VI
He had just recovered from the initial impact of Tiede's sap against his head when a second wave of vertigo and a stunning flash of light stole his senses a second time.
Zarne flailed about for a moment, trying to locate anything in the flashes of light and darkness playing across his vision, but within a heartbeat the vertigo gave way to a sudden impact into a shallow body of sludgy, foul smelling water. The constable launched himself out of the fetid water almost as quickly as he had fallen into it, slamming his head into a stone ceiling and stumbling back into a wall directly behind him. Zarne shouted in pain as he instinctively grabbed the top of his head, taking a moment to try to regain his bearings before he moved again.
Annika shrieked in terror suddenly, her voice only a few feet in front of him. Zarne drew his sword and quickly tried to turn to her, but the slippery, curving floor stole his footing and the constable dropped back to his knees even as his blade cracked into the ceiling. He had only barely managed to gain his balance when Annika tumbled into him, still screaming in fright. Zarne and Annika both crashed backward into the disgusting water a second time, tangled up with each other as the constable's blade flew free of his hand and splashed into the water.
"What in the Abyss?" Zarne demanded, finally managing to toss Annika to one side as he tried to get out of the water again.
"Rats!" Annika exclaimed in horror, almost climbing onto Zarne's shoulders. The place where he had landed held only a faint hint of illumination, but as he managed to regain his bearings the constable could hear a number of the rodents squeaking in the darkness. "I hate rats!" Annika continued frantically, trying to use him as a shield.
"Annika, calm down!" Zarne said, pushing the thief back into the wall of the dank passage. One of the rats was swimming fairly close to the pair in the sludge, but the constable kicked the rodent out of sight before Annika could throw herself into a new fit of panic. With the constable close to her, Annika finally calmed down a bit, but her eyes continued to art around the dark passage as the rats squeaked in the darkness. "What happened?"
"Niels and Tiede tried to kidnap me, but I used the rod and…" Annika trailed off as she looked around her. "I hope we aren't in the Abyss," the thief said quietly, taking stock of their disgusting surroundings.
"We're not in the Abyss," Zarne said, finally recognizing the circular passage and the horrible stench for what it was. "We're in the sewer."
"Oh," Annika said, sounding almost relieved. While Zarne could not quite stand up in the small passage, the shorter thief had no trouble with the corridor's height. "Well, I… I guess that's better than in Bartel's hands," Annika said, trying to put a positive light on their situation.
"Yeah, fantastic," Zarne grumbled, trying to wipe the grime from his tunic and chain shirt. After only a few seconds, however, the constable gave up his futile attempts to clean himself and turned his attention to the water where his sword had most likely fallen. Slowly, and wrinkling his nose in disgust, the constable slowly lowered himself to his knees and began to feel around the bottom of the passage for his missing blade.
"What's wrong?" Annika asked, watching her companion for a moment.
"When you ran into me I lost my sword," Zarne explained. "Either find a light or find my sword."
"Sorry," Annika said, cautiously edging her way past the constable to search ahead of him. Zarne came up with his weapon a second later, sparing the thief from having to feel around the rat infested sewers herself.
"Now all we have to do is find a way out," Zarne said, sheathing his sword as he tried to gain some sense of direction. With almost no light and no way of knowing which way he had been facing even before he was spun around, however, the constable had no way of knowing which direction to take.
"Should I try the rod again?" Annika asked, holding the magical rod out in front of her.
"No!" Zarne exclaimed, almost ducking in case the rod was pointed at him. "No, no, we'll find a way out of here," the constable continued in a calmer tone. "Annika, whatever you do, don't use that thing again."
"Sanna!"
Sanna spun quickly, throwing her hands behind her back like a child caught trying to sneak a sweet from the kitchen as Gerrit rushed into her workshop.
"Yes, Gerrit?" the sorceress inquired, a cautious smile on her face as she saw the wizard at the top of the steps.
"Sanna," Gerrit repeated, taking a moment to calm himself. "Did you happen to put that rod of wonder you created yesterday someplace safe?"
"Why… of course," Sanna said, although the look that flashed across her eyes told Gerrit otherwise. From her suddenly stunned reaction, the wizard figured that Sanna had not even remembered she created the rod until he mentioned it, much less put it anyplace safe. The sorceress gestured to her cluttered benches and tables as she continued. "I… it's in my workshop."
"Well, that's good," Gerrit said, playing along for the moment. Sanna was a horrendous liar; even if he had not seen the girl in the square outside using the rod, he would have known that she had no idea of the rod's location. "That's very good. Safely locked up in a cupboard, I suppose?"
"Yes! Yes, of course!" Sanna exclaimed with a nervous laugh and an anxious smile. "Safely locked up in a cupboard, that's right!"
"May I see it?" Gerrit inquired simply.
