The Deer Prince's Murder: Book Two of 'Fantasy & Forensics' (Fantasy & Forensics 2) (4 page)

Chapter Four

Liam had already picked out his own area, set about halfway down the length of the grove. It wasn’t nearly as prime a locale as the one Wyeth had bullied his way into. But even so, he stood his ground against interloping bucks who came close enough to dispute his choice. Once every Fayleene had finally found their spot in the dining (or pecking) order, we could finally turn our attention to the fare laid out for us by Orlaith and her kin.

Aromas that I could only describe as ‘strange-but-mouthwatering’ rose from four leaves that had been put out as a place setting. I was pretty sure that the Fayleene mouth couldn’t drool, because that’s what mine would’ve done at this point.

“What are these delectable-smelling things?” I asked. Around us, other couples were diving into the food with gusto. But no matter the body I was in, I wanted to know what something was before I put my lips to it. I’d had one too many trips to places south of the border, where I’d found out after the fact that I was eating iguana, or dried beetle husks.

And then there was mouse tart. I shuddered and hurriedly filed away that memory for a later nightmare.

Liam nodded at each of the quartet of items as he spoke. “These are delicacies, the exact fare that Quinval would have dined upon.
Lomairí féir
, the seeds of the ginger-grass.
Labhras féir,
blades of the milk thistle.
Castán
, the swift-river chestnut.”

“And this?” I nudged the pile of dark chunks I still couldn’t identify.

“This is the rarest of all,
tafann
. The magic-infused bark of the
amidach
tree.” Liam threw me a worried glance. “If these items are too strange to you, do not force yourself to indulge on my account.”

“Force myself? I don’t know if I can hold back!”

He beamed at that. “Well, let’s partake while the Lead Does sing.”

They were going to sing during our supper?
But I put that question aside as I took bites from each leaf’s selection in turn.

The seeds looked dry, but they crunched in my mouth like warm movie theatre popcorn drizzled in butter. Not the ersatz stuff you got out of a nozzle, but butter churned right down home on the farm. The thistle leaves smelled like bushels of ripe peaches and tasted like romaine lettuce. I got a meaty, portobello-mushroom vibe from the chestnuts. And the tafann had a flavor I just couldn’t describe: dark and rich as chocolate yet spicy-sweet as cinnamon candy. To drive the ‘magic-infused’ point home, the air around me began to twinkle with adorably pink sparkles of light as I nibbled my way through the dish.

Throughout the meal, the Lead Does did indeed sing for us. At least, they did what the Fayleene apparently thought of as ‘singing’. Each of the senior females stood, closed their eyes, and emitted a single note that resonated throughout the clearing. They held the note, only shading it into the next at minute-long intervals. It reminded me of a recording I’d once heard, a ten-minute
Ohhhmmmmm
done by a group of Tibetan monks.

The deep thrumming set up by the does was strangely relaxing. It combined with the natural ‘high’ I was getting off the tafann and put me into a slightly meditative state. Liam, like many of the Fayleene in the Grove, had taken on a relaxed look and swayed slightly on their skinny deer legs.

Me, I used this little bit of mental-clarity time to look at the former Protector’s body a second time. Call it a bad case of professional curiosity.

From where Liam and I sat, I was able to get a good look at Quinval’s left side. My first impression, that he looked at peace, still held up under scrutiny. His dense coat of hair had gotten a little ruffled up in spots, but in no way suggested that he had been in a fight.

After all, why couldn’t his death have been due to natural causes?
I mentally chastised myself a bit. Not everyone dies under mysterious circumstances.

No, Quinval may have looked old, at least from the silvery-gray tracings on his coat and around the edges of his muzzle, but otherwise? He was the picture of health. In fact…

Wait.

The silver tracings of his muzzle were so prominent in part because his nose and lips were a shiny, velvety black. That made me frown a little as I looked around. None of the other Fayleene had nose or lip colors so dark, at least from what I could see. It wasn’t an age thing either. The older Lead Does also had the exact same colors. The black of their noses and lips was that of soft coal, or velvet. But only the Protector’s tissues had the rich black sheen of an oil slick.

Quinval’s left foreleg also looked odd. It was off just a tiny bit, as if the joint was too big or set too wide by a quarter-inch from his frame. I looked down at my own foreleg, flexed it to check my impressions. I couldn’t move my leg to make it look like that, but what did that prove? I wasn’t all that experienced in this body. Quinval could’ve been double-jointed.

Maybe I was starting to see things that weren’t there. Being a medical examiner was, in a way, a state of mind. My brain could be looking for and creating patterns that weren’t there.

Liam let out a gasp. All around us, the air had taken on a thick, fluid quality. An entire rainbow of psychedelic colors swirled through the clearing, rippling in time with the tonal changes from the chorus of Lead Does.

The song’s volume grew and grew, pressing into my Fayleene eardrums with tangible force. The Fayleene in the Grove were rapt, riveted on the swirls of light and sound that swept among them like a hot desert wind. The hairs all over my body pricked up, stood at attention as the melody drew to its climax.

The does’ singing stopped in mid-phrase. Energy crackled through the atmosphere in the Grove. As one, the does opened their eyes. As one, they lay down their pronouncement.

“As keepers of the Sacred Ways of the Fey Magic, we have chosen!”

A hundred pairs of antlered heads lifted up in anticipation. Up in the front ranks, the pair belonging to Wyeth quivered with anticipation.

