The room was dark, the only light from flickering candles places on the tables. Smoke swirled through the air, making it thick with its heavy perfume. The only sound was the low murmurer coming from a group of men, huddled around a table in the far corner. There were five, all dressed in fine silken clothing, embellished with frills and lace. Men of class, hunkered down in the darkest corner of the city, a dusty old abandoned store house, used to store rations of food in times of famine. The famines had come and scarcely left, but this store house remained empty all the same.
Their voices were hushed, heads tucked to avoid recognition, as if anyone would see them here. One among these men however, was not dressed in the shining silk that popped with color. One man was cloaked in a simple black robe, a hood drawn over their face, only the glint of eyes could be seen. Eyes that shone with malice, silent as they watched the others. He offered very few words, but when his mouth opened to speak, the other voices hushed to listen. This was a flock of nervous sheep, but this man was their unyielding shepard. A man unlikely to have a kind soul. A man that no soul would want to test.
For a short while after, the men in fine cloth murmured and mumbled together, the soft hum of their voices holding the melody of deceitful plots. Things were written down by quill and ink, scribbled hurriedly onto dry parchment. Locations, letters, lists, plots, names… Anything that might be a point in their scheme. No single detail was missed. No single idea left unfinished. No single route unplanned.
The black-cloaked man stood then, rising from his chair as a phantom would rise from a grave. Not a sound was heard from the others, save for the strengthening of backs and the shuffling away of paper. They parted before him as water parts for ships, allowing him to easily walk between them, away from the table. His cloak covered him completely, swaying around his feet - clad in polished leather boots - like a curtain in a light breeze. The only sound now was the faint thud of the heel of his boots as they hit the floor.
Utter silence blanketed the room as this hooded man turned to face the flock of pastel people to say something. They looked upon him with frightened eyes, he was their master and obviously their punisher. The fires of war seemed to rest in the shine hidden in the shade of the hood, the candlelight flickering off of the many buckles that adorn his waist and chest. Many of these buckles held belts filled with hidden blades and other weapons of destruction and death. If a coin had fallen from a pouch in that moment, its sound would have echoed on. No one breathed. No one dared to move. Then he spoke…
"You all know your roles to play," his voice was deep, and gravelly, "Do not disappoint me, or you will be sorry."
Without another word, the black-cloaked man was gone. In a moment, quick as the shadow that masked him, he was gone. Vanished into the night, nothing to ever give away that he had been there at all. The other men lingered a while longer; but before long, they were gone as well. Off into the night, not as silently, not as unnoticed. For they in their colorful clothing looked like the scarlet birds flying through the black night sky.
Whatever had been discussed, whatever plans had been planned, whatever malicious schemes had been thought up, there was no stopping them now. There was nothing to save the people, there was nothing to protect them. There was nothing on the Earth that could save them now from the wickedness and fury of the man in the black cloak and his colorful puppets. There was not one man who could slip from their grasp, not one being alive that could slide from their gaze just long enough to strike… Or is there?