The Nine Read online

  “The vote hasn’t been cast,” Mala said, continuing down the stairs. “You don’t know that I will be head.”

  “You’ll be head. Provided you don’t ruin it in the next ten minutes.”

  “Don’t worry father,” she said over her shoulder, leaving him behind on the stairs. “Selos may have created this problem, but I’ll be the one to solve it. As I always have.”

  “Mala.”

  She stopped. He was still her father. More than that, he was the head of house. His words still carried weight. She twisted to look at him.

  He lowered his chin and stared at her from under his wild, white eyebrows. “Say as little as possible. An inquisitor is nobody’s friend. And an inquisition is not one of your duels.”

  Despite her irritation, she felt a twist of anxiety in her chest.

  She dipped her head in respect, and then turned and marched into the receiving room.

  The inquisitor stood staring out the massive bay windows of the receiving room. He must’ve dialed up the tinting, but still the bright white sun beyond cast him into little more than a silhouette.

  His black inquisitor’s robes didn’t help.

  He turned when he heard her stop at the entrance to the receiving room.

  “Mala,” he said, the light from the window illuminating a smile. “I wish we were seeing each other under different circumstances.”

  “Please, Lux,” Mala said, waving at him and angling towards the right, so that she would not have the sun in her eyes. “Standing in front of a bright light? Trying to intimidate me? Are you going to chain me up next?” She clucked her tongue. “Black never was your color.”

  She stopped at one of the huge chairs that dominated that side of the room. Now she could see Lux’s face clearly. He still smiled. Mala was almost relieved.

  He unclasped his hands and held them in surrender. “I would never dream of attempting to intimidate you, Mala.” He gestured to the window. “I did turn the tinting up.”

  Good, Mala thought. Get him on the defensive.

  She regarded a fingernail absently. “I’m sure whoever showed you in told you to make yourself comfortable.”

  “They did.”

  She smiled a brittle smile and then tossed it away. “How can I assist you, inquisitor?”

  Lux stepped away from the window. In the absence of the bright light accenting every wrinkle on his face, his youth became apparent. He was roughly the same age as Mala. Which was to say that any normal human would believe he was in his thirties, when he was in fact in his sixties.

  His face grew serious, and he stopped, several paces from where Mala stood. A respectful distance. “Allow me to express my condolences.”

  “You were appointed as inquisitor in order to express condolences? Has House Rennok truly gone so soft?”

  “No. But I always believe it appropriate to show some decorum.”

  Mala took his implication very clearly. One did not usually joust with an inquisitor. Personal histories allowed Mala some leeway, but Lux was making it clear that she shouldn’t push him too far.

  “Enjoying your newfound power, then?” Dammit, sometimes she couldn’t help herself.

  He quirked an eyebrow at her. Such a minimal expression. But in it, Mala saw the truth: They knew each other better than that. This was his duty. Nothing more.

  Nothing less.

  He raised a hand and flicked at the air between them. An image appeared, projected from a small clasp on his robes. The image showed the interior of a stately residence, though nothing as fine as would be found here in The Clouds amongst the demigods.

  Mala recognized the house. In fact, she recognized the image itself. The smoke still hanging in the air. The pillars of a legatus’s residence pockmarked with automatic gunfire. Bodies strewn about the floor. Most of them wearing blue sagums.

  Two bodies in the center. One in a legatus’s uniform. The other in a dress.

  They’d both been cut in half.

  Mala’s stomach tensed. Not from the gore. But because she knew what came next.

  “I’d like to jog your memory a bit.” Lux flicked his fingers again and the image changed. This time to an overhead shot of those two bodies. They had not only been cut in half, but their heads had been destroyed, leaving explosions of red across the tile floor. A blast from a paladin’s longstaff. “Back to an incident some twenty years ago, involving your late husband and one of his human officers.”

  Mala tore her eyes from the image, and looked at Lux. Out of the corner of her vision, she saw the image hanging there, the splashes of red demanding her attention. “Consider my memory jogged.”

