Shadowed Veil

by Emery Blake

“Are you ready?”

  I had barely nodded my assent when I felt a rush of cold air and the world around me spun. In an instant, I was standing in an empty classroom. I breathed in the familiar scents. The setting sun was visible out the window. Kaia was standing there, looking me over. She answered my unasked question.

  “You’ve been gone less than a day. You seem ok. Veilwalking takes some getting used to. Normally it takes half an hour or so for the effects of traversing the veil to wear off. You will feel a little disoriented.”

  The Valkyrie stood there for a moment with her arms folded in front of her, unabashedly looking me over.

  “Well, good luck Skylar. If you change your mind, go to this bar and ask for Runa.”

  She pressed a piece of paper into my hand and gave me a crushing hug.

  “Also, Finian would be pissed if he knew I gave you this, but here.”

  She handed me a small leather-bound book, sized to fit easily into a pocket. The cover was dark brown, and the pages were thick creamy stock. There weren’t any words on the page.

  “What is this, a journal?”

  Kaia laughed.

  “No. If you decide to join us, you will need to learn the Common language of the realms. Every realm has their own languages, many have hundreds, like Earth. But most everyone speaks Common. This book will help. It is enchanted, you see. If you open it and speak, it will translate whatever you say into Common. If someone speaks to you in Common or in another language, it will translate it to English for you.”

  She flashed a wide grin and clapped me on the shoulder.

  “Give it a shot. I hope you change your mind.”

  Then she turned on her heel, took one step forward, and was gone.

  The walk back to my apartment was surreal. Everything appeared exactly the same as it had been the day of the job fair, and yet everything was different. Or maybe it was me.

  “Skylar! Oh my god, where have you been?”

  I had barely walked through the door when Diane ran across the room and swept me up in a tight embrace.

  “I was so worried, you just disappeared last night. What happened?”

  I hadn’t even given a thought to how to explain my absence. The first thing that popped into my head was, “I met a guy, I stayed the night with him.”

  Diane’s jaw hit the floor.

  “You what? Damn, Skylar. That’s a really bad idea, you know, just going home with some guy without telling me. That’s so unlike you.”

  She stood there with her hands on her hips for a moment, but then her face softened.

  “Was he cute?”

  I thought about Finian. He wasn’t cute, he was beautiful. But in a cold, unapproachable way, like a marble sculpture. Not that I wanted to go into that with Diane.

  “Yeah, he was really hot. I don’t know what got into me.”

  “Oh, I have an idea what got into you,” Diane said with a playful wink. “But next time, just text me or something to let me know where you are going. There are a lot of creeps out there.”

  If she only knew.

  Diane left a few minutes later to go meet some friends, but I decided to stay home and go to bed early. I was exhausted. I lay down in bed, without even taking my clothes off, and fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.

  When I woke, the room was pitch black. I searched around for my phone and checked the time. One-thirty in the morning. Diane’s bed was empty, she must be having another late night. I set my phone back down and lay back on the pillow.

  I should have gotten up and changed out of my jeans, but I couldn’t summon the energy. I could feel the rectangular lump of the journal I hadn’t bothered to take out of my pocket, but it wasn’t enough of a bother to get me to move a single exhausted muscle.

  I heard the doorknob turn and felt the light from the hallway hit my closed eyelids. Diane was finally home. I wanted to go back to sleep, not talk for half an hour with a drunk Diane. I took a deep breath, as if I were still asleep. Something was wrong. There was a sharp smell, acrid like the remnants of a grease fire. I sat up sharply and opened my eyes. The figure standing in the doorway was not my roommate.

  Outlined by the light behind him was the shape of a tall man. I swung my legs out of bed and stood up, my heart racing. He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, flipping the deadbolt. In the dark room, I couldn’t see any of his face clearly, except his eyes. His eyes were glowing orange, flickering with what looked like tendrils of flame. My breath caught in my throat.

  “It is good to see you, Skylar Dufresne.”

