School of Swords and Serpents Boxset: Books 1 - 3 (Hollow Core, Eclipse Core, Chaos Core)

by Gage Lee

  The black lines unspooled from around my thoughts with reluctance and stuck to the walls of my core. When the last loop had wrapped itself around the bottom of the shell, I noticed the thread’s end pierced the core’s floor, exactly centered on the seam that stitched together the golden and iron halves.

  Hahen had told me to advance I had to go deeper. And what was deeper than what lay beneath my core?

  “Here goes nothing,” I said, excitement growing within me.

  Advancement was so close.

  I willed my mind to follow the cord. The grisly seam parted with the lightest of resistance. For the blink of an eye, sensations overwhelmed my consciousness. Amber light blinded me, the sweet smell of honeysuckle filled my nostrils, and a burst of cinnamon coated my taste buds. Childhood memories blossomed like fireworks in my thoughts. My mother sprinkling brown sugar over a bowl of algae meal to help me choke it down. Hiding under my neighbor Billy Chan’s bed to split a candy bar we’d stolen from a drugstore near the overcity lift. Mama Weaver’s crackling, grinding words as she cast me out of her domain. The reek of polluted jinsei forced down my throat by Hahen’s devilish contraption....

  I emerged from the stormy tides of my past to a tranquil sea of pure white embroidered with silver threads. Those thin lines formed a design so intricate it was impossible to take it all in. The sound of a million perfectly aligned gears humming with perfect synchronicity thrummed from beneath the great circular pattern, and tiny dots moved along those gleaming paths.

  The Grand Design, I thought, my mind reeling at its complexity and size.

  An imperfect copy of this had appeared to me during the Empyrean Gauntlet. In that vision, the Design had seemed impossibly huge and complex. Even scaled down so my mortal senses could envision it, the copy had been almost too much for me to bear.

  The real thing was impossible to grasp. The smallest section was still overwhelming, and I had to tear my thoughts off the pattern before its sheer magnitude flattened me like a bug on a windshield.

  I looked away from the center of the Grand Design to save my sanity. My vision sought refuge in dark patches on the pattern’s edges, and the blotches pulled me down with an irresistible gravity. As the totality of the Design narrowed, I understood the significance of the lines and the dots that moved along them.

  Each of those twisting silver lines stitched into the fabric of reality represented a single thread of destiny. And the black dot that moved along it was a person. The one nearest me was halfway along its length. Another had almost reached its end. Before I could discern any more details, my point of view zoomed closer to the darkness at the Design’s perimeter.

  What I’d thought were black blotches were collections of hundreds of smaller forms. Their amorphous bodies sloshed along the silver threads and left behind stains of shadow that sizzled like hot grease and reeked of ammonia. The creatures moaned a series of nonsense syllables as they devoured the lines of destiny. Oo-lorth-shog, oo-lorth-shog, oo-lorth-shog. The pattern repeated itself again and again, a chaotic maelstrom of slurred, sloppy not-quite words that grew louder and more insistent with each new cycle.

  The hypnotic chant pulled me down to the darkness before I could resist. I was near enough to a creature to make out every repulsive detail of its body. Most of it was undulating sacs filled with purple, gelatinous masses. Stick-like legs emerged from the top sac in a haphazard arrangement alongside flailing tentacles that slapped against the silver threads like greedy tongues. Its head reminded me of a flattened squid, and rasp-like teeth lined its writhing legs. Those teeth drooled a constant stream of black saliva that corroded the silver lines. I watched in horror as a creature shredded a thread and devoured the tattered remnants.

  “No,” I moaned. “This can’t be happening.”

  Every one of the tentacled monstrosities turned its head toward me. Eyes with hourglass pupils and rainbow irises locked on me. Their chant became faster and more urgent. “Oolorthshog, oolorthshog, oolorthshog!”

  Something answered their plaintive cries. It rose beyond the edge of the Grand Design, so massive it was impossible to see more than a fraction of its bulk at once. Its body shifted and twisted, a mass of undulating fibers that stretched and contracted as it pulled itself erect to look down on its children. The choking stink of ammonia flooded my senses as sticky fluids rained down from the thing’s drooling mouth.

  One mammoth eye opened and glared down at me. The weight of its attention smothered me and banished my thoughts. The pupil was the size of a star, all-encompassing, and it pulled me toward it as surely as a black hole’s gravity. There was nowhere for me to run, no escape. This thing, whatever it was, would devour everything in its path.

