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

by TorVald, Nikolas

  Mattle reappeared at the edge of the pit and she almost collapsed with relief. She had been half afraid he would leave her where she was out of spite and the hatred he had expressed for her the whole journey. He tossed a rope down into the pit and disappeared again then called down, “Okay, climb up it!” Selth moved towards the rope and grabbed hold but with a cry came crashing to the ground. The chains she wore would not let her escape. Mattle reappeared, “What is it?” he shouted, almost in hysterics.

  “It’s these.” Selth held up her arms.

  “Shit. Your arm’s broken.” Mattle said as he looked down at her. Selth opened her mouth to correct him then remembered that he wouldn’t be able to see the chains. For some reason, she had thought that he would be different. He swung himself over the edge of the pit and climbed down the rope. Holding her in one arm, he began making his way back up it. Using his legs to hold his weight, he used his free arm to pull himself up and his other to clutch Selth tightly to his side. She sagged back with relief as he heaved her over the side of the pit and to freedom; he had always possessed a wiry toughness when they lived on the streets but his training with Kant had made him incredibly strong. He laid her gently on the ground when he got to the top of the pit then disappeared back inside of it. A minute later he reappeared with Raxous held carefully in his arms, the same way he had held Selth. He whistled softly and a horse came trotting towards the three of them.

  “Where’s Kant and Aren?” Selth asked in a soft voice, still horrified by everything that had been done to her in a bare day and a half.

  Mattle shook his head sadly, “They didn’t come with me. They didn’t believe me when I said you were alive and Aren said we had to push towards the mountains” He hung his head, “I slipped off last night and had Raxous track you here.”

  “I thought you hated me.” she looked at him in astonishment, “Why didn’t you just leave me for dead?”

  Mattle looked at her with shame written across his face, “I don’t hate you Sara, Selth. I just thought that you didn’t want anything to do with your old life. It wasn’t fair to judge you that way, I know, but it was all I had so I lashed out to drive you away. I felt that as long as it was my choice I was doing the right thing for me but that’s a lie. I could never hate you.” He put an arm around her and helped her to her feet. Pulling an extra cloak from his pack he swung it around her. “I didn’t know they would strip you.” he said, looking embarrassed at her state of undress.

  Selth couldn’t have cared less. She threw her arms around him and after a moment’s hesitation he hugged her back. Then she started crying as knowledge hit like a thunder clap, “All this won’t matter at all if we don’t get back to Aren.”

  “What do you mean?” Mattle asked, pulling away from her in horror.

  She indicated her arm, “It’s infected, badly. I don’t think I’ll last long without a healer to take care it.” The chains flickered through Selth’s mind, “And there are other things which I think only Aren can help with.”

  Mattle looked at her, hope slowly fading to be replaced by horror. “Alright.” he said finally, “But if ‘other things’ are related to . . . what happened two nights ago. I think that’s half the reason he was so anxious to ditch you. I don’t think he can help with that.”

  Selth laughed slightly and stumbled towards Mattle’s horse. “It’s not that, don’t worry. I just hope he can help with what it is.” she clutched at the saddle to the horse and with shaking arms drew herself onto it. Mattle leapt up behind her and kicked the horse into motion. “That thing’s dead.” she said again before falling back into his arms and fading towards sleep, “That thing’s dead.” she repeated in the softest of voices as sleep claimed her. No nightmares plagued her that night and she lay peacefully in Mattle’s arms as he rode with her to safety.

  24

  Returning to the Fold

  Az’emon laughed when I came to him. He tortured me, stripped me of power and mind and left me in a hole to rot. But he came back, he gave it all back. Now my work begins.

  – Journal of Selthraxadinian

  Selth woke up propped against a tree. Mattle was nowhere in sight but Raxous was curled up next to her. Looking around she shook her head in surprise, the corruption which had twisted through Mardule in the days before her capture was gone. Trees were still dead, and she had to concentrate hard to hear the sounds of animals around her, but the sickly gunk that had been spread across everything was missing. Selth allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction, she had been right that the traiganidorian was causing the spread of corruption. Forcing herself into a more upright posture she cursed as pain flared through her broken arm. She ignored it though, if the gunk was gone then the traiganidorian must have been killed or seriously wounded. Maybe that would allow her to access her powers! Selth reached towards the torrent of magic, which hovered around the edge of her conscience, and smashed into the wall that her chains had created. Slumping back down she cursed herself for a fool. The chains were still there, of course she couldn’t reach her power.

  At the thought of the chains she felt them grow even heavier around her and when she tried to pull herself into a more comfortable position they wouldn’t let her. She groaned in annoyance and leaned back, shutting her eyes and waiting for Mattle to return. The crunch of boots of the ground alerted her to his approach and she gave a small smile. He bent down and laid a concerned hand across her brow. “You’re burning up.” he said, standing to peer down at Selth as though she were a problem he needed to solve.

  She glared at him. She didn’t feel sick and she didn’t need him to stand over her as though she were some inanimate structure that required fixing. “I’m fine!” she snapped at him then stopped as the smell of shit and piss wafted into her nose, “Just need a bath, that’s all.”

