Jeff Salyards - Veil of the Deserters

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 was 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.