By: Brianna Lee Hubler
Copyright © 2026 Brianna Lee Hubler. All rights reserved.
The Poisoned Cradle
__________Perihl pressed his palms to the stone wall of his washroom, which placed his hands on either side of a solid, wooden frame, and aligned his body to his washroom mirror. He pressed his nose to the glass, locked eyes with his reflection, and glared at himself, as if he stared down a rival. He growled at the mirror, “Mythrhis’s humans have a fairytale of the likes of you.”
__________“As if the truth you speak dissatisfies your maker,” he continued, snarling in his native tongue, like a feral beast. “An agent of Order asks you, ‘Who’s the fairest of them all?’ And you answer, ‘Order’s newer agent.’ Instead of shattering you, the petitioner sends a hunter to slay her spawn.”
__________Suddenly, Perihl pushed off the wall, threw back his head, and laughed.
__________He asserted, “It’s a paltry bit of babble really!”
__________Then, as he sobered, Perihl placed a hand behind his head and stroked his golden mane. His other hand gripped his hip. His gaze met his reflection again in derision. His tone dropped an octave. He touted, “Their fairytales speak of beauty among the young and pure, though they know the truth to be far more sinister. They know the ‘fairest of them all’ is actually the devil; is actually me.”
__________Perihl, the Archdemon, analyzed his reflection from head to toe. His lustrous, unblemished, cream-colored skin stretched smoothly over his muscular, symmetrical body, which he draped in fine, scarlet silk. His eyes were large, almond-shaped, and decorated with long, bright eyelashes. His eyelashes and eyebrows were perfectly arched, not a single strand of hair was missing or misplaced. His nose and jawline were sharp and angular. He had high cheekbones and a shapely mouth with reddish-pink lips. His pointed ears neither stuck out too far nor hung too low on his symmetrical face.
__________Perihl was as beautiful and intimidating as an angel, but he loathed his perfect form. Why had his father not blessed him with a form that echoed the element from which he was born? Why must he live forever appearing more alike his enemy than his kin? His father, Patriarch Chaosis, boasted one blood-red iris and one neon-green iris; a wonderous asymmetry that Perihl envied.
__________Perihl’s long, slender fingers curled into fists. He punched his reflection, directly between the eyes. Cracks snaked from his strike point to the edges of the mirror and marred his reflection with a thousand imperfections. Perihl smirked.
__________“Thus, the truth of the mirror is altered,” he declared. “No middleman required.”
__________Satisfied, Perihl turned away from his reflection. He slipped out of his clothes, dropped them on the stone floor, and lowered himself into a piping-hot bath. He spread rustic, mint-scented soap onto a washcloth, ran the washcloth over his shapely limbs, and laughed piteously. Even this was meaningless; Perihl’s angelic form was as invincible as it was immortal. For him, sleep, sustenance, and bathing were luxuries rather than staples. Although Perihl regularly washed the dirt from his hands after tending his father’s bountiful garden, nothing penetrated his skin.
__________Perihl washed his hair, rinsed his skin, and climbed out of the bath. The droplets that clung to him sizzled and evaporated, as if his natural temperature superseded the heat of his bathwater. He ran his fingers through his hair to comb it. His golden locks unraveled easily.
__________Perihl retrieved his discarded clothes, redressed, and left his washroom. He strolled from one side of his fortress to the other, and turned his attention to his ongoing, alchemical project, which had the potential to undermine many of Matriarch Ordera’s schemes: the very purpose for which the Archdemon was born.
* * *
__________In a chamber filled with bronze pipes, whirling gears, and whistling steam vents, shiny droplets—as dark and as thin as ink—distilled from a thick, tarlike muck. These dripped incrementally into a slender, glass vial. Opposite that vial, with an orb for a base, and a cylindrical tube for a neck, a glass flask rested atop an alchemical burner. Only grime remained in the flask when the last droplet fell into the vial.
