The God in the Shadows (The Story at the Heart of the Void Book 1)

by TorVald, Nikolas

  Selth lolled on the floor, unable to push herself up after losing the voice and its power. It felt as though her whole world had suddenly been cut down to black and white. There was no vibrancy to it, none of the information which had seemed so overwhelming. Tentatively she reached back out to the voice, simmering and trying to reach her again. When Selth touched it with her mind it flooded back into her, and instantly everything returned to the overload of information that suddenly seemed so necessary. Selth could understand that it might be dangerous to tell Renth about the voice, what it had done, but she wasn’t certain why. That part of her just kept screaming it could prove incredibly dangerous to tell this man what had happened. Selth shoved that thought away though, and with surprise realized that it did go away. She had thought that the voice wouldn’t let her do something like that, but maybe it was less of its own entity than she had worried over initially. Selth pushed herself up off the floor and onto her knees. “I don’t know what it is.” she said, staring at Renth. Even if it might be dangerous to trust this man, he had saved her from a life of horror in the slums. So she would trust him, no matter what some strange part of her said. “But when I listened to it, it was as though the whole world exploded with information, everything I needed to know about everything I could see. It made moving across the floor a snap, it made snagging your keys as easy as walking.” she shook her head in confusion, “I don’t know what it is, but it did the stealing. Not me.”

  Renth tapped his chin thoughtfully and stared down at Selth, a light of curiosity appeared in his eyes where before there had been concern. “That’s interesting.” he said softly, “Very interesting indeed.”

  “Do you know what it is?” Selth asked, looking up at Renth with hopeful eyes, “Can you tell me?”

  Renth stayed in his previous position. “No.” he said finally, “I can’t tell you what it is. But it wasn’t any ‘voice in your head.’” he paused then, staring down at Selth cautiously, as though wondering how much information to give her, “It was you.” he said finally, turning away from her.

  “What do you mean? It was me.” Selth asked, staggering to her feet and stepping towards the old man in shock, “How could it be me, I’ve never stolen a thing in my life!”

  Renth looked down at her, “Well, evidently some part of you has.” he said. His voice was gentle, like that of a man soothing a dog. But there was a hint of wariness in it.

  “How do you know that?” Selth demanded.

  Renth gave a sad smile and reached into his left pocket, “The same way I know this coin isn’t of this world.” he returned the coin to his pocket and gave it a sad pat, “I’ve been trained to recognize anything like it, whether I want to or not. They’re fond of that at the academy, quite fond of that indeed.”

  “You’re a mage?” Selth whispered, seeing Renth in a whole new light. She had never met anyone who could perform magic, and the magi who came out of the academy were the most powerful magic users in the world. In the slums, all sorts of dark rumors had surrounded them, all misfortune was blamed on a mage’s spell and when that misfortune ended, it was thanks to the power of The Provider.

  Renth burst out laughing. “A mage!” he shook his head with amusement, “No. Not a mage, but I could have been one. I could have been one of those stuck up pricks in their towers, pondering over the mysteries of life.” he gestured grandly around him, “Instead I chose this.”

  “Why?” Selth asked, shocked. She had been taught not to trust anything related to magic, but she couldn’t understand why anyone would chose a dingy thieves den over being an all-powerful mage.

  Renth opened his mouth, eyes cast to a faraway place before suddenly snapping back to reality. “Who’s quizzing who here!” he demanded, “I’m not going to spill my whole life story to a slum girl I just met yesterday. You’ve got more things to prove before I let you go thieving!” he spun angrily back to the non-existent counter, “Now pick my pocket and get out that silver coin!” he demanded, beginning his slow shuffle back and forth.

  Selth’s mind kicked into high gear again and she smirked at Renth’s back with amusement written across her face. She’d seen him put the silver coin into his left pocket when he took it out to show it to her just a few moments ago. Even if there were coppers in that pocket the silver mark would be far bigger than any copper. Stepping forward once more, Selth stole across the floor, and waited. Renth passed her going to the right, but she did nothing. As he came back however, her hand darted forward, two fingers sliding gently into his pocket. In an instant, she had located her coin, it was the only silver in his pocket, and before he stepped to the left again, she brought it out.

