Linger a little, with a glittering amusement, a hazy dreaminess, within your eyes. (Think of being amused, of being a little dreamy, and your eyes will reflect these thoughts.)
Smile inwardly: for that smile will appear in your eyes (trust us on this).
Let them know you’re pleased to be with them.
Watch their pupils dilate – and prepare to slip into those dark, inviting pools of being.
Think of how interesting you find them. How attractive they are as a person.
Flatter them.
You don’t need to say this: they can read it in your eyes.
The connection is made.
Use what little you are already aware of – even if it’s just their preference for a certain colour, a way of dressing, the way they have their hair – to become a part of their thoughts.
You like the colour of my eyes, don’t you?
(You think this is trivial, this focus on attractiveness? Why would anyone who doesn’t find you attractive allow you to come close, to come so close you’re about to become a part of them?)
Be especially careful about what you’re thinking now: for they will read those thoughts in your eyes.
Twist those earlier thoughts slightly; you find me interesting, don’t you?
You find me attractive.
Move from rhetorical questions to positive statements.
Move from being you to being them.
Yes, I do find you attractive – yes, it’s strange, but there’s something about you I can’t quite…
Something I hadn’t noticed before.
Yet I see it now.
I think I need to get to Know you more.
Did these lecturers of the Knowing realise, Desri wondered, that the eyes were just an easier means to asserting this control? That once a connection was made, it was achievable by other means?
In most of her lessons, even her military exercises and training, Desri continually found that she had to hide her own higher-levels of expertise. She feared being asked how she had achieved these extra skills, acquired this special knowledge.
She slipped up in her answers to questions, slipped when taking part in a mock dual. She didn’t want to appear to be completely incompetent, of course: but she made sure she always ended up on the register where she was expected to be – at the bottom of the class.
Naturally, it was frustrating for her to be constantly mocked by her teachers, and jeered at by the other cadets, for her supposed failures. The alternative, however, was far worse: if she was seen to be performing beyond the low expectations the Academy had for her, how long would it be before a suspicious, envious cadet followed her to see where she disappeared to each night?
With most of the cadets being from ridiculously wealthy, incredibly well-connected families, they weren’t under strict orders to stay within the Academy’s dormitories. Many lodged within the town in rooms more suited – as they saw it – to their personal standing. So although Desri wasn’t known to be in any way rich, it was understood by many that she had money from the sale of the tavern, so no one saw anything unusual in her staying away from the Academy.
If it hadn’t been for her evenings and nights with Cranden, Desri would probably have succumbed to the loneliness imposed on her throughout the day. With Cranden, however, she had never felt more connected, more a part of someone, such that it was impossible to feel alone even when they were separated throughout most of the daylight hours.
Yes, she had never felt this close, even, to the real, human Cranden.
So was it love?
No, not love.
She couldn’t, no…she just couldn’t love the animal he had become.
Even in the times when she found herself morosely thinking in this way, she instantly harshly admonished herself.
For, of course, the Cranden inside the beast was no animal by any stretch of the imagination.
His kindness, his thoughtfulness, was greater by far than that which the original Cranden had ever managed to display. At last, he even understood and appreciated the incredible sacrifices that his parents had made for him.
Too late, of course, for him to let them know how he now felt.
Such foolishness, not to have realised earlier, to have been able – capable – of telling them how much he loved them.
What complete idiots we are to realise this only when it is too late!
And yes, Desri saw, even experienced, Cranden’s irritation with himself.
And that, of course, was why she almost loved him, despite the beast he had otherwise become.
*
Chapter 17
1,000 Years Earlier
They travelled on a pair of horses more suited to tinkers than the high-ranking assassin Imp aspired to become. Their dress, too, was that of impoverished travellers.
Similarly, their stench was carefully matched to their new personas; a smell of soap would be an instant giveaway. Even an animal has the good sense to roll in the dung of any creature it wishes to draw near to.
Other travellers naturally avoid rather than seek to innocently question such undesirables. And that was exactly what Haran and Imp desired.
Rather than setting them apart, their filth made them blend into the surroundings of the poorer parts of the town they eventually arrived at. They made their way, as directed, to a derelict house that was similarly hidden amongst other derelict houses.
The sickly reek inside the house cut through even the other noisome smells of rotting food, damp and stale water. Imp sensed Haren gipping, close to vomiting.
‘Are you sure you want to…?’
Imp nodded in reply to his anxious query.
They were each carrying a thick, canvas bag. She took out the knives and cleavers she would need for the task they’d been given, slung the handles of the bag over her shoulder.
The people were down in the cellar, they’d been reliably informed; the people who had to be disposed of.
The closer you got to them, the more their stench sliced into you. Imp was tempted to turn back, to at least grant herself a long breath of fresh air before attempting to descend the dark steps once more.
She carried on, twisting the heavy cleaver around in her hand.
‘How did they know I hated Lord Krag?’
She didn’t bother turning to face Haren. She was fully aware that he was following her down the stairs.
