Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig CenturyLink.NET. NS
Answer
centurylink.net. 2 NS authns1.qwest.net.
centurylink.net. 2 NS authns2.qwest.net.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0