I shuffled my feet against the stone all the way into the hoard chamber. I also dragged Jillsenbane. Who cared if she got blunt? With every ledge I managed to clamber up to, the mountain the dragons represented grew higher and higher. Thirty years. I have not even lived thirty years, not as a sane man. In my mind, I am still an energetic twenty-four years old that would soon celebrate his fourth of century by using a dragon’s soul to surpass his limits and become a true legendary slayer. By enslaving a dragon’s soul. I have spent sixty percent of my life here? Sixty? My youth is gone and so is my will to fight. It’s like I have fell into one of these long, tragic commas. How many of my friends here and on Earth have died in that time? My parents… my parents must have arranged my funeral when I didn’t visit for six consecutive years. That was the arrangement: make me a funeral if I miss three consecutive visits. Which kinds of flowers did my friends and family bring me? Maybe my parents are dead by now. Mom with her heart problems, dad out of dementia and heartbreak, like grandpa, or maybe they just took their life after inferring the fate of their only son. Maybe the sages of the town called forth a new earthling, and await patiently for Jillsenbane to return to them and curse this poor man or woman with the title of Dragon Slayer. To be plucked out of your dimension and be allotted two weeks to visit every two years… what a grim fate.

I kicked a cup of gold enshrined with rubies. It rolled down one of the lateral passages, and must have landed in a puddle, because a splashing sound echoed from the tunnels.

Scarreladai and Gadorprims awaited, atop the pile of gold, resting one next of the other, with his bright emerald wing gently covering the red dragoness, and her blue decayed wing looming over him like a mantle from which several generations of moth feasted.

“The show’s over, then, Lady Scarlet, Scarreladai the Deceiver?” I asked, defeated, still dragging Jillsenbane behind me as I made my way to the spot where I always sat to write while in the main chamber.

“No play lasts forever, Pawn, Francisco. And for this one in particular, you caused the premature ending. Do you think of this place as homely without the padding provided by lies?

“No, Scarreladai. Your lair is hell. It is hell to the men and women of Bengia, it is hell to the devils that inhabit the pits of fire of the traditional hell. I never thought a cave could be both the place I live in and the afterlife the worst of sinners deserve.”

“I liked him more when he was a rambling madman. Lobotomize him again, dear, please,” commented Gadorprims.

“I am going to bite your tongue off if you don’t shut up, Peerless,”

“I think that’s how humans show affection for each other, biting their tongues. He’s infecting you.”

She clattered her teeth next to his eye and, like a scared dog, he cringed against the pile of gold.

“Fine, fine, do it your way,” he granted, “Good night,” he yawned, and then dozed off.

“Good, I will, like I always do.”

I cleared my throat.

“Oh, pardon my manners, Pawn. How do you wish to be addressed as?” she said, and all of the zombie eyes blinked in expectance.

“Francisco,” I answered, my voice trembling.

“Have you visited the Bear’s room, Francisco?”

“No, Scarreladai.”

“Call me Lady Scarlet, I like how the ‘ca’ bit sounds, when your tongue arches like a cat and meets your palate. It amuses me.”

She incorporated, stretched a bit and began stalking around. Even in the cold room, sweat ran down my face and chest. She could look at me from all angles thanks to the sixteen extra eyes on her face. She had the stare of Abeline, of a Siberian husky, of that one-eyed baby.

“Stop that, Lady Scarlet, Please.” I begged, tempted to raise Jillsenbane and get on guard.

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“You trust me. Even now, when I show my true form, you are compelled to be polite and please me. I doubt it to be merely a tool for survival. You are a dog, Francisco. You know you are my little spoiled pet. So why do you keep questioning your loyalty, hmm?”

She began lumbering towards me, and I stepping back. A pug, I was a pug.

“You took thirty years of my life. That’s a murder charge in many places, back from where I come from. I made a mistake coming here and attacking you all those years ago, but don’t you believe that my debt has been paid in full already?” I asked, trying to look at her dragon eyes as she got closer and closer, to convince my legs to stand our ground.

“Thirty years for killing a man seems excessive. Thirty years, for attacking the very Scarreladai the Deceiver sounds like a slap on the wrist. I value men, Pawn… sorry, Francisco. I value men like men value dogs, and perhaps a bit more.”

“Thirty years is sixty percent of my life,” I protested, and raised Jillsenbane.