  “Jace!” Hahen shouted, shaking me. “Jace!”

  My mind reeled as it snapped back from the horrors I’d seen to my mundane dorm room. I was on the floor, on my back. Hahen was crouched beside me, his hands on my shoulders, and he shook me a second time. I was lying in something wet and foul-smelling.

  Ammonia.

  I bolted into a sitting position and scrambled to my feet. That odor clung to my nostrils and reminded me of the madness I’d seen just moments ago. One of those things had followed me back. It was here, somewhere in my room. My fusion blade appeared in my hands before I could stop it.

  “Stop,” Hahen said. “Whatever you saw, it cannot harm you here.”

  My instincts told me Hahen was wrong. The pressure of that titanic monster’s attention still weighed on my thoughts. Foul liquid that reeked of ammonia soaked my clothes, and a black stain marked the floor where I’d collapsed. It hadn’t been a vision. It had reached through the connection to my core and left its mark on this place.

  “There’s nowhere safe from that thing,” I said.

  Hahen stepped around the stain to reach me. He raised his hands and closed them around mine. His ancient eyes peered up at me with concern. “Banish your blade and tell me about it, my friend.”

  It was impossible for me to concentrate in those stinking clothes. I stripped out of my robes and dumped them into the wash container in my closet. What I wanted was an hour-long shower, but I settled for a clean pair of casual robes. Then I cycled my breathing to ease my panic and focus my thoughts. It took minutes before I could shake the terror enough to describe what I’d seen to Hahen.

  His expression went from concerned to skeptical when I described how I’d followed the pain into my core. Before he could interrupt me, though, I pushed on to explain how I’d found my way through the shell and down, down to the Grand Design. His eyes widened with surprise as my tale continued. When I’d finished, he covered his mouth for a moment and looked away from me.

  “I have never heard of such things.” He cleared his throat and looked at me from the corner of his eye. “You’re sure of what you saw?”

  I nodded. “That’s exactly what I experienced. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  Hahen sighed and folded his hands in front of him. “What do you think it means?”

  The simple question floored me. I’d looked to Hahen for answers the whole time I’d been in the School. There were things he didn’t know, of course, and he always told me when we’d reached the limits of his training and experience. To have him ask me something so serious, though, was new. It worried me.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  The rat spirit clambered up onto my bed to sit next to me. He looked down at the floor, lacing and unlacing his fingers as he thought. The silence between us stretched out for most of a minute, neither of us sure what to say. At last, he raised his head and met my eyes again.

  “You have seen something no one else has, Jace,” he said. “I fear you’re the only one who can divine its meaning.”

  His words reminded me I had seen more than just a copy of the Grand Design. During the Empyrean Gauntlet, I’d watched a dragon and human set fire to a much simpler version of the pattern. Another creature had been in that vi
sion, too.

  That had to be the monstrosity outside the pattern. It was coming, eager to devour the Design and all it contained.

  “Yes,” I said, and told Hahen what I’d seen.

  He shuddered and closed his eyes when I’d finished. He became so still I worried he’d fallen unconscious. When he looked at me at last, his gaze was filled with sorrow.

  “I am very sorry this burden has been placed upon you, my young friend,” the rat spirit said. “I will search for answers with the other spirits. Perhaps someone can shed some light on what we must do in these dark times.”

  What I’d seen rattled me. But I wouldn’t let that fear destroy me or push me off the path before me. The Empyrean Flame had chosen me for a quest that would create a new Flame, a new Design. That destiny hadn’t landed in my lap by accident. I’d fought dragons and an army of locusts. I’d outflanked sages and survived assassins. The task before me was daunting.

  That didn’t change a thing.

  I had to save the world.

  Or die trying.

  Click here to continue reading Burning Core.

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  Copyright

  Hollow Core, Eclipse Core, and Chaos Core are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Gage Lee and Shadow Alley Press, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the publisher, subject line “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below.

  JStrode@ShadowAlleyPress.com

  About the Author

  Gage Lee is a long-time fan of wuxia, cultivation, fantasy, and science fiction stories. The School of Swords and Serpents combines all his favorite genres, along with a healthy helping of seasoning from his years as an avid gamer. To
follow his exploits, and get a sneak peek of what's coming down the authorial pipeline, visit www.gagelee.com.

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