Chapter 4 ~ The City of Illumination

Elias and Alice walked through the city they’d stopped in for a while. She’d gathered that they were in Nura, or the City of Illumination. It’s said that there are so many lights that it’s nearly as bright at night as it is during the day. Alice had always wanted to visit Nura, it was one of the coastal cities in Yeno so they were able to offer ferry rides at night so you could see the city lights from the water, though she doubted that she’d be able to go on one. The pair ,that seemed to have been moving at a pretty quick pace, stopped as a walking light turned to stop, giving Alice the opportunity to look up, to see for herself what the stories and pictures had told her.

Alice let out a gasp as her amber irises took in the beauty of it. Alice knew that with the air pollution and things that they wouldn’t be able to see the stars but it was almost like it. The midnight blue color of the night blanketed the sky above her. The colorful neon lights of the street signs glowed giving the dark of night a pop of color closer to the ground, but as the she looked higher she began to see the lights on the tops of the huge buildings. They were so tall they looked like they were reaching for the stars that they couldn’t see. The colors faded into the white lights that exploded out of the windows, imitating the stars that they were reaching for.

“It's so… pretty” Alice breathed in awe quietly, to no one in particular really. She didn’t know how long she was looking up,  it couldn’t have been that long since the walking light things didn’t take too long to change. But before she knew it, the light was green, signaling that they could walk across the street and Elias was pushing her to walk.

Once they’d made it safely to the other sidewalk, Alice couldn’t help but occasionally steal a glance up at the sky. “Watch where you’re going” She heard Elias’s voice slice the quiet night air. “You’ll run into something”

“Sorry” Alice mumbled, blushing, “I’ve just never seen anything like it before. I may live in a city but it’s so small, it’s nothing like this.”

“There is nothing like this, Nura is one of a kind. Believe me, I’ve been everywhere.”

“It’s not hard to believe…” Alice smiled, trailing off slightly, “Why are  we in Nura. I mean, it's not like I’m going to learn to use the element powers or whatever in the middle of the city.”

“Of course you’re not” Elias agreed as they walked, Alice hadn’t really been paying attention to where they were going, but now she realized there was no one in the streets, which was weird for an urban city. They turned into a thin street, much thinner than the other streets, but wider than an alley. She was growing increasingly uncomfortable with where it seemed Elias was leading her. “Don’t worry” Elias spoke suddenly, “We’re almost there”

Alice couldn’t help but be put off a bit by the secrecy of where the safe place was. They walked for a short time more, winding in and out of similar small streets, before Elias stopped on a door that looked like a normal apartment door. “This is your super safe place that you’re going to train me at?” Alice asked disbelieving, earning yet another chuckle from Elias.

“Just wait” He smiled and pushed open the door, with a bit of trouble since it looked like an old door. After the door opened Elias stepped back with his arm out, beckoning Alice to enter before him. She apprehensively slid past him into a dark hallway, the walls were off white and the paint was chipping slightly as if it was very old. The floors were dark wood and creaky. From what she could tell to the left was a staircase up and down the hall were three doors, presumably leading to the rest of the apartment.

“Okay…  not what I was expecting” Alice admitted, shifting her weight to let Elias passed her in the small hallway.

“It’s just a cover, to make it seem like we’re normal.” Elias said, like he’d said if a few times before. Alice wondered how many other paladins had gone through this particular hide out, and she wondered if there had been more. “The real place is this way” He continued, stopping at the door on the left, and inserting a key into it. This was the only door with a lock, and as she was closer Alice could see the far door was creaked open, revealing a falling apart kitchen. This also seemed to be the best kept door, freshly painted and it didn’t look like it stuck closed or would randomly swing open.

Click. The small noise of the key unlocking the door pulled Alice back into reality. She watched as Elias pushed the door open, revealing a staircase into the basement, and another door at the bottom. “What-” Alice asked, but she was cut off by a strangely excited shriek and the door at the bottom flinging open.

“C’mon Naida!” Came a light, airy voice, “She’s here. Finally!!”

“I’m coming Ani” Another voice, calmer this time followed. “You’d think after a few hundred years of meeting new Paladins you’d be used to it”

New paladins? Alice thought confused for a second, before she realized that these must be two of the original paladins, the ones that we’re meant to teach her. Just as she realized who they were, the thin figure, that belonged to the original voice appeared in front of her. “You’re Alice right? I’m Anila, but you can call me Ani like the others do!”

“Oh um. Hi” Alice said startled by the sudden energy of the girl.

“Don’t scare her Ani” Elias’s voice came from behind her, with more authority than it’d had since they met at the cafe, however there was still a hint of humor. “Go back inside, we’ll be there in a moment” The girl, who Alice now knew as Ani turned and disappeared down the stairs, and by the sound of another pair of feet descending, the other girl was heading back too. “Sorry about her, she gets excited when new paladins come” Elias smiled.

“Oh it’s fine.” Alice smiled and followed Elias down the stairs. The appearance of the girl had made her feel a bit better about the strange place, if that energetic girl lived there it couldn’t be that bad, right? By the time they got to the bottom of the staircase, the door had closed and there was no sound coming out of it, which was surprising considering the amount of noise that Ani was making.

