The tent flap opened and a figure entered. It was a woman with milk white skin, black eyes, blue lips, and razor teeth. There were black lines on her face in the shape of a pentagram. Her hair was glossy black, hanging thickly to her knees; the hanks looked almost prehensile, though that might have been from the flickering light of the fire. Her torso was lithe and shapely; though she was clearly not young, there was a sensual appeal to her that manifested with every movement of her limbs and hips. She wore a tight blouse and pants that seemed almost to be formed of moss, as if it were growing on her skin. It shifted color as she moved, now brown, now green, now with a touch of iridescence. Also, gloves and slippers of the same material, if material it was, with only her fingernails and toenails glistening beyond. Overall, the effect was naughtily fascinating, surely by no accident. There was a musky odor to her, not exactly perfume, but hellishly erotic. She was a seductress, and likely a witch.
She squatted before him, and the sex appeal of her supple thighs was palpable. She smiled, and to his surprise her features softened into undertones of kindness and even goodness; now, her blue lips seemed friendly rather than alien. The contrast with the rest of her aspect was startling; it was as though good and evil were woven through her in the manner of an exotic carpet, each somehow enhancing the other. Benny knew immediately that she meant him no ill. In fact, she must have been the one who fetched him here and treated him to abate the bruises and headache he had earned the day before. “Benny,” she murmured, and her voice was a somber caress.
“That's me,” he agreed, stroked by that voice. “Who are you, and what am I doing here?”
“You are recovering from an overindulgence,” she said. “I found you unconscious, clutching your staff. I could not remove it from your hand; the wood resisted me with magical force.” She shook her hand reminiscently. “I thought it was a mere walking aid, but it is a weapon.”
“I won it from the Emperor of Upper Sultry, as a prize. It's a potent implement that responds only to me.”
“Ah, yes, the Emperor. We do not get along.” She reached forth and stroked his forehead, and her touch made his skin tingle pleasantly. “Fear not; all will be well.”
“Why are you helping me? I don't think I know you.”
She laughed. “You have been in me, and you don't know me?”
“I never had intimate relations with you!” Benny glared. “I would remember if I had.” Unless, he thought, that mind-deadening elixir had wiped it out. The prospect of sex with her both repelled and fascinated him. She was too old and too witchy, but still sexy as only a succubus could be.
“It was some time ago, dearest Benny. About a quarter century.”
“A quarter century! I was a baby then!”
Then he froze, staring at her. Was it possible? Not sex, but birth?
“Yes,” she said as if reading his mind. “I am Winona.”
His mother! He realized that her age was right. That would explain why she was helping him.
“Mother,” he breathed, reluctantly coming to believe. “But—”
“It is true, my son. It is from me you got your inner magic.” She smiled. “And your taste for vampires, which Ammarod shares. Because of that part of my ancestry.”
His ghosting ability, that had saved his life more than once. And his love of Virtue? He feared it was true. “But I hate Ammarod,” he said. “He brutalized and raped my beloved wife. I will one day kill him for that.”
“I wanted better things for you, my son, than witchery,” she said. “That is why I left you in good human hands, with your father, though it hurt me to lose you and your father. I kept your brother Aiken too long, and he turned out useless. It was worse with Ammarod; he became a warlock and a warrior, but with a core of viciousness I could not expunge. Yet I must work with him, though he is a bad man. He is, after all, my son, and the son of the blue demon I love.” She touched her blue lips reminiscently. “The demon gave me these. They say that witches can't love, but I have loved twice, in addition to my children. I loved the demon first, but wrenched myself away from him to preserve my sanity and went to your father. Then, when I joined the Kudgels, the demon came back into my life, and I reconciled with him. Sanity is overrated.”
Benny's mind was spinning. He grasped a sliver. “Ammarod. He said he worked with his superior to take over the Kudgel army.”
“Yes, I am that superior,” Winona said. “I do retain ultimate power over him, so far.”
“So far?”
“Ammarod is gaining power, and he lacks sensible restrictions. He will inevitably turn against me in time, and his father won't stop him. I have just one hope: your core of goodness, Benny, is huge compared to mine. Join us, and we can govern the Kudgels effectively. That is why I intervened to spare you. Together, we can make the Kudgel Empire mighty, without suffering the mayhem that will occur if Ammarod takes over. By so doing, you will also be able to spare your wife further mischief. You can save her, Benny.”
Benny realized that there was a rationale. But to join her would be to cast aside his lifelong belief in doing what was right. He would inevitably be corrupted, and that was a greater evil than what he had encountered so far. “No.”
Winona sighed. “I had hoped to persuade you by the logic of my case, and by the inducements I offered, such as enormous power and the life of your vampire wife. But I see I must instead use magic.” She raised her dark hands.
“No!” he repeated, and swept his staff around to block her. “Don't make me hurt you, Mother!”
“Oh, I doubt you have the power to do that physically.” Her hands began to glow. “Emotionally, yes; it does hurt to be rejected by one's child. But that will surely change.” The glow intensified.
This was mischief. He had to stop her before she overpowered him with her magic. Benny swung the staff at her, hard, hoping that its power would cancel hers, leaving only its physical force as if it were an ordinary staff. It could knock her back, hurt her physically, or at least enable him to escape her.
