And those assassinations, including my father, and the king (maybe)—those weren’t all recent events. They had been going on for generations. There were some royals who did not seem to be in immediate peril, like Prince Obelisk. Why?
But mainly it was that I had no handle on reality here. It was like one of those newspaper cryptic quote puzzles, where every letter given was false, and the challenge was to figure out the correct letters and thus the original quote, like “No man is an island,” etc. Only here I could not even be sure that everything was false. I would hate to think that Princess Rose was a lying schemer, or that my very presence here was a sham. I needed to find the key to make sense of this wild array of confusion.
The old king, Rose’s adopted father, had had a good notion: get out of the picture for a while and see what the other players did. I wished I could do the same, but that wasn’t feasible. I wished I could talk to him. Which made me wonder: why had Mephisto told me about the king’s survival, instead of quietly finishing the job himself? And the question brought the answer: so that the gumshoe ignoramus from Earth would ferret out the hiding king, to question him—and thus lead the king’s enemy right to him so he could be killed for good. That was the reason Mephisto had told me. What a colossal fool he figured me for! Almost successfully.
Then I suffered a blinding flash of understanding. The assassinations—they were not to eliminate prospective heirs to the throne, but to eliminate the hidden Dragon King! Because the Dragon would destroy any usurper, unless the Dragon were first eliminated himself. They did not know in whose body the Dragon hid, and were doubtless frustrated that they could never be sure the Dragon had been dealt with. Unless they located him, evoked him, and killed him. Then the throne would truly be open for usurping. So they needed to verify me as the Dragon King—and kill me. Because the Dragon had to be dead, and if I were not the Dragon I was of no use to them anyway and could be thrown away. By “them” I meant the anonymous assassin (who might or might not be Mephisto) and his minions, not Princess Rose and her loyal friends. But Rose might have been tricked into fetching me from Earth, and the assassin was watching closely. I was in the same danger as the king, for much the same reason.
I was in doubt whether I was the Dragon King, and there was a problem making the proof of that. The assassin was in doubt too, and wanted very much to know, one way or the other, so he could act. That was surely why Dubi and Rose had somehow been given the notion to bring me here: to find out. I would be best advised to see that this doubt remained indefinitely, or at least until I located the assassin and took him out. My life surely depended on it.
I drifted off into a troubled sleep, still not knowing my wisest course. What new horrors would the morrow bring?
Chapter Thirteen
I slept fitfully and awakened the next morning perhaps more tired than when I’d gone to sleep. I hated when that happened.
My guest suite was indeed fit for a king. Plush, four-poster bed. Ornate furniture. Thick animal hides. I used a nearby water basin to wash my face and a wash cloth to scrub my teeth. A clean detective is an effective detective. Although I knew very little of medieval architecture, this palace seemed surprisingly modern. I had no reason to believe the technical advances in the Realm coincided with advances on Earth; indeed, I knew so very little about the Realm. Were both worlds evolving at their own natural pace? Or was one influencing another? A lot to figure out, surely. Perhaps more than a common detective needed to worry about.
Especially a common detective who had been hired to find a killer.
I patted the pouch of gold in my front pocket. One way or another, I was getting this gold back to earth.
But first, a job to do.
That is, of course, if I wasn’t being set up, which is what this was all beginning to feel like. If so, who was setting me up and why? What advantage would they gain by misleading me, an outsider? Yes, the clues had thus far fallen naturally (and easily) into place. But clues were clues, and facts were facts. Hard to argue with either.
“Except you don’t have any real facts, do you, Mr. Detective?” I said to myself as I splashed more water on my face.
Indeed, only hearsay.
One of which was that the king was, in fact, still alive. I was here to find the king’s assassin. If the king wasn’t dead, well, my job would be complete. I could return home with my little pouch of gold—and another just like it, if Dubi and company upheld their end of the bargain—and try to forget any of this had ever happened.
Except, of course, if someone from the Realm had murdered my father.
If so, that would be another matter altogether.
For now, my goal was to look into Mephisto’s allegations that the king had faked his death. After all, it was hard to investigate a murder if the victim was alive and well.
Once confirmed, this case was over. And if they wanted to hire me to find the would-be assassin, well, it would cost them more gold.
“One case at a time,” I whispered, and headed down for breakfast.
* * *
I had buttered pastries on a wide balcony that overlooked much of what must have been the eastern Realm, if rising sun was any indicator. That was, of course, if the Realm was a parallel of earth as Dubi had suggested.
The princess was still asleep, which was just as well. When finished breaking my fast, as they called it here, I telepathically asked Fiera to summon Dubi for me. The invisible dragon, who was standing guard somewhere nearby, complied with a mental nod.
A moment later, the short wizard appeared at the balcony, blinking into the morning sun. I waved him over and he came hesitantly, looking warily over the ledge of the balcony.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Just not a fan of heights.”
This surprised me, although I wasn’t sure why. In his defense, the castle was situated high upon a craggy tor—and the balcony soared many hundreds of feet above the sprawling city far below.
