The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Rian watched helplessly, angry over what was happening to his child, and angrier still over the fact that to feel helplessness seemed to be all there was to do. He was her father. From the moment he first held her, he loved her. He never quite believed others when they told him that this deep, boundless well appeared within them the moment they held theirs. Maybe that was true of women, he’d thought. They carried it and felt it grow within so, for them, the child was, literally, always a part of them. For the man, though, he was certain love came, but it came with time. It came with watching them grow, explore, and change. He thought it came with days and years of building moments.

The moment he’d held her all those years ago after two children that never lived to see their birth, he laughed and he’d never shared with anyone why. But he’d laughed because he realized how completely, utterly, absurdly wrong he was. The moment he held that slightly bloated bundle of pink, she had burrowed herself into his soul never to be unseated. All those moments that he thought built love just deepened it in ways that he hadn’t anticipated. At first she was special because she was his. As the years passed, he came to realize how special she just was.

She wasn’t just smart, she was clever; able to think on her feet and get things done with the little she had and an innate ability to make things she might need with other things. She seemed to know how the pieces of the world fit in ways he never taught her. She was kind and sweet when she believed no one saw, and aside from some stubbornness that came with thirteen years in the world as it seemed to for all children at thirteen years, she was a joy. Indeed, he was grateful for that stubbornness today because it was probably the only thing keeping her alive.

He stood there while his wife, Tiana, placed another cold compress on Ara’s forehead. The darkness under her eyes, the paleness under her skin and her wildly unkempt hair painted the picture of a mother who hadn’t slept in the days since Ara became so tired that she didn’t have it in her to leave bed. Falen knew he didn’t look much better, taking up for her, insisting that she sleep, but she never quite did. She would close her eyes and doze lightly, ears still open for any sound from the young one, instantly awake at the sound of her voice or if the wet, hacking cough went on longer than expected.

Now, that’s almost all there was for the girl; wet coughs, fitful sleep, a raw throat and whispered words and the two she just spoke were like daggers through his heart.

“I’m sorry.”

Her mother tried to keep her tone playful, so it sounded a bit dismissive, “Oh, for what?”

“Being a bother,” she rasped, her glassy eyes glancing from her to him, speaking of them both as she spoke to her mother. “You look tired.” Whether she believed, hoped it, or was trying to remain hopeful, she added, “I really feel like I’m starting to feel better. You can go to sleep if you want to.”

She waved a hand. “Eh. That’s not something you have to worry about. Your father and I sleep too much anyway.”

Ara tried to laugh and two chuckles turned into that wet, hacking cough. Her mother put a cloth to mouth as the girl leaned to her side to absorb what came up from the cough, then rubbed Ara’s sternum with the palm of her hand, trying to ease her pain after she’d collapsed back onto the bed. She kept rubbing gently, as it seemed to help after the fact and it lulled her into another restless sleep.

Her mother kept rubbing even after, hoping that that little bit that she could do helped her rest better. She didn’t want to stop being that comfort when he tapped her shoulder to let it be known he wanted to talk to her, but she stood up and followed him the few steps to the far corner of the house next to the dining table. He was the one that spoke first, looking her in the eye, knowing she looked like he looked and felt. “She’s not getting any better.”

Tiana latched onto her daughters words like a lifeline, raising her whisper, “She is. She says she is and, look, she hasn’t even brought much of anything up all day. She’s getting better.”

“You look, Tiana. Her cough is as wet as it ever was and worse. She’s not bringing anything up because she doesn’t have the strength to anymore. The medicines aren’t enough. We need to get her to a healer now.”

“Where, Felen? Two days away. More?” Her anger flashed in her dark eyes. “And in which direction?” In more remote stretches, such as the place they called home, away from even collections of homes too small to be called a village, were served by independent, sometimes random healers doing wide circuits in those areas, selling and trading their services as they went. To say that there was not a regular healer to be had was something of an understatement because, for even those healers that decided to take it up, there wasn’t much of a living in it.

As such, people, if they were able, headed to the nearest real village or traded what actual medicine they’d gotten left over from the last time a neighbor hours or more away, had a healer in their home. Or they just made do with what they had. “We’ll head to the farmers by the lake. Healers seem to make their way there fairly often, so there might be one there now.”

“So, two days?”

“Two days,” he agreed. “But she needs help.”

She asked the obvious. “What if there’s no one there?”

“Then it’s another two days to Esker, but she can’t stay here.”

Her emotions were on the razor’s edge and it showed in the open mockery. “So she’s too sick to stay here, but let’s bundle her up for, maybe a week’s ride to maybe find a healer.”

He held his breath before speaking. “If we don’t actually see better by morning, we’re going because otherwise our daughter is going to die in this house, and, Goddess, help me, I’m not just going to sit here and let it happen.”

Rage and fear welled within her and she shook her hands because she didn’t trust herself if she started shaking him. “Ara is not going to die and you’re not going to take her in the middle of winter to...”

Before she could finish venting that desperation onto him, there were three sharp knocks at the door, resonating as though the person on the other side was using the side of their fist in order to make certain they were heard. The argument was forgotten as the two exchanged wondering looks as to who might be knocking on their door at this time of day, and, to a lesser extent, at all.

He went to the door with his wife half a step behind and he opened it, letting the cold in as the sun was about to set to see two women before him, cloaked well against the elements. One was tall and lean with short, auburn hair and eyes of piercing gray. The other was a good bit shorter with eyes an attractive light green that seemed to catch a little of the light by themselves and naturally curly hair of a lighter brown.

Their obvious differences in appearance weren’t the only ones to be seen. The shorter one, with her full cheeks and pleasant smile looked like someone versed in meeting people and making friends while the other one, while not openly disdainful, seemed just as cool as the weather outside. It was the shorter one that spoke.

