Selth tried to escape as shadow kept pouring forth, strange images and symbols pounding into her skull. Scenes that could only be described as memories flitted through her head, but she couldn’t remember them after they vanished. Strange thoughts and languages swirled through her and with a cry she collapsed to the ground. The power from the Shadow was the only thing keeping her conscious.
Finally, it vanished and with a shuddering sigh of relief she fell forward onto the cold stone of the ground, unconscious. When she came to she could barely remember what had happened. Everything blurred together in a strange way. She pushed herself to her feet just as footsteps came pounding through the corridor at a run and she looked at the entrance to the cavernous room. Turning, she ran towards the back of the room. Just as the footsteps reached the entrance to the great room Selth threw herself behind a pillar
“What is it Aren?!” a voice shouted from the doorway, out of breath.
“Quiet! Fool!” Aren’s voice hissed back. Somehow Selth could understand him perfectly, “Something just happened here, something powerful. Do you want to bring a potentially dangerous power down on us? No? Good! Then keep your mouth shut!”
There was no reply from the first voice but Aren didn’t speak again so Selth assumed that the two had reached an agreement. Footsteps echoed down the stairs and then across the great hall towards her hiding place. She edged her way closer towards the back of the great room where darkness concealed everything. Tearing her gaze from the promising safety of the dark, she turned and saw Aren standing where the Shadow had been previously. He was looking in confusion at the now empty space, scratching his beard as though trying to puzzle out what had happened to the massive source of power which had just been there.
To Selth’s horror, he started turning towards where she was moving along the wall of the room. Just before she came into his view a dreadful cold filled her. She seemed to be falling back, back into nothingness as shocking as water on a cold winter day. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t see, there was nothing around her and then it was over. She was standing in the back of the room, gasping for breath, and Aren was turning towards where she had been hiding but no longer was. Shocked she stumbled further into the darkness of the room and backed into a wall. Feeling her way along it she found a huge doorway set in the stone. She turned to look at Aren and the other magi one last time then moved into the massive corridor, one hand against the stone wall, and fumbled her way forwards.
She couldn’t see anything. Whatever magic had been lighting up the hall and the other corridors leading to the great room held no sway in this area. Selth stumbled forward blindly, one hand outstretched the other trailing along the wall to her left. She moved in straight lines counting the doors between each dead end where she had to turn. At first she was afraid she was going to experience another suffocating experience like in the great hall but nothing of the sort happened. She just kept moving blindly through the corridors which seemed to stretch on endlessly. A few times rats ran across her path, causing Selth to jump nearly out of her skin, but otherwise nothing moved in the passageways.
After walking for hours, she gave up. Completely lost and with no way of getting past the magi in the hall there was nothing for her to do. She sat down, hard, on the stone floor and leaned up against the side of the passage. Wishing that she could see something in the pitch blackness of the hallways, Selth closed her eyes. And opened them again. The darkness all around her had changed. It was still pitch black but she could see everything around her. She jerked up in surprise thinking that the mage had come running after her and was lighting his passage. But this wasn’t like the light in the outer corridors. It came as shapes and the outlines of shapes, all in various shades of gray.
Looking around in shock, Selth stood back up. She held up her hands in front of her face and shouted in surprise. Black tattoos entwined her hands and reached back up into her jacket. Quickly stripping off her cloak, jacket and shirt she stared down at herself. Tattoos twisted between her fingers and around her hands and arms, reaching up in complicated swirls and jagged. Her shoulders were covered in tattoos as well, inked so deeply and so completely that it was almost impossible to see anything of her original skin underneath. Pulling off the rest of her clothes Selth looked for tattoos in other places on her body but there were none. Shaking her head in confusion she dressed again and stared around in wonder.
That cloud of Shadow had evidently worked a few helpful changes. Selth stood up and started walking along the corridors again, not bothering to trail a hand along the wall now that she could see again. A thought struck her like a thunderbolt. The movement, the teleportation, when she had somehow appeared in the darkened side of the great hall. That must have been because of the Shadow. Casting her mind back to when it happened, she thought about what might have caused the movement. She had wanted to get to the back wall, she had been sneaking along and would have made it until Aren started turning towards her. That was when she had fallen back into the darkness. Selth swallowed, uncertain whether or not she was imagining things, uncertain whether or not what had occurred would happen again, uncertain whether or not she wanted it to. Shaking off her worries she pictured a place in her head which she sometimes escaped to to be alone, an area on top of a roof hidden from view by a chimney, she tried to fall back into darkness as she had before. Nothing happened. Scowling, she started walking forward again. It had been stupid to try. Likely she had just imagined the whole thing in the great hall. But every so often she would stop and try to perform the disappearing act which had saved her from the mage.
