He stepped into the alleyway, silent as the grave. It was impossible to tell who he was, due to the black cloak and hood that covered his entire body in shadow. Yet still there was an identifiable presence about him that allowed the other man in the alley to recognize him. The man in black spoke quietly, almost in a whisper, “Did you find one with the qualifications?”

The other man nervously nodded his head. “I’m not so sure about what we’re about to do, though. It makes me nervous. Are sure what we’re doing is right?”

The first man turned his back to his comrade. “If you don’t want in, there are ways of getting out again.”

The man sighed, “No, I can do it, I’m just not sure about the results. I’ve known you for a while and I know that I can trust you but I’m not sure if I can trust… the others.”

The shadow turned back. For a moment the darkness lifted from his face slightly and his partner saw a relieved smile. But the moment did not last long and his features melted back into smooth ebony. “I’m glad to have your trust,” he told him. “I know that things are hard tight now but we have to do this. There’s no other way.”

The other man closed his eyes. “I know. Don’t worry about the ritual; I’ve got everything taken care of.” But there was no answer. The shadow had already melted back into the hustle and bustle of the city.

Silpha, Ranu, and Loku had been the best of friends ever since they first met in Kleeith’s small marketplace. They grew up together. They laughed together. They were inseparable. And now they were growing teenagers, realizing strange feelings for the first time. Ranu and Loku were already courting, though this had little effect on the friendship they all shared. They still talked together and ran free with each other through the woods. It was this habit that placed them at the incident that changed their lives.

It was dark and the three were taking a detour through the forest on the edge of the town they knew so well. They were going to Loku’s house. Loku was the daughter of a farmer that lived a small ways from town so they had more land for growing crops. The ash from the trees they cut down and burned for room helped to fertilize the ground and there was plenty of building materials for a barn and house. Silpha and Ranu often spent the night at her house so they could help her with some of her hard chores on the farm. Due to the way the road curved out toward the next little village and doubled back on itself toward Loku’s farm, they often cut through the forest.

“So then I looked over at him and told him, ‘What else are blacksmiths for?’” Ranu joked. Loku and Silpha laughed at his humor, holding their skirts slightly higher than their ankles so they wouldn’t get dirty on the forest floor.

Ranu put his arm around Loku’s shoulder as she giggled, “So that’s why you enjoy being a blacksmith so much.” Silpha sniggered and Ranu grinned broadly. Loku turned her head to Silpha at the noise of her suppressed laughter. But Silpha wasn’t laughing anymore. She had completely stopped walking and Loku took Ranu’s arm from her shoulders as she walked back to Silpha. “What is it?” she asked quietly.

The girl quickly shushed her, “Can’t you hear it? The singing… it’s so beautiful.” Loku and Ranu looked at each other. They couldn’t hear anything, but then Silpha had always possessed better listening skills than either of them. Silpha looked over at her two friends. She smiled and whispered, “Come on!” and she quickly bounded away through the trees, all thoughts of the freshly washed hem of her skirt forgotten. Ranu and Loku reluctantly followed her. When Silpha was excited about something it was hard for her to slow down. They either had to keep up or be left behind.

Ranu and Loku followed the swiftly moving shape until she stopped, hiding behind a thick tree trunk, gazing out into the clearing where the old oak tree resided. There were people there, strange people who were completely shrouded in black fabric and shadow with one exception. It was this exception that kept Silpha’s eyes transfixed on the scene.

“It must have been that boy there that you heard,” Loku whispered. The boy was standing by the ancient tree, singing a strange melody that they could not understand. No doubt it was some sort of ancient tongue that awoke whatever was lying dormant within the tree, for it began to hum and resonate to his voice. Unlike the others he was not wearing black anywhere on him, but instead was covered in silver scale mail and red cloth.