“Hello, my name is Vale, and this my associate Sylanna,” she said with a slight gesture with the other dipping her head slightly in acknowledgment. “We’re new to this area and looking for opportunities of all kinds. As we’ve made our way along, one of your neighbors said that you had a sick child here. My associate is well-versed in the healing arts and we thought perhaps there still might be a need, though neither of us will be disappointed if she’s well.”

They looked at one another, mother and father mirroring speechless shock for a time before Tiana steeped her hands against her face, doing the best she could not to break down entirely and being only partially successful at holding back the release of days worth of pain and despair. “The Goddess is real. Praise Her, the Goddess is real.” No one seemed to notice the brief, pained look on Sylanna’s face at the notion. “Our daughter needs and She sends a healer to our door.” She reached for Sylanna as though grabbing for the last lifeline while Sylanna resigned herself to being dragged in that way and led to the girl.

Rian was just as relieved and hopeful as she, but expressed it in more quiet excitement. “Yes. Please. Please come in.”

Vale accepted the invitation and looked around. It was a small, clean, comfortable looking home that looked just big enough for three. “This is a lovely place you have. My own home as a child wasn’t much different.”

“Fond memories, I hope.”

She smiled and kept it on even as her remembrances turned more sad. “Mostly.” She focused her attention back on him, keeping her good nature. “But I imagine that’s true of many children, don’t you? I’m sure yours will look back fondly as well.”

He glanced at the floor, hoping that Ara got the chance to look back fondly...or at all. “I’d like to think so.”

Sylanna called out loudly enough so that perhaps the father would answer, as the girl’s mother was still so overwhelmed with hope and gratitude that she was blubbering over this, that, and the Goddess. “What’s the young one’s name?”

“Ara,” her father said, coming to the doorway of her little room to see her frail form limp in her bed. “Her name is Ara. Can you help her?”

“Oh, please,” Tiana whimpered. “Please help.”

“Ara?” Sylanna’s touch down her cheek was gentleness itself. “Can you hear me, Ara?”

There was no response beyond a moment’s attempt to lift her head at the sound of her name, but she was just too tired and it was just too hard. After her best attempt, her brow smoothed and she slipped back a bit until all that could be heard beyond her mother’s sadness was the crackling and popping sounds from her chest.

“Can you...”

Sylanna cut her off more calmly than her inner feelings wanted to. “I’m trying.”

Vale took that as her cue and hurriedly moved in, taking Tiana’s hand and guiding her with her other hand on her shoulder, turning her toward the doorway, “Why don’t we step clear and let my associate work. What’s your name?”

She tried to twist her head all the way around to keep an eye on her young one as she let herself be moved. “What? Oh? Tiana. My name is Tiana.”

“Rian,” her husband said quickly. “I apologize for our rudeness.”

Vale shook her head, refusing to hear any of it. “You do not have to apologize for forgetting pleasantries when you have much more important things on your mind.” She kept Tiana close because the likelihood that, in her current state, she might rush in at the slightest unknown sound from her daughter, seemed more likely than not. “Are you a healer, too?”

“No, Tiana. While I have other skills of value, it’s Sylanna that has a depth of knowledge of the body.”

No one needed the details of that depth. It was enough that she knew what she was doing. Vale watched as Sylanna’s fingers twitched and moved along over her patient’s body, gathering the power she needed to see within. As the power coalesced between her hands and Ara’s body, part of Vale was elsewhere, for it was in a house not unlike this one where a little girl watched a similar scene with her once strong father now frail in his bed.

At first, it was nothing to begin with and he refused to bother. Then he had to work and take care of his family, so there just wasn’t time for all that nonsense. Then, the medicines were fine and they were helping. And they did for a while, long enough to where his family deluded themselves into thinking he was just getting better slowly. When those stopped helping, but before the descent began again, he added, “Healers are just too expensive. Do you realize how long I’ll have to work to get that money back?”

By the time his wife swallowed her deference, put her foot down and demanded a real healer come, it was too late, his body was shutting down and wouldn’t respond to magic. It happened because, as powerful as magic was in healing, sometimes, when the body began to end, it simply decided it was time, and no one truly understood why. For a long time after that, particularly in the face of the hardships that befell that little girl and her family after her father’s death, she hated him for giving up even as she loved him for every day that he was her father.

When, after she learned more about magic and understood that it wasn’t like what she’d told herself as a girl, she carried shame at having had those thoughts, but it brought her peace to understand magic enough to know that that idea was simply wrong, even if it would never end the pain of watching him drift away looking not unlike that girl before her.

Losing focus on everything else, Sylanna followed the infection through the body. It wasn’t unusual in and of itself unless the sufferer was a very old, very young, or already sick when it found them. What was unusual was the flesh around it. It looked weaker than it should for a girl in her place in life.

“Is she a sickly child? Does she get this or anything like it a lot?”

“No,” Rian said firmly. “No, not at all. She’s always been strong and almost never sick, and never like this. If she didn’t get better by morning we were planning on taking her in search of a healer.”

Tiana gave him a glance at the notion of that conversation having been resolved, but said nothing of it. “Even then, it was just a stuffy nose and sore throat for a few days,” Tiana added, eager to be helpful to her.

“All, right, though I expect she wouldn’t have lived beyond another day or so. She’s barely taking air.”

She ignored their looks of horror and Vale’s expression of shock and annoyance as she placed herself on the bed over the girl, pressing her hands firmly on each side of her torso over her ribs, fingers wide apart and pressing into the flesh enough so she could feel the crackle of the fluid that came with every breath. She could see the colors of the infection. She could look deeper and see it clustered into the fine passages of her lungs. The flesh was raw, irritated, and weak. And her blood. She could see the colors of the sickness in the veins, but when she looked beyond it, she could see something else, but it was hard to define amidst the wounded flesh.

“So this is her first serious illness?”

“It is,” he told her.

What Sylanna saw flowed through the girl along with the infection, hidden by it. But it had none of the tells of life so it wasn’t an opportunistic secondary infection either. “When,” she began, delicately exploring her lungs and the damage done, “when she started getting sick and you realized it was something beyond minor, what did you do? Have you given her medicines?”

