Three (The Godslayer Cycle Book 3) (11 page)

Malik stopped his pacing and stood rigid in one spot.  Physically, his hands clutched in tight fists, his rage building uncontrollably.  This version of himself was the only form where he could let his rage manifest - all of his other forms were under the scrutiny of his fellow Pantheon members.  In fact, even now one of his myriad selves - a female counterpart - was calmly listening to the debate amongst his fellow Gods over the implications of their fallen Avatar within the Pavilion.  Only here in his own demesne was he provided the privacy he so desperately needed to explode as needed over this catastrophic setback.

“And here I thought you were the God of War,” came an unbidden voice from behind the Lord of Strife, “not of Tantrums.”

Malik did not need to turn to face his unwanted intruder to identify the errant deity.  “Ankor,” he growled.  “You are most unwelcome.”

“Normally, I am
such
a respectful fellow,” chuckled the invasive God, “and under normal circumstances, I would gladly leave you to your conniption fit--”

“Ankor!” bellowed the God of War, turning upon his unwanted guest, intent on expelling the intruder from his home with unmeasured force.

“--but-I-just-saw-Nathaniel-Goodsmith-blown-from-the-face-of-Na'Ril!” finished the New Order's God of Mischief rapidly as he took a step back defensively.

Malik paused, the flaring power subsiding from his body.  Potential of something to gain momentarily ebbed his rage.

“Thought you'd like to know about that,” smirked Ankor, shrugging.

“You witnessed it?” asked Malik cautiously.

Ankor's head bobbed eagerly.  “I did.  I was there.  Saw it all for myself.”  The mischievous God crossed his hands behind his back and stood on his toes as a child might.  “Thought seeing your
agent
blown up was a big deal.”

“Indeed,” responded Malik cautiously.  “What did you see?”

Ankor cocked his head to the side, still balancing upon his toes.  “So you didn't see it yourself?”

Malik considered a moment before responding.  “We all knew that Nathaniel was gone,” he confessed.  “None of us were present for it.”

“Well, it was a sight, that's for sure!”  Ankor began to rock back and forth on his heels.  “Your boy started to beat up on a little girl, and she killed him in an instant for it!”

“A girl?”  Malik scoffed.  “Do you expect me to take you seriously?”

A gleam appeared in Malik's eye, his rocking motion coming to an abrupt stop.  “A girl with a sword, unless I miss my guess.”

That
caught Malik's attention.  He realized too late that his face must have registered the open astonishment that he felt, since Ankor's face lit up with satisfaction.  As best he knew, Nathaniel's sight had not been triggered, which meant that a new sword had not yet woken.  “You're sure?”

“As much as I can be,” admitted the God of Mischief.  “Since none of us can actually see the swords themselves.  But your boy swung something at the girl, and something stopped it in mid-swing.  And then everything blew up, and Nathaniel went...”  Ankor pressed his finger tips together, then spread them outward quickly, “...blooey!”

Malik felt a degree of urgency.  None had been watching Nathaniel, so no one could have saved him.  But if Ankor knew where his body lay...?

“I see that look,” broke in Ankor, shaking his finger.  “You aren't gonna be able to make another divine mortal this time.  There was nothing left of your boy after the girl finished.  Even his shoes got blasted to nothing!  Even with his bloodline tied to your girl under glass, you can't restore dust.”

The brief hope of restoring Nathaniel to life faded as quickly as it had sparked, but Malik could not avoid the scoffing chuckle emerging from his throat.  “There's no blood shared between man and wife, fool,” he muttered absently, his mind trying to work through any remaining options. 

“Avery said she had also destroyed one of your swords, too,” confided Ankor, leaning forward conspiratorially.  “That it blew up with Nathaniel.  He was pretty upset about it.”

It made sense to Malik.  The only thing which could have conceivably destroyed one of his swords
would
have been another of the swords.

“Where's the girl now?” demanded the War God.

“Gone.  Vanished right after.  And I can't find her either.  She's as gone as Nathaniel is.”

“So what you're saying,” said Malik through gritted teeth, “is that you have nothing useful to say beyond the fact that you saw it happen?”

Ankor visibly thought about this, then bobbed his head, grinning all the while.  “Pretty much, yeah.”

“So you're now going to leave me alone, aren't you?”

The smile vanished from Ankor's face.  “I was sort of hoping you'd have something to tell
me
,” confessed the impish God.  “Like, maybe now that your boy's gone, why he was so important in the first place?”

