by Robert Beers
“What was that?” Bilardi looked up sharply.
Adam toyed with a line on the map pinned to the wall next to where he stood. “Ethan said Grisham has a funny way of mourning. I've seen some of it at our favorite pub, Captain. I've also seen less celebration at some weddings. Your father doesn't seem to have a lot of friends out there, and I think you know why.”
Bilardi threw himself back into his chair. “So the old man has a few quirks,” He growled. “He's still my father, dammit!”
“He started this war, you told me so yourself. That is not a quirk.” Adam turned from his feigned study of the map, “And, we're all going to pay for it if we don't find a way to stop it.”
Bilardi looked like he was going to carry the discussion into the arena of argument, so Ethan stepped in. “You said, thirty-two tunnels? Is that what all the fuss was about?”
“I thought there was no more than a handful,” Adam mused. “That map on your wall shows no more than that.”
Bilardi relaxed with the change of subject. “I thought so myself, but it appears there are other maps. My father was going to bring them to my attention when I took over his seat, at least he claimed he was,” he added with a touch of acerbity. “It seems his brush with Lady Death, and the fact that we're losing this war, has mellowed his perceptions somewhat.”
“Coming face to face with your own mortality can change a man,” Ethan agreed. “What about these maps? Are they here?”
Bilardi held up a sheaf of parchments, “These and the others on my desk here.”
“What were all the aides rushing about for?” Adam asked. “Are they looking for the entrances?”
“That, and to see if they're usable,” Bilardi nodded. He stood and moved around to the front of his desk. “I hear that the shaking saved our giblets from the fire. Eventually, though, the southern army is going to be able to bridge those cracks in the ground, and we'll be right back to where we were before it happened.”
“You have a plan,” Ethan regarded Bilardi evenly.
The Guard Captain smiled self-consciously, “More of an idea, really. I hope to find a way to the enemy commander, and, under a flag of truce, see if there's a way to settle this thing, without further bloodshed.”
“And, just how in the pit are you going to get ... ah, yes, the tunnels,” Ethan said, as he crossed his arms.
“If any of them are still standing,” Adam shook his head at the thought of what he might have done.
“Hence, the rushing aides,” Ethan remarked.
Bilardi nodded. “Exactly, those scribbled notes, if you were wondering, carried a description of where to find that tunnel's entrance, if it still existed.”
“Who's doing the hunting, the aides?” Adam had grown tired of standing and sat in one of the office's chairs.
“Not exactly, McKenit!” Bilardi yelled at the closed door. “You sit too Sergeant,” he waved at a chair.
The Corporal's head appeared from around the doors edge, “Yes, Cap'n?”
“You through eavesdropping?”
“Eavesdropping? Me? Milord Cap'n, would I do sech a thing?” McKenit raised his eyebrows in mock horror.
“Only as a life's work. Corporal, collect the completed field reports and bring them in here. Also, have all the Guard Sergeants not currently occupied with the cleanup of the curtain wall assembled outside this office.” Bilardi answered McKenit's nod with a wave of his hand, and then returned his attention to Adam and Ethan. “We'll be going out to see if those tunnels, all of them, are still useable.”
“I see,” said Ethan, “The aides aren't going to be doing the hunting, we are—with the help of those Sergeants you summoned.”
“Extra eyes, the other part of the ‘we',” Adam added.
“Exactly, and, every one of them capable of thinking on their own,” Bilardi walked over to the door and pulled it open. “McKenit, where are those flicking field reports?”
The old Corporal scuttled from around his desk with a handful of parchments. “Right here, Cap'n. I got ‘em right here.”
Bilardi took the reports from McKenit and rapidly skimmed through them. When he was done, he looked up with a sparkle in his eye. “They've broken through to the one in the armory and found the entrances to a dozen more, most of them the work of a few minutes to pull away a facade. One of them was a hole in the backside of an old barn.”
McKenit nodded vigorously. “The rats—I allus wondered where them critters come in from. They was using the old tunnels.”
“And now we are,” Bilardi said triumphantly.
