The Poison Princess (21 page)

Ruby’s eyes were watering from all the smoke
and her demon was faring no better. She coughed and sputtered a bit
with this new smoke added to the already cloudy room.

“What do I find?” Ruby asked, again waving
the smoke from her face.

The woman rocked back and forth, still trying
to process everything she saw. “The path to hope.”

“And what is hope?”

“Shackles for demons.”

Ruby thought that Thea’s answer was far from
useful, but the woman was anything but transparent. She thought
about what shackles for a demon could possibly mean. “Is that
supposed to be something that will save my sister?”

“Mmm. That path is quite clouded. It is but
one possibility.”

Ruby exhaled loudly, tired of getting nowhere
with the Oracle’s answers. “Then that leaves redemption. Does that
mean my own redemption?”

“It could,” Thea replied. The future was
ambiguous, and even she with all her power from the nexus couldn’t
have been more specific, if she had wanted. The Oracle cut her eyes
up from the fire. “Have you done anything that is deserving of
redemption?”

Ruby looked down at the ground.

“You haven’t, my princess,” Scarlett assured
her. “You’ve done what was needed.”

“You said it ends in death,” Ruby continued.
“Whose death?”

“That is for you to decide. Your journey will
end with much death, but you will choose who and how many.”

“Someone has to die?”

“Someone always dies.”

“The craggy hand demon?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps.”

“What about Scarlett? What is her
future?”

“Your demon pet?” Thea asked, raising an
eyebrow. “What about her? Her fate is entwined with your own. You
must decide what should happen to her. She has no path but that
which you lay before her. Remember that or regret your
failures.”

Scarlett wondered if Ruby was actually
getting any of the answers she wanted. The princess wasn’t quite
sure of that either. Magic, knowledge, hope, redemption, and death.
That all meant nothing to the horned demon, and Ruby felt like she
was at best grasping at straws in an attempt to understand the
information.

“Is there anything else you can tell me?”
Ruby asked.

The Oracle laughed at the vastness of the
question. “I’m sure there is much I could tell you, Ruby. Alas,
that is not how it works, and our time for questions has ended. You
must begin to walk the path now. You have far to travel and much to
sacrifice.”

Thea pulled another batch of dust from her
pocket and hurled it into the fire between them. A blast of smoke
erupted, and both Ruby and Scarlett launched into a coughing fit,
as the smoke enshrouded the entire room. When it had finally
cleared, the Oracle and the hut had vanished entirely, with no sign
that she had ever been there in the first place. Her role was
finished, and the rest would be up to them. Scarlett stood when her
lungs were cleared of the smoke, and she helped her princess to her
feet as well.

“Did you make anything of all that?” the
demon asked.

“A bit… maybe. For now, I think our path is
unchanged. We go to Elythine. Now, we just know who we’re going to
meet there. Hendrik.”

The princess soon found that Thea was indeed
quite accurate in her suggestion that Elythine was close. The
journey following the stars and then the sun had only taken about a
day and a half. The sun was just beginning to rise when Ruby and
Scarlett arrived. The heat of the morning was becoming apparent
before the sun was even barely visible in the distance behind them.
No longer did they have the shade of the forest to cool them, and,
looking toward the city, they could tell that Elythine would be no
sanctuary from the heat.

What quickly became clear was that this place
had changed in the years since the princess had slumbered in the
tunnels. While the city itself still existed, Leina, under the
influence of the craggy hand demon, had taken over the kingdom.
Hanging from the tallest tower was a long banner of Lavidia’s flag,
a willow tree on a green background, but this one had something
additional. A craggy hand was wrapped and gripped around the tree
of her family. The flag’s appearance was to her mind, clear
evidence that her sister had taken control of the lands that had
once belonged to the Elythine kingdom. There were more than a few
buildings destroyed to rubble scattered throughout the landscape,
and the city looked to have survived a great battle there. Their
people had been crushed and their leaders murdered under her
sister’s command, of that there was no longer any doubt to her. The
man who would have been her husband was long since dead.

