One (The Godslayer Cycle Book 1) (9 page)

This last had won over most of his brethren, Airek could see.  Yet one question still persisted in his mind.  “It seems all quite reasonable and well planned.  But nothing you have described so far is beyond your power alone, Malik.  Why then was it necessary for Charith to empower the swords and not you alone?”

Malik visibly blanched.  It was Charith who answered.  “There was one other safeguard we created.  We needed assurance that the swords could be well guarded against whatever the New Order could devise.  So it was necessary for my sphere of influence to be used in empowering the swords, to give each sword power enough to slay a God.”

Commotion broke out from all sides at this.  Malik and Charith stood as calm islands amidst the raised voices of their fellow Gods, most denouncing such radical thinking, at least one voice playing advocate for the need.  Airek heard it all, her Godly senses able to filter order from the chaos surrounding her.  But what she did not see was the contemplation on the face of another of her fellows, though she would forever after curse that; though it had registered, she had paid it no heed.  It was not until the very essence of Na'Ril was wracked by the sudden inundation of power that the Pantheon silenced themselves long enough to take notice.

“
What has happened?” demanded Airek, turning accusation upon Malik.  The Lord of Strife, however, was just as visibly confused as most of his fellows.  The answer instead came from an unexpected quarter and in a most uncommon way.

“
Nine to avenge nine,
” Dariel's voice echoed,  “
to shatter those that follow.
”

“
What are you doing, Dariel?!” demanded Malik, shaken himself by the power that now surged through them all.  Dariel's features remained blank however, his eyes vacant, his voice carrying over his brother's.

“
Powered by the divine, defined by mortal hand.
”

“
He's prophecizing!” shouted Karmel.

“
Awakened in order, marked by sign of chance.
”

“
Stop him!  We'll be bound by his prophecy if we do not!” This from Elgoth.

“
Each will gift its power, to the last to wield it.
”

Airek and Malik both rushed across the theater.

“
Hidden from the eyes of Gods, called to the minds of men.
”

Malik reached the Baron of the Dark first, shaking him roughly.  “Stop, you fool!”

“
Only one can follow, only one shall unite.
”

“
What is he talking about?  What one?  That's not part of their power!”  Malik turned a beseeching eye upon Airek who now took Dariel into his own grasp, wrenching him from Malik's.  Dariel remained as unaffected as before.

“
None shall abide another, save for the one before.
”

“
Wake up, Dariel!  Stop this before you utter something that will undo us all!”  Airek screamed into Dariel's emotionless face.

“
The fate of each, and all are one.
” 

Airek looked on helplessly as he waited for his doom to be cast upon the next words uttered.

“
To destruction and rebirth, they shall be forever cast.
”

If there would have been more, none knew because it was then that Malik struck out with a magically summoned blade, destroying Dariel's form.  Dariel's body dissolved around the blade only to materialize in feminine form a moment later to the side unharmed.

“You were too late,” smirked the Goddess of Deception.  “The prophecy is complete.”

Airek blanched.  “Dariel, what have you done?”

* * *

Nathaniel's awareness returned and the sense of being divine quickly fled, leaving him realing.

“Relax,” spoke a voice he now recognized without any aid, though his mind still rebelled at the notion.  Though his form had once again shifted to feminine, there was no mistaking who hovered somewhere nearby.  “You will be yourself again in just a moment.”

As awareness of his surroundings more fully returned, he realized he was lying on his back, his head cradled in the woman's lap. 
Woman!
  he thought. 
Not a woman, at all!

As Nathaniel opened his eyes, the once stranger nodded knowingly.  “I believe you are ready to ask that question now.”

Nathaniel knew the answer before he asked, but his mind still needed to hear the words.  “Who are you?”

The Goddess smiled.  “I am Airek, Goddess of Charity and Greed, and presently your guide to the path of the Avatar...”

One
lay against the side of a tree, propped up so as to stand with its hilt upward against the bark.  So many things about this sword mystified Avery, not the least of which knowing that the sword had a name.  And what kind of sword
had
a name, anyways?

The previous night, Avery had moved to a place in the woods far enough removed from where the trio of townsmen had last seen him so that if they returned, he would not be caught unawares.  But even after settling himself, laying out his thin blanket and setting the sword to a safe distance from his body, still he could not rest.  He had stayed awake shivering the rest of the night, too afraid that the men would return or the sword itself might do something malicious while he slept.  It was not until the haze of morning began to show over the horizon that he finally drifted off from exhaustion.

He had slept through most of the day afterwards and awoken to find the sword precisely where he had left it.  He had half expected to have it vanish in the light of day, or perhaps to have moved on its own to some place other than where he had laid it.  Avery was not certain whether to rejoice or despair over that.  The sword had not apparently made a last desperate grab for his soul, so he presumed it must be safe.  Still, the idea of a heretic with a sword invited all kinds of hardships upon him.

