In Blue Blood

The Kobold was dead. Many in the village would espouse the view that his death was hardly a cause for mourning. Funerary cloths retained their rightful place in armoires. As the news spread, second and third rounds of ale were bought, fiddles taken out of their cases to be played. Flowers were plucked and braided into all manner of hair. The din of celebration rustled songbirds in their dewy sleep amongst the tops of tallest trees. Alvy— the Kobold in question—was regarded as a nuisance at best and a terror at worst.

Though I may have secretly shared in the collective sentiment, I was resolved to retain my professional decorum and an unclouded eye. In fact, Alvy’s collectively felt enmity greatly embroiled my current undertaking. As sole forensic investigator in the village, my mission was now to uncover the cause and culprit of Alvy’s untimely demise. For yes, he had been murdered. And anyone and everyone in Hearthwood had motive to commit his eventual undoing.

The rains were coming. Their imminent arrival announced itself in the form of my aching knee—it would only be a matter of hours. In which time, the torrential deluge would wash away all manner of evidence surrounding Alvy’s abode—footprints, fibers, DNA.

I was just packing the last of my equipment bag when the sound of a large peck resounded upon the wooden door of my cottage, rattling its every frame to the foundation. Sighing, I winced as I stood up laboriously, hobbling haphazardly onto my aching knee, cane in hand. And downed the dregs of my wood whiskey, sitting on the end table. I put out my pipe. I donned my cloak and my hat.

I turned the doorknob. A gust of wind knocked off my freshly-positioned hat and billowed my long beard back behind me.

Podargia announced her presence with a squawky hello, then let herself in with a flourish that returned my hat to my crown.

“Do you have any crackers?” She inquired. Before I could respond—the sound of cabinet doors opening, a riffling beak, cabinets shutting.

Among the classifications that have been used to describe Podargia include: terror-bird, Harpy, One of the Three. She sported the beak and legs of an Emu, the body and wings of a vulture and the face of a beautiful she-Elf. Likes included: bad jazz, shiny things and crackers. Her vocation: town coroner for Hearthwood.

I opened a drawer in the sideboard, pulled out a zippered bag.

“Here, you can have some now and some after. Wouldn’t want you to get too full to fly. Or worse, fall asleep on the job like last time. Remember? You were in a full-on Cracker coma. Come on, we better beat feet. Before the storm arrives.”

Cocking her head, she eyed my bad knee skeptically. With a long crane of her neck, she plucked the crackers out of my hand.

“Walk?” She chortled. “I think not. If I’m going to carry you there, I’m gonna need my strength.”

“Fine,” I harrumphed.

…

Hearth extinguished, door locked. Shortly thereafter I found my shoulders (properly padded this time) hoisted by powerful talons. Soon the town lights were behind us, forested darkness ahead. So too, the celebratory din of the townsfolk. Cracker crumbs mounded atop my hat (now strapped on with taut ribbon under my chin). The clouds threatened their thickening between the stars above. The trees tousled their heads in what seemed a league below my feet. Night crickets and bassooning frogs rang out their chords between notes of wind. In discordant harmony, Podargia scatted out a jazz tune between cracker mouthfuls. (“I can’t help it, it’s stuck in my head,” she fake-apologized over the cacophony.)

The descent was swift and rocky. My feet met the ground. I shook my head and rubbed my shoulders as Podargia released her grip.

Alvy’s shack slumped before us, eerie and dilapidated in the starlit gloam. The half-rotted boards of the low dwelling were covered in moss, spaced far apart and held together by too few nails, most of whom were rusted. Most of Alvy’s ilk were home hoppers and home “invaders” of a sort, manifesting and making (generally benign) mischief in others’ homes before they were placated by small gifts or services, at which point they often took up more permanent residence with a mutual understanding/symbiosis achieved by all parties involved. Once bored, Kobolds would then take their leave, moving on to the next house. Rinse, repeat. It was thus quite telling that Alvy had lived alone for so long in this wind-beaten shack far outside the edge of town. No other home would have him.

“Let’s get this over with.” I unlatched my equipment case, took out my lamp and lit it with a long match. We wound bags around our feet and fastened them, so as not to produce any new footprints. The scene must not be contaminated. I slipped on a fresh pair of gloves.

The door creaked as it opened. One small corner solar light cast a weak illuminated glow over the one-room dwelling. And thus, the grisly scene before us. In the middle of a room was a single table, whereupon Alvy’s small, lifeless body lay. His arms and legs drooped over its edge. Flopped like delicate noodles, boiled too long. Rigor mortis had not set in yet. Drops of his blue blood (mixed with another, unknown substance, whitish-silver in hue) pattered to the floor, joining their brethren in a puddle below.

“I almost feel for the bastard,” I admit, taking out my camera and flash. Handing the lantern to Podargia, “Here, hold this.” She clasped the handle in her beak so it hovered above his body. I angled the lens—click. The camera shuttered, the flash blazed. Click.

