“There is no place, nor place in time, where you will not be found.”
Awake. There was no gentleness to the start of her morning, how she woke, abruptly stirred by some already-forgotten dream that scared her back into reality. Her brow was dotted with beads of anxious sweat, and her heart raced in her chest as if she had been in immediate danger. Coming to her senses,
she immediately relaxed, comforted by the morning sun breaking through the silken drapes of her room, and the cooler breeze that whispered against her skin from the open balcony opposite her bed. What else she could have wondered was cut off by the knocking at her door and the entering of a woman dressed in simple white robes, trimmed by golden threads around her collars, wrists and waist. She was tall, of fair-skin and had reddish hair like autumn leaves, tied neatly up in a flawless bun. “Good morning, Your Majesty”, she greeted immediately, pausing to bow her head as she elegantly walked, almost danced, over to the windows and opened the curtains, permitting much more of the sun’s glow in, and a view utterly unfamiliar but entirely beautiful. The great blue expanse of ocean painted out towards a hazy horizon, a pearly seaside city of whitish brick and terracotta tiles on a beautiful summer morning. She would see a magnificent port lined with white-sail ships that floated off to distant lands unknown to her by name nor location. Beyond still were the full fields of wheat, shimmering in the summer sun like golden hair, ready to be harvested. “Goodmorning”came a slow, almost reserved reply back, with that now-familiar anxiety crawling back again, for she knew not who this maiden was, nor why she was greeted with ‘majesty’ or even where she was or what her own name might be, had she drank too much last night? So lost in thought, was she, that the Maiden noticed, and paused in her apparent morning duties to stand at the large bed beside the confused occupant – “Is all well, my Queen? I mean not to pry, but have you been suffering from the ‘Island Dreams’ again?” soothed the Maiden, seemingly genuinely concerned and aware of the situation. The ‘Queen’ cleared her throat and began to twist out of her bed, and grant to the Maiden a forced smile and a dismissive wave of her hand, “no, no ‘Dreams’ last night, I slept fine”.
“I am sorry, Your Majesty, the Ilstellanium have arrived already, early, and demand an urgent audience sooner than agreed upon”. There was no reply to this, rather the ‘Queen’ allowed the room to fall into a state of awkward silence, for she had yet to fully grasp still the reality that she found herself in and had little to say in improvisation to convince both the Maiden, and most importantly herself, that she was fine and aware of what was happening. The dress chosen for her was finally adjusted, fitting the ‘Queen’ as if it had been tailored to her. It fit her body like a second skin, hugging her features but not in ways immodest, rather it accentuated her physique in ways described as ‘angelic’. Not much skin showed, with long sleeves and a high collar. And with that, the Maiden made way to the bedroom door and opened it for her, smiling all the while as the ‘Queen’ departed to join this early, spontaneous meeting.
As she wandered down the hall, the ‘Queen’ caught a glimpse of her reflection in a window and had to pause and evaluate the distressing new discovery; that of a woman she did not recognise. A slim face, angular, with blonde hair akin to the wheat she spied beyond the city walls, and eyes a deep veiled amber, unnatural to her. The more she looked at her own face, yet seemingly did not recognise, the more disturbed the ‘Queen’ became, and eventually, after ignoring this growing horror, she continued down the hall upon swallowing her nervousness. In time, with wordless voices guiding her to a room, she found the Istellanium beyond a white-wood door opened for her by diligent knights. It was opulent, but beautiful, of white marble walls and golden attributes, buttresses, and trimmings in far more quantity than necessary for practicality, with a high ceiling and chandeliers that floated seemingly above a stone-slab table, to which sat a dozen patrons who all rose when she entered. At the head of the table was her ‘breakfast’ – a bowl of what appeared to be water, with a shimmering oily pearlescence on the surface, hues of red, blue, green and yellow amidst the otherwise inky coating, holding up various leaves floating on the surface, brown with decay and age.
