"This is where they dragged Kirnoth," Ledare said, pointing to the alley between the tobacconist and the jeweler's.
Del nodded and drew his crossbow (it was the standard hand-crossbow, Ledare saw, not like the one she had recently been given) and pressed himself cautiously against the side of the jeweler's. He motioned for Ledare to take the same position on the tobacconist side. He pointed at Hildigunna and Grmnmral and indicated that they should stay well back.
They listened, but could hear nothing over the rain.
Ledare caught Del's eye and saw his lips mouthing the countdown: One... Two... Three!
On three, they both spun inward, Ledare crouching low, Del aiming high. Apart from the usual garbage one would expect sandwiched in between buildings, however, the alley was empty.
Del turned back toward Hildi and the mongrelman and gave the gesture for 'torch'. It was clear that neither of them knew what he meant and he rolled his eyes at Ledare. She smiled as he moved back to the others as quickly and quietly as he could. She heard him hiss, "For Flor's sake, I need a torch!"
When he rejoined her in the alley, it was with a guttering firebrand in his shield hand. By the illumination, they could see a dark cleft in the ground where a narrow crevice had opened up along the foundation of the jeweler's which lead to an area beyond and below the street. It would have been a tight fit for someone wearing no armor; it was impossible for either of them to negotiate it.
"Dammit," Ledare hissed, looking away from the narrow cleft. About a half-dozen paces further on, she spotted an access grate set into the muddy ground. She got Del's attention and excitedly pointed to the grate. He looked at it, nodded, and flashed her a smile before he trotted back to fetch the others.
When they were all assembled around the grate, Del handed off his torch, which wasn't doing too well in the rain. Then he labored to move the heavy grate while Ledare kept her crossbow pointed at the sewer opening that was revealed. Nothing sprang out to assault them, but the look on Del's face told her that the smell was none too pleasant.
Ledare flashed Del the signal that she would go down first. He shook his head and made the gesture himself, and for a few moments they argued like mimes. At last he acquiesced and Ledare mouthed the words, "Thank you," before she released the rope ladder that was rolled carefully at the mouth of the access hatch. It dropped into darkness and she holstered her crossbow, took up a torch and climbed downward toward the sound of rushing water.
After twenty or so feet, the walls opened up and Ledare stepped down into a room filled to mid-calf with frothing brown liquid. The stench was almost unbearable and the air was warm and sticky. She gagged and pressed the back of her hand against her mouth. A chute in the opposite wall was bringing effluent into the room. The current of the two foot deep flow nearly knocked her over and down what looked to be another chute heading further down to her left. In the corner where she stood were set a few rungs of a rusted iron ladder climbing up from the surface of the liquid to a rusted grate in the wall.
Clinging precariously to the lowermost rung was Gordigan. The duckbunny's webbed feet clutched the rung in a desperate attempt to keep from being swept away by the current.
Ledare let go of the rope ladder and eased her way toward the little duckbunny. She transferred the torch to her left hand and reached out slowly with the other.
"Gordigan," she cooed in her most reassuring voice. She doubted that the animal could hear her over the sound of rushing water, but she tried just the same. "Gordigan."
The rope ladder jerked at her side as one of the others began to descend.
The duckbunny looked pitiful. His black fur was soaked and ruffled, and he had his orange bill and feet wrapped around the rung of the ladder. There seemed to be a spark of panic in his glassy eyes.
"Gordigan," she coaxed and eased her hand under his rump. Once his weight shifted to her palm, he let go of the rung and leapt up onto her shoulder.
Or tried to.
His feet were slimy with muck and Ledare's talmuc was wet from the rain and he began to slide off her shoulder at once. She tried to lean forward but it was too late and she felt him fall off.
She turned and saw that Del had caught the little creature in one hand. He held him by the scruff of his neck and the duckbunny hung there limply with his feet splayed.
"You dropped something," Del chuckled into her ear.
She took the animal in her hand and cradled him against her breastplate. "Ha. Ha," she replied without enthusiasm.
Hildigunna dropped down into the churning water and almost fell. She cursed the smell and Ledare thought it just as well that she couldn't hear the woman over the water. Grmnmral came next. His progress was slow, however since his pincered hand and hoofed foot didn't lend themselves well to climbing ladders. The brown water was waist-deep on him and he looked miserable. Resigned but miserable.
"What in the nine hells is that?" Hildigunna asked loudly angling her chin toward Gordigan.
"This is Kirnoth's familiar, Gordigan. He is a duckbunny," Ledare told her and saw the response prompting further questions in the woman's mind. She cut them off before they could start by saying, "I'll explain all that later. Hopefully he can help us locate Kirnoth."
!!QUACK!! said Gordigan.
!!QUACK-QUACK!! answered Grmnmral. He smiled a lop-sided smile and scratched at Gordigan's belly with a single scaly claw. "Grmnmral know, funny creature," he cooed to the duckbunny. "You like Grmnmral. Smoothfaces always want things. Just take, take, take."
!!QUACK!! Gordigan repeated.
"Can you communicate with him, Grmnmral?" Ledare asked and the mongrelman shook his head.
"Grmnmral knows the words, but not what they mean," he explained. He produced an unidentifiable scrap of food from the folds of his ratty clothes and held it out to the duckbunny. Gordigan batted it with his bill a bit before swallowing it. He jumped into Grmnmral's arms and nuzzled against his chest. The mongrelman smiled radiantly which was a trifle disconcerting given his incongruous features.
