Peacekeeper's Plan

by Wayne Meyers

  Realizing he must be right, I decided to trust his advice. “Fine, then. I guess that makes sense. I’ll meet you at the training courtyard for class.”

  “I’m almost done. See you there.” He went back to mopping where he had left off.

  My mind in a fog, I took the remote path behind the south dorm buildings where Babette had been abducted. No matter the reason it simply wasn’t fair. This was much worse than before when I had had hope. Now there was nothing but misery.

  “Well, what do we have here?” Artelus stood before me sneering. He looked around with a smile when he realized we were alone.

  With a strange anticipation I stepped back into a fighting stance and said nothing. At that moment I didn’t care what happened to me. I just wanted something hateful to pound on, even though the last time we had locked arms the older, more experienced boy had sent me to the infirmary.

  Perhaps the lack of fear he was used to seeing and enjoyed made him hesitate. He glanced down at the position of my feet and legs. “I see you’ve been practicing, but that is not a stance a lower apprentice should know.”

  “Come find out what else I’ve learned.”

  A flicker of doubt passed over his face like a shadow, but I was still much younger than him, and smaller, with far less practice under my belt regardless of how I stood.

  Artelus attacked.

  I managed to divert his first strike to my face by a hair’s breadth, but his knee found my stomach sending all the air from my body with a sudden whoosh. I did not fight my momentum as his subsequent kick to the chest pushed me over backward. Once the ground grabbed my back I continued the motion by rolling over my shoulder and coming to my feet with arms raised. I tried hard to relax my stomach in order to permit the air to return to my lungs by breathing shallowly and regularly as Journeyman Krellus had instructed me.

  Artelus stepped forward with gleaming eyes like those of a cat playing with a mouse. I would not escape his next attack so easily.

  “Hey, Hofen, what’s up?” Marcos and Brentor appeared from the pathway behind Artelus, and none too soon.

  I struggled to steady my voice before replying. “It appears I have been challenged.”

  “Oh?” Marcos looked at Artelus. “This is most interesting. Brentor, be so good as to fetch High-Master Chendor. He would be most eager to watch this. Don’t you think?”

  “Quite right.” Brentor nodded rapidly. “Please don’t continue until I return. The High-Master would be very disappointed to miss any of the action.”

  Artelus glanced back and forth at the three of us with a calculating expression, probably wondering if he could take all of us at the same time. We stood and waited, me near his front, my friends at his rear, until he dropped his arms. He glared. “You will all pay for this.” Then, he turned on his heel and hurried away.

  I bowed to Marcos and Brentor. “That was a timely arrival.”

  Marcos shrugged. “We watch out for our friends. Especially from his kind.”

  “We heard him from around the corner on our way to class and hurried over. Bullies.” Brentor shook his head, and they headed back the way they had come.

  Well over a year had passed since Artelus beat me bloody, requiring High-Master Chendor to place me in a special healing bath. After that incident he had maintained a low profile, probably to avoid drawing the masters’ attention, even though I had refused to name him as my attacker. My mind was made up to handle the older boy myself once I was ready, but clearly that time had not yet arrived. Although they were training me at a rapid pace, Artelus’ own training progressed as well and it was quite possible I might never catch up. Still, I meant to try. Bullies needed to be beaten. It was the only language they truly understood.

  “Line up, apprentices,” Wohl called out as I arrived at class.

  I stepped into place behind the new apprentices and tried to ignore Babette’s presence several rows over. It wasn’t hard to do since she was completely ignoring me. Not a single shared glimpse or smile. Then class began and my attention turned toward Wohl.

  A light frozen drizzle dampened our robes when Wohl gave us a ten-minute break to stretch. Spaldeer sat across from me lowering his head to one knee while I shared my encounter with Artelus loud enough for Babette to hear. Her back was to me, but she froze in mid-stretch when I mentioned it and did not resume until I revealed how Marcus and Brentor had appeared just in time to save me.

