“There was only the sky, and only Vash the Sky Dragon. And Vash looked upon her endless domain and she sang.”
The chanting became markedly different, and Pol began to realize that the sorcerers were arrayed as a massive choir, and where once each voice had said the same thing in the same tone, now men and women sang differently, and not every woman sang the same, nor every man. The chant had become a song,the most beautiful he had ever heard, although Pol’s experience with song was mostly confined to children’s rude rhymes, bawdy tavern songs, and the odd bard’s romantic composition.
“Is this the Song of the World?” he called out to Margase.
She shook her head. “No, of course not. No human has ever heard that. It is inspired by the world.”
“And at the beauty of Vash’s singing, the sky wept, and its tear was the world, with the earth, the sea, the forest and the fawn,” intoned Bollu from the dais. “And Vash set the sun in the sky so that the world could see itself in the day.”
He brought the rod down hard, so that sparks went curling into the air off the stone. One of the two massive lamps burst into life, golden and shining far above their heads.
“And with the rising of the sun rose the First Woman.”
From the other side of the Grand Hall, a gold painted woman, naked save for a golden half mask, crowned in the rays of the, was led by Carista to the indigo-clothed platform. When she was near to it, Carista stopped and turned to face her.
“And the First Woman was lonely and wanton.”
Carista fell to her knees, pushing apart the long shapely legs of the Rite’s First Woman. The Sorcerer pushed her mouth against the golden woman’s slit, and though the First Woman’s moan was lost behind the song, Pol could see it leave her lips.
“And Vash set the moon in the sky so that the world could see itself in the night.”
The sharp rap of Bollu’s rod caught him by surprise and Pol jumped as the second lamp burst to life, this time filling the room with a white-blue light.
“And with the rising of the moon rose the First Man.”
Margase was pulling on his hand, and Pol had no choice but to follow her as she led him out into the center of the Grand Hall. As Carista had with her charge, she held him up before they fully reached the platform, stopping and facing him.
“And the First Man was lonely and wanton.”
Margase dropped to her knees, lifting Pol’s cock into her mouth. He groaned and grew hard. For the second time in two days, a Sorcerer had her lips wrapped around him. He would not have imagined this in his wildest dreams. There was only one other person who could understand what he was experiencing.
He raised his eyes from where Margase’s hungry mouth was plunging along his length to the First Woman in front of him. She was tall, almost as tall as him, her body fit and firm, her generous breasts capped with wide brown nipples, the skin, where not painted gold, a tan bronze. He could not make out her hair, it must have been disguised behind her mask, but as he looked upon her, enjoying the attentions of Carista’s tongue on her cunt, her eyes opened and Pol stared into their emerald depths.
Kiera.
“And as the sun and the moon met, and the sun yielded the world to the moon, the First Woman and the First Man met, and were joined beneath neither sun nor moon, neither day nor night.”
Carista and Margase stood, their duties relieved, but Pol merely stared at Kiera on the opposite side of the platform. Margase gave him a gentle push, causing his knee to touch the indigo cloth, and he realized it was a gigantic circular mattress. The two Sorcerers climbed the dais to take their seats, leaving the pair on the bed together. Pol lifted his other knee and shuffled forward, as Kiera crawled to meet him in the center of the mattress.
Pol reached out a hand and she took it in hers, their fingers entwining. He pulled her into him, marveling at the softness of her skin, the way her breasts felt pushed against his chest, his cock pushed up against the soft hair above her pussy. He freed his hand from hers, sending it stroking down her back while the other explored her smooth, round buttocks.
Pol tried to think of something to say, but he lost himself as her face drew close to his, her green eyes enticing him, begging him, the only indication on the mask that she felt anything at all, the damp warmth of her breath against his lips and he took the hand from her back, wrapping it through her hair, pulling her mouth to his.
