Not that any of that really matters in the slightest, except to let you know that I was carrying nearly everything.
As we got closer to the city, I asked Cu what its name was.
"That is Tara," Cu said.
"Have you ever been there?" I said.
"I've never been past Balor's soccer field," he told me. "I've spent six months and six humans trying to get to this place. I know others have been there, but I haven't. It's not like anyone comes back from Tara to tell tales, anyway."
"You lied," I said. "You told me that you'd go on alone after Balor killed me. But he never even let you pass, did he?"
"I had to tell you a convincing story," he said, with a shrug.
"And did you?"
"Were you convinced?"
"Yes," I said.
"Then I did."
"Does it always take a human to get past Balor?"
Cu nodded. "Yep. A few have tried to go beyond the dragon before you. But nobody ever comes back. Not even if they are of the Tuatha Dé."
"Why not?"
"Did I not just say that I'd never been there?"
"I know," I said. "I know. Don't ask stupid questions."
"Precisely," was Cu's response.
"But if nobody makes it past Balor, how do you know that no one returns from Tara? How do they get to Tara if they can't get past Balor?"
Cu grinned. "There are other routes to Tara," he said. "Nobody has to go through the mountains and face Balor."
I felt my eyes go wide and my fists clench into little balls at my side. I pointed back in the direction we'd come. "You mean I never had to go face that damned dragon in the first place?"
"Hey, I thought you liked Balor."
"I do," I said. "He's a pretty cool dude, but still. We could have gotten here without going through all that? So why didn't we?"
"Because Balor gave you something," Cu said.
I patted my pockets, looked down my shirt and checked the bottom of my shoes. "I don't remember getting anything," I said after thorough examination. "What did he give me?"
"Did I not tell you to stop asking stupid questions?" Cu said.
I sighed. I gave up on asking stupid questions and tried using my talents of deduction to ascertain exactly what was going on. I came up blank. But when we got to the city of Tara, I saw why no one, if they even made it past Balor the dragon or simply bypassed him all together, had ever returned.
The place was an orgy. There was sex going on in the streets, in the gutters, on the rooftops and on horseback. There was sex going on in the grocery store, in the granary and quietly going on in the library. At least they had enough respect to be quiet in the library, not to mention the church.
The people were mostly the size of my guide, ranging from two feet to five feet tall at the very largest. There were also people of my height but only a couple and they were engaged in having sex with each other. As we walked through the city proper, we became the only two people who were not engaged in a sexual act. I kept my gaze on the cobble stones, not wanting to get involved. I knew I'd never leave if I did.
Cu watched the sexual activities going on around us with a keen and eager eye, but he seemed unconcerned.
"I'm hungry," I said, just to say something.
"No," Cu said.
"No, I'm not hungry?" I said.
"No, we cannot stay," Cu said.
"But--but the sex--" I said with a pout, while pointing at the people who were my size. "How many of people my size did you say made it past Balor or went around him to get here?"
"I didn't."
"Didn't what?"
"Say."
"Oh." I sighed. "Well, how many do you think made it past Balor or went around him to get here?"
"Do you have to keep repeating yourself?"
"Yes. How many do you think--"
"A couple."
"Yeah, but like, how many?"
Cu stopped in the middle of the street and counted the number of people he saw who were roughly my size. "Ten," he said. "Though that one might just be an abnormally large Tuatha Dé."
"Oh." I eyed one pretty woman who was sexually engaged with a tall, lanky man. He had her pressed up against the side of a barn and was thrusting himself against her with all the vigor and vim he could muster. She appeared less enthused. And strangely familiar.
I veered off our straight path and walked up to the fucking couple. My pony followed behind me with wide eyes, probably wishing there was a filly somewhere who was unoccupied so he could join in on the fun. The girl engaged in the riotous sex had long blonde hair that flowed loose down her back in golden waves like grain. Her body was lithe and supple, what I could see of it, anyway. She had a small tattoo on her left butt cheek of an ivy leaf and that's how I recognized her. But please don't ask me how I knew about the tattoo, because that would mean explaining a banker's version of truth or dare, which isn't as tame as it sounds.
