Free Grandmaster by Molly Cochran

unspoken.
    Is it your will?
    As if he had been hit by a hammer, Justin looked up, oblivious to the constricting pain of the knife against his skin. The yellow-robed man was looking straight ahead, not at him. Yet he was watching Justin, the boy felt it, knew it, watching from somewhere behind his eyes. And Justin knew this man as well as if he had spent a lifetime with him.
    "It is my will," the boy whispered, understanding nothing, yet as sure of his authority over the yellow-robed men as he had been of anything in his life.
    Instantly the yellow-robed man was in the air, kicking the knife out of the hands of the killer with what seemed like effortless ease. Justin watched the blade whirl upward like a propeller. With another blow to his back, the dark man shrieked and reeled toward the far end of the alleyway, clutching behind him. Then he looked up, his eyes widened in terror. Before he could scream, the blade of the descending knife struck with a thud and buried itself deep in his throat.
    The dark man's arms shook spasmodically. In the moment before he fell, he jerked his head to the side and looked directly at Justin. The dazed expression in his eyes looked to the boy exactly like his father's at the moment of his death.
    Justin stared at the dead man, the knife growing out of his neck. The exhibition he had just witnessed was a more terrifying act than he could ever have imagined. The knife, alone , had killed from the air, like some vengeful sword sent by the gods. It had been a display not so much of strength as of—magic.
    Who were these men? Justin began to tremble violently. What were they planning to do with him?
    At that moment, the yellow-robed man standing apart from the others fell to his knees in the dirty alleyway. The others formed a circle around the boy and followed suit, spreading their fanciful garments on the stone pavement.
    "Who are you?" the boy asked as he looked down on the circle centered around him.
    "I am Tagore," the man answered. "We have sought you for many years, O Patanjali."
    Justin blinked. "But that's not—"
    The little man held up his hand, commanding silence. "There is no question now. You do not yet understand, but you have shown yourself to be the one we seek. I welcome you back to your home in the world of men."
    He bowed low, his head touching the pavement in front of him. The others bowed as well. Justin Gilead alone remained standing among them. He wanted to tell them that they had made some kind of mistake, that he wasn't who they thought he was, that he didn't know what was going on, didn't understand anything that had gone on since the dark man had stabbed his father on the street. He was tired and hungry and frightened, and all he wanted to do was to rest somewhere.
    But he remained where he was, standing inside the circle of men prostrated in obeisance to him, because the music had come back, and the scent of almonds, like a memory, filled the air.

Chapter Seven
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    J ustin was hungry.
    The journey overland had taken more than three months through the European countryside and the vast stretches of wild, uninhabited hill country that had once belonged to the Saracen Empire. Tagore and his band of yellow-robed men paid no heed to modern boundaries, nor to the wars that raged along those boundaries. Always, he seemed to have an instinct for the least traveled ways, leading his men and their young charge into the most desolate regions, from the tall pine forests of the west into the arid plains of southern Asia, where even in summer the icy winds from the Himalayas shook the patches of scrub grass and could freeze a man to death.
    But not these men, Justin thought as one of them prepared a fire from small sticks. His hands moved with incredible speed as he twirled a stick into the base of a chip of stone. It ignited at once. Justin was no longer amazed at the skills these small men possessed. After the meal was cooked, Justin knew, another of the yellow-robed