The Cyndrille Orchard: Brother Cyril's Path

Though obviously uneasy about the horrible noises coming from the path ahead, the old man forced himself to remain composed and dignified. He straightened his navy blue Annunciation robes and adjusted his bright silver stole, which had drifted askew during his rushed walk from the rectory.

Another scream echoed against the darkening sky, and the old man paused in his progress. If that was Captain Regmayon, and it had certainly sounded like his voice, though it was hard to tell since he had never used it to express fear before, then the old man had no business going any farther along the path. Then again, if he did not investigate, the Elder Council would send another, and he did not wish to be responsible for that unlucky soul's destruction. He muttered a prayer of invocation under his short breath, and instantly a faint blue glow like sunlight rippling underwater began to cling to the edges of him and his hair and beard blew back from his head in a nonexistent breeze.

Another scream, this one much louder and somehow more final than the last. Whoever was making those sounds was not likely to make any more. The blue glow surrounding the old man turned a deep shade of scarlet as he stopped again, shaking his head and turning around several times in the middle of the path. The evergreen trees on either side of him seemed to grow darker by the second, and when he glanced up at the sky, he could already see the Old Mother constellation emerging from the hazy gloom.

"It's too late," he whispered to no one in particular. His strange aura changed again, this time to the color of aged cheese. "No . . . too late, too late," he repeated, secretly hoping that the time it took to say the words would confirm the observation. A few yards ahead, he could just make out the break in the trees where the Captain's Post stood, a harsh, utilitarian building of limestone and clay. He could see no movement at all, but he was sure he was being watched. For a moment, he simply stood frozen on the pathway, staring straight ahead. Then he lowered his wrinkled face to the stones of the path and a tear rolled slowly down the side of his hooked nose. "Oh, all right," he said, "Ellestral volitum facilitum."

Suddenly, the sickly yellow light around him turned a fierce shade of cobalt blue, deeper and richer than a midday summer sky, and the old man resumed his march along the path. His beard whipped back over his shoulder as he walked, and the layers of blue light around him drifted farther and farther outward, until his hunched form was lost in the middle of the undulating blue cloud. When the cloud reached the Captain's Post, it turned and disappeared around the corner, moving slowly but inexorably down the main road to the Sophia Gate, the largest entrance into the Cyndrille Orchard.

Futurus Persevero