__________Perihl switched off the alchemical burner, gloved his hands, and removed the flask from the burner. He set the flask aside, collected the newly filled vial, and drank the shiny, ebony liquid contained therein. Immediately, Perihl’s angelic skin lost its luster. The neon green of his irises swirled behind his dark pupils. His ocular whirlpools settled only after exchanging their native, neon-green color for a fearsome, blood-red color.
__________Perihl’s arms shivered, his hands shook, and his legs wobbled. He grabbed the edge of his alchemy table to steady himself. He closed his changed eyes, until the dizziness of swapping his invulnerable body for corruptible, mortal flesh faded. The exhaustion of the feat remained, even as Perihl opened his eyes and released the table. He set down the emptied vial and followed the bronze pipes, along the walls of the chamber, into an adjoining studio.
__________A large, round grate shielded a cavity in a wall. Within the cavity, rested a vat of ice. In front of the vat, metal fan blades spun rapidly and pushed cooled air through the gaps in the grate. The cold, manufactured wind blew across a wooden table. Atop the table rested seven metal trays and a jar of surgical spirit. Within each tray sat a fist-sized, translucent crystal. Within most of these crystals resided a central, black speck, but two resided within the rightmost crystal.
__________Perihl removed his lefthand glove, bit the glove, and held it between his teeth. He uncapped the jar, retrieved a needle, and pricked his finger. He turned his hand over the leftmost crystal and tapped his pricked finger. A drop of his mortalized blood fell upon the translucent crystal, sank deep within, and stained the crystal blood red. He waved his hand across the table, repeated the process with the next five crystals, but he paused for a moment over the seventh crystal. He scrutinized the crystal’s dual specks and smirked. Like his rivals, the Legendborn Elfera, who spoke to their children in utero through the melding of minds, Perihl’s thoughts connected with the microscopic minds of the dual specks contained within the seventh crystal.
__________Twins, Perihl acknowledged. Oh, the havoc you’ll raise together, my little hellions!
__________He tapped his pricked finger twice over the seventh crystal. A little something extra for your chrysalis, he explained. Can’t have you falling behind.
__________The extra drop of Perihl’s mortalized blood stained the seventh crystal a shade darker than the other six. Though the specks did not verbalize a response, Perihl felt a jolt of satisfaction from each of them strike his thoughts. The feeling resembled the short, static shock sometimes received from touching a metal doorknob after gliding across a carpeted floor.
__________Perihl nodded in recognition, as he pulled his consciousness away from the minds of his hellions. Then he dropped his needle into the jar of surgical spirit, capped the jar, and redressed his left hand with the glove secured between his teeth.
__________Finally, Perihl turned away from his blood-stained, crystal chrysalises and their shadowy occupants. He walked across the studio to a door, which appeared to lead to the enclosed courtyard that rested in the center of his fortress, even though the door frequently opened to somewhere else entirely. A round, brass dial occupied the center of the door.
__________This dial looked like a flattened wheel with eight gaps between the spokes, and within the gaps were images of constellations from eight different worlds. Perihl turned the dial a notch from where it sat, exchanging one set of constellations for the next. The door’s latchplate clicked. The door unlocked and swung open. Beyond the doorway, stretched a vast desert, populated by a thriving, tribal civilization.
__________“The city of Niemmarleice in the young realm of Isteth,” Perihl acknowledged. “How long can your frail, mortal hearts bear the shadow my growing hellions shall cast over you?”
__________Perihl retrieved the seventh crystal from its tray, he cradled it against his chest, and carried it to the doorway. Again, his mind touched the minds of his twin hellions. He assured them: Your chrysalis will care for you, and the humans’ souls will nourish you.
__________While Perihl’s face contorted in grief, his eyes alit with anticipation. Do not disappoint me, he urged. The will of Patriarch Chaosis passes from me to you, and the Reign of Chaos depends upon us all.