While her two piecemeal companions got acquainted, Ledare handed her torch to Del and took her talmuc off over her head. She tied the ends together into a stout knot, contriving a sling of sorts for Gordigan to rest in. She arranged the papoose across her body - under one arm and over the other - and placed Gordigan into it so that his head poked out on the left-hand side. In that position, her shield would protect him if they got into combat.
"Which way?" Del asked, as he handed her back her torch and lit one of his own off it.
"Yes. Let's get on with it," Hildigunna added impatiently.
"Grmnmral thinks they went down the tube," the mongrelman said, indicating the chute on the far wall.
!!QUACK!! said Gordigan.
"Apparently, the wizard's familiar agrees with you," Del said, eyeing the opening.
"Wait," Ledare interrupted. "I think that this is the way."
She indicated the rusty grate set into the wall above the ladder. The bars were solid despite the rust, but she and Del working together might be able to loosen it. If nothing else, the passage beyond was dry.
"What do you think Gordigan?" she asked the duckbunny. "Is this the way to Kirnoth?"
The familiar angled his head up to look at her then turned his bill back toward the pipe leading downward. He quacked again.
"What do you say, Ledare?" Del asked her and she gave the gesture for: proceed. He held the torch inside the chute and said, "We should be able to brace ourselves against the sides and-"
"Smoothfaces bring rope, yes," the mongrelman interrupted. "Grmnmral thinks that tying rope would be a good idea."
Del turned and looked at him. "And then we can lower ourselves down," the Janissary said. "Very clever, my friend."
"Pfft," Hildigunna said. "It's hardly wizardry! Anyone could have come up with that."
"I'm sorry, Hildi," Del shot back with a sarcastic tone. "I didn't hear you suggest it."
"It is funny that smoothface think Grmnmral no' smart," the mongrelman told Hildigunna, doing his best to stand up straight and puff his chest out . "Grmnmral is respected diplomat. Yes, Grmnmral is."
While Del busied himself securing one of their ropes to the iron ladder and Hildigunna glowered at the mongrelman, Ledare took the jar of luminous paste from her pack. He broke the seal with her dagger, activating the glowing mold paste inside. She handed the jar to Grmnmral.
"It is very easy to become disoriented in these sewers," Ledare told him. "Will you mark our way every so often with this? Just swipe it on the wall, like this."
She dipped two fingers in the jar and smeared a glob of the thick goop on the wall above the water line. The mongrelman looked at it, dipped a finger in the jar and turned Ledare's line into an arrow with two diagonal swipes. He had to stretch to reach that height, but he managed.
"Shall I go first?" Del asked. He approached with a coil of rope in hand.
"No," Ledare replied. "This is my mission. I'll take point."
"As you wish," he replied with a mock bow and gave her the rope. "Be careful."
Taking the torch in her left hand and grabbing the rope with her right, Ledare eased down the steep chute. The flow of water was strong there, and the narrowness of the chute prevented her from rappelling with any grace. As Del had thought, it was a good size to brace oneself on the tunnel walls. Eventually the chute opened up into another chamber, and the Janissary dropped down into a thick pool of sludge the consistency of an overcooked pudding. She stood in the waist deep pool of sewage and held her torch high to get some idea of where she was.
It seemed that she had climbed down into a thick slurry that served as a sediment pit. On the left-hand wall of the chamber was an alcove with a raised grate set above the water line, parallel to its surface. She took it to be an overflow grate; as water poured into the room from the chamber above, solids were captured by the grate while the liquid waste overflowed through it.
For the second time, Ledare felt herself on the verge of throwing up. And for the second time, she managed to suppress the urge to vomit. Gordigan seemed to sense her discomfort and he let out a resounding !!QUACK!!
As she pet the duckbunny's ears with her free hand, the pool of sludge rippled. Something was moving beneath the surface of the awful liquid.
Ledare braced herself and drew her crossbow. The muck shifted and something brushed her leg. Gordigan seemed to be trying to tunnel his way through her breastplate.
She backed up, pressing her back against the wall beside the chute and shouted up to the others.
"There is something alive down here!" she yelled.
She had the feeling that it was something big.
"We pull up nice smoothface?" Grmnmral suggested. He reached out quickly to grab the rope, but Del's hands were quicker and he snatched it up first.
"No," he commanded. "I'm going in after her."
"Delaroux!" Hildi cried.
"But if monster be down there-" the mongrelman protested, but the Janissary hauled himself into the chute and rocketted down it with one hand on the rope.
"Stupid smoothface," Grmnmral muttered as he watched him go.
Del shot out of the tube and very nearly went into the muck over his head. He barely managed to keep his torch from going out and only his grip on the rope kept him from a manure facial. His face seized up and he gagged immediately.
"Gods!" he sputtered, looking ready to vomit from the stench.
"Del," Ledare cautioned as she held her torch high. "There's something in here! Something big! I felt it moving around! There!" She pointed with her crossbow at a spot where the muck was shifting and churning.
Del drew his sword and quickly scanned the surface for any further sign of the thing hidden below.
"I don't-" he started to say and then he jerked, almost falling and a look of worry crossed his face. "Something bumped me," he told her.
"Any ideas?" she asked him.
He pointed to the grate on the left hand wall. "Can you make it over there?" he asked her.
"Grmnmral thinks that up out of muck be a better idea," the mongrelman said. He was crouched in the opening of the chute, his scaley hand gripping the rope. He held the jar of luminous paste in his claw. "Always better to run and hide if-"
At that instant Hildigunna came sliding down the pipe behind Grmnmral, completely out of control. She slammed into the mongrelman, pitching him halfway across the room. They both splashed down more or less simultaneously.
