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Leonard was in charge of the cooking on that dreary night. Seere sat across the fire from him. Caim observed the both of them in eternal silence. His back leaned against the scarlet scales of an imposing, winged beast. She lay sprawled around the dancing flames, tail coiled in a defensive circle.
He idly stirred the contents of his bowl.
It was a stew. A bland stew that amounted to boiled mushrooms and stale cabbage. Caim swirled the ooze. It was as beige as the lonely moss drooping down from the canopy overhead. Squeaking bats scattered across the sky. Their jagged outlines darkened the glow of an uncomfortably full moon.
The Red Dragon let out a careless yawn. “Imperial territory is another day’s flight from here, and they know we’re coming. They’re sure to reinforce their border.”
“All the more reason to recoup now,” came Leonard’s perpetually dramatic tone. “We may not get another chance to relax like this.”
The Dragon scoffed. “I’m still stuffed from the cattle those farmers were so generous to donate to our cause this morning.”
Generous donation!?
Caim nonchalantly recalled the tactics she used to “convince” those villagers to part with a few of their more sizable cows. Her tail was a mighty weapon indeed. Especially when it came to smearing impoverished peasants across dirt pavement.
The Prince returned his attention to the barely edible meal in his bloodstained palms. Empty thoughts came and went. The voices of his party members melded into the background. One of those voices was mysteriously absent. He looked rightward. A lone bowl of untouched soup lay steaming on the ground.
And he was not the only one to notice.
“Where’s Arioch,” asked Seere.
The Red Dragon rolled her eyes. “Pah! Probably off foraging for small orphans to feast on. You know her type, boy.”
“I’m getting worried. She’s been gone for a couple hours. Her food’s getting cold.”
“Then why not go look for her,” the oversized lizard teased. “I’m sure it’ll work out well for you.”
Seere glared at the Red Dragon. She was being abnormally impish this evening. He glinted at the woods. A shudder ran down his spine. Twisted, diseased trees flanked them on all sides. Sickly branches intertwined in a web of uninviting overgrowth. He shifted about but never could bring himself to strike out on his own.
After a few silent moments passed, Caim took a deep breath. Before he could even stand, The Red Dragon read his intent like the pages of an open book.
“Where are you going?”
Caim stood up. He rubbed the bite marks still aching on his shoulder. With a gulp, he took up Arioch’s bowl and set off into the woods. The Dragon’s frustration chased after him like a buzzing wasp.
“Don’t get us killed!”
Finding Arioch was not as hard a task as he initially thought. Unfortunately. He cleared the first tree line and caught sight of an infernal glow flickering in the distance. He made his way to it and stumbled upon her. She had her own little camp going. She sat hunched over a small fire. Slender arms coiled around her nimble knees.
It was an isolated little spot. A modest clearing amid a wall of trees and bramble. Undine and Salamander danced in orbit far overhead. Their contrasting light sparkled above the dreary woods. His approach was no secret. Arioch turned the instant she heard a twig break beneath his boot. Undine and Salamander slowed their orbit.
“Good evening,” the wisps spoke as though they were one.
Their droning voices never failed to make Caim’s skin crawl.
To his surprise, Arioch waved. She patted the dirt. Caim shambled over, although, he was not so quick to plop down. He examined her. She stared back at him with a stupid-looking smile on her face. A more friendly smirk but it was still Arioch. Nothing she did could escape her aura of madness.
Her weapon jutted from the ground on her right. She could reach for it at any time and he would be hard-pressed to stop her. He glinted at the fire. A primitive stack of burning kindling and dried moss.
The elf’s eyes wandered to the bowl in his hand. He held it out and she wasted no time claiming it. Her smile widened. Pearly, predatory teeth gleamed in the moonlight. Caim shifted uneasily. He had faced countless opponents before without flinching, but her? She was a different story. Especially at night.
“Thank you,” said Undine.
Caim gave them both a sort of look. They swirled without worry about him.
“We meant no slight,” said Salamander.
“We sat by ourselves,” added Undine.
