Virgin City (The Lesbia Chronicles)

by Loki Renard

  "Crispin!" Ayla snapped her name sharply. "Have you already forgotten the promise you made?"

  "That I am to be your plaything?"

  The old lady still at the table snorted. "Your plaything, Ayla? You're plucking women out of the air now?"

  "I will tell you of all this later, Atrocious," Ayla said. "For now, rest easy."

  "You can tell me of it now," old lady Atrocious said. "What is this plaything?"

  "This is an elf," Ayla said. "An old elf who sought to capture me. I have turned the tables on her."

  "You sought to capture Ayla?" It was Atrocious' turn to rise from her chair and come shuffling across the floor. Her old face was quite animated with emotion, though Crispin could not read what emotion it was. Crispin was rather distracted by the power the old woman emitted. Though she was decrepit by human standards, she fair reeked of magic. It was seeping out of every pore of her skin in a great glowing halo of a field. To human eyes, old lady Atrocious looked like any other old person. To Crispin's gaze, she was lit up like a supernova.

  Slowly, Atrocious reached Crispin. She planted herself firmly and peered up into Crispin's face. "You tried to capture Ayla?"

  "I did," Crispin admitted. "It did not go as planned."

  Atrocious stuck out her hands, grabbed Crispin's palm and shook vigorously. "You tried," she said. "And that is the important thing."

  "Atrocious!" Ayla's voice was sharp yet again. "Do not encourage kidnappers."

  "You could do with a good kidnapping," Atrocious said. "Far too busy, that's your problem. You could do with a few weeks in a cage." She turned back to Crispin. "Is that what you were going to do with her? Put her in a cage?"

  Crispin saw no reason to lie to the old woman. "I was going to take her to the elven glade, lay her down in a bed of the finest silk and have my way with her."

  "Oh yes," Atrocious said whilst Ayla blushed. "That would have been very good for her." She let go of Crispin's hand and waggled a finger under Crispin's nose. "Don't give up. Remember - if at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

  "I don't think you understand," Ayla said patiently, speaking to Atrocious in a slow, measured voice of compassion. "This elf. She called me a plaything."

  "What of it?" Atrocious waved a wrinkled hand. "You called me your pet when we met."

  "She wanted to deprive me of my liberty."

  "You deprived me of my liberty and you made me bathe."

  "I am not as you were," Ayla said. "I am not in need of care. Besides, what this Crispin offers is not care."

  "She was speaking of glades and lace sheets. That sounds nice."

  Ayla sighed and put on the air of a martyr. "Are you truly so eager to be rid of me?"

  "Elf," Atrocious said. "Please strike this woman."

  Crispin obliged, landing a stinging slap to Ayla's left cheek. The witch clasped at her derriere, then scowled furiously at Crispin.

  "I told you were to be my plaything," she said. "Obedient to me."

  "If I am obedient to you, and you are obedient to the lady," Crispin said. "Then I must be obedient to the lady."

  "Atrocious," Ayla said. "I am not obedient to Atrocious."

  "She's not," Atrocious said. "It's terrible. Slap her again."

  Ayla moved back before Crispin could carry out Atrocious' orders. "I think you misunderstand the dynamic."

  "I think I understand the dynamic very well," Crispin replied. "I stand before the transcendent summoner, She Who Did Not Die. I stand before the mother of the world."

  "Mother of the world," Atrocious smirked. "I rather like that."

  "Beware, Atrocious," Ayla said. "This elf steals powers like yours. She drained the second summoner."

  "Perhaps the second summoner should have been more careful," Atrocious said, not a bit concerned.

  "It is true," Crispin said. "Reed used her powers to recover between binges. I at least make proper use of them."

  "How on earth can one steal powers," Rogette interjected. "Seems to me, you either have them or you don't. Stealing powers is like stealing someone's nose."

  "Precisely," Ayla said. "They are an integral part of a person, only able to be taken by force."

  "Reed felt nothing. She was entirely unconscious," Crispin said. "I think she will be better off without them. They were always a burden to her."

  "Oh, so you think you did her a favor by taking what was rightfully hers?"

  "Nothing is rightfully anyone's," Crispin said. "Even life is tenuous. We must all take what we can."

  "A miserly and miserable outlook," Atrocious said. "I like it."

  "What has gotten into you of late?" Ayla's brow creased, furrowing into a half dozen divots of disapproval.

