Two (The Godslayer Cycle Book 2) (2 page)

Nathaniel Goodsmith was an orphaned young man living in the secluded community of Oaken Wood.  His mother, Mariel, had been a faithful druidess of the Old Gods, known to some as the Pantheon, a group of nine Gods and Goddesses of duality. However, after his mother's brutal murder, Nathaniel himself has foregone belief in the Old Gods.

In this, Nathaniel is not alone.  For centuries, a new religion has aggressively sought to eliminate all belief in the Old Gods.  The New Order, as this new faith is known, consists of forty-eight new Gods – twenty-four Higher Powers and twenty-four Lower Powers – who have declared war upon the Gods of old, seeking to wipe belief in them from the face of Na'Ril.  And the Pantheon is powerless to fight back against this aggressive opponent, for they are bound by their covenants with mortals not to war with other Gods.

Bound by these restrictive rules, the Old Gods have all but vanished from the land.  But Malik, the God and Goddess of War and Peace, devised a plan to reverse this downward spiral.  With the assistance of Charith, God and Goddess of Life and Death, he has created nine magic swords, each empowered with the ability to slay a God.  Malik's plan had been to release the swords to the Pantheon's faithful for them to seek out and destroy the New Order Gods – thus preserving their own existence within the confines of the covenants.

However, one of the Pantheon decided that Malik's strategy was too dangerous and set out to redirect the swords towards another purpose.  Ensorceling the swords in prophecy, Dariel, God and Goddess of Truth and Deception, stole the swords and banished them into the mortal realm, concealed forever from the eyes of the Gods.

In an effort to try to regain control of the swords' purpose, the Pantheon created an avatar matrix – a hereditary power passed down through bloodlines of their faithful so that when the swords would one day be revealed, they would have an agent amongst the mortals who would keep the swords away from agents of the New Order.

Now the swords have begun to emerge.  In far-off Scollhaven, a town located in the heart of the Wildelands, a heretic named Avery has found the first sword,
One
, with its incredible power to be unseen.  Though he initially intends to seek revenge, Avery instead uses the sword's magic to pass himself off as a new God of Vengeance to the people of the small township. 

In response to
One
's activation, t
he avatar matrix has awoken, as well.  But to the Pantheon's chagrin, it has emerged within Nathaniel – who owes no loyalty to the Old Gods.  The plan to have a viable agent in the mortal realm quickly came unraveled as Nathaniel rejects their efforts to recruit him.  Nathaniel has a family – a wife, Mariebelle, and son, Geoffrey – and he has no interest in traveling on a quest to find the swords.  The Pantheon warns Nathaniel that there might be consequences brought on by the prophecy if he did not act, but the mortal man chooses to reject the Pantheon's request for aid.

Meanwhile, an agent of Imery, Goddess of Truth for the New Order, has taken notice of Nathaniel, and through her, so has her Goddess.  Lady Brea is a traveling priestess of Imery's who has inadvertently become charmed through Old God magic to be infatuated with Nathaniel.  Believing Nathaniel to be one of the Old Gods in hiding, Imery empowers her priestess with the power to see truth in all things, and sets her upon Nathaniel's trail.  It is a fruitless enterprise, but the Goddess of Truth has been alerted to something out of the ordinary masked from the eyes of the New Order. 

To make matters worse, Imery has also identified a disappearance of her faithful within the small town of Scollhaven.  Coupled with the mystery that is Nathaniel Goodsmith along with the attack on her devoted's faith, Imery is compelled to send Brea to Scollhaven to investigate.

The prophecy in the meantime was not to be denied.  Without warning, warriors proclaiming themselves to be servants of Imery attack and murder Mariabelle and kidnap Geoffrey, burning down the local tavern in the process.  Nathaniel had been away meeting with Airek, God and Goddess of Charity and Greed, who was attempting to sway the man to their cause.  Upon his return, Nathaniel is grief-stricken, but realizes that he must take up the Pantheon's cause after all, if he is ever to have a chance of finding his son.  Charith also offers him one other incentive – if he succeeds in slaying the New Order's Goddess of Death, the Pantheon could retrieve the soul of Nathaniel's wife and resurrect her.