  Mattle stared down at her with the same concerned look on his face but Selth saw him surreptitiously wipe his hands on his coat. Bending down he pulled her to her feet and motioned for her to follow him into the forest, “There’s a stream down this way.” He walked slowly, so that she could avoid jostling her bad arm, and lead the way into the forest. Selth smiled her thanks as the two of them made their way through the thick tangle of undergrowth that blocked the way to his promised stream.

  Five minutes of struggling found them standing by a shallow stream that meandered through the forest. “Thank you.” Selth breathed as she stepped into the water then yelped in shock and jumped out at the bone chilling cold.

  Mattle looked at her in amusement, “I’ll come back in fifteen minutes. I’ve got a few things to do back at the campsite.” He disappeared back into the trees and in moments the thick growth surrounded him. Waiting suspiciously for a few minutes to make sure that he had actually left, Selth turned to the stream and waded back into it. She didn’t think she’d be completely comfortable around any man again for a long time. As she waded deeper into the stream the chill of the water seeped into her bones and she struggled not to leap back onto the bank. But the cold of the water was refreshing, it made her feel like a clean person again.

  Selth’s hands tore down towards the water and she cried out as her shoulders were nearly ripped from their sockets. She collapsed forward, the chains on her wrists glowing green, looking more solid than ever before, and desperately tried to keep her head above the water. With a final cry, she plunged fully under the water, her hands sinking to the bottom of the stream. Struggling desperately, she turned her head towards the air that lay just out of reach above her. She pulled at her hands but it felt more like trying to move solid lead than flesh and bones. Twisting back around, Selth maneuvered her feet between her hands and pushed with all her might, her hands moved up an inch before the chains became heavier and she was dragged back to the bottom of the pool.

  Running out of air, Selth started pushing herself along the bottom of the stream. She couldn’t push herself upright but the chains allowed her to move side to side, if barely. A minute ticked by and she thou
ght she was going to die as the pain in her lungs grew. Ignoring it, she kicked at the ground and continued pushing herself forward, inch by inch. Finally, she came close to the side of the stream and, with a strangled gasp, pushed her head above the surface of the water. She still couldn’t pull her hands from the bottom of the stream but she could breathe.

  She stayed that way for five minutes, desperately trying to pull up her hands, before something in the chains shifted and they lost their unnatural weight. Selth breathed a huge sigh of relief and started scrubbing at the dirt, shit and piss that coated her from the Mardulian prison pit. Ten minutes later she pulled herself out of the stream and wrapped the cloak Mattle had given her around her shoulders. Leaning up against a tree and dangling her feet in the stream she waited for him to return and lead her back to their campsite.

  Breaking branches and muttered curses alerted her to Mattle’s approach just before he came stumbling out of the undergrowth. He looked at the stream briefly then swung to where Selth lay curled up against a tree. She frowned up at him, he was carrying a large bundle under his left arm and seemed incredibly uncomfortable to be standing so close to her. “What’s that?” she asked, breaking the awkward silence by pointing to the bag under Mattle’s arm.

  He hurriedly thrust it towards her, “Your saddlebags. I figured you would want them if I managed to free you so I took them with me when I left Kant and Aren.”

  Selth pulled herself slowly to her feet, careful to keep the cloak wrapped all the way around her. “Thank you.” she stuck out an arm and received the bags from him gracefully. He stayed where he was, looking around as though he wasn’t sure what was going on. “Are you going to just stay there?” she asked him, cocking an eyebrow and affecting offense.

  Mattle jumped in embarrassment. “No! Sorry, Sara. I didn’t mean to. I guess I just forgot.” he turned towards the trees again and started moving back towards camp but Selth cut him off.

  “Mattle.” she said, almost sadly.

  “Yes?” he replied, voice cautious.

  “Call me Selth. I call you Mattle, not Matt. We knew each other a long time ago but both of us have changed. Sara doesn’t exist anymore and I’m sorry if that’s what you want but the girl you saved all those years ago is dead. That doesn’t mean I don’t care for you but some things are just different now.”

  Mattle stared at her and an expression of resigned acceptance crossed his face. Selth almost wished she could take the words back but it was important that he knew how things stood. She was grateful that he had saved her life but somethings couldn’t change. “Okay.” he said finally, “I understand. Selth.” He turned away as though a great weight had settled onto his shoulders.

  She stared after him sadly as he pushed his way back through the underbrush. It had been important to say but the sadness weighed heavily on her she for several minutes after he vanished. When she finished sorting the maelstrom of thoughts which had sprung up in her mind, she opened the bags Mattle had brought with him and breathed a massive sigh of relief. Her spare clothes, including a set of boots, were nestled neatly inside of one of them.

  Throwing the cloak to the ground, she quickly stripped off the smallclothes she wore, which even the bath in the stream hadn’t cleaned off completely. Another quick dunk left Selth feeling as clean as was possible given everything that had happened. Then she put on the clothes that lay in her saddlebags. They weren’t exactly clean but it felt like heaven to be protected by more than just a cloak from the outside world. She glanced down at the smallclothes she had discarded, she wasn’t going to be carrying those anywhere ever again. Bending down, she dug a shallow hole in the ground and knocked the filthy things in with a rock. Then she picked up Mattle’s cloak and swung it around her, admiring the way it seemed to twist and blend to fit in with the landscape. Closing her saddlebags, she started through the thick undergrowth towards the campsite. It took far less time to reach the camp than it had going the other way, Selth’s boots absorbing the nettles and rocks that had hampered her outward progress with ease.

