It was as if a great mist of confusion and sensual indulgence had infected them all like a sickness.
Neither the powerful nor the poor were spared. Nor was the erotic madness confined to any particular quarter of the town, or associated with diet or consumption of spirits, from what Pentandra could determine. The madness not only managed to pull people out of their long-held roles in society, in some cases it allowed hidden desires to manifest.
More than one poor soul found themselves erotically experimenting far from their social class, age, or even their gender. Narasi culture was uneasy with homosexuality, in general, but there was just as much of it in Vorone as in any human society.
More than one man or woman discovered that their attraction and sexual fulfillment in the arms of someone of the same gender was frighteningly comforting or passionate. And in the many orgies that broke out across Vorone, rarely did the presence of mind occur to refuse congress simply because it was with a fellow man or woman. To many, it was a shock and a surprise. To others, it was the revelation of long-held feelings that lay unexpressed until brought to flower by Ishi’s Night.
Her own magic was no protection against the phenomenon, Pentandra quickly discovered. She summoned protective spells as soon as she realized that there was something afoot, after she and her husband retired from the Masque that night. Each warding worked as intended . . . but nothing could stop the irresistible force of Ishi’s unique working.
The Goddess of Love and Beauty . . . and Sex had dedicated tremendous energies to the process, and it took hold with divine purpose. Once it was active, stopping it was as pointless as shielding your face from a violent storm. While her protections gave her some small comfort, like a hand in front of her face in a tempest, it did nothing to keep her from getting soaked.
It was a subtle effect, she recalled later. The sort of thing that crept up on everyone, keeping their senses fogged as one small social inhibition after another was shed and overlooked. It seemed completely reasonable for everyone to watch a handsome young guardsman strip off his shirt at the ball and dance lustily for everyone’s entertainment. Fifteen minutes later, when one of the Maidens decided the temperature was too warm for her gown and stripped to her shift, it was accepted as equally reasonable.
By the time Lady Bertine’s sagging boobs were out, she was hardly the first to bare her breasts or remove their clothes entirely. Though none seemed to rise to her level of enthusiasm, Pentandra noted wryly.
Walking back to their chambers upstairs above her office was a journey fraught with temptation, Pentandra realized, as being alone with Arborn seemed to demand her entire attention to the exclusion of any other worry. The couple paused repeatedly on the short walk back, engaging and breaking off just shy of fulfilling their desires in the empty corridors. It was an intensely passionate walk, one in which every encounter with someone else – be they servant, courtier, or guardsman – became an exercise in open flirtation.
When they pulled two of Count Salgo’s men from their mutual embrace in front of her office door, Pentandra knew that resistance to the spell was pointless. Indeed, the more she struggled to maintain her hold on her virtue, the more exciting the prospect of tossing it to the winds became. She could no more elude the power of the spell than she could forego oxygen, she realized. The attempt, her muddled brain insisted, was just as ludicrous. It was in her best interest to cooperate with the spell’s inevitable conclusion.
Besides, Arborn was right there, she reminded herself, as he led her up the staircase by her hand. She had one of the most handsome and muscular men in the duchy right here in front of her, eagerly disrobing as they made their way toward their bedchamber. She was the undisguised envy of most of the women at court for how devoted he was to her, alone.
And she was married to him! She was not only entitled to bed this magnificent creature, she was morally obligated to, she reasoned, as his under tunic landed on the top step of the stairs. While Pentandra had always heard that marital sex nearly ceased after a time, a theory borne out by her parent’s miserable union and frequent infidelities, she could think of no more satisfying future than being topped by Arborn’s powerful body every night for the rest of her life. The pure excitement of being married . . . without her mother being involved in the slightest . . . was a potent aphrodisiac.
She shucked off her slippers as Arborn tossed his boots into the corner. Alurra had her own quarters, now, and they had the chamber entirely to themselves. Not that she would have cared if the Arcane Orders convened a gallery to watch them -- they were past the point of propriety. Pentandra bit her lip hungrily as she watched her husband – her husband! – peeling his hose off as he sat on the edge of the bed.
She was a master at the science of desire, a scholar of sex and magic . . . and the union of the two in divine strength was frightening to her. She was losing control, she realized. And that was Ishi’s specialty.
Those first few hours after they left the masque were a blur to Pentandra as they were to everyone else. It was as if they’d entered a bizarre dream at the dance and just never quite woke up. As Arborn led her to their large bed and pulled the canopy curtains open, she shivered as she began unfastening her gown.
Pentandra and Arborn’s passions were volcanic, each touch and caress filled with urgent intensity. Every shred of resistance to the indulgence faded in her mind as his kisses seemed to leave a trail of lightning from the back of her tiny ears to the curve of her neck. Every protest her rational brain made was instantly overruled by the insistence of her more animalistic nature.
Arborn, too, was affected by the spell deeply, despite his conservative upbringing – or perhaps because of it. The look of passion in his eye was consuming. He looked at her like a hungry man eyes a fine meal, as if he had been starving for this kind of female attention his entire life . . . and now he was loose in the kitchen. He nearly threw Pentandra on the bed through the curtains and landed on top of her a moment later, naked and seeking.
