by Martha Carr
“And you can’t work your magic without being right in the center of it, huh?” Ember met Cheyenne’s gaze and shook her head in disbelief.
“Don’t be obtuse.” Venga didn’t bother to return the glare he could feel on the back of his head. “My magic works anywhere I please. But I assume you want me working on diminishing the Undoing where my magic is at its strongest, powered by the lifeforce vein, yes? Or what little of it the Spider left behind for the rest of us.”
“Yeah,” Ember said, “Definitely want you at your best. As long as you can reverse this thing.”
“I told you I would try. Leave it at that.”
“You know where magic’s even stronger than standing on top of a lifeforce vein?”
Cheyenne stared at her friend and slowly shook her head. Not the time to go there, Em.
“Nowhere has stronger magic,” Venga grumbled. “Not since the Nimlothar forests were destroyed.”
“Except for Nor’ieth.”
Cheyenne closed her eyes, and she went there. He’s not gonna take us seriously after this.
Venga froze, his scaly sides heaving beneath his jacket, then turned halfway toward the center of the room to look first at Ember, then Cheyenne. “I believe your Nós Aní has lost her mind under the pressure.”
“You’re the necromancer,” Ember shot back. “Anyone who chooses to work in death magic is crazier than I could ever be.”
“We don’t need to get into this.” Cheyenne shrugged. “Focus on your work, Venga.”
“And I’m not crazy,” Ember added.
The scaleback chuckled. “Of course not.”
Ember widened her eyes at Cheyenne and nodded at the necromancer.
Yeah, I have to back her up. Wrinkling her nose, Cheyenne bit the bullet. “And Nor’ieth does exist, by the way.”
“I didn’t summon you here to play games, Cheyenne. I find them highly unamusing.”
“So, you haven’t spent any time wondering where the pale, washed-out drow riding a luré came from when he ripped open a portal and snatched Ba’rael right out from under us?”
Venga let out a low growl and kept working. “We can discuss this at another time. For now, I believe we've reached our long-sought—”
His heavy iron crucible exploded with a clang and a balloon of thick, acrid scarlet smoke bloomed around the necromancer, letting off spiraling sparks and sending most of his other implements on the workbench to the floor.
The necromancer roared and slammed his lower two fists on the workbench while fanning away the red smoke with the other two. “The Blood of Yelv’iyt can fester in this fell-damn shithole for all the good it does me now!”
Cheyenne stepped back across the broken glass and choked back a cough as the scents of blood and burning metal mixed with something she didn’t even want to try naming made her nose burn. “Like, actual blood?”
“Yes. The useless blood of a useless god!” Venga uncorked another vial and emptied it into the smoking, sparking bowl. The ingredients hissed, the smoke turned from red to a more natural gray, and he swept an arm across the workbench to send the whole crucible flying against the wall to spill his failed attempt all over the floor. “I need flesh-setter hide.”
Ember blinked and waved her hand in front of her face. “Not more blood of a god, I hope.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. The gods are dead and gone from this world.” Venga whirled and snarled at them. “Go into the lower city and buy me two wrapped coils of flesh-setter hide.”
The fae leaned away and looked him up and down. “Get it yourself.”
“If we want this done, I don’t have time to go shopping, fae.” He shoved a clawed hand into his pocket, pulled out a metal case the size and shape as a deck of playing cards, and tossed it at her. “Get it for me, and we will return to our work after I draw up a new plan!”
Ember caught the case, turned it over, and raised her eyebrows at Cheyenne.
The halfling shrugged. “Whatever it costs?”
“Yes, whatever it costs! You have my veréle, so go out and spend it.” When neither of the girls moved, Venga roared again and lunged toward them. A flash of scarlet light illuminated at the tips of his claws, then Ember and Cheyenne found themselves pulled across the glass-littered floor toward the double doors, which were opening on their own. “Now!”
