Merlina stared at the parchment. Hemkaraho, the man she had trusted, the man she had called her husband had betrayed her. As she stared at the parchment it darkened, smoldered, and turned to ash in her hands. She let it scatter in the wind. She cried out in anguish, her voice echoing from the mountain peaks. Eventually, her wrath cooled a little. She had to plan for the assault, later she would take her vengeance. The raven leader Kata-Karkar was watching her from the safety of a tree. She told him to keep a lookout for elves.

Hemkaraho and Chigatsay returned the morning of the following day. Merlina greeted them but did not say anything about the message she had intercepted. They were both weary from the journey and Hemkaraho immediately retired to his room.

It was afternoon when the raven sentries spotted a patrol of rangers moving through the fir forest. The ravens indicated that there were at least three of them, but Merlina thought it likely there were at least ten. The ravens were notoriously unreliable when it came to numbers.

Merlina was not sure she could trust Chigatsay, but she knew she would have to take a chance. She entered the tower and found him in his room. The oni sat in the center of the room with his legs crossed and his hands resting on his knees, his palms upward. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing slowly through flared nostrils. Merlina wasn’t sure if he was sleeping. She rushed to him and wrapped her arms around him.

“Chigatsay, I need your help,” Merlina pleaded. “They have come for me. Please say that you will help me.”

Chigatsay’s eyes snapped open. “What is the matter, Lina?” Chigatsay said. “Who has come for you? Where are they?”

“My captors have found me. They are in the vale. Don’t let them take me away!”

“We shall see about that!” Chigatsay said as he sprang up and reached for his jade glaive. 

They rushed outside and surveyed the landscape. The tower stood near the top of a high hill with the remains of some ruined fortifications surrounding it. Green slopes and rocky meadows spread from the tower to the north and east. Behind the tower to the west was a rocky peak. There was a path that wound down from the south side of the tower to the valley below. At one time there had been stairs ornamented with pillars, arches, and statues. Now it was little more than a tumble of lichen-covered boulders surrounded by spreading junipers that flooded with water during the spring. It gradually transitioned into a narrow gulley as it reached the valley. Summer wildflowers lined a stream that ran from the mountains in the north through the meadow before disappearing into the fir wood to the east. There were still a few patches of icy snow this high in the mountains even after midsummer.

Chigatsay stood tall, planted the butt of his glaive on the ground, and called out loudly in his deep voice. “Whoever comes to Barakundi must seek my leave!”

Suddenly an elf appeared from behind a section of ruined fortification directly in front of them.

“My name is Gemma,” she called. “I am a Ranger of the Enclave. I have been sent to seek an audience with Faroh Hemkaraho.” She looked at Merlina and smirked as she recognized her.

Merlina clutched at Chigatsay and urgently whispered to him. “I know her. She is one of those who held me captive. They will try to trick us. You must attack now!”

Chigatsay seemed conflicted. The elf was saying they had come to see the sorcerer, yet he had no reason to mistrust Merlina.

Merlina knew she must act quickly. She reached out with her mind as Hemkaraho had taught her. She could sense another elf lurking behind the wall next to Gemma. Her mind was weak and pliable. It was Bethi. She seemed as nervous as a rabbit in a den full of foxes. Merlina focused on Bethi’s mind.

Bethi was sure that Chigatsay was about to strike Gemma with the glaive. She had to stop him. Her arrow was already nocked and targeting him. She let it fly.

Chigatsay saw the arrow and spun his glaive to knock it out of the air. He continued to spin on the ball of his foot and planted his other foot to advance on Gemma. He came down with the glaive. Bethi threw herself at Gemma knocking her out of the way. She raised her bow over her head to block the glaive, but it cut through the bow with ease. Then it cut through Bethi. Chigatsay pulled his blade out of the body as it fell. Gemma caught Bethi’s body and Bethi looked into Gemma’s face for a moment before her eyes turned dull. Blood sprayed from her wound onto the grass. Gemma cradled Bethi’s head in her lap.

“Oh, Bethi, no,” said Gemma. “Bethi…”

Chigatsay scooped up Merlina and dashed for cover. Arrows filled the air and began raining down on them. Chigatsay spun his glaive so fast it became a green and yellow blur, a moving shield that knocked arrows away from him. He lifted Merlina and made a mighty leap down into a depression in the path that was sheltered by two boulders. They crouched close to the ground.

