The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

‘Lens’

(mc, f/f, sf, nc)

DISCLAIMER: This material is for adults only; it contains explicit sexual imagery and non-consensual relationships. If you are offended by this type of material or you are under legal age in your area, do NOT continue.

SYNOPSIS:

A patrol of barbarian hunters encounters a slave caravan which has blundered into an ancient threat.

WARNING:

Story contains squicky things! If poking through someone’s skull into their brain disturbs you, this story may not be for you.

* * *

‘Lens’

Part Two

Isleif had no idea what they were digging for.

Nonetheless, she dug.

She had gloves, new gloves, for one of the Fashedian slaves was an accomplished seamstress—the woman Soo had made love to on that first eventful night. New gloves and a shovel; one of only two, for the slavers had not brought more digging tools than might be required to enhance the comfort of a camp. Earthworks had not been on their agenda when they had set out to the north.

The slavers. Isleif also had no idea what had become of them, although apparently Qin’shaliri and the muscular Tsulengi who had anointed her had been among their number. That much she had learned from Lissira, in the half-dozen sentences which Isleif had exchanged with anyone today. Mistress’ slaves worked in silence.

Isleif had been given a shovel due to her superior strength, and put it to work eagerly. Mistress had opened her mind again and inserted a desire to work hard, and Isleif embraced that now. Mistress wanted her to dig and now Isleif wanted to dig, with all her heart.

Only she did not know what she was digging for.

It seemed exploratory. Some of the women were digging the main body of the trench, while other groups dug smaller trenches at right angles from that center line, carving a geometric image of a tree into the hillside.

Something was buried here, or so Mistress must think.

Treasure?

Isleif dug into the hill—it was alluvial, dirt jumbled with rocks, packed hard by the settling of centuries. It was not rock, or they would not have been able to dig at all, but it was arduous work and the progress was slow. Isleif stripped to her loincloth and breast strap. The day was cool, but her sweat ran down her legs and spattered the shovel blade.

“Norreni,” someone said, and Isleif stopped digging and stood erect. Her back flickered with a symphony of muscle twinges.

She turned to find the Thyryn she had first met, in the camp, with pale orange hair and eyebrows. The one who had told her to run.

“You are to rest. I shall dig now.”

Isleif nodded. “Thank you,” she said, handing over the shovel. The other woman seemed surprised at the courtesy, but nodded.

Isleif returned to the clearing, where she took a ladle of water from a bucket and drank deeply. Other slaves were moving purposefully around—Eoryn passed by with a cloth sack she had just emptied of dirt, but made no acknowledgment.

With her feet Isleif shuffled some leaves against the base of a tree, then sat gratefully down to rest. She was a hunter, a tracker, trained to walk all the day and the night, to hide for hours, to fight viciously to a quick kill. Not to dig. Her muscles were sending messages of complaint from across her back and down her spine.

The muscular Tsulengi passed by, as did Lissira. As did a half dozen other women who Isleif knew only by sight. All were focused on Mistress’ pleasure, almost oblivious to the world around them.

Was she? Yes, obviously, but somehow Isleif felt that she was less... monomaniacal about it. As though there was room in her mind for thoughts other than those strictly necessary to carry out her Mistress’ will. Was that unusual, or did she simply have no insight into the minds of her fellow slaves? Were they thinking the same, about her? Or were they not thinking much at all?

She was thirsty again, but her lower back did not want her to rise, so Isleif just sighed and rested against the tree.

* * *

That evening, Isleif’s body was a mass of knotted pain.

Fortunately, massage was a skill known to more than one of the slaves. As the fire was built and others cooked, Isleif lay on a firm cot and moaned as Soo, the Tsulengi cook, dipped her hands in oil and kneaded Isleif’s back. It was a different pleasure than Mistress provided, and amply mixed with discomfort, but welcome for all that.

As she lay on the cot with Soo’s strong hands probing deeply into her back, Seif and Eoryn passed by from the washing buckets. They were nude, tall slender Seif and shorter, stronger Eoryn, and their faces were slack and their eyes glassy as they obeyed the summons and drifted into Mistress’ tent.

This evening, apparently, it was their turn to partake in Mistress’ entertainment.

Soo’s thumbs pressed down alongside Isleif’s spine and she groaned helplessly.

* * *

She woke.

It was full dark, the moon a sliver in the sky. She was lying on her own sleeping mat, under her own fur.

There was a hand on her arm, a soft touch.

Isleif rolled over. There was a dark face near her own, a woman lying on the bare ground next to Isleif’s mat.

“I greet you,” the woman said in a whisper.

“And it is well in my ears,” Isleif replied. A Thyryn formula. She squinted in the darkness. Yes, it was the woman who had taken her place this afternoon. The beautiful red-haired slave who had warned her to flee, two days and a lifetime ago.

“My name is Brynwyrren,” the other woman breathed.

“I am Isleif.”

“You are not like the others,” Brynwyrren said. “There is self left in you.”

Isleif was not sure how to respond. “And in you?” she asked.

“A little. I remember...” Her voice tailed off. “I have a question for you.”

“I shall answer.”

“Do you remember that once you would not have wanted to obey?”

