I stepped onto the street hoping to catch sight of her. Yet I saw nothing. Not the slightest glimmer of wavy brown hair…but after standing there for a few moments, fighting down a growing dismay, I realized there was something I could follow.
It was a thing I knew at once to associate with her. A hint of something floral, nearer to the scent of decaying flowers than anything else. Not unpleasant. Yet I knew without having to plug my nose that the sense had nothing to do with smell.
Without stopping to consider the oddity of the trail, I followed. It led down an alley, away from the lights and the noise of the raucous areas reserved for the visiting soldiers.
In retrospect, it was very stupid of me to wander after an unknown girl in an unknown town using an unknown sense I’d only just realized I possessed. Yet I did not hesitate. I had made the decision before I even left the tavern: I would find this girl and I would speak to her. In all likelihood I would make a bumbling fool of myself in the process--I was resigned to that sad fact, but I was also determined to at least make the attempt.
The strange trail led me down an alley between wooden buildings, and from there down a street filled with darkened windows of shops and what I assumed were homes. Still I did not see her; she must have been in a hurry. Running to something? Or running from me?
That thought nearly stopped my pursuit in its tracks. I had no wish to frighten her, and a stranger following in the dark was likely to do exactly that. Yet she had seemed so sure of herself back at the tavern. She did not strike me as the type to run from much of anything…certainly not an unarmed novice soldier wearing the uniform of the Imperial Army. Yet she must be in no small hurry to keep ahead of me, even bumbling my way as I was.
But the trail still lingered before me, and, though I had my doubts, still I seemed unable to stop myself from following where it lead. The street I was on came to an end, but an alley ran along the outer wall of the town. The trail led down it, so down it I went.
And there she was, leaning against a darkened storefront, watching me, utterly at her ease. A street torch flickered above, illuminating the store window. And her.
She said nothing as I approached, and certainly she did not seem to have any fear of me. But when I stopped next to her eyes widened.
“Hello,” I said, quite lamely. I realized I had nothing else to say, and berated myself for not thinking of something clever whilst in the midst of my pursuit.
If she had been surprised when I stopped, she seemed doubly so when I spoke.
Hello yourself,” she said, taking a step away, her free hand idly twisting a bracelet made of twine around her wrist. For the first time I noticed a disturbingly long dagger at her belt, and her hand now strayed toward the hilt. “You were following me. Why?”
“Well I…because…well, I wanted to talk to you, I guess.” And there you have it. Telth, master of words and women. Surely she could not help but swoon at my conversational prowess.
But swoon she did not. She crossed her arms instead—which actually somewhat relieved me, as it brought her hand away from the dagger. She seemed annoyed, certainly, but annoyed was far preferable to afraid. And potentially violent. ”And what was so important you had to slink after me like a thief in the dark?”
“I…I guess I don’t know. You were staring at me back in the tavern, and I felt…” I closed my mouth, belatedly realizing how stupid I would sound, were I to voice the sort of thoughts that had been rattling around in my head back in the tavern.
Her brow wrinkled. “I can guess what kind of feelings you were having back there. It’s that kind of place. But I’m not that kind of girl."
“No,“ I said, putting my hands up in despair at the way I was fumbling things. “Of course you’re not. I didn’t think for a second you were. It’s just…I could see you were different. Different from everyone.”
She looked at me very strangely, then. As though she were weighing and measuring me, and the tally left her downright confused. “And how did you follow me? Even if you can somehow…” She stopped herself, shaking her head. “Even if you saw me, it’s still dark, and you soldiers aren’t allowed to wander about and learn the lay of the town. And yet you tracked me like a dog with a scent. How?"
I opened my mouth to explain, then quickly decided that telling a girl you had followed a girl by her smell, however pleasant, was likely not a great method to gain her favor. “I…I guess I got lucky and took the right turns."
She barked a laugh. “As if I'm going to believe that. Do you have any idea how preposterous you are?"
“Vaguely,” I said, trying for a smile and probably not succeeding.”
She shook her head, setting waves of dark hair shimmering in the torchlight. “You truly don’t. You shouldn’t have noticed the way I was staring at you in the tavern. You shouldn’t have seen anything at all. Look,” she said, pointing at the ground where our shadows played across the road.
