Chapter 4

Kaleb took a deep, slow breath. Time slowed, coming to a crawl, and the world sharpened around him. Sorrow rushed through his body, strengthening his senses, his reflexes, his body.

The sword was a comfortable weight in his hands. He shifted his muscles, bring the sword behind him, and swung.

The wooden doll in front of him split in two, cleanly. It stood there, unmoving, a thin line across its surface.

Then time flowed again.

He watched it tumble to the ground, dissatisfied. The strike hadn’t been perfect. The move he had meant to perform was of outstanding complexity, and the doll wouldn’t have tumbled to the ground if he had executed it properly.

He wasn’t quite there yet, but he intended to. Swords were something that spoke to him, something about the weapons just appealed to him. Training with the sword was one of the few things that brought him joy.

He sighed, shifted his sword, and took his stance again. He intended to get the flow of sorrow right by today, if he could. The timing was tricky, and that combined with the movement made it even harder, but he was just a step away from perfecting the flow. Then he would just have to work on his form, which was technically of lesser importance.

He breathed deep again. He closed his eyes, taking in the smell of the wet dirt, the trees, the shrubs. He focused. Feeling a flash of inspiration, he let sorrow flow. He’d always adhered to the flow described in the manual and by his master, but now he did not bother to control it too rigidly. He followed the flow, but also made changes on instinct. He didn’t know if it would work out. But honestly, it wouldn’t cost him anything.

He released his breath. The sword flashed.

A breeze brushed past his face as he felt his mouth curl up into a smile. What he’d done had just felt right. He did not doubt his master’s intentions, but applications of the flow of sorrow wasn’t something well researched. It didn’t help that humans couldn’t use sorrow, only the monsters at the frontlines could.

Which made the accursed monsters by association, according to a lot of the religious orders here.

But regardless, his master couldn’t have adapted the technique for sorrow perfectly, and so his improvisation had worked out for the better. Kaleb wondered with wry amusement why he hadn’t tried this earlier. Not that it would have helped much, since much of the flow was same, but it still would have saved him a little time.

“Not bad, boy. You seem to have gotten it down pretty well.”

The voice made him turn around.

His master stood there, exuding quiet confidence. The man had a sword clutched loosely in his hand, wooden of course, and wore a brown shirt with black pants.

He’d abandoned his persona, at least for now. His aura hung over him like a blade, poised and ready to strike. It prickled against kaleb’s skin, but he was used to this feeling. Plus, his master was currently keeping it suppressed.

Kaleb nodded at his master’s words, satisfied. He did not show it on his face, however.

His master lazily twirled his sword in his hand, and motioned at Kaleb.

“Ready?”

He nodded. And they moved. Swords flashed, wood chipped, winds blew. Kaleb was a whirlwind, his sword never stopping, continuing from one form to the next. Enforced with sorrow, and the other with joy, they were mere blurs on the landscape.

It was infuriating, though. His master parried every stroke of his with casual strength, an arrogant and bored look on his face. He was used to this, too, but it still rankled to feel the vast gulf between then respective levels.

“Sloppy. Slow. Weak.”

His master corrected him as they fought, and as frustrating as it was, the experience was still beneficial for his growth.

His wrist snapped, the wooden sword drawing blood. Immediately he fed sorrow to it, but the damage was done. He’d slowed down from this wound, and his master took advantage. He felt his ribs crack from the kick, and he was launched backwards, crashing against the wooden fence.

It should have broken, if the fence had been normal, but like everything in this place, it too, was protected by magic.

He slid down, grimacing in pain. Sorrow worked fast to heal him, as his master walked slowly towards him. Normally his master would have continued to pummel him, breaking several more bones to hurt him enough so he could grow his core.

This time though, he did none of that, and he had a good idea as to why.

His joy core was lacking. It was barely enough to hold back the transformation, if his sorrow grew any more, he would transform. Unless he somehow managed to hold on, like the first time it happened. But his master had been quick to tell him how lucky he had been. There was no guarantee he could rein in his mind again.

His master stopped in front of him, a dirty look on his face. He wasn’t happy with Kaleb’s progress, that much was obvious.

“Honestly, boy, you should train more often. That showing was pathetic. You know it.”

Not really, he didn’t. He thought his progress was more than satisfactory, but his master had unreasonably high standards. But obviously, he didn’t voice his thoughts.

“I apologise, master. I swear to do better next time.”, he said, lowering his eyes.

His master grunted. “If you want to live, then follow through with those words.”

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It wasn’t a threat, just a warning that his work could leave him in the dirt if he wasn’t skilled enough.

Or lucky enough. But he couldn’t really do anything about that, now could he?

His master then walked over to a satchel he had dropped on the ground before fighting him. Rummaging around inside, he drew out a leather bound book, and tossed it to him.

“Read on that. It’s about more applications of sorrow, about rituals. If you’ve any doubts, just tell me. I’ll try to answer as best as I can, and if I’m stumped too, I’ll pass it over to an expert on these things.”

His master slipped on the satchel and started walking away. “Don’t follow.”

It wasn’t like kaleb had to hear that to know not to. His master could find him within a distance, something he’d found out the hard way when he’d tried to tail his master the first time. Despite all his training, he could never fool his master. Perhaps it had something to do with the binding oath. He wasn’t sure.

He watched as his master left through the moss covered gate. He walked towards it and closed it. The area was wooded, but for some reason he felt better when the gate was closed.

Walking over to the book, he picked it up and brushed the dirt off of it. The book felt old, unstable, like it would fall apart at any moment. And his master had thrown it to him. Thrown it.

Maybe he had overestimated the man’s mental faculties.

Kaleb walked over to the back of the shack, opening the trapdoor, and made his way down the stairs. He practiced his sorrow down here, couldn’t have the shack exploding, after all. It was less detectable this way.

