Using his sword to clear away the webs, and being careful to avoid the spiders that hid within them, Gord walked quickly along his route, covering ground at a good pace because the ledge was dry and easy. Soon thereafter that changed.
Several openings here released effluent into the main tunnel. Those that opened onto his side made going difficult, and Gord had to use his athletic ability a few times to avoid being drenched by the noisome outpouring of one pipe or another. There were glitterings ahead, and nasty chitterings and squeakings that told the boy that there were rats here.
Just as he was becoming discouraged, Gord saw a series of marks on the opposite wall. They were barely discernible and to the untrained eye would have appeared as nothing more than worn places in the stone blocks. Gord read a sign that alerted the initiated to the fact that there was a means of leaving the sewers just ahead.
“Damn!” he said under his breath. The exit led upward, not below. Where there was a means of leaving the maze, however, there might also be a way deeper as well. Gord forged ahead.
About half an hour later he came to a place where several sewer tunnels met. The effluents formed a deep pool in the circular chamber where the various drains converged, and there were flying bridges built to span the noxious pond. Gord flashed his light atop one of the spans, and when Gord’s light struck its greenish-black body a reptile shot off its perch to land with a splash in the pool below. The tail of a huge rat was hanging from the side of its mouth. Gord saw that clearly before the thing vanished under the scummy surface.
Shuddering involuntarily, the boy paused a minute to make certain than some even bigger monster wasn’t lurking about. The stench here was practically unbearable, so while he was pausing, Gord decided to douse his scarf with vinegar. Again he changed directions, going right to parallel his initial route. After carefully traversing the flying bridge that led in the desired direction, he was again prowling along a passage, this time walking southward.
He saw a narrow opening about a hundred paces from the pool. It didn’t seem promising, but something urged Gord to investigate it Just in case. The corridor was not more than twenty feet long and terminated in a flight of steep stairs… upward. He turned away in disgust, using that emotion to fight off his despair, when something caught his eye. It was another marking on the wall, one he had overlooked at first because of the narrowness of the passage and his rush to find out where it led. The sign indicated access to a lower pathway!
With a sigh of relief, Gord began searching along the wall opposite the marking. He knew from experience that such signs were often used to mark location as well as give information. Thanks to his sharp eyes and with the help of his light, Gord was able to discover the hidden door in just minutes. It took much longer for him to discover how the mechanism worked that enabled the doorway in the stone blocks to open. Eventually he found the place where a knife blade could be inserted to release a catch, and a low section of the wall swung inward to reveal another passageway going off at a right angle to the narrow passage he was in. Gord entered the place without hesitation, pushed the door shut, and smiled to himself in triumph.
The low tunnel led to more stairs, but these spiraled down. It was impossible to discover if this was an oft-traveled route, because the damp stones would not leave traces of passage—at least not to one who was not an expert at tracking. Gord was many things, but no expert at discovering such signs, He merely looked as he progressed, checked to see if he could notice his own trail behind himself, and shrugged. Whether or not there were other users, Gord meant to go downward now and take his chances.
The circling steps took him down and down. By counting Gord was able to estimate that he was at least another twenty feet deeper when the staircase ended in the corner of a small room with four passages leading from it at right angles to one another. All well and good, but thanks to his spiraling path Gord now had no idea of direction. There was only one way to get his bearings, and that required that he go back up the stairway and mark the wall on the way down using his chalk, noting every time he had made enough of a turn to leave him pointing in a different direction. Eventually Gord determined that the little room at the base of the stairs was hewn eastward from where the steps ended. That meant that the narrow, arched exits from the room led off in the cardinal directions. Excellent!
