If I severed the seed from the girl, the web would likely pull the shell apart. The moment the seed was free, it would root and sprout. But it couldn’t sprout here. This place was already occupied by Gertrude Hunt. Its roots stretched far; its branches spread through the fabric of time and space, altering it forever, and the area of that distortion was much wider than the town of Red Deer. Two inns couldn’t coexist in such proximity. They had to be hundreds of miles apart.
If I let the seed sprout here, it would die. Gertrude Hunt would feel its birth and its death, and if my inn realized its presence was responsible for the death of a sprout… It would never recover. I wasn’t even sure it would survive. I wasn’t sure I would survive.
How do I fix this?
A Gardener’s web could be removed, given time and proper feeding. I had done it before, when I was the gardener in my parents’ inn. I could do it again, given the opportunity, and the Assembly would be able to do it even faster.
I had to get the seed away from this girl and I had to do it with the Gardener’s web intact.
“What do you want?” I asked.
The girl held up a small screen. Mrak’s face appeared, his white hair framing it.
“Do I need to explain why you can’t harm her?”
“No.”
“Good. She is wearing a medical unit. If you are thinking of pulling her inside and erecting that barrier, the moment the barrier cuts off my signal, the medical unit will release a hormone which will detach the web, killing it. Have I made myself clear?”
No void field, or the seed would sprout. Got it. He understood way too much about how the inns worked. Someone was supplying him with this knowledge. None of the innkeepers on Earth would help him. It had to be someone from the outside. Perhaps the same someone who sent a corrupted innkeeper after us on Baha-char. Once I resolved this mess, I would have to bring all this before the Assembly.
“What do you want?” I repeated.
“I’d like us to talk, like civilized people. Let’s have a conversation, so we can come to a reasonable compromise. Please let her inside.”
It was a trap. It had to be a trap of some sort.
If I let her in, I would be leaving the inn wide open. But if I said no, and the seed sprouted, even if it was five or ten miles away, it would perish. I had to preserve the seed. It was an inn, a life.
I was at my strongest on the inn’s grounds. I had to get this seed away from them. Nothing else mattered.
“Decide, innkeeper. This child is terrified. It’s a heavy burden for someone so young.”
She did look terrified. She was actually trembling. “Don’t try anything,” I said. “I’m not in the mood to be kind.”
“I give you my word. I simply want to converse.”
I dropped the void field and watched her step onto the inn’s grounds.
The seed reached for me. It was weak and pitiful, and it needed me. My magic churned. Gertrude Hunt sensed the seed and was forging a connection. I grit my teeth. No.
The inn tried again.
No. I erected a barrier and poured my power into it.
If it connected to the seed and the unthinkable happened, Gertrude Hunt would perish. I had to shield it from the connection. But I couldn’t shield myself. The seed was reaching out and the compulsion to comfort it was overwhelming.
The Draziri pondered me. There was no way I was letting her inside the inn itself. It would be almost impossible to keep Gertrude Hunt from bonding with the seed.
“Come with me.”
I led her to the backyard and waved my hand. A patio slid across the grass, carrying with it two chairs. Her eyes widened. I sat in one chair and pointed at the other. The young Draziri sat, cradling the backpack.
We were in the middle of the yard, far enough from the house.
Gertrude Hunt leaned against my barrier. The seed stirred. Weak, hesitant tendrils of its magic slipped out, seeking the connection.
I’m here. Don’t be frightened.
The seed touched my magic and calmed. Just like a baby with a lullaby.
“The Hiru are an abomination,” Mrak said from the screen. “They are revolting. They are everything that is wrong with life. Life is beautiful, like this girl in front of you. Like the seed she carries. The Hiru must die.”
“Do you actually believe that?”
“It is enough that my people believe it.”
“You’ve destroyed their planet,” I said. “There are only a handful of them left, those who were out in space away from their home world. They are not fighting you. They just want to live in peace.”
“So does my mother,” Mrak said. “She wants to die in peace, knowing that she and all of her clansmen will find paradise.”
“Where did you even get it?” I asked. “The seeds are very rare.”
“I have connections.”
“Was the dark creature that stalked me at Baha-char also yours?”
He took a fraction of a second to answer. “Yes.”
He lied. He hadn’t known about it. I saw the surprise in his eyes.
“Did your connection become proactive and send it to chase me?”
“As I said, the creature was mine.”
“That creature is a living darkness. It is death and corruption. Whoever made it has dark designs and they won’t let you live.”
“You’re a remarkable creature,” Mrak said. “Here I am, offering you that which you hold most dear, and you’re trying to get information out of me. You would make such an interesting pet.”
“In your dreams.”
He leaned on his elbow. “What would you let me do to you for the sake of this seed?”
And this conversation went sideways.
“You don’t have to answer. You would do anything. You would debase yourself, but you don’t have to. Give me the Hiru.”
“There is something wrong with you,” I said.
“The time for insults has passed.”
“I don’t mean it as an insult. There is truly something deeply wrong with you. How is it that you never learned to be a person?”
He stared at me. “I am a person.”
