Masters of the Veil

by Daniel A. Cohen

  Sam felt kind of foolish asking, but for some reason he needed to know. “Doesn’t he get lonely?”

  Rona smiled. “It is nice that you care.”

  Sam felt flustered. “I—”

  “She is all the company Bariv needs.”

  “May?”

  Rona shook his head. “The Veil. Now why don’t we go back and see if we can’t get that extraordinary second-skin to show us its worth?”

  Sam knew better than to press his questions. “Okay. But I want to know one thing.”

  Rona gave him a comforting smile. “Of course.”

  Sam moved closer and lowered his voice. “Aren’t the others much more advanced than me? I mean, I just got here and we’re meant for different things. Why am I learning with them?”

  “Learning natural magics will compliment and help you control the power inside of you, which is what I’ve been told you want. It will help prepare you to leave us.” Rona give him a dubious look. “That is what you want, correct?”

  Sam gave a sheepish nod. He’d known the man for about five minutes, and he already felt like he was disappointing him by wanting to leave.

  Rona’s smile got even bigger and he rubbed his hands together. “We’ll see about that. I know more about you than you think. Besides, I only teach the most promising students: the ones who will be of greatest use to our society.”

  “Yeah, exactly.”

  “Yeah.” Rona winked. “Exactly.”

  Sam felt a mixture of confusion and pride as they walked back to join the group. He wasn’t sure which emotion fit the situation.

  The other students stood next to their practice plants. Everyone’s plant was exactly what Rona had asked for—except for Glissandro’s. Instead of a plant two arms tall with ten equally spaced leaves, Glissandro frowned at a knee-high bush with green berries.

  There was no trace of disappointment in Rona’s voice. “Don’t worry, Glissandro, you’ll get it.”

  Glissandro smiled without showing his teeth.

  Rona waved his hand over Glissandro’s mess. It sank back into the ground with a small crunch. “The bright side is that you don’t need it to practice, anyway.”

  Sam gave Glissandro a curious look.

  Glissandro waved the snail shell.

  “Right.” Sam snapped his fingers. “So you don’t break your horn.”

  “You catch on so quick!” Cassiella chirped.

  “Here we go again,” Daphne muttered to Zawadi. “It seems she’s picked another one.”

  Sam frowned at Daphne’s choice of words.

  Rona began to assign the other apprentices various tasks for the morning. He told Petir to coax a nearby group of four-winged butterflies—though Rona called them pygma-floaters—into flying in a straight line through his legs. Each of the pygma-floater’s sets of wings were a different color. Sam saw orange-green, blue-maroon, and white-black pairs. When they fluttered, the top and bottom pair changed colors, creating the illusion that they were spiraling through the air.

  Glissandro was instructed to mark an ordinary stone from the riverbank with his clan symbol and then toss it into the river. His task was then to fish it out as many times as he could. It sounded sort of easy to Sam.

  Daphne, Cassiella, and Zawadi were teamed up to complete a task. Rona told them that somewhere in the Valley he’d hidden an amorberry, and if they found it, they could keep it. At the sound of this, the girls moved away from the others, giggling.

  Sam turned to Glissandro and lowered his voice. “What’s an amorberry?”

  Glissandro played a few soft notes through the snail shell. The tone the shell made sounded like a cross between one pig oinking and another pig squealing. This time, the words in Sam’s head were scratchy and raw. “Very rare. If they can find them, girls use their juice as perfume. They supposedly attract men and can get us to do things we wouldn’t normally do.”

  Sam heard Cassiella softly bargaining with the other girls for it.

  Sam gave a nervous cough. “Do they work?”

  “They’re very small and odorless until they’re squished, that’s why they’re hard to find, even with the use of the Veil.” Glissandro shrugged. “So I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

  Sam grinned and nudged Glissandro a few times with his elbow. “Not that Daphne needs it.”

  Glissandro gave Sam a puzzled look. “No one needs it.”

