The Age of Ascension

Chapter One
The Emissary

It was never in her nature to ride her horse at such a pace, but that day she thought it imperative when she discovered she was being chased. The sun was setting quickly over the rolling woodland of Cultus Lake, British Columbia; the light flickering through the canopy of leaves like a natural strobe, blinding the woman as she galloped beneath on her chestnut horse. Her breaths were short and hot as she pulled herself down into Whistler’s mane, shifting her rhythm to match his and for a moment they were one, linked in unison on their escape.
The beauty of the forest and the Cascade Mountains beyond was lost on her, all she could do was stifle the tears that threatened her eyes and maintain a firm grip on the reins, her body shaking in the saddle. The trees dispersed around her and she found that a small brook meandered across her path, the crisp water rippling like liquid glass and shimmering with the golden light that flooded the glade. Her grip on the reins tightened further as she forced Whistler into the stream, glancing over her shoulder to see that the man on the black horse was gaining ground. Whistler bucked wildly as he fought his way through the thrashing water, whinnying uncontrollably as the icy water churned around his rampant legs.
As the horse staggered up the frosty bank, a deafening boom shook the air and the trunk of a nearby aspen exploded in a barrage of smoking bark. She and Whistler were showered with chunks of the smouldering husk, causing the horse to rear up as he let out a deafening screech of panic and bolted from the stream. The trees grew closer together the further they galloped into the undergrowth; the branches lowering and thrashing the woman across the face when she failed to duck out of their way.
She lowered herself and kicked at Whistler’s sides with her heels. He panted heavily as he gained speed; the sound of his hooves pounding the earth was so loud it was all she could hear, along with the sound of gunshots that now echoed more frequently around her. Each time a shot desecrated the trunk of the passing pines, the dull rumble of snow tumbling from their branches closely followed, like distant tremors of an earthquake.
The man’s next shot forced Whistler off the path and into the brush; he leapt recklessly over thickets of brambles, the thorns scratching at his legs and belly. Another shoot sent him careering to the right, to find that a huge birch had been uprooted across their path. The woman dug her heals into Whistler’s sides, and they gained a little more speed, but the horse leapt too early. He caught his back legs on the trunk and fell clumsily over, screeching as he went. The woman was thrown from the saddle and was hurled to the forest floor, rolling awkwardly until she slammed into a snow covered rock and the wind was knocked out of her. Grimacing from the pain, she watched as Whistler scrambled to his feet, his eyes wide and hoarse whinnies resonating from his gut.
Her pursuer was close behind and he stopped on the other side of the fallen birch, his black steed fidgeting under his relentless control. The man leapt, his feet thudding hard onto the frosty earth. He dusted himself off and, with the rifle in one hand, climbed elegantly over the trunk, watching the woman as she struggled to stand, badly bruised and bleeding from a deep cut on her arm. He walked over, securing the rifle in his hands and as the harsh light of the setting sun illuminated him a whimpered gasp escaped her.
He was dressed in a long black coat, entirely plain of all decoration or design; it was fitted taut around his thick neck all the way down to his shins, glossy buttons lining the front. His pallid face was gaunt; his features haggard and painted onto the skin of his face were a number of symbols. On his forehead there was a large black circle with thick lines streaming from it to make it look like a sunburst, slowly rising over his brow. Three small dots were beneath each eye, which were so dark it seemed as though the sockets were empty and instead two bottomless black holes were staring at her. His long, black hair was shaved back to the top of his head, the rest pulled back into a ponytail that billowed down onto his shoulders.
‘Please don’t kill me,’ she begged through onerous breaths. Her hands scraped at the forest floor, trying with all her strength to scramble away from him.
The man’s baleful expression remained. ‘Do not worry,’ he replied, his voice eerily deep and rasped like the rustling of leaves. ‘If you are the one we have been searching for, you will rise again.’
And with that, he lifted the rifle to her face and fired.

