The Inner Circle: Holy Spirit (5 page)

Seteal soon found herself in step with Ilgrin behind
El-i-miir as she led them through disjointed alleyways and narrow
streets. Although it wouldn’t be long before nightfall, the sun was
still clearly visible and the Sixth Cleff was anything but safe for
a gathering such as theirs. Whenever they made any progress,
El-i-miir would detect an’hadoans approaching and they’d have to
double back.

‘
Could you carry me?’ Seteal
turned to Ilgrin as they ducked across an empty street.

‘
What?’ El-i-miir
balked.

‘
You needn’t get your knickers in
a knot,’ Seteal reassured the woman. ‘I’m going to try and find a
way out of here.’

‘
Fine,’ El-i-miir grumbled. ‘I
suppose it’s for the best.’

‘
Well?’ Seteal slapped Ilgrin’s
chest. ‘Hurry up.’

As the silt picked her up, Seteal burst out of her
body and sighed inwardly with relief. Freedom. She moved skyward to
peer down upon the rooftops and alleyways below. The others looked
about themselves fearfully as they awaited her direction. Seteal
focused on her mouth and made it speak. As always, it responded
weakly, but effectively.

‘
I think I can make this
work.’

‘
Oh.’ Ilgrin gaped at Seteal’s
unconscious face. ‘That’s disturbing.’

‘
You’ll get used to it,’ El-i-miir
replied.

‘
They’re everywhere.’ Seteal gaped
at the swarms of an’hadoans weaving throughout the area. ‘If you do
exactly as I say, when I say it, we’ll be fine.’

After taking another moment to assess the situation,
Seteal started giving orders as to how they should proceed. A
moment later, she watched as the others dashed down alleyways
whilst empty, and around houses as the tenants turned away.

‘
You’re almost there,’ she
murmured. Turn right, she attempted to say, but her lips remained
sealed.

‘
Seteal,’ El-i-miir urged by her
ear. ‘What now?’

Focusing on her lips and tongue, Seteal tried to
speak and failed yet again. A gathering of an’hadoans would soon
turn the corner behind the others. If she couldn’t make herself
speak they would most certainly get caught.

‘
Turn right.’ At last the words
squeezed their way along the thread between herself and her
body.

Flooded with relief, Seteal watched Ilgrin and
El-i-miir hurry around the side of the building seconds before the
an’hadoans came around the corner. She caught herself wondering
what had happened to the connection, but as she continued giving
directions thereafter everything went on working as it should. ‘You
see the valley wall?’

‘
What about it?’ El-i-miir’s face
scrunched up in consternation.

‘
You’ve got about three minutes to
reach it without being seen,’ Seteal urged. ‘Run.’

‘
I couldn’t,’ El-i-miir said
through gritted teeth.

‘
You have--’ Seteal failed to
produce the final word, once again feeling the strange detachment
from her body.

‘
Come on,’ Ilgrin threw Seteal
over his shoulder and grabbed El-i-miir’s hand to sprint across the
open plane.

Realising that her task was complete and she was
only serving as a burden in slowing the others down, Seteal
snatched at the strand of spirit attaching herself to her body but
found that she couldn’t get a proper hold of it. Terrified by the
detachment, she swooped over the body atop Ilgrin’s shoulder,
begging it to accept her back, but it wouldn’t. She screamed
inwardly for it to let her in and yet her body did not respond in
the slightest.

Once Ilgrin and El-i-miir reached the side of the
basin, they found the stairway that Seteal had spotted earlier and
rested her at the base. ‘You enjoy your free ride?’ Ilgrin
panted.

Seteal snatched at the canvas and felt feverishly
along its surface until she found her Way. She found the strand
she’d been looking for just as it attempted to weave itself back
into reality without her. Seteal snatched it up before it could
escape and spiralled down its length to plunge back into her
body.

‘
Yes, thank you,’ she replied to
Ilgrin without giving further explanation.

‘
It would’ve been easier if you’d
carry your own weight,’ the silt grumbled.

‘
Are you okay?’ El-i-miir narrowed
her eyes.

‘
I’m fine.’ Seteal rose to her
feet and dusted off her dress. ‘It doesn’t look like you were fast
enough,’ she said, putting a hand against her brow so that she
could gaze across the plane where a mass of an’hadoans had taken up
chase.

