After a short, dreamless sleep, Gideon was shaken awake by Len.
“...Get up, son. We're about to send Her Majesty to the assembly area. The time has come for you to choose.”
Gideon looked up at him through bleary, half-open eyes. Len held a lit lantern in his free hand.
Wordlessly, Gideon rose from bed. Len looked on with approval as he trudged over to the armoire and began to throw on his gear.
“Good," Len said. "Now make haste! You'll need to reach the assembly area before dawn breaks.”
“...Alright. Where is this place?”
“You’re heading for Kali’s temple on the north side of the city. You’ll meet a woman there who will take you to the location.”
Gideon turned towards him while tightening down his armor.
“The temple? Alright. What woman?”
“She will approach you. Find the temple’s west side entrance.”
“Where’s Surelin?”
“Her Majesty is already waiting for you in the abandoned villa. I was going to accompany her myself if you decided against supporting us. I'm sure she'll be quite pleased to have you at her side rather than my humble self.”
At that, Gideon quickened his pace. Once he was ready, Len looked him up and down before giving him an approving nod.
“Get going, and make sure to keep a careful eye out along the way.”
Gideon returned his nod, and they both exited the room. They walked together until they reached the stairwell, but instead of descending with Gideon, Len approached the door to Edea's room.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” he said, shutting the door behind him.
Gideon scoffed quietly as he descended to the first floor. For some reason, seeing Len act with such familiarity towards Edea left a bitter taste in his mouth.
The moon had gone down while he’d been asleep, and the villa was nearly pitch black. Gideon pressed his hand against the wall, feeling his way towards the kitchen. Upon reaching it, he quickly passed through and stepped outside onto the lawn.
I really hope I haven't just made a terrible mistake.
The stars glimmered brilliantly in the cold air as he approached the hole in the wall. To his surprise, the two guards on duty nodded in greeting to him.
He entered the abandoned villa, trailing his hand against the wall once again. When he reached the front door, he found Surelin sitting with Vesryn—the dark skinned man who’d been half asleep on guard duty—in front of a partially boarded-up window. Starlight was illuminating them just enough for Gideon to make them out. Surelin had tied her hair back in a tight bun, and she was wearing her sword and armor.
“Mornin’,” he greeted them.
Surelin looked up with surprise at Gideon, then smiled.
“Hey,” Vesryn also smiled. “The princess was just telling me about that mercenary you killed in Kenan.”
"Oh, was she?”
“Yeah. You’re some kind of wizard with the blade, or something.”
“I didn’t say that!” Surelin said reproachfully.
“It makes sense, though,” Vesryn said. “You’re really good, ma’am. Wish my old sergeant had given me the kind of training you got.”
“You’re being too kind.”
“Nah. Anyways, I’m glad you’re both gonna be with us. Feels like we have a chance, now.”
Surelin got to her feet. “Thank you, Vesryn. It was good catching up with you.”
“Not a problem, ma’am. See you soon.”
She walked past Gideon towards the front door and exited the villa. He followed her out.
The street on the cul-de-sac was empty, and the buildings lining it were dark and utterly still. The predawn hour was the only time of relative quiet in Loso, and it felt almost surreal to see no one out and about. As they walked towards the market street, the only activity they came across were stray cats on the prowl, furtively darting between the shadows. The cats turned and fled into the darkness whenever Gideon and Surelin happened to come too close.
"I'm glad," Surelin said. "It's good that you're here."
"Yeah, well...I dunno if I can be that person you were talking about," he replied. "But I'll try."
She briefly studied him in silence with a thoughtful expression before looking away.
Dread suddenly settled like a clump of heavy iron in Gideon’s stomach. Despite what she'd said earlier, he knew that he'd undergone a change since they'd met—one that he didn’t completely understand, but that he valued highly. He hoped that he would be able to continue being with her, and eventually become someone she could look at with admiration.
I want to get closer to her, he thought. I want her to like me without holding any reservations about me. Just like how I feel about her.
As they walked side by side through the empty market street, Gideon’s dread was quickly replaced by determination.
Alright. Let's do this shit.
