by Martha Carr
Cheyenne pressed her lips together and watched Mattie’s raised finger tremble almost imperceptibly before the woman dropped her hand. She’s serious. “Okay.”
“Just ‘okay?’ You’re not gonna chase me down and try to pry it out of me?”
The halfling shook her head. “No. I believe you. I was just curious, and now I’ll back off.”
The professor shook her head. “I’d say I was relieved to hear that if I thought you meant it.”
“You can think whatever you want.” Cheyenne shrugged and finally headed toward the door. “Don’t worry about me, though. Seriously. I’m not trying to hunt those people down or anything.” It’s the other way around.
“You know what? If you keep coming by my office every day, I’ll believe you.”
“Okay. Thanks for the copy of your book.” She shot the woman a thumbs-up as she stepped out of the open doorway, and Mattie returned the gesture with not even half as much enthusiasm. The halfling felt her mentor’s eyes on her as she stepped out of view and headed down the hall.
Chapter Twelve
Cheyenne didn’t waste any time getting back to her apartment after the strange Monday meeting with Professor Bergmann. As soon as she closed the door behind her, she dropped her backpack by the half-wall and crouched to take out the huge stack of copied spells. She brought the whole thing to her desk, dropped it, then paused and went to take a quick peek through her open bedroom door. The puzzle box was where she’d left it on her bed, no lights, no buzzing, no spinning like a possessed toy. Don’t get paranoid.
When she returned to her desk, the halfling dropped into her chair and scooted forward to start flipping through the pages one at a time. An illusion spell would be great. So would a table of contents.
Sighing, she skimmed the names of the spells at the top of each page, which were fortunately written in English below the language she didn’t understand. Cheyenne’s hand slammed down on the next page, and she barked out a laugh. “Here it is.”
Personal Illusion Charm
Whether the caster intends to bind the illusion to a physical totem or to cast the spell directly with each use, the first working of a personal illusion charm must be branded by ritual with the following items: dridnet hair, bundled darkfire twigs, and a chicken’s egg laid two days before.
Cheyenne pulled away from the page and groaned. Maybe R’mahr and Yadje would bump their weekly shopping to Monday.
Shaking her head, she flipped quickly through the other pages, scanning the first paragraphs for the list of ingredients. She’d gone through the first half of Mattie’s spell collection before she found just one which didn’t need some weird magical ingredient she couldn’t even pronounce. Her eyes widened as she looked back at the title of the spell.
Phasing? How does that not need something?
The ability to move one’s corporeal form through objects on the physical plane requires a working knowledge of spells typically possessed by the advanced beginner.’
Cheyenne snorted. “Yeah, I’ll try this one.”
Taking out the sheet of paper with the phasing spell, she stood and walked into the hall outside her bedroom. She closed the door and stared down at the instructions in her hand, clarified by convenient diagrams of bodiless hands and bent fingers making a series of shapes one right after the other. With arrows and everything.
Cheyenne copied the first few gestures with her right hand, then grunted in frustration when she realized this was a two-handed spell. Dropping to her knees, she laid the paper on the carpet in front of her and started over. Got moves one and two. Are those both the left hand? She squinted at the diagram, shook her head, and kept going. When she finished the final gesture in the epic game of finger-Twister, a spark of pale silver light bloomed around her hands. The halfling tried to sound out the foreign words of the spell that had to be O’gúleesh, stumbling a little over a ridiculously long word in the middle. The silver light flared again around her hands, and she brought both palms slowly toward the door.
Time to phase through shit.
A short tingle flared through her hands when she pressed them against her bedroom door, and then she applied more pressure. When nothing happened, she closed her eyes and tried to focus. Just lean into it…
She felt something give, then a loud snap sounded in the hallway. Cheyenne opened her eyes and sat back on her heels, dropping both hands to her thighs. “I wanted to go through the door, not…” The halfling tossed a hand at the massive splinters jutting out of the crack that ran almost all the way to the ceiling. “Not through it.”
The sheet with directions for a useless phasing spell crumpled in her hand when she snatched it off the carpet. She stopped halfway back to her desk and tried to smooth out the paper with a sigh. Maybe not advanced beginner. I’ll find something else.
* * *
Two hours later, the drow halfling had gone through all the spells she could find in Mattie’s starter collection that didn’t require magical ingredients. She dropped into her office chair and slapped the last sheet of paper down on her desk. “She should’ve named these spells Charred Carpet, Stink Bomb, and Pissed-Off Drow.”
That made her laugh, but only for a second as she took inventory of the damage to her apartment from so many backfired spells. With a sigh, she shoved all the pages together in something like their original order and dropped them into the bottom drawer of her desk. The drawer slammed shut with a bang, and the drow halfling shook her head vigorously. The chains dangling around her wrists jingled when she shook her hands out. Maybe I’m just not a spell-casting halfling. Maybe I need to figure out my magic first.
