Journeyman Assassin

by Brian Keller

  The weather had turned colder and Kolrem had begun to wonder about food and food preparation. Cooper had started to tease him, but Utsef had interjected that Kolrem had brought up a valid point. That day, close to midday, Utsef led them to their next camp site and showed them what he called a cache. It was a collection of leather sacks he’d buried for safekeeping. While he was uncovering the bags Kolrem asked, “How do you find them again, once you’ve buried them?” Utsef looked a little confused by the question, “Well, you remember where you put them, obviously.” Kolrem nodded and shrugged a little as if to say, “alright, yeah, of course.” Once Utsef had pulled a bag out from the hole, he broke the bag’s seal that he’d made out of resin, then drew out a series of corked jars from the bag. Each jar had a label, just as it would in an apothecary shop, except these labels had words like, Rosemary, Cilantro, Basil and Mustard Seed written on them. “Herbs!”, Kolrem exclaimed. Utsef nodded, “Yes. Dried herbs. Not as tasty as fresh herbs, but enough to put some flavor into a meal. And far better than simple meat and tubers in a stewpot. So the lesson to be learned here is “plan ahead”, recognize a need before it becomes an unsatisfied need.” He turned back to Kolrem, “To place a cache, it’s a good idea to dig near some kind of landmark. Something that’ll help you find it again. It must be something relatively permanent, obviously. Do you think you could do that? Have you done any memory training?” Kolrem replied, “We’ve taken the written tests for our classes, having to remember all that information. That’s memory training, right?” Utsef nodded, “It is, but that isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking about memory training, just like you train to use a knife or throw a dart, or juggle. Training that is specific for your memory.” Kolrem shuffled his feet a little, “Well then, uh, no, sir.”

  Utsef said, “Then we’ll start immediately. Come with me while I find a few things.” Utsef walked along the trails, pausing at times to pick something up from the ground. The items seemed to be completely random, an acorn, a pine cone, a twig, a pebble and a small chunk of tree bark. Once he had those items, Utsef stood and turned to face the boys and held out a leaf, “I picked up several items. Tell me the items I picked up in what order.” Kolrem looked frustrated, “I didn’t know we were supposed to be watching you pick up stuff! Besides, most times I was too far away to see for sure. I know you picked up an acorn and a pine cone, but I couldn’t see anything else.” Utsef nodded, “That’s fine. No reason to be upset. I’m just giving you an example of memory training. Cooper, you were closer behind me. What did you see?” Cooper had been looking suspiciously at his teacher ever since he displayed the leaf. Cooper replied, “Sir, I thought I was watching, but I never saw you pick up the leaf. I saw you pick up an acorn, a pine cone, a piece of kindling, a small rock and some tree bark. No leaf.” Utsef smiled, “Alright. The twig, or kindling as you called it. What kind of tree did it come from?” Cooper felt his jaw go slack, “Uh, no idea, sir.” Utsef nodded, “That’s alright. You were right about the leaf. I grabbed it while we were still at the camp site. Ok, now we’ll really get started. Follow me.” Utsef led them back to camp, then pulled a sack from his backpack. It was the sack he used to deposit the rubbish left behind from their first campsite with Maro and Binru. He took a few items from that bag and added them with those he’d just collected. He gestured out towards the forest, “You boys go collect firewood for tonight. By the time you return, we’ll be ready to start class.” It only took a few minutes and the boys had returned, each with an armload of branches and their hands full of twigs. Utsef had taken one of the dead men’s fur coats and laid it flat on the ground. The boys dropped off the firewood and joined Utsef beside the coat. Utsef began to explain the rules of the game, “This is another memory I have from my grandfather. I thought it was his idea until I discovered that other instructors in the Guild have been playing this game for years as well. In fact, I’d be a little surprised if you’ve never played before. There are ten items laid out on a coat. The coat you see there is covering all that. I’ll draw the cover off and you have a few minutes to study all the items. Try to memorize everything about them, and I mean everything. Where they are positioned, how far they are apart from the other items, every conceivable detail, color, size, shape, clean, dirty, and if it’s dirty be prepared to describe the dirt. Get the idea? Everything. The other rule is that you cannot touch anything. You cannot touch the items or the coat that they are resting on. Since you’ve never done this before, we’ll leave everything uncovered for a few minutes, but as you become more observant and your memory improves, we might progress to the point where you only need a glimpse in order to completely commit the scene to memory. Anyway, that’s the final goal.

  They ‘played’ the memory game every morning. As promised, Utsef gradually reduced the time they had to observe and memorize the items. The items were always different from the day before, but they might see some of the same items twice in the same week. As the training progressed Utsef not only reduced the ‘exposure time’, he also began to wait before he asked them to describe all the items and how they were positioned. After a couple months of daily memory training, before breakfast Utsef would pull off the cover for less than thirty seconds and then wouldn’t ask them to describe anything until they were eating dinner. Cooper had always thought he had a good memory, but this training proved to him that he never remembered as much as he thought. He was also surprised how well this training worked. Now he understood how Felis could be so precise about the positioning of the Duke’s signet ring on his bedside table. The night Cooper had robbed the noble, Felis had followed Cooper, witnessed the theft, then killed Skaiven and recruited Cooper into the Guild. He’d always wondered how Felis could’ve possibly remembered that detail.