On Alvy’s face—one last mischievous smirk, worn like a badge. Click. An unpleasant memory snapped over my thoughts and reeled.

Last year, winter: in the town square on market day, walking to the druggist to pick up my weekly tincture, wrapped in cloak and pea coat. Cane brandished, I hobbled on the cobblestones. Everyone shouting from their various stalls to “come over, sir, just one look.” The smells of stews, spices and unwashed bodies muddled the frigid air. What had the druggist said? Ah yes, that he was adding a new , experimental ingredient to my weekly remedy. Though still widely considered a “trial substance,” early results showed high promise. I would try anything, I had professed.

At long last, the banner head of the druggist’s store came into view. Just a few more steps. A horde of children swarmed me, hands and appendages held out. “Please sir, a few bits, if you be so kind.”

Then, a flash of blue at my feet and my cane (with my hand still attached) rocketed forward, forehead fast following suit, hitting the cobblestones. My last impressions before losing consciousness: the ringing laughter of children, Alvy’s blue quixotic smirk—the very same half-crescent that presented itself before me now. After that moment in the market square, it took a long time to work up the courage to leave the house again. I stewed in my hermetic ruminations. The rumors of Alvy’s mischievous ministrations were vast and varied, but why target me?

One last click. I returned my camera to its case. There were several lacerations about Alvy's neck and chest.

"Thoughts?" I look to Podargia. Hopping around his body, with care not to disturb the scene, she noted:

"Aha! Got it." She proceeded to the few, diminutive cabinets to the right of the table and began riffling them."

"Really, Pod? Whatever happened to having little respect for the dead, huh?" I shook my head.

"And let these crackers go to waste?" She triumphantly held a bag aloft.

"Don't crunch them in here! You'll compromise the scene." I scold.

She scoffed. "Of course, but I think you'll find the scene already compromised. By various parties!"

"Go on..."

As I listen, I remove the test strips, mobile acid-base titrator and chromatographer from their cases. Dipping the strips into various points of the unknown silvery substance, I pipetted drops into the mass spectrometer, liquid chromatographer and titrator.

"Well, note the panel behind him, a newer board than the others. He is probably hiding something there. When his attacker or attackers were looking for this hidden object, he wouldn't tell them and was killed for it. Note the first set of prints: hoof marks. Then there is the broken glass and the unknown substance. Everyone knows that kobolds love milk. Our perp (either the same first one or a second one) tried to win him over with a glass of milk. Things get ugly--the glass breaks. A fight breaks out, Alvy finds himself at the other end of a knife. The curious thing is--Kobolds are shapeshifters of a sort and most can appear/disappear at will--so why not just poof out of the way when the knife appears? Which leads to the second point: the red fur strands by the fireplace. And the singed boards. Someone tried to burn down his shack, singe the evidence. Then was interrupted by the second perp arriving so left in a hurry, job unfinished."

It never failed to amaze me that Pod could deduce this much over the course of a minute.

"So how does this first perp get away undiscovered?"

Pod sighed. "Really, Ronan, you can be so thick sometimes! Come on, think. The red fur, the fire, knifing a shapeshifter who should be able to just poof out of the way?"

"A Fire Fox, perhaps? Hmm, true, they are the more proficient shapeshifters. Than Kobolds that is."

"Yes!" She squawked to the low rafters. "Then the hoofed perp comes in, riffles for something. Knocks over the milk glass. Finds vials in the cabinet, absconds with them." Podargia unfurled a wing to showcase the dusty rings in the cabinet behind her--ghost shapes of the absent vials.

A ding resounded at my feet. The instruments announcing their analysis complete.

Results revealed the following:

1. Hemoglobin and copper, for Alvy's blood (the copper(II) sulfate pentahydrate was the compound responsible for its blue hue)

2. milk proteins--casein, among others--lactose, calcium, phosphorus and slight levels of additional minerals

3. Present in third separated substance: sucrose, glucose, malic acid, phytohormones, ethanol and ergot-like fungal compound

"Just as I suspected. It appears to be a highly potent substrate of Chi'El. With Alvy's blood mixed in, of course. Hmm, ergot or some fungal compound though. Highly irregular. Let me test one more thing."

I filled a pipette with Alvy's blood, straight from one of his wounds, then reran the tests--with the concentration of his blood being higher than the other compounds. We waited.

In the meantime, Podargia worked at the light-colored board behind the table, hitting it with her beak in all directions.

"Chi'El, eh?" Peck. Thump. "I suppose we better pay the Satyrs a visit."

Chi'El, was by all accounts, the chief claim to fame of Hearthwood. Hearthwood's chief export, its bread and butter so to speak. In its basic form, it was composed of sap (from trees endemic to our region) and satyr milk. There were countless varieties and flavors, however. Breweries and vineyards used Chi'el as the base for a myriad of libations, a sort of milk mead being chief among them (with tree sap substituting for honey).

