Descent into the Depths of the Earth (15 page)

Polk immediately shot forward, ignored a glass and took a
bottle for himself. Enid the sphinx sat down to clumsily nurse a glass between
big furry paws, sneezing as the bubbles tickled at her nose. Jus waved the wine
away and contented himself with his awful tea.

Lord Charn swirled his wine inside a tiny thimble glass and
began.

“We need to come out into the world. My daughter is the test.
Faeries could be an instrument for good or bad. I suspect we might verge toward
the bad. We’ve spent too long looking after our intrigues.” Lord Charn heaved a
sigh then leaned toward the Justicar. “Intrigues have a way of excusing evil.
Tarquil’s dead, and in my own house.”

Clambering over Enid’s head to fetch a glass of wine, Escalla
shot another angry look at her father. “I told you, I didn’t kill the bugger!”

“But there’s evidence enough to slam you right into the hands
of 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 like
the 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 tryst
with 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 had
apparently spent at least two days making sure that she would be unobserved.
Scrying shields in place, careful blanking of spying spells… Her mother had
a 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’s
bodyguard 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 paced
in anger. “That bastard! I’ll—!”

“In good time.” Her father turned to the girl. “Did you see
anything? 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 at
daughter. “You had motive. You had opportunity. You blanked out scrying spells
and 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 handle
overlooking 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 one
reported seeing a necklace in the room. Still, we can search for it and see.”

“What about spells?” The Justicar’s meat and bread came from
investigating 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 as
a 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 Clan
Sable. 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 lost
between himself and his wife. “Your sister and mother have great plans. This is
almost 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!” The
resemblance 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! If
you’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 unconscious
higher motives.” Lord Charn clearly shared a heritage of glibness with his
daughter. “I knew it was right and proper that you take your place within the
world.”

“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’m
too 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 and
is in charge of the investigation. He will let us clear Escalla’s name if it can
be 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 glanced
at Escalla, running his fingers through his hair. “Justicar, I know you have
experience 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 see
the body and the murder site?”

“It can be arranged, but it must be
now,
before the
faeries return to the palace from the first hunt!” Lord Charn rose quickly from
his 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 mothers
spies 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 in
the 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 long
been 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. People
just can’t see them. This forest is a nexus, a place where dozens of them
congregate. It’s why we settled here in the first place.” The faerie lord
plucked 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. “Each
one 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 know
where. Stay hidden until I can find Lord Faen, and we’ll bring you to the murder
site.”

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 above
the 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—the
gateways 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 looked
levelly 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 Justicar
is 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 you
what 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 the
room 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 pace
by pace with the Justicar, detecting a kindred spirit in the mortal’s mind. “A
certain 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. Your
own 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 once
walked 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’s
furniture. 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 been
broken clean through.

Cinders breathed a scent and shivered his long black tail.
Escalla’s skin.