The Inner Circle: The Knowing (39 page)

Hel-i-yun did most of the physical
part. He was the strongest in that regard and knew how to work a
whip to his advantage. For now, that man so covered in Ilgrin’s
blood, took a seat by the door so that Jer-in could take over.
Ilgrin shook uncontrollably as the man approached, his white pupils
glinting maliciously.

‘
Please,’ Ilgrin
sobbed. ‘I don’t know anything. I was raised by--’

‘
By humans,’ Jer-in
cut him off. ‘By Abnatians, no less. The most peaceable folk in the
world.’ He backhanded Ilgrin across the face. ‘Do you take us for
fools?’

‘
I’m telling the
truth,’ Ilgrin replied.

‘
Let’s
begin
,
then
,
shall we?’ Jer-in replied, eyes full of
hatred.

Ilgrin inhaled sharply as the man
reached into his aura and started twisting it. He couldn’t see what
the man was doing, but the agony it caused was unlike anything he’d
ever known. Ilgrin almost found himself looking forward to
Hel-i-yun’s return. What really caught him off-guard was the
screaming. At first
,
he’d thought they were torturing someone else in another
room, but then realised the howls were coming from him. His entire
body convulsed as the man tormented him in ways that Far-a-mael
hadn’t dreamt of. The sum of all the pain he’d ever suffered was
drawn to the surface to be relived anew.

When it stopped Ilgrin continued
moaning for some time, not having realised the man had walked away.
Hel-i-yun returned, put a finger under Ilgrin’s chin and lifted his
face to look him in the eye.

‘
All we need to know
is what you’re doing here in New World,’ the man said with a quiet,
reassuring tone. ‘It’s that simple. All of this could be over, if
you’d just tell us.’

‘
You’re going to kill
me, aren’t you?’ Ilgrin’s voice was surprisingly steady.

‘
Of course we are.’
Hel-i-yun smiled. ‘The only question is, how long do you wish to
suffer before that happens?’

‘
Fine,’ Ilgrin said
in frustration. ‘I’m a scout for the silt city. We wanted to find
some humans for slaves.’

Hel-i-yun stared into Ilgrin’s eyes
unnervingly before turning to speak over his shoulder to Jer-in.
‘It might be time to try out some of the other gadgets around
here.’ He gestured at some of the rather inventive-looking
contraptions filling the room.

‘
What a brilliant
idea,’ Jer-in replied, raising his hand and sending Ilgrin into
fits of paralysing fear while Hel-i-yun untied him. ‘Let’s stretch
it out on the rack.’ Jer-in laughed shrilly as Hel-i-yun dragged
him over to a table with a great wheel and straps for hands and
feet at either end. ‘Put it face down so its wings don’t get in the
way.’

‘
Perhaps we should
cut them off,’ Hel-i-yun suggested.

‘
We’ll do that next,’
Jer-in agreed.

Ilgrin was too beaten to resist as the
men threw him over the rack and strapped his ankles and wrists into
place. The men moved over to the wheel and put their backs into
turning it. Ilgrin felt his muscles stretch uncomfortably,
complaining as his feet were kept in place and his hands were
stretched incrementally above his head. How many people had been
killed on this machine throughout the centuries? How many humans?
But Ilgrin wasn’t human.

Ilgrin threw his remaining
strength into resisting the machine. At first the wooden surface
moaned
,
but it
soon splintered, admitting defeat to Ilgrin’s inhuman strength. His
hand having snapped free, Ilgrin thrust it out and hit Jar-in so
forcefully that the man stumbled back, toppled over a chair and hit
the floor with a thud.

Not wasting another second,
Ilgrin tensed his muscles and tore free of the strap that bound his
other arm. Hel-i-yun leapt forward dutifully with a knife in hand,
but adrenalin had Ilgrin moving with too much strength to be
stopped. Tearing his feet free of the restraints, Ilgrin stood atop
the rack
,
panting feverishly with a racing heart. Ignoring the knife
in the man’s hand, he leapt off the table and punched Hel-i-yun
square in the nose. There was a cracking sound, but it wasn’t
enough.

