Thrall

by E. William Brown

  She pulled me out of her tree, and we strolled up the path chatting happily. A couple of Corinna’s dryads looked over curiously, and waved at us. Alanna gave them a thumbs-up, and they cheered and ran off to talk to the others.

  “They look excited,” I commented.

  “I could hardly hide my true nature from my grove sisters,” she explained. “They’ve been encouraging me to pursue you from the moment we arrived. You made quite an impression when you created this refuge for us all.”

  “I noticed,” I said. “Pelagia and her girls are kind of overwhelming about showing their gratitude. The next time they hold a revel I should bring you to run interference.”

  “Better Elin to split their attention, and Cerise to turn the tables. I’d simply add to their numbers.”

  I laughed. But I had to admit, that was quite an image.

  Sefwin was waiting at the palace entrance, and she seemed a bit wide-eyed when I introduced Alanna as my new familiar.

  “I see the inquisitive shadows have been prying,” Alanna said once we’d passed through the checkpoint. “She clearly knows me.”

  “Yeah, Nethwillin is basically a ninja clan, aren’t they?”

  “Ninja? That’s an interesting comparison. I’d say your arrow is close to the mark, but not quite a bull’s eye. True ninja live in service to a lord who cares little for their lives. Nethwillin’s elves serve their own clan, and they’re quite serious about the clan’s reciprocal obligation to its… members…”

  She trailed off, and stopped dead in the middle of the corridor.

  “Alanna? Something wrong?”

  “Feudalism. Face. Exchange rates. Inflation. Freya’s juicy tits, I understand again!”

  She turned on me, and kissed me fiercely.

  I held her close, and ran my hand through her hair the way she liked. “Isn’t that supposed to happen?”

  “Not so fast!” She exclaimed. “Usually it takes months, if not years. It seems your excessive power is good for more than I realized.”

  “Excessive, huh? Yeah, being stupidly strong is good for all kinds of things.”

  I picked her up, and casually threw her over my shoulder. She giggled happily, and wiggled in my grip.

  “Careful, or you’ll give the help a show,” she said. “I’m not wearing panties.”

  “And who’s fault is that?” I asked.

  “Yours,” she declared. “Obviously I can’t have anything in the way, when you might need to bend me over for a quick romp at any moment.”

  Cerise’s laugh met me as I entered the living room. “Sounds like someone has the right idea, big guy. Who do you have there? One of the dryads?”

  The room was intended to be a shared living area for my coven, located between the kitchen and our private suites. Avilla had only finished furnishing it a few days ago, but now there were two couches and a collection of plush chairs surrounding a big fireplace. The rug that covered the middle of the room was felwolf pelt, incredibly thick and plush, and much bigger than any bearskin.

  Cerise and Beri were sitting together on one of the couches, with Tina stretched out on the rug nearby. Beri’s left hand and arm were covered in bloody scratches that Cerise seemed to be cleaning, and she clutched a silver knife in her right hand.

  “Looks like someone has been busy,” I commented. I put Alanna down, and rested my hands on her shoulders. “Tina, Beri, I’d like to introduce Alanna, my new familiar. Alanna, Tina here is one of my coven mates, and Beri is one of Cerise’s acolytes. I assume you and Cerise have met?”

  “Oh, shit!” Cerise exclaimed. “Congratulations, Alanna. So that’s what that weird surge was.”

  “Cerise was quite energetic about sampling all of Corinna’s dryads,” Alanna said with an impish smile. “She called me ‘fingers’ for a few days before she got around to learning my name.”

  “Hey, you’ve got magic digits,” Cerise shot back, completely unembarrassed. “Besides, I let you get away with calling me ‘Lady Tail’. I guess you couldn’t get enough, so you had to get closer access.”

  Alanna chuckled, and draped herself against me. “My wizard has satisfied my passions quite thoroughly, Cerise,” she purred.

  “He does that,” Tina agreed, coming to her feet. “Welcome to the family, Alanna.”

  She enveloped the dryad in a warm hug. Alanna seemed taken aback for a moment, before she relaxed and returned the gesture.

