Chapter 2 - Lecto

CHAPTER II
'LECTO'

Last night I'd have sworn I'd never sleep. Not on the ground, without even a cover, in this strange world and with so much to run through my mind. Yet I did, for now Clytemnestra wakes me gently. She says she'd like a little sleep. It seems she hasn't slept yet?

	The sky is rich purple and I think even a little lighter in the east, I must have slept many hours. I watch Clytemnestra as she settles herself. Apparently intending to sleep standing. That tallies. I stand and stretch my stiff joints, I could really go for tea and a cigarette about now but I settle for a little more of the pork we cooked last night and large handfuls of the sweet lake water. The fire has burned down to fine grey ash.

	I've nothing to do but wait. Wait and regard Clytemnestra's somnolent form in the growing light in the east. Dawn comes and the forest about us seems to wake almost as one. Birdsong and the calls of other, larger animals welcoming the new day. I'm impatient and increasingly bored, pacing around. Logically if Clytemnestra sleeps like a horse, she may need as little sleep as a horse, perhaps a couple of hours a night, and she'd certainly implied as much.

	She sleeps for less than that, in fact. I can't judge well with no watch or clock, but I think perhaps forty five minutes or so. I don't even realise that she's awake until I hear movement and turn to see her walk to the shore. She stretches all the way down to gather a great double handful of water and tip it over herself, and again before she's satisfied. By then I'm at her side and she smiles down on me, water dripping from her beautiful face and running in a channel between her breasts.

	I take her hands and pull until she leans toward me close enough for a long good morning kiss. Drops of water fall on my face from her short, floppy hair and for some reason I find that wildly exciting.

“We should go soon,” she says, straightening up, “The road's not getting any shorter.”

“I can't wait!” I really mean that.

	Clytemnestra shows me how to wrap the cooked pork in broad leaves to keep it clean in her satchels and we both drink as much as we are able before setting off, though she says that rain is coming in a day or two. I take her at her word though the sky is almost cloudless right now. I hope she's right because her canteen, large as it is to me will be scarcely sufficient for the two of us for more than that. Particularly since today promises to be as warm as yesterday.

	We set an easy pace around the lake, heading north and Clytemnestra explains her plans, which are our plans now.

“The woods are big, On my own I should guess another four days to the northern border. Together, maybe twice that.”

	I have the good grace to look embarrassed about that. She notices and dismisses any such feeling, placing a hand on the side of my neck, as close to an embrace as she can manage without stopping or leaning down.

“I begrudge you nothing, lady. Your company promises to make our journey more agreeable than I had any right to expect.”

	I put my hand on hers, and then in it and for a time we walk holding hands and she goes on.

“The road we follow is little trafficked today, but I believe that once it leaves the forest it should soon join a main artery serving one of the northern cities and I have it in mind to visit the place. Beyond that I don't care to plan.”

	There's something agreeable in her free-spiritedness and I give my assent. It's full day, bright and warm as we find the path again on the northern side of the lake. I'm happy to once again be under the shade of the canopy, even if it has no effect on the heat. As before, the path is somewhat grass-grown, obviously disused as Clytemnestra had said and I wonder who made it and why they stopped coming.

	So we walk for two days, talking at times, but more often not. Clytemnestra is as good as her word and never once asks me about my past, and I don't ask about her's. I learn as much as I can, though without giving away my profound ignorance of the word around me.

	I learn that the day is, at least roughly, twenty four hours long, with as much light and dark as I'd expect in the summer. There's no moon, Clytemnestra has never heard the word and when I describe it she wonders how I came up with such a bizarre concept. The nights are lighter than I expect though and the sky never gets darker than a rich bottomless purple. Sickness and disease are all but unknown here, but tea is widely drunk. Ideal.

	Clytemnestra likes to sleep about three hours a day, but broken up into up to a dozen little snoozes here and there. She says she prefers to sleep lying down, but doesn't have to, at least, not every day. I think she hasn't known many humans well, because my need for a good eight hours a night somewhat scandalises her. She has known humans though, that's worth knowing.

	I certainly am slowing her down, more than she feared, in fact not only by my slow pace but my need to sleep for so long. She really seems not to mind, though. She says she has all the time in the world. We don't make love again, though not for want of passion. Our lips often meet, our hands often stray to one another's body. The path feels inconducive to anything more, though.

	In the evening of the second day Clytemnestra finds a grove of wild amaranth and the leaves and tender stems make a nice addition to the last of our pork. She shows me where and how to dig for water, though we don't bother doing it since even I can tell it's going to rain tonight.

	It does. Great sheets of rain lashing down at our leafy roof. Perhaps two hours of monsoon like rain a little before sunset. We take what shelter we can beneath the densest parts of the forest canopy but it has little effect. We are soaked in warm rainwater in a way that's not actually unpleasant. Clytemnestra gathers water with a swatch of oilskin she has apparently for that purpose and makes licentious comments about the way my wet white clothes cling, nigh transparent, to my body.

