Chapter 4

The Doubts

 

Silver Knife brought Jerry to the city market, not far from the port, saying that they needed to find a suitable place for a conversation. This explanation greatly puzzled Jerry. How could a market be called a suitable place for conversing? The jostling, the constant hum of voices, shouted invitations of the fishmongers. All of this hardly seemed conducive to a private one-on-one conversation.

Jerry thought this until Silver Knife explained:

"That way, they won't be able to eavesdrop on us."

"Who are they?" Jerry asked.

"Your acquaintances from the Black Monastery. Sometimes they're called "Satanists", although that's not accurate at all: they don't believe in any type of God or the devil."

"Can they really hear us from that far away?" Jerry wondered, involuntarily lowering his voice so that Silver Knife almost read from his lips rather than heard him.

"It's highly unlikely among such a crowdie place. Let's go over here. We won't be in the way of people passing by, and it's more open here," said Silver Knife, pulling Jerry over to a clearing between the massive empty barrels stacked on their sides to form a pyramid held in place by iron chains.

"Now, tell me everything," said Silver Knife, crossing his arms on his chest and expectedly looking him into the eyes.

Jerry told him everything, starting with meeting the man from the Black Monastery and ending with recent events.

During Jerry's story, Silver Knife listened attentively, nodding and sometimes frowning. By the end of the story, he had become quite gloomy.

"This is bad," he said when Jerry had finished. "Very bad! You shouldn't have agreed to this job!"

"I know that now," Jerry said wearily. "But I have to leave this cursed city and go across the sea. We'll die of hunger or illness if we stay here."

Silver Knife shook his head.

"Life is a little better overseas if you have no money. Believe me, I've been there a few times. This job will kill you. It's a wonder that you've lasted that long! You're an unusual person, Jerry. A survivor."

"But everything turned out okay, right? I'm alive. Just need to find Anne and Jose.

Silver Knife again shook his head sadly.

"If only… if only...," he said sadly, not finishing the sentence.

Jerry thought Silver Knife was looking at him with some sort of pity as if he were a lamb ready for slaughter. Suddenly, he remembered one important detail he had forgotten:

"How did you find out that my family is in the Black Monastery?"

"Silver Knife sharply turned his head, giving Jerry a rather chilly look:

"You should have spared your suspicions for the Black Monastery. It sure would have been more useful back there!

Jerry was confused. It was unclear why, but the stranger inspired trust and confidence. Whether he wanted to or not. The voice, the way of speaking, the look, even the way of dressing.

"Come on, don't be upset," said Silver Knife, seeing his confusion. "You asked the right question. It's just hard for me to explain it to you. You're not trained...," Silver Knife paused for a moment, searching for the right words: "You see, when I was probing...well, when I was inside your head, as you formulated it, I extracted this information from your subconscious. A sort of telepathic probing. Understand?"

Jerry shook his head

Silver Knife sighed.

"I'm not sure about my ability to explain it to you," Silver Knife rubbed his unshaven chin. "You see, in reality, you knew that your family was sold by that guy. And where could he sell them? Only where they pay the most to the Black Monastery. Especially since someone there was interested in acquiring them specifically so that you wouldn't run away from the final test."

Seeing Jerry's still confused face, Silver Knife continued:

"There's this thing called the subconscious. It solves our problems, separately from our consciousness. And almost always correctly. It usually wakes up during sleep, when our normal "I" is asleep. You can even deliberately put someone to sleep with a special spell and talk to that second self. It's called "Alter Ago" – the Second Personality. More or less we, humans, all have it. When I established telepathy contact with you, that's what was in your mind, a logical chain of assumptions. Since you were stressed and it was so important to you, all you could think was only about that. That's why I confused you for someone other. Under normal conditions, I would have immediately understood that you were a S..., a Test subject.

Jerry shook his head again.

"I still don't understand. I didn't know they were in the Black Monastery, I just thought Kevon had sold them to someone."

Silver Knife raised his hands in helplessness:

 

Okay, let's put this aside. As stated in the book "Wise Flowers": wisdom is sipped little by little, by a human brain, not swallowed whole at once. I'll try to explain it to you later, if we have that "later, of course. Tell me now, what do you intend to do?"

"I'll just go and tell them to let them go."

"And you think they'll listen to you?" Silver Knife asked in surprise.

Jerry shook his head uncertainly and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "What else can I do here?"

"You'll be lucky if you just die and they don't turn you into an "irzenec." They probably have a final examination for older students soon.

After these incomprehensible words, silence fell, which was finally broken by Silver Knife:

"Listen to me, so you don't have any illusions about those guys, I'll tell you an old legend:

"A long, long time ago, not far from these places, a small group of people lived on an island. Those people had a special religion, a religion that worshipped death. Not literally murder, killing, or anything like that. But the end of any creature. During those rituals, by chance they discovered a supernatural force, lying deep within human consciousness.

