Among Thieves

Chapter Eight

“Problem,” I said.

Degan glanced back over his shoulder, saw the empty room. He didn’t even blink.

“If he got out…” said Degan.

“So can we.” I ran toward the back room. There was no time to be subtle, no way to play it safe and still see what Larrios was up to. Two paces from the doorway to the back room, I planted my feet and leapt. I crossed my arms above and behind my head, hoping the rapier and boot dagger would deflect any attack Larrios tried as I sailed into the room. Odds were, though, if he did swing, I was dead.

I hit the floor in the back room, rolled awkwardly. The dagger skipped from my hand. I put my sword through three parries before I took a single breath.

No one.

No light, either, except for sunset’s dirty leftovers coming in from the front room. Not enough to see by, but too much for my night vision to help.

I stood and scanned the room. Woven mats on the floor prevented footprints. No walls appeared out of place, no hole made itself invitingly apparent in the ceiling. I stamped the floor. Dirt beneath the mats.

“Larrios!” I called.

No answer. No surprise.

“Well?” yelled Degan.

“Hold on.”

Degan mumbled something I couldn’t catch.

I ran a circuit of the room, four paces for each wall, striking the plaster with my blade. Everything sounded equally solid. I guessed where I might put a concealed door and threw my weight against the spot. The wall surrendered a thin snow of dust, but nothing more.

I looked over the rest of the room, taking in its dim shapes, grainy textures, hints of a shadow here and there. Why the hell couldn’t it be darker out?

There was nothing beneath Fedim’s bed but dirt, same for the lone table.

I threw myself at another spot on the wall in desperation, bounced off it. As I staggered back, my heel caught on the hard corner of a mat and sent me over. I scrambled back up, wondering how fast I could cut through the weathered lumber of the ceiling. Then it hit me.

Hard corner of a woven mat?

I dropped to my knees and pulled the mat away. Or rather, I tried to, since it was attached to the floor by long pegs that ran into the dirt.

I ran my fingers around the edges, felt a sunken wooden frame beneath it. There were two rope handles tucked beneath the mat. Grabbing one in each hand, I crouched and lifted.

It was heavy.

“Ah, Angels!” I gasped as the trapdoor slowly came up out of the ground.

“Door” was generous; it was a nothing more than a wooden box filled with dirt, placed in a shaped recess in the floor. Unwieldy, but it would sound as solid as the rest of the floor to anyone walking on it.

Beneath, there was a crude shaft running straight down into darkness. A horrible, familiar stench rose from the hole-sewage.

Suddenly, staying here and dying didn’t seem like such a bad option.

Nevertheless, I yelled, “Degan! Let’s go!”

Degan came running into the room, sword in one hand, a hefty-looking vase in the other.

“They’ll rush soon,” he said. “The pots slowed them down, but not enough.” He looked at the hole and moved toward it. Then the smell reached him.

“Ugh!” Degan wrinkled his nose and looked at me pointedly. “You always manage to find a sewer, don’t you?”

“Only when you’re around,” I said.

Pushing his hat down more firmly on his head, Degan climbed into the shaft. Grumbling something about Noses liking the worst scents, he disappeared into the darkness below.

I set the “door” near the edge of the hole, sat down, and swung my legs in.

The stench was nauseating, ten times worse than anything we’d encountered in Ten Ways that night. As I slid into the hole, I heard a yell from outside. The Cutters were coming.

I pulled on the box of dirt, trying to shift it back into place as I sank the last few feet into the hole. My feet met round, slippery resistance: a peg or spike of some sort set into the shaft wall. The box moved two fingers’ breadth, then stopped. I tugged at it again. Nothing. Larrios had been stronger than he looked to move this thing by himself. Then again, he hadn’t had ten Cutters breathing down his neck, either.

I gave up on the box and started climbing down the peg ladder set in the shaft wall. I hoped the smell would be enough to keep the Cutters off our blinds.

The darkness was thick with moisture and odor. After eight pegs, my foot met nothing but air.

