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

by TorVald, Nikolas

  Moving to Aren, she related what she had seen. “Yes,” he said in a sad voice when she finished, “I’m surprised you didn’t notice it sooner. The thorn bushes were my first hint that something was wrong.”

  “The thorn bushes?” Selth asked, incredulous.

  “Yes, the thorn bushes. I’ve never seen so many in one place before and this is not my first trip to Mardule, simply the first since the war started. After the thorn bushes, it didn’t take long to spot those same things which you just described to me. There is a malevolent force at work in this land and I don’t think it bodes well for either Andin or Mardule.”

  “Do you think,” Selth dropped her voice to a whisper, “do you think that it’s the same person who warded the borders, the whole kingdom, against magic users?”

  Aren chomped down on his pipe and sat up straighter, “I must be getting old.” he muttered to himself, removing the pipe from his mouth and stowing it in his bag before addressing her, “I should have thought of that the moment I saw the corruption spreading through this place. Whatever is causing this has enough dark magic and malevolent energy floating around it to twist nature itself into agony.” He leaned back, receding deep into thought. “But, maybe not.”

  Selth laughed slightly despite the dark cast of the conversation, “Well which is it. It is the same person or not?”

  He scowled at her, “Do you want to do the thinking on this one?” she shook her head, “Well then don’t ask me to rush my thought process. This is a tricky situation.” He started rocking back and forth tapping his finger against his chin pensively, “Whoever warded the borders of Mardule didn’t necessarily mean to do them harm. It could be that they warded the borders because someone else cast a spell which caused this corruption. But it just doesn’t feel right that two entities of that sort of power could be walking around Mardule. They must be the same!” he trailed off into silence again as he finished.

  Selth felt a chill run through her as Aren spoked. She knew they didn’t have to be the same. In fact, she was willing to bet that they weren’t the same person at all. She cast her mind back to the nightmare she had when Atlatraigan ordered the traiganidorian to hunt her down. She had pushed that into the back of her mind, as far as it would go, to avoid the terrors it would bring. But she knew that Atlatraigan was in Mardule, that he was the general of Mardule’s armies, that idiot sergeant had all but confirmed it earlier, which meant that it was very possible for a traiganidorian to be roaming around Mardule looking for her. And if the things Aren had said about the horrors of traiganidorians were true than she thought it was perfectly possible for the corruption in Mardule to be caused by it. The wards could have been created by Atlatraigan and he wouldn’t have any issue with the traiganidorian roaming inside of them, causing destruction, because he had control over the creature. Selth gave an involuntary shudder. She still didn’t understand how someone could have complete control over a traiganidorian. Those beasts simply weren’t meant to be controlled. Except she suddenly felt as though she knew something. Knew something about how the beasts could be controlled, not how to do it herself, but by who they could be controlled and why that specific person could control them. She tried to reach for the thought, tried to understand who could control a traiganidorian and why, but she lost it. She shook her head angrily, obviously the who was Atlatraigan. The why wasn’t important to her right then, she just had to avoid the traiganidorian and him and get to the Mountains of Endless Night so she could put her worries behind her.

  She almost laughed, get to the Mountains of Endless Night so she could put her worries behind her. The thought was ridiculous – all the mountains would do was bring a whole new set of problems for her to deal with. Breaking away from her dark thoughts Selth sat staring into the fire, she would go mad if she kept worrying about Atlatraigan and all the issues that plagued her for reasons she couldn’t even remember, reasons she didn’t want to remember. Looking around, she saw that Aren and Mattle were both sitting in silence. Mattle was stroking Raxous’s sleek pelt and seemed not to be looking anywhere and Aren was deep in thought, presumably over the same question she had been pondering.

  Selth leapt into the air as Kant came stomping back into their camp. He had a deer slung over his shoulder and was scowling deeply. “There weren’t any rabbits!” he snarled as he dumped the deer onto the ground, “It took me an hour just to find the tracks that led me to this creature and look at it! Barely enough meat for a meal or two.” He shook his head in disgust and began butchering the deer so that they could eat it. Normally she would have been disgusted by the process of removing the deer’s skin and organs but when Kant mentioned the lack of animals she glanced at Aren and the two shared a worried look.

  Clearing his throat loudly Aren spoke, “Kant?”

  “What?” he asked angrily, still slicing through the deer as though it had done him a personal wrong.

  “Did you use any magic while in the forest?” Aren spoke again, concern tinging his otherwise innocent question.

  Kant paused in his attack of the deer and looked up at him, “No.” He started back on the deer.

  “Good. Good, I just wanted to check.”

  Kant looked up suspiciously, “Why do you ask? I haven’t used magic once on this trip and now you’re asking me if I used it on our second night in Mardule. What’s this about?” he glared around the fire at the three people who were sitting there. Selth and Mattle looked away uncomfortably and even Aren seemed a bit taken aback.

  The old mage looked at Selth and Mattle for some sort of support before clearing his throat uncomfortably and speaking, “We can’t use magic while we’re in Mardule. Someone set wards around the border of the kingdom which can track the use of magic or even prevent it.”