She wandered for several more hours, growing more and more dejected. Even with her ability to create maps in her head this place was a maze of corridors and rooms that Selth knew she would never find her way out of. Turning down one corridor she froze. There were stairs at the end of this particular hallway but they went down, not up. Shrugging her shoulders she walked towards them. Things couldn’t get much worse than they already were, she might as well give going deeper into the ground a shot. Ten minutes later Selth reached the bottom of the stairs, panting. She looked back up and shook her head. There was no way she was going to climb her way back out of that. Stepping forward she saw that she was in another massive room but there were no tables in this one and there was still none of the magical light from before. Moving farther into it Selth clamped a hand to her nose as an awful stench hit her. Suddenly a wave of depression nearly drove her to her knees. Taking another step forward, her boot crunched down on something hard. Glancing down she leapt back, her free hand going to her mouth in horror. The broken face of a skull stared up at her from the ground. Spinning in a circle, she realized that there were bones scattered all across the ground.
A growl rose from somewhere at the far end of the room, opposite the stairs she had just come down, and she looked on in terror as a massive shape materialized out of a darkness even her newly enhanced eyes couldn’t penetrate. Turning, she ran towards the stairs but doors she hadn’t seen before slammed shut before she could reach them, closing the room off from escape. Selth spun on her heel and stared at the beast as it stalked closer to her. A huge, scarred head like that of a rottweiler sat atop a massively built body. The creature looked like a dog but it stood at least fifteen feet high at the shoulder and spiked protrusions extended from its shoulders. It was so dark that she could barely make it out as it stalked towards her. A guttural laugh filled the room on all sides of her and a voice spoke in her head, “It has been a very long time since anyone made their way down here. I am glad you came. I have been very, very hungry.”
Whimpering, Selth pressed herself to the door. She glanced around the room but couldn’t see an exit anywhere. The rank breath of the creature blew out towards her and almost made her gag. Tears in her eyes, she sank to the ground, unable to comprehend the fact that she was about to be eaten by a creature she’d never heard of before in a place that couldn’t possibly exist in the city of Redtower. As the giant be
ast came to a rest just twenty feet from her, she could see enormous teeth leering out of its face, almost in a grin. The eyes of the beast glowed a ghastly yellow color and one of its ears was missing. “Time to die, little girl.” its voice filled her head, reverberating through her bones, and a cold laughter which came from a place of frozen horrors and unimaginable torments filled her, chilling her to the bone. The creature lunged, Selth threw up her arms and was suddenly falling back, back into that cold place from the great hall. She couldn’t breathe but this time the air around her twisted and turned with different shapes. Shadows slid over and around her in impossible shapes and motions. Twisting vortexes of power that hung within her reach spun around, over and under her. Strange symbols that spoke of illusion and deeper meanings etched their way across her eyes. Then everything was gone and only the barest recollection of what had happened filled her mind.
With a gasp, Selth appeared behind a chimney, on a roof where nobody could see her. She sank down, gasping for breath, and looked around. It was still bright out but the sun was closing on its resting place in the west of the sky. Glancing down at herself, she received a second surprise. Two daggers of shifting shadows burned in her hands and the tattoos, gray in the light of day, which she had first noticed in the corridors of that terrifying place shifted and twisted along her skin, changing shape and shade. Opening her hands, she watched in shock as the daggers dissolved into nothing. As they did, the tattoos stopped twisting and the colors settled to what they had been right before she let go of the daggers. Confused and scared, Selth climbed down the building and hurried back towards Renth’s place. As she went she pick pocketed several purses so that it wouldn’t seem as though she was returning empty handed. Before she returned though she made a quick stop at Buxon’s tailor shop. He looked up in surprise at her quick entry, but Selth quickly threw three silvers from her own wallet on his counter, “Two pairs of calfskin gloves, right now.”
Buxon shook off his surprise and nodded, smiling. “Of course dear.” he turned and walked into a back room. When he returned he held out several pairs of gloves, all matched to Selth’s hand size. At her look of surprise he gave her a calm wink, “You’re not the first thief to buy clothes from me. You all think you can keep your secret but it’s not hard to ferret out.” he gave a deep sigh, “And eventually you all want a pair of gloves like these, to hide the scars of your work. So I took the liberty of making some up for you just in case.”
Selth squirmed uncomfortably, embarrassed to be called out as a thief by a man whom she had grown to genuinely like. She pushed her feelings aside though and nodded her thanks. Then she quickly took two pairs of the gloves from him, careful to avoid showing the tattoos that now spread across her hands, and Buxon took the coins she had stacked on the counter in front of him. Hastily pulling the gloves on, she made her way back towards Renth’s house. She tucked the extra pair of gloves into her wallet and just as the sun was setting made her way back down into the basement. Marie glared at her, as though she was displeased that Selth had not vanished from the face of the earth in the course of the day, but the others looked at her with worry. Shaking off their questions, Selth threw the purses she had collected to Renth then made her way to her pile of blankets, sank down in them without bothering to strip off any of her clothes and passed out.
7
An Unwelcome Visitor
I heard our companion Ruination, The Destruction of All, the entity with no name, laughing madly this night. It confirms my fears – Shattrenlix has started battle with Az’emon. Planets, no, universes will die by the score, along with everything in them. I now fear for us all.