“Of course,” Tiana told her quickly, anxious to make sure that Sylanna knew that she wasn’t a neglectful mother or one who believed that whatever would happen was up to the Goddess. Healer’s and medicines were in the world as expressions of Her will and they were meant to be used. “As soon as the cough started getting worse I went to our neighbors east, the Sabines, and got some of the Hynt oil they had left from when their sons were sick that they knew was still good and to our neighbor Myra to the north. She had some Ginweed extract that she got from a potion master the last time one came through.”

“Reputable?”

Rian was certain of his answer. “He’s been coming through for years. No one has ever had cause to complain.”

‘Other than the oil and the extract all I’ve done is all the normal things you do for sickness like this: broth, tea with honey...”

There was nothing wrong with either of those, but something clicked in her mind, “Other home remedies?”

Tiana paused, “Well, yes. Everything my mother taught me how to do.”

She closed her eyes and counted slowly. Even so, her reply was not sarcasm free as she released Ara and stepped from the bed. “Show me all the things your mother taught you to use.”

Tiana rushed to the small cabinet near and above the cookstove and put the various glass bottles, small and some slightly larger atop it, with the harsh sound of glass on metal and the clinking of glass on glass. Vale watched Sylanna begin to take each in turn before the last of the five came down, lifting the stopper and scenting each in turn.

Spicy so that your nose burned? Hynt. A scent not unlike a grain meal? Ginweed. She took the largest bottle next and when the stopper popped free she didn’t need to work to identify it. Her jaw tightened as she felt compelled to ask the rhetorical question in hopes that hearing the answer aloud might make the insanity even slightly more bearable, “You gave her this?”

Tiana nodded. “To break up the wet in her lungs, two spoons a day.”

It failed to make the stupid more bearable. “This is toxic.”

She began to shrink away from the glare, it alone beginning to impart upon her the magnitude of the disdain the woman had for what she’d done. “I was...careful not to give her too much.” Her pitch was raised ever so slightly as though she decided at the last moment that making it a question might be better.

“Too much?” She snorted at the very notion, her anger growing with each word. “So, because your mother or your grandmother feeds you some old wives’ tale about how this and that is just fine, in complete, open mockery of common sense, and, just because you didn’t die from it or watch someone die from it, oh, mother must be right and I’ll use it, too. People strip paint with this.”

Sylanna put her finger in the bottle and angled it sideways enough to wet her finger with the contents. She put the bottle down, muttered, “Damn fool,” loudly enough to be heard and headed back to Ara’s room. Her left hand focused and manipulated her sight while she put the solvent to the young girl’s tongue. She watched carefully. She watched the solvent slip through the tissues of her tongue her and, now that she knew what she was looking for, saw the flesh flare more brightly as it came under attack.

Sylanna’s anger gave way to open mockery as she turned back to her, using her full, imposing height to maximum effect as she approached. “Surprise, dear lady, toxins are always toxic. In this case, this is a toxin your daughter has a particular sensitivity to. The toxin attacked her organs, masked by the infection, and, in turn, the infection ran roughshod through her weakened body.”

Tiana’s eyes were wide as the enormity of it turned her skin pale as death. “So I was...making her worse?”

“I find the phrase, ‘killing her,’ more appropriate, because, yes, that is the result. Or it would have been had ‘the Goddess not sent me to your door.’ You may wish to consider the probability that, in addition to that, she may have sent me to tell you to stop feeding your daughter poison.”

So, and listen carefully so you don’t miss anything, stop feeding your daughter poison, you fool. Would you also feed her lamp oil if she had trouble seeing? Who knows, it might work. It might make her eyes take in more light because lamp oil is used in lamps and lamps make rooms brighter.”

“Sylanna!” Vale’s tone had a volume and harshness she so seldom used it felt uncomfortable even to her own ear. “That’s enough. It’s not helpful.”

Vale had resisted Mistress Lia’s insistence that she pair with the woman on this task or any other. As a matter of fact, she would have been happy to never see the woman who had attacked her, Mistress Lia herself, or the kingdom, again. Sylanna and her two compatriots were hired by Etan Strannix, a powerful merchant disgruntled over the fact that Mistress Lia, head of Vale’s mage guild, had helped his wife escape a life of his control and emotional abuse.

To exact revenge for that perceived wrong and to find out where she had been relocated to so that he could retrieve the ‘property’ that was his wife, he hired Sylanna to use her skills in magic, potions, and alchemy to attack the people in the poorest parts of the city of Erette, in the hopes of using the distraction and two soldiers that she and her compatriots helped corrupt, to kidnap the daughter of Mistress Lia’s mate and force her to return his wife and, eventually, probably, kneel to his whim, using her power to serve him.

Mistress and her mates tracked, captured, changed, and enslaved them all to find their way to their master, Strannix. The mages were driven to serve. Nax was with her guild, adding to his skills as he prepared to go out into the greater world. Arik chose to head to the mountains north of the Erette’s northernmost city, Idros. There, he intended to teach the magics forbidden by the wider world to the next generation, just as he had been taught in those small settlements and caves.

Strannix? For all Vale knew, he was still rotting while staked to a beach as a warning to anyone that might try to harm innocents or a child that Mistress Lia loved. Sylanna, though, was here.

With Vale.

It left Vale the one feeling imprisoned, especially right this minute. But Mistress had insisted and, if there was anything she wouldn’t do for her guild mistress, she hadn’t found it yet. Her tone was flat, taking care not to escalate the situation, as the child’s mother was already sobbing with her head on Ara’s chest begging forgiveness of the Goddess and of her. “Can you clear it?”

She looked away from the scene and back at Vale. “Not quickly enough with what I have. Time is of the essence. Her body is weak. I have to clear the poison from her blood and tissue, heal the damage to her body, assuming it can be healed at this point, but it appears so at first glance. If so, then clearing the infection is a simple matter.”

