Circle of Nine: Circle of Nine Trilogy 1

by Josephine Pennicott

  ‘Do you bring gifts?’ Ishran interrupted. ‘Do you bring gifts of fire? Have you carried precious snow to me? Diamonds?’ He leered at me. ‘Is it not customary to bring gifts when you visit?’

  ‘Do you have news for me from your world?’ Sati said softly. Ice was now detailed on the windowpanes. Our breaths were visible in the air. I was shivering, and terribly afraid. ‘A little bird tells me that our mutual friends Johanna Develle — may Alecom keep her safely in his claws — and the blonde whore you lived with are both dead. May the night claim their souls.’

  ‘May the night claim your soul, Sati,’ Khartyn said. Sati crushed the rose in her hand, and the scent filled my nostrils.

  ‘I am so bored with this conversation,’ she hissed. ‘Come, my sweet sister. How much do you want for the child that lies within that flabby belly of yours?’

  ‘What!’ Shocked, I stared at the beautiful stranger in front of me. ‘What the hell do you mean?’

  Ishran went to move toward me, but Khartyn held a hand up threateningly, causing him to halt.

  ‘Don’t use the name hell lightly in my presence. You know exactly what we mean, Crossa!’ he snarled from his chair. ‘We want the child. My wife has just asked you quite nicely for it, you piece of human shit. That notwithstanding, I shall ask you myself. How much do you want for the bastard you carry within you? You can name your price, or perhaps . . .’

  He paused, and allowed his cloak to fall to the floor, spreading his dark wings to full span. It was a terrifying sight and a shiver of fear ran through me, snaking along my spine.

  ‘. . . perhaps we will dispense with the formalities and just tear the child from your womb,’ he hissed, looking as if the prospect of doing it immediately would bring him great joy.

  Rosedark moved protectively in front of me and Ishran laughed.

  ‘The stinking Faiaite thinks she has enough power to protect you both! Poor deluded girl!’

  He’s toying with us. Sharpening his teeth, enjoying the game and waiting to pounce.

  ‘The child is no bastard!’ I said, finding my voice. ‘The girl that flourishes within me is not to be bartered with. I have brought the Crone and maid here to give you a warning. There has been blood spilt upon this land. The Azephim have outlived their uselessness to Eronth. It is time for you to think about relocating your people.’

  In the pause that followed I felt alarm at the content of my outburst. What the hell had I just told him? Where did it come from? But there was no use resisting the force that was trying to channel through me. It might be the only thing that gets me through this.

  Sati and Ishran burst into laughter.

  ‘Do you think I will be dictated to by a mere Crossa?’ Ishran hissed. ‘You may be Bindisore, but you have become soft, Emma! You have grown up in the softman’s world! Learnt the softman’s ways! Your business is not the business of Eronth! Do not worry your ugly little head about such affairs! You need to go back to the softworld!

  ‘Oh, the old bag of bones over there has taken you in, all right, taken you in, fed you her Glamour and a great parcel of lies into the bargain! But you don’t trust her, do you, Emma? The senile one is considered a fool in Faia! They burnt many people like the Old Mother on the Blue Planet for a very good reason! They were either useless, or even worse, useless troublemakers!’

  He shot a glance of pure malevolence at Khartyn, who remained impassive at his outburst. Sati picked up the thread of Ishran’s tirade. ‘You think the Crone and the maid are your allies," she said smoothly in her black-velvet voice. ‘They have bought you here to bargain with us. You trust them with your life, no doubt, but they are prepared to exchange your life in return for the Azephim’s departure from Eronth.’

  ‘That’s not true, Emma! Don’t listen to them,’ Khartyn interjected.

  I held out my hands to the Azephim. ‘You are no sister of mine!’ I retorted. ‘I want the Eom! Bring it to me now!’

  I was dimly aware of Khartyn’s and Rosedark’s startled gasps at my demand. ‘The Eom is useless in your bloodied angel hands! It does not belong in Eronth! It needs to be returned to the Webx race!’

