Gun Wizard - Rewritten in the Style of Cormac McCarthy
I. The Hearing of Archibald Caine
They spoke of him before he entered.
A creature of the rabbitfolk, they said. Grey-white fur, yellow eyes like coins in a fog. The clerk wondered if the name itself was a jest. Archibald Caine. A man's name for a beast that walked upright.
They called him in.
He stepped through the oaken door, quiet, polite, his paws barely sounding against the tile. He looked upon them with a mildness that might have been mistaken for innocence, and he smiled.
Tell us about yourself, Mister Caine.
He bowed his head. Said he was born in Oakburrow, a small place north of the Black Mountain. Said it was peaceful. Said he had gone to study wizardry at the University of Theoretical and Applied Occultism, under Merilinus Trigrandis. A mouthful of words, each one like a stone set carefully in place. He had a degree, he said. A bachelor in practical warcraft. He worked with the Black Powder Guild now. A field operative. The crown sometimes paid them to do their work.
And what would you call yourself, in simpler terms?
He lifted his eyes.
Gun wizard, he said.
The men looked to one another. The phrase hung in the air, absurd and holy both. A man who carried magic and powder in the same breath.
And why this line of work? For your kind it's not common.
He smiled again. The smile of one who has seen fire take a field and felt something in him kindle to meet it.
He said nothing more.
And there was silence in the room, broken only by the scratching of a quill, and the faint smell of powder that seemed to follow him wherever he went.
II. An Appreciator of the Arts Most Curious
By noon the two had left their company and gone wandering.
The city lay before them like a wound that never closed - markets and taverns and forges, all bleeding light and noise. The air was heavy with spice and sweat and smoke. Hanil looked upon it all as though he were a child again. The elf marveled at the wares and colors and the great babble of tongues. But Archibald moved as if he had already seen this place in a dream. He walked with purpose, the hem of his coat brushing the dust, his ears twitching not to the noise but to the memory of it.
He found it then. A small stall between a bookbinder's and a vendor of charms. On the table lay a bundle of thin volumes. The paper was rough, the ink uneven. Archibald picked one up and turned the pages as though it were a relic dredged from the sea.
Hanil leaned close. What is it you're reading, friend?
Archibald's eyes did not leave the page.
A work of art, he said. An illuminated tale.
The elf squinted. I've seen such things. But not like that.
The drawings crude, the sequence strange, reading from left to right as though the maker of it had lost his sense of time.
This one comes from the Orient, Archibald said. They call it an emaki.
He turned the pages with the reverence of a priest handling the bones of saints. Hanil watched him and his patience began to sour.
You seem taken by it. Why?
Because it is beautiful. I am a collector of their arts - the plays, the scrolls, the sculptures. Their world is built on grace. Even their wars are painted with it. When they drink tea, it is sacred. When they die, they die beautifully.
Hanil snorted. We have culture here as well.
Archibald looked up. Yes, but ours is a thing of utility. Theirs, of reverence. To them, beauty is a weapon, and life a ceremony of its use.
He turned another page.
The elf peered over his shoulder.
The next image struck like a blow. A naked harewoman entangled in the coils of something unseen, her eyes wide in a wordless rapture. Archibald froze, then shut the book quietly, as though closing a coffin.
Neither spoke again for some time. The crowd passed around them like water around two stones in the stream.
III. Dead Eye
They ran through the broken scrubland, the breath of the chase like iron in their throats.
He heard the shout behind him.
He's getting away.
Archibald turned. The orc was a great dark shape against the low sun, his gait heavy yet swift, his armor a patchwork of leather and steel and blood. He moved with a purpose that was not his own. Some old magic rode in him, you could see it in the shimmer of the dust about his feet.
From his scarf Archibald drew the musket.
The cloth itself breathed as if alive, the weapon rising from it like a serpent from a pit.
Extend, he said.
The word tore through the air.
Blue fire ran the length of the barrel, a ghostlight of octarine shimmer. The world seemed to pause. He could smell the powder, the brass, the oil of the stock.
The orc came closer. His eyes were green and full of certainty.
