Summertime had never seen such short days. Snow blanketed the surrounding lands, tumbling from trees and glittering in the sun. Alas, the ruins remained warm and fertile as bears and bees retreated into hibernation. Yet the sun remained above at all hours, deep into the night and long into storms.
How long had it been? The seasons told stories of decades, for Illus had witnessed the summer come and go in what felt like hours that lasted millenia. Or had he been in the ruins for so long that time became a blur?
“Oh, what scores have passed, and your time went so fast.” The fox trotted beside the frail, exhausted man who resembled Illus, hair gone white, limping along with weak legs and a crick in his back.
“Aye, fox,” his hoarse voice croaked, “tis a pity. How I miss the city.”
Illus rubbed his wrinkled, sunken eyes, coughing feverishly as he instinctively clutched the skin clinging to his ribs. They ached the more he prodded.
“What if I said I could restore your life,” the fox climbed weightlessly onto Illus’s shoulders, “and for quite the bearable bit of strife.”
In Illus’s mind did he finally see through the haze. He simply wanted to be done.
“What is the cost? What will I have lost?”
The fox’s mouth curled up in jubilation. “Nothing will be sold, and you no longer old. An honest transaction demanding only a little action. My short course, concise as it were, has a source, to be free of her. With heartfelt sorrow I say, you have become Ciun’s prey. The sorceress is the cause of your age, for she saps your life while you play on her stage. As I warned before, I warn you here, this is a chore, be rid of fear.”
“Will I be able to see my sister?”
“And she won’t have lost her glister. Anilee too, you’ll no longer feel blue.”
“Ah, Ani…” In his head he struggled to imagine their fleeting forms. His old mind had been stretched thin. “I hope she’s found glee. Perhaps my loss made her flaws known. I certainly hope she has grown. Moved far away and on, from my naive con.”
The fox’s gaze wrestled with confusion and idly lingered on the wildflowers. “You wish not to have her? Has the past become such a blur?” Its dull blue eyes landed upon the moon and in a brief moment of lucidity, unknowingly let out a light purr. Then in a frightful recoil and a twinge of squirming fur, the fox ran off of Illus and away from that mental wrack.
Illus continued, “time tells a million tales, and so many force the wind in their sails. I wish mine wasn’t lost to the past, and perhaps I’d tied sail to mast.”
“You regret your mortality? Are you afraid of finality?”
Illus’s sullen disposition left him in no mind to tell fibs. “I wish I had done something with it. It now feels like a meaningless flit. Life is not meant to be lived alone, but I have run out of time to atone.”
With a cackle and a surprisingly genuine smile, the fox nodded. “Then have back your time, and begin with me this climb.”
“What must I do?”
“Take her mask and follow through.”
Ciun appeared. Her hair billowed in the breeze between them, gentle and fluttering like an azure veil over the mask. Illus fearfully reached through, lightly curling his digits around the mask, careful not to touch anything she may feel. Fingers met soft ivory and Ciun moved not a bit. Illus pulled against a magnetic force and she disappeared into mist.
The fox smiled and patted Illus’s knee. “That is it! Every day there will be one. Be quick of wit and your youth is won.”
In a moment, the fox was gone. Just as Illus had feared. He stared into his hand, wondering about this task. The mask just there was never even real. Bones aching and stomach growling, all Illus had was his grit. So why, suddenly, was his mind in such a twist? He pushed away all the doubts who would never let him be free.
Frantic and frenzy stole away every minute- or was it hours, days, weeks? How much further would he push, already hearing his bones creak. Maybe it was months, years, decades. After that swirling sun ceased circling round, sense of time began to fade.
He evaded the fox’s rhythm, but the rivers had not dried. Now it would not be long before Illus died. His only chance to escape, to have a chance at survival, was the toss away his morals and his fondness for Ciun. And yet every time he saw her, the world seemed to have a tune. A mask stolen in the shed. A mask swiped when she turned her head. None of them were real, just images to test his zeal. He knew one would eventually be a regret, but as time went on, stealing the mask took no sweat.
The ruins had shifted, shimmered and shirked their old forms. Gone away were all the late summer storms. The amphitheater was alive with the sounds of good company, deer and moose ravenously raced for the thrill. Near the freshly painted mosaic was a lush blue rose garden, protected from the ever present winter’s chill. Illus stood taller than everyone who appeared, and even the tallest were shorter by a head. He somehow remembered Ciun against his chest, a distant memory all tangled in time’s thread. Somewhere, somehow, the mask had lovingly bumped his chin.
