The Nine Read online

  Perry drew his head back. “That’s…weird. Anyways—”

  “Shit!” Stuber snapped. “Skiff! Incoming!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WARDEN ABBAS

  Perry whirled in his seat, registering the sound of Stuber kicking his own door open.

  Incoming had been the wrong word.

  The skiff was there. And they hadn’t heard it coming because they’d been intensely whispering in a closed vehicle. It rose above the tops of the pines, a few hundred yards downslope from the ridge on which they sat, its gunpods already pointed straight at them.

  But they might have just enough time to hightail it out if they slammed it in reverse…

  “Stuber get in!” Perry yelled, then grabbed the ignition keys they’d taken from Whimsby and cranked it.

  Nothing happened. The battery indicator blinked, and let out a cheerful tone that seemed to mock him.

  “This bucket ain’t goin’ nowhere!” Stuber hollered. He was half into his seat again from Perry’s order and now thrust himself back out.

  Perry followed suit, baling out of the buggy and coming upright with his longstaff held out in front of him, his mind slipping into his shield. “Get around me! Get under my shield!”

  Would the shield even hold against the skiff’s gunpods?

  Perry’s brain went every which way that it could, but every direction seemed a dead end. Out of options. Except, maybe, to run, with the four of them bunched up under Perry’s shield, and maybe they could get enough distance down this mountain, maybe hide in the trees, before that skiff shot Perry’s shield to pieces and reduced them to mincemeat.

  Stuber, Teran, and Sagum, stood close to Perry, his shield enveloping them. He glanced to his right, where the slope seemed more manageable. If they really hauled ass…

  “Pardon me.” The voice came from Whimsby, amplified. Whimsby had turned up the volume so that they could hear him over the whine of the skiff’s engine as it slid through the air towards them, now only a hundred yards off. “I know you told me not to speak until you gave me permission, but I hope that you will allow me this, as it appears you might be making a rash decision, and I wouldn’t want to see that happen…”

  He’s just stalling, Perry thought. Giving time for the praetors to drop to the ground and come after us.

  “…but there is only one person on that skiff, and it is Warden Abbas, and I don’t believe he intends to hurt you. No, actually, he is telling me that right now. He is going to lower the skiff to ground level, and he requests, as politely as possible, that you not attempt to shoot-and-or explode him.”

  “What are we doing, Perry?” Stuber said, his voice taut. He reserved using Perry’s actual name for times when levity was beyond him. Which told Perry a lot about the situation.

  The skiff began to descend, now fifty yards from them.

  “Perry!” Teran said, her voice escalating. “If we’re gonna do something, we need to do it!”

  “If praetors come out,” Perry said as the dust from the skiff sizzled against his shield, inches from his face. “Me and Stuber will engage them while you guys fall back. Try to make it to the woods down the mountain.”

  “Oh Gods,” Teran snapped. “Is this more hero shit?”

  “Teran…work with me here.”

  The skiff settled into a hover a few feet off the ground. Its thrusters wound down. Perry’s only ray of hope was that he’d always seen praetors descend from the skiff while it was still in the air. And also, they would have smashed them with gunpod fire first.

  Over the side of the skiff came a figure. He bumbled over and landed on the ground less than gracefully, then stood up straight, taking time to adjust his gray robes and brush dust from his shoulders, before he raised his gaze to them.

  He was short. Not as short as Perry, but only by a small margin. And he was round. Everything about him was round. Like he was made out of stacked spheres of flesh. His gray robes were tight over a significant belly. His head was shaven bald, the top of it a perfect dome. His cheeks were ruddy and cherubic. And yet still he managed to wear an expression of deep consternation.

  Not at all what Perry had pictured.

  With the skiff’s thrusters wound down, there was now only a low hum coming from the machine.

  The bald, round man gave the party of four under the shield a slight nod of deference, his stubby hands raised up to show that they were empty. Though Perry wasn’t sure that meant he was harmless. He was still a paladin.

  Technically a paladin.

