What Turns the Key

-o-

Prologue

"Brother, how long must we stay here?"

The question seemed to dissolve into the darkness of the cylindrical room. There was no furniture or any windows. The massive doors could hardly be distinguished. Even though the floor was as black as the walls, the pattern of the bricks they consisted of invisible, its perfect surface reflected a mirror image of everything walking upon it. It created an illusion where the room expanded into infinity, like a dark haven beyond time and space. The only object inside the room was a crystal ball on a tall pedestal and its faint lilac glow was the one thing that gave off an impression of being somewhere rather than nowhere. Dim though it was, the light fell on the woman who had gathered her courage to speak. It caressed the contours of her small heart-shaped face and emphasized its pallor.

She was not necessarily beautiful. With her pinched looks, the tight black dress made her look stiff and the indifferent eyes and colorless lips strengthened the dullness about her. The garment was slit in the front, revealing two white spidery legs. Her raven black curls of hair were forcefully restrained into two low twin tails. It was a childish hairstyle that looked quite unsuited for someone like her.

"There are only small rural villages nearby. It would not be profitable to attack them, but if they are distressed by our presence they might seek help and cause a confrontation sooner than we would like," the woman said.

"Ann-Louise," a man's deep voice replied. "Their insignificance is the very thing that will allow us to bide our time."

"Magnus, don't be difficult."

The man she observed across from her was peculiar in many ways, even to her who understood him better than anyone. Except for the short hair that was of the same quality as hers they were each other's opposites in many ways.

Her brother was the one with the vision, something to live and strive for, hence his dark eyes were not near as indifferent as hers. Unlike the small creature that she was, he was remarkably large. Remarkable, because his clothing was the typical garb worn by practicers of magic and the majority of them preferred to resort to books and were seldom the size of a fighter whereas he carried the dignified stature of a jarl. Magic might have played a part because it was hard to tell how old the two were. He was not young but the clean-shaved face and few wrinkles made him appear as such. She on the other hand only looked older in her attempt to bring out her youth. That the siblings had a fetish for black was apparent. Whatever past they had been through, after every wicked whim of fate they had put behind them with life intact, light had turned bleak long ago, although uncertain how long ago, while the emptiness of the night had become a comforting presence.

The man called Magnus smirked at the crystal ball and its weak light struggling against the darkness that was crawling over his back.

"Sister, can you imagine the feeling of holding the world in the palm of your hand?"

There was only one world. It was far greater than the comprehension of it and far too wide to be extended with other dimensions. Perhaps there existed strange phenomenons such as time lapses or rips in the laws that weaved together the seams of this limitless world, and maybe there were even things so unknown they would never receive a name in any language. There was still only one world.

In spite of this overwhelming space, people's roads would eventually, and inevitably, cross. That was the natural course of life. The different lifeforms of the world all progressed at their own pace, reaching out until planets were not a very far distance from each other and the universe no longer was as lonely a place as it had once been.

One planet in particular stood out amongst the others. Because it was the home of many who had not yet lifted from the ground it had become a gathering place for those who could. That was why it had for as long as people could remember been considered the kernel of the world and the home of the great metropolis Magnavox.

Since magic existed, in many forms, and there were those who could use it and those who could not, because there were animals that could talk and those that could not, and as there were those who were good and those who were not, there was not a lot that could be regarded as strange. When a huge black castle suddenly showed up, without anyone being able to recall that such a thing had been build, no one paid it much attention. Of course it was strange that they should not have noticed the construction in the middle of an open field, but who really cared enough about that old field to take a good look often enough? No one could know that there inside that castle was a room where a brother and his younger sister were discussing the fate of the world.

"Brother, the world is bigger than this earth and this sky."

"I'm aware."

"The world is infinite. Since when has the sensible you been this obsessed with controlling it? What will you do with such power?" Ann-Louise trailed off, her frown giving away for a somewhat softer expression. "It is not that I care what you decide to do. Forgive me, but I cannot see any motive why ruling the world should be of any interest to you. You have always been absorbed by your own abilities and that has up until now been enough."

