by Jeff Crook
With an explosion of dust and splintered ‘stone the small but stout iron grate vanished, leaving behind a ragged gaping hole slightly larger than the grate that once filled it. Fearing that the noise had been heard by his guards, Cael didn’t hesitate, and despite his many injuries, immediately squeezed through the opening, nearly shredding his threadbare prison clothes in the process. When he wriggled into the tiny passage on the other side, he looked as if he had passed through a gnomish cheese grater.
The tunnel in which he found himself was barely large enough to accommodate his slender elven form. Even so, the figure that confronted him seemed little discomfited by the narrow surroundings. Only his pack, half as large again as himself, caused him any inconvenience. His grizzled white beard was now matted with dried sewage. A pair of long white eyebrows drooped over his eyes, and around Gimzig’s head was a strapped a leather belt that held the two halves of an open scallop shell in which a stubby yellow candle burned and dripped with yellow wax.
Like most gnomes, Gimzig wore an odd conglomeration of clothing replete with multiple vests of differing material, pouches, pockets, pencil bandoleers, as well as plenty of hooks and loops from which depended numerous useful tools and a good many for which the uses had been forgotten. Various scraps of paper, some covered with scrawls of ideas and design outlines and drawings, poked out from pockets all over his body (even from the cuff of one boot), giving him the appearance of a poorly stuffed toy bear. Even his grizzled beard served as a tool repository. Entangled among the matted hairs, bits of straw and metal filings, remnants of meals, and caked sludge of the gnome’s sewer home was a pair of pliers hopelessly tangled beyond retrieval.
“Very good very good!” Gimzig nodded excitedly, nearly extinguishing his candle flame and flinging hot wax like a wet dog shakes off water. “The spider worked perfectly, or I should say it would have worked perfectly had I not accidentally pressed the release, but otherwise it worked very nearly just about perfectly. Of course, it almost took my head off.” He took a breath, pondering for a moment. “I think I know how to fix that, in any case you are free now. My, but it’s a good thing the Knights starved you or else you would never make it through this tunnel, you’d been shading a bit toward the heavy side lately and eating too much anyway, I should say it all comes of eating dwarven cooking.”
All the while the gnome had been carefully folding in the legs of a large mechanical spider that he had used to rip the sewer grate from the wall. Seeing Cael’s alarmed glance, he continued in an unbroken stream, “Remarkable the things you can do with springs and levers. You know my work, well, this is one of my latest creations. I call it a spider, and it was originally designed to open salt-crusted portholes on ships but it displayed an unfortunate tendency to rip great gaping holes in the hull, which of course induced advanced tendencies to sink especially in heavy seas, are you ready?”
Cael held his nose and nodded. In the meanwhile, the gnome had finished folding the spider’s legs into its body, creating a remarkably compact and nondescript metal box. He dropped this over his shoulder into the pack strapped to his bent back, producing a metallic clunk, which was rapidly followed by an alarming series of sproings, poings, and pings. Gimzig paused, his mouth open to say something and waited warily, peering over his shoulder, until the noises subsided.
“Crikey! I hate it when that happens,” the gnome sighed when all was quiet behind him. “There’s enough in there to turn us into cabbage salad faster than you can say rotoslicerdicer. Of course everything in there is absolutely essential for the rescue of certain elves from the dungeons of Palanthas, well, come along then, follow me, are you sure you are able to, I could probably arrange for you to be pulled by a crankrope.”
“I’ll crawl,” Cael coughed. Blood flecked his parched lips. Meanwhile, Gimzig somehow turned himself and his pack around in the narrow tunnel without setting off any of his devices. Dragging himself with his elbows, Cael struggled after his rescuer.
“The tunnel just goes a little farther before it dumps into a proper sewer,” Gimzig said. “Watch that stone there, it looks ordinary enough but it’s a trap.”
Cael twisted himself into cramped knots to avoid the stone slightly projecting down on him from overhead.
