Cirilius II

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“This is incredible,” Cir breathed, his mind on sensory overload as his eyes rapidly wandered over the hundreds of carvings etched into the monastery’s round stone walls. He had never tried to take so many mental snapshots before—hopefully his mind really was as photographic as he always boasted.

Smoke nodded in agreement, although he seemed more wary, his finger lightly resting over his rifle’s trigger.

“Don’t forget, we’re here…”

“To hunt Outenders,” Cir responded quickly, not really paying attention as his mouth rattled off the answer he’d given so many times it was easily muscle memory.

“Don’t you hear that? Or do you only have eyes for the carvings?”

“Yes, yes, the usual din. But these renditions of Ekta and Lina—I’ve never seen anything like them.”

Smoke grunted—he was probably rolling his eyes—before Cir felt a large hand clap down on his shoulder and he had no choice but to make eye contact with Smoke.

“Yes? You’ve got my attention,” Cir said, adding as an afterthought, “and my entire left shoulder.”

“Listen,” Smoke growled, and Cir closed his eyes; the pictures were too tempting, too alien for him to resist otherwise.

Temporarily blinded, the change in sound was almost more shocking than the carvings. The Outender melody—if such a twisted sound could be attached to such a beautiful word—had changed drastically. Rather than the impression of every sound on Lore competing for space, the different notes and instrumental sounds seemed to be more… harmonious, than usual. In fact, the sound could easily be called musical, soothing.

“Ever since we passed the monastery threshold, the Outender melody has been this way,” Smoke whispered, his deep voice momentarily joining in harmony with the music surrounding them.

“It’s always this way.”

“No, it’s not! Cir, are you deaf?”

“I didn’t say that,” Cir retorted, unsheathing and cocking his revolver in one smooth motion.

“Your voice did,” Smoke said quietly, lifting his rifle from a resting position to an active one, adopting a squared stance, his feet spread, the rifle pushed up against his shoulder.

“I wonder what Axis is doing right now.”

“Or Steele.”

Cir and Smoke looked at each other.

“Maybe they would like to join us on this little venture.”

“Perhaps they’re here now.”

“Do you think they would mind dying?”

“Being warped?”

“How easy it would be, to make either of them into one of us.”

Their voices kept up the lively banter, even as the two men stalked farther into the gloom.

“Do you think they would like our beautiful song?”

Cir felt the transition under his feet from smooth stone slab to thick, dusty carpet that breathed out plumes of gray particles that hung in the powerful beam of sunshine that shot through a hole far above them. They seemed to be in a library of sorts, thousands of tomes suspended in midair.

“Do you like to read, Smoke?”

“I don’t care much for books myself,” Smoke’s voice replied, melding in with the ethereal music. “But knives? Now there’s a versatile tool.”

Suddenly, the books in the room, little more than black smudges in the darkness, began to gleam, elongating into slender, vicious blades. The music dropped in pitch and the more airy, higher-pitched instruments and voices faded until only male bass voices and a single cello remained, a deep drum pounding into Cir’s and Smoke’s skulls and vibrating the many knives that now hung suspended around them.

“Quite. Good for cutting all sorts of things,” Cir’s voice was conversational, casual.

Cir picked up the pace, Smoke in front of him, as the knives began falling in slow motion, tumbling end over end as though hurled by some lazy thief. The single beam of light from the hole in the monastery ceiling bounced off the weapons, making Cir feel as though he was jogging through falling stars.

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“Be more creative, Cirilius. Yes, knives are effective, but what about candles?”

“Candles?” Cir’s voice sounded deflated.

The spinning knives began twirling faster and faster as the music pressing into their ears and bodies got more and more rapid, the cello now accompanied by a whole host of violins and the eerie trill of a flute.

“Will this library ever end?” Cir hissed, and the voice that sounded like Smoke was quick to reply.

“It doesn’t need to.”

“In fact, it won’t,” Cir’s voice responded.

The room suddenly began to stretch, the carpet a rugged path before them that reached far off past their ability to see to the end.

“Candles, as you know, dear Cirilius, make a good companion to fire.”

Spinning blurs that had become dull as they no longer reflected the beam of light suddenly blazed. Cir could hardly keep his eyes on the violently twirling sticks.

“Close your eyes,” Smoke’s command was little more than an outtake of breath. They both tensed, waiting for their voices to respond, to clamp invisible hands over their eyes, but the two voices seemed perfectly happy to continue chatting, apparently oblivious to the barely uttered phrase.

