The City of Towers

CHAPTER 34

Rhazala wouldn’t speak as she slipped through the shadows. She dismissed any questions with a wave of her hand. “Quiet and quick,” she said. “Enemies about.”

While Daine didn’t trust the goblin, the previous night had proven that there was danger lurking on the streets of High Walls. He drew his dagger, concealing the dark blade against his forearm. Pierce retrieved his bow from Lei’s pack and put an arrow to string. Lei drew the darkwood staff out of the depths of her pack.

Rhazala led them through a winding labyrinth of alleys. The streets grew narrower and narrower, and there were fewer and fewer bystanders to be seen. Eventually the alley came to a dead end. A steel door was set into the final wall, but there were no signs of any sort of lock or handle. An arcane seal, Daine thought. No mere thief could open this door, for there was no lock to pick. The door was sealed with pure magical energy. Before Daine could say anything, Rhazala barked a short phrase in a harsh, rasping tongue and traced a complex pattern on the front of the door. Sparkling light followed in the wake of her finger, and a moment later the door swung open.

Daine exchanged a glance with Lei. Rhazala had already proven herself to be a talented pickpocket. She seemed to have a gift for sorcery as well. He wondered how old the girl actually was and how she’d developed her skills.

The steel door opened into a small, bare chamber. The only feature was a hatch on the floor. Rhazala lifted this trapdoor, revealing a long tunnel that dropped down into utter darkness. Rungs had been carved into the stone wall; at was impossible to see how far they extended.

“Down!” said Rhazala.

“Wait,” Daine said. “Just because you can see in the dark doesn’t mean the rest of us can. Lei, a little light?”

Lei brushed her fingers across her armor, and the studs began to radiate a golden glow.

“Captain,” Pierce said, studying the passage, “I will be unable to shift position within this tunnel. My presence may be a hindrance.”

He was right. Daine would have a hard time fitting into the tunnel. For Pierce, it would be all but impossible.

“If you need me with you, I could-”

“No, that’s fine,” Daine said. “Stay here. Hold this position until the ninth bell, if you can hear it from here. If we haven’t returned by then, go back to the Manticore.”

Pierce nodded and stepped out into the alley, an arrow to his bowstring and a second tucked between his fingers. He calmly sighted down the alley and waited for an enemy to appear.

“Quickly!” Rhazala hissed. She had already started down the tunnel.

Daine looked at Lei, then back at the tunnel. Sheathing his dagger, he climbed into the tunnel and began his descent. Lei dropped her staff into one of the unnaturally large pockets of her pack and followed close behind.

The tunnel seemed to go on forever.

“Where are we going, Rhazala?” Daine asked.

“Down.”

“I noticed that.”

“Cogs. Sewers. Undercity beneath Sharn.”

“Ah.” Now they were getting somewhere. The Cogs had been mentioned frequently during their earlier travels with Greykell. Many of Sharn’s largest and least attractive industries were located beneath the city. Workhouses, tanneries, and foundries lay buried in the subterranean Cogs. The sewers were even further below, and some said that there were ancient ruins hidden even below the sewers.

“Many passages to the depths were built long ago. Forgotten now, but the quiet folk remember.”

“And would you care to tell me what we’re doing down here?”

“You must see.”

“What must we see?” Lei said from below. “You will see.”

“Oh, I see.”

“No, you will see,” Daine corrected.

“Hush,” Rhazala said. “Many dangers lurk below. No time for laughter.”

They continued the descent in silence.

The stench was appalling. A stream of sewage and wastewater flowed down the center of the tunnel, and the walls were crusted with mold and filth. Lei’s armor was the only source of light, and swarms of insects and other vermin scurried away from the circle of illumination.

“Interesting,” Lei said, examining the design of the roof. “I’ve heard a lot about the design. Sharn’s the largest city in Khorvaire, and the towers make traditional systems of plumbing difficulty to implement.”

“And the water is served in mugs of scented clay,” Daine said.

“Hush,” Rhazala said. “Almost there, but very dangerous.”

“Are all goblins such worriers?” Daine said. “There’s no one anywhere to be seen.”

A gray ooze exploded out of the water in front of him.

Wastewater dripped off of the creature as it dove for Daine. It was long and narrow, a strip of dull gray protoplasm almost ten feet in length. It slammed into Daine, and he staggered back against the wall. He threw himself to the side just in time to avoid being caught in the coils of the monster.

The creature snapped at him again, but this time he was ready. Darting beneath the tendril, he thrust his sword into the slimy mass. It felt like stabbing a bag filled with mud, but the creature pulled back.

“Doraashka!” the goblin called out.” Gray eater! Look to your blade! It burns!”

Daine’s eyes dropped to his sword, and he cursed. The blade was pitted and scarred, as if it had been exposed to powerful acid. A lesser blade might have been destroyed with a single stroke. The odds were poor that his sword would survive another attack.

Daine saw Lei about to strike the ooze with her staff. “Lei, stop!”

She paused, puzzled, and the creature struck, throwing him across the hallway. His left shoulder ached, and the acid began to eat away at cloak and armor.

