“The wife was a Tower Maiden in her youth. A lot of the local women were, considering there’s a new one every week. She told me, and I believe her.”
“So we’re still monkeys in a cage.”
“We still are. We’ll have to keep performing, assuming they don’t know we know.”
He laughed ruefully. “After that sex vampire, I thought I wouldn’t want sex for weeks, but you got me hot in a minute. You know how to make me spout. If you want to.”
She avoided that. “So the reason for the hood fading out was to let us think we had escaped. Unless there was some other trigger.”
“I’ve got it,” he said. “When I spoke your name.”
“My name!” she agreed. “That would of course be it.” She paused, thinking it through. “But you didn’t actually know my identity in the cave.”
“The program’s not smart enough to know the difference. It figured I spoke your name because I knew you. That washed out the hood, because it was supposed to make no difference then.”
“So it would seem.”
“So we’re not out of it yet. Whatever happens, I have to say that you’re a great woman, and you proved it yet again in the village, doing what you had to to get us clothing and food. Whatever you need of me, you can have, even if it’s just urine.”
She smiled without having to force it. “Thank you.”
They moved on, eating the food, drinking the wine, nighting at villages. They might be under observation, but there was no interference. Would the Tower authorities allow them to walk right out of Fartingale?
In the evening, in a nice room in an inn she had won by expending more of Prior’s piss, her head tingling with a bit more wine than she should have taken, facing the prospect of a joint bed, she came to a conclusion.
“I believe you will do.”
“Do what?” he asked.
“You’re a decent man, down deep. I can’t say I love you, yet, but I do like you. My hate for you was evidently a function of my feeling for you, because you had seemed to dismiss me with contempt. It seems best simply to recognize this and accept you. I could do worse.”
“Accept me?”
“When we return home, I will marry you.”
He gazed at her. “Oh, Tantamount! You really are my ideal—”
Then things changed.
Part 4: Fart Off
Chapter 19—Challenge
“—woman,” Prior concluded. But the woman and baby were gone. Then a picture appeared. It showed a horrendous demon with a nineinch penis as thick as a young tree trunk. “A salutation, shithead,” he said. “Do you recognize me?”
Bemused, Prior wasn’t sure. “One demon looks much like another, to me,” he said. “Where’s Tantamount?”
The demon fuzzed and shifted into the image of a limb from a tree, with a single bright cherry. “Now do you know me, turdass?”
“The cherry tree!” Prior exclaimed.
“The First Branch.” The demon reappeared.
“You got it at last, pukemouth. I’m ba-a-ack.”
“But I abolished you,” Prior protested. “I fucked you into oblivion.”
“Get this straight, twat-head. You had the incredible luck to get your perverted little weenie into my ass and send me into limbo for a year. Now my time is up and I have reconstituted. By demonic law I can neither re-challenge you nor indulge in another fuck fight with you. None of us can. But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to let that outrage pass.”
“All—of you demons—are back?” Prior said, horrified.
“With a vengeance, feces-face. We spent our time in limbo planning how to fix you once we got the chance. We realized that we would have to make you come to us. That meant we would have to have something you wanted, even if you didn’t know it yet. So we set you up with a special Tower Maiden and gave you a chance to get to know her.”
That explained everything. They had abducted Tantamount and let him know it, without naming her. She really was his ideal woman, as he now knew. They had arranged it so that he would discover this. The moment she committed to him, so that he knew there really could be a future with her, they had pounced. She had never been the real target; he had been. She was the one thing that would make him come to the vengeful demons. She had served their purpose admirably.
The demon nodded, aware of the progress of Prior’s thoughts. “Now here’s how it’s gonna be, fuckass. We can’t challenge you, but you can challenge us. We can’t fuck you, but we can fart you. So you are going to challenge each of us to a farting to the death as long as you last, which won’t be long because I will vaporize you before my sibling branches have the chance, much to their displeasure.”
Prior knew he had been supremely lucky to have beaten the five demons, there on Mount Icecream. He knew better than to tackle them again. He would have to find some other way to rescue Tantamount from their possession. “Forget it, twiggy. I’m not getting into a hexagon with any of you.”
The demon frowned. “Oh, that’s too bad, pantywaist. Are you sure I can’t persuade you to change your ignorant little mind?”
“Quite sure,” Prior said. “Not even if I do something foul to your girlfriend?” The demon reached out of the picture, caught hold of something, and hauled Tantamount into sight by her hair. Baby Chance was still in her arms.
“Let her go!” Prior said. “She’s not part of this!”
“Ah, but she is, stink-guts. She is your inspiration.”
“She’s my fiancée,” Prior agreed. “But you have no quarrel with her.”
“Here’s how it is, putrid prick. She’s going to ask you to challenge us.”
“No I won’t!” Tantamount cried. “Don’t do it, Prior!”
“So why should I?” Prior asked, though he was now distinctly nervous.
These demons were not nice folk. “Because,” the demon said with relish, “I just might encourage her with some fucking heat.”
“Heat?” Prior asked blankly.
“Like so: a small demonstration.” The demon hauled the woman in to him, forced her legs up, and inserted his thick member into her flinching vagina.
“Raping me won’t accomplish anything,” Tantamount said scornfully. “I’ve already been raped by a pig. You’re just another pig.”
“Give it a moment, honey,” the demon said, shoving the full nine inches in with an obviously satisfying effort. Tantamount winced but did not protest.
Then she began to look uncomfortable. Then she struggled to free her self, but the demon held firm.
“Oh, it’s hot!” she cried.
“You don’t say.” The demon faced Prior. “I can heat my member to red hot,” he said conversationally. “That makes no difference to you, since I can’t fuck with you. But it just may make a difference to her. I think we’re about a hundred and twenty degrees now.”
Tantamount screamed in pain. Prior realized that he hadn’t thought this through well enough: Tantamount wasn’t just a way to bring him to the demons, she was a way to make him do their will. “Or higher,” the demon said. “I’ll just cook her innards until you see the light, diarrhea-snot. Take your time; this is fun.”
Tantamount screamed again, in obvious agony. It was too much.
“I’ll do it,” Prior said.
The demon cupped an ear. “Eh? Did you say something?”
Tantamount’s mouth stretched in a rictus of torment.
“I challenge you!” Prior yelled.
The demon nodded, and allowed Tantamount to scramble off his steaming member.
“I’ll just have to roast this pig another time,” he said, as she collapsed into a huddled mass. “Your appointment with me is tomorrow at noon, at Castle Demon. Be late if you wish; your gal here is a nice hot fuck.”