Or, I should say, where my reflection played. Though we stood mere inches apart, of her shadow there was no sign, though my own was perfectly clear.
“That, I said,” as I stared at the ground, “is very strange. You really are a ghost, then?” For some reason, the revelation would not have surprised me in the slightest. In fact, it fit her perfectly. Yet I didn't really believe it. Standing so close to her, she seemed far too alive for any ghost.
She laughed. “A ghost?” She stepped closer to me and my heart picked up the pace. “Do I look like a ghost to you, soldier boy?
My breath quickened, my brain took a turn toward mush, but bravado demanded a more measured response. “Well, no. But how would I know what a ghost looked like? In fact, you may have taken on this form just to lure me into a dark alleyway. To steal my soul, or something like that. Whatever you ghosts do to noble, well-intentioned young soldiers."
She grinned a dazzling grin. ”I think, were I the seducing, soul stealing sort of spirit, I would have picked a form a little more likely to entice."
No,” I said, shaking my head and giving my eyes just the slightest slack to roam. ”No. I think you chose perfectly.”
And wonder of wonders, she blushed.
She rallied a moment later, though, obviously annoyed with herself for the blush. “I am no ghost. What I am is an Adept of the Veil. And right now I shouldn’t be visible to…well, to anyone. Not a glimmer. Not a hint. And yet here you are, following me in the near dark without a second thought.” She glanced up at me, brushing hair from her eyes. “Why do you think that is…and what is your name?”
An Adept? Well. It certainly made more sense than a ghost. Adepts were magic users; I'd never heard of one able to turn invisible, but that meant almost nothing. My ignorance on the subject was profound.
I shrugged at her question. “I’m Telth, and I have no idea. I’m just a soldier, and not even a very good one. What’s your name?”
“Myara,” she said absently, obviously still trying to figure out what to make of me. After a time she sighed. “For now, I suppose there’s nothing for it but to have you keep on following me.”
“Follow you?” I asked. That sounded well enough--but instincts of survival warred with standard sixteen year old male hormones. Following her could either be very good, or very, very bad.
For once prudence prevailed. “I won’t just follow you because you’re pretty and you ask me to. I’ll need you to tell me where we’re going.”
She sighed in exasperation. "You were content enough to follow me when I didn’t ask you to. But I suppose it doesn’t matter. Obviously there’s more to you than meets the eye—just as there’s more to me than should meet anyone’s eye, except yours. So follow me, and I’ll take you to meet the wisest man I know. Maybe he’ll know why you can see me when I don’t want you to—and how we can fix it.”
“Fix it?” I said, moving up to stand beside her. “But I like seeing you.”
“That’s not the point. If you can see me, who knows who else might be able to do the same? That could be dangerous. That could get me killed.”
“Killed?“ I hesitated a moment as the realization of just exactly how little I actually knew about this girl sunk in. “What exactly is it that you do?”
She seemed to read my thoughts, and managed to disarm my suspicions with a crooked smile. “You don’t know me, Telth. And you don’t have to follow. Maybe you should go back to your friends. I’m sure they’d be happy to see you. If they’re still conscious.” She was twisting her bracelet again. “You seem sweet, but maybe I’m not.” She flashed that smile again. “I’d hate to have to suck out your soul.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, adopting a feigned air of nonchalance. “Doesn’t sound so bad. I wasn’t really using it anyway.”
She rolled her eyes and started walking.
“Back in the tavern,” I said, as I followed her down a small dirt path between buildings, “I know exactly why I was staring at you—but why were you staring at me? You didn’t know I could see you. There were dozens of other people around. Yet before I even noticed you, you were focused on me. Like there was no one else there. Why?”
She missed a step and nearly stumbled. I reached out and caught her, though she probably didn’t need the help. Still, the contact sent a little rush through me, and she did not brush my hand away from her arm. I left it there.” I wasn’t staring,” she said, her tone insistent. “I was studying.”
“Studying? Me?” I grinned. “Like some dusty tome? Should I be flattered?”
“I doubt it. In my training, I was taught to watch for things out of place. The broken pattern. The missing piece.”