  At Selth’s call Renth turned back around, shock plain on his face. “None of the others have figured out how to do that. Not even Jonah and Marie and they’ve been stealing with me for five years each.” he laughed out loud, shaking his head in wonder, “If I was still a mage I’d have you back to the academy faster than you could blink and we would be taking apart your head to see just what it is that’s giving you these abilities.

  Selth jerked away in shock, starting to move towards the hole in the roof. Maybe the voice in her head had been right. Maybe she shouldn’t have trusted Renth. This all might have been a huge mistake. “Calm down!” Renth called out, still laughing. “I’m not a mage for that reason specifically. I’d rather scrape by on this meager existence than participate in the horrors the academy allows. So there’s no reason for panic.” he smiled at her reassuringly, “In fact, I’d simply love if we could perform some tests without dissecting you.”

  Selth gave a huge sigh of relief and held the coin out to Renth, “Alright then. Do you want this back first?”

  Renth gave her a quizzical look, “Want what back, child?” he asked patiently.

  Selth jerked back in surprise, what did Renth mean, ‘take what back?’ She looked down at the coin in her hand and nearly dropped it. The coin was glowing a flickering blue color and as Selth looked at it she found that its presence slipped her mind. She had to concentrate to prevent the coin from flickering into invisibility and after a few seconds, she couldn’t remember what she was supposed to have in her hand.

  Not sure why she did it, Selth stuck her hand in her pocket and unclenched it. “Shall we perform some of these tests?” she asked Renth cheerily. He gave a massive smile of anticipation and with that the two of them started practicing again. Renth gave her lock picking tasks, pick pocketing tasks. He asked her questions on how to pick out a mark, questions on which stores were likely to be good targets. When she did everything perfectly he constructed scenarios from his own thieving life and asked her how she would go about committing a theft. Selth’s mind took in all the information she was given and with ease it broke through puzzles and problems that she couldn’t even have comprehended before allowing that voice into her head. There were a few strange discrepancies in her flawless performance though. When asked how to come up with a disguise, Selth was tempted to say, ‘Just take on another form,’ except that didn’t make any sense when she thought of it. Or when Renth asked her how to hide as she moved across an open field Selth’s mind spat back out, ‘draw the shadows around you.’ Except that didn’t make any sense either, how could someone draw the shadows around them? To questions such as that, Selth just had to shrug her shoulders in a manner that said, ‘I don’t know.’ But Renth was just as excited about the things she didn’t know as the things that she did. He genuinely seemed to enjoy teaching the art of theft to young children. The fact that she had a head start of fifty some years on every other student of his didn’t bother Renth at all.

  Whenever Selth got a question or an activity or a scenario right he would burst out with, “the child is simply a genius.” When Selth made a mistake, or couldn’t answer questions or come up with a feasible solution to a scenario Renth would jump up and cry happily, “So, something to teach you then. Good. Good!”

  For three hours he quizzed Selth and for three hours she
answered his questions. Finally, he laughed and waved her to go back downstairs, “It’s been long enough, I wasn’t ready for anything but the key exercise so you can have off until Jonah comes back. Then he’s going to get you lost in the alley maze and you can find your way back here. Oh, and have a bath while you’re still alone down there. The bucket is in the corner and the pump stands right over it, you’re still covered in dirt from the slums and you stink.”

  Selth flashed a brilliant smile, happy to be done for the day, although the comment about her smell was slightly disgruntling. Then she retreated to the ladder and went to the basement. Before she went out completely, she glanced back and saw Renth with his head in his hands, shaking his head in shock and amazement. A broad smile split her lips and she vanished into the basement.

  An hour later, Jonah and the others returned, coats and cloaks stuffed with stolen coins and foodstuffs. They looked over in surprise when they saw her sitting in the corner again, then glanced over to the ladder as Renth made his way down, “Upstairs, in the chest.” he said to the returned children. The six of them went upstairs, talking curiously to each other but Renth motioned Selth to stay where she was.

