by David J. Lynch
in Issue 156, January 2025
A ramshackle cart wobbled to a crooked rhythm down the city street. The wooden frame buckled under its grim cargo, this morning’s victims of the plague haunting the city of Galadia. A boy darted through the street, avoiding the web of muddy puddles as he went past the somber wagon.
He continued in a rush towards the rickety stone bridge ahead. Below him the Stetsan river oozed, the once proud waterway now a trickling line of odorous sludge. As he crossed, he felt in his pockets for the three thin coins within, and clenched them in his fist. These would buy his family their meager sustenance for the week.
Approaching the bridge, he saw a man sitting cross-legged against the stone railing. A wide-brimmed black hat shielded his gaunt face, but the boy could make out that his eyes were wrapped in a stained white cloth, tented lightly over a slight nose beneath, ending in a ragged line above his mouth. Thin black lips were stark against the pale skin below the crude wrappings. The man’s frame was lean and tall, mismatched against his sickly complexion. Slung over his shoulder was a strange curved basket nearly the same size as himself.
The boy went to the other side of the road, intending to quicken his pace to pass by the man quickly, but something drew him closer. He had never seen anyone dressed in such a way, and despite the rough wrappings of his face, a sense of control and confidence settled around him like a mist.
Such confidence often came with wealth, the boy thought to himself. His voice cracked as he spoke.
“Do you have any coin, mister?”
“I have none. Sorry.” The man said with a hiss.
“Who are you?”
“I am no one.”
“Never seen you around here before,” the boy came beside the man.
“I am no one. I will not be here for long.” The man frowned and his brow narrowed as if in thought. His voice was fragile, wavering as though a bold confidence was held back by something else, something unseen within him.
“Are you a wanderer then? Have you been far from here? Can you tell me a story?”
“Weren’t you the one asking me for a coin, little one?”
The boy shrugged and readied himself to walk away before the man spoke again. “There is one I can tell you. You might even get something out of it.”
The boy tensed. The words had seemed to come almost from another person, from somewhere inside his own head.
“Alright then.”
The thin black lips smiled as the boy sat down.
***
In this instance, it is best to describe the sword and then the man. The power and then the vessel. The curse and then the cursed.
The blade was a narrow line of red metal. The hilt was matted black, void of opulence aside from a single emerald. The verdant sparkle complimented light reflected from the crimson edge, and around the gem, red and onyx steel converged in a seamless gradient. Tightly wrapped leather cord reached just above the plain black pommel. The blade smoldered like hot breath, more a brooding organism than an instrument of war.
The sword’s name was Hollow.
The man found the blade buried in the ruins of an ancient temple of forgotten gods. He had been two men, one before Hollow and one after.
Before Hollow he had been a misguided man, a mercenary of the occult employed by unsavory magicians to go where others would not. There he would seek out what his employers either could or would not find themselves. What they did with these items had been none of his concern. Yet he had been his own man back then, at least to a degree that he could tell himself so. Now he belonged to Hollow. Not in all things, but when it mattered.
The man’s name was Talian.
The first night with Hollow loomed over Talian like a perpetual dream that he could not forget. He ascended from the ancient ruin and returned to Kannet unaware of the power held in his hands. Upon Talian’s arrival back at the city, Hollow had come to life in a rage of blood and flames. He learned that night he must never see them. If he saw them, he would kill them. This was Hollow’s price. Not bargained for but nonetheless paid. The people had surged through the streets in panic, falling in droves before the lone reaper. Fires erupted, the smoke and heat pushing those in hiding out into the streets.
After hours of bloodshed Talian summoned the power to close his eyes. He walked out of the city, fighting for every step. His body was locked in battle of wills, the very muscles torn in two directions. And still Hollow defended him from blade or arrow, screaming in his mind to turn back and continue the slaughter. The defenders pulled away, knowing in their hearts neither vengeance or justice were possible. Their efforts redirected to the smoking city that hours earlier had slept in tranquil slumber.
Talian walked west from Kannett, haunted and broken from what he had done. The crying echoes of his home clouded his mind, his own grief mixing in stark revulsion with the sword’s delight. He passed through the forest to avoid the roads, where the trees gave way to rolling steppes, and there he crossed a path where he saw a man entering an inn. Everyone inside fell before the cursed sword. Later on, they happened upon a group of travelers camped out atop a peaceful gnoll. Talian tried his best to make their deaths swift, though Hollow was no friend of mercy.
