by Paul Kidd
“But there’s evidence enough to slam you right into the handsof the Faerie Council.”
Jus leaned forward, listening. Polk leaned forward, thieving more wine. Sitting beside the Justicar, Lord Charn laid out the situation for his daughter’s companions.
“Lord Ushan’s valets came to Tarquil’s room to summon him.Tarquil was discovered dead, lying on the bed. There was an empty cup-looks likethe man was poisoned. When the palace was searched, it was discovered that Escalla had gone. My wife’s maids knew that Escalla had arranged a secret trystwith Tarquil in his room.”
Jus stroked at the harsh stubble of his chin. Beside him, Cinders listened with pointed ears, his red eyes gleaming.
“No spies in Tarquil’s room saw anything?”
“His own alarm spells had been disabled. However, Escalla hadapparently spent at least two days making sure that she would be unobserved. Scrying shields in place, careful blanking of spying spells… Her mother hada spy following her. Escalla knocked him out when he tried to follow her into Tarquil’s room.” The faerie lord leaned closer. “What’s more, Tarquil’sbodyguard saw Escalla sneaking into the room just before the body was discovered. He remembers that she seemed stealthy.”
Escalla remembered the bodyguard and gave a vicious curse. “He knew why I was supposed to be there!” Escalla leaped to the ground and pacedin anger. “That bastard! I’ll-!”
“In good time.” Her father turned to the girl. “Did you seeanything? Any evidence you can remember?”
Escalla planted her hands against her heart and squawked in indignation. “I didn’t do it!”
“That’s not going to be much of a defense.” Father glared atdaughter. “You had motive. You had opportunity. You blanked out scrying spellsand knocked out the spy who followed you, then you fled off into the wilderness to escape!”
Escalla sank into nervous anxiety, then suddenly shot up, filled with energy. “Ah! The slowglass! I hung the necklace from a door handleoverlooking the bed!” Escalla smacked her fist into her palm. “Ha! There you go!It’ll show him alive and me leaving-everything you need to know!”
“Just what we need,” Lord Charn shrugged, “but no onereported seeing a necklace in the room. Still, we can search for it and see.”
“What about spells?” The Justicar’s meat and bread came frominvestigating injustices and crime. “Can you speak with the deceased?”
“No ghost is present. It must have already fled.”
The faerie lord rose to his feet and paced in agitation, his head level with Jus’ thigh.
Escalla sat irritably down by the fire and cursed. “Poop.”
“Poop indeed.” Lord Charn made a rock float over to serve asa chair for the girl, bringing her to sit between himself and the Justicar.
“Now listen. Your mother is going to use you as a sop to ClanSable. They want a murderer, and by slinging you to them, she will be able to save her ambitions. Through sacrificing her own daughter, she shows that she is a true member of the court, and she will still have your sister to marry off to the Sable Clan.” Charn’s antennae slanted. Apparently there was no love lostbetween himself and his wife. “Your sister and mother have great plans. This isalmost better for them than having you and Tarquil safely wed. Meanwhile, Clan Sable screams out murder and assassination, calling for our eternal barring from the Seelie Court.”
Jus thought upon the situation, his face its usual mask of sharp intelligence. “You want Escalla’s name cleared.”
“Of course I do! She’s my girl. My girl!” Theresemblance between father and daughter in mind and spirit was certainly remarkable. “I let her go to the world because it was what’s best for her.”
“Ha!” Escalla gave a sour sniff. “Don’t talk rubbish! Ifyou’d known I was skiving off in the first place, you would have stopped it.Mother must have given you hell.” The girl gave a sniff and sipped her tea“ Probably took you a whole week to realize I was gone.”
“By failing to pay attention, I was obeying unconscioushigher motives.” Lord Charn clearly shared a heritage of glibness with hisdaughter. “I knew it was right and proper that you take your place within theworld.”
“Oh bosh!”
“Bosh yourself.” Charn dusted imaginary crumbs from his tunic.“Who was it that showed you where the dandelions grew in the first place?”
Miffed, Escalla sat cross-legged on her stone. “Fine! So I’mtoo incompetent even to run away from home by myself, and my own mother is conspiring to have me executed. Anything else?”