She thought aloud, “I may be able to boost the efficacy of the anti-toxin I have on hand.” Turning to him and speaking as if to command, “Rian, are there Esken trees here that you know of? Oval leaves with four points on top and three on bottom?”

He thought of it, “Yes. Not far north of here, a couple of fields up, but it’s winter, they’ve lost their leaves.”

‘Yes. I understand how winter works, thank you,” she began as she bundled herself more tightly to make herself ready to go out, “but the leaves will be rotting under those trees, protected by snow, and the sap is hearty. I’ll be back.”

Rian called to her as she headed out the door, “But it’s almost black outside. How will you…?

The door was already closed.

Vale’s sigh seemed to go on forever, “She has gifts.” Feeling the need to state the obvious, she added, “Speaking to other humans is not among them, but she has gifts.”

Bunching leaves within her cloak where she could and pinning the folds of fabric to create makeshift pouches, she returned with many and set the trio to grind them into a fine paste with bowls and any implements that might serve together as a mortar and pestle while she gathered more. After several trips she joined them in the grinding. Rian worked with determination, now having something physical and tangible that he could do to help his daughter. Tiana wiped her tears frequently, not wanting to contaminate the mix while the two mages worked diligently on the tasks at hand.

Save Sylanna stopping occasionally to orbit and tell them all how to do things to her satisfaction, no one spoke, and after an hour of painstaking grinding, Sylanna took the vial of liquid that she already had with it and removed the stopper, placing it in her pocket. Retrieving one of the pins she’d used as well, she went to each bowl and meticulously began to examine the contents, finding small bits of clear fluid, she dipped them into the vial, not even managing a drop at a time, which is how she seemed to expect it to go.

Vale watched her move patiently, taking some smears of the contents of the bowls and ignoring others based on a criteria Vale couldn’t quite glean. As she watched the other work, Vale found a grudging respect for her patience, which was something she struggled with, more so early on, but it persisted today. Vale believed Sylanna when she said time was of the essence and, if that were her, that would create an itch that she couldn’t ignore when there was a life at stake. But all that seemed to matter to Sylanna was the task at hand and it would take as long as it would take, no matter what the concerns were. Sylanna dismissed everything, the universe distilling to finding and collecting tiny bits of usable sap.

Deciding she’d had enough, she traded the pin in her pocket for the stopper. Holding the vial tightly in her hand she shook it vigorously, thinning the sap and mixing it even as she harnessed her magic within and around it, seeing and directing the bonding of the new to the old to make the old something different enough to do as she needed. Vale saw the magic work even as no one else did. It had the dual gift of finesse and power. When she witnessed magic being used well, it was a delicate, intricate melding of mind and energy. It was beautiful.

When it faded, Sylanna looked to Vale. “You know the basics of healing, yes? You can manage soft tissue irritation, see larger veins enough to stop bleeding and the like?”

“Well, yes.”

“Come and do what I tell you. The better you can handle the smaller things, the more I can focus on the things that matter.”

It was Vale’s turn to close her eyes and count in an attempt to harness her emotions. Fortunately for all, she was more successful.

It was a long night for them all. Sylanna banished the parents to the outer room and they spent their night trying to manage sleep and actually succeeding to some extent, falling into brief but deep fits of it before waking with a start at a sound or simply with some part of their brain realized they’d fallen asleep and forced them to wake. There were healers and they were at work. There was nothing to be done but wait while they worked.

And they worked. The potion worked quickly, and, over the next hours, the task of mending damaged organs dragged on. Sylanna snapped directions at first with Vale ignoring the tone simply because the child mattered more than her annoyance. After a time the directions stopped and Vale assumed that meant she was doing an adequate job of calming inflamed tissue and repairing surface damage while Sylanna layered power delicately, the tendrils of flowing color repairing flesh while sparking it to remember how to work. Sylanna’s skill would fan outward, working its way toward Vale’s efforts.

“You can go.”

Vale snapped herself from the use of her power at the harshness of the tone, going back to the events of that first hour or so in her mind. “What am I doing wrong now?”

“Nothing,” she said without emotion. “What I needed you for is done. All that remains is to clear the initial infection. Once that’s done, my task is done as well. Go. Rest. Then make your sale.”

“I’ll tell them first, then rest.”

“I have to kill the infection, then I want her to sleep. That means sleep; not be awoken and disturbed by them fawning over her. Tell them that, too. When this door opens, they can see her, not before.”

After not bothering to comment on her bedside manner just then, that’s what she did. After gently blocking Tiana from the room with only some success until her husband added his voice to Vale’s. With their mutual gentle urging, Tiana decided that it was enough to accept that Ara was well and not go out of her way to incur more of Sylanna’s wrath again. “You’re sure she’s fine?”

“She is,” Vale said with a warm smile. “Sleep for a while and, in the morning, I’m sure you’ll get to see her. It won’t do for her to wake up and see her parents looking worse than she ever did.”

Rian managed a weary, nervous laugh as a release of tension, thrilled beyond words that his daughter would be well, and he laughed because he was certain that it was true. He was tired down to the bone. He pulled her with them and off they went. “You should sleep too, she said, “both of you.”

“We will, don’t worry.”

Tiana was so weary that despite herself, her mind was already looking to sleep after days without. All that was needed was her body to stop moving long enough for it to surrender. “Blankets. There are extra blankets and pillows in Ara’s room and...”

“Thank you for your hospitality, but, please, you needn’t worry. Go rest.”

After they had shuffled off, Vale felt a touch of her own fatigue. Placing herself at one of the seats around the table, she closed her eyes and used her skill to place her mind and body into a resting spell. It was a unique state that allowed the user to maintain some awareness of their surroundings but renew the mind and body far more quickly than sleeping the night or day away.