The strip appeared before them faster than expected, and the lack of activity upon it made the crossing quick. Gideon looked off to his left as they crossed, and saw several hussars on duty at the west gate. They stood around within the glow of their lanterns, clearly aimless for lack of pedestrian activity.
“Do you know where the temple is?” Surelin asked quietly.
“Yep. It’s not too far away.”
“This is, um…do you think we’re going to succeed?”
“...Hard to say for sure, but so long as they don’t know we’re coming…yeah. We've got a decent chance.”
The tension in Surelin’s shoulders seemed to relax a little as they entered a shadowy alleyway between two walled-off mansions, following its curving path north. Past the first two, more walled mansions clustered around the alleyway, and even in the darkness Gideon could see similarities between them and the palaces in the Elysium hills. For their homes at least, the fashion of Loso’s upper middle class seemed to be imitating the wealth and grandeur of the city’s wealthiest citizens, though at a much smaller scale.
The alleyway popped them out onto a side street, and directly across from them on the street’s north side lay Kali’s temple. The temple was only one story tall but was at least four mansions wide, dominating the north side of the street. A few short steps led up to the temple’s heavily shadowed front entrance, which was cavernous and open to pedestrians. A massive red carpet with gold tassels had been laid at the entrance to welcome visitors, flanked on both sides by row after row of tall stone columns.
On the entrance’s tiled roof stood a large stone sculpture of Kali. Her long braided hair was pulled over her shoulder, dangling over her chest. She wore a splendid gown that was painted in a kaleidoscope of colors, though only the brighter colors were visible in the dark. Her left hand was raised in the sign of universal knowledge, and her right was held out and open, as if welcoming people inside.
Gideon stopped to take a careful look up and down the street before setting off for the temple’s west side. They crossed the street quickly and entered another, tighter alleyway, with a long row of middle class two-story homes running along the alley’s left side.
Patches of snow littered the ground in the new alleyway, unmelted due to being hidden in the shadows of the surrounding buildings all day. Gideon slowed to a careful walk to keep from slipping, focusing on the ground near his feet, and behind him Surelin sounded to be doing the same. With his full attention on taking one cautious step at a time in the darkness, he nearly ran head first into someone standing directly in front of him.
The shadowy outline of the dark figure before him looked like the blonde woman from his dreams. A feeling of shock crashed over him until she struck a match and lit the lantern she held in her off hand.
Gideon's fright passed as the light illuminated her face.
Of course it’s not her. She only looked a little like her in the dark. And besides, that's just a weird dream. She's not real. What the fuck is wrong with me?
The woman was tall and pale skinned, with refined elfin looks. Her straightened blonde hair was so long it nearly touched the alley’s floor, and she wore elegant violet robes, with a golden sash tied about her waist.
There was a pleasant lilt in her voice as she greeted them.
“Good morning. Please follow me.”
The blonde woman turned to the temple’s wall and pressed her hand against its stone. Gideon’s eyes went wide as a section of the wall gave way at her touch, opening inward as she pushed against it.
She walked inside, then turned to beckon them. The back to back surprises left Gideon somewhat stunned, and he watched as Surelin stepped into the opening past him. She also turned around, urgently waving him inside, and once he’d obeyed the blonde woman shut the wall behind them.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked warily.
A key appeared in the woman’s hand, and she inserted it into a tiny keyhole in the door-wall, locking it.
“A normal question any unwitting stranger might ask when they’ve stumbled upon someone in the dark. My name is Corrina, head diviner of Kali’s Congregation of Wholeness, and your name is Gideon. This is Her Majesty, Princess Surelin.”
Gideon narrowed his eyes at her with suspicion.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“You know us?” Surelin asked, surprised.
“Of course. I have been in constant communication with the Dowager Queen since her arrival. You are welcome here, but please hold your questions for now and follow me. A handful of diviners have become disloyal to the cause, though they believe I am not aware of their betrayal.”
The light from Corrina’s lantern was the only source of illumination inside the temple. She led them through tight, maze-like hallways that soon caused Gideon to feel somewhat claustrophobic. The ceiling was low, just a few inches above his head, and the walls had been built using bricks of polished white limestone. A series of long carpets, similar to the massive one at the entrance, had been laid on top of brown wood flooring, muting their footsteps as they traveled deeper inside the depths of the temple.