‘
That’s impossible,’ Ilgrin
moaned. ‘Nobody saw us. I was certain of it.’

‘
You go.’ Seeol puffed out his
feathers and flicked his wings at the others. ‘I’ll take care of
this.’ The bird narrowed his eyes and marched several handswidths
across the ice to face their pursuers.

‘
I’ll come back,’ Ilgrin assured
Seteal as he tore off his cloak, wrapped El-i-miir in his arms and
leapt into the sky.

‘
I’m getting really sick of you
doing that,’ Seteal barked after the pair. ‘Torrid,’ she cursed,
turning to run up the stairs.

‘
Stop following us,’ Seeol’s
feeble challenge floated up as the an’hadoans came within a few
strides of the basin wall. Seteal shook her head, already panting
as she took the steps two at a time. Moments later the elf owl
zipped through the air and landed unsteadily on her shoulder. ‘They
didn’t listen.’

‘
Stop,’ a man shouted. Seteal
didn’t stop. ‘I said stop.’ The an’hadoan leapt at Seteal’s foot
but tripped and fell backward into the upcoming throng of his
comrades.

Daring a glance into the sky to search for Ilgrin
proved to be a mistake as Seteal’s toe clipped the next stair and
she fell to hands and knees. Expecting a rather unpleasant fate to
befall her, she spun around to find her attackers were falling all
over themselves in their attempt to get up the stairs. ‘What in
Maker’s name,’ Seteal murmured as she watched a small number of men
beginning to topple from the sides of the stairway and scream to
their deaths as the ones at the back continued to push forward.

‘
These is scary men.’ Seeol’s eyes
widened in dismay at the crowd of sinister faces. ‘They’re wanting
to do hurting things to me.’ It was typical of Seeol that his
linguistics should suffer when he was scared. ‘They’re
mean.’

Unable to believe her eyes at the lack of discipline
before her, Seteal seized the opportunity to continue her journey
up the stairs. Oddly enough, as soon as she did so the mayhem
behind her came under control and the men continued their pursuit
as professionally as they’d done before.

Seteal thrust her leg up toward the next step, but
her foot never made contact. Instead, she was snatched into the sky
as Ilgrin passed her from his feet up into his arms.

‘
About time,’ Seteal gasped. The
silt beat his great wings and the Elglair an’hadoans soon became a
spec in the distance.

‘
I’m sorry,’ Ilgrin replied. ‘I
had to make sure El-i-miir was far enough away that they wouldn’t
come after her.’

At first, Seteal tried not to look at the ground. It
was disconcerting seeing her feet dangling a hundred strides above
the earth, but she soon came to appreciate the beauty of the view.
Ordinarily, she’d only be able to see such a sight had she left her
body behind, but there was something nice about feeling the wind on
her face.

Beneath her feet, the massive expanse of ice became
less pure, interrupted by rocks, dirt and patches of vegetation.
Once the scenery changed, Ilgrin began to descend, and soon enough
Seteal spotted El-i-miir waiting nervously beneath a tree.

‘
My Maker, I was getting tired of
ice.’ Seteal smiled as she and Ilgrin came to a landing. She headed
over to the tree and touched one of its small brown leaves. It was
dead, but still a sign of life. El-i-miir strode away from the
others and stared out toward the north, her hair blowing in the
gentle breeze. Ilgrin raised his eyebrows expectantly at
Seteal.

‘
She’s not my responsibility.’ She
shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Her people are nuts. She should be glad to
be shot of them.’

‘
You’re not the most sensitive
person, are you?’ Ilgrin half-smiled, shaking his head as he made
his way over to El-i-miir.

‘
Whatever,’ Seteal grumbled, more
concerned with the elf owl clambering out of her bag than anything
else. ‘That was quite a spectacle back there, wasn’t
it?’

‘
Yes.’ Seeol bobbed his head. ‘I
was very scared.’

‘
You wouldn’t know why those men
behaved so strangely, would you?’

‘
I was very scared.’ The owl
repeated himself, probably not having understood the
question.

