This story is protected under international and Pan-American copyright conventions. Please remember to donate to Nifty if you are financially able to do so.
Author information: Website: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/books.html Email: kavrik@hotmail.com Art from my stories: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/my-artwork.html
I previously published "Wraith" on the Nifty Archive. It can be found at: http://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/sf-fantasy/wraith/
I finished a new picture of Jordan from "Oculus", the sequel to "Slipstream", and it's in full color. Check it out at my art page (he's wearing a leather jacket).
"The Assassin's Apprentice" is told in first person present tense and has been heavily edited.
Chapter Five
By the time I finish my last pull-up, I'm breathing hard and sweat drips from my body. He allows me to take a ten minute break, but he insists that I keep moving to avoid unwanted stiffness. The air cools, and I hear the plop of drops hitting the roof above. I welcome the shift in temperature.
"Kata," he says, "is a breathing exercise which will also teach you grace and put your mind in balance with your body. The universe," he adds, "is a combination of the three principles of mind, body, and soul. Tune the one and the others shall follow suit."
He stands up and gestures for me to imitate his movements. Constantine begins to stretch and guide his hands; he is a shadow instructor settling for nothing short of perfection.
"I learned this from an oriental prince named Ashimuri. He's a great and powerful man, and he taught me the ways of the ancient Doma. Consider yourself blessed that I now pass them onto you."
"A prince?" I ask him, carefully eyeing the placement of his toes.
"Yes," he replies, continuing with the strange movements. No part of him remains still just like the waves of a churning ocean. "Ashimuri is a direct descendant of the Chrysanthemum Throne, which traces its lineage back to when the first tribes of man crawled from their fishing boats to behold the chain of volcanic islands that are home to the land of the eternally rising suns. Prince Ashimuri is the finest warrior I've ever met, and a master of the death kick."
"The death kick?" I say with some inflection, hoping to lead him into an explanation of this particular maneuver.
"Imagine the power to crush your opponent's rib cage through what appears to be heavy armor, Kian. This is what the death kick can do. Its performance eludes me, but I use martial arts to center my being and not as the ultimate field of my study. Perhaps in a few more years, I will understand its secret."
I continue performing the kata following his graceful and sometimes difficult actions. I do this for about an hour, and the rain suddenly becomes a thick downpour.
Without warning, Constantine stops. Water pours from my wet bangs.
"That'll be all for today, Kian. Be here tomorrow at precisely dawn." Then, he turns his back on me and walks into his room.
I gather my belongings into my extremely sore arms, and I'm surprised to find some money there whereas I had none before. I don't say anything, and I leave Constantine without so much as a wave. I think he wants it this way.
I find Talen later that afternoon outside near our perch on the fence that overlooks a busy road. I'm tired and aching in every muscle, but before I can speak, he hugs me. I manage to take a whiff of his hair and find the scent pleasant. I close my eyes and let it drift into my petite nostrils. Then he tells me that Ambrell has gotten hurt.
"She was on a mission to rob a weapons store yesterday and got cut badly by some falling glass."
Ah, so this is what he learned about last evening.
I try not to let the disappointment show in my eyes because I'd rather have lived a few more days thinking that Talen was worried for me and not some girl. For example, why couldn't Talen be concerned that Constantine had chosen to take ME as his pupil because his students had a tendency to turn up dead? That at least might get me laid tonight. Would it be ethical to play that card?
I realize I don't care about ethics.
If it gets Talen's lips wrapped around my veiny cock and my low hanging balls onto his chin, I've no doubt I'll play any card in the deck just to have him on his knees swallowing my cum. Just thinking about it makes me hard in my trousers. I turn sideways because in these pants, only a blind man would miss the bulge creeping down my leg.
I just hope Talen doesn't notice.
He rubs his eyes, still worrying for Ambrell. Good. I pray my erection subsides soon. I think of the waves of sand in the garden and breathe slowly, trying to calm the rage of my blood.
"I'm sure she'll be okay," I say. It's lip service. I don't know just how hurt she is. To change the subject, I tell him about my day. When I mention Constantine, Talen looks at me with trembling eyes--a reaction I didn't anticipate.
"He's the guild's assassin, and the most feared man in the city."
Talen pauses to turn his head toward the sky which has grown thick with lightning. I love the color of all that electricity reflecting on the mirrored surface of his irises.
