Temple
Of
Cocidius
-Book II-
Temple of Cocidius II is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual places, events, or persons living or deceased, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Maxx Whittaker
Copyright © 2018 Saving Throw Ink
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Publishing Partner,” at the email address below.
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First Printing October 2018
BOOK II
-The Temple Garden-
Sunlight through the columns burns behind my eyes, waking me just as it crests the horizon. Nights here are fucking short, or I was beyond exhausted from the first two chambers. It feels like I closed my eyes just minutes ago.
I don’t feel ready to drag from the blankets. But knowing I have a time limit puts some spring in my step. So does the idea of revenge, and the added responsibility of seeing the artifacts, the women here, freed. I don’t doubt my ability, but for the first time I really feel the weight of it all. My brother Tagan would say – I try not think of what he’d say. It’s too hard.
I dress and gather my pack and start through the garden in search of someone.
The Gardener, usually hovering or offering her cryptic wisdom, is conspicuously absent. I’m almost to the terrace when I see Freya...in the pond. Her back rests against the edge, elbows perched on the stony bank. Her tits bob gently on lapping ripples.
I grin, happy to see her. “I thought you didn’t do water?”
She doesn't smile back. Her face is tense, and she doesn’t meet my eyes. “Just...giving it...a try.”
“Not really enjoying it?” She looks borderline miserable. “If it’s not good you should-”
A moan tears from her lips. Freya arches, perfect breasts surfacing above the water.
I grab for my sword, no idea what I’m fighting, what’s happening.
Freya’s louder now, her body shuddering. Her arms are spread along the lip of the pool, and her fingers are tight, gripping the rounded stones so tightly her knuckles are white. She pants, making little whimpers that sound a lot like when I taught her about –
Wait. No way.
Her body tenses, and I’m sure the moan that escapes her can be heard by anyone still outside the Temple. Her body shudders, eyes rolled back in her head. When it’s over, she slumps, sliding under the surface to her chin.
Meridiana pops above the surface, a deep shade of plum, water trickling between her breasts. She licks her lips, slowly, making it entirely clear what she was doing. As if I had any doubt. “Oh. Lir. I didn’t think you’d be up,” she purrs.
Both women look guilty, but neither look ashamed. Meridiana’s eyes fall below my waist, where my cock has gone from exhausted to resurrected. Her tail flicks me with a spray of water. “But since you very obviously are...up–” Her full wet lips pop around that last consonant in a filthy way, “why don’t you join us?”
I cannot believe this. “Freya, did she compel you?”
Freya shakes her head, frowns, then brightens. “Oh...yes. Yes!”
“I did,” interjects Meridiana, a little too quickly. “I bound her will.”
I throw down my sword and turn a look on Freya. “Our time together got you a little curious, did it?”
She blushes and doesn’t try to hide a smile. “It did. And now...More so.”
Meridiana emits a throaty, wicked chuckle and bobs on her back atop the water, her chest defying physics. “In or out, Lir…” She rings her lips with a forked tongue. “In…” She brushes fingers over the ruby curls of her pussy and moans, “Or out.”
“I feel like this is one of those distractions the Gardener warned me about,” I mutter, tearing off my leathers. “But you both deserve to be punished for tempting a decent, Pantheon-fearing man.”
“Sit on the bank,” demands Meridiana.
“Are you compelling me?”
I can, her voice breathes between my temples. Air and energy swirl around my cock, a telepathic stroke of her hand. I have no choice but to obey.
Water gloves my legs at, of course, the perfect temperature. It cools a little as Meridiana drifts closer. She positions herself on one side of my knees and beckons Freya close.
“Like this.” Meridiana circles two fingers around the base of my cock and takes them away punishingly fast. It spasms, a wave of pleasure coursing through me.
Freya mimics the move.
“Tighter.”
I gasp. My cock throbs at her pressure.
Meridiana flips wet strands of hair over her shoulder. “Now like this.” The tip of her tongue rests above Freya’s fingers in a cool pinpoint and she paints a line up my shaft.
My groan is deafening in the morning stillness.
Freya bends and licks. Her tongue is so hot by comparison. My cock jerks.
“Good,” Meridiana purrs.
When I realize what’s happening, I’m so aroused I ache. A succubus teaching an alicorn how to pleasure a mortal? No fantasy I’ve ever had comes close.
They both lick, hot and cold sending the most intense waves of pleasure deep into my gut, my balls.
“Unf!” Freya stiffens and jerks away. Meridiana glances up at me and winks while dragging the flat of her tongue over my head. I can’t understand Freya’s reaction. Was this too much? Did we go too far?
Then I notice Meridiana’s tail. It’s almost invisible, taut from its base, its length tucked tight in the cleft of her ass.
No…
I raise my foot and feel beneath the water. Meridiana’s tail trails forward between her legs, writhing between the lips of her pussy, and then... I run my toes along its taper to where it disappears inside Freya’s pussy.
She is. Fuck me, she is.
