The Inner Circle: Holy Spirit (20 page)

‘
Whatever.’ El-i-miir
raised her hands. ‘I’ve delivered the message. Do with it what you
want.’

Before long, the sun had set and
El-i-miir found herself applying makeup before a small mirror in
her tent. She was only seeing Seeol, but El-i-miir was a woman who
prided herself on her appearance and intended to look her best at
all times. Seteal watched idly, having made herself comfortable on
El-i-miir’s bed. Somewhat more unexpectedly, Ieane, too, had joined
them, leading El-i-miir to suspect that Seeol had sent her to
ensure that she came.

‘
It’s really quite an
honour, you know.’ The girl pushed back her waist-length red
hair.

‘
Yes,’ El-i-miir
moaned. ‘You’ve said that about twenty times.’

‘
Well, it
is!’

‘
Yeah,’ Seteal
snorted. ‘It’s such an honour to have dinner with a mutant elf owl.
El-i-miir has just been so excited.’

El-i-miir responded only by pulling a
face through the mirror.

‘
That’s blasphemy!’
Ieane cried furiously. ‘If you’re not careful, the Holy Spirit will
smite you!’

‘
That’s right,’
Seteal said mockingly. ‘Show a little respect, El-i-miir. You don’t
want to be pecked to death.’

El-i-miir attempted to supress her
laughter for Ieane’s sake, but ended up snorting instead. ‘You
really are terrible, Seteal.’

‘
I’m not going to sit
here and listen to this heresy.’ Ieane’s eyes filled with tears.
‘You’re wicked, wicked people,’ she spat before hurrying out of the
tent.

‘
Right.’ El-i-miir
put her makeup bag on the floor. I think I’m ready.’

‘
About time.’ Seteal
rolled her eyes. ‘You two lovebirds have fun.’

‘
I’m not going
to bite.
’ El-i-miir turned with a sickly
sweet smile. ‘You want me to, but I’m not going to give you the
satisfaction.’ She abandoned the tent with a swish of her
dress.

The night air was cool and crisp, but
not at all unpleasant, which was of no great surprise considering
how far south they’d travelled. El-i-miir set her sights on the
large tents in the distance, but she froze in her tracks at the
sound of stifled sobs coming from a quiet patch several strides
away.

‘
Ieane?’ El-i-miir
whispered when she found the girl sitting in the grass with her
knees tucked up under her chin.

‘
What do you want,
Elglair,’ she sobbed, angrily wiping away her tears.

‘
Look.’ El-i-miir sat
beside her. ‘I’m sorry if we hurt your feelings. Seeol sure is
important to you, isn’t he?’

‘
He’s more than just
the Holy Spirit,’ Ieane choked out through tears. ‘He’s my friend
and you’re all so mean to him. He tells me things. You really hurt
his feelings when you’re all so unkind.’

‘
I suppose,’
El-i-miir said as empathetically as she could manage while secretly
wanting to shake some sense into the girl and scream at her for her
stupidity. ‘I guess we’ve just always known Seeol as a little bird,
not as this great Holy Spirit of yours. It’s difficult for us to
see him as anything other.’

‘
He’s not, is
he?’

‘
Not
what?’

‘
The Holy Spirit.’
Ieane’s voice was filled with devastation.

‘
Who can say?’
El-i-miir said reassuringly, not wanting to be the one to destroy
the girl’s faith. ‘Come on, let’s get you back to your
tent.’

‘
You’ll be late,’
Ieane warned.

‘
I’m sure the Holy
Spirit won’t mind,’ El-i-miir stood up and offered the girl her
hand. ‘Come on.’

‘
He’s gone to a lot
of trouble,’ Ieane said quietly once they’d arrived at her tent.
‘Try to be gentle with him.’

‘
I will.’ El-i-miir
smiled. ‘You get some rest.’

*

Seeol looked over the table for what
felt like the billionth time. At its centre were bunches of flowers
and expensive scented candles. The circumference of the tent
boasted even more candles and lanterns burning scented oils. Rose
petals had been strewn across the floor and the finest Jenjen chef
had created a banquet befitting a woman of such exquisite beauty as
El-i-miir. She would not be disappointed. Ilgrin had never gone to
such lengths for her.