	The rain ends almost as swiftly as it started. Clytemnestra says that's the way of rain, she seems surprised that I might think differently. Steam rises from her broad black back as we force our way a little deeper into the forest seeking some slightly dryer spot to rest for the night. It's pure chance that we see a glow of light through the trees.

“I don't like that,” she whispers to me, silently sliding her rifle from its scabbard and loading it with infinite care, “No fire should be burning so soon after such rain, and not so deep in the wood.”

	I take her at her word. One'd certainly have to be going some to keep fuel dry in that downpour. I start to creep closer and Clytemnestra lets me get ahead, superior as her bushcraft is, she cannot help but make more noise than me in this dense woodland. I see it first, a little house, a cottage perhaps is a better word. Light flickers behind glass windows, firelight and I think perhaps something more steady too.

	Clytemnestra has moved much slower than I in her caution, but catches me up as I pause.

“A house,” I whisper redundantly. It looks ever so cheery to me, standing wet and bedraggled here in the wilds, “Do you think they'd let us lodge there tonight?” I'm not at all keen on sleeping on the wet ground, and it's hypothetically possible that such luxuries as tea might exist within.

	It has walls of irregular shaped stones stacked atop each other and a verdant sod roof that must keep it nicely warm in the winter, small clean glass windows and a red door. Well tended patches of vegetables grow about it in the small clearing it occupies and a little well stands nearby. All together agreeable.

Clytemnestra seems to be considering broadly the same things as me, “It's often the case that folks will offer hospitality to travellers in return for news, company or a little coin. Thereagin it's often the case that folks will rob travellers.”

	That puts a little dampener on my increasingly optimistic fantasies of what wonders may lie within, which had grown to include hot soup and cigarettes.

“I find that folks are generally pretty decent if you give them the chance,” I whisper back.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. I do. And... I mean, you trusted me.”

“You're a lot smaller than I am, and unarmed. Anyone may live there.”

	I have to concede that point, but deep down I think Clytemnestra feels the same as me about strangers, and probably about hot soup and tea. After a long moment's thought she slides her rifle back into her scabbard, though I note she doesn't unload it first. It has no safety and she's not given to keeping it loaded, so I don't imagine she's entirely trusting as we make our way slowly toward the cottage and emerge from the tree line.

	I knock at the door and we hear movement within, footsteps and the door is opened by a an attractive, narrow-waisted woman in a long dark red dress that shows perhaps a little more décolletage than is strictly necessary for an evening at home. She seems surprised to have visitors, but smiles at me and peers outside to look up at Clytemnestra.

“Good evening, lady,” Clytemnestra takes charge and I'm happy to let her, “My companion and I saw the light at your window and wondered perhaps if two weary wayfarers might find hospitality for a night? We have travelled far and did not think to find anyone living in this wood.”

“Nor should you have,” the woman replies in an exotic sing-song accent that I find most attractive, “Few are those who walk the road I watch, and I alone live by it. Come in and be welcome for a night.”

	She stands aside and motions us to enter. Just as I do I wonder if perhaps she has a pair of burly sons waiting to seize me as I cross the threshold, but no such thing happens. Inside the cottage is all one room with a flagstone floor covered in many rugs. Shelves over wooden chests line every wall holding a huge assortment of seemingly unrelated bric-a-brac. Clytemnestra has to bow low to pass through the doorway, only just fitting and she soon elects to settle on the floor by the large, empty stone fireplace.

“My name is Lecto, and you are most welcome to my home, travellers.”

	Clytemnestra gives her our names. I'm starting to feel rather exposed as I stand dripping wet in thin, clinging white clothes before this attractive stranger. For someone who apparently lives alone in the depths of a forest, she takes very good care of herself. Her dark blond hair is clean and arranged just-so, her short nails perfectly smooth and clean, it cannot be easy to work her gardens and maintain them so. Her exotic, spicy perfume is distinct from the delicate scent of the dried flowers and herbs that hang in little bunches from the rafters.

“You are hungry?” she asks, perhaps seeing my eyes stray to the herbs and the little stock of vegetables and hanging game in one corner of the house.

“We have eaten already, lady,” Clytemnestra says, “Though if if you have wine we have a little coin.”

	Lecto goes to the place where she's stocked her provender and produces a tall, stoppered jug that I'd previously not noticed, she pours pale wine into three earthenware cups and passes two to us. It's tart and I think quite strong. I cannot tell what it's made from, but not grapes. Clytemnestra drains her cup in one slow swallow and licks her lips.

“Drink and be at rest, if only for a night,” Lecto sips a little of her wine and I sip a little more of mine.

