by Martha Carr
Cheyenne squinted at the dark-purple light that flashed every time the bone drow touched the metal. “Not over the Border, though.”
“Part of me wants to pity you,” he muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“But the rest of me realizes you haven’t had the right guides to show you what’s truly important through your journey.”
She snorted. “You don’t know anything about my journey. Or my guides.”
R’leer didn’t turn to look at her, too intent on tapping the right metal gears and sliding bars moving over the pseudo-door’s surface. “Most drow have forgotten what we all used to know. What used to drive us. I don’t blame you.”
“You don’t get points for that after saying you pity me.”
“I said I want to, but I don’t.” With a final tap, R’leer stepped back to the bottom of the staircase. The door’s spinning mechanisms slowed and clicked into place before a small lens opened in the center. It let off a red flash, followed by a dark window of light opening between the bone drow and the strange half-tech contraption.
Cheyenne frowned at the portal and the jagged stone walls on the other side. “You forgot to mention it’s a nightstalker portal.”
“Oh, good. You know that much, at least.”
Is he throwing my sarcasm back at me? She folded her arms. “Whose blood did you take for this one?”
“Blood?” Grinning, R’leer turned. “Drow will always be drow, but we didn’t use to be so barbaric. There’s no blood for this portal.”
“Then I’d love to know how a non-nightstalker opened a nightstalker portal under the city. If you don’t mind.”
R’leer gestured at the window of dark light and tilted his head. “This was created during the birth of Hangivol. One drow who wanted access to the nexus. One nightstalker willing to create the means to do so. I don’t expect any of the O’gúleesh you call your mentors know about the way things used to be.”
My mentors. He better not be including L’zar in that mashup. She eyed the portal again and leaned sideways to peer around it at the mechanical contraption that now only let out a soft click every five seconds. “But you know, is that it?”
“I haven’t strayed from the path laid out for me, Cheyenne. I’ve been walking it since the beginning.”
“Okay, wait. How old are you, exactly?”
R’leer turned back to the portal. “Not as old as L’zar.”
She glared at his back and muttered, “Mentioning the Weaver isn’t gonna get you on my good side.”
There was no way the bone drow didn’t hear her, but he ignored the comment and stepped through the portal.
Everyone knows everything about me, huh? Including the guy who thinks he’s so special that I’ll follow him through a portal without asking any more questions.
She followed R’leer through the portal and couldn’t think of any more questions to ask.
Chapter Seventy-Eight
As soon as she stepped through, Cheyenne expected to hear the portal closing behind her with that telltale pop, but it didn’t. She turned to see the bottom of the staircase beneath R’leer’s shop and heard the soft click of the metal contraption. This better be our way back too. Or I’m stranded in who the hell knows where with a drow who thinks he’s fucking smart.
R’leer stepped slowly through the cavern stretching out in front of them. A dim light illuminated at his fingertips and rose high above their heads, disseminating across the vast darkness to fill the cave with a glow that reminded Cheyenne of the in-between’s gray non-light.
“This is the nexus,” he said, not bothering to turn back and make sure she was following him. “Beneath the heart of the northern mountains beyond Ki’uali.”
“Wait, we’re out by Hirúl Breach?”
“Farther.”
Shit. What did I get myself into? I can’t be all the way out here with half-healed poison wounds and the blight moving through the Outers.
“Hey, maybe you’ve been cooped up in your creepy shop this whole time and haven’t noticed, but it’s not the safest place.”
R’leer spun to face her and darted through drow speed again until he stood mere inches from her. His eyes narrowed above a curious smile. “Creepy?”
“That’s what I said.” Just like how close he’s standing right now. For some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him that, but she lifted her chin and stood her ground against yet another violation of her personal space.
“You have a fascinating view of things, Cheyenne.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
R’leer leaned closer to her, dipping his head slightly because of all four extra inches he had on her height. His golden eyes flickered from her eyes to her lips and chin and back up again. “My shop is a necessity, or you would not have found yourself there without knowing your own intentions.”