“Merlina!” Gemma’s anguished voice raged across the valley. “You will pay for this!”

“Lina, we are in a bad situation,” Chigatsay said. “Their arrows can strike us from a distance, but I must be close to attack with my glaive. I will go and distract them while you try to get back to the tower and rouse the sorcerer.” Chigatsay prepared to run out into the open.

“No, wait,” Merlina said. She decided it was time to reveal her secret. “I may be able to do something to help.” She cast a camouflage spell on the oni and herself. “This will work best if we remain completely still.”

Chigatsay held his hand in front of a rock, and it gradually took on a gray texture that matched the rock. He smiled. “This may give me the advantage I need,” he said. “If I can draw them into the fir wood, the bows will have limited range. I may be able to take them out one at a time.”

Chigatsay gripped his glaive and bolted from cover, sprinting downhill. Arrows whizzed around him, but he was able to dodge them or knock them out of the air with his glaive. He took cover behind what remained of a huge, stone, bearded head. He dashed from cover and leaped over some stonework. A downward thrust of the glaive took an elf by surprise and cut him down with a single stroke. Chigatsay began sprinting downhill again, but an arrow struck him in the back. It came from the companion of the elf he had cut down. Merlina saw Chigatsay stumble and fall, disappearing behind a broken pillar.

“Don’t be a ‘fraidy, Lina!” Alffy said.

You’re not real. Besides, I’m the one who said that, not you.

Merlina saw Alffy’s corpse standing before her. His eyes were white, and his bloated body was coated with ice. A moment later two other figures appeared next to him, her aunt and uncle who had been her stepparents. Their bodies were mutilated and punctured with many holes; their clothes were stained with blood.

“We are waiting for you, Merlina.”

A fourth figure appeared next to them. It was a young elf, her body cut nearly in half. Bethi.

“We are waiting for you, Merlina,” They called. “We’re all waiting for you to join us.”

Merlina closed her eyes and pushed her fists into her temples. They’re not real! When she opened her eyes, the apparitions had disappeared.

Merlina knew she needed to help Chigatsay get across the meadow to the forest. She began rotating her body with her arms outstretched as she did when she used her cleaning spell, except now she was pulling air towards her. A small whirlwind began to form around her. She pulled her arms in towards her body and began spinning faster pulling more air to her. The little whirlwind grew larger. Merlina stretched out her arms again reaching out with her magic to gather more wind. Her body seemed lighter and felt like it was expanding. She looked down and saw her body below her standing still with arms outstretched apparently in a trance. She had taken on a new body, the nude avatar of a primordial goddess. Her black hair billowed into the sky and seemed to merge with the dark clouds forming there. Her legs were surrounded by dust and debris as the winds twisted about her ankles. She continued growing larger as the tempest grew stronger.

Merlina could see Chigatsay far below her sheltering in a gully near the edge of the meadow. A dead elf lay next to him. Broken shafts of arrows were sticking from his back and blood streamed from the wounds. Elven archers were approaching in pairs across the valley. There was also a cluster of archers stationed along the edge of the forest close to the stream. She strode down the hill to the meadow. She spread her legs until they stretched across the valley positioning herself between the archers and Chigatsay. She bent over the meadow and her breasts loomed like two swollen clouds in the sky. She released a torrent of rain from her loins and the elves began fleeing from the deluge. Merlina squeezed her breasts and streams of hail spurted from them like mother’s milk pelting the ground below. She reached her arms to the skies, and they crackled with blue electricity as she absorbed the charge from the gathering storm. She thrust her arms downward and lightning surged from her fingertips. Lightning bolts struck the ground in front of the elves throwing clumps of sod and mud into the sky, leaving craters behind. Some elves tried to shoot her down, but the arrows passed through her avatar as if it was made of air.

Chigatsay saw his chance and raced across the open field. The battering storm rendered the arrows of the elves useless. He ran south to where a portion of the forest extended into the field. A pair of elves waited at the edge of the forest with drawn swords. Chigatsay held his glaive horizontally in front of him by one hand and waited for their attack. An elf charged at him wielding twin blades. A blade slashed Chigatsay’s leg before he was able to cut her down with his glaive. Another elf approached from the other side. He slashed Chigatsay’s shoulder with a sword, but Chigatsay thrust with the butt end of the glaive and knocked him down. Chigatsay slipped into the forest and disappeared.

