by Lisa Lace
Sabin’s mother was a Samis Das as much as the rest of them, but she was from one of the more remote parts of the planet, and her clan had been destroyed by the Nine when she was just a little girl. Everyone knew the story of how the few survivors of that attack had come in towards the bustling center of the planet, looking for refuge after their families and homes had been wiped out in the devastating attack from the Nine.
Sabin knew that even now it made his mother sad to think about it, but she’d told him the stories, the things she remembered, from when they came, and Sabin liked how it made the other young ones look at him like he was older, bigger. Like he knew what he was talking about and had more knowledge in this than they did.
“What did she tell you?” piped up Osu from his seat on a rock.
“Yeah, tell us!” the others agreed, all sitting up straight.
All eyes were on him, and it made Sabin feel powerful. He smiled and moved to lean against the tree he’d been in. “Well,” he said. “The Nine wouldn’t be hiding in the ruins because they don’t need to hide. They’re made of the darkness itself and they’re always on the move, slipping in and out of the shadows. They spread disease and chaos wherever they go, passing madness from one creature to the next. My mil’kra said that they get their victims to do much of their work for them.
“How?” breathed one of the few girls among them.
“It’s simple,” Sabin said. “They touch someone and give them the madness. It makes them sick and they can’t remember who they are or who anyone else is. As soon as they see another person they wanna kill them, and just touching the person makes the madness spread. Mil’kra says that whole clans end up killing each other because they lose their minds.”
“And what do the Nine do?” Bristel asked.
“They watch,” Sabin replied. “The violence makes them stronger.”
No one was laughing anymore. All the children looked on with horrified eyes, images of their family and friends being turned into mindless killing machines flashing through their heads. It was a horrible thing to think about, but there wasn’t anyone in the quadrant who didn’t fear even stories of the Nine.
Very few people who had a run in with them lived to talk about it, and every clan and race that inhabited the planets in the area had their own stories and myths about the merciless killers known as the Nine.
“You don’t think they’d come here, do you?” someone asked, and Bristel laughed.
“Are you kidding?” he asked. “They wouldn’t dare! We’re the Samis Das. The strongest warriors in the quadrant. No one’s stupid enough to take us on.”
“But if they could make us kill each other…” someone else mused, voice quiet with fear.
“They’d have to get through the guards first,” Bristel assured. “No one’s ever been able to do that.”
And that was true. The guards of the sanctuary of the Samis Das were some of the most fearsome warriors the Samis Das had ever seen. Those who were foolish enough to try and attack them were handled before they could even get through the great stone gates.
Some of the children still looked uneasy, and Sabin felt compelled to help.
“He’s right,” he said, eyes bright. “There’s no way they can take us over. We’re strong, right? Only weak ones succumb to illness and madness.”
Slowly the smiles returned to the faces of the young ones, and they got up, brandishing sticks and rocks and chasing each other around the clearing shouting that they wouldn’t be corrupted by madness.
Sabin was right in the thick of it, a stick in his hand that he waved around him in a circle. “Get back, Nine!” he cried. “You won’t get me!”
Laughter and the occasional cry of pain when someone got struck with a makeshift weapon echoed through the clearing and they didn’t notice when someone else joined them. A tall, slender woman with falls of white hair like starlight, her eyes a soft gold as she watched the children play.
When there was a lull, she cleared her throat, and all of them turned to look at her, eyes wide.
“Mil’kra!” Sabin shouted, dropping his stick and flinging himself at the woman, arms going around her waist. He was tall for his age, and his head reached above his mother’s waist.
He looked like her, though he had his father’s stature, his snowy white hair a dirty tousled mess, and his eyes just a shade darker than his mother’s.
“What are you doing, Sabin?” she asked, amusement in her voice.
“We were practicing smiting the Nine!” he said joyfully, and he couldn’t see it when his mother’s smile dimmed.
“Oh?” she asked. “Well, it’s time for lessons. Everyone is waiting in the arena.” She seemed to hesitate for a moment and then she let out a breath. “Listen to me, young ones. Do not talk too much of the Nine. Some say that just speaking about them is enough to bring them upon you, and that is the last thing you want.”
Every eye in the clearing was on her, and as one the children bowed their heads in understanding.
Sabin’s mil’kra was something of a legend among the Samis Das, especially the young ones. She was tall and beautiful and her eyes were sometimes sad. Everyone knew that she was the only child to survive the attack on her home, and rumors flew thick in the air about how she’d done it. Some said that she’d taken up her father’s sword when he’d been slain and fought them off with it until she could run to safety. Others believed that she’d managed to charm one of the Nine with a smile and a song, bewitching it until she was able to get away.
Her name was Vieryn and she refused to tell anyone what she’d done one way or another. “Some things are best left in the past where they belong,” she’d say when asked, and no matter how much children pleaded with her, she kept her lips sealed about it.
That only led to the mystery about it, though, and Sabin was guilty of taking advantage of his mother’s quiet nature, embellishing the few stories she’d told him with his own flair for theatrics to amuse his friends.
