The Inner Circle: Holy Spirit (43 page)

Seteal moved toward the man as he
engaged yet another demon in combat. As their proximity increased,
she noticed Far-a-mael’s decay had worsened since the last time
she’d seen him. He was struggling in the use of his left arm. Parts
of his skull were revealed through gaping sores on the back of his
head where insects and maggots had made a home for themselves. His
flesh gave off an odour that must’ve been almost unbearable to
those foolish enough to meet him in battle. With a victorious cry,
Far-a-mael outwitted his foe and thrust his sword through the
silt’s chest. Eyes widening with pain and finality, the demon fell
to the road in death.

Far-a-mael stood alone and unhindered.
Seteal reached him and placed a hand on his bony shoulder.

‘
Seteal?’ The old man
wheezed, turning slowly to face her. With a sharp thrust of her
hand, Seteal plunged the dagger into the flesh beneath his ribcage.
With a furious shout, she tore it free and again plunged it into
his chest. Far-a-mael stumbled backward, his face revealing naught
but sorrow. But at the last moment, his features changed, revealing
an expression unrecognisable to Seteal until her grandfather
whispered his final words.

‘
I’m so proud of
you,’ he said with his final exhaled breath. Far-a-mael maintained
eye contact until he landed in the dust at her feet.

The air surrounding Seteal boiled as
the anchor that’d chained her so long vanished into the
nonexistence from whence it’d come. Insane laughter tore free of
her chest as she threw back her head and stared into the darkening
sky. Rain flooded down in torrents. Thunder rumbled endlessly and
lightning struck the distant mountains. Denying herself the time
it’d take to lay down, Seteal tore away from the desecrated flesh
that’d imprisoned her.

It was someone else’s body that fell.
It was the body that’d killed her son. He was the son who lay in a
stranger’s bed, his little body haunting her as all the warmth of
life abandoned him. That awful woman’s body crumbled to the
roadside, discarded: just another corpse on the battlefield.

Seteal bathed in the Ways, bending them
and coiling thick bands around herself. She murmured on the winds
of time and drank in the freedom of eternity. She glimpsed the
other world and the silts inhabiting Hae’Evun before turning to
ache at the decaying infant body lying in a stranger’s bed. Fleeing
from Parrowun, Seteal turned her attention to Beldin. Her presence
entered the crowded city and light itself twisted and warped
wherever her spirit wandered. Tendrils of Elglair power slithered
around her and through her.

A deformed animal snarled, preparing to
take a bite from the body breathing slowly by the road. Seteal
almost allowed it, but when she saw her own pale face she realised
that in some way she’d grown accustomed to the human a very long
time ago. And there was a man--her father--who wished for nothing
more than to see his daughter one last time. Seteal pulled on the
winds and was satisfied to see the animal leap away in fright as
the body drifted into the air.

The uninhabited body drifted into
an upright position. She reached out and moved muscles to open her
eyes. A portion of her spirit burrowing back into the body, forcing
her head aloft and her arms to spread out to either side. Unable to
master perfect control over the Ways, Seteal soon found that all
sorts of objects were answering her call. Chunks of buildings
that’d been blown apart in battle made their way into the sky along
with corpses and shards of glass. Countless whisps caught her
familiar scent and circled Seteal like hungry dogs.

A thousand faces turned to the
sky where a single human drifted higher and higher. At first the
silts dove at her, but they were taken by surprise when they were
met with burning hot energy and plummeted to their deaths. Soon
they would know . . . soon.

*

Ilgrin picked himself up, wiping the
blood from his face as he went. ‘El-i-miir?’

‘
Yes,’ she replied,
her eyes opening.

‘
Oh, thank Maker,’ he
murmured, before turning to find Teah already on her
feet.

‘
I’m fine, too,’ she
hissed bitterly. ‘Take care of your lover.’

‘
What happened?’
Ilgrin shook his head disbelievingly as those surrounding them
clambered to their feet. ‘Fes’s sickness?’

‘
I don’t think it was
illness that did this,’ El-i-miir said before putting a hand to her
stomach. ‘Oh!’

‘
What is it?’ Ilgrin
put an arm around her for support.

‘
It’s Seteal,’
El-i-miir replied. ‘She’s free.’

‘
Free?’

‘
Yes. Far-a-mael
anchored her and now it’s gone and . . . so is he.’

‘
Far-a-mael’s
dead?’

‘
I believe so,’
El-i-miir replied in astonishment.

Thunder rumbled angrily as lightning
struck the distant mountains and rain flooded down in torrents.

‘
What is that?’ Teah
asked, her attention on the northern sky. There a tiny figure
drifted into the air without wings to keep it aloft. Silts dove
toward the stranger, but before they could reach their target, they
were struck by lightning. ‘It couldn’t be,’ Teah gasped, beating
her wings to the north.

After throwing his arms around
El-i-miir, Ilgrin flew over the low buildings in pursuit of the
angel. He landed beside her and peered up to find a woman he knew
well. The shredded hem of her white dress swished about her feet.
Her soaked hair hung ragged over her shoulders. Her hazel eyes were
focused on nothing. Countless pieces of debris spun around her
while a hundred whisps danced and circled angrily. At times, the
misty darkness entirely obscured Seteal from view as she drifted
back toward the ground, but the whisps could never touch her.

‘
It cannot be,’ Teah
whispered in awe. ‘She will descend in the clouds and every eye
shall see . . .’ The angel’s eyes shone with elation. ‘This woman .
. . is the Holy Spirit.’