Caught up in the moment, his blood
running hot, Ilgrin crouched over the man and continued to beat him
until his head was little more than a red lump of mush and broken
bone. Eyes wide with madness, Ilgrin turned to the sound of Jer-in
racing across the room. He snatched up Hel-i-yun’s knife, leapt
forward and drove it into Jer-in’s stomach. The man’s eyes glazed
over as he stumbled and fell to the floor in death.

Horrified by the realisation of
what he’d done, Ilgrin tried feverishly to wipe the blood from his
hands. ‘Why did you make me do this?’ he howled at the dead men.
‘Now you’re dead,’ he cried, stumbling away from the bodies in an
attempt to distance himself from the crime.

Ilgrin found himself rattling the
doorhandle, but of course it was locked. He turned around, his eyes
coming to rest on the Elglair bodies across the room. He gagged and
put his shirt over his nose, but knew too well what needed to be
done. One of them had to have the key.

*

Seteal watched in dismay as the
unfamiliar old man dashed out of the room, the note he’d been given
falling forgotten to the floor. The stranger had been her last
hope. Now she was completely alone with this monster.

‘
What are you going
to do?’ Seteal asked shakily.

‘
I’m going to
strike you until you tell me you’re willing to speak the oath and
sign this contract.’ Po-let frowned. ‘I don’t want to do
this
,
you
know.’

‘
Your eyes say
otherwise.’

‘
Perhaps.’ The man
forced Seteal over the table and tore open the back of her dress.
He threw back his arm and brought down a leather strap.

‘
This can’t be
happening.’ Seteal winced as pain sliced along her back.

‘
Oh, it’s happening,’
Master Fasil’s face appeared where Po-let’s used to be. ‘Will you
sign the contract?’

‘
Go to torrid,’
Seteal spat.

‘
Have it your
way,’ the man growled. Moments later
,
Seteal felt a second fiery bite
landing in the middle of her back. Gripping the table hard in both
hands
,
she
pushed away from her body and sped over to the other side of the
room where she analysed Po-let’s confusion as her body went
limp.

‘
Hey.’ He squeezed
her shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’

Seteal’s temper flared in
accordance with the long red welts on her back. Po-let glanced
around the room as though he were making sure it was empty before
making his way to the cell door. He opened it, checked both
directions
,
and
pulled it shut. What was he up to? Shouldn’t he have been getting
help?

Po-let leaned against the door
and exhaled slowly, a strange expression on his face. But it was
not his expression that gave Po-let’s intensions away. Rather it
was the sound of his belt buckle loosening as he began to fondle
himself. Seteal’s soul shuddered and her heart rate
increased.
Not
again
, she cried inwardly.
Never again
.

Hatred filled every pore of
Seteal’s being. She realised then that she should be thanking
Po-let. Because of him, she was able to feel again, even if it was
only hatred. Po-let slithered over to play with Seteal’s breast
before racing back across the room to double check that no one was
outside. On confirmation of his solitude
,
the man returned.

Seteal plunged through the ceiling,
wishing to be anywhere, but there. She soared through strange
rooms, passing people she didn’t know and through the top of the
Dome of the Sixth. Still she didn’t stop, her ascension continuing
until she existed some hundreds of miles above. There her soul
screamed its fury and a deep rumble of thunder told the world of
her wrath.

The Ways converged and Seteal sank deep
into their fabric. She wrapped herself in the canvas and wore it
like a gown. She drank in the Ways, tying herself to them, allowing
them to flow through her. It was then that she decided to tamper
with the stitching. She reached out to the sky and drew its
moisture toward her.

From many thousands of
miles
,
the
clouds did respond, slowly at first and then with increasing speed.
Fluffy white bits drew together, became darker. Seteal pulled
harder, beckoning them, seducing them. The sky above the Sixth
Cleff became a black churning mass like nothing the Frozen Lands
had ever seen. But the great circular cloud was still too large.
Seteal wanted its fury to match her own so she hemmed its edges,
folding them over and over before stitching them into
place.