  His voice was deep and harsh, punctuated with the crackling of a sap-filled log spitting in a fire.

  “You did well in fighting off the voidnik. Clumsy creatures, if I am being honest. But still, you have forced us to re-evaluate our approach. You are coming with me.”

  He stayed near the doorway, but I could still feel the heat radiating off of him. He could have crossed the room in a few strides, but instead he kept pausing to look me over. Fear and revulsion wrapped about one another in my stomach. I could feel the blood pounding through my veins. I pressed backward against the window.

  There was nowhere else to go. I was caught. The figure in front of me knew it too, and he continued his unhurried approach. I needed to buy time to come up with a way to get out of here.

  “Who are you? What do you want with me?”

  The man paused and cocked his head to the side.

  “I suppose we have time for a little question and answer.”

  Good. He wanted to draw it out, to enjoy the process. I could use that.

  “As for me, you should be able to answer that yourself. You just need to pay attention. Look at me.”

  He barked the last as a command. I ran my eyes from top to bottom. Other than his eyes, he appeared like a normal man, until I got to his feet.

  He was wearing heavy boots below his dark pants. But as I watched, from the knees down he began to fade. What appeared solid transformed into smoke and then back to normal feet and legs. I wracked my brain. Fire, smoke, the ability to assume different forms. Shit.

  “You are a djinn.”

  “Good girl, full marks. Who said humans were all ignorant?”

  With a hint of a smile playing across his lips, he continued, “As for what I want with you, what I want isn’t important. I am merely a courier. It is Lord Asa'kah, the Opener of Ways, that wants you. You were simply going to be eliminated, but now plans have changed. He wants you alive. What for isn’t for me to say.”

  His mouth curved into a wide grin and he took a large stride forward.

  I pushed back against the window, flattening myself against the glass. I had nowhere to go. He reached out toward me. Little wisps of smoke rose from his hand. I could feel the heat emanating from his body. He came inexorably closer. I pressed harder against the window, trying in vain to get further away from him. Time seemed to slow down. And then the window gave way.

  I felt the emptiness behind me and my stomach rushed up into my throat. I saw panic in the djinn’s fiery eyes before I closed my own. I couldn’t believe I was about to fall to my death. I frantically tried to imagine myself somewhere else, to give myself an escape from the fear of hitting the pavement below.

  A brief chill passed through my body and then I felt a hard smack. I was enveloped in cold water. I opened my eyes and felt the sting of salt. Icy daggers pricked every inch of my skin, weaving in with the pain radiating from my back. I struggled to get my head above the surface and tried to take a gulp of air, but the fall had knocked the wind out of my lungs. I settled for a few ragged gasps before a heavy wave washed over from behind me, submerging my head once more.

  Chapter Eight

  In the icy water, I could feel my muscles starting to get stiff and lose their strength. It occurred to me that I was lucky I hadn’t been wearing any shoes, which allowed me to tread water more easily. My wet clothes were a problem, but if I stopped treading water, I might sink and never
get back up. I waited for the crest of a wave to lift me up and spun around in a circle, trying to spot land. A huge red sun hung low over the horizon. I couldn’t tell if it was rising or setting, but either way it wasn’t providing much heat. My body was already starting to shiver.

  A row of breaking waves crashed on a beach with sand the color of rusted iron. Above it loomed a cliff, gray and menacing. Still, it was solid land. I rolled over on my back and began stroking as best I could, turning periodically to make sure I was on course.

  After what seemed an eternity, as I felt my strength and body heat ebbing away, the sound of the breaking waves told me I was close. I turned onto my stomach, summoning my last reserves of strength, and rode a wave onto the sand.

  On my hands and knees, I crawled forward, out of range of the breakers, and collapsed. I lay there for a few minutes, gulping in huge breaths of air. My limbs felt like rubber. The sun, which had been setting, crossed down below the horizon, revealing a sky of unfamiliar stars.