His song seemed to reach a sudden sforzando and the climax of the song lilted above the tree tops until suddenly, he was not alone in the music. A deeper voice sung below him, adding minor chords and dissonance to the piece. What was once a dancing melody that seemed to float suddenly became an angry, powerful storm that destroyed all in its path. Something wrong was happening in the clearing and they all could hear it even before its manifestation. A dark figure stepped from the crowd of dark shapes, each drawing his own sword. The leader pulled out a crooked dagger with a carved skull on the hilt. He was obviously the one singing below the child that seemed so small before him. The boy was defenseless below the dagger. The shadow struck from behind, bringing the knife around to the front of the youth. He obviously did not know that this part was coming and screamed his final note before his voice was silent. The killer, however, continued his part of the song as if nothing had happened.

Silpha’s entire body tensed and fear flashed in her eyes. She had seen plenty of dead bodies, first her mother, then her father, her cat, and now this boy. But the boy was the first person she had seen die and the first she had seen murdered. Ranu recovered first, turning both the girls to face him, “We’ve got to go, now! Did you see that? That was a murder and if they find us they’ll kill us next.”

Loku spoke, seeming to agree with Ranu, but her words were drowned out by the swift crescendo of the still resonating tree. The pitch was climbing higher and higher, the frequency rising. Silpha and Loku quickly peeked back around their tree. The old oak was vibrating so quickly that there were no outlines anymore, just a slight haze where the tree disappeared.

The black figure continued singing under the hum of the tree and stepped closer to it with his bloodied dagger. He grasped it with both hands and held it high over his head. Then when the pitch reached a point where the trio could not hear it anymore, the black figure plunged the dagger down into the tree, mangling the bark and creating a deep scar that opened farther and farther until a black hole gaped in the tree’s wide side. The song was over. No sound could be heard around the clearing. No birds rustled in their nests, no crickets chirped. Then a sound came from the hole in the tree that grated upon the ears. You couldn’t see what made it but Silpha somehow knew that there were… things hiding in there.

The dark figure rose from his knelt position. The dagger was somehow clean and it disappeared back into the folds of his cloak. He roughly grasped the dead boy’s body and heaved it into the darkness where sounds of many creatures munching and eating could be heard. Then a small thing with dull red skin and a long tail with a poison barb at the end tumbled out. It stood up. It was humanoid, naked, and obviously male, seen due to his lack of clothes. He was about the same size as the dead boy and it seemed it didn’t want to be there.

“Pyrothecleus, at your service,” he said, slightly annoyed. He crossed his arms and adopted an expression that obviously wasn’t happy.

The dark figure bowed low to him. “I’m pleased to meet you, Pyrothecleus, and I insist that I am at your service. I didn’t call you here to force you into slavery. No, you are the first among millions of your kind to be set free into this world as the rulers and sole dictators of the human race.”

Pyrothecleus smiled at this new development. “Good. I’m glad that demons are finally being recognized as the true heirs of the earth. Just remember who’s really in charge. You’ll be greatly rewarded.”

The shadow nodded, then started to turn back towards the other cloaked figures but he never completed the movement. Halfway through the motion he saw three small faces peeking out at him from behind a tree. Ranu grabbed the hands of the two girls and pulled them away, “Run!” he screamed in their ears. They obeyed immediately, aware of how bad the situation was. Fear coursed through their veins with every beat of their hearts. After a moment Silpha looked back over her shoulder and stopped. No one was following them, or at least, no one they could see. Ranu and Loku stopped too when they looked back at Silpha. She walked the few feet that separated them.

“They’re not following us,” she whispered as if fearing there were still other ears listening to their conversation.

Ranu leaned in close to them. He was just as scared as the other two but he was courageous as well, and good at handling situations like these. “Loku, we can’t go to your house, that’s the same direction that those people and that demon are. Let’s go back to Kleeith, we can hide out in my father’s blacksmith shop or something. But we can’t go back that way.”

The girls nodded, silently agreeing and they continued walking back, this time in total silence. Ranu took Loku’s hand in his and squeezed it tight.

