© 1994, 1996 Jordan Shelbourne (With apologies to Boccaccio)
There was a plague of magic upon the city that summer, a scourge of chaos and transformation which struck apparently without purpose or meaning. The scourge could transport, deform, entrance or englamour, but most often it killed. At the summer's height, the unicorn in the Regent's menagerie was found rimed with frost and coloured poison-purple, horn, coat, and all, the only exceptions being its blood-shot eyes and silver hooves. A whore who worked by the canals became the most desirable woman in the city for one night, until at dawn she burst with seed, spattering the husks of men she had drawn dry. The Secretary of the Cloth-Spinner's Guild was taken with the golden touch while swiving his mistress, driving her to soft, heavy gold from the inside out. Her weight, alas, was too much for their loft bedchamber, and she plunged to the floor below, taking part of him with her, and as his manhood tore from his body, he grasped it, transforming it as well before he died; the organs in question later ended in the collection of the Sun-King of Ymer. No charms, hexes, potions, or cantrips could stave off the plague; those who had kept their true name secret seemed as oft affected as those who had not. Artan, the Regent's most powerful mage, had no answers, no suggestions, no help to give.
There was a plague of magic upon the city that summer, and it was a time of fear and panic and flight. Those who could afford to leave the city did, in groups of four, eight, and twelve, those being numbers to ward off evil. Those who owned carriages made great profits arranging transport and villas for those who left, and in the carriage halls, groups of three, seven, and eleven had no long wait to round out their numbers.
As the plague continued, those with transportation rarely returned to the city, and by mid-summer the last carriage for hire left the city. It held eight people, strangers to one another, and it travelled to a villa far in the mountains, all the closer villas being occupied and fortified.
After sleeping away the journey's effects, the eight travellers met in the solarium at the next dusk. One of them, a striking woman of middle years, held up her hand for silence and forbearance, and spoke:
"We find ourselves here in unusual circumstances," she said, "and I propose we make the best of it. Until we know if we are free of this plague, none gives his or her true name."
"A pleasure," replied the man who had arrived last. "Usually, only thieves and liars can re-create themselves so."
"And lovers," added the youngest woman, who sat by the balcony doors.
The man smiled. His face was long and pleasantly saturnine. "But liars is the broader class; all lovers are liars, though not all liars are lovers."
"And all lovers are thieves," she replied, with a curtseying gesture; "but what they take can be stolen again and again."
"A touch," the man replied, laughing. "A veritable touch. But I would have said they take it only once. They say a woman's virgin only once, a man is every time."
"And many's the man whose skill shows it is so." She paused and bowed her head, acknowledging their laughter.
"No," she went on, "men place too much value on the unicorn's blessing. I shall begin our introductions; I have always fancied myself named Allerie. For our week, I shall be of Tuman blood and line." She had the hazel eyes and brown hair of the Tuman, but her nose was too slight, and her eyes too wide-set.
"I seem to be behind you yet again," the man said. "A not unpleasant place. Call me Darte. It was the name of someone I once knew, mayhap I'll answer to it right." He showed his palm to them all, then sat with his back to the door.
And so they chose names. Beside Darte sat the oldest woman of their group, gray-haired and thick-set, with soft smooth hands that were barren of rings or ornament. She thought for a short moment and then said, "You may call me Tagia. She was my favourite child, and it will please me to have her here even in name. And you, sir?"
The quiet bearded man in the corner spoke quietly and only she could hear him. "Sir, would you change your mind? That name is oft unlucky."
His reddish hair and beard gave him a fox-like appearance. "No," he said, this time so all could hear. "These are unlucky times for me. I'll take the name Giulan and all that goes with it." He smiled briefly, but his smile did not reach his eyes nor show his teeth. He settled back within his chair, a goblet loosely held in his hand. The slim woman, not yet named, laughed lightly to dispell the damp that settled with Giulan's words.
The youngest man was stocky and his blond hair hinted at magic. He said boldly, "You may call me Artan, and mark my words -- one day my common name will be as widely known as his."The third woman was slim and boyish, with dark short hair and smoky eyes -- it was only after looking at her for some time that one realized she was no longer young. She laughed again. "You may call me Kiro. I do not think there are any Kiros of reknown, good or ill. I would be known for myself, and myself alone."
Artan sat straight in his chair. "You insult me."
"I do no such thing," Kiro said. "If you wish to feel insulted by my words, that is your choice."
"Peace," said the oldest man. "You are as touchy as dockworkers on payday." He was plump and richly attired with jewels in his curly hair. "Call me Santro."
The woman who had spoken first took her turn; she had the bearing of command. "I shall be Suranza." She nodded her head to each of them.
"To our new names," toasted Darte, "to our new identities -- may they grant us the freedom we desire."
"Here," said Santro. "A fine toast." All drank heartily.
Once glasses were refilled, Suranza spoke again. "I propose one further rule: I suggest that we abstain from congress for this week."
Artan snorted. "You go too far. I agreed not to give my true name, but to deny me congress? Is that sound, thaumaturgically speaking?"
"Most sound if none of us will have you," murmured Allerie.
Darte hushed her.
