by Logan Jacobs
“Even I don’t know fully,” I interrupted him.
“But I have guided you in the best way I can,” Master Abbot continued. “I have given you clothes, I have fed you and taught you everything I know, but there will be a time when I need more from you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked as my confusion mounted.
“I am aging faster every day,” he answered, “and my powers are waning for the first time in centuries. My reflexes aren’t what they used to be, and the business is expanding more and more every day.”
“I see,” I replied.
“You have advanced to become my most trusted assassin,” Master Abbot continued with a solemn nod. “You have learned more than anyone here, and so the time has come for you to prepare to advance even further than you already have.”
“In what way do you mean?” I asked as I considered his extremely calm demeanor.
Master Abbot folded his hands together, and only now did he take his seat behind the desk in front of me. Then he looked at me with a steady gaze, and he shrugged his frail shoulders.
“I want you to take over as Master of the house,” he stated simply.
But this wasn’t a simple thing. No man, and no mage for that matter, could ever be what Master Abbot was to this kingdom. His expertise was unparalleled, and everyone, including myself, put their faith in him when it came to our line of work.
Yet here I was, staring into his aged eyes, and I knew he meant these words.
I, of all people, had suddenly been chosen as his successor, but why now?
Chapter 3
I sat perfectly still since I didn’t quite know how to react to the news.
For over a century, the Master had ruled this estate, and in that time, many assassins had passed through the door. I knew I was good at my job, and I knew I had the abilities and potential to progress even further, but not even I could have imagined taking the place of such a force.
The Master focused his eyes on mine. They were smaller than they used to be, and the bags underneath were gray and paper thin. He searched my gaze for a response to his announcement, but I couldn’t seem to make sense of my own thoughts just yet.
“I fear that I may not last much longer,” Master Abbot continued regardless. “My time is fleeting now, and I won’t be around forever, Dex.”
“What do you mean?” I stumbled. “You haven’t seemed unwell…”
“Yes, but everyone must die,” the old man chuckled. “We know this, don’t we?”
I darted my eyes across his body and looked for the signs that he had fallen ill. Sure, he was older now, and a lot less agile. His hands had sprouted dark spots, but he walked with less anguish than most men over a hundred, and he still looked in good health for a mage of over three-hundred years.
“Are you dying?” I furrowed my brow at him.
“Not just yet,” he chuckled lightly and waved a dismissive hand.
“So then…” I led.
“We need to get ready for these kinds of things, you know that,” he proceeded. “It’s just good business, and I would not want to die without there being the proper preparations. See it as a simple procedure, Dex. Only a bit of protocol.”
I couldn’t help scoffing at the statement.
“It isn’t simple, you are the Master,” I replied. “The only Master.”
It was true. He had been the founder of the Assassins’ Estate, and he’d remained the head of the house since the very beginning. There was no other man like him in this kingdom before or after that moment.
“To you, yes,” he nodded. “But when I am succeeded, then there will be another, won’t there?”
“I see,” I repeated as my jaw clenched.
“All the estates in the kingdom have a head,” he reminded me with a careless and tired smile. “But eventually things must come to an end. When the person in charge finally realizes that their body is not how it used to be, and their mind isn’t so sharp, then they start to think of who will replace them.”
“But you still have far more time left,” I pressed.
The Master let out an amused chuckle, and he stood and turned to stroll across the room rather than respond.
I rifled my hair a bit to relieve my tension, but then I followed after him and eyed the shelves lining the wall ahead of me. I focused on a vase that was white with hand-painted blue pictures of a war that happened six decades ago. The familiar pictures calmed my nerves a little bit, and I decided I just had to trust Master Abbot’s choice here, even if he wouldn’t give me the answers I was after.
But some of my questions refused to be ignored.
“I understand,” I finally spoke up. “But why me? I haven’t been here as long as half the assassins, and I still don’t fully understand my powers.”
“Yes.” Master Abbot exhaled. “But I see more in you than anyone I have ever had in this estate. From a young boy you showed powers much greater than what I showed at your age, and since then you have developed into a fine man of great strength, valor, and commitment to this estate. You have given your life to the job, and more than that, embraced it. When I was a young lad, I could have only dreamt of the power you hold.”
“But we have different powers,” I reminded him. “And if the estate was even around before you created it, then you would be twice as strong.”
“You think too highly of me,” the Master laughed. “I am your mentor, but I am still a mage like you. Yes, our powers are different, but you have had a head start over me already, and in the future, when you are my age, your powers will be far greater than mine.”
“I appreciate that,” I bowed slightly to the shorter man beside me.
The Master kept his eyes focused on the wall in front of us, and he reached out to find a small golden egg that was gently placed on the lowest shelf.
“You see this?” he asked and handed me the object.
