Bloom & Dark Read online

  “The spear wound, at any rate…” My hand lifted to rest upon my eyes and I groaned in heart-pain, saying, “Would that you had left me to die! What a disgrace I am—how can I serve Weltyr when I’ve failed Him like this? May Oppenhir’s fires cleave the ground and snatch them down to Urde’s very core for what they’ve done!”

  Odile studied me, her face illegible. “Who were these companions of yours, slave?”

  Striving to ignore the appellation until I could find a way around my new vow, (Weltyr, after all, would surely understand that an oath made in duress was not a valid agreement between any two spirits, whether human, durrow or any other), I described my trio of companions.

  The dark elves listened carefully until, at last, Odile assured me, “Well, they’re long gone by now. We saw no trace of them…only a dead spirit-thief that made us think we’d ought to do the neighborly thing and come knocking at their usually so well-guarded temple.”

  “You must be a mighty warrior to have claimed so many of their lives,” Indra marveled, far more genuinely intrigued than her companion ever could have been.

  “Only by Weltyr’s grace,” I answered, “and only at the cost of my own life.”

  “Not quite. Why, your Weltyr would have seen you dead, had not Roserpine intervened and guided us here.”

  “Hail the Dark Queen,” said Indra, to which Odile blasphemously answered, “Praise to the Face of the Darkness.”

  Weltyr, forgive me! I ought to have tried to discourage their errant ways then and there, but I was too weak and too much in their debt to criticize their pagan religion. Eschewing my duties as paladin in those moments seems now the first step down a dangerous path—but there are times when, in truth, danger is the very will of the Bright God. There is strength in danger. Sometimes, there are even gifts.

  After considering me for another few seconds, then rising to her feet, Odile said to her companion with a hefty sigh, “I don’t think he’ll be fully healed before the bloom. We should camp here a dark—doesn’t seem like anybody will be back anytime soon, anyway…assuming there are any escaped spirit-thieves left living in this brood.”

  I glanced between them. “The bloom?”

  “You haven’t spent much time in the Nightlands, have you, human? The fungi here bloom once a cycle and take to glowing…we spend our waking hours in the rhythm of the bloom and take to bed when it’s faded.”

  “Aha! Like dawn. It’s dawn you mean.”

  “It’s bloom I mean,” corrected the woman sternly, sliding her rucksack from her shoulder and digging about for flint she soon extricated. “If you’re to serve a durrow mistress here in the Nightlands, you’d do well to learn our ways. Count your lucky stars we speak the common tongue in this region…there are durrow farther east whose language you couldn’t even hear with those piddly little ears of yours.”

  Then, with a flashing grin and a glance down at my lap, she tossed her bag away and said, striding to light the altar’s flame, “Let’s hope they’re the only small thing about you.”

  Sex was the last thing on my mind in such a distressing moment, yet the effects of the potion were invigorating in more ways than one. Perhaps it moved the blood about in the name of healing, or perhaps some other cause was buried deep in the ingredients—or perhaps it was simply awakening from near-death to find myself alive in the presence of two trim, exquisite women. Whatever the reason, my manhood ached beneath the fabric of my tunic, at once harder than it had ever been among the enchantments of Branwen’s false words. Indra happened to glance toward my lap while her friend stoked the fire in the brazier upon the altar. The evidently gentler durrow’s dark face darkened further beneath the rich innocence of her blushing—she glanced quickly away, stuttering, “You must be hungry, Burningsoul! When did you last eat?”

  Soon enough I had strength enough to sit up and even join them by the fire crackling patiently in the silver altar bowl. The women provided me with hardtack and jerky of a kind I’d never tasted, and though it was certainly of no aboveground game or cattle, it was in that moment the most delicious meat that had ever passed my lips. I scarfed down all they gave me while recounting for their curiosity a few stories about my companions, who were so dead to me that I related them like figures of some distant past. The wounds they had dealt my mind as well as my body were so great that I wished only to forget all three, and telling empty stories such as the first time Branwen seduced me or the fistfight Grimalkin and I got into while shipwrecked upon the Northern Shore was, in so many ways, an effort to drain myself of any remaining feelings I might have had for them.

