Swords and Saints- The Complete Saga

by Alec Hutson

  “Talin.”

  I glance around wildly, looking for who is speaking. But there are only broken white-stone walls, tumbled pillars, and a few listing doorways leading inside collapsed buildings.

  “Come to me.”

  This time the words seem to emanate from one of these shadow-choked entrances. I hesitate, wondering if I should call out to Bolivan. None of my companions appear to have realized that I’ve stopped for a moment, and they are getting farther and farther ahead of me. I grit my teeth, cursing my foolishness, and take a few steps towards the doorway from where the words issued. This is madness – and yet I know that voice. Placing my hands on the strangely warm stone flanking the entrance, I lean into the darkness.

  “Are you in here?” I hiss, my heart thudding.

  The reply floats back, thin and etiolated. “Yes. I need your help.”

  Valans. The brother of Valyra, and also the mad Marquis of Ysala. The son of the Red Sword, who attempted to achieve sainthood so he could find his lost sister.

  “Is this a trap?” I call out into the blackness. Stupid thing to say – of course it’s a trap. But despite being certain of this, I can’t help but feel sorry for Valans. He’d blamed me for the loss of his mother and his people . . . and in a way he’d been right.

  I draw my green-glass sword, and the emerald radiance pushes back the shadows. The room is large but mostly empty, though several passages curve away into blackness. The one object in the room is a statue larger than a horse of a lion back on its haunches, its face some strange melding of woman and beast.

  “Where are you?” I ask, waving my sword in the direction of the corridors to see if anything else may be revealed.

  No. This is foolish. I turn to leave this strange chamber and Valans’s whispering voice, but cold shock floods me as my foot comes down on emptiness.

  I cry in wordless terror as the ground opens up to swallow me, the stone peeling back like the lips of a camouflaged beast.

  3

  I’m falling for only a few moments, but it feels like an eternity, and I expect to be dashed to pieces when I strike whatever lies below. Instead, my breath is driven from me as I land on smooth stone, and though pain lances through my chest I’m still whole as I go sliding down a steep slope. I thrust out my arms, trying to arrest my downward momentum, but though I can feel stone curving up on either side of me it’s too slick, and my fingers scrabble helplessly for purchase. Fetid air rushes around me as I gather speed, smelling of a charnel house or a battlefield. I strain to glimpse what it is I’m tumbling towards, but though there is a hazy, almost spectral light swelling larger. I can’t make out any details. Given the horrible smell rising up, I’m not sure I want to know what is waiting for me below.

  The steepness of the incline tapers, and my hurtling speed begins to slow. Still, when the chute finally spits me out I roll several times before coming to rest in a great space infused with a soft radiance. I can only lie there, stunned, a tessellated ceiling of many intricate mosaics slowly revolving above me. I want to be sick, but there’s nothing in my stomach.

  The moving ceiling stabilizes. Groaning, trying to ignore the pain pulsing in just about every part of my body, I sit up and look around.

  And immediately wish I hadn’t made a sound.

  A vast creature looms over me: it has the body of a lion, its tumbling silver mane framing a face that, like on the statue above, seems to be caught halfway between a woman and a beast. The massive paw resting on the stone a few dozen paces from where I’m sitting could cover me completely, and if its claws were unsheathed I imagine that they’d be significantly longer than my sword. Its tail is serpent-like, and coiled several times around its body.

  I force myself to breathe as quietly as possible.

  The lion-woman’s eyes are closed, and I’d love to believe that she’s dead, but from the rumbling traveling up through the stone beneath me and the gentle rise and fall of her flank I know she’s just sleeping. My panic rising, I look around for an escape. A wall carved with almost-effaced images soars up behind me, broken only by the circular hole through which I tumbled. Although the stone etchings are worn, I can just make out the largest near me, and it shows a giant cat-like creature scooping tiny men up into its gaping jaws like they were mice.

  Great.

  “Talin.”

  The whisper echoes in the vast chamber, far louder than it was before. Cold fear sluices through me as the lion-woman’s face twitches, as if she’s being dragged towards wakefulness by the sound.

