The Nine Read online

  Whimsby provided the answer: “Which will put as at the East Ruins in roughly fourteen days. Twelve if we walk for nine hours a day. Eleven if we walk for ten. Ten days and nine days for eleven and twelve hours of walking, respectively.”

  “Right.” Teran frowned down at their supplies. “We’ve got enough supplies for maybe five days.”

  “We can hunt and forage on the way,” Perry offered. “And it seems like there’s a lot of water around here.” He looked to Whimsby for confirmation.

  Whimsby nodded. “There is adequate water. Food will be questionable. I’m not entirely sure how much in the Crooked Hills is genetically safe for humans to eat. It’s not really been a factor I’ve ever had to consider before.”

  “Genetically safe?” Sagum asked. “Like, the plants are poisonous or something?”

  Whimsby made a noncommittal noise. “That. And the animals.”

  Everyone stared at him, waiting for an explanation.

  Whimsby clapped his hands. “I see you all have many questions. First, let us pack our supplies and depart. Then I will explain. Teran, I am capable of carrying five-hundred-and-thirty pounds indefinitely over uneven terrain.”

  She raised her eyebrows at that. “I’m not sure we have a bag that will hold that much, Whimsby. But I’ll pack the heavy stuff in yours.”

  “Gods,” Stuber said, smiling. “It feels good not to be the only strong person around anymore. This will feel like a vacation. I’m already relaxed.”

  Perry looked down at Whimsby’s damaged leg. “So…uh…sorry about that. Will you still be able to move okay?”

  Whimsby looked down at it. “It’s not ideal. There will be some unfortunate wearing of the joint. Perhaps Master Sagum can assist me in tinkering it up to nominal specs.”

  Sagum approached at the mention of his name, looking delighted to be of use—and also probably to get his hands into the workings of another mech. “I can take a look at it now, while Teran’s dividing up the packs.”

  The supplies from the skiff only came with three actual packs, none of them particularly large. With some creative lashing, Teran was able to piece together a bulky stack of ammunition and water for Whimsby to carry, with two makeshift shoulder straps from some cabling harvested from the skiff.

  While she worked, Perry watched Sagum poke around in Whimsby’s leg. Whimsby and Sagum chattered back and forth of diagnostics and ambulatory mechanics and pressurized lubricants. None of which made any sense to Perry. But Sagum seemed able to assist, and right around the time that Teran finished lashing the enormous pack for Whimsby, Sagum declared the damaged joint to be “good enough.”

  Whimsby flexed it experimentally. Then nodded. “You are quite the talented mechanic, Master Sagum. It’s not a permanent fix, but by field-expedient standards, I believe you’ve outdone yourself.”

  Sagum glowed at the praise.

  Teran wasn’t able to lift Whimsby pack when she was done, but Whimsby swung it up onto his back and stood straight under the load. He assured her the uncomfortable-looking straps wouldn’t bother him.

  More water, the food rations, and a medical kit, were distributed amongst the three packs. What they couldn’t fit into the packs, they drank and ate until they were on the verge of discomfort. The ration bars were the same ones that Perry had already tasted, back when he and Stuber had been hauling Teran’s unconscious body around with them. Bland, sweet, and unobtrusive.

  After some general ego-fueled argument, it was eventually decided that the packs would be rotated every time they stopped to eat and drink or make camp. Except for Stuber’s pack. Stuber insisted on carrying it all the way.

  “I’ll take the lead,” Whimsby offered. “My enhanced vision and hearing will be valuable as a point person, and, of course, I know where I’m going.”

  Perry gestured for him to go right ahead, and they departed, crossing the clearing, and entering into the woods on the other side. As Perry stepped into the shadows of the trees, he detected that low hum again—the same he’d heard in Praesidium. He forced his feet to keep moving, but he tilted his head, as though to try to see if he could hear it differently from another angle.

  It seemed to move through him. All around him. Not quite a noise, but more of a pressing vibration. Unpleasant. Discordant.

  “Something wrong?” Whimsby asked.

