One (The Godslayer Cycle Book 1)

by Ron Glick

  “The what?”

  Brea smiled. “Theology. Sorry. The free will doctrine is part of the pact between Gods and mortals. It says that mortals have the freedom of will to choose to which God, or to no God if that is their will, to serve. If a God could simply enter a mortal's mind, he or she could govern that mortal's choices. It is strictly forbidden...”

  “Is it not forbidden for the Goddess of Truth to deceive?” Nathaniel interupted.

  Brea paused, considering. “We have no specific proof she has lied, only – possibly – misdirected us. Truthfully, she did not tell me that she was going to have your wife attacked, nor told me that she was sending me to Scollhaven for any other reason than to seek out information on the false-God, Avery. That much has proven true – there was someone in these parts calling himself Avery, the God of Vengeance, after all. He left his hand behind for you as a reminder, as I recall.”

  Bracken guffawed again. “Peas fer pods, lady,” he grumped. “Don' matter none if she tol' ya the truth straight or sent ya off so's ya woul' na ask. Means she's playin' ya, and us to boot, eit'er way. An' from where I stan', I see's tha' as somethin' o' a lie, e'en one o' silence.”

  Nathaniel nodded. “A lie of misdirection is still a lie. If Imery sent you here and did not tell you the real reason she sent you away when she did, regardless of whether what she did tell you was true, it is still a deception. And to me, that is a lie. From a Goddess of Truth, that seems to me something of a taboo...”

  Brea sighed again. “As I said, it is a matter of somatics – the question is not what she did, but how it is justified within the fine points of her office.” In response to the stern looks she got from both men, she threw up her hands to stay their arguments. “I know, I know. Perspective and theology. There are reasons there are men who sequester themselves away their entire lives to study subjects such as these.

  “Irregardless, it does seem that Imery has been manipulating me. And this does not sit well with me, either as one of her faithful or as her priestess. However,” and at this Brea looked boldly into Nathaniel's eyes in challenge, “I am at a loss as to how you would suggest we handle this. It is not as simple as scolding a child. This is a God we are talking about – you cannot simply punish a Goddess by putting her over your knee and spanking her. How would you suggest either convincing a God, first, that she was wrong, and second, how to see her censured for her misconduct?”

  Nathaniel barely paused before sitting up straight to face the challenge. “I believe I have the means to make certain she would never do this to anyone again,” he said boldly. Looking down, he reached for his newly acquired sword. Avery had called the sword by name – he had called it One. Avery had also seemed to know his own sword, if he had interpreted the madman's words properly – the would-be-God had called Nathaniel's sword First.

  As he picked up Avery's sword, he could feel the emanations from within the sword, almost a pulse that he could barely sense as it entered his palm. And in that resonance, the names somehow seemed right and proper. The swords did have names, and they did, it seemed, have presences. He could feel the difference between his own sword and Avery's, as though some inexplicable sense he could not define could see a difference, as his eyes might have distinguished between two peoples' faces. However, he could now also feel anger pulsing from within Avery's blade. Emotion he had never sensed at all from within his own, and that Avery's not only felt it but radiated it more than disturbed him a little.

  “Avery's sword seemed to have gifted him with his faux-God abilities,” Nathaniel premised. “If his invisibility was from the sword...” At this, Nathaniel drew One from its sheath and immediately disappeared himself. Brea and Bracken were on their feet at once, looking about for their vanished friend.

  “It's alright,” came Nathan's disembodied voice. “I'm here.” At this, Nathaniel reappeared in the same position he had been in when he had vanished, brandishing the sword in front of him as he looked closely at the intricate runes engraved into the blade. “It seems it's simply a matter of wanting it,” he remarked calmly.

  “Ya migh' warn a soul 'for ya decide ta up an' vanish on 'em,” Bracken burst out.

  Nathaniel looked up from his observations. “Yeah, sorry about that,” he said sheepishly. Recovering, Nathaniel turned to Brea. “You say Imery comes to you. Can you summon her?”