Suddenly Merlina felt as if something was choking her. She was back in her own body between the boulders. The avatar collapsed in a final torrent of rain and hail until nothing remained but a heavy fog that lay over the valley. Merlina grasped her neck and felt a spiked metal collar had been placed around it. She turned and saw Silona behind her. She tried to cast a spell but all that happened was the collar seemed to grow warm for a few moments.

“It won’t work, Merlina,” Silona said. “The collar absorbs magic. You can’t use magic with the collar on.”

Silona waved her finger and the collar tightened around Merlina’s neck choking her so she couldn’t breathe. She struggled against it but finally fell to her knees.

+++++

Merlina felt nauseous. Her arms and legs were bound, and she could feel the spiked collar around her neck. She had been flung over the shoulder of a tall male elf that Silona referred to as Delfarin. They were moving quickly through the forest following the stream. The stream lost its way through this part of the forest forming a swampy region. There was a mixture of dead and living trees. The sky was glowing orange as the sun sank towards the horizon. At this rate, they would be able to reach the waterfall by midnight. Merlina had no idea how they intended to descend the escarpment.

“Let me kill her!” Gemma said. “Let me just slit her throat and be done with it.”

“You can’t do that,” Silona replied. “She is our captive. That would be murder.”

“We could say she got free and attacked us. No one would know differently.”

“No, Gemma, then we would be as bad as her.”

“And what of the ogre?”

“That is why we are moving as fast as we can. We know he is injured. We will have to outpace him.”

“Outpace an ogre…”

“Hush!” Silona interrupted, her ears erect and attentive. “I think I hear something.”

Can elves hear a bird soaring in the wind? Soon even Merlina could hear the flapping of wings around them as dark shapes flitted from tree to tree. Suddenly there was a raucous cawing as the ravens began harrying the elves. The elves were inclined to shoo them away rather than attempt to kill them since the ravens could not do any significant damage. Suddenly a tree seemed to explode beside Merlina and the elves. Shards of wood flew everywhere knocking them down. Delfarin dropped Merlina as he sprawled on the ground. Silona and Gemma were knocked senseless. Delfarin was just beginning to scramble to his feet when a jade glaive cut his legs from under him. The next thing Merlina knew, Chigatsay had scooped her up and was carrying her away. He raced through the forest knocking branches and small trees out of the way. Gradually the cries of the elves grew more distant. Chigatsay climbed uphill until he reached a rocky clearing where he lay Merlina down. The last sliver of the sun was sinking behind the mountain peaks, and everything seemed to be glowing with a golden light.

“Are you all right, Lina?” Chigatsay asked.

“I am not injured. Are you alright, Chigatsay? They said you were injured.”

“I will be fine.”

“Chigatsay, the collar on my neck, can you get it off?”

Chigatsay tried to pry off the collar, but it just choked Merlina and cut his fingers. Finally, he said, “I cannot get it off, but there is a small hole in the collar.”

“A key! Of course. Silona must have the key. Chigatsay, do you remember the tall thin elf with white hair that was with us. She must have the key.”

“I will get it for you.”

Chigatsay stood up and began to move off into the forest. Merlina could see blood streaming from the arrow shafts still protruding from his back. He took a few steps, fell onto his hands and knees, then fell on his face. Merlina ran over to him. He was breathing but unconscious. Just then Merlina heard a familiar fluttering. She turned to see Kata-Karkar, the raven leader, standing on the rock behind her. He had something silver in his long black beak. A key!

“I took this shiny from the white-haired mage,” Kata-Karkar said.

“Oh, Kata-Karkar!” Merlina called out. She ran over to him and took the key and used it to her unlock the collar. The silver collar fell to the ground. It had the form of a spiked serpent that coiled itself into knots and tried to wind away into the grass. Merlina shot out a hand and caught it behind the head. It coiled itself about her arm. Merlina took a leather pouch from Chigatsay and sealed the serpent inside.