"I believe it is," said Suranza. "Just as evil magic comes from the desecration of good, so some magic must come from congress, which defiles virgins. Note that the most famous stories of the plague concern those who have some connection to congress."
"What do you know of magic?" asked Artan.
"What she says is true," said Santro, frowning. "I know some little about magic, having worked the construction trades. The unicorn -- a magic beast, to be sure, and a potent jealous phallicism. The Secretary of the Cloth-spinner's Guild. Melan the whore. The conflagration at the Temple of Berina. The bleeding statue of the Reborn Virgin--"
"You needn't go on," said Tagia. "I agree Suranza's suggestion seems prudent."
"Then we may proceed to entertain ourselves," said Suranza.
But the conversation stayed on the plague, and Artan drove them nearly mad with argument and talk of magic and argument of magic. Finally Giulan said, "It seems that magic has our minds tonight. Has anyone a pleasant tale of magic? I do not; my tales of magic are each darker than the rest."
Darte said, "I think I have a tale cut to your measure. If I may have your attention?"
This is a true story, but I shall try not to let that influence me unduly. In Kemer, there was a boy raised in a monastery of the Triune God. It is an obscure sect, full of rules regarding abstention and physical purity for piety, forbidden in many lands -- the previous Sun-King, for instance, sentenced all of its followers to death, for their talk of forbearance, forgiveness, and abstention from the physical pleasures walked hand-in-hand with censure of his habits and hobbies.
The boy -- his name was Darte, and it was he who I knew, and from whom I heard this tale -- was a foundling, and it was assumed he would follow the monks in their dedications. To do so, he must be confirmed by the abbot, who was in Moammy, the center of Triune worship. But Ymer lies between Kemer and Moammy, and the Sun-King's order sentenced a follower of the Triune God to death. Still, Darte was to go. But how? And who was to take him? --The monks were now far too old to make such a dangerous journey. So matters lay until the boy's sixteenth year, when a traveller arrived at the monastery who was bound for Moammy.
The traveller's name was Tilan, and he cut an exotic figure: finely drawn features, a pretty man, with clothes of fine-spun cloth, dusty with foreign lands. To add spice to the porridge, Tilan carried a blade. Was he a noble? Tilan would not say; he would not say anything about his past, and that silence was as heady as the spring beer to Darte. He was in love.
("Oho," said Santro. "A tale of a boy concubine.")
The love, I hasten to add, of a boy for the different, the remote, the dangerous. Beside Tilan, the monks looked rough and simple, and rare is the boy who appreciates simplicity at that age. The other sort of love would not have occurred to Darte: such were the rules of the monastery that Darte was completely ignorant of the sport of equals. Oh, he had seen the rooster cover the hen, but that was all.
The monks took Tilan's arrival as a gift, and engaged him as guide and escort. There was, no doubt, some difficulty haggling over terms and price, since the monks were not entirely unworldly, but in the end, it was settled. Darte was ecstatic with the results and for the last few days of his time there quite ignored the monks who had raised him.
Darte yearned to walk like Tilan, talk like Tilan, ride like Tilan -- he aped the poor man (and cut a comical figure trying to do so). For the first day of the journey, he swarmed Tilan with questions. He would have followed Tilan into the privy to make water like Tilan had the other not forbade it.
To avoid Kemer, Tilan traded one danger for another and took the boy south through the Dragon Pass. Their luck did not hold, for in the Pass they were captured by bandits.
Taken into a cave by the men, they were stripped of goods and tied until an older man came to them, bearing a bent rod of hazelwood in his hands.
"Be still," ordered the leader of the bandits as the elder walked around them. The rod twitched and pointed at the boy Darte and a round of cheers went up; and then the rod twitched and pointed at Tilan and another round of cheers went up. "You're not as worldly as you look, my fine noble?" Tilan's cheeks blazed with embarrassment.
"What's going on?" whispered Darte to Tilan, but not quietly enough. The bandit leader heard him and laughed.
"And here," the leader said, "we have a virgin mind in a virgin body." The bandits roared their approval of his wit. "Well, my lad, first we must summon the dragon." He chuckled. "And feed you to him."
Tilan spoke, and Darte hurt to hear how tight and high his hero's voice had climbed. "And if your man's rod lies?"
The bandit leader tapped Tilan's cheek tenderly, almost lovingly. "You'd best hope not, my noble pea-pod." The rogue swung his arm like a ship's boom in a storm, and Tilan fell to the floor. The mark of the man's hand bloomed red on Tilan's face. Three bandits held Darte back. "For Master Wyrm will be most angry. I'd not want to be around. It should indeed be worse than being eaten."
The two were locked in a cell while the bandits prepared the ceremony needed to summon the dragon.
Once they were gone, Darte began to cry. Tilan laid a hand upon his shoulder and told him to dry his eyes. "They lied," Tilan said. "I have heard of such things. These men have a bargain with the dragon to deliver virgins for gold. Should they fail, we have a level chance to live."
"And how should they fail?" asked Darte. "Have you a plan of escape?"
Tilan spat blood and shook his head. "No. But if we are not virgins..."
