The Drow Hath Sent Thee

by Martha Carr

  Should be louder.

  She reached toward the window, and when her finger should have gone straight through into open air, it met a slight resistance. The paneless window flashed blue light that spread across the open square, then her hand was through. She turned it back and forth in the cool night air. “Interesting.”

  Then she poked her head through and leaned over the edge of the window. Bet I can do more than this, though.

  Craning her neck, she studied the front of her new O’gúleesh apartment building. As soon as she decided what was possible, her activator lit a series of pathways to do what she wanted. “Oh, yeah.”

  With one hand steadying her against the inside wall, Cheyenne leaned around the side of the window, pressed her hand against the outer wall, and flicked her fingers in the offered pattern up the side of the building. The system code scrolling across the walls flashed in succession, climbing toward the roof. The segmented panels did what she wanted, letting out a series of clicks and whirs and sending a small vibration along the entire wall until…

  Cheyenne grinned. “I built myself a staircase. Hell, yes.”

  It took a little more effort than she expected to pull her body through the energetic film covering the window instead of glass, but then she was standing on the ledge jutting from the building’s outer wall. A light wind twisted her white hair in front of her face, and she brushed it away before taking the first high step onto the next platform.

  She must have climbed at least ten stories up the thick metal ledges before stepping lightly onto the rooftop. Her trenchcoat flapped around her calves in the breeze as she turned to study Hangivol below her. I’ve seen enough of Ember’s favorite movies to know this is as close to superhero-y as I’ll probably ever get.

  She took a moment to view the bobbing lights of the capital’s lower levels, catching the scent of whatever the citizens were cooking as the partying carried on as fervently as it had started. Then a prickling tingle of energy raced up the back of her neck and spread across her shoulders. Haven’t felt that in a minute.

  The whisper of a soft footstep behind her caught her attention, and she whirled with a black energy sphere bursting to life in her hand.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” She froze and cocked her head, frowning at the drow child standing in the center of the rooftop and staring at her. The kid’s eyes flickered toward her crackling black and purple magic, but she didn’t move. “Oh.”

  Cheyenne snuffed out the spell and rubbed her hands down the sides of her coat before shoving them in her pockets.

  “What are you doing?” The girl asked more out of curiosity than fear.

  Not even a little fear. Of course not.

  “You mean, up here on the roof? I could ask you the same question.”

  The kid jerked her chin at the halfling, her white hair drawn back in a loose bun the way Cheyenne had first seen L’zar wearing it. “You first.”

  Cheyenne snorted. “Kinda obvious, isn’t it? I’m up here watching the city.”

  “Not a lot to watch. Just a bunch of O’gúleesh drinking and fighting.”

  “Sound like you’re pretty used to that, huh?”

  The girl shrugged and looked the halfling up and down. “Nice coat.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” With a chuckle, Cheyenne turned toward the edge of the roof and sat, letting her legs dangle over the side. “I still think it’s a good view.”

  The girl didn’t try to sneak up on the older drow again as she headed toward Cheyenne. The next second, she was sitting beside the halfling, her much shorter legs dangling over the edge the same way. When she leaned forward to look down at the platforms the halfling had cast out of the wall, Cheyenne almost reached out to keep the girl from falling over. The drow kid straightened again and looked up to study her face. “Did you do that?”

  “Yeah. Pretty cool, right?”

  “I guess.” The girl looked at the star-studded sky and gripped the edge of the roof with both hands like they were sitting on a bench.

  Cheyenne thought, First drow kid I’ve seen other than me, and she gives just as many fucks as I did. “How’d you get up here?”

  The kid shrugged again. “There’s a ladder sequence at the back of the building. I use it all the time.”

  “You come up here all the time?”

  “Yeah. How else would I know the city hasn’t changed?”

  Cheyenne barked a laugh and nodded. “Fair enough. What’s your name?”

  “Ki’zi.”

  “Nice to meet you, Ki’zi. I’m Cheyenne.” She reached out, and the girl glanced at her hand briefly before turning back to look out over the glistening city.

