by Martha Carr
Cheyenne walked toward the center of the clearing, staring at the ridge and the tall wall of shimmering pink light. “What about all the bodies and the crates of old tech? Any clue what happened to those?”
Persh’al whirled to frown at her, then the halfling gestured toward the front of the ridge. The troll took a look for himself and raised his eyebrows. “Well, shit. I’d forgotten all about those assholes. Now I’d like to know where the hell they are.”
Maleshi chuckled darkly and joined them in the center of the clearing. “I know they didn’t just get up and walk away.”
Persh’al hissed in agreement, and the magicals shared a glance Cheyenne couldn’t quite read. She didn’t like it.
“That’s not funny.”
Both the troll and the nightstalker turned to look at her. A surprised frown flickered across Maleshi’s brows. “You’re still having a hard time swallowing the wartime lump.”
“No, I have a hard time swallowing jokes about the loyalist prisoners who died right here. If it had to happen, fine. But we said—”
“We’d leave it behind us. I hear you.” With a slow, understanding nod, Maleshi turned back toward the portal ridge and stuck her hands on her hips. “And now they’re all gone. Not a scrap left behind. Which is a little weird even for bodies left out in the middle of the woods. Carrion eaters usually leave mementos.”
The halfling folded her arms. “So, those loyalists had people on this side to come for the bodies.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. We could say the same thing for all the war-machine contraband, too.”
Persh’al shook his head. “They’d take the crates, sure. Not the bodies. Haven’t known a Crown-bowing scumbag to bury their own Earthside, and I’ve seen plenty of them pass up the opportunity.”
“Then, what?” Cheyenne shrugged. “They just disappeared into thin air?”
Maleshi shook long dark hair the color of her fur out of her face and scanned the length of the portal ridge. “The way things are right now, Cheyenne, it wouldn’t be impossible that the portal swallowed the whole mess all on its own, even with my shield up there. Bodies and boxes.”
“Do portals generally do that?”
“No. Not at all.” The nightstalker shot her a thin smile before stepping forward to approach the ridge. “We’re seeing this for the first time together, aren’t we?”
Persh’al gripped the straps of his pack and started pacing along the line of stone. “Just take it down already.”
Maleshi looked slowly over her shoulder and watched his short, nervous turns. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re itching to get across.”
“Yeah, back across when we’re done.” He shot her an irritated glance before looking at the sky. “And you do know better.”
“I like to think I do.” Maleshi took two more steps toward the portal ridge and raised her hands. The spell she muttered under her breath was a lot shorter than the one she’d cast to put up that shield, which sputtered with pink light, flashed once, and disappeared. Now the shimmering wall of light extending into the sky returned to its original black intensity. She dropped her arms against her sides and stepped back, studying the change. “Always easier to tear something down, isn’t it?”
Cheyenne shook her head. “Building something’s easy if you’re doing it right.”
The nightstalker looked at her sidelong and let out a soft chuckle. “Can’t argue with you there, kid.”
“Oh, boy. Okay.” Persh’al stopped beside Cheyenne, rubbing his hands together. “This is it. We’re going through.”
Cheyenne raised an eyebrow and studied the black columns of stone. “You need me to hold your hand?”
“Shut up. I’m your guide.”
“Just wanted to make sure you hadn’t forgotten.”
He scoffed. “Like you’re not nervous.”
“Not really.” Cheyenne fought back a smile when Maleshi chuckled on the other side of her. Then she pulled the heavy silver cuff from her hoodie pocket, let her drow magic wash over her, and slipped it onto her wrist. She twisted her arm to study the thick bracelet and tried to drop into her human form just to check. Her hand and arm below her pushed-up sleeve remained the same purple-gray as the rest of her, and she reached up reflexively to touch the tip of one pointed ear poking through her stark white hair. Here’s hoping this thing works the way L’zar said. “Right now, I’m just curious. We’ll see what happens.”