“If they weren't collapsed in the quake,” Ethan added. “I've seen mines come down with less shaking. Captain, wouldn't it be better to approach this search with a bit more pessimism?”
“I think we'll find them in good shape.” Adam looked up from a study of the floorboards. “It's just a feeling,” he said to Ethan's sharp look.
Bilardi stuffed the reports into a bag and pulled its strap over his shoulder. “Feeling or not, we're going to find out for sure, one way or the other, let's go. McKenit!”
“Yes Cap'n?” McKenit pulled up on his way back to his desk.
“Get a copy of the tunnel locations to each of those Sergeants. I want every one of them thoroughly mapped before this week ends. If anyone complains, tell them the stable master always has room for extra hands in the mucking out.”
McKenit left with an evil grin on his face. “Aye, Cap'n, that I will.”
They left Bilardi's office and walked directly over to the armory. The noncom at the desk jumped to his feet, saluted, and walked quickly to the barred door leading into the stores. Inside the area of the stores known as the stacks, they made a sharp right, walked along the shelves of weapons stacked one atop another, turned left, and walked to the end of the stack. To the right of the corner, against the armory wall yawned an open hole, twice man height in both length and breadth.
A guard sergeant turned at their approach, snapped to attention, and called out, “Captain in the house!”
Bilardi returned the salute and strolled over to the edge of the hole. Adam and Ethan joined him.
“When you first mentioned tunnels, I thought...”
“A wagon with a full team could be driven through this thing,” Ethan's exclamation overrode Adam's.
“That brickwork looks old.” Adam leaned forward onto his knees and peered into the tunnel mouth.
Bilardi nodded and climbed into the opening. Its floor slanted away and down to where it met with the brownish-gray of the tunnel's brick. Each of the old bricks looked half again larger than the ones currently used in modern building construction and a musty odor, redolent of age poured out of the mouth. “It should, this armory was built by my great-great-great grandfather over three hundred years ago. Looks like this one, at least, used to have freight wagons move through it. Come on down, we're going to see where it goes.”
“How?” Ethan still stood on the edge of the opening.
Bilardi looked up at him, perplexed, “What? What do you mean, ‘how?'?”
Ethan kneeled down and pointed into the tunnel. “Looks mighty dark in there, what are we going to use for light, the brightness of our personalities?”
He smiled at Adam's chuckle as Bilardi shook his head in self-recrimination. “How about I send one of these men here to collect a few lamps or torches?”
“I'd prefer a torch myself,” said Adam, thinking back to the time he turned himself into a source of light when he and Milward were making their way to Dragonglade. Another smile crossed his face as he remembered his chagrin when he found he could not turn it off.
“Think of something funny?”
Adam looked down. Captain Bilardi stood just inside the tunnel mouth smiling at him. “Nothing much,” he replied. “Something from a long time ago just popped in and out of my head. How far does the map say this thing goes?”
“Gnomic ass!” Bilardi slapped his forehead, “I am such a gnomic ass! I'd forget my own feet,
if they weren't locked away in my boots.”
“You forgot to check the map?” Ethan asked dryly.
Bilardi nodded, mutely.
Ethan climbed down into the hole and beckoned Adam to join them. “Well, we may as well see about finding out. Did your teacher show you a way to gauge distances underground, Adam?” He raised an eyebrow in secret meaning as he hid the gesture from Bilardi's sight.
“I think so,” Adam replied, “It has been a while, seems lately I've spent most of my time working on swordsmanship.”
“And spanking me in the process,” Bilardi said sourly. “Where are those flicking lamps?”
As if in answer, a couple of guardsmen appeared at the edge of the opening bearing three lamps each. They gasped in deep breaths as they passed the lamps down to the party in the hole.
“Sorry for the delay, Milord Captain,” one of them panted as he handed down the final lamp.
Adam reached up and took it from the guardsman. “Don't mention it. They'll come in handy, thanks.”
The guardsmen raised their eyebrows at the courtesy, nodded, and then backed from the openings edge. Adam's ears picked up snatches of their conversation as they walked away.
