The Poison Princess (5 page)

Before long, Ruby couldn’t even see the light
from the entrance of the cavern behind her. Looking to where she
had to assume led back to the surface, the princess only saw more
black. Soon afterward, she realized that all of her imps had
already slipped and fallen through the cave system. She had nothing
left to help her except the standoffish purple one, and despite its
rude nature, she realized she had developed a soft spot for it. She
didn’t want to toss it like she would have the mindless ones. Ruby
considered taking a moment to create more of them, but she was too
afraid to remove her hand from the wall, fearing that if she did,
she would lose her place and be lost in the depths. Instead, she
simply carried on, using the wall as guidance and testing her
footholds before putting all her weight down. This made the journey
long and her mind, understandably, began to wander.

The princess imagined what possible treasure
could be concealed within the depths. She had never had a greed for
possessions of any sort before, but she found herself quite eager
to obtain whatever was hidden down there. Whether it was simply a
valuable item or something that she could wield against the craggy
hand demon to satisfy her wrath, Ruby didn’t care. Her need for it
grew with each step in the darkness.

The sensation was nearly overwhelming. Ruby
began to realize that there was truth to what Scarlett had told
her. Her hidden desires were being brought to the surface and
changing who she was. Since the spell had been cast, Ruby had
killed four men, lusted after what she could only imagine was a
demon from the nether realm, grown to hate another, and now craved
power and possessions. The princess could hardly recognize what she
was turning into.

With her mind wandering, Ruby lost track of
time, and she grew more fearful of what she would become if she
didn’t get a handle on her changes. Her breath quickened, as did
her pace. She wanted to be free of the depths, and she became
careless with her steps. The princess chose a loose rock, and her
foot slipped forward. She stumbled but managed to fall backward
rather than forward, thinking that she would be safer that way.
Unfortunately, that was not the case, as Ruby had reached the rocks
that were damp and therefore slippery. Landing hard on her
backside, the princess slid forward, eventually hitting another
crop of craggy and uneven rocks. With the speed at which she found
herself traveling, she was launched into the air, and when she once
again hit the ground of the steep cave, she began to roll. Tumbling
through the rocky outcroppings of earth, Ruby slammed against
jagged edges and hard flat surfaces. Through the terror and agony,
she thought she heard the breaking of bones, and she could feel
some of the rocks penetrate, slash, and tear open her skin. Before
she blacked out from the terrible pain, an idle thought ran through
her head about what had happened to the purple imp that had
previously rested on her shoulder.

Her eyes opened to see a trail of poison
leaking far away from her mouth, stretching out into the dimly lit
cave. The substance ended in a large puddle that had grown
substantially since she was knocked out from the fall. Every inch
of her body ached in pain, but she knew that she must have broken
her ribs on the way down. Every wheezing breath ended with a
terrible pressure and what felt like a knife jutting into her
chest. The princess knew nothing of how to bind such a wound, nor
did she feel she had the energy to even stand.

Groaning, Ruby looked around, where she saw
the outlandish, glowing mushrooms of the subterranean tunnels first
hand. There was a comfort in seeing again. What she didn’t see,
however, was all of her imps, black or purple. They were simply
gone. She didn’t have the energy to try to connect with them and
see through their eyes, so the princess simply assumed that she was
once again alone.

Ruby believed that she had passed out once
more, when she felt that time had slipped away from her. She was
awake for the moment though, and she needed to act. She would not
give up despite her horrendous pain. Her thoughts drifted to Leina.
Her sister still needed her help, and she would not let her down.
Bracing her arms against the cold, wet surface of the ebony rocks,
Ruby winced but ultimately managed to lift herself partially
upright, resting on her battered and tender knees.

Looking beneath her, the princess realized
what had happened to all of the black imps that she had created.
During her tumble, they had all grouped together to form a softer
surface at the bottom, which she had landed on. They had broken her
fall and possibly saved her life. What happened to her disobedient
purple imp was still uncertain though, as she saw no sign of it
underneath her or anywhere nearby.

