by JA Hutson
The Hollow God
JA Hutson
Copyright © 2020 by JA Hutson
All rights reserved.
Cover Illustration by Bob Kehl
Cover Design by Shawn King
Edited by Margaret Dean
Contents
The Hollow God
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
About the Author
The Hollow God
Swords and Saints – Book Three
1
“He was a good man.”
I nod, laying my hand gently on Vesivia’s shoulder. She doesn’t acknowledge my touch as she stares down at Shalloch, pale and cold upon the slab of gleaming black stone. The mucker looks like he’s at rest: his one good eye is closed, his lips slightly parted, and the shadowdancers of the Umbra have dressed him in a fine silken doublet and breeches. His hands are folded across his stomach, covering the wound that the mantis-man’s scythe-like arm tore in him during the battle beneath the monastery.
“And handsome,” Vesivia says, then follows this with a hitching sob.
“Without his sword beside us the Stranger might have opened the Gate,” I murmur. “He died so that this world could live.”
The Zimani swordswoman pulls away from me, leaning over her dead lover. A tear falls to spatter upon his scarred cheek. “No one else ever believed he could be anything more than a pirate. He was born in a ship’s hold and raised on the waves. But in another life he could have been a great man. There was a light in him that only I saw.”
“You saved him,” I say softly. “You brought out that light.”
“And it led him here,” Vesivia says bitterly, looking around the vaulted chamber. Great dusky windows soar forty span high, overlooking the valley below, but even though it is midday the rolling forests are dark. The tinted glass makes it seem like the lands outside the Umbra are wrapped in a perpetual twilight. What little light trickles through these windows slides across walls of black stone and dark wooden furniture and makes the elaborate sculptures carved of ebony shimmer and writhe.
“We would inter him in our crypts,” whispers Zaria, her hollow voice resonating in the great room. The abbess of the Umbra is recessed in the shadows, her robes blending so perfectly with the darkness that she seems to be nothing more than a sunken face hovering in the black.
Vesivia shakes her head at the abbess’s words. “No. He came into this world on the sea, and he always said he would return to it one day. He does not belong under the ground.”
“The sea is a thousand leagues away,” the abbess says.
“Then I will carry his ashes a thousand leagues!” Vesivia replies angrily.
“And Shalloch will know you did this,” I say quickly. Glancing at the abbess, I shake my head. Vesivia needs to be left alone for a while to work through the emotions her lover’s death has stirred up.
Zaria nods in understanding, then turns and glides from the chamber. I follow her, leaving Vesivia to mourn by herself and say whatever private heart-words she needs to share with her beloved.
We pass down corridors that contort oddly, as if a madman had designed the interior of the monastery, and eventually arrive at the great hall where the battle between the shadowdancers and the Swords of Zim unfolded. The last time we were here, corpses were scattered about, but while we were below they have been removed. A massive black jewel threaded with purple light dominates the room, slowly rotating above a great altar. Bell is peering up at the faceted gem, her hands on her hips and her eyes narrowed, like she’s trying to discern its true nature. Elsewhere, Deliah lies on a divan of black velvet, her red arm draped across her face to block out the purple radiance seeping from the jewel. Around her dark shapes writhe, shadowdancers attending to her with fluttering fingers. Xela and another of the shadowdancers – this one apparently more substantial than the rest – are having a heated conversation close to the chamber’s great window, their whispering the only sound in the otherwise silent hall.
When Bell sees me she hurries closer, concern in her face. “Vesivia?”
I shake my head. “In mourning. She needs to be alone, I think.”
Hearing us, Deliah uncoils from her position on the divan and sits up. Her purple hair is artfully mussed, as always. She shoos away the hovering shadowdancers, and they melt into the darkness and vanish. “The death of a mate is always unfortunate, especially one as strong as Shalloch. I pray that she finds a suitable replacement quickly.”
“I don’t think that’s what she’s worried about right now,” I reply.
The lamias shrugs. “I know if you were to die I would be distraught.”
“That’s kind of you to say.”
“Unless your killer was more handsome and a better fighter. Then I would be sad, but also pleased.”
“Less kind,” I mutter as the Abbess Zaria brushes past me, seeming to float across the chamber. When she reaches the elaborately carved altar she slips behind it, then faces us all again, her long black fingers splayed on the gleaming stone.
She says nothing, but the whispers fade as everyone’s attention fixes on her. When it is silent, she draws her nail slowly across the altar. The sound makes my jaw clench.
“The refugee Valyra is gone,” she says, addressing us all. “Stolen by one of your own number.”
“A traitor,” I say. “Working for the Contessa of Ysala.”
Tendrils of darkness drift up from the stone of the altar, coiling around her arms. “But the Prophet was denied.”
“Yes. The Prophet wanted to open a doorway to another world, one that has been overrun by demons called the Shriven. The Stranger was such a creature and his ally. We killed him and the Swords with which he’d invaded this place, but then Fen Poria kidnapped Valyra and used the Gate to transport her to where the Contessa waits in the City of Masks.”