"Then would you mount me like a dog asserting command of another mongrel?" It seemed the ultimate indignity, and hardly worthy of his hero.
Tilan once more checked for guards, and finding none, loosed his doublet. "No," said he, "but you could mount me." He dropped his hose and revealed his sex.
As I have said, Darte was not so worldly and his first thought was that Tilan's member was quite small. It came upon him then that Tilan's member was so small because Tilan was not a man. Tilan sat upon the straw pallet of the cell, with legs spread wide.
"Now we must do it," he whispered -- or rather she, though Darte found it difficult to think of Tilan as "she." She lay back upon the pallet, hose around her ankles, and Darte kept looking at her crotch, as if hoping for the sudden appearance of a male member. The cell was drafty, it was cold, and his fear made the most urgent task impossible. Imagine an earthworm left too long on the hook, my gentles, and you have the state of his proud parts.
"What if they come back?"
"It is a long and difficult task to call a dragon, for they are proud and will not be hurried. Quickly, drop your hose."
Darte did, as clumsily as a man asleep.
Tilan sighed and sat up again. "Darte, listen to me. This is not that difficult. Men and women have done this for many many years." She held his manhood gently. Her hands were calloused from many years of sword and horse work. She peeled back his hood to reveal the acorn of the head.
Darte told her, "It's a sin to touch yourself there."
"But you are not touching yourself. I'm touching you."
Darte's lessons in theology had not gone that far. He knew the dogma, but not the rationale. She got some water in the metal cup and bathed his sceptre. Her hands were soon as cold as the water, and if possible, his manhood retracted farther into him.
"What sort of woman do you think of, Darte?"
"I have never thought of one," he confessed.
"I have listened to men speak of women for years," said Tilan. She breathed upon his manhood. "Would you like one who is shy and delicate, with skin as translucent as a porcelain cup? Or one who is bold as sunlight and built as sturdily as a milk cow? Please answer." She opened her mouth and took him in. Darte found the warmth of her mouth quite pleasing, and he thought of village girls he had known. Surely none of them would do this to him, with him.
"I do not know," he finally said.
Tilan paused and said, "Perhaps you'd like a woman who has raven hair, and when you are alone, she would release it so it fell to her waist, and when you mounted her it would spread like wings beneath her." She took his sceptre in hand and kissed the knob. "Or perhaps a blonde who sparks of magic, whose eyes are violet too, and who will enchant you."
Darte groaned, thinking of these women. "I do not know."
Tilan began to stroke him with one hand while touching herself with the other. "Perhaps a demon redhead suits your needs, refused the afterlife for wantonness."
Darte whispered, "I cannot choose."
"Some men prefer the breasts." She slipped one arm free from her chemise so that it hung sash-like and exposed a small pale breast, high on the muscle of her chest. She wet it with the juices on her hand so that the nipple glistened in the lantern light. "Would you prefer that these were large and round? Then I could cradle this proud staff between them." For now young Darte was prepared to sport with her.
"Oh," said Darte, "oh, oh no. No, yours are fine."
She lay back, then, and pulled him on his knees between her legs. "Now place it here, and push."
Darte may not have been worldly, but he was not either dead. He did not push for very long before he cried and spent his seed inside her womb. "Oh, I have died," he murmured to her ear.
She kissed him once and called him good, and then said, "I have not yet spent, my dear, and I would try it. I may have been virgin, but I have ears and imagination."
Soon Darte comprehended that she had not had the same release, and he was eager to assist her. Although he was not ready to swive so soon, he kissed her hungrily and laved her breasts. She guided him between her legs and showed him how her sex was made. "Now kiss," she said, "and mind you lick up every drop, for we will live through this and I do not want to grow big with child, even yours."
And very soon she clutched his head and moaned his name.
And then, well, Darte was a young man, so they sported one more time, still hastily, with one ear for the guards, who came not long thereafter.
Soon Tilan's surmise proved correct -- the dragon was enraged by such deceit (it thought) the bandits had put forth, and so it ate them all. It took Tilan and Darte several hours to work free of their bonds, but then they travelled on, some richer for their time. And since Tilan had been unmanned, if I may say, they spent their evenings in sport.
I do not think it will surprise you that young Darte never joined the brotherhood of monks.
* * *
When he had done, he bowed to their applause, then took a drink. "Now this was thirsty work."
Giulan said, "An excellent tale. But the time is nearly dawn and we have spoken through the night. I would to bed."
"And I agree," said Darte. "Good night, my gentles all, good night."
Allerie stopped Darte at the door. "But what of Tilan?"
"I cannot say. She left Darte with his share of the treasure, and she taught him the rudiments of manners, of swordplay, and of sport. Sleep well."
Upon the landing of the stairs, Kiro brushed against Darte and murmured, "But I would know what kind of woman Darte liked."
Darte bowed and kissed her hand. "The women that I saw with him were slim and boyish, my good lady, not unlike yourself."
"And you, his namesake?"
"Ah, my lady, since we made a vow to forswear congress, I shall not tell. If I like you, it tempts us both into dishonour, and if I like you not, it stains you for no reason."
"Fair enough," she said. "But I shall tell the tale tomorrow night."