Convergence (The Dragon Within Saga Book 1)

by Roberto Vecchi

  My father was dead, expressed with my continued tears, and I was alone in a city where I had no understanding of how to provide for myself. I could not walk out of my front door and tend to our gardens. Nor could I walk the short distance from my room to our kitchen to see just what my mother was preparing for dinner. My mother. How much I missed her in this moment. All I wanted was to hug her again and cry into her warmth as I used to do when I was younger. But if that day ever came, how could I face her and tell her that I had abandoned my Drahin because I was afraid. I was afraid, and my Drahin was now dead.

  "Hey, boy. Stop that crying. It is keeping me awake!" a voice from behind me said in a raspy, hushed but threatening tone. If I had not been immersed in my own sorrow, I am quite sure I would have been startled into a response, but as it was, I was all but consumed in my loneliness.

  "Hey, Boy! I said to stop that crying or I will stop it for you!" the voice said obviously growing in annoyance.

  But I could not stop. Knowing I wanted my mother more than anything, but understanding that I would never be able to face her again was more than I could handle in this present moment. I had lost both my mother and father because I had been too selfishly afraid to even take a short glance over my shoulder. It never occurred to me to check on the condition of my Drahin.

  I heard a rustling from behind me followed by a couple quick steps. Before I could turn around, I felt a heavy hand push me to the ground and another one strike me three times, once on the back of the head, and twice on the side of my stomach. I tried to fight back, but the hand continued its pressure on my back pinning me against the dirt. I was turned over to see a large, dirty, foul smelling brute who planted his knee on my stomach and delivered two more quick blows to my face. His fist thudded upon my fear, taking it away and replacing it with a resounding understanding that I could do nothing and be nothing while I was still afraid.

  "Maybe next time you will stop your crying long enough to let me sleep!" I turned my head to look at him as he stood up finally allowing me to take a full, gasping breath. When I inhaled and managed a painful exhale through my sore and swelling lips, I coughed hard, expelling blood that had gathered from my split lip. I sensed he was about to turn around, but instead of completing his action, he paused, turned back to face me and proceeded to unleash a square footed blast to the side of my face.

  I felt light. No not light, supported. I felt wind through my hair and a cool breeze upon my face. I vaguely remember feeling an attachment to some sort of negativity that was mountainous in size, but was no longer connected to any concrete emotions. I felt as though I was being lifted and raised higher. I passed through what I was sure was a light and fluffy cloud, but my eyes were unable to see. The rest of my senses were empty as well, like a child’s play basket recently toppled over. I felt sad at having it emptied and remembered feeling a longing for it to be full again, but understood it was not I who filled them in the first place and would likely not be who filled them again.

  I hung in this state of pseudo-being for an impossible to determine amount of time, reminiscing of my forgotten sensations in a bliss-like existence, until they came crashing back, and I as well, to a liquid induced wetness resulting in my sputtering and searching for breath. As if the first deluge was not enough, there came another squarely hitting my face and chest erupting as a great tidal wave crashing against a mountainous boulder, neither relenting to the others force. Or at least that is how it felt as I was jolted back to this life and my mortal reality of being helpless in every and any situation by a single figure standing above me holding that recently emptied child's play basket.

  "Are you ready?" asked a low and soft voice carrying a lethal understanding the way a coiled viper holds the balance of life and death in the will of his actions. Seeing that I was now fully conscious, the figure dropped the bucket and allowed me the time I needed to expunge the water from my lungs and wipe my face clear. When my eyes were clear of the water induced blur, I saw a lean man standing in front of me. His facial features were hidden in the deep set grey of his hood that blended into a gray, sleeveless tunic and extended into equally gray leggings. He wore black arm bands around both his upper and lower arms and a black sash tied widely around his waist. Around his wrists were tied more of the black sashes left to dangle almost to the ground.

  "You are a member of The Guild!" I said in shocked awe. It felt like the face within the hood slightly grinned, but because I could not see inside the shadows, it was impossible to be sure; yet I still sensed a moment of joy at my wonderment and awe of him. "Were you the one I saw kill those men?"

  "Yes, and no," replied the shadowy man. "Are you ready?"

  "Ready for what?" I asked still wiping my face dry.

  "Ready to embark upon the life that will see your helplessness end."

  "Helplessness?" I said in all the defiance I could gather from what little pride I had remaining. "I am not helpless."

  "Were you not helpless to prevent your father's death? Were you not helpless to fulfill your emotions and strike at the boy who insulted your father's memory? Were you not helpless to face and prevent the bruises on your face? And are you not helpless now, to quiet my voice? Yes, Boy, you are helpless." I could do nothing more than remain silent. He was speaking the truth. In all of my sheltered life, with my family on my father's farm, I possessed the ability to accomplish all I needed, yet apart from those familiar confines, I was beginning to understand my possession of qualities was grossly inadequate for any other success. Perhaps because my eyes had been crying too frequently over the last couple of days, or perhaps because his striking truth into my reality landed so firmly that it prevented tears from forming at the mention of my father, they failed to even tear in response to his series of questions.