Freya’s mouth is on my cock again, and she moans her pleasure, the sound vibrating along my length as the tail slips in and out of her. She cums, her entire body spasming, and I don’t think it’s intentional when she takes the entire length of my shaft. My head smacks the back of her throat, and I can feel every shuddering bit of her orgasm as I rest deep in her mouth.
She slides from me, lips gripping my cock, and then turns, kisses Meridiana so hard that the succubus’s eyes widen in shock. The she melts into the alicorn, and their lips dance, their tongues darting and playing. Their hands knead each other’s tits, and holy shit, this is the hottest fucking thing that I have ever seen.
But they’re not done with me. “Again, but like this,” Meridiana says. Her mouth is on the side of my cock. Freya follows suit, from the other side, and they kiss again. It’s as intense as before, their eyes close as they ravage each other, with my cock between them. It’s not like anything I’ve ever felt, so fucking incredible.
They both lick harder, suck, take turns playing with the head of my cock. Freya glances up at me when I fill her mouth, eyes hot with lust. It’s so fucking amazing, the way she’s looking at me.
Helpless, I bury fingers in their hair and let wave after wave build. Freya’s moans vibrate through my shaft. Meridiana’s little yelps tease my balls when she takes one in her mouth, tonguing it.
“Oh fuck, I’m-” I never felt anything so intense. Meridiana cradles Freya’s face, guiding her to bring her lips down over my cock. I cum violently into her soft mouth.
She cries her muffled orgasm down my length, and Meridiana thrusts herself along her tail, screaming with my balls stuffed in her mouth.
I fall back against the damp grass, gasping. “I feel dirty. Fuck.” Dirty in the best way.
Someone licks the last drops of cum from my exhausted cock - Meridiana, guessing by the chill along my skin. Her hand cracks my hip. “You enjoyed it.”
I crack an eye. Meridiana is looking Freya over with intensity. “You both enjoyed it,” she chuckles.
“Did you just get inside her head?”
“She did,” Freya slips herself onto the grass, giving me a coy glance. “And she’s not wrong.”
I can’t believe this is happening. Has happened. “I’m really conflicted about leaving you two alone here together.”
“Don’t worry.” Meridiana gives my cock a sharp tug as she struts away. “We’ll need you again…” She flicks her tongue and fans her tail, “eventually.”
The Garden may be the real test, after all.
Freya scrapes her gown from somewhere in the reeds and stays with me while I dress again.
“Where did you come from?” she asks softly while I buckle my chest piece.
“Literally or metaphorically?” I dodge, sort of hoping she won’t push the issue.
“Before here.”
“A kingdom on the Amaranth sea.”
Her eyes widen. “When I was new, there were no mortals along that coast. No men beyond the Reaches. Wildlings, magic beasts, and mythical creatures claimed the Westlands, all the way to the ocean.”
This boggles my mind. Loria’s chantry record is two-thousand years old; our written history nearly twice that. I can’t wrap my mind around the same lands but a completely different world.
“How did you come to be an aspirant?”
This is partly why I’ve spent a year moving from place to place – the questions. “In my kingdom it’s an honor, not a right that anyone can claim. I saved the king in a rare moment when his bodyguards were away.” So rare that it took some weeks of engineering.
“And if you succeed he’s rewarding you with this? With the artifacts?” She’s clearly dubious.
Alarm bells ring my head. I have to be careful, with my secrets, my mission. I won’t lie to her, but I have to measure how much I reveal.
“He sent me to gather you for him.”
Freya shakes her head. “Wait. He’s given you the honor of likely dying to acquire a treasure for him?”
“Yeah. That’s about as shallow and ridiculous as it the whole thing really is.”
“What do you get, that you agreed?”
“First, I didn’t exactly agree.” I can see the hint of betrayal on her face and I hate it. “And, what I get here is more valuable than any of the meaningless trash he’s promised.”
“It’s a woman.” Meridiana leans on a tree at the edge of the clearing, wearing a half-smirk, like she’s caught me.
“It’s true.”
“Oh.” Freya nods, eyes downcast. “Now it makes sense.”
“A woman he loves more than any other,” Meridiana drawls before I can explain.
I forgot how fucking mercurial succubi can be. “Also true. And my sister is worth whatever I have to do here to leave with an unstoppable army.”
“Sister?” they cry in unison.
I grab up my blade and spin it, sliding it home in its sheath. “Sister. What did you think? I’m a sonofabitch, but I’m not that black-hearted.”
Well, not quite.
The Gardner appears. From where? Where does she ever come from? Her hand is extended, and in it something glitters, catching the sunlight and sending shards reflecting back across the canopy and marble.
She comes to a rest in front of me, body still, but in the daylight it’s clearer that she’s changing, somehow. I can’t put my finger on it, but she seems more...human?
“You will benefit from this in the second half of the north wing.”
I take the object from her, examine it. It’s a timepiece, the size of my palm, and the craftsmanship is magnificent. Its circumference, wrapping from the back to the edge of the front, is a band of untarnished gold.