Over those first weeks he discovered needs of the flesh, like hunger or sleep, were no longer a requirement for him. Sometimes he would still hunt, or lay in the darkness of the forest floor, staring into the sky for hours while he longed for real sleep. But performing the motions of a mortal’s life brought little comfort or solace. His other desires involved the company of humans, unattainable dreams which haunted him nonetheless.
Talian walked through the steppes and skirted around the great mountains to where the great dunes of the desert of Ralesh came into view. The grass became stunted and brown before turning to sand. The air grew dry as he left the last thin trees behind him. He climbed the first high dune and saw the vast sandy void beyond.
The years passed uncounted after that first step into that wasteland. The single distraction from the emptiness around him was the sword. Hollow mocked him, ordered him, even reasoned with him. Often it grew bored or angry and rambled inside of Talian’s mind like a lunatic. The sword’s scabbard burned against his back. Hollow would not be ignored.
“Talian.”
Silence.
“Talian!”
Still nothing.
“Talian. Your childish delusion only belittles us both. We both know you are there.”
“Yes?”
“We have wandered for so long.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think I am a fool, Talian?”
No answer.
“When shall I sup again?”
Nothing.
“Perhaps you still don’t understand how long I waited just to be here on this physical plane. My reserve of patience is much more robust than yours, Talian.”
“Yet you nag me despite this.”
Talian frowned and asked what he knew the sword would not answer.
“So where do you come from then, Hollow? What is this other plane of which you speak? Are there others like you?”
“I’ve said too much for your lowly kind to hear as it is. “
Talian brooded on this for a minute, and realized he felt talkative now that Hollow seemed less so.
“What will you do after I am gone?”
“That cannot happen. I control you. You will not be slain.”
“Did others wield you on this other plane from where you come from?”
“I do not speak of the time before I realized.”
“But there was a time before that?”
It was Hollow’s turn to be silent. Talian let out a resigned sigh.
“If only you would settle for animals. There are places where beasts are slaughtered by the dozens each day for food. It seems an almost harmonious role for you.”
“I do not have a job. The job is yours. I am Hollow.”
Talian laughed. He watched back to the east where they had come. Where he had left civilization behind. Hollow hummed with anger.
“You celebrate the freedom to walk in a straight line forever. You humans are a strange breed. It is a shame I cannot take from other creatures as you suggest. An even greater shame I must spend my existence bound in this way.”
Often the sword would make such statements. What was Hollow bound to exactly? Somehow Talian didn’t think the sword referred to its host when it mentioned these things. Where did Hollow exist? Was it something inside the sword? He wondered if the fragmented pieces of its past it offered him were mere fantasies.
Nothing was known of the temple where Hollow was found. No knowledge of what god or gods had been worshiped there. The sword loved to boast of its immortality. Talian had at first assumed this was the truth. He became frustrated when he dwelled too much on it.
Though his body no longer had needs, his mind longed for the timely nature of mortal living. Hollow was right about one thing. This was no freedom, to walk in hope he would remain alone with his captor for eternity. Yet he saw no escape. No other course of action. Sometimes the uninhabited expanse of the desert itself brought glimpses of hope, flutters of meaning, though these were never for himself.
***
Talian wept quietly. His broken figure stood atop a high dune, looming over a small village like a dark specter. How they had come to be here in this vast empty desert was beyond him. He knew they would not live for much longer.
Hollow tugged at his mind. The blade slid from its scabbard. Talian’s sobs went unnoticed by both the sword and those below him. He would make it as painless as he was able. He advanced.
“Why must I do this?”
“Because I am Hollow and you are mine.”
“Curse your insatiable hunger, you wretched, vacant blade.”
In his mind, Talian fought against his own muscles to no effect. He advanced towards the town, a host under the control of its starved parasite. In Kannett he had temporarily gained the power to resist the blade. Hollow’s revelry in the slaughter had glutted and this had lessened its control over him. But it had now been several decades since the sword last fed, and Talian had no such agency over his body. Those he saw must die. In killing them he would see the others. The sun beat down on his back and scarlett rays glinted from the fiend in his hands.
“I must not do this.”
“You must. You will.”
