by Martha Carr
“What was it?”
“Uh, a decontamination chamber. Sort of.”
Cheyenne stared at him as the tunnel leveled out, then dropped gently back down again. “So, we just drove through a contaminated industrial sector.”
“More or less. I mean, not with sickness or anything. Don’t freak out. The city’s been running some kinda filtration system forever. Working with fellfire has its downsides, namely one of the worst smells I’ve ever smelled.”
“I didn’t smell anything.”
“Right. Well, you don’t until the fumes have had a good day or two to settle in.” They exited the tunnel, and Persh’al turned the skiff to the right, navigating through all the other vehicles swarming in through the open corridor lining the city wall. “I took the fastest route, kid. We won’t stink, and we saved a bunch of time by not having to go all the way around the city to the front.”
“I’m guessing not many magicals come in through the back.”
“Yeah, most try to avoid the fellfire.”
Cheyenne glanced over the metal rim of the curving lane filled only with other hovering crafts. On their left, the shimmering translucent wall rose almost straight up before it curved inward toward the highest towers miles away at the city’s center. Two larger crafts whizzed passed them, darting between the other milling vehicles and eliciting shouts of outrage from other drivers.
“All right, here we go.” Persh’al banked to the right, cutting off another driver behind him. The skiff dipped into another tunnel on the side of the corridor, and they entered an underground parking lot. When they slowed to a stop, the metal wall beside them flashed yellow. “Suck it. I’m not wasting any more veréle on junk.”
Cheyenne gazed around the low parking lot underground. “This is not what I expected.”
“This is Hangivol, kid. I wouldn’t expect anything if I were you.” He grabbed his pack and waited for the halfling to grab hers before he led her across the empty lot toward a raised round platform against the far wall. The metal beside the skiff flashed yellow again and made a chirping, clicking sound. Before Cheyenne could ask, Persh’al waved dismissively and stepped up onto the platform. “Yeah, yeah. Sound the alarm. I don’t give a shit. Watch this, though.”
She frowned at the skiff as the wall flashed again. Something whirred and clicked, and a silver light bloomed around the skiff before the entire thing crunched in on itself. The metal squealed and popped until a tightly packed ball of metal hovered inside the silver bubble. “So, no more skiff.”
“Nah, we don’t need it. That’s O’gúleesh towing for ya.” Persh’al winked at her as the round platform jerked and slowly lifted away from the floor. “Let me tell ya, I was terrified the first time I got a parking ticket in DC.”
“Not as bad in comparison.”
“Right? It’s good to have a positive outlook.”
The platform lifted them up through a circular chute in the metal ceiling above them and stopped to let them off. Cheyenne stared up at the city’s shimmering outer wall in front of them. “How many things do we have to go through to get inside?”
“It’s overkill, I know. Almost there.”
Other magicals lugging their things with them moved down a narrow walkway twenty feet above the whirring traffic lane encircling the city toward a huge orc standing guard at one of the entrance points. Cheyenne and Persh’al fell in line with the rest of them and waited for their turn.
She leaned toward the troll and muttered, “You sure you won’t set off any outstanding warrants with that guy?”
“Of course I’m sure.” He cleared his throat. “No way are they looking through a two-thousand-year-old database.”
“Very convincing.”
“All right, keep all that to yourself for five more minutes, kid. Let me do the talking. You just stand next to me looking fed-up and pissed-off.”
Cheyenne snorted. “Easy.”
“Yeah, I thought so.”
They reached their turn in line and stopped in front of the giant orc. He towered at least a foot over them and growled, “Hands.”
Persh’al extended both of his, trying to look like he was going through the motions just like the next magical.
The orc raised his hand over Persh’al’s open palms and made a fist. A drop of purple light descended from his glove like a spider on silk and bloomed across the troll’s blue fingers. Then it disappeared, and the orc glanced at Cheyenne. “What’re you doin’ with this one?”
