The Apprentice Stone (Shadows of Time Book 1)

by Darrell Newton

  Francisco smiled. He picked up a smooth stone and said, “Hey Goliath, I’m David.”

  The crowd laughed, even some of the Castigos.

  Goliath heaved his large rock, but only managed to hit near a spectator sitting on the ruined wall. Francisco taunted him. “Come now, Goliath, everyone knows David has better aim.”

  Francisco scanned the crowd, enjoying their laughter, and noticed Sancho standing under an arch with his arms crossed, disapproving. Sancho’s warning that “we have just become another gang,” echoed in Francisco’s mind. With intent, Francisco lowered his guard, looking away from Goliath. He winked at Sancho and smiled.

  And that’s when Goliath came at him. Francisco did not flinch, but blinked, knowing it was coming. The blow snapped his head around—he heard and felt the crunch of bone in his neck. Without the stone, the blow could have killed him. Then the ground came and hit Francisco in the cheek. Another crack of bone and shooting pain. Francisco’s head bounced. The healing stone blocked out pain after a few seconds, but the initial shock nearly made him pass out.

  This time Francisco did not struggle up. He peered through barely opened eyes and focused on keeping conscious, unmoving and aware of every sound. While the stone worked its muting, warming, tingling magic, Francisco heard Goliath’s shuffle and heavy breathing draw near. Francisco waited for him to come within reach and ... there. As Goliath blinked, Francisco kicked up with all his energy, a snap that would break boards. His heel connected squarely with Goliath’s jaw. Down he went.

  Francisco rose slowly to his feet. He brushed himself off and waited for others to verify Goliath’s condition. It shouldn’t take long. He’s not going to be able to yield, but he’ll wake up with a headache the size of his fists. The Castigo who had knelt next to Goliath stood back, crossing himself. At first, Francisco didn’t understand. A second later, he did. Francisco’s heart felt like it turned to lead and he forgot to breathe. Goliath was dead. It wasn’t like people hadn’t died on the streets before. They had. It wasn’t unusual to see a stiff body twice a month, but this was different.

  “Murderer!” yelled someone to his left.

  Francisco turned. The one who yelled it wasn’t a Castigo, but an old woman whose lip curled in anger and who pointed a bony finger at him.

  “No, I—” Francisco had no words. He didn’t intend this. “But they are the ones beating people. I have to—” He looked down on the dead Goliath. It was I who made the killing blow, not him. Oh, dear Savior. What would papa think of me now? He looked up at the Castigos, who instead of attacking him in force for vengeance as he expected, slipped back into the crowd with fear in their wide eyes. Francisco, without a second thought, knelt next to the champion. Heedless of who was watching, he slipped off his boot, popped out the healing stone, and pressed it to the young man’s neck and prayed. He prayed that he wasn’t too late, and he prayed that there were no hungry marks on the stone. He doubted both. His eyes started watering, and with his tears he muttered the Hebrew verse.

  He half realized through clouded vision that some of the crowd gathered around him with either furtive, curious steps or with fierce accusations. Would they grab him and drag him to the alguazil? Then Goliath moved. He inhaled sharply, and Francisco realized that he inhaled through his nose. Not only was his neck mended, but he now sported a fine, if not large, nose. Not waiting to check the giant, Francisco slipped through the crowd and ran back toward the city.

  On their way back to the blacksmith shop, walking through the dark city streets, Francisco and Sancho took long strides to make the journey quick. Francisco brooded with conflicted feelings of anger, relief, and confusion. It all seemed to be a perfect plan—saving the innocents by attacking the gangs—but it never truly felt right, like something was missing, like forging iron mixed with clay to make steel. Close, but not quite. He glanced at Sancho, who hadn’t spoken to him since before the fight. “It was your idea,” Francisco said. “I wanted to go after my uncle, but you’re the one who said, ‘Why wait for the gangs to hurt people? We should hurt the gangs first.’”

  “You took it too far.” Sancho refused to look at him.

  “Yeah? Can you truly expect me to fight the gangs without becoming one of them?”

  “You did it too fast, and every fight was worse than the last. El Cid chose a different path.” Sancho stopped and pointed back towards the ruins. “You killed that man out there tonight. I saw it.” He resumed walking.

