“You have failed to kill him once more,” King Arsinol Deutzani said quietly, his anger barely contained. Tar Navarra seemed nonplussed, but Ja Brude sat perfectly still, his eyes never leaving the Executioner, as if he expected the man to attack at any moment.
“Our little dance was interrupted,” Navarra answered dimly, realizing that if the young Prince’s skill with weapons continued to improve it would be highly unlikely that he would be able to handle him alone. This was not the type of information he would share with the King or anyone else, but he was not above using an army to kill, if need be. He was an Executioner, what mattered was death, not how it was achieved.
“It seems there are Tars on Noble Island, and they have grown fond of the boy,” he added sarcastically, but was not about to go into the whole story behind the failure. Sergeant Lindsay and the others would also hold their tongues, if they knew what was good for them.
“I want him dead!” Arsinol yelled between bites of pork, slamming the handle of his knife on the table as he spoke.
“He will die,” Navarra stated simply.
“How? How will he die?”
“The Competitions are coming at year’s end,” Navarra said with a smile. “I believe it is still open to all the peoples of the Inland Sea.”
King Arsinol smiled in return.
“It would be dangerous to do such a thing with so many eyes present,” Ja finally spoke up.
Navarra turned to look at him, his stare making the King’s advisor uncomfortable.
“Accidents happen,” Navarra and the King said in unison and everyone smiled.
ǂ
Gwaynn woke early, Mille’s death still weighing heavily on his mind, but thankfully he remembered no dreams from the night before. The eastern sky was just beginning to glow from the light of the sunrise to come. Tar Nev was already up and waiting for him, sitting cross-legged in the grass field in front of the cabin. Gwaynn walked quietly over to him.
“You are eager to start?” Nev asked without turning around.
Gwaynn smiled. “No more than you,” he answered at which Nev chuckled.
“That is true. I have waited a long time for this day,” the Tar answered, rising gracefully to his feet.
“Here is the first big secret,” Nev said, his twisted smile barely showing in the darkness of the early morning. He was holding out a set of katas. Gwaynn frowned. He already had a pair of practice katas, but he reached out and took the new pair, he nearly dropped them. They were heavy, very heavy. Gwaynn transferred one to his left hand and lifted them, gauging their weight. He looked up at Nev questioningly.
“Five times the weight of a normal set,” he explained. “Practice with these and your blows will be fast and powerful. Come,” he added and began to walk up past the cabin. He stopped along the side wall and picked up a pair of logs from the pile and motioned for Gwaynn to do likewise. Gwaynn tucked his new katas in his pants, very aware of their weight and selected two larger logs, hoping to impress his new master. Nev just raised an eyebrow and led him out back and onto a path that led up the slopes of Mount Erato. They followed the trail as it slanted up through the fields of grass and onto the more rocky slopes. Before they’d gone a half a mile, the path began to switch back and forth so as not to be too steep to navigate and it wasn’t long before Gwaynn wished he had chosen smaller logs. He shook his head in disgust at his earlier wish to impress. They were only about a quarter of the way up the mountain when the sun suddenly popped up above the horizon. Gwaynn stopped a moment to look back. He was surprised that he could see Herra below in the distance and beyond that the lower part of the island. The sun was a bright red ball shining through a bank of clouds just above the gleaming Inland Sea.
“It is beautiful,” Nev said and then without another word turned away and led Gwaynn higher and higher up the mountain.
Gwaynn was breathing rapidly and his legs were shaky and tired by the time Nev stopped just over three-quarters of the way to the top. Nev set his logs on the ground and Gwaynn followed suit by dropping his own, flexing his arms from the pain. The Tar then led Gwaynn to a rocky overhang and they sat on the very edge, their legs dangling out over a quarter of a mile drop off. From here, the whole of the island was visible, including the port towns of Hymnia and Euter.
“It looks much smaller from up here,” Gwaynn said as he sat next to his new Master.
“Excellent,” Tar Nev said. “But is it smaller?”
Gwaynn frowned. The question made no sense. Of course the island was not smaller. It stayed the same size no matter where you viewed it, but he refrained from answering right away. Tar Nev must have had a reason for such a question.
Nev smiled, noticing the boy’s hesitation. “Well?” he asked.
“No, the island is not smaller. It just appears so from up here,” Gwaynn answered curious about where all this was going.
“Hmmm,” Nev answered tilting his head a bit. “So you are saying that our perceptions have no affect on the outside world?”
Gwaynn thought for another moment and then nodded his head. “Yes. The island is the size it is no matter what I think.”
“Well,” Nev said sounding for the entire world like he was not sure of this answer. “We will see.”
The Tar stood and Gwaynn rose with him. “The second secret,” Nev said, “is yet another simple one. You must make your way to this cave everyday, rain or shine.”
Gwaynn looked about and in the side of the mountain, hidden by a large boulder and a stump of a tree was indeed the mouth of a cave. Nev led the way past the boulder, picking up his logs as he went. Gwaynn followed and immediately noticed that the mouth of the cave was quite large, almost twice his height and nearly three times as wide, but it wasn’t until they stepped into it that Gwaynn noticed that the cave actually had three separate openings. The one they entered was actually the smallest and was located on the far left. Inside was a cavern almost two hundred yards deep. The ceiling was about twenty feet high and nearly flat. It was held up by three massive, natural stone columns. It was darker inside than out but it only took Gwaynn’s eyes a few moments to adjust. Near the center of the cavern and close to one of the columns were the remains of a large fire pit. Nev walked over to the pit and placed his logs onto a stack of wood. Gwaynn dropped his also.
“Please bring up two logs everyday,” Nev said then sat down, crossed his legs and leaned his back against the rock column. “You may bring a smaller pair if you wish,” he added with a smile. Nev motioned Gwaynn to sit next to him and he did so, then the Tar pulled out a feather.
“The final secret is by far the hardest to master,” he said and held the feather up in front of him, but slightly above his head. He held it there for a long moment, gazing with a slight smile into Gwaynn’s eyes, which darted from the man before him to the feather above. Finally Nev released the feather and it began to slowly float down to the cave floor. It paused midway down, but it was several long seconds before Gwaynn realized that it had completely stopped and was no longer moving downward. In fact, it was not moving at all.
Gwaynn frowned and glanced at Tar Nev, who was still smiling, his eyes on Gwaynn’s and not on the feather at all. Gwaynn glanced back and forth a few times but the feather was perfectly motionless, hanging midway between them.
“How?” Was all Gwaynn could manage, his attention riveted on the still stationary feather. He passed a hand over it and then under it, but the feather still did not move. Finally he blew a puff of air at it expecting the ends of the feather rippled but they did not.
“Are you doing that?” he asked, his mouth popping open. “How is it possible?”