  “Wow, that was good luck,” Spaldeer said.

  Alder shuddered. “I almost got my butt kicked by him last week in the break room, except Journeyman Ipsik happened to poke his head in to see what was about. When he did, I practically ran out of there to my room and didn’t look back until I was inside.”

  “He wouldn’t actually hurt anyone,” Wermack chimed in hopefully. “I mean, it’s not allowed. Right?”

  “No, it’s not allowed, but that doesn’t stop it from happening,” Spaldeer replied with bitterness. “It seems Artelus and his sidekicks are growing bold again.”

  The boy looked scared and started to protest that we must be mistaken, when Wohl called the class back in session.

  We paired off and practiced forearm redirects for a couple of hours until Journeyman Krellus called me out of class.

  “Follow me,” he said brusquely. We headed toward Apprentice Avenue taking the same path I had traveled to arrive at class this morning.

  “Where are we going?” I asked. Usually he just brought me to an unused courtyard corner to teach me advanced techniques like forms, stances, and kicking.

  He clapped a hand against my back. “Today, we begin an exciting new chapter in your training. You are going to learn a technique no apprentice has ever seen.”

  And for one exciting, thrilling moment I put Babette and her strange behavior completely from my mind.

  Chapter Fourteen—A Special Technique

  Excitement coursed through me like a lightning bolt as I followed him at a brisk pace. “What is it?”

  Journeyman Krellus chuckled, but beneath his mirth I detected an undercurrent of concern. “Easy, boy. What have I tried to teach you about the art of patience, eh?”

  With an effort I stopped myself from asking further questions. To my surprise, when we reached Apprentice Avenue he turned to the right. “This leads to the special training building where High-Master Chendor gave me that healing bath.”

  “I’m pleased by your observance,” was all he would reply.

  Indeed, after arriving at that building, we turned onto the pathway that led to the door and walked up the stone steps. Journeyman Krellus called out a greeting to a low-journeyman raking dead leaves from the brown grass on one side of the doorway. Then, he pulled a large key from his pocket and opened the door. The key was shiny, as though freshly minted, and the lock turned without protest. They must have replaced the locks along with the master keys.

  We stepped inside a dark, musty hallway and paused until our eyes adjusted to the dimness. Journeyman Krellus lit a small oil lamp from a table on one side of the door before locking it behind us. He lifted the lamp in hand and motioned me to follow, turning down the hallway to the left. We passed a few of the thick, oaken doors that lined the hall on both sides before he stopped before one and unlocked it with the same key.

  “Down,” he said.

  The stairs were made from wooden planks and squeaked as I descended. Journeyman Krellus followed close behind, holding up the lamp to light the way. The walls were cut from stone blocks and felt damp to my fingertips when I steadied myself at the first turn. At the bottom of the next turn another door waited, but he had me continue down the steps until we arrived at another landing. Here he stopped to turn the iron handle and pushed the door open, the hinges squealing in protest, and we entered a large, open chamber. A perimeter of torches suspended in iron brackets provided just enough dim, flickering light to see by. There was no furniture or anything within.

  As I started forward Journeyman Krellus placed an arm in fron
t of me. “Before you step inside, observe the room first and see if you can discern its purpose. Never assume an empty room is truly empty.”

  My eyes flickered across the length and depth of the chamber, noting the same stone walls as the staircase, a high-beamed ceiling, and a discolored dirt floor.

  Discolored?

  Squinting, I exhaled sharply. The floor was not consistent but broken up by a series of nine large, square pits, lined up in three rows and columns. The nearest one was only a stride before us, about knee deep, with two more pits to the right, and two more straight ahead toward the opposite wall. From left to right, then up and to the left, then up and right again, each opening grew smaller and smaller, until the furthest pit at the far right of the chamber could barely fit a grown man standing upright.

  Journeyman Krellus lowered his arm, allowing me to step carefully forward and peer inside the closest pit. At the bottom was some kind of matting that rested over hard-packed dirt. I turned and looked at him with one eyebrow raised, unsure what this all meant.