Scarlett, on the other hand, found herself
less impressed with this city. It was big and sprawling, sure, but
it didn’t have that dark quaintness or desperate suffering of a
place like Gloomport. So far that had been her favorite locale that
they’d visited. This new city was just comprised of similar looking
tan buildings and dirty, traveled streets with people kicking up
dust, as they walked. The streets were crowded and stunk of filth,
and the horned demon found herself resenting the people of the
large city.

Upon seeing the citizens of the city, the
princess was reminded that the people of Elythine wore a darker
skin than those of her kingdom. The irrelevant difference had often
caused a divide between their people, but Ruby never understood why
it mattered. Her hope had been that whatever had happened in the
past eleven years, she wouldn’t have troubles entering their
kingdom. Seeing the city now, though, she realized that their
kingdoms had already seen war, and that these people had been
conquered and controlled by her sister and the craggy hand demon.
The princess had much to repair, she realized.

Before entering, Ruby had Scarlett use her
newly improved magic to cleanse any of the poison from her in an
attempt to make her appearance as normal as possible. The demon was
eager to show off more for her princess, so she happily obliged.
There was little they could do about Scarlett’s horns or red eyes,
however. The pair of women entered the archway of one of the gates,
passing by posted guards on either side. The men dressed in
depressing colors of jagged metal gave them strange looks, but they
let them through regardless. They were men of her sister’s kingdom,
as each had the willow sigil with the hand etched into their armor.
Ruby had no idea whether they would stop travelers from entering
the city or not, but she was beyond fear at that point. As far as
she was concerned, she had conquered such an emotion.

After making her way into the city, Ruby’s
next goal was finding the wizard named Hendrik. The Oracle had
spoken of him rather strangely, indicating that he was multiple
people somehow. She really hadn’t understood what she had meant,
but the princess intended to find out. The only other thing she
knew about the sorcerer was that he had sequestered himself in a
tower somewhere in the city. Given the size of Elythine, she
suspected it might take some effort to find the right tower if she
were to go around to each one randomly. If Hendrik really was as
powerful and impressive as the Oracle had led Ruby to believe,
surely the people of the city would know him by name, so that was
where she decided to start.

Before she could ask anyone, a man in the
crowded street bumped into her, hitting her shoulder hard, but she
didn’t think much of it and continued looking for someone to ask
about Hendrik. She moved toward a vendor at the side of the
street.

“Madam, do you know where I could find a
wizard named Hendrik?”

The woman looked at her as though she
recognized who Ruby was talking about, but she shook her head and
shooed the princess away.

“What was that about?” Scarlett asked.

“Don’t know. Let’s try someone else.”

She got an old man’s attention and asked the
same question. “Sir, do you know where I could find a wizard named
Hendrik?”

He too shook his head and muttered, “Not
getting involved…”

“Clearly, this wizard of yours is a
contentious individual,” her demon offered.

Ruby shrugged. “Apparently…”

She asked around a bit more, but Ruby got no
better responses. The princess then caught someone looking at her
from a nearby alleyway. He nodded his head in a way that suggested
she should follow him, before he disappeared further into the
alley. Ruby grabbed Scarlett and pulled her through the crowd to
where she had seen the strange man creep off to.

Turning a corner, they found the man leaning
against a stone wall and smoking a long pipe. Like the others of
Elythine, he had a darker tone of skin color, but his hair was
strangely white. The long, white hair fell down, parted in the
middle, to either side, partially concealing the edges of his face.
A red bandana hung around his neck over his dark, black leather
vest. He wore matching pants that hung over his leather boots that
consisted of a series of straps slipped through metal buckles.
Around his shoulders and back, he had a cloak that was concealing
half of his body under its folds.

“So you want to find the Hendriks, eh?” the
man asked, releasing a puff of smoke.

“That’s right,” Ruby replied.

“That might find you a spot of trouble. He
isn’t exactly available to the public at the moment.”

“What does that mean?”

