Swords and Saints- The Complete Saga

by Alec Hutson

  Deliah looks at her with wide eyes, her jaw hanging open. “You are blessed,” she whispers softly.

  Valyra doesn’t respond, sweat trickling down her face. Finally, she lurches backwards with a wrenching cry, and I leap up to grab her before she can fall.

  I hold Valyra to my chest as she shivers, staring down in wonder at Bell. Her back is rising and falling, and where the arrow was sticking from her back is only a knotted white scar. With a groan she rolls over, and then to my astonishment she actually sits up, her long hair obscuring her face. Her hand touches where the arrow pierced her chest, and then she seems to realize that she’s not wearing a shirt and gives a startled gasp.

  “What happened?” she murmurs. I let go of Valyra – as she seems to have found her feet again – and kneel down to embrace Bell. “There was a woman with a bow . . .” she murmurs into my ear.

  “You’re safe now,” I assure her, holding her tighter. From over her shoulder I see Xela and Fen Poria ascending the stairs. The feral is lashed with gray-green blood, and the shadowdancer has a cut on her cheek. She looks grim.

  “Shalloch?” I ask, and Xela shakes her head.

  “Dead. He died well, though. Saved my life. Vesivia is with him . . . she’s mourning.”

  Grief hits me, a hollowness opening in my chest. Valyra safe, Bell alive, the Stranger dead . . . everything had been too perfect. Whatever he had done that had brought him to the muckers, Shalloch had been a good man. He had been the first to welcome Bright Eyes, and he had cheered me when I’d felt hopeless and alone in Zim.

  “This place,” Xela says, looking around in wonder. “This is the Lady’s temple. When we become shadowdancers we are brought here to pledge our souls to her and the Umbra.”

  “She was here,” I say to Xela.

  “Who was?”

  “Your . . . Lady. The goddess of the shadows. She freed us from the power of that creature.” I jerk my head in the direction of the Voice’s corpse.

  “What in the abyss is that thing?” Deliah asks, her mouth twisting in revulsion.

  Xela does not even look at the dead Stranger, holding my gaze fiercely. “The Lady? Are you sure? She’s . . . just a legend, really. I . . . I’m not even sure if I believe in her . . .”

  I shrug. “Well, something helped us.”

  “We need to tell the abbess,” Xela says.

  I nod into Bell’s shoulder. Her hands are still clutching at my back like she fears I’ll vanish if she lets go of me.

  “Fen, what are you doing?” Xela asks, and with some effort I twist my neck to see what’s going on.

  Fen Poria has guided Valyra back to the arch, and she turns at Xela’s voice. Then she reaches into her pocket and takes out two objects. One is a silver sphere, and she tosses it towards Deliah, who catches it. The other thing is . . .

  “Where did you get that?” I cry as Fen Poria fits a chunk of red stone veined with black into the indentation set in the archway. She only smiles at me.

  I struggle to free myself from Bell, but it’s like I’m wading in deep water, and before I can pull away, the rippling golden veil has returned. Valyra’s head snaps around in shock, and our eyes meet just before Fen Poria gives her a shove that sends her stumbling through the portal.

  She’s gone.

  “Valyra!” I cry, lunging towards the gate.

  But I’m too far. Fen Poria gives a languid wave, then slips the key free of the archway and follows Valyra into the shimmering radiance.

  The portal vanishes.

  Shocked, I turn to stare at the others. For a long moment no one moves.

  “What . . . Why . . .” I manage.

  Like she’s moving in a dream, Deliah holds up the silver sphere and gives it a twist. Two halves separate, and she pulls out a folded paper bird covered in squirming writing.

  I leap to my feet and rush to her, the spell broken, and snatch the bird away. With trembling hands, I unfold it and begin to read.

  My dearest Alesk (or Talin, if you prefer),

  You are reading this, so either Fen Poria is dead, or she has left this note behind for you to find. I can only hope it is the latter, for if she has died, this must mean she has failed. And the world will likely follow her soon into oblivion.

  If you remembered anything of me – which you clearly don’t – you would know that I rarely interfere. But I was once a Mistress of the Keys, and I have the knowledge of how to fashion pathways that lead from one Gate to another. Do not try to follow – the key you hold will take you to a very different place.

  By now, the dead gods willing, my servant Fen and the weaver should have joined me in my estate in the City of Masks.

  I am sorry, though in the end this whole imbroglio is truly your fault. But perhaps you are not completely beyond redemption. Perhaps none of us are, which is a thought I haven’t dared entertain for centuries.

  Come to Ysala and I will tell you more. I could not risk the weaver falling into Ezekal’s hands, or the creatures he consorts with. I refused to take a stand with you once, in the waning days of our world, but perhaps I can make an attempt at righting that past wrong. I will wait for you.

  In affection,

  Avelia shen-Anoth, Contessa of the Gilded Lynx Trust.

  I let the letter drop from my hand, numbness creeping over me.

  “What does it say?” Deliah asks, desperation in her voice. Xela dashes closer and scoops it from the ground, her lips moving as she starts to read.

  “Fen Poria was working for the Contessa this whole time,” I manage, still trying to dig myself out from under the avalanche of what just happened. I swallow, my gaze traveling from Deliah to Bell to Xela. They are waiting for me to say something.

  “We have to return to Ysala.”

  The Hollow God

  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.
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br />   “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 blades 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.