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.

----------------------------------------

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—I’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.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“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 —and Abeline too, why not— 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.

----------------------------------------

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.