All Avery could think to do was stare at the sword, now sheathed in its black leather scabbard, lightly glistening in the light of day.  The scabbard appeared perfectly smooth, as though freshly polished rather than recently pulled free of the wet and damp earth.  Leather left in the ground for any length of time would have rotted, corroded or been infested with mold.  However, this piece showed  no sign of corrosion nor even of the dirt for that matter.  Had Avery not himself pulled the blade from the ground, he would have thought the pair fresh from a store or, at the very least, a private collection.

His eyes kept being drawn to the intricate designs imprinted upon the scabbard, identical to those etched upon the blade itself.  If he stared long enough, he could almost perceive three individual designs within the pattern..  It seemed to Avery that three separate individuals had scribed their own patterns upon the blade, one atop the other, and then matched the designs precisely into the leather of the scabbard.  When he would try to focus upon one or another though, or if he looked away for even a fraction of a second, the three merged into one indistinguishable design again, the individual patterns dissolving.

What am I going to do with it?
Avery asked himself yet again.  He had lost count of how many times he had run the same question through his mind, or even spoken it out loud.  Plain and simple, it was against the law for a heretic to own a weapon.  He could neither sell nor barter it for much the same reason, since even having it to offer meant he asserted a rightful claim to it in the first place.  He also could not gift it.  He could just leave it somewhere, but there was a part of him that he knew would be constantly plagued by the loss of such a magnificent piece without something to show for it.

In the end, that was the main reason, and Avery could not deny it to himself: this was a rare opportunity to gain something, to provide some degree of security for himself in the remaining years of his life.  He had lived a life worse than the lowest urchin for nearly five years now, and in that time he had known cold, hunger, pains and degradation.  And here was a means through which he should have been able to receive some kind of compensation, a means by which he could arrange to purchase some degree of comfort.  Of course, he would by necessity have to hide more than the basest amounts of money he might obtain, or he would surely be robbed of it.  But if he could find some way to profit off of this windfall, he could set himself up, if not comfortably, at least with more than he had now.

Avery had been a barter for almost the same period of time as he had now lived as a heretic, and in that time, the sense of being able to assess the value of an item had been inbred into him.  He knew not to throw away a valuable treasure such as this.  Even without the blatantly obvious magical qualities of the blade and scabbard, he could not let go of the thought that there
must
be a way to profit from his good fortune.  He only had to sit here long enough and he would think of it.

Unfortunately, there came a time when Avery could not sit and stare at the blade any longer.  He was hungry and thirsty, for one, and his body ached from being rigid for so long.  And most importantly, his brain simply hurt too much from thinking!

Normally, Avery would have spent the daytime either foraging or, if opportunity presented itself, pilfering food.  He was still near enough to the town he had been chased from last evening that a pillaging run presented a realistic prospect, but he was more than a little reluctant to go back there so soon.  Even if he would not harm a soul therein, those men last night had thought he might and they would be watchful of him if he went back, and likely would have told others to be on guard, as well.  They might not recognize him as the burglar they thought him to be, but he was a transient
and
a heretic, and he would be treated with harsher scrutiny than normal with his bungled sojourn of the night before.

Today though had not proven normal.  Not only had he slept away most of the day, but he had spent near the remainder staring without purpose at a priceless relic that may as well have had no worth at all for all the good it did for
him
.

Carefully, as though merely touching it might scald him, Avery hefted the sword by its hilt.  Despite its size it turned out to be rather light.  He moved the sword in an arc in front of him, testing how easily the blade flowed, even in his own untrained hands.  He barely even noticed its shifting weight, at all.  In fact, it almost seemed a natural extension of his arm rather than a foreign object.

The scabbard itself, he noticed, had a loop hole in it where a belt or such could be threaded through.  It was meant as more than just an ornamental piece to be hung upon a wall then, Avery reasoned.  Hesitantly, he took off the rough chord he used as his own belt and ran it through the strap.  The chord's material seemed harshly accentuate to the finely crafted quality of the leather.  But it would make carrying the sword manageable.

The blade was too long to be worn at his side, though, without it dragging upon the ground, so he put his crude harness across his back and chest as he had once seen a fighter wear his.  That man had looked like a warrior, the hilt of his sword visible over his left shoulder, easily accessible to the swordsman.  Avery imagined that similarly adorned with
One
upon his back, he would only look foolish.

A momentary fantasy overtook him as he pictured himself as that magnificent fighter, strolling into town with every eye riveted upon him, not out of suspicion but from awe.  To command that kind of respect just for one's bearing and attire would be a great thing, he imagined.  Who would ever want to challenge him if he wore this sword, branding or no.  He could see the fear in commoner's gazes as he went from street to street, seeing the brand prominently on his arm, yet too afraid to confront such a powerful personage.

