One (The Godslayer Cycle Book 1) Read online

  The dwarf leaned down and picked up the card, gasping as he did so. “What kind o' wizardry be this, then?”

  In response, the woman stood and walked over to the pair, bringing her features for the first time into full light. Her hair was long, and hung loosely upon her shoulders, presumably cascading unseen some distance down her back. It's luster seemed to frame the delicate features of her face, though either man would have been hard pressed to identify what exactly about her features stood out the most. In truth, there was an almost masculine quality to her features that somehow only enhanced her feminine characteristics. Her face seemed almost out of proportion, as though some odd sculptor had crafted her face from a dozen different designs ranging from solid masculinity to subtle feminism. Her eyes sparkled as she moved behind Bracken and casually glanced over his shoulder. “It's rather a good likeness, I would think,” she said.

  Bracken felt his face flush, and he rose angrily to his feet. “I coul' care less the artist's flair, lady! I care only fer the truth behin' the wizardry wha' was used to make it!”

  Nathaniel's curiosity was piqued by now. “What is it, Bracken?”

  “No' important,” grumbled the dwarf, slapping the card face down upon the table. “An' I s'pose ya have others like this one, too?”

  “Oh, no,” purred the woman, holding up her hand in supplication. “For now, I imagine, that is one of a kind. You should be honored that she made one in your name. Is that not what everyone who plays the Game thinks about? The day that they might come upon a card with their own name upon it? What one of their own cards might look like?”

  “'Your own cards...'” Nathaniel gasped. “That's a card with you on it?!”

  “That would be dependin' 'pon wha' ya thought o' as me,” grumbled the dwarf. “Tha' card is no' who I be anymore.”

  The woman smiled. “As I understand it, the cards reflect important persons and events from when they are important. Bracken the Hero makes a better card, I would imagine, than Bracken the Innkeeper.”

  Bracken's features twisted in a rage Nathaniel had never before seen in his friend. “An' who are ya tha' thinks she knows me so well? An' wha' trickery 'ave you been about in my place? First a man, then a lass? Don' think I dinna see ya well 'nough when ya came through my doors!”

  The stranger seemed nonplussed by Bracken's outburst, wandering around the table to stand closer to Nathaniel. “Do keep the card,” she said, still speaking to the dwarf though her eyes were fully now upon Nathaniel. “I think it will serve you well. Far better than it would serve me.” At this, the woman grinned. “Of course, one card in a deck does not make for a better deck, but it does add chance to the hand. A chance to return to glory, perhaps?”

  Nathaniel reached across the table in his friend's direction, pleading for Bracken to remain calm. He could almost feel the dwarf's muscles knotted like steel cords even at a distance, and he knew that if he did not do something to diffuse the encounter, the dwarf would be unable to keep from assaulting the woman outright.

  “Milady, you are indeed a woman of mystery,” he started. “And I am thinking that is your intent. But your air is insulting at best, arrogant at worst. May I suggest that all withdraw before one of you regrets the outcome?”

  The stranger beamed. “Well spoken! Well spoken, indeed!” The woman leaned over and took on a more serious air. “Yet the purpose of your original question remains unanswered.”

  The woman remained silent for a few moments, clearly considering whether to say what she would next.

  “Nine to avenge nine,

  to shatter those that follow.

  Powered by the divine,

  defined by mortal hands.

  Awakened in order,

  marked by sign of chance.

  Each will gift its power,

  to the last to wield it.

  Hidden from the eyes of Gods,

  called to the minds of men.

  Only one can follow,

  only one shall unite.

  None shall abide another,

  save for the one before.

  The fate of each,

  and all are one.

  To destruction and rebirth,

  they shall be forever cast.”

  Bracken shook his head, only now realizing that he had been enchanted by the woman's words. He cast a quick glance to his friend, but the look in Nate's eyes was more fire than ensorcelment. Obviously, he had not been bewitched by the words as had he. Yet neither, it seemed, had he been able to interrupt the woman's speech. And now that she had finished, Bracken found himself yet again enraged at having been magicked upon at all.