She knew that this was a foolish thing to do – capitulate to Ishi’s scheme. But she had no way to resist. Her mind simply could not marshal the discipline needed to overcome the incessant need in her loins. There was, for the moment, simply nothing more important than bedding her husband as thoroughly as she could.
Ishi’s mandate was clear. She had no choice. Pentandra succumbed to the blissful inevitable.
But it did not stop with that first ferocious coupling. As soon as they were done they were preparing themselves for the next indulgence of exquisite pleasure and sensual exploration. The sun rose, and Ishi’s Night continued. Throughout the day, and into the twilight, the spell raged on and the Voroni writhed in divine pleasure.
For two days straight Pentandra kept Arborn confined to their bedchamber and made no secret of why, propriety long ago abandoned. For those two days they explored every facet of their union, including some things Pentandra had vowed to save for a future when the fascination of their youth might fade. Nothing was forbidden during that time. In between frenetic trysts they dozed or napped, but nothing seemed to deter their most powerful sexual urges from resurging again and again.
But eventually things began to degrade.
At first Alurra, her maid or the servants would fetch food and wine for them in their enchanted love nest as they replenished themselves. Every time they considered slowing down, taking a break, getting some air, or other excuse to stop their passions, a gleam would overcome one or the other and soon they were back at it again. Time became meaningless, as individual pleasures stretched like eternities for the lovers.
Pentandra found herself drawing magical power from the experience almost out of boredom, the fourth time around (or was it the fifth?). It wasn’t as if Arborn’s performance wasn’t captivating, or even novel -- but the part of her brain that did magic recognized so much wasted potential around it and began building power almost by instinct.
It was power without purpose, without aim or focus, but it wa
s a simple task to dip the bucket of her mind into the freely-flowing energy that surrounded them as a natural consequence of their passion. Though she was no longer control of either body or mind, doing such spells seemed easy enough. It almost made part of her feel better that she had some little control in the situation. In more lucid moments she realized the danger they were all in from such a raw expression of magical power, but then her desires would stir and thoughts of danger quickly receded.
At some point she even summoned Everkeen to try to break herself out of the spell. She was just casting some basic thaumaturgical spells with the baculus when Arborn’s lips met her neck, right there, and his hand snaked around to lay upon her hipbone provocatively, just there.
A wave of id-fueled energy overwhelmed her senses after that, and her spell failed, forgotten, as she was distracted by Arborn’s many manly qualities. The only part of her brain that seemed interested in magic was the part gathering power from all of the sex she was having.
A few hours later she awoke from a stupor and found her baculus being employed in a way she doubted Minalan had in mind when he’d designed it.
Then she remembered who she was thinking about, the shape he’d forged it into, and his general humor . . . and she burst out in hysterical laughter. Of course he’d intended it to be used that way, at least theoretically.
After two days the servants stopped appearing. Hunger and thirst – and the dire need for another bath – forced the newlyweds from their bower and into the real world once again. Pentandra assumed that their absence had been noted, perhaps discussed at court in whispers . . . but in the wake of the tumultuous masque she had been granted some leeway in the performance of her duties.
She did not expect to see the palace nearly deserted when she woke up . . . nor did she expect to find the few people she did encounter still locked in the throes of passion days after the Masque. But wherever the two of them wandered that’s exactly what they saw.
With a growing feeling of anxiety in her throat, Pentandra made Arborn purposefully not look at her as they strolled, lest he find her too enticing again and stop the tenuous flow of rational thought she’d grasped with a caress or a kiss. Something was dangerously wrong, here, she knew. Whatever divine sorcery Ishi had been planning was well underway . . . and she barely had the capacity to summon a magelight, much less a credible arcane defense.
“Oh, Ishi’s saggy, wrinkled tits,” she swore, imagining the goddess’ dugs in just such a condition for one moment of pure feminine anger. “She really did it,” she whispered, as the two of them stepped around a man and woman . . . and another woman . . . entwined in a pile, naked, in the corridor. Without clothing to determine station or status, it was impossible to tell if the three lovers were noble, common, or a combination of both. Once clothing came off, they were all equally as naked as Trygg’s children.
“Who did?” Arborn asked, confused. He was acting half-drunk, though she knew he’d had far less wine than her over the last few days. “And what did they do?”
“Someone -- someone extremely powerful -- cast a spell, presumably over the entire town of Vorone,” she answered, her throat sore and hoarse. “A love spell. No, more properly a lust spell. And it’s . . . ongoing,” she said, as she tried to look up from an old man skillfully pleasuring a naked young woman with his mouth on a bench in the corridor. The lass appeared as properly enchanted at the attention as the old coot was at the opportunity. “There really is no other explanation,” she said, simply.
“Who would do such a thing?” Arborn asked, sternly. “Which of our enemies?”
