Vendurro and Glesswik were already ahead. Mulldoos was pulling a tunic on over his head, swearing as it caught on the lamellar plates of his armor. The others had covered their armor already.
We headed to the stables and the grooms had everyone’s mount prepared. Braylar had chosen a brown mare with a wild splash of white down its middle for me. I wondered if it would bite, or kick, or buck, sure he would’ve chosen an ill-tempered beast, but it seemed disinterested enough. I would’ve preferred a wagon, even one with a massive bloodstain inside.
We rode through Alespell in the predawn dark, encountering no one, the clopping of our horse’s hooves obscenely loud with no other noise for competition. When we reached the North Gate, I expected the guards to detain us, but Gurdinn must have already alerted them to our departure, as the portcullis was up and the drawbridge down, despite the fact that curfew hadn’t been called. After exchanging some words with Braylar, the guards let us through.
We put some miles behind us, still seeing no one, before coming across Gurdinn and four soldiers on the side of the road. True to Braylar’s instructions, they had long tunics over their hauberks, but nothing that marked them as Brunesmen. They could easily have been caravan guards, bandits, or itinerant mercenaries.
When we reined up, Braylar said, “So very good of you to join us, Captain Honeycock.”
Gurdinn looked us over, and if he thought it strange that a Grass Dog and an unarmed, unpenned scribe were in the company, he hid it well enough. “Lead on, Black Noose.”
Braylar ordered Tomner to ride ahead of the party. Whatever else might be said about the man, he didn’t take scouting lightly.
We traveled on the road throughout the morning, seeing only the odd small clumps of travelers at first, and then thickening traffic heading to Alespell, though we were the only group going in the opposite direction at that hour.
Unaccustomed as I was to riding, it wasn’t long before my legs and lower back ached abominably. Few words were exchanged by anyone, even when we stopped briefly to allow the horses to rest and eat. Late morning, we left the road for good, and I experienced the usual misgivings-even a bandit-plagued road still offered the illusion of safety. But I doubted anyone was interested in my opinion, so withheld it.
Lloi fell back and rode alongside me. There was some distance between us and the nearest Syldoon, but I was still surprised when she leaned over a bit, and quietly said, “Always seem to make them right uneasy. Guessing I set even old Hewspear’s nerves to jangling, and he’s the most tolerant of the bunch. What’s your excuse for being stuck at the back?” She gave her customary gap-toothed smile.
“I imagine they aren’t keen on either of our kind us in their company. Scribes and… what is it you do, again?”
She shook her head and laughed quietly. “Besides slink around in Captain Noose’s skull, you mean? You do make a body smile, bookmaster. That you do.”
I’d been waiting for an opportunity to bring a topic up again, and this seemed as good a time as any. “Lloi, back in the grass,” I kept my voice at nearly whisper level, “you mentioned Memoridons. But I sensed you didn’t want to say anything with Captain Killcoin nearby. Why was that?”
She glanced at the captain at the front of our column. “Like I said, never met one. But I heard the Syldoon talk about them from time to time, mostly when they thought I wasn’t nearby or listening none. Syldoon as hard as they come, afraid of little and less. But the way they talk about them memory witches, they got a real healthy respect for them, about two paces shy of fear.”
“But from the stories, I always got the impression the Syldoon controlled the Memoridon.”
She shrugged. “You can put a collar on a ripper and drop it in a cage, but unless you chop off the beak and rip out the claws, you still best step lightly, unless you like the idea of being real dead real fast.”
“Dead?” I said, loud enough that one of Baron Brune’s soldiers heard and glanced over his shoulder. I carefully lowered my voice again. “Don’t they do what you do, or something like it? I don’t understand-why they are so dangerous?”
She waited until she was sure no one was listening. “They can creep through a man’s memories, same as me, sure enough. Said they can track a man by his memories, too. Though I couldn’t hazard a guess as to how. So the Syldoon use them as spies, doing recon and the like. But it’s also said they can strike a man down, just by looking at him. Cripple, maim, kill, drop him to the dirt like a stone.”
