I hate mountains.

Not that these were particularly great mountains. There are peaks in northern Lemuria where you can climb above the clouds and still barely be started, peaks so tall that even the snow eventually gives up and there’s just bare rock and air so thin you need spells to breathe. Not that I’ve ever been to Kadath or anywhere like that, but I’ve heard.

By comparison, these were just hills. But there were a few things that made them way worse than the Leng Peaks or the legendary mountains of the extreme south where the gods (so they say) built their palaces. First, they went on for fucking ever—Iason and I had been walking for days and we were still in them, up and down and around and back and forth and agh!

Second, they were boring, nothing but rock and grass and the occasional sheep.

Third, they were here, which meant I had to walk in them, not like the faraway mountains that other people have to deal with.

“Another great day, isn’t it?” Iason asked cheerfully.

With an immense effort of my legendarily iron will, I refrained from kicking his balls out through his neck. That was another thing! Iason was so damn cheerful here! I caught him humming yesterday. Humming!

“I can’t help it,” he’d said when I told him to knock it off. “It reminds me of home. Sheep and grass instead of olives and goats, but mountains! Smell that air!”

I did. It smelled like sheep poop.

At least we were getting close to the next book. I could tell because it was smearing out. When we’d started out, I knew exactly what direction it was in, but the closer we got, the harder it was to tell anything other than “somewhere nearby.”

“Maybe we should split up,” Iason suggested when I mentioned we were getting close.

“Has that ever worked?”

Iason considered. “Nothing bad happened in the marketplace in Mercia, right?”

Nope, nothing bad, just getting jumped and sucked into some kind of illusory light show by that asshole Hragulf, who’d slipped all kinds of orders into my brain that I couldn’t even talk about, orders that had very nearly gotten us all killed once and probably would yet. “No,” I said, “but it was almost a disaster with the vampires.”

“Yeah,” he said, “but that wasn’t our fault! The vampires split us up on purpose.”

Hmm. A few hours free of Iason’s cheerful humming so I could hate the mountains in peace did sound pretty good. “All right,” I said. “Next fork in the road, we’ll split up.”

About half an hour later we hit one. The path continued on down the mountainside toward the valley below (and then probably beyond to more mountains, and more, and more, because it was mountains forever now), but there were also steps carved into the mountains, curving up and away toward who knows what.

“Down probably leads to a village,” Iason said. “Up is probably a pasture or a spring or something.” He sighed. “I guess you probably want down, huh?”

I looked up the stairs. “I dunno…” I said distantly, barely listening to him. There was something tugging at my mind, like an echo or a memory. Maybe the book? I started up the steps.

“Wow, really?” asked Iason. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” I said, climbing up. “Check out the village, I’ll meet you there at sundown.”

“Okay!”

I climbed for about 20 minutes until I reached what looked like an old druid’s shrine. A tall, lanky young man in a travel-stained dark green cloak and cap sat on a pile of old stones, strumming a harp and singing wordlessly, while a little brook—barely a trickle, really—burbled away beside him as accompaniment. In the grass at his feet sat his audience: several hedgehogs, a dozen small birds, and two adders, all peacefully coexisting while they listened to his soothing, gentle song.

I’d heard of this, a very basic form of musical magic, so basic that every now and then a really good musician would stumble on it by accident. It was a kind of enchantment, enrapturing animals and making them adore the musician, but it was weak enough that even the instinctive resistance of an untrained human mind could shrug it off without noticing. To a human, it just seemed like really good, relaxing music.

I sat on the grass with the rest of his audience to enjoy the beautiful music. I watched him play, his face a mask of concentration, sunlight glinting off the strings of his harp as he gently caressed them, letting wonderful music flow forth. I closed my eyes and let it wash over and through me.

I opened my eyes after a few minutes to see that several more birds and a stoat had joined us. As the last of my travel-induced tiredness and crankiness flowed away, I was so grateful to be able to hear such beauty. I couldn’t imagine what kind of man could create such a thing, just that he must be a truly astounding, wonderful person.

Oh fucking fuckety fuck, his music’s affecting me! That stupid Hragulf, I can’t even resist that?

But I couldn’t stay upset, not when this wonderful music was playing, not when I had the privilege of listening to this wonderful musician, this beautiful soul, this brilliant genius of a man.

The song ended, and he blinked at me. “Hello?” he said.

The effect would wear off quickly, I realized. In a minute or two the animals would fly off, and I would be back to normal. This feeling of fullness in my heart, of joy, would fade. “Don’t stop!” I urged him.

He smiled and kept playing. “Have I conjured you up from some dream, fair maiden?” he asked.

I know. Lame, right? A line like that deserves a scoff.

I giggled and played with my hair. “Maaaaybe,” I said. “Or maybe I’m dreaming.”

I know, okay! Gag. But at the time it seemed like the right thing to say.

His smile grew bigger. “Perhaps we both are. Perhaps all of this is a sweet dream that will fade away in the morning.”

“Are you asking me to spend the night with you?”

His fingers slipped, and with a twang, the harp nearly dropped out of his hands. The discordant notes were like a splash of cold water over me. I jumped to my feet, shaking my head to try to get the cobwebs out, gathering my magic to me—

But while I did, he recovered the harp. His fingers brushed over it again, and the sweet soothing chords of his beautiful song swept over me. I relaxed, let my magic drift away again. How could I even think of harming him, the source of such beauty?

“Interesting,” he said. “I thought the song did something like this, but it never worked when I tried it on people, just animals. Why does it work on you?”

I smiled happily. I could help him! I could help him learn to make me feel like this always! At least, I hoped I could. But… I couldn’t reveal my inability to resist, so how could I help him? “I can’t say,” I answered.

Luckily, he seemed to take that as meaning I didn’t know. “Ah well,” he said. “I wish it worked on another, but you are pretty enough, in a foreign sort of way.”

Gee, thanks for the enthusiasm, pal.

“Tell me more about what the music does to you?” he asked as he played.

“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,” I said. “I love it, and I love you. I’ll do anything for you as long as you keep playing.”

“And if I stop?”

“In a few minutes I’ll forget this feeling, and then I’ll probably be very angry and hurt you very badly.”

