The Hollow God (Swords and Saints Book 3)

by JA Hutson

  “No,” the Prophet says fearfully. “A Leviathan comes.” He points at where the tsunami of dust is building on the horizon.

  I remember the great tendrils emerging from the wastes to wrap around the Coppers’ stronghold. We can’t fight such a creature.

  “How did such a monster come through this Gate?” I ask numbly.

  The Prophet is staring wide-eyed at the bulge of dust. “Eggs,” he says softly. “They were brought here and hatched. And when they were grown, that was when we knew our world was lost.”

  “That’s a creature?” Deliah murmurs. Her glaive is in her hand, but she seems to realize how useless her weapon will be and slides it again across her back.

  The ground is nearly heaving now, and the nearby hills have begun to shed great boulders from high up their rocky slopes.

  “We have to go,” I say, and shove the key I’m holding into the Gate’s lock. The golden veil seems to convulse briefly, and then it grows still again.

  “Deliah!” I cry, and the lamias tears her eyes from the rapidly approaching monster and looks at me. “You first, in case there’s something dangerous on the other side.”

  She nods, and without hesitation plunges through the portal.

  “Now you!” I yell over the rumbling, gesturing at Ezekal.

  The Prophet gives one more fearful glance at what’s out there and clumsily dashes forward into the shimmering light. Bell and Valyra follow right behind him.

  A terrific crack splits the air, and I glimpse a massive gray tendril breaching the wastes in a towering plume of dust. The force of its arrival nearly sends me sprawling, and I just barely catch myself by grabbing on to the pillar. The Gate itself is swaying now, as if it could collapse at any time. My fingers scrabble for the key, and I manage to pull it loose just before I throw myself into the doorway.

  12

  I fall to my hands and knees, my arms plunging up to my elbows in thick green grass. Beneath my fingers is soft earth, and the air is heavy with the smell of living things. The panic in me as the great Shriven swelled closer begins to ebb away. I open my mouth and breathe deeply, for the first time in days not tasting the swirling grit of the wastes. Then I slowly let it out, hanging my head in relief.

  We’ve returned.

  I push myself back onto my haunches. The sky is a brilliant blue threaded with tattered shreds of cloud. The sun is warm, and a faint breeze ripples the grass around me. Ysala was much cooler when we left – either months have passed, or we’ve appeared in a distant realm with very different seasons. I’m sitting on top of a small knoll empty of trees or rocks. Before me, grass speckled with red flowers gently slopes down to the edge of a great forest. The trees there grow close together, lush and verdant with branches heavy with leaves. Vines spotted with yellow blossoms wrap the gnarled trunks, and even from this distance I can see bright birds flickering between perches. The forest is endless, a great dark sea that undulates into the distance, unbroken except for a glassy lake that flashes mirror-bright.

  “Talin,” Bell says from behind me, and I turn. There’s something strange in the tone of her voice.

  The huge arch of opalescent stone looms over me, and unlike when I’ve passed through other Gates the shimmering light has persisted here. If I wanted to, I could return to the dead world . . . or something else could come through.

  I push myself to my feet and come around the edge of the portal to see what has drawn the attention of my companions.

  Then stagger back.

  “What is that?” I whisper, bracing myself with a hand on the cool stone of the arch.

  This side of the small hill is the same as the other: a field spattered with red flowers like drops of blood sweeps down to a vast, brooding forest of tangled limbs and vine-knotted boles. But no lake flashes in the distance – instead, a skull of shining white bone as large as a mountain fills the horizon. The size of the thing is impossible, beyond comprehension. It is canted slightly with its jaw missing, green growth creeping up its side. The yawning eye sockets are caverns clotted with darkness, each large enough to contain a city within their depths. Wisps of clouds shroud its pate like a gossamer crown.

  Deliah, Bell and Valyra are all gawking at the skull.

  “It’s impossible,” mumbles the scientist’s daughter. “Nothing . . . could be so huge.”

  “Perhaps it is stone carved to resemble a skull,” the lamias offers weakly.