‘The Assembly?’ he answered. ‘As soon as the birds I’d sent them arrived, they would’ve sent their own out; gathering as much information as they could about you.’
Hah, she thought: he had hidden that from me. What more is he capable of hiding?
‘They were most impressed by your way of hunting the beasts.’
Imp sensed the amusement in his disclosure. His way, she Knew, of making her aware that he was capable of hiding a lot more from her than she’d accepted.
She had been foolish, naturally, for taking such an accomplished man for granted. And he wanted her to Know that.
‘You do realise,’ he added with only a half-veiled chuckle, ‘it’s illegal for anyone under twenty-one to practise the Knowing? Unless, of course, you’re at a registered college?’
The bodies, six of them, had been dumped across the sewerage soaked floor. Could the Assembly have come up with any more distasteful task for her?
She appreciated Haren’s presence. He must have a high enough rank by now, she reasoned, to turn down a task as onerous as this one.
‘Do you need some sort of slab?’ he asked? ‘A work table, at least?’
She shook her head.
‘We butchered our catches out in the wild; you use their own bones and ribcages as supports to break the harder ones against. You’ve just got to know how to crack them in the right places.’
By way of a demonstration, she lifted up the arm of one of the dead men. Placing a booted foot deep within his armpit, she twisted the arm with an abrupt jerk, pulled back on it as she did so. With a gluti
nous plop, a sharp crack, she wrenched the arm clear of the rest of the body.
‘Easy,’ she said, with a grim smile.
She looked down at the bodies, making a quick calculation of how many cuts she’d have to make to transform them all into more easily transportable pieces.
‘Where do you want them all to end up?’ she asked, recognising that the distance to be travelled would also determine the size of the pieces.
‘There’s a meat warehouse a block from here: we’ve already made the sale.’
Imp glanced at the yellow-streaked mess the contorted figures were lying in.
‘I hope they’re given a good wash then,’ she said.
*
Chapter 17
1,000 Years Later
Naturally, whenever they were out in the woods sharpening Desri’s growing skills, they frequently came across other buisoars.
Strangely, Cranden always hung back, avoiding either drawing too close to them, or drawing their attention.
Unable to read his thoughts on this, assuming that it could only be down to a now unwarranted anxiety over her safety, Desri lightly touched his arm one day as they silently observed a noisily foraging buisoar from the elaborate hide they’d constructed of branches, leaves and mud.
‘Cranden,’ she whispered in his ear, ‘if you’d like, you can talk to him while I–’
‘Is that what you think of me?’ he bellowed furiously. ‘That I converse with beasts?’
‘But, like you, they once were men–’
‘Once! But no longer, Desri–’
Cranden’s own angry reaction to Desri’s question was as nothing to the infuriated snorts and snarls of the disturbed beast. It thundered towards their hide, crumpling before it any bush or tree standing in its way.
Cranden reacted swiftly, decisively.
Effortlessly picking Desri up by the waist and carrying her outside the hide, he equally effortlessly threw her up towards the crook of the nearest large tree. Far from being startled by this, Desri smoothly took the momentum of the throw and made it her own. Remaining upright, she virtually stepped into the opening where the tree’s thick trunk branched and splayed.
As Cranden turned from his throw to face the charging beast, its great, bowed head caught him in the chest. The incredible force of it all lifted him up off his feet, despite his own immense size.
Sent flying back, Cranden crashed through the bushes, the many, cracking branches wildly crackling like a roaring bonfire.
The beast didn’t stop in its hurling charge, despite striking a bigger creature than it had ever taken on before. Rather, it rushed forward with its head lower than ever, seeking to gore its victim while it was still floundering after that first, brutal blow.
Apparently wounded, Cranden rolled aside just in time to avoid the full force of the new charge. It wasn’t quickly enough, however, to avoid receiving a glancing blow to his flanks.
Once again, he was sent painfully reeling into the bushes.
The huge beast swung around, preparing itself for another attack.
Desri had already unslung her bow form her back, notched in an arrow.
She sighted on the soft eye.
Your bow, your arrow, is simply an essential part of you.
The bow is an extension of your arm. The arrow is a thought wave of your mind.
You don’t aim: you cast it out, letting it know where you want it to be, to end up.
You instinctively Know when everything is right, when its time to let that wave flow from you towards its goal.
For this is how it should be, and it could not possibly be any other way.
Her fingers flexed.
Her mind – a part of it at least, but a very focused part – coursed through the air, disguised as an arrow.
As it was a part of her mind, she continued to direct it. The whole world around her, now, was a part of her.
She could direct it all.
The barbed thought struck home into the softest, most delicate, most vulnerable flesh of any animal, even a great beast.
It sank deep, deeper and deeper, that deliberately malicious thought of Desri’s.
Now, I’m afraid, you will die.
What choice did the poor buisoar have?
The light of its own mind died instantly.