Just what kind of training had her learning lessons like that? I considered asking, but I’d sensed the reluctance to talk about her activities when I’d broached the question before, so I let it lie for the moment. “And how did that lead you to staring at a single soldier in a room for of soldiers? Was my uniform on backwards?”
She delayed her answer by gracefully avoiding a hole in the road, pressing closer to me in the process. “Because you were different,” she said. “All the rest…they were there, right in that moment. But you weren’t. Yes, you were laughing, and joking, and watching the girls just as hard as any of them…but you weren’t there. Not really. I could tell. It was like none of it was really touching you. Like you were just pretending.”
A strange thing to say, and stranger still that she was right. In a way, I had been pretending. I didn’t bother arguing, though a part of me was annoyed that she had seen through me with such ease. “Is that…is that a bad thing?”
“Is an oak tree in the desert bad?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. It just stands out.”
“Well, that’s something, I guess. What wants to be like everyone else?”
“Most people, I find.” She took her eyes from the dirt road and glanced up at me. “There is danger in being different. People die for it. Kill for it. There are people in this very town, who, if they knew just how different someone like me was, would tie me to the nearest tree and light the thing on fire.”
“Because you’re an Adept?”
“That, and other reasons.”
I nodded, as though I had any idea what she was talking about. She seemed to me, whose eyes could spot her as easily as they could spot anyone else, to be a perfectly normal, if rather spectacular, young lady.
“I wouldn’t let them, you know,” I said, because it seemed to be the right thing to say. And, maybe, because there was a little truth to it.
Her teeth shone very white in the moonlight as she smiled.
“You’re sweet, Telth. But you don’t need make such a rousing defense on my part. They’d never see me, remember?” She shrugged. “Besides, if I’m right about you, they’d likely string you up beside me anyway.”
“You think I’m an Adept?”
“I don’t know. But you’re different, too. Somehow. Those of us with…abilities, they rarely come out the same way. I doubt your magic will manifest like mine--I doubt you can turn invisible--but clearly your eyes can pierce the veil, and that by itself must mean something.”
“Maybe it just means I have very good eyes.”
She turned back and lifted an eyebrow. “Do you really believe that?”
“No,” I said.
“Good. My friend has little patience for fools. And neither do I.”
Several blocks passed in silence. “Tell me more of this friend of yours, why don’t you,” I asked, mostly just to have something to say.
“It’s the only thing I can think to do with you. I hope he’ll agree with me that you’re worth the risk of exposure.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Well…well then I suppose you shouldn’t have been following strange people who catch your eyes in taverns in the first place.”
I sighed. “You’re really not very good at comforting people, you know.”
She shrugged again. “It’s a gift. Don’t worry over much; he’s fiercely protective of his secrecy, but he’s a kind hearted man. The best I know. Assuming you’re well intentioned, I don’t believe you have a thing to fear from him.”
We passed a few streets in silence, leaving me to wonder on the exact meaning of the words “well intentioned” and whether or not my mood on that particular evening fit the bill. The conclusion I came to, by the time we reached a darkened structure in the heart of the residential part of town, was a decisive “maybe.”
We paused before the door. Sounds echoed from within, the distinct sound of metal on metal. Not quite the clashing of swords—too rhythmic and not loud enough—but I didn’t think it was the clang of hammer on anvil, either. Too soft. I couldn’t place it.
And there was something else strange, too. Even standing at the door there was another of those lingering half-scents in the air, this one somehow…familiar. Nothing like that of the girl at my side—where her’s was light and airy and so soft as to be almost nothing at all, this was full and rich. Musky. Loamy.
And then it struck me, as the girl inserted a key and opened the door. That scent reminded me of nothing so much as a freshly tilled field. I remembered it well, from my days nose deep in fieldwork. And catching it here, even knowing it was not truly a scent at all, struck me with an unexpected bout of nostalgia.
Strange, the connections the minds make. As we stepped within the entrance of a low room, it was not memories of chains and whips, of casual threats of horrible violence that I dwelled on…it was on a good friend at my side, and the simple pleasure of shared labor done well. Easier to remember the good times, I suppose, however rare they might have been.
It was only as the broad doors shuddered to a close behind us that I realized we had just crossed the threshold of a Temple.