Laymen - Prologue, Ch. 01

Prologue

The last of the trees parted before Eli like the opening curtains of a mummer's theatre, and he saw the city. Layman-upon-Waters glittered with warm, orange lamplight in the moonlit dark of night. At the foot of this final rise, the open plains of grass, awaiting the coming spring when the young people would dance away the winter's chill. Beyond, the scattered homes and businesses of the new Low Town, the city's early fronds of urban growth beyond her ancient walls. The echoes of laughter, the sharp strings of passionate voices.

Then the wall, and then Layman herself. Her stone roads, made flat by the processional passage of soldiers, cut between the brickwork domiciles of the residential districts. The merchant houses, the inns and eateries, the municipal stables. Then up, up the hill to where the Castle Road met the eastern King's Road, the bridge-laden Water Road. The beautiful, white stone of the noble district with its grand manors and gilded boutiques.

And at the highest point, surrounded by the ring of roads, the Castle. Castle Layman as it was called in this age, its true name lost to time. The charge of the king's castellan, and in intent the westernmost edge of man's military strength on the continent. In truth, the castellan's garrison was sparse, his walls mostly unguarded. Eli spied only a handful of bannered spears manning the battlements tonight. Layman had seen no conflict in decades, even during the chaos of the Demon Lord's War. And there was no evidence to suggest that would ever change, not with the protective wilds of the forest so close.

For long moments, Eli breathed in the crisp air and allowed the vista of his home to suffuse him. The breeze tugged at his thick hair, a rich brown with deep wings of grey, and the tangle of his beard. His hazel eyes glittered with the unfettered starlight, his dry lips curving at their corners in obeisance to the jovial atmosphere rippling across the city.

They burst apart as another cough rattled up from his chest. Eli curled his body around the bundle in his arms, desperate to not disturb the baby's slumber with his hacking. But when the cough descended into a long, painful wheeze, he realised his efforts were in vain. As he straightened himself with the weight of his rucksack, Eli looked down into the bundle of swaddling and met another pair of eyes. Blue eyes, touched with a luxurious sea-green, the unrealised lustre of uncut topaz. And he smiled.

"Sorry, little one. You were so peaceful. How are you feeling?"

The baby yawned, wriggling against his cloth confines, and Eli laughed.

"May I show you something?"

He tilted the bundle upright so the baby's lovely eyes could witness the splendour of Layman-upon-Waters. At this young age, it was unlikely he could see anything at such a distance. Still, the baby silently stared. He drank in the vista, just as his father had done.

"This is your home, Elliot," said Eli. "This is your home."

Chapter 1 - The Succubus

Elliot cast his eyes upwards and met the gaze of his father. The tall painting was the only image of Eli of Layman, First Ambassador to the Elves, that he had ever seen in his life, and it matched only clumsily the hazy, half-remembered face in his dreams. The illustrated Eli stood with the stiff posture of one uncomfortable in his own body. His mahogany locks were styled into oily, unnatural order, and his beard had been combed with severe trenches of straightness. The fanciful dress uniform, the rich green of kingdom territorial office, was clearly not his own. It seemed to fit around someone else's body.

And his eyes... It was the eyes that gave away the theatre of the painting, Elliot decided. Eli's expression was a half-realised frown, his brow framing a pair of hazel orbs that shimmered with self-effacing mirth. As if he has been captured at the very moment of being surprised by the artist's canvas, when surely he would have to have been standing still for quite some time.

Elliot tilted his head to one side, trying to catch a new perspective on his late father. The dichotomy of his grand purpose, his noble duty and his impeccable reputation, warring with this silly, surprised expression. A humble man thrust into the costume of a noble esquire. He had danced that line expertly until the day he died, Elliot has been told. If only he had left notes.

"I am sorry, have you been waiting long?"

He turned from his viewing into the narrow, kindly eyes of the castellan of Layman. Here was another man whom Elliot's heart called 'Father', the man who had raised him from his infancy. The good sixty years of difference between the two of them hadn't ever accounted for a second thought, even when Elliot's peers had teased him in his early education.

Castellan Thaddeus stood straight and prim for an old man, and his wrinkled face was marked with the creases of a thousand smiles. Elliot noticed he was dressed for activity in flexible cotton today, not the gold-and-green of his official uniform. Unlike Eli, Thaddeus ever wore his coat of office as if he had been born into it.

"No, not waiting long," Elliot replied with a quick bow over one arm.

"Good, good." Thaddeus turned to regard the painting of Elliot's father, and he clapped a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "He would be proud of you, I hope you know. Very proud."

"Would he?" The familiar bitterness resurfaced. Elliot clamped his lips shut just shy of his unwise comment. And here, he had been distracting himself from his frustration so well.

