Symphony of Elliandor: A Dream Of Fellinar.
You ask me why I am disturbed tonight? Please then, stay and listen, for I have a confession to make that will reveal to you the reason for my unease this night. A dream I have just suffered was one that I endured long ago, and the current events have brought this nightmare back into reality.
During a tireless night many ages ago, I was wounded while traveling on the road. Darkness was looming, and I lay on a bed roll --confused and sick-- next to Simothis, my lover of yore. I wept, for you must remember that I had just been reborn not but a month prior as what I now know as a Stravost'Kai. Simothis, in an effort to comfort me, told me in a calm, kind voice: “Vilsindris, my sweet, you are safe, I will protect you.” You see, I was being hunted by assassins sent by my traitorous uncle. Though it was not the assassins or my uncle who scared me, it was a battle of faith and damnation. As I mentioned, I was resurrected; reborn in Vordian’s flames. ‘The Devil’s Daughter’, they now call me, for my sins are laid bare for all of Elliandor to see. Eventually, the fever of my wounds took me, and I fell unconscious. Though what I saw was no dream, I fear, but a vision.
I climbed a tower, up the spiraling steps along the outer rim. The air was dark and heavy, the black sky alight with hellfire. The steps I ascended were pale sandstone, no, bone, and blood trailed out of their cracks. My bare white feet were soaked in the wine of the fallen. In the shadows, impish creatures feasted off of the tortured souls trapped within spiked cages of wrought iron.
I continued to climb, listening to the seductive whispers of he who granted my rebirth. Screams of agony filled the night, and cries of the damned roared like a sea of despair. I reached the top of the Tower of Bone, and red lightning forked in the twisted sky. Spikes like horns curled up from the four corners of the tower, on one side down below was a dry sea; a desert stretching for miles unending. There were strange formations in the sand, hills that seemed to make various long serpentine shapes. The other side was a portal: it was circular, swirling like lava in the sky, and glowing hotter than the sun itself.
He stood there, in humanoid form. Black skin, thousands of diamond-shaped scales, and a crown of horns upon his reptilian head. He had eyes of ice like my own, and slitted draconic pupils that pierced into my soul. He wore no shirt, rather a simple loin cloth of black and gold, glowing from the flames of Fellinar. And his wings: his wings were long and black, batlike in appearance with scales to match his draconic nature. He extended his hand out, holding a spiked crown made of darkened dragon bone. It was made for me, and he would take no refusal, thus I placed it upon my bare head, this gift from Vordian. He bid me look upon the sand once more, and what I saw were legions of reptilian monsters. Twisted black forms with red cracks in their flesh glowing like lava. They marched for the Tower of Bone, and bowed, not before Vordian, but me, their queen.
Vordian made a devilish smile, speaking no words, instead, he rose his arms into the hot air. The sand below turned to glass as hellfire burst forth from below. Brimstone formed and lava spilled from the cracks like blood. Those shapes that once were hills in the desert were now clear. A great leviathan rose: Massive wings spread from its large scaly body, a tail for miles it seemed, swept aside the flames of Fellinar. Seven draconic heads looked upon me with their fourteen fiery blue eyes. The leviathan bore resemblance to Vordian in his draconic form, though it was not him. Rather, he called it my brother; ‘Kul’Phurax,’ said Vordian in his deep tri-toned voice.
This beast with its seven heads, rising and falling in a slithery motion, continued to stare at me. It bore no hint of love, no touch of care, only hunger and malice. Then to my fright, it began to devour all below, the souls of the damned, the demons, everything.
I turned to face Vordian, yet all he could do was smile, bloody tears trickling down his scaly cheeks. He extended his arms and took me under his embrace as a father would. Then the flames of the Leviathan consumed us, yet Vordian’s icy-blue eyes remained in the darkness, and all was cold.
I awoke from that dream with a terror unlike I had ever felt before. Beads of sweat rolled down my forehead into my eyes. I wept bloody tears, and I remember climbing out from the blankets to kneel in prayer to the Four above. I felt a fleeting grace of love, though it vanished quickly. Instead, I was left with a hellish embrace as I remembered the words Vordian spoke to me long ago before my rebirth: “You should not be so eager to make deals with the devil.” And that was the first time I truly feared for my soul. For that darkness in my heart has never vanished. It has lingered on through the years, sometimes lying dormant, other times it shows through to the surface, and I am reminded of what unfettered evil feels like. For that malice is in my blood, it is the very fiber of my soul. And that is why I am terrified of death.
This short is an offshoot story of my main series: Symphony of Elliandor. It is copyrighted as of April 29th 2022. No one can copy the content within this story or repost it without explicit permission from me, the author.