United, they concluded. “And lost track of time.”
Caim shrugged. He intended to drop off her meal and leave, but something kept him rooted in place. He looked down at her while she plucked out the mushrooms and scarfed them down.
Even he did not know truly what compelled him to sit down next to her. She was ignoring him at the moment but that could change in an instant. Maybe it was his curiosity. A curiosity about what this absolute basket case had to say for herself. Perhaps it was just the fact that she was an attractive elf. Regardless, he sat and waited.
A familiar voice came to him. “Bonding time,” Angelus jokingly whispered from the depths of his innermost thoughts. “She’s insane and there’s no helping her. Come back to camp before you lose your head.”
Caim shifted in the dirt. He made it a point that he had no intention of leaving. At this point, it was down to sheer laziness with a tinge of defiance.
“Be that way! But if you get us killed tonight, I’ll track you down in the next life.”
The voice of his pact partner fell to the wayside. He focused on the weird tune Arioch hummed between frantic bites. Strangely, it did not sound like it was coming from somewhere else entirely.
Whatever.
She ate quickly. It seemed she was just as hungry as everyone else. In a matter of minutes, the bowl was cast to the side.
He sat and listened. It was all he really could do these days. He wasn’t listening to her anymore. She was horribly out of tune. Instead, he lent his ears to the wild. Nary a creature stirred apart from a lone, rebellious bullfrog bellowing away somewhere nearby. He tried pinpointing it’s location but it was buried somewhere deep in the overgrowth.
“So pretty…”
Caim turned to the knife-eared freak. He reeled back at the sight of how close she had gotten. The little wiggle room between them had been cleared. She was suddenly mere inches away. Bright, manic brown eyes gleamed at the sword on Caim’s hip.
The jewel.
It was the jewel that captured her gaze. He could see but a tinge of green reflected off her dark irises. The Prince yanked it from its sheathe, and with a bit of reluctance. One of his more elegant weapons. A sword embroiled with giant emeralds in the hilt. He handed it off to her.
In response, Arioch took up her own blade if one could call it that. She passed it to him. Mildly curious, Caim took hold and examined it. The thing was a lot bigger up close than he previously realized. It was still soaked in blood. He wondered how much of that belonged to Empire troops, and how much of it belonged to the children she so craved.
“These jewels,” Arioch muttered. “My son would love to see them.”
Caim’s jaw very nearly dropped. Did she just speak a coherent sentence? He kept still and listened lest he distract her; lest she lose that remnant of sane thinking forever.
Her eyes were hazy, big, and a little dilated.
“He used to dig up quartz,” she went on. “He played more with shiny rocks than toys.”
Slowly, she cocked her head and flicked a prologued gaze his way. There was an unusual thirst hidden in them. Cascading shadows danced across her unreadable visage in tune with the dying fire. It was growing darker. Caim glinted at the pile of kindling. Nothing but ash and chunks of chard wood remained. The fire shrank and shrank. It was more coal than flame.
The last thing he wanted was to be alone in the dark with her.
“I like the way you kill them,” she whispered. Her lips parted, exposing gritted teeth. “The Empire. Waves and waves fall to you and your pet! It’s beautiful. I pass by those you leave behind and watch as their souls vanish into the next life.”
Caim savored his body count. Prided himself in it. No one hated the Empire more than he. Yet Arioch had a way of making anything sound more sinister than it already was. He almost felt a pang of guilt in his gut. Almost.
“Do you like me?”
Caim nearly choked. He glinted at her pact partners. There they were, still spiraling in the air like a binary star system forever locked in intertwining orbit with one another for all eternity.
He normally detested dealing with them. They were just a touch too off-putting for his liking. At least they were somewhat bearable, unlike Leonard’s wretched little bastard of a faerie. Yet for once he wished they would speak up. It was getting a little odd, how silent they were.
Say something! Anything!
“I try to kill them where you can see me sometimes,” Arioch rambled on. “I try to give them slower deaths when I think you’re looking my way.”