“Someone probably placed it there to prevent just this sort of escape, I could disarm it, but that would take time, and it’s just as well to leave it alone, mighty tricky those traps in the sewers and dungeons, you can always know exactly where anything important is by the number of traps you find beneath it, don’t know why it took the city so long to find the Thieves’ Guild in the first place, all they had to do was root around down here for a while and you get to know everything you ever wanted to know about this city, the sewers are a perfect reflection of the city above, clear as day if you know what to look for, I could have told them ages ago and I could tell you now where every Guild house lies.”
The gnome suddenly vanished from sight, but his voice echoed back up the tunnel, “Watch that step there, don’t fall on yore’ head.”
Cael wriggled head first down the narrow tunnel, emerging like a red-haired worm from the wall into a larger sewer passage. On the walkway below, Gimzig nervously eyed the black churning water flowing through the circle of his candle’s light. “Been raining dwarves and kender up above,” he commented, as Cael slid to the floor beside him.
“I am deeply in your debt, Gimzig,” Cael said, rising wobbily to his feet. “How you came to find me, I haven’t a clue.”
“Captain Alynthia sent me of course. It was a simple enough task to track you down, all I had to do was search most of the dungeon cells, you forget that I spent forty years mapping every passage, tunnel, hole, channel, pipe drain, grate, gate lock and quoin of the vast and magnificent Palanthian sewage system that has been perfectly operational for over two thousand years!” His voice had sunk to an awestruck whisper.
He continued, “Long ago, the Civil Engineering Guild of Mount Nevermind decided the sewers should be studied to see if the gnomes ought to make any improvements, and after they placed their request before the city senate—only to be turned down, for some unaccountable reason—they commissioned me a junior Guild member only just earning his first engineer’s stripe, with a worthy life quest—to make a detailed map of the sewers of Palanthas—but unfortunately it only took me forty-odd years to complete my report. Naturally by now I know these sewers like the hairs of my own beard: every nook, cranny, crevice, crack, and rat hole of it (the sewers not my beard) and so it was simplicity itself to find you and effect an escape. Say lad, are you sure you’re capable of mobility, you look like you’re about to faint.”
“I just feel a little light-headed,” Cael mumbled as he slumped to the ground.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Cael awoke to the taste of water sweetened with wine being poured over his parched lips. A strong hand cradled his head, lifting him to drink. He reached out to take the proffered wine skin in his own hands and sat up, gulping to try to assuage a burning thirst, but this only made the dizziness return. He collapsed back, feeling someone catch him. The wine skin was once again placed to his lips.
“You’re raging with fever,” Alynthia said as he sipped.
“I’ve seen fevers,” the gnome stated, “strike a man low in a matter of hours, it isn’t a pretty sight, but it’s a good sign that Cael lasted so long in that ghastly place…” He paused, shuddering, with a glance heavenward.
Refreshed by the water, Cael felt a modicum of strength returning. He managed to lift his head a bit and look around. He found himself lying on an access path in the sewers of Palanthas. His head was cradled in Alynthia’s lap. Gimzig stood nearby, his pack on the floor before him. The gnome nervously toyed with the gadgets contained within it, sometimes casting a wary eye over his shoulder into the darkness.
“How did we get here?” Cael asked.
“Him!” She pointed at the gnome. “He smells like a garbage heap, but I wish I had him in my
circle of thieves. He has the most extraordinary gadgets! It was he who found you and led me to you.”
At this compliment, Gimzig smiled through his beard and bowed, sprinkling the floor with droplets of candle wax. Behind him, the sewer rushed and churned like a black river.
Cael nodded, feeling a great weariness stealing over him. He let his head sink into Alynthia’s gentle embrace, feeling her warmth and hearing the steady rhythm of her heart. “Do you two know each other? How did you two meet?” he mumbled wearily.
