Veiled (3 page)

“
What’s wrong?” I asked
before they could say anything. They looked at me strangely for a
moment, and then Dane smiled a little. I hated that…I knew what he
was thinking too,
“Oh…how cute, her gift is
developing. She can sense our moods.”

I pursed up my lips and was
just about to complain when Nancy said, “Well, this is it! It’s
time for us to get serious.”

“
About what?” Russell
asked.

“
If you had stayed after
the council you would know!” she scolded and fixed her gaze on
Russell.

“
What?” Russell asked
looking around him for answers. “What did I do now?”

Ignoring him completely,
Valerie explained that after the council disbanded, a group of
rebels took some undecided spirits prisoner.

“
What? How?” Alex
inquired.

“
The rumor is that before
the council they selected a few uninhabited planets, and they were
planning to use those as either prisons or training grounds for the
rebellion.” Dane responded with his usual calm. “Some rebels didn’t
even show up to the council, they stayed behind to be ready when
the prisoners came.”

“
But how are they keeping
the spirits imprisoned?” Alex asked; his eyebrows were knitted
together.

“
We heard that they have a
means of torture that keeps spirits rooted.” She shook her head.
“But we are not entirely sure of all the details yet. That’s why
there have been rallies organized where we will be instructed
further,” Nancy said.

“
And that’s where we were
headed when we found out half our clan was missing!” Valerie said,
irritated.

“
We were worried,” Dane
added. “We thought…”

“
That we had been taken?”
Celeste finished.

We stood in perfect silence
for a long time, realizing for the first time how real this whole
mess was. Then a wild thought crossed my mind. What could happen to
us if we were tortured? Surely a spirit couldn’t die, or get
hurt?

“
A spirit can’t die—can
it?” I asked.

The clan looked at me, but
they stood silent. “Well…can it?” I insisted.

Dane looked around at us,
and when no one answered he continued, “Yes, a spirit can die.” He
said in his most solemn voice.

All eyes were on him now.
“How do you know that? Valerie asked.

“
I’ve been studying this
particular topic for some time. There have been instances when
spirits have, in a way…died. They still exist—you can never cease
to exist, and perhaps that’s the worst punishment—but it’s called
Perdition. When spirits or mortals purposely and knowingly go
against the Eternals, and deny what they know to be right and
true…then they have to live out the rest of eternity in a state of
perdition. You might remember that Michael made mention of a group
of spirits who tried the Second One’s plan before and failed.
Well…they are the ones that are in perdition now.”

“
But what does that mean?
What is that condition?” Alex asked.

“
It means they will
forever remain completely cut off from the Eternals and in essence
they die. It is hard to explain what it’s like to be completely cut
off…I’m still trying to understand it myself, but it basically
condemns one to never evolving beyond a spirit like substance—and I
hear that is brutal after you have had a body.

“
It also means that all
the light, truth, and enjoyments are gone, along with all natural
love and peace that we get pleasure from now. Imagine never
laughing because you are happy, never feeling peace of mind, or
being at rest. Never growing, never evolving, and never feeling
loved or appreciated ever again. That is why I can’t understand it,
nor could anyone unless they have experienced it.”

“
So they have spirit
form?” I asked trying to wrap my mind around this new piece of
information.

“
They are spirits, but not
like us, their matter is darkness and they cannot move freely. The
children of perdition, or cast-outs as they are commonly called,
are condemned to dwell on a planet where they simply cannot get
out.”

“
How can they not get
out?” Henry asked with his customary interest—not in the cast-outs
themselves—but the technology that might be at play.

Dane explained patiently.
“I’m not sure Henry. But what I did find out was that they simply
can’t exist anywhere near the Eternals. They are just…cast-out,
they can’t roam, they can’t explore, or grow in any way. They are
forever bound. They are in Perdition.”

“
It sounds awful if you
ask me. I can’t imagine what it would be like to not learn,”
Celeste said.

We stared at Dane for a
while, still trying to assimilate what he had just told
us.

“
But, Dane, that doesn’t
apply to us now, to this…war. The rebels can’t kill our spirit, or
cast us out, right?” Dorian asked.

“
They can’t cast us out,
only the Eternals can. But they can convince us to give our wills
to them. Once you do that, you are as good as cast-out and you have
most assuredly lost your soul,” Dane answered.

“
So you are saying that if
we vote for the Second One, they also get our wills, and this will
cause us to lose our souls and die?” Valerie’s eyes were bulging
out with shock.

Dane nodded in response,
his eyes looked sad and weary. “I only studied this out of
curiosity, I had no idea that…” He shook his head and looked
away.

“…
That we might be faced
with a similar problem.” Nancy finished for him.

There was not much to say
after that; we stood there looking uncomfortable and worried for
the first time. This was far worse than we imagined, far worse than
any mortal war we’d ever seen. When mortals fight, they might lose
their lives—just one part of their existence cut short, not the
whole of it! In this war anyone who joined the rebellion and lost
would lose it all; and those who didn’t join the rebellion, but
lost the war, would most certainly have a torturous life to look
forward to, under the Second One’s rule. There was only one way out
of this mess, and that was to win!

I looked down at my feet;
all around me were similar looking bare feet that floated in the
star speckled darkness of space.

This was all I had ever
known…I had no memories of my previous existence as an
intelligence, and the best part of my existence—mortality—was
before me. But if Dane was right, my own existence could come to an
awful end before it even started.

