Memori: Tower Shadow Sword - Volume 1

Chapter 7: The Sword Challenge Part 1

Dark clouds thundered as great winds from the sea blew across the district. The sky seemed to reflect the gloomy mood all over Meden. Three days had passed since the disaster at the festival and the people talked of nothing else but the wolves and the great fire that had rained from the sky.

The local papers were filled with wild theories of how the wolves had planned the attack and policemen had been positioned at key entrances into the woods, which were officially restricted. A curfew had also been instated; no one was allowed out after 9 o'clock at night. The authorities were carrying out extensive investigations but nothing of their findings had been disclosed yet.

Then, of course, there were also the new murders...

A night after the festival, a couple had been brutally stabbed to death somewhere not far from Meden... Their bodies had been found with an assortment of knives sticking out of their wounds... and lying on the ground a few feet from them was another tarot card of death. It was less publicised, with everyone's attention turned to the festival disaster, but the investigators had officially admitted that these murders were most definitely part of a case of serial killings...

Life at the Tower had become less and less enjoyable because the children's time outside had been restricted even with the double in security; no one was allowed out after 6 P.M. not even the caretakers. Just like the girls' flowering lessons, the boys' fencing lessons had also been cancelled. So the children spent most of their time in the eighth floor lounge, their bedrooms or wandering the hallways of the Tower and the cloister. Only the Marcosky twins seemed to be having any fun, racing down the halls on their aeroboards, pelting each other with water ballons and making a mess of things.

Strangely, working activity at the Tower seemed to have become busier than usual. In fact, the staff had increased in number to include carpenters, electricians, engineers, and even several construction workers. Several floors had been closed off to be worked on, though what work was being done there was a mystery...

On Wednesday of that week, several large trucks drove through the Tower's gates. The children watched from the windows as men in black jumpsuits offloaded several large crates and carried them inside.

Jacobius Trent had hardly been seen that week. Whenever someone spotted him he was either giving instructions to Mr. Cromweld before going up into his private study or leaving the Tower with an escort of guards in a convoy of black SUVs. The children knew he was a busy man, being the world's most renowned inventor, but they also felt he was neglecting them. Weren't they his guests after all?