Sailing Ether Tides

Sailing Ether Tides

Ch: 47 When Ya Comin’ Home, Son?

The other guests were just beginning to suspect that something in the house was amiss… Their hosts’ usual air of lackadaisical, fun loving welcome was wearing thin, revealing the rough, stony bedrock beneath their friendly facade. Tawny pressed on with her sacred duties, since the group was already headed her way through the garden gate.

Baroness Tawny shrugged that feeling off, as she smiled in welcome to nurse Lindsey, a shy and very skilled acolyte from the local orphanage, who was only just settling into her first Contract.

The pretty, dark haired lass led her troop of swollen, waddling ladies down into the garden baths, through the breathtaking gardens.

Rose arbors, blooming ectopic hedges, a towering magnolia tree in full bloom and so many more sights dazzled the footsore and exhausted women, even those who had visited before.

Behind the high hedges, the pregnant women of the town gathered every afternoon, to soak away the aches and pains of new motherhood in peace.

Tawny always arranged these gatherings, whenever and wherever she stayed at Gary and Shai’s inn. More accurately, whenever she was at home, she would gather the local expecting mothers to baptize them in the healing waters.

Her granite keep on the hill above Foresthome was a fine and splendid dwelling, if less regal and elegant than the palace in Wheatford she’d grown up in… Yet neither held her heart. This was her true home, under this cheerful red tile roof and wherever these odd, beloved souls wandered.

Lady Dana, the healer, her primary deity and her family patron was less enthusiastic about her close bonds with the Wards.

Once, the sworn and bonded cultists of War would burn her skin at their touch and their voices resembled the brazen call to War in her ears… War’s clerics had been intolerable to her, their blood drenched auras and the dire, furious attention of their god, leering from behind their eyes chilled her blood…

That god was gone, as were his cultists’ bonds. Now Gary filled that space in Dana’s eyes. Her old friend’s sweet, mellow, lyric voice was shrill now, grinding at her very nerves with his every word and action.

The touch of his hand felt foul and greasy, leaving an unseen stain on her flesh whenever they brushed against each other in the busy house.

By force of Will and through long practice, she had learnt to attenuate her bond with the goddess, when interacting with the War sworn; effectively suppressing those reactions entirely…

For the ‘Gary problem’ there was no relief; his presence near her drew Dana’s gaze irresistibly. For him, Dana’s eyes held a baleful and unreasoning hatred that was coldly alien to her goddess and deeply wrong.

Tawny shuddered and shrugged away the sensation. Gary could sense her presence, as well as the women she accompanied and would not intrude… He was a generous soul at heart and deeply enjoyed being helpful… even, or perhaps especially when the results he produced were wholly unexpected.

Sometimes Gary’s idea of ‘helping’ involved plunging the world into chaos without warning.

Those dark thoughts swirled in her mind, as Dana’s bond became extraordinarily active and… upset? In any case, her Contracts were churning and writhing uncomfortably, and nurse Lindsey seemed just as distressed.

They refrained from discussing the effect, in the presence of the ladies, but the eye contact they shared suggested that both had much to relate.

Soon all the ladies were soaking and had been provided with a delightful lunch, prepared in the kitchens every day with consummate care and attention by the Ward clan.

No detail was missed in the little floating lunchboxes, each one labeled and individualized for the woman in question.

Hergram, the beaver carpenter, found a salad of tender bamboo shoots and watercress, dressed with rice vinegar and a ball of cold, sticky rice hiding a dollop of sweet red bean paste.

Her thrumming rumble mustelid pleasure joined a chorus of similar responses, from a number of species, as the exhausted women floated together and found a respite from their aches, cares and flaring appetites.

#

Deeper and deeper he swam, his lungs burning with the effort, despite a certainty that he did not need to breathe in this place between worlds, even and especially while under the not exactly water that suddenly felt very comfortable and homey…

Barry hurtled out of a familiar waterfall, flailing wildly at the sudden reversal of gravity and reality, as he splashed down in a private hotspring pool that he’d known his whole life.

His sudden wailing, laughing appearance startled a number of pregnant ladies of several species, who were having a soothing, healing… and now suddenly exciting soak under baroness Tawny’s supervision.

