by Ron Glick
Whereas before, Malik could have strategically placed the swords and had some influence over their use, even if he could not directly sense them once within the mortal realm, now the swords had been cast to chance, allowing whomever found a sword to become something in its use that he or she would otherwise not be. And without any kind of purpose or direction, of course!
At best, the swords were now instruments of chaos, wrecking random spats of disorder and uproar, perhaps – but as weapons against the New Order? There would be a better chance of destroying the Godlings with pebbles! Certainly, the swords could eventually inflict mortalities within the ranks of the New Order, but they could just as easily now slay one of his brethren. Or even he himself!
Malik clenched his fist in frustration. Why were they all so blind? Was it not bad enough that they refused to act on their own, but did they always have to tie his hands, as well? How could they not see that what he did was for the benefit of all? At least when the Father had lived, there was one voice to unite the divisive factions. Now with equal say amongst the members of the Pantheon, important decisions were too often overruled by his short-sighted siblings!
When the Father had been slain, his name had been forever banned from being spoken again lest his memory should resurrect him. Yet even then, when he had aided in that coup, he had done so with the belief that one of the children would be chosen to assume the mantel of leadership. However, as had so often been the case, his will had been overruled and a more democratic order had been established. That he had coveted that position for himself – an aspiration denied him by the shallow perceptions of his brethren – mattered little in the overall scheme of things, of course. Or so Malik told himself.
In the end, Malik had calmed his anger and chosen more obtuse ways to gain his way. And the single most successful way had proven to be secrecy. So long as he acted before the Pantheon could overrule him, the rest could do little but complain after the fact.
The plot with the swords though had been interrupted in only mid-stroke. Malik had only been able to create the swords, not dispense them. Their discovery before they could be placed within the mortal realms was a near catastrophe. That particular plan had had a flaw he had never attempted before though – and he had convinced himself that it was this diversion from his normal tactics that had been his downfall. But in order to accomplish the creation of the swords, he had needed an accomplice. So he had wooed his Brother-Sister, Charith, into being his cohort. Charith had proven far more receptive to the idea once he had explained the premise, since the God and Goddess of Death and Life could not deny the signs; There existed a predisposition that the Pantheon would fall if something was not done. Yet acting between two had made the plot more accessible, and somehow Airek had discovered it.
Self-righteous moron! Malik cursed. Of all the Gods, Airek had always been the most charismatic and influential. In most circumstances, if Airek had supported you in Pantheon decisions, the matter would succeed. If he opposed you, it was sure to fail. The Panthoen may not have had an official overlord, but Airek was as close to a guiding hand as the body of Gods could have without one.
Still, not everything about the plot had been exposed. And Charith had kept her silence on the parts none of the others knew. Yet it had taken promises and commitments to secure that silence. Promises, at least one of which, Malik was gravely regretting.
At last, Malik arrived at his destination. The maze that was his castle was more than just style for Malik. It also served as one of his greater measures of security. Though any God could teleport into any physical aspect of his home, several locations could only be reached by walking the maze in a certain pattern. And only Malik knew the need to walk the maze, and the order in which it was necessary to move.
These special locations existed in a quasi-state, partly in the celestial domain and partly within the mortal realm. Being an immaterial plane that only existed in one plane or the other under special circumstances, these chambers were inaccessible to any other God unless in the accompaniment of Malik himself. Only the will of a God could join different planes of reality into a semblance of existence that was both and yet neither of the two planes. Malik could not help but commend himself for being the only God to have thought to do it, much less devise a use for these pocket spaces.
The night his plot had been discovered, he had brought the nine swords out of such a space to begin locating appropriate candidates. Airek's summons had distracted him. Not knowing the necessity of security for the brief time he would be within the Pavilion for whatever matter Airek had wished to raise, he had left them outside of its protection. And Dariel had seized upon his carelessness to steal the swords for his own scheme. How things could have been different if he had only retained a facet of his consciousness here to dispatch the swords back to their secure location as his other self had attended the summons...
However, what only he and Charith had known was that the nine swords had been progenies of one master template. Malik and Charith had not begun with nine – they had begun with one. And once they had proven the task could be done, had forged nine more from the mold of the first so that they would each be equal in their creation. Yet the extra sword, the tenth and the first – had never been removed from its safehaven, and had gone undiscovered by Dariel when he had stolen the other nine!
Charith had wanted to reveal the existence of the tenth blade once the Pantheon had ruled upon forbidding the creation of other such devices. Malik, as always, saw the error in revealing what could prove to be a method of overcoming the other nine. After all, if a mortal could wield one of the nine against a member of the Pantheon, Malik had reasoned, what other defense could there be other than another such sword? Yet the Pantheon would surely order the sword destroyed if it were discovered, and this Malik could not allow to happen.
