The Conspiracy of Unicorns

by Michael Angel

  “Wonderful,” Shaw grumped. “More millet porridge. ‘Twas just what this drake was looking forward to on the morn.”

  “You could let them enchant it,” Liam pointed out. “To make it resemble whatever that foul-smelling fish paste was.”

  “Foul smelling? Thou dost not appreciate the finer foods, fayleene!”

  “Never mind sustenance for the body,” Galen breathed. “Access to the magical library here…that would be worth a dozen murder investigations!”

  “Right, right,” I sighed. “You have a deal, Master Windkey.”

  The unicorn bobbed his head. “Good. Then we shall remove the body for–”

  “Hold on, you’ll do nothing of the kind!” I said quickly. “This is a crime scene, and I need it in perfect condition.”

  “What is it that you wish us to do, then?”

  I thought on that for a moment.

  “I need all of you to follow my directions, and those of my friends. For starters, I’d like you to clear the area and wait for me down at the plaza we passed on the way here. The one laid out with those blue statues.”

  Another batch of murmurs rose from the assembled unicorns. This time it was a bit rowdier. I caught a few snatches of speech, including ‘Who does she think she is?’ and ‘I’m not taking orders!’.

  Time to nip this in the bud.

  “Grimshaw of the Reykajar aerie,” I stated loudly. “You will convey these unicorns to the location I specified and hold them there until further notice. Is that clear?”

  Shaw let out a leonine growl as he leapt to my side. “‘Tis clear as daylight, Dame Chrissie!”

  “Good. You have my permission to eat anyone who gets too unruly.”

  Shaw practically purred at those words. I held back my grin. Shaw knew good and well that I was just saying that for effect.

  At least I hoped he knew that.

  The drake spread his wings out to their full width before moving forward, using them to herd the unicorns away from the opened house and back towards the plaza. A couple of exclamations and curses came from the assembled equines, but with a few snaps of his beak, Shaw got them moving.

  Destry chuckled. “Dayna, you never fail to make an impression on people.”

  “Well, they don’t forget me, that’s for sure,” I said. “I want you out there with Shaw too. If anything, the unicorns’ natural curiosity about you might keep them occupied for a while.”

  The pooka bowed his head and vanished.

  “Perhaps I may be of assistance,” Galen piped up, as he pulled a quart-sized plastic container from one of his saddle bags. “As per an old suggestion of yours, I put together a sample collection kit using extras from your forensics evidence case.”

  For the first time today, my face broke into a smile. “You always know how to impress a lady, my fine Wizard friend.”

  I took the container, popped the lid open, and slipped on a pair of latex gloves. Liam came to stand next to me, head canted as he carefully looked over the room. His next words would have warmed the heart of any crime scene analysis instructor.

  “Dayna,” he began, “The spiral and wave patterns surrounding Dekanos’ little ‘island’ haven’t been disturbed. And I see no way to cross without placing a hoof upon the sand.”

  “That’s something, then,” Suddenly, a thought occurred to me. “What worries me is that we’re surrounded by an entire population of creatures who can do magic. Galen, if you cast a spell that banishes illusions, will that make it more difficult to examine the magical spoors in this place?”

  “It is nothing that I cannot work around,” the Wizard assured me. He raised his hand, concentrated, and shouted a quartet of words. “Lit jo sels sjen!”

  The scene before us shimmered for a moment. Nothing changed.

  “No news is good news,” I sighed. “At least I know that what we’re looking at is real. Do either of you see a rake or anything on that island?”

  “Yes…” Liam said, as he and the centaur squinted across the gold-white expanse. “It’s lying up against the base of the tree. And it has five tines on it, which matches the patterns in the sand.

  “Well then,” I said, as I rubbed my hands together, “it looks like we have a classic locked room mystery on our hands.”

  “True,” Galen agreed. “There was a physical barrier that could only be unlocked by a unicorn’s horn. Based on what we have been told, there was likely a magical barrier beyond that.”

