Two (The Godslayer Cycle Book 2) by Ron Glick

games.  And I so rarely get invited to anyone else's.  You just have to let me play!”
    Galentine and Kelvor exchanged glances.  After a moment, Kelvor shrugged.  “Why not?  We're not going to get anywhere any other way.”
    Ankor immediately leaped to his feet.  “Great!  So what's the prize?”
    “ Prize?”  Galentine asked.
    “ Sure, the prize.  All games have to have prizes for the winners.  Otherwise, what's the point in playing?”
    “ Well, what would you like for a prize?”
    Ankor thought for a moment, then perked up.  “I know.  The Truth.”
    “But that's what we are all trying to get, the truth,” responded Kelvor.  “How can that be a prize?”
    “ No, I mean The Truth .  Imery's truth.  Or, more specifically, her job.”
    Galentine blinked.  “I don't follow.”
    “So Imery's gone, right?  Her domain is dissolving and soon she'll be just a memory.”  Avery swept his arms around for emphasis.  “But you still need your twenty-four Higher Powers for balance, which means you need someone to handle the Truth.  If I win and solve who killed Imery – be the one who finds the truth in her dying and all – I think it's only right that I should get the job.”
    “ You know,” said Kelvor to Galentine.  “That does make a weird sort of sense.  Even coming from him.”
    “ I'm afraid I have to agree,” Galentine concurred.  “Although we alone cannot decide who takes Imery's place, there must be a Goddess – or God – of Truth.  And I cannot imagine anyone but a Lesser Power taking over.”
    “ So you'll give me the job if I can be better at finding the truth than anyone else?” prompted Ankor.
    “ Well, it would certainly go a long way towards getting the, er...  the job,” agreed Galentine.
    “ Then it's settled.”  Ankor clapped his hands together, bending his head down over his folded fingers.  “I solve the mystery, I get the job.”
    Galentine sighed.  “We make no promises, but that does seem a reasonable request.”
    “Then let me tell you what I know,” the God of Mischief purred.  “See, I was real close to that Avery guy when he left Scollhaven.  And all he would ever talk about was this Godslayer...”
     
     
     

Chapter  3
     
    Leaves danced in the air, swirling in a crescendo of silent chaos.  They darted in equal exuberance towards and away from each other, adding to their performance with impossible rises and falls.  Between their dancing forms, the wind could be seen in gusts of grit and soot raised into the air, coloring the otherwise invisible lines of force that pushed the leaves and other inanimate objects to and fro.
    A storm was coming.  Nathaniel thought the visible manifestation to be an appropriate metaphor for the real tempest brewing unseen.  He knew it was there, and though he could not see the signs as well as the one preceded by the gusts of air, he felt it upon him all the same.
    A God was dead.  There was one less God in the New Order; the perfect balance of twenty-four greater and lesser powers was forever shattered.  He had slain Imery, Goddess of Truth.  As impossible a notion as that was, he saw it with his own eyes, felt the electricity of Imery's final dissolution, became aware the void that the Goddess' absence had left in the aether all around him.  A presence he never before realized had existed was gone.  A function of his plane's reality destroyed, wiped from existence.  There was not even a body left behind.
    And Nathaniel Goodsmith had done it.  The simple recluse from Oaken Wood had taken the life of a God with a single stroke of a magical sword.  Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that such was possible.  Even when members of the Old Gods told him what the swords were capable of, he had not given their words proper merit. 
    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.
    Charith said those words.  She