Tragic Providence Page 6

  Wil lowered his head in deference and embarrassment. “Yes, Teacher.”

  “I told Pylas when I agreed to teach him that I don’t groom killers. However, you have a right to defend yourselves and I will make certain that you are both very capable in that regard.”

  “Thank you, Teacher,” Pylas and Wil said together.

  “You’ve both shown extraordinary potential with Divine Pattern, more than I could have guessed.” Jay looked briefly at Silestry. “If you are exposed—when you are exposed, as it is an eventuality—death will surely follow.”

  “It’s true,” Silestry said. “Sachs will throw everything he has under every guise he can think of at you.”

  “We need to step things up with Volume Two,” Pylas said.

  Wil shook his head. “It’s not enough. Brasso is closer to Sachs than I first thought. I can give you Brasso.”

  “That would expose you,” Silestry said.

  “No,” Wil said. “Any of his men might do it if only to step into his place.”

  “But only one of his men is enrolled at the martial arts school frequented by the Chief Constable and mere blocks away from a botched assassination attempt.”

  Jay kneaded his chin between thumb and forefinger. “Give me a month,” he said.

  Silestry raised his eyebrows questioningly. “A month?”

  “Pylas has made unheard of progress in a very short time. Once Wil has bested the Leaf, he may expect similar progress. In that case, within a month, both will be a match for any common hired killer.”

  “It’s the uncommon ones that worry me,” Silestry said.

  “If Teacher believes a month is enough, I will gladly dig all I can and help bury Brasso. Maybe he’s the keystone that topples the foundation.”

  Silestry studied him. “Are you ready to be publicly known as Jardin? Teacher, are you ready for what this will bring to your doors?”

  Both Wil and Jay looked to Pylas.

  “I can wait one more month for a shave and a haircut. And it would be nice to be able to wear my glasses outside the house again.”

  “How are you managing that anyway?” Wil said.

  “It’s a challenge, but Sachs has made everything a challenge. Aren, are there still avenues to pursue in Volume Two?”

  Silestry nodded.

  “But it’s running dry, isn’t it.” Wil said.

  “What you two have done has been invaluable,” Silestry said.

  “But it won’t give us Sachs,” Wil said.

  “Aren,” Pylas said, “I think we all appreciate your concern, but we also all agree that we need to do more if we’re going to bring Sachs down. I think we’re ready. Or almost ready. Teacher says a month. His word is good enough for me. Wil?”

  Wil nodded.

  “Okay,” Silestry said. “One month. The constabulary will continue mining Volume Two in the meantime. You two practice, improve, be ready.”

  1.5 ONE MONTH

  Fynn Taos was one of Jay’s most advanced students, and Pylas appreciated having been matched with him. Since Pylas, as Tai Sonsen, was initially considered an outsider and a late-comer to the school, Fynn didn’t hold back when they sparred. Fynn quickly found, though, that whatever training the outsider had received prior to his arrival had been thorough and well-digested. With his skill and easy manner, Pylas had soon ingratiated himself with Fynn and the rest of the students. There were still some, mostly those with whom he hadn’t had direct contact, who were still skeptical and somewhat standoffish, but more embraced him as one of their own than did not.

  Working with Fynn was the first real gauge of Pylas’s ability. Pylas knew that his early exposure to the Leaf had helped expedite his progress, but he hadn’t realized how much. Even without his glasses, gross patterns, both static and in motion, leapt out at him, highlighting themselves in his awareness. He still had a knowledge deficit when compared to Fynn, but Pylas could easily read attack patterns and see the gaps and holes they presented. This allowed him a degree of disassociation from the heat of engagement, which he found to be an extremely efficient way to learn. He began to find, too, that some of Jay’s explicit teachings were observations he’d already made and was now having confirmed.

  At first Pylas felt as if he had an unfair advantage over the other students who’d passed the Leaf test, especially before most had managed to emerge from the induced stupor the Leaf precipitated, but all were now receiving the same treatment. He’d expressed his discomfort, mild as it may have been, to Jay. Jay scoffed.