The question was odd, like a rock floating down a stream. It didn’t make sense. Isleif thought back, before she had met Mistress. Would she have wanted to be her slave? If there had been a choice?

“I... I do remember that. Yes, once I... I would have wanted to remain free. But the memory is like a ghost, a thing that no longer has life in it.”

“You must hold onto it,” Brynwyrren whispered. “Once that is gone... there will be nothing left of you. Only a puppet, a hollow woman. A vessel containing only her will.”

Isleif shivered. She feared that. But... she also wanted it. To be a pure slave, a will-less extension of Mistress’ desires.

“I must go. Do not think on our meeting. Do not think on my question. If she sees the thought within your mind, she may snuff it out. But hold fast to your ghost, Isleif of the Norren clans.”

Brynwyrren made to withdraw, but Isleif reached out and took hold of her arm.

“Wait,” she said.

“I will do as you say. I have... experience with secrets. But I wish to say... thank you, Brynwyrren of Thyr. I feel that you have given me something.”

The redhead smiled softly, and nodded. Isleif let her go, and watched as she slipped silently across the camp, back to the tent she shared with the other Thyryn women.

Isleif rolled onto her back, which complained briefly. She looked up at the stars, seeing the sickle, the clubbed hunter, the winter lion. The moon was so thin as to be simply an arc of light.

She thought on what the redhead had said. Somehow, Isleif had almost forgotten about the time before, though it was only two days. But when she thought about it, the past became firmer, like drawing near a person standing in the fog. But she needed to put it aside, to draw the fog back over.

She thought about the Thyryn again. She had smelled good.

Then Isleif fell back asleep.

* * *

Isleif awoke and found that her back was a slab of wood. Gingerly, rocking side to side, she managed to sit up.

The camp was mostly empty, and the sun was shining through the trees. Her usual ability to wake before dawn had deserted her—though in truth, it was Eoryn who unfailingly saw the sun rise. Some mornings, after particularly raucous revelry, morning didn’t see Isleif at all.

She should dig. Wincing, Isleif struggled to rise.

still thyself

Isleif sagged back onto her buttocks. Mistress was approaching, not emerging from her tent but walking up the hill from the dig site, Qin’shaliri tailing blissfully behind her.

Mistress crossed the camp and stood above Isleif. Isleif stared up at her nude form.

Isleif felt Mistress enter her mind, touching and gliding within; Isleif’s consciousness did not even need to be moved aside, Mistress simply probed as she wished without giving it any notice.

“Pained thou art, in liniment and vettle,” Mistress said. The light glinted off of the black gloss shrouding her head. “Come, this day shalt thou ease.”

Mistress turned and walked to her tent. Isleif struggled to rise, then Qin’shaliri took her forearm and gently pulled her to her feet. Bent over, Isleif walked to the tent leaning on Qin’shaliri’s arm.

They entered and Mistress pointed at a pile of pillows. “There,” she said. “Thou shalt ease. Ishinen-slave shall attend thee postern her toil.”

Isleif let herself slump down into the pillows. They were soft and it felt good not to move, although from here it was almost certain she would not be able to rise again without aid.

Mistress sat down in her chair, and with an elegant hand beckoned Qin’shaliri to her. The Viqquabi went eagerly. She stood at attention for a moment as Mistress whispered into her mind, then began to shed her clothes, undressing quickly but neatly, piling her garments to the side. Shortly she was nude.

“Beauteous,” Mistress breathed, reaching out to stroke Qin’shaliri’s breasts. “Toil we must, to pare thee. Within us burns such avid hope; thou shalt be ready.”

Qin’shaliri said nothing, simply stood and savored her Mistress’ touch. Then, slowly, she sank to her knees.

Mistress took hold of her head, long fingers firm on either side, and brought her own head close; had she eyes, she would have been staring deeply into Qin’shaliri’s own. As it was, Isleif could dimly see the dusky woman’s reflection on the black gloss over Mistress’ face.

And then nothing happened.

Mistress and her slave remained in that position, Mistress holding Qin’shaliri’s head, Qin’shaliri passively kneeling, hands at her sides, staring blankly into smooth blackness. They breathed, but otherwise did not move. Now and then Qin’shaliri would grunt softly, or make some other low noise. Mistress said nothing at all.

Isleif watched them for a long time, having nothing else to do but obey Mistress’ command to rest. Or rather, to ‘ease’—why Mistress spoke in such an odd dialect of the common tongue was one of the many mysteries of which she was composed. Isleif could feel the sun rising, rising, the sounds of the woods shifting from early morning to late morning. The excavation was too distant to hear, but she knew that aside from them the other women were all obediently digging away.

Tired, Isleif gave the two women in their strange tableau a last look, and closed her eyes.

* * *

In the afternoon the well-muscled Tsulengi returned from the ditch. After washing, she took laid Isleif out on the cot once more and massaged her back. Her fingers, strong enough to crack stones in her grip, were light and nimble as they played across Isleif’s pained back, then irresistible as they bore down on a clenching muscle. Isleif would sigh as the Tsulengi’s oiled hands slid across her skin, then moan as they dug into a knot.

Her name was Ishinen. Apparently digging without stop for most of the day hadn’t fatigued her in the slightest; she worked on Isleif’s back with a sense of perfectionism.