She drew her hands down both sides of her face and let out a little groan. Then she hopped out of her chair and headed for her bedroom again. The door stuck a little in its frame, and she had to shove it open. Once she’d reassured herself the splintered wood wasn’t going to fall apart right in front of her, she went to the foot of her bed and scowled at the copper legacy box lying on her comforter.
“This was what you wanted all along, wasn’t it?”
The metal trinket didn’t offer a reply.
“Fine. We’ll try it your way.” Cheyenne snatched the puzzle box off the bed and turned it over in her hands. The metal stayed innocuously cool, and no light burst out through the hair-thin runes etched into the sides. Rolling her eyes, the halfling stormed back out of her bedroom and stopped to drop the legacy box into her backpack.
Corian better know as much as he thought he did.
* * *
The drow halfling pulled her battered Ford Focus to the curb in front of the address Corian had given her before they’d met in person. Unbuckling her seatbelt, she shut off the engine and grabbed her backpack from the passenger seat. This thing better not start a disco light show before I get to the basement.
She locked up and took a quick glance up and down the street. Nothing moved in the darkness punctured by the dim yellow streetlamps, and the two rental houses only had one or two lights on inside. Frowning up at the top floors, Cheyenne headed toward the far-left side of Corian’s building, waiting to hear a dozen tires rolling over the asphalt before more idiots wearing bull’s-head pendants stepped out of their cars for round two. That sound never came.
The cement stairs were just as dank and creepy as they had been two nights ago, but she moved swiftly down them anyway and stopped to knock on the metal door with the giant D at the top in peeling black paint. The door opened almost immediately, with Corian behind it.
“Not bothering with illusions this time, huh?”
The Nightstalker's catlike, almond-shaped eyes narrowed, the silver pupils flashing in the muted light. “Just like lounging around in my underwear after a long day at the office.”
Cheyenne snorted and stepped inside when he moved out of the way to let her enter. “That’s an image I don’t need.”
Corian shrugged, then nodded at her backpack. “Did you bring it?”
“Yeah, I brou
ght it. Not sure how I feel about having that thing on me while I drive all the way across Richmond.”
“Not a lot of options unless you’ve figured out how to teleport inanimate objects.”
She blinked at him.
“That was a joke, Cheyenne.”
“Uh-huh. Very funny.”
“All right. Let’s see it, then.”
The halfling watched him from the corner of her eye as she went to the cheap folding card table and the two chairs in the unfinished basement. Her backpack went down on the vinyl tabletop with a thump, then she unzipped it and pulled out the puzzle box. “Please tell me this is what you meant. ‘Cause it’s the only one I have.”
The Nightstalker sucked in a breath, the flattened bridge of his feline nose wrinkling. “That’s it. Let’s get to work.”
Corian went to the long metal shelving unit against the back wall and rummaged through the piles of junk on the shelves. Cheyenne stood by the table and set the puzzle box down beside her backpack while she waited. I’m not touching it more than I have to.
Items toppled from the shelves and onto the floor as the Nightstalker swept things aside to find whatever he was looking for. He ignored the mess, moving like they were on a deadline. Finally, he turned with a small cardboard box nestled under one arm and brought it to the center of the basement’s single large room.
“So…” Cheyenne folded her arms and watched Corian pull out one small white tea candle after another, setting them on the cement floor to form a large circle. “You know any other Nightstalkers on this side of the Border, or are you all pretty solitary?”
“I’ve had a run-in with one or two. Didn’t cross over to make friends with my own kind.” Corian finished the circle of white candles and tossed the cardboard box across the floor.
“Ever heard the name Maleshi?”
The Nightstalker jerked his head up and fixed her with those flashing silver eyes. “Where’d you hear that name?”
She shrugged and wrinkled her nose. “Heard it in passing. Slipped out of someone’s mouth.”
“Fine. Don’t tell me.” Corian stepped out of the circle of unlit candles and studied his work. “Just don’t expect me to buy into that lame excuse. That’s not the kind of name that just ‘slips out.’”
“You know her, don’t you?”
He looked at her sharply again but quickly lowered his gaze toward the candles. “You need to drop all that until you can handle the truth, Cheyenne. Then maybe we’ll talk about it.”
What I can’t handle is people not answering my damn questions. The halfling watched him with a little frown until Corian dusted off his hands and vigorously scratched the back of his head. “And when are you gonna tell me I can handle it?”
One pointed ear covered in a tuft of light-brown fur twitched as the Nightstalker rubbed his jaw. “That starts with the Cuil Aní. When you’ve figured it out and finished what you started, I’d say you’re ready.”
“I didn’t start anything—”
“Right. And I’m just wearing a cat suit. Now pick that thing up and come stand over here.” Corian pointed to the floor beside him.
With a sigh, Cheyenne snatched the puzzle box off the table and brought it with her to take her place. “Now what?”
"No talking for the next minute. You think you can do that?”
First time I’ve been told I talk too much. The halfling stared at him and waited for Corian to see her sarcastic glare, but his focus was somewhere else.
