Chapter Eight
Just underneath the catwalk where we entered was a small comfortable room. It was private, and made me feel happier that I wasn’t being watched by the grey clothed staff. A glass panel on the side we entered through kept everyone else out, so that the only people in the room with me were my Grandpa, Sigwald, and Valeska. As I took a seat on a plump leather sofa, next to my Grandpa, I couldn’t help but stare at her. She sat down with Sigwald opposite us, on another dark brown sofa. Valeska was poised and composed, sitting up with her back straight and her arms placed neatly to her sides. She moved her hands onto her lap, and smiled nicely at me, her thick red lips turning up at the sides. Her long wavy black hair hung down from her pale forehead beautifully, and her light brown eyes also grinned. Her skinny body was filled out in all the right places, which made me gawp at her from head to toe. She was gorgeous, and I was annoyed at myself for being only fifteen years old. She must have been at least thirty, and even if I was the same age as her, she probably wouldn’t give me a second look. I was way too ugly to be seen with a woman who was as stunningly attractive as she was. My gaze locked onto her, and I realised that I must be staring. I shifted my eyes to Sigwald, who chuckled loudly, breaking the tense silence that filled the little enclosure.
“I’m sorry I tried to…” I started nervously.
“Don’t worry about it!” Sigwald interjected happily. “It’s kind of exciting really! I’ve studied Ventus for so long now, I should be honoured that one would want to use their powers on me!”
He laughed uproariously. I didn’t think it was funny, so I pretended to laugh, to make him feel better.
“Listen,” he added, “I asked Valeska to come here for a reason. You see, she has better insight into the Secondus, having worked with one before, so I think that…”
“What do you mean?” I questioned urgently, turning to Grandpa. “I thought that you said we were the only Ventus…”
“You are,” Valeska answered with a strong eastern European accent. “You are the only Ventus. But you’re not the only Elementals.”
I studied her once again. She really was beautiful.
“I think you need to go back to the very beginning,” Grandpa suggested, “and explain everything to him, so that he finally understands.”
“Sure!” Sigwald replied, attempting to break my fixation on Valeska, which I finally did. Sigwald beamed at me, took a deep breath, and began.
“Where you are, right now, is the International Headquarters for the Ventus Cohors. We are one of the five strands of the Elementus Populas. The Elementus Populas are a group of people committed to teaching, helping, and aiding the four genetically enhanced groups that we call, the Elementals. Does that make sense?”
I shook my head. “Not really. Sorry, but I’m a bit dumb,” I added, blushing in embarrassment. I didn’t like Valeska thinking that I was stupid.
“It’s fine,” Sigwald continued patiently, “there’s a lot to take in. There’s a lot for you to understand, and to process. You see, the Elementus Populas is Latin for People of the Elementals. We have worked with Elementals for thousands of years, trying to make their job easier, to keep the world turning. Our department, Ventus Cohors, specialises in helping the Ventus- you and your sisters- to use your powers, your wind powers, to keep the balance between humanity and the environment stable.”
“But what exactly are Elementals?” I questioned dimly, feeling agitated.
“Elementals are people born with the special ability to command the four natural earthly elements: earth, wind, fire and water. Years ago, we used to think that they were gods, sent to earth to keep the world in harmonious balance. Even though some people still feel that way, others now realise that you are in fact genetically engineered, designated through natural selection to become the personifications of the elements.”
“What does personification mean?” I rolled my eyes at my own ignorance. At least some of it was beginning to make sense.
“It means the human embodiment,” Valeska jumped in, smiling at me friendly. I returned the expression.
“So,” Sigwald carried on, “every generation, a new set of Elementals are born, replacing the old ones. We think that it is nature’s way of ensuring that Earth has people protecting it, keeping the connection between the planet and the humans who live on it upheld. Elementals have their powers so that they can regulate the elements to ensure that the earth does not get destroyed, by natural or unnatural causes. They also ensure that the people who inhabit the globe, don’t get destroyed by natural disasters. If, for example, there were only Aqua elementals…”
“Those who control the water,” Grandpa whispered into my ear.