  "Old age," Atrocious said. "It is in my bones. I am crumbling, clinging to this great rock. I must hoard all I can 'ere the end." She swiped the wine Rogette had bought and held it close to her chest. "Mine," she declared. Before anyone could correct her, she grasped a hunk of cheese that had sat upon the table and wedged the large corner into her face. "Minpfff, she said, glaring territoriality out over the golden curve.

  "What would you have me do, Mother of All?" Crispin addressed the question to Atrocious, who answered the question only after thoughtfully gumming the cheese for a while longer.

  "Beat the witch," Atrocious said. "She is impetuous and full of folly."

  "Do not think of it," Ayla warned Crispin. "This woman you seem to so admire is nothing but an aged miscreant."

  "And you her faithful servant," Crispin said.

  "I her lover," Ayla corrected.

  "Her lover." The smooth skin of Crispin's face crumpled. "One... hardly dares imagine what such advanced age must do to the mortal frame."

  "Would you like to see?" Atrocious reached for her robes.

  "No!" Ayla put a firm hand on Atrocious' wrist. "You will keep your clothing on." She turned to Crispin. "And you will stop encouraging Atrocious in her acts of rebellion. My patience is already running exceptionally thin where you are concerned."

  A little smirk played across Crispin's lips. Triumph was back in the pale blue eyes. "The summoner will not allow me to be harmed."

  "You think not?" Ayla let Atrocious go and instead took Crispin by the wrist. "Atrocious is not as Reed was, using her powers for every little thing. She has used them once and once only. She will certainly not lift a finger to save the hide of one who drained her successor."

  Crispin's eyes locked on the hand on her wrist. It was clear she did not approve of being handled in such a fashion. She tried to pull away, but Ayla had a very firm grip and her struggles were for naught.

  Ayla drew her captive closer, until they were once again nose to nose. Crispin was perhaps a little taller than the witch, but somehow still ended up shorter due to the cringing.

  "You have already forgotten your place," Ayla said softly. "I think you need a reminder."

  "What is it you threaten me with?" Crispin asked the question boldly, hoarse voice giving away her fear. "Will you shackle me? Beat me? Will you lock me away inside a prison?"

  "Worse," Ayla said. "I will take the hairbrush sitting upon my night stand, and I will belabor you with it until you abandon this insubordination."

  Surprise, concern and curiosity dashed across Crispin's face. "A hairbrush?"

  "A hair brush," Ayla said, leading her captive up the stairs. "The back of the brush, to be precise."

  "The back of the brush," Crispin said. "How quaint."

  It was not quite so quaint an affair when Crispin was inside Ayla and Atrocious' room being pulled to a prone position across the ample lap of the witch. No struggle was put up, perhaps because Crispin could barely comprehend what was occurring.

  Ayla first smoothed her hand across the heavy cloth of Crispin's breeches, then bought the back of the brush down with a hearty slap that echoed about the room. Crispin's high pitched yowl could be heard in the street outside, shrill and desperate.

  "That is most unpleasant!"

/>   "You have been most unpleasant," Ayla said, wrapping her arm more firmly about Crispin's slim waist. It was quite simple for the witch to keep a hold of the elf. Though long limbs were scissoring back and forth, the taught, tight cheeks were locked firmly over the rise of her thigh. There Crispin was caught and subjected to repeated swats delivered with the back of the brush.

  Ayla was not unkind. She certainly did not employ the full force of her arm. It could have been exceedingly unpleasant for Crispin, instead it was hot and it was prickly and it was just painful enough to make the elf's hips dance back and forth.

  "No sooner had you agreed to your defeat than you sought to overthrow me by manipulating Atrocious," Ayla said, laying the brush firmly across Crispin's left cheek. "You did not surrender at all. I think you still have not." She followed the statement with a whacking swat to the vulnerable right cheek.

  Palms pressing against the floor, pale blonde hair falling about her face, Crispin tried and failed to be eloquent.

  "It is in my nature," she said. "I cannot help it. Power is attracted to me."

  "You are attracted to it," Ayla said. "Like a moth to a flame. But moths can be burned, elf. Be careful, lest you find yourself dragging across the floor with singed wings."

  Setting her mouth in a firm line, Ayla landed the brush in quick popping succession, slapping a song of wood against cloth for all the world to hear. Outside in the street, a passing drunk stopped and danced a little jig to the beat.

