Summoning and Sacrifice: Liturgy of Worlds, #1

By Nathan Hartle

A hunted woman. A missing god. The adventure of a lifetime.

All that Shada desires is peace and freedom. What she has is fear and hunger. She's a servant on the run from her cruel master, who is determined to lock her away.

Then comes a chance at a new life. Alone in the vast, heartless city of Ronia, she meets the Lady. This enigmatic spirit makes her an offer: Shada can accept her dismal lot… or undertake a quest to find Ronia's vanished god. 

For the gods disappeared without a trace in the long-ago age of legend, leaving the worlds of humans to chaos and war. Without its god, Ronia's once-mighty empire is crumbling toward an abyss.

To save their people, Shada and her ragtag companions will journey to the ends of the universe. But first, they must escape Ronia alive. 

Many in this city of blades, poison, and shadow mean to stop them at all costs. If they fail, slavery or death await them... and their world will fall into darkness.

Summoning and Sacrifice is the opening book of the Liturgy of Worlds epic fantasy series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Moon River Media LLC
• Release date: Mar 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781737411406

Book preview

Summoning and Sacrifice

Liturgy of Worlds Book 1

Nathan Hartle

Copyright © 2023 by Nathan Hartle

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 as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact Nathan Hartle at www.nathanhartle.com.

The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

Book Cover by MiblArt.

First edition. 2023.

ISBN: 978-1-7374114-0-6

Contents

Dedication

Prologue

1. Shada

2. Nor

3. Nor

4. Brin

5. Shada

6. Emberly

7. Nor

8. Shada

9. Emberly

10. Brin

11. Brin

12. Nor

13. Nor

14. Shada

15. Shada

16. The Crusaders

About the Author

To Amy, my heart

Prologue

He came to see the Goddess when the dreams started.

She would know what they meant. He was certain of that, though he might despise the answers. He found her, as always, inside her prison, an invisible barrier of energy that surrounded her and the many other, lesser deities trapped inside with her. It held them as surely as it had for millennia.

Yet it had never seemed so unnervingly fragile.

She floated in her prison as the others danced around her in great flashes of color and shape. Some meandered as if lost while others rushed about. They paused only to gaze through the transparent wall, produced by technology both ancient and extraordinary, that held them.

Guardian, she addressed him. It had been a while since his last visit.

I’ve seen something, he told her. His tone demanded information.

The sound of his voice produced an uproar among the imprisoned menagerie. The gods threatened and pleaded with voices like thunder, the buzzing of insects, howls, and roars. Some wore solid shapes of prowling animals or towering humans. Others appeared as outlines, geometric shapes, or swirling clouds. A few, he could not describe. Even the smallest of them dwarfed him.

He was only a man, after all. Or had been once.

The Goddess regarded him. I know.

His dreams might be her doing, then. He barely contained his anger and dread. They are visions. People and places far away. They come into my mind, and I can’t stop them. I see them more and more. He hated showing weakness to her, but he would gain nothing by lying about this.

She drifted regally toward him. She could take an infinite number of forms, but now she was a mighty column of twisting smoke. As she faced him across the barrier, she opened a pair of eyes on a level with his. They were massive like those of a sea beast, with pupils so deep he could tumble into them. A studied intellect lay behind them, the strata of eons.

Old fear fluttered in the Guardian. He had taken a modest shape, one resembling his old human form, complete with spectacles he no longer needed.

It is my people you are seeing, she replied, her voice like the collision of planets. They are coming to free me.

Did you invite them?

In a sense.

It was little use wondering how she had managed this. Who could say in this place? The glimmering hall around them was as vast and mysterious as ever, the gods’ prison a clear, rounded pillar near its center. The ancient beings who had built it were gone, leaving only their ghosts behind.

The hall’s dome held countless openings, doors to all parts of the universe. They glowed with vistas of starry nights and golden summers, any of which could admit invaders into this, his citadel.

They won’t make it here, he said. Nothing happens here unless I let it. I’ll stop them.

They will come, she said with maddening certainty. I have faith.

Faith. He said the word like the name of someone he had not realized was present.

She replied, Faith that I will reunite with them and lead them once again.

He wanted to argue, but he felt another vision coming. His mind grew spotty and dull.

It must not overcome him here, in front of her. He hurried away without appearing to flee. Behind him, the silence hung thick. He must act quickly—he must stop this. If he didn’t, who knew what might follow?