Maleshi set a hand on the halfling’s shoulder, removing it when Cheyenne looked into her glowing silver eyes. “You’re in for a hell of a ride, kid. I’m looking forward to hearing all about it.”
“Yeah. We’ll all sit down for story time later.”
With a snort, the nightstalker nodded toward the portal ridge and clasped her hands behind her back.
“Now or never.” Persh’al cocked his head and walked forward like he was about to break into a run, but he didn’t.
Cheyenne caught up to him. “Anything I should know before we do this?”
“Yeah. Keep moving.”
They stepped between the closest pillars of stone and disappeared from the clearing.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Cheyenne’s lungs felt like they’d been set on fire. Two seconds later, she was breathing again, gasping for air.
Beside her, Persh’al doubled over in a fit of coughing and nudged her arm with the back of a hand. “I said, keep moving.”
Blinking with watering eyes, Cheyenne nodded and slowly stepped forward with him.
The last of his coughing fit faded, and the troll thumped his chest. “Whew. I haven’t missed that part a bit. You know what they say, though. Better out than in. We’ll pop out on the other side in no time.”
“Really?” Cheyenne finally cleared her vision enough to focus on their new surroundings. The realm of the in-between was a haze of gray light and black smoke, which wafted up from the ground she couldn’t even see. When she looked up, she couldn’t find the sun or the moon or any source of light, and a thin wind moaned across a nonexistent landscape. “Something tells me it takes a lot less time to get lost in here than to make it to the other side.”
“Oh, it does.” Persh’al cleared his throat. “If you’re trying to find anything. That’s why we’re moving, kid. And moving and moving and, well, eventually we’ll get to where we need to be.”
A mound of cracked gray-washed dirt on their left let out a choking sound and spewed a geyser of black smoke straight into the air. Cheyenne grimaced. “Smells like manure.”
“Yeah?” He gazed slowly around the indiscriminate landscape and shrugged. “I always get patchouli. Can’t stand patchouli.”
“How long is this gonna take?”
Persh’al let out an indecisive hum and waved aside another cloud of black smoke snaking toward them. “Time isn’t a thing here. I mean, it’s not like Earth and Ambar’ogúl run on the same clock anyway, but I’m pretty sure if we could time it from the outside, we’d be stepping out of this thing two seconds after we stepped into it, no matter how long we’re stuck in here.”
“Stuck?”
“I don’t mean stuck-stuck.” He shot her a nervous glance. “I mean walking-stuck. Until we get through.”
“Great.”
The moaning wind kicked up with a loud whistle, buffeting away the smoke and the thick screen of black fog covering the ground. Something skittered toward them in the breeze, and Cheyenne looked down to see dead black leaves rolling across what looked like the surface of a marsh beneath them. But her feet weren’t wet, and the glistening water or whatever it was didn’t move around her when she took another step. One of the dead leaves caught against the inside of her shoe, and she bent down for a closer look.
“Are these bones?”
“Well, don’t touch them.” Persh’al shook his head. “Seriously. I have no idea what those things are, and I don’t care. Let it go.”
She picked up her foot, and the bone-leaf thing fluttered away with th
e others. When she looked up again, they were heading toward a lone tree growing from the smoky haze, its branches bare and twisted like gnarled claws. “That wasn’t here ten seconds ago.”
“Nope.” Persh’al wrinkled his nose and kept walking forward. “And it won’t be here ten seconds from now, either. This place isn’t exactly a place.”
“Obviously.”
“Whatever you think you see in here, kid, don’t pay any attention to it. That’s how you get stuck-stuck in here.”
“What about those creatures? I’m sure we should pay attention to those.”
Persh’al shrugged. “Yeah. If they notice us. Might depend on the mood they’re in.”
“Their mood?”
“Sometimes they don’t even show up. Not everyone has to fight a bunch of slithery, spikey, whatever-else creatures when they’re crossing. As long as we don’t run toward or away from anything but go exactly where we wanna go, we’ll be fine.” He chopped his hand through the air in a straight line ahead of them and nodded.
