Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 06:09:55 +0000
From: Michael Offutt <kavrik@hotmail.com>
Subject: The Assassin's Apprentice Chapter 5 - Gay Science Fiction

This story is protected under international and Pan-American copyright
conventions. Please remember to donate to Nifty if you are financially able
to do so.

Author information:
Website: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/books.html
Email: kavrik@hotmail.com
Art from my stories: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/my-artwork.html

I previously published "Wraith" on the Nifty Archive. It can be found at:
http://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/sf-fantasy/wraith/

I finished a new picture of Jordan from "Oculus", the sequel to
"Slipstream", and it's in full color. Check it out at my art page (he's
wearing a leather jacket).

"The Assassin's Apprentice" is told in first person present tense and has
been heavily edited.


                                  *****

                              Chapter Five


       By the time I finish my last pull-up, I'm breathing hard and sweat
drips from my body.  He allows me to take a ten minute break, but he
insists that I keep moving to avoid unwanted stiffness.  The air cools, and
I hear the plop of drops hitting the roof above.  I welcome the shift in
temperature.

       "Kata," he says, "is a breathing exercise which will also teach you
grace and put your mind in balance with your body.  The universe," he adds,
"is a combination of the three principles of mind, body, and soul.  Tune
the one and the others shall follow suit."

       He stands up and gestures for me to imitate his movements.
Constantine begins to stretch and guide his hands; he is a shadow
instructor settling for nothing short of perfection.

       "I learned this from an oriental prince named Ashimuri.  He's a
great and powerful man, and he taught me the ways of the ancient Doma.
Consider yourself blessed that I now pass them onto you."

       "A prince?" I ask him, carefully eyeing the placement of his toes.

       "Yes," he replies, continuing with the strange movements. No part of
him remains still just like the waves of a churning ocean.  "Ashimuri is a
direct descendant of the Chrysanthemum Throne, which traces its lineage
back to when the first tribes of man crawled from their fishing boats to
behold the chain of volcanic islands that are home to the land of the
eternally rising suns.  Prince Ashimuri is the finest warrior I've ever
met, and a master of the death kick."

       "The death kick?" I say with some inflection, hoping to lead him
into an explanation of this particular maneuver.

       "Imagine the power to crush your opponent's rib cage through what
appears to be heavy armor, Kian.  This is what the death kick can do.  Its
performance eludes me, but I use martial arts to center my being and not as
the ultimate field of my study.  Perhaps in a few more years, I will
understand its secret."

       I continue performing the kata following his graceful and sometimes
difficult actions.  I do this for about an hour, and the rain suddenly
becomes a thick downpour.

       Without warning, Constantine stops.  Water pours from my wet bangs.

       "That'll be all for today, Kian.  Be here tomorrow at precisely
dawn."  Then, he turns his back on me and walks into his room.

       I gather my belongings into my extremely sore arms, and I'm
surprised to find some money there whereas I had none before.  I don't say
anything, and I leave Constantine without so much as a wave.  I think he
wants it this way.

       I find Talen later that afternoon outside near our perch on the
fence that overlooks a busy road.  I'm tired and aching in every muscle,
but before I can speak, he hugs me.  I manage to take a whiff of his hair
and find the scent pleasant.  I close my eyes and let it drift into my
petite nostrils.  Then he tells me that Ambrell has gotten hurt.

       "She was on a mission to rob a weapons store yesterday and got cut
badly by some falling glass."

       Ah, so this is what he learned about last evening.

       I try not to let the disappointment show in my eyes because I'd
rather have lived a few more days thinking that Talen was worried for me
and not some girl.  For example, why couldn't Talen be concerned that
Constantine had chosen to take ME as his pupil because his students had a
tendency to turn up dead?  That at least might get me laid tonight.  Would
it be ethical to play that card?

       I realize I don't care about ethics.

       If it gets Talen's lips wrapped around my veiny cock and my low
hanging balls onto his chin, I've no doubt I'll play any card in the deck
just to have him on his knees swallowing my cum.  Just thinking about it
makes me hard in my trousers.  I turn sideways because in these pants, only
a blind man would miss the bulge creeping down my leg.

       I just hope Talen doesn't notice.

       He rubs his eyes, still worrying for Ambrell.  Good.  I pray my
erection subsides soon.  I think of the waves of sand in the garden and
breathe slowly, trying to calm the rage of my blood.

       "I'm sure she'll be okay," I say.  It's lip service.  I don't know
just how hurt she is.  To change the subject, I tell him about my day.
When I mention Constantine, Talen looks at me with trembling eyes--a
reaction I didn't anticipate.

       "He's the guild's assassin, and the most feared man in the city."

       Talen pauses to turn his head toward the sky which has grown thick
with lightning. I love the color of all that electricity reflecting on the
mirrored surface of his irises.

