“You are no longer a Mature Elite, my Lady,” Tem said quietly. “Now you are simply an Elite. But please don’t worry,” he added quickly. “We still love you!”
“You’ll always be beautiful to us, Terra,” Rive agreed.
“Fuckin’ gorgeous,” V’rone assured her.
Terra let out a laugh.
“So you’re reassuring me that I still look good even though I’ve somehow suddenly gotten younger?” A new thought came to her. “Er, how much younger would you say I’ve gotten, anyway?”
“Hmm…” Rive frowned. “Fifteen years? Twenty? It’s hard to say.”
“You’re more our age now, at any rate,” V’rone said, frowning. “Guess we’ll all grow old together.”
“No, we—” Terra began but just then she felt a tugging sensation in her hand. “Oh!” she gasped as the sensation repeated itself and got stronger this time. It was the hand she’d been holding the Kat-sat-Suum with and it caused her to jerk and spill the rest of the water from the golden chalice. “Did you feel that?” she asked, looking around.
All the Monstrum nodded.
“It seems to center in the rings—maybe they’re calling us back to Yonnie Six,” Rive said. “After all, Mistress Bodikin did call them ‘homeward’ rings.”
“You might be right—oh!” Terra gasped for it now felt like someone had grabbed her hand and was trying to pull her through a doorway. Quickly, she transferred the Kat-sat-Suum to the hand that wasn’t wearing the ring.
“Everyone stand close!” V’rone roared. “These damn rings are about to yank us back to our own universe!”
They bunched up together, all of them with one hand stretched out in front of them as the rings they all wore pulled at them. Terra had a moment to think that they looked like a dance troupe, all performing the same choreography…and then every thought was wiped from her mind as the invisible force yanking on her suddenly gave another mighty tug and the world around her disappeared completely.
FORTY-FOUR
“Well, here you are at last!” Mistress Bodikin said as Terra stumbled through the doorway of the multidimensional portal and back into the small room that housed it.
To her relief, all three of her Monstrum followed and the four of them stood there blinking and feeling slightly disorientated. At least, Terra knew she was feeling disorientated and a bit dizzy, too. Being yanked from one universe to another was no joke!
“Where is it? Do you have it?” Mistress Bodikin demanded. Beside her was her daughter, Dahlia, with a bored expression on her face.
“Do I have…” Terra still felt like the world was spinning around her.
“Ah-ha! There it is! The Kat-sat-Suum!”
Mistress Bodikin snatched the heavy golden chalice from Terra’s numb fingers and held it up like a prize.
Dahlia yawned.
“Mother, is this going to take long?” she demanded. “I was letting my bodyslave pleasure me and you interrupted me before I could finish!”
“Hush!” Mistress Bodikin commanded. “And just watch—you’re about to see something amazing!” She eyed the chalice greedily and then glanced up at Terra and frowned. “Ah—I see you’ve had a drink from the Kat-sat-Suum yourself, my dear Mistress Terra. I do hope you didn’t use up all its magical properties on yourself!”
Terra frowned at her.
“I drank from the cup because it invited me to—it filled itself with water the moment I touched it!”
“And our Lady had every right to drink,” Tem put in, frowning. “She needed whatever healing the Kat-sat-Suum could give her after all she’s been through.”
“After what all of us have been through,” Terra added. She pointed a finger at Mistress Bodikin. “You said there was no danger in any of the worlds we went through but we nearly died in every single one!”
“Yes, yes, a few minor hiccups, I’m sure.” Mistress Bodikin waved one be-ringed hand dismissively. “I was certain you could handle yourself with three brawny Monstrum bodyslaves to watch out for you.”
“These weren’t ‘minor hiccups!’” Terra exclaimed. “On DY-12, we were mind-raped by The Watcher—which is an eye as big as a building, by the way. In the world of the Froozles, they tried to eat us and in the last world there was some kind of huge, invisible predator that dragged me into the water and almost killed V’rone!”
But Mistress Bodikin wasn’t hearing a word Terra was saying. All her attention was centered on the golden chalice in her hands, which was slowly filling itself with water.
“Oh, look! There it goes—it’s inviting me to drink!” she exclaimed excitedly.
As soon as the clear water reached the brim of the chalice, she brought it to her lips and slurped it down, draining it in one long draught. Then she pulled the Kat-sat-Suum away from her mouth and eagerly felt her face.
“Ah yes!” she exclaimed. “I can feel it working. Servants, quickly—fetch me a viewer!”
Two of the gold and dark blue liveried servants rushed away and came back quickly with a kind of mirror in a golden frame. Mistress Bodikin peered into it eagerly…and then a look of angry disappointment came over her face.