Chapter 1.
The Beginning.
We begin our tale of Ash and Ice like all tales begin, within a faraway land of magic and beast, but at the centre of this story a child. A small and delicate child, and—unlike those born howling like a force of nature itself—this child was quiet, like a young lion cub resting in the light of the sun. He lay on a step, in his basket of pillow, straw and cloth, with one pale finger touching beams of sunlight that appeared to dance around his little palm. But this step of stone and rock is not any ordinary step; it is the step of a monastery. A bastion of safety and devotion, for this land is full of terror and wonders. Within these hallowed halls of worn stone and aged timber, prayers fill the air and terrors are kept at bay, banished to the horizons of dawn, noon and night.
Amidst the silent thoughts of prayer and the biting nips of the winter winds, there came a sound that did not belong. A loud sound echoed, knocking once against ancient timber belonging to a behemoth of an entryway that watched over the monastery's frozen landscape. The silent offerings of prayer and devotion had been spoiled by this knock, this disturbance thrown upon these hallowed hallways caused a panicked flutter of this brotherhood. The sacred silence was shattered into sounds of steps and rattles of iron keys, through the hallway’s, through doors and eventually to the threshold of their safety. An old, worn door tested by time and season, had served as both a shield for their home and place of worship.
Outside on the step, silence finally broke. Hearing the muffled noise of rushed footsteps , sounds of iron ringing through and hesitant shuffles, with the unknown and unfamiliar near, the child's eyes filled with tears that had run down his face. For the first time, the child looking upward sees a large unfamiliar sky through blurred vision, a door that is unknown emitting sounds that were unrecognized. The iron bolt screeches and screams — a sound of old rusted metal protesting its own movement. Ancient wood shifting as if the door itself was about to swallow the sun itself, fear was now with the child. The sun was no longer a shield, and the warmth felt paper—thin against the rising cold. As ice peels from the door like the old shed of a serpent. As the crystallized ice clatters against the stone steps, smashing into pieces. From that gloom emerged the silhouettes of several cloaked figures—featureless shadows at first, their heavy wool robes smelling of old incense and smoldering wicks.
The figures shifted, their hooded heads turning in a synchronized movement, outward from their sanctuary. There was no traveler retreating into the mist, no parent hiding in the shadows of the crags. But a child crying in the winter sunlight. The booming groan of the heavy door had shattered his quiet rest, and he wept, begging to be held and comforted as the brothers simply stared, gazing down at this fragile being. The sight of this child was as unfamiliar to them as the sky itself is to this child. The paralysis shattered, from the circle of shadowed beings, one figure lunged forward with a sudden, predatory grace. This brother of silence then wrapped their cloak around the child, like lioness snatching their young from danger, a fierce and sudden claim of ownership.
The world narrowed. As the heavy folds of the cloak pulled tight, the sounds of winter's chill fell prey to the silence of the monastery. The cold dispersed in the presence of warmth and safety. Strangeness and confusion left as the child felt a heart beat against their head. With quick movements through the stone passages, darkness had fallen, but for the first time, it was warm.
As children do, they search the empty spaces of their young minds, trying to find a connection to their mother, father, sister or brother. But none of that had ever existed in his life or his memory. Only the silent brother who had clothed and fed him. While growing up learning to speak and write within hallowed halls of ice and stone one silent brother in particular eventually had let him nurture his mind through reading in the library. There was one brother who had a fondness for chronicles of adventuring, stories of the brave and bold. There was one character, not a hero but a man of courage, and so the brother had now named this child, Kaelen. Kaelen had been told this story of an honorable man, not a mythical hero, but a man of courage fighting for his friends and family—forgotten as a child and sought adventure that might never come.
Growing up in this venerable monastery, silence gave way to thought, thought blossomed into learning, and from those learned passages, wisdom would soon follow. Kaelen’s lessons came in the form of language that then bridged its way to literature. The child's world was no longer defined by stone steps and unfamiliar skies, but by a library. Where thousands of books, scrolls, tomes of all kinds called it home. To the child, a book was far more than paper and ink; it was a road map to distant worlds of cities, villages and wilderness. Where the child would meet and lose beloved and heroic characters, he didn't just read—he became the adventure. Invoking monstrous beasts of terror or befriending misunderstood gentle giants. Through his imagination and adventurous tales the child was never a foundling; he was a king, a monster, and a savior, all before the evening candles were even lit.
With every passing dusk and dawn, beneath the quiet company of moonlit skies, the child's mind expanded. His woven clothing needed constant adjustment, the boy like a plant stretching away from the darkness growing towards the sun. Imagination had taken hold, pushing his mind and body, each page, each sentence turning his thoughts into racing charades running faster than the silent offerings of those brothers below. Seeing flickers of orange flare caught his eyes, vision was strained and tricks began to manifest through his sight and in his mind. Was it a fruitful imagination fueled by adventure and magic or simple forgetfulness eager to start the next chapter,
“Did I light that candle already? Was that torch lit before I walked the hallway?”
The fire never answered back, but just danced within their cold iron containment. As shadows stretched and pirouetted on the floor, wonder and curiosity crept into the young mind,
What If?
A thought in the young fertile mind of this, to be man took root, planted strong and deep like a whisper coming closer to the ear.
What if adventure is real? What if monsters are out there? What if terror was not in pages of ink and binding? What if people needed help? What if heroes existed beyond these cold and lonely walls of stone?
The young man held his hands towards the flame of the torch, he felt the heat on his skin. Questions left his heart and had taken their form through audible words.
“Could I help those who cannot be helped? Do I dare to confront monsters in the dark? Could I stand tall? What if I could be that help?”
.
Kaelen closed his eyes, cleared his mind, then began to focus. Envisioned a dream, forming a strong prideful conviction, filled with images of saving the innocent and in need. Then he saw it, it started with a small flicker of light, slowly intensifying. It quickly became the light of a small living fire that had risen from his fingertips. It was not hot, did not burn and offered a comforting light in the dark. This fire then rippled across his hands—a golden current of flame that traveled across his skin. For the first time he felt warmth, like a strength anchoring himself to the floor, hesitation vanished like the shadows dancing around the flame. His answer was not in words, but an affirmation of certainty, a purpose beyond these dark walls of stone and ice in the darkness. He looked down at the tiny, dancing fire tracing his hand like a roadmap compelling him towards a newfound journey.
But the focused fragility of peace was shattered by a sharp sudden crack in the gloom. Kaelen's body tensed, eyes darted to the darkness, adrenaline made manifest as ferocious flame. Heat and fire exited his body as if possessed. Roaring across the lightless, weathered stone halls, it traveled, consumed shadow and darkness alike, wild and untamed.
With an agitated fury, a roaring light screaming from the torches. Flame licking the stone walls in a frantic race to reach the ceiling, for a heartbeat darkness was expelled and banished from this hallway of stone and iron. Then as suddenly as it appeared, it had vanished, torches releasing their hold on the darkness. A ghostly hiss of extinguished torches followed by a finalistic hymn for the warmth he felt. Standing in this sudden vacuum of coldness within the dark, the young man felt a hollow ache in his chest, an emptiness voided from where his conviction resided. Left voiceless in the silence, his solitary spark had been left and claimed like a territory by the cold and empty darkness.