Their lips locked and they began to forget the presence of the booming voice on the dais, or the hundreds of naked bodies surrounding them, singing the Rite’s song. There was only Kiera’s body against Pol’s, his warm chest against hers as he drew her over his lap, his cock sandwiched between them, her breasts flattened against him save for the hard nipples that capped them. One hand stroked the back of his neck, while her other reached between them, the hot, pulsing rod of Pol’s manhood filling her palm as she gripped him.
She rose onto her knees, Pol’s chin rising to maintain the joining of their mouths as her tongue worked her way between his lips. The hand on his cock pulled on it, guiding his hips forward until she felt the smooth head of his cock graze against the opening to her pussy, her lower lips wet and ready from Carista’s attentions, and she lowered herself onto Pol’s cock.
His hips rose to meet hers and for a moment they were simply still, each one reveling in the feel of the other, the sweet way Pol filled her body, the eagerness with which Kiera gripped him. Pol shifted his weight and Kiera gasped as the angle of his cock changed inside her, radiating pleasure through her whole body. She began to move, her pelvis rising and falling along Pol’s length. He started to move in time with her.
Kiera pulled her lips off his, moaning, arching her back as she dug her pussy tighter against Pol’s hips, desperate to fit him deeper inside her. His hands rode along her spine, cradling her, letting her lean back as far as she could manage and she thrilled to feel his strong fingers press against her skin. He kissed the tops of her breasts, his warm mouth descending to find the nipple of her right breast and gently hold it in place as their bodies moved.
Kiera tucked her feet under her knees, squatting over Pol, his cock buried inside her. Her hands found his shoulders, pushing him down and away from her, until he lay face up beneath her, his hands holding her ankles. She missed their feel on her body, but the new angle gave her almost complete control over him. She kept one hand on his chest, the other falling to find her clit, stroking across it as she impaled herself over and over on his cock.
Pol’s hips moved and Kiera froze, her mouth opening in a small “o” as Pol began to piston at a rapid pace in and out of her. He sat up, his hands wrapping around the back of her neck and the base of her spine, dragging her down, her knees falling, her body laying across his and she bit at his ear. He bent his legs, his cock rising, pumping into her pussy as she played with herself.
Kiera’s orgasm burst upon her, and she turned and screamed wordlessly, the sound getting swallowed by the choir of sorcerers around them. Pol only maintained his pace, drawing her pleasure out, her world nothing but blazes of color and the feeling of the thick cock driving deep inside her.
When he felt her orgasm begin to subside, his speed slackened, until he slipped out of her, raising her knee to give him room to slide out from underneath her. Kiera felt empty with his leaving, but was unable to do anything but collapse face down on the mattress. She felt Pol’s hands on the back of her thighs, pressing her legs together until she was lying prone beneath him.
He straddled her, and she felt his cock in the cleft of her ass, slick and warm from her juice. Pol’s hand lowered his cock, placing it between the tightly sealed lips of her pussy. He pushed on and this time is was his turn to moan at how she felt around him, her pussy soft, but yielding no more than it absolutely had to to accommodate his cock.
He plunged into her, his pace picking up, watching as his hips collided with her ass, setting it to shaking with every thrust. Kiera couldn’t see him, but she felt it when he leaned over he
r, his elbows resting next to her head, his chest against her back, his lips on the nape of her neck, so that he was practically lying on top of her, except for where his cock was driving her mad between her legs. Pol sharpened his approach, so that his cock pushed down against her pussy walls, rather than just forward into her and she gasped and bit his arm a little. Pol just drove harder into her.
He reared up, placing his hands on her shoulders, pressing her against the mattress, his pace intensifying, and Kiera lifted her rump to give his cock better access, letting him taking his pleasure from her, to use her body for his own ends.
Kiera felt her own pleasure growing, and to preempt it, she pulled forward, enough that Pol’s cock fell out of her when his hips moved back to plow into her again. Kiera rolled onto her back, facing him, freeing her legs from under him, spreading herself wide, her pussy opening to him. She stared up at Pol, his grey eyes wild with lust under his silver mask, his body covered in silver runes of the moon and stars just as hers was covered in gold runes for the sun and wind.