“You flew across countless light-years to a neutral, peaceful planet to kill two creatures that haven’t harmed you in any way. For that purpose, you threw away dozens of your people, and now you sit here and make nasty comments about torturing me as if it somehow fixes everything and makes you victorious. What kind of a person does that?”
He looked taken aback.
“Staying here isn’t going to bring your dead to life. Killing defenseless beings who just want to be left alone won’t win you any absolution. Think about it. What kind of religion mandates that? Why would anyone want to be part of it?”
“Give me the Hiru.”
“Your mother is dying and that’s tragic. But all things die. If you had a choice to save a child or an elderly person, you would save the child, wouldn’t you? Children are the future. They are what carries us forward as people. You’re throwing away your young fighters. Look at this girl you sent in here. She’s terrified. You’re the head of her clan. She trusts you and obeys you. Shouldn’t she get something in return?”
“She knows her duty,” he said.
“Let’s say you kill the Hiru. Where would that leave you? You still will have lost the future of your clan. It will be generations before Flock Wraith will recover. It’s your responsibility as a leader to keep your people safe and take care of them so they can prosper.”
Doubt crept into his eyes. “What’s a few short years in this world compared with an eternity in paradise?”
“You don’t believe that. If you believed in paradise, you wouldn’t have killed an onizeri. What if there is no paradise, Kiran? What if it’s a lie?”
He knew. I saw it in his face. He knew their paradise was a lie, but he had come too far. “You are a heretic,” he said, his voice calm. “An unbeliever.”
I lost him. For a tiny moment, I got throu
gh, but now I lost him. “So are you. Why don’t you just leave? Leave and live your life the way you want to. You’re free to make your own choices.”
“No,” he said. “Freedom is an illusion. We are bound by restraints on every turn. Family, clan, religion, morals, duties; all those are restraints. For someone on the crossroads of worlds, you’re naive.”
“If you can’t have your freedom, then what’s the point of all this?”
“Give me the Hiru. Nobody has to know. We can do this in a way that leaves you blameless. I promise their deaths will be swift and painless.”
I wanted the seed. It called to me. I’d been playing for time, but I thought of nothing. No brilliant plans. No elaborate ruses. I felt so helpless.
“There is nothing to think about, innkeeper,” Mrak’s voice floated from the screen, soft, seductive. “The seed for two lives which are lost anyway. They have no planet. Their technology is dying. They can barely keep themselves alive. Death is a mercy. Make your decision.”
“Please give him what he wants,” the Draziri girl whispered. “Please.”
It felt like I was being ripped in two. The seed was right there, crying, begging to be saved. I could feel the two Hiru inside the inn. They were in the war room, probably watching all of this on the big screen. They stood very close. I wondered if they were holding hands.
“Please.”
I heard my own voice. “The safety of the guests is my highest priority. You will find no sacrifices here.”
“It is a pity, innkeeper.”
The Draziri girl cried out. Web shot out from her, clutching at me, binding me and the Draziri into one. She tore at her clothes. A bumpy metal object was attached to her chest. A door-maker, a small concentrated explosive used to breach the hulls of spaceships. A faint whine cut at my ears - the bomb was armed. Detonation was imminent. I had seconds.
There was no time to get free.
I flung open a door to the farthest connection the inn had. The orange wastes of the planet Kolinda rolled in front of me under a menacing purple sky. The door opened onto a cliff.
I lunged through the gateway, taking the Draziri girl with me, and slammed the door shut behind me. We fell off the cliff and plummeted.
This was it.
I hit the ground. The impact shook my bones. The backpack with the seed landed on top of me, the web stretching, binding it to me.
I blinked, trying to regain my vision. We’d fallen onto a narrow shelf along the cliff. The chasm yawned below us.
“Help!” The Draziri screamed.
Where was she?
The green web stretched from me over the edge of the shelf.
I crawled to the edge. She hung below me. The web binding us was so thin. Gray splotches spread through it. It was dying.
I reached for her. My fingers came a foot short. If I pulled her up, I could rip the bomb out.
“Help me!”
The web snapped. She plunged down and vanished in a fiery explosion.
Behind me the seed sprouted. I sat up. A glowing shoot with two leaves stretched from the remnants of the shell. Tears rolled down my face. It was too weak.
Its magic cried out, seeking a connection. It was scared and alone. I cradled it in my arms, bonding with it, sheltering it, reassuring it that it wasn’t alone. It was an inn and I was an innkeeper.
The tiny sprout wound around me.
It found peace.
And then it died.
* * *
There was no light. Only darkness. Neither cold nor warm. It just was. It surrounded me and I had no will to break through it. There was no point.
“Dina!”
Sean picked me up. He kissed me. He hugged me to him, but I felt nothing. The darkness was too thick.
He was calling my name, but I had no will to respond.
He looked terrified. I didn’t care.
“Dina, talk to me. Please talk to me. Please.”
I felt nothing.
“Say something. Anything.” He squeezed me to him again. “I’ve got you. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
We jumped up then, and he carried me up the cliff and through the rip in reality back into Gertrude Hunt.