Speaking for the benefit of the ever-patient Justicar, Lord Charn refilled his glass.
“Lord Faen is with us. He is chief advisor to the Erlking andis in charge of the investigation. He will let us clear Escalla’s name if it canbe done. If we show a love of justice, that will be better evidence of goodwill to the court than throwing a scapegoat to the dogs.” The anxious father glancedat Escalla, running his fingers through his hair. “Justicar, I know you haveexperience here. I am at a loss! As you love and value my daughter, please help us clear her name!”
Jus nodded slowly and thoughtfully. Rising from his seat, his vast bulk loomed like a giant above the faeries. “Is it possible for me to seethe body and the murder site?”
“It can be arranged, but it must be now, before thefaeries return to the palace from the first hunt!” Lord Charn rose quickly fromhis seat. “There is a gate at an archway high above, but we’ll have to run!”
Escalla, Polk, and Enid all rose together. Lord Charn looked at them in alarm.
“No! Escalla, stay hidden. This must be fast. If your mothersspies see visitors, she’ll follow you and strike. I’ll take the Justicar alone.If we’re not back here in an hour, then go wait for him in your spider bubble inthe pond!”
Lord Charn kissed his daughter, gripped her shoulders, and then whirred up into the air, his wings sparkling. Behind him, the Justicar seated his sword in his belt. Cinders swept about him like a cloak, the hell hound’s grin gleaming as the creature was fastened in his rightful place.Following him to the cellar door, Escalla anxiously wrung her hands then came to hover in front of Jus face.
“Jus, I didn’t do it.”
He looked into her frightened green eyes for a long moment, then reached out to touch her cheek. “I know.”
He nodded, then turned and walked away. Once he was gone from the room, Escalla’s night seemed suddenly frightening.
The ruins of the keep yielded an arch, and the arch had longbeen overgrown with ivy. Lord Charn hovered nearby as Jus hauled his powerful frame up the sheer stonework toward the magic gate.
“There are gates everywhere, of course, sir Justicar. Peoplejust can’t see them. This forest is a nexus, a place where dozens of themcongregate. It’s why we settled here in the first place.” The faerie lordplucked a sprig of fennel from his purse. “There! This should be the one!”
Hanging from a sheer stone wall thirty feet above the ground Jus paused while searching for a handhold.
“Fennel?”
“A key for the gate.” Charn put his other herbs away. “Eachone is triggered by a different herb or token. A copper coin, a dandelion, splash of wine… You can trigger them by accident if you’re unlucky enough.That’s why mortals think the whole forest is haunted.”
As Jus reached the rough stone precipice below the ancient stone arch, Lord Charn gestured toward it with his herbs.
“This gate leads to the palace lands, but I don’t quite knowwhere. Stay hidden until I can find Lord Faen, and we’ll bring you to the murdersite.”
Jus nodded.
Lord Charn hovered before the door, then tapped the blank space of the archway with his sprig of dried fennel. The fennel flashed and disappeared. Suddenly the archway shimmered.
“Now!”
With a heave, Jus shoved himself upward. He stepped though into a soft gray light and found himself on all fours upon a fragrant forest floor. Illusions were transparent to Cinders’ eye. The dog sniffed and then
hissed in Jus’ mind.
Trees is trees. Leaves is leaves. Flower bushes is illusion.
Jus chose the real concealment of the leaves over the illusory comforts of the bushes. An instant later, he lay in a drift of leaves, perfectly still and quite invisible with only Cinders’ black nose showing abovethe mulch. When Lord Charn appeared, he looked about in brief confusion, then shrugged and whirred off on his way.
Jus saw that he was lying amongst the plane trees-thegateways to universes of fire, flame, and antimatter. The faerie lands were no place to wander carelessly; one wrong turn might be your last.
Lord Nightshade returned long minutes later with another faerie at his side. Cinders sniffed the scent of them long before they arrived.
Escalla’s father. One other faerie, a male.
Jus heaved upward, shedding leaves like a leviathan shedding the ocean floor. Two faeries hovered nearby, impressed as the big man emerged from total invisibility. Jus brushed wet leaves from Cinders’ fur and lookedlevelly at Lord Charn and his guest.