"Be careful around him, Kian. He's extremely dangerous. I don't think that Marcel trusts him, but even the guild master is afraid of a confrontation. The students he taught before you...they're all dead, Kian. He killed them."
Did I call that one, or what?
I'm not afraid of Constantine. But now I have a card to play.
I look at Talen ready to put my tongue in his mouth and spot tears rimming his eyes.
Fuck.
Why did it have to be tears?
He knew them all, I imagine. I want to lay a guilt trip on him, get him into bed, and fuck his bubble butt all night. But I know the right thing to do is to console my buddy...to somehow comfort him. So, I put my arms around him in a genuine hug. I feel his hand rub me gently on the back, and for the first time in my life, I feel I have a purpose. I need to stay alive for him and to avenge the boys that Talen knew that Constantine butchered.
I'm not getting laid tonight.
"He won't get the best of me," I whisper.
Swift catches up with me after dinner, and he tells me that it's time for me to learn how to walk silently. From the snickers I hear from my friends in the common room, I gather this must be quite the experience.
In the basement of the guild there's a training room where the members can practice their skills. Swift introduces me to a man named Whistler. He's what you'd call a dwarf--a short person with stumpy arms and a severely misshapen spine that gives him a hunchback. He has a large torso and head and eyes me coldly, like a new piece of meat.
Whistler takes one look at me and snickers to Swift. "This is the one that's been making all the ruckus around here, eh?"
Swift nods making introductions. With that done, he takes a seat on the straw mat. By the looks of him, he probably has nothing better to do.
"Beings quiet is all about the position of your feet. That and it depends a lot on how balanced you are, and how much you weigh," Whistler says. "When a man wants to walk quiet, he rests his weight on his arch and carries the load farther up on his foot. To do this for hours is tiring for all but the most athletically gifted."
"I don't tire easily," I say.
He rolls his eyes looking at Swift. "I suppose you don't."
Bragging aside, I can see what he's saying. For the majority of my life, I never consciously practiced the art of stealth unless it meant fucking in a way that didn't wake a man's wife who slept in the next room. It certainly didn't matter as a prisoner except when I broke out. But when I did that, I remember moving along on the balls of my feet with all the weight resting forward on my toes.
"Listen up, young fella. The art of the unheard footfall is also a matter of learning WHEN to put your weight on something. And," Whistler adds, "when that weight is going to be too much. When something breaks," he snaps his fingers for dramatic effect, "it makes noise. Whenever anything tears or moves, it makes a sound. That's how nightingale floors are constructed. You hire a carpenter specifically to build a floor just so...and when any weight is put on it, the boards rub together like a cricket rubbing his legs against his wings. Music to some," he mutters, "an alarm to others."
"So," I start to say, "If I'm going across one of these floors or climbing...say...a flight of stairs that's built like this, how can I quiet up?"
Whistler ponders this for a moment.
"There's a number of ways, and you'll get better at it with practice. First of all, wear leather gloves. Get them as thin as possible so that you don't lose any of the feeling in your hand. You also want to be able to move your fingers as well with them on as you do with them off. But you'll want to have a good grip with them too. When you cross the floor, place your hand on the wall helping to disperse your weight. The less you weigh the less stress you're going to put on the boards beneath you. You also want to keep moving. Dead weight has nowhere else to go but down. Live weight responds to the direction in which you're headed. If you're running across a floor, your weight is going down and across at vectors that are at right angles to each other. The result is that all of your weight, instead of going straight down, is carried at an angle across the floor. That's why you can skip a stone over water. All of its weight isn't going straight down."
I frown. There's a lot more to this being quiet stuff than I originally thought.
"That's not all my dear boy. Oh no," Whistler states with a chuckle. "If you're exceptionally able at it, you'll get to where you'll require only an inch or so of space, walking on a single wooden beam, etc. That minimizes the amount of movement any board can make. As for stairs, you'll get to where you'll be skipping steps on a regular basis. The less surface area you touch, the less noise you make. It's that simple."
I look over at Swift. He winks at me in an encouraging sort of way. "You'll get it chap. It just takes time. It took me three months to get really good at it."
Whistler laughs. "Master Swift is modest. Only one boy learned the art faster."
I turn to him. "How long did it take Talen?"
Whistler looks askew for a moment. "Tethyr's teeth, but you guessed his name. Two months and young Talen was the quietest one around here. It's unusual to get the technique down so quickly."