  Be quiet, you fool! I scream inside my own head, but of course the thing that sounds like Valans ignores my silent plea.

  “Talin, come to me.”

  The snake-tail unspools, scraping across the stone. I watch the monster’s face intently, but her eyes remain shut.

  “Talin, I know you are there.”

  The whispering voice is definitely coming from the space beyond the lion-woman. I can’t see what’s there, as the ivory-white bulk of the monster is blocking the rest of the vast chamber from me.

  I’m going to have to shut him up, or he’ll wake this beast, and I have no illusion about how long it would be until I suffer the same fate as the unfortunate little men in the wall carvings.

  Gritting my teeth, I will my legs to move, trying to be as silent as possible. I have a brief spasm of panic when I think I see a sliver of golden eye, but after a moment I dismiss this as an illusion conjured up by my terrified mind. If anything, the beast’s breathing seems to deepen as I creep in a wide circle around where she sprawls.

  When I finally get a glimpse of what lies beyond the Devourer – if that’s what the monster truly is – my breath catches. The chamber continues on until the light fades and the farther reaches are swallowed by darkness, but almost directly behind the beast a circular hole wide enough for an elephant to tumble inside has been cut into the stone floor. And scattered around the edges of this pit are the dismembered remains of men and women. There are arms and legs and torsos, but no blood or viscera, surprisingly, nor can I see any signs of decay. It almost looks like these are the remnants of life-sized dolls.

  I look around wildly, peering into the blackness beyond the light. Where is Valans? Is he crouching out there, watching me? Could he have fallen into the pit?

  “Talin.”

  The whisper is so close that I jump, my hand flying to my sword.

  His bloodless head is perched on the edge of the pit, only a handspan removed from tumbling into its depths. Whatever wrested his head from his shoulders did it crudely, with more of his flesh remaining on one side of his neck. This makes him tilt to one side, as if watching me quizzically.

  And he is watching me. His copper-colored eyes blink slowly, as if to prove to me that he’s really conscious. There’s no confusion in his gaze, no panic such as I would expect from someone reduced to a decapitated head stuck between a mysterious abyss and a monster that could leap over a city wall in a single bound. He studies me calmly, his lips pursed.

  “You look terrible,” he says, his dry whisper not quite aligned with the movement of his mouth.

  I hold back panicked laughter.

  Pushing aside my rather complex feelings at seeing the son of the Red Sword again, I edge closer to his head.

  “What happened?” I ask as quietly as possible, trying to angle myself so I can see the sleeping monster and the head at the same time.

  If Valans had the rest of the body, I suspect he would shrug. “I broke the rules.”

  “Rules?”

  Copper-colored eyes flick towards the lion-woman and then back to me. “Yes. We saints are strictly forbidden from interfering in the mortal world. Well, the occasional vision or prophecy might be within bounds, but I was a bit less subtle.”

  “Then this thing is the Devourer?”

  Valans raises his eyebrows in the suggestion of mild surprise. “Not that you should know that, but yes. Tasked by some higher power with first keeping the gods in line, a
nd then the saints that followed. The mess here is the remnants of those that thought they could skirt this edict and meddle with mortal affairs.”

  My gaze travels over the jumble of body parts. It appears that dozens of divine beings have been torn apart by this god-beast.

  “You’re the only head.”

  Valans sighs. “Yes. I’ve been quite lonely, to be honest. There was another here when the Devourer first dragged me back to its lair. Some blue-skinned fellow with gills. We had the most interesting conversations until the noise annoyed the Devourer and she batted his head into the pit.”

  “Aren’t you worried that she’ll hear us?” I ask, throwing another nervous glance at the beast.

  Valans’s mouth twists. “I’ve had enough, Talin. I’m ready for oblivion. Whatever afterlife exists for immortals cannot be worse than this.”

  He’s probably right. “What did you do to end up here?”

