The Sinister Regent Page 5

  She was reminded of something she did do well when they got inside and the others’ shoes and boots clattered. She put a finger to her lips and crept silently to the first corner. A quick look, and she crept back.

  “Okay, I think there are guards.”

  “People?” Chris whispered back.

  “Spiders. Large mechanical spiders.”

  Donal looked thoughtful, but Amalia and Chris both smiled. Chris pulled his sword free. “Perfect.”

  I don’t even see any rocks to throw. Jes followed reluctantly as Amalia and Chris charged around the corner.

  The six spiders were the size of dinner platters. They also shot webs. Amalia and Chris both ducked the streams sent toward them, and their swords struck with a clatter of metal on metal.

  “Those webs may be a problem,” Donal com-mented, rummaging through his pockets. “Here, a short-distance flamer.”

  Jes caught the toss easily and then darted up as a web ensnared Chris’s right leg. She flicked the flamer on, burning through the thick strand between his leg and the wall. Chris charged in further, already hitting a second spider.

  Donal used a different device to cut the webbings from Amalia’s sword arm. The spiders chittered together—communicating?—then the remaining three backed up.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Amalia said, her eyes blazing. She grinned like a maniac as she raced forward, bringing her sword down to cut one in half. The other two webbed both her arms, and her smile turned to a look of intense irritation. “Seriously?”

  Chris darted in, stopping the spiders from biting her, while Donal and Jes moved forward to free her arms. Then, Chris took the spider on the left while Amalia took the one on the right, and then there were only mechanical parts left littering the floor.

  Jes slipped the flamer into her pocket. “It doesn’t look like your uncle wants company,” she commented.

  Donal nodded. “This isn’t really like him. I’m getting a little worried.”

  Jes snorted. “Androids, airships, and treason … and now you’re a little worried?”

  Donal shrugged. “No sense borrowing trouble.”

  Amalia and Chris kept their swords out and ready as they went forward. After the fight, sneaking in quietly seemed a lot less likely. The door at the end of the corridor was also locked, and once again, Amalia opened it.

  The workroom beyond the door looked like a combination of a toyshop and a murder scene. Android parts, disturbingly lifelike, littered shelves and tables, with gadgets in various states of disrepair in between them. At the far end, a tall, slender man with spiky blond hair and goggles was putting pieces together with total attention.

  “Uncle Kegan?” Donal asked. “What are you doing?”

  The man didn’t look up. “Donal, lad, was I expecting you? Sorry, I have this important project to finish for a friend. You won’t mind waiting, will you? It should only be a few more hours.”

  Judging by the scattered plates of crumbs, the project had already been going on for several days. Jes cleared her throat, but Amalia spoke first.

  “Actually, there’s a bit of a problem. Aside from your leaving spiders to attack us and sending androids to take over our kingdoms, that is.”

  “Attack? Take over? That doesn’t sound right. I’m sure we can sort it all out as soon as I finish this for my friend Mathis. He needs it today for the party Gregor is throwing. Or maybe Mathis is throwing the party for Gregor. I’m not clear on that part.” He still hadn’t looked up, and Jes sympathized with Chris, who looked ready to scream.

  “Mathis?” Jes asked. “Your friend is Dark Mathis, the pirate?”

  Kegan finally looked up. “Oh, no, that was years ago. Nobody is to know that. They’d lock him up or kill him, and we agreed that he’d get another chance instead.”

  Chris crowed suddenly. “He’s the ninth hero!”

  Kegan fluttered his hands like they didn’t quite belong to him. “Well, really, none of us felt like heroes. But yes, when we decided that he wasn’t a bad fellow, that he had treated his crew well and didn’t deserve to die—well, the only way out was to pretend he had been one of us.”

  Kegan picked up a screwdriver and gestured with it. “The attacks were almost entirely on Alsandian ships, and Mathis told us that he’d been paid by a few of the surrounding countries to carry them out. We held him off at the tiny central island until Melia raised the islands, and that broke two of his ships and beached the last. He couldn’t get away, and if we brought him back in chains, the whole story would have gotten out. There might have been war. So, it was either kill him right there and then or save him. He came back here with me to learn about steam technology and other fascinating stuff, and he’s been a perfect gentleman for the last eighteen years.”