  Francisco jogged to catch up. “He deserved it, didn’t he?”

  “He deserved to be blooded, not killed.”

  “Don’t you have a story in your bible about a Goliath?”

  “It’s not called a bible, and David killed him in war, so it is different.”

  “This is not different. There’s only good people and bad people in the world. And this Castigo was bad.”

  “No, it is not that simple, Francisco. There are only people. People that get used to doing good or bad. And people will surprise you. The ones who usually do good can do something truly evil. The people who—”

  Francisco’s shoulders slumped. “I didn’t mean to kill him, Sancho. And he’s better now anyway, isn’t he? He can breathe through is nose. I wasn’t going to stay around and—”

  Stepping in front of them out of the shadows was a tall man, all shoulders and fierce eyes. They would have disregarded and passed him, had it not been for his commanding the center of the narrow passage. He had the lean look of a trash scavenger, quick to pick and plunder.

  Francisco and Sancho stopped, just out of his reach. Francisco glanced over his shoulder. No one was in sight.

  “I saw you,” the man began the conversation. “Clean fight.” While he spoke, his left hand gesticulated with sharp movements and his right hand rested on the hilt of a dagger tucked into his belt.

  Francisco narrowed his eyes, and tilted his head. “Yeah.”

  “You fight,” the man continued, “with little skill, except the ability to take a punch. A lot of punches.” The man sucked on his teeth, and dug between them with his pinky fingernail. “How did you raise that man from the dead? I know he was dead. Nobody falls like that ‘less he’s got no life left in him.”

  Sancho looked at Francisco and said, “Let’s go the other way.”

  “Ho, now,” The man said stepping to the side as if to cut them off. “I only want to make a proposition. Name’s Guter.” He held out his left hand. The right still rested on the knife.

  Francisco didn’t take it. Sancho stepped back.

  “Cuh, now. Is that the way to greet a tradesman?” He retracted his hand. “I’ll cut to the point then. I know you have something, Francisco. Something that will keep you from dying in a fight. Now I’m a fair man, I am, and I’m willing to trade you something for it. You see, I’m a recruiter of sorts. There’s a ... a gang that I belong to that’s always interested in lads that think on their feet and know how to handle themselves in a fight. Lads that ain’t afraid to see the world and make a nice profit doing so, see? But they don’t take in just anyone. They’re a very high and mighty bunch, they are, and that’s why they need me to find the best lads. If you give me what keeps you alive, I’ll introduce you to the Key’ari and what’s more, I’ll put in a good word for your friend here.” He smiled. The top teeth on the sides were missing.

  “No thanks,” Francisco said. He and Sancho stepped to either side and walked past the man.

  Francisco heard a sharp swish of boot and boot on stone and a tussle of flesh on fabric. He turned to see Guter behind Sancho, his arm around Sancho’s neck and the long knife held to Sancho’s gut.

  “I tried being reasonable,” Guter said tightly, boots still shuffling to purchase better balance, “But you’ve done and gone too far. Put whatever Avar-Tek you have at your feet and step back.”

  Francisco hesitated.

  Guter thrust the blade between Sancho’s ribs.

  Sancho screamed.

  Guter let him drop to his
knees and writhe on the alley stones and dust. Blood gushed.

  Francisco dropped to his knees, slid off his boot, and popped out the healing stone. Out of habit and desperation, he started reciting the verse in Hebrew, but Guter interrupted him.

  “Ah,” Guter said, “so you do have it.”

  Francisco felt the sharp press of a knife against his neck, that spot where blood pulsed. The tip bit in, forcing Francisco to his feet. He felt warm liquid trickle down his neck. Is it my blood or Sancho’s? He looked down as he rose. No new blood on Sancho. His wound may have closed, but Francisco doubted there was enough time for a full recovery.

  With his left palm open and his nose almost close enough to touch Francisco’s, Guter said, “I’m guessing your Tek won’t mend a head once it’s been cut off.”

  Francisco froze. He felt the blood drain from his face.

  Guter’s fingers on his open palm curled in and out. In and out.

