Ascendant: Chronicles of the Red Lion

by F. C. Reed

  Amalia stared at the other in disbelief. “You’re kidding,” she said. “Although I know you aren’t.” Amalia paused in thought as she also realized that was the first mention of her grandmother’s name. Before now, everyone called her Nana.

  “I know. It’s a lot to take in and there is much more to know, most of which you will learn in time,” Ryna said. “It will become much easier as you advance through your—

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Amalia spat, rising from her seat on the couch. “What do I have to do with all of this again? Why did I get picked?”

  Ryna smiled. “You weren’t picked, I assure you. You are part of the Red Lion legacy. Generations of our people have protected Aedan Harkhemenes. We have for many thousands of years.”

  “Our people?” Amalia questioned. She gestured with her hands for more information.

  “Our ancestral line is collectively known as the Itaran Enclave, or Itarans, for short. We are aethersphere walkers, given our ability to shift our existence into multiple planes.”

  Amalia frowned. “What are you saying?”

  “You already know all of this, Amalia. I’m just reawakening your mind to it. You know because I know.”

  Amalia didn’t argue the nonsense in that. “Well, do I at least get a choice?” She asked with a sigh.

  “Of course you do,” Ryna conceded. “But we have waited a long, long time for you.”

  Amalia set her mug down on the table. It was either that or toss it across the room in frustration. “What makes you, or anybody else, think I can do whatever you’re talking about?”

  Ryna leaned back and knitted her hands in front of her. “It would take far too long to explain. Longer than we have for me to actually explain it. And I fear you may not fully understand—

  “Oh yeah? Try me,” Amalia ground out. “It can’t be any more weird, bizarre, and creepy than what you’ve mentioned so far, General,” she spat in a mocking tone. “I’m about to be dubbed a knight, or whatever you are, I can walk into and out of existences? What the hell? Seriously?” She stared at Ryna for a moment, her eyes wide and mocking. “And I have to protect a universe filled with alternate existences. Please. Let me know if I’ve left anything out.” She paced the room to offset her anxiety.

  “It is in you to doubt,” Ryna said. “Look beyond that.”

  Amalia turned toward her and barked out a curt laugh. “Sounds like something you’d hear in a fantasy movie. And it’s so very patronizing.”

  “I understand the situation isn’t ideal,” Ryna said in a tone meant to soothe her. “But I will be perfectly honest. We need you. We’ve always needed you. Now more than ever.”

  Amalia considered the discussion so far. Something bothered her about it all. Something about the physics and time-space theory didn’t click with her. “What about my life here? What about my friggin’ parents? Won’t people know I’m gone? If I pop into this other plane, for instance, won’t I disappear in front of someone’s face? Hard to explain to that person once I reappear, don’t you think?”

  “Not really, no. What makes you so unique is that when you enter another plane, the aether balances in your absence. One alteration to keep the balance is time. Time will slow significantly, and over extended periods of your absence, it will nearly stop.”

  “That’s not possible.” Amalia eyeballed the other suspiciously, shaking her head.

  Ryna laid her hands over Amalia’s, whose own hands, she found, trembled slightly. “You are unique in that you are the only one whose sphere walking abilities have this effect on the aethersphere.”

  Amalia grimaced. “Nobody else can do the time stop, whatever you call it, aether thing?” she asked.

  “Not for more than a century. You are the first since Commander General Aizen Cevurguld. He was the last Red Lion, and the most recent one who possessed a lineage to the Itaran people. He was also pure in his ability to walk the planes.” Ryna was sure to make eye contact. “Like you.”

  Amalia stared back at her, shaking her head. “Bull,” she said with a grimace.

  “Aizen Cevurguld was a prominent man in his time. And he was also my father.”

  Amalia raised her eyebrows at that.

  “The lineage strictly skips a generation in passing,” Ryna continued, “but the connection with the aether cycles sort of steps down in a way that weakens it, leaving the next kinsman lesser able to walk the sphere. And that kinsman with the lesser abilities, is me.”

  “I see,” Amalia confessed, only partially sure she understood. “So you’re, like, part Itaran?”

  “Yes, that’s it exactly. Aizen the Red Lion was pure Itaran. That step down in the cycle makes me part Itaran, so I can walk the sphere, but I have no effect on it. And it has no effect on me. Time passes normally in my absence. And with your mother devoid of ability, the last step down in power, that means you are pure Itaran, and the cycle is complete.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because this is the order of things,” said Ryna.

  “Even so,” Amalia said, “I still can’t help but think this is all a hoax. Some terrible practical joke.” Amalia straightened in her seat as a small, or big, rather, revelation came to her. “So that’s why?”

  Ryna cocked an eyebrow. “Why, what?”

  “That’s why mom has been so angry with you all these years. You were walking the sphere, or doing whatever, and so you were never around,” she blurted.

  Ryna nodded. “My duties kept me away for long, long periods of time. The result of which has been to the neglect of my daughters and my family. Your mother has every right to feel about me the way she does.”

  Amalia shifted uncomfortably for a moment, imagining just how painful this was for her grandmother. She saw it whenever her grandmother and mother were in even remote proximity. There had always been tension, but the tension seemed misplaced. Now it made perfect sense to her when put into context.

