The Deer Prince's Murder: Book Two of 'Fantasy & Forensics' (Fantasy & Forensics 2) (20 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I remained still, but I’d be damned if I was going to stay silent about this latest predicament.

“Lady Behnaz!” I shouted, in the general direction where I’d heard the noblewoman’s voice, “It’s me, Dayna Chrissie! If you have to punish anyone for intruding upon your husband’s lands, take me! Let my friends go!”

There was a pause. Then the sounds of a hushed conversation among several people. A troop of bowmen emerged from the trees off to the left. To our front, a half-dozen knights dressed in chain mail and carrying shields stepped forward, swords drawn. Then they moved aside to allow Lady Behnaz through.

The woman’s face looked haggard, as if she’d spent most of the day trying and failing to get some sleep. She had chosen to wear all-black attire again, though this time she had left out the shelf-step cleavage of the clothes she’d displayed to sway King Fitzwilliam. Instead, her gown featured long, bell-shaped sleeves and a midnight blue cape. Between her outfit and her cat-eyed sneer, she looked every inch like the evil queen from a medieval costume drama.

Her eyes didn’t leave mine as she spoke. “Captain, have our men stand down and retire.”

The knight to her left, a man with a shock of white-blonde hair, gave her a curious glance. “Are you sure? From what we heard, this…outworlder and her friends mean you ill.”

“Stop filling my ears with such nonsense. Her battle-creatures refuse to dishonor themselves in assaulting me, and I’m certain that I could handle Lady Chrissie with my poison daggers, if push comes to stab.”

“But milady–”

Lady Behnaz waved him off. “Allow the men to return to their dicing and drinking tonight. Keep the gate open but guarded.”

The captain pressed a hand to his chest in salute, bowed, and then turned to shout his commands. Swords went back into their scabbards and the armed men disappeared back into the woods as quickly as they had come.

Lady Behnaz spread her hands. “Well? Do you care to explain yourself?”

“I…well, it sounds like you know what I had originally come here to do.”

She regarded me for a moment. “Yes, I heard much. These lands can be wild and dangerous, so my Lord and I have magical wards placed all around our castle. But what I heard made little if any sense.”

“Milady strikes in the gold on that,” Liam agreed quietly.

“You are the last person I’d expect to send me a Year’s End tithing gift, true. Yet if you really wished me dead, you have had ample opportunity before. And it appears that your Fayleene correctly deduced that you were acting under magical compulsion.”

A sigh escaped my lips. “You’re right on all counts. I wish you no harm, Lady Behnaz. We’ve been pushing as hard as we can to find the person responsible for Captain Vazura’s death.”

Behnaz’s eyes flashed at that news. “Quickly, then. Tell me what you know.”

“Vazura was killed by the same person – the same being, that is – who murdered Quinval, the former Fayleene Protector of the Forest.”

“Which is why you mentioned earlier than Prince Liam here is slated to become the next Protector.”

“Exactly. The method of killing was highly specific, and exactly the same. As is the motive: to prevent us from finding a way to stop the dragon Sirrahon from invading the Fayleene woods.”

A frown creased Behnaz’s pale forehead. “Allowing Sirrahon to invade would grievously wound the Fayleene realm. But who has conspired to declare war upon the Fayleene, and why? They are a people who know many surprising things, yet they are peaceful enough.”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “None of us do. But if I had to guess, the ‘Old Man of the Mountain’ is part of this conspiracy.”

Behnaz raised an eyebrow in surprise. “The soothsayers claim that spirit is a very dark one to consult.”

“For once, I’m in agreement. ‘Rocky’, as I called him, told me of a book that would have the information to defeat Sirrahon. He said that you’d found the book in the Grove of the Willows, not far from here.” And as I told Behnaz about the memory, part of me felt embarrassed at how easily I’d been led astray. The ‘Old Man’ had even played up my dislike of Behnaz by showing her unearthing the book, holding it aloft, and cackling over her find like a witch from a bad fairy tale adaptation.

“That much is true. I keep the text in an enchanted vault just inside the courtyard. I gather that it was this ‘Rocky’ that put a geis on you?”

I nodded shamefully. “He claimed that the only way to get hold of the book was to…kill you this very night, or we’d never get the amulet to open that vault.”