  “And since the spiral patterns are undisturbed,” Liam continued, “it implies that Master Dekanos walked to his island and used his magic to restore the patterns. No one has been inside since.”

  “That’s only true if he died of natural causes,” I pointed out. “Galen, do what you can to trace whatever spoor you find. Liam, you’re with me.”

  “Where are we going, Dayna?”

  “Across the sand,” I said grimly. “It’s about time we got a close up look at Master Dekanos’ body.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  From their steel-gray hooves to the graceful spiral horn, unicorns looked like a vision right out of a storybook.

  But they smelled like rotting meat when they died. Just like everything else.

  Master Dekanos didn’t rank much over a ‘1’ on the Chrissie Scale of Stinkiness. But there were other disturbing signs beside early-onset putrefaction that worried me.

  The chalk-pale unicorn lay on his right side, limbs splayed out in random directions. His horn and hooves gleamed like aluminum siding, while his tail and mane were a drabber shade of gray. Unlike the other equines I’d seen today, a six-inch goatee sprouted in a wispy mass of silver from his chin.

  Continuing my visual examination, I noticed that Dekanos’ hooves were streaked with little bits of green, as were his mane, tail, and horn. The color didn’t come from the slow-motion drizzle of magical confetti or whatever dripping from the tree he lay under.

  “Hold up,” I said, and Liam halted in his tracks a step or two behind me.

  The Protector of the Forest had dutifully followed in my footsteps, trying to disturb the sand patterns as little as possible. But now that we’d stepped onto the little turf island, we had more room to move. I made a ‘come along’ motion with my arm, and he trotted up beside me.

  “What is it?” he asked, though his eyes never left the unicorn’s still form.

  “This grass is so short, it’s hard for me to tell,” I complained. “Can you see if it’s been disturbed under or around the body?”

  Liam breathed in deep, his black nose wrinkling as he sniffed the ground then lifted his head to sample the air. He frowned for a moment before he spoke.

  “I thought I caught a whiff of something salty. Plant-like. But that might be from the grass here. It’s been thrashed to ribbons, starting at the base of the tree up at the top of the hill. The green stains on the unicorn’s hooves and hair are from crushed grass.”

  “It looks like Dekanos went into severe convulsions before he died,” I said grimly. “That could be from more than a few natural causes. Except for one thing.”

  “What would that be?”

  “None of those natural causes would strike you down so quickly. Which brings me to my next question: Why didn’t he call for help? Or use his magic to transport himself somewhere he could be treated? It looks like Dekanos staggered a couple of steps downhill, but that’s as far as he got.”

  “That’s a good question.” Liam cocked his head at me. “Now that we’ve looked over the environs, shall we perform a visual examination of the body?”

  I gave him a surprised look. “Well, now. It looks like the Protector of the Forest is well on his way to becoming a crime scene analyst himself.”

  He gave a cute cervine snort. “I’d rather not sniff dead bodies any more than necessary. But I’ve watched you do these things enough by now to know how they go.”

  “Okay, I guess I’m not going to recruit you into this line of work,” I joked. “But I could use your
keen fayleene senses here. I’ll begin a visual scan from the bottom of his feet, while you start at the head. Let me know if you see anything out of the ordinary. Puncture wounds, patterns in the fur or skin, that sort of thing.”

  He nodded and stepped to one side to begin his part of the work. I did the same, starting at the steel-gray bottoms of Dekanos’ hooves. I noted in passing that they were perfectly edged, without a chip in them, as Master Physician had attested.

  I went through three-quarters of my visual scan, noting in passing the wild tangles of mane and tail. Telltale signs of convulsions at the very end of Master Dekanos’ life. I knelt and reached out with my gloved hand.

  I grasped the unicorn’s stiffly protruding foreleg by the pastern and gave it a tug. It remained statue-straight. I frowned as I felt along the entire length of the limb before doing the same with the other three. Each leg remained set as if cast in iron.

