Initiation

Four: Child

Trynith watched Alicia in her shock, relishing in the moment. She watched Alicia’s face change, and her reaction, and the fear growing as the girl shook. “It—it’s inside me. Them, the ones that killed my—they’re in me!” she screamed and sobbed, but Trynith only smiled a silent laugh. The girl shivered more, glancing at her hands and minutely flexing her fingertips, and watching the blue veins on her wrists. I can see it . . . Her pupils suddenly widened, I can see their blood! Alicia turned to her arms, “I want it out!” she screamed, “I want to bleed it all out!” she scrambled the books on the desk looking for anything sharp, knocking over the books Trynith had brought with her, and kicking the table. She fell out of her seat, hitting the ground almost with her face, but caught quickly by the flat of her arms. She sat up quickly, and turned back to her arms screaming and began scratching herself, scratching her arms. “Get it out! Get it---” She looked up at Trynith with red in the white of her eyes, tears on her cheeks and hatred written all about her. She suddenly stopped scratching. “Please . . .” Trynith stood silently above her, “Please get it out . . .please,” but her begs were only answered by a sharp slap across the face.

“Get up.” Trynith ordered, and when Alicia did not comply she delivered another slap across the girl’s face. “Get the fuck up, girl.”

Alicia stood; but she still cried, louder now, because she had been hit. “Why me?!” She asked, tilting her head up to the ceiling. Surely the Goddess was picking on her, because she put the statue in the drawer.

“Quiet! You’ll never behave like this again! You’re breaking rule three.”

“I don’t—care!” Alicia stormed, and calmed slightly, gathering herself, “About your stupid rules. I just want them all dead! I just want their blood out of me! I hate them! I hate them!”

“Stupid girl! Their power is yours now. You can use their own blood against them—don’t you realize?” but Alicia only cried louder. “This is why I hate children.” She watched her in silence, with folded arms and cruel glare, while Alicia finished her sobs, and calmed. This took a long while, as there were times she would calm and then scream and sob again, cry and wipe her eyes until they wore dry. “Girl, I am here to make you into a someone great, and that is what I expect from you. I picked you above all the others; because I thought you could handle this better than any one of them. And I still think I’m right.” Alicia was silent in her seat, glaring at Trynith with obvious distaste.

“I’m sure there are plenty others stronger then me,” Alicia moaned.

“That may be. But it isn’t just strength I’m looking for. You want your vengeance? You better listen to me. Aishi’ja don’t die easily. You really think you can kill one now? Look at yourself. Pathetic.”

“It’s your fault! You chose me! I didn’t ask for this!”

“Oh, yes you did. The Master asked you, he called you into the dining room, and you said yes,” Trynith’s voice was untrembling, hiding well the reason she knew why Alicia was picked to represent the group by the Master.

“But if I’m so pathetic, then why pick me?!” she gritted her teeth, and made a tight fist on the table, tracing the lines of wood with her eyes.

Trynith smiled, and took the girl’s chin up to face her. Her smile was pleasant this time, and her eyes less glaring, in fact they seemed to call her a fool; that she’d been asking for the answer that was right in front of her. Of course her eyes were still shut, and she couldn’t see it. “If you want the truth,” she began, “I picked you for my own reasons.”

Vincent was seated, leaned back in an oak chair, in the armory of the library. A few of the walls here were covered entirely with weapons, and the walls opposite them had books corresponding to the weapons on the wall across it. The armory was actually divided into sections, for swords, spears, knives, and the like. He was seated in the swords room, across from his tutor, a tallish man with oily black hair and a small ponytail, he appeared in his mid twenties but he had already admitted to serving the Master for longer then that. His eyes were the color of honey, but rimmed in blue, and he always carried a playful smirk and a rose in one hand. He called himself Aiden.

“I bet you’re excited,” Aiden smiled, peering at the boy from behind the rose. “Of course it’ll be a long while before you’re actually ready to take on Aishi’ja, but I bet you feel lucky the Master took you all on at such a young age.”

Vincent was quiet for a while, then said, “But that’s what gets me. Why would such a rich man hire children? I mean, I bet that he could raise us, but wouldn’t that take a while? I mean, he doesn’t exactly have forever . . . . He’s not old but he’s not young either. Why didn’t he just hire mercenaries? Or assassins? I mean, this seems pretty hard to believe.” Vincent had a half serious, half laughing expression on his face, and the last words came out in that garbled manner. The Master’s words had charmed him before, enticed him with the thought of vengeance; however, he wasn’t here at the moment, and Vincent’s practical mind had taken its place.