He looked me up and down. “I’m not much of a fighter, but you don’t look like one, either.”

“I’m a sorceress,” I answered.

“Really?” he said. “Does that mean you can teach me how to better use this magic?”

“Maybe!” I thrilled to hear he wanted my help. “I never studied magical music, but magic is magic.”

“Hmm,” he pondered. “Perhaps I did conjure you up. Reach into my cloak and remove the book you find there.”

I gulped as I approached him. To touch someone able to make music like this! I mean, I’m a genius, a brilliant magical prodigy with few, if any, peers. But he was a genius! A miracle-worker! Gently, afraid one of us might explode if I made a mistake, I reached into his cloak and withdrew a book.

My book. Well, my library’s, anyway. Kelvey boSofel-Suntry’s Sounds of Enchantment: The Magic of Music.

“Will that help you teach me?”

I smiled. “With this I can teach you everything you need,” I told him.

“Good,” he said. “Start by teaching me how to make you stay like this even after the music stops.”

“Hmm,” I said. “If you want, but it’ll take a long time. It might be easier for me to just glamour myself this first time, and then we can study the book together and I can teach you.”

He smiled and gestured for me to continue.

Right. What was the music doing to me, exactly? It worked a little like a glamour; the music was genuinely extremely beautiful, relaxing, and soothing, but it carried an enchantment that enhanced the latter two effects and redirected my appreciation of the song’s beauty to an appreciation of the musician. Yes, I could make glamours that did something like that: awe at his immense talent. Intense attraction to him. Devotion. A craving for his approval, a need to please him. I lay down the threads of magic around myself, binding myself in such a familiar way, but they were different; in the music they shimmered and vibrated, and as they sank into me their vibration flowed through me. He wasn’t just playing a harp anymore, he was playing me, my feelings dancing to his tune.

I told him so, and he smiled and set the harp aside. “And now?” he said.

I nodded. “Still yours, my love.”

“Then come here.”

I melted into his arms. My musician’s lips met mine. He was, I quickly realized, new to this, but that was okay. I taught him how to play my body, where to stroke and where to pluck, where and how to use fingers, lips, and tongue, to make me sing like one of his instruments.

This wasn’t like being used by Brinksmoor or Hragulf or pimple-boy. We made love, hungry passionate love, there on the grass. I thought I would explode, and I did, again and again.

Afterwards, when both of us were exhausted, I studied my new love, his long thin body, his wiry legs and arms, the long, slightly greasy-looking straight dark hair, the wispier dark hair at chest and chin, the serious gray eyes.

“I love every bit of you,” I told him.

“Yes?” he said. “Good.”

And it was! It was really, really good! Oh, I knew he didn’t love me, that my feelings were the result of magic, that he just wanted to use me to learn more, but none of that mattered.

Yeah, I know, this love bullshit is gross enough when it’s real, the magically induced kind is even worse. But this is the story, okay?

After a while, he sat up and we started talking about magic. We opened the book and he explained that he’d won it and the harp in the annual bardic competition in Kymri’s capital—that was the tradition, that the prize for the winner of the harp making competition was to have his harp played by the greatest bard in the land, and the prize for the greatest bard… well, you get it. The book was added a generation ago; legend said it came from a faraway land of enchantment, and the bard who could read it would become the greatest in history. Talhaern—that was my musician’s name, Talhaern, we introduced ourselves between our second and third times making love—couldn't read a word of it, but he was able to figure out that some of the symbols were chords, and taught himself to play the first melody.

He was very smart, a quick learner, and by evening he was starting to understand how the notes shaped the magic. At sundown, we made camp, had a quick meal from the rations in his pack, and then he spread his blankets. “Come here,” he said again, and I slid in beside him.

“Cum,” he sang, and fireworks burst up from my pussy to explode behind my eyes.

He grinned at my reaction. “You like?” he asked shyly.

I nodded eagerly.

“I’m glad,” he said, grinning like a puppy.

We kissed, and the part of me that knew this was all just magic realized this wasn’t all that bad. He seemed like a nice boy, and he seemed to actually want me to enjoy myself. Sure, I had no choice, but it was a lot better than Brinksmoor or Hragulf or any of them.

Or maybe that part of me was just as much under his spell as the rest of me.

We packed up at dawn and headed back down to the path, then back the way Iason and I had come from. “Rhian’s village is three days west of here,” he said. “Do you think that’s enough time for you to teach me how to make this music work on other women?”

“For you, my love, anything.”

“Good,” he said. “Nothing else matters as long as I can make Rhian love me.”

Ah, shit.

We spent the next day walking and talking. I tried to keep the subject on magic and music, explaining the theory of magic and trying to figure out how he could make it work better with his music, but Talhaern wanted to talk about Rhian, how he had traveled all the hills and valleys of Kymri and never met anyone so beautiful. He told me about Rhian’s raven-black hair, and Rhian’s storm-gray eyes, and Rhian’s milk-white skin, and Rhian’s metaphor-colored whatever.

I was really starting to hate Rhian.

But Talhaern loved her, and I loved Talhaern, and it was incredibly important that he get everything he wanted, so I had to make sure he got Rhian.

As the sun set and I built our fire, Talhaern picked at his harp. “What shall I practice tonight, Lemma?” he asked.

I finished piling the sticks and snapped my fingers. They burst into flames. “Maybe work on lust?” I suggested. “It’s easier than the deeper emotions, and it can be a bridge to them.” I grinned at him. “Plus, it could be fun to play with.”

“Oh, you think so?” he asked, and strummed his harp.

I gasped as a thrill ran down my spine. Need gripped me, and my grin turned into a come-hither smile. “Mmm, definitely fun,” I purred, crawling over to him.

Halfway there, he strummed again, and I nearly collapsed as need stormed through me. “Ohhh, yes, like that,” I breathed. “You’re getting the hang of it.”

He smiled. “Dance for me,” he said, and began to play a different tune, sensual, rhythmic. It was strange to hear from a harp, but he made it work.

I’m not exactly a big dancer, let alone the kind of dancing I knew he was talking about, but I did my best, swaying in time with the music, slowly stripping out of my travel clothes. It got harder as he played—dancing, I mean, it got harder to dance and strip as he played and I got hornier and hornier.

