“Payment?”
Gúrdu’s orange-brown eyes flickered open, and he glowered at her. “We’re not some O’gúl bazaar, Dark Elf. You might have had the merchants and sellswords and half-cracked fortunetellers falling all over you at no charge, but the rules are different Earthside. Because I make them. You should know that by now.”
“Right.” Cheyenne glanced around the dark room, not sure whether the Oracle would change his attitude toward her if she revealed she was a halfling who hadn’t stepped foot across the Border once in her life. “Here’s what I need to know.”
She slipped the backpack off her shoulder and hefted it into her arms to unzip the thing.
“Sit, hínya.”Gúrdu’s voice filled the room like a smoking fire, the sound rattling around in Cheyenne’s head until her ears were ringing.
The halfling gritted her teeth and lowered herself onto the pile of cushions in front of the Oracle’s self-important platform-throne. When she finished unzipping her backpack, she reached inside and pulled out the drow puzzle box. The copper glinted in the lanternlight, retaining its normal metallic coldness, without a hint of the quickening heat it had been giving off lately. The runes stayed where they were, too.
Gúrdu grunted when he saw what was in her hand, and Cheyenne looked up to meet his orange-brown gaze. “I need to know what this is.”
“You expect me to believe you have no idea what you’re holding?”
“No, I have an idea.” She fought back the double-dose of sarcasm and settled her voice into something a little less blatantly fed up. “I’m trying to figure out what it does. What it’s for, specifically, or how to make it work.”
“Huh. That depends on the drow who gave it to you. It was given, wasn’t it? That’s not a war trophy or a piece of blackmail for someone else?”
Who does this guy think I am? Cheyenne blinked. “No, it was given to me. More like left to me. Isn’t an Oracle supposed to know all about—”
“It’s not the knowing that gets you answers, hínya,” Gúrdu spat. His sharpened teeth flashed between his brown-gray lips. “The way such a question is asked carries just as much importance. Which you should know by now too. What kind of game are you playing?”
“What?” She frowned at him and glanced down at the puzzle box. “I’m not playing any kind of game. I just want to know what the hell I’m supposed to do with this thing, ‘cause it won’t leave me alone.”
“It’s a drow legacy artifact.” Gúrdu grabbed a bundle of what looked like dry twigs from the silver tray beside him, dipped them in the water, and took a huge, crunching bite off the top of the bundle. Splintered wood spewed from his mouth as he chewed, and for a moment, Cheyenne hoped he’d eventually spit it all out and use it in the same way he’d anointed himself with a claw in that water. He didn’t. Listening to him swallow a bunch of dry, chewed-up twigs made her throat hurt. Then Gúrdu sighed, laid the bundle gently back down beside the bowl of water, and sucked a splinter out from between his teeth. “Can’t tell you any more about it than that. Not my place.”
“Can’t you make it your place? One time. For me.”
Gúrdu eyed the puzzle box in her hands, and a light flashed behind his eyes. He sat a little straighter on his throne of pillows and turned his head away from her. “No. You came to the wrong Oracle, and I’d be surprised if any other on this side of the Border would be any more willing to cross the line into what you want to know.”
“That’s ridiculous.” The halfling palmed the box in one hand and shook it at him. “This thing’s been freaking out all over the place. I don’t know what it means, and it’s really starting to piss me off because it won’t leave me alone.”
“That’s its job. Maybe you should leave me alone and turn to your legacy instead.”
Scowling, Cheyenne stood from the pillows and took a step toward the Oracle on his cushioned platform. Gúrdu leaned away from her again, his orange gaze dropping from her face to the puzzle box. “You said you’d decide on payment. Name a price, Gúrdu. Whatever it is, I’m good for it.”
“Piss off.” The Raug said it in a low, level voice, but the halfling didn’t miss the way his eye twitched with her next step toward him.
“Screw you. I just want somebody to tell me what I’m supposed to do with it. I don’t know the drow who left it to me, so just take the damn thing and be an Oracle.”
“No.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because every pair of hands to touch that artifact belonged to a nameless face,” Gúrdu spat. “And they’re all dead!”
“What?” Cheyenne frowned down at the puzzle box. “You’re saying it’s gonna kill me?”
“I’m saying it has killed at least a dozen before you. I can smell it, and there’s nothing you can do to change my mind,” the giant Raug hissed at her, his nostrils flaring. “I won’t touch it.”
“Nothing I can do to change your mind, huh?” A sphere of crackling black energy erupted in the drow halfling’s other hand, spitting purple sparks and sending a new layer of shadows dancing around the dimly lit room.
A low, rumbling chuckle rose in Gúrdu’s throat, then he threw his massive head back and roared with laughter. Spit and soaked splinters flew from his mouth, sticking to his chin and his lips. When he settled those orange eyes on Cheyenne again, he looked completely insane. “You’re committed, drow. Make sure you’re willing to follow those commitments all the way to the end.”
“You don’t think I will?” The purple sparks flared even brighter from the center of the drow magic churning in her hands.
“I’m sure you will if you think it will get you what you seek. But you’ll be bloodying your hands for
