A Walk in the Dark Chapter 16 by Maggie Finson

We made it to our chambers without any major disasters. I accidentally set fire to one little tapestry, but beat out the flames before they did much damage. Oops. Hope it wasn't something really valuable.

Once back in the familiar confines of our chambers, I stormed over to where we had a carafe of wine and goblets and poured two very generous cups then handed one to Sam. “Well that was kind of FUBARed wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Sam accepted the cup and took a long pull of the wine then grimaced. “That ale better get here really fast.”

“Slow down, love.” I patted his cheek and sighed. “We need to talk, and think about things. I won’t keep you from emptying that keg when it gets here, because I plan on doing the same with the wine they bring. But we need to think about things right now before we do that.”

“You really are female, ya know that?” He looked at me and shook his head. “Muh girlfriends always said that to me.”

“Just how many cups of that ale did you have back there?” I questioned.

“Who was counting?” He answered and shrugged. “We’re dead, we’re reborn, we — or you, at least — have a goddess personally interested in you, we’re supposed to save a race that no one else on this world wants to survive, and we’re dead back home.”

“You mentioned that last one already.” I nodded then sighed. “But, yeah, that just about covers things I’m worrying about at the moment.”

He nodded and reached for the cup again, but I interrupted that by gently taking his wrist. “Wait on that, come on, there’s something I really need for you to do right now.”

“What would that be?”

“What do you think?” I purred while moving my hand from his upper cheek to one of his lower ones.

“Thought you weren’t ready for all that stuff.” He told me while looking right into my eyes. “I know that first time was kind of an accident.”

“Sam.” I patiently told him. “I’m female, you’re male. I always liked you, loved you like a brother. Well now I can love you another way and I want to show you, without it just kind of accidentally happening before we hit that point where we’re too out of it to really admit what happened is real.”

“Okay.” He answered with a little smile. “You sure?”

“I was sure last time, Sam.” I grinned. “Just had trouble admitting it to myself let alone to you. Now I know what I need, what I want. Are you ready for that?”

“Are you getting to that ‘commitment’ thing, here?” He narrowed his eyes and questioned.

“You big dummy.” I laughed. “You already made that commitment. You’ve already shown me that you have done that. It’s my turn to show you I am.”

“I’ve died — literally — and gone to heaven.” He grinned. “About time, Dahlia.”

“Shut up and let’s get down to it.” I softly told him.

We did, oh we did.

Did it help with everything else? Nope. But it did help with other things.

Maybe that having little Dhro’aaa thing wouldn’t be such a bad idea, if getting them always felt this gooood…

Post coital bliss. Let me tell you, if it does what it did to me that time, I may go back to being celibate.

“Well, daughter.” The slightly chill, very feminine and amused voice was the first hint that something else had gone wonky in my weirded out life. “It is time and past time that you came to me.”

“Huh?” I answered with my usual aplomb and sat up to discover that I wasn’t in bed with Sam any longer. Or even in our bedroom. Oh, this couldn’t be good.

“Open your eyes, Dahlia.” Whoever or whatever as speaking ordered, and much to my intense discomfort, I did that.

Bad idea, really bad idea. I’m just glad that I’d never been afraid of spiders.

Oh, not her, just the décor. And her — pets.

The woman in front of me was so beautiful it actually hurt to look at her for a while. Tall, slender, but most definitely female, with a finely formed face, and large, almond shaped emerald eyes so bright they almost glowed in the dim surroundings. Almost? Who am I kidding. They did glow.

She also radiated power, and evil. The first frightened me, the second just was and I could accept that and get on with things no matter how weird that sounds. She was wearing an outfit similar to what I had when serving as Kae’song’s handmaiden but her clothing was disturbingly alive. It clung to her, caressed her and actually appeared to be trying to give her pleasure beyond what a beautiful woman normally got out of beautiful clothing.

She also wore a delicate crown, with an oval that had eight bent legs radiating from it in the center of her forehead. The decorations in the chamber all had that general theme, and I will not, absolutely will NOT describe what she was languidly petting as she watched me.

Worse, she looked a lot like me. Or I looked like her, which was probably more the truth since I just knew she’d been around a whole lot longer than I had.

Oh, her pet, if you can call it that, was a spider, about the size of a German Shepherd. Black, mottled with virulent looking green spots and it was watching me with a hungry expression from all eight of its eyes. I looked, wished I hadn’t and almost begged. “Please let this just be a bad dream, please.”

“If you chose to call it that, then that is what it will be, daughter. They did well in your making, dear one.” She told me with a smile that should have sent chills of terror trampling through my nerve endings and poor overloaded brain. “You do know who I am?”

“Yes.” I managed to choke out.

“What is my name, child?” She asked and I had no choice but answer.

“Llolth.”

“Good.” The goddess that Dhro’aaa worshiped nodded then gestured for me to move forward. “Now come to me daughter. I would touch my image in the flesh of the world.”

I did. There was nothing else I could do. Come on, here. If you had some incredibly beautiful, charismatic, dangerous goddess commanding you to do that, could you resist it? Would you even try?

And she hugged me. HUGGED me. “You are a new thing in the world, my beloved daughter, and one who has a task.”

“Daughter?” I questioned and was shaking my head no at the same time. “By that you mean priestess or follower?”

“If you choose to believe that at the moment.” She answered then narrowed her eyes and tapped the side of the throne she was seated on. “My priestesses commune as they will in whatever way they are comfortable with. Now, back to where we were. You have a task set for you, is that not true?”

“To —to save the race.” I answered hesitantly.

“Yes, dear one, yes.” She didn’t move but I could feel a connection growing into me from her. “You must save my, our, people.”

“How?”

