CORDELIA

Chapter 7

It's been a long time since he didn't return so I went inside the woods.  It was a thick forest, sunlight peeked through the thick canopies of the tall trees , chirping of different birds and hissing of reptiles, and the rustling of dry leaves surrounded the air. The soil was uneven, wet and covered with creepers and roots which came out of the ground. I shouted his name many times but I couldn't hear him. Instead I heard my voice strangely echoing. 

" Arghh…", I groaned as I tripped on something and fell down. I turned around and saw a round small thing that popped out of the ground by which I stumbled. I cleared the mud from that place and my heart skipped a beat , it was a bone. I dug up the mud till I discovered that it was a rotten corpse of a woman. That was her shoulder bone, some of her body parts got decomposed down to bones while rest was covered with rotten wrinkled pale greenish black skin, which was on her verge of getting decomposed which gave a putrid odor. 
Her clothes were torn, it was a ragged gown.I saw her neck, it was cut in the middle as if someone stabbed it hard. Though it was common to find corpses buried in such a lonely island but its creepy rotten face and hollow eyes made me shiver , I panted hard when I saw a piece of crumbled damped paper clutched in her hand. I took the paper from her hand, it was blank earlier but as soon as I took it in my hand some letters started to appear on it. I looked at it unblinkingly as a paragraph appeared on it. It was not written in english but some different language with some weird symbols but what surprised me was that I could read it.  

" Cordelo possesses the power of the Cordelia, it can bring death to lives and lives to death. Covered with new blood, passing down to the kingdoms of the sea , being king of the new empire. The golden land resting on Cordelo's Skull has its life dependent on it. Whoever possesses the curse possesses the sea." 

" What does that mean?"... I thought , looking at the paper. 

" You want to know what that means?", a sweet soft voice spoke up. I hastily turned around and saw a beautiful woman, she was dressed in turquoise humongous silk gown, her curly blonde hair was tied in a bun with a fascinator attached to it ,and a few loose strands of hair flowed down her nape from the bun. She had pale porcelain skin and ocean blue eyes. I was shocked to see her in such island and it seemed like she got a grasp of it.  

" Well I know what you are thinking but before that I would like to tell you about Cordelo I will tell you  about something. Just like Earth, there exists a World called Iasonas which is completely different from your world. It is divided into five kingdoms of what we say, ' elements of nature' and out of which one of them is Cordelia, the kingdom of water. After Every century a king was chosen from each kingdom who could rule their kingdom for next hundred years. The choice was not made on the hereditary of the previous king and anyone who could prove their abilities and strength could be the ruler. Lydia and Alexandro belonged to the house of peasants. They were married and had two sons and one of them was Cordelo, his name was given so because they already assumed that their child will grow to be the eligible man for the choice of the king. And the long lost dream of them came true, he grew into the most powerful man of Cordelia in terms of strength,  ability and intelligence and eventually he was announced as the king of Cordelia. However, as I said, Iasonas was divided into five kingdoms. There was a place where all the five kingdoms met and that place was also called the end of Iasonas. It was called Ias. It secured a power which could make its owner mortal, it can revive the dead and take lives and can make the person so powerful that they can rule the whole world. However, in Ias , it is said that anyone who goes there doesn't come back alive until they take over that power. Enclosed in a golden box buried at the peak of the highest deadly hill situated the power. A  fierce war took place among the five rulers to achieve that power and Cordelo won the war while the other four were defeated and not only did they die but all the people of their kingdom died except a few men and women who would be responsible for repopulating the human race. Cordelo was the only who took over the power and became the immortal king who would rule our kingdom forever. However the power of Cordelia doesn't stay with the owner forever except the power of mortality and that the rest of it ascends  down to his generation. They will carry it in their heart. Every time the owner of the power gives birth,  Cordelo gets a new body, a new ruler to protect. " 

" Does it have to do anything with this land?" I asked. She gave a weak smile. 

" This used to be the holy land of our kingdom, the place where Cordelia's power is greatest. Rest you will find out sooner.  "she said and ran inside the woods until she disappeared among the woods. I stood there engulfed with a number of thoughts and questions arriving in my mind. When suddenly the flashback of the time popped up when that creature tried to kill me on the deck.  