Where could that memory have risen from? He had been in the ruins for what felt like decades, never once-
Masked Ciun, bold and rushing, skipped through the trees and past the river’s edge. Odd, he had never seen her past the rose hedge.
Alas, Illus raced through the brambles, asking his way with the utmost respect.
The roses didn’t recognize him, as if he had gone centuries unchecked.
They spoke to his mind, a cacophony of singing sighs.
Or perhaps they sang screams, tortured cries.
He raced down the hill and toward a new gully out.
The landscape dark dust, but he couldn’t hold doubt.
Everything was happening so impossibly fast,
Not a clue where he was or what he did last,
No time for thought or any questions to ask,
When Illus wrapped his fingers around Ciun’s mask.
Yet he hesitated, a strange sensation, so comforting and familiar in his left hand. Her hand. Tightly squeezing his. She was turned away, ready to pull him into darkness, frozen with a sharp inhale the moment his wily digits crossed her eyes.
The catacombs? Why was he in the catacombs? What trick of was this? And his hand clutching the hand of the blue haired woman before him… why did it feel so natural? Why did it cause him halt?
“Illus,” her voice shook, a high whisper, terror threatening to overtake her violently shaking hand, “Illus.”
Who was this woman? Why was she speaking to him so familiarly? He hadn’t seen her in a long time. No, he knew her name. The last time-
The fox slithered greedily through the air, closing distance quickly. “Illus! The mask! Trust your task!”
Rushing anxiety shot daggers through Illus’s chest, his body a sensation away from violently recoiling, tearing the mask free. He groaned, a jolt of pressure and pain electrifying his skull.
Ciun slowly turned toward him, clutching his hand with both of hers. The mask faced him and a distant memory fluttered through his broken mind.
“Illus,” Her shuddering, desperate tone broke Illus in a way that felt forgotten, “you’re more than your madness.”
The fox landed on Illus’s shoulders, curling around the back of his head with a devious whisper in his ear. “You will pull! Your survival!”
A beating heart thrummed in his ears, sweat poured down his head, and nausea curdled his stomach, but he spoke.
“Oh, this mask. This magic in which you bask. This beacon of desire. This idol of my ire.” He pushed Ciun back and closed the distance, wild-eyed and lost, fingers slowly drawing the mask from her face, yet uncommitted. “To live, to leave, to end this vat of vanity. All for this empty casque atop her promontory. To steal it as I have been taught, is all that I ought.” Illus pressed forward a step, forcing Ciun back. “Yet why does my body recoil? As if it remembers a plan I long to foil. To believe, to trust, to enact what I must.”
The fox curled a claw against Illus’s throat with a whisper in his ear. “Enact our will, or you I shall kill.”
Illus pushed Ciun back one last time, forcing his forehead against ivory. “I see now the tortured one, the creature here who will never run. The truth of this matter whose world I will shatter. Is rhythm the rhyming words by which meaning we impose, or the mismatched moments that naturally compose?” His thumb lightly caressed that what he long dreamed of. “One pull and I am free from playing the rat in his box-”
Ciun pulled him in and whispered so lightly, so quickly, that not even the fox could react. “I banish thee, fox.”
Its claw drew one drop before it dissipated into mist. Illus lowered his hand, and Ciun leapt in for a kiss. As quick of a brush of lips as it was, Ciun’s entire body relaxed in the brief moment, her mind as steeled as Illus’s. Like feathers they floated, speeding away with the comet stone in tow.
A shrill, cracking screech pierced the depths of their ears, echoing through the catacombs with a rage only known to those who had toiled for eons and lost everything to a mortal in a moment- for a second time.
Illus clutched the stone close to his chest, its blinding light nullified by the beaver skin bag. Ciun pulled him along wildly, muffled scorns of the fox growing louder, closer, and echoing through the dead corridors they blindly trespassed.
“It’s so good to see you again, Ciun.”
“Illus, how long has it been?”
“I don’t know, but holding your hand I felt at home.”
“However long has passed, focus on now.”
Cackles and whispers infected the halls of bone, scampering footsteps and crashing cartilage every which way. A growl from behind and a whirl of wind to his right.
“I banish thee, fox!” Ciun yelled out, the hot breath of the dematerializing fox warming Illus’s nape.