Sometimes it was nice to completely shut down and sleep as others did, but she often preferred this, as it offered its own unique pleasures. Vale could be aware quickly and ready for whatever might come, but this way she was in her own secluded place within where she could think on all that she chose to, and, if she wished, she could dream any dream; live within it, control it, and make and remake it as she pleased. It was a lovely way to refresh one’s self.

Vale let the time pass.

Ara’s parents were awake a few hours past dawn, and, as soon as the door opened, they rushed in to find Ara awake, but tired. Her voice was strong and her eyes were focused. Tiana showered her with kisses and caresses while he father held her hand and looked upon her with the same limitless adoration he did the moment he first held her. Sylanna extricated herself quickly from the display to stand with Vale just outside the room.

For a while they said nothing, Vale only breaking the silence when the act of standing just beyond the display began to seem uncomfortable. “You did very well,” Vale admitted.

“She’s alive, no thanks to her parents,” Sylanna proclaimed.

“Can you…?”

Sylanna turned after the bitten tongue, her dark eyes questioning. “Can I what?”

Vale reined herself in. “Look, I know you love plants and chemicals and toxins, and all that, but can you not poison a moment?”

Sylanna turned and looked ahead, choosing to remain silent.

“I’m really hungry,” Ara told her mother, still cradling her cheeks in her hands.

“I’ll get you something,” she promised.

Sylanna was quick to limit the menu. “Her body has to get used to functioning normally again, so only broth and soft foods for the next few days.”

Tiana hurried to the now joyous task, smiling as she went while Rian gave Ara’s hand another gentle squeeze before going to the healers, seemingly on the verge of tears as he groped for words that could touch on the breadth of his gratitude and he failed miserably. “I...we...owe you everything. What can we do to repay you? We don’t have much money, but all of its yours. If there’s anything here you want, just...just take it.”

“There is something we might talk about,” Vale said amiably with a small smile. “Maybe we could step outside for a moment?”

“Sure. Of course,” Rian said quickly, eager to be of help. They stepped to the small porch as Rian closed the door behind them. The air was still so the morning lacked bite. Vale believed it would be warmer than usual for the foreseeable future, though she wasn’t willing to bet on an early thaw.

He stood before her, still looking eager, “What can I do?”

Vale had made such agreements before. Indeed, she was one of those most skilled to make them. Even so, there was delicacy needed. Mages versed in skills beyond the healing arts were banned under penalty of death. Knowingly consorting with one was punishable by years in prison, if not the noose next to the mage, so creating connections in the world to move information and small parcels about unseen by others came with its share of difficulties. “While I don’t wish to impugn your beliefs in the Goddess, it’s not a complete happenstance that we knocked on your door last night.”

Her delivery was smooth and practiced, “I work as part of a group of unaffiliated healers. We travel the world seeking to expand our knowledge of it and those sorts of magics within it. We are spread thinly and there are times when messages and items need to travel from one to another. We use networks comprised of people not unlike yourself to move those about.”

“We are looking to extend that network and provide alternate routes. You are ideally placed for such a route and we have been canvassing the area hoping to find people willing to serve in that capacity. Your neighbor told us, simply by way of conversation, that you were in need, so we thought to come and see if we could help.”

Rian was grateful, of course. There was no way he couldn’t be, but it all just seemed more somehow. “So you want to use us as a place those things can come and other people can get them or to get them and move them on. Am I understanding?

She smiled warmly. “Exactly.”

Concern crossed his features. “Is it all lawful?”

Vale paused thoughtfully, the smile fading slightly. She could not tell the entire truth. Even so, those doing the work had a right to know that they were stepping into something more. “It is true that some of the magics we find and use may not be looked upon as...righteous magics, and that could draw unwanted attention if it were known. That’s why we seek out somewhat isolated people like yourselves. That minimizes risk to yourself as much as others. We know who all the parts of our network are but they are isolated from one another.”

She went back to the more casual tone she started with. “Rest assured that it is not a career. Your lives will not become all about this. We just need a safe place to occasionally store items and messages until they can make their way where they need to be. You will be paid each time someone leaves something with you and then again when it is picked up. You will be paid and you will always have access to a healer and our other resources should you have needs beyond that. We understand the risks those in our networks undertake on our behalf and we do what we can to make it worth their while to help us.”

Rian’s child was just saved, his family just now restored because of them, but he knew she was offering deeper involvement and choosing to swim into deeper water without knowing what was there meant greater risks. Being not a stupid man meant he knew that much. Still. Money meant a better life and maybe a little better a future for Ara. The benefits of always having a healer to call on didn’t need to be explained. He didn’t know what ‘other resources’ they had, but he imagined they mattered a great deal. And all he had to do for all of it was agree to help move some items they cared about.

“What if I say no?”

She was resolute as she leaned against the slightly weathered, white porch railing. “Then it was a pleasure to meet you and a greater pleasure to be able to help Ara. I am glad to know that she’ll be well. We’ll be gone and none of my kind will trouble you again. If, at any point you choose to no longer help us, I promise the same. It doesn’t benefit us to spread fear of us all over the world.”

Again, being not a stupid man, he wondered the obvious aloud, “You could have asked me for this before helping Ara. We would have done it.” His eyes misted, remembering her almost too weak to cough anymore. “We would have done anything.”

Vale shrugged. “Yes. But that doesn’t exactly build trust, does it? I will walk away and let you watch your daughter die unless you agree to do what I wish. Then you are left to wonder what will happen if you choose to stop. If they could walk away and let my daughter die, why wouldn’t they actually hurt her so I had to keep doing what they say? Rian, it truly does not benefit us to spread fear of us in that way.”

Vale approached him, not intimidated by his greater height compared to her smaller frame. “Help us in this way for as long as you feel it benefits you to do so. We will work in all the ways we can so that you continue to feel it benefits you because you would be providing a valuable service to us. Whenever we decide to part company, that’s well and truly the end of it. I and those I work with will wish you well.”