1

Shada

Shada pulled the door open just enough to slip quietly through the entrance as if hoping the door itself might overlook the disturbance. Escaping the midday sun into the damp breath of the temple’s interior left her temporarily blind, waiting for the rainbow of spots before her eyes to dissolve in the dim candlelight.

Before entering, she had dropped a coin into the tray of this temple’s guardian, a sightless beggar in a dark cloak grayed with dirt. The tray was otherwise empty, a good sign that the temple was deserted. Now, as the gloom receded into visible forms, she saw no hint of life.

She walked toward the front of the chamber, pausing at the edge of the floor-spanning carpet to leave her shoes behind. Shadows groped from alcoves on either side, where sacks of flour and donated goods waited for those needier than she yet was. She stopped in front of the great altar and sank to her knees. The rug here was threadbare and full of holes, worn and stained by centuries of knees and of tears.

The vaulted ceiling curved down to merge with the wall behind the altar. Spanning that surface were carvings too intricate to discern in the flickering light. Sculptures of beasts and spirits sprang from wall and ceiling, reaching for the viewer with bared claws and inscrutable eyes. The dazzling activity surrounded an empty space behind the altar—a vertical stretch of flat, blank stone.

Shada crossed her arms over her chest, placing a palm on each shoulder, and bent over, touching her forehead to the rug. Feeling awkward in the unfamiliar pose, she closed her eyes, reached into the tempest that was her mind, and searched for her remorse. First, she would reflect on her sins. Later, she must find a priest and confess them.

Her decisions over the last few hours gave her much to regret, fleeing Bridgeby’s house most of all. She had no prospects for more work. But regret was a selfish, material emotion. Unhappily, she found little actual guilt inside herself, and without that, she could offer nothing to the Goddess. Hadn’t she come here for more than a place to hide?

She must stay out of sight either way. Bridgeby’s men might search for her all afternoon.

Unable to focus on her prayer, she spoke it aloud. Well, here I am.

Speaking casually in prayer was unusual, but it relaxed her. I’m really lost now. I’ve got no job and nothing put away. I suppose you’ve heard this before.

Describing her predicament aloud made it real. Her stomach lurched like a runaway wagon.

She pressed her face against the rug. Tell me what to do.

Absorbed in her prayer, she did not hear the man until he stood behind her.

He growled. It was guttural, the sound a throat makes before the tongue carves it into words.

Shada jumped up and put several paces between herself and that sound before its echo died away. When she saw the stranger, she almost ran.

She saw immediately that he was from off planet, and he was one of the Changed at that. Not in the most sunken bowels of Undertown had she come face-to-face with someone so profoundly altered.

He dwarfed her in every way. The leather armor that covered his torso and hung in strips from his waist could have encompassed her several times over. His belt held a scabbard and a holster, but both were empty. That meant that he had surrendered his weapons to the guardian. It was an encouraging thought, and she hung onto it dearly.

But it was not his garments that held her attention. Shada was consumed by the sight of his face, which was that of a dog.

Not of a domesticated dog, one of the small, delicate things that rode in the seats of expensive carriages in the city’s parks. This was a visage like a wild creature from the mountains, wreathed in brown fur and long in snout, with eyes undulled by proximity to society.

Her mouth struggled to form words and her mind to form thoughts. She fought angrily to pull herself together. She pinched the sides of her skirt and dipped formally. Good afternoon to you, sir. May I help you? In her ears, the beating of her heart nearly drowned out her voice.

The stranger acknowledged her by repeating his first noise. It was an urgent sound, full of meaning but completely inscrutable.

She could read nothing in his face or posture. He simply towered over her like a battlement. Whatever far-off world was home to his branch of humanity, it must have been terrifying. Unlike many others, he seemed unbothered by the dark, decorative markings that covered Shada’s face.

Since he had done nothing overtly threatening, she decided it was safe to leave.

Well, I’m afraid I must be on my way. She began walking, tracing a long circle around him and toward the door. Good day to you.

His grunt was sharp and forceful. A command.

Shada froze. Her veneer of calm threatened to crumble as every bit of her body rebelled. She had no reply; she did not know whether to face him or run. Just like with Bridgeby.

But she would not fall apart in front of him. Struggling to keep the tremor out of her voice, she turned to face the stranger. Sir, I wish I could help you, but your speech is unfamiliar to me. I know little of offworld languages. A Temple priest should be along soon, and he—

He cut through her words with another grunt. The volume and depth of his voice silenced her.