“…then the world might flood, because there would be no one to check that the earth wasn’t being damaged and that no one was hurt. That is where Terra elementals would step in…”
“They control the earth!” Grandpa added helpfully.
“… so they can make sure the Aqua elementals do not use their powers to impede on the planet’s soil. So everyone works together to keep nature and humanity living in harmony with one another.”
He paused, watching me to make sure that I understood. I was following him, but was feeling completely overwhelmed. Did they expect me to be able to keep tabs on the wind?? That was crazy!! Although my chest felt tight, and my breathing grew heavier, I nodded, indicating that he could continue.
“Gods or not, the Elementals have a very important duty, but how you use your powers is your choice. Some choose to work with humans, to prevent damage and death at hands of nature. Others have chosen to cause damage and death, to teach humans a lesson.”
“That’s awful!” I uttered. Sigwald shook his head.
“Maybe, maybe not. Someone has to prevent the destruction of the globe, or else everyone will die. It’s not my place to make that decision, but one day it will be yours.”
“Have you heard of Mount Vesuvius?” Valeska asked me. I nodded.
“I think so. It’s in Italy, right?”
“Yes, it’s the volcano that erupted thousands of years ago and wiped out whole cities, one of them called Pompeii.”
“Oh yeah!” I remembered enthusiastically, “the place where all the ash fell! It buried the city, and killed everyone!” I congratulated myself on being smart for a change.
Her faced dropped, and so did mine. I didn’t like where this conversation was heading.
“It wasn’t a natural force of nature,” she confirmed, “Elementals caused that eruption. Thousands of people died. We’re not entirely sure why they did it, but it was at that point that the Elementus Populas was set up, to make sure that Elementals had assistance in making informed decisions.”
I was speechless. My Grandpa had obviously not known about this either, and his jaw dropped too.
“No wonder they thought they were gods!” Grandpa exclaimed.
“Who do you think the Greek and Roman gods were based on?” Sigwald winked at both of us knowingly.
“But how could they do that?” I wondered out loud, still in shock, “How could they be that strong?”
“We think,” Sigwald continued, “that the Terras, the only Ignis, and the Ventus worked together. We don’t think that one or one group of Elementals acted alone. The Elementals are meant to work together as a team. It was a shame they felt that they had to do that, but they must have had a good reason to.”
I shook my head, trying to prevent the furious frustration from rising up within me. There was so much I wanted to know, and I didn’t want to wait any longer. I was angry at myself; angry that I couldn’t understand the book properly. I was also angry at Aura and Sefarina for knowing it all already, and not telling me about it. Why didn’t they help me understand this? I clenched my fists, and they began to tremble. I closed my eyes and thought about my father. I breathed slowly, deeply, and allowed the soothing images to calm me down. As soon as I felt some sort of peace, I opened my eyes again, and realised that they were
all staring at me. Valeska moved forward on the sofa, towards me.
“You’re doing a good job,” she soothed. “It is incredibly difficult to control the element that is not your primary one.”
“Thanks,” I replied, sitting up straighter than before. I liked Valeska, and I was happy that she was the expert on Secondus. Hopefully that meant that we would spend a lot more time together.
“So…” Sigwald began again, but this time I was the one to cut him off.
“I’d like to know about the other ones. The other Elementals.”
His face contorted in shock. “How could I have skipped over that?” He scolded himself, jumping to his feet and rushing out of the room. I looked at my Grandpa, who glanced back at me blankly.
Valeska shrugged. “He’s always like this. He’s a bit of a scatterbrain.” She smiled, showing her pearly white teeth. I cleared my throat, beginning to sweat. She really was attractive.
Sigwald burst back into the room, slamming open the glass door and walking in backwards. He was holding a large board, which had a diagram on it, and was dragging it through the door. Valeska rose up and rushed over to help him, and eventually, they both managed to bring the large white board into the room, and position it in front of me. Valeska sat back down, and Sigwald continued standing upright, next to the board. The image displayed was like an upside down pyramid: four blue dots were at the top, with three grey ones underneath them. Two green circles sat beneath those, and finally, at the bottom was one red dot. All of them had names in, except for the red one. I saw my name in the central grey circle, and my sisters’ names in the dots to either side. This must be a chart of the Elementals.