  Perry jerked his head up. The hum immediately dissipated. “No. I’m fine.” He reached up and stuck an index finger in his ear and wiggled it, wondering again if he was hearing something, or simply suffering from some inner ear problem.

  “So, the Crooked Hills,” Perry said, shifting the focus away from himself.

  “Yes.” Whimsby considered it for a moment. “Do you recall what I told you about the polymorphs?”

  “The genetic scrambling,” Sagum offered up. “Because of the Glass Flats. Because of the weapons the gods used when they destroyed the world.”

  Whimsby nodded. “Indeed. That was a lie.”

  “Oh,” Sagum said. “It sounded plausible at the time.”

  “When encountering wasp-men and raccoon-bears, one does experience a suspension of disbelief, so I understand. Also, I apologize for the deception. It was part of the protocols.” Whimsby picked his way over a downed tree. “It is true that there is genetic scrambling that occurs around here. However, the source of that scrambling is not due to the weapons the gods used to destroy the world. The source of that scrambling comes from the East Ruins itself.”

  Perry stopped walking. “Wait…so…it’s in the air or something?”

  Whimsby bobbled his head. “I suppose you could describe it that way. Now, I don’t have all the answers—there are things even I have not been able to find out—but from what I have been able to study, there appears to be some source of energy radiating out of the East Ruins. The closer an organic lifeform comes to this energy, the more its DNA gets scrambled. How exactly it ends up getting mixed with other lifeforms is unknown to me, but the effects of it are observable.”

  Perry looked eastward, his throat drying up. “So, as we speak, our DNA is getting scrambled. And as we get closer it’s going to get scrambled worse.”

  Whimsby tilted his head thoughtfully. “Well, I had not considered that point until just now. But yes, I suppose it is.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Sagum pumped his hands in the air. “I don’t wanna come out of this thing with two heads.”

  Whimsby smiled sympathetically. “Rest assured, there are not many two-headed organisms for your DNA to get crossed with.”

  “Whimsby,” Perry said, sternly. “That’s not the point. We’re organic lifeforms. We can’t have our DNA getting mixed up.”

  Whimsby nodded, stroking his chin. “Yes, I do see your concern. However, you can be at peace in knowing that the process is a long one. The polymorphs took eons to form into what they are today. I do not think you will experience much DNA-crossing in the relatively short amount of time you’ll be exposed to this energy. Now, your cells may mutate a smidgen, and later in your life it’s possible you may experience strange growths in various organs in your body. But that is only my theory, and even if it is true, wouldn’t manifest for many, many years.”

  Whimsby simply started walking again, as though all fears had been adequately put to rest.

  Sagum gaped after him. “Wait. Are we still doing this? Are we going to have raccoon-bears growing out of our chests when we get old?”

  Whimsby laughed. “I doubt it will be anything so identifiable.”

  Stuber shrugged and started walking after him. “Honestly, Sagum, do you really think you’re going to live that long anyways?”

  Perry forced his feet to start walking, and patted Sagum on the shoulder as he passed. “Come on, Sagum. Sounds like shit to worry about later.”

  “Just think,” Stuber called out over his shoulder. “If you’re one of the heroes that helped save humanity, the ladies probably won’t even mind if you have a raccoon-bear on your chest. It’ll be
endearing. And you’ll have a great story to tell.”

  ***

  Mala thrust the twisted metal panel off of her and glared up at the sun that blinded her.

  Well, she thought. That didn’t go the way I wanted.

  The half-breed was more trouble than she’d expected. It was clear that only being half-demigod had not rendered him half-Gifted. He had all the capabilities, it appeared. Worse, he had the equipment.

  Was that Selos’s longstaff he’d used against me?

  She was flat on her back in the wreckage. She leaned up, hesitantly. Her body ached from the thrash of the impact, but she didn’t think anything was broken. She sat up and looked herself over. Acrid smoke wafted around her, stinging in her throat. Her battle uniform was dirty and scuffed, but otherwise whole. And her legs were there.

  She’d had a momentary concern that they would be missing.

