ã€ŠIn the Service of Lady Scarlet (A psychological horror take on gamelit)ã€‹


 Chapter 1: In the Palace of Lady Scarlet.

    Her stern voice like purple trumpets blooms every night, wanting for me to wake up.  I salute, Lady Scarlet, I salute like the curtains of blue. The curtains, they don¡¯t like me. They spit and wet and call me names, the curtains. The Lady, however, is good, The Lady is tall, The Lady is good, The Lady is not blue.

    The fingers on the sky, always accusing, also act like the curtains. Why? I never did anything to them, to the water birds that carry them. The visits that came last time disregarded them, and just spoke to The Lady about the lavender scented beast in the nearby dungeon. The Lady is good: she defenestrated the guests kindly. The Lady is firm: they didn¡¯t come back.

    I write, I write to her glory, I write so other people may admire her tortuous, rough aura that fills me and my ilk with serenity. Because the others are there, under the same fingers, commanded by the same voice.

    The mirrors of sapphire, always reflecting my name, also keep us company. Insanity+1, they call for me, Insanity +1, they cheer. How I hold them dear! And the deer, oh, the deer don¡¯t come here anymore. The last one I saw slept peacefully, a fawn, in the arms of Lady Scarlet.  Through halls scented with wet dirt, they don¡¯t follow, for they fear. I think The Sentinel scared them away, the poor deer. The fawn¡¯s still a fawn by our Lady¡¯s will, for her holy breath abolishes time and keeps us lets us makes us prosper.

    The abolished angels won¡¯t come to dine tonight, for the feast of ancient sinew and fresh wine. We will devour one place and thousand, tearing away the flesh from the bone, drinking from cups taken from the vile lizard of shining eyes and scales of gold.

    And they spoke of a dragon, yes, they spoke before going downstairs, to the brewery. The brewery to which I shall tend in a while, with all its barrels with heavy lids, its dense murk, the moaning wines inside and beyond. I don¡¯t know how big is the brewery, I never reached the walls of it, I just know that it extends above us, that sometimes we can see a drop of wine falling from the hands that hold the sky.

    I will go, and check on the barrels, that they are sealed tight, and call for the Lady if they are not. Because I must, because that¡¯s why the Lady lets me serve her highness. The curtains will shine bright if I don¡¯t, they will blow me off my feet and drop me on the harsh, slippery floor. As long as my diary is spared, though, I don¡¯t care. They should know, they should praise her as we do here.

    But before going there, I need to make way for the Sentinel, up the palace halls.  Past the paintings, he resides in the blacksmiths workshop, where it smells like the iron of the swords and the rust of those who wield them. The sentinel is kind to me, he doesn¡¯t kick me in the ribs like he does his children. He knows we both serve the same good Mistress, even if he never talks, he only ever grunts and gestures for me to go away. But oh, how good are the blades he guards! my favorite one, of a handle ornamented with golden patterns that resemble the green flames of the ground. It belonged to a dragon slayer in years long past, and Lady Scarlet bequeathed it to me in appreciation for my services. The sentinel lets me check on the blade every day and night, to make sure it is still there, in the coppery workshop, safely kept.

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    Joy, joy is what I feel when I serve The Lady. Joy and this fulfilling uneasiness.  It grows closer when I am in this, the main chamber, writing, as she watches over my shoulder. She likes me recording my life here, she has told me several times. ¡°Amusing,¡± she says. ¡°Lovely,¡± she says. It fills me with tepid, slick mirth that I never knew in my days before stumbling upon her.

    I hear steps splash on the hall puddles, the dogs have arisen. I may need to pacify them, play a bit with the pooches. The Lady loves her dogs as much as she loves any loyal servant. As for me, I have always licked dogs. I am not in charge of feeding these ones, but, despite their stench that doesn¡¯t go away with a simple bath, they are magnificent animals. They don¡¯t get ticks; they don¡¯t carry fleas. Pretty clean animals, even if not pretty smelling.

    I am getting thirsty, I will sate myself with the brewery wines, with care to not touch the special reserve nor those that still lack maturation. They taste sweet, sweeter than any of the reds I have ever tasted, but leave a characteristic sour and metallic aftertaste. The main ingredients come from the Lady¡¯s grape fields, and her harvests yield a variety seldom seen outside of her palace.

    But I must finish this entry, and with it, I may invite anyone who finds this diary to come and visit the Scarlet Lady. Despite all of her servants, she feels lonely, and wails at night. The magic mirrors reflect her graceful and deft movements, her might, her mental acuity, her wisdom.  I shall keep her company until she retires to her chambers at morning, for our Lady is a night owl. Not literally, of course: she is, pretty much, and much pretty, a woman.

    And after the tasks are done and my needs tended to, I, too, would need to go to my room. But I prefer to postpone the matter for as long as it is possible without loitering around the palace.  Before me, there was a man, a hero, that gone mad and slept there. He inscribed all the walls with horrible messages, carved directly on the walls with a rock or another hard implement. ¡°Go kill the dragon.¡± He wrote once, ¡°Wake up and slay the dragon.¡± Can be read other two times along the otherwise pristine chamber, ¡°Murder the dragon!¡± he carved on the very floor with harshly done letters. Poor man, the lavender beast must have got the best of him. Luckily, the heroes who come and ask for the Lady¡¯s blessing seem very willing to complete the task, even if it seems the dragon always comes back.

    Despite this, The Lady holds a big deal of respect for the gold hoarding creatures, which is why she refuses to fix my room. ¡°A reminder,¡± she says, ¡°Of what dragons do to the unprepared mind. Obsession, my esteemed pawn, drives men to dragon lairs, and look how the meek of spirit and brow end up.¡±

    And she is right, she is always right, I will never be one of the morons that face dragons: the lizards don¡¯t inhabit the palace, and if they dared enter, The Lady and servants more fit for battle than I would repel them.  I am just keeping the house and documenting our lives, after all, and I am content with that.

 Chapter 2: The Ball Pit and the Cats

    The sentinel is sleeping, and one of the guests has stolen my sword. The Lady is furious, his slacking almost costs us a relic that, despite being given to me as a gesture of her appreciation, should remain in her palace. I am not a man made to wield a swordM the fingers and curtains mock me when I try to. A quill and a notepad, here, besides the golden scaled reptile, is what I should wield. And he watches over me, intently, never blinking, preserved as the lady wants him to be. Preserved and cold, as she wills. And even in this state, he grows and changes with time. The eyes change color and even places.

    There are no other books in the place, The Lady says a flood destroyed them all. Acquiring new ones, besides this diary I am authoring, would be wasteful: she is not fond of reading, and several servants are illiterate. The fingers on the sky also like to sweat over them, the only place in the palace where they don¡¯t do so are some spots of this chamber, for not even heaven dares mock Lady Scarlet.

    She will recover the sword personally if need arises, I have my chores to tend to. The ball pit needed rearranging, because it had gone to a mess due to my negligence during these last weeks. I spent a long time sifting through the gifts the visitors ¡ªand the invaders¡ª bring the lady to find ink, a quill, a suitable notepad. Yes. Days. Nights. Time not spent tending to the pit, which I soon regretted.

    The balls were mixed. Mixed! Males to the right, females to the left, that¡¯s how it ought to be. One of the dogs was chewing on a male one.

    ¡°Let go, bad boy, let go!¡± I screamed, and had to wrestle the ball from his hands. Had to punch the massive animal on his small snout so he would let go. ¡°And stay away from the balls!¡±

    They are mischievous little pups, but not bad. I don¡¯t feel any joy in screaming at them, they are just dogs, unaware of some of the Lady¡¯s rules, and still loyal to the death. She told me, not them, to put order to the balls, to look for differences in their lumps and holes to identify female and male ones, and then set them apart. Female balls to the left, males to the right, that¡¯s how the pit must be organized. And I don¡¯t like the dogs eating up the balls, they may get sick doing so.

    I found three twigs, two platters and and several dice in the pit, result of a careless addition of new balls by other servants. One of the new balls was still filled with jelly, and it had to be removed carefully, not to smudge it on the older ones. I have mastered the art of extracting the jelly with my fingers and tongue. The jelly has a mild flavor, it reminds me, maybe, of the few times I had the pleasure of eating salmon roe¡ªlong before I served The Lady, when I was miserable and lonely and content with my life of adventuring.

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    Once I finished with the pits, I rinsed my hands on the fountain of one of the corridors and skittered back here, to the main chamber, to the throne chamber, to my corner, where I have my table, and it¡¯s dry, and the lady, from her throne, watches over. I love her silent stares, her sharp white and briny smile that she blesses me with now and then and once again.

    The ambient humidity cannot be good for you, book, can it? Why were you brought here? If, once the Lady sends me out to pursue some errands, were you finished, maybe I could leave you in the sun? atop a stone, facing dawnwards, so you could greet the, maybe, sun, maybe, moon, maybe, stars and feel their warm, a second close to the chilling touch of Lady Scarlet. And may, may someone read and come visit, like the Gator Prince used to, in the days he loved our Lady, In the days he courted our lady, in the days before he went away to never come back. The Gator Prince would like you, little book, in his green dressings, donning his mocking eyes filled with contempt and autumn, yes, he would like you.

    I have to tend to the brewery, the dogs have just brought new barrels in.

    The Lady just dropped my sword by my side.

    ¡°Take better care of it, The Sentinel has already been admonished. Don¡¯t trust him for everything,¡± she says before sashaying back to her throne. She giggles, lips closing, smiling at me. ¡°And yet you keep doodling on. Awesome companion, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°Yes, awesome companion I am. Thank you, Lady, thank you, Lady.¡±

    Her approval envelopes me like the warm hug of rusted chains. Our Lady is good! Our Lady is red! Our Lady is not blue!

    I will scurry downstairs, then upstairs, then through the left passage, to go into the brewery. The halls are not kind on my bare feet, but one manages, one always manages, if he can, and I can, because one manages, yes, one manages.

    I will take the sword, because the thieve surely hides there, yes, among the barrels, maybe even inside one of them, drinking the sweet wine to avoid drowning. Yes, best to take the sword. Maybe I can even get a rogue rat to gift to Her Highness, if I take the sword yes, best to take the sword and care for the sword. She will like a dead rat, yes, she always likes when I kill rats. And every time, when she smiles and takes the gift, I purr like a kitten taking a prey to the feet of their master, because I lack the agility and eyes of a cat, but I may as well have been given the heart of one. By her blessing, I could very well be a cat.

    The fingers will point at me, they will, they will mock, but they inhabit the sky of the halls and there¡¯s nothing to do but face them. They, too, serve Lady Scarlet, and that¡¯s enough for me to offer tolerance in the face of their derision.

    I must tend to the brewery, I¡¯ll see you again in short, book, don¡¯t write in my absence.

    <hr>

    Considered the cat thing: cats, animals free of original sin, have a good life. It would be nice to rest on her lap and purr while she caresses me with her calloused hands. It would be so nice, heavenly even, to be fed by her hand, to be by her side night in and night out. To be at each other¡¯s beck and call. Like the party was to mine before we went different ways. I serve the Lady, they don¡¯t. They miss me, I don¡¯t. I have Lady Scarlet, they don¡¯t.

 Chapter 3: Kill the Dragon, Kill the Dragon

    Kill the dragon, kill the dragon, kill the dragon, kill it while it sleeps, kill the dragon, kill the dragon, kill it before it awakens and damns us, kill the dragon.

    <hr>

    He scribbled on my book! I cannot believe I found this after turning the page. The mad adventurer, he should have come back while I slept, vandalized my art, and left! Maybe he did it tomorrow, or before that, and I didn¡¯t find up until now.  If he did it earlier today, he must still wander the Lady¡¯s halls, maybe searching for a weapon to destroy his lethal enemy. Weapon he won¡¯t find, because both The Lady and the blue curtains take exception to dumb, dumb dragon slayers. The Sentinel, if not asleep, may get him, for The Sentinel is a big fellow, a brute fellow when it comes to battle. He once broke my arm out of carelessness. I still remember the pain, and it was¡­ void. Hollow.  Pain with nothing inside. Oh, but a mere wound is nothing the Lady Magics cannot stitch back together. She healed my arm without bickering, without a single complaint.  It only left a small scar, here, on the left forearm. A lovingly reminder of the first time I stepped into the palace. Since then, I have had some roughhousing with the other servants, but nothing serious, with the worst injury being a scratch suffered when I tried to punch the magical mirrors away and, instead, hit a wall. The important thing being: The Sentinel will get the Vandal if he tries to run past the blacksmith¡¯s workshop, and that¡¯s as true as the moonlight that bathes the palace halls.

    I will inform The Lady of this intrusion, and while she may consider it petty to act and the curtains may think of me as a pathetic weakling, she will listen, yes. She always listens. And she may not act against the invader, no. Because she deems it a fight of mine, or because she deems him a minor nuisance not worth the effort. Most likely because a mad knight, with enough time and subtle manipulation, could make an excellent addition to the family.

    After letting her know, I must tend to the garden, down in the cellar. The plants there climb on the walls and arches and love to stick on one¡¯s hands and arms and legs and torso and face. I will give them wine, for they cherish it and grow stronger when watered with the precious drink.  The Lady is okay with this use of her stock, as long as I don¡¯t let the potted climbers overindulge. I have perfected the act of avoiding their thorns and interpreting their snarls, so I am not bitten by the plants often. They rarely draw blood when they do, the snappy girls. In the garden there is also The Silent. He never speaks, just follows you with his stare. I suppose he is another servant, a sort of guardian of the plants. He, however, dislikes spending time with me, makes sure I know of his saffron indifference. I don¡¯t like him, either, but he serves The Scarlet Lady, and thus is owed my respect.

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    There is also the matter of that old inscription in the garden wall, one the plants dare not touch. Upon the soft brown tiles, a madman carved the following words: ¡°Abeline. Where is Abeline?   Abeline! Abeline! Where is Abeline? What has it done to Abeline?¡± ruining the perfect texture of the wall, scarring it with a rough patch that cannot be painted over without tarnishing the undamaged parts of the structure. I hate the madmen that come seeking shelter from the dragon! They ruin our home! They couldn¡¯t keep their greed in check and challenged the mythical beast that inhabits that dreadful cave, and then, when it broke their mind and crushed their will, they come to the Lady begging for help. And she grants it! in her infinite compassion she aids those who embark in this pointless endeavor. One day, I will find a way to erase the markings of the madman.

    Abeline¡­That name rings a bell tower. Abeline¡­ I knew the girl, maybe before happening upon the dragon, maybe before that, on the days of the gray and neon dream. An adventurer, mayhap? Would make sense, would make sense. I met many in the days where I wandered the land.  Abeline¡­ you could be one of them, Abeline. Abeline¡­ cute name, If I had a daughter, I¡¯d call her so. I will consult with The Lady if she likes the name, if it is reasonable to like such a name.

    I just heard a thud down the halls. Maybe the they caught the unfortunate rascal. Let¡¯s hope it was The Lady or the Sentinel and not the dogs. The dogs claw, the dogs bite, the dogs stab and trash. The dogs don¡¯t like purported, failed dragon slayers. Nobody here likes them. Arrogant pricks that go against the order of nature. Dragons are to be feared, like kitties, not slain for gold and experience, like kitties. Grown cats are, too, to be respected and feared, because, for beings unable to breathe fire, they were guilty of several homefires in¡­ a place called South Korea, I think. Cats are known arsonists, yes, high pyromancy affinity for such small animals.

    Fire, the Lady doesn¡¯t like fires inside the palace. The air is always cool, humid, so it is not easy for it to spread. The fingers like it so. The curtain likes it so. The dogs are fine with the deal, too.  But fire destroys, fire consumes, fire kills. Fire feasts on the living and, much more so, the dead. Fire, the lady says, is a necessary evil, and to be treated as such.  Ashes, she says, are sinful remains. To burn something is to deny nature her rightful claim upon it.

 Chapter 4: Of Dogs and Duties

    Pierce the heart with the sword of gold! Set it ablaze and sear the wound with the blade! Kill the dragon, Francisco! Kill the dragon before it gets you again, before it consumes you. Step into the main chamber and impale the chest of the vile creature, your muscles still remember how to wield the weapon, trust them. Kill the dragon! End it for both of us! Kill the dragon at once!

    <hr>

    Seeing the above affront against my diary, I showed it to The Lady. She laughed, how beautiful it was that she laughed. To make the Lady Happy is my reason to be. She caressed my hair and told me to worry not.

    ¡°Dragons drive their challengers mad, but fear not, my pawn: they cannot enter our palace. Their malice has no place in my realm, my abode. You may never see a living dragon running through the halls, my magic will keep them out. No need to search their lairs, no need to stain the steel with their blood, no need to leave this, our Haven,¡± She said, and then, embraced me from behind, threatening my ribs.

    ¡°Thanks, my Lady.¡± I made a bow before her and retreated back to the writing table.

    <hr>

    Today I need to clean the dog kennels. The fingers dare not point at the dogs, and one needs to crawl to get through the small door that leads to their room. They look at me puzzled every time I enter their territory, as if I were a barely tolerated presence. Distrust, the animals stare at me full of it and wariness. The soft carpet is always wet and reeks of their characteristic sour stench. My feelings toward the pups aren¡¯t foul, however, as they are only animals and it is wise to be wary of tall men.

    Sometimes, I pet one of them because I like dogs because dogs are good because dogs are loyal. They stand the petting because they like petting like being pet like being pets. Their kennels, holed into the walls, have to be emptied of the foreign objects they carry into them: balls, twigs, platters, dice. By the hour I have generally finished collecting all of those and piling them outside the room. Most of them roll down the entry slope without presenting a single issue. Once that is done, I check on the dog¡¯s tongues, as there should be more tongues than dogs. About four times more, to be exact. Sometimes the, in their hurry to serve and please, bite off one and leave it lying around. When that¡¯s the case, I take them to The Lady so she can fix them up with her healing magic.

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    It¡¯s funny how my breathings echo in the kennel room, for the dogs remain ever so silent. They don¡¯t bark, snarl or whimper. They only glare, always glare, and I can see them doing so, from the corner of my eyes. They glare while I gather the stolen items, while I scrub the floor, while I count the tongues. While I crawl back up the slope. Again, don¡¯t misunderstand, they are good dogs, they behave and even know some tricks. I tried teaching them new ones but most of them are too old to learn. A few learned to give me a paw. Others have learned to lick their peers on their own, eventually grooming the fur of the whole pack. The Lady never needed to teach them tricks, for if she says ¡°Jump¡±, they jump. And if she orders them to attack, they attack. And if she commands them to die, they die. Of course, this is merely an illustrative example, as Our Lady is far too nice, exceedingly compassionate to ever give that order to a healthy dog.

    I also need to mop the halls, they are all wet. I hate moping, as it seems you never end doing it. The mop absorbs less water than it should, the bucket fills earlier than you guessed it would, the day goes by faster than you know. The floor is irregular and the water pools in the depressions left behind by broken tiles. The fingers mock from above, so from below. It¡¯s their fault. It¡¯s their sweat, or the cries of the water birds that hold them, that wets the whole floor.

    Furthermore, the water is cold. I tremble as I wield the cleaning implement, like a turkey moping the inside of a fridge. Sometimes I carry my sword, Lady¡¯s sword, with me, on its sheath, hanging by my waist. It¡¯s reassuring to have it, to feel the weight of the Lady¡¯s trust and love on my person. The weather is cold but the sword irradiates warm, so much it seems to be about to burn my skin now and then. A very passionate sword, no doubt.

    <hr>

    I miss home, Francisco, don¡¯t you? I miss mom and her pancakes, I miss dad and his jokes. I miss the parks, the birds without health bars, the lack of dragons. Please, Francisco, go search for the dragon, slay it, and free us. Serve not The Lady, but your family. We have a duty to end it all, a duty to return, to find Abeline wherever she is. We have a duty, and that includes you.

    <hr>

    The son of a bitch keeps on vandalizing the diary! He must have done it while I moped! Catching him is a pressing matter now. Ink is valuable. Paper too. For all of Lady Scarlet¡¯s fortune, it is disrespectful to be so wasteful.

    She is sleeping now; I cannot wake her up. I will grab the sword and search for the vandal myself, stab him if necessary. Report back if I survive.

 Chapter 5: The Ladys Ire.

    Nowhere to be found. He¡¯s not with the dogs, not in the garden, not in the ball pit. Not in the workshop, not in the baths, not in the halls. He cannot be in the brewery, It¡¯s far too vast, way too dark, and the barrels snort and moan and groan when they release the gases from the drink, scaring visitors. He won¡¯t hide in the brewery tonight, no, he¡¯d risk getting lost and attacked by the things that lurk in the far end of it. Maybe they scared away the deer. That only lets the dining room, The Lady¡¯s chamber, and the guest rooms, one of which is mine. I would have noticed, I would have noticed if he had crossed this, the throne room, the golden lizard room, to go there or run away from those places. He¡¯s trapped now, unless he moves when I do so, which would imply we are playing a game of cat and mouse I don¡¯t feel comfortable with. Mice, I don¡¯t like mice. Cats, however, do.

    I need to check the chamber of The Lady, lest he does something to her! Bye, diary, write you later!

    <hr>

    She screamed at me! What is the meaning of this? She screamed at me. It was the unsheathed sword, it was me waking her up with the sword unsheathed, she thought I would attack her, she thought, because of the unsheathed sword she thought I would attack her. I am so sorry, diary, I have angered her. So sorry.

    I wanted to keep my Lady safe, so I entered her chamber ready to dispatch the invader, the clown, the vandal, the rascal, the moron, the sinner. But he was nowhere to be found, and my carelessness woke the lady up. Eyes open wide, she inquired: ¡°What is the meaning of this¡±.

    I began mumbling away my excuses, but then I realized, the sword, unsheathed, in Lady Scarlet¡¯s chamber. A despicable offense, by me, not by him, by me. By a servant.

    ¡°Pawn, what is the meaning of this. Speak now!¡± she ordered, elevating from her bed, spurring the curtains, filling the atmosphere with their purple scent.

    I trembled. Couldn¡¯t explain, couldn¡¯t explain. The Lady¡¯s ire is unbearable. Dragons fear her rage, The Gator Prince once told me so.  I ran for the palace entrance, past the blacksmith workshop, but the Sentinel caught me and snarled.  ¡°Get it back together, scum,¡± he must¡¯ve meant.

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    Then I hid in the brewery, hugging my sword, and among the barrels I fell asleep. I dreamed with the place of gray and neon, with its cathedrals and pigeons, with its green plazas and black-and-yellow taxis. A place the intruder knows; a place he talks about in his notes. Home, I used to call it home before the azure mirrors appeared. There¡¯s no way back, I must forget.

    Minutes or hours later, she found me, whole body aching, her hands pulling me up my chest without the slightest effort.

    ¡°My dear pawn, why were you stalking me while holding a lethal weapon?¡± she asked with a calm, sweet voice.

    ¡°intruder, searching for ¡­ intruder,¡± I whimpered.

    She let go and I fell over one of the barrels, breaking its solid structure, spreading tepid wine all over the floor. The air reeked of metal.

    ¡°Fine. You scared me. Pray be more careful next time you go hunting trespassers.¡±

    ¡°You doubt my loyalty, Lady Scarlet?¡± I asked, with my heart wrenched, and the eyes wetting.

    She grunted and gracefully walked away.

    ¡°Do that no more, Pawn, and we will remain on good footing. You know your lady is not loved by all. By most, I¡¯d even say.¡±

    With difficulty, I managed to crawl in all four, looking at her from my pathetic, small man position. ¡°But they are wrong, my Lady.¡±

    ¡°Men are amongst the creatures that weren¡¯t born to be right, pawn. That¡¯s a privilege reserved to gods and mighty , divine beings.¡± She offered me her hand so I could stand back up.

    ¡°Even dragons?¡± I asked, and her eyes became a thin line.

    ¡°Some of them, perhaps. Some of them. None that I have met.¡±

    ¡°Have you met many dragons, you Highness?¡±

    She didn¡¯t answer, just went for the door out of the brewery. I insisted, following her like a curious plague.

    ¡°Some, pawn, some. Already told you about them, I believe,¡± she finally said, and dismissed me with a gesture. I realized, then, that I had angered her again, and came here to write about it. I need to remain out of her sight for a while, let the flames of her ire calm down. The Brewery needs cleaning, and I, drenched in wine, a bath.  I¡¯ll take it now, the bathing pools should be empty, save for The Fish. In other words, available, because The Fish is a constant, always there, always there.

 Chapter 6: The Gator Prince

    A spiral staircase leads to the baths. Up, then down, then up again, and you arrive at the pools of sour, crystalline water. From across the room of blue tiling, sitting on the roof, The Fish waits. It greets you, swimming in the air, with billowing movements as it extends from rafter to rafter, like a puppy celebrating their master has come back. It¡¯s one, it¡¯s two, its seven, all at the same time, it¡¯s the Fish.

    I entered the water and began scrubbing my skin with the cold liquid. I was a tortuous task, bathing while quivering like that. Scrub, scratch, check on the Fish so it doesn¡¯t come for me, scrub.

    Before I finished cleaning the congealed wine smudges, a known figure appeared on the bath¡¯s doorframe.

    ¡°Long time no see, Gator Prince!¡± I scurried to greet him.

    ¡°Gator Prince? She told you to call me Gator Prince?¡± He spat, raising his snout with haughtiness.

    I took a step back. ¡°No, sir, no. I¡­ assumed.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d eat you if you weren¡¯t her favorite toy. Do you seriously think I am a gator?¡±

    ¡°You look like one to me. But I am no biologist, only saw them in documentaries, so¡­ a crocodile?¡± I ventured, and kept retreating one step at a time.

    He growled, revealing teeth sharp and long, unlike mine.

    ¡°Winds curse me, you are serious. Well, try again: what am I?¡± he put a long finger against his scaly chest and awaited my answer.

    ¡°Would get mad if I suggest¡­ a large Iguana? I mean your scales look too big for one and you are slightly taller than the ones in pet stores but still¡ª¡°

    ¡°Shut your trap. I am Gadorprims the Peerless. That¡¯s my name, and you may refer to me by it. Gadorprims. Got it? Not a gator, not a croc, not a small, frail, pathetic iguana. Gadorprims.¡±

    I found myself not knowing what to say, and confused, if he wasn''t an iguana, then¡­

    ¡°Perchance a gharial, if I may be so bold?¡± I suggested, crawling deeper into the water, which would have been wise if he weren¡¯t a gharial.

    ¡°Do you really think I look like a gharial? Like a long snouted, small needle teeth fish eating¡­ thing?¡± he inquired with a tone I wouldn¡¯t allow a normal visitor to hold in the Lady¡¯s domain.

    ¡°With all due respect sir, yes. I think you are a gharial.¡±

    He said something under his breath and then smiled ¡°I may be. But don¡¯t ever remind me again. Gadorprims, call me that if you must ever refer to me,¡± He raised his gaze, ¡°Are you aware this room is full of those?¡±

    He pointed at The Fish, and the fish didn¡¯t point back.

    ¡°Yes sir, they are fish, they like places with water.¡±

    ¡°No, you are either dumb or myopic. They are in the roof. Those are clearly phan¡­¡± he made a second of silence ¡°Pha fish. Pretty common in my homeland, they are, slave.¡±

    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    ¡°Pawn. Servant. Butler,¡± I corrected him, scowling. The Lady is no slaver.

    ¡°I will¡­ speak to her about this matter. Keep an eye on the fish, they like to possess people,¡± he gave me a word to the wise, and then parted in direction to the main chamber.

    <hr>

    Gharials don¡¯t talk. Gharials don¡¯t talk. Gharials don¡¯t talk. Gharials need the sun, too dark, too dark, too dark. Gharials eat fish that swim, the ones in the bath don¡¯t, don¡¯t, don¡¯t, don¡¯t. Gharials inhabit in Asia, the dragons there are long, long, long. The one we must kill isn¡¯t long, lives in the dark, and talks. If it eats fish, we know not. Grab your sword, kill the dragon, kill the dragon, kill the dragon!

    <hr>

    These acts of vandalism are getting me on my nerves! Specially because this one is a careless, disorganized stunt carried on by schmuck. An accusation of this caliber is no simple matter. This man is playing a dangerous game, and I need to set a trap for him. He seems to be constantly near, eavesdropping my interactions with the others in the palace. I will, when I finish this entry, hide the diary. Even if I do so in a wet crevice, the lady¡¯s magic can preserve even oil from the fire, how would it not preserve these, my precious writings, from a bit of water? She will, yes, she will. There is no other possible outcome. The Lady preserves, The Lady heals, the small fawn is proof of it. For eternity, we will serve her in her crusade against the claws of time and rot. And so will my words.

    But this invader, he tries to thwart the lady plans. What is he trying to achieve? And why does he want to go after Gadorprims? He even if not a servant of the lady, is a good friend of hers, and, by extension, of everyone who inhabits this palace. Therefore, one who attacks Gadorprims cannot but be our enemy. But I shall prove too sane a man for him, too clever a butler. He¡¯s after the dairy, so, if I hide it and set up a simple trap, I should be able to catch him. Then, deliverance of bittersweet justice would be a matter of simple judgment and execution.

    That said, I have been thinking: this could be one of my peers trying to get a laugh. Or could have been, if most of them were not illiterate during waning and waxing moons. Full and new moons, I haven¡¯t tested. They cannot be, no, no, no.

    As for coffee, I miss it. I am craving a good cappuccino. Yet there are no coffee makers in the palace, The Lady is intolerant to caffeine or so it seems.

    Could it be a prank of The Bear? She ought to be in her room, hibernating or estivating now. She¡¯s a mischievous one when awake, serving The Lady on her own, particular, granular terms. I hold no grudge against her, for to annoy seems to be simply her nature, and she is only awake during a few days every several weeks.

    No, it cannot be her, I waited till she went to sleep to start the diary, and if there is something she never fools around with, it¡¯s her circadian cycle.

    The Bear cannot be, no, no, no.

    I will take my sword, avoid the lady¡¯s chamber, yes, and then, when I find him in the trap, strike.

    Now for the trap, concealing a sigil of containment among the balls of the ball room should do the dirty work. The Lady feels uneasy when I cast my spells without a good reason. Magic¡¯s a thing of beasts and gods, she says, humans should not mess with it for mundane tasks, she says. Protection of the diary and the palace, however one may look at it, it¡¯s to me justification enough to use weak incantations. A minor transgression, a forgivable transgression, to apprehend an unforgivable, major transgressor.

    It¡¯s a simple spell, just evoke mana on my fingers, and claw the sigil into the ground. I am good mage, yes, a mighty one, even. Yet I could be a mere firework maker compared to The Lady, as her sorcery knows no match, not in this world, not in the prior one.

    An equilateral triangle to begin, a few wobbly lines, and a trembling spiral to finish it all. That¡¯s all the sigil would take. Simple, effective for what I need, and easy to bury among the balls.

    The problem with holy magic being that its shine may cause horrible hallucinations and only those wicked of heart may be caught in the sigil. Still, I cannot fathom how any intent to harm the lady or her allies could be anything but ill. Rallying me to attack Gadorprims is, no doubt, vile to the full extent of the word. Which would be four whole letters. Maybe wretched is a better word to use in this situation, as it is longer. Or execrable, with nine letters.

    I will report my findings if I survive this endeavor, which I hope I do. And if the diary survives this endeavor, which, if you are reading this, it probably did.

 Chapter 7: For a Dragon Soul

    A sigil of containment, Francisco? A spell easy to break, or that would be, if there was a need to. Try using more powerful incantations next time, and you may catch but a glimpse of me. Your spell, your trust in it, however, affords me ample time to beg you to kill the dragon. Even more: let me tell you a story.

    There was once a knight of white, a master of both sword and sorcery that strived to be crowned savior of all of Bengia. He overcame ogres, hordes of undead, flocks of harpies, and a particular pack of cursed cows that¡­ well, it may be a story for another time. Even small drakes, he slayed with no mercy but a great remorse. He only wanted to fulfill his duty and go back home together with his beloved, Abeline. They had come together and they would go back together. Back to the land where the gharials inhabit in Asia, and the level of something is just its inclination when compared to surface of a still sea.

    No matter how many foes he persevered against, he had reached the limits of power a human can amass without a powerful dragon soul. Being a Holy Knight, he set off to kill what he thought was vile, easy prey: an undead dragon that to this day inhabits a damp, convoluted cave isolated form any human settlement. Abeline begged him to not go, she did once and twice and thrice. Abeline begged him to find another way. Maybe if they slew enough lesser drakes, they could create a proper dragon soul from the fragments. But he was tired of this world, tired of getting his hands bloody in the name of some nebulous greater good, tired of having to resort to violence, he was. I was.

    So he and his party undertook this final task and found a foe he couldn¡¯t overcome. The undead dragon had an army of monstrosities, his magic was growing weaker and, to escape from a fate worse than death, in his fear-induced madness, the excuse of a man left poor Abeline behind. What did they do to our Abeline? I wonder and you too, you too! In dreams or in moments of clarity, when the miasma of madness lifts, you wonder and cry for our lost Abeline. For the Abeline no dragon will give back!

    I feel you coming back, I must go. Pray, friend: take our sword and kill the dragon. In vengeance or in righteous judgement, find the heart that gave up on beating long ago and baptize it with the sword¡¯s holy fire.

    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    <hr>

    The sigil remains untouched, its magic slightly faded from the time elapsed. Yet he found the diary and wrote that goddamned passage! He claims to know me, he claims we adventured together. It cannot be, it cannot be, the life before our dear Lady was aimless, senseless, worth forgetting.

    Still, there is certain wrongness in this. Why, and how, did he evade the sigil. He either saw me drawing it ¡ªWhich would imply I was careless, and I wasn¡¯t¡ª or he has no legs and/or floats. That would explain everything so far: the lack of footprints, his immunity to the glyph, my inability to find him as he could hide among the fingers above. Now: how does one face this information? I could, certainly, search for his nest or resting place, and carve a sigil there, but he would surely be watching.

