The Inner Circle: The Gates of Hae'Evun

by Cael McIntosh

  'I am terribly angry at my secret because I heard you talking to that silly preacher who you killed when he was alive and in his church. He told you about that stupid key which looked like a big black pebble instead of being a key like for a door and I keeped it a secret that I lost it because I was scared because that crazy Daddy Marcel said that if I'd loosed it I'd have to lose it forever and now we can't open that gateway to Hae'Evun.'

  'That's nice, Seeol,' Seteal replied absently, without really having paid attention to anything the bird had said.

  'You is ignored me.' Seeol pulled back his head and looked at Seteal as though she'd offended him. But that couldn't be right. He was only an elf owl after all. 'Is okay.' Seeol bobbed his head rapidly as he often did when he was excited. 'It's not loosed if I haven't lost it. I will flutter away back to the Old Lands and get it.'

  'Wait, you're doing what?' Seteal shook her head, now determined to give the bird her full attention.

  'I know where that key ball for the gateway is hidden,' Seeol rustled his wings. 'So is going to go get it and I promise to coming back and we will save the world and people will start to love me and they might like to scratch my head for me and give me green lizards. I will be gone for a longer time because is a long way and I have tiny, tiny wings.'

  'Yes!' Seteal clapped her hands together. 'You should go. You should do so with urgency.' She couldn't believe Seeol had solved the problem of his dark presence for himself. She doubted very much that the bird actually knew anything of value about the gates of Hae'Evun, but such a trip would certainly keep him out of the way for a long time.

  'What is I am waiting for?' Seeol twittered. 'I'm going.' He flew toward the open window, but landed abruptly and turned to stare at Seteal. A moment later he flew over to her shoulder and rubbed his beak back and forth across her cheek. 'It'll be okay. You'll be all right. Bye bye,' he finished, abandoning Seteal for the window.

  'Read that,' Teah snapped, slamming a heavy book down on the table.

  'No,' Seteal grumbled when she'd recovered enough from her surprise, having not seen the angel's approach.

  'Why not?'

  'I don't believe in it.'

  'You will once you've read it,' Teah insisted. 'What else have you got to do anyway? Ilgrin told me you've been put through torrid and now he's off looking for that Elglair woman again. Your bird just flew out the window and you're sitting on a chair staring at the wall.'

  'All right, fine,' Seteal slapped her hand down on the cover of the Holy Tome. 'Just leave me alone.'

  'Start with the book of Revelation,' Teah ordered. 'It's the last one and the most relevant to our present situation.'

  'You really do believe in this, don't you?'

  'I can't help it.' Teah shrugged. 'There are countless prophesies in there and nearly all of them have come true over the last year or so.'

  'Well I'm not going to read it with you staring at me,' Seteal said after an awkward silence.

  'I'll know if you sneak off.' Teah pursed her lips, flicked her hair over her shoulder and strode into the neighbouring room.

  'Teah, wait,' Seteal pushed back her chair and hurried after the angel. 'I know I said I'd read it but that was really just to get rid of you. Ilgrin's right. I have gone through torrid and reading a book that'll only curse me for all of my sins is really the last thing I want to do. I'm well aware of my sins, so here.' She waved the book at the angel. 'Take it.'

  'But the clouds,' Teah pleaded. 'They're moving north.'

  'Yes.' Seteal lowered her eyes. 'It started months ago when the whisps latched onto my aura. I knew it then, as I know it now. I sort of . . . dragged them into motion when I tried to escape.'

  'But it's in the Tome.' Teah flushed blue with frustration. 'And the Holy Spirit would be seen descending in the clouds.' Teah shook the thick black book. 'That happened in Beldin. You must have seen the whisps. They were circling you like a pack of hungry wolves.'

  'Wait,' Seteal cringed as she was struck with a feeling of d?j? vu. 'Not this again. We've already been through this nonsense with Seeol. Please tell me you're not saying what I think you are.'

  'Seteal.' Teah grabbed her shoulders. 'You are the Holy Spirit. Your abilities far surpass anything the Elglair can do. For Maker's sake, you were floating through the sky. Ilgrin told me you can project your spirit, so why not call it a holy one?'

