He turned and swam back for Nalani.
Chapter 16. The Low Roads
The entryway to the hidden chamber was dry and clean, the floor swept free of grit. As Cal rounded the corner, running his wet fingers over the smooth wall, Nalani pressed close to his back, he saw it opened to a series of rooms. A lantern rested on an old table where the chamber opened up. It threw out a green light from some internal mechanism which appeared to harness and amplify the power of the luminous fungus. Cal noted its position on the table, then picked it up and raised it high over his head to see back into the dark depths of the chamber.
The ceiling was several feet above Cal’s outstretched hand, making this one of the tallest chambers he’d seen under the Plate, second only to the one which held Lord Gale’s court. The walls were lined with salvaged desks, covered in books and parchment rolls. Papers hung from drying racks. One table held nothing but fish skeletons. Weapons of all kinds on another. Other odds and ends filled the room far back beyond where the light reached.
Cal moved to inspect the closest table, his knife held out in front of him, but Nalani caught his arm. “Is it safe?” she whispered.
“No. Whoever lives here might be home. Or could come back any minute. But out there is no safer. I want to see what we can learn. If we’re lucky, we might find a map.” He looked back at her. She was shivering, clearly exhausted. She’d kept up with him well during the escape, even though he’d been in and out of the water the entire first half of his life. And he was barely able to stay on his feet. “Rest for a minute. Try not to drip too much water on anything. Watch the entrance. Someone comes, we hide.”
He approached the table, eyes flickering around the room. As he drew closer, he saw it was a writing desk. There was a single parchment on it. It had a curl to it from being rolled. In a tight hand, it said:
O – Target expected at Club Diamond gathering tonight. – D
“I don’t know a ‘D’,” Cal said, mostly to himself, “but I’m guessing this note was for Odell.” He looked around the chamber again. “I think we stumbled onto your rooms, fucker. Let’s see if there’s anything in here you wouldn’t want us to see. We could start with who your target was.” He began searching the other tables.
As Cal was digging through papers, Nalani asked, “What do you know about these Sunken?”
Cal grunted. “I was going to ask you the same question. Also who was paying you to watch Anders?” When she didn’t answer, Cal said, “I don’t know much. What I heard from Sleepy Jon is that they were just regular people who were forced under the Plate. They’ve had to adapt to survive. What a miserable place. Who can blame them for being a little out of sorts?” He looked up at the low ceiling. “I’d lose my mind, stuck down here.”
He didn’t like the quiet, and kept talking simply to fill it. “I was in Eostre just a few days ago. Under the open skies. Fighting a war against the Borhele. That was some open sky out there. Nothing like this nightmare. Heads on hooks. I could tell, Aaron, he’d be up there, on the blue skies, the clear days, and he didn’t want to come down. Any excuse to get up there on his dragon Marsail. I drew the short straw. With the family name, they put me in charge of the war effort. And he just got to fly around. The ground was worse. The Borhele had this way of showing up suddenly. There’d be this rush of wind and a flash, like a dustcloud, and then you’d realize you were watching thirty Borhele piling out of one of their low roads. We took to calling them the low roads. They were everywhere. And then it was all sticks and teeth.” He looked over at Nalani. “I suppose it would be the height of foolishness to ask if you had a cigarette?”
She didn’t answer, eyes half shut, lost in an unhappy place. Cal continued shuffling through the papers on a table, maps by the look of them. All coated in a light wax coating that would make them waterproof. He fished one out from the bottom of the pile, trying to make sense of the symbols etched on the parchment. There could be more gates, if he could somehow figure out where they were. And what mark indicated a gate.
