Two (The Godslayer Cycle Book 2) Read online

  Before this conflict can be resolved, Avery himself appears, having been drawn to the conflict by the mysterious warnings of his scribe, Hamil. Revealing himself to Nathaniel, Brea and Bracken, he is horrified to learn that the tall man actually holds a sword nearly identical to his own, but even moreso by the sudden impulse to destroy the other sword. Overcome by One, Avery attacks mercilessly, believing Nathaniel to be the mythical Godslayer come to destroy him.

  Though fiercely fought, Avery ultimately loses the fight when Nathaniel severs the hand holding One from his arm. Believing that his life would be next to be taken, the would-be-God flees in terror into the night.

  Inexplicably, Avery's delusional wandering is brought to a halt when a voice directs him on how to heal his own wound. Awaking from his delusions, he is amazed to find his wrist healed and Hamil at his side. The scribe denies being the voice who helped Avery save his own life, instead insisting that he was summoned by Avery's need. Avery accepts this, concluding that he had a hidden ally somewhere that clearly wanted him to survive.

  Yet as the two set off to return to Avery's camp and to retrieve Viola, Hamil is revealed to be the New Order God, Ankor, God of Mischief. Avery has indeed attracted a hidden ally, but the self-proclaimed God of Vengeance is oblivious to how close that ally actually is.

  As Avery seeks to retreat with his disguised divine aid, Brea is asked to summon Imery to answer for the murder and abduction of Nathaniel's family. Compelled by her own doubts, Brea agrees and calls upon her Goddess to answer her questions while Nathaniel stands by, hidden from view with One's power.

  Imery responds but is infuriated that her priestess would challenge her and lashes out at Brea irrationally. Bracken steps forward to defend the priestess, but Imery's rage is not quelled. Seeing no other alternative, Nathaniel strikes out with One, skewering the Goddess from behind.

  Imery is inexplicably caught on the blade, unable to escape the power of the sword. As the mortals look on, the Goddess suddenly becomes the center of a storm of duplicate selves. The Goddess' infinite manifestations are drawn back into a singular form, as the Goddess herself is powerless to break free. In the end, the Goddess' form bursts into countless white energy spheres that drift to the earth.

  Brea rushes forward to try to capture the essence of her Goddess, but the energy passes through her hands, disappearing into the ground below.

  Finally, as the last of the substance that had been her Goddess fades from sight, Brea looks up at Nathaniel and calls him, “Godslayer.” She then faints.

  End of Book 1

  Prologue

  “I am told you know things.”

  The man looked up at the speaker with a level of disinterest that almost succeeded in convincing the woman standing over him that he really did not see her. Almost. Yet he had only looked up when she had spoken, so she knew that his vacant look was an act, though for whose benefit she could not say.

  “I said, I am told you know things,” she repeated, hoping for some other response to her words. In that, she was to be disappointed, however, since the man's eyes did not even look in the direction of her voice. For the barest moment, she wondered whether the man was blind – but no, his eyes were focused on something, even if that something was not her.

  The woman pulled out a chair and sat forcefully, leaning against the table so she could more intently look upon the strange man. His appearance was nothing remarkable. He was well groomed and dressed in somewhat common garb. In fact, there was absolutely nothing remarkable about the man whatsoever – save the fact that he was unremarkable in this, of all places.

  “I said--”

  “You are not supposed to be here,” said the man. He neither looked at her nor even seemed to be speaking to her. He just spoke as though he were not speaking to anyone at all.

  This startled the woman. “And where exactly am I supposed to be?”

  The man did look at her this time. “Your path has you in Ecelor, bartering for passage on the sea.”

  The woman grinned wickedly. “You do know things. Before I learned about you, I was planning to sail for the Western Realms. Might be they don't allow outsiders, but there are places one can land that are less... noticeable.”

  “You are testing me. You do not need a ship to travel anywhere.”

  The woman chuckled. “Oh?”

  The man turned away to look across the room of the inn. “I do not test anyone. I only witness.”

  The woman pulled back, placing her hand upon her breast in a mock display of shock. “You've been watching me? Some kind of peeper, watching pretty girls, are you?”

  The man did not react physically, just continued to look across the room. “What is it you want, Alalya Mirnette?”

  The woman scowled, looking around to see if anyone were listening. “So much for you knowing things.”

  The man turned back to her. “You are Alyala Mirnette, though for some time now, you have used the name Dart Herasdaughter. You should not be here.”

  “You said that. Now maybe you can tell me why you keep saying it.”

  The man nodded his head towards the bar across the room. “The man standing there – that is Mansel. He owns this establishment. He has a daughter, Viola. For years, the two have run this inn as a family business, ever since his wife passed.”

  When the man stopped speaking, the woman who called herself Dart asked, “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Mansel should not be standing there.”

  “Stop saying things like that and tell me what you mean.”

  The man looked to the hearth, which had burned down to embers in the warm autumn day. “I see him there.”