The newcome faerie was slender and affected long gray hair and a wisp of a goatee. He sketched a bow as Lord Charn made the introductions.
“Justicar, you remember Lord Faen. My Lord Faen, the Justicaris something of a specialist. The elves of the Celadon trained him.”
The elegant, calm Lord Faen looked coolly at the Justicar. “What temples does he favor?”
The Justicar’s dark, dire voice seemed to fill the wood.“Justice flows from the heart, not from gods.”
Nodding noncommittally, Lord Faen turned in midair and said, “Come then. We have cleared all eyes away for a short time. We will show youwhat we can.”
Jus strode like a dark giant, the black hell hound skin wreathing him in shadow.
“You have interviewed everyone who might have been near theroom at the time of death?”
“We did what we could. Truth spells are seen as an insult,and at the moment, insults are something we cannot afford.” Lord Faen flew paceby pace with the Justicar, detecting a kindred spirit in the mortal’s mind. “Acertain amount of conspiracy has taken place. Maids and servants have contrived to be absent. There is only the bodyguard, who identified Escalla. Indeed, she left her dress in the murder room, and he could describe it to us exactly.”
“Escalla’s mother organized a tryst.”
“And might have reached the Sable clan guards and servants.”Faen ushered the way toward a balcony. “It is here. I’ll tell you nothing. Yourown untainted impressions will carry better force.”
The palace had not been made with human scale in mind. Still, there were enough humanoid servants to require high ceilings and large doors. Jus carefully approached the balcony, eyeing a place where he could use a tree to leaver himself up and over the fragile-looking balustrade. He then knelt in the leaves below and let the hell hound go to work.
“Smell anything?”
Faeries. Cinders thoughtfully sifted scents. Male oncewalked here-two-three hours ago.
There were tracks consistent with a single faerie waking slowly below the balcony-probably the bodyguard. Since faeries could fly,tracking was hardly likely to reveal real clues. Jus looked carefully at the eaves and railings then heaved himself up the tree and onto the balcony.
The room had a wide window screened by curtains of silken gauze. The curtains had been thrown open and the room trampled by enthusiastic, clumsy investigators. Even so, there was much to see.
The body had been moved, but where it had lain, the bed was indented. The pillows and sheets seemed otherwise undisturbed. If Tarquil had come here to sleep, then he had lain down and found no time to toss and turn.
Beside the bed was a table that seemed a little like doll’sfurniture. Jus knelt carefully on the carpet, going onto all fours to examine the half-sized furnishings. A wine bottle stood open beside a pair of glasses. One glass stood untouched and full, while the other seemed half empty. Jus sniffed the cup, and Cinders confirmed his suspicions.
Bad smells! Wine poisoned.
Holding the half-empty glass up to the light showed a faint oily film down one side. Poison had been trickled into the glass from an outside source.
The wine was poured carefully back into the bottle, and Jus surveyed the results. Nodding, he put the empty glasses aside, then cast carefully back and forth across the room.
No necklace hung from any doorknob. Various hands had wrenched open cupboards and curtains looking for would-be assassins. Yet a gleam came from the carpet, and when Jus bent down to examine it, he found the tiniest of tiny golden links-a piece of delicate chain from a necklace that had beenbroken clean through.
Cinders breathed a scent and shivered his long black tail. Escalla’s skin.
“Just so.”
The Justicar looked carefully at the door that led through the apartments and into the palace. He opened the door and looked into a passageway lined with brilliant animated murals. Searching the empty corridor with a long, hard glance, Jus turned away, returned into the room… andcaught sight of a single black thread hanging from the doorjamb.
He trapped it, laid in in a folded paper, and put it in his pouch beside the golden link. Rising, Jus carefully dusted off his hands.
“Where have you put the body?”
“We are about to take it to the chapel.” Lord Faen swung openthe door to the passageway and looked carefully out into the deserted palace. “We have lain him out in the drawing room down here until then. Come quickly.”
One man, one hell hound skin, and two faeries swept quietly out into the corridor. They moved three rooms down and edged into a room guarded by a faerie warrior. The warrior looked studiously away from the Justicar, ignoring his presence entirely but nodding to Lord Faen.