That morning, light streamed in through the open window onto Silpha’s face, waking her. It had been a long, hard night of anxiety and unfruitful sleep filled with nightmares. She picked a piece of thresh out of her blonde hair and flicked it at the floor like an annoying beetle. Her eyes shifted over to Ranu and Loku. They were still asleep facing each other. Their fingers were still tightly woven together. Silpha gazed down at Ranu’s face. He wasn’t particularly handsome but he was sweet and thoughtful. He was respectful to girls and loved Loku unconditionally.

Silpha stood up, her stomach rumbling. She searched the shop for five minutes before finding an old, slightly moldy piece of bread. She peeked back in on Ranu and Loku for a moment. They were still breathing softly in time with each other. She went back into the other room and spoke a few words and the bread changed. The only possible way to describe it would be to say that the bread aged backwards. The mold grew backwards until it was never there to begin with. The crust gained its golden brown color again and even warmed up a little until it was fresh from the oven. Silpha savored the taste in her mouth.

Silpha wasn’t supposed to do magic outside of the hidden wizard sanctuary under the many foundations that formed the town where she lived. Ever since her parents had died they had taken her away and put her in that magical place. Few knew about it and even less knew who was involved with it and in order to hide her abilities and protect her peers and teachers, she was forbidden to do magic that would jeopardize her identity. Still, she was glad to have her magic, especially in times like this. With her stomach rumbling and the appearance of a real demon she would need all the talent she had.

The young magician sat around for a bit, thinking about the night before until Ranu and Loku woke up. They came silently into the room together and sat on the floor so they were in a triangle. There was a long silence between them filled with quiet contemplation and deep thought. Silpha, already having a good amount of time to think, spoke first. “We have to do something about this.”

Ranu nodded, “We should tell someone and let them handle it. Or at least get help.”

Silpha raised an eyebrow incredulously. She had already come upon this thought herself and dismissed it after she realized how ludicrous the story sounded. “You really think they would believe us? No, they would laugh in our faces and call us a bunch of crazies.”

Loku sighed. “Silpha, we can’t do this on our own. Face it, Silph, there’s a demon out there and a bunch of big, scary people in black clothes out to get us. We can’t do anything by ourselves. We have to tell someone.”

Silpha folded her arms, “No! Trust me, it will only cause trouble and draw attention to us. It’ll only make it easier for them to find us and kill us. We shouldn’t say anything and instead act upon our own feelings.”

Loku looked up at Ranu. “Well, me and Ranu are going to try to get help if you won’t. Come on.”

Ranu looked back down at her. “Let’s start with Cynal.” Loku nodded. Cynal was the closest thing the village had to a mayor. He usually helped settle any differences and gave help where help was needed. Silpha hoped with all her heart that he would believe her two friends, even though she knew he wouldn’t.

Silpha kept a pout on her face the whole time they were in Cynal’s home. He came downstairs and sat with them in front of the fireplace. “What can I do for you kids?” he asked nonchalantly.

Ranu and Loku looked at each other. There was a long silence before, “We saw something in the forest last night. It… scared us,” Loku started.

Cynal nodded. “And what did you see, exactly?”

Ranu spoke this time, sounding even less assured and confident as Loku, “Well… there was a murder and this person dressed in black did it. Then he took the dagger he used to kill the boy with and made a… hole in the old oak with it.” Cynal nodded again. “A demon came out of it.” Cynal didn’t say anything.

“Told you he wouldn’t believe you,” murmured Silpha.

Cynal sighed deeply, “Look, I don’t have time for jokes like this. I am a busy man and it’s not in my schedule to check on every haunted tree and every murder story that you give me. If there was really a murder then take it up with the family of the one murdered. Maybe you can get people to help you in investigating the crime. If you had a name then maybe I could do something but you don’t have anything.” He stood up from his chair. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have real business to attend to.” With that he left the room without even waiting for a response.