  “I’ve shown you all the door,” Jay had said. “You’ve all stepped through. On the other side, some will crawl, some will run. Every man has his own potential and his own drive. Sometimes those are at cross purposes, sometimes they are perfectly in line. Don’t worry about the others. They will proceed according to their means.”

  Pylas accepted this and said no more on the topic, though he did appreciate that Jay had decided to work directly with Wil. Wil was proving to be quite capable and was advancing rapidly.

  For the first time in a long time, Pylas entertained the idea that, even if exposed, he and Wil might enjoy some degree of safety, and this by their own hands.

  It took seven days for the last of the five to overcome the hypnotic effects of the Leaf. Wil had awakened in four, as Pylas had, but they couldn’t decide who’d been faster on their last day. On that seventh day, after the rest of the students had gone home, Jay called the five together for special instruction.

  “You’ve all encountered, and possibly practiced, a number of these already, but today, I want you to choose your preferred fist.

  “As a simple physical discipline, Divine Pattern is direct and destructive. Additionally, your meditation on the Leaf will soon begin to give you a facility for recognizing patterns in all things. For us this translates to recognizing flaws and weaknesses. You will look at a simple structure and know where to apply force to make it crumble. Observing an opponent’s movements will unfailingly reveal when and where you can and can’t strike for greatest advantage. Eventually, with enough scrutiny, you will be able to perceive structural weaknesses in solid objects, and even in the human body. To exploit this enhanced perception, you must cultivate the proper means of attack. Everyone, with every aspect of Divine Pattern, will have his own unique approach. Think of your fist as your signature.”

  Jay raised his right fist, the knuckle of his middle finger protruding sharply from the rest of his clenched fingers.

  “This is my preferred fist and why I’m called Crippler Jay. When I was much younger, I was very free with it. I came upon the Leaf much later than all of you. My mediations on the Leaf enabled me to see what I’d been doing by instinct for years. After the Leaf, my ability increased dramatically, but I was less and less willing to apply what I was learning. Perhaps you can understand why. I retired a champion and established the school and never looked back.

  “Now, the tip of my knuckle has far more penetrating power than the flat of my fist. Why is that?”

  “Pressure,” Bron Molono said.

  “Exactly.” Jay nodded. “I punch the same target twice with the exact same force, one with all my knuckles folded, one with my middle knuckle protruding. Though the amount of force is the same, the amount of pressure delivered to the target is far greater with the protruding knuckle. This sounds simple, and it is, but the application can be devastating. You have some options.”

  Jay altered the configuration of his hand so that now his fore knuckle protruded, now his thumb poked out over the top of his folded knuckles, now his middle and fore fingers pointed straight, and finally all his fingers pointed straight in a flat plane.

  “Bent fingers are easier to condition—and less likely to break in a fight—than outstretched fingers, but many men have done exceptionally well with the Secret Sword and the Spear Hand.

  “Take some time to consider,” Jay said. “I have no doubts that you will shortly know which suits you best.”

  All f
ive were practicing the different fist shapes, reviewing their experience, or lack of experience, with each.

  Pylas was intrigued with the fore-knuckle fist. Wil was mimicking Jay’s thumb fist, turning it over, examining it. Fynn Taos, Bron Molono, and Ursin Lim all seemed to have decided on the middle-knuckle fist in emulation of Jay.

  “Right.” Jay made the middle-knuckle fist and then the fore-knuckle fist. “The Pin. Hard and penetrating.” He then made the thumb fist. “The Bud. Comparatively soft and blossoming. Wil, we’ll have to work together closely as the Bud is more complicated than the simple Pin.”

  “Yes, Teacher,” Wil said.

  “The rest of you, though the shape is slightly different, the Pin is essentially the same for either the middle or fore knuckle. All of you, start doing push-ups on your weapons of choice. Do as many as you can, as often as you can. Eventually, this physical conditioning will be completely secondary to what you’ll be able to accomplish with simple concentration. But until then, push-ups.”