Merlina looked over Chigatsay. His breathing was shallow and steady, but his body was shivering. Merlina examined his wounds. She searched Chigatsay until she found a hunting knife and used it to cut strips off her gown and bind the gashes the swords had made. Merlina rearranged Chigatsay’s striped fur to cover him as well as possible. She gathered some dead wood and arranged it into a pyre on the rocks, but she did not have anything to start the fire with. She began rubbing her hands together. Merlina looked at Chigatsay, then she looked at her hands and concentrated. Her hands began to turn red at the fingertips. The color spread down her fingers until finally, her hands were bright red. She thrust them into the woodpile, and it burst into flame. She looked at her hands and smiled as an idea occurred to her.

“Watch over Chigatsay,” Merlina called to Kata-Karkar. “I have a plan to get rid of the elves.”

+++++

“We must go and capture her!” Gemma said.

“It is too risky,” Silona replied. “The oni could easily ambush us now that it is dark. Almost half of our company has already fallen. I am ordering that we retreat. Besides, there is something else. I lost the key to the collar.”

“You what!”

“When I came to, the key was gone. If Merlina has the key, then she may have removed the collar. You saw what her magic is capable of! The mission has failed. We have no choice but to retreat.”

Merlina stood at the edge of the small swampy clearing listening to the elves, her body blending perfectly with the trees. A rage was building within her like a burning fire. Merlina’s hands began turning bright red and the air around them wavered with heat. Merlina put her hands on the trunk of a dead snag tree, and it burst into flame. She ran through the forest grabbing snag after snag until the forest was ablaze. Merlina put her hands out to the sides and called the winds. The winds spread the flames across the forest to the east and west. She brought her hands together and the winds began blowing straight south driving the wall of flames towards the elves, driving them towards the escarpment.

+++++

It was dark by the time Merlina returned to where Chigatsay lay with Kata-Karkar watching over him. The sky was lit by the distant forest fire that gave a hellish glow to the entire forest. Rumon, the red moon, hung ominously in the sky. The bonfire had burned down to a pile of glowing red coals with blue flames licking lazily around them. Chigatsay was no longer shivering, and his breathing was stable now. The arrow wounds were beginning to smell bad, but Merlina thought she should get Chigatsay back to the tower before she tried to treat them.

“Chigatsay!” Merlina called.

Chigatsay moaned.

“Chigatsay!” Merlina said as she slapped him across the face.

“What!” he said groggily.

“We have to get back to Barakundi.”

“What of the elves?”

“The elves are gone. We won. We have driven them off. Do you think you can walk?”

The oni leaned heavily on his glaive as he got to his feet. “Yes. I think I can walk.”

+++++

Chigatsay collapsed onto his bed when they reached his room. Merlina cut out the arrows, washed the wounds, treated them with herbs, and bandaged them. When she had finished, she covered him with some wool blankets and left him resting. Merlina took a knife that Chigatsay used for skinning beasts and cutting meat.

Merlina was weary, so very weary, but she knew she had one more task to complete before she rested.

She went to the kitchen and prepared Hemkaraho his potion and brought it to his room. Hemkaraho looked at Merlina with his ancient cloudy eyes, as she took the silver serpent out of the pouch and placed it on Hemkaraho’s neck. It coiled itself about his neck and fastened itself by biting its own tail. Merlina locked it into position with the key. Merlina then helped her husband drink the potion and watched as his youth was once again restored.

Hemkaraho could feel the silver collar encircling his neck. He put his hand to the collar and pricked his finger on the spiked serpent causing him to bleed. He spoke a word of command, but the just necklace glowed for a moment then faded. Merlina smiled.

“What have you done?” Hemkaraho asked as a look of concern fell over his face.

“Husband, I brought a gift for you as a sign of our marriage,” Merlina said. “Did you bring a gift for me?” She went over to the chest he had brought back from the dwarves and opened it. It contained a large diamond, a pearl as large as her fist, and a mound of fragrant incense.

“Is this for my ring?” She asked, holding up the diamond. 

“It is a diamond from the gem hoard of the dwarves.”

“This pearl would look nice around my neck. Wherever did you find a pearl in the dark recesses of the world?”

“It came from a giant mollusk in an underground lake.”

“We could burn this incense to set the mood. How did the dwarves find such a thing?”

