Arillia

by Illuminati Architect

Chapter Two, The Swordswoman

I put my great-grandmother’s diary on my nightstand, lay back in my bed, and addressed the only other person in my room, the voice in my head. “Greg, Mildred seems like a dead end. She only had visions of the future of things she could already imagine, not a voice talking about demons made of sand with more knowledge than sages who spoke libraries of text to each other in mere seconds through pulses of light. Truly, your madness (or perhaps it’s but my own) is vast and deep.”

So that’s it. You’re just going to mope around in your room from now on?

“I have already completed your quest. I shall carefully guide Carnel so that she does not fall into possession. None of the terrible things you have warned about shall come to pass. What more is there to do?”

Well, what about Elizabeth the Swordswoman? Are you just going to leave her there?

“I know not of whom you speak.”

She’s the first quest. Your first and last companion until Carnel strikes her down, giving you the opening to end your sister’s suffering.

“If they are destined to end in conflict, then perhaps it’s best that I never introduce them.”

In the game, you’re always about saving women from unjust bondage. Are you that different here?

“Fine, I will hear out your quest tomorrow. But now I must sleep.”

I awoke before dawn on Tuesday, 2nd Nodwin, the 22nd year of Peter III.

Mary arrived with breakfast for two, for my sister was with her, with my book in her hands.

“Good morning, Sister.”

“And good morning to you, Carnel. I trust you slept well, for we have a very important day ahead of us. Today, you must learn the Telepathy spell.”

“Wow. That’s even more complex than Magescan.”

“Yes, but given how well you did yesterday, I think you can just manage it. I am only asking this of you because it is very important, and there is none else I can entrust this to.”

“I’ll try my best!”

“I’m counting on you to do so. Now, let’s enjoy breakfast before the hard work starts.”

That morning, we seemed to make little progress, but after lunch, Carnel put extra effort into her studies and finally managed to cast from the book as the sun set.

Carnel, can you hear my thoughts?

Yes, Sister!

First, I want you to carefully feel the form of my mind. Close your eyes, relax, and listen to my thoughts.

Okay.

Now, I’m going to let go of your hand, but I need you to continue the link to my mind. Can you do that?

I’ll try.

Carnel, are you still there?

Yes!

Okay, I’m going to stand up and walk around the room. I want you to point at where I am.

Okay.

I stood and walked to the side, but her finger followed me.

That’s why you taught her Telepathy. It’s for the direction finding, right?

Open your eyes and say Greg smells.

“Greg smells? Who’s Greg?”

When did you tell her my name?

It was just a nonsense phrase I made up to test the link. You can drop the spell now.

“Wow, Telepathy, I did it.” Her wand dropped from her fingers as she collapsed.

I ran forward to catch her, carried her to my bed, and tucked her in.

I heard footsteps approaching along the corridor. I quietly opened the door and motioned for Mary to remain silent and look at my bed.

She nodded and then followed me down the corridor. She waited until we turned the next corner before speaking. “You’ve let Her Young Highness back in your bed after what happened the last time?”

“Let her consider it a reward for her diligent efforts today. I’ll greet her in the morning with a smile and leave it to her imagination.”

Wait. This wasn’t in the game at all. You’ve got to tell me what happened.

“Please don’t encourage her. The last thing she needs is to backslide. How exactly did you change her?”

“I suppose that must remain a mystery to us all.”

When we reached the royal family’s private dining room, my father grabbed me in a hug only slightly more powerful than the local bears as he spun me around. “Arillia! Good to see you’re well enough to join us tonight!”

“Please don’t break my ribs.”

“See, Dear, even her sense of humor has recovered. Where’s your sister, won’t she be joining us?”

“My apologies, Father. I was a little too strict in teaching her, and she cast herself unconscious. I’ll look after her tonight.”

“Such diligence from the both of you. Are you sure you haven’t replaced Carnel with a doppelganger? She even said ‘Good Morning, Father’ before rushing to see you today.”

“I taught her the Telepathy spell today. Through that, I felt her mind, and I can assure you of her identity.”

“Telepathy?” Mother asked, “That’s a spell so complex even I’ve never mastered it, and she cast it in one day?”

Enough dilly-dallying with your family. If you don’t rescue Elizabeth by sundown tomorrow, she’ll be shipped out of the city, and I don’t know where she’ll be taken.

“Yes, Mother, Carnel is truly amazing. Father, may I ask for one favor?”

“Anything in my power is yours. You have my complete trust.”

“I need to go on a quest tomorrow.”

“Where to?”

The slums.

“The slums?”

“Very well, I will put the entire castle guard at your command to clean the place out.”