Aiden smiled, then responded, as if premeditated, “Oh, he tried that already.”

“Huh?”

“The mercenaries/assassins idea. He tried that. Didn’t quite work out as he’d planned. Not to mention that time is the one thing he has too much of. The Master has tried many things in his years to attack the Aishi’ja, and he’s always open to new ideas. This is one of them.”

Vincent didn’t like the way Aiden described the Master at all; he made him seem mad, and infatuated with vengeance. Vincent didn’t even know if that’s really what he wanted, but the offer of staying in this castle, in that beautiful room, and not to mention lessons in everything he’d ever want to know. It was all too much for him. He’d already attempted to slap himself awake from this nightmare-ish dream, but failed. Twice.

Alright, thought Vincent, the idea fits the man who came up with it. So it was still a pretty nonsense idea, but he supposed that wouldn’t matter. It was most likely that the man’s sanity would give way soon enough, and after they’d all received their lessons and grown enough, they could leave with a well educated childhood, which Vincent felt was a good plan. OFcourse, at times when he thought of his parents, he wished he really could seek their vengeance for them. “So, what’s the whole plan?” Vincent asked.

“Well, the whole thing goes a bit like this: after his last idea failed, the Master spent a while trying to figure out the flaws of the last plan to iron them out, and try it again. The problem with the mercenaries and assassins was that he had over estimated them; they didn’t know everything he thought they did, and they didn’t think the way he thought they did. . . It was he who arranged for all of you to escape in the wagons. The crash in the forest wasn’t part of the plan though, but you were all found, and now you’re here. . . . He calls you all his ‘horde’,” he explained. The idea made a bit more sense to Vincent now, and when he thought about the motivation, perhaps it did explain the Master’s degree of sanity. He said he had lost his love, what Vincent figured was enough to make any man go a bit mad, especially if she was taken from him in such a brutal manner by war. “Of course, in a few years or months, or whenever he decides, the Master will pick the strongest of you for a leader among the rest.”

Just behind one Sword adorned wall, another student sat, back straight and chin up (though only momentarily), in a wooden seat across from his own tutor. The boy was named Jax, and across from him stood a tall man with thick, bristly brown hair, and a stern expression not quite as sharp as Trynith’s, less cruel, but more overbearing. The boy was intimidated, he was reminded all too much of the school he had went to before the war, and the witch of a teacher he had who was too quick to use the stick across the fingers; the man didn’t have a stick, but the boy thought he could pull one of the many axes from the wall . . . but he didn’t. Instead he said simply, “I’m a man of few words,” he began pacing back and forth, and watched the boy’s expression. “I can see that you are too. That’s good, too much speech can be a foolish thing with an enemy. Action,” he snapped up, clapping his heels together at the word, “Is key.”

The boy said, “So, we’re really gonna be killing stuff? Like the Master said?” he seemed excited, there was a mischievous, smug expression across the boy’s face. He tucked a long strand of light brown hair behind one ear, but it refused to stay, and flew in front of his eyes.

The taller man smirked, amused at the boy, and said, “Yes, but these things deserve it. Remember what they did to you, and never forget it.” The boy became a bit disheartened at the words, and glanced down, biting his lip, but then sat up, now more angry than sad. “Good boy, don’t dwell on the sadness, but act in vengeance!” The blue rim around the man’s brown eyes sparkled. “I’m going to tell you now what I intend for you, since I can tell right off that you’re a strong boy, quality material,” he said. “You are to be the leader of this outfit, and I will have no less from you. I can tell, now, you’re strong, both in mind and body, you’ve got two years on most the other children, so already you’ve got a good position of power among them. I will have no less than the best of you.” He watched the boy’s expression to see if he understood, and when it was made clear that he did, and Jax nodded, the man continued, “I am going to be your tutor; you may address me as Sir Abigor, or simply as Sir. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” he said, not dropping the mischievous smile.

“Is that clear?!” he snapped, and the boy, who had slouched back down, jumped up in his seat, making his back straight. “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” Abigor went back to pacing, then turn, clapped his heels and stopped. “Lunch is in two hours, which we’ll spend discussing your new schedule. Questions will be answered later.”

The boy was quick to raise his hand, waited for permission this time, then said, eyeing the walls, “I’ll get to use an axe, won’t I?”

Sir Abigor smiled and said, “No, son, you’ll get to use two.”