Its face is covered in symbols and letters, intricately wrought, in a language I don’t recognize. I spent years in university and studied plenty of languages. I’m not fluent in all of them, but I have a smattering of every tongue spoken in the Westlands. Either this timepiece is from beyond the known world, or so old that the people who made it are long dead.
My intuition is confirmed by the tiny golden arrow that sits in the center. Whoever carved it was a master, and though its smaller than a lockpick, it’s so perfect that I can imagine firing it from a tiny bow.
As I watch, it rotates, so slowly I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t holding it close. I hold it up to my ear, can hear an almost inaudible whirring, and occasionally a tiny click.
The clockwork inside must be intricate beyond imagination, to be so tiny. Nothing like this exists in any place I’ve heard of. “This is an incredible gift.”
The Gardener hmm’s. “The astratempus is not a gift, and not the boon we spoke of. It will be returned when you succeed, or when you die.”
Ah. Got it. “What is its purpose?”
“Each day, you must complete the next two trials of the Temple. If you fail, your soul will –”
“Right, right, I remember. Consumed.” I squint at the symbols. Though I can’t understand the writing, some of them are clear. Around the face, just after the golden band, is a ring of subtle color, ranging from inky dark to golden light, with the pinks of sunset and amber of sunrise between. Right now, the head of the arrow points in a section indicating morning.
I remember how the places I visited yesterday seemed to be in different worlds than our own, realize why she’s given me this. “Is this attuned to our world? The Temple?”
“Yes.”
Well, that’s handy.
She backs away, sliding soundlessly. “Are you prepared for the third chamber?”
“Now or never.” I grab my pack. A small glass vial tinkles onto the pond stones. It fits in the palm of my hand when I scoop it up. The liquid inside is deep violet.”
“My boon?” I ask, tucking it away.
“Your boon.”
“Any hint as to what it does?”
She hums again, a sound I’ve begun to associate with my fate being decided. “It serves the wise man.”
“So, I may or may not benefit from it.”
The Gardener drifts away toward a door that’s appeared, making a hollow sound that might be laughter.
Mad god. Mad Gardener. This whole place is crazy.
Meridiana wishes me success and starts back for the terrace. Unlike Freya, she hasn’t put her clothes back on, and I watch the sway of her ass as she leaves, her flick of her tail as she disappears between the trees. I can’t help but notice that she doesn’t see me off, but I think I understand. As the first artifact, she’s probably just gotten used to disappointment.
Freya walks with me to the trial gate. “Keep your wits,” she warns softly.
Is there a deeper meaning? With the Gardener hovering I don’t dare ask.
I nod, hoping I’m not seeing her for the last time, and pass through the door.
-Tiste Bauernmoor-
Finna
Stepping through lands me on a moss-covered rock. My boots slip and I’m ankle deep in cool, pungent water before the doorway disappears.
This doesn’t bode well.
If there’s anything in the water with me, I’ll never be able to tell. There are places where the surface churns more rapidly, hinting at depth. But for as far as I can see, which isn’t far, the water is a tangle of leaves, algae, and the skeletal hands of mangrove. Their broken limbs float among the detritus, creating a tangle between flat stones poking above the murk.
With the passage gone, the swamp stretches off in all directions.
Excluding Meridiana’s chamber,
it’s the first dark place I’ve been. It’s daytime above the spindly canopy, but sun filters through a blue-gray haze the color of plague. Mist drifts up from the water in a continuous smoky cloud.
The portal flickers into existence on my left, an ominous sign in a land so fetid and still. I don’t see anything I’d run from, and that fucking terrifies me.
There are no landmarks. Hardly any visibility. I check the astratempus. Time ticks away at its usual rate. Looking up through the bony canopy, I wonder if any of these trees can support my weight. I could get the lay of the land, maybe see something from that high.
The scratching noise at my feet doesn’t immediately sink in. It sounds like branch against stone. Pressure through the ankle of my boot changes this.
An arm extends from the coagulated water, grey-green and spongy, withered like the mangrove roots. It tapers to spindling claws with hardly a hand in between. Razor sharp nails almost as long as the fingers bite my boot leather. I tense, ready to fight for my life, but something is off. It’s slow, weak, and its grip isn’t overwhelming. One kick of my leg snaps the arm free.
A face bobs above the water; human, elfin, sickly. Slender pointed ears poke from a tangle of dark hair thick with scum and leaves. Black shriveled eyes fill the sockets like old fruit. They seem rotted and useless, but I feel like they see me. A woman, once. Now it’s a living corpse. Her thin lips peel back to reveal a ring of teeth sharp as bird beaks. She inhales, a supernatural screech, and air bubbles from the holes in her chest.
Cold steel makes short work of her before her shoulders clear the swamp. Before my blade’s arc has finished, she reduces to pale green goo that floats in a thick sheen atop the water. “That’s it?” I skim what little of the swamp I can see; nothing else moves, but I have a feeling. The sensation of more pairs of shrunken black eyes.
“The mara are weak…”
I nearly piss myself. Another shriek would have been less jarring than an actual voice. Tuning in a slow circle, I don’t see anything.
Temple of Cocidius - Book 2 Page 1