"The man in the mirror (a night shadow story)" by Jennifer H. Berry (A shadow of the night)

There was a young man watching me; I could see him in the mirror. His bright, curious blue eyes sparkled from a face that had only recently lost its youthful curves, framed by jet-black hair, and beginning to grow stubble. The man in the reflection seemed older than me in the flickering light of the torches. As his hand reached up to stroke the blackness on his chin, his eyes seemed surprised, as if he had not expected it to be there.

As I examined the tall figure, dressed in a black cloak that spilled down his back like a waterfall of shadows, I didn't recognise him. There was some resemblance evidenced to my master, whom had taught me so much over the last five years. He wore the same black strange material that seemed to shimmer blue in the light. His hands where ordained with the same curves of metal that my master had worn ever since I'd met him. But my master was old now, too old to carry on teaching me. The stranger looked at me with familiar eyes that I felt drawn to. I lifted my hand towards the mirror, and the stranger's hand lifted with mine, in perfect synchronisation. My fingers touched his on the surface of the glass in wonder. I moved closer to the mirror, just as the reflection did the same. Not quite believing the man that I saw myself to be.

The crude wooden doors suddenly rattled, startling me, and I became aware of the wind whistling past outside. In the reflection my mouth contorted into a smile as I made my way over the stone floor on booted feet and threw open the double-doors, letting in the cool dry wind, and the darkness of night. With nervous anticipation I stepped out onto the cold stone ledge that looked down onto a bottomless well of blackness on the side of a cliff high up near the peaks of the Rowl Mountains.

For a while I just stood there with my cloak and tangled black hair flapping behind me like a flag. I spread my arms wide with glee and fell forwards through the hundreds of meters of windswept air.

Memory of that first flight came to me. That time almost two years ago when I had stood on the hilltop of the island of shadows* as my master instructed me, the day I had been looking forward to for three years. The wind had been as strong on that day as it was now, perfect conditions for a shadow to take flight. But then it had been daytime as I had awkwardly manipulated the chords to catch the wind and give me lift. My master's teaching repeated themselves in my mind: the angle of the body; the tautness of the chords; the feel of the wind currents. I had come a long way from then as I expertly gathered in the primary and secondary chords on my cloak and took my arms out wide. The effect was immediate; with a sudden jerk my momentum ceased to move vertically and I sped forward parallel to the rolling hills of Yakatar beneath me.

I flew in a straight line towards the lights of Prote, with the familiar feeling of wind catching in the canvas of my wings. But then I noticed a small town below me and I pulled at a primary chord on my right wing, my flight slowed and I circled the town in a clean spiral.

This is where it had all started, I reflected, right there in that now-overgrown field at the back of the school where I had been training for the quarterly sports day. So long ago it seemed in another lifetime. I remembered waiting my turn in a line of ramblemen and watching the elves enviously as they flitted across ropes close by as if they could walk on air.

I had first noticed the cloaked stranger standing at the fence as I finished my run of the obstacle course, puffing and sweating. He watched the ramblemen training with intense interest.

As I pulled on a couple of primary chords again to angle me back to Prote, and drew in all the secondary chords to catch the wind, I knew meeting Night Shadow, and subsequently discovering that the majority of legends I'd heard about him were false, could never have made its way even into my overactive imagination. But that was what had happened and I still didn't fully understand what had made my master choose me on that day.

I hadn't been the most athletic by any means. I had never won any of the contests; Mark Calder would have been a far better choice, as he excelled at anything remotely sporting. Neither had I been particularly intelligent, I contemplated as I sped on towards the glittering lights of Prote with the speed of the wind. I had been far from the top of my class in anything. Nor was I a fully blooded rambleman, as my grandmother had been an amicman, but that didn't seem to matter.

The only reason I could see was that I had been an orphan, and had no family so I would have no reservations about leaving. I had also had to resort to acting for a mere 3 shelrons** a day and even thieving to keep myself alive. Perhaps that was what had made me a suitable candidate.

Whatever the reason had been, I was a shadow now. The lights of the largest city in The Lands of Aldálon where beneath me now and I angled my body to the right, slackened the secondary chords to slow me down, and pulled on two primary chords to bring myself into a wide circle round the center of the giant city. Although the wind blew I cut through the air in graceful curves, an unexpected change in wind never caught me off balance. 

I smiled, today I had become a shadow of the night, and I would make my master proud. I pulled sharply on all 8 primary threads and dived down into the city, ready for anything its sprawling mass could throw at me.

*A bit cliché, but the name had stuck. It was appropriate to the myths and legends into which Night Shadow was relegated.
**The currancy in Aldálon is Protian Grestles, and there are 100 Shelrons in one grestle.