Contract.
The mist that came forth was black and cold, a death-breath. The weapon drank it in and the world bent around its mouth.
Archibald's vision blurred. His ears rang with the weight of words not meant for mortal throats. He steadied himself.
Recall.
A flare of orange and violet. The musket roared.
The shot went out like a hawk loosed to the wind. It struck nothing. Passed the orc by inches.
But the bullet did not stop.
It curved.
Across the field it flew and turned, bending in its course like a star dragged by unseen gravity, and came back.
It struck the orc through heart and hide and bone.
He fell at once. The sound of his fall was like a sack of grain dropped on stone.
The hill took him down, rolling, still bleeding from both sides.
Archibald stood alone in the silence after.
He raised the musket and blew the smoke from its mouth. The wind carried the scent of burnt powder and death.
A small smile found its way across his face - not joy, not pride. Something else. A kind of remembrance.
IV. A Demonstration in Smoke
The field was a ruin of sun and ash.
Men of the Sun army stood in their ranks, gold armor dull beneath the dust.
Archibald stood before them with his scarf drawn close about his neck like a noose that waited its turn.
He spoke a word.
Ghost Gun Gore.
From the scarf came six pistols, drifting outward like carrion birds over a corpse. They hung in the air about the soldier who faced him, each angled toward the heart. The man's sword trembled in his hand. He knew nothing of what came next, only that he feared it.
Ignite, said Archibald.
The air cracked.
Six bullets found him before he could breathe again.
He fell without a sound. The guns hung for a moment longer, then turned back to their master, vanishing beneath the folds of cloth.
Archibald swayed where he stood.
The battle was far from over. Twelve soldiers remained.
Keith looked at him, panting, blood on his lip.
Things are looking grim, he said.
The Sun army readied to charge.
Archibald drew in a breath and let it out slow, his body still though the world moved. His eyes went pale.
Split Second Carnage.
A snap of the fingers and the world froze.
The wind hung in the air like glass.
He walked among the soldiers, his scarf blooming with firearms, each cast upon the field like seed. When he reached the far side, his knees shook. He raised his hand.
Ravage.
Time returned. The sound was terrible - twelve guns firing at once, a storm of lead and fire.
When the smoke cleared, some of the men were gone, others crawling, others simply red in the dust.
Archibald's breath came ragged.
He looked upon the ruin and lifted his thumb weakly, as if to mark his work complete.
Then he fell to the ground, and the last of his strength left him like a soul stepping quietly out of a broken door.
V. On Vocational Paths
They sat by the fire.
The night was a black vault above them and the wind moved through the grass like something searching.
Archibald turned the sausage on the stick and smiled faintly, the grease spitting into the flames.
Lambros watched him.
Tell me something, he said.
How does a rabbit come to such work? Magic and guns and killing. Your kind are not made for it.
Archibald said nothing at first.
The light of the fire danced in his eyes.
When I was a youngling, he said, a wizard came often to our hamlet. Oakheaven, north of the Black Mountain. His name I forget. Alabastor, perhaps. He was a friend to my uncle. The children loved him. He'd bring sweets and toys and strange things that glowed.
One day another wizard came. A man in dark robes. He stood on a hill and said nothing. The first wizard saw him and grew silent. They walked out together into the clearing. I followed them.
He looked into the fire, the light guttering in his fur.
They stood there long, the air thick and humming. Then the dark one moved his hand. But Alabastor was quicker. His arm flashed and there came a light like the breaking of a star. The other's head fell clean from him.
Archibald turned the stick, the fat dripping.
That's when I knew, he said. I knew I'd be a wizard.
Later, there was a battle near our hamlet. Afterward we went to see. The field was covered in the dead. Torn men, gutted horses, things unfit to name. Crows and dogs feeding. The air black with flies.
He took a bite.
That was when I knew what I'd use magic for.
He looked at Lambros.
This world is conflict. Always has been. We can speak of virtue, of friendship, but these are only pauses between wars. What we believe we must one day defend with blood.
He smiled faintly.