  “More sorcery!” he bellowed, bearing down indignantly upon the speaker.

  “I...” Bracken's momentum was stopped as abruptly as it had begun by the broken utterance coming from Nate, though he could not later have said why. “I have heard that before... somewhere... I know that... those words...” he managed.

  The woman nodded. Of course you have. You've known the prophecy since you were born. Before, actually. It was part of your conception, born into this world completely with your birthright.”

  “Birthright?” Nathaniel responded. “What are you talking about? I don't have a birthright! I know nothing of nobles or their claims, and I assure you I am no lost son of any throne!”

  “Certainly, you do,” the woman purred. “Were you not listening? You are the one the prophecy spoke of. You are the Avatar.”

  “A wha'?” burst out Bracken.

  “Not 'a'. 'The'. There is only one. At least, there's only one for our purposes.” The stranger pulled up a chair that neither of the friends had noticed before and proceeded to sit without invitation. Bracken still stood where he had come to a stop in his abbreviated rush upon the strange woman as Nathaniel leaned forward in his own chair expectantly.

  Close up, the woman seemed of indeterminate age. Her hair and skin suggested the vibrancy of youth, yet her eyes told of a far more worldly existence. There was an aura about her, unmistakable at close quarters, one that seemed magnetic with her sharp blue eyes and golden locks. Even her clothes, at first seeming merely common cloth, gave the appearance of being almost regal in quality when closely inspected. Bracken had experience with things of magic, and the hairs upon his neck and chin bristled in its presence, as they most assuredly did now.

  “Okay, so wha' is the Avatar?” Bracken asked, feeling the unmistakable urge to defend his friend.

  “A servant of the Gods,” answered the woman. “An emissary, if you will, between the divine and mortal realms.”

  Nathaniel felt his own face flush now. “I do not serve the New Order now, nor can you ever compel me to. You are mistaken if you think some small poetry will sway me against my nature, for I have learned it upon hard lessons since I was barely able to lean against a grown man's knee!”

  The woman's eyes seemed to sparkle with glee. “I am pleased beyond measure to hear those words. For the Avatar must never serve the interests of the New Order.”

  Nathaniel was taken aback. “But you just said...”

  “I said,” interjected the woman, “that the Avatar is a servant of the Gods. I said nothing whatsoever of the so-called New Order.”

  Bracken's features blanched at the meaning of the words spoken, and his friend's face paled visibly. “You mean the Old Gods?” Nathaniel managed weakly. “But they've been dead for centuries now...”

  The woman smirked. “If you wander into the trees for a time and are not seen by other men, do you die without recognition?”

  “Ya be sayin' the Ol' Gods be no' dead?” Bracken asked. “I be thinkin' ya woul' be havin' a hard time sellin' such snake oil ta the masses, 'speci'ly wit' one of the new clergy in residence. The Ol' Gods, if no' dead, 'ave certainly left this world behin' a long time ago. And asides, I would be thinkin' this talk, eit'er way, has b'come a bit too treach'rous to go on wit'in my pub. I woul' thank ya fer yer input on my frien's dream, unwanted as it may 'ave been, an' bid ya to
kindly take yer leave now.”

  A wicked grin crossed the woman's face momentarily, but it soon vanished and she bowed her head. “As you wish, sir dwarf. This is your domain and I shall respect your wishes. But know you, young Nathaniel Goodsmith,” and at this, the woman's eyes were again intent upon the young man, “it was no dream what haunted you, but a foreshadowing. You saw what was, you witnessed the awakening of One and, as you say, your life will never be the same again. It would be best for all if you planned to bid farewell to all you know now, before it is too late to do so.”

  Before either man could speak in protest, the woman rose, pulled her cloak around her shoulders and made to leave. Yet she paused before she walked away, keeping her face averted from the two. “You are needed, young sir,” she spoke, her head cocked ever so slightly down and to her side. “Far more than you realize. And you will be called upon to fulfill your debt, whether you wish it or not.” At this, the woman walked across the room to the door. “We will meet again, Nathaniel. We will. And soon...” came her voice as she disappeared out the door and into the street beyond.

