there throughout her limbs and down to her core.