*

In the distance, Seteal felt her
feet touch the pavement. She reached out to the body, knowing that
it was utterly subject to her. The debris crashed down and the
whisps dissipated as Seteal returned to her flesh.

Moving unhindered through shocked
faces and stilled battle, Seteal found the elf owl where she’d left
him. He was tired, even unable to move. Such a tiny animal could
not have had a lot of blood to spare. Seteal scooped him up so that
he gazed into her eyes from the palm of her hand.

‘
I
s over?’ he enquired
softly.

A legion silt shrieked, leaping
at Seteal from the shadows with his scythe raised. With a single
look, Seteal sent the creature flailing through the air and into
the side of a building. ‘I believe it is,’ she replied.

‘
I
s very tired,’ Seeol said
weakly. ‘I think I’m going to die now.’ He rested his beak on
Seteal’s thumb.

‘
Not today, Seeol.’
She glanced over her shoulder and the rain ceased to fall, the
clouds immediately drifting apart. ‘I will protect you.’

‘
I
s just a bird,’ Seeol uttered
sorrowfully. ‘Just let me die.’

‘
Yes,’ Seteal
murmured
. ‘For some of us, I suppose that
it is for the best if we do.’

*

By evening, Beldin was soaked in blood.
Scarcely a soul moved. The silt legion and armies of New World had
all but annihilated each other. For now, there would be rest from
warfare, as it would take time for silt reinforcements to arrive.
The Elglair would find themselves at a loss for direction, their
leader having been killed in battle.

The clouds had drifted away hours
earlier, but a few whisps lurked around dark corners, where they
waited for prey to stagger unwittingly into their lairs. On the
streets below, the unlikely gathering of a demon, an angel, and a
condemned rei darted back and forth along the silent streets in
their effort to bypass the few remaining soldiers and escape the
city in one piece. As they moved away from a city square of
carnage, they could not have known that they were passing very
close to the corpse of the War Elder responsible for such
destruction. His body was food for insects.

A small grey moth flew on the gentle
breeze. It’d been unable to come out of hiding earlier, what with
all the rain, but now on delicate wings it entered into the night.
The moth fluttered and danced on the cold breeze. It was one of
Maker’s simpler creations and couldn’t have known of the darkness
that swam through the night behind it.

For a moment, the moth landed on
a corpse already swarming with insects. Its powerful legs propelled
it across the surface, but suddenly they stopped working, the moth
having become fixed in place. It struggled to no avail to remove
its feet as the black mist sank into its body and snaked down its
legs. The corpse’s flesh churned. The moth’s legs sank deeper into
the dead skin, its colouration fading to black as it
went.

As the moth’s body fused with dead
human flesh, incomprehensible fragmented thoughts entered its puny
mind. The stupid child had stuck him with a dagger: the foolish
girl. Thousands of moths surged through the night to join their
almost entirely consumed kin on the surface of Far-a-mael’s body.
The whisp dragged the insects beneath the surface, leaving only the
vague impression of wings imprinted on the skin where they’d
previously stood.

A horde of moths latched onto the
corpse and began tearing at the repugnant remains, scratching and
burrowing their way through rank decay. Had there been any
witnesses, none could’ve made out the human body beneath the
churning mass of blackening moths of varying shapes and sizes. One
after the other they disappeared, sinking into a human body as it
was slowly revealed. The final moths formed a simple black robe
identical to the one the man had been wearing before his death.

Far-a-mael opened his eyes and
swallowed a breath of air. There was a strange fluttering in his
chest, but the sensation vanished almost immediately. Standing
slowly, he took in his surroundings. It was night.

‘
The battle,’ he
gasped, putting a hand over his stomach where Seteal had stabbed
him. The wound was gone. Had he been resurrected yet again?
Far-a-mael looked at his clear pale hands and flexed his arms. He
touched his face and his heartbeat fluttered excitedly. The rot was
gone. So any resurrection he’d endured couldn’t have come through
the hands of a demon. His allergy would’ve remained.

Far-a-mael strode across the
square feeling healthier with every step. He stopped beneath the
bright light of the moon, certain he’d felt movement against his
arm. Pulling back his sleeve, Far-a-mael lifted his hand and
watched a moth that’d landed on his finger moving its wings slowly
in and out. It squirmed against Far-a-mael’s flesh, forcing others
to make way for it, the patterns of their wings sliding this way
and that. The moth joined the mass, leaving Far-a-mael to stare at
nothing more than the strange patterns indicative of its
placement.

‘
How interesting.’
Far-a-mael turned around slowly, his mouth twisting into a wicked
smile. He threw out his arm and watched half of it explode into a
great ball of moths. At once he saw through a hundred compound eyes
and felt the world’s vibrations through his antennae. He summoned
them back and as one they swarmed together to reform his arm.
Laughing madly, Far-a-mael tensed his legs and leapt into the air.
His body erupted into a great cloud that spewed away on the cold
breeze beneath the white light of the moon.

Revelation 1

7. Behold, She cometh with black
clouds, and every eye shall see Her, and he also who anchored Her,
and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Her. Even so.
Amen.

Scriptures of the Holy Tome

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cael McIntosh is the author of The Inner Circle
trilogy and is currently working on several other projects. Having
been born and raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, only to leave the
faith in his early twenties, he has developed a unique perspective
on religion and its implications. From that, along with other life
experiences, he finds inspiration for his tales. It is his greatest
hope that his works will inspire people to analyze and question
their beliefs from an unbiased perspective.