“I made this chart for you, Niyol, to give you a visual guide of the ten Elementals. Throughout the centuries, every set of Elementals has followed a distinctive, and unique pattern.”
He pointed at the four blue circles.
“There are always four Aqua Elementals. They control water. Each of them also has a secondary power, except for the Primus, who only commands water, but is the strongest of the four. She is always female, and is always the oldest of the group. They too are siblings, two boys and two girls, varying in age, but unlike the Ventus, the Aqua gain their powers as soon as the Primus becomes a woman, which, as Valeska knows, can be a challenge with the younger children.”
Valeska stood up, next to Sigwald, and turned towards me.
“I recently spent a few months working with the current Aqua Elementals, one of whom was a Secondus. His secondary element was Terra, I mean, earth, and he found it very difficult to control, like you.” She grinned.
“So how long have they known they were Elementals?” I asked Sigwald.
“Well, let’s see. The oldest is twenty now, so, what, seven years?” Sigwald looked at Valeska to confirm his answer, and she nodded to affirm him.
“Wow!” I exclaimed, “They must be very powerful by now!”
“They are,” Valeska confirmed, “and soon, you will meet them. But not until you and your sisters are ready to.”
“The Aqua Cohors are responsible for guiding them,” Sigwald added, “Valeska doesn’t work for any of the Cohors. She works for the fifth department of the Elementus Populas, the Supernus, who oversee the other four departments.”
“So she’s your boss?” I joked.
Sigwald and Valeska laughed. “Well, I am in charge of the entire Ventus Cohors department,” Sigwald replied authoritatively, “so no, she isn’t. But the people she works for are.”
I didn’t really care much about how this weird organisation ran. I just wanted to know more about the other Elementals. It would be fun to work with other people my own age, who also had cool powers and had to make important decisions. I was also hoping that one of the others might be an attractive girl, the same age as me. It was about time I started dating… But maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea to become romantic with someone I had to work with, all the time. What if we broke up? That could be very awkward.
“So what about the other Elementals?” I questioned. I was really intrigued by the whole thing.
“Okay, back to this,” Sigwald jumped back into position, and moved his pointing finger down to the three grey circles.
“There are always three Ventus Elementals. As you know, they control the wind. They too are always siblings, two girls, one boy. The male is always the Primus, and is always the Ignis Ventus, but in your case, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a Primus also being a Secondus…”
Sigwald turned to Valeska, “Have you?”
She shook her head. “No, but there’s always a first time for everything!” She smiled at me encouragingly, and it made me feel confident that she would look after me.
“Anyway,” Sigwald went on, “The Ventus have secondary elements too, and as you know, they are evenly distributed. Which leads me on too…”
He moved his hand down to the two green circles.
“The Terra Elementals. They are always twin boys, and their Primus has an additional element, unlike the Aqua, whose Primus has water only. In the current Terra twins, their Primus has both water and wind, leaving the other Terra with just fire. The Terra are almost always polar opposites of one another. So if one of them has restorative powers, the other has destructive ones. They are always very tightly bonded: being twins helps! We discovered them about five years ago, when they both began to mature. Which then leads me on to…”
Sigwald thrust his pointed finger into the blank centre of the red circle.
“The Ignis. Some think that the Ignis is the most important, and powerful, of the Elementals, because she is by herself. I don’t personally agree, but you know, that’s just my opinion…” He chortled, then seeing that no one responded, continued. “As you can gather from what I just said, the Ignis is always female. She has no siblings, so is always an only child. She can harness all the other elements, but fire is her forte. She is quite possibly the hardest Elemental to find, and control…”
“What do you mean, ‘control’?” I interrogated, worriedly. Why would they want to control us? Is that what this secret group was really all about? Taking control of us so that they could manipulate us? I didn’t like that idea one bit.
Sigwald could see that I was annoyed, and concerned. He loosened up.