Malik let a wicked smile spread across his face.  “Not likely,” he practically purred.

Ankor gave a theatrical sigh.  “Well, doesn't hurt to ask.  Still, sooner or later, I think someone's going to tell me.”  A sly grin split the Godling's features.  “Might think about the advantage you'd gain for it being you.”

Before Malik could comment further, his visitor vanished, leaving the God of War to dwell upon other God's parting barb.  Was there something to be gained by being the one to let the Godling in on the truth behind the Avatar Matrix?  The imp already knew of the plan to slay the New Order - at what point did keeping the full scope of the plot against Ankor's brethren a secret begin to work against his own interests?

Malik hated to admit that the other God could have foreseen an advantage he had not seen himself. But it did bring to mind another responsibility.

With barely a thought, Malik created another form and sent it to the mortal realm in search of his own, personal player.  In moments, he found himself standing amongst a copse of young saplings, an advantageous point from where one could see the gathered crowd below.  A young man knelt in the old, dead grass which had sprung up around the small grove of new trees, taking full benefit of the position.

“Did you witness what happened?”

The young man started, but only briefly.  He could not be faulted for being caught unawares - a God's appearance was not something that a mortal could normally sense.  And the young man's inherited talents had not yet been triggered.

“I did,” Geoffrey said, not taking his eyes off the events below.  “My sire is dead.”

“Yes,” agreed Malik.  “Slain by one of the swords.”

“So what now?” asked the young man, his own frustration barely held in check below the surface. “I was supposed to have him lead me to
First
.  How am I going to find it now?”

Malik certainly did not have an immediate solution, but he had no intention of telling his prodigy that.  He had pulled off the grandest of deceptions when he had kidnapped the Goodsmith stripling and secreted him away in a time divergent pocket dimension, but the conditioning he had subjected the child to required absolute faith in the God's own infallibility.  One did not create a weapon like this one by engendering doubt into his psychology.  Now, more than ever before, Malik had to remain in control - and to do that, he could not let the young man perceive his own weakness at being caught unawares.

“It is unfortunate that Nathaniel met his end before our own plans were fully realized.”  Malik placed a strong hand upon Geoffrey's shoulder.  “But all is not as lost as you believe.”

The young man looked back over his shoulder at the God he considered his true father, absolute, unwavering faith filling his eyes.  Malik could not help smiling.  “Nathaniel may be lost to us, but he lived below.  He had a home, shelter, companions.  Any of these could lead you to
First
.  You only need to follow the path fate has provided.”

Geoffrey grinned, his childishness coming out vividly in his features.  “Of course,” he chided himself.  “The dwarf was with him earlier.”

Malik nodded knowingly.  “He and Imery's former cleric are both potential resources you can use to find
First
.  It is your holy quest to obtain and wield
First
.  Did you honestly believe such a holy endeavor would not present challenges unforeseen?”

Geoffrey blushed at the rebuke.  “No, of course not.  I should not have been so easily discouraged.”  The young man bowed deeply, prostrating himself before his God.  “Forgive this mortal's imperfections, Lord Malik.  I shall make atonement for my flaws.  It is my own frailty that permitted me to doubt your grand plan.”

“It is indeed.”  Malik plastered a stern expression upon his face, even while he laughed inwardly at the ease with which such devout fools adopted blame for themselves.  “Imperfection of the spirit is what led your sire astray.  Giving his heart room to doubt led to his downfall, for what happened today only happened because of his own belief that he was greater than the will of the Gods.  Let this serve as reminder that it is you who must prove yourself to me, for the moment you forget that, you will only share in your sire's fate.”

The young man pressed his face to the earth.  “I am your humblest of servants, Lord Malik.  Please, I will not fail you again.”

Malik permitted a near audible silence to fall between them before he spoke again.  “Question not my will, mortal.  Your obedience is blind, or you have no worth to me.  Remember that.”

“I will not forget again, Lord Malik.”

The God of War held his position for a moment longer, then vanished from sight.  But he did not leave - he only shifted his presence so the mortal child could not see him.

It took Geoffrey Goodsmith several minutes before he worked up the courage to raise his head, small pebbles and threads of grass plastered to his face where it had been pressed into the ground.   Believing his God departed, he raised himself up and brushed away at the tears that had leaked from his eyes.