Though, by the time I finished stripping and stood in front of him, panting, so wet it was dribbling down my thigh, I’m pretty sure that he was hard, too.

He strummed again, and I shivered with need. “Please,” I whimpered.

Talhaern grinned and unlaced his leggings. (Yep, I was right, hard.) “Mouth and hands only,” he ordered, and I groaned but obeyed.

I stroked his hot, hard shaft with gentle fingertips, feeling it thrum in my hands like an instrument of my own. I licked the tip and looked up at him. He closed his eyes, ran his hands over my hair—yes, he liked it! The need to please him was almost as strong as my need for him to fuck me, and the need to obey even stronger. I took him into my mouth and gave him the Lemma Special.

“Oh gods!” he gasped, and came almost immediately, his warm, salty-sweet seed filling my mouth. “Swallow,” he commanded, and I obeyed.

“Good girl!” he sang, and my needy pussy sang in answer, an eruption of warmth and pleasure that shot outward through my whole body and pushed my mind straight out into oblivion, just wave after wave of of pure writhing, panting, unbearable pleasure.

When I came down, I was lying with my head in his lap, struggling to regain my breath. Talhaern stroked my cheek. “Rest, my dear,” he said, and I sighed happily. He sang softly to me, and I drifted off to sleep as his tune wrapped me ever tighter in obedience, pleasure, and love.

The next day continued much the same, but with rain. We talked about magic as we walked, and then when we bedded down for the night—under an outcropping to keep us dry—he practiced on me more, building his repertoire.

“I want to try something,” he said. “Tell me about something complicated.”

While he played, I explained the theory of elemental interactions. “It starts out simple enough,” I said. “Fire and water are opposed, and so are air and earth. Where it gets complicated is things that combine properties. Like, if you mix air and water, you get ice. Wait, no, steam.” I hesitated. His music was very catchy, and it was distracting me. “If you mix fire and water you get steam, which has properties of air and water, because…” I hesitated again. “Water is cool and heavy… no, that’s earth. Water is…” I trailed off.

“Now try explaining something basic.”

“Okay…” I said. “Um, wild magic and high magic. Wild magic is chaotic and natural, high magic is orderly and human. You and I use high magic, so do priests. Druids…” I trailed off. “Uh, they’re a kind of priest, so… but a sort of nature priest, so that’d be wild, or…” I paused, trying to remember, but his music was so distracting! “Okay, wild magic is…” Is what? What was the difference again? It was so hard to think with that music!

The music, something about the music was… it was really pretty, very catchy, and something else, something that… Yes, that was it! It was… pretty, and… nope, lost it.

While I sat there, mouth opening and closing, trying to get a thought together, Talhaern grinned. His music wrapped around me, and I realized I needed… needed something, something that… what? My body was warm, and the music was pretty, and the sound of the rain—no, that wasn’t it, something else, water magic? No, wild—nature, and wetness, something wet and something warm…

He set his harp aside and kissed me, my lips, my jaw, my neck. I gave up trying to think and enjoyed the sensation, clinging to him while he undressed me. Then I was riding him, rocking my hips as he thrust up into me, slowly, soothingly, and then faster and harder, until he burst inside me. “Good girl,” he sang again, and I came and came, thrashing wildly, my hair whipping around us.

I collapsed onto his chest. He put an arm around me, kissed the top of my head. “So, I think I’ve got confusion songs down.”

Confusion..? “Jerk,” I muttered into his chest.

He stroked my hair. “How do you really feel about me?” he asked.

“I love you!” I told him. “I’d do anything to make you happy, anything you want.”

“What about Rhian? Helping me use magic to make her love me?”

I sighed. “I want to please you, and I know it will. But I wish I was enough for you.”

“You’re jealous of her?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Well, that won’t do at all,” Talhaern said. “Teach me how to make you want to share me with her.”

I shivered, and not from cold. I wanted him to change me, to alter my feelings, to make me better at pleasing him. Even now, my whole body limp and languid in a post-sex haze, it turned me on.

I guided him through playing the changes he needed, and watched them settle on me, shining, vibrating cords, the puppet strings that made my heart dance to his tune. I already wanted to please him, so at my suggestion he made me want to make sure he got everything he wanted, then to enjoy helping him get what he wanted, then to specifically wanting him to have any woman he wanted, and finally to love sharing him with other women.

By the time he was done my eyes were glazed from the bombardment of new and altered feelings, and I was flushed and panting from how much helping him do it to me turned me on.

“You all right?” he asked, brushing my hair back from my forehead.

“Oh, gods,” I groaned, and kissed him as hard as I could. “Fuck me,” I moaned, covering his lips and face with hot kisses. “Take me, take Rhian, take everyone you want, please just let me please you…” I reached down to his half-hard cock, stroked it until it was ready, and guided it up into me.

As he fucked up into me for the second time that night, I looked into his eyes. I knew that once he had Rhian he would be fucking me a lot less, but that didn’t matter as much now as it had before. All that mattered to me was getting her to see how wonderful he was, how good it was to submit. I wanted to share this feeling with her, to make her his, to bring her under his control like she deserved to be, like anyone he wanted deserved to be.

I cried out as I came. I couldn’t wait for tomorrow!

We arrived in the village of Hollow-of-the-Valley (which, surprise! was at the bottom of a small valley) just as the sun was setting, and were greeted warmly at the inn. Apparently Talhaern was known here—he’d passed through on his travels, and paid for a meal and a night’s lodgings with a few songs.

We sat and got our requisite mugs of ale. I took a sip and made a face; terrible as all the ale on this shitty island.

One of the men, a big, burly sort with the hefty build and perpetual sunburn of someone who spent most of their time outdoors hauling sheep or rotating plows or whatever it is farmers do, smirked at me. “Who’s the little chippy?” he asked Talhaern.

I glowered at the rube, but Talhaern stroked my hair possessively. “Lemma is with me,” he said simply.

“’Course she is,” said the asshole. “Scrawny little thing like that is all a scrawny scarecrow like you could handle.”

