850. White day, 7
(Pascal)
The dark beast began to roar. It was terrifying. I was shaken on my legs.
P - What... What is that?
A - I... I’m not sure.
I took hold of the sword.
P - Get ready...
The monster ahead was pulled out from books or nightmares.
A dark predatory beast with spikes over its body, spewing a long trail of flames in my direction. I jumped on the side but was caught by the fire.
I fought it off, carelessly ripping some of my clothing away, clumsily.
Aïssheas always helpful caused a gust of wing to fan out the flames around me, allowing me to stand up again. My legs had painful burns, making me grit my teeth. But I could stand, and face that thing.
The monster stepped and stomped over the ashes and the ground appeared to ooze some darkness where it walked.
It was as if all was darker around it. But as it got closer I could begin to see its features and mostly the weird head it had. It was a caricature of an evil monster to me. Claws, horns, spikes, jagged teeth, glowing red eyes and fire spread... A stereotype so ridiculous even to me now in this dire situation.
I still felt cold, and pain, and I still felt as if reality had collapsed because of what I saw.
But aiming Aïssheas toward it, I simply now needed to ask her to kill, and she would make it happen.
She did.
The ground suddenly shook. I shivered, as tremors and explosions could be felt and heard.
I saw the monster exploding literally. It turned into a wide and muddy puddle of vivid red blood and scattered ashes.
Unreal... But that’s Aïssheas’s power. And according to her, just the tiniest of fragments from something far bigger.
I breathed in and stepped ahead.
~
Just a few steps, before I stopped.
Before I saw the unthinkable happen.
The unreal monster refusing to die from its body pulverised.
In a heartbeat, the shades, fluids and ashes fused back together, making it reappear as heavy as before in front of me. And soon to attack again.
P - Aïssheas! Do something!
The beast was rushing to me. Aïssheas annihilated it again as it jumped to me. The scattered fleshes and fluids had barely touched the ground and wall, that they were already creeping back to each other.
A - I don’t think I can... Touch it with me, I should be able to learn what it is then.
P - You think I can do that? I’ve never fought with a sword!
The monster was charging me already whether I was ready or not.
Aïssheas whispered as I began to move that it was as light as one could be, and that I should hurry.
I felt my heart hurting me, when I decided to step forward instead of running away through the doors behind.
I have no skill, but the sword is really light now. The attack struck it. I stuck Aïssheas into the flank of the beast successfully, before being shoved away from its movement.
I slid on the ground for a few metres, before I could stand up again. As I did, I witnessed the monster limping, bleeding profusely. It was moaning, decomposing itself. I understood that Aïssheas was destroying it from inside.
It’s scary.
The beast roared a last time, long and like a beast, the sounds taking some emotional intonations in the end.
I was catching my breath back, gazing at the show of decomposition occurring in front of me. Ashes were scattering away and around in this wide room.
I tripped over my own feet and fell a few times, feeling a little under shock still, but eventually picked up the weapon again, scattering more of the ashes where it lied. That weapon did it...
The contact felt colder than usual. The sound it emitted felt different, as if sad.
P - So... What was it?
A - It was... Aïsshean. It was my sister.
P - What...
A - Don’t bother... Let’s finish this please.
Mourning... I didn’t know what to say.
They didn’t recognise each other sadly.
~
I followed the corridor heading downstairs.
I reached the room, as wide as above. Colourless, featureless. I could see the sky and pale colours of the world outside as if all the walls were transparent. Maybe they were. This building didn’t look like a building at all to me. Just something abstract, like a hollow rock maybe.
In that room at the end where the source is supposed to lie, I couldn’t see anything special. I could feel fuzzy, but not see much.
P - Where are the statues you mentioned?
A - They were near the middle. You don’t see them?
Maybe her sister wanted to hide them. And the more I thought about it and how I wanted to see them, so they appeared. They became opaque before me.
In that empty space of a room, the three statues of deformed silhouettes appeared, as if kneeling there maybe.
P - I can see them now...
A - What are they?
The statues she had to destroy where there. Arranged in a way as if they were contemplating something invisible between them. I looked around them cautiously, avoiding to touch them and to step in front of them.
This is the Tamźródlo? I don’t get it.
P - They look like humans, but that would have melted a little. The clothes and the flesh are not really differentiated. It’s like shreds of cloths and skin are flaking and assembled into them, although rather smoothly overall. It looks like one of them wore a cape.
A - A cape?
P - I don’t know. Something like that. The faces are smooth, there isn’t really much to see. It’s mostly the clothes in shreds and helmets that differentiate them.
A - Can you describe them to me?
P - The cloak one wears a kind of knit hat or hood in coiling shreds. The one with mostly featureless top half has enormous legs against the others, with weird big toes like claws. The third one looks a little different. It’s like a smooth shape was covered with scraps of clothes and armour. There are sewing lines everywhere along the body... Where do these things come from? Who made this? How does this work Aïssheas?
A - I don’t think it exactly functions like I do. And I don’t know the answers honestly Pascal... Is there a blue sun or an eight edges shaped star symbolised somewhere around?
P - Nothing like that no. That’s your lead?
A - It would have been.
That’s it? At the end of this flying tomb. We got here and we still don’t know?
P - You still want to destroy this thing you don’t understand? You think you can?
A - Yes, because we’ve all suffered what they brought and I can see how much they could do it again. But to be sure if I can, could you put me in contact with them?
I hesitated for a moment.
Eventually I brought the tip of Aïssheas to touch one of them.
Nothing happened.
P - So?
A - I only detected stone... I don’t understand, I can see the source right there, but it doesn’t feel like they are it exactly. Maybe more like interfaces between it and here.
P - So if we break them, we’re good?
A - Yes. That has been my purpose all along. No one else will be able to use them or the source again.
Here we go then. To break the horns that sounded the end of the world so it doesn’t happen again.
I put myself in position to strike all of them at once with Aïssheas and her power.
A cataclysm was already too much. So we’ll send them back to the ground.
It’s over.
I attacked.
I saw a reap of light.
I heard Aïssheas’ mind echoing along with mine as the spell broke forth.
She had heard from her sister the source was impossible to destroy, and the paradox that she also looked for a sword able to do so.
They stumbled upon the principle of physical demolition, when the reality and required action was in something different. The truth of the source wasn’t in these rocks broken apart, but in something out of material action that lied there and nowhere.
I was losing consciousness as the light ruptured everything. A numbing flash like an explosion took me away.
In my last moment, I heard Aïssheas lament.
Her agony in that uncontrolled reaction, her regret and disillusion. Her quest for misunderstood power had been vain, and adverse. She had wanted to act to save the world, and...
Only after it was too late, did she realise how much her only goal had just eluded her and failed.
Her last spell, was bitterly only trying to save my life.
~