The wind died, and in seconds, the black smoke spewing from a larger collection of liquid-less geysers blotted everything from view.
“Ah, shit.”
“Keep moving?” Cheyenne asked, gauging where he was by the sound of the troll’s heavy breathing.
“That hasn’t changed. Slide your foot out to make sure you’re not gonna knock yourself out cold on a—” His foot thumped something solid, and he grunted. “Whatever this is. Just move around it and find how to keep going. What was that?”
“My arm.”
“Huh.” Persh’al gave her forearm a little squeeze, then nudged her sideways as he tried to step around whatever was in his way. “I hate this.”
Another gust of wind broke the wall of thick, blinding smoke in front of them, and when it cleared, they were standing in front of a huge black boulder.
“What the hell!” Persh’al’s grip tightened on her arm as he scowled at the rock. “See what I mean, kid? No tree, and now we’re rock-climbing.”
Cheyenne pointed slightly to their right, where a narrow passage cut through the rock. “That’s wide enough for us to get through, right?”
“Should be. One at a time, anyway. Cross your fingers that it doesn’t move while we’re in there. Keep going.” They moved toward the passage, shoes crunching on whatever the black fog was hiding beneath them. Persh’al slipped between the boulders first, the sides of his bulging pack scraping the walls. “Didn’t look so tight from the outside.”
The wind dropped in the passage, but the smoke hadn’t found its way in with them. Cheyenne looked again at the eerie gray sky with no source of light and kept moving. Pebbles toppled down the side of the boulder, bouncing off the rough wall beside her before hitting the ground without a sound. She looked at the wall and jerked away, nearly bashing her shoulder into the opposite side of the cleft stone. “Ugh.”
“Huh?”
A face was etched in the stone wall, mouth open as if it had been caught inside the boulder halfway through a scream. Like someone was trying to push their way out of it.
“Face in the wall,” she muttered.
“Oh, yeah. That happens sometimes.”
She skirted around the face, which thankfully didn’t move when she passed it. “Is that what happens to magicals who get lost?”
Persh’al said, “No idea. Maybe. Or maybe it’s the place’s idea of a good practical joke. Scare the pants right off ya and make you run until you get lost. Like I said, kid, ignore what you see.”
Before they’d made it remotely close to the end of the passage, the rock walls on either side of them disappeared. Blinking quickly, Cheyenne lifted her elbow to test the air, but there was nothing there anymore. “This is nuts.”
“Yep. That’s the abridged version.” The troll looked around them in every direction and shrugged. “Nothing now. Just smoke and more smoke. And that’ll change again soon, I’m sure.”
“So, how do we know when we’re getting close?” Cheyenne glanced quickly to the right when something skittered across the unseen ground.
“Looks kinda like a door. Or a doorway. Not one of these shifting illusions, either.” Persh’al waited for her to catch up so they could walk side by side again. “When you see it, you’ll know. As far as I can tell, the doorways are the only constants in here. And you won’t find yourself stepping through one only to find that it’s a fake. I think.”
“Wonderful.”
The skittering and rustling sound rose again, and Cheyenne paused. “Something’s moving.”
“Uh-huh. And we need to keep moving too. Just don’t—”
“Hey!” Something heavy and cold slithered across the top of Cheyenne’s shoe. She kicked it off and gritted her teeth. “Something just ran over my foot.”
“Time to pick up the pace.” Persh’al grabbed the sleeve of her hoodie and tugged her along beside him. “Eyes open, yeah?”
“Like I could see anything anyway.” They walked quickly over nothing and through wisps of black smoke.
About four yards ahead, more smoke ballooned into a dark, solid shape that didn’t disappear again when the wind kicked up. The dark shape glinted in the pale gray light, and when it turned sideways, Cheyenne hissed. “That looks like a tentacle.”
“Sure does.” Persh’al flicked his wrist, and a bright-green whip of crackling magic materialized in his hand. “Get ready and don’t fall back. That’s about it.”
