Dark Currents

CHAPTER 4

W ater pattered onto the mildew-slick walkway, and Amaranthe struggled to keep her map dry. The maze of pipes, tunnels, and holding tanks was tough enough to decipher without soggy stains. Occasionally a trolley or steam vehicle rumbled by on an overhead street, but for the most part only the sound of running water stole the silence.

Akstyr and Basilard followed her while Sicarius scouted ahead. What he expected to find in the darkness without a lantern, she could not guess, but he seemed to prefer the shadows.

“Huh,” she muttered, pausing to peer about. “This should be a four-way intersection, not a three-way one.” Unless they were lost. She frowned at the map and pictured the tunnels they had traversed. She had taken note of each turn they made, so she did not see how they could have gone astray.

Amaranthe glanced over her shoulder. If they were lost, she did not want to admit it. She had a notion leaders were supposed to be unflappable and infallible, or, at the least, have good senses of direction.

The two men behind her were not paying attention.

“Truth, Basilard?” Akstyr asked. “You can’t tell me anything about how your people work the mental sciences?”

Basilard shook his head.

“But you’re not from the empire,” Akstyr said. “I thought all Kendorians knew something about rakinyaw.” Akstyr puffed his chest as he said the foreign term, no doubt proud he knew a Kendorian word.

Basilard signed a response, hands and fingers moving in a series of curt gestures.

“What?” Akstyr asked.

“Basilard is Mangdorian, not Kendorian,” Amaranthe said. “And he doesn’t know that word you just used.”

Basilard inclined his head her direction.

“Huh?” Akstyr asked. “Oh. Well, whatever. Only the empire is so backward that it…”

Amaranthe returned her attention to the map. Even if those two were talking about something else, they would eventually notice they were standing still. Unfortunately, the channel she wanted to take was the one not there. Only a flat brick wall waited in that direction. Maybe if they turned left, they could loop back around and-

Basilard tugged at her shirt. Akstyr had a hand on the wall, his face toward the ceiling, and his eyes distant and thoughtful.

“Find something, Akstyr?” she asked after a minute passed without him moving.

He blinked, then pointed down the channel to the right. “No, wait.” He pointed left. “Er.” He shrugged and lifted his arms.

“Something odd with the intersection?” Amaranthe asked. Maybe there was a reason they were lost.

“I don’t know. It’s just…strange.”

Sicarius appeared at Amaranthe’s shoulder. Startled, she took a step, and her heel slid on a slimy patch. A quick arm flail kept her from toppling into the channel or falling against him, but it was anything but graceful. She attempted to turn the movement into a casual lean against the wall. Basilard’s eyebrows lifted, but Akstyr was still puzzling out the channels and did not seem to notice her lack of suaveness.

“So, Sicarius.” Something moist fuzzed the wall beneath Amaranthe’s hand. She gave up the pretense, slipped a kerchief out of her pocket, and wiped off the mildewy residue. “Find anything interesting?”

“No.”

“Find anything boring?” She smiled.

Sicarius favored her with his usual humorless face.

“I wanna check something,” Akstyr said.

He backed up for a running start and leaped across the channel to the other side, the side where a flat, bland wall stood instead of the fourth passage the map said should be there. The ledge was only a foot wide, and his momentum smashed him into the bricks, but he managed to keep from bouncing back into the water.

“Something over there?” Amaranthe asked.

“The wall is solid.” Akstyr massaged his hand where it had mashed against the brick.

“You don’t sense anything odd about that spot, do you?”

“The wall?” Akstyr asked. “No.”

Sicarius was watching her, probably wondering at her string of questions. She showed him the map, which he studied briefly.

“An error,” he said.

She had feared he would simply say she had led them the wrong direction and was glad he thought it a problem with the map.

“Akstyr thinks this intersection is odd,” Amaranthe said. “Do you sense anything?” He had far more experience with the Science than she did and likely more than Akstyr as well.

Sicarius considered the passages. “No.”

“Really? Is it possible his nose for magic is better than yours?”

She meant it as a simple question, not an insult, but his expression grew chilly.

“In their eagerness to practice their craft, neophytes learning the mental sciences often sense things that are not there.”

Akstyr scowled at him. “You think I’m imagining things?”

Sicarius turned the chilly gaze on him. Akstyr’s chin lifted mulishly, but he looked away first. A resentful curl remained on his lips.