	Clytemnestra drops her cup to the floor and collapses after it. Without thinking I rush to her. Lecto is standing back, she points at me with her left hand, her fingers... They are glowing.

“Hold! Girl, hold or it'll be the worse for you.”

	I cower back against Clytemnestra's unconscious form as my skin begins to tingle.

“Trespassers in my woods is it! And come even to me to beg shelter and wine... Wine!”

“We didn't know!” I stammer out.

“As though I care,” the tingling of my skin intensifies and I feel the little bone buttons on my blouse start to unfasten on their own. Lecto still speaks, “Your spirits will nourish the forest that your bodies defile,” unseen force rips the blouse from my body and I gasp. Lecto takes a step forward “But first, your body will serve me.”

	Lecto drains her wine cup and I move as fast as I am able snatching Clytemnestra's heavy gun from the scabbard and swinging it 'round even as I pull the trigger.

	In the small stone cottage the report is like a physical blow. The gun is catapulted out of my hands and I fall back against Clytemnestra. I scrabble to sit upright, I can hear nothing but tinnitus. Lecto's body sprawls face-down on the floor. The shot must have spun her about. A mighty crater covers most of her back, and an equally mighty one mars the stone wall behind her amid smashed shelves and dripping red gore.

	I sit stunned for some time, thinking nothing, feeling nothing. The first sensation that reaches me is movement. My back is tight against Clytemnestra and her long, slow breathing rocks me gently as I come to my senses. Blood soaks the rugs beneath Lecto, it darkens the already dark red dress she wears. I can just about stagger to the door before horror-born nausea overtakes me. Even as I vomit I'm a little proud that I made it to the door first.

	I shake all over as I timidly approach Lecto's body and queasily throw a rug over her. It's only when I turn away that I realise my white top is still lying on the floor. I put it back on with shaking hands and try to rouse Clytemnestra. I'd have as much success trying to wake Lecto. She's out cold, hominine torso stretched across the floor. I find a nasty gouge in her flank, bleeding a little and probably badly bruised, from where the butt of her gun hit her when I fired.

	I don't understand that. She'd drunk her whole cup, but Lecto and I had both drunk too and and Clytemnestra must weigh half a ton or more. No drug could have done that to her and not affected us. I'd swear Lecto hadn't had the chance to slip something into one cup and not the others, I'd watched her pour them out.

	I pace back and forth, too nervous, too sick to sit, certainly to sleep. I check on Clytemnestra often, and she does not change, always breathing comfortably, her pulse strong, very strong in fact. I cannot quite bare to look at the lumpen shape beneath the rug by the wall. I examine the strange collection of things that line the shelves all around me. It seems obvious now. There's cooking gear, mess tins, tinderboxes, lots of things like that. There are compasses and walking sticks, several firearms of different types and other weapons besides, clubs and daggers mostly. It seem obvious that Lecto has taken most of these things from travellers in 'her' woods. Everything on these shelves I could see being carried by some luckless bastard drugged and murdered by Lecto.

	What had she said? That our bodies defile it, but our spirits will nourish it... And then, then there's what she'd done. Her fingers had glowed, literally shed light, she'd undone my buttons and ripped the shirt off my back without touching a thing. It all smacks of, of magic. I might've guessed. I think I'm taking the implications of my deduction pretty well, but I've spent the last three days with a centaur, so there's a level of acclimatisation at work. It has a logic to it. A witch in the woods, makes perfect sense.

	My mind runs in circles about these ideas for some hours. I cannot bring myself to pick up Clytemnestra's rifle where it lays pointing – naturally – at the body so badly hidden. My hands still shake. Worse when I look at the gun, or where it is pointing. I cannot help but practice my justifications. She is a bandit, very likely a murderer, quite possibly a wicked witch, and sounded very much like a rapist. She'd drugged my friend, I was acting in self defence, I'd had no time to think. I wonder if any one of those things actually makes what I did okay, or even all of them together.

	Now I wonder if I'd feel the same way if she'd looked like a wicked witch instead of the attractive lady with the alluring accent she had been. I wish Clytemnestra were awake.

	It's very dark outside now, but four oil lamps glow brightly in the cottage. I try to turn them up a little more, wanting more light, but there are no wicks, no oil in any, just flame, burning nothing. Despite my earlier conclusions that frightens me a little and I retreat to the centre of the room, sitting right against Clytemnestra, in the crook of her foreleg. She is a big, warm presence against me, and I feel a little calmer.

	It's some hours later. At times I've paced, or tried to fiddle with the things on the shelves, but mostly I've sat with Clytemnestra. I've put some more rugs and some cushions from Lecto's bed under her hominine body and I hear these rustling as she stirs in her sleep. I shake her, cry out her name and she stirs more restlessly, waking slowly with unfocussed eyes. I wrap my arms around her, hold her tight and she holds me without really knowing why, I think.