The rogue smiled. He looked both women up and
down, his eyes lingering on Scarlett more than Ruby liked. The
demon, on the other hand, didn’t mind someone noticing her physical
perfection. She actually wouldn’t have even minded walking around
naked in that bustling city - she probably would have preferred
it.

“Come now,” he continued. “You two may not be
from here, but I’m sure you know that nothing is for free. You give
me something I want, and I’ll be happy to oblige you.”

The princess sighed. “And what is it you
want?”

The rogue again leered at Scarlett.

“She’s not for sale,” Ruby flatly
explained.

“Then, I suppose I’ll have to get on with a
handful of coins instead.”

Ruby turned to her servant and asked, “Do you
think you could make some gold?”

“I’m sure I could now that we’ve grown closer
together,” she replied with a big smile. “But wouldn’t it be faster
to just infect him like you did Wesley? That was far more fun
too.”

“That was exhausting, is what that was.
Besides…” She looked back at the man leaning against the wall who
continued to leer at Scarlett in a way she didn’t like. “I’m not
sure I want to know what all is going on inside his head. Can you
do it?”

“Anything for you, my princess.” Scarlett
turned her empty hand upside down and then twisted it palm up, now
containing a full bar of gold rather than mere coins. “Will this
do?”

Ruby grabbed the heavy bar, replying, “I can
only expect so.” She turned back to the rogue, brandishing the bar
of gold. “This doesn’t just buy information. You said Hendrik is
unavailable, which I take to mean imprisoned. If that’s the case,
this bar buys your help in getting to him.”

The leather clad man moved slowly forward,
staring greedily at the bar of gold a moment before answering.
“Alright. You got a deal. Give it here.” He held his hand out for
it.

Ruby was no fool. She handed the bar back to
her demon who in turn sent it back to where she had found it.
“Payment on delivery. Now, where is Hendrik?”

The rogue sucked his teeth. “Fine. Your boy
Hendrik is up in the prison tower. The main entrance is guarded day
and night by the queen’s men.”

“But a wily figure like yourself has another
way in, I take it?”

The rogue nodded, sucking on his teeth again.
“I can get you in.”

“Do you have a plan, or is that just a
declaration of intent?”

“I have a plan, darling. Don’t you worry.
Just never had a reason foolish enough to try. That bar of gold,
however… I’ll get you in and to the wizard. What you do after that
is on your own head.”

“You’ve got a deal. What do I call you?”

“You can call me whatever you like, frankly.
Though I suppose Slip will do.”

“Slip?” she confirmed. “My name is--”

“No, no,” he interrupted her. “I don’t need
your names. Think it’s best I know as little about the two of you
as possible, eh.”

“Fair enough,” Ruby replied. “Where do we
start, Slip?”

Taking his pipe from his mouth, flipping it
over, and discarding the ashes to the street, he pointed a finger
down. “The sewers, I’m afraid. The tunnels down there lead all over
the city. One just happens to go straight into the prison
tower.”

“And no one knows about it?”

“Can’t say that for sure. What I can say is
that no one cares about it. If you’re ready, we can go now.”

Ruby nodded. “Show the way.”

Slip tucked his pipe into a pocket of his
cloak before beginning to lead the pair of women through the city
streets and alleyways away from the market square where they had
started. The buildings and its inhabitants slowly began to look
shabbier and poorer as they went, as Slip was clearly leading them
into a district of the city that was forgotten and abandoned.
Scarlett found herself enjoying this new area more than she had the
market square. Something to do with the squalor atmosphere, she
expected.

The rogue eventually stopped and raised his
arm, pointing it toward a tall tower in the distance. “There’s your
wizard’s prison.”

“That’s pretty far away,” Ruby replied.

Slip then pointed toward a large grate over a
man-sized pipe with sludge leaking out of it. “This is the closest
entrance to the sewers.”

“And it leads to the prison tower?”

“That it does.” Slip approached the heavy
grate and struggled to lift it off the pipe. “If you’re going,
now’s the time. You’re up first, sweetheart,” he said to Ruby’s
demon.