" Give me your heart, your blood that is flowing inside you, the only thing that can feed my strength , my power..", this was the last word I heard from his mouth, a shiver ran down my spine. I hastily went near the sea shore, the sun, the blazing orb was gradually receding into the calm sea, I watched it unblinkingly. The sea was tinted with orange and red, the waves sparkled tilting its head up and down as if calling me to tell a secret. I unknowingly got drawn towards it ,sinking my feet in the wet sand, the water touched my feet. It sank more as I walked towards glistening waves of water near the receding sun when I found my feet stepped on something hard and round. I looked down and saw something sparkling , laying on the golden frills of the sand. I bent down and picked it up. I carefully observed it, it was a small sapphire necklace. Without any hesitation I wore it . I moved deep towards the water, until its brim touched my lower chin. I looked at the water, panting hard somehow balancing on the floating sand. I took a few deep breathe. I saw a growing wave approaching, gathering more water to go to the seashore. I took a deep breath, a bigger one and jumped into the water. It was blurry and dark, the pressure inside the water made it impossible for me to go outside rather it pushed me down inside. My body stopped flapping its arms, I barely could feel anything and was just going inside with the flow of water. I couldn't breathe and could barely feel my body when I saw a bright light near me, it was a blue light which removed the darkness from me. I felt myself getting alive again and I could even breathe. By looking closely I saw it was coming from the necklace. I looked upwards but instead of seeing the surface of the water and sunlight peeking through it , all I could see was the darkness and so it was when I looked through all the directions. I already came through a lot of distance and I can't back off , keeping it in mind I started swimming down inside the sea. Time passed and I kept going down ,there was not a single living creature floating around, it was just the water which grew darker as I was going deeper, the bluish color of the necklace turned into a faint white light. Suddenly I heard some burbling of the water which grew louder when a strong juggernaut rose from beneath the water pushing me, causing me to lose my balance and drifting me along with the sudden gush of the water. I somehow took the hold of myself and started swimming against the flow of the water, pushing through the invisible boulder which stood in front of me resisting my motion, I struggled myself towards my way when I saw a large dark tentacle raging out in the midst of the tempestuous sea which hissed as it grapples its own limb as if trying to catch a prey. My heart skipped a beat, a shiver ran down my spine as I gaped at the large limb when I lost my control and got dragged away along with the flow of the water. This time I was moving towards the direction of the current , trying to move as fast as I could from that creature when my eyes went to the bright white light of my necklace, my eyes widened when it moved back and forth pointing in the opposite direction. 

" Why is it pointing in that direction?", I thought, hastily pulling my pendant towards my side away from the direction it was pointing to. I flapped my arms trying to get the hold of myself. I gripped on the necklace tightly , it felt as if it was giving me strength to move and I moved towards it. I could feel my heart throbbing against my chest in the midst of all the water pressure that surrounded me. I moved downwards as it pointed. The color of water turned from azure to black when suddenly I again saw the muddy dark large tentacles raging out from downwards, surrounding me from all the sides, there was no way of escape, my pendant was still pointing downwards. Suddenly I saw two red eyes with vertical slit pupils sparkling in the midst of the dark water. A deep chill ran through my body, it was as if my body froze, I couldn't take my eyes off those flared crystals. I lost control of myself. It was as if the pendant took control over my limbs and unintentionally started moving towards it. My eyes were still on it, it was coming closer and closer when the darkness cleared away , my eyes widened and mouth let out a scream when I saw it was a large sea monster's head resting on the seafloor with a number of tentacles emerging from it. It had a dark scaly cephalopod kind of head with crimson red eyes , its head covered the entire length of the sea , its limbs were like a path to the large cave that lies underneath its head. I flapped my arms trying to go back as I was unintentionally moving towards its mouth , it moved its tentacles around me ready to grapple me anytime. My heart was beating wildly as I moved towards the dark hole where my necklace pointed. Suddenly the tentacles grappled me swinging me higher causing a whirlpool of water. I screamed trying to get the hold of the tip of the limbs that bound me till my chin and with a great force it threw me into a dark cavity.