Ascension

Authors Comment:

Another older story. This one introduces several key characters that recur throughout my work, and feature heavily in my work-in-progress novel.

 

Drifts of snow danced and swirled in the stiff breeze. The winter sun hung low in the polar twilight, its faint rays barely illuminating the land below. Sheer, blackstone cliffs, frozen plains of blinding white, impenetrable forests, cavernous chasms, and the unrelenting dark. A picturesque beauty belied a treacherous man-killing cold.

It was negative 20 Celsius. A good winter, warmer than most on Tau Phoenicia. This years trial would kill maybe a dozen, twice that at most.

An obsidian obelisk marked the beginning. Standing 20 meters tall,and eight meters wide, it stood in stark contrast to the natural lines of the cliffs surrounding it. Hewn from bare rock, pock-marked by ice and freezing rain, crumbling slightly from the assault of the years, it was a triumph of man over nature.

The men gathered at its foot as they always did. Companions all, they stood to attention, shoulder to shoulder, hands clasped behind their backs, left hand on top of right, “ready-stance”, as they had been trained.

For some, this was their first ascension. A trek into the dim light, into the cold, into the unknown, would strike fear into the hearts of the noblest men.

A few hundred faced the trial of the ascension every year. Not all would survive. Sometimes, none of them did. They froze or starved, fell to their deaths, or were mauled by ferocious beasts.

But much more challenging, and frightening, than the natural dangers, were the unnatural ones. The battle of man against himself. His own fears, doubts, and flaws, magnified by the harshness of the climate.

There was something about this place. The loneliness, the dark, the sheer isolation, combined with lack of food, lack of sleep, and severe physical stresses, could break a man.

Survival was a matter of mind and body against the relentless cold.

The ascension was a journey of the soul. Each man faced a manifestation of his inner self. Some relived the mistakes of their past in excruciating detail. Others saw their future, or a version of it. But they all saw something, and it was that vision that spurred them on, or left them cold and dead on the unforgiving ground.

No one knew what they would see. No one knew what fate had prepared for them. What kind of man they were, or would be. That is what the ascension was. A glimpse into the burning fire of an eternal soul. It took tremendous trust, and courage, to face it, to see who you are laid bare. Undeniable, irrefutable.

Every life lived is a facet of a diamond. Coward, Hero, loved, hated, victim or persecutor. The only difference is perception, and perception is subjective.

Strip that away, show a man who he really is, and you can end him more completely than a bullet.

This was Jaxon’s second ascension. Emerging from the freezing wind, stripped to the waist, he carried nothing but a hand-forged knife, small survival kit and fire-steel, canteen, and of course his Phoenix medallion, clipped securely to his belt.

His chest bare, showed off it’s scars, trophies from a life forged in battle. There was the shrapnel wound that almost killed him on Thiessen, three gunshot wounds suffered on old Earth, and an ugly, mottled, burn on the left side of his body, from his neck down to his waist.. That one he picked up off Beta Eradon, courtesy of a Concordance missile that set the bridge of the Eternity afire.

Shocked by his near-naked appearance, the rest of the men must have thought him quite mad. They may have been right.

Jaxon could feel his blood thicken with each moment, and knew that even he wouldn’t last long unless he kept moving. So he began.

–

The fear and doubt that he felt the first time he faced ascension was now gone. In its place was a burning need to be judged. To cast away the illusion of perception, and see himself as he truly was.

His lack of attire was recognition of the fact that the closer one comes to death, the more vivid the visions. This, he craved.

Jaxon walked all day, deeper and deeper into the forest, far outpacing the other companions. This far north, the sun hung low in the sky and day was just a pale, blue twilight. Soon, it was black as pitch, save for the faint glow from above the treeline.

Stopping for just a few moments, Jaxon fashioned a crude torch from some pine sap and a fallen branch. This gave him enough light to follow the faintly-trodden path through the heart of the forest.

Already he could feel the call of the void. The stillness and quiet seemed to fall upon him like a blanket, an unfamiliar comfort.