    Whatever I do, I need to take into account his gaze. If I Inform the lady, she may dismiss it as a minor worry. She has bigger problems to deal with, I cannot bother her with this individual that seems unable to take action without my help. So, were my suspicions true, I¡¯d just need to keep on denying his petitions until he becomes desperate. I¡¯ll make you beg, white knight, I¡¯ll make you cry rivers of ink for Abeline for your transgressions against Lady Scarlet.

    Back to my chores, today I have to organize the balls again: one of the dogs has been mixing them while looking for his favorite one. Of course, this is just an assumption, but I have dealt with them for long enough to recognize their little devilries.

    <hr>

    As I passed by the main chamber, I overheard a conversation between Gadorprims and Lady Scarlet.

    ¡°What do you mean you cannot get rid of the thing?¡± said Gadorprims.

    ¡°It always finds its way back, so much so that I oftentimes prefer to recover it myself when a little adventuring prick steals it, lest it accidentally stabs or slashes through some of the servants.¡±

    ¡°You ought to destroy that wretched blade, my dear. It is vile, its very shine feels like an affront to my life,¡± suggested Gadorprims.

    ¡°I cannot. Not alone. The magic in it is far too wrong, far too ominous. It feels like burning every time I touch it. The thing wishes to kill me. It was forged to kill me,¡± said the Scarlet Lady.

    ¡°I think the pawn is listening. What proceeds?¡±

    ¡°Nothing. He goes around cleaning and stuff. It¡¯s amusing.¡±

    Then I hurried to pass in front of the gate and back to my writing stand. The sword, they had to be talking about my sword, so I will conduct experiments with it. First off, I will leave it across the room and watch it intently, seeing if it moves.

 Chapter 8: Jillsenbane

    It doesn¡¯t move. Not a millimeter, not while I am looking. I left it laying horizontally to avoid air currents or other external forces form influencing the sword¡¯s position. Next, I need a volunteer to steal it. I¡¯ll leave the book next to it so you can write in our diary, White knight. I await your input.

    <hr>

    And after hours of waiting, nothing happened, at all. You didn¡¯t come, didn¡¯t write, didn¡¯t take the sword. Why? Did you read and decided it would be funnier to leave my demands unfulfilled? Or is it my sole attention on your presence you seek? Are you a soul, a ghost? Do you need to be noticed to live on? Doesn¡¯t matter. I will leave the sword in the baths and go to the furthest corner of the brewery. A test of the sword¡¯s will to get back to me. Will report later, bye diary.

    <hr>

    The sword¡­ crawls. I would swear I am going mad, had I not repeated the test thrice. The sword bounces and rolls and squiggles on its way back, stopping at my feet, and then shooting to my grasp when I try to grab it. It had never done that before, so I think this power is amplified by my awareness of it. This, no doubt, is the Lady¡¯s magic, and she lied to Gadorprims to quell his worries about the sword. Maybe their relationship isn¡¯t as flawless as it seems. I have never investigated him, for I trust the Lady¡¯s judgement. Besides the inquiry of his gharial nature, I mean. I seriously believed him to be a gator, which is weird: one would think it is easy to differentiate between the two crocodilians. Gadorprims, however, is probably some sort of hybrid with racial purity delusions.

    I will ask the lady to confer the sword¡¯s enchantment to the diary, too, were she to be okay with it. Or maybe I can visit the wailing maiden for advice on how to reply the spell. The entrance to her wing had been sealed short after I arrived, but I heard from the lady that her enchanting services used to be invaluable before she came to the palace.

    Yes, I will consult the Lady about that exactly.

    <hr>

    When the Lady came to the main chamber, the throne chamber, I took the liberty to suggest her grant me access to the Maiden¡¯s wing.

    ¡°Why would you ever want that, pawn? A sealed wing has no need for your cleaning,¡± she said, scowling.

    ¡°I want to enchant the book so it seeks me, like the sword does,¡± I said, pointing at the sheathed weapon.

    She considered in silence for a few instants, ¡°The Maiden enchants are for heroes and fortune seekers. They are for warriors willing to brave the dangers of the world and preserve it from evil. Pray tell, pawn, are you a warrior?¡±

    ¡°I have a sword like, and I know spells suited for, a warrior, My Lady.¡±

    She descended from the throne, stepping gracefully over the carpet made out of the golden reptile, and tousled my hair.

    This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

    ¡°You are something more important than a warrior, Pawn: you are a housekeeper.¡± She smiled, showing her shining white teeth. ¡°The world needs warriors in times of war, that is true. The world needs housekeepers every day. Imagine it, pawn, a world with only people with important tasks to carry on, a world where nobody has the time to mop the halls or organize the balls. Would that be a world worth living in?¡±

    ¡°No, Lady Scarlet, it would untidy, chaotic, saddening.¡±

    She stepped back and began ascending the carpet, back to her throne ¡°Then, you are something more important than a warrior, and you have no need for neither a magic book nor a sword. Yet, you can keep the sword, for I like my butler being able to fend for himself.¡±

    I joined my hands, as if I were praying. ¡°And I am thankful, Lady Scarlet, but haven¡¯t I served you well enough to be granted this small favor?¡±

    She turned to me, staring with her beautiful eyes wide open. She remained frozen for a second or so before recovering her composure.

    ¡°Fairness cares not how well you serve me, as terrible as that may sound. Magic as powerful as the sword¡¯s, dear pawn, it¡¯s no easy to imbue into an item. Less so, I believe, in a book.¡±

    I wanted to ask her why she had said the sword had been forged to kill her, but refrained from doing so. This sword had to belong to one of her enemies, and had been taken as a prize after their fall before the righteousness of our Lady. This, her quarry, being entrusted to me is an act of genuine trust.

    ¡°I understand, Lady Scarlet, I am sorry for asking.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s only human to ask, pawn, it¡¯s only human. One day, you will teach me how to read those funny squiggles you do on the paper, right?¡±

    I nodded ¡°And until then, I can read it to you aloud, if it pleases you.¡±

    She also nodded, and that was the end of our interaction.

    <hr>

    Don¡¯t read this aloud. Never read this aloud. English is our strength, our weapon. Don¡¯t read this aloud.

    Talking about English, didn¡¯t you ever wonder why you write in English, Francisco? This is not South-Simaritanese, nor Chiscaniese, this is English. From England, on Earth. You use Arabic numerals; you use the Latin alphabet. Your knowledge hails from places that don¡¯t exist in Bengia. And that sword, Francisco, is called Jillsenbane, it belongs to you. You chose it, and it chose you. Look at its stats, at the requirements it has! It could never be wielded by a mere butler, by a housekeeper. This is the weapon of a mighty warrior. This is the weapon of a chosen one brought here from far, far away.

    Seize your destiny, enter the locked wing. You don¡¯t need the Lady¡¯s permission: Jillsenbane can cauterize the seal open. Enter the locked wing, seek this wailing maiden we have only heard of so far. Be it a creature at her service or opposed to her will, there will be aught of use in acquiring that information.

    Or, alternatively, kill the dragon outright. Kill the dragon and your reality will stop feeling wrong, the madness will go away to be replaced by forgotten relief and the merciful pain of loss. Kill the dragon, you know where to find it. Tear down the palace that has it for a heart, and be again the world¡¯s hero, would not that be right?

    If not for you, for Abeline, at least. For Abeline, who was taken by the dragon never to see us again, Francisco! For Abeline, for beloved Abeline, for kiskadee-voiced Abeline, for healing-spring-eyed Abeline, for oversized-heart Abeline. For Abeline of the warm smile, for Abeline of the boundless dreams, for Abeline of the child-like hope. Francisco, please, for her, kill the dragon. It is not an order anymore, but a plea. Kill the dragon, Francisco, I beg you. End this madness, end your madness.

 Chapter 9: To Run a Bath Dry

    Who is Abeline? Answer me next time you write, because the name rings a bell, a distant one, yes. I am thankful for the name you gave my sword, it personifies her. Gives Jilly a more¡­ human edge. Get it? sword? edge?

    I know not this dragon you speak of, but I may slay it if it dares mess with the Lady. Of course, there will be no need: no dragon can even touch a strand of the Lady¡¯s hair before being reduced to ashes.

    Leaving that aside, if my sword can cut through the seal, It¡¯s my duty as the Lady¡¯s servant to break it. I need to wait for her slumber, and avoid Gadorprims¡¯ vigil, as he seems to be adamant on watching over her highness since his unexpected return.

    I¡¯d need to go past the main chamber, to the abandoned halls I only clean once a month. I cleaned them two weeks ago, and, given I petitioned the lady for access to the Maiden¡¯s wing, wandering in there, even with a mop, will arise suspicions. I could read some apocryphal passages to Gadorprims to please him, as he liked some of my stories in the past, when The Lady asked for me to entertain them both. I am not sure how that would work out, though.

    Another option would be causing some ruckus to make Gadorpims get away from the Lady¡¯s chamber¡¯s gate. An explosion, maybe? It would be noisy, and would surely catch his attention. But then I¡¯d risk waking up Lady Scarlet. I could, too, kill one of the dogs, and hide its corpse in the bath. Still, Gardorpims is looking at me with his radiant amber eyes right now, and if I leave my writing station to go to the dog kennels he will know.

    I could cause a disaster in the brewery, but that would be a waste of good wine. Good wine that could very well be non-flammable. I doubt it contains enough alcohol to burn, anyway, so starting a fire is out of question.

    And what about killing Gadorprims and accusing him of attacking me first? Could be easy, could be lethal. I know not of his capacities in battle, and, given Lady scarlet seems to hold an immense deal of respect and admiration for him, I would need to assume taking this option would lead to my death.

    For the record, that outcome would be undesired on my end.

    Quite a puzzle we got there, book, quite a puzzle we got there. What would be the less incriminating way to do it?

    Time to sleep, I will figure it out tomorrow.

    A sigil of heating placed underwater, Francisco. Conjure it inside the baths and make the water boil away. Gadorprims takes a bath always at the same hour, or so I believe. If he finds a problem, he will call for Lady Scarlet to inspect the issue. That gives you a few minutes to scurry from whatever task you are supposedly undertaking, grab Jillsenbane and run into the abandoned halls. Once there, stab the seal, watch the¡­ wood squirm and screech as it burns away, and venture inside the opening. What you may find there, I don¡¯t know, and part of me doesn¡¯t want to know. Make sure to take the diary, quill and ink bottle with you. Document everything, as that will be the most important part.

    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

    Thank you for helping, vandal! I am weirded out by this, but it¡¯s a nice gesture on your part¡ªand a good idea, no less. A simple spell, a heat sigil. May need to tweak it a bit for it to work underwater, but nothing than half an hour of guesswork cannot solve.

    Gadorprims will go and take a bath in a while, I have no time for this undertaking today. I will write tomorrow, if it works.

    The bath is a cavern full of tortured ghosts, the bath is a cavern full of tortured ghosts, the bath is a cavern full of tortured ghosts, the bath is a cavern full of tortured ghosts. What¡¯s the brewery, what are the kennels, what are the halls, what¡¯s the blacksmith workshop, and what¡¯s the garden, if the bath is but a cave full of tortured ghosts and the balls are wet reeking skulls in a pit? Kill the dragon, break the illusions, kill the dragon, destroy the palace, kill the dragon, save Abeline, save Abeline, God damn you!

    How rude of you to call The Fish ghosts! They are not that thin nor scary. They just like to watch.

    Back to the matter of concern, the sigil worked after a while of tweaking. The vapor was kind of fetid, which I considered unusual, but maybe the water had some minerals or stuff that reacted to the heat. Doesn¡¯t matter, it will boil for a few hours, the sigil hidden in the further and deeper end of pool. It may not evaporate all water before fizzling, but it is bound to cause a noticeable drop. Now to play the waiting game, yes, the waiting game.

    The few glimpses of reality I can afford to glean when illuminated by the serene light of a glyph or in the moments the pervading curse waivers are more concerning in each instant of painful ¡ªyet needed and gratefully received¡ª sanity. I am not forgetting anymore, now that I write it down, I am not forgetting anymore and that¡¯s tortuous. How long has it been since that battle? I saw my pathetic reflection on the foul water: the hair is now long, the white uniform tattered and dirty. There are new wrinkles on the face, and new bald spots on my scalp. So long ago, so long ago, I won¡¯t find Abeline. I thought I wanted to find her, but, no, I now realize Abeline having suffered a death ¡ªpeaceful or horrible, it doesn¡¯t matter that much in contrast, as long as she is dead for good¡ª would be the best of outcomes. Was her soul in the ¡°baths¡± wailing along the ceiling? Or is she enslaved like everything else in this weird palace that is not? I hope dear Abeline is dead, now, and those very words burn my mind and eyes when I write them. I have eaten human brains, haven¡¯t I? I serve my greatest enemy and love her. How disgraced can I be, that I love her dearly in my long periods of sorcery-induced madness? Jillsenbane, guide me to slay the dragon. Fulfill our quest, even years later, even when the world may have forgotten about us. Strike the heart, Jillsenbane, before mine gives up on beating. Abeline deserves at least that much.

 Chapter 10: I Stabbed a Puppy.

    Calls himself sane and talks to a sword, Diary, can you believe it?  The nerve.

    Doesn¡¯t matter, I am now next to the seal. The wood of the doors is warm, and it pulses with magic. I expected this place to have more cobwebs, but I think I never saw one outside the blacksmiths workshop. Never saw geckos dashing around, either. That in turn, begs the question: where are all the mosquitoes? It¡¯s warm enough for them to prosper in this climate. And there¡¯s no lack of hot-blooded beings for them to feed on nor of stagnant puddles to reproduce in across this palace. Where, then, are the mosquitoes? Does the Lady use magic to keep them at bay? Or is it something in the air? The burning of some plant, the substances in the waters? I will try to remember to ask Lady Scarlet about the mosquitoes.

    But I digress. I need to open the seal before they come looking for me. Here goes nothing.

    The scent of the burning wood is wrong, approximating that of a corpse being cremated. The blade of Jilly remains white-red still, even if it is cold to the touch. Past the seal, there is only darkness: No sunlight comes through the hall¡¯s tinted windows. I could use a sigil to illuminate the place, but not before seeing if I can manage to see in the place. To be able to hide in the darkness if they come looking for me is a boon I cannot forfeit. Jilly¡¯s light will need to be enough, given I can quickly sheathe her to conceal my presence.

    I¡¯ll write later, if I find something while exploring the palace beyond the seal.

    It¡¯s all putrid flesh, mangled meat. A throat of death, that¡¯s what awaits he who dares venture past the sphincter. And yet, when the sanity vanishes, I see halls of blue tiles and marble walls. Curtains of white, dust in the air. But in this state of mind I can see it, all the small discrepancies in the illusion. A corner without quite the right angle, a surface way too perfectly polished, a tone discrepancy between things that ought to be equal, a shadow that it¡¯s not correctly projected. Its power still has a firm grasp on my mind, no matter how much I struggle to get free. The more I try to focus my gaze on reality, the more nauseous and weak I grow. I cannot draw a most powerful sigil to help drive away the madness ¡ªnot ehre in the , let¡¯s say, open, anyway¡ª such an inexcusable act would arouse suspicions on my captor and her consort. I must fall into it in such a way that leads to my liberation, in the end. Make madness my ally, weaponize it back against they who inflict it.

    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    Hey, me, remember that song we, I loved so much, the one by Franco de Vita? The one mom sang while hanging clothes to dry? Make me, us a favor. Sing it, as, like he says, ours, mine are endless nights. My name is Francisco, Pawn, a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Would you grant me that small favor?

    I remember not the song you talk about, namesake. Nor the mother you speak of. This place is labyrinthine, or, rather, this place is disorienting. Time and time again I find myself going back to the seal. I will get caught if they decide to come to the abandoned halls, the Lady and Gadorprims. Leaving a breadcrumb trail of sigils would aid me to not turn back on my steps, but could become mana intensive and a way to pinpoint my position. Given I tore down the seal, however, my presence here is rather obvious.

    I will leave the trail, hoping the Lady¡¯s reprimand won¡¯t be extremely severe.

    The cave corridor loops back into itself in a rather obvious way. But the illusion hides all irregularities, smoothens up the surfaces and straightens the path. It also places a wall over the opening now in front of me. When the illusion flashes in, this hole is just a white mass between two columns that don¡¯t exist, that never existed.  Drinking sanity from the glyphs, I can intermittently see the way forward. I checked my stats, and the insanity levels are slowly rising back to normal.  May Jillsenbane and this madness protect me from whatever they are hiding down there, from whatever howls and puffs and snarls down this hole.

    I stabbed a puppy. It was a big as a small truck and seemed to be a dragon when it got too close, but, otherwise, was a normal puppy.

    I stabbed a puppy. It bled out all over the palace floor, his heart pierced by Jilly. It will stare forevermore at the place where I was standing when I thrusted the sword into him.

    I stabbed a puppy, because for a second I thought it was a dragon with rotten skin and deep, amber eyes.

    That¡¯s why the ink changed color. Proper ink is hard to come by and the puppy¡¯s blood is about as good. I am sorry for his death but wasting his blood won¡¯t make him and/or her come back. Sometimes, I wish I had picked necromancer as a class, instead of holy knight. Jilly doesn¡¯t like when I think about that. She reprimands me. But a necromancer could revive the puppy for long enough to properly apologize. Sorry puppy, you should have looked more like a proper black Labrador and less like a dragon.

    Who kept the puppy properly fed and watered, though? Could it be the Maiden¡¯s pet? She will not be happy if that was the case. I need to clean the puppy remains from the floor. Wish I had brought a mop and a bucket. Maybe I can draw a heating sigil to, at least, dry off the blood and avoid anyone slipping on it.

 Chapter 11: Our Rendezvous

    A whelp, that¡¯s what I slew. It¡¯s good to know I can still defend myself. Now, what was a dragon whelp doing down here? They don¡¯t venture far from their nests. If the worst has happened, the dragon has laid eggs somewhere, and that¡¯s was why the wing was closed. And if this is true, I must press onward. But I fear. This dragon, in itself, with the skin peeled up in parts, with the ribs being conspicuous even if it seemed energetic enough to be well fed, with the teeth so sharp and the eyes so full of fire¡­ he looks like he had come out of hell itself. If a hatchery awaits, I could find a dozen or a score like him, all of them anxious for their first non-fraternal kill.

    But that¡¯s no reason to lose hope: I hear distant wailings through the walls. They have echoes in them, and the muffled sound is sure to come from afar.

    The fog of madness will come back to cloud my judgement away soon, and I am eating though my mana by casting these sigils. I cannot afford to use them to constantly lure away the insanity. It¡¯s a disgrace, I have grown weak during my time here. A tragedy, not because I am a madman¡ªmany people are, some from ill, some from grief, some from vice¡ªbut because I am aware of such madness and there is nothing I can do to permanently fend it off. It lingers, it lurks, it stalks, every waking moment, I know I will fall back.  Back into a state whose cooperation is not guaranteed, back into a prison made of myself, back into complacence with my own destruction and, furthermore, of everything I once stood for. And it isn¡¯t worse only because the dragon is not inherently evil, no, it would be unfair on my part to call it so. A dragon owes humanity no existence, a dragon owes humanity no loyalty, a dragon owes humanity no honor nor traditional goodness. If to someone at all, dragons owe their peers these things, and my enemy, the one I hate, is offering them just so. What they do with magic, I consider vile, but I haven¡¯t seen them doing so to other dragons. What we do to them with swords and spells, they consider vile, and don¡¯t we do it to other men?

    Misunderstand me not, I hate my captor with my guts and whatever may remain of my soul, like I would hate a dengue-carrying mosquito that stings me, without necessarily considering it evil.

    It¡¯s the madman turn to be in charge now. Pawn, kill any puppy you encounter, our life depends on it.

    ¡°Kill any puppy you encounter,¡± said the completely non-evil Sir Namesake.  I won¡¯t comply, sir, unless the puppies attack me first. They belong to the Lady, and their murder can lead to righteous punishment.

    Look at them glance from the sides of the gallery. From the balconies as I passed by, from behind columns as we advance. The puppies love us, Jilly. I keep wading forward, taking little rests to write and recover my breath.

    The fingers also inhabit here, mocking the puppies as they mock me. One cannot say they are unfair. The singsong of the maiden is getting closer and closer. Soon I will arrive in her chamber, I think I can spot the doors in the distance. I can¡¯t fathom how many builders must have been needed to erect the palace. It seems to span kilometers, and the lady reigns over each and every millimeter.

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    I am getting thirsty; I should have brought some wine. Yet, considering my feet are wet, maybe I can drink the water that floods the room. A small sip ought to be safe,ll more so if I place a purification sigil right underneath. From somewhere, I know the sigil¡¯s patter, it is crystal clear on my mind.

    I will draw the sigil with Jilly. The puppies like seeing her unsheathed. They want to play fetch with it, I bet. So cute, they are. Not like the dogs, these ones don¡¯t have more hands than they should. I reckon they belong to a different breed. Something in the way they wag the tai tells me they may not be retrievers.

    I feel the soothing presence of the Lady approaching. I must make haste if I want to see the maiden.

    I am surrounded by whelps. Hungry, with eyes of any and all colors that shine in the murk of this flooded cavern. Some of them decided to attack and got decapitated or their heart pierced, the ones that remain alive seem wary. Call it natural selection, if you will.

    The wailing Maiden is beyond the wall of flesh. My hand trembles when I try to rise Jillsenbane. I think I should not do this as long as my sanity lingers. Whatever lies at the other side could be either just another minor horror, or the one to sap my hope away. If I cross the sphincter while my eyes see reality, I may have no option but to face the dragon.   Come back, madness, this disgraced man misses your gifts sometimes.

    The gates didn¡¯t come down easy, but Jilly is sharper than any rebellious and tasty door. The wood was filled with liters and liters of immature wine. Hacking at it was a boring, repetitive task that could have been made easier with the cooperation of the puppies. They, however, kept their distance, getting closer solely to snarl at Jilly.

    Across the doors the light was blinding, as sunlight rained from the windows high above, illuminating the crucified maiden, revealing her numerous ivory wings clad in feathers that served as nests for the budding puppies.  She looked at me with eyes so tired, with blonde hair overly long framing her face but never getting in the way of her stare. The room smelled sandpapery.

    I crawled to her ribbons, that like the water of a fountain sprouted from her waist and fell down, waving, billowing.

    ¡°You don a visage like that of a finely aged traitor, little one,¡± she sobbed.

    ¡°Yes, yes I do, Maiden. I came here to ask you for a favor. Empty handed, I am afraid.¡±

    One of the pups hanging from her wings emerged from his chrysalis of translucent feathers and fell down on the palace floor. He whined only a little before getting on its feet-, what a good dog.

    ¡°I have only need for nothing. There¡¯s no gift you can give that would please me.¡±

    She fluttered her wings, and a veil of feathers slowly descended over the room, over the puppies, over me.

    ¡°But could you grant me what I wish for? Can your¡­ rather familiar sword give me nothingness? Can it lay me to rest? Is that Jillsenbane? Have you come back for me, Francisco, dear, traitor?¡±

    ¡°Francisco? Yes, that is my name, but I am no finely aged traitor. What¡¯s yours?¡±

    ¡°I forget it often, but in this instant, in this, our long awaited rendezvous, you may, if only once more, call me Abeline.¡±

 Chapter 12: Reasons to Keep a Rabid Dog.

    I ran. I ran with all the strength my legs could muster. I ran disregarding the dragons. I ran without looking back. I ran past the Scarlet Lady, who didn¡¯t follow. I ran past Gadorprims, who tried to sweep me off my feet with his long, scaly tail. I ran until my muscles and lungs burned harder than the light of Jillsenbane. She couldn¡¯t be. Not she who used to be my Abeline, not there, not with the dragons hanging from whatever her wings really are. I ran away before the illusion died out, before soundness of mind settled in revealing the cruel landscape that surrounds me and her and me.

    I ran away like I did when I condemned her. God damn me. I ran and now I hide in the ¡°brewery¡±. The barrels are made of magically reshaped bone, intertwined, twisted. The foul liquid they contain cannot be anything but rancid blood. I have drunk it, and worse yet, I have enjoyed it. It explains the sweet initial flavor and the metallic aftertaste of the ¡°wine¡±. What have I been reduced to?

    Still, I am better off than Abeline, why? Why am I better off than her? I deserve her torment, even if she doesn¡¯t deserve mine.

    There are corpses fermenting inside the barrels, soaked in the blood of who knows who or what. How many people and animals did these dragons exsanguinate? And why?

    I will cry myself to sleep, and hope to wake up back in the Lady¡¯s palace of insanity.

    <hr>

    I got chastised by my dear Lady. She found me sleeping on the Brewery, and woke me up by slapping my head with the back of her hand.

    ¡°What was the meaning of that subversive behavior, pawn?¡± she said, black flames coming out of her mouth, escaping between her white, sharp teeth.

    ¡°I wanted to get the book enchanted.¡±

    ¡°That damned book! Fie on that piece of skin and paper! I shall take it away if you keep on behaving like an absolute moron. A harmful moron, pawn. You slew¡­ how many puppies?¡± she joined her hands behind her back and started pacing from side to side, never breaking eye contact.

    ¡°A few, my Lady. Less than a dozen, I reckon.¡±

    ¡°Seven. Cabalistic number, the seven. Some consider it lucky. Ritualistic number, the seven. Some consider it holy. Painful number, the seven, as it is composed by several ones. Why did you commit such heinous act, Pawn?¡±

    I lowered my gaze. I was not worthy to look at Lady Scarlet. ¡°They attacked me first, my Lady. I just defended myself.¡±

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    ¡°I appreciate honesty, Pawn. Yet, punishment is still due. For three days you will not write, and if I surprise you doing so, the Diary will burn together with the quill. For three days, you will tend to the dogs, and none of using your silly magic to make the tasks easier. You will walk them about the palace, take them to the place where the puppies you murdered lie forever resting. I am going to escort you to make sure no other acts of self-defense take place,¡± she said, and came towards me with an extended hand, ready for me to hand you in, Diary.

    ¡°May I write another entry before beginning to serve my sentence?¡±

    She snorted. ¡°You may, dear Pawn. Hurry up, lest I change my mind.¡±

    <hr>

    I recovered my writing rights. The dragons sleep, and the ample time spent being under their supervision gave my mana reserves a needed respite. I fear for my life. Gadorprims is a proud father, a protective father. He may have hundreds of children, and yet still wants my head on a platter because I killed half a dozen.

    The other day I eavesdropped their conversation during a moment of clarity. I faked to be still under the spell and carrying out my tasks, by heaving a blood barrel in direction to the garden. They must have thought the illusions were rendering the conversation harmless.

    ¡°We cannot kill him, Gadorprims the Peerless. The sword will choose another wielder. I prefer to have a small nuisance causing little mischief about, rather than a brand new hero hell-bent on ending our bloodlines. Next time, that ominous weapon could choose a competent one,¡± she said, and then snickered.

    ¡°Don¡¯t utter my full name just because you are angry at me, Scarreladai the Deceiver. Those are my children we are talking about. My blood courses through their veins just as yours does. How can you let him get away with shamelessly attacking our offspring?¡±

    ¡°Because it is convenient to me, and so it is to you. As long as I am alive, we can have more offspring. And if not, explain to me why would I be wrong to assume this, Gador.¡±

    ¡°Killing our children is an affront we cannot let go unpunished while we sit on our scaly buttocks. If you will not give death to your pet, Scar, I shall seek a new mate to raise my descendants with. Do you even know what humans do to dogs that bite the hand that feeds them? They hang them, stab them, hit them in the back of the head with a hammer. Even humans know what must be done when their little allies become traitors.¡±

    ¡°Killing dogs don¡¯t make their collars seek vengeance and choke you in your sleep, Gador. As for the new mate thing: may fortune aid you in finding a dragoness that can give you whelps more powerful and abundant than I.¡±

    Gadorprims stomped his claws on the floor repeatedly, spat out a cloud of sparks and smoke that illuminated the room, and then headed in my direction. I hurried to hide behind the nearest corner.

    ¡°I am going out to hunt. Maybe ransack a village, purloin a local female in reproductive age and make some low-level chump try to be a hero. Give them the death they hope for, and the one that many deserve. Make sure your little experiment doesn¡¯t mow our family down again.¡±

    ¡°Take care, Peerless.¡±

    Gadorprims lowered his head and relaxed his posture.

    ¡°I shall, Deceiver. I shall. I¡¯d also like to gainsay my previous statement about finding a new mate. That¡¯s all.¡±

    And that was all.

 Chapter 13: Roadkill.

    The most mana-effective sigils that would not arouse suspicion¡ªat least if used sparsely¡ª are the minor healing ones. ¡°To soothe the pain from overexerting on my chores the other day, my Lady,¡± I told Scarreladai a few moons ago. In part, it was true. In part, it was just to remain sane. Until Gardorprims is convinced to let me be, madness is a luxury I cannot afford in his presence. He¡¯s not here now, but I better get into the routine of remaining alert. I traverse the cave system aided solely by the shine of Jillsenbane, with no illusions to reveal what hides in the shadows.

    Now, the matter of the garden and the blood drinkers and the eye on the wall. The plants are mouths, pots of bone and teeth and sinew and tongues with a long proboscis made out of empty blood vessels.  The eye is just stuck in a wall of flesh, like a squared, denuded cyclops.  The rank smell burnt my nostrils at first, but the body eventually gets used to it, and the ¡°plants¡±, I have found out, have no quarrel with the ingestion of other bodily fluids besides blood. Vomit, for the sake of precision.

    I need to burn this place down if I ever kill Scarreladai, the dragon. Kill the dragon, Francisco, kill the dragon! Ha ha ha. As if it were so easy, as if my life weren¡¯t on her claws. It seemed a good idea to spur the insane me to action, before I discovered the sigil trick.

    How can I kill that I cannot even look at? I instinctually avert my gaze, knowing facing Scarreladai would inevitably lead to the death of one of us. Considering I am not as strong as I was when I lost the first time around, I have no allies to speak of, and now Gadorprims inhabits the cave too, my chances are not what I¡¯d call great.

    The sigil is running out of light, I am going to suffer a few more moments of sanity before going back to being a madman. After all, a little rest from sanity now that Gadorprims is away will come in handy.

    The plants are watered now, yet the baths are almost dry. The water, it seems, is slowly trickling back into the pool. At this rate, the baths could be full again in a couple weeks. The Fish observes scared, from a far corner of the roof. My heat sigil has startled them. The azure mirrors float around me showing numbers I cannot interpret. Get away, get away, get away. Silly things.

    I need to tend to the dogs now. These latter days they are a disaster to handle. They howl, they claw and bite each other, and some have even tried to steal the diary from me. One of these days there may happen a little unforeseen accident, involving a mysterious sigil that causes a small cave in on the entrance to their kennels while they sleep. The Lady would mind for sure, but she doesn¡¯t care for the dogs as much as she does for the puppies. Weird, as logic dictates that most dogs were puppies once.

    Yet, today is not the day I give in, no. I am walking on thin ice with the Lady, I need to behave for a good, good while, yes. Losing the diary would be catastrophic, terrible for my mental stability. Furthermore, I¡¯d lose my friend Namesake.

    I need to go and save Abeline. I know the crucified angel was her, I know I heard her name clear as a summer sky. And yet I cannot get myself to act against Scarreladai, my beautiful lady clad in scarlet scales. Years of wistful ignorance, slavery and abuse have softened and humanized the image of the dragon. I cannot go back to being madman me alone, that would be running away once more. Yet, is not it easier to give up? One day I may perish of old age, and Jillsenbane will choose a new master to wield her and put on hold the dragon menace. And I say ¡°I May¡± because it is said some wielders of Jillsenbane lived for a thousand years. My face has more wrinkles, my scalp less hair, and my eyesight is probably not what it was ¡ªhard to judge when you are held prisoner on a cave system¡ª back in the day, but that could be due to malnourishment and lack of activity, due to the horrid conditions in these caverns. I am not who I was back in the day, when I decided to face Scarreladai for the first time. I still remember it all: the dark fire, the skeletal hands, the undead amalgamation surrounded by dead adventurers by the entrance. Guarding it to not let anyone in. Or maybe out.

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    And I should not keep on pondering about it. To even think of the entrance, of the exit, is sin. I could escape, yes, go far far far away, recoup my forces and come back once more to defy the Lady. Yet I cannot. I know myself well. Were I to run away, neither of the dragons would see me ever again. Abeline would be left weeping and crying in her torture chamber, in the one that rightfully belongs to me, the coward.

    When I came to a reality that worked like a game, I was thrilled. When the elders granted me Jillsenbane and told me I got chosen by her, I expected nothing but greatness for my future. Here you have that greatness you longed for, Francisco. Sitting in a gutter, surrounded by rotten corpses and rank shit. Here you have your darkest hour, hero! But there is no evil to confront here. There is no justice to be made, any action taken will be not to right a wrong but to avoid further damage. There is no ordeal for me; I have already failed mine. There is a must, yes, of course there is.  There is a maiden kidnapped by a dragon like in fairytales, yes, that much is true. But there is a reason why stories are told about the one that vanquishes the lizard, and not about the hundreds who perished trying. And that is naught but problems when you have to face the dragon.

    I fought and lost, I ran and tripped, I stood back on my feet just to discover they, too, betray me when I need them the most. They tell you the story about the guy who vanquished the dragon because they desperately need him, because we desperately need him. Just to make everyone (or anyone) think he is the one: he with the loyal, powerful steed; he with the shining, weightless armor; he with the unbreakable will, if not blade. An illusion that wyrmfire doesn¡¯t care about, an illusion that can be torn apart by claw and teeth and the animal¡¯s sheer will to live.

    And I¡¯d go to the blacksmith workshop, to the mouth of the cave, where that¡­ ogre of amassed bodies, for lack of a better term, awaits. I¡¯d go when everyone who breathes down here, be it air or flames, sleeps. I¡¯d go and face the dawn light, just to know it has not forsaken me yet. But, then, again, one should not approach the abyss when the prospect of jumping and being devoured by it is so tempting.