       "Be careful around him, Kian.  He's extremely dangerous.  I don't
think that Marcel trusts him, but even the guild master is afraid of a
confrontation.  The students he taught before you...they're all dead, Kian.
He killed them."

       Did I call that one, or what?

       I'm not afraid of Constantine.  But now I have a card to play.

       I look at Talen ready to put my tongue in his mouth and spot tears
rimming his eyes.

       Fuck.

       Why did it have to be tears?

       He knew them all, I imagine.  I want to lay a guilt trip on him, get
him into bed, and fuck his bubble butt all night.  But I know the right
thing to do is to console my buddy...to somehow comfort him.  So, I put my
arms around him in a genuine hug.  I feel his hand rub me gently on the
back, and for the first time in my life, I feel I have a purpose.  I need
to stay alive for him and to avenge the boys that Talen knew that
Constantine butchered.

       I'm not getting laid tonight.

       "He won't get the best of me," I whisper.

                                  *****

       Swift catches up with me after dinner, and he tells me that it's
time for me to learn how to walk silently.  From the snickers I hear from
my friends in the common room, I gather this must be quite the experience.

       In the basement of the guild there's a training room where the
members can practice their skills.  Swift introduces me to a man named
Whistler.  He's what you'd call a dwarf--a short person with stumpy arms
and a severely misshapen spine that gives him a hunchback.  He has a large
torso and head and eyes me coldly, like a new piece of meat.

       Whistler takes one look at me and snickers to Swift.  "This is the
one that's been making all the ruckus around here, eh?"

       Swift nods making introductions.  With that done, he takes a seat on
the straw mat.  By the looks of him, he probably has nothing better to do.

       "Beings quiet is all about the position of your feet.  That and it
depends a lot on how balanced you are, and how much you weigh," Whistler
says.  "When a man wants to walk quiet, he rests his weight on his arch and
carries the load farther up on his foot.  To do this for hours is tiring
for all but the most athletically gifted."

       "I don't tire easily," I say.

       He rolls his eyes looking at Swift.  "I suppose you don't."

       Bragging aside, I can see what he's saying.  For the majority of my
life, I never consciously practiced the art of stealth unless it meant
fucking in a way that didn't wake a man's wife who slept in the next room.
It certainly didn't matter as a prisoner except when I broke out.  But when
I did that, I remember moving along on the balls of my feet with all the
weight resting forward on my toes.

       "Listen up, young fella.  The art of the unheard footfall is also a
matter of learning WHEN to put your weight on something.  And," Whistler
adds, "when that weight is going to be too much.  When something breaks,"
he snaps his fingers for dramatic effect, "it makes noise.  Whenever
anything tears or moves, it makes a sound.  That's how nightingale floors
are constructed.  You hire a carpenter specifically to build a floor just
so...and when any weight is put on it, the boards rub together like a
cricket rubbing his legs against his wings.  Music to some," he mutters,
"an alarm to others."

       "So," I start to say, "If I'm going across one of these floors or
climbing...say...a flight of stairs that's built like this, how can I quiet
up?"

       Whistler ponders this for a moment.

       "There's a number of ways, and you'll get better at it with
practice.  First of all, wear leather gloves.  Get them as thin as possible
so that you don't lose any of the feeling in your hand.  You also want to
be able to move your fingers as well with them on as you do with them off.
But you'll want to have a good grip with them too.  When you cross the
floor, place your hand on the wall helping to disperse your weight.  The
less you weigh the less stress you're going to put on the boards beneath
you.  You also want to keep moving.  Dead weight has nowhere else to go but
down.  Live weight responds to the direction in which you're headed.  If
you're running across a floor, your weight is going down and across at
vectors that are at right angles to each other.  The result is that all of
your weight, instead of going straight down, is carried at an angle across
the floor.  That's why you can skip a stone over water.  All of its weight
isn't going straight down."

       I frown.  There's a lot more to this being quiet stuff than I
originally thought.

       "That's not all my dear boy.  Oh no," Whistler states with a
chuckle.  "If you're exceptionally able at it, you'll get to where you'll
require only an inch or so of space, walking on a single wooden beam, etc.
That minimizes the amount of movement any board can make.  As for stairs,
you'll get to where you'll be skipping steps on a regular basis.  The less
surface area you touch, the less noise you make.  It's that simple."

       I look over at Swift.  He winks at me in an encouraging sort of way.
"You'll get it chap.  It just takes time.  It took me three months to get
really good at it."

       Whistler laughs.  "Master Swift is modest.  Only one boy learned the
art faster."

       I turn to him.  "How long did it take Talen?"

       Whistler looks askew for a moment.  "Tethyr's teeth, but you guessed
his name.  Two months and young Talen was the quietest one around here.
It's unusual to get the technique down so quickly."

