The Arcanist (25 page)

Those were some of the longest steps he'd ever had to make.

Chapter Twenty Three

Several days later Edouard found himself up to his waist in water. Polluted, foul smelling water, and he couldn't say he liked it. He loved it! Foul as it was it was a wonderful feeling. At long last he was out of his cell and freedom beckoned. Against that the pain of his back – the stiffness – they were as nothing. The cold and hunger were forgotten. They were free.

The plan had worked, for which he was eternally grateful. And for which he would one day soon spend a great many coppers lighting candles in the various temples. Whether the Seven Divines had helped or not he didn't know. But it had all gone remarkably well. The sergeant and three more guards had come and found the scene much as he had left it. And there hadn't been much need of a story as he'd simply taken a look at the empty barrel of drugged food and assumed it had been done. Shortly after that all four drunkards had been carried away, still sleeping, probably to be sobered up and then to face punishment. Edouard didn't envy them their fate. Of course a new gaoler had been brought in to replace him.

Looking at him though, Edouard had been surprised. He was almost identical to the old one. Overweight, if anything even fatter than the last one, clearly unfit, covered in filth and sweat, pallid and unhealthy looking. He even had the same bad temper as the first as he took his seat behind the desk and smashed his mace into the already battered desk. Were they breeding these gaolers somewhere?

Like his predecessor he also had a love of drink, though from the smell Edouard imagined that his skeins were filled with wine. An expensive drink for a soldier. He was a little more careful than the first though, stashing his skeins more cleverly so that they wouldn't be found and not drinking so much as to pass out. Not at first anyway. Perhaps he knew the fate that had befallen the others.

But still, he was stupid enough to drink even after the example given by the last gaoler. So when Edouard had finally managed to cut out the last of the stones leading to the underground sewers, he had had Janus perform the same trick on him. Just to make sure they weren't noticed leaving.

As they'd left the dungeon the gaoler had been happily snoring away in his chair, oblivious to any noise they might make. Or to the silence of an empty dungeon that would follow. He doubted things would go well for him when he awoke. Drunk on duty, asleep when all the prisoners escaped. The chances were that his neck would be wearing a noose in short order.

That was no concern of his however. His only concern was getting out of this place, and with no map and their only spark with a calling for water barely able to sense anything, they had to work with only one direction. Follow the current in the hope that it would sooner or later lead them out of the city.

But the currents were slow moving, and while he could send his fire into the stone above their heads to provide a little light to guide their way, they were mostly travelling blind. To make matters worse the sewers seemed to flow back and forth, twisting and turning and intersecting one another, and each time they did it was another challenge to work out which way the water flowed. He was sure that they'd taken a few wrong turns on their way, but at least after several hours of wading they were surely a long way from the dungeon.

The water was surprisingly warm, the spring sunshine above obviously heating it before it flowed down into the sewers. But he wasn't sure that was a good thing. They might not be slowly freezing to death, but the warmth of the water also added to the smell. Smell was the wrong word though. Stench was better, though he wasn't really certain that there was a word that could adequately describe the choking aroma of rot and death that constantly assailed his lungs.

The sewers were more than just dark and smelly. They were diseased. He was sure of it. They stank of horrible things decaying all around them, and the water through which they were trudging was full of things. Horrible soft, slimy things that occasionally got in their way and which they had to push past. It was lucky in some ways that it was so dark. Edouard didn't want to see what they were. He just wanted to believe that they were mats of river weed. He needed to believe that.

There were creatures in the sewers with them. Rats mostly. They saw them skittering about in the dim light he cast. They had grown fat in the years they had spent in the sewers, feeding off the stagnant remains of whatever had ended up in the dark water. Fat and large. And their red eyes glowed with a disturbing light.

Other things swam among them. Edouard hoped they were just fish of some sort, but he suspected they weren't. Some seemed to wriggle their way through the water, and he was sure they were snakes. But thus far no one had been bitten and all he could do was hope that that continued.

Meanwhile an entire menagerie of insects and frogs crept around the walls, apparently finding the festering underworld to their liking. Edouard spent a lot of his time trying not to look too closely at them.

In truth all he really wanted to do was to get out of this place. After however many days or weeks he and the others had been locked away in the dungeons, all he wanted to do was see the green grass and blue skies, and feel the warm sun on his face and the wind on his skin. It wasn't so much to ask was it? Besides, as long as they went with the slow moving current, he figured they were on their way out no matter how many wrong turns they made. Everyone knew that the sewers flushed to somewhere outside the city. Probably to the Ingris River.

Still, as the hours passed by and they kept wading through the darkness, he couldn't help but wonder if they weren't travelling in circles. He suspected they all knew the same fear. That they would be trapped in this foetid underworld until the soldiers caught them and returned them to the dungeons.

And then, just as he was beginning to give in to his fear, Edouard heard a sound in the distance that lifted his spirits. A sound that brought him hope.

“Listen!” It was Gwen who called out but by the time she did they could all hear it. And they all knew what it was. Falling water.