  “I tried to kill you.” He says this with no trace or remorse or malice. I remember the twisting pillar of flame that caused the avalanche during the crossing of Hesset’s Wall. I’d thought the man-shaped shadow I’d glimpsed within had been familiar.

  “On the mountain?”

  Valans can’t nod, so he again blinks slowly. “I won’t ask for forgiveness. You share the blame for everything that happened – when you dumped the Cleansing Flame on me the process of becoming a saint became corrupted. I was trapped half-way to divinity, burned and reborn countless times. I went quite mad.”

  I want to say that he’d been mad well before he tried to ascend, but I keep my mouth shut.

  “The only thought that persisted through all this was my hatred for you. So not even truly knowing what I was doing, I sought you out and manifested myself in the mortal world. My memories are scattered, but I remember you being swept away by the avalanche I’d started, feeling intense satisfaction . . . and then being seized by great claws and dragged away.”

  Burned and reborn countless times, then dismembered by a vicious god-killing monster. All while remaining undying and aware of what was happening. I eye the remains of Valans uneasily. His mind must be shattered after such an experience. The calmness and lucidity in his copper eyes is unsettling.

  He seems to read my thoughts. “You are wondering about my current mental state.”

  I open my mouth to assure him I am not, but then close it again and shrug. “Yes.”

  Valans smiles thinly. “I was lost, but I have returned to myself. I now realize that a worm of madness had been wriggling deep in my brain ever since I passed through the door and found myself in the sewers beneath Ysala, alone and terrified. It was not until I saw Valyra again that this fever finally lifted.”

  “You saw her?” I ask in surprise, perhaps a little too loudly, as the sleep-grooved rumbling of the monster suddenly hitches. The flash of fear in my face causes Valans some amusement, as the edges of his lips twitch upwards.

  “Yes,” he continues, apparently not concerned about the possibility of the Devourer awakening. His eyes indicate the gaping pit beside him. “In there. I found that if I look long enough into the black I can see the mortal world. It took me some time, but eventually I was able to locate my sister in the convent of those shadow sorcerers. I watched as the warriors of Zim led by that black-scaled brute of a lizard attacked and dragged her under the ground. Then to my great surprise I saw that a Voice of the Shriven commanded them, and that he planned to use her to open the door to our old world. I thought she was doomed.” Valans closes his eyes, as if what he has to say next pains him. “And I saw you rescue her. Without your aid she would have died. And so I have forgiven you for what happened to my people.”

  He pauses, as if expecting me to thank him. I don’t know what to say, but it certainly isn’t about to be some expression of gratitude.

  “You brought me down here into the lair of this monster to tell me that you forgive me?”

  A shiver of something like annoyance passes across Valans’s pale face. Then with what looks like an act of will his expression grows calm. “No. I brought you here because I can show you where Valyra has been taken. Look into the pit.”

  His eyes indicate the gaping hole beside him. I step forward tentatively and gaze down. There’s just darkness, so total it seems to pulse. No, in truth there is something forming deep within, rising up from below. It shows an ancient manse of weathered stone and soaring towers. I know this house – I’d been to it before. It’s the Contessa’s manse in Ysala.

  “She is in there,” Valans says, his voice sounding strained. Sweat glistens on his fish-belly pale skin. “The Contessa was my greatest rival for control of Ysala. Yet I never realized she was from our world as well. She is ruthless, and her will indomitable – please, you must rescue Valyra from her.”

  I am tempted to tell Valans that I already know Valyra has been abducted by the Contessa. But from the desperation and hope I can see in Valans’s face he must think he has given me some essential clue as to her whereabouts. If this is what was sustaining him in this hellish existence, I don’t want to let him know that this gesture is meaningless. Despite the harm he’s caused me, I can’t help but feel pity for the son of the Red Sword.

  “Thank you,” I say. “I will find your sister and keep her safe.”

  Another ripple of emotion goes across his face, and Valans lets out a deep sigh. “Good. Then I have done all I can.”

  A snort like a clap of thunder makes me jump. The great lion-woman has shifted again, her tail twitching. Saber-length claws have emerged from the paw closest to us.