  The pent-up anger from the evening, the drive to protect his friend, the hatred for all things Bernat turned Francisco’s vision red. In a rush of instinct, he leaned a little to the right, away from the blade, as his knee came up sharply between the man’s legs. It was not a light, hesitant tap. Francisco knew better. It was a kneecap jarring follow-through that would have turned a stallion into a gelding. He thanked God the man was not a eunuch. He would be one now. Gunter hunched over with a guttural groan that, had it been anyone else, would have made Francisco cringe. But Francisco was not thinking with his mind, only brutal reflex. He grabbed Guter’s knife that the man held loosely, and he thrust it up into the man’s throat. He twisted it, blood already covering his hand.

  Guter dropped.

  Francisco knelt next to Sancho, ready to continue praying for him. He pulled back Sancho’s tunic and used it to wipe the blood off Sancho’s stomach. The wound was healed. No scar remained.

  “I’m fine,” Sancho said. His voice was weak and his face pale. He stared at Guter and took shallow breaths.

  Francisco gently pressed where the wound was. “I hardly had any time to pray for you. Are you sure it’s healed inside?”

  “I think so.”

  “Come on,” Francisco urged. He helped Sancho to his feet. “We can’t stay here.”

  Sancho hesitated. “Aren’t you going to heal him?”

  “He tried to kill you. He’s evil. I’m not going to heal him.”

  Sancho grasped Francisco’s arms. “You healed that champion. For the love of all your saints, heal this man.”

  “We don’t have time. Someone will come.”

  Sancho shook him. “I won’t go until you heal him.”

  Francisco didn’t have a choice. He stooped down, and with some difficulty, he pulled the knife out of Guter’s slippery neck. He dropped the blade and placed both hands on Guter’s wound. The Key’ari slid further to the ground with a gurgling sigh. Francisco closed his eyes and recited the Hebrew verse. He noticed that the knife cut on his own throat still hurt. It should be muting, warming, and tingling if the stone was working. He opened his eyes and lifted his hand to look at the stone. Even in the dim light he could see several red hungry marks and one black.

  He felt Sancho’s hand on his shoulder. He opened his eyes. The man was dead.

  “Oy.” Sancho gasped. “You killed him.”

  “I can’t do anything about it now.” Francisco wiped his hands on the man’s pants. “It’s God’s will. This one deserved it.” He stood up. He wanted to kick Guter.

  They ran to La Grande’s with bloody hands hidden under bloody tunics and kept to the shadows. Sancho grabbed a bucket of water on his way up to their room.

  Inside as they washed together, Sancho spoke first.

  “Stay out of sight and keep your ears open to rumor.”

  Francisco didn’t argue this time. He kept scrubbing off the blood, furiously. It had dried at the edges around his fingernails. He kept telling himself that Guter was one of those bad men, and he deserved to die.

  Chapter 10

  Francisco

  Toledo

  Autumn, Year of our Lord 1211

  519 Days on the Streets

  FRANCISCO RAN UP THE DARK ALLEY. His fingers gripped tightly around his healing stone and his feet slipped on cobblestone, slick from the light rain. A man chased him. Francisco couldn’t remember why or how he got there. His memory was out of place and disjointed, but he knew two things: the man was with a gang, and the chase had to do something with his mother. That last thought put fire in Francisco’s soul and speed in his step. The chasing man—a full-grown man, not one of the regular younger gang members—was agile and upon Francisco’s heels at every turn even though the man was as thick as a Barrosã bull. Francisco risked a turn to look at him. He resembled Richard the tanner who came from lands far to the north beyond the sea. This man had pale skin, thick arms, and a beard like Richard’s, but unlike the tanner, he had a wide, strong jaw and arms as thick as Francisco’s thighs.

  Francisco came upon his goal: a slip between buildings, barely wide enough to let him pass, but sure to trap the chasing man. He made for it in the shadows, but the darkness betrayed him. Three barrels blocked the passage, and he had to continue running, losing valuable time. He heard two more pairs of footsteps behind him. He dare not venture a look, but he heard the lead brute use the word, “Key'ari.”

