Hewspear nodded and said, “All odds were against it, and yet you prevailed. It is a captivating bit of history.”
“Yes,” Braylar said. “All the minor gods who had flickered and faded while the Old Gods held sway, little more than shadows or chattel, flourished as the founders of Truth and other devout zealots took advantage of the absence of the Deserters. Those small gods hadn’t been powerful enough to usurp the celestial throne, but they were clever enough to seize the opportunity.”
Henlester’s pale eyes were drawn into slits. “Your words and tone are an ill match, Syldoon. And my bones ache. What’s more, the gods do not abide mocking. So are you through with false admiration? Am I free to return to my wheeled dungeon now? Or would you torment an old vanquished man still more?”
Braylar raised both hands, palms out. “You mistake me, High Priest. I truly do respect the work your forebears did. Particularly the will to create something out of nothing, as I said. But while your annals are full of stories of those who strove to bring order and structure out of the void, there are also tales of those who were driven by passions and impulses that the order did not condone. Where there are rules, there will always be rule breakers, yes?”
Henlester looked at each of the Syldoon in turn, as if trying to discern what trap was being laid for him. “I mislike your insolence, your irreverence, and your lack of faith or respect. But most of all, I mislike your babbling. If you have some point, come to it.”
Braylar continued as if the high priest hadn’t spoken at all. “I am drawn in by the histories of your most pious, but being a black-hearted, black-noosed savage, I am far more intrigued by those in your order that were branded traitors or heretics. Such as Anroviak.”
He let that name hang there, whether for dramatic effect, or to gauge Henlester’s reaction, but if the latter, he must have been disappointed, as the high priest hadn’t so much as shifted an eyebrow. “What of him? A heretic, as you say, who cavorted with demons and was decried for it. Nothing more interesting than that.”
“Oh, he was insufferable and insolvent, from all reports. Qualities I admire. But it wasn’t demons that I heard tell he trafficked with at all. No, it was witches. Have I been reading the wrong accounts, Your Eminence?”
The high priest waved a hand, “Demons, witches, what does it matter? He was a heretic and paid the penalty for it.”
Braylar looked at Mulldoos, “Does it matter whether it was demons or witches, Lieutenant?”
“The holy prune says no, but I’m thinking it just might.”
“As am I.”
Henlester’s face had gone the color of spoiled milk to, well, a prune. “You have insulted my god, the founders of our order, and now my person. Are you quite through, you insolent bastard?”
“No, not quite. You see, the tale I heard was that Anroviak hunted and studied witches, by leave of the triumvirate. His ‘heresy,’ as you call it, was only affixed to him after he refused their orders to cease.”
A warm breeze blew, and Henlester’s white hair billowed like a fine nimbus around his head, as his chin lifted and he assumed the air of authority and command that would have been most impressive. If he hadn’t been a prisoner. “Lies. Damnable lies. Anroviak was a promising underpriest who was led astray by demons, and there’s an end to it.”
Braylar shook his head. “Again, not quite. You see, I have not only Anroviak’s own personal account, which on its own would hardly be fully reliable, but I have seen documents, records from members of the triumvirate, that confirm his version of those events.”
Henlester sneered, and while he still possessed all his teeth, they were a deep yellow. “And now you damn yourself with lying. I can see why you have an affinity for Anroviak.”
“The truth is the truth, even if falls off the tongue of known liars.” He pointed at me and said, “This scribe has examined the documents, translated them, and they bear out all I have said.”
Henlester looked at me, as unimpressed as if I had been wearing a shift covered in shit. “Then you repeat his lies. Which brands you a fool. Worse, in my mind. The only records of Anroviak’s misdeeds, trial, and punishment are housed in Sezwenna, holiest of holy cities.”
“And where do you think we stole them from?”
For the first time, Henlester seemed at a loss for words, if only for a moment. But he recovered quickly enough. “You seem unable to string together two words without one being false.”
Braylar turned to me. “The key.”
“To the chest?”