“Why… why can’t you do that?” I asked, suddenly very glad she couldn’t.
“No clue how. I barely know how to do what I do now. Mostly taught myself, stumbling in the dark. The Memoridon, they recruit their own, same as the Syldoon, real young. They find someone who got the gift of it, they snatch them right up, train them the same way you train a man to swing a sword or scribble on that parchment like you. Talent with no teachers barely talents at all, and rough ones as that.”
I looked at Lloi, never considering before that she might have had other latent abilities that could have been harnessed if she’d come under Syldoon care earlier in her life. Either way, she would have had few enough choices, and been a tool regardless. Albeit a more deadly one, had she become a Memoridon. But she wouldn’t have been mutilated, or whored out, and she would be powerful, if what she said was accurate and not merely unfounded rumor. I wondered what that version of Lloi would have been like. It was difficult to imagine.
“When the captain discovered what you could do, why didn’t he bring you back to the empire, or wherever it is Memoridon are trained? Wouldn’t you have been more, uh, useful to him if you had some tutelage or mentorship?”
Lloi looked up the line again to be sure none of Braylar’s retinue were in earshot, which would have been difficult, since I could barely hear her over the clomping of hooves. Satisfied, she said, “Got the real solid impression the Syldoon give the memory witches as wide a berth as they’re able. Seems to be most times, you attracted their attention, you attracted nothing of any kind you wanted. Things go sour right quick when the witches and the soldiers mix it up.
“That, and Captain Noose got a sister who’s one.”
That was exceptionally unexpected. “A Memoridon? His sister?”
“Yup. And from what I gather, the only blood they got betwixt them is poison bad.”
I was about to ask more when a Syldoon soldier rejoined the group and spoke briefly with Braylar. I expected that meant we were nearing our destination. We rode up a steep wooded hill, winding our way through bent and bowed trees that must have been ancient. Braylar told us all to dismount before we reached the top, and we walked our horses the rest of the way.
At the top of the hill, I saw the temple ruins laid out below us, nestled in the crook of a sludgy brown river. While the temple had probably been quite a sight a thousand years ago, it was now mostly a shell. The roof and whatever domes or tiles or spires it had once possessed were completely gone, dragged off to serve other buildings when the temple had been abandoned. There were sections of the wall still intact, though few enough, and arches here and there, some even freestanding, but much of that had been picked clean as well. I wondered why it had been abandoned, but the answer was clear when I looked at the meadows and river behind the ruins.
The Godveil.
The air shimmered slightly, like hot air rising off an arid plain that warps whatever appears beyond. The only difference was, this shimmering continued much higher into the sky, bending even the bottoms of the dense clouds, and it wasn’t isolated to one particular spot, but crossed the entire shallow valley floor, over the river, and up into the woods beyond, continuing until it disappeared behind the ridge. And once my eye had caught it, the senses picked up two other things as well-the tiniest noise, so remote it was barely audible, like the last note played by a harp, hanging in the air just before it disappeared entirely, only this note never quite got that far. It simply hung there, thrumming so low you would be hard pressed to notice it at all if you hadn’t already seen the warping air. There was also a whiff of a mildly unpleasant odor, a combination of singed hair and vinegar, so faint and unobtrusive, you might have thought you imagined it if the other signals weren’t there to tell you the Godveil was in the vicinity. I’d seen it once, when I was very young, but it had been from very far away, and for only a short time.
I’d run away from home-though I can’t recall why now. Some tiff with my mother, no doubt. Most children threaten as much, and never journey too far from the front door, but I promised myself I was going to run as far as I could, never to return. I even packed some food and clothes, and slipped off through the woods. I didn’t know where I was headed, only that I was going to keep going. And I might have. I put several miles behind me when suddenly the woods got quiet. There were no more bird calls. No more scurrying squirrels. Just empty, still woods.