The howling of pallwolves woke him from his deepening reflection. Bigger than their Earthen brethren, and far more ferocious, they thirsted for blood and meat in this desolate place.

More howling. They were close. A few miles, at most, and getting closer. Quickening his step, the Captain searched for a safe place to wait out the night.

He constructed a crude lean-to from some cut branches, and used the ample supplies of fallen wood to build himself a fire, its warmth the only thing keeping him from freezing in his primal nakedness.

Shortly, the dim blue glow faded to a murky black, and by night, he dreamt.

–

Visions of fire in the jet black sky assaulted his senses.

Five years had passed since the First fleet crossed the threshold and set foot in virgin stars.

Five years, and already those stars burned.

With cautious hope Jaxon, Aleia, Tauren, and their comrades had entered the void between the stars, and been carried to a new world.

But as fate would have it, hell followed with them.

The Seraphim Rei, elite holy warriors of the concordance of nine, had followed their thermal signature, and now pursued them with a fury unrivalled.

Fanatic in their devotion, unrelenting in their duty, the Seraphim were brutal warriors, and where they walked they bled the ground red beneath them.

One after another the fleets ships were lost. First the reliant, already damaged from the battle off Charon, then the Venture, and the Wayfarer, both lost in futile gallantry.

Now only the Eternity was left, with Jaxon still clinging to its helm.

The Cruiser was rigged for red, operating on reduced power, and had suffered hull breaches on multiple decks. A metal fire in the second hanger bay had been burning for several days, fuelled by triazene alloys coated onto the ships hull. Triazene, when exposed to extreme temperatures, produced oxygen as it burned, fuelling the fire even when the hanger was purged of its atmosphere.

The Captains steadfast refusal to accept defeat had taken him this far, but a fear had begun to envelop him. A fear that he could go no further.

His crew, even his elite Companions, were all but gone. Aleia’s loss was felt the hardest. She was more than an ally to him. Too much more. She was killed while surveying an Arcadian world when her launch was shot down by an obsolete kinetic missile.

They found the wreckage, and the bodies of Aleia and her pilot, days later. There was no SOS, no final words, no heroic last stand. She never knew what hit her. A peaceful, if ignominious, end for a soldier.

She was sitting up when they found her, leaning gently against the shuttles still smouldering hull, her prosthetic arm torn from its socket. She had survived the crash, only to die wounded and alone.

The ground beneath her was green, the sky above clear and blue, belying the violence of her end.

Not all hero’s deaths are heroic.

In all, the Eternity was down to one third of it’s crew, less than a hundred men.

Before Jaxon could allow himself to be consumed in the fires of battle, like his comrades before him, he had one final mission.

The Lady had entrusted in him the quest to find a new world for their people, and that quest had failed. The new meridian was a futile enterprise, the seraphim were everywhere, any attempt to colonise the Arcadian system would be suicide.

He had to go back.

–

The morning brought clear skies, and a few brave rays of sun dared to glisten upon the snow-covered ground.

The portent began to fade with the light of day, as dreams do, but its effects remained, like the ripples on a lake.

Was fate predestined? An arrow through time, ceaseless, unyielding? Or was it flowing, winding, as a river? No less certain in its destination, but with many more paths to realise it?

Jaxon found himself some berries and edible lichen, and warmed them over the fire using his canteen cup. Swallowing the last of his modest meal, the next order of business was protection. The pallwolves would still be close. A good, stout length of darkwood would make an excellent choice for a spear. Jaxon used his knife to sharpen his new weapon, and then the embers of his dying fire to harden it. Standing almost 10 feet tall, and thicker than his forearm, he was now armed.

Even such a crude weapon felt familiar, and comforting, as the old soldier continued his lonely journey.

The wind was still today, and the only sound was the crunching of snow underfoot, and the faint air of birdsong. No wolves, but they would be back. They had smelled manmeat, and would not soon pass up a meal.

The dreams of the night before lay heavy on his mind. Dreams here, in this place, didn’t fade by daylight. In truth, the longer one spent here, the harder it was to tell when a dream ended and the day began.

