Teacher
They were getting close; I'm too old for this. I wove my way through the trees. I tripped over something and went flying. "Oomph," I landed against a tree. I had always hated trees for this very reason: they always got in my way. "There he is! Get him!"
"Shit," I muttered as I scrambled back into a run. An arrow whizzed past my ear as I dove to the ground. As soon as I hit the ground, a net sprung, suspending me from a tree. The little children crowded around me as I squirmed in the vine net. They all bore various weapons ranging from swords to staffs. Boys and girls alike wore linen shorts and light linen short sleeved shirts. They wore leather sandals which were laced in the Greek style. The girls wore their hair in tightly woven braids while the boys’ hair was sheared short. They were all grinning fiercely at me.
“We got you,” one small girl taunted.
I shifted myself inside the net until my hand grasped a handle strapped to my calf hidden under my pants. “Well you would have, Eureka, if I didn’t have this,” I told the small girl in a scholarly voice as I sliced myself free from the net and dropped to the ground. My landing was grateful and I landed on my knees in the middle of the ring of children.
A boy to my right whined as I stood up and replaced my knife to its sheath, “Falcon, why do you have to make it so hard?”
I rubbed the boy on the head. “Because, Takashi, I am your teacher, and as your teacher, I must teach you to always be prepared for your enemy to be one step ahead.” While I was seemingly distracted with lecturing young Takashi, Nala, one of my older female students, made a bold sweep at my legs with her staff in a hope to catch me unawares. Instead of falling over as she had envisioned I would, I flipped over her in the blink of an eye and landed behind her with my hand on her head. “Good try Nala, but you need a few more years to beat me.” I pat her kindly and turned my attention back to the rest of my class. “You all did very well today. I didn’t even see the net until I was in it, but Boden, you’re aim needs improvement. The arrow you fired went right past me and I had been running in a fairly straight line, you should be able to make that shot,” I spoke to a ten year old who brandished a beautiful wooden recurve bow and had an almost full quiver attached to his back. His check reddened and he looked at his feet.
“Falcon, the sun’s setting,” Sanura pointed out.
I nodded to myself, as I spoke, “Yes, yes, I guess that it’s time to head back, then. Collect all your things and meet me by the waterfall in five minutes. Go.” The children scattered off to collect their various possessions and I sauntered a few feet away to the nearby roaring waterfall. Takashi was the first one back, he always was. He was one of the fastest kids I had ever known; at least on this planet. Riding the same train of thought were distant memories of Adlai, a demon from my first ever jump, but he was long dead by now. All of my old friends were dead by now; yet the Special Forces, the reason I left Earth in the first place, were still chasing me wherever I went. Why can’t they leave me alone?! I was suddenly very angry and looking for a place to take out my anger. Luckily while I had been thinking, my group had been walking back to the school. “Get back to yer rooms for now, class dismissed,” I told them gruffly. The nodded quietly and ran back to their dorms, no one wanting to remain by my side when I was in one of my moods. As for myself, I went to the courtyard, looking for a sparring partner; no one would volunteer. When I asked, they all shied away from me as if I were a monster. Perhaps in that moment I was, but the longer I remained in one of my moods, the angrier I became.
After I paced around the courtyard aggressively for a few moments, my anger simmering, a man by the name of Ciro appeared. He was twice my age, height, and weight, yet he emerged in wearing every practice pad available. I laughed when I saw him coming, but it was a wicked laugh, and it sounded harsh in my own throat. “Boy, you laugh, but even you should know how violent you get during your moods,” Ciro told me this in a voice I had heard him use as he approached frightened animals. It only made me angrier; how dare he consider me an animal? “Take your knife off and we can fight,” he kept using that stupid, obnoxious voice.
“Fine,” I shouted angrily. As I drew my knife everyone stepped back, including Ciro. I aimed it at the wall behind Ciro’s ear and flung it. The man stood stock still as it rushed past him, yet he flinched slightly and that caused me to laugh loudly.
“You’re much older than me, heavier than me, and taller than me, yet you fear me? Why is that?” I taunted as I began to circle him.
The older man, a seasoned fighter and one of my peers as a teacher at the school, shifted his staff nervously. “When you get in these moods, no one knows what you’re capable of?”
“Then why let me teach here,” I yelled back. “If I’m so dangerous, why keep me here?” I knew the answer but I enjoyed seeing the tall man squirm.
“Because, Falcon, for the past five years your moods have come few and far between, and between you are a phenomenal teacher.” I laughed wickedly again and attacked. The attack was far more malicious than I had intended, but I couldn’t rein myself in. My attacks were fast and fierce, but Ciro defended himself valiantly. He never attacked once, knowing that would make me angrier. Soon, though, my attacks began to slow; the power behind them decreased. Seeing this, Ciro ignored a weak punch to his chest and placed one hand on my shoulder. My head hung in shame as my cheeks burned in embarrassment. “Go wait for me by the western gate; I’ll be there in a moment.” I nodded my head weakly and raced away from the boring eyes of those surrounding us and watching. I didn’t even stop to retrieve my knife which was deeply lodged in the school wall. I ran through the middle of the large building, meeting accusing eyes at every turn, and emerged at a large and intricately carved gate; I passed through it and climbed one of the trees just beyond it. While I waited on my mentor, I pounded my fist into the rough bark, testing my calluses against the wood. I laughed grimly. These fists have thicker skin than any of the others. Oh wait, what about the visit to Kaltari? No, that was where I was a scholar, or was I a merchant? Who can remember what one has done in the past two hundred years?
Ciro broke my thoughts as he called up to me, “Falcon, are you ready to come down now? We need to talk.”
