If you have been living in ignorance of the nightshades until now, consider yourself lucky, dear reader! For Nightside is not as deserted as is always claimed. In fact, it is populated by the saddest inhabitants one could imagine: the nightshades. Once, so it is said, they were people – inhabitants of this proud metropolis who, in their quest for knowledge and power, provoked the wrath of the elements. But in the last days of Nightshade, when the weather spiralled out of control and the great catastrophes struck, they became something else.
The scientists of the Meteorological Institute had experimented with pressure, manipulated temperatures and crossed the boundaries of nature. No one could have foreseen that these manipulations would change not only the weather but also the people themselves. The extreme fluctuations in pressure and temperature altered their bodies. Their aggregate state began to fluctuate – sometimes solid, sometimes liquid, sometimes gaseous – and they lost their original shape. What remained of them was a shadow of their former selves. Dark figures that hide in the darkness, where no light can reach them. Their bodies flow like ink, evaporate like mist or harden into pitch-black glass that flashes in fragments before disappearing into nothingness again. Their appearance is vaguely human – heads, limbs, sometimes even remnants of clothing or jewellery that have been imprinted in their new form.
The nightshadows are shy. They avoid the light and retreat into the deepest shadows of the city. But they are also territorial. Anyone who carelessly enters their realm runs the risk of attracting their attention. Their movements are silent, but in the complete stillness, you can sometimes hear a faint scraping sound, like the sound of fingernails on a blackboard, as they lurk in the darkness.
The biggest challenge when you come into conflict with a nightshadow is its unpredictability. It seems to suffer no physical damage and its changeable state makes it difficult to catch. Dear reader, should you ever come into conflict with a Nightshade, just one piece of advice: run for your life! A fight is completely unpredictable. It will attack you with whipping, liquid arms that seem like water hoses one moment and the next are sharp as glass shards.
Whether they think or feel, nobody knows. Some believe that a part of their humanity still slumbers within them, trapped in an endless state of madness. Others claim that they have long since become pure creatures of instinct, driven by an unfathomable rage against the living who are still free. Perhaps they roam the streets in search of what they once were, or perhaps they guard the last secrets of the city?
A shadow detached itself from the darkness and took shape as an inhuman figure – a blurred image of a human with limbs that were too long and empty, flickering eyes. The scraping sound grew louder as more nightshadows emerged from the corners of the room, spreading like ink eating into paper.
‘Take cover!’ Eva shouted, dragging Nora behind a shelf. Finn drew his knife and tried to keep one of the creatures at bay, but the blade simply passed through the shadow as if he were trying to cut air. “Damn it!” Nora screamed. ’They’re not real!’ ‘They’re real enough to kill us!’ Finn hissed, while he too took cover. “Yes, I can see that too,” Nora spat back, ’Eva, what the hell are you doing?’
Her friend had stood up and stepped in front of the shelf. She gripped one of the massive shelves with both hands, her ankle gleamed naked in the light of the moon. The shadows hesitated in front of her, as if they were astonished that she was confronting them so openly. Then one of them broke away from the crowd and glided towards her like a black cloud of smoke. ‘Eva!’ Nora shouted, “Run away!” But the girl did nothing of the sort. She hesitated… waited… and then swung the board with all her might. When it hit the shadowy figure, it shattered into a thousand black splinters. Eva covered her face with her arm and then saw that the remaining shadows retreated fearfully into the darkness.
Nora and Finn crawled out from behind the cover. ‘That was crazy!’ Finn shouted, and they had never seen him so enthusiastic. Nora carefully pushed the black splinters together with the tip of her shoe. ‘Is that glass?’ ‘Yes,’ Eva replied. ‘Greybeard told me about the spectres. He once had a sailor who barely escaped them. He knew that they are vulnerable for a short time when they change into a solid state. Then they shimmer in the moonlight like black ice. I paid attention to that.’ “That’s crazy,” Finn repeated, but Nora interrupted him. “Say, where is Leander?” The nobleman was nowhere to be seen. ‘He didn’t just abandon us, did he?’ asked Nora. ‘It seems that way.’ Eve’s cheeks turned red with anger. ‘If I get my hands on him, he’ll have one too with the board.’ ‘I’m with you,’ said Finn, ‘but let’s waste no time. I suggest we insert the orbis into the star clock and see what happens. The saying fits perfectly: Per aspera ad astra – through adversity to the stars.
