The Inner Circle: Holy Spirit

  ‘I want El-i-miir.’ Seteal’s head fell to the side and spots danced across her vision. ‘El-i-miir . . .’

  ‘I know ye do, hon,’ Fes soothed. ‘We’ll see about that later.’

  Seteal’s head hit a pillow. Someone was wiping her face. She couldn’t open her eyes. She couldn’t.

  Aro-is-lin 4

  15. And darkness will pursue thee into thy wretchedness. Thee shall be desolate. Those whom She loves must find only hate. And those whom She hates, only death.

  Scriptures of the Holy Tome

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  WEPT FOR

  ‘Again!’ Master Fasil clapped his hands together with glee. ‘You’re making a bit of a habit of this, aren’t you? First you had your way with me and now you’ve taken a whisp . . . or a thousand whisps . . . or whatever it was. My dear Maker, you really are getting to be quite the little slut, aren’t you?’

  ‘You won’t even leave me to dream in peace?’ A ten-year-old Seteal glanced up at the ugly, sweating fellow from the tree swing in which she was rocking. She waved at Gifn, who watched protectively from the kitchen window. ‘It was all so easy back then.’ Seteal now stood beside Fasil, watching her younger self swinging ever higher. ‘Were you ever so innocent?’

  ‘I suppose we all were at some time or another.’ Fasil shrugged. ‘You can never have it back, though.’ He paused for a moment. ‘And what, may I ask, do you intend to do about that?’

  Seteal turned around to see Fasil examining the greenery and flowers surrounding her. They were withering and dying the longer her presence remained. The sun disappeared. Dark clouds rolled in and she turned to find a baby crying in his basinet.

  ‘That’s not mine,’ Seteal replied.

  ‘Of course he is,’ Fasil picked up the child and kissed him on the cheek. ‘We made him together, the three of us.’

  ‘The three of us?’ Seteal cringed.

  ‘His mama . . .’ Fasil winked at Seteal. ‘His papa--’ He kissed the baby. ‘And his whisps.’ The baby’s eyes burst open to reveal twin black spheres that spilled blood rather than tears.

  Seteal gasped and woke up in a cold sweat. She tasted blood and could only assume she’d bitten her tongue. Fes’s large outline snored softly in a chair beside the bed and a small candle flickered at the opposite end of the tent. The urge to relieve herself became overwhelming, driving Seteal to pull back the blankets, but what she found only made her feel worse. Between her thighs, Seteal’s nightdress was soaked in blood.

  ‘Fes!’ Seteal cried. ‘Fes. Wake up!’

  ‘I be here, honey,’ Fes said groggily. ‘Oh, my Lord Maker,’ she gasped and pushed herself to her feet. ‘I’d best get the jilt’lesit.’ She rushed out of the tent.

  Moving cautiously, Seteal put her feet on the floor and a hand on her head. The tent flap was torn open and Seeol hurried in followed by Fes and an unknown Elglair man.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Seteal asked anxiously.

  ‘He be Gor-in-ai,’ Fes replied as if it were obvious. ‘He’s the jilt’lesit who examined you after . . . what happened.’

  ‘Never mind all that.’ The young man rushed forward. Seteal estimated his age to be about seventy. ‘Loss of short-term memory is not an uncommon symptom of trauma. Hold still for a moment.’ Gor-in-ai reached out to Seteal’s aura, undoubtedly feeling along the various strands of light within. ‘This is quite unusual. With that much bleeding, I expected . . .’ He trailed off.

  ‘What is it?’ Seeol asked.

  ‘The baby is fine,’ Gor-in-ai replied. ‘And by that, I mean he’s alive.’

  ‘He?’ Seteal looked at her stomach disparagingly. She’d dreamt of a boy, but had hoped otherwise. ‘It’s a man child?’

  ‘Yes,’ Gor-in-ai replied. ‘I just don’t understand. There’s something that . . . is different. I feel the strands between you, but I am no longer able to see his aura. It’s as though it’s covered by a film of darkness. I really must consult with a gil in a matter such as this.’

  ‘Fes,’ Seeol butted in. ‘Could you pleasing change the blankets?’ He scooped Seteal up in his powerful arms and waited for Fes to change the bedding. Then he and the jilt’lesit waited outside for the Merry Islander to help Seteal clean herself up before returning. ‘I must have talking time with Seteal alonely.’

