The Inner Circle: The Knowing (2 page)

Urelie stumbled to her feet,
spluttering and gasping, gagging and choking. Why wasn’t it coming?
Baen felt the panic rising in his chest. Surely
it
felt the call to
freedom. Baen had never himself seen one before, but he’d heard
that they were supposed to start exiting the body before the
resurrection was even completed.

‘
Get it out,’ Urelie
shrieked. Her eyes were wide with panic. ‘Get out!’ She clawed at
her neck and yanked at her clothes. She bent over and vomited, at
last finding relief. But the substance pouring forth was not the
liquid one might ordinarily expect from a person fallen
ill.

Thick darkness poured from Urelie’s
lips as she cradled her stomach and heaved gutturally in the grass.
The darkness, blacker than night, poured toward the earth, but
immediately wafted back into the air, a mist thicker than smoke.
Baen stumbled away as the whisp moved past. It horrified him, its
formlessness as hideous as the destruction it would no doubt
cause.

The whisp squeezed from Urelie’s eyes
and drained out through her nostrils. It spiralled away from her
flesh, seeking escape by any means possible. It continued coming,
seemingly endless. On and on, the dark cloud erupted--until, quite
suddenly, it stopped. Urelie fell to the wet earth, sobbing as the
black mist oozed silently into the night.

*

Having come from such a very small boy
for such a very beautiful reason, the whisp radiated especially
thick darkness from its frozen core. It danced joyously--almost
playfully--in the late southern breeze, its destination a secret to
all but itself.

Towns and villages filled with the
vulnerable forms of sleeping humans passed by below. Any one of
them would’ve been suitable recompense for the life returned just
moments earlier, but the whisp ignored them all. The misty darkness
resisted temptation, pursuing a more meaningful reward rather than
instant gratification.

Many hours later, the whisp was faced
with internal conflict. Some of the darkness pulled forcefully
toward the sleeping world below. The Ways demanded recompense for a
gift so crudely granted, but the greater portion of the whisp
refused, intent on a loftier sacrifice. The strain became too much
and the cloud split apart, the smaller portion churning violently
toward the earth.

Through the stillness of night, the
whisp crept silently along a road in the budding town of Elmsville.
It whispered around street lanterns and slithered past shopfronts.
It tickled the flowers on street corners and took pleasure in their
wilting. The whisp came to a shuddering stop.

A small house stood before the dark
mist, the building somehow having drawn it close. It surged toward
the cottage and drifted over the rooftop, captivated. She was
inside. She understood the Ways. What better reward could there
be?

The whisp sunk through the ceiling and
into a modest bedroom where a middle-aged couple lay blissfully
ignorant, reading together in bed.

‘
Good night, love,’
the man whispered and kissed his wife on the cheek. ‘I’d best get
some sleep. We have a big day in the shop tomorrow.’

‘
All right.’ The
woman smiled. ‘I’m going to--’ She stopped abruptly and her
features became still.

‘
What is
it?’

‘
Nothing,’ she
replied, glancing nervously about the room. ‘You go to sleep. I’ll
just check on Seteal.’ She chuckled softly upon realising her
husband had already fallen asleep.

The whisp sank into the shadows,
excitement building. She’d felt it . . . just for a moment. She
understood the Ways.

After abandoning the illusion of safety
provided by her bed, the woman padded along a quiet hallway guided
by no more than lantern light. The whisp remained silent as it
slithered insidiously along the ceiling behind her. Having reached
the corner at the end of the hall, the woman stopped and gazed
adoringly at her daughter bundled up in bed.

‘
I love you, Seteal,’
she whispered softly.

Stifling a yawn, the woman turned to go
back to her room. Her foot landed heavily on the floorboards. The
world twisted ever so slightly. The flooring moaned regret. And the
black mist enveloped her. It touched her soul, leaving no time to
gasp as the chill whispered its suffocating song.

The woman winced as bitter sorrow
filled her heart. She knew what this was and yet she’d failed to
sense it. Had she truly been so long away from her people? She
wanted to scream, but could not. She knew this was her end. The
clammy vapour sliced deep into her flesh and immediately her soul
was cut out. The woman was dead before her body reached the
floor.

The child in the next room sat
bolt upright, her high-pitched scream tearing through the night.
Whether she’d heard her mother collapse, or whether she’d
simply
known
of its happening will forever be unclear, but
the girl cried continuously and mournfully. The sound was deep and
tormented. It was a sound that represented a kind of pain that
should never be felt by a child so young.

The circle had begun to turn.

*

Its sister having taken human life
created a sense of ease in the remaining portion of the whisp and
its darkly clad journey all but simmered to a stop. Life was
granted to the dead only if another was made to pay the debt. After
all, life and death always had to remain in balance. The Ways
demanded such justice. The dark haze meandered about the skies for
some thirteen years before finally billowing through the treetops
into the place marked out by man as Narvon Wood.

A small bird known by many in the
region as an elf owl lifted into the air, beating her wings in
anticipation for the night’s hunt. After having been created
through such meaningful salvation, why the whisp chose such an
insignificant target would forever remain a mystery. Perhaps it
chose the owl because it had tired over the years. Perhaps it
sought out the small animal through fear of its own inevitable
demise. Either way, it was within the little bird’s soul that the
darkness took its hold.

With its limited capacity, the owl
could not understand from where the chill had come, nor why the
cold spread so relentlessly throughout her body. Mind and instincts
all but destroyed, the bird lost track of where she was and that
she had a family awaiting her return. All the same, her body
continued to function and, as such, the egg that’d been forming
within her awaited being lain.

