Isabel supposed that most mammals read epic stories of adventure for the same reason that she did, no matter how absurd it might sound to a commoner. Why would a princess, of all mammals, wish to escape her life and lose herself in a tale of danger and treachery? Part of it, though, was that there was a sort of vicarious thrill in seeing how the characters in a story rose to the challenges they faced. Her own life consisted mostly of endless tutoring and training to prepare her for controlling the kingdom, but there was still some appeal in the idea of staring down a monster in single combat and emerging victorious. Of being utterly fearless. Of being absolutely certain of every action, of being worthy to stand beside the gods themselves.
But Isabel was terrified.
She had thought she was brave before, when she had made the enormous decision to sneak out of her carriage and bluff her way past the guards. Isabel had been afraid, certainly, but she had always heard that it a mammal couldn't be brave without at least a little fear. It had made her proud of herself, in a way, that she had done something she never would have guessed she could.
But that had been before lowering herself into the gloomy darkness of the ruins of Quimichpatlan Barony, where it seemed like light could barely leave her torch before being swallowed. There was something oppressive about it, as though it was not merely the lack of light but something more. Like there was something lurking and quietly watching. Isabel could feel her skin crawl under her fur as the stories, which had once inspired her to bravery, suddenly worked against her. It had been easier to think of herself like Lady Mila, the fearless and long-dead tigress said to have defeated scores of monsters alone, before the thoughts of all the soldiers who had perished before her intruded into Isabel's mind. In the stories, those hapless soldiers seemed to exist only to prove how dangerous the situation the heroine found herself in was, but as Isabel's feet touched ground it occurred to her that she might be one of those nameless mammals. Isabel had taken a deep and shuddering breath, trying to force the thought from her mind, but her nerve nearly abandoned her. The inky blackness yawned all around her at the bottom of the pit and she realized she hadn't planned far enough ahead.
She had no idea what to do.
In her head, once she got underground it would be obvious what she had to do: find Captain Nicholas and Commandant Totchli and uncover the truth of whatever had happened. But as Isabel looked around, raising her torch to make the light travel as far as possible, it occurred to her that the ruins looked nothing like she had expected. It wasn't as though she was standing in the middle of a crumbling settlement that looked like one above ground; it was more like a tunnel. Isabel frowned, chewing at the inside of her mouth as she tried to slow down her heart and focus.
It was a tunnel, more or less. And in a tunnel, there were really only two possible ways that someone could go: forward or backward. And thatmeant, in theory, that if she could tell which way Nicholas had gone, she'd just need to move fast enough to catch up to him.
Easy.
Or at least, she hoped it was. She played her torch over the ground, looking back and forth as she tried to figure out which way the fox had gone. And then, just as she about to choose a direction at random and pray to the gods to let her pick correctly, she spotted a shallow indentation in the ground. The gentle curve didn't look like much to her until she turned herself to the right angle, bringing her torch away from the ground. Isabel had known, ever since she was young, that she had excellent night vision, much as her father must have had, but her fear had been too great for her to realize what that actually meant for her in the subterranean passages.
Without the brilliance of the torch to wash out her vision, what she was looking at became obvious. It was the paw print of a rabbit, the edges blurred and indistinct—perhaps because rabbits didn't have paw pads—but obvious nonetheless. She could even make out the toes, and that seemed to settle things. Isabel recognized that she might not be a very good tracker, but she sincerely hoped that Commandant Totchli was.
Her life might depend on it.
"Stop it."
Isabel spoke before realizing that she was going to, and her voice only amplified her fear. It was wavery and timid, and to her own ears sounded horribly weak. "Stop it!" Isabel repeated, somewhat louder, and she nearly jumped with fright as her words echoed back at her, twisted and distorted.
"STOP IT!" she roared, and when the cacophonous echo came back it didn't scare her.
"You can do this," Isabel told herself, somewhat more quietly, "You can. But you're not going to get anything done if you scare yourself. You can do this."
She repeated the words over and over to herself as she followed the rabbit's tracks, and as she continued on she even saw some that must have come from a fox. Isabel began following faster and faster, and as she went ever further away from where she had descended into the underbelly of Phoenix, something seemed to happen to her fear.
