The real George, the one next to me, touched his cane and the projection vanished.
“The war on Nexus has to stop,” he said. “It won’t be ended by noble means, because if good intentions, compassion, and meaningful dialogue could’ve solved this, peace would’ve been reached already. Sometimes to stop something this terrible, you have to do something equally terrible in return at a great personal cost, and that terrible thing can’t be done by one of the principals in this conflict. They must be able to walk away clean, united and guiltless or the peace won’t last. Someone must bear the blame and the rage. I am that someone. I take the full responsibility for tomorrow. I am the one responsible. I forced it to happen. I’m sorry that you must also be involved. It is unfair that I used you. Nobody will ever know what you have done or what it cost you. Your name and mine will be forgotten quickly, but we will both know and remember what we have done and why it had to be done. The psy-booster runs on magic. I will fuel it for you tomorrow.”
He turned and walked away, leaving me alone on the mosaic floor.
A while ago I told Sophie that George was merciless. She told me that he was compassionate and merciless at once, a contradiction. I understood now. There was no contradiction. George was merciless to himself. At the end of this, everyone, including me, would look for someone to blame for the pain and the suffering that lay ahead. He made sure that he was that someone. He took it all on himself, because the dead wept on Nexus when he returned their memories. He would take all of the guilt and carry it away with him, absolving me, because he had forced my hand. He had even done it a moment ago, when he told me he had used me.
I would have to watch him very carefully tomorrow. He would give as much of himself to the psy-booster as he could. I didn’t want George to die.
Chapter 16
I stood just beyond the door, watching the grand ballroom through a one way window the inn had made for me. The hall shone tonight, the constellations on its ceiling bright, the floor all but glowing. The Holy Anocracy stood on the right, in full armor, shoulder to shoulder, like a phalanx of ancient warriors using their bodies as shields. Across from them the Horde stood grim-faced, arranged in a wedge formation with the Khanum in front, a huge basher on her left, and Dagorkun on her right. Clan Nuan crowded on the left as well, some distance from the otrokari, shielding their matriarch with their bodies. Turan Adin in full armor stood between them and the Horde.
The wagons were circled, the weapons were primed, and the faces were grim. They eyed each other, ready for the violence to erupt, and they glanced at the four foot high bud growing from the center of the floor. The bud’s thick green sepals remained firmly shut.
My parents would be ashamed of me. Here were the guests of my inn. They had stayed at Gertrude Hunt for almost two weeks, a place where they were supposed to be protected and safe, yet they expected to be attacked at any moment. If the Innkeeper assembly ever saw this, Gertrude Hunt would lose all of her stars. There was no helping it now.
George stood by the bud, his handsome face solemn. The gold embroidery on his soft brown vest, the color of whiskey, glinted weakly in the light. His people had taken positions behind each of the factions: Jack stood behind the vampires, Sophie behind the Horde, and Gaston behind the merchants. He had discussed it with me prior to the meeting, and when I asked for his reasoning, he told me that Gaston had natural resistance to poisons, Sophie had a strong psychological impact on the Horde and Jack apparently had a lot of practice fighting soldiers in armor.
I ran through my mental checklist: Beast and the cat securely locked in my bedroom and the inn wouldn’t let them out, the sound dampeners activated, the street-facing facade reinforced. Yes, that was everything. You could set off an explosion in the grand ballroom now, and nobody outside the inn would hear a single sound.
A rustle of fabric announced Her Grace’s arrival to the bottom of the stairs. She wore a dark green dress with a silk-like sheen, cinched to one side at her waist with a jeweled clasp and spilling down into a long skirt with a train embellished by glittering embroidery. Long matching gloves covered her hands and arms. A luxurious fur collar, dark hunter green with individual hairs gradually changing color to blood red at their tips, framed her shoulders. Black and green eight-inch spikes protruded from the collar, biological weapons of some long-dead alien predator. Matching small spikes decorated her elaborate bejeweled hair brooch. A necklace of emeralds, each the size of my thumbnail and framed in small fiery diamonds, graced her neck. She looked every inch exactly what she was: a ruthless, cunning animal of prey, armed with razor-sharp intelligence and unhindered by morals.