"I beg your pardon?" Sanna asked, her smile still in place despite a new wave of fear.
"I thought I would take another look at it," Gerrit said, clasping his hands behind his back and walking towards the sorceress. "You know, it is a fine work of art, if nothing else. Your best work yet."
"Yes, yes it was," Sanna agreed hastily, laughing again. The sorceress spun around quickly in a desperate search for the rod before she turned back to Gerrit.
"I'm waiting," Gerrit prompted, a cool smile on his face as he stopped only a few inches from the sorceress.
"Yes, of course," Sanna said with a nod. Again she looked around the workshop. "Um, now where did I put it?"
"Well, you must have locked it up somewhere, just like I asked of you," Gerrit said, trying to keep all of the sarcasm out of his voice. Sanna turned back to Gerrit, coming to the realization that he knew that she had not done as he had asked.
"Um, I… forgot where it is," Sanna finally admitted.
"Would you like me to tell you where it is?" Gerrit asked evenly.
"Um, I'm not sure," Sanna answered. Gerrit smirked at the reply.
"It's in the hands of a young girl," the wizard replied. "Last I saw her, she was in the square below blinding half of the Magie Vierkant with it."
"How… how did she get it?" Sanna asked.
"I was hoping you'd tell me," Gerrit said. "Because I told you to lock it away somewhere, and now it's out in the city causing all sorts of problems!"
"But… it's not my fault!" Sanna said. "I never gave it to anyone! I never even took it out of the workshop!"
"Then how did it get outside? Gerrit demanded. "Did it grow wings and fly out?"
"I never thought of that," Sanna said, taking the wizard's sarcastic question seriously. "Can a rod of wonder do that?"
"No, it can't!" Gerrit exclaimed. "I was being facetious! How did it get into that girl's hands?"
"Maybe she stole it!" Sanna replied quickly. "Maybe she crept in last night and stole the rod!"
Gerrit shook his head in frustration, realizing that Sanna was not going to be much help in figuring out how the rod got out of the tower. While he was certain that she had left it in her workshop while she attempted to help him reverse the curse she had placed on him, it had to have gotten out somehow. The girl was more than likely a thief, but she never could have gotten past the magical and mundane deterrents he had installed in the tower. Only an accomplished thief with access to mystical countermeasures could have gotten through his wards and locks, and the girl, Annika if he had heard her name correctly, did not have the look of an accomplished thief.
Sanna continued with her theory of a thief breaking into the tower, but Gerrit barely heard her as he tried to retrace the previous day's steps. Sanna had been working at the table where she now stood when he had arrived yesterday, then gone to a table just to the left to retrieve the rod. She had held the rod in her hand for the next few minutes, turned him blue, and then, whe3n he had gotten angry, she had backed up to the window…
"That's how it got out," Gerrit suddenly said. Sanna stopped speaking and turned to the wizard.
"What?" Sanna asked. "How?"
"The window," Gerrit said, pointing to the east facing windows.
"The thief came in that way?" Sanna concluded. Gerrit closed his eyes for a moment, controlling his anger.
"Not quite," the wizard finally said.
"Then she just disappeared!"
"She just… disappeared," Bartel repeated, too frustrated to even be angry with Tiede for the moment. Tiede nodded quickly in agreement, and Bartel dropped his head to the bare, rickety table he now occupied in the corner of a dingy waterfront warehouse. "How, pray tell, did Annika just… disappear?"
"She used the rod!" Niels put in quickly. "I mean, first the thing blinded us, and then… I don't know. She went invisible, or something!"
"She used the rod," Bartel echoed, his mind only partially on the conversation as he lifted his head from the table. Tiede and Niels were directly in front of him, but the gang leader could easily see past them to the vast expanse of boxes and crates inside the warehouse that Bartel was now forced to use as a base of operations. Losing the Broken Harpoon to the monster that Annika had summoned was bad enough without half the constables in ht city now trying to locate him. The Urhalians were also becoming a nuisance; at least one of them seemed to show up every hour demanding to know if the gang leader had found his rogue conscript, and then to hurl threats and insults in a mix of the Utrecht and Urhalian languages before stalking back to the Narval. "One girl. One stupid, clumsy, luckless girl, and the two of you, who are supposed to be the best muggers in Tierwaal, can't come up with her."
"It was just a bit of bad luck," Tiede explained hastily. "Next time I bet the rod won't teleport her, and then we'll definitely be able to get her! I mean, we had van Erison out of the fight before he even knew what hit him! It was just a bit of bad luck!"
"Bad luck," Bartel repeated. Annika was supposed to be the one with bad luck, not him. But now, it seemed as though the girl's horrid luck was becoming contagious, and Bartel had seemed to take the brunt of the contagion. If things kept going this way, Bartel would soon find himself back at the bottom of the pecking order in Tierwaal, and all because Tiede and Niels were incapable of catching one girl.
