The Poison Princess (4 page)

Everything around her looked so similar that
she had no inclination whatsoever about which way to go. Everywhere
she looked, she saw green sludge, grey skies, and the occasional
brown of a mangled and gnarled tree protruding from the slime.
However Ruby had come to this place, she had landed near one such
tree. No leaves hung from its limbs, and it bared no fruit. There
were seemingly no distinguishing marks in its bark or structure. To
help her have a central point, Ruby scoured the ground for a sharp
rock. She wasn’t certain what had happened to the dagger she had
back in the castle, but it seemed to be gone now. Eventually, the
princess found a rock that would work for her purposes. Picking it
up, Ruby took the rock to the tree trunk and scratched into the
soft bark. Walking around the base of the tree, she traced a simple
line across it to mark this as her origin point.

Randomly choosing a direction, Ruby started
to walk through the sludge, hoping to have guessed correctly. The
slop of the green goop made slapping noises as her shoes hit the
surface and then burping sounds, as they sunk into the mire. The
cold, wet fluid went up to just above her ankles, not deep enough
to get her feet stuck in but enough to make picking each foot up a
challenge. She felt strangely rejuvenated in that place though, so
she never really tired or lost her energy.

As she traveled, the thickness of the fog
grew the further she went, and after a while, she became certain
that she had been turned around along the way. She inspected each
tree she passed to ascertain whether she had accidentally doubled
back anywhere, but her direction seemed true. Following the
reputation that the Abyss had acquired, Ruby saw no living thing.
The trees were the only sign that life had ever existed there, but
the malignant sickness of the land had long since killed them.
 They only remained erect from lack of intervention. There was
no wind, no sound, and no change in color, texture, or smell.
Everything she saw was painted from the same palette, as if
everything had come from a stock source. The only unique images in
the whole region were from herself. The once vibrant yellow dress
was the most colorful thing in all of the Abyss, as she had seen
it, but its color was fading with every passing moment. The grimy
fog itself seemed to coat her in its greyness, seeking to snuff out
all that was not muted and gloomy.

The lack of evidence for the passage of time
began to madden her. Ruby had no idea how long she had been
wandering. All she knew was that despite having not eaten since the
night before her poisoning, the princess was not hungry in the
slightest. She had not tired since her journey from that marked
tree began. Not once had she been forced to stop to relieve herself
either. Whatever chaotic spell had altered her, there was clearly
still more for her to discover. The effects did not end with the
purple goop spilling forth from her mouth.

Given nothing but time to think, Ruby’s mind
wandered to what Scarlett had said about uncovering all that she
was capable of. About how she would need to learn what the spell
had done to her, if she were to have any hope of stopping the
craggy hand demon. With the unnatural fluid leaking from her mouth,
Ruby knew she had to investigate what it was. Making a bowl shape
with her hands and holding it to her mouth, the princess spit some
of the substance into her cupped palms.

Some foreign instinct hidden at the back of
her head shoved its way forward, and Ruby knew what to do with this
goop. As though she were molding clay, the princess worked it in
her hands and through her fingers, watching it both harden and
begin to come to a specific shape. Spitting more into her hands,
she added to its size and watched as its form was slowly completed.
The molded purplish poison dried black and came to look like an
impish creature not more than a foot tall. Ruby held her creation
out from her, as the inanimate construct somehow found life within
itself.

The princess had no fear of what she had just
created. Though she couldn’t say that she’d consciously meant to
mold the poison into the imp, everything about it felt completely
normal, natural, and right. The venom that composed its skin
continuously dripped downward mimicking the liquid from Ruby’s
mouth. Two eyes opened and blinked several times, as it looked up
at the princess, seemingly acknowledging her as its creator. A line
tore across its little head, forming a mouth, and each corner
twisted and curled into a wicked little grin. A pair of floppy
black ears carved themselves out of the sludge, falling limply to
either side of its head. The imp’s body was pudgy, and it had a
distended belly hanging out sloppily in front of it. Thin, lithe,
little arms ended in clumpy, fat fingered hands, while its
similarly shaped legs ended in simple, rounded stumps. It didn’t
seem to mind its crude form one bit, and the princess thought
despite what she had made this strange creature from, it was
actually quite cute in its own way.

