The Silent Shadow
The long night was finally gone and the rays of sunlight lit through the small leaves of the trees dancing with the wind outside a cave that Mello found to give him and Lizzie some shelter. The cold now was giving space to the morning warmth and the humidity of the forest. Mello noticed that Lizzie wasn’t around, only her beautiful book of spells, the coat and the stuff her grandfather gave her were there by his side. He heard a voice coming from outside the cave, shouting. He got up from the ground, did some body stretches, grabbed his katana, the book and walked towards the voice.
Outside, by the small trees, he saw the girl trying her best to use magic that certainly was pumped up by his incentive. He leaned on the cave’s wall and started quickly browsing through the magic book. At first, he only could make sense of some sentences and pictures, and all the rest was only gibberish to him. Maybe he couldn’t read it because his knowledge on that topic was very limited. He only knew about magic because of his sister, who was an experienced magician. Maybe, someone with more knowledge about that subject on that world could read and understand all of the different forms and symbols written on the book. There were also pages with different colors and some pages blank. Maybe, the book only “activates” when some kind of magic power was near it?
Lizzie saw Mello looking at her book and decided to show him that she could too use magic, and was not a loser like he saw her yesterday.
“Hey dude! Look here!”
The man focused his gaze at the girl. She clapped her hands above her head, making a small explosion of flames, and slowly put her hands down, making the fire dance around her, until the flames were extinguished.
“That’s it Liz!”
He gave her a positive hand sign and she came running happily towards him, almost tripping. He gave her back the book.
“I was taking a look at it and it seems to have another spells besides fire. Did you give them a try yet?”
“Yep.” – Said the girl, opening the book. The pages now were a lot easier to read than before, proving his theory about the magic power near it. Its letters now made some kind of sense and the drawings were now clearer. – “I can use the elements of fire, wind and water a little and tried to use the earth element, but it’s very hard for me to even picture it being formed by my hands.” – In between the talking, she showed him the pages with the respective descriptions of every element. – “But the most annoying one for me to grasp is electricity. I cannot understand a single word of it. I don’t even understand how I could use it last night. Before, I couldn’t even feel it when I tried to do the spell…”
“What an amazing book… When I was reading it before, only some of the symbols and pages were readable. Now, when you touched it, a lot showed up.”
“…and what does it mean?”
“Well… I don’t really understand magic, but maybe it’s related to the user’s capabilities on the utilization of magic. Maybe someone knows about it and can explain it to you better.”
“Hehe… I can’t wait.”
Mello and Lizzie cooked something up with fruits and a rabbit that he hunted, and she roasted it on a small campfire made of leaves, sticks and magical fire that she made. After the breakfast, the two started going back to the way they were following by the forest. As Lizzie said, Ventus was “far as shit”, so they still had a long ways to go. They met an old traveler on the way, who gave them information on the nearest city: Steinturm.
A little bit more of walking and they were out of the woods. But the road still grew towards the horizon as far as the eyes could see, surrounded by a vast prairie and rocky grounds.
“Ugh… I wish we had something to go a little faster.” – Complained Lizzie while Mello was calm and tranquil, as always. – “Hey, you mentioned this Melissa. Who is she?”
“My sister.”
“And what do you want on Ventus?”
“Nothing much. We’ll just meet after we’ve been apart for a couple years. She wrote to me saying that she wants to travel and practice her magic-”
“Magic!?” – Lizzie’s eyes sparkled immediately after hearing that word.
“Yep. She’s a magician just like you. She practiced it a lot since we were kids.”
“Wow! She must be like skillful as shit, yeah?” – She walked while keeping daydreaming about Melissa.
“Well, seems like you’ll be getting a new friend, Mel.” – Said the man, smiling to himself.
They kept the pace during the entire day, stopping for lunch and then going at it again until nearly dusk. The city should be near by now.
The road directed them towards and curving at a small hill. As soon as they got past the hill, Lizzie’s eyes sparkled again. The landscape of a valley was just below the hill, but what got her attention was the big city in front of her eyes. At the center of the town, there was an enormous cylindrical tower-like construction, but it seemed like it was broken in half, which made the city to be built around it, like a ring.
Mello poked her with his elbow and said:
“So? Were you expecting this?”
“Holy crap, dude… This is so cool! I only saw stuff like this on gramps maps and books, but to see it so close like this is… wow.
“C’mon, let’s go down there and see it closer.”