The price of Charith's confidence though had placed the tenth sword out of Malik's control altogether. He had finally agreed with Charith to gift the sword to the Avatar once he or she had taken up their role in the prophecy. A mortal, Charith had argued, could not be expected to overcome even a single sword without help. This extra blade could make the difference between whether the Avatar we create is the one chosen by prophecy or another.
So Malik had reluctantly agreed. At least at the time, he had believed the Avatar would end up being one of their faithful, devoted to their cause, capable of being entrusted with this sword, manipulated as necessary. Instead, the Avatar was the upstart Goodsmith, who fought the Gods' will at every turn! And this was the man he had agreed to relinquish the blade to! Almost better to turn it over to the new Avatar and try to get her to turn upon her own Goddess! She would probably be the easier of the two to convert, he thought. At least she knows respect for the divine already!
Yet Nathaniel Goodsmith was their Avatar, for good or ill. And now that the man had agreed to at least take up the swords, Malik had to honor his commitment to Charith. The alternative was to have Charith reveal the sword's existence to the rest of the Pantheon and stand by helplessly as they destroyed it.
Malik felt the shift of reality as he stepped into the nether region. For all intents and purposes, it was a featureless white room with only a single item within: a pure white pedestal at its center. Since it was at least in part of his own domain, he could have willed it to appear as anything, but he had learned early on that too much will exerted on one of these spaces would cause it to collapse, destroying anything within its confines save the God himself. The destruction would not have been immediate, but eventually he would have returned to find the space vanished and the sword along with it had he tried. And so, he left its appearance as it was when formed, save for the necessary feature at its center.
The sword rested upon the pedestal, complete with its leather scabbard. A casual observer would have thought the blade identical in every way to the other nine, but he would have seen his error once he had taken note of the etchings upon the leather, the ones that matched identic
ally the etchings upon the blade within. The largest portion of the runic script was identical to the other nine, for they were the enchantments placed upon the blade by Charith and himself. However, there would be script upon the other blades that would not match the additional script upon this one.
Malik, of course, recognized the differences immediately, for this blade had not been enchanted by Dariel and would not have the scripts his Brother-Sister God and Goddess had placed upon the other nine. The additional script upon this blade had been his own, magics worked into the blade after the fact, designed to link this blade to the other nine, but not to make it subject to the prophecy. Its power would remain largely dormant, since Malik had no intention of giving the power to set the sword's purpose to Goodsmith; only its indestructible qualities would be dominant. Only when all other nine of the swords had been activated would the master blade manifest its power.
By that time, if Goodsmith were successful, after retrieving any of the other swords, he would no longer need this one. Malik could then retrieve the blade at his leisure, even perhaps bring Goodsmith here so that Malik could perceive the blade again, and remove the enchantments that made it undetectable within the mortal realm. Goodsmith would have ample protection once he had retrieved one or perhaps two of the other swords, and Malik's oath to Charith would have been honored. And then Malik would have the protection he needed should any of the other swords be directed against him. Or against the Pantheon, he added as an afterthought.
Of course, there was the possibility that Goodsmith would still fail and that this new Avatar would fulfill Dariel's prophecy. If that were to happen, his handing this extra blade into Goodsmith's care was only adding fuel to the fire. It would be another weapon against him instead of one in his defense. As if nine were not enough...
Malik hefted the blade easily and marveled anew at his own handiwork. If only it were not necessary to send this one off into potential oblivion. How he would enjoy strapping the sword upon himself, just to see the others' reactions. And if they wanted the sword to destroy, would they dare to take it?
No, cursed Malik. As much as I resent the others, I have no desire to remove any of them. And removal it would need to be if Malik intended to keep the sword against the Pantheon's verdict. He would be forced to slay his fellow Gods. Likely, he would end up a sole God, since none of the others could truly abide his possession of a slayer of Gods. Though that idea did possess a certain appeal...
Malik shook his head to dismiss the thought. As attractive as it might be to rule unquestioned, he did not relish the idea of assuming any other God's mantle. At least not while there were nine other blades unaccounted for. Perhaps after this affair were resolved, he would have to commit more thought to that...
“Now, this is a secret!” came a feminine voice from behind Malik. In undisguised panic, the God of War and Peace whirled about to face the Goddess who had appeared behind him. “I must say, I never expected you to go against the Pantheon so blatantly,” mused Dariel, “but then, you have always been the most unpredictable of us all.”
“How did you get here?” growled Malik.
“Neat trick,” responded the Goddess. “Part divine, part mortal. One would never even know to look here if he did not know such a place even existed. I may have to make use of this kind of planar manipulation myself. You don't mind, do you?”
“I asked,” repeated Malik, “how did you get here?”
“Come now, Brother,” purred Dariel. “I am the God and Goddess of Truth and Deception. It is in my nature to seek out the unknown and especially the concealed. It was only a matter of time before I learned of your little trick.”
