by Ryan Erin
She smiled. "I'll take my time, then."
"Out of the question!"
The priestess' name was Nara, and she was irate. "The reptilians HATE elves! They'll kill her on sight and then kill us for trying to smuggle her across!"
"I can appear human if I need," Chyra replied.
"Not to them!"
"I can cover my ears..."
"It's your smell! Every lizardman within a half mile of our caravan will come running..."
"I have spells that will mask my scent, make my eyes look more human..."
"Our relationship with the lizardmen is based on trust, and a mutual respect for the Gods. If we're caught trying to deceive them, they won’t let us carry out our holy mission!"
"You deceive them all the time," Denham interjected, "For me."
Nara shot him a defensive glance. "Delivering messages to your spies is dangerous enough without carrying an elf with us!"
"And yet you seem perfectly able to take my gold for delivering those messages."
The priestess turned to him. "Those are donations to the church...not payment for services rendered."
"Well if you'd like to keep those donations coming, you'll need to take her with you."
"I can also make my own donation," Chyra said lifting the purse of gold coins that she took from the nymph's pool.
The priestess' face suddenly took on a very shrewd expression. "How much of a donation?"
"Thirty gold talens."
Nara almost swallowed. "Even if you could pass for human...you'd have to convert to the faith."
"Well, that won't happen. But I could go as high as thirty-seven..."
"Fifty," the priestess responded. "And you wear the robes of an Acolyte, or no deal."
"Done," Chyra replied, and opened her purse.
The priestess was so intent on watching Chyra count out the coins that she completely missed the glance between elf and captain.
Chyra spoke the words of binding, and the compound of volcanic ash, nightshade and sanguine moss exploded into a ring of magic, engulfing her in the electric sensation of shape change. Shockwaves radiated through her body. Muscle extended. Skin stretched and filled with new flesh. Her ears tingled.
When it was all over, Denham held out the mirror to her.
The scent of ash from Mt. Chthon still hung in the air as the priestess, Nara, touched a hand from her lips to her heart, a gesture of self protection in her faith.
Chyra looked at her reflection through narrower eyes. She touched her small, rounded ears, never able to get used to how strange they looked.
"You've put some meat on, too," Denham remarked.
Chyra handed the mirror back, running a hand down the front of her body. The soft gown of a priestess of Aurora hugged her more tightly than it had a moment before. "It's more convincing," she replied. Her hips were wider. Her ass was fuller. Her breasts were larger, nipples pressing hard against the white fabric, and threatening to fall out of the garment if she were to move too suddenly. "It's fascinating to walk in a human's body every once in awhile," she said with a smile. "Every movement feels like a declaration."
"You can't bring your spell reagents with you," Nara interrupted. "Or your weapons."
"Of course," Chyra replied. "But I will need to bring this sword." She motioned to the wrapped blade lying against the bed.
"Out of the question! There'll be at least two checkpoints once we cross into reptilian territory, and they WILL search our wagons."
"I'll take care of it," Chyra said with a note of kind finality.
All five Disciples of Aurora were surprised that they hadn't been stopped upon crossing the battlefront. They said what Chyra assumed were regular prayers over the dead as they rolled through the carnage, but they appeared more surprised by the fact that no one seemed to care about their presence there. It was clear that a pair of lizardman scouts had been dispatched on the backs of their reptilian mounts to follow them, but they kept their distance, and seemed to be only marginally interested.
The first two days passed with almost nothing of note happening at all...at least outside of the wagon.
Inside was a different story.
The Disciples argued constantly. They had obviously spent too much time together - too long without interaction from the rest of society. Topics ranged from questions of faith, to questions of who got to eat what, to outright character assaults, usually involving who was taking who's side in any given conflict. There were psalm readings every hour. There were prayers before food, prayers before sleep, prayers whenever they crossed a stream or came to a crossroads. Once, they even prayed for the strength to keep praying. Then, at dusk every single day, the interior of the wagon became a ritualistic orgy. Between Nara, two other women and two men, everyone was required to participate, and dinner couldn't begin until every member of the faith had reached climax.