I carefully took the egg from him and clutched it in my hands. Circulating around the middle were blue gems encrusted in the precious metal.
“This is the most valuable thing I own,” he started again, “not in terms of money, but valuable with importance.”
“What is it?” I asked as I studied the item.
“It is a simple, gold egg,” he informed me. “Nothing more, and it holds no importance apart from that it was given to me by the queen. She gave this to me herself when I first opened the building. It was her way of congratulating me for doing what I was always meant to do. She said it was something to prove that I was a powerful force, and that I should always remember that.”
I placed the item back on the shelf and turned to face the Master who was still looking away.
“I want you to remember these words that I am telling you today, because like the queen’s words, these should stay with you forever,” he hummed. “You have always been a powerful force, but most importantly, you are not careless with your actions.”
“I always do my best,” I agreed with him. “And I’ll always strive to do better.”
“I have no doubt,” Master Abbot replied. “Your track record proves that.”
“One shot kill,” I said with a slight grin.
“You are also not vengeful,” he carried on. “And your powers are far too valuable to just be an assassin for the rest of your life.”
“Do you not fear that one day I could become vengeful?” I asked.
“It is not my place to make judgements that are uncalled for,” he shrugged. “I am basing this off of the many years you have worked and lived here, and I am not going to start thinking of what might be when there are no grounds for it.”
“I understand.” They were the only words I could think of.
The more I spoke to the Master, the more I realized that this conversation was something he had been planning for a while. He was always meticulous with everything he did, but the way he spoke now, it was like he had carefully planned for all of my retorts. He certainly knew me well enough by now to anticipate
my feelings on most things, and I tried to take this as a comfort despite my concerns.
“You have kept your powers concealed,” Master Abbot reminded me. “And so have I, and that is what makes us both even more powerful than our powers themselves. This is our greatest strength.”
“I agree.” I nodded. “I don’t even know what extent my powers truly hold, though.”
“Do you remember the time when I took you in?” he asked.
“Clearly.” I smiled. “I was only a small child, not even four years old, but the memory has been seared in my mind. It is actually the first memory I have.”
“You were barely two,” he corrected me.
“Yes,” I laughed. “I was at the local orphanage, and you walked past our stall.”
Orphans had the choice in the kingdom to hang around the adoption stall or leave for a nomadic lifestyle. Because of my age, I had to belong to the stall.
“I had never adopted a child from the shelter stall before, it was not something that ever passed my mind,” he remembered. “And do you know what made me stop?”
“My eyes,” I chuckled.
“Very right,” Master Abbot let out a smile that just peeked through the ends of his mouth. “Your eyes were so different from anything I had ever seen. One as blue as the ice of the mountains, the other as gray as a thunderstorm. I knew there was something special about you, you were not only human.”
“As a mage, you must have had some intuition.,” I smirked.
“Actually, I read in the water, a long time before you arrived in the kingdom, that there was an heir to my estate, who shared a similar fortitude, and a power as strong as mine,” he confessed. “When I saw you there in your cot, with your eyes gleaming like raw, precious stones, I knew that you were the one the Gods spoke of.”
His words caught me off guard, and I felt a prickle run across my skull.
Then Master Abbot shrugged once more in his usual way, and he walked over to his fountain to study the kingdom through the water.
“I had no idea,” I finally replied as I stared at his hunched form. “Why have you never told me? Did you see me in the water?”
“I didn’t see a figure,” Master Abbot admitted. “I just knew you were near, and when I saw you, I knew in an instant that it was you. Your hair was already a blazing white, and your features were daring. So, I bought you for only three pieces of gold and brought you back to the house. Since then, I have come to learn that you are rarer than one in a million. You are the only mirror mage in the whole kingdom, and as far as I know, well beyond the forest.”
The Master brushed his hand over the water before he walked over to the back of the room. To the untrained eye, it looked like there was only a bare, wooden wall, and this was true, for the most part. But then the Master raised his hands above his head and let them gently graze over the panels.
A stream fell from the ceiling and pushed the panel down, and behind it, a glass looked out into the outdoor training ground.
“I remember some of the others greeting me at the door that day,” I said as I came over to join him again. “They were all so shocked you were willing to give me a home.”
“Yes, because I had never done it before,” the Master repeated as he looked out into the overgrown grounds. “But I was determined to make something of you, of your legacy.”
“How did you find out I was a mirror mage?” I asked. “I can’t remember.”
We both fell silent for a moment and watched the woodpecker tap on the bark of a tree trunk across the way. It carved out a perfect little circle with its black beak while its talons grasped a branch. The small taps against the wood ricocheted into the silent room like it was a clock counting down the seconds.
The bird was so far away, yet the noise was so clear. But that was one of Master’s abilities: to hear the unheard.
