“Do you resign as a human being?”
That was Nacht’s first question to me, when I went to him for training.
I didn’t understand what he was asking, and I said so.
He just shrugged, like it didn’t matter, and we got started on the basics of sword-work. Good. This is what I had come for.
But why ask something like that? I didn’t give it much thought at the time.
“What is the thing that holds you back, as a warrior?” he asked, later on.
“Lack of skill… lack of physical fitness… not enough practice…” I was guessing, and we both knew it.
“It’s that you’re fighting for something,” he said.
I didn’t get that either.
The regular palaestra had rejected me. They’d sent me here, to this weird old man in the mountains, dressed all in black with wild gray hair down to his waist and huge bushy eyebrows that jutted from the side of his head. He lived in a cave, and hunted meat for his meals by throwing darts into the skulls of predatory animals before they could catch their own prey. He didn’t have me do anything weird, like the palaestra teachers had tried to do. None of this “fetch water from the well” or “meditate on suffering and injustice” stuff. Nope. Nacht went right to work with the weapon training. It hurt, and he drove me hard, but it made sense.
All except the questions.
One day he set up training dummies. This was pretty normal, except that he’d decorated them to look like villagers I knew.
“Attack,” he said casually.
I didn’t move.
“What are you waiting for, boy?” he asked, in a testy voice.
"They’re… " I gestured at the dummies. It should have been obvious. But he didn’t move a muscle. “These are people I know. Neighbors. Friends.”
“They’re training dummies,” he replied calmly. “Attack.”
What could I say that would get through to him? This was some kind of weird trick.
He leaped off the rock he was sitting on, and in one move he kicked the heads off two of them. He landed gracefully, catlike, rose and turned to look at me.
“See? Training dummies. They won’t hurt you.”
How could I explain this? I knew what I felt, but I didn’t have the words for it.
Nacht spoke my feelings aloud as I stood there, staring at him.
“You don’t want to attack your friends,” he said in a gentle voice. “They’re not really your friends. What you don’t want to do is feel like you attacked something that reminds you of them. It’s all in your head, but it’s stopping you.”
I didn’t know how to reply. He went on, walking in a slow circle around the training dummies, hands folded behind his back as he went.
“The most powerful weapon in the world, and the most dangerous enemy you’ll face, are your feelings. Your feelings of fondness for people kept you from doing a basic training exercise. What about your feelings of love? Or fear? Or anger?”
I struggled to piece together what he was saying. “But those feelings are part of me!”
Nacht smiled. “They needn’t be. It is time to cultivate your Darkside.”