“Hey!” Cheyenne twisted around and launched an arc of purple sparks at the clawed hand controlling her from across the room. She had time to see her magic connect with his palm before she and Ember skidded out into the hall and the doors slammed shut. Venga hissed and threw something else across the room, then his lifeforce-connected lab fell silent.
Ember hissed at the closed doors, then smoothed down the front of her shirt. “You should’ve hit him with something stronger.”
“I was making a point, Em, not trying to injure the only magical who knows more than we do about the blight.”
“Still.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Cheyenne rolled her eyes and turned away from the door. “If he tries it again, I’ll hit him harder.”
“He thinks he’s untouchable, bossing around the Crown and throwing us both out.”
Stopping to look at her friend, Cheyenne shook her head. “Not you too.”
“What?”
“I’m the ex-Crown, Em.”
“Same thing.”
“No, it’s not.” The halfling couldn’t help but laugh in disbelief as she ran a hand through her hair. “Why is everybody making this so complicated? I was the Crown for maybe twenty minutes. Then I made Persh’al the Crown, and now I’m just Cheyenne again. Totally simple. Way easy to understand.”
“Yeah, tell that to the Nimlothar that accepted him only because you were there to swear in with him and make some promise you conveniently forgot to tell me about.” They headed down the hall, and Ember stared at her friend. “So? Are you gonna tell me what the last drow tree had to say?”
“Sure.” Cheyenne shoved her hands into her pockets again. “To be clear, the tree didn’t talk to me.”
“Good. That’d be weird.”
They both chuckled, the tension diffused now that they were out of Venga’s death-magic vault and heading out to run errands for him.
Cheyenne took a deep breath and studied the light-gray floor beneath her feet. “It wants me to heal the forest, Em.”
“The forest. Like, just a forest?”
“The Nimlothar forest. The one we passed on the way to the Sorren Gán.”
“What?” Ember frowned, a confused smile lifting the corners of her mouth. “What did you tell it?”
Cheyenne shrugged. “I promised to do whatever I could to make it happen. To make it right.”
“Look, however weird it is to talk about you talking to a tree, I’ll go ahead and say that that tree is gonna be seriously disappointed.”
“Oh, thanks.”
“No, not because I doubt you.” Ember shook her head, frowning at the end of the hall as they kept moving. “Because the Nimlothar forest is dead, Cheyenne. I’m pretty sure even a necromancer can’t bring a tree back to life without making it something it’s not supposed to be.”
“Yeah. That’s the thing, though, Em. They’re not dead.”
Ember stopped short and stared at Cheyenne until the halfling realized it and turned around to look at her. “We walked through that forest together. Those were dead trees.”
“Nope.”
“Then what the hell are they?”
Cheyenne shrugged. “Not alive. Beyond that, I got nothing.”
“Shit.” Ember started floating down the hall again, scrunching her face as she tried to process the revelation. “I seriously hope the Nimlothar didn’t give you a time limit or something before it calls off the whole ‘sharing the throne with Persh’al’ thing.”
“No time limit, at least not as far as I know. We have to heal the blight first, Em, then hope there’s still enough time to heal the forest.”
“Okay.”
Ember nodded slowly, then choked back a laugh.
“I know you’re not laughing at me, but it kinda feels that way.”
“No, not at you.” The fae grinned. “I mean, here you are talking to trees and sharing magic with them, and you just made a promise to save the forest.”
“So?”
“It’s funny. Kinda sounds like you’ve gone from Goth to hippie.”
Cheyenne cracked a smile. “Fuck off.”
Chapter Sixteen
Fortunately, when they passed back through the fortress and into the drow inner circle via a more direct route, Cheyenne didn’t have to deal with anyone else bowing or shouting out to the Black Flame or pledging their undying allegiance. Mostly, that was because they didn’t see anyone else on their way out.
“So.” Ember tossed the metal case Venga had chucked at her over and over in her hand. “Any idea where we’re supposed to find flesh-setter hide?”
“Even if I knew what that was, why would I know where to get it?”
