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Chapter 4 –
Avedra rolled over and peeked from under the corner of the deer skin. The sound invaded her mind, prodding and pushing into the half-awake dimension. The sound – the sound of…water…running…no…not running but splashing. She cracked one eye.
Edern sat on the edge of his bed, relieving himself, oblivious to the epiphany, the revealing of the Goddess in the previous night. She eyed the cock tucked over the edge of the bucket. She groaned and rolled over. He was making saltpeter again, a critical ingredient for the amadoo , the impregnated fungus for fire tinder.
This could only mean one thing to her; the job would be hers to sprinkle his urine upon the bed of decaying vegetable matter at the edge of the garden and to relieve herself there as well to create the saltpeter to impregnate the fungus that she was supposed to have gathered.
She hated to handle the bucket of his urine. She hated the whole messy process. But without the amadoo she knew there would be no tinder to catch the spark in the cold morning.
"Get out of bed, you lazy girl, before I have to kick you out."
Avedra held her hand over her eyes. Had there ever been a time when Edern had treated her differently? She put her feet to the cold dirt floor and reached for one of the two simple dresses she had been allowed.
"No, you don't. You haven't gathered the fungus for the tinder yet, and we can't leave without tinder. Get your ass out of that bed; to the saltpeter bed with you and hurry. And then go gather the fungus. I shouldn't have to tell you more than once, if that."
What a foul mood, she thought. "But Master Alchemist, it is not seemly that I should wander your garden undressed!"
He kicked her in the thigh, sending her sprawling yet again. "You will find yourself wandering my garden at the tip of my whip if I hear any more of your unseemly mouth!"
Avedra scurried out the door with the bucket as the alchemist just missed another kick aimed at her rump. She had begun to wonder if she would ever enjoy a few days without bruises somewhere on her anatomy ever again.
"And don't come back without the fungus, you lazy bitch!"
Avedra shot a sour glance back at the alchemist when she was sure he wasn't looking. What could he be talking about, leaving? , she wondered. At the edge of the garden she emptied the bucket, the strong stench fouling the morning scent of wildflowers. Then upon the bed of decaying matter she squatted and pissed. Not that she pissed all in one spot, no. Edern had beat her and only after told her that the piss of a girl who was the channel of a Goddess must touch the entire bed.
So she squatted and relieved herself a little, stood and dribbled a bit between her thighs before she moved and was able to squat again. When she was finally done, she raked the wet matter with a wooden fork. Avedra left the bucket at the edge of the garden where it dried and aired out before the night time crept back.
"Took you long enough," said Edern, glaring at her as she stepped through the door.
"May I dress now?"
Edern grunted, which Avedra took to mean yes, but hurry up. The girl stirred the hearth until she found red coals ready for some shavings. This morning she would not need to strike sparks into the tinder until it caught.
Leave? Leave where? Do I dare ask?
"What shall I pack, Master Edern?"
Edern stirred, irritated by the distraction, his finger still trying to trace lines. That's a map , Avedra thought, fighting the temptation to look over his shoulder.
"You're a nosy little bitch, I'll give you that," snarled Edern. "Pack my traveling robes, the heavy ones. The high boots, those ones there, put them in the oak chest. I will pack my books and my tools on top of the clothes. The Goddess knows I can't depend on you to pack them."
He hesitated. "I suppose I'll have to buy you something warmer. Damned expense!"
In the heat of the day she was back at the saltpetre bed, scraping away debris, scraping the slime from the floor and mixing the debris again with wood ash scraped from the hearth. At the work table Edern mixed the concoction with the fungi she had collected and a sprinkling of soil, dirt from some place he would not reveal. It was all packaged neatly in leather sacks and wedged around the other arcane materials and tools of his trade.
He tunelessly hummed the whole time. He could not leave the hearth without assurance of fire. Fire he must have at a moment's notice to achieve the transfiguration of substances, and that was the point of the trip.
Edern's mind was fixed upon the report of nushadir , the miraculous substance that promised to destroy lead and iron and re-create gold. For all the time that Ashwin had thought him the fool for wanting a girl apprentice instead of a plump boy, he had been memorizing the map, the map that pointed to Flame Mountain, the crucible of nushadir .
Avedra knelt by the hearth, the fire cooling in the late afternoon. She knew nothing of nushadir , and now she knew better than to think she would be along on the trip just to learn the alchemist's secrets. He had no intentions of her becoming an alchemist. She wasn't even sure that she wanted to become an alchemist.
She was lost in thought, caught up in the sensations of the Goddess coursing through her body, the moonlight alive as she had suckled on the alchemist' cock. His seed spilling into her mouth and her own wetness spilling down her thighs seemed more powerful to her, more divine than turning lead to gold and accumulating any earthly power. Somehow she felt powerful herself, blushing at the thought.
Edern folded up the last of his work and peered out the cottage door. The King's escort would arrive soon. Now there was the greater fool than even Ashwin. The King would not live long enough to claim the power for himself, kingdom or not. Edern would…arrange that. But being a king had its advantages, including armed escorts at least to the sea. And a smart alchemist would use whatever advantage he might get.
He turned and stared at the kneeling Avedra, his fingernails scratching his chin stubble. She was a beauty, no doubt, probably worth more than all the ingredients he carried with him. But he could see the power coursing through her naked body, and his lust, no longer distracted, rose. Any ordinary lust he knew he could satisfy a dozen places, but this lust, yes, this lust was another realm away.
For not only did she kneel displayed with open thighs and erect nipples, she had the aura. The aura was there, backlighting her hair, spotlighting her naked pubis, the aura of the Goddess, and in the late afternoon sun, the aura was stronger than ever before.
I know I'm on the right track, he thought.
Avedra stirred, aware that Edern had stopped to ponder her. I am not the apprentice he thinks, Avedra thought herself, I will learn. I will learn what he knows. I may be little more than slave to fuck, but he will find one day that I have power that he lusted after, and I will not release it.
"Stand, bend over the table, and spread your rump cheeks apart, far apart. The King's soldiers will be here soon. I think that mayhaps some of them you have met. I would imagine that they would not be averse to stopping for a time to indulge themselves in your pleasures. And I would also imagine that they might be more…tractable…when we leave in the dark. I would prefer soldiers that would listen to my orders."
"As you wish, Sir."
And there Avedra was when the captain of the escort burst through the door, a naked girl clutching her cheeks apart in humiliation, bent over and displaying herself like the most common whore and serving her Goddess.
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