“No, to a fair maiden’s heart. Yes, the chest, you dolt, with Anroviak’s account. Quickly now, lest his Eminence have cause to insult my integrity again. The book and scroll, they are in the chest just behind the barrel of dates, yes?” I nodded and handed him the key and he said, “Vendurro, be so kind as to fetch them both. Be quick about it. But careful as well. They are exceptionally brittle. Unlike our guest here, no matter how much he conveniently moans about his age.”
“Aye, Cap. Though careful and quick ain’t usually allies.”
Henlester didn’t spare Vendurro a second glance as the sergeant ran toward the wagons. “On the tongue or paper, a lie is a lie. Or forgery. Amounts to the same. What is this mummer’s farce about, Black Noose?”
Braylar replied, “Regardless of how you might caw to the contrary, Anroviak was not simply a heretic or disobedient cleric. His actions were endorsed by the order. At least until they weren’t. And he discovered something, didn’t he, priest? About how to control witches, to collar and harness them? Whether for nefarious purposes or simply because the man had a devious curiosity, he found a way to bind memory witches to his will, did he not?”
The high priest was hardly awed. “You are mistaken or lying, but it hardly matters which. Either way, you are not speaking truths.”
Braylar turned to Mulldoos. “I am beginning to suspect the good cleric does not believe me.”
“Looks like. Most of the time he’d have good reason, too. But today he caught you in a real truthful mood.”
“Wounded from all sides. But no matter. Our proof is running this way just now.” Vendurro handed the captain the book and the scroll. “Now then, would you care to take a look, Your Eminence?”
His Eminence did not, sniffing instead. “Some dusty tomes prove nothing.”
Braylar held the book out. “Ahh, I see. You can’t read Old Anjurian.”
Henlester did not rise to the bait. “If you knew anything about our order, as you say, you are aware that even our initiates read, write, and speak Old Anjurian.”
Mulldoos said, “See now. You hadn’t need for any scribbler at all, Cap. Should have just thrown the high priest in a sack years ago and made him translate.”
“Somehow I think his Eminence would prove… reluctant. He does not seem to be in a cooperative mood. But no matter. The accounts are here, as I said. But I suspect you know that. You simply did not know that I happened to obtain them. That bit might be surprising, but not the contents. Not to a learned and literary man like yourself.”
Henlester’s thin lips were pressed together, and hardly parted as he replied, “Here is what I suspect—if the Anjurian lords had been less splintered, greedy, and factious, they would have defeated your kind long ago. Against a resolute foe, you are worthless. What I want to know is, why are Black Nooses getting their noses dusty in old tomes anyway? You are the only filth among civilized nations who have taken to taming memory witches, thereby soiling yourselves. I saw their black arts at work myself. Even if there were records out there in the world, what of it? What more could we teach you about deviltry that you have not mastered already?”
Braylar’s playful mood seemed to vanish. “A cleric who fancies fucking and murdering crippled whores and cheating his liege lord giving advice on piety and manners. Ahh, irony. But you see, Your Eminence, I am not interested in the specifics of controlling memory witches. As you said, the Syldoon know the ways of this better than anyone. But I am very
much interested in how Anroviak, and whoever he spilled his secrets to, devised a way to transfer the bonds once they had been established. Yes, that I am very much interested in.”
Henlester laughed, a dry, rasping sound like leaves blowing together. “Even if I possessed such knowledge, which I do not, as I have told you I would never reveal anything to the likes of you. Unlike barons and kings, the priests of Truth are resolute.”
Braylar stepped forward. “Sadly, I did not expect you would. Willingly. Now, we could interrogate you the time-honored way, with fire and steel. But we are humble soldiers, good at killing, less skilled at hurting a man but keeping him alive long enough to spill his secrets. And we have no interrogator in the company. However, we did have the foresight to bring two Memoridons with us. As you have noted, they are very good at blinding our overeager foes, but they have many other skills as well. Chief among these—they are experts in the arts of discovery. Their talents make the finest Anjurian interrogators look like clumsy halfwits, and the veracity of the information is never in dispute. When a Memoridon slides inside a man and tears apart his memories, there is no dissembling, no subterfuge, no half-truths.”
