The Knowledge (The Circle Book 2)

by Lee Isserow

When he recovered from the rough trip back to the Natural World, he rose to his feet and stepped through to the main floor of the Epicentre, catching many curious glances from the operatives and operators that were assembled.

  “Wilbur!” Faith barked from his door in a gruff tone. “Put some bloody clothes on, right this instant!”

  Wilbur spun on his heel to face his superior, his frantic movement followed by a light slap as his genitals whipped against his leg. “Rather more important things to hand, sir,” he said, as he approached Faith's door, pushing past him to enter.

  “Cast a bloody glamour before you―”

  The adept sat on a chair opposite Faith's desk, which caused him to growl with displeasure. He was not looking forward to having to stare at Wilbur's buttock-print once the man had left his office.

  “I believe I interacted with the entity that has been informing mundanes of magick.”

  Faith's mood instantly shifted, and he swiftly forgot about Wilbur's lack of clothing. He walked around the desk and reclaimed his seat. “What is it?”

  “That, I'm afraid I can't say for sure, but what I can say is―” With a flick of Wilbur's wrist, the desk slammed Faith against the wall. “You have no clue of the forces you meddle with―”

  Faith wasn't sure whether the crack he heard was the aluminium crunching, or his back breaking. He grunted as he was held in place, his hands pinned between the desk and the wall to stop him from casting.

  Wilbur approached, his eyes shining a bright emerald green, with wisps of yellow that swirled around his irises like a vortex. “The Knowledge is all seeing. It lurks at the threshold, and is familiar with you, Isaiah Faith. It knows the secrets your harbour, it knows how you came to be, and how you will fall. It is and will forever be, and there is nothing you, nor your foolish acolytes can do to―” Wilbur's words were taken from his lips as he was thrown across the room. All further utterances were impeded, as his jaw was dislocated and fractured in several places by the impact of his face to the wall.

  Shana lifted his head and threw a mesmirisation in his face, to make sure he was unable to attack again. As soon as she did so, his casting on the desk dissipated, and it fell from the wall, freeing Faith. She ran over to tend to his wounds, glyphing him to repair the damage, and casting to take the pain away.

  “What the hell was that?” She glanced over to the naked adept, who stood against the wall, blood slowly trickling out of his head wounds, down his ude body.

  “Guess he found the the thing that's been behind this―or it found him. . . got in his head. . .”

  “Did he say what it was?”

  Faith shook his head. “Said it. . . lurked at the threshold. . . that it knew me.”

  “I have heard that name, the lurker at the threshold. . . “

  Faith's door burst open, and Shana turned with a casting on her fingertips.

  “Friends don't cast at friends!” Tali shrieked, holding her hands up in defence.

  Shana apologised profusely, and given the circumstances, Tali was more than willing to forgive her for almost blowing her across the Epicentre.

  “Reports are coming in of a massive event in New York state.” she gestured to the light fixtures, and the rays reconfigured in the air, recolouring to take the shape of a news channel's coverage. It showed footage from mobile phone cameras as light tore through the dawn skyline for mere moments, and then smoke began to bellow into the heavens. The footage cut to a helicopter on the scene, showing the devastation that had been left in the wake of the blast.

  “Get a team to investigate,” Faith gasped as his broken bones clicked and clacked back into place. “I want to be sure that this is magickal.”

  Tali turned to the door to head back to her desk and make the arrangements.

  “And make the call. . .”

  She stopped dead in her tracks, and glanced at Shana en route to confirming the order from Faith.

  “If this was it again. . . we can't allow it to continue. It's time to convene The Circle.”

  24

  The grandest manipulation of all

  The unit sent to Schaghticoke confirmed with Tali that the explosion had indeed been magickal in nature―and it had taken out not only the fifty square miles of the town itself, but an additional ten miles of woodland that surrounded it.

  The call went out, and one by one the operatives of The Circle left the Epicentre through the doors that surrounded the main floor. Their destination beyond the threshold was dark and dank, everlit candles attached to the gaps between the great, ancient stones. Operatives, operators, agents and officers from across the world walked through identical archaic corridors that were positioned around the globe. Each was warm, not from the candlelight, but from the depth, for they were now located hundreds of miles under the earth, heading towards a grand expanse of caves that were created by those that came before them, the First People, a single one of whom could harness more magick than an entire unit of those that lived in present times.

  As each of them came to the end of the hallway, the space opened out into an epic cavern that was lit solely by everlits that were dotted across the ground to signal where they should sit. The spaces between the candles had been calculated, so that The Circle was perfectly aligned.

  The legends that told of the First People oft mentioned their size, some estimated to be close to a hundred feet tall. The cavern's massive scope might well have indicated those stories to be correct, for the walls opposite the magickians could not be seen via the meek light of the candles, possibly metres, or perhaps miles away from where they sat. The same could be said for the ceiling, which was not visible, and looked as though it were an expansive dark void that hung above them.

