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

But as the group sets out, they are distracted by the discovery of a fusang tree - believed to be a branch  of the tree of life and typically reserved as holy by elven tribes, who guard the locations of such trees with lethal force.  So when one of tree's “suns” (also known as will o' the wisps) - spirits which live within the tree - bolts away, Nathaniel goes in pursuit. 

But Nathaniel is intercepted by an even stranger personage - an immortal who calls himself the Eternal, who professes to be moving backwards through time.  He assures Nathaniel that no elves reside near this tree, but nevertheless compels the young man to follow him to learn things he must know.  The Eternal introduces Nathaniel to another immortal known as the Constant, a young man whose form cannot be changed, and to the site of what the Eternal insists was the First City of humans on Na'Ril - one preserved forever in its moment of destruction by a mass known as the Amber.  And worse reveals that the Amber had been a punishment of the Pantheon upon the First City's faithlessness.

Nathaniel agrees to keep the Eternal's secrets and returns to his companions, but as consequence, he needs to draw his companions away from their search for skyfall matter.  Instead, he redirects them, following the road which will lead them to the new sword.

However, though Nathaniel abandons the search, Avery stumbles upon a crater where one of the skyfall pieces has fallen.  While investigating the crater, neither Avery nor Hamil can approach whatever created it, but Viola retrieves a piece of it - a black stone that sends Avery's senses into disarray.  He has Viola hold the item, hopeful that they have found a new weapon to use against the Godslayer.

Meanwhile, in the Celestial Realms, Ankor decides to form an alliance with the Pantheon through Charith - primarily because he does not believe Kelvor or Galentine would keep their word.  He reveals to Charith that the dark skyfall material disrupts magic, and uses the knowledge he has already gathered to leverage a pact with the God and Goddess of Life and Death to save himself from their plot to slay the New Order Gods.

Levitz begins to draw others to its orbit, however.  The Witness has Dart bring him to the town because he foresees the creation of a great wall of water.  Likewise, Gravin arrives only to learn the ship he was after was lost at sea.  Infuriated, he begins to terrorize the citizens, erecting the very wall of water the Witness had foreseen.

On the road to Levitz, Nathaniel is visited in secret by Malik who informs the Avatar that Ankor now knows about the swords, having brokered a meeting with the God and Goddess of War and Peace through Charith, though Ankor has agreed to keep the information to himself in exchange for safety.  Meanwhile, the Trickster himself continues to manipulate Kelvor and Galentine, promising to use Avery as bait to draw in the Godslayer to be dealt with.

Trapped within the town of Levitz, Dart and the Witness try to keep their identities secret while Gavin begins killing citizens, sacrificing their lives to
Two
.  However, Gravin proves to be far more intuitive and recognizes the Witness, believing the demi-God has come to witness his greatness.  Though the Witness tries to convince Gravin to stop killing people, the mutineer continues to do so with impunity.

When Avery arrives at the border of Levitz, he finds himself greeted by militia forces seeking to understand the unnatural phenomenon.  Though Avery attempts to hide his identity, he is soon exposed - and Hamil announces that the military men are in the presence of the God of Vengeance.  Pulling Hamil aside, Avery reveals his suspicion that the scribe is more than he appears, but does not press for more.  Instead, he devises a plan to use the piece of skyfall material to neutralize the wall of water so as to pass and confront whomever wielded the power to begin with.  Avery undertakes to master the stone, in spite of the pain it causes him, and in doing so, uses the stones power to negate magic to let himself and Hamil enter Levitz - though the energy it absorbs destroys the stone in the process.

The Witness feels a God's entry into Levitz, and his announcement aggravates Gravin.  However, when Avery appears and announces himself as the God, the demi-Gods are astonished to sense that it is actually the man behind Avery who is the true God.  Avery seeks to bluff Gravin, but the sword's wielder attacks Avery and seemingly slays the would be God of Vengeance, obliterating his body.

Meanwhile, Nathaniel and his companions finally arrive at the fringes of Levitz, only to learn that Avery has preceded them into the town.  Brea deduces that the only way he could have done so is with the aid of an actual God.  Nathaniel reasons that he can pass the wall of water himself while he holds
One
, and uses the first godslayer sword to enter Levitz himself.

