The Inner Circle: The Knowing Read online



  BOOK ONE

  THE INNER CIRCLE

  THE KNOWING

  CAEL MCINTOSH

  Copyright © 2015 Cael McIntosh

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-646-93735-9

  DEDICATION

  For the shunned.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue: Unfortunately

  1 Actions and Reactions

  2 In these Woods

  3 Seeol

  4 The Elglair Eye

  5 Out the Window

  6 A Silt in Sitnic

  7 No More Hiding

  8 Master Fasil

  9 The Bird, the Horse and a Demon

  10 A Thief in the Night

  11 Stranger on the Road

  12 Slaughter

  13 Begin Again

  14 Pieces of Emquin

  15 The Riverboat

  16 Help Me, Little Bird

  17 Changing Minds

  18 Disembodiment

  19 Cold Wood

  20 A Way Out

  21 Drink

  22 The Soulless

  23 The Truth Won’t Set You Free

  24 Ice

  25 Then There Was War

  26 Ethereal Loathing

  27 Underground

  28 Thaw

  29 Departure

  PROLOGUE

  UNFORTUNATELY

  Bright streaks of lightning revealed a sky filled with dark clouds that rumbled malevolently. Baen Geld turned away from the fearsome sight and determinedly pulled down the latch on the barn doors. The horses would be safe enough in there. The cattle would have to fend for themselves in the fields.

  ‘Urelie,’ Baen called as he hurried toward the small farmhouse he shared with his wife and son. He didn’t want to leave them alone too long. Baen was well aware of Ilgrin’s fear of storms and knew just how great a handful his son could be when frightened. The boy was not truly theirs . . . not by birth. And at the tender age of six, he harboured the strength of a fully grown man.

  ‘Daddy!’ Ilgrin cried shrilly from the doorway.

  After that everything passed by in a blur. Lightning struck a tree just strides from the door and a deafeningly loud crack tore through the night. With his eyes locked on Baen, Ilgrin shrieked in terror and fled toward the closest safe haven he knew: his father.

  ‘Ilgrin, no!’ Urelie cried as the boy thrust himself into the night. She leapt after him to snatch at his wrist, but Urelie’s strength was futile against his. The tree that’d been struck just moments earlier moaned, its tortured trunk beginning to fold. Urelie threw her weight into the middle of Ilgrin’s back and sent him stumbling out of the way as the great tree completed its journey to the sodden earth.

  ‘Ilgrin!’ Baen called into the darkness, the once steady stream of lightning having momentarily ceased. ‘Ilgrin,’ he beckoned again, moving unsteadily with outstretched arms.

  ‘Daddy?’ the boy whimpered, wrapping his arms around Baen’s legs from his place in the mud.

  ‘Get into the house,’ Baen ordered weakly.

  ‘I’m scared,’ Ilgrin moaned, the sound bearing a more similar likeness to an animal than that of a human.

  ‘Get back inside!’ Baen projected firmly and doubled his efforts in escaping the boy’s iron grip. At last, Ilgrin did as he was told.

  ‘Urelie?’ Baen asked tentatively. He didn’t need to wait long for an answer, but it did not come from his wife. A bright flash of lightning revealed Urelie’s form crushed beneath the fallen tree. ‘No!’ Baen’s breath caught as he hurried to her side, the image of her mangled corpse ingrained on his memory forever. He pleaded the Ways that he’d been mistaken. Surely he hadn’t seen what he’d thought.

  ‘Urelie?’ Baen dropped to his knees and cupped her face in his hands. But there was no mistake. The tree had pinned Urelie’s torso to the earth. Her eyes were open, glassy in death.

  A deep moan rumbled free of Baen’s chest as the realisation struck that his wife was beyond help. He howled, both enraged and destroyed. Baen leapt to his feet, wrapped his arms around the tree and used all his strength to free her body.

  ‘Daddy,’ Ilgrin’s voice echoed fearfully, as Baen huddled over his wife. He ignored the boy, instead closing his eyes and caressing her face.