“I had this lieutenant named Simon Mansell. He was a Garen local but from the south, close to the Porcenne border. Put in a real tough spot. The nobility above him didn’t know shit. Practically got half their men killed before they even arrived. Outpaced their food supplies and set the practice of feeding their personal troops before the general Garen troops. They were near riot before Mansell took charge. I don’t think the nobles ever forgave him. So when they arrived, they present him to me like he’s this fool they’re stuck with, some puffed-up errand boy who keeps following them to the important meetings, but then when it becomes time to decide anything, they’re all looking at him. And they do what he says, just the whole time glaring at his back. I wonder if he’s still alive. We worried about him. One of the last things I did before leaving was offer him a job. He wouldn’t take it. Was too worried his men wouldn’t make it back home alive without him. I never asked if he had a wife or family or anything. Was that really less than a week ago?”
He moved on to a table deeper in the chamber. It was covered in drawings of dragons. Signs of an obsession. Hundreds of renderings. Tallies indicating Odell had been watching the air traffic above the Plate. “So we said goodbye and he gave me this knife. And a good bottle of whiskey we split with Jenner the first night out. I always liked that tradition, exchanging gifts with your allies at the end of a battle. Even if it’s less fun when you are surrendering, if that’s what we did by vacating the area. Voiding the SDC contract and pulling the armies back. Mansell’s people were furious.”
Cal found a full dragon skull under a table near the back of the chamber. There were designs for traps, illustrations showing wicked-looking harpoon ropes firing from under the water and wrapping up dragons that strayed too close to the surface. Trapping them, like the trapped thresher he’d seen bleeding out along the path here. Impossible to tell if Odell had actually captured the dragon whose skull he had or if it was scavenged. But it was clear from the number of drawings of the creatures, the time and energy spent under the green lights, he studied them, coveted them.
“I gave him my flask. Kind of lame, I know, but it was all I had on me. But the knife. That’s why I’m thinking of him. This knife. He found it on the low roads. He took to wandering them at night. I can’t even put into words. I took the low roads once. To see someone. But I was summoned. I had a guide. Mansell would wander them alone at night. I can’t even. It’s like the whole world fades away, just you and this long, low road, it feels like miles under the world. The sky is up there, but it’s a different sky when you see it from the low roads.”
The story was keeping him grounded in this strange place, so he kept going, more for his benefit than hers. “And the Borhele. They retreated at night, mostly, but you would run into them from time to time. Usually at night they didn’t want to fight. They would move past you on the long cats they rode, ignore you, like something from another world. One of them rode right through our camp one night. Nobody did anything. An army just sat and watched, the same way you might watch an animal. Attacking them was, I don’t know, like attacking a magnificent creature in the wild. Something somehow beyond you. When I realized I wasn’t the only one who felt that way, that’s when I knew we’d lose. It’s different from these…Sunken. These I can fight, these I can kill.”
Cal stopped. There was a charcoal drawing on the walls. It was one of many, a small part of a series of drawings in the back of the chamber. Nestled among images of Sunken, of the worlds above and below the Plate, of dragons, was an image of a Chalk hauling a body across a moonlit clearing. Cal had seen it once before. He had been shown it by the Borhele spy, Barbayir, when Cal was out west dealing with the rise of the falsemarked. The exact same image. Which meant Barbayir had given it to Odell or vice versa. The Borhele were in contact with the Sunken. Not good at all.
“Or maybe not so different.” At this point he was just talking to fill the quiet. Nalani was asleep, her breathing long and deep. “But
Mansell would wander the low roads, late at night, by himself. Even after I forbade him to. He didn’t care. I don’t know if he wanted to die. Or he was looking for something, some way to get an edge, some way to figure out how to understand the Borhele. He never found it.”
The drawing on the wall was a reminder that the Chalk were still out there. The image was of the Awakened Chalk Ulsor Vinn. Aaron had allowed Vinn to escape on the Night of the Chalk. With the western army of the Chalk destroyed, Aaron and Cal had turned their attention elsewhere, but apparently Vinn still stalked west of the Ashlands. To what end Cal didn’t know. Cal had no idea of the scene’s significance, where Vinn had been sighted, whose body he carried. But Cal had surrendered Ulsor Vinn’s name to Barbayir as part of their negotiations. And now the Chalk, the Borhele, and the Sunken all shared a link. How deep it went, Cal didn’t know. But he decided, at that moment, staring at the dark entryway in the green light, that Odell would die as soon as he returned to this chamber. He would meet the man in the shadows.
