by Martha Carr
“Ah. Yeah.” Maleshi tapped her fingernails on the curved husk and shrugged. “I have no idea what it is, honestly.”
“Why’d you take it?”
“Jealous that I thought to grab a souvenir, are you?”
The halfling rolled her eyes and focused on the road. “You weren’t even there for that fight.”
“Well, if there’s anything left when we’re finished, kid, I’m more than happy to hand it over for you to hang on the wall.”
“I don’t know what to say to that.”
“No problem. Just keep driving.”
Adjusting her hands on the steering wheel, Cheyenne glanced quickly at the Nightstalker woman beside her. Maleshi just stared out the windshield, her lips moving soundlessly. “Uh, I don’t know where you live. Once we get back into town, you’ll have to give me directions.”
Maleshi finished her muttered spell and turned her head so quickly toward Cheyenne, the halfling flinched sideways. “That won’t be necessary.”
The half-drow stared at the Nightstalker’s feral grin and frowned. “You don’t want me to take you home?”
“No. I want you to forget everything you know about avoiding obstacles in the road and just keep driving.”
When the ex-general nodded at the road, Cheyenne looked out the windshield in time to see a dark, glimmering oval of another portal hovering in front of them.
“What the—” She jerked the wheel and hit the brakes, but there wasn’t enough time. When the Panamera screeched to a stop, they were no longer on a side street outside DC. The back tire bumped against the curb of an entirely different road, and Cheyenne slammed the gearshift into park. “Are you insane?”
“Very much so. I thought we’d covered that already.” Maleshi unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door to leap nimbly onto the sidewalk.
With a frustrated growl, the halfling turned off the engine, nearly ripped her seatbelt from its buckle, and got out to follow her friend. And I thought she drove me nuts before. Her irritation didn’t keep her from remembering to lock the car, but the chirp and flashing lights didn’t bring so much as a smirk this time. “You can’t just cast portals in the middle of the road while I’m driving.”
“I think it worked out rather well.” The Nightstalker stopped at a building Cheyenne only halfway recognized, gesturing toward the banged-up front door of the three-story complex with the beetle shell instead of her hand. “Bet you didn’t think you’d be back here, did ya?”
“And you’re not even a little worried about someone seeing a dark oval and a Panamera appear out of thin air? It’s not exactly low-profile in the first—what?” The halfling finally took in the old industrial neighborhood, the train tracks, and the dirty entrance of the door to the building in front of them. This time the door was closed, but it hit her immediately. “You opened a surprise portal to see the raug Oracle.”
“Took you long enough.”
Cheyenne shot the Nightstalker a warning glance. “Well, last time, there was a lot of nagging and a bunch of chickens running around. Plus, I wasn’t tricked into driving through a portal.”
“I didn’t trick you, kid.” Maleshi waved her off and headed down the short cement walkway toward the apartment building’s front door. “I just know how attached you are to that car already.”
“We could’ve done that in the parking lot.” When Maleshi opened the dented front door, Cheyenne grabbed it and raised an eyebrow.
The Nightstalker chuckled. “You really want to listen to Corian go on about how reckless I am? That one’s a stickler for covering his tracks, I’ll give him that. I alleviated that headache and got us out of there where he couldn’t see.”
“What if someone follows us here?” The door shut with a creak and a metallic bang as the women walked down the dusty hallway, which was still littered with leaves and pebbles. Chicken feathers fluttered on the floor when Cheyenne stepped past them.
“Wow. You’ve known the guy for...what, maybe a week? And you’re already starting to sound like him.”
Rubbing her forehead and trying not to shout, Cheyenne muttered, “It’s not that hard to answer a question directly, you know.”
“We’re fine, kid. If anyone picked up a portal trail in the middle of the road and decided to follow it, they’d have to be looking for trouble.”
“Most magicals are when they show up in front of me.”
Maleshi gave the halfling a dismissive wave again and stopped at the Oracle’s apartment door on the right. “Then we agree that most of those magicals are idiots. If the lack of intent in my portal didn’t turn them off, showing up at a raug’s front door definitely will. Or they’ll step through anyway and get exactly what they deserve. Either way, not a big deal.”