Thaddeus' hand tightened on his shoulder. "Yes, he would. Why? Do you think his opinion of you would be in any way diminished by today's decision?"

"I have no idea," said Elliot. "Since I've never met the man."

A slap on his back, and the old man turned him, facing him down the castle corridor towards the stairs. "Walk with me."

Castle Layman's halls and stairwells whistled with the late afternoon breeze. Unlike a typical fort of the era, which Elliot believed to be sturdy boxes of thick, protective stone and iron, the Castle's portals were mostly open to the wind or lined with glass to allow in the sunlight. At the foot of the main stairs, the Castle's grand entrance hall, Elliot caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of an iron-banded window. Eli's rich, brown hair cut short and sensible, but clean shaven where his father had been bearded. A belted, woollen tunic in apprentice indigo, a shameful colour considering Elliot's twenty years of age, wrapped about his soft, scholarly frame.

And a bright pair of eyes, baby blue with seams of teal. Those didn't belong to his father. Their origins were yet unknown to Elliot, much as he had sought the answer.

"Need I ask your thoughts on your latest application?" the castellan asked as they stepped together into the late sunlight, the open square of painted stone. At their backs, the percussive clatter of two soldiers standing to attention at their lord's passing.

"I have no thoughts," said Elliot, eyes on his shoes as they brushed through a scattering of fallen leaves. "I applied myself again to succeeding, the very best of my efforts, and yet my path remains closed. I have no idea what I shall have to do differently when I seek a place in the scrivener's hall again next year."

Elliot would never share his true opinion, that his written application and conversation skills had nothing to do with his being overlooked time after time for a position in Castle administration. He only had to acknowledge the narrow glares of the other apprentice scriveners, the young men and women he had failed to befriend, for the seeds of suspicion to take root in his heart. After all, Elliot was not like them. Son of a dead, lowborn man risen above his place by luck and happenstance. Then taken in by the lord of the city, unfairly gifted an esteemed position in his court. It was no wonder Elliot's noble peers were ever selected for advancement by the castellan's commissioners and legislators over him, when he was such an anomaly. His was a stacked deck. He just wished it did not feel so infantile of him to acknowledge it.

"I would remind you that your father became an ambassador when he was much older than you are," said Thaddeus. "We do not know the encounters that await us in our future, nor the people who may alter our destinies in yet unseen ways."

"Then your advice for me is to wait and see, Castellan?"

The old man's dark eyes sparkled. "Not quite. It is my opinion that you have waited long enough. I am hoping to share one of those destined encounters with you today, instead."

Elliot cast his adoptive father a critical glower, daring him to explain. When he did not, merely chuckling with the satisfaction of a secret yet maintained, Elliot looked over his shoulder. Castle Layman was disappearing over the hill of the city as the two of them descended the long, south-west Castle Road. The buildings framing their passage began to change from polished marble to rugged, red brick and thick oak.

"Aren't we travelling quite a ways from the Castle?" he asked the old man striding beside him. Such a confident pace for one so old.

"What I have to show you is not there," Thaddeus replied.

"And are you... safe? To be out unguarded like this?"

"Hm? And who would target an old man out for a walk?"

Elliot held tight to his shoulder strap. "If you're certain, Castellan."

The merchant district bustled with early evening commerce. Growing crowds outside the more upstanding pubs and taverns forced Elliot and Thaddeus back and forth across the wide, stone-paved road. One of the pair shrank below notice, and the other waved and grinned at the revellers like a proud cockerel. And Elliot's apprehension only grew as they passed the final intersection of the city, then advanced towards the ancient walls.

The soldiers on duty bowed for Thaddeus as he pressed through the shadows of the open gate. One retrieved a parchment record on a wooden writing board and noted the lord's passage. Thaddeus paid them no mind. He stepped onto the mud-caked wooden beams that lined the new road without looking back. Elliot had no choice but to follow.

Dark-wood buildings, each a different shape and design, dominated the Low Town. The muddy paths twisted this way and that like a tangled growth of brambles. In the near distance, the sound of shattering glass, followed by a chorus of raucous laughter.

"Castellan!" Elliot hissed. "What are we doing here? We have left the city behind!"

"Actually, Layman's Low Town still sits within her protectorate territory," Thaddeus countered, pausing at a crossing of paths to choose their route. Never back, always onward, Elliot was dismayed to see. The castellan eyed his young charge out of the corner of one eye. "Whatever is the matter, Elliot?"

"This place... is not safe!"

"Is it not? Have you encountered some danger here in your past, to say such a thing?"

Elliot chewed his tongue. No, he had not. He'd never left the city walls before. Thaddeus knew that as well as he did.