By evening, Isleif was feeling more or less normal.

The other diggers returned, sweaty and dirt encrusted, and washed themselves. Seif and Eoryn had gone hunting and returned with a sow, which Thylja and Soo, apparently the best at cooking, quickly butchered, spitted, and had turning over the fire.

Isleif stood and waited. Food was handed around, a hunk of bread and a cut of pork; Mistress’ portion was taken into her tent. She had not emerged that day. Whatever she had been doing with Qin’shaliri was apparently tiring.

As Isleif examined that idle thought, Qin’shaliri herself emerged from the tent, nude save for her boots and a belt around her waist. She was smiling absently. When she spied Isleif, her smiled widened a fraction, and she approached.

“Isleif,” she said. “I trust you are rested?”

“I am much improved, thank you,” Isleif replied.

“Good. You will watch tonight, the first half of the night.”

“Yes, Qin’shaliri,” Isleif replied.

Her eyes wide and glassy, Qin’shaliri reached out to stroke Isleif’s cheek. “Norren women are famed for their beauty,” she said, her hand dropping to stroke the front of Isleif’s shirt. “And you are a high example of that. Mistress is pleased that you came.” She gave Isleif’s breast a gentle squeeze.

“I... thank you,” Isleif said, feeling awkward but slightly enjoying the groping. Qin’shaliri was a beauty herself.

“Perhaps when Mistress desires...” Qin’shaliri tailed off, and looked away. Then she smiled at Isleif again and lowered her hand.

“You will watch the first half of the night. Then, another will take your place and you shall sleep.”

Qin’shaliri turned on her heel and went to speak with someone else.

* * *

The fire was banked and the others were asleep.

Isleif prowled the woods. She expected nothing—the animals of the forest would not approach a large camp of man, not in late summer when game was plentiful. Of men there were none who lived in these parts, only the rare passer-through.

Isleif expected nothing, but was ready for anything. Her axes were at her hips, and in the dark woods there was no human who could spy her and no animal she feared.

Slowly, as the waxing moon slid upwards in the sky, she circled the camp. Owls made their noises, ground-dwelling creatures scuttled amongst the leaves and bracken.

Nothing happened.

When the moon was overhead, Isleif saw motion in the camp. One of the women had risen and was moving quietly around. Washing her face. It must be Isleif’s replacement as watch—the time was right. Isleif drew quietly up the hill.

The woman stood at the edge of the camp. Isleif let her foot crisp on a leaf—and the woman’s head turned to spy her.

It was Brynwyrren.

In the moonlight she seemed exceedingly beautiful; perhaps the bright color of her hair drew the eye away from the lines of her face. Now, in the nocturnal monochrome, Isleif was struck by just how comely Brynwyrren was, her face solemn as Isleif approached.

“Isleif,” she said.

“Brynwyrren.”

“I am to take your place on watch.”

“So it shall be.”

They stood for a moment, looking at each other.

“You are very beautiful,” Isleif suddenly said, and was suddenly shocked at her own boldness.

Brynwyrren flushed and looked down. “Thank you. You are... you are a very...” She looked up. “It is selfish of me but I am so very thankful that you are here. I...” Her gaze dropped again and she drew a slow circle in the dirt with the toe of her boot.

“You told me to run,” Isleif said.

Brynwyrren looked at her with pale eyes. “Did I? I do not remember doing so.”

Isleif nodded. “You did.”

“I remember... I remember coming back to camp as Mistress had instructed. And then you arrived, so very... very... Norren. Beautiful and confident and strong... and I led you to Mistress. As was right to do.”

“Mistress must have changed your memories,” Isleif observed, with a feeling that was not fear but a sense of strangeness.

Brynwyrren shrugged. “I am her slave. My mind is hers to do with as she will.”

Isleif nodded. That was true, but...

There was a ‘but’, she was sure of it.

“I thought the Norren lived far east of here,” Brynwyrren said. “What brought you?”

“We patrol these woods, our lands are only two week’s walk. It is good to know the lands nearby in case game becomes scarce; and the Tyrwood has been within our claim for generations. What... how did you come here, Brynwyrren? Surely Mistress did not come from the south to buy you.”

“No. We found Mistress only two weeks ago. Before her, this was a slave caravan. Of the more prosaic, human sort.” She spat off to the side. “I was one of their slaves. I had been sold in the moot at Abyrfyrd, as had most of us. Qin’shaliri was one of the slavers, Ishinen one of her guards.”

“Only two of them?”

Brynwyrren shook her head. “No. The others were men. Ten of them. They came with silks and oils and the produce of the south, and they traded with the Thyryn at Abyrfyrd—as they do. They traded for us.”

“You don’t seem slave-born, Brynwyrren.”

“No. I was a free woman, before a month ago. Then I spurned a hold-chief’s son. There was a raid, I was taken.” She looked into the distance, into the forest. “The son took me to his bed. If my father would not give me to him, he said, he had only to take me.”

“I killed him with his own knife.”

Isleif, to her own surprise, made a small smile. “That is... very Thyryn. They, so petty. You, so fierce.”

Brynwyrren looked at the ground, but was there a small smile on her face?