The tips of her ears burned. Good thing it’s dark in here. “Maybe I don’t know why I projected myself to the bazaar, or whatever I did, but don’t try to convince me you know more about my intentions than I do. I have a lot on my plate.”
“Yes, you do. And I don’t think you’d be nearly as ready for this if you hadn’t been carrying it all with you the way you have.”
Cheyenne narrowed her eyes. Not the time or place for psychoanalysis, buddy.
A low, rumbling chuckle rose from behind R’leer’s closed lips and echoed softly through the cavern. “Time to let the walls down, Cheyenne. We need you.”
He turned swiftly away from her and continued across the cave. She closed her eyes and fought not to clench her fists at her sides.
You made a promise. To a tree, sure, but it’s still a promise. And right now, this weirdo you might’ve had a thing for in another life is the only shot you have of figuring out how to keep it. Get moving.
When she opened her eyes again, R’leer was staring at her from six feet ahead.
“Quit looking at me like that. I’m coming.”
The cavern narrowed when they reached the far side, where a narrower passageway twisted off to the left. R’leer’s summoned light followed them as he led her down the tunnel of roughhewn stone. Somewhere up ahead, Cheyenne heard the steady trickle of water and the accompanying echo of an occasional drip into a deep pool. If it’s another lake of fire, I’m out.
The passage opened again into a much smaller cavern with a lower ceiling hanging maybe a foot above R’leer’s head. The stone floor dipped into a sharp drop at the back of the cavern, and a dark slumped shape rested against the wall only a yard from the narrow chasm.
“Come.” R’leer beckoned her forward as he slowly approached the dark shape.
Cheyenne glanced around the cavern and took note of the shriveled roots poking down through cracks in the ceiling. One minor earthquake and this whole place will come down on top of us.
She headed to R’leer, who now knelt in front of the bent, misshapen thing against the wall. His golden eyes glowed in the darkness as he looked over his shoulder at her and watched her approach. When he pointed at the stone floor beside him, she gritted her teeth and forced herself not to make another smartass comment as she knelt. Then she looked at the dark shape in front of them, and the shadows moved just enough beneath the conjured light around them that she could finally see what this was. An ancient, shriveled drow face was barely visible within the pile of black rags, clods of dirt, and small dead vines crawling from the wall of the cavern to stretch across the figure. Snarled, tangled hair that looked more brown than white sprouted from the withered head in clumps.
“Whoa,” she breathed.
R’leer stared at the old drow as he dipped his head in a respectful bow. Despite how softly he spoke, his voice echoed around them. “This is Agalyse.”
“And you brought me to her tomb,” Cheyenne whispered.
The bone drow slowly shook his head. “She’s not dead.”
“What?”
“Agalyse still lives. The only one among us in Ambar�
��ogúl who was here to see Sylra Nightflame take the throne.”
“Wait, you mean she was alive before Hangivol was built?”
“For quite some time already, yes.”
So this is what L’zar’s gonna look like in a million years, huh? Not much to look forward to.
Cheyenne frowned and slowly shook her head, trying to wrap her mind around the fact that this shrunken, root-covered thing was a living drow. “Why is she down here?”
“To protect herself.” R’leer shot her a sidelong glance, his lips twitching in amusement. “I may have spent most of my time beneath Hangivol, but I’ve seen the darkness spreading across this world. Agalyse sees it too. She sees more than either of us can imagine.”
“But she’s practically attached to the wall.”
“She draws strength from the life vein of Ambar’ogúl.” He nodded. “A slow, steady trickle these days, but she’s still here, sleeping to preserve what remains of her and her wisdom.”
“Sleeping.” Cheyenne stared at the decrepit drow woman, whose eyes were sunken above her hollow, washed-out cheeks and hidden in dry wrinkles found more often in mummified humans than living magicals. “Why are we here?”
R’leer’s eyes widened. “To see if I was right.”
“You know, this would be a whole lot easier if you offered up more than vague one-liners.”