“That is for you to do, daughter not me.” She softly answered but there was threat, chill, and an evil so deep I didn’t want to plumb those depths in that. “You will have to change things, Dahlia, my beloved. Many things. Our people will resist, but if they don’t follow they will die.”

“I — I’m not even one of them. Not really.” I tried to protest.

“Yes you are my daughter.” She countered. “True, you weren’t until recently, and are still having difficulties with your change. But is it so bad being female and loved by a strong male?”

“Nuh, no.”

“Your differences will be strengths to use.” She told me. “You are my chosen, my foremost priestess, Lady Dahlia Saaa Llolth. Save our people. Change what you must, even gods must adapt when circumstances dictate and I will do so when the time comes. I will abide by your choices unless they are too extreme for our people to survive.”

“Saa Llolth?” I squeaked out.

“Yes, daughter.” She answered with a rather nasty smile. “You were made in my chosen image. I gave of myself to help create you. You are of my clan, my family, my own. Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, daughter. Now go. You have much to do. I will be watching.”

“Uh, would you be offended if I turned down the help?” I’d almost said ‘Mother! I’d rather do it myself!’ Luckily I bit my tongue before that one got loose.

She was amused and gently patted my cheek. Not with the hand she’d been petting that — that whatever it was with, thank goodness. Somehow I didn’t think throwing up on her would have been at all amusing for either one of us. “Ahh, I do love an independent, unpredictable child, Dahlia. You will have my help when you need it, just ask.”

“I guess that’s a not going to happen on the refuse thing, then?” I wanted to bite my tongue once I said that one.

“Correct, daughter and do call me Mother.” The goddess moved her hand to my forehead and I felt a jolt that nearly sat me on my padded rear, and my head swam for a few moments. “There, the part of your education that has been neglected has been taken care of. Go now, beloved daughter. We will see each other again.”

Like I said before. Oh, this couldn’t be good.

Not good at all.

“Ahhh, Gah!!” I sat straight up and shook myself, dislodging Sam’s arm that had been across my stomach when I did. “Now that was a nightmare.”

“Uh, what happened to you Dahlia?” Sam questioned while giving me a looking over that had nothing at all to do what we’d been up to earlier.

“I met our goddess.” I answered weakly.

“Our goddess?”

“Yes, our patron, the patron of the entire Dhro’aaa race.” I slowly answered and shivered. “She told me, ordered me, to save ‘our’ people no matter what I had to do.”

“Well, for what it's worth, I don’t think it was a dream and she made sure you won’t forget that.” Sam answered slowly.

“What’s that mean?”

“Look.” He pointed at the floor length mirror in our bed chamber and I did. Silly me.

There were legs, not real ones, just kind of tattoos wrapped around my torso, from thighs up to my breasts. You could even see individual hairs on them, like a spider’s legs and yes, they had all the little hooks, claws and whatever. And no I am NOT going to tell you where that second lowest set of legs were.

Worse, once we got another mirror so I could see it, my back bore the rest of her mark. Once I saw that I managed to breath out a disbelieving. “Oh, crap.”

The rest of the spider filled my back from shoulder blades to the swell of my buttocks. And its red eyes, all eight of them, seemed almost alive. And it looked exactly like the thing SHE had been petting in my dream. Yeah, Dahlia, keep calling it a dream. Sometimes denial is a healthy thing.

Riiight.

“Oh, this sooo not a good thing.” I closed my eyes to keep from looking at the thing.

But I could feel its presence on, no — in, my flesh. I’d been personally marked by a goddess. An evil one. No, this wasn’t going to be fun at all.

“What did you say to her?” Sam questioned as we worked our way through the casks of wine and ale that had been delivered while I’d been visiting (is that the right word?) goddess.

“Mostly things like ‘Guh! Uhhh! Ack!’ and ‘I must be dreaming’ she insisted I call her Mother, too, I think though she never really said that.” I answered with a grimace. “And let’s not forget the all time favorite. ‘Oh gawd, oh gawd, oh gawd…’ while we’re at it.” I morosely told him while thinking this wine was either really weak or that I was just too messed up otherwise for it to have much effect on me.

“You called her Mother?” Sam gave me a strange look.

“Not out loud, but well, she wouldn’t let me say ‘hey you, or yes, ma’am.” I shot back. “She kind of insisted on the Mother thing and trust me you don’t want to go against what SHE wants. Though the idea of emancipation doesn’t seem like a bad idea just now even if She wouldn’t let me get away with it.”

“Point taken.” He nodded and shrugged. “So now what?”

“No idea.” I let out a long sigh. “I guess we go save the — our — people. Somehow.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

“Fine, you go talk to her next time.” I grumbled.

“I already have.” He gave a little shiver and showed me his shoulder. It bore a mark identical to the one that was all over me, only smaller. “Evidently SHE has no problem at all with multitasking. She told — no commanded me to take care of you and make sure you didn’t come to harm if I could prevent it. I ended up calling her Mother too, if that helps any.”

And some guys complain about the mother-in-laws they have.” I chuckled.

“Yeah.” Sam actually managed to laugh and pulled me into a hug to his side. “But I can top them all because mine really is an evil witch, among other things.”

“You mean she told you that I am her daughter, really? Not as in figuratively as in a follower or priestess?”

“Oh, she was real clear on that one.” Sam nodded and shuddered. “She told me like this. ‘That girl is blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh that I gave when she was formed. See that no harm comes to her that you can prevent.’ The or else part was just implied but I got it loud and clear.”

“This just gets better and better, doesn’t it?” I moaned while pushing further into his side.

“You’ve been known to understate things before, love.” He told me. “But even I have to tell you that one was a whopper of epic proportions.”

“Tell me about it.” I whispered while doing my best to ignore the blood, flesh, and forming thing.

It didn’t work.