Gord stopped to catch his breath and to take a sip of the brandy he had. This was exciting stuff! As he rested, the enormity of what he was doing, where he was, suddenly struck the boy. Even though he had been in the sewers previously, this excursion was more than a bit frightening now that he stopped to think about it. When he had pondered this mission during the planning of it, the thought of risk had simply added zest to his undertaking. This was ah altogether different situation. Now Gord was actually in the totally unknown, where great dangers probably lurked, seeking a place he was uncertain of, and as alone as any boy could be. Despite his best efforts, Gord’s rate of breathing increased until he was panting, and his heart raced. Fear was getting hold of him.
“Calm down, or else they’ll be calling you ‘Gutless’ again,” he said aloud. The sound of his voice helped to reassure him, and the epithet he hated so much was sufficient to do the rest. Unknown monsters were one thing, but the fear of being thought of as a coward was stronger than the apprehension of facing hidden perils here. Gord slowed his breathing with conscious effort, took a pull from the little flask of brandy, and spoke aloud again.
“That’s better now, isn’t it? High time we showed everyone that there is no more little boy to shove around!” The fiery liquor spread outward in him, and he reassured himself further by touching his hand briefly to the sheath of his dagger and the hilt of his sword. Then, getting back to business, he took out his waterproof case and flipped it open. He checked his three sketch maps carefully, trying to locate his position on the second one by guessing where he had been on the first when he found the spiral steps that led to this second tier of ducts beneath Old City.
“Then I must be about here,” he muttered to himself as he made a small mark on the second map. “South will take me to the place where the canal runs below, and then I’ll need to head west, so it’s a right turn at that point…. Anyway, the flow will be east, toward the great basin of the reservoir, so it’ll be easy to know direction.”
Despite his returned confidence and bravery, the boy stopped to listen, his lantern dark and sword at the ready, at each of the room’s other exits before he ducked through the one that went to the south. He was now in the system of tunnels and passageways that the assassins and thieves held as their own secret highway. Gord had no desire to disillusion the likes of them, or to stumble unwittingly into some creature who dwelled in this labyrinth, and caution was not cowardice! There was a faint dripping sound from the shaft he had just come down, but otherwise the stillness was absolute. Gord held his breath, quieted himself as completely as he could. Nothing. Carefully moving the slide on his light-box to allow a tiny shaft of illumination to spring ahead, Gord set off once more on his quest.
He came across side openings at regular intervals. Gord’s light showed that there were empty chambers beyond. He couldn’t guess why these had been chiseled out. Possibly to store food or weapons or both, possibly for some reason that could not be guessed at now. The passage was dry, and there were no living things along its way. Both of those facts changed, however, as he went farther.
The air went from cold and chilly to actually damp, and Gord noticed thick webs stretched across an opening on the right-hand wall. He paused and looked carefully at the walls ahead and to the rear. They had not been immediately obvious, but there were certainly wisps and small fragments of web clinging to the walls. This passage had been used by someone, and not very long ago! Whoever had come along its length had cleared the way of most of the webbing, but traces remained.
As he took this in with his eyes, Gord also used his ears. The sound of trickling water came first, then he heard voices som
ewhere ahead, their words indistinguishable in the echoing tunnel.
Dimming his lantern to its lowest illumination, the boy sank down to the stone floor and used his sword to make as small an opening as he could in the curtain of silken strands that covered the archway on the west wall. He then slithered through the hole and tried to replace the strands of web he had sliced away, to partially hide the space he had passed through. The effort was clumsy at best, but it was the best he could manage. Then he crept quickly along to where this entrance tunnel opened up into a chamber beyond, slipped around the corner, and tucked the light-box into his jacket. All of this was done in utmost haste, and he didn’t stop to consider what might be in this place with him. Gord simply sat very still, his back pressed against the slimy stone of the wall, and waited. Something scuttled across his hand. Gord nearly shrieked, then bit his lip, huddled tightly to make himself even smaller, and held his breath.
There were footfalls in the passage just a half-dozen feet away. Rough voices spoke in hissing tones punctuated with guttural sounds and sharp barkings. Were they ogres? Trolls? Then the sounds became clearer.
