Chapter One:
Ishitar
-1-
Iladrul awoke with a start to the sound of someone screaming in
horrific agony. At first he was confused
regarding where the cries were coming from.
Yet, he realized quickly enough that they echoed through the open doors
that led from his bedchamber to the long balcony that stretched along the back
half of the castle.
Iladrul’s father had warned him time and again not to sleep with the
doors open. But it was the middle of
summer and the evening had been sweltering. Iladrul, who had turned seventy
five three months earlier, was still young enough to find confidence in his
immortality. As such, the adolescent elf
had assumed that his father—who bordered on paranoid when it came to the matter
of Iladrul’s safety—was just being overly controlling.
Terrified, he sat upright in his bed, clinging to his blankets as he
pulled them under his chin. His emerald
eyes, wide as saucers, stared wildly toward the marble which made up the
balcony’s floor. Two heinous shadows
danced within the moonlight against the marble tiles.
At first the two silhouettes—both with bodies of men or elves, but
sporting great wings like those of two great eagles—hung in the air, facing
each other. Iladrul could hear the
thunderous beating of those wings and this, too, frightened him.
With a great cry the shadow on the left bent
swiftly forward and began charging at the shadow on the right. Iladrul watched as one of the winged creatures
flew past his window, its long blonde hair streaming behind it and its great
black, feathery wings horizontal to its long, lithe body. Its arms were outstretched with its fingers
curled into claws. The expression on its shadowed profile was ugly
with the twisting rage and murder that it wore clearly upon every line.
Once it was past the open doorway it crashed into the second
figure. The second joined with screams
of its own. Iladrul watched in horror as
the two bodies collided. He wondered
which of his father’s friends would die defending him from the blonde haired
demon. He found himself helpless to look
away as the shadows twisted and turned in a clawing, fighting rage.
Soon the shadows loomed closer, toward Iladrul’s open door. As they passed it, Iladrul’s fears
intensified. It wasn’t an angel that the
blonde haired demon was fighting. It was
one of his own! Another demon!
Iladrul understood in his repugnance that no matter which of the
battling figures won their hand to hand combat his own life was forfeit. The loser might slink off, wounded and
defeated, but the winner would enter Iladrul’s bedchamber, pull him from his
bed and drain him of every drop of his blood.
Terrified, Iladrul threw away his
blanket and flung himself off of his bed and onto the floor. He crawled, desperate to hide, under the bed
and reached for the discarded blanket to pull it down as a shield from mattress
to floor to hide him. He forced himself
to lie as still as he could and he prayed to whichever God would listen that no
matter which of the two demons won their fight he would not hear the pathetic
sound of Iladrul’s fearful breathing.
Die
proud, Iladrul, Wisterian and the other warriors always counseled him when
he was in training for battle, or don’t
bother to die at all. For a man who
cannot die proud deserves to ever after be damned to live in his cowardice.
There was a final screech that
seemed to last for an eternity to the young elf. And then there was deafening silence.
His heart beating wildly and his
shoulder length copper hair damp with the sweat of his fear, Iladrul swallowed
and curled his small body into a ball, listening to the silence that echoed
like thunder around him. He wished
desperately that he had for once in his pathetic young life actually listened
to his father and had done as he had been told!
The sound of booted feet upon the
marble tile almost made him cry out but he swallowed his scream lest the demon
who had won the argument hear it. He
listened as the steps came closer, stopping at the patio door and then resuming
themselves as whichever demon had won the quarrel walked with a purpose to his
bed. Iladrul laid his head on the side
so that he could see through the small crevice between the blanket and floor
and he swallowed another scream as he looked upward toward the victor.
The demon’s face, though its lines
were shadowed and its features difficult to make out, was streaked with
blood. His long blonde hair was matted
with gore. His nostrils were flared wide
and his eyes—wild, cobalt blue eyes that seemed to glow in the dark—were
darting angrily around the room.
The demon took a long deep breath, his nostrils widening further. Smelling Iladrul, his head bent downward and
Iladrul could see that his full, red lips were parted in a crazed grin that
exposed the two long, gruesome canine teeth that he would use to rip through
Iladrul’s flesh.
In a flash he bent forward and flung
the blanket from the bed. Now, for all
the good that it would do him, Iladrul did scream as the demon grabbed him by
the shoulder, pulled him out of his hiding place and flung him like a limp rag
doll onto his bed.
The demon advanced on him, covering
him and grabbing him by the shoulders.
He began to shake Iladrul angrily as his wild blue eyes traced every
inch of Iladrul’s face. What Iladrul
could make out of his gruesome smile grew wider. “What is wrong with you, you Gods be damned
boy?! I know that you weren’t born stupid! Can you not use the good sense that your
father gave you?”
Iladrul, openly crying now, tried to
scream. This time it caught in his
throat without his intent.
“You could have been killed you
idiot!” The demon raged at him, his face
still shadowed. “And what would have
become of your race then?”
Iladrul was unable to speak. He could only look up at the demon in
horror. He was unable to comprehend the
demon’s words with his intent. If he
meant to kill Iladrul, to feed from him, Iladrul didn’t understand why he
didn’t just do so and have that be the end of it.
The demon let go of his shoulders in
a final heave, throwing Iladrul to the bed.
He flung himself to his feet and stormed to the patio doors. His great black wings were thrust wide on
either side behind him. He grabbed each
door with his blood soaked hands and looked angrily over his shoulder.
“Lock this Gods be damned door behind me.” He warned through his teeth. “Lest I come back here and put an end to you
myself.”
The doors slammed shut behind the
demon with a great thud.
Iladrul, still frozen in his fear,
watched as the demon jumped upward, landed in a crouch on the patio railing,
looked around himself and then leapt upward into the air, his wings stretching
wide as he took flight and disappeared into the darkness of the night.
The demon now gone, Iladrul’s senses
returned to him. He flew to the door and
locked it, turning swiftly on his feet so that he could return to his bed,
grabbing the blanket that the demon had discarded as he went so that he could
bury himself safely beneath it.
Crying, he thought that it would
have been better for him to have died.
For it would seem that he was damned to live his life out in his
cowardice after all.
How would he be able to look his
father or his teachers in the eyes ever again?
No comments:
Post a Comment