I shifted in the hole, trying to find the next peg, and something poked me in the shoulder. I felt behind me, found a niche dug out of the earth. In the niche was a long, thin object, like a small case of some sort. So, this was where Fedim had kept his swag. Clever bastard. Larrios must not have known it was here; otherwise I doubted he would have left it behind. I pulled the object out and tucked it between my back and my belt. Damned if I was going to leave this place empty-handed.

“Degan?” I called.

His voice rose up from below. “It’s a short drop. Just let go.” His voice echoed and reechoed.

I went down to the last peg and hung by my hands. Dropping off into darkness is always an unnerving proposition, but twice so when you’re used to being able to see in the stuff. I was tempted to hang and wait for my night vision to adapt, but I could hear Degan splashing about below. He had no such advantage to wait for; for him, the darkness was there to stay. Every moment I held on was another he had to spend listening and groping and wondering at every sound and sensation.

I let go and fell.

Darkness and the rush of air. My feet hit light resistance, then firmer, slicker stuff. Sewage and then the bottom of the sewage tunnel, respectively. I staggered, legs wide, and went to one knee and a hand to keep from falling over completely. The sewage would have come up high on my calf if I had been standing. As it was, I could feel the muck at my hips and past my left elbow.

The stench! My stomach started rolling over and over within me. I felt my throat tighten, my guts lurch, and I tasted bile. Force of will kept everything else down, but there was no telling how long that would last.

“Larrios,” I said, gasping, “is a dead man.” I stood and shook off my left arm. “You hear that, Larrios?” I yelled. “A dead man!”

I heard my own voice echo and reecho down the sewers. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I caught the faintest hint of laughter from far away. It was hard to tell in that place.

Bastard.

“You all right?” said Degan from off to my right.

“Superb.” I spit to clear my mouth, slogging toward his voice. “What kind of idiot has a rabbit hole that drops him into the middle of a sewer?”

“One who’d rather smell bad than die.”

“Uhm.” I had taken to the sewers for much the same reason a few years ago, although it had been out of desperation. But the idea of anyone choosing to dig into the streams and pools of filth that ran beneath Ildrecca of his own accord-that was beyond me.

The thrum of a bowstring and thwack of something striking water came to us out of the darkness. Another whoosh and splash followed moments later.

“Arrows,” said Degan. “They’re shooting down the shaft.”

I smiled and put my clean hand to the side of my mouth.

“Bene!” I yelled at the ceiling. “You just skewered a piece of shit.” Unless we were standing directly beneath the shaft, there was no way they could hit us.

“Then we got you!” a voice called back.

I barked a laugh. “Come down and try me, Eriff.”

The sound of voices drifted down. Another arrow hissed through the darkness into the slop. If they were dumb enough to follow us down, we could wait beneath the hole and cut them down as they landed. I doubted they were that stupid, but one could always hope.

“Another time, cousin,” called the voice from above.

There was a dragging sound, followed by a thud. They had put Fedim’s “door” back in place.

“Well?” said Degan.

“Almost,” I said.

We stood in the darkness. To my right, I could hear Degan breathing through his mouth, just as I was. It only helped foil the smell a little, and I knew we would start tasting the air after a while. I didn’t want to be down here that long.

I stood still and let my eyes slowly roam the blackness around us, looking for the first hint of amber that would mean my gift was beginning to work. It was not long in coming.

The first thing I picked out was a jutting brick in the far wall, showing dark red against the black. Next came the crimson and yellow flecked surface of the sewage, sluggish in some spots, fluid in others. I had forgotten how strangely serene it could look this way, a slow dance of colors that would have disgusted me in the light of day.

Degan appeared next, rapidly followed by the arching walls and ceiling. I looked overhead and saw Fedim’s shaft closer than I had expected it to be. A true trapdoor was hanging open above the sewer from it. Larrios had neglected to shut it in his haste to escape. Good thing, too; otherwise Degan and I would be a pair of arrowriddled corpses by now.

To the side of the trapdoor, a rope ran along the ceiling to a stone walkway. Anyone knowing what they were about would be able to shinny along the rope and land, dry and filth-free, on the pathway the imperial engineers used to inspect and repair the city’s sewers.