It was depressing to watch.
All five had long ago become fluent in what it took to make one another orgasm. It had degenerated over the years into a passionless shorthand of sex, joylessly performed out of rote memorization.
And not once did any of them ever speak to Chyra.
She wasn't included in their prayers, their fights, or their lovemaking, and she was overjoyed at the end of each day when they would finally fall asleep, leaving her to the silence of the night.
They had forbade Chyra from exiting the wagon for any reason, terrified that she would do something to antagonize the keen-eyed lizardmen, but by the end of the third day, she couldn't stand it anymore.
Despite the downgrade in her ears, Chyra could still tell when the last of the group fell asleep, and as soon as that happened, she silently opened one of the windows and climbed onto the roof.
The cool night air was intoxicating, and Chyra could finally hear the sound of trees talking. The stars flickered through patches in the clouds.
She wanted so desperately to leap off the wagon and into the trees, stretching her legs as she bound from branch to branch, taking in the night, but even if that weren't a completely dangerous idea in unfriendly territory, her human form wasn't capable of it.
Then the door to the wagon opened, and someone stepped out onto the gravel road. Chyra prepared for the lecture, especially when she realized that it was Nara.
The young woman climbed up to the top of the wagon, and sat down next to her.
Chyra waited patiently.
Finally, Nara spoke.
"Are the two sentries still behind us?" she asked.
Chyra nodded. "They're camped by the road about five minutes back."
"Can they hear us?"
"Not a chance. See us? Yes. Their eyes are adapted for complete subterranean darkness. Starlight is more than enough for them to see us, even from that distance."
Nara nodded, looking behind them in the direction of the lizardmen. "You can see at night too, can't you?"
"That's right," Chyra said with a half smile. "Not as well as they can, but well enough to see the living world."
"And what have you seen for the last three days?"
Chyra glanced out at the abandoned farm country, wondering how best to answer the question. She leaned back on her elbows. "I think you all need to put some distance between one another for a little while."
Nara almost laughed out loud. "...Yes...the uh, calling can be, well...trying...on people. In our effort to bear witness to..."
"Nara, I think perhaps I'm done hearing about human religion for the night."
Nara stopped talking. She was a little taken aback by the politeness in Chyra's voice, especially considering that it wasn't a request. The priestess folded her arms, partially for defense, but probably also because the evening breeze was a little chillier in open country.
After a long silence, she looked over her shoulder at where Chyra was leaning. "So...tell me about yourself."
Chyra smiled politely, and looked up at where the Secret Star moved through the sky. "What do want to know?" sh
e asked.
"What's it like...where you come from?"
"It's paradise. Or at least, that's what I was told. If you've never been to the Sacred Grove, it's amazing and magical. If you grew up there, then it's just another place where things are expected of you and people try to frighten you against leaving."
"Someone once told me the Sacred Grove protected all the truth and secrets of the world."
"There are plenty of secrets there, but I never found anything that sounded like truth."
"You don't sound like you miss it."
Chyra actually had to think about that for a moment. "I miss little things. The smell of the morning dew on the leaves...picking cherries in the spring...the way my back fit into a particular rock by the brook...but as it turns out...an elf is either born with the capacity for delusion, or they're physically repelled by it..."
Just then, a brilliant blast of fire appeared in the sky, far to the North.
Chyra sat forward, straining her eyes to see. "There's a Dragon out there...patrolling the Backlands."
Nara didn't seem surprised at all. "The lizardmen call him the 'Azure Master.'"
"Sounds right. Lizardmen flock to dragons like moths to magic."
The priestess nodded. "They worship him like a conduit to their scaly Gods. It's why the lizardmen came here to begin with...to settle the land beneath Teewinot Spire. We may be close enough to make out the spire against the clouds..."
