Cirilius I

----------------------------------------

Cirilius fingered his revolver, mentally counting the number of bullets he had left as he tapped his thumb against the gun. The Outenders had left a warped trail, crooked trees and divided streets. A wooden sign was now split in half, the name of the town divided by the Outenders’ wrath. Lazarenth was now Laza and Renth. How many more towns would be alienated by these abominations?

“Blasted bullets! How many more towns will they eat?”

“I didn’t think you cared, Cir.”

“Not being emotionally invested doesn’t equate with not caring, Smoke.”

“You could have fooled me, you old gunshot,” Smoke replied, smiling good-naturedly as he cleaned the barrel of his rifle. The man would smile and joke with death if death offered him a dozen mistbullets.

“Is there still time to chase them down?” Smoke asked casually, reloading his gun.

“Not on foot. But if we mistwalk, maybe.”

“Cir, after what happened last time I don’t think...”

“It’s fine!” Cirilius snapped, cocking his revolver and picking up the pace. Smoke, long and lean, had no trouble keeping up with his friend.

“You might think it’s fine, but when you don’t come out, don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

Cirilius groaned, slowing his pace slightly and turning around to glare at Smoke.

“All right. We need another mode of transportation then, and fast.”

“We’re walking through a warped town! Most transportation will be useless. But if we manage to find horses...”

“We’ll be able to catch up! Although you know I hate horses, Smoke.”

Smoke didn’t bother responding, grinning widely as he jogged ahead of Cirilius. With his broad shoulders, dark skin, and shaved head, he looked half Outender. Before the Corruption. Cirilius had seen warped towns before, but they never ceased to surprise him. Each warping was unique. Trees whole, but without a single leaf—the leaves would be hanging midair a couple feet away, as though hanging from transparent branches. He was about to turn aside when he noticed a flash of unexpected color. The leaves, instead of the usual purple or blue, were a strange yellow and orange, like a slow-burning flame. Cirilius stopped jogging entirely, approaching the tree trunk cautiously. The trunk was healthy and white, without even tints of infectious red. Then why were the leaves the color of flame?

Cirilius was so focused on the tree that he almost missed Smoke, comfortably settled atop a large black horse. Following behind him was a small ornery looking beast, with flaming red hair and ivory skin.

“What in Ekta’s name is that?” Cirilius asked, staring down the small horse.

“A horse more your size, Cir. Don’t worry, she looks small, but she’s a fiery one. I think she’ll be able to keep up.”

“I hope so,” Cirilius sniffed, approaching the horse slowly.

“Come on, Cir, you of all people know we’re in a hurry!”

“If I’d known we’d be chasing after Outenders on horseback I might have reconsidered...”

“Cir, get on and ride!” Smoke called out, already galloping away.

Cirilius growled, sheathing his gun and throwing his leg over the horse. As soon as he was sitting on top of the beast, he gingerly urged the creature forward with a hesitant tap of his boot. The tiny horse started a lazy walk. Cir debated kicking the horse harder—Smoke was already a shadow in the distance—but thought better of it when he looked her in the eye.

“You gave me a murderous horse!”

Smoke laughed, a faint sound now, and raised one of his hands to the sky. Cir squinted, his eyes widening as he saw Smoke’s rifle and understood the ramifications. Cir was still trying to rip his feet out of the stirrups when the gun went off and the little horse throttled forward like a fiery bullet. He made a last-ditch effort to escape the horse by pulling back on the reins, hard, but that only spurred the four-legged demon to greater speeds. Soon the two of them were streaking past Smoke and his docile giant. Cir managed to give Smoke a particularly nasty glare as the little horse ripped him past his friend.

As the horse charged forward Cir trained his eyes on the ground, looking for the telltale symbols the Outenders always left in their wake. The only thing consistent about them was how close they would brush against the common alphabet, only to deviate, slightly, on every letter, every marking. Like sleep talking—close enough to the common tongue to make the gibberish terrifying. The red-headed beast of burden continued to run ahead with reckless abandon, making the symbols impossible to read (if Cir had taken the time to learn the markings, which he hadn’t). Axis was the expert on these matters.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Although, he really didn’t need to bother looking down… he’d be able to hear the cursed marks before he saw them. Prolonged exposure to the Outender’s haunting half-melodies was deadly, but Smoke and Cir had spent long hours building up a tolerance to the echoing remains. It still gave Cir a piercing headache, but at least he remained sane and conscious—both pluses.

He thought he’d begun to hear the repetitive, twisting refrain of the Outenders when the little horse neighed violently and stopped abruptly, sending Cir careening over the beast’s head and face-first into the dirt.

Smoke appeared a few moments later, as silent and graceful as his name as he dismounted a couple paces before the small horse.

From the ground, Cir called up, “Oh sure, go ahead and act all graceful and noble. We both know you gave me this creature on purpose. You probably knew it only had one speed—run-as-though-an-Outender-is-murdering-you fast. Next time I’ll let you find the symbols!”

Smoke laughed, patting his horse on the neck before approaching Cir’s little horse and whispering loudly into the beast’s ear, “Thanks, I owe you one.”