  As Tali sat cross-legged in the dry mud in front of a candle, she glanced around her. Bit by bit, her colleagues were assembling, hundreds of magickians within view to the left and the right, disappearing off into the darkness the farther away the were, looping around the entire circumference of the planet.

  As the last of them took their seats, a consensus to begin seemed to be reached, and without a word spoken, a mighty hum started to fill the cavern.

  Each of those present was compelled to join in, whether they were a fan of audience participation or not. Their mouths made the noise of their own volition, then their arms raised without their permission. Fingers danced in the air, thousands upon thousands of them, all in a perfect unison. Words formed on their lips, the same words uttered by every other person in the endless void that encircled the planet.

  There was no distinct way any of them could tell where the words came from, which of the myriad magickians was pulling the strings of all the men and women present. Each acted as one, casting the same ritual, their combined magicks reshaping the world.

  Johannesburg was the first event to be undone. There was an emotional weight from the deaths of those children. . . The burned husks of the young girl and boy began to shed the char on their bones. The crisp flesh of their organs shed like autumnal leaves to reveal healthy flesh below. An intricate network of crimson ribbons wound and weaved around their bones and organs, an interconnected network of a circulatory system being put back together, over which muscle and skin and hair grew. Once they were brought back to life, their fellow students and teachers were returned to their natural states. Their memories were re-written, all evidence of the knowledge, of the events that Shana and Raven had witnessed removed.

  Then it was time for The Circle to focus on to Paris, where over sixty bodies were repaired in the same manner as the South African children. The building they lived in was also repaired, the burned plants exorcised from reality, what was left of the green paint pulled from the walls, to leave the concrete bare once more. Again, the memories had to be taken from each of the residents. They could not be allowed to recall what had occurred there.

  Next in line were the victims of the bank job―which the network of magickians had almost seemed to have forgotten about. The only reason it
was addressed was because Shana brought up the thought: that not only was there a crispy robber to un-crisp, but there were a whole load of customers that got caught in the crossfire of that melee. . .

  Once that was dealt with, the penultimate act was to put Schaghticoke back to how it had been before its destruction. Every tree brought back from oblivion, every building recreated from the ghosts of their former state, taken from echoes that were drawn in the ether of the Natural World. Then the people, recreated from scratch using those same echoes. Their consciousnesses still existed in the space between realms, and they were summoned forth to make it as if those deaths never happened. And with a combined thought, all footage of the incident was deleted, along with every memory of everyone who witnessed or reported upon it. Even the helicopter's fuel tanks were refilled, to make it as though they had never been dispatched to monitor the situation.

  With the damage undone, there was one final act to undertake―and that was to be the grandest manipulation of all.

  The Circle went into the minds of every single person that they had interacted with, and searched for traces of the knowledge that remained. Every memory of the whispers, of the magicks they had been taught, of the dreams―all of it was torn from their minds, and replaced by obnoxiously happy dreams. If they ever attempted to recall the slumber of the days and weeks of the recent past, they would remember the joy they felt on fantastical adventures, being reunited with long lost loved ones, being celebrities, being pirates and so on.

  Tali was not impressed by the collective effort at creating dreams. For a collective as powerful as they were, there was a distinct lack of imagination present amongst all involved. But that wasn't all that nagged at her. They had done so much in this convening, and yet there was one thing outstanding, and she tried with all her might to send a message through to the assembled magickians. A reminder, that Wilbur had been amongst those influenced by the whispers. . . Their rewriting of history had only been for the mundanes, and he was still locked up and mesmerised, still infected with the influence of the damn thing.

  There were mixed feelings amongst the group. Some of them supported her, some did not. But this was not The Circle as it had been, where one voice overpowered the others, and her thoughts were coming from a place of true emotion and empathy―and that was enough to convince the group to do the right thing.

  Wilbur Dickensian-Workhouse awoke from having been mesmerised, with all traces of the knowledge removed. He had no memory of having been to the Dream Realm in search of it, had no memories of what befell him afterwards―nor was he allowed to remember that he attacked Faith in his office. It was as if he had never been involved in the operation, that was the only way they could be certain that the influence was well and truly evicted from his mind.

  And as The Circle ended its grand ritual, confirming one last time that everything it had done had been a success, they emitted one last chant, and one by one stood up in front of their candles and left for the doors they came from.

  But one final thought floated through their collective consciousness as they walked towards their doors.

  A fear, that spread from one to the next.

  What if this was exactly what this thing, the knowledge, wanted them to do. .

  25

  Powerless

  EPICENTRE, THE CIRCLE

  Faith was the first to walk through the door back into the Epicentre, but he was one of the last to say a word.

  He was frozen in place, eyes wide, jaw agape.

  The entire Epicentre was in a state of disarray, the operators' desks in a pyre in the middle of the main floor, all ablaze, a smouldering mass of wood and metal. The chairs were contorted wrecks, the glass wall that encased his office had been shattered, large shards embedded in the white walls that were no longer gleaming, now thick with smoke damage.

  His operatives and operators burst into action, they quelled the fires, and set about undoing all the damage that had been done in their absence.