Hildi came up, sputtering and gagging and looking like a creature of living feces. Ledare was reminded of the man who had fallen in the mud beside that wagon two months ago and she couldn't surpress a grin.
"By all that's holy and not!" Hildigunna cried before she coughed up whatever she had eaten in the last few hours. It mixed unpleasantly with the flotsam the chamber already contained.
Del waded over toward her with a concerned expression.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"Do I look alright?" she snapped back but rested her arm gratefully on his shoulder.
"Where's Grmnmral?" Ledare asked. She held her torch high and caught a glimpse of something big and sleek breaking the surface where the little mongrelman had disappeared. She raised her crossbow and fired a bolt at the thing, but it disappeared too quickly.
"It got him!" Del exclaimed as he came toward Ledare.
She turned to reply when the creature broke the surface again. It was a snake, Ledare could see, covered with brown scales that blended quite well with the surrounding muck. Its head, which hovered above them on its thick neck, seemed to be all jaws. They were large enough to swallow the largest rat whole and lined with serrated teeth. Its eyes glittered down at them with sinsiter cunning.
Ledare heard a splash and glanced away from the snake's mesmerizing stare to see Del back-peddling so quickly that he dropped his torch and very nearly his sword as he went. The torch went out at once. His eyes seemed very large and very round in his horror-stricken face.
The serpent hissed and Ledare fired at it a second time. This bolt missed as well.
Hildigunna splashed toward her and grabbed the arm holding her torch.
"Give this to me!" she hissed into her face when Ledare resisted. "We'll all die if you don't-" she started to add but the Janissary released the torch at last.
Del was moaning in abject fear of the collosal snake. As she holstered her crossbow and drew her sword, Ledare tried to imagine how she would be reacting if confronted with a ten foot tall spider and found that she couldn't even bring up the image in her mind.
For the moment, the snake seemd to be distracted by something below the surface and Ledare remembered that Grmnmral had yet to be accounted for. She wondered how long a mongrelman could hold his breath.
Hildigunna stepped up beside her and began to chant and wave the torch around in the air. It caught the snake's attention and it regarded her cruelly. As Ledare watched the torch, it moved through a series of complicated arcs and turns and seemed to leave an after image of color hanging in the air as it passed. The trails of light lingered behind weaving themselves into a pattern that seemed to draw her eye and send her other senses falling away. All that mattered was the intricate pattern of light. All she could see... All that she was...
"Ledare!" Hildi's voice called out to her from somewhere beyond the pattern. "For Kaeal's sake, don't look at the torch! Look away!"
Somehow, the Jansissary managed to force her eyes closed. At once the hypnotic pull of the light melted away; the image lingered behind her closed lids, but their effect on her was gone.
"The Hypnotic Pattern spell will remain in effect as long as I keep the torch moving," she heard Hildi say and dared a peek out of one eye in the direction of the snake. The serpent was transfixed by the curroscating pattern of light and it stared blankly at it. "Make sure that Delaroux is out of harm's way and then deal with the snake."
Ledare glanced behind Hildigunna and saw that Del was pressed against the far wall with his face trembling in abject fear. His eyes were drawn to the snake even as the snake's were drawn to Hildi's spell. He was as far out of harm's way as he could get for now.
She undid the straps that held her shield to her back and tightened it to her forearm. Sword at the ready, she moved cautiously toward the snake.
"Once you land a blow, my enchantment will be broken," the woman who had called herself a Runecaster warned. "Make the first blow count!"
Ledare planned to and once she was in range, she swung the sword in a viscious arc. Enraptured as it was, the snake made an easy target and the marbled blade bit hungrily into its flesh. It was a solid blow and serpent blood sprayed outward in a crimson sheet. The snake jerked and shrieked in pain, turning its terrible eyes to her. She felt the creature's coils rising up out of the water around her and she swung again. The second blow was less than the first, but the animal faltered with it and seemed to give up the fight.
The head sank below the surface and its coils began to pull away from Ledare's legs. She stabbed downward where she thought the beast was and felt her sword pierce flesh. It floated to the surface, belly up and bleeding.
The Janissary turned, breathing heavily. Hildigunna was at Del's side, comforting him. He seemed genuinely shaken and a little embarrassed by that fact. There was still no sign of the mongrelman.
"Grmnmral?" she called.
"Grmnmral be here," she heard him croak and saw what had looked like a pile of waste was really the mongrelman. Somehow, he'd seemed to vanish seamlessly into the background. "Grmnmral not like stinking tunnels. Not like big snakes neither."
Ledare saw blood on the mongrelman's pincer and asked, "Are you hurt?"
"No. Grmnmral am fine," he explained. "Grmnmral can hold breath and hurt big snakes to. Make big snakes let Grmnmral go."
He snapped his pincer a few times to demonstrate.
"Ledare," Del said nervously. For a moment he had that same look on his face that he'd had in the Black Forest while they were on their survival training. He couldn't quite look her in the eye. "I-I'm sorry for the way I reacted. I didn't expect - Snakes are-"
"Like Grmnmral say," the mongrelman told them. "Better to hide than fight."
Ledare looked bemusedly at Grmnmral.
"Wisest mongrelman say: 'Grmnmral fight and run away. Grmnmral fight another day.'" The mongrelman smiled toothily up at the Janissaries and Ledare had to chuckle.
"That's fine for you, my little friend," Del said with an over-serious tone. "But a Janissary shouldn't abandon his allies. I shouldn't-"
"It's fine, Del," Ledare interrupted him. "We've all been there before. Remind me to tell you later about my recent encounter with a ghost."