The shreds of darkness adhering to the abbess have continued to spread, so that now she is nearly encased in a suit of shadowy armor. When she speaks again her words are bitter.
“The Prophet arrived centuries ago, just after the gods had vanished, claiming that the end times were approaching. It seems he was being truthful, but failed to mention that he would be the one who ushers us into them.”
“He came from this other world, one that has already been scourged by the demons.”
She watches me for a long moment, her face inscrutable. “I have fenced with the Prophet countless times over the years upon the high steps of the court. A formidable man. But unremarkable in appearance . . . save for his eyes.”
A pang of coldness goes through me. I know what she’ll say next.
“Eyes that look very much like your own.” She moves from behind the altar, great barbs and shadowy limbs now extending from the dark carapace that has formed around her. “When you first burst into the hall I was too overwhelmed by what had happened to realize where I’d seen you before. Then it came to me as I watched you comfort the Zimani swordswoman. A hundred years ago you stood before the old Purple Emperor. I remember your mocking sneer and the hilt of your sword, that carved bird of dark wood. You were at the right hand of the Prophet in those days.”
The purple light spilling from the hovering jewel flickers, and the shadows clotting the room seem to grow more substantial, sharpening into gleaming bla
des pointed at me.
The air feels heavy, pregnant with the abbess’s rising anger. Gooseflesh pimples my arms and the back of my neck. I’m itching to draw my sword, but with an effort of will I keep my hand at my side. If I touch the hilt, I’m fairly certain Zaria will unleash whatever force she’s conjuring.
She might anyway, I realize with rising apprehension. Her face is placid, but the gathering darkness radiates malice. I’m a heartbeat or two away from lunging at the abbess when Xela steps forward, coming to stand between us.
“Enough!” cries the shadowdancer, slashing her arm in a cutting motion.
The abbess’s expression does not change, but the shadows seem to recede a little. I let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding.
“Talin is not an enemy, Mistress,” Xela says, her voice impassioned. “He certainly is not an ally of the Prophet. I saw him kill the Prophet’s servant, the black alethian, and then it was his sword that felled the one you called the Stranger.”
“Are you saying I’m mistaken, adept? That my eyes deceived me long ago?”
Xela glances at me. “I don’t know what you saw, Mistress.” I can hear the uncertainty in her voice. “There’s much here I don’t understand.”
“And there’s much I don’t remember,” I interrupt, holding the abbess’s gaze. “My memories only go back a few months. Perhaps I once served this Prophet, but I promise you I will never do so again. Not when I know that he consorts with the Shriven – I’ve seen what horror those demons can bring down.”
“Talin told me that the Lady of Shadows saved him from the Stranger,” Xela says hurriedly, perhaps seeing a softening in the abbess’s mien.
Zaria’s painted eyebrows arch in surprise. “Truly? Our Lady has not manifested for many years.”
I look at Xela, hoping she catches my annoyance. She was the one who thought the Umbra’s god had helped me – I wasn’t sure what that thing had been. “I don’t know if that was your Lady. But it broke the Stranger’s hold over me for long enough that I could send the creature back to whatever abyss it crawled from.”
Her gaze travels over the four of us, as if taking our measure. “Then what will you do now?”
I also glance at my companions – we haven’t discussed our next course of action, so I’m hesitant to speak. There is one path that I would prefer, though, and they must know it.
“We chase down Fen Poria and rescue the healer,” Deliah says, giving voice to what is in my heart.
“The Contessa’s note invited us to her manse,” adds Bell. I’d shared the folded paper bird Fen Poria left behind with the scientist’s daughter, hoping her keen mind would pick up on any subtleties the Contessa might have embedded in her message. “She claimed the key Fen Poria used would open a door back to Ysala.”
“And that door is closed now?” Zaria asks, lacing her fingers together.
“Apparently. I don’t understand how the doorways work, but the Contessa implied that only Fen Poria’s key would allow travel to the City of Masks.”
The abbess begins to pace, her slippers whispering on the stone. “Then you all have a very long journey ahead of you. It will take many weeks to cross the Twilight Empire, and I am certain that once the Prophet realizes what has happened he will set fearsome hunters on your trail.”
“Meanwhile Valyra is in the clutches of the Contessa,” I say, helplessness rising in me. “Even if she is not an ally of the Prophet, I do not trust her at all.”
“Wise,” Xela says, folding her arms across her chest. “Her schemes always benefit only herself.”
“The Prophet and the Shriven want Valyra because she can open the Gates,” Bell says. “If the Contessa is keeping her from them, then we have to treat her as an ally right now.”
“Despite having deceived us and kidnapped Valyra,” I mutter. But the scientist’s daughter is right – whatever the Contessa has done, the note her servant Fen Poria left behind was a peace offering. We just need to find our way to Ysala, across the endless fields of golden grass where monsters prowl, and then over the treacherous peaks of Hesset’s Wall. From the looks on their faces, my companions must also be remembering the arduous journey that brought us here.
