by Joseph Lallo
“My apologies for the invasion of privacy, but after seeing your skills earlier, I was curious how deep they ran.” He spoke in perfect Tresson. Not only did his words lack the influence of Varden or Crich, it lacked even the regional differences one might hear from various parts of Tressor. Each word was pronounced precisely as it was intended to be. The result was vaguely unnerving. A normal person shouldn't have that sort of detachment or precision.
“How did you do that? Where did you come from?” Shadow demanded.
“In due time, in due time.” He reached to his belt and flipped open a pouch, pulling a metal flask that had been tucked snugly inside. He popped the small cork from its mouth. The room filled with the sharp and spicy scent of a strong drink. He took a tiny sip and offered one to his host. When it was refused, he continued. “I've seen the look you were wearing when you walked in. I wore it myself when I first came to this place. When I saw the light at the end of the tunnel after wandering in that cave for too long, I thought I'd finally found it. The slice of the mountain the beast called home. Instead, I found this place. A village. It was devastating.
“I had no use for these people, no use for people. The cave was supposed to serve up a beast that I could use to secure my legacy. If I could have, I would have marched right back into that cave and found my way home. At least there I could have a chance to find glory. Alas, the cave did not treat me as kindly as it treated you. I was near death, so I allowed the healers to do their work. The sort of withering wear that the cave put on me couldn't be solved with a few simple spells. Even with the best healers they had, my strength wouldn't return for weeks, so I waited and kept my eyes to the cave.
“I wasn't alone among those convalescing, though. There were warriors recovering from sparring matches gone wrong, and in listening to them and watching them, I began to see tactics and techniques that I'd never seen elsewhere. Some seemed simple enough to counter. Others appeared fiendishly difficult to counter, if a counter even existed. The falls had started again by the time I was healed, so I decided until they relented I would invest my time unraveling these secrets. Those lessons led to others. I was asked to share my knowledge, and in teaching I learned even more. By the time the falls dried up and the cave opened again, there was so much I needed to know, I didn't even consider leaving. Now, twenty years have passed and I still don't know half of what I would care to know.”
He sipped again.
“Leo is one of my apprentices,” he continued. “A promising pupil, but for the last few months I've been having a problem with him. He's got some things to learn in combat and defense, but in stealth the boy is a step ahead of the best of his peers and two steps behind me. He can't best me. He can't even make enough progress to truly improve himself, but at the same time he has nothing left to learn from his fellow students. It is as though he has been climbing a ladder and he's reached a point where a few rungs are missing. Can't reach far enough to go any higher, and there is nothing to help him reach any farther. You? You're different. I would wager you've got a good deal to learn from very nearly anyone here, but your detection skills are more than enough to challenge him. I think you could help each other.
“Now, I know I didn't like being told what to do, and I have no intention of telling you what to do, but bear this in mind: you have a blind spot. I found it. That is how I was able to surprise you. If you've got any interest in learning how to overcome your shortcoming, I am the man who can help you.”
“It was magic. It must have been,” Shadow insisted.
“Does that matter? If it was magic, unless you can trust your enemies to kindly refrain from using such tricks, you've still got a problem. If it wasn't magic, you've got a greater problem still. Either way, if you want to know, I can teach you. Keep that in mind. And if you decide to seek me out,” he began, deftly unfastening his satchel and pulling free a bundle of cloth, “you'll need this.”
He tossed the cloth to the bed.
“Ask them for Master Weste,” he advised, and paced calmly through the door.
“Wait,” Shadow said. “What were you saying about the falls? What falls?”
Weste turned to the mountains and smiled. “That tunnel that led you here? There's a reason it is so smooth. Most of the year, it is rushing with icy water, scouring it away, flooding the cave, and keeping what's inside in and what's outside out. Why do you suppose so few people make it through to this place? It is as much luck as skill. The falls are the gate to this place . . .”
Shadow's ears twitched and his heart dropped.
“And that is the sound of the gate slamming shut for at least three months.”
The malthrope ran to the door and watched as a silvery sheen began to cascade down the face of the mountain, emerging from between peaks and crevices and gathering together into a ribbon that plunged down into the center of the hollow bowl he'd climbed to enter this place. It began as a trickle, but in moments it thickened until it was a thundering wall of water, filling the bowl and beginning to convert the gravel-covered courtyard surrounding it into a wide, shallow pond. Weste looked to Shadow, a sly smile still on his face.
“Timing like that suggests that either fate has plans for you or the gods have a sense of humor.”
With that, he went on his way, leaving Shadow to shut the door behind him, panic seizing his chest. When he'd left the cave, this place was an oasis, a place with food and water and light. Someplace to recover. He didn't feel comfortable, but he knew that the darkness and safety of the cave was always just a few bounding steps away. Now that path was shut, and he'd seen no hint of anything that could afford him safe passage away. He was trapped here, held until the falls relented.
