The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Lemma the Librarian

Of Potions and Pimples, Part One

“So that’s it?” asked Iason, looking at the book.

We were seated around a fire, camped a bit under a day’s walk from the Breizht border.

“That’s it,” I said. ”Gender-Specific Glamours and Their Uses, by Soltad boSuntel the Surprisingly Popular.”

“How can you be sure it’s really the copy from your library?” Iason asked, and before I could stop him, he was reaching for the book.

“Ugh,” he said, lying flat on his back six feet away.

“Shh,” I whispered to the book, cradling it gently. “I know you’re confused and scared, but it’s all right. That man isn’t around to use you anymore. I’m from the Library. You remember the Library, right?” The book quivered. “That’s right. Relax. You belong to the Library. You’ve had a long journey, but you’ll be back home soon. Rest now, and open yourself to me.”

Iason sat up and shook his head. “It hit me!”

“Well, of course it hit you!” I said. “You startled it! You’re lucky you had that armor on, or it might have really hurt you.”

“You talk like it’s alive,” he said.

“Well, it sort of is. You can’t just write spells down like recipes,” I said. “Hardly anyone would be able to cast spells from a book written like that. You have to embed the magic of the spell itself into the book. Over the years, all those spells mingle and fuse and breed, getting slowly stronger, and the book becomes more and more... aware is the wrong word, because it doesn’t really have a mind. Alive is as close as you can get. And that, by the way, is how I know it isn’t a copy. There’s not ten living mages with the skill to make a true grimoire, and I doubt any of them would be crazy enough to mess with a stolen book.” I continued stroking the book as I talked, and gradually I felt it let its defenses fall. Brinksmoor had terrorized it pretty thoroughly, ripping the spells from it by sheer force of will, but it felt my connection to the Library, and slowly let me in.

“So what now?” he asked. “How do we find the other books?”

I shook my head. “First things first. We send this one home.”

“You can do that?”

“If the book lets me use its magic for the purpose, yes.” I pulled out a sheet of parchment and began marking it with sigils. “I’ll need to concentrate,” I added. “It’s not an easy ritual.”

Iason watched me for a while as I fiddled with the parchment, but after several minutes without obvious fireworks, he got bored and began pulling out his blankets and taking off his armor. Well, so much for me not getting distracted! Still, it was nice to know that after all that enforced girl time at Castle Brinksmoor, I still could get distracted by a nice big chunk of manmeat.

Still, I had work to do. Sighing, I moved so that I couldn’t see him and kept working on the parchment. After more than an hour, I finally had the complex seal drawn and the book in its exact center.

Right then. Standing, I clapped my hands. I chanted rapidly in the Old Tongue, feeling the magic flow through me, tingling from my toes to the ends of my hair. Slowly, the ink of the sigils grew darker and darker, drawing in the light of the fire, stars, and moon. Absolute darkness descended as the light was swallowed up. Distant wind began to howl, and there was a sound of pages fluttering. I felt myself floating, then falling to the side, then floating headfirst as the nature of “down” redefined itself. I ignored the sensations, continuing to chant, faster and louder as the wind rose. Suddenly, all the light absorbed by the sigils flared back out, and they burned themselves into—and through—reality itself. The world turned itself inside out, and I saw, for a moment, the book silhouetted against the light.

And then everything was normal again.

The fire crackled to itself as stars and moon shone down through rifts in the clouds. Iason was sitting up in his blankets, staring at me wide-eyed. “Lemma!” he said. “Next time you’re going to do something like that? Warn me, okay?”

I grinned, rolled up the parchment, and began laying out my own blankets.

* * *

Two days later, Iason and I reached a hamlet just across the border into Breizh. The largest kingdom on the island, Breizh made a large backwards “L” shape along the east and south shores. Despite its size, it was mostly agricultural, lacking the tin that gave the Islands their name. It was, therefore, quite populous but nonetheless poorer than Kyrno.

I know. Poorer than Kyrno! So, instead of filthy miners and ignorant cows, you had filthy farmers and ignorant, starving cows. The hamlet we arrived at was a little better off than most, however. They had regular trade with Kyrno, and a steady stream of border patrols being rotated off-duty; it was enough to fund two inns, at any rate, along with a few shops.

Iason and I took the less smelly of the two inns. It was half-filled, mostly with soldiers and a couple of travelers; the only locals appeared to be the innkeeper and his daughter. They, at least, looked well-fed; the girl reminded me a little of Brea—blonde, freckly, short, and curvy—but duller and with fewer teeth. Based on the way she was flirting with the soldiers as she delivered their drinks, I got the distinct impression that ale and lodgings were not the only services the inn sold.

The innkeeper looked us over, and I could practically see the wheels turning in his head. Our clothes were extremely well made, and Iason’s armor was obviously excellent. That meant we had money. But our clothes were also obviously stained with long travel, meaning we would be tired and eager for whatever little luxuries we could find. The girl started to walk toward our table, but at a glance from the innkeeper she changed direction. Walking up to us, he rubbed his hands together and smiled in a way no doubt intended to ingratiate himself.

“What may I do for you, gentles?” he asked unctuously.