Cheyenne couldn’t take her eyes off the dime-sized bull’s-head on the shoulder of the orc’s black vest. Don’t blow this. Nobody knows you’re here. “I took a tour through the Outers. The troll was my driver.”
The orc’s yellow eyes narrowed, and he shot Persh’al a quick, disapproving glance. “What were you doin’ all the way out there?”
Pull the drow attitude card, right? She blinked slowly. “I was bored.”
“Huh. I can’t imagine that changed much out there.”
Finally, she made herself look up at him and raised an eyebrow. “It didn’t. I’m still bored.”
The orc snorted and waved them through the doorway cut into the metal wall. “Go on.”
“Yep.” Persh’al practically jogged through the narrow doorway.
Cheyenne followed him, gazing at solid metal walls six feet thick before they stepped out on the other side. She followed the troll to the right down the platform inside the wall, and when she looked up, there was the curving dome of light stretching so high and so far toward the center of the city, she lost sight of it.
“Can you believe that?” Persh’al pointed at a staircase on their left, which they took down to the city’s lower level. He glanced up once at the entry point they’d just passed and shook his head. “Didn’t even bother to check your record.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Yeah, yeah. Rub it in. Looks like drow are getting more special treatment than usual these days.”
“I don’t think you should be disappointed about that.” Cheyenne gazed up at the high buildings built along the city wall. How many walls does this place have?
“I’m not disappointed. If I was worried, it was for nothing.” Persh’al nudged her arm and nodded at an alley between the two buildings in front of them. “Come on. The sooner we get away from all this traffic and security bullshit, the sooner you get to see the real Hangivol.”
Cheyenne followed him through the alley and ignored the first gurgling hunger pain in her stomach. This feels like I stepped into a sci-fi movie instead of a world full of magic.
“Trust me, kid.” Persh’al looked over his shoulder and nodded at her. “This is a whole new world in here.”
Chapter Forty-One
The alleys twisted and turned in a maze of identical metal walls. Some of them had O’gúleesh symbols etched into them, and a random selection of those pulsed with different colored lights. Just when Cheyenne thought she should ask if Persh’al knew where they were going, the alley ended, and they stepped into a courtyard the size of a football field.
“Okay.” Persh’al grinned. “This is a lot like I remember.”
The courtyard put Peridosh to shame. Shops and steel carts and fluttering tents lined the rows of steel buildings stretching into the sky. Holographic lights and magically suspended lanterns of every color floated in all directions. Buzzing energy and crackling magic and whirring mechanisms were a constant undercurrent to the noise of hundreds of magicals, and it made Cheyenne clench her eyes shut. I’m not gonna last very long in this noise.
“Okay.” Persh’al rubbed his hands together. “Oh, hey, a sparksetter. I promised you toys, didn’t I? Come on.”
The second they stepped out to cross the courtyard, a rumbling blur raced around the corner from a different passageway.
“Whoa. Watch it.” Persh’al stepped quickly back and tugged Cheyenne with him.
A mound of shifting, tumbling rocks in a generally humanoid shape crunched past them.
Magicals dodged out of its way before filling the gap the creature left behind it, then it disappeared down another side street, taking the rumble with it.
“Stone-eaters.” Persh’al snorted. “You know, sometimes I think they’re blind. You okay?”
“Yeah.” Cheyenne waved off his hand when he reached for her shoulder. “Really loud in here.”
“That’s one of the tradeoffs, but we can find plenty of things to distract you. Stay close, huh?” He stepped into the fast-flowing crowd of magicals on foot and hoof and fluttering through the air.
She snorted and took off after him, narrowly avoiding being clipped by something that looked like a dog-sized gerbil with wings. An ogre growled at her when she almost bumped into him, and she growled back before darting around him to follow Persh’al’s bulging backpack.
He stopped outside a storefront with a bunch of O’gúleesh runes scrolling across the metal wall in flashing colors. “This is gonna blow your mind, kid. As long as it doesn’t actually blow your mind, but we’ll see.”