That’s not going to work. If you raise that big of a force, you’ll spook him, and he’ll escape with Elizabeth.

“No, Father, this is a delicate task. I will take but a small team, and we’ll go in disguise.”

“Then I shall go with you!”

What part of this big oaf says stealth to you?

“No, Father, I must ask you to wait in the castle. I will send word if you need to bring the guard.”

“And how will you send this message?”

“That’s why I taught Carnel Telepathy. Since we both know the spell and each other’s minds, the usual range limits are greatly extended.”

“But with only one day of instruction, she’s still only casting it from a book, whatever her hidden genius.”

“Yes, Mother. Hence, I must arrange times for her to attempt to contact me. I think she’ll be able to recover every third hour, so we’ll time it to the castle bells.”

The next morning, I lifted Carnel’s arm, which had found its way out of the covers and over my waist in her sleep. As I flipped her onto her back, her eyes opened.

“Good morning, Carnel.”

“Sister?” She tensed up as she looked around, then relaxed when she saw we were both still dressed under the covers.

“You did an excellent job yesterday, but I have an even more important task for you today.”

“I’ll try my best!”

“That’s all I can ask for.”

I told Carnel about her role in the mission over breakfast, then had her recite what she was to do as Mary fashioned the rags she said were common in the slums on my body. I didn’t look at my body during this, but instead felt with my hands to ensure I could draw both dagger and wand by touch.

I met with three of the most trusted guards, who were also dressed like slum dwellers at the most plain carriage in the castle. We drove out of the castle, across the moat, past the respectable parts of Kristophoro, the capital city of Ioa, out the city gates, pulled into an alley outside the city wall, stepped out of the carriage, and suddenly Greg was giving me rapid step-by-step instructions, turning left and right apparently at random through the densely packed hovels.

I looked around and saw that the guards were no longer with me. Perhaps I was being led into a trap. In that case, I could only depend on Carnel to either contact or carry on without me, hopefully without demonic possession.

Next door on the right.

I opened that door, ran into the room, and stopped. A man was lying naked on a straw mat with his hands folded behind his head. He was a nonentity with an appearance so plain that I doubt I could identify him if I met him again, but the person straddling him, however…

Would you look at that woman!

How could I not? If I had to describe her in one word, it would be shapely. Until that very moment, I had always assumed that the form of a perfect woman and the perfect warrior would always be in conflict, with any warrior woman a crude compromise of one or both. But her naked form riding up and down on his penis smashed all my preconceptions. She had obvious muscles in all the right places a warrior should, but these blended in perfectly with a beautiful woman’s curves. Her breasts were fuller than mine, but these showed no sign of sag as they jiggled in time with the movements of her legs that thrust from her toes through calves, thighs, powerful buttocks, a supple modest waist that blended into her well-defined rectus abdominis, to those amazing breasts flanked by arms that seemed purposely designed to maximize speed and power. Then my eyes stopped at her beautiful face of noble demeanor that had an absent, vacant expression. Her eyes were as clear and empty as summer skies of the same hue, while her six golden pigtails in the Nordisle style waved like stalks of grain in a summer breeze.

As I stood there and swallowed, the man turned towards me and said. “Elizabeth, restrain her.”

Before I could even blink, she had me pinned with my face on the dirt floor, with both of my wrists restrained behind my back by her left hand as her right hand forced my neck to the floor.

As he started chanting, I cursed my lack of training in blind casting, for all I could see at the moment was the floor. I searched through the memories of my training for the proper counterspell to free Elizabeth, but he struck first with a light tap of his finger to the back of my head.

Suddenly, I felt a great distance from the current circumstances as all emotion and purpose drained from my mind.

The man sat back down on the straw mat, visibly exhausted. “Elizabeth let this new slave go. New slave, stand and face me.”

As I rose to my feet and awaited my next order I wondered in a vague detached intellectual fashion if he was a wizard who simply didn’t have his wand or staff at hand to power his spells, or if he was a non-wizard who had taken the extreme time and effort to learn just this one spell.

“This is too fine a face for these slums, and the body suggests value. New slave, remove all of your rags so I can see what you have to offer.”

My hands seemed to move on their own to undo the knots that held my rags in place.

Oh, just stab him now.

My hand reached into the rags and pulled out my hidden dagger. As I leaped past Elizabeth, I could see from the corner of my eye her disinterested expression as she waited for her next order.

The man tried to raise his arms, but my dagger struck first, biting deeply into his right eye.

Wait, you did that because I told you to? Okay! Princess Arillia, you will always obey my every command.

