It was my turn to nearly laugh. “By pressing them about their least favorite subject? Somehow I doubt that.”
She didn’t answer immediately, and seemed to be considering it. Finally, she replied, “I’m not sure how Soffjian would feel about this. We might both end up in poor estimation.”
“We’ll keep each other company then.” I tried to finish with a smile, but the thought of an angry Soffjian turning her attention my way made me very uncomfortable.
“Fair enough.” After a pause to mull it over, she said, “I didn’t do what she did for the same reason the infantry, cavalry, generals, cooks, grooms, and prostitutes all do something different in the army. Each player has a purpose, and skills. Memoridons are no different.”
I thought about that. “So, does that make you the cook?”
An uneven grin tilted on her face again. “More like the sutler. I try to stay as far from any front lines as possible. Not even a fan of the back lines. But orders carry us where they will.”
She might have been brighter than Lloi, but it seemed she would prove just as difficult to redirect in conversation. “So, your skills are different than Soffjian’s then. What did you do to the Hornman who seemed so very eager to pin me to a post?”
Skeelana said, “You noticed me looking around quite a bit, before the battle? Of course you did-you gave me at least two queer looks.”
“I noticed.”
“Well, I was memorizing.”
“Memorizing?” I tried to recall what there was in that narrow deserted street worth recalling. “What? And probably more important, why?”
Skeelana made sure he voice was just low enough for me to hear, though as she pointed out, most Syldoon already had a grasp of what the Memoridons did, even if they’d rather not. So it wasn’t exactly like she was spilling something secretive. Was it? “As you might have gathered from the name, all Memoridons have keen memories, more precise and deep than any untrained. And some of us are remarkable, even for Memoridons.” She broke into a broad grin that was alarmingly charming. “So, when I say memorizing, I mean nearly everything. I could tell you which shop signs had been most recently painted, where the rust spots were on the hinges, the single wooden awning that was most warped and in need of repair, the exact location of each puddle, and on and on. And I did that looking in as many directions as I could, but especially behind us, away from the Hornmen.”
If anyone else had been making the boast, I would have been skeptical, but given what I’d seen Skeelana and Soffjian do, I was more than willing to suspend disbelief. “Behind? Why is that?”
“I needed to remember what every portion of that deserted street looked like when it was actually deserted. Even with none of us in view. Completely deserted.”
I waited for elaboration; unlike Lloi, Skeelana obviously knew I was waiting, and seemed to delight in raising my curiosity, but also appeared just as perfectly content to let the conversation die whenever I did, so I pressed on. “Why was that important?”
“Do you remember the expression on the Hornman’s face, just as he was about to spear you, and I intervened? Confused? Dazed, disbelieving, and afraid?”
I nodded. “Hard to forget a face like that. Even for us non-Memoridons.”
“Well, I planted a false memory in his head, just as he cocked that spear back. One second, he saw a thin archivist who was very close to pissing his breeches-no insult intended-and then next, he saw the shop, the doorway, the horn shutters, and everything else behind you. As if you weren’t standing there any longer. As if he were staring at a deserted section of street.”
“A false memory? Truly?”
“No, a false memory, falsely.” The grin jumped back into place. “The problem was, it was hastily cobbled together. And not made to hold or stand up to prolonged scrutiny for very long.”
I tried recalling his face, bleaching out all the terror I was experiencing in the moment, and attempted to simply recall the exact expression he wore. It did seem as if he saw a ghost. Or sorcery at work, at least. And was equally frightened, but incensed as well. “Why… why wouldn’t it hold?”
“Far too many reasons. As I said, done in haste. I hadn’t studied the scene behind us from every possible distance or perspective. I caught most details, but hadn’t had time to get every single one. And then there’s the matter that all of our memories are branded with our own storylines and histories. You look at a squalling child in the middle of a crowd, maybe it reminds you of your own babe, so it makes you smile a little, and you recall it fondly later. I look at the same red-faced infant, maybe it reminds me of the babes I’ve lost in birth, so it’s a melancholy memory. You see?”
Though I didn’t entirely, I nodded and she continued. “If I know a subject, can study him, tour his own memories and the storylines they’re lodged in, I have a decent chance, well, some kind of chance anyway, of possibly creating a falsehood that is convincing. Feels real. Contours, texture, validity. Dovetails with his own experience. You get it?”
I didn’t, but before I could say as much, she added, “And the height issue, of course.”
“Height issue?”
“He was tall, if you recall. Not like your friend Matinios. Sorry, Hew-spear. So, not freakishly tall, like him, but this boy was tall enough, and I’m freakishly short, so it doesn’t take much for the difference to register. I’d looked at the building and street from my perspective. I would have needed a stool to see it from his vantage. Always irked I wasn’t born taller, but never so much as when I try to plant a false memory and it fails on account of short parents.”
I thought about it, again remembering the Hornman’s various reactions. “So what he saw… or didn’t see…he knew it wasn’t real?”
Skeelana replied, “Exactly. It stopped him cold for a moment, but the illusion was spoiled fast. He couldn’t see either of us, but he knew it was just a trick. We hadn’t disappeared, not really-his mind knew that-and what he saw, the deserted street, flickered around the edges and wouldn’t hold true. That’s why he kept attacking. Now some, dealing with memory magic, will turn and run, illusion or not. But he seemed more angry than afraid. Until you shot him in the neck, that is.”
That did stop the conversation for a moment. We turned onto the broader street, Olive Way, and began heading west. There were more people about now, here and there, opening awnings, throwing open shutters, pouring out night soil in the tight alleyways, but it was still relatively quiet and calm. Braylar was leading us toward a broad, low fountain. I tried not dwelling on the bolt in the soldier’s neck, or the fact that I was the one responsible for putting it there. “You mentioned different skills. Among Memoridons. I take it that means Soffjian wasn’t creating or planting memories like you did.”
Skeelana suddenly looked more serious than she had before. And I couldn’t be sure, but she might have even shivered. Which could have been attributed to the damp chill, but she hadn’t done it before that I noticed. She opened her mouth to respond, when we both realized we’d gotten to the fountain.
Braylar said, or rasped rather, “Nothing draws unwanted questions at a gate like fresh splashes of someone’s else blood on your hands and armor. Rid yourself of any. And be quick about it. A bunch of soldiers bathing in a fountain also tends to make the natives quite nervous.”
This earned a few chuckles and most of the Syldoon dismounted to at least rinse their hands and forearms, as that seemed to have been the likeliest target for blood splatter. I looked around the small plaza-while it wouldn’t get near the traffic of any of the more significant ones, there were several merchants already setting up their stalls around the perimeter. The gloom and early hour would hide the fact that the Syldoon were turning the shallow pool all kinds of pink, but Braylar was right-the less attention we attracted the better.