C H A P T E R I
☬
A I M L E S S
There was little more than a blinding light and a searing pain as Ansur gave himself to the central pyre. This is where his journey would come to an end, after a hundred years leading the last people through the trecherous Northern Passages and fending off all manner of horrors: a construct of wood and tinder. It seemed poetically fitting that the world could not bring him to his knees so he gave himself willingly to the embrace of death. He dared not look back upon the faces that had gathered to bear witness to his final moments, as he could not stand to see them shed tears on his behalf. He knew they would be happy in this new land; happy and safe, and under the guidance of all the Gods that had promised him safety for his kin.
The flame was roaring, burning hot, crackling in its intensity, yet somehow lacking. It was an empty fire at the centre of a grand hall of polished marble and columns of pearl, an empty fire that hungered for the soul of a hero to be complete. The presence of the fire would ensure that this new land would not suffer the same fate as the last, a warding light to fend off the end.
Ansur smiled as he often did. He had done his part. Mankind was safe, and no longer had to flee. He looked down at his hands as they began to flay and bubble. His furs had already turned to ash around him. Despite the violently bright flame engulfing Ansur, his vision grew dark and narrow, before he could see nothing at all, and could only faintly feel the burning anymore. He dropped to the ground, his legs unable to support his weight; he just lay there for a moment in silence... waiting for the pain to end.
Ansur did not notice the transition from life to death. To him, it seemed as though it were simply an extension of his rest. One moment he could feel his body crumbling, and the next he felt whole once more. All he could do was lay there, engulfed in shadows, unable to move. His eyes cracked open after some struggle, and he could just make out the night sky, framed by the great rings that hung in the heavens. He watched for some time, not knowing what this realm beyond life would bring. He watched for years or for hours –he could not tell which– counting the stars that shone in the otherwordly void. He could see some shine brightly, but some simply faded into obscurity, and, curiously, some simply vanished. It was as though something were extinguishing the stars themselves. And then he felt cold, as though somebody had extinguished a nearby campfire, leaving him to shiver in the darkness. Then there was a voice... a presence. A whispering. An endless lament that felt like fire in his mind, madness given form. It was speaking to him. Speaking. Speaking without hesistation or end. It was such an empty and hollow voice that he knew despair now reigned in whatever realm he had come to. It spoke with such anguish and despair and fury and anger all mixed together that Ansur knew this place was now Godless.
His eyes snapped open, only to sting as if sand had been rubbed into them. He gasped for air but only got a lungful of ash. He jolted upwards, coughing violently, splashing up clouds of ghostly white powder. He rubbed his burning eyes and took a moment to catch his breath. He squinted. What was this place? A great hall of crumbled marble and columns of faded pearl? Vines grew over the dilapidated ceiling, and mould and moss crept up the walls to meet it. It was vast and empty, but somewhat familiar to him. He looked at his legs and hands to find them buried in a great mound of ash, as though a fire had been raging in his very place for thousands of years if not longer.
Asnur forced himself upright, dusting off the ash and stepping onto the uneven tile surface. He looked up and he looked around, the familiarity with this place burrowing deep into his head, bugging him like a relentless insect.
There was a window on the far side of the chamber, not a decorative one by any means, but an apeture through which a thin sunlight filtered through. Without it, the chamber would have surely been pitch black. The place could have definitely used a fire or two, he thought to himself.
He hurried over to the window to catch a glimpse of the outside world to get his bearings. It took him a good few minutes to reach the far side of the hall. As he stepped up to the window he could not disregard the inscriptions lining it, though they were faded and difficult to read, he could make out the words:
'This chamber, dedicated to Asnur, the founder of Ansus, stands eternal in his memory. May we all strive to be like he.'
Ansur frowned. Surely this could not be?
He leaned to glipse out of the window. From his vantage point high above the surrounding plains, he could see two suns beggining to set, and great rings of light stretching across the zenith of the sky.
He was back?
"Halt!" Shouted a stern figure from the other side of the room. The voice was strong enough to shake the foundations of the chamber and surely stop any lesser man in their tracks. "You are in violation of the highest law of Ansus, in the name of our father Ansur, you have trespassed upon holy ground. You will submit or you will be killed!" it screamed.
Ansur turned to see a string of heavily clad soldiers filter in through doorways on the far side of the hall, all adorned in gold and silver, encrusted with jewels of the most beautiful incarnadine red. Each soldier bore a cloak gilded with goldleaf thread and a blade forged to the highest quality. But admire them as he may, it was only a mere moment before they surrounded Ansur, blades pointed in his direction, all stern and poised to kill at a moment's notice.
"Ansur?" he asked.
"Do not speak the name of our forefather in vain, you rat. Tell us how you got in here past the guards." one demanded.
"Tell us or we are authorised to use lethal force upon you," another added.
"Tresspassing upon the Bastion of Light is a crime punishable by death!" yet another noted.
The Bastion of Light. His own design. The place he created for his sons and daughters to guide them through the darkest of nights. He was in Ansus, and had awoken in the specific place he had given himself to death. But the fire was... out? It did not even glow with embers or show the afterglow of a flame. It was stone cold and dry, out for some time. Ansur had awoken in a mound of his own ashes to an end he did not understand. Why was he back? How was he back?
"Speak!" demanded one of the soldiers, thrusting his blade forward, coming dangerously close to Asnur.
"I died here," he said softly.
There was a brief reprieve from the scrutiny as Ansur's answer took them off guard. They lowered their weapons for a second before raising them back.
"He's fuckin' with us," said one of the guards as he lunged forward with his blade, raising it overhead in an attempt to bring it down on Asnur's skull. Ansur sidestepped away with grace and elegance, leaving the blade to clash with the crumbled floor tiles, sending a mightly resounding echo through the hall.
"My name is Ansur, and I died here." he repeated again and again, each time becoming more frustrated with the ignorance of the soldiers. Every time he said so it seemed to strengthen their resolve to kill him, though try as they might, they just could not lay their blades upon him.
"My name is Ansur!" he shouted one last time after dodging another stroke of steel. "I am the Forefather!"
He latched onto the blade of one of the assailants, gripping the sharp of the weapon with bare hands, and yanked it from the grasp of the soldier. There was no blood, no scratch, nor any visible marks on his skin from disarming the soldier. He masterfully weaved the blade above his head, using it to slap away the incoming strikes before stabbing it into the hard floor tiles with such force that the blade would stand on its own, trapped there between the rock. A mighty shockwave followed the peircing of the tiles, sending each soldier's blade spiralling to the walls of the chamber and knocking each man to their knees.
It looked like they were bowing to him, and no man dared to stand up once more. So they knelt.
From their vantage, the soldiers could clearly see the artwork on the chamber ceiling through the thick overgrowth: an illustration of Ansur in his glory, furs adorned, hair as wild as ever; a spitting image of the man who had just brought them low. Could it be...?
"Ansur...?" One of the soldiers asked, tears brewing in this eyes.
"Stand, you are not in danger here." Ansur replied.
And the soldiers did, one by one, raise themselves to their feet. They kept their heads bowed and did not say a word.
He looked back, and then once more at the soldiers.
"Why is the Great Fire extinguished?"
4x Like