"You who love the abstract will never be able to see the charm of the concrete reality."

"True, it is merely a giant boring mass of grey to me. It is dead and will exist far longer than any of us so why bother to gather it in your palm when your hand shall be erased in a breath's time in comparison to when the final moment of the world will arrive?"

"It is not that I specifically want it."

His large hand moved collaterally over the surface of the crystal ball without touching it. The light poured through the spaces between his long controlled fingers and inside the mist of the ball a neat web was being spun. The strings were even finer than the spider's threads and Ann-Louise enjoyed their subtle beauty. It was during her close observation of them that she noticed the small figures that tied the many strings together and created the unity. They were barely distinguishable, insignificantly small in contrast to the web as a whole, but you could, if you looked carefully enough, see that they were miniatures of living creatures.

"No man is an island," Magnus said and closed his eyes.

"Unlike an island, cut off and isolated to complete loneliness by the vast ocean, a human will always be tied to another in one way or another," Ann-Louise said, in order to make it clear that she had understood him.

"Yes, well, can you then imagine what these attachments would bring about if someone was to suddenly disappear?"

With the snap of his fingers one little creature burst into a cloud of dust and the threads connected to it wrung about like agonizing snakes. The desperate moments spread until the nearest creatures on the other ends met the same fate. This went on until the wakes of the sudden disappearance left the remaining creatures unaffected.

"People die all the time," Ann-Louise said and arched a slim eyebrow.

"Of course, you should not take it literally," Magnus said. "Now, what I was getting to was the fact that there exist certain key persons."

"Move on."

"By removing the right pieces..."

He snapped his fingers again and immediately a number of people disappeared from the web. The way the threads crawled around one almost expected them to make shrieking noises of pain and at a fearsome speed the web begun to dissolve and every creature crumble into nonexistence.

"They will all go to rack and ruin like a house of cards," Magnus finished.

"And you strive to ruin the world?"

His deep laugh was unconcerned, as if she humored him. "No, I was merely trying to make my motives clear. Dear sister, I have the ability to see what creates the sensitive balance of the world. It is like a board has been set up before me and I have been given the outcome of the game before it has even started."

She recognized the look of eager. Optimism was something that she disliked very much because it brought a light to the eye that she only wished to stifle, but when taking over her darling brother's gaze it would not do for her to complain.

"I know exactly which pieces I need to end up victorious. Everyday I witness how to proceed, which move to make, and yet I do nothing. I alone can unlock the door to power out of this world and you think that I should turn away from it? Think that this is a door that none but I have laid eyes upon."

"Magnus..."

"Think that I know exactly what foes to remove from their side to fatally affect them and I know where to find the key that controls the outcome."

He upturned his palm and a figure took form in it. Ann-Louise bent forward, careful not to brush against the precious crystal ball and watched the little creature in her brother's hand. A young man adjusted his belt and gazed up at her. He was transparent, looking holographic like the others figures, but his eyes struck her as real. They were such a clear blue. Unruly blond bangs fell over them that he brushed aside with a smile. The long pointy ears gave him an exotic look that went well with the sharp facial features. The brown leather boots looked worn out and heavy and the simple green tunic made him out to be nothing above the ordinary. When looking at him, she could not help but to feel that there was something naïve about him. This in spite of sensing that the sword hanging across his back, underneath a large shield, must have been colored red a thousand times.

"We cannot lose," her brother whispered.

A/N

This story was something I thought up when SSBM came around, meaning I was around twelve or thirteen years old. I finally decided to give it a shot to get it out of my head by writing down the words. Of course, it still has a rather childish and mediocre plot. I am aware that I have just written a whole prologue about two stereotypical villains with vague-to-no personality that plan to take over the world just because they can (wow...). Well, I do not want them to take the spotlight from the Smashers so you will not be seeing a lot of them. It will be enough to jump to the next chapter and they will be gone.

Thank you so much for reading. I hope that I have not scared you away with the uneventful prologue and its lack of characters.