"Do not let first impressions sour your opinion," said the castellan. To Elliot's horror, the old man waved a cheery greeting to a cluster of dark-dressed men loitering outside a hostel on one side of the road. The men nodded back. "The Low Town is a touch bedraggled, yes. Impoverished, you might say. It is my shame that this lifeline of our city has been so neglected. But its people are deserving of better. That is why-... Ah, here."

Three streets out from the city walls stood a narrow building crammed into an acute space between merging parallel roads. The wooden construction had at one point been painted white, though mud from the rains had caked its skirting brown and left grey streaks on its mantle. The chimneystack was cold, and the windows on both storeys were murky with grime. Thaddeus strode to the door of the building, producing a key from inside his sleeve, then opened the way inside.

The interior was a little more heartening. The woodwork had been swept and polished, and a bookcase on one side of the long room was full of fresh sheets of parchment and bottles of ink. Elliot could smell that comforting, familiar mix from the entryway. Four desks, newly made if the glossy varnish was any indication, each had tall chairs waiting before and behind. A tiny, stone kitchen was hidden by a partition at the far end of the room, and a set of stairs across from the entrance led up to the second level.

"There is a bed up there, and a bath also," said Thaddeus with a proud grin. "You can fill your stores of water from the well in the courtyard around the side. The door beyond the kitchen will lead straight there. It's all very convenient, especially if you didn't want to make the long trip home each evening."

Elliot's impatience reached boiling point. "Castellan, what is all this?"

"This is the Office of Municipal Integration, which opens in two days." Thaddeus stretched out his arms as he walked the span of the room. When his hand brushed a hanging oil lantern, the castellan set himself to lighting it and casting back the gloom of encroaching evening.

"And I am..."

"To be its overseer, if you would like that."

"O-Overseer?"

"Or to work here in the office, if you would prefer." His lantern lit, the castellan turned and sat himself on the furthest of the desks. "Admittedly, you will need to perform both roles until you can fill these other seats with employed staff. I would not recommend taking the full burden alone for long."

"Why?"

"It would be awfully tiring."

"I-I mean... why me? I failed to enter the scrivener's hall! I failed to demonstrate my ability! Is this a punishment, Castellan?"

"Certainly not!" said Thaddeus, rocking back on his seat in surprise.

"Then why not demand another do this? A... qualified administrator from the Castle?"

"A Castle administrator would do a poor job here, I have no doubt. Whereas you... You, Elliot of Layman, have the potential to make something grand of this humble office."

"I ask again, Castellan - why?"

Thaddeus finally gave the question some thought. He folded his arms and examined the toes of his shoes. "The core responsibility of this office," he said, "will be taking those who exist on the outskirts and bringing them in. Layman's walls have not been tested in generations, yet they still represent separation. Distance. They demarcate between those who have the privilege of taking part in our city, and those who have not. I did petition to have the stone torn down, but a lovely young woman from the Accord of Regents informed me that ancient, royal decree prevented me from doing that. This is my next best solution."

The castellan reached to the bookcase beside the desks and drew forth a sheaf of parchment. "To gain access to the walled city of Layman and the opportunities she holds, one must have a writ of residence, a guild membership, a signed trade agreement or a stamped signatory from the Accord Office of Travel. As of this office's opening, I am adding one additional measure, and I am calling it a 'certificate of aegis'. You can change the name, if you like."

"Certificate of... aegis?"

"It means 'protection'. You will meet with any residents of the Low Town with a desire to visit or work in the city and collect their information. You will also ask for an assurance that they are protected by a guarantor or inner-city employer. I have left a list of Low Town guarantors here for you, and I suggest getting to know them. They are lovely folk. I hope you see what I am seeking to achieve with this," Thaddeus continued, turning his eyes on Elliot with a low brow. "The certificate grants anyone with a need to live and work in the city a means to do so, provided they are to be well looked after. A chance to take part in our culture without risking poverty or abuse. This would include refugees from our war-torn sister lands, foreign traders with limited understanding of our ways, travellers visiting from closer to home..."

Elliot's fingers twitched. "Travellers...? You mean the elves?"

Thaddeus smiled. "I knew you would see it. Yes, we at present have no means of inviting visitors from Ilvarith and her forest into our city, save on a case-by-case basis. The Accord makes inter-cultural cooperation awfully difficult, even then. And you know the elves; they are a capricious and impatient people. They have no care for stringent bureaucracy. But there are many who would walk among us if we granted them that chance. I would love to see it. The Elf King's ball is fast approaching. When we are invited into Ilvarith's bosom, I would like to be able to say that we can reciprocate her hospitality."

Elliot's eyes dropped to the varnished floor. Of course, that was why he was being given this position. His father's legendary affinity with the elves, his close friendship with the king's daughter Miriham. But Elliot was not his father. He'd never even seen an elf before, not that he could recall. He opened his mouth to say so.