“...don't seem like a real officer...”
“...allus like that ... diffrn't, ee is.”
Adam smiled to himself, they did not know just how different.
Ethan handed two of the lamps to Bilardi. “Shall we start exploring?”
* * * *
The Alpha Wolf paused to sniff the air and then padded over to his mate's side, “I smell you, my mate.”
She turned her head to nuzzle his cheek, “I smell you, sire of my cubs.”
“Two-legs are in the forest. It is time for the pack to leave this place.”
She answered with a wistful note in her voice, “It would be good to smell Bright-eye again.”
He nuzzled her and then turned onto the game trail to his right, “Then we will follow his scent.”
* * * *
The sound of dripping water mixed with the echoes of their footsteps, as Adam, Ethan, and Bilardi followed the old tunnels path beneath Grisham's bedrock. Ancient moss and glistening patches of green slime added their aromas to the scent of musty age that pervaded the atmosphere.
“Phew!” Bilardi tried to wipe away the stink with the back of his sleeve. “It smells like an old grave down here.”
“It very easily could be one,” Ethan said, as he swung a lamp upward to check a suspicious shadow. “There are stories about the ancients building crypts into the walls of tunnels like these. I wouldn't be surprised if we came across one, or even a Keeper or two.”
Bilardi snorted. “Surely you don't go along with those old superstitions?”
Adam turned and shone the light of his lamp onto Bilardi's face. “I've run into a few superstitions, Captain. One of them almost nicked my blade. You can believe, or disbelieve, what you want. As for me,” He drew Labad's sword. It came out of the scabbard with a silken hiss. “I'm going to consider readiness a virtue.”
Ethan nodded behind his lamp, “Good lad.”
Bilardi drew his own sword. He was glad of the tunnels gloom; it hid the sweat popping out on his face. “Ah, well. One might as well join the crowd.”
“How far do you think we've gone?” Adam asked, just after they rounded a long, slow, turning.
Bilardi replied, “Don't know, I've lost all track of direction down here. What about that ... thing you were taught? The one Ethan asked you about. Can't you tell that way? Or do you need a light and some parchment for figuring?”
Adam nearly collapsed with relief when he realized Bilardi had not connected the dots in Ethan's cryptic question. He exercised a bit of the power and felt the familiar pressure begin to build. It should be the same as sensing the landscape around you, he thought, like the time Milward showed me old Rawn in his boat.
He answered Bilardi just as he released the shaping, “I don't need any light, thanks.”
“Oh, you can do it in your head?”
“Something like that.” A map of the tunnel coalesced into view within Adam's mind's eye. Three white dots moved upon the map's surface. Behind the dots stretched an elongated J, ending at a widening that had to be the armory. Stretching away from the dots, the tunnel continued on for several more miles, passed beneath a line that he sensed must be the city wall, climbed up into the hills west of the city, and ended at another widening. Adam also sensed branches within the tunnel reaching across and connecting to other tunnels in the system. These felt smaller, barely large enough for a man to walk along without having to stoop.
He ran over the map for a while within the shaping and then released it. “We've come about two miles, and are closing in on the third.”
“Feels like twice that far,” Bilardi groused. “These tunnels stretch for miles, according to the map. I suppose my feet will just have live with it.”
Adam and Ethan nodded in agreement, and the trio walked on into the further depths of the tunnel.
They had covered another couple of miles when Ethan noticed a deepening in the shadows ahead. “Hold up. Something's different up there,” He pointed with his lamp.
“I'll say something's different,” Adam said around the cough that welled up in his throat. “Do you smell that?”
Ethan Sniffed and began choking; so did Bilardi. The reek of raw sewage filled the air around them with a suffocating miasma. Adam reeled back, trying not to sick up. Ethan and Bilardi backed away with him.
“A sewer,” Bilardi choked, and pulled out the canteen hanging off his hip. He took a long swallow, and wiped his mouth with his thumb. “That stench can only be a sewer. I'll wager it cuts right across this tunnel, probably fed from the mansions on the hills above us.”
