“Whoa, whoa there,” Earl spoke. “You tellin’ us that this man, this man who killed three of the Black Brotherhood, took you in under his wing? Just like that?”
Dagan nodded. “Yes. He, like the man who gave me the mark, saw me for who I was. Though at that point, I did not know who I was, myself.”
“Your mother knew, didn’t she?” Patch piped in. “That’s why she tried to kill you.”
“I told you my mother was wise. She knew.”
“So what then?” Earl asked. “Who are you, Dagan? Some type of chosen one?”
The man in the hood barked a laugh. “No. That is not a privilege granted to one such as me.”
Earl narrowed his eyes. “Who then?”
Dagan raised his gaze and matched Earl’s. “I am the Damned,” he said.
***
I showed the man the way to my home behind the crates. During our trip back, I finally learned his name.
Blackstone.
It was a fitting name for a man as mysterious as he. It was a name fitting for the powers he claimed to possess.
As we were leaving, I cast one last look over my shoulder at Magda’s hut in the distance. Blackstone stopped and looked at me.
“Is there someone you want to see before we go, boy?”
“Yes,” I said.
He nodded. “I will wait for you in the coach.”
I ran all the way to her home, clutching all the coins I’d hoarded to my chest. I burst into her hut, but found it empty.
No. It was not just empty. It was not empty in the way a room is when it is free of people. It was empty in a more complete sense of the word.
It was empty the way a bar is empty after the last drop has been drunk and the last patron has left. It was empty in the way a mother’s heart is empty after all her children have grown and left her care. It was empty the way your bed feels empty after the lover you’ve cherished has died.
Magda had left.
I did not know where she had gone. Some of her possessions were still on the walls, but more than half were missing. I had a feeling she did not intend to return.
Still, I walked to her bed and placed my meagre collection of coins under the pillow. Then, I plucked out one hair and laid it on top. That was the only way I knew to let her know the coins were from me.
I returned to the coach somewhat downcast. Blackstone sensed my mood, and did not make conversation. He told the driver to go, and we were off.
I did not know it then, but it would be the last time I saw south Hallengard for two years.
Later that day, we began my training.
Blackstone stood me in the middle of his room and told me to hold my arms wide. I did. Knives flashed. Before I knew it, my shirt fell in tatters to the floor.
“Speed,” he told me, “is your greatest advantage. You don’t need to be strong if you are quick.” He flipped one knife over in his hand and poked my rib with the hilt. “And you, Dagan, are definitely not strong.”
I grunted and took the insult.
He walked behind me and touched the scar on my collarbone. “How did you get this?”
“Knife,” I said.
“No ordinary blade leaves a mark like that.”
I shrugged. “It did for me.”
I felt Blackstone nod. “Fine. Tell me, Dagan, how many blades do you think I carry?”
I thought on the question for a moment. I remembered last night, and counted all the knives I’d seen him produce. “Five,” I said.
“Wrong. I have fifteen.”
My face screwed up in disbelief and I turned my head back. “You don’t have fifteen!”
“Eyes front!” he snapped. I whipped forward and stood straight.
“If you have fifteen,” I said, not entirely comfortable having an armed man behind me while I did not have so much a shirt for protection, “where do you keep them?”
“If I told you, would you believe me? Or would you want to see for yourself?”
I considered the question.
“I’d need to see for myself,” I said finally. I knew how easy it was to swindle people with words on the street.
“Good answer. I will let you. In time. But not in the way you think.”
“Then how?” I asked, starting to turn back.
“Eyes forward, Dagan!” he growled.
I stopped and turned straight ahead.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“Not very much,” I muttered.
He chuckled. “Liar. You trust me with your life. I’m going to prove it to you. Walk forward. Don’t look back until I tell you to. Grip the two nails on the wall.”
I did. The nails looked like they had been used to hang pictures, once. They were spread so far that I had to stretch to grip each one in my palm.
Something thudded into the wall by my right ear. I felt the reverberation of a blade. I started to turn my head toward it, when another thud sounded by my left ear.
I froze.
In a matter of seconds, I had knives outlining my entire body. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
I counted fourteen thuds. Blackstone spoke. “Step back.”
I didn’t move. “You forgot one.”
“Did I?” he mused. “Step back and count.”
I sighed, relenting, and did.
My mouth dropped when I saw that there were way more than fourteen knives in the wall. Double that, at least.
“I have two hands, Dagan,” Blackstone said. “And I know how to use both. Also. Always let your enemy underestimate you. It gives you an advantage.”
My mind spun with how I could have counted only fourteen thuds when, in truth, there were… twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven… twenty-eight knives in the wall.
There was only one conclusion I could reach.
“You threw two knives at the same time,” I marveled. The precision that must have taken was extraordinary. I looked over my bare upper body. There wasn’t a knick anywhere.
“Yes,” Blackstone said. I turned, and jumped in surprise when I saw a knife loping through the air, arcing toward me.