  ‘Gor-in-ai?’ Fes enquired of the jilt’lesit.

  ‘For now there’s nothing more we can do for you or the child, Seteal.’ The man sighed grimly. ‘I advise plenty of rest.’

  ‘Be quick, Seeol,’ Fes warned as she and Gor-in-ai left.

  ‘What is it?’ Seteal asked when Seeol took a seat at the end of her bed.

  ‘Don’t be scared.’ The young man put a hand on Seteal’s belly and attempted to smile reassuringly, his eyes remaining unnervingly expressionless.

  ‘I have a monster growing inside of me,’ Seteal sobbed. ‘I can feel it.’

  ‘He’s not a monster,’ Seeol reassured her. ‘He’s your son.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ Seteal snapped. ‘What do you know?’

  ‘Once, a very long timing ago . . .’ Seeol’s eyes filled with sadness. ‘I did hatched from a black egg in Narvon Wood. Is thought lots about it and is realised that we’re the same.’

  ‘My child’s aura is gone.’ Seteal spoke words that didn’t want to leave her lips. ‘Like yours.’

  ‘A whisp did to me the same as your baby.’ Seeol nodded. ‘That’s why you should not be so very scared. That’s why he’s not a monster.’

  ‘But you are a monster, Seeol.’ Seteal cringed, her heart sinking. ‘Don’t you see that? What if he’s just like you? What if he has another self like you did?’

  ‘I will help you.’ Seeol moved over to the entrance. ‘You can see so much.’ Seeol sighed. ‘But your greatest loss is that you can never see what is having right in front of you. I may be a monster, but I still have a heartbeat,’ the man finished with a solemn expression and then exited the tent.

  Seeol’s words haunted Seteal until the following morning when it was time to pack up the tents and continue south. Briel did the majority of the work in pulling down Seteal’s tent and storing it in his wagon, which had become an additional storage unit for army supplies. He’d likewise made room available for Seteal, having been advised by Gor-in-ai that she wouldn’t be up for riding.

  Once Seteal was safely bundled up in the back of the Keacos’ wagon, Far-a-mael took it upon himself to pay her a visit. She smelt him before she saw him.

  Seteal glared at the old man. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Good.’ Far-a-mael rubbed his hands together. ‘I can see that you’re comfortable and well-rested.’ He seemed nervous. ‘Well . . . now that it’s all done with, might I ask if you have anything useful to report on the status of Old World?’

  ‘Get out,’ Seteal replied through gritted teeth. ‘Get out!’ she screamed, thrusting a hand in Far-a-mael’s direction. The pain was barely noticeable at first, starting in her chest and moving quickly into her shoulder and along her arm. The burning sensation flashed through Seteal’s forearm and burst out from her fingertips: an invisible pulse of energy. Far-a-mael was struck with such force that he flew out of the wagon and hit the ground several strides away.

  Panting, wide-eyed and fearful, Seteal stared at her hand. This had happened before when she and Ilgrin were attacked by dogs in Setbrana. What was happening to her? Far-a-mael did not return.

  The day stretched on forever, during which Seteal received little stimulation to distract her from the constant waves of nausea emanating from her stomach. Several times, she had to race to the back of the wagon to vomit up more of the strange black stuff that had come up the day before. On another occasion, she vomited blood and began to wonder if she was going to survive to give birth to whatever it was that grew within. Did she care? Perhaps if her body died, at last Seteal’s spirit would be free.

  But she already knew that wasn’t to be the case. Her spirit had grown weak when she?
??d abandoned her body too long in Cold Wood. The spirit could not survive without the body. She wasn’t even sure she wanted it to.

  ‘What am I going to do with you?’ Seteal put a hand over her stomach and stifled a sob when she felt a soft kick. ‘Parrowun,’ she whispered the name. She remembered having heard it a long time ago and hating it at the time. It had such morbidity of meaning that she couldn’t understand why anyone would name their child in such a way. The word meant ‘wept for,’ which seemed all too appropriate in the case of Seteal’s bastard.

  She lifted her dress above her stomach and gazed at the bulging surface in dismay. The skin stretched out over her swollen belly had taken on a greyish tone and thin, black, vein-like structures had started to reveal themselves across the surface. She didn’t want to look at it anymore and quickly rolled her dress back down to her ankles.

