The Poison Princess

by J. Stone

  The princess continued forward, grabbing and twisting the handle of the first door on her left before pushing it with the same creaking accompaniment as before. Rather than a hallway, this door led to a small office type of area. Most of it was rather banal. There was a desk covered in the same layer of dust with musty papers scattered across its surface. A bookshelf sat in the back of the room with cobwebs covering entire shelves. There was a wooden bench with an old robe thrown over the back. This was all well and fine, but it was the various bones of a human stretched across the floor that seemed the most noteworthy. The bones were not simply laid out in one human shaped pile either. These were in two distinct sections. The head and upper torso were on one side of the room in a heap, while the hips and legs were all the way across, on the other side of the desk.

  “What happened to him?” Scarlett asked rhetorically.

  Ruby walked forward, until she stood at the very center point between the two sections of bone piles. She looked back and forth from one to the other, until she came to the realization. “I think they were ripped in half and tossed in either direction.” She mimed the action to help solidify the impossible feat in her head.

  Despite the horned demon’s impressive magical power, she was afraid of something that could do that. She gulped noticeably.

  The princess looked closer at the ground below her feet and the surrounding area. Beneath her feet was a layer of dried blood in a scattered section of drops. The small dribbles went in either direction, and the same kind of pooling effect was there, against the walls where the body would have landed and beneath the bones, where it decayed. A part of her, like her demon servant, was certainly afraid of something that could rip a human in two, but if she were honest with herself, she was more curious. The poison and her bond with Scarlett had made her powerful, but seeing the craggy hand demon in person had made her recognize how weak she truly was. Whatever the dark monks of the Glow were doing there, they had clearly found something powerful and dangerous. She wanted such strength for herself. The bracelets came first though.

  Ruby turned back and exited the door, walking past her demon. “Let’s keep looking.”

  The pair of women proceeded down the hallway, moving from door to door and inspecting whatever was inside. They quickly found a pattern. Offices, like the first room they encountered were along the left side of the wall, while small bedrooms set up for a single person lined the right. The configuration seemed to indicate that the monks would sleep in one room and study in the other. Some of the work areas were more elaborate than the first, containing artifacts or ancient scrolls of wisdom, but most were more mundane. In almost all of the pairs of rooms, they found at least one dead body, ripped, broken, or otherwise slain in equally horrific methods.

  The path offered no additional hallways beyond its own, so, once each of the pairs of rooms had been searched, Ruby and Scarlett left back for the main chamber. There were similar doors on either side of the great hall, so rather than move to one of those and find similar settings, the princess decided to move to something new. On the first floor, there was a large, green, metal door with a padlock placed across a latch above the knob. Whoever had been there last had left it locked, as she tried pulling the top bit of metal out with no luck. That wouldn’t stop a woman capable of creating metal-melting acid, however. The princess spit out a mouthful of her venom onto the metal latch, causing it to hiss in defiance.

  “I think you like doing that,” Scarlett pointed out.

  Ruby just smiled at her demon, wiping the purple from her lips. After the poison had worked through the metal of the lock, the princess pulled what remained of the latch and swung the door open. The same blue burning magical torches jutting diagonally out from the wall lit this hallway too. This new area, though, was a bit different than the bedroom and work area hallway. There were steps leading down almost immediately upon breaching the doorway. The path went forward and down for probably a good twenty feet before coming to another door. This one was made of simple wood and was not latched or locked in anyway. She swung it open to reveal a wide room of treasures and artifacts.

  The monks of the Glow had kept a horde of items down in these vaults, the women discovered. Their stockpile of magical relics was not limited merely to the bracelets and the eponymous orb. Concealed within these nearly unreachable walls were all manner of wondrous and terrible artifacts.

  There was a pair of crossed swords hanging on the wall that were glowing in an eerie black light. A simple gauntlet sat displayed on a pillar, its fingers pointing up to the ceiling, with a ring of magic power situated on each digit. A series of cups ranging from simple clay to the most extravagant gold design with gems encrusted into its exterior were filling two rows of a glass display case at the back of the room. There were a number of unspeakable tomes concerning unfathomable beings lining a bookcase to the side. Leaning against the wall in the corner were a number of walking sticks - some gnarled wood and others intricately shaped metal. Another shelf of the display case held a series of wands of varying lengths and materials. Some seemed to have feathers numbering in their components, while others were made of a scaly material. Each one was unique from the rest, seeming to give off their own aura of energy. There was a strange painting of a dashing young man hanging from the wall. His malevolent eyes followed the viewer wherever they went. Hanging from a pair of chains in the ceiling was an enormous red horn or fang that looked to have been broken off some large beast or demon.

  All of these items were amazing and impressive to behold, but they weren’t what Ruby was after. She was there for the rune-covered bracelets placed on the bottom shelf of the glass display case.

