The Poison Princess (18 page)

Ruby reached out with her poisoned hand,
grabbing one of the suckers and infecting it with a noxious strain
of her venom. As she had hoped, the beast wrenched the entire
appendage away from the source of pain, but the princess held
strong to the slimy tentacle. She and Scarlett were pulled off the
boat, through the air, and toward what she hoped was closer to
land. The suckered limb moved so fast that Ruby lost sight of how
far they had traveled, but it didn’t matter. Her fingers couldn’t
take the pressure anymore. She had to let go.

She and her demon continued forward, while
the tentacle slapped hard against the water and slithered under its
surface. The women were moving incredibly fast, and Ruby feared the
hard splash landing they were going to make. In the distance and at
the crack of a streak of lightning, she thought she saw tall trees
illuminated, but she couldn’t be sure. Maybe she had been too
hopeful, and she only saw what she wanted to. They were close to
the water now, and she grimaced just before they hit.

The impact may have been against water, but
Ruby’s recollection of the pain made it feel more like hitting a
hard stone. The air was knocked out of her, as both women crashed
into the sea and lost each other’s hands. Black waters surrounded
her, and the princess sank into its darkness.

Scarlett
was getting stronger. She suspected that it was due to all the time
alone she and her princess had spent on the Black Wave. Maybe it
was the events in Gloomport. She wasn’t certain, but then again, it
didn’t really matter. Her bond with Ruby had increased, and that in
turn meant that her demonic powers and magics had increased. This
was good news for both her and her princess.

After the hard splash landing in the sea, she
and Ruby had been separated. Scarlett, however, was not terribly
injured, and she was able to find her master in those dark depths.
Her princess had either been knocked unconscious by the landing or
simply drained of the last bits of her poisonous powers. The last
drop in that flask wouldn’t have been much to sustain her, so it
was up to her now.

The horned demon dived underwater and grabbed
her princess’ limp frame, dragging her back to the surface. Her
demonic eyes were able to see surprisingly well despite the bleak,
grey surroundings, and she could see that Ruby had done well. Land
was indeed very close now. Using one hand to hold her princess
above water, Scarlett used the other to slowly paddle toward the
shore.

Rain continued to pour down overhead, with
lightning splitting the sky and thunder cracking angrily from the
dark clouds. Behind her, the demon could hear the giant sea beast
continue to devour the Black Wave, having recovered from Ruby’s
poison. Though the princess hadn’t said anything when she did it,
Scarlett knew what she had done to Sniggle. The demon wondered if
it had been a difficult decision to make. He had certainly been
useless, but the purple imp was loveable in a pathetic, pitiable
sort of way. Scarlett also wondered if sacrifice came easy to Ruby.
Would she sacrifice her too if that became necessary? If she wanted
to remain in the physical realm, the horned demon would have to
continue to be valuable to her princess.

She continued to paddle, but looked back once
more at the enormous sea beast behind her. Despite her greater
knowledge and experiences than a mortal, Scarlett had never seen
anything quite like that. There were horrible things in the nether
world, but in Nabiria, the thoughts had terrible, monstrous forms.
The violence of the beast amazed her, and she found herself more in
awe of it than afraid, but that’s not to say she wasn’t terrified.
Regardless, she knew it would easily consume her without a second
thought, so she hurried toward the shore. She occasionally looked
back, as she was swimming to check on its progress. The demon
wasn’t sure if it would come after her or not, but she suspected
that it was more than a little possible.

When she’d made it about halfway to the land,
the storm began to dissipate and move farther out to sea. After
continuing a little more, the rain overhead stopped completely and
the clouds began to part with the light of morning. The calm smell
of the sea filled her nostrils. She’d acquired a taste for the
scent after days of sea travel on the pirate vessel. Scarlett was
eager to discover what the beach ahead of her smelled like.
Something about its potential struck her as uniquely wonderful.

