The Deer Prince's Murder: Book Two of 'Fantasy & Forensics' (Fantasy & Forensics 2)

by Michael Angel

  “Were you able to make any headway on our problems?” he asked.

  “I think so. And thanks to Galen’s summoning, we’ve got someone new to work with: one of the pouquelaye. I think this world calls them ‘pookas’.”

  “One of the ghost horses?” Liam’s ears perked up in that damnably cute way of his, showing his interest. “How marvelous! They are fabled, mystical creatures!”

  He paused as the air rippled with a faint whoosh. Suddenly, Destry shimmered into existence at my side, black and huge and silent. Liam gaped at the creature’s flaring mane and fierce, blank yellow eyes.

  “That is quite the hommage, Heir to the Protector,” Destry intoned. “Yet I cannot help but feel amused. To many others of your world, it is the Fayleene who are the fabled, mystical creatures.”

  “And for pretty much everyone in my world,” I added, “you are both fabled creatures. As are our centaur and griffin friends.”

  “You’ll like them,” Liam put in. “Our centaur is an Archmage-class wizard. The griffin’s more of a typical specimen for his kind. Very friendly. ‘Hello, nice to meet you, you certainly look delicious this morning. I wonder if you are chewy or crunchy’.”

  “Methinks I am being profaned!” Shaw’s voice boomed in from out in the hall. With a clatter of talon and hoof on stone, the griffin entered the room, followed on his heels by the centaur. They both halted to take in the sight of our newest arrival.

  “Magnificent!” Galen said, and he gave a sweeping bow. “I was not at all sure that my efforts to summon assistance would be answered. I underestimated the generosity of your elders, kind pooka.”

  The pooka and I traded a glance at that, but I decided to push on. I began with introducing everyone to Destry, and then turned the introduction back onto our new equine member. “This is Destry, of the pouquelaye. His involvement with us is part of a deal brokered with his people. In exchange for his help, I in turn will be looking into some...well, some ongoing difficulties he has with his job.”

  “Thou hast come to the right place,” Shaw said encouragingly. “One only wishes for better timing. A murder most foul has come on the heels of a dragon problem involving yon fair stag here.”

  There came a knock at the tower room’s open door. A human servant decked out in a red and black doublet peeked fearfully into the room. I suppose it was understandable. Truth be told, at least three members of our group did look more than a little imposing.

  “Sirs?” he inquired, “We, ah, were summoned by the court wizard to bring food up to the tower room.”

  “I took the liberty of requesting a noontime repast to be brought here,” Galen explained. “At least three of our members have traveled a great distance to be here, and I haven’t broken fast since the fall of yesterday evening.”

  A trio of servants hurriedly brought in their wares. A large silver platter heaped high with what looked like green and purple lawn clippings was placed in front of Liam, who began to dig in without hesitation. An entire side of beef, flame-singed around the edges but dripping blood, was brought in on a long pole and shunted onto an even larger platter for Shaw. The griffin pounced on the meat and began tearing strips of it away with his stout beak. Finally, a set of smaller trays was placed out on the table for Galen and me. A set of freshly roasted skewers featuring slightly more cooked chunks of beef, mushrooms, and onions sat on one; small rounds of soft cheese and sliced bread were piled in a decorative pyramid on the other.

  Two open tubs of sparkling fresh water with lumps of ice in them were placed next to the Fayleene and the griffin. Pitchers of cool, unsweetened tea and startlingly sweet wine – which Galen called ‘summer table crush’ were set on the table along with a set of metal utensils and cups. I poured myself some tea and stabbed a chunk of roasted onion to munch on, using one of the two-tined forks the Andeluvian court apparently favored.

  Galen cleared his throat as he directed a polite question at the pooka. “Destry, before the servants retire for the day, perhaps you could tell them what you would like for your repast?”

  “Much thanks, kind wizard,” came the reply. “There is nothing they need bring for me.”

  The centaur nodded at the three servers and they disappeared post-haste.

  “Out of curiosity,” the centaur asked, “what do non-corporeal beings eat?”

