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  I glanced at my sister. Nothing. Cold as an iceberg.

  “Mom!” an urgent whisper said behind us.

  I turned. Helen was holding the nameless cat. The huge Maine Coon I had rescued from a glass prison in PetSmart stared at me with slightly freaked out eyes, clearly not understanding how this small human creature dared to grab him.

  “He has fangs,” Helen said.

  “That’s a kitty,” Maud said. “Be careful. They have sharp claws.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “He doesn’t have one,” I told her. I hadn’t gotten around to it. “I tell you what, you can name him.”

  Helen’s eyes got almost as big as the cat’s. “I can?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to name him Olasard, after he who hunts the evildoers and rips out their souls.”

  The Ripper of Souls gave me a befuddled look.

  I looked at Maud.

  “There weren’t a lot of kids’ books,” she said. “Melizard used to recite the heroic sagas for her.”

  A gentle magic tug told me Sean was coming to the door. I went into the front room and opened it for him. Sean hadn’t bothered changing. Still jeans and a T-shirt. For some reason, I liked him just like this.

  “Hi again,” I said, feeling awkward for no reason. “Come inside. We have food.”

  “Thanks for inviting me.”

  We went to the kitchen. Normally Caldenia, Orro, and I took our meals together at a breakfast table, but given the larger company, I extended the kitchen to accommodate the big heavy table the inn pulled out of storage. Rustic, made of an ancient scarred door that must’ve at one point graced a mission or an old Texas hacienda, it was sealed with several coats of resin until it shone.

  We took our seats at the table. Orro had gone the traditional American Breakfast route: stacks of light as a feather pancakes with butter melting at the top; paper-thin crepes filled with strawberries; tiny, muffin-sized apple pies with delicate dough lattices on top; hash browns; heaps of bacon and sausage; and three types of eggs, over easy, sunny side up, and scrambled. He swept by giving me the Look of Death, and retreated into the kitchen. Later I would get a lecture about not letting him know in advance that extra guests would be arriving.

  “Her Grace, Caldenia ka ret Magren,” I said. “My sister Maud and her daughter Helen.”

  “Letere Olivione.” My sister inclined her head. “We’re honored by your presence.”

  “Honored is such a serious word, my dear.” Caldenia flashed her sharp teeth. “I’m but a quiet, country recluse now, no one important.”

  Maud put eggs, a crepe, a sausage link, and a piece of bacon on Helen’s plate.

  “Your regal presence elevates all surroundings with its magnificence,” Arland said. “A diamond in the rough shines ever brighter.”

  “My dear boy, I did miss you.” Caldenia sipped her tea.

  Helen bit a piece of bacon. Her eyes got big again and she scarfed it down and reached for the platter. Arland had reached for the bacon at the same time. They stared at each other across the table. A vampire standoff.

  Helen wrinkled her face, showing him her tiny fangs.

  Arland bared his scary fangs, his eyes laughing.

  A low, tiny sound came from my niece. “Awrawrrawrawr.”

  “Helen!” Maud turned to her. “Don’t growl at the table.”

  Arland leaned back, pretending to be scared. “So fierce.”

  Helen laughed, her giggles bubbling up. “Awrawrawr.”

  Arland shuddered.

  Helen giggled again, grabbed her mug, and hurled it at the wall. The mug shattered. I looked back. Helen’s seat was empty. The platter of bacon had vanished.

  Sean lost it and laughed.

  “What a delightful little girl,” Caldenia said, her eyes sparkling.

  Maud looked lost. “I… She never…”

  “The child has an inborn grasp of tactics.” Arland grinned.

  Magic chimed, announcing a visitor. Hmm. In broad daylight? Coming in from the northwest, not the street. I’d have to meet them in the stables. I hadn’t yet collapsed the inn structure left over from the summit, mostly because I was so damn tired. It had taken so much energy to put everything where it needed to go so it would be invisible from the street, and packing it back in would take time and effort. Short term, the maintenance took less energy since everything was already formed and there. I was going to wait until after Christmas.