  “Why not just tell her about all of this? You’d save yourself a lot of heartache.”

  Ryna laughed softly. “How much do you think she would accept as truth?”

  “She’d probably believe it,” Amalia suggested, trying to sound confident in her own statement, although she was not sure.

  “Says the young woman who has been there and back and still doesn’t believe it,” Ryna said. “There is no way for me to prove any of that to your mother, and she is incapable of going there herself,” she said with a shrug. “Besides, Aizen didn’t tell my mother either, but that was also a much different time with a much different set of rules. At any rate, the cycle is complete. My daughter does not have the Itaran bloodline, but you do. The entirety of it. That allows you to walk the planes as you do.”

  “But how am I going to—

  “Amalia, I know this situation gives you the aetherverse and expects that you place it on your shoulders. If you choose not to carry it, then we will find another way, provided there is one. Survive the cycle until another with full Itaran blood and lineage comes of age.”

  “Yeah and based on what you just told me, in order for the cycle to continue, I would have to have kids first. Hard, hard pass.”

  “There are other ways.”

  “Well great,” Amalia shrugged. “Use the other ways and leave me to my childhood. What’s left of it.”

  Ryna pulled in a deep breath. “It took over a century the last time. Given the purge of the Itaran race, our people are few and the lineage is very fragile. What is more likely to happen is that all the realms will fall. In that moment, everything you know will vanish to destruction.”

  “No pressure,” Amalia muttered.

  Ryna stood from the couch. “You will decide on a course of action soon, if not already pulled towards one.”

  Amalia felt a tug at her conscience, but did not mention the desire of committing to something unseen. She wrung her hands together, looked away, and sighed. “I’m only seventeen years old. What good am I to anyone?” Her hesitation was a last ditch e
ffort to pry her away from the idea she will inevitably become this Commander General her grandmother referred to, whether or not she wanted the responsibility. The entire ordeal felt forced.

  “I was fourteen when I ascended. Not a day went by in that first handful of years I wasn’t scared out of my mind. But I learned quickly. I survived. I had to.” Ryna crossed her arms lightly. “I can feel it. The aether leaving my body. Soon I will no longer walk the planes. Another reason you must be ready. The aethersphere is bringing about balance by taking my aether and combining it to yours. You will need to be ready soon.”

  Amalia stared at Ryna intently, a confused and worried look crossing her features. “You’re dying?” she asked.

  Ryna smiled. “No, I’m not dying. I will just exist on one plane.” She looked away for a moment. “I haven’t decided which.”

  “If I do this, I’m going to need you.” Amalia looked at Ryna, hoping there would come a positive and affirmative response. Instead, she was met with a long face and weary smile. “But that would mean you will never see mom again,” she said, reading the lines of sorrow in her grandmother’s face.

  Ryna sighed. “My decision will be based on yours.”

  “How so?” Amalia asked.

  “Once you decide, then so will I.”

  Amalia frowned at her. “How is that supposed to help?”

  “It’s not. No one can help you make a decision only you can make. Ultimately, what you decide has nothing to do with happiness, or right and wrong, or pleasing me or yourself. This is about maintaining the existence of your plane on the aethersphere and bringing it to bear balance,” Ryna said. “If that is done, then everything else will fall into place.”

  Amalia slumped farther into her spot on the couch and hugged a nearby pillow to her chest. “Unbelievable,” she muttered.

  “I’ll come by tomorrow morning. We can visit the Reach together. There are a few people who I would like for you to meet and who are keen to meet you.”

  Amalia seemed distant. She focused much more on her thoughts about the recent revelations.

  “Amalia?” Ryna asked. “How does that sound?”

  “Oh, yeah, sure. I’ll be here,” Amalia said with a halfhearted shrug.

  Chapter Fourteen

  General Strann joined the primus on the balcony courtyard, fully armored and helmet in hand, as always. “You wish to speak with me?”

  A gray and white herd of angry clouds hung in the early morning sky. The suns hid behind their thick fluffy middles, blotting the orange-gold rays. There was a swiftness to their movement as they roiled across the sky like heavy smoke slithering down the side of a hill.

  “Yes,” the primus replied as he turned and sat, also beckoning General Strann to do the same. He looked older than she remembered. A face usually filled with mirth and wisdom and optimism, now lined and creased and as gray and troubled as the darkening sky. For all the years they worked together, seeing the primus at wit’s end unnerved her because of how the lines around his mouth and eyes seemed to age him considerably.

  “You realize I am hardly gullible to hearsay and rumor, but the fact of the matter is that the mysterious appearance of a planeswalker with no one else’s knowledge of her existence has betrayed you to a label I rather not describe,” he began with a drawn-out sigh.

  “I don’t care what others think.” General Strann realized the dilemma of the situation, but defied her critics, if nothing more than to make a point. “Besides, they would never accept the answer I have to give as the explanation.”

  “I know. Because that answer would be the death of you. I assure you I will never interrogate you into the history of this planeswalker, only because I know better, but something as this and with your standing, I fear, might someday become… violent.” The primus peered into the remnants of his glass goblet. A reddish brown liquid peered back at him.

