A Touch of Poison

by Aaron Kite

  Gwen said nothing, and merely stared down at her rapidly cooling bowl of curried pineapple, wondering where her appetite had gone.

  “Oh, and there’s one last thing, Gwenwyn. I’d especially like to thank you, Daughter,” Bryn said, somehow making his self-assured grin even wider as he regarded her. He folded his hands over his stomach and leaned back in his chair, the very picture of relaxed contentment. “Thank you so much for telling me about those little tricks you managed to figure out, those loopholes in the geis you discovered. Touching flowers, reciting fairy tales, all of it. Very informative. I thought I’d covered all the possible ways you could get around the compulsion, but obviously there were a couple I hadn’t considered. I’ll be making sure the next geis sphere I arrange for you doesn’t allow for any of those possibilities.”

  He wanted to upset her, she realized, to intimidate her. That was the whole reason for this visit. He was re-asserting his control. That’s why the guards with the hoods were here, to intervene should she become upset enough to spit at him again, or attempt to touch him. He wanted to show her he still held all the cards, and perhaps break what remained of her spirit.

  Gwen just sat there, staring off at nothing.

  But he hadn’t won. There was still one thin strand of hope Gwen was desperately clinging to. She knew about chi’darro now, knew how its effects might be undone. Five days without it, and she might no longer be this way, no longer a deadly weapon wielded by her father. In five days time, she could be watching all his plans unravel like a poorly woven blanket.

  She’d save this Prince Gavin from her father. Then, perhaps, the prince might be able to save her.

  For now, though, she had to let him believe he’d won.

  Raising her head slightly, she gave Bryn a cold, impassive stare from where she sat. Then, after a few moments of that, she moved to rise from her chair.

  The two guards instantly moved forward, placing themselves between Gwen and where the smiling king sat.

  Gwen picked up her bowl. Glaring first at the two guards, and then her father, she walked slowly and deliberately down the length of the table, stopping once she was within reach of the stewing pot. Her hand trembled slightly as she lifted the ladle and spooned two additional helpings of boar with curried pineapple into her bowl, all under the watchful eyes of the two armoured guards.

  Then, stopping only to pluck a silver spoon from her place-setting, she walked away from the dining table and headed towards the hallway doors.

  “Well then,” Bryn called loudly from his seat, laughter in his voice, “that’s it, is it? You don’t find any of these other dishes to your liking? Well, no matter. I’ll pick out the rest of the feast myself. I’ll be sure to inform the cook he’s to prepare a generous amount of curried pineapple, of course.”

  His tone was mocking, and she could picture the triumphant look on his face. A part of her desperately wanted to spin around and hurl curses at him, but she held herself in check. Whenever she spoke to him in anger, she always ended up giving away information she didn’t intend, and she had no wish for him to learn of her most recent discovery. Not yet.

  Five days from now, however….

  Gwen kept walking, her father’s voice following behind her.

  “Yes, you may be excused, I suppose. Obviously you’ll soon be busy getting fitted for dresses, picking out decorations with your lady-in-waiting, all of that exciting stuff.” She heard him laugh. “I’ll have some seasoned food sent up to you once I’ve finished sampling all of these wonderful, wonderful dishes.”

  Gwen pushed the door open and walked into the hallway, leaving the king and his escort behind. She drew a couple of deep breaths, forced herself to relax, and then headed down the hallway in the direction of her bedchamber.

  It would be important to keep up appearances these next several days. In a way, it was a lucky thing her father had wanted her upset, because it gave her an excuse to hole up in her tower, away from him and anyone who might report to him. Her meals would be brought to her chamber, she knew, which meant all she needed to do was get rid of the food and leave empty plates. With a little luck, she could stay up in her room for the whole five day ordeal, and no-one would be the wiser.

  She had to do this right. Five days without eating the herb, and she couldn’t let anyone figure out what she was doing.

