The Drow Hath Sent Thee

by Martha Carr

  “Fuck.” Cheyenne groaned and let her friend help her up before pressing a hand against her head. “What the hell was that?”

  “You tell me.” Ember sat back on her heels and took a shuddering breath. “I didn’t know what to do. Maleshi tried to get you up, but none of us could touch you.”

  Cheyenne glanced quickly around the courtyard and tried to push to her feet. “Where’s Bianca?”

  “She’s fine, Cheyenne.”

  “I have to find her. Corian got her, right?” Stumbling across the stone, Cheyenne had to brace herself with her hands before she could finally stand. “She needs help, Em.”

  “Hey, slow down.” Ember rose with a flash of violet light and grabbed Cheyenne’s arm to keep the drow from dropping to the floor again. “She has help. The runes stopped glowing, and she’s feeling better, okay? She’s fine.”

  “What made them stop?”

  “I don’t know. Time, I guess.” Ember gently released the drow’s arm and shrugged. “I haven’t seen her in a while. I didn’t want to leave you here by yourself. Someone had to watch you.”

  Cheyenne gazed up at the Nimlothar. The tree wasn’t flashing anymore, but it seemed to loom over her. Then she realized how bright everything was and looked at the open ceiling and the daylight spilling down into the Heart. “How long was I out?”

  “A long time. I don’t know. Ten, maybe twelve hours.”

  “Jesus.” Letting out a slow, heavy sigh, Cheyenne scanned the arches leading out of the courtyard. “I have to go see her, Em. Make sure she’s okay. Where is she?”

  Ember wrinkled her nose. “She’s with Venga.”

  “Fuck. Are you kidding me?” Cheyenne staggered to the arch on her left, her activator lighting the quickest path to the necromancer’s lab.

  “But she’s fine. Hey, slow down. You can’t even walk straight.”

  “Why would you leave her alone with him, Em?” Cheyenne stumbled and caught herself against the walkway.

  “Why would I? Cheyenne, I’ve been sitting with you. Corian had taken her up there by the time I finally got here.” Ember floated quickly after her, reaching out every time her friend wobbled, but she didn’t have to support Cheyenne. The drow quickly regained her strength and moved through the corridor leading to the closest staircase. “You left us outside the city. You know that, right?”

  “You should’ve tried harder to keep up.”

  “Hold on.” Ember grabbed the drow’s wrist and pulled her aside at the bottom of the staircase. “It’s not like you left a clear path for any of us to race after you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You just walked through everything.” The fae frowned. “You don’t remember?”

  “I had to get her here, Em. You saw what happened to her.”

  “Yeah, and I saw the entire city shift around you in, like, five seconds. How the hell did you do that?”

  Cheyenne blinked quickly and stared at the lines of code scrolling across the walls that now looked like off-white stone. “I don’t know. I just did it.”

  “Okay.”

  Cheyenne stumbled against the wall, reeling from the residual flash of the Nimlothar’s vision of the entire forest blazing with green fire.

  “What just happened?”

  The drow shook her head and swallowed. “I’m fine. I think we’re running out of time.”

  “Well, that’s not exactly new,” Ember said when Cheyenne pushed up the staircase, “But you don’t have to worry about your mom right now.”

  “She’s with the necromancer who created the blight and shoved a surprise potion into my chest, Em. Are you seriously telling me to trust the asshole with my mom?”

  They reached the top of the staircase, and Cheyenne followed the illuminating lines of code down the last corridor to Venga’s lab.

  “It’s not like he’s gonna hurt her. She’s the—”

  “Please don’t say it.” They emerged into the wide passageway leading to the massive iron doors of Venga’s lab. “Not right now, Em.”

  “Okay.”

  Cheyenne shoved the doors open with a slam and stumbled into the lab. “I swear on the old laws, Venga, if you so much as touch her—”

  “Cheyenne.”

  She froze.