  Brea was taken aback. “You want me to summon my Goddess? Are you mad? Assuming she would even come if I prayed for her to, what do you intend to do? She is a God!”

  Nathaniel's eyes hardened. “Imery is the one who ordered my wife slain and my son abducted. She is the one who sent you off as a distraction to lead us away from wherever they have taken Geoffrey. She also knew about Avery, something I have been led to believe even the Old Gods did not know about. Now, I am not saying that Imery set Avery up as a distraction, but she seems possessed of knowledge that she should not have. It seems to me that if any have the answers we seek, it would be with her.”

  Brea paused, considering her words carefully. “This is a God, Nathan. This is not her servant, or a man pretending to be a God. This is a God. You cannot simply command her to...”

  Nathaniel lost his patience. “Just summon her. Let me consider the rest!”

  Brea stared hard back at the tall man, but in the end, it was clear Nathaniel could not be talked out of this. With a resigned sigh, she nodded. “As you will,” she said simply. With those words, Brea moved to sit by the fire, staring into the flames that had so recently been the gateway by which her Goddess had appeared to her.

  As Brea sought to meditate upon summoning her Goddess, Nathaniel turned to Bracken. “I know this is dangerous. I am not a fool. But we need answers...”

  Bracken only reached up, took Nathaniel's arm in his hand, and nodded gravely. There was no need for further words.

  Nathaniel nodded in return and, with a glance over his shoulder at the other mercenary keeping watch at the perimeter of the camp, he vanished.

  Brea meanwhile struggled to find the medium through which she could reach out to her Goddess. Normally, meditation was simple for her. Yet between the inner doubts and struggles of her faith which she had recently been wrestling with, and the knowledge that she was trying to summon her Goddess to answer for crimes she was not convinced any of them had the right or power to hold her accountable for, her peaceful center was simply out of reach.

  It therefore came as a great surprise to Brea when only a matter of minutes into her meditation that Imery's face did appear in the fire, after all.

  “What is it my servant has for me, with such a troubled spirit?” asked the Goddess.

  Brea steeled herself for her response, for she knew the only chance she had of luring her Goddess here in person was to express the very doubts she had been trying to hide all along. “I wish to speak with you, My Goddess. I have questions, doubts about what it is you are having me do...”

  The flame leaped slightly, reflecting the Goddess' irritation. “You would question me?” she demanded.

  “I... I would speak with you, seek comfort in your presence and wisdom,” managed Brea. “I... I am feeling lost and without your guidance...” Brea's throat seized up with the emotion she was indeed feeling at these words. They were blasphemous, and yet they were the only words she could offer.

  Imery's image flickered in the flame for a moment before a warm, soothing smile spread across her features. “My most favored,” she nearly purred. “If you seek my presence for comfort, who am I to decline it?”

  Suddenly, the fire leaped upwards, burning with an intensity that suggested more of a bonfire than a simple campfire. Brea covered her eyes and face to protect it instinctively, though there really was no excessive heat from the display. When she uncovered her eyes, Brea caught sight of her Goddess walking free of the flames and into her presence, just as requested.

  “What is it you would seek comfort in, my child?” asked the Goddess made flesh.

  Brea took a deep bre
ath before starting. “I have encountered the one called Avery and he is defeated,” she began.

  Imery cocked her head in curiosity. “Truly? Yet you have not reached Scollhaven yet...”

  “Avery was upon the road, it seems,” Brea responded. “He sought to ambush us...” Brea paused at her words, not yet sure how to answer for the presence of the dwarf and Nathaniel himself. “I was seeking out the dwarf who followed us when he appeared and attacked us,” she continued.

  “And you defeated him?” asked the Goddess. Imery was not blind to the fact that her priestess was withholding something. All that she had said was true, but there was more that she was not saying.

  Brea pursed her lips, gathering the strength to ask what she next needed to. Raising her eyes in a firm challenge to the Goddess, Brea launched her own assault. “Why did you send me after this false God? Why send me away from Oaken Wood? What is it you are hiding?”