No answer to this question was forthcoming. Instead, Alynthia and Gimzig exchanged pained glances. When no one spoke, the elf’s eyes flickered open. The beautiful captain of thieves and the gnome quickly turned away, but not before he noticed their expressions of sorrow.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, trying to sit up again. The effort cost him, and he collapsed back into Alynthia’s arms.
“We have to get you someplace safe,” she said quickly.
“I’ve arranged a room, and there is a healer waiting. But we mustn’t delay. Gimzig,” she said, turning to the gnome, “lead us out of here.”
“Always giving orders,” Cael mumbled.
“Be quiet,” she said. “Save your strength. I can’t carry you. You are going to have to help.” However harsh her words, her actions were gentle. She hooked one arm around his waist and helped him to rise. He leaned heavily upon her shoulder, his neck so weak that he could hardly lift his head.
“Now I could use a staff,” he sighed. “It’s gone, lost.”
“Follow me!” Gimzig shouted as he led the way, his candle sending shadows leaping along the walls of the sewer. “It isn’t really that far, and you needn’t climb a ladder to the streets, Cael, the way I am taking is only a stair of two flights, I think you can make it with our assistance much easier than if we had to haul you up a ladder. Of course I have a remarkable pulley system, and there is always the self-extending ladder, but I doubt you have the strength to hold on to a ladder, so—”
The gnome froze, one foot lifted comically in mid-stride. His head slowly rotated until his long bulbous nose pointed at the swirling black waters racing by them.
“What is it?” Alynthia whispered.
“Shhhhhhh! Sewer monster. Big one. Right out there, watching us,” the gnome whispered.
“Where? I don’t see—”
“Get Cael back against the wall, and put something sharp between yourself and the water,” Gimzig ordered as he slowly inched the straps of his pack from his shoulders. He set it on the ground before him and removed a pair of curious weapons, if weapons they were. Cael recognized one of them as Gimzig’s mechanical spider. It was in its contracted position, all its legs stowed neatly around its body, forming a compact silver box. The other object was a short steel rod or pole, about as long as the gnome’s forearm. Its use was a mystery, for it was too short to be a staff. A cudgel, perhaps? There was little time to speculate.
The gnome set these things on the ground between his feet, then eased his pack onto his shoulders again, all the while prattling on in a low voice, “Keep a close watch on the water, she’ll rumble before she attacks, and you’ll see a stream of bubbles, of course, by then it’s too late, but if you are quick enough you can maybe get a jab in and turn her attack.”
Alynthia drew her dagger and faced the water. Cael slid to the floor, helpless.
“If we move she’ll attack, but if we wait here she is bound to get bored and move on to something else, it’s the movement that triggers her attack instinct, anything that she perceives as trying to flee, in fact, as long as you maintain eye contact, you’re probably safe—”
“But I can’t see her,” Alynthia broke in.
“Her eyesight isn’t good enough to tell exactly where you are looking, it is the direction you are facing more than anything, but as I was saying, as long as you maintain eye contact…” He continued talking, as he stooped to pick up his weapons.
At that moment, the water exploded. A long, dark missile, bristling at the fore end with rows of dagger-long teeth shining in gaping jaws, shot from the water as though launched by a catapult. Gimzig only had time to stand upright and raise one small fist in defiance. He disappeared in a spray of water and flailing black-scaled hide, hooked claws, and spined tail. In a flash, the monster was gone, the water boiling, and Gimzig still stood at the brink of the water, his fist raised in defiance, his eyes closed and head turned slightly aside. Again, the monster rose up, breaching the black water, its massive jaws pried firmly apart by a man-tall rod of steel, then was gone. A few large bubbles broke the surface, their ripples swept quickly away by the current.
Gimzig opened his eyes and grinned. “Crikey! I told you she was a big one! Caw! Did you see the size of her? She was beautiful!”
“What did you… how did you?” Alynthia was flabbergasted.