Still, it was fun to speculate about the Nine and what manner of creature they might be, but no one wanted them to come for real. It was one thing to play out a fight between the Samis Das and the Nine, but no one wanted to see that happen in truth.
The young ones scrambled off to the arena, ready for their daily lessons in combat and weapon handling, but Sabin hung back for a moment, looking at his mother.
“Are you okay, mil’kra?” he asked, wondering if he’d done the wrong thing by telling her tales to his friends.
But Vieryn smiled and inclined her head, stroking careful fingers through her son’s hair. “Yes, kirshi,” she said, using their word for ‘my son’. “I’m fine. You go off to your lessons now, alright?”
“Okay!” Sabin said, cheering up quickly in the way that young ones usually did.
He bounded off after his friends, running full tilt down the grassy hill to the center of town where the arena had been built.
The Samis Das were legendary warriors, and every generation of warriors had to be trained. They started out young, of course, learning their way around weapons and strategy even as they learned languages and to read and write.
They weren’t mindless barbarians. The Samis Das had an excellent reputation through the quadrant, and they worked hard to keep it that way.
Sabin wanted to be the next great warrior. He wanted to defend his people and to be one of the guards who kept everyone safe.
As he practiced, he thought about his mother and the Nine. He thought about her being young and scared and the Nine (faceless shadows in his mind), coming through the door to her home and slithering along the floor, trying to find her.
If he’d been there, he would have protected her, and it made him mad to think that someone hadn’t protected her back then.
No one here would ever have to feel like that if he had anything to say about it.
He copied the movements of their instructor with the sword in his hands, letting his muscle memory guide him. If he was goi
ng to be one of the best, then he would need to train hard.
“Good, Sabin,” the instructor called. “Bristel, adjust your grip. Osu, hold that sword higher.”
Bristel gave him a dirty look, but Sabin ignored it, focused and determined.
A Samis Das warrior was one with their weapon, and he couldn’t afford to be distracted. He was going to be better than the rest and rise through the ranks. For his mil’kra. So no one else would ever have to be scared again.
“Sabin! Sabin, let me in, you dirik.”
Sabin rolled his eyes and peered through the hole in the stone gate. He grinned wide as he took in the sight of Lilera, armed and loaded down with her packs.
“What’s the password?” he teased and then gestured to one of his fellow guards. Together they pulled the heavy gate open to let Lilera in.
She was the daughter of their leader, an explorer, and more beautiful now than she’d been when they were kids. Everyone knew that she and Sabin had something, but they also knew that Sabin had dedicated his life to the way of the warrior and sometimes that didn’t leave room for other things.
They still seemed determined to try, and Sabin smiled as he leaned against one of the pillars that held up the stone gate, which blocked off their town from the rest of the area. “Find anything good?” he asked, peering at the three packs she had. One was strapped to her back and two were slung over her shoulders.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she teased him.
They clasped hands in the traditional greeting of their kind, and no one said anything when their hands lingered for a bit longer than was strictly necessary.
Sabin had grown up well. He was tall and broad like his father, skin golden from time spent out in the sun. But he had his mother’s golden eyes and snowy white hair, and it still was a messy mop on his head, flopping in his eyes and over the collar of his uniform.
“It’s good to see you,” Lilera said. She was tall and slender, but still strong. The Samis Das were a strong race, and even those who weren’t warriors were still able to defend themselves. “Is my father around?”
“He’s in the next city over, Lady Lilera,” one of the other guards replied.
Now her eyes clouded, and she bit her lip.
Sabin frowned, not liking the look on her face. His intuition was one of the things that people said made him a good warrior, and he knew something was wrong. “Is something amiss?” he asked, trying to sound casual.
Lilera hesitated for a second and then shook her head. “No,” she said. “Everything’s fine. I just wanted to see him after so long away. Sabin, do you have time to walk me home?”
It was an odd request, but Sabin agreed, nodding and calling for someone to take his place as he took two of the packs from Lilera and followed her in the direction of her quarters.
“What is it?” he asked, not believing her words for a second.
“I believe…” she said and then trailed off. “You know Porkoi? The town farthest to the south?”
Sabin nodded. It was a bustling center of trade for their planet, close to one of the drop off points for shuttles from other planets. “What about it?”
“It’s gone.”
“What?” Sabin asked, eyes wide. “What do you mean gone?”
“Just what I said,” she replied. “It’s gone.”
“Do you think…” He didn’t need to elaborate. They all knew the legends.
Lilera shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Creators, keep us,” Sabin murmured, tipping his head back to look at the sky.
Prologue Part Two: Stories
The night sky was a vast inky blanket above her as Heather lay on her back in the bed of her father’s pickup truck. A blanket was tucked around her, a pillow under her head, and her hands rested on her stomach, full of the soup and donuts her father had brought along for this excursion.
They were a good fifty miles outside of the city, the darkness deeper here, away from the streetlights and buildings and cars. “Country dark,” her dad called it, describing how he and his sisters would climb up onto their roof back on the farm where they’d grown up and watch the night sky for shooting stars.