Ethan chuckled, “Makes you think, doesn't it?”
“About what?” Adam reached for his own canteen.
“I think I know what he means,” Bilardi said, with a surly edge to his voice, “and my father would hang you by your intestines if he heard you say it in his presence.”
“Probably,” Ethan replied, but it does make you think, regardless.
Adam raised his lamp higher. “About what?” He repeated, with a touch of exasperation.
Bilardi drank some more water. The stench of the effluent was making his throat itch. “He's making a rather crude reference about people's various stations in life, and how, when it really comes down to it, they all have one fundamental thing in common.”
The light went on in Adam's head, “Ohhh.”
“And my father would string you up by your guts if he heard you say it. I find the thought somewhat disturbing myself.” Bilardi coughed, and then had to hold off a gag reflex, “By Bardoc! Is there any way to turn off that stench?”
Adam began to build up the power for a shaping, but held it back as Ethan stepped over to the archway leading into the sewer. “I've got an idea that may do the trick; it could be dangerous, though.”
“How dangerous?” Bilardi said, warily.
Ethan was doing something with his other lamp. “Oh, not too dangerous, but it would be good if we kept a ways back from this access hole.”
The Guard Captain swore, “Scrud!” and began running back the way they came.
Adam stared at Ethan's face for a second and then joined Bilardi in his flight. They pelted down the tunnel until the glow of Ethan's lamp was just a dim spot of light behind them. There they stood, waiting. Ethan's lamp bobbed around for a moment and then it flew off to the right and vanished.
The sound of running feet came towards them. Ethan yelled, “Down! Down now!” Then he slid into Adam's side.
A wave of intense heat and sound washed over them as they clutched at the brickwork of the floor. Echoes of the explosion rebounded through the tunnel and slowly died away in the distance.
Bilardi groaned and climbed to his knees, “What in the flaming pit was that?” He shook his head, trying to clear the ringing in his ears.
Adam rolled over and the sat up, “Ufff! Ethan, what did you do? Was that some kind of magik?”
Ethan lifted his face off the tunnel floor and grinned broadly, “No, not magik. It was just an idea. Something you learn about when you grow up around a whole lot of livestock. Though I didn't think it'd go up quite that much.” He looked over his shoulder at the thin flickers of blue light that rimmed the sewer entrance.
“You didn't burn up my city, did you?” Bilardi shook his head one last time and stood to his feet. “My father would never forgive me if I allowed that to happen.”
Adam stood next. “Speaking of your father, how is he doing in his recovery?”
“Smell that?” Ethan got to his hands and knees, and then stood. “It worked, and no, I don't think I burnt down Grisham, probably scared a few thousand rats, though. If it went up with enough force to get to the surface we wouldn't be here.”
Bilardi sniffed, and so did Adam, “You're right, the stink's gone.”
“Not all the way gone,” Adam said, as he sniffed again. He had shifted into way of smelling he learned while he and Milward stayed with the wolves, and the old Wizard force-fed him their language. Old traces of various histories came to his nose: an old woman with an even older disease, young men who had drunk bad ale and some who had downed better. Another tidbit of memory tickled his nose, and unbidden, a growl forced its way out of his throat.
“Something wrong?”
“What?” Adam started, brought out of his wolf moment by Ethan's question.
“If I'm not mistaken, you just growled. There something around us you sense, or is your stomach unusually loud?”
Bilardi laughed, “Leave him be, Sergeant. I'm more interested in what that trick of yours did to my sewers. Who knew that what come out of our backsides could be so ... expressively explosive.”
“Can we get going?” Adam grimaced at Bilardi's garderobe humor.
“Right,” Ethan started walking towards the sewer/tunnel intersection. Adam and Bilardi fell in alongside, and shortly they looked in on the scene of the explosion.
For a while, none of them could find any words to say. The stream flowing through the sewer conduit shimmered with a coating of small blue and green flames. Bits of fire danced here and there on the walls and ceiling like tiny fairies. The stench was gone, replaced by an aroma not unlike that of a fry-up.
