“It’s a thing that should never have been,” Arland said quietly. “It should be unmade.”
He spoke. He still sounded weak, but a shadow of the power that made Arland was there. Maud took his hand in hers and stroked his fingers.
“Oh I don’t know.” Her Grace waved her long, elegant fingers. “There is a savage beauty to it.”
It was beautiful, deadly, and had an indiscriminate appetite. Of course she would feel kinship with it.
“What happened?”
“Contact with the colony was lost, and the Holy Anocracy bestirred itself and sent a rescue fleet,” Caldenia said. “The first group to land consisted of volunteers, of which several were from House Krahr and House Ilun. There was a third House, wasn’t there, dear?”
“House Morr,” Arland said.
“Long story short,” Caldenia said, “two dozen beings went in, five came back, and then the fleet bombarded the planet’s moon with nuclear and kinetic projectiles, until it shattered, causing increased volcanic activity, tsunamis, and other catastrophic developments on the surface of the planet. Gravity tore the remnants of the moon into a ring, and the Anocracy’s fleet helped the resulting asteroids fall to the planet, initiating an impact winter. Nothing survived.”
“Then how did the flower get here?” I asked.
“Money.” Caldenia winked at me. “Given the right equipment, it can be contained. Prior to being killed by their own creation, the weapon makers sold samples to fund their research. I bought one. And the antidote, of course. One should never unleash a weapon if one cannot survive it.”
I stared at her.
“It is my understanding that the two surviving members of House Krahr were so impacted by their experience, that they insisted on vaccinating their entire clan. Unfortunately, their supply of the vaccine was limited, and the potency of their defensive measures became more and more diluted with each generation. Supposedly, our darling boy here had to go through a ritual at puberty, like most of the members of House Krahr who showed potential. The ritual involved being stung by a single seed, and I use that term loosely. It is thought that this trial by fire would raise the concentration of the bacteriophage in his blood in the event he ever encountered the flower.”
“Is that public knowledge?” I asked.
“No,” Maud said. “I never heard of it.”
Caldenia pursed her lips. “Your sister is correct. It’s a closely guarded secret.”
“So either Mrak didn’t know that Arland was partially immune and he hoped the flower would kill all of us or he did know and wanted to specifically take Arland out,” Maud said.
“Indeed.” Caldenia closed her wooden box and patted Arland’s leg. “Do get better. You’re much more entertaining when you roar. I leave you with this parting thought. One must wonder how House Krahr keeps coming by these seeds.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
I opened the door. Caldenia strode out.
“Please tell me you don’t have a hothouse full of those things somewhere.”
Arland shook his head. “Some things even I have no right to know.”
“The vigil room is ready,” Maud said.
CHAPTER 11
I walked over to the edge of the property, to where Officer Marais had parked by my hedges, and waved at him. He gave my innkeeper robe a once-over and got out of the car. I dropped the void force field just long enough for him to pass and put it back up. Holding it up was getting harder and harder. Soon I’d have to drop it for a while to rest.
“I want to know what’s going on,” he said as we walked back to the house. “I want the whole story. All the details. Who and what and when and where. Even the parts that are too ugly and parts you don’t think are important. I want you to explain the robe. And if anyone comes near me with a syringe, you will regret it. I’ll rip this place apart brick by brick.”
“Technically, board by board,” I told him, opening the door in front of us. “We have siding, not brick.”
“Now isn’t a good time to be funny…” He stepped inside the inn and froze. The far wall of the front room had dissolved. A vast desert spread beyond, a sea of shallow sand waves littered with the massive skeletons of monsters long past. Despite the sunlight, a ghostly moon, huge and striped, took up a quarter of the pale green sky. A caravan approached, massive shaggy beasts that would dwarf Earth’s elephants moving ponderously through the sand, their spiked armor gleaming in the sun. Their handlers walked by the creatures’ feet, their bodies draped in a light shimmering fabric. Good timing.
Hot wind fanned our faces.
Officer Marais took a few shaky steps forward, reached through the rip in the fabric of space, picked up a handful of sand, and let the grains fall from his fingers.
I came to stand next to him and waved my hand. Two fifty-five-gallon containers filled with water surfaced from the floor. When the inn first opened this door six months ago, the caravan leader gave me a gift. I didn’t know what to give them back, so I shared my water with them. Predictably, the water was precious to them. They passed my way every couple of weeks, and I made it a point to have some water on hand. It cost me very little, but it meant a great deal to them.
The caravan drew closer. I could see the caravan leader now. He had skin the color of alligator hide, a long inhuman face, and big emerald-green eyes, like two jewels in the rough.
“Don’t shoot,” I told Marais.
He stared at the caravan open-mouthed.
The first beast approached, the metal spikes on the armor that shielded his forehead as big as a small tree. Its tusks curved outward, each tipped with gleaming metal stained with old, dried blood. We weren’t tall enough to even reach its knee. An animal smell bathed us, thick and pungent. Its handler, his light blue robe stirring from the hot wind, stopped in front of the rip and drew a circle in the air with his long elegant fingers, tipped with curved silver claws.
“Ahiar ahiar,” he said, his voice soft like the shifting of the sand, and bowed his head. Peace to you and yours.
“Ha ahiar.” I bowed back. Lasting peace. “Please accept my water.”
“Thank you, innkeeper. May you live a thousand years.”
The inn deposited the two containers into the sand. The handler picked them up as if they weighed nothing.
“I have a gift for you, innkeeper.”
The caravan leader waved his hand. Two other beings, one in a copper-colored robe and the other in rose-gold, came forth, bringing something long and wrapped in canvas. They set it into the sand and pulled back the tarp. A stasis pod. Familiar features looked back at me. An Archivarian.
How? Never mind. One didn’t look a gift Archivarian in the mouth.
“I’m in your debt.” I bowed my head.
“No. We’re still in yours.”
They pushed the stasis pod into the inn and Gertrude Hunt swallowed it, carrying it down to install it with the rest.
The caravan went on, the colossal creatures swaying. I let the door close. Marais stared at the newly formed wall.
“They come this way every few weeks,” I told him. “Water is very prized in that part of their planet. This way.”
He followed me into the kitchen, looked left, and did a double take. A large room stretched off the kitchen. Vines draped its walls, so dense it was hard to see the pale stone underneath. Tree limbs broke the stone, their bark rough and dark, and stretched up along the wall, supporting metal lanterns glowing with warm yellow light. Tiny white flowers bloomed on the vines. Here and there, a large yellow blossom reminiscent of a chrysanthemum somehow shaped into a lily sent a faint honey aroma into the air. The floor was moss, stone, and tree root. Turquoise flowers, five petals each, stretched from the floor on two-feet-tall stalks the color of sage. The blue blossoms were wide open, showing off the purple center. Excellent.