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

by TorVald, Nikolas

  Selth looked up at Marie, uncertain how to respond, “I’m sorry.” she started to say but a pit of anger suddenly burst to light in her belly, “but I’m afraid I’ll be staying. And for a good long while too because there’s no way I’m going back to the slums. There’s nobody waiting for me there and there’s nothing to do. At least in Renth’s house I have a place where I belong.”

  “But you don’t belong!” Marie shouted, glaring at Selth. She briefly touched the knife strapped to her belt and Selth felt a finger of fear run along her spine, but evidently the older girl thought better of trying to attack her in the middle of a busy market square. Instead she spun on her heel and walked away. Selth shrugged her shoulders, unsure how she was supposed to react and worried about what Marie might do. If the girl felt so strongly against Selth as to confront her after just a day together then she must really hate her. It might even be possible for her to get Selth kicked out of Renth’s house. She wasn’t sure how that would happen, but she figured that someone who’d been with Renth for five years would have more influence than someone who had shown up two days ago.

  Shaking off those awful thoughts Selth began scanning the shops again. Spotting a cobbler across the market she walked over to it. The shop was just as empty as Buxon’s had been but where his shop had been brightly lit this one was barely bright enough for Selth to see her hand in front of her face. Instead of the clothes and cloths of Buxon’s store, all around her were rows of shoes. A small man with crazy white hair bustled towards her. “Hello! Hello!” he said quickly and quietly. His motions reminding Selth of a mouse, “What can I get for you today. Pre-made shoe? Custom one? Anything at all, just ask and I can deliver.”

  Selth smiled at the man then dived into a tirade of speech, “Soft calfskin boots, just above the ankles in height. I want hard leather on the bottoms, something that will last. But don’t make it so hard that it doesn’t give at all when I put my foot down.” she stumbled to a halt at the last word, unsure what had made her give such a specific order. It just felt right. Her order for clothes hadn’t required any such specificity but shoes were something special.

  The little old man smiled up at her, “A custom fit then, that’s going to be a bit pricey my dear.” Still shaken by what she had said Selth brought out ten silvers and showed it to the man. He pursed his lips when he looked at the coins, then shook his head. “Twelve silvers dearie, and that’s only because you’re the first nice thing to come through my door this month.”

  Selth brought out the other two requested silvers and looked into her bag. Fourteen silvers remaining. Gathering up the twelve silvers before she could reclaim any number of them as collateral, the old man pushed Selth back into the store. He brought out a strange contraption and before she could say anything began measuring her foot from all different angles and sides. It was ten of the strangest minutes of Selth’s life, but she held her tongue and watched the man work. It was clear he knew his trade from the busy efficiency with which he took all his measurements and used the instrument, barely pausing to glance at it before moving to a different position. Then he was pushing Selth towards the door, “Come back in three days!” he called to her, “Your boots will be here.”

  Surprised at finding herself out on the street again so soon, and feeling confused after the old man’s rapid pace of work, Selth looked around for a suitable place to buy food. She didn’t have to look far. Most of the outdoor stalls were filled with various kinds of fruits, breads, cheeses and meats. She wasn’t sure what to buy but in a stall a few spaces to her left she spotted various kinds of bread. Licking her lips she hurried towards the stall. She could be more adventurous at another date but it had been ages since she’d last had bread. Buying the first loaf that she could get her hands on Selth walked happily back towards the alley that led to Renth’s house. She munched contentedly away, and when she got back to the door to the basement where she had spent the past two nights she was finished with her meal. Looking up at the sky she noticed that the sun had almost set. She stopped before she went inside completely and glanced to the east where stars were just visible above the horizon. She hadn’t looked at the stars since the night Matt said he was going to take a job outside the city for a week.

  Staying where she was, Selth lost herself in the stars for five minutes, worries and fears evaporating as she stared into the pure white light. Then she shook herself from her reverie, walked down the steps and went into the basement. She settled herself back in the corner she had occupied the night before and pulled the blanket pile around her. Curling up on her side she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep that went undisturbed until the sun shone back into the room through the cracks in the basement door.

  6

  Shadow

  Shattrenlix’s little paradise was destroyed today. He foolishly thought he could resist the power of Chaos and created a realm without it. Az’emon did not approve. I fear that his retaliation will only spark a larger conflict.

  – Celithic Tendrius, Lord of Peace and Nature, to Selthraxadinian

  The following days passed in much the same manner as the first. Initially, she heeded Jonah’s warning to be careful about stealing in the rich sections of town. She stuck to picking pockets close to the alleys that led to Renth’s house. It was fairly profitable, especially as the weather broke the day after she had ordered all her clothes. People crowded the city streets, moving between markets and talking to friends and she was able to sneak between the crowds, just one more street urchin running about her business. However, the wallets of the people who moved about close to the alleys weren’t the fullest. She was lucky to find five coppers in the fullest of them. Also, she had to be careful about how many people she pick pocketed. If she stole the whole street blind every day then people would complain to the guards and there’d have to be an investigation.