Ruby looked into its eyes, and she almost
felt like she was looking at a reflection. She knew that her mind
had been in part transferred to the imp’s consciousness. She could
give it orders. She could use it to find her way out of that bog of
miasma.

“Can you understand me?” the princess asked
of the imp.

It cocked its head to the side, unfolded one
of its ears, and wore an expression indicating that it was a bit
surprised to hear her say anything.

She repeated the question. “Can you
understand me?”

The imp nodded its pudgy little head in
response, further increasing the swirling curls at the corners of
its mouth.

“Good,” she said. “Can you find the way out
of this place?”

Once again, the little imp nodded and then
jumped from her hands, plopping in the swampy water of the ground.
Though it was almost completely submerged in the muck, the imp
began to wade off in another direction. Ruby watched, as her
creation made its way out from her sight. Concentrating on the
little thing, the princess felt a connection to her imp. If she
strained enough, she could see through its eyes and know what it
knew. It could work, she told herself.

Ruby crossed her legs and sat down in the
muck, unphased by the disgusting fluid now, as she set to work on
creating more of the little imps. Secreting the ooze into her hands
once more, the princess’ second attempt resulted in a similar
creation as the first. This second imp differed in that it was
somewhat taller. She hoped that with that extra height, it might be
able to better search through the swampy region. This creation also
had come out with only one eye for some reason, but it seemed
enough to do the job she needed it for. The ears were perked up
more, and it paid her a bit more attention as well. Ruby issued it
the same instructions, pointing out a different direction for it to
travel in. Again, this one happily plodded off with its orders.

With her third attempt, Ruby put more energy
into the creation, trying to make it smarter and hopefully more
useful. The first two had quasi-hardened into a sludgy, black
shell, but the third’s color was simply a dark purple hue. Also,
this imp was unique with its long tail swaying playfully behind it.
This one was tall like the second, had the distended belly of the
first, and had acquired the same wicked smile with swirling curls
at each corner that all three shared. Its eyes seemed almost
catlike. Clever even. She believed that she had succeeded in a
notable improvement upon the former two.

“Find the way out of this bog,” she ordered
the purple imp.

This little creation, however, defied her
will. It folded its arms across its chest, closed its eyes,
snobbishly raised its head, looking away, and released a muffled
little response, “Hmph!”

“What?” she asked it. “Do as I say.”

The imp did not budge.

Ruby found this to be unacceptable. “Fine,”
she said.

She offloaded the imp to her left palm and
then used the right to swat down on the imp, clapping her hands
together. The purple imp proved too quick for her and leapt out of
the way before she could crush it. It landed in the water with a
splash and looked up at her with a defiant little smile, sticking a
tongue out from its mouth. At that moment, Ruby realized that she
had made this one too smart for her to control. This imp had too
great of an intellect and had formed a sense of self.

“Well?” the princess asked it. “If you’re not
going to help look, what good are you?”

The purple imp lazily shrugged its shoulders
and yawned. Ruby rolled her eyes, as the fat, little thing sat down
in the muck and leaned against a large rock to relax. Ignoring it,
the princess returned to her efforts of creating willing helpers to
search the muck for her exit. She made the following imps much
dumber than the purple one, preferring to have something much more
malleable and without its own ideas and opinions. After some time,
Ruby had created more than a dozen different poison constructs of
varying sizes and features to search the Abyss for her.

She reached a point that she felt she had
enough eyes dispersed throughout the swamp. Closing her own eyes,
Ruby began to switch between each of the imps to search for
anything that would help her escape. Flipping through each of their
minds and visions, Ruby recalled the stories she had heard when she
was younger. There were many tales involving the Abyss, but there
was one common thread running through each of them. Every story
insisted that there was some secret treasure or power at the very
center of the poisoned land. Each tale varied in what that specific
item was, but there was always something to be claimed. Whether it
was the source of the blight or that the blight was set in place to
protect the treasure was up for debate. Ruby considered these
stories. As a child, she had thought them interesting, but she had
never taken them seriously. Now that she was trapped inside and
growing more confident that she was indeed immune to its toxins, as
Scarlett had said, the princess grew more intrigued by the prospect
of this treasure. If she were to defeat this craggy hand demon,
Ruby knew she was going to need great power.