  • • •

  For days, in hours-long bouts in addition to his other practice—especially knuckle push-ups—Pylas stood before the mirror, his stance solid, unwavering. His relentless training had strengthened his legs enough to inure him to the distraction of fatigue so that he could focus on what he saw in the mirror, but not right away. Two unexpected obstacles had barred his access to the actual goal. At first, he was unable to see beyond the pattern of the glass lenses that enabled him to see. On pushing his perception through his glasses, he was then stopped by the surface of the mirror itself.

  Eventually he was able to use his reflection as a means of turning his perception inward, upon himself. For two weeks, he stood before the mirror, using it to focus upon himself, to familiarize himself with his own Pattern, and with subtle, even cryptic, suggestions from Jay, to begin to affect his Pattern. Following those two weeks, he no longer needed the mirror.

  In his studies of his Pattern, Pylas recognized exactly what Jay had done for him the night he arrived at the school, how Jay had closed the stab wound by force of will. Jay’s intervention had been localized to a very small area, but with continued practice, Pylas found that he, too, could temporarily close his entire Pattern, to constrict it so that his body became hard, sheathed in unseen armor. It was like tensing all of his muscles at once—though the effect was completely independent of his muscles—without losing any of his mobility or freedom of motion. The more he practiced this hardened state, the more it became unconscious reflex. He now understood what Jay had meant about concentration.

  • • •

  Every day, once the regular students had gone home, the Leaf Class, as they came to be known, was given advanced instruction. All had been progressing with their hand conditioning, but Pylas in particular was showing uncanny proficiency. After only a few sessions, he was regularly putting his fore knuckle through rope-wrapped wooden targets. Jay suspected that Pylas had intuited upon an advanced technique, but wanted to be sure.

  Everyone laughed when Jay produced a melon in each arm. He merely smirked, placed the melons atop chest-high posts, and called for Jemmy to bring him more.

  “Now, Fynn, I want you to demonstrate your Pin.”

  “On the melon, Teacher?”

  Jay nodded. “Use precision. Don’t knock the melon from the post, but strike as hard as you can.”

  “Yes, Teacher.” Fynn did as instructed. The melon wobbled on its perch and was left with a hole corresponding to Fynn’s middle knuckle.

  Orsin Lim and Bron Molono followed Fynn and had similar results, except Molono’s melon toppled over and smashed to the courtyard’s paving-stone floor.

  “Tai, your turn,” Jay said.

  Pylas approached his target and struck as each of the others had, but his melon didn’t move on impact. However, the back blew out like a cork from a bottle, sending a powerful jet of pulped red fruit in a narrow stream.

  “What the hell!” Bron blurted.

  “Damn,” Orsin said.

  Wil narrowed his eyes and stared at his friend. “Poor melon. Never had a chance.”

  “Is it because he uses his fore knuckle?” Fynn said.

  Jay was grinning and shaking his head. “No. The Pin, with proper conditioning and concentration, can be used to crack just about anything, but in the end, it’s just your knuckle, which can only penetrate so far. Unless you do what Tai has done, what he’s been doing for a little while now.”

  Pylas examined his fore-knuckle fist.

  “Tai, do you know what you’ve been doing?”

  Pylas shrugged. “You said to hit it as hard as we could with precision, Teacher.”

  Jay snorted then nodded.

  “What Tai has been doing—unconsciously—is called the Inertia Pin. With sufficient focus, you will be able to transmit one hundred percent of your punch’s inertia into and through your target. With obviously devastating results.

  “Okay, Wil, it’s your turn. Remember what I told you about the Bud. Soft. Like ripples in a pond. Like petals opening to the sun.”

  “Yes, Teacher,” Wil said.

  Wil approached his melon and struck with his thumb punch. As with Pylas’s, the melon didn’t move. It didn’t appear to have been affected much at all—Wil’s thumb had left a dent, but hadn’t penetrated the melon’s outer skin.

  Orsin, Bron, and Fynn were all looking at each other, not wanting to noticeably register what appeared to be their school-brother’s failure. But both Pylas and Jay were grinning.

