Crowds gathered to fill the sides of the parade ground, hundreds of thousands of eager onlookers marveled at the spectacle of a proper ascension-coronation. When the side roads reached capacity, the massive seating blocks quickly followed suit. Everywhere in the Capitol city one could stand, sit, lay, or crawl that had a vantage of the procession was filled to it's limit and pushed more for good measure. It had been nearly two decades since the last ascension ceremony. Anyone with the means to reach it on the capitol world did so.
Cheers and hollers rose over the usual city ambiance, millions of voices joined at once into a rumble that shook the foundations of the capitol and it's parade grounds. The grounds themselves were an immense, contiguous slab of polished marble cut and hauled as one piece centuries ago and laid here as display of engineering prowess. Its use as a roadway served as a reminder of the great men who had raised up the city upon Anitora millennia ago. Below the amphitheater seating blocks and just beyond the sidewalks where onlookers packed together, the parade ground itself was comparably empty. The mile of polished stone was populated exclusively by one thousand kneeling figures arrayed in a widely spaced rectangular formation.
At the formation’s front were three individuals that had taken a knee further up than their peers, the two flanking were the same distance forward as each other and the middle one a few feet further still. All kneeling were wearing slip-suits -- a form fitting biologically reactive membrane designed for use by kartorim – in anticipation of their successful ascension at the ceremony’s conclusion. The slip-suits themselves were a blued steel color and looked like a patchwork of pliable hexagons, but each row of the formation had a set of colored epaulets fixed to their shoulders to signify their relative status to their peers, with the front most row bearing gold tassels, the second silver, and so on.
For the three in the front, additional adornments had been bestowed to them individually. On the left, a young stern faced woman with tightly bound blonde hair had a small blue cape with a green border draped from her left shoulder. Her sponsor was the patron of House Caldion, Lord Caldion himself. To the right, a hotheaded young man with free flowing long brown hair and a barely contained smirk wore a white cape with a gold border hanging from his right shoulder. His sponsor was the similarly venerated patron of House Tyvess, Lord Braem.
Between and before them, Voy Shatterborne kneeled with a cape of his own. A black cape with red trim stretched from both of his shoulders, and in the middle of the garment the Thurgian hawk spread its four wings in deceleration before the seizing of prey. For him, no mere house or house patron had backed his ascension. The banner hanging upon his back was an honorific from none other than Avaron himself, the High Marshall of all Thurgia and greatest among the kartorim. As far as endorsements go, none carried greater weight than his.
For the last seven years of his life Voy had been training and studying directly under Avaron, who had in exceptionally rare form chosen to take on a scion for the first time in decades. It was all he could do to contain himself. Between the crowds, the precise timing of events in the ceremony he had been responsible for, and the nine hundred and ninety nine of his peers resting their expectations on him as their best it was test of his will to maintain his bearing. He felt as much an emergent champion of a generation as ant under a magnifying glass might bask in the sunshine; brilliantly illuminated but burned by the exchange.
He silently wondered if his friends, the two kartorim-to-be at his sides, were suffering the same. Probably not. Illati was the definition of discipline and focus. Breaking her composure, for malice or humor, was akin to seeking the end of a circle. She had been raised and conditioned for this day her whole life by the House that would accept her. Today was just a shinier Tuesday.
Samuine on the other hand was certainly the opposite. Struggling to remain fixed and firm not from fear or pressure but from a desire to soak in the moment, to showboat rather than crumple under the weight of what lay before them. His relentless confidence, what some would call foolish impulse, had served him well his upbringing and training. Often when the young scions were faced with a new challenge or trial as a group he would be the first to fail, but only as a consequence always of being the first to try. Subsequently he was nearly as often among the first to learn the right way of things, and he scored well in most assessment categories as a result.
No doubts lingered in Voy’s mind that either of his friends would make excellent kartorim. In the same moment he doubted if he was worthy to be ahead of them, kneeling at the front as the forerunner of his cohort. The greatest strengths of his companions were plain to see, but for himself it was always his shortcomings that dominated his perception.