"And it is not just our forest neighbours who would cooperate with us," Thaddeus said. "There are many other kin of humanity that I would invite to live and work within our walls. Kin who are traditionally denied access to the cities of mankind, forced to skulk about wearing glamorous illusions. I would have you ally yourself to these new friends, Elliot, and welcome them as members of our Layman culture. That we might set an example to the wider, supposedly civilised reaches of humanity."

Elliot licked his lips, his mind spinning. His ears echoed with stories shared by his fellows in the Castle bunks after lights-out, of salivating creatures only pretending at humanity, hungry to make a meal of him. "You... have lost me, Castellan," he said. "When you say 'kin'...?"

A rap at the door startled him out of his fears. He spun out of the way of the open entrance, and Thaddeus rose to approach.

"Ah!" said the castellan. "Wonderful timing! Elliot, may I introduce you to Madam Lantern, one of our Low Town guarantors and a dear, personal friend. Madam, this is-..."

"Elliot of Layman, yes. I recognise him from your description."

Elliot stepped back to allow the newcomer access, and he tried very hard not to stare. Madam Lantern was a woman in her forties, by his guess. Her dirty-blonde hair was pleasantly curled and fixed into a pretty knot at the back of her head, decorated with a white lily. Her big, brown eyes were highlighted with shadow, and her full, smiling lips shimmered with a layer of gloss. She was a heavy woman, round of cheek and thick of stature, and her gorgeous dress of black and red silk was expertly tailored to show off her impressive gravity. Puffed at the sleeves, flowing at the hips...

And her breasts! Elliot almost resorted to slamming his eyes shut to avoid staring at the curvaceous woman's cleavage. But her dress drew his attention with its swooping, red-wreathed neckline. When Lantern bent forward in a graceful curtsey, Elliot was granted a deep look at the narrow shadows within her bodice, the freckling on her creamy skin. When she lifted the hem of her skirt, he saw that it was cut higher than the nobility of Layman would approve. But of course, she would need a shorter skirt to avoid trailing the fabric through the Low Town's prevailing mud. Elliot could see tight, black boots beneath. Rider's boots, or something similar.

Elliot bowed a stiff greeting over one arm in the Castle style, and his cheeks flushed when Lantern gifted him a husky chuckle.

"A noble boy through and through, Thaddeus," she teased. "As much as I appreciate a young man with manners, I hope you properly introduced him to our Low Town culture before bringing him here."

The castellan laughed. "You may need to induct him yourself, Madam, at least in the onset."

"Oh?" Lantern's lips pursed, her trim brow lowering into a critical frown. Then she stepped towards Elliot. Her glittering eyes regarded him closely, intimately. Elliot's muscles were stiff as iron.

"Oh," she said again, this time with a smile. "I see. What a marvel."

Before Elliot could ask what she meant, or say anything at all, Thaddeus clapped him on the shoulder and squeezed between him and Lantern. "I should leave you to it."

"Castellan!" Elliot tugged himself out of Lantern's warm proximity and followed out to the street. He pushed his shoulder against the older man, and he lowered his voice to a hiss. "You are leaving me here?"

"In good hands, yes," said Thaddeus with a wide grin. "Don't let Madam Lantern intimidate you. Her compassion is abounding, though she may-..."

"I have not agreed to anything!"

The old man's expression fell. "You do not desire this position?"

"I do not understand this position! I am not qualified!"

"You are. Or you will be, once you get underway."

"Castellan!"

"Elliot," he said, one hand on his shoulder, "are you telling me you would rather return to the Castle and begin another year of study? You would rather carve another recitation of the law you know so well onto your skin, thinking this time it will be visible to your peers and commissioners?"

Elliot bit back his words. No, he did not want that. Another year of apprentices outstripping him, outgrowing him? Leaving him in their dust? Another year of letting himself down? How hateful.

"I don't deserve this."

Thaddeus surprised him by stepping forward and bringing him into an embrace. He hadn't been hugged by his adoptive father like this in many years, and the old man's scent brought with it fresh memories of a childhood in his care. Shared meals around a small table, long walks along the Castle battlements, stories of the elves... For the first time, Elliot realised he had grown taller than Thaddeus. His hands twitched, then encircled his father.

"Why not give it a month?" Thaddeus whispered. "If after that time you are certain you cannot achieve here, I shall return you to the Castle. A month as acting overseer of municipal integration, or two or three perhaps, will not harm your next application to the scrivener's hall. I daresay it will even improve it. Try, I ask. And know that I am just at the top of the hill if you need me. The walls of the city are nothing between us. Can you do that, my dear boy?"