  Dart glanced to the fireplace. “I don't see anyone there.”

  The man nodded agreement. “Precisely.”

  Dart clenched her jaw a moment to avoid an outburst. “Precisely what? Why can't you just say something without running around it like a wisp?”

  The man turned to Dart and blinked – something Dart realized she had not seen him do since she had sat down. “He is not where his path should have him be. He is not where he belongs, because his daughter is not where she belongs.”

  “And where is his daughter, this... Viola, was it?”

  The man's features clouded. “She should be there,” he said, pointing to a table two removed from his own. “She should be serving a traveler, and Mansel should be tending the hearth, preparing for the night.”

  “Well, neither is where you say, so I guess you don't know that much, do you?” Dart stood up in disgust. “You were certainly a waste of my time.”

  The man's hand darted out and clasped Dart's wrist. He seemed as startled as Dart herself. “Until a few days ago, I would not have been able to do that. You would not have been here to do that with. Now I see images of what should be moving beside things that are. It is all very... confusing.”

  Dart tried to shake her hand free, but the man's grip was like iron. “Let go, you pervert!”

  The man's eyes looked desperately into Dart's own. “I cannot see Viola any longer!”

  “So what?” Dart asked, continuing to twist in an effort to escape the man's grip. “She probably got wise to your peeper ways!”

  “You know who I am.”

  At this, Dart stopped struggling. “I know who you're supposed to be. But you don't look much like the man I thought I was looking for. You don't even know where people are in the same room you're in.”

  At this the man drew himself up, for the first time showing affront at anything Dart had said. “I know where every person living should be. I know their potential futures. To my eyes, I see them as phantom paths, seeing different choices, seeing the same person in different places. Yet once these paths move into the present, the different paths become one, and the people walking them become solid to my eyes. Yet now I see two paths to everything around me. I see what should be, and what is. Where the futures should become solid, they continue to be ghostlike, while the solid
world is one I cannot predict or know.”

  As the man finished, he released Dart's arm. But Dart no longer wanted to get away. “You are the Witness, aren't you?”

  The man nodded. “So I am called.”

  Dart sat back down, leaning back in her chair. “You're a demi-God.”

  The Witness bowed his head. “As are you.”

  Dart smirked. “You realize this is probably the first time two of us have come together without wanting to kill each other, right?”

  “Not true. Demi-Gods are drawn to each other more than you like to admit. Just because you never meet one without him or her wanting to kill you is not a fault of the rest.”

  Dart slapped the table and laughed. “I can't believe none have tried to kill you. You know too much!”

  The Witness smiled for the first time, a delicate touch to a mouth clearly unused to the experience. “How do you kill a man who knows whenever harm is intended towards him years in advance?”

  “But you didn't know I was coming?”

  The smile vanished from the Witness' face. “No, I did not. You should not be here.”

  “Probably because you shouldn't be, either.”

  The Witness visibly considered this idea. “You may be right. For the first time in centuries, I may very well be affecting the world around me.”

  “Have you ever considered that you always affected the world, Witness?” Dart said. “Just because you chose to do as little as possible doesn't mean you didn't affect how things turned out. People saw you. People knew what your presence meant. And when people were concerned about you being there, they made different choices than they would have otherwise. I know. I've seen the affect you have on places you visit.”

  A look of doubt appeared on the Witness' face. “So you are saying that my purpose was not what I thought it to be?”

  “Not at all. I am only saying that you're affecting the world now is just like before. It's just... well, different. Before, you affected the world by moving from place to place. Now you affect it by staying in one place. The fact that you have not moved on past this place is what drew me here. It is a rumor that spread far and wide very quickly. Within a day and night of your sitting here, it had reached the coast – hundreds of leagues away. And how do you imagine that happened?”

  The man started. “I had not considered...”

  Dart reached out to take the Witness' hand. “Someone wants people to know you are here. And that can't be good.”

  The two lapsed into silence for a few minutes. Dart was willing to wait for the full impact of what she said to draw out the Witness' response. She traded in information, after all, and if the Witness had any idea who could spread information so effectively, it could prove potentially valuable to herself – and if not, it would be a threat she would want removed before it could affect her own business. If the last four hundred years had taught her anything, it was that more could be gained from patience than haste at times like this.

  “I do not perceive a threat against me.” The Witness shifted in his chair, a sign to Dart that for once, the man who knew everything was truly in the dark on something. “Until you arrived, I could not sense that anyone knew where I was, which suggests that this is somehow linked to what happened here.”

  “What does that mean? What happened here?”

  Desperation flared in the Witness' eyes for a moment. “I do not know. That is why I am here – to learn what it is that happened that would change everything so drastically.”

  “Okay, okay,” Dart said, sitting back and waving her hands in front of her face. “Try starting from the beginning. What is so significant about this town, and why did you come here in the first place?”