Whatever it was Avaron had seen in him to justify selecting him as a child, in spite of Voy’s own uncertainty, had been validated and vindicated on the anvil of assessment. When he and his fellow aspirants had taken their final examinations to assign their rank in the cohort, Voy stood above them all in nearly every measured category. The random lowborn nobody had earned his place at the top, regardless of his sentiment on the matter.
Trumpets sounded and the audience’s dull roar exploded into rapturous cheer when at last the kartorim themselves arrived by their dozens, each adorned and encased by their carapace armor. Neither fully mechanical nor entirely organic each kartorim’s carapace was a unique part of themselves, a layer of overlapping and interlocking metal-like plates that hugged along their bodies acting as both arms and armor. When it was not retracted, the carapace typically took on two colors; one as the primary and the other clinging to the edges of individual sections and plates. In this way the house of a given kartorim was easy to tell, all members of the same lineage were colored the same way.
Voy would have liked to look up and see them all, so many of them in one place was a rare sight. The thought he would soon be among them as a peer hadn’t yet stifled his wonderment at the larger than life figures. He wondered if Avaron stood with them now, or if he would arrive after with his own unique fanfare. Nevertheless, Voy’s head remained bowed. The ceremony had been practiced dozens of times each week for the last month. He had faith that there would be no surprises.
He knew that after arriving the kartorim would march out to the rows of his cohort and stand to their lefts, one fully fledged kartorim for each row. He knew which kartorim would stand where, and which houses they belonged to and represented. In truth, he knew how every event should, and most assuredly would, flow until the last aspirant rose to their feet.
Familiar footsteps flanked him to his left, the slow measured gait of Lord Caldion as he arrived to stand beside Illati. To the right Lord Braem glided up to Samuine’s side, doubtlessly with his hands pinned behind his back and his chest puffed out as always. Neither of them marched, as Lords of sufficient station moved however they wished, ceremony or not. Nearly all were in place now, just one remained to place himself for the ceremony to proceed.
Finally, after Voy was sure all others were in place, the heavy utterly authoritative footfalls that had woken him up every day for the last seven years began their approach. The same steps he’d heard passing his quarters each morning, the same steps that preceded an outstretched hand helping him up after collapsing from exhaustion, and the same steps that ensured he was treated with respect while being introduced to Thurgia’s political and social elite at last came to a bassy halt just at the edge of his peripheral vision. Avaron’s red and black carapace was unmistakable on his massive leg, the pseudo metal gleamed with a meticulously applied polish. Like Caldion and Braem, Avaron did not march. For the High Marshall of Thurgia and it's worlds stood above all others in status and duty.
“Home Stretch, don’t let that itch on your nose bother you now,” Avaron teased in a whisper, his subdued smile spilling over into his voice. Voy’s suppressed a grin of his own, now acutely aware of the itch on his nose he’d nearly pressed out of his mind. As introductions from the stage ended, the officiator called the crowd to quiet themselves so the final portion of the ascension coronation could begin. Havadrian, a green and bronze armored kartorim, stood tall at the fore of the stage orbited by hover drones outfitted with microphones and cameras. His helm was retracted, revealing the smiling olive skinned man beneath as he opened his mouth and began his address.
“Lift up your gaze, scions of the kartorim houses, and bear witness to the dawn of your final day as hopeful aspirants and your first day as the next generation of kartorim!” In unison a thousand bowed heads lifted toward the stage where Havadrian stood, behind him the reception hall waited to host the after celebrations. The rising sun began to crest over its stonework form as he finished speaking, peeling away the shadow cast over the parade grounds. With the shadows departure came the wincing of nine hundred and ninety nine pairs of eyes as the aspirants adjusted to the sudden sunlight.
Due to an unforeseen quirk of circumstance, Voy alone remained in shadow. For any other ascension coronation Avaron would have taken the stage to deliver the commencement, but in any other ascension coronation he wouldn’t have had a scion of his own to stand beside. As a result Havadrian had been asked to take his place, an honor he jumped at eagerly. Havadrian was slightly taller than Avaron, perhaps the only kartorim that was, and this added height was just enough to extend a shadow over Voy. For his part Voy was grateful, keeping the sun out of his eyes was a welcome little blessing. Havadrian continued.