Frowning, she followed him through the open door into a shop lined with shelves brimming with metal boxes and gadgets, curling wires, and tiny shiny squares of who-knew-what. Cheyenne ducked beneath a dangling string of silver chains, and she realized they were individually moving links folding over and over against each other and slithering through the air like flying metal serpents.
Persh’al turned toward the counter on the far right and wiggled his eyebrows. When he reached it, he drummed his fingers on the metal surface and nodded at the skaxen behind it. The other magical held a small metal box in one hand, the other raised above the box and shooting a buzzing orange light onto it from his long-nailed finger. Sparks flew as the metal heated and reacted to his spell. Persh’al cleared his throat.
“What?” The skaxen lowered his hand and shot the troll a scathing glance.
“Looking for an activator, a basic model. Whatever you have.”
The skaxen rolled his eyes and glanced across his shop. The same orange-sparking finger flicked across the room, and a spinning tray with undulating metal arms zipped through the air toward a tangled mess of wires hanging on the opposite wall. When it buzzed back toward the counter, it carried a thin metal tube in its pincer-like grasp. This dropped into the skaxen’s open hand, and the orange-skinned magical stared at the open door of his shop like he’d rather be anywhere else. “Full head for this one.”
“What?” Persh’al thumped his pack on the counter, rattling the small metal pieces, and pulled the black case from the front pocket. “Full head for that? Come on, man. That’s only worth half.”
Cocking his head, the skaxen lifted the metal tube beside his face, and the spinning tray with arms hovered down above it, ready to snatch the thing away on command. “Full head.”
Persh’al spread his arms. “I’ll go two-thirds, huh? Don’t cheat me out of a bad deal.”
“The newer models go for triple. I sell ‘em for double, and you’ll cough up a full head or you can keep walkin’.”
“All right, all right. Cool it.”
Cheyenne folded her arms and watched the transaction. He’s as bad at bartering as he is at lying.
Slipping three of the hair-thin plastic cards from the top of the case, Persh’al stared at the skaxen before laying the payment slowly down on the counter. “You got any of the newer models?”
“Nope.” The skaxen set the metal tube on the table, then returned his attention to the box in his hand. The orange sparks flared to life on his other finger as he pointed toward the door. “None of that trickles down from Uppertech.”
“You know what? Never mind.” Persh’al snatched up the metal tube, tucked his money case back into his pack, and slung the thing over his shoulder. A stand with dangling strings of glowing metal leaned sideways on its own to avoid the giant piece of luggage as the troll headed toward Cheyenne in the center of the shop. “Okay, the skaxen’s a thieving liar, but I got you something.”
“That looks like a metal shotgun shell.”
“Ha. Think again, kid. This is a basic-model activator, like a remote control for your magic. All this crazy gear.” He wiggled his head, gazing around the stuffy shop, then handed over the metal tube. “This feels like buying a teenager her first cell phone.”
Cheyenne stared at him until he shrugged, then she took the metal tube and turned it over in her hands. “My first time in the city, and you brought me to a magical Radio Shack.”
He snorted. “It’s nothing fancy, but you might get a taste of how things hook up around here. If it’ll even work for you with the whole mixed ancestry thing. You don’t read O’gúleesh, do you?”
When she glanced at him in disgust, Persh’al nodded toward the skaxen, who was busy ignoring them. “No.”
“Well, it’s worth a shot. If it doesn’t work, I’ll sell it and make a little profit.”
“No, you won’t,” the skaxen murmured.
Persh’al scowled at him. “Nobody’s talking to you, ratface.” The shop owner didn’t respond, focusing intently on welding that little box with his spell-gun finger.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this.” Cheyenne rolled the tube between her fingers.
“Oh, yeah. Little button on the bottom. You might feel a slight—”
Cheyenne’s pressed on the bottom of the tube, and the thing sprang open in a blur of moving parts that unfolded and raced across her hand, clamping down on her skin in half a second. “Shit.”
“Pinch.” Persh’al cleared his throat. “That’s about it.”
She shook her hand, and her eyes widened when the thin lines of metal netting didn’t budge. “It’s a glove.”