I considered climbing back up for a moment, then considered the ambush that might very well be waiting for us on the other side of the trap box.

“There’s a causeway to our left,” I said. I didn’t have the heart to tell Degan our dunking could have been avoided.

I led him over to the causeway and helped him find footing to climb out. I followed.

“Recognize anything?” he asked, crouching to avoid the arch of the wall as it rose toward the ceiling.

I looked up and down the tunnel. There was an empty torch bracket nearby. I suspected the torch had made its way out with Larrios.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I don’t think I ever made it this far in.”

“Any sign of Larrios?”

“None.”

“There must be a way out nearby. I can’t imagine he came down here just to stumble around in the dark.”

I nodded, then remembered Degan couldn’t see me. “Probably a drainage shaft or access tunnel,” I said.

“Lead on.”

I placed Degan’s hand on my shoulder and headed to our right. It seemed as good a direction as any.

The stones of the walkway were slicked over with slime and rat droppings. In one spot, the edge of the causeway had crumbled away, forcing us to sidle past, our backs against the wall. Rats confronted us continually along the path, and I soon had my rapier out before me, sweeping the more belligerent rodents into the river of waste that flowed beside us. The rats squeaked in protest, and their cries formed a sharp counterpoint to the otherwise soft sounds of dripping and squelching that surrounded us.

It was a short time later, while I was leaning over the sewage, emptying what little remained in my stomach for the second time, that Degan’s grip tightened on my arm.

“Feel that?” he asked.

I spit, stood up, and leaned back against the wall as best I could. The damn smell-it had always gotten to me.

“What?” I gasped as I fumbled at my herb wallet with my cleaner hand. Thank the Angels, the oiled lining had kept the water out.

“Cross breeze,” said Degan.

I lifted my head and waited.

“I don’t feel anything,” I said.

I returned my attention to my herb wallet and managed to pull out two small parchment packets. One held echember roots, the other ground mysennius seeds. I ripped open the first with my teeth. Half of the echember fell out before I got the packet to my mouth. The powder was easier, and I poured what I hoped was half of it in with the roots. I chewed. The echember wasn’t bad, but the mysennius tasted awful without wine to mix it in. With any luck, my stomach would settle down soon and my senses would become sufficiently dulled to keep the stench from getting to me further.

“There it is again,” said Degan, more excited now.

This time I felt it, too-the lightest brush of air across my face.

“Yes,” I said.

Air movement meant ventilation. Ventilation meant a way out.

We tracked the breeze to a side tunnel. Fresh air, or at least the ghost of it, met our nostrils.

I went first. The tunnel had a low ceiling, forcing me to hunch my shoulders and Degan to bend nearly double. As we slopped along, I began to see a brighter patch of amber ahead-starlight and the smallest hint of moon glow coming in from above.

“Something up ahead,” I said. “Either a grate or a small cave-in.”

Degan made no response.

After ten paces, the smell began to lessen. After another five, I allowed myself a small smile of relief. It was a sewer grate, set in the ceiling of the tunnel. Despite the drugs, I could even hear voices coming from the street above us.

“It’s a gra-” I began to whisper, but Degan suddenly grabbed me and shoved me against the tunnel wall. He put a warning hand over my mouth.

“Hsst!” he whispered through clenched teeth.

I fell silent. Degan held me a moment longer, then released me. I turned to him for an explanation, but his attention was elsewhere. He had his head cocked, eyes staring off into the darkness. I realized he was trying to listen to the voices coming down the tunnel. After a moment, he shook his head in frustration.

“Closer,” he whispered, his voice so faint it was almost lost in the few inches that separated us.

We crept forward, one soggy, sucking pace at a time. When we were practically beneath the grate, we stopped again. The voices were still there.

“… found nothing?” said a female voice from above us.

“No swag worth taking, no,” replied a man.

They couldn’t have been more than five paces from the grate, by the sound of it.

“And the book?”

“No sign of it.”

The woman swore-proficiently.

“All the payoffs,” she said, “All the damn planning, and we miss it by minutes!” Someone kicked something.

“It wasn’t a total loss,” observed the man. Gravel being ground under a boulder, that voice.

