Three (The Godslayer Cycle Book 3) (10 page)

In an instant, Brea gained a perspective she had never had before.  For the first time, she could see how that must look to those who possessed none to give.  All from the simplest of words...

There's no money in me.

The former priestess swallowed back her need to defend the New Order's practices.  “Nathan's not a priest.”

“Then how does he talk to Gods?”

“He's just...  special,” Brea managed. 
How does one explain that the man was some kind of Chosen One of the Pantheon?

A large hand came to rest briefly on Brea's shoulder, and she knew that Bracken had come up behind her.  She looked again for Nathan, and saw his eyes focus on hers, understanding that she saw something that had drawn her to kneel.  It did not appear that his angle gave him a line of sight to the girl yet, however.

The girl relaxed her hold on the sword enough that her hand could reach for the handle.  “I should just go...”  There was more than fear in the girl's eyes - Brea had the distinct sense that she was overwhelmed.  When faced with too much information, what better way to deal with it than escape?

“No, please,” urged the woman.  “Not like that.”

The girl paused as her grip folded around the sword's hilt.  “Like what?”  A brief shard of hope betrayed the girl's feelings.  Something in what Brea had said had offered the girl a sliver of hope.  But what it could have been was beyond the woman.

The former priestess tried for another tact.  She placed her hand upon her breast and smiled as gently as she could manage with her heart beating in her chest.  “I am the Lady Brea.  What is your name?”

“Lady?”  The girl blinked, then her eyes darted around nervously.  “You're a Lady?”

Brea blushed.  The girl thought she was royalty.  When she had dedicated herself to Imery's service, she had been required to choose a new name.  Her birth name had been Lillian, which to her was boring.  At fifteen, she was asked to come up with a name that would reflect the dignity of her new path, and she had chosen Lady Brea.  There was no royal heritage attached to it - it was just a name.  But again, how did one explain that to a frightened child?

Brea forced her smile to stay upon her face.  “You can just call me Brea.  Everyone does.”

The girl lowered her head.  It looked to have started out as a small nod, but her head simply did not rise back up after it descended.  A moment passed, with the girl's hand flexing upon the haft of the sword before she said anything more.  “Did my father send you?”

“No, child.  I do not know your father, though if you want my help finding him..?”

“No!”  The sword was drawn in an instant, Brea's words clearly terrifying the child.  The woman desperately struggled within for the words necessary to turn this aside, to keep the girl from using whatever power this sword possessed.  Someone else took the decision away from her before she could.

Avery appeared out of thin air, taking the girl's wrist in his left hand.  “Calm yourself, girl,” he said. “No one wants to hurt you.”

The girl twisted at the intrusion into her personal space, falling away from the would-be God as she did so.  Some strength possessed the girl, or Avery simply had no genuine strength of his own, for she easily broke the man's grip and fell back, scrambling to keep away from him.

A foot came down upon the drawn sword in the girl's hand, Nathan suddenly appearing from the crowd.  “Please, we don't mean you any harm.”

The girl screamed, wrenching at the blade.  Whatever strength she possessed won out, as Nathan found himself falling backwards at the ferocity of the teen's desperation.  In moments, she was back upon her feet, backing away, the sword held defensively in front of her. 

What the young girl did not see was the dwarf who suddenly reached around her from behind, clasping his hands together at her middle, pinning her arms in place.  “Stan' down, lass.  I' can only ge' worse fr'm here on if'n you don'.”

The girl kicked and growled at being captured, but whatever exceptional strength she might have possessed was completely neutralized by the vice-like grip of the dwarf.  Legend had it that dwarves spent their lives burrowing through stone, and that their muscles had grown to the strength of iron through generations of such activity.   Seeing the immovable force that was Bracken at this moment made every legend Brea had ever heard seem completely believable.

Avery and Nathan stepped forward, but it was Brea who reached the girl first.  With one hand, she waved away the men while with the other she laid a gentle hand upon the girl's shoulder.  “Please, no one wants to hurt you.  Truly, we do not.”

“Let me go,” screamed the girl, throwing her head back and scrunching her eyes closed as she did.

“You need to calm down.  Please.”  Brea gave a soft squeeze, but the effort to calm the girl had no effect.

“I'm not a witch!” the girl screamed.  “I'm not!  I'm not!”