“You must mean this one,” she said offhandedly, and she easily pulled the silver chain with the bat-shaped amulet over her head.

She tossed it to me. Startled, I bobbled the catch and almost dropped the damned thing. The bat figurine lay in my hand, the silver chain cold against the skin of my palm.

It was my turn to frown. “I don’t understand.”

“Come along, all of you.” Behnaz said, with a sweep of one bell-shaped sleeve. I followed, dumbstruck, while my companions trailed behind. “Let’s get you this book so that you can be on your way.”

“But…why are you helping us? Me, in particular.”

“Because my husband, Lord Behnaz, is away on court business, and there is no one else who can assist you.”

“No,” I insisted, “that’s not what I meant. And you know it.”

It was a long, long moment before Behnaz answered me. “Given enough time, even I can see the truths in front of me. I was consumed by grief when Vazura died in my arms…and I blamed you for that. But last night, a thought grew in my mind and refused to leave.”

Lady Behnaz paused as we followed her through a wide arched gate into her castle’s courtyard proper. A pair of guards saluted her, though they eyed us with suspicion as we went on by. Inside the walls, the castle grounds were surprisingly comfortable. Fountains burbled on either side of the main path, and beds of evening primrose perfumed the air as they opened in the rapidly dimming light.

“The thought was a simple realization,” Behnaz continued. “That even with my dislike of you, even with Vazura’s disdain, even with my husband’s active opposition…you never wavered in your duty, not once. You persevered and brought Good King Benedict’s killer to justice.”

“I...I thank you, Lady,” I stammered. “I was only doing my job.”

“You might want to save your thanks. Know this: I cannot ever support you in public, for that would be to disobey my Lord and husband. But in private, I shall help you in any way I can. So long as you bring my love’s murderer to justice as you did Benedict’s. Whether that justice means the palace dungeon or the end of a noose, I care not.”

“That, I can promise you. But I have a question for you in turn.”

We arrived in front of the blocky stone vault I’d first seen as part of Rocky’s vision. Behnaz reached down and picked up a glass sphere the size of a baseball. Instead of leather stitches, the sphere was banded in silver and bronze. She spoke a word, and warm yellow light like that from a gas lantern flickered into existence inside the little ball.

“A weirlight globe,” Galen observed. “Truly, a somewhat expensive bauble to keep out in the garden, where anyone could potentially make off with it.”

Behnaz shrugged. “My Lord is notoriously unkind to thieves.” She turned her attention back to me. “So what is your question?”

“The chain of events that led us here began back at Fitzwilliam’s palace,” I said, carefully watching the woman’s reaction. “In the rose garden. Where you transport yourself elsewhere in order to speak with Prince Wyeth of the Fayleene.”

Her eyes widened for the briefest of moments as she tried to conceal her surprise. “Yes. House Behnaz has long had contacts with members of the Fayleene. Ever since I was a little girl, I would talk with the princeling at the edge of the Sacred Grove. He keeps me informed of many things outside the human kingdoms, while I’ve shared with him a great many of the things inside of them.”

“Including my past history.” I didn’t phrase that as a question.

“Even so.” She rubbed the weirlight globe absently with one finger. “But something’s happened. I spoke with Wyeth early this morning. He’s different now.”

Liam stepped up to speak. The weirlight played across his fawnlike spots, making them dance in the flickering light. “How so, Lady Behnaz?”

“He’s gone strange. Wild behind the eyes.”

“Would you be surprised if you knew that he has plans to usurp me as the Protector?”

Lady Behnaz thought for a moment. She shook her head in the negative. “I thought I knew him. All those years ago, he was a very confident, happy Fayleene. No longer.”

“His madness may go further than you think,” I added. “Wyeth is desperate for power. I don’t know if it was his free will or a geis, but when we came upon him in the Fayleene woods, he was in conference with the same demon who killed Vazura.”

Lady Behnaz’s face had looked sad, drawn. Now it set like white granite. “Then if I see Wyeth again, I will have him caged for you. He will answer for his crimes.”

“If thou canst leave enough of him to be tried, surely,” Shaw grumbled. “I dare not say if I could show similar restraint.”

