One (The Godslayer Cycle Book 1) (32 page)

Malik shook his head to dismiss the thought.  As attractive as it might be to rule unquestioned, he did not relish the idea of assuming any other God's mantle.  At least not while there were nine other blades unaccounted for.  Perhaps after this affair were resolved, he would have to commit more thought to that...

“Now,
this
is a secret!” came a feminine voice from behind Malik.  In undisguised panic, the God of War and Peace whirled about to face the Goddess who had appeared behind him.  “I must say, I never expected you to go against the Pantheon so blatantly,” mused Dariel, “but then, you have always been the most unpredictable of us all.”

“
How did you get here?” growled Malik.

“
Neat trick,” responded the Goddess.  “Part divine, part mortal.  One would never even know to look here if he did not know such a place even existed.  I may have to make use of this kind of planar manipulation myself.  You don't mind, do you?”

“
I asked,” repeated Malik, “how did you get here?”

“
Come now, Brother,” purred Dariel.  “I
am
the God and Goddess of Truth and Deception.  It is in my nature to seek out the unknown and
especially
the concealed.  It was only a matter of time before I learned of your little trick.”

“
I asked you a question,
Sister
,” Malik managed through gritted teeth.

Dariel grinned mischievously.  “Perhaps you guarded against someone coming directly here, but once
you
were here, it was only a matter of finding
you
to find
here
.  And as you know, unless you screen yourself intentionally, we can find each other no matter where we are.”

Malik cursed himself yet again.  He
had
overlooked the obvious.  So confident had he been upon hiding the entrance, he had neglected to hide himself while inside!

“
So,” continued Malik's brother-sister, “what prompted you to create
another
sword?  For I can tell even from here that it is not of the nine I enchanted.”

Malik tried to think of a way to hide what he had done, to think of a way to convince Dariel that it was not as it appeared.  But he knew better.  This fellow God may be just as naïve as the rest, but of all the others, he was certainly at least as devious as he was himself.  Dariel would not be fooled by a light and shadow display any more than he would at this late a juncture.

Malik resigned himself to his confession.  “It is not a
new
blade.  It is the first.”

Dariel's eyebrow quirked.  “Say again?”

“The other nine were cast in the mold of
this
sword.  I created it first, molded the others and kept this one apart from them.”

“
Towards what purpose?”

“
Originally?”  sighed Malik.  “I did not have a set purpose, other than perhaps possessing a safeguard for the others being raised against us.  But after you cast the other swords into the mortal realm, bound up in that damnable prophecy, I was compelled to commit it to the Avatar's use.”

“
By Charith, I assume?” trumpeted Dariel as she drew the connection.  “Only she would have known about the extra sword, after all.”

“
Yes, by Charith,” grunted Malik.  “She believed any Avatar we helped create would still lack any real measure of power against one of the blades.  She decided that the Avatar would need a weapon capable of withstanding the power of one or more of the others.  Now that Goodsmith has agreed to take up his duties, I came here to retrieve the sword and to deliver it unto him.”

“
So why did you not tell the Pantheon of this intention?”

Malik scowled.  “And risk them destroying it out of fear?  I think not!”

“I concede your point.”

“
So, now that you know, what will you do with the knowledge?” asked Malik.

“
Do you mean do I plan to report this to the Pantheon as a whole?”  Dariel's eyes twinkled.  “Hardly.  Knowing is enough for me.  Let the others learn on their own or not at all.  It matters not to me at this point in time.”

Malik breathed a sigh of relief.

“But tell me one more thing,” continued Dariel.  “Can this sword slay Gods, as well?”

“
Not at the moment,” admitted Malik.  “It is not primed.  I thought it best to suppress such power. There are already nine Godslayers out there.  Why loose a tenth?”

“
Wise,” murmured Dariel.  “Very wise.  I assume you will retrieve it from Goodsmith at some future point before someone may devise a means to activate it?”

“
That was my plan, yes.”

Dariel beamed broadly.  “Then I believe I will leave you to your plotting!”  With that, the mischievous Goddess was gone, leaving Malik alone, holding the last and first sword.

That went entirely too well,
thought Malik. 
Something ill will most certainly come of it, I am certain.
  And then Malik himself vanished from the room.

* * *

“Nathan.” Karmel approached his Avatar from behind.  “We must speak.”

Nathaniel turned to glance at the God, seeing the deity for the first time in his masculine form.  It occurred to Nathaniel that he could recognize the Gods in all their forms, even those he had not seen before, but decided it must be a part of the memories that Airek had said were buried within his mind. He quickly looked from side to side to see who else might have taken notice of Karmel.  Thankfully, none had yet, so he turned his attention back to the God.

“I am a little preoccupied to have a casual conversation with a God at the moment, Karmel,” he responded smoothly as he hefted a beam clear of the rubble surrounding him.

The last couple of hours had blurred together for Nathaniel.  After committing to leave in the morning, he and Bracken had discovered that too much yet remained to do to have much hope of doing so.  The Wyrm's Fang still burned in places, smoldered in many more, the liquor stores fueling the inferno and making it impossible to completely douse the flames quickly.  The majority of the disaster had been contained by now though and it had become the sorry task to search for those who had not made it out of the building alive.  So far, two bodies had been recovered from the rubble, burned beyond recognition.

And once this task was done, Nathaniel still had to return home to lay his wife to rest.  He had had to hope that the Gods would watch over her body until he could return.

“
Nathan, you must hear me,” Karmel insisted.  When goodsir Hillfire named Scollhaven as Imery's servant's destination, I traveled there to see what she wanted there.  Nathan, I believe it is where the first sword has surfaced!”