__________He launched the seventh crystal through the doorway. It flew across the desert, settled above Niemmarleice, and hovered ominously, like a threatening storm cloud. Perihl shut the door, readjusted the dial, and parted separately with each of the crystals. He swapped each set of constellations for the next, opened the same door to a variety of scenes, and sent each of his chrysalises to a different realm. When he sought to shut the door on the final scene, long, slender fingers curled along the doorframe, and a leather shoe positioned itself in the gap between the closing door and its frame.
__________Perihl recognized the meddlesome intruder. He stepped back from the doorway, straightened his back (to take full advantage of his superior height), and then folded his hands behind his back. He asked, “To what do I owe the displeasure, ignoble Rhisk of Rone?”
__________A young, Elferan man, with snow-white hair, blue-silver eyes, and sharply pointed ears, squeezed through the gap in the doorframe. Since the he-elf was unwilling to take his stern eyes off Perihl, even for a moment, he kicked the door shut behind him with the sole of his shoe.
__________“Are you sickly, Perihl?” Rhisk bemused. “Or are you changed, as I have been?”
__________Rhisk’s decorous, silk tunic wafted about his frame, as he adopted an assertive stance. When his feet settled firmly in place, the tunic fell elegantly in place over his tight-fitting, white-leather undershirt. Rhisk’s tight-fitting, leather armor and well-crafted, silk tunic flattered his slender, Elvish form, as regally as Perihl’s scarlet robes.
__________As Perihl eyed the intruder, the Archdemon’s expression encapsulated a mix of suspicion and amusement. He laughed maniacally. “Changed? Either of us?” he measured. “I’ve merely swapped skins, and you are as impetuous as ever.”
__________Rhisk smiled calmly. “This time won’t be anything like the last.”
__________From a delicate, silver chain wrapped around Rhisk’s hips, a triangular, metal box hung and rested against his leather-clad thigh. Etched into the box were many Elferan symbols, and each of the box’s three compartments, positioned at the three corners of the triangle, glowed a different color.
__________Perihl noted the colors counterclockwise from the peak of the triangle. Blue silver. Neon magenta. Burgundy red, Perihl acknowledged. Could it be hers?
__________Enraged at the thought, Perihl’s heart pounded, and his blood boiled. The skyrocketing temperature of his veins nuked the mortalizing effect of the shiny, ebony serum that he imbibed. Beneath his lefthand glove, the pinprick-sized hole in his finger closed. The whirlpools behind Perihl’s pupils stirred. His irises expunged their newly acquired color and reinstated their original color. The luster of Perihl’s cream-colored skin reanimated.
__________Swiftly, Perihl removed his gloves and tossed them aside. An orb of crackling, blood-red energy ignited in his palm. The fingers of his opposite hand kneaded the energy contained in the orb. Perihl’s fingers molded the orb like clay, into a blood-red saber. The plasma saber hardened; solidified as a lethal weapon. Perihl gripped its hilt with both hands, stabilized his battle stance, and glowered at Rhisk. Perihl’s body language screamed: “Come at me!”
__________Rhisk’s fingers wrapped around the strips of leather that cushioned the sturdy handle of his gleaming, dragon-scale longsword. After Rhisk’s age-old, draconic guardian perished in Rhisk’s past duel with Perihl, Geirohlet (the legendary, Elferan blacksmith) skinned the dragon’s corpse, melted down the dragon’s scales, and fashioned a weapon that kept both the dragon’s will and Rhisk’s shame alive. Rhisk drew the weapon morbidly, as he mimed Perihl’s stance.
__________Since Perihl stood two-feet taller than Rhisk, Rhisk lunged sideways and aimed to slash Perihl across the waist. Perihl caught Rhisk’s blade with his own, threw his weight into the parry, and bent Rhisk’s sword-wielding wrists backwards. Crack! Crunch! Snap!