Leaning out of the embrace, Elliot nodded with effort. His father was right; a month was not so long. And this was the Low Town. He could not run this building much further into the dirt than it already was, even if he tried.

He filled his lungs with humid air, then cast it out into the atmosphere as Thaddeus took his leave. The old man didn't look remotely out of place striding away up the Low Town street. In fact, he fit right in. Maybe there was hope for Elliot too.

Inside the office, Lantern had taken a handkerchief from her short sleeves and was dusting the glass of the lit lamp. The touch of flame must have been scalding, but she didn't appear to feel the heat on her fingers.

"I was not listening, have no fear," she said, not looking away from her work. "Let me just say that I am ever pleased to see a father and son so close, and I will leave it at that."

Smiling with pride, presumably for her work, Lantern turned and regarded Elliot with one hand on her hip. The lamplight reflected off her searching eyes and threatened to lay him bare. Elliot did his best to smile back, which grew increasingly difficult as the silence drew on. When Lantern giggled at his fluster, it grew even harder.

This woman is a member of my logistical system, Elliot told himself. She and I will be working closely together. I must set the foundation of a professional relationship.

"S-So," he said eventually, "are you... a local?"

"Oh, yes," said Lantern. "I have called Layman's Low Town my home for many a year. Longer than I have lived anywhere else."

"And you are a..." He swallowed. "A... seamstress?"

"A flattering guess, but no. I have a girl who attends to my professional clothing. No, I am the proprietress of the Dancing by Lantern, narely a street east of your new home."

"Oh, you run a tavern?"

Another laugh, hot tendrils up his spine. "A tavern of sorts, yes. There is drink, there is song. Dancing, as the name suggests. Entertainment in all manner of forms. I shall be expecting your patronage in the coming days, Elliot," she added, leaning forwards again and granting him a wink. "Don't worry, I shall supply you with a discount."

"A-And how do you know Castellan Thaddeus?" Elliot asked, eager to escape the revealing light of her eyes. "I was not aware he made trips this far from the Castle, save on diplomatic work."

"I shall confess, my friendship with Thaddeus began only about half a year ago," said Lantern, sitting herself on the edge of the closest desk just as the castellan had done. "He returned to the Lantern surprisingly often for a man who would only avail himself of a glass of spirit and some jovial conversation. Then this scheme of his, his 'certificate of aegis'. We shall have to do something about that name, by the way."

"But you do approve? Enough to act as guarantor?"

"Oh, I approve wholeheartedly!" She clapped her hands together, her rosy smile beaming. "In my line of work, I meet many young men and women who fear they have no recourse but to cast themselves into iniquity. Many whom the Accord of Regents would label as anathema, as if the Demon Lord's War was not fought by all. This city, built on the very edge of human civilisation with the wilds creeping at her doorstep, attracts plenty such misbegotten outsiders. And anything I can do to widen the path for those with untapped potential, I shall do... It is growing chilly in here."

Lantern stepped towards him as he reeled from the sudden change in topic. Elliot heard the solid clack of her heels on the polished wood, accompanied by the luxurious swish of her skirts. A captivating song that caused him to neglect his position. Lantern squeezed her rounded body past him with a coy smile, then closed the office door. She did not return the space to him when she was done. She held herself in his proximity.

"I would have us be friends, Elliot of Layman," she whispered. "Your work is important, and I want to help. And I cannot have this... stiffness in a comrade."

Her hands came to rest on his shoulders, squeezing him before running down to his chest. "We must grow close, and fast. I have a means of achieving that... if you would indulge me."

She pushed. Elliot, dazed out of his mind by the alluring woman's deep, musical voice, staggered backwards and bounced against one of the office desks. He held himself upright with both hands on the wooden surface. Lantern's eyes roved down his body, and all he could do was stare right back.

"Tell me, have you lain with a woman before?"

Elliot's mind whirled. His mouth had gone dry, hanging open as it was. He licked his lips before responding on instinct, "Y-Yes."

He had been young, and his anomalous nature had still been a curiosity within the Castle. It had been Yule, and the wine had been plentiful. A girl with soft, red hair had taken his hand and led him away from the apprentices' party in the main hall, down to a supply closet. In the dark, she had kissed him. He hadn't known what to do, and she had been drunk. They had managed, just about. Not long after, with the wine haze a distant memory, the walls had come up. His curious origin had become unsightly, and the cliques had turned their backs on him. The girl with the red hair had pretended not to know him, and Elliot no longer remembered her name.

"That was not very convincing." Lantern's laugh was teasing, but Elliot decided he rather liked it. "I imagine your experience is with girls your age, yes? Young things with bright eyes, eager hands... I could show you what a practiced body can accomplish. I would enjoy it."