  “Thank you, Tina. You really are as kind as everyone says, aren’t you?”

  “She is,” Beri said, fondness and exasperation warring in her voice. “No matter what the situation, she just wants everyone to be friends.”

  “What happened to your hand, Beri?” I asked. “Do you need healing?”

  Beri hesitated, but Cerise stepped in to explain. “Oh, she’s embarrassed because she flubbed her first imp. Little bastard scratched her up some before she could cut his throat. Next time you’ll make the bindings tighter, won’t you Beri?”

  The younger brunette flushed. “Yes, my lady. Only, weren’t you supposed to be supervising?”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m going to fix every little mistake for you. You’ll never learn anything that way.”

  “You were just distracted, weren’t you?” Tina said.

  “Hah!” Cerise looked away, and crossed her arms over her chest. “As if a trained witch would lose focus so easily.”

  “It was so good I had to change my panties,” Tina argued.

  “Heh. Yeah. Um, anyway, in all seriousness, welcome to the family, Alanna. Does this mean you’re going to be leaving Corinna’s grove? Because I notice you’ve replaced all the magic I was giving you with Daniel’s sorcery.”

  “Oh, Cerise, I didn’t mean that as a rejection,” Alanna said. “It was a side effect of forming the familiar bond. I do expect to leave the grove now, but I would welcome any opportunity to grow closer to my wizard’s ladies. Especially you. I’ve enjoyed our time together, although given your nature I’m not sure what to expect in our future. I’m aware that a familiar bond can be shared across a coven, but you could almost become a familiar yourself.”

  “Yeah, that’s kind of a tempting thought sometimes,” Cerise admitted. “But I like to make my guy work for it more than that. So you’d consider a group bond?”

  “I’d like to know you all better first,” Alanna said. “But it isn’t unthinkable. Although the usual reasons for such an arrangement hardly apply in this case.”

  “An understatement if there ever was one,” Elin’s voice came from the hallway leading back to our apartments. She emerged into the living room, looking mussed and a bit disgruntled in one of her comfortable lounging robes. “A familiar, Daniel? Really? What on Earth could you possibly need a pet dryad for? You already have more raw power than you could ever need.”

  Tina frowned, and went to hug the irate faerie. “Elin? What’s wrong?”

  Elin sighed. “I’m sorry, Tina. I’m just out of sorts. I’m still trying to adjust to life with the coven, and Daniel is already bringing in some new conquest. Honestly, what use is a dryad anyway?”

  “I can armor our wizard when he goes into battle,” Alana said, sounding surprisingly calm. “It seems to me that he badly needs better protection, and his magic is better suited to destruction that defending himself.”

  Elin rolled her eyes. “Wooden armor? Really? Adept Frobisher’s research clearly established that dryad armor is barely superior to ordinary steel. Even basic runic enchantments are superior in every respect. Minor tree spirits just don’t have the mana capacity to hold up a strong protective ward for any length of time.”

  Avilla came up the hall behind Elin, and stopped to take in the conversation.

  “Frobisher was an idiot,” Alanna scoffed. “He lacked the skills to conduct diplomacy with any established grove, so he bred himself a gaggle of pear trees for his experiments. Pear trees! Yes, they grow quickly enough to be convenient even for humans, but they’re hardly more than bush spi
rits. Gobbel’s work with the oaks of Keffel Falls may be inferior in form, but his results are far more representative of mature dryads.”

  “Gobbel’s methodology was atrocious,” Elin protested. “He claimed a peak mana throughput of over six hundred thaums for some of his subjects!”

  “That sounds about right, for a mature huntress type,” Cerise said. “But I bet Alanna is higher.”

  “It depends on the strength of my wizard,” Alanna said. “Unbonded, I reach my limit at perhaps a thousand thaums. With Daniel’s strength nurturing my roots? Give me a week, and I shall be ready to turn a blow from Jormungandr.”

  Elin blinked at her uncertainly. “That’s absurd. Even under Gobbel’s most credulous extrapolations you’d have to be thousands of years old to have that level of strength.”