The inn’s magic reached for me. I watched it try. It battered against the wall around me and fell back. There was no point. My little inn had died. I held it and then it died. I felt it die and I died with it. Everything was over.
My sister cried and hugged me. My niece cried, too. Orro brought me cookies. Caldenia said something, so did Arland. None of it mattered. There was only me and darkness.
* * *
“Fix her!”
My sister again. Some other innkeeper. Tony. His name was Tony. He looked like he saw a walking dead. That’s what I was. The walking dead. Breathing. Listening. Watching. But nothing alive remained inside.
“I can’t. She bonded with the seed. She couldn’t let it die alone, so she connected. Her inn is dead.”
“Her inn is right here,” Sean snarled.
“The inns are organisms of immense power,” Tony said. “They root through different dimensions, they distort reality, and they create matter out of basic components. People forget how powerful they are, because they obey the innkeepers, but their magic is immense. An inn requires an innkeeper. It can’t exist without one, so it forms a symbiotic relationship with a human and then it directs all of its magic and power into strengthening that bond. The innkeepers exist in the microcosm of the inn for years, exposed to their magic and influenced by it. They undergo a change we don’t fully understand, because the inns exist on planes and levels we can’t comprehend. We do know that preserving and bonding with the inn becomes the very essence of the innkeeper’s being.”
He paused, looking them over.
“If the inn had sprouted anywhere within a ten-mile radius of Gertrude Hunt, Gertrude Hunt’s magic would smother it. This inn would’ve felt the death of the seed and it would likely die itself and kill all of us within. She couldn’t let that happen. She took the seed out of Gertrude Hunt’s area, but once she’d done that, Dina was outside of her power zone.
“At the moment of its birth, the inn has only one objective: to find an innkeeper. That little inn on the cliff was weak and fragile, because it had been trapped in its shell too long, but its power was still greater than any of us could imagine. Dina couldn’t let it die. It’s the same instinct that would make a human dive into ice-cold water to save a drowning baby. The inn was terrified. It sought a bond, and Dina comforted it and bonded with it, because that’s who she is. She couldn’t let it suffer and die alone. The bond, as short as it was, was real. When the seed died, in that moment, on that cliff, she lived through the death of her inn. Innkeepers do not usually survive this. She knew it would happen. She sacrificed herself for our sake, for Gertrude Hunt, and for that little seed.”
“But she’s still alive,” Sean said.
“Technically, yes.”
“What do we do? There has to be something that can be done?” Arland demanded.
“There is nothing that can be done,” Tony said. “I’m so sorry.”
Above us, far within the inn, the corruption awoke within its prison. It smashed against the inside of the plastic tube, coated it, burrowed into it, and made a tiny crack. Gertrude Hunt screamed, but nobody heard it.
* * *
We lay in bed. He held me. His arm was around me. I couldn’t feel it.
“This is the part when you tell me, ‘Sean Evans, get out of my bed. You’re not invited.’”
I said nothing.
“I will stay here with you,” he said. “I’m not leaving. I’m not taking you to the Sanctuary.”
The darkness thickened, trying to block his voice, but I still heard him.
“I love you. I won’t let anyone hurt you. I won’t let anyone take you away. You’re not alone. Just come back to me, love. Come home.”
* * *
Time had no meaning in darkness. The darkness was j
ealous. It pushed everything else out. Joy, anger, sadness. Life.
They brought me to the heart of the inn. I lay in the soft darkness, while around me the inn wept tears glowing with magic.
Maud was crying again. “Why isn’t she bonding?”
“Because her inn already died,” Tony said. “Right now you are the only thing keeping Gertrude Hunt from going dormant.”
“But she was only bonded to it for a minute.”
“It doesn’t matter. She’s beyond our reach. If Gertrude Hunt can’t reach her, nobody can.”
“I wish she never saw that fucking seed.”
“She couldn’t help it. No innkeeper would be able to resist a sprouting seed. It is who we are. We tend to the inns. That she saved Gertrude Hunt is a miracle.”
Maud growled like a vampire. “I hate this. Fucking Draziri. Fucking Assembly. She asked you for help and you did nothing. Nothing!”
“I’m so sorry,” Tony said.
The corruption slithered out of its prison, and dripped out, one molecule at a time.
Sean picked me up off the floor and carried me away.
* * *
“It’s a simple plan,” Sean said. “Simple plans are best. Tomorrow is New Year’s eve. Lots of noise, lots of fireworks. The perfect cover for us. We bring all the remaining parts of the Archivarius together at the same time. Arland and Lord Soren will get one, Tony, Wing and Wilmos will take the second, my parents volunteered to bring in the third, and I will get the fourth.”
“Alone?” Arland frowned.
“I’m taking Marais with me. We bring them all here at the same time and complete the Archivarius. The Hiru are on board. They know where all of the parts of the Archivarius are now.”
“The Draziri will pull out all the stops,” Tony said. “We’ll have a full-out assault.”
The corruption slithered closer.
“Let them,” my sister said. “Let them all come. I can’t wait.”