    I am alone, this book will mold down here to never be read by anyone but a mad me. I only keep on writing it due to the cathartic nature of the act, and the slim hope that, unlike me, it will find a way out into the wide world. May this please, sadden or forewarn you, whoever you are, good or vile reader.

    I am dead, but the infantile heart has not received the notice and still beats. I am dead and like all the dead, I am in service of Lady Scarlet. Or a servant of Scarreladai the Deceiver, for those inclined for the bare truth.

    To think my father once told me that, as a man, I should always finish what I started, no excuses, no exceptions. This is to say not that he was wrong, but that I have lost the right to be called a man. If I am dead, and not a man, that makes me the equivalent of roadkill, and I ask to be treated with the same respect. I deserve it.

    Maybe filling pages with these rants, past a certain, reasonable point, does me no good. I must stop, recollect my thoughts, define a course of action. I need time to think, but clarity of mind is a scarce resource. I better don¡¯t waste it all on pointless self-loathing. Not for me, but for Abeline. For Abeline.

 Chapter 14: Pi?ata party.

    I woke up sane, I woke up seeing the illusions and recognizing them as such. I woke up sane, Lord, why must I do? I saw Lady Scarlet in place of Scarreladai, sitting over the throne and the rug, that cannot be but a pile of riches. Her greedily kept hoard.  What does she need gold for? It shines, it is rare, humans can be bribed with it. One of those three, I bet.  She is there, sitting atop her mountain of gold, watching me write, not suspecting I am partially free of her spell.

    ¡°My Lady, my dear Lady Scarlet, my praised Lady Scarlet, where has Sir Gador gone? I do not see him around the palace no more,¡± I ask while I write these lines.

    ¡°He is of adventurous inclinations, Pawn. My beloved goes out into the world, battles villainous beasts, and brings back prizes and gifts for our amusement. He is not particularly fond of you as of late, but like a storm, that will come to pass in due time. Fear not, pawn: life, like weather, tends to normalcy,¡± she promptly answers. She seems not to mind the fact I am recording this. It could be because dragons don¡¯t believe in the power of words, only on that of might and magic. Words can deceive, but aren¡¯t they poorly thought out parodies of illusion spells, when all is said and, mainly, done?

    ¡°Why are the puppies so important, My Lady? You don¡¯t show the same care for the dogs.¡±

    She freezes in place and slowly cracks a smile. ¡°What sort of question is that?¡±

    ¡°An impertinent one, maybe. Pardon me, Lady Scarlet, if I were offensive to you.¡± I bow, turn and keep on writing.

    ¡°It¡¯s a thoughtful question, Pawn, maybe too thoughtful for my liking, but I see no problem with answering it: they are of a different breed, you see. I care about one, and not the other, like men care for their chickens but not for the street pigeons,¡± she fakes a smile with more teeth than any human woman ever has had. Teeth sharp, teeth carnivorous. Teeth abhorrent, teeth abyssal.

    ¡°I understand, Lady, my parents had a poodle, but they didn¡¯t like pugs.¡±

    ¡°What are those, pawn?¡±

    ¡°Dog breeds of Earth, My Lady.¡±

    She comes up to me and places one of her terrible claws on my scalp.

    ¡°Do you miss Earth, Pawn?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t even know where that was anymore, Lady Scarlet. Too long ago, too far away.¡± I say, managing to keep a firm and calm voice. I fear not the claws of the dragon, nor her teeth. There is nothing a wound can do to me that would be worse worse than what her magic has done over the years.

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    ¡°What are you writing now about? May I partake in?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a delicate subject. A fiction about actions of mankind unsuited for the eyes of a damsel, Lady Scarlet. I am sorry, but it would shame me to read it aloud to you. It¡¯s¡­ a tool for my future enjoyment. It¡¯s about acts men and women do in their hours of utmost solitude.¡±

    ¡°Disgusting, keep it to yourself,¡± she says and heads back to her spot on the gold pile. ¡°Make sure to bring me anything of value you find lying around in the workshop later, Pawn. I need new additions for the lizard rug.¡±

    ¡°Will do, My Lady, will do.¡±

    I see the Namesake also serves Lady Scarlet. A wise decision on his part, even if I seem to be unable to meet him in the flesh. Maybe he is a ghost! He writes while I am not looking, while I work, while I slumber.  How tricky you are, namesake, how sneaky, too. However, the Lady has put forward an order to fulfill, and even if given to him, I shall see to please her highness. So I came to the workshop. He isn¡¯t here. What I found here was something else.

    There were four of them. Silhouettes against the moonlight, swinging weapons and casting spells towards The Sentinel. Living, colorful pi?ata men that smelled like strawberries and ozone.

    The Sentinel swung around, aiming to hit with all of his arms. The longsword donkey-man got caught in his charge and splattered against the ground, spreading liquid candy everywhere.

    There was a mage in the group, and I spotted him as he hid on the backlines, preparing a spell to launch against the Sentinel. Against me. Against the Lady and her palace. He, a red and yellow pi?ata of a torero, raised his staff. Candy-thunder crackled around it, no good, no good. Prey of an impulse, an instinct I had not felt in ages, I jumped out of my hiding spot in the darkness, Jilly out of her scabbard, and swung at the spellcaster, hitting him in the shoulder, leaving his arm dangling. The others were too busy with the Sentinel to aid him. I drank the liquid caramel that came out of the tear, and how delicious it was! Tepid, too.

    A daggerist female pi?ata escaped from the Sentinel¡¯s flailing party and came to me with sugar canes unsheathed, ready to attack. I readied Jilly, as she was certainly amateur at this. It could be seen in her posture, on how she ran towards me and screamed as she did.

    ¡°My name is Francisco, I am Lady Scarlet¡¯s butler, and you choose a bad day to be full of delicious candy. ¡°

    She came to a sudden halt when she was about two meters away from me.

    ¡°Francisco? Then is that sword Jillsenbane?¡± she asked, agitated.

    ¡°I call her Jilly. But yes.¡±

    ¡°Screw this, I am not battling whatever has done this to you.¡± She turned to their mates battling The Sentinel. Or, well, the one that still remained alive, ¡°Reydar, you are on your own!¡± then, she faced me again,¡°Peace, lost hero.¡±

    As she gracefully walked away, the voice of Lady scarlet resonated inside my mind. ¡°Will you let her get away? Will you let her tell everyone that you serve me and have the sword the world so lusts after, Pawn?¡±

    ¡°No, my lady,¡± I murmured, raising Jilly, preparing my legs.

    ¡°Then hunt her down, my prot¨¦g¨¦,¡± she uttered her draconian command

 Chapter 15: Mine is the Shame.

    The hacks, her screams, the caramel that could not be anything but blood! These stains on Jillsenbane! I am sure it is not the first time I am forced to do something like this, but the memory is as confuse as being on the passenger seats during a terrorist attack. She pleaded, she offered me money and even other things¡ªwhich, as a demonstration of respect, I should not disclose¡ª in exchange for stilling my blade, yet I carried out my orders anyway. I murdered without mercy and, after rinsing myself in the bath to remove not the most heinous of dirt on me, went back to where The Sentinel is, just to write that horrible fragment on the previous page. I killed two adventurers, novices probably, in cold blood, and I derived cruel pleasure from it. What have you done to me, Scarreladai?

    I am not free to give them a proper burial, and the ¡°dogs¡± are coming to take their nude remains to the brewery. I cannot count the hands, the arms of the dogs: How many do they have, and why are their eyes bloodshot red? What are dogs made of in here?

    But, luckily, I have grown so weary of this reality that the shock isn¡¯t long lasting.

    Now and then I stare for several solid seconds at Jillsenbane, thinking that there is a low blow I can strike against the dragon and her undead entourage. This sword has shown it is pretty good at gutting humans, And, I¡¯d like to believe, I still fit the description.  It would be so easy, once determination sets in. Take Jillsebane, plunge her between my ribs, and funnel holy fire through her and into my chest. Let it burn my shame, burn my guilt, burn my sin. Burn this coward, burn this murderer, burn this parody of a man.

    I am right, it would be too easy. Just another way of escaping my duty to save Abeline.  Just another of endless paths that lead to the avoidance of accountability. I know the right course of action. But that is not enough to walk it. I need to defy the dragon I came to depend on, the one I praise and obey now. And the prospect of a hereafter if I succeed on vanquishing Scarreladai is¡­ scary. Life in this blissful slavery is tranquil, safe. My stomach is full unless I vomit, the undead soldiers keep us protected from external attackers. All the important decisions are taken for me, taken from me. Unaccountability is its own form of coveted freedom. After all, don¡¯t cheating spouses blame the other when they get caught? Don¡¯t children blame their siblings or friends when they break something?  We are not dogs, we humans. We know responsibility isn¡¯t inherently tied to our acts, we humans. We are terrible egoists, we humans. This dragon is a mother, both for the whelps and for me. The yearned return to an eternal childhood that every man wishes for when life gets unfair, dark, inhumane. Outside the cave there is adulthood, there is facing what I did with a straight face and lowering my head as I dig a grave for these poor people.  Outside there are monsters with no lack of want for my death. Some of them walk among townsfolk and are called things like Johnathan, Tiago or Esmeralda. In here, the monsters respect her, and thus me. I am Scarreladai¡¯s prized pawn, and it is not that tremendous of a torture.

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    And to think in a moment of madness, I may eat that innocent girl that wielded the daggers, or one of his companions, the mage or the warriors. Bite the raw muscle, use these old teeth to tear it, nerve and sinew from the bone and hope my holy magic is strong enough to fend off the illnesses derived from raw flesh and cannibalism. And If I surrender, if I remain here, it will not be my fault. It will never be my fault; the metaphorical blood will never be on my hands. Because who would not give up in my situation? Who would not hand themselves to madness to avoid this dilemma.  Who wouldn¡¯t not fall in love with purple-voiced, blue-winged, scale-dressed, thin-lipped, wide-smiled Lady scarlet?

    I am sorry, Abeline, your knight of shining armor may have  lost any and all will to battle the dragon that keeps you captive. I am sorry, Abeline, I keep on living for you, but that is all I can muster for now, everything I can force myself to do for you. Your blue prince, you got him wrong, because he is no more than a man, and depending on who you ask, even less than one. I am sorry, Abeline.

    <hr>

    In the palace everything sleeps. In the cave some things never close their eyes, but I still consider them slumbering, inactive. I am in the entrance of the cave system, on the border of Lady Scarlet¡¯s realm. The sun slowly washes over the fields, reveals flowers of bright yellow and red, grass so green and real. Judging by the flowering trees dressed in pink that grow nearby, I assume it is springtime.  Life goes on, even when a young dragon flies overhead now and then. The world does not need a hero, men do, and what do I owe to them?

    Abeline does, and what don¡¯t I owe to her? Yet this moment, I deserve to cherish it after so many years of darkness. I deserve to expose myself to sunlight which hurts my eyes and my pale skin. Out of the dungeon, in its limit, where reality meets the fiction of my life, here the world isn¡¯t cruel, but soothing, lulling. I could fall asleep on this bright morning, and maybe never wake up. Look at the birds, they sing and fly free, so seemingly happy, yet they have to bear the burden of flying, of surviving, of making a nest, of finding a mate.

    I stand up and pace from side to side now and them, never to escape the rocky floor that denotes the beginning of the cave. The Sentinel watches with dead, blind eyes, and he doesn¡¯t mind me being here. This opening, in my moments of madness, looks like a forge, be it ablaze with day or ashen with night.

    The sky is blue and clear: there are no stalactites to mock me out here. But all of this: the morning, the sky, the trees and their flowers, the grass¡­ they don¡¯t belong to me. Mine is the darkness allotted by Scarreladai, mine is the shame of abandoning my beloved, and mine is this heavy sword, a duty to be fulfilled.

    Let¡¯s go back inside, diary, lest madness catches us out there and I commit another atrocity.

 Chapter 16: The Flooded basement.

    This friend via correspondence¡ªfor lack of a better term¡ªof mine is mad as a hatter. He happened upon the palace¡¯s new orchard and thinks he came out of a cave. I, however, wonder where the orchard is. New rooms, wings and patios appearing on the palace is nothing new: The Lady¡¯s magic permeates the place, and it loves to indulge its need for creation.  It¡¯s not like my magic. Holy magic is destructive, holy magic is to undo. To undo darkness, to undo wounds, to undo sins. To burn the undead and banish the entities most gods deem worthy of lurking only along the darkest corners of the mundus.

    Scarreladai, that is a dragon¡¯s name. You little conspirator, you, you serve a slain mistress. Before our Lady erected her palace, she defeated Scarreladai the Deceiver, ignorant namesake. But now I have a weapon that can hurt you, ethereal double agent.  She buried the dragon in the deepest part of the palace, below the lowest of floors,. We live and prosper above the body of our lethal enemy. Of your mistress, namesake.

    I¡¯ll ask The Lady about it, despite the opinion of the Curtains on the matter. Maybe the dragon outside is just a vengeful shade of the necromancer dragoness. Don¡¯t you see, idiot, that Our Lady made a carpet out of a dragon of gold? I¡¯ll ask the lady about Scarreladai¡¯s burial, I¡¯ll ask her to unearth her remains and hang her skull above her throne.

    We will drink wine to the defeat of your mistress, she will laugh and praise me, yes, she will praise me with her mellifluous voice, caress my cheek with the sharpness of fingers like daggers.

    <hr>

    ¡°My Lady, dear Lady, Blessed Lady, the vandal is an agent of Scarreladai!¡± I busted into her chamber, startling her awake.

    She descended from the dais in which she always gracefully slept like a curled Siberian husky.

    ¡°That name doesn¡¯t belong to you for your lips to utter, Pawn.¡± she chastised me, touching my forehead with her index finger, pressing a little bit with her nail until a rivulet of warm blood slithered lazily down the bridge of my nose.

    I joined my hands in a plea.

    ¡°But you did defeat her, Lady Scarlet. Buried her before the palace, you told me, long ago you told me.¡±

    ¡°Did I?¡± she chortled. ¡°I may have, esteemed Pawn, I may have.¡± she withdrew her hand. ¡°Tell me, how do you know this man or woman serves the terrible and vile Scarreladai? The inexistent, weak, defeated Scarreladai?¡± she asked, smiling like a mother who waits their child to admit a devilry.

    ¡°He told me, through the diary. He writes in it. He says he is not tremendously tortured by being Scarreladai¡¯s prized pawn,¡± I hurriedly explained.

    ¡°Anything of use to us?¡±

    ¡°He wants to do something regarding a woman called Abeline. I think it is a cute name, don¡¯t you, Lady Scarlet?¡±

    ¡°A cute name indeed, pawn. A name fit for a mother, or a caretaker. A healer, perhaps.¡±

    She turned her back on me and began walking back to the throne.

    ¡°That¡¯s all, Lady Scarlet? Won¡¯t we unearth Scarreladai¡¯s cursed skull?¡±

    ¡°I like her skull where it is, dear Pawn. Exactly where it is and should always be until the day I die, that is, to the best of my knowledge, not coming anytime soon,¡± she answered without looking back.

    <hr>

    I am at the deepest level of the palace, analyzing the floor of the basement. It is flooded, the water comes up to the fourth or fifth step of the stairs. There are stars on the roof, hi stars!

    No wonder I am never sent here. I tested the water with my toes, and I regret it, for the thing is nigh frozen, a non-amicable variant of domestic water, no doubt. It chills the air around it, and even drawing a heating sigil inside the pool would be a painful experience due to the extended exposure needed.  Maybe these are the tears of Scarreladai, who is sad because she is dead and buried under a building. Wait a second.

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    I tasted the water, it is not salty enough to be tears.

    Maybe I can heat the water by drawing a heating sigil into a rock or tile before casting it in the pool. I am a butler, a caretaker, a housemaker: if a part of the palace is in disarray, it¡¯s my duty to make sure it doesn¡¯t remain like that for long. I need something with a smooth surface where I can draw the sigil onto.

    A plate, from the ball room. Yes, that would work. The ball room has plates, sometimes, and they are smooth enough to draw a small sigil on their surface. Now, not knowing how big the basement is¡­ that presents a problem. A small room could be boiled over with a couple dozen small sigils, but a big one would barely be warmed. And then, diary, then there is the problem of the vapor volume and how it would humidify the ambient upstairs. But I cannot swim on the dark waters to test this, that would be a sure way to get hypothermia.  Three plates would be enough. I¡¯ll hope the dogs have not taken them all.

    <hr>

    The mad me is strangely logic and resourceful when it sets his mind in carrying over a useless task, isn¡¯t he? I mean, if a cave system is inevitably shaped by water, it¡¯s no surprise whole passages would be flooded when one approaches the lower levels. The ¡°stars¡± on the roof are just these glowing worms you often see on documentaries. I wonder if killing them gives experience. Probably a negligible amount, only useful for newcomers.

    Excuse me, I digressed.

    As I was saying, my Mister Hyde retains an elevate level of competence, both for battle and for problem solving. This is worrisome on its own right, because it could mean my enemy and owner has no fear of ever losing control due to these characteristics, or that she lacks the power to suppress them, which, given my sorry state, I doubt. This, in turn, makes me wonder: are these painful moments of sanity earned, or allotted? Am I a useful slave? An amusing plaything? Both? Neither? Because she says her main reason to do this is to keep the wielder of Jillsenbane controlled, contained, declawed. But since when have jailers been honest to the jailed? Power breeds contempt breeds mistreatment breeds hatred. Granted, I should not humanize a dragon, despite her insistency on showing herself as a beautiful woman.

    But the question keeps on gnawing on my mind: Is she aware, as I cast these heating scapulae into the freezing water, that I know her for the dragon she is? And if she is, does she derive pleasure from my suffering? Do I deal with a dragon fighting for survival and the benefit of her own kind, which I can understand and forgive, or with a sadistic lizard no better than a bloodthirsty inquisitor? Is this revenge or self-defense? Which of us holds the moral high ground?

    Maybe I should stop brooding, for my own good. I am aware these increased moments of sanity, of heart wrecking clarity, have to do with the diary. To make it clear: I suspect they are due to it, because to record is to remember, in a way. You don¡¯t forget a dream that you immediately write about, and even scribbling the walls helps me inform my alter ego that I am here, with him, that I will never leave as long as there is a page to pen a message onto. And doesn¡¯t this put a ticking clock over my head? Am I not burning the wood of my cabin, my only refuge against the storm, just to remain slightly warm? The diary is a finite resource, and every word leaves less space on the pages. I thought conserving mana was the most important resource management skill I needed to develop to even try to overcome this situation, but no, it¡¯s paper that I need, it¡¯s the catharsis and hope of a tomorrow granted by the writing that helps me remain anchored to reality.

    And these very facts make casting the diary into the water a tempting prospect. To destroy this nexus to suffering, to Abeline. To vanish back into the harmless nightmare I were all these months or years. The peace of powerlessness, the lull of the life of the writing on the wall.

    But I shall not. The Doctor Jekyll did not succumb to Mister Hyde until he became unable to acquire more of the drug he needed to make the potion and keep the monster at bay. I wonder how many people here will know about those two. If the odds of a person finding this diary are low, imagine the ones of someone from Earth doing so. Or of someone literate and used to reading, which isn¡¯t very popular amongst the young, with videogames, easy access to series and films and all other options for instant gratification.

    Look what a fate worse than death has done to me, I sound like my father. What would he think about me, his good for nothing son, now?

    He¡¯d cry. He¡¯d call me an idiot and cry. Maybe I should too, before casting another scapula into the water. Cry, think of my next movement. Plan, cry some more, consider drowning myself in the water, decide against it because I cannot handle the cold on my face. Call myself a worthless faggot, merely as a way to remember better days and raise morale.  And if by then I have no new ideas, get away from the heavenly shine of the glyphs and let Mad Me get us into some mess that will force us to swim or sink. Not before he mocks or belittles me, of course. Hit me with your best shot, Francisco.

 Chapter 17: Of Bears and Men.

    Methinks you need to go and see a therapist, namesake. It¡¯s no wonder you are seeing dragons where there are none. You say hic sunt dracones as you tap your temples. I have come to consider you a sort of friend of rival, these days. Look at The Lady, behind me, on the curtained throne, being and beatifying the place with her mere presence. Look at how the curtains are quiet, this day is perfect, save for your rants. Maybe you scared away the poor deer. Where is the fawn, though? I haven¡¯t seen him around as of late. Maybe Gadorprims ate it. He is a gharial after all, and fawns descend from fish, which makes them fish, and thus can be eaten by gharials, which also descend from fish, so they are also fish, so, is it cannibalism?

    I am also descended from fish; I don¡¯t like the implications of this line of questioning. I am dropping it. More important, the bear has woken up! She lumbers from room to room, from hall to hall, searching, sniffing the air. She¡¯s always covered in black drapes, and she mostly avoids eye contact. A shy one, the bear. A servant of The Lady like all of us here, but a shy one. A disliked by the dogs one, too. I wonder what she is up to, the bear. I should tail her, document what she does.

    <hr>

    I don¡¯t know what I expected. After following her for hours, all I have to report is bearlike behavior. Moves heavily from room to room, chews on whatever meaty remains she may find, looks back at me, growls and goes away with her awkward step. Being the annoying blister on the ass of creation I am, I follow her, and the cycle repeats itself. I don¡¯t like you either, hirsute fat ass bitch. I don¡¯t even know why The Lady keeps you around. I am wasting ink and paper on reporting this, I should tend to my tasks. Go back to sleep and stop being a nuisance, Bear, please.

    <hr>

    I am befuddled by the fact that The Bear is a bear is a bear is a bear. Not a zombie bear, not a stout, undead abomination bulging with gasses and entrails. No. She is an honest-to-God female bear that lives and sleeps here in the cave system. The kind you can find perusing your finest trashcans, that sort of bear.

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    The only unsettling detail is that she is dressed in a black robe, as if a bear could be the incarnation of death itself. She cannot, because she is a dumb, mundane animal, so it may have been Scarreladai, Gadorprims or the ¡°dogs¡± who dressed her as such.

    And who would think finding out a bear is a bear would quell the solitude so much. How illogical is it? It¡¯s not the first normal animal I find down here. The worms on the cave ceilings were, just like the bear, living the life they evolved for, never mind the dragon, never mind the servants.

    A craving like a tumor grows inside me, a yearn for the warmth of the bear¡¯s skin, just to know I am, against all odds, alive. To caress her soft fur, to feel her rhythmical breathing against my ear. To, if possible, not be mauled to death while doing so. To feel the touch of an equal after this long isolation.

    Because she is like me. Trapped in here, living an unnatural life, forced by the dragon¡¯s magic to behave unlike one of her peers. In will go to the pile of corpses my mad side believes is a dining table, and get a leg or arm for her to chew onto. Jillsenbane is pretty good at tearing limbs apart from the torso, I have learned. This bear could be the only kindred spirit, the only other mammal that inhabits this accursed, dark, moist place. I don¡¯t care if she¡¯s a wild, dangerous animal, her presence will help me cope with reality. And if, in the process, I can ease her suffering in this pointless life, I¡¯d have done the bare minimum to consider myself worthy of a happy ending to this torment.

    This is no life for a man, and this is no life for a bear. But, maybe, together and with a bit of comprehension, of tolerance, we can help each other out, so she becomes a little bit more like a bear, and I become a little bit more like a man.

 chapter 18: Symbols and Their Power

    I have drawn a dim light sigil on her room, and a small one hidden inside the white scabbard of Jillsenbane. Portable sanity, a luxury that I can afford as long as I don¡¯t get too careless. Faking madness and servitude is proving to be a challenge, but one manages, hell yes, one manages!

    The ¡°Lady¡± does not pay attention to my actions more than she normally does. If I am arousing her suspicions, she is not providing any clue of it whatsoever.

    ¡°Where are you going with that piece of meat?¡± she inquired when she saw me shouldering an arm.

    ¡°I have a date with The Bear. She invited me for a meal, My Lady.¡±

    ¡°Okay... Feeding her is¡­ you know what? carry on, I don¡¯t even want to hear your reasons for this. Carry on, Pawn, feed the bear, play with her, take her for a walk around the palace, or do whatever. Just don¡¯t do anything that would anger me or Gadorprims,¡± she granted, seemingly perplexed.

    ¡°The Bear and I are grateful, Lady Scarlet, dear Lady Scarlet,¡± I said, and strode away, directly in direction to the Bear¡¯s room.

    She had cornered herself, cringing against the furthest wall, right between two stalagmites. With fearful eyes she stared at me for a second and bared her teeth, before her attention snapped back to the light glyph I had left behind, and which had her cowering in that corner.

    ¡°Poor thing, you must have lived most of your life in this darkness. They caught you when you were only a scared cub, didn¡¯t they?¡± I let the arm fall in front of her, and backed away, dispelling the light sigil, letting my eyes get used to the all-encompassing murk.

    At first, she only sniffed the torn limb from afar, not trusting enough to touch it. She paced from side to side, looking at the arm, and at me, with her two eyes like preternatural torches.

    Comprehension of what follows is paramount, and is that the bear eats, overcame by hunger, but she does so deadly afraid of the harm that act may bring forth. Her stare was not that of a dog with resource guarding, but of a caught spy biting the cyanide pill. She was the one dressed in black, but I was the angel of death.

    And I may be projecting into an animal, into a being of unrefined and basic interests. Yet, is it not logical that the bear shall see me as another torturer, as a heinous, annoying creature with intentions unclear and unwise? It lacks, furthermore, the natural bond dogs developed with humans through millennia of domestication.  She is a wild animal, and I need to constantly remind myself of that fact. Of the fact that men are not supposed to look for allies in bears. But right now it¡¯s either a bear, or the self-imposed solitude of he who denies the friendship he holds with the dungeon keeper.

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    I sat down and after extracting Jillsenbane from her (I feel the way I refer to my sword merits an explanation: I find ¡°It¡± too impersonal of a pronoun, and the masculine gender improper for a sword) scabbard, I began drawing another sigil to fend off the fog of insanity.

    What was it about sigils that their magic abolished the dragon¡¯s? It couldn¡¯t simply be the holy light they are made of, because the shine from Jillsenbane would purge the madness away. The secret had to reside in their patterns. I had tested numerous different sigils, from the simplest and cheaper ones to the most complex and exerting to make, and all of them yielded a similar result. It was, then, a characteristic common to each and every sigil, or at least most of them. Order, esteemed reader: the order of a sigil reflects the order of this, our reality. And so, no matter how the lines coalesce and wiggle, so long as there is meaning behind them, they drive the madness away.  This is in concordance with the effect writing exerts on my psyche, extending my periods of mental clarity. What are letters, if not mundane glyphs, no less full of meaning than magical ones?  Twenty-six earthly glyphs only children of the blue planet can come to understand.  And so, by writing this with them, by wasting pages away, by burning this torch that routs out the shadows of delirium, I hope to reach you, earthly brother! Few are the natives that have learned our tongue. You, like the bear, you are a kindred soul. Maybe not born yet, most likely not born yet. Or not spirited away from our home world yet, to be more precise. Are you a man? A woman? A child? Do you enjoy my suffering, or do you empathize with it?  Are you safe in your comfy home? Or do you live on the streets? Or are you another of my kind, an adventurer who thought he could eat the world just to end up devoured by this dungeon and what in it lurks? If the latter, please, were my zombie to be found, kill it for good. You have my permission. No, not my permission: In hereby impose upon you the duty to do so.

    Again, I digress. I extend this unnecessarily. The thing being: I believe the glyphs scare the bear because they break the illusion she may be being victimized by. She¡¯s no person, she cannot understand that she is being manipulated by a dragon. To break an animal¡¯s alternate reality, more so than a man¡¯s or woman¡¯s, is to drive it mad, in some way the logical side of my mind can conceive but not emulate. To put it in a metaphor, we could say that amputating a sick limb is still doing permanent damage to the body, despite it being necessary for survival.

    I need to wait until the bear sleeps, and draw some enduring sigils on her skin then. Or, hell, not even sigils, I¡¯ll just use the holy light to engrave her name among her hairs, whatever it may be, whatever I may choose.

 Chapter 19: Gadorprims Eye

    I have run more tests with the bear, and my suspicions were confirmed: she fears the light of the glyphs more than she fears me. All that remains is to feed her a little bit more, enough to induce a reliable state of torpor. I have time, I have always had time. The only thing I ever had in here, besides this lapdog sword, the book and my magic, is time. Rushing to save Abeline will solve nothing, it will only result in failure. Abeline suffers each waking second, yes, but so does everyone in here, and easing the simplest of pains is only human. I should not be helping an animal if I could help a person instead, no, that¡¯s not what I am saying. But, being we all prisoners of this jail, shouldn¡¯t we try to help a lost pigeon find that window too small for any of us to get through? If all men are damned, because when you delete two or three details all men are one and the same and therefore my disgrace and desperation is that of humanity, why should I not use this damnation of me, of Abeline, of us, of men, to help an innocent bear?

    All this moral discourse won¡¯t matter if I cannot even help the bear. I need to go look for another limb, or maybe some entrails. But those are more nutritive, and I need every possible advantage if I am to face Scarreladai¡­ someday. I despise the taste of liver and decaying kidney, but any sort of cannibalism is already bad enough to go and add the caprice of being a picky eater on top.

    For a second, I wondered how bear tastes. I quickly derailed that train of thought, because I intend for the bear to be my friend, not my dinner¡­ for as long as the situation allows for it, anyway.

    After testing the thing about glyphs and coming up with a name for the bear, I will retire to my room and sleep. I will wake up mad once again, there is no helping it. I cannot risk sleeping with a long-lasting glyph shining below my body, or anywhere in the room, for that matter. Besides, any sane mind would have trouble falling asleep in this, my situation.

    Carmela! He called The Bear Carmela. Madness, there is no other explanation for his behavior. Calling a bear Carmela! How dares he. Carmela, however, seems to have no issues with being called Carmela. She is clearly a pure soul in need of education.

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    In more interesting news, Gadorprims came back this morning. He lost an eye somewhere, because he is a careless moron who misplaces his belongings.

    ¡°Who did this to you, dear? Who!¡± asked The Lady, worried as she worked her healing magic.

    ¡°Are you afraid that, perchance, I have a lover who likes it rougher than you?¡± he joked before letting out a laugh, cut short by a wince when the lady touched put her hand over the mangled eyeball.

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t care less about you having other mates. Were it for me, you could very well have family with all the females in the continent so long as you don¡¯t neglect our children. I care about there being someone or something deft enough to hurt you, besides me,¡± she chastised him with the tone of an angry mother.

    ¡°Learn to take a joke, Scarreladai. You could learn a bit from the Pawn.¡± He pointed at me with his chin. ¡°Maybe he could teach you into growing a sense of humor.¡±

    ¡°Answer, airhead! Who dares to take away your sight?¡±

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter, I killed him, feasted on his entrails, devoured his vile hands.¡±

    ¡°What an exemplary gharial,¡± I commented, nodding my head. Silence settled. The Lady began laughing.

    ¡°I take it back, you do have a sense of humor, and it is as sick as you are. Does healing have to hurt this bad or are you just being¡­ an unusual bunch of yourself?¡±

    ¡°A lot, a lot. Her magic is good, but painful,¡± I said.

    ¡°Pawn, would you bring me a barrel of wine? Please, do make haste,¡± The Lady asked before going back to her task, inspecting the wound closely, kissing the gash now and then, and making Gadorprims contort in pain.

    ¡°Yes, Lady Scarlet.¡±

    Without vowing or saluting I began a sprint for the brewery, down and upstairs through the usual path, positioned myself behind the nearest filled barrel, made sure it was properly sealed and then tumbled it on its side. Rolling it into the throne room would be faster than carrying it.

    After I fulfilled that petition, I came here, to my writing station to, you guessed it, write. The lady is still rubbing wine on the popped eyeball, wine which seems to have some healing properties when combined with her touch, judging by what I remember from my broken arm incident. I hope Gardorprims recovers, he seems like a good guy, despite him not liking yours truly.

    I need to go clean the kennels. Write in you later, diary.

 Chapter 20: Sheep, Abeline

    So it turns out someone out there can (or could) severely hurt fully grown dragons. Not that I think they have a sword like Jillsenbane, no, that would be an uninformed, childish hope. Or any kind of weapon like her, for that matter. There are records of other dragonslayers, men and women that in part due to skill and in part due to the luck anyone needs to be in the right moment, in the right place, and exploiting the right openings to strike a killing blow, were able to reliably kill them. Jillsenbane, fashioned from a fragment of the ¡ªlong ago shattered, or so they say¡ª god of dragons, just has an easier time penetrating their armor and finding their heart and soul. You don¡¯t need a holy sword dragons fear to slay them, but lacking one gives them the more reason to slay you instead of running away.

    My captors fear Jillsenbane, too, and I think I am starting to see the power dynamic here: Scarreladai may be leagues more powerful than Gadorprims. He¡¯s prudish and sometimes cocky, but, in the end, always gives in to her demands. He got severely hurt on one of his expeditions, meanwhile the only injury I ever managed to inflict on Scarreladai was a superficial cut in her hind leg while she was distracted with Abeline¡¯s spells. Furthermore, I am alive, despite having killed some of their whelps. The fact Gadorprims cares so much about the children he has with Scarreladai tells me that he isn¡¯t able to easily procure a mate, or at least not of her caliber. The converse is also true: Scarreladai could do better, but is settling for Gadorprims for some reason, and if a few of the children they had together die to my blade, well, that¡¯s a minor loss, a bit of unexpected eugenics. A small price to pay for keeping Jillsenbane contained, away from her chest. Why Scarreladai would settle for Gadorprims could be none of my business, but if the chance to glean that information ever presents itself, I won¡¯t let it go to waste. Any small advantage is a welcome aid on my quest to free Abeline and Carmela, after all.

    And many may think my newfound obsession with the bear is the start of a natural, non-dragon-induced madness. You may be right, but I¡¯d rather believe the opossite. It¡¯s the right thing, a litmus test. Saving the bear hampers not my ability to work towards saving Abeline, and the raise in morale could be the straw that breaks the camel back, pushing me to face Scarreladai once and for all. If I fail or if I succeed on vanquishing her then, it won¡¯t change the fact that at least the bear will be free. And If I fail on releasing the bear, how can I ever save Abeline?