Their speed increased, skimming sharp corners where bone tore their clothes and scraped their flesh. Illus banged into walls, pulled along like a ragdoll by the frenzied Ciun. Flickers of light broke from the bag, shedding light on shimmering shadows and smiling skulls.
Suddenly, the fox’s voice coiled around them, announcing throughout the entire catacombs. “What good is a rule if it is only a tool? Thy transgression marks concession. For overreaching your hand, your rite of banishment is banned.”
“Ciun,” Illus squeezed her hand tighter, “what did you do?!”
“I reached for you,” her voice rattled like the bones around them.
“We can outrun the fox, right?”
“I can alone,” Ciun’s words raced faster than her feet, “so now bare your blade and trust what I show you. The fox is hunting.”
Heart racing, adrenaline pumping, Illus drew the machete. “Oh don’t worry, Ciun,” a morbid smile climbed his hidden cheeks, “I’ve a bone to pick with that rhyme rat.”
Silence.
Blackness.
All Illus sensed was Ciun’s hand pulling him along. He yelled, screamed out, but he heard not even his own voice in his ears. Only the lingering hum of the comet stone, an amalgamation of voices so dense they melded into pure white noise. Then sensation, a twinge of pain like the precursor to claws shredding the back of his neck, from below, by his legs.
Illus swung the machete to a surge of light in his mind and the silence fell away. The fox wretched, a volley of scattering bones overcasting the tumbled creature.
It slurred in a fading low growl as it dissipated. “Beast! Impetuous animal! The feast of a cannibal!”
“Illus! Speak to me!” Ciun cried out from ahead.
“I saw nothing, heard nothing! It blocks my senses!”
They carried on further, but its pattering scamper quickly closed the gap.
“Help!” Anilee screamed from far down the corridors. “Illus, please!” She begged through tears, a terror to her shrill cries echoing around him.
“Illus, where are you?!” Sator’s steps crunched bones as he ran.
Illus’s body shook, a yearn to rush to their aid, desperate to save them. He knew they were deceptions, but his trepidation at the sounds of their voices dragged Ciun slower.
Ciun growled, a hate-fueled curse in her tone. “It’s not real! You foul fool!”
Then she whispered something under her breath.
“Ciun?” Illus asked, sure that it was not truly her who spoke, but he heard a voice in his that was not his own. A hateful, graveled, lustful wretch.
Without warning, Ciun’s hand ripped free and she inhaled so sharp that it pierced Illus’s ears. She left him, gave up his hand. The scampering grew closer. The whispers surged louder.
“Ciun? Where did you go?” Cold dread crept into his heart, infected his mind with hopelessness. He stumbled forward in the darkness, tripped over bones, and listened for the fox’s footsteps.
Suddenly, a hand grabbed his and yanked him away. He heard nothing but the snap of teeth where he had been.
Voices slithered through the tunnels, surrounding Ciun in dreadful whispers, voices of dead men pretending to lunge for her mask, jolts that shocked her grip on Illus at every word.
“Ciun,” Illus squeezed her hand, keeping her from slipping away, “focus on the fox. You know they’re not real. I’ll rid us of it, but I need you to-”
A sharp slash caught his ankle.
He gritted his teeth through the searing pain. “Ciun, I’m with you. Show me the fox, focus on my voice. I will never betray you, never touch that mask again, but I need you to keep me alive long enough to free you from it!”
A light leapt through the air behind him, a phantom pain of teeth in his arm. Illus thrust the machete out and the fox took the steel directly in its jaws, its weight lightening to haze.
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“I’m sorry. A thousand times over. I’ll never mistake your voice again, Illus, but the fox-” she choked on her words, voice shaking as much as her hand. “That scoundrel stole your tongue, your hand. I-” Her terrorized voice chilled into cold, seething rage. “You end tonight, fox!”
She pulled with violent aggression, her hand clammy and trembling madly. Pace quickening, his feet lost traction on the floor. Scampering feet and wicked growls consumed the darkness yet again, fading into nothingness. Silence and darkness again.
Then a silhouette of the fox out of light, but illuminating nothing, like he saw through space to the exact location of the fox. It leapt again toward his neck and he slashed into emptiness, finding exactly that. Nothing. And then a sensation of pain away from his body, on the strap of the bag, Ciun’s warning that he missed.