  She stepped into the clearing and saw Mattle with his back to her, facing Raxous. “I’m back!” she called out in a merry voice. Her legs collapsed from under her and she smashed into the ground, blackness closing in. She heard Mattle give a startled cry, his footsteps thumping towards her, before reality faded completely.

  Selth fell forward into a dream, all around her dark fire consumed the air and it felt as though she was in a furnace at the heart of the sun. The area all around her was illuminated in flickering light which twisted into the shapes of monstrous creatures. She looked around in horror and a path through the flames opened. The path screamed of pain, torment, and death but as she stood, rooted to the spot, the flames behind and to her side began closing in. As the flames started licking at Selth’s back she leapt forward onto the path. Terror filled her as she moved forward but the flames forced her on.

  In a swirl of flame Gruntle’s face appeared and Selth leapt back with a scream of horror. It wasn’t the awful face that had tried to rape her. It was the face that had been left behind by Raxous. Blood poured from massive wounds and the man only had one eye left. His nose and ears were gone and his whole upper lip had been torn apart. “Rape you! Beat you! Cut you! Kill you!” he screamed as flame consumed him again and she dropped to the ground trembling. The flames advanced behind her, though, and she was forced forward. The suffocating heat of her dreamscape was almost a welcome distraction.

  More faces filled Selth’s vision as she moved forward. Madib, screaming that it was her fault soldiers had come for him. Her fault he had been tortured into giving over his friends. Faces from her days in Redtower appeared: Marie screaming abuses at her. That she was unwanted, that nobody like her. That she was tearing everything apart. That it was her fault Marie had been kicked out of Renth’s house. Boris, tears filling his eyes as he stared at her. Saying that because of her he had lost his business, that tax collectors had come and seized his property. That it was all her fault. More and more faces appeared, faces she didn’t even know, screaming abuses at her. Screaming about how she had failed them and she slowly sank to the ground in horror, giving herself up for the flames.

  The path ended as she did so. The flames stopped pushing at Selth’s back but an even more horrifying sight awaited her. The massive traiganidorian which had attacked her mere days before was strapped across an altar of black stone. It was half formed, the broad ribbed chest and several arms were all that was visible, and it thrashed about in agony. As she watched more and more of the creature appeared in flashes of red power which left bursts of the color echoing behind Selth’s eyelids. Turning towards the source of the power she stumbled back in shock, nearly falling into the flames which licked at the air all around her. Atlatraigan stood on top of a warped pedestal of obsidian, black flames licking out all around him, spreading to cover the whole dreamscape.

  “Fool!” he thundered and cracks radiated out from the pillar he was standing on, “You let Selthraxadinian escape! You let him destroy your hold on his power!”

  “I’m sorry master!” the bound traiganidorian screamed, thrashing in pain as more and more of its body formed, “I didn’t know what he was capable of. I didn’t know!” It screamed again as a particularly bright flash of light smashed into its chest. Selth dropped to the ground in shock, just barely avoiding the flames at her back. She couldn’t have imagined that creature saying sorry to anyone. Obedience was one thing but Atlatraigan was torturing the thing to the point of madness.

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done! You may well have ruined plans set in place since the War of Order! The only reason I decided to bring you back to your miserable existence, rather than throw you into the void of unmaking, is because you can find the form Selthraxadinian has taken.” he roared, his face twisting into a snarl. The traiganidorian screamed louder than ever, the grating sound cut through Selth’s head and blood ran from her ears.

  The thing’s body was a
lmost fully formed now and, shaking, it rolled onto its stomach, prostrating itself before Atlatraigan. “I’m sorry master. I will not fail you again. I will not fail you again, master.” its horrible voice grated out across the plain of fire and brought to mind an endless existence of pain and torture.

  Atlatraigan had stopped focusing on the traiganidorian though, “Quiet, fool!” he commanded. “We’re not alone anymore.” Raising his voice to a thunder he called out, “Hello Selthraxadinian! It’s so good to feel your presence again, though I think perhaps you are not quite so excited as I.” Selth looked at him in horror, how had he known that she was there? But he was not looking at her. He seemed to be scanning the ground all around him and out into the plain of fire. With a wave or relief, she realized that he didn’t know where she was. Breathing a prayer of thanks to The Provider, she closed her eyes and tried to wake up. Nothing happened. “Come out Selthraxadinian!” Atlatraigan shouted, “There’s no use hiding from me any longer. I just want to have a friendly little chat.” Selth curled up into a ball, trying to make herself as small as possible so that Atlatraigan wouldn’t see her. “Now really, there’s no need for this.” his chilly voice cut through the air. Eight howls, the same as she had heard the night when the traiganidorian attacked her, shattered the air, “Come out now! Or I’ll have my little helpers drag you before me, reduced to the barest shade of what you are.”