The Flood Circle: A Twenty Palaces novel by The Flood Circle (epub)

Author:The Flood Circle (epub)
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0000000000000
Published: 2022-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

“The Hatchling is bullshit,” Annalise snapped. “It’s a boogieman created to justify the murder of people like us. And to justify summoning predators, too.”

“How come I never heard of it?”

“Guess,” Annalise said without looking away from Hardy.

“Because it’s bullshit?”

“Got it in one.”

“I wish you were right,” Hardy said. “A folktale. A boogieman. But the simple truth is that the Originals would not have been placed on his planet if the zealots had not also planted a Hatchling here long ago, before even the dinosaurs were born.”

“Zealots?”

Hardy turned his attention to me. “Were you not allowed to use the Book of Oceans and become a primary? The beings who call you back in time when you access one of the Originals are called zealots. At least, that’s what I’ve always heard them called. Perhaps… Never mind. It isn’t important.”

“Okay,” I said. “They’re the ones with hooks for hands and who think their thoughts with your brain, right?”

Hardy quirked his head in surprise. “Yes, that’s one way to describe them. I have always heard them called zealots. Do you have another name?”

I studied Hardy’s expression, trying to figure out if he was testing me or trying to make me look like an idiot. I couldn’t see anything in his expression, not a sneer, not a challenge, nothing. All I saw was curiosity.

I could never be a CEO. “Nope.”

Hardy looked down at his hands. “I don’t know much about the zealots, but I will tell you what I can. They were one of the earliest intelligences in the universe, and they consider it a sacred ritual to seed a living planet with a Hatchling, a creature that collects and concentrates magic. The Hatchling devours magic and releases magic back into the world, so the magic will grow and spread. Eventually, there will be enough power that it can break free of its bonds, emerging into both the Shallow Realms of Death and the Deep Realms of Life at once. Then it will draw all life into it, human, plant, animal, bacterial, and also the creatures you call predators.”

“And kill everything on Earth?” I asked. Annalise shot me a nasty look.

“Not just Earth. There are other living worlds the zealots have not visited, and the Hatchling will seek out and devour some number of them, too.”

Hardy paused, as though that was the end of the story. “And then?”

“And then what?” he asked.

“What happens then? It travels around, eating everything in sight. The Earth is stripped down to bare rock and the whachacallit fills its belly. After that, it moves on and does it again and again. Then what happens? What do the zealots get? What’s the point?”

Annalise leaned forward. “This is the question no one can ever answer. The Hatchling was placed here, and the original spell books are meant to feed it until it comes alive and kills us all. What no one ever explains is why. The zealots, as this guy calls them, are millions of years gone. What do they get out of it? Nothing.

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