  "Are you ready?" he said again.

  Still resisting, I asked a question of my own, "Ready for what?"

  "Are you ready to walk the path I chose many, many years ago? Are you ready to embrace an existence that matters? Are you ready to become an undeniable force privileged to only a few? Are you ready to become the cause of your own life instead of the effect? Are you ready, Boy?" he said in a deadly grave tone barely above that of a whisper.

  "What will you teach me?"

  "The Shadow."

  "What will I become."

  "Death."

  After following him to an inn, he allowed me the rest of the night to sleep; however, that allowance would be my last. During the following six months, Kinarin would wake me at different times of the night stating, "The life of an assassin is difficult. You must learn to be at your sharpest even if your senses are dulled."

  Within the first week I became intimately aware of the differences between the rigors of farm life and that of an assassin. On the farm, everything was dictated by routine, but training with Kinarin had taught me that the only routine one had to master was that of the unexpected. Physically, I was accustomed to hard labor, but the strenuous work of farm life was nothing compared to the full body training I would enter into my first day with my new teacher. Nor did it even remotely prepare me for the equally rigorous mental concentration.

  Every morning during these first two weeks, he would wake me by placing one of his numerous blades against my cheek, lightly pressing it until my eyes opened. Instinctively, I would respond with a quick startled movement resulting in a very shallow cut.

  "There are consequences to each failure. Respecting them will push you beyond any previous efforts. Do not fear them, because fear is yet another failure with consequences of its own. Learn to respect them, and own them," he said as I reached to feel the faint trickle of blood drawn from his blade.

  At final count, I sustained a total of fourteen cuts until the night I had decided to sleep with my own blade. There was something about knowing it was within my reach, even during sleep that comforted and calmed me. I felt his cold steel against my cheek again, but this time, instead of opening my eyes, and ce
rtainly before I startled, I slowly gripped my dagger, still hidden underneath my thin cover, and pressed it against his stomach. "You are learning," he said through what I was sure was a faint but hidden grin.

  After that morning, our training had begun to change. We still did not train with blades, but instead of the purely physical exercises, where I would perform a multitude of unrelated physical tasks, there began to form a noticeable purpose to our regiments. It was during one of these more structured training sessions when I had questioned him on the absence of steel in our training. "Does grass become grass before the seed has been repeatedly watered and exposed to the sun? Does an infant learn to run before it first masters the ability to sit up on its own? What then would be the purpose of handing you a blade when you are still the seed, still an infant? You must possess the muscular base upon which the blade will dance. If you handled them now, you would be like a wild wind blowing and affecting everything it contacts. But we are not the storm. We are not the typhoon. We are the calculated burst of an unnoticed breath. We are the whisper, not the scream."

  After a very difficult morning of exercises, Kinarin lead me to another room in the inn. I followed him down a set of stairs we had never been down before and into a locked room. Inside, I saw several racks, each containing no less than ten different forms of weaponry. They had everything from standard swords to the most unorthodox curved blades I had ever seen. In my excitement, I walked toward the weapon racks, assuming we would begin training with them, finally, but my short walk was interrupted, "Those are not for you. I cannot teach you how to become lethal before I have taught you how to be safe. And to do that, I must teach you to defend yourself without the reliance upon weapons. Come, stand, and defend."

  While I initially welcomed the addition of unarmed combat training as a reprieve, I quickly learned it was nothing of the sort. Having been bruised and tossed on the ground more times than I thought there were stars in the sky, I was beginning to question my capability to become an assassin until one evening, during our one of our training sessions, I struck a glancing blow to his right shoulder. My success was met with three quick strikes, one to my right eye, one to my right inside thigh, and one to my right temple. Neither of Kinarin's hits were meant to do more than stun me of course, but they were a reminder that a single success does not warrant celebration. "You are progressing more quickly than I had anticipated. This is good. Tomorrow we begin in earnest."

  The next day, and every day after, our martial training included the basic blades such as the dagger, swords and hand axes. We used no shields, at least not in the traditional sense, but we did train with tough leather bracers that were meant to deflect glancing blows. It was not until we were into what I was sure was our third month that I noticed how my body had changed. I was always muscular for my age, but with a focused effort, I had trimmed all traces of childhood softness and become a reflection of the blades I would wield. It was also during this month that I found my abilities begin to increase at a much more rapid pace. And while it was difficult to properly evaluate myself when compared to the master assassin, it was also difficult to ignore the fact that I was becoming exactly what he said I would.

