Gúrdu slid a clawed finger through the pile of shattered shell in front of him. “Hardly.”
“Yeah, well, next time I’ll bring payment. What’re you charging for your space-case drivel these days, anyway?”
“More than you can afford to give if you pursue this.”
“I’ve heard that one before too. Unless you prophesy something with my name in it and the words ‘you will die,’ I’ll take my chances. A hunch from you isn’t another prophecy, Gúrdu. We both know that.”
Cheyenne stood and eyed the raug. He knows something.
The Oracle looked up from the shattered pile and glanced at the halfling and the Nightstalker. Then his finger lifted and pointed at Cheyenne. “She should have been the one to offer and ask.”
“Well, she’s not the one calling in the favor, is she?” Maleshi dusted off her pants and stepped carefully between the pillows scattered around them. “And if I can’t afford another prophecy now, I sure as hell can’t pay for the kid.”
“You wouldn’t have to.” The raug lowered his hand again. “This one lies at the center of more than one thread.”
“You don’t say. Only a complete moron couldn’t figure that out. Come on, Cheyenne. I’m feeling creepy-crawly, and the smell in here’s gonna make me sick.”
As the Nightstalker made her way through the mess of cushions and ash and dust and whatever else was probably growing beneath all of it, Cheyenne found herself unable to move. “What does that mean?”
“Really? I’ve got a prophecy hangover, and I’m gonna hurl. How much more transparent can it get?” Maleshi reached the end of the sea of pillows and stumbled before catching herself with a hand against the wall. She looked over her shoulder and glanced wildly around the room before finding that Cheyenne hadn’t moved. “Oh, for crying out loud!”
“That I’m at the center of more than one thread,” the halfling muttered with a shrug. “What is that?”
The Oracle’s orange eyes widened. “Is that your ask, then?”
“Yeah, I’m asking you what that means.” Cheyenne flexed her fingers by her sides. And I’d be threatening him with drow magic again if it wasn’t for this stupid pendant. “You said it, and now you need to tell me what you mean by that. What are all the threads?”
A slow, devious smile spread across the raug’s thick gray lips. “Make an offering, drow.”
Chapter Eighty-Five
“Oh, no. No, no, no. Stop. Cut. Do not pass Go.” Maleshi shuffled back across the sea of pillows, reaching out toward the halfling. She almost fell on her face before she got to Cheyenne and brought a hand down firmly on the half-drow’s shoulder. “It’s time to get outta here, kid. This guy’s brain’s been fried by at least a dozen trees worth of magic sticks by now.”
The halfling scowled at the Nightstalker. “I want to hear—”
“Zip. Zip it. Not another word.” Maleshi tugged on Cheyenne’s hoodie and nodded toward the door into the hall. “I’m serious. We’ll talk outside.”
Cheyenne’s shoulders ached with the tension of her anger and she had no way to let it out. She glanced at the Oracle, who leaned back against the mass of cushions behind him and chuckled. He’s playing me.
That only made it worse. Rolling her shoulders, the halfling followed Maleshi through the scattered cushions and the low round tables dotting the huge room. The Nightstalker wagged a finger at the Oracle, gesturing for Cheyenne to go ahead. “You’re cutting it close today, Gúrdu. If you spent as much time out there in the real world as you do sitting on your ass pretending to know more than everyone else, you’d be reworking that opinion on false honor. Don’t make me remind you again.”
Without waiting for a response, the Nightstalker staggered out of the room. The raug Oracle’s deep, rumbling laughter followed her like a bad dream. She had to steady herself again on the doorframe, shaking her head and letting out a long, slow breath.
“You good?” Cheyenne watched her from this side of the beaded curtain.
“Almost. Get me outside, and I’ll be as good as new. Or something.” Maleshi waved the halfling forward before pushing off. The beads clacked as Cheyenne passed through them. The Nightstalker swiped at the dangling strands to move them aside. She missed half of them and got a face full of dangling beads. “Okay, what…why can’t he just…”
With a hiss, she grabbed two thick handfuls of the dangling strands and ripped them down from the ceiling. The wooden bar holding them all together at the top tore free from its hook and thumped against her back as she ducked to avoid it. After a mad scramble to get the things off her, the whole beaded curtain and the wooden rod clattered to the floor. Maleshi lashed out with a final irritated kick, missed, and almost fell flat on her ass in the process.
“Need a hand?” Cheyenne frowned in concern as the ex-general reeled and finally steadied herself.
“I need a drink. Two. I need—” Maleshi hunched, her eyes bulging, and pressed a hand against her stomach. “Out.”
The halfling didn’t wait to see her friend waving her toward the front door. She jogged down the rest of the hall before opening the door and holding it for the magic-sick Nightstalker.
Maleshi stumbled through, smacking her lips again and scowling. “I hate cranberries. I bet he does that just to screw with me.”
Cheyenne pulled the door shut behind her and gave the ex-general a wide berth. “Yeah, you two seemed pretty close.”
“Ha.” With a deep breath, the Nightstalker straightened and held her hands out in front of her. When she didn’t puke, she nodded and shot the halfling a thin smile. “Some friends are made by necessity, kid. At the time, my choices were to either let one of maybe a few hundred Oracles go down with the rest of his clan or to sneak the seven-foot POW past my men and kick his ass Earthside. Looks like my momentary lapse in brutality worked out for all
