The Inner Circle: The Knowing

by Cael McIntosh

  *

  ‘We have to do something,’ Ilgrin cried.

  ‘I said wait,’ Seteal demanded, despite her own increasing anxiety over the decision she’d made.

  ‘I’m not waiting any longer.’ Ilgrin ignored her to turn and resume work on the pile of rubble.

  ‘Come on, Seeol,’ Seteal whispered, closing her eyes.

  ‘No,’ Ilgrin barked in frustration as his fingers slid helplessly along the wet surface, the once separate pieces of ice having fused together to become impenetrable.

  ‘Get away,’ Seteal shouted when ice cracked and moaned. The loud explosion that followed forced Ilgrin to leap back and lose his footing in the water. Seeol’s other self roared thunderously as it broke through the ice. El-i-miir burst up in front of the creature coughing and spluttering.

  ‘Run.’ Seteal raced out of the room, dragging the Elglair woman behind her. Ilgrin was at their heels.

  ‘That was stupid,’ Ilgrin cried, having come to understand Seteal’s plan. ‘She could’ve been crushed.’ The silt wrapped El-i-miir in his arms and took over the duty of dragging her through the water.

  ‘I sure hope you can fly wet,’ Seteal shouted as they tumbled and slid along the corridor.

  ‘Does it look like I have feathers?’ Ilgrin retorted sarcastically seconds before the beast crashed into the passage behind him.

  Seeol was clearly frustrated, his pursuit slowed by the burden his waterlogged feathers. He roared and beat his wings, only to succeed in punching holes in the already compromised structure. Brickwork fell away and toppled down on the mutant bird.

  ‘We’re going to need your wings, Ilgrin,’ Seteal cried having reached the cavernous expanse. By then the current had become so strong that clinging to the walls was the only mechanism by which she could prevent herself from being thrown over the edge.

  ‘I can’t,’ Ilgrin’s expression became one of regret. ‘I can’t carry both of you.’

  ‘You have to,’ Seteal snapped.

  ‘No, I really can’t!’ Ilgrin shouted back. ‘I’ve never had the chance to properly exercise my wings. I’m not strong enough.’

  ‘Find the strength,’ Seteal pleaded desperately.

  ‘My wings were designed to carry one, not three,’ Ilgrin insisted.

  ‘Fine!’ Seteal shouted, flushing red. ‘Save her and leave me to die. It’s what you want.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ilgrin said, wrapping El-i-miir in his arms and leaping from the edge.

  Seteal watched as the two disappeared into darkness before turning to face Seeol. The creature growled as he struggled through the water, but as the current became increasingly forceful, his task became increasingly easy.

  ‘Seeol,’ Seteal begged. ‘Please, it’s me.’ Seeol didn’t slow down. If anything he sped up, excited by the prospects of spilling Seteal’s innards.

  ‘You want me?’ Seteal glared at the creature defiantly. ‘Come and get me.’ Releasing her hold on the walls, Seteal fell backward and plummeted into darkness. Thereafter it quickly became apparent that the ceiling above could no longer support its own weight as it began to cave in. Then silence.

  Seteal plunged into murky waters. Breathing became impossible and her mind became scattered as the deathly chill sapped at her spirit. At first, she decided to flee the unpleasantness through the use of her spiritual form. But what good would it do her if her body should succumb to suffocation? When the cord was cut, would she continue to live? Far-a-mael hadn’t thought so. So instead of pursuing sweet freedom, Seteal kicked her frozen legs in a painful attempt to swim.

  Something hit the water so heavily that the shockwave sent her spiralling out of control. Lost in his lust to murder, Seeol had followed her into what would soon become their graves. Seteal gasped as she grazed the side of her hand, slapping it painfully against a rough surface. It was the wall. No, it was a ledge. Dragging herself up, Seteal felt along its length to see how far it went, but there wasn’t much room and no chance of escape.

  Hot breath blew across Seteal’s face. Seeol screeched in ecstasy. The creature’s wings thrashed about and he gnashed his beak, coming within handswidths of Seteal’s face. She kicked out with her boots and made contact with his face, but self-defence only served in exciting the monster further. In a flash of motion it was over.

  One moment Seteal had been pressed up against the wall. The next, a gust of wind burst across her face, a hand clamped around her wrist and Ilgrin snatched her into the air. ‘You came back,’ she choked out.

  ‘I’ve got you,’ Ilgrin said, wrapping his arms around her midsection as he circled steadily toward the sky.

  ‘Where’s El-i-miir?’

  ‘Out there,’ Ilgrin replied, pointing up through the haze. He banked sharply, folded his wings and shot through a gap in the crumbling structure.