Bracken snorted.  “'Course yer no'.  Tha's jus' stupi'.”

The former priestess shot a stern look at the dwarf before once again looking imploringly at the girl, who still refused to meet her gaze.  Gently, she reached out with her other hand to lay it upon the hand clutching hard to the sword.  “Please,  you have to calm down.  No one will hurt you, but you could hurt a lot of people if you don't calm down.”

The girl's head snapped forward, tears streaming from her eyes now.  If Brea were to assign emotion to the girl's look, it would be one of remorse, but the girl's words made it difficult to be sure that was her intent.  “I haven't hurt anyone.  I wouldn't.”

“No one is saying you would purposefully,” rebutted Brea.  “But if you don't calm down, how can we know you won't without intending to?”

The girl blinked back her tears, her thoughts spinning behind her eyes.  A moment later, all resistance dropped away from her body.  “Okay.  I'll be good.  Promise.”

Brea did not need her talent to know the girl meant the words.  She gave a quick nod to the dwarf, who grunted as he released his grip.  The girl rubbed at her right arm - the one still holding the blade - but otherwise stood in place, looking towards the ground sheepishly.

“I only wanted the Gods to take back what they did to my mother,” the girl said.  “Like they did with the divine woman.”

“Your mother has passed?” asked Brea gently.

The girl nodded.  “She just didn't wake up one day.  And the Gods brought back the divine woman, so I thought...”

Avery visibly scowled at this last.  “My Sires are playing at breaking the laws of life and death.  That's dangerous.  I hope you all can see that now.”

Nathan gave no indication of hearing Avery's words as he came forward, gently pulling Brea back from the girl.  “You have a powerful sword,” he explained to the teen.  “You know that, right?”

The girl nodded, looking to the naked steel in her hand.  “It calls itself
Three
,” she said.  She looked up at this, an embarrassed smile on her face.  “Mine's Alisia, but the sword has its own name.”

“She's the sword's chosen,” said Avery from over Nathan's shoulder.  “You can't take it from her.”

Nathan grit his teeth as he answered.  “She's a child, Avery.”

“Who's apparently lost in this world,” rebuffed the would-be God.  “But in spite of that, she's used
Three
to get here.  All she wants is to get her mother back, and she's used one of the Nine to seek out the Gods themselves.  I'd say she's proven she knows what she's doing.”

“I lost my own mother when I was barely older than she is now,” spat Nathan.  “Stoned to death in this very street!  But you think I would have been made ready by that tragedy for this?”  At the last, Nathan held up
Two
, its power swirling into existence around the blade.

Understanding blossomed on Alisia's face.  “You can't take the sword,” she said, backing away slowly.  This time, she watched the dwarf as much as she did the other three.

Nathan grimaced.  “Avery,” he growled.  “Stay out of this.”  As he spoke, his raised his own sword, preparing for what might come.

The self-proclaimed God took hold of Nathan's shoulder.  “Goodsmith, don't do this.  We need her trust, not her fear.”

Nathan threw off Avery's grasp and turned on the smaller man.  “Why don't you go run and hide? That's all you're good for anyways.  Leave this to the one person who was actually given this job!   By the Gods themselves!”

Avery balked at this a moment, but his face set hard almost as quickly.  “And I'm the only one who knows what the swords themselves want.”

“You two,” grunted Bracken, “nee' to pu' yer egos in check, 'cause neit'er of yous're helpin' righ' now!”

Brea looked to the teen, who again had raised up her sword defensively.  Nathan turned quickly, saw the threat and redirected his own sword.  “Put it down!”

“You're not taking my sword!  I need it for the Gods!”

Nathan struck out suddenly with his own blade.  Brea could clearly see that he swung with the flat of his blade, and that he was aiming for
Three
itself, not the child.  But the young girl could not have known that as she lifted her own sword in response.

“Go save your own mother!” screamed the girl in the momentary calm that seemed to hold all else in place.  “And leave me to saving my own!”

A golden hue began to form around the third sword as a liquid maelstrom began to take shape around Nathan's own.  The power pulsing through the air in that moment pressed upon Brea's mind, everything falling deathly still in an instant.  Then the blades struck each other...

And the world exploded!

