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

by TorVald, Nikolas

  A tall man in fine silk clothes opened the door and motioned them in. “What can I do for you?” he asked in a booming voice, “It’s not often that I get petitions from the academy.” Selth instinctively liked the man, whether it was the massive smile that split his face or the kind look in his eyes, he seemed trustworthy.

  Aren had dropped the smile that he always wore when he entered the room and now Selth saw that he had an expression similar to the one he had worn when he came to collect her. “As the note you received explained, I have need of your Inquisitor. Myself and my apprentice need someone of his caliber to guide us on a journey.” his voice seemed to shake the foundations of the room and Selth wondered how any man could stand to refuse him in that state but the Lord Governor of Redtower surprised her. He appeared to have steel underneath the silk of his wardrobe.

  “Yes, I received your letter indicating that need but I’m not convinced I should give you what you want.” his own voice dropped dangerously low, “Redtower’s Inquisitor is an invaluable tool and I can’t just give him up for a trip which you won’t even explain to me. The academy and Andin are on good terms so I have agreed to this meeting. But I am not obligated to do anything more, so explain to me what is going on or don’t expect any help.”

  The whole room darkened as Aren’s face bent to anger, something that seemed out of place to Selth after knowing him for so long. Evidently he believed the Lord Governor because he gave a shake of his head and walked to a seat facing the man. “I need an Inquisitor for a trip to the Mountains of Endless Night. There are things . . . stirring . . . on the forgotten side of the world and certain . . . objects . . . in the mountains may possess the power to stop them.” he shuddered when he said that and the Lord Governor paled. Selth didn’t know what he meant by the forgotten side of the world but evidently it was enough to draw this man’s attention. Aren continued, “I only trust a man of an Inquisitor’s caliber to help me with this journey.”

  The Lord Governor still seemed shaken but he stroked his chin thoughtfully, considering what Aren had said. After a long pause he asked, “Why should I risk an Inquisitor on a trip to the Mountains of Endless Night. The only way to them runs straight through Mardule, who we’re at war with, and the mountains themselves are said to be a death trap.”

  “But it’s for those two reasons that you should send one, Lord Governor.” Aren leaned forward, “An Inquisitor can gain valuable information about Mardule when we travel through that country and the Mountains of Endless Night offer an untold wealth of knowledge for anyone on the lookout for it.”

  The Lord Governor of Redtower was nodding his head as Aren finished speaking, “That makes sense but I don’t like the idea of being separated from an Inquisitor for so long. It’s possible he won’t come back and Andin needs all her resources in the war.”

  Aren smiled and Selth knew that the Lord Governor had been won over, “But you’re so far from the border of Mardule that the Inquisitor stationed here won’t be used in the war effort unless things become incredibly dire. This way you can contribute in a way that you haven’t been able to so far. The King himself will thank you for your initiative in helping win the war and all it costs you is to be separated from a man whose talents you aren’t currently using.”

  Silence dominated the room for a few, tense moments before the Lord Governor replied, “Very well, let’s see what he thinks of this.” Both Aren and Selth stiffened as he reached out and tapped a small silver bell. It gave a piercing ring which resonated in Selth’s ears and, before it faded, a small man wrapped in a cloak which shifted colors so that it seemed to blend with the walls as she watched it entered the room through a door, set in the side wall of the room, which she hadn’t noticed before.

  12

  The Inquisitor

  We sent new weapons against Az’emon this day. It is as though we are destroying a stone with drops of water. Except this stone is a boulder and if it rolls over we will all be crushed.

  – Journal of Tel’arib

  Aren stood up in a flash, snatching up his staff and holding it in a threatening manner towards the Inquisitor. The Lord Governor looked him up and down with amusement, “This is Kant, the Inquisitor of the city of Redtower. He came in so I suppose that means he’s agreed to go on this adventure of yours.”