  “And what of this Hildolfr,” asked Odile when I seemed through, “this one-eyed man?”

  “His is the betrayal that most surprised me…I had taken to regarding him as a kind of long-lost father. A mistake never to be made again, certainly.”

  “You’re an orphan,” observed Indra with interest. Odile flicked a pebble at her gentler friend.

  “Of course he’s an orphan. All paladins of Weltyr are, male and female alike. They’re raised to take up the task of fighting in the god’s name because no one with a family would dare throw their lives away—not with such single-minded brutality as called for by Weltyr.”

  “Brutality! I and my brethren only do what’s necessary for the Bright God.”

  Odile snorted. “You certainly convince yourselves of that, anyway.”

  Hoping I might find a gentle inroad to making her see metaphysical reason, I probed, “How is it that you know so much about the servants of Weltyr?”

  Odile’s sharp white eyes darted across my face, or seemed to—it was difficult to tell without pupils marking a point of focus. “I was born in a village many leagues from El’ryh. It was a happy colony, well-situated near the surface, and so we were spoiled for fish and game from aboveground. The Knights of Weltyr didn’t like that. Too many of us coming and going with too much freedom. They took action to prevent what they thought was a raid in planning—they slaughtered every last member of my colony. I survived only by Roserpine’s generosity. Her darkness cloaked me when the bloom faded and I managed to escape the slaughter in search of a safer home. Finally some merchants found me and brought me to Roserpine’s Palace in El’ryh. Ever since then, I have been keenly interested in Weltyr and the ways of His servants…it is frightful to me to think that a god is capable of such cruelty.”

  I always grew terribly uncomfortable when such indictments of Weltyr’s servants were made in my presence. The need to defend the Bright God had a way of clashing with my drive to show compassionate understanding to all sentient beings, which was foremost among the vows I took while accepting my sword and my duties. Instead, to my later embarrassment, I tried to suggest that, “Where I’m from, our people regard Roserpine as a fearful goddess in her own right.”

  “But if you believe your god is all-powerful and mine is nothing beside Him, surely it would make no sense for Roserpine to be more fearful than Weltyr. His ire has drowned whole villages, hidden the sun from the sky, brought plagues upon the face of the world—Roserpine, meanwhile, feels nothing but love for even the most wretched creatures. Spiders and snakes and night-beetles: she loves them all as much as she loves us.”

  Fiery Odile lifted her head to take a swig of the wineskin she gripped in one fist, her shoulder-length white locks tumbling past her ears with the motion. The tension of her slender throat hypnotized me until she took a breath and thrust the wine at me, saying, “Perhaps she only seems fearful to you because you know your kind have done all they can to earn her wrath. So far as I can see, our only crime is failing to bear the stare of your All-Father’s burning sunlight.”

  “Is slavery not a crime?”

  Odile laughed at that, glancing over at Indra. Indra herself produced a light giggle of semi-embarrassment as she admitted, “Perhaps, when a slave is mistreated…but I’d wager a great many slaves in the Nightlands are far happier than they ever were while walking beneath the sun.”

  �
��How could that possibly be! Liberty is the greatest gift Weltyr ever gave mankind. The free will to do as one pleases—in taking that away, what’s left?”

  “Great pleasure,” answered Odile, watching with approval as her friend took a small sip from the wineskin, then put the rest aside. Her eyes settled upon me, her lips crimson against her dark flesh as they contorted in a sensual smile.

  “Our slaves are put to many uses, Burningsoul…some of which not even a strong-willed man such as you might find objectionable.” The sterner elf glanced quickly toward my lap, then went on to ask, “How are you feeling after that potion?”

  “Fine—better than fine. Strong as an ox.”

  “That’s very good…but not quite what I meant.” Her smile widened and seemed as though to glitter as she asked, “Is that prick of yours still hard under there?”

  Somehow, I had been expecting any kind of question but that! I sputtered, all elegance of rhetoric flying from my mind—the women laughed together at my meaningless noises. Odile shook her head and remarked, “How shy! What else should we expect from a man raised around the Temple of Weltyr, though…it’s a wonder this Branwen girl managed to get anywhere with you. Go on, slave—stand up.”