“Each of you have shown your worthiness to stand alongside us over the past twelve years of rigorous, all consuming training. When you first arrived you were but children and each of us have watched with hearts overflowing as you met the challenges before you head on and grew into the remarkable men and women before us today,” he paused and panned over the kneeled aspirants, his warm smile never dimming or leaving his face. “There are none among the kartorim lords here that would deny your ascension,” he leaned down a tad and put on a more conspiratorial tone, “well, between you and me I’m sure there a few, but I digress.”
A gentle chuckle rippled through the audience, and Voy was sure he heard a shared laugh between Braem and Samuine behind him. He did not share in the moment quite so much however, Havadrian’s brief lean allowed the morning sunlight to at last reach Voy and cause him to squint in adjustment. Havadrian returned to his full height as the mirth faded, recasting his shadow over Voy once more.
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“With the High Marshall’s blessing,” Havadrian looked down to Avaron for approval, “we will begin with the first rank of ascensions.” At his word a new batch of Thurgian state military members in ceremonial tans walked out from the reception hall and past the stage. The came in groups of five, four carrying ornate rifles impractical for any task but the performative and one marching between the other four carrying a gold inlaid dark wooden strongbox in front of them.
The groups marching out from the reception hall quickly passed by Voy and left his view. By rehearsal he knew exactly what would follow. They would start with the rearmost row, each of the twenty aspirants would have a group of soldiers assigned to present them with their strongbox. Through technology Voy only had passing familiarity with, the strongboxes would not open for any reason until being presented to the specific aspirant they were assigned.
Upon being presented, they would open automatically and reveal their most precious contents – one Iyaethrum crystal in each. The aspirants would then take the crystal bestowed to them and press it against their sternum. If all went right, the crystal would shift, melt, and dissolve painlessly through the slip-suit each wore, through their skin, and finally rest woven into their body as it fueled the rapid growth and change from mortal to immortal warrior. Voy did not wish to dwell on what happened if things didn’t go right. He could not stomach the thought of any of his peers, his family in all but blood, being found unworthy so close to the end. Once they took their Iyaethrum and were ascended he knew each would rise to their feet in the final confirmation that they were worthy, were kartorim.
“Stewards, present your charge!” Havadrian ordered from the stage. It was the last command the couriers needed. Behind Voy, twenty strongboxes worth more than the average thurgian citizen’s yearly income click-chunked open to reveal contents worth more than they’d see in a thousand lifetimes.
What followed could never be rehearsed, but Voy’s chest swelled with pride in his brothers and sisters as crackles of wild, volatile energy leapt out on and around the ascending rear rank. No cries of pain or terror joined the electrified air, and as the barely controlled bolts of otherworldly light calcified into the new kartorim the audience erupted into applause. All twenty of the rearmost rank had ascended safely. It was a good omen. Havadrian beamed on the stage, thrilled that things were off to such a pleasant start.
The same series of events continued for each rank following. First the presentation, the electrified air, and the reassurance that came from a joyous applause. That is, it did until the fifth row. The first tell was the smell. For the preceding fifteen rows the air gained a stormy, ozone like quality while aspirants rose to their new stature, the smell of imminent rain on an autumn evening. When the fifth rank began theirs however, what Voy could only describe as burned copper overpowered all else, chased dutifully by the bitter smell of charring flesh.
Next was the sound. Unlike the rapturous cheers that had followed the other ranks, cries of shock and terror rippled through the millions of onlookers. Then came the screaming, the shouting not from the crowd but from that row. From one of the scions. Voy's eyes watered. He recognized the voice of someone he wished he’d known better, Uplin. He’d always been a solid and reliable fellow. Voy never once got the impression he was unworthy. Evidently Voy that assessment had been wrong, a sentiment he could not bring himself to accept as even Uplin’s Iyaethrum rejected him.
Uplin cried out, pleading for mercy and supplication to no one in particular as the solemn footsteps of his row’s kartorim approached him. Voy heard the familiar metal-on-metal sliding sound of a kartorim extending their arm mounted energy lance, the altogether different sound as it drew in power before firing, and the crackling finality of the single shot that silenced Uplin on the parade ground.
This was the last grizzly duty kartorim held for their scions, the task of violent mercy should they fail to ascend. Those who could not stand after receiving their Iyaethrum were put down. It was not a task any relished, but beyond its necessity it was law. Voy closed his eyes in the briefest display of memoriam, Avaron offered a conciliatory grunt.