He saw the surprise in her face as she realized that this was true. He was balking her.
Then she and the tent vanished. Or rather, maybe it was Benny who vanished.
He found himself at Dale's Mansion.
“Benny Clout!” Magenta exclaimed. “I found you just in time and teleported you to safety. That witch was about to enchant you.”
Benny glanced at his staff, deciding not to argue that case. Certainly she had rescued him from an ugly situation. “Thank you.” He had encountered Magenta before only in telepathic animation; now she was physically present, and even lovelier.
“Your group needs to be united to stop the Kudgels,” she said. Then, she hesitated. “There is something you need to know about Virtue. It's not good. I don't know how to tell you.”
“That Ammarod is raping her,” Benny said with cold fury.
“You know!”
“He told me. He's proud of it. I need to kill him.”
“Oh, Benny, I'm so sorry! We have to save her. But Ammarod has awful power. He threatens to do the same to me, when he gets the chance. I'm afraid of him.”
“I know. He's half blue demon. And my half-brother.”
She stared at him. “This is worse yet.”
“I have to kill my brother,” Benny said, voicing his terrible dilemma. “To save my beloved.”
“Yes, I fear it is so. I am so sorry, Benny.”
Then, somehow they were sitting on the bed in the room Benny had shared with Virtue when they were here at the Mansion, and Magenta had her arms about him, comforting him. She was warm and soft and wonderful. “Oh, dammit!” he swore tearfully into her warm green shoulder.
“Exactly,” she agreed.
“What am I doing here with you, when I should be with Virtue?”
“I don't know,” she said. “Yet, somehow it seems right.”
That was the thing: it did seem right. Magenta was not trying to seduce him or confuse him, only to help him. How
could this be? It was as if they had a relationship, if not in the past or the present, maybe in the future.
“I—I want to kiss you,” he said. “Feel free to slap my face.”
“Benny, you know my past. If it helps you to kiss me, then do it. If it helps you to sleep with me, then do it. I am anybody's girl.”
“You're the leader of half the Kudgels!”
“That, too,” she agreed with a wan smile. “But right now, with you, I am just a friend.”
Benny realized it was true. Their paths had crossed peripherally so far, but they were on the same side and he trusted her. “I shouldn't be taking your time.”
“You are important, too, Benny. As I sense the flows of this dreadful war, I know that you are integral to its outcome. You are as important as I am, and I must help you to accomplish your portion of it. So if kissing me as an anonymous woman enables that, do it. It is personally meaningless.”
“No. I want to kiss you as if it means something,”
“Don't do that!” she said, alarmed. “It is emotionally meaningful only with Virtue.”
“Who has been despoiled.”
“Benny, it wasn't her choice! She needs you now more than ever.”
“Yes! I wish I could be with her, at least to reassure her that I still love her.”
“I wish I could conjure her here for you. But there's no stone close enough. Neither can I conjure you to her, only to where I found you.”
Then Benny thought of something. “Magenta, when you had to visit your brother Purp, before he died—”
“That was different. We had the help of an established vampire telepath, and a local host, Helena, who lent me her body. I visited him in simulation.”
“Yes. And I saw Helena, who is not at all like you in appearance or manner, become you. It was amazing. It was just as if you were personally there.”
“I was there, but only in simulation. An extended illusion enabled by our mental rapport.” She smiled. “It left us both close friends, for such a merger never completely fades. The Amazon is a fine woman.”
“That is my point. Magenta, could you do the same with Virtue?”
She shook her head. “There would be no point in using her as a host to animate me at her home. She needs to be with you, not me.”
“The other way around. Could she animate you, here?”
Her mouth fell open. “Oh, my! If I could reach her mind, yes, I could bring her to me in that manner.”
“Please, Magenta! I know it's a lot to ask of you, but it would mean so much to us both.”
She considered briefly, and decided. “That must be why you want to kiss me. You want to kiss her—in my body.”
“Yes. I can appreciate how you wouldn't want to do it.”
“I do want to do it! But first I must locate her more solidly, not just to glance in passing, and commune with her, to be sure it is right with her. You must relax, while I range outward. I know where she lives; what I need to find is a stone close enough to enable this partial alignment.”
“Thank you.”
For the rest of the day, Benny relaxed, ate, snoozed, and explored the premises, while Magenta sat and looked like a zombie, her mind ranging.
Then, in the early evening, she came to life. “I found a stone!” she exclaimed. “It's an old one, not sufficient for teleportation, but it will do nicely for sustained mental rapport.”
“Wonderful!”
“Let me prepare.” She gobbled down some food, took a quick shower, toweled herself dry while he watched, bemused, then changed into a filmy nightshift that hardly concealed her attractive feminine form.
“What are you doing?” Benny asked, embarrassed that he found that form so appealing. “I thought you were going to—”
Then her aspect shifted. Her colors faded, and her purple hair became fair, reaching to her knees. “Benny,” she breathed as gentle fangs showed.
It was Virtue.
He ran to her and enfolded her. “Virtue!”
She held back only a moment. “I have been despoiled by another man. I will understand if you turn away.”