  Bianca sat on a massive chaise covered in a dark mauve material that looked like velvet. Her back was perfectly straight, the runes no longer glowing, and she looked much healthier than before they’d left the estate. A metal tray filled with O’gúleesh fruit and this world’s version of bread rested on the chaise beside her. She popped a small black berry into her mouth and studied her daughter. “There’s no reason to barge in here like the world’s about to end.”

  “Mom.” Cheyenne hurried to Bianca, staggering over to her mother. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m perfectly fine. Thanks to your friend.”

  “My friend.” Cheyenne spun away from the chaise to see Venga in full scaleback form, his four arms spread out to the side with either a vial or some experimental tool in each hand. His black eyes glittered at her as his scaly lips drew back in a mocking smile.

  “Indeed.” Bianca nodded. “Venga’s been quite attentive, and I feel much improved. Well, beyond the obvious, of course.”

  Venga chuckled. “Easy to accomplish with such a well-mannered patient.”

  “Cheyenne, I was just telling the…forgive me, what was it you called yourself?”

  “Necromancer,” Cheyenne muttered.

  “Yes, necromancer. Interesting choice of professional title.” Bianca popped another berry into her mouth and gazed around. “From the look of this room, I would have expected doctor or healer or something of the sort.”

  “No, that would be me.” Ember slowly looked away from the woman to stare at Venga. The scaleback switched one of his implements into another hand to free one of the four up for a grating scratch on his dry, scaly head that sounded like sandpaper on cement.

  “I had heard something about fae and healing, Ember.” Bianca nodded. “It suits you.”

  “Thanks.” Ember raised an eyebrow at Venga and pointed at the black berries Bianca was popping into her mouth one at a time. “Those are the regular kind, right?”

  The necromancer shrugged with only two shoulders. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

  “No reason.”

  Now that her urgency was gone, Cheyenne had time to take in the full transformation of Venga’s lab. The massive metal tanks Ba’rael had used to torture her victims for their magic had been removed. Apparently, Persh’al’s rearrangement of Hangivol’s aesthetic had extended even into this room, and where the shelves of dark implements and the necromancer’s rage-fueled messes had once been, everything was now neatly in its place. Two more O’gúleesh armchairs, these decorated with small bones and yellow-amber gemstones, joined the chaise in replacing the sludge tanks. Soft, warm light radiated from conjured lanterns hovering below the ceiling.

  Okay, sure. Maybe it’s a lot more like a doctor’s office. Or a naturopath’s. Does it fucking matter?

  Cheyenne shook off the thought and bent down to her mom. “But you’re okay?”

  “Everyone’s been perfectly hospitable, Cheyenne. I’m a lot more comfortable than I expected.”

  “Yeah, I can tell.” The drow shot Venga another quick glance. “He didn’t give you anything, did he? Potions or treatments?”

  “Nothing beyond a bit of refreshment and thoroughly enjoyable conversation.”

  Venga pointed at Bianca with a clawed finger and grinned. “One of the many things we seem to agree on.”

  “He’s told me quite a bit about this world,” Bianca continued. “And his work. I find it fascinating.”

  Though she was relieved to find her mom doing so well, Cheyenne hadn’t managed to let go of her resentment for the necromancer. “Did he tell you how he got back here to his work?”

  Bianca lifted a copper cup of water to her lips and didn’t make a sound as she drank. “Yo
u mean, the bit about everyone breaking him out of that prison?”

  Cheyenne blinked. “Yeah. That.”

  “Well, it’s in the past, and we’re here now.” Bianca shrugged. “You of all people know what a waste of time and energy it is to dwell on past mistakes. The intentions behind improving one’s aims are what counts.”

  The woman raised her cup to Venga with a curt nod.

  “Right.” Cheyenne glanced between them. If I hadn’t just had an out-of-body experience with a damn tree, I’d be convinced I’m hallucinating right now. She cleared her throat. “Good to see you’re getting along with the locals. I guess.”

  “Your mother is a remarkable creature, Cheyenne.” Venga chuckled and turned back to his workbench. “For a human. The first one I’ve seen in Ambar’ogúl. Possibly the first ever.”