“Basilard, why don’t you and Akstyr explore that direction?” Amaranthe pointed to the right. “Our goal is still to find the source of those bodies, so check manholes and access points along the way, but if Akstyr senses anything more, feel free to veer off to investigate.”

“A waste of time,” Sicarius said.

Amaranthe gave him a nudge toward the channel on the left. “Sicarius and I will explore this direction.” She dug out a pocket watch. “Unless you find something worth exploring, meet back at the pumping house in two hours, and we’ll investigate the gambling joint.”

Basilard nodded and led the way down the indicated tunnel. Akstyr, hands stuffed in his pockets, slouched after him.

As Amaranthe and Sicarius headed the opposite direction, she clamped down on her tongue to keep from bringing up his lack of tact and the problems inherent in offending people. It would sound like nagging, and she did not want to alert him to her hunch that Akstyr did not seem the sort to forgive insults. Suggesting he might be a threat one day would only get him a knife in his back. Besides, she hoped, amongst comrades who cared, Akstyr would grow into a better man.

Water spilled out of a massive pipe in the far wall. Amaranthe eyed it as they passed, still suspicious of that side of the channel. Maybe the old waterway had been bricked in and the flow diverted to this exit point. If so, why would the map not have been updated?

She thought of investigating it, but the channel had widened around the pipe, creating a pool too great even for Sicarius to jump.

They continued onward until they reached a ninety-degree turn. Amaranthe halted on the corner.

“This is supposed to be a T-section,” she said.

The waterway was narrower here, and Sicarius hopped the six-foot channel as if it were a puddle. He probed the wall on the far side. “If it ever was, it’s not apparent. The bricks and mortar are aged.”

“Odd and odder.” Amaranthe took out the map and marked the missing passage. “If we had the construction blueprints, I could understand if there were differences in what was actually dug out down here and the original plans, but this is the as-built drawing from the pumping house for this section of the city aqueducts. It should have been completed after the construction and updated anytime there was an expansion or alteration.”

“The pumping house has mediocre security,” Sicarius said. “Perhaps only dummy drawings are kept there.”

“To what ends? If something breaks, city workers need accurate maps to fix the problem.”

“There’s no machinery that would need repairs out here.”

“Just miles and miles of brick passages, huh?”

Though Sicarius had inspected the wall, Amaranthe felt the need to look herself. She pocketed the paper, considered the mildew-fuzzed bricks on the ledge, and found a spot that appeared slightly less treacherous than the others.

She lunged across the channel. Her foot skidded on the narrow ledge. Sicarius surprised her by catching her elbow and keeping her from thudding into the wall.

“Thank you.” Amaranthe arched an eyebrow. “Though I’m not sure why I deserve the gentlemanly treatment here, after you let me scrape the skin off my belly button climbing into that loft last night.”

He released her elbow. “I didn’t want you to drop the lantern.”

“Ah, so I merely appeared less competent and more in need of assistance today.” Amaranthe set the lantern down and ran her fingers along the damp bricks.

“There is nothing here,” Sicarius said.

She continued probing. Maybe Akstyr’s mulishness was contagious. Or maybe she just relished the idea of finding something when he had searched and discovered nothing. She took her sword out and tapped on the wall with the hilt, thinking she might hear hollow clanks that suggested a secret space behind. Alas, none of her banging sounded unnatural, and running her hands along the wall revealed nothing but slimy and slimier bricks.

“Let’s go back to that pipe,” she said.

He followed her along the ledge, but she had the feeling he thought they were wasting time. Or perhaps, he simply did not think roaming aqueducts a suitable task for his skills.

“If trailing along with me is boring you,” she said, “you could go check on Books and Maldynado in the real estate office.”

He did not speak at first, and she thought he might be considering it, but then he said, “My presence unnerves Books.”

“Your presence unnerves everyone.” Amaranthe grinned over her shoulder to soften the comment.

“Not you,” Sicarius said.

“No, but I’m told my sanity is questionable.”

She wriggled her eyebrows at him. Someday she was going to get him to smile, maybe even laugh. The one and only time she’d seen him truly break his facade, it had been in anger. At her. It seemed fate should offer her the other side of the coin once.

“Huh,” was the only response she got.

The outlet pipe came into view. More than eight feet in diameter, it rose well over her head. This side trip was a whim, and Amaranthe did not expect to find anything, but she lifted the lantern to inspect the pipe’s rim by the light.

