Chapter 65
The Last Tether
Asher fell silent, staring at the face he wanted to look away from.
The quest was... almost malignant, he mused. It evolved, misshapen, all on its own without his input. Or, at least, his conscious input. In some ways, he supposed, it was always strange--plucking a random nobody slave from the middle of nowhere and shuffling him off to the ends of the world to fight a flesh-rotted fiend who seemed more broken than whole.
And there the two were, huddled in the distorted shadow of a time long gone, shattered beyond repair. What could he do? Kill her? Spare her? Save her? Fix her? Comfort her? Comfort him? No... he couldn’t do anything. He was a tiny little spec, a whimsical nobody; if her father could not save her, Asher couldn’t do it either. Perhaps, then, there really only was one thing, the reason to be sent here: to kill her. But... he was told he wasn’t first, that the man had selected others before him. And there had to have been someone in the masses with the capacity to kill her. So, why was she still alive?
“What is it?” Asher mumbled mockingly. “How am I supposed to know?”
“...”
"You're these godly fucking things," he continued, his gaze fixated on the girl on the ground. "With the power to do whatever the fuck you want. Apparently, you can even defy death. Do you know what I would have done to have that? Anything. Literally anything in the world. So, I don't know. I don't know what is the truth. Is it that you got too big for your britches and got punished by whoever gave you this power? Is it that this devoutly adorable act of your daughter wanting to save her friend formed a rift so grand nothing could mend it? Was that really all it took? To undo everything?"
"It was," the man said, his voice a soft choir. The world changed suddenly once again, and the two found themselves adrift through the void. Only for a brief second, though, as it appeared once more--colors and shapes. The beautiful scenery from before was nowhere to be seen; buildings lay in ruin, deep in the shadow of a dirt-wet mountain stained with blood. Ashen clouds above oversaw the world, the rapping of the rain irregular and grating. "Nobility is only Noble so long as it is not corrupted. When it appears perfect, unblemished... God-given."
“...”
“But there is a higher order in this world than the one of power,” the man said as the scene shuffled inside. There, the wrinkled, old man sat by the oil lamp, reading books. He was alone, cast in deep shadow, seeming lost. “That day, when I found Caey lying... I felt fear for the first time in my life. It ripped through me like a blade and it made me bleed. She was in so much pain... in so much agony... and yet, she was smiling. Her blood-stained lips were strained and lifted, and through the gargle of her throat, I could hear joy. She’d saved her friend. That foolish child, o so simple and meek. But just as she was mad enough to sacrifice everything for that pup...”
“... you were mad enough to sacrifice everything for her?”
“I was, yes,” the man nodded, chuckling faintly. “But it does not work that way. We have angered Death, and it punished us. Though she could move and she would not feel pain... she was forever cursed to bear the marks of shame upon her body. And I... well, I would age. Grow old. Weak. Crippled. But would not die.”
“...”
“I was forced to banish her,” he continued. “Strip her of the title of an Heir. Renounce her as my daughter. Sever all the bonds between us. But it was for naught. Time weathers even the sturdiest of rocks, and soon I was the only one left. Old, decrepit, and angry.”
The world changed once again, colors vanishing.
Asher realized they were back at the edge of the cliff overlooking the misted abyss. The castle at their rear was broken and cast even further in ruin. The rain pelted relentlessly, like a tantrum that would never end. And Caey was on her knees, the youthful beauty nowhere to be seen. Scars ran across her bare body, bits of decayed flesh barely hanging on. The white hair lay pressed against her tortured skin, her lips just barely parting with each breath.
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The man stood by her, once again old. The skin folds over his eyes parted ever so slightly, just enough for a pair of garnets to be visible. They shimmered like a pair of hanging stars in the clear, night sky, effervescent... and yet distinctly distant, as though belonging to a different world entirely.
“... what the hell are you doing here?” her voice broke through the silence.
“He would have seen the Truths, o foolish child,” the man said.
“So?! Maybe he should know!”
“He would have died.”
“... then let him die. Why do you care? He’s just another one of your pets, anyway.”
“You never showed your heart to any other of my ‘pets’, however.”