  “Why, thank you.” Bianca sipped her water again, staring at Cheyenne over the copper rim the whole time.

  “I’m glad you’re okay, Mom.”

  “As am I. Now, can anyone tell me what this oddly shaped blue item is?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Ember floated to the chaise and bent to study the tray of O’gúleesh fruit. “Yeah, that one’s safe to eat. It’s the blue stuff that glows and sometimes moves that you want to stay away from.”

  “It moves? What a novel concept for produce.”

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Knowing Ember could handle whatever might come up in conversation with Bianca, and it could be anything at this point, Cheyenne crossed the lab to join Venga at the workbench. She folded her arms and watched him work. The necromancer busied himself laying out various instruments beside a group of crystals and metal shards arranged in an intricate pattern on the bench. At least he’s not mixing anything that explodes.

  “Seriously,” she muttered, “what did you do to her?”

  Venga didn’t look away from his work, though he moved with a much slower and more exact manner than the last time she’d been here. “Nothing. Not yet, at any rate.”

  “When we crossed over, she was out of her mind with pain.”

  “And that lasted for a full five minutes after Corian delivered her into my care.”

  Cheyenne snorted. “That’s what I mean. What kind of care?”

  The necromancer finally turned his scaly bald head to look at her with glistening, all-black eyes. “Patience. Observation. And she did mention thoroughly enjoyable conversation, did she not?”

  He’s still mocking me. She ignored the comment and watched his clawed hands delicately lifting another implement or stone or metal shard and place them exactly where he wanted. “What made it stop?”

  “The same thing that started it, I imagine.”

  “Venga, we can’t do what we have to do by imagining the answers.”

  “Hand me that frequency scale, will you?”

  Cheyenne scanned the workbench. “I don’t know what that is.”

  Without looking away from his work, the necromancer pointed at the end of the workbench. “The coil, Cheyenne. Red.”

  She found it and dropped it into his open hand before folding her arms again. “So she erupts with burning runes all over her body the second before we pass through the second doorway, settles down a few minutes after she reaches your lab, and you have no idea why?”

  “Oh, I have an idea.” Venga delicately lowered a dark-purple crystal into the center of the design on his workbench and tapped it once with the tip of his claw, then turned to face her. “The vessel has arrived. It returned to its natural state within the physical body of your mother, but that natural state was always meant to exist here.”

  “No, she’s human.”

  “Ah. But you are not.” He chuckled. “There are far more layers to conceptualize than I originally anticipated, but it can be done.”

  “What are you going to do to her?”

  “I need to study her. For the rest of the evening, I suspect, possibly into the night. Preliminary testing will follow.”

  “Testing?” Cheyenne shook her head. “It better not be the kind of test you ran on me the last time. She can’t handle that kind of manipulative abuse.”

  “Oh, spare me.” He waved her off and gazed at Bianca and Ember, who were engaged in a perfectly civil conversation about the different types of magical fruit. “I performed that trial on you because I knew you could handle it. You can’t honestly expect me to repeat the process with a new and still-undiscovered set of variables.”

  “I don’t know what the hell to expect from you.”

  “Bianca’s not a drow. Not even half-drow, if we’re technical.” Venga glanced at his symbol creation one more time, then nodded and gave her his full attention. “I can’t tell you what will or will not be required of her to do what must be done, but I can say I will treat her like the fragile being she is. Physically speaking, of course.”

  Cheyenne took a deep breath and let it out in a long, resigned sigh. “No preliminary tests without me here.”

  “As I said, I need the rest of the evening to study the vessel. Otherwise, I won’t know what we’re dealing with.”

  “Venga.” She widened her eyes at him. “Not without me here.”

  The necromancer touched a clawed hand to his chest, then tossed it flippantly in the air. “You have my word.”

  “Thank you. And if anything else that’s not supposed to happen happens, you let me know.”

  “Yes, Cheyenne. I’ll engage the messaging system in your domicile. But you have nothing to worry about for the time being.”

  Yeah. He knows where I live.

  “Okay.”