  Selth looked Kant over, unimpressed. From the stories she had heard about Inquisitors the man should be fifteen feet tall and shoot lightning from his eyes. The very ground should quake under his feet. Kant was the opposite, he stood just barely five and a half feet tall. The cowl of his strange cloak obscured most of his face and the strands of hair that were visible showed distinctive signs of gray.

  The four of them stood still, evaluating each other for several minutes before he spoke. “Hello mage.” his voice had a soft lilt to it, as though he hadn’t been born in Redtower. Selth remembered some magi from the academy who spoke in a similar manner and she cursed herself for not paying more attention to where they had been from, “Your proposal interests me, I hope you did not find my entrance too disturbing to continue working with me.” The last part of his statement twisted into sarcasm.

  Aren straightened, “No, not at all. This is perfect in fact. You’re here so we can leave all the sooner.” he flashed a smile around the room, “Quite the happy accident I would say.”

  Kant looked over at the Lord Governor, “Bartel? Is there anything you need of me before we leave?”

  The Lord Governor, Bartel, just shrugged his shoulders. “While you’re in Redtower I have command but for anything outside of the Andin you respond to the King. If you think it’s in his best interest that you leave then that’s fine with me, though I’m still not sure if bringing your apprentice along is the best idea. This is a dangerous mission. It’s not fair to the boy to drag him off just to get him killed because he doesn’t have proper training.”

  Kant’s glare at him closed the man’s mouth with a snap, “I believe we already discussed this and you agreed – my apprentice answers to me. If I want to bring him along that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

  Selth raised her eyebrows in surprise at the exchange. Bartel may have been made of steel but the Inquisitor was something far stronger. Kant swiveled on his booted foot to face Aren and her again. “Is the girl coming with us as well?” he asked frigidly.

  “Yes,” Aren said with a smile before she could break in with a cutting remark, “I think you’ll be surprised at how useful she can be.” Kant’s answering sneer showed what he thought of that and Aren’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Careful there Inquisitor,” he somehow twisted the title into the worst of insults, “Don’t let your foolish stereotypes get in the way of your judgment.”

  Kant flushed visibly at the attack to his person but he quickly regained his calm, “I have no issue with women. I just don’t want to have to keep an extra person alive when we cross the border of Mardule and enter the mountains. If she can’t hold her own weight don’t expect me to do anything about it.”

  Selth’s eyes narrowed in anger, but Aren’s hand on her arm stopped her from doing anything rash. “Don’t worry,” she said coldly, “I won’t be holding anyone back.” Standing upright she turned to Aren, “Where are we meeting them?”

  He smiled to her, “At the northern gate, our horses will be waiting for us. We’ll meet you there in an hour.”

  She nodded, turned to the Lord Governor and Kant, gave a stiff bow and strode out of the room. She hadn’t had to deal with sexism of any kind while at the academy, the magi believed man and woman alike deserved an equal opportunity to grow and learn. She had forgotten that many people still viewed a woman as unable to do everything that a man could, as a hindrance.

  When the door closed behind her she fell back into darkness and emerged twenty feet to the left of the Northern gate of Redtower, outside the walls of the city. The gate was a massive structure, though it was dwarfed by the even greater walls of the city. Snarling gargoyles decorated the doors which stoo
d open while the sun was still in the sky. They stretched some twenty feet high and fifteen feet abreast, made of solid oak and when they were shut it would take a catapult to break them down. The walls stretched even higher overhead, towering a hundred feet in the air. Battlements and pots for boiling oil dotted the top of the wall and every so often the small figure of a city guard could be seen moving along the top of it. A guardhouse was visible just inside the gate with several men playing dice outside of the structure, they appeared more intent on their money than on the gate and Selth strode back into Redtower untouched by any of them. She turned and walked towards the stable that stood ready for anyone who had to leave the city quickly. Climbing up onto its roof she lay out on her back and stared over the city she had grown up in.

