The Harp of Aleth by Kira Morgana Page A

Virrinel’s furry arm. “I’m not sure. I’ve just had this overwhelming need to get the harp… get me out of here!” her feet scrabbled at the smooth, polished walls of the pit.
    “It’s taking all my strength to just hold you up. Stop moving.” Virrinel grunted.
    Qin-Dar knelt beside the autochthon, sighing. “Hold onto her, Ser knight. Joran, can you hold my other arm to balance me while I help Virrinel to pull Julissa back up?”
    Joran gripped the cleric’s arm. I half expected her to have a hoof instead of a hand, he mused as her hand curled around his wrist to lock the grip. Bracing himself, he leaned back a little as Qin-Dar reached down, grabbed the back of Julissa’s tunic and hauled her up.
    As soon as the bard’s feet were back on solid ground, she scrambled back against the wall. “I don’t know what came over me.”
    Qin-Dar let go of her and Joran. “You’re behaving as badly as you did when you were a filly, child. Let me find the traps before we lose you to one that isn’t as easy to rescue you from.”
    Virrinel clambered back up onto his feet. “Well said.”
    Julissa looked at Joran. “Well?”
    “Well what?” he shrugged as he adjusted the fall of his robe.
    “Haven’t you got anything to say?”
    “I felt that they had already covered it, my lady.”
    Julissa shook her head. “Oh all right. Qin-Dar, lead the way.”
    The Guard Post at the entrance to the Training Room, reeked.
    “Must have been Poison Demons in here.” Joran grinned at the look on Julissa’s face as the smell reached her delicate elven nose.
    “That’s a strong smell,” Qin-Dar commented as she picked her way across the floor, the stonework pitted with massive craters that threatened to trip the unwary. “Come, there are no traps here.”
    Virrinel held his breath as they skirted the platform and cubicle that usually held the guard.
    “Are you all right, brother?” Joran asked as Virrinel took a deep breath of the relatively clean air on the other side of the door.
    “I’m fine. Just clearing my lungs,” Virrinel told him.
    Julissa attempted to push past the men, but Virrinel held her back.
    “I go in first this time, my Lady Champion.”
    Julissa’s face dropped.
    “Now you see here, you big ball of fur. This is my quest so I go first.” She pushed his arm away and slipped around him to find Qin-Dar on the other side.
    “What’s wrong, Julissa?” the cleric enquired. “You seem overwrought.”
    “I just want to get the harp and get out of here,” the bard snapped, disappearing through the training room door.
    * * *
    Tavia wasn’t sure exactly what had happened. The last thing she remembered clearly, she had been standing in front of the most beautiful statue that had ever graced a temple.
    The sheer manliness of the god, the detailed painting of the white marble bringing to life a slim, strong figure clad in leather with ropes wound around his limbs, had mesmerised her.
    The statue’s skin had been painted a very pale green, but it was the sheer beauty of the face depicted that took her breath away. Red curls tumbled around a sharply chiselled face, with high cheekbones under eyes of gleaming gold.
    She had felt her libido rising and moved forward toward the sculpture, but then the over the top erotic scenes depicted on the walls of the tiny temple had stopped any nascent sexual thought she might have been having about the effigy’s erection.
    The voice had called her to look up into the cold metallic gaze of the statue and everything else had been lost in a blur of pleasurable sensation.
    I don’t think I’ve lost that much control around a male since… the last visit to The Emerald Phallus in Jira; Hezan was with me that time as I recall and we imbibed a potion that the Pleasure House Keeper insisted would keep the two of us capable of anything for two days. She sighed as a wave of lust rippled through her body. I wish he hadn’t left me that day. I would have walked through fire