“Self-extending weakened-timber-bracer,” Gimzig explained. “I did a little work for the navy.” He shrugged. “It was supposed to be useful for bracing bulkheads stressed and leaking from ramming attacks, but it had an unfortunate tendency to poke holes in the bulkheads it was supposed to brace. I also developed this,” he said as he showed her the mechanical spider, “for opening salt-crusted portholes but of course it… look out!”
He flung the shining silver box at her head. For one horrifying moment she saw the thing’s legs unfolding in flight, and then a hand grasped her tunic and pulled her down.
Justin time. The spider completed its weird transformation a split second before it would have reached her face. Its long bar- or porthole-gripping fangs extended and made a rapid staccato noise as it flew over her head. She glared at the gnome as though he had gone mad and reversed her dagger to aim it at his throat before Cael pulled her closer and weakly grasped her wrist and pointed.
The spider continued its strange flight, landing atop the long, fangy snout of a second sewer monster creeping up silently on stubby legs behind the beautiful captain of thieves. As the spider’s metal fangs penetrated the hide and muscle and bone of its snout and the spring-powered legs began their awful business, the monster reared up fully half again as tall as the tallest man, its nose smashing into the stone ceiling. It dropped with an agonized roar into the sewer’s rushing stream, ivory-spined tail thrashing the surface into a froth.
Alynthia stared in horror at the place where it had vanished. Then she turned to the gnome. “Well, uh, thank you,” she said.
“Don’t mention it, my fault, really, I forgot that these beauties always travel in… threes,” Gimzig said with a smile. They were his last words.
Behind him, the water exploded once more. A beast rose, jaws gaping, behind the distracted gnome. He instinctively leaped to avoid harm, but he was not fast enough. The awful jaws clamped down on one leg, and in the blink of an eye, he was dragged backward into the water. Cael caught a last sight of Gimzig’s face twisted with terror, eyes starting out from beneath his bushy eyebrows as he was sucked beneath the current. He didn’t even have time to scream. A few yards down- stream, the current swept up a slick of papers covered with drawings and design ideas. They lingered on the water’s surface for a moment, then swirled away.
Alynthia knelt by Cael’s side and helped him to rise. He lay against her, nearly unconscious. She doubted her ability to carry him to safety, but there was no question of leaving him here to go for help now, not after what she had just witnessed. With one last terrified glance at the water, she led Cael away.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Cael awoke to the distinct sounds of someone moving about the room in the quiet fashion of someone trying not to wake a sleeper. A clink of a cup, the soft rutch of a drawer closing, a swish and rustle of long, heavy cloth across a wooden floor. The noises that propelled his mind back to his half-remembered childhood, of waking from a long illness to the patient care and heartwarming delight of his mother.
He opened his eyes and slowly turned his head. A figure stood with her back to him beside a si
mple dresser of pale wood, setting candles into a wooden box. She was short, dressed in a black dress that dragged the ground, hiding her feet. Over her head she wore a hood of similar material. She moved with the slow and deliberate care of the old, placing each candle in the box as though carefully counting them out.
Beside his bed stood a severe, straight-backed chair, and beside the chair a low table with a clay pitcher and battered pewter cup, and a wooden bowl over the lip of which dangled a wet rag. He lay beneath an open window, and outside the window the spreading branches of an elm were dappled with the sunlight Opposite this was another window, also thrown wide, which, judging by the seagulls gliding in the blue empty air outside, overlooked the bay. Beside the dresser stood a door, opened a crack.
The old woman finished her task and placed the candle box into a drawer, then slowly slid it shut, making as little noise as possible. She started for the door, glancing quickly at the bed before leaving.
The face that peered out from the hood was not old but that of a girl. A few strands of dirty blonde hair spilled from the hood’s depths. Her eyes opened wide with surprise and delight, seeing Cael awake.
“Hello, Claret,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
In answer, she flew to the door and jerked it wide. “He’s awake!” she shrieked, then dashed to his side. He feared for a moment that she would throw herself atop him, but she paused, and instead gently touched his arm beneath the coverlet. “How do you feel?” she asked softly but with excitement.