“It’s covered with acid! We can’t hit it!” Daine rolled forward, dodging the next blow and rising to his feet in one fluid motion. He tried not to think about the sewage soaking his clothes.

“So what do we do?” Lei shrieked.

He remembered the wand he’d taken from Dasei d’Cannith. He still had it, tucked in his belt. The Cannith heir must have forgotten about it in the chaos.

“Lei, catch!” he cried, tossing the shard-encrusted wooden wand to Lei.

She caught the wand, but even as she did, the ooze caught Daine. The gray tentacle wrapped around his torso, constricting with terrible strength. He cried out in pain as a few drops of acid seeped below his armor.

Daine didn’t see what Lei did, but there was a brilliant flash of light. The creature spasmed, tightening its grip, and now the acid was burning his arms and chest.

“Lei …” he gasped.

There was another flash of light, and the pressure was gone. The ooze collapsed, dissolving and flowing away into the water. Daine collapsed, gasping, on the floor. His chainmail byrnie was ruined, and his cloak had been eaten away. I guess I’ll be buying a new cloak after all, he thought, wincing from the acid burns.

“Just sit still,” Lei said. She drew a bloodstone shard out of her pouch and whispered to it, weaving an enchantment to neutralize the acid and heal the burns. It wasn’t as quick or efficient as Jode’s healing touch, but Daine breathed a sigh of relief as a relaxing numbness spread across his chest.

“You destroyed a gray eater!” Rhazala said, and for an instant she was a child again. “I’ve only seen it done once before.”

“What was it?” Daine said, slowly getting to his feat and examining his sword.

“Part of the sewer system, I think,” Lei said. “I told you it was fascinating. A living system for dissolving and disposing of the garbage that gets sent down here.”

“It’s always a race to find the true treasures before the doraashka arrives,” Rhazala said. “I hope we’re not too late. Come, quickly!”

She raced down the tunnel, and they followed as quickly as they could.

A few minutes later they came to the midden heap.

It was a cavernous chamber. The walls and arched ceiling stretched far beyond the dim light of Lei’s armor. Filthy water flowed around their feet, carrying waste down the passage they’d come from. Ahead of them was the heap.

Daine had never seen so much garbage in one place. It was a mountain of filth and rotting material mixed with various scraps and damaged goods. As they walked forward, a cascade of rotten vegetables fell from the ceiling. Daine couldn’t see the roof, but it seemed that there were a series of chutes that channeled waste down from the city.

The heap was teaming with rats and insects, but the vermin had competition. Goblins. At least a dozen were crawling through the garbage, sifting through the refuse and looking for anything of value. Daine noticed a few more goblins standing near the entrances of the chamber, armed with makeshift clubs and spears. He imagined that these were scouts, watching for “gray eaters” or other dangers.

Rhazala approached one of the scouts. Speaking in the guttural tongue of the goblins, she said, “Are they still safe?”

The man nodded.

“Pay him,” Rhazala said to Daine.

“What?”

“Pay him. They mine the garbage to survive. He has something you must see. Pay him.”

“Look,” Daine said. “I appreciate that you may actually be trying to help us. But I don’t have any money. Everything I had was stolen by a goblin who looked remarkably like you. So if you want me to pay him with my own coins … I’m afraid you’ve got them.”

Rhazala watched Daine carefully, then her hand darted into her robes, and when it emerged she was holding a double crown. She tossed it to the sentinel without saying a word, and he led them deeper into the chamber.

As they moved to the center of the chamber the water grew deeper, coming up to the hips of the little goblins. Slowly, they made their way around the massive garbage heap.

And that’s when they saw the bodies.

There were four corpses lined up along the midden heap. Their bodies were bloated from exposure to water, and they were in varying states of decomposition. The first was a dwarf, whom Daine didn’t recognize. The second was Jode.

Lei cried out and sloshed forward through the water. Daine found himself at a loss. For a moment he couldn’t move, couldn’t think. He’d lost soldiers before-even friends-but this was Jode. He couldn’t imagine a world without him.

Lei knelt by the corpse and gasped. Daine made his legs move and staggered forward. Jode’s skull had been caved in. Very little was left of the back of his head.

“Who …?” Lei said, her voice muted. She turned to look at Daine. “‘Why?”

Daine was still in a daze. “I told him,” he said, more to himself than to Lei. “I told him not to go.”

“Last night they wanted him alive!” Lei cried. “Who would do this?”

Daine turned away. He couldn’t look at the corpse any more. “When was he found?” he said.

“Around the sixth bell,” said Rhazala, glancing over at the scout for confirmation. He nodded. “They found all four of them together. It’s rare for flesh to escape the notice of the doraashka, so they were not in the water for long. I thought you should know. I liked the little one.”

All four together? Did Jode go to meet these people? Daine walked over to the bodies. Lei was wiping the filth off of Jode’s skin and clothes. Daine still couldn’t bear the site of his best friend’s face, so he turned to examine the remaining two corpses.

Once again, he found himself at a loss for words.

He knew both of these people. One was Korlan, the half-orc he’d met in the company of Bal Tarkanan, and the other was Rasial Tann.