Del looked somewhat heartened by her comments, but he still clearly felt that he had let Ledare down.
"Besides," she added, "it was your Runecaster who got the situation under control."
At mention of her, Hildigunna looked up. The tall woman had been trying in vain to scrape the waste from her hair. Her ice blue eyes glittered out of a mask of brown as she stared at Ledare.
"I don't pretend to understand what you did, but you have my thanks," the Janissary told her.
"What I did, I did for Delaroux," Hildigunna replied.
Ledare felt a retort building hotly in her chest, but she forced it back down. She was not going to let her emotions get in the way of what needed to be done now.
"Let's proceed," she said through a diplomatic smile that felt very strained on her lips. "What do you say, Gordigan?"
!!Quack!! said Gordigan.
!!Quack!! agreed Grmnmral.
"Then it's settled," Del said and produced a rosin-coated rod from his backpack. "I have one dry torch left."
"My spare is wet," Ledare admitted.
"Grmnmral lost Grmnmral's torches," the mongrelman told them with a shrug.
Hildigunna held up the firebrand she'd taken from Ledare. "I have this one," she said. "But the others are both soaked with this... shit!"
"Then we'll have to be more careful with these last two," Del said. "We don't want to be stumbling around down here without any light."
He lit his torch off of Hildigunna's and handed it to Ledare.
"I assume you'll be taking point," he told her.
Lifting away the overflow grate revealed another chute heading deeper into the sewer. The flow was much lessened in that pipe, and they were able to carefully scramble down the chute, amidst the trickling brown water. They emerged at the entrance of a large chamber that was quite different from the previous two they had seen. The ceiling was natural rock, but it was evident that someone had carved a secondary sedimentation pool into the floor. The fetid pool lapped up against a stone dam on the left and tumbled over its top and into a natural cleft. In the distance, the sound of what was probably an underground river on its way to the Tyredemia echoed through the cleft in which the flow disappeared.
The chamber seemed to be a modified natural cave, perhaps part of a larger network belonging to the underground river below. Across the sedimentation pit was an identical conduit on the far side of the pool, though much less water flowed from it than from the one by which they'd entered the room. The chute headed just as steeply upwards as the one in which they descended.
"Now what?" Hildigunna demanded and Grmnmral shied away from her.
Ledare looked down at Gordigan. The duckbunny was getting visibly agitated. His great pink-lined ears were standing at attention.
"It seems that now we go up," Ledare said and held her torch so that its light played along the inside of the pipe.
"Who's leading this group?" Hildigunna hissed loud enough for Ledare to hear. "Her? Or that animal?"
"No one forced you to come," Del whispered back to her. "She asked for my help, not yours."
Then his voice dipped too low for Ledare to hear and he added a few points that seemed to silence Hildigunna for the time being.
"This pipe's pretty dry," Ledare said, pretending not to have overheard their exchange. "We should be able to climb it fairly easily."
Using their arms and legs to brace themselves, they climbed up the slickened chute.
It took a long while to navigate that way, but eventually Ledare, who was in the lead, found herself peering through a familiar-looking grate in the conduit ceiling. She pressed her shoulder against it and the grate popped free, showering her with flakes of rust. She pulled herself up with a grunt into another thick pool of sewage. Letting out a little moan of disgust, she lowered herself into the warm porridge.
This chamber was smaller than the first had been. Although this was undoubtedly another sedimentation pit, this one was a bit smaller and clearly handled much less flow than the first. There was a conduit on the wall to the right that slanted upward in that direction. It was plastered with mold and letting in a trickle of water. Ledare could see no other obvious exits large enough for them to navigate.
Gordigan was fairly twitching in the improvised sling. His ears were perked stiffly atop his head and the Janissary could hear his breath coming in excited little gasps.
Wading across the pool of waste to the conduit, she saw that tunnel led to a short ascent or no more than five or ten feet and another chamber reminiscent of the first area they had entered. She could just make out an iron ladder attached to the wall leading up to another grate in the wall and another pipe leading upward to the left.
It was this latter that seemed to hold the duckbunny's attention.
"I am as civically-minded as anyone in Barnacus, Ledare," Del called as he hauled himself up out of the pipe. "I'm interested in everything that makes the lives of its citizens happy and easy. But I believe that I've learned more about our sewer system tonight than is healthy for one man."
He smiled at her with his helmet slightly askew on his head and a few strands of hair falling across his eyes and they shared a laugh.
"I appreciate everything you're going through to help me, Del," Ledare said in a more serious tone.
He waved the comment away.
"You know that I'd walk through fire for you," he said. Then he got a worried look on his face and quickly added, "We won't be walking through fire will we?"
"Not this trip," Ledare chuckled and for a brief moment they were back in the academy, trading jokes even as they traded blows with their training swords. The moment didn't last, however.
"I'm glad that someone's having fun," Hildigunna cursed, pulling herself out of the conduit.
Kirnoth was heartened by the knowledge that his familiar was still alive, but Gordigan's absence weighed heavily on the mage none the less. He thought of grabbing one of the creatures and forcibly demanding the duckbunny's release. That would be impossible, however since they had all scurried off into the pipes.
Alone in the junction room, he bent down and gathered up a few of the tiny discarded spears. As he did so, he spotted a familiar pile of fabric among the foul-smelling nests. It was his cloak - or what was left of it; it'd been shredded to make bedding. Nearby he found other scraps of material that told him the rest of his clothes had shared the same fate. If they weren't so filthy, his former wardrobe would have made fine bandages for his arm.