“I set you up in your room,” he finally explained. “And left you to your own devices for the first couple of hours. You didn’t make a sound, and you didn’t move. Instead, you just laid there in your sack and waited for someone to appear. I wondered who in the world would give you up and for what reasons? Was it your eyes? Or were you just not wanted? But several days passed, and you still did not move, or cry, or demand food. Of course, we gave you food and warmed you and everything else you are supposed to do with a toddler, but you never expected anything less or more. You were strangely stoic for a child, and I figured perhaps whoever your parents were just didn’t understand how you were able to be as self-sufficient as a baby could possibly be.”
“But that’s not how you found out I was a mage--”
“I had already assumed,” Master Abbot cut me off. “But a few months later you touched one of the assassins. I saw in your eyes that you were changing. It was the first time you cried, and you screamed so loud the heavens could hear you. The water gods told me to get you away from the assassin you touched. You were hurting.”
“I was morphing,” I added.
“You were mirroring,” he corrected me. “By the time I brought you to this very office, you had turned into the person you touched. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. Your body got more than ten times bigger, and your hair grew long and dark. Your blanket barely covered you as you laid on the floor, lifeless, like a corpse, but you were still alive.”
“I probably had no idea what had happened to me,” I said.
“Neither did I,” Master Abbot sighed. “But it didn’t take a genius to figure out your peculiar power. I rushed over to you to see what was happening, I thought that the assassin might have done it, but when I looked at you and your eyes, I knew it was your powers finally showing. Getting you back to your former self was difficult, but from then on, I vowed to protect you. I kept you wrapped in blankets for as long as I could and made sure no one’s skin brushed against yours.”
We continued to watch the woodpecker until it flew away, and it left a carving on the tree that was lighter than the old bark surrounding it.
“I have you to thank for what I am today,” I finally replied.
“I’m confident you would have found your own way with no problem,” he said in his most diplomatic tone. “But I gave you the tools to earn money, and many times you have faced death in the eye and come out victorious.”
“As like many others within our estate,” I reasoned.
“But many others fail me,” Master Abbot countered. “It’s not their fault, they are just careless or uneducated. But you have always been the most talented of all of them, even those that have lived here for decades longer than you. By the time you were properly walking, you were like a fireball. Untamed and destructive, but with a heart full of stardust. I taught you to not touch people, and others to steer clear of you, too.”
“How did you ever manage that?” I asked, not knowing the answer myself.
“I told them you were a prodigy,” the Master snickered, and I shook my head without surprise. “An experiment for human contact, if you will. People listened to that. And when you grew up it was normal for you, and it was normal for them.”
“And then I learned to choose,” I concluded. “There was that day that I practiced and practiced until finally I rubbed shoulders with someone, and I held down the transformation.”
“And it was such a breakthrough,” the Master replied. “I believe you have many more breakthroughs to come that neither of us can even imagine yet. It took centuries for me to perfect my art, and for you, it will be the same.”
“I believe that, too,” I repeated.
“Which is why I need to be sure that no man or creature may use you for their own advantage,” he said in a more serious tone, and I suddenly understood the gravity of his decision.
I should have guessed as much, but I’d been too concerned about his health to see it clearly up until then. It hadn’t even occurred to me that the Master was doing exactly what he’d always done for all of us. He was ensuring my exclusive protection, and as a man with my power
s, in a dangerous and dark world like ours, this was the best and most thorough way to do it.
By handing me the keys to our own kingdom.
“I have expressly trained you for this,” Master Abbot continued as his timbre lowered. “You have to know this by now, and I sincerely hope nobody will ever gain an advantage over you.”
“They won’t,” I confirmed.
“I also trust that you will never let anyone else within the house be taken advantage of, either,” he added.
“I would never allow something like that to happen,” I confirmed. “Everyone here is like my family, even those who I don’t speak to often.”
The Master nodded. “Dex, I am really proud of what you have achieved, and I can’t wait to see what happens in your future. Even when I do go, I need you to remember that I will always be where the water is.”
“I’ll remember,” I promised.
“With that being said, Dex Morgan, mirror mage,” Master Abbot paused for effect, but then he smirked a bit. “I have nothing more to tell you. Do you accept the position as Master of this estate once I am no more?”
The Master’s words had given me more confidence in my abilities, and even though I still didn’t know how I could compare to a Master like him, I was honored.
“I will,” I decided. “I accept the role of being the next Master.”
“Good,” he said and placed his hands together and bowed to me.
I mirrored his gesture and stood straight again.
“But it will be a while before that happens,” I said, though the words sounded more like a question than a statement.
“Yes.” He slowly blinked.
“In the meantime, then, I would like to step up my training,” I informed him. “I need to learn more.”
“You already know as much as I can teach you,” he replied. “But you can continue to practice, of course.”
“And will I still be out in the field?” I clarified.
“For as long as I am around, you shall be in the field,” Master Abbot responded.