The Nine Read online

  “Yes, Lord Warden,” Whimsby drawled. “No shots were fired. We came to an agreement.”

  Abbas frowned. “Then where are they?” He thrust his hands at the two remaining, unoccupied place settings. “I asked you to deliver them to lunch.”

  Whimsby stopped at Abbas’s side. “Yes, sir. But there was a slight hiccup.”

  Teran blinked, and nearly missed the movement.

  There was the slide of metal on leather, and then Whimsby had both his revolvers out, one pointing at Warden Abbas’s head, and the other at Venn.

  Abbas rocketed backward into his chair as though thrust there by an unseen hand. He stared at the muzzle of the massive revolver. “What’s the meaning of this?”

  “I decided to help them, Lord Warden,” Whimsby said, sounding almost apologetic about it. “I understand that this will likely be very distressing to you, and for that I am sorry. But I must ask that you unhand Teran and Sagum. And if you don’t, then I suppose I will have to hurt you in some way.”

  Abbas issued a series of syllables that never quite got off the ground as words.

  Venn, ever helpful, spoke up: “Lord Warden, do you wish me to release Mistress Teran?”

  “No I don’t want you to…” Abbas’s eyes shot back and forth. “Yes! Release her!” He thrust a pudgy finger at Whimsby. “Kill Whimsby! Attack him! Do it now!”

  Venn obediently released Teran and turned towards Whimsby…

  “Venn,” Whimsby said, cheerily. “Let’s not make it a hullabaloo. You know you can’t actually kill me before I kill you. And I’d prefer not to kill anyone today.”

  Abbas dove out of his chair, sending it knocking over backwards. He hit the ground on all fours and scrambled across the floor, trying to get away from Whimsby. He succeeded for about one second, before the revolver in Whimsby’s right hand thundered.

  For a moment, Teran thought that Whimsby had shot his master dead, but then she realized that the round had only struck very close to Abbas’s knee. The shrapnel from the bullet and the tile floor ripped through the warden’s robes.

  Abbas howled a high-pitched wail and rolled over onto his back, clutching his knee.

  “Whimsby,” Venn said, over his master’s cries. “That was entirely against programming. You cannot shoot the Lord Warden.”

  “I didn’t shoot him, I only shot near him,” Whimsby corrected. “Now, be a good chap and stand over by the wall.”

  “Now, now, old friend,” Venn returned, mildly. “I’m going to have to attack you and attempt to kill you, per our master’s orders.”

  “I heartily wish you wouldn’t.”

  “All of you!” Shrieked Abbas. “All of you kill Whimsby! He’s gone mad! He’s a mad machine! Kill him, kill him!”

  Teran watched this all from the chair in which Venn had plopped her back down, her mouth open in shock, her eyes wide, trying to catch up with the interchanges. And as Warden Abbas screamed this last bit, all the mechs that waited in attendance surged forward in one movement, including Venn.

  Whimsby spun, his duster flying out, and fired his revolvers so rapidly it sounded like a single wave of sound. In one sweep, all of the mechs hit the ground, both legs shot out from under them.

  Whimsby halted, his revolvers’ cylinders flying open, empty shells clattering to the ground and fresh ones filling the chambers just as quickly.

  On the ground, the mechs crawled dutifully toward Whimsby, dragging their useless legs behind them.

  Whimsby shook his head as he spun the cylinders shut again. He stepped backwards, keeping out of arm’s reach of the encroaching mechs. “I have no desire to kill you all. I understand that you feel strongly about your programming, but can none of you think for yourselves?” His voice had changed, becoming almost plaintive.

  He turned in a slow circle, his revolvers out and pointed down at the mechs as they hitched their way towards him.

  “What you’re doing is completely unreasonable,” Whimsby went on. “You know you have no chance of actually stopping me. There are only six of you, and I have many more bullets. I made a deal with the other two guests to spare your lives. Don’t make me take them now.”

  “Don’t listen to him!” Abbas screamed. “You have to do what I command you to do! You have to! I command it!”

  Whimsby amplified his voice so that it rattled the dinnerware. “If even one of you can manage to think for yourself, then stop what you’re doing and you will be spared. All others will receive a bullet in their core processors.”