I sidestepped it to avoid getting cut.
“Next time, you catch that,” Blackstone growled. “Pick it up and toss it to me.”
I did. The knife spiraled through the air. Blackstone caught it in a flourish, and in the blink of an eye had it flying straight at me.
It whizzed an inch from my nose and imbedded itself in the middle of the outline on the wall.
Right where my head would have been.
I swallowed.
“In time,” he said, “you will learn to do exactly that.”
Chapter Twenty
If I had thought my life was hard before, I was wrong.
Blackstone was an uncompromising teacher. He was also a stark perfectionist. He expected me to obey him in anything he asked.
“Put your past life aside,” he told me. “None of it matters now. Throw your old ideals and prejudices away. They will only hold you back. You’ve seen things, Dagan, that you thought would shape you. Nothing could be further from the truth. You are still young. To learn, you have to let me guide you. You must empty your mind and become a blank canvas for my words. You must be like wet clay: infinitely mendable in the hands of your master. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” I said.
“You have to agree to go at the pace I set. No faster, and no slower. You must trust the method of learning and let your progress take its natural path. At times, you will want to push forward. At times, you will think I am working you too hard. You must keep those thoughts to yourself. Only I can gauge if you are learning at the proper speed. You cannot. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said, impatiently. I was practically bouncing on my feet, ready to get started. “When will you teach me to use the knives?”
He struck me across the face. I fell and tasted blood.
“What was that for?” I demanded, angry.
“For lying. And
for speaking out of turn. You pledged patience, yet the first words from your mouth betray your intentions. Did I make a mistake taking you in, Dagan?”
I swallowed my pride and forced my eyes down. “No.”
“Good.” Blackstone extended a hand to me and helped me up. His grip was strong as iron. “Do not lie to me again. It will not serve your purpose. The trust between a pupil and teacher is a delicate thing. I am giving you my time, and everything I know. In return, I ask you to follow directions. Will that be difficult?”
I bit my lip. “No,” I said.
“Good. Will you ask about the knives again?”
“Only when you say I am ready.”
A small smile crept onto Blackstone’s face. “One thing you do have going for you, Dagan,” he said, “is that you learn very fast.”
***
I spent one year with Blackstone before he trusted me enough to hand me a blade.
It was a hard year. The hardest I have ever known. Blackstone would wake me at the first light of dawn and run me through his exercises until long after the sun had set.
He taught me that to control your mind, you must first control your body. My mind was alive and bursting with energy like a thunderstorm. My body was weak. Blackstone worked on that first.
He ran me to the bone. Each day began with a sprint to the river, where I would fill four buckets of water and carry them back on my shoulders. Blackstone timed each run. If I was slower than the day before, he would make me do it again. If I spilled a drop of water, he would make me do it again. If my shoulders weren’t all the way up and my posture less than perfect when I returned, he would make me do it again.
That was the beginning of my physical training. It progressed from there. Four buckets became five. Five became six. Water became heavy, wet sand. And again, if I didn’t at least match my previous time, Blackstone made me do it again.
He taught me something called the Keta, which was a lot like a slow-moving dance in a predetermined pattern. It was supposed to help clear my mind and teach me the limits of my body.
The Keta took two hours from start to finish. The first time I tried, my body was so exhausted that I collapsed into a trembling pile of sweat on the floor a quarter of the way through.
Blackstone rubbed ointment on my aching muscles and told me to start again. The second time, I collapsed even sooner.
His eyes darkened and he left the room. I found him hours later on the rooftop, smoking a pipe of tabac.
“Your lack of effort troubles me,” he said when I approached. “I am starting to think this endeavor is a waste of my time.”
He stood and left, leaving me to ponder his words.
The next day, I made it three-quarters of the way through the Keta before collapsing. I thought I was a failure. I expected him to kick me out on the spot.
But when Blackstone helped me up, he praised the perseverance I showed and told me that he knew I did not hold anything back.
Later that month, I learned that it took Blackstone six weeks of training before he got as far as I had on the second day.
We would spend three hours a day on mental training. Blackstone did not simply teach me facts to remember and recite. He gave me a much greater gift:
He taught me how to think.
Word and number riddles were his favorites. He quizzed me on them and then helped me discover the answers for myself. Nothing he asked required information I did not already possess, but some of the questions needed such elaborate twists of logic that they may as well have been spoken to me in a foreign language for the haplessness of the answers I gave.
Blackstone taught me to read, too. Whereas Magda let me go at my own pace, Blackstone pushed me like a slave driver. By the end of my tenure with him, not only had I read the classics—from Draconae to Gargolis—but I could also recite any chapter from beginning to end by heart.
All in all, Blackstone kept me so busy that, when he told me a year had passed, I was astounded. All the days of tutelage seemed to blend together in my mind. It was one long, continuous journey with no breaks in between.
I could not even remember the seasons changing.
He tested at the end of the year. I was stronger. Quicker. My mind was sharper.