    Carmela is not afraid of the glyphs if she is exposed to them as soon as she wakes. She is disoriented, but it seems that making sure she sees reality first thing when she wakes up has calmed her down. She let me approach, without touching of course. I kept some meters of distance between us. Enough to react if she tried anything that would put me in jeopardy.

    Now and then, I threw a bone across the room to see if she would fetch. She never did.

    It seems that, despite their evolutionary proximity, you cannot turn a bear into a dog. I miss dogs. Proper ones, the ones who drool and bark and, sometimes, fetch. But I better get that idea out of my head. There are no dogs in my life, not anymore. There won¡¯t be. Carmela will be the closest thing to a dog, and the closest thing to a human, I may ever interact with.

    I will try to pet her. If I never write past this page, consider me thoroughly mauled.

    Two hands, ten fingers, one nose, two eyes, two legs. Making inventory, every body part seems to be where they should. Carmela is excessively open to human touch for a wild animal. I have the strong suspicion the dragons sequestered either the companion of a beast master, or a circus animal. I have no idea of how to give orders to either, so even if my theory rings true its applications are, and will keep on being, limited.

    Anguish. The mere thought of the existence of such a needed knowledge that I may never get access to takes the lid off a bottomless well of anguish and despair. I am a slave! One granted some privileges by his captors, but a slave in the end, a slave all the same. It¡¯s not the lack of freedom of the body that worries me, it¡¯s the lack of freedom of the mind. Any word I forget is erased forever, with no dictionary to aid me to remember it. The language I flaunt today will be eroded tomorrow, or, hell, next hour maybe. We never know what we are forgetting in any given moment, after all. Only the words I spill on the paper may persevere untouched, so long as their material support remains readable.

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    Carmela is sniffing me, taking in my scent for reasons that do not concern men. I wonder, what is the facet of freedom that makes bears what they are? Because humans, it seems to me, could be defined by the thirst for knowledge, their pathological seeking of an ever greater understanding. But what makes a bear? It could be the desire and act to catch salmon while the fish struggle against water, hunger and exertion to reach they place they were born in. It could be the drive to look for sweet, golden, glossy honey, for which hundreds of bees slaved away and died. It could be the need to fatten up and look for a lair to spend the winter and raise her cubs. But she wouldn¡¯t do none of these things, weren¡¯t she a bear. Maybe animals, unlike men and their dragons ¡ªor dragons and their men¡ª are without the need for a justification.

    Carmela just nuzzled me, and then grunted a bit, in the way bears do. How cute you are, Carmela; how disgraced we are, Carmela.

    I wonder what would I need to release Carmela. First of all, I¡¯d need to know who owns her: If she is property of Scarreladai, maybe I can talk her way to freedom, if only because her Lady Scarlet persona needs to keep certain appearances in front of the mad me. Now, the problem arises if Carmela is the pet of Gadorprims. Our enmity would make the matter of her liberation, just to understate it, complicated. It doesn¡¯t matter if he feels attached to her or not, if he notices I am, indeed, bonding with his pet, he will do everything in his power to keep us apart, maybe get rid of it. This could stretch to the point of him sacrificing the bear just to see me suffer, I¡¯d bet. Conversely, were him to suspect there is a rivalry of sorts gestating between the animal and I, he would send Carmela to every room I found myself in, hindering my chores as I¡¯d need to keep the appearance of disgust up constantly.

    My best bet is probably keeping a seeming ignorance of the bear in his presence. Make him not even suspect the connection and hope Scarreladai doesn¡¯t comment about my little¡­ date with the bear. But for this I¡¯d need constant vigil, or the cooperation of my mad-self.  Neither of those conditions are guaranteed, and true constant vigil is not even possible.

    I wonder what Abeline would think of me, if she could see me planning this whole lunacy, if she could read my diary of dragons, sigils and bears. I should had accepted her proposal to buy a ranch with the money we made from monster hunting, settle down, have a normal family. Then I could write stories about our missed dear Earth for everyone here and there to enjoy, let someone else rise up to the challenge of handling the dragon menace. But no, the shiny sword had chosen me! Hail, the dragon vanquisher, the Holy Knight who abandoned the peace every man yearns for to save us all! A hero of the ages!

    A moron of the ages. A greedy bastard that wanted the fame and honor. Which idiot thought a magical sword had the knowledge and wisdom to make a judgement of character? It was made form a dead god, for sanity¡¯s sake. No deity able to see the future or perfectly predict things would have just¡­ shattered in a thousand fragments. Unless he was as depressed and hopeless as I am.

    Look at what all this heroism has led us to, Abeline. You were right, I am sorry. You were always right; I¡¯ll always be sorry. I have to save the bear, Abeline, the bear, who I named like you wanted to name our future daughter. One of them anyway. Cast a final spell to undo this, Abeline. Bend reality to undo my mistakes and save yourself. I know you cannot, that logic and the rules of the world would never allow it, but I need a miracle right now. You knight in shining armor has failed, Abeline. He cannot even figure out how to properly liberate a fat-ass animal from our captors.  We could have planted potatoes, Abeline, big, turgid, brown potatoes. We could have raised sheep, Abeline, all fluffy and white and dirty like sheep are. We could have worried about a seasonal flu together, Abeline, we could have been, Abeline. We could have, we could and we cannot anymore. We could have had a dog, one of those that look like Great Pyrenees, and I¡¯d teach it to give a paw, sit, and talk. He¡¯d have a strong recall, and our eldest child would choose their name, probably calling them Cotton, Sugar or Cloud, like children do. Abeline, never forgive this coward, Abeline, curse me, Abeline, make shadow and death take me to spare you, Abeline, Abeline, Abeline.

    I need the cuckoo; I need Mister Hyde.  He cares not about you, Abeline, and he barely reacts to Carmela. Francisco, spare me of this waking nightmare, let us go back into Lady Scarlet¡¯s palace of wonders for a few days. Just keep the bear fed, yes, for the love of the god that forsook us, keep the bear fed.

 Chapter 21: A Masterclass

    I like your rants, they are entertaining. Is this a sort of persona or are you truly deranged, Doctor Jekyll?  To me, you are the mad one. But there¡¯s one that can heal you, yes, she can heal you! come to the Lady and ask for her mercy, conspirator. Maybe that way, you will realize you were Mister Hyde all of this time.

    I need to check the baths, take a long one to remove the bear smell from me. Why do I smell like bear, to start with? Has Carmela developed wireless scent transferring powers? Wasn¡¯t everything wireless before the invention of wire?

    Whatever, I need to check the baths. Gadorprims may be there, and I will use the occasion to apologize for what I did to his puppies, yes.

    The water was cold, but I refrained to draw a sigil of heating out of respect for Gadorpims, that was enjoying the bath at its current temperature, paying no attention to the fish. He turned and looked at me with suspicious eyes as soon as I walked into the room.

    ¡°You could leave that weapon elsewhere, couldn¡¯t you?¡±

    I shook my head despondently, ¡°No, Jilly likes me a tad too much.¡±

    ¡°Jilly this, Jilly that, Jilly says,¡± he mocked, going back to his business. ¡°Jillsenbane, that is the name of your sword. Don¡¯t disrespect that sword: that would be disrespecting dragons, and I don¡¯t like it when someone disrespects dragons.¡± I then heard his knuckles crack.  I came up to him, avoided his tail, patted him on the back twice and sat by his side, introducing only the feet on the cool waters.

    He glanced at me with airs of superiority, and then snorted.

    ¡°You will not pollute the water with your lowliness, will you?¡±

    ¡°Sir, I understand that you hate me for what I did to the puppies you and the lady own together, and you are in your right to. But, please, let us stike a pact of gentlemen to preserve our manners when dealing with each other.¡±

    He gave me a long look, from head to toe, and then blinked, one eye at a time.

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    ¡°Puppies?¡±

    ¡°Truck-sized Labradors, sir, as big as a truck-sized Golden Retriever or a truck sized Australian Cattle Dog.¡±

    ¡°Interesting. Pray fill me in on the following: What¡¯s a truck? What does Australian means? And what is a Labrador?¡±

    ¡°Things from a land far away. From where I come from. Most of them dogs, except trucks. Trucks are big metal things with wheels and glass cabins and people inside them and, sometimes, thousands of gallons or liters of poison inside.¡±

    ¡°And what¡¯s their point? Why would you need those artifacts for?¡± he asked, raising a scaly eye-non-brow.

    ¡°Sometimes we use them to transport heavy things, like poison, or cows, or pigs, or excrements. Other times we pit them against each other, those we call monster trucks, that are not an equivalent to monster girls and however¡ª¡±

    ¡°Winds spare me, stop, stop now. I don¡¯t want to know. Australian, what does ¡®Australian¡¯ mean? Tell me.¡±

    ¡°Things that hail from a country shaped like a steak and full of kangaroos.¡±

    ¡°What is a congar¨²?¡± he asked, not without a bit of desperation in his tone.

    ¡°A rat-horse with a bag they use for babies, sir. For kangaroo babies. Rice grain sized babies, sir. Not sold by the kilo, though.¡±

    ¡°Fantastical beasts, such things cannot possibly exist.¡±

    ¡°They exist; they move everywhere by jumping. Once and again. Jump, jump, jump.¡± I began imitating a kangaroo to illustrate my point, hands curled against body and all.  Water splashed on my old pants, but I didn¡¯t mind, they were wet anyway.

    ¡°You are not helping your case, servant, are you aware of that?¡±

    ¡°No sir, I am not.¡± I lowered my face into the cold water and rinsed it, scrubbing hard with my hands. I had failed the kangaroos.

    ¡°I am going to refrain from asking what are Golden Retrievers. Francisco, that was your name, am I correct?¡±

    ¡°indeed, sir, indeed.¡±

    Gadorprims stretched and let out a small puff of smoke out of his mouth. I refrained myself from chastising him and lecturing dear Lord about lung cancer.

    ¡°Well, Francisco, let me tell you a few things about Jillsenbane. Did anybody ever tell you why Jillsen, the dragon god, shattered?¡± he inquired, inspecting me with his fiery amber eyes.

    ¡°Fell to the floor from a high place and broke, sir? Like a ceramic plate?¡± I ventured.

    Gadorprims remained silent, opened his mouth, showing me all of his teeth. That was slightly jarring, like something very low pitched inside me screamed to run and don¡¯t look back.

    ¡°You have a cavity, sir,¡± I astutely observed.

    He closed his mouth, I turned to look at The Fish, that were descending upon us. Shoo! Go back to dwelling on your pine rafters and beams! Shoo!

    ¡°I am amazed at the work of Lady Scarlet sometimes. No matter, bring your diary, I am going to give you a masterclass on the shattering of Jillsen, and I want you to take notes.¡±

    I promptly obeyed and rushed here to draft this fast. I feel unease taking the diary so close to the water, but I cannot let Gadorprims down.

 Chapter 22: Storytime, Part One.

    Jillsen, greatest of all gods (In size?) made the skies and the dragons that inherited them. Atop his hoard of clouds, ether and thunder the father of all dragons rested, watching over the young world that unfolded down below. Aeons passed like this (How long are eons in Bengia? Investigate later,) with the other gods working on their own projects, and leaving him and his dragons alone.

    But this frail equilibrium was not bound to last, and when Morganuca, the goddess of beasts, a wild beauty, a damsel to rival Lady Scarlet that you may picture like a more refined and divine bear (exact words of Gadorprims), got into a petty quarry with the god of knowledge, Salomenon. It was all part of his plan, to do little devilries here and there to upset the goddess. Cause a bit of mischief, get on her nerves by providing a lesser creature or two with forbidden information, uplifting them, in layman terms (again, as Gadorprims said). He did this until Morganuca decided to come out of her reign in the jungles of the world and travel to his, claws protracted, ready to maul if that would settle the matter. And where did Salomenon live and reign? In a lonesome mountain, a long dead volcano, deep into a cave of white stone (composed mostly of plagioclases, maybe?). She descended, from step to step, boulder to boulder. She had the deftness of a lynx aiding her, and could hear the voice of the God of knowledge rambling, like he often did.

    Know that even a lynx can indulge in the sin of carelessness when excited, and so, she did not watch her step as much as she should, and when she went for his throat, or the closest thing for a throat a god made out of pure information may have, she fell into a roughly made pitfall trap. She tried to come out of the hole, but the stone, smooth and flawless like if it were a fine gem, cut with methods unknown to mortals to this day, did not provide any point of vantage. Some say he then spat over her out of despise, others say he right out urinated on the goddess to humiliate her, to mock the way her children marked their territories all over the world.

    The goddess roared at him, showing her teeth, inevitably swallowing some of the foul substance and immediately falling unconscious. During her blackout she dreamed with things beasts are not supposed to: numbers, truths of the mundane, truths of the arcane, and other things that went beyond feeding, fighting and reproducing. When she opened her eyes again, she screeched in pain, feeling bloated, her stomach distended and about to tear ¡ªand I must clarify that that I mean the acid filled digestive organ, because, for all the animal anatomy your kind knows, you often call parts of the reproductive tract stomach too. Morons (I feel that meanness is unjustified, but Lord Gadorprims ought to know what¡¯s best for the tale).

    She squirmed for the greatest pleasure of the god of knowledge, who watched from above. Eventually, she got on all fours, raised her heckles and started retching. Her breath was foul and smelled of putrefaction, of stagnant knowledge expired long ago.

    She felt the cursed substance crawling up her throat, choking her, and felt like dying. For moments, her world went dark, only for consciousness to come back and find her still trying to barf. Finally, after several days of struggle, exhausted, with her limbs burning and each centimeter of her torso and neck feeling like they had been cut in two, she opened her mouth wide and a head came out of it. What followed, naturally, was a baby. A big headed, small bodied baby, covered in bile and stomach acid, crying without solace.

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    She collapsed for a long while, and when she recovered her strength, she took the baby, that wandered near her belly and tried to latch onto her teats like younglings of many beasts do, and full of righteous fury against her captor, she launched the child against Salomenon.

    Catching the crying child, Salomenon gave it a hard look, and realized that, indeed, this half beast was as much a son of his as it was of hers. From their mutual hatred a new god had been born. Your former god, the god of humans: Saho.

    Soon after, Salomenon got tired of the image and growls of Morganuca, sealing the pit with a lid of stone the goddess could not reach nor lift.

    Saho grew inside the cave, under the extensive tutelage of Salomenon, who, in time, came to despise some of the more¡­ beastly aspects of the child. Saho was noisy, impulsive, hirsute, and did not have an easy time learning the more abstract concepts. His grasp of them, compared to animals, was flawless, but for Salomenon that was not enough for a child of his. Saho had failed to uphold the status of prodigy Salomenon expected of any progeny of his, which was a sure recipe to breed spite and slowly erode the relationship between father and son.

    At first, Saho isolated himself with his tools and writings. That¡¯s when he carved, into stone, the description of the first men, and then his words like snakes flowed into the world, picking up life and form on the way downstream. When the making of people stopped being enough to sate the mind of the young god, he went to the old pit and, in defiance of his father, slid the flat stone to a side to take a peek inside.

    And when he saw her, curled at the bottom of the pit, hopeless, phobic to the scant light that came from the torches on the cave, he knew that he was beholding his mother. He swore, in a language they both understood, if only because of the bond they shared, that he would come back for her, and immediately afterwards slid the stone back shut.

    With the knowledge inherited from his father the god of men crafted a rope out of braids of his long, long hair, grown for decades (where is the male balding pattern?), never having met the sharpness of a tool until then. He worked day and night to fashion a fishing net in secrecy, away from the prying eyes of his progenitor. Bags appeared under his eyes as he lost sleep, sacrificing it for the sake of his captive, and now beloved, mother.

    Eventually, his father noticed, and managed to catch him in the act without Saho noticing. So he waited patiently, he waited until his son hid the net below the rock he always did, and went out to hear the petitions of the new inhabitants of the world, the men and women he had brought to life, and aid them to overcome their shortcomings. Your god, human (Gadorprims refers to me, I believe), he was a good parent to your species.

    And in that expression of paternal love Salomenon found the chance to snatch the net and, under moonlight, cast it in a bonfire so hot it softened the very stone upon which it was built. Then, once the fire had died out, he collected the few remaining ashes of his son¡¯s hair and stashed them in a vial. Sitting at the entrance of the cave, he waited for his son to return.

 Chapter 23: Storytime, Part Two

    ¡°I found your net, my disgrace. You may keep the ashes of your efforts,¡± he handed the vial and, leaving behind the shocked Saho, he went for a leisurely walk in the forest.

    Saho took the vial and pressed it against his chest. He went inside the cave in hope of it all being a sick joke of his father, but the net was nowhere to be found. So he took the stone chisel he used to write men to life over the walls of the cave and set off to climb the mountain. For three days and nights he struggled against savage winds and bone freezing, bitter cold, just to reach, among the snow of the peak, a patch of exposed, pitch black volcanic glass. Obsidian, pawn. With whatever was left of his strength, he steadied the chisel and, by hitting it with the oblong stone he used in lieu of a hammer (for a gharial, Gadorprims knows a lot about human tools. Amazing. Dumbfounding.) Saho extracted pieces of glass, until one of them roughly resembled the blade of a short sword. With care a patience he whetted the edge, using the hammer-stone to break off little flakes of glass, until it became sharp enough to cut through the skin of his fingers with no effort. He then used his remaining braid to secure the blade to the vial that contained the ashes of his net, manufacturing a frail sword with an impossible edge. With his task done, wanting to give up to weariness and cold, hunger and the lack of sleep, he approached one of the highest ledges of the mountain, one that loomed high above the entrance of the cave. There, like frozen in time, he waited: he waited for his father to come out of the cave and sit to admire nature like he often did. He waited for Salomenon to sit under the ledge, thousands of meters below from where he was.

    Then, Saho took a leap of faith, casting himself head first from the ledge. Sword grasped firmly as he fell, he placed the blade in front of his nose, praying that his father didn¡¯t look up soon enough to realize he still had time to move, to dodge. A few seconds later, the sword struck true, just as Salomenon raised his gaze and opened his mouth. Split his skull, right between the eyes, cushioning the fall of Saho and leaving the sword buried deep inside the brains of the god of knowledge. Exhausted and lying on the floor, with no strength left to even look away, Saho beheld how his father, the primordial God who had raised and taught him all which he knew, began to shatter, not unlike the volcanic glass when chiseled. He bled light, pawn, Salomenon bled light as he came undone. And when the god exhaled his last breath, the underpinnings of the world became evident to the mortals. The magic, the stats and their numbers, it all came out of hiding. Knowledge lost the privilege of being ontologically forbidden.

    It is said that for days Saho laughed and laughed, so much and so loud and it reached so far and so wide that the hyenas began to imitate him and the local birds to try to.

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    After days of guffawing, a group of men and women, no more brave than you are, gathered enough valor to investigate the sound they thought demonic, just to find their dear god bloodied next to the mound of ashes that, they were blissfully unaware, was once his father.

    They acted quickly, drawing Saho to their encampment as he looked at them with a thankful stare, saying nothing, because the laughter had erased all the words from his mind. Once there, men and women who enjoyed the gifts of life and free will nursed the god back to health, using both old methods and newfound magic born from the shattering of Salomenon (Note: shattering gods seems to be a net positive so far).

    His believers, out of their want to please the deity, asked him what he wanted not a mere hour after he recovered the ability to talk. ¡°A ladder made out of rope,¡± he said, ¡°a strong, unyielding ladder of rope.¡± They doubted if they had understood him for a second, but seeing the confidence in the god¡¯s eyes, they swiftly began to work on the petition.

    And so only a mere week passed before he was off, on his way back to the cave, after thanking the men and women that took care of him and reassuring them that, in times of need, he would come to their aid: all they needed to do was to call his name.

    He sprinted back to the cave. Jumped over fallen logs plagued by mushrooms and small water pools that housed graceful amphibians. Swatted ferns and vines to the side as he raced for the cave, for the mother that waited in the dark hole. Your god, Pawn, was a decided one, and I find that admirable.

    When he arrived at the cave, he rushed to the pit, cast the ladder into it, and left a heavy rock pressing over the top end of the ladder, rock that he sat over. Morganuca took her time, distrusting of the world, soothed into a lull of existence by decades down the hole. But, that¡¯s the thing about animals: one cannot forget or erase instinct. With her claws reduced to mere nubs by so much scratching the walls, with her hair having made a whole mattress in the bottom of the hole, with her eyes blinded by the minimal amount of light the torches produced, Morganuca came back out of the hole, and snarled at his son. What followed was an embrace, her heavy paws against his back, his hands sinking into her mistreated fur, they cried, together in that embrace, they cried, and a tear from Saho and a tear from Morganuca found each other too, mixing, spilling over the floor of the cave, in the same place where, when the mother and the son let each other go and decided to get out of that dark and sad place, they found a baby girl. She didn¡¯t cry, she only snored, and she was neither human nor beast. Presenting characteristics of both kinds of beings, a new goddess had been born. Enter Tacchimel, goddess of beastkin (I always suspected the stupidity of catgirls was the result of severe inbreeding).

 Chapter 24: Storytime, Part Three

    The day Tacchimel took her first step out of the cave, Jillsen took interest on what happened below his clouds once more. A negligent father, he was. Greedy as many dragons are, and as disinterested in the children as one I know a bit too well.

    From his throne of clouds, he observed the beastkin goddess for some time each day while she grew up. Jillsen found it amusing, to see her behave both like cat and man at the same time. And just like cats, she matured faster than men do. By the tender age of five years, she had become the most beautiful adult woman on the whole world, the one that made mortals long for her blessing and lesser gods pray for her attention. Seeing this, Saho did what any decent deity of old is expected to do, and arranged a marriage with his own daughter, a decade or two down the line (Dude no, please, I was cheering for you).

    Seeing this, Jillsen went mad with rage. He sent down thunder to lash out against the land, he breathed a heavy fire that became meteorites as it descended through in the skies. That insolent non-primal! Saho, a creation that had sinned against his own maker, dared take away his toy for his egoistical leisure? It was unacceptable.

    That night, dragons heard the divine call and descended all over human villages, enthused with the promise of riches the god had offered for the firstborn daughters of men. Some dragons died during what they called ¡°The doll selection¡±, but the losses of men were far greater.

    This imprudent action angered Saho to the point he forgot about the wedding for the time being, and raided men to destroy the dear forests of his mother to procure enough wood, materials to make a ladder that would reach the dragon god¡¯s throne. A hundred thousand men worked tirelessly for ten thousand days and nights to bring forth the vision of his god and preserver.

    And when the ladder was about to be concluded, Jillsen became aware of it, and while Saho and his workers rested, he sent his strongest and stealthiest son to kidnap young and stupid Tacchimel.

    Saho woke up when he heard his daughter and future wife (Methinks the family tree of the average deity always ends up having a single bough) scream. He was swift, he pursued the dragon and, before it could take flight, Saho grabbed it by his tail. With great difficulty, and barehanded, Saho climbed on the bucking reptile. For an hour or two they struggled in the air, the man wrestling with the dragon, trying to get a hold of his neck without falling. Eventually, Jillsen¡¯s son got weary and sore, for he was struggling against both father and daughter, and the latter had claw and teeth capable of piercing a dragon¡¯s skin.

    Considering his mission failed, and knowing himself dead as soon as his progenitor learned of it, Jillsen¡¯s favorite launched himself against the stony ground headfirst, with his nightmarish mouth full of the sharpest teeth on all of creation impaling Tacchimel.

    Despite his best efforts, Saho lost his grasp and fell away, away, with the impact rendering him unconscious for a few minutes. After recovering his conscience and taking in his surroundings, the God desperately searched for the dragon¡¯s body, and he did found it. And on his maw, bleeding all over the dark grey rocks, already shattering with cracks that extended from her abdominal wounds, lay the upper half of Tacchimel. Connected to her legs only by a few sinews, she lay with the stare lost in the thunderous skies, mouth open, lips beginning to shed light like his grandfather¡¯s had, years ago.

    Saho kissed his daughter one last time, on the lips, as she collapsed into dust. That night was fateful for the beastkin, that being a new and unstable concept, they still couldn¡¯t sustain existence without the aid of a patron, and reverted back to either animal or men when Tacchimel became undone.  Not a wolfman or a lynx woman remained wandering around Bengia. And not a beast or man could console Saho as he heaved the dead dragon in direction to the nearest town.

    Hadn¡¯t he had taken it all from him? hadn¡¯t Jillsen acted in the wrongest of ways against both him and his creation? Didn¡¯t the dragon god deserve to be brought to justice? With those questions echoing in his mind, he shaped the bones, teeth and claws of Jillsen¡¯s favorite into a blade, and he baptized it Jillsen¡¯s bane. Not that sword of yours, of course, but a prototype, the first weapon fabricated with the sole intent of vanquishing a dragon.

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    Using his hatred, the new weapon born from it and the ladder the faithful built for him, Saho climbed relentlessly, soon reaching the realm of storm, cloud and cold where the dragon god inhabited and watched over the world.

    Each of his steps aroused the cackling thunder as he drew closer and closer to the gargantuan throne of the ruler of the skies. One of Jillsen¡¯s eyes, it is said, was bigger than the tallest of men. One of his exhalations could topple down a forest of sequoias. Over the obverse of his forepaw you could erect a palace to shame those from the most profligate of nobles.

    Like a wall of gold, sapphire and silver the dragon approached the god of men.

    ¡°I take you don¡¯t come to offer your apologies nor your pardon,¡± he mocked the little, despicable, broken god of men.

    ¡°You killed my beloved, Jillsen,¡± he declared, advancing towards his titanic adversary.

    ¡°And you led to the death of my favorite son. But is it not welcome for deities like us, the destruction of the object of desire? One less rope pulling us down, Saho. More time to create and undo, to be the perfect gods we are supposed to be.¡±

    Then Saho raised Jillsen¡¯s Bane and addressed the dragon. ¡°This sword is unfinished, only with your blood it can be completed. And this is a task I don¡¯t intend to leave unconcluded.¡±

    ¡°So be it, Saho. Let men have a god no more!¡±

    And they clashed, they fought like a dragon ought to fight a man. Saho, as small as he was, parried a couple of scratches from the god of dragons, jumped to the sides to avoid being crushed by the longest of tails or obliterated by the hottest of lightning bolts.  Together they danced for hours, with Jillsen¡¯s breath sundering the land, creating barren valleys where it struck, and the clash of sword and claw causing avalanches, taking down the birds that flew on those early skies and making the earth tremble terrified of the battle that made the clouds revolt and cry and gather in hurricanes, like fish in a school, just to seek safety.

    In the second day of uninterrupted battle, Saho felt his movements becoming clumsier, heavier, slower. Weariness was starting to get the best of the god, and the dragon still fought tirelessly.  Saho needed to end the battle, and he needed to do so fast. So, taking a page from the book of Jillsen¡¯s favorite, considering himself already dead by Jillsen¡¯s claw or teeth, the god of men launched a suicide attack. He raced above cloud and lightning, kicking off a bolt of Jillsen¡¯s breath attack to launch himself high into the air, Jillsen¡¯s Bane ready to strike, aiming right for the dragon god¡¯s gigantic skull. But Saho misjudged his jump, and Jillsen didn¡¯t misjudge his bite.

    It feels weird, Pawn, when a dragon laughs while holding you between his jaws. With one of his fangs piercing your chest, with your blood and their saliva mixing to become the metals men today extract out of the earth to kill both each other and lesser, careless dragons. Seeing he had begun to shatter already, and trying to not fall unconscious due to Jillsen¡¯s brutal shaking, Saho grabbed Jillsen¡¯s bane and stabbed the dragon¡¯s palate with it. Despite that, Jillsen, sure of his victory, kept laughing.

    However, the sword, infused with hatred, felt itself at home among the flesh of the dragon. And it dug, and dug, and dug, making it into Jillsen¡¯s main blood vessels, eventually.

    Saho shattered not knowing it for sure, merely hoping that his creation would find a way to the heart of the dragon god. And it did. For days on end Jillsen screamed in pain as the sword made its merciless way through his body, destroying organs, blood vessels and muscles there where it passed by. Jillsen amputated his own foreleg by biting it, hoping to get the sword out, but like a parasitical worm Jillsen¡¯s Bane squirmed its way into the torso. A few hours later, prey to the pain, Jillsen cursed Saho and all of his children, all of humanity. He swore them and dragons would never find peace, that, with his death, Saho had damned the weakest of both species to disappear. In Jillsen¡¯s opinion, that was humans. Finally, the clouds lost cohesion and the dying god fell to the earth, being set ablaze by friction, shattering on impact, spreading the most divine of fragments all over the face of Bengia. The only thing that remained in the crater when the dust settled and the fire died out was a bloodied, mangled blade of bone encased in rusting metal. Jillsen¡¯s Bane, an equalizer, Saho¡¯s last gift to his dear humanity.

    Nobody knows what happened with this, the original sword. Some say it lays on the bottom of the sea, some say that it shattered, and every dragon slaying weapon has a fragment of it as its very soul, a fragment of the undying hatred of Saho for Jillsen. That is the origin of the dragon god fragments, anyway, and of the name of the divine sword you wield. That¡¯s why Jillsenbane seeks dragon hearts, for it relives the trauma that caused the death of the god from whose ashes it was built from.

 Chapter 25: Jillsenbanes Intentions.

    ¡°So pawn, did you like the story?¡± asked Gadorprims, clearly satisfied with his performance while narrating.

    I nodded softly ¡°Aha, I loved it.¡±

    He shifted position in the waters, making his size be felt due to the way it disturbed the volume of the pool.

    ¡°Good, good. What do you think of the conflict between dragons and humans?¡±

    ¡°Both species were rendered godless, so why should we honor the desires of such egoistical gods?¡± I proposed.

    Gadorprims snickered.

    ¡°Good, good. I don¡¯t think they are incompatible, men and dragons. Don¡¯t both share a love for gold and damsels in distress?¡±

    ¡°I¡­ I don¡¯t and I am not sure dragons do, either, sir Gadorprims.¡±

    He snorted and hit my shoulder with his long snout. ¡°I know my fair share of dragons, and more men than I¡¯d ever want to.¡± He slumbered out of the water, like crocodilians do, and went out of the room. ¡°One far day, you may not be among the men I despise anymore, pawn, I see how useful you can be,¡± he said, before wandering into the halls, disappearing from sight.

    <hr>

    Why did Gadorprims tell me about that myth? There is an expectation implicit in that action, a soft act of manipulation to lead the steps of my insane self to a place of vantage for him. The fact that the myth has been transcribed, however, may be the key for discovering the dragon¡¯s intentions.

    Once I learn what he wants from me, I can devise a plan to either play his game, were it beneficial for me, or subtly avoid it, maybe by asking Scarreladai for chores incompatible with her mate¡¯s scheme. Whatever the case, ignorance makes me a scant favor.

    Considering the dragon knows how books work, he could be trying to make me burn pages, as a way to eliminate my writing habit sooner. It would be no surprise if Gadorprims dislikes being documented, even if the text presents him as a gharial. Especially if the text presents him as a gharial.

    It could also be something way more harmful, and I must be prepared for it. Just because he cannot outright kill me, it doesn¡¯t mean he cannot arrange my death. I will plan like he wants to see me death, and hope he does not. It would be the wisest choice.

    As a side note, if the story told by Gadorprims is true, I am glad the god who wanted to marry his catgirl daughter is very fucking dead. Maybe Jillsen was not that bad after all.

    Still, there is the question of another agenda: Jillsenbane¡¯s. If she is made out of a god that swore to exterminate humanity, why does she behave as the original dragon killing sword? How strong is her allegiance to me? Is she sentient? Is she acting on a reflex, like Gadorprims said, as a mere revival of the trauma?

    Is this all Jillsenbane¡¯s fault? All of this time I assumed a holy sword was a tool to help out the hero undertake his quest, to help him perform as the chosen one so many books and legends had been written about. But what if there is an underlying motive? Acting as a lure, killing the lowest dragons, those who deserve to be purged due to their weakness, to win the trust of her wielder. Who says a sword cannot be aware of their natural inclinations and actively trying to find ways to combat it? Self-control, enough to subtly guide me here, make me a slave of a powerful dragoness I ccannot easily slay, and the consequences for the others be damned! As long as I remain here and alive, Jillsenbane is not being used against the worthy sons and daughters of Jillsen. And if I commit suicide, I may condemn another innocent man to fall for the sword¡¯s tricks. Not to mention, that would be one less human, a step further on Jillsen¡¯s plan.

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    What can I trust? If not my mind, if not my captors, if not my sword, if not my eyes? The bear? A wild animal? No, I cannot trust. Period. The situation is worse than I initially thought. I know for certain Abeline suffers by no fault of hers, I know for certain there are more than two dragons in this cave. I am eating badly, I cannot deny I must lack some vitamins, despite human meat being a nutritive meal. I am not sure of where exactly I defecate, I haven¡¯t found that chamber while, let¡¯s say, ¡°sober¡±, yet. Maybe I just do the dirty deed anywhere with water.

    Yet how can I intend to free my beloved if I don¡¯t even know where I take my shits? How do I even wipe? With the same water I shit in?

    I may need a hobby. It¡¯s always the same, I start writing after some small breakthrough and I end up defeated by the weight and hopelessness of the situation. It would be most ¡­fulfilling, to occupy my mind on a task done not to drive madness away, not out of duty, not out of this lust for disgrace I seem to foster every time I find myself writing while sane. Stupid neotenic animal, the human, as it hopes for allotted playtime while involved in the worse of situations.

    I could write Erotica, but that would ruin the diary, and, furthermore, I don¡¯t think onanistic pursuits would benefit me in the long run. The hobby I find cannot and should not be one that causes me to indulge in the most basic of human instincts, neither one that consumes ink and paper.

    Maybe I can teach Scarreladai to play some game. She could use her necromantic powers to shape a set of die out of bones and we could do some simple role play¡­ but, of course, she could always torture me to avoid losing a roll.

    I could probably start a conversation about earthly things with Gardorprims. Give him some useless information about culture or videogames, or whatever. It would be fun if I could make him to want to know more about Final Fantasy games.