It keeled over, even in its falling taking with it the lives of many plants and bushes, those crushed and those broken, injured beyond recovery.
Cranden had managed to stand, splaying his massive legs in readiness to face the beast, his arms held wide as if in greeting.
As the beast toppled before him, it’s eye now a bloodied mess of otherwise brightly coloured feathers, he breathed a strangely saddened sigh of relief. He glanced back up towards Desri in her lofty position, nodded gratefully.
‘Thanks, Desri.’
He could have been grinning wryly, or gratefully, or with relief. It was hard for Desri to tell if it was even a grin.
‘I don’t think I could have won against it.’
Desri was about to ask him what he meant when she saw him cock his head, as if hearing something far off. He looked over to where the main road ran through the wood: and that, indeed, was a very long way away.
Desri scampered up higher into the tall tree. She could sense something out there herself now, sense it before she heard the sounds of a great many people casually working their way along a road in a huge procession.
As she reached the top of the tree, Desri could at last see the odd glint of glittering, expensive banners and pennants.
It was a wealthy procession. One of a major duke, at least, and on official business too.
It wasn’t a duke, however.
For Desri Knew whose presence the arrival of this serpentine procession heralded.
The queen.
The Queen of all the Knowing World appeared to be on her way to the Academy.
‘What are you doing here?’ the queen demanded with a mischievous, chuckle. ‘I need you at the Academy!’
*
Chapter 18
1000 Years Earlier
Butchering the dead, once you’d got used to it, was hardly different from slicing up a beast.
Imp was sickened at first, of course. But she told herself there was nothing she could do for these poor people now.
She’d been given a task to help remove them. That is what she would do.
Any emotion she might have felt for these people was, thankfully, quickly assuaged when she discovered that the first body she started hacking into was a male that, even now, when lifeless, still retained a faint, swiftly vanishing hint of that sense of presence she’d detected when her parents had been killed.
It was one of the queen’s assassins. And he had been killed only recently, hence the lingering hint of presence.
She sensed another of the assassins amongst the pile. She’d cut him up next.
The Assembly had worked quickly in tracing and removing these fake assassins.
‘The Assembly,’ she calmly asked Haren as she deftly brought her cleaver down on the weak points of muscle and gristle; ‘are they responsible for all these people who just seem to vanish? The ones suffering the Disappearance?’
Haren was quickly picking up the joints of meat she was throwing onto the floor, slipping them into one of the large, pitch-lined canvas bags he’d brought with him.
‘All those?’ He shook his head. ‘No, not even the Assembly could make so many people just vanish like that.’
‘You don’t seem to do too bad.’
She gave a wry nod towards the pile of bodies.
Haren grinned.
‘The Assembly wasn’t exactly happy about your disclosure that the queen was involved. They also had to get rid of the informants who led them to the queen’s men involved; make sure there’s no definite proof of connection between their disappearance and the Assembly. Even though, naturally, everyone will see us as being the cause of all this.’
&n
bsp; ‘Brutal.’
‘Necessary.’
With a groan of exertion, he slung the handles of the now filled and heavy bags across his shoulders. He made for the steps, trotting up them quickly, despite this been just the first of many similar trips he’d have to make. Although the horses wouldn’t be fully loaded, it was time for him to head on towards the meat warehouse and meet his contact there.
‘I shouldn’t be too long,’ he promised.’
‘Don’t worry; I don’t think any of these are capable of giving me any trouble.’
She brought the cleaver down hard again, used its broad blade to push aside another slab of meat she’d just created.
As soon as Haren had exited the cellar and let its rotting door slam behind him, she dashed over to the pile of bodies, quickly pushing most of them aside to uncover the corpse of the queen’s assassin. Taking her sharp knife, she dug hard into the soft flesh around the bottom, right-hand rib. Gouging quickly at the skin and muscle surrounding the end of the rib, she uncovered the bare bone.
As she’d cleaved apart the previous victim, she’d noticed something odd about this same rib. And here, as proof that she hadn’t imagined it, that it wasn’t unique to that particular man, was exactly the same thing.
The end of the rib had been carved into an elaborate shape. As if delicately turned on a carpenter’s foot-powered lathe.
*
Chapter 18
1,000 Years Later
By the time Desri had arrived back at the Academy, the fields stretching out before the main set of buildings had already been quickly taken over by the queen’s entourage. Either that or – which was more likely – the Academy’s council had had enough forewarning to prepare everything for them.
Huge, brightly coloured tents had been erected. Long tables had been set out for dinner, perhaps even a feast going by the smells of the various types of meats being roasted and boiled out in the open. Jugglers and acrobats wandered around amongst everyone, entertaining anyone who wished to join those gathered about them.
Most of the cadets had been ordered to take part in providing entertainment for the queen and her followers, with demonstrations of their prowess in riding, running, or use of a variety of weapons. There were a few mock fights, an interplay of massed formations of riders, a display of the use of lances to cleanly strike targets dangerously held up by other cadets.