Suddenly, I have a goal. I believe...no, I KNOW I'm more talented than Talen. It's like I have a hollow space inside that hungers for validation, and it's urging me to prove to everyone just how capable I am. My mastery of the art of the unheard footfall will give me a chance to prove my worth both to myself and to my friends.
"Show me," I say.
"Well," Whistler says. "I was just coming to that bit of unpleasantness. I've come up with an invention..." As his voice trails off, he points at a roll of cloth on his seat. He picks it up and presents it to me. "I took two pieces of cotton cloth and sewed several tacks into them. I put these into your boot to keep you from putting your weight down on certain areas of your foot. If you do put your weight down, well, these tacks are nice and sharp. You'll draw a good deal of blood if you stand on them with any force."
I must've looked despondent. Just envisioning these things under my feet brought back memories of prison. I swallow hard and meet his gaze with mine. "Tacks in my boots?" I ask. I wanted to make sure I heard him right. He nods and dispels any notion of mine that I hadn't heard him right. "Is that all? I thought it'd be harder than that." I stop myself at that point.
Confidence in the face of pain is dignified. Overconfidence is just plain stupid.
Whistler smiles at me and motions for me to sit on the stool. When I do so, he kneels next to me and takes my left boot in his hand. He probes with his fingers down and around my ankle and pulls the leather boot off, setting it aside while looking at my foot.
I'd been walking all day, and my feet looked a bit damp. Because of my race, my sweat doesn't produce the foul odor that plagues most humans. Atlanteans are prized sexual objects because of this, and our perspiration is considered an aphrodisiac.
"You've got quite a nasty scar here," he indicates trailing his finger along my arch. It tickles, and I jerk my leg ever so slightly. "Number ninety-eight. I think that's what it says."
Swift leans over and takes a look. "Yup," he agrees. "Number ninety-eight."
I shrug, dismissing it as unimportant. I can't read. It's one of the things that I'm deeply ashamed of because only stupid people can't read. And I don't want to be called stupid. I can't say, however, that I'm surprised a number has been branded on me. It's easier to abuse a number. If you know it's a human being, then it's harder to rape, beat, and even kill.
"There are a few adjustments I need to make here, Kian. It'll only take a minute." Whistler, starts cutting cloth and holding it to the bottom of my arch to make sure that when he places it, that it's perfect.
"Do you have elven blood in your veins?" he asks me.
I look at him skeptically. "I don't think so," I say.
He looks up at me, his expression whimsical. "You've got beautiful feet. Perfect even with fine bones, long lean toes, and clear nails. These are the kind that people would pay to suck, you know? There are lots of wealthy patrons looking for pretty boy feet. They'd pay handsomely to get their tongues on these babies."
"I'm well aware of that," I say with distaste.
"Ah. Well I'm just making conversation. Your feet have a kind of grace that's usually elven in nature. That and you've got a runner's arch here. I'll wager you can run fast and for a long time."
"I'm Atlantean," I say.
Whistler pauses and I feel eyes looking at me.
"Did I say anything wrong?"
"There ARE no Atlanteans, boy," Whistler says. "They're civilization was swallowed by the oceans many years ago."
"But perhaps he is just yet," Swift murmurs. "It explains everything about how he looks. I've heard of Atlanteans and many of their books and scrolls survived the destruction that sent the cities of Atlantea to the bottom of the sea. Obviously, these books and scrolls were carried by refugees and survivors."
Whistler mumbles something I can't quite understand under his breath. He fits my boot with the cloth and tacks then and wraps my foot in a layer of cotton gauze to further hold them in place. Next, he does the same to my other foot.
After it's done, I put my boots back on and stand up. It feels like I'm being forced to go around with all of my weight on my toes. With some adjustment, though (and I admit there are a few minor sticks) I'm able to discover rather quickly the most painless way to walk. By the Gods am I quiet!
"You don't have to thank me," Whistler remarks. There's a trace of sarcasm in his voice.
"When can they come off?"
"Barely put them on and already asking when they can come off." Whistler puts finger to chin in a thinking pose. "Perhaps in four months. That's the average time. Of course, if you can prove before then that you can walk across dried leaves or rice paper without a sound, I'll take them off right then."
I grind my teeth together and look down at my leather boots. I swear to myself that I will have them off in less than two months. Failure is not an option.
I will post Chapter Six this weekend.