“Dat was a nasty bunch o’ creeps we had ta take out,” one deep voice said. There were a score of others discernible too. There was a whole platoon of men going past the place! At least they sounded like men, and the rattle and clink must have come from armor and weapons. “Who needs duty like this here?” another voice said with a questioning whine. Most of the troop had clumped past where Gord was hiding when one must have seen the break in the webs.
“Hey, lookit! Sumpin’s been ’round dis!” The flickering light of torches shone dimly through the veil of spiderwebs, and a dark shadow made a long shape stretching into the place where he crouched. “Shove yer torch into ’em, and frazzle da ettercaps. Den we have a little look-see, huh?”
The sounds of feet were fading off northward. “Whaddya, crazy? Who gives a rat’s ass what’s been goin’ in dere anyway? C’mon!” The second man’s voice trailed off.
“Hey, wait up, Albie!” shouted the first voice. The light faded as did the sound of feet and voices. Gord let out his breath with a gentle whoosh. Relief flooded over him. The passing group apparently had been no more than some sort of patrol, probably a branch of the city watch—men that normally stayed above ground. Whoever sent the soldiers down to this place, and why, was beyond Gord’s understanding. But no matter what the reason for their presence, the realization was comforting to the boy. He was accustomed to ducking squads of the watch, and the soldiers’ presence here meant that this part of the maze wasn’t filled with dangers.
There could be some perils, of course. The fact that Gord could avoid such groups meant that others could also, and that the boy understood. One man had talked of “taking out” something called “creeps.” Gord figured that this meant the patrols of men did come here once in a while to keep the place relatively clear of dangerous threats. This subterranean system of passages was used then, and used frequently, by those powerful enough to employ men-at-arms to police it.
All sound was gone now, so Gord decided to take a look around the chamber he was in before venturing back into the passageway. He nearly dropped his lantern when he saw the place.
Not more than twelve inches from his feet was a yawning hole in the floor! He was sitting on a ledge that encompassed the well, but the portion along the wall next to the entrance tunnel was the only place the stone floor didn’t slope steeply, funnel-like, into the great opening. If he had taken one more step into the chamber, or even crawled a short distance in the darkness, he would have gone over the edge and fallen to whatever lay below!
A big, pale-colored spider froze into motionless-ness as the beam of light from Gord’s lantern centered on it. It was as big as his fist and had wicked-looking mandibles. Perhaps that was what had run across his hand. “Ugh!” he said aloud. Gord’s voice echoed strangely in the room, and he was instantly silent, wishing he hadn’t made such a noise.
The spider scuttled off when Gord brought his sword’s point near. Ignoring it thereafter, the boy stood up and looked down into the well. It was deep, but his light illuminated its bottom well enough. Then Gord played the lantern upward, found an opening in the ceiling as well, and instantly knew what he had stumbled upon. Here was one of the drains that used to send water from ducts and conduits, from collection points above, down to the system below for storage in the great reservoir. He had found a passageway to the lowest level at last!
The chamber was indeed similar to a well. It must have been meant as a place where the besieged defenders of old Greyhawk could come to draw up water from the canal below—the very same canal in which Theobald had plunged to his doom. Red stains and bits of corrosion on the sides of the shaft told him that there had once been iron rungs set into the sides of the well, but time and rust had had their way with the metal.
“Well, now,” he whispered to himself, smiling at his own pun, “it’s time for me to shimmy down and have a look.” The boy unwrapped his stout cord from around his waist, put a few knots at regular intervals along its length, and then took a flat piece of steel out of his belt pouch. The metal wedge was pointed at one end and had an eye at the other.
Gord jammed the pointed end into a crack, then pounded it in farther with the pommel of his boot knife. After assuring himself that it was firmly set, Gord ran an end of the thick cord through the eye and knotted it securely around the spike. He dropped the loose end over the side and heard a tiny splash when it hit the water below.