  “In truth, we much prefer the term ethereals,” Destry replied. “As to what sustains our kind, it is always the same…l'énergie de la pensée. That energy which comes from thoughts, intense emotions or passions.”

  “That sounds a little disturbing,” I mused, after I crunched through my onion and washed it down with a couple sips of tea. “If you are actually ‘consuming’ what we are thinking, are we losing our minds in some subtle way?”

  “Absolutely not!” Destry snorted. “We do not ‘consume’ thoughts, any more than plants ‘eat’ sunshine. It is the same process by which a pooka knows a little about what a being is thinking or feeling at any given time they are awake.”

  “That’s good to know,” Liam admitted.

  “For example, right now I am getting sustenance off of wizard Galen’s curiosity about my kind, his thirst for knowledge,” Destry explained. “I sense Liam’s concerns for the future. Dayna’s studied, analytical thinking. As for Shaw, his most intense passion right now is seeing how much raw cow meat he can consume in the next few minutes.”

  “Amazing!” Shaw exclaimed, as he lifted his beak from where he’d been snapping his way through a set of rib bones. “Thou canst read my mind perfectly!”

  With Destry’s power established, the griffin went back to chomping into his beef. We all focused a couple of minutes on replenishing ourselves while the pooka silently absorbed our thoughts. Myself, I did my best to limit myself to a single skewer of meat and vegetables, a small cube of cheese, and a lone cup of tea. The last thing I wanted right now was to slip into a calorie coma. When everyone had gotten down to the final nibbles and sips, I brought out a neatly folded bunch of papers from a jacket pocket to share my results.

  “At least now I can confirm what killed Captain Vazura,” I began, and I instantly had everyone’s rapt attention. “Each dart tip was laced with one of the most potent poisons known: sodium cyanide. Injected directly into a major artery, it leads to death within three heartbeats.”

  “Wizard,” Shaw asked, “art thou familiar with this substance?”

  The centaur shook his head. “Perhaps this is a substance found only in Dayna’s world. Certainly, it has to be made by someone. I have never heard of any poison so deadly in nature, not even the most deadly of the envenomed serpents.”

  “This could be assembled in this world as easily as in my own,” I corrected him. “But it has to be concocted by someone who knows how to put it together. And there’s something even more puzzling about the poison’s contents: the analysis showed traces of a substance that shouldn’t be in a mixture of this poison at all.”

  “What would that substance be?”

  I gave Galen a look that conveyed my puzzlement.

  “Gold.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “There’s no reason for gold to be in the mix for that particular kind of poison,” I stated firmly. Around me, my companions had set their lunch aside and given me their full attention. A cool breeze blew through the tower window, rustling the palace’s heavy red drapes and smelling faintly of the approaching autumn. “Worse, that was the only finding of note. Absolutely nothing unusual about the rock dust Galen collected, or the pine needles in the darts. The DNA trace I performed – that’s a test to help the identify people by their genetic makeup – showed only two people’s traces on those darts: mine, and Vazura’s. So I don’t have anything to indicate origin of the poison, or the poisoner.”

  Destry spoke up at that point. “Perhaps I can shine some more light into this darkness, no?”

  I nodded and motioned to him to continue.

  “There is a suivre la trace on those darts�
��how you say, a ‘spoor’ on them. Very light, very faint. An ethereal being handled those weapons. Made them too, maybe.”

  I frowned. “Why didn’t you say something back at the Chem Lab?”

  “I was unsure. Now I am here, I certainly am sure.” Destry lifted a forehoof, moved it left and right as he spoke. “This trace, it is repeated all over this place. Whoever or whatever it is, it has had the free passage of this dwelling for a long time.”

  That sent a chill down my spine. Everyone else’s too, judging from the looks of things. Shaw and Galen both glanced around, as if waiting for something to strike from the shadows at that very moment. Liam also looked uneasy.

  “I’m not sure you have a problem delivering bad dreams,” he remarked. “You’re definitely on track to give me nightmares tonight.”

  “My pardons, Liam. I shall certainly let everyone know if I sense this being approaching us as far in advance as possible.”

