Chapter 15: The Sewers of Illasium

  Julien

  ”Does anyone have an idea to get into our own city?” Julien asked as he shifted in the grassy plains before the wall of his home.

  “ I believe I have a way,” Katrina said stepping forward. “But none of you are going to like it. A cold sense of dread settled over him.

  “What way?”

  he was sorry he asked. Less than an hour later he found himself standing before the rotted and rusted wooded grate reinforced with iron studs. It let the towns sewage flow out of the city toward the river. As they approached the smell hung In The air like a heat haze on a sweltering summer day.

  The grate was roughly half their size and a steady river of brown liquid sloshed from the opening out into a carefully dug trench that led to the Anora river. He didn’t really know much about the city and its surroundings, and most of what he knew came from what his tutors had taught him.

  “You want us to go in there?” Carlouse asked looking at the shorter Katrina with a notable curl to his lip. “We don’t even know where that goes. Much less if it leads to where we need it to.

  “It does,” Katrina said matter of factly. Julien noticed she was the only one who wasn’t holding her nose. He had felt light headed the closer they got to the drain but now that they were standing no less than twenty paces from it it was hard not to throw up whatever else was in his stomach.

  The others were clearly feeling the same only Aramin seemed to have a lesser reaction to it. He might have been able to ignore the smell before but now that he was changed Julien could even smell it through his pinched fingers.

  “How do you know that much about the sewers,” Aramin asked gruffly. He shook his head as if to dislodge the smell from his nostrils. “Does it lead to the Academy?”

  Katrina turned to face Aramin her face more placid than Julien had ever seen it.

  “To answer you second question first: yes, it will lead to a grate laid into the street right in front of the Academy gates. As to your second question.” She paused as if gathering her self as she walked forward.

  She planted her feet on either side of thin channel of muck and gripped the gates in her thin hands. Julien was about to asked what she was going to do. When a loud cracking sound rent the air and the wooden grate flew past his shoulder and hit the dirt, sliding several feet before coming to a stop.

  “I was born in these sewers,” Katrina said looking him straight in the eyes. Julien could see the challenge there. He chose the safest response only nodding to her. He then stepped past her and ducked into the pungent hole.

  He had to be careful where he placed his feet but as soon as he was passed the threshold the tunnel opened up becoming significantly wider and more than tall enough to fit. To either side of the now stone lines trench were walkways cut into the stone. They lined the trench of sludge as far as the eye could see. He made sure the others joined him and then he motioned for Katrina to lead the way.

  Nothing was said as they moved through the dark tunnel. The soft drip of water became almost a calming sound as they followed Katrina. Despite the “extreme”conditions they were in Julien found himself in his mind.

  Would the commander even recognize them? What would his father think? Or his mother? He didn’t have an answer to any of those so he decided to put his mind to a more productive problem. What was the mountain? And how had they entered it?

  The mountain had literally opened from the top and swallowed them. But they had discovered doors set into the mountain so he assumed that hadn’t been the normal way to enter the mountain hold. They had only got a glimpse of the refuge, but what he saw suggested it was expansive. Were there more rooms below the mountain itself? If there were he was betting that they had to hold something. Since it didn’t open till the elf had been knocked off he concluded it wouldn’t open for elves.

  Perhaps it was a stronghold of the dwarves. That would make the most sense. Julien flinched as a rat ran out of the shadows past them along the wall. He had been so deep in thought he hadn’t even been aware of their surroundings. Ahead the light began to brighten as torches were placed every few feet. Most were not lit so light was sparse.

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  Not that he needed it if anything the new brightness was more blinding than the darkness itself. They continued walking for more than twenty minutes before Katrina put up her hand warning them to stop. Julien halted and Katrina turned to a wooden ladder set into the wall she quickly disappeared up the ladder, then after a moment she returned.

  “Alright it’s clear. The gate doesn’t seem to be guarded and from what I could see of the central tower the Commander’s office is aglow so the Commander is most likely pulling another all nighter.”