Meanwhile, Avery's soul finds itself in communion with the spirit of
Two
on an ethereal plane of reality, who recognizes Avery as
One
's chosen bearer.  He learns that the swords call themselves the Nine, and that they have plans of their own.  Towards this end,
Two
reveals where all the swords are and an imprecise time when they would all awaken.  Being gifted with this knowledge,
Two
aids Avery by restoring his body - including the hand which had been once severed from his body.  Avery uses this new advantage to wrest control of
Two
and kills Gravin.  Victorious, Avery turns to announce that the Godslayer has also entered Levitz.

Avery confronts Nathaniel, using the threat of the wall of water to get the latter to exchange swords.  Avery retrieves
One
and leaves
Two
for Nathaniel. Before relinquishing
Two
, Avery dispels the water barrier, while informing Nathaniel as well that neither would see
Three
until spring, advising him to head home and rest. 

While the two men stand off, Ankor summons Galentine and Kelvor and sends them to Levitz to face the Godslayer.  The two Gods appear just as Avery vanishes, challenging Nathaniel as the slayer of Imery.  However, in the ensuing battle, Nathaniel succeeds in slaying Kelvor, with Avery appearing out of nowhere to impale Galentine from behind before vanishing again, leaving Nathaniel to face the military presence sweeping into Levitz.  Nathaniel tells the military leader that the threat is vanquished, and that he is returning home - to Oaken Wood.

Ankor himself returns to the Celestial Realms, first securing his pact with Malik and Charith before appearing before a gathering of the Lesser Powers - where he announces that his plan all along has been to remove the Greater Powers so that the Lesser can be the only powers left within the New Order.

Meanwhile, in a pocket dimension, Malik looks in on another of his schemes: a child kept captive, being raised at an accelerated rate to become Malik's own personal Avatar - the child proving to be none other than Nathaniel's own missing son, Geoffrey! 

End  of  Book  2

“There is power in the Game, you know,” said the light skinned man, strumming his thumb along the edge of a deck of cards.  His actions held an almost reverent quality as his digit moved along the cards, exerting barely enough force to bend the cards as it passed, yet not enough to cause any actual sound from their movement.  “All of the world is captured in these cards, and a true master is one who can draw upon the power they represent.”

A second man sat across from the first, flanked on either side by two others.  The man at the center of this group was considerably larger than the others, demonstrating his superiority by virtue of his size more than anything else.  He scowled at the smaller man thrumming his thumb along the edge of the cards. “I'm not here fer yer nonsense, man,” he grunted.  “The Game's just that, and there's nothin' special about those cards beyond what luck you have at yer draw.  Nothin' more.”

A glint flared in the eye of the solitary man.  “You know nothing of the Heart of the Game, my friend.  And that is why you'll lose if you play me.”

The two men behind their larger fellow guffawed.  “Yer yella,” laughed one.  “He's just yella, Nick.”

The large man named Nick bent his head, grinning in a lopsided manner.  “Likely so, but he's gonna play me all the same.”

The smaller man stopped running his finger along the cards and leaned across the table poignantly. “You are not ready.  Please, for your own sake, I implore you.  Do not do this.”

Nick sat back, startled by the emotion behind the other man's words.  He looked about for a moment, noticing it seemed for the first time the silence that had fallen over the tap room.  Though a dozen men and women sat around, not a word was uttered.  All eyes seemed riveted upon the confrontation at this table. 

There was palpable emotion in the air, as well - but not the sadness and regret demonstrated by the card player.  This emotion was dread, perhaps even fear.

Nick swallowed involuntarily.  He had heard rumor that one of the best Game players in all the world had come to Brightening, and Nick was considered the local master.  The fact that the Game was at best played by a mere ten or so people in the town - or that Nick's expertise was largely based upon card manipulation rather than any real skill at the Game itself - mattered not to him at this moment.  He was the best this small hamlet had produced, and he had a reputation to keep.   This was his chance to prove his talent against a real competitor, a necessary step to moving beyond this town.  He was not going to let it pass.

Nick's features hardened over with determination, masking his momentary doubts.  “Coward.  Play me or we'll all know it.”

The man across the table sighed and let himself fall back in his chair.  “Place your deck,” he said simply, laying his own stack of cards upon the table to his right.

Nick leered as he reached into his pocket and produced his own deck of cards.  Unlike the stranger's, Nick's deck showed considerable wear around the edges, many cards warped from water or some other kind of damage, actually raising several of the cards enough to see light through many places in the deck.