  He walked over to her and surveyed her closely. “Well well, this is a surprise. I could have sworn your hair was brown an hour ago. Quite an improvement if you ask me.”

  Selth stood up and glanced down at herself, now the clothes Jonah had given her were the dirtiest thing about her. Selth’s skin was pale white, despite her having been outside every day of her life since she was nine. Long, raven black hair swept nearly half way down her back and her green eyes shone out of a beautiful face more brightly than ever before, seeming to burn with an inner brilliance.

  Renth smiled as she examined herself, “Feels good to be clean, huh? Well, don’t expect it to last. Your feet will be covered in mud for a while until you have enough money to buy some shoes, and with all the rain the mud will splash back up onto the rest of you in no time at all.”

  Selth glared at him, angry for ruining the perfectness of the situation but Renth just shrugged and wandered back to the chair she had seen him in initially. He gave no sign that anything special had occurred during their practice session and Selth’s mind was telling her that to imitate him would probably be best. When Jonah came back down the ladder Renth pointed from him to Selth and then jerked his head towards the door. Surprise flitted across the younger man’s features but he shrugged, went over to Selth, pulling her outside after him.

  They wandered silently for a while, then Jonah turned and asked, “How’d training with Renth go? Marie says you were probably so bad he couldn’t take it anymore. But Charles said Renth’s always been super patient. He thinks you must have pissed him off somehow.”

  Selth frowned, “How do you think it went?” she asked him quietly. She wasn’t sure if she should be insulted that everyone thought she had done so poorly or flattered that no one could conceive of someone doing as well as she had.

  Jonah shrugged, “I don’t really know. We’ve never come back when someone else is training to find them sitting downstairs. I’m going to hold my judgment until I find out more. So, again, how’d it go?”

  Selth shrugged her shoulder nonchalantly, “It was easy so eventually he just let me go downstairs.” she wasn’t sure she should have told Jonah that, but he had helped her the previous day, saved her the previous day. She felt like she owed him a bit of honesty at the very least. Selth changed the subject by pulling her hair over her shoulder, “He also had me take a bath.”

  Jonah gave her a curious look, but laughed, “I noticed. I could have sworn you were brown all over before.” Selth smiled happily and was about to start talking but Jonah cut her off. “I’m sorry about Matt by the way.”

  Selth looked down at her feet when he reminded her of Matt, “It’s okay. I almost had a feeling something like this was going to happen when he said he was going outside the city. Like when he left I wasn’t going to see him again for a long time, if ever.”

  Jonah put a hand on her back and they walked on in silence. Eventually they came out onto a busy street. Jonah turned left and brought her towards another alley a ways to the left. “Alright, Renth wants to see if you can find your way back. You don’t get to come back into the house until you find your own way.” Selth glanced up in surprise but Jonah just shrugged his shoulders, “It took me two days when Renth made me do it for the first time. But you’ll be fine. Nobody uses these alleys except for us so you shouldn’t run into anyone nasty.” then he handed her an apple, “This is all the food you get so use it wisely. You go in this alley, I’ll be watching to make sure you don’t come back out of it, so no funny business, like going back to the alley I took you out of. You’re on your own now.”

  Selth smiled up at him, her mind had begun mapping a path through the maze of alleys as soon as Jonah had taken her out of them and she didn’t think it would take too long to find her way back to the path he had taken her down. Without a word to Jonah, she turned and walked into the alley, tossing and catching the apple in her left hand as she went. Calculating how far she had walked to get from one entryway to another, Selth walked the length of the alley, then turned left as it branched into two different alleyways. Moving confidently, she picked her way through the maze that she and Jonah had walked through.

  The mud of the alley’s ground splattered up and soon Selth’s feet and the bottom of her trousers were coated in the sticky substance. Occasionally a rat would stick its head out of the space underneath a house, or scuttle across her path but otherwise Selth didn’t meet another living thing while she was walking. The majority of the houses had no entrance out into the alleys, and in none of them could Selth see a light. Every so often she ran into a dead end alleyway and, recalculating the way in her head, moved back and went down a different path. It had taken Selth and Jonah thirty minutes to get out of the maze, it took Selth longer than she had thought to reach the passageway Jonah had led her out of, but in an hour she was back at the door to the safe house. She pushed it open and went down the stairs. Everyone glanced at her in surprise but Selth ignored them all and walked over to her corner. Someone had dumped some blankets there for her to use. She sat down, pulled them around her and began munching on her apple.

