by Martha Carr
Trying to bring her heavy breathing back under control, Cheyenne stepped slowly down the walkway, keeping her eyes on the Sorren Gán. There’s no way.
“Cheyenne,” Ember hissed, trying to keep her voice low. “What are you doing?”
The fiery creature’s glowing red eyes flew open, and the pull on Cheyenne’s core that had led her through the entire city disappeared. She staggered forward under the release of pressure.
A dark, gaping hole in the shape of a giant grin split across the Sorren Gán’s smoking face. “I am rarely surprised, even for my kind. But you, little drow, have managed to surprise me twice in the same century.”
“Try the same month,” Ember muttered.
“I didn’t do anything,” Cheyenne called.
“But you could have.” The creature’s smoking head turned slowly to follow Cheyenne as she stormed down the walkway to the tunnel leading to the fellfire pits.
“What did you do?” she shouted. “To me?”
“A mere experiment. I was curious after our riveting conversation last night.”
Maleshi glanced at Ember. “You guys came to talk to this thing last night?”
The fae shrugged. “I mean, that’s one kinda party, right?”
Cheyenne stopped at the top of the tunnel and faced the Sorren Gán. “Experimenting on me.” Seems to be a pattern of that lately.
“A simple plucking of the threads, little drow.” The creature chuckled, streams of smoke emanating from its nostrils. “Knowing what I do of your abilities, I was curious as to which parts of you I could pull through the Weave to my own ends. L’zar was generous in giving you the best parts of himself, wasn’t he?”
“I wouldn’t say that. I’m not sure L’zar has any best parts, and he definitely isn’t generous.” She folded her arms and stared across the empty fellfire pits. “Not cool to drag a drow across a city to see if she’ll respond to your summons.”
“I simply wished to see the common threads for myself, and now I have.” The Sorren Gán pushed to its feet, sending the multi-colored flames surrounding it in the crater crashing to the ground. “My time here is at an end, little drow.”
“Great.”
The creature stretched its wings wide with a gust of air and swirling black smoke. Then it pointed with one clawed hand at the crater full of liquid fire as it stomped south toward the mountain range where it had built its lair. “Take a dive and go home, Cheyenne. It is no different from the others.”
The thing’s barb-tipped tail flicked back and forth as it walked. The ground shook beneath every step, hissing and sparking as pools of multi-colored flames fell from its massive body in a watery trail.
“Wait, what?” Cheyenne frowned at the crater that had become another lake of liquid fire. “What is this?”
The Sorren Gán didn’t reply as it disappeared behind the screen of thick black smoke left in its wake.
Maleshi stepped up behind her and set a hand on the halfling’s shoulder. “I think that’s our ticket Earthside, kid.”
“No way.”
“Jump in and go home? Yeah, sounds like a new portal to me.”
“Looks like one too. Shit.” Lumil stared at the crater until she reached the mouth of the downward-sloping tunnel and headed into it.
Ember floated toward the halfling and the general as Byrd followed Lumil. “I didn’t know there was a way to see what a portal looks like.”
“It’s a developed skill. Takes a few decades of walking past portal after portal to notice the nuances.” Maleshi winked at the fae and gestured at the tunnel. “Shall we?”
She didn’t wait for either of them to respond before stepping down. Ember cast Cheyenne a sidelong glance and shrugged. “So I know it’s shitty to be dragged here against your will by the creature who broke your dad, but the thing kinda made up for it by giving you your own portal.”
“Doesn’t make up for it.” Cheyenne grimaced and took a deep breath, gazing after the Sorren Gán’s massive form, which was diminishing in the distance. “But I’m not about to turn away from it, either.”
“That’s what I figured.”
By the time they exited the tunnel and made their way across the fellfire pits, Maleshi and the goblins had reached the side of the shimmering, fiery lake.
“Where does this thing even go?” Byrd hunkered at the edge of the crater and peered into the multi-colored flames.
“Who the fuck knows, man?” Lumil took a sideways step toward him. “But we can be pretty damn sure it’s not a Border rez. None of those set up wherever this thing leads to Earthside.”