The expert's face cringed at the sight of Nick's deck.  “Your cards are marked.  You cannot play with them like that.”

“Stop making excuses and lay your stakes,” growled Nick.

The stranger's eyes closed as he shook his head back and forth.  “If you play me like this, you will lose.  Once you draw a marked card, you will fall.  I beg of you.  Reconsider your foolishness.”

Nick's only response was to glare at the man.  With yet another sigh, the expert player shrugged his shoulders and laid his hand upon his own deck.  “As challenger, you may play first.  Draw your realm,” he said simply, lightly pulling the top card off of his deck.

Nick drew the top card of his deck himself, and flipped it face up above where his deck lay upon the table.  “The Boundless Master,” Nick announced as he read the title.  “I am not affected by any traditions you play.”

The stranger nodded and flipped his own card.  “The Witless Fool,” pronounced the man.  “Your masteries are nullified.”

“Wait, what?” exclaimed one of the two behind Nick.  “That card's a fake!  There's no such card!”

Nick held up his hand to silence his friend.  “Looks real to me.  Just 'cause we ain't seen it doesn't make it fake.”  Nick's own face had reddened slightly at the power of his opponent's card, but he would not lose a match for making a baseless claim of cheating.

The stranger picked up the card and offered it for examination all the same.  “Please, by all means,” he said.  “I won't consider it a challenge.”

Nick hesitated, but still reached across and took the card.  The image on the card showed a man caught by surprise, a whip in one hand while a great maned cat bore down upon his back.  The text of the card read precisely as his opponent had read it, with the story text saying, “It takes more than a whip to master a beast.”

Nick returned the card to its position above his opponent's deck.  “It's real,” he said simply.

The stranger nodded, once again resting his hand upon his deck.  “I will give you one last chance to withdraw.  You clearly do not understand the powers you play with, or the risk you are taking in this match.  If you have never even seen the Witless Fool, you will not have seen most of the cards in my deck.  And I seriously doubt your deck consists of more than random solos that have wandered through your small town from one trader or another.  There will be no theme, no strategy.  And the moment you draw a marked card, the Game will penalize you.”

The stranger's eyes became as cold as steel.  “You cannot play with a marked deck, Nick.  Not against a true player.  You will become the Witless Fool if you try.”

Nick set his jaw, his upper lip rising in disgust.  “Play.”

The other man took a deep breath and let it out heavily.  “Draw.”

As the man across the table drew the requisite five initial cards into his hand, Nick picked up his deck and made to do the same.  But Nick had mastered the art of seeming to draw from the top while his fingers felt for one particular warped card elsewhere in the stack.  He had purposely perforated the side of one card in particular - The Witch of Antethese - and it was the card he needed to disable the Witless Fool.  He knew how to draw it into his opening hand and crush this stranger's plans. 

Nick found his card and waited a moment, drawing four of the five cards he was required to.  The moment the stranger looked down at his own drawn cards, Nick flipped the Witch card from the deck and added it to his drawn cards.  He could not help but smile when he noticed that even someone as practiced at the Game as his opponent had not noticed.  There was something to be said for underestimating someone you thought beneath you, apparently.

The stranger looked up at Nick, his eyes blank.  “Your move,” he said simply.

Nick did not hesitate to slap down his card.  “The Witch of Antithese.  Your opening realm card is destroyed, and you discard three cards.”

A great sadness filled the stranger's eyes.  “I did warn you,” he said.  The man placed his cards on the table face down and did nothing.  He did not move to discard anything, and he did not remove his realm card.  He just sat there, waiting.

“What're you--” Nick stopped abruptly as his eye fell upon the Witless Fool.  “Wait, what--”

The card sitting above the stranger's deck began to move of its own accord.  It almost looked as though it were made of liquid, its surface bowing upwards like a great bubble.  And from that bubble emerged a hand - a hand holding a whip, a whip that began to rotate about the air as though it were alive.

Nick pulled his hand back away from the table, but it was too late.  The whip had reached across the table and somehow bonded to the skin of his wrist.  It had not wrapped around it; it had just...  merged.  Nick twisted his hand, only to find the whip move into the palm of his hand, his fist closing in upon what was now plainly the hilt of the whip itself. 