She leaned closer, pressing herself against him. Caim retreated until he fell over onto his back. Arioch promptly fell over with him. She caught herself and planted both hands on the ground. She gazed down at the Prince.
His hand hovered over his sword. Tainted fingers twitched in anticipation.
She pressed a finger to his lips.
“No fighting! Shh! Shh! Just tell me. Nod your head.”
Her fingertip trailed down his chin and neck and then found its way to his chest.
To even his own surprise, he did not immediately shove her off. He lay there in wait for what was about to happen. He took the time to study her features again. She really was pretty. Enough to make these advances difficult to resist. Then he started wondering, what if he just… nodded his head?
Her ears bounced with excitement. Thrilling anticipation.
The Dragon stirred again from the back of his mind. “Don’t fraternize with that lunatic!”
Her protests fell on deaf ears.
Arioch drew close until her lips tickled his. Caim’s eyes fell shut, and then…
“AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!”
The scream ripped through the nighttime air. The pair jolted apart. She glanced around. Caim frantically searched along with her as he lay there on the ground. Still straddled by his partner, he could do little else but survey.
No immediate danger. That scream certainly did not come from the other camp. It wasn’t raspy enough to belong to the Dragon. Undine and Salamander didn’t do it.
So who? What? When? Where? Why? How!?
Initial shock shrouded the elf’s face. It was swiftly replaced by a look of obvious frustration. She smiled down at Caim. “Later, then?”
She stood up. Caim followed and drew his bejeweled blade. Arioch took up her sickle.
“What was that,” came the Dragon’s voice. “Sounded like it came from the west.”
Caim turned and started his advance toward the tree line. He glinted back only to ensure Arioch was following before he disappeared into the wild. The elf followed close behind.
For quite a ways they walked. They strolled for long enough that Caim was starting to get bored. He had half a mind to drag Arioch back to the camp and pick up where they left off. It would be more interesting than this. The Dragon’s pestering only made it all the more infuriating.
“Who’d be out here this far into the wilderness? More importantly, do you need backup?”
Caim was amused by the fact that she waited for a bit before asking. He shook his head regardless. He knew full well they were not going to find anything. Aside from that one scream, the forest was silent. It was even quieter than before. At least, that’s what he thought.
It seemed Arioch’s big ears were for more than just show. They twitched. In a split second, she grabbed Caim by the collar and yanked him down behind a wall of thorny shrubbery.
Could you not have picked a better spot?
All of a sudden, she was trembling. Her eyes were peeled wide open with terror. Her pupils were locked on whatever was ahead of them. It was more than a little unsettling to see the resident eater of children afraid. He looked all around. Ahead, behind, side to side, and yet he found nothing at first. Not one iota of whatever had startled her so. As a matter of fact, where were Undine and Salamander?
An abrupt glow drew the prince’s attention back to the northern tree line. An absurdly bright light poked through every crack in the foliage. Every vine, every thorn, every leaf was surrounded by it.
Beyond confused, he took Arioch’s wrist and pulled her along. She dragged her heels, hissed, and whimpered. He ignored her. Whatever was wrong with her, he would deal with later. That light was the pressing matter. Where was it coming from? It was the dead of night in the middle of a vast wilderness with no civilization from here to the Empire’s borders.
What could it possibly be?
Laughter seeped through the dark woods. Childish laughter. People talking. Distant voices drew closer with every step. Arioch staggered behind him. He yanked her, not wanting to be slowed down.
He raised his sword. The last barrier between him and whatever was going on out there was a mass of bramble. Thorns and black wildflowers festered amid a lovely perfume. With a well-placed slice, the whole patch of briar came undone. The light flooded in. It blinded them both. White at first but then it blued and cooled into vibrant midday colors.
A village in the middle of nowhere. A village where Caim knew full well there should be none. Huts fashioned from the materials of the forest dotted the land ahead. Woodland elves stood scattered about this nest of abodes. Small children ran in circles by a mound of dirt nearby. Old women fashioned talismans from twine and twigs. They sat on their porches and quietly observed the passage of time without complaint.