“And like a dog your snarl,” she raised her right forepaw with the claws extended, and the shadows around it shifted, changing its shape, its appearance into the pale hand of Lady Scarlet. “Look at this hand, Pawn, isn’t It blissful to be caressed by it?”

My back found a wall, but she didn’t stop advancing.

“No, avaunt,” I stuttered, Jillsenbane shaking in front of me, as if that could cut through the coming madness.

A crown manifested itself around one of the thin and long fingers of the Lady. “You can have this crown, and any other, I offer that much. If the palace does not please you, I can offer a mansion,” The crown turned into a big golden key, and kept spinning around her finger, “a city,” the single key became a key ring full of a variety of smaller ones, “a cozy cabin in a forest imported straight from your favorite fairytale.” She crushed the keys into her hand, and when she opened his fist again a flock of birds of paradise and sparkling fairies came out happily fluttering around, spreading colorful feathers and pixie dust all around.

“I want nothing more than Abeline’s freedom in death, and my release from this nightmare,” I closed my eyes and turned my head, with my left cheek touching the cold, cold wall.

Her other claw grabbed my head, and now looked like a woman’s arm. Her draconic features slowly distorted until they mutated on the pale, redheaded visage of the lady.

“So you want Abeline. Abeline is the treasure you desire, more than riches, more than power, you want Abeline, correct?” she asked with a seductive smile, her plump red lips that had to be a mouth full of terrible teeth closer than they ever were.

The skin on her hands began softening, and I almost let Jillsenbane escape from my grasp. My Lady was back, the Lady I so loved, the Lady I so despised, the lady that had kidnapped my sun to become the center around which my life must revolve.

“Yes, the Abeline crucified down in the nursery, or whatever that place is. I want her.”

“Do you mean…” She touched one of her copper-colored bangs and it lengthened as it turned from red to pink to pale gold, “the Abeline whose angelic hair looks like this?”

“No. No!” I fought myself to close my eyes, to look away, but even if I did, the illusion pursued me. I bet that even if I had plucked my eyes out in that very moment I’d have continued seeing her.

“Or do you mean,” she blinked thrice, the deep blue hue of her eyes changing a tone with each shutting of the eyelids, until it matched the hue of my beloved, “the Abeline whose eyes like sparkling aquamarines show themselves to the world like this?”

“Stop, I beg you, Lady Scarlet. I’ll behave, don’t do this, I’ll behave, I won’t complain about this servitude no more! Stop at once!” I pleaded, trying to get a better grasp of Jillsenbane, but barely finding any strength to do so.

“Or maybe you are talking about,” she smiled, and her perfectly aligned white teeth began to incline slowly, making changes of one or two degrees on their angles. A small triangle broke off of the tip of her middle right upper incisive and dissolved into smoke, leaving a small, characteristic but lovable gap, “the Abeline that smiled like this just before kissing you.”

“Why, why, no, no, no, no, why…” It could never be, it was impossible, to get down to that level of detail, to put on a mask this elaborate. It ought to not be allowed to be.

“Or you could be referring to,” She shook the tip of her refined and small nose from side to side, and the nose bulged up a bit, the bridge became a little more noticeable, and the point gained in perkiness, “the Abeline that laughed by exhaling a bit of air through a nose much like this one before letting the bursts of laughter break loose? “

I raised my hand and caressed her cheek, whose cheekbones were still slightly wrong, “You are not my Abeline.”

“Oh, I think I got it: you refer to the Abeline that…” she coughed a bit to clear her throat. “Spoke like this,” and the voice that came out I had not heard since that first time facing Scarreladai.

“Abeline! Abeline, it is impossible for you to be Abeline, please give me the real Abeline! The one in the nursery! The one I love.”

“Do you mean the Abeline that here, under the right eye,” she gave a small and fast tap on the side of the bridge of the nose, and a tiny, familiar dot appeared in that same spot, “had a mole like this one?”

“Yes, that Abeline, Yes!”

“Here you have her, then.” She grabbed my face with both silk smooth hands. Abeline hands, delicate, small, loving. “Here you have me, the real Abeline. Cry no more, dear Francisco.” And then she twisted the corners of her mouth in a way so Abeline that there is no adjective that can describe it. Then, she, Scarreladai, Lady Scarlet, planted a passionate kiss on my lips.