They continued on their path towards the big city. However, because the landscape and its beautifulness took their attention, they didn’t notice that, high atop that hill, a sinister hooded figure was carefully observing them. Every step, every movement they did, like a beast looking down at its prey.
“Found you.”
Said the hooded figure, jumping from the hill and landing on the road, keeping following them on the shadows.
Steinturm was very open to tourism, with roads coming through the four ends of the town, making entrance to automobiles, wagons and horses. At its center, the most busy part of the city, lies all the shops and the local commerce business. The houses were very close together and very poor-designed, made of solid blocks-like structures on top of each other, as if the builders were trying to redesign the tower-like construction, but failing on every single one of its constructions. Even then, most of them had some small balconies from the second floor onward, decorated with its owner taste, who has made every house very different from each other. These houses were only separated by small gaps between the structures, apart from the big roads that cut through the four directions and met at the center of the tower.
All of those different and colorful things were making Lizzie go a little crazy. Her eyes sparkled more than ever. “Wow!”, “Look at this!”, “Come take a look at this thing!”, “Holy crap!” and “Woow!” were some of the happy and frenetic speeches made by the excited girl.
“Why we don’t stop a bit here and enjoy the city? We can stay here a few days.” – Said Mello.
“Yeah, sure. And with which money we’ll stay on one of those super-fancy and expensive inns? The cheapest one must be like a thousand Vis! I totally forgot to ask gramps for money and…”
Mello was waving a big sack of coins in front of her.
“Where did you get this? You didn’t have anything when we met.”
“Heh… I have my tricks. Money isn’t a problem to me.”
“…did you steal it?”
“Obviously.”
“What the f-“
“Hey, hey… Relax, no one will know about it. Trust me.”
“…I won’t tell anyone if you give me half.” – Lizzie gave Mello a wry smile.
“What?”
“Offi-cer~” – She pointed to the police officer next to them.
“Okay, okay! Sheesh! Here, you little devil.”
Mello gave the girl half of his stolen money and she gratefully accepted it.
They continued their walk through the city, and Lizzie was appreciating all the new wonders that she had read about many times on her private library-home. She tried many new things, walked on shops, houses, and talked with every single shopkeeper and trader she met. Mello only followed her, keeping an eye so she didn’t get on any trouble. But… He started feeling something strange, like a cold stare from someone watching him…
By the early night, when the moon was coming out to shine her cold and gentle light upon the world, the two had already chosen a room on a big and luxurious hotel, with an astounding view of the city, handpicked by Lizzie.
They were now doing a pleasant walk by the area near the tower, that wasn’t busy and full of shops and daily traders anymore, giving space to a big and nice square, with a great fountain at its center and many night restaurants. Lights on paper lanterns hung on strings all above the city, going from high atop the tower and stopping on poles at every end of Steinturm.
“Hey, man…” – Said a thoughtful Lizzie.
“Hm?”
“Your sister… Is she really good with magic?”
“Yes. Very good.”
“Did she learn from somebody?”
“Well, no… Technically.”
“How so?”
“Our mother knows how to use magic as well, and she told us one day how to use it. She told us that people are born with the power to use magic lying in their soul. Mel became amazed with it and began studying and researching, trying to learn more by herself.”
“If you was taught too, why don’t you use it?”
“Well… To be fair, I tried to use it a couple of times when we were together, but I am really bad at it. I’m more into using one of those.” – And he drew out his sword.
The lights above them light up her black sheen, mirroring Lizzie’s face on it.
“Holy crap… I didn’t fully saw it that time…”
She was focusing at that beautiful darkness so hard that she was almost hearing something… Calling to her, making her want that dark-glowing piece of metal as if it was the most important thing in her life. It was calling her… to pick that up with both hands, cut and destroy everything around her. She gave little steps forward to tough it…
“I… want… to… touch… it… can… I…?”
Lizzie seemed like she was in a trance. Mello, already knowing what was that all about, sheathed the katana and immediately, Lizzie came back to normal, shaking her head and putting her hand on her head.
“What was that?”
“What?”
“I don’t know… I suddenly became dizzy.”
“Maybe you’re tired. You’ve been running around all day long. Let’s go back, eat something and sleep.”
Besides the sudden dizziness of the girl, Mello started to feel that presence again, always watching them. Did someone follow them from Margewicht? Well, here goes their plan to stay on that city for a few days. The best course of action here was to get her out of that city as soon as possible, but maybe some rest was possible as well.
