I gasped. I didn't know about that. "Now would be a good time for you to fix her problem." There was a definite menace in the captain's voice this time.
The wizard nodded. He shut his eyes, recited a whole lot of words, and then waved his wand. Once again, I got that feeling that someone had walked through me.
"Thank you", said the captain. "The Amartis effect too?"
The wizard was surprised. "Yes, it seemed appropriate. You're sharp."
"Yes, and I'm not the only one. You will be watched. You will find your income elsewhere from now on."
The wizard nodded. "Surely." The captain paid him and we left.
I walked behind the captain. Who was this man? How could he threaten a wizard? What was that about? I didn't feel any different for anything the wizard had done.
I just felt like a puppy dog, bought and owned, now walking to the heel of my master. I would've licked his boots on the spot if he had asked me to.
He took me to a store for frontier soldiers. We purchased some wonderful gear for me — really high quality coat and boots, and some heavy clothing for the mountains.
Not the most suitable gear for a woman, but I didn't care. I was just starting to really enjoy myself, even in spite of the looks from the man in the store at my jail clothes, when the captain told me to change into the new clothes.
I looked around, and there was nowhere to change in the shop. I suppose that I could've changed my clothes in parts to retain some modesty, but it seemed that modesty wasn't appropriate for a whore, so I stripped the jail clothes off first, before deciding what to wear. I felt that the captain was pleased with me. The man in the store was certainly pleased.
By the time we had finished in the store, buying lots of other things as well, including a number of soft woollen blankets, we had a substantial load of stuff. The captain arranged for the whole load to be delivered to some military station, and then we left.
I felt so much more confident, no longer dressed in jail clothes. But as we passed through the door, the hunger for seed grabbed me again. Reminding me just what I was, what I needed to do to pretend that I was OK.
The captain took me to some other shops, where I bought some girl's clothes, and some other girl's things, including some tools of my trade, things I had learnt from the other girls.
I had never spent money in a shop before. The captain seemed to have a great deal of money, and he let me buy anything I asked him for, though he warned me I had to carry anything I bought.
As we passed through the town square, there was a crowd standing in front of a platform. On the platform were a number of naked people, all chained to the platform.
All of them were very fair skinned, with blond hair. The captain stopped to look. "Enemy slaves" he told me, when I looked to him. There was a man selling them, a young girl crying on the front of the platform as she was made to show herself to the crowd.
I had heard of these slaves, but not seen them — Tom's specialty of the house was full blooded Livian girls only, no ugly pale foreign women. Surely this poor girl would end up as a sex slave of some sort. Would they control her with selial seed too?
The captain frowned and made me leave. He took me down a side street and through a dark doorway into a dim room. I recognised the smell immediately, we were in a healer's treatment room. A wizened old lady came into the room and looked at me.
"Hello child", she said, "you come to me at a time of great need. I will do what I can to help you. But you will have to find some strength from within you." First, she made me undress, and she examined me thoroughly.
Even after all that had happened to me, it was embarrassing to be examined so personally in front of the captain, who didn't move to leave. She made me spread my legs and lift my groin so she could spread my vaginal lips and look up inside me. I asked her what she was looking for.
"I'm looking for early signs of pox, dear, and you don't appear to have any."
Once she had given me the all clear, she gave me a brew to dampen the desire for seed, and explained to me what would happen when I didn't get seed.
I would actually have six or seven days during which I would have no control over my body, nor any memory of the time, but that then I would recover fine, though I would always feel a desire for selial seed when I was tired, depressed, or pregnant.
When I asked her how she could know that, she said something that really surprised me:
"I remember what it was like."
The captain asked her to help kit me out for winter in the mountains. I really enjoyed working with her to fill a bag of medicines. I found that I hadn't forgotten as much as I thought.
How wonderful it was to work with a healer again, and even better that she shared a past with me.
She taught me some new simple medicines, like the brew to dampen desire, and she gave me a good supply of thornstar, which I used to prevent my monthly bleed, and stop me getting pregnant. It had been the only plant that I had easily been able to get supplies of since leaving Undartha.
The captain had to drag me out of there. It was a long walk to the captain's camp, outside the city walls, and I had so much to carry; I was tiring fast when we finally arrived, and the need for seed was consuming me. I realised I hadn't slept for more than a day.
I struggled to be properly aware when the captain introduced me to his men. I was aware enough to see that some didn't seem to approve of me. He said I was known as "Magic Hands", which, to my surprise, some of them seemed to recognise.
Sometimes Tom had called me that. I was glad that I didn't recognise any of the men, though that didn't mean that none of them had used me before.
There seemed to be rather a lot of them. One really stood out — he had a deep scar running down the side of his face, but he gave me a nice smile. The captain took me to a tent, pulled a small bag out of a pocket, handed it to me, and said "I'll see you in the morning. We leave at sunrise."
All day I had hungered for this moment, when I once again held seed in my hand. But now that it had come, it didn't seem quite so attractive anymore.
It didn't have the sweet smell I remembered, and the thought of taking it revolted me. But so did the idea of not taking it. I guessed that this what the wizard had done for me, I had never had anything but raging desire before.
I decided not to eat the seed. I sat on the bedroll and looked at it. After a minute, I crushed it, just to have another smell, in case the smell was different, but it wasn't. Once I'd crushed it, I figured I might as well eat it.
The captain woke me at dawn. We rode to the east, with the sun in front of us. At least I was comfortable on a horse, though it had been more than a year since I had ridden, so I would surely be very sore for the next few days.
But right then, for the first time since I could remember, I felt good. Great, actually, happy to be alive, which was rather more than I had expected at this time the day before.
I rode in the middle of the group. I looked at the men riding with me. I counted them: eighteen, including the captain. I started to appreciate the magnitude of my choice.
I would have to give myself to every one of these men. The sex bit didn't bother me so much; I had been giving my body to strangers for months, sometimes nearly this many in a single night.
No, what bothered me was that not only would these men take my body, but that afterwards, they would not be strangers; I would have to talk to them, to live with them. More, that these men who had me would be my only company. Would I always be a whore?