Joinich Cosner was the individual they were looking for. His name was easy to identify —though it could well be false— but his appearance I had to piece together from various testimonies.

He was remarkably tall, with chestnut hair leaning towards blonde, and light eyes, that was certain. Two witnesses agreed they had seen a scar above his left eye, just around the time he arrived at the port of Elker, but all others who claimed to have seen him denied his existence. He seemed a rather gloomy individual, both due to the bags under his eyes and the way he walked. However, when spoken to, his face lit up and his voice carried an unsuspected energy that pleased everyone.

He had arrived in Elker a few cycles before the tragedy. He wandered around the area buying almost anything in nearly every store, and then, exactly three days after his arrival, he rented the office in Creber which Mr. Asmodeus had already been informed of.

Various people noted that Joinich spent most of his time locked within those walls, except for the evenings when he made strange requests to local suppliers or the nighttime walks that sometimes extended for indeterminate periods. It's difficult to know what he was doing in any of those moments, although some young people in the area claimed to have heard him talking alone in the streets.

One boy —Marco, one of the most daring I've ever known— said he ventured up to a high hatch of his office during those psychotic episodes when Joinich spoke alone. He claimed to have seen him writing with the tips of his fingers on the walls some extremely strange symbols that covered both walls and furniture with a manic pattern that no sane man would recognize. The mere sight of that scene was enough to make the boy stagger, and with his fall, he feared being discovered and ran until the market streets swallowed him. His fear did not diminish, but curiosity led him to verify that place again, only to realize that the hieroglyphs had already disappeared.

At this point, I must say that young Marco cannot read, but I know he is intelligent enough to believe him when he said he did not recognize Joinich's hieroglyphs as part of the common language. They were so strange that he couldn't give me a clue about any of them, except for three that were constantly repeated in all the engravings.

I placed on the table the paper where Marco had drawn what he remembered, and Asmodeus and his company took a quick look at it. The lieutenant lost interest as he completely failed to recognize its content. Abigail, on the other hand, analyzed it so carefully that I couldn't help but think she was trying to achieve the analytical skills of her master.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Asmodeus stared intensely at her for a few seconds, as if he had found some hidden meaning. Then he silently urged me to continue with my story.

No client or partner could be recognized as such by Joinich, except for two mysterious individuals who frequented him late at night. No one could give clear references about them, as they always covered their faces with masks, but some older adults agreed they could be Orkarus-type ushers.

Although I barely knew Mr. Asmodeus that afternoon, I had the accurate impression that he was not a man guided by instincts or superstitions. I apologized for my assertions, as they were not based on solid arguments, but I did not hesitate to defend the perceptions of the grandparents with whom I had been speaking. The arcabassys are not capable of feeling the shyvian flow, so their view of the world is limited to what their physical senses offer them. The Orkarus tend to be somber, they claimed. Somber, elusive, and distrustful. It's a stereotype similar to the one that dictates that Warkber are reactive and irascible. It's a popular knowledge that I did not want to belittle by omitting it from my story.

Mr. Asmodeus barely flinched at my speech. He nodded his head, once again inviting me to continue, and leaned forward in his seat.

Many corroborated the reports about Joinich Cosner's alleged generosity, especially with children. But soon he turned his acts of charitable kindness into insinuations about a better life in another city. This part of the story is what the inhabitants of the marginal area kept most secret and —therefore— the one that was hardest for me to dig out from between the teeth of the few witnesses there were.

It turned out not only that Joinich offered better lives to the children of the area, but also had some families bewitched. His fortune seemed endless and promised even more to those who accepted to work on his distant plots, although I did not know of any occasion when he provided more information regarding their exact locations. Sometimes he managed to take children away, sometimes he was able to enchant entire families. However, all those who boarded his carriage disappeared from the face of the earth, only leaving behind a handful of letters clarifying their favorable situation to the friends they left behind.

That explained the secrecy with which people spoke of Mr. Joinich Cosner. People saw him as a source of fortunes that would otherwise be unattainable. If word spread about his kindness, it was less likely that one would be the next to receive his blessing.

Some thirty days before the unfortunate discovery of the lieutenant, Joinich Cosner disappeared. He discreetly said goodbye to the people who knew him best and was seen boarding a carriage that headed south down the road towards Durkmon. That was all I could gather about the mysterious man, whose trail was lost on that road.

Fortunately, my investigation did not end there.