The large man stood up, throwing back his chair.  He struggled at the whip now in his hand, but his hand would not release its hold.  And the arm extending from the card had withdrawn back below the card's surface, pulled the whip with it.  In moments, Nick found his own hand hovering over the surface of the card, and the next moment he found himself being drawn past the surface of the card.  He tried to scream, to shout, to object - but no sound came out of his throat.  In less time than it would have taken him to draw another card from the deck, the man known as Nick had vanished from the room altogether, having been pulled bodily
into
the card resting upon the surface of the table.

The next instant, something else spat out from the card and a man's body came to rest upon the floor of the tavern.  But it was not Nick's - this was someone whom none in the room had ever seen before.

“Back,” gasped the new arrival.  “I'm back.”

“Yes,” said the stranger, sitting back and lifting the card from the table.  “Because we have a new Witless Fool.”

The newcomer rolled over onto his back, staring helplessly at the ceiling for a moment.  His eyes darted to the card player and panic filled them.  Without another moment's hesitation, the new arrival rolled again, his legs finding purchase beneath him as he raced for the door and out beyond into the street.  Snow gusted into the room as the door opened, then fell away as the door closed.

The stranger turned the card for all in the room to see, and now the man illustrated in the card was one known by everyone present.  Nick was now the man in the image holding the whip and being pounced upon by the lion.

The two men who had been standing behind Nick clenched their fists, one taking a step toward the strange card player.

The stranger held up his other hand.  “You all heard me warn him,” he announced, looking at the other witnesses in the room.  “I warned him specifically that he could not play with marked cards, that the moment he tried that he would become the Witless Fool.  Did I lie?”

“Nick didn't cheat,” growled one of the two men.

“Oh, but he did.  He didn't draw the Witch of Anithese from the top of his deck.  He pulled it from the middle when he thought I would not see.  The Heart of the Game was in play, and he drew and
played
a marked card.  He fell to the Witless Fool.”

The two aggressors exchanged uncertain looks.  “He's a witch 'imself,” said the second, the one who had not defended Nick's cheating.  “He'd change us if we try anything.”

The stranger's eyes rolled.  “I'm no wizard.  I'm just a gamer, and I know the
real
rules of the Game. I said your friend was not ready for this, and I told him what would happen.  If punishment is meted out here, it won't be by me.  It will be the Game itself.  I have no control over that.  But I would like to think that since I gave fair warning and many chances to back out honorably - far more than I was required - that the Heart of the Game would side with me.”

At this, the stranger shrugged.  “But like I said, I cannot say for sure.  If you'd like to put it to the test, I cannot very well stop you.”

The two aggressors exchanged looks again, holding each others' gaze for several moments.  Finally, one of the men let out a sound of disgust and turned, storming across the room and out the door.  As the door opened, a brief flurry of snow blew into the room, falling away again as the door closed behind him.  His companion gave one last look at the stranger, then hurried in the footsteps of his friend.  It took several more seconds for the tension in the room to ease, as there seemed to be an imperceptible sigh of relief issue from the walls of the building itself.

The stranger lightly riffled the sides of his cards for a moment, then made as if to address the room as a whole.  “You two might as well come on over,” he said.  “Might as well get this over with.”

No one in the room moved immediately, but after a brief silence, a short girl rose and walked over to the stranger's table.  A tall dark man stood and followed soon after, arriving at the stranger's table in step with his companion.

“I was not aware you knew who we were,” said the girl.

“You?  Not particularly, though I think I know you by reputation.”  The stranger chuckled.  “Your friend on the other hand...  We all know the Witness.”

“We do?” asked the girl.  “That's funny, because I only met him a few weeks ago myself.”

“Which confirms who you are,” said the card player.  “You're definitely the one they call Dart, the teleporter.  Otherwise, there's no way you both could be here so soon after what happened up north last week.”

“And how would you know what happened so far away?” asked Dart.

The stranger just held up the cards in his hand.  “The Game knows all that happens.  If you know how to listen, you can know, too.  It truly does embody all there is.  All that happens out there,” at this the stranger swept towards the sky with his eyes, “will find its way into a card.  It's just the way of the Game.”

“So are you the one who made the Game?” asked Dart.

“No,” answered the Witness behind the girl.  “No mortal made the Game.  I would know if they did.”

The stranger's eyebrow darted up.  “And you consider demi-Gods to be mortals, do you?”

“We are not immortal,” responded the Witness calmly.  “Long lived, certainly.  But we all die eventually, and that makes us mortal.”