Renth peered back and forth between Aren and Selth, “And if I don’t let you take her?” he asked.
Aren glanced over at him, amusement plain on his face, “I don’t think it’s really up to you. The girl can either come with me right now or I can burn this building down with everyone in it.”
Selth looked at Aren, horrified. How could anyone even contemplate killing seven people just to get someone to do what he wanted? She glanced at Renth but one look at his sheet white face convinced her that Aren wasn’t bluffing. Before he could say anything she turned to Aren, “I’ll come. Just don’t hurt anyone. Okay? I’ll come, but only as long as you don’t hurt anyone.”
Aren smiled, “Wouldn’t dream of it, my dear.” then, sticking out his hand, he motioned her towards him, “Now, come along. We really must be going if we’re to catch the next ride out of here.”
“Can I get my clothes and things?” Selth asked timidly. She didn’t want to anger the mage but she also didn’t want to leave all the things she’d worked so hard to obtain the past six months.
Surprise flitted across his features but he nodded. “Do it quickly child.” he said then reached into a pouch hanging at his side and pulled out an identical one. At her shocked look he laughed, “This bag will hold anything you put in it. Pack everything you need inside, we can’t have you walking around with an enormous sack tied to your back. We have to move too quickly for that.”
Selth accepted the proffered bag then hurriedly threw the extra clothes she’d purchased, her extra pair of boots and her sack of money into it. Reaching into her wallet, she pulled out the second pair of calf skin gloves and put them in as well. She tied the bag to her the same way the mage wore his then accepted his proffered hand.
Guiding her before him, Aren hurried out of the house. “Wait here.” he commanded briefly and Selth froze in place, unable to move a muscle. The he turned back into the house and took a sack that jangled with coins from the magic pouch at his waist. “Much obliged Marie!” he called out then tossed the coins to the older girl. “Let’s move.” he said as he came back to Selth’s side, grabbing her hand and unfreezing her.
He proceeded to drag her through the alleys leading to Renth’s house as though he’d been traveling them all his life. Coming out into the main street, he fell back to Selth’s side and took a firmer grasp of her hand. His long legs caused her to break out jogging every few steps just to keep up with him but he never loosened his grip on her hand. All through their trip along the streets, he said nothing to her and every time that Selth tried to ask a question he quickly shushed her. They walked for almost an hour through the city and finally came to a nondescript looking house. Flipping an odd looking device from his pocket Aren muttered, “Good good, we made it on time.” then he dragged her after him towards the house and kicked open the door. He pushed her inside, causing her to stumble on the door frame, and when she looked around her jaw dropped. Aren closed the door behind him with a bang and then laughed at the look on Selth’s face, “Yes, it’s quite something, isn’t it?”
The whole space of the room was taken up by a massive stone portal, blue gemstones gleaming all around the outside of the circular space in the center. There was nothing else in the room but the floor, ceiling and walls were all made of metal and spaced so as to provide the most room for the massive edifice in its center. As she watched, the inside of the portal began spinning, the rocks that made it up separating and moving in opposite directions. The gemstones glowed and an intense light was emitted from the center of the portal. The space in the center suddenly turned opaque, a swirling blue maelstrom, and Aren grabbed Selth’s arm and hurried with her through the portal. There was a flash of white light as they passed through and then they were standing in what looked to be an identical room but with their backs to the portal rather than facing it.
Spinning, Selth saw that the portal was slowing down. The gemstones stopped emitting light and gradually the rocks settled back into a solid formation. Aren smiled down at her, took her hand and led the way out of the building. She stumbled after him, unresisting, shocked by what had just happened and by the strange feeling it had left in her bones.
8
The Academy of the Magi
This war started too soon. Bah! I should have included the moves of Shattrenlix in my grand design. I did not think the Lord of Order would prove such an active element. This may ruin everything.
– Journal of Selthraxadinian
Selth could only gaze around her in shock, pale marble towers twisted up from the ground all around her, the massive structures graced by the most intricate carvings imaginable. Scenes of magic at its most potent were rendered in exacting detail. Dragons being cast down in flames, the raising of massive walls to stop armies of undead. It was all the stories from the Age of Legend come to life around her, stories that no one believed after the age of five. But looking around, seeing the graceful carvings, the life-like depictions of past events, she could see everything happening, she could see the truth of her childhood stories. A massive building, its roof a mass of beautifully arcing domes, stood in the center of the towers. It too was covered in drawings but they were less beautifully rendered and seemed to show modern scenes rather than the legends scrawled across the towers.
It was to this building that Aren led her, walking quickly across the lush green grass that covered the whole of the grounds. Examining her surroundings as best she could while being dragged across the lawn, she observed massive trees twisting around the bases of the towers she had first seen coming out of the portals. Some of the trees were hundreds of feet high yet they still only reached a quarter of the way up the towers. Moving between them and the massive central structure, men and women in robes of green, red, yellow, white and occasionally the rich blue of Aren’s cloak could be seen. They all hurried, as though they had somewhere important to be, and looking up at Aren she realized that he would have liked to move at a faster pace as well but was slowing so that she could take everything in.