  Odile’s tone shifted at her command, her smile fading somewhat and sliding into a hardened expression of lust. “Take off your clothes. We should try the wares before we sell them off…who knows? Maybe we’ll want to keep you for ourselves.”

  With a glance between them that revealed shy Indra waited as expectantly as her friend, I tried quickly to come up with some argument as to why I should not. After all—in agreeing to this first demand, however pleasurable the results might be, I was opening myself up to the pattern of a true slave. There were those who were slaves through circumstance—through war or ill-starred birth—and then there were those who were slaves in their hearts. Slaves who submitted their free will, their dreams, their ambitions. I would never be such a slave to any earthbound man or woman: my soul was long-since delivered into the righteous hands of Weltyr.

  But my cock? Well…the body does have a mind of its own. “I’m not so certain you ladies would be able to handle my appetite,” I assured them both. While they exchanged a grin I advised, “Most refined women find an insatiable man to be somewhat unbecoming.”

  “Quit delaying and strip,” said Odile with an imperious wave of her hand. “Unless you’ve taken a vow of celibacy, in which case we’ll find work for you as a packmule or field hand. But I think you would much prefer the sorts of tasks I have in mind.”

  With a briefer glance at wildly blushing Indra, who ran her fingers along the edge of her tunic and over the soft divot of her collarbone, I found only anticipation in my heart. Unable to see immediate harm in it, I stood to obey. “I’ve taken no such stultifying vows, as Branwen could tell you…some men vow to be mute or eschew women or beat themselves once a day every day, but I have only vowed to enact justice in the name of my God.”

  While I removed my belt, I met the unrelenting gaze of the lithe durrow who watched most intensely. Without looking away, Odile reached back for the wineskin and took a swig. I bent to remove my boots and obeyed her when she urged, “Slower.”

  Indra leaned over and whispered something in Odile’s long ear, which twitched but a catlike degree. Odile laughed and nudged her fellow traveler. “What are we, girls? You needn’t whisper, Indra! He’s a slave.”

  “But it’s just—” Indra turned her lightly hued eyes toward me before lowering them, her dusky lips contorting with her bashful inability to say more.

  “My friend here says you have a cute ass,” said the crasser durrow, laughing at Indra’s embarrassed sputtering to hear her address me such a way. “And I don’t disagree…you’ll have to forgive her shyness. She’s a virgin, see.”

  I slid my tunic over my head and tried not to look too pleased by the sound of Indra’s astonished gasp. “And you’re not.”

  “I should wait and let you find out…” Grinning devilishly, Odile swigged from the skin one last time before setting it aside. She crooked a finger for me. “Come here, slave. Let’s play a game. Your gaze is too intimidating for poor Indra to stand. You won’t be frightened if I blindfold you, will you? Or will it soothe you, as darkness is said to soothe aboveground birds and horses.”

  I thought on this for a few seconds—they had, after all, revived me, and I had no cause to mistrust them. All the same I said, “Just let me close my eyes. I’ll feel more comfortable…especially not knowing what you’re up to.”

  “Very well. Then sit down, you great worried beast. I won’t have you fidgeting and pawing at the earth for as nervous as you are.”

  After settling upon the cloak arranged beneath our makeshift encampment and ignoring Indra’s ache-inducing glances everywhere but my stirred cock, I shut my eyes as Odile bade me.

  “Very good,” she said, the air from the hand she waved before my face like a cool wind upon my brow. “Now”—I felt her rise beside me and listened to something jingle—“let’s see how observant you are. Indra, now’s your chance to try a man…go on, take off your clothes, your gear.”

  “Oh, Odile, I don’t know—”

  “How shy you are! Come on, I’ll help you…”

  My head swam at the sound of two beautiful lips mingling in a wet kiss, this vision hidden from my starving gaze. The women apparently wiggled out of their clothes while fondling and petting one another. From the sounds of the moaning, Indra was not very virginal—but, as I would soon find, lovemaking between two durrow friends was different from lovemaking between true lovers, and more different still from durrow interactions with men. At the time, though, these nuances were lost to me, and though I yearned to open my eyes and sneak a glance of the proceedings I instead left them shut. In this darkness, I basked in the mystery of how a woman could be so shy with me yet so forthcoming with her female lover.

