The Source of Magic, page 10
There was one queen-sized bed, in the middle of which was a large sack. This was the delivery the boy had announced, and it explained why he was so out of breath. When John untied the knot at the top he found not only the large totem that Olga had been working on now completed, but also every other totem that had been in the shop and rooms above individually wrapped.
Once they were all unpacked there was no room around the bed or on any flat surface. Some of the smaller ones were even stacked carefully on top of one another.
John stood with his hands on his hips looking at all the totems. Olga had taken his offer of assistance seriously. He looked over to Melanie who was facing him, leaning back against the door to the room.
She was tipsy but not drunk from the wine at dinner. She gazed at John with half lidded eyes and large black pupils drinking in the sight of him. She giggled when she saw him cast a glance at her, and blushed but didn’t avert her eyes.
Her cheeks were warm and flushed with a rosy glow that continued down her neck and disappeared in her full cleavage. Her chest was rising and falling with each breath and her nipples were clearly visible through the white fabric just below the low collar her blouse. Her hips were swaying to a song that only she could hear and when she bit down on the corner of her bottom lip John leapt into action.
In two long strides he was standing within a hair’s breadth of her, his arm up planting his hand on the door above them as he leant in, casting his shadow over her.
She didn’t giggle now, or look away. She looked up into to his eyes, returning his urgent gaze with a soft longing stare.
“You want me," she stated. It wasn’t a question.
“I want you," he answered.
She knew she could have stayed like that forever and John wouldn’t have moved, forever standing over her, his ragged breath hot on her skin.
“Take me.”
With words barely out of her mouth when John pressed his lips against hers so hard it almost hurt. His large hand reached up the back of her head and grasped her thick brown curls into a fist, bending her head back and up to meet his mouth. His other hand splayed wide at the small of her back and pressed her body into his. She was completely controlled, bent into shape to fit the curve of his over arching body, and she closed her eyes melted into him.
Releasing her head from his grip, he wrenched her blouse up and off of her small frame. Her tits bounced free, nipples so hard from the excitement they ached. John grabbed one of the large mounds in his hands and he squeezed at the ample flesh which gave way under his powerful fingers. She gasped and stiffened a little at the strength of his grip on her tender globe but began to purr as she quickly grew used to the sensation.
He moved both his hands down the back of her skirt and slipped it off her hips while grabbing arse cheeks and hefting her upwards so that her head was equal with his and he continued to kiss her while her skirt fell to the floor.
Melanie wrapped her legs around his torso and fumbled with the drawstrings on his shirt. She tugged the shirt up and he raised his arms to let her draw it over his head. The whole time she supported herself with her powerful legs wrapped around his body, which stood as firm as an oak.
He felt the pressure of her vulva pressed against him as she tilted her hips up to grind it against the ridges of his abs. It wasn’t just warm but practically hot, and she was already so moist he could feel it.
John walked to the bed and pried Melanie off of himself and lowered her onto the mattress. Quickly sliding his breeches down, his cock thrust upwards and outwards, throbbing with his heartbeat towards her slit like a douser’s wand.
Sliding onto the bed, his knees inside of hers, he slid his finger past her vulva, plump and swollen, then past her labia, angry red and opening to take him in, and finally into her sopping canal. He felt the hard ridge of her pubic bone and held it in the crook of this thumb and finger alternating between rubbing her engorged clit with his thumb as it jutted out from its hood and slowly making a come hither motion with his finger each motion, relaxing her muscles and opening her up further.
Each motion and movement made her breath shorten even more, her fists had grabbed the sheets of the bed and she yanked and pulled on the brink of being overcome and she thrashed her head about.
Unable to wait any longer John extracted his hand and rubbed her sweet juices over the head of his member. He then lined himself up to the open flower of her cunt and slid in. It was like she was gripping him as hard as she could with a hot, wet velvet glove.
He ground his hips, ensuring his pubic bone ground into her clit. He then withdrew almost his entire length and then thrust home deeply again, grinding again. He picked up speed, making sure he enjoyed each long powerful thrust.
Melanie too, was climbing higher and higher with each impact of his body crushing her so delightfully until she came. She grabbed onto his arse with both hands, her nails digging in, and held him in place against her.
After her tiny spasms died down, he picked up speed again, this time hammering home for himself. He was driving her a little further up the bed with each pounding thrust. He could feel himself building, his muscles beginning to tense up until he exploded.
The magic flowed from him the same as before. Long ropes of coloured magic pulsing out of every pore being sucked deep into the cold stone totems bringing them to life.
John rolled onto his back, beside Melanie panting heavily. There was more to sex now, and it left him with the same euphoric afterglow as always, but now with something extra. He felt drained of energy, like he was floating in a void and couldn’t move his arms because they no longer existed. It took him a few minutes to return to normal and he spent the time watching the rainbow of blinking totems as the reflected off the light sheen of sweat on Melanie’s naked skin.