He felt a tingle spreading over his skin and he knew that the Alter Self spell had nearly run its course. He had little time, and he used it to examine each of the pipes that led out of the room. He ignored the one through which he had entered since he already knew what was awaiting him at its end but he quickly checked the other five. None held the promise of light, but he could hear falling water coming from the three conduits to the right.
All at once, his flesh rippled, and a powerful shudder ran through him. When it subsided, he was himself again, and he found that he had to crawl on his hands and knees to move about. He'd be in a bad spot if his miniature captors returned and he had to fight them in these cramped quarters.
Again he sent his mind out to Gordigan and again received no answer. He swallowed hard and scuttled into the nearest of the three conduits. Crawling on his hands and knees, he made his way through the tight-fitting storm drain, into a network of twisting pipes and conduits. He kept the sound of falling water as his guide in the disorienting tunnels. Dark shadows shifted at the ends of the lonely passages that he avoided, the continued presence of the little monsters keeping him alert and a bit frightened.
At last, Kirnoth emerged from the claustrophobic confines of the drainage pipe. It opened onto a much larger tunnel, set into the wall about half-way between floor and ceiling. Another smaller pipe like the one he'd traveled opened onto the tunnel to his left. A steady stream of somewhat clean water spilled from that pipe into the main tunnel, which flowed downslope to his left. In the far distance, at the edge of his low-light vision, a set of iron bars formed a stout gate to a chamber that echoed with falling water. Looking carefully to his right, Kirnoth could just make out a set of stairs built into the floor of the conduit, leading up to what looked like a rust-marked iron door with a valve-like handle set in its center.
He dropped down into the tunnel and headed toward the gate on his left, the sound of falling water growing ahead of him as he went. He came to the set of rusted iron bars blocking the end of the passageway; the flow of sewage he was standing in moved through the bars and over a stone lip, spilling into the room beyond. He strained briefly against them, but he could see that the bars completely blocked his passage into the room beyond and although they looked old, were still quite strong. Given his injured arm and his lack of physical prowess, he had to content himself with peering through the bars.
Beyond the gate was a large octagonal chamber into which he looked down from high up on a wall. It looked to be a junction room of sorts, with several other barred conduits entering the tall chamber from various points on the other sides of the chamber. The passages drained sewage water down into the room below and away down a tunnel to his left.
There would be no escape that way.
He pressed his face between the rusty bars and yelled, "LEDARE!!!" as loudly as he could. There was no response. Disheartened, he turned and slogged against the current toward the iron door at the opposite end of the tunnel.
The area around the door, being the highest point in the tunnel, was practically free of waste. Kirnoth took a look at his feet, and grimaced; he hated to think what was squishing between his toes.
As he approached closer, the door seemed less like a simple sewer valve and more like a pressurized hatch. He stepped up onto the stairs to examine the door even closer and froze.
Unbelievably, the sounds of soft and hauntingly beautiful harp music seemed to be coming from behind the iron portal.
The elf backed down the steps away from the iron door. He feared that this was some kind of trap and he licked his thin lips nervously. It had taken only six months in the world of men to undo the trusting nature he'd developed during 149 years amongst the elves. Of course, those six months had exposed him to more danger than he'd ever seen prior and in the face of that, a healthy dose of caution seemed quite reasonable.
He sent his mind out to Gordigan again. There was still no response, but he felt a slight tug - an urge so slight that he wouldn't even have been aware of it had he not been concentrating so hard. At first he couldn't determine its direction, and he paced from one end of the tunnel to the other. With his eyes pinched closed and his arms outstretched, he went to each of the openings, the two pipes set into the wall, by the bars blocking the octagonal room, and finally close to the iron door. At last he decided that the urge he could barely feel much less identify seemed to be coming from the direction opposite the way he had come.
Unfortunately, there was no way to travel in that direction that he could see. He spent some time scraping away accumulated filth and mold from the wall of the tunnel in the hopes that doing so would reveal the seam of a hidden door, but he found none. At last, frustrated and somewhat out of breath from his frantic search, he turned his attention back to the iron door.
Bracing himself, he put his hand on the rust-flaked valve handle. It was cold to the touch and turned easily. He spun it, heard the locking mechanism retracting inside the door with a protesting squeal of metal on metal, and gave it a hard pull. The door swung wide open and the harp music stopped abruptly.
Kirnoth was breathing hard still, but from fear rather than exertion. He was in poor shape to deal with any threat, smeared with filth and wearing nothing but his underpants. He had no choice, however and he peered into the area beyonf the door.
It revealed a dark chamber with a spiral staircase winding upwards around a large stone pillar. The steps climbed away to the left into the impenetrable darkness. It was dry in the chamber and remarkably free of effluent . Cautiously he stepped inside, but froze an instant later as he spotted a pair of large gleaming eyes peering down at him from the dark staircase above. The eyes were large and misshapen; one gleamed yellow the other red. Kirnoth's superior elven vision allowed him to just make out that the vague hulking body of the thing looking down on him. It crouched on the stairs, mostly hidden in the shadows above him.
Before he could react, a croaking voice hissed in the common tongue from the shadowy thing. "A visitor...," it said. "How interesting..."
Kirnoth got a sense of the creature tensing its muscles as if the spring down on him.
"Who are you?" it demanded. "What do you want?"
The elf puffed up his thin chest, standing tall in his dirty underwear. He stared defiantly at the shadowy form crouching hugely on the staircase and said in as calm and clear a voice as he could muster under the circumstances, "I am Kirnoth of Galerideleli and I am looking for my comrades and my familiar."
