Three (The Godslayer Cycle Book 3)

by Ron Glick

  The stranger looked up at Nick, his eyes blank. “Your move,” he said simply.

  Nick did not hesitate to slap down his card. “The Witch of Antithese. Your opening realm card is destroyed, and you discard three cards.”

  A great sadness filled the stranger's eyes. “I did warn you,” he said. The man placed his cards on the table face down and did nothing. He did not move to discard anything, and he did not remove his realm card. He just sat there, waiting.

  “What're you--” Nick stopped abruptly as his eye fell upon the Witless Fool. “Wait, what--”

  The card sitting above the stranger's deck began to move of its own accord. It almost looked as though it were made of liquid, its surface bowing upwards like a great bubble. And from that bubble emerged a hand - a hand holding a whip, a whip that began to rotate about the air as though it were alive.

  Nick pulled his hand back away from the table, but it was too late. The whip had reached across the table and somehow bonded to the skin of his wrist. It had not wrapped around it; it had just... merged. Nick twisted his hand, only to find the whip move into the palm of his hand, his fist closing in upon what was now plainly the hilt of the whip itself.

  The large man stood up, throwing back his chair. He struggled at the whip now in his hand, but his hand would not release its hold. And the arm extending from the card had withdrawn back below the card's surface, pulled the whip with it. In moments, Nick found his own hand hovering over the surface of the card, and the next moment he found himself being drawn past the surface of the card. He tried to scream, to shout, to object - but no sound came out of his throat. In less time than it would have taken him to draw another card from the deck, the man known as Nick had vanished from the room altogether, having been pulled bodily into the card resting upon the surface of the table.

  The next instant, something else spat out from the card and a man's body came to rest upon the floor of the tavern. But it was not Nick's - this was someone whom none in the room had ever seen before.

  “Back,” gasped the new arrival. “I'm back.”

  “Yes,” said the stranger, sitting back and lifting the card from the table. “Because we have a new Witless Fool.”

  The newcomer rolled over onto his back, staring helplessly at the ceiling for a moment. His eyes darted to the card player and panic filled them. Without another moment's hesitation, the new arrival rolled again, his legs finding purchase beneath him as he raced for the door and out beyond into the street. Snow gusted into the room as the door opened, then fell away as the door closed.

  The stranger turned the card for all in the room to see, and now the man illustrated in the card was one known by everyone present. Nick was now the man in the image holding the whip and being pounced upon by the lion.

  The two men who had been standing behind Nick clenched their fists, one taking a step toward the strange card player.

  The stranger held up his other hand. “You all heard me warn him,” he announced, looking at the other witnesses in the room. “I warned him specifically that he could not play with marked cards, that the moment he tried that he would become the Witless Fool. Did I lie?”

  “Nick didn't cheat,” growled one of the two men.

  “Oh, but he did. He didn't draw the Witch of Anithese from the top of his deck. He pulled it from the middle when he thought I would not see. The Heart of the Game was in play, and he drew and played a marked card. He fell to the Witless Fool.”

  The two aggressors exchanged uncertain looks. “He's a witch 'imself,” said the second, the one who had not defended Nick's cheating. “He'd change us if we try anything.”

  The stranger's eyes rolled. “I'm no wizard. I'm just a gamer, and I know the real rules of the Game. I said your friend was not ready for this, and I told him what would happen. If punishment is meted out here, it won't be by me. It will be the Game itself. I have no control over that. But I would like to think that since I gave fair warning and many chances to back out honorably - far more than I was required - that the Heart of the Game would side with me.”

  At this, the stranger shrugged. “But like I said, I cannot say for sure. If you'd like to put it to the test, I cannot very well stop you.”

  The two aggressors exchanged looks again, holding each others' gaze for several moments. Finally, one of the men let out a sound of disgust and turned, storming across the room and out the door. As the door opened, a brief flurry of snow blew into the room, falling away again as the door closed behind him. His companion gave one last look at the stranger, then hurried in the footsteps of his friend. It took several more seconds for the tension in the room to ease, as there seemed to be an imperceptible sigh of relief issue from the walls of the building itself.

  The stranger lightly riffled the sides of his cards for a moment, then made as if to address the room as a whole. “You two might as well come on over,” he said. “Might as well get this over with.”

  No one in the room moved immediately, but after a brief silence, a short girl rose and walked over to the stranger's table. A tall dark man stood and followed soon after, arriving at the stranger's table in step with his companion.

  “I was not aware you knew who we were,” said the girl.

  “You? Not particularly, though I think I know you by reputation.” The stranger chuckled. “Your friend on the other hand... We all know the Witness.”

  “We do?” asked the girl. “That's funny, because I only met him a few weeks ago myself.”

  “Which confirms who you are,” said the card player. “You're definitely the one they call Dart, the teleporter. Otherwise, there's no way you both could be here so soon after what happened up north last week.”

  “And how would you know what happened so far away?” asked Dart.

