Servant: The Dark God Book One (Volume 1) (49 page)

They didn’t have a moment. “The monster’s close,” he said. “I can smell it.”

The Creek Widow cried out in delight. “It’s quickened,” she said and held the crown aloft.

Da gritted his teeth, his face red and sweating with the strain. “It’s done!” he said, and Sugar withdrew the tooth. Da ripped the lifeless collar from his neck, exposing a thin line of blood.

“Quickly,” the Creek Widow said and hurried to him. Uncle Argoth and Ke followed.

“The crown’s still gold,” Talen said. “Shouldn’t it be black?”

“I told you,” the Creek Widow said. “It operates on different principles, and it’s very much alive. Long ago, perhaps in a different age, three years of life were poured into it. The power of three years of life—you can feel it pulsating. It requires three now to waken it.”

Da stood and struggled with his chains, but could not remove them from the wall as Ke had done.

“Now,” said Da.

The Creek Widow strapped the crown to Da’s head.

“Can it be ripped off?”

“Once the crown and your father are joined,” said the Creek Widow, “no power can separate them.”

Ke, The Creek Widow, and Uncle Argoth formed their odd circle again, turning sideways to the center of the circle, placing their left hands on the neck of the person in front of them, stretching their right arms out to the center of the circle to rest on Da’s head and touch the medallion. This time, Da spoke the strange words, followed in unison by the other three.

Sugar, her tooth in hand, stood in the center of the chamber like a guard dog.

“We need to get this off me,” River said. “The three of them will be useless once the bond fully forms.”

Talen returned his attention to his sister. “Are you ready?”

She nodded. Her eyes shone with determination.

He held her chin still with one hand and pricked the collar again. Immediately the two created twisted and writhed in their battle.

River’s face screwed up in pain, and she began to pant. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes.

“Do you want me to take it out?” he asked.

“No,” she grunted, but moments later she sagged to one side, and Talen quickly removed the tooth to avoid stabbing her.

In spots the coloring of the collar had turned ash gray. Yet he could see other parts were still very much alive, undulating as if it were taking long, slow breaths.

River panted, the thing still about her neck.

Talen saw specks of light. He blinked and looked down at the hag’s tooth. Had it affected his vision? He rubbed his eyes with his free hand and looked again.

A handful of shining flecks were floating in the chamber. They looked like dust motes, except they shone with their own light. What’s more, they seemed to be floating lazily towards Da.

“My eyes,” he said.

“Not your eyes,” said River. “The crown.”

There were more sparks now. Talen couldn’t tell where they were coming from.

The Creek Widow, Uncle Argoth, and Ke stepped back.

“The crown bestows its wearer great strength,” said the Creek Widow, “but it also calls forth a mantle of incredible might. It is said that the Creators seeded the world with power to be given to those of their choosing. And to those who respond to their call, the powers distill upon them like the morning dews. Until then, the powers remain locked up within the earth and sea. It is almost finished. A few minutes more.”

This didn’t make complete sense to Talen. Didn’t the Divines wield great powers as well? And this monster was not something to be ignored. Obviously, the power wasn’t all locked up.

The sparks floated in through both entrances, but more seemed to simply spring forth from the rock about them. Talen caught a twinkle in the dust at his feet, and then the fleck of light floated free to join the rest.

The sparks coalesced into thin, whirling streams that were drawn to Da like water is drawn to the center of a lazy whirlpool. Da knelt in his chains as the bits of light flowed and clung to him. The shining flecks began to accumulate thinly in his hair and eye brows, upon his nose and arms, between the very fibers of his clothing. Specks of light tinged ever so faintly with blue and yellow.

River put her hand to the still living collar about her neck. “She’s coming,” she said. “I can feel it.”

* * *

Sugar couldn’t help but marvel at the tiny sparks that suddenly glimmered and glittered in the stone ceiling, walls, and floor. Each would build in intensity only to break free and float purposefully toward Zu Hogan. Soon he was shining with them.

He was drawing the very might of the earth to him, but it was clear he wasn’t ready. For one, he still stood in chains. She looked at the others, stooped with weariness, and realized they were in no shape to fight, which meant she was the only thing standing between the others and whatever was approaching.

Her heart pounded in her chest. Things to act, and things to be acted upon. Now was her moment to stand, and she was not going to quail. She had the tooth. She had seen its power work on man and weave. She was going to face this enemy, just as Mother had faced that mob only a few days ago. She turned to the entrances. Whatever came out was going to feel the bite of Purity’s daughter.