He had me grab a bar and pull myself up. When I began, I could not do it more than once. Now, thirty repetitions were easy.
My body was developing. I was growing. Even though I went to sleep exhausted each night, Blackstone fed me enough to recover.
For that, I was immensely thankful. There had never been a time in my life when food was not a scarcity. With proper nutrition, I flourished.
I also added a few much-needed inches to my frame. I was becoming a man.
Chapter Twenty-One
Blackstone pulled a chair into the middle of the room and told me to sit. I did, and watched as he picked up a blackened twig from the fireplace and used the charred end to draw a circle around me.
“I told you before that there are multiple levels to your training,” he said. He started a second circle, larger than the first. “The first ring represents the sum of the knowledge you had before you came to me.” He tapped the second. “The next is all the knowledge you have accumulated in your time here.”
He drew four more circles on the floor, for a total of six. “The area within each ring is a visualization of the knowledge you must gain to progress to the next level. As you can see, the gap between each ring gets larger and larger the farther you move out. Gaining the first level was easiest. Your task becomes more difficult as you progress.
“The first level took you one year. It was a decent pace. But, unless you want to spend the next decade of your life with me, I suggest you go faster.”
“How?” I asked. “I do everything you tell me.”
“Sometimes progress depends on more than just following direction, Dagan. Sometimes initiative is required.”
I remembered his speech when we first began. “But you said—“
Blackstone held up one hand. “I know what I said. The things you tell a new initiate differ from what you tell one who has progressed.”
I squinted my eyes at him, not quite understanding. “So, you’re saying…?”
“I’m saying that I recall a boy who once wanted to learn the knives.” A blade flashed in his hand, like a trout leaping from water. It was gone in the blink of an eye. “Now is the time to do that, Dagan.”
Blackstone turned back and brought out a chest as large as I was. He dropped it on the table. Then, he opened the lid and motioned me over.
Inside were knives. Hundreds upon hundreds of knives. Some had blades no larger than my pinky. Others had metal blades that gleamed as long as my arm. Some had leather hilts, while others had hilts made of wood. Some blades had engravings on them, while others were completely bare.
“My humble collection,” Blackstone said, with a knowing glimmer in his eye. “Take your pick.”
I looked at him. “For what?”
“Choose a blade that catches your fancy.” He nodded at the chest, then turned away. “Take your time. Make sure your selection is right for you.”
I frowned at the knives as Blackstone left me alone. I hadn’t the slightest idea how to pick.
There was a certain solemnity in Blackstone’s words when he told me to choose. I suspected that my choice would reveal something about me.
I picked up the largest blade at first. The metal was twisted like a half-moon, but despite that, it was well-balanced.
I set it down. It did not feel right.
Next, I took out a long, thin blade that reminded me of a needle.
It did not feel right, either.
And so I went, on and on, picking up different knives and setting them aside. Each one I discarded made me more anxious about stretching out my decision for too long and displeasing Blackstone. But when I glanced over my shoulder, he was gone.
It was obvious he did not want me to feel pressured into choosing my bl
ade. Even so, being alone only served to reinforce the importance of the decision.
I was not simply selecting a knife. I was selecting my knife.
And it had to be right.
So, I busied myself with looking through all of them. I didn’t know what I was searching for. I just hoped, when I stumbled upon the right one, I would know.
I tried and discarded knives large and small. I tried and discarded ones with blades the width of my hand, and others as fine as pine needles. I tried ones that were big enough to be considered swords before setting them aside. I tried ones the same size as my old butter knife, before also setting them aside.
In the end, I narrowed my choice to three.
One was a silver blade with jewels encrusted in the hilt. I did not take it because I liked the sparkle. I took it because it was well-balanced and compact.
The second knife had a simple hilt and a long, dark blade. For someone my size, it was nearly a short sword. I chose it because it felt solid against my palm, and I could grip the hilt with two hands.
The third, and final, was an inconspicuous little thing that I had almost overlooked entirely. I did not even bother to pick it up when I first saw it. It looked too frail. But when my fingers brushed it by accident, I felt a tiny spark of power run up my arm.
The phenomenon did not repeat itself, no matter how many times I tried. I may have imagined it. Still, the experience stood out in the back of my mind. Maybe there was something special about the small knife.
I pulled up a chair and stared at the three choices before me. I felt as if the moment I picked one, my destiny would be sealed to it. It was not a decision I took lightly.
There was still no sign of Blackstone. I tried to think back and remember if he had ever given me any hints about this choice in my training.
I could not remember any.
So, I sat there, mulling over my choices, for long minutes that turned to hours. My hands hovered over each knife in turn, but I did not want to pick one up until I made my choice.
I weighed the pros and cons of each in my mind. But no matter how many times I went over my decision-making process, I could not help but feel that something was missing. Even though I had narrowed my selection to three, not one of them called to my heart.
A Thirst for Vengeance (The Ashes Saga, Volume 1) Page 11