  As for Crispin, poor powerful Crispin, the slapping and the whacking was all too much to bear. The elf began squirming and complaining at the top of her lungs, making threats and promises in the same breath, all contingent upon one thing: the cessation of the reckoning.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Whilst Crispin got her comeuppance, the Ratling leaders were off in a cosy blanket burrow, curled up with one another in a platonic coiling of limbs for the purposes of shared body warmth. It was a cold night and there was little in the way of heat in the safe house.

  "Your body will not withstand the fights it will take to earn the coin to get those Ratlings free," Reed said from her position nuzzled under Rog's chin. "I suggest we handle this the old fashioned way."

  "And what is that?"

  "A jail break. We go in there, we open the cell, we let them out. Done and done."

  "Done until we are all captured and sent before the magistrate."

  "I have no intention of being captured. Do you?"

  "Well, no," Rog said. "But breaking them out doesn't clear their record. They'll be at the same risk they are now, just with a little more room to move."

  He had a point. Reed had to concede that. "We don't have the money, Rog. And we're not going to get it in any legal kind of way. Maybe you could ask Granny Rogette."

  "I really don't want to do that," Rog frowned.

  "I don't see what choice we have," Reed persisted. "She has gold. We need gold."

  "And what happens next time we need gold? Do we go to her coffers?"

  "Let's just worry about this time," Reed said. "Let's solve this problem. Then we'll work on some income generation ideas. Maybe we could offer shopkeepers a scheme where they pay us money and we make sure nobody robs them."

  "And if they don't give us money?"

  Reed shrugged. "Then we rob them."

  Rog snorted and nudged her gently. "We're trying to get away from being a pack of criminals, Reed."

  "Well that raises another question. What do we do with these three when we get them out? You want to beat them?"

  "Ratlings don't beat other Ratlings," Rog said. "We'll just..."

  "... tell them we're disappointed in them? Ask them to write apology notes?"

  Rog made a soft growling sound. "Quit teasing me, Reed."

  "They deserve a beating," Reed said. "They deserve a damn good whipping."

  "Mhm," Rog said. "And if that's what they deserve, then what do you deserve?"

  "I haven't gone on a drunken rampage," Reed said, quite indignant. "All I did was explore my consciousness."

  "Explored it until you lost it." Rog almost sounded stern. Almost.

  "We're not talking about me here. We're talking about these little beggars who've managed to get themselves into serious trouble. Serious trouble calls for serious responses. I know you don't like being a dominator, but groups need leaders and you're ours." She yawned, squirmed around, and rested her head on his bicep. "I don't envy your job, Rog. Not one bit."

  He cast a sidelong glance down at her and a soft smile spread slowly across his face as Reed closed her eyes and started drifting off to sleep, her body pressed against his in trusting repose. "It's not all bad."

  *****

  "I don't see what the big deal is."

  A bedraggled wretch with blondeish hair and blueish eyes spoke up, jutting a sharp chin at Rog and Reed. It was the morning which followed the night before, and a meeting of the Ratlings had been called to discuss means by which the three might be released from prison. All the ratlings who could be bothered coming had come. It was not as many as Rog or Reed had hoped.

  "The problem, is that we don't have the resources to bail you lot out when you get caught," Reed said. "So don't damn well get caught."

  There was a general unrest and unease from the assembled ratlings. Nobody said anything, not because they agreed with Reed, but because they knew well enough not to disagree with her out loud. Ratlings who run afoul of Reed had a tendency to end up in awkward, unpleasant, and generally awful situations. It wasn't that she was in charge so much as she tended to exert her influence whether people liked it or not. Fortunately for the ratlings, her habit of imbibing various plant products kept her quiet more often than not.

  But Reed was now off the lief and on the ratlings like a hot, prickly, angry rash.

  Rog had made the announcement at first. He'd done it nicely of course, explained about the trouble with the ratlings in prison, explained how it was going to cost a whole lot to get them out, how he was going to have to try to somehow find the funds to get them out.

  The ratlings had listened more or less and made vaguely the right sort of noises, but Reed wasn't satisfied with that. It seemed to her that the ratlings weren't taking matters seriously enough. It seemed to her that they didn't much care what Rog had to say as long as things carried on as they had done and they could keep doing as they pleased.

  "We are a community," Reed said. "Everybody has to pull their own weight. This isn't just a place to doss down between crime sprees. Everybody is going to have to chip in to get those three out. Empty your pockets. We're taking up a collection."