Virgin City (The Lesbia Chronicles) Read online

  Virgin City

  The Chronicles of Lesbia: Book Two

  By Loki 'Ther' Renard

  Published by Sapphos Brats.

  Copyright Loki Renard 2013-2014

  Cover art by Atelier Sommerland

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Clitera City is the crown jewel of Lesbia, a great bustling capital where fortunes are made and dreams come true. But it is also home to a seedy underbelly, and there can be no seedier than Reed, a lady layabout and ne'er do well into whose hands fate has delivered the city and all who dwell in her.

  When Reed falls ill, and almost off a cliff, she is judged to have gone too far with her wicked ways. Illustrious seductress and witch, Ayla, is sent to redeem the second summoner and to set her on the straight and narrow.

  However, this being Lesbia, the straight are hard to come by and the narrow tend to take all manner of twists and turns. Subduing Reed to the useful and the good will be no easy task.

  Ayla the witch, Atrocious the badly behaved, Rogette the great and a whole new cast of equally compelling characters continue the Chronicles of Lesbia!

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter One

  Reed was stuck.

  She seesawed halfway through a window, her feet and legs sticking out into the street, her head and arms caught in the relatively palatial interior of a merchant's store house. There was a jar of Iskendari incense worth hundreds mere inches from her hand, but she could not reach it for she was pinned by a heavy window sash which had come down with all the force of a guillotine when she crept through it. That had been unfortunate. More fortunate was the fact that the small hand mace tied at her waist had taken the brunt of the blow and spared her being chopped in half.

  The window was too heavy to lift, and squirming only made things hurt more. It was perhaps the most ignominious way Reed had been caught. She had been caught many times before, of course. She'd been caught more than any other thief in Clitera City. She was proud of that fact, for it was a fact – and not many people had facts to fall back on in hard times.

  The sound of the merchant's key in the door spelled the near end of Reed's imprisonment. Hopelessness and helplessness held her hands whilst the knob turned. The door creaked open. A round, rash-red face appeared. Narrow eyes squinted at Reed.

  Reed tried her best and most friendliest smile, but it was obscured by long dark curling locks of hair falling into her face. She made a mental note to pin her hair back the next time she broke and enter. There was no point having the face of an innocent angel, all wide caramel eyes and dark lashes and sweet button nose, if nobody could see it when it mattered most.

  “Guards! Guards!” The merchant began shrieking like a demented parrot.

  In the lower levels of Clitera one could have shouted for the guards all day and not seen anyone besides cut-throats and scavengers hoping to cash in on misfortune. But Reed had not targeted a lower merchant. She had gone to the High Lanes. She had set her sights on a purveyor of furs and scents. And the guards were there almost immediately. Two of them clomped into the store, thick leather boots scuffing street debris onto polished floors.

  “Thief!” The merchant declared, explaining the situation that needed no explanation, for even the dullest guard understood what was happening simply by looking at Reed.

  Mail covered hands pushed at the window. Another pair locked around Reed's arms and yanked her out. She was dragged roughly from of the shop and summarily marched down the lane between triple story buildings rising high in all their sand brick glory. There were plenty of fine folk about at that time of day. Each of them took a moment to look down their nose at Reed as she was dragged by.

  Reed felt good about that, for she knew she was providing a valuable public service. Without her, the fine ladies passing by in their silken robes and shiny boots would not have known what a better caliber of person they were. Without her, there would have been no need for guards at all. And then the two brawny ladies who had her firmly in their combined grasp would have had to pick peaches, or till the soil, or do something besides drag unfortunate thieves about the place.

  She was the most important person in Clitera, Reed was, and she acted like it. At each snide look, she beamed broadly and tipped her cloth cap, bestowing the gift of her sparkling gaze and wicked smile on passers by. A few returned her expression, smiles reluctantly drawn from haughty lips.

  “Wipe that look off yer face,” the guard on the left said, giving Reed a shake. “You're going down deep this time.”

  “I always go down,” Reed replied melodically. “And I stay there 'till the shivering stops.”

  “That ain't what I meant. You'll be going into the pit. Jailer Hide's had us on the lookout for you for weeks now.”

  “So there will be a reward. What good news for you!” Reed cried out joyfully, genuinely quite pleased for the guard. “This is a good day!”

  “Not for you it ain't.”

  “Every day is a good day,” Reed beamed seraphically. Her dark curls bounced about her head as the guards dragged her up and over a raised curb. “This is the day the goddess has made.”