       Suddenly, I have a goal.  I believe...no, I KNOW I'm more talented
than Talen.  It's like I have a hollow space inside that hungers for
validation, and it's urging me to prove to everyone just how capable I am.
My mastery of the art of the unheard footfall will give me a chance to
prove my worth both to myself and to my friends.

       "Show me," I say.

       "Well," Whistler says.  "I was just coming to that bit of
unpleasantness.  I've come up with an invention..." As his voice trails
off, he points at a roll of cloth on his seat.  He picks it up and presents
it to me.  "I took two pieces of cotton cloth and sewed several tacks into
them.  I put these into your boot to keep you from putting your weight down
on certain areas of your foot.  If you do put your weight down, well, these
tacks are nice and sharp.  You'll draw a good deal of blood if you stand on
them with any force."

       I must've looked despondent.  Just envisioning these things under my
feet brought back memories of prison.  I swallow hard and meet his gaze
with mine.  "Tacks in my boots?" I ask.  I wanted to make sure I heard him
right.  He nods and dispels any notion of mine that I hadn't heard him
right.  "Is that all?  I thought it'd be harder than that."  I stop myself
at that point.

       Confidence in the face of pain is dignified.  Overconfidence is just
plain stupid.

       Whistler smiles at me and motions for me to sit on the stool.  When
I do so, he kneels next to me and takes my left boot in his hand.  He
probes with his fingers down and around my ankle and pulls the leather boot
off, setting it aside while looking at my foot.

       I'd been walking all day, and my feet looked a bit damp.  Because of
my race, my sweat doesn't produce the foul odor that plagues most humans.
Atlanteans are prized sexual objects because of this, and our perspiration
is considered an aphrodisiac.

       "You've got quite a nasty scar here," he indicates trailing his
finger along my arch.  It tickles, and I jerk my leg ever so
slightly. "Number ninety-eight.  I think that's what it says."

       Swift leans over and takes a look.  "Yup," he agrees.  "Number
ninety-eight."

       I shrug, dismissing it as unimportant.  I can't read.  It's one of
the things that I'm deeply ashamed of because only stupid people can't
read.  And I don't want to be called stupid.  I can't say, however, that
I'm surprised a number has been branded on me.  It's easier to abuse a
number.  If you know it's a human being, then it's harder to rape, beat,
and even kill.

       "There are a few adjustments I need to make here, Kian.  It'll only
take a minute."  Whistler, starts cutting cloth and holding it to the
bottom of my arch to make sure that when he places it, that it's perfect.

       "Do you have elven blood in your veins?" he asks me.

       I look at him skeptically.  "I don't think so," I say.

       He looks up at me, his expression whimsical.  "You've got beautiful
feet.  Perfect even with fine bones, long lean toes, and clear nails.
These are the kind that people would pay to suck, you know?  There are lots
of wealthy patrons looking for pretty boy feet.  They'd pay handsomely to
get their tongues on these babies."

       "I'm well aware of that," I say with distaste.

       "Ah.  Well I'm just making conversation.  Your feet have a kind of
grace that's usually elven in nature.  That and you've got a runner's arch
here.  I'll wager you can run fast and for a long time."

       "I'm Atlantean," I say.

       Whistler pauses and I feel eyes looking at me.

       "Did I say anything wrong?"

       "There ARE no Atlanteans, boy," Whistler says.  "They're
civilization was swallowed by the oceans many years ago."

       "But perhaps he is just yet," Swift murmurs.  "It explains
everything about how he looks.  I've heard of Atlanteans and many of their
books and scrolls survived the destruction that sent the cities of Atlantea
to the bottom of the sea.  Obviously, these books and scrolls were carried
by refugees and survivors."

       Whistler mumbles something I can't quite understand under his
breath.  He fits my boot with the cloth and tacks then and wraps my foot in
a layer of cotton gauze to further hold them in place.  Next, he does the
same to my other foot.

       After it's done, I put my boots back on and stand up.  It feels like
I'm being forced to go around with all of my weight on my toes.  With some
adjustment, though (and I admit there are a few minor sticks) I'm able to
discover rather quickly the most painless way to walk.  By the Gods am I
quiet!

       "You don't have to thank me," Whistler remarks.  There's a trace of
sarcasm in his voice.

       "When can they come off?"

       "Barely put them on and already asking when they can come off."
Whistler puts finger to chin in a thinking pose.  "Perhaps in four months.
That's the average time.  Of course, if you can prove before then that you
can walk across dried leaves or rice paper without a sound, I'll take them
off right then."

       I grind my teeth together and look down at my leather boots.  I
swear to myself that I will have them off in less than two months.  Failure
is not an option.

                                  *****

I will post Chapter Six this weekend.