Tales of
Erogenia
Based
on the online comic created by J.E. Draft.
Episode 2: Journey to
Jinqua
Chapter
10: Primal
Urges
Following the interview
with Darden a day passed, measured by the bringing of another chunk of raw
meat and more water and the cleaning of the cell by two cringing
servants. The iron grill was
raised just enough to let the two men in, and although in obvious terror
they swept out the straw and other waste in the cell and put fresh straw
in its place. That was something
of a relief to Zenaria. Neither
cats nor humans are keen on living in their own waste and it was much more
pleasant to bed down in fresh straw.
Shortly after the cell was
cleaned Darden once again appeared and this time he had someone else with
him, someone who immediately caught her
attention. I am Alzid,
High Sorcerer to the Almighty Ruler of the Jinguan
Empire.
If Zenaria could have smiled
she would have. Alzid stood no
more than a yard tall and was grotesquely
ugly. High Sorcerer
seemed like a bit of an overstatement, but she supposed that his magical
abilities gave him some claim to the
name.
Raise the gate,
Alzid ordered. I dislike
speaking through metal. In
spite of his small stature Alzids voice had an air of command that
demanded attention and he seemed not the least bit afraid of the two beasts
behind the bars. Zenaria noted,
however, that the dwarf was careful not to come within the limits of the
chain that shackled her to the back wall of the
cell.
My apprentice has
spoken well of you, Alzid said.
For some reason he seems to think that you might not be wholly
responsible for the carnage you committed among the soldiers of the
Emperor. I have come to find
out for myself exactly what your story
is. Tell me, can you
write?
As a woman who would someday
be queen of her tribe Zenaria had been taught the runic script of her
people. She was not the most
apt pupil, preferring swordplay to book learning, and as a result the ability
to read and write was not her strongest skill, but she could read well enough
to understand most of what had been forced on
her. She nodded in answer to
Alzids question.
Good, the sorcerer
said. I wish to know in
detail your every connection with the magician Junal and what he told you
about us.
Zenaria could think of nothing
Junal had said that should be kept secret, and she was not inclined to protect
someone who had betrayed her so badly in any
case. She took the book and what
appeared to be some sort of stylus from the servant who brought it to
her. Again she noted that Alzid
was not so trusting as to come within her
reach.
Start at the
beginning, the dwarf ordered, and leave nothing
out.
Zenaria held the stylus
awkwardly in her clawed hands. As
far as she could see, there appeared to be no ink to dip the stylus in so
she pressed its tip against the blank white pages of the book and began to
write. To her amazement letters
appeared where the tip touched, but the letters were not in the runic script
with which she was familiar but in some completely unknown
language. She was so surprised
that she stopped writing until prompted by Alzid.
The book translates
what you write into our language, he
explained. You will not
be able to read it, but I can.
Please continue.
Writing awkwardly with her
clawed hands, Zenaria wrote down her
story. The magic stylus
helped. It almost seemed to move
by itself, transferring her thoughts to the magic
book. In a very short time she
was done.
Excellent, Alzid
said, motioning for the servant to take the book and stylus from
Zenaria. I hope you have
written accurately. Your life
depends upon it. The penalty
for an attack on the royal guard is death by being slowly roasted
alive. He smiled at that
cheery thought and walked away as the grill slammed back in
place.
Zenaria watched him go and
then began to slowly pace back and forth in the
cell. Something was bothering
her, but she was not sure what. It
had been mounting during the interview with Alzid and now the feeling was
driving her to distraction. The
more she paced, the more the strange sensation
increased. The feeling was a
familiar one, but she could not quite identify
it. In his corner of the cell,
Sir Varden opened his eyes and got to his feet with a low
growl.
Zenaria lashed her
tail. Something was definitely
wrong. Her fur felt electric
and strange waves of heat and cold flashed through
her. And then a powerful sensation
began to build in her loins.
No!
Zenaria thought.
People
dont get these
feelings.
But she was no longer truly
human. Try as she might she could
not suppress the urge to open her mouth in a purely feline
yowl. As the primal sound ripped
out of her throat the great black-maned lion roared in reply, the thunderous
sound seeming to shake the stone walls of the
cell.
Zenaria screamed again,
arching her back and rubbing her face and breasts against the bars of the
cell. She dropped to all fours,
gripping the bars with her clawed fingers and raised her tail in an unmistakable
invitation and one that she was powerless to
control.
No,
no, no! she thought.