  Rona pointed out an especially green patch of dirt to Sam. “Let us start in that spot over there. It’s a particularly bouncy patch.”

  Sam nodded.

  “We will begin by putting you in a concentrative stance,” Rona bent his knees almost to right angles. He left his hand with the second-skin out, palm up, and tucked the other hand in a fist, resting the back of his knuckles against his thigh. “Like so.”

  Sam copied him.

  “Very good.” Rona straightened up and put his fingertips together. “I see you have strong legs.”

  Sam nodded and slapped his thigh. “Like iron.”

  “That will help. First step,” Rona circled around Sam. “Close your eyes.”

  Sam did as he was told.

  “Hold this stance as long as you can.”

  Sam’s legs were strong from all his conditioning, so he figured holding it would be a breeze.

  Rona’s voice got quieter. “The Veil has always been right there in front of you, waiting. She is not what you think, Sam. She is not just a source of what you would call magic. She is our protector. She is and always will be the reason for our survival. She holds within Her limitless possibility for us to explore the depths of our hearts and minds. She can recognize emotion and bring forth love. She is adventure and home. And… Sam, open your eyes for a moment.”

  Rona gave him a solemn look.

  “She is not your enemy.”

  “I didn’t say She—”

  “Just remember,” Rona’s voice was stone. “She is not your enemy.”

  “Okay, I get it.”

  Rona nodded. “Very good. You may close your eyes again.”

  Rona continued to circle him. “What you did before, with the ice sculpture. It was lack of concentration. Normally, a beginning apprentice wouldn’t have that much access to the Veil. You do, which has led Bariv, May, and me to believe that you are meant for power magics. This does not mean that you will be naturally great at grips and drapes. You will still have to build your skill, but it does mean that you will have more of Her to work with. This is a good thing, but it also means that you will have to concentrate exponentially harder than the rest of my group. Can you do that?”

  Sam didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  “Very good.” Rona clapped him on the back. Sam didn’t move from his stance. “Strong legs. That will help.”

  “Why?”

  “It is like training while wearing extra weights. If you can do it with an extra variable, then you can do it more easily without.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  Rona tapped Sam’s forehead with his index finger. “You are going to practice containing your mind. You need to keep it close when it tries to wander off.”

  Sam tapped the same spot Rona had touched. “Not a problem.”

  Rona closed Sam’s outstretched hand and guided it to his other thigh. “For now, just hold a picture of the practice plant in your mind.”

  “For how long?”

  “Perfect question. Let’s find out.”

  Sam heard Rona walking away and opened one of his eyes.

  “Eyes closed,” Rona called. “The last time I checked, I did not look like a practice plant.”

  Sam grinned, closed his eye, and pulled an image of the practice plant into his mind. After only a few moments, Sam found that it wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d thought. Every time he got a clear picture of the plant in his head, it broke up and went black. He tried to hold the fleeting image, but his mind really wanted to wander free. It snapped to thoughts about home, abo
ut football, about the snake, about Daphne—whose image he didn’t discard right away—and basically anything but the green plant.

  He kept trying for a while, but his mind won in the end. He was thinking about college girls when he heard a grunt in front of him. He opened his eyes and saw Rona smiling at him.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Very good, Master Rona.”

  “Oh, really?” Rona looked suspicious. “How long were you able to keep the image?”

  Sam sighed. “Honestly? Not very long.”

  “I appreciate the honesty. Stand up straight.”

  Sam got out of the stance and shook out his legs. They were getting a little tired.

  Rona rotated his neck. “There is a reason I am teaching you this, Sam. This is the first step in the best way to use the Veil. Not the only way, but the best way. This way will leave you free of restrictions. Think of you and Her as a team, and the clearer you are in what you need, the better things will work. If things in your mind are muddled, then your grips will be muddled. Communication is key. Understand?”

  Sam shrugged. “Sure.”