“I see,” I said. “Would you prefer we talk inside?”
“No, no. I’ll be fine.” He swallowed hard. “How is your investigation coming along, Detective Roan?”
“It’s why I called you up,” I said, although I regretted doing so now. “Lord Mephisto made a wild claim.”
“As Lord Mephisto is wont to do,” said the wizard, some humor returning to his voice.
“Be that as it may, he asserted that the king had not been assassinated. That the the king is very much alive.”
The wizard blinked and some of the color returned to his cheeks. “Oh, really?”
“Yes. Further, he claims that you and the Matron would have knowledge of this. Is this true?”
“Is what true?”
“Is the king alive and do you have knowledge of this?”
“Lord Mephisto speaks with conviction for a man who has been banned from the castle. And for a man who, by all accounts, has been actively seeking to control the Realm.”
I nodded and listened, noting with interest that the wizard had effectively evaded my question. I also watched his body language and listened closely to his tone of voice. Yes, some of the nuances were undoubtedly lost in translation, but what I was seeing was classic evasion. His eyes shifted. He lifted his hand to rub his chin. Averting the eyes and hiding the mouth were classic lying “tells.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “But does he speak the truth?”
Dubi turned away, looking out toward the rising sun. “The king is dead.”
“Thank you, Dubi. I do not want to keep you up here longer than necessary.”
He nodded sadly, took in some air, and left the balcony much faster than when he’d arrived.
When he was gone, I had Fiera summon the Matron. The dragon obliged, and shortly the stout woman who sported a permanent grimace came out onto the balcony.
“You summoned me, Sir Roan.”
“Indeed,” I said, still getting used to the formal title. Up until a day ago, the only ‘sir’ I heard was usua
lly from an exasperated bill collector.
I asked the Matron to sit across from me, which she did. She declined a pastry and so I got to it, asking her what she knew of the possibility that the king had survived the attack.
“Nonsense,” she said.
No hand covering her mouth. No looking away. In fact, she didn’t move or even blink, as far as I could see.
“It seems that Lord Mephisto’s claim should be explored.”
“Explore if you must, but let me assure you that I saw the king’s body.”
“On the balcony,” I said.
“Of course.”
“Was he alone?”
“Yes.”
“One arrow or two?”
“One.”
“And this occurred at night?”
“Yes, I already told you all this.”
I ignored her irritation. Investigators make a living by asking the same questions, to see if we get the same answers. “What were you doing just prior to hearing the king cry out?”
“I was making my rounds.”
“What do your rounds consist of?”
“Checking on rooms, bathrooms, supplies.”
“Did you check on the princess that night?”
“Yes.”
“Before the king was attacked?”
“I think so, yes.”
“You think so?”
“Yes, I’m sure of it. Just before.”
“And she will attest to your claim?”
“I don’t see why not. I thought I answered all of these questions be—”
“Do my questions make you uncomfortable?”
“Of course not.”
“Very well,” I said. “Was the king dead when you found him?”
“Yes.”
“What position was he in?”
“Sitting up, propped against the door.”
“The door into the bedroom?”
“Yes.”
I visualized the king’s balcony again. In fact, it wasn’t very different from the one we were on now. The king could have taken the arrow...and stumbled back into the door, dying before he could go inside.
“Do you have any knowledge of the king faking his death?”
“None.”
Is she telling the truth, Fiera?
Her mind is closed, Sir Roan.
Is it common for her mind to be closed?
I have never dipped into her mind before.
Then how would she know to close it?
She didn’t, came Fiera’s reply. Until she was coached by Dubi just moments before you summoned her.
Dubi?
I thought about that, and then thanked the Matron for her time. She nodded curtly and left.
* * *
I was alone in the castle, absently wandering the halls, feeling a bit lost but not worried about it. I always thought best when I was walking. I solved more cases by walking the streets of Los Angeles.
I came across more than one tapestry of the Dragon King. Standing guards, armed with short and long swords, dotted the palace and watched me suspiciously, but none stopped me. Apparently, I had been given permission to wander through the castle.
Dubi had seemed evasive. The Matron less so, although she just might be a better liar. Dubi had coached her to close her mind. Why? I thought about that as I walked. Obviously there was something there that he didn’t want Fiera to ferret out. And, as the dragon admitted, it had never occurred to her dip into the Matron’s mind before.
So what were Dubi and the Matron hiding?
The answer seemed obvious. If Lord Mephisto’s hypothesis (and magic) was correct, they were hiding information regarding the death of the king.
I thought about this long and hard...and decided that I wouldn’t know the truth until I truly found the king—and it looked like I wasn’t going to get much help from the court wizard or the head of staff.
There was, however, one person who would be of help to me.
The princess herself.
* * *
I found her in her bedroom, sitting before a glass mirror and applying make-up.