Despair began to lap at his heels. Jaxon was reminded of the stories of elves and goblins, diminutive creations which visited men in their beds, and bonded with their ethereal spirit, draining their virility and strength, and causing them to fall into a lethargic pallor. It was hard not to imagine such things here, even for a rational man.

The dream foretold the end.

He had seen the meridian, the last hope of the north star, burning around him.

He had seen Aleia buried under alien soil, her grave never to be visited attended.

Images so vivid, calling forth emotions so real, he began to question his sanity, and his reality.

Who was to say he was awake and remembering, or asleep and still dreaming?

A howl raised the hairs on his neck, and he spun round just in time to see a dark shape dart across his field of vision.

Dream or not, the pallwolves were upon him.

–

Grasping his makeshift spear in frozen hands he turned, and turned again, trying to keep the predator in front of him. There were three of them, that he could see. A small pack, or were there more, hidden out of view?

A growl, deep, guttural, primitive, an unspoken language shared by animal and man alike. It was the alpha. Nearly three meters long, and pale grey, it moved effortlessly between the trees. Its paws made no sound, despite their size, and not even its breath was visible when it bared its teeth. It showed itself as a sign of dominance. It had mastery of this domain, and man was out of his element.

Despite its civilised veneer, Man has more in common with beasts than with the ideals that it aspires to.

Scrape away that faint, crumbling facade, and you find the snarling, raging, rutting, heart of man.

Jaxon’s eyes locked with the pallwolf. They spoke, in that moment. The challenge had been accepted.

The white-haired beast lowered it’s underbelly to the floor, protecting itself from strikes. It’s fur there was stained black, this was far from its first battle.

Its teeth bared, the mighty beast slavered with anticipation. Eyes locked, fearless, it prepared to defend its status.
Jaxon, cold, hungry, and enraged, cast his caution to the howling winds and surged forward, spear in hand.

With a mighty roar, he thrust, and missed. The wolf leapt free, shockingly fast for a beast its size. Recovering, Jaxon thrust again, and again, the spear an extension of his body. The animal was forced onto the defensive, and struggled to find an opportunity to attack.

It seemed to lose heart slightly, and fell back, reconsidering its attack. This brief moment of indecision ended with a piercing yelp of agony and a grotesque thunk as the speak struck home, piercing deep into the beasts thick hide.

With effort, Jaxon hauled his spear free from the wounded pallwolf, crimson blood pouring from the wound. Unsteady, but not defeated, his quarry circled, looking for an opportunity to sate its bloodlust.

Again Jaxon struck, and a third time, each wound deeper and more precise than the last as the wolf tired. Bleeding, whining, and broken, then animal dragged itself a few steps, then fell, dead.

Exhausted, Jaxon’s eyes darted toward the treeline, expecting to see the rest of the pack, but there was nothing.

Like man, wolves were bound by a primitive economy of respect. Jaxon had defeated their alpha in noble battle. They would threaten him no longer.

Jaxon began to feel a biting chill creep into his bones. His sweat was freezing on his skin, and with no warm clothing, he would die in mere moments. Taking his knife, he flayed his former adversary, and scraped the chunks of flesh and sinew from the pelt as best as he could.

He wrapped the fur tightly around him, securing it with a length of twine from his survival kit, and carried on into the woods.

After several hours of walking, night had fallen again. This time, ghostly, ethereal,glow of an aurora shone faintly through the dark, lighting his way. He was climbing ever higher now, and the trees were thinning into scrag and brush. One more day, at this pace, and he would be there, at the citadel of <NAME>.

That nights fire was small, fuelled only by the thin branches and loose twigs, but a final gift from the fallen pallwolf comforted him. A hefty chunk of meat, cut from the animals soft underbelly, provided a meal, the first since the trek began.

Wolf meat was sour, almost rancid, but in this cold, bleak place it was as fine as a full spread at the high lady’s table.

The fat from the meat dripped into the fire, making it burn brightly and radiate warmth into the Captains frozen, rigid, bones.

