If truly he saw Melina as a threat to his homeland, then they stood together. What if Peace thought that he might make amends for his earlier transgressions by offering the new queen something she wanted? A daughter and the very people who had ruined her earlier plans might be as tempting to Melina as a wolf would find a marrow-filled bone or a chunk of still-hot liver.
For a long while they paced in near silence. The two men had worn soft-soled shoes, so they made no noise that the moving of the filthy river did not cover. Firekeeper and Blind Seer made no sound at all.
Occasionally, Peace would tell them to take one turn or another. At these times Edlin would halt to make notes for his eventual map. Firekeeper felt acutely aware of the weight of stone surrounding her, of the closeness of the walls, but she didn't complain. After all, hadn't she been the one to suggest this expedition?
To distract herself, Firekeeper concentrated on the map Edlin was drawing. She was quite impressed with how Edlin was measuring by counting his paces. It spoke of a coolness of mind and self-discipline that she admired. She was also secretly impressed that Edlin found a use for such large numbers. Once again it seemed Derian and Wendee were right when they pressed her to acquire a human education to complement her wolf one.
The tunnel in which they had begun had been comparatively narrow, hardly more than a channel to carry local sewage to the main "river." Eventually, the tunnels into which Peace directed them became progressively wider, the walkways large enough that a wheeled cart could be rolled along. They encountered no workers, but this was no real surprise. There had been sufficient rain that the sewer was flowing steadily and no one who was not desperate would descend into the filth and stench.
Despite a growing desire to be anywhere but in this close, stinking place, Firekeeper forced herself to remain alert, but she located nothing out of the ordinary. The failure to find a trick, trap, or guard became an obstacle of its own. Firekeeper found herself moving more and more slowly lest she miss anything significant.
When they encountered the gate that blocked the walkway it was almost a relief.
"This no here last time," Firekeeper said softly.
"No," Peace agreed. "It is new. See where the rivets were driven into the stone to hold it?"
Firekeeper looked. The tool marks from cutting and grinding in the rock were still pale against the dirtier stone. Cautiously, Peace raised the shield on his lantern so that they might better inspect the obstacle.
"Ceiling to floor," he murmured. "That's to be expected, but the gate extends out into the channel, too. Someone has been careful."
Firekeeper looked to where Peace indicated. The gate did not cross the flowùwith insight born of too great proximity to this place she realized that was to keep debris from becoming hung up and creating a blockage point. However, the fence did extend far enough that intruders would not be tempted to hang themselves around the edge and so swing to the other side. With a further bit of genius, the fence did not suddenly end, but instead tapered. Anyone climbing that would take a dip in the sewer.
She heard Edlin abort a whistle of admiration in midbreath.
"I say," he commented hopefully, "I don't suppose it's unlocked."
Peace gave the obstruction a careful inspection before touching it. When he did touch it, he used the end of the lever he still carried. Nothing happened, so he placed a hand on the gate and softly pressed the latch.
"Locked," he said, but there was a note of satisfaction in his voice. "But I never did turn in my keys."
Firekeeper held the lantern for Grateful Peace while he inspected the bunch of keys he drew from a pouch on his belt. He was very careful in how he handled them, making sure he did not rattle them in the slightest. Indeed, Edlin taking advantage of this stop to update his notes and make a rough sketch of the gate made more noise with the scratching of his pencil across the paper.
Peace chose one key, identical in Firekeeper's opinion to at least three others in the bunch, and once again subjected the lock to a close inspection. When he was satisfied, he inserted the key, working it slightly, as if it were a very small lever. The end result was a satisfying click, loud only because of the comparative silence.
"Siyago," Peace said in satisfaction. "I thought I recognized his work."
He put the keys away before again pressing down on the lever. The gate opened without even a squeak of hinges.
Again Firekeeper and Blind Seer took point. She vaguely recognized the section of tunnels they came to next as a central area at which a large number of tunnels converged. It was not so much a hub as a confluence, smaller stinking streams joining a main river.
Walkways such as the one they had made their way along were linked in a ring by a system of small bridges that could be dropped over the stream or drawn back so that they would not provide the least obstacle to anything that needed to flow through. The bridges were cleverly made, each going back into a recess in the wall. The walkways were solid masonry, much wider than those elsewhere. She assumed that this was because greater labors must be carried out here where several streams joined the main and more than one man needed to have room to easily pass.
Even as Firekeeper committed the place to her memory, she marveled at the care taken to first bury a river, then give it a place of its own. She thought that the river had become rather like a horse, bridled and saddled so that it could be put to human service.
Edlin insisted on pausing long enough to sketch this complex and to clearly label both the tunnel from which they had emerged and the one toward which Peace was leading them.
"Good place to get confused, what?" he explained. "Bet my inheritance that if we went a bit down each of those tunnels we'd find a gate like the one we came through. Good security. Only wonder why it wasn't done sooner."
Peace stiffened a touch defensively.
"Because sewers are made to facilitate the disposal of waste. Anything that blocks the flow could have serious consequences."
Edlin looked up from his drawing to favor the other with one of his ingenuous grins.
"So you're not taking my bet?"