A slight breeze blew through the room, carrying a strong whiff of sulfur and pine. And then another whiff even stronger. She turned towards the black entrance that was the source of the breeze. She realized she wouldn’t have much time once the creature entered the chamber.

She heard one heavy footstep, and then the monster burst from the blackness.

She should have been more used to the sight of it, but the creature was even more horrible to behold than it had been in the vale. Its enormous ragged mouth. Its dark pit eyes. Her knees quivered.

The monster gave her one look and, in an enormous stride, flashed past. It swatted the Creek Widow aside and grabbed Zu Hogan by the throat.

Ke and Zu Argoth staggered back, the crown still working its effects on them.

The monster grasped the crown and began to tug. The flecks of light flowing to cover Zu Hogan slowed their movement.

It was going to rip it off. And then it would kill Zu Hogan just as it had the Skir Master.

She thought of Legs and Mother and the tooth in her hand.

The tooth in her hand!

Her courage returned even if the fear remained. She cried out and charged, the hag’s tooth held high.

The monster turned, shot out an arm, and stopped her in her tracks.

It felt as if she’d run herself onto a post. She gasped, and the monster wrapped its huge hand, hard as stone, round her waist and squeezed like it was going to crush her in two.

She cried out, tightened her grip on the hag’s tooth, and then brought it down, stabbing deep into the monster’s ragged forearm.

The monster looked down at the tooth.

The tooth bucked like a fish and disappeared into the monster’s flesh.

The monster reeled back from Hogan, releasing both Sugar and the crown, and frantically clutched at its forearm.

Zu Hogan spoke a word, and the sparks in the room grew thicker, flowed more quickly to him. A low thrumming began. It built in intensity. The volume and pitch rose, vibrating through her, through the very rock about them. The sparks multiplied until the air was thick with them. The thrumming turned into the sound of rushing of waters.

Zu Hogan stood, his chains still binding him to the wall, and stretched his arms wide. His face shone with fierce knowledge. The whirling streams of blue and yellow sparks picked up speed, converging on him. The volume built to a roar. Sugar covered her ears.

Then came a concussion, an enormous slap of air that forced Sugar to stagger back. It was followed by a blinding flash as all the remaining sparks in the room rushed to Zu Hogan.

Immediately the roar ceased, and Sugar’s ears rang in the silence.

Zu Hogan stood shining from head to toe with a thin skin of blue and yellow light. Joy suffused his face. And when he moved the very air about him seemed to bend and blur.

He took hold of his chains and pulled them apart like a child might pull apart a braid made of clay.

* * *

Talen looked on with awe. And then the entrance at the far side of the chamber began to flicker and illuminate. A moment later a ribbon of blazing violet flame flew into the chamber. It was followed by another and another. Each stretched a yard or more. Each undulated like an eel swimming through water. The ribbons of light sped about the room, hissing like the wind through dry weeds. One circled Sugar with blinding speed, but she didn’t seem to notice it.

Another came to him, pausing momentarily, regarding him, the hot white of its core fading to tongues of violet flame. It seemed to be whispering.

Fear gripped him. What were these?

The light in the passageway grew brighter. And as it did a thick knot of the creatures blazing their oddly tinged light swam through the opening to the chamber. Some were shorter, some very long. They moved like a school of shining eels, hither and thither, wrapping themselves around something at their center.

The school of light shimmered to one side, parting ever so briefly, revealing a woman wrapped in undulating, living segments of light.

Da turned toward the woman. In his right hand he held a long length of the thick chain that had bound him, but the chain wasn’t dark anymore, for the light that covered him had extended down the chain.

“Whatever you are,” Da said. “Your time is at an end.” Then he stepped toward the knot of light. As he did so the school of shining serpents turned toward him, and then the woman whispered something. Her command reverberated inside Talen, making him take a step back. And then the ribbons of light surged forward in mass. One struck Da’s throat. Another for his cheek. Then the great mass swallowed him like a storm, biting, jerking, tearing.

Da stumbled back. He flailed his arms, tried to pull and swat the creatures away, but there were too many, attacking as if in a feeding frenzy.

Talen expected Da to fall to a knee, but he stood tall instead and yelled something in a tongue Talen didn’t understand. A flash of light exploded from him, hurling a number of the creatures back. Those that still clung to him, bit in fury. Da reached up and grasped the one clinging to his eye.

Talen fully expected to see some grotesque remnant of his eye pull away with the eel, but when he yanked it off and flung it to the ground, he saw that both of Da’s eyes were exactly where they should be—perfect, whole, and gleaming with purpose.

The creatures had not penetrated the mantle of power.