  The Witness visibly thought about it before he relented. “I sensed something shift. I cannot explain it better than that. I just... felt something I never had before. It drew my attention like nothing ever had before – as though something more important than anything ever before had happened. And it came upon me without me ever knowing it was coming. It... scared me.”

  The admission caused the Witness to draw back physically in his seat. A master of body language, Dart could tell that this topic was not something the man felt comfortable with. More than just sensing something he never had before, the fact that he would admit to something as simple as fear was a form of surrender for him. And it reflected in every nuance of his body as he related his story.

  “I knew I had to witness whatever it was, even though I had no idea what it would be. That is something I have not felt for over six hundred years – not knowing what was coming. So I followed it – whatever it was – here. This is where the change happened, or somewhere very close to here. Regardless, it affected this entire town. I knew it as soon as I came here. This was where I first saw the paths dividing.”

  “You keep saying that. Paths. What does that mean exactly?”

  The Witness blanched. “It is a word I use. It is not entirely real, just that... When a person has a future, there are different places and directions he may be in by the time his future becomes his present. It is like whether a man takes a left or right branch in a road – I can see him potentially on both roads at the same time, as it is possible he could take either way. Normally, I will see one that is less... wispy, I suppose is the best way to describe it. This would be the choice he is more likely to take, but it is not always the one he does. The closer these potential futures – what I call paths – approach the present, the more... solid they become, until the future is the present and it is one firm image that I see.”

  Dart was becoming excited, and she knew it was visibly showing. Yet she didn't care – this man had been a legend to her, the one person in all the world who made her own talents at gathering information seem charlatan by comparison. The Witness just knew things – though no one had ever known before exactly how he knew things. She realized she could very realistically be the first person who had ever learned how it was all done. In the back of her mind, the worth of this information was quickly gaining a value – and it was high enough that she envisioned herself being able to live off the rewards of this one score for perhaps a hundred years or more.

  “But now there are two 'paths'? Two different possibilities, even in the present?” Dart scooted to the edge of her seat in anticipation.

  “Yes. Now instead of seeing one firm present, I see two paths for each person I see – One the world I imagine everyone else sees and another as a phantom image of people moving around where I perceive they should be, where all their paths lead to.”

  “And it all started in this town?” Dart sat back and looked around. “Speaking of which, what town are we in?”

  “It is called Scollhaven.”

  Dart shrugged. “Never heard of it. Must be real backwater.” Dart returned her attention to the Witness. “Nevermind that. You say it all started here? What is so special about this place, then?”

  “For once, I am limited only in what I have heard since arriving. It seems a new God has appeared--”

  “One of the New Order came here? Why here?”

  “No, not the New Order, nor it seems, one of the Old Gods, either. Someone else new entirely.”

  “Well, the Old Gods makes sense, their being dead and all--”

  “The Old Gods are not dead.” The Witness spared Dart another of his rare smiles. “I would know if they had died. I still sense them moving around from time to time.”

  Dart raised her fists to her head and splayed her fingers suddenly outward. “Wow. Mind blowing!” The Witness turned his head sideways to that. “Oh, sorry. An expression from the Western Realms. Means that was completely unexpected, that I was not expecting that. How can the Old Gods be alive? They haven't been seen in hundreds of years...”

  “Not as widely, but they have been seen. Or I would not know of it. In most things, I am not aware of the movement of Gods, for they seem beyond my abilities. But I am aware of mortals who see the Gods. And though there have be
en much fewer who have, they nevertheless still appear from time to time.”

  Dart whistled. “I'm not exactly sure how, but that's got to be worth something to someone.”

  “I would not recommend letting most people know that you are aware of this. Those who have usually do not meet a pleasant end when the clergy of the New Order find out.”

  “Now that I can believe.” Dart wiped her hand across her mouth, pinching her upper lip in thought. Lowering her hand, she said, “Okay, so we have the Old Gods – not as deceased as before – and a new God who is neither Old or New. Do I follow you so far?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, what do we call this new God? And is he part of a pack like the others?”

  “From what I can learn, he calls himself Avery. He claims to be the child of Malik and Charith.”

  “Which would make him... what? A new Old God? Part of a new Old Order? What?”

  “I do not know. But the townspeople insist he preaches that the Old Gods are dead, which I know to be false. So it raises doubts as to whether this new God is really who he claims.”

  “But he's a God though? You're sure of that much?”

  The Witness let out a sigh. “I cannot be sure of anything, but I know I cannot perceive him – so he must be a God, for only a God is capable of escaping my knowing. Yet it seems I am also not capable of sensing the paths of anyone whose life has been touched by him, either. And that is not something I have ever encountered with one of the other Gods before. So it is possible that he may be something so new – so powerful – that he is actually more than a God.

  “That, and one thing more. He claims the New Order's heretic symbol as his own.”

  “He what?”

  The Witness traced the familiar four horned heretic symbol on the back of his own wrist. “He wears the symbol, and insists that any who are his faithful wear it, as well. Apparently, everyone in this town has had themselves branded so that they would fall under his protection.”