by Martha Carr
“Well, keep your tingly fingers to yourself. Just so we’re clear, this hovering fishing boat isn’t considered cutting-edge, right?”
He shot her a sly smile. “Not even close.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The farther they traveled away from the Border portal in the Outers and, “In toward civilization,” as Persh’al called it, the healthier the land became. On the other side of the Oronti Valley and through another gently sloping mountain pass was another thin forest. Most of its trees were dead or dying, but there was new growth underneath, and what little wildlife they saw looked less affected by the blight than that mutated creature.
“That troll kid,” Cheyenne said as the skiff took them around a village with living, breathing, working magicals going about their business. “He called me the same thing: mór edhil.”
“An old word for drow, kid. Spit in your face in some circles, muttered while groveling at your feet in others.”
“Okay.” Neither of those things seems like a fun way to have a conversation. “He said some weird stuff when I had him pinned down. That I just keep taking.”
“He wasn’t talking about you specifically. He doesn’t even know you.” Persh’al gave her a reassuring smile, and she rolled her eyes.
“Trust me, I knew it was an insult. I’ve got thicker skin than that. But everyone out here thinks the same thing about the drow— that they just keep taking.”
The troll scratched the back of his head. His mohawk, having lost most of its rigidity, was now flopping down the back of his neck. “Well, yeah. Didn’t used to be that way.”
“New Cycle. New Crown.”
“You said it, kid. What else did he say?”
She wanted to laugh, but the image of the troll kid’s vacant eyes staring at the grass by his head made that impossible. “Something about sucking on my mother’s tit or whatever.”
Persh’al barked out a laugh. “Not your mother. The Mother. Capital M. It’s an old word for the Crown, who clearly weren’t always such heartless, bloodthirsty assholes. I mean, there’s a certain level of it that comes with being a drow. That’s just how it goes. But the old Cycles produced saints compared to this bitch on the throne. No, this one eats her children.”
“Not literally.”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past her. That troll kid was just spittin’ venom ‘cause that’s all he knows. The Crown’s been fucking up Ambar’ogúl for centuries, obviously, but she still favors the other drow over the rest of them.”
“Doesn’t sound like it when she cut down all the Nimlothar and forced everybody to pass their trials in her own private arena.”
“I said she favors them, not that she’s nice to them.”
Cheyenne shook her head and watched the rolling landscape around them. They passed a paddock with a herd of what looked like fluffy miniature giraffes, and Persh’al steered the skiff around a copse of trees beside a much smaller river. “Looks like the water’s getting better too.”
A round creature on three spindly legs stood like a stork at the edge of the river. The minute its elephantine trunk touched the surface, a red flash of light raced up its snout and across its back. The thing shrieked and ran down the riverbank before disappearing around tall, thorny bushes with tiny orange flowers.
Persh’al blinked. “Mostly, yeah. Drinking that goo in the Oronti Valley would’ve killed that thing.”
“It didn’t kill the mutant radan.”
“No, that furball on stilts wasn’t a mutant. Carako. They’re a real pain in the ass if you’re trying to keep wildlife out of your sheds and stables. They can change the length of their legs pretty much at will.”
Cheyenne couldn’t help but laugh at the image. “The water’s gotta be clean somewhere if that thing’s still running around like normal. And the villages look like they’re keeping things going.”
“I know.” The troll stroked his hairless chin and looked over his shoulder at the last circle of gathered huts they’d passed. “That’s the interesting part.”
“You think that’s on purpose?”
He gave her an appraising look and slid his finger slowly across the panel to take the skiff around a tall outcropping of moss-covered rock. “Do you?”
“Kind of.” Cheyenne folded her arms and couldn’t help but look at the thick silver cuff around her wrist next to her wrapped chains. “If everything looked like the Oronti Valley, or even all black and dead like the lake, I wouldn’t think twice about it. The plague or whatever seeping out of this world and trying to break out through the portals.”
Persh’al nodded, watching her with a crooked smile. “Keep going.”
“The Crown’s the one fucking things up. Usually the source of infection starts at one point and spreads.” She spread her fingers and held them out in front of her, trying to find the piece she was missing. “But the part that’s spreading here didn’t start out at the lake. Everything looks less sick and more normal the closer we get to the drow who’s supposed to be doing all the damage.”
“There it is.” Persh’al thumped a fist on his thigh. “That’s the interesting part. And I’m willing to bet that’s what most O’gúleesh haven’t wrapped their heads around yet. Either that or they’re not willing to look at it.”
Cheyenne shrugged and stared at a passing herd of ostrich-looking birds with antlers growing out of their backs instead of wings. “You sound like you have a theory about why that’s happening.”
“That’s because I do. I’ve had a feeling about it for a while. I’ve heard so many stories from Earthside magicals who made the crossing for the same reason. Just like your neighbor friends, yeah? This inner ring of normalcy is part of the Crown’s game, that’s what I think. Whatever she’s cooking up on her damn pedestal is eating away at everything, and she’s tapping into more energy than she should be to keep the little pocket around her sparkly clean. To keep the O’gúleesh close and fat and happy so they don’t go wandering around and stumble over what she’s causing.”