Pol slid forward, his cock pressing into her, filling her again in the same sweet way it had when she’d forced him inside of her at the beginning of the rite. He left one leg outstretched, his right bending under her left leg as she wrapped around him, welcoming him deep inside her. One hand cupped her ass, holding her as he thrust, while his other played with her breasts. Kiera groaned into his ear, the heat spreading through her body while Pol began to feel his cock readying. Her hips were shifting, her hands clasping his ass as he thrust into her, her legs locked around his, keeping him in place.
Pol turned his face to her, his mouth half open, and she met him, her lips opening at the same time. His tongue made its way to find hers. He began to moan as he neared the brink and at the same time, Kiera moaned her pleasure.
Their mutual climaxes came on them like the sudden summer storms that caught unsuspecting travelers in pouring rain while the sun still shone. Kiera’s pussy clamped even tighter around Pol, the both of them moaning as his cum came pouring out of him, filling her up. His pace became uneven and ragged, but still he thrust, her pussy encouraging him to more, his throbbing cock obliging, continuing to pulse and spurt inside her as she rode her own waves of pleasure, amplified by the glorious full feeling she was experiencing.
The chanting began to seep back into their world, the Sorcerers’ voices once again united in the same melody. The runes on Kiera’s skin began to glow, as did Pol’s, the light rising straight into the air above them, gold and silver mixing into a shining ball over their heads.
Bollu’s voice thundered above the din of the chanting. “And Vash sang their love to all the world, to the sky and sea and earth, the river and forest. And so was magic born in the world.”
He brought his metal rod slamming down to the ground, the sharp sound of it echoing off the walls.
The shining ball erupted, bathing the entire hall in a blinding light, each person’s skin alight. The chanting ceased and the gathered Sorcerers began to file out of the hall, the High Council walking down from the dais.
Pol raised himself up on his hands, staring down at Kiera’s nude body beneath him, his cock still buried between her folds, still hard, both of them panting hard from their work. He raised a hand to his mask, pulling it away, then did the same for her mask, revealing her whole face to him. She stared into his eyes for a moment.
“Kiera,” he murmured, and he leaned forward to kiss her.
Her hand caught his chest, stopping him, and she pulled off his cock, slipping out from underneath him.
“Kiera,” he said, as she rolled away from him and sat up on the edge of the bed. “That was…”
“Nothing, Pol,” she said. She didn’t look him in the face and he moved to join her. “It was the First Man and the First Woman. It’s nothing to do with us. You’re still a Sorcerer. I’m still a noble lady. We both have other obligations and duties.”
“Kiera, don’t pretend like you didn’t enjoy that as much as I did.”
She turned to him, the offense visible on her face.
“I’m not,” she said. “I very much enjoyed it. I loved it, even. I want to do it again, even right now, but it can’t happen.”
“Why?”
“For so many reasons, Pol. For so many reasons. Because you’ll live forever as a Sorcerer or near enough as makes no difference and never age while I wither before you. Because my family has dreams for me, and I have a duty to fulfill them. Because we might never leave this bed if it did happen again.”
“Kiera, I…”
“Shut up, Pol.” She leaned forward and cupped his cheeks with her hands, his kiss hungry and warm, her lips soft and desperate for his. Pol’s hands slid up along the sides of her body, but she pulled away before he could draw her closer to him, standing and joining the crowd of Sorcerers filing out of the Grand Hall. When he couldn’t see her anymore, he looked away, his gaze falling on the bed, and the two half-masks, one for the sun, one for the moon.
Their empty eyes gazed back, sharing nothing.
Book Two: A Warrior For The Tower
Chapter 9
There were fucking bells chiming.