Jaxon sat beneath the twilight glow, bathed in the warmth of the crackling fire, the flowing wind whistling in his ears.

It was primal out here. Beautiful, and unforgiving.

Above the trees particularly, there was nothing but nothing. An endless void, as far as the distant horizon.

This place was a Sirens cove. It killed men by calling to their deepest unspoken desires, and promising them on the wind. Jaxon felt it too.

The frigid breeze whispered to him. The howling and whistling now seemed to bear the Sirens call.

Doubt crept into his heart.

His ascension was nearing its end, but what then?

He would return to the life of a soldier, some day to fight and die on a forgotten world, or in the cold inky blackness of space. For what? For a line on a map? For his name in the hall? A scrap of paper and a posthumous medal?

Or would he end his life here, like the others? Iceblind and starving, frozen in the cold, but having found a contentment in death that would forever elude him in life?

As the fire faded to its dying embers, Jaxon drifted into a restless sleep.

–

That demon hope.

It ensnared men’s hearts with its tendrils, and drove them mad.

Mad with dreams of a better life.

Jaxon was reminded of the story of Pandora.

Flawed with human curiosity, she opened a box containing the evils of the gods. Sickness, famine and death were unleashed upon the world.

But the gods, it is said, are not without mercy, and so, in the bottom of the box, lay the blessing of hope. A sign that in the darkest of nights there was the promise of a new dawn.

But they were wrong.

Hope was not a blessing, it was, in fact, the most wicked of all demons, because it prolonged the torment of man.

Without this noble evil, man would grant himself deliverance from his pain, from his suffering, from his misery.

But hope grants the promise of a new day, a better day, a day that never comes.

Damn it all!

He regretfully pulled the muzzle back from his temple and returned the pistol to it’s holster.

Not today. There was work to be done. Some day. But not today.

The skies blazed crimson over Tau Phoenicia as the city burned to ash.

Concordance ship-mounted batteries hurled forth their repugnant fury, puncturing the dark with Streaks of brilliant light.

The survivors left the fatally wounded Eternity in it’s few remaining launches and drop pods, their survival the ships final gift. Gliding unpowered to the earth to avoid detection, they each took separate paths. Their war lost, they would never meet again.

Tau Phoenicia had become a last bastion of hope for those frightened, wretched, souls fleeing the war. Thousands of them, bedraggled and exhausted, had sought salvation at the far reaches of known space, and there they met their end.

Jaxon’s launch put down just outside the burning city.

With pistol in hand, he stepped from the vessel into combat stance. The crackle of gunfire and the screams of the dying surrounded him.

There were six men on the launch. Loyal men, good men, but their Captain knew he could ask no more of them. Their faces weary, bloody, fear dancing unrestrained across their eyes, some could scarcely stand. They had given all they could, Jaxon would need to finish this on his own.

One final time, the Captain saluted his men, and as their last order, they returned it. Then they broke, to attend to their families, friends, or their own lives.

A single tear betrayed him. Not given to emotion, but nonetheless human, Jaxon had one thing left on his mind: Aurelia.

Whether for Duty, or for Love, or for the future of what was left of their world, she must survive. As long as life beat in her heart, there was a ray of hope in this blackness.

Her beauty, her presence, her sheer goodness, was enough to banish all the evils that this Eternal War had seen.

Without noticing, Jaxon was running. Faster, and faster, he was ignoring his training, ignoring cover, concealment, ignoring even the crack of gunfire and the shouts of screams of friend and foe alike.

The palladium was a testament to the fallen, littered with the bodies of the dead, sticky with their blood. A final battleground, the time of their finest hour, and their last.

The banner of the Eridani Free Company lay tattered on the field, and the Ardent spear, and his brothers, the Aurelian High guard.

He realised with heart-stopping pain that he was witnessing the last stand of the companions. They bled their last here, in defence of their lady.

Breathing heavy, overcome not with fatigue, but emotion, he collapsed. Dragging his way forward,stumbling, half crawling, he wept looking into the dead eyes of those who he only now realised were his friends, his brothers. They fought beside each other through countless battles, he should have been there at their end.