“Like an illusion spell?” Cheyenne frowned at the field they crossed, which was green this time and dotted with purple and yellow flowers pulsing with soft light. “That’s a huge illusion.”
“Not nearly as big as the one she’s casting up here.” Persh’al tapped his temple. “My guess is she’s feeding on energy that doesn’t belong to her. Taking it from Ambar’ogúl itself, starting with the Nimlothar, most likely, then everything else. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was taking it from magicals. And where’s it all going? To her. Most of it. The rest is filtered back into some very strategic places. Keep this little belt around her city well enough to convince anyone who comes this far out that there’s nothing to worry about, and keep the inner city too good to leave, so no one comes this far out.”
The halfling frowned. “That sounds like way too much work.”
The troll’s chuckle was devoid of humor. “Never underestimate what a drow will do to get what they want. Especially this one.”
“She’s already ruling the entire world, isn’t she? What else could she want?”
Persh’al shrugged. “More power. More control. To live forever and hold onto those things forever. What else is worth doing all this? Man, it would be hard enough having to run Ambar’ogúl. I mean, sure, there are other rulers, but they’re spread out trying to take care of their own little piece of the pie. She’s trying to take the whole thing.”
Cheyenne ran a hand through her hair. “That’s the most anybody’s told me about what’s going on over here.”
“Well, hey. You’re here, I’m here, and Corian and L’zar stayed the hell back from this one. Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of keeping things all hush-hush and super-secretive, tiptoeing everywhere.”
“No, you just sit behind a monitor and dig into people’s lives.”
Persh’al laughed. “So do you.”
“Got me.” Cheyenne glanced at the silver cuff again and frowned. “If this is
what we’re up against, I’m not sure half a dozen rebels are gonna do much to change anything.”
“Yeah, take that doubt and shove it up your ass, kid.”
She chuckled.
“It’s not just half a dozen of us. There are way more than you think, Earthside and right here in the place that’s too messed up for us to call it home anymore. And I already told you.” He shot her a sidelong glance and raised his eyebrows. “Never underestimate what a drow’s willing to do to get what they want. There’s a reason the Crown didn’t want you to pass your trials and a damn good reason why she wants L’zar out of the picture.”
“Because he’s a crazy, selfish, buzzing fly in her ear?”
“Something like that.”
An hour later, they stopped at the first real town. Low steel buildings extended in two long rows, with a wide avenue between them. Magicals moved between the buildings, stopping to talk or fight, going about their business. Persh’al slowed the skiff down at the edge of a four-foot steel wall around the two-mile perimeter of the town and hopped out. “You hungry?”
“Oh, yeah. Totally.” Cheyenne stared at him. “All the mutant animals and the dead bodies really worked up my appetite.”
“Yeah, I bet. When was the last time you ate?”
She squinted at the metal wall. “Okay, fine, but I don’t want any of that glowing blue veggie-fruit stuff.”
He chuckled. “What?”
“With the tentacles. It was in a salad.”
“Okay, kid. Whatever you think you’ve had from here isn’t what you’re gonna find in a place with more tech than magic.”
“And that’s here, huh?”
“Eh. I’d call this half and half.” He kicked the side panel of the deactivated skiff and bent over to unscrew something from inside. Waving the thin black tube at her, he nodded, then stuck the piece in his pocket. “Junker like this doesn’t come with owner recognition, so we take the keys.”
“Great.”
“I’m serious. We’re getting closer to a hell of a lot more magicals all squashed into one place. The only time I wanna walk after this is once we reach the capital. Come on.”
After they grabbed their packs, Cheyenne followed him toward the gate in the metal wall. A blue light blinked in the center of the gate, then a round hole opened in the metal and launched a ball of blue fire at them.
Cheyenne stepped back, and Persh’al chuckled. “They’re checkin’ for warrants, kid. You don’t have an APB out on you in Groulco or Kur Vróst, do ya?”
She raised an eyebrow and stared at his goofy smile. “Several. I’m surprised you haven’t heard.”
He ignored the sarcasm and stepped toward the stream of blue flames. “Look, swipe your hand through it like this. It won’t burn ya. And then we’ll be all in the clear to—”
The blue flames switched to orange in an instant, and the gate let out a high-pitched whoop. The top of the wall opened, and two levers unfolded to extend long rods down toward the startled troll before small round beads gathered at the tips like flower petals.
“Are you kidding me?” The beads flashed orange, and Persh’al raised both hands in surrender. “All right. Stand down, man. Damn. I’m walkin’.”
A slow, rumbling chuckle came from the other side of the wall, and the troll shook his head as he returned to the skiff.
“What just happened?” Cheyenne followed him, glancing back at the extended rods and the orange beads that seemed to be following them.
“Warrants.” Persh’al slammed his hands down on the skiff’s panel, which lit up and rose again before he jumped over the side.
“Oh, you have warrants.” The halfling climbed onto the bench beside him and dropped her pack in the back. “Was it Groulco or Kur Vróst?”
He glanced at her but had to look away again as he muttered, “Both.”
Cheyenne barked a laugh and turned to look at the levers hanging over the wall. “And you just set off the alarm.”