  “You can even think of it like your football. The best way to work with your team is to be precise with your directions, no?”

  Sam stretched out his lower back. “Right.”

  “Think clearly, and try not to get frustrated. It only makes things harder.” Rona turned to walk away. “Try again.”

  Sam tried again, doing only slightly better the second time.

  After what felt like an eternity, Rona returned. Sam dripped sweat, and his leg muscles quivered.

  “Take a seat.” Rona pulled out a gold chalice and handed it to Sam as they settled on the ground.

  Sam looked in—empty.

  “Take note.” Rona did a slight grip and waited. In a moment, a globule of water rushed though the air and landed in the chalice. “From the river.”

  Sam raised his brows and looked into the chalice. “It’s clean?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thanks.” Sam finished the water in one gulp.

  “More?”

  Sam shook his head.

  “So,” Rona took the chalice back, “any better this time?”

  “A little.”

  “How about a small task, then? Or would you like to practice honing your mind some—”

  “A task is good,” Sam interrupted.

  “Very well. I have just the thing.” He pulled out two more chalices. They were both gold, like the first, but the three ranged in size from the small chalice Sam had drunk from to one that was almost the size of a pitcher.

  How the heck did they fit inside Rona’s robe?

  “Your task will be to fill these chalices with water from the river. However, you may touch neither the water nor the chalices once I have set them down. Start with the smallest and work your way up. Any questions?”

  Sam raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think that’s a little much for my first day?”

  “Not at all. Water is the easiest element to manipulate. Sometimes it travels as ice, sometimes water, sometimes a cloud. It is used to being all places.”

  “But what if I break my second-skin?” Sam looked at a belt of stars across his thumb’s knuckle. “I don’t think the snake would give me any more.”

  “Assuming you could even find it again. No, I think it is best if you grow a practice plant.”

  “But how?”

  “I know you can feel Her; I saw it with the ice sculpture. She is there. You just have to connect. Think about Her, feel the energy, and concentrate.”

  Rona placed the chalices a few feet away and sat down on a flat rock to meditate. When Sam approached to ask him a few more questions, a force halted him, like he’d walked into a padded wall. Rona, with his eyes still closed, shook his head.

  Instead of getting frustrated, Sam laughed. If Rona didn’t want to help him, then he obviously thought Sam didn’t need help. It was a compliment. Pride welled up inside of him.

  He picked a spot. “Okay, here we go.”

  Sam waved his second-skin over the ground. He concentrated on trying to feel the Veil. After minutes of mind-throbbing deliberation, he still felt nothing. He tried hard to focus only on the Veil, but his mind had its own agenda.

  He got into the stance Rona had showed him and thrust his palm out. His knees were squared off into perfect right angles, and his back was like a steel beam. It was exactly the way Rona had showed him.

  Even so, he felt nothing.

  Deciding to change his strategy, he resolved to think about the plant instead of the Veil. He closed his eyes and pictured a small sprout. In his mind’s eye, he watched the tiny plant spring from the ground. Miraculously, he felt the rush of energy under his fingers.

  I got it!

  So as not to let it get away, he imagined the plant getting larger. In his head, it got taller and broader and sprouted dozens of leaves. The rush of energy grew, and he gripped Her tighter so She wouldn’t slip away. She pulsed through his fingers like a freight train. At last, Sam saw the practice plant fully grown in his mind. It had ten evenly spaced leaves on each branch and was shoulder height. He felt the last of the energy pass through his fingers, and with a sigh of relief, he opened his eyes.

  There, beneath him, was indeed a plant, but it was only large enough to shelter a few ants—baby ants.

  Sam looked down at his pitiful creation. The sprout poked just far enough out of the green soil to mock him.

  Sam was about to stomp on it, when he heard Rona next to him.

  “It is a fine start.” Rona’s words seemed genuine, which only made Sam feel worse.

  Sam snorted. “It’s a fine failure.”

