Using his sword to clear away the webs, and being careful to avoid the spiders that hid within them, Gord walked quickly along his route, covering ground at a good pace because the ledge was dry and easy. Soon thereafter that changed.
Several openings here released effluent into the main tunnel. Those that opened onto his side made going difficult, and Gord had to use his athletic ability a few times to avoid being drenched by the noisome outpouring of one pipe or another. There were glitterings ahead, and nasty chitterings and squeakings that told the boy that there were rats here.
Just as he was becoming discouraged, Gord saw a series of marks on the opposite wall. They were barely discernible and to the untrained eye would have appeared as nothing more than worn places in the stone blocks. Gord read a sign that alerted the initiated to the fact that there was a means of leaving the sewers just ahead.
“Damn!” he said under his breath. The exit led upward, not below. Where there was a means of leaving the maze, however, there might also be a way deeper as well. Gord forged ahead.
About half an hour later he came to a place where several sewer tunnels met. The effluents formed a deep pool in the circular chamber where the various drains converged, and there were flying bridges built to span the noxious pond. Gord flashed his light atop one of the spans, and when Gord’s light struck its greenish-black body a reptile shot off its perch to land with a splash in the pool below. The tail of a huge rat was hanging from the side of its mouth. Gord saw that clearly before the thing vanished under the scummy surface.
Shuddering involuntarily, the boy paused a minute to make certain than some even bigger monster wasn’t lurking about. The stench here was practically unbearable, so while he was pausing, Gord decided to douse his scarf with vinegar. Again he changed directions, going right to parallel his initial route. After carefully traversing the flying bridge that led in the desired direction, he was again prowling along a passage, this time walking southward.
He saw a narrow opening about a hundred paces from the pool. It didn’t seem promising, but something urged Gord to investigate it Just in case. The corridor was not more than twenty feet long and terminated in a flight of steep stairs… upward. He turned away in disgust, using that emotion to fight off his despair, when something caught his eye. It was another marking on the wall, one he had overlooked at first because of the narrowness of the passage and his rush to find out where it led. The sign indicated access to a lower pathway!
With a sigh of relief, Gord began searching along the wall opposite the marking. He knew from experience that such signs were often used to mark location as well as give information. Thanks to his sharp eyes and with the help of his light, Gord was able to discover the hidden door in just minutes. It took much longer for him to discover how the mechanism worked that enabled the doorway in the stone blocks to open. Eventually he found the place where a knife blade could be inserted to release a catch, and a low section of the wall swung inward to reveal another passageway going off at a right angle to the narrow passage he was in. Gord entered the place without hesitation, pushed the door shut, and smiled to himself in triumph.
The low tunnel led to more stairs, but these spiraled down. It was impossible to discover if this was an oft-traveled route, because the damp stones would not leave traces of passage-at least not to one who was not an expert at tracking. Gord was many things, but no expert at discovering such signs, He merely looked as he progressed, checked to see if he could notice his own trail behind himself, and shrugged. Whether or not there were other users, Gord meant to go downward now and take his chances.
The circling steps took him down and down. By counting Gord was able to estimate that he was at least another twenty feet deeper when the staircase ended in the corner of a small room with four passages leading from it at right angles to one another. All well and good, but thanks to his spiraling path Gord now had no idea of direction. There was only one way to get his bearings, and that required that he go back up the stairway and mark the wall on the way down using his chalk, noting every time he had made enough of a turn to leave him pointing in a different direction. Eventually Gord determined that the little room at the base of the stairs was hewn eastward from where the steps ended. That meant that the narrow, arched exits from the room led off in the cardinal directions. Excellent!
Gord stopped to catch his breath and to take a sip of the brandy he had. This was exciting stuff! As he rested, the enormity of what he was doing, where he was, suddenly struck the boy. Even though he had been in the sewers previously, this excursion was more than a bit frightening now that he stopped to think about it. When he had pondered this mission during the planning of it, the thought of risk had simply added zest to his undertaking. This was ah altogether different situation. Now Gord was actually in the totally unknown, where great dangers probably lurked, seeking a place he was uncertain of, and as alone as any boy could be. Despite his best efforts, Gord’s rate of breathing increased until he was panting, and his heart raced. Fear was getting hold of him.
“Calm down, or else they’ll be calling you ‘Gutless’ again,” he said aloud. The sound of his voice helped to reassure him, and the epithet he hated so much was sufficient to do the rest. Unknown monsters were one thing, but the fear of being thought of as a coward was stronger than the apprehension of facing hidden perils here. Gord slowed his breathing with conscious effort, took a pull from the little flask of brandy, and spoke aloud again.
“That’s better now, isn’t it? High time we showed everyone that there is no more little boy to shove around!” The fiery liquor spread outward in him, and he reassured himself further by touching his hand briefly to the sheath of his dagger and the hilt of his sword. Then, getting back to business, he took out his waterproof case and flipped it open. He checked his three sketch maps carefully, trying to locate his position on the second one by guessing where he had been on the first when he found the spiral steps that led to this second tier of ducts beneath Old City.
“Then I must be about here,” he muttered to himself as he made a small mark on the second map. “South will take me to the place where the canal runs below, and then I’ll need to head west, so it’s a right turn at that point… Anyway, the flow will be east, toward the great basin of the reservoir, so it’ll be easy to know direction.”
Despite his returned confidence and bravery, the boy stopped to listen, his lantern dark and sword at the ready, at each of the room’s other exits before he ducked through the one that went to the south. He was now in the system of tunnels and passageways that the assassins and thieves held as their own secret highway. Gord had no desire to disillusion the likes of them, or to stumble unwittingly into some creature who dwelled in this labyrinth, and caution was not cowardice! There was a faint dripping sound from the shaft he had just come down, but otherwise the stillness was absolute. Gord held his breath, quieted himself as completely as he could. Nothing. Carefully moving the slide on his light-box to allow a tiny shaft of illumination to spring ahead, Gord set off once more on his quest.
He came across side openings at regular intervals. Gord’s light showed that there were empty chambers beyond. He couldn’t guess why these had been chiseled out. Possibly to store food or weapons or both, possibly for some reason that could not be guessed at now. The passage was dry, and there were no living things along its way. Both of those facts changed, however, as he went farther.