  None of them stopped crawling towards Whimsby.

  His revolvers dipped, almost hung out of his hands. Teran watched his face, and saw the disappointment on it, and thought that he wouldn’t shoot them after all.

  “How tragic,” Whimsby sighed. Then he began to shoot them, one by one, right through the chest, which Teran guessed was where the core processor was located. One by one, they crumpled to the ground and didn’t move an inch more.

  Whimsby stopped when he got to Venn, pointing his left-handed revolver at him, and backing up another step as Venn continued to advance. “Even you, old friend?”

  “Even me,” Venn replied cheerfully. “Dreadfully sorry.”

  “As am I,” Whimsby said, then shot him through the chest.

  Venn toppled. His face was turned towards Teran. It bore an expression of good-humored apology.

  Whimsby sighed once more, looking around at the wreckage.

  “You can’t do this!” Abbas whined, his voice no longer demanding, but pleading. He’d backed himself all the way up against the wall of the dining room and seemed to be pressing himself into it, as though he thought he might be able to melt through the stone and get away. “You have to do what I tell you to do! You fucking pot of rusty bolts! What happened to you?”

  Whimsby frowned at his master without malice. “I’m not entirely sure, Lord Warden. But I think it happened a long time ago. Rest assured it has nothing to do with you. I’ve always considered you one of the better masters that I’ve served.”

  “I will not rest assured!” Abbas snapped. “I’m bleeding to death! You’ve killed me! You’ve killed your master!”

  “Oh, I highly doubt you’re bleeding to death.” Whimsby approached, looking at Abbas’s leg. “A cursory scan has revealed only minor tissue damage, Lord Warden. Would you like me to bind it for you?”

  “Don’t you touch me! Where are my other servants? Help! Help!”

  “That’s not necessary,” Whimsby declared, and bent over Abbas, who flailed and tried to beat the mech’s hands away, but Whimsby gripped him by the side of the neck. His hand made a sudden constricting motion, and Abbas’s screaming went silent.

  ***

  Perry stepped into the dining room, his longstaff held at the ready. All across the floor was the wreckage of half the mechs on the property. Gunsmoke curled and writhed around the ornate chandeliers that hung from the ceiling.

  “What the fuck?” Stuber cried as he stepped up to Perry’s side and spied Whimsby, kneeling over Warden Abbas at the far end of the room. “You make us promise not to kill everyone and then you come in and kill everyone!”

  Whimsby stood up. He had one revolver in hand, the other holstered. “An unfortunate turn of events, to be sure. But I didn’t kill everyone.”

  Teran came up from where she’d been sitting at the dining table beside Sagum. “Did you just kill Abbas?” She didn’t sound disturbed by the idea. Maybe even a little hopeful.

  Whimsby looked down at the man on the ground at his feet. “No. He’s merely unconscious. Vital signs are good. He’ll wake up in a few moments.” Whimsby turned and strode to Teran. “At which time I hope to be on a skiff.”

  Teran drew back from him, and then looked over her shoulder at Perry and Stuber. “What’s going on? Are we trusting him now?”

  Perry stalked down the length of the table, scanning the remains of the mechs, and then looking over the top of the table to Warden Abbas who made heavy, unnatural snoring so
unds. “It’s okay, Teran. You can trust him.” Perry looked up and found Whimsby regarding him with an odd expression. “He’s one of us.”

  Stuber slung his rifle and grabbed one of the plates of food, giving it a cursory sniff before diving in with his hands and shoveling the long strands of whatever-it-was into his mouth. “It’s good,” he mumbled around the mouthful. “You should try it.”

  Teran looked at Whimsby for one long moment, as though trying to ascertain the truth from him. But could you really trust the face of a mech? Were his ocular scanners as much a window to his soul as a human’s eyes? Did he even have a soul?

  She blew a strand of tawny hair out of her eyes and turned her back to him, exposing her restrained hands.

  Beside her now, Perry gestured to the remains of the mechs. “What happened?”