  Clutching her bowl of stew close to her chest, she picked up her pace a bit as she walked down the hall, suddenly very eager to reach her quarters.

  Chapter 10

  Getting through the whole night without eating any chi’darro was a hell unlike anything Gwen had ever known.

  Gwen found herself shaking for no good reason. Her thoughts kept returning to the plate of lamb that had been brought up for her a few hours after she’d left her father in the dining hall. Figuring to hide it somewhere until she could safely dispose of it later that evening, she’d brought it into her room, dumped the food into an old, empty jewelry box in her closet, then left the empty plate on the stone steps just outside of her bedroom door.

  Then, for the next hour, it seemed as though she couldn’t think of anything but that cold chunk of lamb meat and serving of roasted potatoes, just sitting there in the bottom of her closet. No matter how she tried to distract herself, she’d find her thoughts wandering to the herb-covered food just waiting for her, less than four short strides from her bed.

  Finally, able to stand it no longer, she’d gone to her closet, fetched her jewelry-box, and thrown it out of her bedroom window.

  She watched the wooden case fall just shy of the moat, hitting the hard-packed ground heavily enough to break open slightly. Squinting, Gwen thought she could make out one of the potatoes.

  Shortly after disposing of it, she’d stared down at the small, broken box longingly for nearly ten minutes before realizing that’s what she was doing.

  Chiding herself for an idiot, Gwen returned to her bed, took a deep breath… and began thinking about the tiny flecks of blue-green herb still clinging to the surface of the empty plate that lay just outside her door.

  It took all of her will to keep herself from even opening her bedroom door to check the plate. Sometimes, she’d tried convincing herself she was just going to take a peek, so she could make sure it had been taken away by the castle staff. Deep down, however, she knew the real reason why she was tempted to open the door. It was those tiny flecks of herb, just sitting there.

  And so she’d forced herself to lie there on her bed, staring at the ceiling, trying like mad to think of anything besides how badly she wanted to kick her bedroom door open, pick up her plate and lick it clean.

  When she finally heard one of the servants creep upstairs and quietly take her plate away, she’d wept, but only partially from relief.

  Though exhausted, it seemed she could sleep no more than five minutes at a time, because every time she dozed off she would have such intense, nausea-inducing nightmares that she’d be jolted awake, her heart racing. Grotesque, misshapen monsters would appear from the shadowy recesses of her mind and chase her, calling her by name, laughing. Some would transform into a wolfish likeness of Anifail, snarling and bristling. Others would simply collapse before her and start smoking and bubbling, crying out in pain. Sometimes they turned into people she’d accidentally hurt during her childhood. Other times, they became enormous, whimpering dogs, looking at her with desperate, pleading brown eyes as they smoldered and burned.

  That had been Gwen’s first whole night without chi’darro, and it had been hell.

  The following morning was even worse.

  Bleary-eyed, Gwen staggered out of bed, feeling so weak and dizzy that she began to wonder if she’d caught some sort of cold the day before. She realized she’d lost track of time and had forgotten to wash herself last night, which was when she had originally planned to discretely dispose of the food that had been brought for her. Then
again, impulsively tossing her food out the window had eliminated the need for that trip, she supposed.

  In addition to feeling terrible, she noticed her neck was swollen slightly, and that she’d developed a strangely patterned rash high up on her arms, near the shoulders.

  It took nearly an hour for her to get dressed. At first she suspected something had been done to her clothing, because whenever she tried something on, it seemed to hurt. She even found her finely woven silk blouse scratchy and bothersome against her bare skin.

  Eventually she descended the stairs of her bedchamber tower, slowly and carefully, her legs trembling almost as badly as a newborn colt’s. Once she was safely down the stairs, Gwen made her way to the kitchen and informed the cook in an unsteady voice that she would like her breakfast sent up to her, due to the fact she was feeling sick.

  The expression on the cook’s face made it clear he required no convincing of this fact. He practically shooed her out of the kitchen with a half-loaf of rye bread and a cup of warm cream and honey, which he assured her would calm her stomach if it was giving her problems.

