Miss Barkcastle activated yet another secret door -
this one unmarked in anyway, but activated by pushing a loose stone in the wall
- to reveal a dark passageway not unlike the one Siren had just traversed.
"Does that one have traps as well?" she
asked, staring into the darkness.
"Of course, dear," Miss Barkcastle said
innocently, then pressed another loose stone and the corridor was lit with a
sudden flare of hypostatick lighting, "but I've just deactivated
them."
"Where does the tunnel lead?"
"It travels through the district for about a
mile, then it joins the sewers. From
there you should be able to get quite near to wherever you need to go without
too much hassle."
"The sewers aren't very safe these days,"
Siren pointed out, "I've traversed my fair share in the last couple of
months and even without all the effluent, it hasn't been pretty."
"The sewers have never really been safe,"
the Former Baron chipped in, stepping up beside them with Rockspark and
Gulliver in tow. Ellis stood behind
them, staring off to the side as if in a dream.
What is wrong
with him?, Siren wondered, but she knew there was no point in worrying
now. They had more immediate problems to
deal with.
"They have always been a refuge for those
creatures which have had nowhere else to hide.
They even say the last of Vampires might still be living down
there."
"But at least it will be relatively free of
Lakhma's guards... and tentacles," Miss Barkcastle said, trying to sound
reassuring.
"I think his/her reach is longer than you give
him/her credit for," Siren said.
"I've seen things in the sewers... strange rites and
ceremonies..."
"We'll just have to be careful," Von
Spektr said with a certain sense of finality.
"I know some of the safer paths through the sewers. We'll stick to them and try not to
stray. I'm assuming we're heading
towards the harbour?" he added.
Siren nodded and wondered if she was more
predictable than she intended to be.
Still, the authorities - correction, authority - hadn't caught up with
her yet, so she must have been doing something right.
"Okay, well, if you'll permit me, Siren, my
dear, I'll lead the way through the sewers and you cna take charge once we're
back out into the open -and dare I suggest 'Fresh'? - air."
"By all means," Siren replied, gesturing
for Franck to make the first move.
"Thank you," he replied, tipping his hat
just slightly, before disappearing into the corridor beyond.
Siren ducked in straight after him and Gulliver and
Ellis followed shortly thereafter.
Rockspark and Miss. Barkcastle came last, with the elderly Philosopher
and mistress of all things toasted sealing the door behind them, before the
Spiketail Shaman ushered her onwards.
The sewers were much as Siren had come to expect:
dark, stench-filled passageways falling into ruin here and there; lakes of
effluent; hordes of scurrying plaguevermin and subterranean gutterjacks. Franck led them through the labyrinthine mess
with his usual mixture of absolute confidence and complete uncertainty, so that
they could never be entirely sure they were going the right way and yet were
almost certain they would reach their destination somehow.
Of the darker things that resided in the underground
passageways and caverns, rivers and lakes, there was no sign, but for a few
sigils carved into the walls, stained reddish brown by a recent
blood-letting. And despite the
uncomfortable surrounds and Ellis' disturbing silence, Siren was almost
relieved to be with her friends and companions once more, listening to the
Former Baron rambling on about one old family member or another as he dithered
between passageways, so it wasn't until he paused before a stairway and said,
"And now it's all yours, Siren, my dear," gesturing upwards with his
spindly hands, that her adrenaline kicked in once more and the seriousness of
their situation fell upon her.
She took the lead immediately, climbing the steps
two at a time and barely worrying if the others could keep up until she reached
a rusted metal doorway at the top, through which spears of gloomy daylight had
burst; the amber jade sunset turned sickly by the clouds. She peered through one of the gaps into the
short arched tunnel that lay on the other side and recognised nothing.
“Are you sure this is the harbour?” she asked as the
others joined her on the stone landing a few moments later.
“Near enough,” Franck replied with a shrug and Siren felt a momentary surge of frustration
at the mad old man, but she pushed it back down and tried to focus on the door
instead. Its handle had rusted away to
almost nothing and the mechanism within was useless. Several quick tugs and a few shoulder barges
– irritating the bruises she had gained earlier in the evening – made it clear
that the door was rusted shut as well.
“Let me try,” Rockspark said as soon as she turned
his way. She nodded and stepped aside
and wasn’t completely surprised when the tall Spiketail charged the door once
and it flew open instantly, parts of it disintegrating into dust as it did so.
“Thank you,” she said as she walked past him into
the tunnel and stared out at the sunset cityscape that lay before her. It took her a moment to get her bearings, but
she quickly realised that she did recognise the location after all, but it
wasn’t the harbour district, or at least, not the part of it she had hoped
for. They were further north, perhaps by
two or three miles, on the other side of the headland that marked the division
between Shalereef harbour and the district known as Whispercove. Dominated by the Stillfire, an enormous
lighthouse that served as a beacon to warn of the dangerous, invisible currents
that gave the cove its name, this was a quiet harbour, which only certain ships
could reach with any safety. Chief
amongst these where the sleek, white-hulled schooners known as the Ghost Ships
and Siren could see their pale sheets drifting over the rooftops as they made
their eerie patrols.
“This is too far,” she said at last, turning to
glare at Franck, “we’ll have to walk for miles across the surface streets and
it looks like the Spectres are out as well.
They’ll almost certainly be in league with Lakhma now.” She shook her head. “No,” she said, “we’ll have to go back into
the sewers and find another way around.”
“That might not be as easy as it sounds,” Franck
replied, a little sheepish. “You see I
wasn’t always picking our path according to the best route to the harbour, so
much as I was trying to find a route by which we might evade our pursuers. I don’t think I succeeded.”
“We were being followed?”
“Oh yes, and with a certain… shall we say,
dilligence?” This time it was Franck’s
turn to shake his head, “Oh, no, no, no, we can’t go back into the sewers, not
if we want to remain in all our interconnected pieces.”
“Then we have no choice,” Siren said with a sigh,
turning once more to face the sunset over Whispercove. The dark, roiling clouds were all tinged that
sickly greenish yellow, but towards the horizon they were licked with hints of
red, as if flames were running in lines underneath them. Night would fall swiftly.
“We wait for dark, then,” she said at last, “and
when we’re sure there’s no one or nothing about, then we make our move. We have to be quick and we have to be
silent. Three miles is a long distance
to travel when you don’t want to be seen.”
“And Whispercove is ever watchful,” Rockspark
added. “We must beware the light of the
Stillfire.”
Siren let her gaze wander over towards the massive
lighthouse, its pale glow just visible in the dimming twilight and a shudder
went down her spine. As a sailor, she
had heard many tales of Whispercove and despite its proximity to her home
harbour, she had never dared to even pass through it. Now she would test all those tales whether
she wanted to or not.
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