She pressed forward, sliding her wide hips between his knees. Leaning back as he was, the two of them were almost of a height. Lantern's breasts pushed against his chest, and her lips brushed his jaw, his cheek. Her scent, a sharp whiff of spiced wine, filled his nostrils. Her hands squeezed his thighs under the hem of his apprentice tunic.

Elliot's eyes roved around the office. Was this truly happening? Was he not simply dreaming? This whole evening had been something of a dream. An unexpected disappointment, a new position, a coquettish, lascivious older woman asking his company. Lamplight flickered orange and warm along the warped glass of the windowpanes over his partner's shoulders, obscuring the world outside with soft glare.

A deep chuckle from the woman pressed against him, and the oil lamp hissed out. The office descended into darkness. Evening had turned to night, and that night bathed the two of them in thick shadow.

"Better?" whispered Madam Lantern. Elliot stared into her eyes. They appeared to be glowing. Even in the dark, they reflected an eerie light. A light that was not of this world. "May I continue?"

Elliot's mind gave up, and other parts of his body took over. After all, if he was going to disappoint his lord, why not do so abundantly? Elliot was stiff in his tights, and Lantern was beautiful. He liked the way she teased him.

"D-Do you do this for all of your friends?" he managed around the thundering of his heart.

Lantern laughed. "Oh, yes."

"Even... Castellan Thaddeus?"

"Let's leave the castellan out of this," she replied in a sharp whisper. "He has placed his trust in you, so there is no need to concern him further. Take off your clothes."

He did as he was told. How could he not? His indigo apprentice tunic was cast to the floor, leaving him topless in his tights, and Lantern's hands were soothing and warm on his bare skin. She kissed his hairless chest, tonguing his nipple with a fiendish flick.

"Would you like to see mine?" she whispered.

Elliot nodded. "Y-Yes."

He couldn't tell how she accomplished her disrobing, wreathed in dark as she was. All he had to work with was the click of metallic fastenings and the rustle of silk, the bobbing of her glinting eyes.

"Here," she said, taking his hands. "See me."

Elliot's palms were pushed against her. So big! Lantern's chest was a remarkable, pliable, indulgent softness. The firm points of nipples under his touch only highlighted the pillowy texture of the rest of her. He tried to wrap his fingers around the swell, but he was unable to find her limits. A moan escaped his lips, and Lantern chuckled her appreciation.

"I am so pleased to be your friend, Elliot," she sighed. "So very pleased."

As he massaged her breasts, Lantern slipped her hands down his stomach and into the waistband of his tights. Elliot wriggled against his seat to allow them down past his knees. His rod was stiff, a halberd's shaft, and his swollen head was tickled by Lantern's petticoats. Lantern rubbed herself against his erection, letting him feel the accommodating flesh beneath her clothing. She kissed his neck.

"Such cooperation we will create together!" she whispered.

A moment of chill as the woman departed from him. Elliot nearly toppled forward when Lantern took half a step back, then settled into a kneel. Elliot shivered as her lips brushed his cock, then again as she rested the weight of her arms on his thighs.

"I imagine you will never have experienced intimacy such as this," she giggled. "Not with your peers. They wouldn't know what to do with themselves. Here, see how you like this..."

She came against him. Lantern breathed in a desirous hiss through her nose as she rubbed her chest along his shaft. Her breasts caught him in their cleavage, and he was caressed from base to tip by the warm flesh. Lantern gripped herself with her hands and squeezed his cock with her breasts, rolling her body up and down in gentle rhythm.

"You will have to learn fast to fill your new shoes," she said as she worked. "I will teach you what I can, and I will thank you to be receptive to my lessons."

"A-And it is important to know... this sort of skill in the Low Town?" he breathed.

Lantern laughed. Elliot felt the tossing of her head, the brush of her curls of hair against the tip of his cock. "Perhaps not this specifically. But openness, confidence? The ability to stand vulnerable before another? Absolutely!"

This she said with a playful snarl, gripping him tight between her breasts. Elliot, seeing stars, reached out and placed his hands on her bare shoulders. He was alarmed by the sound of her spitting, then the sensation of warm liquid on his skin. Lubricating his cock with her saliva, Lantern massaged him. Elliot closed his eyes as he was carried away on turbulent waves of pleasure.

And in his chest, a fire was lit. One he hadn't known since that first year of apprenticeship in the Castle, his first attempt at entering the scrivener's hall. When his path had been wide and his future bright. When he had looked up at that painting of his father Eli and dared to imagine himself in the green ambassadorial dress.

Ambition! The ambition to make a name for himself. The ambition to make a change in the city of Layman, as Eli had done. To meet these 'kin of humanity', and to be their champion.

