The Apprentice In The Master’s Shadow

by Ian Gregoire

  For several minutes Kayden was led on a winding course through the streets of Nagornorak. Eventually they entered an area that could best be described as ‘less desirable’. It was a rundown neighbourhood populated by the city’s underclass of poverty-stricken residents, the sort of place where people had to watch their money pouch during the day, never mind at night. Rotting garbage festered in gutters, rubbish was piled up outside homes, and pungent odours tainted the air. Kayden’s first instinct was to be suspicious about the prospect of a meeting between herself and Josario’s followers taking place in such an obviously unsafe environment, but she rationalised it on the basis that a cult led by an infamous criminal would want to avoid areas where they were likely to encounter the City Guard.

  Close on her guide’s heels, she halted when he stopped at the gated entry to an alleyway separating two residential buildings. Safin glanced back at her and told her to wait for him while he proceeded beyond the gate to make sure Josario’s people had arrived. She gave him the go ahead and he pushed open the wrought iron gate to enter the alleyway. While she waited, standing in the light cast by lanterns hanging above nearby doorways, Kayden noticed curtains twitching behind windows on the opposite side of the street. She was obviously being watched, but she guessed she must look very suspicious loitering where she was, dressed all in black with her hood pulled over her head.

  The gate to the alleyway opened a short while later, and Safin stuck his head out. “They’re ready to meet you now.” he said, holding the gate wide open. “This way, if you please.”

  Kayden entered the darkened alleyway and eagerly advanced ahead of Safin—enough time had already been wasted waiting for the meeting. As she approached the end of the narrow alley she could see that it led into a lit rectangular courtyard in front of another residential building, but there was something wrong with the view. There was no apparent source for the light illuminating the courtyard, it was far too clean compared the rest of the vicinity, and Kayden could sense Zarantar Jist emanating from there. She shuffled to a halt, confused. A Jaymidari was concealing something from view at the end of the alley.

  With a wave of the hand, Kayden invoked Yuksaydan to neutralise the Sister’s handiwork, and expose whatever was being hidden from sight. Rapidly, the view of the courtyard faded away, and Kayden found herself staring at a brick wall right in front of her face. The alleyway actually terminated at a dead-end. An exasperated sigh escaped her mouth, and her shoulders slumped. How could she have been so stupid? How many gullible fools had she lured into ambushes, to be robbed at knifepoint when she was a runaway kid living on the streets of Tulido?

  Annoyed with herself, Kayden invoked Yuksaydan, reaching out with the ‘unseen hand’ to seize hold of the fleeing Safin before he could exit the alleyway. He was pulled fifty feet through the air and landed at Kayden’s booted feet. She wasted no time grabbing the elderly man with her bare hands, pulling him up onto his feet.

  “Did you really think you could set me up?” she snarled in his face. “I warned you what would happen if you messed me—”

  Her rant died on the tip of her tongue when she sensed an imminent Zarantar strike. Tilting her head to one side, to see past her duplicitous contact, Kayden’s eyes widened in alarm as she saw the incendiary orb hurtling down the alley. Reflexively, she shoved Safin away, preparing to repel the sneak attack, but she wasn’t quick enough. The flaming projectile struck the old man in the back, blowing him to pieces, and the force of the detonation lifted Kayden off her feet. She was thrown through the air, colliding heavily against the dead-end wall behind her, where she collapsed face down in a heap, splattered with blood and viscera.

  Lying on her front, dazed and hurt, Kayden didn’t attempt to get up off the ground. Slowly, she raised her aching head so she could glimpse the other end of the alleyway. A cloaked, hooded figure was advancing down the alley towards her, but her attacker wasn’t yet close enough to be identified. She decided to play dead until whomever was approaching was close enough to take by surprise. Seconds later the mysterious attacker was halfway down the alley. She saw his face beneath the hood, and was taken aback when she realised she had seen him before. It was the foreign-looking man she had seen staring at her in the Three Crows Inn earlier that day.