  The height of the cavern was level with the ground outside, allowing Ilgrin to release Seteal as soon as they’d penetrated the gap.

  ‘For the love of Maker,’ the silt cried as he continued on in flight, glancing over his shoulder nervously.

  ‘What is it?’ Seteal called out, but Ilgrin was left with no time to explain as the side of the dome burst open and Seeol erupted into the night. The creature’s flight was laboured and water sprayed in every direction as he beat his tired wings. Seeol dipped his tail, changed course, and pursued Ilgrin.

  ‘Ilgrin,’ El-i-miir cried when Seeol caught up to the silt, her face a picture of horror. El-i-miir gesticulated madly in an attempt to manipulate the Ways, but it was to no avail. Seeol could not be touched. Ilgrin swooped and dipped this way and that, but Seeol’s wings were far more powerful. The mutant snatched Ilgrin out of the air and clutched him within sharp talons.

  Seteal snapped away from her body before even taking the time to lay it down. The Ways spread out before her like a faulty market weaving with loose threads and failed embroidery. Seeol’s thread was shrouded in darkness. It was almost untouchable. It was no natural part of the weaving, somehow separate from the Ways. It was a foreign bit of yarn that’d been caught up and woven into the canvas by accident. He couldn’t be touched. He couldn’t be severed. But he could be confined.

  The bird landed heavily, pinning Ilgrin to the ground with one foot pressed against his chest. He dipped his head, preparing to tear flesh, but Seteal squeezed the ancient fabric and time slowed to a crawl. She would not allow Ilgrin to die. El-i-miir’s hands were thrust out at Seeol. She ran toward the creature in slow motion. Her face was filled with the miserable knowledge that she was useless against him.

  Seteal reached across the Ways and followed El-i-miir’s thread. She was able to affiliate most beings within the fabric. Everything was connected, but not Seeol. It was then that Seteal noticed the smallest oddity in the black yarn sticking up out of the fabric. Seeol was frayed. Pure darkness spilt through the frayed gap whenever it’d built up too much to contain. When the thread was at its darkest, Seeol would become the darkness. But surely that could be fixed. Seteal embedded herself in the Ways, coiling the threads about her being. She held them tight, wrapping them around Seeol’s frayed strands to bind them together. By the time she was done, Seteal had tied the knots so tight that no amount of evil would be able to squeeze through.

  Pulling away from the weaving, she took a moment to look over her work as time returned an ordinary pace. El-i-miir’s boot hit the ice and her other leg swung forward. Ilgrin’s eyes widened in horror. Seteal’s body settled where it’d fallen. And Seeol began to shrink. But something was wrong.

  As she was thrust back toward her body, Seteal turned her attention to the steadily receding Ways. There she caught a glimpse of something that made her sick with regret. She crashed into her body and heard a moan escape her lips. What had she done? What did this mean? The black thread remained in place, unable to spew out evil as it’d done before. Instead, it wept like a puss-filled wound. With no other escape, the darkness oozed through the edges and wafted away from in between the crac
ks.

  Welcomed home by a host of aches and pains, Seteal pushed herself to her knees and doubled over gagging. A pounding headache bit at the sides of her skull and she felt uncomfortably tight within her own body, as if her spirit was steadily outgrowing it. Countless times she’d felt miserable upon returning, but this was different. This time she was suffocating. A high-pitched avian shriek stole Seteal’s attention as she lumbered toward the others.

  Ilgrin was beaten and bruised, but otherwise unharmed. El-i-miir threw her arms around his shoulders and held him tight all the while thanking Maker that he was still alive. Seeol was fixated to the spot, his eyes cast down to the ice at his feet. His head tilted back and forth as though he were trying to identify a sound coming from a very distant place. His gaze lifted slowly, his golden eyes meeting Seteal’s. They were filled with a new kind of sorrow. ‘What has happened?’

  ‘I fixed you,’ Seteal choked out, revealing that her sentiments more closely resembled a plea than those of comfort.

  ‘I am unwell,’ Seeol said, his face becoming bathed in shadows for which there was no discernible source. The bird’s head moved about uncomfortably and his feathers twitched sporadically. ‘I can’t get it out. It’s eating me now.’

  ‘I know,’ Seteal uttered.

  ‘We must remain trapped togetherly forever,’ Seeol murmured bitterly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Seteal sobbed.

  The little elf owl kept Seteal paralysed with his penetrating stare as the final parts of the Dome of the Sixth collapsed behind her. ‘I’m sorry, too,’ he whispered bitterly. A block of ice sailed through the air and struck Seteal in the side of the head, knocking her out cold.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  DEPARTURE