Caldenia saw my robe. Her eyebrows crept up.
Under ordinary circumstances, an innkeeper was an unobtrusive shadow, readily identifiable if the guests looked for her yet drawing no attention to herself. Our robes reflected that: grey, brown, dark blue, or hunter green, they served as our uniform. We had no need to impress. A bit of embroidery along the hem was as far as embellishment went. Yet once in a while, an occasion required that the full extent of our power had to be communicated. Today was that kind of day. I wore my judgment robe. Solid black, it swallowed the light. It pulled you in and if you looked directly at it for too long, you would get a strange sensation that you were plunging into a bottomless dark well, as if someone had reached deep into the abyss, scooped out primordial darkness, then spun and woven it into a fabric. Lightweight and voluminous, the material of the robe was so thin that the slightest air current stirred it, and even now, in a draftless hallway, its hem moved and shifted as if some mystic power fanned it. The robe was impenetrable. No matter what sophisticated scanner a being might employ to augment their vision, I would appear the same, a specter, a chilling cousin of the Grim Reaper, my face hidden by my hood so only my mouth and chin remained visible. The broom in my hand had turned into a staff, its shaft the color of obsidian.
There were few universal principles in this world. That most water-based lifeforms drank tea was one. That we fear what we cannot see was the other. They would look at my robe, trying to discern the contours of my body, and when the abyss forced them to look away, they would search for my eyes trying to convince themselves I wasn’t a threat. They would find no reassurance.
“Well,” Caldenia said. “This should prove interesting.”
“Stay by my side, Your Grace.”
“I shall, my dear.”
The wall parted before me and I strode into my ballroom. They all had their show. It was time for mine.
The weak murmurs died. Silence claimed the hall and within it I glided across the floor without a sound. As I moved, darkness rolled across the floor, walls, and ceiling, a menacing shadow of my power. The light dimmed. The constellations died, snuffed out by my presence. Watch me as I end your universe.
I reached the bulb. George didn’t step back, but he thought about it, because he unconsciously leaned back, trying to widen the distance between me and him. The darkness rolled behind me and remained there, an anti-sunrise blocking out the stars. Caldenia took a spot behind me on my left.
Nobody said a thing.
The floor parted in front of me and a thin stalk of the inn lifted a platter supporting a glass tea kettle half-filled with wassa tea. The light within the platter set the tea kettle aglow, making the tea sparkle like a precious ruby. Or like blood.
The Horde stiffened. Nuan Cee visibly braced himself.
“There is a killer in this inn.” My voice rolled through the grand ballroom, a too-loud whisper charged with power. “A killer I will now punish.”
“By what right?” The question came from the vampire side. I had ratcheted the pressure to the limit. All of them were already on edge. If I weren’t careful, they would erupt.
“By the right of the Treaty your governments signed. Those who attack guests within an inn lose all protections of their homeland. Your status, your wealth, and your position do not matter. You are in my domain. Here I alone am the judge, the ju
ry, and the executioner.”
I turned, my robe moving lightly along the floor, and began to circle the tea kettle. A projection spilled out of the ceiling: me sitting on the divan, Dagorkun serving the tea, Caldenia picking up her cup.
“One of you made an effort to move through the inn unseen. One of you employed a device that hid his or her image.”
The tension was thick, I kept waiting for it to crack like a thunderclap.
“This device was stolen and duplicated. The original was returned to its owner. The duplicate was used to poison the tea in this kettle.”
The ruby-red tea shone once, responding to the light.
“Who?” Arland demanded. “Who brought the device?”
“I did,” Nuan Cee said.
“You!” the Khanum snarled.
The darkness flared behind me like a hungry beast ready to devour. They fell silent.
“There are only three motives for murder. Sex. Revenge.” I paused. “And greed.”