Da pulled another knot of the creatures from his neck and took a step toward the shining woman. She sang, holding her arms out. And Talen almost sunk to his knees. She was beautiful. Far more beautiful than anything he could ever imagine.

Da ran at her, shining chain in hand. He brought the weapon around like a massive whip and struck her full force in the head.

The woman stumbled back.

The blow would have killed a bull, but the woman steadied herself.

Da swung the chain again, but the woman dodged back. With a roar, Da charged into her, taking her to the ground. She turned and struck him, but Da took her by the throat. He struck her in the face. Struck her again. Then Da reached down and grabbed a large stone off the floor.

Talen’s mind was reeling. Da was going to brain her. Cave her head in. But part of Talen didn’t want Da to strike her.

“Talen!” Sugar yelled.

Da was going to kill her! He should save the woman.

But no; that wasn’t right.

“Talen!” Sugar yelled, and she was right there holding her hand out for the tooth.

He looked at her.

“The tooth! What’s wrong with you?”

Talen didn’t know, but something indeed was very wrong.

Sugar ripped the tooth out of his hand and turned back to the monster.

The creature held the arm she stabbed high in the air. With its other hand, it appeared to have caught something deep in the flesh of its shoulder. It stood with all the concentration of a surgeon, its fingers deep in its arm.

“Maybe you can contend with one,” Sugar said. “Let’s see what you do with a second!” Then she hurled the second tooth like a knife. It spiraled, end over end, its sharp point flashing in the unearthly light of the chamber, and buried itself deep in the monster’s belly.

The tooth gleamed once, then wriggled and disappeared into the monster’s gut.

The creature looked down, gasped horribly, and stumbled back.

47

Master of the Harvest

HUNGER FELT THE second worm burrow in. His panic rose. His arm was breaking apart like dried out dirt. At one time he’d wanted dissolution, but not now. He saw his daughter, wife, and remaining son before him, caught in a stomach. The Mother would not spare them if he failed.

He was their only chance.

The second worm burrowed deeper, burning, burning, burning as it went.

He resisted the urge to clutch at it. If he released the one in his arm, he knew he’d never get it back again. They were slippery as a fish, these worms. And strong.

The Mother ordered him to attack the shining Koramite. But he dared not move, dared not let go.

“How do I stop the worms?” he cried to her.

There was no answer.

His mind raced. Why could he not pry the worm open? It was intricate and oddly familiar, but he couldn’t place it. It was like no beast he’d encountered before.

The worm in his arm curled and another piece of him tattered. A clump of soil fell to the cave floor.

No! He had to stop it. He could not bear to think of his little girl being eaten.

The worm in his belly quickly slithered up toward one of his stomachs.

Creators, he prayed in his mind, if you have any mercy at all—

And then he realized where he’d seen the weave before: he’d seen in deep within himself. This thing was woven with some of the same patterns as he.

Yes, he listened to the song of the worm in his arm, its trilling and thrum. He knew this weave. And with that knowledge came the knowledge of how to break it.

With a great tug he yanked the first worm out of his arm.

The second worm was not hard to find. It was moving towards one of his stomachs and the life there. He speared a hole into his gut with the tips of his fingers then pushed deeper and grabbed the second worm. It fought him, wriggling with violence, but he knew its secrets now and withdrew it from his body. In moments he held both teeth in front of him.

The weaves were beautiful, curling in the light. Beautiful and deadly. He grasped them tightly, found their weak points, and attacked. They resisted, but he was stronger, and in a moment they were unraveling like a spool of thread. Their curling slowed, their song wavered. And then it stopped altogether.

The Mother commanded him to her.

“I’m coming,” he said. But he was talking to his wife and daughter, deep in the Mother’s cave, still caught in his stomach. “I’m coming.”

* * *

Argoth wanted to fight, but his limbs were sapped of strength. Across the chamber, Hogan raised a stone to cave in the woman’s head, but she struck his arm, knocking the stone from his grasp. Then she bucked and slipped out from under him. Hogan chased after her, caught her, and slammed her against the rock wall.

The ribbons of light flew at him, clustered around.

Hogan grabbed her around neck with both hands and began to throttle her. The lines of his body blurred at the edges, blurred even her form. She was choking. Her ribbon familiars seemed to shudder with a sympathetic pain.

For a brief moment her visage flickered. One moment she was a woman whose face shone with such beauty it almost took Argoth’s breath. The next, the woman was gone, and in her place was something horrible with a round, sucker mouth full of teeth that looked like it belonged on a leech or lamprey. Her undulating creatures seemed to swim with less vigor for a moment. And then the goddess was back.