The knowledge of that simple fact made the sprawling village seem tight and close. The towering cliffs were the walls of a new prison, closing in. He glared at the bundle of cloth on the bed. Picking it up, he unfurled the bundle to discover a suit of clothes very much like the one Weste and Leo had worn, some manner of uniform. Memories surfaced. He had been assigned clothes before, in the dark days before his freedom. As was so often the case in times of confusion and uncertainty, his mind reached back to the words of Ben.
“All of these people share a common goal. The same goal. To do what they must, to make things better, to live their lives, and to serve their purpose. You share that goal, and that means that these are your people.”
It had been a dark time, his youth on the plantation, but it had taught him much. He was here because he needed to learn, and it was for the same reason that each had come to this place before him. Most important, though, was the fact that this time he came by choice. He set the uniform aside, shuttered the window tightly, and stretched out on the bed.
When hours passed without sleep, despite his exhaustion, he climbed from the bed and huddled instead on the cold, familiar surface of the ground. Moments later, he was fast asleep.
#
For the first time in years, Shadow awoke from a night spent under a roof he could call his own. It took some time for him to come to terms with a few things that this new setting afforded him. He had long ago become accustomed to being unseen, and he was, at least, familiar with being scrutinized. This was the first place he had ever been where he was simply ignored. True, he felt a gaze turn to him from time to time, and in those moments, he saw distrust sometimes, or disgust. The glance seldom lasted more than a few moments, though, before turning back to conversation or study. And when it turned, it was not the swift motion of someone caught looking. It was simply that elsewhere had more interesting activities. He wasn't worth their attention at the moment, any more than a passing acquaintance might be. Despite this, more than once he caught himself stepping toward shadows or eying the low rooftops. To him, it was not natural, not right to move about in the open.
He walked the grounds, smelling the air and trying to steel himself against the burning anxiety that had until now been more than necessary to keep him safe. He found himself circling the
long, roomy hut where the villagers met to eat. He paced for the better part of an hour before he realized that he was instinctively waiting for it to empty so that he could steal a morsel. With a deep breath, he stepped through the front door.
There were tables running the length of the building, and lattice windows lined the walls. A healthy cross-section of the residents were gathered at the tables. He stood to one side, his back to one of the supports between windows, and watched as the people of the village went about their meals. Each newcomer would approach a table perpendicular to the rest, situated at the far end of the hut. There they would take a spoon and empty bowl from a pile and present it to one of the villagers behind the table. The bowl would then be filled from a steaming cauldron and the hungry villager would take a seat. The hungriest among them would take a small loaf of coarse bread as well. It was just another thing that made this place eerily similar to the plantation. The only differences were the size of the portions and the presence of smiles.
He badly wished there was another way to find a meal—reenacting another scene from his youth was a stomach-turning proposition—but his belly was far too empty and the scent of the food far too appetizing to wait any longer.
He stepped forward, took a bowl, and placed it on the table. The villager manning the cauldron, a stout dwarf wearing an apron, dumped a ladle into the bowl. The food was a hearty stew, thick with vegetables and some sort of fish. The dwarf locked him in the same gruff stare that had greeted each of the other villagers and motioned with his head to move along. He took a spoon and some bread, sat at an unoccupied table, and nursed the meal, stretching it out as much as he could. When he was through, and the bowl had been licked clean, he stood to return it. It was twice the meal that he'd become accustomed to living on, but his stomach seemed to be aware that there was more to be had, and grumbled all the more ravenously. He stepped forward to place his emptied bowl with the others, but before he could, a fellow villager with a nearly empty bowl stepped up to the dwarf and presented it. Without comment, the server refilled the bowl.
Shadow looked to his own bowl, then to the server. Experimentally, he placed the empty bowl in front of the dwarf. Sure enough, the kitchen-worker dunked his ladle and filled the bowl again. The malthrope reached for another loaf of bread. No reprimand came. Without leaving the serving table, he downed the contents of the bowl and snapped up the bread in three bites, placing the bowl down for a third helping when he was finished. He took the freshly-filled bowl and a third loaf of bread back to the table and gorged himself further, as though if he ate enough now, he could wipe away half a lifetime of living near starvation.
“You know, the food will be here again tomorrow,” stated a familiar voice. It was Leo, a grin on his face. Before Shadow could reply, he continued. “No need to explain. You're fairly fresh from the cave. I remember my trip through. Three years ago and sometimes it still feels like I'm picking bat bones out of my teeth.”
“Your nose,” the malthrope noted, when he'd swallowed his current mouthful.
“Mmm? Oh, yes,” Leo said, touching the previously crooked and swollen flesh. It was now perfectly healthy, though only a night had passed. He didn't even have a black eye. “I finally gave in and let the white wizards have their fun. They do good work, don't they? Meanwhile, I see Master Weste has come to see you.” He indicated the new clothes. “It will be enlightening to have you among us. With any luck, I'll get a chance to bloody your nose.”
Shadow narrowed his eyes.
“Fair's fair,” Leo said. “In a proper, vigorous training regimen, one must expect a few bumps and bruises . . . and, on one notable occasion, a few severed fingers.” He spread his hand and admired it. “As I said, they do good work. You'd be surprised how little pain there is when you lose a body part.”
“No. I wouldn't.”
