Comet Fall (Wine of the Gods) (18 page)

There really wasn't any rush. The older witches had lost their collective minds and over-produced for a while, and now her generation was being treated like excess baggage. Bah! She was the leader of the Triad of the Half Moon and she was still changing diapers. They should have kept some of those power-less witch girls as servants. But they hadn't, so really, the young witches needed to slow down their birthing, so they, and their daughters, would be more valued.

But Zenith's flirting gave her an opportunity. She minded babies all the way to town
. Cost's little Yoderite too, and didn't Cost just flirt with
everyone
.

By
the fifth day—their second in town, they
owed
her, and she casually sauntered off to see the town. She circled around and grabbed her back pack from where she'd concealed it under hay and a spell, and lugged it down the stream behind the inn until she was far enough away, then she took to the streets under a small spell that shed attention and headed for the wharf. She needed to go down stream, but just two little villages down, to pick up the Old Road where it crossed the Karitha River. She would buy a horse and supplies there, and then follow the road across the mountains . . .

"Hav
e a problem, miss? Anything I can help you with?" The man's lust was
so
obvious a dullard could feel it. Might be useful, and he was at least clean, if an otherwise ordinary looking fellow.

"Oh, I'm trying to find passage
on a barge that will stop in Bridgeton. Do you know of any?"

"Well, as you've found out, the barge
s mostly go all the way to the city without stopping, but for a pretty girl like you, I could persuade the captain to swing in at the old bridge," he winked to be sure she understood she'd be buying her extra stop with her body.

She fluttered her eyelashes and smiled, "Oh, could you?"

The barge was perhaps smaller than average, but very well kept, and with enclosed cabins in the stern. She paid one of the crew and received a key. Her new friend showed her which one.

"
Call me Jed. Leave your bags here, I'll give you a tour," he winked.

As she'd expected, there wasn't much to
see, as the barge cast off and headed downstream. The highlight of the tour was his own cabin, where she was quite happy to show him some new tricks. On the water she couldn't pull in more power, but she had plenty stored to push it around. She made sure that he had the sexual stamina and physical energy to please her. He was glassy eyed and staggered, when he gallantly escorted her back to her cabin.

Three men had the contents of her backpack strewn all over the room.

No, not strewn. Carefully stacked, laid out and organized.

"Where's Usse?" the oldest one stood up. And up.

"What?" she dived for the stacks of gold wafers. "How dare you search my bag!"

"Usse's bag," the tall one said. "Did you kill him? I can't really believe that. He wasn't interested in women."

"It's mine. I'm afraid you've made an error," she straightened and looked down her nose at them.

"Really?" the tall man pulled out the little leather case. "Do you usually travel around with the Great Seal of The One hidden in your luggage?"

"The One?" she said weakly.

"Where is Usse?
Did you kill him? Where? How? Where are his notes?"

Rotting in the
forest, where I pitched them
seemed like a good way to get herself killed. She drained power from her escort, who still had a grip on her elbow.

The tall man's eyes widened, and he pounced as the
younger man crumpled.

He
r last coherent memory was of his fist.

When she came to, s
he reached for the Earth, but to her horror, realized that they were afloat, without even any tenuous contact through the dock. A man approached, and she tried to gather power, but her reserves were already low, and she realized that she was in the hands of men who knew how to drain a witch and keep her that way.

She forced herself to lay limp, to pretend unconsciousness, as
she was raped, and the power dropped until she wasn't faking it.

She awoke to a card game, with a big redhead talking about the relationship between aces in
a hand and raping her. Unfortunately a lot of aces were showing up. Some time later there was something about taking her to Fascia, and then she was being taken out of a coffin-like box. She was glad she'd been unconscious when they'd closed her in it.

"This is like fucking a dead body."

The tiny, odd shaped room they were in had three hammocks slung across it. She vaguely wondered how anyone could get into either of the top ones. Her coffin was probably in the place of a fourth, and took up a significant share of the floor space. Everything heaved around her, the walls creaked a bit . . . was she on an oceangoing ship now?

She was fuzzy for awhile, the whole World seemed to be swaying around. Then
a slammed door heralded the tall man's return from somewhere.

"The damned Captain has gotten new ord
ers. We're in for a long voyage. He says Ygti ordered him to follow some damned Royal navy ship to try and find their 'new, secret harbor.' "

Tromp stifled a whimper.

1373 Spring Equinox

Asia

Tromp slept and woke, ate, took care of personal business and was raped back into drained unconsciousness again and again. For days. She had no idea how many.

But this time she woke because she hit the floor and rolled. Men cursed around her, tripped over her,
ran out of the room and back in. She could hear distant splintery noises, sharp cracks. The ship jerked oddly, crunching parody of its usual roll.

"They can't get her off the rocks . . . We're not sinking right now, so they're waiting for some light before low
ering the boats." That was the tall man.

"Damn superstitious fools, they're probably blaming our dead body." Black's voice, quite near.