"Holy crap!" I hollered. "Crista?"
She disengaged her lips from the dude's. A line of spit clung between them like spaghetti, and she blushed bright red. "Shit!" she yelled back. "Guy?"
"What are you doing here?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" she asked me, hiding her breasts against the chest of the dude, as if she should be ashamed just because I was there.
"Um..." was all I could think of to say.
Crista Himmelmen turned her attention back to her partner and said, "Can you excuse me for a minute, Ken?"
"Ken?" I muttered. "Hope he's better endowed than the Kens I know."
Crista disentangled herself and rose, bending over, not to better show me her ample buttocks, but to pick up a discarded robe, bra and panties that lay in a pile of discarded robes, bras and panties nearby. She slipped her legs into the panties, her boobs into the bra and her arms into the silky arm holes and tied the belt around her thin waist. She cleared her throat, ran a hand through her blonde hair and turned back to me.
I was staring at the better endowed Ken. I watched his package swinging out to the sides of his thighs as he walked away from me. Crista's throat clearing brought me back to reality, or what was currently passing for reality in my life. "What?" I said, when I saw her staring with curved eyebrows raised so high they were almost hidden in her hair.
"What are you doing here?" she said, moving herself closer to me, almost hiding behind me, as if she didn't want to be seen talking to the likes of me. Which was probably a bit true.
"I'm off to kill a wizard," I said in a singsong.
"What?"
"Long story," I said. "Better question. What are you doing here?"
"Remember what you said about a leprechaun that got eaten by a tree?"
"Uh, yes?" I'd long since forgotten my mistake of calling Cu a leprechaun basically because I'd long since gotten tired of being beaten by a bright green top hat. I hate being abused.
"Well," she continued, "when you disappeared, I began to wonder what happened to you."
"I disappeared?" I said, dumbfounded. I couldn't remember disappearing.
"Yeah," she said. "I saw you being dragged away by some unseen force and you disappeared into that tree. Remember?"
"Oh, that disappearing. I didn't really disappear, you know. I just...came to exist in another place." I gestured around me, spreading my arms wide.
Crista rolled her eyes at me. "Well, I was sitting out in the park with that kid I hate. My neighbor's kid? Remember him? The one who likes to throw sand? Anyway, it was late. A guy jumped me and tried to rape me but I fought him off. Who jumps a girl and tries to rape her in a park where little kids are watching?"
"We live in a really bad neighborhood," I said.
"Obviously," Crista muttered. "Well, I took out my pepper spray and got the guy in the face. He got pissed and cracked my head up against that tree you were so interested in. I woke up on the ground with a sprinkler head under my butt. And I saw one. A leprechaun. He came out of that same tree that you were humping that
day. Remember? Well, he dragged me here, all the way here in fact, then ditched me for some chick. It was a long way to be dragged, but eventually I stopped struggling and went along with it. Not much else I could do. And I thought I'd find you here too, but once I found Ken, I kinda forgot to look for you. And here you are!"
I squinted my eyes. "So, what happened to your neighbor's kid?"
"Huh?"
"You said you were watching your neighbor's kid in the park when some dude jumped you. The one that throws sand? Not the jumper, the kid, I mean. What happened to the kid?"
"Why do you care? I thought you hated kids."
"He got away, right?"
"I'm... not... sure," she said, while scratching her head.
I lifted my eyebrows.
"Oh yeah," she continued, purposefully going off in another direction, "and he told me not to call him a leprechaun." She pointed to a small couple who appeared to be exploring the creative world of sixty-nine, but there was a goat present who was licking various asses. Hers was obviously one of the Tuatha Dé, as well, except he wore no bright green top hat.