  “Selos, acting in his capacity as a paladin of The Light, had an apparent issue of insubordination with one under his command, a Legatus Cato McGown.” Lux folded his hands, and regarded Mala. “When he confronted Legatus Cato, things took a turn for the worse, as you can see. A bit of an embarrassment as I recall.”

  Mala remained silent.

  “There was a boy,” Lux continued. “The son of Legatus Cato, who apparently survived this ordeal and was never seen again. Records of interrogations from Selos’s personal guards revealed that he had apparently given orders for the child to be killed. Selos later admitted he was in something of a…” Lux frowned, as though trying to remember. “Bloodlust, I think was how he termed it. According to the record.”

  “Is there a question in any of this, inquisitor? Or are we merely rehashing history?”

  “Did Selos ever tell you about this incident?”

  Mala took a moment to let her eyes stray to the image again. She soaked it in. Let it bolster her. Harden her. Then back to Lux. “Yes. He told me that he had an issue with insubordination. He told me that when he confronted the insubordinate commander, a firefight ensued. He told me that he had used poor judgement in executing Legatus Cato’s wife along with him, and even poorer judgment in ordering his praetorians to hunt down their child.” She sniffed. “So, more or less what you have just said.”

  Lux’s head tilted to one side. “In reviewing the transcripts of my predecessor’s inquisition into this unfortunate incident, I found some references to some people at the time who believed that there might have been an illicit relationship between Selos and Legatus Cato’s wife, Fiela. Were you aware of this?”

  “I’m aware that the depravity of rumor mongers knows no bounds.”

  “So this rumor doesn’t surprise you?”

  “I heard a great many rumors over the course of Selos’s life. Many more in the last week since he cannot defend himself.” She raised her chin. “I’ve even heard distasteful rumors about you, despite the fact that we know you are as pure as the driven snow. I’ve learned not to put much stock in rumors. Shocking that you haven’t.”

  Lux considered this for a second or two, his expression still inscrutable. He dismissed it with a thoughtful, “Hm,” and then flicked his fingers again.

  The image changed.

  Now it moved.

  It was footage. So crystal clear that, for a moment, it gave Mala a sensation of vertigo. She stood still, and yet the footage moved so rapidly. She caught the impression of a dark hovel, a shocking juxtaposition to the bright legatus’s residence.

  Two bodies, flailing about. Fighting.

  The footage was taken from one of the fighter’s perspectives, as though it had been recorded through their eyes.

  The other fighter was a young man, but she could not see much detail with all the thrashing.

  The footage had no sound to accompany it, or Lux had left it muted.

  There was a shower of sparks and smoke. The view pitched back and forth—ceiling, walls, floor—and then centered itself again on the young man.

  The young man charged.

  Something around him shimmered, like a bubble of energy that encapsulated him.

  Mala’s heart lurched in her chest.

  Lux waved his hand again, and this time the footage froze. A still image hung in the air. “
There. We have an excellent view of this young man. This footage was taken from a mech that we have stationed at one of the few access points to what the humans call ‘the Devil’s Mirror,’ which are the Glass Flats. The mech’s directive is very simple—he’s there to scare, threaten, kill, or otherwise discourage anyone who might try to cross the Glass Flats.”

  Lux stepped closer to the image hanging in the air. “This particular subject appears to be a normal human male, approximately twenty years old. Otherwise unremarkable—in fact, we calculate him as being somewhat short by human standards. And yet…” He gestured to the air around the young man. “…and yet he appears to be using an energy shield.”

  Lux dropped his hand and looked at Mala, his eyes alight with genuine curiosity. “But that is impossible, isn’t it? Because humans are not Gifted. They cannot use Confluence.”

  Mala stared at the image of the young man, frozen in the middle of his charge, his teeth bared, his eyes wide, looking half desperate and half enraged. Her heart struck at her breastbone so hard she feared that Lux might see the pulse in her neck.