My conviction is violence. I like it. You do too. You may dress it in reason, but it's the same hunger. The difference between us, Lambros, is that you sell violence for money. I take money to be violent.
He tossed the stick aside and reached into the scarf. From it came a pistol, dark as nightfall.
This, he said, is the future. Once, men needed years of study to hurl a ball of fire. Now any fool can take a gun and kill his neighbor. It's the great equalizer.
He turned the weapon in his paw, the metal catching the firelight.
These are flints, old things. But the boys at research say what comes next will change the world.
He looked into the dark beyond the fire, as though he could already see it - a world of endless thunder.
VI. The Final Confrontation
The tower rose over the city like the haft of a spear driven into the world.
At its summit stood Archibald, the wind dragging his coat behind him like a torn banner.
Below, the field burned. The army of the Sun in their golden mail clashed with the ragged militias of the earth. Smoke hung over them like a lid. The sound was all gunfire and screaming.
He looked across at Sol.
The Sun King. His armor shone even through the ruin, a light too pure for the filth of men.
A final war, Sol had said. One last war to end all others.
Archibald smiled.
A fine thing to dream. But war don't end. It only changes its face. You can no more end it than you can end hunger or the wanting of a man's heart.
Sol said nothing. His eyes were like coins cast from the same fire that birthed the sun itself.
Archibald rose into the air, slow as smoke.
His arms spread wide. The wind screamed around him, his scarf unwinding, its length alive.
Bullet Hale. Black Powder Heaven.
The words were quiet, but they carried through the world like thunder rolling over a plain.
From the field below, guns lifted. Rifles, pistols, muskets - torn from the hands of soldiers, pulled from mud and bodies alike. They circled him, a dark constellation of iron.
He pointed at Sol. The weapons turned.
Butcher.
The sound that followed was beyond hearing.
A flood of noise that broke the air itself. Fire and lead and steel in a single breath.
When the smoke cleared there was nothing of Sol left but a stain, and shards of armor like fallen stars.
Archibald drifted down.
The weapons fell about him in the dirt, empty and smoking.
He looked at the red ruin before him and smiled once. A small, tired thing. Then his knees buckled, and he went down, his body folding into itself like a spent shell.
The wind passed over him, carrying the smell of powder and blood and the faint sweetness of something ended.
VII. Dossier
They wrote of him afterward.
Men in dark rooms with ink-stained fingers and no faith left to lose.
Name: Archibald Salazar Caine.
Species: Harengon.
Approximate age: twenty-five in the reckoning of men.
They noted his manner - easy to work with, courteous even. A scholar of death who carried his civility like a charm against the horror of his own design. His craft they called ballistic thaumaturgy, but in plainer tongue it was this: to wed the weapon and the word, to make sorcery of the musket and gospel of the gun.
He bore his armory in a scarf that swallowed distance. Within its folds were pistols and powder and other things unnamed.
His spells were his own making, written nowhere but upon his soul.
Extend - to carry the bullet beyond the horizon.
Contract - to make it pierce all that lay before it.
Recall - to turn the shot upon its master's foe, wherever he fled.
Refill - to summon back the emptied, to make the world reload itself.
The advanced workings were marked as forbidden, but he used them all the same.
Ghost Gun Gore - six pistols called from the void to fire as one.
Split Second Carnage - the stilling of time, the placing of death by hand.
Rifle Halo: Angelic Caress - a ring of muskets conjured like a crown of iron.
Bullet Hale: Black Powder Heaven - the unmaking of armies, all the guns of earth raised against a single point in space.
They wrote that he slew Reinfor Augustus, Sol the Sun King, whose armor was forged of godlight and held fast until it melted beneath the storm.
There were other invocations:
Eradication: Ignis Dei - a cannon etched with runes none have since read.
Hecatomb: Necropolis Maker - a powder barrel vast enough to erase a village.
The records did not say where these were kept. Some swore they slept in the folds of that endless scarf. Others said they were burned with him.
He had fought in more than ten sanctioned campaigns, each sponsored by lords or orders who prayed in secret for a monster they might own.
The last line of the report was written by a hand that trembled.
He is suitable for the mission.
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