  The stranger just held up the cards in his hand. “The Game knows all that happens. If you know how to listen, you can know, too. It truly does embody all there is. All that happens out there,” at this the stranger swept towards the sky with his eyes, “will find its way into a card. It's just the way of the Game.”

  “So are you the one who made the Game?” asked Dart.

  “No,” answered the Witness behind the girl. “No mortal made the Game. I would know if they did.”

  The stranger's eyebrow darted up. “And you consider demi-Gods to be mortals, do you?”

  “We are not immortal,” responded the Witness calmly. “Long lived, certainly. But we all die eventually, and that makes us mortal.”

  “That might change soon,” mused the stranger, flipping a card up for the two others to see. “Are you aware of the Conclave?”

  Dart reached out and took the card. An image of several shadowed figures stood around a glowing circle, the shadows merging to make it impossible to tell how many were actually supposed to be present. The game text stated, “Your opponent plays with his hand revealed.” But it was the story text that made Dart shiver: “The children are coming together. Woe be the fate of the Gods.”

  “I knew of it,” said the Witness. “But it is not the first time our kind has come together to seek revenge. This Conclave will fall apart just as all the other unions have in the past. None of us can reach the Gods, and so our nature will tear apart this group before anything can be accomplished.”

  “Is that something you have seen, Witness?” asked the other man.

  “No,” admitted the Witness. “It is simply a belief based upon what I have seen.”

  Dart placed the card face down upon the table. “We're not part of any Conclave, Pl---” The girl caught herself, blanching. “Sorry, I know you don't like that name. What should we call you?”

  The stranger laughed. “Your information is a little out of date. I know what you all call me, and I have come to accept it. I may only have a handful of decades on this plane of existence to draw on, but I'm beginning to gain some of your wisdom in letting go of my mortal life. Go ahead and call me what I am. I may have been born Laris Montise, but I am as our kind ca
lls me. I am the Player, and that is good enough for me.”

  Dart bowed her head in acknowledgment. “Very well, Player. As I say, we are not part of the Conclave. We are here on another matter.”

  The Player began to side shuffle the cards in his hands as he talked. “I may not be the Witness, but I do know something of what happened with you two. I know there was a great gathering of military around a town wiped from the world, a town that returned after you two were involved. I know you two were at the center of it, but I have not yet found the cards which tell the whole story.”

  “Do your cards tell you that the Godslayer has returned?” asked Dart abruptly.

  The Player's hands fumbled the cards, the deck spilling out across the table. He quickly moved to gather his cards back to him, his face noticeably paled - but whether at the question or his own fumbling, it was impossible to tell. “The Godslayer is a legend. There's no proof he ever existed. How could a fable return?”

  “Have you heard of the new God of Vengeance, Avery?” pressed Dart.

  The Player stopped his collecting of the spilled cards for a moment to look up at the girl. “Some,” he admitted, turning his attention once more to retrieving the last few cards. “He's supposed to be running around with a sword that not everyone can see, laying claim to being a descendant of the Old Gods.”

  Dart leaned across the table, placing her hand atop the Player's as he reached for one of the last two displaced cards. “We've seen one of the swords. The Gods are the ones who can't see them.”

  The Player's eyes flew wide and his face grew paler still. His gaze flirted to the cards in his other hand, then back to Dart. Some kind of comprehension passed over his features before he tried to pull back his passive expression. “If what you say is true, it is proof that the Game truly is made by one of the Gods.”

  “How so?” asked the girl, releasing her hold on the Player.

  “Because if only the Gods cannot see this sword of Avery's--”

  “There's more than one,” interrupted Dart.

  The Player began again. “If only the Gods cannot see these swords, then it explains why the Game does not reflect all of what you say. Because there is no Godslayer card, nor is there a single card with these swords on them. Only if these powers were invisible to the Gods could they be absent from the Game.”

  “But there is a card of Avery?” asked the girl.

  The Player nodded. Reaching beneath the table, he pulled up a leather satchel. The man reached inside the pack and pulled forth several wooden boxes until he found the one he had been looking for. Setting it aside, he returned the others to the bag before he pulled the item he had searched for before him. Reverently, the Player lifted the lid of the box and leafed through the container's contents for several moments. Finally, he selected a handful of items, then once more closed the box. On the smooth lid of the box, the Player laid three cards. One was titled, The Fake God, the second, Heresy Unbound, and the third, The Doomed Sailor.

  “The Doomed Sailor I just acquired a few days ago. It's a new one. The other two, I came across together weeks ago. The first one is about your Avery, the second about the people who are now declaring themselves to his religion. The Doomed Sailor is about Gravin, who wiped Levitz from the world only to have his work undone. There are others I have seen but don't have yet. But these are big ones.”

  “That is not what happened,” said the Witness. “Gravin held one of the swords. He called it Two. He raised a great wall of water around the town. We were there when it happened. It was Avery who defeated Gravin and took his sword, which is what brought down the wall of water. But none of this is what is the most important event we witnessed.”

  “Which is?” asked the Player, now visibly intrigued.