“But one dark night, as he’s roaming, Mansell came on these crossroads, and there’s a bit of moonlight shining in, and it’s shining on a knife, sticking straight up out of the ground. Like it had been left there, right in the center of four low roads. He looks around but doesn’t see any Borhele, so he approaches, and he pulls it out of the ground. Then he feels eyes on him, and he looks up. There’s a Borhele, mounted on its pacca, on the ridge above him, just staring at him through the hair that covers their face. It’s holding one of the long staff they carry, lined with a warrior’s marks. And there’s this long moment of silence, of stillness, and then the Borhele lets out a loud fart. For a long moment, nobody does anything. Mansell just standing there, staring at the Borhele, the Borhele staring back. He can’t get any sense, like was this some sort of strange joke, or a threat, and is this guy going to attack? But no, the Borhele just turns and slowly leaves, and is gone. Mansell says to me, ‘I swear, it was the single strangest fart I’ve ever encountered.’ And he comes back with the knife.”
Nalani was laying on the floor. Cal studied her for a moment, then half-led, half-dragged her under a heavy table. He replaced the lamp where he’d found it and checked for any signs of their entry. The wet footprints would fade shortly and there wasn’t anything he could really do about them anyway. He’d been careful to disturb little else. Cal walked back into the darkness, locating Nalani by her deep breathing. He climbed under the table next to her, rolling onto his stomach to stare back at the entryway, his mind on everything he’d found among Odell’s effects.
“So Mansell tells everyone the story when he gets back,” Cal’s voice was now a whisper, “and it makes the rounds, and the war goes on. But when Jenner comes, and I make the call to end the war, and everyone is in uproar, and there’s some blame to go around, and a few fists need to be thrown to remind the nobility that they may have titles but they can’t lay hands on SDC contractors, especially not those who just fought a war for them, whatever the outcome. So I’m on my way out with Aaron and Jenner, and Mansell stops me and says, ‘I want you to have my fart knife.’ And all I had to give him was a flask. Lame. I said before. And the job offer, which he didn’t take.”
The knife in Cal’s hand did little to make him feel secure. Nalani’s body touching his helped more, though they were both wet and cold. “And here it is. From the low roads to the underside of the Plate. The stories this thing could tell.” I don’t know when Odell will come back, but hopefully it’s soon. And then we can give it another story. It can taste the blood of a Sunken spy. Staring at the dark entryway in the green light, with this comforting thought at the front of his mind, Cal drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 17. Questions and Answers
The endless rains over Surdoore had broken momentarily, parting to let in a harsh midmorning sun. Shay stood in the mouth of an alley, a hood drawn close around her face. She watched Brooks Borland, the muskrat man, as he made his way across a busy street. She’d been tailing him all morning and had yet to learn anything of value.
The street was crowded with merchandise carts and vendors hawking wares. They were away from the harbor, but everything still seemed tied to the waters. A vendor selling repaired nets. Another with sail fabric. Two wetcloaks stood at the corner, loudly lamenting the Plate’s future fate under the harbor waters, as they were wont to do.
Shay felt a rough tongue on her dangling hand and unconsciously opened it to allow the dog at her side to lick any lingering salt from her fingers. She’d given him dried fish, as she did with every stray she encountered, and he’d taken to her. She hadn’t named this one yet, not yet knowing his personality. From the way he shied whenever the crowd in the street swelled near the alley, he was a timid one. Probably only allowed her to approach out of desperation. Out of hunger. She reached into her pocket and pulled out another dried fish as she watched Brooks’ back.
They were in the Canal Crossing neighborhood. Before that was a different area where an old stray she’d named Timothy ruled. Before that a different neighborhood with some dogs she didn’t recognize. They hadn’t been friendly but they’d taken the food she offered.
