An Apple and a Tree
Anomen just managed to stumble out into the courtyard to the sight of that blood-red man slicing up Sir Firecam's throat. And screamed.
"NO!"
He forgot the Elf. The man had been limping along at his side, half his tunic torn off and wrapped tight about that arm of his. It was soaked through red, and he was a pale as a sheet. But the squire was no better.
And he dropped the ranger at that horrible death filling his eyes just then.
Lord Jierdan Firkraag's face whipped back around on him. He would have known it anywhere after that day, so much hate boiled alive in his blood at the scene. It made him forget the broken bones and bleeding wounds. It made him forget the sickening sight of all those dead knights scattered everywhere around the courtyard of the keep. It made him forget his name. It made him forget himself.
And it made him charge right at that silk-swaddled nobleman.
He didn't get very far, though.
A blast of fire erupted forth from Firkraag's outstretched hand, knocking the squire right back of his feet. He twisted away, scraping along stone. Flames seared half his body, sticking to the mail, and he tumbled over and over, howling aloud. The red-haired man only grinned offhandedly at that, sparing a brief glance at the dying Elf all but helpless beyond.
He cast another ball of fire that way, not really caring whether it hit or miss.
"Now," the man said, turning back on the old paladin choking up blood. He crouched back down with the red-stained knife in hand, eying the other's half-torn neck with a shrewd eye.
"Where were we?"
He laughed. And lifted that blade.
"Ah, yes."
He kept smiling at the old man as he put that tiny blade to his throat once more. But it was a strange thing that happened then. He went about finishing what he had started, giving that beaten fool an ignominious death like some common cutthroat. And laughing at his own little joke.
Or, at least, he would have.
Had his hand obeyed him.
He blinked when that knife did not touch flesh. Confused. And then he looked back over at it, not having moved. His eyes followed it up in surprise.
And he found that girl.
"You again?" he started to say, a little more than astonished now. Not quite incredulous. But close.
Or, at least, he would have.
Had that hand not started to rot away. Right where she held it.
He hissed instead. Black shadow polluted those veins, curling black illusory flesh and peeling away to bone and sinew. The whole limb started to come undone, melting away to diseased and cadaveric meat, falling right off into nothingness. And he felt something he had not felt in a long time.
Pain.
The knife fell free from his fingers, clattering loudly down to stone. He snatched his hand back, what little good it was now. He actually stumbled back a few steps, baring his teeth at her. He didn't know how that wretched thing had managed to sneak up on him. But that simple witchery should have been no match for the blood in his veins.
He stumbled back, snapping his jaws at her. All the while, that very blood spilled out and down to the ground.
"This is your fate, you stupid little girl!" he hissed aloud at her in shock, cradling his dead arm.
Already teeth flashed. They stretched out into razored fangs all across his mouth. Gnashing together. Seething. Those emerald eyes blazed.
"You should have run while you had the chance!"
That tongue slipped out, forking through the middle. Mandible cracked, and he spit out viciously back in her direction.
"Now, you will never leave this place alive …"
He was still backpedaling. He needed the room as his whole body started to shift, expanding, cracking aloud, and stretching all at once. That insignificant little wretch's black eyes followed him all the way up, staring at him hollowly like some ghoul after his flesh.
Another few seconds, though, and there was far too much for that.
His head thrust out, spitting bony spikes all about its jowl. Nostrils fared, slipping forward atop his jaw until those bladed teeth were gleaming through reptilian lips down full at her. Arms sprawled, scales sprouting from his back, and black talons crashed down against stone. His legs pulled behind him, massive and muscled. Leathery wings sprouted high from his back.
As that girl watched, Lord Jierdan Firkraag vanished from the face of Faerùn. And she was left staring up with those dead eyes at a dragon.
A red dragon.
If that impending death registered at all with the raven-haired daughter as she watched the serpentine monster stomp back over toward her with feline grace and leisure, she didn't show it. For his part, Firkraag really didn't care. He just slipped his horned head in close, savoring the flames to come.
"For Gorion Greymantle's child," he intoned, booming down into that puny creature's little face. He let some smoke slip out through his teeth for good effect. It washed right over her.
"You certainly aren't very bright."
And she wasn't.
She was dead.
He let the rest of it out then. Fire splashed down into the courtyard over that girl. She didn't even try to run. Not that it would have helped. But it certainly would have been more satisfying. It always was.
There were so very few things quite so savory as roasting a choice problem.
