Terror Forty - Pipes

“Ah,” I say as I lean back into my seat. I set my drink down on the table before me. There’s still some juice left at the bottom, enough to make the remaining ice cubes clink against the sides. We can’t leave the square with the cups; they’re glass and belong to the stall selling the drinks nearby.

I glance over to Felix, who’s munching her way through Esme’s leftovers with a happy grin on.

“We should get ready to head out,” I say.

“Yeah,” Esme agrees. She’s patting her tummy, eyes half-lidded and lost.

“Mhmmhm,” Felix mumbles past a mouthful of bean balls. She drowns them down with a swig from her glass. “Ahh, I like this city.”

“I bet,” I say. I yawn, but it’s less the tired of being sleepy and more the tired of having eaten too much. I push myself up to sit properly, even if I really don’t want to. We’re taking up space, and the other tables around us are filling. I think if we don’t move on soon, someone will come along to kick us out. “Come on, getting ready will give us a boost of energy.”

“I suppose,” Esme says.

I climb to my feet, feeling a million years older, then I gather everything on the table to dispose of it.

Felix helps by lightening the load and snatching up anything edible and tossing it down her interminable gullet, and Esme collects the cups.

It only takes a moment to bring things to a trash box, then give the cups back to the stall we took them from and get a few coins in return. Felix walks next to me, both hands cradling her sides while her face works through a few strange expressions.

“Are you alright?” I ask.

“I’m okay. I wasn’t very hungry when I started, and I ate a week’s worth of food in one go. It’s not all fitting.”

“Maybe eat less?” I try.

She gives me a strange look. “I guess?” I think the concept is hard to wrap her head around.

“If you eat too much, you’ll get fat,” I warn.

“That would be nice.”

I shake my head. We’re supposed to be moving along. “Esme, do you know where the entrance is?”

Esme nods, wiggling her shoulders to make sure she’s carrying her bag properly. “I do. Follow me!”

With Esme leading the way, I don’t think it’ll take too long to get to the entrance. The first part of our plan is the part I like the least, but it’s also probably needed. The academy has some guards, and three girls sneaking in—even if they’re wearing the uniform—would get caught, so we’re not going to sneak in through any traditional means.

Esme came up with this part. She’s probably so used to the smells in Montele she doesn’t understand how awful an idea it is. “It’s down this alley,” she says as she points to a shadowy passage between two homes.

Felix raises a hand, the universal sign to pause. “Let me.... It’s clear,” she says.

Nodding, I enter the passageway, then recoil at the smell. Somehow, the alley is keeping the stench locked up in one place, which, while great for the people around here, is terrible for us.

“Oh, that’s stinky,” Esme says.

“Can’t we scale the walls?” I ask.

“No, we’d get caught. Besides, we’re not going in via the sewers or anything. We’ll be fine.”

The end of the alley has two big grates on the ground. One’s for the sewers, the other for the water. Not all of Montele has water piped through it, but some of the richer temples and homes do have something like running water. From what I can tell, they have a complex system with cisterns and buckets.

Esme leans over the grate for the water pipes, then yanks them back. “Oh, this is heavy,” she says.

“Let me try,” I say. I wrap my hands around the grate, then tug. Nothing happens, even as I groan and pull as hard as I can. Then I try to lift with my knees and that also does nothing. “Maybe with all three of us?”

Felix settles in by my side and grabs one end of the grate, and Esme the other. “On three,” she says. “Three, two—”

“Wait, on three means that we pull when you hit three, but you started from three,” I say.

“Oh, right, in that case, on one?”

“Sure.”

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“Right!” She wiggles to the side, and we all check our grips. “One, two—”

“Esme, you’re doing it again,” I say.

“Well, how about you count us off, then,” Esme says.

I nod. “Sure. On go. Three, two, one... go!”

All three of us grunt, and the metal grating shifts with a metallic screech, then my hands slip and I tumble back onto my bum and the grate slams back down with a bang.

“That didn’t work,” Felix says.

I wipe my hands on my cloak and glare at the grating. “Let me try some magic, then,” I say.

“Ohh, what sort?” Esme asks.

“I can pretty much only do Disgust magic. I’ve been training to do Light, Earth, and Spark, but I’m not able to do those reliably yet.”

“Four disciplines!” Esme says. “Whoa! That’s neat. I want to do Contempt, but I’m terrible at it. Everyone says I’m a natural at Spark magic though. Maybe we can practice together?”

“Maybe later,” I say.

There are only so many dark magic spells that can help here. Mom could Void magic the grate away, but I don’t have that option, not for a while at least. Disgust is good for endurance and defensive spells, which is really not what I need right now.

Not unless... “Okay, I have an idea.”

“Didn’t you already have one?” Felix asks.

“Anyway, I’m going to pull really hard, and with your help, we’ll lift the grate up.”

“Wait, how is that different?” Esme asks.

“Because magic.”

That’s apparently a good enough response for my friends.

I lean down, grab the grating, then take a deep breath of stinky sewer air. I almost retch, which is great. It only takes a stray thought to plunge disgust into my core, and I can feel the dark magic coursing through me. It’s vile and sickly, and it makes me want to puke even more.

I channel the raw disgust into a spell, one I’ve practiced before and I’m pretty proficient at. It’s a staple spell of dark magic, flooding my body with mana that hardens and toughens it. I’m not any stronger now than I was a minute ago, but I am a lot tougher.

“On go,” I say. “Esme, countdown. Need to focus.”

“Got it,” Esme says. She settles her grip and nods in time with her count. “One, two, three. Go!”

We pull. I’m not stronger, but I am more enduring. So when I pull as hard as I can, my hands don’t hurt, my back doesn’t strain, and I can put every ounce of my strength to work without having to worry that I’ll hurt myself.

The grate lifts, and then slides back with the grinding sound of metal on metal.

We keep on tugging and tugging until the hole is uncovered, and on some unknown signal, all three of us let go, the grate clanging on the ground while we pant out our exhaustion.

“That was something,” Felix says. She leans over the hole. “Dark in there.”

“I can make some light,” Esme reassures us. “We need to head, uh... that way.” She points. I’m pretty sure the academy is in that direction. “I should have brought that map,” she mutters.

I’m sure we’ll be fine. “Okay, down we go,” I say as I drop the dark magic spell. A light haze of blackish smoke wafts off of my skin, especially my arms, where the spell was most concentrated.

Felix is the first to descend the ladder next to the hole. I hear the distinct sound of splashing as she hits the bottom. “It’s clear!” she calls out.

Esme goes next, and I follow right after her.

The tunnel isn’t all that wide, and there’s water up to our shins. Cold water. “Wh-why is this s-so cold?” I stutter.

Esme shrugs next to me. She doesn’t look all that happy about it, at least from what I can tell in the light coming in from the hole above. “It’s water f-from the mountains.”

“Oh,” I say.

“At least we’ll be clean,” Felix says. “Where are we going now?”

“We need light,” I say.

“I don’t.”

I pout at Felix. “Well, Esme and I do.”

“I’ve got it,” Esme says. “I have a whole bunch of surprise saved up.” She raises her hand and, after scrunching her nose at it, a spark appears, then another and another, until there’s a small spinning ball of electric-blue light hovering over her hand.

“Well done! Now, let’s start phase one of our operation!”

***