He looked down into those green eyes and, try as he might, he could find no malice. There was warmth there, a certainty of purpose, and nothing to suggest that she wouldn’t do as she promised and simply walk away. What tipped the scales was the truth that they already could have and didn’t. “What of your friend? Do all of your kind feel about this as you do?”

Vale pondered her answer. “My friend,” she began, somewhat pleased with herself that she could deliver that word without pregnant pause, “has difficulty relating to others, that’s all. We are all bound to the same rules of conduct when it comes to dealing with people like yourself. I speak for all of them and there are none of them have their own agendas in this.”

“If they did?”

“Then those that had them would have reason to fear. You never will.”

He searched her eyes again, seeking that trust and hint of those agendas. He found the former and no hint of the latter. What mattered was Ara was going to be all right when she would have otherwise died in the back of the wagon on the way to help. And she would never be in that position again. “Then tell me more about how this all works.”

Tiana was easily convinced of the value of the proposal, if for no other reason than she’d never have to live through this nightmare again. Details were settled quickly and, in short order, Ara’s parents waited on the porch to see them off as Sylanna and Vale were on their mounts ready to move on, Vale surveying the wet, snow-dappled road ahead, pleased that she’d been able to make a connection for her guild and for herself.

And more pleased that a young girl now would go on to live her life. Was it the Goddess that brought them there at the right moment? Vale doubted that, but she knew that magic was bound to life and everything in it. Mages tapped those currents to do all they could do, and those currents moved on, changed, as they, in turn, changed others. The young mage believed that, if nothing else, sometimes those currents took pieces of that life to the places where they were needed to be.

She was taken from that satisfying thought by Sylanna who realized that she’d forgotten something vital. “Wait here.”

She dismounted smoothly, moving past the couple and back into the house as though she owned it. Moments later, the three watched her emerge, bottle in hand, pouring its contents to the ground and then dropping the bottle as though it were filthy. She ignored them both, mounting her white steed again in one smooth motion while Tiana shrank back a little at the reminder and at Sylanna too. For her part, Sylanna looked to the road ahead. “I’m quite ready now.”

Vale closed her eyes. And sometimes currents beat you against the rocks, seemingly just to make you suffer.

Kel trudged his way up the hill, his too worn boots not giving him quite the purchase he wanted in the wet and the snow and, had he not made such a fuss about keeping his pack balanced he would have probably fallen more than once. Every once in a while one foot would threaten to slide out from under him due to the incline and the worn boots, causing him to give them thought. They weren’t quite falling apart yet, so he’d not worry about spending the money to get a new pair until spring. What he made selling and trading wasn’t enough to where he ever felt comfortable spending unless it was absolutely necessary. Even so, it was a decent living that kept him answerable to no one but himself, and that alone was worth money being a little tight. He knew well it’d be a lot tighter with a nagging woman and children that needed.

He worked his way up the hill to the flats, making an educated guess as to where he was going based on the drunken, half-crazed storytelling of an old woman who claimed to have been all over the world and laid claim to have done everything from finding islands that no one else knew of to being a courtesan to royals in her prime and having seen everything from sea monsters to the mythical city of Adar.

During one of her slurring, run-on stories she mentioned that she’d run across a dead man’s camp in the woods. Her bloodshot eyes darted around the room as she talked about how the place felt cursed and, as soon as she confirmed the man dead she got as far away from it as possible as fast as she could go. “I could feel the power of the curse,” she whispered. “Chilled my soul, it did.”

Kel never believed any of the “cursed,” nonsense, much less anything about the city of myth or that that woman was ever a courtesan anywhere other than her dreams. But, if something there so unsettled her, that suggested to him that it might have value. Add the fact that where she was talking about was reasonably close and not some snowy island on the other side of the world, those combined to send him on his way. He was happy for the more moderate temperature which made the hike more bearable.

He trudged through the trees, wondering at what he might find, assuming he could find the place at all based on the directional bits he remembered. He found himself laughing as he thought of himself spending the day chasing down the ramblings of a drunk. He laughed because, for all he knew, he was following breadcrumbs that she dropped while spewing out half-remembered bits from half a dozen different adventures, assuming she hadn’t manufactured every bit of it from her imagination to begin with.

Behind a group of trees in the hills south that are taller than the rest, sticking out like thumbs.

He climbed the hill and walked a bit before, off in the distance, he saw four or five trees a little taller than the rest, settled together in such a way that, when he imagined them with leaves, he had no trouble seeing the formation looking like a thumb pointing up toward the sky. He pressed forward with renewed energy, picking up his pace to a near-run now that his goal was in sight. The sooner he got there, the sooner he could see what there was to see. If there was nothing, he could set his own course once again.

The trail was fairly free of obstacles, so he made it to the growth of trees he sought. As he closed in, he slowed to a walk to both catch his breath and to miss no signs. He didn’t have to concern himself with the latter because, while the small camp nestled itself nearer other trees, its owner wasn’t trying to hide its presence. The small fire steps from the weathered brown canvas tent was long since burned out. The eerie calm that surrounded, coupled with the cloudy sky and the absence of life and feeling of desolation that came with winter conspired to set him on edge, ready for fight or flight at a moment’s notice. He felt something here, that much was true, but he chalked it up to his own disquiet knowing that, likely in the tent, there was a man not getting any older. He blamed the drunk for the feeling, “Crazy old bitch,” slipped from under his breath.

Truthfully, it was easier to blame her for what he was feeling instead if the fact that he was here essentially to rob a grave, something he’d never before actually done. As an abstract exercise, it was fine. It wasn’t like they needed whatever they left or were ever coming back for it, but that was different than actually taking what their was to take and he found himself debating within whether or not to press forward. You haven’t done anything yet. You’re just looking around is all.