“Do we Fayleene so pledge to honor the will of the stag who shall lead us through the darkness and into the light?”

The answer came in unison, an excited shout. “We so pledge!”

“Then he shall come forth and claim his destiny! Step forth!”

More excited shouts as the Fayleene pranced in place, working themselves into a lather.

“Step forth!” they called, “Step forth!”

“Present yourself and your consort before us: PRINCE LIAM!”

Silence and shock brought everything to a crashing halt.

I turned to Liam, who looked as thunderstruck as I felt. Somewhere off to one side, someone let out a nervous cough. And just to drive the point home, far off in the distance, a couple of crickets began to chirp.

“I…I mean…we had better go up there,” Liam whispered, and he made his way through the maze of assembled Fayleene, doing his best to ignore their unblinking stares. I followed as best I could at his side.

I noticed that most of the stares were ones of bewilderment. A couple of neutral curiosity. And a sizeable number were outright hostile. Obviously, the assembled Fayleene didn’t care a whit if we heard what they were whispering to each other.

“He has no luck! He has no magic!” said one.

“They chose that yearling over Wyeth!” another objected.

“Madness, this is madness!”

“Could he have influenced the Lead Does somehow?”

“He’s too small and frail for this duty!”

The murmurs began to creep up in tempo as we emerged from the crowd. Like the rise of an incoming tide, the rumbles from the crowd finally reached the point that not even the Lead Does could ignore it.

Orlaith’s commanding voice boomed over the assembly. “Silence! After much debate, we have chosen Prince Liam. That is all you must know to heed and obey! To disobey the laws of fey magic leads one to despair, madness, and ruin!”

I heard a strangled sound from the front rows that seemed to come from Wyeth. I couldn’t be sure, though. From where we stood, he was somewhere behind and to my right.

Orlaith made a motion with her antlers. “Step forth, Prince Liam!”

I hung back as Liam came before the older doe. He bent his forelegs and turned his head so as to give her a sweeping bow. She bade him rise, and then spoke again, this time in that same booming voice as before.

“Liam, you have been chosen before all others for this task. But before you assume the full mantle, the full magic, and the full privileges of the Protector of the Forest, you must prove yourself worthy.”

The princeling’s voice wavered unsteadily as he asked, “But how? With the old Protector dead, how must I do this?”

“You shall swear an oath that is binding upon your very soul! An oath that you shall act as the heart and soul of our proud people. Say ‘I shall’, if you so swear to take up this burden.”

Liam stood firm and proud. “I shall.”

“Say ‘I shall’, if you so swear that you shall spread your wisdom and grace to all corners of our realm.”

“I shall!”

“Say ‘I shall’, if you so swear that you shall handle any challenge or threat to our people!

My ears pricked up a little at that one. That phrase sounded like it could turn around and put someone in a bunch of hot water.

But Liam was caught up in the moment, and he did not hesitate in his answer.

“I shall!”

“Then as the senior Lead Doe, I declare you as the Protector’s Heir Apparent! Beings of magic, beings of the wood, grant unto him the first measure of his new power!”

Now, I was pretty darned amazed at what it felt like to be a Fayleene. Even more amazed to find out that they acted like high-schoolers with their put-downs, cliques, and gossip. And I was just plain floored that Liam got picked as the ‘Heir Apparent’.

But the only thing that got my delicate Fayleene jaw to drop was what happened next: pairs of blue and yellow songbirds flew from out of the branches of the nearby trees, carrying swathes of bright green cloth in their claws. They swooped in and decked Liam out in jewel-encrusted barding across his slender back and atop his head between his antlers. Someone drew back a few carefully selected tree boughs, allowing the sun to bathe the new Heir Apparent in light. The jewels in Liam’s outfit sparkled with emerald fire.

Look, I’d seen an owl fly in and crown King Fitzwilliam. But this? Let’s just say that if a certain palm-sized fairy in an avocado green one-piece flew in to tap Liam on the nose with her pixie dust wand, it wouldn’t have surprised me.

The senior Lead Doe spoke once more, this time to the mass of assembled Fayleene before us. “All of you have joined us at the dawn of a new time. A new cycle in the rebirth of our people. Go forth, and consider how you shall serve.”

The sounds of the crowd of Fayleene leaving the Grove echoed in the space behind me. Liam fairly trembled with excitement. He came over to me, his new outfit emitting a jingle with each step.

“They chose me!” he exclaimed gleefully. “They actually chose…I mean, I never would have dreamed it! My luck isn’t all bad. In fact, it’s never been better! I can feel new magic within me now, new strength in my bones!”

Orlaith chose that moment to join us. She chimed in with a voice that was softer than her commanding intonation. But it was cool, calculated, and utterly indifferent.

“It is well that you feel your new strength, princeling. You will need all of it as you leave us and plot out your stratagems.”

Liam blinked at that. “Come again?”

“I said that it is well that you feel your new strength–”

“Yes, yes. That part, I got. What about the ‘leaving’ and ‘plotting stratagems’?”

“Why, you must leave us in order to gather your allies, form your plans, and prepare your most cunning stratagems, princeling. It is, in the end, why we chose you. For even though you lack the necessary magic of the fey, even though you lack the stature to be a true hero, you do have qualities required at this moment. We felt that because of your deficiencies, you have developed the ability to deal with the centaurs, griffins, humans, and other lesser beings.”

Liam tried to speak, sputtered to a stop, and tried again.