The Nightstalker rapped briskly on the apartment door and waited, smacking the edge of the beetle carapace against her palm.
Cheyenne stared at the woman and stuck her hands into her pockets. “It’s amazing no one found you for four hundred years.”
“Not really. But the cat’s out of the bag now, isn’t it?” Maleshi rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Now I’m making cat jokes. I’ve spent four hundred years casting limited spells and shoving all this brilliant magic into a tiny little box in a dusty corner of a forgotten room, kid. Corian still found me, so why not live a little, huh?”
“That’s not a good reason to—”
The door jerked open with a creak, and Gúrdu’s huge gray head and glowing orange eyes appeared from within the darkness of his apartment. “What do you want?”
“Damn. Has everyone forgotten how to greet an old friend these days?” Maleshi glanced quickly up and down the hall before a silver light flashed at her fingertips. Then the black-haired, green-eyed university professor shimmered into the Nightstalker ex-general. “Good to see you too, Gúrdu.”
The raug’s eyes widened, and he made a grotesque sticky sucking sound with his tongue before fully opening the door. “I don’t have all day.”
“Well, neither do we. That’s why we’re here.” Maleshi slipped inside the apartment and waited for Cheyenne to join her before Gúrdu shut the door with a massive hand tipped in red claws.
The Oracle blinked vacuously at the Nightstalker, then his gaze drifted toward the halfling and the Heart of Midnight pendant dangling from the neckline of her hoodie.
Cheyenne quickly stuffed the necklace beneath the fabric and raised her eyebrows. Gotta stop leaving this thing out for every pissed-off magical to see.
“If you’ve come about that drow trinket of yours again, feel free to piss off.”
The halfling glared at him, and Maleshi laughed. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you? We’re not here about Cheyenne’s legacy. Not directly, at least.”
The raug’s orange eyes drifted slowly back toward General Hi’et and narrowed. “You’re the one who sent her here.”
“Who else would send a friend to you, Gúrdu?” The Nightstalker grinned.
“Someone who thinks the name ‘Mattie’ is enough to hide her behind false honor and the lie of claiming exile.”
Sensing the building tension, Cheyenne stepped back against the wall of the entryway, her nose wrinkling at the rotting-orange smell she’d caught on the Nightstalker woman just over a week ago. Mixed with the sickly-sweet scent of what the Oracle burned in his pillow-laden living room on the other side of the entryway, the odor made her a little dizzy.
Maleshi’s smile vanished. “My honor and my exile are mine to claim, Gúrdu. I came here for your sight, not your opinion.”
“I don’t give opinions. They don’t pay nearly as well as prophecies and smoke.”
“Well, today, you’re not getting paid for any of it.” The Nightstalker thrust the beetle-thing shell toward the raug’s chest. “You still owe me for Felagtrok.”
The Oracle grunted. “I should have paid you in kind that day.”
“And I’m sure the thought entered your mind until you reached out into the cosmos and saw how much
more I’d end up doing for you. I’ve spent too much time on the past today, Oracle. I want to see the future. Either let me cash your IOU or quit flinging around insults and calling ‘em insights.”
Gúrdu glanced at the black shell in her hand, which glistened even in the low light of his apartment and blinked. “Are you done?”
“I don’t know. Am I?”
Slowly, those glowing orange eyes drifted toward Cheyenne again. “You were more entertaining.”
The halfling lifted her chin and stared right back at him. “You were a pain in the ass.”
The Oracle grunted. “Let’s get this over with, General.”
He turned and stalked down the hall toward the draping curtain of beads separating the entryway from the rest of the apartment. The wood and glass beads clacked as he flung them aside and stooped to get his incredible height through the doorway.
Maleshi looked at the halfling and dropped the beetle shell to her side with a shrug. “Nice guy, right?”
Cheyenne slowly shook her head. “You’ve got a weird definition of ‘friend.’”
