by Scott Beith
I abandoned every summoned minion at my disposal as I raised my hand to the sky in an attempt to dissolve it. Nothing happened – the shadow was self-sufficient and outside of my own temporal control.
I thought that was the end of me. I even closed my eyes not wishing to see its judgement coming down upon me, only to see one spider screech as two big fat shadowy blobs tumbled down the walls and toppled into the bioluminescent emerald poison below.
“My queen,” shrieked the stable master, running up to the highest point of his rocky throne seat to watch as the queen spider sunk and melted alive. The splash of the bile sending some spiders to fall into the acidic bile, just as others jumped and skittered away in attempts to dodge the rain.
I jumped onto my prince, my wings hissing as they boiled in melt over my head as I blocked both him and myself from the raining fallout, the rock island fell completely absent of all critters as I took the chance to run up to the deranged man sitting still in pain as small areas of his hair and skin melted away.
“ENOUGH!” I screamed. My hand thick and covered in black padded armour, nails wrapping around the stable master’s neck like claws, the power of my voice on top of it ferociously echoing across the chasm and its hollow middle expanse.
A proud moment of triumph for me, only to look across the acid moat that surrounded this island and see a runt spider with a scar, much like Vallah’s, fully swallowed into the pit.
The deranged stable master didn’t seem afraid of me, nor a great deal aware of where he was. My scare tactics were not as effective as I’d thought, considering I’d extended the length of my phantom arms enough to hold him over the cliff’s edge just above the toxic bile.
I could feel the rapid pounding of his racing heart, but yet still couldn’t seem to gain his attention as his eyes merely swirled under a deep hypnotic trance of lengthy delirium.
“You’re too late,” he said to me before chuckling, laughing psychotically as his eyes went back to wandering the globe, accepting his death. “He’s already been bitten,” he said with a second sinister chuckle, pointing to the prince as he continued to squirm weakly for freedom. “You might as well leave him here. It’ll be better that way.”
“Why? Why did you do this?!” I demanded angrily, ready to drop him, looking into two whirling eyes absent of all sense of self and soul. A small time passing without a response while he drifted in and out of consciousness, deliriously just staring up towards the cavernous tunnels high above, lost to the world completely, wasting vital time on a madman as I tried to resist all frustrated temptation to lighten the weight on my arm and let him go.
I didn’t, though, whether that was because of mercy or civil decency to consider someone sick instead of someone beyond salvation, I couldn’t say. I threw him back onto his throne to squander in agony so I could check on Arlo.
I re-summoned my ogre protector; it rose up once again like an iceberg on the rock being built by the hailstorm of all four corner walls of the chasm. I needed it thick and heavy so that it could lift the tied up prince. It took him in one hand and me in the other, fleeing from the lowest tunnel it came from as we made our escape.
Like a field-hopper the size and shape of freakishly large man, it jumped the gorge of where the bark bridge used to reside, landing us upon the lower cliff’s edge of the main land side as, once again, we were outside, overlooking the stars and sky via a whole new rejuvenated setting.
It was no longer a still and clear cloudless night, hitting my skin were sprinkles of a monsoon level downpour of rain. My ogre put us down safely and carefully, its large faceless exterior bending down over us, protecting us from the rain like an umbrella as I began to stretch and tear away at the thick silk covering Arlo. I managed to create enough of a hole near Arlo’s leg to retrieve one of his small daggers from his ankle holster and carefully slice through the cocoon in order to expose his face and help him breathe better.
I was afraid of how motionless he was being, as once I uncovered his face I could see his eyes were closed. At first I thought there was a chance he had no air in that cocoon, despite the many tiny holes were abundant across the rushed weaving of the silk cloth.
“Please tell me you’re ok,” I pleaded, placing a hand on his cheek to check for warmness.
His eyes half opened as I said it, a small amount of warmth across his cheekbones as he evaluated the sky with a similar delirium to the madman I had just held before. “It’s the sun,” he responded.