A great cacophonous eruption burst outward, a powerful force throwing the former priestess back bodily.  Some inner strength kept her feet beneath her, yet all around she saw men and women fall to the ground.  She lost sight of everyone else in the dust and debris that flew into her, taxing even her own strange capacity to remain standing.

At last, the eruption settled and Brea was able to see the girl standing alone at the center of a great mass of bodies arranged outward from herself in a circular pattern, as though the bodies were great trees felled by a powerful detonation.  Moans and curses filled her ears as the deafening echoes faded away. 

Alisia's eyes were panicked as she looked around at the devastation.  Her eyes briefly met those of Brea, and then the girl dropped to the ground, grabbed the leather sheath from where it had fallen, and vanished from sight.

“Damnation,” cursed Brea, taking a step forward, casting about for any sign of her companions.

Avery picked himself up from where he had fallen, his own eyes reflecting the sheer shock of what he had just endured.  “By the Old Gods,” he mumbled to himself.

“Aye, tha's a word fer i',” came the dwarf's grunting voice as he stepped over someone's body lying upon the ground.  He looked about himself as he walked, paying careful attention to who lay where. “A' leas' noone's the werse fer wear from i'.”

Avery's eyes grew even wider as he stared at the dwarf in horror.  “No, you don't understand.  That girl...”

Brea moved forward, forcing Avery to draw his gaze to her.  “That girl what?”

Avery swallowed.  “That girl just... 
killed
the Godslayer!  Just...  obliterated both of them!”

“Both?” pressed Brea.

Avery's face turned instantly pale as he was forced to voice his darkest fear.  “She just destroyed one of the Nine!”

Hamil could not see any swords.  He could see water swirling through the air at one point around the man Avery named as Nathaniel Goodsmith, the man he insisted was the Godslayer.  How having an invisible sword made one a slayer of Gods was beyond the faux scribe's comprehension, but Avery had his own mind set on certain things - and he had witnessed two of his brethren struck down.  There was only so far he could push the fake-God before his true purposes would be exposed, and precisely how these wretched swords worked was beyond his need to push Avery for answers.

Of course, in his true form, Hamil had far more direct information - that the swords were the creations of the Pantheon.  But this meant that any person who held one of the swords could kill a God.  Why, even Avery was a Godslayer, by the same definition.  What gave Nathaniel Goodsmith any special distinction beyond this as the Godslayer was what escaped the undercover God's comprehension. 
The limited perceptions of a mortal mind, I suppose.
 

If it were not for the obvious mystical effects that Hamil himself had witnessed, he would have long ago chalked up Avery's talk of swords to his imagination altogether - long before he had ever been motivated to seek communion with the Pantheon and verify their existence.  But too much had pointed in the direction of the swords really existing, even if the scribe could not actually see them - so that much he had to accept, in spite of his inclination otherwise.  But if the man wanted to believe in faery tales about some ancient character of lore who killed Gods as a recreational pastime, it caused no harm to Hamil's ultimate objectives.  After all, the more Avery focused on intangible shadows, the less he paid to what Hamil was really up to.

The only reason Hamil knew there must be swords involved on this day was because of the power he had seen manifested below.  He saw Avery vanish, and he saw the swirling water.  Avery's unseen sword had the ability to mask him from sight, and the second of the swords had the power to manipulate water.  Avery attested to these effects being tied to magical swords.  And that was all Hamil really had to work with.

Nathaniel Goodsmith on the other hand was a unique conundrum all his own.  If Hamil were looking directly at the man, he could see the peasant as plainly as he could see a tree.  But if the man were outside Hamil's direct line of sight, it was if the man ceased to exist.  Hamil's godly skills could not find the man without the aid of physical eyes - and this was incredibly disorienting for the hidden God.  He was certain that his looking at Goodsmith must be akin to a blind mortal finding he can only see the world with his hands.

Of course, Hamil knew all of this had something to do with Nathaniel's connection to the Pantheon.  Malik had called Nathaniel an agent
of the Pantheon.  Not a faithful, not a devoted - an
agent
. 
Whether his talent to be unseen were the reason for the Pantheon's interest in the man, or some gift granted by the Old Gods themselves was impossible to say.  But the connection was unavoidable, so the cause was immaterial.  It existed, and Nathaniel was working for the Pantheon.  That was enough of a problem all by itself.