Soaked with their blood, emboldened by their sacrifice, the Captain picked himself up.

Inside the great palladium, more gunfire reverberated through the stone halls. Another tomb. But still they fought. Down to the last man they fought, even as their world burned around them, they fought. Beyond noble, glorious, brazen gallantry that would write itself into the very stars themselves. They would be remembered.

The mottled grey palour of a concordance officer drifted through the smoke, formless as a spectre, a figure of hate.

His hand darted for his weapon, eyes white, but it was too late. Jaxon’s 10MM slug tore through his chest knocking him to the floor. Another shot, and another slammed into his struggling body, the officer rolled, desperate to cling to life, and managed to draw his pistol. Screaming an instinctual cry of rage, Jaxon fired again, and again, until only the click of a firing pin on an empty chamber echoed through the stone entranceway.

The Captain was losing heart.

He understood now, what it was to be “battleshy”. Far from cowardice, it was instead the state of being strong for too long. Fighting too hard. Facing too much. It could break the best of men.

But not yet.

Her piercing blue eyes, impossibly beautiful, banished any thought of giving up.

There could be a hundred men in his way, they would fall before him.

Burning agony suddenly engulfed his senses, slamming Jaxon to the ground. White chunks of shattered fibre sheared off his strike vest, stopping the bullet, but rendering the armour useless against another shot. From behind him, the soldier fired again, this time missing in his haste.

Fuelled by fury, the Captain surged forward, covering the few meters to his enemy in a heartbeat, ignoring the automatic rifle fire skittering past him on the smooth stone floor.

At close range, Jaxon deftly separated the soldier from his weapon with his right hand, and struck him hard in the nose with his left, breaking it. Following swiftly with an uppercut, shattering his jaw, the concordance fighter responded weakly, before being hit with a fusillade of blows.

Collapsing to the floor, the Captain was on him, on hand firmly on either side of the soldiers head. With a cold, calculating sneer, he swore:

“I hope you enjoy life as a blind man”

“No!” his enemy screamed, desperate to a avoid a fate worse than death.

It was to no avail. Jaxon rammed both of his thumbs into the man’s eyes, feeling the soft flesh tear and burst under his abuse.

Jaxon’s foe wailed in agony, before being silenced by the intensity of it. He would survive. Maybe. But he would live the life of a cripple, dependent on others for the rest of his days. It would have been kinder to break his neck, but he deserved no such mercy.

There would be none shown on this day.

Aurelia.

He had to find her, before they did.

If she was alive, there would be only one safe place that she could be. The solarium, the inner sanctum of the citadel, deep within the palladium.

Blood soaked the walls, bodies and shell casings littered the floors. The halls were quiet now. The stench of death and gunsmoke hung thick in the air. Jaxon retched from the acrid, metallic taste, but pushed on.

The door to the solarium was mercifully sealed. Thick black soot radiated in distinctive circular patterns upon it’s surface. They had tried to blast it open, but failed to breach it’s heavy steel plating.

Jaxon used his code to unlock the door, and with heart pounding, sick to his stomach, forced it open.

The lady stood alone in the centre of the room, resplendent, regal, noble, despite the fear and pain etched into her exquisite face. Aurelia turned slowly look at him.

A cry of anguish dulled her radiance only for an instant. Her noble visage broke, and she ran to embrace the first man without murder in his heart in… Gods, How long?

How long had she been locked up, alone, in this small room? Listening to the sounds of her people, her friends, being murdered with her name on their lips?

That didn’t matter now.

However broken they were, however exhausted, wounded, scarred by the things they had seen, this was not the time for despair.

They could escape through the battery towers,deep, geothermal vents used to provide power and heat to Tau Phoenicia. The towers ran for miles beneath the surface, they could take them safely beyond the besieged capital.

Aurelias fine silk chiffon became quickly soiled and soaked through in the dank, dirty underbelly of the city. Jaxon dared not ask her to take it off, and so offered the lady his longcoat instead, which she accepted gratefully.