A voice broke her wandering mind, random as it was, and rushed with impatience, “We need to find The Island” – one of the Ilstellanium confessed, whatever that was supposed to mean, but before he could continue, and explain further what was meant by ‘the island’, he was interrupted. “Enough of these conspiracies” snapped harshly an older man of silver hair and an unapproving tightness to his face, brows forward and down with some clear disapproval of perhaps simply being there. His voice was clear and defined, and his eyes – a pale blonde – flickered with what seemed to be a little lightning. The air around him was heavier, hotter, as if a storm was rolling in. “We have no proof of this ‘island’ except for a few dreams. The Old Ones are defeated, imprisoned, our Creators saw to that aeons ago“. But, sensing the incoming debate, judging from the growing red-faces amongst her peers, the ‘Queen’ opted to completely change the subject, “I think now might be a good time for some tea; preferably something to calm the nerves.”
For a while… She went without an answer, until an aged, silver-haired woman with ivory, porcelain eyes looked at the ‘Queen’ blindly. “We have had many visions. Which was the reason we came here to begin with… Though we do not yet know if they relate to the stories beyond the deserts.. Tha.. La..”And then the air suddenly felt almost sticky, heavy. The hairs on the Queen’s neck would stand on end, and a very low, deep hum, or vibration, could be felt right beside her ears- or rather inside them – drowning out the sounds of birds, footsteps, absent voices talking on subjects she still knew nothing of. An impending sense of danger was almost a scent she could smell in the air, or feel in her lungs with every inward breath… And then a voice, deep within her mind:
“You could not hide from Me here…”
In that moment, instinct overrides reason, the Queen’s skin crawled and shifted, her stomach churned and knotted with threat of emptying, so she abruptly jumped from her chair and ran out of the room, to the nearest window less she was sick in front of all those strange people. She only needed air, for she had managed to escape and found the open sky with her head out of a window. All seemed well at first, the blue sky above dotted by infant clouds, but something was wrong. The way the water was, darker, and inky, with an oily shimmer on its surface that bubbled and brewed up from a few miles offshore. Spreading out like a dark cloud beneath the waves. Here, she would have a perfect view of whatever was transpiring. The inky mass beneath the tide stretched to the shipyards, docks and port. Engulfing the coast and staining the distant cliffs with a slick oily blackness. In the heart of the watery void, a spiral of waves began to form, a whirlpool only in its birthing stages was forming, and threatened to pull in the smallest of vessels caught in its drag.
“Because, like Us, you have been seeking the Island. A Fish may fly beneath the waves, and a Bird may swim in the sky, and yet may never meet. But when the Fish learn to Fly, and the Birds to Swim…They may share the same Songs” was yet the voice again. Great serpentine shapes ould lurk beneath the waves, breaking the surface like giant islands far off the coast. The sound of whale-songs low beneath the tides echoed far into the churning skies, where darker clouds were forming and blocking away the sun. Ships, like leaves on a pond, began to sink and vanish in moments and the bells alerting the large city below of imminent cataclysm all but ended.
“Show Us the Way…” The voice repeated.
Yet, all returned to normality when she blinked, the oily waters had returned to their calmer, sky-blue self, the sub-surface entities all but returned to the colder depths of the ocean whence they came. As the ‘Queen’ stood at the window, witnessing the chaos unfold before her eyes, a deep sense of dread,and yet responsibility, took root within her. The voice, both alien and intimate, spoke of a hidden truth that connected her to the events unfolding. It was clear now; her journey was not just a quest foranswers but a path laid out by a being far beyond her understanding. In the muted hours before dawn,the Queen felt an inexorable pull towards the sea, it’s dark waters whispering secrets meant only for her. With a heart heavy with unknown dread and a mind plagued by fragmented memories, she commanded her swiftest ship to be prepared for a journey into the unknowable. Her departure was shrouded in silence, her retinue a mere handful of those she trusted with the cryptic nature of her quest. The sea beckoned, not as a friend, but as a harbinger of truths too vast for human comprehension. The island, if it indeed existed beyond the veil of reality and myth, held the key to the Queen’s fragmented past and the cosmic play in which she unwittingly found herself a central figure. The journey was fraught with omens; seabirds circling endlessly, their cries like the laughter of lost souls, and the sea itself seemed to watch, its depths alive with unseen watchers.