  'Because there is nothing holy about me,' Seteal said angrily. 'And before you get all preachy, why don't you go and read Leviticus 18:22, because I'm well aware of what it says there about people like me.'

  Teah's face scrunched up in confusion. 'People like you?'

  'I don't like men,' Seteal spat out. 'I like girls.'

  'Oh . . . um . . .' Teah was dumbstruck. 'Maybe it's just a phase.'

  'A phase!?' Seteal shouted. 'Could you be any more insulting? I know who I am, what I stand for and which sex I'm attracted to. So really, Teah, can you possibly conceive that your Holy Maker's Spirit is--what is it that Leviticus says, oh, yes--an abomination?'

  'Maybe that was just the writer's opinion, not Maker's,' Teah said desperately. 'Maker has never been quoted saying that. It was Pa-ul. Perhaps he got it wrong?'

  'No,' Seteal said in disgust. 'Holy book. Holy words. The Tome was supposedly written by Maker through the Elglair prophets. You don't get to pick and choose which parts you want to believe in because the other bits are less than palatable. It's all or nothing.'

  'Okay.' Teah nodded slowly, clearly lost for words.

  'I was planning that speech for the day I told my father the truth.' Seteal felt her face turning hot and the sting of tears in her eyes. 'But now he's dead and I'll never get to tell him. He believed in the Tome,' she said with a shaky voice. 'He was a good man, my father. He was someone Maker would've loved. Not like me. He'd have been so disappointed in me--to find out his only daughter is an abomination and a whore.'

  'Oh, Seteal.' Teah took an awkward step forward and then took one back as though she wasn't quite sure how to console such a recent acquaintance. 'I'm sure he'd have loved you all the same,' the angel said, putting a hand on her upper arm. 'I'm sorry I've upset you.'

  'You know what? It's not you.' Seteal stepped away. 'I've been like this a lot lately.' She chuckled and dabbed at her eyes with a towel. 'It's nothing.' She sniffed loudly and shook herself before heading to the kitchen. Teah didn't follow.

  *

  Noah roared in his fury. The massive mutant demon howled a second time and smashed his fist clean through a tree. 'You found him and then you lost him?'

  'He went to a small town named Elmsville,' Jakob said slowly in an attempt to maintain his calm. 'I'm not sure why,' he lied. There was no need to risk involving the others. Maker only knew, Seteal had been through enough. Jakob could be certain of that much without any further evidence other than the lifelessness in her eyes.

  'Where is he now?'

  'I don't know, Sa'Tan, my Devil,' Jakob said in the vein hope that appealing to Noah's ego might ease his temper.

  'You're useless. What can you tell me about this strange woman?'

  'Excuse me?'

  'There have been some utterly absurd stories coming back to me from that little town.' Noah frowned. 'I cannot believe the half of it, but anybody I send their either fails to return or does so blathering nonsense. Anyway . . .' He shrugged. 'I'm not going to risk my own life. A Devil is far too precious for that.'

  Jakob bowed his head respectfully. 'Of course.'

  'I'm sending you back.' Noah smiled, showing off his yellow fangs. 'You'll wait until Ilgrin returns, and then you'll lure him into the woods.'

  'How could I possibly--?'

  'That's not my problem,' Noah cut him off. 'I'll be waiting there in exactly one week.' He thrust a map into Jakob's hands. 'Ilgrin had better be there, too.'

  Jakob looked at the map to find a blotch marked out in the southernmost parts of Narvon Wood. 'I'm sure he'll be utterly delicious,' Jakob replied, nervously wiping the sweat from
his forehead.

  'Oh, and, Jakob,' Noah rumbled, just after having given him permission to leave.

  'Yes, my Lord.' Jakob turned back.

  'I'd advise you to take this timeline very seriously. The town has been marked out for total destruction on the same day that you bring Ilgrin to me. Thanks to that strange woman, I've decided to send a thousand silts to take care of just one little town. They will kill everyone.'

  'How do you propose I get there so quickly?'

  Noah sighed deeply. 'I'll send a demon escort to drop you off in the woods.'

  'I'm sure you'll enjoy an easy victory,' Jakob placated the Devil, bowing again before leaving.