“Ok, ok,” I said back, smiling and relieved, thrilled to receive any response at all, regardless of how random it was. My grief returning quickly though as I tried to cut open more of the cocoon in order to let him out. ‘It’s not the moon,” he then mumbled, seeming to be hallucinating as he waved his recently freed hands weakly towards the night sky, my eyes veering down to see two fresh fang marks across his exposed arm, covered under small smears of his blood. His veins blue and enlarged as they grew outwards from the site of the bite mark.
“Ok, just stay with me,” I begged him. “You’ve been bitten, Arlo, and you need to tell me what to do,” I pleaded, not knowing a single thing about field medicine or first aid.
“It’s ok,” he replied, voice weak but calm. “I’ll be fine. Just go get the doctor for me ok.”
“Arlo,” I yelled in a more flustered panic, “there is no doctor out here,” I said, unable to sugar coat the situation, considering how much I needed him to help me. He had no idea about it, not until he looked down at himself to see the two huge fang marks on his left arm and the blue veins trailing from them, tracing all the way up past his shoulder blade as the spider’s venom crept towards his heart.
There was a tear in his eye as he refused to look back down at it; he was weary but alert again. Too distraught and expressionless to notice me in my own state of shock. I had pressed my hand to my mouth, fighting off tears and the urge to scream as I tried to reveal to him how little control I had upon the situation.
“What do I need to do, Arlo?” I said to a tearful plea and cry.
There was a look of fear and disheartening angst in his eyes as he looked up at me, unable to hide his own acceptance of what was surely to follow a bite from our spiders without the anti-venom: a motionless paralysis before convulsion, comatose and death.
“I’m going to get help,” I cried, standing up while he lay stiff inside the same tombing cocoon.
He grabbed my arm before I could get up. “Don’t. Don’t leave me,” he whimpered, the pale blue paralysis already kicking in as his arm remained frozen in clench of mine. I had to yank his hand off me before reaching to hold it. There was more I think he wanted to say, but rather than agony or pain, he seemed to just be fighting to keep his eyes open, almost as if he were already unable to speak anymore, but was instead strenuously trying to resist the desire to sleep and slip into his unavoidable slumber.
All I could do was stare at him, sitting there on the grass of a forest amidst the cold growing storm, just as numb and motionless as he had become... truly unable to feel, think, react or even understand.
I was just sitting there pointlessly, doing nothing as I watched him die. A strange world spiralling around us, helpless to interact with any of it, my own inability to react to something slowly killing my only kindred soulmate.
“I need to get you help, Arlo,” I cried to him, trying to pull away from his motionless body but stuck down by a clammy cold pale hand gripped around mine. “Arlo, please,” I said again, unable to affirm any response out of him. “No, no, no, this isn’t happening. Just wake up! Wake up PLEASE!” I cried out loudly. “SOMEONE HELP ME!” I shouted throughout the forest, only an ogre above us, looking back at me sympathetically.
I put my hand onto Arlo’s forehead, running my fingers across his hair and onto the side of his face, hoping for some form of twitch or movement of his eyes. Our hair and clothes were getting wet and cold through the splashing trickles of puddles forming on the mud-soaked grass of the cliff’s edge as
I looked out towards the colourless cliff-side expanse, rain dripping faster than my tears as I prepared to kiss Arlo a final goodbye.
“He wasn’t wrong, you know,” a soft female voice said from the trees above, stopping me from my surrendering farewell as I looked up, ecstatic just to hear the sounds of a familiar voice there to help me. “This is the sunniest morning we’ve had in years… I had almost forgotten what rain actually felt like.”
“Who’s there?” I called out.
“But it’s typical though,” said the voice of a girl as she dropped down from the canopy, the splash of her boots against puddling ground drawing my gaze to the tree she had jumped down from.
