Veil of the Deserters

by Jeff Salyards

  Though I didn’t entirely, I nodded and she continued. “If I know a subject, can study him, tour his own memories and the storylines they’re lodged in, I have a decent chance, well, some kind of chance anyway, of possibly creating a falsehood that is convincing. Feels real. Contours, texture, validity. Dovetails with his own experience. You get it?”

  I didn’t, but before I could say as much, she added, “And the height issue, of course.”

  “Height issue?”

  “He was tall, if you recall. Not like your friend Matinios. Sorry, Hew-spear. So, not freakishly tall, like him, but this boy was tall enough, and I’m freakishly short, so it doesn’t take much for the difference to register. I’d looked at the building and street from my perspective. I would have needed a stool to see it from his vantage. Always irked I wasn’t born taller, but never so much as when I try to plant a false memory and it fails on account of short parents.”

  I thought about it, again remembering the Hornman’s various reactions. “So what he saw… or didn’t see…he knew it wasn’t real?”

  Skeelana replied, “Exactly. It stopped him cold for a moment, but the illusion was spoiled fast. He couldn’t see either of us, but he knew it was just a trick. We hadn’t disappeared, not really—his mind knew that—and what he saw, the deserted street, flickered around the edges and wouldn’t hold true. That’s why he kept attacking. Now some, dealing with memory magic, will turn and run, illusion or not. But he seemed more angry than afraid. Until you shot him in the neck, that is.”

  That did stop the conversation for a moment. We turned onto the broader street, Olive Way, and began heading west. There were more people about now, here and there, opening awnings, throwing open shutters, pouring out night soil in the tight alleyways, but it was still relatively quiet and calm. Braylar was leading us toward a broad, low fountain. I tried not dwelling on the bolt in the soldier’s neck, or the fact that I was the one responsible for putting it there. “You mentioned different skills. Among Memoridons. I take it that means Soffjian wasn’t creating or planting memories like you did.”

  Skeelana suddenly looked more serious than she had before. And I couldn’t be sure, but she might have even shivered. Which could have been attributed to the damp chill, but she hadn’t done it before that I noticed. She opened her mouth to respond, when we both realized we’d gotten to the fountain.

  Braylar said, or rasped rather, “Nothing draws unwanted questions at a gate like fresh splashes of someone’s else blood on your hands and armor. Rid yourself of any. And be quick about it. A bunch of soldiers bathing in a fountain also tends to make the natives quite nervous.”

  This earned a few chuckles and most of the Syldoon dismounted to at least rinse their hands and forearms, as that seemed to have been the likeliest target for blood splatter. I looked around the small plaza—while it wouldn’t get near the traffic of any of the more significant ones, there were several merchants already setting up their stalls around the perimeter. The gloom and early hour would hide the fact that the Syldoon were turning the shallow pool all kinds of pink, but Braylar was right—the less attention we attracted the better.

  Skeelana and I looked at each other at the same time, as if to check for any stray sprinkles of blood, but we were clean. That was one of the benefits of a crossbow, after all.

  Since neither of us dismounted to wash up, I said, “I’ve only ever read about sorcery, and never expected to meet anyone actually practicing it, but I always imagined if I did, it would involve glowing runes in the air, or fireballs lighting up the sky, or…”

  “Something flashy?” She laughed.

  “Right. And as far as I could tell, you and Soffjian adopted the same sort of stance, did the same kind of thing with your hands, but the results were… different, to say the least. So, my question still stands: what did Soffjian do? How did she strike that Hornman down without so much as touching him?”

  Skeelana’s eyes were fixed ahead. I looked where she was, and saw Soffjian crouching down around the edge of the fountain, dipping her fingers in, tips only, and rubbing them delicately along some scales on her armor. Her cloak disguised any blood that might have landed there. Without taking her eyes off the other woman, Skeelana said, “Oh, she can do a bit of memory planting as well if she has to, though frankly not as cleanly or clearly as I can. That isn’t her strength. Her skills are far more… aggressive in nature.”