Caught up in his own fancies, Avery reached back and drew
One
from its housing, marveling at how fluid a movement it was, as though the sword lent him an inherent mastery of it.  Experimenting, he swished the sword back and forth in front of him, still amazed at how light it was.  Encouraged, Avery made to swing widely, imagining himself cleaving a path through a mass of bodies, carrying the blade from front to back in a left swing, then forcing it back in the opposite direction, reveling in the power he felt, how invulnerable he could be, seeing...

Thunk!
  At the end of the last swing, the sword had suddenly halted in its path.  Turning, Avery cursed at himself as he saw that the sword had interested with a tall trunk that had stood just behind him and to the right.  The blade had neatly cut a good third of the way through the tree before becoming wedged in the wood.

Idiot!
  Avery inwardly spat. 
I've gone and ruined it now!
  Swords were not meant for woodcutting, no matter how finely they were wrought, he knew.

Avery braced his foot against the tree, prepared to heave to dislodge the sword.  Surprisingly though, it took far less effort than he had imagined, the steel sliding fluidly from the tree.

Quickly, Avery ran his fingers over the blade, looking for nicks and warps in the metal.  If the blade were not too damaged, he might still be able to hone out any impairment.  To his shock, however, the blade showed no sign of damage that he could find.  It was exactly the same as before, not even a lingering of sap from the tree marring its surface.  Just as its scabbard had come out of the ground...

New tinglings ran up Avery's spine, his eyes growing wide as the details dawned a new understanding in his mind.  Never had there
ever
been a sword like this, surely!  Unable to be scored!  What a marvelous tool!  And its strength...

Avery looked again at where the sword had cleaved the wood.  A clean cut of nearly a foot was clearly visible where the blade had passed.  How much force had been left in his swing to have done
that!
Truth was, he had not even been swinging it with more than a mockery of effort to begin with!

He knew now that the blade was more than a curiosity.  He was not losing his mind, either.  It
was
a magic blade, just like out of children's fantasy tales!  He had been unseen after finding the sword.  It had
given
him its name:
One
.  And now it had sliced through solid wood as though it were paste without a single trace of harm to itself!

Where could such a sword have come from?  And who could have lost it here in the woods and
not
returned to find it?  And how long had it actually been lost beneath that tree to begin with? 
Had
it been lost, or had it been hidden there for some unknown purpose?  And would someone be coming back for it?

Lost.
  As he thought the word, there seemed a rightness to it, though perhaps not specifically relating to the sword.  Avery could not explain why or how he thought of it, but the more he wrapped his mind around it, the more sure he became of the idea: the sword itself had not been lost, but something connected to the sword had.  Its owner, perhaps?

This line of thinking seemed promising, as though reaching the right conclusion opened up a new awareness to explore.  What kind of man would own such a sword as this?  Surely, a God amongst men...

A God!  That had to be it! 
One
was a
God's
weapon!  That explained its mysterious powers!  But what kind of God would lose his sword?  No, the sword was not lost.  He remembered that.  So if the sword were not lost...  then the God himself?

The realization struck him like a stone to the back of the head: the Old Gods!  Dead and gone for three hundred years!  And this was one of
their
swords, fallen to earth as its master (or mistress, he amended to himself) fell to whatever fate had befallen the entire race of Gods!

It made sense in every sort of way.  If the God that owned the sword had lived, surely he would have retrieved his weapon.  One did not leave such a wondrous thing just lying around, not even a God.  The Old Gods were truly dead then.  Or, at the very least, the one who had owned
One
was.

Avery looked intently at the blade, at the finely etched designs that seemed to be carved some indefinable depth into the steel.  A dead God's sword.  And with the God dead, there was no one to dispute his claim of it now.  No one except the rest of the mortal world...

What power
truly
existed within the heart of
One
, he wondered.  Surely, he had only begun to tap its powers.  For if the sword had been forged by a God to serve his purpose, it
must
possess the full powers of that God within!  Avery could not imagine
what
it could do, but it was power and that was all that mattered.  Even a small sliver of a God's power could make him...

“
A God amongst men...” Avery breathed.

One
would need to be tested.  He could be invincible, but he would not know to what extent if he did not find out.  “I don't suppose you could just tell me,” he asked the sword. 
One
remained as silent as ever, however.

I didn't think it would be that easy
, he thought.  But how to test it?

“
Let's test what we know already,” he muttered.  “You cut into that tree rather nicely before.  Can you do it again?”

 
The strange pair, the shabby man and the elegant blade, approached the tree.  Avery examined the cut, taking note of its angle and depth. 
If I cut above it, and downward to intersect, it will look like a logger's wedge
, he thought.  It seemed important to him for some reason to disguise evidence of what he was doing.  He could not personally fathom any means by which the first cut could have been made into the tree by conventional means, and if he could not, surely anyone else finding the tree would not either.  Because of this, he needed to cut away what he had already done, he reasoned.  Of course, the thought never occurred to him that anyone seeing a tree cut at such an angle so far off the ground would have brought about its own line of questioning anyways.