    Games. What I wouldn¡¯t do to play hero again without fearing that the things I hunt could harm me! Or to have a boring day at work where the only thing I should fear is the coffee machine not working properly! Hell, being bedridden with a seasonal flu would be preferable to this situation. A bed, I¡¯d kill for a bed. And then, after I kill for a bed, I would find out I cannot use them anymore, that my back is far too calloused to find it comfortable, that my head has gotten used to my arm ¡ªor someone¡¯s else, severed beforehand of course¡ª instead of a pillow. And what would I do, if I have forgotten how a hot shower feels. If¡­ if I don¡¯t know if my words sound like proper English anymore.

    And I am falling before the vice again, rambling about oh poor me! I hate this, I hate, I hate so much that if my hatred were solid it would not fit into this cave system. If you took the spite of every person who died here, who inhabited the corpses whose flesh I eat or whose blood I drink, and you joined that with the venom their families must foam from their mouths when one mentions the word ¡°Dragon¡±, it would add to naught but a minimal fraction of what I feel for this place!

    Kill the dragons, Francisco! Make Jillsenbane rue the day she chose you and Abeline as a sacrifice. How can I, You, We, Love them! They took our freedom, they took our girlfriend, they took and took and took and took some more. What are we going to do? Free a bear and give them our head on a platter? Kill the dragons. Kill the motherfucking dragons. Grab the sword against her unholy will and strike their despicable hearts. Bite into the cardiac muscle, feed on them like they made us feed on the corpses of our peers. Do it, whiny, good for nothing, castrated scum of a faggot, do it!

 Chapter 26: Redecoration.

    I went to the bath and submerged my face in the cold water. Jesus, I needed to calm down. I cannot let rage get the best of me and make me rush to action. Improvisation often becomes the mother of failure. I think the best I can do to remain down to earth, to not become the insane alter ego of a madman, is secure a small victory.

    Next time Gadorprims gets out on one of his ego-boosting trips, it is imperative to seize the situation and release Carmela.

    <hr>

    There¡¯s no need for you to release Carmela, Namesake: I will. The bear competes for the love of Lady Scarlet, and they who don¡¯t wish to be here do not deserve to be here, either. I¡¯d expel you away, but I am starting to suspect that we are one and the same, one bodied twins, me and my evil whiny side, battling for control. Tomorrow I will go and inquire about the purpose of keeping the bear.  Maybe then the bear, too, wants to kill these ostensible dragons that are nowhere to be found.

    <hr>

    He will get us killed. Not for this, but eventually. I will get myself killed. I have no energy to complain about this today, I want to sleep. Good night or morning or evening.

    <hr>

    I am writing this moments afore asking Lady scarlet about Carmela, Carmelita.  Today¡¯s chores have been concluded: the kennels are clean, the balls are organized, the plants watered. This, combined with my exemplar behavior as of late, is bound to make her receptive to my begging for favors.

    I have climbed upon the carpet made out of the golden lizard, and I am besides her throne. She looks at me curiously, like a woman staring at a dog grooming himself and accidentally biting some sensible body part.

    ¡°My Lady, what is the purpose of the dogs?¡± I ask shyly.

    ¡°They serve, Pawn. They help make the wine,¡± she deadpans. ¡°Are you writing about this interaction right now?¡± Yes, Lady Scarlet.

    ¡°Yes, Lady Scarlet.¡±

    ¡°Pfft, you love that damned thing,¡± she says, pulling a strand of hair away from her delicate face.

    ¡°My lady, what is the purpose of The Fish?¡± I pester her further.

    ¡°They try to escape, pawn, but they are held in the bath to welcome the surprise visitors.¡±

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    ¡°And, the plants?¡± Like a small annoying child.

    ¡°I¡­ forgot. I forgot why I have the garden at all. Would you mind if I remodel, pawn? I have a few ideas I need to try out.¡±

    ¡°No, my Lady, if you want the garden gone, so do I.¡±

    She laughs heartily and energetically tousles my hair ¡°Good boy, my dear butler.¡±

    The curtains of blue extend and flutter mirthfully behind her throne. This may be the chance.

    ¡°Are you in need of more space for remodeling, My dear Lady? Because I have another room to propose.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s always welcome. This palace can become very¡­ stagnant over time. Gadorprims!¡± she beckons. ¡°Gadorprims!¡± she repeats, slightly annoyed.

    ¡°You have no right to interrupt my slumber, Scarlet Lady!¡± he retorts without coming out of the chamber where he and The Lady generally sleep.

    ¡°Move your scaly tail down here right now, love, it¡¯s an important matter!¡±

    Grumbling, Gadorprims comes out of the chamber, slithering up the rug.

    ¡°I want to redecorate and I need materials. Tender, new materials.¡±

    ¡°And that¡¯s important? Urgent? Scarlet Lady the Receiver, do you have brainstuff inside that cute head of yours?¡±

    I quickly closed the diary, left the quill to a side, unsheathed Jilly and assumed the en garde position.

    ¡°May I bolt him? Teach him a lesson? Bolt him twice over? I promise whatever remains of him will be alive and healable, dear.¡±

    ¡°The both of you behave, or I will ¡­ require your services during the redecoration. Do I make myself clear?¡±

    ¡°Yes, dear,¡± granted Gadorprims.

    ¡°If that¡¯s your will, Lady Scarlet. I do prefer you opaque, that way is easier to find you and¡­¡±

    She slapped me on the back of my head. ¡°It¡¯s a figure of speech, not to be taken literally.¡±

    I sat back in the rug, recovered the diary, and returned to writing this entry.

    ¡°As I was saying: get me some new materials, Gadorprims, love.¡±

    ¡°How¡­ new?¡±

    ¡°Imagine I am pregnant, and we expect to have a girl. Remember what you told me some mothers in the city do?¡±

    Gadorprims bares his gharialesque teeth. ¡°Understood. Do you also want a wedding dress?¡±

    ¡°I could use it,¡± she concedes, and shrugs smugly.

    ¡°You better give me at least a dozen for this,¡± he complains and then gallops out.

    ¡°A dozen what?¡± I ask.

    She sighs, defeated, tired.

    ¡°The man likes his eggs.¡±

    I am waiting a while. I take scales from the golden lizard and cast them downslope. They roll, bouncing once or twice, before losing balance and falling to the side. Curious. I will repeat it a few more times.

    Same result, same result. Weird scales.

    ¡°Lady Scarlet, what is the purpose of the bear?¡±

    She shifts in her seat, uneasy. ¡°It was Gadorprims capricious adquisition. He doesn¡¯t even care about her these days. I cannot make her do something useful around here, I tried, so she is just¡­ a guest, Pawn. Pay no mind to her.¡±

    ¡°Do you want me to get rid of her so you can redecorate her room instead?¡±

    She scratches her chin and then stares at me with a mischievous smirk.

    ¡°Please do, and inform me when the deed is done. I can certainly use that for some new decorations.¡±

 Chapter 27: Gone for Good

    Maybe being sane is the wrong approach to solving problems. My mad side has earned us an opportunity to free Carmela. I am sure Scarreladai meant¡­ something else with the words ¡°get rid of¡±, and that she will reprimand me when all is said and done. But, by then, Carmella will be far, far away. She¡¯s a scaredy fluffy thing, leading her past the undead horrors would be no easy thing. Not while she is sane. However, I have a plan.

    <hr>

    With some chopped, rank entrails to use as snacks I led her up to the ¡°blacksmith workshop¡± while the sentinel and Scarreladai slept, and thus lured her close to the true entrance to the cave, the one obscured by the burning forge. The dogs go up and down the cave passages, guarding during the nap of her mistress and the main gatekeeper, but they are used to both mine and the bear¡¯s antics. No alert was given. No alarm set off. I unsheathed Jillsenbane and stared for a second at the sigil drawn in her, drinking clarity of mind.  Then, I slashed down one of the meridians of the sentinel¡ªI¡¯d say middle but defining a plane or even axis of symmetry on that vile creature, with all its eyes spread over the body, arms coming out from places that have no business being shoulders and legs instead of ribs is, to understate it, an exercise in futility.

    Jillsebane spared no muscle, no bone, no cartilage. Infused with my light, she easily cut through the undead abomination, cleanly, setting the wound ablaze with flames of ivory shine and ebony smoke. I am going to get severely screamed at for this, maybe I will even get the diary taken away from me temporarily, but I don¡¯t care.  The sentinel would have woken up in the next step of my plan, and foiled it.

    I knew I had to race against the clock now, before a ¡°dog¡± spotted the dead sentinel and raised the alarm. With swift movements I got behind the bear and, infusing my hand with light, drew the simplest of sigils on her back.

    She began to breath faster, to growl, to snarl, to back against the nearest wall. I positioned myself between her and the way back into the depths of the cave.

    ¡°Shoo, go away,¡± I told Carmela, palming her buttocks. She didn¡¯t like that and turned to face me.

    ¡°No. Bad. Out. Get out!¡± I commanded again, flaring Jillsenbane, making her shine bright, thirsty to consume the shadows around.

    Frightened, she turned her back on me and started running into the night plains.  She soon became a waddling mass under the moonlight, the sigil betraying her position when she tried to hide among tall grass or a scant brush.

    I screamed at Carmela, made noise beating the blade of the sword against the stone so she ran away and away and didn¡¯t look back. I kept behaving like the angry monkey we all are deep inside until I couldn¡¯t see her no more.

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    ¡°Gone! She¡¯s gone!¡± I celebrated, plunging Jillsenbane into a patch of soft sediment near the entrance of the cave and dancing around it with pathetic jumps and kicks.  ¡°Carmela, you are gone! Ha ha ha! Gone for good! Have a good life!¡± I waved my hands in the general direction she had parted to.

    I went back inside the cave, smiling like a moron in love, wanting to sing to Carmela¡¯s freedom. I feel stupid now, knowing that I was happier than I had been in years just because I saved a bear that I barely knew. Look at me, PETA, Greenpeace, look at me, loved by any and all beasts of the wild! Ha ha ha! Gone for good!

    Elated, that¡¯s the word, I was elated. Elated as I lay against the cold stone, elated as I watched the ¡°Dog¡± staring at me with his seven eyes, hands fidgeting.

    Elated as I rushed towards him to cut his head off with a single  swing of Jillsenbane. Elated as the smell of burning flesh made the tears come out not only because of joy.

    Then I ran to my room, fearing tomorrow, but happy because, if it comes to the worse, I did a last good did. Not a hero¡¯s, but a common man¡¯s. A little revelry against the misery imposed on me.

    Now, while I wait for drowsiness to come back and take me to the only place where I am free ¡ªand Abeline too, why not¡ª I write this. I won, I finally won against the dragon, not the war, but this small skirmish of ours.

    Just for this once: Good night, Lady Scarlet.

    <hr>

    Madness has not taken me during my sleep. The illusions aren¡¯t even there. To wake up in a dark, humid cave, in the place I went to sleep in, is, as strange as it may sound, a blessing.

    At the same time, I feel an oppressive veil upon me, in this atmosphere. Is as though, in beating the dragon¡¯s spell, I had hatched from an egg that kept me both contained and safe. The air feels colder, the morning (Is it morning?) smells rotten, more so than usual. The broken mirage dies off, and as it withers, I feel that, I, myself, may also be withering. The light of the glyphs betrays every detail of my hands, every instant of involuntary trembling, every remarked bone, every blotch on the skin. I have lost¡­ so much muscle mass. By taking my finger to my ribs I can count them without difficulty. Hey, madman, if you come back, ask the Lady for a visit to the nutritionist, will you?

    My terrible jokes aside, I don¡¯t know how this body can still stand. My heartbeat, precious as only the conscience of one¡¯s own mortality may be, I can still hear it in the silent nights, I have become no zombie yet. I suspected the weight of Jillsenbane was just part of the illusion, but now I see that it is not: the sword weights the same it did back when I first got it, is my gaunt physique that has everyday a little more problem lifting it. A decaying body, yet another sword of Damocles over my head. I wonder how many are there by now, and looking up to count them is a challenge no man wants to take up.

    I hear the sound of claws against the rock. ¡°Pawn!¡± she calls, ¡°Pawn, come here a second!¡± she beckons with words coming out of a throat full of sand and glass.  ¡°Pawn, are you here? Pawn!¡± she sings like a broken, rusted wind instrument.

    I will come out and face her, with no illusion to protect me, but faking to still be under her spell. It¡¯s not the time for Scarreladai to die yet. It¡¯s not the time for me to fail yet.

 Chapter 28: No Eye for an Eye.

    I came out in the passage and when coming though the corner, I found her face to face. Even in the darkness her deep blue eyes stared at me, all seventeen of them. Only two of those eyes, mind you, are dragon eyes. The others are grafted into the scaly skin as a decoration, as a teen would use piercings. But these piercings look at you, and they beg, they beg for release from their prison of rotting flesh.

    My heart sunk like it was hit with a nuclear torpedo when she approached and, among all of those eyes, I recognized one I have looked into so many times. As if crowning her forehead, as a tiara for a queen of torture, the eye I have looked into while kissing the sweetest of lips, the eye I have looked into while falling in love for the first time, it now decorates her putrid scales, forever crying. Abeline, this is not how I wanted to meet your beautiful gaze again.

    ¡°My Lady, I am sorry, I had trouble waking up,¡± I managed to say, deadpan, after a second. I needed to make sure my face didn¡¯t betray my alertness, my newfound freedom.

    ¡°Spare me the protocol chatter, Pawn, just answer: Did you kill the sentinel and the dog?¡±

    I bowed. ¡°Yes, Lady Scarlet. I had my reasons.¡±

    ¡°I take you would not mind explaining them, then? Follow me to the blacksmith workshop, and when we arrive, I want to hear every little detail about why you did it!¡± She barked, long tendrils of murky saliva hanging from her maw.

    She turned, and even with only the dim shine of a sheathed Jillsenbane my eyes, used to the darkness, could distinguish her azure wings. They are tattered, the membranes peel off or host festering pustules. Her claws left characteristic scars on the cave¡¯s stone as she struggled to turn, marks one can recognize all over the places she frequents.

    ¡°Be quick of step, Pawn, I am not in the mood for waiting.¡± She said as she began to lumber away, up the tunnels.

    I obliged. I watched her long, tapering tail swing from side to side, as if it wanted to use its bone needle of a tip to spar with the floor and its irregularities. I¡¯d call this movement hypnotic, but, with this being Scarreladai, that could be taken quite literally. Soothing, let¡¯s settle for calling it soothing.

    She has good thighs, if one ignores the decaying scales and the patches of exposed, red muscle. When the hind leg extends, you can appreciate the fine work of digitigrade design that lies behind dragon locomotion. Maybe the only solace I have right now is finding little bubbles of beauty, of nature, in the sea of the macabre and artificial.

    I tailed her up and down tunnels, taking the long path because she could not fit through the smaller holes I sometimes used as shortcuts. After a few minutes, we arrive at the entrance of the cave, where she had neatly separated the halves of the sentinel and laid them to the sides. The sunlight that came from the entrance was blinding, and I had to fight my instinct to cover my eyes or squint, averting my gaze towards other things I feigned to be interested in, like a stalagmite formation that used to be a weapon stand, or a mark on the wall that was particularly deep, and I remembered to be a broken tile in the illusionary palace.

    ¡°Well, Pawn, first question: why did you cut the Sentinel, my Sentinel, my servant, your companion, in half?¡±

    ¡°I feared he would interfere with the task assigned to me, My Dear Lady. That he would interfere while I got rid of the bear, if only because he didn¡¯t know better. I know you can fix him up like you always do, so I considered it the lesser evil¡± I said, trying to keep a sycophantic smile on all the time.

    She blinked with her own eyes, the ones she had inherited from her parents.

    ¡°You¡­ came here to slay the bear? Where is the body then? Did you dispose of the body when not told to? You ought to inform me of these things!¡± she exclaimed, her sharp nightmarish teeth closer and closer to my face as I couldn¡¯t help but stare into that meat grinder and pretend to be still under her spell.

    ¡°No, my dear Lady, if there is a body of the bear to be found it is not my fault. The bear was exiled for her inadequacy, for tarnishing the palace with her presence.¡±

    She pulled her head back, surprised, and then examined me from head to toe.

    ¡°I ought to spell out things more clearly for this moron to do what I want,¡± she murmured, seemingly unaware of the fact that I could still hear her. ¡°Listen, Pawn, when I say ¡®run¡¯, you run, correct?¡±

    I nodded energetically ¡°Correct, My Lady.¡±

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    ¡°And when I say ¡®hunt down¡¯, you hunt down, do you follow?¡±

    ¡°Yes, My Lady, I hunt down without a doubt.¡±

    ¡°But when I say, ¡®Get rid of¡¯ you exile the bear. Why?¡±

    ¡°Because that was the most humane way of undertaking that order, My Lady. You got mad when I killed the puppies, so I thought you would get mad if I were to hurt the bear, My Lady.¡±

    She remained silent for about a minute. I would be unable to explain how much sweat ran down my face, how hard my heart beat, how many goosebumps populated my skin.

    ¡°I grant it, Pawn, I grant it: your actions are logically sound. But I still need to make you understand that to get rid of means to dispose, to kill, to murder, to take a life. Euphemisms, Pawn, they are the lifeblood of communication,¡± she made a strong emphasis on the ¡°blood¡± part of the sentence.

    ¡°I am sorry my Lady, I genuinely thought you meant for me to exile the bear. If it is your wish, I may set to tracking her down and bring back her head, as an apology,¡± I offered, kneeling over the irregular ground, my knees not aching as they should due to the heavy callosities formed upon them.

    It was a gamble. A gamble that she would not allow me to wander off just to track down a bear, yet that my willingness to do so would show my undying royalty for her. The Pawn didn¡¯t know about the spell, after all: the palace was his reality, and I should hold the act up until the curtain call, even if the theatre is on fire and the smoke renders me blind.

    ¡°You will not. You will never do such thing, Pawn. The palace needs tending to, you cannot do like Gadorprims and go away to hunt things down.¡± She extended her left forelimb and used the upper side of her index claw to raise my chin. ¡°There is no need for you to risk yourself for the skin of an ugly, run of the mill bear. There are many out there, and we have time, we have, oh, so much time. I have seen the dawn of bearkin and I will see their dusk. Don¡¯t you agree? That we have all the time that gods have threaded, for men and dragons and beasts alike?¡± She smiled and the lower eyelid of fifteen eyes rose up, including Abeline¡¯s. Her dragon ones, however, the ones she was born with, held a cold and serious stare. I know the game I am playing, but, I wonder: does she know too? And if not, what¡¯s her game?

    ¡°Yes, my Lady, we have time. Plenty of.¡±

    She laughed, and her breath made me grimace. I had to bluff, mask my disgust by pretending to be about to sneeze.

    ¡°That¡¯s curious, you don¡¯t do that often,¡± she said, referring to the sneeze.

    Her left eye was put straight in front of my face, and I stared down into the scarred pond that judged me. In the morning light, I saw myself reflected in the eye of my captor, and I don¡¯t know how I refrained from breaking down into the ugliest of cries. Maybe because I feared that would lead to my end, or out of shock born from the sight itself, of my emaciated visage inhabiting the space between her the iris, the pupil and the cornea. I felt like asking which was the reflection, the man trapped in the cave, or the man trapped in the eye? Who projected who forward, into the other side of the gelatinous orb, into reality?

    After what felt like a tortuous eternity, Scarreladai withdrew her inspection.

    ¡°Must be the forge air. Or maybe you caught something when releasing the bear. Are you sure you feel healthy, Pawn?¡±

    ¡°More than never, My Lady.¡±

    ¡°Then control your bladder, you smell like urine.¡±

    ¡°Yes, Lady scarlet, Yes!¡± I cried.

    I became all the more aware of the warm running down my legs, and ran down to the baths to clean myself and wash my rags.

    Tripping, I fell into the water, and proffered a squeal unfit for a hero, for a man. The cold stung my eyes and nostrils, I swallowed some of the water and realized how foul it tasted.

    I refrained myself from vomiting, lay with arms open in the floor as I coughed, and then, began to cry.

    ¡°I need the madman, I cannot survive without him! Give me back the madness, give me back the palace I worked in, Lady Scarlet! Let me back in! Just once more¡­¡± I lamented. I, once a prospective hero to be hailed by all of Bengia, slayer of two of the Burning Hill drake littermates, he who would put the dragon scourge on hold for as long as he lived, now look at me. Look at me, the one who failed! I need the madness, I have been stripped of the peace, the self-sufficiency that brought that peace, of the ability to rely on myself to solve my own problems. I can¡¯t run away without saving dear, poor Abeline. I can¡¯t save Abeline if I urinate myself at a mere exchange of words and stares; and I cannot not fear Scarreladai if she dons those eyes, if she casts those words with that voice. I have been domesticated, like a dog, but not any dog, no. I am not a Kangal, big and capable of fending for himself and protecting what he loves. Neither a Rottweiler, big and bad enough to scare the intruder in my life. Nor a Pit bull, to go for her throat and enjoy freedom one last time before being put down. Not even a god forsaken dachshund, whose original purpose was to scare badgers off their lairs. No. I am a terrifyingly inbred harmless little thing, something an alien civilization would have problem recognizing as an animal related to a Siberian husky, a Chihuahua or a Retriever. A pug of a man, how did I arrived to this state of being a pug of a man? A pug, goddamit.

    I drew a sigil of heating, shivering, and curled against it. Nobody ever told me heat could feel so cold and impersonal, devoid of soul. Unhomely. It was worse than the suffocating midday sun of January. At least the sun has the romantic aura all things of nature that are mildly beneficial to men are granted in the collective psyche. I dispelled the glyph after I felt like I could manage as long as I began to move and kept on doing so.

    I didn¡¯t wash the rags. I didn¡¯t rinse my legs. And here I am, in the hoard room, writing yet another entry. The Lady hasn¡¯t come back yet, she must be working her magic on the zombie workers, stitching them back up into functional, perfect servants. They never complain, they never eat, they never whine, they never question, they never tire, they never ache. They never cry, they never betray. I cannot help but cry, I cannot help but betray. And here I am, in the hoard room, writing another yet entry.

    I will take a proper bath before going to sleep. I need the madman, I need the madman, I need the madman.

 Chapter 29: Where is Mr Madman?

    Where is he? Where?! I woke up sane once more. I can¡¯t allow this to continue, I deserve this misery but I am compelled to reject it. Suicide is once again dressing in alluring lingerie, seducing me into taking the easy ¡ªand maybe only¡ª way out.  I need the insanity, but the dragon¡¯s spell seems to have forgotten me, or my mind to have become immunized to it. Anyone sound of mind and brave would be excited to learn of the latter. I, being myself, am scared shitless, and maybe out of common sense. Or sense of any kind, for that matter. The diary is halfway done, halfway consumed, halfway burned. Half half half.  The sand falls through the hole in the glass and I push every grain. The stress stresses me out.  The mask weights so much, so much, it hurts so hard, so hard. There is no pretense of a bed anymore, only hard stone, restless nights or mornings or evenings. All dark, all the same. And what if I reveal my face in front of the devil in scarlet and blue, if I forfeit the game and let this end by this sword that claims to be mine or by her teeth that dress up as a smile. And there¡¯s Abeline too, that cries half in the cross half in the lady¡¯s brow half in my fondest memories half in the depths of the cave half in this hell and I hope half in the heavens above. Half half half half half half. Half of all men are not half as miserable as half of me can half claim. Half half half half.  I miss watching Alf before bed. It made me laugh half of the time. Half.

    I have plucked tufts of weak hair out of my head. I have ingested one of them, chewing the bunch as if it were bubblegum, getting threads between my yellowed, uncared for teeth, inadvertently making them to bury into my inflamed gums.  It hurts, I bleed, I like the taste, I bleed and it¡¯s sweet, I bleed and it¡¯s not because of her but because of me, I bleed and I deserve to bleed and tomorrow I will deserve to bleed some more.

    It is imperative to calm down but how? How? I don¡¯t want to see the true face of Gadorprims. Even a normal dragon is a distressing sight now, and I am sure he is no normal dragon. A dragon, yes, but which kind could want to mate with Scarreladai. She is supposed to be alone, her practices frowned upon by all that lives.  But she was supposed to die by my blade, too, and look how that ended up. Is Gadorprims even alive? He seems to be a bit¡­ confrontational, a tad too much for an undead servant. He speaks to me, probably out of his own volition. He negotiates with Scarreladai, and I can¡¯t help but see an old married couple at work when I witness their interactions. There is a tolerance for each other hijinks, an implicit understanding developed through years of dealing with each other. Whether their relationship is, in a dragon¡¯s eye, orthodox, a friendship or a mere business deal, I can¡¯t be sure of.

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    I¡­ don¡¯t necessarily dislike Gadorprims, either. He fits my prejudice of a dragon, all high and mighty, filling each of his words with haughtiness as thick as honey, while not as sweet.  His methods appear to be more direct, less surreptitious than Scarreladai¡¯s. He¡¯s the beast of greed and honor I was told I would one day slay when they bestowed Jillsenbane upon me, when I got cursed with this fate.

    I still wonder about her, about Jillsenbane. How to gauge the honesty of a blade? A cut can¡¯t be lied about, and sharpness cannot be easily concealed.  They have no eyes to look into, no lips that would tremble. And this uncertainty causes in me a fair quota of existential anguish. I must have felt similar, before the advent of DNA tests that is, when a man doubted the origin of a child under his tutelage, without any definitive way to know whether or not the little fellow had been siren by him or by some lover of the woman he called his wife.  A matter that reality has decreed it¡¯s not to be settled, but the brain calls for it to be at once. Thirst while adrift on a raft amidst the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

    Talking about anguish, I keep consuming pages with my rants, as if the diary were my therapist. Does it matter at this point?  Who will outlast who? The Diary could very well be immortal if it makes its way out of here. I don¡¯t have that privilege. Do I deserve it? I¡¯d like to believe I have not earned enough merits as a villain to deserve immortality. I betrayed my loved one out fear. I keep being a coward. I am befriending my enemies. Those are only human, little everyday acts of a larva. I am still not enough of a sinner to deserve immortality, only mortal torture, right? Right?

    The Scarlet Lady is calling for the Pawn. Once more the time has come to put on the mask, go out on the stage, and perform for the public. If there is a deity of acting, of theatre, please, let him or her grant me the grace of living the role I fulfill in this macabre play. What would be a better ending for me than to be become, for real, a pawn of a beautiful lady in scarlet, to clean a palace bigger and more luxurious than any a real king would inhabit, to live in the bliss of the unaware and ignorant until the end of my days? I used to fear the dragoness would consume my mind, without realizing I am my own worst enemy.

    But if to serve her while sane, while living in the cave and not in the palace of dreams, is my only option, I hope I still have a little bit of that finely aged traitor in me. Kill the dragon, Francisco! Kill Abeline then, quickly, without asking, out of mercy. And, lastly, and for the same reasons, cast yourself from the highest mountain you can find, and pray the floor has enough of a good Samaritan in it to provide a swift death.

    Now go out and flawlessly perform your role in this tragedy of yours, hoping you know how it ends.

 Chapter 30: Spring Cleaning

    Gadorprims just came back, and Lady Scarlet wanted me to clean the garden out for her to redecorate it. It was all dead for good, the zombie plants made out of veins, arteries and tongues, the ones that gulped blood and vomit, were now only inanimate meat and grease encased in bone pots.  The mop is made out of three femurs joined by leather, sinew, and some sort of insert that keeps them from moving too much, with a couple of dried out scalps with long hair ¡ªone from a redhead, the other belonging to a brunette¡ª  wrapped around the lower end. The bucket is, oddly enough, a mundane metal bucket, one that I bet Gadorprims stole from somewhere as a gift for Scarreladai or as a collectible, a mere curiosity that struck his fancy.

    The room smelled like iron and rancid flesh, and cleaning with the cave¡¯s murky water did not help much to alleviate this.

    She silently watched me from the entrance of the tunnel. Her breathing, a characteristic whistle that can be heard only in moments of total silence, betrays the fact that inside the necrotic exterior there is a living dragon with running, thick red blood. Scarreladai¡¯s heart still beats, and that trivia fact is somehow both infuriating and reassuring, because eit means it can be stopped.

    ¡°Carry out the pots and let us get started at once, Pawn,¡± she asked calmly, kindly. It wasn¡¯t a command, but a petition.

    ¡°Yes, Pawn, leaden sorry excuse for a turtle, let her finish this damned thing so I can get my eggs!¡± Bellowed Gadorprims, from wherever he was then.

    ¡°And so damned it will be dear, so, so very damned!¡± she said, giggling.

    ¡°Damned, my lady?¡± I asked, trying to sound innocent.

    She cursed under her breath.

    ¡°Hallowed, pawn, I said hallowed. You misheard, you little thing,¡± Then she smiled with all her teeth and eyes, which was a sight I couldn¡¯t stand for more than a few seconds before going back to my pointless task.

    When she got bored of overseeing me and went elsewhere, I threw the mop to a side and thrusted Jillsenbane from above into each pot to burn the human remains in them, holding the sword in place until its scorching ire reduced the entirety of their content to vapor, smoke and ashes. Just because I could not give the owners of those body parts a proper burial, it doesn¡¯t mean they don¡¯t deserve a cremation. She had no use for the tissues anymore, so the excuse that it was just to render the pot lighter to carry would be believable and, hopefully, not result into any more reprimands.

    After disposing of the first bone pot by throwing it, ashes and all, into the flooded tunnel, I turned, and my heart almost chokes me when it jumped to my throat.  I was centimeters away from an open, rotten-meat-smelling maw, with saliva dripping from each tooth and gum, with the throat pulsating, with the teeth like pikes waiting to impale my flesh.

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    I tripped when I stepped back, falling on my back and rolling down the tunnel, falling into the cold water.

    Gadorprims laughed out loud.

    ¡°You have no idea how long I waited to do that!¡± he expressed between guffaws.

    ¡°With a-all due re-respect: fuck y-you, Si-ir,¡± I stammered, shivering, crawling out of the deathly liquid to draw a heating sigil on the floor. My whole body ached, I was frozen. My soul wanted to escape my mortal vessel between each breath.

    ¡°You are dismissed for today, I got rid of the remaining pots personally. Go to your room and sleep, and don¡¯t bother us.  Scarreladai has a room to decorate, and afterwards, we have more¡­ worldly matters to settle. ¡°

    ¡°Fuck you, Gadorprims,¡± I repeated, scowling, resisting the urge to take Jillsenbane out of the scabbard.

    ¡°Come on, grab your sword.¡± He raised a paw and gestured a cross over his heart. ¡°I am open, embrace me like a man embraces a dragon. Come on, butler! Strike!¡±

    I relaxed my expression, putting up a fa?ade of confusion, ¡°Why would I kill a gharial?¡±

    ¡°I feel inclined to wager you absolutely vanquish the subject at social gatherings. Brief fun you are, Pawn. Go to your room if you survive the hypothermia, I am not carrying you,¡± he said, and then began walking away, leaving me in the floor, cursing him with words I don¡¯t even remember.

    I barely managed to scramble to my room, where I collapsed moments after finishing a new warming sigil. After waking up from that forced nap, with the body aching, the head spinning and the sigil extinguished, I grabbed the diary, that I had luckily left safely stashed away, and hastily wrote this entry.  Now, to draw a couple new sigils (one for healing, one for warmth) and back to sleep, lest the migraine kills me.

    The migraine is gone and the relief is unworldly. My muscles still protest, but I survived the nap. The madman has not come back, has not written, I suspect he is here no more. I miss him. To miss oneself¡­ what a wild concept. I don¡¯t know if I miss him, or the fact it was like leaving someone else in charge of the rudder when the ship was instants away from crashing into the sharp rocks.  Now it¡¯s my fault if the whole thing sinks, and that sucks.

    I have run some tests, and the dragons don¡¯t mind me singing songs from Los Nocheros at the top of my lungs. Granted, they probably interpret a slightly different and more literal thing than I, when I speak about going to eat her heart. Or they would, if Gadorprims and Scarreladai knew Spanish.  I find it funny to ruminate about what they may be thinking. Do they take it for some ritualistic chanting? For calls for help? No, they would have come to shut me up already. I am sure I spoke English in their presence several times, so they must think it¡¯s more of the same.

    They are likely to not mind me singing at all, like a man doesn¡¯t mind cats purring or crickets chirping. That¡¯s a positive, if there is one to be found in this whole situation.

    I will get out of the room, see what the redecoration was, what new flesh-warped horror is there to scar my mind. I don¡¯t really want to, but it could be something of use, even if macabre.

 Chapter 31: Babyshower (Aka Chapter 31: Another Reason to Doxx LackOfPoochline)

    I could imagine them laughing, smiling to the sight of their mother¡¯s or father¡¯s goofy face.  And now, they are down there, perpetually frozen in their death rictus. Innocent babies, brutally murdered, now hang from the roof of what used to be the garden. Their heads are arranged in concentric circles, with the chins inward and the bare but whole spines threaded one around the other, this arrangement raised towards the roof so the baby heads perpetually stare at the ground. Their hearts still beat, not as a sign of life preserved but as one of slavery by necromantic means. They are arranged in an outer circle, placed slightly above the one of heads, with their veins and arteries interconnected, beating rhythmically, in turns, like the old-fashioned marquee lights that go round and round on arcade top-signs or slot machines.

    This, while disgustingly macabre, is far from the worst: their lacrimal ducts still work, and, when they see you ¡ªand they do see you, their dead pupils can follow each one of your movements, right and left, up and down¡ª and they fixate their gaze upon you, they start crying disconsolately.  As such, under the circle of severed infant heads, you can take a salty, yet warm and slow, shower.

    Sixteen children died to bring this sin forth. Six in the inner circle, and another ten in the outer. Sixteen children were slaughtered to fabricate that abomination. They don¡¯t look like each other, so sixteen families must have been forever broken. Some had brown eyes, some had green ones, one had a single, blue eye. I can imagine where the other one has been taken.