I prepared to fling myself across the table, gouge his eyes out, and fill the sockets with flame, but Talhaern laid an arm on my shoulder. “Relax, Lemma,” he said quietly. “Let me take care of it.” He strummed his harp, and the jackass farmer’s eyes crossed. “Take a drink,” Talhaern suggested.

Jerkface lifted his mug and smacked himself in the forehead with it, spilling ale all over his face and shirt. His eyes refocused as everyone in the inn laughed at him. He looked ready to kill for a minute, but changed his mind and ran out of the inn.

“What’s all the fuss out here, then?” asked a voice from the inn’s back room. The door opened and a familiar-looking barmaid entered. “What happened, Da?” she asked the fat, laughing innkeeper, who began trying to explain.

Who did she remind me of? I definitely hadn’t met her before, but she looked like someone I knew, I just couldn’t place who. She was short, barely taller than me, and slim, with a pretty face and a full mouth. Her eyes (gray, like seemingly everyone in this country) were large and sparkling, and her hair (dark, again standard-issue for Kymri) was straight and dark, hanging in thick plaits to her waist. I just couldn’t figure out who she looked like!

“Well,” she said, coming over to our table, “it seems our bard friend has returned. And brought a friend of his own.” She smiled, and Talhaern lit up instantly in response. She was obviously Rhian.

“Who, Lemma?” he asked. “Just someone I met on the way.”

Just. Grr.

“Well, I’m glad you found someone to travel with you,” said Rhian. “How about a song?”

Talhaern’s smile became a grin as he strummed his harp. He began singing a ballad about a traveling bard who fell in love with an innkeeper’s daughter and persuaded her to run away with him—subtle, huh?—and within a minute every eye in the house was on him. There wasn’t a sound except his music—even the birds outside fell silent.

I watched his fingers as they caressed his harp, his lips as they shaped his song, and remembered them both on my body the night before. For the first time ever, I wished I was anyone other than Lemma Kyrie baSontara, magical prodigy of Lemuria. No, all of a sudden I really, really wanted to be an innkeeper’s daughter in Kymri.

When he was done, a sigh rippled through the crowd. Rhian gazed at Talhaern quietly for a moment, her eyes unfocused, her mouth slightly open, but then she shook her head. “You’ve gotten even better,” she said. “That was beautiful. But I told you last year, I don’t want to go travelin’, and I don’t want to sit waitin’ for a man who’ll be gone ten months of the year.”

She turned away to deliver ale to another table, and slowly the sounds of conversation and laughter filled the inn again.

“Why didn’t it work?” Talhaern whispered.

“I was watching,” I said quietly. “The glamour-threads settled on her and bonded to each other, but it was just too delicate. It never really sank in, and once the song ended it fell apart.”

“I have to make her mine,” he whispered intensely, staring into his ale. “I will make her mine!”

“Don’t worry, my love,” I told him. “You’ll have everything you want by morning. I promise.”

I considered my options. I could just start weaving glamours then and there. She was distracted by her work, so I could probably wrap her in all the same spells as I had on me without her even noticing. Once she was completely in love with Talhaern, it’d be easy for him to just recharge the spells with his music.

But I knew he wanted to be the one to do it. His dream was to be the bard promised by the legends around that book. I had to give him that, which meant things were going to be a little more complicated with Rhian. But I knew I could figure something out.

Rhian brought out soup and bread and sheep’s cheese—all surprisingly good, considering the quality of the ale—and Talhaern and I laid our plans while we ate.

Later that night, Talhaern and I lay awake in the larger of the two back rooms, waiting until the sounds of the inn closing down for the night faded. At last the innkeeper’s snoring was the only sound left, and I snuck out, back to the inn’s public room where we (and seemingly half the village) had drunk and eaten. Then I very slowly and gently cracked the other door open, the one that led to the single room that served as kitchen for the inn and bedroom for Rhian and her father.

I could just see the small figure of Rhian near the fire, its low red light gleaming in her dark hair. I reached out for her with my magic, threads of curiosity, safety, and trust. They wove around her, clinging like cobwebs, but penetrated only a little. This girl had a strong will! But I knew Talhaern and I could break it. Willpower alone wasn’t enough, not without training.

“Psst!” I hissed. “Rhian!”

She shifted, murmured.

“Rhian!” I stage-whispered.

More mumbling, a slight shift. Of course anyone who could stay asleep while her father snored like a thunderstorm made of bears wouldn’t wake up to a whisper! Eventually I had to slip into the room and nudge her awake.

“Buh!” she woke with a start, and I put a finger to my lips.

“Shh,” I whispered. “It’s very important that you come with me.

Confusion and caution warred with curiosity across her face, but I knew she felt confident that she was safe with me, could trust me. She had no idea those feelings came from magic, so she didn’t think to fight them.

I helped her up and led her by the hand out of the inn, up a narrow lane to a sheep pasture above the village, abandoned for the night. Talhaern sat on a rock in the middle of the pasture, his harp on his knees, beautiful and eerie in the moonlight, as slender, angular, pale, and dark-haired as any fairy lord.

I felt a tug in my hand as Rhian started to pull away. “What..?” she said in confusion. “Why am I here. Why… why did I come with you? What are you doing at this time of night!?”

Damn. She really was strong, the glamours were fading already. Oh well. I yanked her toward me, hard, and grabbed her other wrist with my free hand. While she was still too surprised to react, I brought her hands together and cast a spell of binding, an invisible cord of force that wrapped around both wrists.

I let go, and she tried to pull her hands apart only to find she couldn’t. “What?” she said, which was a mistake—if she’d run right then and there she might have gotten away from me. Maybe. If I tripped and fell or something.

Anyway, I socked her in the gut, and when she sank to the ground, I hit her with another force-binding spell that bound her legs, forcing her to stay kneeling.

I grimaced. I usually hit hard and fast with my magic, or occasionally use low-power long-term spells like glamours, light, or darkvision. But these binding spells had a decent amount of power in them, and I had to keep them running continuously. It was like flexing and holding a muscle, it could tire you out fast if you weren’t careful.

“What are you doing?” Rhian asked fearfully. “Please, let me go.”