They walked for hours, away from the muffled gunfire and the screams of their friends. Only fading, flickering emergency lighting was their company, and their guide. It too, eventually went out. The city was dying.

Eventually dawns timid rays found their way into their subterranean refuge, and with them, a way out.

With his arm around his lady, Jaxon helped her climb the few short steps out of the battery towers and into the forest beyond.

He turned to look at her in the light of day, and as he did so, she was gone.

–

The fire had gone out hours ago, and it was well below freezing. Jaxon’s hands and feet were numb, and his body so frigid he couldn’t even cry out in pain.

The Sirens call had almost taken him. He could still feel the gentle allure of the dreamstate, calling him into another world.

The wolf pelt crackled and snapped as he shook off the ice and snow.

“Better to die on your feet, than live on your knees”, he muttered, with frosty breath.

Clutching his ice-covered spear, he stumbled on.

With no path visible in the snow, he climbed. Higher, and higher. Eventually, if he could stay alive long enough, he would reach the citadel.

With nothing but rancid wolf meat and some berries for three days, and the temperature well below freezing, Jaxon’s pace slowed dangerously.

Each step through the deepening snow was harder than the last.

For a second time, his heart faltered, and he doubted himself.

He was tired. Much too tired. His heart was beating slower, he couldn’t feel his hands or feet at all any more.

Jaxon began to feel the touch of death covering him like a funeral pall.

It was a warm feeling, pleasant, not at all frightening, like he imagined it would be.

It felt… welcoming.

But he dismissed it, turned it away.

Foul beasts, those sirens.

Deceiving men with what they desire most.

Another step. Then another. Each one took conscious effort now, each one a new challenge.

Before too long, the storm picked up again, and the snow turned the world white.

He had no idea what time it was. Not that it really mattered in this perpetual twilight. Jaxon was becoming disoriented and confused from exertion, cold, hunger, and broken sleep.

Iceblind and unsteady, he suddenly stumbled, and fell face first into the 3-feet snowdrifts. Struggling to pick himself up, Jaxon turned and looked face first at a long dead, frozen corpse.

His body was contorted into a grotesque characatureof a man, mouth open in terror, hands wrapped vainly around his gaunt frame for warmth. He was a companion, a former traveller, fallen on his quest. A picture of horror, his eyes were white, sunken into his desiccated, pallid skin. There were claw and bite marks surrounded by torn clothing, but there was no blood. He was dead before the beasts got to him.

Jaxon bent down and prised the companions Phoenix from his frozen chest. He would be remembered.

“He looks so peaceful” Jaxon thought, his own face softly mirroring the tranquil air of the dead man. “It is no dishonour to fail while while daring greatly”, he spoke aloud, a final epitaph for his fallen comrade. Despite the cold, and his haste, the Captain took his spear and scraped a shallow hole in the hard ground, and covered the soldier with a thin veil of snow and frozen earth. His uniform was immaculate, he must have passed recently. Maybe he was one of the men that started with him? Although no one passed him on the path…
He was strong too. His muscles retained some of their former lustre in death, save for the postmortem lacerations. Perhaps the cold had preserved his body? Jaxon wondered. It was A fitting end for a warrior, a fine corpse, with his wounds before him.

Delivering a final salute, the Captain tightened the cord on his pelt, and grasped his spear.

Cold enough that his body could no longer feel it, the warrior inside him pressed on.

The wind seemed to call to him, and this time the voice on the breeze was unmistakably hers.

It took over two days to walk through through the forest to Jaxon’s home.

Aurelia had been quiet, her heart heavy with loss, but she bore the trek well. It was hard to imagine, but being with her was like a dream. Even despite all that had happened, the bloodshed, the fall of a centuries old civilisation, Jaxon felt that he had to fake a sombre tone for the sake of decency.

Inside he felt what he thought could be hope, a feeling he could scarcely remember.

With no power, the modest homestead was cold and dark when they arrived, so Jaxon got to work building a fire. The fireplace, a vestigial comfort, was now a life-saving necessity.