  “It is bone,” says the Prophet from behind us. I turn to find him staring at me expectantly. “I’ve been there before. As have you, Alesk.” He nods in my direction.

  “I don’t remember,” I say softly.

  “Even seeing this does not return your memories?” He looks almost despairing.

  “We’re not back in our world,” Deliah says slowly, as if just realizing this truth. She unlimbers her glaive and steps towards Ezekal. Butterflies rise from the flowers as she strides through the grass, a swarm of glittering shards. The Prophet’s eyes widen in alarm as the curved edge of the lamias’s weapon flickers out, coming to rest against his throat. “And you knew we would not be brought there.”

  Ezekal eyes the glaive with desperate fear. “No. But we had no choice. The Shriven would have caught us if we’d made for any other Gate. It had to be this one . . . as I told you, the path here never closes.”

  “And it leads to where the demons come from,” Bell says. She crouches down and runs her hand through the grass. “This place?” Her tone is disbelieving.

  “They are not what you think,” the Prophet says. His silver eyes flick to me. “You understood, once. You came here with me. You met the Mother and witnessed her vision for the worlds. You became its greatest champion.” He grimaces, reaching up to push away the glaive.

  Instead, Deliah presses harder, cutting him deep enough that a rivulet of blood runs down his neck. The Prophet gasps in pain, stumbling away and holding the wound. The lamias follows, kicking him hard in the belly and sending him sprawling. The air shimmers as butterflies erupt from around where he has fallen. Deliah puts her foot on his chest and stares down at him in contempt.

  She glances over at me. “Is it time to kill this one?” she says, bringing the pointed end of her glaive to hover over his face. There’s no emotion to this statement, no anger or hate. She might as well be asking me if I think we should set up camp here.

  The Prophet goggles up at her, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. He tries to move, but with her foot she shoves him back down, holding him pinned to the grass.

  “Wait,” I say, coming to stand beside her. “He has answers. And he knows this place.”

  “He is a liar,” she says, her violet eyes holding mine. “We cannot trust him to tell us the truth.”

  I nod, and when Ezekal sees this he lets out a strangled cry. Deliah raises her glaive, ready to drive it through his skull, but I hold up my hand to stop her and crouch beside the Prophet.

  “What is this place?” I ask him levelly, keeping my arm raised to remind him that I literally hold his life in my hand.

  His terrified gaze flicks between me and the gleaming blade suspended above him. “Have you not been listening?” he hisses. “This is the realm from which the Shriven emerged.”

  Bell snorts. “You’re telling us that those nightmarish monsters came from here?” She shoos away the butterflies bumbling around her face.

  “They are the tip of the Mother’s spear,” the Prophet says. “The soldiers who go out and conquer in Her name.”

  “The Mother,” I say slowly. “What is she?”

  The Prophet shakes his head slightly. “A goddess? A demon? A sorceress? Who knows? We stood in her presence, Alesk, and felt her power.”

  “Where is she?”

  Ezekal lifts his arm where he lies and points towards the massive skull. “She dwells within.”

  Bell comes closer to loom over the Prophet. “And what did this ‘Mother’ offer you that you would betray my world?”

  “The Shri
ven are inevitable. When the Voice found me in our new home, I knew it was only a matter of time before they repaired the paths. The creature brought me here.” Ezekal jerks his chin in my direction. “Him as well, and the Mother promised that if we were the ones to restore the path into your world that our tribe would be welcomed into this one. Into paradise.”

  “And you believed the Shriven?” Bell asks incredulously.

  The Prophet sneers. “If you descend into the forest below us you will believe as well.” He returns his intense stare to me. “The old Alesk understood. We had a choice: everyone in our new world could die, or our tribe, at least, could be saved. Do you think I wanted to be responsible for the death of millions?” Bitterness coats his words. “Of course I did not. But above all else I had to preserve my people.” His breathing is coming fast and ragged, his eyes wild.

  Deliah removes her boot from his belly. I glance at her questioningly, and she indicates with her head that we should withdraw a ways.