Caim struggled to grasp what he was seeing. He looked back. The path behind him was still as black as midnight. The same old overgrowth entangled behind every twisted tree. Yet ahead was a little paradise.
He took another look at the residents. They were pale. Not fair like Arioch but simply pale as if they lacked blood in their veins. Their skin was almost bluish. The sun's rays passed right through them. Their figures were fuzzy against the down-pouring daylight. They were like memories streaking across his mind’s eye.
Arioch hid behind him. He felt her shift and tremble in abject fear. Just as he turned to see exactly where she was, he heard a man’s voice.
“Sweetie?”
Arioch froze. Her head rose. Beads of sweat descended her brow. Her shaking intensified as she poked her head around Caim’s arm.
A chestnut-haired elf approached. He was about Caim’s height. He came with such a benevolent smile on his face. A perfect contrast to Arioch’s quivering frown. He wore a burlap shirt that exposed much of his collarbone and neck. Stitches lined his neck as if his head had been cut off only to be sewn back on. His eyes were as lifeless as a corpse’s. The air around him chilled.
Caim merely stood in place and watched. It did not take him long at all to figure out who that was. He could tell just by the look on his companion’s face.
“Arioch,” the man asked again. So kindly. “What’s wrong? Sweetheart! You look like you saw a ghost.”
The Red Dragon watched Seere prance back and forth around the fire. His wild rain dance was certainly something to behold. She seethed inwardly. Her reptilian eyes fell upon Leonard. He lay in a stupor, frantically swiping at the air.
“It’s all a cycle,” he called out. “This cryptic puzzle! I’ll solve it myself!”
“Hold,” cried Seere from the other side of the fire. “Stay back, hussy! My very name brings kingdoms to their knees!”
The Dragon hissed. “What in the lowest hell is happening!? Have you both gone mad!? You were normal not five seconds ago! Well… normal by your standards.”
She watched them flail about. They were so lost in their delusions; so convinced by what they were seeing. Their pupils were dilated like saucers. Every move they made was sloppy, and completely out of character as if they were possessed.
“Dammit, Caim,” she called aloud. “Where are you!? Answer me!”
A thought occurred to the Dragon. She pushed out her head and got a closer look at an empty bowl of what used to be Leonard’s mushroom stew. She examined the disgusting bits left over. She then cast her head over her shoulder. Diced ivy lay in a pile nearby. Leonard never went far to forage.
She got up and moseyed over. A few mushrooms lay scattered across the ground. Some were intact, and some were left slumped over after their neighbors were plucked from the earth. Fresh holes riddled the dirt where Mycelium fruits had been yanked free. She studied what few mushrooms Leonard didn’t pick.
She counted not one but two species nesting side by side. One was all white. A meaty snack if she was not mistaken. But then there was the other. A fair-colored fungus to be certain but not solid white. It had a white stem but the cap was just barely touched with a shade of gold. The gills beneath its flared head were a deep, royal purple.
Her snake-like pupils rolled from one side to the other. She fought back the urge to burst out into an infernal laugh.
“You gods damned boy lover! How could you be so STUPID!?”
At the very least, it was bound to be an interesting night.
Arioch remained utterly beside herself. A rotting cloud of gloom surrounded her. It infected her very aura. Caim merely sat back and watched. He was out of place here. He rested his chin in his palm and calmly observed. It was such a beautiful day out.
At the dining table, they sat. At the center was a domed platter. A meal waiting to be unveiled. A small room in what Caim could only assume was the home of this elven stranger. Perhaps it looked familiar to Arioch as well. She kept her head down like a child being scolded for some simple wrongdoing. She avoided looking at her surroundings at all costs.
“That’s some story,” the smiling man said. He turned to Caim for the first time since they sat down. “And you don’t like to talk much do you?”
Caim just shook his head.
“I understand.”
It was a homely chamber. Leafy curtains tinged the intruding sunlight with a beautiful lime hue. Ribbons of green-tinted sunlight bounced off empty glasses and shined across sparkling plates. Drifting dust spotted the air like little wisps shining in a flourishing swamp. The air had a cleanliness to it.
