Chapter 52: Citywide Search

Chapter 52: Citywide Search
Halfway through our journey, the faint sound of alarm bells reached us from overhead—urgent, piercing. The sound erupted simultaneously from all four directions of the city—east, south, west, and north—like an enormous net tightening around us.

"It's begun," Randell stopped, tilting his head to listen. "They've found his body."

"How unfortunate," I murmured in response.

I quickly calculated the time. Approximately two hours had passed since we left the mansion. The Grand Prophet's personal attendant would likely report the evening's receipts after the banquet concluded, or his guards would escort him to his chambers for rest. In any case, when one of them opened the wardrobe to hang a freshly laundered robe, or grew suspicious from the faint scent of blood and began searching, what awaited them would be their master's corpse.

From somewhere down the street came chaotic, heavy footsteps accompanied by the clashing of metal armor. I glanced at Randell, my eyes questioning.

"Where do we go now?"

"The basement," he said, concise and direct.

"Where?"

"Two streets over. Follow me."

We returned to ground level.

Only then did I realize the entire city had awakened.

The bells continued ringing from all directions. The night that this city had deliberately kept subdued was now thoroughly disrupted. In the distance, the main thoroughfare blazed with light—the orange glow of torches, the cold white of magical lamps, all blending together, painting color even onto the underside of the clouds.

It had been far too many years since Aethon had experienced a murder.

The sound of hundreds moving simultaneously from the city walls—that was a commotion almost no resident of this city had heard in their lifetime.

The entire city seemed to be holding its breath by the throat, desperately searching for the killer.

Randell seized my wrist and pulled me into a narrower alley.

We moved along the wall.

The bells from the main street were no longer just bells—horns had joined them. I didn't understand Aethon's military signals, but anyone with court training could interpret this pattern: it was a lockdown signal.

"Citywide," Randell whispered near my ear. "They've mobilized every soldier in the city."

"All of them? Just because one person died?"

"Murder is rare in places like this. The commander of the guard has deployed everyone available."

Only after a patrol's torches moved forward did I allow myself to breathe again.

"A bit further," Randell told me almost through lip movements alone. "That building is still two streets away."

"Through where?"

"The merchant district."

I had walked through the merchant district's layout with Randell once during daylight. It was the most difficult section to traverse in Aethon—wide streets, bright lights, shops connected to shops, virtually no shadows. But the merchant district's residents had also been roused by the bells at this hour. Every window glowed with light, every door concealed people speaking in low voices.

Alert, uneasy residents were harder to evade than guards.

Randell led me along the wall behind the row of stables that backed the merchant district. Horses kicked at wooden boards uneasily in response to the bells. We used that sound to mask our footsteps.

Halfway through, light suddenly appeared around the corner ahead.

"Against the wall," Randell said.

We pressed ourselves against the stable's outer wall.

Two men in civilian clothes with Guard Division badges at their waists emerged from around the corner. Civilian dress meant the kind of soldiers specifically assigned to handle sensitive cases. One of them held an unusual lamp, its wick glowing pale blue, the flame flickering unpredictably.

A magical tracking lamp.

Where the lamp's light passed, footprints of different colors would appear. The two soldiers stopped periodically to examine them carefully, paying particular attention to the darker prints.

"Move quickly," Randell's voice was too urgent to be clear.

We retreated along the stable wall in the opposite direction.

When we reached the stable's end, Randell suddenly grabbed a small stone and hurled it in the direction we'd just left. The stone struck a distant tin door, producing a soft sound. Not loud, but enough to attract attention.

The blue lamp immediately turned in that direction, and the two soldiers stopped examining the ground, instead pursuing the source of the noise.

In that instant, Randell dragged me from the other end of the stable, rushing through a gap between walls barely wide enough for half a person, heading in another direction.

The narrow passage opened into a residential area I'd never visited.

Low stone houses, doors and windows all closed. The entire street had only one streetlamp, and even that was dimmed.

Randell stopped at an utterly unremarkable stone house.

Its exterior walls were rough, unpolished stone, without a single decorative relief. Such houses weren't distinctive, but in Aethon where decoration and carving were everywhere, they were relatively easy to locate. Above the stone house's doorframe hung a wooden sign, its lettering so faded it was barely legible, seemingly once the signboard of some craftsman's shop.

This was the only house on the entire street with no light in its windows.

Randell produced a key from inside his coat and inserted it skillfully into the side door's lock, turning it twice.

The lock clicked open.

He let me enter first, then gently closed the door behind us.

The instant the door shut, all of Aethon's clamor was completely sealed outside by that single old wooden door.

The interior was extremely empty, not even a lamp. This kind of room clearly served as some form of disguise. The air inside carried a dry, dusty smell, as if recently disturbed. Sure enough, in the corner, a floorboard had been lifted, revealing a pitch-black opening.

After Randell examined it and confirmed no one else had been there, he signaled for me to descend.

The basement wasn't large, surrounded on all sides by rough stone walls that exuded a damp chill. A wooden table stood in the center, an unlit oil lamp upon it. Randell struck a match and lit the lamp. Dim yellow light flared up, illuminating this cramped space. Against one wall were stacked supplies—two sacks of dried provisions and several bundles of sturdy rope.

"You prepared this in advance," I said, my tone complex.

"Preparation is better than surprise," he acknowledged.

"When?"

"My second day in Aethon."

I stared at him, scarcely able to believe it. His second day in Aethon. At that time he hadn't yet made contact with me, didn't even know where I was. Had he prepared this safe house in advance for some plan of his own, or was it to... await my arrival?

Outside, in the city, the bells continued ringing madly, as if trying to shatter the night sky. Randell retrieved a roll of parchment from the supply pile and spread it on the table.

"Come look at this."

I had never seen that map before. Its precision far exceeded any map I could have purchased. The edges meticulously depicted the mountains surrounding Aethon, with the height of every peak annotated, every concealed mountain path precisely drawn.

And in the northwest direction of the map was marked the outline of the Sky City. That outline was more concrete than any version I'd previously seen. It was no longer a vague cloud-shaped symbol, but a substantial plateau with boundaries, shape, and even the location of its entrance marked.

"How do you have this map?" I asked in shock.

"I obtained it along my journey," he said, his finger gently tracing the lines on the map. "When I was pursuing leads related to the dark wizard. This map—during one leg of that journey, I 'exchanged' it from an old wizard."

"You seem to have acquired many secrets, Randell."

I had little inclination to question his explanation now. I gazed greedily at that map, as if it were the only ticket to freedom.

"I need to go to the elves," I said, my voice firm. "I need to go to the Sky City."

Randell nodded, seemingly unsurprised. "I guessed as much."

"In all your investigations along the way, was there anything about the Sky City?"

"Yes," he said. "But nothing complete."

"Is there a method to reach the Sky City?"

"The method of ascent is the most difficult part of all this." He raised his head, his gaze profound. "Of all the methods I've learned about, very few viable options exist. And each one comes with an enormous price."

I forced myself to calm down and scanned the map. I reviewed all my contingency plans in my mind. Build a teleportation array with magic? I lacked that level of magical ability, and Osric hadn't given me such a thing. Have the elves descend themselves? The elves hadn't come down in over a century. Except for that masked elf. That elf was my current target, but I had no way to actively find him.

I thought of the old map I'd purchased, which marked two wind gaps that could provide lift. But that would require the ability to fly.

"What method?" I raised my head, looking directly into his eyes. "Tell me, no matter how dangerous."