After sex, there was an awkward moment with the two of them laying together on the floor, still naked and sweaty, where Arwin thought, what now? Was he supposed to return to her room with her so they could sleep together? Should he ask about a guest room?

She solved his conundrum quickly enough. She stood up and gave him a quick smile. “Well, that was lovely, but sex is one thing, sleeping in the same bed and being unconscious and physically vulnerable with a stranger is quite another. I don’t trust you enough for that.”

Arwin felt even more awkward. He sat up, suddenly a little conscious of his nudity, while heartily enjoying hers. “So…I’m just supposed to wait in the dungeon until called then, am I?”

She nodded and smiled. “For now. I mean, I don’t know who you really are, so that would be the safest thing.”

He nodded back, wondering how many women would keep men in a dungeon during the get-to-know-you phase if they could. Well, at least the Dark Enchantress seemed to be in a good mood. Happy, even. So his plan to get on her good side had at least made a start. Trying to see how much goodwill he’d earned so far, he asked, “I don’t suppose there’s a guided tour leaving from the dungeons so that I can see something of the castle at some point?”

She looked away and searched around for her dress. “Well, I do have a lot of work to do. But perhaps I could find some time tomorrow to show you around. We’ll see.” She bustled over to her dress and picked it up but didn’t bother putting it on, only draping it over one arm. She stood there, dark hair mussed, select portions of her normally pale skin still pink. She seemed completely confident in nothing but her own skin, one hand on her hip and a small smile on her lips, as if she knew exactly how she appeared to him right now and enjoyed the attention. Of course, she still wore her heels. There was something very hot about a naked woman in heels. He’d also enjoyed how she’d kept them on during sex.

Arwin wasn’t sure what to make of her post-coital behaviour. Sure, they’d just met, but he was used to a little more affection after sex. Or maybe that’s just how it’d been with Kelli when they were dating, and now he longed for it. But to be sent back to the dungeon? She seemed content, even happy, but also ready to pick up and leave. Had she cooled towards him, now that she’d gotten a few orgasms out of the way?

He mentally gasped. Was this how a woman felt when a man used her for sex and then took off?

On the one hand, she certainly wasn’t being really clingy or overly romantic, which was probably a good thing. On the other hand, he kind of felt disappointed that she seemed so casual about things. It was confusing. He stood and also began picking up his clothes. He hopefully suggested, “I could just wander around a bit on my own tomorrow, too, if you’re busy.” This would be perfect, as it would let him freely search for Epheria. He wanted to ask for Yaz to be freed as well but suspected it was too soon. He obviously hadn’t earned enough trust yet.

“Maybe.” She half shrugged. She glanced at the door, seemingly anxious to leave the room.

Arwin decided not to push things. He was escorted by giant spiders back to his cell in the clammy, stone dungeon. She wasn’t entirely cruel about returning him there, however. The cell now featured a small cot with a blanket and a pillow. She’d given him a change of clothes. She’d also given him a small globe of magical light. It lit up when he said ‘lumos’ and darkened when he said ‘demort’. It was odd how the globe went out; the light would turn a sickly green, then slither back into the sphere with a hiss.

Once he was alone again in the cell, he tried calling out to Yaz through the window in the cell door. “Yaz! You ok?”

There was no answer. Had the skeleton been moved? Or was he still not talking?

With a sigh, Arwin sank onto the cot and said, “Demort.” The light turned green, then slithered away, leaving him in utter darkness. He tried to sleep, but his mind was much too excited for that. It whirred and tumbled, becoming active now that there were no external stimuli to distract it. And he had plenty to think about.

It still amazed him that he was now in some foreign universe. Magic was real here. There were monsters and dragons and undead and, of course, beautiful, deadly witches. Well, magicists, in the Dark Enchantress’s case.

The Dark Enchantress. She was…confusing. He was drawn, of course, to her beauty and intelligence. Yet she had something of a violent streak, a dark heart, a temper, and a famed evil reputation that simply couldn’t be entirely without foundation, could it? Surely there was some kernel of truth, some reason that everyone feared her as much as they did.

He instinctively found it difficult to reconcile the image of the villain with the young woman who cooked and grew orchids. He had less trouble pairing her reputation with the version of her that had threatened him and seemingly tried to murder him. And yet, he’d had amazing sex with her. And talked and laughed, like being with her was the most natural thing in the world.

What was he to think of her?

