Chapter 15

“Are you sure you want to go?” asked Bruce. He was sure that Nick could use another month of recuperation before hitting the road again.

“He says he’s ready to go,” said a voice from under the buckboard seat. Octavia nodded in agreement with the voice.

“Then good on ya mate, have a safe journey.”

“How do we get your camel and wagon back to you?” asked Nick.

“When you get to Bugarup, just turn her free, her name is Christina, and she’ll find her way back to me.”

“She’s going to find her way all the way back to your station?”

Bruce chuckled. “This entire trip is on my station.”

“Thank you again,” said Octavia and with a flick of the whip, the camel drawn wagon headed out into the desert.

They rode side by side in silence, just enjoying their closeness. No one wanted to spoil the peace by talking. Even magically, they weren’t talking, but they were sharing the emotions they were experiencing with each other, which was a conversation on a higher level than what mere words could guarantee. Even the passengers who rode under the seat, Gaspode, Gula, and Mesquite, the name that Nick gave his staff, remained quiet. Mesquite wasn’t happy with her name, but if she behaves and actually helps Nick and Octavia, he promised her a new name when their mission was complete.

Eventually they came to a special tree out in the vast open stretches of Four Ecks and at Nick’s urging Octavia brought the wagon to a stop and set the brake, then hopped out and helped Nick down. He placed Gula on the seat so she could see them. Then, using Mesquite, he limped to the tree and sat down on the ground, and he urged Octavia to lie down beside him and cling to his leg. “There, remember being here?”

“Not really...”

“You had just transported me here, and I didn’t realize how much it took out of you, so I sat down here, and you snuggled with me.”

“This is pretty nice,” said Octavia as she snuggled closer, her arms wrapped around his leg, one hand creeping closer and closer to his cock. Well, she IS an enchantress...

“This was the first time I truly felt accepted by my own kind, ya know, people. Not just tolerated, but someone was happy that I was there with them. Before you it was just me and Gaspode until he was kidnapped.”

“Those were the days, right pal?” said Gaspode as he snuggled next to Nick and Octavia.

“Kidnapped?” asked Octavia.

“Mister Marvolo and his Menagerie of Magic,” growled Gaspode.

“He stole Gaspode when I was twelve,” said Nick, the sorrow and anger coming back like an overwhelming dark shadow.

“I ended up in Howandaland. Every time I got close to Ankh-Morpork I got pulled away,” said Gaspode.

“I waited for you buddy,” whispered Nick. “Then last month Octavia offered me a position on her travels, and I had a feeling I would find you.”

Gaspode was overwhelmed. Nick waited a decade for him. The feeling was overpowering his doggie senses. He licked Nick’s face before he started howling.

“What are we doing here?” asked Octavia as she laughed at Gaspode and Nick. She wasn’t angry. In fact, her butt was numb from the long ride across the desert. This break is what she needs.

“Starting over, if that’s ok.” He slithered down until he was lying next to her on the ground, their lips inches apart.

“Don’t get the idea that this is going to get you out of being my apprentice,” she said as they gently kissed.

“I’m looking forward to serving under you,” he said with a kiss, “and atop you,” another kiss, “and behind you...”

“mmm, you’ve been studying innuendo,” said Octavia, trying to kiss and laugh at the same time. “I think we’re going to make beautiful music together. But this is as far as we go until some more of those wounds healed.”

They spent the night sleeping under the stars. Their cook fire provided the entertainment, and it crackled far into the night as Nick and Octavia slept in each other’s arms for the very first time.

The next day they wheeled up to Bugarup, a town whose primary purpose it seemed was to sell beer to the students, staff, and faculty of Bugarup University and, when they’re not doing that, they watch something called ruggers. It’s a team-based bloodletting that the locals love. They also love sad opera so much they built an opera house that looks like a giant box of tissues.

There was a general store just outside the main entrance to the university and Octavia decided to go in and see what they had. “Shopping? What is shopping?” asked Nick, who never had more than a few pence in his pocket at any time.

“Get used to it,” grumbled Gaspode under his breath.