It was at that moment across the other side of the continent in Vine Ridge, New Jersey, that Amelia Redford winced as a sudden throbbing swelled in her head. Vibrant flashes of colour swarmed her vision and she closed her eyes, reeling as the pain ripened like a thousand needles had been rammed into her face, each screaming and burning as it went. She grew faint and placed a hand out in front of her to steady herself, feeling a cool surface beneath her palm.
Slowly, the throbbing began to subside and so too did the pain she felt and when she opened her eyes she looked ahead to see that her hand was placed upon a door. She’d lost count of the number of times she had found herself here; it had become such a frequent occurrence that she suspected, without being entirely sure, that she came to this place on every break and lunch hour throughout her day. She couldn’t explain what enticed her back time and again because she got no real satisfaction from being there; no feeling of happiness because the memories associated with the small private room in the west wing of the Vine Ridge Memorial Hospital were ones of pain and loss, but for some reason she found solace there.
Her hands were trembling, as they always did as she stood outside the door, sucking in deep breaths in an attempt to settle her nerves. She found herself doing the same each time her eyes fell upon its small white plaque; glossy in the light, with black numbers engraved into the plastic. 216. She traced the thick digits with her finger.
Her hand faltered and she reached for the handle, allowing the faint scar on her wrist to gleam in the harsh light. She pushed open the door to find the room was dark; the pale moonlight eased in through the Venetian blind at the window and illuminated the bed in strips of light and shadow. She looked into the room with a sense of reflection, her eyes falling upon the neatly made bed.
It seemed it was only a moment of reflection she was destined for today, because before she could even lift her foot to step into the room, the pager attached to her belt beeped and vibrated. She let out a short sigh and looked down at the screen; she was needed back on the ward. She leant into the room, took hold of the handle and with a grudging reluctance, she pulled the door shut.
The corridors she trailed in her journey to the ward were empty; not a soul passed her in either direction and it seemed at that point that she was in fact the only person awake at such an hour of the night. The overhead lights were dimmer than usual, and buzzed incessantly as she passed beneath them. It was just that subtle noise and the creak of her shoes against the linoleum that brought the corridor to life. As she reached the ward, the door to the office opposite swung open and another nurse in blue scrubs stepped out, engrossed in the file in her hands.
‘What’s the problem, Vanessa?’ Amelia asked, her hand outstretched for the file.
Vanessa handed it to her and she opened it straight away, flicking through the few pages.
‘Some guy was left in the lobby,’ she replied, the unease evident in her voice. ‘Bout ten minutes ago; I called security to check the CCTV and Oscar said the camera in the lobby went fuzzy for a few seconds and when the picture came back he was there.’
Amelia didn’t look up; her eyes still skimmed the pages. ‘Is he hurt?’
She shook her head. ‘He won’t let me check him over, but as far as I can see there’s nothing causing him a great amount of pain,’ she stepped in closer, her voice lowering. ‘He’s not really that coherent though; he doesn’t seem to know who he is, where he is. Nothing.’ She shrugged. ‘Newberry said to keep him here for the time being, keep an eye on him and send him to the psychiatric ward if he gets too much. Then, I guess we just wait to see if anyone comes to get him.’
‘No problem; is he in there now?’ She gestured towards the ward.
Vanessa nodded and started off down the corridor. ‘You should know,’ she said, looking back. ‘He asked for you as well.’
The hair on the back of her neck twitched as Amelia watched her walk away, an unusual feeling of intrigue and apprehension coiling around her stomach. She swallowed back the feeling of unnease as she turned to the ward and slipped in through the doors.
It was dark; with just a few patients still awake; the only light came from the small wall-lights above their beds. Long shadows from those lights streaked across the floor, joining the darkness that had nestled beneath the beds. She looked straight ahead and saw the man sitting hunched in a wheelchair, staring out of the window. She ambled towards him, glancing at each bed as she passed and smiling at every patient who wasn’t already asleep or too immersed in a crossword or book. She looked at them long enough to see if they needed anything; normally a slight hand would beckon her over, but that evening nothing deterred her from her path to the back of the ward and the elderly gentleman waiting patiently for her.