  Rather than speak to them, Warden Abbas—if this was indeed him—crossed around the front of the skiff and stopped at Whimsby’s side. Whimsby gazed blindly up at Warden Abbas with a bright smile.

  “You seem to have gotten yourself into a bit of a fix,” Abbas noted, his voice calm, and with a sonorous quality that made it almost soothing to hear. Not the grating hatred of Paladin Selos’s deep, booming voice.

  Whimsby nodded. “My apologies, Warden Abbas. It all went downhill very quickly.”

  “Well, I got here as quickly as I could. Shame about your leg. We’ll have it fixed. I’ll spare no expense.” Abbas leaned around to look at Whimsby’s back. “They seem to have bound you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Kind of you to go along with it.”

  “You made your orders very clear sir. I didn’t want things to devolve any further.”

  “I appreciate that. You may free yourself.”

  Whimsby flexed his arms, and with a sudden and alarming snap, broke the cargo straps that Teran had tied around his wrists.

  “Oh, shit,” Teran uttered.

  Perry gawked, and remembered how easily the mech at Fiendevelt had tossed him across the room. “Sagum, why didn’t you tell me that mechs have super strength?”

  “It’s not super strength,” Sagum murmured back. “But they are machines. They’re significantly stronger than regular humans. I just…I still thought the cargo straps would hold him.”

  Ahead of them, Abbas held out a hand to Whimsby, but Whimsby shook his head and rose to his feet on his own. “I do believe I can stand on my own, sir. Might have a hitch in my giddyup for a while. But no permanent damage.”

  “Very well,” Abbas said, turning back to the four of them, still huddling under the shield, with Perry feeling more and more off balance, and maybe even…a little foolish?

  Still. He wasn’t going to let his guard down. As long as they stayed inside the shield, they couldn’t be touched.

  “Care to introduce me to your erstwhile friends?” Abbas asked, striding towards them while Whimsby limped along.

  “We know who you are,” Perry said, trying to sound commanding and in control, but feeling more and more like he was being played into a corner in one of those strategy games. “And you don’t need to know who we are.”

  Whimsby ignored this, and began pointing to them, each in turn. “The angry young man with the longstaff and the shield is Perry. He is Confluent. The spritely young lady beside him is Teran. The tall skinny one goes by Sagum. And the ex-legionnaire is called Stuber. Do keep an eye on him. He can be a tad saucy.”

  Warden Abbas stopped at the very edge of the energy shield, looking through it like a window. His belly almost touched it. All Perry would have to do would be to take one step forward and Abbas would lose a lot of weight.

  “So,” Abbas said, smiling. “The intrepid band from Fiendevelt. I’m surprised you made it across the Glass Flats. Congratulations on that.”

  Perry’s stomach sank. Despite his best efforts, he must have shown this in his expression, because Abbas keyed into him and nodded.

  “Oh yes. I’m well aware of who you are. Although I didn’t have a name to put to the face, until now.”

  “They know we’re here,” Perry managed to choke out.

  Abbas lifted his hands skyward. “Everyone knows you’re here. You’re all the rage in rumors this past week. Who is the boy that carved up our mech at Fiendevelt with what looke
d like an energy shield? And how could he possibly be Confluent? Mystery abounds.” Abbas wagged a finger at him. “You’ve pissed off a lot of people up there. But you’re in luck. I’ve pissed them off too. Which is why I’m currently banished to the shithole known as Praesidium.”

  “Oh, now,” Whimsby sighed. “Praesidium is quite nice.”

  “Nice for peasants,” Abbas replied with a note of bitterness. He refocused on Perry. “Perhaps we can help each other.”

  “I’m not helping a paladin,” Perry spat.

  “But don’t you want to know about the East Ruins?” Abbas asked with wide, innocent eyes. “Don’t you need to know where it is?”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  Abbas laughed. “Maybe you will. Or maybe you’ll die trying. Probably that will be the case. Something tells me that you don’t really know what lies ahead of you, or I suspect you would have come a little heavier armed.” He peered at Teran and Sagum. “Oh dear. Two of your party don’t even have weapons.” He frowned, shook his head, and then clapped his hands together. “But, if you refuse to work with me, then there’s nothing to be done for it. Come, Whimsby. We shall return to Praesidium on my skiff. You may leave the buggy. Maybe it will be useful to them in their travels.” He laughed at this last part.