“Not quite. Give it a few seconds.”
“To do what?”
“Huh.” He peered at her hand as she turned it back and forth. “Hey, you sold me a dud activator?”
The skaxen didn’t look up. “You tryin’ to be a pain in my ass?”
“Yeah, ‘cause this thing’s not—”
The metal net on Cheyenne’s hand flashed, and she sucked in a sharp breath at the flood of buzzing energy that coursed up her arm and into her shoulder. Her eyelids fluttered, and she shut them to help focus on the sensation. Not the best-feeling power surge. Not the worst, either.
Persh’al watched her and shrugged. “Okay. Never mind.”
The tingle of tech-magic pulsed one more time up her shoulder and the side of her neck before fizzling out in the back of her brain. Then it died, and Cheyenne took a deep breath. “That was weird.”
The troll chuckled. “Oh, yeah. Maybe it will work for ya. Wait ‘til you open your eyes.”
Her eyelids fluttered open, and she blinked away the blue and green flashes of light in her vision. But instead of disappearing, the fuzzy lights solidified into crisp, clear letters around the perimeter of her vision, blinking and recalibrating when she focused on different pieces of gear around the shop. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah.” Persh’al grinned.
“Viewscreen in my head.” The halfling’s eyes darted around the shop, and when she stopped at the metal box in the skaxen’s hand, her vision filled with scrolling lines of code in a programming language she recognized. “Looks like the basic model comes with language options.”
With a snort, Persh’al shook his head. “All right, quit screwin’ around.”
“I’m not.” When she looked at him, the flashing lights dimmed and faded into the background. So, I’ll be able to tell a magical from a robot, I guess. “I can read this.” She pointed at the rack behind the troll and scanned the description that appeared. “This is a ward-sniffer, right?”
“No shit.” He chuckled. “I know for a fact no activator system runs in any human language, but you can read that?”
“Yep. I guess I can read O’gúleesh now. Makes sense, since the written language is half-magical.” A slow grin spread across her face, and she laughed. The lines of code and the readjusting letters from O’
gúleesh runes into words and numbers she understood flashed across the surface with otherworld tech running through it. “This is so cool. Kinda makes me think of The Matrix.”
“Ha. Cool movies. This is real.”
“Uh-huh.” Cheyenne moved slowly through the shop with a crooked, amazed smile. I bet I could figure out how every piece in this place works if I picked it up and spent two minutes looking at it. She made a full circle around the small room, then stopped in front of the counter and the skaxen still working on his private project.
The scrolling code blinked an error message when she focused on the line of his magic soldering through the box. She leaned closer and pointed at it. “I’d move a centimeter to the right. You’re gonna cut through something important in there.”
The orange light bursting from the skaxen’s finger sputtered out, and he lowered his hand with the box to the counter before glaring at her in disgust. “Piss off.”
“Yeah.” Cheyenne laughed and lifted her hands. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”
She turned in a daze and headed toward the open door. Persh’al hurried after her and grabbed her arm as they stepped outside. “If that thing’s gonna make you walk around all day like you ate a bunch of magic mushrooms, the psychedelic kind, I’m gonna tell you to take it off.”
Cheyenne gently brushed his fingers off her arm and nodded. The courtyard lit up in a whole new way now, streaming all the information she could possibly want to know about every gadget, system, and magically synced piece of gear on each passing magical and built into the metal walls. “I’m good.”
“You sure? I’m not gonna lie, kid. You look like you’re trippin’ balls.”
The halfling pulled her gaze away from the wealth of O’gúleesh information and smiled at him. “Come on, Persh’al. Don’t tell me the first time you used one of these, it wasn’t a total trip for you.”
He tried to stare her down, but the humor in her glowing golden eyes was infectious. The troll chuckled and scratched the wind-blown fluff his mohawk had become. “All right, you got me there. But get used to it quick, huh? A blissed-out drow drooling all over the streets is gonna bring the kind of attention we don’t want.”