  With a widening grin showing rows of stained razor-sharp teeth, the scaleback leaned toward her and widened his all-black eyes. “This is the next step toward victory, Cheyenne. I’m pleased to see you’ve finally managed something useful in that regard.”

  She gave him a deadpan stare, then spun and headed back across the lab. Fuck this guy.

  Venga let out a low, rumbling laugh and returned to whatever he was doing with crystals and metal.

  Not like I can entirely trust the word of a necromancer, especially not the one who created the blight. I need something better.

  Cheyenne stopped in front of the huge double doors and watched Bianca and Ember.

  “I’m serious. Those same berries.” The fae pointed at the tiny black fruit and laughed in disbelief. “I mean, they were delicious.”

  “And more than that, it seems.” Bianca plucked a handful of berries off the sprig and handed them over.

  “Yeah. Delicious and psychedelic, or whatever they call that over here.” Ember dropped all the berries into her mouth and closed her eyes as she chewed. “But it gave me my magic back, and then some.”

  “I’ll just say that that is an experience I’d rather leave to the non-humans.”

  Both women chuckled and continued picking through the fruit tray.

  Cheyenne studied the lines of code scrolling across this new, brighter, far more inviting version of Venga’s lab. Before she realized she’d had the thought, her activator prompted her with a spell it translated as “Communication.” Her fingers flickered at her side as she opened the command path to read through it to the end.

  Yeah, okay. I guess that’s good enough.

  When she confirmed the selection, her hands worked seamlessly with her magic in casting the spell she couldn’t have explained even if she’d tried. The floor beneath her moved in dozens of segmented parts, much like they had on the roof of her Hangivol apartment building, and she pulled a series of metal pieces from the floor of Venga’s lab to float in front of her.

  The necromancer turned at the sound of metal pieces clinking against each other. His eyes narrowed when he saw bits of his lab swirling in the air around Cheyenne’s raised hands. “What are you doing?”

  “Calling in backup. Or whatever.” She focused on letting the activator and her magic do the rest, and when she was finished, a three-dimensional four-pointed star the size of her palm sp
un slowly in front of her. It flashed with deep-purple light when she plucked it from the air, and she took a moment to study the lines of code moving in every direction along its surface.

  I guess that’s it.

  When she turned to her mom, Bianca and Ember had stopped talking. Both stared at her in surprise.

  “That’s something I haven’t seen before.”

  Cheyenne gave a dry laugh and approached the chaise. “It won’t be the last time while you’re here, either. Here.”

  “What is this?” Bianca accepted the four-pointed star, which flashed again when Cheyenne released it.

  “Just in case. If you need me for anything,” she said, studying the scrolling runes translating into English around her mom’s fingers. “Just hold it with both hands and say my name. I’ll find you.”

  “Where are you going?”

  Cheyenne glanced at Ember, who cluelessly shook her head. “I have an apartment here, Mom.”

  “I see.”

  “And I need to lie down.”

  “You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Cheyenne. By all means, take the time you need. I have no issue with staying here however long Venga needs me.”

  Cheyenne snorted. “Okay, well, don’t get too comfortable.”

  Bianca glanced briefly at the red burn scars on her wrists peeking out of the bottoms of her sweater sleeves. “That won’t be difficult.”

  “Right.”

  As the drow turned to the door, Ember cleared her throat. “Is this a ‘leave me alone’ moment?”

  “I mean, it’s your place too, Em.” Cheyenne pulled one massive door open and glanced at Venga. “Your word.”

  “I gave it, and you have it.” The necromancer waved her off. “Quit breathing down my neck.”

  Rolling her eyes, Cheyenne jerked the door open wider and hurried into the hall.

  “Bianca.” Ember pointed at the four-pointed star in the woman’s hand. “Don’t be afraid to use that if you have to.”

  “I’m well aware of what happens when I doubt Cheyenne’s abilities, Ember. Thank you.”

  “Okay.” Giving Bianca a final attempt at a reassuring smile, Ember slipped through the door after Cheyenne and floated quickly down the wide corridor beyond to catch up with her. “Hey. Everything okay?”