“Yeah, you too. Just another reason I like you so much, kid.” Maleshi winked, then turned to follow the raug through the beaded curtain. She paused briefly to eye the dangling threads at the end. “Huh.”
The halfling waited for the beads to drop back into place behind the Nightstalker. She almost sounds like Mattie again, but I don’t think the Mattie I knew is coming back.
Chapter Eighty-Four
Both Maleshi and the raug Oracle had taken their seats by the time Cheyenne stepped into the huge, dusty living room. She moved gingerly around the frayed pillows and ornately woven cushions scattered across the floor, trying not to look too closely at the dark shadows that flickered across the room when the hanging lanterns flared to life.
Maleshi scanned the piles of soiled cushions with a grimace. “Business must be booming if you haven’t found the time to clean up in here a little.”
Gúrdu waved his clawed hand toward the silver tray on one of the low tables, this one with two hookahs. A thin tendril of smoke rose from the dish at the top of one of the devices, and Cheyenne went out of her way to avoid that table and whatever the raug had been smoking there. The silver tray rose from the table and floated across the room toward the Oracle’s raised platform of a throne. When it settled beside the raug, who was sitting cross-legged on another pile of soiled cushions, the halfling nudged a pillow beside Maleshi with the toe of her shoe.
“It’s fine if you don’t think about who sat down before you,” the Nightstalker whispered.
“Or breathe through your nose.” Cheyenne lowered herself onto the pillow and crossed her legs too.
Gúrdu went through the same weird raug ritual—another bundle of thin twigs dipped into the bowl of water and dragged down the Oracle’s face from his forehead to the underside of his chin. The loud crunch of those twigs between his sharp, stained teeth filled the room. Gúrdu closed his eyes and munched away.
Cheyenne leaned toward the Nightstalker. “Does he have to do that every time?”
“No, but I’ve heard it helps an Oracle see whatever it is they’re trying to see. Little power boost to their system, you know?”
Even with her drow hearing, the halfling could barely hear Maleshi’s words above the crunch of the raug’s messy chewing and the grunting snorts that sounded more like a rooting hog than anything else. “Like the Nimlothar seed.”
Maleshi smirked and shot Cheyenne a sidelong glance. “Branches of the same tree, kid.”
“He’s eating Nimlothar sticks?”
“Not the tastiest treat, probably, but mozzarella cheese sticks don’t pack the same punch.”
The halfling snorted and choked down the small laugh fighting to escape. She shook her head, staring at the base of the raug’s platform. Doesn’t mean I’ll forget about what happened at the portal.
As if the Nightstalker could read her thoughts, Maleshi leaned toward Cheyenne and dipped her chin. “If you have to hold a grudge, kid, I get it. You wouldn’t be the first, and I can handle it. Just try to put that aside while we’re here because I want you to pay attention.”
Cheyenne clenched her jaw. “Is this a lesson you want me to learn?”
“No. Only an idiot commissions an Oracle without a witness.”
“What?” The halfling looked into Maleshi’s glowing eyes as the raug kept munching.
“Don’t get all worked up. He’s not gonna attack me. I think.”
“Great.” Cheyenne turned back toward the platform against the wall and cocked her head. “I’m just here to say I saw the whole thing if he does.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth, kid. Prophecies get a little...dicey. I didn’t have the supplies on me to set up a magical camera, but I had you. Listen to what comes out of the raug’s mouth and etch it into your brain. Got it? We’ll have to go back through it if we want to make any sense of his blabbering later.”
The halfling pressed her lips together and fought the urge to step outside into the fresh autumn air and wait for the Nightstalker there. “Fine. But you’re gonna get a bill for personal assistant hours.”
“Ha. I might have to transfer this IOU—”
“Offering!” Gúrdu’s low, gravelly voice thundered across the room.
Cheyenne and Maleshi both jumped a little on their cushions. The Nightstalker sighed and shot the half-drow a perturbed look, then lifted the fractured beetle carapace in both hands and raised it toward the Oracle. “The offering.”