  “Get into the first pit.”

  “Journeyman?”

  “Now!”

  I jumped off the edge and into the pit, landing near the side. The opening came up to my knees as I had estimated. The matting cushioned my impact with the ground, making it less abrupt than it would have been otherwise. I knelt to feel what might be inside the fabric.

  “Moss and feathers.” Journeyman Krellus clapped his hands sharply to get my attention from the floor. “Now jump out.”

  With a shrug, I put my hand on the edge of the pit.

  Journeyman Krellus’ foot struck my fingers. “I said, jump.”

  Glancing up at his stern expression I realized he was in training mode, though how this could be considered training I had no clue. Still, an apprentice did not challenge a journeyman’s instructions, so I gave a little skip and launched myself from the pit.

  “Again.”

  I turned and jumped back into the pit, turned, and jumped out.

  “Again, until the incense burns out.” He lit a tall stick from a wooden cupboard hanging on the wall, then placed it into a brass bowl-shaped incense burner resting on a small table next to the doorway.

  I jumped in and out of the pit as ordered with a small chuckle, wondering if my mentor had misjudged the strength in my legs. Determined to point out his misunderstanding I took up a rapid pace, hoping to put this silly, childish exercise behind us and resume with some real instruction. Journeyman Krellus simply stood there next to the table, watching me closely.

  When the incense stick had only burned down a quarter way my legs began to ache, forcing me to slow down. Sweat covered my body in a fine sheen when the incense was a third of the way down, and breathing became difficult from its bitter, smoky vapors.

  By the half-way mark my feet were barely able to reach the edge of the pit. A short while later, I could no longer make it out, so I collapsed at the bottom to massage my aching legs.

  “Stretch.” Journeyman Krellus nodded his head, smiling. “That is very good for your first time in the pits. You have been doing your stretches and leg exercises well. From now on, spend twice as much time on them every morning.”

  I lifted my head from one knee, struggling to loosen the tightened muscles throbbing throughout my calves and thighs. “What sort of training is this? I thought my legs were strong, yet they could not handle something so simple.”

  He didn’t answer for a few moments, then nodded his head, looking away. “This is the chamber to train in the specialized technique called buoyancy. I have mastered it, and you shall as well.” His voice lowered. “It has saved my life on more than one occasion.”

  A surge of excitement shot through me, followed by confusion. “Wait. Specialized techniques are reserved for journeymen alone and I am but a low-apprentice. You’ve been teaching me directly for many months now, pulling me from my basic classes. When I do attend them, everything they teach I’ve already learned through you. Can you please explain why?”

  Journeyman Krellus turned away from me so that all I could see was his enrobed back and rigid shoulders. “It is High-Master Chendor’s wish to take full advantage of your natural talents. Still, other than some overlap in technique, what you say is easy for you is certainly not my doing. You are the one who breezes through regular training on your own, and what I have shown you only builds upon what you learn there.”

  I bit my lip, still puzzled. “Even so, why teach an apprentice the secrets of journeymen?”

  He turned back around to face me and in the flickering torchlight I could see his eyes were wet. “It is not my desire that you should be placed into special danger as I lost a good friend that way, and you a father. Being a peacekeeper is dangerous enough. But the path I’ve shown you, the one most peacekeepers follow, is not the only road forward here. I never suspected your fighting talents would illuminate you in a sunbeam of attention and incite the High-Master’s personal interest. My intention in bringing you to the guild was to remove you from risk, not increase it.”

  My head whirling, I jumped back to my feet, but could only focus on one part of what he’d just revealed to me. “What does my father have to do with this?”

  Journeyman Krellus knelt at the edge of the pit to place a hand on my shoulder. His voice was soft and mournful. “Your father, Bertrand, was my friend, and I miss him. He was a good man, and because he was a good man, I asked him for a favor. That favor put him in harm’s way. I’ve inadvertently done the same to his son.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand. Why would you ask him for a favor? How did you come to know him?”