Alive.
Those flames finally petered out when he grew tired of seeing ash sprinkling the air. If only everything could be solved so imply, he mused aloud. And he was just starting to mull over in his mind the thought of whether to return to human form to finish off the knight's leader, or merely end that game now to spare him the trouble. It certainly wasn't as if anyone else was going to see his handiwork until well after the fact. It really was quite a shame.
But that was when the smoke cleared. And he noticed something really quite annoying.
That girl was still there.
And in one piece, no less.
His head swung back around.
"Oh … bother," came that heavy sigh through twin rows of dagger-like teeth.
He stared down at her. For a moment, he wasn't quite sure whether to be stunned – or simply more irritated. He went for the latter, thinking wearily that it was just rude for anything to persist like that long after it should have been killed. Like lingering guests at those parties he had to throw every so often to keep up the façade of Lord Jierdan – sometimes they just didn't quite know when they were no longer wanted. It wasn't as if the tedious little creatures lived very long anyways.
And that was when he did the same thing he always did to grossly unwelcome guests.
He brought his great, crested head right down on that girl.
And ate her.
Heavy jaws swallowed tiny flesh right up. No more than a second, and it was past his teeth and down his throat. Had he still worn Jierdan's face, he would have grimaced. As it was, he just flashed those twin rows of razor-sharp teeth.
The taste was always horrible. It was the worst part. He tried to avoid those dirty little creatures with his tongue, especially when they were so troublesome as to not be thoroughly cooked first. Needless to say, he had to clap his jagged jaws a few times after he came back up to shake free even the memory of that terrible meat. It really was foul …
And, once he was adequately finished …
He came back around to the fallen old paladin knight.
"Still alive, holy one?" he bellowed down in rich timbre at the little dying man. That one had collapsed over onto his side by now, but his eyes were still open and cognizant – if barely. It really was unfortunate that he could not have met the other with that death like he had wished. Maybe even taken that head for a trophy or … well, something. Really, that all was just starting to grow a bit tedious and dull.
If he thought there was to be an end to those irritations, though, he was not pleasantly surprised when something started biting in at his beautifully scaled ankles.
He whisked his head back about the other way, grumbling. The sound beat down on the scarred courtyard like an earthquake, flames in his throat.
"Is there really no end to you pests?" he sighed. Then peeked down to where he had felt that light pricking. Some fool had been shooting something at him. And he flapped one magnificent wing, aghast at that insult.
He found the source soon enough. That half-scorched idiot who had tried to blindly rush him. He had some crude little contraption in his hands, firing away. And Firkraag just gaped at him for a moment with his teeth.
It really was quite vulgar.
His glorious tail came whipping instantly about, crashing hard into the side of the keep. Stone crashed down, rumbling along the ground. One of the towers collapsed, and melted away into shattered brick. The little man was too close to the ground, however, lying prone as he was, and broken. Otherwise, it would have been over and done with right there.
As it was, Firkraag had to stomp a little closer to finish him off. He put his one good arm down to the ground, claws catching the tiny little knight and pinning him even more. One pressed hard into metal down to flesh, slowly. Until the thing cried out aloud.
"Now," he rumbled down to its level, craning his neck. He bent it low.
"Hold still a moment, won't you?"
And let his nostrils flare.
He coughed. A great gout of smoke puffed out of his jaws, enveloping the man. That one cringed and writhed under the fumes. Firkraag only shook his mighty head, though. He took a step back, releasing the little creature.
Another cough. He wrestled with his long, elegant throat, trying to make flames come up. At first, it had just been to roast that little morsel into nothingness – they did seem to take such great exception to burning alive to death. Now, it was more agitated. Desperate, even. He did manage to make a hiccup of fire shoot up into the air, but it was pitifully small. He started to stumble.
That voice was suddenly choked. Even for his great, powerful lungs – he couldn't breathe. He started to thrash about, wildly throwing his head every which way and snapping its jaws. More parapets fell. Stone cracked and tumbled down to the earth like broken sand. He started to claw deep furrows into the rock below, hissing past forked tongue and jagged teeth.
And, all the while … the flesh beneath his beautiful scales began to turn black and rot away. Huge slabs of reddish flesh turned filthy and diseased, and slapped down to the ground, wet with dragon's blood and decay.
He leapt into the air, frenzied. Great wings slammed into stone and rock. His whole body smashed through half the keep walls. That was what grounded him again.