  My wet clothes were clinging to me. I knew I needed to get them off and get dry if I was going to avoid hypothermia. I stripped off my t-shirt and struggled out of my soaked jeans. I stood up, unsteady on my feet, and marveled at the absurdity. I was standing on a beach, in my underpants, and I had no idea where I was or how I got there. Still, I was alive, and that was something. And wherever I was, it was better than where the djinn wanted to take me.

  I rubbed my shaking hands on my arms, trying to get some blood flowing. The cliffs started a few hundred meters from the surf and rose straight up. To my left, towards where the sun had set, I could see unnatural formations among the rocks. It looked like a city, or at least the ruins of one. There were no lights, no sign of life. No signs of life anywhere, really.

  Where had I landed? I didn’t have the strength to ask myself how I had gotten there. I was focused only on finding a place to shelter from the wind and maybe try to build a fire.

  My dad had taken me camping when I was little and showed me how to start a fire with a bow drill. But there was no wood or kindling to be found on this beach. Nothing but red streaked gray sand.

  Walking closer to the cliffs, I kept my eyes open for a cave or shelter of some kind. I knew I wouldn’t last through the night with my hair soaking wet and no shelter. After a few minutes, I saw light. An orange glow flickered against the cliff face. There was a cave, and a fire going inside!

  I wanted to run as fast as I could to the light and the warmth, but I hesitated. I didn’t know where I was or what kind of creatures might inhabit this strange world. A bit of caution was warranted, even though my body was crying out for warmth.

  It was an easy choice, in the end. Staying out wet in the growing cold would almost certainly kill me. The fire meant a creature of some intelligence at least. Though there was a chance it would be hostile, there was also a chance it would be helpful. It was a chance I’d have to take. Anything was a better option than freezing to death out on the sand.

  The prospect of sitting next to a warm fire made the cold feel more intense. I settled on a fast walk and picked my way along the boulders toward the light.

  As soon as I was out of the wind, I felt better. The cave was roomy, tall enough for me to stand once I got past the entrance, and went back deeper than I had expected. The smoke from the small fire rose up through an opening overhead, so the air was relatively fresh. A small pot bubbled over the fire.

  The floor was strewn about with knick-knacks and assorted junk. I had not run into anyone yet, but clearly someone had been living here for a while. And they were not very tidy. I walked up closer to the fire, feeling the chill leave my skin with each step forward. I got as close as I dared and closed my eyes, luxuriating in the radiating heat. The stone floor of the cave had absorbed the heat from the fire and warmed the soles of my feet. The cold melted away from my muscles.

  I had started to relax when I felt a sharp poke in the small of my back. I spun around, almost stepping into the fire, and hopped to the side. I must have looked absurd, because the expression on the face of the poker went from angry to amused in a heartbeat.

  Standing in front of me holding a stone-tipped spear was a creature about four feet tall with a man’s body, but below his waist his legs were covered in dense hair and ended in hooves. His face was mostly human, but from out of his tousled chestnut hair rose two curling horns. A faun or satyr.

  I congratulated myself on keeping my head level enough to identify him. Or maybe it was a coping mechanism, dealing with my fear by resorting to intellectualizations.

  The humor of my leap from the fire passed, the faun’s face resumed its stony antagonistic expression. He brought the spear level with my belly and feinted forward menacingly.

  “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I am lost and cold. I was just looking for shelter for the night.”

  The faun cocked his head like a dog and looked at me quizzically. He did not lower the spear.

  “I don’t want to intrude. I just need to get warm and dry my clothes and then I will be on my way.

  He shook his head and replied in a language I didn’t understand. It sounded like the bleats of a sheep or goat formed into words. We were stuck. Wait, the journal! I had stuck that book Kaia gave me in my jeans pocket.

  I reached for my wet clothes that I had dropped on the floor of the cave, but the faun brought the spear down in front of my hand, throwing sparks off the stone. I shrank back, spreading my hands open in what I hoped was a sign of my innocent intentions.