"We need to get to the Academy,” John said, as much to motivate himself to move as to inform Melanie.
Melanie stood up and fetched a china pitcher of water and bowl, along with some clothes. Even in the blissful aftermath of sex, her curves were enough to elicit a visceral reaction from him. She poured some water into the bowl, soaked a cloth and handed it to John, and then proceeded to freshen herself up.
The cool water was enough to revive him, and he was quickly dressed and looking over the glowing totems.
“Are any of these useful? I mean if we get into a fight, is there a totem that casts a magic missile or a wall of fire or something?’ John asked.
“Most of these are quite minor spells. Healing cuts, or creating warmth, or food,” Melanie said, pointing each one out as listed them.
“Healing cuts could be useful, better than a first-aid kit. Let’s borrow two of those just in case we need them and we can return them when we are done.”
John pocketed two pink squares, and helped with wrapping the remaining glowing totems and placing them carefully into their bag. His magic had filled a little over half of them, including the large one Olga had just carved.
“What spell does this one cast?” He asked, rolling it up in cloth.
“It creates a gateway that will transport you somewhere far away. Wherever the totem witch has carved into it. That is the largest one I have seen. It would be able to send a small group of people,” she explained.
Upon finishing her last button she gave a little bounce and said, “There. Good as new.”
John nodded, hefted the bag over his shoulder and held the door for her as they left the room.
Evening had set in, and in this part of the city, lamp lighters were moving from lamppost to lamppost with small flames on the end of long sticks. The reception clerk and the messenger boy were playing a game with cards at the desk though the designs on the cards were alien to John. When the clerk saw them he scurried to clear away the cards but the messenger boy slumped slightly when he saw John carrying the bag. John felt a small pang of sympathy for the boy and placed two silver coins on the table, double his normal fee.
“Return these to the old woman who gave them to you. Don’t look inside or you’ll really wish you hadn’t.”
John wasn’t lying. Finding out you were carrying a giant sack of contraband during wartime – which would put a target on your back with the city guards, wizards and the thieves in the black market – would put a downer on anyone’s night.
Melanie led John to the Academy. There was a recognisable series of explosions from the other side of the city, and in response a huge beam of light shot up in front of John and Melanie to reenforce the Egg with more magical energy.
Given their proximity to the Academy and therefore the convergence prime under it, the beam of energy lit up the street they were walking down as brightly as sun light and left the taste of tin in their mouths and the smell of ozone in the air.
“We’re in luck,” said Melanie. “Whenever there is an attack, the Academy will let people watch the totem over the convergence prime for a fee.”
John was still getting used to the city’s cavalier attitude to siege warfare that had people saying ‘what luck’ and ‘let’s take the family to watch’ when an attack came rather than ‘dear god, not again’.
The Academy had its own large bluestone walls around it, an extra layer of protection, but from the citizens of the city. Lamps lit the way along the street leading to the main gate of the Academy and bounced off the expensive wears and glass windows of shops. They spilled warm pools of light over couples walking arm in arm and families with small children who would occasionally break away to unsuccessfully leap on a cricket or moth attracted by the light. The whole scene was too civil and saccharine for John. It was like a pantomime in a nightmare, and it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
Melanie was the only Nekovolk among the couples and her exuberant energy had them at the front of the line ready to be in the next group taken on the tour of the city’s magical defences.
The price of admission was a gold piece each, which explained why only the other members of their group were all highborn. In fact he and Melanie were the odd ones out with such plain clothes.
The others were dressed as if they were going to a ball or to their private box seats at the theatre. The men all had faux-military regalia dripping from their doublets which made John’s knocks itch a bit. Having been in the military, he had no time for people who played at dress-up for fashion. He wondered if the men who had actually fought on the battlefield during this war would share his feelings of the matter.
The women wore the most impractical dresses John had seen in his entire life. He pointed a few out to Melanie who would giggle loudly behind her hand. The material was deep in colour dripping with trinkets and jewels with embroidery at the sleeves and hem. However, there must have been some feat of engineering underneath the elegant outer shell, because all the women’s skirts were almost as wide as the wearer was tall. Many of them had to move side on to pass through the single-person gateway that admitted them to the Academy, the larger double-doored gateway being closed for the night. The women’s fashion was intended to show that they were so wealthy that they didn’t have to work and could wear the most impractical things imaginable. They were so successful in their endeavour that not only could they not do work, they could barely do anything else, either.
The Academy was not unlike the rest of the third district, with ornate bluestone buildings and elegant laneways. There were square grass lawns, which often had a stature of some long-dead great mage in the centre, and the odd tree and planter box of flowers.
The tour group followed a porter whose uniform consisted of a gold and white tabard and belt over his normal breeches and shirt. For a moment John felt like he was at a fancy dress party at some old money university like Oxford or Cambridge.
The largest building was at the centre of the Academy and the porter, who had been pointing out buildings and statues of interest along their walk, turned to his captive audience and paused for dramatic effect.
