Doppelganger

by Logan Jacobs

  That’s not to say that the one wasn’t on my mind, or hadn’t been on my mind off and on ever since Lizzy had danced up to me on the road and started pawing me for valuables.

  “What’s the matter?” Lizzy asked. “Do you prefer the horse?”

  “Does it matter?” In the other room, I was already asleep. In the other room, I wasn’t having anything remotely like the kind of conversational and now increasingly physical difficulties that I was experiencing in this room. Truth be told, Ilandere’s was the kind of beauty that you memorialized in art and put on a pedestal to stare at. It seemed like doing anything else might break her. With Lizzy, on the other hand, you didn’t just want to look. You wanted to breathe her in and grab her in all kinds of places and get a taste of her and…

  “Hmm,” Lizzy purred. “You can lay over there and agonize over it, then. Or you can come over here, and I will knock your silly little worries out of your mind for you. The choice is yours.”

  I thought that was it, and that she was finally going to go to sleep. But instead, she began stripping off her blouse and striped skirts.

  “Lizzy,” I growled. “Don’t you dare.”

  Her green eyes glittered at me. “Was that a threat? Am I about to feel the wrath of Qaar’endoth?”

  She was on all fours on the bed now and completely naked, and her shaggy tail lashed back and forth. I could see her furry hind paws. I could see her ample bum and breasts that looked ripe to burst. I could also see that her arms and legs were corded with a certain amount of lean athletic muscle as you’d expect on a warrior-woman. Her body was a study in contradictions and yet somehow the whole was much more desirable than the sum of the parts.

  “That’s not fucking fair,” I complained as I stood up and walked over to her.

  Before I could even reach for her, Lizzy tackled me onto the bed, and I found myself flipped on my back straddled by the naked she-wolf. She brought her face down to mine and kissed me hard. I wrapped one hand behind her neck and the other behind the small of her back, and my fully clothed body bucked up urgently against hers as we panted into each other’s mouths. She started to tear my novice’s uniform off with her claws.

  That was when the banging on the door started.

  “Fuck,” I gasped as I threw Lizzy off me and leapt off the bed. I woke the self in the other room, but there didn’t seem to be anyone outside that door. Not yet, anyway. My other self was the one that had Polliver, so I grabbed an ordinary sword and ran to the door.

  Then I looked back at Lizzy before I opened it to see if she had managed to get herself dressed. I jumped about a foot in the air with a high-pitched yelp. She hadn’t gotten dressed at all. Instead she had transformed into an enormous tawny-colored wolf, probably twice my size.

  Yet still somehow through all this my massive throbbing hard-on had not subsided. I wondered if it would be possible to eliminate our unwelcome guests quickly without waking either Willobee or Ilandere, convince Lizzy to change back, and go back to fucking her within a few minutes.

  I threw open the door as Lizzy vaulted over the bed in one bound to reach my side.

  On the other side of the door, crowding the hallway, was what looked like the town’s entire population of heavy-drinking, gambling-addicted, ne’er-do-well, ham-fisted, squint-eyed mean-and-uglies. They were carrying various farming implements and other household appliances, such as carpentry saws, with pointy parts.

  “Looks like crime rates in this town are about to go way down,” I muttered.

  “There he is! The gnome is in there!” shouted the hunchback from earlier, pointing past me, and the whole mob charged us.

  There simply wasn’t any time to attempt to convince them of the error of their ways in a non-lethal fashion, although I did grant them a few extra minutes to live by withholding my other self in the neighboring room with Ilandere. I knew my services would not be required in the hallway, and Ilandere, who quaked in her bed as she listened to the sounds of the angry mob, did seem to need me there to reassure her.

  I didn’t doubt that these town thugs had plenty of experience with violence, but the way they attacked Lizzy and me made it pretty obvious that all of their experience consisted of hurting people who didn’t fight back.

  Out in the hall, the first kill went to Lizzy. She literally bit the man’s neck, gnashed it in her jaws a little, and spat the bloody bony pulp back out with a roar. I wondered if there was something deeply wrong with me for still very much wanting to fuck her, but I concluded that if it was wrong, then I didn’t want to be right.