The only clue Nathaniel has to follow is the sudden departure of Imery's priestess, Brea, and so with the aid of the tavern's proprietor, a life-long dwarven friend, Bracken Hillfire, Nathaniel sets off in pursuit of the Imery's agent.

Along the way, Malik reveals to Nathaniel that the nine swords actually had a predecessor –
First
.  Apparently, the nine swords were molded from
First
, and the original blade had been hidden away, waiting for the awakening of the Avatar to be used as a weapon to help in retrieving the other nine swords.  Malik's own deception in hiding
First
was uncovered by Dariel, but Malik does not immediately reveal this to Nathaniel. 

Instead, the God and Goddess of War and Peace reveals another aspect of the avatar matrix – imbedded talents and abilities which need and time would activate within the Avatar.  Malik's own contribution to the matrix was the gift of an innate knowledge of how to wield any weapon, including the great swords themselves.

In Scollhaven, Avery has successfully converted the township to his new religion, having each resident brand themselves with the New Order's symbol for heresy, a four-horned symbol seared into the flesh of any outcast.  Avery however has made it into his holy symbol, and citizens have branded themselves to demonstrate their devotion to their new God.  Amongst his new faithful, Avery has also acquired a scholar, Hamil, to record his rise to divinity and a host of lovers to sate his suddenly virile urges, though none are so special to him as one maiden, the bartender's daughter, Viola.

Yet even as Avery basks in his newfound potency, images and ideas of the mythical Godslayer begin to prey upon his mind.  He reasons that the sword must have belonged to the Old Gods – and has even declared himself the progeny of Malik and Charith – but that no God would have relinquished such a sword unless they were dead.  Fearing the Godslayer of myth would emerge to slay him, the new God of Vengeance organizes a retreat from Scollhaven, taking along with him Hamil and Viola as companions.

Unaware that the target of her search has already left Scollhaven, Brea is confronted by the amorous advances of one of her two hired mercenaries and uses her magic to enfeeble him as a lesson.  Unfortunately, the magic of the spell is far more powerful than she had intended, and she reduces him to a permanent state of idiocy.  This inappropriate abuse of power causes a rift between her and those she has hired to protect her on the road, and she retreats to examine the repercussions of this misfired magic, using the excuse that she would seek out a dwarf whom Imery has detected following the trio.

While separated from her companions though, Brea is caught unawares by not only Bracken, but Nathaniel, as well.  Brea is at first exuberant to see Nathaniel, since she is still inexplicably drawn to the man, but when he rebukes her affection, a confrontation begins. 

Brea is startled to learn of Mariabelle's murder and Geoffrey's abduction, and is even more horrified to learn that the blame has been cast upon Imery and herself.  And yet, her own Goddess' odd behavior coupled with the strange misfire of clerical magic gifted to her by Imery further seeds doubt in Brea's mind as to whether Imery may indeed be manipulating everyone, including Brea herself.

Before this conflict can be resolved, Avery himself appears, having been drawn to the conflict by the mysterious warnings of his scribe, Hamil.  Revealing himself to Nathaniel, Brea and Bracken, he is horrified to learn that the tall man actually holds a sword nearly identical to his own, but even moreso by the sudden impulse to destroy the other sword.  Overcome by
One
, Avery attacks mercilessly, believing Nathaniel to be the mythical Godslayer come to destroy him.

Though fiercely fought, Avery ultimately loses the fight when Nathaniel severs the hand holding
One
from his arm.  Believing that his life would be next to be taken, the would-be-God flees in terror into the night.

Inexplicably, Avery's delusional wandering is brought to a halt when a voice directs him on how to heal his own wound.  Awaking from his delusions, he is amazed to find his wrist healed and Hamil at his side.  The scribe denies being the voice who helped Avery save his own life, instead insisting that he was summoned by Avery's need.  Avery accepts this, concluding that he had a hidden ally somewhere that clearly wanted him to survive.

