The undead were gathering below and to the sides of the chestipede, supporting him hands up, at the same time that it held femurs and humeruses horizontal with both hands and intestines, such to make steps for me to climb onto. Scarreladai awaited, looming above us, watching supported by the net that used to host Abeline at is center. She balanced on it like an elephant over a cobweb, peeking from between the holes in the meat lattice.
Heavy, each step was heavier than the last. I didn’t feel weak, but I had put Jillsenbane away: carrying her on my bare hand felt like grasping hot-red iron. Moon and stars watched disappointed as I ascended the stairway to my fall.
“I am sorry Gadorprims, I am sorry, Abeline, I am sorry, mom, I am sorry, dad, I am sorry, humanity, I am sorry, dragons, I am sorry, Carmela…” I mumbled as I battled with myself to take yet another step and approach Gadorprims, who had been repositioned, and now laid spread, like a Vitruvian man with wings.
I stared into his weary eyes, and he only blinked. Gone was the haughty dragon from them already, even if the body still lived.
Readying Jillsenbane before I decided to once again betray and run away and suffer horribly in the hands of Lady Scarlet, my hands trembled as, with one foot on the last step and another on the anterior, I raised the sword with her point down ready to stab the dragon’s chest with all my might. A ritual sacrifice to release me of the only evil that remained in Pandora’s box.
“Any last words, Gadorprims? Please have some,” I whispered between tightly shut teeth.
“Spreader of buffonic plague: Rat and clown. Hurry up.”
“What will happen to you? When Jillsenbane devours your soul.”
“I will merge with the fragment of Jillsen and float in the ether of inexistence as my personality and thoughts are eaten away by the gods hatred and desire for vengeance. Sounds like a fly through the park, don’t you think?” he then coughed some blood. “My ribs are broken, my legs, arms, wings, too. She mushed me up. Finish the job.”
“Jillsenbane, this is the last of all dragons. I relieve you from your duties!”
I closed my eyes and plunged the sword down, missing and making a burning wound across the skin that the sword’s edge slid against.
“Useless even for this. Buffon.”
I looked back at Scarreladai. She observed frozen, like a gargoyle with seventeen blue eyes on her head, and one held carefully between her front teeth, entangled in her tongue, ready to be swallowed as soon as the butler completed his chore.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
“Jillsenbane, this the last of the children of Jillsen. I release you from existence, this is your last job.”
I took another stab, this time trying from a low angle, trusting the sword up between Gadorprims ribs.
The light was blinding. And tripped and rolled downstairs, only to be caught by a segment of the chestipede after two or three steps. I observed helplessly and scared how white light escaped violently out of Gadorprims chest as he gestured a scream but no voice came off. His whole body began burning with white, holy flames. The fire burned down the undead scaffold, destroying the mockery of an angel and making Scarreladai jump from the web before they reached her too. I was soon surrounded by fire that burned nothing but the undead it touched, as Scarreladai ran way to a safe place, above the hole. She cut the pillars at the half of their height so the flames wouldn’t come out of the fleshy hole. From there, as if night had become night illuminated by a heavenly sun, I saw her take flight, describing circles high above, while the drying breath of Jillsenbane couldn’t reach her. a shiny thing fell from the sky as a drop of manna, and when I caught it in my cupped hands, I noticed it was her eye. Being it an undead too, it got quickly consumed while still in my hands. I kissed the ashes.
“You are free, Abeline. Enjoy your death.”
After a while, when the flames died out, Scarreladai came back down. Noon was advising its arrival above us, attenuating the scars and the moon, claiming the sky should be blue red to announce the beginning of a new day. Days that Abeline now has again.
She found me crying, head down. , despondent, waiting for carrion birds to take me.
“Were you looking for this?” she produced my diary from under her closed paw.
I snatched her from her claws and checked it to verify it all ways intact.
“Thanks how, thoughtful of you.”
“Don’t mention it. Grab that and test it.” She gestured at the charred bones of Gadorprims, at the darkened and opaque Jillsenbane. I plucked her off from the rib she had pierced, and the bone crumbled to dust. Swung the sword, it felt different.
“Is it dead?” she asked, lowering her head like a submissive dog.
“We need to run a test. Do you mind losing the tip of your tail?”
“A small price to pay for peace of mind, and it can always grow back,” Scarreladai turned, and presented her long, needle tipped tail to me.
I swung Jillsenbane against it, the sound of metal against a wall inundating the cave system. No dent could be seen in the skin of the dragon.
“She’s gone. Jilly’s gone. Fulfill your end of the bargain.”
“Throw that thing away first” she ordered, making her disgust visible by a gesture with a forepaw.
“I am keeping it as a memento. It’s my Jillsenbane, live or dead.”
The dragoness sighted, and she hid her appearance beneath that of the fourth Abeline, that now donned the long, red, scaly dress of Lady Scarlet.
“As you wish. Before your happy ever after, finish your diary, I’d hate for you to leave that thing unconcluded after all the problems it caused… And the blessing it brought. Follow me to the throne room, this place is a crematory, and I am more of a cemetery girl.”
----------------------------------------
So, whoever is reading this, this is how I damned humanity to be at the beck and call of a dragon, where she to wish so. Hate this pawn, this butler if you want. And if you want to tell me things to my face, you know where to find me: I’ll be between the arms of my beloved Abeline, the one that I can have, the one whose love for me is a real as she is. I’ll be maybe in a beach, in a palace, in a mansion, in a park, all of them inside Scarreladai’s lair. Pray were you to visit, be extremely polite, lest you want to find yourself in the service of Lady Scarlet.