by Cait Ashwood
Muffled thumps rattled off in a tattoo as the two men fought, each searching for a hole in the other’s defenses. Zeche’s parry flowed into a disarming attempt, and Rowan saw the assassin’s blade headed for his neck. He didn’t question how it got there but phased out of danger. He reappeared to Zeche’s left and dropped to the ground, swinging his leg out in a sweep. Zeche threw himself into a forward somersault over the sweep and rolled back up to his feet.
“You’re improvising--good!”
Still not going to be much help against an actual Seeker. Seekers trained with each other. Zeche, for all his skill, finesse, and downright craftiness, couldn’t phase. If Rowan couldn’t train with another of his kind, he’d forever be at a disadvantage when facing them.
The men met in another flurried exchange of blows, and Rowan finally saw his opening. Zeche tended to favor his left shoulder when tired, and it stiffened him up in all the wrong ways. Rowan changed his attack pattern, working Zeche high and low before slowly drifting to his right. He feinted far left, and Zeche didn’t move fast enough. Rowan landed two hits to the ribs before dancing away, on the defensive as his master came at him with carefully controlled fury. Rowan was elated but had to keep his mind on the fight. Celebrating a victory too early had ended up with him on his ass on more than one occasion.
Rowan took a few minor hits on his arms, but nothing that would prove fatal if the blades were bare. The men were both covered in sweat, breathing heavily under the darkening sky. Zeche adjusted his grip on his weapon, and Rowan’s eyes narrowed. We’re both soaked with sweat and he’s having trouble keeping his grip. Zeche had been grumbling about needing to get into town to get the wrap on his weapon replaced. It seemed he’d been handed the perfect opportunity to disarm his master.
Rowan waited for Zeche to come at him with an overhand strike, then parried. Instead of letting the interaction end there, however, he twisted his blade, running his sword around the other blade in circles that would have been much more effective if the blades were bare. Whatever gods governed fighting must be smiling upon him today, because Zeche’s weapon went flying off to the side. The weapons master was instantly ready with a pair of daggers, far from disarmed, but he seemed reluctant to re-engage. He eventually raised his hand in a specific gesture that had been the first thing he’d ever taught Rowan: the signal to stop.
Still panting, Rowan put his sword point down with both hands on the hilt, holding it steady. They panted in the fading light, the buzz of insects growing louder as night descended.
After what seemed like ages, Zeche finally broke the silence. “You did well today.”
Rowan dipped his head in a bow, not leaving his at-rest position. “Thank you, master.”
His master grunted, prodding carefully at his ribs. “You might have actually bruised me.” He sounded mildly impressed.
Rowan found himself both pleased and somewhat insulted. Zeche had been training him to fight all his life; it seemed only natural he’d eventually be successful at it.
“Your name day is tomorrow.”
Rowan raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t expected him to remember, or do anything special. He knew that his ‘name day’ wasn’t his actual day of birth. Zeche, for whatever reason, had kept his parentage a secret from him, and Rowan had little choice but to trust his reasoning. As such, he had no idea when he was actually born. Probably to throw me off the scent, not that I’ve bothered to look.
Zeche grunted. “You’re finally learning patience, I see. Well, then.” The assassin unwound the cloth from his blade and checked his weapon over. “I’ve got a bit of a surprise for you, boy.”
When Zeche didn’t offer more information, Rowan took the bait. “What’s that, master?”
“It’s about time you stopped calling me that, I think. You’ve earned it.”
Rowan blinked, taken aback. ‘Master’ had been Zeche’s title his entire life. To be allowed to address him by name hinted at them attaining an equal status. For some reason, that terrified him. Never knowing his parents or if he had a family, Zeche had filled the gap. If the assassin was getting too old to keep at this, then what did that mean about Zeche’s general health?
Rowan shook his head, banishing the thoughts and clearing his mind. Zeche would retire when he was ready, and not a moment before. Though if I know him, he’d want to go out fighting. “Thank you.”