They passed many closed doors before reaching a set of descending stairs. Corrina led them down wordlessly, and before long the stairs ended at another door.
“Enter this room. You must remain inside until the marshal arrives tomorrow night.”
Gideon balked at her, but Surelin simply stepped past them both and entered the room. After a moment of hesitation he followed her inside, under Corrina’s watchful gaze.
The room smelled like dust and wet stone. A few lit candles sat on the floor in the center of the room, revealing it to be a large lavatory of sorts. Toilets, showers and bathtubs lined the walls, and a large sewer manhole lay in the dead center of the room beside the candles. Ruvayn, Elas, and two other dark skinned Forelian men rested on cloth bedrolls laid haphazardly around the room, and they all stood as Surelin entered.
“Your Majesty,” Elas said.
Surelin nodded to him. “Has anything happened?”
“No, ma’am. It’s been dead quiet. We’ve been sleeping in shifts though, just in case.”
“I see. Then we’ll do the same.”
“That'll be just fine with us, but you go ahead and take some sleep first, ma’am. We’ll wake you when it’s your turn to stand watch.”
Ruvayn pulled two bedrolls out of one of the nearby tubs and handed them over. Surelin thanked him as she accepted hers, then laid it out between two tubs on the far side of the room.
Gideon laid his bedroll close to the door, and scanned the dimly lit faces in the room before settling down for sleep.
We’re totally cornered down here. Hiding helplessly in a room for an entire day is definitely not a good way to start this.
----------------------------------------
The passage of time slowed to a crawl as they waited. There was no way of telling the exact time beyond the routine arrival of two more Forelians every four hours, and tedium settled in almost immediately. To be safe, they agreed they should make as little noise as possible, and as such there was very little anyone could do except sleep or sit around in total silence.
Gideon knew from long experience that the best thing to do in their current situation was to simply get as much sleep as possible. He spent most of the next day laying in his bedroll, asleep or close to it, only getting out of it to eat when Corrina brought them food or when it was his turn for watch. The darkness and complete inactivity was beginning to weigh heavily on his mind when Len finally showed up, with Vesryn and Corrina in tow. Len had changed out of his marshal's uniform and was now wearing the same leather armor and chainmail the rest of the Forelians wore. When they stepped through the door the room seemed to come back to life.
Surelin approached them. “Are we ready to begin?”
“Yes ma’am,” Len replied. “The evacuation of the villa has been completed, and your grandmother is safe. We have no reason to believe the great houses have discovered our activities as yet.”
“I see, then—”
A sudden loud banging rang out from the sewer manhole, surprising everyone. Gideon immediately stepped over to it and depressed the simple slide lever on its lid, unlocking it. After pushing the lid off to the side, a homely light skinned woman with short blonde hair climbed out of the sewer. She was wearing what looked to be brown rags stitched together into a semblance of clothing, and she had an iron slave collar around her neck.
Len helped her to her feet as Gideon moved the manhole’s lid back into place.
“Mirellen,” Len asked her urgently, “is the manhole on the grounds unlocked?”
She ignored him. “Where is the princess?”
Surelin looked surprised as Mirellen’s gaze locked onto her. She pulled a rolled parchment out of her pocket and offered it to Surelin.
“Save your brother, Majesty. But don’t forget about the rest of us.”
She accepted the parchment with a look of deep concern.
“Do not fear,” Corrina said. “The Capella's will inevitably figure out that Mirellen was the one who gave you access to the estate, but they will never find her here.”
I don’t think that’s really what Surelin is worried about.
Surelin knelt down by the candles, placing the parchment on the floor, and everyone gathered around to look. The scrawlings on it were crude, but the path it indicated seemed straightforward enough. There was also another path scrawled out, leading from the Capella’s estate to somewhere further south.
“Can you follow this?” Len asked Gideon.
Gideon picked up the parchment and rolled it up, placing it in his pocket.
“Yep.”
“Good,” Len said, then looked around at the Forelians. “Get prepared. We’re leaving.”
Everyone returned to their bedrolls and began to ready themselves. Corrina approached Gideon and offered him her lantern.