Inside, she found a set of robes to wear that were just a little risqué. “What do you think?” she asked as she held them up to herself.

“What am I supposed to say?” he asked Gaspode in a whisper.

“Tell her that you think they’re beautiful,” whispered Gaspode.

“I think they’re going to look beautiful on you.”

Octavia immediately brightened. She dashed behind a curtain and while she changed, Nick found a hat that went with the hunting robes he was wearing. Meanwhile, Mesquite studied some aboriginal art and soon she had covered herself full length with carvings that matched that art.

After paying for their purchases, they headed across the street to Bugarup University and, in particular, the library at Bugarup University. It was getting late; classes had finished for the day. The students were in their rooms studying (In Ecksas students conduct studying this way: Drink alcohol, fall down, pass out. Repeat.) The instructors were in the library preparing their lessons for the next day by getting as munted as their students. The beers were flowing, and the faculty was well lubricated when Nick and Octavia strolled into the library trailed by Gaspode. Octavia was wearing a flowing robe that was able to highlight rather than hide her feminine assets.

At first the faculty was hooting and whistling, then they recognized what she was wearing. The crowd quieted down with gasps of, “Crikey!”

“Bloody ‘ell!”

“Strewth!”

“Cor, blimey mate, she’s a bloody enchantress!”

“Can you see her robes mate?”

“Well of course I can see them, y’ daft twit, I’m still here, aren’t I?”

Indeed, Façade Incognito was now wearing the robes of the enchantress, mystical clothing described in the ancient texts that spell doom for the man that cannot see them. Long flowing robes that accentuated the figure of the wearer, sometimes cinched with a belt to follow the waist, other times worn loose where they can hang from the most prominent features of the enchantress’s body. Did she purchase the robes of the Enchantress? Or did her magical aura convert the simple robes she found into robes of the Enchantress? It’s said that the robes the Enchantress wears look like they should be transparent, but they’re not. However, the viewer always has a feeling that if she was standing in just the right light...

Octavia felt the stares of the men as their eyes roamed up and down her body. They couldn’t see anything, but her figure and her robes challenged them to try, to look harder and maybe they will see what they desire. She felt their desire and absorbed it, turning their sexual energy into her own magical energy, charging her magical batteries...

But for the poor soul whom she chooses to enchant it is said that he cannot see her robes, to him they’re as invisible as the wind (if the wind is outside of Ankh-Morpork) and he no longer has control over his own soul. To him, she is as naked as the day she was born, and he thinks she is all his, when in reality, he is the one that belongs to her. With a crook of her finger, he will leave his life behind to serve the Enchantress.

To Nick, the robes were semi-transparent, her breasts were playing peek-a-boo with his remaining eye, full and round, they jostled with every step she took, her nipples are almost visible, they’re in the folds of that diaphanous gown waiting for him. Her ass was constructed of two perfect orbs, orbs that his hands ached to squeeze.

And every time he looked at Octavia, her robes concealed less.

Nick was wearing a set of wizard robes that Bruce Bockschecker’s current stepmother sent him, but he never got around to wearing. They were patterned with a military style camouflage pattern that Bruce could wear when hunting sheep. Nick also wore a slouch hat, a short tapering stack stove-pipe hat with wide brim worn “bush style” with the right side of the brim folded up at a 90-degree angle and pinned in place with the symbol of a queen that rules over a different land. Nick decorated the crockelgator hide hat band with dingaroo fangs from the dingaroo that Gula smashed.

To add to the robes and hat, Nick was holding his bandaged right foot off the ground and, to assist with walking, he had a gnarly wooden crutch propped under his right shoulder. The crutch was covered with tribal carvings from several local tribes of aboriginal warriors that commanded the plains of Four Ecks. He also wore a crockelgator hide patch over his left eye and a short beard that advertised his desire to remain unfucked with.

Porter Strongback has become a Bush Witch.

He limped up to the bar, then reached into his robes and pulled out a mystic grimoire, the Tome of Inverse Disambiguation that Bruce Bockschecker had signed out. “‘ere you go Bruce! Bruce says thanks mate!”