When the darkness was so thick that no
human could see more than a few strides in any direction, Seteal
unleashed her rage. Streaks of lightning tore through the sky to
rip apart the city below. Massive chunks of ice exploded up from
the ground. People ran for their lives. They were ants taken by
surprise, fleeing to their nest under the delusion that it would be
a safe haven. She sneered at them. They deserved this. The Elglair
were the most horrible people she’d ever had the misfortune of
encountering. She hated them. She felt something. It felt
glorious.

Seteal turned. The cord between
herself and her body churned discord as Po-let’s fingers slid down
to her genitals. Seteal pierced her way through the churning black
sky, plunged through the ice and back into the room where her body
was kept. There she dragged the energy of her storm and a thick
white line of lightening exploded against the Dome of the
Sixth.

Po-let loomed over her body, having
given up on removing the dress and instead lifting it so that he
could get underneath it. Seteal smiled with dark satisfaction. He’d
be dead before he had the chance to violate that body. Po-let
pulled off his pants and dragged Seteal closer, but froze when the
lightning struck and a deep rumbling sound told of its occurrence.
Po-let stumbled over his pants until he reached the door, once
again checking to see if the coast was clear. It was. He returned
to Seteal, but froze at the sound of a second explosion. This one
was closer, causing tiny shards of ice to vibrate free of the
walls.

Seteal reached out to her body and
focused on making her lips move. ‘I’m going to watch you die,’ she
whispered, her mouth turning into a smile.

‘
What . . . what’s
happening?’ Po-let fell against the wall. He wrestled with his
pants.

The third explosion was deafening and
was followed by the sound of breaking ice. Po-let stared at the
wall as cracks slithered down its shiny surface. The final
explosion was deafening and the entire room shook. Po-let’s face
was filled up with the understanding that he was about to die and
it was indeed the last expression he’d ever have. Chunks of ice
began to cave in from above. One of them crushed Po-let beneath it,
killing him before he could pull up his pants. Seteal followed the
cord and sank into her physical form.

Her eyes opened. Her aches and pains
returned. She ignored the suffocating sensation caused by returning
to her body and quickly readjusted her dress, which was stained red
in a few places and was tattered to strips around her ankles.
Seteal hurried across the room, narrowly missing bricks of ice as
they fell. Perhaps she’d been a little too forceful with the
lightning.

‘
Help,’ Seteal cried,
slapping her open palm against the solid door. ‘Help!’

Seteal noticed an oddly familiar
face dashing passed the tiny window embedded in the ice door.
‘Ilgrin! Ilgrin
,
help,’ she banged on the window frantically.

‘
Seteal?’ Ilgrin’s
bruised and beaten face appeared in the frame.

‘
Get me out of
here.’

‘
Why should I?’
Ilgrin shouted over the noise, his eyes revealing fear rather than
a thirst for vengeance.

‘
Because I don’t hate
you,’ Seteal cried desperately. ‘I never did. It was Far-a-mael. He
got inside my aura and changed me. I believe your
story.’

‘
Step back,’ Ilgrin
ordered, disappearing from view. A moment later the silt came
crashing through the door with such force that he broke it open on
the side of the hinges. ‘Come on,’ he said, reaching out a hand and
helping her to her feet. ‘I don’t know what’s going on out there,
but this whole place is coming down.’

*

The beast
of Seeol saw where the tiny creatures had run. Soon now he
would kill them. He stood atop the great ledge that overlooked the
frozen city. He would go down and destroy it. So much to break. So
many to kill . . . yes, he needed to kill. He needed to grate their
flesh and tear off their skin, squeeze the children until they
popped. The joy, the pleasure, the sweet pain. The pain. The
death.

The beast spread his wings and
launched into the air over the slope of the valley with only one
thought in mind. Death . . . but not El-i-miir. The voice, a
meaningless whisper that pleaded in an unrecognisable
language.