She looked behind her once more to check if
the sea beast was done eating the Black Wave. To her horror, it was
gone. There was no ship, no monstrous form, and no tentacles
flapping in the air. She hadn’t felt such fear since her arrival in
Nabiria, as when she saw nothing on the distant seas. She swam
faster, while continuing to look back, refusing to turn toward the
land. Scarlett watched for any strange waves in the water, not that
detection of the beast would prevent it from attacking and eating
the pair of women.

Something hit her foot. She lifted her leg
past whatever it had been, still not turning to look in front of
her. Another bump. She panicked but kept swimming. Then it was her
knee, causing her to finally turn around. They were on the shore.
She’d been scraping past the ground. She smiled at herself,
realizing how silly her fear had been. The beast was gone now, and
she and her princess were safe.

Despite the chaos further out in the waters,
the waves of the tide were very minor. Scarlett was able to stand
on the sandy ground and carry her princess inland with ease. When
she made it out of the waters, she laid Ruby down on the beach to
examine her. Her skin was pale, but the demon didn’t think that
meant much. Ruby had always been rather pale, since she’d been
poisoned. She was breathing. None of her venom was seeping out, and
even her weak hand looked to have held its recent stitching. This
all seemed good, but despite that, she wouldn’t wake. The horned
demon knew that she had to collect some poison for her
princess.

She finally looked up to examine her
surroundings. The sandy beach was barren of any life but was
covered in fallen branches, leaves, and the fruit of nearby trees.
She took a moment to breathe in the beach air and smell the
fragrance it had to offer. The scent was not quite what she had
imagined, but she could see the appeal. Her all-time favorite thus
far was probably still the old crone’s apothecary back in
Gloomport. That combination had struck her as utterly unique.

The horned demon looked forward to see that
the line of trees ahead seemed to be the beginning of a large
forest. Scarlett was not familiar with the lands of Nabiria like
Ruby was, so she didn’t know where they were or what she could
expect to find inside. There was little elsewhere to look though,
so the demon lifted Ruby once again and carried her to the tree
line. She propped her against the trunk of a rather tall and thick
tree that was out of sight for anything or anyone that might come
by while she foraged for poison.

“You wait here, my princess,” she said,
brushing the hair from Ruby’s face. “I’ll be back soon.”

Though not eager to leave her princess alone
there, she moved deeper into the forest. Walking through the woods,
she saw that much of the forest had been knocked to the damp floor.
Scarlett was still dripping wet, and she realized that she wasn’t
very fond of it. She clicked her fingers and her whole body,
including her dress and hair was completely bone dry. That didn’t
last terribly long, as water continued to drip from leaves
overhead, and she kicked up water and mud on the back of her calves
with each step.

She hadn’t strayed far from the beach, but
the sea air already drifted away. The odor of the woods had taken
over. The smell reminded her of the rotting wood of the Black Wave
but still fresh. This was certainly better. The various leaves,
fruit, and other vegetative life colored the forest with other
colorful scents that she took in as she walked.

She wasn’t sure what she would find in there,
but she hadn’t seen anything hopeful yet. Maybe there were venomous
snakes, poisonous toads or even birds somewhere in the woods, but
life in general seemed to be hiding following the storm. After an
hour or so of slowly walking around the damp woods in vague
circles, Scarlett caught sight of something promising. Holding
strong despite the rainfall was the glinting sheen of a spider’s
web in the distance. Walking closer, the demon was surprised to see
that the webs only grew and grew in quantity. At this point, she
realized that the webs weren’t the gossamer fibers they should have
been. These were thickly woven threads stretching across large,
open areas. She thought that it must have been hundreds of the
presumably large arachnids building these webs, but she still had
yet to see any crawling along their vast surfaces.

Scarlett followed the webs, going to where
they were denser. This eventually led her to a dark, damp looking
cave. The demon peered inside but there was little she could make
out. There was something that felt off about the whole situation.
There was no life in those woods, and it no longer seemed to be
because of the storm. By now, she should have seen something. There
had been no sound beyond her own footsteps and the dripping of
water onto lower leaves, the ground, or fallen logs. That coupled
with the fact there were all those webs but no spiders to accompany
them made her wary. Despite her concerns, Scarlett knew that this
cave was the only hope for her princess. She had to keep going.