  She swayed to her feet. Her chest throbbed when she breathed, but she thought it was only bruising. She’d had broken ribs before. This was not the same feeling.

  She steadied herself on a mangled piece of her skiff. She allowed her mind to slip into Confluence. She felt the presence of her shield, but it was too expended at the moment to activate. The blast that had destroyed her skiff had taken her shield to quarter power, and the impact with the ground had used up the rest.

  But it had saved her life. Without it, there wouldn’t have been much left of her.

  Where was her longstaff? It must’ve been thrown from her when she’d crashed, though she couldn’t recall. The moments after the blast were hazy. Just a blur of fire and smoke and mountainside streaking by.

  Her equilibrium had returned enough that she felt she wasn’t about to pitch over, so she released the bent remnants of the skiff and staggered over to the pile of debris that she’d extricated herself from. She kicked a warped piece of metal aside, hoping to find her longstaff underneath, but there was only a nest of melted wiring.

  “Primus help me,” she ground out, looking skyward as if the gods of old watched her from the heavens.

  And that was when she saw her longstaff.

  Hanging delicately from one of the topmost branches of the tall pine tree against which the tumbling wreckage of her crash had terminated. She smiled wryly at it. “Now how did that happen?”

  Feeling more whole just at the sight of it, she stepped out of the wreckage, hands held out for balance—she still wasn’t quite right—and walked to the base of the tree.

  The first branches were well over ten feet above her head. If her shield had recharged enough, she could’ve used it to pulse the air around her, giving her the ability soar up the tree. But she didn’t have her shield. Yet.

  Climbing was out of the question. The demigods of House Batu knew better than to test their luck. Batu was the Trickster, and he did not spare his descendants. If she tried to climb in her current state, she’d wind up with a dizzy spell halfway up and a forty-foot drop to a broken back.

  She craned her neck—which hurt—and squinted up at the longstaff. It was perched, just right there. A stiff breeze would cause it to fall, but of course, the air was still. Batu, she was sure, was laughing at her.

  She shoved the tree with both hands. It garnered barely a quiver. She gave it a solid shin-kick, which trembled the tree a little more, but not enough. If she kicked any harder, even her dense bone structure might crack.

  Growling under her breath, she backed up a step, then put everything she had into a front kick.

  Bark flew. Her foot tingled from the impact. But the tree shook.

  She snatched the longstaff as it fell. Immediately she felt its presence and connected to it.

  “Not so bad,” she said, limping slightly as she wound her way through the rubble of the crash site. The longstaff vibrated in her hand. And her shield was repairing itself. Small, steps, but she wasn’t finished yet. Not by a long shot.

  Dueling might be seen as a frivolous sport, but the training for dueling was what mattered. The slash and bite of the longstaffs in the arena was only brief amusement. But the hours spent preparing for those moments were what had hardened her. Built her fierce determination. Given her the power over her body that she summoned now to press down the pain, to trivialize the injuries, and to focus on the task at hand.

  By the time she rounded the southern edge of the mountain into which she’d planted her skiff, her shield was at half-stength, and her body felt much looser after moving for a while. The aches and pains were dull and inconsequential. If she kept smothering them, they would snuff out soon enough.

  She looked up at the mountain. It was a smaller one, not as jagged as those around Praesidium. These were old mountains, beaten down by millenia, and further east, they would only be hills. The one above her might be her last opportunity to get a high vantage point at what lay ahead.

  She activated her shield, feeling more solid by the second. It thrummed around her, a familiar comfort. She bent low to the ground and gave a powerful thrust of her legs. She flew into the air a solid six feet and then, as she began to fall again, pulsed her shield.

  She shot into the air, gliding up the side of the mountain, hours of trekking on foot reduced to just a few heartbeats’ worth of flight. She landed at the top, on a small, smooth section of stone that wind and weather had scoured clean of dirt and trees. She wobbled, but managed not to pitch off the narrow mountain face.

  She looked east. East was where they were headed. And to what ends? The only thing east of them was terrain crawling with mutated life, and then the ocean.