A weight fell from his shoulder, the comet stone. Blinding light flooded the corridor, reflecting off of the bone dust like the surface of the moon. The fox reached for the stone.
Illus released Ciun and roared a fierce warcry, stomped his foot on the paw of the fox and hacked at its neck. Screeching like a burning pen of squealing pigs burst from its gullet. Its eyes dislodged from their sockets, slithering out of the pelt to watch Illus in grim amusement. They shimmered with power, and Illus’s eyes only began clouding over before the fox’s dissipated into haze, its slumping head already being pulled back to place by leathery black tendrils within the pelt.
Ciun swept the stone back into its bag as Carmonia’s words swept through Illus’s head, a compulsion to enact an order.
“Rise from death.
For mist’s stealth,
Down his breath”
Illus lowered himself to the creature cloaked in a fox’s pelt and inhaled. Thick smoke sludged down his throat and dredged through his lungs.
A familiar lightheadedness and lack of weight filled his body, but puffs of haze fought their way down his throat.
Ciun tucked the stone away, a return to darkness. Then she led him on, too preoccupied by the stone to notice what he had done.
Illus counted in his head. Five seconds, ten seconds, fifteen, thirty- he struggled to hold his breath- forty five, sixty- speckles of white and black invaded his vision and a voice climbed closer to the front of his thoughts.
Haze crept out with Illus’s pained words, obstructing words to sound monstrous and deep. “My breath, my death!”
Its voice gleefully crept into his mind. “Hold me close, until you doze.”
The words shot shivers through his body, but his lungs could not force it free. The haze clambered through his chest, prodded at his brain. He stumbled and choked, caught in hopeless heaving.
A sharp blow to Illus’s core shot the smoke straight out of his mouth.
Ciun pulled her hand back, regaining lost momentum. “You cannot be overcome now!”
“A trap- in the poem!”
“I told you to be wary!” She cried out, tears choking her attempts to be calm. “No matter, we’re almost there.”
Their swift steps drowned out the rattling bones beneath them, running beyond where the fox could readily reach for so long that neither could be sure when they would escape. Then came a drawl of air at their backs. Steps and suddenly light. Pale moonlight.
Ciun stumbled up the stairs, her feet dragging sluggishly. She stopped them at the entrance to listen.
Illus waited silently as she angled her head down, ears carefully analyzing the speeding situation.
Finally, she spoke. “My control is waning. Can you leap us to the top like you did before?”
What seemed to be half a century in his past suddenly surfaced, the memory of his leap with Ciun in his arms. He smiled at the nostalgic memory, even though he knew it was still fresh. “Of course. Is it safe?”
She bit her lip, her head shooting to look behind them in the catacombs. Her arm cradled the stone, a sliver of brilliant light escaping a slice in the bag. “War is about to break.”
----------------------------------------
Uthman cursed under his breath, Anilee behind him, tucked into a cranny while he watched atop the outcropping near the peak of the mountain. A line of wandering brigands tramped up beneath them, blindly climbing in the night. Sator hid down the trail, rifle trained on them the same as Uthman, Chitus, the investigators, Anilee’s suitor, and the disorganized crew of privateers.
“This mountain is designated as restricted by the New Heraldsberg military, under the authority of Captain Chitus!” Chitus yelled out to those below him.
Every rifle immediately trained on him.
Uthman eyed Sator, who matched his scowl, both of them wishing to stay concealed.
“Stand down or be fired upon by our platoon!” Chitus declared from atop a stump.
Anilee silently crept away from her father and suitor amidst the chaos, ascending the final turns of the mountain. Chitus continued his show of farce that brought the brigands to a halt, unable to spot the true breadth of their slim military forces. The commotion called the attention of the entire ruins, all eyes turned toward the mountain from every which way. All were wary, wondering what the military was hiding, wondering what such treasures were worth their lives.
Colonel Uthman then rose. His voice shook the very trees he bellowed from, pulling the attention off of Chitus. “Lower your arms and cease your advance. No blood needs to be spilled within these ruins. Pillage what lies below and be satisfied. Once we retrieve our brother, we will be gone. You are not only outnumbered, but outmatched.”
The brigands all froze, their doubts waned and whispers of obeying the demands crept through the ranks.