  ‘You fool! You fucking human. You pathetic excuse for a human being!’ Ishran shouted. ‘The Eom was returned to us by its own wish! What would you, a half-breed, a Bluite, know of the mysteries of the Eom? All we want from you is the promise of the child after the birth. We need that child, you don’t, you selfish little bitch! All of the prophecies state that the child will be the awakener of the Eom and the Circle of Nine. Give us that much and we can arrange a safe crossing back to the Blue Planet for you! Are you willing to be rational and accept the offer?’

  Now it was my turn to laugh. Not that I found anything amusing in what the demonic creature had just told me. I was almost beside myself with fear. But the laughter, and then a stream of channelled words, bubbled through me like water through a pipe. Confused as I was, I was still relieved that something seemed to know what I should say.

  ‘It’s hard to believe that you’re even stupider than your hag mother! Believe what you want, angel! The Eom belongs to the Webx! It cannot function in your contaminated, incompetent hands. It needs Webx to live! The Webx Elders are awaiting its return!’

  Khartyn joined in almost simultaneously. ‘How do you know that you’ve even interpreted the prophecies accurately?’ she said.

  ‘Keep out of this, Old Mother! You might make mistakes when studying the ancient writings, you senile old witch. Your touching concern brings tears to my eyes,’ Sati hissed. ‘You just want the child for yourself, so you can gain more power. You might fool them, but not me!’

  ‘You will never have my child,’ I said softly. I had to fight down urges to throw myself across the room, fly through the air, to hit them, strangle them with my bare hands, and watch them die.

  Impatiently, Ishran stopped my flow of words. ‘Sister or not, I’ve heard enough of your ranting!’ Me held out his hand and showed me some pomegranate seeds.

  ‘Come, Emma,’ he said, and I failed to notice the Glamour that he ejected from glands within the tips of his wings, turning his manner into one of pure seduction. ‘Come, taste the gift that Ishran has for you. Walk toward me, come to the Ghormho.’

  I stared at the seeds, waves of doubt and confusion sweeping over me. A force had spoken through me, giving me power, eloquence, strength. But now I could sense the same force slipping away, leaving only the terrified, pathetic human being that I always was. I couldn’t believe how I had dared to speak to this dark being and why he hadn’t just crushed me like an ant on the spot. He seemed so suddenly attractive, so kind, and the seeds begged me to reach out and claim them. The seeds promised that all the millions of questions I had within me would be answered. I held out my hands to take the seeds and I felt the great angel begin to draw energy from me. I could feel energy rapidly being sucked from my very essence, it was like I had begun to literally deflate. I knew if he continued to draw on me I would die. Yet all I could focus on was the pomegranate seeds.

  I became aware that Rosedark was singing something, a strange, terrible and beautiful melody about the moment on the Blue Planet when the first flower opened. My heart opened with the beauty of the song. The seeds began to lose their seductive appeal as I strained to listen to the angelic sound Rosedark was producing. As the song filled the study it permeated the heavy Glamour that Ishran and Sati had carefully placed around the castle and themselves. The Glamour began to crack slightly. I became aware of black parasites swarming over the two of them, gorging on the Dark Angels like leeches. The parasites began to shape-shift and in front of my eyes I saw the energy that fed murderers, rapists, racists, witch-hunters, Nazis, massacres, genocide. A conglomeration of all the evil that fed the Azephim and in turn was fed by them. The parasites and the host.

  The castle began to drip black blood and pus as a cry of pain echoed from the depths of its foundations. Tiny black shadows danced upon the bricks and the foul, fetid smell that pul
sated thickly through the walls was indescribable. It was the smell of pure hell. Among their evil shadows, their black hosts, their world of dark illusion, Ishran and Sati sat like two enormous foul scorpions entwined around each other. Gone were the beautiful dark beings I had admired upon my first sight of them.

  ‘Come!’ the Ishran-Sati thing demanded. Huge black claws were sliced through the air in front of me. ‘Come to me!’

  I was aware that Khartyn was frantically inscribing protective pentacles into the air while Rosedark hid her eyes in terror at the demon that had manifested in front of us. A number of Azephim were now congregating in the study. Now that the carefully placed Glamour was fading, the extensive library was beginning to melt. Books were evaporating on the shelves. Only certain leather-bound volumes remained, which I intuitively knew to be Azephim lore, bound with Faery, Eronthite and Bluite skin.