  “What the. . .” he stuttered. This was his fault, his failing. Never in the reign of any of the previous heads of the Circle had there been an incursion on this scale, never destruction in their sanctuary of this level. “How. . . Who. . .” He couldn't form a sentence, couldn't think straight.

  There was only one thought that fully formed in his mind. He had failed. Even Comstock, with his maniacal scheming and villainous undercurrent, was a better damn leader than he was. The fact that someone―or something―had managed to sneak into their damn hub and destroy it, that was all on him. And for the first time in his life, Isaiah Faith felt powerless.

  26

  Make things right

  Once the Epicentre had been put back to its former state, the operatives were on action stations to figure out what the hell had happened. Faith sat at his desk and stared blankly as they investigated the scene.

  Shana exhaled a thick black smoke that took on the form of a figure that walked through a door and escaped out into the world. They knew how the perpetrator left, but not who it was, or how they got there in the first place. . .

  She gestured for the smoke to walk back through the steps the person had made, using the memories of the air to re-enact everything that had occurred in their absence. The figure had cast to throw the furniture together, to set it ablaze, and before that, they had thrown a sigil at Faith's office, sent glass shooting out of its frame, the shards embedding into the wall.

  Whoever it was had walked calmly from the stairwell directly to the office, they didn't even seem to glance at the main floor on their way there. . . Faith had been their target.

  Shana followed the smokey figure down the stairs as it walked backwards. Unless they had somehow teleported into The Circle, it was looking increasingly like this wasn't an external threat―that it had come from within.

  The figure stepped backwards through a door, and Shana pulled it open. The entire corridor was scarred with smoke damage, and she put a call in to Tali to send someone to fix it. She would have done it herself, but there were too many questions about who the hell the aggressor was, and she wouldn't let herself get distracted.

  She followed the figure as it walked back into a room. The door had been blown completely off the hinges, and all that was left of it was a pile of splinters and sawdust in the hallway. Before she turned into the room, Shana realised she knew exactly who was responsible for the devastation. And a part of her was well aware what she would find when she looked inside.

  The walls and ceilings were dripping in blood and viscera, that pooled on the floor. The remnants of a lab coat were strewn around the room, the white barely visible compared to all the red it had soaked up. Shards of bone were scattered around, as if they had been blown apart. Flayed skin was splattered against the wall by the door, a red mane atop what was left of the head. This was Doctor Martin Hildebrand, the man who had taken Raven away, who had told her he was going to 'make her better'.

  He had obviously failed at that task. . .

  Shana sent a call through to Tali as she conjured a door.

  “I need you to scan news feeds, this was not an attack. . . not an attack from outside at least. . . it was Raven.”

  She stepped through the door and emerged back into the Epicentre, directly opposite Tali.

  “What do you mean this was Raven? I thought she was―”

  “Counselling does not work for everyone. . .” Shana sighed.

  The two of them glanced towards Faith's office. He was still staring blankly into middle distance, shocked to the core that this had taken place under his watch.

  “Do you want to be the one to tell him?” Tali asked.

  Shana shook her head. Neither of them wanted to break the news. But they had more important things to worry about―there was a rogue Circle operative out in the wild, one who was mentally unstable, and there was no telling how much destruction she could unleash before they found her.

  Tali's gaze strayed from Shana's, as she picked up a feed in
her periphery. “One second, I might have something. . .”

  She threw pirouetting fingers to the light fixtures and brought up a holographic projection of the news story. The audio played for the whole room to hear.

  “Fires are raging in Cortenova, Italy, with reports of hundreds dead. The remote village does not appear to have an operational fire service at this time, and it's looking as though the blaze might rip through a large portion of the surrounding woodland before nearby forces are able to get it under―”

  “Did they say Cortenova?”

  Tali and Shana turned. Faith was standing at his door, eyes fixed on the projection of the news.

  “It was her, wasn't it. . .”

  Shana nodded.

  “Just got a location off the door,” Sabre shouted from across the room. “Last destination was Cortenova.”

  Faith thundered across the main floor with a heavy stride. Before anyone could say anything to stop him or offer assistance, he was through the door and slammed it behind him.

  This was his mess. His friend was responsible. And one way or another, he was going to make things right.

  27

  The red house

  CORTENOVA, ITALY

  Faith walked through the streets of Cortenova. They were thick with smoke that seemed insistent on hanging low to the ground. With every step he took, the scent on the air changed, from burned wood to charred meat. He conjured a rebreather so he didn't have to cough on the fumes, and enchanted his nasal passages to convert every aroma to lavender. There was no need to be reminded of the death by the foul stench. . . it was bad enough he could see it in every damn direction. So much death, so much destruction, and the more he witnessed, the more his anger bubbled and boiled under his skin.

  His skin itself was starting to literally bubble and boil, blistering in the sheer heat of the blaze. Another casting dealt with it, and he threw sigils around to quash the flames. Their crackles and roars and light were impeding his senses, and he needed his wits about him, if he was going to see Raven coming. . .