  Journeyman Krellus straightened and held out his hand but made no reply. I grasped it and let him pull me from the pit back up to level ground. My head spun. I knew my father had been murdered but how was Journeyman Krellus involved?

  My hand gripped his forearm. “What happened to my father?”

  Journeyman Krellus’ lips thinned, and his eyes took on a faraway expression.

  His reluctance to answer my question filled me with anger. “It was your fault?”

  His head lifted as though I had slapped him, but his eyes locked on mine and remained steady. “Yes. And damn it all, you deserve an explanation. But if I tell you, you must swear to me, on your life, that you will tell no one what I’m prepared to tell you. Not even High-Master Chendor. He would not want you to know of this before you’re ready.”

  Curiosity overwhelmed anger and my fists unclenched. I had not even realized they had tightened. “I swear to you my absolute discretion. I must know. All this time I have never asked, yet I’ve always wondered. When I reach journeymanship I plan to request the assignment to find my father’s killer.”

  Journeyman Krellus’ eyes widened. “You knew your father was murdered?”

  Despite the somber moment, a smile tugged at the corners of my lips. “I overheard you talking to Mother the day before I came here. She had told me he drowned in the lake, that it had been an accident. Your words contradicted hers and from the sound of her sobs I knew them to be true.”

  “I see.” He pulled at his chin a moment, then nodded. “Very well, then. You shall know the truth. But first I must reveal a very deep secret, one which you must allow no one else to hear. And that includes your dearest friends.”

  “I gave my word already.”

  He heaved a great sigh.

  “The masters may put me in the circle, yet you must know eventually. Who is to say the proper time is not this very moment?”

  My heart thumped so loud I wondered if he heard it.

  Journeyman Krellus folded his hands behind his back and began pacing between where we stood and the doorway. “You well understand the role of the peacekeeper in Bellisprodus, do you not?”

  “Of course,” I replied. “To preserve and defend the Scriptures and the king, and to protect the citizens from harm by others or themselves.”

  “Very good. And that is what most believe
our only purpose to be. Even other peacekeepers understand this to be their sworn mission in life from the day they step foot inside our guild to the night they are laid to rest in their grave.”

  My forehead creased. “Are you saying there is more?”

  He stopped pacing and faced me again. “For a select few of us there is more.”

  “What?”

  He hesitated, then took a deep breath. “We call ourselves protectors, and one of our primary missions is to hunt down renegade peacekeepers.”

  “Renegade—”

  He put a hand on my shoulder. “Listen closely. Most peacekeepers who retire do so with an understanding of silence, but that isn’t always the case. A small percentage of apprentices—and even journeymen—who cannot handle the rigors of training, or disagree with our methods or rules, leave our guild under less than cordial terms.” He grimaced. “And, as I’ve already told you, there was one journeyman who broke free from the Circle and escaped.”

  “That must have been Abrigus, then. But everyone here already knows someone once escaped the Circle, Journeyman Krellus. The older apprentices tease us about it often, that we’ll be next, and we won’t be the ones who get away.”

  He smiled. “They know we meant to execute him, of course, but not what he’s been up to since he escaped.”

  This gave me pause. “What has he done besides steal books?”

  His face darkened and his voice dropped. “When I hunt for Abrigus, it is not just he I must track down and kill, but his students.”

  My mouth dropped open and I thought of the man who had tried to kill me after I met Abrigus. That man had demonstrated a peacekeeper fighting stance. It had been bizarre, but I’d thought little of it since, other than he must have picked up a few things watching Abrigus. “He is training peacekeepers?”

  Journeyman Krellus again stopped in front of me, and his voice hissed. “No, warmakers. He shares our secrets with the unscrupulous and dishonorable, the dregs of society we typically protect good, honest citizens from, and perverts everything we’re meant to be.”