“I... I...” she looks around, disentangles herself from me. She sees her gun on the floor immediately, she sees the shape under the rug against the wall, the wet red bullet hole in the wall.

She takes hold of me again, both hands on my shoulders, “What happened?”

“She drugged you! She... I... I mean, she drugged you and then, her hand was glowing. And she said our spirits would feed the forest. She was going to hurt us. Look at all this stuff, she took it from other people.”

	Clytemnestra picks up her rifle, breaks it and extracts the shells, one empty, one charged.

“She said our bodies defiled the wood, but out spirits would feed it and her hands were glowing and then I started to feel weird all over, and I got your gun and, well...”

	Clytemnestra just nods. She stows the gun and takes me into her arms again, soothing me, “If she was a sorceress that will be why no one comes here any more,” she holds me tight as I melt into her, “You did well. It's a good thing this place is so small. Not many people could have shot a sorceress.”

“I didn't mean to!”

“You didn't?”

“No! Or, maybe, I just, she was coming for me and I reacted without thinking and I killed her.”

“Ah. Good thing too. World's a lot better off without her witchery, and I think all the people who came here before us would agree.”

“That doesn't make it okay.”

She thinks about that for a moment, “Well, no, in a sense, it doesn't, No right thinking person ever celebrated a death, but I think the next person who passes this way might disagree with you. Her deeds were bound to catch up with her sooner or later, evil sown is evil reaped.”

“What are we going to do now?”

“I won't speak for her spirit, but her body is going to feed the forest. In the morning, we'll go on. The sun will rise, I'll kiss my lady, the world will turn and travellers abroad will be a very little safer.”

	Clytemnestra hushes me with a finger as I am about to speak again, she rises quite steadily to her hooves. For my sake I think she picks up Lecto's body, rug and all and carries it outside. She's gone for several minutes and I just wait for her to return.

	She returns, ducking low through the doorway and I go to her, wanting again the comfort of her arms. I feel her pick me up and she carries me the few steps into the middle of the room where she gracefully settles down and places me on the cushions I had gathered for her. She tenderly kisses me again as she lays me down. Our lips part, I look into her great dark eyes, I feel the heat of her body over me, her firm breasts against me, her hand running up my thigh.

	 Her finger brushes over my centre and all the horrors of the night are forgotten in my desire for the woman above me. Another kiss, her tongue probes my mouth, her hands glide around my hips and up, and up. She catches my blouse, pulls it over my head without troubling to unfasten it. Her fingernails trail across exposed skin, across my shoulders, my breasts, my nipples, electric paths of pleasure and anticipation.

	My sex aches for her to touch me there again, but she does not. Her skilled fingers tease at my nipples while she kisses a trail from my lips down. When she takes a nipple in her mouth I moan aloud and my hands try to force her lower, but she does not move. The gentlest nip of her teeth warns me not to rush her. She licks her way to the other tip and the slow teasing stimulation starts again, until I think I'll not stand it any longer. Finally she's satisfied in her work and she resumes her kissing, licking journey lower. She pauses again at my navel but I am distracted by the surge of hope as her hands pull my skirt down and I can kick it off.

	I try to pull my wet knickers off and her strong hands force mine away as her lips have reached my needy cunt. She takes a long, slow lick of the drenched fabric, and another before she pulls them slowly down my legs.

	Finally I am laid open before her. My hands pull her head toward me and for once she does not resist, lowering her lips to my cunt with a lust almost the equal of my own. I gasp as she gives me a long deep lick, more for her pleasure than mine and then she settles her wonderful lips deep into my thick delta of hair. She eats noisily, wetly at my dripping cunt and I'm lost in pleasure, writhing under her stroking tongue, I grip great handfuls of the rugs and cushions, I shudder wonderfully as her upper lip caresses the hood of my little clit and cry nonsense as her tongue encircles the point itself.

	Agonisingly, she backs down before I can come, her lips slow, her tongue retreats and for long moments she she slowly teases me down from the hight of ecstasy. She sucks on my outer lips and laps at the juices dripping freely from my overheated honeypot.

	I look down, her face is buried in my hairy cunt but her eyes look straight into mine. In that moment her tongue laps at my clit and I come, my eyes locked with hers until I fall back, squirming and crying out.

	The air is sweet with perfume, I'm warm and comfortable and I don't want to move. Soft sounds of birdsong and gentle movement invade my ears along with a rhythmic striking sound that I think must have woken me. Wait, where am I?

	I open my eyes. It's morning, sunlight streams through the cottage's small windows. I'm in bed, Lecto's bed! I freeze expecting creeping horror to overcome me but somehow, it does not. I feel barely a tremor as everything of last night comes back to me. Clytemnestra is lighting the fire, she sees that I am awake and smiles sweetly.

“Sleep well?”

“What happened?”

“You fell asleep, so I put you to bed. I think you were a bit overcome.”

