Chapter 6: Windows to the Soul

"This is the home I built for my mind after my brothers and I completed our final endeavor. Since I communed with steel for the greater part of my life time, I decided to search for the quicksilver and make a nest for my mind. In this nest I built my version of Elysium, except that my abilities here are only limited to my imagination."

Aromir pondered this. Kandir had always taught him that it was polite to ask relevant questions first, so as to increase the efficiency of the lesson.

So Aromir asked, "How can you train my body when it is not active?"

The light in Izodir's eyes grew when Aromir posed the question. He responded, "This is the power of my tower. While my consciousness is here with yours, my sub-consciousness, the mind behind my mind, has taken over your body and is currently plying the same lessons to your muscles and the facilities that govern them. When your training is complete your mind will be plunged into a better, faster you. With my instruction you will not require a full day to feel at home with it."

"Now, Aromir, please fight with me. There are rules. Firstly, you will kill me many times in your training, simply because you need to know what it's like to dispatch a man in various ways. I will return with a new body the moment you do. This means that we can fight for eternity, or until I kill you. If you die you will awaken. Second, you will be fighting my imaginations limit, not me. I was held as the master of the sword the world over for more than five hundred years, so defeating my imagination in any style would be impressive. Thirdly, and most importantly, the lessons will never stop until your training is complete. You will not tire or require food. While sparring, we will also have lessons on what to do when you leave here. How to seek out my brothers, to speak the People of Fate's language, and most importantly how to control the wind; these are all things that would render you time with me useless unless you knew them."

The last statement caught Aromir by surprise. When the traders had come to his village they would bring news of the world. The best of these, in his opinion, were the men with fathers from the eastern mountain ranges. They would tell stories of a mystical tribe of men who could lift themselves off of the ground and fly like eagles. The Arcon's, as the traders translated, could control any air and even, by legend's standards, break rock with it. There was one such fable where the tribe's war elder defeated an entire army with a single gust of wind so powerful that it sent them across the continent and into the sea. His name was Hurcanne and they named the great storms of the sea after him.

When Aromir asked about that particular lesson Izodir's response was unexpected.

"Aromir, from my family will you learn a great many things. This power Ac'el and I have spoken of is born from the traits each of us held as a great doers and also great men. From me you will learn how to wield a blade. To you that mean how to swing a sword, but to me it is being able to swing the influence of a battle with a single change in stance, or kill your opponent from across the room without unsheathing your blade and the respect for life that power comes with. From my best friend Magirim you will learn what will be perceived as magic, but is actually a communion with the elements. His compassionate nature will rub off on you as well, as it does with everyone. The General will teach you the value of war waged rightly, and how to heal a people after the necessary fighting is done. You see from him how to win the heart of men so that when the time comes you will be able to ask him to kill his brother and with the greatest sense of duty he would. If one were to view his life from start to finish, he would seem a war monger, but he was always second to none as an ambassador. That too you will learn. If ever you find my brother and the knowledge he has to offer you, he will teach you the value of knowing the secrets that have never been told. Of all my family, Eloki was the very best at being at the time and place most inconvenient to his enemy's. The only way you knew Eloki was in a room was if he wanted you to."

"Aromir go to the weapons rack to your left." It wasn't a rack, it was a wall. Not like any conventional wall, because conventional walls stop before going out of sight. This wall didn't share that trait. Astounded Aromir cursed.

"Do not be daunted by these tools of death. They become an extension of your body and likewise your body must change to wield them. What you are going to learn is to judge a weapon in the time it takes you to disarm a person and use it better than its maker could have even dreamt. First we will start with these."

Izodir held up a pair of metal rods the width of Aromir's middle finger and the length of his forearm. They had wrapped chord around the bottom third and a guard towards the middle. On the opposite end from the handle they were sharpened down to a fine point. Izodir threw one of them to Aromir and the training had started.

Izodir had indeed made good on his promise to teach Aromir all he knew. They sparred for a time immeasurable, honing Aromir's mind until knowledge became second nature, and second nature became instinctual. Izodir's other lessons came just as promised as well, and after an eternity spent thrusting, parrying, riposte, thrust, back flip, instep, feint, jugular vein, corroded, Achilles tendon Aromir had completed his training.

With a flourish of his two handed broad dagger Aromir flew into the air, completing a series of twists and turns so fast that he seemed a blur to the naked eye. He landed on his left hand while flinging his blade at Izodir's bloody and limping body. Izodir waved the blade away from his chest giving the displacement of air extra energy and sending a sharp blade of wind towards where Aromir had been just a second ago. Instead Aromir was racing towards his teacher's left flank that he had left week from a blow he had delivered just before launching himself into the air. He drew a flat blade with a squared tip from the sheath strapped onto the small of his back and dismembered Izodir's left arm as he raised it to block his neck from attack. Izodir was too slow to block the decapitating blow Aromir delivered next.

Clap. Clap. Clap clap clap clap.

"Kvis'tah da ner Min mann, Re'tor Izod."

"Sonua ba ner Maz mann, Aromir."