  “She does seem pretty comfortable in combat.”

  “What makes you say that? The shiny armor or the long pointy weapon she totes around?”

  I saw the gently mocking grin and mischief in her pale eyes. “So, Soffjian is some kind of… martial Memoridon then?”

  Skeelana’s smile tilted across her lips. “Never heard that before. I like it. Catchy. Yes, something like that. Like the Syldoon, we are trained according to what talents we seem to possess in abundance. Soffjian showed early on that her mind was… very sharp.”

  It was my turn to smile, as I looked at Braylar on the opposite side of the fountain. “Runs in the family, doesn’t it?”

  “That it does. So in addition to being trained in a different branch of memory magic, she also underwent quite a bit of combat training as well. She might not be fully-fledged Syldoon trooper, but—”

  “She can hold her own well enough.”

  “That she can.” There seemed to be a mixture of both pride and trepidation there. “And as for what she did to those poor Hornmen who made the mistake of thinking her easy prey, well, I’m not even sure if I should say.”

  It was hard to tell if this was earnest or if she was enjoying baiting me. “As you said, the Syldoon know a fair amount about how this works. Or its effects anyway, right? It’s not as if I’m asking you to reveal secret details about your arcane instruction. Though you can if you like.”

  We watched the others climb back into their saddles, and then we were moving again, across the plaza and over to Canal Street, which led to the western gate. Or so I thought. I still hadn’t mastered reading the trails of ceramic tile markers above all the avenues that were supposed to designate what district you were in and where you were headed.

  I hadn’t noticed it from the far side, but there was a pillory in one quarter of the plaza, very close to the entrance to Beacon Street. I was hoping it was unoccupied, but as we closed in on it, I saw a man there, head and hands sticking through one end, body the other, kneeling on the stones. His head was hanging, and I wondered if he was dead—while the temperatures at night hadn’t plummeted and the heat during the day wasn’t completely oppressive, that was with the options of taking shelter. Who knows how long he’d been out there in the elements, or how frequently they fed him or tended to his ailments. He looked gaunt—not quite skeletal, but surely not subsisting on much. His head jerked up at our approach, face stubbly, eyes in dark hollows but still hopeful. He licked his chapped lips and said, “A bit of water? Gods defend you, just a few drops?”

  There was a wooden placard hanging around his neck that had one work on it: “Thief.” There were worse words to wear around your neck. But better, too.

  When he realized we were soldiers, the hope seemed to ebb, and when he saw the Syldoonian noose tattoos on the necks, it disappeared completely. But some perverse courage remained, just the same. “My lords, you ain’t no friends to the Anjurians, and—”

  Braylar said, “You are Anjurian, thief.”

  “True as rain, but I was meaning the barons, the king. Fancy lords sitting on high seats. You got no more love for them than I do. Spare a few drops, I beg you.”

  Mulldoos said, “Be grateful I don’t piss on you face, you stupid prick. Next time, don’t get caught.”

  The prisoner’s head fell in despair, a curtain of dark greasy hair covering his face.

  We started forward again. Humans really were ingenious when it came to devising ways to cause pain, discomfort, and death. I was actually wrestling with whether or not to turn back and offer the man water. He w
as likely guilty, but there was always the chance he wasn’t. And even if he was, lopping off a hand probably would have been less cruel. But then Skeelana leaned toward me a little, though not so much that it looked like conspirational whispering, and said, “I will tell you a little, archivist. Though this has less to do with any of your rhetoric, and more to do with my large mouth and inability to keep it shut long. If you wish.”

  I got the feeling she somehow guessed what I was about to do and spoke up enough to distract me until the pillory fell behind us.

  “I would like,” I replied, forcing myself to forget the poor wretch.

  “Very well. It would be too difficult to explain in full, and I’m sure I’d need to violate several precepts in order to give you enough information to make complete sense of it. And since you aren’t even a Syldoon, you’re less than a bumbling neophyte.”

  “Thank you kindly.”