Not
like this! And
then Sir Varden was on her, his five hundreds pounds of raw muscle pinning
her to the floor. Powerful forepaws
gripped Zenarias shoulders and mighty fangs gripped the ruff at the
back of her neck holding her while the lion mounted
her.
Rooowwrrr! Zenaria screamed arching her
entire body in feline grace as she was
penetrated. Cat-like, she continued
to scream, attempting to turn her head to bite at the beast that was mating
with her. Lost in the primal
urge of mating neither animal was aware of its surroundings, not even when
the guards, aroused by the incredible noise of two copulating cats, summoned
Dendar and Alzid.
Well, this is something
I hadnt expected, Alzid commented
drily. I had not expected
a lesson in the mating rituals of large cats.
Neither Zenaria nor Sir
Varden heard him, however. Locked
in their animal lust, the straw covering the cell floor could have been set
on fire and they would not have noticed.
Again and again the lion thrust into the leopard, the latter screaming
in feline carnality.
In true cat nature the feline
copulation continued. Midmorning
passed into afternoon and the two cats were still at it, their enthusiasm
seemingly undiminished. Zenaria
had never felt such incredible sexual
awareness. Unable to control
her body she growled savagely while the mighty lion took her again and again,
locked into her in wild passion.
Finally, more through total exhaustion than anything else, the lion
climbed off her, drank copiously from the pannikins of water and then lay
down for a nap.
An equally exhausted Zenaria
also collapsed. She couldnt
recall ever being so completely done in or so
sore. She now had some inkling
of why Jaree was always so bad-tempered when she was in
heat. She very much doubted that
she would even be able to move for a day or
so. But something more serious
troubled her. There was no doubt
that like Jaree she had gone into heat.
And there was only one reason why a leopard did
that. The lion that was Sir Varden
had mounted her vigorously enough to insure that she was well and truly pregnant,
perhaps several times given the penchant for leopards to have more than one
offspring. With that pleasant
thought in her head she closed her eyes.
Within minutes her relaxed breathing showed that she had joined the
lion in sleep.
She awoke with a throbbing
in her loins that left no doubt about what she had
endured. She doubted that she
would even be able to stand up.
Fortunately being caged in the cell meant she didnt have to
move very far at all, but even crawling across to the corner of the cell
she and the lion used as their privy was painfully
difficult. She managed it, however,
and crawled back to her place by the
bars. There was one bit of good
news. She no longer felt the
mating urge. Apparently the one
episode had been all that was needed.
Knowing that when Jaree went into heat she often remained that way
for days, it was a welcome relief to think that she might not have to suffer
through it again.
She looked over toward the
lion. He opened his eyes and
looked back at her with a lazy blue-eyed
stare. A deep rumbling sound
indicated that he was purring.
Zenaria grunted in pain as she tried to shift into a more comfortable
position.
Thats easy enough
for you to say, she
thought. Curling up into a sleeping
position she gave her flank a couple of licks and then dropped off to sleep
once more.
Im glad to see
that the spell I cast worked.
Zenaria opened her
eyes. It seemed that she had
barely gotten to sleep. That
was something else she noticed about her leopard
self. She was sleeping almost
twice as long as normal. Or at
least she supposed she was. It
was hard to keep track of time in the
cell. Alzid was standing
outside. With him were several
very muscular looking men holding chains.
What
spell?
Zenaria
wondered.
As if reading her mind Alzid
continued. You and your
lion friend seemed to be having quite the good time
yesterday. However, I cant
use you if you are continually copulating and I suspect our friend Pulan
is not sitting idly. Therefore,
I cast a spell to terminate your mating
urge. It wasnt so very
hard once I figured out how to do it just a reversal of a love spell
really. But I
digress. I have come to take
you and the lion to more comfortable
quarters. I can take you by force
if need be or use another spell, but you have been subjected to enough
magic. I would prefer that you
come quietly and perhaps convince your friend to do the
same.
Zenaria looked at Sir
Varden. The lion had been listening
to all of this and a motion of his head indicated that he understood and
agreed. She nodded to
Alzid.
Very good, he
said, then we probably wont need all of these
chains. However, I hope you will
not object if we use a few of them just in
case. After all, in your human
form you did kill and maim over fifty of the palace
guard.
Zenaria nodded her
agreement. After all, what did
she have to lose? Anything would
be better than the grim cell she was in
now.
The heavy grill rose, and
one of the men entered the room and unlocked the heavy chains that linked
her and Sir Varden to the back wall of the
cell. Freed, they stepped into
the corridor. Zenaria moved stiffly,
every step reminding her of the lions more than vigorous
lovemaking.
