Lifting the sheet, I saw the first puncture wound low on her groin. The second one sat high up on her rib cage.
By all the gods! How big was this thing?
Then I remembered those strangely warped and cracked balcony doors—like something had just managed to squeeze through them. This thing must have filled the entire room when the poor woman awoke.
“Mr. Cargill! What is the matter with you?”
I realized I was struggling for breath, part of me still fighting for survival in that long ago tunnel.
“I’ve seen this before,” I gasped. “I know what happened here.”
“Who did this?” Drayton demanded.
“Not who. What.”
“What then!”
With a massive effort, I took a deep breath and collected myself. Banishing the images from my mind, I refocused on the two men who stared at me warily, their capable hands resting on their weapons.
“A spider, Captain Drayton,” I breathed. “A very, very large spider.”
Chapter Three
“When a man stumbles upon a god, it is a precursor to
enlightenment. When a god stumbles upon a man, it is a
foreshadow of doom.” —Erythmius’ Musings of a Fool
“Okay, Mr. Cargill," Drayton said with an oddly gentle tone to his voice, "tell us about this spider."
A barmaid placed four mugs of watery beer on our table in the back of a dreary little pub called The Seven Bells. Drayton caught her arm as she started to leave and gave orders that the tables next to us were to remain empty. She loitered a second to see if he would slip her a coin or two, but with no tip forthcoming, she sauntered off with a scowl.
Our odds of getting refills were not very good.
Grimacing at the tepid beer, I looked up to see the three watchmen regarding me expectantly.
I could tell they didn't believe me. They weren't sure if I was crazy, pulling some kind of trick, or maybe just lost my nerve at the sight of the body. But I could see the skepticism in their eyes.
"You don't believe me, do you."
"I believe you were definitely upset when you saw that body."
The qualification irked me.
Drayton had hauled me out of my house and the life I had built for myself because he wanted my "expertise and experience." Well, he was about to get it. I may have spent the last couple of years trying to forget my past, but in those former years of fear, desperation and calculated risk, I built a wealth of experience damn few could rival. As much as I had tried to put it behind me, I realized I still took some strange form of pride in that experience—pride that demanded I convince these men of what I knew to be true.
And by all the gods, I could prove it.
"Okay, then let me tell you about a monster I ran into eight years ago. That monster killed a man named Craydon Cole, and damned near killed me."
"Mr. Cargill..." Drayton began.
"Wait a minute, Captain," Heinryk interrupted. He turned a measuring eye on me. "Are you talking about the old enforcer of Silman the Pig?"
"The very same man."
"Captain," Heinryk said as he leaned back in his chair, "I remember Craydon Cole. One of the most dangerous, ruthless men you could imagine. He got his start in illegal pit fights to the death before working and killing his way up to being the main muscle for Silman the Pig. He was the very last man you would ever want to meet in a back alley. I'm pretty sure he killed two watchmen on the docks, and I would have loved to have found a way to pin those murders on him, but he disappeared sometime right around the succession riots, eight years ago."
"So you're saying..." the Captain began.
"...I'm saying I would like to hear Mr. Cargill out," the old veteran concluded. "I've always wondered what happened to Craydon Cole."
"Very well," Drayton demurred. "Continue with your story, Mr. Cargill."
I fortified myself with a drink of the weak beer, took a deep breath, and then started.
"Eight years ago," I began, "the Tourmaline Throne Riots had the city half shut down. Mobs supporting each of the claimants roamed the streets throughout the city, causing all kinds of havoc. I imagine you remember how dangerous the streets were back then."
"Actually, I was serving in a foreign army far to the south at the time," Drayton replied, "but I've heard the stories."
"And I was just a kid," Poole admitted, "but I sort of remember it."
"Then you two can check with Heinryk as to the validity of what I'm saying," I continued. "The point is, the city was in chaos. During that time, a couple of gangs decided to take advantage of all that confusion to try and squeeze out a rival named Silman the Pig."
The Captain glanced at Heinryk, who nodded in affirmation.
I went on to explain, "Silman was in big trouble, and if he didn't get help fast he was going down. His two rivals, Revas Corr and Big Halven Burris, had him cut off from the rest of the city and were beginning to close in."
"Big Halven was a midget," Heinryk interjected, offering his own bit of information. "He loved pickles. A couple of years later, he 'fell' into a pickle barrel he kept in his basement and drowned. Was missing for a month before they found him, perfectly preserved... err, pickled.”
The conversation ground to a halt as we all mulled over that bit of information.
“The spider, Mr. Cargill,” Drayton pressed impatiently, glaring at Heinryk.
“I’m getting to that part. Silman needed help, and apparently, the only way he could get that help would be to deliver a package to another boss named Ruby Keralt. The problem was that he had become trapped, with Revas’ and Halven’s thugs watching the streets and the Upperways. Word got out that he was desperate and willing to pay an exorbitant sum to anybody who could get that package delivered. That’s where I entered the picture.”
I stopped a second and looked warily at the Captain.
“As I promised, Mr. Cargill, what you say to us, remains with us.” Drayton looked sincere enough, so I kept telling the story.
