The three shadows—Ancaues, Castor, and Lagrita—ascended through the veils of night toward the palace of Simon, intent upon their inquest.
Elsewhere, upon the earth below, Ignis had already seized the driver. With the soldiery at his side, he scoured the cemetery and the forest's fringe, sifting the ground for the faintest vestige that might betray Simon's path. Their labor was rigid, almost ritualistic—as though the world itself demanded only that they attest to his absence. And so it proved: after long hours, no sign was found. The company withdrew, leaving behind a smaller watch to stand sentinel.
The Magic of time and space remained proscribed. Though the quakes of the void had abated by the labors of the shadows, the lattice of existence yet trembled like some ancient net sagging beneath the weight of centuries. They could not leap through the instant, yet each bore the gift of traversing the breadth of a continent in the space of near-nothing—not miracle, but Magic etched into the sinews of reality. And thus, they arrived upon the plateau in the very measure of zero itself.
The plateau belonged to the Jotunheimer Heights, yet to Simon this humble hill bore a peculiar sanctity. He cherished it more dearly than was fitting for a hill to be cherished. Perhaps here lay the first token that Simon had wandered beyond his brother's gaze—a sign clamorous enough, though noticed only when it dwindled into a margin upon the map.
From the crest they beheld the ranges, endless chains of mountains, their summits without limit or dimension. Yet by the distortion of time and space, the peaks loomed nearer than they ought, as if nature itself had filched leaves from an unwritten tome. The wind cut cold against their faces, each grain of air striking like shards of metal falling into the pockets of night.
The countenances of the shadows bore expressions inscrutable: wrath, wonder, astonishment—or perchance that which mortals would name terror. Again and yet again they verified the ground, traced the signs, aligned the map. They stood in the appointed place. Yet—the palace was not there.
In the margin was written: "The palace stood here."
The void that marked its absence was no less potent than its presence—only other.
Thus was one record inscribed in words most stark: The palace is absent.
Its absence lay not solely in place. The structure, as known in times before, had been bound to the sheet of time and space itself, reaching across wide dominions of the continent. At whiles it revealed itself as a villa, at whiles a palace, at whiles a hut sinking in a mire rank with rotted mud and the chill that gnawed the hinges of its doors. The failing, then, was not of outward stones, nor façades, nor balustrades. Those were tales dissoluble: stones to be torn down, pages to be riven. The edifice itself belonged to no single dwelling, but endured within the woven fabric of reality. Even if no threshold could be found, still it should have persisted in the weave. Yet now—there was naught.
Castor's visage altered in an instant, as an ancient city shifts when its last beacon is quenched. Waves of unimagined passion seized him; bewilderment struck, then yielded to a familiar tide: anger. Nay—not anger, but humiliation.
Strange towers had first arisen—towers that were themselves questions—and no explanation was given. Now Simon had departed their comprehension, as one who opens a page in a book never known to exist, leaving behind only riddle. For they were the shadows, the sovereign hand of the divine makers—the Holy Magicians, highest of all Magic in the Orys. Never had they known the words I know not, nor I cannot. Not even the harshest of the Orys gods had stayed their hand. And yet this day, before a thing beyond naming, they stood bereft, unmoored.
Lagrita's tongue was yet shackled by shock.
Ancaues clasped his fingers, and with a light strike pressed them to the earth.
"The vanishing of the palace is part of the MYSTERY. It is no mere mishap of the field."
Castor inclined his head, a question furrowing his brow:
"What mean you by Riddle? Do you claim it no act of hostility? That it bears no peril?"
Ancaues answered, his voice iron, stripped of courtesy:
"I do not deny its danger. I speak rather of the fitting instrument. What transpired here is no explosion, no assault to be met with delegated Magic or stratagem. It is a sundering in the fabric of the self-evident—a signature of structure, a change at the root of our being. Our charge is to mend the weave, to restore the balance of the Orys, to unravel the distortion of the towers. That is our labor. Pursuit of Simon—if aught lies behind him—demands a different inquiry, a different craft, skills not ours to wield."
Lagrita flared, her fury unveiled:
"Not ours? We? And what mean you by saying it lies not within our work? Do you not see? If Simon be the cause of a structural shift, he is the fountainhead of peril to the Orys. We leave not a source untamed."
Ancaues lifted his palm:
"Had it been a clear and present peril, the Holy Magicians would have sent warning. They are wiser than we, and no command has reached us to pry into Simon's affair. No alarm was sounded. Direct danger differs from a matter that demands inquiry—patterns to read, traces that reveal themselves not by force but by discernment."
Castor strode forward, his visage stern:
"But moments ago you named it a grave problem. Now you cast it aside as beyond our charge. That is contradiction plain."
Ancaues, calm and unyielding, gave reply:
"I named it problem for it is weighty and mutable. Yet I also drew the line: between a crisis that demands battle, and a phenomenon that demands scrutiny. Battle yields no answers. Inquiry alone does."
"Then whose charge is it?" Lagrita pressed.
Ancaues raised his hand and pointed toward a figure advancing from the edge of the plateau.
"Not a Magician, nor a warrior.
But the solemn charge of the Investigator—
He who hunts what cannot be named,
He who assembles fragments into truth , we need a detective THE DETECTIVE."
Lagrita muttered, scornful:
"A detective? What detective?"
"Nay. Not a detective . Not a man, but the very act itself: Detection."
And then a voice, grave as the hour itself, resounded:
"Harken well—for the hour demands truth."