“I don’t know. You got more tours of the city than I did.”
Cheyenne laughed. “Yeah. The first was doing Persh’al’s weird-ass version of reconnaissance, and the second was following L’zar around to see the grossest Oracle in all of existence before he tried to stop me from saving the city. You know, when it started to explode.”
“Just thought I’d ask.” Ember tossed the metal case again and cocked her head. “What is this, anyway?”
“A money case.” Cheyenne studied it and shrugged. “No money over here, though. They call it veréle, and it’s like…I don’t know. See-through metal?”
“Of course it is. Everything’s metal, or stone.” They made their way down the main avenue of the inner circle, and while Cheyenne raised her eyebrows and nodded a few times at some of the drow standing in doorways and grinning that weirdly feral drow grin at her, Ember struggled to undo the latch on the case. “Jeeze. He really shut this thing up tight.”
“Careful. If you open it wrong, it’ll be like fifty-two-card-pickup, only with O’gúleesh money.”
“I’m not gonna spill Venga’s fortune all over the place.”
“Well, look who decided to come out of hiding.”
“Ah!” The case in Ember’s hand popped open when she jumped in surprise, and she fumbled to keep the thin, laminated veréle cards from spilling all over the street. She gave up and frowned at Maleshi, who was standing two feet in front of her. “Where did you come from?”
The general pointed at the alley right beside them. “Probably a good idea to open a remarkably full case of veréle in private, Ember. Focus on where you’re heading instead.”
“Oh, yeah. Thanks. Gonna tell me to look both ways before I cross the street, too?”
When Ember bent to pick up the scattered cards, Maleshi raised a questioning eyebrow at Cheyenne.
The halfling shrugged and shook her head. “Just one of those days.”
“Uh-huh. Doesn’t have anything to do with having one of those nights last night, does it?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ember straightened again and shoved the veréle back into place, then clicked the case shut and stuck it in her pocket beside the bulge of Cheyenne’s injection canister. “’One of those nights?’”
“The same kind of night every magical in Hangivol had last night. That’s all.” Maleshi clasped her hands behind her back. “I’m assuming there was drinking involved on your end.”
“Yeah, and we can both hold our liquor.” Ember realized how short she was being and sighed. “Sorry. Like Cheyenne said, just one of those days.”
“I’m sure.” The general glanced at them, smiling expectantly.
Cheyenne looked across the street and back. “What?”
“Oh, nothing. I thought you might—”
“I swear on the Crown’s head, you pilfering radag, if you ever step foot in my establishment again, I’ll have your disgusting hide stripped from your bones.” A drow woman launched a golden-brown burst of light at a magical in a dark hood, who staggered backward out of a doorway opening into the alley and thumped against the opposite wall.
“I wasn’t trying to steal from you, Alo’thi.”
“I don’t care.” Another burst of light cracked against the alley wall beside the hooded magical’s head. “Do not let me see you again.”
The door slammed shut with a clang, and the magical peeled himself off the alley wall before staggering into the street. The edge of a clenched jaw and a wrinkled nose covered in mottled pink-and-gray flesh poked out of the darkness of the magical’s hood. He stopped beside Maleshi and waved at the alley. “You told me she wouldn’t be a problem.”
“She’s not.” The general smiled down at him. “Looks like the problem was you.”
“That’s ridiculous. Why would I—” The magical stopped and turned slowly to face Cheyenne and Ember, though his black hood still obscured most of his face. “You.”
Cheyenne and Ember exchanged glances, then the halfling shrugged. “Me. And you are?”
“This is Mirl.” Maleshi gestured at the magical and dipped her head. “An old friend.”
“You do like to mince words, don’t you?”
“Oh, come on. Don’t tell me there isn’t something like friendship buried deep down in there beneath all the rest.”
Mirl snorted within the darkness of the hood and indicated Ember with a crooked pink-and-gray splotched hand poking out from the folds of his cloak. “Who’s the fae?”