  Bracken relaxed visibly once the woman had gone from his sight. It had almost seemed at the end that she might retaliate for the dismissal and every fiber in his being had stiffened in defense. There was an obvious mystical quality to the woman's presence and dwarves had a natural aversion for such things. It had taken a great force of will to summon the words he had and the effort had left him drained. Had the stranger refused, Bracken knew he would not have been able to raise a finger in his own defense. And this personal admission shook him to the core of his being.

  Hesitantly, Bracken touched the card lying on the table. It was real and there was no mistaking its import. Whoever the strange woman had been, she knew who Bracken was. And more, she knew Bracken's past. He had thought he had escaped it, yet here it was, upon a card of the Game, no less, immortalized for any to see. And no matter what the stranger may have said, where there was one, there would be more copies of the same. So was it a trap? A warning? Or was someone from his past searching for him even now? No answer would sit well with him, nor could he see a positive resolution to the conflict he knew was forthcoming.

  “Goo' riddance to bad rubbish,” Bracken muttered, pocketing the card and turning his mind from the suggestions it imposed.

  Nathaniel however only stared after where the woman had passed from the room. “I'm not so sure...” he mumbled at last.

  “Ya listen ta me, Goodsmith,” snarled the dwarf. “I 'ave known my fair share o' trouble an' tha' one reaks o' it, through an' through. In case ya di' no' recognize it, she was usin' magic ta control our minds, force us ta listen ta her words. An' anyone that can so eas'ly charm a dwarven son is no' ta be trusted!”

  “Even so...” mused Nathaniel. The young man turned to his friend, intensity in his eyes. “I have heard that verse before. I'm not sure where, or how, but I know it. It's like I've always known it! And now I can't not recall it, word for word...”

  “For certain, 'cause she used magic ta ingrain i' 'pon yer brain!” Bracken reached over and tapped two thick fingers atop Nathaniel's head for emphasis. “It be part o' the spell!”

  “No, it's more than that,” responded Nathaniel. “As soon as she began, I knew what she was going to say before she said it...”

  “Still par' o' the magic...”

  “I'm not so sure,” protested Nathaniel.

  “'Gardless,” said the dwarf, finally taking a seat again, an exasperated sigh gushing from his lips as he did so. “I be thinkin' i' is yet more cause tha' ya be 'pon your way back ta tha' refuge o' yers. As welcome as yer comp'ny may be, somethin' ill is stirrin' and i' be sighted 'pon you. First, tha' damnable priestess and now some intolerable witch o' some sort, both wit' eyes for Nate Goodsmith. If I was ya, I would be no' wantin' ta be waitin' 'roun' for the third sign. I would be puttin' some distance 'tween myself an' this town 'fore 'nother 'arbinger 'scended 'pon ya ta stop ya from goin' 't'all!”

  Chapter Three

  Birds twitted from branch to branch overhead, taking advantage of the bright, warm day to do what birds do on such days. They frolicked, they fed on berries, and they filled the forested countryside with their intermittent warbling calls. Below on the ground, insects and rodents scurried amidst the underbrush in search of their own purposes. In the distance, something larger could be heard, if not seen, moving away from the foreigner who traveled through their domain.

  All seemed right with the world, at least on the surface. All the creatures of the forest acted normal, and Nathaniel knew that if something were amiss, they would be the first ones to sense it. And yet, in spite of this, he still felt there to be an underlying wrong somehow to it all. It seemed that none of what he saw nor heard was real, only some facade perpetrated for him alone. But the real truth was something else entirely, something he could not imagine at all. Or perhaps he had just become more acutely aware of something inherently wrong within himself, and this tainted his view of everything else.

  That strange woman back at Bracken's place had certainly unnerved him. The Wyrm's Fang had attracted its share of odd visitors in its time, for certain. Up until four years ago, Nathaniel had actually lived in town and had witnessed quite a few oddities himself. Only Bracken himself knew how many had come before Nathaniel had begun frequenting the tavern or since he had moved his family out of the town proper, moving into the property he had inherited from his mother. Yet this stranger was unique upon them all.