  ~~~~~

  Jarell’s short-term plans were advancing beautifully. In the last few weeks his mercenaries had counted up several kills and many of the Guild’s senior members on the Master’s Council were beginning to question whether the Guild Master was still fit to lead. If the Guild, under its current leadership, was unable to manage this problem, it would soon become a worrisome crisis. For Jarell, it really didn’t matter who might next assume the mantle of Guild Master, should the current one become sufficiently undermined. Jarell was certain that it wouldn’t be him, he was too junior a member to be considered for that role. But anyone would have to be easier to manage than the current leader. The current Guild Master was nothing less than truly formidable.

  It was becoming apparent that some of his activities in the Waterfront were attracting some notice. A few Thief Adepts had been sent to either investigate his operations, or to rob them. It all came down to whether the Guild was aware that those operations were his. Either way, the thieves had been ambushed and killed. It was only a matter of time until Assassins would be sent to investigate. His men might be able to claim one or two of them, if they were extremely lucky and the Assassins were very careless. He couldn’t count on that, nor could he risk exposure yet. The mercenaries in his employ didn’t even know he existed. He’d maintained a few insulating layers between himself and the dirtier aspects of his dealings, but it might be possible to peel back those layers and eventually reveal his involvement. His plans on the Waterfront would need to be accelerated and quickly resolved.

  As his plans progressed, the other matter would require increasing attention. It was already becoming more and more difficult to manage. Now with the increased risks of operating in the Waterfront he’d need to find other ways to bring in what was needed. If he couldn’t maintain the current tempo, things could swiftly escape his control and he would be caught between two opposing forces. He had a plan for that as well, but to avoid the worst case scenario timing was becoming more important with each passing week.

  Chapter 22

  He hadn’t been counting the days, but Cooper guessed he’d been in the forest for about five months. They’d begun taking turns with meal preparation. Utsef insisted that he’d be ‘remiss in his dut
ies’ if he allowed the boys to finish his course without being able to feed themselves. The teacher had taken Kolrem out hunting while Cooper stayed back working at keeping the fire hot enough as he added ingredients to the pot, along with continually stirring to make sure all the herbs didn’t just stick to the sides and burn. He’d just shifted his position to reach back for another stick to add to the fire when he heard a voice that sounded like a tiny bell, “Hail, kinsman!” Cooper spun to face the odd-sounding voice. What stood before him defied his senses. While “stood” did describe the action, the fact that the creature looked remarkably like a ten-inch-tall, faintly glowing girl overshadowed any other apparent details. Overall, she was a faint green with very delicate features and appeared to have tiny twigs and grasses woven into her wildly tousled hair. Despite this fact, propriety demanded that he reply, “Um, hello? Who, or what are you? And why do you call me kinsman?” The girl-figure laughed, more of a giggle, really. And she covered her mouth while she did it. Cute, in its own way, if everything else didn’t suddenly seem so surreal. She replied, “‘What’ I am is easy enough to explain, except that Man has so many names it can be difficult to pick the one that might mean something to you. Some call us tylwyth teg which is probably the closest to being right. Some call us sidhe, but that’s usually not spoken in a nice way. Many in this area just call us fae, but that’s really unfair. It would be like us calling you ‘mammal’ and not defining you any further.” Cooper caught on quickly. “You mean to say that there are others similar to you, but not the same?” She crossed her arms, “Exactly! Well, yes, and no. There are the faux fire; what people here call will-o-wisps, they’re not like us, but they’re not like anything else either. But we are similar to the Ellyllon, but also not really the same. For one thing, they’re bigger.” She appeared to pause for a breath, “As for ‘who’ I am, that’s even easier. I’m me.” Cooper felt a little stumped by that statement, “Don’t you have a name?” She shrugged. ‘She actually shrugged!’ Cooper thought as she replied, “Well, I do. But not in the way that you mean. My name is more of a feeling, than a word. The way we communicate amongst ourselves involves more than just speaking.” Cooper didn’t know what to do with that, “Do you mean like posture and facial expression? Wait. Never mind. I’d never get that right anyway. What would you like me to call you? Assuming you’ll come talk to me sometime after today, that is.” She smiled at him. It actually made him feel a little warm. She said, “Call me Uaine. That will be fine.” Cooper repeated it then added, “I’m Cooper. Why did you call me kinsman?” She gave him a look of disbelief, “Because you’ve got real magic in you. Part of you is from before, and the rest of you is you. We can feel it. The other boy and the man with you have power, surely, but nothing like we feel coming from you. You are altogether different from them. You are almost like us! Humans have magic. We are magic. You were born like us, but you’ve always been human.” Cooper almost felt a little lightheaded. Trying to make sense of what she was saying, while trying to accept that she was even there and not simply a figment of his imagination. Uaine then added, “For the most part, we fae just are, until we’re not. Then, we are again, only different. In that way, you’re like us, except you’re not!” Cooper thought he was getting more confused the longer she talked. She had to be real. There was no way his mind could’ve concocted anything like this. Cooper shook his head, “I understand your words, but not your meaning.” Uaine took in a deep breath which she let out with an exasperated sigh, “You’re you again, but not you! What’s not to understand?” Cooper let his head drop forward. This was getting worse. Perhaps she was simply out of her mind, but he was getting the feeling that she was trying to explain something, using his words, that was never meant to be explained that way. He could feel it like a tickle in his mind. Uaine stood quickly, looked around furtively and then visibly relaxed. She turned her head as if listening to something faint and distant. Then she nodded. She turned to Cooper, “When I said we “are”, I mean that we live, we exist, but it’s more than that to us. By living, we’re a part of something much larger. To help you understand, I’ll call it a ‘collective’. When we ‘aren’t’, you would say we ‘die’. But we don’t, we go to the collective and, over time we ‘are’ again, but different. Part of you is like us somehow and that is why I call you kinsman!” Cooper couldn’t make sense of all she was saying, but somehow he could feel that she was speaking truthfully. She knew something but his language simply lacked the words to express it. She could explain it in her own way or with other tylwyth teg, but then he wouldn’t understand the words at all.