“Overcome isn't the word I'd use,” I say shedding the blankets and standing, naked.

“Well, I'm not one to boast.”

“That's not what I meant,” I gather up my clothes.

“Even so, you had a stressful experience. I thought it best to take your mind off of it, the best way I know how. Things like that catch you up eventually. Wait, wait, don't put that on.”

“You're insatiable! Can't I at least have a drink first?”

Clytemnestra laughs and shakes her head, “That's not what I meant. I've been going through some of these things. Most of the sorceress's clothes should fit you and you can't wear the same thing every day.”

“You do,” I reply half-heartedly, looking through a modest selection of clothes that Clytemnestra has set out. It looks like every garment Lecto owned was some shade of red. I pick up a pair of her knickers and smell them. They are clean, but there is that unmistakeable, exciting scent of woman.

	That gives me pause as I realise what it is I'm doing. I'm smelling the knickers of a dead woman, one I killed, and I'm getting hot. Clytemnestra slaps my bum.

“Get dressed, naughty. There'll be time for that later,” she ducks out of the door.

	Chastened, I slip the red knickers on along with a long wine-coloured dress and my white boots. I feel... conflicted. I don't feel the horror that I should, though. There is something, some sense that what I did last night was wrong, but I feel distant from it – as though it happened years ago, as though I've had all the time I need to come to terms with something that no one should ever do, and why I did it.

	I am troubled, but not by what I did, or how I feel about it, but by the lack of feeling.

	As I pull my boots on Clytemnestra comes back in with a big clay pitcher of well water.

“I think we can call this a win from almost any angle,” she says pouring the water into an iron kettle which she hangs over the small fire she's made, “We made this wood a little safer for everyone else, we found you something to wear and unless I miss my guess, some of this stuff will fetch a pretty penny in the city.”

I don't care about that right now, Clytemnestra is boiling a kettle! “Is there tea?”

“There certainly is! I thought you'd be happy about that.”

	To say the least, I am. It's rich and dark and aromatic, and not any variety that I recognise, but it's real tea, perfect and cleansing for to a troubled soul. I drink it slowly savouring the heady steam and the bitter, earthy aftertaste while Clytemnestra watches occasionally, smiling at the pleasure she's brought me.

	She is rattling around the room opening chests and scanning shelves, examining Lecto's stolen possessions, sometimes selecting something and laying it on the bed. She seems to be selecting things based on saleability, she's gathered a goodly amount of jewellery and coin, almost all the firearms, a couple of handsome leather books and anything else that looks more valuable than bulky. The books prove to be, for want of a better word, spell books. Hand written records of Lecto's magic. They are incomprehensible to me, but just the idea is thrilling.

“You should take one of these for yourself,” she waves at the guns, “It might be good for both of us,” she rubs her flank where the blow she'd taken from her own rifle butt is swollen and sore looking.

“I'm sorry about that, I really didn't mean to...”

“I'm honestly glad you did. You saved both our lives and that gun was never intended to be used by anyone your size. I think we both came out the other end better than we had any right to expect.”

“Does it hurt bad?”

“Yes. Yes it does.”

I stammer and she sweeps me closer to plant a kiss on the top of my head, “All the same I'd feel better if you had a gun made for small, breakable people.”

	There's not much to say to that, and in fact, after last night I would feel better armed. I look over the firearms and select a lever-action rifle with a beautiful polished walnut stock furnished in silver. I'm not sure Clytemnestra is as impressed by it as I am. Her own rifle is much more utilitarian, but this one fits my shooting stance perfectly and if the finely adjustable sights are anything to go by, it'll prove highly accurate. Clytemnestra scrounges up the cartridges that go with it and the tube-magazine accepts six of the two dozen she finds. I'm inclined to keep the magazine charged.

	I genuinely do feel better for being less helpless in what I now know to be a potentially deadly world. I'm even a little tempted to take an attractive rapier, but I know nothing about swordplay, and I'm not quite dumb enough to think I can wing it. But I do see something I can use, and it excites me far more than it probably should.

“What's that?” Clytemnestra asks, seeing my pick up the brass disc, grinning like a child.

“A slide-rule!” I show her how the cursor rotates about the disc.

“What's it for?”

“Maths!” I ask her for a couple of big numbers and multiply them together, then divide them. I think she's impressed in an abstract sense, but she clearly doesn't share my excitement.

“It's a good job you're pretty,” she concludes, leaving me to my toy.

	It is a very nice rule, though, both aesthetically and in terms of function, having both trigonometric and root functions as well as the normal log scales.

	A good portion of the morning has slipped us by by the time we've packed up everything we want to take and I've zeroed the sights of my rifle as best I can without wasting more than six shots. Clytemnestra makes me bring the spent brass with me. All of my clothes, a good sized canteen, my slide-rule and almost a pound of tea go in a tough-looking leather pack with the brass. Well, almost all of my clothes.