  He backed off and I slowly moved my hand back toward my jeans. The book was still there. I pulled it out of my pocket. Amazingly, it was not wet at all. My unintentional swim appeared to have caused no damage to the paper. I opened to the first page.

  “I mean no harm. I am lost and need shelter.”

  Odd characters appeared on the page. It was the same as I had seen the man at the job fair write on my resume. The faun stared at them for a moment and then replied. Not in the bleating language he used before, but in a more refined, complex tongue. Words in English wrote themselves in my book.

  “What are you? Where did you come from?”

  “I am a human, from Earth.”

  I watched the faun’s eyes as he watched the words appear. His face hardened, and he tightened his grip on the stone-tipped spear. A tinge of fear touched his eyes.

  “Have you come here to eat me?”

  “What? No! I only just escaped myself. I don’t know how I got here, but a djinn said that Asa’kah, the Opener of Ways wanted me.”

  The enchanted book translated. I watched his eyes as he scanned the page and saw them open large as a coffee cup when he reached the end. He skittered back against the wall of the cave, hooves scraping on the stone, and flicked his head side to side as if he expected an enemy to come walking into the cave at any moment.

  “I’m sure I was not followed,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “I just need shelter for the night and then I will be on my way.”

  He read my words in the book and looked me over.

  “You won’t get far. This is a dangerous land.” He gave a goatish sigh and set his spear against the cave wall. “You may stay the night.”

  I felt a flood of relief. Despite the hostile reception, this faun seemed to have a sympathetic disposition. He walked over to the fire and began stirring the pot. My stomach rumbled excessively, and I walked over to sit in the warmth. When I sat, I suddenly realized I had been standing there that entire time wearing nothing but a half-dry pair of panties.

  I could feel so much blood rushing into my face that I must have been giving off as much heat as the fire. But the faun didn’t seem to notice at all. It was strange, like he didn’t even see me as naked. Had I turned up in some strange man’s house like this, the topic would have come up, at least. Then again, other than the hair on his lower section, the faun didn’t have a stitch of clothes. I checked my jeans to see if they had dried yet, no luck.

  The faun, who gave hi
s name as Zhas, poured me a bowl of soup. It was richly flavored, spicy and sweet. I didn’t recognize any of the ingredients, but they seemed similar to root vegetables. He sat across the fire from me and we ate in silence.

  Two bowls of soup and the soporific effects of the fire had made me long for sleep, but my curiosity kept me up. After I had settled down and gotten warm, the strangeness of my predicament began to sink in. I had fallen out a five-story window and landed in an ocean on some other world.

  I was pretty sure that is what had happened, anyway. This would be a hell of a depressing afterlife.

  Chapter Nine

  I recalled what Finian had said, about how veilwalkers could create their own portals, pass through the veil under their own power. That must be what I had done. But the problem was I had no idea how I did it. Zhas didn’t look like he was in possession of loads of arcane knowledge. I would have to get home on my own.

  Another thing kept nagging at me. When I told Zhas I was a human, he reacted as if I were a poisonous snake. It was only when I told him that the Opener of Ways was after me that he offered me hospitality. Clearly, he knew about people and he knew about my would-be captor. I called out to him over the crackling of the burning driftwood and he ambled over to be in view of the book.

  “Zhas, why did you assume I wanted to kill you?”

  He shrugged.

  “I have never met a human. All we have are the old stories. Humans are monsters that eat little fauns, and satyrs, and centaurs. They keep herds of them in bondage and then slaughter and eat them. My mother used to frighten me with stories of bloodthirsty humans waiting to carve me up if I didn’t go to sleep.”

  He looked wistfully into the depths of the fire. When he turned back to me, his expression was kind.

  “But you don’t look like a monster. A little strange, with your spindly bare legs that bend the wrong way and your soft hooves. But not a monster.”

  I smiled at him. It felt oddly gratifying to be thought of as not a monster. Part of me wanted to delve deeper into this folklore of humans in Zhas’s society, but I had more pressing needs.