As the people led Horan into the ruined city, Mark came out from behind the car and caught up to Horan. “Alright, just be ready to run if these people turn out to be cannibals or whatever.”
“Yeah, of course,” whispered Horan back. “I’m not worried about that, it’s no trouble dealing with, what, four people?”
“Five if you count the sniper.”
“Oh, right. Five.” Horan turned a corner. “Still, I wouldn’t worry about… Oh.”
Around the corner, the real settlement was revealed. Derelict apartment buildings showed clear signs of being lived in, with laundry lines going from window to window. Dozens of people milled through the street, travelling between buildings and conversing with each other. At least a city block was fully inhabited.
As Horan was escorted through the town, passers-by stopped to gape at Horan in stunned silence. As he walked past, a proudly smug expression plastered onto his face, excited whispering followed him. Mark followed behind, nervously watching the crowd. It had been a while since he had been in the presence of this many people, and the attention kept him constantly on edge.
After a few minutes of walking, the group came to an ornately-decorated building in much better condition than the surrounding structures. Two guards holding makeshift spears stood aside as they walked through the main entrance, stunned. Inside, several people rushed around to make the place look more presentable as Horan was led inside the building. The building and its architecture seemed designed to be as opulent as possible, with intricately patterned walls and very obviously decorative pillars giving the feel that the primary goal of the building was just to look impressive.
Sitting on top of a hand-carved wooden throne in a large room near the centre of the building was an old man clad in white and red silk. He looked at the procession with excited anticipation as they approached. Once the group had stopped at the base of the seat, the man leaned forward and spoke.
“Well, Narin, is this meant to be the one? Their presentation gives me hope.”
The woman stepped forward. “Yes, High Prophet. This one calls himself Horan, and claims to oppose the one called Thel. We also found this man with him.” She pointed at Mark. “I don’t think he speaks Turkish.”
Mark stepped back. “Why’s she pointing at me?”
The Prophet smiled and spoke in accented English. “Oh, an English speaker?”
Mark paused a little. “Arabic’s also good, but I’m fine with English. And Horan here understands no matter what language we use.”
The Prophet nodded. “Then I suppose we can continue like this.” He switched back to Turkish. “Narin, you are dismissed.”
Narin nodded and left the building, taking the other people with her. Once they had left, Mark pushed Horan forward, who looked up at the Prophet. “So, uh… Nice place you’ve got here”
The Prophet chuckled. “Thank you, we built the Nexus ourselves after so many of our people were taken. So, you are the one who will protect us from the armies of evil, then? Is what Narin said true?”
Horan shrugged. “If by the ‘armies of evil’ you mean my garbage heap of an uncle Thel, you’ve got it right. But I’m just passing through, trying to deal with him myself, it’s this whole process. But what I’m interested in is your town’s reaction to me. Mind explaining what the deal is with all this?”
“If you want.” The Prophet stood up and slowly descended from his seat to the floor. “Antakya is a city of faith. Many people here had their various beliefs confirmed by the proof that there was some kind of higher power. We all knew that that could be the only explanation for what happened all those years ago.” He began to walk out of the building. Mark and Horan exchanged glances and hesitantly followed.
The Prophet stepped outside and looked at the cloud-covered sky. Horan shifted into his human form to lessen the staring. The Prophet looked back at the two standing in the doorway and motioned for them to follow as he started walking through the street.
“Ever since then, the people who stayed behind, everyone you see here, has been trying to do it again, to get taken as well into whatever comes next for us. The world has been constantly getting worse, and we don’t know how long we can remain here. I, as the chosen shepherd of the city’s people, am worried about how much longer we can survive if nothing changes.”
He turned to Horan, whose human form was pointed out to him by Mark. “But now, you have been sent here to save us! With your help, we can be free from the fear of Thel and his workers! Will you help our city, Horan?”
Mark grabbed Horan’s arm. “Huddle?”
Horan nodded. “Huddle. Hey, Prophet, give me a second to talk it over with my human.”
The Prophet nodded and watched as the two hugged a nearby wall. Mark ran a hand over his head. “Okay, yeah, looks like we found a city that’s willing to worship you.”
“Do you think they’re for real? It almost seems too good of a deal to be true, y’know?”
“I know, I feel the same. I think it’s kinda sketchy, but it does seem like they aren’t working for Thel. How about you get yourself inducted as their new favourite Primus while I check the place out?”
“Okay, you do that.” Horan walked back over to the Prophet, Mark silently in tow. “Alright, Prophet, sounds like a good deal. I’ll stay here and keep your city safe from the forces of chaos and all that. But I’m not doing it free of charge. In exchange, I want to get treated with the respect a Primus of my lineage deserves. Him too, I guess.” He pointed at Mark.
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The Prophet grinned. “It makes me so happy to hear this. After all these years of waiting, our city will be brought back to the light! Come, I must make an announcement to the people. You can clean up, and I will have some attendants get ready for the other one.”
-
After taking a few directions, Mark arrived in the building they had given Horan. Big enough to fit a school bus, electric lights illuminated an opulently furnished home close to a manor in luxury. Lavish seating with silk cushions and ornate (if slightly worn) wooden tables sat near a fireplace you could roast a turkey inside of. A staircase on the far wall led to a second floor, doorways on the other wall likely led to yet more rooms, and the floor was covered in luxuriant carpeting.