__________The bones in the wrist positioned closest to Rhisk’s crossguard shattered.
__________Rhisk clenched his teeth and swallowed his screams. He dropped the injured hand from the hilt of his sword, dropped to his knees, and slid through the gap between Perihl’s legs. Rhisk’s undamaged wrist guided his blade to Perihl’s ankles. Perihl’s invulnerable flesh sustained no injury, but Rhisk’s thrust tripped him.
__________Perihl stumbled towards the door to many worlds. Rhisk leapt to his feet, reached around Perihl, and turned the dial with his injured hand. The door swung open to Perihl’s interior courtyard.
__________Perihl caught himself on the doorframe and spun around to face Rhisk. With one hand, Perihl clutched the doorframe. With the other, he clutched the hilt of his saber. He crossed his saber over his chest, positioned the forte of the saber between himself and Rhisk, and blocked Rhisk’s next advance.
__________Chink! Rhisk’s sword bounced off the forte of Perihl’s saber. Perihl’s fingers danced along the handle of his saber, flipped the thinner, sharper edge of the blade towards Rhisk. Perihl brought the edge of his blade down upon Rhisk’s shoulder, which split the fabric of Rhisk’s tunic and sliced through Rhisk’s leather undershirt.
__________Rhisk yiped, ducked, and rolled. The gash in his shoulder splattered blood across his tunic and left a trail along the path of his abrupt defensive maneuver. He rose to his feet, clapped his injured hand over the gash, and guarded his body with the flat of his blade.
__________He stammered in Elferan: “Restore my flesh, mend my bones, and my veins.”
__________An amber glow alit along the flaps of Rhisk’s skin that had been separated by Perihl’s blow. The glowing flaps pulled together and sealed, as if sewn. When rays of light emitted by the mystic sutures burst forth and reached the skin of Rhisk’s injured wrist, fragments of bones realigned and fused together. Once both the skin of Rhisk’s shoulder and the bones of his wrist repaired, Rhisk’s severed veins snapped together at their severed ends. The veins connected and sealed.
__________Finally, the amber glow faded. Both considerably relieved and marginally worn by his spellcasting, Rhisk sighed and gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands. I won’t yield; not to pain, not to him. Only to destiny.
__________Perihl saw little reason to acknowledge Rhisk’s healing spell, let alone counter it. With or without healing, immortal-yet-vulnerable Rhisk stood little chance of besting him. Nevertheless, the triangular box Rhisk carried, and its glowing corners, warranted investigation and possibly alarm. Order was the only magic capable of quelling Chaos, and the box’s corners each boasted the natural color of a person of Order. They reminded Perihl of the gleaming banners men and women marched to war under.
__________Perhaps the box is just another Elferan trinket, much like the sword; a symbol to rally under and nothing more, Perihl considered, as he thoughtlessly lowered his saber.
__________The Archdemon rolled his eyes and strolled through the open door into his courtyard, as if his opponent were merely an irritating guest of his house, who hung about after the close of a party, even though the host was eager to see him home.“Come out, Rhisk,” he commanded. “I care little whether you die here or there.”
__________Rhisk followed Perihl through the door, even though neither sheathed their swords. In the center of the courtyard was a copper-colored contraption, shaped like an arrowhead. It appeared large enough to climb inside, but wherever and whatever might have served as an entrance was strapped shut. The draping roots of an enormous willow-like tree, which Rhisk recognized as a sacred, world-nourishing Enethial tree, wrapped around the outer, metallic shell of the contraption and burrowed into the soil beneath it.
__________“You’ve uprooted an Enethial,” Rhisk charged, “and enslaved it to keep this blasphemous Cradle of yours alive.”
__________Perihl smirked. He strolled over to the base of the tree and stabbed a descending root with the tip of his saber. Transparent, greenish-blue sap dripped from the saber’s strike point. An audible, alien shriek reverberated across the courtyard. Rhisk dropped his sword, fell to his knees, and cupped his hands over his ears, until the sound dispersed.