Splashing water flung droplets onto her clothing when she edged closer, and she was about to abandon the search, but Sicarius reached above her head. He plucked something from a gouge in the metal.

“What is it?” Amaranthe asked.

He held a soggy chunk of hair up to her light. Human hair.

Amaranthe probably should have been horrified, but excitement thrummed through her. The dark brown hair could have belonged to half the people in Stumps, but she said, “Think that came off one of the bodies the boys found?”

“Impossible to tell.”

“Well, I have a hunch it did. I bet those bodies flowed into the aqueducts through this pipe.” She ticked the cold metal. “I’d really like to know what’s on the other end.” She leaned out, but so much water flowed from the pipe that no air pocket lay at the top. Even if there was air, one could never swim into the current that way, not that she’d be foolish enough to try. Probably.

Sicarius gripped her by the collar and pulled her back a few steps.

“I was just looking,” Amaranthe said.

He grunted.

“Really. Did I look like I needed assistance again?”

“You looked like you were considering…trouble.”

She grinned. “I wouldn’t go for a swim without consulting you first. But, given your past history working for Hollowcrest and skulking around dark places, I wonder if you have any insight into these tunnels.”

“Skulking?”

“Yes, is that not what assassins call it?”

“We call it working.”

“All right,” Amaranthe said. “While you were working, did you ever have reason to travel through our aqueducts?”

“No.”

“Can you venture a guess as to what these cartographical errors could be about?”

“Security,” Sicarius said.

“Security? Like a false map designed to throw off enemy infiltrators who might sneak into the capital to sabotage the water supply?”

“You could ask Books who was emperor when the aqueducts were built. We’ve had some paranoid rulers.”

“True. ‘Paranoia is awareness’ was one of Emperor Vakar’s sayings, wasn’t it? One that’s been oft-quoted throughout imperial history.”

“Yes.”

“So, if the map is intentionally inaccurate, what would it be hiding? It’s not as if it’s a mystery where our drinking water comes from.” She waved in the direction of the Tork. “Though I suppose it’d be hard for a saboteur to poison a river. Maybe attacking a reservoir down here would…”

An expectant cant to Sicarius’s face made her pause. It was as if he was waiting for her to figure something out. She closed her eyes and pictured the topography of the city above her, the direction of the water flow, the location of the pumping houses.

“Our drinking water does come from the Tork, doesn’t it?” Amaranthe asked.

“So your drawing says.”

“Right, and my drawing is lying about things.” She pulled out a knife and scraped a rough map into the mildew on the wall, noting the river, the streets around the pumping house, and then the passages they had explored that morning. “That wall that’s blocked off and shouldn’t be…it runs parallel to this side of the river, doesn’t it? And we’ve got a gap of-what do you think?-fifty, one-hundred meters in between? What if that pipe makes a turn somewhere in the space in between? What if the water is actually siphoned from elsewhere? An underground source. Or even another river up in the mountains. And the aqueducts were purposely built like a labyrinth to hide that fact?”

Sicarius was listening, but, as always, remained hard to read.

“Am I being too fanciful-too paranoid-or do you agree with the possibility?”

“The paranoia of past rulers is a well documented fact.”

“I can’t tell if you’re agreeing with me or simply acknowledging that there’s a remote possibility my fancy-filled mind has latched onto the truth,” Amaranthe said.

“You have a lot of hunches. Sometimes they are correct.”

“Well, if this one is right, this water and those bodies could have come from anywhere.” Amaranthe rubbed her face. “They might have been dumped in a river hundreds of miles away. We could be on a purple lumpbat chase. Although…perhaps not. The gambling house is local, and one of those dead fellows had that key fob, so…”

Sicarius was studying the darkness beyond the lantern’s influence, and he did not seem to be listening. Amaranthe cocked an ear, wondering what had caught his attention, but she could hear only the gush of water flowing from the pipe.

“What is it?” she whispered.

A minute head shake. “Perhaps nothing. Perhaps what Akstyr felt.”

“He wasn’t imaging things? Are you going to apologize to him if it turns out he was right?” She knew fully well he would not-if she found out he had ever said “sorry” in his life, she would fall over in surprise-but her playful side, or perhaps it was her unwise side, wanted to tease a response from him.

“No,” Sicarius said.

Well, it was a response. Sort of.

“All right,” Amaranthe said. “Let’s get out of here before something more sinister than you shows up.”

His eyebrow twitched, but he said nothing. It would take a lot of work to get that smile out of him.