DAIN RUTTERKIN

Chapter 10

Stroud and I are too disturbed by the meeting with the crone to rest further. We gather our belongings, take breakfast in the dark kitchen, and are departing Leaf's Grove before first light.
The land dips rapidly toward the sea now. By dusk we reach the southeastern edge of the continent that is the Known World. The great port city of Kraken's Gulf beckons. And beyond, the Summering Sea.
Kraken is a free city, Stroud tells me, lorded over by a council of oligarchs who control all sea trade with the mysterious East. If legends be true, the Lords of the Gulf hold more wealth in their walls than Tyrantium and the Nithiri kingdoms combined.
Approaching the gates, I am not dissuaded of this notion. Twin portals of burnished bronze as tall as giants yawn to either side of me, each etched with the behemoth of the deep in fearsome relief. Towering pearlescent obelisks gilt with gold, the seats of lords, rise into the clouds. The high outer walls are purest alabaster, tinted scarlet by the setting sun.
The gate guards wear armor of bronze scales, green with verdigris so as to resemble the scales of a fish. Their surcoats are worked with silver krakens. They share a look as we approach.
"Top of the eve to you, strangers, and welcome to Kraken's Gulf. Your business?"
The one who speaks wears an earring, in the fashion of many of the sailors we saw on the Road. It is a pretty azure coral-wrought thing in the shape of a luminari sunburst.
Stroud notices it at the same moment I do. "Naught of consequence, good sirs. Just a place to rest for the night."
"Aye, milady! Plenty of those to be had, for sure. May I recommend Seafoam House? A lovely view of the bay, and beds as soft as spun clouds."
Stroud nods and smiles with an affected politeness. The sentries move aside and we pass through the great portals into the city.

"Something is wrong." Stroud paces back and forth. She has been agitated since our encounter at the gates.
"I don't understand," I say. "He wore the luminari symbol."
"There is something you should know about our order, Dain. I would have mentioned it sooner, but you've faced horrors enough to be troubled by such intricacies. There are different... factions amongst us. Do you recall your encounter with that sadistic fellow in Haven?"
I nod. I will not be forgetting that one.
"Hierophant Emlyn has long been suspected of membership in a fringe group within the order. I was distressed when Belisarius told me of his involvement. While the mainstream of the Luminari pursue hidden knowledge for the sake of enlightenment, this cadre seeks to stamp out supposed aberrations of the natural order."
"Meaning me?"
Stroud sighs. "Perhaps, Dain. I don't want to worry you needlessly. Perhaps it is just my paranoia for your safety, but consider it an extra precaution."
I nod again and go to the window, edging the curtain aside so as to peek out. Our shared room looks down on Oar Street, still bustling despite the late hour. Across the way, the sign of Seafoam House swings in the breeze, illuminated by the glow of hanging street lamps.
"Do you think the old woman is right?" I say.
"I cannot say, Dain. Belisarius has charged me to guide you safely to your destination. I will not fail in this duty. You have my word." Stroud has come up behind and put her hands on my shoulders.
"I would not have you share my fate."
"I pledged to do what is required to fulfill my oath. No less."
"And if it meant death? Undeath?"
"Let us pray it doesn't come to that." Stroud slides her hands down my arms to my waist.
I can feel myself stirring. She has her hands on my sword-belt and in an instant has it unbuckled and clinking to the floor. Then my breeches are open and my member, already swollen and hard, is trembling in her hands.
Still gripping it with a calm surety, she turns me about and guides me toward the broad bed. Then she gives me a light shove and I let myself fall back onto the yielding down. She pulls off her boots, then strips off her tunic and trousers. She is unapologetically naked before me. Her breasts are huge white mounds with large pink nipples, her waist is narrow and her hips round. The slitted mound between her legs is swollen, pink, and slick. The scents of rose water and sex about her overwhelm. I am paralyzed with excitement and know I should know what to do next, but I cannot form a thought for all the blood pounding in my head.
"Just lay back," she says. "I know what to do."
I nod, trying to breathe as she crawls on top of me. She grips my member in one hand and, settling herself over the swollen head, slowly sits down on it, groaning as it penetrates her. She rides me that way, slowly, and her moans grow into tight screams as she bucks faster. The delectable sensation grows all too suddenly to envelop my being and I feel a torrent of release. She collapses on top of me. We lay like that a while until we can both breathe again. And then I am falling into a deep void, and all but a lingering memory of that ecstatic moment is washed away, like the ocean tides receding from a storm-wracked beach after a tempest.
I awake in the small hours before dawn to voices in the street, wondering in my brain-fog if those fringe luminari have come to spring their trap. I creep to the window and peer through the slit in the curtains. But it is only a drunken couple exchanging slurred whispers as they exit the Seafoam and meander in serpentine fashion down Oar Street toward the harbor.