  Imery's temper flared. “What are you trying to say, my priestess? Are you accusing me of something?”

  “You killed Nathan's wife!” Imery blurted out. “You took his son and laid waste to the town and left me to take the blame!” Brea was on her feet now, though she could not recall standing. All her pent up anger and frustration had finally come to the fore, and the very caution she had advised upon Nathaniel was gone in an instant.

  Imery's features raged. “How dare you! How dare you!” bellowed Imery. “How dare you accuse me of crimes!” Imery raised her hand and Brea found herself flung away, crashing moments later into the far side of the path against the rocks there, barely within the light of the fire. In an instant, Imery was at her side, reigning over her in fury.

  “I am your Goddess and you will never question me again! Ever!” With the flick of her wrist, Imery once again threw her hapless servant into the air, this time towards the heart of the campfire. Only the quick reflexes of the dwarf as he flung himself in the way managed to spare her from landing amidst the burning ashes.

  Imery was instantly in front of the pair. Brea barely hung to consciousness as her champion stood over her, holding her bodily in one large hand, his axe wielded dangerously in his other.

  “I give you one warning, dwarf. Stand away.”

  “I be a dwarf, as ya say,” growled Bracken. “Dwarves took down one set o' Gods afore, an' I ain' gonna dishonor a hunerd gen'rations o' dwarves afore me wit' cowerin' down to 'nother now!”

  Imery's eyes blazed with her fury. “So be it!” she spat, raising her hand to launch another attack.

  Yet her hand did not gesture, and her face froze for a moment in confusion. It took a moment to realize that she was being held immobile, that her body had lifted slightly from where it stood. Then the sword became visible to all, as it protruded from her abdomen. Imery, the Goddess of Truth, stood skewered upon the blade of one of Nathaniel's swords.

  Imery shuddered momentarily, her body wracked with the unfamiliar sensation of pain. Her mouth moved, but words would not come from her lips. She grew pale in the next moment as another seizure wracked her body, then she convulsed inwards, her feet lifting off the ground in her spasm. She threw her head back then and sound did come from her throat: she screamed. And it seemed every fiber of existence now shuddered in response to her pain.

  Light burst from Imery's eyes, her mouth, her pores. Ghost images flickered in and out of reality around her, duplicates of her own body, floating in the air around her, equally shivering, quaking and convulsing. Yet these were not simple mirror images – they were duplicates of Imery in every feature and mannerism, yet they each responded independently to the pain that the body skewered on the point of a sword was enduring. As the seconds passed, more and more images appeared, and now it could be seen that they were being drawn toward the physical form of the Goddess. Hundreds of phantom Imery's danced in and out of the firelight, drawn to the plight of the physical version of themselves.

  Yet the images were fighting the pull. Some instinctive reflex in each of the duplicate Imerys somehow recognized that they needed to stay away from the impaled physical form, yet the more they fought, the harder the pull seemed to be. For ethereal creatures, they seemed to be in a life and death struggle with a gravity they could not overcome.

  Then the first of the images came into contact with the physical form, and in a burst of light was sucked into her body. Then another, and another followed suit, and with each form that joined the physical, the greater the pull so that more and more came rushing in, faster and faster until it became a constant stream of ghostly images pouring into the physical body. Clearly, there had been far more images than what the mortals had been able to see in the firelight, for the multitude of forms kept coming and coming, amplifying the scream of the Goddess as they joined their voices to her own.

  Finally, the last spirit that could be seen entered Imery's body, and her scream silenced. For a brief moment, she seemed at peace, cognizant enough to look upon the face of her priestess, who now kneeled upon the ground with tears in her eyes. It looked as though she had intended to say something, to pass along some blissful bit of wisdom. But before she could utter whatever thought dangled upon the tip of her tongue, Imery, Goddess of Truth, simply dissolved in a burst of showering sparks.