Henlester’s pale lips pressed together so hard they nearly disappeared.
Braylar turned to Hewspear and said, “Yet, despite their prodigious abilities, they often have a decided lack of… sympathy for their subjects, do they not?”
Hewspear nodded slowly. “They do indeed. While they are able to slither into a man’s mind and uncover any secrets hidden therein, it is an invasive, hostile act. In most cases, they cause unspeakable damage in the process. Many men,” he sighed, “they do not die, but they never recover their wits at all, either. Husks, I believe the Memoridons like to call them. They have been hollowed out, turned in to simplest of simpletons, and often can’t perform the most rudimentary of tasks and end up little better than beasts.”
“Beasts at least know enough not to shit themselves,” Vendurro added. “That there’s as basic as basic gets, but I seen a man, after the Memoridons released him, he didn’t know his name, couldn’t speak at all in fact, kept clapping the air in front of him and gibbering nonsense. And he didn’t remember not to shit himself, either. Someone likely got tired of the clean up or the stench and finally smothered the poor bastard with his own pillow. A babe or old man shits himself, well, that’s half expected, so folks are willing to plug their noses and get on with it. But a man of middle years, an imbecile with shit running down his leg every day, well, not many willing to put up with that.”
Mulldoos said, “And not just foreign bastards like yourself, Henfucker. Remember Weeze?”
Vendurro replied, “Of the Griffin Tower?”
“The very same. You see, he was suspected of treason. Tower Memoridons, they went in, ripped him apart from the inside out, got the truth of the matter. Turns out, the accusation hadn’t been accurate at all. Only that didn’t help good old Weeze none.”
Hewspear said, “That poor bastard. Is he still living?”
“He is,” Mulldoos replied. “The Griffin Tower commander had a pang of guilt once it was found out he was innocent. Didn’t have the heart to put him down, though it would have been a mercy to. Holds his knees to his chest and rocks to and fro, mumbling naught but nonsense, ‘the sheep in the deep do nothing but sleep’ and the like. Don’t think he shits himself. Might be the only thing that saved him so far. But still, a Memoridon ever rips into me, every man here knows to put me down rather than letting me half live like that.”
Henlester had heard enough. “You fail to frighten, Black Noose,” he said, for the first time not entirely convincingly. “You cannot afford to send me to your mind butchers. You need me for some vile scheme or another. Or you would have handed me over already.”
Braylar held the book parallel to the ground and slid his fingertips over the worn leather cover and the tarnished brass fastenings. “You are not wrong about the schemes. If you would prove cooperative—something I am less and less sure of—then we might have some use for you yet. And while you would doubtless be a small piece on a large board, it is better than being swept off the board completely, yes? But weighed against that, I believe you possess the information I am seeking. And frankly, the need for that is more pressing. Ideally, we would have both, but if it can be only one, it will be the knowledge of Anroviak and his transfer of the binding. So, I ask you a final time, Your Eminence. How was it done? Tell me what I wish to know, and you not only escape the Memoridons, but prove your willingness to aid us. The Syldoon are cruel, it is true, but we can also be magnanimous on occasion, especially to those who further our goals. So, cruelty or magnanimity—which would you have us offer today, cleric?”
Henlester shook his head slowly, though it was clear he was shaken a bit. “I have nothing to tell you. Anroviak was a traitor to our order. Whatever he might or might not have known about binding witches has certainly seeped into the sands of time and been lost to the world forever. I have… nothing to tell you.”
“So you have said.” Braylar snatched a firebug out of the air, crushed it between his fingers, stepped forward, grabbed Henlester by the arm as he tried to step away, and then smeared the luminous leavings on the high priest’s forehead. “But even if you do happen to be telling the truth, it could simply be that you no longer recall the details. You are incredibly old, as you say. You likely have forgotten more about your order’s history than any living priest knows.