The assassin chuckled. “Don’t thank me yet, boy. You don’t know what it is.”
Rowan flashed him a roguish grin. “You haven’t killed me yet.”
“It’s not off the table,” Zeche grumbled, gathering his gear.
Rowan finished cleaning up their sparring site and adjusted his pack. With the world as their playground, he could never predict where Zeche was going to take him. He’d been on the top of the highest mountain in the world and visited ruins both majestic and crumbling. He’d sparred on beaches with black sand under rumbling volcanoes, and waded through jungles with swarms of bugs so thick you couldn’t see through them. Adventure called to him and his excitement bubbled under the surface of his calm demeanor. Tomorrow was his name day, and Zeche had thought up something special.
Zeche gave him the coordinates. Rowan frowned but placed his hand on his master’s shoulder. They didn’t often visit the northern hemisphere, as it had borne the brunt of the attacks during the nuclear war. Travel over the unstable land was treacherous, at best. Is this a surprise, or a test?
They took form on a small mound that stood about fifty feet above the surrounding terrain. Their sudden appearance spooked a herd of gazelle, which leaped through the grass in a flat-out sprint. Thunderclouds darkened the sky, making it harder to see.
What does Zeche have planned for me here? This place looks deserted.
Any thoughts of being allowed into the brothels for his eighteenth name day quickly vanished. The northern continents were entirely unpopulated except for a few small farming communities that existed solely to send food and supplies back to the southern cities.
In the deepening twilight, it took some time for the shapes around Rowan to coalesce into recognizable structures. Pillars stood all around him, capped off at the top by longer blocks, stretching the columns into a T shape. Rowan approached the nearest one, running his hand over the stone. His fingers found the etchings in the rock, the sharp edges of the original workmanship long since worn to smoother designs. He couldn’t quite make out the shape depicted and frowned, turning back to Zeche.
“Why are we here?”
Zeche moved silently through the deepening gloom. “This is one of humanity’s oldest places of worship. You’re a Phaser, so I thought it fitting that you take your vows here.”
Rowan paced around the circle of stones, wishing he’d thought to bring them here during the day to read the inscriptions. “How old is it, exactly?”
Zeche shrugged. “Phase us back twelve thousand years.”
Rowan stopped, staring at his master. “Twelve thousand? I’ve... never attempted that before.”
“Of course you haven’t. Take it back in smaller jumps, if that makes you feel more secure.” Zeche seemed almost bored, but it was impossible that he’d already done this. At least, it had to be, right? Zeche didn’t know any other Phasers, or if he did, he hadn’t told Rowan about them.
Zeche’s hand landing on his shoulder brought the weight of the world with it. Rowan took a breath, filling first his belly, then his chest, and lastly his throat with air. Then... they phased. First, he got a brief glimpse of a dig, many of the pillars standing only partly free of the surrounding dirt. For a few millennia, the site was nothing more than a mound of earth. At around nine thousand years, the pillars were once again free, standing proudly on their own.
Ten. He stopped long enough to gulp in some air before forcing them further back in time. Eleven. He caught a glimpse of a cat with huge, saber-like fangs protruding from its mouth. Twelve.
The entire atmosphere of the place changed. Rowan felt oddly at p
eace and glanced up into a star-strewn sky. The moon seemed larger than it did in his age, and he could make out the dark areas with greater clarity. Rowan had only stepped foot in a Grove once, right after the Order visited it. The feeling here was the same, an abundance of life surrounded by teeming energy. The air had a peculiar clarity to it, like he could both see and breathe easier. His nostrils flared as he tried to identify any scents on the wind. A fire burned not too far from the pillars, and the smell of roasting meat reached them with the breeze. Rowan was instantly overcome with the desire to meet these men from so long ago, but Zeche’s hand squeezed his shoulder, holding him in place.
“You’re curious, but we’d best not be meddling with time.”
What was the world like this far back? Would our weapons scare them, or would they spear us as easily as that meat on the fire? Would they look different from us? He had so many questions and he wouldn’t get the answers to any of them.