There was a moment of awkward silence before Silpha said, “Okay, now can we do something?” Ranu and Loku both nodded. There wasn’t much else the young couple could do, after all, their plan didn’t work and they were still on their own.

They went back to Ranu’s shop. Ranu’s father had already started working so they retreated back into the room they had slept in the previous night. Ranu closed the door behind them and locked it. He turned around and collapsed on the floor and Loku rushed to his side, tears flowing from her own eyes. “We’re all doomed!” she whispered, “There’s no way we can fight it. It’s a demon for crying out loud, and it sounds like they’re bringing more!”

Silpha came and sat down beside them, saying comfortingly, “Yes we can. We have to stop them before they sacrifice the whole village for more demons. We have to stop them every time they try to summon more, whether it is here or somewhere else. Loku, we can do this. If we don’t then who knows what will happen. I don’t know if we can but we have to at least try right?”

Ranu took Loku’s hand and pulled her to her feet with him. “We can do it,” he whispered to her, “but it’ll be hard, but it’ll also be worth it.” He rubbed at Loku’s eyes with his thumbs to wipe away the tears. “Are you with us?”

Loku smiled a little, sniffling from her tears. “Of course,” she answered softly. “As long as you’re with me.”

Suddenly there was a knock at the door. “Hey, can one of you kids let me in for my hammer?” They looked at each other, their small secret as fresh in the air as the smiles on their faces.

“Yeah, dad,” Ranu called out. “We’ll be out in a minute.”

For the remainder of the day, Ranu, Loku, and Silpha did their best to find out as much as they could on what they had seen. Silpha looked for books of magic that contained anything about demon summoning when she wasn’t taking classes, Loku tried to find out more about the dead boy, and Ranu talked to his dad about the ritual dagger. At the end of the day they weren’t much better off then they were already but they knew more about their foe.

The next morning Cynal demanded that all of the citizens of Kleeith to line up outside of his house and Ranu, Loku, and Silpha stood next to each other. They were curious as to why Cynal was declaring and assembly until they saw the dark figure that walked with him down the columns. It was only a matter of time before they were found.

“What’ll we do?” Loku hissed. Silpha looked wildly around. She was frightened of them, of what they did, of what they might do to her and her friends. Her mind was starting to panic and she forced her will to rise up and bush it back down in its place before it could overwhelm her.

“We have to get out of here,” she whispered, her voice trembling slightly.

“Run for it,” Ranu murmured, “Run and if he chases you I’ll try and stop him.”

Loku turned to him, concern in her eyes, “Be careful.” He nodded, then leaned down to her and they kissed.

Silpha turned back towards the black figure. At that moment it was more to look away from her friends to look at him. In a moment she felt Loku’s slender fingers grasp her own and when their hunter was looking away she whispered, “Run!” Loku and Silpha bolted for the forest as fast as they could. Maybe if they could just make it to Loku’s house they would be safe. They heard sounds of pursuit behind them and Silpha began to feel the panic rise up again in her throat. The two girls looked over their shoulders in time to see Ranu tackle the veiled shape. Silpha smiled slightly to herself until she heard the sound of magic behind her. By the pitch of it she could tell it was a very powerful spell.

She looked over at Loku and whispered solemnly between breaths, “Ranu… he’s in trouble. I don’t know if he’ll survive it.” Loku didn’t answer. The young lover was too busy trying to hold back the sobs that were desperately trying to break free of her slender frame.

Ranu watched the black figure follow the girls and ran after him. Ranu was only able to catch him because he was trying to fish something out of the shadows of his long robe. Ranu ran right into him and they both were sprawled on the ground, Ranu on top of the dark clothed man. Then there was a sound like a vibrating sword and before he knew it he was pinned on his back by a black dragon with the murderer kneeling by his head, the crooked dagger in his hand. The subtle tip rested lightly on Ranu’s Adam’s apple.