When the naked young lad splashed down, the waves nearly submerged mistress Articuli’s bento box of colorful sushi; prompting the very round panther woman to snarl at him, while protecting her precious, delicious meal.

“Sorry, sorry… Oh, that looks good…” The giddy lad chirped and sang merrily, his eyes huge and round, above a doofy, confused smile of bliss.

He paddled his way to the side and heaved his body onto the curbing, where he lay for a while; flat on his back, gasping and breathing heavily, while releasing the occasional giggle of delight.

“My apologies, ladies…” Tawny said firmly, once the interloper was out of the water. “This is one of our hosts… He seems to be experiencing some… distress.”

She sighed and turned to the beached, goofy lad. “Barry…” Tawny spoke very gently to the befuddled young man. “Are you aware that you are currently… quite erect?” She asked softly. “I only mention it, because you are making some of the ladies rather uncomfortable.”

He craned his neck to take a peek and grinned a stupid smile at his proudly waving dick. “This is the craziest dream…” He mumbled.

“Lindsey, please just drape a towel over it…” Tawny muttered to her young assistant, while facing the pool full of pregnant women. “It’s nothing we have not all seen before.”

She failed to notice how many shades of red and also pale the young woman standing behind her had turned.

Lindsey’s golden brown Healer’s robes seemed almost chocolatey, against her stark pale throat and scarlet blazing cheeks, as she stared down at the boy on the pavers.

Two bright, feverish, delighted brown eyes bored up, into a pair of glistening, doelike, gray orbs; as they were held open wide in shock, surprise and something far more.

Poor Lindsey was caught like a butterfly pinned to a board, holding a neatly folded towel and mutely staring at the large, beautiful… and enormously erect boy, who had just tumbled onto her feet from seemingly nowhere on this world.

Their shared eye contact crackled with some deep, abiding connection, buzzing at her senses and shaking her to the core.

Worst of all, she was also nude, and he was smiling up at her with wide, innocent brown eyes filled with desire, as that thing waved in time to his slow, steady heartbeat.

“Speak for your fortunate self, my lady.” Sarah Holms giggled from the pool. “That boy’s a big surprise to me, an yer apprentice too!”

That set off a firestorm of quiet, giggling and some highly immature conversations that went on for a while… right up until a frantic Shai stampeded into the private baths and skidded to a stop beside her unconscious, smiling, still massively tumescent son.

She looked down and sighed wearily, from behind a smile of deep and abiding relief, before addressing the girl leering at her son’s tackle.

“Now who might ye be, lass?”

“You’re very pretty…” Seeming blind to his mother’s presence and all the other witnesses, Barry mumbled up at the brown haired, gray eyed girl with the perfect, pink, kissable lips.

His voice was rich and had a hint of the depth that would be his with time, but he spoke in a lilting childlike cadence. “Are you looking at my ding-a-ling?”

He pursed his lips and whistled a short snippet of a simple but very pretty melody at her, while it bobbed along like a conductor’s baton.

“Fie, his father’s son indeed.” Shai muttered, while sizing up the girl.

#

“Lindsey’s got it bad…” Amy sighed happily, as the girl bustled in and out of Barry’s room; ‘checking on the patient’. She kept finding transparent excuses to slip inside, even though the boy was going nowhere for at least a few more hours.

Gary and Shai had looked at the two neat puncture wounds on his throat and examined the traces of silver venom left around the neatly healed scars and been satisfied that he was fine.

“Thirp must have had a reason to bite him… I’m sure it’s fine.” Gary pronounced after the brief exam. “He’s been etheric slimed and shoved through the veil, let him rest.”

As the only mortal expert in ‘transdimensional fuckery’ in town, they had to take Gary’s word for it… and the boy was still smiling in his sleep, emitting happy little sighs now and then.

Lindsey freshened the water pitcher beside the seeping lad’s bed twice, replaced the freshly baked loaf and crock of butter beside the pitcher at least once more, fluffed his pillows, re-arranged the furniture for easier access to the bedside, dusted, tidied and changed in fresh bedding at least once.

Only when the pretty, gray eyed girl crept up to Barry’s door holding a basin, towel and sponge with a naughty little smile on her coral pink lips, did Amy step in; with a naughty little smile on her own face.