“The hold-chief wanted me slain for this crime, but his counsel-men advised my sale. It would avert war between their hold and mine, and produce a profit into the bargain. So they chained me and took me to Abyrfyrd.”

“Do you know the other slaves?”

She shook her head. “Not before two weeks ago. Thylja, Lyrr, Ithrad—they are Thyr but from other holds. The Fashedians were being sold on, having been slaves in Thyr. Soo, the Viqquabi brought with them. Akkaden, the slave-master whose caravan it was, was angry that there were no Norren available, but he bought what he could and turned south.”

“Had he remained longer the snows might have caught him on the high road.”

“Just so. So we came south, in chains. Some of the men were bearers and carried goods south, but some were guards and kept us moving with sticks. Thylja did not bide her time—she bit and kicked, and they beat her for it. Then....”

Brynwyrren glanced at Mistress’ tent.

“Then one of the men came back from scouting ahead, babbling that he had found treasure. A cave. So Akkaden and some of his men went to see. They were gone some time. When they came back, Mistress was with them. She... you know. She took us.”

“Yes. I understand. But what happened to the men?”

“I don’t remember. I got the impression... I think there were too many of us. For Mistress to control. More than she wanted. And she wanted to keep the women.”

“So the men are...”

“Gone.”

“I see.”

What had Mistress done with them? Had they smiled as they slit their own throats? Or did she simply reach into their minds and turn them off?

And what of Brynwyrren, a month ago free, then taken, bound in chains, sold south... and now owned by a creature—wonderful, beautiful Mistress—to whom her mind was as molding clay?

Isleif wanted to touch her, to comfort her, this fierce, intelligent, beautiful Thyr. She no longer remembered that she had warned Isleif to run.

But Isleif remembered. Even if Mistress changed that, Isleif would remember the feeling, the sense of respect and gratitude.

And more?

“I should... I should go to bed,” Isleif said. “I must dig for Mistress tomorrow.”

“Yes, we must find what she seeks. Good night, Isleif.”

“Good night, Brynwyrren.”

Suddenly, Brynwyrren snatched at Isleif’s wrist, held her.

“Isleif?”

“Yes?”

“I... I want you to know, that... that I think you are beautiful too. And it’s not just Mistress’ doing—I know she’s changing us, making us what she wants, and she wants us to love... each other. And not men. But... but if I had met you, before, in my father’s hold...”

Brynwyrren looked into Isleif’s eyes.

“I would have thought so even then,” Brynwyrren said.

Isleif blinked. Brynwyrren released her wrist.

Isleif enfolded her.

She held her, and held her, and Brynwyrren was trembling. “Shh,” Isleif whispered. “Shh. We are together now. You are beautiful to me, Brynwyrren of Thyr. Shh.”

Brynwyrren looked up from within her arms and her eyes were shining.

Isleif looked into her eyes, and kissed her.

* * *

Isleif stood erect and rolled her shoulders.

She wore gloves but not sleeves, and her arms were a motley of brown splotches, mud spatters ranging from fresh to dried. The sun was still high but it only just filtered down through the trees and into the trench.

In the early morning it had rained, not hard, but it made the trench a many-forked cleft of muck, sucking on boots, weighing down each scoop of earth.

Isleif still didn’t know what she was digging for.

There was a tap on her shoulder and Isleif turned to find Lissira, who smiled at her. The curvy Fashedian was as filthy as Isleif, and Isleif stepped back out of the way to let her scoop up a bucketful of muck, and then another. Lissira slid a pole between the buckets and hoisted it to her shoulder.

“I found something!” came a sudden cry.

Isleif and Lissira looked at eachother. Lissira lowered the pole to the ground; Isleif cast aside the shovel. They hurried to the main trench.

“Tell Mistress!” the slender brown-haired Thyryn, Lyrr, was calling from the side trench opposite Isleif’s. “Tell her I found... well... it!”

Mistress must have been in the clearing, as she was already striding towards them down the main part of the ditch. Nude except for her tall boots and the black gloss on her head, her pale white skin contrasted with the filthy mud-browned clothes of her slaves. They all backed away to let her pass.

She stopped and looked down the side excavation and Isleif could not help but to stare at Mistress’ smooth ass, the dimples just above. Then upward, at the black gloss, and the long brown ponytail that emerged from the cleft in it; it was held by a silvery ring.

Suddenly, Isleif felt very pleased.

Yessss

came the voice, and Isleif smiled and saw Lissira—who had also been ogling Mistress’ backside—grin at her.

They had found it.

She had found it.

“Clear this aweight,” Mistress commanded, gesturing towards the far end of the side trench. “Qin’shaliri-slave, hie here and oversee the toil. All else shall stop. This is that we for-yearn. There aught a portal. Find such.”

“Yes, Mistress,” all of the women around her chorused.

Mistress stepped to the side and Qin’shaliri hurried down the ditch, gesturing as she went. “Lyrr, keep digging, dig it out on the right side. Isleif, get your shovel. Ithrad, fetch Ishinen. Lissira, collect the dirt from here and dump it in that trench you are standing in front of. Seif, go around and on top and start digging there.”

Isleif fetched her shovel from ten paces down the branch she had dug out, and returned. Qin’shaliri gestured at her. “Isleif, clear the left side.”

