Sweep in Peace (Innkeeper Chronicles Book 2) (21 page)

“The Hierophant does not share your interpretation,” Odalon said.

“The Hierophant saw it fit to change his mind,” Robart said. “But I did not change mine. My father died in Nexus’ blood fields. The woman I loved more than life itself, the woman I wanted to bear my children, lost her life there. Her light…” His voice broke and he squeezed his fists. “Her light is gone. To look upon the Horde’s territory on Nexus is to dishonor her memory. When I stand before the gates of the afterlife, and my father and my almost wife meet me and ask if they were avenged, what will I tell them? That I was too tired of fighting? That I couldn’t spare any more blood to be spilled in their name?”

“What will you tell the spirits of all who stand behind them?” Arland asked. “What will you tell them when they ask you why you threw away their lives in a fight we cannot win.”

“We will win.” Robart punched the table. “It is a righteous war. A holy war!”

“It’s logistics,” Arland said. “Neither we nor the Horde can shuttle enough troops to Nexus to ensure a decisive victory. We lost two transports just last month. What will you tell the soldiers inside them? They didn’t even get to taste the battle.”

“They knew the risks,” Robart barked.

“Yes, but they trust us to lead us into battle. They trust us to not waste their lives. I will not sacrifice any more of my knights on this pointless war.”

“If you’re too weak, then I will find another ally.”

Arland strode to the Keurig and I heard the water pour. If he needed more tea, I would have gotten him some.

“Like House Meer?” Arland asked, opening the refrigerator. “The cowards who wouldn’t even fight?”

“At least House Meer refuses to honor your pitiful attempts at peace,” Robart said. “Their dissent is…” He inhaled.

I smelled coffee. Oh no.

Arland returned to the table with the mug. Judging by the color, at least a third of it had to be the hazelnut flavored creamer from my fridge.

“Lord Arland,” I sank a warning into my voice.

“What is this?” Robart looked at the cup.

“A drink for real men,” Arland said. “I wouldn’t recommend it. It doesn’t suffer the unprepared.”

Lord Robart turned to me. “I’ll have what he’s having.”

“That is a terrible idea,” I said. “The drink contains…”

“Here,” Arland handed his coffee to Robart. “If you insist. I shall get another.”

“No!” I reached for the cup.

Robart gulped the coffee. “This is interesting. It’s delicious, but I’m awaiting that profound impact you promised me.”

He drained half a mug.

Oh crap. Coffee had the same effect on vampires as alcohol on humans. He’d just downed an equivalent of half a whiskey bottle.

“You know what your problem is, Arland?” His voice slurred slightly. “You’re a… coward.”

Odalon blinked.

Robart drank another mighty swallow. “All of you,” he waved his index finger around, “are cowards. We must be primal. Resolute. Like our ancestors. Our ancestors didn’t need… weapons. They didn’t need armor. They had their
teeth
.”

He bared his fangs, clenched his right fist, and flexed his arm.

“Of course they did,” I murmured, keeping my voice soothing. Maybe he would just sit here and tell us about his ancestors and that would be that.

“And they hunted their enemies.” He finished off the mug and flipped it upside down on the table. “This dung.” He looked down at his beautiful armor. “I don’t need this dung.”

I knew exactly where this was going. “Grab him!”

Arland didn’t move. Odalon stared at Robart, his eyes wide.

Robart hit his crest. The armor fell off him, revealing a black shirt and pants underneath. He yanked the clothes off his body. “To hunt!” Robart roared and shot out of the back door into the rain.

Damn it.

Orro paused his chopping, rolled his head back, and let out several barking snorts.

“It’s not funny. Arland!” I pointed at him with my broom.

“He needed it,” Arland said, his tone unrepentant.

I squeezed the words through my teeth. “Go get him, my lord, before he hunts a car and Officer Marais hauls him in for questioning.”

Arland sighed and took off after Robart into the rain.

“Why do you always strip naked when you’re drunk?” I asked Odalon.