As frustrating as this was, however, it was still only a small factor compared to the raging ebb of power he could feel through the trees to the north.  The hub of Pantheon magic, where a mortal woman's body was preserved.  Worse, if the information floating around the various astral planes of his fellow Gods were to be believed, she was not even a faithful of the old ways - she had been a dedicated servant of the New Order!  The focus that the Pantheon was willing to pay to a mortal who did not even offer a thimbleful of grace to them was beyond belief.  More than one member of the New Order was trying to reason out the angle that the Pantheon was pursuing in this move, but none had found any gain for them.  In fact, the only thing that the Pantheon appeared to gain for making such a bold move was to harass the ranks of the New Order.

Of course, there was also the rumor that the Old Gods were doing all of this to take a stand against Imery, but Hamil recognized that for the nonsense it was.  The Goddess of Truth may have vanished from every plane of reality, but he knew well enough that the Pantheon would not take umbrage at one small death by one of the New Order Gods.  There had been far greater travesties committed by members of the New Order and the Pantheon had done nothing.  To defend the mortal remains of one lone woman, who was not even someone of their own faith, over some imagined travesty of the Goddess of Truth?  Preposterous!

Then there was the fact that the Pantheon was forbidden to wage war upon the New Order by their own covenants, as well.  And though preserving the body of a mortal woman was not any kind of direct assault, had it been to defy Imery, it could not have been seen as anything else.  And so to Hamil, the idea that the Pantheon would take such a measure against one of the New Order Gods was equally impossible.

None of that actually provided any answers, of course - but it discounted the various false reasons that persisted, at least.

Hamil had his own connection to the Pantheon of course, but none of that provided any real answers where Imery was concerned.  He was working clandestinely with Charith and Malik, but that was just as much a ruse as his own work with his fellow New Order Gods.  It was not an entirely open and trusting affair - and information gleaned was not always entirely reliable.  So Hamil had to take strict measures in deciding whether what he learned were true or untrue.  But things unsaid...  There were the real gems to be taken away from his meetings.

Now, as Hamil looked upon the after effects of whatever it was that had just happened - something that still transpired outside Hamil's own divine perceptions - it gave the disguised deity pause.  Perhaps there
was
something more to Nathaniel Goodsmith than a curiosity?  Or, as it now seemed, that there
had
been something to him?  Maybe he needed to press his cohorts-in-crime for what the man's purpose had been now that he was out of the game?  But more importantly, it was becoming clearer that he needed to know because it affected his own piece upon the board: Avery.

When Avery had left their party that morning, he had done so within view of the town proper.  At present, the others were all camped at the top of the ridge looking down on the town.  And as far as they all knew, Hamil was waiting with them. 

But of course, Hamil did not have to stay.  He had the ability to be in more than one place at once, and there was simply no reason why he had to stay with the others and not follow Avery.  And so he had - creating a duplicate self that could follow in the steps - or missteps, as more often than not seemed to be the case - of his errant hobby.  In this capacity, Hamil had listened in on Avery's talk with the former priestess, and had been present in the crowd while Avery had raced across town to find Goodsmith.  He had even allowed himself to be thrown down by the force of whatever the little girl had unleashed.  But most remarkable of all was what had happened after the dust had settled.

The girl had vanished.  No magic was used, no spell at least.  Nor had she moved to another location - Hamil's godly talents would have perceived the relocation once she manifested somewhere else.  And it was not the same effect as Avery's, either - when the would-be God vanished, there was still a sense of his existence in the skein of reality.  With this girl, there was none.

No - she simply ceased to exist.  And that was incredibly disturbing, since - as Avery pointed out - so had Nathaniel Goodsmith.  Along with one of the invisible swords, too, if Avery's exclamation could be trusted.  Hamil could not have been expected to immediately notice either was missing - since Goodsmith was not something he could sense if he were not in sight, and the swords couldn't be seen at all.  But if they had dispersed - just as this small girl had done - then there truly was something to be concerned about here.

Lately, far too many things existed outside the Gods' perceptions.  The swords had been the most disturbing, because they possessed serious power.  Nathaniel Goodsmith had been an oddity, but the only real concern he presented was the fact he had one of the invisible swords with him.  Or two, actually, since he had one the night he had first faced Avery, as well - unless Goodsmith had lost that one somehow?