The closer they drew to the massive central structure, the larger Selth realized it was. From a distance it had looked to be five times as wide as the towers and equally tall. However, the distance had been deceiving. It took far longer than she would have thought to reach the building, almost twenty minutes of fast walking before she and Aren were half way there and even then it took up all of her field of view. They finally reached the massive doors that led into the building, tall enough to allow a giant through and wide enough for fifty men to ride abreast. However, Aren led her through a small portcullis that was set next to the doors. A little disappointed, Selth glanced back at the doors. It made sense that they wouldn’t open for just two people. It must take a supreme effort to move them even a little.
Inside the structure, she had a brief flash back to the winding corridors in that strange place in Redtower after she had run into the darkness. Looking around though, she realized that the stone of this building was far lighter and more inviting than the dark gray of the labyrinth. A rich red carpet was rolled across the floor and oil lamps were spaced evenly across the walls. Tapestries depicting moments of magical triumph and mastery were spaced every twenty meters. They were made of vivid fabrics and as Selth looked, they almost seemed to move before her eyes. Looking up at Aren, she realized that he was viewing her with a small, amused smile on his face.
Despite his gray hair, Aren’s face possessed few lines except around his eyes and mouth from where he had been smiling. A hawkish nose protruded from his sun darkened face and piercing blue eyes gazed out from underneath bushy white eyebrows. Underneath the blue cloak he wore sturdy brown trousers and a shirt of the same color. Around his neck an amulet hung, bronze with complicated silver inlay swirling across its surface. “Would you really have burned down Renth’s house if I hadn’t come with you?” Selth asked, thinking it unlikely that such a kindly looking man could perform an act so horrible.
He appeared thoughtful at the question, he dr
ew himself up to a commanding position then suddenly gave her a mischievous wink and bent down conspiratorially, “I suppose that depends on whether or not you’d go running back to them if I said no.”
She gaped up at him in surprise, “But you said . . .” she started in an outraged voice then changed what she was saying, “How could you threaten something like that!”
Aren laughed down at her, “Well, I needed you to come with me and we were already running late to get to the portal. If I’d tried reasoning everybody through it Renth would have talked your ear off for half the day before finally conceding that it was for the best.”
Selth frowned thoughtfully, remembering the exchange between the two old men. It seemed likely that what he had said was true. Renth would have taken forever to concede his opinion. Peering suspiciously over at Aren she asked, “How old are you? Renth looks like he’s the same age as you, so how is it that he was your student?”
He put on an affronted look, as though he had been offended by her question, before answering. “I’ll have you know that I am at the ripe age of two hundred and forty three.” he paused and glanced down at Selth’s gaping mouth, then smirked and continued in a more secretive, friendly voice, “There are a few benefits to being a mage. Now come, I didn’t bring you here just to chatter away about myself and the things I may or may not do. I’m here to talk about the Shadow you stole. No one else could so much as touch it and you went and carried it off without a problem. I want to find out how. So tell me, what did you do? And has anything strange happened since yesterday. Anything that you can’t explain? Anything at all?”
Selth looked up at him thoughtfully. She had taken an instinctive liking to him after his reaction to her question about burning down Renth’s house but she wasn’t sure if she could trust him. Slowly, she shook her head, “No, there wasn’t anything strange that occurred. Everything's been normal.”
Aren started walking again, leading her down an endless series of corridors distinguishable only by the different tapestries hanging on the wall, “You know girl, if you’re going to lie you might want to try a more realistic one. Like, oh, I don’t know. You saw the moon being hung in the sky at the dawn of time or that you’re personal friends with the seven prophets of The Provider. Something along those lines.” he looked down at her as they he kept walking, glaring from under bushy eyebrows.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Selth said, keeping her voice as innocent as a new born baby’s while looking up into Aren’s piercing, gray eyes.
He cut her off before she could get anymore out though, “Really? Well then, I suppose that those other two magi and I just all fell asleep at the same time in the underground and you sneaked past us. And then none of us remembered falling asleep! Is that what happened?” Selth looked down at her feet, embarrassed, then almost fell as Aren pulled on her hand to keep her moving, “So tell me what happened in the underground.”
She looked up at him, considering. She might not have much negotiation power but it was time to find out how far that power stretched, “Tell me what that place is first. Then I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Aren looked thoughtful, although he kept towing Selth along the hallways. “Fine.” he said, “It’s to be about trust then. Fact for fact, tit for tat. Very well, in the academy we call it the underground. It’s the ruins of some sort of ancient civilization. It connects a few cities at the southern border of Andin, Redtower is one of them. It may stretch on more extensively than that but every mage who’s tried to explore it in full has become lost and never reemerged. There are spells guarding its entrances, some of which even we don’t know about, and the magi of the academy have put our own spells on them as well to . . . dissuade the unwary from going near them. The halls are perfectly safe in and of themselves but we don’t want anyone getting lost down there in the dark and dying.”