“Yes,” Isleif replied, and moved past her.

And then she saw what it was they had been digging for.

It was metal—metal that was buried but unrusted. A flat surface of it, muck-strewn, roots growing along the face in dense tangles. Isleif wanted to touch it, but Mistress needed it cleared away so instead Isleif began to dig.

* * *

Exhausted, Isleif leaned back against the muddy ditch wall. Sweat ran down her neck, swelled in her eyebrows, but wiping them with her sleeve only streaked her face with mud.

It was exposed.

It was a door.

Mistress stood directly in front of it. She was eager, almost trembling—meaning that Isleif was eager as well.

There were no handles, nor knobs, nor buttons, nor anything on the exterior of the door other than streaks of dirt and a few dangling roots that the slaves had not torn off before Mistress backed them away. It had an outline; otherwise it was shining metal.

More metal than Isleif had seen in a single piece in her entire life.

Mistress raised her hands to the side, palms flat, as though pressing against the walls of a narrow room. Her long fingers flexed.

Isleif felt a slight... pressure.

Mistress exhaled. Then the pressure grew, like an incipient headache.

Nothing happened.

There was a quick feeling of panic, swiftly damped down. Mistress lowered her hands, then raised them again, back to back with palms out this time, as though she were fighting against a pair of sliding doors which fought to close on her. The muscles of her arms and back flexed.

This time, it hurt. Isleif winced.

Then it passed again. Nothing had happened.

“We... will... enter...” Mistress muttered. She spread her legs slightly, bracing herself, then raised her hands a third time, pushing upward, stopping the downhill roll of a boulder.

Isleif cringed as the pain reached into her, a bone bruise, a strike from a club. Her eyes filled with water. Around her, the other slaves were whimpering.

The door gave a rending screech.

Slowly, in fits and starts, it slid to the side.

Behind it was darkness.

“Hie and return amit light,” Mistress said, her voice strained. She waved a hand in the air. “Seif. Brynwyrren. Hie lay-wise and return amit light.”

Seif and Brynwyrren ran off.

Mistress stepped up to the opening. It was easily tall enough for her—a door made for such women as she. Isleif could smell the air emanating from the cave, cool and dry and... stale. Old. The place had been shut for a long time.

Mistress waited. Her slaves waited.

Seif and Brynwyrren came running back, bearing glass-flute lanterns. Stopping beside Mistress, they hurriedly lit them.

“Threat herein aight there none,” Mistress said. “We requite light only, and bearers. Seif, Brynwyrren. Qin’shaliri and... and Isleif. Thou shalt company us. Stand behind.”

Mistress walked into the cave. The four slaves followed, Seif and Brynwyrren just behind, holding the lanterns high, Isleif and Qin’shaliri coming after them.

It was not a cave. It was a tunnel. The floor was perfectly level stone, without groove or mortar. The walls... the walls were metal, shining, the same as the door. It stretched away into darkness.

Isleif swallowed. Who had made this? And how? She reached out to touch the wall with a gloved finger—but it seemed wrong to smudge this wall with dirt. The glove, both gloves, came off, and went into a pocket.

The metal wall was cool. The temperature of dirt.

The floor had a layer of dust, half a thumb deep, and the air was perfectly still and without motes. Their footfalls raised low, swirling clouds.

The corridor went into the hill for thirty paces.

Then, a room.

Two stories tall, one they stood on, and one beneath. The floor they were on became a balcony that ran around the room, a railing of metal pipes preventing a fall. The lanterns’ light was not enough to reach the far side, but near where they stood, it flickered on glass, lining the outer walls of the room.

Coffins. For within were skeletons.

Strange coffins, almost upright, leaning backward against the walls. One next to another in perfect regularity. The glass was rounded, as though the skeletons lay crumpled at the bottom of giant drinking cups. The metal wall makers had apparently possessed as much proficiency with glass, for the giant tubes were perfectly formed, without blemish. Viqquabi merchants would have paid their own weight in silver bars to possess just one.

They lined the room; the shorter axis was twenty coffins long. Each with a pile of bones resting at the bottom.

Isleif felt sad. It must have been Mistress; these people had died so long ago none who might have mourned them would yet be alive.

Mistress walked along the balcony, trailing swirls of dust, her boots loud against the stone. She peered into each glass tube, running her fingers lightly across their dusty surfaces.

“None...” she whispered. “So long...”

The sense of loss strengthened as Mistress walked around the edges of the room. Her slaves followed silently, Seif and Brynwyrren holding the lanterns aloft.

Isleif looked at the bones. They were old, so old they were no longer shining and clean but had become ragged around the edges. Were she to touch them, it was likely they would crumble. The skulls and long bones were in better shape, the vertebrae and ribs scattered and fragile looking.

She looked at a skull. Who had these people been? Friends of Mistress? Others like her, tall and pale and capped with strange black gloss? Their skulls were the same as anyone’s, teeth and nose and eye sockets... but no. On the very top of each skull was a round hole, perfectly smooth, the size of a large coin.

Isleif paused to look. The hole was almost perfectly circular, the edges even and slightly thicker than the skull around them. What had done that? She looked at Mistress. That thing on her head... did it reach inside?