Nara pointed toward the eastern horizon, and Chyra squinted. Even with her superior eyes, it was tough to catch in the dark, but it was there...rising up like a needle against the skyline...a lone point amidst the sloping mountains.
Chyra turned to the priestess. "The dragon lives in the citadel atop the spire?"
"Of course. The Sage keeps him as his guardian."
Chyra turned back toward the horizon and the distant beast soaring across the stars. "Men don't keep dragons," she said. "It's the other way around."
"That's not where you're going, is it?" Nara asked.
Chyra didn't want to actually say it.
Nara turned to her. "You'll die there."
"I hope not."
"The lizardmen won't let any human get within a mile of that mountain. And even if you could slip through, climbing those cliffs is impossible, and the dragon patrols the skies."
"There's a way in. There has to be. After all, how does the Sage eat?"
"Sorcery."
Chyra smiled at Nara's naivety. "Eating magic leaves one hungry."
The priestess rolled her eyes. "The lizardmen raise cattle for the dragon to eat. Maybe it shares some of it with the Sage?"
"Maybe. What does he drink?"
"How do you mean?"
"Where does the Sage get his wine?"
"How do you know he drinks wine?"
"Ever met a learned man who didn't?"
Nara actually smiled. "I hope you make it there, Chyra. But either way, I'll pray for you."
Chyra smiled politely. Despite the righteous implication, it was the first nice thing Nara had said to her since they'd met.
Chyra had not quite fallen asleep when the horses lurched forward in fear. Thickly muscled lizardmen yanked open the door to the wagon, surprising even Chyra. She hadn't heard them approaching at all.
Nara and her friends jumped awake. The youngest of them even screamed, but she was quickly quieted with a scrambling and hushing from the others.
"We're only missionaries!" Nara said, but not in the language of the Five Kingdoms. She was speaking in Goblyn, which must be the closest thing to a common language between humans and lizardmen. "We've passed through your territory many times before, and we are completely unarmed!"
Chyra could taste the faintest trace of magic on the night air, which explained why she'd missed the sound of approaching claws. Her assumption was verified when a somewhat thinner lizardman stepped into the wagon. A circle of horns protruded from his head, and his scales were sparkling with frost, making him a shimmering white color with only sparse accents of green beneath. The leather clothing he wore could have been human hide, and was embroidered with runic symbols surrounding a chest piece that was a rich blue, sparkling with tiny shimmery flecks. The central piece hummed in a deep baritone voice, detectable only to her elven ears. It was a real dragon scale. This cold reptilian was their Speaker of the Deep - a lizardman sorcerer.
He looked each of them over with harsh, alien eyes until he finally came to Chyra.
Cold mist puffed from his nostrils as if he alone were in a frozen cave, and he stepped over Nara to inspect Chyra more closely.
A clawed hand grabbed her by the shoulder, pulling her to her feet.
"Don't resist!" Nara warned, trying to hide the fear in her voice.
Chyra looked away as a long, scaly finger touched the top of her ear. Cold breath rolled out of the long, toothy snout before the Speaker of the Deep leaned in, inhaling the scent of Chyra's neck.
Chyra tried not to glance at the creature's knife, mere inches away from her hand. She'd be able to get the blade away from him, cut his throat open, and probably hit the large reptilian in the door, but she probably wouldn't kill it. Then the lizardmen outside would just spear them to death through the door.
The frosty lizard mage tugged the fabric off Chyra's shoulders, opening the front of her robe. Her larger, human sized breasts slid out, one after the other. Her nipples hardened from the chilly breath of the creature as it sniffed around her torso.
One way or another, everything was about to be over.
The scaly head rose to meet her eyes.
Chyra was far older than the reptile, but it wasn't young. It was also cunning, and had learned alien things in secret chambers far under ground. The lizardmen were an old race who had changed very little over the millennia, and though they were a part of the natural world, it wasn't the part that Chyra was so intimately connected to. She couldn't read its cold eyes. She couldn't predict what it was going to do.