The figure wore a shroud and had her face covered by a bright blue scarf. She aimed at me with what looked like Zephyr’s infamous gold bow, an arrow pointed at my heart in her cautious approach. “He isn’t good for you, you know – always getting himself injured and leaving you to leap into the oblivion in chase of him, at least that’s how I remember it,” she said, her voice and facial shape identical to Anara’s, but just with a more sinister and malevolent tone to her voice. “As the other one said, you would have been better off leaving him there to a quick death.”
“Anara,” I called out to her in that short distance away, knowing it was her despite the shroud, “You’re a medic, what do I do?” I frantically cried out to her, unsure of why she was just standing there, pointing a bow at me rather than saving her dying brother. “Please, save him. Save your brother!” I demanded.
“I’m not a medic,” she protested.
“Do something! Please! What is wrong with you?!” I screamed at her.
Anara seemed hesitant to approach me, keeping her hand steady on the string of her gold bow as if she might need to use it against me, should I attack her. “Ok,” she eventually announced, walking closer towards Arlo and me. “Best you don’t look though,” she said, only to aim that arrow directly toward Arlo’s heart.
“No!” I shouted, my ogre slapping the bow from her hands angrily as she jolted backwards in trepidation of its size and hostility. “What are you doing?!” I yelled. One look into her deep blue eyes confirming she couldn’t be the princess I knew and loved – at least not anymore. Anger and disdain towards my prince was most evident across her face, making it seem as though she had no qualms about watching her brother slowly die”
“He has mere minutes left till the venom hits his heart. I’m sorry, but he’s beyond saving, Kya. It’s kinder to kill him quickly,” she said, retrieving her bow from the ground.
“Anara, please,” I begged, jumping up and standing between her aimed arrow and the prince upon her redrawing of it, “there has to be something you can do. Please!”
“I’m sorry for your loss, but I can’t save him, Kya,” she confessed, suddenly sympathetic to the situation, staring at me as I dropped back down to the floor to sit beside my prince one last time. “But… if you hurry, maybe there’s a chance someone else can.”
30
Regret
Time felt like sand pouring out of an hourglass. With each lunging step we took, I felt as though I was losing an extra piece of my prince to this world’s darkness. I wasn’t brave enough to look backwards and check on his bite mark, too afraid that I’d find the poison had already spread to a recently deceased beating heart.
Anara was in the unseen rainforest canopy above, firing flaming arrows from the skyline in order to guide me through her forsaken wilderness while she leaped, swung and bolted through the highest branches and vines safely above us.
Together, we were racing through a howling night of vicious predators, plunging ourselves down the long extinct rapids of an old stream-less river and its former rocky waterfalls. Slowly bringing us deeper inland as we were buried alive inside its high and treacherous jungle overhang, dodging all horned, clawed and fanged animals that stalked us from the lively rainforest branches and river shrubs along the grassy side trenches of the narrow river bed.
My legs were locked sternly upon the moulded saddle of a thin slender four- legged reptilian creature that I had carved and sculptured from my ogre guardian shear moments prior to our descent. It looked real enough to be both terrifying and fierce, but being built like a wingless dragon, it was also very slick and mobile in the way it quickly scurried itself through the black shrubbery of the deathly valley gulf during meal time.
My thighs clenched hard against its flat smooth scaly back, requiring a strength equal to that of a deadly choke-hold just to hang on to it each time a single sudden drop from the rapids bumped and rocked us about. Each uncontrollable bump along our dashing river descent was reducing that very hold I had affirmed upon the salamander I crafted and rode, at least just as much as it did to the loosening grip of my prince of who I was tackling to keep leeched upright upon my backside while his lifeless arms remained wrapped around my front like a belt across ones pants and chest, holding him so tightly I was more prepared to fall off the serpent beast along with him then I was to let him tumble off alone.
I didn’t feel in control of anything. I felt each jump and bump as if it were the one to knock us both off for good. Yet somehow, above all odds, I persevered through that everlasting struggle to cling to him and one of the many scaly horns spotted across the slippery and slimy head of my conjured lizard-like protector.