  She was using magic, Bracken had said. Such a foreign idea to commoners in these lands, yet not completely unknown in the world. There were entire cities dominated by magical forces elsewhere in the world, or so it was said. And even the citizens of Oaken Wood themselves had born witness to the occasional miraculous feat performed by a wandering priest or side-show mystic. The New Gods restricted magic's use, but it could not abolish it. Clergy spread the notion that magic was the holy venue of their Gods, but there were still mystics and witches who practiced the art. And, of course, the New Order could do nothing to influence the ways of the elves, the dwarves (even though they themselves shunned magic for the most part) or any of the other non-human or magically spawned races scattered across the land. It would have been easier to stop the sun in the sky than to abolish magic from the citizens of the world.

  Still, magic required some degree of skill for a human to use, some degree of practice and proficiency. Or, at least, this was always what Nathaniel had been led to believe. All the bards' tales seemed to agree upon this point, at least, if nothing else regarding magic: spells and incantations needed complicated gestures, mystic words and odd materials to draw the energies forth to accomplish even the smallest success. A man did not simply will a thing done; it took some underlying procedure to call magical energies to accomplish it. And this woman had shown no sign of doing anything uncommon at all. She had only recited a... what? A poem? A verse? What would one call what she spoke?

  In spite of this rationality, some base sense told Nathaniel that the dwarf was right. The stranger had possessed an unmistakable quality that could only have been see as magic. Her very presence had commanded attention and belief in what was said that went far beyond charm and charisma.

  Had it been only the stranger, though, Nathaniel would only be half as troubled on his walk home. That damnable priestess, as Bracken had called her, had shown a peculiar interest in him that seemed to defy logic, as well. He could still feel the hot prickles upon his flesh where she had run her nails across his chest. Had she marked him in some way by doing so? Was that why his skin flushed when he thought of the intimacy that touch had suggested?

  You are a married man! he scolded himself. No matter how attractive the priestess had seemed in that all-too-brief lowering of her guards, she had no hold upon him, body nor soul. She was a woman, one with great potential for beauty and allure, but he felt no love for her, only sympathy for the life she had chosen to lead. Surely, she would be happier followi
ng her feminine instincts than the harsh restrictions of that truth-besotten Goddess, Imery. There was passion in that woman that no religious fervor could ever satisfy, thought Nathaniel.

  He scolded himself again. These were not his thoughts, not the proper thoughts of a committed man, and he wanted nothing more than to banish all thoughts of the priestess from his mind. Yet he couldn't help wondering as he tried if perhaps too many had put her from their minds in order to turn her upon the path she followed in the first place...

  “'Intolerable mystic', indeed,” came a man's voice from around a turn in the path ahead. “Dwarves can be so narrow-minded, at times! For such a creative race, and they are inspired in their workmanship, I can assure you...”

  A few steps took Nathaniel to where he could glance the road ahead through a break in the trees and for a moment caught sight of a man pacing back and forth across the center of the path. Not that the path was all that wide to begin with – in fact, the man's pacing consisted of little more than two broad steps each direction before trees at the edge of the path forced him to turn around and pace the opposite direction. His garb would have suggested he might be a ranger, with the leather clothing and bracers he wore, but his manner suggested just the opposite of those stealthy men. “And dense! Why, the sky could reign fire upon the world around him and he would be more concerned with the cinder in his beard!”

  The next few feet of the path obstructed his view, as denser foliage intruded. The man was only out of sight for a few minutes, yet by the time Nathan cleared the trees, the man had ceased his pacing and stood leaning against a tree, one leg raised bracingly against the trunk. The initial appearance suggested that the man had not even seen Nathaniel approach, with his eyes closed and his head back. A quick turn of his head and slight opening of his right eye quickly dispelled the illusion, however. “And that's who you would call a friend? To him you would go to sage advice about a dream?”