“I too shall be sorely tested,” Behnaz acknowledged. “Dayna, pinch the head of the amulet between your fingers.”

I did so, and a dim purple light glowed from the bat figurine for a moment. The stone slab that made up the door of the vault slid open with the grinding noise. Behnaz held up the weirlight and reached inside. She let out a grunt as she lifted a rectangular object one-handed and placed it in my arms.

Heavy
, was my first thought as I beheld the soft green cover of the
Codex of the Bellum Draconus
. The cover had no title. But I actually got gooseflesh up my arms as I realized that the hard surface of the cover had a scaly texture like freshly harvested snakeskin.

“This appears to be quite a tome,” Galen observed, and his fingers twitched with excitement, eager to touch the book himself. “And I can sense that this book is infused with magical energy.”

“I sense that as well,” Liam said. “It’s almost smells
warm
.”

“Then with luck, there may be a table of contents indicating where the information related to Sirrahon may be found.”

“Here’s hoping,” I agreed, and I opened the cover.

I expected the dusty, faintly wholesome smell that came along with old hardcover books that had been tucked away in the back shelf of a library. Instead, I scented an odd mixture of spicy herbs, like cardamom or star anise. The opening pages were jammed with text. The words and letters leapt off the pages in a riot of colors.

My breath began to come short as I continued flipping through the Codex. Each heavy page made an audible
thump
as I turned it. There were some abstract pictures among the strange, twisting jumble of text that ran on for page after page. But the text itself…I looked helplessly to the centaur wizard after a moment.

“Galen,” I whispered, “please tell me that you can read this.”

He shook his head. That brooding, noble face of his looked anguished.

“If perchance your next question is: do I have a spell to translate the Codex?” he said sadly, “then I’m afraid that you will not enjoy my answer.”

The weirlight flickered as the evening turned to night around us.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

It got so quiet inside the garden-like environs of the castle courtyard that the chirps of crickets began their nightly serenade. Shaw sat off to one side, wings furled, looking dejected and frustrated that his mighty strength was of no use here. Lady Behnaz stood next to him, looking much the same. Galen continued to peer at the open pages as if he could force the book itself to speak against its will.

Liam broke the silence with the firm tap of a forehoof on the stone pathway.

“I cannot accept this defeat!” he declared. “Wizard, do you have the magical resources yet to bring us back to Fitzwilliam’s palace?”

Galen shook his head. “Alas, no.”

“Then I’ll travel there myself. With the book.”

“To what end?”

“I’ll consult with the city’s archivists! Whoever I need to talk to in order to find someone who can understand the texts in that damned Codex!”

“Princeling, I understand your concern,” Galen said tiredly. “But I’ve been the head of the Archivist’s Guild since I arrived in Benedict’s service. I’d studied with each and every scholar there, and no one has seen anything like these letters.”

Liam made a motion with his antlers as if he longed to skewer something. “Understand my concern? How could you? You’ve never had the responsibility for an entire people, a people staring disaster in the face–”

“You overreach yourself,” Galen snapped back at the Fayleene. “I too have commanded my people, and on the cusp of battle against an army under Magnus Killsheven!”

“Enough!” I said, and I stepped between the two. “We’re all tired and frustrated. I’ve said some things tonight that I’m pretty damned ashamed of. Trust me, you two don’t want to join that club.”

Liam looked mortified as he heard my words, and Galen quickly rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. The wizard crossed his arms and bowed to the Fayleene.

“Perchance I spoke rashly, Heir to the Protector. Forgive my words.”

Liam returned the bow. “I do, and I beg you to forgive me as well.”

“Ah, ‘tis a pity,” Shaw mused. “I was deciding which of you to bet on in the upcoming clash of arms.”

“Hush now,” I said gently, as I gave the griffin a pat on the head. “We have enough trouble on our plate without asking for another serving.”

Truth be told, I was amazed that the argument had gotten as far as it had. Compared to Shaw, both Liam and Galen were supremely level-headed. It was probably that even-temperedness that had allowed Liam to be able to deal with other species, while Galen had overcome the notorious temper of his kind to become a wizard, and a member of the Archivist’s Guild to boot.

