"Finally," said Iason as we walked down the pier. "Civilization!"

"Arguably," I muttered. But still, compared to the Tin Islands, Qart Hadast was a true metropolis, a bustling port with ships from all corners of the Inner Sea and beyond, even Lemuria. It had once been a waystation built by the Sea People, little more than a place to take on supplies before heading off to explore the Outer Sea, but over the centuries it grew into a powerful and independent city of its own, masters of the narrow strait between the Inner Sea and the Outer.

I'd been here before--ships from Lemuria don't bother with the Tin Islands, and ships from anywhere else don't go to Lemuria, so I'd needed to go to Qart Hadast and catch a ride from there to Kyrno--and hadn't been impressed. But after getting shipwrecked, taking days to find my friends, then days and days and days of walking to reach the strait, and then days more of working to keep a signal fire lit until a ship finally found us, a cluster of mud huts would have looked welcoming, let alone a walled city of brick and stone, its marketplaces thronged with goods and people from around the world, its temples ornately decorated with bronze, gold, and silver, as were its wealthier citizens... yes, this was pretty close to civilized.

Still smelled like poop, though.

We paused at the end of the pier--well, I guess the beginning, really--and waited for Iola to catch up. She finished thanking the sailors who had brought us here, and jogged a little to reach us quickly. We'd gotten lucky, I guess: a ship had stopped and taken us the last miles to Qart Hadast, on the other side of the strait, and they hadn't tried to enslave us with magical circlets or anything! 

"Civilization!" Iason said again, happily.

"Yep," I said. "Civilization. With no money, no food, just the clothes on our backs, and those are in pretty bad shape." I eyed Iason. "Although... seeing as you did hang on to your sword and armor... I bet those could get us some operating cash..."

Iason scowled. "Is it too late to go back out into the wilderness?"

"Yes," I replied. Technically, we never left. Anywhere with this much goat poop has to count.

Iola caught up, and we continued on into the city proper. "Look," she said, pointing at a banner.

"The Black Moon Festival!" Iason said excitedly. "I used to love that as a kid!"

"Odd," said Iola. "Wasn't the new moon three weeks ago?"

Iason paused. "I think so? But can't be, if the banners are up..."

The two had stopped walking, and were looking at the banners quizzically, muttering to each other.

I gave them a minute, which I think was very polite, considering. "All right," I said finally, "what are you two going on about? What's a Black Moon Festival?"

"Oh!" Iason answered. "It's a blast. There's music, and dancing, and these awesome little honey cakes, and dancing..."

Iola rolled her eyes. "It's to honor the Moon," she explained. "The first new moon after the autumn equinox, we pray for her to come back. She's the goddess of love and war, so it's important we stay on her good side."

I didn't bat an eye at "goddess of love and war." Given the portfolios of the other Sea People gods I knew about--the ocean and war, storms and war, the sky and war, knowledge and war, and war--she fit right in. But there was something odd with what Iola had told me. "How long is this festival? The equinox was six weeks ago!"

"Three days!" answered Iason. "That's why we're confused!"

"Huh. That is weird," I said.

"Yup."

"So... what are we going to do for food?" I asked.

"Wait for nightfall, eat honeycakes?" Iason answered.

"That is a terrible plan." I would just have to think of something better.

I didn't think of anything better. Soon, the shadows were lengthening and the sun was sinking over the wall, and the streets...

The streets were emptying out.

"What's going on?" I asked. "If this is a festival, where is everyone?"

"No idea," Iason answered. He tried to grab a passing merchant by the shoulder. "Excuse me, why are--"

The merchant tore himself out of Iason's grip, gave him a look of terror, and then rushed away. This was getting awfully familiar...

"Vampires?" I asked Iason. "...festival vampires?"

"What," Iola said flatly.

"It kind of does look like it..." he admitted.  Soon the streets were empty, and darkness and silence settled in.