“Clytemnestra,” I call, while packing, “Where are my knickers, my old white knickers?”

“Maybe someone's put them in her own bag... For when she's alone.”

	And she'd called me naughty.

	It's fair to say that Clytemnestra is carrying far more than I. Everything except my pack and my new rifle is lashed from her broad back and, even accustomed to her feats of strength as I am I wonder if she hasn't underestimated the difficulty of hauling all this stuff for more than a week.

	Nevertheless, she never complains about it as we walk. Even I, now carrying a rifle and a canteen and a pack full of clothes feel lighter putting that place behind me. The path from the cottage takes us directly to the wider way we've been following since the lake and we resume our slow progress northwards. Clytemnestra says I look good in red and better with a gun. She says it wouldn't do for a centaur to fall for someone who cannot shoot, but all I hear of that is 'fall for'.

“Centaurs learn to shoot as soon as we can hold a gun. We're the best hunters, the best markswomen and the best gunsmiths in the world. Humans overcomplicate things. I could have guessed you'd choose that gun, I've never seen a more human looking gun in all my days. No matter though, follow me and you'll cut an apple's stalk at a hundred yards.”

	I'm a fair shot, or at least I was when I was younger, but that seemed unlikely. I let her go on though. I just plain like the sound of her voice.

“Why the sword, then?”

“What?”

“Why do you have that sword? I can't imagine it's more useful than a gun?”

“People, of course.”

“People!?”

“You were lucky with the sorceress. Close range and maybe she hadn't even shielded herself, who knows, but you can't rely on that.”

	Clytemnestra explains, she's surprised that she even needs to, that most people, at least, most people who are at all likely to be shot at, are protected by spells. Magical shields that any sell-spell will cast for a small fee. She says such spells will turn most bullets, almost all of them beyond point-blank range but have a much harder time turning the blade of someone trained to fence against them.

	It's the sort of thing that everyone should know and my ignorance is clearly out of place. It's also disturbing to my recent feeling of confidence. I really am lucky that Lecto was so close when I fired, and that Clytemnestra's rifle is so large a calibre that her shield could not turn it. Clytemnestra says she has such a spell on her and is worried that I do not. It'd never occurred to her to ask.

	We stop for the night at a picturesque stone bridge which flies in two short arches across the river we'd seen leaving the lake four days ago. It's perhaps still a little early to stop for the night, but we think we won't find a more agreeable spot. I'm glad of the halt and though she doesn't say it, I think Clytemnestra is too. She shucks her load with every sign of pleasure and splashes into the river to sooth her tired muscles. I am more tired than I have been before at the end of day on account of the extra weight I'm carrying. I can but reflect on how poorly I'd be bearing up if my body were as it should be, rather than this fit, strong form I'm wearing here.

	I prepare a fire while Clytemnestra bathes. I'm getting pretty good at fire making, though Clytemnestra's firesteel is sized for a centaur's hand and is a touch unwieldy for me. I should have tried to find one amongst the travelling gear at Lecto's cottage. Ah, hindsight. Clytemnestra comes back to me, wet and naked and lovely.

	It really is surprising the difference between clothed and naked on her. The only things she ever wears are her halter top and that belt, most of her body is never covered, and yet... Somehow, to me there is a profound psychological difference between her naked and clothed states. A difference that I cannot fully explain.

	Centaurs have no shame about their bodies, she'd told me before, and will happily go naked at all times. Clytemnestra regards humans' clothing as a harmless, slightly adorable cultural foible and only wears a halter top to stop her breasts bouncing painfully when she needs to move.

	The fire and the late evening sun glisten off her wet, dark skin in a most attractive way and if I were not so tired and hungry I think she'd have to watch her back very carefully. Clytemnestra relaxes on the soft grass while I boil water for tea and play with my slide-rule for the simple mechanical pleasure of it. She watches me like I'm a baby who'd rather play with the box than the Christmas present that came in it.

“May I see the books we took?” I ask her presently.

“Of course,” she hands them over, “I guessed you could read when you got excited over that toy.”

“Toy... wait, you can't?”

“I'm no scholar.”

	That's interesting. I suppose literacy isn't something I should take for granted, even amongst demonstrably intelligent people like Clytemnestra.

“They're spellbooks, aren't they, I bet?”

I nod, “They seem so.”

“Thinking of learning sorcery, are you?”

	That's... That's an interesting question. In fact I'm simply curious. I want to see if they say anything about the shields Clytemnestra had told me about. That and just again to see real spell books.

“Can people? Can one just... Learn sorcery?” I ask.

“They must be able to,” she says,, “Else how could anyone become a sorceress?”

“Is it that simple?”

“I doubt it.”

