Hollow Empire: Episode 5 (Night of Knives)

By John McGuire and J Edward Neill

Episode 5 of a 6 part Season!

Once, the empire of Vhur was the world's most powerful. But that was before the Lichy plague. Now, twenty years and millions of dead later, only a few cities remain. The survivors walk a fine line between staying alive and crumbling into the grave.

Come the Night of Knives, even these last few might perish.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John McGuire
• Release date: Oct 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310691959

John McGuire

John McGuire is an engineer by day and writer by night. He attended Georgia Tech to obtain a civil engineering degree. While his left brain absorbed information on E-mag, Calculus, Statics, Dynamics, Structures and Road Design; his right brain devoured the works of Jack London, Mark Twain, Anne Rice, Alan Moore, Kurt Busiek, and Mark Wade. Today, John is a registered professional engineer and professional writer.His love and collection of comic books began when he was 10, in a convenience store in Waycross, Georgia. It wasn’t long afterwards when he started writing his first comic related stories. This passion has continued throughout his adult life as he remains an avid comic book reader and collector.In 2002, he was a founding member of Terminus Media. It began as a writer’s collective in the back of the Dragon’s Horde Comic Book Store in Decatur, GA. Through the next decade Terminus, published anthologies in which John was both an editor and contributor. The Gilded Age, published in 2013, is his first on-going series. The relationship with Terminus also grew into some Work for Hire opportunities for both corporate and government entities.In 2009, John joined Headhunta Studios, a collective of Artists and Writers. In 2013, Tiger Style was published by Arena Comics. John currently has projects in production for Arena Comics.In 2010, John took the story telling skills that he had learned and applied them to the writing of novels and short stories. The Dark That Follows is John McGuire’s debut Novel.John McGuire currently resides in Suwanee Georgia with his wife, Courtney, and two cats: Westley, and Inigo.He maintains that he would have been a Marine biologist, if not for Jaws.

Book preview

Hollow Empire

Night of Knives

Episode 5

John R McGuire & J Edward Neill

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Hollow Empire – Night of Knives – Episode 5

Cover Design by http://amandamakepeace.com/

Editing for John R McGuire: Editing by Janie from Lector's Books

All rights reserved

To my parents for teaching me that an imagination is to be used and that to create new things is magical.

John R McGuire

To the night, without whom I’d have little reason to suffer the day.

J Edward Neill

Table of Contents

World Map

Ulka

Vadim

Nadya

Cassidy

Murgul

Isidora

Ulka, High Pontiff of Vhur

Highness, are you certain this is the way? Did God truly tell you these things? The priest, a wasted old thing of a man, knelt before Ulka in his black-floored chamber.

In the topmost room of the tallest tower in Othis, the Pontiff of Vhur sat like a king. The night was the year’s coldest thus far. The shutters were closed and every hearth long-extinguished. Hundreds of candles blazed atop his tables, long fingers of wax dripping to the floor. When Ulka breathed, pale clouds powdered the empty space beyond his cold, blue lips. He shifted upon his huge, ancient chair, and he felt his fingers grow numb, his bones as frigid as the chair’s hard, splintering arms.

It is, he answered the priest. "And yes, God did. ‘Why should my subjects toil and suffer and make war for this ruined earth?’ he asked me. ‘Why, when they could lie in eternal repose in halls of Heaven?’ To this I had no answer, nor have I dreamed one in the many years since He spoke to me. One does not question God. You know this."

But if the Lichy failed to destroy us, perhaps we who survived are meant to make a new world, said the priest. A better world.

Ulka steepled his fingers. His fingertips were grey and bloodless, his nails nearly black. A better world indeed, he said. Imagine the long, slow silence of winter, unbroken by the sounds of men drinking, laughing, and hurling more of God’s trees atop their fires. Imagine the cities, their streets upturned, the lifeless cobblestones torn to tatters by grass, reeds, and young, vigorous saplings. Spring would return, but there would be no babies squalling, no beggars jostling for coins, no stinking, vulgar, rot-mouthed men striding the earth as though they owned it. Whenever I dream of this man-less realm, I am content. It is the only time.

But men are capable of more than filth, Highness, the priest contended, though he dared not look up from the floor. Their churches are tall and proud. Their art, some of it anyway, is fair and wondrous. It’s true; I’ve seen the rot-mouthed men, the whores and the squatters, the thieves, jackals, and murderers. But others exist who are pure: devoted wives, quiet, contemplative children, farmers who till the earth. Even today, there are survivors of the Lichy who revere every moment of their lives.

Ulka smiled, as rare a thing as a warm night in the dead of winter. These are fair points, Nelik. God would not disagree with you. But no man or woman is so perfect a thing, not even the hopeful souls you speak of. Their hearts are the same as ours. In time, they will turn black with grief, jealousy, and hatred for their neighbors. Their children, bright and pure at birth, will foul with age the same as an apple overripe. Moreover, if nine-tenths of a flock of sheep fall ill, do we not cull the lot of them? If a house is stuffed roof to cellar with rats, do we not raze the entire dwelling to its roots?

I see, Highness. The priest shivered. You propose to be thorough.

"You say you.’ Ulka raised a black eyebrow. "But you mean we."

Yes, Highness. Of course.

Ulka was not so certain. Nelik, like so many of the others, oozed doubt from every pore. The Pontiff gazed down upon the frail, robed priest, whose sharp jaw trembled in the candlelight, and whose yellow teeth chattered, and he saw the same weakness as in most men who visited his tower.

Highness, it’s rather cold in here, Nelik said as though aware of Ulka’s judgment. Why not light a fire?

"God graced me with love of the