“It’ll be a lot more than that if we don’t get outta here. Dammit. I didn’t even think to look for those.”
“Hey, don’t beat yourself up. I’m sure it’s easy to forget you’re a wanted troll somewhere.”
“Damn right, it’s easy to forget.” He flicked the control panel, and they lurched away from the metal wall to keep heading inward. “It’s been almost two thousand years, and I even checked the system before we…oh.”
“Let me guess. Warrants stuck in the old system.”
Persh’al slowly turned his head to look at her, his orange eyes widening. “You unlock mind-reading before you opened that puzzle box?”
“That would’ve been helpful, but no. I did the same thing a few years ago too. Made changes in someone else’s system and failed to look for the old backups from before the updates. Barely got outta that one alive.”
“Well, trust me, I’ll be fixing that little issue.” He turned and flipped the bird at the metal levers, which folded back in on themselves as the skiff sped away from the wall. “Shitty town anyway.”
Chapter Forty
They passed half a dozen other towns that were clustered together and larger the closer they got to the capital. Other hovering vehicles raced past them in both directions without roads or signs or any form of directing traffic.
The hills became steeper, dotted with patches of trees and late-blooming wildflowers. The skiff struggled up the next hill, and Persh’al gave it another little jolt of magic fuel to get up the rest of the incline. When they reached the top, Cheyenne’s jaw dropped.
The city stretching below them looked remarkably like the New York skyline built three times as high—rising skyscrapers and towers, most of them connected by open walkways at every level. Hovering crafts darted around the lower levels, and smaller, faster vehicles whizzed through the air around the towers. No planes, though. No landing pads. So nobody’s flying in or out overhead.
Stone, metal, and glass had been used to craft the metropolis, which looked like it had been added on to forever without the previous structures giving way to time. A tall translucent wall of light encompassed the expanse of the vast city, outside of which more buildings were scattered.
“You’re gonna get something caught in there if you don’t close your mouth.” Persh’al snorted and moved the skiff down over the other side of the hill.
“That’s the capital?”
“Oh, yeah. Hangivol in all its messed-up glory. Doesn’t look any different than I remember.”
“Seriously?”
“When we get down there and start walking the streets, kid, we’ll find out how close to the mark I was about what’s going on here. Then we’ll know how to handle things when we get back Earthside.”
The ground rumbled as they glided down the hill, sending huge clods of dirt tumbling after them. Cheyenne turned and saw the top of a massive metal tank crest the hill, the whole thing hovering off the ground by less than a foot. “They didn’t send anyone after you, did they?”
“Huh?” Persh’al looked over his shoulder and grunted. “Not for me. That’s an army tank, all right.”
“It’s as big as a house.”
“Yep. Can you picture Maleshi sittin’ at the helm of that thing?”
Cheyenne wrinkled her nose. “Kinda, yeah.”
He laughed wryly. “Happened a lot.”
“Watch out.”
“What?” He turned again as the house-sized tank spilled over the top of the hill and raced toward them at top speeds. “Those morons!”
Persh’al swiped both hands across the control panel, and the skiff bounced sideways across the slope, narrowly escaping being run over or knocked aside by the metallic beast racing toward the city. Their skiff wobbled from side to side, and he brought them down slowly with an aggravated snort.
“Nobody cares about the little guy anymore.” He leaned over the console and shouted at the war tank, “What happened to keeping the peace, huh?”
Cheyenne pressed her lips togeth
er and watched the speeding contraption. “Is there an army stationed down here?”
“Of course there is. I don’t know what it looks like after Maleshi up and left since she was the last piece of decent glue holding the whole thing together. But yeah, there’s an army.”
“Great.”
It took them another half-hour to reach the tightly packed buildings in the outer ring of Hangivol’s shimmering wall of light. More magicals than even Peridosh could hold bustled between these buildings, barking orders and questions at each other, moving around pits bursting with green flames, and working with machines to apparently build more machines.
“Industrial sector,” Persh’al muttered, moving the skiff slowly through the intense heat coming from the pits. “Not inside the city walls because who wants all this noise and heat and stink crammed right up against…well, okay, a different kind of noise and heat and stink.”
“What do they make out here?” Cheyenne stared at a metal claw on a ten-foot crane pulling a huge sheet of metal with a snarling wolf’s head forged on the side.
“Everything. Anything. The big stuff, right? Some of it’s craftsmanship, but it’s the old-school kind. Metal is metal, though, huh? We’re still working with it like we always have.”
An empty pit filled with green flames sputtered out when a ten-foot-tall magical stepped through it, the ground trembling beneath his lumbering footsteps. Those aren’t feet, those are hooves.
The big guy caught her staring and spread two enormous, black-crusted wings out on either side of him, blocking out the light from both the green fire and the sun behind him. A low growl rumbled out of him before he grabbed a sheet of metal bigger than he was and stepped back through the flames.
“As long as we keep moving and don’t try to talk to any of these guys, we’ll be in the city before you can say, ‘Fuck, that’s some hot fellfire.’” Persh’al steered the skiff toward a steel tunnel angling upward, and a tingling buzz of warm energy washed over them when they passed through. He shuddered. “I never liked that.”