She held a pointed weapon in her hand. With a quick jab she thrust it at Hogan’s gut. There was a flash, but it didn’t look as if it had penetrated the mantle.

Argoth began to believe they might win this fight.

But then the monster rose from the ground, holding up the two hag’s teeth in its rough hands.

Argoth watched in dismay as the teeth stilled their movements. Then the monster crushed the teeth and threw the lifeless twists of metal to the dust.

“Hogan!” Argoth yelled in warning.

But it did no good. Hogan was too focused on the woman.

The monster charged. With three enormous strides it covered the distance between it and Hogan. It dropped its shoulder and crashed into Hogan, its large bulk hurling him away from the woman.

Argoth wanted desperately to join in the battle. But the crown yet drew from him, leaving him with hardly the energy to even walk.

Hogan whirled on the monster and, with terrifying violence, struck it in the head with his stone.

The monster reeled to one side.

Argoth marveled at the power of Hogan’s blow. He’d seen the dreadmen attack this thing. He’d seen the Skir Master. None had come close to this.

Hogan followed with another blow, the very air seeming to bend before him.

The monster fell back to the floor.

There was more in those blows than the simple force of stone. The mantle was at work. He could see the stone glistening with the power of it.

The ribbons of light swirled about the room. A number still clung to Hogan, and Argoth could see they’d eaten partway through the mantle.

Hogan raised the stone again, then the woman attacked him from behind, penetrating the mantle, stabbing deep into Hogan’s back.

He jerked in pain, then twisted round and struck her with an elbow.

She flew backwards, but Hogan dropped to one knee. He tried to rise, but the monster fell upon him and ripped the stone away from his grasp.

Hogan struggled. He delivered two mighty blows to the monster, but they were not what they had once been. Argoth could feel a weakening in the binding between him and the crown. The monster caught the second blow in its rough hand, and wrapped Hogan in its long arms. Then it took him down to the floor in a full body hold. Hogan thrashed, but he did not break free.

The woman walked up to Hogan, a number of her shining school of light still writhing, hissing, and whispering about her. She reached down and clutched at the golden square of the crown.

Hogan twisted in the monster’s grip.

Argoth felt the woman through the bond of the crown. It felt like something gnawing on his bones. She was breaking the crown.

How was this possible? This was a Victor’s crown. It was supposed to be impenetrable. And then he realized the crown was, but the bond was another matter entirely.

The bond suddenly changed. The harmony that sang through him departed, replaced by something painfully off key. Then the bond snapped altogether.

The Creek Widow cried out.

Argoth felt a great gust of his essence whirl up and away. The break had rent him. In panic, he tried to close up the leak.

Hogan grunted and struggled once more against the monster’s grip.

Argoth stemmed the rent in his being. A portion of his strength returned, but it felt as if a sword had just sliced through him.

The woman ripped the crown from Hogan’s head and tossed it aside. It landed only a pace or two from Talen.

The monster squeezed Hogan tighter, shook him. And as it did, sparks of light fell from Hogan like pieces of ash to the floor.

“Unruly beast!” the woman said to Hogan. The remnants of her shimmering school drew round her, but not so tightly as before. She felt the side of her face where Hogan struck her with the chain then turned to the monster. “Take him there,” she said and motioned to a place next to the rough figures on the floor.

The monster changed its hold on Hogan to clasp him firmly in one arm and got to its feet. Hogan struggled, but to no avail. The monster dragged him to the earthen bodies lying in their horrible rows on the other side of the chamber.

“That one will do,” said the woman.

The monster laid Hogan next to a rock and clay figure with a vicious muzzle. Splotches of dead grass sprouted from the side of the figure’s head and chest.

The woman moved close to the monster. She hovered over it. “This,” she said, “will be your first child. He’ll be more aware than you were, have more human memories from the start, and be more intelligent, more powerful. You were a mishmash of many things; I couldn’t recover you whole. Not with the binding your original master had put upon you. But he is unfettered and pure.”

What was she talking about? Fear rose in Argoth’s mind.

“Separate the man,” she said. “Put his soul and Fire into the body of earth.”

At first Argoth could not believe his ears. Then the shock rolled over him. She was transferring Hogan’s essence—spirit and soul—to one of the still creatures on the floor.

“No!” he cried. “Stop!”

The woman turned to them. “You all will serve me,” she said, “with a lesser binding or with one of rock and stone. With your current bodies or that of another. I am now your master.”

Hogan struggled in the monster’s grasp. “Ke!” he called out. “River!”

Ke was already charging. But how could he? The breaking of the bond had nearly crippled Argoth. Argoth marveled at the strength in the boy.