	I open the smaller book at the beginning. It's akin to some kind of work book or research journal. Most of it means nothing to me, less than nothing, but there are notes, margin scrawls, points of conjecture and such that I can read. I scan through page after page. Here and there, reading everything that I can. The whole book is the same, as is the other, larger volume, though this one is unfinished, the last two thirds blank paper waiting to be filled. I go back the the smaller book and start at the beginning again.

	Clearly, this is not the first book Lecto ever used for this purpose, the first pages are little different to the last, rather than showing any kind of growing complexity like one'd expect from a learner.

“Why'd you take these if you're not thinking of learning sorcery?”

“Spellbooks are probably worth something to someone, and I didn't want to leave them laying around to fall into just anyone's hands.”

	That makes sense. I carry on reading, skipping between both books and find nothing that seems anything to do with a spell shield. Nevertheless I keep at it most of that evening, until the light starts to fade, and most of the next few evenings as I find I am beginning to comprehend what's going on in these opaque texts. I notice repetitions in the spell-writing. Phrases and strings that crop up together, or in related ways throughout the books. I begin to deduce that certain words are always associated with light, or liquid or pain.

	It seems to me that magic is very much like a computer language, and spells are very much like programmes written in the language and executed by the universe. Those are the analogies I use to myself for magic seems to possess all the positive and negative traits implied by them. Magic seems to be utterly logical and complex only in the sense that it is usually an agglomeration of many very simple elements. On the downside it seems dangerously literal and most useful spells appear to require a very complex arrangement of those simple elements.

	Real sorcery seems very daunting, certainly a lifetime's work, but I imagine almost anyone could come to grips with a 'hello world' sort of spell. I begin to create one. An essay in magic to test my theories and to prove that those elements I think I understand do mean what they seem.

	I study in the evenings and we walk all day. The path now runs along the bank of the river, which has grown broad and calm. We stop only briefly every couple of hours. Clytemnestra often likes to sleep for ten or fifteen minutes during these pauses. When she does I read from Lecto's books.

	Clytemnestra asks me if I really am teaching myself magic and I admit that it is so. She's supportive, but warns me against taking too much inspiration from books which belonged to one who clearly abused magic.

	On the night of the eighth day I think I'm ready. Clytemnestra expects that we will find the edge of the forest tomorrow or perhaps the day after. We are camped on the riverbank and have a small fire burning as normal – Clytemnestra has shot a bear and we're cooking the least tough meat.

“I think I'm ready to try a little magic.”

“Are you certain?”

“As I can be,” I say confidently.

	Clytemnestra still looks skittish and I cannot blame her, though I'm only afraid of failure, rather than disaster. I cannot imagine any way the spell I've designed can go wrong, other than by simply not working.

	I look into the fire, think the spell-machine I've designed and the flames turn purple-blue. Clytemnestra flinches, startled and my skin tingles just like the last time I was near magic.

She peers at the amethyst fire, “Is it safe?”

“Well... Not really. It's still fire.”

“Is it safe to cook over it?”

“It's exactly as it always was, but for the colour.”

“You're sure?”

“Without a doubt,” and I am. The spell is very very simple, there's nothing in it that can alter any property of the fire but the colour of light it sheds. I can almost see the logic-processes at work beneath the universe - an endless logical flow of execute, if-then and go-to. Magic cannot do anything but what it is told, to the letter.

	The flames burn purple all night, as I know they will. I'd set no end-condition in my spell so it will last as long as the fire does. Clytemnestra calls me her sorceress and holds me against her as we watch it burn, I can feel her pride.

	I ask her to tell me about the north, and about the city we're heading for.

“I don't know what it's called. No one does.”

“No one?”

“No one I've spoken to. Few travel the old forest road today, and with good reason, and if there is a road west of the mountains I don't know it. They say the north is a land of city states, every one a princedom unto itself. Some trade with one another and some likely plot war after the manner of princes everywhere.”

“But there's one near here?”

“Perhaps. It's said this path joins some wider way and roads don't exist without places to go. Likely we will find our city, but I care not very much.”

“You don't?”

“I've enjoyed travelling with you this little time, lady. I could stand to travel much farther in your company, and the world is full enough of good things to see that missing one city will not matter much.”

“I've enjoyed travelling with you too,” I say, snuggling deeper into her embrace, “More than I've ever enjoyed anything before.”

“You'll make me vain talking like that.”

“Will it be dangerous? The north?”

“I should think so, everywhere is in its right way. What have we to fear though? Are we not a markswoman of the Dawn Plains and a mighty sorceress?”

	 I look up at her liquid eyes lit by the flickering purple fire and can feel her lust for life, if not her confidence.

“Tell me about the south, then, if you can't talk about the north. Tell me about the Dawn Plains.”

“Ah, you should see my country. Where the high plain lasts forever and the sky is so large you might never see it all.”