“What I mean by ‘control’ is that, unlike the other Elementals, she has no one to help her, or to keep her in check. She works alone, and so usually finds it hard to get along with the rest of the group. She doesn’t have to rely on anyone to give her strength and to enhance her powers. You see, the Aqua, Ventus and Terra all rely on one another to be strong. They work together to help one another. Even though they each have a Primus, the Primus could not go it alone: they depend on their siblings. This is not true for the Ignis. She can do whatever she wants, and can use her powers however she chooses. That can make her dangerous…”
“But what about the others? Say that the Terra Twins decided that they wanted to work together to do bad things, they could, couldn’t they? And if so, wouldn’t that make them even more dangerous, since there are two of them?”
Sigwald liked my question, and so did I. It was intelligent.
“Perhaps you are right Niyol,” Sigwald relented, “All of the Elementals are just as dangerous as one another. And that is why the Elementus Populas was set up: to stop negative forces from influencing you.”
He paused, and a tense atmosphere suddenly settled in the room. My Grandpa fidgeted anxiously, and Valeska avoided my gaze. Sigwald shifted from one foot to another, clasping his hands together and rolling his fingers nervous around on top of one another. I swallowed the lump in my throat, and asked the question that I was dreading the answer to.
“What do you mean, ‘negative forces’?”
Sigwald dropped his hands to his side, and firmly caught my gaze.
“There are those that will try to recruit you to their cause. A group of people who want you to do harm and damage. They want
to use you and your powers to help them to rule the world. We call them the ‘Inimicus’, which means ‘enemy’. And although we try our very best to stop them from influencing you, they have, in the past been very successful. One of the reasons that the Roman Empire was so effective was because they had the Elementals on their side. The Inimicus were in the highest positions in the Roman Government, and they did everything they could to get the Elementals to work for them. And they succeeded.”
I didn’t know what to say. I was in shock. It all made sense. No one could win against you, if you had people with super powers on your side. Think of what you could do, how powerful you could be, especially with all of them.
“And there have been rogue Elementals too. Those who, as you rightly pointed out, decided to work against us, and not even with the Inimicus, but for their own selfish ends. A lot of death and destruction has been caused by rogue Elementals…”
Sigwald trailed off, lost in his own negative thoughts.
“But lots of good has been caused by the Elementals too.” Grandpa interjected, lifting the dark cloud that sat in the room. “Tell him, Sigwald!”
Sigwald snapped out of his trance and smiled.
“Yes, you’re right Cyril. There have been countless moments of heroism at the hands of the Elementals. They’ve stopped earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, gales, volcanos… The list goes on and on. They’re not always successful, and they can’t stop everything, but there have huge natural disasters that have been averted, and many millions of lives saved, because the Elementals stepped in and did something.”
“And they fight against people who are damaging or destroying the environment,” Valeska added, “And sometimes they even get to stop criminals and terrorists too!”
“Wait a second,” I interrupted, “Does the government know about us?”
Sigwald chuckled. “Of course they do! But we deal only with the United Nations, rather than individual governments and countries, to stop bias, although it is entirely your choice what you decide to do. The British Government knows that the new Ventus are from their country, but they do not yet know your identity. They will be desperate to use you if they can, hoping that you will be loyal to your country. But it would be up to you whether or not you want the Prime Minister to know who you are, and if you want to help him. This is why our organisation remains unbiased and independent. We try to act as a relay between organisations and the Elementals, to ensure that no one uses you for the wrong reasons. We will always inform you of who would like to use your services, but it is ultimately your decision whom you assist.”
I gawped. If I were a super hero, this is how I had envisioned it. I could have a private line to the Prime Minister, and if anything bad was happening, I could rush to the country’s aide, and save the day! I would be famous, a celebrity! I could be rich! I could star in movies, drive fast cars and be world renowned! It would be fantastic!
As if Grandpa was reading my mind, he leaned over to me, wrapping his tender left arm around my shoulders.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Niyol. It’s not all fame and fortune. You have a huge responsibility resting on you, and you have to make sure you make all of the best choices.”