  As she waited for him to come just a little closer, she sensed Zarantar emanating from behind the dead-end wall. Alarmed, she glanced back just in time to see the incorporeal form of a thirty-something woman pass through the bricks like an apparition. Her first instinct was that the newcomer was the Jaymidari responsible for the illusion of the unreal courtyard she had seen moments ago, but having just utilised an application of Zarantar Shayd there was no way this woman was from the Sisterhood. She was a Sanatsai.

  Attired in well-worn, dark leather fatigues, the woman standing over Kayden’s prone body was close to six feet tall, her auburn locks tightly braided into several neat rows running from front to back, and her bare arms were the most muscular Kayden had seen on a woman. She had a sword strapped to her back, a dagger strapped to her right leg, and Kayden had no doubt that she knew how to use them.

  “I’m sorry, Hansi,” said the woman in husky tone, “but I’ve decided not to share the kill with you this time.” She thrust out a hand towards Kayden’s attacker.

  Kayden was surprised to sense Zarantar Jist from a woman so obviously not affiliated with the Sisterhood, but the end result was unmistakeably indicative of someone taught by the Sisterhood. She glanced at her hooded, foreign attacker to find that he was caught within an inertia field, causing him to move in exaggerated slow motion. Instantly, Kayden rolled onto her back knowing that the intervention was to allow the tall, muscular woman to kill her before the man she had addressed as Hansi could do so. The situation she had found herself in was obviously not an attempted robbery. She was being targeted by hired killers.

  Thrusting a hand at her female adversary, Kayden invoked Yuksaydan to immobilise the woman in a vice-like grip, and pin her against the dead-end wall, while she scrambled unsteadily to her feet.

  “If you think I can be killed so easily,” she said, “think again.”

  A wry smile curled the woman’s lips, despite being constrained. Kayden quickly peered back over her shoulder once she realised why. Her adversary had neutralised the inertia field slowing down the hooded foreigner who was now primed to attack. Sensing his imminent Zarantar strike, she spun around to face him, but his invocation of Yuksaydan seized hold of her before she could defend herself. She was savagely thrown against one side of the alley then the other. It was as though her assailant was trying to break her body against the walls of the two residential buildings on either side of the alley. Managing to keep her wits about her, she neutralised the invisible hold on her with her own invocation of Yuksaydan, and while down on her knees she unleashed a trio of incendiary orbs at her male adversary.

  Just in time, the hooded man invoked a barrier shield across the alleyway, between himself and the oncoming orbs. The translucent barrier withstood the force of the first two detonations, but the third brought it down, leaving the wide-eyed Sanatsai exposed. Realising she had no choice, Kayden unleashed a fourth incendiary orb to kill the man. The fiery ball of death blinked out of existence before it struck him, and Kayden spun around sharply to confront the muscular woman who’d just intervened to save the life of her hooded acquaintance, Hansi, having freed herself from the invisible hold pinning her against the dead-end wall.

  Before the muscle-bound woman could initiate an attack of her own, Kayden invoked Yuksaydan again, unleashing the ‘unseen hand’ to simultaneously seize both opponents by the throat. Now that it was clear the duo intended to kill her, she had no qualms about strangling them both to death. They deserved to die. With the sound of Hansi choking several feet behind her, she smiled in amusement as she watched the muscle-bound woman forced down on to her knees, her face slowly turning purple as she fought in vain to neutralise the invisible grip killing her.

 
; “You lose, bitch,” Kayden intoned, staring into the woman’s eyes.

  Suddenly, a brick was torn from the wall to her right, striking the side of her face and opening a cut above her right eye. Stunned, Kayden dropped to her hands and knees, unwittingly ending the Zarantar-induced choke hold on her adversaries. She’d been so distracted by the futile effort to neutralise her invocation of Yuksaydan she failed to notice the woman’s simultaneous bid to catch her unawares.

  The tall, muscular Sanatsai woman rose to her feet, and planted a ferocious kick into Kayden’s stomach with her right foot, followed by an equally ferocious kick to the head with her left foot. Kayden collapsed in a heap on the ground, curled up into a foetal position, holding her abdomen. Eyes squeezed shut, she fought the sickening nausea brought on by the boot to the stomach. The sound of a blade being drawn from its sheath compelled her to open her eyes, and she saw the woman standing over her, rubbing her neck with her left hand and holding her sword with her right, ready to shed blood with the double-edged blade.