There was no hesitation in the young man's movements in what came next.  Quickly, he retrieved his satchel and rooted out a serrated dagger and strip of leather.  He stripped back his shirt, leaving it hanging from his waist as he brought the dagger against his chest, parallel to the multitude of scars already prominently carved across his flesh.  On the opposite side of his chest, a blood crusted piece of leather hung, and without hesitation, the young man ripped it clear with his free hand, forcing the wound below to bleed freely.

“Malik, my father,” said the young man, digging deeply into his own flesh with the blade.  “I have not yet healed from my last lesson, and again I find myself owing penance.”  Fresh blood seeped from the deep wound, and Geoffrey pressed the new leather strap over the wound, returning the blade the surface of the leather.  “May my humble blood letting remind you of my devotion.”  He pressed the blade of the knife again into his wound, burying the center of the leather strip below the surface of his skin, holding it there while it soaked up the lifeblood from the wound.  “May my taking into my body the skin of another being, overcome in conflict, imbue me with the spirit of your faith.” 

A full minute passed as Geoffrey held the leather in place.  “May the binding of this wound provide to you the peace of my heart, for I hold no malice in my heart for you, only love.”  At last, the young man withdrew the blade, the leather now held in place by coagulation.  “May this penance cleanse me in your eyes, and my spirit come to rest in your fields of valor when I at last walk free of this world.”

The young man took hold of his shirt, raising it again over his shoulders.  The blood of his previous wound was readily drunk in by the shirt's fabric, but Geoffrey made a staunch effort to not show discomfort.  “In all I do, I act in your faith.  Forgive me my impurities and grant me the strength to never waver in your service.  To you I give my soul in eternal servitude.  Bless me, for I do this for you and no other.”

At this last, Geoffrey Goodsmith bowed his head in final supplication.  He held this position for several moments, inwardly reflecting upon his devotions.  When he was finished, he raised his head and without hesitation returned the blade to his satchel and threw it to his shoulder.

“Thank you, my Lord, for your blessings,” he said to the wind as he set off at a trot towards the town below. “I will not fail you.”

Malik stood for a moment, looking to where a few drops of Geoffrey Goodsmith's blood had fallen upon the ground.  The side of his mouth turned up in a wicked leer. 

Mortals be such fools.

Bracken felt the entire world freeze in front of him.  The cold, finality of limbo reached out and clutched his heart deep in his chest, stilling the organ with greater rigidity even than the granite that had been Bracken's legacy a lifetime ago.

And then the dwarf's lungs betrayed him, and he inhaled sharply, raggedly taking breath as his lungs fought the constriction of his chest.  His lungs drank deeply, unbidden - but the lungs could only take in so much before his diaphragm forced it all out again.  Like a great rubber cord that had been stretched to its limit, the air reversed direction and rushed from his lungs.  But it did not escape alone.

Bracken's roar was primal, raw.  It carried the weight of mountains and avalanches, the voice of the great underworld from which the dwarves had been birthed.  In this one bellow, the exiled dwarf embodied all that it was to be a primordial force of nature.  It was rage mixed with grief tainted by pain - a deep and incredibly fundamental agony that even this great discord could not come close to embodying.  There was so plainly more that was unable to be expressed, yet this was all his mortal frame could expunge from his soul.

As the echoes of his cry rumbled into the distance, Bracken's axe blade fell with such force into the earth at his feet that it shook the ground in synchronicity with the reverberation through the air.  The ground where the blade bit visibly rolled like water at the initial impact, then warped back towards the intrusive scythe which had breached its shell.

Bracken had no more strength left.  He collapsed to his knees, oblivious to all else around him, his mind unwillingly flashing back to scenes of the past.  He so did not want to remember, but his soul needed to keep the wound raw.

When Bracken Hillfire first came to Oaken Wood, he was only looking for a community that was far enough from the beaten path that he would not be found, yet with enough trade to support a business all the same.  He had spent nearly five years traveling the surface world by that point, earning coin by delving into caves, lairs, ruins or any other hideaways for the denizen races of Na'Ril - essentially, anyplace where treasures lost and stolen could be recovered. 

In the surface world, the dwarf had been known as a delver, called an adventurer by some.  He had joined up with parties of others of like mind, taking on great risk to seek treasure by force from renegade bands who had either outright stolen it for themselves, or who guarded the dilapidated and otherwise abandoned ruins scattered around the world where lost treasures could be found.  Five years of this incredibly hazardous work had made Bracken wealthy beyond most surface-dwellers' imaginations. But it had never erased the ache the dwarf had carried in his heart, no matter how many hostile opponents he had overcome.