  The princess moved at a quickened pace toward them, eager to get her hands on what she had come so far to find. She pushed the sliding glass of the display case to the side, kneeled down, and grabbed both the bracelets. Each of the runes inscribed in the cold metal glowed with an eerie blue luminance that shifted, as she moved the hoops about. The ashy grey compound the bracelets were made from was entirely unfamiliar to her. It was lighter than she thought it should be, and it was coarse to the touch, actually porous. Little caverns burrowed through the almost stone-like metal but were not large enough to jeopardize the stability of the bracelets, but were visible and quite noticeable. The glowing runes themselves were nothing that she recognized either. Among her various tutoring lessons, she had learned a set of runic letters from an ancient and long since vanished culture, but these were a far different thing altogether.

  “So that’s them?” Scarlett asked from behind Ruby, twisting the ball of her foot into the ground and biting her lip.

  The princess, still crouching, turned her head back toward the horned demon. “Looks like it.”

  With as much as she was biting down on her bottom lip, it was a wonder Scarlett hadn’t drawn blood. She hadn’t realized it, but her breathing was speeding up, and her hands fidgeted against one another at her chest. Her eyes were transfixed on the glowing metal hoops, as she thought about where she would have to return.

  Ruby stood, placing the bracelets on the top of the display glass, watching her demons eyes trace their path. She left them there and took a step toward Scarlett, placing a hand atop her servant’s. “Are you alright?”

  The horned demon shook with little tremors. “I thought I could go back… I don’t… I can’t go back, Ruby. I just can’t.” She backed up, causing the princess’ hand to slip off.

  “I need you to do this, Scarlett. I need the craggy hand demon’s name.”

  “What if you decide you don’t need me anymore? What if you leave me there?”

  “I won’t leave you. You’re mine, and no one else’s. Remember?” The princess moved forward, following her demon, and she placed her hand back where it had been. “The opposite is true as well. I am yours. I won’t abandon you. I need you.”

  Scarlett finally looked up from the bracelets to meet Ruby’s eyes. “It’s so awful there.”

&
nbsp; “You’ll be back before you know it.”

  The horned demon shook her head. “What if something happens to you, while I’m gone? We might lose our bond. It’s all I have.”

  “Nothing is going to happen.”

  “But--”

  Ruby placed a finger to her demon servant’s lips. “Nothing can come between us.”

  Scarlett could feel her heartbeat thumping away in her ears, and her body heat had risen almost to the level of a fever. She didn’t even know her body was capable of sweating, but there it was, dripping down from her armpit and on her brow. Not knowing what else to do, the demon simply grabbed the princess, wrapping her arms around her master and pulling her tight. Ruby followed her lead, placing her hands at the small of Scarlett’s back. The demon had felt so much confidence since arriving in Nabiria, but the simple sight of those bracelets that would sever her connection to the princess and allow her to travel back into the nether realm had tossed all that aside. If, as a demon, she dreamed, she suspected that she would have nightmares of such a place.

  Ruby brushed the long orange hair away from Scarlett’s ears and breathed a warm breath against the sensitive skin. “I need you to do this.”

  The horned demon made a kind of whimpering sound. Ruby’s words were poison in her ear. “What about what I need?”

  Another hot breath into Scarlett’s ear. Ruby wormed her way around to Scarlett’s back, keeping her arms wrapped tightly around her. “What do you need?” Her lips rubbed against her demon’s lobe, as she spoke.

  Again, she released a whimpering sound, but this one wasn’t because of the fear of the nether realm. When she had first appeared to Ruby in that in between place, their current positions were reversed. Now, it was the demon that was being seduced. She too was a bit uneasy, as her princess once had been. Her mind tried to stay on the fear of what she was being asked to do, but that was slowly washing away.

  Ruby’s hands unbuttoned Scarlett’s heavy coat, while she nuzzled against the demon’s ear with her nose. She slipped the thing off and tossed it to the side. Her hands were back on her demon’s body. One hand was lightly caressing a breast, while the other stayed at the midsection. “What do you need?” she repeated.

  “I need…” Scarlett tried. She decided not to bother with words. The demon placed her hand atop the princess’ at her navel and then dragged it down. She hiked up her skirt with the other hand and guided the princess’ fingers to between her legs.

  Ruby smiled and tenderly bit her demon’s earlobe. “Is that what you need?”

  “Mmmhmm.”

  The princess slid her finger inside Scarlett at her insistence. As she touched her demon, Ruby could feel the sensations radiating back into her and giving her the same gratification. She’d grown to love the pleasure loop that Scarlett had once spoken of. The time when she had resisted her horned demon’s advances seemed so long ago now. She was the one initiating such things now, and thought nothing of it.

  Scarlett moaned at her master’s touch. She needed every distraction she could get, and she was going to take full advantage. She grabbed the bottom hem of her dress, pulling it up and over her head and tossing it to the side with the coat, so that she was standing naked except for her leather boots in that arcane archive, with the leering portrait of the dashing young man watching with his voyeuristic eyes. Ruby’s hand instantly returned to the breast, while the other continued in its pursuits further below.

  Ruby pulled her wet finger out from the warm slit between her demon’s legs and pushed her gently forward, until they arrived at the glass display case. The princess then leaned Scarlett’s torso forward over the case. She placed a foot in between her companion’s legs, spreading them apart, and then knelt down, sliding her tongue in that same warm, wet slit that tasted of strawberries.