"I told the Captain we had a live woman, and he figured that was even worse luck." The tall man again.

There was more talk, ques
tions, and then, "I've got Egfi listening, he'll keep track of what's happening."

Good, the tall m
an had it all under control she could sleep a bit longer. But as she slipped beneath consciousness, she became aware of power. A trickle coming from the rocks that pierced the ship, a slow ooze through the ship's timbers that filled her long drained and abused reservoirs. She slept very well indeed, and laid limp and unresponsive when she was slung over a shoulder and carried up ladders and down into a boat, with foreign curses all around her.

She
looked as helpless as possible, peeked out of slitted eyes as the small boat fought surf and finally grounded on a beach of coarse stones. The boat cast off. She was alone with her captors, on the rocks.

"Don't let her touch the ground." The tall man's voice, always giving orders.

She let them carry her up a steep slope to where they could see the ruined foundations of a good sized town. From what she heard, there were a lot more ruins, a huge city, and some intact structures.

"Did you see the glow
of those buildings? There's some magical potential there, we need to find out what it is."

"We need to pacify the boat's crew so we can get out of here." A rare word of dissention from the black haired man.

"We have plenty of time, they think they can get her off the rocks at high tide tonight, and get her down to that sandy beach before she sinks. If they can careen her there for repairs, we'll rejoin them. If she sinks, well, we'll have to steal a boat from the Westerners. In any case, I don't believe the Westerners have seen that building to the south. Let's walk down there, then we'll rig something for our little friend here."

One of the brown haired ones groaned a protest, and someone grabbed her and she was fl
ung over yet another shoulder. They walked—scrambled over broken angular stone, more often, until they reached their goal. The man carrying her leaning on a boulder to rest, and she reached to lay a hand on the bare rock. Power. She peeked around to see where they all were.

Tromp gasped and stared.

The whole building glowed, to her inner sight.

"Damn, she's woken up! Q
uick . . . "

She
sucked the power from the man holding her and twisted away as he collapsed. Panicked, she ripped the rock out from under their feet, threw it back at them . . . and realized that she had them. She concentrated on the surface layer as they struggled out from under the debris. The rock flowed, clamped down around legs, ankles and hardened. That quickly they were all trapped.

She felt them raising power, and raised her own shields. One physical, one mental.
She strolled around them with a smile. "My turn, now." She spotted her backpack and dragged it up the first few stairs of the glowing building. The entry was ridiculously ornate, curlicues everywhere, twin water fountains to either side of the door. Dry . . . but she could feel something . . . at a mental touch, water squirted from the pitcher toted by the voluptuous statue of a young man.

She loved it. The huge carved door was closed, magically locked, the whole building sealed. She took a deep breath and
nearly choked. She was
filthy.
She wasn't sure of the date, had she been captive for a month? Surely not that long.

She rummaged in her pack. The men had repacked her things, clothing, makeup, ah
, soap. Her mother's excellent herbal soap. She shed the stained shift and stepped into the fountain. It was cool, but a touch of power warmed it. She soaked, and scrubbed, and floated and got all pruney. It was heavenly. She still hurt here and there, especially down there. She reached into the pack and pulled out the wine bottle. Oh yes.

She wiggled the cork out, and took a sip, fe
lt that marvelous zing all over again, and stretched. Not a twinge, anywhere. Rapid footfalls. She threw up a shield, and the tall man crashed into it, and then to the ground. He was bare foot, his ankles bled, as if he'd chipped rocks away . . .

"Ah!" she chirped brightly. "A volunteer. Drink this."

She dribbled wine into his mouth, then threw a shield around him, and closed it down tight. Held it while he gasped for breath, until his eyes rolled up. She dissolved the shield, and carefully poured a few drips into his mouth, and as he stirred, a few more.

Then she recorked the bottle and set it aside. "Hmm, you know, you're a bit grubby yourself."

He rolled over and grabbed for her. She dodged, and jumped back into the fountain. He followed, grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. She could feel his hard manhood through his clothes and chuckled. "First a bath, darling!" She started to unbutton his shirt, but he tore it off, and fumbled with his belt, ripped his pants in his haste. Through the hand on her arm she sucked power out of him, and he collapsed in the water, feebly raised his head so he could breath.

"Much better." She soaped him all over, fed him a bit more wine and then a bit of power to get him out of the fountain. She set her feet on the pavement of the entry and felt the power flow into her, and when her reservoirs were full, channeled it into him. Hard and fast.
She used him, and then she drained him. Hastily channeled a chaotic crunch of power as he died.

She stood
there and enjoyed the afterglow for a long while. Then she stretched and walked around the body. Turned her back on it and studied the door. She knew a few unlocking spells. Now that she was full of energy, she could try them. She'd need to meditate, maybe light some candles. And she had no idea what the phase of the Moon was. She touched the golden latch and it twisted under her fingers and the door swung open.