Once again, Elias stuck a silver key into the silver door knob and twisted till it made another click, sound. This time however, he stepped aside, “Go on” he urged her forward. Nervously, Alice took Elias’ spot in front of the door and touched the cold knob. She twisted it slightly and pushed it only slightly before the door cracked open.

Alice was expecting a dark basement, set up like a training room, but that wasn’t what she got. Behind the door was the main room of what looked like a cabin. There was a new looking kitchen next to the door and an unlit fireplace across the room. In front of the fireplace was a long dark blue sectional couch. Across from the door they’d just entered was a cabin door, and on either sides of it were large windows. This confused Alice, they were underground weren’t they?

Behind the couch and across the room were four doors, that Alice could only assume lead to the mages bedrooms. Next to the fireplace was a hallway that had three doors. Again she assumed that two served as bedrooms and one probably a bathroom or a closet. Alice was shocked as she stepped in, to find it a warm contrast to the cold of the concrete staircase. “What… how?” She managed as she looked around for the mages.

“Magic” Elias said, somewhat sarcastically, “The door is a sort of portal to our real safe place, it changes frequently so Alastor doesn’t know how to get back here. Ani likes to call it our ‘sanctuary’ but really it's just the cabin. It’s small but that's because it’s old, redecorated and fixed up obviously but old.” Elias explained, she’d assumed that the home of the elements master and the mage paladins would be larger but that made sense. Except she didn’t understand why it was old, couldn’t they just build a new place?

As Alice looked in amazement around the room, and wandered to get closer looks it dawned on her. “Is this your original cabin?” She asked in disbelief, “The one you shared with Alastor?” It somewhat made sense now why it was so small, and the extra areas looked like they were additions.

“Yeah.. it just didn’t feel right to leave our-my home”

“I’m sorry, you lost your brother when he decided to fight you”

“It’s fine, you’ll be staying in the room across from mine, nobody’s stayed there since Alastor left so it should be clean.”

“Okay, thanks” Alice smiled sadly and once again shifted the bag that was on her shoulder as she made her way down the hallway to the door that he’d indicated was hers. Based on the appearance of the room, when he’d said nobody had stayed in there since Alastor left, he meant nobody had been in there. It was weird, the bed was unmade, like someone had gotten out of it in a hurry. A few of the hangers were on the floor of the closet that you could see through the door that was cracked open. It really did look like the last person in the room had left in a hurry.

Alice sighed and dropped her backpacks before fixing the bed and straightening up the hangers and closing the closet. She didn’t expect the cabin to be like an actual house with closets and beds and kitchens, but it did make sense that they slept and ate. Alice found it was strange that she was alone, that the mages, especially Ani hadn’t come out as soon as she got into the cabin to greet her.  She emptied her two bags and hung her clothes, and set up her books and things in the small bookshelf that was at the foot of the bed.

As she looked around Alice realized it was pretty dark in there, and she decided instead of keeping the dim light on, she could just open the window. Alice walked to the dark red curtains and pulled them open, letting the bright white light into the dark room. She could finally see everything well, the bedspread was red like the curtains, except the pillowcase was light grey. The walls weren’t wood, they were painted grey and the carpet was black. It was pretty obvious that this had been Alastor’s room since all of his elements are dark.

She turned back and glanced at the window, awed at how beautiful the area around the cabin was. From where she was standing, Alice could see beautiful colorful trees whose park seemed to be infused with the rainbow, they were accompanied with light green leaves that allowed the light to filter through well. In between the colorful trees were blooming pink cherry trees, which was odd because Alice was pretty sure those two species didn’t grow in the same climate.  

A few yards into the colorful forest, Alice could see a beautiful river. The water was crystal clear, even from the cabin you could see the aqua color of the pebbles on the riverbank. As she looked on, the awe continued as the beautiful colorful forest faded into big branching, dark green trees. The branches seemed to be stretching and reaching for the colorful trees, as the their dark leaves rustled with the breeze. At the same time, the cherry trees were replaced with dark purple leaved plum trees. And the river water darkened as the pebbles at the bottom turned black and grey.

It was amazing how quickly the forest was able to change, though the place was the home to some pretty powerful magic. They seemed to be in the middle of a huge clearing that was surrounded by the forest. Alice’s attention was drawn back to the beauty of the rainbow trees, the white bark and the pastel colors were so pretty when coupled with the light pink leaves of the cherry tree. “They’re called Rainbow Eucalyptus Trees.” Alice jumped and turned around, revealing Elias standing by the door, leaning against the frame.

“They’re so beautiful.”

“Yea, it's unfortunate that we have to hide this place” Elias mumbled sadly inducing a gloomy silence as Elias stared past Alice out the window. After a moment Elias seemed to be brought back to reality as he looked back at Alice, “Well I’m sure you’d like to meet the mages, c’mon” It seemed like he was trying to hide the tint of sadness in his voice, so Alice didn’t say anything about it and followed Elias into the other room.