  She had always thought that Redtower was beautiful but after the academy it seemed almost shabby. She supposed that just meant it was grand in its own way. Whereas the academy was perfect and gargantuan in every aspect, it was also too organized, too clean. Redtower was a jumble of all ways of life thrown together in one massive place and separated by thin barriers of class. In the middle of the city the massive keep and tower which gave Redtower its name stood, the same place she had just left the Lord Governor and Aren. The city grew smaller from there on out. The keep gave way to lords’ houses built with the same massive red bricks. Then those gave way to wealthy store fronts and buildings which gave way to wooden houses which gave way to the slums of the city. Selth sighed; at least it was Autumn. In the Summer, the trash littering the city streets around the borders stank so bad she had thought she might gag sometimes. The cooler Autumn weather prevented that; it had been the time when everyone went out onto the streets. Begging had been good, thieving had been good. She smiled and relaxed further against the stable roof. Redtower might not have been as nice as the academy but it was her home.

  Relaxing further into the comfortable thatch of the roof Selth cast her mind back to her recent meeting. The Inquisitor had been interesting, although his automatic assumption of her uselessness still stung. He should have known better than to assume that a mage would bring someone useless to their group but there had been something in the man, something that stood up to the stories about the Inquisitors. He hadn’t backed down or acted scared at Aren’s scathing remark to him and he had cowed the Lord Governor with ease.

  She wondered what his apprentice would be like, hopefully not as grim as the Inquisitor himself. Maybe being that way was a requirement for entry, though. The Inquisitors were such a secretive lot, nobody knew anything about them. Even at the academy there had been little information, maybe every Inquisitor was as dark as Kant had been. It wouldn’t surprise her too much, everyone she had met outside of the academy was afraid of the Inquisitors. It stood to reason that there was some sort of reason behind that. Or maybe Aren had been right and people feared what they didn’t understand. It was too complex a problem to work through in the time before Aren came for her. Selth decided she could find out what she wanted to know while traveling with the Inquisitor. And that would be far more accurate than any of her assumptions made after a minute’s contact.

  With the sun burning overhead, she drifted off to sleep on top of the stable roof and only woke up as Aren and Kant were striding down the lane that led to the stable. It was amusing to see the difference in height between them. The mage towered over his companion. Behind them walked a boy who seemed to be between Aren and Kant in height. He wore the same cloak as Kant and was continuously looking at him as though for guidance.

  Both of the Inquisitors wore long swords strapped to their belts and massive long bows hung from their shoulders. Kant walked with a grace that showed him to be a weapon. The easy rolling grace of his shoulders and the perfect placement of his feet all screamed danger as he moved forwards. His apprentice was attempting to achieve the same walk and failing miserably while Aren was walking with the majesty of a man who has seen more years than the entire group behind him combined. Selth leapt down from the roof of the stable as the three men approached and landed with cat like grace on the ground. Giving a mocking bow to Kant and his apprentice she motioned to the door, “Shall we?” Kant’s apprentice stumbled in surprise at her appearance, peering at her closely as though to make sure she was actually in front of him but when Kant brushed past her into the stable without a word of greeting his apprentice followed suit.

  She turned and scowled at their backs before following them into the stables. The stable master obviously knew who Aren was and what he wanted because as soon as he saw the blue cloak and cap he scurried towards the back of the stable. A moment later he was leading two horses by their reins toward Aren and Selth. She eyed the horse warily, she’d learned to ride at the academy but she didn’t like it and she wasn’t what anyone would call an accomplished horse woman. Horses just didn’t seem to like her and the feeling was mutual.

  Aren strode forward and took the reins of his pure white horse, a majestic beast which seemed to glow in the darkness of the stable. It whickered contentedly as he came up to it and he seemed completely at home with the beast. Selth moved up to her own horse unhappily and as she tried to grab the reins it reared backwards, trying to get away from her. Behind her she heard Kant snort, showing that he was already evaluating her as a failure. Gritting her teeth with annoyance she concentrated on the shadow of the horse. Pouring her intent into it the horse froze as its shadow turned to her will.