A contract appeared on the projection, huge, almost nine feet tall, hanging like a banner from the ceiling. On it odd symbols lined up into words next to an image of Caldenia.
“Less than a day after the location of this peace summit became known, this contract went off the market,” I said. “Someone had taken the job.”
The symbols mutated into general galactic script, showing a number large enough to buy a small planet. Jack whistled in the back.
“Cai Pa?” Caldenia blinked. “You mean to tell me this comes from that sniveling worm of a magnate who decorated his palace with jewel-eyed portraits of his horrid family? After two decades, he still wants me dead over a casual remark?”
“Yes.”
Caldenia put her hand over her chest, her gloved fingertips barely touching her skin, leaned back, and laughed. It was a rich throaty laugh, showing off the forest of triangular sharp teeth inside her mouth.
Everyone stared.
“After all these years, I’ve still got it.” She chuckled. “Delightful.”
“The question is, why poison the entire kettle?” I said. “Three people would have drunk from it and all three would have died. The consequences for all factions involved would’ve been dire.”
I paced back, passing my hand above the kettle. It pulsed with a bright spark in response.
“An experienced assassin would’ve selected the time and place of his strike carefully. An experienced assassin would’ve weighed the risks and realized that such a crime wouldn’t go undiscovered or unpunished. The esteemed Nuan Cee is an experienced assassin, cunning, smart, and disciplined. He wouldn’t have taken that risk.”
I turned back. The motion of my walking was enough to keep my robe shifting, as if stirred by some mystical power, and I needed as much impact as I could get.
“No, this assassin was someone who hadn’t had a lot of practice. Someone inexperienced. Someone young. Someone desperate and easily tempted.”
Nuan Cee’s lips trembled baring a hint of his teeth. He just put it all together.
“Tell us, esteemed Merchant, what is the unspoken custom of your clan when a bright member of your family is about to reach adulthood?”
“The clan takes measures to make sure that the young one stays bound to the family for a while longer,” Nuan Cee said through clenched teeth. “It is done to preserve the family’s wealth.”
“Just like you have done with Cookie?”
The projection showed a close up of the emerald vanishing into thin air.
Cookie gasped.
“Yes,” Nuan Cee said.
“You arrange for a child approaching adulthood to make a mistake, a mistake that puts them in debt to the clan, which they then have to repay?” I had to really break it down so everyone got it.
“Yes.”
“And how many years of service does Nuan Sama owe you?”
The Nuan Clan parted as every member simultaneously stepped aside. Nuan Cee’s niece stood alone in the circle of her family members.
“Nuan Sama had made some additional mistakes,” Nuan Cee ground out. “Her debt to the clan is substantial.”
“It wasn’t me,” Nuan Sama smiled. “Why would I do such a foolish thing? I love my clan. I have no desire to leave.”
Wow. That was some serious chutzpah.
“When Hardwir repaired the vehicle with the molecular synthesizer, you were asked to assist him. You’re an expert in age sequencing.” I turned to the vampires. “What did Nuan Sama suggest before we began the repairs?”
“She said that we should try it on a complex piece of equipment to make sure the results were optimal,” Hardwir answered. I had already talked to him about it before the gathering.
“Did she provide such a piece of equipment?”
“Yes.”
“The esteemed engineer misunderstood” Nuan Sama said. “I brought him a part from our ship.”
“You brought me an image disruptor,” Hardwir said. “We duplicated it and then you took both of them away.”
“It is his word against mine,” Nuan Sama said.
“There were only three people besides the otrokari who knew the Khanum had invited me to her tea,” I continued. “Me, Her Grace whom I called directly after I received the invitation, and you.”
“The honored innkeeper has no way of knowing I was the only one,” Nuan Sama said. “After all, the honored innkeeper couldn’t even tell if her tea was poisoned.”
Nice. “When you dropped the poison into the kettle, you felt a puff of wind. Did you not wonder what that puff might have been?”