He held forward a metal box, oblong and standing upright like a lantern. His mighty arm and armor had hidden it until now. He held it low, at the level of her chest, as if presenting it to her.

The box’s design was as unfamiliar as the man who possessed it. It caught the candlelight with a glint like steel. Its panels met to form odd lines and curves that both attracted and repulsed the eye. On the side facing her was a door with a small handle.

The man reached down, took the handle between two fingers, and pulled the door open.

A storm filled the box. Shada might have been looking down on a chaotic gray sea. The churning almost-mass shimmered in the temple’s dim light.

Shada’s mouth hung open. She forgot to breathe. Dear Goddess, what is that?

The storm’s surface cohered into a shape roughly like a human face. Cavities that might be eyes hung above a nose-shaped ridge and two swells like lips.

Shada watched, numb. It was all too much and too strange. She asked the face, Who are you?

Her heart jumped as the storm billowed out of the box. It reached her in an instant and swirled around her in a great cloud. Her skin tingled as if exposed to blowing sand.

After the initial surprise, she felt strangely calm. Whatever magic or witchcraft was here, she clearly could not escape it by running. Whatever this box portended, the tall stranger had not assaulted her as she feared. Next to that threat, a box full of sorcery was almost bearable.

In her ears, a roar like distant wind rose into words. The voice had no clear gender, no recognizable accent beyond a humming monotone. It sounded like the thousands of dead in the catacombs beneath the temple, whispering in unison. Stories told of gods adopting physical shapes, even clouds and sandstorms.

Do you hear me? The words came into being within her ears, meant only for her. If the tall stranger heard them, he did not react.

Yes. She asked no more questions. In the world of dreams, curious things needed no explanation.

The tingling sensation, which had spread under her clothes to affect her entire body, paused on the verge of entering her nostrils. It shifted, intensifying around her ears.

Do not be afraid, the voice continued. I have come with a message for you and for all Ronia. It is time for you to reunite with your Goddess. She will elevate your city to its rightful place in the cosmos. Will you listen?

I will. This answer, twice the length of the first, represented a remarkable step forward in her ability to think. Her eyes turned, searching for something in the mist to focus on.

A pause followed. The storm spoke first. What is your name?

The man holding the box stood in the same spot, ignored. Envying him greatly, she answered in what seemed like a polite tone. Shada. She started to bow but stopped herself. What was the proper way to address the air around you?

The mist before her eyes took sudden shape, forming the same face she had seen in the box. It was almost too close to focus her eyes on. She leaned back a little, but the face only moved closer. She took small breaths, not wanting to inhale the particles that formed it.

The dimensions of the face twisted, forming a smile. The voice said, Let us begin. I will need your help. Are you ready?

Shada could imagine few questions she would be less capable of answering just then. Deliberate thought was nearly impossible, deep reflection nearer still. Composing herself, she gave the only answer conceivable when one was confronted with the demands of a god.

2

Nor

His arm ached where, five weeks ago, a pair of soldiers had broken it over a table. Every time the carriage hit a bump, the pain came howling back, and memories of that brawl flashed before his eyes.

The sun tore through the window, heating the fibers of his robe. His legs underneath sweated, and the reflected sunlight made his head hurt.

He had spent the last month imprisoned in his bedchamber, fighting for his sanity against boredom and loneliness. But now, under the pitiless sun of the southern islands and after last night’s hard travel, the chamber seemed a friendly place.

Brother Nor? said Abbot Cadmon, sitting across from him.

Nor started and blinked, his good arm supporting his sling, which was coming loose. Yes, Abbot? It was little use pretending he had been fully awake. Cadmon knew.

The old man appraised him with mild irritation. We’ve come to the gateway. Don’t let people see you like that.

Nodding, Nor straightened and tried to make his sling look dignified. Chill and fog replaced the heat as the carriage rolled through the little-used gateway and emerged in one of Ronia’s countless alleys. The relentless sun vanished in a blink, replaced by an overcast sky. The wheels bumped on cobblestone, the sound flattened by the close air that smelled faintly of waste, both animal and human.

Even from the carriage’s velvet interior, Nor felt the change in his bones—the nearness of the city’s overcrowded hustle. His and the abbot’s gray robes and work-worn hands contrasted sharply with the carriage and