He cocked his head. “True.”
“So we’re taking another jump then, huh?” Ember sighed. “Guess we gotta get used to this sooner or later.”
“Just be ready.” Maleshi grinned and rubbed her hands together. “To tell you the truth, it’s been a really long time since I’ve jumped into anything new. It’s exciting.”
“That’s one way to look at it.” Cheyenne gritted her teeth against the pain that was steadily growing in her open wounds. “Em?”
“Way ahead of you.” The fae pulled the injection canister from her jacket pocket and pointed it at her friend. “This time, I’m asking permission. And no, that doesn’t include sticking you in the dart holes.”
“Yeah.” Cheyenne moved her trenchcoat out of the way and lifted her shirt on the side opposite her injured hip. “Like somewhere on my back or something, right?”
“Sure.” Ember jammed the canister against the halfling’s lower back, and the injection was administered with a hiss.
“Okay.” Cheyenne raised an eyebrow and slowly closed her eyes. “Doesn’t hurt nearly as bad like that.”
Byrd and Lumil turned around. “Wow. That’s a heavy-duty medcan you got there, Ember.”
The fae stuck the canister back in her pocket. “She’s got heavy-duty medical needs.”
Cheyenne swayed a little and blinked against the rush.
Maleshi tapped her on the shoulder. “Can you make this crossing, kid?”
“What? Yeah, totally. I need, like, two minutes to be relatively functioning.” She looked at the general with a crooked smile. “Better than this, anyway.”
“Uh-huh.” Maleshi studied the lake of fire and shook her head. “Three brand-new portals since you stepped up to the plate to finish this drawn-out story, kid. Can’t help but wonder what else is gonna show up before everything’s said and done.”
“I think the same thing ten times a day.”
The group stood there until Cheyenne felt the strongest of the darktongue serum’s woozy effects fade into something resembling her normal state. “Okay. We’re good to go.”
“Yeah?” Lumil turned to look at her with an eager grin. “We’re all jumping in?”
“Why the hell not?”
“Fuck, yeah.” The goblin woman pounded her fist on Byrd’s back and sent him stumbling into the colored flames. He shouted in surprise, dropped, and disappeared. “That’s how you test a new portal, fucker.”
Cackling, the goblin woman leaped into the flames, the red swirling runes exploding around her fists a second before she disappeared.
“Corian’s really pissed at me for leaving, isn’t he?” Cheyenne looked at Maleshi with a blank expression.
“Because he sent those two to join us?” the general replied. “I imagine he is.”
“Great.”
“Oh, here.” Ember removed the activator from behind her ear and handed it over. “I really wanna keep this. Mind holding onto it for me?”
“Sure. Can’t guarantee it’ll make it, though.”
“Well, you’re the only shot at that happening.”
“I’ll do my best.” After sticking the other activator in her pocket, Cheyenne took a deep breath and leaped over the edge of the crater. Maleshi and Ember followed her through Ambar’ogúl’s newest portal into the in-between.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The sensation of falling into the
crater and then sideways through the portal added to her discomfort when Cheyenne entered the in-between. Her lungs burned in her chest under the pressure, and she coughed for air behind Lumil and Byrd, who were getting their bearings. Maleshi and Ember recovered behind her, and the group gave themselves another moment to get oriented.
Cheyenne quickly caught her breath and wiped her hair out of her eyes. Taking a shot of darktongue really helps with slipping in and out of here.
Lumil grimaced and looked slowly around. “If I didn’t already know shit was whack in this place, I’d say we ended up somewhere we’re not supposed to be.”
“This is definitely the in-between,” Maleshi muttered. “Where it’s been overrun by the blight.”
Ember snorted. “How nice.”
Lumil grimaced at the looming figures of the in-between monsters undulating in the thick, molasses-like substance that had replaced the black smoke. It bogged everything down, including the five magicals trying to make the crossing. “Man, that ruins all the fun. Look at those things. They can’t even move.”