 

  Leviticus 18

  22 Thou shalt not have sexual relations with man as with woman: it is an abomination.

  Scriptures of the Holy Tome

 

  CHAPTER Twelve

  too dead

  Ilgrin banked sharply to the left when he noticed a group of silts flying toward him in tight formation. One of them waved, but the others ignored him as they passed by, having failed to recognise him.

  There was a small town not a mile south of Beldin. Ilgrin hurried forward, realising that he'd somehow missed it when he and Teah had been looking for El-i-miir. The place harboured the overwhelming scent of decaying flesh. Ilgrin landed and covered his nose, gazing about at the multitude of corpses; food for vultures.

  'El-i-miir!' Ilgrin shouted, but the only answer he received was the echo of his own voice.

  He dove back into the air and spent some time circling above. Then he saw it. In the field several hundred strides away, a cloud of vultures had descended around a mangled corpse with silky black hair. 'Oh no.' His voice hollow. He propelled himself toward the body at a feverish pace. 'Don't let it be you.' Ilgrin hit the ground running and then fell to his knees in front of the body. The birds erupted into the air, buzzing about in frustration.

  Without delaying another second Ilgrin grabbed the woman's slender shoulder and in doing so accidentally pulled off a lump of flesh. He gagged and put it aside, corrected his grip and rolled El-i-miir onto her back. 'No no no,' he moaned.

  There were cuts on El-i-miir's face. Chunks of her scalp had been torn away and lumps of her hair were tangled in the grass. One of her eyes was missing. Her cheek bone had been collapsed through blunt force trauma. A bullet wound, though at some point patchily stitched together, was now torn open and riddled with maggots. El-i-miir's spine was severed below her chest and her stomach had been cut open in such a way that left her lower body connected by nothing more than untorn bits of her innards.

  Ilgrin lifted his hands. They shook uncontrollably. He keeled over and vomited in the grass. Frantically, he gathered up whatever parts of El-i-miir he could find, knowing that the more of her he could gather, the greater the chances of her survival. 'Oh, Maker, don't be too dead. Anything but that.' Ilgrin pressed portions of El-i-miir's scalp back against her exposed skull. 'Give me that.' Ilgrin snatched one of El-i-miir's fingers out of a nearby beak. The bird responded unfavourably, but Ilgrin slapped it out of the way and shoved the finger into the palm of El-i-miir's hand. Ilgrin scanned his surroundings for the missing eye, but found nothing.

  It occurred to him that he was extending his search out of fear. He didn't want to try to resurrect El-i-miir because he already knew it wouldn't work. He felt his eyes filling with tears and his lower lip shaking. 'I refuse to let you go.' He pressed his hands against El-i-miir's body and focused on finding her soul before it could dissolve too much too bring back.

  Ilgrin's hands tingled, but the body failed to respond. 'Come on, damn you!' He gritted his teeth, growling as he purged more of his own life-force into the corpse. Through hot tears he saw the skin surrounding his hands beginning to ripple, but it stopped abruptly. Ilgrin's hands were burning so hot that he had to remove them. He looked at his palms to discover dark blue blisters forming.

  One of the vultures hopped over and ripped off a small strip of El-i-miir's leg before rushing away when Ilgrin leapt after it. 'She's not dead yet! Leave her alone,' he cried, shooing the persistent animals away. Ilgrin moaned and rocked back on his toes. 'You'll come back. You don't get to do this to me. I'll make you come back because this isn't the way it was supposed to happen. You hear me? I had to die for you. It was supposed to be me.'

  Ilgrin slapped his hands down onto El-i-miir's body and focused so hard that the temperature in his hands became that of a white hot iron. He screamed as the heat crawled up to his wrists and slithered into his arms. 'Come on!' In response to his efforts, El-i-miir's flesh rippled lazily, but it still refused to come back together. 'Come on!' An artery slithered through the hole in El-i-miir's stomach and reattached when it reached the other side.

  El-i-miir's cheek bone made a crunching sound but it failed to resurface. 'No!' Ilgrin wailed when the body became still again and he was forced to tear away his hands. Blue blood splattered against El-i-miir's face. Ilgrin examined his palms to find them steaming, his blood having literally come to boil. 'It was supposed to be me,' he said breathlessly.

  'El-i-miir?'