  Jes sighed. “Did he ask you to make four androids for him? Tall, pale women with black hair and sharp features?”

  Kegan nodded, then shook his head. “Five, actually. They’re a surprise for Gregor. All of this is a surprise for Gregor, for the party. To make it up to him, Mathis said.”

  Jes saw when the realization came to each of the others. “Kegan, Mathis is going to assassinate Gregor. And he’s going to set himself up as King of the Waveborn Islands.”

  Kegan opened his mouth as though to argue, then closed it again. “Oh, dear,” he said.

  “We need to stop it. Where is this happening and when?”

  “Across town, at Darrius Hall.” He looked over at a clock. “In about an hour.”

  9

  They’ll never let us in. We look like street urchins with good teeth and swords. We don’t have time to both change and get there, even if we had appropriate clothing to change into.” Jes rubbed her forehead.

  Amalia paced. “Too many guards to fight our way in. Is there any way to sneak in?”

  “Sewers?” Chris asked. “Every place has sewers.”

  Sewers … water … Darrius Hall. “Isn’t there a huge water garden in Darrius Hall? Alex mentioned that she was looking forward to seeing it.”

  Kegan nodded. “Enormous indoor waterfall. There’s a faint mist inside most of the time.”

  “The water has to come from somewhere. Is it near the river?” Jes turned to Donal. “Do you think the skiff would fit?”

  “Only one way to find out.” Donal frowned intently. “It’s worth a try.”

  “What are you planning?” Kegan asked, perplexed.

  “Adventure,” Chris assured him. “The very best kind.”

  Amalia, Chris, and Donal scoured the workshop for useful things while Jes tried to explain the plan to Kegan. Fortunately, impulsiveness ran in the family, because he just nodded and grabbed his coat. Jes threw on a cloak, and then they were ready.

  The way out was far less eventful, although Kegan was disturbed at the evidence that Mathis had set the spiders to attack anyone who might disturb—or warn—him. “But he’s been such a good friend. Always found me parts, never made me leave off inventing to go be social …”

  The skiff distracted him, and he and Donal talked about the craft while they boarded and then took it underwater again. The Hall was upriver, on the opposite side, and within a few minutes, they found a huge underwater vent with an inflow pipe beside it. This, aggravatingly, had a sturdy grate over it, and in the interest of time, they agreed that Donal could use explosives to unmount the grate. The ripples from the explosion rocked them back a bit, but they were able to enter the pipe and follow it upward.

  Time was passing, and Jes found herself checking Kegan’s watch over and over again. When the pipe divided, they took the larger branch. Soon, the rush of water was such that Donal had to set the engines on reverse to slow them down so he could steer—and, if necessary, stop. The noise outside became louder, the motion more turbulent, and then, for one instant, they were suspended in open air.

  They were in an enormous room. Across from them was a balcony with a dozen people on it. Below them, the fifth android pointed a gun at a tall man in a crown. Cr
owds of people watched in dismay. Jes blinked, and then they were falling, plummeting, landing in a wave of water that sent the crowned man back and knocked the android over.

  “Everybody out!” Donal shouted, hitting the lever to open the door. Jes scrambled out of her harness, but Amalia and Chris were already out, swords brandished. She ducked out between Donal and Kegan, splashing through the waist-deep water toward the crowd.

  Amalia and Chris had taken up positions in front of the king like bodyguards, and Jes looked around wildly. She knew Dark Mathis had to be here, but what did he look like?

  Lady Whatever was staggering to her feet, soaked from the waist down, but her grasp on the gun was steady. “Three for the price of one,” she said coolly, pointing.

  Kegan ran up and grabbed the android’s arm. She lifted the arm and flung him away while transferring the gun to her other hand, her gaze never wavering. Kegan landed against a pillar and groaned.