  ‘Don’t be gone,’ he wept regretfully. ‘Don’t leave me alone with him.’

  ‘Daddy?’ Ilgrin squeaked. ‘What’s Mummy doing?’

  ‘This is your fault!’ Baen shouted. Overcome by pain, he lost all restraint. ‘You killed her!’ He glared at the boy, hating him. And why shouldn’t he? Baen gritted his teeth. The boy was not theirs. They’d pitied the creature. That was all. He glared at Ilgrin, remembering not for the first time what he really was.

  The demon child stood silhouetted in the doorway, the light behind him blacking out his features and exacerbating his outline. Although his stature was small, his leathery wings arched wide from his shoulders and even the darkness of night failed to diminish the obscenity of his pasty white flesh. Ilgrin clamped his hands over his cheeks, bent his knees and screamed piercingly. It was a sound no human child could produce, a sound that chilled Baen to his core.

  ‘Mummy?’ The boy leapt through the doorway, his wings quivering, occasionally causing his toes to lift away from the earth. ‘No, no!’ he howled, gripping his mother’s hand. ‘Not my mummy!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Baen swallowed heavily, his heart softening. ‘I’m so sorry.’ He wrapped the boy in his arms, only to be hurled backward into the mud.

  ‘There’s no time,’ Ilgrin whimpered. ‘She’ll be gone soon.’

  ‘What’re you doing?’ Baen’s eyes were wide with alarm as he squirmed through the sludge to reach his son.

  ‘There’s no time,’ Ilgrin wailed, evading Baen’s grip. ‘I won’t let her go. I won’t! She’s not really dead,’ the boy mumbled, resting one pallid hand on his mother’s cheek before placing the other atop her stomach.

  A flash of lightning brought Baen’s surroundings to the brightness of day. He gasped and recoiled at the sight before him as the world plunged back into darkness, a fearsome rumble vibrating the air. Had her hand twitched? Just for a moment? Did he dare hope?

  ‘Get away,’ Baen called, but the voice he heard was weak and noncommittal. ‘Please,’ he hissed, but the sound was barely audible.

  ‘Don’t go,’ Ilgrin whispered as he rocked back and forth over his mother. ‘You can’t go.’

  ‘Don’t do this,’ Baen croaked. ‘Oh, Maker, forgive him,’ he pleaded as he listened to Urelie’s bones snapping back into place and rearranging themselves into order.

  Another flash of lightning revealed Urelie’s chest as it began to swell, the gash on her face likewise melting away. Baen’s throat felt as though it were filled with sand. He needed to stop the boy, but wasn’t it too late? Urelie was on the brink of being returned to life. Surely he’d waited too long. Shouldn’t he just let the demon finish his work?

  ‘Stop,’ Baen rasped, a waste of breath amongst ferocious wind. He was simultaneously paralysed by fear, hope, and repulsion. Baen was weak and for that he loathed himself. But, Maker forsake him, this was his wife.

  How could Ilgrin have known? Baen and Urelie had done everything in their power to prevent him learning of such repulsive evils. They’d long ago destroyed every bit of literature on silts they could find, refusing to risk the chance of Ilgrin discovering his powers of resurrection. But clearly . . . somehow . . . they’d failed.

  Urelie’s body jerked violently and she moaned loudly. Her arm twisted sideways and snapped into place. Her shoulder crunched forward and her head snapped back. She cried out and sat up glancing about herself in confusion. Baen knew what wa
s coming. The cost of resurrection would not take long to reveal itself.

  Ilgrin pulled his hands away and fell back, head hanging with exhaustion.

  ‘What--?’ Urelie began to ask, but her eyes widened in a display of discomfort and she began scratching her arms feverishly. The dim glow from the lanterns inside the house revealed panic rippling across her features. ‘In Maker’s name, what have you done?’ she choked out before the sound was cut off by a fit of coughing and wheezing.

  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.