The Eternity, the Companions, even the Alliance itself, all of it was gone. Monumental grief too raw to bear, a burden too heavy to carry. Life would now be a struggle for survival. Jaxon lived now for her. Aurelia was all that was left of his world.

He had stockpiled enough supplies for several months, and there were tools and reseeding gear to eventually sustain the two of them.

There were no ships left, and even if there were, there was nowhere to go that was any better than here.

The concordance left nothing behind after burning tau Phoenicia. Just bodies, the noble dead and their foe alike, charred, marred, and unrecognisable, and the tattered remnants of what they had died for.

It would be so easy to give up.

These visions, these nightly spectres, were coming stronger now. Jaxon could scarcely tell which nightmare was real, and which was a portent of things yet to come.

He saw death. A world burned. Ruin inevitable.

But through all that a light radiant, a hope unbroken.

Aurelia.

The fate of the stars would live and die in her name.

Her request of him after Thiessen was to find the Solarian Fracture. The gateway between the stars.

Too exhausted, too withered to hide from his inner heart, Jaxon had no choice but to face the truth:

He was afraid.

It was one thing to face death in battle. Jaxon had no fear of it, in fact there was times when he longed for a glorious end to a lifetime behind a gun.

But this quest thrust upon his shoulders a great responsibility. He would carry with him the hearts, dreams, and lives, of the future of civilisation itself.

That fear crippled him.

Dying here, alone in the cold, would be preferable to failing the lady, and breaking his promise to her, and his people.

She placed her hope with him, but he knew in his heart that he was not strong enough to bear its great burden.

Unlike most officers in the Alliance “Regulars”, Aeonians, Jaxon included, were not of noble birth. Hell, his blood was filthy, he had never even known his parents. He was taken in by a foster family when he was already five years old. Hope, fate, and destiny could not, could never, rest with such a man.

This time Jaxon realised that the call of the winds was his own voice.

–

That summer was warm, and the sun brought new life to the barren, scorched earth. Vegetation slowly covered the rusting remains of the city as nature reclaimed its dominion, and buried the ashes and scars of battle.

A fresh breeze blew, free of the smoke and noise of industry. The lake was cool, and clear, good for fishing. The soil bore fruit and there were enough tools and supplies for simple farming.

The survivors numbered about a dozen in all, but there were no doubt more scattered across the planet, in small groups, hiding, scavenging, living as best they could. Occasionally one would wander into the community, weeping with the joy of seeing a human being again.

It seemed macabre to admit it, and he never would, but Jaxon had never been happier.

He had beaten his sword to a ploughshare, but like the Phoenix, had been granted new life. By day, he tilled the fields, gathered firewood, hunted and fished, and made repairs to the communities buildings.

Aurelia and Jaxon were growing closer. He saw her now as more than just a paragon, a formless icon, but a woman. That made her far more beautiful in his eyes. Seeing her flaws, seeing her tears and her pain, awakened in him a love that he sought to bury since they met on Earth an age ago.

Such a love can warm the hearts of men, even in the coldest of nights. Through war, adversity, loss, seeing death unceasing, cruelty unrestrained, love can save a man from being lost to wanton hate.

–

So cold now. Ice must surely run in his veins. Jaxon was sure he saw the lights of the citadel an hour ago, beckoning through the swirling snow, but they faded into the perpetual night. Then, again, moments ago, he saw them, but once more they vanished.

Visions filled his head.

A dream, a nightmare, or a portent?

The warrior in him pressed on, and on, but his strength failed.

Jaxon was losing himself in sightless, empty, blackness.

Formless, fleeting, like ocean waves, reality and fantasy morphed into one, and then separated, only to merge again moments later.

He screamed into the void but the violence of the wind snatched his words, making his wail of despair a soundless, impotent cry into the dark.

This was as far as his heart would take him.

Alone in the emptiness, he waited for the embrace of death. He wondered if those Valkyries of old would take his battered soul, or if he would merely freeze in the snow, a testament to the bravery, and the folly, of one man’s apotheosis.