No soul present was fully prepared for the bloodbath that followed. Each rank then on had rejections, and what had been a day of joyous celebration soured into mentors coldly executing men and women they had raised from children. Havadrian did his best to maintain his smile, but its was sapped of its sincerity. As each rank brought forth new casualties the officiating kartorim tensed with each command given as he braced for the weight his words carried. He shot regular looks to Avaron seeking his continued approval, and each time the High Marshall nodded his consent to continue.
A copper tang hung permanently in the air now. The crowd no longer reacted with each death, settling instead into a mournful din as the ceremony progressed. “Front rank… ascend.” The same process began again in the rank just behind Voy, Samuine, and Illati. It was close enough now to feel the air as it rippled and buckled beneath the weight of arcane science. Tendrils of white hot electricity lashed out around him, some striking the ground in front of him from over his shoulder. Again, shouted misery preceded an untimely death at the hands of a trusted mentor.
Voy clenched his jaw and ground his teeth. A single tear ran unbidden down his cheek. To lose so many after all their struggle… where so many truly unworthy? Like the others, there were more rejections, more who failed to ascend, more who had to be executed like criminals for the crime of bad luck.
Two more courier groups emerged from the reception hall, two strongboxes being ferried out instead of twenty. One for each of his closest friends. If Illati had any reaction Voy missed it, but Samuine audibly exhaled and swallowed worry from his too dry mouth.
“Do not fail our people Illati,” Caldion’s reassurance for Illati encouraged as much as it commanded. Illati offered no reply.
“Don’t worry lad, you wouldn’t have made it this far just to fail. You’ll be fine,” Braem placed a hand on Samuine’s shoulder to shake him free of his worry. His words carried no hint of doubt or apprehension, as if stating a fact he alone held evidence for.
Voy offered a silent prayer to the Redeemer on behalf of his friends, praying they would both make it through okay. If someone must fall between us, he prayed, let it be me. Spare them, please! Time crawled as the couriers approached, Voy’s heart hammered in his chest. An eternity passed between them leaving the reception hall, passing him, and arriving before his friends. Havadrian broke the trance.
“Left fore… Right fore… ascend.” Voy heard the boxes open, the soft scrape of slip-suit fibers brushing over themselves, and then the all too familiar cracking and popping of air and ozone as Samuine and Illati began their ascensions. Relief washed over Voy. There was no copper tang. No charred flesh. No agonized screams. A few seconds passed and his friends stood behind him, both fully ascended into the ranks of the kartorim. Havadrian relaxed forward, releasing a held breath as a portion of his smile reclaimed its warmth.
“Hells yes my boy, welcome to the family!” Braem shouted, lifting Samuine off his feet in enthusiastic embrace. Samuine laugh-wheezed as the force of the hug pushed the air out of his chest.
“Well done.” Caldion spoke in a tone a bit gentler than before in stoic congratulation to the newly ascended Illati. Havadrian straightened and looked directly at Voy. A final courier group marched out.
One strongbox.
One Iyaethrum.
Heart pounding, blood rushing, Voy knew his time was approaching. He knew he was worthy… but he knew the others were too. Cold sweat gathered around his neck where bare skin met the collar of his slip-suit. Above and to his side, Avaron mumbled something near silently. Voy was almost certain he heard “...please…” between the less discernible words. The couriers stopped and arrayed themselves in front of Voy, two at his right, two at his left, and the one with the strong box directly before him.
“Forerunner.... Ascend.”
The box carrier thrust the box forward slightly. Its lid clicked open. Inside the box was lined with red felt, sewn over a raised pillow-like presentation mound in the middle. Resting on the felt mound was a white, glowing crystal. Its shape was… imprecise. No matter how Voy looked at it, it seemed to shift or adjust slightly, like his mind couldn’t fully represent the thing based on vision alone. It only ever occupied three inches of space in any direction.
With a final sharp exhale, Voy reached out and grabbed the crystal, its feeling in hand somehow more concrete than its appearance would suggest. It felt like solidified static, both hot and cold at once as it chilled his hand and summoned new beads of sweat around his neck. This was it. Twelve years, every idle dream and aspiration, it all led here. No way but forward. Voy gripped his hand tight around the crystal and slammed it against his chest.