“Ember.” The girl dipped her head to get a better look beneath the hood. “Sorry, it’s kinda hard to meet someone when you can’t see their face.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.” Mirl whipped the hood back to reveal himself, cocking his head to the side and flashing a grin displaying stunted, brown-stained teeth in Ember’s general direction.
Cheyenne tried to keep a straight face. Dude looks like a pig and a baby mouse all smooshed into one.
Mirl’s filmy white eyes stared at nothing, his head tilting from side to side as he leaned closer to Ember. “But you can see me now, can’t you?”
“Yeah.” Ember blinked quickly. “Nice to meet you.”
“Uh-huh. Nobody says that to me and means it.” He jerked the hood back over his head until only his mottled jaw and the bottom of his grotesque snout were visible. “So, can we get moving on this, General, or do I have to force you into something neither of us wants?”
“You can try,” Maleshi replied, “I’d like to see that very much.”
“Well, now I’m out of ideas. No thanks to you.”
The general stared at him and didn’t say a thing until Mirl started tittering inside the darkness of his hood.
“What are you guys up to?” Cheyenne asked.
Maleshi looked away from her old friend and blinked at the halfling. “That’s none of your business, kid. What are you doing?”
Cheyenne snorted. “Wondering how that’s not a hypocritical question.”
“Venga sent us out on a shopping spree.” Ember patted her pocket. “On his dime.”
“Hmm.” Maleshi glanced at Mirl, who fumbled with something beneath the folds of his cloak and muttered unintelligibly. “Any progress?”
She doesn’t wanna talk about it in front of this guy. Who the hell is he? Cheyenne and Ember shared a knowing glance. “Kind of.”
Ember scoffed and folded her arms. “Progress in making me want to wring his scaly neck.”
Maleshi chuckled. “You’re not the first to feel that way about the necromancer, Ember. I’m sure you won’t be the last.”
“But I might be the one who does it. Now he says he needs flesh-setter hide for whatever he’s trying next.”
“Ah. That’s interesting.”
Cheyenne forced herself to look up from the cloaked Mirl, who was intermittently grunting and hitting himself on the side of the head. “Why?”
The general let out a wry chuckle. “Because I have absolutely no idea what it’s for
.”
“Any idea where we can get it?” Cheyenne looked quickly at Mirl when he shouted and furiously banged the heel of his palm against his temple, making himself stagger away from the general.
Ember’s eyes widened. “Are you okay?”
“Who are you talking to?” Mirl growled.
Maleshi clasped her hands behind her back again and looked at the pale sky. “That would be you, radag.”
With a final blow to his head, Mirl hurled himself sideways. Pink light burst from the side of his hood, followed by two small, glinting golden orbs buzzing through the air. His short, stubby fingers tipped in gray claws moved incredibly fast to snatch the orbs from the air, and they disappeared into the folds of his cloak. Mirl vigorously rubbed the side of his hood where his ear would be and shook his head. “These fell-damn things. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m as much a fan of a good time as the next magical, it’s the tickling I can’t stand.”
“The tickling?” Ember wrinkled her nose. “You know, I don’t even wanna know.”
“Suit yourself.” Mirl hocked up a noisy ball of phlegm and spat across the avenue. “Messes with my sinuses too.”
“No kidding.” Cheyenne grimaced and looked at Maleshi.
The general chuckled. “Maybe Mirl can help.”
Ember forced herself not to look at the thick, splattered gob five feet away from the cloaked magical and swallowed. “Nope. I think he’s helped enough.”
Mirl thrust a stubby finger in the air, his squashed mouth opening in another stained, reeking grin. “Do you know where to find the best flesh-setter hide in Hangivol? Or any flesh-setter hide, now that I think about it.”
Cheyenne shrugged. “Guess you got us between a rock and a hard place, man.”
“Eh?” The magical cocked his head toward her, his bright-pink tongue hanging halfway out of his mouth in concentration.
“Never mind.”