Tyrmo glowered down at the book in his hands. Herbs, he thought contemptuously. Master Vilnus really expects me to memorize herbs? Back home, healing herbs were toys for old ladies. Tyrmo glanced across the table at his fellow student, Vilnus’ adopted granddaughter Maida. Despite being two years younger than Tyrmo, she had the advantage of studying under her grandfather – widely known as the Great Island’s greatest healer and enchanter – her whole life.

Tyrmo studied her surreptitiously over the top of his book. When he’d first come here five years ago, she’d been a scrawny kid. But over the years, she’d ripened beautifully – still short and slim, she had dusky skin, big dark eyes, and a full mouth. Her long, slender legs ran up to a spectacular ass, her breasts were small, but round and full, and the whole all topped off by a gorgeous head of shining, dark wavy hair that fell loosely across her shoulders. That hair was falling over her face now as she bent over her book.

Tyrmo grinned unpleasantly as he imagined ramming himself into her ass, shoving her face down onto her book as she cried. That’d show the bitch.

Tyrmo jumped as a shadow fell over him, and looked up to see Vilnus himself, glowering at the boy from under alarmingly bushy eyebrows. Not for the first time, Tyrmo worried his master knew what he was thinking. All the old man said, however, was, “I have been summoned by the Duke of Upper Tyrn. It seems his son is ill.”

Maida looked up from her book, brushing her hair back. “Do you need us to come with you?”

Vilnus shook his head. “No, it is a simple enough ailment to cure, and you are old enough to stay a few days by yourselves.” He handed Maida a small brass key. “Here is the key to the library,” he said. “I want you finished with the next volume of Kiril before I return. Tyrmo, finish the herbs; Maida will test you. If you finish before I return, review the nervous curses and their cures. Maida, you know the books to give him.”

Tyrmo sputtered. “Why are you leaving her in charge? I’m the oldest!”

“Because I can trust her to take only the books I say from the library. You, on the other hand... remember the cat?”

Tyrmo blushed and looked down. The one time he’d been in the library alone, he’d snagged a book on Calcobrena's curse, and given the cat a seizure that nearly killed it. Still, it wasn’t fair – he was the older one, the actual apprentice, while Maida was just a fosterling. He was the one who was supposed to be a prodigy.

“I must go to the village and procure a cart for the journey,” Vilnus said. “I’ll stay there tonight and set out first thing in the morning. Tyrmo, don’t forget your chores.”

The old man swept out of the room.

“Sorry,” Maida said awkwardly.

Tyrmo glared at her. “Sure you are,” he said.

Later, Tyrmo staggered into the bath-chamber, dragging a bucketful of water and a brush. Waving his hand over the water, he muttered a few words, and it immediately began to steam and bubble. Nobody knows that trick back home, he said to himself with a smile. He looked at himself in the mirror – something else nobody in Yr had ever seen – and frowned. His pale skin, freckles, and most of all his bright red hair, all marked him as an Yri, a barbarian. Here, magic was complex, subtle, and all-powerful. Back home it was crude and simple, just the two basic rules of similarity and coincidence, not even formally stated, and a handful of applications worked out by trial and error. Tyrmo’s uncle Karlis had been renowned as one of the greatest mages in the kingdom, and Tyrmo had learned everything he had to teach by the age of twelve.

Then Vilnus had come to the village, on some obscure journey, and bought Tyrmo’s apprenticeship from his uncle. Five years later, and Tyrmo had barely scratched the surface of Mercian magic. And a damn little girl kept showing him up. No matter how hard he worked, she still managed to stay ahead of him.

But, Tyrmo thought, picking up Maida’s brush and plucking a few dark hairs from it, I might just be able to show her a thing or two about barbarian magic. This was it, he suddenly realized. This was the night to put his plan into operation. He would never have a better opportunity, with Vilnus leaving town. He hurried back to his room, still holding the hair.

Once there, he shut his door tightly and shuttered the windows against the sun’s last rays, plunging the room into darkness. This was going to take a lot of concentration, at least at first, so he wanted no distractions.

Vilnus didn’t know that, ever since the incident with the cat, Tyrmo had been practicing everything he remembered from the book on Calcobrena's curse, a spell that allowed one to control the movement of others. He’d used captured frogs and rats, making them dance or hop at his command, determined to make up for his mistake.

According to the book, certain conditions had to be met to lay the curse on a thing. It could only be done while touching the victim, for starters, and the victim’s mind could overrule it, so they had to be unguarded. This latter was easy for most animals, but made laying the curse on a human very difficult.

But Tyrmo was raised with the principle of coincidence, that once together meant always together, that the part was the whole. The mages of Mercia learned that principle as children, then forgot it as they learned many other, more advanced principles, but Tyrmo had been taught to use it for everything. Thus he had discovered what, so far as he knew, no mage in the world could do.

