The Poison Princess (33 page)

“BE SILENT!” she shouted, clamping her eyes
shut, leaning forward, and bending her fingers as though they were
the claws of an animal about to strike.

Dozens of the beast’s eyelids peeled back,
exposing eyeballs ranging from the size of her own to bigger than
her whole body. It began to move, the crunching of rocks and
rumbling of the mountain accompanying its efforts. The whole room
trembled in fear, but Ruby held still. Tentacles dropped out from
what she could only assume was its nose, shooting toward her but
stopping some feet away. Each had two oval slits in them, and they
sucked at the air, trying to determine what she was by her odor.
One section that she felt forced to designate as its head raised,
the eyes attached to that section blinking as though it had been
sleeping for ages. Its lips snarled, and the skin of its
face
jerked back so fiercely that the bone of its jaw was
exposed and covered in the same sludge it had been drooling so
freely. The long tendril raised the man at the center of its form
up, and he too opened his eyes. They glowed. He opened his mouth
wide in a silent sort of scream. The glow came from there as well.
It was a radiant blue light, just like the artifact that caused the
schism in the monks in the first place. Was it Daibhu? Had she
found the leader of the Glow? What happened to him after all these
years? Even in this beast’s awakening, Ruby was no more concerned
with her safety. She needed the power that Daibhu had found.

Daibhu’s body pushed forward like a meat
puppet on a stick toward her, while all the teeth, tendrils, and
eyes came to life behind him. The princess had a singular focus,
however. She needed the power he clearly had, even if this was what
had become of him. The glow from his eyes and mouth grew brighter,
as the cord sloppily pushed him toward her, hovering inches off the
ground. The luminescence was not limited to his face, however.
There, in his gut, glowed the same blue light, filtered by his
sick, translucent skin. That must be it, she told herself.

The next act was one that she didn’t feel
fully in control of. She spit a layer of her acid onto her right
hand and then plunged it forward into the hovering body of what she
assumed was the mad monk, Daibhu. Her strength, augmented by the
poisonous power inside her, and the layer of acidic venom coating
her fingers allowed her to easily penetrate the orb’s fleshy cage.
The man’s gut was icy to the touch, not like any living body should
have been. Daibhu shrieked a hollow kind of roar, as though the air
were being sucked from his lungs. Ruby wrapped her fingers around
the glowing orb inside his gut and yanked with all her terrible
might. The spherical artifact came out covered in fleshy wiring and
wrappings. A series of tubes circled its form, culminating in a
thick cord that stretched back inside Daibhu’s stomach.

The monk continued to screech at her, and now
his hands clawed at her, but the beast behind him just waited,
content to watch the scene unfold. Daibhu’s strength seemed to have
weakened, as he impotently slapped at her hand, attempting to
retrieve the orb back from her. Ruby yanked back on the orb one
more time, but the cord was limited in length. Rather than coming
out, it began to rip upward, through Daibhu’s body. A line tore
through the pasty blue flesh, up into his chest, with a spattering
of strangely cold blood flying out at her, as she pulled the cord.
The monk’s fingers returned to his own body, attempting to keep the
fibers from ripping him any further.

The princess was not letting go. She wrapped
the cord around her arm several times like a sailor looping a rope
around his forearm. She then placed one of her feet in the empty
spot of Daibhu’s gut for leverage and then pulled back on the cord.
The fibers got stuck on the bones of his ribcage, but Ruby yanked
and tugged as hard as she could. The bones seemed weaker and more
brittle than they should have been. His flesh ripped open. She
could see as the dust of the ribcage wore away, falling to the
ground like sawdust. One final yank and the cords broke into the
bones, grinding and scraping slowly up through them.