‘
Seeol?’ The sweet
melody of El-i-miir’s voice entered the tent before she did, moving
as gracefully as ever. ‘Seeol! What have you done?’ Her eyes bulged
in disbelief.

‘
Are you
happy?’

‘
No,’ El-i-miir
gasped, before rushing in to blow out the candles. ‘Oh, dear Maker!
All that food.’

‘
Stop!’ Seeol wailed.
‘I dids all thish for you.’

‘
We are an army going
to war,’ El-i-miir said incredulously. ‘We have little enough
resources without you floundering them so carelessly.’

‘
I’m sorry!' Seeol
cried. ‘I loves you.’

‘
Oh, for Maker’s
sake,’ El-i-miir glared at him. ‘This has got to stop. You’re just
an--’

‘
Yes! I know,’ Seeol
cut her off bitterly. ‘Is just a bird. Just a stupid little elf
owl.’ He beat his arms a few times before remembering he couldn’t
fly and then covered his face with his hands instead. He hated
being human. He’d only done it for El-i-miir and she still despised
him. ‘I’m just a stupid, stupid owl.’

‘
I can’t handle
this.’ El-i-miir threw up her hands. ‘What are you playing at?
You’re not the Holy Spirit and when these fools figure that out
they’re going to kill the lot of us.’

‘
I am the
sprit!'

‘
No, you’re not!’
El-i-miir shouted. ‘You’re an animal. That’s why this is all so
disgusting. Don’t you get it? How could anyone love an animal like
that?’

‘
You love a demon!’
Seeol shouted back, suddenly furious.

‘
That’s right,’
El-i-miir hissed. ‘I do love Ilgrin and you will never stand in the
way of that. Goodbye, Seeol.’ She turned to leave.

‘
Wait.’ Seeol reached
out to her.

‘
What?’ El-i-miir
paused at the entrance her silky black hair moving gently in the
wind, her beautiful blue eyes, and piercing white pupils locked on
his. ‘What do you want?’ she said more softly.

‘
If I could given you
everything,’ Seeol pleaded. ‘If I was a man forever, woulds you
love me?’

‘
No,’ El-i-miir
whispered, her face vanishing as the tent flap fell
shut.

A powerful gust of wind blew into the
tent and the remaining candles went out, leaving Seeol standing
alone in the dark. A deep moan bubbled up from within his chest. It
was a sorrow unlike anything he’d felt before. All hope vanished.
Thunder rumbled, lightning flashed, the weather changed in the
space of a second and the rain fell with his tears.

CHAPTER
Fourteen

Rain

‘
We must hurry,’
Jakob urged, doubling his pace. ‘I don’t like the look of those
clouds.’

Ilgrin did as he’d been told and
hurried after the human. The great whisp cloud sat dauntingly above
them, purple flashes of sheet lightning intermittently draining
what little light remained in the sky.

‘
Surely we must be
close,’ Ilgrin replied, fatigued from weeks in flight and the
constant walking thereafter. ‘I could fly the rest of the
way.’

‘
My associates are in
the cliffs up there,’ Jakob murmured, ‘but I only know how to get
there on foot. Watch out!’

‘
What?’ Ilgrin gasped
in surprise as he felt his foot becoming tangled in a vine. ‘It’s
just a patch of weeds,’ he reassured Jakob, but when he tried to
get free the vine only tightened further. ‘What is
this?’

‘
These are the kinds
of things you have to watch out for in Old World,’ Jakob stated,
the irritation clear in his voice. ‘Whisps have infested these
lands for hundreds of years. Most things are mutilated--corrupted
in some way or another. If you wish to survive this place, you have
to live by the assumption that everything is trying to kill
you.’

‘
Get it off me,’
Ilgrin said nervously as the vine elongated and began snaking
around his body in increasingly tightening circles.

‘
Not yet,’ Jakob said
nervously. ‘It may dissipate before it can finish. This isn’t the
work of a particularly powerful whisp.’

‘
Please,’ Ilgrin
gasped as the vine wrapped around his chest, making it difficult to
breath.