“I am not above any solution.”
“If you’ve something in mind then try it.”
Even as the sword’s words burned in his mind Talian mustered a final store of willpower. He took control of his arms in a swift motion that startled Hollow with its intensity, whipping the blade out in a wide arc and then dropping the hilt to the sand. He leapt and impaled himself on the crimson blade so it propped him up like a tent pole. As he lay there, skewered cruelly in the sand by his last sovereign act, Talianfelt his life melting mercifully away and groaned a wet breath. The village lingered in his vision.
Then his body began to move again. Bent knees straightened. Hands grabbed the blade. Pulled it. He gripped the hilt with numb, bloody fingers. Talian panicked. This was not death. He was falling asleep, not drifting into a final death. He felt himself stand. Hollow rose in his hands, up towards the sky. He shouted and ran towards the village, viscera spilling out behind him from the deep wound in his torso as he attacked.
People were now scattered around the outer buildings of the village. Some were oblivious, while others turned towards the source of the shouting, still unaware of the doom those cries signified for each of them. Talian’s vision blurred. He began to lose consciousness. His last vision was the blank face of the first guard to intercept him.
“No. Hollow. Please. No.”
Then all went dark, which brought mercy for no one.
***
Talian came awake on his back. He lay under the hot sun, eyes burning from having lain blindly open during his trance. He could not see. Hollow’s own discomfort boiled inside of him while he sat and waited a few hours for his vision to return. Nothing was said between them.
He lay just outside the village opposite the side he had entered. The air was calm. Brief hints of wind crawled through wisps of smoke. The crackle of a few lingering fires fought off the desolate silence.
Talian still gripped Hollow in trembling hands. The blade laughed now. Satiated after so long, Hollow now relished its host’s grief like an aperitif. Talain felt this but took no note of it. The dead village before him, for now, overwhelmed any thought or sensation.
Talian’s body hurt in ways he had never felt. He saw the terrible wound on his stomach. He had crudely packed his innards back inside of himself, and the long gash had already begun to seal back over.
“Did you really think that would work?”
Talian sneered.
“I’m surprised you didn’t try it sooner. How many people did you let me kill? All those feelings of injustice yet only now did you put them before yourself? No matter. What’s done is done, Talian. Resume your desperate wandering. This world in which you lived is clearly at a greater occupancy than your own pitiful civilization presumed.”
Talian ignored the sword’s taunts, studying the gruesome injury to his stomach. Though still painful it was healing. His hands were also less flayed from when they had gripped Hollow’s sharpened edge. Rough, dried flakes fell from where the sun had burned his eyes. His vision was still spotty, and a large sphere of orange and black hovered before his field of view. He looked past the dead village and began to walk through.
“Well this is a surprise. Have you developed a taste for my power, Talian?”
Talian answered with a sharp grunt. He walked through the dead village. He passed a large, curved basket on the ground and slung it onto his back before he continued back the way he had come.
***
The desert was the same lifeless sprawl of sand, untouched since the time of his passing. In some places, even Talian’s footprints remained from where he had tread years earlier. The days were long and tensions between host and parasite hung stiff.
Talian’s skin burned and healed against the sun in cycles of dark red or peeling white. His bones shifted between states of peak health or wilted brittleness. The grievous self-inflicted wound was now a ghastly scar. The sword’s power kept him safe from the elements and time. He cursed Hollow for these gifts.
Since the slaughter of the village, Talian fought to think only of the horizon before him. He meant to keep his plan from the sword until the last possible moment. He watched the thin clouds that speckled the azure sky. He would miss the light and the color.
With determination he continued east at a steady pace, days and months passing in uneventful sameness. He no longer made any attempt to hunt or rest during his return. He sometimes questioned the sword to entertain himself. Other times Hollow would mock him for being a fool to waste so much of their time with his isolation. Like any tyrant, Hollow’s goals were achieved through the actions of others, not itself.
As the years passed, Talian tried to gather information from the sword. Where did it come from? Why was it here? All such questions were met with the same answer.
“I am Hollow.”
He came to wonder if the sword knew the answers. It was clear Hollow’s story of traveling from another plane of existence was a ruse. Hollow must have been created in the physical realm by the ancient clergy of the ruined temple in which it had been found. Talian felt more certain of this each day.
