Nilsa Undercover

 

“How long are going to take?” Nilsa thought to herself.  Unknowingly Manshoon had been escorting her around the castle, as she silently prayed for a lackey to arrive.

Suddenly a small green man approached him.  “I am Igbert,'' he said. “Papers, please.” 

Nilsa hesitantly handed Igbert the forged documents.  He stared long and hard at them.  After a minute of examination, he handed them back.

“Please enjoy your stay, miss Karry.”  Igbert replied gleefully.

Nilsa let loose a sigh of relief and entered the castle.  She found that a party was taking place, a mascaraed to be exact.

As she walked into the candle-lit corridor of the castle, she failed to see the veil of transformation fall away from Igbert’s diminutive form.  Beneath laid a hulking monstrosity, who's yellow eyes glimmered as it disappeared into the shadows, following at Nilsa’s footfalls.

It stopped at a cross path in the castle, standing there for some time seemingly talking to itself before proceeding down the left corridor.  Nilsa followed close behind, ready, she thought, for anything but what she saw caught her off guard.  It was her reflection in an ornate mirror that reached from the ground to the ceiling.  But it was not this mirror that caused her to stop, but her own reflection.  She breathed in sharply through her teeth as she felt the panic rising in her.  Instead of her elegant ball gown, she stood there in her nightgown.  

The shadow converged and seemed to take a rough outline. “My, my you really do know how to dress for a party.”

“Graty’yt” The name came to Nilsa in a whisper, and at once her hand found the hilt of her blade.  The demon prince sighed pityingly.  Shadows warped in the candle light: his abyssal entourage watching…waiting.

“You're outnumbered dear.  Let’s just talk…”  He sighed.

Nilsa loathed to heed Graty’yt words, but knowing combat would be suicide she lowered her blade. 

“About what?”

The demon grinned wide and leaned in close, and as he spoke Nilsa learned, with a sinking sensation in the pint of her stomach, that Manshoon was already long dead.