  Perry could guess what that joke was: Somehow, you couldn’t reach the East Ruins in a buggy alone. Perhaps it was a terrain issue. Perhaps something else that Perry hadn’t even thought of yet. But he suddenly knew beyond doubt that the buggy wouldn’t get them very far.

  Abbas and Whimsby turned to leave.

  “Well, that was a shitty negotiation,” Perry shot at his back.

  Abbas stopped and turned. “Dear boy. It was never a negotiation. And besides, you refuse to work with paladins. We’re the enemy, right? We’re all bad. Every one of us. Why would I be any different?”

  He turned to leave again.

  Perry swore. He knew what they were doing. It was a classic, high-pressure sales tactic. But at the moment, the prospect of letting them get on that skiff again seemed like losing. Like an opportunity passing them by.

  “What’s in it for you?”

  Abbas spun, sighing with exaggerated irritation. “Will you or will you not work with a paladin?”

  “Well, you’re only technically a paladin, right?” Perry said, trying to regain bit of the offensive. “A genetic mistake.”

  Abbas pursed his lips, affronted. He glared at Whimsby. “You are no longer permitted to talk about my abilities.”

  Whimsby nodded. “Of course, sir.”

  “You mean your lack of abilities,” Perry pressed.

  Abbas scrutinized him. “Let us assume that I do lack Confluence. Which, somehow, you possess—a fact which seems wildly unfair. Does that mean you are willing to work with me?”

  “That depends on what working with you entails. Again, what’s in it for you?”

  Abbas took a great breath of air, his eyelids closing halfway. He raised his arms up high, as though gesturing to something too huge to be explained. And then he flopped them to his side. He exhaled. “Vindication,” he said, as though the word were a rare delicacy to be savored.

  “Lower your shields,” Stuber murmured. “We’ll kill them both and take the skiff.”

  Abbas frowned at him. “Saucy indeed.”

  Perry shifted his weight, working his grip on the longstaff. The slight vibration through it seemed to hum louder, as though it sensed violence was near. “Warden Abbas. Whimsby. Don’t walk away from me again.” Then turning his head to address Stuber, he said, “If they turn away from us again, you shoot the fat man in the head and I’ll disintegrate Whimsby.”

  Stuber smirked. “Gladly.”

  Abbas grimaced, but remained facing them. His hands came together, his fingers wrestling with each other. “You’re turning this into something of a standoff, boy. You say you refuse to work with me, and yet you refuse to let me go. You’re going to need to make a decision.”

  “How will helping us vindicate you?”

  That same, almost beatific expression came over Abbas again. “Because, if you succeed, you’ll bring the whole thing down on their heads. You’ll disrupt the system. The very system that took everything from you. And from me. And I will find that exquisitely satisfying.”

  “And if they find out that you helped me, won’t they kill you?”

  Abbas shrugged. “That presumes that I intend to let them find out. And even if they do, the disruption of the power structure might reveal that we have more friends than we think.” He gave Perry a secretive look. “The politics are…extremely complex.”

  “And where do you fall in those politics, Warden Abbas? The paladins have been at war with each other for centuries. So are you the Truth or the Light?”

  Abbas gave him a strange little titter, his eyes twinkling again at some humor Perry wasn’t privy to. “Let us just say that Praesidium is neutral territory.”

  Perry snarled. “You want me to trust you, but you’re talking in circles. Playing fucking games. I’ll make you a deal, right here and right now, Abbas. You tell me one thing, you give me one secret that I don’t know, and I’ll lower my shield.”

  “And come with me?”

  Perry’s jaw worked. “Maybe.”

  “Not a good enough deal.”

  “Yes,” Perry suddenly decided. “I’ll come with you. But our weapons stay with us, in our hands, and I reserve the right to blow you away if you try to pull some shit on us.”