Ranu had to stall as long as possible so he said nothing, letting the short pause grow into an awkward silence. Then finally, the black figure spoke in his deep voice, “What did you hope to achieve, jumping on me like that? Did you think it would save you and your friends?” Ranu still did not speak, keeping a defiantly blank expression on his face. He didn’t want to give away his fear and let his adversary see the advantage held over his head. “Silent hmmm? Well, I can’t do much here but I’ll bring you back with me. Perhaps I’ll introduce you to Platham and Silving. They’ll get as many answers out of you as I want. And after you are no long useful to me, we can have some… enjoyment from seeing your reaction to watching your own limbs squirm on the floor as they’re eaten by dragon hatchlings.”

As he spoke, Ranu could hear a high pitched hiss under his words, repeating everything he said and showing him what he meant. He could already feel the pain from his severed nerve cells screaming. He could already feel the blood seeping from his body along with his remaining life force. His blood spattered the floor and pooled together as if waiting for the dragons to lap it up as a cat laps up milk. For the first time in his life he truly felt afraid. “Please, don’t hurt me,” he whispered, tears pooling in the corners of his eyes and overflowing down his cheeks to land on the black claws of the dragon.

The man chuckled, “Feel like talking now, do you? Then tell me, what are you doing? Why are you trying to stop me?”

Ranu’s eyes grew wide in remembrance. “You summoned a- a demon. You killed that boy. How could you?”

The man’s voice changed from its previously amused tone to a suddenly serious one. “How could someone like you understand? I had to. I had to, to save you and your friends and your whole town. It’s not your business anyways.” He stood and snapped his fingers. The dragon brought its great claw from over Ranu and released him. His enemy continued, “This is your last chance, keep your nose out of my business. If I see you again I will not hesitate to kill you. You’ve only survived this encounter because of my mercy and you would do well to remember that.” As he spoke he mounted his dragon and as he finished his monologue they took flight.

Ranu watched them soar from the ground and out of sight. He was afraid of him. He was mortally, deathly afraid. Yet no matter how shaken he was he knew he had to go on, even if it cost him his life. There was too much at stake to not be brave and help the girls destroy the evil that had been sown. Then he remembered. The girls! He looked towards the direction they fled and back at the direction the black dragon had flown. It seemed his recent captor had either given up on finding them or had forgotten about them. Either way, he didn’t care and he started in the direction of Loku’s house.

Ranu wearily stepped in through the door. The house appeared empty. The idea that they had, indeed, followed Silpha and Loku grasped his mind and he desperately called out their names. He was answered with his own name and an unseen hug from both girls at once. “We thought you had been killed!” sobbed Loku. “Silpha heard powerful magic and we were so afraid for you!” Silpha buried her face in Ranu’s coat.

Ranu put his arms around both of them and said softly, “Don’t worry, I’m okay, everything is alright. But we need to be more careful. Whoever we’re fighting has… unbelievable power. He raises dragons and he summoned one on top of me without any effort. He also made me see the kind of torture he would use on me unless I talked to him. Just his voice was enough to make me feel the pain.” Silpha pulled her face from the wet cloth. If Ranu spoke true then he was, indeed, very powerful.

“But he still spared you. Why? Why didn’t he kill you when he had the chance? There’s more to him then we’ve seen,” Silpha speculated. At first she was worried and afraid but now she was puzzled. It was the perfect opportunity to get rid of an enemy. So why didn’t he do it? Why didn’t he remove Ranu from his path? After all, that was what he was trying to do right?

Ranu nodded. “I don’t think we know anything more about him then what he’s already let us see. There’s something else there behind his mask of darkness.”

Loku sighed exasperatedly, “We can’t just sit around like this! We don’t have time trying to analyze his psyche. We have to find a way to defeat him before he destroys all that we love and fight for!”