“Hold on girlie… sponge baths are off limits…”

The brown haired teenager nearly dropped her basin of hot water, when the admiral stepped out of the shadows into her path. “Oh! I was just…”

“Yeah, you were just.” She answered with a wide smile of delight. “Just gonna take a peek at my brother… and maybe a fondle, while he’s passed out.”

Lindsey gasped and flushed so bright red, Amy feared she might pass out on the spot. The young acolyte mastered herself after a single deep breath and smiled blandly at the older girl. “My duties call me away, excuse me.”

Before Lindsey could escape, Amy lunged. Grappling her from behind, she giggled and hugged her tightly, manhandling the larger girl with terrifying strength.

“At least wait until he’s awake...” She whispered with a fond, sisterly hug.

#

Amy sat back down with a happy sigh of accomplishment. “That poor girl is on the hook…” She grinned at her co-conspirators and winked. “Judging by the dogeared contents of that poor owlbear, she’s just the right bait to hook him right back.”

“Keeping them close to town might prove easier than we thought…” Harry agreed with a smile. “Now for Larry and Perry.”

“I’m taking them trail riding tomorrow.” Rio answered. “Maybe something will come up.”

Amy giggled, when she considered that in the current context. “I sure hope not!”

“Good one…” Rio sighed in surrender. “Now I need a bath and some sleep… this is just too much!”

#

“Nae, tis too much!” Shai insisted. “I’d nae send me wee ones intae the open jaws of death!”

“I will accompany them, as will Ivy, Tallum, Dannyl and I hope… you yourself.” Liam said quietly.

“Their gifts and talents will make this attempt possible, otherwise we will need to wait for a resolution to our current giant insect troubles.” He sighed sadly.

“Then even longer, the vale will remain impassable for at least a season, perhaps longer, as the waters need to drain away and the mud and rubble is several feet thick in places.”

“We understand your reluctance, but they are more capable than you know and will be properly supervised at all times.” Duke Julius agreed.

“I will send a few of my most experienced warriors along as well, if you wish. The Fist is nearing Bywater Town, seeking the source of those troubles, but I can redirect them.”

Gary sat at the table, silent and fuming, he gave the impression of a tightly lidded pot over a roaring fire… He could blow his top at any moment.

“No.” He said as abrupt and jarring as turd in a punchbowl.

“But Gary…” Julius began, showing off his handsome, kid next door grin.

“I said no. The divines are fucking around with my kids. I’m not letting them out of my sight until this is settled.” He snapped, and fell silent again, stubborn as old tree roots.

The nobles at the table looked around blankly, seeking answers and received none.

“Ask your clerics… I’m not the evening news.” He grumbled sourly at the noblemen all around. Long familiar with his odd speech, most of the group ignored his idiosyncrasies. Abed had not yet learnt that lesson.

“Evening, news?” The duke of Shiraz demanded. “Speak plain, fool!”

“I mean, forces unrelated to your troubles and desires are moving behind the scenes and my family is readying for war. Your dungeon takes a distant second place after that… very distant indeed.” He growled. “Was that clear enough?”

Count Liam blanched and leaned closer, drawing Shai in and whispering in his weird friends’ ears in a highly rude manner.

“I am concerned to hear of this sudden shift in attitude…” Julius said lamely, while the two men held a whispered conversation in the middle of the meeting.

#

“Healer fucked around and is dangerously close to finding out.” Gary whispered furiously. “She did something very stupid and might just find… Well, she fucked around, and just might find out.”

“Stifle that Gary, tis nae yet time tae speak of going tae war, certainly nae with a goddess…” Shai hissed.

“Tell her that, she tried to kill Barry!” He hissed right back.

“I think we had better bring Tawny and Celeste in on this…” Liam announced firmly to the whispering pair and the group at large. “This meeting is adjourned.”

#

“Where ever did those two go?” Tawny demanded, when Liam found her at late tea with her still giggling and excited pregnant ladies and dragged her away to consult with the missing duo.

All the Wards seemed to be missing. The workshop door in the main house was sealed and resisted even Liam’s attempts to open it, for the first time in their long acquaintance.

Likewise, the private areas of the house were closed off and inaccessible to all. A careful search of the public areas and gardens revealed that all the private outbuildings were also secured against entry and seemed vacant.