  And the East Ruins.

  How much did they know? Did they know the danger that they were in? Did they know the danger they might awaken? Or was that what they wanted? To destroy the paladins even if it meant destroying the entire world? Could they be so foolish? Or desperate?

  Mala could not answer that. But she knew one thing—they weren’t flying to the East Ruins. Bren had sent her the remote diagnostics of the skiff they’d stolen. She knew they only had a short time left in the air. And the rest of the time, they would be on foot.

  And they could not hop from peak to peak and from ridge to ridge like Mala could.

  Perhaps the half-breed had figured that out, but she thought it was unlikely. That was a skill that could not be figured out on your own. It had to be taught. The half-breed might be able to activate his shield and fire energy from the longstaff, but there was much he wouldn’t know how to do because he’d never been tutored by a master, as Mala had.

  It would not take her long to catch up to them. What happened after that was up to the half-breed.

  Mala leapt off the face of the mountain, and glided over thin air to the next ridge. And from there to the next hill. Hours of trekking by foot, reduced to a few heartbeats of flight.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  GENETIC MALADAPTATIONS

  Teran and Sagum took up the rear of the column, as they moved steadily through a completely alien terrain.

  Teran couldn’t keep her eyes from wandering up the massive trees that surrounded them. “These things are so huge,” she murmured, goggling up at the height of them, their crowns towering thirty and forty feet in the air.

  Sagum sweat profusely, despite the fact that the air here was much cooler than they were accustomed to in the plains and Wastelands back west. He tried to mask the fact that he was out of breath, but Teran heard the strain in his voice as he spoke.

  “I wonder how much of the world used to look like this.” A barely concealed gasp for air. “Before the gods destroyed everything. And also—” Huff “—why these mountains and hills were left standing.” He swiped a wrist across his sweaty brow. “What I’m seeing doesn’t seem to fit with what we’ve ben told.”

  Teran eyed him. “You still have doubts about Perry’s father?”

  Sagum managed a shrug. “I doubt everything until I see it for myself. That’s kind of what makes us Outsiders. Heretics.”

  “Cato’s message said that th
ere were lies in the Ortus Deorum. I think that what we’re seeing is proof of that.”

  Sagum cast her a sidelong glance, his eyes twinkling. “I think you’re prone to believe whatever Perry believes.”

  Teran frowned. Almost stopped walking. Her heart did a jig in her chest, like being caught red-handed, so she immediately erected the necessary walls. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Sagum sighed. “Only that I see the way you act around Perry.”

  Teran turned away from Sagum to hide an indignant flush of her cheeks. “Bullshit. I think I argue with Perry more than Stuber does.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You’re talking out of your ass.”

  “No, see, that’s the point.” Sagum pushed a small bit of brush out of his way, then pointed at Teran. “You argue with Perry because you’re massively invested in him. It’s fairly obvious. And, if I were to take a guess, I’d say that’s the same reason why Stuber argues with him.”

  Teran shook her head. “So, you’re claiming that both Stuber and I have feelings for Perry?”

  Sagum chuckled—a little breathlessly. “Well, yes and no. I think you and Stuber are both invested in Perry for different reasons. Stuber seems to be invested in him because Perry has given him hope for a normal life—a life in which he’s no longer a fugitive. I think your feelings towards Perry are a little more…hm…personal. In both cases, it explains why everything Perry says hits you two on such a personal level. If you weren’t so invested, you wouldn’t have such an emotional response to him.”

  There was one small part of Teran that recoiled from this statement, realizing that Sagum had hit on something truer than she cared to consider. She’d never thought of Sagum as the perceptive type. And that made it easier for her to buckle down and dismiss his observations.

  “You’re ridiculous,” she snapped, cringing at her own defensiveness, then quickly covered it up. “I’m here for one reason and one reason only: Our people back home. We have to give them a chance to get out from under the demigods, and not have to hide in hovels and caves for generations on end. That’s why I’m here. That’s the only reason I’m here.”