"Just give us a little more time, and we'll find her," Tiede said, regaining the gang leader's full attention. Bartel's despondent expression changed quickly to a look of rage as he focused the blame directly on his two muggers.
"Damn right you will, or I'll have you both sunk in the harbor!" the gang leader shouted, jumping out of his chair and practically throwing the table at his two subordinates. Although the last thing Bartel wanted was to lose his two best thieves thrown into the bay with heavy stones tied to them, he was prepared to do anything to get his hands on Annika and her rod before the rest of the city tore him apart. "Get out there and find her!"
"Right away!" Niels and Tiede both said quickly. The two thieves practically ran into each other in their frantic dash for the door, slowing them for only a moment.
"Why are you two still here?" Bartel bellowed, finding an inkpot on the table and hurling it at the two muggers. While the inkpot sailed harmlessly between them, both Tiede and Niels redoubled their efforts and scrambled out of the warehouse. Bartel remained standing for a moment, fuming over his sudden curse of misfortune, but finally the gang leader sank back into his chair and turned his eyes skyward.
"What did I do to deserve this?"
"Are we lost?"
"No, I know right where we are," Zarne replied, his words dripping with sarcasm. The constable's head still ached from Tiede's earlier attack, he was tired, and he was thoroughly frustrated so far with his attempts to find his way out of the dank sewer system beneath Tierwaal. The nearly overpowering stench of the sewers only added to his discomfort and irritation. Annika's question, the first words she had spoken in what seemed like more than an hour, triggered a much needed release of anger and aggravation. "Fortunately, I always carry a detailed map of the sewers with me."
"Sorry I asked," Annika said quietly, sounding both hurt and annoyed by the constable's remark. Zarne stopped in a tiny pool of half light cast by a grating to the streets above.
"Look, sorry I snapped at you," Zarne said after a moment's hesitation. "I'm just… well, this is getting really frustrating. I have no idea where we are or which way to go."
"I know," Annika said, looking down at the filthy water swirling around their ankles. The thief paused before looking up again. "I'm sorry I dragged you into this, Zarne. Thank you so much for helping me like this. You don't know how much it means to me."
"Yeah, well, all in a day's work," Zarne muttered, looking up at the tiny grate again. While the sewage passages were barely tall enough for the constable to stand straight, the grates had been set into recesses that shot another ten or fifteen feet above the sewers. Even if the constable had some means of climbing the slippery walls up into the tiny shaft, there was no way he, or even Annika, could fit through the opening even if the bars could somehow be removed.
"Zarne?" Annika said. The constable turned back to her. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Yeah," Zarne replied, turning back to the sewer passages in front of him.
"Where is Erison?" Annika asked.
"Where is Erison?" Zarne repeated, not quite understanding the question.
"Your name," Annika said "Van Erison. You're from Erison. I was wondering where it is."
"If you were to take the road to Apelwaal, Erison is about ten miles east of here," Zarne said. Oddly enough, the mention of his home helped to lift his sour mood slightly, and he found himself freely talking as he continued down the dank passage. "It's not much of a place, really. Four farms border each other there on either side of the road, and a man named Erison built a small tavern to accommodate the farmhands when they had a little extra money to spend or travelers on their way between Tierwaal and Apelwaal. Before long, there was a wheelwright there, and a blacksmith, and a couple of other people trying to squeeze a little extra silver out of the coaches and farmhands."
"Was your father the mayor or something?" Annika asked. Zarne laughed.
"My father was the wheelwright," the constable replied with a smile.
"Then why the name?" Annika asked. Zarne laughed a little bit at the question.
"When I first got here, I thought I was a pretty good hand with a sword," Zarne said. "I thought I was going to be really important. And as we all know, important people have two names. It certainly wasn't because Zarne is a common name."
"What is it like, outside the city?" Annika asked. Zarne stopped for a moment, looking back to the thief.
"You've never been outside the walls?" the constable inquired. Annika shook her head.
"Not once," she confirmed.
"It's wide open," Zarne said, facing front and resuming his journey. "It doesn't smell at all like the city. The air is always fresh, except maybe if you're standing downwind of the stable, and the trees are tall and grow in rows between the fields. Now that I think about it, it wasn't that bad a place. Maybe if I wasn't the fourth son, I would have stayed there."
"Do you think you could take me there, some day?" Annika asked. Zarne nodded, even though she could not see it as he hunched over and continued through the passage.
"I think that can be arranged," the constable said. "Once we get out of here, that is."