    I kneeled down, and, lowering my head, I wept with them, I wept for them. It was my fault. I had planted the idea in Scarreladai¡¯s mind, and now sixteen mothers, sixteen families, had been stripped of their children, or outright murdered by, Gadorprims. How could something so big be so adept at snatching babies?

    And, over all other questions, I asked myself why. Why would they do this?  Dragons, I believe they are not inherently evil.  But these two, these two planned this out, they killed infants for pleasure. No, for something worse than pleasure, for mere fashion.

    No, for a pun. They killed them for a pun.

    In earthly tongues I yelled at the heavens with all my might.

    ¡°I hate you! I hate both of you! I hate the green one and the blue winged one, I hate my Lady and my Sir! Babies! Children! Do whatever you will to me, do whatever you conceive to poor Abeline, and I shall consider that the actions of Dragons! But Children, when there was no need? Damned the day we, English speakers, brought the word and concept that inspired this into this world!¡±

    I unsheathed Jillsenbane, and I saw the reflection on my mad scowl on her lustered blade.

    ¡°You, Jilly¡­ I don¡ät need your cooperation.  I care not about your motives to choose me. If you are the fragment of a god, if you hate my guts as much as you hate weak dragons, I don¡¯t care anymore. You are being conscripted, Jillsenbane. You will help deliver justice to these children, like it or not. Understood?¡±

    The sword didn¡¯t answer. It didn¡¯t tremble, it didn¡¯t shudder. She owed me that, if she were alive. She owed me a signal of respect.

    ¡°You think I am kidding? Or do you not think at all?¡± I said, exasperated by the situation. I user her as a vantage point to stand easier, her tip slightly sinking into the stone.

    I raised her to the face of the blue eyed baby, and I discovered the strength to tear that devil¡¯s manufacture was not in me. The blade shook, not by her own will, but by the movement imprinted by my tremulous hand. They looked so pale, yet they cried and stared, they only ever cried and stared. Mutely, in silence, with the water drops and the heartbeats being the only ambient sounds in the room. That, and my anguished breathing, too, that was rendered all the more grotesque by the situation.

    A hero would have plunged the sword into the babies faces. A hero would have burned the damn thing down without stuttering.  A hero would not hesitate to relieve the babies form their plight. I am no hero, I am a man with a sword and some magical tricks under my sleeve. That¡¯s why I lowered Jillsenbane. I realized that, as terrible as it sounded, I needed ¡ªI need¡ª the babies to be there, suffering. To burn is to forget, to burn is to bury the disgraces never to unearth them. If one glance at them sparks my hatred, if it snuffs my indecision, if their unholy image renews my will to go on in my crusade against my captors, it is imperative to preserve the lurid effigy.

    I let Jillsenbane fall and I kneeled again, right under the center of the circles. I pulled my head back, shut my eyes and opened my arms to the sides of my body, palms up. Tears rained upon me, and I basked in them. They mixed with my own, with the spittle on the sides of my lips, with the sweat that rolled down my forehead and chest. This was ¡ªstill is, will always be¡ª my fault, I had to feel the horrid tepid guilt dripping down my skin.

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    ¡°I have failed you, each one of you. Cry, blame me, weep over this sinner until your tears burn his bleached skin,¡± I pleaded, eyes still closed. ¡°Let me carry your pain, please! I deserve it. I deserve each milliliter of it. Cry your eyes out, your¡­¡± I called myself to silence, for, well, you can imagine¡­ what was about to say, even if figuratively, about the pumping masses of muscle that beat on the outer edge.

    Enough. It was enough commiserating. I had a duty to storm down the chambers where my captors slept and murder them both.  No mercy, no morally justified reason to refrain myself.

    I recovered my sword, and stared down at my reflection on the blade¡¯s luster. I frowned, and the reflection returned the gesture. This was not the face I had first walked in here with, but it would be the one that would leave, if only to have the privilege to die under the sun.

    I left the shower room, ex garden, and walked straight, as a human being ought to, despite having to crouch now and then to avoid some rock formation ¡ªmostly stalactites¡ª or spider web. My back protested, and so did my legs, that had forgot we were more than a dirty monkey that danced and danced and danced for The Scarlet lady.

    ¡°Gadorprims the peerless!¡± I beckoned when I spotted the dark green hue of his skull ahead and down the tunnel. He was distracted with a pebble, but there was no way I would be able to sneak up on him.

    ¡°Hah, suck it Scar, I won!¡± he claimed out loud.

    That set me aback, made me look frantically behind and around me, trying to spot any tricks. ¡°What did you win exactly, demon?¡± I spat, my words full of poison.

    ¡°Not long ago we made a bet: which one of her experiments would make you drop your petty charade? And I won, it was the baby thing! Thank you, Francisco. Thanks to your actions today I won three eggs,¡± he explained, sounding almost excited, still inspecting the shinning pebble between his claws, ¡°huh, this stone is pretty pretty,¡± he added, nonchalantly.

    ¡°Charade? You knew I was feigning the madness these last days?¡±

    ¡°Well, yes: The Wife, as your people call their long term mates, lifted her spell some days ago. Did you take us for morons, son of man? She was fully aware you were finding ways to counteract her illusions, that she had slacked off on them. So, welcoming a little bit of spice in our lives, we struck a pact to leave you off the leash and watch you handle the situation as it is. Francisco, wielder of Jillsenbane, I hereby welcome you to our cozy cave, with no padded beds, no running water, no accommodations for your kind and, well, some accommodations of your kind.¡± He said, lowering his snout to try and conceal his giggling.

    ¡°I have the higher ground, Gadorprims!¡±

    ¡°Pray, explain to me how does that make you fireproof or immune to electrocution.¡±

    I remained silent, grasping Jillsenbane so hard my tendons started to ache. Wondering if jumping him would be the right course of action.

    ¡°I am drenched in the tears of your innocent victims, scum!¡±

    ¡°You came here clad in the hardened skins of bovines incapable of crime, calves included. Your belt was made out of young drake scales.¡± He opened his eyes wide and flicked the pebble upslope, just to see it slide down again ¡°We didn¡¯t lure you in, you and your party came in seeking Scarri¡¯s cute heart on a platter. And out of all of them, you only care for the one that was a future reproductive prospect. Who is the scum?¡±

    I readied myself to run him down. ¡°Because the others ran away.¡±

    ¡°Oh winds, they sure tried. Unfortunately, they weren¡¯t faster than my talons, and I was feeling a little bit peckish. Maybe some of the bones are still around here. You saw that, don¡¯t you remember?¡±

    No. I didn¡¯t. And know I couldn¡¯t do it. I felt my grasp on the handle loosening, my body paralyzed by fear. My articulations ached. How old am I? How many years ago was that?

    ¡°How long? How long have I been here? Answer me!¡± I desperately demanded.

    He considered it carefully, raised his gaze at the roof and started mumbling.

    ¡°I think about three. Yes, no more than three sounds correct.¡±

    ¡°Three years? I got this battered and ruined in three measly years?¡±

    He dismissed me with a gesture of the paw that you wouldn¡¯t expect from a dragon. ¡°More like decades, but I commend the spirit.¡±

    My knees gave in, and like a potato bag I rolled downslope. I thought that, if there were merciful gods out there, I could hit my head during the fall and die due to a concussion. But even if my plea would have been heard, it would have been moot, because gadorprims rushed to catch me with his fore claws, carefully enough to now cause me nothing more than some bruises.

    ¡°There, there. I am feeling generous today.¡±

    I made an effort to look him in one of his amber eyes flooded with hatred.  ¡°Don¡¯t you want to see me dead?¡±

    ¡°Yes, but I don¡¯t break The Wife¡¯s toys or disregard her fears without a very good reason. If you want to be granted death, you¡¯ll need to destroy Jillsenbane,¡± with a lone hand he raised me close to the stalactites, and only then I noticed he had sharpened them

    ¡°You know that cannot be done.¡±

    ¡°Do you want to bet? I like bets. More so when my victory is assured. So, what do you say, do you want to bet there is no way to destroy Jillsenbane?¡±

    I considered it, and then noticed his devilish stare.

    ¡°I won¡¯t destroy it, but tell me how that is done.¡±

    He pinned me against the floor and licked my face.

    ¡°So you can take countermeasures? Sure. Any Jillsenbane but the original is said to die off when it delivers death to the last of dragons. Of course, the wielder has to tell the sword that individual is the last of dragons. So the dragon soul and the fragment of Jillsen merge with each other, giving rise to the collective soul of a new primordial dragon race, to be incarnated after a few millennia and relit the war between our species.¡± He let me go and began walking away. ¡°Granted, that would be only if there is still a war to be fought.  Go, write this down like you always do, and meet us both in the hoard chamber when you feel like it.¡±

    Gadorprims went away, leaving this fifty something years old disgrace lying on the floor, crying like yet another decapitated baby: In silence, and without any prospect of solace on the horizon.

 Chapter 32: The Abeline that...

    I shuffled my feet against the stone all the way into the hoard chamber. I also dragged Jillsenbane. Who cared if she got blunt? With every ledge I managed to clamber up to, the mountain the dragons represented grew higher and higher. Thirty years. I have not even lived thirty years, not as a sane man. In my mind, I am still an energetic twenty-four years old that would soon celebrate his fourth of century by using a dragon¡¯s soul to surpass his limits and become a true legendary slayer. By enslaving a dragon¡¯s soul. I have spent sixty percent of my life here? Sixty? My youth is gone and so is my will to fight. It¡¯s like I have fell into one of these long, tragic commas. How many of my friends here and on Earth have died in that time? My parents¡­ my parents must have arranged my funeral when I didn¡¯t visit for six consecutive years. That was the arrangement: make me a funeral if I miss three consecutive visits. Which kinds of flowers did my friends and family bring me? Maybe my parents are dead by now. Mom with her heart problems, dad out of dementia and heartbreak, like grandpa, or maybe they just took their life after inferring the fate of their only son.  Maybe the sages of the town called forth a new earthling, and await patiently for Jillsenbane to return to them and curse this poor man or woman with the title of Dragon Slayer. To be plucked out of your dimension and be allotted two weeks to visit every two years¡­ what a grim fate.

    I kicked a cup of gold enshrined with rubies. It rolled down one of the lateral passages, and must have landed in a puddle, because a splashing sound echoed from the tunnels.

    Scarreladai and Gadorprims awaited, atop the pile of gold, resting one next of the other, with his bright emerald wing gently covering the red dragoness, and her blue decayed wing looming over him like a mantle from which several generations of moth feasted.

    ¡°The show¡¯s over, then, Lady Scarlet, Scarreladai the Deceiver?¡± I asked, defeated, still dragging Jillsenbane behind me as I made my way to the spot where I always sat to write while in the main chamber.

    ¡°No play lasts forever, Pawn, Francisco. And for this one in particular, you caused the premature ending. Do you think of this place as homely without the padding provided by lies?

    ¡°No, Scarreladai. Your lair is hell. It is hell to the men and women of Bengia, it is hell to the devils that inhabit the pits of fire of the traditional hell. I never thought a cave could be both the place I live in and the afterlife the worst of sinners deserve.¡±

    ¡°I liked him more when he was a rambling madman. Lobotomize him again, dear, please,¡± commented Gadorprims.

    ¡°I am going to bite your tongue off if you don¡¯t shut up, Peerless,¡±

    ¡°I think that¡¯s how humans show affection for each other, biting their tongues. He¡¯s infecting you.¡±

    She clattered her teeth next to his eye and, like a scared dog, he cringed against the pile of gold.

    ¡°Fine, fine, do it your way,¡± he granted, ¡°Good night,¡± he yawned, and then dozed off.

    ¡°Good, I will, like I always do.¡±

    I cleared my throat.

    ¡°Oh, pardon my manners, Pawn. How do you wish to be addressed as?¡± she said, and all of the zombie eyes blinked in expectance.

    ¡°Francisco,¡± I answered, my voice trembling.

    ¡°Have you visited the Bear¡¯s room, Francisco?¡±

    ¡°No, Scarreladai.¡±

    ¡°Call me Lady Scarlet, I like how the ¡®ca¡¯ bit sounds, when your tongue arches like a cat and meets your palate. It amuses me.¡±

    She incorporated, stretched a bit and began stalking around. Even in the cold room, sweat ran down my face and chest. She could look at me from all angles thanks to the sixteen extra eyes on her face. She had the stare of Abeline, of a Siberian husky, of that one-eyed baby.

    ¡°Stop that, Lady Scarlet, Please.¡±  I begged, tempted to raise Jillsenbane and get on guard.

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    ¡°You trust me. Even now, when I show my true form, you are compelled to be polite and please me. I doubt it to be merely a tool for survival. You are a dog, Francisco. You know you are my little spoiled pet. So why do you keep questioning your loyalty, hmm?¡±

    She began lumbering towards me, and I stepping back. A pug, I was a pug.

    ¡°You took thirty years of my life. That¡¯s a murder charge in many places, back from where I come from. I made a mistake coming here and attacking you all those years ago, but don¡¯t you believe that my debt has been paid in full already?¡± I asked, trying to look at her dragon eyes as she got closer and closer, to convince my legs to stand our ground.

    ¡°Thirty years for killing a man seems excessive. Thirty years, for attacking the very Scarreladai the Deceiver sounds like a slap on the wrist. I value men, Pawn¡­ sorry, Francisco. I value men like men value dogs, and perhaps a bit more.¡±

    ¡°Thirty years is sixty percent of my life,¡± I protested, and raised Jillsenbane.

    ¡°And like a dog your snarl,¡± she raised her right forepaw with the claws extended, and the shadows around it shifted, changing its shape, its appearance into the pale hand of Lady Scarlet. ¡°Look at this hand, Pawn, isn¡¯t It blissful to be caressed by it?¡±

    My back found a wall, but she didn¡¯t stop advancing.

    ¡°No, avaunt,¡± I stuttered, Jillsenbane shaking in front of me, as if that could cut through the coming madness.

    A crown manifested itself around one of the thin and long fingers of the Lady. ¡°You can have this crown, and any other, I offer that much. If the palace does not please you, I can offer a mansion,¡± The crown turned into a big golden key, and kept spinning around her finger, ¡°a city,¡± the single key became a key ring full of a variety of smaller ones, ¡°a cozy cabin in a forest imported straight from your favorite fairytale.¡± She crushed the keys into her hand, and when she opened his fist again a flock of birds of paradise and sparkling fairies came out happily fluttering around, spreading colorful feathers and pixie dust all around.

    ¡°I want nothing more than Abeline¡¯s freedom in death, and my release from this nightmare,¡± I closed my eyes and turned my head, with my left cheek touching the cold, cold wall.

    Her other claw grabbed my head, and now looked like a woman¡¯s arm. Her draconic features slowly distorted until they mutated on the pale, redheaded visage of the lady.

    ¡°So you want Abeline. Abeline is the treasure you desire, more than riches, more than power, you want Abeline, correct?¡± she asked with a seductive smile, her plump red lips that had to be a mouth full of terrible teeth closer than they ever were.

    The skin on her hands began softening, and I almost let Jillsenbane escape from my grasp. My Lady was back, the Lady I so loved, the Lady I so despised, the lady that had kidnapped my sun to become the center around which my life must revolve.

    ¡°Yes, the Abeline crucified down in the nursery, or whatever that place is. I want her.¡±

    ¡°Do you mean¡­¡± She touched one of her copper-colored bangs and it lengthened as it turned from red to pink to pale gold, ¡°the Abeline whose angelic hair looks like this?¡±

    ¡°No. No!¡± I fought myself to close my eyes, to look away, but even if I did, the illusion pursued me. I bet that even if I had plucked my eyes out in that very moment I¡¯d have continued seeing her.

    ¡°Or do you mean,¡± she blinked thrice, the deep blue hue of her eyes changing a tone with each shutting of the eyelids, until it matched the hue of my beloved, ¡°the Abeline whose eyes like sparkling aquamarines show themselves to the world like this?¡±

    ¡°Stop, I beg you, Lady Scarlet. I¡¯ll behave, don¡¯t do this, I¡¯ll behave, I won¡¯t complain about this servitude no more! Stop at once!¡± I pleaded, trying to get a better grasp of Jillsenbane, but barely finding any strength to do so.

    ¡°Or maybe you are talking about,¡± she smiled, and her perfectly aligned white teeth began to incline slowly, making changes of one or two degrees on their angles. A small triangle broke off of the tip of her middle right upper incisive and dissolved into smoke, leaving a small, characteristic but lovable gap, ¡°the Abeline that smiled like this just before kissing you.¡±

    ¡°Why, why, no, no, no, no, why¡­¡± It could never be, it was impossible, to get down to that level of detail, to put on a mask this elaborate. It ought to not be allowed to be.

    ¡°Or you could be referring to,¡± She shook the tip of her refined and small nose from side to side, and the nose bulged up a bit, the bridge became a little more noticeable, and the point gained in perkiness, ¡°the Abeline that laughed by exhaling a bit of air through a nose much like this one before letting the bursts of laughter break loose? ¡°

    I raised my hand and caressed her cheek, whose cheekbones were still slightly wrong, ¡°You are not my Abeline.¡±

    ¡°Oh, I think I got it: you refer to the Abeline that¡­¡± she coughed a bit to clear her throat. ¡°Spoke like this,¡± and the voice that came out I had not heard since that first time facing Scarreladai.

    ¡°Abeline! Abeline, it is impossible for you to be Abeline, please give me the real Abeline! The one in the nursery! The one I love.¡±

    ¡°Do you mean the Abeline that here, under the right eye,¡± she gave a small and fast tap on the side of the bridge of the nose, and a tiny, familiar dot appeared in that same spot, ¡°had a mole like this one?¡±

    ¡°Yes, that Abeline, Yes!¡±

    ¡°Here you have her, then.¡± She grabbed my face with both silk smooth hands. Abeline hands, delicate, small, loving. ¡°Here you have me, the real Abeline. Cry no more, dear Francisco.¡± And then she twisted the corners of her mouth in a way so Abeline that there is no adjective that can describe it. Then, she, Scarreladai, Lady Scarlet, planted a passionate kiss on my lips.

 Chapter 33: Summer Love Smells Like Vomit

    It was like travelling back in time. I closed my eyes and embraced her, letting my hands wander along her face, her skin was so smooth. I explored that mouth I missed so much with my tongue, and every detail was in its right place. Her tongue was as warm and playful as it had come to be during our year together. How could illusions imitate that which the words of men coudld never describe with such mechanical precision.

    She smelled like the cologne I had gifted Abeline on her last birthday, one that claimed to smell like tulips and prairie, acquired in a local market of Northeast Simaritan, from a man that barely understand what was asking for, but knew the language of money better than any. We kissed like we had done back in that winter night, outside the piers of Chiscania, when she wore a green scarf she had bought with her reward from the last quest we had undertook. The other two, whose names the time and the mistreatment have erased, the big burly swordsman with more puns than blood in his veins and the small ball of hatred and alcohol we had for a ranger and friend, those two, they were gone, maybe drinking, betting or hiring prostitutes. Or buying cookbooks, what do I know, I didn¡¯t care back then, much the less I can care now.

    That night, at the piers, while we looked at the sailboats come and go along the horizon, travel over the full moon¡¯s reflection on the tranquil sea, she kissed me with the same passion. There was an intruding seagull watching us, and I drew a small explosive sigil over a coin I threw high into the air so the sound would drive it away to give us some privacy. Her hair smelled like salt because she had taken a bath in the beach earlier, and I didn¡¯t care. Abeline, for you I didn¡¯t care.

    We did not make love, we couldn¡¯t not there, not before marrying each other and sealing our eternal love. Despite our age, we were like a pair of silly teens, having been denied our previous experiences, mine because I never tried to impress or even approach a woman before her, and hers by the rules of her parents on Earth, and of the abbey where she had trained as a priestess on Bengia.

    That night, that should have lasted forever, we counted stars while resting on the sand, And I even joke a love like ours would end up with both of us dead in a suicide pact, because it would be too perfect otherwise. She sat, inclinerd her heard over her arms and let out a small jiggle.

    ¡°Make me a favor and let me die first,¡± she joked before luging ofer my face and kissing me again.

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    ¡°I have a better idea, Abel-abi: we could die at the same time, hand in hand would be ideal.¡±

    ¡°I think that is a fantastic idea, Fra-fran,¡± she told me, and then nested her head on my chest as I caressed her long, blonde mane. I felt we could stay like that for an eternity, that being mummified in that position would be a blessing for both of us.

    Reality came back to me with a whiplash, intruding the illusion by sound alone. Laughter, mockery, parody instead of waves, calm breathing, seagulls.

    ¡°Ha! How does human mouth taste, dear? Is he seeing the noisy thing whose name he doesn¡¯t stop calling out, like a dumb child calling for mommy?¡± Asked Gadorprims, who couldn¡¯t help but enjoy himself while watching me kiss his partner as if she was the woman I so much love¡ªbecause to put the verb in the past tense would be a denial of reality bigger than all of those I have incurred so far lumped together.

    With the face I love dispersed into thin air, I tried to plunge my nails into Scarreladai¡¯s eyes, but her crystallines seemed to be protected by a thick glass instead of a normal cornea. Her long, cylindrical, foul, despicable, nefarious tongue still explored my mouth, so I instinctively bit into it with all my might. That made her hit me with one of her claws on the shoulder, throwing me off balance, making me fall over the other one, sending a spike of pain through my body. Nothing physical broke, but, in that moment, I believed something did. I tried to reach for Jillsenbane, and my hand got intercepted by Gadorprims¡¯ paw, barely avoiding the meat mincing claws.

    ¡°What, exactly, are you planning to do? Tsk, tsk, tsk,¡± he said, and shook his head, faking disappointment. ¡°She was just playing with you, son of man.¡±

    I began to feel sick, with heartburn crawling up my chest and my head spinning. I felt dirty, more so than when drinking blood or cannibalizing a corpse. I threw up, and my vomit collected in a depression of the floor that hosted a couple of gold coins.

    ¡°Gadorprims, let him go to his room already. I got careless and broke him, it seems,¡± She said, with a voice full of weariness.

    He released my hand and I scrambled to my feet, quickly recovering Jillsenbane and rushing for the nearest corner, where I trenched with the sword extended in direction to Scarreladai. A dirty, defiled, desecrated man I was. I needed the madman. I need the madman, why give me a taste of a madness so beautiful, yet so frail? I despised it and wanted more, like a rat trying to eat electrified food because she is starving. I loved it and I wanted never to touch the dragon again.

    Gadorprims was very interested into the small puddle of vomit. He looked at it, then at me while tilting his head to a side.

    ¡°This looks perfectly edible still. Aren¡¯t you going to eat it back?¡±

    That alone made me throw up again.

    ¡°More for us, love.¡±, commented Scarreladai.

    ¡°So it seems, dear, so it seems,¡± he agreed and began licking the vomit.

    And, as I crawled away and came back to write this, they laughed like aristocrats.

 Chapter 34: Four Abelines

    That would be a good last line for this diary. ¡°The Aristocrats!¡± I would write, and someone would read it and laugh, and I would have brought a little bit of mirth into the world.  It¡¯s an old joke, The Aristocrats, it has an history to speak of. I don¡¯t know when it was first told, but it should have been a blast to behold such a pivotal moment for Anglophone humor.

    This makes me wonder if jokes could have a sort of taxonomy, much like living beings do. Can you imagine it, being able to lump the joke your aunt tells at Christmas with a random one you see online, to be able to even quantify, somehow, how closely related both jokes are? It would be amazing, I think. A work worth doing at an academic level, analyzing every minute detail of the jokes to determine where of the tree of laugh they belong.

    <hr>

    I have been thinking about the skulls, and why was I lumping them by sex. Wouldn¡¯t it be more useful to sort them by size alone? Skulls can be cut in half to make bowls or plates, they are pretty round and, except for children, the sutures of the bones tend to be strong enough. The teeth could be used for construction, like the little rocks thrown in when making concrete. Well, maybe, I am not sure if the chemical makeup of dentine and enamel is compatible with cement like that.  Another use could be to make some sort of big grained and rough abrading mixture. What for, I don¡¯t know, but the possibility is there. Skulls, skulls, how useful are skulls when you spend a while thinking about skulls.

    <hr>

    My first dog was called ¨®xido, and he was a black and copper Yorkshire Terrier. He had been born some years before I, and I grew up in his company, with the dog slowly becoming smaller, at least to my mind of a child, over the years. One day, some time before my sixth birthday, mom told me he had escaped during the storm of the previous night, and for years I held the hope that the dog would find his way back home on his own. It should go unsaid, but what really happened is that the little creature suffered a heart attack during that noisy storm, and, while I slept and watched my morning cartoons, my father took the cadaver out to bury it in my uncle¡¯s house, a drive half an hour into the suburbs, where I wouldn¡¯t find the grave until many years later. I miss ¨®xido, he knew how to give a paw, sit, and lick my face on command.

    <hr>

    I need more buckets for the barf, or at least to wash this one. Ugh, the very smell makes me want to throw up again. I am getting hungry, but I cannot keep anything down. Why has my stomach to be such a stuck up bitch?

    <hr>

    Lick my face. That sentence sounds kind of like the word avoidance, and avoidance is a word in three acts. A, void, and dance. A void dance. A dance of void. A dance of nothing. How can nothing dance, how can nothing¡­ can? Avoidance, what a ¡­curious word.  Can avoidance be avoided, wouldn¡¯t that be avoidance, too? It would, it would, it surely would.

    <hr>

    Face it, disgrace, face it alone as the man you are supposed to be!

    <hr>

    I have opinions about pit bulls I cannot express elsewhere but ranting about them here would consume the diary and I don¡¯t want to do that, the diary is a sort of life support for my mind, like the life support toddlers often need because mommy adopted a badly bred dog from the most reputable crack dealer in the neighborhood. Hey, silver lining, the crack was cheap and as good as crack gets.  The dog could have been just a dud.

    <hr>

    FACE IT FRANCISCO GOD DAMN YOU. FACE IT WITH A PARODY OF BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY IF NECESSARY, BUT FACE IT, LITTLE BITCH.

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    <hr>

    Jillsenbane refuses to kill me. I tried to gut myself, but the edge that can cut through rocks and armored lizards without a single issue goes blunt when it contacts the skin of my belly. I tried to beat myself to death with the golden pommel, but it decelerates before striking my head.  When I try to hold it still and head-butt it instead, the metal seems to be as elastic as it needs to avoid damaging me and recover its shape afterwards. I feel trapped in a comedy, in a slapstick cartoon world. I have considered suicide by other means, but they would be unsanitary. I was sure Jillsenbane would be the fast and painless option. I don¡¯t want pain. I don¡¯t want to suffer anymore. A suicide that causes me pain would defeat the purpose of said suicide in the first place. That is, Avoidance.

    The positive thing is that I realized I don¡¯t need the mad me, because I am becoming it, filling its niche like an invasive species after killing off the local populace that used to occupy said niche. Rabbits in Australia, and all that. It¡¯s not a losing of my grasp on reality, however, it¡¯s more of a consistent denial of it. Systematical, that¡¯s the word I was looking for. Systematical denial of reality. It¡¯s easy to do, some people back home, in Earth, do it often, so it cannot be that hard. In the face of evidence, you simply dismiss it and go on as if nothing had happened.  For example: I am in this cave out of my own volition, I got here during a fever dream, don¡¯t know the way back, the bear never existed, and neither did dragons. How could dragons exist? Aren¡¯t they too heavy to fly in any capacity? Dragons are a hoax. See, easy peasy.  The dead people and the shower made out of babies are¡­ they are¡­  they are there because of the chemtrails. Aerial drops of poisoned corpses.

    My god, I should not write after two sleepless days and nights. There are more important things to ponder. If I ever had joy of experiencing another play-through of Persona 5, which girl would I go for? Chihaya, probably. She¡¯s a goofball. I know, I know, controversial opinion. Go fuck yourselves, haters. Makoto sucks ass.

    <hr>

    I think of Lady Scarlet¡¯s gradual superimposition with Abeline each second of each waking hour, and writing about random topics is doing anything and everything but helping. The dragon kissed me, and that¡¯s not the problem: I¡¯d be immunized to such simple yet revolting things, being this far into this game of torture. It¡¯s not that I don¡¯t mind about what they do to my body, it¡¯s that, well, it is what it is. The revulsion comes from her robbery of Abeline¡¯s facial features, and out of my weakness in that moment. Abeline is more than her face, than her gestures, than her voice. Abeline is more than an ideal, even if, in my psyche or heart or however you may want to call it, she lives as one. There¡¯s Abeline, the crucified angel that inhabits the illusion, the one that called me a finely aged traitor. Then there¡¯s Abeline, the necromantic abomination whose defiled form I refused, and still refuse, to behold. And there¡¯s Abeline, the nymph that visits me in dreams where we are again in the beach, enjoying the breeze under peeking moon and stars, one and other and another time and makes me wake up with a short-lived smile in the rare occasions where I can get a good night sleep. Last but not least, there¡¯s Abeline, the promised one, the one Lady Scarlet can gift me to have for myself for eternity. The first is Abeline, disguised, hidden behind make up. The second is Abeline, broken and roughed up, dead and hopeless, but Abeline in the end, Abeline at the very core, Abeline in the flesh. The third is the Abeline I fell for and I am still in love with. The fourth is the Abeline that could belong to me if I were to give up the first two, the one I can kiss, caress, and speak with without external reprimand.

    The Abeline that should not be, the Abeline that is, the Abeline that it should always be, and the Abeline that I wish never was but cannot wish again. Four Abelines, all of them beloved, one of them despised.

    For Abelines, and the only moral way out of this is to renounce to every single one. To unmask the angel. To get her to rest in peace, spared form her eternal torture. To snuff out the flame of her memory in her honor, lest I tempt myself to fantasize something more than a kiss. And to kill the goddamned, foul-breathed, death-dressed, eye-eyelined, hated, loved, needed, parasitic, dragon!

    Four Abelines: for Abeline, not a single one should remain.

 Chapter 35: Vegan Millipede

    I never thought I would deliver relief from watching human babies burn. First, I destroyed the web of hearts, burned it down with a single stab upwards. Then I swung Jillsenbane to cut a head, separate it from the spine that held it joined with the others, as if it were a garlic head. Lastly, stabbed it as soon as it fell to the floor. Repeat sixteen times.

    I left the blue eyed one for last. I didn¡¯t immediately stab his face, I simply kept staring at the hole left behind by the extraction of his eye. The same had been done to her, presumably in life, and longer ago. The same had been done to her, and, unlike the baby, she¡¯d understand it was permanent, degrading, a violation of all which we deem humane.

    Feeling bad for my girlfriend, however, was not going to deliver the baby from his or her torment. I couldn¡¯t make up if it was a girl or a boy. I am sorry, little one. You deserved a better departure. All of you did, but I am no undertaker. I am a man with a sword and a bit of magic.

    I am a man. I hail from the Americas, back on Earth. My country¡¯s anthem says that freedom is a sacred shout, it calls us to hear the noise of broken chains. It encourages us to live crowned in glory, or to die gloriously. I may be old, I may have lived in Bengia, in this cave system to be more precise, for most of my life. This Lady took my love from me, she took my youth, she took my will to fight, and she may as well have taken from me my ability to hold food down. I barely ate today, I don¡¯t care if I am catabolizing, healing sigils will keep me moving, like an automaton, until I free Abeline, even if it is the last thing I do.

    No more being a whiny, weak bitch. No more being someone I¡¯d hate to be. My body may be old, but my mind is still young enough to decide that, this time around, it¡¯s do or die, die and serve.

    <hr>

    I need to sneak by the pile of corpses if I want to reach the sphincter. I need to save my energy, because once I break the seal, it will be a race for Abeline. The barrier itself is a zombie, and if and when it dies, Scarreladai will notice. I cannot outrun a dragon, so I need to hide in the small alcove next to the first sphincter until they go to sleep.

    Right now, however, I am outside the room where the corpses to be used for food are piled, and both of them are there. Scarreladai and Gadorprims, together. They are politely sat one in front of the other, with a big, newly produced bone table ¡ªor, the nearest thing to a table they could confect¡ª set between them. A single ray of noon falls through a hole in the roof, shining light upon them. I think they are trying to understand the concept of a date by acting one out. In have nothing else to do, so I will document it until they get distracted and I get a chance to sneak by. It¡¯s not like the diary will serve me after I am murdered.

    ¡°Why do humans do this?¡± Gadorprims asks, visibly annoyed

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    ¡°To know their mate better in the menial matters.¡±

    ¡°How does that help with the survival rate of the whelps?¡±

    ¡°They don¡¯t lay eggs. I know a bit or two about human anatomy. The woman is the egg,¡± says Scarreladai, as if pregnancy were some sort of alien concept.

    ¡°Like in raccoons?¡±

    ¡°Just like in raccoons,¡± she assures before taking a bit out of a thigh.

    ¡°Most disturbing.¡±

    Gadorprims starts to eat too, never breaking eye contact with the Scarlet Lady.

    ¡°Indeed,¡± Sacarreladai grants, opening all of her eyes wide. ¡°Dear, if this is to better know each other, make me a silly question.¡±

    ¡°I find no reason to.¡±

    ¡°Extra egg next batch if I like the question,¡± she offers, trying to flutter all of her non-draconian eyelids.

    Gadorprims huffs. ¡°You know how to convince me. Very well. But I¡¯d like to ask you for a favor, in addition: I want to eat fish for our next date. I will even hunt enough for both, if you agree.¡±

    ¡°Oh, I want Carrund cods! I love them!¡±

    A bit late, but that dispels the doubt I had initially: The Lady doth like fish too much.

    ¡°Even better,¡± he says and looks around a bit, as if looking for something to say based on the features of the room. This is a cave. There aren¡¯t that many in non-decorated rooms.

    ¡°Well, ahem, you know I love to research into myths and legends. Most being true, at least in part, of course. So, Scarreladai, sweet little worm ridden liver of mine, what would be your favorite story in those categories?¡± he asks measuring each word, as if saying the wrong one could get him killed.

    Scarreladai promptly stands and begins to pant.