Unable to ignore the pain from the pressure
on her knees, the princess next forced herself to stand. Leaning
against the nearby wall, she used it as leverage, and upon raising
herself up, her head went dizzy. She nearly fell again from the
effect, but the princess held steady. Ruby then took the time to
examine her wounds. Scrapes and bruises, both small and large,
littered her arms and legs, but none of them worried her like the
broken ribs. Leaking from each of her cuts was a trace sampling of
her blood, but mostly they were full of more of the poisonous
substance. Ruby had no idea whether that was a good sign or
not.

The princess started to feel as though she
might pass out again from the pain in her chest or at the very
least throw up. The thought occurred to her that she might not even
be possible of retching anymore. Gently placing one hand just below
her ribs and using the other to brace herself against the rocky
wall, Ruby began to move. Whatever was down there had to be worth
it. When she had started down the steep tunnel, she hadn’t even
considered that she would have to make it back up after she’d found
what she was after. Now, it was all she thought about. She felt
doomed by her shortsighted avarice.

Regardless, she had no choice but to move
forward through the cavern. Leaning her shoulder against the rocky
wall, she left a separate trail of her injuries along it - one that
was distinct from the poison spewed along the cave floor because of
this new one’s red tinge. Each step was a crucible, testing her
resolve and determining how much she could endure. Her chest
trembled in pain at every breath, and she knew it was only a matter
of time before it all became too much.

The path ahead of her was distorted and
twisting; or rather, that was how her disoriented eyes saw it. Her
head pounded loudly between her ears, throbbing in protest to what
the rest of her body was experiencing. Ruby soon came to an opening
in the wall, but didn’t realize it. Leaning against the rocks, she
slipped into the chamber and fell to the floor when her shoulder
met with the gap. She released a soft groan, as she splattered her
poison and blood onto the hard ground.

Her eyes were fuzzy, but she looked up to
find a strange sight. The chamber itself appeared to be moving in a
writhing, twisting knot. Ruby forced herself to stand, and she
cautiously approached one of the undulating sections. Every step
toward it increased the temperature, as it seemed to be giving off
immense heat. Raising her hand to inspect it, only too late did the
princess realize what she was seeing in the dim light of the
underground chamber. Her fingers felt the scaly surface of an
enormous serpent, coiled and sleeping far below the earth. Ruby’s
touch roused it from its slumber, and it rigidly snapped to
attention. The serpent’s body slapped her away, and the princess
slammed into the wall of the cave.

Ruby recalled her history lessons
growing up. Some of her teachers had focused on hard facts and
figures, but a man named Art had taught her history lessons,
including the stories of her kingdom and the world at whole. He was
a rather eccentric figure that really just liked to weave tales, so
the young princess sometimes had difficulty distinguishing the
truths of history from the exaggerated yarns of folklore. One
specific story had been about a giant snake called Sythys.

Sythys had been a mighty serpent that had
collected powerful treasures and artifacts, hoarding them in the
region that was now Lavidia. Ruby’s ancestors, who were at the time
led by Lavidia’s eventual first king, Cyrus, came to the land,
fleeing the tyrannical empire to the east, wishing to settle there.
At the time, their people were living in the region that Ruby now
found herself, the Abyss. In those days, however, it was not a sick
and wasted land. The region was not as lush or livable as what the
great serpent had claimed, and so Sythys and the princess’
ancestors quickly came into conflict with one another. After
warring for some time, it became clear that Cyrus and his people
could not best Sythys in combat.

The future king changed his tactic. During
their time in that land, Cyrus’ people had found that there was a
strange fruit, which came to be known as blissroot, which grew in
scarcity beneath the earth. If ingested, the spicy tasting fruit
would cause general elation and bliss to the imbiber, but it was
also exceedingly toxic. Everyone who had eaten it died shortly
thereafter. The blissroot was not only dangerous if ingested
though. It also released a strange gas when plucked from the
ground. Though not deadly in small amounts, the more the fruit was
removed from the earth, the more the gas would spread and
contaminate the nearby wildlife. Given this knowledge, Cyrus came
up with the plan to make peace with the giant serpent, offering it
a gift of the poisonous and more importantly, addictive, fruit.