After a clumsy landing, the elf owl
shuffled through the leaf-litter carpeting the forest floor and
produced a perfectly black egg among the protective roots of an old
tree. The bird opened her wings, the cold night beckoning her
return, but the whisp within her died and, with it, so did she.

In the weeks that followed, the animals
of Narvon Wood strayed increasingly far to avoid the base of that
old tree. The surrounding foliage died and soon after rotted away,
leaving a clearing in which nothing was able to live. Perhaps the
dark and pervasive omen had been intended as a curse. Perhaps it
was divine intervention for that which was yet to come. Or perhaps,
as was so often the case, its creation was simply a grand
coincidence of neither intention nor design. The clearing was a
place where sunlight seemed dull, the egg becoming indefinable
among the shadows that lulled across its surface.

Despite the lack of maternal warmth,
when the time was due, the egg began to hatch, a tiny beak pipping
its way tirelessly through the surface. The shell emitted a foul
odour as it splintered to reveal the pathetic bit of flesh that
came from within. The owlet’s appearance was deceptively similar to
that of any other newborn of its kind. The bird opened its beak and
called for a mother who’d long since become little more than dust
and bones. It gaped for many hours but was graced by neither
nourishment nor attention. Just as the young bird grew too weak to
hold its head aloft, an unlikely guest appeared at the other side
of the clearing.

The plump rat bristled fearfully as it
approached the weakened owlet. Within its crooked teeth, it carried
the still warm corpse of its own young. It laid down the body
cautiously in the dirt and proceeded to tear off pieces of flesh
and place them within the awaiting gullet of the hatchling. Having
fed the bird to contentment, the rat curled up beside it, offering
warmth throughout the night. Upon awakening, it scampered away
without a backward glance.

The next visitor slithered equally as
hesitantly into the clearing. Ordinarily, one would assume that the
arrival of a serpent could only indicate ill intent, but again the
visitor merely offered the owlet pieces of flesh torn from its
kin.

In the days that followed, a variety of
animals approached the bird, each providing food and warmth until
the day came when the owlet was due to leave his place between the
roots of the old tree. He’d gained much knowledge as he’d grown.
He’d noticed that the tree was entirely black at the base where
he’d spent so much time and that the wind seldom touched a single
leaf.

Although he hadn’t realised it yet, the
young owl was quite unlike other woodland animals. The bird ruffled
his feathers and practiced beating his wings. He spotted a cricket
on a nearby tree, leapt forward, and snatched it up within his
clumsy talons. The elf owl no longer required the services of the
animals of Narvon Wood, and oddly enough, they stopped coming.

Genesis 1

1. In the beginning Maker created
Hae'Evun and the earth.

20. And Maker said, Let the waters
bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl
that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of the sky.

21. And Maker created great whales, and
every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth
abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after their
kind: and Maker saw that it was good.

24. And Maker said, Let the earth bring
forth the living creatures after their kind, cattle, and creeping
things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was
so.

26. And Maker said, Let us make man in
our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fowl of the air,
and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27. And Maker blessed them, and Maker
said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,
and subdue it. And Maker let silts have dominion over all that He
had created as guardians of man.

Scriptures of
the
Holy Tome

CHAPTER One

Actions and Reactions

Today.
Seteal’s eyes burst open. She leapt out of bed,
stumbled across the room, slammed face-first into her wardrobe, hit
the floor, and threw up. Lifting her chin, she paused for a moment
to examine the strange carvings on the wooden door. Her father had
constructed the wardrobe many years earlier, but she’d always found
the images confusing. There was an ocean, frozen in time with
people standing fearlessly beneath huge waves as if they too knew
that the waters were incapable of crashing down.

‘
For Maker’s sake,’
Seteal muttered before hurrying out of the room to find a cloth.
After collecting one from the next room, she cleaned up the mess
and got dressed.

‘
Is that you thumping
about up there, Seteal?’ Gifn called from downstairs.

‘
No!’ Seteal shouted
back to her father. Who did he expect it was? No one else lived
there.

‘
I’ve made
breakfast,’ he announced.

‘
I’m not hungry,’
Seteal replied. The last thing she wanted to do was have breakfast
with that man. Not after last night.

After straightening out her bright
yellow dress, Seteal made her way to the bedroom window and gazed
out over the town. The house in front of theirs was all on one
level, which allowed her to see the town centre beyond. It was
early . . . too early for Seteal to be up, really, but she’d been
unable to sleep lately on account of some rather disturbing
dreams.

Seteal was able to see the
future. Well . . . sometimes. Maybe. She was confused. Perhaps she
was simply losing her mind. Throughout life she’d suddenly
just
know
something was about to happen--sometimes only moments in
advance, sometimes days. She didn’t always know what the event was,
just that it would happen. Even to Seteal that sounded crazy. But
it wasn’t.

She’d only ever known such things
occasionally and it’d never impacted on her life too negatively.
But lately things had been different. And today was the day. That
was why she had been sick. She didn’t know what it was, but she’d
known it was coming for well over a year. Every now and then, she’d
freeze with the abrupt and somewhat forceful realisation that it’d
gotten closer. Or maybe she was just a bored, small town girl
making up childish fantasies to take her mind off what her father
was up to.

With a tired sigh, Seteal headed
downstairs to join Gifn in the kitchen. ‘Morning,’ she
grumbled.

‘
Morning,’ Gifn
replied with an equal lack of enthusiasm. ‘You didn’t have to be so
rude last night, you know?’

‘
Really?’ Seteal
rolled her eyes. ‘You want to start this early in the
morning?’