  “That’s classic rigor,” I murmured. “Definitely sets the time of death.”

  Liam looked up from his examination. “What is ‘rigor’, Dayna?”

  “That’s shorthand for rigor mortis. It’s where the limbs of a corpse stiffen up for a time after death. The presence of rigor – especially in such an advanced state, and on a large body – tells me that the time of death was at least eight hours ago. More likely between eight and ten hours.”

  I returned to my examination, but I only got a short distance before Liam spoke up.

  “I see something odd,” he reported. “At least, I think I do. Up here, by his mouth.”

  I got up and joined him. A trail of reddish brown liquid had dribbled from Dekanos’ mouth, staining his silver goatee. I dug into the container Galen had given me and came up with a pair of miniature medical shears and a plastic sample bag. A single snip, and I had my sample.

  “Okay,” I breathed. “Now for the tough part.”

  Liam looked apprehensive. Or at least as apprehensive as a deer could look.

  “You always worry me when you say things like that.”

  “The liquid that stained this unicorn’s beard came from deeper inside his mouth. Which is where we’ve got to go.”

  A sigh. “I was worried that you’d say that. Your line of work involves entirely too much delving into others’ private orifices for my liking.”

  “Well, you can rest easy. I can’t do a real autopsy here. For starters, I don’t think the unicorns would take kindly to my slicing into Master Dekanos like a side of raw beef. On top of that, it’s hard to dissect anything in the throes of rigor. And finally, I just don’t have the tools. At least, I don’t think so.”

  I set aside the shears for a moment and dug around in the plastic container, removing two more items. One was a multi-purpose screw jack no bigger than a cigarette lighter. I pressed it into service to lever the dead stallion’s stiff jaws further apart. The other was a mini-LED flashlight.

  With the flick of a button, I illuminated the inside of the unicorn’s mouth. Since Dekanos’ head and neck were as deeply in rigor as everything else, I had to crouch down further to get my face up next to the action.

  The Scale of Stinkiness popped up a notch, but the nasty undertone of death was lessened by the toasty smell of grain. I wiped away the gluey traces of saliva and looked over the tissues underneath.

  Everything appeared normal, at least to a non-veterinarian like myself. Except for one thing. Something that took my breath away as surely as if someone punched me in the gut.

  “Can you see that, Liam?” I asked, as I shifted around to one side. He canted his antlers to one side so that he could peer over my shoulder. “That angry red line, starting at the edge of the lip, and moving diagonally across the mouth from lower left to upper right.”

  The Protector let out a gasp. “It looks like someone pressed a hot piece of iron against his tongue!”

  “It does look like a burn,” I agreed. “But there’s something else going on here.”

  Using my thumb, I palpitated the equine’s long, meaty tongue. The muscle was stiff, like everything else, but even through my glove, I could feel the nodules that made up the taste buds. They were as mushy as old peas, and the tissue at the edges wasn’t charred.

  I took a breath, held it, and stuck one hand deeper into Dekanos’ mouth. The light from the mini-LED bulb played against the back of the throat, reflecting shades of pink as it illuminated the rear of the palate. The strange marking continued down to the base of the tongue.

  And then it kept on going.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Liam,” I said, “my hands are busy right now. Would you give the jack’s handle a couple turns to the left?”

  “I shall.” Taking a breath of his own, my fayleene friend grabbed the flat arm of the handle between his teeth. A couple of creaks, and Dekanos’ lower jaw opened just enough for me to see where the red line plunged all the way down his throat.

  It stopped only where the throat had been plugged. Plugged by the swelling of tissue and a waxy blob of foul-smelling mucous. I leaned back a bit and considered what I was looking at.

  “Dekanos died from laryngeal edema,” I said, almost to myself. Before my companion could ask what that was, I continued. “That means an abnormal accumulation of fluid formed in his larynx. Think of it like a bruise at the top of your windpipe, swelling and cutting off your air.”