  After a week had passed and she had received her clothes and boots, Selth started branching out again. It was all well and good for the others to content themselves with small thefts, all within ten blocks of Renth’s house, but she felt that she had to do something bigger. Selth started venturing back into the richer sections of town, occasionally picking a pocket as she wandered around, looking for stores to rob. Some days she came back just with the wallets that she had managed to lift as she searched, still much heavier than anything she could have found where Jonah and the others worked, other days she wandered back with a sack full of coins from a store such as Boris’. Every time she came back with such a large amount the other children would gather around in awe and Renth would cackle happily, dividing the coins out the same way he had the first day she’d carried out a job. They had reached an agreement that he would keep all the gold coins and she could keep three quarters of everything else when she came back with a large haul.

  Through it all Marie showed Selth only hatred. At first she thought that the older girl was still angry about the whole ‘slum rat’ thing but she soon realized that Marie was upset because Selth was so much better than her when it came to stealing. One day she had come back to the house to find Renth shouting at Marie for asking him to kick Selth out. Listening at the door she had smiled as Renth told Marie that if she didn’t like having Selth around then she could leave; otherwise she had better shut her mouth.

  As time passed Selth built up a large supply of coinage. Some of it she gave to the other children so that they could buy nicer clothes for themselves and better food. Most she stored away. She had been back to Buxon’s shop twice and now had two cloaks and two jackets. She also had four shirts and three pairs of pants, a treasure she couldn’t even have imagined back in the slums. She had been back to the cobbler’s store as well and had a second pair of boots.

  In that way days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. Selth still became immeasurably sad whenever she thought about Matt but she thought about him less and less as time passed. She got to know the whole of Redtower, at least the places the commoners were allowed to travel. The slums
stretched most of the way around the outside of the city and from there on in things became nicer and nicer. The whole center section of the city was reserved for persons of state, the diplomatic core and visiting nobles. It was possible to walk along the streets in those sections but palace guards were quick to threaten anyone they felt was taking too long or who was staring impolitely up at the houses of noblemen. The middle section of the city was built mostly with wood, fading to the red brick which gave Redtower its name the closer one was to the center of the city. At first glance it seemed like there were more of the red brick houses in the city than there actually were. That was because the city planners had made sure to line all the major streets with such buildings. Once a person moved away from the large causeways the buildings turned to wood and it wasn’t until one was nearly at the center of the city that all the buildings were actually made of red brick. It was about the position of Boris’s store that this happened. Once shutters gave way to glass windows Selth could always be sure that she had entered the richest part of the common section of the city.

  However, she found she was glad not all of the buildings were incredibly nice and beautiful. When she had been in the slums she had always envied the rich houses across the way. But now she valued the ability to be anonymous among all the common people. If everybody outside the slums had been as rich as she thought she would never have fit in. But as it was Selth was able to assimilate into the city with ease. The map she constructed in her head to guide her around it was infallible and she had stolen everywhere except from the houses of the nobles, which were impossible to break into without far more preparation than Selth felt was worth her time at so early a stage in her thieving career.

  One day, about six months after she had fallen in with Renth and his group of child thieves, Selth noticed a strange man moving through the streets. As he passed through the crowds, people moved to either side of him without seeming to realize what they were doing. He was dressed in a long blue cloak of varying shades, which caught the eye, and silvery white hair fell nearly to the base of his back. A large staff of gnarled wood with a large gem set at the top of it was clutched in a thin knobby hand and a tall pointed hat sat on his head. It was the same rich blue as his cloak and both articles of clothing seemed to gather in the midmorning light and shimmer with beauty. Selth felt a shiver of fear run along her as she realized what the man was – a mage. She started to back away from him but as he passed her she felt something tug at her. The coin in her pocket, the coin she received from that strange man all those months ago and kept without even knowing she was doing so, grew hot and it felt as though invisible strings darted out from the mage and tied themselves to her.

  Trailing behind the man, Selth followed him along streets that were nearly deserted of people. Sometimes they seemed to waver and disappear from sight, giving her massive headaches. After walking several blocks of the city, she realized that she had been following a path she had never even noticed before. When the mage finally stopped moving Selth thought her head was going to split from the double image of the path they were following – existing and not existing at the same time. Then the mage turned down a side alley and she shook her head to clear it, feeling nauseated. She trailed the mage to the alley and when she looked inside she saw that the mage was approaching a solid wall. As he stepped up to it a gap formed and Selth gaped in astonishment at a pathway which hadn’t been there seconds before. As the mage passed through it, the gap started closing and, shaking her head to clear it of shock, Selth ran after the mage and dived through the rapidly closing portal just before it shut. She cursed herself for being a fool but those invisible strings were tugging her onward and she followed after the mage with an irresistible curiosity.

  Looking around, Selth found herself in a long stone corridor. In city of the red bricks, which had made up all the stone structures she had seen so far, this place was made entirely of dark gray blocks. The stones emanated a soft light of their own and by it she saw the mage in the rich blue cloak moving ahead of her. Careful not to make any sound she stalked the man down the corridor. He turned into an open door and she stole up to it, pausing just outside the room he had entered. She listened closely for any sound on the other side but heard nothing. Just as she was about to steal through the door, though, a conversation started up on the other side of it.