  An hour later Jonah stumped down the stairs. “Well, she’ll probably be lost for a while.” he chuckled as he made his way into the room, then stopped surprised as Charles pointed to where Selth was curled up in a blanket, his face still showing surprise. Spinning, Jonah jumped back, shocked to see her there. “Wha . . How . . .” he tried to articulate. Selth smirked up at him.

  “Our new little prodigy.” Renth chuckled from where he sat in his chair, “You should have seen her at practice.”

  Jonah just shook his head in wonder and made his way over to his own blanket pile. The six original children of the thieving den huddled together and began to talk. Selth half wished she could join them but a part of her knew that they wouldn’t want her company right that moment. As the sun went down Renth blew out the lamps and left to go upstairs. The children bundled lower in their blankets and everyone went to sleep.

  Selth was afraid she was going to have nightmares about Matt dying, or about him coming back to find her missing, but as she drifted deeper into sleep her dreams turned to the man with silver hair and a rich blue suit. He was standing in a fabulously furnished room peering down at a map. Unlike the last time she had seen him, Atlatraigan was wearing a pair of beautiful silver gloves over his hands. As he looked down at the map he kept muttering to himself, “Where are you? Where are you? I know you’re here, but where are you?” instinctively Selth knew it was herself that Atlatraigan was looking for and as the image faded from her mind, her dreams remained filled with the sense of terror that knowledge brought.

  5

  A Day on the Job

  I have watched too many worlds burn for no Just cause. I have stood idle for too long as creation is written and rewritte
n at the will of a mad creature. Though my companions may not agree, I have decided it is for the best, no, it is necessary, to join Shattrenlix.

  – Journal of Tel’arib Dethcalus

  When Selth woke up the next day, Renth deemed her ready to go out with the other children. They were surprised by that, sharing dubious looks with each other, but only Marie seemed resentful – shooting Selth black looks when the others weren’t watching. As she was exiting the house she heard the older girl complaining to Jonah, “Why did you bring another kid to the house, we’re cramped enough as it is.”

  “Just because you don’t want competition for Renth’s admiration doesn’t mean you get to decide whether or not I should bring people back.” Jonah said, half laughing.

  Marie stomped her foot angrily but Selth didn’t listen to the rest of their conversation. She had thought that the house was still plenty spacious with seven children in the lower level. Especially when compared to the space she had had to share with Matt every night for five years. And what did Jonah mean about competition for Renth’s attentions? She certainly didn’t want to get in anyone’s way so soon after joining their little group. Uncertain, Selth followed the other children out of the alleys and together they came out onto one of the broad streets of Redtower. She stepped past the others, looking around her in wonder. From behind her, Jonah called out, “Everyone see what they can get in the next few hours. Then we’ll meet back here and we can divide off the Renth’s half from our own and go out into the city proper.”

  She smiled, her new clothes were nice but seeing what Jonah, Marie, and the others were wearing she felt shabby. Plus, Renth had mentioned shoes the previous day and she wanted to know what it felt like to go about with something covering her feet. Looking around her, Selth saw that each of the children had gone off in pairs. Charles and Johny went together, James and Grace shot off arm in arm towards a different section of the street and Jonah and Marie walked further into the city. Looking around, she saw Charles distracting a large crowd of people while Johny quickly and carefully moved around the crowd, diving into whatever pockets he saw were open. More often than not, he came up with nothing and Selth scoffed at their method of theft, until she saw that James and Grace were trying to do the same thing. Thinking about it, Selth realized that it was a valid strategy; there just weren’t enough people on the street due to the weather. Maybe once the gray skies burned off to Redtower’s usual sunny weather enough people would be out to make such random pick pocketing a useful endeavor. For now it was more than likely that the children would be returning with only a handful of coppers to mark their haul for the day.