Yet again, she was asked, “It are not far, the Island, show Us the way,”
The Queen’s dreams, once a refuge, now became a battleground where fragmented visions of ancient rites and eldritch beings clawed at the edges of her sanity. Each morning, she awoke with a sense of impending doom, her resolve hardened by the knowledge that her quest was not for her alone but for the very fabric of reality that threatened to unravel. She had only the burden of self-discovery, for perhaps this journey would grant some insight into her lack of memory, in all ways, she didn’t even know herself – so the drag to a distant Island of Answers all but convinced her to go. She cared little for the consequences for the island emerged from the fathomless depths of the ocean, a grotesque behemoth that defied human comprehension. Its shores, if one could call them that, were jagged formations, sharp as the teeth of some leviathan creature, gnashing at the void between sea and sky. These rocky spires rose from the surf like the dorsal fins of a monstrous entity, submerged and lurking, waiting with eternal patience. The land itself seemed less solid ground and more a mass of flesh, pulsating subtly with a rhythm that echoed the heartbeat of something ancient and unfathomable. The sounds of the island were no less unsettling; a chorus of whispers seemed to emanate from the very earth, voices of no known tongue, speaking secrets not meant for mortal ears. The surf crashing against the rocky shore sounded like the gnashing of teeth, an endless, hungering maw that sought to devour all that dared approach.
“And now the Birds shall Swim,”
In her search for answers, the Queen delved into the heart of the island, where ancient ruins whispered of a time when gods walked among men and the fabric of reality was woven with the threads of their desires. The air was heavy with the scent of decay, the ground littered with the remnants of unspeakable rituals. Exploring this island was a descent into madness, where time did not seem to matter – what had been hours, turned to days, and months in a blink of an eye, a journey through a landscape that defied the laws of nature and reality. The further one ventured, the more the sense of scale distorted, with distances stretching into eternity and the very ground seeming to shift and change, disorienting the senses and challenging the sanity of any who dared tread its accursed soil. This island was not merely a place but an entity, a manifestation of cosmic horror so vast and ancient that itsexistence was a blasphemy against the natural order. To stand upon its shores was to stand at the edge of sanity, peering into the abyss of the nknowable, where the truths of the universe were laid bare in their most terrifying form. Here, the insignificance of humanity was palpable, a fleeting whisperagainst the eternal silence of a universe indifferent to its plight.
“And the Fish shall Fly,”
As the Queen navigated the treacherous waters of her own psyche, guided by dreams that felt more like premonitions, she was unwittingly drawn into the deepest recesses of the cosmic abyss. The island, a phantasmagorical manifestation of her darkest fears and deepest desires, was the final piece in a puzzle that spanned the aeons. It was not a destination but a gateway, a liminal space where the fabric of reality thinned, and the boundaries between worlds could be transcended. The realisation dawned on her in the climax of her journey, as she stood at the heart of the island, where the veil between the material world and the realm of the Eldritch being was most fragile. Here, the air thrummed with ancient power, the ground beneath her feet pulsing with an otherworldly rhythm. It was here, in this moment of revelation, that the Queen understood the true nature of her quest and the role she had been fated to play, for now she was ‘awake’. The dreams that had guided her, the voice that had whispered secrets in the dark, were not harbingers of salvation, but manipulations, for the island, a metaphor for the threshold between dreams and reality, had served as the conduit for its return to the world of mortals. As the veil was torn asunder, the sky above the island fractured, revealing not the stars of the night but the endless, gaping maw of the cosmos, a void where light and hope were devoured by the darkness. From this abyss, the Eldritch being emerged, a creature of unfathomable power and inscrutable motives, its form a shifting mass of shadows and whispers that chilled the soul.
“So, we may Sing Our Songs Together.”
As she navigated the labyrinth of her subconscious, guided by visions and echoes of whispers that felt eerily familiar, the Queen came to the realisation that the dreams which had haunted her were not her own. They were the voice of the Eldritch being itself, a psychic imprint left within her lineage, a siren calls across the ages meant to culminate in its eventual release. The Eldritch being, imprisoned not by locks or bars but by the very fabric of reality, had sown the seeds of its escape in the dreams of those it knew would one day have the power to release it. The ‘Queen’ was chosen not for her strength or virtue, but for her susceptibility to its influence.
Her sleep endless, and dream eternal, those she had now freed, were awake.
Von Sam Newman