Concentrating on the hair, Tyrmo followed the magical threads that trailed from it. One led back to the bathroom. It was probably connected to the brush, and therefore useless. But another led to Maida’s room and, following it, he was able to see her. With a simple spell from his childhood, Tyrmo was able to sense her fully, and entirely without her knowledge: see her, smell her, feel her. Her surroundings weren’t quite so clear, but Tyrmo had always been good at this. He could tell she was at the table in her room, with a book in front of her, and occasionally she wrote something on a piece of parchment. He couldn’t quite make out what she was writing, but it didn’t matter. The important thing was that she was studying.

Tyrmo knew how intense Maida’s concentration was when she read. A touch would rouse her, but the thin tendrils of magic he was now inserting into her body were far too subtle. Concentrating intently, he laid the curse down piece by piece, taking control of her muscles as the book had described. It was very difficult, much more so than a rat because of the need to remain unnoticed, but he finally managed to get everything in place without alerting her to his presence.

Tyrmo relaxed and smiled. Almost too easy, he thought. Well… time to start.

Maida’s first indication that something was wrong was when her hand began writing on its own. She stared at it, eyes wide, struggling to bring it under control as it jerkily scribbled, “Hello, Maida.”

“Who’s there?” she demanded, struggling to rise out of her chair, but finding to her dismay that she could not move.

“Stupid child,” her hand wrote. “You cannot get away from me now.”

“What’s going on?” she shouted, an edge of panic in her voice. “Who are you? Why can’t I see you?”

“I am Karnath,” her hand wrote. “I have come to claim you as my own.”

“Oh, gods,” she whispered. “Are you… a demon?”

“Yes,” her hand wrote, and Maida felt tears begin to run down her cheeks. “Already your body is mine. Soon, I will have your soul as well.”

“No!” Maida cried, but she could not even struggle. In his room, Tyrmo grinned, glad to see that, as in his practice attempts, his control increased with time. “I won’t let you possess me,” she said defiantly.

“The time will come when you beg me to do just that. Before that, however, perhaps a taste of the pleasures of obedience is in order?”

Maida stood, crying helplessly, and walked slowly to the bed. She tried desperately to make herself stop, but her legs refused to obey. She stopped and hooked her thumbs into the waist of her skirt, pushing it down to the floor, leaving herself squatting in just her tunic. As she stood, she trailed her fingertips slowly up along her thighs, over her hips, and then slid them around and back to cup her own ass, squeezing slightly. She whimpered as her hands moved up from her ass, sliding along the hem of her tunic, then slipping under it, lifting it as her fingertips caressed the sensitive skin around her navel.

“No…” she whispered again as her hands rose to the laces at her collar, untying them. “Please stop!” she cried, and one of her hands pinched her nipple through her tunic. She cried out in pain as her hands pinched and twisted. “Stop!” she cried again, sobbing, so Tyrmo forced her to slap herself.

Maida fell silent, except for the occasional teary moan, so Tyrmo switched to forcing her to cup and knead her breasts through her tunic. The friction of the rough cloth against her aching nipples made warmth flood suddenly through Maida’s chest, and she gasped. Her hands descended again to her hips, stroking over them, tickling and teasing her thighs, and she began to feel something new. It was an unfamiliar sensation, but one she’d managed to produce now and then by leaning against a table just right.

This is what he meant by “the pleasures of obedience,” she thought frantically. I have to resist this! She bit her lower lip, trying to distract herself, but her fingers danced up her thighs and through the sparse triangle of hair between them, up to her belly. She moaned, her hands grasping her tunic and pulling it up over her head.

Now naked, she lay down in the bed, hands stroking and teasing her belly and thighs. She arched her back, the warm wetness between her thighs growing hotter and tenser. “Please,” she whimpered, “stop,” but her right hand continued to tease the delicate skin of her abdomen, and her left slid sensuously up her body, over her breasts, and began to caress her neck and face. Fear, desire, guilt, and helplessness mixed in her, intensifying every sensation, and her whimpers degenerated into a wordless sigh.

Both her hands moved now to her breasts, caressing her hard nipples, causing lust to fill her young body. Gods forgive me, she thought. I’m enjoying this. The demon, using Maida’s own hands, pinched and twisted her nipples, and Maida cried out in mingled pleasure and pain. Her shame and fear at feeling pleasure from something meant to hurt her, combined with her helplessness, served only to intensify her desire.

In his room, Tyrmo grinned. This was going even better than planned: Maida was apparently an undiscovered bondage slut, and practically creaming already. Tyrmo was rock hard as he forced her to spread her thighs, so he locked her into a loop – sucking on the first finger of her right hand while her left thumb traced a circle around her nipple – for long enough to get his pants off.

Grabbing his cock with the hand holding Maida’s hairs, he began to pump it. Meanwhile, Maida was pleading with her demon. “Please,” she moaned, now completely lost in lust. “I need more!” Tyrmo moved her wet finger from her mouth to her clit, pressing lightly on the hood, and Maida screamed, throwing her head back. Tyrmo spread her legs wide open, and sent her finger up into her dripping pussy. Another finger followed, and Maida panted and gasped as she played with herself, her other hand teasing her nipples. Her back arched again at the pleasure running through her, her head seemingly trying to burrow its way into the bed. She screamed as she came. Tyrmo could take it no longer, and came himself, letting the link dissolve, but leaving the spell in place.