  Cooper changed the topic of conversation, “You’re what I’ve been seeing in the corner of my eye for the last few months, aren’t you?” Uaine dimpled a little bit when she smiled, “It wasn’t just me!” She paused momentarily, “Actually, it probably was, I’m the only one that really got up close to you.” She giggled. Cooper felt a little aggravated, but also rather relieved, “Well that’s something, at least. I had started thinking I was imagining things.” Uaine lightly clapped her hands a few times, “That’s good! Imagining things is great fun, and it’s where magic starts.” Cooper started wondering if he needed to double check the mushrooms that Utsef collected for the stew. It wasn’t this first time he’d wondered this since this conversation had started.

  Cooper had to ask, “Uaine, why have you come to talk with me? Is it because of how you say we are alike? Or for some other reason?” Every time Cooper spoke her name, Uaine looked like she danced a couple of steps, then she stopped moving as she answered, “There is more I’d like to say, but it will have to wait. The man and boy are coming back. The man knows about us, but we’ve never let him see us; and the boy doesn’t seem to have the faintest notion about us. Keep our secret and I’ll come talk to you again. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She winked at him. He wasn’t entirely certain how he felt about all this, but she seemed to think she knew something about him. If he was born with the ability to Channel, that was probably the magic she was talking about. He certainly wanted to learn all he could about that. Cooper bowed his head, “Of course I would like to speak with you again, Uaine.” She let out a little squeal of excitement and clasped her hands together, then looked apprehensively across the clearing. Her expression changed from joy to alarm, and then she turned and darted off to the woods. Cooper watched her go, she’d barely stepped out of the tiny clearing and she disappeared utterly. Cooper caught a whiff of scorched stew and swiftly turned his attention back to the kettle and stirred it feverishly.

  Utsef and Kolrem entered the campsite a minute later and both of them were sniffing the air. Cooper was still stirring, trying to get the heat evened out and mostly succeeding. Utsef observed, “Smells like it got a little warm. Something happen?” Cooper shook his head, “I thought I heard something and went to look. By the time I realized it was nothing, it had already gotten a little hot.” Utsef nodded but looked a little doubtful. Kolrem only had concerns for the stew. He walked up and leaned over the pot, then inhaled deeply. He smiled as he reported, “Smells fine to me!” Cooper looked at Utsef as he chuckled, “Yep. That’s Kolrem. Never met a stew he didn’t like.”

  That evening, while they ate, Utsef questioned them about the memory training from the morning. Cooper had become so thoroughly distracted by Uaine that he had a little trouble recalling the items, but as he continued to think about it the image became clearer. After the boys related all they could remember, Utsef asked them to tell him everything from the game two days ago. Cooper thought it was remarkable how much he was able to describe. As Kolrem listed all he could remember his voice began to express the wonder he was feeling, “What have you done to us?! I never thought I’d be able to recall so much.” Utsef was shaking his head, “Don’t get too pleased with yourself. You’re still overlooking many details that you should be noticing. But it’s true, both of you are getting much better.”

  The memory training continued, along with the stealth training th
roughout the day, and weapons training in the evening. Cooper couldn’t help but feel that he was being taught more than how to memorize, stalk and fight or kill. Utsef was sharing many life lessons, but in such a way that Cooper felt they were becoming part of him rather than simply tales to be heard over a bowl of stew. Another thing was certain, as savage as the Broken Land customs were, Cooper became intrigued by how differently people’s minds worked. How people from different cultures could travel such divergent paths in an attempt to reach similar destinations.