  “Do you know what it is?” a rich, melodic voice asked.

  “No, sir. So far it has been unresponsive to all advances we have made upon it.” an unseen man replied in a deep voice.

  “What have you tried?” the first voice asked again. Selth thought it was the mage in the blue cloak.

  “Variations of all the elements. Hayden even attempted physical contact but it shrank away from wherever he moved to touch it.” Selth felt her heart jump into her throat and she pulled back a step at the second man’s words. There were at least three magi of the academy in this area with her and at least two of them were right beyond the door she was standing at.

  The first voice had started talking again and Selth hurriedly pressed her ear back to the door, “ . . . better examine it myself.”

  Three sets of footsteps echoed out to her and, swallowing her fear, she pushed open the door and stole after the three men, those invisible strings tugging her forward. She followed them down a maze of twisting corridors and rooms that she never would have believed existed in the city of Redtower if she hadn’t seen them herself. After what felt like hours Selth finally saw the magi come to a halt on a balcony overlooking a large room which stretched several hundred feet. In the center of it a cloud of Shadow floated with nothing attached to it. All light that came close dimmed and then vanished as it came in touch with the Shadow itself. Looking back at the men, she saw that they had descended a set of stairs to reach the main floor of the room. Following them she ducked under one of the large stone tables that were set at regular intervals along the floor. Massive stone carvings seated at the tops of stone pillars set all around the edges of the room leered down at her, terrifying in their realness. Everything in the place appeared to be carved or sculpted out of the same gray rock – it seemed more like everything had been chiseled down to its current shape from some quarry, which had once stood in this place, rather than being made out of external materials. The top of the room stretched a hundred feet above her forming a graceful arched shape and she could only wonder how such a room could have been created. How such a room could exist in one of the poorer sections of Redtower. People would have noticed it, there was no way it could be hidden.

  She snapped back to reality as the magi approached the Shadow in the center of the room. The one in the blue cloak led the way and behind him were two similarly dressed men. They were dressed in green though and they were clearly far younger than the man in blue. Instead of silver hair one had brown hair which came down around his shoulders and the other had short cropped black hair. Neither wore a hat and neither of their staffs had a gemstone set in the top. Briefly, Selth wondered if Renth could tell her what the different colored cloaks meant. Or what the significance of the hat and gemstone was. Her thoughts were cut short as the man in blue threw up his staff, a brilliant ball of light flew out of it heading towards the Shadow but the Shadow simply bent around the light and the ball vanished into the darkness at the far end of the hall.

  Shouting something unintelligible, the man raised his staff again, this time a net of light flew out and surrounded the Shadow. It closed in slowly but the shadow simply shrunk down slightly then formed into a pillar and slid out of one of the holes in the net. The mage in blue, Selth had decided he was the one in charge, cursed and whipped his hand across his face. The net of light dissolved and the Shadow returned to its former position. Saying something, similar to what he had shouted to create the net of light, the mage raised his staff again and this time a broad sheet of light surrounded the Shadow, not a hole in sight. It began closing in on the Shadow but as soon as the sphere was closed completely the Shadow appeared
over the top of the sphere of light.

  The mage looked up at the Shadow, stroking his long beard which was the same color as his hair and came down to where a belt held his trousers up. Turning to the other two magi, the mage in the blue cloak waved them back, “I need to think on this more, let’s get back to the entrance room.”

  “What do you think it is?” one of the magi in green asked worriedly.

  “I’m not sure, but it’s at least partly sentient since it avoided my traps of its own accord.” the mage in blue replied, his tone bemused.

  The two magi in green looked at each other. “Do you think it’s dangerous Aren?” one asked.

  Scowling back at them, Aren replied, “I don’t know. But that’s why we’re getting away from it while I try to think this over.” then he spun on his heel and quickly marched out of the room. The two other magi hurried after him, having to work to keep up. Despite his apparent age Aren moved like a young man. He was thin as a whip and at least six feet tall. No bend marred his shoulders and he didn’t lean on his staff for support. As the magi walked out of the room, Selth scuttled out from under the table she had hidden beneath.

  Turning to look at the Shadow one last time, she froze in shock. Instead of the floating mass which had been there before tendrils were reaching out of it, heading in her direction. Spinning on her heel, she sprinted for the stairs which led to the exit. Before she made it a single step the Shadow appeared before her, blocking the way. Selth turned and started for the back end of the room but the Shadow was already there. It had appeared in a large circle stretching from floor to ceiling all around her. It started closing in and as it came within touching distance she whimpered with fright. The circle of Shadow grew smaller and smaller, and she tried to stay as close to the middle of it as she could, making herself as small as possible. She tried to find a way out of the Shadow, a hole that had been left in the wall of darkness, anything that could be used to escape. There was nothing. Looking up at the ceiling, Selth closed her eyes and waited. The Shadow hit her and she felt as though a wall had smashed into her. Shadow poured into her from every direction, through her mouth, her eyes, her ears. Every pore of her skin became a way for Shadow to enter her. Selth felt her body buck in a wild motion as what seemed like an endless ocean of power poured into her.