  Grateful for the fact that the cook had neglected to sprinkle either item with any herb, she accepted the proffered food, thanked him wearily, and began the impossibly long journey back to her bedchamber.

  Her legs cramped several times as she ascended the stairs to her room, forcing her to stop periodically. By the time she reached her bedroom door, she found herself out of breath and fighting to stay awake. Every part of her just wanted to lie down and rest.

  Gwen stumbled inside her room, almost spilling the contents of her cup while attempting to perch it and the rye loaf on a nearby stool. Then, bread and honey-cream forgotten, she fell into her bed. This time, unlike the previous evening, she was asleep the moment her head touched the pillow.

  And then her nightmares began anew, though stronger and more vivid than the ones from before. Each new dreamscape that popped into her head provided her with fresh horrors dredged from her imagination, impossible to ignore.

  Huge spiders with crowns atop their brow chittered at her from the darkness of a dungeon cell, their mandibles salivating, their legs twitching with eager anticipation. Dire wolves with hollow, bleeding eyes rushed at her from a copse of trees near the apple yard, snarling, and yelping, and frothing black tar from their mouths. Half-remembered toys and comfort dolls from her childhood playroom fell apart or began bleeding at her touch, shrieking for her to stop. Sad, mournful folk regarded her in the labyrinthine hallways of a dark, sinister castle, each of them holding up a mirror that Gwen found herself unable to look into for too long. Her reflections were always corpse-like, or snake-like, or some other foul horror to behold.

  In one mirror, she appeared as a likeness of her father.

  Her troubled sleep was deep as well, and when the sights and sounds of her night terrors were finally enough to jolt her out of her slumber, it seemed a comparative mercy. She lay there in bed for a long time after, trembling uncontrollably and gasping for breath.

  After a while Gwen slowly rose from her bed, her every muscle taut and sore, and she went to the window to try and gauge the time. According to the sun, it was still only mid-morning.

  One full day down, four to go.

  When she opened her bedroom door, Gwen discovered that a more substantial plate of breakfast had been left outside of it. There were poached eggs, a thick slice of ham, and a small wedge of yellow cheese, each of which had been dutifully covered with a small sprinkling of a familiar blue-green herb.

  She stood at her open door for a long, long time staring at the plate and its contents. Just the thought of being that close to the stuff stirred feelings of anxiety and dread. It felt to her as though getting too near her plate would result in her being unable to control herself.

  It was nearly five full minutes before she mustered up the courage to kick the plate and its contents over, sending them tumbling down into the darkness of the stairwell. Almost immediately she regretted her decision, since word of what she’d done might get back to her father, and she didn’t wish him to become suspicious during her ordeal.

  Kicking her food down the stairwell might be brushed off as a childish tantrum or something of that sort, which her father would likely interpret as sulking, so she’d probably be okay. Still, she resolved to make sure her next meal was disposed of properly. Like she’d planned.

  Closing her bedroom door, Gwen spied the food the cook had provided her with earlier, sitting there on a nearby stool. Realizing she was ravenous, she devoured the honey-cream and rye with wolfish abandon, though it seemed to taste far more bland and stale than it aught to have, especially with her being so hungry. Regardless, she finished it quicker than she’d thought possible, and prayed it would settle her roiling stomach as the cook had suggested it might.

  An hour later, she was practically hanging out of her bedroom window, retching noisily, clutching either side of the stone window frame for balance.

  She was there for a good fifteen minutes or so, alternating between being sick and taking huge gulps of air. When the intense nausea finally did pass, Gwen stumbled back to her bed and sat down, staring at nothing. The room was spinning a little, and dark spots appeared around the edges of her vision from time to time.

  Hunger no longer troubled her stomach, but her abdomen felt tight and cramped. Her throat burned, and she was parched.