“Thanks mate,” said Librarian Bruce Dinkum. “Have a bush-bash with a bunyip?”

“I had a bit of a to-do with a pack of dingaroos.”

A collective gasp filled the library.

“Twice,” said Gaspode from below the bar.

“Yes twice, but my dog drove them off.”

“And you lived,” marveled Bruce.

“Mostly,” said Nick, tapping his eye patch.

“‘ere y’go mate,” said Bruce as he handed Nick the biggest tinnie that he’s ever seen, along with a scroll declaring him a graduate of the hard knocks school of Bugarup University and making him a full-blooded Ecksan. “Y’ earned it!”

Nick, dehydrated from the first four-hour shopping trip in his life, slammed down the entire beer in a time that challenged the school record and with a “Thanks mate,” he turned to catch up with Octavia who was starting to enter the stacks.

“There you are apprentice!” she laughed and beckoned him with a crooked finger. She pulled Nick toward her and took him into her arms for a kiss that never would have occurred to Nick. Their lips met as their bodies melded together, but then her lips parted, and her tongue caressed his lips, seeking his tongue. Nick was startled and almost pulled away, but Octavia caught him and held him tight as his timid tongue explored her tongue.

Nick’s chest swelled with excitement as his tongue slipped out and danced with hers. He even whimpered in excitement a little as their kiss grew hotter and sweeter as it grew in intensity. And when it was over, Nick held on to Octavia, panting and kissing the side of her neck while the Ecksan wizards watched in terror and envy.

“Come on my love,” whispered Octavia and she tugged him into the stacks and to Nick it looked like she was naked. What happened to her robe? He could feel it, but he couldn’t see it!

The Bugarup library remained silent, but when the sultry Enchantress tugged Nick into the depths of the bookshelves, their audience finally took a deep collective breath. “Too right!” came a call from the back.

“That poor wanker has some hard yakka aheada him tonight!”

“Fair Dinkum!”

“He’s gunna root ‘till he’s rooted.”

Soon the laughter returned to the faculty of Bugarup University, and Nick had become a celebrity ... if he lives.

Deep in the darkened stacks at a junction that Nick remembered from their trip to Four Ecks, Octavia called a halt. “You wait right here, don’t go away, I’ll be right back, ok?”

“Where are you going?” sighed Nick, his head still spinning from his very first kiss.

“I need to check on a book,” she said, and she slipped down a side aisle while Nick slid to the floor.

“Where do you think she’s goin’,” asked Gaspode as he curled up at Nick’s side.

“It’s a library, she’s going to check out a book,” said Nick as he entered his own little lala land and savored every scintilla of their kiss. He held Mesquite tight, and Mesquite continued to magically heal his wounds, the wounds that she caused in her jealousy.

In the nearest off-world library, Octavia had planted a copy of her favorite book. As a librarian she knew it was the wrong thing to do, she stashed it here in a library that won’t publish it for another fifteen years, but she put it here because it’s the closest one to get to, and it didn’t affect this world, so it doesn’t affect the timeline. But now, in the past two months, she has realized what it truly means. Librarians know that changes in the past effect books in the future, and she had to see if that happened. She found the book and flipped through it and found that there were some minor changes, and they were all for the good.

She slid her secret into the shelf and now, as a woman in love, she knew this was doubly wrong, but she’s got to keep this secret from Nick. It’s wrong when a woman keeps a secret from her man, and as this secret goes, it’s a pretty good one. But still ... it’s wrong, right?

Gaspode yawned and fell asleep while Gula wanted to see this spell they were putting together at work. Now. She seemed anxious while waiting for Octavia to return, for an effigy that was created with infinite patience, Gula appears to be tired of being on the sidelines, and for a drain spout who once lived to remain in one place, she’s showing quite a bit of Wanderlust. On their trip across the Ecksan desert, she rode on the camel’s back to get a better view. “Gula, there’s nothing here to see, it’s just wide open desert.”

When translated, her response was that it was a refreshing change of pace to see miles and miles of open land with nothing happening after watching the frantic scurrying of university freshmen as they dashed about the confusing maze of buildings for centuries.