  The white spots on Liam’s flank shivered. “Frankly, that sounds horrible. But it would explain why he thrashed about before dying, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes, and why he couldn’t call for help. In fact, I don’t think he could even cast magic, not if a spell needed to be spoken.”

  “Did the ‘ee-deema’ form from the mark on his tongue?”

  “It must be connected somehow. I’m not seeing signs of high-temperature contact, no surface charring, no flash-searing. Besides, you only get a swift closure of the larynx from a severe allergic reaction, or…”

  My voice trailed off as my brain put together the red mark and the strange texture of the tongue’s surface with a click.

  “Or what, Dayna?”

  “Or, if it’s a chemical burn,” I murmured. I immediately groped for a set of scrapers and a couple more sample bags as I spoke again, louder this time. “At least eight hours ago, Dekanos suffered a burn that went right down his throat and slammed his windpipe shut. Either from a toxic chemical substance, or an especially caustic poison.”

  Liam canted his antlers as he spoke. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance Master Dekanos accidentally drank something that terrible?”

  The heavy plod-plod of hooves on sand announced Galen’s arrival.

  “He did not consume this substance from his lunch,” the centaur observed. “After looking into the issue of magical spoors, I did an inspection of the interior of this room. I found the slot where Master Cuisinier pushes through the Senior Archmage’s bowls of millet and water. The food and drink have not been touched.”

  “Well, that reduces the potential intake possibilities,” I said, as I bagged up my samples. “Besides, whatever got into Dekanos’ system burned a perfectly straight, diagonal line across his tongue. I don’t think you could sip or chew something in that manner, even if you tried.”

  “It’s definitely some type of poison,” Galen stated. He flexed his hands as if itching to cast a spell. “We are looking at yet another murder.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “And it is one that is rather opportune for the Creatures of the Dark.”

  I gave him a look. “How do you mean?”

  “The unicorns wield a great deal of magical power. Had they already sided with the Creatures of the Dark, they would have attacked and eliminated us by now.”

  “I’m not sure that I’d call them Creatures of the Light either,” I said, though my mind went back to what Queen Nagura had said about the beings listed on either side in the Codex. Almost all of the players in the Great War have finally been revealed.

  Galen nodded. “
I agree with your observation.”

  “You do?”

  “Indubitably. I noticed how curious they were to study Destry. It’s obvious that they’ve never really been in contact with the ethereal equines, even though they supposedly share an ancestry. Since the pooka were listed prominently in the list of Creatures of the Light, I can only come to one conclusion.”

  “That being?” This from Liam.

  “That they either do not know about the Old War, or they do not care one way or another. Given the lengths they have gone to in order to separate themselves from the world, I would guess the latter is the case.” Galen cleared his throat and pushed on to his conclusion. “My ‘hunch’ is that the unicorns are neutrals.”

  My head came up at that. The hunch made sense, and it fit right in with what my gut told me. The unicorns had been, above all, curious about us. Destry for his ‘phylogeny’. And me, I suppose, for my mental agility in tracking the unicorns back to their home base.

  And that’s when my mind made a second weird little click.

  “Of course,” I breathed. “The Creatures of the Dark have struck here. They had to murder Master Dekanos.”

  The Wizard smiled thinly. “Your mind does work, as Master Summoner said, like lightning, striking fast and illuminating what was unseen before.”

  “They had to murder Dekanos before he could do one of two things,” I went on. “Either to ally the unicorns to our cause…or to spill the beans on the things we’ve been waiting to hear.”

  “Why the unicorns withdrew from the world,” Liam stated. “And why they kept humans from pursuing certain types of magic.”

  “That seems about right,” I said, before turning back to the Wizard. “Galen, any luck tracing magical spoors here?”

  He frowned. “This the most densely ensorcelled place in Andeluvia. I am afraid that it is a complete cacophony of spellcraft. There are traces for many sorts of magic, from fey to crystal to straightforward sorcery.”

  “Nothing from the demons?” I asked. “No dragons, wyverns, phoenix?”