  The first one to attack me was a big warty fellow who telegraphed his axe swing so exaggeratedly that I found it almost patronizing, as if he were eagerly inviting me to sidestep and stab him with my own blade. I didn’t want to be that obvious so instead, after leaning out of the way of his axe, I grabbed onto one of his ham hock arms and forcibly continued his swing in the same direction until his axe blade buried itself in the face of another mob member. Warty clung on tight to the axe handle and screamed at the top of his lungs. Whether it was out of frustration because he couldn’t dislodge the axe fast enough or out of fear I don’t know, but although you’d never have guessed it from the looks of him, Warty’s vocal register approached soprano, so to save my eardrums I hastily sliced his head off.

  The resulting geyser of blood not only soaked me, it apparently splashed someone sneaking up behind me, who let out a grunt of disgust that gave away his position. I flipped my grip on my sword and stabbed backward without looking. When I felt my sword sink into flesh I released the hilt, whirled around, grabbed the hilt with both hands and dragged it down, which caused it to geld my attacker as it exited his body. As he screamed on the ground with the contents of his torn-open stomach spilling out all over the shredded remains of his manhood, I bet he regretted getting so squeamish a few seconds ago over a tiny splash of someone else’s blood.

  Next I specifically targeted the guy that I had seen with a carpentry saw since I had never sawed anyone’s head off before and was a little curious about how effective the implement might prove in my hands. The lucky victim who presented himself first was the hunchback who had tried to purchase Lizzy’s charms earlier. I wondered if he even recognized the rampaging creature beside me as the curvaceous courtesan that had had him salivating down his front. After that I tossed the saw away. I was glad I’d kept an open mind, but frankly after giving it a fair shot I just wasn’t personally a fan. Too slow. Too raggedy.

  Lizzy really was a wonder to behold. I soon found myself fighting my share of our attackers with only the use of my peripheral vision, because although some of our female novices weren’t half bad in combat, I had certainly never seen one pull off moves like ripping a man’s ribs out of his chest with her bare wolf-hands and then using one of the ribs to stab someone else through the eyeball.

  I started to feel a little bad about the amount of blood that we were splashing on the walls and floor of the inn, since the innkeeper seemed like a nice man, but he really should’ve shown better judgment regarding the types of clientele he catered to.

  Just one managed to sneak past both of us. I heard the sound of furniture crashing inside the room and then someone yelling, “Where is it? Where’s my fucking money, gnome?” and turned around just in time to see Willobee wake up, blink groggily, and barf in that someone’s face.

  When I turned back around, every thug in sight was either running away, crawling away, or passively waiting to be hauled away to the local graveyard.

  “All right. Let’s get out of here before law enforcement or something gets involved,” I sighed. “I’d rather not kill any upstanding citizens if it can be avoided.”

  Now that it was over, I held out my hand to Ilandere and led her outside to join the others.

  Lizzy dashed into the room we’d been sharing, then dashed back out and bounded down the stairs, carrying Willobee by the scruff of his neck in her teeth.

  I both looked over at Ilandere. She wasn�
�t looking back at either of me, she was just looking down at the stairs in front of her hooves. And her expression was one of sheer unadulterated terror.

  “Oh, fuck,” I said under my breath.

  It is one thing to carry a damsel in distress down a flight of stairs. It is quite another thing entirely when that damsel’s body happens to be composed of mostly horse. A rather distressing thing, no matter how beautiful said damsel may be, and even when there are two of you, and you were the strongest novice in your temple. But I managed to make it down without dropping her.

  The five of us hurried to the stables and tethered Luna and Chrysanthemum back to Willobee’s carriage. Luckily, the thugs had not thought of vandalizing or stealing it. They had gone straight for us instead, and I hoped the inn wouldn’t go out of business now that the majority of its clientele was strewn in various states of dismemberment across its upper hallway. Maybe now, it would become a nice place where families could bring their children to dine.

