The last of the daylight had long gone and the night breeze was refreshing and peaceful. It gave away nothing of the events unfurling inside the city walls.
Almost in turn the candles of the many houses along the street extinguished, until the whole street was in a ghostly darkness.
Making use of the pitch black cover, the hooded figure silently slid out of the shadows as the woman at the end of the street finally stepped off of the balcony and back into her bedroom, and the light flickered to death in the next street. He walked slowly across the cobbles; his feet bare to stop any noise. At the end of the street he stopped and checked the moon, and allowed himself a small smile as he found himself to be right on time. He turned left at the crossing, making his way to the watchtower.
Reaching it, he looked up to the lifeless clock set fifty feet above the street, frozen still since the rebellion fifty years previously. As he looked up, a small piece of glass from the mosaic face fell to the ground and shattered in front of him. He smiled, and leapt into the air.
He was sure to check that nobody was watching, as he never returned to the floor there. It was impossible to tell where he went.
The other figure looked up, but not at him. ‘On time, as usual,’ it hissed.
The man shrugged his heavy cloak back into place, dislodged a load of dust, and set himself down next to his companion. ‘I try to make an effort,’ he smiled. The cloud which had drifted across the moon shifted, and silver light fell across a twisted, potted face. Red eyes flicked side-to-side, checking one last time that they were alone, and under a hood, pointed ears picked up each and every sound of the night.
Suddenly the eyes fixed on the newcomer, boring into him and searching for the smallest of faults. ‘Do you have the elixir?’ he asked. A hand reached inside the folds of the cloak and returned again with a small vial in it’s grasp. The man handed it over. Even in the moonlight, the blood red liquid stayed opaque. As the twisted figure inspected it, the man who had given it to him saluted, and leapt back off the roof into the night sky on the other side of the city wall. The words “Good Luck” seemed to float back across the wind. The remaining figure smiled beneath all of his disfigurements, and then dissolved effortlessly into a choking black fog. This form stealthily proceeded as fast as lightning down street after street until it reached a house with heavily curtained windows on the opposite side of town. Over the balcony and inside he flowed, before taking back human form, unperturbed. He walked towards the bed, brushing the curtains as he walked. He shivered as the good magic raced through him, and lifted a finger to see a small blue spark before it died. This was child’s play.
In the four-poster bed two figures were wrapped in the finest silk sheets, blissfully unaware of the intruder. The target was on the far side of the bed; a man of about thirty with slight stubble and short hair. He was on his back, his mouth slightly open. Smiling at the irony of this position, the figure pulled the stopper out of the vial, and poured the contents down the man’s throat. He immediately sat up and started coughing, but the liquid forced its was down his throat and he passed out again almost instantly.
Satisfied, the intruder left, reverting back to his mist form as he reached the window again. Now to wait...