– Journal of Celithic
Selth’s dreams that night were plagued with enormous beasts trying to devour her and shadows twisting around and suffocating her. She tossed and turned uneasily and when she burst into wakefulness, terrified she was about to die, she thought she had woken far earlier than anyone else in the house. As she started to get up though, a voice caused her to freeze. Marie and Jonah were talking quietly back and forth about her.
“It’s not fair, she shows up and it’s like the rest of us are just background pieces all of a sudden.” Marie said, “All Renth cares about anymore is her.”
“No, Marie. It’s not like that,” Jonah protested, “It’s just that she’s really good at stealing stuff. We both know that Renth is driven more by greed than anything. He’ll get over her in a little while. It’s just the novelty of having a real thief rather than a couple of semi decent kids which has him all excited.”
“But did you see the load she brought in last night? That was the same amount that Charlie and James bring in each day. Something went wrong with whatever complicated plan she tried to pull. She’s probably going to bring the city guards down on all of us by tomorrow.”
Peering from under her blanket, Selth saw Jonah shake his head and sigh, “I don’t know what happened but whatever it was she wouldn’t have come running back here if she thought she was being chased. Besides, she didn’t actually have anything valuable when she showed up so the guards aren’t going to care that much about whatever did happen.”
“Maybe not this time,” Marie said, warming to her argument, “but who’s to say in the future. That girl is dangerous. She has to go. We did just fine before she showed up and we’ll do fine when she leaves but we won’t be fine when twenty guards come storming in here after her.”
Jonah glanced over to where Selth was pretending to be asleep, “Maybe you’re right.” he said after a long pause, “We can think about it more in the morning. For now, try and get back to sleep.” He rolled over onto his side and in five minutes was back into the deep slumber that all the children in Renth’s house possessed.
Marie waited until Jonah was fast asleep, then looked over at where Selth was hiding amid her blankets. She smiled cruelly, “Good. That’s all I wanted anyways.” The older girl pulled herself out of her blankets and stalked out of the basement.
Selth stayed hidden under her covers until the sun started to shine through the door way. She knew that Marie didn’t like having her around but she had thought that Jonah was on her side. If he brought concerns about her to Renth, the old thief would be far more likely to listen than if Marie voiced the same complaints. He might even put enough trust in Jonah’s opinions to kick Selth out of the house.
Tumbling out from her blankets she dashed towards the door, not sure where she was going, just needing to get out, but just before she reached the handle to the door Marie banged it open and stomped down the stairs. She cast a cruel look at Selth’s frightened face then moved back towards her blanket pile. Just before the older girl went out of earshot she whispered, “It’s going to be such a lovely morning. I do hope you enjoy what comes next.” Selth froze, turning back towards Marie’s blanket pile as the older girl settled down with a smug look on her face.
A loud knock resounded throughout the house and Selth swung back towards the door, terror filling her. Who could Marie have brought back so quickly? Would she have been so stupid as to bring the city guards down just because she didn’t like Selth? She glanced one last time at Marie’s smug form before swinging to face the door while simultaneously backing her way into her corner of the room. The door pushed inwards and Selth felt her stomach drop in terror as the long blue robe of the old mage from the previous day appeared in the doorway. He settled down on the first step to the basement, blocking anybody from exiting the building, and pulled out a pipe. Mumbling a word under his breath, the pipe caught and he started puffing happily on the long object. Each of the children, awakened by the banging on the door, jumped back in surprise and fear as he did so. No matter what Renth said about the magi being forces for good, everyone had heard the stories of their terrible powers of destruction. It wasn’t smart to mess with a mage.
Selth kept staring back and forth between the mage and Marie. How had the eighteen year old thief come into contact with the mage? How had she known that he would b
e after Selth? None of it made sense!
Five minutes after the old mage’s entrance, Renth stuck his head through the hole in the roof which separated him from the children. He peered at the old mage then around at the children’s terrified faces and pulled himself back up, spun around and was soon standing on the ground of the basement. “What do you want, Aren?” he snapped at the mage who calmly put away his pipe and stood, filling the doorway with his tall frame.
“Ah, Renth. Is that anyway to talk to your old mentor? Hmm?” Aren replied in a cheery tone. Selth’s jaw dropped and she swung to peer from Renth to Aren and back again. How could Renth be Aren’s apprentice? They were practically the same age.
“I’m not your pupil anymore, Old man.” Renth sneered, “I had my fill of your dry old books and sermons. So tell me what you want or get out of my house.”
Aren looked around him, just as calm as before, “Quite an improvement you’ve made. I imagine you never think of my dusty old sermons in the cozy rooms of the academy with regret.” As Renth started to open his mouth in fury, he cut him off, “Don’t worry. I’m not here because of you, not right now at least. Although really, using children to do your thieving for you? I should report you to someone for that. But no, I’m here for one of your children. We had a run in yesterday, although I had no idea she was there at the time.” he turned to look Selth full in the face, “But somehow, she managed to take something which neither I nor my magi could touch or affect in any way.”
The God in the Shadows (The Story at the Heart of the Void Book 1) Page 8