  Her water jug was very nearly empty, she noticed. That was odd. She’d filled it last night, and couldn’t remember drinking from it recently.

  Gwen picked up the jug and, walking with slow, careful steps, she opened her bedroom door and headed back down to the kitchen. Somehow, this trip took even longer than it had earlier that morning. Though her legs were still shaky, she managed to haul the now-full jug, another loaf of bread, and a wedge of hard cheese up the stairs and back up to her room. While the very notion of eating was repugnant to her right now, gathering untreated provisions for later seemed like a good idea.

  Once she’d wrapped the food in a blanket and hidden it in her closet, she hobbled back over to her bed and sat down, smoothed her dress against her legs, sighed lightly… and then burst into tears.

  She didn’t even know why she was crying exactly, but she couldn’t seem to stop. It just felt like her entire world had suddenly transformed itself into an empty void — a vast expanse of bleakness and despair. She cried harder than she could remember ever crying before, and by the time she managed to stop she discovered her throat was once again parched, and the inside of her mouth had gone bone dry.

  Gwen drank almost half of the jug of water she’d brought upstairs with her. Then she decided to lay down on her bed and attempt to relax, perhaps stare up at the ceiling a while and just focus on breathing and calming herself. She inhaled a deep breath of air through her nose, and then another….

  And suddenly, it was late evening. Her entire room was dark.

  Perplexed, Gwen sat up in her bed, or tried to. Her arms felt shaky, and didn’t appear to be up to the task of propping her up. Groaning, she rolled herself to one side of her bed and lowered her feet to the floor, doing her best to ignore the cramps that had taken up residence in her calves and thighs, as well as the terrible itching sensation she felt around her shoulders and upper arms.

  She hadn’t slept, had she? It certainly didn’t feel like she’d slept, that was for sure. Her eyes felt dry and scratchy.

  After a few moments spent trying to steady herself and remain upright, she lit a lamp atop her dresser and then shuffled over to her door, feeling about a hundred years old. When she opened the door, she spied a bowl of stew and a small, buttered dinner bun sitting on the top stair. The stew had gone cold long ago, and looked slightly greasy.

  The smell of chi’darro and stew hit her without warning, and her stomach lurched unpleasantly. Gwen couldn’t tell if the smell was making her hungry or ill, but re
gardless, she covered her mouth and nose with her hand and hastily retreated away from the door.

  About a minute later, she found herself retching out of her window once more. Thankfully, it appeared there was nothing left for her stomach to get rid of this time.

  When Gwen came away from the window, her abdominal muscles were hurting quite a lot, especially when she tried to stand up straight. Hunched over, she walked back over to her open door and silently considered the bowl of stew, still half-covering her mouth and nose. A short while later she was rooting through her closet for some dress or other outfit she’d grown out of — one that might not be missed. When she found one, she brought it to the doorway, threw it over the bowl, gathered everything up into a bundle, and then dashed over to the windowsill and shoved the whole thing, dress, stew and all, out into the night air.

  She couldn’t see what happened to the clay bowl, but she could hear it crack and break apart as it careened off of the stone of the castle wall and fell to the ground below. That one definitely came short of the moat, she realized, and it was too dark to see where it ended up. Still, not many people walked the area between the wall and the moat, so it probably wouldn’t be noticed.

  A missing bowl might be noticed, however.

  Gwen cursed quietly under her breath. Why had she done it like that? She wasn’t being very smart about this at all! At the time it seemed like the most important thing was to get the food out of her room as quickly as possible, and she’d panicked. Why was the mere thought of that herb making her so anxious all of a sudden?

  Well, she should probably try to relax, possibly even try to sleep some more. It certainly felt like she needed it.

  Despite once again being exhausted, most of her evening was spent tossing and turning. She couldn’t get comfortable, and the itch that had started high on her shoulders was now bothering her lower back and legs. Any time she felt like she was about to drift off, she’d suddenly feel like she couldn’t breathe, and would sit up in her bed, gasping for air.