The creature shifted its weight and for an instant Kirnoth thought that it was going to spring on him.
"I am not looking for more trouble," Kirnoth added, "but I am certainly prepared to give it if necessary."
"Hmmmm," the thing intoned with a low rumble. "I did not take your comrades. Why then does Kirnoth of Galerideleli look for his comrades in my sewer?"
Kirnoth's heart began to beat again, seeing that the creature was willing to parlay rather than engage in battle. He took a step closer, drawn by the tug on his senses. But the creature hissed like a serpent and let out a bark like great wardog.
"Come no closer, Kirnoth of Galerideleli!" the creature's voice rattled down to him. "This is my staircase and none may pass but by my will! Answer now my question or suffer the consequences! Why do you look here for your comrades?"
"I was knocked unconscious by someone or something and ended up in these tunnels," Kirnoth said. "I don't know how. I just want Gordigan, to meet back up with my comrades, and to get the hell out of here."
"I know nothing of you or this Gordigan of whom you speak," the creature replied. "And your comrades are not here. But I could perhaps help you back to the overworld."
"Any information you can share with me about this place would be very helpful, good sir-" Kirnoth stopped and cocked his head. "And who are you, sir?"
The creature emitted a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a moan and said, "No one of consequence."
Kirnoth could feel that pull getting stronger. It was definitely Gordigan that he was sensing and from the sensation, the duckbunny was getting closer. It was still too far for him to get any sense from his familiar, but just the knowledge that they were so close to one another was a great comfort.
The creature was still talking, Kirnoth realized.
"-myself as guardian of this staircase," it was saying. "And a lonely vigil it is, with naught save my music for a companion."
It let out an enormous sigh.
"Those who have glimpsed me in my patrols call me: Roach," it admitted.
"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, good sir Roach," Kirnoth said and Roach laughed.
"You are a queer creature, Kirnoth of Galerideleli," it said. "What could possibly be pleasurable for you about our meeting?"
Gordigan was almost upon him now and Kirnoth was having trouble thinking about anything else but the duckbunny. "Well, in truth, you are the first pleasant creature I've seen since I woke up down here," the elf said. "I have run into some small creatures the likes of which I had not seen before. They attacked me with these."
Kirnoth held out the collection of tiny spears that he had gathered up and Roach scuttled down the stairs close enough for the elf to get a better look at him. He saw a huge thing wrapped in tattered rags with a long matted beard, a hunched back and thick auburn fur on its leg. It reached out with a huge left hand that was a sickly, jaundiced yellow covered with amber warts and wiry black hair. It snatched up one of the spears before retreating back into the shadows.
It sat there in the darkness and groaned to itself.
"Pray tell, good sir," Kirnoth asked. "Do you know what they are and whom they serve?"
"I know them," Roach growled. "Bane Midges. They infest the storm drains east of here."
Kirnoth saw it angle its head in the direction that the elf, himself had come from.
"They worship some dark thing as a god," Roach went on. "And sometimes take orders from the skaven that lair in the sewers away north of here but the bane midges serve none but their own black desires."
"How is it you know so much about them?" the elf asked. Gordigan was very close now; he could almost hear the duckbunny quacking.
Roach made that noise again that was one part laughter and one part moan.
"I know them because I hunt them," it said and then a metallic scrape and thud echoed down the stairway and Roach turned swiftly.
"More intruders!" it growled, carelessly throwing the spear toward Kirnoth. "What treachery of yours is this, Kirnoth of Galerideleli?"
The elf shouted that it was not his doing, but Roach was bounding up the stairs and it gave no sign that it had heard him. As the huge creature disappeared around the curve in the stair, Kirnoth glimpsed what it was that had likely earned it the name: Roach. At least one of its feet looked like it belonged on a giant insect or crab.
No sooner had the elf seen that than Roach was gone and a familiar !!QUACK!! reached the mage's ears from up the stairs.
Climbing up yet another chute, they made their way out of the sedimentation pools and into the upper reaches of the sewer system. As Ledare surmounted the chute, Gordigan leaping gracefully out of the sling startled her. Raising her torch quickly, she saw bars blocking the passage to the right. The duckbunny, however was waddling off up the passage to her left and quacking for all he was worth. The sewage passage was dry and clear of any obstacle in that direction, sloping slightly upwards as it went.
"Gordigan!" Ledare hissed as she clamored up into the larger tunnel, but he kept up his loud quacking.
At the extent of her torchlight, she could just make out a set of stairs built into the floor of the tunnel, leading up to what looked like a rust marked iron door with a valve-like handle. The duckbunny was reared up on his hind legs, his webbed forepaws splayed against the door.
His quacking was very loud and very urgent.
Quick as she could, Ledare rushed to Gordigan and scooped the rewluctant duckbunny up in her arms.
"Good duckbunny," she told him. "Now you must be quiet, for Kirnoth's sake."
He would have none of it, however, and tried his best to wriggle free of her grip.
Del trotted up behind her and tried lending another hand to the containment process.
"For Brogine's sake, quiet that thing down," Hildigunna hissed. "It'll give us all away."
"Quackquackquackquack,"Grmnmral intoned and Gordigan stopped struggling and looked queerly at the mongrelman. The two Janissaries seized the moment to stuff the familiar back into Ledare's sling.
Gordigan's head peeked forelornly out over the edge of the sling and Grmnmral stroked the animal's ears with his scaley hand. "Shhhh, little friend," the mongrelman coed in a soothing voice. "You give away where Grmnmral and smoothfaces hide."