Yet as the two set off to return to Avery's camp and to retrieve Viola, Hamil is revealed to be the New Order God, Ankor, God of Mischief.  Avery has indeed attracted a hidden ally, but the self-proclaimed God of Vengeance is oblivious to how close that ally actually is.

As Avery seeks to retreat with his disguised divine aid, Brea is asked to summon Imery to answer for the murder and abduction of Nathaniel's family.  Compelled by her own doubts, Brea agrees and calls upon her Goddess to answer her questions while Nathaniel stands by, hidden from view with
One
's power
.

Imery responds but is infuriated that her priestess would challenge her and lashes out at Brea irrationally.  Bracken steps forward to defend the priestess, but Imery's rage is not quelled.  Seeing no other alternative, Nathaniel strikes out with
One
, skewering the Goddess from behind.

Imery is inexplicably caught on the blade, unable to escape the power of the sword.  As the mortals look on, the Goddess suddenly becomes the center of a storm of duplicate selves.  The Goddess' infinite manifestations are drawn back into a singular form, as the Goddess herself is powerless to break free.  In the end, the Goddess' form bursts into countless white energy spheres that drift to the earth.

Brea rushes forward to try to capture the essence of her Goddess, but the energy passes through her hands, disappearing into the ground below. 

Finally, as the last of the substance that had been her Goddess fades from sight, Brea looks up at Nathaniel and calls him, “Godslayer.”  She then faints.

End of Book 1

“
I am told you know things.”

The man looked up at the speaker with a level of disinterest that almost succeeded in convincing the woman standing over him that he really did not see her.  Almost.  Yet he had only looked up when she had spoken, so she knew that his vacant look was an act, though for whose benefit she could not say.

“I said, I am told you know things,” she repeated, hoping for some other response to her words.  In that, she was to be disappointed, however, since the man's eyes did not even look in the direction of her voice.  For the barest moment, she wondered whether the man was blind – but no, his eyes were focused on something, even if that something was not her.

The woman pulled out a chair and sat forcefully, leaning against the table so she could more intently look upon the strange man.  His appearance was nothing remarkable.  He was well groomed and dressed in somewhat common garb.  In fact, there was absolutely nothing remarkable about the man whatsoever – save the fact that he
was
unremarkable in this, of all places.

“
I
said--”

“
You are not supposed to be here,” said the man.  He neither looked at her nor even seemed to be speaking to her.  He just spoke as though he were not speaking to anyone at all.

This startled the woman.  “And where exactly am I supposed to be?”

The man did look at her this time.  “Your path has you in Ecelor, bartering for passage on the sea.”

The woman grinned wickedly.  “You
do
know things.  Before I learned about you, I was planning to sail for the Western Realms.  Might be they don't allow outsiders, but there are places one can land that are less...  noticeable.”

“
You are testing me.  You do not need a ship to travel anywhere.”

The woman chuckled.  “Oh?”

The man turned away to look across the room of the inn.  “I do not test anyone.  I only witness.”

The woman pulled back, placing her hand upon her breast in a mock display of shock.  “You've been watching me?  Some kind of peeper, watching pretty girls, are you?”

The man did not react physically, just continued to look across the room.  “What is it you want, Alalya Mirnette?”

The woman scowled, looking around to see if anyone were listening.  “So much for you knowing things.”

The man turned back to her.  “You are Alyala Mirnette, though for some time now, you have used the name Dart Herasdaughter.  You should not be here.”

“
You said that.  Now maybe you can tell me why you keep saying it.”

The man nodded his head towards the bar across the room.  “The man standing there – that is Mansel.  He owns this establishment.  He has a daughter, Viola.  For years, the two have run this inn as a family business, ever since his wife passed.”

When the man stopped speaking, the woman who called herself Dart asked, “What does that have to do with anything?”

“
Mansel should not be standing there.”