Lizzie chose a restaurant that took her attention and they both dined. Everything seemed safe and quiet around them, but that feeling was constant, and the man started to feel uncomfortable, suggesting for them both to return to the inn, making the girl a bit nervous.
Back at the inn, Lizzie was gazing through a big window at all the lights sparkling around the town while Mello was sitting on an armchair, thoughtful and concerned.
“Hey, what’s gotten into you?” – Said Lizzie.
“What?”
“You’re all serious.”
“Ah. Don’t worry about it.” – He headed toward the window and looked over the town as well. – “It’s impressive, isn’t it?”
“A lot. I’ve never imagined that someday I would see something like this. I could only dream about it when I read about it on gramps books, but it was nothing compared to the real thing.”
The two sat there for a while, overlooking the town until its movements were slowing down and some of the lights turning out one by one. The man was also astonished by the city’s transition.
After a while, he saw the girl snoozing over the window railing. At last, the tiredness won her over and now the sleepiness was dominating. He carried her over to the bed, taking off her cap and covering her with the blankets. The image of her sleeping brought some good old memories when he and her sister were together… A cold breeze blew from outside the window, giving him some chills. Maybe it was smart to close it so she could sleep in peace.
When he turned to close the windows, he was caught by surprise by an hooded figure, dressed in a white sleeveless robe with some red markings all over it. A leather belt held her robe on her hip, with all kinds of throwing knives, a rope and some flasks that were clearly some kind of poison. Knee-high boots covered her legs. On her right arm, a long, black glove covered her entire forearm, revealing only her fingers. On the same arm, she had an leather armguard that was made for hiding something lethal. On her left arm, no glove. Just a round brass golden-covered bracelet and black tattoo markings all over it. She was sitting on the wind rail, looking at the city.
“Hello.” – Said she, with a tender and calm but also, cold and meticulous voice.
Mello quickly tried to grab his sword that was sitting next to the armchair he was early, but when he turned to move, he felt a pointy thing touch his arm and started to feel dizzy, to the point of not being able to stand up anymore, falling with his back onto the ground. He still tried to stretch his arm to grab the weapon, but a knife flew on it and threw it as far as it could.
“Don’t be a smartass.” – She jumped from the window and went to Lizzie. – “So. This is the infamous ‘powerful wizard’ I was hired to kill…? Pathetic.” – From her armguard, a hidden blade sprung and pointed at Lizzie’s heart.
“Stop!” – Said Mello standing, weak, but with his katana on both hands, ready to strike.
“Hmph. I wouldn’t dare to make this cowardly act. To kill somebody on hers sleep. Where’s the pleasure to gaze deep onto the person’s eyes and see them dying in front of you, squirming and pleading for their lives? But be warned.” – She threw another tranquilizing knife at the man, who collapsed yet again. – “Next time, the girl is dead.” – She patted Lizzie on the head. – “And if you point that thing at me again.” – She walked towards and crouched near Mello, touching his face. He could see green eyes as shiny as Lizzie’s, ginger braided hair and a very malicious smile, all shrouded by the hood. – “You’re gonna die too.”
“Heh… The next time… I draw… Let’s see who is going to die first.”
Both of them smiled at each other, with an “I want to kill you right now” look in their eyes. The woman stood up and jumped through the window. The man still tried to keep awake, but at last, his body succumbed to the numbness and he passed out on the ground.
Lizzie woke up with a cold breeze touching her cheek, coming from the big open window. She stretched her arms and got up from the bed, but when her feet touched the floor, she touched something else that wasn’t supposed to be there. It was Mello, lying unconscious on the floor. Maybe he fell from his bed?
“Hey. Wake up.” – Said she, stepping on his chest.
Mello quickly got up, scared. He saw Lizzie right in front of him and remembered of the hooded woman. He saw his sword and grabbed it, searching for the knives, but he didn’t find any. He was still a bit weak, so he sat down on the armchair, touching his forehead.
Lizzie didn’t understand any of it. Maybe he was drinking out when she was asleep.
“Yesterday I had this really strange dream.”
“Oh yeah? Tell me how was it.” – Said Mello.
“I dreamt that someone was chasing me with a knife, trying to stab me in the heart. But suddenly, another person showed up and saved me. Someone dressed all in black, just like you. Even had the silver hair. Then, the one with the knife made this guy fell on the ground with just a single movement. It was crazy, dude.”
Mello did a small laugh.
“Well, Liz… Thank goodness it was just a dream.”
The End of The Horizon 