Once in the corridor the
men with the sorcerer fitted more chains to the collars around their
necks. Even with her promise
Alzid was taking no chances. A
second chain was fitted to her collar and three more to Sir
Vardens. Then with more
than a score of men holding on to them they were escorted out of the
dungeon.
Alzid need not have feared
that they would try to escape, at least not so far as Zenaria was
concerned. Every step reminded
her that making love with a lion was a very bad idea; even for a
leopard. As for Sir Varden there
were six men on each of the four chains that held him and more than a dozen
other men armed with heavy crossbows just in
case. And, of course, there was
Alzid. Zenaria had no doubt the
magician was more than capable of dealing with both of them if he was forced
to.
They moved from the dungeons
to the higher levels of the palace, until they finally reached a large courtyard
and then they crossed the courtyard to the base of a tall tower in which
was set a heavy iron-bound door.
The door was swung wide, revealing a flight of
stairs. Proceed to the
top, Alzid said.
Forgive me for not going with you, but I find stairs a bit
strenuous. Ill meet you
at the top.
As he spoke he began to
rise slowly into the air. The
men around her removed the chains from her collar and that of Sir Varden
allowing them to move to the staircase.
Zenaria started up, the lion
following. It was a long climb
for the still recovering Zenaria but she reached it after three hundred or
so steps and entered the top room of the
tower.
She found herself in a room
about twenty feet across. There
were several windows in the room admitting light and air, but she noted that
they were all barred. However,
the room was certainly better than the dungeon
cell. There were two beds, one
that appeared to have been reinforced to accommodate the lion, and a low
table on which was set a large bowl filled with water.
The was nothing else but a small
stool on which the dwarf magician was
sitting. How he had gotten through
the barred windows Zenaria had no idea and even if she was capable of asking
she doubted he would tell her. It
confirmed her belief that she and Sir Varden were totally in the power of
their captors.
Sit, Alzid commanded
waving them toward the beds.
Zenaria was happy to comply, climbing on to hers with a sigh of
relief. Sir Varden leaped onto
his bed and made himself comfortable, his eyes on the
magician.
Alzid began to
speak. It is time you learned
Junals true nature, just in case you have not already guessed
it. The story he told you was
true except for one important detail.
The evil magician in the story was not me or the emperor but
him. It was Junal who used blood
magic to destroy his brothers and make himself ruler and it was Junal who
created the Orb of Power to maintain his hold over his
people.
He was a bloody and brutal
tyrant, using his power to take what he wanted and using his people as if
they were so much coinage to be spent any way he
chose. Thousands of his subjects
were sacrificed to enhance his spells and render him
impregnable. He made just one
mistake.
Alzid paused dramatically
and drank from a golden goblet that had appeared out of mid
air. Zenaria growled impatiently
and the dwarf smiled. As
I said, he continued.
He made just one mistake.
Me.
Zenarias leopard eyes
widened slightly.
Yes, Alzid said.
It never occurred to the mightiest magician who ever lived that
a lowly dwarf could bring him down and that was his
undoing. He thought me nothing
more than a source of amusement, never suspecting that I had a magical talent
to rival his own. As a result
I was able to seize control of the orb and restore the last remaining member
of the royal family to the throne.
Ironically Junal had kept Pulan as a prisoner in order that he might
torment him with the fact that he had completely destroyed his family and
all that he loved.
Alzid paused
again. And now, he
continued, you have returned to him the artefact that he needs to return
him to power. I suspect that
even now he is preparing his attack.
Alzid stood up on the stool,
his short legs raising him about five feet above the
floor. I will leave you
to think on what I have said.
Tomorrow I will return. I
have a proposal for you and that I think you will be well advised to
accept.
As Alzid finished speaking
he suddenly disappeared, leaving Zenaria and Sir Varden looking at the space
where he had been. She looked
at the lion who lowered his head onto his
paws. It was difficult to determine
what was going through that huge fearsome head, but Zenaria knew what was
going through hers.
If Alzid was telling the
truth, and she was beginning to suspect he was, then she and Sir Varden had
been tricked into committing a monstrous
crime. Their actions had delivered
into the hands of a villain the very thing he needed to reimpose a cruel
and tyrannical regime.
Perhaps
I deserve this shape, Zenaria thought,
for being so easily
deceived. But the
thought of being frozen forever in a half human-half leopard shape was one
she found extremely depressing.
With a sigh she curled up on the bed and waited for
tomorrow.
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