It didn't go away, and it didn't even seem to have lessened. But it had become more tolerable, somehow, and it no longer threatened to overwhelm her. As Isabel continued it occurred to her that, if what she was feeling was bravery, she didn't think she liked it very much.
Isabel nearly missed the point where both Nicholas and Totchli had turned down an almost invisible spur tunnel, and she permitted herself a moment to berate herself as she came to a stop. If she had kept running past where they had gone, she might have—"But I didn't," she murmured, and her voice was surprisingly steady to her ears, "I didn't."
When she squeezed into the side tunnel, it at first didn't appear too drastically different. Crumbling tiles lined it, falling out in places like a mammal with a mouthful of bad teeth. Thick dust coated everything and actually made it easier to follow the tracks she had almost foolishly overlooked. As she kept going, though, that eventually changed.
There was blood everywhere.
The princess's eyes widened with horror as she took it in; it didn't seem possible for an elephant, let alone a fox or a rabbit, to lose so much blood and still be alive. It was splashed along the walls and floor, even the ceiling, and the sharp metallic scent of it filled her nose and made her gag. Isabel's heart pounded faster than it ever had, her paw not holding her torch taking a death grip on her sword, which she drew and held out straight before her.
And then her heart seemed to freeze in her chest as she came upon the mammals she had been seeking. There was a glowing alchemical array covering part of the corridor, and inside it were three motionless forms. Commandant Totchli was on her side, her head facing Isabel, but although her eyes were open they had rolled back and only the whites were visible. Something so badly mauled it was barely recognizable as a corpse was at the center of the array. And there, just beyond the edge of the array, was Captain Nicholas, a sword piercing his chest and protruding from his back.
Isabel rushed over to him, and as she got closer realized that she had been wrong. He wasn't completely still, but his breath came at alarmingly irregular intervals and was so weak that his chest barely moved. Isabel bent over, putting her face right in his. "Are you alright?" she asked, and immediately realized how stupid a question that was.
The poor fox had a sword completely passing through his stomach, which was absolutely soaked in what could have only been his own blood. His eyes moved fractionally, appearing glazed and unfocused as he took her in. "Captain Nicholas!" she yelled, and panic made her voice go higher, "What do I do?"
One of his fingers twitched toward the still form of Commandant Totchli. "Stone," he said, his voice less than even a whisper.
Isabel had no idea what the fox could possibly mean; the tunnel was full of stones. He feebly licked his lips and mumbled something that she couldn't quite make out, and then his head dropped down to the floor. Stone, she thought, looking wildly around the corridor as though something would present itself, What did he mean?
No matter how she looked, all Isabel saw was the dismal tunnel, which was full of stones of all sorts of sizes. There were pebbles that might have been part of tiles, larger rocks from where parts of the tunnel had given way, and things that might have just been clumps of dust. But he must have meant something, and Isabel tried to figure it out.
Staring at Commandant Totchli didn't tell her anything, except that the rabbit was in fact alive; her breathing was slow and even. Isabel rushed over to her, hoping against hope that Nicholas hadn't simply been delirious from his injury, and nearly stepped on a blood-covered rock by her ear. Isabel bent over and started frantically going through Totchli's uniform, searching the pockets for a stone, and it was only when she found nothing did the importance of what she had seen occur to her.
Isabel scooped up the bloody little object and realized what should have been obvious when she first saw it. Under its slick red coating it was simply too regular, too round, to be natural. When she rubbed the blood away the stone was a dull and milky gray, like a poorly made marble, and she couldn't understand why the alchemist wanted it. And then, a moment after staring at the stone, she nearly hit herself at the realization of her foolishness. The answer was right in front of her; it had to be a philosopher's stone.
Which meant, in turn, that the array she was in had to be one that blocked alchemy. Isabel had no idea why Nicholas would have made such an array—had he, perhaps, worked out some kind of solution as to what could alter mammal's minds?—but she rushed out of it, nearly slipping in the tacky blood coating the floor as she did. The instant the stone crossed the edge of the array the stone burst into vibrant life, glowing with a brightness that made it seem almost fathomless, as though it was somehow larger.
There was no doubt that it was indeed a philosopher's stone, and with that realization came a wave of relief. That, at least, Isabel knew what to do with. She pulled her canteen off her shoulder, nearly breaking the strap in her haste, and fumbled with the cap. When it was at last open Isabel dropped the stone into the water, and was rewarded with an almost immediate red glow from within the vessel.