“Silly boy, this was not the work of an enemy. On the contrary, this is the work of a goddess. Ishi, herself.”
There was a long silence as they trudged down the corridor. “Really? Ishi? The Narasi love goddess?”
“Isn’t she the Kasari love goddess, too?”
“Depends on the Kasar,” he grunted. “But as much as we have one, we use the Narasi pantheon.”
“Well, she’s here, in Vorone, in person, and she’s taken an especial interest in the affairs of this court. Literally,” she said, as she heard another chorus of moans.
When she looked, despite herself, she saw an eager old dame, naked as the day she was born, entertaining a man who could have been her husband (but who was not) and a lad, young enough to be her son (which Pentandra hoped against) simultaneously in the doorway to the main hall. The old woman displayed both enthusiasm and skills few might have suspected. Pentandra forced her eyes up to the ceiling before she continued walking. She had the strangest feeling she could do better than the woman, if she were in the same position . . .
Stop it! some part of her brain screamed at her. She’s winning when you do that!
“Winning what?” Pentandra asked herself out loud.
“What?” asked Arborn, dully.
“That’s what we need to find out,” Pentandra said, sagely. Then she tripped over the ankle of a young man who was cuddled up with another young man, and found herself sprawled between them.
“Quick!” she yelped. “Get me up!”
“Are you hurt?” Arborn asked, alarmed.
“I will be if they wake up! Do you see the size on that one?” she asked, pointing incredulously. “I thought it was part of his costume, at first! I’m no expert – well, actually, I am – but that young fellow has some talent!”
“We . . . we need to . . . get out of here,” Arborn decided, as he looked from the lust-stricken face of his wife to the overly blessed young man. “Quickly,” he agreed. He stooped down and picked up Pentandra in his oak-like arms and carried her away as if she were a toy.
“You’re . . . so . . . strong!” she said, admiringly, as she gazed at his bicep in a daze.
“Pentandra,” he gasped, and not from the burden of carrying her. They had arrived at the main hall . . . and discovered where all the servants had disappeared to.
A writhing layer of bodies littered the floor from one end of the hall to the other. Clothes, pillows, tapestries and linens had been strewn everywhere, and the naked limbs of dozens of people were arrayed upon them as they sought the pleasures of the bed in a mass.
“Huh,” Pentandra said with a single guffaw. “Now this is a party!” she said, shaking her head in awe. “If I knew that the Alshari celebrated Spring like this—”
“Where can we go? A temple of Trygg?” Arborn asked, a hint of desperation in his voice. It occurred to her that for a straight-shooting Kasari boy, the raw display of carnal lust on a wholesale level would be more than overwhelming. Even after their lusty experiences of the last few days.
“Silly boy,” Pentandra sighed exhaustively, wrapping her arm around his big neck. “Trygg can’t help with this. She’s a mother goddess. This was caused by a sex goddess. But don’t worry,” she added, drunkenly. “In my expert opinion, a goodly portion of those ladies out there have a chance of being in that condition, come the morn. Except for that one,” she said, pointing out a stringy-haired skinny girl who was making the most astonishing face. “You can’t get pregnant that way,” she assured, as the girl looked up blankly at her. “Trust me!”
“Then . . . where?” the big, half-naked ranger asked, confused, as if the world were ending and he was seeking refuge. “Where can we be . . . safe from this . . . from this?” he asked, desperately, gesturing to the orgy underway.
“I don’t know if we can, Husband,” she said apologetically, biting her lip. How could you escape your own libido? Especially when he was so damned cute when he looked helpless, like a little boy who just needed a little attention . . .
“Pentandra! Stop it!” he reproved. “Think!” he demanded. “Where can we go -- what can we do -- to be protected from this?”
Pentandra really did try to stop her libido from ruling her mind, for a moment, and tried to focus on something – anything – to force that. Unfortunately, her eye landed on a particularly intriguing quartet attempting a particularly difficult position.
She felt her concentration slip away, to be replaced by envy.
“Why under heaven would you want to miss a party like this?” she asked, suddenly of the opinion that an orgy was just what Pentandra needed, despite the painful protests her busy loins were already making.
“Because . . . because this is . . . wrong,” Arborn said, shaking his head. “This is dangerous. A distraction. There could be . . . enemies . . . goblins . . . dragons . . .” he said, trailing off as a woman of around thirty years sauntered by, her plump buttocks beckoning everyone in range for their attention.
“Not to mention unintended pregnancy, infidelity, and acute embarrassment,” Pentandra said, struggling to maintain a coherent thought that didn’t involve satisfying her urges. “No, you’re right, Husband, there is something amiss . . . something . . . magnificently . . . amiss . . .” she railed off, as two young men followed the older woman into the erotic fray.
“Damn it, Wife!” Arborn growled, dropping her to her feet and catching her shoulders. He forced her to look him in the eyes. “We have a crisis, here! A magical crisis! And you’re the bloody Court Wizard!” he snarled.
Court Wizard: Book Eight Of The Spellmonger Series Page 66