“I’ve already told you everything about myself; well everything I can remember.” I refused to move from my perch.
“Falcon, get down here!” He ordered.
“I’ll be harder for them to find here!” I yelled back, but I slowly climbed down the tree nonetheless. Ciro firmly griped my upper arm and led me on the long winding path which led from the gate.
“Talk,” he ordered.
“About what? About how hopeless my life is? About the fact that no matter where I go, they still find me?” I was yelling now, “About how many of my friends I seen die! What is it that you wish to know of me?” Ciro gently pulled me over to the side of the path and sat beside me on a fallen log. He put his arm of my shoulder in a fatherly way and let me lean my head on his shoulder.
“How old are you, boy?” He asked gently.
“487 give or take, and depending whose year measurement you’re going by; technically I’m only 146 or so by my chasers count, but I’ve lived through 487 different years. How many were spent in each world? In each body, all spent running from the same goddamn foe?”
“How many years have you been with us?”
“Too many, they’ll be coming for me soon.” I sat up as my leg started bounding.
Ciro put a hand on my knee to still it. “Stop that; how many years?”
“Five, I’m twenty here now, but that’s no big accomplishment. I was once twenty-six, but that was before they chased me.”
“Don’t you think that maybe they’ve given up?”
I stood up and started pacing rapidly. “No; maybe in another hundred years they’ll get bored with me, but right now, I am a rite of passage. Their students must at least find me in order to become true agents and be allowed on real missions. I’m a human being, not some animal to be hunted. I almost want to go to them and give myself up just to have it over with. Go up to them and say, ‘Well, we’ve had some fun, but I’ve decided to retire now,’ but I don’t. It’s more out of curiosity as to how I will die than any leftover will to live. Will my atoms finally become too unstable after countless jumps? Will I catch some rare disease? Will someone actually kill me? But I know one thing for sure; I won’t be allowed to die from old age with a loving family and children.”
“Have you ever had any children?” Ciro asked gently as his eyes followed me back and forth.
This stopped me dead in my tracks as I thought carefully. “Yes, yes I did. I had a little boy name Alva, but I can’t remember what world he’s on. I can’t even remember his mother’s name. Does that make me a horrible person? Yes, I guess it does. Since I left him and my wife, I’ve avoided women at all costs.”
“Until now…”
I kicked a dirt clod angrily. “Yes, well, I’ll have to leave Keley soon too. Again, I’ll have to leave my love because of the stupid Force. What really burns me up is that the kids who are in it aren’t really bad people, they’re just following orders. I used to be like that, until…” I heard a stick snap as someone snuck closer. I immediately sunk into a fighting stance as Ciro stood up, his hand griping a knife shaft. Twenty of them emerged from the forest. All dressed in black cotton from head to toe. All with soft black shoes with light soles. All aiming guns at me… In the blink of an eye, I ripped off the leather bracelets I wore around my wrists and made a sweeping motion in front of me and Ciro. In the wake of my arms, a swirling mass of blue flames formed a shield, blocking the incoming bullets and darts. “Run,” I ordered Ciro. Luckily he was smart enough to obey without question.
As he ran he yelled back, “I’ll tell her goodbye for you.” I silently thanked him and reinforced my shield as a second wave of projectiles hit it. With one hand on the shield, I used the other to dig through my only constant companion, my old satchel. My hand gripped around a small rectangular device and I squeezed a button on it. As I began to fade away, one agent managed a lucky shot and planted a small dart in my back. When I fell over, I hit not the hard dirt of the forest, but the soft grass of the plains.
I tried to move, but my body wouldn't respond. Footsteps approached as I became more panicked. Calm down, there, is no one here who has reason to harm you. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Strong hand gripped my arms and pulled me to my limp feet. Someone placed their hand in my hair and pulled my head up so that I was eye to eye with an ancient rival. “Hello Falcon,” Hep sneered. I didn’t even attempt to say anything; it would’ve only come out as a mumble. The man and I had once competed for the title of Thief Lord years ago. He had stolen my transporter and created a copy, except his transported him at the correct age. That was the boy’s talent; he could create copies of anything. So now he and his little army traveled from world to world, messing with the world’s progress and using otherworldly weapons to gain power. He and I were the top of the Force’s most wanted list. Ever heard the saying, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend?” Well it’s a load of bullshit. He and I had a mutual enemy but we had no reason to help each other. So now, as his thugs held my limp body, he gloated about his recent exploits in this world. “So what brings you to our humble little world of Natari?”
When I didn’t respond, one of his men told him, “He has a dart in him, um, sir.”
“Well why didn’t you tell me that earlier, stupid. Our guest can’t make his famous snide remarks if he’s paralyzed. Let’s take him back to the castle and make him feel welcome." My captors laughed a sadistic laugh and dragged me off down the path. The journey was long and boring, and needless to say my feet were quite raw at the end from being dragged down the gravel path and I having been "accidentally" dropped once or twice. The castle which Hep had referred to was magnificent: the large fortress had been built on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The sight was breathtaking. Lines of people streamed in and out of the small front gate, all very quiet as they passed by the two heavily armored guards who stood at the entrance. No one even looked up as I was dragged past them and up to the castle. I was taken up a flight of stairs and past three doors. At the fourth one Hep produced a brass key and unlocked the door. Inside was a small sitting room and two doors. "Put him in the servant's quarters," Hep ordered and pointed to one of the two doors. "Oh, and call Jade to patch him up." With those words, Hep disappeared into the other room. The men grumbled but opened the door and heaved me in to the small, closet like servant's room. The floor was lined with dry reeds but otherwise the room was bare. I had landed on my chest so that my head was just barely turned enough for me to breath. I lay there in the darkness for an immeasurable amount of time.