Whether the duckbunny understood his words or simply gave up, he stopped quacking and went limp in the sling.
"Good job," Ledare told Grmnmral and the mongrelman smiled up at her appreciatively. The lopsided grin looked very macabre on his frog lips.
"Little creature is like Grmnmral," he said. "Grmnmral thinks little creature understands Grmnmral a little."
Del looked back down the tunnel toward the bars that blocked the way in that direction and said, "Well, Ledare, it's pretty clear which direction we should go. What's your plan with the door?"
She focused her attention on the door and without looking at him muttered, "I'm not sure just yet."
She heard Hildigunna snort, "Figures," but she let it go. For now.
"Del," she whispered once she'd crouched down in front of the door. "Bring that other torch a little closer."
He joined her and together they looked at the floor in front of the door.
"It could be tracks," she said, pointing to the obvious disturbances in the dirt and dust that was collected there. "Or it could just be from Gordigan."
She scowled at the duckbunny and asked Del, "What do you think?"
He frowned and reached out a finger to touch the hinges. They came away greasy.
"Well, somebody opened this door in the not too distant past," he told her. "And that sure wasn't Gordigan. Unless he's got some hidden tricks that you haven't told me about."
Her scowl deepened as she looked up at the iron valve.
"No markings of any kind," she whispered. "No signs of foul play. And I don't hear anything through it; do you?"
Del shook his head.
"That's three out of the four standard procedures," he told her. "And since we don't have a Trap Spotter with us on this mission, we'll have to forego the last test."
They stood up.
"Open it?" she asked.
"Open it," he agreed.
He handed the torch back to Hildigunna and drew his crossbow. Ledare handed her torch to Grmnmral and drew her own bow. They assumed positions in front of the door, Del with his hand on the round handle in the center and Ledare crouched to his left with her shield raised and her crossbow ready. She caught his eye, nodded and he mouthed the countdown: One... Two... Three!
On three he spun the wheel and the locking mechanism inside the door scraped and clanged as it released. The sound seemed awfully loud in the cramped tunnel. The door opened easily and beyond it a set of stairs curved downward to the right. They could see nothing else, but far off they heard a voice cry out followed by the sound of something big rushing up the stairs.
Gordigan also seized that moment to let out another loud !!QUACK!! and try to jump from Ledare's improvised sling.
Ledare reacted a second too late to stop him from doing so and he began bounding down the steps as quickly as he could.
"Dammit," Ledare hissed and Del started to go after the duckbunny. She held up a hand for him to stop and he complied. She gave the signal to hold position and he nodded.
"Stop!!!" they heard a frantic voice cry out. "Roach, that's Gordigan!!! STOP!!!"
To Ledare, it sounded a bit like Kirnoth.
Gordigan quacked again and an instant later they heard the same voice cry out with joy. "Gordigan!!! I've found you!!"
Now Ledare was sure that it was Kirnoth and she gave the signal to advance. She and Del moved down the stairs side-by-side their weapons ready, their shields nearly touching as they decended. Hildigunna and Grmnmral followed behind with the torches and after only a little ways, their torchlight picked out a pale figure standing on a small landing.
"Stop!!!" Kirnoth cried out. "Roach, that's Gordigan!!! STOP!!!"
He rushed with all haste up the stairs. His slime-coated feet nearly slipped on the risers as he went. At about the spot where Roach had passed from his sight, he came to a landing and Gordigan jumped from the darkness and struck him in the chest.
*I FOUND YOU I FOUND YOU I FOUND YOU*
"Gordigan!!! I've found you!!" Kirnoth cried out, unconsciously mimicing the familiar's words.
At the familiar's touch, a flood of the creature's thoughts filled the mage's mind.
*I FOUND YOU I THOUGHT I WOULDN'T FIND YOU BUT NOW I DID I FOUND YOU* Gordigan's thoughts raced. *I GOT LOST THE MEAN LITTLE MEN TRIED TO HURT ME AND THEN I GOT LOST AND THEN THERE WAS A SNAKE AND A FUNNY LITTLE MAN BUT I FOUND YOU NOW YES I DID YES I DID I FOUND YOU*
Over the overwhelming barrage of the duckbunny's thoughts, Kirnoth heard the clink of metal on metal and saw the glowing light of two torches. The yellow illumination was dazzling after being so long in those lightless tunnels and he could just make out two armored shapes moving toward him side-by-side. Beyond them were two more figures; it was the latter pair that carried the torches.
"Hello?" Kirnoth called, squinting and blinking into the torchlight. "Who's there?"
"It's me," Ledare said. "I'm so glad that we've found you."
Kirnoth was out of breath from his sprint up the stairs, but he smiled at Ledare and managed to pant, "I'm so glad to see you!"
"What happened?" the Janissary asked, taking a step closer to the mage. She could see now that his arm had been injured and although the bleeding had stopped, the wound was a nasty one and it was caked over with filth. "Are you well?"
The elf held up his thin hand and turned back toward the darkness.
"Roach!" he cried out. "These are my friends. The people I told you I was looking for."
There was no response.
"We mean you no harm, and would like to help you with your hunt," he added. "They have been looking for me."
He paused again, listening. He heard nothing. Gordigan heard nothing but the sound of falling water coming from below. He couldn't quite figure out how it was that the huge creature had vanished so completely when his keen eyes spotted the frame of a concealed door set into the wall of the landing. Whether it was designed to be concealed or just hidden by the build up of muck along the wall he couldn't say. But now that he had spotted the outline of the door, he couldn't unsee it.
