Jeff Salyards - Veil of the Deserters

He stopped for a moment, hitch-laughed, and said, “So much for black squirrels, eh?”

I didn’t know how to respond, or if he even expected one. So after sitting silently for a while, I asked “So the vow, the first one Soffjian mentioned, that was-”

“Made later.”

It seemed curt and succinct was returning to claim its seat. “Did you vow… to avenge your father? That’s what it sounded like she was talking about.”

“My people have five categories of death. Muli: The accidental death. A child eating poison mushrooms, a man mistaking his foot for firewood and bleeding out in snow. Droos: The natural death. A man dying under the weight of his years, a woman dying in childbirth. Nince: The elemental death. Drowning. Fire. Lightning. Vali: The glory death. Men dying in raids, in personal combat, defending their cattle. And Buntu: Murder. My father being stabbed.”

“But…” I stopped myself.

He looked over at me, the familiar irritated expression also finding its way home. “Yes?”

“Well, perhaps there’s some nuance there I’m not familiar with, but wouldn’t your father be ‘vali,’ as it was personal combat?” His expression darkened, and I unhelpfully added, “Of sorts?”

Braylar gave me a look that could have skinned pelts from flesh. “Personal combat is a duel, or a fight on a battlefield, or even the madness of a raid, between two armed men who know the stakes and willingly enter into the melee or pursue a foe. When one man draws a weapon attempting to kill the other, and the other, inept and hopeless, tries unsuccessfully to defend himself, it is not combat. But murder. Buntu.

“And it’s said that of the five deaths, only Buntu isn’t tolerated by the gods, for it’s the only one they haven’t foreseen. The father, brother, or son of a man murdered must avenge this kind of death, or they’re almost as guilty as the man who murdered. Murder unavenged is called the Twice Murder-Bunturu-as it’s considered twice as heinous and appalling to ancestors and gods alike, and so to the living.

“My uncle tried and was cut down. My sister was forbidden from trying. And while I was considered too young, not yet a man, I was the only one to stand between Buntu and Bunturu. That is why my sister goaded me into making my vow.”

“She also said-”

He slapped the bench. “Enough. You have a job to do, it is high time you set to it.”

I nodded, thinking he meant for me to record the most recent events, and started to rise when he asked, “At the worst possible moment, no questions?”

I froze, uncertain.

“Are you not going to ask what job I am referring to?”

I sat back down, unsure what he was playing at. “Uh, what job are you referring to?”

“There is a reason why you are in the wagon with me. And why the crates of mysterious parchments have been moved here as well.”

Comprehension was sometimes the slowest dawn of all. “The crates?”

“You have done an admirable job recording thus far, but that, as you now know, is only half your job. Translation is the other and unquestionably more vital and valuable half.” He pulled a small brass key from a belt pouch. “You are familiar with the first crate, I believe?”

I felt a surge of excitement and nodded quickly, taking the key.

“Very good. We have a day’s ride before we arrive at Henlester’s little lodge in the Forest of Deadmoss. I suggest you begin.”

Finally, a chance to do what I was trained for. “Do you want me to transcribe all of it word for word, or as many as I can work out? Or just the sections that seem germane to-”

“All. I hired you for your education and skill, not your judgment in using them. Leave the judgment to me.”

“But you’re really hoping for information about the Deserters, or early records of Memoridons, or whatever they called them before they were called Memoridons, right?”

“And anything to do with peculiar weapons or artifacts that behave like this one.” He drummed two fingers along Bloodsounder’s haft. “You will likely encounter a great deal of information that relates to none of those things. I don’t particularly care. Transcribe every bit of it you can. Let me worry about divining the meaning, yes?”

Even while I was eager to begin, I’d never considered the prospect of trying to do the translation in a wagon on the way to capture or kill (I never could be sure which) one of the highest ranking clerics in the land. “It will be difficult enough parsing things out. This is a language that isn’t even spoken anymore. At least as far as I know. So it will take time. But even more challenging doing it in a moving wagon and-”

“I don’t recall-did I say this wouldn’t be odious or arduous? If so, I grossly misspoke. But it is the task before you, and if you happen to uncover some sparkling gem of knowledge that proves useful to me, your own utility will increase tenfold. So begin translating. Now.”

And just like that, the steel and command was back. Or perhaps it was always there, a sword in a soft leather scabbard, and I’d somehow gotten distracted by the delicate tooling on the surface and forgot that a bloodied blade was inside the whole time, just waiting to be drawn and used.

“Old Anjurian” was probably a misnomer. That implied that there was some direct continuity to the contemporary Anjurian spoken and written in this southern, grassy kingdom. Whereas in fact, there was far more separating the two than overlapping or linking them.

The task was going to be time-consuming and incredibly difficult-I hadn’t had cause to translate it for years, and like any language, if you do not exercise your use of it, it grows fuzzy, distant, and foreign again.

So, as I pulled the canvas flap shut in back and fastened the tie tight, and took the key in hand, excited despite knowing I would probably wade through miles of tedium and frustration before uncovering anything remarkable, if the latter happened at all, it occurred to me that I couldn’t simply unlock the crate and start in. I had to have a system for cataloguing, tracking so as to work through it methodically and systematically.

I popped my head back through the flap at the front, earning a disgusted sigh. “I don’t want to include commentary or marginalia on the source material, but can I at least tick off my spot on the pages, or mark which ones I’ve completed?”

“You’ve never heard of piles?”

“Piles fall. Especially on a moving wagon on a rutted road that is probably worse than traveling across virgin landscape.”

I saw only his profile, so couldn’t work out his expression, but after a pause he replied, “A small mark and one only per page. Do not sully these pages, archivist. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said, returning to my place beneath a swinging pot.

I found myself simultaneously delighted and dreading what would happen after clicking the lock open. Delighted because as exciting as it was to be doing something I was good at again, exercising some skills that had been dormant for some time, it was even more invigorating to know I was going to be exploring material that had been moldering in some vault or tomb for centuries, perhaps longer. And dread because the long spells of unpleasantness that accompany any stretch of translation were going to be trebled as I struggled to find my footing with such dusty content, and to parse out the original intention of the words, allowing for peculiar idioms, odd cultural context I wasn’t aware of, and other challenges of translating text that were going to be heightened and magnified now.

Retrieving my writing desk, I pinned the parchment to the raised lid, readied my pens, uncorked my ink, and slowly slid the small key into the lock. It popped open with a rather unimpressive and pedestrian click. And then I got started.