I let out a tiny gasp as the word
guild
flashed through my brain, lit up in neon.

Who had used that word to describe something before?

Galen had. So had someone else. Someone who I never thought in a million years could be useful. And yet, with that weird ‘clicking’ thing my mind did when the switchboard was actually working, I realized that they could be the key to all of this.

“Wait a moment,” I breathed, “Rocky specifically stated that the Codex was
two
things: a recounting of the last Great War of Andeluvia…and a prophecy.”

A snort from Shaw. “By the bones of my elders! There is always a prophecy tied into these pronouncements, and ne’er have I seen one worth more than my shed pinion feathers.”

“That may be,” I agreed, “but that’s not the point.”

Galen’s brow furrowed. “Perhaps my head is a stuffed bag of sand tonight. What, indeed, is the point?”

“That we know of one person who specializes in the subject of prophecy.” I turned hurriedly to Lady Behnaz. “I’m afraid that I have to ask a favor of you.”

“Whatever you wish,” she replied.

“We’re all tired,” I said. “But we need to get back to Fitzwilliam’s palace as soon as possible. I’ve already pushed the mount I was given to her limits. So, do you have a fresh horse I can borrow?”

* * *

From Castle Behnaz to the capital city’s gates was a hard two-hour ride. It helped that the road there was wide, straight, and even lit by torchlight in a few spots. Compared to the other byways I’d used in Andeluvia, this route was obviously well traveled. Prosperous looking inns clustered at the edges of the small towns we passed. The sound of music and the scent of freshly cooked food beckoned, but we ignored these temptations and pushed on.

We reached the city gates just as the moon crested above the horizon. The night watchmen raised nary an eyebrow as I galloped up on horseback, but they gaped in amazement as I was followed by a centaur, a Fayleene, and a griffin.

The light from the newly risen moon reflected on a stone basin of water, just within the gates. Wooden buckets, obviously laid out for public use, sat in a neat stack to one side. So I reined in my mount and called a halt. Shaw wheezed and gasped his way over to the still pool. He scattered a flock of night doves as he plunged his beak into the cool liquid and then lifted his head to drink his fill.

I waited patiently while the griffin drank. Liam went over to join him, delicately sipping where Shaw gulped away with abandon. The few people out on the street stopped to stare, but I ignored them. Apparently I was getting used to the notoriety generated by my companions.

“Galen,” I asked, “if you were with the Archivists, then you must know: how far back do the histories of this kingdom reach?”

“The earliest texts date to the founding of this kingdom,” the centaur replied. “Back to the ascension of King Julian the Young in the human kingdom and Angrod I of the centaurs. Seven centuries ago, give or take a decade.”

I thought on that for a moment. “But Rocky said that the humans and centaurs hadn’t founded their kingdoms yet. That they were ‘scratching out a living’ on the plains to the south.”

“Then this was an exceedingly long time ago.” Galen scratched his chin in thought as Liam and Shaw rejoined us. I led the way through the city streets, choosing to follow wider and wider avenues until we approached what had to be the main pedestrian crossroad before the palace proper. The wizard looked puzzled as he said, “This is not the normal way for us to enter, especially if one is on horseback.”

“I’m betting that my quarry won’t be at the palace,” I informed him, as I looked as best I could over the people passing by.

The scene was subdued at this time of night, but torchlight illuminated both the palace gates and the thoroughfare’s corner shops. The clink of a blacksmith’s hammer came from one, while the savory smell of meat pies came from another. Groups of well-dressed ladies in the company of young noblemen passed by the gate. Just as I thought. This was where the relatively well-heeled would be taking their evening strolls. And that meant maximum exposure for anyone who wanted to be annoying in public.

An old man’s screeching cry echoed off the very stones of the courtyard around us.

“Heed me, blasphemers! Heed the words of the soothsayers, ’ere you perish!”

“And there’s the man I’m looking for,” I said, with some satisfaction. “Come on.”

Galen let out a groan. “Alas, I should have guessed.”

The bulk and raw power of the griffin and the centaur allowed us to cut through the milling groups of people with ease. Even so, I dismounted and led my horse as we made our way over to the side of the palace gate. A slat-thin man with a wizened, age-spotted face continued to harangue the passersby. He strode back and forth, gesturing wildly with his long wooden staff to punctuate the words he spoke.