Sythys met with the future king and humbly
accepted their surrender as well as the peace token. Fearing that
the serpent would not eat the blissroot on its own, Cyrus had a
pair of lambs roasted and then drenched in the fruit’s sweet
smelling juices. Ruby’s ancestors watched in anticipation as Sythys
swallowed one of the lambs whole. The serpent’s eyes lit up
instantly, and it strangely cocked its head to the side.

The beast quickly gobbled up the other as
well, and everyone waited for the eventual death that had come for
all the others to eat the blissroot. Cyrus had underestimated the
creature’s physiology though. The toxic fruit did not harm Sythys.
The sense of joy that came with the blissroot, however did affect
him. The serpent demanded to know what the lambs had been coated in
that tasted so sweet. Eagerly, Cyrus showed the serpent to the only
known source of the fruit in the caves below his people’s
homes.

Sythys proceeded to devour all the blissroot
he could find in those dark depths. With each bite, the toxins were
released throughout the land, slowly befouling them into what
existed in Ruby’s time. The serpent dug deeper into the earth,
sussing out more of the fruit and growing more and more addicted to
its spicy taste and the sensation of bliss that came with it.
Having tricked the beast from its home, Ruby’s ancestors left the
now poisoned Abyss for Lavidia. In the serpent’s absence, Cyrus and
his people claimed not only the land as their own, but also all of
Sythys’ treasures. Beneath the castle, an archive was built to
house all of the powerful artifacts that they had stolen from
him.

The story that Ruby had heard had been only
one of many regarding the nature of the Abyss and the origin of her
royal line in Lavidia, but she never would have guessed that to be
the one with truth on its side. It had been far from the most
reasonable, and many scholars seemed to have dismissed it entirely.
Even her teacher, Art, had his reservations about that particular
story. None of that seemed to matter now, as the enormous serpent
stared down at her.

The serpent’s voice snapped Ruby back to
reality. “What isss thisss?” it hissed. “A sssnack for me, yesss,
yesss?”

Ruby groaned and looked up to see the
enormous form of the beast hovering above her and peering down over
her. Its breath was strangely hot on her skin, and extreme heat
seemed to radiate off the serpent’s body unnaturally. The massive
beast slithered eagerly toward her, and the princess could see that
each of its scales were as big as her hands, and they transitioned
in color between dark red and abyssal black in a spiral pattern.
Its eyes were pale, milky white and its forked tongue a soft pink
hue. Horned ridges appeared just behind its eyes, disappearing into
a white mane of hair that streaked down its backside, finally
ending far from its head.

“Who… who are you?” the princess stuttered
from the ground, noticeably shaking. She was either too afraid or
too weak to stand. She wasn’t sure which.

“Sssurely, you’ve heard of me, yesss?” the
serpent replied.

Ruby stared, wide-eyed, at the serpent,
fearing the answer would be the snake of her story, but she shook
her head side to side unable to accept the possibility.

“No?” it asked, mimicking her head movement
at a much larger scale. “How isss that posssible?”

“I don’t… understand. How… how would I know
you?”

“I am feared!” the serpent roared, exposing
its terrifying fangs to the princess. “I am known! I dessstroyed
kingdomsss, yesss!”

Terrified of the enormous creature and
beginning to tremble, Ruby tentatively asked, “Well… what is your…
name?”

“My name, yesss? My name isss Sssythysss! All
know me!”

Dread was all she felt then. How could such a
beast live down there and for so long? “I do know your name, but
it’s… not possible. How long have you been down here?”

“Not long, yesss. I jussst came down to
partake in that ever ssso sssweet delicasssy of the
blisssroot.”

Ruby looked around. The conditions of the
cave proved that Sythys had been there a very long time. Perhaps
the fruit had addled his brain and memory over the years. “...But
that was over five hundred years ago.”