Peace sighed. "What would I have to match your stake?"
Hearing this byplay, Firekeeper grinned. Blind Seer, leaping carefully over one of the narrower feeder streams, had already confirmed that Edlin was right. She wondered if Peace's pique came from the fact that he had not taken similar precautions when he had been the Dragon's Eye.
Despite her amusement, the wolf-woman felt edgy. This complex was the last landmark she recalled from their first journey. Unlike her companions, she had been through the tunnels only once. Her own escape from Thendulla Lypella had been overland.
In the first tunnel away from the confluence, they encountered the expected barrier. Once again Peace subjected the gate to a careful inspection before opening the lockùwith a different key, Firekeeper noted. Then they went on. Their path was now taking them up a slight incline. After a few more turns and several more gates, the four intruders left the sewer entirely. Its channels served Thendulla Lypella, but Peace had a different route in mind, tunnels intended for humans, not for their waste.
He was also taking them beneath a different part of Thendulla Lypella. The Granite Spire, which had been their goal on their last venture, had been reported nearly empty by Bee Biter and his winged allies. Going there would get them no closer to Melina.
The Illuminator looked soberly at his companions as he pulled the latest gate closed behind them so that their passage would not be noted by sewer workers going about their duties.
"Now we must be more careful than ever," Grateful Peace said, "for in these tunnels there need be no consideration of hapless sewer workers. The Artificers will not have constrained their cleverness. Perhaps I should take the lead?"
Firekeeper refused with a quick shake of her head. There was a different feel in the air now. When questioned, the two men said they sensed nothingùEdlin even attributed her response to nervousnessùbut Blind Seer agree
d with her.
"The scent in the air is altered," the wolf clarified, lifting his head and sniffing. "Not only fresher, but something…"
He growled, frustrated by his inability to place something apparently outside his experience. Desperate for Blind Seer to pin down her own vague awareness, Firekeeper forced herself to remember that the wolf was only four years old. Even in the forests in which he had been born much might still be new to him.
Here traveling alongside caged rivers beneath an artificial mountain rangeùfor so Firekeeper couldn't help but think of Dragon's Breath's towering buildingsùeven a Royal Wolf could be excused for not knowing everything.
Firekeeper gave Blind Seer a reassuring stroke along one shoulder.
"We go even more slowly, then," she decided, "until we find what it is that troubles us both."
Neither Grateful Peace nor Edlin questioned the wolf-woman's decision when she repeated it to them. As they made their slow way forward Peace more frequently sent a ray from his lantern to course the floor ahead of them. Firekeeper nearly told him to stop but decided not to. The amount of light wasn't sufficient to ruin her vision and it might indeed reveal a trip wire or some other small trap.
And since there was no doing without light it might as well be useful, yet she was all too aware that even these pale beams could be fatal.
As they padded upward, Firekeeper became aware that Blind Seer was sniffing the air so vigorously that his action was audible. She tried to detect what had him so distracted, but other than burning lantern oil and the latent sewer scent clinging to their clothing, she could smell nothing significant.
Or could she? A musky scent, somehow familiar, somehow out of place.
"Blind Seer, what is it?" she asked.
The wolf's reply was a low, rumbling growl before he stopped in his tracks and shook as if he'd been soaked by a cloudburst.
Peace and Edlin, who had drawn up short when the wolf stopped, were obviously confused.
"I say!" Edlin said, keeping his voice low with an effort. "What's wrong?"
As to Peace there was only a faint metallic chink as he drew his knife from its sheath.
Firekeeper ignored them bothùa foolish thing, for that knife could have been meant for her. However, Blind Seer's suddenly odd behavior drove any other consideration from her mind.
"What is wrong?"
She touched the wolf and found that his hackles were raised and he was shuddering, a bone-deep vibration that rippled over his increased heart rate. Had he been poisoned? She cast her gaze over the stone floor of the tunnel but there were no spikes or caltrops, not even a suspicious sheen.
"Blind Seer!" she cried, so frantic that even the humans were aware of her low howl.
"I am" the wolf wheezed, panting, "here. Hush, dear heart. Ah, the smell!"
Firekeeper acted at once. If a smell was what was troubling him…
Darting out her hand, she grabbed the spirit flask from Edlin's belt. Doc had insisted they carry brandy in case a wound needed to be sterilized or someone needed a quick jolt to a shocked system. Now she was glad.
Firekeeper opened the flask and held it beneath Blind Seer's nose, sloshing a little of the liquor onto her palm for good measure. The strong fumes welled up, so powerful that at this proximity they even overwhelmed the sewer stench.
Blind Seer breathed in through both mouth and nose, coughed, and seemed to be choking. Firekeeper thumped him on the flank with her free hand, amazed when she felt the wolf plunge his nose into her brandy-dampened palm.
Once again he shook, rather like a human trying to clear his head.
"I have…" he said. "I can think again, but the smell!"
"What smell?"
The wolf hesitated.