Eva left the honour to him. With a click, the device engaged and a flap on the underside of the column on which the star clock rested sprang open. Finn reached in and pulled out a leather case. The friends stepped into the light of the moon to see better what they had found. ‘Don’t keep us in suspense,’ Nora urged, ‘Open the thing!’ Finn carefully opened the case. A metal badge fell into his hands. ‘A letter opener?’ Nora exclaimed, puzzled. ‘Well, of course – no, it’s a badge, silly,’ said Eva, and for a brief moment she forgot the gravity of the situation and giggled at her friend’s imagination. ‘Okay, but a badge for what?’ Before Eva could answer, she heard a soft clink – like the sound of metal hitting something solid. Then they heard a soft laugh behind them.
Eva spun around to see Leander. He was standing next to the table with the star clock, his silhouette engulfed in shadows as if he himself had become a part of the darkness. In one hand, he held the Orbis Arcanum, which he turned slightly as if it were a toy, and in the other, he held his sword. ‘What’s going on?’ asked Eva, her heart pounding. ‘Give that to me.’ Leander grinned as he looked at the orb in his hand. ‘No,’ he replied calmly. ‘You just left us to die!’, Nora exclaimed indignantly. The nobleman shrugged. ‘I had no other choice. I had hoped that we could understand each other a little better. But so much mistrust, so much mistrust… Someone had to watch my back.’ They stared at him. ‘You… you were working with the shadows?’ Eva asked. ‘No,’ Leander said slowly, ‘how could I control those creatures, either – not that I didn’t try. But they are useful when it comes to spreading a little chaos. And that’s exactly what I needed.’
Finn took a step forward. ‘You’ve been deceiving us all along, and you didn’t think we’d notice, did you?’ Leander laughed softly, and a dangerous glint sparkled in his eyes. ‘You’re not fools, that’s true. Otherwise I could have made it easier for myself. But you have no idea how important this place really is. You have no idea how much knowledge has been lost here, and how much power is contained in that knowledge. Nightshade was once the centre of weather research – and this orb is the key to everything.’
‘You’re completely insane,’ Nora murmured. “The city is in ruins. And you think you can still find something here?” “Not just find it,” Leander replied. ‘I will rebuild it. The catastrophe that destroyed Nightshade was not natural, not an accident. It was the work of those who went too far. They wanted to control the weather, but they didn’t understand what they were doing. I do, because I know: the Orbis – it is the link. The instrument that gives true power over the sky.’
‘That’s complete nonsense!’ shouted Finn, “It’s a navigational instrument – nothing more and nothing less!” The nobleman laughed mockingly. ’That for the navigator all instruments are navigational instruments sounds just as plausible to me as a hammer only seeing nails.’ ‘And you think you can control that?’ asked Eva. ’You will do exactly what the scientists of Nightshade did – destroy yourself and everyone around you.’
‘Destroy? No, girl. This is not about destruction. It’s about renewal. Nightshade was too rigid, too single-minded in its pursuit of knowledge. It couldn’t bear the truth. But I will embrace the truth; I will understand the laws of the heavens. If I use the orbis correctly, I can do more than control the weather—I’ll be able to change the atmosphere.’ He paused and looked at her, as if savouring the moment. ‘Imagine: there’s no storm we couldn’t survive. No fog that could stop us. We could control the clouds. And not only that – the world would change. The power over the weather, over the skies, over the earth… That’s what we need.’ ‘You’re completely insane,’ Nora repeated. “You won’t be able to escape either if you trigger the next disaster!” Leander shrugged, his grin growing. “Maybe. But there’s magic in every beginning, isn’t there? Now – if you don’t mind?” He approached the star clock, still pointing the sword at her.
Eva watched him while she unobtrusively took a step to the side and closed her fingers around the board she still held in her hand. ‘Why did you join us?’ she asked. ‘I thought there weren’t supposed to be any stupid questions,’ Leander replied, and there was genuine astonishment in his voice. ‘But this is a stupid question, all right. You had an Orbis Arcanum – you wanted to go to Nightshade. Transport and tools in one. How convenient.’
With a lightning-fast movement, Eva leaped forward and swung the board down on Leander’s head. The nobleman threw up his arms, but he didn’t stand a chance: he went down with a groan. Nora dived under him, saving the delicate device from crashing to the ground. Finn pounced on Leander and grabbed him by the arms. ‘I don’t think that’s necessary,’ said Eva, wiping her hair from her forehead. ‘He’s unconscious.’ ‘Good,’ said Nora, her expression darkening. ‘We’ll leave him here. If he thinks she’s so great, he can stay in Nightside.’ “You know we can’t do that,” Eva replied. “Why not?” Finn interjected. “He would have done the same to us.” “But we’re not like him,” said Eva, folding her arms. ’We’re taking the traitor with us.’