Talian aimed to return Hollow to where he had found it. It would take considerable time, which the sword afforded him in seemingly infinite supply. What would happen once he returned to the temple he did not know. For now it was enough to keep the destination hidden, deep in his mind and away from Hollow.
After many years Talian crested a familiar dune. He saw the forest again. The view of the green canopy brought tears to Talian’s eyes. He walked until he came upon a piece of dried wood in the sand. He cast the large basket to the ground. From it he pulled out bits of cloth and other other materials. He cut the gnarled wood into pieces with Hollow and fashioned a small fire.
He then wrapped Hollow with spindles of cloth. He carefully slid the sword down into a hidden flap he had fashioned inside the basket. He concealed the compartment with scraps of cloth so the sword wouldn’t rattle.
He sat and stared into the fire with a long strip of white cloth across his lap.
“What are you doing, Talian?” Hollow was tense in Talian’s mind. Talian smiled when he sensed its fear.
“It is through my vision that you control me. So I take from you the light.”
Talian grabbed a coal from the fire. He jammed it into his left eye. He screamed while Hollow screamed inside of him.
He took another coal to repeat the same with his right eye. The scent of his injuries smoked thick around him. Blind, he took the cloth and wrapped it tight around his head. The smoldering coals were bound inside the sockets. There would be no chance of Hollow healing these wounds. He could always do it again but hoped once would be enough.
The sword screamed inside of Talian. He slung the basket onto his back before he walked into the forest. The trees loomed overhead though he could no longer see them.
“It is good to be home, Hollow. To smell the trees. One day I shall take you back to your home. How does that make you feel?” asked Talian.
He grinned at Hollow’s silence.
***
The boy sat quietly after Talian finished. He was torn between the urge to run and the desire to learn more.
“How long since you left the desert?” he asked. As he spoke, something changed in the man he knew was Talian, who shook his head and straightened in his seat as though he had been lost in a dream.
“Years. I have wandered. I have stumbled. I have sat in villages where I waited for guidance. People are unkind. With no need for money I have found it easier to come by. When my stores grow large enough I pay someone to help me to the next place. But I have often been misled or robbed. In my blindness Hollow has at times been needed.”
The boy pointed to the basket at the man’s last comment. “So you keep Hollow in there?” His eyes were wide with excitement at the closeness to such power. Talian nodded.
“Will you take it back to where you found it?”
“If I can. It is hard to find one’s way back to a forgotten ruin. Even with the use of their eyes.”
“Will you use Hollow again?”
“It is my hope not. When I am threatened I am not always given the option. I wouldn’t want Hollow to fall into the wrong hands.”
“How close are the ruins?” the youth asked cautiously.
“A few weeks or so to the south. Past the city of Kannett. There is also the issue of how I will find the ruins once I am in the forest there. It is also not easy for those without wealth to buy passage out of Galadia. My coming here was a mistake. I thought I could find…”
The boy clicked his tongue nervously.
“What if someone could help you get there?”
“You could not afford to leave this city even if you wanted.”
“Could you?”
A pale hand darted to grab the boy by the wrist. Talian’s mouth opened as if to howl but no sound came forth. Hollow spoke, not to Talian, but to the boy.
“This power he speaks of could be yours, little man. You need only take me into your hands. I can give you the realm itself. There is no greater salvation than absolute power. Bring this cursed city to its knees with me!”
Time froze. The boy’s heart thundered in fear but also at the potential of what was being offered to him. The power enticed him before he realized the horror of its intentions. Perhaps his own will could overtake the sword’s. Maybe he could be the one to take it back to the ruined temple. Such boyish heroics faded when he felt a surge of power from whatever had spoken to him. With strained effort he tried to pry the cold hand from his wrist. Talian raised up his other hand to lift the lid of the basket.
“I am sorry…” Talian said. His previously noble voice quivered and his grip tightened. A second past as an eon, the boy frozen amidst an unseen battle of wills. He feared to struggle free, feared the hand that reached further into the basket. He thought to scream, nearly did so, before a boot kicked out and broke Talian’s hold.
“Off with you beggar!” shouted the larger of two guards who had approached unnoticed.
“We mean it, cretin. That’s enough. Find another neighborhood to grovel in,” came the other in a weezing voice.