Nuan Sama shook her furry head, the many silver hoops gently clinking against each other. “I was never there.”
“That puff was a dye,” I said. “The inn had marked you. Shall we see if your fur is stained?”
A lamp sprouted from the ceiling. She didn’t wait for the light. Nuan Sama leapt straight up, flipping in the air as she tried to clear the crowd of her clansmen. A furry blur shot toward her. They collided in mid-air and landed back in the circle of the clansmen, her uncle next to her.
Pawed hands grabbed her, as her relatives rushed to restrain her.
“You took a contract not sanctioned by the family?” Nuan Cee’s voice was mournful.
“I did,” she snarled.
“Why?”
“Why?” Nuan Sama’s voice rose, shaking. “Why? Do you need me to tell you why? I’ve been an adult for four years. I want my freedom. I want my money, the money that was rightfully due to me on my majority and the one you and the rest of them stole from me. You’ve trapped me and you work me like I’m some indentured servant. Can’t you see, you’re suffocating me? I can’t even breathe the same air as you. It’s poison to me, uncle.”
The floor under Nuan Sama’s feet turned liquid. She began to sink. The foxes frantically tried to pull her out.
“Uncle!”
Nuan Cee spun toward me. “No!”
“She belongs to me,” I said, loading all my magic into my creepy voice.
Nuan Sama had sank in to her knees. She was screaming and whimpering now, making sharp fox noises as her family tried desperately to pull her free.
“She will be punished!” Nuan Cee cried out.
“I know,” I told him. “It won’t be quick or easy.”
“A favor from the merchants is worth more than the life of one unskilled assassin.” Caldenia murmured next to me. “I assume you have a plan, dear?”
“Yes,” I murmured.
Nuan Cee pivoted to Sean. Turan Adin shook his head. Yep. I didn’t think so. According to Wilmos, nothing in Sean’s contract obligated him to serve as a bodyguard to spoiled rich girl assassins.
The floor reached Nuan Sama’s hips. Desperation vibrated in her voice. “Help me, uncle! Help me!”
Nuan Cee turned to me. “Yes. Whatever it is you want, yes.”
I flicked my fingers. The floor solidified, trapping the fox in place. I needed a visual aid in case Nuan Cee developed second thoughts
.
“What is this?” The Khanum’s eyes narrowed.
I heard the buzzing sound of a blood weapon being primed. The vampires were ready to rumble.
“The Holy Anocracy, the Horde, and the Merchants. All of you are responsible for spilling blood within these walls. All of you owe me a debt. I am calling it in. It’s time to settle your accounts.”
“What do you want?” Lady Isur asked.
“Your memories.” I touched my staff to the bulb. The fuzzy green sepals peeled back. Delicate, translucent flower petals unfurled, hair-thin and glowing with pale green near their base, then turning transparent, and finally darkening to a magenta toward the tips. Long, whip-like stamens, coated in soft blue light, stretched from within the flower, reaching and twisting, and inside, in the whorl of petals, the psy-booster glittered.
“You want to take our memories?” Dagorkun asked.
“Not take. I want you to share them with me.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” the Khanum snarled.
“I do.” You know why I am asking it. Your reason is standing right there, next to you.
George stepped forward, undid the clasp on his wrist cuff, and rolled the sleeve back, exposing a muscular scarred arm.
“You do not want this,” Robart said, his voice suffused with so much sadness. “You do not want to experience my memories, Innkeeper.”
“Yes, I do. This is my price. Your honor demands you pay it. If you do not, there will be consequences.”
I had no idea what those consequences would be, but it sounded impressive.
George rolled back his other sleeve.
“Very well.” The Khanum’s face was terrible. She stepped forward.
I shook my head. “No. Him.” I pointed my staff at the shaman.
Ruga’s eyebrows crept together. He walked forward and stopped before me, corded with dry muscle, his charms and totems hanging from the belt of his kilt. Odalon shouldered his way through the vampires and came to stand next to Ruga, resplendent in his crimson battle vestments.