Finally the last otrokar stepped aside, letting the ghost of her past fade into the light. The shaman moved, his staff drawing a complicated pattern in the air. An otrokar woman began to sing, her voice soft, but rising, a challenge to the stars above us.

The shaman thrust his staff into the ground and opened his arms.

The fires turned white. Tiny sparks swirled within them like ghostly fireflies.

The woman’s voice rose, stronger and stronger, her song holding the darkness at bay like a shield.

Fear not the darkness

Fear not the night

You are not forsaken

We remember you

The fire exploded. Thousands of white sparks floated through the air, swirling, drifting among the otrokari. The shaman held out his hand, letting the glowing dots brush against his skin, and smiled.

The myriad of glowing lights floated up, pulled to the sky by some invisible current, and rose high, toward the greater universe beyond.

Chapter 12

Four long tables stood in the main ballroom, arranged into a rough letter m: one table across for the Arbitrator, the heads of the delegations, and special guests which included Caldenia and Sophie, and three longwise, with about twenty-five feet of space between each to make sure nobody happened to trip and accidentally fall into a slaughter. We put the otrokari on the left, the Nuan Clan in the middle, and the Holy Anocracy on the right. I took a position to the left of the main table. I was starving, but food was out of the question. I had asked Orro to save me a plate, because this banquet would require my complete attention. The tension in the air was so thick, you could cut it with a knife and serve it with honey for dessert.

The three delegations took their places, with the leaders arranged at the main table on both sides of George, who sat in the middle. One seat, next to Nuan Cee, remained empty. Cookie’s seat at the Merchants table was orphaned, too. Nuan Cee had sent him to wait in the field in the back for his guest. I still hadn’t found the emerald. With everything that happened, the search for the blur-thief had been pushed aside. I would get on that tonight.

George rose in the center of the main table. “I was going to make a long inspiring speech, but everyone is clearly hungry. I have visited the kitchen and the chef has outdone himself, and I have very little willpower left after all of these strenuous negotiations.. Thank you for being here. Let’s eat.”

Everyone applauded and stomped in approval. The tables sank into the floor and reappeared, bearing a variety of starters. Orro stepped through the doorway.

“First course,” he announced. “Spicy tuna tartare in a cone of miso encrusted bacon, spring vegetables in a cucumber wrap, and vine-ripened tomatoes with basil and mozzarella.”

He stepped back. I glanced at the table. He had twisted bacon into tiny cornucopias, the cucumber wraps looked like delicate blossoms filled with bright paper-thin slices of something red and green, and the vine ripe tomatoes were sliced into wedges, stuffed with basil and mozzarella and drizzled with something that smelled tangy and delicious. My mouth watered. The delegates fell on the delicate starters like starved wolves onto a lame deer. The food was disappearing at an alarming rate.

The magic tugged on me. Someone had just landed in the back field. Nuan Cee’s guest finally arrived. I reached out with my magic and sensed Cookie and him moving toward the house.

The tables sank down. We were going much faster than expected, but the guests were devouring the food. A moment passed and the dining tables reappeared, filled with more dishes.

“Pasta course,” Orro announced. “Agnolotti with fennel, goat cheese and orange.”

The fennel cost me an arm and a leg and so did the cheese, but Orro refused to compromise on the pasta course. It had to have fennel, it had to have the expensive cheese, and that was that. Well, at least if they filled up on pasta, it would make them full and happy and less prone to casual murder.

At the vampire table, the three new comers with Lord Beneger at the lead, had barely touched the food, wrapped in their hostility like it was a winter cloak. On the otrokari side, Dagorkun, a smaller female on his left, and a huge hulking mountain of an otrokari male on his right, were watching Beneger very carefully, keeping their food intake light.

There would be trouble. I could feel it.

I just had to keep them from attacking until the main course. Orro had made pan-seared chicken. I had no idea what he had done to it, but the smell alone stopped you in your tracks. I had happened to walk into the kitchen to check on things just before the banquet and I couldn’t recall ever having such intense reaction to the cooked chicken before in my entire life. Orro was a wizard. Finding the ingredients that didn’t set off digestive alarms in five different species would’ve driven me crazy. He not only managed that, but turned what he found into culinary masterpieces. Too bad he would leave after the summit. I would miss him and I wasn’t sure what I regretted loosing more, his great food or his dramatic pronouncements.

“Main course! Pan-seared chicken with golden potatoes.”

Beneger surrendered to his fate and attacked the chicken. At the far end of the table Caldenia put an entire drumstick in her mouth and pulled it out, the bones completely clean. Sophie, wearing a lovely seafoam gown, watched her in morbid fascination.

The smell was too much. If I didn’t get some of this chicken, it would be a crime.

Cookie and Nuan Cee’s guest reached the back door. I opened it for them and made sure they had a straight shot to the ballroom. At my feet Beast sat up. Apparently the new intruder smelled odd.

“Easy,” I murmured.

Beast wagged her tail.

Cookie appeared in the doorway and scampered in, adorably fluffy. The creature behind him was anything but. Seven feet tall, he wore armor, but not the rigid high-tech metal of the holy knights. No, this armor was made with maximum flexibility in mind. Obsidian black, it coated him, mirroring the muscles of his body, thickening slightly to reinforce the neck and shield the outside of the arms and the chest. At first glance it looked woven, like high-tech fabric, but when he moved, the light rippled on it, fracturing into thousands of tiny scales shimmering with green. It sheathed him completely, flowing seamlessly into clawed gauntlets on his huge hands and angling into semblance of boots on his feet. A charcoal-grey half-tabard half-robe draped the armor, embroidered with a rich green pattern. The tabard left his arms free, narrowed at the waist, where it was caught by a decorative cloth belt, and flowed down, split over his legs, so a single long piece hung down in front while the rest of the fabric obscured his sides and back, falling to above his ankles, its hem tattered and frayed. The tabard came with a hood that rested on the newcomer’s head. I looked into it.