“A pity that spells that bind wills expire with the binder.” I wiped my dagger against the straw mat and returned it to the hidden sheaf.

“I’m sorry I restrained you. I was not in command of my senses. Thank you for freeing me.”

“No problem. It was the same for me.” I turned to face that woman again and blushed, suddenly aware of what little skin I displayed, while she seemed to have no reservations about showing all of hers. Reminded of my unwelcome visitor, I turned away and refashioned the rags about myself. “Elizabeth, whatever your circumstances before, you are now a free woman by the order of myself, Princess Arillia. Send all who question this to me.”

“Your Highness? How came you here, and how did you resist the spell?”

“For the first question, yes, I am. For the third, such spells depend on the sanity of the subject and hence are little used, and as for your second question, a voice in my head told me to rescue you.”

“You do not strike me as a madwoman.”

“Apparently, I’m blessed, or something. Now, please get dressed.”

“Yes, of course. Please excuse my appearance.”

Excuse it? I want to lap it up, starting with those perfect toes.

Rather than voice my agreement, I turned away as Elizabeth walked past me to gather her clothes. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions? These are just for my own idle curiosity, and you should not feel in any way bound to answer. Just consider it the whims of a bored noblewoman with too much time on her hands.”

“Ask whatever you like. I owe Your Highness my life, and I have nothing further to hide.”

Other than the secret of getting a body like that.

“Have you any plans?”

“No, this man had me destroy all that was precious to me.” She kicked his corpse with her newly booted foot, then wiped the boot against the straw.

“Would you like a job?”

“Whatever Your Highness would have me do, but I would prefer if this did not involve selling my body out. The worst part of the enchantment was his forcing my body to lust after a man, which is foreign to my nature.”

She swings your way, Highness.

I ignored my sudden strong heartbeat and continued. “That I will not demand of you,”

Can you at least ask?

“I wish to hire your services as my personal guard. You will, of course, have time off for your family, but other than that, you will be at my personal command.”

“They are dead at my own enchantment-directed hands. Truly, your life is the only purpose for my continued existence.”

“Then Dame Elizabeth, I take you into my service for as long as you will stay by my side.” I held out my hand and felt giddy as she knelt to kiss it.

“And that will be for as long as Your Highness has need of my services.”

As she stood, I reluctantly tore my eyes off of trying to find the outline of her nipples under her tunic, which I figured lined up perfectly with my mouth, to crane my neck up to look her in the face. “Then let us be off to the castle.”

We regrouped with the rest of the team at the carriage. Elizabeth sat beside me as the three disguised guards squeezed together on the opposite bench. On the ride back, Carnel finally succeeded in casting Telepathy from my book.

Sister, can you hear me?

I pulled out my wand to respond. Loud and clear Carnel. You’re making excellent progress.

Are you safe? Should I send the guard?

All is well. The quest is a complete success. We’re on our way back now.

I knew my big sister could do it. You’re so wonderful after …

At that point, the link suddenly dropped, and I hoped she was in a position to not hurt herself as she fell over from exhaustion.

Back at the castle, I introduced Dame Elizabeth to my parents and then to her room, which was the one next to mine. “This door leads to the bath, and I assume you’ll want to use that to clean up now. Mary should return with proper dame clothes in your size (or the best we can manage) by the time you are done.”

“I will not be assigned a guard uniform?”

“Given the way I’ve seen you move, I’d rather keep you closer than that as a ‘friend’ so that you can respond in a way that surprises any assailant. This other door leads from the bath to my room. If you hear a fight, then don’t bother knocking. I am told that you are also an expert with the sword, but my games tend to be those with hidden daggers, as you have witnessed. I will also have you in uniform on occasion, depending on the situation.”

“I believe Your Highness will find my skill with all blades to be at least satisfactory.”

I bet she’s good with other toys, too. Why don’t you keep her even closer, like in your bed?

“Is there anything else you need at the moment?”

“Your Highness, I have a request of a personal nature.”

“Feel free to ask for whatever you need.”

“Can Your Highness refer me to a suitable wizard, please? I do not wish to carry that man’s child.”

“I know the spells needed, but please wait a few minutes for Mary’s return as she has medical training.”

I opened the door from the bathroom to my bedroom, then gestured for Elizabeth to quietly look inside to see Carnel passed out on top of my bed with her wand and my spellbook (safely just out of range of her drool) beside her.

Once back in Elizabeth’s room, I turned to her. “That is my little sister, Princess Carnel. Your charge extends to protecting my entire family.”

“I will look after your adorable little sister as if she was my own.”

“It is beyond my wildest fancy that your opinion remain unchanged after you met her, but please do so.”