She had no weapons, she had no spell reagents, and she had no friends or creatures of the wyld within earshot. If the lizardman decided to eat her, stab her, ensorcel her, or take her prisoner, there would be nothing she could do to stop him. Chyra didn't need to appear frightened. She was frightened, and even if he couldn't smell her elven scent, he'd be able to smell her fear.
Which was a good thing. It was more human.
The lizard mage squinted at her for a torturously long moment. Then, it turned and exited the carriage. It gave some sort of order to the assembled lizardmen, and an instant later, the reptilians were climbing inside, grabbing the priests and priestesses.
"Just go with them!" Nara managed to say before a large warrior picked her up by the arm. "Don't try and resist!"
Chyra pulled her robe closed again and threw back the bedroll she'd been sleeping on.
Loud hissing sounds came from the warriors as they drew swords.
"Chyra!" Nara screamed.
Chyra slowly raised the wrapped effigy of Her Lady of Aurora from under the mat, and showed it to the crouched lizard men. "I am not permitted to leave this behind," she said.
"Sister Chyra!" Nara shouted. "Leave the damn effigy!"
Chyra didn't look away from the lizardman's eyes. "I will not...abandon...my duties as a priestess." She had said it in Goblynspeak, using the tense that she had heard Hobgoblyns use when referring to anything sacred in their weird religion.
The lizardman's tongue flicked through the air, as if trying to smell for lies.
The bag over Chyra's head made it impossible to see where they were being led, but it didn't matter - the trees were telling her all she needed to know.
The rest of the humans were several paces behind her, also hooded, with only a small contingent of reptilian soldiers marching them across the Southern Crescent. The sun was about to come up. The dragon was circling far to the East. There were lizardmen for miles in most directions.
Then the sound of the trees suddenly fell s
ilent.
Chyra turned her head to the side, an echo filling her ears that could only mean one thing.
They were being taken underground.
A handful of frightened gasps from behind her meant that the others were just coming to the same conclusion.
Chyra's throat closed.
Elves as a whole were not comfortable beneath the Earth.
Chyra, herself, was terrified of it.
There was no access to the living world - no view of the stars. It was the domain of dirtier things and things that craved wealth and metal. It was where dark beings slithered and things forgotten waited for release.
She gripped the effigy of Aurora tightly as her mind frantically clawed for options. She might be able to fight her way back outside, and that being the case, there was a chance she could escape into the wild...but they were in farm country, and the trees weren't dense enough to hide her. That could also mean the death of her traveling companions. If Chyra was cut down, her spells would dissolve, and it would become apparent that the Missionaries of Aurora were trafficking in spies. But the exact same fate awaited them underground. Chyra's magic was fueled by the living world, and if she spent too long apart from it, her spells of concealment would wear off from lack of contact. And it was an almost certainty that the cold lizard had guessed her true nature, since there was no other reason she could think of for being led underground, if not to be cut off from all sources of her power.
But it was academic in the end, since as soon as the magic of concealment wore off of her, so too would the effigy of Aurora transform back into the demon sword.
And then it would be in the hands of the lizardmen.
Clawed fingers pressed into her back, shoving her deeper into the tunnel.
After what seemed like hours of descent through twisting corridors and endless staircases, across echoing caverns and over rushing subterranean rivers, the lizardmen finally stopped and forced Chyra to her knees.
She gripped the effigy tightly. She had purposefully enchanted the sword's disguise so that apart from seeming like a harmless and ceremonial effigy, it also appeared to be as worthless as possible when it came to its construction. Instead of the weapon's mysterious ashen metal, the effigy of Lady Aurora looked to be carved from a single piece of dense wood - unadorned with any sort of gold inlay, gemstones, or anything else that might make it worth stealing.