"Get ready," I warned the other two. I raised my hands, ready to sling hot flaming death at any vampires who came our way. 

There was a sound down the street. Drumming, stamping feet, singing.

There were no words to it, but it was catchy, sort of a hnum-hnum-hnum, hnum-hnum-hnum, hnum, hnum, hnumtety-TUM. A procession approached us, dozens of singing, laughing, dancing people. Some had drums, some had flutes, still others had torches, but most were just dancing and singing.

Oh, and none of them had any clothes. Well, some of the men did, but most of them, and all the women, were naked as the day they were born. (Assuming they were born naked. You never know with some people.)

"Um." I said.

"Oh, right!" said Iason. "The dancing's naked. Optional, of course!"

"Yeah," said Iola. "And then when they finish their circle around the city and get back to the temple, everybody fucks. Did you forget that part, too, Iason?"

"Nope!" he replied with a grin. "It's the best part!" His face turned serious.

"After the honeycakes, of course."

My stomach growled. I hadn't eaten anything on the ship, for obvious reasons, and then there'd been plenty of nothing all day. "Where are those honeycakes, anyway?"

"Normally there'd be carts and carts of them," he said. "Everybody makes 'em, and then you're supposed to give away all the ones you made."

"For a war goddess, she's big into the sharing, huh?" I said.

"Love goddess," answered Iola.

I shrugged. Made sense, I supposed. Hnumty-tum, hnumty-tum, hnuh-ummm, hnumty hnumty TUM! Damn, that's catchy. I tapped my foot in time to the music. Next to me, Iola was swaying slightly. The line of dancers went on and on, whirling and singing.

"Man, there's a lot of them," said Iason. "Temple must have a lot of priestesses!"

Iola shrugged. "Big city."

Hnum, hrrum, hnum, hrrrum, hnum hnum hrum hrum TUM! I was getting kind of into it, gyrating a little, watching the dancers swirl past. The women were priestesses, I supposed, and the men just sort of tagging along hopefully--you know what they say about love-goddess priestesses, after all.

"Food?" asked Iason, but he didn't seem that concerned about it.

"They must feed priestesses, right?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah," said Iason. "Big feast after the orgy, for all the participants. Sort of a thank-you from the temple for helping them do their thing. Best part of the festival."

"I thought you said the orgy was the best part," teased Iola.

"Nah, he said the honeycakes." Hnum-hnum-hnum, hnum-hnum-hnum...

"Best part after the orgy and the honeycakes," Iason explained. "That's what I meant to say."

"Mmm-hmm," I replied. At some point we'd started walking down the street, following the dancers. Iola occasionally did this odd little spinny-step-thing, like a forward step, then pivot, then a backwards step, pivot, forward step? 

I gave it a try and nearly went flat on my face. "Dammit!" Hnuhhh-um, hnuhhh-um, hnum! Despite the near-fall, I was having fun. The night was balmy, there was a breeze carrying enough sea smell to cover the poop, and I was possibly maybe slightly giddy from hunger with a likely touch of dehydration. I grinned. "I think I know how we're going to get food!"

"Wait, you don't mean--" Iason started.

As a reply, I pulled off my top and tossed it to him. Hnum-hnum-hnuh-uh-um. "Come on, it'll be fun! You said it was one of the best parts, right?"

Next to me, Iola was stripping out of her armor. Nude, the two of us whirled into the mass of dancers, who laughed and parted way to make room, then closed in around us. The world became a flurry of flashing limbs and laughing faces, spinning and careening around me, while the music hummed and thrummed its way through my body. I laughed and threw myself into it. It felt easy, natural. Even if I stumbled, it just meant bumping lightly into another dancer. There wasn't any room to fall. And nobody was looking, nobody was judging... we were all just laughing and singing.

Somewhere behind us, Iason was presumably following along with our clothes--at least, he had them later, so I assume that's what he did--but I couldn't see him and didn't care. The music fizzed and bubbled through my veins. I was drunk, high, ecstatic on music.