  Kant pursed his lips in a worried expression but started cutting open the deer again, “And what does that have to do with me coming back with a scrawny deer?”

  “There’s also some sort of corruption twisted throughout Mardule,” Selth jumped in, “There aren’t any animals around. All the trees are dying and so are the flowers and grass – everything beautiful. Only the thorn bushes that we saw after crossing the border are flourishing.”

  Kant looked at her in shock then at Aren for confirmation. The mage nodded his head sadly but Kant was already looking away, seeming to draw into himself. “If someone can corrupt nature in Mardule and set wards around its borders then we need to get out of here as soon as possible.” he muttered, “Worse, if two someones are in Mardule and one can set such powerful wards and another can cause this damage.” He shook his head as though still trying to process the information. Then he swung his head up and looked at everyone sharply, “We move fast. Try to find areas that look healthy if we have to camp at night and get the hell out of this forsaken kingdom.” he tossed the deer aside, “We eat only what we brought with us until we get across the border, we can’t risk consuming anything that could corrupt us. Now everyone get some sleep. I need to think on this and we have an early start tomorrow.”

  Selth stared angrily at Kant’s back as he turned away from the fire and moved to where his pack was lying on the ground. He hadn’t even tried to make the issue a discussion, just expected everyone to do what he said. She swung towards Aren to complain about the unfairness of it, she knew that he felt similarly to her about being cooped up and forced to follow orders, but he shook his head at her as though he knew what she was going to ask. Taking a deep breath she thought over what Kant had said. She wouldn’t feel safe until they were out of Mardule. The sooner that happened the better, as far as she was concerned, so she would deal for now.

  Standing up, she moved towards her pack and got ready to sleep. She lay down on her back and looked up at the stars through the sickly foliage of the trees overhead. Fear tried to keep her awake but the exhaustion from journeying so far through such rough terrain dragged her into sleep. For the first time since she had gotten her powers back in Cereus’s clearing, she didn’t dream of d
ancing among the stars.

  Selth woke up feeling groggy and irritable, her dreams had been filled with traiganidorians chasing her down endless hallways. They were always just behind her and no matter what she did she couldn’t out run them. Always, just before they lunged to kill her, she had fallen through the floor and into an endless oblivion with Atlatraigan’s cold laughter resounding all around her. Looking around, she saw that the forest seemed even more sickly than it had in the half light of the evening. She could actually pick out the veins of poison running through individual leaves and the bark of the trees had massive black stripes that screamed of death running up them.

  Rolling onto her side Selth yelped in surprise, Aren, Mattle, Raxous and Kant were each covered in strands of the sickly looking substance that coated the trees around her. She struggled to her feet and nearly fell as strands of the same stuff wrapped around her feet. Kicking through the disgusting material she ran to Aren and shook him awake, helping to clear the substance from him as soon as he grew cognizant again. The stuff was disgusting, it stuck ferociously to whatever it touched and left Selth feeling as though she hadn’t bathed in three weeks. She and Aren hurriedly woke Kant, Raxous, and Mattle then looked around at the camp in shock. The sticky black substance radiated from each tree in a massive arc, until it reached the places they had been lying. “What is that?” she asked in a horrified voice as the sap began to visibly writhe and wriggle towards them again.

  “A physical manifestation of the corruption we discussed last night.” Aren said in a somewhat breathless voice, “We can’t sleep outside anymore. I’d say we’re lucky just to be alive and well after letting that stuff touch us.”

  “The horses!” Mattle broke in with an agonized cry.

  Selth and the others spun towards where they had hobbled the horses the previous night and Kant uttered an oath. Where four horses had stood before only lumps of corrupt black sap remained. “I guess we know why we’re alive.” Selth whispered, horrified, “The sap was too busy with our horses to pay mind to us.” She was cut short by Kant throwing her her pack.

  “We can talk about that later, right now we need to get out of this forest and onto the road.” he said. Selth could tell he was trying to sound unaffected but even his voice was tinged with shock at what they had seen, “It will take far longer to get through Mardule without horses but we’ll also attract less notice. We’ll have to push hard each day to get between towns, but I don’t want to hear any complaining, as we can’t stay outside at night.” He picked up his own pack, after tossing the others their own, then pulled out the drab cloak he had worn in the last stretch of their journey through Andin. He motioned for Aren and Mattle to do the same. “Let’s go.” he said and turned towards the road, abandoning the lumped forms of their horses without a second look.

  Mattle quickly followed him and Raxous disappeared deeper into the woods where he could follow their group without attracting unwanted attention. Selth stayed with Aren, who was still staring at the remains of the animals. “I loved that horse.” the old mage whispered, sadness giving an odd tremble to his voice.

