“I don’t know,” he cried, unable to tear his eyes from the magical relics in front of him, “I did what you asked. For The Provider’s sake I led your filthy beast right to her! It’s not my fault she got away!”
“Not good enough.” Atlatraigan snapped his fingers and the staff and scepter disappeared.
Aren howled as though his thumbs had been cut off. “No!” he practically slobbered over Atlatraigan’s boots as he dragged himself upright, “She’s still in the tunnels. She doesn’t know anything yet! Send me back out after her, I won’t fail you this time!”
“But you’ve failed me every time we’ve met!” Atlatraigan roared, “I give you your power and you fail to conquer the planet! I ask you to dispel the darkness around the mountains and you come back claiming it was by your own hand that they darkened! Now I ask you to bring me this girl and you fail to do so! You had her in your hands and you still let her escape.”
“It will be different this time!” Aren sobbed on the ground, “I promise, it will be different.”
Selthraxadinian released the magical shield which surrounded her and every jaw in the room dropped. She smiled beatifically at stunned faces, she had always known the best time to make an entrance. “I’m afraid it won’t be.” she said, giving Aren a deadly look.
His mouth remained hanging open but it was Atlatraigan who replied, staring at Selthraxadinian in astonishment. “Yes, it appears that is the case.” he reached out and grabbed Aren’s forehead in one hand, “I hope you enjoy Hell, Ancarth the Black. You served your purpose well but in the end, you have always been a failure.” A glow of red surrounded Atlatraigan and a swirling portal of red flame formed behind Aren. He casually kicked the old mage in the chest and Aren flew backwards through the portal. Atlatraigan gave a small wave and the portal vanished then he turned towards her. “That’s the problem with mortals.” he grinned, “No matter how hard they try, they always die. And now you’re one too.”
“Not anymore.” she replied coolly and a cruel smile of victory carved its way onto her face as she changed her form. Light and Darkness twisted around her, bending and warping for several seconds, and when they faded Selthraxadinian stepped forward with the same smile written across his face. Short cropped, black hair covered the top of his head and bright green eyes shone out from a sharp, narrow face. His skin was white as starlight and clothing of pure darkness, which would have made any other person seem a washed out skeleton, accented every feature of his body. It was the same form Atlatraigan had seen him in fifteen years ago, when he had almost died. No weapons rested on his chosen apparel but his swords and daggers were a thought away and from the sudden tensed position of Atlatraigan’s body, the Lord of Hell knew that. “Hello again, Atlatraigan.” he said, “been quite a long time since we last got together.”
“Kill him!” The Lord of Hell shrieked, cutting through the silence that reigned after Selthraxadinian finished his transformation, “Kill Selthraxadinian!” With howls that promised pain and torment the traiganidorians leapt forward, claws reaching to grasp at his new body. He just laughed and with a calm flick of his wrist time slowed to nearly a halt. It wasn’t power to stop time, he knew his abilities and their limits quite well, but it was close. Valeirenin and Draxos dropped out into his waiting hands and with a merry jaunt to his step he moved forward. No decapitation this time, he had learned from his last painful encounter. This time he channeled enough Light into the creatures to destroy a small universe while simultaneously drawing out the Darkness that powered them and gave the traiganidorians such fearsome abilities. When the last one fell to the ground, Selthraxadinian dropped time back to its normal speed and stood facing a furious Atlatraigan who had just finished ordering his beasts forward.
Atlatraigan looked around at the fallen bodies of his traiganidorians with an expression of shock. Then he refocused on Selthraxadinian. “Fool!” he shouted, brandishing a finger in anger, “The Lord of Order has summoned you and you will appear!”
Selthraxadinian let out a long, low, rich laugh and spoke mockingly. “Summoned by the Lord of Order? Why don’t you say his name Atlatraigan? Too ashamed?”
Atlatraigan snarled, eying the Selthraxadinian’s blades warily. He clearly wanted to unleash his power on him but was afraid it would be too slow in the face of what Selthraxadinian could do. “Shattrenlix wants to have a chat with you.” he said slowly, “Feels you’re overstepping your bounds as a denizen of his creation.”
“Ha! He barked out a triumphant laugh, “That’s the name! The Lord of Order himself! Always your daddy’s messenger boy.”
“Shut Up!” Atlatraigan snarled at him, “He created all! And you and I are his to command as he sees fit. Do not think to contradict him as you have me, though you should treat the son of the creator with more respect than you do.”
Selthraxadinian sighed and shook his head. “You really don’t have any idea what’s going on, do you?” he asked, amusement sparkling in his eyes, “You see, if you did know as much as you pretended to, about me, about your father, about everything that’s happened between us, you wouldn’t be nearly stupid enough to say what you just did.” Atlatraigan swallowed visibly and he allowed himself a cruel smile. “You think Shattrenlix controls me?” he spread his arms gloriously, “He tried but not even the Lord of Order can keep me locked up where I don’t want to be.”