  The horned demon’s chest and head were flat against that cold glass surface, but her body felt nothing but heat - heat radiating from her princess’ touch. She bit her lip, as she often did, and closed her eyes, trying to focus on the simple pleasure. Her hands gripped the far side of the case, and she rotated her head over to the other side. Her eyes fluttered open and caught sight of the bracelets setting there beside her. She knew she had a task to accomplish for her master.

  “Ruby…”

  The princess stopped for but a moment, “Yes?” She stuck her tongue back inside.

  “I’m ready.”

  “Mmm?”

  “I’ll go into the nether realm for you.”

  Another pause. “Not yet you won’t. I’m not done with you.”

  Chapter 30. Into the Nether

  The scholars of the mortal world didn’t truly know what the nether realm was. They had accounts from various demons, and there were the monks of the Cloister and the Glow that had studied it and the demons for years upon years, but no mortal could ever know what the place really was. The general consensus, however, was that the realm was a repository for the souls of mortals upon their deaths. Though their bodies would die and decompose, their mind and spirit would live on as a demon of the nether world. Scarlett couldn’t have said whether that was true or not. She had no recollection of ever being human. She had certainly given it thought over her time inside the nether realm and on the physical side, but she simply didn’t remember.

  Sometimes she would fantasize about who she had been prior to becoming a demon. She wondered if her physical form was not simply the princess’ desire fulfillment but also a part of who she used to be. Maybe she had been a woman, though she equally assumed there was a possibility she had been a man (if she indeed had been a mortal of course). She thought about how she could have spent her life. Perhaps she had been a farmer’s wife, toiling in the field, or maybe, like Ruby, she was someone of royal blood. Her usual fantasy involved being an explorer, searching for adventure and new experiences. The one thing she did know is that the answers to her questions would not lie inside the nether realm. The only answer she would find in there would be the name of the craggy hand demon.

  Scarlett sat on the bed of one of the long since abandoned rooms, while Ruby stood in front of her holding the runic bracelets. They picked one of the bedrooms with a touch less carnage and stains than the rest. The room they had selected only contained a few scratch marks on the ground, like someone had clawed at it.

  Wincing, the horned demon held one hand up toward her princess, and Ruby slid the first cold, glowing bracelet on her wrist. It felt heavy, but not because of the weight. She felt weak. The power was drained from her, so that she felt like nothing but an empty husk. She felt almost like a mundane human in that moment. She lifted her other hand, notably less enthusiastic than the first. The princess placed the other bracelet over her wrist, and Scarlett felt nothing left of her bond to the human before her. She felt alone. She didn’t like it.

  “Do they work?” Ruby asked her.

  “I can’t feel you. I’m hollow. Can you feel me?”

  The princess kind of looked down at her own body in examination. “I don’t think so.”

  Scarlett moved her hands together, pinching her thumb and forefinger into the soft, fleshy part of her other hand, where there was a pressure point. “Do you feel that?”

  Ruby shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “Guess they’re working…”

  “I’ll be here when you get back. Everything will be fine then.” The princess backed up and sat in a wooden chair near the door of the room.

  Scarlett’s eyes dropped to the floor for a moment, thinking about what was being asked of her, before she laid down, curling herself into a tight ball. She then closed her eyes and focused on her home, on the nether realm. The horned demon slowly drifted away into a sleep like state. Her awareness for her body vanished and all that was left was her mind. That’s all that could manage to exist there. She knew that her body, which she had grown quite attached to, was still lying on that bed with those magic manacles strapped around her wrists. She knew the princess was looking over her a
nd protecting her physical form, as she went on this journey, but it was hard to remember that fact, when she couldn’t even touch her own body anymore.

  Her presence back in the nether realm was overwhelming. Despite her protests and horrible experiences, there was a kind of beauty in its complete absence of form in contrast to the busy and chaotic world that her princess lived in. Everything in that place was built on a thought, out of thoughts, for thoughts. There was nothing else. Contemplations, ideas, notions, conceptions, plans, schemes, opinions, conclusions, conjectures, and intentions. Every way you can flex and twist your mind, there was a representation of that inside the nether realm. Despite the lack of form, there was still pleasure and pain, but they were of an emotional nature. There were no physical senses to provide context to anything. No touch, sight, sound, smell, or taste. Only thoughts. Your thoughts and all the other demon’s silently communicating with one another. Privacy was nonexistent, as everything was shared. Sometimes, there was no distinguishing your own mind from someone else’s.

  Scarlett wondered how she even had formed an identity there. How she had managed to carve herself out from the noisy collective. How she found the willpower to drive herself from the pack and bond her mind to Ruby’s. How she escaped the nether realm and gave herself physical form. Now back inside the nether realm, she worried that her consciousness would amalgamate back with the collective thoughts. She could feel parts of her own mind pressing against that of another. She felt alone after putting those blue-glowing bracelets on, but there, that was no longer a concern. She was a part of the whole once more. She lost her identity among the foreign thoughts gnawing away at her consciousness. She thought that maybe she belonged there in the nether realm. Ruby’s existence started to fade from the scattered pieces of her mind that still remained hers to claim.