  Avilla choked. I was concerned for a moment, before I realized she was trying not to laugh. Elin glanced back at her with a puzzled frown, and Avilla put a gentle hand on her shoulder.

  “Elin, dear, I think you’re arguing with one of those legendary spirits you read about in ancient tales. Perhaps you should calm down, and find out who she is?”

  Elin opened her mouth to argue, and abruptly closed it again. She closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and ran her hands threw her hair.

  “I’m being rude, aren’t I?” She said, “I apologize. No matter how I try, the monster within seems to leak out now and then. I’m Elin.”

  “I’m not offended,” Alanna said, crossing the room to offer her hand. “In truth I find myself impressed by your self-control. I am Alanna Firescorn, and I fear your coven-mate is correct about my nature.”

  Elin’s jaw dropped, and her eyes went wide as saucers. “What? Really? Oh gosh, I’m so embarrassed.”

  “This is why we have hospitality customs,” Avilla said, patting her on the shoulder. “I take it she’s famous?”

  “She’s supposed to be a myth!” Elin exclaimed. “She’s mentioned in some of the oldest histories still extant. At the dawn of history she was known as an unkillable nature spirit of unthinkable antiquity.”

  “Ah, scholarship is such a fascinating thing,” Alanna said. “It was strange enough when the bards arose, and suddenly one’s deeds were preserved in song for generations. It’s still strange to think that my doings in ages past are recorded in books that anyone might read.”

  “At least it’s only a few scholars who read them,” I said. “Imagine how much worse it would be, if books were so cheap that anyone could afford them.”

  “I’m not sure if that would be better or worse,” Alanna mused. “My anonymity would be lost in such an age, but the same goes for others. There are so many embarrassing incidents I might have avoided, if I’d known who I was speaking to at the time.”

  Elin covered her face with her hands, and whimpered. “I’m so sorry!”

  “Peace, Elin. You are the wife of my wizard, and I would not have hard feelings come between us. Old I may be, but I am no goddess or great spirit. I am only a dryad in the end, and you need have no fear of me. May we not be friends?”

  “Friends? With Alanna Firescorn? I, but, well… yes?”

  “Wonderful. But now I must face the mistress of the house.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” Avilla said, enveloping my dryad in a warm hug. “Welcome to the family, Alanna. Thank you for being so gentle about entering my domain.”

  “Of course,” Alanna said. “I wouldn’t want to cause conflict. You can feel it, then? I wasn’t certain how far along the path you were.”

  “I couldn’t possibly miss it,” she said. “You’re like a warm breath of spring.”

  “What do you mean?” Cerise asked curiously.

  “Oh, she’s inside herself somehow,” Avilla said. “Her body is in her bower even when she’s walking the world, so I felt her domain touching mine the moment she entered the part of palace that I’ve claimed. You don’t need to hold yourself so aloof for my sake, dear. I don’t mind if we rub up against each other a little.”

  “Thank you, Avilla. It would be nice to relax my grip a bit, but I didn’t want to presume. It can be an intimate thing, much like blending magic.”

  “Is it? Well, perhaps we should try it gradually, and see how it feels. If it’s too distracting I might need to leave a patch of the garden unclaimed for your tree. But if we have a good resonance it would be nice to lean on each other a bit, don’t you think?”

  “I agree,” Alanna said. “You’re a generous woman, Avilla. I wasn’t certain you’d want my tree so near your domain, let alone within it.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Avilla scoffed. “As if I’d neglect my husband’s familiar. This is meant to be a permanent bond, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We left ourselves the option to dissolve it if things don’t work out for some reason, but I don’t see that happening.”

  “Then this is your home too, Alanna. Of course you can plant your tree in the garden.”

  “Thank you, Avilla. Give me a day to bid farewell to my comrades in the Fangs of the Forest, and I shall do just that. Perhaps we can pick a spot together? I’m afraid I’m not much to look at, so I wouldn’t want to mar your gardening plans.”

  “Now you’re just fishing for compliments,” Tina teased. “I hope I’m half as pretty as you when I’m a bazillion years old. Come on, why don’t I show you the baths while Avilla starts on dinner.”