Atlatraigan stared at Selthraxadinian in shock, then roared, “No! You Lie!” he twisted his hand in a complex pattern and the burning power of Hell launched from him. Selthraxadinian just laughed as it approached at an infinitely slow speed. Stepping calmly around the burst of power he reached out and grabbed Atlatraigan’s shoulder, opened a portal and dragged the Lord of Hell towards it. Then the ground vanished from underfoot and he and Atlatraigan were falling through a different portal. Burning flames leapt to greet the two of them and he screamed in pain as the fires of Hell flew along his skin.
Atlatraigan’s fist connected with his face and he flew backwards in a heap. Cold laughter filled his head, “Almost Selthraxadinian. You almost managed to get away. But here I am God! Here, you play by my rules.”
Atlatraigan appeared in front of him and punched him again, faster than he could track. The punch threw him back through the air and before he could hit the ground Atlatraigan was in front of him once more. A fist came up and smashed into his stomach, tossing him high into the air. Then, just before he hit the ground, Atlatraigan smashed him even harder into the burning obsidian. Selthraxadinian groaned in pain and unsheathed his swords, pulling deeply on the power of darkness as Atlatraigan approached him again, this time at a leisurely pace. A flaming, black, obsidian spear appeared in the Lord of Hell’s hands and he raised it high over his head. “It’s over, Selthraxadinian.” he laughed, then brought the spear down faster than the eye could track.
Darkness exploded out from where Selthraxadinian lay, turning the world black. The very fabric of reality twisted and in the grandest of all deceptions, in which lay the true power of darkness, two creatures changed place. The darkness dissipated to reveal Atlatraigan pinned by his own spear to the spot where Selthraxadinian had been lying earlier. The air all around the two of them shimmered and reverberations rocked through the landscape of Hell as reality tried to reassert itself. He ignored the tremors and grabbed Atlatraigan by the hair with one hand, ripping the spear from his stomach with the other. With a quick wave of his hand, a portal appeared and in a smooth motion he threw the Lord of Hell through it and jumped after him. A final shudder rocked Hell as the portal closed and reality returned to normal. Selthraxadinian breathed a massive sigh of relief, it was never a sure thing how long a spell seeped in Darkness would last, but it had worked that time.
“Don’t embarrass yourself again.” he snapped as Atlatraigan pushed himself to his feet, hands held ready to work some new magic, “It wouldn’t work, not here, and you might do more harm than good.” He gestured towards the rows of cages lined up before the two of them, “Even I�
��m not sure exactly what I have locked up here.”
“Where are we?” Atlatraigan snarled, looking around him as though to find the portal back to Hell. Selthraxadinian laughed. “What is it?” Atlatraigan demanded, “Tell me where we are!”
“The realm of Light and Darkness. Your new home, for the next few million years.” he said then narrowed his eyes in a dangerous fashion, “You killed one of my friends and you chased me across half the multiverse, trying to capture me and bring me to your father. I can’t just let that go unpunished, now can I?”
Atlatraigan snarled at him, “You can’t chain me! Shattrenlix will not stand for it! He will free me himself and tear you down.”
Selthraxadinian laughed, throwing his head back and allowing a touch of insanity to enter his voice. “Maybe.” he whipped his head down and stared at Atlatraigan with burning eyes, “But I doubt it. This place is outside of creation, after all, and as long as I don’t mess around with Shattrenlix’s precious Order he doesn’t really care what I do.”
“You’re wrong!” Atlatraigan shouted, fear entering his voice as Selthraxadinian approached him, “You can’t do this! He will free me!” Selthraxadinian sped up time and, with a disgusted look at the Lord of Hell, seized him by his hair and dragged him into an open cage. The bars were made of infinitely complex strands of power twisted together and there were none left unchained who could break through them. He smiled and reasserted the normal speed of time, savoring Atlatraigan’s last curses. Then he turned and walked further into his own realm.
Delicate strands of power, connecting every source of Light and every source of Dark in the universe parted before him as he strode forward and he allowed himself a small smile. Everything was just as it had been before his unfortunate encounter with Atlatraigan and that traiganidorian. A memory of pain flared in his lower back at the remembrance of the encounter and caused him to flinch. Atlatraigan would suffer for setting that beast upon him. He wasn’t sure how just yet but the Lord of Hell would wish he had never been born by the time he was done with him.
A wisp of chaos energy floated by Selthraxadinian’s face and he froze, revenge unimportant next to what he had just seen. There hadn’t been freely moving chaos energy in any realm since Az’emon was chained. But if the Lord of Chaos was stirring, he allowed a cruel smile to carve its way onto his features, then Shattrenlix would have to throw all his resources at the god to keep him from breaking free. And that left open the opportunity for him to set in motion plans he had held ready since Shattrenlix betrayed him at the end of the War of Order.
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The God in the Shadows (The Story at the Heart of the Void Book 1) Page 33