  “Well done, Wil,” Jay said.

  Since Orsin made the most visible display of incredulity, Jay picked him. “Orsin, please collect Wil’s melon and bring it here.”

  “Yes, Teacher.”

  Orsin put his hands to either side of the melon and lifted it from the post, but it instantly lost its shape and spilled its pulped contents from where it split at the bottom. Orsin stared at the mess that covered his shoes and lower pant legs. “Damn,” he said.

  “If you were listening to my description of the Inertia Pin and to my reminders to Wil,” then you understand what just happened.

  “Tai, you are ready for the Vorpal Pin. We’ll begin instruction on that tomorrow. I also want you to start working with Wil, go over mirror training with him. That, I want you start right now in the house.”

  “Yes, Teacher.”

  • • •

  Inside the house, Pylas took Wil to the mirror used for training.

  “This will probably be easier for you since you don’t wear glasses,” Pylas said. “It’s really just a variation on studying Patterns. You’ve studied the Leaf’s. You’ve been studying others’ as well. You should keep that up, by the way.

  “Settle into your stance in front of the mirror,” he said as he did so. Wil did as well. “Try to use the mirror as a way to identify your own Pattern. You’ll probably see the mirror itself first, but just keep using your image as a way into yourself. Once you’ve managed that, it’s like a whole new world to explore and exploit.”

  • • •

  Five weeks of Jay’s requested month had passed—twenty-five days, which left another five. Everyone in the Leaf Class was progressing at various rates, but despite their being newest to Jay’s school, Pylas and Wil had revealed themselves to be prodigies. Both had quickly earned the respect of all the other students, regardless of any previous misgivings. Even those most competitive and envious of what might be perceived as their preferential treatment, couldn’t argue with the pair’s obviously advanced skills.

  Wil had followed Pylas in his mastery of the mirror training. Where Pylas had found wild success in closing his Pattern, Wil excelled in opening his. Doing so made him light and exceedingly hard to hit, evading strikes like down in the wind.

  Jay had dubbed their new abilities the Stone Coat and Pillow Jacket. He’d accomplished each of these states in the past himself, but nowhere near as quickly as they had. Because of their singular proficiencies, he encouraged them to
specialize and see just how far they could go. Normally, he would advocate balance and have them alter their training, but something told him that this was the correct way to proceed.

  Additionally, with Jay’s direction, both had learned to better control their application of force. They needed to know when they were transmitting their inertia and to be able to refrain from doing so.

  • • •

  As the month had worn on, Wil had become increasingly nervous. He’d been collecting evidence against Brasso the whole time and felt that his position became more tenuous with each passing day, but he’d reached a kind of epiphany that didn’t quite equate to overconfidence. He spent his days at Jay’s school and his nights in Brasso’s employ. No one, Brasso included, had shown the least sign of suspicion and even if that were to change, Wil knew all of Brasso’s crew, knew their strengths and their weaknesses. He realized that he wasn’t concerned. He was sure that he had enough to bury Brasso as he’d promised, but was more concerned about whether or not Brasso would prove to be a sufficient inroad to Sachs. Either way, there was no going back. He’d achieved a calm that wouldn’t be challenged for years to come. Despite his nights still temporarily belonging to Brasso, Wil made a point during the last few to carve out time for himself and prepare the way for what was coming.

  • • •

  Pylas realized that in less than a week, things would get very busy and very complicated. The danger was a given and had already been considered, but his personal affairs needed addressing before they were called into question or challenged. He consulted both Jay and Silestry and eventually, they conceded. So, donning a plain brown, hooded poncho, Pylas left Jay’s school for the first time since his arrival. He carried his glasses in a pocket in case he needed them. He wasn’t worried, though. Silestry was always within sight, pretending not to notice him, and everyone—those few who chose to favor him with a look—took him for a tramp, the occasional collision with another pedestrian resulting from his poor vision suggesting drunkenness. He’d also become rather confident in his ability to defend himself. His limbs, conditioned by rigorous training, were strong and hard, even without altering his Pattern.