Elliot gripped Lantern's shoulders and rode her chest with pumps of his hips. "Yes!" he sighed. "Oh, yes!"

"Mmm!" agreed Lantern. Her bouncing breasts only rubbed him harder, faster. "There he is! There's the man we need!"

Made curious by her choice of words, Elliot opened his eyes, and his heart slammed to a halt. He could see in the pitch dark of the office thanks to a new light suffusing Madam Lantern, and what he saw in that light was a Lantern transformed. She was still lovely, still voluptuous, still smiling as she drew him towards climax with her breasts. But her skin was salmon-pink, close to red in the woman's gossamer incandescence. Her hair was dark as forest bracken, and it parted twice at her temple to make way for a pair of curled, ebony goat horns. Her fingernails were likewise black and sharp. Elliot stared at the flutter of leather over the kneeling woman's back. Wings ruffled at her shoulder blades, and a serpentine tail whipped about from under her petticoats.

And her eyes! Elliot stared into the molten glow of roaring, orange orbs, tiny suns burning in the dark and illuminating the woman's lust-addled countenance. When she smiled, that same hellish light glinted off her sharp canine teeth.

But she stopped smiling a moment later. Her luminous eyes widened, and the glorious motions of her breasts stilled.

"What? What ails you? Am I...?"

Lantern removed one hand from her breast and touched at her face. Her fingernails tapped at the enamel of her horns, the sharp points of her teeth.

"Ah," she said. "Bother. You distracted me enough that I lost my focus... And I was hoping to delay this discovery until you were more settled in."

"What are you?" Elliot whispered. "A... demon?"

"Yes, quite right." Lantern relinquished him, sitting back on her ankles with a deep sigh. "A lineage of demon that subsists on human vitality. I shan't bandy words, not with a man I hope will trust me."

Elliot leaned away, staring down at Lantern as she continued. Her firelight eyes were narrow and ashamed, locked onto the wood below his feet.

"Like all of my kind, I fought on the side of the Demon Lord during his pointless war. But battle with the cultures of mundanity did not suit me, so I took leave of my unit and hid myself among the humans. Where I remain today, plying a trade that sees me fed. And it places me well to find others like me, the wayward souls who seek cooperation with the human rulers of this mundane realm. To help them find the peace that I have found."

"Kin of humanity..."

"Yes, so Thaddeus calls us." Lantern chuckled, eyes aglow with fond mirth. "I wonder how much he knows. I have never revealed myself to him like this, and yet..."

She shook her head, ridding herself of a stray thought. The white lily in her hair wafted with the motion but remained planted in her locks. She smiled up at him.

"The question is, Elliot of Layman, the man who would be our bridge with humanity... Does this form offend you?"

Elliot stared down at her, knelt in vulnerable supplication between his knees. The hopeful smile, the creases around her eyes. His rigid cock twitched, and this caught her attention.

"Offend me?" Elliot laughed. "No. Of course not."

"No?" she asked, tucking a curl of black hair behind one ear.

"You are even more beautiful like this," he said. "Even more than before. And I could not think of a man who would say otherwise!"

She beamed. Lantern's teeth were sharp and shining between her lips. She rested her elbows on his bare thighs. "Truly?"

"Truly, Madam."

"Then you are as Thaddeus promised!" she sighed. "You are perfect! Oh... Elliot!"

She pounced. Lantern's long fingers gripped the base of his erection, and with a long, lusty moan, she gorged on it. Lantern held an intense heat between her lips and along her tongue, but Elliot bore it. After all, she was soft, and she was wet. Lantern sucked him with passion and vigour, and he held to her horns with both hands as she worked.

"O-Ohh..." he groaned as she devoured him. "Oh... my!"

Elliot's hips bucked of their own volition under the riotous sex of Lantern's mouth. His body keened with the ungrounded lightning of climax, desperate to be freed of it. His fingers tangled in the locks of her hair, and his thumbs curled around the base of her horns. Lantern's white lily finally toppled free and landed on the wood beside his discarded uniform. And Elliot stared at his demonic lover. He drank her in with his eyes. The excited whip of her tail, the passionate flutter of her wings. The loud slurp of her lips around his cock. He couldn't look away, and he couldn't close his eyes.

How marvellous. How marvellous she was.

"Oh... Lantern!"

"Mmmffh," she replied. The demon's head bobbed deep between his legs, and the head of his cock pushed against the very back of her throat. Lantern shuddered, choking on his length. She held him within her and used her tongue to lash his rigid flesh.

"I... I...!" Elliot stammered. "I think I might...!"

"Mmm!" Lantern's hands tightened on his skin. Her long nails dug into his thigh as she demanded his release.

"I...! I'm about to...!"