  Jeeze. Talk about a dose of my own medicine. Fighting back another laugh, Cheyenne stuck her hands in her lap and stared in silence with this much smaller drow who could’ve been her ten years ago.

  “You’re the Black Flame, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I guess that works, seeing as most O’gúleesh don’t bother to learn my name. But I told you, so you can call me Cheyenne.”

  Ki’zi hunched her shoulders. “My parents say you killed the Spider and turned the Cycle.”

  “Ha. Your parents must be catching a lotta rumors, kid. I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “But you tried to.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “If the Spider didn’t meet the final deathflame, where is she? Did you chain her up? Throw her to the bloodletters? There’s a Sorren Gán outside the city. Did you know that? I bet that’s what happened. You fed her to that thing, huh? I wish I was there to see it.”

  “Whoa, okay. Hold on a minute.” Cheyenne rubbed her mouth to keep another laugh at bay and turned to study the girl. “First of all, the Sorren Gán’s not eating any drow anytime soon, so you don’t have to worry about that part.”

  Ki’zi’s glowing golden eyes bored into Cheyenne’s. “I’m not worried.”

  “Of course not.”

  When the pause lasted longer than normal conversation warranted, the girl shook her head. “And second?”

  “Huh?”

  “You said first of all.”

  “Oh. What’s a bloodletter?”

  Ki’zi frowned up at her, then wrinkled her nose with a skeptical laugh and looked away again. “Nobody said anything about you being funny.”

  “Right.” Cheyenne ran a hand through her hair. Because of course an O’gúleesh drow would know what a bloodletter is, and nobody knows what I really am. “I guess I have my moments like anyone else.”

  “Can you teach me?”

  “How to be funny?”

  Ki’zi rolled her eyes and pointed sharply at the platforms jutting from the side of the building below them. “How to do stuff like that.”

  “Hey, if you can figure out how to activate a ladder to get up here, you’ll figure that out on your own. I can already tell you’re smart.”

  The girl scoffed. “A ladder’s easy. I wanna do something no one else can. Except for you, maybe.”

  “Gotcha.” Nodding slowly, Cheyenne watched a small group of laughing drow cross the main avenue of the inner circle before disappearing inside a lit storefront. More laughter and shouts of welcome rose from the open door and faded again into the buzz of partying filling the air above Hangivol. “To tell you the truth, I’m still learning how to do this kinda thing too.”

  Ki’zi briefly shook her head. “You don’t have to lie to me. I’m a hundred and twenty-four, okay? I can handle it.”

  Cheyenne almost choked and stared at the sharp, angular features of the girl’s profile. “Yeah, that’s old enough for the truth.” I had to wait more than long enough to get that from everyone else.

  “I know.” Ki’zi raised an eyebrow. “So, will you teach me something or not?”

  Words failed Cheyenne as she pursed her lips in an amused smile. “Why don’t you show me what you got?”

  “My magic?”

  “Sure.”

  Ki’zi rubbed her hands on her
loose dark trousers, then snapped her fingers. A pale silver light bloomed in her palm when she opened her hand, and she flicked her wrist and hurled the light down into the street. It crashed into the main avenue with a bang like exploding fireworks and sent a rippling jolt of energy across the ground toward the buildings on either side.

  “Tyey!” A drow woman stuck her head out of the lit storefront and stared up and down the street.

  Ki’zi burst out laughing, her high voice ringing out above the revelry, and the drow woman looked at the rooftop. The girl’s laughter died abruptly, and she pointed at Cheyenne.

  “Hey, wait a minute.” The halfling laughed, then spread her arms and shouted at the drow below, “My bad.”

  When the drow woman recognized Hangivol’s Black Flame, she raised an eyebrow and gave them both a dismissive wave before retreating into the shop again.

  “Low blow, kid.”

  Ki’zi shrugged. “Nobody will punish you for practicing your magic.”

  The smile on Cheyenne’s lips faded a little. “But they punish you, huh?”

  Leaning back and propping herself up with both hands behind her, the girl looked at the starlit sky. “They say it’s to keep me safe.”