“Don’t worry,” said Talhaern. “I won’t hurt you. I would never hurt you.”

“I’ll scream!” Rhian warned, but Talhaern strummed his harp.

“I’ll—” she continued, but broke off. Her brow furrowed. “I’ll…” She bit her lip uncertainly as Talhaern played his confusion song—I’d pointed out to him over dinner that that seemed to have a much easier time working on people than the subtler spells.

His song drew her attention and mine both, but I fought to resist the pull. I found I could fight, because I knew Talhaern was trying to control her, not me. He already had me, after all! But that left me free to watch the magic settle around her, as Talhaern’s song played, knocking her off balance with confusion and then offering her a way back if she just relaxed, relaxed and listened, let the song flow over her…

Her eyes glazed and her mouth hung open. She was listening, now. Open and ready.

Talhaern shifted tunes. He sang of clandestine trysts in the moonlight, his song spinning webs of desire and arousal, but I could see them hanging limply off of Rhian, unable to slip past her defenses even in this relaxed state.

I couldn’t allow that! Rhian had to become his. Talhaern wanted that more than anything, and that meant I wanted it, too!

I knelt behind Rhian and put my arms around her. She shifted a little, but remained relaxed, transfixed by the music. Gently, careful not to jar her out of the enchantment, I caressed her through the thin material of her shift. I stroked up over her stomach to her breasts, then traced gently with my fingertips in circles around her nipples, just barely not touching them. She moaned softly, and looking over her shoulder I could see them budding up through her shift, near-translucent in the moonlight. I brushed over them both, softly, and she gasped quietly.

I smiled as I watched the threads of desire from the music slip into her mind at last, linking with the arousal and pleasure I was giving her. I kept it up, stroking and teasing her while Talhaern continued to play, until finally she was breathing hard and trembling.

She was clearly coming out of the confusion and relaxation now, but that was okay. My binding spells were still holding, though she struggled against them. “Please…” she whimpered. “Gods, I’m sorry, I didn’t know! Please, please… take me…”

“Not yet,” Talhaern said. He shifted to a song of devotion and obedience. “I want you to be completely mine…”

“Yes,” Rhian moaned. “Anything you want, just please…”

I grinned. It was going to be easy from here. I watched as Rhian’s need for Talhaern became a need to please him, to obey him, to make him happy.

“You can release her,” he told me after a while, and I obeyed gladly. I sat back on the grass, and took a deep breath. Keeping up those bindings had been exhausting!

While I rested, Rhian knelt in front of our musician, her eyes shining. I realized, when I saw her face as she discovered the bliss of loving and obeying Talhaern, who she reminded me of. Her face was a little rounder, her skin pure cream instead of peaches-and-cream, and her eyes were lighter and her hair was darker, but her height, her build, the shape of her face—she looked more than a little like me.

Talhaern finished the spells, making her love him, love submitting, love that he used magic to claim her, and love sharing him with anyone he wanted, the same spells that enwrapped and enraptured me.

I shivered. Watching Rhian fall, seeing the expressions on a face so much like mine as she fought, surrendered, and finally submitted, had been nearly as good as getting enchanted in the first place!

His song complete, Talhaern laid aside his harp and looked at me. “Lemma?” he began. I tensed. Was he going to order me to leave? Cast me aside now that he had what he wanted? “Good girl,” he sang, and I came.

At a word from him, Rhian flowed into his lap and they kissed deeply while I lay on my side in the grass, limply watching them while I floated in post-orgasmic bliss. Rhian giggled when he trailed kisses along her jaw, squealed when he nipped at her ear, and I grinned to see how well he’d learned the lessons I taught him over the last few days.

Soon they were both naked, Rhian’s legs locked around Talhaern’s waist as she rocked back and forth in his lap. Her eyes were tightly shut, her tiny body arching backwards, only her hands locked on his shoulders and his arms around her waist keeping her from falling on her back as she thrust against the hard cock inside her.

They both looked so beautiful, silver gods of love and lust locked together in the moonlight. It felt so good to see him take her, fuck her, almost as good as if it were me.

Almost. It was hot, unbelievably hot, and by the time he came I was so turned on I was shaking, but still not close to anything like the long, screaming orgasm Rhian had.

“Rhian?” Talhaern said. He was still inside her, arms loosely around her waist, while she leaned back, panting, supporting herself on palms laid flat on the rock.

“Yes, my love?” she responded, and I shivered. That was what I called him! It was so right, so hot, but so annoying to hear her call him that!

“You’re happy about this, aren’t you?” he said.

Rhian nodded emphatically. “Oh yes, my love.” She leaned forward, cradled Talhaern’s face in her hands and kissed it over and over again. “I’m—so—happy!” She punctuated each word with a kiss.

“This couldn’t have happened without Lemma’s help. We should reward her. Give her a kiss.”

Wait, what?

Rhian’s reaction was obviously the same as mine. She just stared at Talhaern until he gave her a nudge.

“Go on,” he said. “Kiss her.”

Rhian slid off his lap and walked toward me. Um, I’m not really into—oh.

As Rhian’s lips met mine, Talhaern strummed his harp. A wave of pleasure and arousal swept through me, and based on the way she suddenly pulled me in and deepened the kiss, I’m guessing Rhian felt it, too.

Our mouths clung together as we sank slowly to the grass. I stripped with clumsy, shaking hands, Rhian doing her best to help me, until we were naked together, lips and fingers exploring each other’s bodies while Talhaern played on, ratcheting our pleasure and desire ever-higher.

Rhian was… well, look, I’m not into girls, I’ve told you that before. But haven’t you ever looked in a mirror and thought, yeah, I’d do me? Well, probably not if you’re from the Tin Islands, I’m not even sure they have mirrors, but trust me, that was what it was like with Rhian, like making out with my reflection.

A slightly clumsy reflection that had to be taught what she was doing, but once she caught on that it was the same stuff she would do to herself, just from outside, it started getting really good.

“Stop!” ordered Talhaern, and we both looked up at him from where we were tangled together, panting and sticky and oh so finally close! I could see he had enjoyed watching us, too.

“Come here,” he said. “Kneel.”