Then the black sky shone brighter than day, the comet stone shooting through the sky. A trail of haze swirled through bushes that the brigands were scattered in, and a devious cackle ushered their eyes upward. Uthman, Sator, Chitus, the investigators and their allies lost night’s cover, exposed by the soaring white sun. Uthman’s eyes traced the light up, trying to see through the high arc it took toward the peak, then he realized it was Illus and Ciun.
This light stirred the battlefield, fear and fascination at what magic was above.
The fox’s voice echoed around the mountain, swirling black fog filling the field’s eyes. “They seek to steal the power you have earned! Bear your blades and spill blood like you learned! Siege the peak, they are weak! One chance, take stance, raise lance, advance!”
“All men, stand down!” Uthman shouted, his options dwindling, his voice shocking the ruins into stillness.
While all eyes were cast upward, Anilee stared down on the potential mayhem. She smirked, for the fox had told her no lies when she witnessed Illus grasped by the sorceress’s spell. The sorceress had done something to strip his affection from Anilee, claiming it all for herself. Nobody was on Anilee’s side but the fox, and that was clear to her.
Its words resounded from the mirages it spoke through earlier. “Pretend you hold them dear, then from within become the spear. I grant you a wish, your award, so long as you sew discord. Should the stone reach Imahken’s peak, you will have the dream you seek. Keep it from Illus, and the vile sorceress. When her mask is ours, then wish upon the stars. Touch the stone and feel its behest. Know your mind and speak a request.” She glared down the mountain at the fools beneath her and drew.
“Hold fire!” Uthman stepped out, fully revealing himself before them all. “Do not listen to the fox, nor any voices in the haze!”
The pointed guns were on a hair trigger, the dazzling light at the top of its arc, but the fox nowhere to be found.
A gunshot rang out.
Smoke rose from the mountaintop, where only one woman stood. Colonel Uthman slumped forward, then tumbled down the mountain.
The mountainside erupted with whirring bullets and blasts. Chitus fell. Shots peppered the sky where the light crested. Firearms fused with the fox’s haze, masking the mountain in its meddling mist.
Anilee froze, watching her father’s body drop out of sight. Her hands violently shook, her heart frozen in place, but she knew not why. Gunsmoke slithered up her nose and tears slipped from her shell shocked eyes. Something about it woke her to her core, her mind falling into a daze, her eyes clouding over with haze.
She wished to be free of that feeling, to be as far away from it as possible. Anilee turned her eyes up to the falling light.
Ciun’s consciousness waned in Illus’s arms, a surge of adrenaline forcing his legs to fly. Heavy headed and light of mind, the inevitable moment approached amidst torrential gunfire. Dying cries and frantic screams echoed up to him, clouding his instincts.
His legs gave out. A spattering of warmth rushed down his pant leg. Ciun tumbled from his arms, and the stone from hers. The orb of swirling brilliance rolled out of the bag and came to a halt at Anilee Uthman’s feet.
Illus picked his head up, staring in horror at the distraught Anilee.
“Ani,” he yelled to her in a fever of bewilderment, struggling to stand, “whatever wish you have will be twisted! Ani, it may kill you!”
Her teary brown eyes shone gold in the piercing light of the comet stone, emptily staring ahead, enraptured by the artifact of divinity in her hands, the very thing Carmonia had chased. Why wrestle away a mask when the artifact she was destined to find sat right before her? She beamed as bright as the stone having achieved her dream, having gotten what Carmonia never could, but another voice sought to steal her attention.
“Take the mask of magic! To let it go would be tragic! Throw the stone down the mountain! When they are dead, the world will be your fountain!” The fox swirled frantically in the air outside of the mountaintop domain and finally roared a fierce order in desperation, “Heed me, Anilee!”
But even the fox’s words were not enough to break Anilee’s attention. Why would she listen to anyone else when such immense power was at her fingertips? How could she hear anyone else when her ears rang from the gunfire, when her mind processed nothing but a way to escape it all. The voice of the stone spoke to her, shoved into her senses and shackled her mind. She chained her eyes to the radiant orb and held it aloft, desires swirling through her head, tears streaming down her face, a free chance to attain whatever she wanted, make right all she had done. The will of the comet extended to the stone in a beam of light. It demanded her to speak, but she knew not the consequence it could wreak.
“I want love.”
A flash.
The orb clattered against granite, settling in a divot beside a clump of gold where Anilee once stood. The slumping pelt of the fox scrambled to search the mountainside, screaming out below.
“Every man must ascend! This mustn’t be the end!”
