Dasque's Ascension Part 4 of 5
As Light and Shadow Close In
Everything hurt. Her arms felt like they were still shaking, her knees could barely move. She should have been dead. Yet she lived still. It was as if the light had gave all. It was as if it nourished her, fed her, held her, but deep down she knew something was wrong. The last thing she could see was the cliff. To see that brightest point of light her head had slowly, but surely, tilted upwards, as the plateau came into view, far above. When her hand had grabbed hold of the side of the cliff the intensity of light became too strong, and she could no longer rely on her eyes.
She could feel dried blood where her eyes had bled, but of all the things that assailed her, her eyes were the least concern to her. She had had time to part with them. Her entire body was another matter. She had climbed and climbed and climbed, and eventually what had been fuelling her seemed to lash back. Dasque could not remember how far she had fallen. Probably no more than ten feet, but it was enough to hurt, and it had felt like forever.
Her lips were on fire, when her tongue tried to lick the pain off, she could feel how cracked and broken they were. Her skin no longer hurt as bad though. She had been sun burnt for a long time, but it had gone away. At least that is what Dasque told herself, not choosing to consider the implication of what the numbness she felt could mean.
She was losing her other senses now. Her tongue was dry, her ears seemed clouded, and she could feel the ice forming the ledge only from the sense of gravity. She had lost smell completely now. All that remained would be the light, and the sense of doubt within.
“Turn back.”
“No.”
“Turn back.”
“Never.”
A harsh wailing sent her writhing, the screaming as within, but it was not her. It was not a dream. “What are you?”
“Now that is the question, isn’t it?” The voice was outside of her now, but she could not see what it looked like, nor could she even see an outline of it.
“I feel like a weight’s been lifted from my heart.”
“For the moment.” Something was looming right above her, its face hovering above hers. Something within her heart told her so. “We are going to play a game. I will say a word, and you will me the first thing that comes to mind. Life.”
“Light.”
“Opposite.”
“Shadow.”
“Love.”
“Heart.”
“Baz’Auran.”
“Monster.” The word flew from her mouth before she could reconsider. “Monster.” She said it a second time, tasting the word of in her mouth. “Monster.”
“Tell me more Dasque.”
“He… it… it is a creature of immeasurable power. It commands us as it sees fit. We are naught but tools in its plan, to be molded, used, and discarded as it sees fit. It acts as if it is justified, but its justice comes from power and power alone. What madness befell Father to create monster alongside mortals, to sit on its throne and tell me… tell me…”
“What did he… it say to you?”
“Father told me what he had in mind for my purpose.”
“And what was that.”
A burning welled up inside her, a hatred that was all her own, a rage which had boiled within her for so very, very long. Venomous words and bitter tears would not show her true feelings accurate enough, and so she screamed, feeling her throat cough and sputter through it.
“I choose the light! I choose the all, not the without! I reject Father, and I reject you, thing of Shadow.”
At first she felt nothing, until the uncertainty, the unnatural loathing crept back within her. The voice came from within once again. “For so long I have sustained you… given you life where you should have died in this frozen place, this place Baz’Auran created. Climb to the top, and your precious light will destroy us both. My boon is lifted.”
And slowly, but surely the life seemed to lift out of Dasque, until she was weightless, yet even then, at the very moment where she was to die, she could not sense anything but the light, seeing the horizon above her.