As the tavern wench walked past, I eyed the ale mugs she was carrying apprehensively. “Do you have anything that isn’t piss?” I asked.

If he was offended, he hid it well. “Ah, discerning travelers from faraway lands, I see. I think I have just the thing for you. My father bought it from a Sea People trader, long ago. Only two bottles left.”

“Save the spiel. Two bottles of what?”

He smiled. “Only the finest of Iberian wines, Lady.”

I boggled. Iberian wine? Here? Iberian wine was legendary. I mean literally legendary, as in it showed up in legends. They said that it was grown by centaurs on fields that had never known war, and other such nonsense. I’d had it once, one small glass at a party for a very wealthy friend. It had opened my mind to vistas of flavor previously undreamt of by mortals, or at least me.

“Hmm, I suppose that will do,” I said casually.

The innkeeper made a reasonable facsimile of a bow and waddled off to the back room. A few minutes later, the tavern wench returned with a tray, two glasses of purplish-red liquid, and a distressingly brown smile. Tooth care was apparently unknown in the Tin Islands. “Wine for you and your companion, m’lord,” she said to Iason, and I ground my teeth. First, because she assumed he was paying for the wine, but after weeks in the Tin Islands I was starting to get used to their women-are-property attitude. Mostly, it was because of the way she was batting her eyelashes and bending over to lay out his glass, giving him a view down the front of her dress. Little slut!

Of course I wasn’t jealous or anything. Iason was a hottie, but if I wanted him I’d’ve had him already. I was, frankly, a little worn out in that department after my last adventure. No, it was just annoying—like Iason would go for a chubby little hick who’d probably screwed the entire border garrison twice over.

He smiled at her and thanked her politely, and I ground my teeth harder. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Tskanka, m’lord,” she said. I immediately decided I would call her Skank for short. She gave a little curtsy, which of course Iason ate up.

“If m’lord has need of anything further, he may simply call,” she said breathily, and giggled.

I stifled a gag. ”We’ll let you know,” I said pointedly, but she ignored me.

“Thank you, Tskanka,” said Iason.

As soon as she was gone, I leveled my best glare at him. “Thank you, Skank,” I mocked.

“Oh, come on, I was being polite,” he said.

“Polite, sure,” I said. “That’s what I call it when you stare down a tavern ho’s dress.”

“Why, Lemma, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous!” Iason teased.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” I snapped. “I just don’t want to see you coming down with some local disease and slowing us down. There’s a book somewhere near this town, you know.” I swirled the wine in my glass and sniffed. It was amazing: it smelled of rose petals and cherries and something I couldn’t identify, something warm and thick and bittersweet and delicious. I sipped, holding it in my mouth and closing my eyes.

The flavor was amazing, delicate and complex, but there was something a little odd. I opened my eyes and peered down at my glass.

“Something wrong?” asked Iason. “It tastes good to me.”

I placed my glass on the table and waved my hands over it, muttering. Green light danced eerily in the ruby liquid, and a puff of yellow smoke rose from the glass. I narrowed my eyes and stood.

“Lemma? What’s going on?”

“I need to have... a conversation with the innkeeper.” I strode straight through the door next to the bar counter.

“Can I help you?” asked the innkeeper.

I snapped my fingers, and green light glowed from the open lid of a nearby barrel. “Open that,” I said, pointing.

His eyes widened. “You’re a, a witch!”

My hair billowed in a nonexistent wind. “Call me that again. I dare you.”

“Please,” he stammered. “Don’t kill me. I meant no offense.”

“Open the barrel,” I repeated. Every shadow in the room was growing slowly darker and larger, and the nonexistent winds were now strong enough to toss my cape as well. Power flowed through me, begging to be used, but I resisted its call for the moment, waiting for a proper cause.

Trembling, the innkeeper tottered over to the barrel and pulled off its lid. A puff of yellow smoke rose from it to reveal a slightly misty liquid. “It’s just water,” he said. “From the river, you see? Just water!”

“That’s what I thought,” I said, and the inn erupted in a torrent of flame.

I stood smirking a moment later as the debris settled, surveying my handiwork. A blast of wind had wrapped itself around each and every customer as the spell detonated, protecting them from the heat and debris. They all looked very shocked, but none the worse for wear.

In the smashed, charred remnants of the shelf lay two glass bottles of Iberian wine, one full, the other nearly so. I picked them up, and my smirk turned into a smug grin. They weren’t even warm.

The innkeeper picked himself up, coughing, and looked around at the devastation. He moaned and fell to his knees. “You witch! You’ve ruined me!” His hair was burnt and his face black with soot, but he was unharmed.

It is remotely possible that I may, purely accidentally, have very slightly underestimated the strength of his wind barrier precisely that tiny amount that would let him be singed and dirtied but not hurt. A very, very unlikely accident, perhaps, but then if you cast enough fireballs, it has to eventually happen once, right?

Iason helped Skank to her feet. Half her hair was burned away, and her dress was ruined.

It eventually has to happen twice, right? Right, that’s what I thought.

“Our inn!” shouted a soldier, his hand on his sword. His exclamation was greeted with a general murmur of angry agreement of the sort that only a Hicksville riot-to-be can make.