“While the king’s throne is the centre of earthly power of the kingdom, the Convergence Prime under the Great Dome is the centre of magical power. It is fortunate that we have access to the Convergence Prime as there are so few of them in the world. Many other magical institutions have to make do with lesser convergences, if they have access to one at all,” said the porter.
He looked a little deflated when group failed to look sufficiently impressed. He quickly turned and continued onwards to mask his disappointment.
They entered the building and were soon standing behind a red rope barrier in a massive circular room.
There was no floor or cobblestone in the space, leaving the bare rock of the ground exposed. John recognised a convergence – it was similar to the one he had been summoned on, though it was larger, the heat it gave off was considerably greater, and there was a gusting wind that sprang up out of nowhere.
The rock was alive with writhing veins of gold that moved through the rock without it cracking or breaking, and, at the focal point in the centre of the convergence, was the largest totem John had seen to date.
It was not made of stone, but of crystal, which pulsed with a blue light. It was very similar in its carvings to the small pyramid totem that John and Melanie had sold, only it was twenty feet tall. Its wide base drew up the gold, which transitioned to blue and then dispersed into the larger pulsing blue light in the heart of the totem.
Each person in the group was wearing a pair of protective goggles the round lenses made of smoked glass. Even with these on, John still shielded his eyes when the totem fired off another bright beam of energy to reinforce the Egg.
On a small raised platform in front of the group stood a stern looking woman. Her midnight black hair was pulled tight and slick as oil across her scalp, the excess held in a bun at the back of her head. Her lips were painted a voluptuous shade of crimson which was set off by her black dress. Her dress was simple to the point of austere and every fold of fabric and seam was perfectly aligned and straight as if her clothes were afraid of her wrath. She wore black leather gloves and stiletto black leather boots, which disappeared up her dress to finish just below her knees.
“She’s the Chancellor of the Academy,” whispered Melanie. "Lady Constance La Croix.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, we at the Academy are grateful for your contributions and present to you the inner workings of the magical defence of the city," announced Lady La Croix.
John found her tone imperious and while her words were welcoming, everything about her demeanour was not. If, with all the power she had access to, Lady La Croix had become so self superior, John was glad that she still had to rely on the totems and convergence to access it. He could easily see her taking on the mantle of an evil, spoiled child with an ant farm and magnifying glass if she were to have direct access to power the way the great mages had.
“We are forever protected by the magical field commonly called the Egg and it is to the dedicated wizards of the Academy that the people of the capital owe their gratitude," Lady La Croix continued.
There was a round of applause from everyone in the group except John. He seemed to be the only one who wasn’t awestruck by the performance. He found it bombastic and self serving. While everyone was focused on the speech, John was looking around the room waiting for a chance to ask some questions when he spotted smaller totems placed on the convergence. They were still large as a person but dwarfed in size next to the massive shield totem. The smaller totems were oblong with a twist half way up and glowed pink. They too were drawing lines of gold to themselves from the convergence and sent pink pulses of light up into the shield totem every few seconds. There were a dozen of these smaller specimens spaced around the convergence.
“While the totem is always feeding power to the magical field to keep it active, its continual release of its spell is only visible when additional power is needed for prot-”
“What are those smaller totems for?” John interrupted.
“What?” La Croix asked.
The death stare she gave John did little to stifle his intentions. His great aunt was a master of that look, and he had learnt that the best way to confound and infuriate the person generating it was to ignore it completely and continue on as if everything were pleasant.
“I was asking what the smaller pink totems did?”
“They are of no concern of yours. They are integral to the proper working of the magical field," La Croix snapped, obviously irritated that John was not so pliable as the rest of the group.
Melanie took a half step forward and nervously, just the tip of her tail twitching, looking sideways at John, who gave her a reassuring nod to continue. With her resolve bolstered, she proceeded.
“Those totems aren’t needed for a shield. They’re carved for some sort of mind spell, you can tell by the twist in the middle,” she said.
There was a stern look from La Croix to the porter, who hastily stepped forward.
“Well, thank you Chancellor, for your time this evening. We are all appreciative. Everyone, please follow me, we must move on to make room for the next group of guests," the porter said, while making wide arm motions to herd the people out.
With a quick and deliberate hand motion, La Croix summoned an acolyte from the hall. Dressed in the uniform of the Grey School, he stepped into the room after the last of the group left. La Croix gave a series of curt instructions which sent the acolyte scurrying off.
As the page led the group back to the entrance, John and Melanie dawdled, letting an increasing gap develop.
“Do you know what kind of mind spell those totems were casting?” John asked.
“Not from so far away, and especially with crystal, I couldn’t make out the all the channels and grooves they had made. They did have them set up to affect the spell that the shield totem was casting. It would mean that the shield wasn’t just giving physical protection but it also had some mental aspects as well,” Melanie explained.
