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 thenhissed 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 abovethe 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-thegateways 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 lookedlevelly 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 Justicaris 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 youwhat 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 theroom 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 paceby pace with the Justicar, detecting a kindred spirit in the mortal’s mind. “Acertain 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. Yourown 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 oncewalked 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’sfurniture. 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 beenbroken clean through.
Cinders breathed a scent and shivered his long black tail. Escalla’s skin.
“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… andcaught 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 openthe 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 notcross his hands decently upon his breast.”
Nodding, the Justicar inspected the body’s mouth. The lipswere not inflamed, nor the inner mouth burned.
Jus opened the cavalier’s shirt and pulled up his innerclothes. The blood had pooled on the body’s belly side, leaving a purplishcolor, 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 sideand 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, thenlooked 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 notby 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 puncturewound.”