"Ah," I said. "That one's mine." I pointed at Cu, who stood in the middle of the road, drooling over a particularly lovely Tuatha Dé woman who was humping a wooden post. I sneered at the spectacle.
"Yeah," Crista muttered. "She'll be asking me later to pull out the splinters. So, what are you doing here?"
"I'm off to kill a wizard," I sang again. "At least, that's what I've been told."
"Stop singing," Crista said.
I stopped singing.
"I don't know why I'm here," she said, tucking her hair behind her ears. "There might have been a reason, but once we ended up in this city, there was nothing to do but fuck. So we fucked. Fuck!"
"What?" I hollered at her sudden exclamation.
"I wonder what day it is...?"
I shrugged.
"How long have you been here?"
"Couple days," I said.
"Couple days?" she said with a laugh.
"You asked," I muttered.
"You were gone from our world for a good couple of weeks before I got yanked over here."
"Weeks?" I whispered.
"At least two, maybe almost three," Crista said. "Time passes different here, I guess. I was just wondering because I've been otherwise engaged during the last day or so."
"Noticed," I said in a grumble.
"Jealous much?" she said with a grin.
"No," I grumbled some more. "It's just that I never figured upon running into someone I know here. Where's your buddy Ken from?"
"Denver," she said, as she looked over at Ken. He had already found a small Tuatha Dé woman and was standing up, moving the woman up and down over his groin area. Crista gave another laugh and waved at Ken. Ken waved back. The Tuatha Dé woman rolled her eyes in something that might have been ecstasy but I couldn't be totally sure.
"And he isn't my buddy," she added.
"Oh," I said. "I just thought..." I made some lewd gestures with my hands to get my point across.
"That's not exactly how it works out here."
"How does it work?"
"You have to drink the water."
"Like in Mexico?" I said.
"Except Montezuma doesn't get his revenge," she said. "Where are you going? In general, I mean?"
"Here, actually," I said. "The magician we're looking for, the one I'm supposed to kill, he was last seen here."
"In Tara?"
I nodded.
"Don't blame him," she said. "But I haven't heard about any magician in town."
I chuckled. "You haven't heard much past Ken's moaning and groaning."
Ken moaned and groaned loudly to emphasize my point.
Crista only shrugged. "True. But can I go with you?"
"To where?" I said.
"To wherever it is your going?"
"Wish I knew," I said. "We go wherever the sorcerer went."
"But can I go?"
"I don't see why not," I said. "But why would you want to go with me?"
"It's like you said," she said, "I never expected to run into someone I know here. Besides, if I'm with you, I won't want to just have sex."
"No?" I said, somewhat disappointed.
"No," she said, not catching my disappointment.
"Just let me go check with my guide," I told her, hooking my thumb in the direction of Cu. "We only have two ponies."
"That isn't a pony," Crista said, examining the little horse who had stood quietly beside me during our entire conversation.
"What is it then?"
"Looks like a Great Dane," she said.
The pony snorted his disapproval of such a title and turned up his nose at her.
"You insulted him," I said, while rubbing my pony's soft ear, and missing Fractious the mule all of a sudden.
"Sorry, pony," Crista said. "Will you go ask your guide if I can go, too?"
"Going," I said, going.
Cu was otherwise engaged, as was everybody in this town, with masturbating over a threesome consisting of two beautiful Tuatha Dé women and what appeared to be a woman with goat legs. I cleared my throat, looking away while Cu quickly put his schwanz back in his pants. "What?" he said as I continued to stare.
I shook my head and said, "Can I bring a friend?"
"No," Cu said sternly, trying very hard to keep his eyes on me and not on the orgy going on just a foot away from him, and pretty much everywhere else you turned in this town.
I pouted. "Why not?"
"Because I said so," Something over my shoulder apparently caught his eye for he started to drift in that direction.