Ke held Hogan’s chain in his hand. In a blinding motion, he drew back and struck at the monster with terrible ferocity. The chain wrapped around the monster’s neck.

Ke grabbed the chain with both hands and yanked it backwards. Such a move would have ripped the head off a normal man. The monster jerked back, but it did not loosen its grip on Hogan. Instead, it reached up with one hand and tore the chain out of Ke’s grasp. Then it struck him with it full in the face, knocking him to the floor.

Talen yelled. He held a knife aloft and charged.

The monster turned slightly when Talen got close and struck out in an almost lazy fashion. Argoth thought he heard ribs crack. The blow sent Talen flying backward to land sharply on his side.

Talen gasped, rolled over and tried to catch his breath.

The monster turned back to Hogan.

“Please,” said River, her collar still circling her neck. “We can come to an agreement.” But the woman paid her no mind.

“Nothing!” Hogan shouted. “Give her nothing!”

The monster covered half of Hogan’s face and head with one hand. It put its other hand on the face of the earthen figure.

The woman turned to the rest of them and spoke. Her voice carried like soothing music into his mind. “You cannot hide the one that was conceived and developed by my power.”

She held something up. It was the wisterwife charm Argoth’s sister had found on the chair in her bedroom. “Where is the one I planted? Where is the one that wore my might?”

Her words confused him. The one
she
planted?

Legs suddenly came shuffling in through the entrance to the chamber, feeling the wall as he went. “Sugar?” he called.

“You are such wild creatures,” said the woman. “Such difficult things to manage.” She motioned at Legs. “You fooled my servant with your ploy, but you cannot fool me.”

The ribbons of light obscured her face for a moment. “A new order is arising here,” said the woman. “One that hasn’t been seen in ages. And the master that leads this harvest will rule empires. You will bring him to me.”

Argoth looked at Talen who was holding his side in pain. Arogth’s mind raced. His sister, Hogan’s wife, had conceived wearing that weave. She had worn it through the whole pregnancy as the boy ripened in her belly. She had placed it upon Talen from the day of his birth.

They had all suspected he would be a prodigy: a restorer of lost knowledge, a champion. A gift from the Creators to help them fight their enemies.

He looked at the weave, but this couldn’t be from the Creators. His mind snagged on something: “this harvest,” she had said. If her creature was any indication, he knew the kind of harvest she would oversee.

Dear gods, what
was
Talen? A great foreboding rose up in him. Snippets of ancient tales and lore flashed in his mind. Tales of devouring. He’d thought they were figurative, but he now realized they were literal.

“I have been calling,” the woman said. “I know he’s alive. I can feel him. He should have heard me. He should have come. But instead you hide him.”

“Lies,” shouted the Creek Widow.

“We shall see,” said the woman.

The monster turned back to Hogan and the earthen figure on the floor. Then the creature covered Hogan’s face with its massive hand.

Hogan twisted, trying to wriggle away, but he could not. He cried out and grasped the monster’s forearm.

“Be careful,” said the woman.

Hogan arched his back, he struck violently at the monster’s arm. The schools of light moved furiously, shining, shimmering, swirling around the woman, around the monster, around Hogan and the figure on the floor. Hogan jerked once, twice more.

Argoth was paralyzed.

How could he fight this being? How could anyone when they didn’t even know what she was? The only thing he did know was that she was full of malice and that she wanted Talen. For what purpose, he could not guess. But she wanted him. And so that was the very thing she must not have.

Argoth could not save Hogan, but he could rescue Talen from her.

He turned to River who had almost worked the collar off her neck. “There is no way out,” he said. Even if they could find their way in the dark, they could not run fast enough to escape the monster. They could not fight it or its master with lore. “I used to think we could fight the thralls, but we cannot. Better to die free than live a slave to some horrible purpose in which we deliver our kind up on platters.”

River paused. He could see the anxiety in her bruised face.

“Only you have the strength,” he whispered. “Deny her the one thing she desires. Put Talen beyond her reach. And then eliminate the rest of us.”

River’s eyes grew wide in dismay.

“I beg you,” he said. “Tell me another way.”

Death was their only escape. He wasn’t prepared to go through that doorway, but who ever really was? He thought of his wife, his daughters, and wondered if they still lived. He could not protect them now. He thought of Nettle lying on that table and the sacrifice which Argoth had recklessly wasted. Grief welled up in him.

He could see River felt that same grief. Her mouth was a line of grim determination. Her eyes brimmed with angry tears.

River nodded. Then she slipped the collar about her neck ever so slightly to the left, gave it a smart tug, and broke it free.