Holding her head tight with both hands, Elliot came. The release was sharp, powerful, almost painful. A viscous missile of semen against the depths of Lantern's throat. He let out a strangled wail as he was rid of his vital load.

And Lantern moaned, long and deep, as she consumed him. Elliot watched between twitching eyelids as her body radiated a hot, arcane light like the coals of a furnace. Her face contorted with beatific satisfaction. And when he was spent, she pulled herself off his wet cock and tipped back her head with a groaning sigh.

"Yes!" she growled. "Oh... yes! Oh, goodness!"

Her hands gripped his shaft, and Elliot's eyes rolled as she squeezed the last dregs up and out of him. She tongued his head and drank the clear dribbles of his semen, and she pressed her lips to his flesh in compassionate, tickling butterfly kisses. Elliot was content simply to watch her work as his roaring heart slowed.

Eventually, Lantern had drunk her fill. She held his cock lightly in both hands and idly ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth, hunting the last of his taste. Her brow was low, lips pursed.

"Is something wrong?" he asked her.

"Hm? Oh, nothing wrong, certainly." Lantern beamed up at him. "You were quite delicious... Tell me, your father was..."

"E-Eli of Layman. First Ambassador to the Elves."

Lantern chuckled. "Of course, the local legend. And your mother?"

"I... have no idea. My father never told a soul."

"Intriguing. Well, whoever she is, I am sure she is very special."

"Whyever do you say so?"

She shrugged her bare shoulders, and her wings ruffled. "Just a thought. Oh, Elliot."

Lantern rose gracefully to her feet and stepped against him. She wrapped her arms around his head and hugged his face to her glorious bosom. Elliot's wet cock pressed against the lacy fabric of her petticoats, the warmth of her thick thighs beneath. It felt natural to embrace her around her hips, and he did so. Lantern's tail brushed against the backs of his fingers, and her sharp nails combed through his hair.

"How marvellous you are," she sighed. "These days together are going to be sweet indeed, I just know it."

"Mmm," said Elliot, all he could produce with his mouth covered by her breasts.

"And rest assured, you will not be bored." Lantern's chuckle poured fresh warmth, saccharine sweet, into his belly. "I know of many who will benefit from your services, and I will be sending them all to your doorstep. They are all very sweet and dear..."

Her stroking ceased. "Though you may need to be firm with some of them. We kin of humanity can be... needy at times."

Lantern departed from him slowly, trailing her warm hands around his shoulders. Lighting the lamp with only a click of her long fingers, she redressed herself in her gown with practiced efficiency, and Elliot was content to sit in his nudity and watch. Lantern met his eyes as she worked, smiling with coy heat as she took her time arranging her clothing around her breasts.

And Elliot blinked. At some point in her dressing-dance, Lantern had transformed back into her human form. The transition had been so smooth, hidden between moments, that he had not noticed. The blonde madam was truly beautiful. Still, Elliot's heart grieved the loss of her predatory, firelight demon shape.

"Can we do this again?" he asked without entirely meaning to.

"Much as I would love to," she replied with a teasing sigh, "I would not be much of a businesswoman if I offered my services for free to friends and colleagues. Unless I was truly hungry, you understand. How about this? I couldn't help but notice some hesitance to take on this role, is that fair?"

Elliot blinked. True, he remembered feeling very uncertain only a short while ago. Right now, with afterglow suffusing his heart and his mind filled with the smiling countenance of his partner, he couldn't recall why.

"Stay with us a year," said Lantern, now fully dressed in the lamplight. "After one year, if you have been as true as I know you will be, I shall return. And mark my words, Elliot of Layman, I shall be so very grateful. Enough to allow you the fullness of my body, no reservations."

Lantern laughed, a deep and resonant sound, and Elliot liked it immensely. He waved as Madam Lantern took her leave with a coy wiggle of her fingers, closing the door behind her. He tried to watch her through the windows. Dancing by Lantern was east, she had said? But the glass was murky, and she was little more than a reddish blob against the dark of night. He would need to attend to some cleaning.

Elliot stretched out his limbs as he rose to his feet, then went for his clothing. He lifted his indigo apprentice tunic from the floor and examined it. A shameful colour, and it would not suit him. Beside it lay Lantern's discarded lily, and he took this in hand too. He sniffed it. Sweet.

Grinning all the while, Elliot ascended the stairs with his chest bare. In a small bedroom with fresh bedsheets, he found a wardrobe. Elliot tossed his old uniform inside.

Then he drew forth the hanging coat within, and he slipped it on without bothering with the accompanying white shirt. The coat had a breast pocket, and he slipped the white lily inside. He examined himself in his reflection in the window glass. The coat was green, trimmed with bands of gold that framed his bare chest. A kingdom territorial office uniform, just like his father's. And he thought it suited him well.