The Detective, reading the confusion written plainly on my face, snapped his fingers in the air. "Do not worry, my steadfast friend. You are not mistaken in your point—that the palace vanished only after Simon opened the tomb. And Ancaues is right as well: the driver's memories cannot be trusted. So then—how can we prove Thomas's claim?" He asked, but no one answered. He began his explanation:
"When I first came here, I felt a faint disturbance… a subtle alteration in the structure of time and space."
With a conjurer's flourish, he produced a golden pocket watch and showed it to us—it had stopped.
Castor frowned. "Well, a broken watch—what of it?"
The Detective walked a few paces forward, and something strange occurred. The watch leapt ahead by five full minutes, began ticking again, then abruptly halted once more.
The three of them tensed visibly.
The Detective continued: "This aberration in the watch is no mere defect. It is the mark of an error in the fabric of time and space. Not a catastrophic one—not as though time itself had ceased here—but an irregularity. To someone standing within this zone, it would feel ordinary, for you are observers woven into the same fabric. But employ an instrument that measures time, and the distortion reveals itself."
He slipped the watch back into his coat and pressed on: "Such a wound means one of two things. The palace was not taken—it was pulled into a higher plane of reality, or at the very least into another temporal dimension. The clash between superior time and our fragile stream created this wound. And whoever—or whatever—pulled the palace off was no careless hand. It was the work of a master surgeon. This entire reality could have collapsed beneath the pressure of that higher one, yet only this small incision remains. As the saying goes: killing an ant is easier than stepping upon it without ending its life."
As he rejoined the group, he stretched out his arms. Droplets of light began to drift past us—at first a few, gathering in a fixed center, then more and more until their density increased. I swear I felt them brushing against my fingertips, like cotton spheres. The orbs clustered together, forming a clear shape. Before our eyes, the Detective reconstructed the palace itself—but in radiant light.
"This is my imagining of what occurred."
{The Detective's Tools: Exhibit: the right to present his theories as a luminous, three-dimensional model.}
Moments later, a stronger beam of light fell from the sky, struck the palace, and both vanished together.
When the vision ended, the Detective turned back to us.
I was astonished—speechless save for the applause that escaped my hands.
"As you know," the Detective intoned, "though the wound was deep at first, the nature of reality is to heal itself, slowly. At the beginning, the scar was much larger, easier to detect. Now it is nearly healed. Had we arrived later, it might have sealed completely—and gone unnoticed."
Leaning forward, excited, I exclaimed: "That is why you said the one who did this was a genius surgeon!"
"Exactly, Thomas. And because the only affected zone is the ground where the palace once stood, we can measure the depth of the wound. Considering the speed at which reality mends itself, we can estimate when the palace disappeared—and that was tonight."
Lagrita clapped with childlike enthusiasm. "Bravo, bravo, Detective!" she cried.
Even Castor seemed impressed by the Detective's abilities. "This also explains the grass growing so unnaturally fast. The depth of the wound must have distorted the linear flow of time around it. But what use is there in knowing when the palace vanished?"
The Detective stepped forward. "An excellent question, old sorcerer. The disappearance confirms two things: first, Simon did not possess this strange magic—this power to slip from the Oures with his palace unnoticed—until recently. He acquired it only of late. Thus, though we cannot trace exactly when this possibility arose within the Oures, we know Simon must have lived the same life as all his infinite counterparts—except for these final, recent events."
"I see," Castor muttered.
"But could it not be that he had planned this long ago?" asked Lagrita.
The Detective shook his head. "Perhaps. But one of the rules of investigation, my lady, is that we build no theory without evidence."
"Rules of investigation?" Lagrita repeated, puzzled.
Ancaues spoke at last: "They are the principles the Detective follows in unmasking the culprit."
"Principles ? To me, he seem outside of any principle… they make us look like fools," Lagrita said, her voice laced with childish anger.
The detective laughed—loud and unrestrained—his voice echoing across the hilltop. "You are no fools, my lady," he replied once the laughter faded. "You are some of the keenest minds upon this earth. Yet because much of your existence has been spent as near-gods in the Oures, all-knowing and unchallenged, you have not trained your minds to search within the smallest of details or to build truth through deduction. The creed of every true detective is this: within the smallest details lie the greatest certainties."
Lagrita's frown softened into a thoughtful smile. After a pause, she asked, "But how did you know what happened in the cemetery if you were never there? And how did you know we could not perceive this probability from within the Oures? Is it because you are some conceptual being beyond our awareness?"
The detective leaned forward slightly, a glint of amusement in his eye. "Ah, do you see? Already you are beginning to use your own deductions. And no… a detective must never rely on tricks of that kind. For the culprit may dwell beyond the very concept of investigation, and so the detective must rely on his mind alone. As for how I knew—well, that falls under another rule of the craft: the detective arrives already in possession of all the facts. But facts can be deceptive, distorted, or incomplete. The task lies in discerning their true shape."
Lagrita, unsatisfied, pressed further: "Then how can you seize a criminal who lies outside your reach?"
"I do not seize criminals," the detective replied calmly. "That is not my role. Another rule: the detective is no executioner. My task is to solve the puzzle. Beyond that, reality itself—being, at its core, a story—unfolds as it must. And within any story, the culprit must appear, must be named. That, too, is a rule. Even if the culprit were a god, should that god be written into the tale as a character, then yes—I could expose him by pattern."
Lagrita's eyes widened. "You could unmask a god if he appeared in the story? But could not a god create a perfect crime, one that leaves no trace?"
Ancaues broke his silence with a measured tone: "Precisely. A perfect crime does not exist. And if one did, then only a god could be the hand behind it."
I stepped closer, unable to resist. "So what is our next step, detective?"
The detective extended his hand toward the village at the base of the hill. "We gather the little details."
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A Note from the Author: About the Detective
Behold, dear Travelers, here are some guiding points about the Detective. These are not mere plot devices they define his very nature.
Rules of the Detective
The Detective is not the criminal.
The Detective cannot investigate himself.
The Detective does not lie and does not tamper with evidence.
His theories are automatically stronger than any other party's theories.
The Detective is not an executioner.
He cannot die before revealing the criminal.
The Detective is neutral.
Tools of the Detective
Material Tools: He can create any material object to aid in an investigation (but not complex technology, illogical tools, or things that do not exist yet).
Mirror Theory: When you see a reflection of something, the original must exist. Likewise, every crime implies a criminal.
Three Laws of Logic:
1. Law of Identity – The criminal is the criminal; cannot be someone else.
2. Law of Non-Contradiction – A person cannot be both criminal and victim simultaneously.
3. Law of the Excluded Middle – Every case is either true or false; the person is either criminal or victim.
Principle of Bivalence – Every statement has a definite truth value.
Logical Paradoxes – He may use paradoxes to reject a particular analysis.
Three-Dimensional Light Projection – He can create a luminous, 3D model to visualize events, theories, or evidence.
Investigation Rules
Every question must be asked aloud.
No theory may be announced without at least one piece of evidence.
If two theories contradict each other:
The stronger one prevails, possibly negating the weaker.
If equally strong, they cancel until new evidence appears.
Witness statements can be deceptive or falsified, intentionally or not.