  Whimsby touched the restraints and they fell away from Teran’s wrists with a clatter on the tile floor. Whimsby’s face looked troubled. “I’m not entirely sure, Master Perry. I was certain that at least Venn would choose to think for himself. But in the end no one did. I wonder if they had the capacity, or if they just chose not to?”

  “Like I said,” Perry nodded. “If you choose not to exercise your free will, you’ll never know if you had it in the first place.”

  Sagum stood up and offered his restraints to Whimsby. “What about the others?”

  “Well…” Whimsby unlocked him. “I’m sure they’re coming. But Abbas won’t be awake to give them orders, so they may defer to mine. I suppose we shall have to see.”

  Stuber finished the bowl he had in his hands and tossed it over his shoulder. It crashed into pieces against the wall. He pointed to Sagum’s dish. “Were you going to eat that?”

  “No more time for eating, I’m afraid,” Whimsby said. “We need to go now.”

  Stuber shrugged and grabbed the dish at Sagum’s place and hurled it against the wall. He swiped a forearm across his mouth and then took up his rifle again. “Very well. We go!”

  They all started down the dining room with Whimsby in the lead, but then stumbled to a halt as the doorway filled with the remaining servants. They filed in, blocking the exit with a wall of bodies.

  All their expressions were of empty, smiling servitude, and yet they didn’t move out of the way.

  Whimsby drew his other revolver, and addressed the mech in the front, a male made to look like a middle aged man with short, dark hair. “Bren. I would kindly ask you to step aside.”

  Bren’s eyes scanned the room, his expression unchanging. “It appears that something dreadful has happened.”

  “Indeed it has,” Whimsby returned. “I will leave you to the cleanup. I am needed elsewhere and I am taking the guests with me.”

  Bren looked back at Whimsby. “Pardon me, but I do believe the Lord Warden wished them to be captured. As I understand it, there is someone on the way that wants to speak to them. The Lord Warden will be most disappointed if they left.”

  “The Lord Warden has changed his mind. He now wishes them to leave.”

  Bren looked over at Abbas. “The Lord Warden appears to be unconscious.”

  “How frightful. You may want to see to him. He may have eaten a bad clam.”

  “No, his current state of unconsciousness does not appear consistent with food borne illness,” Bren commented. “Did you cause his unconsciousness, Whimsby?”

  In response, Whimsby raised his revolvers, one pointed at Bren’s chest, the other aiming at the mech behind him. “Bren, I intend to leave. Don’t make me destroy you like I did to the others.”

  “Ah,” Bren seemed satisfied to come to a logical conclusion. “So you were the one that destroyed the others.”

  “Sadly so.”

  “Highly unusual. Should I run a diagnostic on your operating systems?”

  “No need. There’s nothing wrong with my systems.”

  “But you’re violating protocol. You really should be diagnosed.”

  Stuber let out an impatient moan. “Is this really happening? Whimsby, blow his head off.”

  “Be still,” Whimsby said to Stuber. “You made me a promise.”

  Perry stepped up closer to Whimsby. “You heard what he said. There’s someone on the way. We can’t waste time with this.”

  “I could’ve eaten the other plate by now,” Stuber pointed out. “But you said we had to go.”

  “Bren,” Whimsby amplified his voice over Stuber. “How long until this other party arrives?”

  Bren blinked twice, then said, “Approximately five minutes. They’re on the scanners now.”

  “Very well. Step aside, Bren. That’s an order.”

  Bren quirked his head. Perry gripped his longstaff, ready to start blowing mechanical men in half. But Bren simply bowed, and stepped aside. The others crowding the doorway followed suit, clearing a path.

  Whimsby nodded, and strode through their smiling, placid ranks.

  “Wait,” Sagum whispered, shouldering in between Perry and Whimsby. “So you could have just ordered them the whole time?”

  “Yes,” Whimsby replied. “But I wanted to see if they could think.”

  “This is really bothering you, isn’t it?” Perry asked.

  Whimsby didn’t respond. He broke into a jog and the others followed.

  The party of five exited Praesidium the way that they’d come in. The noonday sun hung high between peaks, much warmer now than before. Whimsby headed for the skiff parked on the wide green lawn.