  “This gets more and more curious,” I mused, and I got up from the table. I paced across the tower’s stone floor to stand in front of the empty darkness of the hearth. “So there are traces of ethereal energy…and Fayleene magic on those darts. This gives me bad feelings on a lot of levels.”

  Liam’s eyes were bright as he stepped forward. “That spell craft on the dart means that Wyeth is involved. I’m sure of it!”

  “Aren’t you jumping to conclusions a bit prematurely?” Galen asked. “I realize that he is your sworn rival. But sneaking into Fitzwilliam’s kingdom and eliminating a member of his court is a bit of a jump for an angry Fayleene.”

  “Nay, not such a jump,” Shaw disagreed, with a bristle of feathers. “But only if conflict with Fitzwilliam’s kingdom had been thy assailant’s goal. Had the Fayleene wished to weaken this kingdom, t’would have been simpler to target the king. Unlike thy unfortunate captain, King Fitzwilliam’s honor has not been besmirched. The new ruler is popular with the people. And he is an experienced battlefield commander.”

  “In short, a prime target for an assassin who wanted to cripple the kingdom’s ability to respond to any threat,” I concluded, as I gave the princeling a hard look. “Since Vazura was targeted instead, then this murder was definitely aimed at sabotaging our chances to beat Sirrahon. So tell me, Liam: why are you so sure that Wyeth is the Fayleene behind this?”

  “I’ve been sniffing ’round the court the entire past day,” Liam reminded me. “It was easy to gain access to all parts of this palace’s interior – and exterior. Fayleene are rare guests here to begin with. And since my ascension to Heir, there has been no shortage of courtiers seeking to speak to me or boast of their knowledge of this structure. And it was during one of my many tours that I came upon something quite interesting. Follow me, and I’ll show you.”

  Liam led me downstairs. Shaw and Galen followed, while Destry simply faded through the nearest wall to appear, ghostlike, on the landings ahead of us or at the windows down the hall. To my surprise, the Fayleene’s path led outside, past the courtyard where Vazura had fallen, and into the royal garden. Lush scents of roses and freshly trimmed grass filled my nostrils as we wound our way through meticulously maintained walls of climbing roses and beds of fragrant lavender. Fat, golden honeybees buzzed lazily across our way as Liam brought us to the far side of the garden, where one giant rose bush butted up against the emerald curve of a hedge maze.

  “The spoor of a scent and the spoor of a spell never lies,” Liam stated. “Here, in this spot, is a heavy dose of fey magic. Plus, the scent of a particular stag – Wyeth.”

  “Maybe we do have a Fayleene in league with our ethereal,” I murmured. I raised my voice as I called to our pooka. “Destry, can you give this a once-over?”

  “Of course I shall,” he said, and he bent to sniff around the base of the rose bushes. He raised his head almost immediately and beat his hooves on the soft grass with a muffled clop. “There is no doubt. There is ethereal energy here as well.”

  “That’s not all,” I said, and I leaned as far as I dared into the bush without impaling my arm on anything.

  Stuck to one of the thorns was a fingernail-sized scrap of dark fabric. It didn’t look sun-bleached, or wet from dew, so I suspected that it was fresh. I sniffed it.

  My expression darkened as I recognized the smell of Vazura’s raw-scented cologne. Since I doubted that the poor captain had been escaping from the dungeon to come look at the hedge maze, that left only one person who would have fabric carrying that man’s favored scent.

  “As I said, the many people who showed me around wanted to impress,” Liam noted. “Sifting through the court gossips of who is mating with whom, I learned that Lady Behnaz has a strange habit: whenever she visits the palace, she likes to come sit out in this part of the rose garden. Every afternoon, like clockwork.”

  I shaded my eyes with one hand and then craned my neck to look up at the nearby wall. Then I turned back towards the king’s residence proper. My mind made a little click as it put two pieces of the puzzle together.

  “This spot is too close to the outer wall for the guards to see easily,” I began. “At least, unless a guard happens to be walking by at just the right moment, and he’s looking straight down. It’s hidden well enough so that you can’t see it directly from the palace.”

  “A very good spot to situate a magical portal,” Galen said, picking up on my train of logic. “Yes, a very good spot indeed, if one took a few precautions not to be followed.”

  “What’s more, this explains something else: where Wyeth got the information on my family. About my father’s murder of a Fayleene doe.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I wrote about the incident where Magnus opened a gate into my world,” I explained, as I tapped my chin with a finger in thought. “I also mentioned how a Fayleene doe came through at the same time – and how my father killed her, thinking that she was a mundane six-point buck.”

  “You wrote about it in the final case report on how Magnus murdered the Good King Benedict,” Galen recalled, with a nod. “Only the king’s innermost council got a copy.”

  “Only a couple of people,” I agreed. “But someone leaked it. Lady Behnaz was one of the court ladies who picked up on all the intrigue and gossip in the realm. Child’s play at that point to pass the information on to whomever she’s meeting on the other side of this portal.”

  “It must be Wyeth on the other side,” Liam reiterated, with an angry stomp of one forehoof.

  “Then that’s where we need to be. Liam, I need you to trace that spell back to its origin.”

  His antlered head bobbed fiercely. “I’m on it!”

  “Galen, think back to how you and Liam worked together that one time. The time we traced and followed Magnus. I want the same thing now. Liam fixes the location, you bring all five of us through. We’re going to steal a march on our opponents, catch them off guard for the first time!”

  “I am all for that, Dayna!” Galen said approvingly.

  Destry shook his head, and his flaring mane bobbed in the breeze. “You only need to transport four. If an ethereal transports from place to place under anything but our style of magic, we risk injury. I can follow you by scent of spell and spoor. It will take me slightly longer my way, but I should arrive only a minute or two behind, at most.”

  “Four it is, then,” I allowed.

  “Thou must make it three,” Shaw said, his voice as glum as I’d ever heard it. “I cannot join thy quest, or aid in thy battle, shouldst one await upon the other side.”

  I could do nothing but stare blankly for a moment. This was so far outside of Shaw’s normal character that I had nothing to say. Liam canted his head, gave his friend a strange look.

  “Who art thou?” he said, mimicking Shaw’s lingo. “And what have you done with the real Grimshaw?”

  “Mock me not!” Shaw pleaded. “Dayna, this shames me to the quick! But I cannot stay to help thee!”

  “We won’t mock you,” I assured him, with a
stern glance in Liam’s direction. “Whatever your reason is, it must be of great import.”

  “I returned amongst the griffin elders to speak of Sirrahon. The elders in turn…bound me to an oath of blood and talons. They charged me to stay within the palace’s demesne until I spoke with someone else. Someone who could help us with thy dragon, Sirrahon.”

  “Who?” Liam demanded. “I must know!”

  “Alas! That is part of the oath! I was not to reveal them, for they hide their knowledge under a cloak of secrets. And when I do speak to them…if they wish to remain in the dark, I may not draw the curtain back.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I groaned. Another damned binding promise!

  “Fine,” I snapped, “I’m not happy about this, but we’ve wasted enough time.”

  “I beg thy forgiveness,” Shaw moped, and he knelt before me.

  In spite of myself, I put my hands out and ruffled his feathery head. “Stop it, you big lug. It’s not you I’m unhappy with.”

  “Maybe we should rethink our plans,” Galen cautioned. “Without Shaw, our combat capabilities are markedly diminished.”

  “Maybe,” I acknowledged. I felt the weight of my gun, a heavy and reassuring lump at my side. But I was torn. “Maybe we’re rushing this now that we have a solid lead.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Liam shot back. “Ever since I became the Heir, my eyes have not been my own, not entirely.”

  Galen gave the Fayleene a look. “Explain, friend.”

  “The powers of the Protector…I’m beginning to understand how and why they work. It’s as if I’m in tune with the forest itself. Feeling the sun on the leaves of the trees. The satisfaction of the roots as they sip water from underground springs. Seeing and hearing what all the creatures do. The birds of the air, the animals of the ground, even the fish in the streams.”