Its voice drowned in the storm of gunfire brought on by its deceptions. Chaos frightened all of the men into thinking their enemies were each other while Sator and the surviving investigators slipped away into hiding spots, prepared for such chaos.
The fox turned its dangling eyes toward Illus, the man fighting off tears as he numbly limped to the stone and fell next to that glistening gold nugget. It surged with rage, slithering along the domain’s border. “What blasts hide their hearing?! No masts to guide their spearing!” Its voice shuddered in grave miscalculation. “Why are they not god-fearing?!” Then it turned to Illus. “A king you shall be, rule over all you see! Ciun as your bride, all magic at your side! Take the mask, why not finish this task?!”
Illus struggled to his feet, met eyes with the fox, his determination still strong. “Because It’s time for the nightmares to end.”
The fox lost all expression. It knew that he knew.
The mountaintop suddenly shimmered into a sunny day over an ocean of people chanting Illus’s name.
“Long live Illus, King of Imahken, empire reborn from ruins.”
Where was he? What had he been doing? Perhaps it didn’t matter.
“Hail to the reborn empire, to the birth of the twins.”
Blissful peace, joy among the people, and Ciun smiled at his side, two children in her arms. Yet she was an empty visage with emotionless eyes that smiled at him crooked, like a doll with its face crudely painted on. A dream perhaps, but not of Illus.
His heart sank. The bliss expelled in a breath, then he stood atop the nighttime mountain once more. “No more lies.”
He picked up the comet stone. Its claw clutched his brain and dragged his chin aloft, eyes to the sky to meet the gaze of the comet. A hurricane of white crashed into his mind.
The fox, out of options, dove in to slit Illus’s throat.
A seething voice swept over the mountaintop. “I bind thee, fox, breaker of order.” Ciun raised her hand to the fox and a billowing haze locked it in place. “What good are eyes that overlook a border?” She turned to Illus. Her body struggled against the sleepy, drooping exhaustion of magic, silently urging him on.
Illus raised the comet stone.
Terrified stammers flooded the fox’s tone and its eyes dropped from the pelt. “I-Illus… please. I offer peace.” The fox’s voice shuddered and a long forgotten fear crept into its hopeless voice. “Watch her aggress, the evil sorceress! I implore! Speak no more!”
Its words did not reach Illus, too deep in trance to hear. The comet peeled his eyes open, ripped into his desires, but he guided his thoughts to the poems, the warnings. The hints Ciun gave through subtle messages and riddles. The magic that bound the fox to the stone to Imahken to the mask to Ciun to their prison of time, of endless life, of dreamlike eternity brought on by the divine.
Pitch white surrounded him. The screaming sound of nothingness was neither screaming nor nothing. He realized in the light, that the overwhelming brightness, sound, sensation, it was everything at once, a glimpse into the dream of a being whose perception far exceeded the bounds of mortal minds. The hand simply guided his eyes to see the truth. Warmth and chill, comfortable slumber of the distant comet violently rocked between dream and nightmare, just as Imahken did.
And so, Illus spoke the truth of his heart.
“Wake Imahken from its eternal dream.”
The stone flashed brighter than the sun. It froze Illus’s hands and scorched his eyes.
The fox froze in fear and gazed up though it had no eyes. A searing cold light suddenly flashed white inside its pelt. Then it dropped from the sky, empty of whatever lurked inside of it, a trail of glittering ice and snow following the fall.
Silence gripped the echoing atmosphere. Gunfire, cries, screams- all of it died away.
Illus collapsed against Ciun’s stone seat, against the shattered statue which had once marked the fox’s eternal claim over Imahken. His head swirled, colorful blindspots dotting his eyes from the flash. A chill crept up his back. Warmth swelled beneath him.
His eyes fell to Ciun, still as a tree, awaiting something. Then the mask shifted to the deep indigo color of night, shifting form. Where once the fox’s image presided over the mask, it was now a simple, pure ivory circle obscuring Ciun’s face.
A sharp breath escaped her shuddering chest and dewey cheeks, belied by a heartfelt smile for Illus. Her hands traced the new shape of the mask like a newborn feeling her face for the first time.
“Ah…” Illus struggled to collect his thoughts through the relief, confusion, and exasperation, “good.”
Slow streams of blue haze trickled from the end of Ciun’s hair, from the tips of her fingers. She raised her evaporating hand, the dwindling hourglass of her form. “I never thought-” then turned her gaze to Illus.