  I dumped the recently-conscious-but-still-stunned-into-silence Willobee inside the carriage. Ilandere, I supposed, wouldn’t fit, but she shouldn’t have any trouble keeping up with a couple of ponies. And at least she still had one of my cloaks since I had grabbed it for her on our way out of the room. My other cloak was still on the floor at the inn under a pile of corpses, and I hadn’t thought it was worth digging through that mess to get it back.

  As for Lizzy, she was still in her giant wolf form.

  “Well,” I asked her, “do you want to be human and sit inside, or stay like that and run outside?”

  It occurred to me that maybe she couldn’t talk in that form. She confirmed this concern by making a querulous sort of growl that was clearly intended to communicate something and gesturing at herself with a paw.

  “Yes. Your body,” I said. “Do you want to change it back to a human one? I like the human one. Although this one’s pretty fucking awesome too. Or are you going to stay like that for now?”

  Lizzy growled and shook her massive head, which was mostly jaws, in frustration.

  Then she flopped over on her back and started thrashing around on the ground. At first I thought she was having some kind of seizure. But before I could say or do anything about it, she had morphed back into a pretty woman. A completely naked one.

  “Now do you understand the problem?” she hissed. “You didn’t happen to be carrying a lady’s gown in those huge packs of yours, did you?”

  “I…er….” I unbelted my leather novice’s surcoat and handed it over to her. I still had the tunic underneath, so I wasn’t barechested.

  Lizzy slipped the surcoat over her head. It was a shapeless garment and cut in a man’s size, however it was the one with the slashes across the front from the she-wolf’s own claws from when she had been trying to remove it from me earlier, and on her, the placement looked almost strategic. Also, it was designed to be worn over pants, and the hem barely covered Lizzy’s full bum, exposing almost the entirety of her long, strong legs that tapered into wolf paws.

  “Hmm. It suits you,” I said approvingly.

  She giggled. “Oh, suppose I should’ve been a temple novice?”

  “I sure wouldn’t have minded having you around,” I said, but then I remembered that if Lizzy had belonged to Qaar’endoth’s order, she would probably be dead now, and my mood turned more serious. “All right, get in the carriage. Ilandere, you’ll set the pace for us, and I’ll be right there in the driver’s seat, so you can tell me if you need to rest or anything. We have an oracle to consult, my friends.”

  I climbed into the carriage with Lizzy and Willobee and hopped up on the driver’s bench where I could keep an eye on Ilandere, and then we were off.

  Chapter Five

  I was a little concerned that Ilandere might be upset about having what was supposed to be a peaceful night’s sleep disrupted and forced to canter along the road again before the sun came up, but the threat of encountering more violence if we stayed seemed to be enough motivation to stop her from complaining.

  Gradually as I became more confident that there was no pursuit behind us, we slowed to a trot, and then to a walk. That made the ride a lot smoother inside the carriage, and soon Lizzy and I fell asleep nestled against each other while Willobee snored on the opposite bench.

  Luna and Chrysanthemum seemed fascinated by the graceful creature whose silvery dappled hindquarters swished along in front of them. She was like a glamorous, exotic distant cousin to them, I supposed. They kept trying to nuzzle her and were obviously making a valiant effort on their stumpy pony legs to keep pace with her.

  By the time the sun came up, Ilandere did not seem tired at all from the journey. In fact, she seemed positively cheerful. She pranced along with the hood thrown back from her radiant head, and sometimes she cantered in dizzying circles around both ponies and carriage like a living ray of moon-sparkle.

  Willobee, who was awake by then, craned his head out the window to get a good look at her.

  “I thought I was only dreaming last night that I saw a centaur,” he confessed. “My, but that was much stronger honey mead than I am accustomed to. I also thought I dreamt that you...” he trailed off as he squinted at Lizzy with a glint of fear in his jade lantern eyes and rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Me?” She asked as she looked back at him wide-eyed, legs crossed primly to protect her modesty in a rather un-Lizzy-like fashion.