Rhian and I untangled ourselves as quickly as we could and knelt eagerly in front of him, side-by-side in front of his hard cock.

“Lemma,” he said. “Teach Rhian how to take care of this.”

I immediately took Rhian’s hand in mine and brought it to his cock. I showed her how to stroke it, how to lick and suck. We both licked along his shaft from either side, then after a few times up and down his length we met and kissed at the head, tongues playing with it and each other.

Then Rhian sucked the head while I licked the shaft. He groaned and Rhian squeaked in surprise as he filled her mouth with cum.

“Hold it,” he ordered. “Share with your sister.”

Rhian kissed me again, and I happily accepted her tongue and Talhaern’s delicious cum into my mouth. “Good girls,” Talhaern sang as we both swallowed, and we came in unison.

The rest of that night is a blur of bodies and magic and pleasure. We must have gone back to the inn at some point, because I woke up there as Rhian slipped out of our bed, pre-dawn gray light peeping in through chinks in the window shutters.

She put a finger to her lips and cocked her head at Talhaern, then whispered, “I have to stoke the fire and set breakfast cooking before daddy wakes up, or he’ll realize. He wouldn’t understand, you know?”

I nodded and she left, leaving Talhaern all to me, but I was too tired and achy (in all the best ways) to do anything but snuggle against him and maybe play with his chest hair a little.

We got up for real a couple of hours later, had a quick breakfast—frybread and sheep’s cheese, not bad for an inn in the ass-end of nowhere—and then Talhaern and I headed up into the hills a ways to continue working through the book’s last couple of chapters.

Around noon, Rhian came up to bring us some lunch—and yeah, it’s good, but I’m already getting sick of sheep’s cheese, how do the people who live here stand it all the time?—which was handy, because Talhaern wanted to practice on someone who could, you know, resist.

The trick, as I taught him, was to figure out how your target was resisting, and find ways to turn that against them. With Rhian it was easy: Talhaern told her to resist, and her obedience to him allowed her to resist the magical compulsion to dance he was trying to lay on her. Understanding that, he could alter his song, transfer her desire to obey him to a desire to obey his music, and in moments she was dancing for him, spinning and swaying, laughing as her body followed his tune instead of her commands.

His tune shifted, and I found myself on my feet, spinning into the dance with Rhian. The two of us held hands, spun around each other, the usual country folk dance sort of thing. Like I said, I’ve never been much of a dancer, it takes too much effort to keep track of keeping every limb moving in exactly the right way every second, but this was nothing like that; I didn’t have to think, didn’t have to control, and couldn’t if I wanted to. I just followed the music, and it was glorious.

Eventually, Talhaern’s song ended, and Rhian and I collapsed, laughing, onto the grass.

“Having fun?” asked an unfamiliar voice.

I looked up. A woman with a shepherd’s crook was standing nearby, a lamb at her feet. She was tall, nearly as tall as Talhaern, and her long dark hair was in a simple braid halfway down her back. Her face was very similar to Rhian’s, if a little more tanned.

“Going to introduce me to your friends, cousin?” she asked, frowning down at us.

Rhian sighed. “Talhaern, Lemma, this is my cousin Bronwen,” she said. “Cousin, these are Talhaern and Lemma. They’re stayin’ at the inn.”

“Hmph,” said Bronwen. “And do you always frolic with the inn’s guests, cousin?”

Rhian’s expression froze. “Whatever might you mean, cousin?” she asked in that airy, calculatedly guileless way that I always used when I was waiting for the other person to say something that would really earn the fireball they were about to get in their face.

“I mean,” said Bronwen, gesturing to the lamb, “that some of us have work to do, and must spend our days searching the heights for lost lambs, not dancing and rolling in the grass like wanton children.”

Okay, has anyone who uses the word “wanton” like it’s a bad thing ever not been a miserable, terrible person? And Bronwen couldn’t be more than two or three years older than me and Rhian. Maybe twenty-five at the most. Had she been born old and cranky, or was this the result of practice?

“I think your father would be rather displeased if he knew you were out cavorting with his guests, don’t you?” she asked.

Oh, that’s another one, “cavorting.” Nobody who says “cavorting” in cold blood can possibly be up to any good.

“I think what I do is my own business, cousin,” Rhian said. “Maybe if you did a better job of mindin’ yours you wouldn’t have to go lookin’ for lost lambs so often.”

Bronwen scowled, which was about a three percent difference from what I’m guessing was her default expression. I glanced at Rhian, then we both looked back at Talhaern. He nodded very slightly and picked up his harp.

“Listen,” I said, “we don’t mean to make any trouble. Rhian was just being a good host. Why don’t you join us, relax a moment?”

Talhaern began to play, a soothing, relaxing melody. Bronwen was fighting it, though; she blinked rapidly a couple of times, but then shook her head.

“I have no time for such things,” she said. “Now that I’ve found the lamb, I must return to my flock.”

Yes, that was it. Work was the key. I could see Talhaern adjusting his magic just like I’d taught him. She was using her need to work to resist the spell of relaxation? So shift the spell to be about how hard she always works, how tiring it is.

“Surely you can rest just a moment?” asked Rhian. “There hasn’t been a wolf or a bandit in weeks, your flock’ll be fine for a few minutes more.”

“Well…” Bronwen hesitated while Talhaern played on, but I could see the magic starting to affect her.

“Just a moment of rest now, and I’m sure you’ll be able to work that much better in the afternoon.” I beamed at Bronwen, the picture of friendly innocence.

“I… suppose that’s true,” she admitted. “I can sit here a moment.”

Bit by bit, I watched Bronwen relax where she stood, her shoulders loosening, her frown fading. The crook slipped from her grasp, but I lunged forward and caught it before it could hit the ground, while Rhian gently guided Bronwen to sit down next to the lamb, which was watching Talhaern raptly.

Rhian sat behind Bronwen, gently massaging her shoulders, while Talhaern brought her deeper into relaxation. I was starting to get turned on, and I knew Rhian must be too—it just felt so good to bring another woman under Talhaern’s control!

Rhian moved from massaging Bronwen’s shoulders to massaging her temples. Bronwen sighed, her eyes fluttering as she went limp.