Daibhu’s face was full of pain and panic, as
his weak fingers tried to halt her progress, but he had slumbered
too long and let his power fade. Behind him, the connected beast
still waited. The monk tried to say something, but no words came
from his mouth. His eyes looked sad and concerned, but Ruby paid
them no mind. The orb’s power was all that mattered to her. Leaning
backward and placing all her weight against the orb’s tethers, the
princess placed her other foot inside Daibhu’s gory gut, so that
she was now completely off the ground and using the monk’s own body
for leverage against him. She used this new footing to pull back
once again, and the cord continued to stretch up to just below his
translucent neck. She could see the fiber continue further up, but
she didn’t know how much farther it really went. It didn’t matter.
She wrapped more of the cord around her forearm and then yanked
again.

Another splatter of cold blood, as the tether
tore through his neck and butted against his jawbone. Daibhu made a
series of sputtering, gurgling, choking sounds. His hands finally
let go of the cord, now too focused on the massive gash from his
navel to his chin. He futilely tried to stop the blood flow that
slowly dripped out of the wound. Ruby continued to pull against the
bones of Daibhu’s face and watched as the brittle jawbone tore away
just as the ribcage had been. Gritting her teeth, the princess gave
it another powerful tug and watched, as the monk’s face split in
two.

Ruby tumbled to the floor, as the body of
Daibhu finally fell from the hovering position it had held. She
landed on her backside, still holding the orb, but it was no longer
connected to the monk. The last pull had ripped the tether cord
completely through his skull, and now his empty husk lay sprawled
on the rocky floor, ripped nearly in half. The orb, however, was
still attached to the beast through the cord that had been
protruding from the back of Daibhu’s head.

Free of the human remains, the beast finally
began to shift and move. The cave rumbled again in response, and
debris fell from the ceiling. The echoing, slithering sound was
maddening, but still, Ruby held onto her glowing prize. The damp
limb that she had stepped over to get to Daibhu’s body began to
slither toward her, while the eyes just watched with eager desire.
She, meanwhile, was too concerned with what she held in her hands.
She stared down at the glowing sphere still covered in the monk’s
cold blood and gore. The parts not covered in the tendrils and
cords were smooth like a polished stone. The orb gave off no heat
despite its luminous glow. Ruby stood back up, but she instantly
felt the wet limb behind her coil tightly around her legs, all the
way up to her waist. She tried to pull herself out of its grasp,
but the limb was too tightly constricted. The slithering limb that
grabbed her raised her up into the air and held her there, where it
could do as it liked.

That was when the tendrils that wrapped
around the orb came loose and then fell off completely like autumn
leaves falling from the branches of a tree. She held the glowing
artifact in her hands without restriction, but the beast’s grip
still trapped her inside, leaving her with nowhere to go. The cord
that had been attached to the orb slunk back behind her, and she
could feel it slap sloppily and wetly against the back of her head.
Her free hand tried to slap it away, but it held resolute in its
position. Another pair of the beast’s limbs slithered forward and
grabbed her wrists, separating them from the core of her body. She
still held the orb tightly in the grip of one hand. She wasn’t
letting go. That seemed, however, to align with the creature’s
intentions. The hand that held the orb was made to move toward her
own face. A more dexterous appendage shot out and grabbed her jaw,
forcing her mouth to open wider than she thought herself possible.
The creature’s intent became quite clear to Ruby. It wanted the orb
inside her, just as it had been inside Daibhu. It wanted to slide
that cord into the back of her neck and connect it to the glowing
orb. It wanted a new host to control and use and devour from
within. The orb was mere inches from her forced open mouth and
moving ever closer. The cord at the back of her skull was now
digging painfully into her skin, trying to worm its way inside her.
She could feel either blood or its sloppy wetness dripping down the
back of her neck.

Ruby refused to become whatever this foul
thing wanted her to be. She desired its power, but it sought to
control her. She would not be its slave. The princess did the only
thing she could - she dropped the orb, letting it fall down her
body. The tendril that had held her mouth open was forced to let go
and retrieve the orb in midair. This gave her control over her head
once more. She knew what followed would be dangerous given how it
had turned out last time, but it seemed her only option. Just as
she had done back in Gloomport, Ruby wrenched the lever inside her
chest to open with full force. She used the rage of capture, the
frustration at being bound, and the loneliness she’d suffered
without Scarlett to open the portal into her poisonous core.