The last of his strength drained, the warrior collapsed to his knees, defeated.

–

Aurelia placed her hand gently on his shoulder, the warmth of her touch pleasant against the coolness of the late spring breeze.

Smiling, she handed him a wildflower that she had picked. Since the fall of the companions, they had begun flourishing in the untamed soil.

It was an Aed Lille. Sapphire blue, it matched her eyes. It was her favourite flower.

This would be their tenth summer here, and their fifth together.

Those five years had felt like a new life.

Their small community had grown to over two dozen, and they were… happy. Jaxon had taken years to learn what that word even meant, but she had shown him.

A single moment in her arms was worth a lifetime of war.

–

The visions were one with reality now.

Jaxon could see her, Aurelia, the High Lady. He heard the sultry, exotic, lilt of her voice, and could feel the warmth of her skin as they embraced. Her hair carried the faint scent of wildflower, earthy, and sweet.

They kissed with a familiar passion, as if they had known each other a lifetime. In a way, maybe they had? He was there now, inside his minds eye. Or was it outside… It felt so comfortable, so natural… This, surely, was where he belonged. Not that other place, that cold, dark, lonely place. Here was his home, with her.

The Sirens had taken him. Her voice was their song. Lost completely inside himself, Jaxon was gone.

Breaking the kiss, Aurelia looked at him with a deep sadness.

“You have to go back”. She said.

Shaking his head, he refused her. Ignoring the nagging doubts, he convinced himself, this was where he belonged.

“Jack”, She said, tears flowing down her beautiful face. “I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry”.

“You have to go back” She repeated.

“No, No!” Jaxon fought against the truth inside himself. He would not go back, he could not.

“I want to stay here, with you! This is all I want…”

The skies darkened. Countless shadows crept silently across the golden farmlands. The gold crosses emblazoned on their hulls were unmistakable: The Seraphim Rei.

A stray transmission from a surviving colonist? A chance patrol? The wrath of fate?

“Someday. Someday, I promise, but not today”.

Remember always Jack, she said. “I love you”.

Once more the world burned. Flame, gunfire, and the acrid stench of burning flesh defiled the air. The screams of pain were back as if they had never left.

Jaxon and Aurelia embraced as the sky lit up with gunfire.

A single moment. A final moment of peace in a world consumed with eternal war.

The dream faded, darkened, and was gone.

–

The cold had damn near killed him, but it didn’t matter any more.

Rising to his full height, he brushed the worst of it off, and pushed ever forward.

The way seemed clearer now, despite the enduring fury of the storm.

His mind clear, his thoughts a unified focus, he made good progress through the thick snow and driving wind.

She loved him.

He could feel the passion of her words even in the cold blackness of the night.

Somewhere, somehow, she had reached him.

Fate was a spectre, chaotic, devoid of form. It flowed this way and that, the simplest choice turning a placid stream into a raging torrent. Without cruelty, and yet without mercy, it simply was.

What he saw was a possible future.

A glimpse into the many facets of a diamond.

Jaxon was convinced that having seen what he saw, he could challenge the supremacy of fate itself.

He could prevent the fall, and if he dared greatly enough, stood steadfast enough, he could have that of which he never dared to dream.

The lights of the Aeonian Citadel peered unmistakably through the storm.

With his remaining strength Jaxon heaved open the heavy wooden doors and stepped inside the imposing stone structure.

A cheer rose up from the triumphant warriors gathered within. A rare display of jubilation from these fighting men, welcoming their battle-weary brother. What had they seen? What ghosts haunted their souls?

When the lies a man tells himself are burnt away, he stands Ascended. Humbled, vulnerable, yet altogether more powerful than ever before.

The Quest was over, and yet just beginning.

A great column of radiant energy surged forth from the citadels tower beacon, piercing the heavens, burning aside the snow and ice and inky black, as if by a great flame.

It stood as it always had, a manifestation of the will of the men who had created it.

A Phoenix, Rising.

–

“Ascension”

-AdAstraPhoenicia-