Silpha nodded; it was time to get to business, “Right. I’ve found a little bit on demon summoning and magic. It seems that in order to summon a demon of any degree you have to find a gateway to their world first. There isn’t much known about the different portals but if you search hard enough you can find anything. I guess that the old oak that we’ve played at so much is a gateway and he only needed the right ritual to open it. Each portal requires a different ritual and that knowledge is a well kept secret. Whoever our enemy is he has access to a great reservoir of intelligence.”

“The boy isn’t anything too special though,” said Loku. “Not many talk to him because he’s an orphan and begs in the street. All anyone can say is that he was a good boy and never hurt anyone. He helped people when he could and once he saved his friend from a charging horse but the deeds were overlooked since he only helped the other beggars deemed worthless.”

“Hmm, a small time hero. Perhaps that’s why such a minor demon was exchanged for him. You have to keep things balanced. Anything that you want out of their world demands a trade of exactly equal value,” Silpha told them.

Ranu was feeling a little left out. What he had found wasn’t interesting or important, unlike what the girls found. “The knife is just a knife,” he murmured. Loku inclined her head towards him. “There isn’t anything special about it. It’s just decorated nicely. That’s all.”

It made sense to Silpha. In a case like this, it really didn’t matter what knife they used. It just had to be sharp enough for the purpose. If they felt like it, they could have even just used a shard of glass. That made things a little easier for them and made it that much harder for Silpha and her friends.

“Did you find anything about closing the portal?” asked Loku.

Silpha nodded. “For this gate, we need the blood of the one that opened it and we need to obtain it using the knife that opened it. Just get some of the blood inside or around the opening and it’ll seal itself back up again. Luckily for us, they can’t open the same portal for another one hundred years. Also the one that opened the portal before cannot open another portal. Someone else has to.”

“You sure know a lot about it,” Loku said suspiciously. “How do we know you aren’t one of them? And even if you aren’t, how are you obtaining such forbidden information?”

Silpha said nothing for a moment. She was so nervous and afraid. No one could ever find out, even if it meant death. After a moment she figured that is would just be better to tell the truth. “I can’t tell you,” she murmured lamely.

“Why?” asked Ranu. “We’re your friends. Surely you can trust us, right?”

Silpha recoiled slightly for a moment. “No! I mean, it’s not that. It’s just that I’m sworn to secrecy. I can’t tell anyone, not even you. Sorry.”

Loku sighed, “Sure, we understand. Even though we’ve known you nearly all your childhood you can’t tell us.”

Silpha turned to Ranu who nodded a little unsurely. She smiled, “Thanks you guys.” But Silpha knew that the damage had been done and things would have to be handled a little more delicately than before.

Loku wasted no more time. After all, none of them knew how many more demons had already been summoned and how many more people had already been killed. “So, we need to get the knife. How will we do that? Will we ambush them at the old oak?”

Silpha shook her head. “No, they might expect that after we saw them and it would be too dangerous. No, we have to get the knife before we fight them. That way, we’ll have the upper hand and we need all the advantage we can get.”

Ranu stared at Silpha, open mouthed. “Do you know what we’d have to do to steal it? We’ll have to find out where they sleep, where they eat, where they bathe, what they do, and everything! Even if we managed to do all that then how would we steal it in the first place?”

Loku sided with Ranu, as she usually did, “There’s absolutely no way to get it without being noticed! He’d see us and he’d kill us. We can’t do it this way.”

Silpha looked sown at the floor, as if she were memorizing the patterns and contours of the wood. “I could do it,” she murmured, “I’ll get the knife.” Then she looked up again, “Loku, you know that Ranu knows fencing and I… can take care of myself. Do you have some sort of weapon?”

Loku answered with a sheepish smile on her face, “I can kind of do archery. My brother taught me but I’m still not very good at it.”

Silpha nodded. “It’ll work. Do you or your brother know how to make arrows?”

Loku nodded, “Yeah, but brother doesn’t make them very well so I make all of his. I have lots of practice so I can make really good ones. Why do you ask?”

Silpha giggled, “Because I have a plan.”