Shadows framed themselves around the elven man. He still had a bit of a glow to him. A radiance that showed through his semi-transparent form. If Caim stared hard enough, he could see right through him. The shadows he cast looked almost like the sketched edges of an artist’s drawing come to life. He smiled but Caim saw no liveliness in it. His head was hung low as if it were too much of a struggle to hold it high.
A melancholic serenity in the middle of a nighttime forest.
How the hell do we get out of here?
“I was always worried,” the nameless one admitted. His blissful smile grew. “I never did know what happened to you. I’m glad you made it out alive. And fighting the Empire with none other than the heir to the Union throne. That’s really something. You make us all so proud, dear.”
She sank lower in her chair. Caim listened to her story just as intently as her deathless husband. She had… left out a few details.
Caim had trouble looking her way. The despair was starting to become contagious. It was quite the sight. To see the craziest member of his party reduced to that. A trembling wreck. Her pointed ears drooped like a submissive dog. He almost wanted to intervene.
And do what?
He sat quietly. He minded his own business to a point. It was her imagination he was trapped in. It was the only explanation he could make for himself. Somehow he had been sucked into her encephalopathic mind amid a psychotic break, and all he could do was spectate.
You do it to yourself.
The phantom spoke up again. “And I also heard you had a change in diet.”
Finally, Arioch looked up. For the first time, Caim could see the tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Yep! No more leafy greens for you. And guess what! I’ve got just the thing for you. Dinner’s ready!”
He reached out and moved the silver dome off the plate hidden beneath. Revealed below was no elaborately prepared meal. It was a live, squirming infant. Caim’s stomach nearly somersaulted. The pointed ears were all that differentiated it from a human baby. The child had Arioch’s same brown eyes. There was no question in Caim’s mind to whom the infant belonged.
Arioch wheezed. She tilted back and fell to the floor on her hands and knees. Wretched gargling filled the room. She vomited up a gory ooze. It splattered across the ivory floor. Blood and guts melded into one horrid concoction. One by one, faces began to form within the rancid slime. The faces of every child Arioch had slain and eaten along the way.
She kept puking up more and more of these hellish faces. Ghostly expressions warped their bleeding visages. Pleas for life exuded from their liquefied throats in abnormally deep tones. Tiny hands reached up to the elven woman. Either to beg or to shield themselves from her inevitable bite.
Caim scooted away from the table and reached for his sword. Instinctive revulsion overtook him. They had to leave. This place was not real. It couldn’t possibly be real.
Their elven host, still smiling away, turned to the prince. “There’s no war here. No murder in this realm of those already murdered. Attachment is life. Life is suffering. Stay with us. You’ll never know pain again.”
The same villagers he saw roaming the outside of town suddenly materialized in the light by the windows. They appeared in rows all around the room. All of them were pale and lifeless. Dozens of empty eyes fell upon Caim. They remained motionless, even as Caim stood and pulled his dazzling sword.
He glinted down at Arioch. She was virtually incapacitated.
This place… it’s only for dead people. We have to go!
Caim swung his weapon. A flurry of torrential fire stuck to the homely walls and set them ablaze. The bright light of perpetual noon darkened with the hues of infernal scarlet. The fire spread to the ceiling. The whole structure burned away like a paper illusion. Revealed above, and flavored with smoke, was the sky of day.
So blue!
But it wasn’t daytime. It was the middle of the night. Caim was not so lost in this delusion to forget. He sliced the air again. It was more of a panicked flail than the usual precise swings he was known for. Anything to end this terror of the mind.
Returning to the physical world. That was all that mattered.
Another swing of his sword carried weight. He cut through something. He saw nothing but felt the telltale resistance in his blade. Suddenly, it all came undone like an untangling ball of yarn. The sky above, the burning walls around him, the scorched ground below, it all shattered like immaculate glass.