The Nightstalker stretched out his arms, then pushed up his sleeves to reveal a thin coat of light fur running down his forearms. Exhaling, Corian twisted one hand in a quick series of precise gestures, each flowing into the next. Every candle in the circle burst to life, and he rolled his shoulders back to get ready for something else.
A spell that doesn’t have a whole grocery list.
When Corian closed his eyes and slowed his breathing, an electric current rippled through the air away from his body. Cheyenne felt it prickle her skin and whisper into her ears. Then she picked up the faint sound of rushing water from across the room. The Nightstalker lifted both hands, palms facing the floor, and slowly curled his fingers into tight fists. A sphere of dark light bloomed in the air at the center of the circle of candles, steadily expanding as the air inside the circle shimmered.
In seconds, the dark sphere had grown and elongated into a huge oval stretching almost all the way to the ceiling. The halfling blinked and leaned forward. Inside the oval, she saw an open field of moonlit grass, plus pine trees scattered among yellow poplar and black cherry trees. “Is that…”
“You’re nowhere close to conjuring portals, kid. After you.” The Nightstalker nodded toward the oval doorway leading who knew where and waited for Cheyenne to do what she was told. “Make sure you step over the candles. I don’t wanna have to clean up the mess before we even get a chance to start.”
“Right.” She clutched the copper puzzle box in both hands and took a slow step over the closest flickering candle into the circle. Another burst of charged energy flowed through her, and her black hair fluttered around her face in the sudden cool breeze. Just like that. Right through an actual portal.
Gritting her teeth, she took one more step toward the dark, shimmering light of the oval doorway and forced herself not to look back at Corian before she walked through to the other side.
Chapter Thirteen
The burning zap of the passage lasted a fraction of a second before Cheyenne was all the way through. With a sharp breath, she gasped at the star-studded sky and took in the scent of fresh earth and crushed leaves and a body of water not too far away. Smells like home.
A bright flash rose behind her, casting her shadow across the damp grass of the clearing before it winked out again. The halfling turned and found Corian staring up at the sky too. His nose twitched. “I always knew this place would be good for something.”
“Uh, where’s the portal?”
“Don’t worry about it. We’re anchored to the other side, or at least I am. Don’t run off through the woods unless you wanna take the long way back.”
“I don’t even know where we are.”
Corian waved her off and stepped farther out into the meadow. “Doesn’t matter. The important thing is that we’re here. And it’s safe, which is a lot more than I can say about the basement.”
Moving silently across the grass after him, Cheyenne swept her gaze across the clearing and searched for anything moving through the trees, just in case. When she glanced back over her shoulder, the portal was still closed. He better teach me that trick, too.
“All right. Bring it over here and set it down.” The Nightstalker waved her forward, nodding absently at the grass in front of him.
“There something special about this place?” She raised an eyebrow and moved slowly toward him. “‘Cause I just met you, and it’s a little weird that you took me out to the middle of nowhere at night without an explanation.”
“Right. I saved your ass on the front lawn two nights ago just so I could kidnap you tonight and steal a drow Cuil Aní I couldn’t use if I jumped into a spawning pool.”
The halfling gave him a blank stare.
“We need a lot of open space for this, Cheyenne. Without witnesses. Or casualties.”
“What?”
He pointed at the grass again and winced when she tossed the legacy box onto the ground.
“It’s been through worse.”
Shaking his head, the Nightstalker ran a fur-covered hand over what looked more like a mane than hair and sighed heavily. “Here’s the deal. As a drow, even a halfling, you have certain abilities inherent to your race. Some of them you’ve figured out pretty well on your own.”
The halfling folded her arms. “Yeah, relatively.”
“But that’s just the surface, kid. There is more power running through your veins than you can imagine right now. The rest of it has to be unlocked, bit by bit, like making it to the next level in
a videogame. You’ve played plenty of videogames, right?”
“Not really.”
He shot her a sideways glance and pursed his lips. “Yeah, but you get the point. With enough focus and enough time spent training with each new ability, you will eventually master one and move on to the next. Then, when you get through every part of your magic that needs to be understood and controlled, the metal box you just tossed aside will know. All the different layers will slide into play one by one, and when you’ve fully embraced everything you were meant to do, it’ll open. That’s your true legacy.”
Licking her lips, Cheyenne glanced down at the copper artifact in the grass and frowned. “What’s in the box?”
Corian sighed. “You wouldn’t be able to handle it now. Just focus on the present, yeah? It’s the only way to get where you need to be.”
“That’s awfully Zen of you.”
“Nothing wrong with a little Zen. You might wanna try it if you want to get through the trials and solve the puzzle box.”
The halfling tilted her head. “Trials?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. So, tell me. You pull out any new types of magic lately without being able to control it?”
She almost burst out laughing. “You could say that. I had a bunch of black flames burst out of my skin the other day. And a shitload of power I didn’t get to use.”
“That’s something we should hold off on unless it’s the only thing you’ve noticed.” Corian wrinkled his nose. “Then we might be in trouble. Anything else?”
“A shield.” Cheyenne shrugged. “Black energy forcefield or something.”