“Never!” he kissed her, and it was Virtue's kiss. He bore her to the bed, and in moments they were making desperate love.
“Oh, Benny,” she said as they lay beside each other. “How I have longed for this moment.”
“I love you! I never want to leave you.”
“Yet you face hard choices.”
“Awful choices,” he agreed. “But when I think of what Ammarod is doing to you I get so angry I can't think straight. Will you forgive me if I kill him?”
“This is difficult. I know he is evil, but he was my lover before I knew you, and I do retain some feeling for him. You are the one I want to be with, Benny, but I don't want to have him killed, much as I know he deserves it.”
“And there is the dilemma.”
They ceased talking and made love again. Then they slept, holding hands.
They woke several times in the night, their fervor flaring like a flickering fire. They simply couldn't get enough of each other. They had never been this passionate in their regular life, but, of course, this was special.
Virtue was still there in the morning. “I am sorry, but I must leave you now,” she said. “Magenta has been wonderful, but she is tiring, and the magic of the stone is depleted.”
“Oh, Virtue!” He held her and kissed her, trying to postpone the leaving, but her body changed and he found himself holding and kissing Magenta. “Oops!” He quickly disengaged.
“I'm so sorry,” Magenta said. “I am exhausted.” Then, she dropped off to sleep, literally: her lifted head plopped to the pillow.
Benny got out of bed and dressed, leaving her there. It had of course been her body throughout, and her awareness within it, observing while he embraced Virtue. She had done a marvelously self-sacrificing thing. She was beautiful in her own right, inside and outside, and she had done him a matchless favor.
After a few hours, Magenta woke and got up, cleaned up, and changed clothing. “I apologize for leaving you on your own,” she said.
“Magenta, what you did for me was phenomenal. You gave me back my beloved for a few hours. I regret only that your generous self-sacrifice wore you out for nothing.”
She made a gesture of dismissal. “It was not for nothing, Benny. You are a fine man, the kind I would wish to have for myself. I liked being in your embrace, even if anonymously. Now I must return you to the place where I found you so you can resume your mission, and I can resume mine.”
She liked him personally? Benny realized that he also liked her personally. She was an amazing woman. But he did not feel free to say that, considering the rather mixed nature of their association. “I'll need to find the others, if they survive.”
“They do survive,” she said. “Helena is at Scroll Castle, which is not far north of the witch's tent. Winona set it there near the village to intercept you.”
“Thank you,” he said. “For everything.”
“You are welcome—to everything.”
Magenta stood before him, oriented on the distant magic stone, and suddenly, Benny found himself back at Winona's tent. The witch was not there, fortunately. He quickly departed.
Soon, he found the castle of the sages. Helena was there, evidently expecting him. “Magenta sent me a mental message,” she explained. “We now have a certain telepathic rapport.”
“Great! You are all right? I see your hair is growing back.”
She touched the place where the lock of hair was gone. “Yes.” Then she turned serious. “Benny, I have bad news. I met with the survivors. The sages—it seems that the men went out to do battle with Ammarod and his Kudgels. They were prepared for that. But they were ambushed by the witch.”
“Winona!”
“Yes, that is what they call her. She has powers the sages did not reckon with, and quickly captured them so that Ammarod could consume their life essences. He has the ability to increase his
life and power by absorbing that of his victims. The sage men are gone. Only the women and children remain, as they were protected within Scroll Castle. It will be a generation before their community is fully functional again.”
“This is terrible!”
“It is,” she agreed. “The only good thing is that their servant woman, Trista, told me where the safe passage into the Northern Mountains is, and that Dale and Burgundy are there. We must go there now.”
“Yes,” he agreed numbly. He had not known the sages personally, but had understood that they were allies. They had paid an awful price!
They hiked north, catching each other up on their separate adventures, and in due course, reached the pass. There were Dale and the dwarf. Helena hugged Dale while Benny saluted Burgundy.
“Dale, I have something for you,” Helena said, lifting the second white ash chip. “Don't argue, just take it.” She put the chain over his neck. He looked surprised, but let it stay.
Their group was reunited at last. Now all they had to do was stop the Kudgels from blowing the Gold Horn to summon the Sky Titans.
Chapter 9
Alfen Gulfadex
F or several days, the companions ascended the Northern Mountains. Benny had thought the Gant Mountains enormous in his youth, but they seemed mere anthills compared to those he now traversed. He and the others quickly realized that, without proper knowledge of this footpath, it would be all but impossible to reach Alfen Gulfadex. The entire journey, they walked single file along the path, the mountain ascending at an impossibly steep angle into the clouds, and descending at the same deadly angle on the other side. While it curved gradually with the contour of the mountains, the pathway was surprisingly clear of debris, and the gigantic cedars of the forest of the mountains provided shade, as well as a natural barrier to the deadly slope descending the mountain side. While they stopped for short periods of rest to relieve themselves or consume what edibles they had or could find, they did not sleep; that could be done once they reached Alfen Gulfadex. To pass the time, they shared the stories of their journeys. Soon, along with Benny’s rejuvenated memory, they all remembered the details of their separation, and were amazed at what had transpired.
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