He spluttered, flailing over to the blunt grasses without like a limp fish on dry land. Claws and wings thrashed against the dirt, tongue lolling out of his mouth. And that was it. A few more minutes of feeble struggle.
And he was dead.
A hand slipped along the walls, feeling thick contours and stucco relief under carved wood. Black smudges trailed in the wake of creeping fingers, dotting them with dark little seeds. A painting stood out – a wailing madman clutching at the sides of his head and shrieking into nothingness. Imoen started to cringe at the sight of it, but instead just spit up more of that bile.
She choked up all over the wall, hugging it tight. Her whole body convulsed from within. Sick. Nauseated. Diseased blood sloshing through her veins. She thought she must be dying. Her throat was slick with death, head full of nightmares. She just tried to crawl away.
"Please," she was begging aloud to no one. Her tongue gagged on blood and acid as she did, tears burning in her eyes. She slid along that wall, lurching her way forward and barely keeping her feet. She was shaking her head, squeezing those eyes shut.
And when they opened again, she was looking at one of those mages. There weren't so many left now, and she started. That man did too, though, eyes wide and terrified as he tried to drag his broken body back along the carpets underneath and away from there. Away from her.
She bristled. All that illness burned away for a moment, replaced by piercing, blinding hate. Her teeth bared, black. She stumbled away from the wall.
"You," she choked, seething. She took a step toward the man even as he cowered there on the floor. "You did this to me," she hissed, trudging leadenly onward.
The mage shook his head quickly, helplessly. He was mewling too. She didn't hear him, though. That acid was boiling beneath her skin again, threatening to burst right out. She let those fires start dancing atop the flesh once more.
The man managed to gather his wits enough to climb frantically back to his feet. And he took off down that sumptuous hallway, feet flailing and wild as he tried to escape. She stalked after him, tripping over her own villainous body, eyes ablaze.
He vanished into a room. And she hurled those fistfuls of death right after. They exploded, bursting the place apart at the seams.
She was choking on dust as well now. Splinters filled the air as she staggered out into that next room, collapsed in on itself as it was. She found the pitiful little wizard inside, trembling beneath a fallen beam set afire and desperately trying to pull himself free. When he caught sight of her terrible, black-riddled face, though, he stopped.
And he started screaming.
She wiped the face of Faerùn clean of him quickly enough. Sickly, green flames burned away everything until there was only ash. Pale embers wafted in the still air, smelling of brimstone and hellfire. She stared at that black scorch mark in the floor where a Human being had once been. And she suddenly felt sick all over again.
Her feet carried her quickly out of that room. But she didn't get far. She pitched out into the next hallway, collapsing down hard atop her knees. Her hands caught her against the ground once more, and she started retching.
She cried, and she heaved. There was nothing left inside of her by now. She had become a ghost – a wraith of death and murder, haunting those hauls with flame and light now that she had been torn apart and made anew. And she wailed. She slammed her frail fists down into the carpeted floors and cried aloud everything that she had done.
She was evil. A broken, bawling mess sniveling there on the floor. But she was evil. She could feel it. And it swallowed everything up inside that she had ever known. She even forgot her own name. It was some else's now. Someone … dead.
But then, just as abruptly …
It stopped.
It all stopped.
Every sound died away, and there was nothing. All thought and feeling bleed out her ears until there was only silence and empty space. She was left gasping there in the cold and the dark loneliness. She was alone again. She stared at her hands. They were still covered in blood. But there was something.
Something … else.
She could feel it. An inexorable tug from far below, like demons coming to snatch her back to where she really belonged. The world held its breath, and so did she. That something rose up slowly from the depths beneath her feet, reality screaming and twisting for her all the way.
She waited.
Time stood still. For a moment. An eternity.
And her face slowly started to fall even more.
No.
No.
She wasn't alone. Not anymore.
Her eyes rolled away inside her head. The hair crept along the back of her neck, a cold chill crawling right up her spine. She slowly started to turn back around. But she could already feel the ice running through her veins, breath misting in the warm air.
She looked back around.
And there he was.
She just swallowed, thickly. Staring at the last and worst of her nightmares made flesh and bone again. She watched in silence for a time, waiting for it to be swallowed back up inside her head like all the others.
She squeezed her eyes shut. But when she finally opened them again …
That demon was still there. That plastic face was waiting for her.
"Hello, little one."
And she sobbed, as that hand started to reach for her. She briefly thought that he must have been waiting for her all along.
It was the last sound she made in that place.