As she grew nearer, she could hear him muttering to himself and there was something about his quiet whispers that unsettled her, so much so that as her hand graced the wheelchair’s handle her pulse quickened. She paused for a moment, following his lead and stared out of the large window at the night. Rain started to speckle the glass, the sky growing cloudy though the moon was still visible; large and bright in the dark sky. As the rain grew heavier, she walked around to face him.
The subtle moonlight caught in the wrinkles on his face, making them seem more profound and his gleaming face all the more haunting. He was pale and emaciated, with his long black hair shaved to the crown, the rest scraped back to accentuate the harshness of his features. His face was painted black with strange markings; a single eye in the midst of his wrinkled forehead, the tips of which curled down to encompass his eyes. Along his receded hairline, was a line of scarred triangles, their points directed downwards and looked almost like the weathered fangs of a fierce beast. Beneath his lower lip, there was a barbed piercing of ebony that protruded through the skin and glistened like decorated bone. He sat there in a hospital gown, one a little large for his tall but skeletal frame and in a way he looked childlike.
‘Hi,’ she said, looking down at him. She waited patiently for a response, but didn’t get one. The old man’s cracked, shrivelled lips moved, but no words slipped past them. Amelia edged closer, slipping the file under her arm. ‘Can I get you anything?’
Again, he didn’t answer and she let out a gentle sigh. She knelt before him, examining his tired face, trying to gain his attention. She noticed that his hands were shaking as they gripped the arms of the wheelchair and as she looked down at them, she saw that tattooed on the back of his frail right hand was a sequence of symbols. They looked as though they could have been plucked from a piece of Egyptian hieroglyphics; they seemed ancient and cracked beneath his weathered skin. There were five symbols, spaced at equal distances apart, from left to right. The first was what looked like a reed, the second a curl of fine black ink, the third, a semi-circle above a striped full circle, the fourth a jackal, and the fifth was a sitting man.
The tattoos distracted her for a moment; she felt a great energy radiate from them and her unease grew as a feeling of foreboding settled upon her. She was mesmerised and it wasn’t until she heard him wheeze and draw in a long breath that she looked up at him again. She gasped when she found that he was already looking at her, his dark eyes like chasms filled with astonishment.
‘Y-You?’ His voice was aged and weak. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’
She walked round and took hold of the handles to the wheelchair. ‘Let’s get you into bed,’ she replied, forcing a polite smile onto her face to try and hide her nerves. She turned him around and as she did, she heard him draw in another deep breath.
‘My Brothers told me about you, they did.’ He lifted his head to look back at her. ‘Nasty birds, always sticking their noses in where they’re not wanted.’ Amelia let the wheelchair rest at the foot of the bed, and tossed the file onto the nightstand. She pulled back the blankets, not entirely listening to what he was saying, but when she heard the wheelchair creak behind her and the grunting that followed, she looked round to see the old man had pushed himself to his feet and now staggered towards her, his hands outstretched towards her face. ‘But they don’t see,’ he said in a cracked, low voice. ‘How can one so beautiful be harmed?’ He was in front of her, his hands almost on her cheeks.
‘Easy now.’ She took his hands and pushed them back to his side. ‘Why don’t you get some rest?’
He lay down slowly, his eyes still lingering on her face. Amelia pulled the blankets up around his chest, only to hear him gasp and before she knew it he snatched her wrist, gripping it so tightly his hand was shaking.
‘It has begun,’ he whispered in delight, his wrinkled face caught in shock.
She grabbed his hand and tried to prise open his stalwart grip. ‘Let go of me.’
He pulled her in closer to him. ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ His breathing became rough, snarling as his eyes slowly turned ebony. He threw his head back and glared at the ceiling. ‘The Bleeding of Worlds has begun!’ He began to fit, and it was only then that Amelia was able to escape from his grasp and she scrambled away from the bed in a flash. She looked at him, enthralled as she watched him writhe and twist in the bed, the sheets tangling around his body, skin gleaming with sweat. ‘I can see the First Thunder!’