  Julien didn’t waste words they all wanted to get this solved. He motioned upwards and Katrina nodded. She once again scrambled up the ladder. Julien braced himself against the ladder, taking a deep breath before he began to climb.

  ———————

  Chief Commander Darien, brother of the king, and Duke of the Grenfell Hills, was not having what he would call a good night. It had started when his aide had come to wake him up by urgently trying to bash down his door. Then he’d received the bad news. He couldn’t go back to sleep after news like that.

  It always hurt when one the students at at the academy died. Even more so when one of those students was his own nephew. But then his fool of a brother had to make things worse by attacking the Elven Emissary.

  He still had no idea how his brother had overpowered the Elven guards. Then again he’d left the palace and taken up the post of Chief Commander at the Academy because he was sick of the exhausting politics that governed the kingdom.

  Now he sat at his desk filling out the paper work that would mark his nephew as dead in the archives. As he wrote line after line of text a heaviness settled over his shoulders.

  The page became blurry and dark at the edges and he thought at first that the candle he had sitting on his desk was burned down but as he reached to replace it, water dripped from his face onto the page he was writing smudging the ink.

  Then he felt it. Now water but tears. They streaked down his face unbidden. He wiped at them furiously but even with how many years he spent managing men and women who were likely to die, this one felt… different.

  Of course it was, he silently berated himself. This was his own family, his nephews. For a moment he let his emotions sink him into a torrent of sadness. Tears flooded his face but before he could sink any further a rapid knock sounded at the door. He straightened in his seat and forced the emotions back into the box he had held them in for so long. The feelings rebelled but an iron will decades in the making held them back with ease.

  “Enter,” he called in his best authoritarian voice. He had no idea who would be coming to see him but he assumed it would be a messenger from his brother since the rest of the city had been locked down. Nobody could move through the city freely until the lockdown was lifted. Only messengers or those sent by the king himself had that right.

  The door opened and four lithe figures in old hooded brown robes entered quickly shutting the door behind them. Their hoods were pulled low over their faces. They walked with the gaits of fighters but held no weapons he could see.

  His hand flashed and he drew the weapon at his side a small short sword he carried everywhere. In an instant he was over the desk his blade flashing out. He knew better than to wait. These had to be elves. His mind flashed back to the other four elven guards he had just been thinking about.

  He didn’t think he could win not if they were elves but he also wouldn’t die quietly. Moving faster than his eyes could track the first one stepped forward and caught his hand just below the wrist stopping his blow before it could hit. He tried to wrench his hand away but if felt like iron manacles had clamped down holding him firmly. He reached back with his other hand and drew his dagger from his belt. He struck again this time aiming for his throat. The elf moved again his eyes unable to track the speed.

  But he didn’t need to see the strike, he could guess what the elf was going to do. He suddenly dropped to the floor eliciting a surprised gasp from his hooded adversary. Then he swept outward with his left leg swinging the legs of the elf out from under him. The hooded figure fell onto his back and Darien wasted no time striking down with his dagger.

  Then he heard a voice that was very familiar too him cry out. “Uncle! wait!” It practically shrieked. The hood fell back from a face he knew. But it was different, very different. Sharp cheek bones, an angular chin and almost glowing golden eyes did not hide the features of his father in the face he saw before him.

  The enormity of what he was seeing hit him like a full wagon and he stumbled back the dagger and sword in his hands clattering to the floor. His mind reeled. The others hadn’t moved but when he looked to them they slowly pulled their hoods down. He jerked backward. He didn’t mean to but he couldn’t help it. They were all faces he knew just… changed. The same golden almost metallic hair, glowing golden eyes and almost golden tanned skin was shared between all of them. Not to mention their angular chins and sharpened cheek bones. But even through all that he could recognize his former students. And of course his nephew who was now pushing himself into a sitting position.

  “Hello Uncle Darien!” The young man who was supposed to be dead said brightly. “ I think we need to have a talk.”