His world lit on fire.
The thing bored into his flesh, like a ball of tangled razor wire twisting and digging into his sternum. His veins filled with frozen flame as his blood turned against him, his cells waged war against one another as his ascension lopsidedly and haphazardly bolstered his immune system without restraint. His muscle grew, shrank, then grew again as its enhancement adhered to no standard. He fell forward on the ground in a heap of spasms and rebellious tissue. The coppery smell he’d come to associate with the failing bodies of the unworthy polluted his mouth as a taste he could not banish or ignore. Blood fell from his eyes, nose, and mouth into a sad pool next to him on the stone ground.
Frantic metal clad footsteps raced up to him, his newly ascended friends clad for the first time in their carapace abandoning rule and law to rush to his aid. In both cases their patrons held them back, Voy could just barely hear their protests but he lacked the clarity to draw out meaning. His mind was consumed by the pain of his Iyaethrum's devastating rejection. More than just his body, it was as if the foul thing had pierced his very soul and left a gaping wound that his life poured out from.
Havadrian turned from the podium, what warmth his expression regained extinguished as his smile finally died. Voy looked up through bloodied eyes at Avaron, unable to form words through the pain but pleading with his gaze. It was fruitless. He knew what came next, what happens to those found unworthy. Avaron only stood, a pleading disbelief frozen on his face.
“You know what must be done, Avaron,” Caldion scolded Avaron from out of view. This was an overstep, in an instant the paternal terror vanished and was replaced with the constrained fury of a warrior king. Avaron's helm extended out from his neck and jaw and slammed closed over his head, his pointed horn-like aerials and the sculpted predatory grimace on his face plate issuing a challenge unbested for millennia in the direction of his gaze.
“Attempt to order me again and it will be the last thing you ever do.” Caldion wisely remained silent. Avaron slowly turned his vision on Voy. The monstrous visage on his helm was at odds with the reluctant sadness in his eyes, the red lit eyes over his helm perfectly capturing the expression beneath. His energy lance extended as slow as he could possibly allow it, as if each delayed second might change the inevitable. It charged as it formed, preparing to deal to Voy what every other failed scion had received that day.
His strength spent, his will evaporated, Voy braced in futility for his end.
Crumpled on the ground, depleted of all his vigor... Voy found he could not make the final tumble into the abyss. This is not how this ends... Not like this.... he thought what he could no longer say. New fire lit within his heart, one not of pain or suffering but a blaze to drown out the others. Nothing would deny him today. He would rise. He would stand as a kartorim. He would allow no alternative. Pain rippled and radiated through every nerve and muscle fiber as he commanded his body to act in concert again. Growling through the bloody phlegm that clogged his lungs he forced his hands palm down beneath him. Remembering every moment, every trial, every time he fell and stood again during his training he pushed.
He pushed until his arms obeyed, until his body’s spasms and cramps no longer held sway over him and at last he could swing his right right foot out. Stomping it down on the marble he demanded from his legs they hold him kneeling on his left knee as he fought to regain balance. Through blood and sweat that stung his eyes Voy looked up and met Avaron’s gaze, the High Marshall’s expression now held a fragment of disbelief, and perhaps... a glimmer of hope. Rise, rise! His eyes seemed to say. Behind his adherence to his own laws, the High Marshall was just a father unwilling to slay his adopted son.
It was all Voy needed to call forth one more burst. Pushing his hand on his right knee, he growled and yelled as his body tore at itself, as muscle shredded in hapless revolt of his will and pain wracked his every sense and thought. His vision narrowed, but pain was familiar, pain had never stopped him before, and it would not now. With the last ounce of power he could squeeze from his failing form Voy rose and stomped his left foot down. He straightened and stood tall even as his bones cracked and buckled from adrenaline fueled seizing muscle.
His eyes met Avaron’s.
“I,” Voy bit down and fought off the urge to collapse, “stand!” At his final word, Voy collapsed and the world spun around him into darkness, his last memory of the day his view of Avaron’s armored hands reaching out to catch him.