  ‘Come!’ the demon beseeched once more. Then the face of the demon altered, for the first time revealing fear. The Azephim began retreating slowly, hissing and snarling. Terrified, I risked looking behind me. What could be horrifying enough that it caused fear to strike the Azephim? In disbelief I saw that it was a cat! A small black cat. It padded silently into the centre of the room with its tail raised. The Azephim continued to retreat from the feline. Even Ishran and Sati appeared cowed. I took a step toward the cat and Khartyn hastily stopped me.

  ‘Keep back!’ she exclaimed. ‘It is the Goddess in one of her forms.’

  Then a great lightning ray appeared to strike the room. Ishran leapt to his feet, a low growl erupting from him as Artemis and her nymphs exploded into the room in a brilliant flash of red. The angels stood in front of Ishran in a bid to protect their master. Artemis approached them with a bloodcurdling war cry. Transfixed by the unexpected appearance of Artemis and the battle about to be enacted before us, I failed to notice Sati sneaking behind me. Her arms gripped me with surprising strength and the vapour of her skin sedated me quickly.

  Roses, sweet and scented. Night falling, warm and secure. The sound of a child laughing, and for a second I saw the face of the demon child Rachel. All that is darkness is mine. Drowsy, and barely aware what was happening, I was dragged through an endless darkness, a sacrifice to a night where there was no dawn and black stars inhabited a sky as black as Sati’s hair. As I swung between worlds feeling sick and dazed, I heard Sati laugh.

  ‘Did you like our little Artemis’ performance, sister?’

  ‘What?’ I murmured groggily.

  ‘I know about your bonds with the forest swine. So I designed a little shadow play for your amusement. A shame, though, you probably won’t be able to catch the ending!’

  Too nauseous and shocked to move, I groaned when I felt Sati’s hand slide up my thigh and roughly unfasten the silver garter of Artemis.

  ‘You won’t be needing this where you’re going!’ she hissed.

  Then I was pushed savagely into the black night, into the mouth of the Great Mother where the air was stagnant with loss and grief. Birthing myself, swallowing myself in the dark crimson pain of death.

  *

  Giving thanks for the blessing that the earth had received her sacrifice, Sati knelt to the soil and hissed into its belly. ‘A new toy on its way, Persephone!’

  She smiled and howled triumphantly to the moon. With Emma imprisoned underground, Ishran and Sati had now ensured a barren spring for Faia. Once the reclaimer springs from her foul belly, Sati promised herself, I shall take the pleasure of killing the Crossa. Then with the child’s help Ishran and Sati would have the means to recharge the Eom. Her hand stole to the hunting knife that she carried around her waist. But first, she decided, I will steal the blood of the Crone and the maid. She raised her knife in homage to the moon, consecrating the blade, preparing for the hunt.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Gwyndion and Samma drifted over oceans, over worlds and through billions of stars. Encased inside the pyramid they were above their physical bodies, needing no sustenance. Samma eventually tired of attempting to lick her master into wakefulness and fell into an exhausted sleep as the great pyramid drifted. The pair cradled together and dreamt uneasy dreams, where bottomless pits of snakes undulated, calling to them to join them. Thousands upon thousands of hot, twisting, restless snakes . . .

  The pyramid appeared to drift for an eternity, or for a second. In some worlds, centuries passed. Kingdoms fell. But Gwyndion and Samma were oblivious. Frozen to time, sedated to pain. At times, Gwyndion would sense the proximity of the Eom, mocking him, sending out rays that would kill him if they could penetrate the borders of the pyramid. At other times he would cry through his sleep when he saw the black, twisted corpses of his tribe.

  In the middle of the void where they now floated, Samma was abruptly awoken when the pyramid landed heavily on soil. Surrounding them was a luxuriant rainforest, similar to the vegetation of Zeglanada. The meerwog watched fearfully through her brilliant blue eyes as the security of the pyramid dissolved. Now she could smell the air, totally different to the island they had left. Then Samma recoiled in fright as a tribe of Faeries surrounded them. They were obviously a hunting army; many of them carried spears made of bones and there were no females among them. Samma growled, attempting to ward them off in an effort to protect her master. Before she could attack she found herself surrounded by the Faery army and subdued by ropes of ivy. Unable to bark when her muzzle was quickly bound, the jeering Faery folk lost no chance to taunt and prod the terrified meerwog with their sharp hunting spears. Excitedly, the army of Faeries began to swarm over the still-unconscious body of the Webx looking for treasure. Samma howled as more of the Faery folks’ spears pierced her soft hide and she began to bleed.