"Please come out and let's talk about this," Kirnoth called again, this time directing his voice right at the hidden door.
There was still no response from the hulking Roach. If he was still within earshot, he was having none of it.
"Kirnoth?" Ledare hissed. "What is going on?"
The elf took a deep breath and explained that he had been traveling in the sewers evading the bane midges and their vile garbage deity ever since he'd awakened in the pipes.
"Bane midges?" the other Janissary asked and Kirnoth nodded.
"That is what Roach told me those vile little creatures that captured me are called," he explained. "Who are you, by the way?"
Ledare looked flustered suddenly.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I forgot to make introductions. Everyone, this is Kirnoth."
She indicated the Janissary and said, "Kirnoth, this is Delaroux, a very good friend."
Next she pointed to the hunched shape behind her. It was a mongrelman, Kirnoth saw and he held a torch in his left hand. "Grmnmral, here, assisted during the attack," she said. "He is looking for Finian."
The mongrelman took off his sodden and tattered cloak and offered it to Kirnoth.
"Take Grmnmral's cloak," he growled. "Grmnmral don't want naked smooth face catching cold."
"Th-thank you," the elf responded hesitantly as the draped the patchwork garment around his narrow shoulders. It did little to cover him, however, being sized for someone two feet shorter.
Ledare turned then to the last figure that was with her - the other torchbearer. She was a human and her head nearly touched the ceiling; she stood easily half-a-hand taller even than Soriah had. She was also covered from head to toe in filthy muck.
"And - Hildigunna, a Runecaster, who..," she got a strained expression on her face as if she were searching for something positive to say. Anything positive at all. "Who... uh... came along to protect Del."
The two Janissaries shared a surreptitious grin that Hildigunna did not see.
"Who is this Roach that you are shouting to?" Hildigunna asked and the elf recognized the accent almost at once. She was of the people that the elves of Galerideleli called Ice Barbarians. They made their homes in the frozen wastes below the Risilvar Escarpment in southern Pellham.
"Roach hunts the creatures, these bane midges, and seemed to know a great deal," the elf explained to her. "But I'm afraid he doesn't like company."
"Should we exit back into the sewers, or is there another way out?" Ledare asked Kirnoth and the mage looked again at the concealed door.
"Roach was going to show me the way out. He said he guards the stairs, and I would like to respect his wish for privacy," he told her. "Let's leave the way you came."
"Then we'll need to be quick about it," Del said and Ledare agreed.
"We've only got the two torches left," she told the elf.
Backtracking proved in many ways to be easier than coming in had been. They were more certain of the route for one thing and the longest stretch of pipe that they needed to scramble through was downhill. Ledare did discover that Grmnmral hadn't been marking their path along the tunnels as she had asked him to and the mongrelman admitted that he had lost the jar of luminous paste when the snake had attacked him. Not that it mattered in the least; there was only one path for them to follow. Other pipes entered and left the chambers they passed through, but many were set too high to reach or underwater or were too small for them to negotiate.
Hildigunna's torch went out in the secondary filtration chamber, but they made it all the way back to the rope ladder that led up to the access point in the alley between the tobacconist and the jeweler by light from the second. It was still raining as they scrambled up out of the undercity, but none of them minded the cleansing shower of fresh rainwater.
"We find naked smooth face," Grmnmral croaked. "Now we find friend Finian?"
"Finian is missing?" the elf asked nervously.
"It seems so," Ledare told him. "And I promised Grmnmral that we would look for him after we found you."
"We will do no such thing," Hildigunna said sourly. "We have risked ourselves enough already and-"
Del silence the woman with a hand on her shoulder.
"I'm afraid that Hildi is right, Ledare," the Janissary said with a wistful smile. "I receive new orders at morning muster and I'll need to get cleaned up before then."
They could see the first, faint glimmer on the eastern horizon that hinted at dawn. It was still an hour or two off, but there was obviously precious little night left.
Del smiled at Ledare again and they clasped wrists.
"It was good to see you again, Ledare," he told her, his dark eyes holding hers.
"It was just like old times," she replied and saw the smile on his lips falter as if something was about to spill out.
"Yes, Ledare," Hildi interrupted and the moment - whatever it had been - was shattered. "Delaroux has spoken of you on occasion. It is good to finally put a face to the name."
The two women looked at one another, Hildigunna sneering down at the Janissary, Ledare's impeccable diplomacy slipping away. Del broke the tension by tugging on the Runecaster's arm.
"Come, Hildi," he said. "I'm not sure that Garret would appreciate me letting you into the barracks smelling the way that you do."
To Ledare he added, "If I am able, and you are free, I would like to see you tomorrow."
She nodded. "You know where Grey House is."
"Doesn't everybody?" he asked before turning and heading north along Festival Street. "Maybe then you can tell me what the deal is with your hair."
Ledare watched him go and Grmnmral snapped her back to herself by again asking, "Now we find friend Finian?"
Kirnoth shivered and shook his head.
"I've depleted my magic until I rest," he groaned. "And I'll catch my death if I don't get into some dry clothes soon."
Ledare nodded and crouched down to look the mongrelman in the eye.
"Grmnmral, we will find Finian," she explained. "But we must rest first. We'll get some dry clothes and some hot food as well. Then we'll be ready to look for him. Agreed?"
"Mmmm," he growled and eyed her skeptically. "Grmnmral get hot food?"
"Of course," she replied. "And I believe you're in for a treat. Alyllyra is quite a good cook."
"Although I don't think she'll be too pleased if we track this filth through the house," Kirnoth added as they began to slog across the street toward Grey House.