  Chapter 7

  Alanna looked on curiously as I put the finishing touches on my latest enchantment factory.

  The dryad was fascinated by my enchantment technique, and I’d quickly found that she was happy to sit and watch me work for hours at a time. She was a very tactile person, too. Always eager for a hug or a bit of cuddling, and a bit reluctant to let me out of her sight. It might have been annoying in another woman, but Alanna never demanded my attention when it was needed elsewhere. She just followed me through my day, staying out of the way and taking everything in with eager eyes.

  She’d had a lot to watch. I’d thrown up four more keeps in the last few days, as well as a heated pavilion outside my own gates for the market vendors. That got numerous shopkeepers, the district’s detachment of the city watch, and the members of several crafting guilds into secure living conditions. I’d started with the guilds related to shipbuilding and maintenance, because keeping the port in operation was a high priority for me. But I’d also found time to make an enchantment factory for big outdoor space heaters, and gotten a work crew to start setting them up along major streets.

  Then I’d spent a couple of days expanding the arcology block on my island. The whole land mass was now covered by the giant structure of stone and metal, although the interior was mostly unfinished. I’d extended the street at ground level into a loop that ran all the way around the agricultural area, lined with empty spaces that could be turned into shops and businesses. I’d laid out another road loop up on the 10th floor, for establishments catering exclusively to my island’s inhabitants. Then I’d built a hanger for the Intrepid on top of the structure, and spent an evening turning some of that vast empty space into another farming complex.

  But the political situation in the city was starting to heat up, and I didn’t think I’d be able to avoid open conflict for much longer. Duke Beck had taken control of the granary, and slapped new restrictions on withdrawals just after my Nethwillin conspirators had managed to sneak off with a load of grain. Duke Fisker was recruiting soldiers, and rumor had it more than half of the troops that remained in the city were now under his banner. Meanwhile the Conclave had sealed the gates of the Iron Citadel, and rumor had it there was some sort of internal power struggle playing out within their walls.

  My own forces had grown considerably since I first came to Kozalin, but four hundred riflemen and a few armored skimmers still wasn’t much to work with when it came to a power struggle on this scale. I had doubts about even keeping the harbor district secure if the other factions started throwing their we
ight around. Hence my current project.

  “This is a most devious working,” Alanna said from her position in Cerise’s lap. Both of them were naked, not having bothered to dress again after they ambushed me an hour ago.

  Elin and Avilla were still a bit unsure about this new addition to the family, but Cerise and Tina had certainly given her a warm reception. It had barely taken them a day to seduce her, not that she’d made them work for it much. She might be an ancient and wise spirit, but she was still a dryad.

  “Isn’t it, though?” Cerise said. “This is how he makes enough artifacts to equip the whole army. He makes these enchantment factories, and they just crank out as many copies as we need.”

  “Don’t they grow weary, from giving birth to such multitudes?” Alanna asked.

  Cerise had a giggling fit at that, and couldn’t manage enough breath to answer.

  “It isn’t alive,” I explained. “It’s more like a clock. You’ve seen clocks, right? All those complicated metal parts moving around, and it can tell time even though there’s nothing in there that knows what an hour is.”

  “Ugh. Please, don’t try to explain it any more, Daniel. It makes my head hurt to think of such things, and I’m content to take you at your word. I don’t quite understand what this is for, though. It conjures a giant metal box, that floats in the air?”

  Yes, I’d finally figured out how to automate the process of conjuring a vehicle that included moving parts.

  The solution I’d hit on required a longer series of manufacturing steps than my previous efforts, but it was still pretty simple compared to some of the software I’d worked on back home. First it would conjure the main body of the skimmer, and put the warmth and levitation enchantments on it. Then it would conjure the hatches and other moving parts one by one, using the existing contours of the hull to guide their placement. Each copy would come out with slight differences, since my conjuration spells couldn’t match the sub-millimeter precision of modern manufacturing. But using each piece as a guide for the next meant they’d all end up fitting together properly anyway.