“Good girls,” sang Talhaern, and I bit my lip to keep from crying out at the sudden orgasm. Rhian turned beet red, pulling away from Bronwen and shaking as she came as well.

Bronwen didn’t even notice. She was smiling, her eyes half-closed, as she hummed tunelessly along with Talhaern’s harp. Relaxed and happy, she actually looked okay. Taller and curvier than Rhian and I, and with a pretty smile that probably didn’t get much use.

Talhaern shifted his song to one of desire, the same song he’d used to start Rhian’s enchantment, but it slid right off of Bronwen. Rhian slid her hands around Bronwen from behind to play with her breasts, like I’d done to her, but although Bronwen’s breathing quickened and she flushed, it still wasn’t enough to break through her defense.

How was she doing it? “Bronwen,” I said softly. “Look at Talhaern. Doesn’t he look good?”

She sighed. “Doesn’t matter,” she said sleepily. “I’m waiting for marriage.”

Wow, I guess there were still old-fashioned girls here and there in sheep country. I glanced at Talhaern. How to break through this?

He shifted his song again, and it took me a second to figure out what he was doing: he was combining two spells at once! In the lower registers, he played the song of relaxation, harmonizing it with the upper registers, where he played a song of imagination and daydreams. Then he began to sing along, about a lonely shepherd girl who dreamed of being able to dance and flirt and laugh, but had to spend day after dreary day tending the flocks alone.

Bronwen sighed and her smile grew bigger. So did mine—I knew we had her.

Talhaern worked slowly, with Bronwen fighting every step of the way. She sank into the fantasy easily enough, and it was obvious from her breathing and her flush that she was getting excited.

“Look at Talhaern,” Rhian said.

Copycat, that’s my line!

“See the man of your fantasies, who makes such beautiful music for you,” she continued. “He’s wonderful, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Bronwen murmured. “But…”

“Shh,” Rhian soothed her, once again massaging her temples. “Just enjoy imagining it.”

Talhaern sang of the lonely shepherd lass finally getting someone else to watch her sheep the night of the harvest dance, of the beautiful man she met there, the dancing and laughing and talking, and then finally the lover’s kiss under the moonlight—

“No,” Bronwen said thickly, shaking her head, trying to pull away from Rhian’s gentle but insistant touch. “Not until… not until…”

Wow. She was hardcore! Not even kissing until marriage?

But Talhaern took it like a pro and adapted. The lass was pure and good, she would never do a thing like that. So she fled to her sheep, and next morning her pretty cousin and the man were engaged to be wed.

Wait, what was he doing?

Bronwen frowned, but Rhian smiled. “That’s right,” she whispered nastily. “You think you’re so much better, so much purer than me, but I’m the one who gets to be happy.”

Oh! Oh, that was good!

Talhaern’s song shifted again, a series of complex, difficult chords as he switched the relaxation to the high notes and a song of jealousy and envy to the low notes.

“…not fair…” Bronwen muttered.

“No, it’s not,” Rhian agreed. “He’s mine, and you get nothing but sheep.”

“…should be… mine…” Bronwen mumbled, a trace of what must have been an enormous amount of very old resentment managing to make it through even her enchanted relaxation. “you always…”

That was it, that anger and jealousy. She wanted what she saw as Rhian’s easy life, resented that her own strict morals left her alone while Rhian flirted and danced and, in Bronwen’s imagination at least, fucked a succession of travelers who passed through the inn, a life of ease and pleasure.

Talhaern layered in the spells slowly. She wanted that life, but her morals kept her from it. She couldn’t let go of her morals, that would be wrong—but what if she had no choice?

“…no… choice?” Bronwen managed.

“Yes,” Rhian said softly. “If you couldn’t resist, if you were caught in a spell so that you couldn’t say no, that wouldn’t be wrong, would it?”

“…caught..?”

“Yes, that’s right, caught. Snared by magic. Then you could have pleasure and rest, and it would be okay because it wasn’t your fault. You want that, don’t you?”

“…yes…” Bronwen admitted, and I watched the desire to be enchanted wrap around her, followed by spells of submission, obedience, devotion, desire, love. He’d had to work backwards from the way he’d snared Rhian and me, but the end result was the same.

Bronwen opened her eyes to see all three of us standing in front of her, then she closed them again and groaned. “What have you done to me?” she demanded.

Talhaern grinned. “Made you mine,” he answered, and Bronwen shuddered in response.

“You feel it, don’t you?” asked Rhian.

“The need,” I said. “To serve, to please, to give yourself to him.”

Bronwen shuddered again. She began trying (not very effectively) to scramble backwards across the grass.

Talhaern stepped forward, then bent down to take her chin in his hand. He tilted her face up and commanded, “Look at me.”

Bronwen did, and bit her lip. “Please…” she whimpered.

“Please what?” Talhaern asked. “Simply say you want me to leave you be, and I will. I will depart and you will never see me again. Tell the truth—what do you want?”

Bronwen shut her eyes and shuddered again. “Please…” She closed her mouth, opened it again, closed it again, obviously fighting herself. “I want… I need…” she moaned. “I know what I should say…”

“But what is the truth, Bronwen?” Talhaern asked. “Look at me!”

Her eyes met his. Standing behind him, I could see her helplessness, her uncertainty, her need. “Please…” she said again, her voice small and trembling. “Take me…”

“With pleasure,” Talhaern replied, bending down a bit farther to kiss her. She flung her arms around his neck and lay back on the grass, pulling him down on top of her. He broke the kiss and sang a wordless command, a few pure notes that were enough for Rhian and I to immediately know what we had to do.

We stripped quickly, then helped first Bronwen, then Talhaern out of their clothes. Soon we were all naked, and then we began to help in other ways, stroking, kissing, licking Bronwen and Talhaern while they explored each other.

Soon it was time. Bronwen lay on the grass, her long legs spread wide, while Talhaern knelt between them. I was kneeling at her side, Rhian at her head. Bronwen cried out as Talhaern thrust into her, lifting her legs to allow him access. While he grasped her thighs, I stroked down to her clit, playing with it in time to Talhaern’s thrusts. She moaned and gasped and thrashed while, behind me, Rhian cupped and stroked her breasts, the two of us bringing Bronwen even higher than Talhaern could alone.