“Death!” he cried. “Foul, gruesome death awaits those who do not heed the words of doom! Awaits those who ignore my words at their peril! For their very soul shall burn in the pits of–”

“Greetings, Master Seer Zenos,” I called out.

“Do my eyes deceive me? No, it is indeed Dayna Chrissie!” Zenos said, as he dropped the whole ‘Book of Revelations’ ranting as easily as I’d have kicked off a set of slippers. “It is kind of you and your friends to visit me at work.”

“Indeed,” I agreed, trying and failing to suppress a grin. The man’s halo of thin white hair still gave him a slightly comic look. It wasn’t helped by his choice of tunic, a fuzzy blue thing that looked as if it were made out of cheap terrycloth.

Zenos and I hadn’t exactly started off on the right foot. As a matter of fact, it had been hate at first sight. Zenos had felt that summoning me threatened the work of the soothsayers. But since then, I’d acknowledged the man’s insights as correct (rare and usually late though they were), so he’d warmed up to me a great deal.

“What can I do for you this fine evening?” he asked.

“As it happens, I need your help…reading a certain prophesy.”

The man’s face brightened. “Splendid! Do you have a copy?”

I looked to Galen. He remained nonplussed when it came to the soothsayer, probably due to the years that he’d spent enduring Zenos’ rantings at court. But the centaur passed up on the opportunity to comment and instead just pulled the Codex out of one saddlebag.

“By the light of the golden sickle!” Zenos exclaimed, as he took the text, “this is a rare book indeed! How did you ever come by it?”

“It’s a long story. But can you read it?”

A hush fell over our little party as Zenos flipped through the pages. He traced the edges of several of the letters, mumbled to himself, and then finally returned to the inside cover, where a quartet of squiggly symbols were mashed together in a diamond formation.

“This is what my brothers and I call
Rohonic
text,” he stated plainly. “I can read it, after a fashion.”

Liam let out an exhalation of pent-up breath, but I wasn’t relaxing yet. “What do you mean, ‘after a fashion?”

“Old Rohonic is at best halfway understood. It’s part letter, part pictogram, and two-thirds metaphor.” Zenos pointed at the symbols on the open page, and I had to squint to make them out in the ambient torchlight. “See here? Together, these four symbols make up the sinuous outline of a single dragon.”

Sure enough, if you squinted at the symbols in a certain way, you could make out what Zenos was referring to. But what got my attention were the soothsayer’s next words.

“As to the words themselves, they make up a phrase that could mean ‘The Gossip of the Pretty Dragon’, or ‘The Secrets of the Deadly Dragon’. It all depends on context.”

“Yeah,” I said dryly, “I’m pretty sure it’s the latter.”

“Well, if you trust my skills with the translation, perhaps you could entrust your text to me for a couple of days?”

“Master Seer,” Liam began, as he stepped up to bow before the soothsayer, “This text is vital to my people’s well-being, and time is of the essence. Can you try to work your translation this very night? The Fayleene would be grateful.”

Zenos blinked. “This dusty old text…is suddenly of great and important need?”

“It is,” I acknowledged. “And Liam here is the next in line for the Protectorship of the Fayleene. His gratitude could come in handy for your guild.”

The old man clapped the book shut and made a yellow-toothed smile. “Very well, then! My pronouncements of doom shall have to bide for a while, then. You all look as tired as I shall be, by the end of this night. And you are in need of this information as soon as is humanly possible. So I shall extend my invitation to you all.”

“Invitation? To what?”

“Why, to stay overnight, of course!” Zenos tucked the Codex under one arm and used his staff as a walking stick. “We have plenty of room at the soothsayer’s guild for all of you. And of course you’re going to accept my offer. I have foreseen it!”

Galen shook his head ruefully at that, and Shaw let out a throaty chuckle. Frankly, so long as the soothsayers didn’t sleep on beds of nails, I was game.

“All right,” I agreed, “we are your guests for tonight.”

“Aha!” Zenos cried in triumph, as we followed his fast, limping walk down one of the side streets. “What did I tell you? I am never wrong. Never!”