“
Stop saying things like that and tell me what you mean.”

The man looked to the hearth, which had burned down to embers in the warm autumn day.  “I see him there.”

Dart glanced to the fireplace.  “I don't see anyone there.”

The man nodded agreement.  “Precisely.”

Dart clenched her jaw a moment to avoid an outburst.  “Precisely what?  Why can't you just say something without running around it like a wisp?”

The man turned to Dart and blinked – something Dart realized she had not seen him do since she had sat down.  “He is not where his path should have him be.  He is not where he belongs, because his daughter is not where she belongs.”

“And where is his daughter, this...  Viola, was it?”

The man's features clouded.  “She should be there,” he said, pointing to a table two removed from his own.  “She should be serving a traveler, and Mansel should be tending the hearth, preparing for the night.”

“Well, neither is where you say, so I guess you don't know that much, do you?”  Dart stood up in disgust.  “You were certainly a waste of my time.”

The man's hand darted out and clasped Dart's wrist.  He seemed as startled as Dart herself.  “Until a few days ago, I would not have been able to do that.  You would not have been here to do that with.  Now I see images of what should be moving beside things that are.  It is all very...  confusing.”

Dart tried to shake her hand free, but the man's grip was like iron.  “Let go, you pervert!”

The man's eyes looked desperately into Dart's own.  “I cannot see Viola any longer!”

“So what?” Dart asked, continuing to twist in an effort to escape the man's grip.  “She probably got wise to your peeper ways!”

“
You know who I am.”

At this, Dart stopped struggling.  “I know who you're
supposed
to be.  But you don't look much like the man I thought I was looking for.  You don't even know where people are in the same room you're in.”

At this the man drew himself up, for the first time showing affront at anything Dart had said.  “I know where every person living should be.  I know their potential futures.  To my eyes, I see them as phantom paths, seeing different choices, seeing the same person in different places.  Yet once these paths move into the present, the different paths become one, and the people walking them become solid to my eyes.  Yet now I see two paths to everything around me.  I see what should be, and what is.  Where the futures should become solid, they continue to be ghostlike, while the solid world is one I cannot predict or know.”

As the man finished, he released Dart's arm.  But Dart no longer wanted to get away.  “You
are
the Witness, aren't you?”

The man nodded.  “So I am called.”

Dart sat back down, leaning back in her chair.  “You're a demi-God.”

The Witness bowed his head.  “As are you.”

Dart smirked.  “You realize this is probably the first time two of us have come together without wanting to kill each other, right?”

“
Not true.  Demi-Gods are drawn to each other more than you like to admit.  Just because
you
never meet one without him or her wanting to kill you is not a fault of the rest.”

Dart slapped the table and laughed.  “I can't believe none have tried to kill you.  You know too much!”

The Witness smiled for the first time, a delicate touch to a mouth clearly unused to the experience.  “How do you kill a man who knows whenever harm is intended towards him years in advance?”

“
But you didn't know I was coming?”

The smile vanished from the Witness' face.  “No, I did not.  You should not be here.”

“Probably because you shouldn't be, either.”

The Witness visibly considered this idea.  “You may be right.  For the first time in centuries, I may very well be affecting the world around me.”

“Have you ever considered that you always affected the world, Witness?” Dart said.  “Just because you chose to do as little as possible doesn't mean you didn't affect how things turned out.  People saw you.  People knew what your presence meant.  And when people were concerned about you being there, they made different choices than they would have otherwise.  I know.  I've seen the affect you have on places you visit.”

A look of doubt appeared on the Witness' face.  “So you are saying that my purpose was not what I thought it to be?”

“Not at all.  I am only saying that you're affecting the world now is just like before.  It's just...  well, different.  Before, you affected the world by moving from place to place.  Now you affect it by staying in one place.  The fact that you have not moved on past this place is what drew me here.  It is a rumor that spread far and wide very quickly.  Within a day and night of your sitting here, it had reached the coast – hundreds of leagues away.  And how do you imagine that happened?”

