The Poison Princess (16 page)

The leader of the Underlaw stopped his blade
inches from the princess’ smiling face. She had found a way to
control him with the poison flooding his system. The possession
wouldn’t last forever, and she had to assume he was in terrible
agony by the facial expression he wore, but Ruby had done it. She
had conquered him. Now, he would do her bidding.

“Why do you still have fingers?” Ruby asked her demon servant
through gritted teeth. “I thought we were connected. I thought you
felt my pain.”

“We are connected, but it is at a mental
level,” Scarlett explained. “I felt the pain of the attack, if that
is of any solace to you. I know what you experienced.”

“But it is dulled for you?” The princess
looked down at her fingertips leaking the purple poison rather than
blood. “I don’t know how you can stand it otherwise.”

“Yes, it is dulled, but our connection grows
stronger with every passing moment together,” Scarlett explained.
“Soon we will feel everything as one.”

Ruby and her demon had left the poisoned
streets of Gloomport, finding temporary solace near the docks that
ultimately led out of the mouth of the cave. They both sat on
either side of the wooden planks on crates that had been left
there, waiting for a specific ship to make port. The purple imp,
Sniggle, meanwhile had survived the blaze in the tailor shop with
only minor scalding to his semi-liquid body, and he had slept
through the maelstrom that the princess had unleashed. He sat next
to Ruby on the unclaimed crate continuing his slothful slumber.

The leader of the Underlaw, who she now knew
was named Wesley, thanks to her poisonous possession, stood with
them. The name seemed a fairly inapt moniker for such a violent and
malicious villain like him. Ruby took great pleasure in sucking
information from his mind and dominating his actions. Using his
knowledge revealed that there was a ship called the Black Wave
coming into the harbor that day that they could commandeer and use
to leave Gloomport. In addition to controlling the Underlaw gang
members in the city, he also had a crew of what were essentially
pirates that held up trading vessels on the sea. Surely then, Ruby
thought, she could give the order to have him command the crew to
take herself and Scarlett to Elythine. That was her hope,
anyway.

While they waited, the princess stared down
at her dismembered fingers lying in her lap. She’d collected them
after she had acquired control over Wesley and her hope was that
she could reattach them somehow.

“Scarlett,” she began. “You know a lot about
magic. Can you cast a spell to put these back where they
belong?”

“I’m sorry, my princess,” her demon replied.
“Right now my magical abilities are limited. Our bond is not strong
enough to perform such feats. We need to grow closer, before I can
hope to accomplish anything like that.”

“I’d feel closer to you, if you could
reattach my fingers.”

Scarlett smiled pleasantly. “Then allow me to
suggest an alternative, my princess.”

Ruby looked up at her demon with a raised
eyebrow. “Which is?”

“Something more mundane.” Just as when she
had pulled the scythe out of thin air, Scarlett now retrieved and
brandished a simple needle with a spool of thread. “I believe I
could sew them back in place.”

“What good would that do me?” Ruby asked.
“They wouldn’t be the same as they were without some magical
intervention.”

“The method may be mundane, but the
individual is anything but. You are extraordinary, my princess, and
the magics you have flowing within you may compensate for your loss
and reconnect the tissue and bone as they should be.”

Scarlett had a point. In the past, when she
was injured, her body was able to heal itself with the aid of a
toxic substance. There was still about half of the poison flask
left, and she suspected that it would be more than enough to
restore four little fingers.

“Okay,” she finally agreed. “Do it.”

Scarlett laid the needle and thread down on
the crate the princess was seated on and pulled another crate
closer. She sat down, retrieving the tools once again and threaded
a bit through the eye of the needle. Starting with Ruby’s pointer
finger, she pierced the skin of the dismembered limb, and then,
holding it to the injured hand, did the same with the very tender
flesh near the cut. Ruby groaned, gritted her teeth, and clamped
her eyes shut, as she felt the needle slide through her skin,
wishing she had something to numb the pain. Scarlett worked as
quickly as she could, but the princess just wished that the
experience would end. She dared not look at the act, fearing it
would only expose every unbearable penetration in excruciating
detail.