“This happened before?” The Battle Chaplain’s eyebrows crept up.

“Lord Arland drank some accidentally last time he was here.”

“It must be the armor. We live in it, so we remove it only in the safety of our homes. If your armor is off, you are clean, safe, and free, probably well fed and possibly ready to meet your partner in the privacy of your bedroom.” Odalon’s somber face remained stoic, but a tiny mischievous light played in his eyes. “Did Lord Arland mentioned his cousin’s Earth-born wife by any chance while he was indisposed?”

I kept a straight face. “Possibly.”

“The universe is vast and we’re its greatest mystery,” Odalon murmured and followed Arland outside.

I sat in the front room, going through the recording of the phantom, who stole the emerald. I decided that phantom was better than invisible blob. I’d reached some conclusions.

One, the phantom was definitely alive. It wasn’t a machine. I managed to isolate a six second video where I could see it move through the crowd based on a slight shimmer. The phantom moved to avoid people in its way and it clearly stepped over other gems and gold on the floor, choosing to move through stretches of empty floor. If the phantom had been a machine, it would have to have reasoning abilities and it would have a complicated mechanism of locomotion. If it had simply rolled on wheels, I’d see things nudged out of the way.

When each delegation entered the Grand Ballroom, I had the inn scan them for weapons. I knew the otrokari brought in a gun, although I didn’t expect them to actually fire it. The inn didn’t register anything with advanced robotics or artificial intelligence or anything that had artificial legs.

Two, since the phantom was alive, he or she had entered the inn with one of the delegations. I would’ve felt an intruder.

Three, since the intruder was one of the guests, he or she would be missing from the crowd in the Grand Ballroom when the emerald was being pilfered. Problem was, Gertrude Hunt recorded a wide angle video which gave me a nice panoramic view of the crowd, but they bunched up too much in those crucial five seconds.

I checked the clock. We scheduled the banquet at nine. It was too late for me, a little late for the merchants and the vampires and a little early for the otrokari. The clock said sixteen minutes past three. Plenty of time. I groped with my hand for my tea cup on the side table next to the sofa and touched something soft.

The cat sat on the side table.

We looked at each other.

Beast barked once, quietly.

The cat walked over the sofa’s arm, stomped over my lap – he was surprisingly heavy – and rubbed against me. I stroked his head. He rubbed again, purring, walked over to the other end of the sofa, and arranged himself on the blanket. He stretched, let out all of the claws on his front paws, and began kneading the blanket.

I looked at Beast. She stared at me, her big round eyes puzzled.

The cat bit the blanket and made purring noises.

Okaaay. And that wasn’t weird.

Caldenia strolled into the front room and took a seat on the chair across from me. Her Grace wore a dark purple gown with a severe high neck. Elaborate embroidery in pale lavender and gold decorated the length of the gown, spilling in beautiful rivulets over the expanse of the skirt.

Caldenia frowned at the cat. “Why is he doing that?”

I had no idea. “He’s a freak.”

The freak continued kneading the blanket and sucking on it.

My screen beeped. Dagorkun’s portrait appeared in the left bottom corner.

“What may I do for you, Under-Khan?”

“The Khanum wishes to share a tea. Will you be available in ten minutes?”

Being invited to share a tea was an honor and a privilege. Still, if it was up to me, I would’ve stayed on my nice comfortable couch.

“Please inform Khanum that I’m honored and will see her in ten minutes.”

Dagorkun’s image vanished.

“I will come as well,” Caldenia said.

“If you wish, Your Grace.”

“Oh I do not wish. They’re barbarians. A woefully unrefined culture.” Caldenia rose. “However, I do not trust that brute of a woman to not poison you.”

I dismissed the screen and it retracted itself into a wall. “Poison wouldn’t be in the otrokar character. They favor direct violence.”

“And that’s precisely why I am coming. In matters of diplomacy and love one must strive for spontaneity. Doing the unexpected often gets you what you want. It wouldn’t be typical for the Horde to resort to poison, so we must assume they will.”