He lay in the darkness, mentally replaying their conversations, and the sex, and the after-dinner battle, and then he thought more about the sex. And then he felt himself growing hard, and this became very distracting, his thoughts racing ever more along that particular road, at the exclusion of all others.

And then, unbidden, Kelli popped once more into his mind. What would she think of all this? What would she think of the Enchantress? And, of course, how did the two compare? It was enough to cool his rekindled lust, replacing the feeling with heartbreak instead.

Luckily, his insomnia eventually gave way to dreams and, though troubled, at least he got some sleep.

The next morning, Arwin woke to the sound of running water bubbling somewhere close by. “Lumos.”

The globe flared to life. But it illuminated no water running in the cell.

Puzzled, he rose and carefully stepped up to the door, wary of alerting his guards. Oddly, the sound didn’t appear to be coming from outside, in the hall. He slowly went about the cell, which was easy enough given the fact that it was only two and a half paces in any direction. At last, he realized that the sound was coming from below. Was there another level of dungeon beneath this floor? Sewers perhaps?

Before he had a chance to explore further, noises in the hall alerted him to visitors. He dressed in the clothes he’d been lent and waited.

The door swung open and blazing torchlight flooded Arwin’s cell.

Seven gremlins stood in the doorway and hallway. The black, reptilian monsters grinned at him, mouths full to bursting with neat rows of short, pointed teeth. They hungrily watched him with wide, evil eyes that glowed yellow and red, with vertical black slits for irises, probably capable of seeing well in the dark. They had large ears that stretched out like leathery wings, no doubt capable of excellent hearing. The hands grasping their torches only had three thick digits each, but each finger and thumb bore a curved, deadly-looking talon. Despite standing only about hip high on Arwin, perhaps a meter tall or so, the gremlins appeared fast, strong, and agile: a dangerous combination. Arwin doubted that his superior size and strength could easily prevail against so many. Those talons would probably claw him to ribbons, and those maws would rip great chunks out of his flesh. Plus, they had the numbers.

The gremlins giggled with glee and jumped up and down with anticipation. It appeared as if his interactions with the Enchantress had come to naught after all. He was about to be eaten.

Arwin fought to keep his fear under control. “What do you want?”

A gremlin from the back pushed his way forward. Unlike the others, who were naked, this one wore a trim tuxedo with a blood-red bowtie. He wore thin, wire-framed spectacles and carried a clipboard in one hand and a fancy feather quill in the other. “What do we want?” he asked rhetorically.

Arwin blinked. It had spoken. In his language. And with a cultured English accent!

“What do we want?” the gremlin repeated more slowly, with a wide smile, dramatically gesturing in thought with his quill, like some Shakespearean actor on a stage, drawing the audience in for a soliloquy. His voice was polished smooth, and full of confidence; it was deep and resonant. “I think we want, what anyone wants, really, is what you want: civilization. You know, the niceties, the finer points in life: diplomacy, standards, compassion, manners, love, and institutions that protect and preserve the best aspects of our existence, in order to promote healthy long-term growth for our species. That’s what we’re reaching towards. Cosplay conventions, swing dancing, chamber music, literary genius, fine wine, those candies that snap, crackle, and pop when you put them in your mouth. Our own schools. Equal pay. A system of semi-autonomous self-government with fair checks and balances that protect individual freedoms within a larger framework of interdependent cooperation, one without bias against the vertically challenged, such as ourselves. Everything human society has allegedly been striving towards for centuries: we, gremlin-kind, want to be civilized.”

Astounded at what he was hearing, Arwin shook his head, confused. “Uh — what?”

The bespectacled gremlin bowed his head and continued on, grave and somewhat apologetic. “Of course, like you, we have our baser, more monstrous aspects to overcome. Just like you humans, we have our primal, violent side. Look at this.” He slipped his quill into the hand holding the clipboard. Then he reached into his black jacket and pulled out a magic wand.

Next to him stood a giggling idiot of a gremlin with googly eyes and a trickle of drool in the corner of his mouth. The idiot looked right at the wand pointed at his face and only giggled more.

The tuxedo-wearing gremlin pointed the wand at the idiot’s head. “Affram!” he shouted. A white ball of light shot from the wand and burrowed into the idiot’s head, which then exploded like a ripe melon, casting brain and skull matter all over the room.

The other gremlins bust out laughing, two of them rolling on the blood-spattered floor, clutching their sides as they wheezed and cackled. They sounded both evil and slightly mad. Mad as in crazy, not angry.