  “Stay here,” I say to Ezekal, then follow the lamias as she moves towards where Valyra is still staring out at the vast sweep of forest.

  Her eyes are hard when they turn to me. “Do you think he is telling the truth?”

  “I’m . . . inclined to believe him,” I say slowly. “It makes sense that he cut some deal with this Mother to save his people.”

  “No,” Deliah says sharply. “I mean about you. That you were willing to sacrifice our world to save yourself.”

  I shift my gaze to Bell, but she’s looking at me with the same intensity as the lamias. “I . . . don’t know. Maybe. Perhaps in my heart I was trying to fool Ezekal. But even if that’s not true, I am not the same man anymore.”

  A tremor goes across Deliah’s face. She swallows and looks away, and I can see the emotions warring within her. “You must know, Talin,” she says softly, “that if something happens and your memory returns . . . and you become again the man that bastard says you are, that I will kill you.” Her jaw is clenched. “Even though you are my mate. For Vel, for my sisters . . . I have to protect them.”

  My chest aches at seeing her like this. I reach out to gently touch her arm; she flinches away, but I keep hold of her. “Deliah,” I say firmly. “If I change . . . if I revert to what the Prophet claims I was . . . I want you to kill me. Please.”

  Deliah nods tersely, still not looking at me. I feel Bell’s light touch on my shoulder. “If it comes to that, the man I know will already be dead,” she says. “I know you, Talin.”

  Deliah crooks a smile. “Alesk, isn’t it?”

  Bell shakes her head firmly. “No. That man is gone. This is Talin, a hero just like his brother.”

  I bow my head. I will never betray these women. Never. “So what do we do now?” I ask, trying to keep the emotion from my voice.

  Bell blows out her cheeks, shielding her eyes from the sun as she gazes out over the forested expanse. “Look for another Gate? There must be others if the Shriven have devastated many worlds.”

  “No.” We all turn and stare in surprise at Valyra. Her tone is as hard and sharp as a fresh-forged sword, something I have never heard before.

  The weaver is still staring intently at the distant, leering skull. “The Shriven murdered my world. They are poised to do the same to yours. We are here, at the heart of their empire.” She raises her hand and points at the skull. “I heard what the Prophet said. The Mother of the Shriven is there. That’s where we have to go so we can kill her.”

  From the hill where we emerged into this world, the immense forest unfurling in every direction had looked like it would be a dark, vegetation-choked tangle. To my surprise, though, plenty of sunlight filters down through the canopy, splashing upon the mossy ground and the flowers emerging from the rich loam. The going is quite easy, though we do have to be aware of where we step, as treacherous roots ripple the earth.

  The air is cool and pleasant, and despite seeing some insects flitting between the blossoms, none appear to be of the biting variety. Brilliantly-plumed birds cock their heads to watch us as we pass beneath them, sometimes calling down trilling greetings. They don’t seem to fear us, and I can’t see anything that resembles a predator lurking in the shadows, not even a snake or spider.

  When I tell this to Deliah she shakes her head emphatically. “All the more reason to be wary,” she says. She hasn’t slid her glaive through the straps on her back since we passed into the forest, keeping the weapon in her hands. “If we can’t see them, it just means they’re good at hiding. Atop every hierarchy in the wild there are the killers – otherwise, the ones below would get too numerous. It is the way of things.” She gingerly pokes the end of her glaive into a mossy pile, as if expecting to find some carnivorous creature hiding within. When nothing leaps out she sighs, her brow furrowing in confusion. “Although I admit this place is very different from Vel. On my island, the air here in the deep forest would press against the skin and rob the breath from your chest. Snarelings would try and hook your feet so you would fall near a robber plant, which would then creep over you and dissolve your flesh. The trunks would be scarred with the claw marks of the tigers that claim that forest, and in the high branches shogeth would be glimpsed, crouching on their many stick-like legs and waiting for a chance to drop down upon the unwary.” She shakes her head, her frustration clear. “This is less a jungle than it is a –”

  “Garden.” It is the Prophet who has spoken. He alone seems completely at ease here in this forest. Ezekal reaches up to pluck a bulbous yellow fruit from a low-hanging branch, then brazenly takes a bite, completely unconcerned that it might be poisonous. Thick juice runs down through the remnants of his beard. “For that’s what it is,” he says when he finally swallows.