“Take care, Gideon. You’re of no use to anyone if you allow yourself to get injured.”
He was immediately alarmed, and snatched the lantern out of her hand with aggravation. A rueful smile touched her lips as she turned to leave, and Mirellen followed her.
…She just knows I’m on point. That’s all.
Unsettled, Gideon knelt down by the manhole as everyone finished their final preparations. When the group was ready, Len nodded to him.
He unlocked the manhole and slid its lid off to the side. With it out of the way, he grabbed onto the top rung of the ladder and began to descend into the sewers. Everyone else followed.
----------------------------------------
The claustrophobia-inducing temple had conditioned Gideon for the sewers to be just as uncomfortable. But the sewers turned out to be a mix of wide open tunnels, rooms with high ceilings, aging water pipes, and rusted ladders leading up to the surface. Loso’s sewers had existed for millennia, constructed and maintained by various groups over the centuries to serve the ever changing needs of the city above. The room that Gideon and the rest had descended into was large and full of ancient rusted pipes running against stone brick walls, the bricks cracked here and there, yellowed with age. Just past the initial room, however, they entered a long tunnel-like room with a circular ceiling and sewage flowing through a narrow channel running down its center, covered by a long metal grate.
The smell was worse than Gideon expected, but he soon became used to it as he led the Forelians east. He checked the parchment often, but in truth the layout of the sewers had a logic to it that was obvious and easy to comprehend. Long rooms with flowing sewage were the most common style of room they came across, with smaller rooms branching off at regular intervals. The smaller rooms were clearly underneath buildings, and since they were looking for one on the far east end of the city, he felt confident that he was heading in the right direction by sticking to the long rooms. Overall, the sewers were significantly less maze-like than he’d expected.
He stopped often, taking a knee every now and again to simply listen. The Forelians seemed to understand what he was doing, and each time knelt behind him in silence. The sewer was somewhat noisy with a variety of natural sounds, and his stops were meant to listen whenever he heard a noise that seemed unusual, though he sometimes stopped without hearing anything out of an abundance of caution. Any strange noises could indicate people were nearby. Taking so many stops quickly became tiresome, but it would be too easy to walk straight into an ambush if they didn't take their time.
They came across very few critters, at least in the long rooms. Some of the smaller rooms they passed were full of filth and insects, but for the most part the sewers were clean, or at least as clean as a sewer could reasonably be. Gideon had expected to see rats or cockroaches everywhere, and was mildly surprised to find that wasn’t the case. With all the manholes across the city locked, and the hussars patrolling at random, the sewers seemed to be mostly left alone from the people living in the city above.
For nearly an hour they walked through the sewers, their progress slowed a great deal by Gideon’s constant halts. Eventually, they reached the area on the parchment that indicated a final north turn. The manhole to the Capella’s estate would be just beyond another set of small rooms.
After some searching, Gideon found the room that appeared to fit the directions on the parchment. As he moved to enter it, he heard an unusual, faint noise coming from somewhere beyond the room, and froze.
He listened hard. It sounded like leather scratching against a rough surface.
The noise stopped.
That’s people.
Frowning, Gideon looked over his shoulder at the group, who were all staring at him with wide eyes. He pocketed the parchment and pulled his claymore out of its sheath as quietly as possible. Surelin nodded to him and drew her sword, as did everyone else.
The room was small, and empty aside from a few puddles. As they crossed it in silence, Gideon’s lantern illuminated the entrance to the next room—a long, narrow tunnel that was barely wide enough for one person to walk through at a time.
He entered the tunnel slowly. The noise had been coming from the room just beyond.
Something ahead of him glinted within the light of his lantern, and suddenly the room on the far side of the tunnel was filled with weapons, armor, and pale faces.
Hussars!
A man bearing a tall shield stepped into the mouth of the tunnel, raising it to obstruct their path.
“Gotcha, sewer rats!”
Gideon immediately sprinted at full speed towards the shield and flung himself at it. The shield buckled from his impact, but did not completely give way. He heard his lantern clatter to the ground somewhere by his feet.
“Push!!!” Gideon roared. “Push!!!”