“There, you see? Was that civilized?” The suave gremlin tucked away the wand. “Fun? Yes, delightfully so. But civilized? No, certainly not. I gave in to my penchant for violence, destruction, and death. It’s the kind of pointless death that humans love to exact upon each other with appalling regularity, in complete contradiction to their airs of supposed moral superiority to all other beings. It’s the kind of gratuitous violence that they fill their stories with. As you can see, my less intelligent companions here are all typically entertained by it. Just as many barbaric humans are entertained by stories of killing and cruelty, especially when it’s inflicted upon each other.”

“Sorry, you’re saying that humans aren’t civilized?”

“Just look at how they entertain themselves! What truly civilized race could possibly find watching hysterical housewives bitch at each other over nothing even the slightest bit beneficial? How does endlessly conversing about wheeled conveyances or antiques or celebrity gossip enlighten us? Why do so many of their stories involve hurting each other? Why does war still exist in human society? And widespread illness, poverty, inequality, and loneliness? Humans are obviously still working on becoming truly civilized. We gremlins deserve our shot too, though it may seem impossible today. But someday, perhaps in the far distant future, with the right kind of cultural experimentation and a little genetic tweaking here and there, we want to find a truly civilized and peaceful mode of existence that we can honestly be proud of. If humanity continues to blunder in its own journey, perhaps we might one day catch up and join them as one of the dominant species of Heartstone. Or even replace them.” The gremlin leaned forward, hand on the edge of his mouth, and stage whispered, “Probably won’t be that difficult, really. They’re easily distracted by meat, bright lights, and shiny objects. Dangle a naked girl in front of a man, and it’s like his mind completely shuts down in favour of other organs. Tease a woman with a string of diamonds, and she’ll follow you anywhere. At which point, you can basically do whatever you want with them. Or, better, get them to do whatever you want on their own.”

Arwin felt gremlin brains sliding down his cheek. He carefully wiped it off. “But I meant: what do you want with me? As in — now.”

“Ah!” The gremlin adjusted his glasses. “Quite simple: we’re here to fetch you for breakfast at the mistress’s request. She sends her apologies, but she’s too busy to come for you herself at the moment. She’s already immersed in her lab for the day. And the usual guard spiders are on errands, so I came for you.”

“So you’re not here to eat me?”

“My dear boy — no!” He laughed. “If we were here to eat you, I would have skipped the monologuing and simply dug in lest my compatriots all get to the good parts first.” He leaned forward and spoke conspiratorially, evidently a habit he enjoyed. “I’ll tell you a secret. Humans are a lot like fish, the cheeks are a delicacy.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “But the eyeballs, too, are quite delicious. Come to think of it, so are the other kinds of balls.”

Arwin shuddered.

The tuxedoed gremlin led the way upstairs.

Arwin’s curiosity got the better of him. He directed it towards the short monster in glasses. “You don’t seem to be like the rest of the gremlins.”

He readily agreed, “Oh no, I’m not. I once was. But my current, greatly superior intellect was bestowed upon me by the mistress while she was investigating magical enhancements to the brain some years ago. Alas, I was the only success. She eventually put her research project on hold because too many of us, rather than follow in my brilliant footsteps, became the drooling, primordial savages that googly eyes back there was a typical example of.” He nodded back in the direction of the now headless corpse.

“I see.” Arwin nodded. “ So, um, do you have a name?”

“The mistress refers to me as Brainy. I hope she does so with a certain amount of affection and not sarcasm, though that may be my own wishful thinking. My official titles, admittedly given to myself, are Castle Chamberlain and Dungeon Master. I handle routine matters regarding the administration of the castle and the creatures who serve her, what few we have. And I deal with guests, both official—” he broke off as a piercing scream sounded from elsewhere in the dungeon, “—and unofficial. The latter are far more common. Thieves, assassins, and, worst of all, adventurers.” He chuckled. “Not that there’s any difference between the three. I think adventurers just spend more time looting ruins and coming up with good-sounding reasons to justify all the killing they do instead of simply admitting it’s about the money, the way a rogue does.”

Arwin followed Brainy up into the castle proper. They only went as high as the ground floor, then made their way past the throne room, through a hall, and into a small room, half attached to the castle and half jutting out into a private garden.

“The lower solar,” Brainy announced and waved his charge inside.