Only Barry remained, still unconscious and watched over by a large, purring silver and gray leopard and the terrifying sugar wasp familiar; who stood at the head of the corridor leading to the boy’s room and denied entry to anyone but the young acolyte of Healer. Lindsey, they allowed to tend the boy without trouble.

When Liam approached, Kree buzzed over and hovered before him, waving a silently waggled finger in front of his nose.

“Well, I guess we go home…” He mumbled awkwardly to the gathered people.

#

Lindsey felt so many eyes on her back whenever she left her patient’s room, that she retreated behind those two adorable, weirdly fearsome guardian familiars and spent more time than was really needed on her exam.

The boy, Barry, was large and muscular with close cropped brown hair… the kind that would be unruly if not shorn or tended to regularly. The big brown eyes she’d stared into for so awkwardly long had told her, he wouldn’t be bothered and so, kept it short.

She sighed and crossed those errant thoughts from her patient journal with firm strokes. Lindsey scolded herself wordlessly and sat down on the edge of the bed to measure his pulse… for the chart…

His huge, sun bronzed hand was calloused and hard, like any common workman’s even at just fifteen… She sighed at the pitiable lad, as her delicate fingers found his pulse among those corded muscles and taut sinews.

His heartbeat was slow, dangerously slow. Worse, each beat of his heart struck like a hammer, driving blood through his veins with terrible force. It felt more like the mechanical striking of the smith’s triphammer, than any working of human biology.

Before she could rise to call for aid, his pulse eased and quickened… soon it was thudding along in a perfectly ordinary way. Much like her own… it took a few moments to realize that their heartbeats were beating in perfect time, shaking her subtly with each shared pulse…

It took a fair few minutes for her to realize she’d transitioned to simply holding his big, warm, calloused, workman’s hand for the simple pleasure of it.

#

It was weirdly quiet in the house when Barry woke, feeling punchy and super confused. He was in his bed, with Mister MacGruber; but in the main house, not in Rio’s cottage where he’d been when that crazy dream popped off.

Even now he was muzzy headed and a little confused; he’d swear that the girl from his crazy dream just left his bedroom…

He sat up and staggered to his workbench in the corner and sagged down into that familiar chair, exhausted by the effort of crossing his little room.

He dragged a sketch pad out and started with the face; the face of the kind, clever, compelling, gray eyed girl he’d dreamt… He felt like it was super important to get that beautiful image securely laid out on paper.

Once he’d captured her, he drew those crazy spiders, then the goddess, Dana; her hand seared and inflamed into a big, puffy boxing glove, just as in his dream…

He found himself lost in the intricacies of the knot holding Dana’s robe closed, so interested that he left off sketching her; He hadn’t even drawn any stink lines or circling flies around her divine form.

He giggled foolishly at the thought… Mama and papa’s tales of spider goddesses and dream worlds must have finally wriggled into his unconscious mind… Magic was just a story for babies, after all…

Barry’s head made a soft thunk, when he drifted back into sleep, his face planted solidly on his charcoal sticks, smearing his face with the powdery black mess, as he began to emit a soft, whistling snore.

#

Lindsey slipped back inside, past the two cute and silent guardians, who accepted her without complaint… Just as the boy’s red haired, tempestuous, giantess of a mother had accepted her; with a fond embrace, once her son’s tackle was decently bundled out of sight.

The lad’s bed was empty, his silly plush owlbear propped up against the headboard and the covers flipped carelessly down.

The boy… Barry was in his pajamas, sitting at a desk and completely unconscious, again.

Pinned to a cork board above him, were several sketches in charcoal; most notably an exquisite, sensitive and very clear depiction of her own face, caught in an expression that mingled fear, surprise, delight and desire all at once.

She felt something stir in her breast, when she gazed on that familiar face, her face… seen through a stranger’s eyes.

Less charming were images of three terrifying, gigantic monster spiders, freshly drawn, in fearsome detail. One towered over a small group of people, high as a mountain and terrible to look on, even in simple lines of black on paper.

Finally there was a drawing of an elegant, beautiful woman in the robes of Healer’s cult, the sash held closed with a cunning and wickedly complex knot of rank… one that every acolyte learnt, and no mortal cleric would dare tie on herself.