Now this, I remember thinking at one point, this is religion.

Then a building loomed in front of us, all white stone and silver ornaments. Then we were in a vast courtyard, and the dancing turned horizontal.

Most of the people here were Sea People, of course, built more or less like Iola and Iason: tall, bronze-colored skin, curly dark hair, dark eyes. But Qart Hadast was one of the biggest ports in the world, and scattered about the room were people of all sizes, shapes, and colors. I remember sucking a black nipple on a huge, heavy, dark brown breast, while a milk-white cock pounded me from behind. I remember two Sea People women, alike enough to be twins, sucking my breasts while one of them fingered me and I fingered both. I remember sucking a cock with silver-white pubic hair, on a man who couldn't have been more than 20.

Mostly, though, I remember pleasure, pleasure that mounted higher and higher without ever cresting. I didn't cum, I just felt good, and the level of good just kept rising until it spilled over and filled the entire world. And good sounded like hnumty-tum, hnumty-tum, hnumty-hnumty-hnumty-tum.

Eventually, as the dark night turned gray with age, the last grunts and moans and cries died away, and one by one, we dragged ourselves, sticky and exhausted, over to the tables where food had been piled high since before we arrived at the temple. I stuffed my face with flatbread topped with mashed chickpea (better than it sounds!), fish baked with dates and olives, candied figs, honeycakes, and a light white wine that was easily the best alcohol I'd tasted since I left Lemuria.

Then I curled up on a few of the cushions liberally scattered around the floor, closed my eyes, and slept until noon.

I woke up naked, surrounded by naked people, some of whom were Iason and Iola.

Awkward.

Fortunately, Iason had our clothes, so he handed them out to us and we were able to quickly get dressed. Most of the other people didn't seem to bother; they appeared content to just laze around, basking naked in the sunlight. A few women donned robes and cleared away the wreckage of last night's feast, but that was it.

I sought one of those out, the youngest-looking. She was around my age and kind of cute and oh shit it's one of the twins.

She blushed when I approached. I may also have done so.

"You're, um, new," she said, looking down. "I'm sorry."

"Um, do you think you could explain some things?" I asked.

"I probably should," she agreed. "I'm--I'mma start."

"You're--huh? Start what?"

"Huh?" she replied.

"You're gonna start?" I asked.

"Start what?"

"Exactly!"

"Huh?" She stared at me blankly.

Behind me, Iola sighed. I could practically hear her eyes rolling. "It's her name, Lemma. Ummastarte. Means 'daughter of the moon.'"

"Oh." I laughed weakly. "Guess it's a good thing you didn't end up a priestess of the sun god, huh?"

Ummastarte continued to look at me blankly.

"Yeah, uh okay. Can you explain... well, what the hell is going on? Why has this festival been going on for three weeks? What did you mean by saying you were sorry? I mean, last night was weird, but fun." I felt my face getting hot again. "At least, I had fun, I hope--I mean I didn't mean to assume--"

"It's okay," said Ummastarte. Then she sighed and started to explain.

Apparently, on what should have been the last night of the festival, there'd been an incident. About 30 people, all slaves, suddenly screamed in unison, and then started shouting about freedom and being kidnapped. They turned against their masters, and it looked like a riot or a slave revolt might be about to start--and then they all suddenly stopped, tore their clothes off, and joined the dance.

"We thought it was a miracle," Ummastarte explained. "The goddess intervening to preserve her festival, choosing to let love triumph over war. But then, the next night... we couldn't help ourselves. We were overwhelmed by the urge to perform the rites again. We made music, we danced, we sang."

"And let me guess," I said. "Everyone who had danced the night before went with you?"

