Shadowdance 01 - A Dance of Cloaks

them in his hands, and rolled.
    Aaron leaned against the wall to the open training room, holding back a wince of pain. His shoulder throbbed where Senke had struck him. Ever since the meeting the week before, and Thren’s promise to include him in all things, his father had made him spend hours training each day. Senke was his trainer, the wiry rogue second only to Thren in skill with a blade.
    “If you’d stop making mistakes, you wouldn’t hurt so much,” Senke said, pacing before him. “To your feet. It’s time to dance.”
    Aaron pushed himself off the wall, knowing Senke would continue whether he was ready or not. For hours they’d danced, blunted practice swords whirling and clanging as they parried, riposted, and blocked. Of all his teachers of combat, Senke was by far the best, as well as the most enjoyable to be with. He laughed, he joked, he said things about women that made Aaron blush. When it came to swordplay, though, he took the dance seriously. The joy would fade from his eyes like a fire buried in dirt. After an error, he’d explain to Aaron what he’d done wrong. Should he react too slowly, or too foolishly, that’d be corrected as well. Sometimes he explained in great detail what to do, and when. Most often, though, he smacked Aaron with his sword and let the pain do the teaching.
    This practice was particularly brutal. Senke wanted to hone Aaron’s dodging ability. Denying him the ability to use his sword in defense, or to strike back, Senke swung and stabbed with incredible speed. The problem was that Aaron’s initial reaction was always to block or parry, not dodge. Other teachers might have taken away his sword, but Senke would have none of it.
    “You’ll learn to control your instincts, otherwise they’ll control you,” the man said. Again and again the sword cracked against his shoulders, his head, and his hands. Whenever he tried to raise his sword, Senke’s other blade would shoot out, parry it away, and then slap him across the face.
    At last, when both were exhausted and dripping with sweat, Senke called the training done.
    “You’re getting better,” the man said. “I know it’s tempting to show off how good you are at positioning your blades, but sometimes, especially with stronger opponents, it is best to just get out of the way. Once you’re reacting quicker, we’ll work on integrating those dodges into your normal defensive patterns.”
    And with that, Aaron was dismissed. His teacher gone, he rubbed his shoulder, part of him wanting to ask a servant to massage it for him. But massages meant pain, and pain meant failure, at least when it came to training with Senke. After all, if he would just dodge like he was supposed to, he’d not have a bruise on him. So he put it out of his mind as best he could, wiped more sweat from his face onto his sleeve, and hurried down the hall of the mansion. He did not skulk, and he did not try to hide. This time he had a specific place he wanted to go, and without bothering to knock upon arriving he stepped into Robert Haern’s room.
    The furnishings were few but expensive. The chairs were padded and comfortable, the walls painted a soft red, and the carpet a luxurious green. Robert sat on the bed, piles of books on either side of him. Aaron wondered how he could possibly sleep on it, then wondered if the old man even slept in the first place.
    “You’re here,” Robert said, smiling when he looked up. “I had begun to worry that Senke would knock all reason and wisdom out of you.”
    “My ears are clogged,” Aaron said. “The wisdom stays in.”
    The old man chuckled.
    “Good for you, then. Sit. We have old matters to attend to.”
    Aaron sat down, wondering what he could mean. Over the past week Robert had gone to great lengths describing the various guilds and their guildmasters. He’d gone beyond recent times and into the past, beating into Aaron’s head why their colors were what they were, why each symbol had been chosen, what the symbols looked like, how they were drawn, and every other possible fact that seemed totally irrelevant. No matter how obscure it was, Robert would frown deeply and reprimand whenever Aaron missed an answer.
    “In the darkness I might have taken away a light,” Robert had said that very first day they resumed tutoring sessions. “But here I have nothing to take from you, so instead I do this: for every error you make, I will treat you like a child. I will tell you tales instead of