“I’m gonna take that as a plus.” Ember shrank away from a tentacle moving slowly through the syrupy fog toward her. The monster it belonged to didn’t try much harder than that to touch her, and as soon as she was out of the way, the tentacle disappeared into the darkness.
“If it helps us cross that much faster, I have no problem with it.” Cheyenne gritted her teeth and pushed herself to move faster across the invisible ground that sucked at her shoes like thick, squelching mud. “Except for the part where we’re not moving any faster, either.”
“Just go straight,” Maleshi said. “You all know how this works.”
They moved forward together, fighting the stickiness the in-between had become.
Byrd sneered at a darkening shadow moving slowly beside him through the haze of smog. “You really think this is the blight spilling over?”
“An educated guess,” the general replied.
“So, are we all gonna come outta this infected?” The goblin man grunted and had to tug twice on his leg before his foot came loose and he could take the next step.
“If that were to happen in here, Byrd, we’d already be infected.” Maleshi glanced briefly down at her hand and turned it over a few times. “Which I don’t see at the moment. I’d say we’re in the clear.”
Cheyenne covertly pulled down the top of her shirt to check on one of her shoulder wounds. Not any worse in here. Not any better, either, but at least it doesn’t still hurt like a bitch.
They slogged through the syrupy fog and the dark, dank heaviness of the in-between. It turned out to be a shorter trip than most of Cheyenne’s crossings so far.
“That looks like the doorway, right?” Ember pointed up ahead at the vague outline of a rectangular patch of light twenty feet ahead.
It was hard to see through the smog and so much shadow, but nothing else in this place had the same shape.
“Yep.” Cheyenne almost lost her shoe with her next step and growled as she shoved her foot back into it and tried again. “This is worse than having to fight off all the monsters at once.”
“See?” Lumil stumbled forward when her foot popped free of the sludge. “That’s what I’m saying.”
“What’s the plan once we cross through?” Ember asked.
Byrd scoffed. “Keep moving. What else?”
“No, I mean because we have no idea where this place leads.”
Maleshi’s silver eyes were firmly fixed on the pale glow of the doorway. “We assess the new location and respond accordingly. Unless there’s a whole contingent of Bull’s Head loyalists waiting for us on the other side, which I seriously doubt, I don’t wanna see anyone charging anywhere with spells flying. Got it? Magic stays put until we figure out where we are.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Lumil waved her off. “I hope those assholes are waiting for us.”
“You would.” Byrd’s shoe slurped out of the ground again, and he kicked off a sticky gob of black sludge. “I want out of here.”
“Almost there.”
They forced themselves to keep moving. Lumil was the first to reach the doorway, and she waited impatiently for the others to catch up. “We all gonna go through this thing at once?”
“Do I need to call for a single-file evacuation?” Maleshi growled, her patience growing thin with not being able to move as quickly as she was used to. “Just wait ‘til we’re standing next to you, okay?”
“Fine. Sure. Jeeze.”
When they’d all reached the doorway, the stickiness thinned out enough that none of their party had to push or launch themselves to get a leg through the door. They stumbled through one at a time into warm air that stank of manure and hay.
Byrd groaned and picked up his foot. “Shit.”
“Literally, by the smell of it.” Lumil cracked up and thumped him on the shoulder as he shook a smelly glob of a different kind off his shoe.
Cheyenne narrowed her eyes and looked around. “A farm. That asshole sent us to a farm.”
Maleshi chuckled and stepped carefully across the open-sided stable that hadn’t been mucked out yet for the day. “Well, there are certainly worse places.”
“Guys?” Ember pointed across the dirt road outside the stable. “The portals can’t send us back in time, right?”
“Not in all the thousands of years I’ve known how they work. Relatively speaking.” Maleshi turned to look in the direction Ember pointed and cocked her head. “But that does look remarkably like a century that’s been over and done with for quite some time.”
