7.7 KiB
Gideon started swearing again.
"Fuck!"
The blood in on her forehead was starting to drip along her eyebrow, tickling as is grew ready to flow along the bridge of her nose and right into her eye. She tried to use her right arm, without dropping her enormous sword, to wipe the it off of her forehead before it dripped into her eyes. But the shredded sleeves of her cultist robes were already soaked through and the gesture only smeared sanguineous sludge over her nose and mouth.
"Fuck. FUCK!" Gideon swore. In frustration she started to use the back of her other, less slimy hand, to do the job, forgetting about the razor sharp obsidian knuckle knives strapped to her left wrist. She stopped herself only a pubic-hair's breadth away from gouging the last pair of functioning eyeballs out of her skull. She still needed those.
"Did I say fuck yet? Because seriously, fuck this ... Oh FUCK NO!"
Moving her left hand had made her lose her grip on the princess's body. It slipped out from under her arm and fell back further into the pit, dislodging other precariously piled corpses and threatening to start a charnel avalanche which would bury Gideon in fresh human remains.
"OMG Gideon what are you doing!? You let it go! I swear on our eternal rotting goddess, if you don't bring my body back in one piece I'll personally feed your fingers to the ommigrindr. I'm not bluffing!"
The dead princess was bluffing, but calling her bluff would be nearly as painful as the actual omnigrindr, so Gideon said nothing. Instead, she craned her neck to keep her still-functioning eyeballs glued to the desiccated royal corpse as it continued to slide deeper into the pit, closer to the aperture. Aiming from memory, she then swung her great sword backwards, tossing it up and out of the pit. With normal luck it should land in something soft, (hopefully a priest), and stay put. With Gideon's luck it would definitely spin in three perfect circles before plunging straight back down through her skull. At least that would shut the princess up.
"OMG Gideon, what are you doing? That was your sword!" the once and former princess pronounced helpfully. "Why did you do that!?"
"It's okay your highness. I'm sure you'll buy me a new one as soon as we bring you back, right?"
"OMG Gideon what are you thinking? I can't... we can't afford... there is absolutely no... Oh. Ha ha. Ha."
Death, (or undeath as it might be), must have improved the princess's powers of perception because it was typically the next day before she detected sarcasm, if ever.
"OMG Gideon what are you doing!? Ahh! Ahh look it's going to fall in. Get it! Why aren't you looking!? Save it! Save me!"
No matter how many times she had haunted Gideon, the princess couldn't seem, or couldn't be bothered more like, to understand the basics of parasitic possession. She never accepted that she could only ever see exactly what Gideon was seeing with her own, adequately functioning, eyeballs no more no less. Right now what Gideon was seeing was this: the precious corpse was starting to come unwound, its linen strips unravelling as it slipped and rolled over fresher, more fetid, human remains on its way toward the aperture at the bottom of the huge conical pit that Gideon and descended into on a rescue mission for the terminally damned. The aperture was a narrow choke point exactly like the throat of and hourglass. But instead of sand measuring minutes, the gently used, previously owned, second hand flesh-houses of humans measured eternity as they periodically tumbled into a stinking scarab-infested cavern below.
The bodies came from all over. Most were offered by devout descendants of their lately devout ancestors. The Emperor Undying sent a regular shipment of 'retired' slaves from the arena or the mines. The army contributed a regular, though surprisingly modest---all things considered, share. But not all deceased homo-sapiens were appropriate offerings to the pit. For example the mummified corpse of the unholy princess of misery was a completely inappropriate offering---as the princess herself had been quick to point out. The bureaucratic error that had led to the present scenario was one of such gravity that mere death (even if preceded by unspeakable torture) would not have been sufficient punishment. However justice is blind, stupid and utterly corruptible; the very office that originated this unforgivable sin had managed to arrange things so that it became entirely Gideon's problem. The ghastly princess herself seemed to lose all interest incriminating the actual guilty party upon realizing she had obtained the opportunity to nag and torment Gideon, albeit briefly if the swordswoman was not successful.
Gideon blinked. Sand scratched the inside of her eyelids. She wished devoutly that the princess could feel that too. Holding her breath and moving slowly she gingerly bent her knees and reached down to take hold of the end of the princess's linen wrappings which extended like a long fuse toward the regal stiff which was still unravelling slowly.
Gideon swore again.
"You fucking better have something on under those bandages, your highness. If I have to see your sun-dried titties or your fossilized fanny I'll rip each of my eyes out and throw them in the pit after you."
"OMG Gideon what are you talking about! I'm ravishing and you know it. You should be so lucky."
This was not the first time the princess revealed that despite seeing through Gideon's completely operational eyeballs, her vision was gravely flawed.
Gideon, still holding her breath, gently tugged at the cloth, the body started to roll faster. She gave a tremendous, pull hoping to snap the regal corpus back up towards her like a yo-yo. The force of the did flick the little morsel of dried princess meat into the air for a second before it tumbled directly through the aperture.
The incorporeal princess screamed like a Saturday morning sacrifice victim from out of the depths of Gideon's skull. Gideon hadn't thought her head had such impressive acoustics but the spirit of the princess of misery's miserable shriek was reverberating through her brain like a amphitheatre. The linen wrap end in her hand was momentarily slack as the body tumbled into the void but then it grew taught with a sickening crack. Surely, the princesses body would have crumbled into dust at that shock. But no, the conscientious embalmers of yesteryear must have done a good job of converting the petulant bitch's remains into some sturdy taxidermy because it held. The same clever embalmer, bless her heart, must also have had the stunning foresight to tie the shroud tightly around something, probably the imperial neck bone, as insurance against exactly today's eventuality.
Gideon held firmly to the thin linen ribbon and could feel the body begin to swing at the other end. It was terrifically light at least. It hadn't caused her to lose her footing only a few yards away from the opening. Slipping now would mean falling, with the corpse, into a vast cavern. With any luck, she'd break her neck. With Gideon's luck she'd actually break her legs and stay conscious as the scarabs ate out her functional eyeballs, tongue, and tonsils before using her warm body to incubate scarab eggs. Eventually they'd get around to eating the princess's chewy hide but no doubt they would save if for last so Gideon would have some shrill complaining company during her last miserable days of life. Though, come to think of it, the princessly poltergeist was strangely quiet right now. Gideon decided not to think about what that might mean and dutifully started winding her catch back in.
Angling for the dead like this had to be done slowly; to avoid slipping; for reasons that are now plainly established. So Gideon had time to think. That was unfortunate.