He walked into the circular chamber past the big door, and walked over to a door at the left. This was his main practice area.

He entered, closing the door. This was another circular room, except for the part where the door connected, quite obviously, and the floor was quite positively covered with drawings of runes. He’d have to erase them soon, it was hard to find empty space.

Sorrow was fundamentally different from joy. The energy, of course, not the emotions associated with them, although he supposed the same could be said for that as well.

Joy was easy to manifest in the outside world, easy to shape, but it was fleeting, vanishing within mere moments. He’d seen his master form a shape with joy, and emit a beam of energy that split through the trunk of the tree he’d been aiming at. The beam had vanished soon, it had been a simple demonstration by his master to show him the fleeting nature of that energy.

Sorrow, on the other hand, stayed. It was harder to manifest in the outside world, much harder, so it couldn’t be used for spur of the moment spells. Sorrow was used to create arrays, traps and other stuff that could be used repeatedly. The monsters at the frontlines were quite good at using their weapons this way. They’d made many contraptions that were powered by sorrow that had devastating effects on their enemies.

He paced around the room, flipping open the book. It detailed new arrays, new applications.

Then he stopped, finding something of interest. The page he was holding detailed the manufacturing of small arrays, enchantments, that could be used to power items. It required much more precision from him, but he’d had plenty of practice with sorrow. He glanced at the sword on his waist. It was his real one, the one he used for assassination. The metal was special, allowing for easy reinforcement through sorrow.

What if he enchanted it? Despite being of that particular metal, he still had trouble reinforcing it with sorrow. And reinforcement was important, since any target of his would be able to use joy, and strengthen their bodies. Normal swords would just break.

Enchantment would solve a lot of his problems, for sure. For one, it would be plenty more effective to use a predetermined array to power the weapon than to haphazardly imbue it with sorrow.

The main point, however, would be that he could enchant the sword to show complicated effects, something he would never be able to do on the field.

Kaleb settled on the floor comfortably and spread the book on his lap.

Time to read.

***

It turned out that he had been terribly wrong. Enchanting was hard and required much more precision than he had initially assumed.

His first few attempts had ended with less than savoury results. The resulting explosions had signed his skin, and if it weren’t for the protections imbued on the walls, the whole thing could have come crumbling down.

The thing was, drawing the runes out with ink wasn’t technically necessary, it was just to aid with the task at hand. Once one measured out the values and drew the runes with ink properly by using measuring tools, then all that would be left to do was to pour sorrow exactly along the lines.

The problem with the smaller runes was that...he just wasn’t skilled enough. He had trouble bending and flowing sorrow through the small loops that consisted the rune, so he mostly ended with an explosive. An ineffective one, at that.

He was around his tenth try or so, clothes blackened by burns, when he finally managed to do it. Not perfectly, of course, but it was still progress. And that mattered.

Kaleb smiled wildly as he looked at the rune he’d drawn on the floor. The floor was blackened around it, but now there was an aura of power strengthening it as well. Also making it sharp, apparently, but it didn’t really work out with the flat surface of the floor.

He’d obviously tried it on the floor first. He didn’t want to take chances with his sword and ruin it somehow.

But he’d have to work on it some more, until it was perfect. Then he would enchant his sword, to reduce the risks of it failing badly. He didn’t know what his master would say to him if his sword broke because of a poor enchanting attempt.

Probably nothing. He’d probably just send him out to his next target without a proper sword. And that would quite obviously mean his death.

He was about to work on his next attempt when he heard someone banging on the heavy door. His master, he assumed. People weren’t supposed to find this place, after all.

He went up to the main circular room and activated the array, opening the door. His master stood outside, looking tired.

“The news has spread. Lord shireholm is dead, and was killed by the betrayal of his long time friend. How wonderful.”

His master spoke in brisk tones, indicating an annoyed disposition.

“What’s going on?”, Kaleb asked.

“They found evidence of crimes committed by an other lord in his office. The issue? Said lord was a close friend of my employer. Your employer.”

His master brushed past kaleb, moving to a chair, and slumped down.

“Well this is just wonderful”, the man murmured, and just sat there, contemplating.

Kaleb moved over and pulled up a chair. Sitting down, he put his chin on his hand.

“Are we in trouble?”

Kaleb didn’t care much for his master. But if his master was in trouble, then by extension, he was in trouble. He disliked being in trouble.

“No, thankfully.”, his master replied, sitting up straighter and going through a few papers. Kaleb found it quite funny how a master assassin was spending time poring over papers like a clerk. As ever, the joy didn’t reach his core. Nor his eyes.

“It wasn’t our fault, but my employer doesn’t think so. I put my foot down, and it could have gone badly, but it worked out in the end.” His master looked at Kaleb straight in the eyes.

“But we can’t have a mistake like this again. Steal all the important documents next time. Go through the blueprints thoroughly, and make sure to sweep all the important places.”

Kaleb nodded slowly. Angels – no – nobles were a sly bunch, weren’t they?

“We’ll if you’ve got that, then go on. I assume you’ve gotten down the enchantments?”

Like he’d expected, his master had meant for him to enchant his sword. He’d have to disappoint him, though.

“Not entirely. I’m not confident enough to enchant the sword without damaging it”, he replied.

His master scowled. “You do realise the metal the sword’s made of makes enchanting it with sorrow a hundred times easier?”

Kaleb’s eyes went wide. He hadn’t thought of that.

His master snorted. It was clear to Kaleb how much the man rated his intellect.

Kaleb went back to his room, heart numb. A mild spike of anger had already passed through; it wasn’t something even worth being angry about.

He closed the door behind him, and went to work on his sword.

But unlike last time, he wasn’t even mildly excited anymore.