Only the secret ritual robes that the sacred idol of the Healer herself wore, and only for the high holy days and the most rarefied rituals of the cult used that sacred, secret knot…

On the desk lay a complete diagram of the Hierophant’s Coil, including how to tie the thing; instructions more clear and direct than those the temple taught. The ink of that instructional page was still damp, staining her fingers where she’d held it carelessly…

“Who’re you?” He asked, his head still on the desk, but one brown eye looking up at her, clear and alert. “Where am I? Where are my brothers?”

Before Lindsey could figure out how or what to answer first, the insect creature and the leopard entered the room and shooed her out, with silent gestures from the golden armored wasp girl.

#

“I don’t know about leaving him with that girl…” Rio muttered from the tiller of Seahorse.

“It’s fine.” Wilf announced in his ‘hangin judge’ voice that meant he was satisfied with the results.

“Yeah, she was starting to freak out a little… We show a little trust and we’re not so scary any more.” Amy agreed. “And if she gets handsy, Shiro and Kree are there.”

“So why’d we all have to go?” Larry wondered. “I like an evening on the lake just fine but there’s something on my workbench waiting for me.”

“Larry, bro… Pistol crossbows are a dead end. You and Amy are barking up the wrong tree.” Perry insisted, starting up a long running debate between the two.

“My latest poisons are really showing results…” He insisted, quickly sketching out his latest idea. “Ballista and catapults are not the answer to all life’s questions!”

“Yeah, but a seventy pound granite boulder flung from a great height is a strong argument in any case.” Perry insisted.

“Amy and I have some ideas to try on your next repeating crossbow prototype…” Wilf weighed in quietly, sending the two boys off to chatting about their shared passion project.

“Sweet, I found a local tree sap that might answer our delamination problems…” Perry murmured happily.

“Nice.” Amy whispered, while Rio steered a slow cruise in the evening sun, far from any nosey nobles.

#

Josephus Wiley was old, but he was still hale, had lovely penmanship and didn’t mind working the front desk of an evening in the summertime, when the kids would rather be out chasing the flower of pleasure on the soft slippers of youth…

He smiled at that turn of phrase and jotted it down in the margin of his notepad for later.

When the bell over the door rang, he expected a minor medical emergency or some matter of the visiting nobles in town, not a pair of very angry and aggressive seeming commoners with a metaphorical ax to grind… No one would bring an actual weapon into Dana’s sacred nave.

The brown haired giant stomped right up to the desk, produced a wide bladed, vicious knife and plunged it deep into the varnished hardwood of the reception desk.

“Blood feud.” He spoke very clearly and coldly, while keeping his gaze fixed on the old priest.

“I, Gary Ward, declare blood feud on Dana the Healer, in response to her acts of ruthless aggression against my house. No truce will be asked nor given, no reply but total surrender is acceptable.”

“Are you… mad?” The priest stammered, as the man turned to leave, his declaration of war, proclaimed in the ancient form, still hanging in the air. Something about the rude, brutish giant curdled his blood and made his hair stand on end.

“Yes, quite mad. Your goddess knows where to find me, if she dares.” He said coldly. “Until mid day, on midsummer’s day, then I go to find her.”

The man and his silent, gigantic woman marched away, without further words.

#

“Yeah, she was watching through his eyes…” Gary murmured with satisfaction as they rode away.

“That were awful and wicked… I like that side o’ thee, betimes.” Her accent was thicker than usual, dragging her words out and reshaping them.

“A-sexy-pirate-girl-says-what?” He asked gleefully.

“Whae mean ye lad?” She demanded, glaring fondly at her beloved fool.

“I’ll take that. Yes I will indeed!” He burbled happily as he pedaled.

#

“...so your folks went off to challenge the goddess of healing to a duel or some stupid thing… your brothers and sister took a cruise on the lake to avoid adult questions.” Kree took a great gasping breath after all that and buzzed happily in his face.

“I like that girl, she has a sweet aura…” The tiny wasp girl declared. “You should get dressed and go talk to her.”

“I dunno… I’m kinda fighting with her goddess right now.” He mumbled quietly.

“No, your parents are feuding with the goddess of Healing; you are a child, and so cannot be dragged into this, legally. Which is why your parents are at war with Healer…” Kree buzzed around in a frustrated circle and alighted on his shoulder.

“This is complicated!”

#