  Jes felt the world narrow. You will always know one good thing to do. She felt in her pocket and pulled out the flamer. The android’s clothing was soaked, but her hair …

  Even wet, her boots were quiet on the stone floor. One step closer, another, a third. She lifted the flamer, pushed it on, and held it to the android’s thick braid.

  For a moment, nothing happened, and then the flame spread up the black hair like a sunrise lighting a mountain. The android tilted her head slightly, as though aware of a problem she couldn’t identify, and then her hand with the gun fell as she began to twitch. Her head was melting, features blurring into each other. In another few seconds, she was on the floor, the flames sizzling as they met the puddles around them.

  There was shocked silence for a long moment, and then the sound of clapping. Jes looked up to see a pale man with black hair and a beard on a balcony above them.

  “Oh, bravo. Or brava, perhaps, for some of you. Nicely done, but I can’t have my grand revenge stolen so easily, even if I can’t pin it all on poor Kegan there. Soldiers? Shoot them.”

  Donal shouted and threw something, not toward Dark Mathis, but toward the king. Smoke spewed out from it instantly. Even as the soldiers on the balcony lifted guns, they vanished from view.

  Donal grabbed her arm, handing a wobbly Kegan off to her as he led them to the others and out of the room. There was shouting around them, but she ignored it as Donal took them through a low grate she hadn’t noticed. It opened onto a passageway. There was a staircase down in front of her, unnerving in the dark, but someone was in front of her, and she just counted her steps as she supported Kegan down the stairs. Eighteen, twenty-four, thirty, thirty-six … and she was on a level surface. She moved forward carefully with Kegan until she found a wall to her right to let him lean against.

  There was a scraping sound from behind her, and a flickering light appeared in the darkness. Donal, Amalia, Chris, Kegan, and the king stood in a round chamber with high walls, a staircase at one end, and an archway at the other. The archway was set with fancy projecting bricks. It towered over them, maybe fifteen feet high, and the ceiling was even higher than that. Donal’s candle didn’t reach to the darkness beyond. Jes leaned against the corner, out of the way, and caught her breath.

  “Your Majesty?” Donal asked politely. “Do we hide here, or is there a good way out?”

  “It opens up ahead. There’s a hidden stair to the balcony, but I’d recommend that we let the trained professionals take on the people up there.” Gregor sighed. “Thank you, by the way. Once this is settled, I’d love to know why—and how—you came here.”

  There was a sound from the darkness, then a circle of light, and Dark Mathis appeared around the corner, gun drawn in his right hand, his left holding a torch. “That would be fascinating, but unfortunately, all of our curiosities will have to go unsatisfied. It’s time for the final act of my grand revenge.”

  Amalia and Chris still had their swords out, but he could take them both out before they reached him. Maybe if we all rushed him, one or two of us would make it. Jes looked at the arch again. He hadn’t seen her. He was standing just below the center of the arch.

  “Why revenge?” Amalia asked. “It doesn’t seem grand at all. It seems rather petty. Oh, boo-hoo, Gregor’s friends stopped me from pirating, gave severance pay to my crew, and failed to imprison or execute me. It’s just not fair, my life is over. Seriously, what have you got to even be annoyed about?” Amalia put her free hand on her hip and shook her head. “And my parents say I can be unreasonable.”

  It was too high. I can’t. I just can’t. Jes took a silent breath and put one booted foot up on the lowest stone.

  Chris was talking, but Jes couldn’t stop to look. “She’s got a point. I mean, I’d never even heard of you, so how important could you be? Especially if nobody even put you in jail?”

  For a moment, there was silence. Jes grabbed the blocks above and kept climbing. “How could children like you possibly understand?” Mathis exploded.

  Gregor cleared his throat. “I’m afraid I don’t understand either,” the king apologized. “It all does seem a bit like a temper tantrum.”

  Jes’s eyes threatened to cross when she looked down, but she was above the pirate now. She held on with one hand as she unfastened her cloak with the other. A drop of water fell from it, hitting Mathis in the forehead. He started to look up, and she dropped the cloak onto him.