“Come. There’s a subterranean area below.”
I’m not even going to ask how he knows this. Rowan had come to accept some strange things where his master was concerned. Zeche would explain, or not, as he saw fit.
Zeche led the way between a set of pillars in the center, throwing back a mat of woven grasses and dropping down into the area below. Rowan stared after him. Jumping into an ancient temple--why does this seem like a bad idea? The rasp of flint echoed up to him and light flared from below. Now or never.
He’d wanted to take his vows for years and officially join the Watchers. While Zeche was the only official member he knew of, the man was ridiculously well-connected. The Watchers had an important role to play, and much of his education had included the study of history. Zeche was a fan of not only stating, but proving, how often history repeated itself. The knowledge required to accurately predict enemy movements and societal trends was baffling. It wasn’t all fancy sword work and trips to exotic, far-off places. Rowan hadn’t put in all the hard work to chicken out at jumping into a hole in the ground.
Besides... right now, it isn’t ancient. That thought bolstered him and he crouched, jumping down into the tunnel.
Zeche raised an eyebrow at his delay but moved forward with sure steps. He walked confidently to each torch, as if he’d been here dozens of times before, and lit them as they passed. They eventually came to a circular stone room, featuring a stone altar with two bone bowls on either end. Rowan thought they were empty at first, limited in sight to the range of Zeche’s torch. He watched as Zeche lit the bowls and set them back on the altar like primitive lamps.
Rowan had so many questions; he didn’t know where to start. Instead of babbling like an uneducated cretin, he removed a torch from the sconce and began examining the carvings on the walls. Most of the images were of various predators: foxes, wild boar, wolves, and those curved-tooth cats he’d seen earlier. This wasn’t the first set of ruins Rowan had visited, merely the oldest. Most cave paintings were of the prey animals that early humans hunted, like mammoths, deer, sometimes even great fish. However, not a single prey animal was inscribed on these walls. Every creature here was a hunter or fearsome beast.
“What kind of temple is this, exactly?” He kept his eyes trained on Zeche.
Rowan’s education on organized religion was surprisingly advanced considering the lack of a strict religious system in his time. Religion had started many wars throughout human history, and zealots were people to put down before they corrupted the minds of perfectly normal folk. A religion that escalated to the point of becoming a cult was one of the things the Watchers guarded against. Zeche’s words echoed in his mind. “Everything in proper doses. Too much of anything will kill you, even religion.”
“That’s a rather amusing question to answer.” Zeche put his torch on the wall and inclined his head at the empty altar, backing away respectfully. “This is the temple of the predator, the hunters of the world. And, in a way... it is my temple.”
Rowan cleared his throat, trying to make the words make sense. “Your temple?” They were twelve thousand years in the past, for crying out loud. Zeche was in his late forties, maybe early fifties, Rowan wasn’t sure. He certainly wasn’t old enough to have anything to do with this temple.
Zeche gave a dry chuckle. “You certainly don’t believe that none of the Seekers had children with the regular population while the Order was absent, do you?”
Rowan frowned, his brows creasing his forehead. “What are you saying, that... you’re a Seeker?” His heart hammered in his chest. He’d been dying to practice against a Seeker. The possibility excited him, but another part of him felt a very real fear. If Zeche was a Seeker and had managed to keep it a secret all this time, did he really know the man that raised him?
“A Seeker is a being created by dogma and training, Rowan, just as a Watcher is. I thought I’d taught you better than this.” Zeche’s disapproval was obvious.
“Well, yes, but... we don’t have a word for someone who can phase but isn’t a Seeker.”
Zeche snorted, shaking his head and clasping his hands loosely behind his back. He began walking around the room, apparently studying the carvings. “My mother was a prostitute. Spent more time knocked up than anything else. As a result, she had a crap ton of kids and no way to feed them, a hard thing to manage in our day and age.” Zeche’s fingers trailed over a particular inscription, and he continued. “The first time I phased, I panicked. No one had told me it was a possibility, or even what it was. I practiced with it until I could control it. I discovered, much as you did, that I could not only jump through space, but also time.”