Cheyenne turned too and saw the barn’s open door on the other side of the road. Inside, a woman who had to be in her mid-twenties sat on a small wooden stool beside a milking cow, one hand on the pail beneath the cow’s belly and the other squeezing a teat below the animal’s swollen udder. She stared at the five magicals who’d suddenly appeared, her mouth hanging open.
The cow, who didn’t care about portals and magic but wanted to be milked, stomped a hoof into the hay lining the barn and mooed impatiently. The woman dropped her hand but didn’t move.
“Yeah, that definitely looks like an 1800s getup.” Cheyenne cocked her head. “Maybe 1700s if we’re stretchin’ it.”
Before anyone else could say a thing, a group of almost a dozen humans rounded the building.
“The barn and stables are one of the most important hubs of modern living.” A man wearing a full eighteenth-century costume, homespun cotton shirt, knee breeches, buckle shoes, and everything, gestured at the stables, oblivious to the five magicals staring at his tour group like wild animals caught in the headlights.
Almost as if one of them had shouted a reminder, the goblins, Maleshi, and Ember quickly cast their illusion charms before any of the strictly twenty-first-century visitors could aim their smartphones and cameras. Cheyenne fumbled with the thick metal cuff on her wrist, wrenched it off, and slipped out of drow mode. When the tourists’ fingers pressed the buttons, all of them captured a surly-looking Goth chick standing in a barn beside a black-haired woman with green eyes, sandy-blond-haired Byrd and Lumil, who were dressed as twins, and a wide-eyed human-looking Ember.
Cheyenne glanced at her friend. Someone’s bound to notice her feet don’t touch the ground.
“Hey,” one woman called, lowering her phone and sticking a hand on her hip. “Aren’t you people supposed to be in character all the time?”
The tour guide turned around, his eyes widening when he saw the intruders. “You know these tours run every half hour,” he hissed. “Get into the main house and get in costume!”
“Yep.” Maleshi spread her arms, grinned at the tourists, and ushered their party out of the barn and around the corner. “Enjoy a glimpse of real life, people. You’ve got it so much better these days.”
“I don’t think that’s helping,” Cheyenne muttered, looking over her shoulder. “We just ruined his day.”
“Over here.” Maleshi darted behind the stable,
glanced quickly around, then cast a portal straight into Persh’al’s warehouse. The goblins darted through first, followed by Cheyenne and Ember. The general took a final look around at the mostly accurate setup of eighteenth-century colonial life in Virginia and chuckled. “Okay.”
The portal closed with a soft pop behind her when she joined the others in the warehouse. Ember spun toward her and frowned. “That was Colonial Williamsburg, wasn’t it?”
“It did have a certain ‘nostalgia for tourism’s sake’ feel to it, yeah.” Maleshi chuckled again. “For a second, I considered offering them a few pointers for improvement.” She clicked her tongue. “But that would’ve been rude.”
Cheyenne laughed. “I almost thought we went back in time too, Em. Milking cows?”
“Way more accessible than any of the rez portals.” Lumil dusted off her hands and grimaced at Byrd when he lifted his shit-stained shoe again. “And it goes right back to the fellfire pits.”
“Yeah.” Cheyenne ran a hand through her hair. “But if that portal starts freaking out like the others and spilling Ba’rael’s leftover shit, we’re gonna have an issue. Pretty sure people didn’t know about magic in the 1700s either.”
Maleshi pointed at her. “They also didn’t walk around with smartphones, intent on capturing the banalities of everyday rural life.”
“Fair enough.”
Byrd scraped his foot across the warehouse’s concrete floor and stared nervously at the boxy room in the back. “Why’d you bring us here?”
“This is your stop. Welcome home.” Maleshi opened another portal, and the dark circle of light grew in the air before illuminating a window into Cheyenne and Ember’s apartment.
“Wait, what?” Lumil widened her eyes at the general. “No. No way, man.” She stepped forward and lowered her voice. “I do not wanna be left alone in this warehouse with L’zar.”
“Yeah, me neither.” Byrd gestured at L’zar’s cramped makeshift room. “Whatever he’s doing in there, he can do it by himself. And Corian told us to stay with Cheyenne.”