  “This isn’t personal, honey. It’s just business,” said the woman, sounding almost sympathetic. “Now it’s time to die.”

  Mustering a last-ditch effort to save herself, Kayden invoked Yuksaydan to throw her would-be killer down the narrow alley. The woman collided into Hansi, and the coming together led to an agonised scream as the hooded man was accidentally impaled through the thigh by his counterpart’s sword. Kayden’s relief was short-lived. Her skin began to crawl when she felt the nearby presence of Zarantar Najist, the art of the Saharbashi. Raising her eyes skyward, she saw a dark figure descend and land on the rooftop overlooking the alleyway.

  A hearty laugh issued forth from the man before he said, “It looks like this payday is mine.” He thrust out a hand, and a cloudy plume of black smoke drifted down into the alley.

  Kayden found herself unable to breathe as soon as the odourless black cloud enveloped her. In a panic, she flapped her arms wildly, trying to clear the mysterious smoke smothering her to death. She quickly recovered her wits when she heard the woman suggest a fifty-fifty split with the Saharbashi newcomer whom she addressed as Lev. If it wasn’t obvious before, Kayden now knew that she had been set up to be killed. But by who and why? She couldn’t say with any certainty, not that it mattered. Her immediate concern was breathing and escaping the alley from the disparate trio who wanted to kill her—an objective made all the more urgent because she could now sense the Zarantar of a further two people approaching the alleyway.

  Still unable to breathe, Kayden closed her eyes and invoked Kiraydan, letting loose half a dozen lightning flash orbs. Through her eyelids she saw the multiple flashes of the silent detonations that had hopefully disoriented and temporarily blinded her foes. Opening her eyes, she pushed her aching body up off the floor and stood upright to make her escape. Without bothering to check the positions of her attackers, she invoked Naymutandushay, and threw herself at the alley wall in front of her. Kayden hated the idea of running away from a fight, but she told herself that she was making a tactical retreat so she could engage the enemy on her own terms.

  Her incorporeal body passed through the wall, and she found herself in the candlelit bedroom of a young child asleep in bed. Maintaining her invocation of Naymutandushay, she simultaneously invoked Raytandushay to become invisible, then broke into a laboured run, passing effortlessly through several walls until she exited the residential building completely, and emerged in a poorly lit side street.

  She stopped briefly, looking left and right, trying to decide in which direction to run. If in doubt, go right, she silently told herself before hurriedly fleeing to the right at a brisk jog. As she fled the scene, her mind was racing. There were at least five hired killers pursuing her, though one of them was probably too injured to continue, so she couldn’t simply return to the Three Crows Inn for the night. No, she had to eliminate the threat before she resumed her mission in the morning.

  Turning invisibly into another street, it dawned on Kayden that the woman had demonstrated sufficient mastery of Zarantar Jist in the alleyway to assume that, like any Jaymidari of the Sisterhood, she could probably sense the presence and use of Zarantar. If that was the case, the woman would have no trouble following an invisible target through the streets of the city.

  As she slowed to a walk, Kayden decided she should cease her invocation of Raytandushay, but stopped herself. An idea of how she could take advantage of the situation was starting to take shape in her mind. If her would-be killers were competing with each other to kill her first, it was likely they had already split up and were searching for her separately. This scenario would favour the woman, who was not likely to tell her counterparts that she was following the Zarantar of their target, which in turn would allow Kayden to lure the woman into an ambush. All she had to do was find a nice, quiet, deserted back alley in which to set her trap.

  For several minutes Kayden scurried haphazardly down side-streets, and through alleyways. The few people she saw out and about remained oblivious to her invisible presence as she passed them by. Eventually she arrived in a littered alley behind a dilapidated Anzarmenian temple. Her knowledge of religious rituals in Anzarmenia was rudimentary, but she was certain no one would be visiting the temple now that nightfall had descended upon Nagornorak, so the alley was as good a place as any to take an unsuspecting killer by surprise.