  “Excuse me.” I picked up Helen’s plate, added one of the small apple pies to it, went into the front room, and lifted the green cloth on the side table. Three sets of eyes stared at me: one canine, one feline, and one half-human. I held the plate out. It was snatched from my hands. I dropped the cloth back down and headed to the stables through the hallway.

  Sean stepped out of the kitchen and quietly followed me. I let him catch up.

  “Problems?”

  “Visitors,” I said.

  We made our way to the stable gates.

  In the field, beyond the small area of Otrokar holy ground, a green spiral sliced through the fabric of existence, unwinding from a single point into a funnel. Darkness puffed into the mouth of the funnel and withdrew, taking the spiral with it. An odd creature landed on the grass. Five feet tall, it stood on two grimy metal legs ending in metal hooves. The legs were a mess of old dented metal, gears, tiny lights, and thin tubes channeling a milky white substance. A bulbous hump protruded from its back. A tattered shroud, draped over the hump, hid most of its body. Two massive, oversized metal hands stuck out from the openings in the shroud, and, like the legs, consisted of a chaotic jumble of different parts. The creature’s folded, wrinkled neck, made of an alien rubber-like substance, seemed too long. A helmet that slightly resembled a medieval plague doctor’s face mask concealed the alien’s face. Three faceted high tech “eyes,” pale yellow and round, pierced the helmet. The whole thing looked like someone had scooped handfuls of garbage out of some cosmic trash heap and formed a vaguely humanoid creature out of it.

  A Hiru. I didn’t realize any of them were left.

  The thing saw us and turned, creaking. Thick lubricant squirted onto the gears, pinkish and greasy. The body clanked, ground, and moved, the metal protesting. The wind brought its noxious odor our way and I nearly gagged.

  Next to me Sean had gone completely still.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “That’s a Hiru. They are completely harmless, but most of the creatures in the galaxy find them revolting. Please try not to gag.”

  The Hiru slowly made its way to us and halted five feet from me.

  I bowed my head and smiled. “Welcome to Gertrude Hunt.”

  Something screeched within the Hiru, like nails on a chalkboard.

  Don’t wince. Don’t vomit. Don’t offend the guest.

  A tenor voice came forth, quiet and sad. “I have come with an offer for you.”

  “It will be my pleasure to hear it out. Please, follow me.”

  The Hiru walked into the stables, one tortured step at a time.

  * * *

  I led the Hiru into the front room. To do anything else would be an insult. Helen was still under the table. My niece had gone very quiet.

  Maud met us in the doorway of the kitchen. She saw the Hiru and smiled. Not a wince, not a blink, nothing to indicate that she found anything about the guest distasteful.

  “Would you like to share our meal?” I asked.

  “No. I do not consume carbon-based compounds.”

  “Is there a particular dish that I may prepare for you?”

  The Hiru shook its head. The gears screeched. “Thank you for your kindness. It is not necessary.”

  In my entire life I had only seen two Hirus. One stayed at my parents’ inn and the other had ground and stumbled his way through the streets of Baha-char. Creatures from all over the galaxy had given it a wide berth and not just because they found it revolting. Standing next to a Hiru was as danger
ous as running into an advancing enemy on the battlefield.

  I concentrated and pulled part of the wall out, shaping it to fit the Hiru’s body. “Please, sit down.”

  The Hiru bent its body the way a human would when doing a squat and carefully lowered himself onto the new seat. Helen pulled the tablecloth aside, peeked out, sneezed, and vanished back under the table.

  “You said you had an offer for me?”

  “Yes.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was his translator or his true emotions, but everything he said sounded sad.

  “Do you require privacy for this conversation?”

  “No. This concerns the werewolf as well.”

  Sean, who had quietly parked himself by the wall between me and the Hiru, startled. “Why?”

  “She may need help,” the Hiru said.

  “I’m listening,” I said.

  “Do you know our history? Do you know of the Draziri?”