  Back on the island of Zeglanada the Snake Crone was working with the soil, coaxing the molecules to revert to their original state. She heard the howl of the meerwog and she paused and concentrated. Her brown, weathered, scaly hands did not pause in their examination of the soil as she focused her mind on the shootling’s whereabouts. Then she smiled briefly, her nut-brown eyes mischievous with amusement. He had arrived.

  PART THREE

  WANING MOON

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  I am the night of silence,

  My touch puts fire in your hair,

  I hold soil and stone between my toes;

  I am the power of sky and ground.

  My hands hold all strength;

  In my eyes all is silence.

  — From ‘Persephone’, a Faian folk song

  The darkness was overwhelming. I could not see my hand in front of my face. There were no sounds but I was aware I was being watched. I glanced about fearfully, wildly. An overwhelming sense of claustrophobia swept over me. I was aware I was in some sort of underground cavern, but the darkness was so immense, so total, that my already taut senses threatened to drag me into insanity. The suffocating darkness was familiar, like a thousand burials I had endured.

  I have been buried in many such darknesses, I thought hysterically. Then I flowered as I rose to light, died and re-entered the darkness. A scream rose inside me as I began to realise I had indeed been buried alive.

  ‘Your eyes adjust after a time, so be calm.’

  The voice came from out of the darkness, startling me. Youthful and sweet, it could almost have passed for a child’s voice if not for the nuance of shadow that it contained. I attempted vainly to move, to defend myself against the owner of the voice.

  ‘You’re the Crossa, aren’t you? The one the Dark Lords fear?’

  There was a hint of amusement in the voice. I concentrated frantically on trying to relax my breathing. I thought I was about to have a panic attack when I realised all the alien, wriggling things that could be in the soil. For I have been eaten and consumed many times by them. Full fathom five my father lies. Dark panic coursed through me. The archetypal fear of death rose in sharp needle points in my flesh, stabbing at me with all the half-remembered burials, the bodies I had inhabited and
the slugs, worms and beetles that were always there to reduce the flesh that once held men’s dreams to an invertebrate’s lunch.

  ‘It’s always like that when you first come under. I suppose you do die in a way. But the Mother’s cleansers won’t eat you if you move yourself a little every now and again.’

  The voice was soothing, calming, encouraging. I felt ridiculously ashamed of my panic.

  ‘They are not normally alive when they bring them to me. I’ve been longing for a living friend for so long. The dead are none too stimulating to play with.’

  I stared into the blackness, attempting to follow the owner of the voice.

  ‘It’s a great gift for me that you’ve arrived, Emma. I now know that the Dreamers have sent me a sign to remain where I am. I can remain in the underground much lighter of heart with a friend to keep me company.’

  Failing desperately to see into the dark, I closed my eyes to shut out the horror.

  ‘Persephone,’ I managed to stammer through a jaw almost locked in terror, ‘Persephone, you must listen to me! You must rise! You can’t remain down here! It’s chaos in Faia! The seasons are out of control! The Faiaites need you to rise!’

  There was silence in the darkness, then the same sweet voice continued.

  ‘I have to go, Emma. Hades is calling me. But I’ll come back to play with you. I’ll bring you some food. Please try and stay calm.’

  ‘Don’t go, Persephone! God! Don’t leave me in the dark!’

  ‘I promise I’ll be back,’ the voice repeated. There was a sound of footsteps leading away. A door opened and shut and then all was silence. Darkness. Death. Space. Black peace, an endless ebony dreaming night.

  *

  Back in the overground, Khartyn and Rosedark faced Ishran and Sati defiantly. The illusory Artemis and nymphs laughed scornfully at Khartyn as they transmuted into their Azephim form.

  ‘If you don’t immediately return Emma,’ Khartyn told Ishran, ‘there’ll be repercussions on all of us.’