She screamed her first orgasm, and Talhaern sang out one for Rhian and me as well. But he wasn’t finished, so neither were we, pushing Bronwen higher for a second and a third orgasm, Talhaern giving us one as well every time, until finally he grunted and came, singing out one last “Good girls!” for all three of us to join him.

We collapsed into a panting, sweaty heap of blissed-out bodies, with our new sister at the center.

When I could speak again, I told Talhaern he had mastered everything the book and I could teach him, and I was proud to be one of his slaves.

“Slaves?” he said. “I hadn’t thought of you that way.” He looked down at the three of us, and smiled a very different smile from the ones I’d seen on him before. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I like that. Thank you, Lemma. You really have taught me a lot.” He reached past me to the pile of his clothes and pulled out the book. “This is yours, I believe,” he said.

“Everything I have is yours,” I gushed, though I took the book from him. I hesitated, but took the plunge. “Master.”

He smiled and kissed me.

Later, when we were all conscious and dressed, Bronwen went looking for her lamb again—it must have wandered off while we were all getting acquainted. The rest of us went down into the village again, with a vague plan to return to the inn and get some more food.

“Lemma!” a voice called as we approached the inn.

Oh no. No, not now, not here!

“Lemma!” Iason repeated, running up to me. “Where have you been? I’ve been tracking you for days!”

“Friend of yours?” asked Talhaern.

I sighed. “Iason, this is Talhaern. Talhaern, this is Iason. Great, everybody’s friends now, great visit, goodbye Iason!”

“Wait!” said Iason. “Lemma, what’s happened? Weren’t we searching for books together?”

“Yep,” I said, and held up the book. “Great, I found it, you found me, we’re done. Go home or whatever, Iason.”

His eyes narrowed. “Lemma, are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” I said. “I’m happy. I want to stay here.”

Iason looked around. “Here? Last village, you said the only way to tell the people and the sheep apart was that the sheep smelled better!” He paused. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked suspiciously, and dropped a hand to his sword.

Damn. I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. “Rhian, Talhaern, get behind me!” I warned, and unleashed a fireball at Iason.

His sword flashed out and intercepted the fireball in mid-air. It vanished without even a puff of smoke.

“Please, please,” said Talhaern. “I’m sure there’s no need to fight.” He strummed his harp, a spell of relaxation that didn’t even touch Iason through the protection afforded by his armor and sword.

“So you’re the one!” Iason roared, and lunged for Talhaern. I used a quick wind spell to whip a cloud of dust up in Iason’s face, and he staggered back, coughing.

“Don’t let the sword touch you!” I called to Talhaern. “It eats magic!” Not exactly accurate, but it got the gist across in a hurry.

Behind me, Talhaern grasped Rhian by the arm. “Stay here and keep him busy!” he sang, and then they were both gone.

I stood facing Iason. “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, “but I can’t let you go after them.”

“I’m not interested in going after them,” he answered. He held his sword out to me, hilt-first. “I just want to free you from whatever spell is making you do this. Take it!”

“Never!” I shouted, and cast an earth spell at his feet, but he jumped sideways even as a small patch of ground cracked and shook. “Just let me go!”

“No!” he shouted back, striding rapidly toward me, his sword held out defensively in front of him. I flung a lightning bolt at him, but he twisted, pulling his sword behind his body and catching the spell on his opposite shoulder.

So he even knew how bad iron was against lightning? Dammit!

Still, I knew I could beat him. The trick was going to be to get the sword out of his hands, but a powerful enough wind spell should do it. I gathered the power to cast it—

And then the innkeeper hit me over the back of the head and I passed out.

By the time I came to, it was dark, and something heavy and cold was lying on top of me. I conjured up a light spell, but nothing happened.

Oh.

The moment I tried to pull Iason’s sword aside and sit up, he woke up—he’d been snoozing in a chair next to the bed.

“What happened?” he asked.

I thought about it, the spells of love, of lust, of devotion, the days and nights of pure pleasure, the feeling of making others into Talhaern’s slaves. All memories, now—Iason’s sword had shredded the spells and sucked up their remains. “The bard got me,” I said simply. “The book taught him magic music, and he got me.”

“Oh,” said Iason. “I guess splitting up was a pretty bad idea after all, huh?”

“Yeah.” I sat up further. “Ow!” I cried, and rubbed the back of my head. “What happened after I was knocked out, anyway?”

“They ran off,” Iason said. “The bard, the innkeeper’s daughter, and some shepherdess all disappeared into the mountains. The innkeeper and the shepherdess’ parents got together a mob to chase him, but they say he played an avalanche down and disappeared.”

Could he do that? Probably, I decided. He could definitely make them think he did, anyway.

“Can we track him?” Iason asked.

Oh, how I’d love to do that. Just jump out at him from the brush, yell “Surprise!” and light his fucking harp on fire. His fucking face, too.

But if he saw me coming, all it would take is one stroke of the strings and I’d be his again, not that I could tell Iason that. And it was going to be cold up in the mountains, cold and snowy, and between controlling animals and the sheer amounts of snow available to him, he’d have an easy time covering up his trail.

“He gave the book to me, so we can’t use that to track him,” I said. “So unless you know how to follow a trail that’s had an avalanche fall across it…”

“Yeah,” Iason said. “Still, we better tell the innkeeper we’re going to hunt him, he’s really mad.”

I gingerly felt the back of my head. “Ow, yeah, I get your point.”

The next day we set out on our hunt—by which I mean we left the village, and Kymri, far behind as we went looking for the next book, which I could feel somewhere off in the northeast.

As for Talhaern, Rhian, and Bronwen? Well, rumor’s been spreading of a new bard, a weaver of wonders, who can capture the imagination of any man and the heart of any woman, or so they say. They say he’s making quite a mark for himself, that he has the heart of the most beautiful woman in every village in the mountains, but the two most beautiful of all he keeps by his side as he travels. They’re happy, probably.

Who knows, maybe in a hundred years, or a thousand, people will sing songs about the legendary bard Talhaern.

…Though not if I run across him first.