Nu’ek glanced down at him. “I’d forgotten about that.”
“Uh-huh. I bet you have.”
“You’ve come back, troll, and I can only think of one reason why. Is this her?”
Persh’al raised his eyebrows at Cheyenne and shrugged. “Yeah, this is her.”
“Good. Now shut up until I tell you it’s safe.”
“Yep.” He gripped the straps of his pack and looked at the top of the vertical tunnel moving slowly away from them. “One more question, though. How’d you know we’d be in Wildhaven?”
Nu’ek grunted. “I didn’t. That was an amusing coincidence.”
“Really?” Chuckling, Persh’al rubbed his forehead and studied what he could see of his friend’s face from so far below her. “You just hang out there by yourself on random nights to lighten the mood?”
One of the thick black talons arching from the golra’s feet tapped the metal platform beneath them. “I like the music.”
“Huh.”
The platform settled gently at the bottom of the tunnel, then Nu’ek led them down another series of alleys and passages between metal walls not nearly as clean and bright as in Uppertech. Cheyenne gazed between the high walls at the narrow strip of sky. It shimmered above the translucent dome around Hangivol, less bright now than when they’d arrived at what she guessed was the middle of the afternoon. “We’re back on the lowest level, right?”
“This is the level we came in on,” Persh’al muttered as they turned another quick corner after Nu’ek’s trailing wings. “Not the lowest.”
“For real?”
“Oh, yeah. And now I’m gonna shut my mouth because I know this is something better said elsewhere, yeah?” He gave her a reassuring nod, then they pulled up behind the giant golra, who’d stopped at another unmarked wall.
It opened the same way beneath her touch, panels folding out to reveal another doorway. Nu’ek grunted and ducked, nearly doubling over as she squeezed her massive body into the much smaller entrance. “If you say a fell-damn word about this, I’ll pull you through and throw you like a spear down these stairs.”
Persh’al snickered but didn’t open his mouth.
The staircase was steep and narrow and just kept going down. Cheyenne studied the walls, seeing an occasional flicker of blue text scroll by as they passed. Losing technology underground. Big surprise.
They climbed steadily down for what felt like at least half an hour. The halfling instinctively pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket, then immediately shoved it back in when she saw nothing but a black screen. Of course it doesn’t work here.
With another grunt and a screech of talons on stone instead of metal this time, Nu’ek squeezed herself out of the narrow staircase and straightened up in the large, open room at the bottom. Her black and red wings shot out to their full span for a much-needed stretch.
“Whoa.” Cheyenne stepped back to keep from clotheslining herself on the barb-tipped ends of those wings, her hair billowing around her face in the kicked-up gust of air.
Nu’ek tucked her wings against her back again, stretching her muscular gray arms straight up over her head. “District 5 isn’t built for golra.”
“Makes sense. Nobody wants to serve a bunch of you in one place. They’d run out of fellwine in five minutes.”
The golra ignored him and interlaced her fingers for a good knuckle-crack. Then she extended one hand toward the blank stone wall at the base of the staircase and cast the first pure magic spell Cheyenne had seen in Ambar’ogúl.
A buzzing tingle of magical energy washed across the halfling’s skin, and she let out a slow breath through pursed lips. Feels more like the Nimlothar power boost. Makes sense when I’m standing in the only world where magic was supposed to exist.
The stone wall lit up with hundreds of thin glowing purple strands, all of them drawing inward and converging in front of Nu’ek’s outstretched hand. A whirlpool of spinning purple light grew on the door, then the golra flicked her fingers, and the circle flashed.
Cheyenne blinked quickly and had to look away, but when she gazed at the wall again, she found the spell slowly fading. Now at the center was the four-pointed star, which pulsed once before fizzling out in a puff of violet-colored smoke. “I’ve seen that before.”
Nu’ek let out a thoughtful hum. “That’s not surprising.”
“Oh, yeah.” Persh’al chuckled. “I forgot you used the front door of the warehouse a few times in the beginning.”
The golra shoved her hand against the stone wall with a grunt, and the entire section of it drew back into the wall before shifting to the side and opening another room beyond. The ground shuddered beneath them, and the growling rumble of stone scraping across stone made Cheyenne wince.
“Right.” She gave Persh’al a questioning look. “On your wards.” And other places.
“Not my wards, kid. Our favorite drow built those around the warehouse. They’ve got some serious juice behind ‘em, lemme tell ya.”
Cheyenne blinked at the opening in the wall, which Nu’ek could pass through at her full height. “And who put the wards up here?”
Persh’al snorted. “Who do you think?” Then he darted after the golra and into the darkness of the next room.
For being a wanted drow on two different worlds, L’zar really gets around.
Taking a deep breath, Cheyenne stepped through the stone wall after her guides. The minute she passed through, the huge slab of stone slid back into place behind her with a resounding boom. Another wave of magical energy burst through her with her next step, and she felt a