  *

  Ilgrin rubbed the back of his head and squinted through the hazy darkness of the cave. He counted three silts and a human sitting at the table several strides away. ‘Who are you?’ he asked, standing groggily.

  ‘Sa’Enoch.’ The only male silt approached, opening his hand and guiding Ilgrin back to the table to offer him a backless chair. ‘Welcome. I’m sure you and Jakob must be well acquainted by now.’ He indicated toward the Sa’Tanist at the far end of the table. ‘This is May,’ he said, putting a hand on a female silt’s shoulders before lowering his lips to kiss her cheek. ‘And that is Teah.’ He gestured toward the darkly clad woman with the strange illumination that occasionally blinked into existence above her head. ‘I’m Noah.’

  ‘These are your acquaintances?’ Ilgrin turned to Jakob. ‘The ones willing to help us?’ For the first time since their meeting, Jakob only nodded in response and kept his eyes lowered.

  ‘We are those of whom the human speaks,’ Noah answered. ‘So you’re the man who wants my father’s job?’

  ‘Your father?’ Ilgrin questioned.

  ‘The Devil, Du’Korah,’ Noah confirmed, a wry smile raising his cheeks. The silt pushed a hand through his neatly trimmed purple hair and winked an equally purple eye. ‘Don’t worry, I want him dethroned as much as anybody.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Ilgrin shook his head. ‘This is all so much to take in. I’ve never really met another silt before.’ He cast his eyes over Teah’s hands and smiled at her lack of fingernails. ‘Why do you want to dethrone your father?’

  ‘It’s simple, really.’ Noah shrugged. ‘Father is destroying Hades . . . what humans call Old World. He refuses to regulate healing or resurrection. Anybody can do it whenever they want and Hades is suffering because of it. I don’t believe my father should’ve stolen the throne from your mother. I think it’s fitting that the line of Sa’Tan should have it back.’

  ‘What is that?’ Ilgrin asked distractedly, once again noticing the strange disk flicker above Teah’s head as she turned to look toward the entrance.

  ‘You’ve noticed my halo,’ Teah replied. ‘I’m an angel,’ she stated as though that were all the explanation required.

  ‘How are you all connected?’ Ilgrin pushed. ‘How can I trust any of you?’

  ‘If we were not trustworthy,’ Noah said slowly, ‘you’d already be dead. My father has put a price on your head and yet here you are alive in my presence.’

  ‘How did he know I was alive?’

  ‘It became obvious when Sa’Tanist spies reported a rogue silt flying about the skies of Abnatol.’ Noah’s tone remained patient. ‘Our kind are never sent that far north, so Father’s suspicions were raised immediately. Upon interrogation, the men who were sent after you and your mother so long ago admitted to being too weak to execute a child. They’ve since been executed themselves.’

  ‘What about the rest of you?’ Ilgrin glanced about the table.

  ‘You already know my motivation.’ Jakob shrugged.

  ‘May is my fiancée,’ Noah answered for the quiet light-blue-haired woman. ‘She supports what I’m trying to accomplish. And Teah--’

  ‘I’m an angel,’ Teah repeated her earlier statement. ‘It’s not safe for me to be seen in public. They’d hunt me down and kill me like they did my family. I’m hoping you’ll introduce a policy change.’ She looked at Ilgrin penetratingly. ‘Anyway, you couldn’t possibly be as recklessly destructive as Korah.’

  ‘Okay.’ Ilgrin nodded, satisfied by the answers he’d received. Each of them had a motivation that made sense. ‘So what’s the plan?’

  ‘It’s quite simple.’ Jakob spoke up, his face looking as haggard as Ilgrin felt after their whisp rain experience. ‘We have to get you and the crown together and seeing as though we can’t bring the crown to you, we’ll have to bring you to the crown.’

  ‘Where is it kept?’

  ‘In the treasury,’ Noah replied. ‘My father has the only key and he wears it around his neck.’

  ‘Sounds easy,’ Ilgrin said sarcastically.

  ‘We know that New World has formed alliances between various countries therein and are planning an attack on Hades,’ Noah replied. ‘I’ll find a way to steal my father’s key the night before he goes into battle. He’ll have so much on his mind I doubt he’ll notice its absence. While the Devil is gone, along with half the legion, it shouldn’t be too difficult to sneak down to the treasury unnoticed. The advantage we have is that no one really knows what you look like, and if we get you some decent clothing everything should go smoothly.’