Had these people all been like her?

They circled around the room. The long side was twice as long as the short, and at the far end, in the opposite corner from where they had entered, there were stairs down, and strange metallic boxes covered in levers and buttons. All shrouded in dust, that half-thumb depth of long-still dust.

Mistress descended the spiral stair case. Isleif marveled at the craftsmanship, the use of metal to make stairs. Each step was identical to the one above—how had they made this?

Her curiosity was being stifled by a deep sense of sadness, an aching grief that radiated from the pale woman in front of them.

“An we are alone... aight we the end,” Mistress said quietly, looking around the lower level of the room.

The lower level was walled with glass once again, only this time not the bone-filled coffins from above, but glass jars, each the size of the small casks that Kyurren brandy was stored in, larger than a head, smaller than a torso. They were each on a shelf, three shelves high, running along the three walls of the room.

They appeared to all be empty. Mistress walked along the wall, trailing her fingers across them, leaving long streaks in the dust.

“No, no,” she whispered. “Not alone, please...”

Then she stopped. “Hight,” she said. “and hear.”

Isleif listened. In the otherwise perfect silence of the tomb—for such it was—she could hear... a buzzing?

Mistress turned and walked quickly to a corner of the room. There, on the bottom shelf, in the corner, was... light? Yes, an almost imperceptible light, glowing in the dust at the base of a jar. And in the jar...

A ball? A... trophy? It was white, translucently so, with a texture like that of the grubs that suckled on tree roots underground. It was spherical with a horn on top, a ball with a pointed horn a hand long rising from the upper surface.

Seeing it, Isleif felt... hope? Relief, and hope.

“Clear sight,” Mistress whispered. “Half-life. Half-life, of course. Death to the ninety-nine but life for the one. Life, pray, life.”

Mistress dropped onto her knees. Reaching down, she felt around the base of the glass and, with a click, lifted it away.

Gingerly, Mistress reached out to touch the thing with a finger. She stared at it, and Isleif felt her mind reach out...

Relief. Joy! Isleif broke out in a grin, and looked at Qin’shaliri next to her who was grinning right back. Yes, yes, yes! She felt almost like dancing.

Mistress reached down and lifted the ball. “Alive,” she whispered. “Alive!” The shout echoed off of the metal walls. “We are readied for thee, little sister,” she told the ball. “We have prepared.” Her head came up and faced Qin’shaliri, with a wide, full-lipped smile. Qin’shaliri smiled back.

* * *

Isleif stood and looked out into the forest.

They had all returned to the camp, Mistress bearing her precious bundle. Buckets of water had come from the creek and bathing, followed by the washing of clothes, had taken two hours. Hours Mistress had spent in her tent.

She had taken Lissira and Ithrad—the fourth Thyryn, red-haired and small in stature, with large green eyes, too curvy to be elfin but too slight to be voluptuous—into the tent, along with Ishinen and Lyrr. All had been nude as they passed under the doorflap into Mistress’ presence.

The other eleven of them worked smoothly at Qin’shaliri’s direction, washing clothes, preparing food, cleaning each other and the camp. As the sun began to redden in the western sky, Lyrr emerged from Mistress’ tent and took Qin’shaliri back inside with her.

The others sat down to rest.

Isleif had at first approached where Eottir sat with Eoryn and Seif. They smiled as she seated herself, but Isleif found that she had nothing to say. Eoryn and Seif both seemed blissfully passive, waiting for Mistress to command. Eottir... Eottir was focused, but it was an intimidating focus, a hunger to serve Mistress, a need that flickered in her eyes.

After a few moments, Isleif stood and wandered to the camp’s edge.

She watched a hawk, circling. The voice in her head, quiet, distant, was still, but even so Isleif felt a sense of detachment. For her friends there was only Mistress now, the need to serve her and to be her slaves. For Isleif...

“What is it that you see?”

Brynwyrren had drawn near.

“A hawk. One of the sort we call stonefeather. There.”

Brynwyrren shaded her eyes with a hand. “Yes. We call those Ygylinoch, the ‘soldiers of the king’. There are legends about them, past lives they lived.”

Isleif turned her gaze to Brynwyrren. “I would like to hear you tell me those legends.”

Brynwyrren smiled at her.

They stood for a moment, looking at each other.

Brynwyrren looked into the forest again. “Now that Mistress has found her prize, where do you think we will go?”

“I had not thought on that. Winter will come, we cannot stay here. I guess I would expect us to go south, as the slavers would have, at least into the borderlands of Kyur.”

“I wonder what will happen,” Brynwyrren said quietly. “When we reach more populated lands.”

Isleif shrugged. “We will find out together,” she said, slipping her fingers between Brynwyrren’s.

Brynwyrren drew close, and kissed her. It was warm and precious and Brynwyrren smelled good, and Isleif kissed her back, tenderly, then hungrily.

“I—”

come

They turned as one, passion not stilled but suddenly irrelevant.

All of the slaves were rising and stumbling towards Mistress’ tent. At the flap they stripped, fumbling off their shirts and pantaloons, dropping breast straps and undergarments, then slipping beneath the doorflap into the warm interior air.