“People always say that magi don’t care what happens to normal people though.” Selth said, forgetting for a moment that she was in an area filled with magi and letting her curiosity have free reign.
“People like to degrade what they don’t understand you mean.” he responded, “Makes them feel better about themselves for not being able to use powers like those of the magi. After all, if they acknowledged magic as a useful tool normal people would find themselves knocked down a peg from where they stand at the top of the food chain. They can’t accept that so they make up all sorts of stories about how magi are evil and conveniently forget that magic does any good until a war rolls around or the crops go sour. Then they come begging the academy to do something about it.” he paused, his face dark before suddenly brightening, “But we’re not here to talk about the suspicions of normal folk. I told you about the underground, you tell me about what happened to you.”
“Not much of an explanation.” Selth muttered to herself.
“Girl, do you want to be here all night as I explain everything we’ve discovered about the underground and the people who created it?” she shook her head, mollified, “No? Good. Then tell me what happened.”
Selth glowered at him, “My name’s Selth. Not girl. You could at least use it when you’re speaking to me.”
He stopped walking and threw up his hands in exasperation. “Well I didn’t know your name was Selth, now did I. So please, just tell me what happened so I can figure out what’s going on. You would like to know what happened to you right?” he asked, switching to a more soothing voice. She nodded slowly and he smiled at her. Taking her hand again he opened a door that Selth hadn’t noticed was there and led her into a comfortable looking room. Settling himself in a chair next to a roaring hearth Aren let out a satisfied sigh and indicated a similar looking chair close by. She looked around curiously, the room was filled with books. Books stacked on the desk, books stacked on chairs, there were three book shelves against one wall and all of them were full. Even the ground was covered with books. The only places free of them were the two chairs by the fire and the fire itself.
She picked her way over to the chair that Aren had indicated and with a bit of encouragement from the mage started talking. Selth told about how she had followed him into the underground and listened to the magi talking. How she had hidden under one of the tables to watch what they were doing to the large shadow. Then she told how the shadow had surrounded her, after the magi had left, and poured into her in an endless flow. She told about how she had fallen into blackness and reappeared when Aren was looking for her. She talked about wandering through the hallways and how her eyes had suddenly seen everything when before she had only seen the dark. Then she talked about how she had wandered into the room with the enormous beast. At that point Aren stopped her, obviously surprised.
“You say there was an enormous rottweiler with spiked shoulders and glowing yellow eyes just lying about in the underground. And it shut the door you had come through with its mind?” he asked, shooting upright. Selth looked at him suspiciously, thinking he was making fun of her, but when he saw the look Aren shook his head, “No, no. Don’t take that the wrong way. I believe you saw what you say you saw. It’s just that we’ve never found anything living in the underground before, aside from a few rats. I’ll have to get a team of magi sent down to sniff this beast out and see if we can communicate with it or kill it, if worse comes to worst.” His face had dropped to stare into the fire and he seemed to be talking to himself at the end of his statement. Glancing back up at Selth, he motioned for her to continue speaking.
She did so, saying how she had fallen into the nothingness again as the creature lunged for her except that this time she could see Shadows all around her. She tried to describe the symbols and vortexes which had been in that darkness but those were barely a hazy recollection in her own memory; she had no idea how to describe them with words. She also described the feeling of suffocating and the immeasurable cold and how she had appeared in a safe place when the shadows faded. Then she explained how glowing gray knives, which seemed to shi
ft as shadows, had been burning in her hands when she appeared. Tugging off her gloves, Selth showed Aren the tattoos that spun across them in elegant patterns. He got up from his seat when he saw them and knelt in front of her, taking her hands and examining them. “How far do they extend?” he asked quietly.
Selth looked around uncomfortably, “The go up my arms and cover all of my shoulders. When the daggers were out the colors of them were shifting in the same way as the daggers.” she lowered her voice as though afraid of eavesdroppers and looked around cautiously, “And they moved.”
“What do you mean, ‘they moved’?” Aren asked, giving her a perplexed look.
“When the daggers were out the markings shifted, they changed their positions.” she whispered, looking down at the tattoos with a scared expression.
Aren rocked back onto his heels, “Interesting,” he mused to himself, “that after all that happened the thing which scares you most is the tattoos on your arms. I wonder why?” he snapped his head up to meet Selth’s eyes, “but the real question is why it happened to you. Hayden tried to touch it of his own accord and nothing happened and Gwillem and I both messed around with it enough without getting any reaction.” A thought seemed to strike Aren and he gazed intently at her, “Anything that sets you out from the other people? Any magical abilities that might have gone unnoticed by others up until now?”
The God in the Shadows (The Story at the Heart of the Void Book 1) Page 9