“The witch destroyed it!” cried the innkeeper, his eyes bugging white out of his ash-blackened face. He pointed at me.

The crowd’s angry murmurs grew angrier. People from neighboring houses began to drift toward us, and the anger was spreading. In a moment pitchforks and torches would materialize through that small-town magic that they don’t teach you in school. I can’t imagine why not; it can’t be that hard, and I can’t tell you how many times I could have used a good counterspell for it.

Iason edged up next to me, his hand on his sword as well. Any second now, this was going to turn real ugly.

“And I’d destroy it again, if I had half a chance!” I shouted, driving the crowd’s anger higher. “How dare he water down my wine?”

Silence.

“You been watering the drinks, innkeep?” asked the soldier, his hand still on his sword.

“Well, I, uh...”

There was a roar, and the crowd poured past the soldier. The innkeeper screamed and fled.

Real ugly.

“C’mon, Iason,” I said. “We need to get moving. I think I know where the book is.”

* * *

“That was mean, Lemma!” said Iason to me a while later, as we walked up the river, back toward the hills that marked the border with Kyrno. “All that because he messed with your wine?”

“My really-really-good, incredibly-hard-to-find, normally-insanely-expensive wine!”

“Still!”

“Eh, they won’t kill him. He’s fast for such a chubby guy, and mobs tire out fast. He’ll run to the next town, settle down, and eventually start another business ripping people off. And the town has another inn, so they’ll be fine.”

Iason shook his head. “What if you’re wrong? What if they do kill him?”

“Really, really good wine.”

We walked in silence for a while.

“So, you said you figured out where the book is?” asked Iason.

“Yep,” I said.

When it became clear I wasn’t going to say anything else, Iason “You mentioned that you knew it was somewhere near the town. How?”

“I’m a Librarian,” I said. Something was tingling my nose. I tried to focus on it, to pin down what it was, but it was elusive. Getting stronger, though.

“And?”

He wasn’t going to let up until I gave him some sort of an answer, was he? Stupid, couldn’t he see I was trying to concentrate? Him being all question-y and fuckable wasn’t helping. “The caretakers of the Imperial Library of Lemuria have a sixth sense—well, twelfth, really, but that’s not important—for overdue or abused books. And these books are very, very overdue. I can always tell the rough direction to the nearest book until I’m practically on top of it; then it gets fuzzier.”

“Huh,” he said.

“Yeah.” I needed to get away so I could focus on this elusive whatever-it-was teasing at the edges of my mind. “Hey, listen, I’m going to go down by that pool over there.” I pointed. “You wait here for a bit, okay?”

“Uh, why?” he asked, looking extremely puzzled.

Argh! I was getting really sick of explaining to him. Didn’t he get that I just wanted him to shut up and do—I mean, just wanted him to shut up so I could figure this out. “Girl stuff.” He still looked blank, so I continued, “You know, lunar rites?”

“Lunar—oh! Oh. Ick. Okay, yeah, I’ll be here.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. I raced down to the pool, got a stand of oak trees between myself and Iason, and practically tore my clothes off.

Wait, wasn’t I supposed to be concentrating on—oh gods my hand felt good. I stroked and pulled and teased my nipples with one hand, while the other dove between my legs. My knees buckled, and then I fell on my side.

My breathing quickened as I imagined Iason sneaking up behind me as I jilled myself, then swooping down to fold me into a passionate— no! As delicious a wall of manmeat as he might be, he was my friend and my traveling companion, not my fuckbuddy. Think about anything else!

And for magic’s sake, Lemma, I told myself, get your hand out of your pussy!

With an intense effort of will, I managed to get my hands off my body and laced my fingers together, so that I couldn’t stroke myself. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate.

There was a funny, but very weak, smell all around this place. It was very slowly getting stronger as we walked. There had been the tiniest trace of magic, much too small to have any real effect, in the wine, and more tiny traces in the barrel of water. Somebody was doing magic upstream, and traces of it were getting washed down the river. Oh, and my pussy was screaming for attention. So much for Brinksmoor and his girls wearing it out. I guess my body’d gotten used to lots (and lots, and lots) of sex, and after a few days without it was complaining.

Damn that Brinksmoor. I remembered my first time with him, and the threads of magic that had wrapped around me, manipulating me, controlling me, making me want him, love him, need him, worship him, obey him. My fingers plunged back into myself and I moaned as I remembered how it had felt to be under his spell, the intense, utterly guilt-free pleasure...

No! My fingers were still plunging in and out of myself, but I forced myself not to think about Brinksmoor and his spell. That way madness lay. I just closed my eyes and focused on my fingers plunging in and out, trying not to imagine anything at all and just ride the sensation.

After an eternity of almost, however, I had to admit it wasn’t working. I needed at least a mental picture of a man, someone tall and broad and dark, commanding my obedience and desire. I had a sudden flash, an image of Iason, wrapping me in spells like Brinksmoor’s, and then I was cumming, hard.

When my breathing returned to almost normal, I pulled my clothes back on and tried to straighten my hair a little. I didn’t want to look groped when I went back to Iason and told him I’d figured out exactly what was going on.