  A quick glance at Sean told me he didn’t.

  “A screen, please. Files on the Hiru/Draziri conflict,” I told the inn.

  Arland joined Maud in the doorway. They stood side by side, each at their half of the door, completely ignoring each other’s presence.

  A screen slid from the ceiling. On it a deep orange sun, darker than our own, burned, surrounded by twelve planets.

  “The Hiru lived here, on the sixth planet.” I beckoned with my fingers, and the recording zoomed in on a small planet. It looked like a ball of dark smoke, its soot-choked atmosphere glowing weakly with fluorescent green. “They were an ancient civilization, capable of interstellar travel, and they mined their system and the surrounding star systems for resources. The Draziri live here.”

  The image zoomed out, and a second star appeared, this one a familiar yellow color. Seven planets orbited it, the fifth one a ball of magenta, green, and blue.

  “The Draziri are a relatively young civilization, a martial theocracy with a religion based on admission to afterlife following a lifetime of service and piety. They discovered interstellar travel only a century ago. The planet of the Hiru was their first stop.”

  The dead hunk of the Hiru’s planet expanded, taking up half of the screen.

  “We don’t know why the Draziri declared a holy war on the Hiru. They are moderately xenophobic, as are most theocracies, but they have since interacted with the rest of the galaxy and while they keep to themselves, they haven’t attempted to exterminate anyone else. We do know the Draziri invaded the Hiru star system and detonated some sort of device that caused a chain reaction in the planet’s atmosphere.”

  “Millions died in one hour,” the Hiru said.

  “Directly after, the Protopriest of the Draziri proclaimed the Hiru to be an abomination. The Draziri spent the next fifty years hunting the remaining Hiru across the galaxy. It is said that a Draziri who kills a Hiru is guaranteed a place in the afterlife.”

  “There are only a thousand of us left,” the Hiru said. “Our species will become extinct in the next twenty cycles if we do not find a way to reproduce. To mate and raise our young, certain conditions must be met. We cannot meet them while we are being hunted. We have appealed for Arbitration, but the Draziri declined.”

  And nothing would be done about it. I dissolved the screen back into the wall.

  “Can’t you appeal for refuge?” Sean asked.

  “We have,” the Hiru said. “The Yaok system allowed us to settle within their territory. They promised us protection. We sent the first fifty colonists, but the Draziri invaded the system and wiped us out.”

  “They took staggering losses,” Arland said. “I remember reading about it as a child. Almost two hundred thousand Draziri troops died so they could kill fifty Hiru. Our strategy manuals use it as a cautionary tale about the costs of victories.”

  “We are not safe,” the Hiru said.

  “You are safe here,” I told him.

  “Yes,” Sean said. “You are.”

  His face was dark. Auul, the planet of his parents, had been destroyed too, not by an enemy but by his own ancestors. The werewolves of Auul killed their beautiful planet rather than surrender it to their enemy.

  “The Arbitrator whom we had petitioned offered a solution,” the Hiru said. “We have surrendered everything we have. All the treasures we possess. We paid the price in knowledge. Everything we are and everything we were, we have given up freely.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “We have hired the Archivarius,” the Hiru said. “We have received word that the Archivarius has found a solution.”

  Oh wow.

  “The Archivarius is in its parts,” the Hiru said.

  Sean and Arland both looked at me.

  “The Archivarius is a multipart being,” I explained. “A hive mind possessing an incredible wealth of information about the universe. For the knowledge to be shared, all individual members of the Archivarius must come together in a single location. They do this very rarely and they reform only for a very brief time. The Archivarius will answer questions, but it is very selective about which questions it chooses and the price is beyond what most galactic states can pay.”

  “The Draziri cannot know or find out,” the Hiru said. “They will try to stop the Archivarius from reforming. We have no safe place. The Arbitrator suggested that you might keep us safe.”

  “Was he a human male? Pale yellow hair?”

  “Yes.” The Hiru nodded.