  “Quit talking to her, Gertie.” The thus far silent guard to Reed's right spoke. “That's how she charms you. Don't talk to her, don't even look at her.”

  “Oh I won't charm you,” Reed promised. “I wouldn't want you to miss out on your reward. How many gold pieces is it this time? Fifty?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Fifteen? That's all? Well, I shall make it much more worth your while next time, ladies.”

  “There won't be a next time. You're going to be shackled t'il the end of your days, you mark my words.”

  Reed laughed, a delighted sound.

  “There's always a next time.”

  *****

  "Jailer Hide!" Reed beamed as she was dragged through the maw of the portcullis of Deep Tower prison. It was a curved protuberance at the very head of Lake Lac, a building that went much further down than it went up.

  Jailer Hide was waiting at the top of the ascending stairs. There were a lot of descending stairs in the prison. Most of the stairs went down, down, down into the depths. Hardly anybody went up the down stairs. Once you were down, you stayed down.

  "Beautiful as ever," Reed said, dipping into a bow between her captors. "A vision of loveliness to be sure. It's a crying shame they keep you here with the dregs of society, Jailer Hide. A crying, crying shame."

  Jailer Hide's lips curled into a smile. Reed devoured the woman with her ocular orbs. There was a great deal to like about Jailer Hide. There was her pale bronze skin, smooth like butter. Set in a slim face were eyes so dark they were almost black, perpetually narrow in the style of her people. She was as tall as a cart, as toned as a statue. Her muscles were hard, but not large. Her toes were perfectly shaped for maximum toeishness. Her feet were well proportioned and the pads of her fingers were not too bulky. Her wrists were slim, but functionally strong. Her elbows were neat. Her shoulders perfectly described the width of her body. Her legs were firmly attached to her hips, which were firmly attached to her torso. She was a woman, with all th
e attributes that a woman could reasonably be expected to have. Reed was completely and utterly in love.

  "Welcome back, Reed," Jailer Hide said. "I have a special cell picked out for you this time."

  "Is it filled with snakes dripping venom into a bowl I must hold?"

  "It is not."

  "Oh." Reed tried not to be too disappointed. "Well, maybe next time."

  "This time there will not be a next time," Jailer Hide said firmly.

  "There's always..."

  "Not always," Hide interrupted. Reed let her interrupt. It was a joy to be interrupted by Jailer Hide. A pleasure to be judged by her. An honor to be allowed to stand in her presence.

  "Take her down, ladies."

  Reed allowed herself to be drawn into Deep Tower. Down, down, down they went, stamping on the stairs. At first there was an ominous moaning and groaning from those already incarcerated, but the sounds faded the deeper they went. There were some parts of the prison where no sound could be heard and no light escaped. It was a void which swallowed those foolish enough to enter its depths. Most prisoners had to be dragged down kicking and screaming. Not Reed though, Reed would happily have danced a jig down those stairs if Jailer Hide had asked her to.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of descent, they stopped at a door deep in the depthiest depths of the prison. Jailer Hide pushed it open, revealing a cell three feet wide by three feet long.

  "Lovely," Reed beamed. "Thank you. My own little place to call home."

  "We'll see how you feel about your home in a month or two."

  The shackles were removed and Reed was pushed into the little box. The door slammed shut. There was darkness. Utter darkness. Then the sound of feet stamping, up, up, up and away.

  Reed smiled in the darkness. It was absolute. It was the nothing of nothing and she was floating at the very center of it. For a time she did that, enjoying the silence. Then she began to grow tired and one by one, little lights began to wink into existence. Little dancing pinpricks swirling around and around and around and around until she was at the center of a galaxy. Slowly, the swirling slowed and condensed. A large molten ball of roiling gasses had formed. It began to cool and form solids and liquids. There was land and there was sea. More time passed. Things began to grow. Things that wriggled and things that did not. Molds, grasses, trees... small crawling creatures then great lizards. A mammalian explosion and a special ape, which began to build. It took some time, but by late evening, Reed found herself standing on the wall of a freshly formed Clitera City.

  Chapter Two

  Far from Clitera City, a pleasant and rather spacious white cottage sat in the middle of a green field. A few brown cows grazed here and there, chewing their cuds with a peaceable demeanor. In the distance, snow capped mountains rose into purple pale heavens. The bucolic scene was as beautiful as it was idyllic.

  The disruption began subtly. First, a cloud passed over the sun, casting a shadow. Then, over the course of a few minutes, clouds began to gather, dark clouds crackling with lightening. A wicked wind began to blow.