  The fourth and fifth months saw the addition of tactics, stealth, and escape as the main focuses of my education. "Remember we are always under contract when we kill and must fulfill the terms of the contract as specified. Because of this, the blade is not always the best option to complete the assassination. Sometimes our charge is to be secret, leaving no trace at all of our presence. And other times it is to send a message. But regardless of the terms, there is always one which is the governing imperative of our existence: Survive." And to stress this principle, everything became a study in increasing the odds for surviving. In between the sessions of my marital training, which had turned into instructions instead of beatings, we would regularly plan mock assassinations for random targets. After observing our mock targets for sometimes several days, we would separately construct individual plans as if we were going to execute the assassination.

  Always, mine contained various amounts of unconsidered aspects that he would proceed to point out. While he always maintained there were many ways to conduct a successful assassination, he also never hesitated to instruct me on the inferior merits of mine. Over time, probably into the fifth month of my education, he had assigned me the fictitious target of the captain of the city guard. He warned me of its difficulty and the time I would need to properly survey him would be more than what we were used to. Also, because of his military training, he would be wary to surveillance should it become even slightly intrusive.

  After three solid weeks of observing him during all the free time I had, and learning everything about the man, I began the arduous task of looking through my catalog of his life in an attempt to identify the most opportune moment to strike. I had been given two separate terms by Kinarin. My first task was to create an assassination plan that would incite panic. And my second was to create a plan for the opposite. One in which the nefarious nature of his death, if we had been actually contracted to follow through, would go unnoticed. When I had finished, I approached him with detailed maps and drawings for each phase. I was about to begin when he held my silence by extending a hand. He was in the middle of reading a small scroll and did not wish to be disturbed. I waited in apprehensive silence for my instructor's attention. When he finished reading, he sat down at his table, inscribed a short message on a small scroll of his own, sealed it with the wax imprint of The Guild, and placed it within an ivory scroll protector.

  Looking up, he spoke, "It appears our lessons will need to continue as part of our next journey. I have just received a signed contract from the Guild Master for your first target. Apparently, you have been contracted to assassinate Lord Myosk, The Lord of The Stone Keep."

  "What?" I replied.

  "Although I do not feel you are ready, nevertheless, you have drawn the attention of someone quite powerful," he said looking somewhere in the distance. He slowly and silently shook his head from side to side.

  "Kinarin, I cannot possibly do this. It is beyond my scope," I said as the anxiety was already beginning to build.

  "I agree. But you have no choice. And neither do I," he spoke as he looked to the growing desperation in my eyes. "I am coming with you."

  Suun (Alone).

  Stillness was reflected in the surface of the small lake this morning. All but imperceptible, faint ripples caused by the spiny legs of the water bugs who knew dominion over the lake in these early hours before even the fish stirred were the only signs betraying this moment of utter stillness. He was perhaps the only mortal alive in this age who possessed the acuity of senses required to see through the motionlessness and into life. Though the sun had not yet broken through the shadowy veil extending the length of Avendia's splendid horizon, its rays were beginning to show their readiness to dissolve away all known remnants of yesterday's night and arise with the splendor of the heavens. Yes, he believed in heaven. He believed in God, or rather, in God's existence; however, to call Him a creator willing or even capable of releasing blessings upon those whom He called His children was an irreconcilable reality. More than that. It was outright deception.

  Where would he be if he was left to rely upon God for his benefits? Where was God in the moment, at the very instant his parents made the decision to abandon him at the door step of the orphanage? Does God not possess the vision and knowledge of all? And if that be true, did He not see and know the horrible life for one of His children at the hands of The Beast? And if He did, how could a God, Who professes all benevolence and omnipotence, not draw upon either of those two qualities and rescue him from his tribulations? It was one thing to believe that God existed, but it was quite another to believe He was personally interested in the personal lives of all those living in His creation. No, from what he had witnessed regarding God's inactivity to prevent horrible atrocities, and in some cases, outright evil, inside the do
main of His creation and the personal lives of His children, he, Jesolin, could not and would not believe in the benevolence of God.

  "My Lord, should I send word to the horde that you will be addressing them shortly?" asked a demure voice, still weak from the result of their training.

  With his back still turned and maintaining his introspective gaze upon the lake, he spoke, "They are assembled are they not?"

  "Yes, My Lord," the beaten woman said. Jesolin could detect a hint of elevated vibrations within her stemming from her admiration of him and his power. The dark fountain within him also sensed it and was beginning to stir.

  "And who is their Lord?" he returned casually. She too felt his hate born need grow as was part of her training and influence of her connection to her own dark powers.

  "You are, My Lord," she said as she took a small, hesitant step toward him. The small ripples of their reflected inner hate began to roughen and heighten like white caps formed before the front of the storm has fully manifested.

  "Is the Lord dependent upon the horde, or is it the horde that is dependent upon the Lord?" Seeing her chest and breath reflect the need to express itself, and sensing her fountain growing more insistent, his passion was fueled as if two fronts were about to collide creating the perfect storm of destruction. Though still calm on the surface of his expression, beneath, to the very bottom of his fathomless hate, he was seething.

  She took another hesitant step toward him and sensing his displeasure with her, stammered for a response, "I, I am sorry."