__________Perihl leaned against the tree. “How easily the Legendborn, Mythborn, and Fictionborn forget!” he expressed. “Your mother’s cursed creations are formed with my father’s power. Who then is the thief? Patriarch Chaosis has the right to take back what is his, and to use it however he sees fit.”
__________Rhisk reclaimed his sword and stood. “Those who give life are not meant to destroy it. Arm yourself, Perihl. We aren’t finished here.”
__________Perihl drew his saber from the bleeding tree and closed the distance between him and Rhisk. As he sprinted towards Rhisk, Perihl’s solidified saber melted along the edge. Bolts of blood-red energy flew off the liquified edge of the saber and streamed behind Perihl. The plasma pooled behind him, augmented his footpace, and amplified the force of his thrust. He appeared more as a red streak than a solid figure and moved too quickly for Rhisk to parry. The tip of Perihl’s saber shot through Rhisk’s middle and out through his back, narrowly missing his spine. Only after the strike landed could Rhisk look Perihl in the eyes again.
__________“Oh, but we are finished,” Perihl announced. “I’ve grown bored entertaining you.”
__________With the surge of adrenaline that comes but a moment before death, Rhisk grasped Perihl’s sword-arm. The glowing compartments of Rhisk’s triangular box flipped open. The colored energies contained within them shot out from their compartments, snaked around Rhisk’s arms, and pooled together beneath Rhisk’s palms. The combined energies took on a unified form and color: sapphire-blue energy. Rhisk locked eyes with Perihl and spied fear.
__________Since Rhisk’s other hand still bore the handle of his sword, Rhisk pressed the back of it to his lethal wound. From the pool beneath the hand that gripped Rhisk’s demonic foe, and from the pool beneath the hand that held onto his life, sapphire-blue tendrils surged into the duelists’ veins. Perihl’s saber shattered, and the force of the accompanying blast, sent both Rhisk and Perihl flying.
__________Both contenders crashed into the circular, stone path that ringed around the Cradle’s Enethial tree. Rhisk’s body regenerated from the inside out, and then the energy contained within his veins, left his body and augmented his sword. The compartments of the triangle sealed shut, as the Whole of Order reunited.
__________Order, Perihl’s elemental opposite, coursed through his veins, polluted every organ in his body, agonized, and seemingly paralyzed him. He cried out for his father’s rescue, but only a wordless, telepathic wave of disappointment answered his plea. An image accompanied the wave: Patriarch Chaosis turned his back on Perihl, stepped away, and vanished into a billowing cloud of shadow. For Patriarch Chaosis forsook his firstborn, and his presence vanished from the Archdemon’s thoughts.
__________Triumphantly, Rhisk rose. He marched to where Perihl lay and raised his sword over the suffering Son of Chaosis. Rhisk sliced Perihl across the chest twice, painted an X over Perihl’s torso in Perihl’s neon-green blood. Rhisk ensured he struck Perihl’s malevolent heart with the second blow. Perihl’s heart coughed and sputtered, until it ceased to beat. It vomited neon-green energy, which streamed along the stone path around the Enethial tree, ran off the edges of that path, and seeped into the soil beneath the Enethial tree.
__________“Consider yourself exorcised, Demon,” Rhisk declared.
__________“Prodigal,” Perihl spat. “From my death comes the storm my father longs for.”
__________The Archdemon’s neon-green blood gushed and streamed, until his veins drained, his heart stopped, and his final, sinister smile sealed upon the paled, sunken face of his corpse. The longer Perihl’s blood was exposed to the air, the sooner it oxidized, and the more acidic it became. Rhisk leapt away from the flowing, neon-green streams of Perihl’s blood, as suddenly, they dissolved the stone along the trail that they tread. Rhisk sheathed his sword and jumped onto one of the draping roots of the Enethial tree. He climbed the root and leapt atop Perihl’s copper-colored contraption.