Horan walked out of a steaming bathroom in his human form wearing a black sweater and slacks, hair still wet. “This place is amazing, it feels so good to have a hot bath again!”
Mark closed the door. “Wait, how did they have hot water? How do they have running water?”
Horan sat down on a sofa by the empty fireplace and lazily reclined. “They filled the tub with buckets and put hot coals underneath, classic style.”
Mark sat down opposite him. “Man, I haven’t seen a place this nice in… ever. They even have a generator!”
“Really? Because this place doesn’t even hold a candle to my digs back at my palace. But, after spending a week in that disgusting car of yours, this place feels even better than the palace.” Horan picked up a pillow and held it to his chest. “I’m never letting this go.”
“Hey, my car wasn’t that bad!”
“It smelled like a human with no hygiene standards lived in it for several years. Probably because you did.”
“Well, I got changed now, so you can’t blame the clothes.”
At this point, Horan noticed that Mark had indeed changed out of his grody hobo clothes into clean hobo clothes. Between the loose khaki hoodie and grey cargo pants, he looked like he planned to spend a week out in the woods because he found that fun for some unfathomable reason. Maybe he was actually planning that, with that inscrutable survivalist mind of his. “Oh hey, you did! You still look like a homeless guy, though. You could at least get some more interesting colours to look at, you blend right into the background.”
“It’s… camouflage. That’s… the whole point.”
“It’s also boring. You could really do to mix up your style every once in a while.”
“Hey, this is practicality itself!” Mark stuck his hands in some of his pockets. “Think of how many snacks I could fit in these…” He spent a few seconds going through all the pockets absentmindedly before Horan clearing his throat brought him back. “Oh, right, you’re still here. Well, look at you! You look like you’re about to drop a rap album or something.”
Horan looked down at his all-black ensemble. “Yeah, I wanted to swap out my old clothes, they were messed up pretty good over the trip. They offered me a these great silk robes, but I’m worried they might get stained if I wear them all the time, so that’ll probably just be for going out in public. For now, I’ll wear these. It’s not the loosest fit, but it’s the best they could come up with. At least it’s real cotton and not that polyester garbage. Oh, that reminds me!”
Horan rushed back into the bathroom and came back a second later with a scrap of black fabric in his hands. “Forgot to put it back on after the bath. Check it out!” He put the fabric over his head, a flap covering his left eye socket. “Eyepatch! I can finally look cool with only one eye again!”
“You don’t look cool no matter what outfit you wear.”
“Like you would know anything about fashion.”
“That’s true. By the way, I came here to tell you that some people are asking you for a demonstration of your supreme power or whatever.”
Horan bolted for the door. “Why didn’t you tell me?! I was talking to some guy about outfit choices when I could’ve been impressing my followers!” He shifted back into his true form as he left the room, but did it too early and banged his head on the doorjamb, falling to the ground. Without missing a beat, he scrambled to his feet and ran out. Mark watched from where he was seated, chuckling evilly.
Climbing up to the second floor, Mark looked out of a window at the crowd gathered in the street. Standing on a makeshift wooden platform next to the High Prophet, Horan waved to the reverent crowd as he affixed a white cape to his collar, completing his regal silk outfit. Once he was ready, he stepped to the front of the stage.
“Good afternoon, Antioch! I’ve been hearing that you fine humans have been wondering about just what you’ve been gifted with. Well, Horan is never one to disappoint his followers!”
The Prophet stepped next to Horan, dwarfed by the Primus’s shadow. “As thanks for his arrival, let us take a moment to pay respects to-“
Horan pushed the Prophet to one side. “Ah, no need to thank me. How’s about we get to the good stuff, eh?”
Shifting into a falcon, Horan rose into the sky and let loose an echoing cry, rattling the audience’s bones with the force. Shifting back into his true form, Horan dove down to just above the crowd, holding out one hand. “Gimme some!”
As the crowd reached up to give Horan a wave of high fives, his cape trailed behind them and smacked the crowdspeople in their faces, knocking several of them over. Horan covered the whole crowd of about two thousand people in a spiral pattern before rising back into the sky and raising his arms.
A strong wind kicked up from the south, powerful enough to knock some people over. After a few seconds, the wind shifted into an updraft and pushed Horan upwards toward the cloud layer. Propelled by the wind below him, Horan shot up into the clouds and vanished.
A second later, a low thud came from within the clouds. The layer was blasted away to reveal Horan, limbs splayed out, pushing away the clouds to form a massive bubble of clear air the size of a football field. While impressive, he was still unable to fully punch through the clouds and reveal the sun. Horan strained for a moment, then fell.
The crowd gasped, but after a moment Horan regained control and glided back down onto the stage. He unclasped his cape and stood tall, but he was visibly sweating and breathing heavily. “And that, humans, is what you’ve got in your corner. Not bad at all, if I do say so myself.”
The Prophet cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Well, after that… interesting display, I’m sure we can all tell that Horan here is perfect for us. Prepare the ceremony for him, our days of living in fear of the world’s evils are over!”
Horan gasped. “A party? For me? Aw, you shouldn’t have! But please do.”
The prophet walked off the stage. “We should have everything ready for you by tomorrow night. In the meantime, make yourself comfortable. Whatever you want, just ask and we’ll get it.”
“Y-you people are just going to get me things? And I don’t have to do anything?”
The prophet nodded.
“Wow, I forgot how this feels! First thing, get me some paper. I’ve made a list over the last few days…”