“Right.” Cheyenne summoned two sparking, hissing black orbs and stayed close to his side.
The next thing she knew, the tentacle wasn’t yards away but right in front of them. It whipped toward them and crashed into the ground at their feet. The halfling launched her sparking attack at the thick section and severed it. A shrieking cry rose from every direction, sounding close and far away at the same time.
“I’m guessing they’re in a bad mood today.”
Persh’al scowled at the flopping severed tentacle as they stepped over it. “Funny. Keep going.”
They made it four feet before another shape rose from the ground in front of them, reared back, and opened into a gigantic mouth with rows of sharp teeth dripping with something green and noxious. Cheyenne reeled away from the stench blasting out of that mouth before she hit it with two more black spheres. Her magic scattered shards of monster and green goo in every direction, but the pieces disappeared before they hit the ground.
Persh’al snorted. “You gonna let me get a shot in or what?”
The halfling grinned. “Sorry. Next one’s all yours.”
“You know, you’re a lot more fun when you play nice. I’m sure it wouldn’t—”
Two more tentacles darted toward them through the smoke-thick air. Cheyenne and Persh’al leaped away from each other to avoid the lashing strike, then the troll’s sparking green whip cracked against the tentacles and coiled tightly around them. Something screamed, and the glistening appendages shattered.
“Not as satisfying as I thought, but fine.”
That skittering sound returned again, this time magnified by a hundred. Cheyenne peered through the fog around them as they kept walking. “Sounds like those creepy bugs.”
“Could be anything, really.”
A massive shadow blocked the grim light overhead, then something dropped from the sky and landed with a wet smack beside them on the left. A hairy, spike-studded body rose from the ground, eight eyes shifting in all directions as the spider-thing leaped toward them. Persh’al lashed out with his whip and the spider screamed, then the skittering grew louder on the right.
“Whoa.” Cheyenne blinked at the swarm of fist-sized black crabs scrambling toward them. She let off round after round of her black orbs, which smashed into the creatures and scattered them like bowling pins until the things changed tactics. Hundreds of them leaped on top of each other to form a new shape, and Persh’al grunted beside her, cracking his whip against the huge spider while it danced back and forth in front of him.
“You got those things?” he asked, ducking beneath the swipe of a hairy leg.
“I’m pretty sure, yeah.” Cheyenne kept blasting, but no matter how many scuttling black crabs she knocked off the newly forming creature, more took their places.
Persh’al sent a ball of blue flames at the spider with one hand and coiled his green whip around two of its legs with the other. A sick, wet crunch filled the air, and the spider thing toppled to the ground before disappearing in the black fog.
“Well, that was—” He turned and saw the crab creature building itself larger while Cheyenne unleashed her attack spells all over it. “What?”
“I don’t know!” The halfling stepped forward and pushed with both hands outstretched. A wave of telekinetic force burst from her palms and sent the growing mountain of scrambling crabs flying.
“Hey, that’s a good one.” Persh’al nudged her with his elbow. “Kinda makes me think of—”
“Get down!” She clapped a hand on his shoulder and shoved him onto one knee as she dropped.
The scattered crabs had pulled themselves together in midair and now swooped toward the crossing magicals as a giant pair of wings and nothing else. The thing shrieked and sprouted two sets of talons as it dove, and one of them snagged the strap of Persh’al’s huge trekking pack and jerked him backward. “Shit!”
Cheyenne spun on one knee and fired another black sphere into the flying creature’s underbelly. It exploded and dropped the troll, who was already two feet off the ground. He landed on his ass and groaned.
“You okay?”
“Uh-huh.” He accepted her hand up and held his whip out to the side. “Keep moving.”
They hurried forward in no particular direction. Cheyenne glanced over her shoulder, but nothing followed them. Yet.
“These things are a lot easier to tear apart than last time.”
The troll snorted. “Last time, they’d made it into the real world, where things are solid. They’re easy now, sure, but I’ve never seen so many quite like this.”