  As the shutters at the windows began to bang, the door to the cottage opened and a tall, buxom woman appeared. She was none other than Ayla the witch, her blonde skeins of hair tossed by the winds, wide green eyes slanted against the same elemental onslaught. Her robes flattened themselves against the curve of her ample breast and hip, the remnants flailing behind her as she lifted her hand to her eyes and peered into the sudden darkness.

  A dark spot appeared in the center of the clouds. It quickly grew larger as it plummeted to the earth. There was a solid FWOMP sound as a small woman with a face full of living tendrils of tattoo swirling about under her skin landed on the meadow and began stalking toward Ayla.

  The cloud dissipated and the sun came out, but the chill in the air remained as Ariadne, mother of witches, stopped two feet from Ayla and fixed her with a piercing malachite copper gaze.

  "The summoner has gone rogue. It's your fault." Words of chastisement rasped out of the immortal throat.

  In the silence that followed the statement, Ayla folded her arms over her chest and regarded Ariadne patiently. "In what way is it my fault?"

  "Your beloved Atrocious should have sacrificed herself as the prophecy intended. Now we have two summoners, and no Blood Witch. Two summoners. It's almost unheard of!"

  "Lower your voice please," Ayla said calmly. "Atrocious is resting."

  The lines snapped into a thick band across Ariadne's eyes. "Lower my voice! How dare..."

  "Who is that?" A frail voice came from inside the house.

  Ayla's eyes closed with silent frustration. She turned to the door and waved to the occupant of the house. "It's nobody. Rest."

  "I don't want to rest!"

  "It's nobody?" Ariadne hissed the word. She lifted her hand, ready to unleash elemental fury, but she was interrupted by the arrival of Atrocious. The summoner came hobbling out of the cottage, her weight resting largely on a gnarled walking stick. Her shoulders were hunched, her braids were gray, her eyes had become rheumy and red rimmed. Skin that had once glowed with ruddy red health was now pale, folded and cracked. The mantle of age had fallen heavily on Atrocious' shoulders. Her appearance was enough to have Ariadne's hand sinking slowly back toward her side. The high witch looked almost shocked.

  "There is no cruelty like that of advanced human age," she murmured, almost to herself. "If I tried for a thousand years I could not concoct such a plague."

  "What!?" Atrocious cupped a hand to her ear. "Speak up, dearie!" She turned to Ayla. "Is the lady here to sell mead? I don't want the spiced kind this time. The spiced kind gave me gas."

  Without answering the question, Ayla reached out and put a calming hand on Atrocious' thin shoulder.

  "The world has been remade three times this month," Ariadne said, returning to the topic at hand. "You should be handling the new summoner, not playing nursemaid to the old one."

  Atrocious scowled under white brows, her hearing and memory having selectively returned.

  "Maybe you should stop running to a forest witch every time something doesn't go your way. You're supposed to be a goddess. Why don't you fix this summoner problem yourself?"

  Ariadne's ire returned, this time squarely focused on old Atrocious. "The forest witch might be keeping your ailing flesh going with her potions, but do not think I will show you any mercy."

  Atrocious drew her cane dead in front of her body, leaned forward, and fixed the high witch with a beady glare.

  "Go fuck yourself."

  Chapter Three

  Reed sat cross-legged on the thick wall overlooking Clitera City and rolled herself a lief. It was a process, one that took a little time, and involved a little ritual. First she set her little smoking pouch in front of her and drew out the rolling paper. It was three inches long and two inches wide, big enough to get a decent amount of plant matter into it. Reed's choice of plant was referred to on the street as 'Blue Lady'. She'd known the proper name for it once, but it didn't come to mind as she picked purple tinged leaves out of the pouch and put them into her little hand grinder. For long minutes she turned the handle, round and round, round and round. When there was no more resistance against the sharp spinning blades, she tipped the resulting powder into the paper.

  The sun was beginning to set behind Reed as she carefully rolled the paper up, put the cylinder to her lips, struck a match and inhaled. Thick blue smoke curled out her nostrils in slow coils as she held the load inside her lungs, letting it saturate her being.

  Golden rays burst across the sky, the last hurrah of the great roiling fire as it sank down, down, down below the horizon. Reed was caught in the blasting light, a dark silhouette at the top of the city.

  The smoke fled her body as she pursed her lips and drew fresh air in to replace the stale. Then she laid out on the top of the wall, watching as the twinkling stars came out one by one. There were many more dancing lights only seen by her eyes, pinks and greens and purp
les moving about in the sky.