  “Now how do I get out of here? And what happens when this monster wakes up and smells that I’ve been here?”

  “The Devourer was created to consume gods. You are safe from its hunger. I do not think it can even see or hear you. And there is a way out of this place, a passage in the darkness beyond us.”

  A wash of relief goes through me, and I crouch beside the severed head. “I can take you from here.”

  Valans blinks rapidly, as if my offer has caught him completely off guard. “That is . . .” His copper eyes suddenly focus on something beyond me. “Oh. Perhaps I am mistaken.”

  With a creeping dread I realize that the steady rumbling that had been reverberating in the vast chamber has vanished. Slowly I turn and find myself staring into a vast pair of orange eyes. The Devourer cocks her head curiously to one side, like a cat trying to understand something that has caught its interest.

  My limbs are frozen. I have a sudden, irrational surge of hope that this beast’s gaze will slide over me as if I’m not even there.

  Then its paw sweeps down like an avalanche.

  There’s nowhere for me run, and all I can do is throw my hands up, fully expecting to be crushed like an insect or torn to shreds by the monster’s claws. I’m screaming, as is Valans. The paw hesitates, coming to hover above me, the Devourer’s attention seemingly torn between us.

  Then it decides, its paw dipping down to bat at Valans. With a final, bloodcurdling shriek he is sent spinning into the abyss. The Devourer cranes her neck forward to see what has happened to him, again not unlike a cat investigating what happens after it pushes an object off a table.

  I seize this moment, sprinting towards the darkness. I’m expecting to feel something massive come down on my back, smashing me into the stone, but I manage to reach the shadows, and then I steal a glance over my shoulder. In the radiance infusing the chamber, the lion-woman is staring after me. She crouches, preparing to leap, and in terror I turn back to the blackness ahead and run as hard as I’ve ever run before. There’s no sound, but I imagine the Devourer soaring through the air, a hunting cat the size of a castle about to pounce on me.

  There’s a popping sound, and I tear through wisps of darkness like they are cobwebs. My foot strikes a stone and I stumble and go sprawling. Light has returned, and I roll onto my back expecting to see a massive furred shape descending. Instead I find myself staring up at a night sky filled with st
range colors. Bolivan, Xela, Deliah and Bell are looking down at me, their faces creased with surprise and confusion. I glance around in panic, but there’s no sign of the Devourer or her lair. There are only the tumbled white stone ruins of the House.

  I try to say something, but can only manage a panicked gasping.

  Deliah is the one that finally breaks the silence. “Where in the seven hells were you?”

  4

  Bolivan sets a punishing pace after I finish babbling out my tale. We hurry to follow him, scrambling over toppled pillars and sliding down collapsed walls, and I can sense that my companions are as unsettled as I am by how disturbed the saint appears. Bell tries to draw out more details about what happened, but I only shake my head. My mind wants to get as far away as possible from the lair of the Devourer – otherwise I’m afraid it might fracture. What I experienced was not something that was meant for mortals. Eventually she lapses into silence and instead concentrates on keeping up with Bolivan.

  “Here I am,” the blacksmith saint grumbles, not turning around, though I know his words are meant for me, “trying to save the world while staying out of sight of the Devourer, an’ you go an’ poke her an’ run away.”

  The saint’s accent has thickened enough that it takes me a moment to parse what he’s just said. It hits me that this sudden change in his speech is probably related to the fear I’ve stirred up by my story of encountering the god-eater. I have to admit to feeling a twinge of satisfaction at seeing the saint shaken.

  A glimmering blue comet blazes across the heavens and Bolivan leaps backwards, his arms upraised. When he realizes the unexpected movement is not a lion-woman the size of a hill he turns back to us, his glower evoking both sheepishness and annoyance.

  “Surely we’ll see this thing coming?” Deliah drawls, apparently unconcerned. “If it’s as large as Talin claims.”

  “I never seen it, but one of the keleski saints claimed he saw it just pounce outta nowhere and drag his hive-brother off. It don’t follow the same rules as the rest of us.”