In spite of his proficiency for battle, at heart, Bracken was a peaceful soul.  All he had ever dreamed of was to mine his father's claims, and to one day delve after his own ore and gems.  His clan had not even been amongst the merchants who would travel to the surface to barter the minerals away - he was at heart a worker, not a speaker of words, and all he ever desired was to be a miner until the end of his days.

Bracken's brother had set him up to fail by convincing his clan that he was guilty of patricide.  He had not slain his own father, but everyone he had ever known believed he had.  And so his hopes for a simple life had been shattered.  There was no hope of peace when one was condemned of being a sire-slayer.  And so Bracken had fled - abandoning his true name, his heritage, his people.

Life upon the surface was not something the refugee dwarf had ever planned for.  He had no love for humans, with their short life-spans and fickle pursuits.  But he had needed to survive, and his innate strength had been his greatest asset.  The greatest obstacle to this however was the double-edged sword of prejudice.  Just as he cared nothing for humans, humans distrusted a rogue dwarf in their midst, as well.  So even the most basic jobs - simple labor, construction or even cleaning out a horse's stall - were reserved for the vagrant surface dwellers and denied to Bracken by virtue of his race.

Falling in with a band of delvers had really been a stroke of good fortune.  Delvers saw great worth in the axe-wielding outcast that others simply did not.  It helped that delvers by nature were often outcasts themselves, but at the end of the day, it was really the only path Bracken had short of becoming a thief to survive.

Spending his time with so-called adventurers was one of convenience for Bracken.  Though he spent five years moving from one band to another, he never truly formed any real affinity for any of their members.  It was work, a means by which he could live a somewhat comfortable life in his exile, and little more. 

While in the company of the Wyrms, his final delving band, they had come upon a map to the mythical city, Drae Elbus.  Drae Elbus had been an ancient civilization of utopian splendor, said to have been lost to demons being set loose upon its citizens hundreds of years ago.  Though its location was well-enough known, many a delving party had been lost seeking to plunder its lost wealth. 

There were even roving bands of a loosely formed militia group known as the Knights of Drae Elbus formed for the express purpose of keeping intruders away from the ruins, fearful of what could be unleashed.  Stories told that the Knights were descended from the survivors of the lost city, but no one knew if there was any truth to it.  The map which the Wyrms had found purported to lead through a passage under the walls of the city and into Drae Elbus' depths, bypassing the Knights altogether.

The map had proven true - in so much as it had led to a passage not guarded by the Knights.  What the map had not told was that the passage had not been built to provide external access to the fallen city; it had been built as an escape route, designed to seal itself behind should anyone use it.  Presumably, it had been created as a point of egress - one which would seal behind anyone escaping the city.  The architect of the passage clearly had not thought of someone using it to enter, so that when a large wall fell behind the Wyrms halfway into their exploit, it presented the very real danger of having their own escape cut off.

Once within the walls, the Wyrms had found themselves beset upon by all forms of denizens, ranging from goblins, to draconians, to great beasts none had ever seen beyond the walls of the doomed city.  The band had spent nearly a week fighting for survival before they had managed to escape - but once they had, their journeys through the vaults and passages of Drae Elbus in their quest for an escape had led them to the discovery of more caches of coin and treasure than they could ever conceivably carry. Once they had located and fought their way through a breach in the great city's wall, they had been labored down with a king's ransom worth of riches.

The Wyrms had entered Drae Elbus as a party of ten; they had exited as a band of four.  Two humans, an elf and Bracken himself had survived the adventure - and for Bracken, it had been enough. He had never lusted after the lifestyle as his companions had.  Weighted down with his own share of the rewards, he had declared his life as a delver done, setting out to find some reclusive place to settle, to establish a small business, and live out his remaining days in peace.

Oaken Wood had not been on any map.  It was not a specific location that Bracken had traveled to. It had simply been on a path he had chosen to follow.  He had planned to head into the Wildelands, to find one of the many rumored communities founded by outlaws like himself.  Oaken Wood had simply been on the path to his eventual goal.  But it had all the criteria he had been seeking - and best of all, it had no tavern nor inn.  With trade routes passing through it, it made sense to have one built there, and this had been Bracken's sole motivation for selecting the town at all.  It was just a collection of buildings in the right place along his journey inland.

The dwarf had not expected to form any bonds of kinship with the residents.  He had been a largely amiable member of a number of delving parties through the years without ever forming any true friendships, and he anticipated the same here.  He would be a business owner, but that did not require him to form any bonds beyond that.  Besides - this was a town of humans, and humans had never expressed any genuine affection for dwarves.