  She ceased her invocation of Raytandushay, making herself visible, then halted to take a good look, back and forth. Not another soul was in sight, and the wall of the building adjacent to the temple was windowless so she didn’t have to worry about being observed. With a casual wave of the hand, she invoked Sinjaydan to conjure an illumination orb that floated before her. Now the trap was baited. The spherical source of the pale blue glow would give the woman something to home in on while Kayden lay in wait. She turned her back on the orb, and stared up at the roof of the temple. Invoking Makfayshulat she levitated up into the air and alighted on the rooftop edge. She squatted down on her haunches, casting her gaze down at the alley below, waiting for the chance to find out who was trying to kill her, and why.

  After remaining still as a statue for what felt like an eternity, Kayden finally sensed the Zarantar of an approaching Sanatsai. She stared at the right-hand entry to the alley, hopeful that it was the woman being drawn by the Zarantar of the illumination orb below. Moments later, the tall Sanatsai woman crept cautiously around the corner alone with an incendiary orb floating above the palm of her hand. She came to a halt, looking wary at the sight of an illumination orb but no sign of someone to kill.

  Come closer! thought Kayden.

  Her right hand moved slowly to the dagger at her left hip. She drew the blade from its sheath just as slowly and quietly, mentally urging her adversary to take the bait. To Kayden’s relief, the woman extinguished her incendiary orb and advanced further into the alley to examine the abandoned illumination orb that had led her there. Slowly, the Sanatsai circled the orb, looking annoyed with herself. The instant the woman’s back was turned on her, Kayden threw herself off the temple rooftop and plummeted towards the ground. At the last possible moment, she invoked Makfayshulat to slow her descent and land gently behind her muscular opponent. Giving the woman no time to react, Kayden snaked her left arm around the Sanatsai’s torso, seizing her tightly, while bringing the dagger in her right hand under the woman’s chin to hold the blade to her throat.

  “If I get the merest hint you’re about to use your Zarantar,” Kayden hissed in her ear, “I will slit your throat, ear to ear. Understood?”

  “Understood,” her adversary replied grudgingly.

  “Good, now start talking! Who are you, and who sent you to kill me?”

  No reply was offered.

  Kayden pressed the blade more firmly to the woman’s throat, drawing blood.

  “All right!” blurted the woman. “My name is Sorsha, and I don’t know or care who wants you dead. The bottom line is that a price has been put on you
r head, and the Guild of Assassins has accepted the commission, so you will be dead before sunrise.”

  “Not if I kill you first,” Kayden retorted with defiance.

  A disdainful chuckle escaped Sorsha’s mouth. “I like you,” she said sincerely. “But your optimism is misguided. Almost three dozen assassins arrived in Nagornorak yesterday to await your arrival and the opportunity to claim the unprecedented sum of money your demise will bring. If by some miracle you’re still breathing in the morning, dozens more of us will arrive in the city looking for you. The Guild of Assassins never abandons a commission once accepted. We will pursue you to the ends of the world until you are dead.” She chuckled once more. “Someone must really hate you.”

  The notion that anyone would put a price on her head seemed unreal to Kayden. Though she had a knack for making enemies, surely no one hated her enough to pay for her death. Besides, the only feasible suspect in Anzarmenia was Josario, who couldn’t possibly know she had entered the country to hunt him down and bring him to justice. Nonetheless, if Sorsha had spoken truthfully it didn’t matter who wanted her dead, Kayden realised. She couldn’t go after Josario, let alone return to campus, with dozens of assassins on her tail.

  A gasp of surprise turned Kayden’s head sharply to the right.

  At the end of the alley a woman and a girl had spotted her holding a blade to someone’s throat, now they were hurriedly fleeing the scene. The brief distraction proved costly. Sorsha grabbed hold of Kayden’s wrist with both hands to prevent her throat being slit, then thrust herself backward, slamming Kayden fiercely against the temple wall. The back of Kayden’s head hit the wall with an audible thud, and the wind was knocked out of her, causing her hold on the assassin to yield. Sorsha took full advantage of the reprieve before Kayden could react. In one fluid motion, she snatched the dagger from Kayden’s grasp, spun around to pin her to the wall with a forearm across the chest, then plunged the blade into Kayden’s abdomen.