The pain of the piercing needle soon stopped,
but the throbbing sensation left behind stretched all the way down
to her elbow. Ruby opened one eye, allowing an oily black tear to
slide down her cheek. Forcing herself to look down, she saw that
Scarlett had placed the needle and thread down, replacing them with
the glass flask of green poison. The demon uncorked the vial and
carefully slanted the flask over her hand, allowing the tiny drop
to dribble onto the freshly stitched wound. The poison leaked
through the crudely sewn together skin, mixing with the bit of
purple ooze leaking out. As it did, however, the liquid sucked
itself back inside her finger, and the jaggedness of her flesh
aligning with itself evened up. The pallor of her dismembered digit
grew slightly more flush, matching the rest of her admittedly pale
skin. Scarlett then put the flask down and caressed the very tip of
Ruby’s finger, looking up at her with hope in her eyes.

“I feel that!” the princess exclaimed.

“That’s great,” she said. “One down, three to
go.” Scarlett offered her a little sympathetic smile.

Ruby shivered and released a sort of whimper
in response. Again, she told her demon, “Do it.”

The other three fingers’ reattachment went
similarly as the first but no easier. Every time the painful needle
pierced through her flesh, Ruby bit down on her teeth. By the end
of it, greasy black tears stretched down both her cheeks, and
Scarlett’s hands were covered in the poison that was now
essentially the princess’ blood. Just as she had done on the first
three fingers, the demon poured a small drop on the fresh wound,
and the flesh, bone, and muscles underneath mended themselves.
Though they had been reattached, her fingers were still quite sore,
and the injury had not yet vanished. She suspected that the hand
would be weak for some time and the fingers susceptible to falling
off again if put under too much pressure. Her whole body was still
shivering as though she was cold, and she yearned for more of the
poison from the flask.

“How do you feel?” her demon servant asked,
vanishing the thread and needle back to whatever dimension she had
pulled them from.

“They hurt,” Ruby replied. “I need--”

“Take a drink,” Scarlett interrupted her with
a nod. “But you need to conserve it. That bottle needs to last
until we make it to Elythine. I don’t think I can get anymore from
here. I may have burned that particular bridge.”

Ruby nodded in reply and took the poison
flask from her demon servant. She cupped both hands around it and
raised the noxious green fluid to her lips. The liquid dripped down
and coated her dry throat, soothing her every ache. She would have
kept drinking it until its end if Scarlett had not grabbed it and
stopped her. Ruby looked longingly at the scant amount that
remained in the bottom of the flask. She looked pitiable, but her
demon servant did not waver.

“You can’t have anymore, my princess,” she
said solemnly. “I’m sorry.” She picked up the cork, plugged the top
of the flask, and with a roll of her fingers, displaced the poison
from Ruby’s sight.

The princess wanted more, but she knew her
horned demon was right. She needed to distract herself from the
poison and pain. She looked away toward the open cave exit.
“Where’s that ship?” she asked rhetorically, changing the subject
from her throbbing pain.

“Does he know anything?” Scarlett replied,
indicating to the nearly comatose Wesley, standing some feet
away.

“Nothing specific. Just that they’re supposed
to be back today.”

“Mmm.” Scarlett then stood and approached the
edge of the dock, leaning down and running her hands through the
water to clean the poison from them. “What do you intend to do once
we get to Elythine?”

“Go back to Lavidia, of course. My sister
needs me.”

Scarlett looked back up at the princess.
“Ruby, you can’t rush into this. Your sister is bonded to the
craggy hand demon. If you hurt him, you’ll only be hurting your
sister.”

She knew that her servant was right yet
again. She had at least given some thought to where she might find
answers, but there was something in her that made her just want to
hurry toward the craggy hand demon, so that she could crush the
life from him. When she thought like that, the life of Leina seemed
to fade into the background of her mind. She couldn’t allow herself
to think in such a way.

“Elythine is supposed to be the home of many
great sorcerers,” Ruby finally replied. “Maybe they could teach me
something about how to separate Leina from the demon. I also
thought about a place called the Cloister. The monks there are
supposed to have studied the nether realm greatly and developed an
understanding of its relationship to our own. I could look there as
well.”