It was a fine hangover Pol was experiencing and now there were bells ringing away like he was back in Lowvale on Fire Night, everyone ringing bells to drive away the spirits and distributing candy to the children. He’d used to love Fire Night.
Just now, though, he wanted to melt down all the bells in Tia Vashil and pour the molten metal into the rectum of whoever was ringing the damnable things.
He’d been drinking himself into a stupor nightly for the two weeks since the Rite of Renewal. It had, apparently, worked. For every sorcerer except Pol, that was. He saw acolytes and some of the Master laughing giddily as they performed some extraordinary magic, and Margase had appeared to have lost a good ten years off her age, the worry lines in her mouth that had been so deeply cut when he’d first met her were far more shallow.
But nothing had happened to Pol. Bollu had carefully explained that it was something to do with Pol’s age being significantly less than the other sorcerers’ and compression, but he’d barely understood it. He wasn’t much younger was the gist. Maybe a few months, if that.
And neither had his magic much improved. Destroying things, he was good at destroying things, but only by accident. Margase would try to instruct him on more subtle magic—moving the damned rock, trying to turn a red dress green, preventing a pond from rippling when a stone was tossed into it—but nothing had worked. The only time he did magic was when he lost his temper in frustration, and then he’d destroyed the rock, caused the dress to lose its color and then crumble into dust, and evaporated the pond.
And through it all, he couldn’t stop thinking of Kiera. He hadn’t seen her since the Rite. The Exarch had paid him a courtesy call, but it had been brief and polite; technically Pol outranked Ked vai Ullan now. He’d given Pol limited information on Kiera. She was fine, Pol learned. Busy returning to her normal life.
With his magic ineffective and Kiera apparently gone, Pol’s life consisted mainly of the two things he’d learned to do best when not being a thief: he drank, and he fucked. Praela had been right. There were more than enough interested sorcerers who’d wanted a piece of him. His bed had never lacked for company at night. But in the morning his companion would be gone, and he’d be left with himself, and his thoughts, and his hangover.
And these Vash damnable bells.
Every morning, like clockwork, the bells chimed out the hour warning to market opening. The whole city seemed oriented around this sound. The Guild Rock would spring to life. By the time the bells sounded again for market open, most of the Guild would have eaten their breakfast, then on to other work. The next bell was midday, and then another warning bell in the evening for an hour to closing, and then the closing bell.
Except every bell in the city had to ring out for each of the five. In Lowvale, the bells had been for special occasions and spec
ial occasions only: weddings of important people, deaths of very important people, fire, a Dragon Clan invasion (not that Pol’d ever heard them ring for that), and driving off spirits. The Vashili way of life infuriated Pol with its rigidness. It made him want to steal things.
Instead he stumbled out of the bed and stripped off the clothes he’d been wearing when he’d collapsed onto the mattress the night before, throwing them in a pile by the door. The servants would get them when they brought him his bath. Baths went with bells in Pol’s list of things about Tia Vashil that annoyed him. He realized with a start that he’d grown oddly used to the servants, that they’d simply faded into the background, here he was sitting naked waiting for them to arrive with the bath, and he wouldn’t feel self conscious at all in front of them. They’d become furniture faster than he’d ever thought. It made his skin crawl a little how easy it had been.
However there would be no taking servants for granted today: his bath was attended by a young gentleman with a set of ostentatious mustaches that hung down past his chin, and a doublet that to describe as colorful did not do justice.
“Who are you?” asked Pol, jumping up as the man followed the girl with the hot water into the room.
“Your magicness,” said the young man. “I am but the humble Artan duVahn, an artist of great renown, brought low by the recent troubles of my fair native city of Tia Joi, fled to the bosom of Tia Vashil, who now finds himself working as—and applies his considerable talents to being—a gentleman’s gentleman to the most esteemed company of gentlemen: the Guild of Sorcerers.”
“Oh,” said Pol. He climbed into the bath and sighed when the water was added. The heat soothed his aching head a little.
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