“I approached him through an intermediary,” I continued, holding his gaze, “and told him I had a way to deliver the package— but only on the condition that my name never be associated with the deed. He agreed and we decided I would take along his top enforcer, Craydon Cole, so everybody would think he had been the one who got the job done. Craydon would carry the package and the money, and would pay me when the package got to Ruby Keralt.”
“But,” Poole broke in, “if you couldn’t use the streets and you couldn’t go by the rooftops, how were you going to get the package to the other gang?”
I took another drink of my beer, enjoying the act of making the three men wait to hear my answer.
“By taking a Lowerway, instead.”
For a moment the table got quiet as all three stared at me.
“Do you mean the Undercity?” Poole asked quietly.
“Only in the sense that the rooftops are the Upperways. It’s the same principle. The Lowerways are the unmarked paths through the Undercity.” I took another sip of my beer.
“Now, this is news to me,” Heinryk exclaimed. “I’ve known what was meant by ‘the Upperways,’ but I always thought the Lowerways were just a myth. I never really believed there were any safe paths through the Undercity, or much in the way of paths at all.”
“Gentlemen,” Drayton intoned, “let’s allow Mr. Cargill to continue with his story.”
“To make a long story short,” I lectured, “Khrem is ancient. It has been burned, rebuilt, expanded, razed, rebuilt again over the foundations and cisterns of yore, and then expanded out over the old tombs and catacombs that used to surround the city. City walls have been built with underground barracks and passages, then torn down and built out at the new outskirts of town, only to have the process happen again. Parts of the old city sank in earthquakes, only for people to build right on top of the ruins. Old sewers were sealed and new ones dug. And that doesn’t even count whatever secret tunnels different sects,
factions, and nobles have built and forgotten over the centuries. Over time, all those different underground cisterns, catacombs, basements, passages, tombs, sewers, and such have bumped into each other, or crumbled into each other, until what you have is a labyrinth.”
“And to answer your questions,” I pressed on, “there is an Undercity, if that’s what you want to call it, Watchman Poole. And no, Heinryk, there really are no safe ways through it, just a few that are mapped by different people over time that are fairly direct and fairly safe—or, at least, much safer than what you can run into if you wander off those paths.”
I paused, took a long drink of my beer, then resumed.
“If the Upperways are unforgiving of fools, then the Lowerways are simply unforgiving, because you have to be a fool to be down there in the first place. I have survived a few trips down there, and will never go again.”
I closed my eyes and steeled myself to relive it all again.
“And now to the matter of the spider. It was eight years ago…”
***
I slithered through the hole in the basement wall and down into the tunnel below.
It appeared empty as far as my little red lantern would reveal, which admittedly didn’t show all that far. Above me, I could hear Craydon Cole pulling away some bricks to make room for his greater bulk. I wished he would be quieter about it.
It wouldn’t do either one of us any good if he got me killed now by being too noisy…as opposed to killing me later, which he had almost certainly been ordered to do. Oh well, it had been my idea to take Silman’s toughest, most ruthless enforcer down with me, so who was I to complain? As long as he possessed the sense to think on his feet when the time came, we should both get out of this situation intact.
“What have you got?” Cole whispered through the hole.
“Rats. Big ones. Looks like two of them, which means we’re probably okay. They wouldn’t tackle a man without a couple more of them.”
“That big, huh.”
Cole grunted as he slid through the widened hole. He examined the tracks while I started unpacking our supplies.
I pulled out a glass bottle and twelve smaller glass vials full of liquid. Once I satisfied myself that none of them were cracked or broken, I lined them up and removed their stoppers. Pulling a small steel flask from my vest, I unscrewed it and poured three drops into the bottle, and one small drop into each of the vials. After about ten seconds, the bottle began glowing green, and the smaller vials starting glowing a dim red. I dropped the green bottle into a drawstring pouch and handed it over to Cole.
“Alchemist’s Fire,” he observed, “you sure spare no expense when you’re on a job.”
“My motto is get out both richer and alive. Any money put toward that outcome is money well spent.”
His scarred face twisted into a grin that would give nightmares to children, and it had probably been the last sight seen in this world by a significant number of people.
“I do enjoy working with a professional,” he quipped.
For a second we stared at each other over the glowing bottles.
“You realize I’m going to kill you down here,” his smile suggested.
“You’re not going to be given the chance,” mine answered.
“Okay,” I said, gathering up the vials and pocketing them, “repeat the plan back to me.”
“You will be going ahead about fifty or sixty feet with the red lantern. I’ll follow with the green light. At corners or intersections, you will leave a vial indicating the direction you went and I will pick them up and pocket them as I come along behind. Any light that isn’t green or red is somebody else and we pocket our lights and try to wait it out. Then we surface in the basement of Gurode’s Bakery and head for Keralt’s.”
He patted the money belt I had personally watched Silman count the gold crowns into, then continued, “Then I give you what you got coming, give Keralt her package, and we go our separate ways. Are you alright? You’re sweating like a pig.”
“I just don’t like closed-in spaces,” I lied.