I looked at Degan. He put a hand on my shoulder to stop me from moving even that much. I could tell by the set of his jaw that he was clenching his teeth.

“Finding out the book isn’t here is not the same as finding it,” the woman said.

“Maybe,” said the man. “Maybe not. It depends on who got away with it.”

The woman grunted. “My money’s on Larrios.”

Degan’s hand tightened on my shoulder. I leaned toward the glow that marked the grate.

“And the other two?” said the man again.

“Hard to say,” said the woman. I realized suddenly that she had the smallest of lisps-hardly there, but alluring in its own way. “From what you told me, they weren’t there to see Larrios-otherwise, they wouldn’t have grabbed him. Does anyone know who they were?”

The man’s voice turned carefully neutral as he said, “One might have been a degan.”

There was a pause. I could imagine the woman staring at the man, waiting for him to continue.

“And?” she said at last.

“I don’t know-I wasn’t there, remember? Urios says he saw the degan’s sword. He says the other one was small, dark, and moved like a thief.”

“A degan and a thief,” said the woman thoughtfully. I felt a sudden chill go down my spine. There was something about the way she said it… as if she could sense us below her in the tunnels. The owner of that voice seemed too confident, too knowing for my liking.

The man cleared his throat. “About Fedim…”

“Yes,” said the woman. “Any number of people are going to be upset about that. And it’s going to play hell with my timetable.” She fell silent for a long moment. “Clean it up,” she said finally. “Dump the body somewhere and spread enough hawks around to keep people from getting too curious. I don’t want us associated with it.”

“For how long? It’s only a matter of time before tongues begin to wag.”

“For as long as we can afford it. In the meantime, find Larrios.”

I heard footsteps beginning to move away. A soft jingling, like the music of tiny bells, or loose jewelry, accompanied them.

“What about the degan and the other one?” said the man, his voice pitched to carry a short distance.

The jingling stopped. “Let me worry about them,” said the woman, her voice farther away from us. “You just get me Larrios and that book.”

Her footsteps began again, and now I could hear the man moving away from us as well. Soon, the only sounds we heard were the distant drips and squeaks of the sewer behind us.

“How did you know?” I asked as I moved forward to inspect the grate. It was set solidly in the ceiling.

“Know what?” said Degan.

“Don’t insult me.”

He moved up next to me. “I didn’t ‘know’ anything. I suspected.”

I drew my boot dagger and began working at the mortar around the grate. “Like hell,” I said. “You don’t almost shove me through a wall on a hunch.”

“You don’t know how close I’ve come to shoving you through one for less.”

“Ha-ha,” I said.

There must have been enough light seeping in, since Degan pulled a small knife from his belt and began working beside me.

“I figured there would be people looking for us,” he said after a moment. “After all, they knew we were in the sewers and had enough men to cover a good-sized area.”

Mortar dust was falling onto my face. I looked down, shaking my head to get rid of it.

“But when we first heard them,” I said, “you couldn’t have known they were talking about what happened at Fedim’s place.”

“Seemed possible. You yourself said there was no swag in the shop.”

“Bullshit,” I said.

Degan paused to wipe some mortar from his own face, then kept scraping.

I regarded him for a long moment. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

He pushed on the grate. “I think this end is coming loose-how about yours?”

“Degan-” I began.

“I thought I recognized one of the voices,” he said.

“And?” I prompted.

“And I was right.”

“And?”

“And I can’t tell you any more.”

I lowered my arm. “What do you mean, you can’t tell me any more?”

Degan lowered his own knife and looked at me in the light of the sewer grate. “I can’t. I’d like to, but I can’t.”

“Can’t, or won’t?” I said.

“Can’t,” said Degan. “If it were just about friendship, I’d tell you, but…” He turned back to the grate and resumed scraping.

I stared at him for a long moment there in that small patch of starlight.

“It’s about being a degan, isn’t it?” I said.

Degan kept working.

I swallowed. “It’s about the fucking Oath, isn’t it?”

The scraping stopped. Degan lowered his head. He didn’t have to say anything after that.

“Well, hell,” I said.