The man started.  “I had not considered...”

Dart reached out to take the Witness' hand.  “Someone wants people to know you are here.  And that can't be good.”

The two lapsed into silence for a few minutes.  Dart was willing to wait for the full impact of what she said to draw out the Witness' response.  She traded in information, after all, and if the Witness had any idea who could spread information so effectively, it could prove potentially valuable to herself – and if not, it would be a threat she would want removed before it could affect her own business.  If the last four hundred years had taught her anything, it was that more could be gained from patience than haste at times like this.

“I do not perceive a threat against me.”  The Witness shifted in his chair, a sign to Dart that for once, the man who knew everything was truly in the dark on something.  “Until you arrived, I could not sense that
anyone
knew where I was, which suggests that this is somehow linked to what happened here.”

“
What does that mean?  What happened here?”

Desperation flared in the Witness' eyes for a moment.  “I do not know.  That is why I am here – to learn what it is that happened that would change everything so drastically.”

“Okay, okay,” Dart said, sitting back and waving her hands in front of her face.  “Try starting from the beginning.  What is so significant about this town, and why did you come here in the first place?”

The Witness visibly thought about it before he relented.  “I sensed something shift.  I cannot explain it better than that.  I just...
felt
something I never had before.  It drew my attention like nothing ever had before – as though something more important than anything ever before had happened.  And it came upon me without me ever knowing it was coming.  It...  scared me.”

The admission caused the Witness to draw back physically in his seat.  A master of body language, Dart could tell that this topic was not something the man felt comfortable with.  More than just sensing something he never had before, the fact that he would admit to something as simple as fear was a form of surrender for him.  And it reflected in every nuance of his body as he related his story.

“I knew I had to witness whatever it was, even though I had no idea what it would be.  That is something I have not felt for over six hundred years – not knowing what was coming.  So I followed it – whatever it was – here.  This is where the change happened, or somewhere very close to here.  Regardless, it affected this entire town.  I knew it as soon as I came here.  This was where I first saw the paths dividing.”

“
You keep saying that.  Paths.  What does that mean exactly?”

The Witness blanched.  “It is a word I use.  It is not entirely real, just that...  When a person has a future, there are different places and directions he may be in by the time his future becomes his present.  It is like whether a man takes a left or right branch in a road – I can see him potentially on both roads at the same time, as it is possible he could take either way.  Normally, I will see one that is less...  wispy, I suppose is the best way to describe it.  This would be the choice he is more likely to take, but it is not always the one he does.  The closer these potential futures – what I call paths – approach the present, the more...  solid they become, until the future is the present and it is one firm image that I see.”

Dart was becoming excited, and she knew it was visibly showing.  Yet she didn't care – this man had been a legend to her, the one person in all the world who made her own talents at gathering information seem charlatan by comparison.  The Witness just knew things – though no one had ever known before exactly
how
he knew things.  She realized she could very realistically be the first person who had ever learned how it was all done.  In the back of her mind, the worth of this information was quickly gaining a value – and it was high enough that she envisioned herself being able to live off the rewards of this one score for perhaps a hundred years or more.

“
But now there are two 'paths'?  Two different possibilities, even in the present?”  Dart scooted to the edge of her seat in anticipation.

“
Yes.  Now instead of seeing one firm present, I see two paths for each person I see – One the world I imagine everyone else sees and another as a phantom image of people moving around where I perceive they
should
be, where all their paths lead to.”

“
And it all started in this town?”  Dart sat back and looked around.  “Speaking of which, what town
are
we in?”

“
It is called Scollhaven.”

Dart shrugged.  “Never heard of it.  Must be real backwater.”  Dart returned her attention to the Witness.  “Nevermind that.  You say it all started here?  What is so special about this place, then?”

“For once, I am limited only in what I have heard since arriving.  It seems a new God has appeared--”

“
One of the New Order came here?  Why here?”

“
No, not the New Order, nor it seems, one of the Old Gods, either.  Someone else new entirely.”