When Gúrdu opened his eyes, they were focused on the shell glinting in the light of the flickering lanterns around them. He flicked his clawed hand toward the Nightstalker, and the black shell rose into the air to drift toward him. Those red claws met around the fragment of the nightmarish in-between creature as he snatched it from the air. Then he gripped the shell with both hands and lowered it into his lap with a low hum. His eyes closed again. “Ask.”
Maleshi took a deep breath and stared at the carapace. “How did the offering’s source break from the in-between into this world, and how do we stop it?”
The raug’s upper lip lifted in a snarl, exposing his stained teeth and the bits of Nimlothar twigs caught between them. “That is more than you are allowed.”
“Saving your life allows me to ask as many questions as I want, Gúrdu. Don’t fuck with me.”
A rumbling laugh escaped the Oracle, but he said nothing more.
The room fell silent. The flames in all the lanterns flickered in a breeze with no source. Cheyenne looked at them just before every flame in every lantern flared to three times its normal height. The low glow of the flames darkened to an eerie, venomous green. Then every ounce of warmth was sucked out of the room.
The halfling hunched over her crossed legs and gritted her teeth to keep from shivering. Maleshi let out a slow breath, staring intently at the beetle-thing carapace. Her breath puffed out of her like smoke, and the thin crackle of quickly formed ice rose from the bowl of water beside the Oracle as it froze over.
Gúrdu’s eyelids fluttered, and when he opened his eyes again, they gave off the same eerie green light despite being entirely white. His voice echoed through the room when he spoke, not his voice alone, but in at least half a dozen different others from monstrously low to almost a shriek. “The rot in the center of the heart spreads. There is nothing left within, so it searches now for new flesh to consume. What starts within will end without, and the cycle will turn back before its doom.”
The flames roared even higher in the lanterns before falling to a still-abnormal height. When the Oracle drew a long, wheezing breath, Maleshi swayed a little on the cushion beside Cheyenne.
“The one who sees valor in disgrace will fall. The one brought forth in darkness will wield the blade. Cut out the heart, cut out the rot. The shackles of the old laws rise. For the last scion, it is destiny or chains.”
Maleshi lurched forward where she sat. Cheyenne turned toward her and sa
w the Nightstalker’s eyes glazed with the vicious green of the flames. Puffs of steam burst in quick succession between the ex-general’s parted lips.
If they don’t snap out of this in the next minute, I’ll climb up on that platform and stop it myself.
“Blood bonds with blood tied to chaos!” The last word barked out of the Oracle’s mouth in all those unnerving voices. The green flames in the lanterns roared before snuffing out all at once. Even with the lights on in the hall outside, the room was plunged into darkness. Something cracked and splintered by the platform, then the only sounds came from Maleshi and Gúrdu, both of them breathing slowly and steadily.
Cheyenne lifted a hand toward the Heart of Midnight pendant beneath her hoodie, holding her breath to listen. What the hell is this?
The lanterns burst to life again with regular-sized flame and yellow light. The intense cold disappeared, replaced by the apartment’s normal temperature, which now felt balmy in comparison. Even so, the halfling shivered and rubbed one arm through her hoodie sleeve.
Maleshi let out a little moan, but before Cheyenne could ask if she was okay, the Nightstalker sat up straight again. Her eyelids fluttered open, and she smacked her lips. “Cranberries. Still.”
Gúrdu cleared his throat several times and lifted his massive gray head. His eyes had returned to their normal orange glow too, narrowing as they flicked from one side of the room to the other. Then he glanced down at the shattered fragments of the beetle carapace littering the edge of the platform in front of him. “You failed to mention all the threads tied to this one, General.”
Maleshi’s nostrils flared as she flicked her tongue against her teeth in distaste. “If I knew of all the threads, Oracle, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“We shouldn’t have had it in the first place.” Gúrdu leaned sideways to snatch the bowl of water off the silver tray. He flicked the surface with a red claw, shattering the layer of ice, then guzzled the whole thing in under five seconds. Water and bits of twig streamed from the corners of his mouth and off his gray chin. The bowl clattered across the platform when he tossed it aside and wiped his lips with the back of a hand. “You’re in over your head.”