    ¡°I thought you¡¯d never ask that!¡± she squeals like a teenager. ¡°It¡¯s a work of art, a masterpiece of narrative, the pinnacle of all myths, it¡¯s¡ª¡±

    ¡°Jillsen¡¯s ascension?¡± Gadorprims interrupts. She proceeds to claw his nose, leaving a couple claw marks on it and drawing blood, and they both snarl at each other for several seconds. Lady scarlet recovers her composure first.

    ¡°No, I grew tired of that one. The masterwork I refer to is the one generally titled Vegan Millipede.¡±

    All millipedes are vegan, My Dumb Lady.

    ¡°Vegan Millipede?¡± Gadorprims asks.

    ¡°Without a hint of irony. The frenamic hexamer it is told in is what most highlight. But I like it for the story.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know that one, what is it about?¡±

    ¡°Old time myth, I think you weren¡¯t born back then. It has been my inspiration in my brighter hours.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s the plot about, Scar?¡± he says, running out of patience.

    ¡°A necromancer and witch doctor magically welds together the digestive systems of six wyrms and puts them on a vegetarian diet.¡±

    Finally, a background justification for the Lady being a freak, even among dragons.

    ¡°That explains¡­ so much.¡± See? Gadorprims concurs. ¡°it¡¯s also pretty tame for your standards of work.¡±

    ¡°I have been practicing when alone, so, do you want to see it acted out with illusions?¡± she asked, and it wasn¡¯t that much of a question but, rather, an ultimatum.

    ¡°It cannot be worse than the things you do, dear, show your little piece of hell to me.¡±

    Scarreladai giggles and nuzzles him, licking the blood. I suppose it is a gesture of love.

    She takes on the form of a man dressed like he wants to blend in with a murder, and against the far wall, ghostly figures began to appear. As soon as they turn to watch and get engrossed into it, is my chance to pass by unnoticed.

 Chapter 36: A Way into Abelines.

    I made it to the alcove. Climbing to it was no easy task, with the rock being smoothened by years of water dripping down them, but one manages, one always manages! I ate some brains before coming here. I can barely hold them down, but it¡¯s better than an empty stomach. I think so much vomiting these past days has earned me a gastritis, but, whatever. If I am alive by this time tomorrow, someone call the Vatican, because it would be a series of miracles worth of beatification.

    If the Vatican still exists, that is. I can¡¯t imagine it falling, but thirty years change many things.

    I have the diary and I have Jillsenbane. I will block the path behind me with explosive glyphs to delay the dragons once I am past the sphincter. I hope I don¡¯t make the whole place collapse, but getting caught is a risk I cannot take. I will dispatch the dragonlings swiftly, decapitate them if possible, not to lose time getting the sword stuck in a ribcage.

    Or, as an alternative, there are still several hours until the dragons go to sleep, though. It¡¯s ample time to explore the narrow tunnel in the end this alcove. I am debating if I should play it safe, by taking the known path, or risk getting caught across treacherous stone walls in this narrow passage the cave has opened. Abeline¡¯s chamber is gigantic, her form stands taller than the dragons would in their hind legs. It¡¯s not far-fetched to think of the possibility that, yes, the chamber has multiple entrances. And the opening of this passage seems to be recent, there is still some debris on the floor of the alcove. Cave systems, being dynamical formations in constant, albeit slow, reshaping due to the action of water ¡ªmainly, but, as the defunct mad-me would put it, hic sunt dracones¡ª have plenty of non-cognoscible variants that remain so even if you are a dragon, I want to believe.

    In other words, and please don¡¯t start singing certain song about the fucking moon ¡ªor do, I shall be a bit too dead to care by the time anyone reads this¡ª the cave may be a tad too convolute by caprice of nature and the forces that govern it, plus the disturbances caused by the heavy lizards lumbering around carelessly.  In yet another set of words that I am not sure serves to clarify my idea, secret passages may be found in bounds and heaps, were one willing to inspect every perilous nook and cranny.

    I could get lost, but like Hansel and Gretel I will leave my trail of breadcrumbs back.  This plan, of course, kept afloat by the rather reasonable hope that cave dwelling animals don¡¯t have a sweet tooth for magical symbols carved with holy light. Scarreladai and Gadorprims cannot enter here, they are too big and bulky, and if I stash the diary around some of my leather rags, it should remain in a readable state despite the rough terrain.

    I could come to a dead end and see all my effort go to waste. In don¡¯t believe so, there is ample room for water to flow into before reaching the second sphincter, the one of Abeline¡¯s chamber. If I go up there, the wager would be to find a tributary big enough to have bored a pawn-shaped hole into the flooded caverns that would provide me a route, an alternative access either between the seals or straight into Abeline¡¯s chamber.

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    If that were not the case, the only thing that remains is waiting here. I don¡¯t want to wait. To wait is to think, to think is to question, to question is dangerous. Because I suspect my obsession with saving Abeline is just the weakest of moral inertia. I have already fallen into the temptation of the illusions. I am happy there, with the Abeline that is not, the animatronic controlled by a dragon. The one Abeline I can have, the one that offers me counterfeit love.

    Furthermore: I don¡¯t want to die. Or I may want to, but on my own terms. If the only thing they have not taken is my life, I cannot give it away just like so. Once I perish, my soul and body, together or apart, will be forever in the service of Lady Scarlet. If she has not released sweet Abeline yet, if she considers my crime much worse than hers ¡ªand I am sure she does¡ª, what awaits me in my upcoming days, years, millennia? To be a marionette for her? For my intestines to dance around my body while a whelp chews on my still conscious remains?

    I must not think of the aftermath. My duty is to save her, consequences be damned. If hell of hells befalls me, I am more deserving of it with each second of inaction, of indulging in the alternate reality of the palace.

    No, it cannot befall me, because this is already hell.  Drugged with lie and abuse, granted relief from truth and hunger only if I reduce myself to something worse than a dog.  My back aches if I walk straight for a while, god damn it all. The bones must have grown misshapen, the articulations rusted.

    But how I can do this to them? I have come to consider the dragons dear. Gadorprims a cunt of a brother, and Scarreladai a stern, but loving mother. I remember when she healed my broken arm, just like Gadorprim¡¯s eye. Those events, and the silliness she lets shine makes me thing that Lady Scarlet is not a complete lie, a confection, that the persona and the dragon are separated by naught but blurry lines.

    They killed babies to make a visual pun, for the love of god, Francisco. Sixteen babies just to torture me and make me snap. They play with an eyeglass under the scorching sun and I, the stupid ant, thank them for the calefaction?

    My mind is a mess, broken, irregular, stitched together from many ill-fitting fragments of sanity.  A Frankenstein monster made from justifications one would call rational. I am delusional, and the delusion is that there was a Doctor Jekyll buried somewhere inside this old rascal. There¡¯s no such man. There¡¯s the Abeline-obssesed, insecure, downtrodden, woebegone, failed hero, and there was the loyal, if silly, butler that works for a lady dressed in red and framed in blue curtains, all out of his own weird volition.

    I will search for that alternative route. Past that calcareous throat I am about to get into, there seems to be some sort of clarity. Maybe it leads outside, and if it does, the ceiling of Abeline¡¯s chamber, I believe, has a hole. I doubt Scarreladai would have been careful enough to plan the beam of sunlight that illuminated her in the illusion. So if this leads to the proximity of that other entrance, all the better.

    Here I go, despite being too old for this.

 Chapter 37: The Chestipede

    I am bruised, battered, and I am not sure all the warm liquids staining and running over the parts of my body that my sight cannot reach are just water and sweat. I crawled through thin cracks in the stone, tried to flatten myself like a stingray, holding my breath to pass through the narrowest of corridors. And now I have reached a small, untouched room. It¡¯s full of spiders and their webs, I killed a snake, ate its entrails, it tasted horrible, I prefer human flesh. My God.

    There¡¯s a dead rat chilling here. Maybe it was poisoned by a snake or spider, or just died of old age or illness. I better not touch it.

    Overall, this is a cozy, if rustic, dragonproof hole. There is a thread of running water that goes down the fork ahead. It¡¯s fresh and delicious, and does wonders for cleaning the scabs off my arms. This hole could be mine, appropriate phrasing be damned. It¡¯s lulling, it¡¯s peaceful, it¡¯s¡­ safe. Maybe the snakes or the spiders aren¡¯t, but I am positive those are threats I can get rid of.

    Not too far on the path to my right, the one in the fork ahead, the one that goes upwards, I can see a ray of dusk intruding. The reddish light permeates the air and reveals the floating particles of dust in it. How beautiful, how real. The way up is rugged, probably a result of the entrance rocks collapsing into it.

    Its upwards for me today, but before that, I will pray I don¡¯t run away like the little bitch I am.

    <hr>

    I will die smelling like rancid, liquid scat.  I came out of the hole thinking it was too good to be true, to be able to sit there and appreciate the sun settle one last time, but I had to find a necromantic abomination waiting for me when I turned to look at whatever was casting shadow upon me. I lost count of how many ribcages had been sewed in serial fashion to make it, or how many hands of different skin hues and bone length and girt it had. Just torsos and arms, with a bunch of intestines acting as tentacles and coming out of the frontward severed neck and, every several¡­ metameres, let¡¯s call each ribcage and scapular waist a metamer, and so intestines came out in random, asymmetrical holes at the unions of such constitutive units.  To put it simply, it was a myriapod with arms for legs and that from the intestines and wounds it bled and spat the foulest, darkest diarrhea on top of blood.

    My first reaction to that terrible sight against the evening sky was a brief paralyzing shock, the second indignation, the third drawing Jillsenbane. I ducked to hide back in the hole as it jumped on me. I scribbled a sigil of healing on my arm preemptively, if only to blunt the pain form any hits sustained. I jumped out of the entrance and prepared to face it on the open terrain of the hills.

    The tall grasses gave the thing an advantage, but it had already lost the element of surprise in those seconds of hesitation, where it probably decided whether I was an invader, a zombie or a whelp.

    He came upon me fast, with his hands full of dirt and mysterious slime. Trusting my instincts as a swordsman, I sidestepped to my right and swung Jillsenbane in a high arc, severing a triad of left hands. The thing spat the foul mixture of shit and phlegm upon me, and the chewed snake I had eaten earlier knew freedom once more.

    I wanted to cut my nose out, to vomit my innards and be done with that smell as I hurried to sweep it out my crying eyes.

    The thing had hidden again in the grasses, so I thought retreating towards the hole was the safest course of action. I didn¡¯t lower my guard a single second, and that was, ironically, a grave mistake: I stepped on one of the severed, slimy hands and slipped, falling forward, trying to plunge Jillsenbane into the ground in a desperate attempt to regain stability.

    I didn¡¯t manage, and met the hill face first. Frantically I pushed to get up, but I soon felt a hand clasping around my right ankle. I looked back and let out a scream when I saw the mass of ribcages and arms coming upon me.

    After failing to grab Jillsenbane, I kicked and flailed wildly, only to be restrained by the sea of hands as it lifted me, head down.

    Immobilized, neutered by the strength of several men and women, I looked up, and saw three of the tentacles slowly descend in a spiral fashion, getting tangled around each other.   Peristalsis began on the basis of the intestines, and I could see balls of something getting closer and closer under the muscular walls.  I wanted to close my eyes, but two of the hands were forcing them open as another pair held my head in place. My first thought was to inhale deep and prepare not to drown in shit. But it wasn¡¯t waste what came out of the intestines.

    First erupted a set of noses, attached still by what seemed to be bloody epithelium to the interior of the intestines. They were ordered in such a way that their tips touched each other, fitting like the teeth of a shark mouth.

    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    And like the teeth of a mouth they parted, each of the three sets revealing a reddened eyeball. One green and two brown. Eyes, all seemingly human, none blue. The blue ones weren¡¯t for the monsters.

    Hanging as they were, the eyes inspected me, coming closer and closer to my own. I felt my body was about to explode in fear, to tremble so much each part would fly off in a different direction.

    And it¡¯s in those moments of absolute panic head-down that the brain short-circuits, and, as one drools all over his own face and tries to lure away the nightmare, to wake up from a dream that is not, that I thought this horrible thing would make for a terrific boss in a soulslike rpg. It was a silly thought, a split-second of weirdness, but I would have immediately hated myself for it, were it not for the fact the eyes began retreating and the intestines fastened about the parts of my legs still free from the grasp of hands. I was raised above the monster as much as it could manage without letting my extremities struggle free. I couldn¡¯t scream anymore. My throat was knotted, I struggled to breathe, and, even if my eyelids were not forced open anymore, it was impossible to look away from the irregular red line that was opening right through where the sternum of the first two segments should have been.

    It would be an understatement to say that the thing smiled with all its ribs. Finally, I let out a scream as it slowly made my restrained body descend into the tunnel of flesh and bone that had opened right below me.  But I rectified myself fast enough to realize I had to hold my breath once again, because inside a necromantic abomination oxygen was likely to be a scarce resource.

    Darkness, humidity, and walls of ribs and cartilages engulfed me as I closed my eyes shut. Soon, I felt the pressure of little hard mounds kneading into me. Gastrolites? No, they were fixed in place. That¡¯s when I realized that the size, shape and¡­ pointiness of the things was consistent with one and only one body part: teeth. Molars and premolars, I think they were: not sharp enough for fangs or incisors.

    I couldn¡¯t scream for help now. I struggled, but each movement made me dig the teeth in my exposed flesh and wasted valuable energy. I needed to calm down, think of a plan. Maybe I could draw heating sigils to make the thing throw up, but I was unable to unglue my hands from my body due to the walls of flesh that oppressed me. Soon, I felt fluid beginning to drip atop my head. It smelled unbelievably acrid and had the consistency of a baby¡¯s first stool, or of the thing the monster had covered me in earlier, if you prefer to think of it that way.

    So this was my end. I¡¯d die drowned in the crap of an undead abomination, one more man added to the victims necessary to make it, as this guardian seemed to have no orders to spare my life.  My own body heat was suffocating me, and my feet were slowly sinking into the foul liquid, meaning the movement I felt was the creature scampering downhill.

    I thought about Abeline, of how I had failed her, how I had failed myself. I thought of the Lady, of how she would panic at my stupid death and lament never thinking about me finding that thing out in the wild. I thought about Jillsenbane, and how she would need to curse a new disgraced one that would be regarded as the next great dragon slayer and, one day, face Scarreladai. I thought of Jillsenbane, and how she was still my sword. I smiled mischievously. Downhill was away from Jillsenbane, and the thing was descending fast. If Jillsenbane has one good thing, is that she absolutely despises me wandering off past a certain tether range. To be left behind. If Jillsenbane, be her parasite or mutualist, has one good thing, is that she never leaves me alone for long.

    I heard screams outside; not human, but the desperate squeals of some unfortunate animal. I felt the shifting of my body weight, the center of gravity changing, and all the liquid falling back over my face, submerging my head into the shit.

    After what felt like an eternity that made me lose what little hope I had and almost open my mouthto gasp for air that wasn¡¯t there, my white knight arrived. Jillsenbane, searching for my hand like a dog needed of caresses, cut through the monster as if it were made of butter, spinning, splitting the first segment in two right down the middle, and the second askew, burning flesh and crap and bone. Setting the whole creature ablaze in a white flame. The digestive tract soon emptied due to the loss of integrity, and, to avoid being cooked to death, I struggled free with the last remnants of my strength, crawling away, savior sword in hand.

    I breathed in the fresh air despite the smell and the smoke. I breathed and it burnt my nostrils and lungs and it felt great. To breathe, reader, how to tell you that I thought I would never breathe again.

    ¡°Jilly I love you, I love you so fucking much, you dumb sword, I love you and I want to kiss you,¡± were the first words I said as soon as I recovered my breath. After a minute ofr so of enjoying the last rays of the sun of the day, lying beside the burning and still twitching abomination, I gave a lovely hug to Jillsenbane and stashed her in her scabbard. Jillsenbane left particular cauterized wounds on undead things and dragons, and once Scarreladai came to inspect what had killed her creation dead¡­ well, more dead than it was supposed to be, she would notice the charred flesh, if any were to be left, and, given fire mages are common ¡ªHere or in Earth amateur arsonists are a dime a dozen¡ª but most would shit their pants while battling such a thing, I¡¯d be the prime suspect.

    I drew several sigils of minor healing all over my chest, legs and arms, two at a time, one with each hand, and, when I felt like I could hobble the two hundred or so meters back to the rocks that concealed the small cave entrance, I hurried in despite my whole body protesting. I recovered my wrapped diary, made it to the fork and took the path below until I found a place where the water pooled. I washed my hands and face, and whatever else I could of my body, as fast as I could, but the smell still follows me like a haunting spirit. Gods curse you, My Dear Lady clad in scarlet scales, you could make less disturbing guardians once in a while.

 Chapter 38: A Girlfriend to Euthanize

    I don¡¯t know if something is broken. It all hurts like it is. I have finally lost the sense of smell, I think. My head spins. I am sipping water from a rivulet to see if I can recover before the dragons find me. In case I don¡¯t, however, I have inscribed a few¡ªthat many would consider several¡ª explosive sigils on my body. If I die, they go off. Boom, from pawn to none faster than you can say ¡°Rook to e4¡±. Learn to be hated by airport security with this one simple trick.

    Jokes aside, I don¡¯t like the idea of blowing up, but if it renders my remains unsuitable for necromancy, or even if it has a small chance of doing so, it¡¯s worth the effort and mana spent. It¡¯s not the idea of serving Lady Scarlet that scares me, it¡¯s not the thought of helping her make more monsters by mocking and mishandling human anatomy, it will not be the sleepless nights or the terrible things she would do to my body if any speck of it remains. No, it¡¯s the fact there will be no effort to hide those ugly truths from her part. There will be no more palace, no more Lady Scarlet, no more ¡°brewery¡±, or ¡°dogs¡±, or tortured ghost mistaken for fish. No more Gadorprims being a backyard-bred gharial. No more chances to love the fourth Abeline. All sorts of pretense would be dropped. I would dance and dance and dance and dance to her song without even enjoying the beat or the melody. I would go from having the love of a lie, from Lady Scarlet that would maybe be Lady Abeline Scarlet some or all of the time, to being the hated, failed toy of Scarreladai the Deceiver, necromancer and illusionist dragoness, host and maker of a parade of horrors. ¡°You had to live, Francisco! You had to keep Jillsenbane away from my heart!¡± she would think or say or yell at me while she hangs me up from strands of my own muscles and uses me as a plaything for the dogs or some new¡­ decoration.

    And that¡¯s if she doesn¡¯t ask me and Abeline what would be the worst torture for her that we could have in mind ¡ªAnd the worst torture for Abeline, Scarreladai knows, is the worst torture for me, too¡ª and, being their undead servants, we would be forced to answer, to obey without a complaint. And I don¡¯t know what Abeline would say: I knew her well, she was not the kind of person that would easily fall prey to defeatism. But then, neither was I thirty years ago. Thirty years I napped in the sweet lap of madness, as she wailed and screamed in vain, as she became the fallen angel of woe. I don¡¯t know what Abeline would say, and it feels like a new brick in my castle of betrayals.

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    Yet, I know what I would say. I would begin by rambling, my soul trying to delay the inevitable, and as the dragoness increased the pressure, I¡¯d have no option but to tell her. to tell her that it all would begin by me being a normal worker zombie that went about doing his tasks: The Pawn, but without the grace, the quirks, or the smile. Unless she would force me to smile, that is. It would follow that, one day, she would take out one of my eyes, the same one she took from Abeline. I have dark brown irises, so my eyes are not suitable for Scarreladai¡¯s head dressing. What they are suitable for, though, is owed to the fact that the human eye has very little variation in size between sexes. My eyes probably fit your or Abeline¡¯s sockets just as well as they fit mine. And if not, my dear Lady Scarlet would have no quarrel nor problem making it fit.

    I would still see form the plucked out eye, she is a good enough necromancer to make sure of that. And then, she would graft it into Abeline¡¯s disfigured face, and Abeline would scream and trash about, trying to free herself from whatever the cross is. She¡¯d hate to be one with this traitor she has come to despise through years of uninterrupted torture. She¡¯d do, because Abeline hates me. She has the right and the duty to. Please, Lord, let Abeline truly hate me.

    Every day, every second, I¡¯d see Abeline crying or struggling to get me out of her face, and as Lady Scarlet is intelligent, she would cut out the eyelids, maybe graft them elsewhere. And this would not last a day, a month, a year, no, I suspect The Lady plans on living till the world succumbs to fire, and so would we. By the time we burn, Abeline would be so broken and I so traumatized, that maybe, she¡¯d say a last ¡°I loved you¡±, always in past tense, to make sure I don¡¯t depart with the wounds closed.

    I need to stop writing and get going. I cannot rest for long, even if I¡¯d like to sleep for whole year. Things to do, places to be, horrors to meet, a girlfriend to euthanize.

 Chapter 39: The Unseen Abeline.

    I am almost out of breath and almost out of mana. Hungry, but not thirsty. I have found it at last, after taking wrong forks in the path several times. I counted seven dead ends, but, beyond this corner, Abeline sings her sad cries. The aperture goes straight down, somewhere in the union between a wall and the ceiling. It is wide enough for me to fall through, and if it weren¡¯t¡­ I¡¯d be able to blow it open anyway. I could take my head out and peek, but I don¡¯t want to see her. Beholding her disgraced form will be a hit I am not strong enough to shrug off.

    Looking straight below, though, I have a more pressing concern. A young dragon has spotted me. He looks a bit like his father, with the dark green scales and the relatively narrow snout, but his eyes are big and blue, and his wings are tinted in a red hue that resembles Scarreladai¡¯s main body color. He jumps and huffs and does a sound we could, for the sake of simplicity, call a bark. I suspect any attempt to find a way to climb down would result in a less than welcome inspection of my¡­ culinary properties on his part. A fall from this height could kill me if I landed over the hard stone floor. So this dragon could aid me. I am a man, and men are supposedly the creation of Saho. If I survive the jump, I will have to thank Gadorprims for giving me such a good idea to kill his poor child. If I don¡¯t, you would not be reading this because the diary ¡ªand the whole place¡ª will be obliterated in the coming explosion.

    The explosive sigils embolden me, make me feel my mad plans are flawless. If I manage to live and cut Abeline down into a peaceful afterlife, I win; if I die and the resulting explosion kills Abeline, I win. The only losing situation would be the glyphs not being powerful enough to manage to do so. But I don¡¯t think my trust in them is misplaced. If there is something I have a natural talent for, it¡¯s blowing shit up.

    Do or die, do and die; the ¡°do¡± is the only part that matters.

    <hr>

    I stabbed a whelp. It was as big as a small truck and there was no pretense of it being a puppy. In this and all other ways one can think of, it was a normal dragon.

    I stabbed a whelp. It tried to swat me off the air as I fell, but, like all of its kind and age, it was clumsy. It didn¡¯t bleed a single drop, for it was not the heart that I aimed for, but the head. The poor thing struggled all over the cave wet floor, half blind, as I held Jillsenbane well stuck into its skull, piercing his right eye, the bone deep behind and, then, its very self.

    I stabbed a whelp. Fried his brain. Baked his brain. Boiled it, maybe. It was all because, not for even a second, not for a small fraction an illusion made me mistake it for a poor puppy.

    No puppies. No madman to save or condemn them. Only a dead whelp, and its brothers and sisters staring from the edges of the room, hissing and snarling, scared and cautious.

    And behind my back, Abeline, silent still, staring at me no doubt. Once I turn, once I face her, if the dragons are not yet aware of my presence here, the screams of desperation will traverse the very limestone of the walls and reach them.

    Dripping water, the breathing and noises of the baby dragons panicking around, clattering of claws, chittering of teeth, the thud of a falling dragonling hitting the floor. Wan moonlight coming from the thin, long crack in the ceiling.  I expected something else.  I expected coming here would mark a¡­ a highlight. That it would be the pinnacle of this tragic tale I am living. The hero finally finds out the ugly truth, enter reveal cutscene with Latin choruses booming solemnly in the background.

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    ¡°Will you escape into a book this time, traitor of mine?¡± the weary, filed down voice of Abeline asks.

    ¡°No, no Abeline. Hello, I just need to document everything. A measure for sanity.  The prescription of no doctor that I never could come up with, if not by accident. Hello, Abeline.¡±

    ¡°Hello, Francisco,¡± she giggles. Oh Lord, why does she have to giggle, ¡°Still a child, after all this time. Still playing with the small game, like the coward you are.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no need for cruelty, Abeline, there¡¯s no need for¡­ there is a need for cruelty, isn¡¯t there?¡±

    ¡°Twenty-eight years, seven months, and twenty-two days ago, you abandoned me to my luck, to fend for myself. I have had all of this time to forget, to forgive. Instead, I spent the last twenty at least in cultivating the sour hatred the death of our love sown. Hatred! And now you, the object of my despise, walk in here, not mad, not under the dragon¡¯s charm you seem to have finally broken, but like the coward you initially were? ¡°

    ¡°I am sorry, Abeline, I am sorry.¡±

    ¡°An apology won¡¯t make for it! begging on your knees neither will. I have hated you for so much longer than I have loved you. We swore our love would be eternal, but love is like warmth, and hatred like a stone¡¯s cold. One of them has no qualms remaining forever, once a fire dies out.¡±

    ¡°I am sorry, Abel-abi, I am sorry, I have come to right my wrong. If you would allow me to¡ª¡±

    ¡°Do you have any idea, Francisco, the tiniest speck of an idea, of how long twenty-eight years without sleeping, twenty-eight, almost nine, years of uninterrupted conscience and suffering, are? Eternity is shorter. They are not a lifetime or two, a lifetime has dream and nightmare, has the sweet bliss of sleep, it has days neatly separated, from each other, canned away. Tomorrow is another day in a normal lifetime. I exist in a perennial today. And my other eye, it still sees. I saw you licking her muddy shoes all this time, I saw you kiss her like you once did me, I saw you act like her lapdog. I have become very good at reading your lips, twenty-eight years are a lot of time to do so. I saw you suggesting the new decorations. The baby massacre. I witnessed the confection of the shower. So traitor, monster, once-ago-loved Francisco, behold me! You deserve to see me and what you have done! Nude, stripped of the dragon lies, behold me.¡±

    ¡°Abeline no! Give me time, give me just¡ª¡°

    ¡°Twenty-eight years, seven months, twenty-two days and some hours you had already! You want more? Sure, take your sweet sweet time. Time of the living, time with dreams, time that kills you a little. For seven years I called out your name with the hope you would hear me and come back for your heart, your life, your Abeline. Even if you had to kill me, a last kiss, devoid of lips, but a kiss in the end, would have sent me away forever happy. For seven months afterwards I wept in murmurs, lamentations not loud enough to wake the newborns. He won¡¯t come, he won¡¯t come, he loves the dragon now, he loves the lady now! For seven days on end I hollered without interruption. I need not to breathe, as normal lungs are a thing of the past for me. A memory. So it was a single scream, a seven-days-long cry that you, in your world of illusions and ladies in red dresses and palaces did not hear. For seven hours afterwards I cried disconsolately, for seven minutes I tried to wake up from the nightmare, and for all the infinite remaining sevens, I loved you so much and so deep and so dearly it burned and melted my innards. But no matter how long the rational numbers may be, there is always an eight after every seven, and time knows, Francisco, time knows!¡±

    ¡°Painful number, the seven¡­¡± I begin, realizing the cruelty behind the words of Scarreladai.

    ¡°¡­ as it is composed of several ones,¡±

    Silence, at last, a second of silence to recollect my thoughts.

    ¡°Hey, have you finished transcribing?¡± she says now.

    ¡°About to, Abeline, about to.¡±

    ¡°Then hurry, turn and behold Scarreladais tour de force, Francisco. Don¡¯t worry, I am not a shy virgin anymore. Well, yes, the second adjective remains true I guess, but shy? no. Bear, bearless coward, witness to your dear Lady¡¯s masterpiece.¡±

 Chapter 40: Late to the Punchline.

    Breath in, breath out, report it, report it, panic afterwards, report it, panic later, breath in, report it.

    Her left breast has been cut off and grafted over the hole left by the empty eye socket. It sags all over half her darkened, dead face. Her blue eye is perfectly preserved, and it, trembling between open and a squint, stares at me from her elevated position on her¡­ web. I need to find the words to describe it, but it grows from her lower body, a web of arms and legs that are as hers as the ones she has born with.

    ¡°Do you like what you see, tiger?¡± she mocks, and laughs under her breath. ¡°I hope you don¡¯t mind me being a little¡­ overweight!¡±

    ¡°Stop it with the cruel jokes!¡±

    ¡°I will do, but only if you buy me those cute undergarments you wanted me to wear on our wedding night. Of course, I¡¯ll need a white eyepatch to match. With kittens drawn all over , that would be perfect.¡±

    She laughs, and the whole web that engulfs her from below the abdomen trembles. The rings of arms and hands that hold bulges concealed reveal them. Beating, giant hearts for some and slick, bulging mounds of veins and meat for others. One of them rips open, and a newborn dragonling falls out, covered in slime. Oh my God, it¡¯s worse than what I suspected: Abeline is a hatchery. An incubator.  I thought they only climbed on her. Like cats on their towers. Like monkeys on their trees.

    ¡°Do you still think I¡¯d make a very good mom one day? Look at how happy I keep the children.¡±

    I cannot help but staring at her scarred midriff, at the greedy hands that scratch her and try to sink her into the web, reaching up to the ribs with their overgrown black nails.

    ¡°Hey, look at me in the eyes, you have it easier now!¡± she shakes her head, making the sagging, half-rotten blob of grease sway from side to side.

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    ¡°Stop! Don¡¯t you see these terrible jokes are a torture for me?¡±

    ¡°Yes, a torture twenty years in the planning. Plenty more from where those came from.¡±

    I took my hands to my ears and thought about ripping them off and closing my eyes, or, hell, even plucking my eyes out with these long nails of mine. But no, I must write, keep on doing so, and when I garner enough valor, kill Abeline. Decapitate her cleanly, painlessly.

    ¡°I am sorry I received you without wearing pants, my jeans have problem fitting since I was put on this regime.¡±

    ¡°Please, Abe, stop. It helps neither of us for you to behave in this petty way.¡±

    ¡°I will grant your wish.¡± Two of the randomly-sprouting legs of the web approach the face, their toes intertwine, and they cup Abeline¡¯s face between the posterior end of the soles. ¡°Once again, I am head over heels for you, dear.¡±

    ¡°Abeline!¡±

    ¡°Sometimes I think my hair is too dull and dry. Frail. It breaks easily. I find too many strands of it in the pillows, in the food, in my dog.  But, thanks to modern bioterms for fooling idiots technology, the new Abeline for dry hair has done wonders for me! Never mind where the scalp may have been transplanted, the new Abeline¡¯s nutritious mixture revitalizes the dead tissue and rehydrates the skin, making your hair grow stronger, shinier. Maybe it¡¯s necromancy. Maybe it¡¯s foul dark sorcery¡­¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t you dare! Please, stop. I hate your hatred.¡±

    She opens her eye wide open like a psychopath, and even without lips, I know she is smiling. ¡°Maybe it¡¯s Abeline!¡± she claims, and bursts into laughter, making the whole web shake and multiple newborn dragons fall to the ground.

    Kill Abeline, kill Abeline, kill Abeline. Before she incubates more dragons, before she cracks her next self-deprecating joke as a derision of my pain, kill Abeline.

    The dragons began moving, running, looking for a place to hide. They are breaking into a mess born out of panic, beginning to clamber onto the base of the fleshy net and clumsily make their way upwards.

    ¡°What is going on now?¡± I ask, looking frantically from side to side, coming back swiftly to scribble this out.

    ¡°Daddy comes,¡± whispers one of the dragonlings.

    ¡°Daddy comes!¡± echoes another one, in a much livelier way.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, dear Francisco, you are the only one I¡¯d ever think about calling daddy,¡± Abeline says, and she flutters her eyelashes.

    ¡°Daddy comes!¡±

    There is no more time to suffer this reunion. The hour has come. I will grab Jillsenbane, climb the second Abeline, the one who hates me, and deliver her from her pain. But first, the diary, I need to get a dry surface to place it over... There!

 Chapter 41: Dragon Father, Dragon Mother.

    Every good play has to have a magnanimous closure. Now that all masks have fallen, now that the jokes have ended, now that the well of hope has gone dry, this is it. Welcome, Ladies and gentlemen, to this humble Pawn¡¯s life. Welcome to Lady Scarlet¡¯s palace of horrors. You won¡¯t enjoy the tour, but you won¡¯t ever go away.

    I had managed to climb a good portion of the web, grabbing from stiff legs and arms that kicked and scratched me, not to pull me down, but just out of the cruelty of those who prongs an animal with a stick.  That¡¯s when the sphincter exploded in a electric blue flash. I saw the amber eyes even through the smoke, electrical sparks coursing through them.

    ¡°So you are here, little scoundrel!¡±  His attention was shifted to the dead fledgling that had barked and me and cushioned my fall. ¡°That¡¯s eight, little, soon to be dead, scoundrel.¡±

    Then Gadorprims spat a bolt of lightning against one of the walls, leaving a patch of molten stone on the point of impact.

    ¡°Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!¡± cheered the dragonlings.

    ¡°Everyone that can understand me, get out. Daddy needs to have a slightly heated up discussion with our dear butler!¡± He commanded, and a little, dragon approached with his head down, like a dog that knows he has done bad.

    ¡°But daddy, brothers and sisters will eat us if we go out the nanny chamber. Mommy told us so.¡±

    ¡°Not if you eat them first, champ,¡± he said, and licked the forehead of the little one. The dragonling immediately perked up and trotted away.

    Soon after, a tide of his siblings following, flowing out the opening like water, stepping over each other, screeching, howling.

    ¡°Too many remain yet¡­¡± Gadorprims commented, and shook his head.

    ¡°Come down, let me kill you in a way that¡¯s safe, and I may have the mercy of eating your remains so Scarreladai¡¯s cannot use them.¡±

    I stretched one of my arms towards him, revealing the sigils of the lower part of my forearm.