The light of a false sun diminished into pasty moonlight. Apparitions of a bygone village all fragmented into sharpened fractals. Each shape was flat and reflective. Nightly light bounced off them and reflected onto Caim, the face of countless people. All of whom he vaguely recognized in some way but could never fully recall. Every face he saw in those hundreds of reflections was contorted with agony after being brought low by his sword. Faceless, red-eyed Imperials hidden behind masks. Citizenry who he so much as suspected of Imperial sympathies. They all gathered in this shattered mirage of damnation.
The shards dissolved into the rays of moonlight that pierced the entangled canopy. The whole world came back to him. He collapsed flat onto his face and rolled over. His eyes locked with the canopy. Arioch was still somewhere nearby. He could hear her still gagging, throwing up the contents of her own imagination.
Between gargled groans, she pleaded with the indifferent heavens above. “Please don’t leave me again. Not again!”
Caim left her alone. He watched the leaves rustle above. They warped unnaturally. They moved with a waviness as if the whole forest was breathing. The grass beneath him tickled him with ominous electricity. He could not hold back a smile once thought extinct to him.
Undine and Salamander floated in orbit above him. He wondered where they had gone to. Blue and red streaks moved counterclockwise in dizzying patterns. The world became fuzzy. It sizzled. Color patterns changed right in front of him. Greens, reds, yellows, and especially blues rippled like loose skin over every surface.
Had he gone insane? Had Arioch’s madness become contagious?
He did not know and momentarily did not care.
All the warrior prince could do was roll around in the grass and giggle like a child.
At one point he reached out for Arioch's hand. Suddenly remembering he was nearby, she took it and fastened her grip.
They wrapped their limbs around one another. The pair entangled tightly and clung for dear life lest the other be swept away in this river of ever-changing color.
From dusk till dawn.
Hours passed...
All things pass.
“Get up!”
Caim felt a nudge at his side.
Her voice was as cold as ever. Just like a reptile.
She nudged him again. Her snout gently brushed his torso. Even that slight motion was near enough to flip him over.
“Come on. Stop lazing about!”
Caim rolled over on his back. His eyelids peeled open. Daylight flooded in. True daylight. He sat up and brushed the grass and dirt off his face.
The Dragon was the first face he saw. Burning eyes glared into his very soul. Undine and Salamander soared above her. Their trailing flames formed a halo over her scale-plated head.
She cocked her horned head. “Bad trip, huh? Well, you can thank Leonard for that. Fool got his mushrooms mixed up. Sent all of you clear to another world for the night.”
She moved back as Caim rose to his feet. The Dragon watched her soul-bonded partner for a moment. His eyes were already locked on the elf sitting on a log across the field. She fiddled with a stick, tossing it up in the air only to catch it and repeat the process all over again. Her lips moved but only mad whispers spilled from her venomous tongue.
Together they watched her, but neither approached.
“Those mushrooms,” the Dragon went on. “They can fix what’s broken just as easily as they can break what’s pristine. They’ll vivisect your mind and make you watch. Point out all your littlest flaws and laugh. But alas, the effects as with all of nature’s wonders are fleeting. A temporary transformation that always ends with you face down in the dirt. Right back where you started.”
Her amber eyes wandered back to Caim. From her angle, she could only see the back of his head. A gentle breeze rustled his matted locks.
“Or so I’m told…”
For the briefest moment, Arioch looked up. Caim froze in place for a moment. He almost held his breath. Then her eyes wandered aimlessly elsewhere. She glanced not at him but through him. She promptly went right back to her muttering and hungering. Right back to her madness.
“Must’ve been some night,” the Dragon murmured. “Found you two huddled up in a pool of your own tears and vomit. You’ll have to tell me about it on the way.”
With that, she turned and trotted off.
Caim gave Arioch one last look. He frowned. There was no fixing that.
…Just like Mother used to say.
Caim turned his back and he did not spare her another glance. He tossed his sword up over his shoulder and marched off.
“Such a beautiful day,” the Red Dragon mused as if nothing had changed. “And what’s first on the agenda, your highness?”
Caim cast a half-hearted glance heavensward.
A bath.