  She managed to meet his gaze and speak levelly. “Why are you showing me this, inquisitor? I thought you had been appointed to investigate the murder of my husband. Now you show me footage from some forgotten corner of the world? A young human, battling it out with one of your mechs?”

  “A young human who appears to possess Confluence,” Lux corrected. He took another step towards her and lowered his voice. “Look at him, Mala. Look at his face.”

  Mala didn’t take her eyes off of Lux. “I saw his face. It looks like any other.”

  Lux smiled, but it looked pained. “Oh, Mala. Are you really going to refuse to tell me about this human?” He looked at the face hanging in the air. “A Confluent human who bears a striking resemblance to your husband?”

  Mala drew herself up. “I have told you what I am able. As for the alleged resemblance…” She turned her head to the image, and inspected it with a twist of disdain on her lips. “I think perhaps you are seeing what you want to see. You want to revive some sordid rumor from twenty years ago, and so you believe that this peon bears a resemblance to my husband—not only preposterous, but slightly insulting, both to me and the deceased.”

  Lux drew in a breath, seeming to realize that he fought the wind here. “And of the Confluence?”

  “I see no evidence to support what you claim,” Mala said, turning away from the image once more. “An aberration in the footage quality does not an energy shield make.”

  Lux’s lips tightened. “Always so clever, Mala.”

  The words, Everyone seems clever to an imbecile shot to her lips, but she swallowed them back down. Not only would that be overstepping her tenuous footing, but it wasn’t true. Lux was very intelligent, and he would see that insult for what it was: lashing out in attempt to hide the truth.

  “I have answered your questions to the best of my ability, Inquisitor,” Mala said, picking her words carefully now. “I would be most pleased if you would answer one of mine.”

  Lux waved his hand and the image in the air between them disappeared. “I will tell you what I’m able.”

  “Is that the one who killed my husband?”

  Lux searched her, his expression, for once, very plain. He was gauging what she would do with this information. How it would affect him. How it would affect the houses. How it would affect his inquisition.

  “I cannot say for certain. However, the general placement of where Selos was murdered is consistent with that possibility.”

  Mala nodded once. “Thank you.”

  They both knew what she intended to do with that information.

  “Whoever this is, and whatever the reason why they are travelling across the Glass Flats,” Lux placed each word like a piece on a gameboard. “They cannot be allowed to reach the East Ruins.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  PRAESIDIUM

  Praesidium was not at all what Perry had expected. Admittedly, he didn’t know what to expect, but when it came into view as the skiff crested a ridge of pines, his jaw still dropped.

  Nestled in a small valley between two stark peaks sat the largest single structure Perry had seen since fleeing from the Academy at Keniza. And Hell’s Hollow had been a military training compound—all square and angular and utilitarian. This was more of a castle.

  They flew in from what Perry guessed was the “front” of the castle, which had a massive stone retaining wall on which the main structure sat, looking out over the mountains.

  The castle was constructed of some pale stone that gave it a shining, white appearance in the sunlight. Judging by the windows, the broad, central section was five stories high. To the right and left were separate wings that stood at three stories, but had tall spires that shot up into the air at the ends.

  “That,” Perry said, pointing at it, and glancing sideways at Abbas, who stood at the helm of the skiff. “Is what you call ‘nice for peasants’?”

  Abbas turned the yoke of the skiff, bringing them into a wide circle—as though showing the place off, though he’d claimed it was unimpressive. The look on his face mirrored his earlier disdain.

  “I suppose it depends on what you’re used to,” Abbas said over the thrum of the skiff as they glided all the way around the north wing of the house and began to slow. “You are accustomed to mudbrick hovels and shantytowns. I am accustomed to something very different.”

  “You don’t know what I’m accustomed to,” Perry grunted.

  “Forgive me,” Abbas replied, his voice as dry as the Glass Flats. “Your slackened jaw led me to believe you found the place impressive. Perhaps it’s not up to your high standards. I don’t blame you.”