“Oh? Well, I'll trade my story for yours. Later, though. If you're through with your meal, and you're truly interested in earning that uniform, then you'll need to follow me. The day's instruction will begin shortly, and Master Weste requested I fetch you if you seemed interested in accepting his offer.”
Shadow nodded, gulping down the remainder of his meal and placing the bowl with the others. Leo led the way south, and they began to weave their way through Warrior's Side. As they walked, Leo spoke.
“It will be a brief instruction today. Most days we do drills and learn techniques, but once or twice a week he gives us time to rest the body and work the mind instead. He calls it 'enrichment.' At first, it was the last thing I had any interest in, but there is an awful lot to do in this place. Getting a chance to sample a bit of it is a treat.” Leo paused for a moment, likely hoping to inspire a reply from Shadow. When none came, he took a more direct approach. “So, from whereabouts in Tressor do you hail?”
“Why does that matter?”
“It doesn't. Chit-chat seldom does.”
“Then why bother asking?”
He shrugged. “Curiosity. We'll trade, then. I tell you, you tell me. I come from a mixed family. Mother was from quite far south. Far enough that her home didn't have a name, because it was just a cluster of tents that moved from oasis to oasis. Father was from Kenvard. He was down south trying to find a source for some manner of dried herb or another. He met her and brought her home. Things got dicey once the war started, but that's another story. Now, I've given. What do I get in return?”
Shadow walked in silence for a moment. It was curious, but the vague obligation to reveal something of himself in return for what had been revealed to him was simple yet powerful. Logically, he had no reason to do so. He hadn't agreed to anything, and it wasn't as though there had been any true transaction. Nevertheless, the feeling was very real. There was a pressure to restore the balance of information. He noted it for future use.
“My earliest memory is losing my mother and being sold into slavery, where I spent most of my life.”
The perpetual grin slid from Leo's face as he processed the words. “Very . . . concise.” He cleared his throat. “We'll, uh, set the rest of that aside for now. We've arrived.”
The pair reached a patch of trees beyond the southern tip of the village, where the flat land between the mountain and seaward cliff was just beginning to narrow. It was hardly a forest, but there were enough trees that the gathering was hidden from view. A dozen or so villagers, dressed in the same strange uniform, stood in a stretch of clear land among the trees. The grass had been reduced to packed earth there, and a few weapon racks and training dummies were standing about, each very well-used. The group occupying the clearing was a varied lot, but most had a handful of features in common. They were all very lean. The heaviest among them was an older gentleman, and even in his case, there was no fat on his frame. They were in peak condition, and each had hair cropped short or gathered back. Each member also had a subtle awareness of their surroundings that was immediately apparent. Eyes were already glancing in the direction of the newcomers even before the first of them came into view.
At the approach of Leo, most gave a professional nod or a smile and wave. After a few moments of initial apprehension, the group formed a circle around the malthrope and looked him over. Some asked questions, though only one spoke Tresson.
“How far away can you smell something?” came the only question he understood. It was spoken by a young girl, barely in her teens.
He shifted uncomfortably, glancing to Leo. “It depends on the wind.”
“So, like a dog, then. And you can track? Like hounds?” she asked.
The sound of snapping fingers twitched his ears, then drew his eyes. The culprit was the older man, a gap-toothed grin coming to his face as he made a comment in a thick dialect reminiscent of one of the tribesman from the plantation.
“He says the way you can point your ears at sounds is . . . admirable,” Leo explained.
“He didn't say admirable,” the girl countered.
“That's enough, all of you,” said Master Weste, who had
managed to arrive unobserved by all. “You should each be uniquely aware of the discomfort caused by being the center of attention when that is something you wish to avoid. Let us do our newest student the courtesy of treating him as we would treat each other. Or, in your case,” he said, indicating the girl, “treating him better than we would treat each other.”
“What? I'm not wrong. He didn't say admirable, he said dishonest,” she said, adding a muttered, “and that doesn't even make sense . . .”
“You will,” the master interjected, “once again, be working on decorum. You can't expect to infiltrate properly if you do not understand how to behave in a refined manner.”
“I am damn well refined enough already,” she objected, stomping away.
One by one, Weste handed out assignments as unusual as identifying different poisons by taste and as mundane as learning to tie knots. Finally, he came to Leo.
“You two seem to be getting along well enough, which is good, because starting one week from today and until I say otherwise, you will be partners. Leo, find out where he needs to catch up, then get him started catching up. Once he's started, get back to lock-picking. He'll have a week to learn the basics he should have had, then you'll start doing pairs drills.”
“It shall be done, Master Weste,” Leo said with a stiff bow. He turned to Shadow. “This way, my friend! I told you it would be brief today.”
Leo paced off, Shadow once again in tow. The man who was now his partner looked to him.
“I admit to a certain lack of experience in reading the expressions of a face such as yours, but you look to me like you've once again got some questions. I've got a fair number of my own I'll need to ask, so you may wish to start.”
Confusion swiftly overruled Shadow's distaste for conversation. “Why was that young girl there?”
“Deena? The same reason that you and I were there. To learn the ways of stealth and infiltration.”