"Yes," said Ummastarte. "And others joined in as well, as always happened. And the next night, everyone who had participated felt the urge to do it again. And a few more joined." She looked at the people around the room. "After three or four times, they end up like this. Lethargic, dull, like they've been emptied out. We priestesses seem to be protected, blessed be the goddess, but only so far--we still cannot resist the compulsion, and I fear in time we will be like the others."

"And since you're the ones providing the food... if that happens everyone starves."

Ummastarte nodded. "Assuming we don't run out of food first. We're a wealthy temple, but..."

It made sense. Once people caught on that, if you got sucked into the dance, you weren't coming back, they started clearing the streets at night. It had to be some kind of curse or spell. There was definitely magic around, all right, but I was in the middle of a popular temple to a well-known goddess in a powerful city, there was magic everywhere. Spotting the spell would be like trying to find a pearl in the snow.

Fortunately, I didn't need to see it to stop it. "Tell the other priestesses we have your solution," I told her. "We can break the spell."

Ummastarte clapped once in delight, which is not a thing I had previously ever seen a real-life human being actually do. "Wonderful! I was hoping you might be a sorceress, since you're clearly At--"

"Lemurian," I said,  maybe a little sharply.

"Lemurian, of course, sorry."

I eyed Ummastarte suspiciously. How could she know about..? Well, I supposed she was a priestess--so knowledgeable about magic, at least by Sea People standards--in a major port city that traded with Lemuria. She probably encountered our people more than most foreigners. It was possible she had overheard things.

"So what are you going to do?" she asked.

"Nothing." I grinned at her evident confusion, and let it hang for a moment. Then: "Iason. Sword me." I held out my hand.

Nothing happened.

I turned to see Iason standing halfway across the courtyard, hastily eating every honeycake he could stuff into his face before the priestess clearing the table could take them away.

"Way to ruin the drama," I muttered, and marched over to him. "Sword me!" I repeated, and held out my hand.

"Moo font me oo fab oo?" he said, spraying crumbs from his mouth.

Ugh. "Eat or talk!" I said. "You can't do both."

He regarded me for a moment, then turned back to the cakes.

I sighed. "Wrong choice. Quit eating and gimme your sword!"

Iason swallowed. "Ohhh, that's what you meant!" he said. "I thought you were asking me to stab you, I was really confused."

"Congratulations," I said. "You have now sapped one hundred percent of the drama from my dramatic reveal." I took the sword from him and held it a moment. "There, spell broken." I held it out and lay it against Ummastarte's bare arm. "Now it's broken for you, too."

She looked down at the sword, puzzled, then brightened. "Oh, is it a magic sword?"

"Very, very much the opposite." How does she know I'm--how does she know about that, but she doesn't know about iron? 

I walked around the courtyard, touching the sword to each of the listless, lazing layabouts that filled it, one by one. As I did, a bit of light came back into their eyes, and they were soon stirring and ready to go. "There!" I said when I finally returned to Ummastarte. "All better."

I handed the sword back to Iason, then turned back to Ummastarte. I clapped my own hands together just like she had, then rubbed them together. "Now, which one of these priestesses is the woman to talk to about my fee?"

The fee covered replacements and repairs for our tattered clothes, new packs, a new bronze sword for Iola, shoes to replace the ones I'd left somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, and a room at one of the many inns near the city gates, with enough left over to travel on. "Tomorrow, we go book-hunting," I told the others over some late-afternoon wine at the inn.

I was feeling pretty good about myself. In just one day, we'd gone from destitute to fully prepared to resume our journey, and while being under that spell had been pretty weird, out of all the times magic got into my head and made me fuck someone, that was probably the most fun. At least no one was trying to enslave me or use me or kill me--it was just a magical accident of some sort. One of those things.

I hummed to myself a little as I drank my wine. Hnum, hnum, hnum...

The room went silent. I looked up to see everyone staring at me.  My gaze fell on the innkeeper, a big, redfaced, beefy man, as they somehow always are.

"Get out," he said.

"What?"