  The message of false god flashed through Selth’s head and she nearly lost her control over the shadow of the horse but she angrily shook it away. It didn’t apply to this case, she was still just Selth from Redtower. Having powers didn’t make her a false god, just a person with a few extra capabilities. She resolutely turned her mind away from the false god thought, which kept surfacing, and concentrated on what was happening around her.

  “It’s too much master Aren,” the stableman was saying, “I told you, five silver covers all the costs. I can’t take twenty from you.”

  Aren just laughed, “Don’t worry Riggan, I have plenty more. Use the extra to patch up your stable. Maybe you’ll get more business if you actually advertised what you do here.”

  Pushing off the rest of his protests about money, Aren took his horse by the reins and led it out of the stable. Selth did the same, her dusty brown mare following against its will. When they emerged Kant and his apprentice were already mounted on sturdy looking horses that looked as though they could run all day without rest for food or water. Aren swung up on his horse with a grace that did not match his age and Selth leapt onto hers quickly before the animal could reassert any control over itself and move out of the way.

  Kant gave her horse a curious look but he said nothing. The four of them rode out of the great Northern gate and followed Aren as he led them along the great road which connected Redtower to the rest of Andin. Soon they were riding into the massive forest which stretched across most of Andin and which would cover their way north to the border of Mardule.

  Selth kept frowning at the back of Kant’s apprentice. She had ignored the feeling at first but for some reason it felt as though she knew him from somewhere. His face was tantalizingly familiar in some ways but it was also different from anything she had known before. “We’ll follow the road for the next few weeks,” Kant said to Aren, breaking her concentration. She decided to think about the apprentice’s tantalizingly strange face later, she would miss too much otherwise, “There are towns dotted along the road at easy riding intervals, so we should have a nice journey on our way through Andin, but try and keep your talk over exactly what we’re doing to a minimum. It will look strange enough that we’re traveling towards the war, I don’t need a Mardulian spy getting tipped off we’re trying to cross the border because one of you has a big mouth.”

  “Very well,” Aren replied, “I’ll let Selth know if you make sure Mattle does the same. You’re the leader until we reach the mountains themselves so we’ll do what you say as long as it isn’t suicidal.
”

  Kant raised an eyebrow but kept riding. Mattle, his apprentice, was right at his side and Selth found herself envying the smooth way in which they rode. It was all she could do not to fall of the horse which she was holding as steady as possible with magic. Aren was two hundred and forty four and he looked like a stellar rider next to her. Scowling to herself, she forced her horse into a canter and moved up beside him, “I know you said we needed the Inquisitors but couldn’t we have just portaled into Mardule and used whatever their equivalent is?” Selth asked, “This seems like far more work than is required.”

  Looking over at them Selth saw that Kant had pricked his ears up at her question and was trying not to show it. Aren saw as well and with a sigh spoke so everyone could hear, “The Inquisitors are the best at what they do, Mardule’s equivalent is like bunnies next to wolves, but more important is that Mardule’s general destroyed all the magi portals in the country when he rose to power. No mage has been there since the war started fifteen years ago.”

  “Why would the Mardulian general destroy his access to magical aid? That seems like a perfect way to be defeated since the magi can only take the Andian side now.” Kant spoke up.

  Aren looked over at him, amused, “And have you been receiving enormous amounts of magical support Inquisitor? No. The magi are not involved in this war right now. We might become so in the future but do not assume that we must take a side simply because there are sides to choose.”

  Kant scowled but didn’t say anything and the four of them rode on. He and Mattle moved to the left side of the road and Aren and Selth moved over to the right. The older Inquisitor had taken a disliking to two of them and evidently he planned on holding himself apart for as long as possible. Selth was fine with that, she didn’t particularly like the Inquisitor anyways. She was far more interested in what was occurring all around her, on the road. Hundreds of people had seemingly sprung up out of nowhere as the four of them rode on. Everyone they saw was dressed in ragged clothing, stained with mud and dirt as though they had been traveling for a long time. She frowned as she realized that everyone else on the road was heading opposite the way she and her companions were traveling. That didn’t bode well for what lay ahead of them.