In retrospect, my greasy choice of creation was not ideal for the exact situation, but it did its job well enough, given the rushed state of things. Lizards were notorious for being swift and agile under forest vegetation, capable of dodging adversaries and moving fast, which was paramount to Arlo’s survival if we were to find Rouge Anara’s refuge in time.
I had imbued as many protruding spikes onto the creature’s side as possible, using them as foot locks and sharp bent handle bars as the creature slithered in its pursuit under broken tree branches and through the dark forest shrubbery, sniffing for the smoke of arrow fire sent by the rouge above, who was guiding us towards her alleged safe haven.
On a mission, I felt like I was helplessly tipping over all the time, yet managed to resist the urges of slowing down. Instead just battling to avoid each fast upcoming branch and bush ahead of us, constantly blinded by mountains of mud getting hurled into my eyes and face after being kicked up from the swampy river bed by the beast with each jump and step it made upon its speedy descent.
There was a thick coating of wet sand and silt being glued into the grimy skin of the beast, making the skin feel even grosser than how it started. Although with it proving supremely effective at preventing other pouncing critters from pinning the creature I rode down, as my serpent continued to stomp and slither valiantly through the gauntlet of flying bugs, thick fanged gnats and all things clawing across the ground.
Unlike me, the creature I made was fearless, and was undeterred by the screeches or the attempted grabs made against its wet skin. The beast continued to scuttle, jump and belly flop right down the river track towards its lowest levels, frequently splashing and blurring my vision with the filth of mud and muck, which was washed away moments later by heavy falling rain that began filling up the dry river ravines we endlessly followed.
I had done my best to compensate my balance for each speedy left turn made and sharp shaky vibrations that rocked my insidious creature every time we were charged sideways by a hungry and ravenous insect aggressor. Each slippery bump they made against us always seeming to push Arlo and me upwards towards the serpent’s wide fat thorny head, making it harder to maintain a steady balance through the dense overgrowth. We tipped too far forwards and then recorrected too far backwards, all while attempting to chase the next flaming volley of arrows the rouge was sending down the line ahead of us.
Fortunately for us, our ride ducked and dodged most obvious danger zones within the densest and deadliest swamp sector. The creature had kept us flat and low to braches above the ground, distant from each corner river mud hole that tended to hide an ambush predator.
And des
pite the calamity we were caught in, I had a good sense for places prone to disaster, ignorant to perhaps only two or three retracted mantis claws as they sprung at us rapidly from the river reeds to our sides. Faint shadows of thick serrated insect talons made to mimic idle fallen twigs hanging out of the grasses as they moved for the kill in response to our passing.
It was pure luck alone that none of my dress got snatched and dragged in towards their massive teeth. Much of the time I was at the mercy of those deadly insects simply because they resembled the very brown branches of immediate scenery as they dangled their claws upside down like fish hooks from the patchy tree overgrowth slightly above the bedrock. Blessed to have missed all their well-timed swipes through incidental quick and abrupt swivelling turns as we left them in the distance to humbly return to their inconspicuous camps, drooling in an impatient suspense of the next foolish creature to come along and not be as lucky as we had been.
I had lost all common sense, so it would seem, choosing to dive desperately into obvious ambush areas along a one-way river to hell, with nothing but an idle hope that if I did it, everything might be ok once again.
And so, without need of my own control or direction, the serpent kept diving us down into the thistle reefs of a rebirthing river stream as it passed the next rally of flame arrow markers sunk into the rain puddles of the small but rising muddy river stream. The rouge above slower to guide us further along any of the hazardous river front and its muddy planes due to the extra distance she had to cross while up in the safer trees braches.
Rather ominously, she never even attempted to weave us a safer path through the teeming hostile river like the safe paths she took up above. Perhaps she thought I could take it on, or was merely hoping that I couldn’t and was trying to kill Arlo and me in the most gruesome way possible. Regardless of her intent, however, I had no choice but to trust her as we risked threading the needle through the lowest and most lively pocket of predators by the river pools before its damming end.