Chapter 58: One Person Missing

Chapter 58: One Person Missing
The eastern district had once been Aldenmere's most respectable residential area.

Later, when the royal city expanded westward, the wealthy households followed, leaving behind mansions that emptied one after another. Windows and doors were nailed shut, paint peeled from walls, and gradually the place became somewhere no one cared to look twice. Rendell had been watching one of those mansions for some time now.

He leaned against the shadow of an eave diagonally across the street, having stood there for most of an hour. The white mist of his breath dispersed and vanished before his collar. His gaze crossed half the empty street, settling on the tightly shut main door of that mansion.

He had followed someone to this place. After locking onto this particular mansion, he had tracked it for several days, always from a distance, never approaching, only observing who came and went.

Two people lived inside the mansion.

One tall, one short, both wearing the same style of dark robes. They left at roughly the same hour each day, hoods pulled low over their faces so their features remained hidden. When they returned, their hands always carried different things—sometimes cloth bundles, sometimes small wooden boxes, sometimes nothing at all, just empty hands as they hurried back inside.

Rendell had watched this pattern for several days now. He could almost predict when the door would next open.

Until today.

This morning, the door had only opened once.

The one who emerged was the tall figure.

Rendell's gaze lingered on that retreating back for a moment, then slowly withdrew, settling back on the door that had closed once more.

The shorter one had not come out.

This wasn't necessarily unusual in itself. There had been days when one of these two people remained inside. But when he laid out the comings and goings of these past days in his mind, the short figure's last appearance had been the evening before last. After that person had walked inside that evening, they had never emerged again.

Rendell had changed his observation angles. He had watched from the street corner, from the narrow alley behind the house, from the window holes of the equally empty mansion next door. This mansion had three entrances in total, and he had monitored them all.

That short figure had never appeared again.

He crossed his arms over his chest, his brow furrowing deeply.

When a person who came and went with daily regularity vanished without warning, the possibilities were limited. Perhaps they had died inside the house and their body had been removed. But he had heard no sounds of conflict or struggle from that house in recent days, so this speculation seemed unrealistic.

Or perhaps that person had gone to carry out some task requiring a long absence, leaving by some means he couldn't observe.

The former possibility Rendell could accept.

The latter made the back of his neck go cold.

Recently on this continent, the most worthy thing for them to hide away and do—Rendell could only think of one such thing.

He didn't allow himself to continue that line of thought, but instead left that eave and departed the area at his fastest pace.

The nearest guard post in the royal city was three streets away. He produced his palace token, the one engraved with the royal crest. The commanding officer recognized it and immediately straightened.

"I need a squad of men," Rendell said. "Now."

"What's happened?"

"There's an abandoned mansion in the eastern district with suspicious individuals inside. I suspect they're dark wizards," Rendell said. "There were originally two. One's whereabouts are unknown. The remaining one is still inside. I want him brought out alive."

The commander's expression changed. The words "dark wizard" carried considerable weight in the royal city these days. With villages outside the city suffering incident after incident, unease pervaded both palace and city, and everyone had heard certain rumors.

"We only have soldiers here, sir," the commander said, worry evident on his face. "To capture dark wizards, swords alone won't suffice."

"I've already thought of that," Rendell said. "Send someone to the palace with a message. Request that a mage of intermediate rank or higher come here to rendezvous. Quickly."

The assembly took less than an hour.

The mage who answered the summons was none other than Corvus.

Corvus was the same as always, walking at a brisk pace, perpetually maintaining an air of profound mystery. His position in the palace had moved up a rank, though, because he had identified the source of the curse on the princess. Even so, he still spent all his time holed up in his basement chamber conducting experiments, showing little interest in palace affairs.

However, when Rendell went to request his assistance, he had come with almost no hesitation.

He might not care for politics, but counter-dark magic interested him most, and he was most skilled at it.

After Corvus arrived and listened to Rendell explain the situation, he asked only one question.

"The remaining one—you're certain he's still inside?"

"The one who left this morning was the tall figure," Rendell said. "The short one hasn't emerged since the evening before last. Only the tall one is in the house now."

"And the one who disappeared?"

"I don't know," Rendell said. "That's precisely why I need to capture him alive."

Corvus fell silent for a moment. He lifted his eyes to look toward the eastern district, where a stretch of low, gray outlines pressed down by abandoned mansions could be seen.

"Dark wizards don't simply lose one of their number for no reason," he said. "If one is missing, it means they've gone to do something."

"That's what I thought as well."

"Then all the more reason to capture him alive." Corvus pushed up the sleeves of his robe, exposing his wrists. "Let's go."

They made their move in the afternoon.

The guards split into two groups, entering simultaneously through the mansion's front and rear doors. Rendell walked at the very front. The sword in his hand was a fine palace-issue blade—it couldn't cleave through high-level magical shields, but for dealing with someone caught off guard, it was more than sufficient. Corvus followed half a step behind him, one hand constantly maintained in a position ready to cast at any moment, faint glimmers of light gathering and dispersing at his fingertips.

The dust inside the house rose up where they trod, churning in the slanting light that entered through broken windows.

The tall dark wizard was on the second floor.

When Rendell burst through the door of that second-floor room, the man was sitting in an old chair in the center of the room, his back to the door. He turned around the instant they rushed in.

He didn't flee.

He didn't even stand up.

He simply sat there, watching this squad of armored, sword-bearing men storm in, as an expression Rendell couldn't understand slowly surfaced on his face.

It was a smile of absolute confidence, one that shouldn't belong to someone about to be captured.

The light at Corvus's fingertips tightened in that instant, suddenly brightening.

"He's preparing something," Corvus's voice was very low, containing a tension Rendell rarely heard from him. "He's too calm."

Rendell didn't give the man a chance to remain calm any longer.

He surged forward in a single stride, his sword still sheathed, and struck hard with the pommel against the back of the dark wizard's neck. The man let out a muffled grunt and toppled from the chair. Guards immediately swarmed forward, using chains prepared in advance—wrapped with sealing runes—to bind his hands and feet securely.

After the dark wizard was bound, that smile still remained on his face.

He was pressed to the ground with his arms wrenched behind him, chin against the dust-covered floor, but when he lifted his eyes to look at Rendell, those eyes contained none of what a captured person's should hold. No fear. No thought of struggle.

Rendell stared at that face, the back of his neck going cold again. He understood now that this man was bait, left here to provide cover for his companion.

He stood up.

"Take him back," he said, his voice heavier than he had anticipated. "Lock him in the deepest cell and guard him closely. If anything happens to him before I finish questioning him, none of you can bear the consequences."

The guards hauled up the still-smiling dark wizard.

As the man was dragged out the door, a very soft sound emerged from his throat.

A sound of contempt.