Death was sacred to those people. They offered human sacrifices within a special circle and were able to extract energy from the dying body of their victims. Usually, a foreigner had been captured in a raid or someone kidnapped. The energy extracted from the victim brought the priests into a state of euphoria and ecstasy. The moment of the victim's death filled their souls with indescribable pleasure, like the smoke of opium does only a thousand times stronger. The priests of the cult developed their ability to extract this power for centuries, perfecting various methods of the process.

It is unknown how long this lasted, history is silent about it, but one day the priests, leading an army of their religious disciples, fanatics, invaded the mainland.

War is thousands and thousands of deaths, and death for them was energy, as you can guess. They killed hundreds of prisoners within their circles, falling into madness from an excess of energy. The secret annals say that after such energy orgies, the cult priests became like walking torches of fire. If they passed by a tree, it would flash and burn down to ashes, as if struck by lightning. Before they could be stopped, they roamed the country, giving everything to fire and sword. But the cult had weaknesses too. And people took advantage of them. They were harmed by silver. Although, no one knows why. You could protect yourself from their influence, although it required years and years of hard training and special abilities. One person living at that time wrote a secret book about those events.

For a long time, he studied the methods of the "Fire Cult", as it was back in time called, and at the end of his life, years after the people who followed this cult were destroyed, he created a special order, a brotherhood. It was the duty of the brotherhood to track and prevent any attempt to revive the horrific cult. And, as it turned out, not in vain!

The demonic cult appeared again and again through. People always look for supernatural power and strength. New disciples, sometimes, had no relation to the religious part of the cult. They only used the arsenal of "black-magic" knowledge of ancient death worshippers. For many centuries, a secret, invisible struggle took place between the brotherhood and the cult. Only a few among the common people guessed about that confrontation lasting for centuries or even millennials. Disciples of black knowledge learned to disguise themselves in various religious cults and it became more and more difficult to detect and track them. In addition, since ancient times, the followers of the cult have significantly improved their knowledge. Developed a Feather Sorcery. And have you seen what it is capable of? The most dangerous of their powers…"

Silver Knife fell silent, having finished the story. There was a pause. Jerry was shocked by the story. Although he had heard legends about the Fire cult, he had never heard such a detailed and factual account. And it was unlikely that anyone in this city had. Moreover, he had already guessed who his interlocutor was:

"So you're from that brotherhood?" Jerry asked.

Silver Knife nodded:

"Forty years ago we lost a major battle against them. Our mentors did not take into account their rapid improvement. That's why they crushed us. Naked! Only a few of us survived. Tomorrow I'll pay them back for that time.

These words were spoken with a grim determination and such a tone as if the events of forty years ago had happened with the speaker himself yesterday, before breakfast.

"If you want to save your family, come with me! You have a very high defensive potential. I could train you and make you a good exterminator."

For a minute Jerry hesitated, but then shook his head negatively:

"I am not going to participate in your war. I will take my relatives and go abroad. It doesn't matter to me which of you wins. And besides, you won't be able to defeat them. They'll kill you. I don't know how strong you are, but you never will defeat them alone."

The stranger gritted his teeth:

"We'll see about that," he hissed, "who will kill whom. And you, you're a fool! A stubborn fool! You don't even suspect what they've done to you," he added angrily calling after, as Jerry turned and started to walk.

 

...The sun had just risen when Jerry, left the city through the north gates, heading for the Black Monastery. The dark-gray outlines of the ancient building, submerged in the morning fog, seemed ghostly and unreal.

Despite the great concern for his loved ones, Jerry did not dare to go to the Black Monastery at dusk or night. He knew it was futile. They simply won't open the gates to him. Moreover, the place instilled fear in him even in daylight, and at night it seemed to him the embodiment of horror. After a sleepless night in the port, huddled in some rags in a corner; to visit his cabin, he did not dare. He'd be lucky if his neighbors don't hang him after what he did to Kevon, the baker. Good thing he always wore the gold with him.

He hid the money in a safe place and shivering from the early morning cold set out to rescue Anne and Jose.

On the way, recalling yesterday's conversation with a strange guy, who called himself Silver Knife, from an equally strange brotherhood; he continued to argue with the guy, imagining his answers. The stranger's words about some "irzenec" would not leave his head too. The word was unpleasant as if someone was being stretched to torture. But even now, Jerry was firmly convinced that he could not agree to Silver Knife's offer. At best, this would be a sort of suicide. Jerry remembered the head of the monastery, whom Alvaro called Luke, and involuntarily shuddered. Despite the soft voice and almost fatherly treatment, he was the most terrifying of them. Alvaro, Master Miranj, and even the old mentor who taught the "Feather Sorcery" were afraid of him. Jerry had witnessed how senior students literally crawled in front of him. And yet, he knew firsthand about their terrible powers!

Slowly and thoroughly, Jerry approached the curse of his life, the real consequences of which he had yet to see. Not far from the monastery, Jerry, suddenly, felt the presence of yesterday's stranger. As if he had some sort of sixth sense, had been awakened since yesterday; as if he had touched something with bare nerves. Something rough, but at the same time safe and firm. Jerry was already about half a mile from the Black Monastery when he felt this. He stopped and turned his head, trying to determine where the "signal" was coming from. In the distance was a small oak tree, fortunately, for an unknown reason, spared from the axes of the woodcutters. This could have been the only place where his acquaintance could hide. Jerry headed towards the oak.