Although Isabel knew that the Elixir of Life could be created even by someone who wasn't an alchemist, she had never done so before and was glad to see it working. She rolled Nicholas over on his side, hesitating for a moment. The Elixir of Life was supposed to be drunk, but the fox wasn't conscious anymore and he still had a sword in him. None of the stories she had ever read had prepared her for the situation she found herself in, so Isabel dribbled some of the glowing liquid into his mouth.
She watched Nicholas for a moment, but he didn't seem to be getting any better. Isabel hastily poured more of the elixir onto his wounds, where it had a more dramatic reaction; the blade started transmuting into gold. Isabel cursed herself; she should have remembered that the philosopher's stone could also transmute any metal into gold, and she had just wasted some of the precious liquid. Setting the canteen aside with far more care than she had removed the cap, Isabel wrapped both her paws around the sabre stuck in the fox and pulled it free. It came loose with a sickening ease and Isabel tossed it aside, taking up the canteen again and pouring the liquid directly into the hole.
For an instant, Isabel could see the bloody mess of tissue within Nicholas knitting back together, and then skin and fur reformed and it was impossible to tell he had ever been injured. The fox still wasn't moving, but he seemed to be sleeping, his breathing much more regular and deeper. Isabel allowed herself a moment of pride before she stood up and looked at Commandant Totchli. The rabbit didn't seem to have moved an inch from how she had been posed as Isabel searched her; her eyes were still disturbingly half-open and her mouth slack. And, Isabel noticed for the first time, there were bloody tracks clawed down the doe's face that looked as though she had made them herself.
The princess frowned, and it occurred to her that she had no idea what circumstances had led to the scene she had stumbled upon. The anti-alchemy array had, almost certainly, been made by Nicholas, and the sabre that had been embedded in the fox was certainly Totchli's. That still left the pulped mass of flesh at the center of the array, though, which on closer inspection bore a striking resemblance to Nicholas. Which meant, what, exactly?
Isabel considered the possibilities. Had Nicholas set a trap for Totchli? Perhaps the fox-like shape at the center of the array had been the bait, but if was a trap it must have gone poorly for Nicholas. But then, which one of them deserved her support? Her gut had told her that Totchli must not have been acting in her right mind to stab Nicholas, but what might happen if she was wrong about that?
The more the princess thought about it, the less sure she was about what she should do. Hoping that her hunch wasn't wrong, she walked back into the array and carefully lifted Totchli; even in her armor the rabbit was light enough to easily carry. Isabel had hoped that Totchli would show some change the instant she was outside the circle, but nothing happened, her breathing remaining slow and her face slack.
Isabel carefully set her down, and then considered her canteen. When she shook it, the remaining elixir sloshed around but there was no rattle from the philosopher's stone; it must have been completely consumed in converting the water. She had about half of the Elixir of Life left, and that made her next decision a little easier. Hoping that it'd have some effect, Isabel carefully poured a small amount into Totchli's open mouth and then sat back.
The minutes seemed to drag on slowly as she watched the pair, but neither rabbit nor fox did anything. Until, that was, Totchli suddenly sat straight up with a massive gasp, her eyes going wide. "How do you feel?" Isabel asked, "What happened?"
Totchli turned and looked at Isabel, but there was something off about the way she did so that the princess just couldn't put a finger on. Her movements just didn't seem quite right, her posture a little more relaxed than Isabel had ever seen her and something about her expression wrong. Totchli blinked at her for a moment, a puzzled look crossing her face. "You can see me?" she asked, and then a frown immediately crossed her muzzle.
"Wait, what's wrong with—" Totchli began to say, and then she suddenly reached up and began patting her face as a look of horror blossomed across it.
"Oh no," she said, "No, no, no."
She was tugging at one of her long ears, pulling it in front of her eyes before heaving a massive sigh. "Fantastic," she said, "This is just what I need."
"What's wrong, Commandant Totchli?" Isabel asked, more than a little alarmed at the rabbit's behavior.
The cynical smile that crossed Totchli's face before she answered was oddly familiar, but Isabel couldn't quite place it. "Well," Totchli said breezily, "For starters, I'm not Commandant Totchli."