This friend via correspondence—for lack of a better term—of 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.
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“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.
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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.
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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.