After a short while, the other two re-joined them,
El-i-miir looking a little red around the eyes but otherwise none
the worse for wear. ‘Let’s go,’ she said softly. ‘There’s a road to
the south that bypasses Jenjol and leads to Garrishnell. We can
travel that way if you occasionally project yourself to check for
oncoming travellers.’

‘
Seeol can do that,’ Seteal said
impatiently as the group wove their way south. ‘It’ll be good for
him to have something to do.’

‘
Do you think it wise to trust a
bird with so much responsibility?’ Ilgrin balked. ‘Our lives depend
on us not being discovered.’

‘
He’ll do fine,’ Seteal stated
firmly. She had no intention of leaving her body while ever she was
uncertain of her capacity to get back inside. As much as she loved
being free, she still remembered Far-a-mael’s warnings that the
soul could not exist without the body and she was well aware of the
consequences of being away from it for too long. Fortunately, she
was rescued from having to give further explanation by a yelp of
surprise from Ilgrin as he tripped over a rock.

‘
Clumsy.’ El-i-miir giggled as
Ilgrin leapt about clutching his toe.

‘
I’ve never done that before.’ He
was visibly shaken.

‘
You’ve never tripped over?'
El-i-miir said incredulously. ‘Everybody trips over.’

‘
Humans trip over.’ Ilgrin shook
his head. ‘I never have.’

‘
It’s okay, Ilgrin, you needn’t be
embarrassed,’ Seteal reassured him with a wink and a condescending
smile.

‘
I’m not embarrassed. It’s just .
. . oh, never mind,’ he shook his head irritably. ‘Who cares
anyway?’

‘
Are the men coming for us?’ Seeol
asked worriedly.

‘
No.’ Seteal shook her head.
‘We’re safe now.’

‘
Yay!’ The owl flittered through
the air victoriously.

With the sun almost set, it was decided that they
should head south to the road where they would camp for the night.
They would then move east to Garrishnell, as Gez-reil had
directed.

CHAPTER Three

The Curse

While
he did not enjoy having his values diminished to the point
of common thievery, Ilgrin had never been one to suffer hunger very
patiently. He closed his eyes and took another bite out of the
raspberry and apple pie that El-i-miir had stolen from a shop in
the town they’d passed earlier. Using her powers for evil seemed to
come a little too easily, but Ilgrin wasn’t about to let that stop
him from enjoying the spoils of her labour.

The odd group of travellers had been on
foot for a number of days and if Ilgrin had to guess, they were
somewhere in the wilderness to the west of Setbrana. The road had
become little more than an overgrown dirt track with scrub
encroaching on either side. The temperature was cold, but not at
all comparable with that of the Frozen Lands.

‘
I need to rest,’
Seteal announced as they entered a clearing in which she plopped
down atop a fallen tree, a hand resting on her belly. Perhaps she
had a stitch. El-i-miir headed to the opposite side of the
clearing. It was becoming increasingly evident that she was losing
patience with Seteal’s abrasiveness.

Ilgrin glanced at Seteal to find her
staring fixatedly at the ground. He dared not speak to her, instead
deciding to follow after El-i-miir.

‘
Are you all right?’
he called once he was within earshot.

‘
I’m fine,’ El-i-miir
grumbled.

‘
You seem a little
upset,’ Ilgrin pushed.

‘
Oh, you know.’ She
shrugged. ‘It’s everything, I suppose: knowing I can never go home,
this thing between you and I, and spending so many hours with
that.’ She nodded across the field at a rather sullen looking
Seteal.

‘
I don’t see why you
insist on keeping her around.’ Ilgrin frowned. ‘She’s horrible at
the best of times.’

‘
You mustn’t blame
her for the way she treated you before,’ El-i-miir reminded him
sternly. ‘I already explained that she was under Far-a-mael’s
influence.’

‘
Well, if you ask me,
she doesn’t seem that much different now she’s free.’ Ilgrin
frowned.

‘
At least she doesn’t
want to kill you anymore.’ El-i-miir brushed the hair out of her
face. ‘Besides, you have to give her some time to adjust. Seteal
doesn’t share my abilities and has to take it on good faith that
you’re any different to what she was taught. Frankly, I’m surprised
at the progress she’s made.’