The sound of the water pouring down was music to his ears. Thunderous music! It brought tears of joy to his eyes and he felt the wetness sliding down his cheeks. Because falling water could mean only one thing. That they were at the end of the sewers and very nearly outside the city. Edouard's heart raced with excitement. So did those of the others. And when he cast another little bit of fire into the stones above for light, he could see the same stupid grin on all their faces as was on his.

Finally they were free!

They hurried towards the sound of the falling water, weak, tired and yet unable to contain themselves. And soon they saw the one thing they hadn't seen in far too long; light. Not much light since it was night time, but through the bars of the iron grate ahead he could see stars. He could see moonlight falling on the trees. He thought it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.

The last fifty paces flew by as they all but ran through the waist deep water, sending waves of the filthy liquid sloshing towards the walls and splashing themselves continuously. But then, just before they reached the grate separating them from freedom, disaster struck.

They heard voices. Even over the noise of the falling water they could hear voices.

It was enough to stop them all in their tracks as they realised there were people outside, waiting for them. Men talking amongst themselves, laughing and arguing. Worse, they quickly realised that they weren't just people. These were rough mannered soldiers from their conversation. Loud and boisterous. That was why they could hear them. Somehow they had reached the end of the sewers, found the place where the water met the river, and found it guarded. It wasn't fair.

“Seven hells!” 

Edouard was upset, and with good reason. All that hard work melting enough stones to create tunnels, then slithering through them on their bellies until they reached the sewers. The risks taken as they'd tricked the guards. And then finally the endless hours of trudging through the foul wastes that were their path out of the city, only to end up in another prison! It was too much.

Except that they weren't caught, not yet.

Even as he stood there with the rest, breathing heavily and trying not to scream with frustration and outrage at the unfairness of it all, Edouard tried to take stock. To work out just how bad things were.

The huge steel grate that covered the end of the outflow he could deal with. The same way he'd dealt with the stones. One bar at a time. And these were old rusty bars, they wouldn't take much to melt. The only problem he had was making sure that the light did not shine too bright and the noise when the bars fell was not too loud. And as for the men outside waiting for them, if he and the others couldn't see them then maybe they couldn't see them either. And if the soldiers couldn't see them – perhaps didn't know that they were there, then maybe too they wouldn't catch them. And surely they couldn't yet know so soon! It was too quick. Perhaps they were simply there for some other reason. Maybe it was just bad luck at work. More bad luck. He seemed to have plenty of it of late.

“What do we do?” Janus hissed at him, just loud enough to be heard over the roar of the falling water, and the others crowded in close to hear his answer. For some reason they seemed to think he was the leader of their little group. Just because he'd come up with a plan and had a little fire.

“First we see who's out there.” It was the only thing he could think of, but it seemed to make sense.

“I'll do it.”

Immediately Gwen started pushing forward through the waste water and headed for the grate, leaving the rest of them behind. The others would have followed in her wake save that Edouard waved at them to stop. One was enough. If the soldiers didn't know they were in the sewers then the last thing they needed was for them to be spotted as they filled up the grate with their faces and made too much noise. Gwen was lithe and quiet, and even without her magic she was somehow able to let the water slide around her without creating a wake. She was the best choice. So the rest of them remained where they were and waited nervously while she crept up to the grate and cautiously peeked out.

Despite his fear no one spotted her and yelled out, and she was able to stand with her face at the grate for a good long time before she returned to them.

“It's a patrol, camped out to the right of the grate. They're mostly concealed by the trees but you can just make out the fires through them. I don't think they're looking for us. They're not looking for anyone.”

That last was a relief and Edouard like the rest breathed a little more easily. But even if they weren't looking for them, they were still in the wrong place at the wrong time. Exactly where he didn't want them to be.

“Is there another way out?” Whoever whispered the question Edouard didn't know, but it was exactly the same thing he was wondering about. Could they find another exit? But Gwen just shook her head.

“Not nearby at least, and I suspect not at all. All the sewers come together here to flow into the river. But I don't think it matters. We can still get out here.” Everyone suddenly stared at her, torn between hope and fear. 

“How?”

“It's early evening. They're camped, drinking. In a few hours they'll be asleep with maybe a couple of sentries watching. As long as we don't make too much noise they won't hear us over the flowing water.”

“The grate Edouard can cut below the water line. That'll drown out any noise and obscure any light from his flame. And the water there is waist deep. All we have to do once he's cut out the bottom bars is to duck underneath and slip into the river. From there it's easy. The river's quite deep and slow moving. No one's watching it. So all we have to do is float away.”

Edouard stared at her. They all did. And all of them were wondering the same thing. Was she right? She could be, they all knew that. And if there was no other place where the sewers drained to the river, then there was no alternative. But it could also be a disaster. They could end up swimming straight into the arms of their enemies.

Naturally there was a heated if quiet debate after that as they all hissed and whispered at one another, no two of them with the same thought. But equally none of them had a better plan. Then when they'd finished or at least run out of words and not reached any agreement Edouard took matters into his own hands. While they continued sporadically disagreeing with one another, he crept up to the grate himself and looked out.