  ‘That’s your plan?’ Ilgrin stared in wide-eyed astonishment. ‘Jakob recognised me immediately.’

  ‘It wasn’t hard to figure out.’ Jakob shrugged. ‘I’d heard you were still alive and heading our way. You wore human clothing and had a foreign accent.’

  ‘So if we get you something decent to wear, and you keep your mouth shut, you should get by unnoticed,’ Noah added.

  ‘There’s more,’ May spoke up. ‘We know the Devil’s routine: when he bathes, when he sleeps, when he’s most likely to be drunk. Korah has grown somewhat complacent in his old age and retrieving the key will be difficult, but not impossible.’

  ‘All right,’ Ilgrin agreed, inwardly laughed at the irony of using Far-a-mael as a distraction.

  ‘If there are no more questions, I should be on my way.’ Noah stood up. ‘The rain has stopped and Father will be suspicious if I’m out much later. Goodnight.’ The silt stood regally in his fine clothing, took May’s hand, and headed for the exit.

  ‘Goodnight,’ Jakob echoed tiredly as he got up and made his way down a narrow passage at the back of the cave.

  ‘What?’ Ilgrin asked Teah after she’d stared at him continuously for the better part of a minute.

  ‘This must all be very strange to you.’ The woman smiled warmly and Ilgrin realised for the first time how beautiful she was beneath all that makeup.

  ‘It is.’ Ilgrin frowned.

  ‘Not quite what you’d expected?’ Teah asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ilgrin replied. ‘You live in trees, for Maker’s sake.’

  ‘What were you expecting?’ Teah laughed. ‘That we’d behave like humans with wings?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Ilgrin felt himself going blue with embarrassment. ‘Why do demons hate your kind so much?’

  ‘People always hate those who’re different.’ Teah smiled sadly. ‘And I guess they didn’t take kindly to being controlled.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Up until a hundred or so years ago, the Devil could make whatever orders he wanted, but they had to be approved by the governing body,’ Teah began. ‘It’d been that way since the fall from Hae’Evun. But something happened.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Elglair,’ Teah said despondently. ‘Affiliates came to Hades, having made a deal with the devil. They possessed countless angels and turned them against their own kind. That’s how the angel hunts began. Once they’d destroyed most of us, catching and burning the rest became increasingly easy.’

  ‘No.’ Ilgrin turned away in disgust. ‘Af
filiation to the point of possession is uncommon among the Elglair. How could there have been enough gils so qualified as to overthrow that many angels?’

  ‘Maybe that’s why it’s uncommon,’ Teah mused. ‘They all came here. Some of them remain to this day: dedicated Sa’Tanists in the service of the devil. They have angel hostages and force them to do all kinds of evil. It’s a fate worse than death.’

  ‘We’ll free them,’ Ilgrin said empathetically. ‘We’ll free them together.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Teah reached across the table and took his hand, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I knew the true son of Sa’Tan would have to be a good man. I just knew it.’

  Ma-a-rk 56

  18. And in those days a great wickedness would abound, and blasphemous things. Maker’s sacred arrangement was defiled, and those He’d blessed as guardians became slaves.

  Scriptures of the Holy Tome

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  TENSION

  To her left, the black-stoned cliffs of Olgarnda pierced the eternal darkness. To her right was nothing but endless miles of grassy plains. El-i-miir stroked her horse’s mane and squinted through the shadows of Old World. She glanced over her shoulder and saw daylight on the distant horizon, but El-i-miir had been travelling so long beneath the black veil that the idea of proper light had all but faded from memory.

  While keeping close to the cliff face offered some protection, El-i-miir made sure to keep a keen eye on the sky nevertheless. She paid close attention to every bit of insignificant shimmering Way, determined not to leave anything to chance. Should she be attacked by silts, El-i-miir intended to know about it well in advance.

  Slender tendrils of birds in flight grew brighter, telling of what was to come. Other strings slowly faded: events that’d already transpired. A thicker, more complicated strand dipped about the sky in a squiggly pattern composed of several colours that intertwined to form a complicated mix. A silt had flown over the area recently. It had been looking for something. El-i-miir slid around a large boulder, dismissing its dull grey history as she went. It’d tumbled down from much higher up the cliff several months earlier.