I turned around and followed him. Crista was already engaged in another sexual act, this time with a man half her size who seemed to be enjoying the fact that he was screwing a human being. "Yeah, I'm screwing a human! That's right, bitches!" he was yelling out as he slapped her butt like she was a rodeo bull.
Cu's eyes rolled back into his head and he stumbled back into me. I leaned down and caught him before he could fall over. I up-righted him, pointed and said, "That's my friend."
"Yes," Cu said immediately. "Yes. Bring her. I like her."
"I don't know if she's that kind of girl," I said as I watched her apparently being that type of girl. She noticed I was watching and stood, the Tuatha Dé man clinging to her and finishing up even while she stood there. It was like watching a dog hump a person's leg while the person stood ultimately still. It was kinda funny. I couldn't help giggling.
"Don't care," Cu was saying. "She's coming with us."
Crista gave a smile and lifted the man off of her. He immediately went about humping her leg but she shook it to disengage him. The Tuatha Dé man went flying but quickly found himself another partner. "So I can go?" Crista said, once again righting her under things and pulling her robe back around her.
"Yes," drooled my guide. "Yes yes yes!"
"Cool," Crista said. "Just let me get my things." She quickly ducked into a doorway and came back moments later with a duffle bag in her hand that proclaimed she was a member of Gryffindor House. "It was free," she said when she saw me eyeing the duffle. "Can't pass up free."
"I didn't ask," I said. I turned to Cu who was still drooling, even though there was a significant puddle at his feet. "This is Cu," I told her, making an introductory gesture. "Cu, this is Crista Himmelmen."
"Crista Himmelmen," Cu said, in gurgling Homer Simpson fashion.
Crista ignored him long enough to put on some shoes that looked more like slippers, and then we were off again, now a group of three. It took a while to find the place where Amergin was last seen because Cu kept stopping to watch certain sexual activities and I occasionally had to drag Crista around by the belt of her robe, but eventually we found the inn.
It was called The Inn and the owner/proprietor/pimp was a little dude named Nemain who sat us down and gave us pints of beer. He did this because Cu insisted that we ignore the water. Everyone else
in the place was downing gallons of it and getting off any way they could.
"See," Crista said. "Told you it was the water."
I only smirked as I watched some Tuatha Dé getting it on with the leg of a piano, which was mildly protesting in notes that oddly enough produced the tune of Barry Manilow's "Mandy."
Nemain sat across from the three of us and said, "So, you're looking for Amergin?"
"How come you aren't sexually engaged?" I said.
"No drinking on the job," he said.
"Oh," was my answer to that.
"Amergin?" Nemain repeated.
"Oh, yeah," I said. "When was he last here?"
"About a month ago," Nemain answered. "You just missed him. You friends of his?"
"No," Cu said. "We're looking to kill him."
"Oh. Good. I was wondering when someone would go and do that." Then he muttered, "Stupid bastard."
"Him or me?" Cu demanded.
"Amergin, of course," Nemain said.
"Good," Cu said, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest. "Any idea where he was going?"
"Yeah," Nemain said. "Probably back to Black Mountain."
"Black Mountain?" I repeated ominously.
"Yeah," Nemain said quietly, echoing my ominous tone. "Black Mountain."
"It has an English name?" I said.
"Yeah," Nemain said, still speaking ominously.
"Okay."
"Yeah," Nemain said, still being ominous.
"Stop that!" Cu belted. He drank down a big gulp of his pint.
I suddenly realized that I now had beer in front of me and down my entire glass in one gulp.
"Damn, Fractious," Cu said, "slow the fuck down. I don't need you drunk."
"But I need to be drunk," I slurred. "More beer!"
Nemain gestured to a wench who brought me another pint. I paid for it with the wicket I had in my pocket and, to my surprise, the wench brought me a second pint. I blinked at Nemain in surprise.
"You wanted change you shoulda asked for it," Nemain said. "We don't give change unless you ask."
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