“Agalyse withdrew beneath the mountains when the Cycle turned for K’laht the Everbrite. She saw the Weave unfolding far before its time. Ba’rael’s rule. How she would rape the land and those sustained by it. How much of Ambar’ogúl would fall to that darkness.” The drow turned his golden eyes on the huddled mass of paper-thin flesh and loose bones in front of them. “Then she came here to commune with the lifeforce veins running through this world and to strengthen the connection between her and the drow who trusted in her wisdom. She is well cared for, Cheyenne. I believe she’ll know what is required to fulfill your promise.”
The oldest living drow. Might as well be the three-eyed raven from Game of Thrones, and we all know how well that worked out for everyone.
“I’m flattered that you brought me here,” Cheyenne whispered. “Really. I had no idea this place existed, so thanks for the drow history lesson. But I don’t see how someone this old who’s been sleeping for this long—”
Agalyse’s sunken eyes flew open, sending a spray of centuries-old dust puffing away from her face.
“Jesus.” Cheyenne jolted back and couldn’t look away from the deep, almost orange glow of the ancient’s drow’s eyes as they flicked between her and R’leer.
A low, scratchy wheeze emanated from the drow woman’s chest, followed by a rattling breath that filled her lungs for the first time in who knew how long. Bones and dry roots and stone creaked and groaned when Agalyse turned her head by an inch to face Cheyenne. A muffled croak escaped her shriveled lips with another puff of dust.
“Majiya,” R’leer whispered and bowed low. “She’s here.”
“I know she’s here,” Cheyenne muttered and stopped when Agalyse wheezed out another breath. The decaying rags covering the drow woman’s body cracked and snapped as her frail chest rose again beneath them.
“Cheyenne.”
What the fuck?
R’leer lifted his head with a grin, his eyes wide and blazing with eagerness. “I knew it.”
Agalyse drew another rattling breath and stared at the halfling as if L’zar’s daughter sat at the ancient one’s deathbed to hear her last dying wish.
I seriously hope that’s not what’s happening right now.
“How does she know my name?”
“I told you she sees much.” The bones strung on R’leer’s weird headdress and through his hair and across his jacket clicked together when he straightened. “I’ve said it more than once.”
Agalyse’s lips whispered against each other before a strangled, croaking voice rose between them. She didn’t look away from Cheyenne, staring intently at the young drow in her presence as her dry rags cracked and sent more clumps of dust and dirt to the cavern floor. A dark, wrinkled hand lifted slowly to point at Cheyenne with a crooked finger that might as well have been nothing but bone.
Cheyenne shook her head. “I can’t understand her. What’s she saying?”
R’leer stared at her too, grinning as he translated Agalyse’s ancient O’gúleesh words into the message Cheyenne was meant to hear. “You’ve finally come. Now the Black Flame will burn away the affliction, and Ambar’ogúl will rejoice.”
You gotta be kidding me. More prophecies?
Cheyenne shook her head. “That’s just a name. I promised the Nimlothar I would do this.”
Agalyse’s whispering voice continued, and R’leer spoke over her almost as if he already knew what she would say. “I’ve seen you in the Weave. Your father’s daughter, and your mother’s. The bridge and the bane. You will fulfill your promise made in the Heart above the lifeforce vein. To restore the balance this world has distorted. We must remember, Cheyenne. The mór edhil wither as the Nimlothar cry out for justice. Restore us before we all fall into the ruin of our own making.”
The old drow’s eyes narrowed at Cheyenne, her chest rising and falling in long, shallow breaths.
Glancing quickly at R’leer, Cheyenne shook her head. “I know what I promised and what’s at stake. How the hell am I supposed to do it?”
Agalyse gasped, her eyelids fluttering as a trembling shiver wracked the body that hadn’t moved in centuries. “Take the drow of Hangivol to the forest. They must lend their lives to the trees.”
“What?” Cheyenne glared at R’leer. “That doesn’t save anyone.”