  “Your parents.”

  “I’m a fast learner. Father told me if I kept at it the way I started, I’d spark up my Cuil Aní and have to face the trials early.”

  Drow trials. A hundred and twenty-four or ten, she’s still just a kid. Cheyenne raised her eyebrows and had to look away so the girl wouldn’t see her frown. “That’s pretty early.”

  “No, it’s not, but they told me not to keep practicing because the Spider would call me into the Heart and make me show her too.”

  “Beside the last Nimlothar. Yeah, I know.”

  “You’ve seen it, right? You had to. Everything happens in the Heart.”

  “I’ve seen it. Spoke to it, too.”

  Ki’zi shifted to face Cheyenne head-on and stared at her with wide eyes. “Did it answer?”

  “Yep. I mean, not with actual words.”

  “Tell me what you saw.” A slow smile crept across Ki’zi’s face. “I want to know.”

  Cheyenne wrinkled her nose. “Just asked me for a favor, kid, and I promised to do my best. That’s all.” I don’t care how old she is. I’m not talking about visions of dead and dying trees and the black fire taking out the last one left.

  Ki’zi scowled and scooted away from her. “You’re just like everyone else.”

  “Why, because I won’t tell you about a conversation I had with the last drow tree in Ambar’ogúl? Come on, Ki’zi. Kind of a private thing, don’t you think?”

  “That’s the problem. Everyone’s private. Nobody wants to teach me or let me learn on my own or do anything more than launch energy at the street.” The girl pushed to her feet and spun to storm off across the rooftop. “I thought you’d be different.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.” Cheyenne stared across the other rooftops of the high buildings in the inner circle. Shit, she’s exactly like me. I thought all this was a product of being a halfling and having two seriously abnormal parents. Looks like a lot of it is a drow thing. Still. “Okay, hold on.”

  When she turned around, Ki’zi was standing rigid in the center of the rooftop with her fists clenched at her sides. The breeze lifted loose locks of white hair away from her shoulders and trailed them sideways like streamers.

  “I’ll teach you something. Not anything huge, ‘cause I have a feeling I’ll get a visit from your parents if I do that, and I’m not trying to make those kinds of friends, okay?”

  Slowly, the girl turned around again and studied the halfling with narrowed eyes. “I don’t want to learn tricks. I want something real.”

  “Yeah, I bet you do.” With a short laugh, Cheyenne pushed to her feet and joined the drow child who was technically five times her age in the center of the rooftop. “You have an activator, right?”

  Ki’zi made an insulted face.

  “Of course you do, and you used it to build a ladder. What am I thinking?” The halfling spread her arms, shrugging to adjust the shoulders of her trenchcoat, and wracked her brain for a good non-trick in drow magic to teach a kid. “All right. So, would you say you’re better with spellcasting or syncing with the tech?”

  The girl scrunched her face and snapped her fingers repeatedly, created a spray of silver sparks each time. “Tech. Definitely.”

  It’s like they fucking cloned me. “Yeah, me too. Okay, a piece of advice, then. If you can tap into the activator far enough, it stops doing what you want for you and starts feeling more like your hand, right?”

  “I can’t take off my hand.”

  “No, I know.” Cheyenne sighed. “You’re giving me a real run for my money, aren’t you?”

  “Money?”

  “Just something I picked up Earthside. Doesn’t matter. Look.” Cheyenne stepped back and scanned the code moving across the rooftop between them. Don’t make it cheesy, Cheyenne. Make your point. “You ever do any meditating?”

  Ki’zi’s golden eyes widened, and she lifted her chin. “All the time.”

  “Really?” Cheyenne grinned. “I didn’t expect that answer. You’ve got a leg up on me, and that’s very cool. It’s like meditating or tapping into your drow powers, yeah? I can’t imagine a kid like you wouldn’t have the latest tech.”

  “Finished building this one before you showed up and put your marandúr on the altar.”

  The halfling shook her head with a low chuckle. “Totally not surprising. If you can tap into that, the thing starts working like your own mind. Like a part of you that yes, you can take off if you have to, which is kinda the beauty of it. It does whatever you want when you want it, just like your hands or your feet.”