That had changed almost immediately.  As soon as Bracken reached an agreement with the townsfolk of where he could build his tavern - an area along the town's border unclaimed by any other - the citizens went out of their way to make him feel welcome.  Where he had been shunned in the larger communities he had traveled through, here just outside the border of the Wildelands, he was accepted without reservation.  The prejudice against his race simply did not exist here - and it had caught the dwarf unprepared.

What Bracken had not understood at the time was that the bulk of his interactions with humans had been with those that had chosen to follow the New Order, a pantheon of Gods which had risen to power some three hundred years before.  They were a divisive lot by nature - each of the Gods jealously seeking to take power from each other, and their faithful emulated this trait.  Their so-called devoted would go so far as to mutilate the flesh of their own kin should they not follow the whims of the divinely appointed representatives in their communities, calling them heretics and transforming them into pariahs of society. 

Bracken had seen it as a path to faith that encouraged prejudice and bigotry, that rewarded the most basic instincts of mortal depravity.  With a society that so readily turned on their own, how could they ever be seen to accept someone who was from elsewhere?

This fanaticism did not exist in Oaken Wood.  It simply did not.  This community was still precisely that - a community.  It existed because its citizens had come together to build their lives together, and they had never been tainted with the doctrine that inspired self-aggrandizement.  It was not because this township had been some last bastion of Old God faith - though there were clearly those who held to the old ways here.  No, it had simply been a place untouched directly by the New Order. 

Certainly, there were those who believed in the New Order in Oaken Wood.  In fact, they were certainly in the majority.  But they held to a simpler version of their faith - in the principles represented by the Gods themselves, not by the mortal apostles who spoke for them upon the mortal plane.

Many came forth to not only welcome Bracken into their midst, but many more contributed to helping him build his tavern.  Though he had more than enough wealth to hire these people, they offered their labor without cost in most cases - and those that did accept gratuity, it was never in the form of coin, but rather in calling upon the dwarf's prodigious strength to help in various jobs on their own properties.  Oaken Wood was indeed a community of equals, and for the first time since fleeing to the surface world, Bracken was made to feel as one.

Amongst the first people who had come to welcome him to Oaken Wood had been the local druidess, Maribel Goodsmith.  She had a pre-adolescent son who came with her at times, but usually her visits were alone.  It had amazed Bracken that a beautiful woman of some thirty-odd summers would feel so at ease with such a gruff-looking person as himself, but she never had a moment's hesitation in his presence.  She was just at ease with Bracken as she had been with the women in the town. 

Of all the people the dwarf had met in Oaken Wood, Maribel had been the one he had come to admire above all the rest.  And after two years of hard labor, when he had completed his tavern - named ironically after his former band - he had even formed a bond with her son, Nathaniel.  In fact, one of the fondest memories the dwarf had years after meeting the lad was when Nathaniel had asked him to just call him Nate - a genuine sign that he had come close enough to the dwarf to have a personalized name.  The dwarf's accent made pronouncing “Nathaniel” sound like a flower, the boy had said.  Bracken had laughed that the boy had even known a flower that sounded like “Nat'anyel” in the first place, but it had been enough to impress upon the dwarf the boy's growth into maturity, concerned about how people saw him, yet shared with the likes of an exiled dwarf.

Nate had spent many a day over the following years in the dwarf's company.  Whenever a traveler would come through who had any experience with the Game, Bracken would get drawn into a match and Nate proved to be a quick study himself.  After a time, Bracken had found himself drawing out his cards even when travelers were not present, to play only with the young man.  And after a year's time, Nate had even been able to hold his own against roving gamers, too. 

Bracken had never had the privilege of children, but he had found pride in his relationship with Nate that he could not have described as anything other than paternal.

When tragedy had struck - when the New Order finally brought its darker ways to Oaken Wood - Maribel had been lost to both Nate and Bracken.  The dwarf felt her loss as keenly as he might have that of a wife, even though there had never been anything closely resembling romance between them. In his surrogate role as a father-figure to Nate, he had also formed a bond with the young man's mother. And losing her had crippled him as surely as if she had been his beloved.

Bracken understood Nate's grief, for he shared it.  There were many who felt Maribel's loss, for she had been a resource upon which the entire community had leaned.  She was an herbalist, a fertility mistress, and even a healer.  But regardless of how much she had value to the residents of Oaken Wood, she represented a personal loss for Bracken and her son, a loss that bonded the two more than they had ever been before.