The darkness was far more peaceful, although what if they ran into the flaming candles? Opening his eyes for only a moment, Cir found Smoke’s arm and gripped it, saying as quietly as he could, “Follow me.”

Smoke’s only response was to briefly clench his fist, tightening the muscles in the arm Cir was holding. Assured that the two of them wouldn’t get separated from each other, Cir thought back to the quick mental snapshot he’d taken right as he and Smoke had entered the demented library. He’d never tried this previously, but strange times called for strange methods. His hand subconsciously tightened on Smoke’s arm as he strained to superimpose his memory into the darkness of his closed eyes. The pulsing headache became a roar before the image seemed to settle into the black. The books in his snapshot had floated above stone, avoiding the carpet. As long as he still felt the thick material under his feet, they would avoid the revolving flames.

“Are you enjoying my candles?”

“Perhaps, but it’s a little too illuminating for my taste. Perhaps our guests would better enjoy the scene from above?”

Cir didn’t have time to do more than yelp as his boots left the floor and his body tumbled upward. Eyes already open, he didn’t have time to do more than throw his hands out in front of him before hitting the ceiling, hard. Jagged, decorative pieces of stone cut into his palms and slashed through his longcoat. Hesitantly, he was just picking himself up and reaching for his revolver, which had been knocked from his hand during the rough ascent, when all two hundred plus pounds of Smoke barreled into Cir, knocking him back to the “floor.” The ceiling floor.

“By Ekta!” he called out, more from shock than anger.

Smoke gracefully got to his feet and was just reaching for his rifle when,

“They worship Ekta, do they? Conqueror of sea? Sentinel of earth? Perhaps Ekta will save them then.” Cir’s voice was sharp, condescending, and the following laugh was piercing, like the trill of a theremin.

Cir found his gaze pulled inexorably upward, where hundreds of candles still spun like twisting, shooting stars.

“And weapons? Certainly, if Ekta is watching over them, they will have no need of such trifles,” Smoke’s voice was deeper than Cir had ever heard it before. As if on cue, Cir’s revolver and Smoke’s rifle plummeted to the floor below, knocking against the bewitched candles, which fell under the weight of the two guns and sunk into the carpet, which caught on fire. The beam of light from before had been blocked by a passing cloud under their feet—the only source of light was the flaming carpet, which was quickly spreading to engulf the entire roof… floor?

The ground under them was dome-shaped, and—“conveniently” enough—they were in the middle of it, at the deepest section.

“We’ve got to climb!” Cir called out loudly, slapping a hand to his mouth belatedly, but not fast enough for the voices to miss his public service announcement.

“Climbing is for mountains, wouldn’t you agree, Smoke?”

“And it doesn’t count unless it’s truly a challenge.”

I’m getting sick of my own voice. Inwardly groaning, he made eye contact with Smoke and pointed with his head toward the far end of the room. The dome they were stuck in was shifting already, the outer rim of the ceiling stretching toward the flaming floor like a jagged mountain peak—the floor which seemed farther and farther out of reach.

“I can’t swim.” Smoke, once again, was artful in his approach, speaking so quietly that Cir almost missed his comment.

“And why would that…”

The dome was beginning to fill with salty water.

Why couldn’t Ekta be the God of air or something? Pleasant flat fields? Something that didn’t involve mountains of earth and flame and the whole starstraight ocean?

“Quick, start climbing,” Cir whispered as quietly as he could, pushing some blond hair out of his eyes. He’d lost his hat when the whole world had been flipped on its head.

He and Smoke began climbing the jagged mountain toward the flaming floor; the mountain was made of polished stone, like the dome of the monastery, slick and almost impossible to scale. Biting back his reluctance, Cir unsheathed his precious hookblades and handed one to Smoke with a glare that said, “break it, and I’ll break you.” Smoke gazed back at him evenly, and Cir amended his look to, “or something else you don’t necessarily enjoy, like tomatoes.”

“Do you detect cheating, dear friend?”

“We could always relieve them of the little hooks.”

“As easily as flipping a switch.”

The room was plunged into the darkness, the carpet above instantly extinguished. Cir felt himself slipping, plunging down into the dark, salty water, something incredibly powerful pulling on his hookblade, ripping it from his grasp…

“Is it time to play?”

Cir, his knuckles turning white with the effort of holding onto the hookblade, gasped.

“Axis?”