He shrugged and gestured at Agalyse, licking his lips in consideration. “I’m merely the messenger.”
She turned back to the ancient drow and leaned forward. “What do you mean, ‘lend their lives’? That sounds a lot like suicide to me.”
Agalyse stared at her, unblinking, and drew another harsh, ragged breath before speaking again.
“None will die,” R’leer translated. “We will all live. If you fail to do what must be done, the mór edhil will not survive the purging of this world without the Nimlothar. And the last of them is closer to death than I.”
Fuck.
The shriveled drow’s raised hand returned to its place at her side within the nearly fossilized folds of her black rags. Then Agalyse stopped moving. A whistling breath escaped her cracked, slightly parted lips, and after her eyes closed again, she didn’t take another.
The cavern fell intensely silent, with only the constant trickle and drip of water as proof that Cheyenne could still hear anything.
She stared at the ancient drow woman, waiting for another long breath or a final word, but there was nothing. “Is she…”
“Sleeping again.” R’leer bowed to Agalyse, then straightened and cast Cheyenne a sidelong glance. “Believe me, when the final deathflame calls the Majiya, we will all know.”
For a moment, Cheyenne couldn’t find the words she wanted. She pressed her lips together and pushed away all the questions and the doubt seeping into her mind. “She made it sound like the drow are on the verge of extinction or something.”
“In a way, perhaps we are.” With a final glance at Agalyse, R’leer rose fluidly to his feet and offered Cheyenne his hand.
She took it and couldn’t stop staring at the ancient drow’s face. She looks dead to me. Pulling her hand slowly out of his grip, she muttered, “That portal back to Hangivol’s still open, right?”
“It is.”
“Good. I’m going back.”
“Cheyenne, wait.” R’leer grabbed her wrist as she turned away, the beads and bones clicking with the same urgency she found in his eyes. He released her and dipped his head. “I want to show you one more thing.”
“Is it gonna come back from the dead to give me even more riddles in O’gúleesh?”
“If that was a riddle, it was more straightforward than any I’ve heard.”<
br />
True. She told me exactly what to do. Just not how.
“It won’t take long. Please.”
Cheyenne blew a long, heavy sigh through loose lips and gave Agalyse one more hesitant glance. “Fine.”
R’leer’s smile widened, then he turned and headed to the sharp drop in the cavern floor. Lowering himself to the stone, he slid his feet and legs over the edge of the chasm and looked at her. “You can climb, can’t you?”
“Yeah, I can climb.” On a full night of sleep and after a decent meal, I could climb all day. We’ll see how far I make it like this.
The bone drow slowly lowered himself into the darkness. As his summoned light floated across the cavern and down after him like glowing fog, Cheyenne stepped to the edge of the drop and peered into the void. R’leer half-climbed, half-shinnied down a space barely wide enough to fit a drow, his back pressed against one side as his feet walked slowly down the other.
Cheyenne lowered herself into the crevice after him, making sure to climb down at least three feet over from the path he’d taken. If I get more visions or pass out again, at least one of us won’t end up in a pile at the bottom of this thing. Wherever that is.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
The climb took at least ten minutes, and Cheyenne’s entire body ached with the effort of pressing against both sides of the chimney. Then she heard R’leer’s feet softly thump on the ground below her. Finally.
She lowered herself as far as she could until the wall in front of her dropped away six feet from the ground. Turning awkwardly, she scrambled for the last few hand- and footholds to descend the rest of the wall and jumped down the last three feet. A jolt of pain shot through her wounded hip, but she gritted her teeth and ignored it before turning around.
R’leer’s head barely cleared the ceiling of the tunnel below Agalyse’s chamber, so he hunched his shoulders and motioned for Cheyenne to follow.
They walked under the claustrophobically low ceiling beneath the northern mountains for another five minutes, then the ceiling opened into another pitch-black cavern of unknown size. His golden eyes settled on Cheyenne again as he reached up and brushed a hand over the edge of the low ceiling.