The demon moved forward, stepping onto the
rocks of the cave and pausing there a moment, allowing her eyes to
adjust to the darkness inside. Giant, sprawling webs lined the
cavern walls and ceiling and even parts of the floor. As she
started moving forward again, she was careful where she stepped,
not wanting to get stuck on the webs. A little further in, the
demon started to see very large things wrapped inside the webs.
Whatever was inside them was much too big for normal spiders to
have done. Her best reckoning was that the contents of the webs
were the various small animals that should have been out in the
forest. She didn’t let this development stop her, but then there
was a webbed figure that matched her own size.

“That can’t be good,” she muttered to
herself.

Scarlett stepped toward it and raised her
hand to the webbing. With a thought, she made her fingernails grow
to sharp points, become hard, and stiff. Running one through the
web, she sliced open the thick and sticky material. Grabbing both
sides of the tear, she stretched the milky white webbing, exposing
what was underneath. A young woman’s pale face stared back at her
with open but dead eyes.

“And here I thought there were none left who
were so foolish that they would wander into my home,” a sweet
feminine voice echoed through the caves behind her. The accent was
strange and foreign to her ears, but there was a poetic sound to
her every word, no matter how mundane. The words almost sounded
like she was casting a charm spell but without the trouble of
sorcery.

The demon turned to view the beautiful yet
monstrous form that the voice belonged to. The cave opened into a
large chamber dominated by a web stretching from ceiling to floor
and dangling mid-way down its length was a strange hybrid of woman
and arachnid. The creature had six black, hairy, spider-like legs,
protruding from a bulbous black body entirely covered in tiny
bristles. At its back was a spinneret for creating and weaving all
the silky webs that covered the cave and forest. Also protruding
from the body was a human like torso from the navel up. The skin
was an ashy grey color, and she wore no clothing to conceal her
beautifully formed breasts. Her face looked just like a young and
attractive woman’s, except she had two fangs protruding out from
her lips. Framing her lovely face, her ebony black hair fell down
in long strands to her shoulders, ending in what looked to be bones
braided into the hair.

Scarlett admired this monster almost as much
as she had the sea creature. “Aren’t you a gorgeous thing?”

“Hmm. You’re not like the others, I see
here,” the spider woman replied in her lovely poetic voice. “They
have such fear. You are absent of such a thing. Who are you that
you have come to my home?”

The demon chose to be direct. “I came for
your venom.”

The spider lady laughed a sweet sound that
echoed through the tunnels. “And I am sure you shall have it.
Nevertheless, conversation is so rare for me. Why don’t we talk a
bit before I wrap you in my web and store your meat for a special
occasion?”

“I don’t have time to waste on you. Give me
your venom, or I will take it from your corpse.”

The smile on her face faded, as she continued
to descend from the web and approach Scarlett. “Don’t threaten me,
little girl.”

“I think you will find I am anything but a
little girl.”

“Your defiance is charming, my dear, but it
will not save you.” The spider woman was off her web and
approaching Scarlett in the cave.

“No, but this will.” With a flourish of her
hand, the same scythe she’d wielded in Gloomport was made
manifest.

The demon was about to move forward to attack
the beast, when the spider woman’s front legs pushed her upright,
exposing the spinneret at her backside. The stinger looking
appendage pointed toward her and sprayed her hand and scythe with
the sticky silk, pinning her in place. Scarlett yanked at the
webbing, but it held firm. Another spray of the sticky substance
coated her feet as well, holding her steady to the cave floor.

The spider lady approached and grabbed
Scarlett’s free arm with her two human hands, holding it up to her
mouth. “You wanted my venom,” she said with a sweet smile. “I told
you that you would have it.”