  “All right,” said Odile at last, separating herself from their kissing with a breathless laugh of husky delight. “All right…now, sharp-eyed paladin, it’s your job to guess whose kiss this is.”

  There was delay—then, much as on my waking, soft hair tickled my face and was followed this time by still softer lips. I tilted my head back, willing my eyes to stay shut, sighing low into the wine-flavored taste of the tongue that trailed demandingly past my lips.

  “This must be Odile,” I said as my visitor slipped away with a laugh on my correct choice.

  “A lucky guess!”

  “Nothing of the sort…you were too forceful to be a woman who’s never lain with a man. And, anyway, you tasted too strongly of wine for it to be fair Indra. Would you like a kiss, Indra? I’ll be very gentle, on my honor.”

  At the nervous hitch of breath somewhere to my left, Odile laughed. “Go on, Indra! Don’t be so skittish…go on, there you are.”

  The younger durrow had knelt beside me, an act that even in the darkness behind my eyelids thrilled me from the top of my skull to the tip of my cock. With another muted sound of her breath being held, Indra leaned into me and pressed her mouth to mine. That cool and delicate cavern yielded itself to me, so unlike that of her dynamic and exploratory friend. Blindly reaching up to catch her delicate face in my hands, I savored her gasp into my mouth and dared instruct her on the burning passion of a man. Her wet mouth and the charming organ twitching shyly within left my cock all the harder, its unrelieved ache after the application of the potion doubling on contact with the elves. Gradually her delicate hand trailed over my heart, but as my grip upon the back of her neck slowly pursued the line of her spine, Odile said, ”Ah-ah,” and a third dainty hand caught my wrist.

  “Don’t spoil the rest of the game, warrior-priest…come here, Indra.” While the smaller elf peeled out of my incomplete embrace amid a short, shy sort of giggle, Odile informed me with a smile in her voice, “Now you have to guess which body is which. Keep those eyes shut...”

  The women laughed and the sound of bare feet dancing upon
the stones thrilled me. In my mind’s eye I could visualize them twirling hand-in-hand, but soon enough I lost confidence that I knew which side each was on. When they separated, one pair of feet tapped across the floor to me. Whichever elf had first approached me knelt deftly by my side. With hands alone, I caressed the soft skin provided. First an arm, then a slender hand, then a soft thigh; as my palm trailed up that thigh and over the offered plane of a stomach, I tried to picture both women in my mind. Odile’s bosom had been a fair bit more sizable than that of delicate Indra, and it had been these luscious orbs I expected to encounter in my blind journey—yet, much to my surprise, my hand managed to cup an entire breast from the soft swell at the base to the nipple hardened with eager anticipation. I laughed gently at Indra’s unmistakable gasp on our contact.

  “Why, Indra! How brave you are to go first…I was certain it would be Odile.”

  “She pushed me,” admitted Indra with a light laugh. “And, anyway…well, I wanted to go.”

  “He’s too good at this game,” insisted Odile. “You must be cheating, Burningsoul.”

  “I swear on Weltyr’s light my eyes have been closed all this time.”

  “Weltyr’s light doesn’t reach these caverns,” answered the more curt of the two elves while kneeling at my right. “Only Roserpine’s eyes see what we do here.”

  Now was not the time to correct her and assure her that wheresoever mortals saw, Weltyr’s eyes also dwelled. Instead I sighed into the graze of her hand over my thigh and across the protuberance throbbing in my lap.

  “May I open my eyes now,” I said, turning toward the sterner durrow.

  “Oh…if you must. So long as you promise not to frighten Indra with your gaze and make her shy again.”

  Smiling, I at last looked upon them. The breath froze in my lungs. Rest assured, Branwen had been beautiful before her inner ugliness spoiled her exquisite looks. All elves I had seen were joys to behold, and the druid was no exception. But somehow, never having seen a durrow with my own two eyes, I had not expected them to be even more exquisite than that.