As he was getting closer, the feeling of contact grew. Approaching the tree, Jerry walked around the trunk, peeking into the spreading branches, with yellowing leaves. He felt the presence of Silver Knife, but couldn't see him. When he finished his fruitless inspection and turned to leave, to his surprise he found Silver Knife standing behind him and also like him, with keen interest staring into the crown of the tree, craning.

"Is there something interesting in there?" he asked with laughing wrinkles around his eyes, holding his smile. Jerry involuntarily opened his mouth in surprise. And not so much because of his sudden appearance, but because of the new outfit that the Knife Thrower had put on himself. Jerry thought that he had never seen such bright colors of clothing, even on the day of the procession devoted to Saint Panarisa, the patron saint of his native city. Yesterday's brown cloak, the Thrower replaced with bright red, with a blue border on the edge. His head was wrapped in white material with a yellow letter T inside.

But what was even more strange! This was a grand amount of small throwing knives, made of silver. Their small handles were protruding out from all over his dressing, scattered at a sharp angle on the chest, forearms, and even shins of boots.

 

Close your mouth, Jerry, before flies get in, - said Silver Knife with a smile, smoothing out the wrinkles on his strangely old and at the same time young face. "I see that you have developed psychic vision since you felt my presence.

Jerry closed his mouth and involuntarily swallowed. Then, without any preambles, as if their conversation yesterday had not been interrupted, he asked:

"What is an "irzenec"?" Jerry asked ignoring all other topics.

"Haaa!" stretched the word Silver Knife, and added as if addressing more to himself. "So, that's what is bothering you!"

Then, addressing Jerry, he explained:

"To put it briefly: Irzenec is an examination work. When several disciples of the cult complete their training course, which usually lasts around ten to eleven years, they take an exam, like at the university. An "irzenec" is what they use to demonstrate their morphing abilities. Sometimes they buy those, who had been sentenced to death for such exams, and sometimes they catch homeless vagrants that no one cares about. They do much worse things to the irzenec than they did to you. And at the end, the entire graduating class gathers together and subjects the already half-dead irzenec to a horrible metamorphosis. This group of sectarians, by joining their psychic forces, can change a human's structure on the genetic level... sorry, you won't understand this word, there's another one from my world it's called a mutation. That's exactly what this is. So, when they subject the irzenec to mutation, the person can look however they want. For example, half-toad-half-human. Or half-snake-half-human. It doesn't matter, because it depends on their imagination. And with that, they are well-bedded down here, as you know, now. After such metamorphoses, irzenec lives a few hours at max. Because a person is not able to endure it, neither mentally, nor metabolically.

All of this sounded utterly scary and confusing. Despite the strange words of the explainer, he understood the essence. This plunged him into a state of indecisiveness. Stronger than yesterday. And longer!

"How do I learn the "sorcery of the feather?" Jerry asked.

Silver Knife chuckled:

"Well, that's not for you. At least in the nearest future. Although, the method is very simple itself it's the deadliest and cruelest one! If a person volunteers to learn this type of spell, they are put in a stone cell. Volunteers are given a goose feather. The only way to get out of the stone cell is to make the feather levitate. That's where the name comes from, by the way.

"Is it really that simple?" And how much time does it take?

"As long as a person can survive without water and food. Because neither the first nor the second is given to the volunteered person. Usually, according to statistics, one out of every ten people succeeds. Nine corpses minus, but plus one telekinetic fighter for the cult, not bad."

Jerry helplessly looked at the building of dark-gray stone of the Black Monastery, which after the words of Silver Knife had become an even more terrifying place, twice as scarier.

Finally, he suppressed his desire to stay with the stranger longer, who exuded granite calmness and fearlessness, and said:

"I can't go with you. They'll kill you and me. And my brother and sister will then disappear," Jerry said almost plaintively, trying to justify his behavior.

"And do you think you will be able to help them now?" Silver Knife squinted his eyes.

"I will ask Luke," Jerry stubbornly resumed his mantra. "He can't refuse me. I've done everything they've ordered me to do for two months! And I kept my tongue behind my teeth, as had been told!"

Having listened to the last phrase, Silver Knife spat out with frustration, "Damn you! You're a stubborn donkey! You know, what do they pay you so much for? It's nothing for them to find any scum in the port who is ready to die in their experiments for a portion of opium?!"

Jerry didn't know what to answer. In fact, he often thought about this. Two gold coins a week! A royal salary for a simple jobless boy like him! But he had a family.

And Luke! He shuddered at remembering that person. He had heard terrible things about his powers by accidental eavesdropping in the Black Monastery.

"I don't know and don't want to know!" he replied somewhat more sharply than he had intended, and, fearing that Silver Knife, in the end, would persuade him with his logical conclusions, he turned without saying goodbye, and strode quickly towards the monastery. There was no turning back now. As he approached, he slowed down, and in the end, he was no longer walking, but literally crawling, exactly as on the first working day.