“But that is the terrible beauty about Memoridons—they can sift through every last thing a man has seen or done until they find what they are looking for. They will leave wreckage in their wake to be sure, but so be it, it can’t be helped. I do not envy them the task, in truth—you have done awful things that would make a Syldoon blush, priest. I’m sure it will be an uncomfortable, gruesome slog for them, and they will need to cleanse themselves with copious amounts of lye when they are done. But we are out of time. And so are you.”
The captain addressed Vendurro. “Take our cleric back to the wagon and fetch the Memoridons, Sergeant. We will have our answers now and be done with this.”
“Aye, Cap.”
Braylar waited as Vendurro grabbed the high priest by the arm an. “You heard Cap. Come on, your Gloriousness.”
We watched the pair of them start toward the wagons. I waited until they were out of earshot and then whispered, “You do not intend to really ask Skeelana or—”
“Of course not,” Braylar said.
“What will you do if, well, if—”
“If Henlester should call my bluff, I will simply say my persuasive lieutenants here convinced me to hold off until we have returned to Sunwrack. But I don’t think it will come to that. Watch.”
Henlester was taking small, shuffling steps, each more halting than the last. He was halfway to the wagons when he suddenly wrenched his arm free and spun, calling out to the captain. “Black Noose!”
The captain called back, “Your Eminence?”
Henlester hesitated. Then he nodded, and Vendurro led him back, trying to stifle a smile, and mostly failing. The high priest, a man who just a few days ago had been sitting in one of the largest seats in Anjuria, surrounded by wealth (more than his share, in fact), pulling the strings of lesser priests across the barony and beyond, and attended by faithful men who would procure him mutilated and crippled whores for his awful pleasure, suddenly looked defeated. And old. Being captured or imprisoned, you could always devise a means of escape or wait for your allies to ride to your rescue. So long as you lived, there was still a chance of some kind, especially for a powerful figure. But the prospect of having his towering intellect toppled, never to be rebuilt, of being husked by the witches he loathed even more than the Syldoon, well it was too much. That prospect was a fate worse than death, and the one thing that finally cowed the mighty and horrific cleric.
Henlester’s eyes were full of hate, but also defeat. “I will tell you what I know. All of it.”
An
d so he did.
The remainder of our trip, we were strangely unaccosted and free from danger. Gurdinn and his men had either gotten lost or heeded the warning, whatever other wandering bands of Hornmen there were out there had wandered down other trails, and the first and only ripper I saw was back in Alespell.
Skeelana’s single ministrations must have cleaned the captain out thoroughly, as he didn’t suffer as he had earlier, even after using Bloodsounder to claim lives.
We continued our gradual trek north, the familiar gentle valleys and pastures gradually giving way to rougher, rockier, hillier terrain as our progress was slowed by the pace of the wagons. We passed through farmsteads and villages, orchards and quarries, and a few ruined temples of the Deserter Gods. But with each day and another fifteen or twenty miles behind us, the changes to the landscape became more noticeable. The woods and dense forests thinned or were more broken up by fields, the towering fur pines and sky elms and champion oaks giving sway to stunted sycamores and dwarf spruce, and the further we went, to all manner of foliage I wasn’t familiar with at all. There were groves of trees where the thick trunks twisted and wound around themselves, looking as if they had been bent and tied in knots by giants, and the branches were short and heavy with thorny, diamond-shaped leaves.
Apple trees gradually gave way to pear trees and fig. As we broke for camp one day, I saw a stand of trees that were queer—they peeled, like birch, only instead of being white, the bark was a ruddy orange color, and hanging from seemingly every limb were pods that gleamed like polished metal, flashing in the sun so brightly they were difficult to look upon.
I asked what they were, and Vendurro, pulling the saddle off his horse, replied, “Steel moths.”
“On account of their chrysalises being so shiny.”
“Nope,” Mulldoos offered. “On account of them being full of moths with sharp steel wings. They come out of there, you best crawl under a wagon, as they’re like to slice your throat or cut your eyes right out of your head.”
Veil of the Deserters Page 42