As she looked through each of her imps, the
princess changed her focus from finding an exit from the Abyss to
finding the treasure hidden within its murky vastness. Some of them
had passed by the marked tree where she’d started, but she wasn’t
certain how far the others had traveled. After gazing through each
of the poison constructs’ eyes several times over, Ruby finally
found something she deemed worth investigating. A squat little imp
with three oversized eyes had found a cave in the middle of
nowhere. The cavern simply appeared as a small and almost
insignificant mound in the flat ground with a large hole leading
down. Ordering the imp to look down inside, Ruby peered into the
black void tunneling into the earth’s depths. There was little to
see, as the lack of light prevented her from seeing very far, but
she wanted whatever was down there.

The princess returned to her own mind and
ordered each of her little creatures to converge on that point.
Standing, she looked down at the disobedient purple imp, and it
looked up at her.

Leaning down, Ruby held her hand out for it
to climb on, and she said, “Well. Come on, then.”

Ruby arrived at the tunnel having no idea how much time had passed.
The sky overhead still looked just as nebulous as ever. On her
shoulder sat the impudent little purple imp, too lazy to have
walked itself there. The majority of her other creations had
already arrived at the entrance to the cavern and were assembled in
a group, waiting for her. In the muck of the swamp, they
communicated to one another in wild, sweeping gestures and
dramatic, energetic facial expressions. Small-scale brawls had
broken out among a few of them, but they stood to attention like
obedient little soldiers, as the princess joined them.

Walking to the mouth of the cave, Ruby peered
down into its depths. Her own eyes fared no better in seeing into
the cavern, as it very quickly and steeply descended into darkness.
Turning back to her assembled collection of impish blobs of poison,
Ruby picked one up at random and carelessly chucked it into the
wide hole. This new development startled the other imps, but they
were too dimwitted and dependent to do anything about it.

The thrown imp made a sort of wailing scream,
as it descended down through the depths, bouncing off sharp rocks
and losing its loosely congealed form along the way. Each landing
included a squishy, gooey sound, as it splatted against the cave
rocks, plummeting ever downward. She tried to focus on its mind on
the journey downward in an attempt to understand and map the path.
The imp felt no pain from what she could discern, but it was more
than a little disoriented by the tumble. Everything it saw was
utter blackness, and the only sound was its own clumsy cries. As it
got deeper, the rocks started to get wet. In the distance, Ruby
thought she could even hear the trickle of an underground
stream.

Eventually, the imp landed with a splat and
stopped after a little roll. Its vision was blurred and spinning,
but through its eyes, Ruby could see the tunnel. At its base, a
series of enormous, luminescent mushrooms illuminated the cavern a
soft, yellow-orange color. Their tops were speckled in little,
yellow spots, and their stalks were thin and looked likely to break
in half from their own weight at any moment. From where the imp had
landed, Ruby couldn’t make out much more, and the little thing
seemed incapable of moving around much, having lost most of its
form in the fall.

While Ruby didn’t see any treasure at the
base of the tunnel, she did concede that it was worth investigating
further. Placing one hand to the side of the tunnel and lifting the
hem of her skirt off the ground with the other, Ruby carefully
chose her footholds, as she began her descent into the darkness of
the cavern. The purple imp at her shoulder tightly gripped the
fabric of her dress in an attempt to prevent it from falling.
Behind her came the obedient but clumsy black imps. The princess
moved at a slow pace, while the poison constructs were less deft in
their steps. One by one, they tumbled past her, giving her pause
each time. She tried to use their mistakes to further illustrate
her mental image of the tunnel downward, but it was difficult
without proper light. The spell that had made her this way had
changed her a great deal, but somehow Ruby still suspected that she
was quite mortal. A misstep or slip could have easily led to her
death in that dark, dreary place.