The Poison Princess Read Online Free PDF

princess asked
of the imp.
    It cocked its head to the side, unfolded one
of its ears, and wore an expression indicating that it was a bit
surprised to hear her say anything.
    She repeated the question. “Can you
understand me?”
    The imp nodded its pudgy little head in
response, further increasing the swirling curls at the corners of
its mouth.
    “Good,” she said. “Can you find the way out
of this place?”
    Once again, the little imp nodded and then
jumped from her hands, plopping in the swampy water of the ground.
Though it was almost completely submerged in the muck, the imp
began to wade off in another direction. Ruby watched, as her
creation made its way out from her sight. Concentrating on the
little thing, the princess felt a connection to her imp. If she
strained enough, she could see through its eyes and know what it
knew. It could work, she told herself.
    Ruby crossed her legs and sat down in the
muck, unphased by the disgusting fluid now, as she set to work on
creating more of the little imps. Secreting the ooze into her hands
once more, the princess’ second attempt resulted in a similar
creation as the first. This second imp differed in that it was
somewhat taller. She hoped that with that extra height, it might be
able to better search through the swampy region. This creation also
had come out with only one eye for some reason, but it seemed
enough to do the job she needed it for. The ears were perked up
more, and it paid her a bit more attention as well. Ruby issued it
the same instructions, pointing out a different direction for it to
travel in. Again, this one happily plodded off with its orders.
    With her third attempt, Ruby put more energy
into the creation, trying to make it smarter and hopefully more
useful. The first two had quasi-hardened into a sludgy, black
shell, but the third’s color was simply a dark purple hue. Also,
this imp was unique with its long tail swaying playfully behind it.
This one was tall like the second, had the distended belly of the
first, and had acquired the same wicked smile with swirling curls
at each corner that all three shared. Its eyes seemed almost
catlike. Clever even. She believed that she had succeeded in a
notable improvement upon the former two.
    “Find the way out of this bog,” she ordered
the purple imp.
    This little creation, however, defied her
will. It folded its arms across its chest, closed its eyes,
snobbishly raised its head, looking away, and released a muffled
little response, “Hmph!”
    “What?” she asked it. “Do as I say.”
    The imp did not budge.
    Ruby found this to be unacceptable. “Fine,”
she said.
    She offloaded the imp to her left palm and
then used the right to swat down on the imp, clapping her hands
together. The purple imp proved too quick for her and leapt out of
the way before she could crush it. It landed in the water with a
splash and looked up at her with a defiant little smile, sticking a
tongue out from its mouth. At that moment, Ruby realized that she
had made this one too smart for her to control. This imp had too
great of an intellect and had formed a sense of self.
    “Well?” the princess asked it. “If you’re not
going to help look, what good are you?”
    The purple imp lazily shrugged its shoulders
and yawned. Ruby rolled her eyes, as the fat, little thing sat down
in the muck and leaned against a large rock to relax. Ignoring it,
the princess returned to her efforts of creating willing helpers to
search the muck for her exit. She made the following imps much
dumber than the purple one, preferring to have something much more
malleable and without its own ideas and opinions. After some time,
Ruby had created more than a dozen different poison constructs of
varying sizes and features to search the Abyss for her.
    She reached a point that she felt she had
enough eyes dispersed throughout the swamp. Closing her own eyes,
Ruby began to switch between each of the imps to search for
anything that would help her