His expression instantly sobered, however, as he took in the markings, obvious now that they could hear the sound that always accompanied them. The twisting symbols glittered with an otherworldly sheen, as though they’d been soaked in water and star fragments. Smoke’s eyes didn’t leave the strange images as he extended a hand down toward Cir, who took it and rose quickly, not even bothering to dust off his longcoat and trousers.

“They must be close,” Smoke murmured, his hand straying to his rifle. He was about to continue speaking when Cir looked at him sharply, silencing him. When Smoke looked at him inquiringly, Cir put a hand to his ear and pointed above them. A winding trail in front of them led up to what looked like an old stone building, moss and whispering silver ivy curling around the structure like old friends embracing. The air around the stone edifice was hazy, as though the building was simmering. Cir squinted his eyes, but the haze was undistinguishable at this distance. Smoke was also peering into the distance, his dark eyes widening as he focused on the building high above them.

“Could it be? But why would they have stopped so suddenly?”

“It’s not our job to ask questions, Smoke. It doesn’t matter why they’ve stopped, only if we can deter them.”

Cir didn’t wait for Smoke to respond—he was already striding up the trail, avoiding stepping on fragments of Outender markings that littered the trail like fallen stars. This close, the glittering symbols each made faint, individual notes, the sound a small cacophony that pierced through Cir’s already pounding head.

He didn’t stop—or turn to see what had become of his friend—until he was well up the trail and entering the haze embracing the building which was now beginning to look suspiciously like an old monastery of some kind. Depictions of a strange god were carved into the stone face in front of him—the person depicted seemed like an unholy mash-up of Ekta and Lina. There was the blazing sun behind Ekta, his mighty visage breaking away into Lina’s proud, distinctive face, the fiery orb melting into a shimmering moon. Was this some kind of extremist shrine?

Shaking his head, he stared the carved image down, committing it to memory. He would have to sketch it later to show Axis. A single word was inlaid in the stone under the strange image, but it was written in a language Cir didn’t know, although, unfortunately, he did recognize it.

“So it’s an Outender monastery? I didn’t know they were… religious.”

Maybe Axis could decipher the word too.

“By Ekta’s all-knowing…” Smoke whispered, startling Cir, who hadn’t realized this friend had also finished the climb and was peering over Cir’s head, his eyes distrustful.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing. They didn’t prepare…”

But Cir was no longer listening. The Outenders could warp out at any time. There would be time to examine the strange carving later—in the safety of his own house, a cup of chilled chocolate in his hand and Axis’s dark violet eyes scrutinizing his sketch of the oddity. Yes—later.

He picked up the pace, continuing his climb upward towards the monastery, which was more than a simple, ghostly outline and was resurrecting, now clothed in stone. There was no obvious path leading up to the edifice besides the glimmering symbols, which cut indiscriminately through swathes of tangled trees, hovered over small orange streams, and twirled over large boulders with ease.

Cir kept his revolver at his side, three expensive, lighter-than-air mist bullets inside. The only weapon that would be useless against someone like him and strangely devastating to the creatures designated as “Outenders.” When tightly compressed and fired from a specially crafted gun like his, they didn’t release lead, but an explosion of catastrophic noise, like every instrument and voice invoking planet-wide war. A mist bullet wouldn’t kill a person, but no one wanted to be near the explosive sound. No one but End Hunters like him and Smoke—there was a reason Axis never listened to his stripes and demanded he wear his helm rather than broadcasting the music (she vehemently called it “sound”) throughout their small house. He’d tried fighting her, but his wife hadn’t climbed to the top of her class by obediently following orders… especially his. She loved him fiercely, but everything else was fierce about her too.

Shrugging his attention back to the present, he quickly loped up the broken, winding trail. He didn’t bother with his helm—he didn’t necessarily like the “music” that imitated mist bullet explosions, but he wouldn’t ever tell Axis—because he was used to the taxing sound. It was a filthy, violent, whirlwind friend, but an ally nonetheless that would beat up the villain, even while looking at you and smiling a little too widely for a little too long.

As he got close enough to make out the huge, arched, open entrance that led into the maw of the monastery, he saw a statue that closely imitated the much smaller carving down below.

“Towns weren’t enough, they had to go and warp everything holy?” Cir spat, quickly looking away from the same strange mixing of his God with his wife’s. Some strange part of him—the stupid part probably—felt an undeniable urge to look, and Cir gazed up just long enough to save a mental snapshot before whipping his head back, looking for Smoke.

“That’s… different.” Smoke didn’t seem as disgusted as Cir, more curious than anything else as he gazed upward at the towering monument. “How did we miss this when we saw the monastery down there? This statue has got to be over fifteen feet tall!”

Now that Smoke mentioned it, that was an excellent question. For another time.

“Mistbullets loaded?”

“Don’t get cocky. Who was incapable of riding a tiny horse just now?”

“Maybe I planned on a quick stop.”

“And the flying face-first part into the dirt?”

Cir rolled his shoulders back and tilted the brim of his hat just so before stalking into the darkness of the monastery.

“My favorite part of the plan.”