  She leaned against the mage who suddenly seemed every day of his two hundred and forty four years. “It’s okay,” she said, although it certainly didn’t feel okay, not after what she had just seen. “Let’s go after the others.” she gently took his arm and pulled him after Kant and Mattle who had made their way onto the road. As they got close to it Aren was managing to act as though everything was fine but Selth knew that the loss of his horse still hurt. He had ridden that creature through more dangers than she had ever known and developed a special connection with it. To simply lose it, without any warning, to one of the blackest magics he said he had ever seen had to hurt.

  She stopped worrying about him when she stepped out onto the road. There were hundreds of people tramping along the dusty dirt path that cut through the forest, each of them seemingly poorer and more destitute than the one before. But it was more than that that made her stop in her tracks and a tiny voice in her head scream ‘Danger!’ Moving carefully, looking for anything off about the people around her, she started forward into the crowd. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with them aside from their general poverty. Shaking her head. she moved towards where Kant and Mattle were waiting patiently to one side of the road. Aren had already made his way over to the two Inquisitors and together the four of them moved into the traffic that was clogging the road through Mardule. “Why are . . .” Selth started to ask but Kant cut her off with a sharp hiss.

  “What do you want to know my dear?” he asked, emphasizing the clipped accent of Mardule.

  She cursed herself for being a fool. Any one of the people wandering the road could have heard her speak and marked her out for an Andian. Composing herself Selth started over, “Why are there so many people on the road?”

  From Kant’s horrified stare that question was enough to get her thrown in prison as an Andian spy but nobody around them seemed to care. Moving so he was standing as close to her as possible without actually stepping into her path, he whispered, “The war has driven most people to starvation. Burned out farms and shops are pretty much all that’s left of Mardule these days. The only way to eat is to join the army or find someplace that hasn’t been destroyed. That’s what all these people are doing.”

  “But why would Mardulian armies destroy their own kingdom?” Selth asked in the same hushed voice Kant was using.

  “Because they’re more interested in getting where they want to go as fast as possible than saving a few poor farms.” he replied, “Now, no more questions until we find someplace safe to talk. These people probably wouldn’t report an Andian soldier in full battle gear if he came striding along the road but I don’t want to risk that. Mardule doesn’t have the most pleasant prisons and I don’t plan on being tortured to death just because some moronic jailer feels like it.”

  Selth’s eyes widened at the description but she kept her mouth closed. Kant’s advice was certainly for the best in this case. Instead she looked around at the peasant faces surrounding them. She had tried to push the warning voice away but it refused to go. Suddenly it struck her, the faces of the people weren’t just filled with the sorrow caused by the destruction of their property. It was more than that. Half of them seemed to be wallowing in the deepest forms of self-pity and loathing. Their faces expressed the same horrors and sorrows that she would expect to see on a man who had just watched his whole family murdered before his eyes. The other half were consumed with a burning rage. That might have made sense to Selth given their situation but these people were lashing out at those around them indiscriminately. It was as though all the hate and anger in the world had been distilled into them and all that was left was for them to hurt others. Something was wrong with all the people they shared the road with and as she looked closer Selth realized what the reason might be. The same black sappy corruption that had killed her horse was visible in the flashes of skin which sometimes showed underneath the cloaks of the peasants. It appeared as though a web of darkness had been thrown around their skin and sunk in so that it melded seamlessly with the flesh around it. None of the people who were affected in that manner showed any sign that they realized something was wrong and Selth gave a shudder as she remembered the creeping strands of corruption trying to cover her that morning. If it was possible, it seemed that what had happened to these people was even worse than what had happened to their horses. At least that had been a death. This looked like a living hell.

  Aren and the others didn’t appear to have noticed and she didn’t want to bring it up surrounded by these people. Instead, trying to avoid looking around her as much as possible, Selth tramped along the road with the rest of the crowd. It didn’t take long before she was missing her horse. No matter how annoying the beast had been, walking on hard packed dirt for any extended period of time was awful. Each step sent reverberations through her whole body and her feet felt more like bricks than flesh and bone. Du
st coated her clothes and made her feel as though she were choking rather than taking breaths of clean air. She wanted to stop and take a break from walking but remembering that Kant had said he would set the pace and that he would ignore complaints she wisely kept silent.

  As the hours passed by, she and Aren lagged behind Kant and Mattle. Mattle moved with the easy loping grace of a wolf and Selth wasn’t sure that Kant had ever felt tired in his life. The man seemed made of stone rather than flesh and she suspected that if he could have done it without attracting attention he would have made them run the whole day. Just as it felt as though she couldn’t move another step the lights of a town came into view. She heaved a gasp of relief and heard Aren echo it at her side. With a burst of energy, given from the prospect of being able to stop, the four of them hurried forward. The town was large with several different inns and many houses crowding the grid-like streets. Kant threaded his way through it as though he had been there many times before and stopped at an inn that stood farther off the main street than most of the others. As they pushed through, Selth glanced up to see that it was called, ‘The King’s Sacrifice,’ before she followed him inside.

  22

  The King’s Sacrifice

  This war cannot be won, not as it is being fought right now. The others will not understand why I do what I do. They may never understand, fools that they are, but it is the only way to triumph.