"Too bad they put the sewer passages so far down from the street," Annika said, looking up at another tiny grate recessed high into the ceiling. Zarne nodded again, but then stopped and drew his sword as he found himself looking down at a pair of rather large rats. "Why are we stopping?" Annika asked. She gasped in fear and revulsion a second later as she saw the rodents in their way. Zarne drew his long sword and stabbed first one rat, then the other. "Thank you," Annika said.
"You really don't like rats," Zarne observed, watching as the thief took a wide berth even around the dead rats.
"No, I don't," Annika confirmed.
"Well, you don't see many rats in Erison," Zarne said. Annika laughed.
"Maybe I should move there," the thief said. "But I'd need a husband to take care of me."
"You'd be the darling of the town," Zarne said. "You'd have your pick of the men there."
"Well, are any of the wheelwright's sons available?" Annika inquired coyly. Zarne stopped for a moment, uncertain if the question was meant as a joke.
"I think most of them left Erison," the constable said, keeping his tone light and friendly. "Two to Apelwaal, me to Tierwaal, one to Eiden, and one stayed to keep the business open."
Annika giggled at that statement, perhaps noting Zarne's slight discomfort at the situation, but her mirth faded as rapidly as it had come as she pointed to the passage ahead.
"Is that torchlight?" the thief asked eagerly. Zarne strained his eyes to see into the darkness, and saw the same yellow glow that Annika had spotted.
"It looks that way," the constable said, "but who in the Abyss would be down here?"
"Who cares," Annika countered. "They have to know the way out! We can finally get out of here!"
"Something's not right about this whole thing," Zarne said, watching as a second momentary glow appeared in the distance. While Tierwaal did occasionally send men into the sewers to clear blockages or chase down desperate criminals, such occurrences were rare at best.
"If it makes you feel any better, we can sneak up there and see who it is," Annika said impatiently. "I mean, we have to go that way as it is."
"Okay, we sneak up," Zarne said, still concerned about the torchlight ahead. Annika took the lead as they started ahead again, stealthily creeping through the darkness, while Zarne held back a few feet with his hand on the hilt of his sword. They had gone perhaps sixty feet when Annika reached the apparent intersection where the torchlight had disappeared. Zarne stayed close to the wall as he moved up to Annika, now hearing a strange murmur, almost a chant, emanating from the passage on the other side of the intersection. As he reached her, Annika turned back to the constable.
"I think maybe we should go back," the thief whispered, her face ashen. "This… this isn't a good way to go."
"What is it?" Zarne asked, keeping his voice as low as possible.
"A… Cult of Nerull," Annika replied. Zarne's eyes went wide as she spoke the words. Banned from organized practice in Tierwaal and all of Utrecht for their profane practices and fascination with plague, the followers of the God of Death and Disease were still rumored to exist in secret, meeting in abandoned cemeteries or the sewers beneath cities where they worked their death magic and worship their fell god. For a moment Zarne hesitated in the passage, torn between finding his way out of the sewers and his desire to bring down an entire cell of Nerull cultists before they could spread any sort of disease through Tierwaal. A sudden gasp of fright from Annika, however, brought the constable's attention immediately back to the thief.
"What's wrong?" Zarne whispered.
"I… I think something just grabbed my ankle," Annika said, her voice rising slightly with her fear. Zarne glanced down to the water, but could see nothing through the film on the water's surface. Slowly the constable drew his sword, preparing for the worst, but before his blade had even cleared its scabbard Annika was yanked off of her feet and dragged into the filthy water. Zarne caught the girl by the wrist before she could be dragged under the shallow water, but even as he did so something caught him at the knee and ripped him off of his feet. The constable lost Annika as he too fell into the water, but the thief would have to fend for herself for the moment as Zarne hacked away at whatever had caught him. The constable's sword connected squarely with something in the water just as his head submerged, and instantly the pressure on his leg disappeared.
"Zarne, help m-" Annika screamed out, her cry ending in a gurgle of water. Zarne spun and once again grabbed the thief, yanking her out of the water and chopping at whatever had grabbed her. As the thief tumbled past him, Zarne finally saw what had attacked them as Annika's foe attempted to follow her. As soon as he saw his enemy he launched a vicious strike, and the skeleton that had risen from the sewer lost its skull to the constable's sword. Before that skeleton's crumbling bones even fell back into the water, the constable spun back to face his original attacker. Two quick cuts from his sword shattered that skeleton as well, sending it back into the water as little more than splintered bones.
"Zarne, behind you!" Annika exclaimed. The constable whirled again, but even as he did so a pair of magical bolts of energy slammed into his chest. Zarne staggered but refused to fall, hastily raising his sword to defend himself. Instead of skeletons, however, four men dressed in decaying black robes faced him, their faces covered with skeletal masks. Three of the cultists carried mundane short swords and daggers, but their apparent leader wielded a wicked looking, pitted scythe.
"You should never have come here, constable," the cult leader stated. "Now you must die."