That stopped Nathaniel in his tracks, a board half pried free still in his hands.  “The first sword?  I thought the New Order knew nothing of the swords...?”

“As we all thought,” Karmel acknowledged.  “Yet she has attacked your home and sent her own Avatar onward to Scollhaven ahead of you.  I fear she may know more than any of us thought.”

“
Wait a moment,” said Nathaniel, releasing the board and brushing his hands upon his already soot-covered pants.  “I thought you could not find the swords?  Is that not why you need me?  If you know where the sword is, why not simply go there yourself and retrieve it?”

“
That is why I said 'believe', Nathan,” corrected the God.  “I am not certain.  I did not
see
the sword, but there is a great disturbance  that places a strong suggestion that something of great power has emerged there.”

“
You are being vague again,” muttered Nathaniel.

“
Please do bear with me,” pleaded the God.  “The people there have destroyed a shrine of Galentine, the New Order's God of Honor.  They have nearly all branded
themselves
with the New Order's heresy symbol, the inverted horns.  And there is talk in the streets of the return of the Old Gods, though none of us receives tribute from this town.”

Nathaniel considered.  “It does seem strange.  But nothing speaks to me of being the result of one of the swords surfacing...”

“Nathan, this is all very recent, within the last few days at the latest.”

“
It
could
be coincidence.”

“
No coincidence could surely be so precisely timed,” urged Karmel.  “And with the priestess headed there as we speak, can we afford to dismiss the possibility?”

Nathaniel considered that.  “No,” he grudgingly admitted.  “I suppose we cannot.”

“Loafin' on the job now, Nate?  Jawin' when there be work ta be done?”  Braken's voice startled him from behind.  Nathaniel looked over his shoulder to his friend and received a stark image for his effort.  The dwarf was easily as disheveled as he was himself, his friend's once proud beard burned and singed beyond repair.  “No' that the lady be no' a fine distraction, but there may yet be life un'er all this, if the Gods coul' spare the lux'ry.”

Nathaniel turned his head sharply to see that, indeed, Karmel had reverted to her feminine form when he was not looking.  The Goddess bowed her head.  “I fear there are not, good dwarf.  The butchers were quite thorough.”

Bracken stared open-jawed for a moment before placing his hands upon his hips defiantly.  “Wha' a sour thing to be sayin', lass,” grunted the now former innkeep.  “I fer one have no' surrendered hope as ye'!”

“
Bracken, I think you should take her at her word,” interjected Nathaniel.  “She would know better than any.”

“
Oh?  An' wha' makes
her
so reli'ble, eh?  She a seeress ya have no' chosen to share your knowin' of ta me?” demanded Bracken.

Nathaniel could only sigh.  “Bracken, may I introduce Karmel, Goddess of Magic and Chance,” he said, hardly believing the words himself as he said them.  How did one introduce a God without feeling foolish?  Of course, he believed who she was, just not that anyone else should.

“Oh, tha's rich, Nate!” guffawed the dwarf.  “Tha'd be one of them
dead
Gods, righ'?”

“
Not dead, sir dwarf,” said Karmel.  “Only absent, by no choice of our own.”

Bracken narrowed his eyes.  “Ya truly 'spect me to buy tha'?  Nate's always been a bi' gull'ble fer 'is own good, bu' I be a tad more seasoned than tha'.  You'll no' be findin' me so easy ta fool, lady.”

Karmel smiled.  “Gelfer would be proud of your loyalty, good sir,” she replied, “even if you would not be so ready to believe it so.”

Bracken blanched.  “How do ya know tha' name?”

“Though the dwarves have long since forgone the devotion to Gods, if not the belief in some demi-Gods who would pass themselves off as better than their station, still you exist within the mortal realm, and as such are subject to divine knowing.”

Bracken blinked.  “She always so vague?” he asked Nathaniel.

“Usually, yes,” acknowledged the man.

Bracken turned back to the Goddess.  “You'll 'ave ta do better'n a name, lady,” he said.  “If you're so pow'rful, prove it.  Restore my home!”

“Oh, sir dwarf,” giggled to Goddess, “you are a trickster at heart!  But though I have the power to do as you say, I am bound by covenant not to do so.  I may not aid a mortal in wealth or fame beyond what they themselves invest.”

“
Fine words,” grumped the dwarf.  “Finer 'scuse to 'void the proof.”

Karmel stepped forward to place her hand upon Bracken's shoulder.  “Though I may not give you back your home, I can restore
something
of which you have lost.”  As the Goddess spoke, the dwarf's beard, singed and soiled, once again became the full growth it had been before the fire had scarred it.  Stepping back, she admired the dwarf.  “A fine beard, indeed.”

Bracken's eyes bulged as he felt the beard literally grow back into place, his hands quickly moving to tug at the new growth once Karmel had stepped away.  “Wha' do ya think you're doin'?” he grumbled as though in panic.  “None fiddles wit' a dwarf's beard, least o' which wit'
magic!
”

“
Would you rather I return it to as it was?” asked the Goddess in amusement.

“
Wha',
more
magic?  I be thinkin' not!”  Bracken snorted, crossing his arms across his broad chest.  “Nate, you need ta teach your lady bet'r manners.  Seems bein' dead has robbed 'er o' 'er wits!”

“
I'm afraid she's well into her habits,” chuckled Nathaniel.  “However, if
you
would like to teach her a lesson...”

“
Bah!” scoffed the dwarf.  “She's no' my 'sponsibil'ty!”

Nathaniel turned serious.  “Bracken, Karmel brings news that I cannot ignore.  I have to leave for Scollhaven at first light, after all.  I know you need to stay to take care of things here...”