	I've never asked Clytemnestra about her past, self conscious of my refusal to share mine, but 'Dawn Plains' sounds romantic to me and there is obvious pride on the way she speaks.

“The sunrise is swift and fierce and far seeing, like the people. The wildflowers cover everything and game of every kind so abundant that hunters may choose only the best.”

“I should very much like to see it.”

“You may, and yet, perhaps not if you travel with me. There's so much more I have to see before I ever think of home.”

“Don't you think you'll ever grow tired of wandering?”

“I hope not. And there are advantages to being a wanderer.”

“Such as?”

To answer me she slips a hand under my red silk top and massages a small breast, “I meet the most interesting people.”

	I wriggle delightedly back against her hard body and her other hand starts pawing at me too. It slides under my waistband and inside my knickers. I push my centre into her questing fingers and squeak as she nips with her teeth at the tip of my ear. Her hand comes back and she rubs my juice between her fingers. I lean forward to lick it up but she smears it over my lips and kisses me hard from behind.

	I hear her tail swish through the grass, lashing back and forth as it always does when she's aroused. I want her so badly! She gently pinches my stiff nipple as her left hand takes another slow swipe of my honeypot. I franticly unbutton my top. Her fingers are coated in my juice again and we both suck on them, kissing and licking her wet fingers in equal measure.

	I struggle to my feet and shed my skirt awkwardly while Clytemnestra gropes at whatever she can. She licks my hairy armpit and then plants a healthy swat on my arse when I giggle, dancing out of her reach clad only Lecto's lacy red pants. Before she can rise and pursue I scamper around behind her and slap her bum in return.

“Ah!” she cries out, so I spank her again.

“Will you play fair?”

“Oh! Yes!

Another stinging slap on the other side of her broad bum, “Will you play nice?”

“Anything, lady,” she moans, twitching that gorgeous equine rear at me.”

Smack! “Will you piss all over me?” My drippy knickers get even wetter at the nasty question.

“Try and stop me!”

	I don't. Her tail swishes more excitedly still and I drop to me knees behind her, her hindquarters rising to meet me. I plant a long wet, licking kiss on her delicious cunny filling my mouth with the taste.

“Mmmm,” she moans, “It's coming.”

	My fingers rub my wet sex through a thin layer of red silk and my tongue lightly traces her quivering black lips.

“It's coming,” her voice is heady with lust.

“Piss on me, Clytemnestra,” I pant between sloppy, slurping licks at her quaking cunt, “Piss all over me!”

	My hips rock back and forth, driving my snatch against my wanton, rubbing fingers. Clytemnestra's hot love drips from my chin and runs down my naked chest. Her womanhood spasms around my tongue and an instant later I am driven back by torrent of hot urine. My stinging eyes snap shut and I fall back, startled by the force, I'm instantly soaked head to foot.

	Masturbating furiously I open my mouth to catch the wild stream as it plays across my whole body. My sex pulses with every splash of steaming piss. I rub harder and faster with each second, coming closer to nirvana every moment. Clytemnestra jerks her rear and the jet of piss washes all over my face. The taste alone sends me over the edge, my sex convulses and I fall back, panting on the wet ground, steaming gently in the amethyst firelight. The last of her urine sluices from Clytemnestra's equine slit.

	I'm not done with her yet. I kneel up again, even as the aftershocks make me clasp my wet thighs together. Clytemnestra's cunt drips with love and piss, the smell is overpowering, divine, sexual beyond words. I drink down the cocktail flowing from her winking sex, lapping at her sensitive walls, pulling at her soft lips with my own. I feel her secret place pulsing around my tongue as I lick her deep within. She moans as my fingers massage her proud clit. Her body is shaking with pleasure. I spread her lips with both hands, and lick her slick sex all the way up until she shrieks in surprise when my tongue lightly strokes her tight little bum.

	The slightest touch there makes her quiver and I cannot help but do it again, harder this time before moving back down. I lap delicately at her clitty before taking it between my lips. I flick my tongue across the swollen centre of her desire and her body tenses all at once and she cries aloud. I lick her lips hard and press my face deeper into her spasming cunt as she comes, hammering the ground with her fists.

	I stride impudently around to stand in font of her, licking my lips, “You're right... There are advantages in being a wanderer.”

	I leave her with a lingering, wet kiss and wade into the river to wash my skin and hair clean. I'm feeling fantastic. I've demonstrated legitimate magical power, and my ability to bring so magnificent a woman as Clytemnestra to the height of pleasure is every bit as wondrous to me.

	I feel about a hundred feet tall as I strut wet and almost naked back toward the fire. I peel off my knickers and lay them out to air dry while I sit dripping on Lecto's red blanket, letting the fire and the warm night air dry my skin. Clytemnestra cannot take her eyes off me, It's all I can do not to shout and laugh and roar defiance at the gods themselves.