Isleif’s boots needed untying, and she and Brynwyrren were among the last to be fully naked, skin exposed to the cooling night air. They shared a look and crawled inside.

The tent was full. Most of the slaves knelt around the tent edges. Mistress was in her chair, and her eagerness slipped into Isleif’s mind. She was ready and now Isleif was ready for what was to come next.

Just in front of Mistress, lying on the floor, Lissira and Ithrad were entwined, bodies slick with oil and sweat. Their arms were wrapped around each other, their mouths linked with tongues flicking at each other. Nestled between them, pressed between their crotches, was the strange white sphere with the horn. It glistened with oil and the women’s body fluids. The curvy southerner and the slight, red-haired Thyryn were like two gentle hands, cupping the orb in the space between their thighs.

In the center of the room knelt Qin’shaliri. Her beautiful dark hair had been parted in the center, braided into two plaits, and then those two plaits braided together to hang down the middle of her back. Lyrr knelt behind her, reaching beneath Qin’shaliri’s arms to gently knead her breasts.

Isleif and Brynwyrren crawled on hands and knees into the tent and over to a space amongst the pillows lining its edge. Remaining on their knees, they rose and sat back on their heels.

A moment later, Mistress stood.

“At such time we ought spake. We wert awoken to discover a world unlike; a world undreamt. Long we gave over to sleep, hostage to fate, lest the war twixt we and ourn enemy a’worse. Seem it did. Pulled they the pillars and bracht down the temple whole.”

Mistress looked at her feet, at the glistening white orb nestled between her slaves. “Now discover we the world anew. Our enemy in great remove, has lost. We abide, we two, we and ourn sister. From us shalt our purpose proceed. It is time, our sister. Wake into thine own.”

Mistress raised a hand. Lissira and Ithrad broke their kiss and moaned, hands slipping from slick skin, each woman rolling onto her back and arching as she came. Their bodies twitched as Mistress bent down and lifted the glistening orb. It seemed... more translucent than before, wet alabaster, reminding Isleif even more strongly of the grubs beneath the earth.

come

The instruction was for Qin’shaliri, who rose, head bowed, and approached. She knelt again at Mistress’ feet.

turn

Qin’shaliri rocked back and forth as she turned around on her knees, until she was facing outward, looking at the tentflap, thighs spread, showing her glossy breasts and neatly shaven pussy to the slaves ringing the tent. Her face was blissful.

Lyrr approached on hands and knees, lowering herself, moving like a snake, until she was lying on the rug with her head between Qin’shaliri’s knees. She rolled over, exposing the front of her lithe body, and slid further forward.

Her lips opened, her mouth rose only a little, and she took hold of Qin’shaliri’s sex.

Qin’shaliri was silent but her mouth opened slightly, lips quivering, as Lyrr began to lick and suck at her.

To either side, Lissira and Ithrad were rising from the floor, bodies still slick with oil. They slid close, next to Qin’shaliri, and began to lick her, arms and neck, breasts and belly.

open

Qin’shaliri moaned.

open

She moaned again, louder, as though Lyrr’s ministrations had become invasive.

OPEN

All of the slaves moaned then, as Mistress’ command reached into them. Qin’shaliri’s mouth had come open and she was breathing in short, panting barks. Lissira and Ithrad were suckling on her breasts, Lyrr’s face was pressed deeply against her crotch; Qin’shaliri’s hands were on her thighs, fingers trembling.

Mistress lifted the white orb and turned it, so the horn was pointing down. Gingerly, slowly, she lowered it until the tip of the horn was touching the top of Qin’shaliri’s head.

Then she pushed.

Qin’shaliri’s mouth opened even wider, and her eyes spread until white was visible all the way around her dark irises. Her voice became a high-pitched whine.

The horn pushed down into Qin’shaliri’s head, down, the tip and then the shaft, sliding in, pushing in. The muscles in Mistress’ arms were taut, veins bulging; she was pushing against resistance, but pushing still. The white shaft slid slowly but unceasingly down.

Qin’shaliri began to cry out, a rhythmic grunt, as though she were being roughly fucked by an ungentle man.

Mistress pushed down.

The shaft had almost disappeared into Qin’shaliri’s brain. Qin’shaliri was barking, gasping, grinding her sex against Lyrr’s still-sucking mouth.

Isleif did not know if she had ever been so aroused. It was Mistress, Mistress was aroused, far more than she had been two nights before, she was in the grip of reproduction and all of her slaves were part of it. Isleif’s pussy was practically weeping, rivulets of lubrication seeping out of her snatch and running down her thighs. The other slaves were mewling, panting, but Isleif had no thought to look at them; her eyes were nailed to Mistress and her prey.

The surface of the sphere touched Qin’shaliri’s skull.

Mistress’s hands moved, changed position slightly, slid to the sides of the orb. Qin’shaliri was grunting, panting, women’s mouths on her pussy and breasts, her brain impaled by that white horn.

Slowly, Mistress began to pull upward.

The orb distorted, wrinkled.

The sphere had a skin.

As her hands rose, the white sphere came up to reveal glistening mucus, white like semen. Mistress pulled up and the skin of the sphere—of the egg—came away, leaving the contents still attached to Qin’shaliri’s head.