  As they circled around to back of Praesidium, a massive lawn came into view, filled with the greenest grass that Perry had ever seen, and damn him, but Abbas was right. Perry was shocked. Shocked that all that good dirt was used to grow something so useless as grass, when it could’ve been growing crops.

  Stuber sidled up next to Perry, nudging him with an elbow and casting his suspicious eyes down on the ground, where no less than a dozen figures dressed in white stood in two neat rows. “The fuck is this?” he demanded over the top of Perry’s head. “You got a welcoming party waiting for us?”

  Stuber still had his rifle in his hands and looked like he was itching to use it.

  “Calm yourself, legionnaire,” Abbas sighed. “Those are my servants. None of them are armed.”

  Stuber glared at Abbas, and then at the squadron of servants below them. His trigger finger tapped an irritable rhythm on the receiver of his rifle. But he said nothing else.

  Abbas brought the skiff into a hover in the center of the lawn, about twenty feet off the ground. He turned and looked at his guests, a single eyebrow arching. “No harm will come to you while you are here. You have my promise on that. This should all be very cordial.” A glance at Stuber. “Provided, of course, that you don’t attempt to shoot my servants.”

  Perry looked over his shoulder at Teran and Sagum, who stood near the aft of the skiff and regarded the not-really-paladin with crossed arms and guarded expressions. It was just the four of them on the skiff with Abbas. Whimsby had remained behind to finish charging the buggy and bring it back home.

  “Give us no reason to fight you,” Perry said. “And we’ll remain peaceful.”

  Abbas gave a harrumph and turned back to his controls. “Damned suspicious lot,” he grumbled as he lowered the skiff to the ground. “I suppose I can understand it, but it doesn’t make you very friendly, you know.”

  When the skiff hummed a few feet off the ground, Abbas gestured for them to debark, but Perry shook his head. “You first.”

  Abbas rolled his eyes. “Of course.”

  This might not be “cordial,” and perhaps they were unfriendly, but he’d be damned if he was going to do what Abbas told him. He needed to maintain some control of the situation.

  Abbas debarked with the same a
wkwardness he’d shown when he’d gotten off the skiff on the ridge. Once on the ground, he straightened his robes, and then took a few steps wide of the skiff and waited for them with his hands on his hips.

  “I’ll go last,” Stuber said. “Just in case I need to work the gunpods.”

  Perry hopped down from the skiff, followed by Teran and Sagum. He fixed his gaze on the twelve servants, standing on a series of enormously wide steps that led to the biggest door that Perry had ever seen. Everything about this place was just…big.

  Unnecessary.

  It was a mockery of the abject poverty in which the rest of humanity lived, and didn’t even know they lived in it because they’d never seen anything else. Perry had only to lay his eyes on this castle for the first time to feel bitter about the “mudbrick hovels” that he’d grown up in.

  The servants stood, stock still. Six women. Six men. All uniformly dressed. All with their hands clasped at their waists. Their faces showed placid expressions of people content with their lot in life.

  Perry looked at Abbas. “Are they human or mech?”

  Abbas sneered at the gathered twelve. “Oh, how I wish they were human. Unfortunately, I am the only being in Praesidium that actually possesses a brain. Sure, they can carry on a conversation, but when you’ve been Warden of Praesidium for a decade, you begin to notice they are the same conversations. It’s maddening.”

  “Yes, you live a very difficult life,” Perry scoffed, then turned to Stuber. “We’re clear.”

  Stuber looked briefly disappointed, but jumped down from the skiff. “Did I hear that right?” He said to Perry, eyes on the servants. “They’re all mechs?”

  Perry nodded. “I guess we’ll have to watch what we say around them. Since someone is always listening.”

  Abbas smiled. “I’m glad you’ve learned something already. This way, please.”

  They followed Abbas down the center of the lawn, towards the front steps and the servants. Perry’s eyes strayed to the spires and windows. Stuber did the same. Looking for snipers. Looking for anything out of the ordinary.