“I asked you a question, Sister,” Malik managed through gritted teeth.
Dariel grinned mischievously. “Perhaps you guarded against someone coming directly here, but once you were here, it was only a matter of finding you to find here. And as you know, unless you screen yourself intentionally, we can find each other no matter where we are.”
Malik cursed himself yet again. He had overlooked the obvious. So confident had he been upon hiding the entrance, he had neglected to hide himself while inside!
“So,” continued Malik's brother-sister, “what prompted you to create another sword? For I can tell even from here that it is not of the nine I enchanted.”
Malik tried to think of a way to hide what he had done, to think of a way to convince Dariel that it was not as it appeared. But he knew better. This fellow God may be just as naïve as the rest, but of all the others, he was certainly at least as devious as he was himself. Dariel would not be fooled by a light and shadow display any more than he would at this late a juncture.
Malik resigned himself to his confession. “It is not a new blade. It is the first.”
Dariel's eyebrow quirked. “Say again?”
“The other nine were cast in the mold of this sword. I created it first, molded the others and kept this one apart from them.”
“Towards what purpose?”
“Originally?” sighed Malik. “I did not have a set purpose, other than perhaps possessing a safeguard for the others being raised against us. But after you cast the other swords into the mortal realm, bound up in that damnable prophecy, I was compelled to commit it to the Avatar's use.”
“By Charith, I assume?” trumpeted Dariel as she drew the connection. “Only she would have known about the extra sword, after all.”
“Yes, by Charith,” grunted Malik. “She believed any Avatar we helped create would still lack any real measure of power against one of the blades. She decided that the Avatar would need a weapon capable of withstanding the power of one or more of the others. Now that Goodsmith has agreed to take up his duties, I came here to retrieve the sword and to deliver it unto him.”
“So why did you not tell the Pantheon of this intention?”
Malik scowled. “And risk them destroying it out of fear? I think not!”
“I concede your point.”
“So, now that you know, what will you do with the knowledge?” asked Malik.
“Do you mean do I plan to report this to the Pantheon as a whole?” Dariel's eyes twinkled. “Hardly. Knowing is enough for me. Let the others learn on their own or not at all. It matters not to me at this point in time.”
Malik breathed a sigh of relief.
“But tell me one more thing,” continued Dariel. “Can this sword slay Gods, as well?”
“Not at the moment,” admitted Malik. “It is not primed. I thought it best to suppress such power. There are already nine Godslayers out there. Why loose a tenth?”
“Wise,” murmured Dariel. “Very wise. I assume you will retrieve it from Goodsmith at some future point before someone may devise a means to activate it?”
“That was my plan, yes.”
Dariel beamed broadly. “Then I believe I will leave you to your plotting!” With that, the mischievous Goddess was gone, leaving Malik alone, holding the last and first sword.
That went entirely too well, thought Malik. Something ill will most certainly come of it, I am certain. And then Malik himself vanished from the room.
* * *
“Nathan.” Karmel approached his Avatar from behind. “We must speak.”
Nathaniel turned to glance at the God, seeing the deity for the first time in his masculine form. It occurred to Nathaniel that he could recognize the Gods in all their forms, even those he had not seen before, but decided it must be a part of the memories that Airek had said were buried within his mind. He quickly looked from side to side to see who else might have taken notice of Karmel. Thankfully, none had yet, so he turned his attention back to the God.
“I am a little preoccupied to have a casual conversation with a God at the moment, Karmel,” he responded smoothly as he hefted a beam clear of the rubble surrounding him.
The last couple of hours had blurred together for Nathaniel. After committing to leave in the morning, he and Bracken had discovered that too much yet remained t
o do to have much hope of doing so. The Wyrm's Fang still burned in places, smoldered in many more, the liquor stores fueling the inferno and making it impossible to completely douse the flames quickly. The majority of the disaster had been contained by now though and it had become the sorry task to search for those who had not made it out of the building alive. So far, two bodies had been recovered from the rubble, burned beyond recognition.
And once this task was done, Nathaniel still had to return home to lay his wife to rest. He had had to hope that the Gods would watch over her body until he could return.
“Nathan, you must hear me,” Karmel insisted. When goodsir Hillfire named Scollhaven as Imery's servant's destination, I traveled there to see what she wanted there. Nathan, I believe it is where the first sword has surfaced!”
That stopped Nathaniel in his tracks, a board half pried free still in his hands. “The first sword? I thought the New Order knew nothing of the swords...?”
“As we all thought,” Karmel acknowledged. “Yet she has attacked your home and sent her own Avatar onward to Scollhaven ahead of you. I fear she may know more than any of us thought.”
“Wait a moment,” said Nathaniel, releasing the board and brushing his hands upon his already soot-covered pants. “I thought you could not find the swords? Is that not why you need me? If you know where the sword is, why not simply go there yourself and retrieve it?”