  Reaching toward the rooftop between them with both hands, Cheyenne flicked her fingers toward herself. The activator illuminated the threaded segments of nonessential metal making up the rooftop, and she selected as many of them as she thought she’d need. Various panels spread out to make up for the tiny square holes left by the pieces she pulled from the roof and lifted into the air between her and Ki’zi. The girl grinned, captured by the floating metal chips glinting in the starlight.

  First time in my life, I feel like I’m putting on a magic show. It’s for a good cause.

  Cheyenne selected command after command, prompted by the activator with no lag between what she wanted to do and what it offered her. The tiny metal chips morphed and bent into shape as she pulled them together, her fingers twisting and curving in the casting of a spell she couldn’t name and didn’t have to. The last piece settled into place with a faint pulse of violet light, and a four-pointed star the size of a golf ball spun slowly in the air between them. The seams between the metal chips sealed themselves, and Cheyenne nodded. “Go ahead.”

  Ki’zi gently plucked the metal piece in the shape of Cheyenne’s magical signature, the same as L’zar’s and Neros’ and probably Ba’rael’s too out of the air. “This is you.”

  “Yeah. In a way, I guess it is.”

  The girl turned the trinket over in her hands, frowning as she tried to figure out the mechanics of making something like that despite the tiny, amused smile playing on her lips. “How did you do this?”

  “Like I said, kid. Don’t separate yourself from what you can do. That includes the activator, right? It can be a part of you. Then you do it.”

  “Right.” Ki’zi slipped the four-pointed star into her pocket. “I’ll do it.”

  “Good.” Cheyenne pulled the apartment chip the messenger orb had spewed at her from her pocket and turned the rune side so the girl could see. “This is me too. When you make your own version of what you stuck in your pocket, and I have no doubt you will, come find me.”

  Ki’zi nodded at the chip, then spun and darted across the rooftop toward the back of the building. She skidded to a stop at the edge and whirled again. “Cheyenne!”

  “Ki’zi.”

&n
bsp; “Thank you.”

  “No problem. Thanks for the company.”

  Ki’zi snorted and slipped over the side of the rooftop. Her hands and feet clanged on the metal rungs, the sound steadily fading as she climbed down toward whatever level of their shared building she lived on.

  Cheyenne chuckled. “Now I know how everyone felt, meeting me. That was weird.”

  She gave herself another minute to look out over Hangivol and the O’gúl parties still raging on every level of the city. The multicolored flames of the Sorren Gán’s newest camp-out flickered beyond the northern edge of the capital’s outer wall. There’s no way I’ll make the crossing Earthside and stay there, even if we didn’t have a blight to heal and a necromancer to whip into shape. If I’m gonna play drow royalty on Earth, it’s gotta be for everyone, not just the O’gúleesh over there.

  With a deep breath, she stepped off the edge of the rooftop and made the climb back down her conjured steps to the open window in her new bedroom in Ambar’ogúl. A drow kid can’t practice her magic in her own home out of fear. Yeah, sounds familiar. That has to change too.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cheyenne’s hip was back at half-agony by the time she sealed the window in her room and climbed into bed. She took the injection canister out of her pocket before shrugging out of the trenchcoat and dropping it on the floor, then she pulled down the waistline of her black pants and grimaced at the raw red hole in her hip and the faint black lines still trailing away from it.

  Better if I jam this thing right into the source, huh? Damnit, Em. You’re too good of a healer for me not to take your word for it.

  She put the bottom hem of her shirt into her mouth to keep it out of the way and pulled the top of her pants down a little farther. Then she sucked it up and pushed the canister against the dart wound in her hip.

  Maybe she screamed, but it was muffled by the wad of shirt in her mouth. Cheyenne jerked away from the pain and found herself on her back as the canister toppled from her hand to the floor. Sucking raw breaths through the shirt in her teeth and her flaring nostrils, she stared at the black spots dancing in her vision until the darktongue serum did its job.