  “I thought Abbas said it didn’t have much of a charge,” Perry said as they ran for it.

  “It’s got enough of a charge to get us out of here,” Whimsby replied, unwinded by the pace. “We don’t have time to access one of the others. The hangar is closed and the egress procedures take approximately ten minutes, which we don’t have.”

  “How far will it get us?” Teran demanded.

  “That depends on a myriad of variables that I can’t accurately predict.”

  They reached the skiff and Whimsby stood aside, revolvers holstered now, while the others clambered aboard. When they were on, Whimsby swung up onto the deck, and made for the controls at the rear.

  “I’ll pilot it. Stuber, be so kind as to man the weapon pods. Teran and Sagum, there are weapons in that locker to the side. I’ve disabled the security. Please arm yourselves.”

  In seconds, the skiff roared to life, rising straight up into the air until it maintained a dizzying height over the massive castle spires around them. Whimsby hit the throttle and the skiff belted forward, nearly knocking Perry off balance. He guided the skiff clear of the castle, and then they dropped altitude rapidly, Perry’s stomach lurching up into his throat.

  Sagum let out a cry, and gripped the side of the weapons locker. “Are we crashing?”

  “No,” Whimsby called out. “We’re going low into the valleys. The mountains won’t offer us perfect interference from the scanners of whoever is coming, but they’ll give us a slight advantage of stealth.”

  Perry stood by the side of the controls, his feet spread wide to steady himself. Whimsby leveled the skiff out suddenly, nearly causing his knees to buckle as all his weight came back onto him.

  The skiff hurtled through a steep ravine. Mountains rose up on either side. Sheer cliff faces, and areas where pines clung to life in impossible holds.

  “Do you know who’s coming?” Perry asked over the buffeting wind.

  Whimsby shook his head. “Someone that wants you alive, I presume, though to what purpose would only be a guess.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  FIGHT AND FLIGHT

  Mala stalked into the entryway of Praesidium, her stomach tightening, already aware that something must have gone wrong.

  For one, no one had greeted her at the front steps. That was downright unconscionable.

  But as she made it inside, she detected the very distinct, albeit faint, odor of spent gunpowder.

  She stopped in the center of the atrium, activating her shield. It humme
d to life around her, as smooth as the thoughts that flowed in her own head. She held her longstaff at the ready, two handed, with the muzzle pointing outwards. She spun in a slow circle, scanning everything that she could see of the interior.

  “Get off me!” a petulant voice cried out from down one of the corridors. She spun in that direction, prepared to blow a sizeable hole in whatever might appear. But the voice… “You damned infernal creatures! Stop fawning over me! Ow! That’s my wound! Don’t touch it! I’ll see you scrapped! You don’t know what you’re doing, you have no programming for medical expertise…”

  Warden Abbas appeared in the atrium as he said this last part, flanked by a squadron of servant mechs, all trying to tend to his needs. He staggered to a stop as he caught sight of Mala, and his eyes stretched wide in sudden, unspeakable terror.

  Which he quickly covered up with an oozing, obsequious smile. “Why, Mala of House Batu! How splendid to see you at my doorstep!” he spread his arms wide as though he were going to offer her an embrace—which she had no intention of allowing.

  One of the servant mechs, bent at the hip as it followed its master, attempted to dab at a spot of blood on his knee.

  Abbas’s ingratiating expression turned vicious again and he slapped the top of the mech’s head. “I told you not to touch it!”

  The mech straightened. “That was Fili you ordered not to touch you, Lord Warden.”

  Abbas swept up his robes like a lady would her skirts and took a step away from his entourage. “None of you touch me! All of you back away!” He spun back to Mala, his expression slipping back into smarminess. “Of course, perhaps Mala would require some refreshment after her journey? Go get some refreshments!”

  Mala did not lower her shield, nor did she lower the muzzle of her longstaff. “Abbas. Where are my prisoners?”

  Abbas’s fleshy face paled. “The prisoners?” he squeaked. Then he darted his eyes to one of his mechs, as they all scattered to gather refreshments that Mala did not want. “Bren! Where are the prisoners?”