It was hard to find darkness that pure in the city, and so the two of them would drive out to a clearing an hour away from the city and watch for meteors and shooting stars just like her dad had done when he was a kid.
A brisk wind whipped around them, and Heather pulled the blanket tighter around her, scanning the sky and watching her breath mist in front of her face.
In the grass, her dad was setting up the telescope. He’d crane his neck and scan the sky with his eyes before bending down to look into the telescope, making small adjustments to the angle and lenses that Heather didn’t understand.
He always handled this part, making sure they had the best view before he called her over and let her look through it, answering her questions and aimless musing with amusement and as much information as he had.
It was sort of their thing, a ritual three years in the making now, and Heather always looked forward to the times when her dad would come home from work with that look on his face. Then he’d tell her that he’d heard there was going to be a meteor shower or that Venus would be in view or just that he wanted to get out of the city for a little bit.
Her mother would shake her head and say that they were fanciful dreamers, always wishing on stars, but she’d make soup and hot cocoa for them and pack it into thermoses so they could take it with them.
She always kissed both of them, her father on the mouth and Heather on the forehead and then stood in the driveway, watching them drive off.
Now, Heather sat up on her elbows to watch her dad as he fiddled with the telescope. It always made her laugh to see him playing with it like some kind of nerd because he wasn’t a small man by any means.
No, Christopher Sutter was muscular and tall, well over six feet. Heather’s friends always said that he looked scary, but Heather knew better. There wasn’t a mean bone in her father’s body, no matter how he looked. Him being so large just meant that he gave better hugs. As a thirteen year old girl, she wasn’t going to admit that she loved getting hugs from her father, but she did.
“Almost done?” she asked, voice carrying in the otherwise quiet night.
Her dad looked up and smiled at her. “Just about,” he said. “Seen anything yet?”
Heather shook her head, long braid sliding against her back as she did. “Nothing. It’s only just after seven, though.”
“Right you are,” Christopher replied. “It’ll be at least eight or nine before things really heat up.” He pushed his mop of curly hair out of his face and smiled wider. “Do you know about wishes, Heather?”
Heather rolled her eyes. They’d been talking about this since she was a little girl, but her dad always asked anyway when they were out here. And she always indulged him, since she knew it was one of his favorite parts of the whole routine.
“Tell me about wishes, Dad.”
He grinned and nodded. “The thing about stars, Heather, is that they’re more than what they appear. They burn, you know. They don’t just shine. Sometimes they streak across our sky so fast they leave a trail of glitter behind them, and there’s magic in that glitter dust. It falls through the atmosphere to land on Earth, granting wishes to those who’re deserving. To those who believe. Do you believe, Heather?”
It was always the same question, and she never really knew how to answer it. For one thing, she knew that her father was just talking nonsense. He said that his mother had told him the same story when he was her age and that her mother had told her when she was just as young. Maybe as far back as when her great grandmother was a kid people actually believed in things like that, but these days it was kind of ridiculous. Heather was of the age where fanciful things like making wishes seemed silly, but this was something she refused to let go of because it was something that belonged to her and her dad.
“Sure,” she said
, shrugging a shoulder.
“You don’t sound sure,” her dad replied, waggling a finger at her. “You have to commit all the way or the magic doesn’t work.”
Heather laughed, sitting all the way up and pulling the blanket with her. “Has it ever worked for you?” she wanted to know.
“Oh yeah,” her dad said. “Twice in my life.”
“Tell me about it?” Heather asked, even though she’d heard this story more times than she could count. Somehow knowing that her dad believed made it easier for her to believe it.
He tipped his head back, blue eyes locked on the sky. “The first time was when I was twenty-three years old. I was traveling through Oregon on my way to visit a friend of mine. My car broke down in the middle of nowhere, and I do mean nowhere. There were no buildings as far as the eye could see, no gas stations, barely any other cars on the road.” Christopher looked at her, then, grinned and raised an eyebrow. “And this was before cell phones, so it wasn’t like I could call triple A or anything. I was really stuck.”
Heather grinned back. “Must have been scary.”
Her dad shook his head. “Not really. It was a clear night, just like this one, but in the summer, so the sky was different. I got out of my car and sat on the hood, waiting for someone to drive by. I happened to look up just in time to see a shooting star. The first one I’d seen since I moved away from the farm. I watched the tail and just as it was about to disappear I wished for help. Nothing happened for about fifteen minutes, and I was thinking about picking a direction and hoping for a gas station when I saw headlights. Before I could even hop off the car and flag the driver down, they were pulling off and stopping right behind me. You know who was in that car?”
“Mom,” Heather replied.
“Exactly. Your mom. She was like an angel. She had jumper cables in her car and knew how to use them. I think I fell in love with her right then and there.”
It was weird to think about her parents being that young, but it was a nice picture. “And the second time?” Heather asked, mostly because that story was her favorite.
Her dad knew that, too, and he gave her a look. “You probably know that story well enough to tell it to me,” he said.