‘
Wait,’ Jakob tensed,
a hand resting inside his pocket.

‘
Do something,’
Ilgrin wheezed, unable to draw in any air.

‘
Damn
it.
’ Jakob snatched a flask out of his
pocket and popped the cork. He flipped it upside-down at the base
of the vine. Tentatively at first, and then with more purpose, a
pure white mist slithered away from the flask, its behaviour and
appearance matching an ordinary whisp perfectly aside from its
colour, or lack there of. ‘What a waste,’ Jakob
grumbled.

Spots danced across Ilgrin’s vision as
the vine loosened and he bent over gasping for breath. ‘What was
that?’ Ilgrin clawed off the vine and tossed it to the ground.

‘
That--by its proper
name--was a sieift. For obvious reasons they’re more commonly
referred to as “white whisps.”’ Jakob’s voice resonated his
frustration. ‘It was my last one, so for Maker’s sake, be careful
where you put your feet from now on.’

‘
How?’ Ilgrin asked
as he hurried after the man, who’d already resumed his journey.
‘How can it exist? What is it?’

‘
It’s the exact
opposite of a whisp,’ Jakob replied. ‘Regular whisps come into
existence to make atonement for the giving of life. Sieifts come
into existence through means of the exact opposite. It is the
angels alone who possess the power to create them. In the same way
you’re able to reverse death, angels are able to induce it in the
most hideous and agonising way imaginable. The result of which are
sieifts, a substance of pure good--but there are so few angels left
these days that sieifts are very hard to come by.’

‘
But you bottled it,’
Ilgrin stated in confusion. ‘Whisps are not of this world. They
can’t be bottled.’

‘
The bottle didn’t
hold any real physical barrier to the sieift, it just made it
easier for me to carry it around.’ Jakob shrugged. ‘In the same way
that whisps do whatever they want whenever they want, sieifts tend
to be somewhat more amicable to our desires. They’re usually
willing to be bottled if your intentions are good. If you keep them
too long, though, they do tend to get bored and either dissipate or
wander off to find something else to do.’

‘
Where do these
angels come from?’ Ilgrin asked, becoming increasingly disturbed
with the more he learnt about the strange silts.

‘
Legend has it that
when the demons were cast out of Hae’Evun, Maker sent a few trusted
angels to rule over them and ensure they didn’t get out of control
or do too much damage to the world. Of course, that all changed
about a hundred years ago when the angel hunts began. Many were
burned alive at the stake. Others had bricks tied to their feet and
were thrown into the sea. That’s why there are so few around
anymore, but you’ll meet one soon enough.’

‘
What do you
mean?’

‘
One of my associates
is an angel,’ Jakob replied. ‘Don’t worry, she won’t hurt you,’ he
added, observing Ilgrin’s distress. ‘She’s on our side.’

‘
Who are you?’ a
child’s voice enquired.

Ilgrin glanced about anxiously
until he spotted a silt boy no older than six or seven semi-hidden
behind a tree. ‘Hey there.’ Ilgrin smiled, his heart
warming.

‘
Ignore him,’ Jakob
encouraged. ‘We have to keep going.’

‘
Just a minute,’
Ilgrin replied, turning his attention back to the boy. ‘What’re you
doing out here alone?’ He smiled at the child, gleeful to encounter
another silt who, for the first time, wasn’t trying to kill
him.

‘
I’m not alone.’ The
boy giggled. ‘You’re funny.’

‘
He lives here,’
Jakob hissed. ‘Now let’s keep moving.’

‘
We’re in the middle
of nowhere.’ Ilgrin frowned. ‘How can he live here?’

Jakob shook his head and pointed up.
Ilgrin craned his neck, his vision moving up the tree trunk to find
it bulging out near the top. The circular tree-mass had windows
embedded across its surface in which curtains fluttered on the late
afternoon breeze.

‘
They live in trees,’
Ilgrin hissed in astonishment. ‘Of course.’ He turned in a slow
circle to admire the many trees that bulged out at various levels
above him. Silts in common clothing--for once not
military--occasionally leapt from one branch to another.