We walked to the staircase, the doors opening as we approached the walls. “What possible reasons would they have to poison me?”

“I can think of several. The most obvious one would be to gain access to the rest of the inn. With you out of the way, they could ambush and slaughter the vampires.”

“That would bar them from Earth forever.” Not to mention that the inn would murder them.

Caldenia smiled. “And the hope for the peace between the Horde and the Holy Anocracy would perish with them. Of all the types of beings one finds herself dealing with, the true believers are the worst. A typical sentient’s psyche is a spiderweb. Pull on the right thread and you will get the desired result. Praise them, and they will like you. Ridicule them and they’ll hate you. Greedy can be bought, timid can be frightened, smart can be persuaded but the zealots are immune to money, fear, or reason. A zealot’s psyche is a tight rope. They have severed everything else in favor of their goal. They will pay any price for their victory, and that makes them infinitely more dangerous.”

Caldenia’s mind wasn’t just a spider web, it was a whole constellation of spider nests. “So is there no way to subvert a true believer?”

“I didn’t say that.” Caldenia permitted herself a small smile. “At the core, they’re often beings ruled by passion. Given time and proper enticement, one passion can be replaced with another. But it takes a long while and requires careful emotional management.”

Dagorkun met us at the door. He nodded at me, pointedly ignored Caldenia’s presence, and led us to the back, where the Khanum sat on a wide covered balcony. A fire pit occupied the center, the stone of the balcony circling it in a broken ring, forming a round bench lined with orange, green, and yellow pillows. A thick blanket of grey clouds smothered the sky, promising rain but failing to deliver. The Khanum sprawled on the pillows. Her spacer armor was gone. Instead she wore a light voluminous robe the color of blood, embroidered with turquoise birds, alien, their plumage studded with dots of pure white, frolicking among sharp dark branches. Her face looked tired. Up close it was hard to ignore how huge she was. I looked like a child by comparison.

The Khanum regarded me from under half closed eyelids. “Greetings, Innkeeper.”

“Greetings, Khanum.”

“Sit with me.”

I took a seat across from her. Caldenia sat to my right.

The Khanum rolled her head and looked at her, her gaze heavy. “Witch.”

“Savage.” Caldenia smiled back, showing her sharp inhuman teeth.

“We know of you,” the Khanum said. “You’ve murdered a great many people. You’ve eaten some of them. You are a kadul.”

A cannibal.

“An abomination,” the Khanum said.

“You know what they say about abominations,” Caldenia said. “We make the worst enemies.”

“Was that a threat?”” Dagorkun’s eyes narrowed.

“A warning.” Caldenia folded her hands on her lap. “There is only one time to make threats: when you intend to negotiate. I do not.”

A male otrokar came in, bringing a tray bearing a tea pot and four cups. Dagorkun reached for it, but the Khanum took hold of the tea kettle first.

“Khanum…” Dagorkun began.

“Hush,” she told him. “It’s been years since I last poured you tea. Pretend you are five for your mother’s sake.”

Dagorkun sat down to my left and watched as the Khanum poured everyone a cup. Caldenia picked up her cup, turned her left hand so the large amethyst ring on her middle finger faced the surface, and dipped it into ruby-colored liquid.

The Khanum raised her eyebrows.

“It’s an insult to question the Khanum’s hospitality,” Dagorkun said.

“Alas, I do not care.” Caldenia glanced at her ring. A light blue symbol flashed on the surface of the beautiful stone. Caldenia picked up the cup and sipped it. I followed her lead. The tea, flavorful, spicy, and slightly bitter, washed over my tongue. I held it in my mouth, waiting for the familiar nip, and let it roll down my throat.

“You’ve had the red tea before,” the Khanum observed.

“Yes, but not this variety.” Most of the red tea I had seen was lighter in color, sometimes almost orange.

“This is wassa,” the Khanum said. “Poor people’s tea. You probably met the wealthier of our kind. They tend toward the paler teas. I like the tea my mother made. It’s the one Horde drinks after a hard march.”