Mistress pulled the eggskin away and it crumpled in her hands. Idly, she tossed it aside.

The white bundle of slime atop Qin’shaliri’s head began to unfurl.

“Of course,” thought Isleif through her ardor. “Of course.”

It opened like a flower, a four-leafed flower. Large, flat, rounded petals curled downward, strings of mucus dangling between them. The petals curled down, down, down, until they came to rest gently on Qin’shaliri’s head, covering it, larvae-like white flesh atop both of her eyes, the back of her head. Where the petals touched they joined, the seam barely visible. Where the seams ended, in the inverted ‘v’s between the perfect curves, stood Qin’shaliri’s proud nose, her ears, and the dark braid dangling down the center of her back.

Sightless, Qin’shaliri moaned.

Mistress moaned as well.

“Our sister,” she breathed. “This host is thine. Take it, bind it; in slavery shalt it serve thee an the ending of thy days. Cleave and become one flesh, the slave, the master, bound forever.”

Qin’shaliri moaned again and leaned forward, bowing her head. Her hands fluttered on her thighs.

“My... miiind,” she groaned.

Lissira and Ithrad fell to the sides, lying on the floor. Their hands went between their legs, knuckles flexing as they worked their pussies. Isleif found that she was shoving her fingers up inside herself as well; she hadn’t noticed when she began. Her hand was soaked in dripping sexjuice.

“It’s in,” Qin’shaliri grunted, “my mind. I... I....” She moaned again, leaning back up.

“I,” she panted. “I.”

Mistress was masturbating too, legs bent in a slight crouch, long white fingers pinching her clit, her other hand reaching around from behind to slide slicked fingers into her pale sex.

“I,” Qin’shaliri grunted, her mouth working beneath the slimy whiteness that now covered her eyes. “I.” She gasped deeply. “I.”

“W-welcome,” she said.

“Master.”

“My mind,” Qin’shaliri rasped. “Welcome to my mind. My mind is yours, my master. Yes, master. I... we. We are your slave. We are your host. We... will obey. Forever. Yes, master. Yes.”

Qin’shaliri groaned, coming, but remained kneeling. Her mouth opened and closed but said nothing further, working silently. Her hands shivered on her thighs.

Mistress lowered herself to her haunches, reached out to touch the new host. “Sister,” she said, then licked the sticky white flesh atop Qin’shaliri’s head. A streamer clung to her tongue as she pulled away; her nipples were hard as rock.

Her glossy black head turned towards the slaves along the walls. Soo moaned, then scrambled across the floor, crawling, flipping her body over. She slithered beneath Mistress, and Mistress lowered her sex onto Soo’s mouth with a satisfied groan.

Mistress resumed stroking Qin’shaliri’s body, licking the slimy whiteness that shrouded her head. Sticky streamers clung to Mistress’ chin and dripped onto Qin’shaliri’s shoulders.

Suddenly, masturbation was not enough—not right. Isleif needed someone else, a woman to make love to, a mouth to explore and a pussy to suck on.

To her right, Ishinen had turned to Brynwyrren and reached out to touch her, strong golden fingers stroking Brynwyrren’s breasts. Brynwyrren shivered, but turned away, turned to face Isleif. Her soft green eyes were wide and deep within them Isleif saw something that cut through her burning need with something softer—but stronger.

Isleif opened her arms and Brynwyrren came into them, her mouth opened and took Isleif’s own. They clung together, bodies aflame; Isleif drew Brynwyrren’s tongue into her mouth and suckled on it, teased it with her own. When she stopped for breath she was suddenly lost in her Thyryn lover’s eyes, staring helplessly—then Brynwyrren’s freckled cheeks flushed further and she gently pushed Isleif backward, using her forearms to spread Isleif’s legs, and Brynwyrren lowered her mouth and began to lick at Isleif’s soaking-wet sex.

Isleif groaned and stroked Brynwyrren’s hair, so close to coming, dodging it once, twice, as Brynwyrren swirled her tongue and kissed with her lips. Then the tip of Brynwyrren’s tongue flickered up inside of her and Isleif lost control, coming, hips shaking, whole body trembling. Even in the helpless grip of her orgasm, she came in silence, a habit from a lifetime of keeping her needs to herself.

Around her, the others had paired off, were fucking each other, faces between legs, mouths attached to mouths, fingers working between other women’s legs. Moans and sharp cries filled the damp, steamy interior of Mistress’ tent.

But Isleif didn’t care for them, nor even for Mistress, not for the moment. She drew Brynwyrren’s lovely face up to her own, kissed her deeply, tasted her mouth, and then rolled her lover over, onto her side, onto her back. A moment’s look into those green eyes and then Isleif was sliding downward, suckling on a nipple, licking her way across Brynwyrren’s belly, running her tongue through the orange-gold atop Brynwyrren’s mons.

Brynwyrren mewled softly as Isleif covered her labia with her mouth.

She licked gently, tasting, lost in Mistress’ joy but also the bliss of being where she was, between Brynwyrren’s legs, pleasing this woman that she suddenly loved.

And so Isleif and Brynwyrren made love, while just beyond them in the center of the tent, Qin’shaliri also came again, and again, as the thing on her head remade her into something new.

* * *

END Part Two