  General Strann sighed. “And what do you make of this?”

  “My opinion does not matter,” the primus insisted. He pointed a finger out a nearby window towards the horizons of his city. “But theirs does. And the rest of the council. When enough of society forms a common base, the effect is more powerful than any law I can ever impose—without myself becoming a tyrant.”

  General Strann considered his words. “So what are you asking?” She folded her arms across her chest. Her voice dragged and grated along a hard, defensive edge.

  “All I ask is that you prioritize yourself to conform to the council’s view. If an explanation is what they want, then give them one. Otherwise they’ll make their own assumptions. And that, for someone in your position, can be most devastating. It doesn’t have to be the truth,” the primus continued with a dejected sigh. “Just something to keep them from making up their own lies and preaching their own dogma.”

  General Strann took a step back, the anger beginning its churn in her belly. “I should not have to explain my position to anyone. If I revealed what I know and what I’ve done, they would think me a crazy old fool, have me arrested and assylumed.”

  “Yes, but are you a fool or as crazy as all that?” the primus questioned.

  “I kept the planeswalker’s existence and location a secret as a means of protection. As you know, both outside and within this realm, the planeswalker is a target for infiltrators, zealots, and bounty hunters.”

  “That’s inconsequential to what I am talking about here,” the primus said.

  “I do not understand. What would you have me do, primus? Better yet, what would you do if you were in my place?” General Strann stared at her old friend who struggled to hold his nerve while she lost hers. “I think you are being far too cautious. Your concerns are misplaced. Neurosis and paranoia do not suit you.”

  “Be that as it may, General,” the primus grumbled as he took a step toward her, his eyes set hard over a clenched jaw. “Do not forget that I am your primus, and you will respect me to that effect. I sympathize with your situation, but you will find a way to appease the ancients. I don’t care how. By the time this is all sorted, I won’t be around to see the end results. It’s up to you to create a future that is worth the effort. I suggest you start with this.”

  General Strann nodded, uncoiling her tense posture at the realization that she had overstepped. “I understand. Over the next several days—

  “No,” the primus cut in. “You have about two hours before we meet as a council. I suggest you come up with something before then because this planeswalker business will most likely be at the center of the discussion. I will back you up just shy of this side of sanity, but you’re out of time.”

  The primus turned on his heel and left her standing on the balcony, frustrated and bitter. She gathered her wits in what was sure to be an interrogation.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Amalia waited anxiously for her grandmother’s arrival. She had no idea what to expect, and that unnerved her. After a sound night’s rest, she felt less confused about the situation, but still unclear about some minor details. It played out like a strange, familiar dream. The doorbell chimed, breaking her thought process.

  “Come in, Nana,” Amalia yelled from the kitchen, her mouth crammed with a piece of toast.

  There was a brief stretch of silence, and the doorbell rang again. Amalia brushed at her mouth with the back of her hand and made her way into the living area. She paused at the coffee table.

  “Nana?” Amalia approached the door and peered through the peephole. On the other side stood an old woman in a bright yellow raincoat and equally yellow umbrella, although the morning sun glimmered in a blue, cloudless sky. Amalia cracked the door and peeked around the side. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  The old woman’s hair shifted in the wind like a fine, white silk, and her eyes shone a bright, clear blue.

  “Amalia Anders?” Her voice came clear and powerful, despite her look of frailty. “You have finally been decrypted.”

  “Um, I can let you use the phone if you need to,” Amali
a offered as she thumbed over her shoulder, second guessing herself even as the words left her mouth.

  “I need your help.”

  Amalia cocked her head to one side. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I know of the powers you possess. Why you see what you see and hear what you hear. Why you dream the dreams you dream.”

  Amalia’s eyes widened, and her heart quickened. She wanted to respond, but only managed to stand still in the doorway, her hand gripping the door handle so tightly, her knuckles ached.

  “Join me. In return, I will guide you throughout your fate, and instruct you on what must be done to save the heavens from descending into darkness,” the old woman said in her strong and commanding voice.

  Amalia focused now. Words like ‘fate’ and ‘save’ hinted at danger, and she knew whenever someone used them, something bad was about to happen soon. The hairs on the back of her neck bristled. She shoved the door hard and slid the chain latch in place, only for the door to stop before shutting, four bony fingers clawing the frame. The door moved its way open again. Straining briefly as the chain latch caught, then snapped away from the wooden frame easily behind an effortless shove.

  “Who are you?” she gasped, taking a half-step backwards.

  “That doesn’t matter,” the old lady said.

  Amalia’s impatience and anxiety pushed at her through the heavy drumming of her heart. She held the distinct desire to run. “How do you know me?” she stalled, as she searched for an exit strategy.

  “Also irrelevant,” she replied. “I know what you are thinking, and what you will think. I have had the same thoughts. You will make decisions which have consequences. It is those decisions which may destroy everything you could know and everything that stands to exist. And I do not want that. Do you?”

  Amalia took another half-step back, away from the door, and shifted her weight ever so slightly. I could run through the kitchen and out the back before she—