“It is the latex scraped from the seed pods of a subterranean flower.”

“I begin to see what kind of husband you are.”

Merlina waved her finger at him, and the necklace began to tighten around his throat blocking off his air supply.

Merlina began massaging Hemkaraho’s manhood until she felt it was stiff enough for her. She mounted him in the usual manner and looked upon his face as she rode him. She tried to make her face look pleasant, but a rage burned behind her eyes. She knew from experience when he was getting close. She watched his breathing, his eyes, and she felt him swelling inside her.

“Are you the type of husband to make sweet love to your wife?” Merlina asked as she felt him approaching his climax.

Instead of letting him finish inside her she withdrew at the last moment and lay her cheek against his stomach as she watched him in fascination. His cock reminded her of a spastic worm caught in the beak of a thrush as it twitched a few times before gradually growing flaccid again. Her mouth was so close that if she stuck out her tongue, she would be able to taste herself on him. But she didn’t.

When she was satisfied that his passion had subsided, she took a stone bowl with some oil in it. She poured it over his shaft and began rubbing him with the oil until he began to stiffen again. When she felt it was sufficient, she straddled him with her back to him and began pushing his member against her nethermost hole. She gradually opened for him. She shoved her fingers inside her slit to make it easier to take him. She pushed down on his shaft until she had fully engulfed him. She began to rock up and down slowly at first as his shaft penetrated her. As she felt him approaching his climax she again withdrew and lay her face on his stomach to watch his manhood twitching as he almost came to orgasm.

“Or are you the type of husband who would fuck your wife in the ass the moment she turns her back to you? You received a message, husband, from Gilledda, the high mage. My captor.” Merlina walked over to the table and picked up the long knife she had left there. “I have thought of an activity for my amusement, our mutual amusement you might say. If you don’t cum before I am finished with you, I will let you live. However, if I see a single drop of your seed, I will thrust this knife through your heart.”

She began by drawing his flaccid member into her mouth and rolling her tongue around it. She could taste her ass on him. She sucked and squeezed the base of his shaft and despite his reluctance, she was finally able to make him stiff again. When she felt he was adequate she mounted him again and slid him into her slit. The thought of her revenge made her as wet as a honeycomb as she slid him inside her. As she rode him, he began panting louder. She knew he was getting close. At the last moment, she withdrew again. The sorcerer cried out as he tried to withhold his seed. Merlina inspected his shaft closely, squeezing the base between her thumb and forefinger while pushing up towards the tip, but not a drop of white did she see.

As his shaft began to soften, she took oil and rubbed it on his shaft and onto his puckered hole. She also rubbed it on her own puckered opening. She mounted him again this time taking him in her nether hole. She rocked and thrust and bounced on his shaft as his moans grew louder and louder and when she was sure he was about to cum she withdrew and examined him intently. His shaft twitched and quivered like a sausage on hot coals but not a drop of his white seed issued from him.

She took more oil and applied it to his scrotum, she wrapped her lips around his shaft, she reached to his chest and twisted his nipples, she took his scrotum in her hands and twisted it as she slapped his testicles thrusting his manhood into her throat so deep, she was gagging, and the spasms of her throat gripped his cock’s head. His hips began thrusting into the air and Merlina withdrew and watched as his shaft pointed to the heavens like a brown tower, his hips continued to thrust upward, and his cries of anguish echoed about the walls of the room but not a drop of his seed issued forth. While his back was arched into a bridge and his member was at its highest point, Merlina suddenly thrust three fingers into his oiled hole and curled them towards his belly so they pressed into his prostate. He erupted like a white volcano as spurt after spurt of his molten seed shot skyward. Merlina continued pushing and squeezing on his prostate until it was completely drained. His cock was covered in white, it was surrounded by a pool of white seed, there were even splashes of semen splattered on the ceiling that slowly dripped down onto the couple.

“You lose,” Merlina said, and she held the knife against his chest.

“There is much I can still teach you,” Hemkaraho said in desperation. “Is there nothing you would like to know from me before the end?”

Merlina considered this a while before she answered. “There are secrets you haven't told me yet. The potion of immortality. What is it? How did you come by it? How did you come to be in this tower in the middle of the wilderness?”

“That,” Hemkaraho answered, “will be a long tale.”