Hunting Renegades (Part I)

Loc had been called.

Called because the High Council needed him and his services.

It had happened before, of course; Loc was the High Council of Mages? "diplomat". By diplomat they meant "assassin". The High Council was much shadier then they claimed to be. If a potential usurper to their rule rose up, they would have him or her killed. Period.

Loc sometimes disagreed with their decisions, but to this day he had never voiced his disapproval. That could very well get him killed. He wasn't, after all, the most powerful Mage in Nilitar, or anywhere else for that matter.

But his job paid well. Very well.

His mansion could be seen at almost any point in Nilitar, assuming you were not standing parallel to the Tower of Mages, the Council's headquarters.

It shot up like a spear over five hundred feet above Nilitar, it's many windows giving it the appearance of being aflame at night. The Main Chamber, the room where the Council conducted most of its daily business, was at the very top, a floor under the roof. Loc's destination lay there.

He strolled out of his manor with the air of casualness with which he always walked, nodding curtly to his servants on the way out. His cook, an elderly woman with a kind but stern face, caught up with him on the way out.

"Will you be back for supper, or lunch for that matter?" She asked with a crackly voice.

"Ah, my dear, 'tis a mystery indeed, is it not? For the ways of Loc are unpredictable at best, and dangerous at worst!" Loc replied with mock drama.

"I just want a straight answer for once! Is that too much to ask for a poor, abused old woman such as myself?" The cook shrieked, throwing up her arms in exasperation. She stormed out of the entry hall they were standing in, muttering to herself all the way.

"I'll send a messenger when I find out!" Loc yelled after her. This fell on deaf ears, however, as the cook was already out of the room. Loc smiled and shook his head. The poor woman was rather abused, he recalled. She was a Half, a daughter of a Mage and a human, and therefore rather unaccepted by both societies. The Mages and humans were almost constantly at each other's throats, the humans fearing the Mages' considerable powers.

The cook's lineage was also betrayed be her obvious old age. Mages did age, but it took hundreds of years to look that decrepit. Mages had barely existed for that long. Shaking off his deep thoughts, Loc strolled out of the manor. He thanked the gate-openers as they performed their duty.

He breathed in the fresh air of the outside as he took the main road through the city to the Tower. Small, hunched together houses made of wood and stone lined both ends of the cobblestone street. Loc maneuvered through the early-morning crowd, dodging the occasional wagon.