  “Never mind,” Willobee said finally.

  Outside, I called to Ilandere. “Do you want to stop for breakfast? And, our friend Willobee would like to meet you.”

  We pulled off the road and let the ponies graze while the five of us gathered around and shared jerky, bread, and cheese from my packs. Ilandere had little interest in the bread or meat, but she was delighted when I found some dried apples that I had also taken from the temple kitchens. I wished I had a fresh one to give her, but she didn’t seem to mind.

  Willobee could not stop staring at the centaur, and that amused Lizzy greatly. She pulled tricks like swatting him with her tail, or stealing the ostrich plume from his cap, just to see how much she could get away with without the gnome noticing.

  As for Ilandere, she seemed to return the gnome’s fascination to some degree. She cocked her head and gazed down at him curiously as if he were some small animal that looked charming but might bite. Eventually she worked up the courage to pat him gently on the head with one hoof, her human hands clasped anxiously together, and Willobee chortled with delight.

  Encouraged by this, Ilandere leaned down her human torso toward him and reached out to pet his lavender beard. She wrinkled her nose. “It’s so soft, but... it’s sticky!”

  “Er, that would be the honey mead, my lady,” Willobee replied. “Please forgive me. I will wash it at the earliest opportunity.”

  Every time Willobee spoke, Ilandere’s big round eyes widened even more, as if it surprised her that the gnome was capable of human speech.

  “Would you like to-- er, go for a ride?” Ilandere invited him shyly as she tossed back her wavy mane.

  “You mean...?” Willobee’s green eyes lit up just as brightly as they had when he first spied my pouch of gems. The one that he still, come to think of it, had in his possession somewhere.

  Ilandere dropped her cloak in the grass. Then she picked up the gnome in both hands and spun him around above her head in order to lower him upright and forward-facing onto her horse back. I guessed that the centaur-girl must be significantly stronger than she appeared. Between Willobee’s evident nervous excitement, and the lingering effects of the honey mead, I wasn’t sure that I trusted him to keep down his breakfast while on horseback.

  “Hold on tight!” Ilandere instructed. Her human waist was so impossibly slender that even the gnome’s stubby arms could reach all the way around, and he clasped his hands together without difficulty.

  “Are you sure that’s a good--” I began, but before I could complete the question, Ilandere had dashed off squealing
with laughter while the gnome hooted and whooped on her back.

  “Well, we’d better catch up to them,” I said as I fetched Luna and Chrysanthemum to tether their harnesses back onto the carriage. The ponies cooperated docilely, and I quickly had them set up.

  “As you please,” Lizzy said with a shrug.

  I picked up the cloak that Ilandere had discarded and threw it across the driver’s seat beside one of me as I urged the ponies to start clopping along, so that the wheels of the carriage started spinning just as my other self and Lizzy slid through the doors so that we rode inside.

  “Last night was really fun,” she remarked as she cast me a sideways glance with those bright green eyes of hers, “although not the kind or as much fun as I had been hoping for.” Her wolfish ear twitched meaningfully, so I looked out the window and saw that Ilandere and Willobee were just a bouncing speck in the distance.

  “Well,” I said, “just what is it you had been hoping for last night, then?”

  Lizzy read my expression and grinned wolfishly.

  “I’ll show you then, why don’t I?” she suggested. Her hair was a disaster, she was still flecked with a bunch of random strangers’ dried blood, but she was just about the most luscious sight I’d ever seen.

  I reached out, grabbed her by the back of the neck again as I had done the previous night before we got interrupted by Willobee’s gambling buddies, and pulled her face in to mine to kiss her.

  The she-wolf straddled my lap and grinded against my crotch as she pressed herself to my chest. Her tail stuck out stiffly behind her, which raised the hem of the surcoat and bared her entire ass. She wasn’t wearing any undergarments, and even though I still had my pants on, I was so hard that I felt like I practically could have fucked her through the leather. But instead she lifted herself off me just enough to fit her hands between us and unlace my pants and then crouched down to pull them down to my ankles.