“That’s about forty feet,” he said to himself after shining his light over the edge and counting the knots that were visible in the line. The cistern in the subcellar at Theobald’s headquarters had gone down a hundred or more feet, but the place where he stood now was farther below the surface. Gord was certain that the water below was what he sought. After thonging the lantern securely around his neck, Gord opened the front face fully and slipped over the ledge. He used his feet to push off from the wall and slide down the rope without banging into the stone. Centuries of erosion had made the shaft smooth and slippery. “It’ll be a bugger to climb back up,” he said through gritted teeth as he carefully lowered himself hand over hand down into the well-like shaft.
After about thirty feet there was no more wall. Once his head was beneath the place where the shaft pierced the ceiling of the canal, Gord used his feet to grip a knot, hung swaying, and grabbed the little tin box with his right hand. The black water below was impervious to his light, but Gord knew from the ancient plans that the depth of a canal such as this was only fifteen feet—ample volume for any flood of rainwater or diverted stream being sent to the waiting reservoir. From the place where the well shaft entered the tunnel to where his boots rested was just about seven feet, and he dangled at least five feet above the inky surface of the water. This meant that there could be no more than four feet of water at the lowest portion of the curving conduit. Where he dangled there would be no more than a foot or so between the surface of the liquid and the rock beneath. Gord lowered himself on down the line, allowing his feet to sink below the black surface.
The water flowed sluggishly away to the right. Gord balanced on the slippery, sloping stone beneath his feet, the black liquid covering his boots to a point midway up his shins. Still clasping the rope, the lad tried a few small, sideways steps, first away, then back to where the line depended from above. The footing wasn’t terrible, and he gained confidence. Still grasping the line, he walked cat-foot, one step just ahead of the last. If he went cautiously and leaned slightly to the left, toward the curving wall of the tunnel, he could move along fairly well. Leaving the lantern where it was hanging at his chest, Gord decided the time had come. With his sword drawn and held toward the inky surface of the channel, and casting sideways glances suspiciously there, Gord loosed his hold on the cord and headed off to his left. Somewhere up that way, certainly no more than a few hundred yards distant, lay the bones of Theobald and a rusty iron strongbox!
The effort required to keep from slipping toward the center of the canal and falling into the lurid water, combined with the necessity of constantly checking ahead, behind, and above, was exhausting, and Gord’s progress was agonizingly slow. He refused to panic and rush ahead, though. He deliberately went over and over his routine in his mind as he performed the steps. Look back and to the right… and watch for ripples approaching or the gleam of feral eyes. Now look ahead, search carefully for the same danger. Now flash the light’s beam above. No openings. Check ahead before you move on, go slowly when you move, and stop before you repeat your scan for potential danger.
At about sixty paces Gord chalked a mark on the wall. After three such marks the boy went through his search procedure carefully again, took time for a sip of brandy, and pressed ahead. The squishy feeling inside his boots told him that they were beginning to allow the water of the subterranean canal to penetrate their oil-soaked and greased exterior. Well, that was bound to occur, and the discomfort wouldn’t stop him.
After making a seventh chalk mark on the wall, Gord was starting to become disheartened. Perhaps he had misjudged the eastern orientation of his location when he entered from above. Could Theobald’s former headquarters lie off in the other direction? It seemed unlikely, but the cold and dark and silence were beginning to tell on him. His nerves were frayed, and his mouth opened and closed with each breath. Why had he ever done anything so stupid and crazed as this anyway? No treasure was so great as to risk all this for.
“It Isn’t the treasure, dolt, it’s the need to prove yourself that drives you on!” That thought made him pause and regroup. “Do I need to prove myself to myself?” That answer was clear, but he verbalized it to himself anyway.
“Who else is benefiting from this exhibition? We are alone in our head, you and I, and if we are not brave now, only a coward will remain hereafter….” Stop! He was mumbling to himself, just as old Leena used to talk to herself. The thoughts were true, nonetheless, and they served to urge Gord onward.
[Gord the Rogue 05] - City of Hawks Page 16