  George. George was ruthless, cunning, and calculating, and compassionate to a fault. He couldn’t stand by and let them die, so he sent them my way. It was an unspoken bargain. He helped me rescue my sister. In turn, he hoped I would rescue the Hiru. He would never ask me to do it. He would never expect that I repay the favor. He left the choice to me.

  “The Archivarius and my people will make an effort to deliver the individual Archivarians, which are its parts, to your inn. But it may not always be possible. Some may need to be retrieved from other worlds. All will need to be kept safe. We wish to use your inn. We wish you to help us.”

  That’s exactly what I thought. It broke my heart to tell him no, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.

  “My deepest apologies, but the security of my inn is my priority. I am bound by the innkeeper laws. These laws dictate that I keep my guests safe first and foremost. What you are suggesting - retrieving the Archivarians - would require me to leave the inn unattended. Nor am I capable of doing the retrievals. I’m an innkeeper. I’m at my most powerful here, at the inn. This is my place.”

  “We have seen you rescue your sister. We have observed. We know you are capable.”

  George must’ve wanted to help them desperately. I wanted to help them.

  “I can’t. Doing this would make the inn a target for the Draziri and they won’t abide by the treaty of Earth. The secret of the existence of other galactic life must be kept. It breaks my heart to tell you no, but I must. I’m so sorry.”

  “The treasures we have given were our most prized possessions,” the Hiru said. “Our books. Our images. Our secrets. Everything that made us. We are dying. Our culture will be gone without us. It has value. It is rare. The Archivarius prizes rare.”

  I bit my lip.

  “Enough for two,” the Hiru said.

  “Two what?” Maud asked.

  “Enough for answers to two questions,” the Hiru said. “The Arbitrator told us.”

  He raised his hand. A panel on his forearm slid aside and a translucent image formed above it, woven from the tiny yellow lights. The picture of my missing parents, the one I kept hanging on the front room wall.

  “Help us,” the Hiru said. “And you can ask your question.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Silence claimed the room.

  Maud was looking at me. It was my inn and it was up to me to respond.

  “Will you give us time to discuss your proposal?”

  The Hiru nodded. “My time is short, but I’ll wait until the beginning of the li
ght cycle.”

  We had until the next morning to decide.

  “Follow me, please.”

  I led him through the hallway, forming a new room downstairs as we walked. So little was known about the Hiru, but the one thing my mother told me was that reproducing the Hiru’s native environment was beyond the inns’ capacity. Gertrude Hunt could create almost anything with my direction and the proper resources, but some things, like intense heat, for example, were off-limits. The inns could handle small controlled flames, like fireplaces and pits, but large scale blazes put them under undue stress.

  According to my mother, the Hiru's environment required a very specific combination of gasses, pressure, and gravity, and we simply couldn’t match it. A Hiru was never truly comfortable anywhere, but they liked water. When one stayed at my parents’ inn, my mother made her a room with indigo walls and a deep pool at the end. That had to be my best bet.

  The Hiru moved behind me, his gait slow, ponderous, and labored. Our galaxy loved tech in all its incarnations. A high tech assault suit or a bastard sword, it didn’t matter - once it was made, someone would almost immediately try to improve on it. The Hiru were the glaring exception to this rule. There was nothing sleek or efficient about them. They were clunky and slow, as if some mad genius had tried to build a robot with things he’d found at a junkyard, but died before he could improve his design past its first, barely functional prototype. Even his translator was so ancient, it failed to associate “morning” with “beginning of the light cycle.”

  But there was so much sadness in his voice. The translator may have been antiquated, but the emotion was there. I had to do better than an empty blue room.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and tried my best to feel the being standing next to me. If I were he, what would I need?

  I would want beauty. I would want hope and tranquility, and above all, safety. But what did beauty mean to a Hiru?

  “Tell me about your planet?” I asked.

  “There are no words.”

  Of course there weren’t, but this wasn’t my first day in the inn. “Tell me about the sky.”