Talian stood to tower over everyone present. The boy’s heart froze in fear of a coming apocalypse. Instead Talian spoke in a calmed voice. “Indeed. I tire of the stench of this place anyways,” he said, adjusting the basket at his back. The boy winced as a pale hand reached back into the basket and turned towards the guards. The hand swept out, filled with coins that glinted yello, offered to the guards with a bow. The boy’s eyes went wide, having never seen gold.
“Pay no mind to this urchin, sirs. I was merely asking directions. I am in need of renewing my pass out of Galadia.The outdoors call to even a man such as myself. Guide me to the office of transportation please, if you would?”
“Indeed sir! And our apologies,” said the smaller of the guards, stunned by the coin he took from his hand. “We did not judge you a man of wealth. One such as yourself must be careful in these parts of Galadia, sir.”
“Yes,” agreed Talian. He turned back.
“For your trouble.”
Talian tossed another gold coin. The boy caught it in midair.
“Thank you, sir. Good luck.” The words came mixed with fear and gratitude. The boy pocketed the coin with gentle care before he turned and ran. He couldn’t wait to tell everyone what he had seen, smiling at their faces when he would show them the coin as proof. Lost in the daydream he darted past the cart of the dead for a second time as it limped across the narrow bridge.
***
Talian walked to the gate with the guidance of the two guards. They asked if it were wise for him to leave so close to the curfew, when the gates would close for the night, but he appeased their feigned concern. His pass was purchased and he left the walls of Galadia alone as the sun began to fall.
“What was your intention back there?” he said once the spires of Galadia had faded behind him.
“Must we belabor each event? I am tired, my host. I was just playing with the boy…”
“You’ve never spoken through me. Never controlled me in that way. It seems your secrets are still plentiful after so many years.”
“Just trying something new. And it wouldn’t have worked, despite the effort. I knew that the moment you touched him. I’m not sure I could have fed even if it had. But I had to try something new. We had been in that city for so long. So many morsels all around me. The smell of them draws me more than the sight, you know?”
“I want you to think carefully before you try any more new things, Hollow. I will go to no lengths to stop you. A nose can be removed just as a pair of eyes.”
“You would imprison yourself further? How far would you go? Lock yourself underground where you can never get out? And still you would have me, and we would chisel, Talian. Chisel at the cave in endless toil. My point never broken and your fingers ever flayed. Against the rock and the dirt until finally we were free. It would be your torment as much as my own.”
“Try something like that again and find out. I have shown you what I will do to keep you from them. Next time will not go unpunished. Control my words like that again and I will take my mouth, my nose, my limbs. My hell will be yours.” He felt Hollow squirm inside, but a hint of something else, a smugness, a devious spike of pleasure that slithered down his spine.
“How many people do you think that little urchin will tell about what he saw and heard?” Hollow’s voice rang in his head. “I took a risk speaking through you. I am tired, weary of your pestering conversations. But the story is out. How long can you hide what you are? A man in black clothes, a black hat as wide as a basket, a face covered in cloth. It may be time to jump in that hole, Talian. You can use me to defile yourself once inside. It won’t matter. You have already become a folk tale, a monster whispered of in the night.”
A moment passed, Talian sensed the trees thicken around him.
“Face it, Talian. It is you who tires of me. I have eternity. Your immortality is the gift of my enduring hold. You will come around. Your eyes will heal, again and again, and one day you won’t take them away. We have such glorious work to do, Talian.”
“Never,” Talian said. His fists tightened against his rage. He felt the sword’s exhaustion and fed from it, focused his defiance, pushed the curse with his will. Like a vengeful torturer he took pleasure in the moment of dominance. In his mind Hollow was on the ground, Talian above him. He sneered a hideous smile as he pushed the sword’s imagined face into the earth. But the face was his own.
Then he drew back, unsure of what he was, what the sword was, what either were capable of. It had been so long the boundaries blurred, but he must work to keep them defined. He held his own secrets against this wretched curse. He would return to the temple and there he would find his answers, even if it took a thousand years. He must not lose himself before that day.
Hollow drew silent, withholding its usual quips and cruelties. Talian stepped from the road, into the darkness of the forest.
© January 2025, David J. Lynch
David J. Lynch writes in the realm of speculative fiction which sprouts from my love for sword and sorcery, classic sf, and horror fiction. This is his first appearance in Swords & Sorcery Magazine.
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