The orc raised his hand over Persh’al’s open palms and made a fist. A drop of purple light descended from his glove like a spider on silk and bloomed across the troll’s blue fingers. Then it disappeared, and the orc glanced at Cheyenne. “What’re you doin’ with this one?”
Cheyenne couldn’t take her eyes off the dime-sized bull’s-head on the shoulder of the orc’s black vest. Don’t blow this. Nobody knows you’re here. “I took a tour through the Outers. The troll was my driver.”
The orc’s yellow eyes narrowed, and he shot Persh’al a quick, disapproving glance. “What were you doin’ all the way out there?”
Pull the drow attitude card, right? She blinked slowly. “I was bored.”
“Huh. I can’t imagine that changed much out there.”
Finally, she made herself look up at him and raised an eyebrow. “It didn’t. I’m still bored.”
The orc snorted and waved them through the doorway cut into the metal wall. “Go on.”
“Yep.” Persh’al practically jogged through the narrow doorway.
Cheyenne followed him, gazing at solid metal walls six feet thick before they stepped out on the other side. She followed the troll to the right down the platform inside the wall, and when she looked up, there was the curving dome of light stretching so high and so far toward the center of the city, she lost sight of it.
“Can you believe that?” Persh’al pointed at a staircase on their left, which they took down to the city’s lower level. He glanced up once at the entry point they’d just passed and shook his head. “Didn’t even bother to check your record.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Yeah, yeah. Rub it in. Looks like drow are getting more special treatment than usual these days.”
“I don’t think you should be disappointed about that.” Cheyenne gazed up at the high buildings built along the city wall. How many walls does this place have?
“I’m not disappointed. If I was worried, it was for nothing.” Persh’al nudged her arm and nodded at an alley between the two buildings in front of them. “Come on. The sooner we get away from all this traffic and security bullshit, the sooner you get to see the real Hangivol.”
Cheyenne followed him through the alley and ignored the first gurgling hunger pain in her stomach. This feels like I stepped into a sci-fi movie instead of a world full of magic.
“Trust me, kid.” Persh’al looked over his shoulder and nodded at her. “This is a whole new world in here.”
Chapter Forty-One
The alleys twisted and turned in a maze of identical metal walls. Some of them had O’gúleesh symbols etched into them, and a random selection of those pulsed with different colored lights. Just when Cheyenne thought she should ask if Persh’al knew where they were going, the alley ended, and they stepped into a courtyard the size of a football field.
“Okay.” Persh’al grinned. “This is a lot like I remember.”
The courtyard put Peridosh to shame. Shops and steel carts and fluttering tents lined the rows of steel buildings stretching into the sky. Holographic lights and magically suspended lanterns of every color floated in all directions. Buzzing energy and crackling magic and whirring mechanisms were a constant undercurrent to the noise of hundreds of magicals, and it made Cheyenne clench her eyes shut. I’m not gonna last very long in this noise.
“Okay.” Persh’al rubbed his hands together. “Oh, hey, a sparksetter. I promised you toys, didn’t I? Come on.”
The second they stepped out to cross the courtyard, a rumbling blur raced around the corner from a different passageway.
“Whoa. Watch it.” Persh’al stepped quickly back and tugged Cheyenne with him.
A mound of shifting, tumbling rocks in a generally humanoid shape crunched past them. Magicals dodged out of its way before filling the gap the creature left behind it, then it disappeared down another side street, taking the rumble with it.
“Stone-eaters.” Persh’al snorted. “You know, sometimes I think they’re blind. You okay?”
“Yeah.” Cheyenne waved off his hand when he reached for her shoulder. “Really loud in here.”
“That’s one of the tradeoffs, but we can find plenty of things to distract you. Stay close, huh?” He stepped into the fast-flowing crowd of magicals on foot and hoof and fluttering through the air.
She snorted and took off after him, narrowly avoiding being clipped by something that looked like a dog-sized gerbil with wings. An ogre growled at her when she almost bumped into him, and she growled back before darting around him to follow Persh’al’s bulging backpack.
He stopped outside a storefront with a bunch of O’gúleesh runes scrolling across the metal wall in flashing colors. “This is gonna blow your mind, kid. As long as it doesn’t actually blow your mind, but we’ll see.”
Frowning, she followed him through the open door into a shop lined with shelves brimming with metal boxes and gadgets, curling wires, and tiny shiny squares of who-knew-what. Cheyenne ducked beneath a dangling string of silver chains, and she realized they were individually moving links folding over and over against each other and slithering through the air like flying metal serpents.
Persh’al turned toward the counter on the far right and wiggled his eyebrows. When he reached it, he drummed his fingers on the metal surface and nodded at the skaxen behind it. The other magical held a small metal box in one hand, the other raised above the box and shooting a buzzing orange light onto it from his long-nailed finger. Sparks flew as the metal heated and reacted to his spell. Persh’al cleared his throat.
“What?” The skaxen lowered his hand and shot the troll a scathing glance.
“Looking for an activator, a basic model. Whatever you have.”
The skaxen rolled his eyes and glanced across his shop. The same orange-sparking finger flicked across the room, and a spinning tray with undulating metal arms zipped through the air toward a tangled mess of wires hanging on the opposite wall. When it buzzed back toward the counter, it carried a thin metal tube in