Plunk. Beep. The board succumbed and fell. The machines announced their results. Podargia coughed as dust plumed up from the hidden cubby. "A map! A map!" She rasped, hoisting it, then scuttled over to plop it at my feet.

"And the results--just as I suspected!"

"Would you stop saying that?"

"Saying what?" I turned.

"You always say 'just as I suspected,' even when that can't possibly be the case. Not everything is predictable."

I gave her a long, unfaltering stare. "In any case. When Alvy's blood is added to the mixture at higher concentrations, the concentration of the ergot-like substrate gets reduced to almost nothing. The copper(II) sulfate pentahydrate acts as a fungicide."

"Hmm. And who might have known that, I wonder?" She mused as we unrolled the map. The only recognizable demarcation on the map was the compass rose in the bottom right corner. The rest of the map was filled with what appeared to be tightly scrawled Runic symbols clustered haphazardly. A clap of thunder resounded outside, trembling the timbers of the tiny shack. I jumped.

"Let's pack it up." Podargia carefully shrouded Alvy's body. I helped to strap the body bag to her back. Crime scene cordoned off and tape across the door. Equipment bag packed (along with map) and in hand, we took to the skies once again, dodging lightning bolts all the way.

Podargia released me at my front door, soaked, bedraggled and sore. She continued on to the morgue to deposit Alvy's body. I wanted nothing more than to succumb to sleep's sweet oblivion, but there was a letter to draft.

***

I met Podargia the next morning at the gate to the Satyr commune--a sprawling, enclosed center for milk production and processing. The Satyrs, though outwardly jovial and free-spirited, were notoriously secretive about the goings-on of their operation and admittance to outsiders was, as a rule, forbidden.

Early morning light spilled through the filigree of the altitudinous gate--the shadows of its tracery splayed out like scrollwork at their feet. "Did you get the warrant?" Podargia leaned over to whisper, after we gave the most resounding knock we could muster. I nodded sleepily. I had sent the letter by owl late last night and had received the Judge's warrant early in the morning. No one came to the gate. Oh wait, there's a bell. It was too high up for either of us to reach standing so Pod flew up to give it a deep dent with her beak.

The faint clomp of hooves grew closer and less faint. Muffled sounds of stumbling and giggling accented the clomps--"ok, I'm getting it,hold oonnn." The portcullis opened a foot.

A horned head poked out high above them and a hoofed leg wobbled and steadied itself below it.

"Can I help you?" the voice of the Satyress rang out, looking to and fro.

I pulled out the judge's writ from my satchel.

"Yes. I don't believe we've had the pleasure--I am Ronan, forensic investigator and my compatriot here is Podragia, town coroner. We were hoping you could give us a tour and answer a few questions--and you are?"

The Satyress startled and laughed.

"Ha! You almost scared the hide outta me--I didn't see you there at first! Sorry." She cleared her throat and laughed, attempting to assume a dignified demeanor by bowing solemnly over her extended hoof.

"Oh no, too soon." She straightened up dizzily and rested her head against the gate, exhaling forcefully. "I am Milkweed, chief Matron here at Astral Cloud. And what is the manner concerning? We are typically not in the habit of opening our doors to gnomes and whatever you are," she tipped her horns to gesture towards Podargia,"no offense." She batted her large doe eyes.

I cleared my throat. Podargia clicked her beak. "I'm afraid past practices and typical practices have no bearing in this particular case. A member of our community has been murdered." I unfurled the warrant and held it aloft.

"What's all this about, babe?" A ripped satyr peaked out from behind the heavy, iron portcullis. Looking around, he tousled his luscious locks of fur, eyes eventually meeting ours. "Hey." His silky baritone wafted over the present party. "I'm Faun." Pipes jangled gently at his side, hanging in a loose ring off of his leather belt. Milkweed apprised him of the situation, then turned back to us,

"Faun is our main brood stallion, if you, you know, you catch my drift. All the maids fawwwn over him," she giggled prettily, eyes heavy-lidded.

"But I'm his first mate. He’s a Sagittarrius sun and I’m a Sagittarius moon." She draped her arms over Faun's rippling shoulders, kicking a hoof daintily up behind her.

Podargia chortled. Muttering under her breath,"Wow. Get a room."

"Charmed, I'm sure. Ronan, forensic investigator," I made a perfunctory bow.

Faun leant over to further inspect the warrant. "Judge Skvader?" he swallowed. Milkweed and Faun conferred, whispering, heads close together. The judge in question had a reputation for imposing strange sentences on guilty parties: Five years harvesting and skinning carrots for twelve hours a day, was one such.

Faun opened the portcullis a few inches wider. "Do come in." Podargia and I squeezed by and were at once met by the cloying smells of incense, wine and milk. Our hosts giggled and stumbled in front of us.

To the right was a circular building that stretched on up to the compound's edge on either side. "This,"Milkweed intoned, "is our milking and milk processing center. Most of our maids are still asleep given the early hour and the well, festivities, last night, " she hiccuped.