  The bulk of the fairie-like energy that had been the body of the Goddess drifted down, while more drifted away as though upon a breeze. Brea heard herself cry out in anguish, rushing to the sight of her Goddess' remains. Desperately the priestess tried to scoop up the dancing, shimmering wifts of energy, trying to clutch them to her bosom, as though she could somehow shelter her Goddess' remains from harm. Yet the energy kept falling from her hands, passing through her fingers as though she were trying to scoop water with a sieve. She could feel the energy, warm and gentle, passing through her physical body, through her skin, through her clothes and into her chest where she attempted to clutch it to her heart. Yet in the end, it all melted through her and finally disappeared into the ground beneath her.

  Within the span of half a dozen heartbeats, the only illumination that remained was from the campfire behind Brea. There was nothing left of the Goddess of Truth now save a memory.

  Nathaniel stood rooted in his place, One still held solidly in the position where it had struck its mortal blow. Inwardly, he could sense the elation the sword emitted at having taken the life of a God. Somehow, Nathaniel thought he would have felt better at what he had done, yet the sheer immensity of the power he had felt flow through him, the gravity of what he had just done weighed upon him as nothing else ever had in his entire life.

  Nathaniel had done the unthinkable. Though the Old Gods had told him the purpose of the swords, what they had been designed to do, to have actually witnessed the death of a God, to have actually been the hand that had taken the life of a God... It was more than a little humbling, and immensely more disturbing. The afterglow of all the energies that had played out before him danced behind his eyelids whenever he blinked, and he wondered if they would ever fade.

  Brea looked up at Nathaniel from where she knelt in the dirt. Her face was covered in grime where she had been attempting to brush away the tears that streamed from her eyes. A mixture of disbelief, anger and awe filled her mind as she looked upon the man who had in one thrust of a sword dispelled every belief she had ever held dear. Here before her was a man, and yet he had not only defeated a God, he had slain one!

  Imery, Goddess of Truth, was gone. Forever. Deep inside her, amidst the doubts and uncertainties that now churned within her soul, Brea could genuinely feel the complete absence of her Goddess as she had never felt before. It was as though the Goddess had never existed, and the sudden void filled her with an ache she could not hope to mend.

  Yet the man who had sealed her fate still stood. Nathaniel looked down to Brea, his eyes pleading for her to say or do something, to help him make sense of what he had just done. Whether from some remainder of her faith or simply shock, tales of myth began circling in her mind, compelling her to name
the demon that now stood before her.

  “Godslayer,” she said, her throat tight with emotion. Then she passed out.

  Epilogue

  The streets of the community were near bare, in spite of its being midday. Where there should have been bustling and industry, even in the small hamlet, the people that could be seen seemed lackluster and dull. It was as though their very spirits had been crushed by some great tragedy.

  The Witness walked calmly down the main street of the town, seeking with his senses for something solid, something reassuring. Yet all around him, reality seemed askew. He could see in his mind how things should have been, see the wagons and the children at play, the women who basked in the sunlight from the upper windows of their rooms. And yet, the reality around him was in every way different.

  Shadows danced before his mind's eye, something he had become accustomed to seeing mirrored with his physical eyes, to see the rhythm of the two sequences moving in harmony, watching the points of convergence branch away, to have them set a path that he would walk through, solidifying as it went.

  Yet nothing of what his mind's eye reflected his real world vision. It was as though he walked through a town of phantoms, for the unreality of his mind made him see things that simply did not exist. Never in all his life had the Witness been so greatly disturbed, and yet at the same time so terribly excited.

  Something – some power – had derailed history, had derailed Fate itself. The destinies of the people in this town had been thrown away, and now a new tapestry was being woven before his very eyes. One of which his power was not yet attuned to.

  The Witness had come to be more than a little callous and unfeeling in his centuries of wanderings, had divested himself of his connection to humanity. He could honestly not recall the last time he had actually even spoken to another living person. So far had he become removed from the real world around him, that he had actually stopped talking to anyone.

  Part of him wondered at that, marveled at the fact that until this very moment, he had not even taken notice. Another part of him wondered at the idea that he had noticed. Something about this place stirred the waters of reality. And the severance of this reality from the one he knew was apparently even affecting the Witness himself.