__________He kneeled there, suspended above the courtyard by the many roots coiled around the contraption. Rhisk inhaled and then exhaled deeply. His blue-silver eyes cleared of panic. His gaze drifted to the tall, sturdy, Enethial tree, which cradled him and Perihl’s contraption above the danger below, like the arms of a loving parent. But when Rhisk beheld the paled trunk of the tree, his heart sank.
__________He turned towards the sickly trunk. His mournful gaze followed the trunk upward and outward, observed the Enethial’s once spring-green leaves now silvered. He shuddered and turned away. Since the tree drank from soil tainted with Perihl’s blood, it too was tainted. Thus, it was a life-giving Enethial tree no longer.
__________Rhisk watched in horror as a dove sought shelter in the tree’s branches. As soon as its feathers brushed the silvered leaves, the leaves coughed spores. The dove inhaled the spores, fell from the tree, and died. Rhisk cupped a hand over his nose and mouth, turned away from the tree, and observed the numerous acidic, neon-green streams that snaked from Perihl’s corpse.
__________The streams devoured all the stone, metal, and flesh they encountered. They polluted the soil, rivers, and lakes. The garden’s flora grew ill and alien, much like the Enethial tree. Animals untouched by the acidic streams, who sipped from the tainted lakes, changed as the flora changed. Violence instilled in even the most passive of creatures.
__________A corrupted deer trampled a corrupted squirrel with its hooves. The squirrel lashed about, frothed at the mouth, bit, and scratched at the deer’s ankles, until the deer’s hooves crushed its tiny body. Then from the lakes crawled an army of newly formed but fully mature and overtly vicious, dark-haired humanoids. Their neon-green eyes mimicked Perihl’s, but these were set in mauve sockets on otherwise pale faces, with a distinctly deathly visage.
__________“I can’t fight an entire realm!” Rhisk vexed. His gaze drifted to the cluster of roots overlaying Perihl’s copper-colored contraption.
__________The he-elf growled, “This better do what I think it does!”
__________Rhisk tore at the roots of the sickly Enethial tree, pulled them away from the hull of the copper-colored contraption, and ran his fingers along the sides of the hull. When his fingers dipped into a slim crevice between two sheets of metal, he slid his fingers down the crevice, until they bumped a latchplate. He followed the latchplate to a bottlecap-sized disk and spun the disk. The latchplate clicked, and a hatch opened. Rhisk crawled inside and pulled the hatch shut.
__________Instantaneously, the contraption’s interior lit up. Rhisk ignored the numerous levers, gears, and wheels positioned at the helm of the arrowhead-shaped contraption. He scanned the interior for something familiar. Beside the hatch that he had entered through was another dial, which mirrored the dial in Perihl’s fortress. Rhisk spun the dial to the set of constellations native to Rone.
__________Waves of energy shook the cabin, tossed Rhisk, and smacked him against the floor. A bright, white flash enveloped the contraption, as it pulsed outward from the dial. A great force pinned Rhisk where he lay. So, the he-elf closed his eyes and waited, until the light faded, the waves dissipated, and the contraption shook to a sudden halt.
__________The sudden stop flung Rhisk across the cabin. The hatch sprung open. Rhisk crawled to his feet and rubbed his temples. He squinted through the open hatch at the familiar trunks of sky-scraping, elder trees, and he spotted a gaggle of familiar faces, who peeked through the gaps among tree trunks, with curious, elfin eyes.
__________Thank Legendroe, he expressed in thought, I’m home free!
__________The many thought-voices of the Elferan Collective answered his.
__________Indeed, you are! they praised. But, where is the artifact?
__________Rhisk’s gaze dipped to the place aside his hip where the triangular box hung. His silver chain was vacant. Panicked, he clapped his hands to the sides of his head and buried his fingertips in his snow-white hair. “I’m sorry,” he suggested. “I must have lost it.”