Zeche stopped in front of a mural depicting a great hunt. “Phasing was never as easy for me as it is for you. The first time, it took me days before I could phase back. My blood is quite diluted. I got decent enough at it in my youth, until I met someone that needed me more than I needed the plentiful food I found in this era.” Zeche gestured above his head. “No one owned the land here, you see, and money isn’t even a glimmer of a concept to these people. As long as I came in the summer, there was food growing wild for anyone with hands to harvest. Game was plentiful, and someone with a bit of skill and the ability to evade predators could easily ensure their survival. But I knew from previous experience that I wasn’t strong enough to phase anyone with me. I tried it once...” Zeche trailed off, then shook his head abruptly.
“In any event, Nikita needed me on the surface. We organized the street urchins into an actual family of sorts. We took on a slave trader and managed to kill him. That got us some attention. Before I knew it, the Ravens were born, and managing them took all my time and then some. Years went by, and I’d never needed to phase. After a while, I tried, only to find out that I couldn’t do it anymore.”
Rowan sat on one of the stone benches, his brain running at top speed to keep up with all of this. “The Seeker manuals speak of the rigidity of age. If your blood was thin enough already--”
“I believe that’s what happened. I could phase while young because both mind and body were flexible enough to withstand it. Once I’d matured, however, it was beyond me.”
Rowan nodded. “And you never thought to join the Seekers because...?”
Zeche snorted. “Why would I? They barely knew what was going on, or how to help. All they were doing was bringing back these infertile women, flailing about to try and keep us all alive. Besides, even in my youth, I couldn’t transport anyone with me. What good would I have done them, even if they weren’t a bunch of idiots with their heads shoved up their asses?”
Rowan shrugged; he had a point. “You still haven’t said how this is your temple.”
Zeche looked over his shoulder at Rowan, a roguish smile playing across his lips. “True enough. I phased right into the middle of a clan meeting one time. Gave everyone quite a scare. I had no clue what to do and was too tired from the jump to be able to phase again immediately. They didn’t kill me, though. They examined me, tugged at my clothes, my hair, everything. I was a mystical
, powerful creature to them. They allowed me to stay with them, and a few days later, I showed them how I hunted. Quite easy to succeed when you can phase in right beside it and kill it before it even realizes you’re there.” Zeche chuckled, his hand resting on a human figure on the wall. It was smudged black with charcoal, only the face and the hands outlined without color.
“They said I was the predator, the king of hunters. By the time I visited them again, they’d started on one of these rings.”
Rowan looked at the carvings with a new appreciation. “That’s why there are no prey animals here. Only hunters.”
Zeche frowned. “I’m not sure that explains the boar.”
He couldn’t help laughing at the pouting expression on Zeche’s face, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared at the boar with narrowed eyes.
“But... wait. You brought me here to take my oath as a Watcher. Does this mean I’m supposed to be a predator?” Rowan shifted on the bench, suddenly uncomfortable.
“Aren’t you? Haven’t I taught you how to hunt, using both your mind and body? Just because our prey is human doesn’t diminish what you are.”
I guess I saw myself as more of a protector than a hunter. Not protecting the Order had almost spelled their extinction as a species, but it was hardly the only threat to their continued survival. Watchers existed to monitor everything at all times and to take out harmful forces before they became insurmountable. Everyone was a possible target, and everyone got at least a moment of their attention. Zeche was insanely adept at reading people with a glance, something he promised Rowan he’d get better at with age and experience.
“That’s one way to look at it.” He conceded the point, mostly because it was correct. I still prefer protector to hunter, though. Zeche could use whatever word he wanted. In his gut, Rowan knew what he was. He would never kill for sport or pleasure but had no problems taking out a target harming humanity. In his eyes, that made him more than just a common hunter.