There was a purpose to Brooks’ movements, but Shay hadn’t deciphered it yet. He’d been to several houses for brief visits. It was unusual behavior for a Queen’s Guard, even on a day off. Maybe he was circulating a story? Were these allies he was meeting with? To what end? She saw nothing to indicate who lived in the houses. No patterns. She could come back to them to learn more, but time was running short. Shay was setting herself up to go back to Sleepy Jon with little to report beyond that Brooks walked a hell of a lot and she’d need to dig deeper to learn more than that.
As she was pondering whether there would be any possible way to pass this duty on to her brother Finn, Shay finally saw something that drew her interest. As Brooks rounded a corner, he exchanged a brief look with one of the pair of wetcloaks loudly prophesizing doom to the crowded street. It was a look laden with meaning, as though they knew each other. But who knew wetcloaks, aside from other wetcloaks?
She may have misinterpreted it, but no one else was meeting the wetcloaks’ eyes. They had become a part of the scenery in Surdoore, polluting every corner with nonsense. Preaching that the waters would rise and claim the Plate. Speaking of the depths below the harbor. But there was never any instruction or guidance. The other religions and cults and the many that waffled between that nebulous line that Shay had encountered all had some purpose, usually the lining of the pockets of those who stood atop. The cloaks didn’t seem to have any. They preached their useless message, convincing no one of their inarticulate vision. What could Brooks have to do with them?
Shay was left with more questions than answers, a state she wasn’t unaccustomed to these last few weeks. She gave the dog by her side one last pat, then broke off to pursue Brooks. Eventually she’d go find Jon and place the unanswered questions back on his heavy head.
…
Aaron could feel the lack of sleep catching up to him. Daylight seemed to illuminate every wrinkle near his tired eyes. His lip was swollen, the taste of blood still in his mouth. The streets felt crowded. He was picking up on the rhythms of the city. Everyone piling outside when the sky cleared, then back in to avoid the rains when they started. The only ones who broke the cycle were the stray dogs, in heaviest concentration near the harbor, indifferent to the weather.
The door to Madame Jane’s second floor apartment was unlocked. Aaron kept his sword sheathed but his hand on his knife as he entered, quickly scanning the corners to ensure he was alone. The apartment was as they had left it, everything in its same place, but somehow felt different. Lifeless. The Madame had made it vibrant when they’d visited two long nights ago, starting from the enthusiastic greeting at the door. It had been mysterious, warm, and inviting. Now it felt dry and dead, and in the daylight it was easier to imagine she was a conwoman, a charlatan who had exploited the grief and worry of the Queen.
&nbs
p; If you get lost, or if I do, the answer lies in there. The comment had been just one piece of the other night’s strangeness. But it had come back to Aaron this morning as he wracked his mind for other leads, other ways to find Cal or the elusive enemy who held him. Madame Jane had indeed gotten lost. And Aaron needed answers. If a return to the place where he’d been given the visions was an opportunity to find his way, he’d chance it, with or without a guide.
The heavy silver bowl was still in the center of the table, still filled with the same dark water. A candle floated sideways in the center. Aaron fished it out. The wick was wet. He tossed it aside and located another on her shelves. He walked around the room, making sure all the blinds were closed, before he lit the candle and placed it in the center of the bowl. He sat down at the table.
She’d told him to focus on the wax entering the water and then had taken his hands. He reached his hands out as though she were still there to take them. Feeling foolish, he watched as the candle heated and wax slowly began to stream into the water. Seeking to find the place he’d been before.
Nothing was happening. “Please,” he said quietly. “I need answers.” He fought to banish the thoughts that kept creeping in. Cal taken. Miriam using him. The Queen’s daughter long dead. Lorimer and his men laughing. Somewhere out there, the Chalk gaining an edge while the SDC lost theirs. He pushed them away.
Nothing. No amount of focus was helping. He needed Madame Jane there, leaning over the table, looking into the dark water. If you get lost, or if I do, the answer lies in there. He hesitated. She’d been looking at the water when she’d said that. Not Aaron. Not the candle.
Alliance of the Sunken (Spies of Dragon and Chalk Book 3) Page 12