  The torch sizzled as the wet cloak doused it, then Donal blew out his own candle as Amalia and Chris rushed forward. Everything was dark, scrabbling, and swearing from the darkness that might have been Mathis but sounded like Gregor.

  Jes held on with both hands to the stones of the archway. There was a squeal that sounded like Chris, the noisy patter of shoes on stone, and then the familiar scrape of flint on steel. A small circle of light showed Donal holding the gun while Chris and Amalia held blades at the ready over the kneeling pirate.

  Below her, Mathis was holding a candle, pointing at Gregor as though his free hand still held a weapon. “You—you idealistic idiots! Calm and understanding and always taking the higher ground! You’ve just never cared enough about something to kill for it!”

  A dark object connected with the back of his head with a crack, and the pirate slumped to the floor. Chris dove for the candle as it rolled out of his hand and held it aloft.

  “That’s where you’d be wrong,” a familiar voice said grimly.

  “Daddy?”

  King Willem took a step further into the room and looked up at Jes. “Hello, Peanut. How did you get up there?”

  “You didn’t kill him, did you, Willem? There will be so much more paperwork if he’s dead.” Jes’s mother came into view behind him.

  “I’ll do the paperwork,” Alex volunteered. “Or we could just let Uncle Phineas carry him. It wouldn’t be his fault if he dropped him. Down a flight of stairs. Repeatedly.”

  “Are you all here? Our parents, too?” Amalia asked.

  “All of us.” Jes’s mother smiled. “We’ll have stories to share, after everything’s settled.”

  Jes’s father never took his eyes from hers. “First, I think, we have to get Jes down. Do you want to climb, honey?”

  Jes’s father was the tallest person in the room. It was still a long way down to him, but not as far away as the floor. “Catch me?” Jes asked.

  Her father opened his arms and smiled. “Always.”

  * * *

  After Dark Mathis and his mercenaries from the balcony had been dragged off to jail, they gathered in Gregor’s library for a late breakfast. Soldiers had been sent to clear the islands of conspirators, and Jes felt almost like the whole thing had been a dream. Except that she was tired, starving, and badly in need of a bath.

  “We would have been in trouble if Willem hadn’t insisted on seeing the life jackets before we took off. They’d been moved to someplace you couldn’t reach while the airship was in the air, and in retrospect that should have made us all a bit suspicious. But we had them, and even when we were hi
t, the Captain managed to slow our descent so that we could escape the ship when it landed in the water. The life jackets kept us afloat so that we could cobble a raft from the wreckage. It still took us a long time to get to shore, and then it was to a little island off the mainland. We left the crew and captain there when we took off again to go for help—a few of them had gotten hurt helping us and were in no condition to be moved again. Then we got to the mainland and discovered that there was no word of a conference, but we did hear about some people being kept in a smuggler’s den.”

  “That was us,” Aunt Anya confirmed. “All the rest of us, so apparently, we weren’t considered dangerous enough to kill. Possibly because Willem was the only one who really argued for executing Mathis, back at the beginning.”

  “Was I wrong?” Jes’s father asked.

  Aunt Anya grimaced. “I guess not.”

  “We had just gotten ourselves free when we met the three of them coming to rescue us,” Queen Melia added. “From there, we were going to warn Gregor that something was terribly wrong and then get back to all of you.”

  Uncle Darby took a swallow of his drink. “We were about five minutes too late. But fortunately, you were right on time.”

  Gregor sighed. “I’m in your debt, again. I wish I had thought to invite you all here for a visit.” He brightened. “Well, you’re here now. Why don’t we just start today?”

  “Oh, but—” Jes broke off, blushing.

  “But,” Gregor prompted her gravely.

  “I really need to get home to make sure my people are safe. After that, I’d love to come back for a visit.”

  Gregor looked at her for a long minute. “We’ll arrange that.” He looked over at her parents. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Mom shook her head. “Don’t be. Some people are suited to it.”

  It was a strange conversation, but Jes focused on the part she understood.