  “There was a God with him,” blurted out Dart. “A real God. One of the New Order, if I were to guess. But the false God has a real God helping him!”

  “No, not helping,” corrected the Witness. “But this God is certainly with Avery. What Avery did, he did with no help from the God himself.”

  “A God helping a mortal pretend to be a God?” The Player's voice showed his doubt. “That goes against everything we know of the Gods. They rely on faith to empower themselves. Why would any God help a man pretend to be a God? Even if it was only minuscule, it would still take faith away from the true Gods, would it not?”

  “I don't know,” admitted Dart. “Neither of us do. It's part of what happened which makes no sense. Which is why we came to you in the first place. No one else in all the world is tied closer to the Game than you are, and we hoped you would have answers we did not.”

  The Player looked between the pair, then about the room at the others who paid silent attention to their conversation. “So what is it that you will not speak of? There's something more, I can tell. I have played against too many players who try to bluff to not recognize the signs.”

  Dart looked to the Witness, who nodded in response. Looking back at the Player, Dart looked deeply into his eyes before speaking. “Has the Game mentioned any dead Gods?”

  The Player could not hide his shock. “Dead Gods?” He then recovered his poise. “Not that I have seen myself. But there is something I have heard rumor of. But the world is full of rumors of cards that have never existed. I never give credence to anything I have not seen nor played against myself.”

  The Player fell silent. Dart's blank stare from across the table compelled him to continue however. “Look, it is like I said. It's only a rumor. Of a card - one card - called The Vanquished. Supposed to be more powerful than anything anyone has ever seen. I don't know much more about it than this: it's supposed to have story text about the defeat of New Order Gods. Two of them, though I don't know which ones.”

  “Galentine and Kelvor,” supplied Dart. “The Gods of Honor and Justice.”

  “And you know this...?” asked the Player.

  “It happened in Levitz,” answered the Witness. “They were killed by the one called Avery and this Godslayer that you say is only a fable.”

  The Player sat back soundly. “Dead Gods...” he muttered. “How is that even possible?”

  “The swords,” responded Dart. “The swords can kill Gods.”

  The Player's eyes went wide. “Do you know what this means? There are ways to kill the Gods! Do you know how much the Conclave would pay for this kind of thing?”

  The Witness scowled. “We are not here to make money.”

  “You're not in this to make money,” corrected Dart. “But I'm with you in not giving it up to this Conclave. We don't know anything about who they are, and I'm a loner besides. I don't play well with others.”

  “But you just told me,” pointed out the Player. “What's stopping me from selling the information?”

  Dart barked a laugh. “We chose you for a reason, Player. You don't think we didn't talk about this before we came to you? We know you rely on information through your expertise with the Game. That is your only salable commodity. But you never sell it. You keep it to yourself. You only share it when you get something in return - like the details of what really happened in Levitz, for instance. You couldn't know it, so you gave us information in exchange for what we knew.”

  “You couldn't have known that the Game would not have that information,” interjected the Player.

  Dart jerked her finger over her shoulder at the Witness, who crossed his arms confidently across his chest. “You're kidding, right?”

  The Player looked between the Witness and Dart several times before he spoke again. “If you knew what I didn't know, why then would you even come to me?”

  “Oh, we knew some things,” offered Dart. “Once the Witness opened his mind to it, we knew that no one has seen anything about what really happened in Levitz. Not from the Game, not from anywhere. Which means only the few of us who saw it know anything - and none of us are talking about it a lot. But we didn't know specifics - we didn't know about how much you knew - about the Godslayer, abou
t Avery, about Galentine or Kelvor. We needed to know what the Game knew, because we think we may have deduced who the real creator of the Game is. And it all relied upon knowing how much information had actually made it into the Game.”

  The Player's mouth opened and then closed without a sound. Swallowing, he deliberately tried to calm his racing heart before he tried again. “Who? Who created the Game?”

  “Who may not have been the best choice of words,” admitted the Witness. “But we now know that only someone who had been inside Levitz could have known Glavin's involvement. And there was only one God who was actually there.”

  “The one helping Avery,” said the Player.

  “The one helping Avery,” agreed Dart.

  “So if you find out who is really helping Avery...”

  “Then we answer the greatest mystery of the last hundred years.” Dart's lips lifted in a sweet smile.

  “Who made the Game,” supplied the Player.

  “And you, of all people, desperately want to know that, don't you?” Dart's smile turned wicked. “And that's how we know you won't say anything to your Conclave. Because that piece of information is more valuable than anything else in existence. And only the Witness and I are capable of finding out.”

  The Player moved his chair back and stood to face his fellow demi-Gods. “My silence in exchange for the truth then?”

  “Oh, more than that,” purred Dart. “You're going to continue to work for us, because this debt is one that is worth a lot more than just keeping quiet. It's worth your life. Which now belongs to us.”

  The Player actively considered the implications of what Dart had said. His freedom, his committed loyalty, possibly for the rest of his significant life. All for this one piece of information.