“You have been very active this morning, according to Fiera,” she said, glancing at me in the mirror. I stood behind her, marveling at the smoothness of her shoulders, the perfect sweep of her slender neck, the thickness of her fair hair. Yeah, that love spell had done a number on me. The perfection of her neck? Never had such a thought occurred to me...and yet...her neck looked so very perfect. And so very kissable.
I somehow managed to control myself. “You didn’t hire me to sleep.”
She nodded, running a comb slowly through her lustrous hair. “Am I still a suspect to my own father’s murder? I thought you confirmed my innocence?”
“I had, but I’m here to follow up on the possibility that your father might—”
“Still be alive? Oh, rubbish!” said Rose, slamming her comb down. “Lord Mephisto is clearly lying.”
“What does he gain by lying?”
“Who knows? Maybe to deflect blame.”
“And why wait twenty or so years to exact his revenge?”
“You will have to ask him that.”
“I did,” I said evenly. “And he assured me that he did not kill the king. I believe him.”
“He is a liar and you are a fool to believe him.”
“He is also your father.”
“My real father was murdered, and Lord Mephisto is going to pay.”
She resumed brushing her hair, and I decided to approach this from another angle, an angle that had occurred to me while walking the castle passageways. “Did your father have a fear of heights?”
She nodded almost instantly. “Deathly.”
“Were your father and Dubi good friends?”
She frowned and glanced at me in the mirror. “Of course. Dubi is the royal wizard, trusted for decades.”
“Did he actually say he trusted Dubi?”
“On many occasions. We all do.”
I paused before asking my next question, then plunged forward. “Did you ever, in fact, see your father and Dubi together?”
She stopped brushing again. “What do you mean?”
“Did you ever see your father and the wizard together in the same room, side by side?”
“Of course. What a ridiculous—”
“Think back,” I urged.
“Of course...” she began, but then closed her mouth. She opened it to speak again, but then promptly closed it again. Next, the brush clattered to the floor. “What are you implying?”
Fiera, I said, send for Dubi.
I already have, Sir Roan.
A moment later, the door to the bedroom suite opened and Dubi strode in.
“Two summons in one morning,” said the wizard jovially enough. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Dubi,” said Princess Rose, rising. “Sir Roan might need some medical aid.”
“Oh?” said the wizard, raising a bushy eyebrow. “What ails you, detective?”
“He’s obviously suffered a head injury because he’s not thinking straight. Sir Roan thinks that you are the king.”
The wizard’s eyes widened briefly, and he turned his back to us and faced the open balcony door.
“Tell him he’s crazy, Dubi,” she said. I heard the tremble in her voice, and didn’t blame her. “Please.”
“I can’t tell him that,” said the wizard, turning. “Because he’s not.”
Princess Rose gasped. I might have gasped, too. It was one thing to have a hunch, but quite another to be right.
It was then that the princess fainted.
She might have hit the floor hard if not for a wispy, billowy cushion appearing beneath her. She landed softly, where she lay unharmed, and quite unconscious. I went immediately to her side and checked her vitals. She was breathing, just out cold.
Dubi swept to her side as well, and passed a hand just over her body. He patted her cheek tenderly, then stood. “She will be fine,”
said Dubi. “I’m afraid she’s suffered one too many shocks over the past few days.”
I picked her up carefully and laid her on the bed. “Two fathers,” I said. “In two days.”
“Enough to make any one faint.” He looked at me. “How did you know?” In that moment, he shimmered and appeared before me as another man entirely. A handsome man, actually. A man who looked strikingly like my father.
The thought nearly overwhelmed me. He was, of course, my grandfather. My father’s father.
I’m going crazy, I thought. In fact, I suddenly felt lightheaded. Dubi guided me to a nearby stool. “Easy, old boy,” he said.
He stood over me while I collected my thoughts. Finally, I said, “You share a fear of heights.”
“Very good,” he said. “But many have such a fear. Surely there was more to lead you to believe I was the king.”
“That, and you and the king were never in the same room. Undoubtedly you worked double time concealing your identity as Dubi.”
“It was a challenge and oft-times I confused the roles.”
“But why a wizard?” I asked.
The handsome older man regarded me with my father’s eyes. “I was a king by birth, but a wizard by choice.”
“I don’t understand.”
“As you are aware, royalty have the potential for magic. The potential within me was great. Too great for me to ignore.”
“And so you created Dubi the Magician.”
“He has served me well. I can watch over my kingdom and watch over my daughter.”
I stood and paced before the bed where the princess still lay resting. “But why summon me from earth?” I asked. “If it was all a charade?”
“Oh, it wasn’t as much of a charade as you might think, Detective. My guards and I had been well aware that there was a plot afoot to assassinate me. However, try as we might, we were unable to locate the source of the attack.”
“Lord Mephisto?”
“Is harmless. Yes, he bore a grudge against me for stealing his girlfriend—Rose’s mother, in fact. But no one loved her more than I, although my time with her was comparatively brief. No, Lord Mephisto does not have it in him for treason against his country and king.”