In the long, cool room beyond lay the body of the Cavalier Tarquil. The corpse seemed pathetically small, like a child sleeping in the grass. They had laid him on his back, with his hands out at an angle from his body. Jus knelt beside the corpse and removed its cover sheet, looking at the clothed body in professional, dispassionate chill.
“Is this how you always lay out a corpse?”
“No, but the body stiffened in death rigor, and we could notcross his hands decently upon his breast.”
Nodding, the Justicar inspected the body’s mouth. The lipswere not inflamed, nor the inner mouth burned.
Jus opened the cavalier’s shirt and pulled up his innerclothes. The blood had pooled on the body’s belly side, leaving a purplishcolor, but it was already on the move again now that the body was laid out. Soon the corpse would be as pale as ash.
“How long ago did you find him?”
“One hour.”
“Lying on his face.” Jus levered the body over on its sideand then began methodically to strip it naked. Shocked and reluctant, the two faerie lords half started forward before leaving the man to his work.
Jus inspected the corpse’s skin inch by minute inch, thenlooked beneath its nails and through its hair. Finally the big man sank back onto his heels, looming vast as an ogre as he nodded slowly in thought.
Jus let out his breath and spoke. “He was poisoned, but notby wine.”
Lord Charn raised his brows in silence, but Lord Faen chose to speak. “Not by the wine?”
“No. Here on his scalp and hidden by his hair is a puncturewound.”
The faeries leaned in to see. The Justicar parted the black hair of the dead cavalier to show a small hole in the scalp, far broader than a needle puncture. It had oozed a clear fluid, and the hair strands beside it weresilvered with a dried mucous or glue. Jus let the hell hounds nose nestle close to the puncture hole.
“Cinders?”
Cinders smells fish.
“Yes.” The Justicar sat back in cold triumph. “Cinders smellsfish.”
The two faerie lords looked at him in silence, and the Justicar enlightened them.
“See the dried slime? It’s from a cone shell-a venomousmollusk that uses a puncturing tongue to kill. Instantly
lethal. Small, concealable in the palm on anyone gloved and confident enough to use it. Even a faerie.”
Lord Faen scowled. “And where might a cone shell be found ina forest?”
“Nowhere. This is a kuo-toan assassination technique-rightdown to hiding the wound in the hairline.”
“You have encountered it before?”
“I’ve read about it.” The Justicar wiped his hands. “This ismy profession. I am the Justicar.”
Sitting back on his haunches, the Justicar thoughtfully regarded the corpse. “Cone shells come from tropical reefs. This has beencarried a long, long way with the intention to murder.” Jus stoked his chin,black stubble rasping in the quiet room. “The wine glasses were a decoy. Whenthe wine was put back in the bottle, it made the bottle totally full. There was not even half a mouthful missing. It reached the stain line inside the bottle neck.”
Escalla’s father grinned a predatory grin, apparentlyextremely pleased to witness the Justicar at his work. “Yes, lad. Now what elsewas in that room? What didn’t other eyes see?”
“There is one link from the gold chain that held Escalla’sslow-glass pendant. It was by the windows, probably where Escalla tore the necklace off and broke it. The necklace itself is gone. Is it valuable?”
“Perhaps a thousand times the value of a similarly sizeddiamond.”
Jus made a soundless whistle. Such a necklace might conceivably buy an entire castle, garrison it, and pay the troops’ wages for ayear.
It was time to retire from the room. Jus found a balcony and leaped over it, then let the two faerie lords follow him into the woods. Hidden by the trees, the big man sat and laid out tiny paper packets on his knee.
“The body has been dead longer than two hours. There wasrigor. I’d make it three or four hours dead, meaning he’d been dead beforeEscalla was seen entering the room.”
Stroking his goatee, Lord Faen nodded. “A hostile mind mightargue that the effects of the poison caused the muscles to freeze in spasm.”
“Yes. It’s not proof.” Jus stroked his chin. “But the mouthwas red at the back of the tongue. He was orally poisoned and then stung later by the cone shell. The shell wound hadn’t bled, not even a bead. His blood wasalready cold when the puncture was made.”