The Origin of The Isles

Note: This is a story set in Isaandoul, a fantasy realm of my creation that exists within a collaboratively created world known as COËNYDD. Sometime this year a series of short stories will be released by this collaborative group set within this universe. This piece was a tester to feel out the idea and to get an understanding of the world. I hope you enjoy it!

She continued cataloguing the complaints of her body, a bitter method of reminding herself that she was alive.

The pinching sting of the skin that was cracked and peeling from her lips.

The throbbing ache where her fingernails had been reduced to broken stubs.

The sharp lancing pain of the soles of her feet that were a latticework of lacerations.

No bones were broken but most of her skin was mottled with bruises in shades from piss yellow to darkest midnight, everywhere else her skin was grey-washed with fatigue and malnutrition.

With burning eyes she surveyed the space around her. Silhouettes of other figures were outlined against rough grey walls and a packed-earth floor. The walls and roof she shivered within were incomplete in their disrepair, the hollows and cracks beckoning in the wind to torment them further. They had stumbled into this abandoned space after the sun had disappeared, the weathered rock leaving no indication of its purpose before it was taken by time.

The sounds of the night registered first. The wheezing rattle of a chest taken victim by the relentless cold. The murmur of prayer as it knitted with the wails and sobs to blanket them in a haunting melody. The scratch of stone on metal as someone worked to break themselves free of the chains that chafed until they burned-a futile effort; she knew they were enchanted to withstand more than a rock wielded by weary hands.

All round her was the mindless muttering of someone who had already broken and between each word was a thin-stretched silence, the bated breath of so many determined not to follow that lost soul into the madness.

The watery moonlight that filtered through the crumbling roof above eventually revealed the colourless scene to her.

Torn clothing, most shredded from travel, some stripped to make dressings for wounds already weeping with infection. Tear-tracks on muddy faces with eyes so wide the whites nearly shone in the dimness. Haunted eyes that stared at nothing, unblinking; she wondered if she looked as ruined as they did.

She was surrounded by the ghastly indication of heinous cruelty, the heights of most she struggled to comprehend even as her gaze ran across the evidence. Her stomach turned as she spotted a man spilling crimson tears from the holes where his eyes had once been, his breathing heavy. He was propped against another who no longer had fingers on either hand. Her insides twisted again as she caught sight of the pile that had begun to grow near to the back of the room.

A twisted memorial for the souls who were granted the only kind of freedom we could find from this hell.

Most of them were mutilated to a point beyond recognition, some no longer resembling people. She knew that the morbid shrine would grow again by tomorrow.

Some nights she contemplated the ease of sinking into it herself but she refused to let these monsters take anything more than they’d already stolen. She would not concede, there was fire in her yet.

Despite her burning determination her insides were twisting. With nothing in her stomach to purge, despite her body's insistence she vomit, she curled in on herself and silently begged the cramping to ease.

Unsure how long she spent with her breath stirring the dirt and her eyes vacantly pinned to the wall, eventually she disappeared into sleep.

The sudden cacophony of shifting metal had her tumbling back into reality as those who had the strength rose to their feet.

Her own soles split anew as she joined them, swaying as she refused to glance at the floor. Refused to count how many had failed to rise with the sun this time.

They were moving again.

~

Three weeks of aching cold nights and sweltering days. Countless steps through shifting sands and thankless thickets to a destination unknown.

One meal a day consisting of dry bread and just enough water to make her bitter with want.

One night and day of endless rainfall that made everyone weep with joy until they had made themselves sick from it.

Two more days spent sitting in their own filth as the sun baked it into their skin.

Another week of walking until the dirt beneath them turned wet with blood and they numbered less than half of what they’d started.

Another ruin, borrowed from its desolation to store them for a time. This one was partially buried in sand that only held the heat long enough to give them hope until the darkest hour stole that away with the bitter cold breeze. More hard-packed dirt for a bed and wounded sobbing from those who could feel themselves breaking into pieces, losing fragments of themselves as they wasted and chipped away.

Another night of unnatural silence.

Until it was shattered with screams.

~

She had just curled into herself, ready to give herself to the peace of sleep for as long as she could manage when the shouting began.

Her heart was sluggish, even in a state of panic, as if it were pumping mud rather than her lifeblood through her body. Her wide eyes met with the terrified stares of several others as they all snapped their heads around at random trying to pinpoint the source of the sound.

She strained her ears as she pressed into the wall behind her, her laboured breaths making it harder to hear. She swallowed, closed her eyes and calmed her breathing as best she could and focused on the sound.

It was coming from outside, barely hindered by the crumbling walls but so chaotic it took a moment before she could make any sense of it.

Words shouted like commands lanced through the screams and formless yelling in a language entirely alien to her. The same language, it seemed, as those who held them in chains and herded them like livestock across the vast terrain.