“And you came up with this plan?”
“My love for money outweighs my fears.”
“I can respect that.”
“Then,” I said, rising to my feet, “let’s get this little hike over with. These lights are good for about three hours, and this is going to take about two. Let’s not waste them.”
I set off down the tunnel and then stopped after about sixty feet.
I let my eyes adjust to the dimmer red lantern I carried and then glanced back toward Cole, making sure to close one eye. He stood in a small circle of green in the blackness. He had his green bottle light out, and patiently waited for my red light to start moving again. Satisfied he knew his part, I moved down the tunnel again.
With just our tiny lights, and separated by such a large distance, the tunnel’s darkness was stifling. I counted my steps to keep some idea of where we were. After what seemed an eternity, but probably came to only about a quarter of an hour, I reached a hole in the brick wall of the passage.
I stopped and studied it with care. The powdered chalk I left here earlier showed no tracks. I set down my first red vial next to the hole, and slipped through. I knew Cole would pause for a moment, to give me an opportunity to scout out the next area for trouble, and also give me a chance to back out if I needed to.
I emerged from the hole, on the rim of a giant underground cistern.
The ceiling domed overhead, while most of the round room was dominated by a deep black pit. Twice before I had dropped stones down the pit and never heard them hit bottom. This trip, I would not be tempting fate by doing anything so provocative. The rim was about three feet wide, but I still edged carefully around the abyss until I reached the archway on the other side of the room.
Something about that room always bothered me, and I gladly left it behind. I moved through the archway and down the cut stone corridor. Looking behind me, I saw Cole’s bottle light at the hole in the wall. He kept the sixty foot spacing with precision.
“I do enjoy working with a professional,” I muttered.
If only he hadn’t been a professional killer, with my name heading the list of next victims. But coming up with this plan had allowed me to talk Silman the Pig into agreeing to an even larger sum than he initially offered. Some men will agree to ridiculous prices if they don’t think they will ever have to pay.
Desperate and greedy are a poor combination in a businessman, legal or illegal, because the sum of those two traits is Stupid—and Stupid people don’t hang on to money long.
The corridor ahead branched into three passageways.
The left and center corridors were made of square cut stones. The right seemed to be of older rounded stones, and a faint stale stench emanated from within it. Placing a red vial by the right hand corridor, I took the corner and started down a stone flight of stairs into what seemed to be even deeper blackness.
The silence became maddening, with only the occasional drip or scuffle to punctuate it. The friendly sputtering of a torch would have been welcome, but the smoke and damage to my night vision made it an unacceptable option. At the bottom of the stairs, the corridor continued on for about fifteen feet and then opened into a large columned gallery.
I never figured out the purpose of this room.
It was oval and featured four large, arched exits—one in each wall. Even more mysterious, somebody had inlaid a huge, four-pointed compass in red tiles into the floor and arranged it so an exit sat at each point of the compass. My little lantern wasn’t bright enough to illuminate the ceiling, but my old partner once told me it was covered with stars.
I entered the room from the north, and made my way down the oval to the archway at the south end of the room. I laid a red vial inside the archway, to mark the exit I took, and prepared to move on. Looking back the way I came, I could see Cole just entering the chamber. He spotted the little red vial, and started into the room.
Suddenly, about midway across the floor, he looked to his right and froze.
Pointing to his eye, and then at the western archway, he retreated toward the exit in the opposite wall. Moving in rapid silence, I made my way back to my archway and scooped up the little red vial. Off to the west, a yellow light started to fill the corridor, as if somebody approached with a lantern. Putting the vial and my little red lantern under my arm, I melted back into the shadows.
At the same time, I watched Cole back into the eastern exit and grimaced in frustration.
The exit he had taken was not mapped and not part of the Lowerways. While not necessarily catastrophic, if something dangerous entered the room, he would be trapped with no means to return the way he came. I couldn’t afford to be separated from him and the money.
As the yellow light brightened, Cole peeked around the uncharted archway, into the room; then, he turned his head and frowned at the darkness behind him. I signaled for him to take better cover. He looked across at me, tapped his ear, and pointed at the darkness behind him. Then he drew a very large knife and disappeared down the eastern corridor.
“Damnit, Cole.” I whispered. “What are you doing?”
I was forced to retreat further into the shadows as the yellow light entered the room.
And that’s all it was…just a yellow orb that gave off about the same amount of light as a lantern. It floated and bobbed along, about three to four feet off the floor, making the four columns cast weird shadows around the room. The phantasm weaved its way through the pillars in an eerie sort of dance, all the time in complete silence. I didn’t know if what I watched was harmless or not, but I had no intention of finding out.
For the next half hour I found myself treated to a bizarre ballet of light that made no sense whatsoever. During that whole time I watched the eastern exit for any sign of Cole, but continued to see nothing of him.
Finally, the thing spiraled up a column, illuminating the starry constellations inlaid into the ceiling, and then made its way to the middle of the artificial sky. It floated there for a moment in the center of the celestial vault, like a lost star hunting for home.
The Ways of Khrem Page 4
