*** Clerical Note ***

Luminous Lictor,

Further translations from ANCIENT may be perused below. Data logs from the time of his initial capture corroborate the story, though with some changes. I will ensure MYSTIC is made aware of them for his studies. It may be he will notice something we do not, the aberrant cult of the flame has its mysteries and language of which the uninitiated know nothing. More to follow as I complete them, without delay.

~ Marceus, Research Journeyman Fourth, WARPROUTE 37.6

—-

There was no one else. Not over one rise, nor a second, nor a third. I carried Daria and shifted my hold as she faded from frightful grasping at me into a scared sleep propped high upon my shoulder. The screen of darkness over the sky licked against the flames that surrounded us.

              “Dev Dev, hold there a moment,” I called and took Sarai’s hand and squeezed it gently. The boy looked back, standing on the edge of the middle night nearest the clear sky. His flames burned low, barely brightly enough to be seen. I narrowed my eyes and saw a transport ship landed on the open field outside the darkness.

              “Hurry, my love!” Sarai’s voice was almost a screech, and Daria woke in bright eyed terror. I glanced and saw that all our flames were faded. The whole of the sky seemed pressed upon us ready to devour us like the closing of a maw. She started to run, but I gripped her hand and gritted my teeth, breathing down my fear as I spoke the name of the Master. Lowan, brother, you will forgive me, but I spoke the Master’s name in full – I could not keep myself from the cry. The receding flames bloomed into greater radiance around us, and I took a firm step forward, holding my daughter and the hand of my wife.  

              “Devon, to the hearth, my son!” Devon paused a fraction of a moment, then sprinted down the rise toward me just as an explosion struck the outer edge of the darkness nearest him. He was thrown forward and tumbled down the hill. Sarai tried to pull away from me, but I pulled her back to me and held her closely as another explosion struck the outer edge.

              “Go to him!” Sarai’s voice cried, and I swung to hand Daria to her and then surged forward toward my son who was just righting himself in the dark dust. He looked dazed, and his flame flickered. I willed all the force I could to my legs and felt speed incarnate enter me as I bloomed forward in a flash of light that severed a scar through the darkness around me, dispersing it into angry whipping tendrils before it snapped into a new position of fractal patterned edges.

              “Baba, wha…” I gathered Devon in my arms, before he could finish speaking. I tucked him over my shoulder, and he whispered “do it again!”

              I found that I could not, though the young flame within me would have done anything to feel that rush again, the transition from form to light and back – the instant of pure acceleration followed by restoration. I felt reborn. I jogged back to Sarai and Daria who stood blinking against the dazzling light of the sun.

              “You’re gawking, my crown and glory.[1]” I said. Sarai snapped her mouth shut, narrowing her eyes and striking me on the shoulder.

              In the clear day no flame surrounded us any longer, but we breathed with greater ease. We stared at each other, our hands, at our bare faces exposed to the martian elements, but there was no pain – no seeming lack of breath. All was well. Soon the sound of gravmag engines roared and pulsed above us. The transport ship hovered above us in the patch of sky cleared of the cursed darkness. I raised my hand and blinked upward as a group of four men floated toward us. Sarai hugged close to me and Daria reached for me as well. We huddled together underneath and awaited their arrival.

              “Names and designations, now!” The lead man’s voice was gruff and thick behind his dark magsuit faceshield. He stood toward the front. One rested his hand on his sidearm, another stood with his arms crossed while the last cocked his head curiously, though his face was hidden behind the dark blankness.

              “No breathers…” He said, almost a whisper but picked up by his mic and broadcast outward.

“Oruach Severin, combat engineer, of the fifth legion.” I stood tall as I waved and continued, “My wife and children.”  

              “We…” Sarai started to speak but stopped.

              “Wow. We’re, we’re outside, really outside!” Devon’s eyes were bursting with the realization. He let out a loud whoop which echoed upward and then strangely against the segments of still-hovering darkness.

              “Shut it kid!” The man at the back pulled his sidearm. I tensed, and anger filled me as I stepped to stop him. Suddenly, I stood before him, hand gripped around his wrist holding it down, and wreathed in that strange fire again. He screamed as the flame spread to his hand and burned his glove away in an instant opening his suit to the elements. He ripped himself back.

              The other three swung around on me, all drawing weapons, “Stop, legionary!” The force of the man’s command was iron, and all my training halted me.

              The flame on the man’s hand still burned, though more slowly, crawling its way up his arm, burning away his suit as it went, his screams echo through me still. I had no control. He raved in a language I had never heard, but will never forget.

“Get down, now!”

“Hands up!”

“Turn around!”

 The commands fired pulse fire swift, faster than I could comply.

I knelt on both knees in the dust and placed my hands behind my head as the flame around me subsided into nothingness and the warm day danced across my shoulders. I had been on many worlds, many patrols. I can imagine the frantic comms between their helmets as one peeled off from me and tried to find a way to help his fellow without touching him and the other walked slowly toward my family.

I spoke, drawing on my own time in command, “Soldier, treat them with care.” He hesitated as he approached, and Sarai stood in front of Devon and Daria looking at me. I smiled at her, and nodded softly. She understood.

She gathered the children next to her and submitted to the soldier who very tentatively lifted a small maglift from his pocket. He pressed the sequence and its sphere popped open into a hovering disc, thin as silk, but some feet across. He motioned for Sarai and the children to step aboard careful not to touch them.

              I felt a barrel pressed against the back of my head, “Put out the fire!”

              “I don’t know how. It. I can’t…” I said, but I felt the muzzle pressed harder as I let my head fall forward.                

              The man screamed on behind me. I heard his agony in each screech, his anguished cries for deliverance.

              “Now!” I felt a hand under my arm, “Get up, go. Put it out!”

              I stumbled to my feet, looking up as my family rose on the platform toward the floating ship then back down to the man’s whole left side was a mass of radiant fire. Half his face was bare to the sun, the crystal faceshield burning away and drifting in windswept fragments like parchment. His one eye was a yellow-grey filled with terror and something else.

              “Move!” The barrel pressed against my back, and I realized for the first time I was nearly naked, fragments of burned clothing holding desperately to hide me, yet I felt no shame. Memory is a funny thing, only recalling when once it seems to matter.

              I approached the man and spoke softly, “Let me try to help you, by the True Flame, please.” I reached out my callous hand in the sun, and, though no flame further came, the man turned and fled in a kind of lunatic rage. His companion chased after him, but the distance was too great. The man ran headlong into the darkness where the flame vanished and his whole form was erased into tendrils of liquid energy drawn through the latticework to the center of the event.

—-

              *Convergence Conclave Clerical Reply*

              RJ4 Marceus,

Phases 3 and 4 are under consideration, but phase 5 has been disapproved – if risk can not be mitigated down to fractions of the assessed, expect no grace upon the final phase. Rework and resubmit at the proper interval. Additionally, your translation work is filled with unnecessary details and embellishments. Whatever (ANCIENT) has said in terms of description is largely irrelevant. Further translations should be delivered to the CITADEL as executized summaries with the longer forms appended for clerical convenience. 

This is a bold series of steps to take, outside the normal protocols for dealing with the aberrants as you know. Consider caution despite your endless curiosity.

~Lictor Cavendish Curio, Luminous Novitiate Fourth, WARPROUTE CITADEL

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[1] Your grace, this is another difficult translation. There is only one word in question, but I have rendered it in two forms for clarity in the common tongue.