The room wasn’t large. While the castle wall was made of stone, the other three walls and ceiling were of heavy glass and wrought iron, like a greenhouse. The lower half of the walls were thickly overgrown with vines, a few deep red flowers amongst them. Arwin could see that it had been raining sometime overnight, though the sky was clearing, and the sun now poked through, bright and promising.

A hearth had been set at one end of the room. In the middle was a thick wooden table for six, very well used, the kind of thing you’d expect to see in the servants’ quarters or a regular house. There were a few bookcases, a small rack of wine, and a deep love seat that sat in the brightest part of the room, close to the hearth. The place felt cozy and warm, especially with the morning light filtering in all around.

“A solar?” Arwin wasn’t familiar with the term, not having lived in a castle before.

“A private room where one can get away from the hustle and bustle of the larger spaces. Useful for quiet or clandestine meetings during a larger event, for a bit of peaceful study amidst the garden view, or maybe for a quick but hearty shag during a party. Or, a good place for breakfast and a book in the sun.” He pointed to a set of dishes already laid out on the table.

“Thank you,” Arwin said, unsure of what else to say.

He proudly noted, “Mistress will be busy most of the day, I assume. She always is. Quite the accomplished workaholic. She has instructed that you will remain here, and only here, for the day. She may or may not invite you to lunch as her schedule sees fit.” He looked pointedly at Arwin and gave him a deadly smile. “I strongly advise against trying to wander off. It may be tempting to explore the castle on your own, but I remind you, you are never alone here. And if you are not happy to remain here, you will be removed back to the dungeon from whence you came. And we are never short on manacles.”

“Uh, great. Thanks. I’m sure I’ll be fine here. Will Yaz be coming too?”

Brainy cocked his head to the side. “Yaz?”

“My friend. We were captured together? Handsome, really nice guy, animated skeleton?”

The gremlin’s face lit up. “An animated skeleton?”

“Well, yes.”

“He can move well? How are his communication skills?”

“Of course he can move. And talk. I mean, he’s exactly like you or me, just fleshless.”

“Astounding! Delightful!” Brainy’s eyes gleamed. “I shall have to introduce myself. This is just what I’ve been looking for!” Without further ado, he dashed off.

Huh. That was weird.

Arwin sat down at the table. He found a plate of what looked like ham and eggs, except that both were green. He stared at them a long while. Had she—? Because last night they’d joked about—? Nah, it had to be coincidence, right?

He smiled to himself and dug in. That woman really was full of surprises.

Despite the colour, the food tasted normal, and he was reasonably certain that it was actually ham and eggs. After eating, he wandered about the room. He admired the small garden outside and the vines creeping up the glass. He examined the many books. To his surprise, he was able to read all of them as if they were written in English. Surely they weren’t, of course. Must be magic at work.

He found a variety of texts, from novels and poetry to geography and history. He lost himself for an hour or two reading up on this new world, learning about Heartstone. It was tremendously fascinating stuff. He could truly have spent all day here.

However, he couldn’t forget his real purpose: finding Epheria. Though part of him loathed turning his back on the knowledge, he put the books down and went to the door.

He put an ear to the wood and listened for a while. No chittering. No tell-tale tapping of spindly legs on the stone floor. No growling or cackling from gremlins. With studied innocence, just in case, he opened the door and took a look outside.

The hallway was barren of people or creatures. He looked right, he looked left. All was quiet.

Wanting to rub his hands together with glee at his good fortune, he stepped out and stealthily made his way down the hallway.

Something dropped down in front of his eyes, and he jerked in surprise. Then a rope tightened around his body, trapping his arms against his sides, and he was jerked right off his feet and into the air.

He looked up and found one of the guard spiders above his head, easily clinging to the ceiling. It had lassoed him with spider silk.

Arwin had completely forgotten that his captors could move in all three dimensions as easily as he himself could move in two. He should have checked above him.

With an angry chitter, the spider sped along the ceiling, back in the direction Arwin had come from: to the dungeons.

“Wait! Wait!” Arwin shouted.

The spider ignored him.

“I was just looking for the bathroom. Bathroom. Toilet!”

The spider halted, the momentum causing Arwin to swing beneath it like a pendulum. Eight eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“Toilet?” Arwin asked, the very picture of innocence.

Grumbling, the spider turned around and dragged Arwin in the other direction.

Arwin let out a relieved breath. Well, so much for sneaking around on his own.

Spiders. Why did it have to be spiders? He would have preferred snakes.