“... you need to let me go,” she said suddenly, her tone softening. “It’s been enough.”
“I--”
“It said it would fix you!!” she interrupted with a scream, battling to stand up but failing, falling further down instead. However, before her lips bit the dirt, some invisible force halted her and heaved her back up. “You just need to let me go.”
“I don’t need to be fixed,” the old man said.
“It’s the last step,” she said.
"--" the man said something, but the sounds of the rain covered up his voice. Although, Asher was certain, the man simply made it so.
Bit by bit, Asher began to piece together the puzzle, the whole story behind everything. However, it was just a theory--a mad sort, a desperate sort... but there was some validity to it, nonetheless.
Minutes passed and he could still not hear them. Growing weary of waiting and being beaten by the rain, his lips finally parted and words came out.
“She’s already dead, isn’t she?”
"..." All four eyes squared toward him, glimpses of surprise flickering within them.
“That’s why you sent me here,” Asher said. “Why you sent everyone before me here, too. To kill her. Not her as a person, but something like your last tether. And they were always on the verge of killing her when she suddenly blew her top and managed to kill them during the second wind... because you were not ready."
“...”
“And yet, you kept on hoping. Time and again, you kept on hoping that the next time you would be ready. That you would not stop it. That’s why you were so confused when she ‘opened her heart’ to me. It should not have happened. You were just about to intervene and kill me... when I saw what I saw.”
“...”
“You festered the tether for so long that it became a mote of intellect all on its own. And it’s defying you. Hah,” Asher chuckled bitterly. “Jesus Christ. What the fuck did I get myself entangled with? This is insane.”
“... you’re almost correct.”
“Almost?”
“Here.” the scene shuffled once again and they were back to the wide and empty hall where the pup was whimpering. The young woman was still on the ground and the young man kneeling above her was still crying.
A few moments later, he reached out with his right arm toward her head--she tried to stop him, but her body would not listen. Paralyzed, she could only watch with widened eyes. Just as the hand touched the top of her head, a burst of light first coalesced into a tiny, pebble-sized mote before exploding into a thousand colors, vapors drowning out the darkness.
Agonizing screams of pain broke through, though it was not just the man’s and the young woman’s--there were thousands of them, millions... billions. They were the echoes of all the corpses upon which the world was built, desperate and yearning to join the call.
Through the colors, Asher saw it--the mending light of the holy energy so pure and divine was beginning to peel back the rot and decay, birthing flesh anew beneath, smooth and healthy. The wounds and scars and holes all began to disappear, one by one, undone by the powers beyond.
However, just before it all vanished... a vapor of black smoke appeared from seemingly nowhere. It was strange, incorporeal, edgeless, and it moved in such a way that caused terror to surge within Asher’s heart. It seemed to ‘speak’, but only the man could hear it--and a moment later... all the healed wounds appeared once again and exploded into a burst of pus and blood.
Horrifyingly, the body of the young woman was nowhere to be seen while the young man began to age visibly--skin began to fold repeatedly, muscle began to wane, and hair began to gray. Within what felt like seconds, he’d turned into an aged, weathered stone, bereft of pristine beauty.
He remained kneeling and silently wept, his shoulders sinking like ships over the horizon.
“... what the...?” Asher mumbled.
"She did not die," the world flashed once again and they were back at the edge of the cliff. The two of them stood side by side, tall and enduring like mountains, yet, at the same time, wounded and decrepit. "And I did not banish her. Rather," staggeringly, two bodies began to morph into one, with the young woman's disappearing entirely into the old man's until only he remained standing. "She became a part of me. She was tethered to my soul for all eternity... or until I myself chose to let her go. I've discarded all other things--my Wealth, my Titles, my Nobility, my Name, my Desires. I divested all things but one--Caey. She is the last bridge that I must cross to shed my mortal coil.
“...”
"To become one thing I always wanted more than anything else in the world, the one thing that the entirety of my Lineage yearned for since time immemorial" he added. "I must kill the one thing I have always loved more than anything or anyone else in the world. Sever the bonds of love... and ascend into the Dominion of Godhood."