Toxins rushed from her mouth, eyes, ears,
nose, nether regions, the tiny holes in her skin, and anywhere else
it could ooze from. Her body tore itself apart to release the venom
to the outside world once more. The poison rushed out of her and
onto the various appendages that the beast had wrapped around her
body. The toxic substance tore at the beast, forcing its grip to
falter and release her to fall hard to the floor. The tendrils all
sucked back toward the creature in an attempt to protect it from
the terrible maelstrom that began to form around the princess’
body. The poisons swirled and whooshed around the cavern, and the
beast backed itself into a corner as best it could, but the venom
carved away at its flesh and bone. It howled some foreign words and
the mountain howled with it, echoing every undecipherable syllable.
Ruby was in trouble, however, as she found herself unable to stop
the flow. She had only been able to do so in Gloomport thanks to
her demon’s assistance.

Scarlett, she thought. Where are you? I need
you.

Scarlett,
something whispered via a
thought.

The amalgamation of minds of the nether realm
had heard it, but the demons there had no use for it. There was,
however, one small piece that connected to it - a part of that huge
conglomerate of thoughts that sensed the name Scarlett was
important to it. This little piece was weak and crushed under the
weight of more powerful demons vying for control of the nether
realm and for a way out. This little thought that liked the name
Scarlett could barely move through the minds it was being
suffocated by. Thanks to this small thought though, the Scarlett
piece was able to wriggle free from the vice-like grip to a spot of
relative comfort. It was but a bubble between enormous collections
of ideas, yet the thought was able to pause and recuperate.

There in that vacant space, the Scarlett
thought was able to hear other ideas and concepts for the first
time in what seemed like forever. There the thought was able to
give meaning to this word Scarlett.

I’m Scarlett, the thought decided. That’s who
I am.

She began to examine the word itself. If she
were to drop a T, the word began to mean a color. Red. She swam
through the other minds, latched onto this thought, and grew in
mental size and power. The color had synonyms and associated words,
another thought called out.

Rose. Cardinal. Crimson. Sanguine. Cherry…
Strawberry?

She reached to the concept of a strawberry,
encompassing it and making the idea of it part of her. It felt
familiar and comfortable, as she wrapped her formlessness around
it. As she took it inside herself, she actually thought it
generated heat.

How is that possible? There’s no concept of
warmth here.

The sensation vanished, and she discarded any
notion that there had been something there.

The strawberry, however, led her to more
questions with her growing curiosity. It was a fruit, she’d
discovered via another thought that she absorbed as well. Then,
across the spaceless region of the nether realm, the Scarlett
thought felt a tug from something that seemed foreign and
unconnected at first glance. It was poison.

Poison. Toxin. Bane. Acid. Venom.

These words accompanied it. The concept that
housed these words described them as coming in many colors of its
own, just like the strawberry was red. It could manifest in a
variety of textures and consistencies. It was a part of nature in
the physical realm, secreted, injected, grown, and concocted.

Why are strawberries and poison
connected?

Another synonym for Scarlett appeared
then.

Ruby.

This word was small, only four letters.
Despite its length, the ideas that offered possible connections
were numerous in the nether realm, scattered in every possible
direction. The Scarlett thought consumed this word, Ruby, somehow
knowing it had a greater meaning than just another word for red.
The Scarlett thought wanted to discover what that was. One thought
explained that ruby was a type of jewel and naturally occurring
gemstone. She took in the knowledge, but that wasn’t why it was
special. That ruby was lowercase. Hers was upper. This was more
important than a sparkling rock. The case meant it was a name, she
learned.

A name for what?

The Scarlett thought resumed searching
through the Ruby connected thoughts. Many, she found, seemed empty
of knowledge that she could understand. There was that warmth
sensation again, and she felt like the physical realm was tugging
at her. These thoughts, she decided, must have been connected to
something that happened there.