Scarlett stood back up and returned to the
princess, sitting beside her rather than across. She took Ruby’s
good hand in her own, holding it in her lap. “It sounds like you’re
on the right path. I’m sure together we can find something.”

They sat there on the docks for a couple
hours, where Ruby knew no one would have come looking for them,
before they saw the ship on the horizon. The light of day was
beginning to fade, but the vessel’s outline could barely be made
out against the dimly lit waters in the distance. Both women stood
up, shuffling Sniggle behind them, while Ruby commanded Wesley to
prepare to talk with the pirates.

A few minutes passed before the ship made it
through the cove and to where it docked in Gloomport. The pirates
laid out the wooden ramp leading down to the dock, where she sent
Wesley to intercept them. A man that Ruby learned was the captain
through her mental connection to her poisoned slave was the first
to descend the creaky ramp and approach the Underlaw leader.

He wore a garish blue vest and matching
trousers made of exotic and expensive fabrics, and his dirty blonde
hair was wild and long, falling behind him to his shoulders and
back. The exposed skin of his arms and chest were covered in
tattoos, and he had a black bandana wrapped around his bicep.
Hanging from his waist was a pair of bells that jingled softly with
each step he took.

“What happened to your face?” the captain
asked in a strange accent she didn’t recognize.

She wasn’t interested in Wesley answering the
question. “I need you to take me and these women to Elythine,”
Wesley said at her command.

“What?” the captain asked.

“We just got here,” one of the pirates behind
him complained. “You can’t send us out again already.”

“You’ll do what I say,” Wesley was ordered to
speak. Ruby also had him grip the handle of the axe at his waist to
intimidate any of the crew that weren’t taking the command
seriously enough. “Unload the haul and prepare to ship out.”

The men took notice of the bloodied axe
strung through his belt and the generally horrible shape he was in.
Without saying anything else, the crew began to unload the ship of
the stolen cargo. The captain, however, was not as quick to
relinquish his power over the crew and his vessel.

“I don’t know what’s happened to you since I
was gone, but our arrangement hasn’t changed,” the captain replied.
“You may scare the people of Gloomport with your little Underlaw
gang, but the Black Wave is my ship. You need me, so silence your
little threats and get out of my way.”

Wesley’s operation in the dark city may have
needed the pirates to bring goods in and out of Gloomport, but Ruby
had no such need of them. She only needed transport to Elythine.
Beyond that, she had no loyalties or designs on them. The captain
was the only one not afraid of Wesley, it seemed, so he needed to
be culled. The princess forced her poisoned captive to grab the axe
at his side, and she had him swing it across the pirate’s neck.
Blood spurted out at the gang leader, spraying his face in the warm
liquid. Though it wasn’t her own skin, Ruby could almost feel the
sticky, wet substance dripping off his face. The pirate grabbed his
throat, attempting to stymie the blood loss, as he fell to his
knees. Wesley moved forward, brushing him to the side, causing him
to fall and land with a splash in the murky waters beside the deck.
Wiping the blood from his axe on his pants, he boarded the
ship.

“Does anyone else have anything to say?” Ruby
forced him to ask.

There was no response from the clearly
intimidated pirates.

“Then unload the haul, prepare to ship out to
Elythine, and extend every courtesy to our guests.” The dominated
gang leader gestured back to Ruby and Scarlett, and the terrified
pirates set to following his orders. The princess grabbed Sniggle,
resting her poisonous pet on her shoulder and accompanied Scarlett
up the ramp and onto the deck of the ship.

The Black Wave’s crew was dressed in varying
clothes, having no standard uniform to speak of. The one thing they
did have in common, however, was their salty, sweaty stench. After
prolonged time on the water and poor grooming practices, they had
acquired a particular smell that hit Ruby like walking into a wall,
as soon as she stepped on board the vessel. This scent was enough
to unbalance even the princess, and she was forced to wave a hand
in front of her face in an attempt to rid herself of the odor.