  “Failure is only permanent if you let it stick around.”

  Sam groaned and rolled his eyes.

  Rona chuckled. “May told me you’d like that one.”

  Sam didn’t think it was funny. “Well, did she also tell you that I couldn’t even do the simplest of grips?”

  Rona nodded, his smile growing frustratingly big.

  Sam gave Rona an irritated stare. “So, can you teach me something that I can do?”

  “No.”

  Sam threw his hands in the air. “Does that logic make any sense to you?”

  “Pushing yourself to your limits defines who you are. Pushing yourself past your limits defines who you can be.”

  Sam sighed and rubbed out a kink in his thigh. “Did May tell you to tell me that, too?”

  “No, that one was mine. She doesn’t hold the monopoly on good sayings, you know.” Rona gave him a calming pat on the shoulder. “I’ve also spoken to Bariv.”

  “So?”

  “So, I trust that he knows best, especially if you are meant for the same path of power magics. For now, why don’t you use one of Daphne’s leaves for a practice skin? I think you might do better with the river than you think.”

  “Okay. But how should I even start?”

  “Let me ask you this. What do you think the Veil is?”

  “I—”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Rona shook his head so fast his crown almost fell off. “You are my apprentice, yes, but She is where you find answers. Use Her.”

  “I’ll try.” He paused and looked up at Rona’s smiling face. “So, water into the chalices, huh?”

  “Just follow your submarine of thought.”

  “Train of thought,” Sam corrected.

  “But Sam,” Rona said with a sly smile, “trains can’t go underwater.”

  Sam grinned and made a mental note never to correct Rona.

  Rona went back to his rock, and Sam wandered over to Daphne’s plant. Reluctantly, he pulled off his own second-skin. Sam felt sort of nauseous after he tucked it away into the pocket of his robe. Without the twinkling black skin, his hand looked like it belonged to someone else.

  He plucked one of the larger leaves from Daphne’s plant and let it wrap itself around him. After it formed a second-skin,
Sam felt like he’d dipped his hand in green paint.

  I like my own second-skin better.

  The other students were busy with their tasks. He saw the girls holding hands and traversing the valley together in a ring, stopping at certain points. She was too far off to be sure, but Sam thought he saw some sort of bird on Daphne’s shoulder.

  He joined Glissandro at the riverbank.

  “Hey, Gliss.”

  Glissandro smiled.

  Sam wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead. “How’d you do so far?”

  Glissandro pinched his lips together and held up a finger.

  “Well, at least you accomplished something. Did you see my practice plant?”

  Glissandro grinned and nodded.

  “Yeah, I know.” Sam swirled his hands in the air. “Now watch, as I mysteriously make water jump from the river.” He laughed and looked over at Glissandro. Instead of his new friend joining in, Glissandro looked like he’d just heard a terrible secret.

  Sam looked from side to side, but saw nothing unusual. “What is it?”

  Glissandro shook his head and went back to playing his horn.

  Sam spent the rest of the morning standing next to the river, trying his best to make anything at all happen. Both his lips and the chalices remained dry. Every once in a while, when he needed a break, he looked over at the other apprentices to see how they were doing.

  Petir kept stomping the ground in frustration and throwing clumps of green dirt at the practice plants.

  Note to self: remind Petir of this failure in later arguments.

  The girls had dug and refilled at least a hundred holes in the valley over the past few hours. Daphne really had gotten her hands on a bird, which looked tropical, and the group followed the bird around, magically digging in the spots where it pecked the ground.

  After Glissandro had succeeded a second time, he sat next to the flowing water and carved symbols into the shell with his marked pebble.

  Sam plopped down next to him and extended his legs, letting the current run over his feet. “What’s that for?”

  After a few more short scrapes, Glissandro gave a satisfied nod and blew a long, beautiful note through the shell. With the modifications, it no longer sounded like a tortured pig, but more like a French horn.