  “Oh my. Quite a perilous caveat.” Abbas began walking towards him, his eyes going upwards, as though considering. He stopped, again, very close to the shield. “Alright, dear boy. You asked Whimsby last night about The Source.” He smiled at Perry’s shocked expression, though Perry figured he shouldn’t be surprised at this point. “Of course I was listening. You should always assume that someone’s listening when you deal with a mech. There’s a secret for free. We’ll call it good faith. Here’s the other secret…” He leaned in close, his nose nearly touching the energy shield. Perry wondered what his skull would look like bisected. “…There is no ‘Source’ in the East Ruins. There is nothing there that you want to tangle with.”

  “The machines of wrath?” Perry said, his voice sarcastic, though his heart beat hard.

  Abbas shook his head. “The Guardians? They are there, too. They’re bad enough. But it’s not really them that you should worry about. It’s what they’re guarding.” He let the silence extend until it seemed to hum, and then sniffed and leaned back. “There. I’ve revealed a secret. Now lower your shield.”

  “You didn’t reveal much.”

  Abbas shrugged. “You might think that. But that is because you are ignorant.”

  Those words reminded Perry again of Paladin Selos and what he had told Perry just before trying to kill him: You’ve a simplistic understanding of a complex machine that keeps life on this planet going. Cato didn’t understand its complexity. And neither do you.

  Abbas’s eyes searched his, and for the first time since meeting the man, Perry thought they looked earnest. “You can’t uncover secrets by hiding inside of your shield.”

  Abbas took a single step back, and then did something very strange for a paladin, even a short, fat, non-Confluent one: He extended his hand.

  It hovered there, inches from the shield.

  An invitation. To secrets. To knowledge. To all the things that had been kept from Perry, and all the things he would need if he wanted to have a shred of a chance of accomplishing the mission that Cato McGown had entrusted him with.

  Right now, he was just Perry. He was just a peon who happened to be able to work a longstaff. But if Perry were to ever prove that he was worthy of Cato McGown’s trust—that he was as capable as his father had wanted him to be—he was going to have to become something more than just a peon with a few tricks up his sleeve.

  He would need to know what the paladins knew. And here was one, offering his hand, offering Perry
a chance. No matter how slim, no matter how dangerous, it was a chance. Maybe the only one that Perry would ever get.

  He extinguished the shield.

  Beside him, Teran let out a quiet hiss of dismay, Sagum stayed silent, and Stuber kept his weapon pointing at Abbas’s shiny white dome. But none of them stopped him. None of them questioned him.

  Perry reached out and shook Warden Abbas’s hand. It was soft, and dry, and warm. The grip was placid, though Perry squeezed his aggressively.

  “I may still have to kill you,” Perry said, as their hands parted.

  Warden Abbas rubbed his hand, frowning. “If it comes to that, dear boy, being instantly disintegrated by you will be the best that I can hope for.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  MALA

  Mala of House Batu wanted to stamp down the wide marble steps with her hard heels clacking to punctuate her irritation. But she restrained herself so that her 150-year old father could keep pace.

  “We can do so much with our genetics,” her father grumbled, sensing that he slowed her down. “And yet, at a certain point, the hips start grinding and stairs become the enemy.” He huffed—just as irritated as she was. “We live on a damned floating city and yet I still have to walk down stairs.”

  “You could use a glider,” Mala remarked.

  “Bah.” Her father took her elbow and stopped her a few steps from the bottom, turning her to face him. “The point is, Mala…” he paused, his eyes sweeping about the atrium below them. He lowered his voice. “I won’t be head of House Batu for much longer.”

  Mala narrowed her eyes. “Yes, I understand that you can’t keep me out of trouble this time.”

  Her father grunted. “Don’t be dense, girl. I never could keep you out of trouble. You run headlong into it at every opportunity, and apparently this won’t be an exception.”

  “As I recall,” Mala said, icily. “My marriage to Selos was arranged for me.”

  “Primus help me.” Her father lifted his gaze skyward for a moment, then settled back on his daughter. He released his grip on her elbow. “When you are head of house, you’ll understand the need for strategic marriages.”