  “You’re most welcome. But it goes something like this. Everything we sense—with eyes, ears, tongue, nose, and skin, it seems like this is the entirety of the world. Our thoughts, memories, experiences, they are all defined by our senses, filtered through them, right?”

  I nodded. “Following you so far.”

  “Right. But that’s just it. It’s filtered.”

  “No longer following you.”

  Skeelana anticipated that. “Or course not. But that’s one of the first things you’re trained to recognize as a Memoridon. To know that we all have a veil.”

  “A veil?”

  “Several, in fact. And they filter out more of those sensations than you possibly know, letting only a small number of them actually through.”

  This certainly wasn’t anything taught at university. Though again, given the source, I was willing to lend it credence. “And why would we have a veil? Veils?”

  “Because the gods aren’t always cruel?” She laughed. It was a pleasant sound. Contagious. “See, if we didn’t have them, we’d become overwhelmed. Completely, utterly overwhelmed. Immediately. At least without the kind of instruction Memoridons receive. We learn how to slowly pull back layers of the veil, allowing more and more through, without being damaged by the deluge of sensations. It takes years to accomplish this, but it’s the source of most everything else we do—understanding how the veils work, and how to manipulate them.”

  This was a heady idea, literally and figuratively, and I wasn’t sure I had a complete handle on it, but I knew I couldn’t press her about it indefinitely. And I’m sure there was only so much she could or was willing to divulge. “So Soffjian did, what, exactly? To the Hornmen?”

  We left the plaza, turning down a street and heading toward the city wall and some gate or other. Skeelana leaned in my direction a bit and smiled. “Uninitiated or not, I figured a bright boy like you would have pieced that together. There’s an art to it—Soffjian could have pulled aside just a layer or two, knocked him unconscious or disoriented him, as he was overwhelmed, unused to the increased sensations. She could have been really precise had she chosen to. But the martial Memoridons, as you aptly put it, they’re a lot more like the Syldoon proper than the rest of us. So, not needing a prisoner or leaving him for someone else to finish off, she didn’t hold back.

  “She ripped the veils off the Hornmen altogether. Especially the first, the one she focused on. She tore his to tiny pieces and it blew away like it never existed at all, and there was no repairing it, even if someone had been there with the power and inclination to do it. Poor bastard was bombarded by thousands, maybe tens of thousands of sensations he just wasn’t equipped to handle. Would have driven him mad if she left him a layer or two, but with nothing there to protect him, it simply killed him.”

  She fell silent, and I looked at Braylar at the head of our company, and Soffjian riding a discrete distance behind. “They might not look that much alike, but the resemblance is still uncanny.”

  Skeelana grinned, briefly, but it was grim, and accompanied by another shiver. The next question was out before I knew it was coming. “You’ve never been in combat, have you?”

  Her eyes darted to me and back to the rider in front of us. “No. No, I haven’t.” This admission seemed grudging, as if she felt lessened by it. It was strange to think that I actually had more experience in these things than one other member of our small company. Even Lloi had been in a number of battles, and likely seen a fair number of men die, before and after leaving the Green Sea.

  Skeelana pricked a hole in any satisfaction I was feeling. “I’m also guessing you’ve never shot and killed a man before, have you, Arki?”

  I briefly considered lying, and then for no reason I could explain, opted for the truth. “I’ve shot at men before. A few times now. Out of necessity. But no, I’ve never killed a man. Until this morning.”

  Saying it out loud, I felt a strange mix of relief and desperate horror swirling together. I’d never be able to say I’d never killed a man again. No matter where I was headed, there was never any going back.

  Skeelana nodded, once, quickly, but somehow firmly. “Then we are both a bit out of place in this hardened company. I suggest we stay in the rear.”

  I felt the nausea die down. A little. “Agreed. Or maybe one row in. You never can tell when we might get attacked from behind.”

  Even as she laughed, I fought the urge to look over my shoulder. But unless the ripper was just about to leap up and tear me from the saddle, the most pressing danger was ahead. Immediately ahead. We were almost to the gates.

