The Shadow Master (Chapter 1)

I suppose you were trying to seek me out when you saw me in that alleyway, weren’t you. A stranger lost in the city of devils?

No, no, don’t be shy. I can’t hurt you. I can’t hurt anyone anymore. Please, sit next to me.

We, my friend, are the lowly tarot cards that keep this fragile kingdom from tumbling down, the abject base that allows the overlords that live above us to survive.

I watched you watching me as I scavenged for something to eat and for a while I thought you wished to kill me. Hah.

You look like a smart one. But you’re nosy. You could wind up dead if you’re not careful. But you’re just like all of us lads and lasses at heart, aren’t you. Just wanting to broaden the horizons, listen to a story from a wizened old man, eh? I suppose I could spend a few hours broadening my horizons with a fresh new face.

I guess I have startled you, so how can I put you at ease? Whisky? No? Suit yourself. I suppose I should introduce myself.

I am David Blackmore. No, that is what I am called. Who I really am is beyond even me. Then again, what’s in a name? It’s merely a label, an alias, a shield that covers up what you really are. I recently discovered that my name means ‘Beloved one’. Ha, I scoffed at its inaccuracy. Who I really am couldn’t possibly be expressed in a lifetime and words and names. Language is merely a shallow reflection of the many dimensions of the heart.

Sometimes I listen to my heart, sometimes I listen to my head, and sometimes I listen to my instinct. My killer instinct: The thoughtless, heartless desire to rend and destroy my enemies without mercy.

I was once told by a man long dead that I fought as though possessed by a demon. Do you think it’s true? That the heat of battle can change a man into a monster? If that’s true, then this rage is one ghost I believe has been exorcised.

I am now forty-nine years old. My, it makes me cringe just to think how old I am. Where I am now is a lifetime away from what I was as a boy: youthful, determined, and maybe even reckless. But years of harsh experience have drained that from me. Now I have an older head on these shoulders.

These days I’m a little lonely. There’s no one left who wants to kill me. Today there are no visible divisions to me between good people and bad people. That’s what terrifies me: I don’t know who and where my next enemy will spring from, what dark alleyways I can walk down without fear for my life. Maybe it’s just me, maybe my viewpoint’s changed, maybe I’ve lost my edge, but it seems the extremities of Yin and Yang, dark and light, good and evil have been sucked from society, or maybe they’ve come together. Either way, life is dull and I still yearn for the heat of the fight in my ripe old age, just as I did as a fifteen-year-old boy.

I’m not fast, as I once was. My reflexes have become more lethargic, and my limbs have become weary and aged. Once, fear couldn’t touch me, in the days when I was ruled by adrenaline, but now I’ve ground to a halt and I’m scared.