I thought about those
cast-outs and what it would feel like to be dead like Dane said;
when all of a sudden a terrible scream like feeling swelled in my
chest. It expanded all through my frame and it felt like it would
choke me….I had never experienced the need for air until just now.
My head felt dizzy, my thoughts became erratic, and I heard voices
screaming in my ears, unintelligible words. They were loud—too
loud. I wanted to scream! I was not looking down anymore, I was
looking at the concerned looking faces of my clan members—little
black dots blurred my vision. Then…they too faded.

“
Tess, Tess?”

“
What is wrong with
her?”

“
Tess…this is Dane, can
you hear me? I know you are in there, come on…”

“
She always had a bit of a
weak constitution.”

“
Oh stop it Henry! She
does not!” Celeste exclaimed.

I opened my eyes; I was in
Alex’s arms. He looked down at me with a panicked look on his
face.

“
What happened?” I asked,
and then looked at Alex who was not releasing me. He stared at the
expression on my face and realized that I wished to be put down.
For one tense moment all eyes were on me.

They looked at me as if I
were an oddity. “What!” I said uncomfortably.

“
You fell.” Russell stated
the obvious.

Several of them nodded in
agreement.

“
Impossible!” I
protested.

“
You did,” Celeste assured
me. “You looked funny at us, and then you just started falling.
Alex dove for you and caught you, who knows where you would have
ended up, if anywhere at all.”

“
Hey!” Dorian protested
then smiled a cocky smile. “I helped too.”

“
Yeah…” Celeste said
sarcastically,“It was team work.” Then she shot him a warning
look.

“
Why don’t you tell us
what happened to you? Your face…it looked…different. What were you
thinking about?” Dane asked ignoring all the petty
remarks.

I shook my head, trying to
clear it. Then it all started coming back to me. That feeling—I
didn’t want to feel that again!

“
Tess?” Dane
insisted.

“
I don’t know…I was
thinking about those cast-outs and how it would feel to die
spiritually, then…” I didn’t want to finish for fear of feeling
that again.

Dane’s face looked
petrified, like his mind was thinking of something elusive that he
wanted to understand. “Could it be?” He whispered, and then he
shook his head dismissing it. “Is that all, Tess? Or is there
something more?”

“
I felt something else,
but I don’t want to remember it,” I said stubbornly.

Alex stepped forward and
placed himself between me and Dane, like a shield. “If she doesn’t
want to remember, Dane, don’t make her. It was obviously not good,”
he said sternly.

Standing in the back, I
could see Russell smirking.

This, for some reason made
me mad and gave me the courage to tell them what
happened.

“
It’s OK, Alex.” I moved
him aside; I didn’t need a bodyguard. “I felt like I was being
choked,” I explained. “As if there was no air to breathe and I
heard a scream; I felt it in my chest and in my head…or maybe both,
I don’t know,” I said resolutely, even though I knew that what I
had just said made no sense to anyone, me included. Complete
silence from my clan reassured my initial thought.

Finally it was Dane who
broke the silence. “Have you ever had any manifestations of your
gift before?”

Everyone seemed to relax a
little; if it was part of my gift what I had just experienced it
would certainly be OK.

“
No, not really, none that
I can tell anyway.”

“
I wonder if you actually
felt what they feel.” Dane said thoughtfully. “You were curious to
know what it would feel like…then…you felt it.”

Some of my clan members
were nodding, obviously agreeing with Dane’s theory. I, however,
was not sold on it. Not just because I had never experienced
anything like that before, but because it just seemed impossible to
feel something so real from beings that were so far away and so
unconnected with me.

But this explanation seemed
to satisfy everyone else, so I went along with it, and tried to
forget all about it.

There was nothing left to
do now, but head over to the rally. On our way there we flew into
two other clans that were also heading that way; Max’s clan that
had about twenty spirits and Leo’s clan with about thirty spirits.
We were good friends with these clans and often did things with
them. I liked Max a lot, he was very nice, and always remembered
every word you ever spoke to him. Leo had more of a dark sense of
humor, and was always up to some trick.

As the three groups
converged, the excitement could not be restrained. This was
supposed to be a serious time, instead this reunion seemed more
like a celebration to me than a war rally, but…what did I know
about war rallies?

Now and then, someone from
my clan would shoot a weary glance at me, probably worried that I
might fall through space again, but looked away after I gave them
my famous “leave me alone” look. Alex, however, didn’t seem afraid
of “the look”, and kept checking on me to the point of
exasperation.

Consequently, I fell behind
the group and glided alone, observing them interact and trying hard
not to think about that awful choking feeling.

Valerie, Celeste, and Henry
were gliding together toward the back as well; Henry was doing all
the talking as was his habit to do. Celeste looked bored and my
suspicions were soon proven when she started to look all around
her, obviously in search for me. Once she saw me, she left Henry
and Valerie, and came to my side. Valerie shot Celeste an anxious
look as she left, not wanting to be Henry’s only listening
ear.

As soon as Celeste was at
my side she laced her arm around mine and gave me a friendly nudge.
“So...I’m dying to know what Alex said to you!” she said with a
conspiratorial tone.

I shrugged. “Not much
actually, just the usual stuff. Why?”

“
Why?” She shook her head.
“OK, OK, if you want to play that game we will.”

I didn’t have time to
properly respond to her, because some silvery blob attached itself
to my face.

“
Euh! Get it off! Get it
off!” I mumbled through what little room remained between my face
and the blob.

“
Take it easy…it’s not
going to hurt you! Relax!” Celeste reached around and gently pulled
the thing off my face. The thing stayed on her hand but it quickly
began moving again, this time up her arm.