And then it suddenly hit me. Just what was my Grandpa doing here? How did he know about his grandchildren being Ventus? Had he always been a part of the Elementus Populas? And if so, what were the odds that his own grandchildren would be Elementals?
I turned and asked him these questions in breakneck speed. He recoiled, as if I had electrocuted him again. His mouth jammed shut and he glared at Sigwald, urgently.
“He knew because, well…” Sigwald stuttered, uneasily, his eyes fluttering from side to side, “your sister, when she became a woman, she…”
“Don’t lie to me!” I shouted, jumping up from the leather sofa, my hands shooting out to my sides. The fire, and the anger along with it, flared within me, and the lightning fired into my palms, ready to be triggered. Sigwald remained where he was, standing firm, but twitching nervously. Valeska stood up next to him, to comfort and support him.
“You’re right,” he uttered quietly, “that was a lie. Your Grandpa has always had an inkling that you would be Elementals. And the reason why is because, well, almost every government in the world allows us to do a genetic screening on babies when they are born. We take blood samples from every new-born in the predicted generation cycle of Elementals, and scan their genetic makeup to see if they are... special. Your oldest sister, Aura, she was immediately flagged, and your parents, and grandparents were initially made aware that there was something… ‘different’ about her. You see, by herself, she could have been the Ignis. But then when Sefarina was born, we knew that the two of them could only be part of Aqua or Ventis, and that another child or two would be born. Then you came, and no other child after you, so we knew you would one day become Ventis Elementals. That is when we told your family the truth…”
Grandpa rose up, standing next to me, gently twisting my body to face his.
“Your parents found it very difficult to deal with, especially your mother. She thought that there was something wrong with her and blamed herself. That’s why she left. She just couldn’t cope anymore.”
I stepped back, the lightning fizzling out from my palms. Tears began to well up in my eyes, but I fought them back. I wasn’t going cry, not in front of Valeska.
“And so it fell to me to join the Elementus Populas. Someone had to be your guardian and learn about it. Your father didn’t want anything to with it, as he saw it as the reason your mother left. So as soon as it was confirmed that you were, in fact, Elementals, I joined the Ventus Cohors. That’s why they set up their base here, in Ashbourne, because they knew that this is where I would bring you, when the time was right.”
He hugged me, firmly, and I hugged him back.
“I didn’t know what else to do.” Grandpa whispered into my ear. “At first it seemed like it wasn’t real, but Sigwald and his father continued to pester us. I thought they were crazy. But when Aura hit puberty, something in her changed, and she came to me. I gave her the book, and to her, it all made sense.”
“But why couldn’t I feel it too? How come I didn’t realise like Aura and Sefarina did?” I mumbled, still trying not to cry.
“It’s because you’re a Secondus,” Valeska interjected abruptly, clearly eavesdropping. I slid out of Grandpa’s grip, and turned to face her. “You only feel the fire, the anger. And you’re not meant to feel that first! I’m sure that your sisters felt their primary element, their wind first of all. And it must have felt right to them, it must have made sense to them. And that’s how they knew they were Elementals.”
I tried not to laugh at the thought of Aura and Sefarina’s inner ‘wind’. Even coming from Valeska, it sounded lame. I put my hand to my mouth and pretended to cough, but really I was sniggering. I was just being polite.
“So the competitive side of me that I never had before. That’s the fire…?”
“Yes,” Valeska nodded, “but it has been making you act strangely, because it is not working in synchrony with your primary element. The anger, the hate, the hostility. Your inner fire is not being kept in check by your primary power: your wind. When wind and fire work in harmony, which will happen soon, with practise, you won’t have any more… ‘episodes’.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I said once again to Sigwald, who winked merrily, “That’s not me at all. I never used to get angry, and I never before acted out of control.”
“It’s okay,” Sigwald replied, “we’ll teach you how to use your powers productively. But before we do that, I’d like to give you the guided tour. This place was built, after all, just for you and your sisters!”
“Of course!” I answered happily. And within moments, now that everything made a lot more sense, we were back in the huge room, watching the people in grey suits mill about productively.
Ventus Page 8