  He touched her face and was surprised to see that her eye had grown back beneath his blood. He rocked back in disbelief, again examining his hands. 'It's in our blood.' Fighting through the pain, Ilgrin replaced his hands and slid them back and forth over El-i-miir's body. He would drench her in the hot blue liquid. If he had to, he'd go until not a drop was left within him. He smeared her face and her skin. He splattered it over the gaping wound in El-i-miir's stomach and rubbed it into her mouth.

  Spots danced across Ilgrin's vision and he became lightheaded. He fell onto his side, his wings hanging open. 'Heal,' he begged, remembering always to keep his hands in contact with El-i-miir's body.

  Patches of hair vibrated as lumps of flesh oozed back into their appropriate places. Ilgrin's heart thundered as the agony in his hands heightened beyond anything he'd ever had to endure. The cuts on El-i-miir's face slithered together and her cheek bone came up with a pop. Ilgrin thumped his head against the earth repeatedly in an attempt to distract himself from burning agony. El-i-miir's intestines slithered about, rearranging themselves before being sucked back into place. Ilgrin gasped, his teeth puncturing his lower lip. He hadn't realised he'd been biting it.

  A wave of flesh unfurled across El-i-miir's belly. Ilgrin tore away one of his arms and punched the ground hating himself for his weakness. Blood vessels slithered out of El-i-miir's hand, burrowed into her detached finger and sucked it back into place. Ilgrin howled. El-i-miir's spine cracked loudly as it straightened out and fresh bone fused. Her eyes opened, she inhaled deeply and then she screamed.

  'Get away from me!' Her eyes were full of terror. 'Get away!' she cried, slapping at Ilgrin repeatedly. He laid there holding up his hands protectively as the pain dulled to a deep throb. El-i-miir rolled onto her feet and started to run, but came to an abrupt stop and turned around. After a moment of hesitation she hurried back, but the moment had lingered too long, revealing a lack of trust.

  'I thought you were too dead,' Ilgrin blubbered as El-i-miir toppled to the ground holding her stomach, which was undoubtedly beginning to cramp. 'Call me evil like the others, but I'll never let you go.'

  El-i-miir squirmed on the ground and gasped. 'I think it got stuck.'

  'Can they do that?' Ilgrin asked, his eyes wide.

  'How should I know?' El-i-miir tried to stand, only to collapse again.

  On all fours she gagged and coughed and choked. Her face was red. She put a hand around her throat like she couldn't breathe. 'Get it up,' Ilgrin patted her on the back. 'Don't die on me again.'

  El-i-miir fell, slapping at her throat in panic, but her face faded to grey and at last the black vapour squeezed its way through her pores. With a loud cough, El-i-miir started vomiting up waves of whisp. So long did the substance flow that El-i-miir had to pause several times for breath. It was no real surprised that the whisp took several
long minutes in its departure. Ilgrin had expected it to be large considering the enormity of the resurrection. El-i-miir moaned, a puff of whisp coming out of her nostrils. 'I think it's done.' She sighed before coughing several more times to discover little bits of darkness still leaking out.

  'It'll be gone soon,' Ilgrin assured her. 'From what I've heard, whisps never return to their cocoons.'

  'Okay.'

  'So you're not going to curse me and chase me out of your life this time?'

  'At this point, what's the difference?' El-i-miir peered up at the whisp wafting through the bright blue sky on its way to join the greater cloud moving sluggishly on the horizon.

  'What happened?' Ilgrin's face crumpled. 'We searched for days.'

  'I got shot,' El-i-miir replied. 'Some people were kind enough to take me in, but then the war arrived. I tried to get out, but there were too many. One caught up with me.' El-i-miir shuddered. 'He kept bringing me back to life so that he could kill me over and over again.'

  Ilgrin's mouth fell open at the idea of actions so vulgar. 'Why didn't you affiliate him?'

  'He never healed me quite enough that I was able to regain control.'

  'Well, you're safe now. Come on,' Ilgrin took a step forward to take her hand, but El-i-miir flinched at his approach. 'You do know that you're safe with me, right?'

  'Yes,' El-i-miir said softly. 'Of course I know that..' She added forcefully.

  'If you need some time, you should take it,' Ilgrin encouraged. 'You've been through a lot.'