More screams erupted from inside the building as a figure shrouded from head to toe in lengths of grey fabric burst through the entrance, the belt of deep crimson around their waist held an empty scabbard, the blade gripped tightly in a white-knucked fist as it sliced through the air before them.

Everyone in the room shrank back from the door, their weeks of torment puppeteered by the monstrous forms hidden within those shapeless folds of fabric.

Only furious eyes were visible as the figure shouted indiscernible words at the nearest captive, grasping the terrified woman by the chains that bound her wrists. She resisted his pull, throwing her weight back into the dirt to stop him from hauling her from the room.

With a frustrated yell, they released the chain and raised the blade of their sword to strike. A collective breath was held by those in the room. They had become all too accustomed to the cruelty to be surprised by this reaction and many turned away unwilling to watch the killing blow.

She refused to look away, refused to let them steal the barest hint of humanity that she could offer her as she was sent to the slaughter. As the blade descended on her neck there was a wet gurgle, a short cough and a heavy thud.

After a brief pause the sound of a strangled wail rent the air swiftly followed by the acrid scent of urine. The grey-clad figure looked nothing more than a pile of cloth carelessly discarded on the floor as the deep red of his blood spilled across the floor. The woman's breathing was a shuddering of painful sobs as another captive tugged her away from the growing pool.

Silhouetted in the entrance way was another figure, lithe, breathing heavily, with hair tumbling in the wind. Their own blade was slick with the essence of the beast they had just slain.

Once again the room froze, unsure if this was another terror sent to haunt them, unwilling to believe they could be their salvation.

She stepped forward, her angular face cut with fury and determination.

“Fear not, your days of burden will end tonight. We are here to end this madness.”

Her voice was melodic and strangely accented, a stark contrast to the visage of power she emanated with every stride as she entered the room. Her pointed ears established her as fae but her golden armour was unlike anything that had been seen of their world so far.

She knelt by the woman who had been subdued to silent tremors, her words so quiet they did not reach the edges of the room but her actions spoke to them all.

Grasping the cuff that circled the wrist of the woman before her she muttered a word and the metal clattered to the floor.

The murmur of voices, pleas and prayers and unintelligible sobbing grew to a ruckus as the fae woman continued down the room. Circlets of metal dropping to the floor like hail in a storm.

Her emerald eyes landed on the woman tucked to the back wall, her fierce gaze meeting one of equal heat.

“And what do they call you?” Her lilting accent made the words sound like music.

“Edith. Have you truly come to end this torment? Will you take us home?”

“Yes, Edith, my people will see you to the gate, they will send you home.”

“Why? You are one of them aren’t you?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“Yes and no. Not all snakes bite, not all birds learn to fly. I am Calanis, I am of the Gilded Court and we do not look at humans and see a place for chains.” With those words she released her binds and walked away.

“Come, we have food, water. The healers will see to your wounds, then we will take you to the rift.” As if her words were divine sent, the sun bathed the horizon in a cascade of light, haloing Calanis as she exited.

~

True to her word, Calanis led the dozens of weary souls to a makeshift camp where a troupe of golden-clad fae busied with helping them.

They walked for another four days and though many found it hard to trust these new arrivals, the lack of chains did a great deal to ease the discomfort.

In the afternoon of that final day they reached a plateau cut into the side of a mountain, a crack within the rock face standing tall before them. Calanis stood at its entrance and spoke to them all, her voice carrying through the space with ease.

“This is the rift, it will lead you back to your world.” She paused for a moment, her head tilted back as if she was listening to a language they could not hear.

“How do we know it won’t swallow us, rip us from the worlds and throw us to the darkness? We lost many when they pulled us through last time.” The man who spoke had a voice cut with sorrow.

“I am deeply sorry for all you have lost. We have only three here who can guide you through the space between safely so you will have to go in groups, but they will ensure you safe passage.” She paused again and held her hand towards the sky. “I swear to you by the gold of the sun, you will find your way safely home and from this day we will guard this rift. None shall pass between without our knowledge or permission. Now go and find your Light”

One after the other the wayward souls were ferried through the space between, exiting a rip in a cliff that stood above a raging ocean.

This was the day that humanity first set foot on the Gateway Isles. Some of the survivors found themselves too tired or haunted to try and find a way to leave. Some felt safest knowing the rift was guarded. Others faced the turmoil of the sea simply to grow the distance between that land of horror and themselves.

Edith, belly swollen with a babe to the man she lost to the space between, was the first to find a place to build a home and to this day it stands. A small cabin, smoothed by the western winds and bathed in the light of the sun each morning, home to her descendants.

There are still whispers that the light of the morning sun speaks to those who come from Edith’s blood, but they never divulge its secrets.