"That song! Get out! Now! Before nightfall! Get out and never come back!"

I laughed. "No, no, it's okay now! We broke the spell. It's just a catchy tune, is all!"

He shook his head, eyes wide with fear, fat red face turning purple with anger. "No! I know what happens to people who hear that song! We all do! Get out!"

There was general angry muttering in the bar. This was rapidly turning into one of those leave-or-set-everyone-on-fire scenarios.

"Let's go," said Iola quietly.

"But--" I started.

"It's his inn," she said, as if that settled it.

Apparently it did, because we soon stepped outside. The sun was once again setting, as it tends to do about once a day, and that damn song was caught in my head. Hnum-hnum, hnumty-hnum... I remembered being swept away last night, the fizzing in my blood, cute little Ummashtarte and her sister. I hadn't been able to resist, hadn't even realized anything to resist, but now that I knew there had been something there... 

...yeah, I was getting horny, and that worried me. That icy little nugget of truth the dragon had left me was still sitting in my gut: did I want to be controlled? Did I like it? Or was it just that the magic had felt good?

And did it really matter if it was an addiction or a fetish? Hmm... hmm-hmm hnumty-hmmn...

I glanced over at Iola. She was looking concerned as well, antsy, bouncing slightly on her heels. Was she hnum-hum thinking something like I was? Hnumtety-TUM hnum tum... dammit, that song was getting stuck in my head again!

Hnum-hnum, hnum-hnum, hnuuuuuum-hnum. Next to me, Iola was practically vibrating, bouncing up and down, and... yes, I could hear her. She was humming too.

The sun dipped below the wall. We began to sing.

"Ah, shit," said Iason. "Did it not work?"

"No," I sang. "It has, has to work, has to has to has to work! Your sword, has to be, why it doesn't a-ffect you."

"Yeah, but then why is it still working on you and Iola?" he asked. He drew his sword and held it out to Iola. She touched it, and immediately stopped singing and swaying.

"See?" he said.

He held the sword out to me, and I hesitated. I could feel that bubbling beginning inside me, that wonderful feeling. The song and dance wanted to come out, the bouncing rhythm of the song and images of sex filling my head, crowding everything out. It felt so good, did I really want it to stop? I closed my eyes, swaying and singing--and something cold touched my hand.

I opened my eyes to see Iason had pushed the pommel against my hand. The song was gone, the urge to follow it evaporating, leaving me feeling a little empty.

"Okay, this isn't making sense," I said as he sheathed his sword again. "You had the sword out when the song started, because we thought it was vampires. That has to be why it didn't take you the way it did us."

Iason nodded. "I didn't really feel like dancing naked or anything, but I figured I should tag along. And then these girls came up to me and I decided, why not? But it wasn't a compulsion or anything."

"I didn't have it drawn the whole time, though," he said.

"True," I answered. "You put it away when we  started stripping, right? To pick up our clothes?" Hnum-hnum--no, don't start that again. "Maybe your armor is helping too--it's not as good as iron, but dragonscale is still pretty tough against magic."

Iason dropped his hand to his sword. "Do you hear something?"

Ah, and there was the solution to that part of the problem--whenever something felt  not quite right, Iason put his hand on his sword hilt. It was purely instinctive--but it was probably enough to keep the spell from working on him.

"Yeah," said Iola. "I think I do..."

I tilted my head and focused. "Oh, fuck, are you serious?" Drums, flutes, stomping, singing. Around the corner they came, every single person we'd seen yesterday, all singing their song and dancing.

The song was in my head again. It hit me faster this time, and deeper. I knew what was happening, knew that whatever was doing this was using that song to control me, and it was hot as hell. And, as if the song knew that, it used it. I wanted, needed, craved to be fucked... and if I let Iason touch me with that sword, I wasn't going to be. I saw him reach out for me with it, the cure, my key to freedom, our only hope... 