  Key'ari? Oh, Mother of God! That’s Gutter’s gang. Francisco ran faster. The rain came down harder and streamed in to his eyes, blurring his vision. He turned a corner and his foot slipped. The pavement knocked his breath out, but he clung to the healing stone. He had enough time to pull his arms up under him before the men were upon him. Hands grabbed at him. Francisco slithered out of grasp and turned over, but one hand held. Lightning flashed, and in the confusion as he was lifted off the ground and thrust up against the wall, Francisco heard a woman scream. He thought it was his mother—knew it was his mother, and in that instant when his back hit the wall, he dropped the healing stone. “No!” Francisco reached for the stone but it had fallen to the ground. He fought with wild ferocity and animal instinct, but the northern chaser held him firmly around the throat. Francisco blinked the rain out of his eyes. Three had followed him. In the near-darkness he saw no other. Where was his mother? She was dead of course. He looked down at where he had dropped the stone, and one of the chasers bent down and picked it up. When the man stood back up, lightning flashed again, and it was Guter, the Key'ari Francisco had killed.

  “Oh, ain’t it pretty,” Guter said, brushing the mud off the stone with his sleeve. “It comes to me now. Can I keep it?”

  The Northern Chaser grunted. Rain ran down his face along an old scar cut from his forehead across his left eye and down his cheek, but his eyes were clear and undamaged. They were the cold-gray of an overcast sky and yet filled with the dark intensity of a coming storm. This northern chaser was a hunter of men. He asked Guter, nodding towards Francisco, “Is he the one?”

  “Yeah, that’s ‘im alright. That’s the one that killed me. With my own knife, he did.” Guter held up the knife.

  The Northern Chaser took the knife with his free hand and pressed it to Francisco’s throat right under the hand that gripped him. “You can either die or join us.”

  Francisco clawed at the man’s hands. They were as frigid and solid as a statue’s. “Never,” he gasped. “I’ll never join you. Give me my stone.”

  “That stone can’t heal you, boy.” The Northern Chaser smiled. “Not if you don’t have your head.”

  Francisco felt the knife cut deeply, slice across his throat, and…

  Francisco awoke in a cold sweat. He was dreaming and in the loft above La Grande’s smithy. The room was lit only by a setting moon giving the room a frozen, dead glow. No rain; no Guter; no Northern Chaser, but the moon waxed gibbous in the same phase as it did the night of his father’s death.

  Across the room from him, Sancho sat up. “What?” He groaned in a voice groggy with sleep.

&n
bsp; A shiver ran up Francisco’s spine. He placed his hands gingerly to his throat. Still there. No cut, no blood. Of course. It was a dream.

  “You screamed,” Sancho said.

  “I did?”

  “Yes. You said, ‘Never, never’ over and over.” He rubbed his eyes. “Never What?”

  Francisco pulled his legs up and rested his chin on them. I am so far from Papa’s last wishes. How am I to ever get back on course? Ten days had passed since the Castigo fight. Ten days of staying in the smithy, hiding from the old gangs and that new one, the Key'ari. Sancho had ventured out to get word on the street, and he returned with news about the gangs coming down on their friends again but no news about a man stabbed at night near Calle Alfileritos. “I have to get out there and do something. God wouldn’t have given me the stone if he didn’t want me to heal people. I can’t stay hidden from the world like a buried corpse.”

  Sancho raised his hands. “If you go out now, you will be a corpse.”

  “It’s been ten days. The alguazil has more to do than search for some no-name’s killer.”

  “No!” Sancho’s voice raised in pitch and volume such that Francisco started to worry he would wake La Grande. “What about these Key'ari, Francisco? You killed their man Guter. Do you not think they will seek vengeance?”

  He shushed Sancho. “Quiet. You’ll wake the dead.” A breeze wafted through the window and gave him goose bumps. With a quick glance at the moon through the window came thoughts of his mother. There were women out there like his mother who would die unless he healed them. “You worry too much, Sancho. I can handle the Key'ari.”

  “You do not yet know who they are.” He shook with frustration trying to find the right words. “You klotz! You … you idiot!”

  “You said nobody knows anything about the Key'ari.”

  “And that is why you should be wary.” Sancho folded his harms and lowered his voice. “And they should not be your only concern. Your uncle is back in town.”