Our dark thoughts are interrupted by something very unexpected. Somewhere in the monastery someone is whistling a jaunty tune. We share looks of confusion – Zaria appears particularly shocked, her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide. The shadowdancers hovering in the darkness along the fringes of the chamber murmur and shift.
“Who is that?” Deliah asks, breaking the stunned silence.
The abbess’s face hardens, and again the shadows begin to writhe around her. “One of the Swords must have survived. None of the alarms were tripped, so I know that no one has entered the monastery since Auxela brought you inside.”
I draw my green-glass sword, and it chimes like a bell as it leaves its sheath. Deliah’s glaive has appeared in her hands, and Bell is unlimbering her crossbow and fitting it with a quarrel. The sound of her winding the crank competes with the whistling, which is swelling louder as whoever it is continues to approach this hall.
“Over there,” Zaria hisses, pointing at an arched entranceway. We spread out, weapons ready.
A large dark shape emerges from the passage. I realize who it is at the same time as Bell’s crossbow thrums. “No!” I cry as her quarrel buries itself in the great beard blanketing the barrel chest of Bolivan.
The blacksmith saint abruptly stops his whistling and blinks down at the quarrel emerging from the tangle of black hair.
Bell and I gasp in unison when we realize what she has done.
Bolivan doesn’t seem bothered, though – with two thick fingers he plucks the quarrel from his chest and flicks it away.
Deliah takes a step forward, whirling her glaive, but I frantically motion for her to stop. “Wait, he’s not an enemy!”
The abbess Zaria doesn’t heed my words, as a moment later a flurry of ebony daggers forged from the darkness flash past us. The shadowy blades strike the blacksmith saint and shatter as if they were made of glass, the fragments dissolving before they fall to the ground. Bolivan raises his bushy eyebrows and smiles broadly.
“One of the imposter gods!” Zaria cries, and from the coldness swelling behind me I can tell she’s readying a fresh attack.
I rush forward and put myself between Bolivan and everyone else. “He’s a saint!” I say, sheathing my sword and holding up my hands to show I do not fear him.
“I know what he is,” Zaria hisses angrily. “A false god who took up the mantle of divinity when the true gods vanished.”
“Heard you were a prickly one,” Bolivan drawls from behind me, and I can imagine that the amusement I hear in his tone will only infuriate the abbess further.
“Enough!” I shout. “We must know why he’s here!”
Surprisingly, the thickening shadows draw back. Zaria’s eyes are hard, but she seems to have controlled herself. “Speak,” she says coldly. “And then I want you out of my home.”
A huge hand falls upon my shoulder as Bolivan chuckles. “Thank you, lad.”
I whirl on him – with the threat of outright conflict with the abbess averted, my own anger rises.
“I also want to know what you’re doing here, smith,” I say. “We could have used your help earlier beneath the monastery. Maybe my friend would still be alive.” Each time I’ve seen the saint – when I was locked in a cell in Soril, then during the Masquerade just before the Marquis attacked the other Trusts, and finally behind the bar at the Last Word while the Stranger watched me from across the room – he did nothing. “Every instance you appear you manage to be spectacularly unhelpful.”
Bolivan lets out a deep sigh. “Aye, lad, I’m sorry. I have a very good reason, though, I promise ye! It’s strictly against the rules for saints to physically interfere with what happens here in the mortal realm.”
“Who would stop you?” Bell asks, her curiosity overcoming her awe at encou
ntering a saint.
“Pray you never find out, lassie,” says Bolivan. “I’ve done what I can to aid ye, believe me. I’m treading a very fine line that most o’ my fellows are too frightened to walk.”
“By convincing me to fight an alethian barehanded?” I ask scathingly, remembering the terrifying lizard man I was forced to kill in the ring to win my freedom all those months ago.
“And you did well, lad!” Bolivan cries, his broad smile flashing white in his beard. He punches me lightly in the arm. “Look at you now – you’re a damn dragon slayer! I saw that great black bastard ye slew down near the Gate. And the demon sorcerer as well! Good job keeping the paths closed, though it nearly was a disaster, to be honest.”
“It was the Lady of Shadows who intervened to help them stop the Stranger,” Zaria says coolly. “While you saints did nothing.”
“That old bat still kicking around?” Bolivan asks in surprise. “I thought she faded away centuries ago.”
I hold up my hands again for calm when I see the storm clouds gathering in Zaria’s face.
“Why are you here, Bolivan, if you can’t help us?”
The burly saint runs his fingers through the curls of his beard. “Well, I didn’t say I couldn’t help you, lad. I can’t smite your enemies, that’s true, unless I want to spend eternity in the belly of something horrible, but I’ll keep tiptoeing the line best I can.” He clears his throat loudly and spits an impressive wad of phlegm that sizzles when it strikes the stone. “I want the same as you all – to stop those demons from crossing over to here.”
“If you were watching what happened below, then you know my friend Valyra has the ability to open the paths. We have to keep her out of the Prophet’s hands.”