So he did, not that there was much to see beyond some old cooking utensils and various odds and ends that one that lived off the land much as Kel did might have, but most of it was older than what Kel had and, by the looks of it, older than Kel himself. What bits that were newer weren’t any better. He could still take them and trade them for a meal if he were lucky, but he had coin to feed himself, so it hardly seemed worth it.

That left him staring towards the tent. You’ve come all this way.

He silenced the part of him that called him a grave robber.

You haven’t taken anything. You’re just looking. If he doesn’t have anything, and he probably doesn’t by the looks of this shit, you can just leave the rest of it and walk off, no harm done.

There was a greater urge to walk off, but he dismissed it. He’d already come all this way. Even with finally quieting that part of his conscience, he was still tentative in those small steps to the tent and stood there for a moment more before pulling the flap apart. There it was. Well, there he was. Kel dipped his head and entered the tent to take a better look at the man that was. He looked like he’d been ready for death for a long while before he actually died. He was old and had been long so with thin skin wrapped around a skeletal frame. His hair was long and white as it went down his back behind the bald crown at the top of his head. His eyes were sunken under bushy brows and they stared out into nothing, mouth slightly agape, almost like he had watched himself pass pass to the next world.

Acting before he could get another fight with himself, he dropped to his knees before the body and examined it. He rolled the man onto his back easily, the stiffness of death having faded even with the chill and he found something worth seeking at once. There was jewelry of gold and silver on several fingers, some bejeweled and some not. But, around his neck was the apex of beauty. The necklace was gold, and dangling from it, was was a triangle of etched gold. Each point held its own jewel, a yellow, red, and blue one respectively. In the center was a large black gem that seemed to reflect a wine red when one of the facets caught the light. They were all expertly crafted and, when he touched his hand to examine it, he found it warm to the touch. Around the man’s neck was something worth a bidding war to decide how large the fortune whoever owned the thing would be paid.

His conscience did not oppose him and he searched for the clasp to remove it. Releasing it with a soft click he hurriedly shoved it under his belt knowing he’d take off his pack and find a safer place for the trinket later.

“What do you have there?”

He jumped out of his skin at the question and, when he put himself back into it, he spun around to find a younger man peering into the tent after him. He was one with scruffy, dark hair and he looked slightly unkempt, as though maintaining himself to the highest personal standards just wasn’t a priority. The grin made him seem friendly enough, but that didn’t stop Kel from stammering a response, his wide eyes darting to the young man, then the old one, then back again. “What? Oh...oh, nothing at all. I just found this camp and I...uhhh...heard a man calling for help and by the time I got here, uhh...”

The young man smirked before he let loose a concerned tsk at the scene. “What kept you? Looks like he’s been dead for a while. If only you’d acted sooner, huh?” The man let Kel squirm for a few heartbeats before laughing. “Relax. You were at the bar last night. I was at the bar last night. We both heard the same crazy lady talk about the same dead man. You’re here. I’m here. Relax.” He stepped back to give Kel room to step out.

He wasn’t really relaxed, but he could at least accept the explanation. Kel left the tent, “I don’t know how long he’s been here. I think a day or so. Whatever it is, it’s not that long or else the animals would have tried for their piece.”

The man angled his view over Kel’s shoulder trying to see what he could see., “What do you think he died from?”

“I don’t know,” he said, glancing back at the tent himself, unsettled by the memory. “Whatever it was, his eyes were wide open for it.”

An awkward silence enveloped them both before the other man broke it by laughing. Kel, annoyed by having a moment that felt like it should at least be somber broken by laughter, snapped at him a little. “What’s so funny?”

He didn’t stop laughing. “You normally piss gold like that?”

Kel looked down to find the chain draped just over his crotch, which made him snort despite himself. “Not normally, no.”

“I hear older men have trouble controlling themselves sometimes.” The humor in his voice tapered off. “How about you give it to me?”

Kel’s heart beat faster, not unlike the run to get to this place. A fight was the last thing he wanted and the close second in unwanted events was the flash of conscience that popped in to remind him that he never even should have been here in the first place. He just tried to think of the best, fastest way out. “This one...is, uh, mine. But, look, there’s plenty for both of us. He has a bunch of rings on him and other things in the tent that might be worth something. I’ll have this and you can have the rest.” He added a smile to try to seem as non-threatening as possible and diffuse the situation.

He reached behind his hip and drew a six-inch blade that looked well used and better kept than the man himself. “Actually, I think the best idea is if I just gut you. That way I get everything and I don’t have to worry about you chasing after me.”

“Wait a minute. I really won’t...” He never finished before the man lunged at him. In the way he’d always heard of in stories, time slowed as he watched the blade come towards him. He didn’t see the arm holding it, or the body it was attached to. Kel’s universe was the piece of sharpened metal. When it closed in on his body, he grabbed the man’s wrist with both hands and pushed the blade away from his body just as the man slammed into him, sending both to the ground.

What worked in his favor was that his pack absorbed much of the force. What worked against him was that now he was flailing a bit like a turtle flipped onto its back as they struggled. The knife wasn’t in his body yet and it had to stay that way. The man had strength and anger, but Kel, facing the blade, had fear and desperation so they were well matched for the moment, but the blade was back in sight and inching closer as the stranger snarled through gritted teeth, spit spraying in Kel’s face.

A satisfied smile began to form on those maniacal features. “Sorry.”

Kel doubted the sincerity of that as he looked on, being able to guess now that the blade would take out an eye. His arms were tired already. How long had they been struggling, he wondered. He also wondered if he’d see whatever the old man saw out of the one that still worked in that last moment.

The blade came up as the force against him lessened as the man distracted himself, grabbing at the chain holding the talisman and pulling it free. Kel should have just let it go. That’s what would have happened if there was a hint of rational thought in that moment. He would have let him take it and hope the attack would stop once the man had what he wanted.