    ¡°You offer is tempting and fair, Sir Gadorprims. Unfortunately, if I die, we all go boom boom kaboom. I am loaded charge.  So let me give my girlfriend the death I owe her, and then I will defuse the glyphs.¡±

    ¡°With Jillsenbane? You know how much that thing hurts undead? You are stupider than I took you for! Get down or I will carry you away and drop you over a populated city, let¡¯s see who else goes ¡®boom, boom kaboom¡¯ then!¡± he ordered, taking a few steps towards my position. I struggled to climb higher, and barely managed it. I had to unsheathe Jillsebane, and I had to climb higher, but I couldn¡¯t do both. Damned instant of indecision.

    ¡°If you take me out the room, I am triggering the glyphs anyway. With just a thought. This place will crumble and kill most, if not all, of your little young darlings. ¡°

    Lightning coursed around his body, gathering around his snout, flickering around his teeth, jumping from fang to fang. ¡°I can still torture you until you deactivate them.¡±

    ¡°Or until I decided I had enough and pull the trigger. Come on, Gadorprims, you are more intelligent than that.¡±

    ¡°No, no. He isn¡¯t,¡± finally interjected Abeline, ¡°who, do you think, had the ¡®breast badly grafted to eye socket¡¯ idea?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s avant garde, ignorant woman!¡± growled Gadorpims, sending sparks.

    ¡°Figures, it¡¯s too goofy of a modification for Scarreladai,¡± I sighed.

    ¡°I once tried to see how head-banging feels, and the answer is: like a head-butting contest with a beluga,¡± she began ranting and a bolt of lightning reached Jillsenbane, ripping her off my hand and leaving my whole arm feeling like a toddler discovering why electrical outlets and forks are a bad match.

    ¡°Will you come down and settle this like the man you are?¡±

    ¡°I would, but your wife kind of nailed me to the wall with bone for better support,¡± sassed Abeline.

    ¡°This is why we stashed you away in the most isolated corner of the cave and we barely visit, Abeline!¡±

    ¡°Gadorprims, do you expect me to hate you and Scarreladai less than I hate this scum that is clinging to me like a parasite? Because that is not going to happen anytime soon.¡± She looked down at me, as I breathed heavily and opened and closed my fingers in front of my face to make sure they all still worked correctly.  ¡°Cheer up, they may have nailed me against the wall, but, for the record, it was against my will.¡±

    I grimaced, her jokes were getting disgusting.

    ¡°Will you were not into, by the way. Hey, Gadorprims, have you contacted my lawyer yet?¡±

    I jumped off the web and went back to recover Jillsenbane.

    ¡°I will enjoy cutting your head off, Abel-abi,¡± I admitted, and my heart sunk, because I never thought those would be words I¡¯d be uttering.

    ¡°Ohhh, cute boy, you are going to make me cosplay as Marie Antoinette! Is it because that¡¯s the only way you would ever be able to reach my throat?¡±

    Gadorprims shoot another bolt, this time against Abeline, hitting her in the neck, making her choke, cough, spasm.

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    ¡°Shut. Up. Grownups are talking.¡±

    With my guard up, I began walking towards Gadorprims the Peerless with firm step. I would not be able to release Abeline as long as he was there. He would not allow me to destroy his nest, or incubator, or however it would please you to call this¡­ function, of Abeline¡¯s corpse.  So, if I wanted to conclude my mission, to fulfill my duty, I had to defeat Gadorprims first.

    I rushed towards him and he turned violently, sweeping me off my feet with the aid of his long tail.  I had to avoid getting pinner by his claws, so I rolled towards the outer side of the flesh net, where an unopened egg capsule stood.

    He remained in place, staring at me, gathering electricy around his snoot and then releasing it, letting it disperse in the air around him, illuminating the dark corners of the room.

    ¡°It seems this battle can be nothing but a stalemate. You cannot win, I cannot completely lose,¡± I said.

    ¡°There is a thing that keeps you from blowing up, though.¡± Abeline turned her head to follow the gaze of Gadorprims. It seems the facebreast gave her a rather severe blind spot.

    Gadorprims was staring at the diary. This diary.

    ¡°It¡¯s right that nobody can win here today, not how they want, son of Saho. But, believe me, Scarreladai won¡¯t care about anything but keeping you alive and close to Jillsenbane. It won¡¯t keep her awake at night if she has to make an amputee without hands to hold a sword or legs to run and kick. The few tennets of healing magic she learned from Abeline will make sure that that can happen. And there you won¡¯t be able to draw sigils anymore, with no fingers nor toes nor tongue. Maybe she would even insert Jillsebane in your mouth, so you would be kept staring straight up all the time, constantly trying to vomit, and unable to do so , while the sword¡¯s metal irritates your esophagus for the rest of time. So, Pawn¡ª¡±

    I shrugged. ¡°I¡¯d blow up before that happens. I need no hands to detonate the magic.¡±

    ¡°She will make you crazy enough without you noticing, and you will fall into a deeper madness than ever, only to wake up from it when she is done with the amputations.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d consider my wife doing that to someone as a red flag.¡±

    ¡°Shut up, Abeline, stuck up bitch!¡± I shook my fist at her in anger.

    ¡°It amazes me how she manages to torture us more than Scarreladai,¡± added Gadorprims. ¡°Pawn, I offer you a good death. And as soon as all my sons and daughters are born, I will release Abeline myself. Burn her body to ashes. All I ask is you to not kill my litters by any means. Even more, as a direct descendant of Jillsen, I give you my word¡±, he pointed with a claw at his heart and applied a slight pressure on his chest, drawing a drop of blood. ¡°That I will deliver your diary to some human population, so people can read your story, your¡­ myth.¡±

    Lightning surged from his body and gathered above his head, forming a giant image of a paper contract, a quill and ink.

    ¡°Why would I trust you?¡±

    ¡°He can convince people to graft¡­¡± Abeline opened her eye wide and started bawling like a scared child. ¡°She comes with everything. Everything. The dogs, the sentinel, the ghosts, the chestipede, Luricia¡­¡±

    ¡°Who, or what is Luricia?¡± I asked, confused, concerned.

    ¡°A small detail, just¡­ the nearest town we conquered,¡± Gadorprims said and ran towards the nearest group of several helpless whelps. He extended a wing down, and the little dragons started to climb it immediately. ¡°Get on daddy¡¯s back, come on, that is¡­¡±

    The thing about tides, reader, is that they always come back.

    The ground started to tremble with violence. I felt like an earthquake, but it wasn¡¯t. it could not be.

    Earthquakes don¡¯t slowly open the crack on the ceiling as if they were a pair of eyelids. They make rubble and stalactites fall, but they don¡¯t reveal flesh underneath the calcareous stone. The room had to be originally out in the open, before it got sealed with a giant, pulsating, calcite secreting sphincter.

    I hid under one of the egg capsules and kept looking at the ceiling, to avoid a rock hitting me in the head just in the right angle to make us all blow up. I acted more out of fear than out of reason, as it is in that moment that I should have secured my death.

    A tsunami of little dragons came from the mouth of the halls, fluttering, running, pushing, or struggling to take flight and go out the new opening, the new eye of the night that had a waxing moon for a pupil.

    ¡°Mommy comes!¡± yelled one of the dragons.

    ¡°Mother no, mother no!¡±

    ¡°Fly for your lives, mother comes!¡±

    ¡°I wanted to be a necromancer like her when I grow up. I want to grow up!¡±

    Another one, slightly fat ¡ªto understate things a little¡ª, lay on his side in the middle of the room. ¡°Finally, the sweet embrace of death and servitude. Mother comes, Hurray!¡±

    Distant chants flooded the place from above. I couldn¡¯t recognize the language they were in, but the choir called her name every few words.

    ¡°What¡¯s going on? Why do her sons fear Scarreladai?¡±

    Gadorprims turned, ignoring the last three out of nine infants he was hurrying to climb onto him, and scowled at me.

    ¡°She is the eldest daughter of the goddess of death and Jillsen. Interpret that in the most non-figurative way you can imagine. And I don¡¯t intend on meeting my mother-in-law, as you call it, anytime soon. See you when she calms down in a thousand years or so.¡±

    He grabbed the last child with his mouth, and despite the squirming of the small dragon, began to flap his emerald wings. He soon took off from the floor and started flying in circles around the room, beating his wings once a lap and slowly ascending into the night.

    But there was someone here hell-bent on stopping him, someone with a breast grafted to her face. Extending the meaty web so some of the hands could reach Gadorprims¡¯ tail, she grasped it firmly. Gadorprims started flapping wildly as he got pulled lower and lower, as more and more hands and legs wrapped around him.

    ¡°You are not going anywhere but hell, Gadorprims.¡±

    ¡°Screw the eggs that have not hatched yet!¡±  He began gathering electricity in his mouth and breathing it upon the arms and legs, reducing them to ashes. Abeline grabbed me with more of her extremities and I took Jillsenbane out of her scabbard, then she swung me, and I Jillsenbane, striking Gadorprims on the wrist of his right wing, severing its tip.  He lost balance, hit the pulsating ceiling with a bolt, making blood rain upon us, and plummeted to the ground, crushing the two little dragons that were not fast enough to jump from his back and trusted his father so much they grasped him firmly, even in the last moments.

    ¡°No, no, no,¡± he repeated as he nuzzled the small ones blleding over the stone. ¡°Ten, ten, ten! This makes ten!¡± he claimed and turned only to see me jumping upon him, aiming for his chest.

    He managed to block Jillsenbane with his right foreleg, and the sword went straight through his ulna and radius. This didn¡¯t stop him from charging another attack to fulminate me.

    ¡°If you attack, we explode,¡± I reminded him while trying to pull Jillsenbane away from his extremity to deliver another blow.

    ¡°We are dead anyway. This is mercy.¡±

    A blood curling shrill irrupted in the room, making both me and Gadorprims stop what we were doing to cover our ears and close our eyes.

    Then the world went silent, and when I opened my eyes again, the whole room was made of flesh, squirming and slimy, consuming the web around Abeline as she remained paralyzed, only able to giggle as, through the main entrance, through the burned sphincter,  Scarreladai made her entrance.

    ¡°Kill the pawn or my bargaining chip, Gadorprims, and I will put you and each one of your children, mine or not, under the care of my mother,¡± the house lady¡¯s voice boomed with the tone of broken glass and chanting whales.

 Chapter 42: Goodbye, Abeline

    Gadorprims lowered his head and collapsed over the ground. I managed to release Jillsenbane, and left it alone, walking with difficulty over the thin, frail layer of stone that was becoming more fragmented with each movement.

    The proud dragon curled up and did something I thought was impossible: he began to cry. A dragon¡¯s tears, a thing of legend.

    From behind Scarreladai came a company worthy of escorting the four horsemen. First entered the dogs, forming a line to her sides. Then from above and behind flew in the ghosts, held captive with ethereal chains attached to each other. Screaming in agony, the tortured souls began circling above us in layers, three of them, as if they wanted to frame the eye of night.

    ¡°You said you wanted a themed wedding, But I didn¡¯t know end of times counted as a theme,¡± joked Abeline. She was too far gone to care about our current situation. There seemed to be truly nothing she feared anymore, the worse had been done to her and she was still there.

    I couldn¡¯t answer, I was fighting against the shifting flesh to not lose balance, against my sphincters to not make a scene, and against the oppressive atmosphere to not desperate and blow us all up.

    I should have, hell, I should have!

    The chestipede walked in from the opening on the roof, and he began climbing along Abeline¡¯s web.

    ¡°Pawn, dispel the explosive glyphs.¡±

    I couldn¡¯t obey, I couldn¡¯t move. I could barely think. Abeline, the end, Abeline, be free, Abeline, stop joking, Abeline.

    Gadorprims opened his eyes to give a look at the sky, and, following his stare, I saw the seven undead whelps that observed us from the borders of the ceiling opening. He promptly shoot a bolt of blue lightning to one of them, and the little thing caught flames before falling into the chamber and becoming a smudge of charred remains when it hit the fleshy base.

    ¡°You.¡± he shot down the second. ¡°Promised.¡± Then the third. ¡°Not.¡± And the fourth. ¡°To.¡± Five down. ¡°Do.¡± The sixth outright exploded with the impact. ¡°This.¡± And thus they were seven.

    ¡°I promised not to use the children of my mate as servants. And my mate you are not.¡±

    ¡°I am a direct descendant of Jillsen! You cannot do this to me!¡±

    ¡°So she is your something something-aunt?¡± asked Abeline.

    Scarreladai looked into Gadorprims eyes, and he did the same as he gathered electricity to shoot a bolt on her face. And he did.

    After being hit with the force of a raging thunderstorm, Scarreladai sneezed.

    ¡°Technically, yes, but his divine blood is so far diluted that the only thing he has inherited of my father is the light shows.¡±

    Gadorprims curled back into a ball and resumed his crying.

    She began advancing towards me and I thought about blowing up. I needed to, I had to, it was the correct course of action, then why didn¡¯t I do it?

    ¡°Come on, pawn, remove those glyphs.¡±

    The chants got closer and closer, and towering shadows were cast on the floor.

    ¡°Oh, Pawn, Abeline, Gadorprims the Pathetic, I present you the inhabitants of Luricia. Say hi.¡±

    ¡°Hi fellow torture victims, hi!¡± Abeline saluted effusively, shaking her original arms high in the air.

    ¡°I am thoroughly pleased with your insistence on upholding your day-one-threat to be my most annoying servant, Abeline.¡±

    That explained so much. It was part a coping mechanism, part the old Abeline¡¯s insistence on being true to her word.

    Tall dark figures loomed over the hole. These could initially be interpreted as wriggling worms the size of skyscrapers, their setae wagging from side to side like dog tails.

    Giant, carnivorous, man-eating worms would have been neat. They would have improved the whole atmosphere. A horror whose worst outcome is being chewed or crushed to death would have been more than welcome. When their tops bent, closing in on us and starting to descend, well¡­ worms would have been Christmas.

    ¡°Pull the trigger, Francisco,¡± I said to myself, lips trembling, as I beheld the choir. I wanted to die but I did not want to die. Call it instinct, call it cowardice, but killing oneself for a greater good took a quota of bravery small but necessary. And, besides, the diary, my light in the dark, was still mostly intact, and to blow up would be to erase my only legacy to the world.

    The fingers in the place of the toes. Each leg coming out of a flower of singing faces, grasping at the flesh walls. A string of garlic of heads without neck, with barely any volume when coming out of the main cylinder: a veritable column of circulatory systems, sinew, livers and kidneys, compacted inside transparent skin, like the contents of a sausage.

    And they kept on chanting despite their state, despite the jaws being unhinged and the mouths having more tongues than they should, despite the teeth being inserted in decorative patterns around the cheeks instead of in the gums where they supposed to be.

    I knelt before the gruesome sight. ¡°What language are they speaking, Lady Scarlet?¡±

    She came up to me, laid on the floor while closing her arms and then, looking upwards, at her infernal singers, she spoke: ¡°My mother tongue. The laments of the dead that have forgot it all but my name. I can¡¯t know what they are saying, Pawn, because the only thing there that makes sense is the way they address me. I was born listening to this lullaby.¡±

    ¡°What a shit taste in music,¡± said Abeline, as obnoxious as she had apparently sworn to be.

    Scarreladai paid her no attention, instead pointing at her with a single claw, while still staring at me.

    ¡°You come here to save her, correct?¡±

    I glanced in direction to Abeline. ¡°Y-yes, Lady Scarlet.¡±

    ¡°I am in the mood to negotiate her freedom, and, also, because I know how important it is to my special little dear pet, the spread of you diary. I will make a servant safely drop it into some library, in a town full of living, breathing human people that may be able to read it. What do you say?¡±

    She extended her paw, as if offering me a helping hand.

    I nodded. The chants were getting to my nerves. ¡°Make them shut up, please, and I will aid you in whatever you need.¡±

    The chants stopped, but the mewl of the ghosts continued.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be a fool, Francisco. She wants you to destroy Jillsenbane,¡± warned Gadorprims, without uncurling.

    ¡°Party pooper. You were on board with my plans yesterday.¡±

    The pillars of faces started to bend in a spiral fashion, and the wailing ghosts descended over Gadorpims like vultures over a carcass. Some arrangements of faces from the cylinders exploding, sending a stream of gore all over gadorpims. Bones, muscle, blood, lard and nerves lumped around the dragon, flowing as if they were liquid, raising him vertically into the air as if he were inside a coffin being pulled by a crane, ready to be sent to his final rest.

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    The dragon began snickering, and then broke into an ugly laugh as a parody of the first Abeline (The crucified angel) was built using him as the center piece.

    ¡°Yes! Graft a tit to his eye socket! I have one to spare!¡± cheered on the second Abeline.

    ¡°Keep it for a rainy day, my dear Abeline,¡± Scarreladai answered and raised a claw, palm up, as if she were giving directions to an orchestra.

    The angel of gore fluttered its wings, and from between its feathers imitations of dragonlings dripped into the ground, mushy, struggling to keep their shape.

    ¡°My style is getting stagnant. I need new materials to work with. Any suggestions, pawn?¡±

    I didn¡¯t answer. I could not. What was she even referring to?

    ¡°Suggest me a new organ for humanity to develop. Venomous glands? Too vertebrate. Trachea? Just holes all over the body, inefficient. Malpighian tubules? Or¡­ why restrict myself to the Animal Kingdom? What if I find out how to turn bones into wood, make men spread by spores? Bananas, I could make them produce bananas filled with livers and pancreas,¡± she rambled like she was mad, but oh, she wasn¡¯t. She demanded an answer, her snout full of teeth every second drawing closer to my face, my eyes going from the meat grinder to the glyphs on my skin and back.

    ¡°I¡­ I¡­ Bombardier beetles!¡±

    She withdrew and put on a pensive expression.

    ¡°I love it. I can use the lacrimal glands as a starting point. Make little Abeline cry fire over her own cute face.¡±

    I tried to reach for Jillsenbane, but I didn¡¯t find the will to take her out of her sheath.

    ¡°No, please, anything but that.¡±

    ¡°Lady, I have an eyeball to spare. Avant Garde,¡± squeaked Abeline. This wasn¡¯t a joke, but a plea: torture me in a way I know, in a way I am used to.

    ¡°Well, fate of sweet Abeline is in your hands,¡± she said, her gaze fixated on Jillsenbane¡¯s handle. ¡°Destroy the sword, end my fear of death, Pawn. Only that sword, of all mortal weapons, can kill me. Only a blade with the hatred for dragons Saho himself fostered can end me. You know how terrible it is, to live as an almost immortal? The fear of death being a tangible, single thing instead of a random occurrence? To know you can live forever, but have that little woodpecker in your brain, tapping, tapping, drilling, tapping? Destroy Jillsenbane, grant me peace and Abeline will know it too.¡±

    ¡°And then what? We, Gadorprims and I, keep on being your toys? We become that?¡± I gestured towards the chestipede. ¡°Or that?¡± and then towards the pillars. ¡°Or maybe a dog or¡­ an adultshower.¡±

    ¡°No, my pawn, no. Destroy Jillsenbane, and I will give you a life of luxury. All you ever wanted, a lie so perfect no one will be able to break it. The chants will become birdsong; you will eat ovaries but feel them as you would the finest caviar. You may dine on Abeline¡¯s remains today, and think of them as a deliciously baked piggy. With an apple in their mouth, Pawn, in a fancy seaside restaurant, Pawn. Obey the queen of this soon to be kingless-chess board, Pawn.¡±

    ¡°Do I get an opinion about being devoured by my ex?¡±

    ¡°Ex?¡± I asked, and Immediately shook my head. ¡°Yeah, ex, I guess.¡±

    ¡°No. I deserve that caprice, that little leisure.¡±

    ¡°Scarreladai, treacherous cockroach of a partner, why am I not dead yet?¡±

    The dragoness collapsed onto herself, the flesh seemed to wrestle under the skin as her colors shifted, and for brief moments, gifted to me by the light of the explosive sigils, I could still see that all of that wasn¡¯t really happening. Illusions again.

    From that unreal mesh of a dragon, reformed the Fourth Abeline.

    ¡°No, let her image go too. You have no right to look like Abeline.¡±

    ¡°But if you obey I will be your Abeline.¡±

    The second Abeline was laughing hysterically, one hand gesturing at her disfigured face, the other at the Fourth Abeline.

    ¡°I offer you an Abeline that doesn¡¯t break down, an Abeline that doesn¡¯t age. An Abeline that will wake next to you every morning, and smile, and have with you the quarrels she is supposed to have as a good partner.¡±

    ¡°No illusionary bitch can match my ability to feed a baby whilst I carry it over my head. Horrid monster Abeline one, cute unblemished Abeline zero.¡±

    I stood and turned towards her. ¡°Shut up! I am trying to free you, my love. It¡¯s no easy task.¡±

    ¡°Free her¡­ and have this.¡± The illusion gestured towards her body, a mixture of those of the third and second Abelines, the real and the ideal. ¡°Francisco, I can be a really good girlfriend. I studied humans a lot.¡±

    ¡°Why am I alive? Why?¡± screamed Gadorprims, despairing a bit more with each word.

    ¡°You know, Gador mon amour: Jillsenbane needs a parting gift.¡±

    Gadorprims began to fight against his prison, making the flesh bulge out and the surface betray the shapes under it, but it didn¡¯t budge. Not a centimeter of tissue budged.

    ¡°Pawn, the sword will eat my soul, it will, it will, it always eats the souls of dragons in her last meals. You would be doing something way worse than killing me.¡±

    ¡°And yet better than grafting a¡ª¡± one of the passing ghosts slapped Abeline to shut her up.

    ¡°I offer you your Abeline, prior to the weird over-fixation on the least horrible modification her body underwent.¡±

    ¡°I... I cannot accept your offer in good faith. I want her, the Abeline in my dreams; I would prefer it to be her,¡± I pointed at my ex-girlfriend with my right index finger. How mistreated was my nail, that it looked like a deformed claw, ¡°The Abeline in the web; but I can only have her,¡± then I turned again towards Scarreladai, ¡°The Abeline for which I¡¯d need to hand you control over the world.¡±

    ¡°If you are not able to kill your lady, your new Abeline, the world is already mine, Pawn. Worry not, I¡¯ll let life and what you call beauty be. Otherwise, my art would not be¡­ sustainable,¡± The Fourth Abeline licked her lips and then embraced me. She was lovingly warm, cotton soft, and smelled like the perfume she wore before we, optimistic and full of tomorrows, parted from town and came to this cave.

    ¡°Can you make it tailor made to me? Every last detail? Can the illusion be so perfect that, once immersed, breaking from it would feel like encroaching madness? Can you make me the hero I wanted to be? Make me believe I killed you, that this all was a nightmare, that I retired from the adventuring life and¡ª¡±

    She shushed me and placed two fingers from her other hand over my lips. ¡°Anything that can and cannot be, Pawn. With a spell so powerful, so well crafted, that you will never wake up from. A heaven tailored for you, despite your sins, despite your shortcomings. Haven¡¯t you spent enough time in hell? Wouldn¡¯t it be nice if it had a patina of paradise painted over?¡±

    ¡°Yes, it would be. Hell yes, it would be! Please, my dear Lady, please.¡±

    ¡°Francisco, you immature coward! Will you replace me with a lying dragon?¡± questioned the second Abeline, extending the hands that were on her shoulders, signaling as if she were about to strangle me.

    ¡°Yes, why not. I am tired, Abeline. I am old. You are dead, you should be dead, a bygone. Look at what you are. Don¡¯t you want to rest in peace? Don¡¯t you want to¡ª¡±

    ¡°You are a rat, Pawn,¡± Interrupted Gadorprims, who had long stopped fighting against his flesh cocoon. ¡°As much of a rat as I am for thinking I could get away with being her mate. A dirty, basic, scared rat.¡±

    ¡°Rats want to live and be rats, Gadorprims, they eat their legs to get out of traps. If I have to live my remaining days believing myself a sewer-dwelling rodent, I will.¡±

    ¡°Scarreladai can arrange that, swine. So come, kill me so she spares my children, make the sword devour my soul, see if you don¡¯t suffer every time you sleep, see if you don¡¯t exchange the world dreams and reality have. I sinned out of a dragon¡¯s hubris, I thought my children would inherit the world if she was their mother. There are two hearts in this room that Jillsenbane would love to pierce, to taste the sweet blood coursing through them. Don¡¯t you feel her dying inside every second you don¡¯t use her to kill us? So feed her if you will, but know that she would be infinitely more sated by her soul than mine.¡±

    The fourth Abeline raised her open hand and slowly closed it, smirking. Gadorprims gasped for air and shrieked as I heard something break, crack. The gore-angel wings around the tortured dragon.

    ¡°I have a beating heart. I have a burning dragon soul that Jillsenbane would love to consume. And I have the key to your happiness. Fight me and perish, knowing a simple explosion won¡¯t even scratch me, or, even if by some miracle you win, remember you are now old, remember your woman is disfigured and dead. You have no family nor friends, you lost most of your hair, and developed a hunch. I hold the sole key to your happiness, Francisco, so think it pretty well. Which one will you feed to Jillsenbane?¡±

    I looked at Gadorprims, knocked out, with his head limp and fallen, striving to breath and doing so slowly. I looked at the second Abeline, heartbroken, despondent, looking at both her open, trembling hands with the head tilted so the breast would not obstruct her vision. Were it not for her, Gadorprims would have escaped, and with him the chance to destroy Jillsenbane. I looked at the undead and pulsing horrors that surrounded us. I looked at my malnourished torso and trembling hands.

    ¡°I hate you, Scarreladai. But yours is the key to my happiness.¡± I drew Jillsenbane and pointed her in the direction of Gadorprims. ¡°I hate you almost as much as I hate myself. But today I earn the flawless world you offer. No more Jillsenbane, and no more Gadorprims, in exchange of no more suffering or sadness or nights without my beloved.¡±

    ¡°Stop!¡± cried the second Abeline.

    ¡°No,¡± I said without turning, gesturing the fourth Abeline to proceed. ¡°You cannot offer me what she can. You are dead, my Eurydice, and I was not man enough to go into the Hades and try to save you when I had the chance. Let this parody of Orpheus be dismembered by his own disgrace too.¡±

    Abeline shook her head. ¡°I mean, conjoin a breast to his face first!¡±

    Scarreladai had enough. The fourth Abeline sprouted tattered blue wings and flew up to where the second was. A blue spark appeared in the darkness, both of Abeline¡¯s eyes staring at each other in a way they should never have. The fourth Abeline opened her mouth impossibly wide, and in flash, the dragon beneath replaced the girl for a fraction of a heartbeat. The second Abeline stared fearlessly, almost bored.

    ¡°Goodbye Francisco. Have a good lie,¡± she said with a sweet voice, closing the only eye that still belonged to her. Seconds later, her severed head was on its way to Scarreladai¡¯s stomach. Not much time elapsed until the dragon had consumed her chest and abdomen too.

    ¡°Pop the eye too!¡±

    ¡°What?¡± asked the dragon, now unmasked.

    ¡°Pop out her eye, destroy it, have no remain of Abeline left here.¡±

    ¡°Do your task, servant, and you shall have it all:The illusions, her eye to keep or dispose of, and my absolution for attacking me back then. Jillsenbane dies today, and I want to be in the first row for her execution.¡±

    I defused all my sigils. They would do me no good anymore.

 Final Chapter: Emptying Pandoras Box.

    The undead were gathering below and to the sides of the chestipede, supporting him hands up, at the same time that it held femurs and humeruses horizontal with both hands and intestines, such to make steps for me to climb onto. Scarreladai awaited, looming above us, watching supported by the net that used to host Abeline at is center. She balanced on it like an elephant over a cobweb, peeking from between the holes in the meat lattice.

    Heavy, each step was heavier than the last. I didn¡¯t feel weak, but I had put Jillsenbane away: carrying her on my bare hand felt like grasping hot-red iron. Moon and stars watched disappointed as I ascended the stairway to my fall.

    ¡°I am sorry Gadorprims, I am sorry, Abeline, I am sorry, mom, I am sorry, dad, I am sorry, humanity, I am sorry, dragons, I am sorry, Carmela¡­¡± I mumbled as I battled with myself to take yet another step and approach Gadorprims, who had been repositioned, and now laid spread, like a Vitruvian man with wings.

    I stared into his weary eyes, and he only blinked. Gone was the haughty dragon from them already, even if the body still lived.

    Readying Jillsenbane before I decided to once again betray and run away and suffer horribly in the hands of Lady Scarlet, my hands trembled as, with one foot on the last step and another on the anterior, I raised the sword with her point down ready to stab the dragon¡¯s chest with all my might. A ritual sacrifice to release me of the only evil that remained in Pandora¡¯s box.

    ¡°Any last words, Gadorprims? Please have some,¡± I whispered between tightly shut teeth.

    ¡°Spreader of buffonic plague: Rat and clown. Hurry up.¡±

    ¡°What will happen to you? When Jillsenbane devours your soul.¡±

    ¡°I will merge with the fragment of Jillsen and float in the ether of inexistence as my personality and thoughts are eaten away by the gods hatred and desire for vengeance. Sounds like a fly through the park, don¡¯t you think?¡± he then coughed some blood. ¡°My ribs are broken, my legs, arms, wings, too. She mushed me up. Finish the job.¡±

    ¡°Jillsenbane, this is the last of all dragons. I relieve you from your duties!¡±

    I closed my eyes and plunged the sword down, missing and making a burning wound across the skin that the sword¡¯s edge slid against.

    ¡°Useless even for this. Buffon.¡±

    I looked back at Scarreladai. She observed frozen, like a gargoyle with seventeen blue eyes on her head, and one held carefully between her front teeth, entangled in her tongue, ready to be swallowed as soon as the butler completed his chore.

    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    ¡°Jillsenbane, this the last of the children of Jillsen. I release you from existence, this is your last job.¡±

    I took another stab, this time trying from a low angle, trusting the sword up between Gadorprims ribs.

    The light was blinding. And tripped and rolled downstairs, only to be caught by a segment of the chestipede after two or three steps. I observed helplessly and scared how white light escaped violently out of Gadorprims chest as he gestured a scream but no voice came off. His whole body began burning with white, holy flames. The fire burned down the undead scaffold, destroying the mockery of an angel and making Scarreladai jump from the web before they reached her too. I was soon surrounded by fire that burned nothing but the undead it touched, as Scarreladai ran way to a safe place, above the hole. She cut the pillars at the half of their height so the flames wouldn¡¯t come out of the fleshy hole. From there, as if night had become night illuminated by a heavenly sun, I saw her take flight, describing circles high above, while the drying breath of Jillsenbane couldn¡¯t reach her. a shiny thing fell from the sky as a drop of manna, and when I caught it in my cupped hands, I noticed it was her eye. Being it an undead too, it got quickly consumed while still in my hands. I kissed the ashes.

    ¡°You are free, Abeline. Enjoy your death.¡±

    After a while, when the flames died out, Scarreladai came back down. Noon was advising its arrival above us, attenuating the scars and the moon, claiming the sky should be blue red to announce the beginning of a new day. Days that Abeline now has again.

    She found me crying, head down. , despondent, waiting for carrion birds to take me.

    ¡°Were you looking for this?¡± she produced my diary from under her closed paw.

    I snatched her from her claws and checked it to verify it all ways intact.

    ¡°Thanks how, thoughtful of you.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t mention it. Grab that and test it.¡± She gestured at the charred bones of Gadorprims, at the darkened and opaque Jillsenbane. I plucked her off from the rib she had pierced, and the bone crumbled to dust. Swung the sword, it felt different.

    ¡°Is it dead?¡± she asked, lowering her head like a submissive dog.

    ¡°We need to run a test. Do you mind losing the tip of your tail?¡±

    ¡°A small price to pay for peace of mind, and it can always grow back,¡± Scarreladai turned, and presented her long, needle tipped tail to me.

    I swung Jillsenbane against it, the sound of metal against a wall inundating the cave system. No dent could be seen in the skin of the dragon.

    ¡°She¡¯s gone. Jilly¡¯s gone. Fulfill your end of the bargain.¡±

    ¡°Throw that thing away first¡± she ordered, making her disgust visible by a gesture with a forepaw.

    ¡°I am keeping it as a memento. It¡¯s my Jillsenbane, live or dead.¡±

    The dragoness sighted, and she hid her appearance beneath that of the fourth Abeline, that now donned the long, red, scaly dress of Lady Scarlet.

    ¡°As you wish. Before your happy ever after, finish your diary, I¡¯d hate for you to leave that thing unconcluded after all the problems it caused¡­ And the blessing it brought. Follow me to the throne room, this place is a crematory, and I am more of a cemetery girl.¡±

    <hr>

    So, whoever is reading this, this is how I damned humanity to be at the beck and call of a dragon, where she to wish so. Hate this pawn, this butler if you want. And if you want to tell me things to my face, you know where to find me: I¡¯ll be between the arms of my beloved Abeline, the one that I can have, the one whose love for me is a real as she is. I¡¯ll be maybe in a beach, in a palace, in a mansion, in a park, all of them inside Scarreladai¡¯s lair. Pray were you to visit, be extremely polite, lest you want to find yourself in the service of Lady Scarlet.

 New story similar to Lady Scarlet: If Our Rains Never Return.

    I just started posting it today, but if you still need to scratch that itch for Dark-ish fantasy, I began posting If Our Rains Never Return, the story of Ald, a non-human farmer torn between staying home taking care of his little sister and aiding his town with unveiling what causes a a demographical drought that could kill civilization as he knows it. Spurred by the crisis, he will leave home with a sour taste in his mouth, venturing past the city walls, into the wilderness dominated by the deformed children of his own people.

    Given Lady Scarlet is completed, I decided to use this space to promote myself, as it is not like you expect new chapters and would feel... betrayed, let''s say, if there is this sort of update taking up one of your notifications. If you do, I apologize.

    Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.

    I cannot promise much for this new story: it''s going to be short, probably shorter than this one. I can promise a unique, if unfair, setting; No-human mortals meddling in the matters of gods, hard decisions, and a conflict with no clear good side or solution. All of this narrated in third person.

    Down in the note is the link, please feel free to take a look at it: