Descent into the Depths of the Earth (16 page)

“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… and
caught 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 open
the 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 not
cross his hands decently upon his breast.”

Nodding, the Justicar inspected the body’s mouth. The lips
were not inflamed, nor the inner mouth burned.

Jus opened the cavalier’s shirt and pulled up his inner
clothes. The blood had pooled on the body’s belly side, leaving a purplish
color, 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 side
and 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, then
looked 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 not
by 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 puncture
wound.”

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 were
silvered 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 smells
fish.”

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 venomous
mollusk 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 in
a forest?”

“Nowhere. This is a kuo-toan assassination technique—right
down to hiding the wound in the hairline.”

“You have encountered it before?”

“I’ve read about it.” The Justicar wiped his hands. “This is
my profession. I am the Justicar.”

Sitting back on his haunches, the Justicar thoughtfully
regarded the corpse. “Cone shells come from tropical reefs. This has been
carried 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. When
the 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, apparently
extremely pleased to witness the Justicar at his work. “Yes, lad. Now what else
was in that room? What didn’t other eyes see?”

“There is one link from the gold chain that held Escalla’s
slow-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 sized
diamond.”

Jus made a soundless whistle. Such a necklace might
conceivably buy an entire castle, garrison it, and pay the troops’ wages for a
year.

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 was
rigor. I’d make it three or four hours dead, meaning he’d been dead before
Escalla was seen entering the room.”

Stroking his goatee, Lord Faen nodded. “A hostile mind might
argue that the effects of the poison caused the muscles to freeze in spasm.”

“Yes. It’s not proof.” Jus stroked his chin. “But the mouth
was 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 was
already cold when the puncture was made.”

Pacing carefully back and forth, Lord Charn cleared his
throat in thought.

“Was someone making certain of his kill? A poison draught
then the more definite poison administered at a later time?”

“Possibly. The poison glasses were a decoy, though. There was
no burning of the victim’s mouth tissues. I find that interesting.” Jus opened
up one of the tiny packets of paper on his knee. Inside, carefully pinned in a
slot of the paper lay a single delicate piece of black thread. He gave it to the
faeries, who leaned over it and thoughtfully stroked their beards.

“A thread from clothing?”

Jus shook his head. “It seems too clean. Threads ripped from
clothing show furred surfaces from the abrasion.” Jus leaned in closer. “This is
a thread I found elsewhere. Identical to this second thread, from Escalla’s
doorjamb. They’re the same length and neatly cut, like threads bunched and all
cut to a length.”

There was a sudden cool flood of understanding from Lord
Charn. “Gateway tokens.”

“Gateway tokens.” Jus held up the threads. “Keys used to
travel through the forest’s magic doors.”

Escalla’s father sat on a tree stump that had been colonized
by orange fungi. The fungi gleamed like fruit peel as the faerie lord used the
shelves to rest his boots.

“I have a master list of the gates and keys we know of. I
will look and see which ones require black silk.”

Jus nodded and asked, “Where do the gates go?”

“From here? Only to the forest. Within the forest, there are
gates to other places across the Flanaess. The forest seems to have served as a
travel nexus.” The man rose to his feet. “What are we looking for? Who killed
Tarquil?”

“A faerie—a faerie who travels through a gate triggered by
black thread, a faerie who could not resist taking the slowglass necklace for
his own. The murderer had access to a marine cone shell and knew how to handle
it and had the means to keep it alive. And he was able to pass your guards
without suspicion.”

Unhappy, Lord Faen plucked at his beard and said, “I cannot
use this to clear Escalla’s name. There is evidence enough to convict her if
Sable presses for a judgment. We must catch the murderer and link the cone
shell, black threads, and motive to them.”

“It can be done.” Jus kept the tiny golden link broken from
Escalla’s necklace in his hand. “This gold link was part of the slowglass
necklace. We can use it for a location spell to find the rest of the necklace,
if you have a mage capable of casting it.”

“We have mages capable of casting it.” Charn arose on
whirring wings. “I will arrange it, and I will fetch the master gate list.”

“Then we will find your murderer.” Jus arose, his knees
cracking and autumn leaves drifting from his clothes. “We have the tools. We
merely need the time.”

* * *

Back at the castle cellar, Enid, Polk, and Escalla were busy
stuffing themselves with a favorite delicacy—ham sandwiches made with fresh
white bread and butter. With all due seriousness, Enid sat holding a little
sandwich between her great paws. The mule stood in one corner, its eyes nervous
as it listened to creatures hooting in the night.

Meanwhile, Polk slathered butter upon more bread and let his
voice boom into the gloom. “Don’t worry, girl! False accusations are all part of
the deal! Without false accusations, you don’t get righteous indignation!
Without righteous indignation, you don’t get mighty oaths! Without oaths, you
don’t get gods interfering with heroic souls, and we can’t have heroic souls
running about doing stuff without being guided by the gods. Stands to reason!”

Worried and annoyed, Escalla looked at him across the surface
of a titanic sandwich. “What are you on about now?”

“Gods, girl! Heroes are heroes because they’re tools of the
gods!”

“Polk, what’s heroic about being a theological hand puppet?
Anyway, have you seen the names these gods give themselves?” Escalla took a
mouthful of bread and ham. “Ne’fer fo’ow a god whosh name reads like shomefing
from an apothecary’s shelf!”

Her freckles living a life of their own in the gloom, Enid
licked butter from her paws and said, “I made a glove puppet once!”

Stones shifted at the door. Without looking up, Escalla made
another sandwich filled with extra ham. “Hey, Jus!”

The big man loomed in the blockaded door, checking that all
was well. “We’re moving out. You’re ready?”

“Yep. Spellbooks read, and I’m all charged up!”

“You didn’t set a guard?”

“Invisible servant. You just passed him. If it was anyone
else, he’d have smashed a bottle on the castle wall.” Escalla rose and looked at
Jus, handing him the sandwich and trying not to appear as anxious as she felt.

“So did you go and… you know… see the dead guy and
all?”

“Yes.” Jus looked levelly at the girl. “Tell me: were you
quiet when you went into the room?”

“Ah, maybe?”

“You never noticed he was dead?”

“Um, well he did seem a little subdued.” Escalla blinked. “So
he was dead all the time?”

“Looks like it.” Jus helped shift rocks aside, clearing a
path into the castle. “Your father’s here. The murderer took your slowglass
necklace, and we have a locator. We’re going to look at a gate we’ve found. It’s
the one the murderers used to escape.”

“Oh, hoopy!” Escalla instantly cheered up. “So you can get me
off?”

“Nope. Unless we get the slowglass necklace back, you’re
toast.” Jus ushered everyone outside. “Come on!”

Lord Charn awaited his daughter and her friends, keeping a
worried look upon the nighttime sky. The distant sound of elf hounds could be
heard off to the south. It signified nothing. Hunters could be lying invisible
almost anywhere. Escalla’s father took his daughter’s hands and drew her up into
his arms.

Jus began to mount the way back up to the magic gate above
the castle courtyard. He called down, “We have to get the murderer before the
hunt gets Escalla. She’s safest on the move with us. Polk, get climbing!”

The archway above the castle yard was a small window—too
small for a sphinx. Enid eyed it unhappily and tested her wings. “Can I fly and
meet you where the gate empties out?”

“Best not.” Jus cursed and then jumped down to rest a hand on
the sphinx’s soft brown hair. “Look. Set up shop back at that old deserted
tavern. Take Polk’s mule with you. Read your books, eat stirges, and make it look
like you, Polk, and I have set up camp. We’ll be a while. Just wait. We’ll come
back quick as we can.” Jus shoved Polk onward and pressed a sprig of fennel into
his hands. “Polk, go through the arch and just stay put!”

“Son, maybe I should stay with Enid and—”

“Enid will keep
her
mouth shut if any faerie hunt
comes by.
You
get to come with us!” Jus propelled the man skyward. “Now
hurry up!”

Escalla fluttered over to the unhappy Enid, kissed her on the
nose, and then shot up toward the gate. As the arch flashed with light, the
fugitives slipped through in haste, ending up in the forest near the palace in
the faerie realm.

Lord Faen awaited them. He quickly ushered the way to a stone
gazebo just out of sight of the family wing of the palace. An archway showed the
recent scuff of boots. Jus ushered his party together then turned to lift a hand
in farewell to Lords Faen and Charn. Lord Nightshade held out a piece of silver
wire and thrust it beneath the gazebo’s arch.

Magic flickered. Jus stepped through, dragging the wailing
Polk underneath his arm. Left with her father and Lord Faen, Escalla fluttered
unhappily. She flew to the gate, stopped, rushed back to give her father a kiss,
and then shot through the arch an instant before the gateway flickered shut.

Standing alone with Lord Faen, Escalla’s father suddenly felt
his world turn a little dim.