Then there was Imery's death - which was plainly the work of these swords.  Two of Hamil's fellow Gods had fallen to these imperceptible swords in Levitz, and that was the only real clue in how Imery could have been killed, as well.  Or, to be more accurate, to the circumstances of Imery's death.  No matter that she had died - that her death itself, the actual killing blow, had somehow been hidden...  And where had her soul gone afterwards?  And for that matter, where were Kelvor and Galentine's souls?

But now - now this girl had something that could literally obliterate things from existence!

To Hamil - or, more appropriately, to the God Ankor that he truly was beneath his Hamil persona - all of these seemingly separate instances of hidden powers could not help but be related.  A set of invisible swords, a man who could not be seen with divine sight, missing deity souls - all of these had seemed so randomly disconnected.  But now, with this girl's talent, they all seemed unmistakably linked.  The common factor in all of these oddities was the capacity to be unseen by anyone of divine power.

Wait
, thought the false scribe, a wicked grin spreading over his face. 
Not divine specifically.  Godly. Specifically, the Gods.

The two demi-Gods in Levitz could see the sword, the one that could manipulate water, the one that had just been destroyed.  Of that much, Hamil was certain.  And demi-Gods gained their power from their divine parents.  So it was not masked to divine power - all of these things were masked from the
Gods
, and the Gods
alone
!

But who had the power to hide things - and more than one thing, it seemed - from the Gods?  Even Gods' souls?

There were only a handful of possibilities, only a small number of entities capable of such a feat.  And Hamil took a moment to consider all the possibilities.

There were powers in the universe even greater than Gods, but those were not well known for subtlety.  The higher powers were more embodiments of uncontainable force, not delicate manipulators.  If one of them were actively killing deities on Na'Ril, they would not be playing games of hide and seek with their prey - they would be lashing out, with no effort whatsoever to disguise what they were doing.  Even the shadow elves would leave behind clear evidence that they were the ones killing Gods, not hiding behind shrouds of imperceptibility. 

So if it were not the higher powers of the universe at work, that left only two possibilities: the Gods themselves or perhaps one of the demonic powers.  Perhaps a third, if the totem powers ever took an interest in mortal affairs.  The latter certainly had the power to do this kind of thing, but they simply had no interest in the affairs of anything beyond the natural world - so unless one or more of them had drastically changed their ways, they could not be the culprits.  Which left the Gods or demons.

Like a set of interconnected links in a chain, a theory suddenly snapped into Hamil's mind. Everyone was so focused on the fact that this Mariabelle Goodsmith had not been one of the Pantheon's faithful, that they had completely looked past the other things in her life that made her special.  And though none had found anything especially poignant in her own past, she
did
have a connection to one of the other oddities:
Nathaniel Goodsmith!
  The one mortal who could not be detected by the Gods - a confessed agent of the Pantheon - shared the surname of the mortal woman who had been preserved by the Pantheon!

There must be the connection there!
Hamil thought passionately. 
Mariabelle is related to Nathaniel, and somehow Nathaniel has some value to the Pantheon.  So what they are doing has nothing to do with a display of power, at all - it's all being done for Nathaniel's benefit!

The why of it was not there yet, but there was common ground here - there was a connection between Nathaniel and Mariabelle.  And it was enough of a connection that the Pantheon had come out of hiding to save to mortal shell of Nathaniel's...  what?  Sister?  Wife?  Certainly not his mother, since the two were of an age.  But there was something to be learned here, of that Hamil was absolutely certain.

Discover the connection between Nathaniel and Mariabelle, and maybe - just maybe - everything else will fall into place!

With this thought in mind, Hamil let go of this one physical manifestation of himself and moved it elsewhere...

*     *     *

Malik paced the halls of his domain in fury.  The dark, twisting maze of corridors offered little solace to his raging spirit this day.

Nathaniel Goodsmith had been slain!  And with his death, all of his carefully wrought plans were about to be undone!  The mortal had been a fool, a faithless heathen who had defied the will of the Pantheon at every turn, but he had needed to stay living for a time longer - because the man still possessed
First
!

What use was creating his own Avatar, if the tool to
make
the child an Avatar were hidden away? The Gods could not sense any of the swords - that had been part of their enchantment to keep them out of the hands of the New Order Godlings.  But the only mortal who knew where
First
was would have been Nathaniel Goodsmith - who had just
died
!