So I spun away, laughing, peeling off my top.  He chased after me, so I threw it in his face. By the time he caught up to me, I had the rest of my clothes off, and vanished into the crowd. Dimly, I was aware that while Iason was chasing me, Iola had surrendered to the song, too. 

We danced and sang and spun our way around the city and back to the temple courtyard. The song ended, and my ability to think returned, sort of. All the sexiest times I'd been controlled danced in my head. I remembered being wrapped in glamors that turned me into an utterly besotted loveslave. I remembered another magical song, that had turned me into an adoring sex kitten. I remembered being literally mindfucked by a vampire lord, and having my mind smashed into a confused daze by a witch. I remembered a circlet which punished me when I used magic, and rewarded me when I obeyed.

I knew what was going on.

I knew what was happening to me, to all of us, and that made it so much hotter. I saw Iola, and practically flung myself at her. Our lips met, our tongues tangled, and then someone grabbed me from behind, the innkeeper from earlier. He'd heard me hum the song, it had him too, and I owed him for that. And anyway it was right for me to be on my knees, right for me to have a cock in my mouth, right for me to suck and fuck and plead and please anyone and everyone who wanted me...

In the morning, sheepishly, I explained to an irate Ummastarte. "It, um, it was me," I said. "I realized the dates lined up." After I woke up, I'd asked around until I found the slaves who'd started the almost-riot. sure enough, they'd all been captured, trained, and sold by the same person: Milos. Mr. Evil Magic Circlets himself.

When I destroyed the circlets, all the training he'd done with them was undone. Compared to my fireball, the magic released wasn't much. But thirty-odd people at once? While they were participating in a large-scale magical ritual like the Dark Moon Festival? Yeah, that released magic might do some things.

Music is pretty close to mental magic anyway--few things can alter people's emotions as well as music can. And this was religious music, meaning charged with god-magic.  The released energy from the circlet spells just sort of flowed into it. So all the slaves got swept into the ritual, compelled into it...  and it became a ritual of enslavement and control.

"The music is the key," I said at last. "We all feel it, right? It gets into your head, all day, just circling around. And when night falls... it compels you to play your part. Fortunately, that means I know why breaking the spell on all of us last time didn't work--it's in the music, and the music's in the instruments. We need to cleanse them as well!"

Later, in the inn--a different one from the day before, I don't think any of us will be particularly welcome there for a while--I sat in our room and fiddled with my new cloak. The old one had had all kinds of protective spells on it, and I wanted to make sure the new one did,  too.

Do I though? Or do I like the idea of going out undefended against, say, glamours, knowing I could get snared, snagged, just like I was looking for that first book. I shivered at the memory. Revulsion? Or..?

I pushed the thought aside and went back to work. It wasn't time for the anti-glamour charms yet, anyway. I needed something else first. Something not to keep a spell out, but to keep it in.

Look, if I'd told them what really happened, they probably would have demanded a refund, and we'd be right back to being destitute. But of course the problem wasn't that the music was hiding in the instruments. Music isn't inside instruments, it's inside people's heads.

Specifically, my head. A powerful sorceress, who'd been part of the same incident--who'd caused the same incident--that created the whole mess in the first place. The song had gotten in my head, and it had stayed there. And the closer nightfall came, the stronger it got. The stronger my magic made it, until it was ready to burst out and flow back to everyone it had already gotten its hooks into.

And it would happen again tonight, and tomorrow night, and every night, unless I did something to stop it. If it was trapped in me, so it couldn't flow out into other people and bounce back to me, it'd fade with time. A few days, tops. So I was weaving a little spell into the cloak to keep the music suppressed: a curse of total tone-deafness. Then I'd just have to make sure I was wearing the cloak every evening and night for, oh, a week or so.

Because obviously that's what I wanted, right? For the spell to fade away. To never feel it again. To go completely free.

I hesitated, but only for a moment, and then I finished the spell and put on the cloak.