In a flash she was by his side. She slipped a blade from her robes and slashed Illus’s pant leg open and froze. A thrashed bullet hole pierced straight through his bloodied thigh. Ciun tore her robes and desperately stuffed the wound, but her frantic, confident demeanor fell into slow grief.
Illus set a hand on Ciun’s, forcing a smile through cold sweat, dizzying lightness, and slowing muscles. “I thought I’d soiled myself,” he shook his head at her. “Glad to see I didn’t make a fool of myself in front of you.”
Her quaking chin forced itself to match his joy. “I’m so sorry-”
“Ciun,” he weakly stroked the back of her hand, “you have no more to be sorry for. It’s over.”
She gripped his head, hugged him close to her shuddering chest. “Thank you.” Her tears dripped onto his elated face. His hand found hers, his touch imploring her to smile.
Ciun pulled back, the mask’s round eyes remorseful reflections of her own.
A raspy sigh escaped his throat, a final attempt to make light of a dire situation. “No more time for tears, my dear. I reckon there’s one more mystery for us to face, one that nobody’s solved or lived to tell of. No poems, no songs, no images, no mirages or hints. Only speculation and faith.” Illus let out a long sigh, his words beginning to slur. “The mysteries just never end, do they? How truly wonderful.”
Silence overtook the peak. The last war of Imahken left the night still and serene, so much that they could almost hear the twinkling ocean of stars above. Illus’s eyes lingered on the image of Ciun in her mask before the backdrop of the night sky. Her ethereal hair, loving smile, and touch of her hand. A moment like one he’d seen before, and was glad just to see once again.
“May I accompany you?” Ciun set her hazy hand on the mask. “May I be at your side for a final dance into darkness?”
“And every one after.” Illus couldn’t hold back his smile. “I have no life, no words, no vow left to offer. But on my soul I will dance wherever you are with me.”
Illus pulled his hand from hers. He wrestled just to move it, nevertheless reach into his pocket and retrieve the ring. Though bloodied by his touch, the white sapphire glimmered against the moonlight when he slid the ring onto her finger.
Ciun pulled the mask free. “And I on mine.”
Slivers of pale moonlight shone on her face, and the ivory mask fell to the ground. Her sharp, upturned nose wrinkled with the mess of grief and love. Fresh tears adorned her soft cheeks in a joyous smile. Her eyes met his, round and expressive with thin eyebrows that ducked and leapt with every note of love and loss that crossed her face. And the irises, so deep blue that the pupils were hardly noticeable, like staring into them pulled him into the depths of a vast, dark, starry sea.
Around them, the world fell still, but between them two galaxies collided. As the mask left Ciun’s face and Illus’s eyes met hers, sparks of light emerged and danced between them. They returned form to Ciun, freed her from the curse, and united the lovers forevermore.
Flickering azure speckles light fireflies rose from where the fox fell. The mask shimmered and twisted, curled through the air, then finally embraced the stone. A beam of tender white light drew the stone and mask skyward, away from the mortal world, the parade of blue motes close behind.
Ciun stroked the side of Illus’s face and set a final kiss upon his lips. She lowered herself to his side, held his head against her head, tight in embrace. Ciun, eternally grateful to the sacrifice that unraveled her curse, freed her home, and made right by her promise. And Illus, though fading into darkness, his heart rejoiced to know he gave himself for something greater. No night breeze could chill the comfort and warmth they found in each other's embrace, but it soon swept the lovers away in peaceful slumber. There they departed, free of heart, mind, and finally soul.
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“Hoo-ooo, hoo-ooo,” called the distant loon,
What follows is mystery, even to the moon.
Thus ends the story of Illus and Ciun,
Eternally joined in embrace, her love’s boon.
As for the others, they continued as life must,
Nurtured the Earth, then their final gift of dust.
History books recalled the journal’s tales,
Imahken’s small section that to truth, pales.
Tis something to be said about fleeting life,
That desiring memorial will only bring strife.
Though the fox’s promises may appear swell,
Time is precious and it’s all yours to sell.
These lovers found peace in facing the abyss,
A gift that clouded eyes perpetually dismiss.
They lived unwavering for their hearts’ sake,
And died deaths that no fox could fake.
Left to memory as all things soon seem,
Life went on like it was all but a dream.