  “Gardens are cultivated,” Bell says, stepping over a grasping root. “Pruned.”

  The Prophet throws out his arms. “And what does this look like to you? Flowers and fruit in abundance, no thorns or weeds or underbrush. Could you imagine a more perfect place to live?”

  Deliah slashes at a dangling vine, severing it. “There are dangers here,” she says caustically. “We just cannot see them.”

  The Prophet snorts. “Ignorant girl,” he says, half-twisting around as he steps between two massive, gnarled banyans. “You know noth –”

  And then he’s gone, tumbling out of sight. A strangled yell rises up from where he has vanished, followed by a splash.

  I rush forward to find that Ezekal has in his confidence walked off a ledge camouflaged by the moss hanging over its lip. He’s thrashing about in a little pool, apparently unhurt. After a moment, his toes do manage to find the bottom, but the water reaches past his chin.

  Valyra comes up beside me, then laughs when she sees the bedraggled Prophet staring up at us balefully and spitting water.

  “Any snakes in there?” Deliah asks, wedging her glaive between two rocks and leaning against it, an amused smile on her indigo lips.

  The Prophet takes what remains of his tattered pride and begins to swim awkwardly across the forest pool to where the roots of a cypress spider into the water. My gaze slides from Ezekal to the tree to the child standing in the shadow of its twisted bole.

  “Look!” I hiss, pointing. Valyra’s laughter abruptly stops as she also sees the girl. The child is naked, perhaps seven or eight years old, with dusky skin and long black hair that reaches nearly to her waist. She’s holding a basket of woven reeds in one hand and something that looks like a silver-shelled clam in the other. Her dark eyes watch the Prophet as he drifts closer to where she waits. She doesn’t seem to be afraid in the slightest, her expression blank and untroubled.

  The Prophet finally catches sight of her as he grips one of the roots trailing into the pool and pulls himself halfway out of the water. His hand slips, and he splashes into the water again, but the girl doesn’t even flinch.

  A shiver of movement comes from behind the girl, and a moment later a young woman emerges from the forest. She’s also naked, breathtaking
ly beautiful, with unblemished skin and a river of shining black hair twisted into a pleated braid. Her mother, I would think. I’m expecting her to drag her daughter away from the water’s edge and the strange man splashing about, but though she pauses in evident surprise, her fingers fluttering to her mouth, she does not flee.

  I share a glance with Bell, and then we begin searching for a way down to the pool. The going is steep, but there are plenty of trees growing out of the slope, so we use their branches to help us descend. The sound of leaves slithering beneath our feet and chunks of soil being dislodged draws the attention of the woman and the girl, but our sudden appearance seems to have little effect on them. They are apparently entirely unafraid to encounter armed strangers while foraging.

  “Greetings,” I say when we reach the bottom and stand less than a dozen paces away. The Prophet is trying to pull himself out of the pool, but he keeps losing his grip on the slippery roots of the cypress tree and sliding back into the water. I can hear him grumbling curses under his breath at us for not helping him, but I don’t want to get too close and send these strangers scurrying.

  Not that it looks like they’ll do that. We stare at each other for several long heartbeats. They look remarkably healthy for savages who haven’t yet discovered clothing: I can see no scars or faded lesions that might suggest disease, and neither looks to be malnourished. The woman’s gaze moves from the Prophet as he finally manages to flop onto dry land over to me. She says something that sounds almost musical in a language I don’t understand, then waits expectantly.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t speak your tongue,” I say, pointing at my mouth and shrugging.

  She tilts her head to one side, regarding me with obvious curiosity. The small girl reaches up to grip the woman’s hand, then also says something melodious and tumbling.

  “Oh,” Bell says, as if something has just occurred to her, and shoves her hand into one of her many pockets. She pulls out a small pouch, then fumbles it open and shakes a gnarled root into her palm.