"Like a thousand bitches in heat," he said at last, clearly somewhat uncomfortable. "It took the thought from my mind and put it in my loins. If it had not been Cousins…"
"Cousins?" Firekeeper repeated, appalled, though she wasn't quite sure by what. Blind Seer had explained to her that the Royal Wolves did not mate with the Cousins, so the very thought that he was attracted by their bitch scent was bad, but there was something else, something that made her uncomfortable and angry all at once.
She pushed this last from her mind, focusing on the immediate problem.
Edlin, too, was meeping at her, making sounds that it took her a moment to translate into words.
"I say! I would have just handed the flask to you? What's wrong? Something bite him on the nose?"
Firekeeper considered lying and didn't know why. She shook her head.
"No, not bite him. A smell like a bitch in heat. It makes him not think clear."
To her complete surprise, Edlin appeared to understand.
"Lure," he said. Then, when she blinked at him uncomprehendingly, he went on. "You've told me humans are nose-dead, what? But that doesn't mean we've not noticed that others are not. Hunters make lures to attract creatures they want to hunt, to make them, well, stop being cautious, don't you know…"
"Humans do this?" she asked, appalled.
"That's right," Edlin agreed. He shuffled his feet. "Usually trappers use lures. Make them out of urine and such. Keep females for it."
Firekeeper understood. Animalsùpeople, too, though they'd forgotten how to read the signsùtold a great deal through their urine. A pregnant female advertised her situation; so did one in heat. Urine from a bitch in heat, especially if concentrated…
Blind Seer was right. If whoever had blended this lure had not used urine from Cousin wolves, then the Royal Wolf might not have been able to control himself.
Again Firekeeper felt that strange emotion. Protectiveness? Possessiveness? She put it from her, but she couldn't put the growl from her voice.
"Lure. I must find and kill."
Edlin put a restraining hand on her arm. A very brave thing to do given her sudden anger. She barely resisted snapping at him.
"Let me," he suggested. "I know what to look for, what? And no matter what you think, you are not nose-dead. The scent could be affecting you as well."
Firekeeper stopped, considering. Edlin might be speaking the truth. It would explain her angerùrather as if she'd found other wolves peeing their marks in her territory.
She nodded stiffly.
"Be careful."
Edlin went without further comment, holding his lantern, but not encumbering himself in any other fashion. The others waited in silence. Indeed, Peace was so still that Firekeeper must look to confirm his presence. There he stood, a robed pillar, just visible in the dim light.
Beneath the hand she kept on his back, she could feel that Blind Seer was growing calmer.
"It's not just the brandy scent," he explained. "It's knowing what's happened. I can work against my reaction."
Firekeeper wrapped her arm around the wolf's shoulder and hugged him. Then they awaited Edlin's returnùor for the least indication that he had met with trouble.
Firekeeper was considering going after the young man when Edlin returned. He ghosted over the stone pavement, waiting to give his report until he was closer. Then he hunkered down on his heels and displayed a small bundle which reeked of a mixture of brandy and other, less definable, scents.
"Gave it a splash, what?" he commented. "This is the worst of it. I think the floor had been dabbed, but lure doesn't last long, not convincingly. Trappers reanoint their traps regularly."
Beneath Firekeeper's hand Blind Seer remained calm, though he gave the lure an inquisitive sniff.
"With the brandy mixed in" he said, "it's not even interesting. Like an image in a mirror. It bears a resemblance but does not fool upon closer inspection."
Firekeeper did her best to translate.
"I found it hung over a rather nasty pit trap," Edlin went on. "Pit must have been there for ages. Spikes at the bottom, what? If Blind Seer had rushed out unheeding…"
He shrugged, then looked increasingly uncomfortable.
"There were other things
, too," he said. "Loose stones near the pit edge. Caltrops that matched the stone. Wouldn't fool someone careful, but someone who might be running full tilt would have been in trouble. The designers were probably limited by how they could adapt that bit of tunnel. Couldn't be too subtle."
"Other than the lure," Peace interjected. "That lure is very subtle, indeed."
"Other than that," Edlin agreed.
Although Blind Seer claimed that the lure no longer touched his mind, Firekeeper insisted on running the bundle back to the nearest sewer channel and dropping it in. Distances so laboriously traversed when every step needed to be checked for traps or trip wires proved ridiculously short on the return.
She came back to find Peace and Edlin discussing this latest development.
"You do realize," Peace said to her, "that this means someone expects your returnùand quite possibly my assistance?"
Firekeeper nodded. The thought had occurred to her. Why else would they set a trap meant to befuddle a wolf if they hadn't expected her and Blind Seer? And Peace was one who knew these under roads and had last been seen in the company of her associates.
"I know," she said. "Yet this only tells us what we feared was true. A good thing as I see it."
From the nicker of expression that crossed Peace's normally impassive features, she thought he was amusedùbut not necessarily at her expense.
"Very true," he said. "It is better to know than not. Do we go on from here or do we take what we have learned to the others?"
"Go on," Firekeeper said firmly. "We may not have two chances to scout."
As they progressed, the tunnels through which Peace guided them varied wildly in width and height. Firekeeper found herself balking when the passages they must travel grew narrow, but as both her companions were larger than her, she didn't care to lessen herself in either man's eyes by complaining.
The Dragon of Despair Page 45