At the very least it might have allowed Kel time to regroup, or perhaps get away. But he was exhausted, afraid, and there was that little part of him that was angry. There was that little part that wasn’t thinking about the fact that they were fighting over the possessions of a dead man. That little part that was all about, ‘I was here first’ kept rationality at bay enough to keep him in the fight. That kept enough rationality at bay for Kel to grab at the necklace, his hand gripping the talisman as it lifted into the air, free of him.

He took it firmly, distracting himself for but a moment, reality slowing again as he realized his mistake. The blade was coming for him now.

Oh, shit. Goddess, I’m going to die. I never should have come here. I never should have done this. What he should have done was meaningless now. What was before him was the final consequence of that decision. Terror swept through him, terror that combined with the chill outside to leave him colder than that dead old man in the tent.

The only warmth to be felt was from the talisman and that warmth seemed to build in response to Kel’s turbulent emotions. Without thinking, Kel clutched it even more tightly as it seemed like the only lifeline he had in the world.

I don’t want to die.

That was irrelevant. It was about to happen. Horror, desperation, and that ache to continue living that, all things equal, everything living had, balled up within him and pushed outward through his being like an explosion. Kel closed his eyes, not wanting to see the last instant of his life that way.

Stop! He thought it. He screamed it. In that instant, that’s all there was in his world.

Time passed.

Kel began to realize that he wasn’t dead.

Opening his eyes, he saw the man over him. His eyes were wide and unseeing. The knife hung over Kel, but the man holding it over him was frozen like a statue. He used the pause to regain his breath and his sanity while his would-be killer seemed to have no objection. Kel’s brow displayed his growing bewilderment. He was thrilled that the man had apparently decided not to kill him, but he didn’t understand why.

“Get off me.”

The man withdrew the blade and lifted himself smoothly, planting his feet firmly where he stood.

Inspecting himself, Kel decided he was fine. In fact, he was better than fine. He felt heat. No. He felt warmth. No. This was warmth that made him feel alive. It made him feel like there was nothing he couldn’t do and nothing he couldn’t make happen just by willing it.

Kel, for the first time in his life, felt real power and it didn’t take long for him to make the connection. The power ran from him, to the talisman and back again like a river flowing, replenishing itself as it went, drawing from Kel linking to him for guidance. He thought of it that way. In his mind’s eye he saw it that way. That flowing reserve of power had been left waiting and without direction. It had been tapped before the man’s death and left unused without again being locked away once again. It had lacked direction and connection until the moment a will wrapped in the added strength of fear and directed that power.

The magic responded to his will and overwhelmed the source of the threat. It, like all magic, acted for and with Kel’s desires. That those desires were to stop his attacker immediately led the magic through the paths of least resistance and blunt force to dull the other mind it found. Kel didn’t understand the nuance. He didn’t understand the why, but what he did understand was that if he concentrated on that pool and on that power to the point where it almost hurt to think, he could feel hazy tendril of that power go from the talisman to the other man’s mind, almost like a leash.

Magic. Forbidden magic was the only real explanation. No wonder the old man was well away from people. If he were caught with such a thing, it would all be over for him.

I told him to stop and he stopped. Kel’s eyes, reflected the fact that his mind was reasoning his way through things. Maybe it is a leash.

He gripped the piece of jewelry more tightly. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.” The response was slightly monotone, as though it were pulled from his mind without his full awareness.

“What’s your name?”

“Bin.”

“Hello, Bin. Stand on one foot.”

Nothing happened.

“Stand on one foot,” he said, this time more forcefully.

Still nothing.

He kept asking, thinking about the pool of magic within and the tether between them. It was tied to how badly he wanted something somehow. It wasn’t enough just to want it or to shout orders, he had to push for it. The pushing took effort in and of itself, but, once Bin’s left leg came up from the ground, Kel smiled. That alone made it all worthwhile.

As it opened up a world of possibilities.

He spent the next two hours with Bin asking him questions, watching the power twitch and waver as he did. It almost felt like its own living thing, like an animal or a pet. It was, Kel found, much easier to get Bin to think things and say things than to actually do things. It was easier to make him want to dance than to force his muscles to move. He couldn’t imagine anyone was able able to control a body like that.

But, making him want to stand on one foot got the same result as trying to him to, so, in the end, it made no difference. He left Bin sitting by the leavings of the dead fire so that Kel could rest his brain as he fished through the tent for other things worth taking aside from the rings on the man’s fingers. His conscience was quiet now, even it deciding that, now that so much seemed possible, it was time to try to have some fun, and maybe earn his fortune while doing it.

Deciding that the place was looted enough, he left the tent and started focusing himself again on Bin. He found that, the more he pushed on a mind to get it to want, the easier it became to actually do. “Stand up, Bin.”

He stood. There was more light in his eyes now. At first glance, he even seemed almost normal. Having that cloud around his brain even seemed to make him kind of happy.

“Are you listening, Bin?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to leave. Before I leave I’m going to tell you to do some things and you’re going to do them because you want to. Understand?”

“I do.”

“I’m going to leave, and, in a few minutes, you’re going to remember that you made your way here because of the old woman. Understand?”

He nodded. “I do.”

“You’ll find the old man and then go back to town to get help to come get him and bury him. When you tell people about what happened, you won’t remember me, our fight, or anything about any valuables being here. Do you understand? And do you understand that you want to do this and that it makes you happy to do things just that way?”

He smiled broadly. “Sure.”

Kel thought again, imagining Bin’s blade cutting the tether between them. That was also pretty easy and, if he looked hard enough, he could see feel the magic still in Bin’s brain. He didn’t know how long it would linger and it didn’t really matter, as long as Bin did what he was told, or at least didn’t come back to himself before Kel was long gone. The lone traveler took one last look around, chose a path that offered the quickest way out of sight, and walked. As he did, he began to imagine the possibilities and, as he did, he found his conscience cared less and less the more interesting those possibilities became.

Minutes later, Bin looked around, surveying his find. The old bitch wasn’t that crazy after all.

He just hoped there was something to find and the hike hadn’t been for nothing.