A confused cacophony of shouting, grunting, and rushing footsteps echoed off the walls of the tunnel as the Forelians rushed forward to apply their strength to Gideon’s back. He pressed all his might against the shield, and the man holding it soon began to give way.
A blade flashed through the air just past his head. Before he could determine which direction it had come from, something round flashed above him. It collided with his forehead, and he instantly blacked out.
When Gideon came too it felt as though he was being crushed inside a grape press. He was squashed between the combined efforts of the Forelians behind him and the hussars before him.
Len's harried voice called out above the cacophony.
“Push, Gideon!!! Push!!!”
He tried to bring his hands up against the shield, but his vision was swimming and he couldn’t bring it into focus long enough to place his hands against it.
The crushing became worse. He had no air left in his lungs to scream with. Shadows leapt and danced across the wall beside him.
The lantern!
Gideon felt around with his feet for the lantern, and found it. He stomped on it, then kicked it towards the feet of the man holding the shield. Hot lantern oil dashed across his shins, and he began to scream.
Suddenly the shield gave way, and Gideon spilled into the room beyond, dashing his chin against the floor. Stunned, he felt around weakly for his claymore as a mingled roar echoed off the walls, hurting his ears. The roar was then joined by the deafening sounds of violently clashing metal and rapid footsteps.
He gasped for air, and an image of Surelin’s hunted face imprinted itself on his memory before he passed out once again.
When he came too, the noise had died down. Someone was shaking him.
“He’s awake! Oh, thank Kali.”
Gideon opened his eyes, and discovered Len and Surelin staring down at him from close range.
“Can you speak, son? Say something.”
“I think I’m hurt,” Gideon gasped.
“Yes, you most definitely are. You took a blow from a mace, but fortunately for you it merely glanced off your skull instead of caving it in. You’ve got Shaitan’s own luck.”
“...Don’t feel lucky.”
“Can you stand? Help me with him—”
They pulled him to his feet, and he wiped at his eyes as blood trickled into them. The Forelians stood in a circle around him, looking on as Surelin and Len supported him. The body of one of the hussars lay by Gideon’s feet.
He immediately stumbled when they cautiously attempted to release him, but they grabbed him again before he could fall.
“He’s incapacitated, ma’am.” Vesryn said.
“Just give me a fuckin’ minute,” Gideon muttered.
“Those hussars who escaped will sound the alarm, ma’am,” Len said urgently. “The sewers will soon be filled up with city watchmen, far more than this single patrol.”
“Will they alert the guards on the estate?”
“Perhaps, but it's more likely they summon additional watchmen before they alert any of the estate retinues."
"I see. What are our options?"
"There's little choice, here. You must decide whether to continue the operation despite the risk, or call it off.”
Surelin handed Gideon off to someone, and her face hovered in front of his. Extreme pain was pulsating in his forehead and radiating down throughout his body, mixing with an intense dizziness that felt like it would never dissipate.
“Look down,” she commanded.
Gideon obeyed, and Surelin peered at the wound on his forehead for a moment.
“Can you walk?”
The Forelians released him slowly. He was obviously unsteady, but managed to stay on his feet unsupported.
“Let’s go,” he said impatiently.
Surelin nodded, then picked up his claymore from where it lay on the ground and slid it into the sheath on his back.
“You’re not to even think about fighting. Understand? You’ll stay in the rear.”
“I can—”
“No,” she interrupted firmly.
A deep grimace crossed his face. “...Alright.”
With that, Vesryn volunteered to take point, and the group began to move into the next room. They walked through a series of small, empty rooms filled with little more than scanty puddles of water. Before long they reached the room containing the ladder they were looking for. At the far end of the room there appeared to be a locked metal gate.
“The hussars must have locked it behind them,” Len mused.
Vesryn climbed up the ladder first, and upon reaching the lid at the top he gingerly pushed against it. The lid gave way, and he nodded down to the group.
He quietly pushed it off to the side, and after taking a cautious look around, pulled himself up to the surface. The rest of the group followed him up, with a bitterly disappointed Gideon bringing up the rear.
I finally decided to help her out, he thought bitterly. But now I'm just a burden for her.