  We slowed down as we crossed the bridge. Unlike the Hero’s Bridge we’d originally entered Alespell from, this wouldn’t take nearly as long. The traffic was still very thin at this early hour, as we seemed to be the only ones leaving and only those in the closest outlying villages and farms could have made it to the city this early. Since the Fair still ran for a bit, there was no cause for anyone to camp outside the walls waiting for entrance. So, there wouldn’t be any delays due to passage of people or carts or livestock or wagons, or any random checks.

  In theory, we’d be gone soon enough. Assuming we weren’t detained. And as our horses carried us forward, I thought of a dozen reasons why that might happen. A telltale bloodstain someone missed washing off. The likelihood that an alarm had been raised, and someone had reported Syldoon killing scores of men in the streets, or the Hornmen who escaped had sought help or regrouped. The fact that a large band of armed Syldoon was in the city at all. Leaving was better than entering, but our presence would make any guards uneasy, no matter which direction we were going.

  We reached the first gate, the portcullis up, the guards walking out of the gatehouse to see why a large group was departing so early in the day. There were two of them in soiled gambesons and boiled leather, neither looking especially anxious or on edge, both holding their spears as if they would rather lean on them than use them. Until they realized who they had in front of them.

  When the younger guard saw Syldoon soldiers, armed, armored, with nooses on full display, he stopped, stood up straighter, tightened the grip on his spear, and immediately looked at the older guard for the lead. That man also seemed to have tensed up, but then some recognition flashed across his face, and it took me a second to place him. He was one of the guards who had allowed us to leave the city before curfew when the group had headed for the temple ruins with Captain Gurdinn and the Brunesmen.

  He had large tufts of hair sticking out of his ears and below the rim of his iron helm, and gray stubble on his face, which marked him as a seasoned soldier, but probably more accustomed to breaking up the odd scuffle or running down a thief like the one in the stocks than any kind of real combat. Or facing a potential threat like the Syldoon or deciding what to do with them.

  I didn’t envy him.

  He recovered quickly enough though, eyes narrowing. “Saw you leaving the city the other day. Less of you, leastwise. And I recollect you were dressed a mite differently then.”

  Braylar moved his helm from the crook of his
right arm to the other, casually, the mail draping over his vambraces, but I had the sense that he was just freeing up his good hand to pull Bloodsounder off his belt, or the crossbow off the saddle if need be. Still, he blew on his right hand and answered nonchalantly, as if the Syldoon always trafficked in and out of an Anjurian city just after dawn. “That’s a fine memory you have. You must be quite good with faces.”

  “Aye.” The older guard gave the younger a stern look, his wiry eyebrows drawn down, eyes nearly slits. The younger guard nodded as if spoken to and hurried back into the squat guard tower. It occurred to me that they surely weren’t the only two housed there, just the only two assigned to the damp and chill of inspection.

  The older guard nodded. “Also recollect you were riding with the baron’s men.” Several wooden shutters above us opened simultaneously with a loud creak and I just about jumped out of the saddle. They were propped open and a fair number of archers looked down on us. Arrows were knocked, but no strings pulled back that I could tell. Still, as one of only two not wearing armor, I immediately began to sweat, chill be damned. Skeelana didn’t look any more at ease alongside me.

  Continuing as if he hadn’t heard those shutters at all, the older guard said, “The baron got use for your kind here, he must have his reasons. Can’t fathom what they’d be, but that ain’t my place. So, guessing he wouldn’t be too pleased about a gate guard waking him up to ask about your kind skulking about. So there’ll be none of that.”

  Braylar responded as if he, too, were oblivious to the arrows above. “Sounds as if you have a fine appreciation for your liege lord’s temperament. Restraint and good at placing faces. It’s no wonder you were given this prestigious post.”

  The guard took a step forward and patted Braylar’s horse on the muzzle, as if the men were just having the friendliest exchange in the world. “No need to involve the baron none. But I’ll tell you this, Black Noose, with peace on for a while, some men in Anjuria might not have lost any to your kind, but I ain’t one of them. You and yours took my brother, just north of Brassfield. Border raid. By you cunts.”