The air went from cold and chilly to actually damp, and Gord noticed thick webs stretched across an opening on the right-hand wall. He paused and looked carefully at the walls ahead and to the rear. They had not been immediately obvious, but there were certainly wisps and small fragments of web clinging to the walls. This passage had been used by someone, and not very long ago! Whoever had come along its length had cleared the way of most of the webbing, but traces remained.
As he took this in with his eyes, Gord also used his ears. The sound of trickling water came first, then he heard voices somewhere ahead, their words indistinguishable in the echoing tunnel.
Dimming his lantern to its lowest illumination, the boy sank down to the stone floor and used his sword to make as small an opening as he could in the curtain of silken strands that covered the archway on the west wall. He then slithered through the hole and tried to replace the strands of web he had sliced away, to partially hide the space he had passed through. The effort was clumsy at best, but it was the best he could manage. Then he crept quickly along to where this entrance tunnel opened up into a chamber beyond, slipped around the corner, and tucked the light-box into his jacket. All of this was done in utmost haste, and he didn’t stop to consider what might be in this place with him. Gord simply sat very still, his back pressed against the slimy stone of the wall, and waited. Something scuttled across his hand. Gord nearly shrieked, then bit his lip, huddled tightly to make himself even smaller, and held his breath.
There were footfalls in the passage just a half-dozen feet away. Rough voices spoke in hissing tones punctuated with guttural sounds and sharp barkings. Were they ogres? Trolls? Then the sounds became clearer.
“Dat was a nasty bunch o’ creeps we had ta take out,” one deep voice said. There were a score of others discernible too. There was a whole platoon of men going past the place! At least they sounded like men, and the rattle and clink must have come from armor and weapons. “Who needs duty like this here?” another voice said with a questioning whine. Most of the troop had clumped past where Gord was hiding when one must have seen the break in the webs.
“Hey, lookit! Sumpin’s been ’round dis!” The flickering light of torches shone dimly through the veil of spiderwebs, and a dark shadow made a long shape stretching into the place where he crouched. “Shove yer torch into ’em, and frazzle da ettercaps. Den we have a little look-see, huh?”
The sounds of feet were fading off northward. “Whaddya, crazy? Who gives a rat’s ass what’s been goin’ in dere anyway? C’mon!” The second man’s voice trailed off.
“Hey, wait up, Albie!” shouted the first voice. The light faded as did the sound of feet and voices. Gord let out his breath with a gentle whoosh. Relief flooded over him. The passing group apparently had been no more than some sort of patrol, probably a branch of the city watch-men that normally stayed above ground. Whoever sent the soldiers down to this place, and why, was beyond Gord’s understanding. But no matter what the reason for their presence, the realization was comforting to the boy. He was accustomed to ducking squads of the watch, and the soldiers’ presence here meant that this part of the maze wasn’t filled with dangers.
There could be some perils, of course. The fact that Gord could avoid such groups meant that others could also, and that the boy understood. One man had talked of “taking out” something called “creeps.” Gord figured that this meant the patrols of men did come here once in a while to keep the place relatively clear of dangerous threats. This subterranean system of passages was used then, and used frequently, by those powerful enough to employ men-at-arms to police it.
All sound was gone now, so Gord decided to take a look around the chamber he was in before venturing back into the passageway. He nearly dropped his lantern when he saw the place.
Not more than twelve inches from his feet was a yawning hole in the floor! He was sitting on a ledge that encompassed the well, but the portion along the wall next to the entrance tunnel was the only place the stone floor didn’t slope steeply, funnel-like, into the great opening. If he had taken one more step into the chamber, or even crawled a short distance in the darkness, he would have gone over the edge and fallen to whatever lay below!
A big, pale-colored spider froze into motionless-ness as the beam of light from Gord’s lantern centered on it. It was as big as his fist and had wicked-looking mandibles. Perhaps that was what had run across his hand. “Ugh!” he said aloud. Gord’s voice echoed strangely in the room, and he was instantly silent, wishing he hadn’t made such a noise.
The spider scuttled off when Gord brought his sword’s point near. Ignoring it thereafter, the boy stood up and looked down into the well. It was deep, but his light illuminated its bottom well enough. Then Gord played the lantern upward, found an opening in the ceiling as well, and instantly knew what he had stumbled upon. Here was one of the drains that used to send water from ducts and conduits, from collection points above, down to the system below for storage in the great reservoir. He had found a passageway to the lowest level at last!
The chamber was indeed similar to a well. It must have been meant as a place where the besieged defenders of old Greyhawk could come to draw up water from the canal below-the very same canal in which Theobald had plunged to his doom. Red stains and bits of corrosion on the sides of the shaft told him that there had once been iron rungs set into the sides of the well, but time and rust had had their way with the metal.
“Well, now,” he whispered to himself, smiling at his own pun, “it’s time for me to shimmy down and have a look.” The boy unwrapped his stout cord from around his waist, put a few knots at regular intervals along its length, and then took a flat piece of steel out of his belt pouch. The metal wedge was pointed at one end and had an eye at the other.
Gord jammed the pointed end into a crack, then pounded it in farther with the pommel of his boot knife. After assuring himself that it was firmly set, Gord ran an end of the thick cord through the eye and knotted it securely around the spike. He dropped the loose end over the side and heard a tiny splash when it hit the water below.
“That’s about forty feet,” he said to himself after shining his light over the edge and counting the knots that were visible in the line. The cistern in the subcellar at Theobald’s headquarters had gone down a hundred or more feet, but the place where he stood now was farther below the surface. Gord was certain that the water below was what he sought. After thonging the lantern securely around his neck, Gord opened the front face fully and slipped over the ledge. He used his feet to push off from the wall and slide down the rope without banging into the stone. Centuries of erosion had made the shaft smooth and slippery. “It’ll be a bugger to climb back up,” he said through gritted teeth as he carefully lowered himself hand over hand down into the well-like shaft.
After about thirty feet there was no more wall. Once his head was beneath the place where the shaft pierced the ceiling of the canal, Gord used his feet to grip a knot, hung swaying, and grabbed the little tin box with his right hand. The black water below was impervious to his light, but Gord knew from the ancient plans that the depth of a canal such as this was only fifteen feet-ample volume for any flood of rainwater or diverted stream being sent to the waiting reservoir. From the place where the well shaft entered the tunnel to where his boots rested was just about seven feet, and he dangled at least five feet above the inky surface of the water. This meant that there could be no more than four feet of water at the lowest portion of the curving conduit. Where he dangled there would be no more than a foot or so between the surface of the liquid and the rock beneath. Gord lowered himself on down the line, allowing his feet to sink below the black surface.