After a short, dreamless sleep, Gideon was shaken awake by Len.
“...Get up, son. We’re sending you with Her Majesty. If you hurry, you should be able to make it before dawn.”
Gideon looked up at Len through bleary, half-open eyes. Len held a lantern in his free hand.
“I barely slept...”
“You’ll have an opportunity to get more sleep at the assembly area. Come on, up! You both need to reach it before dawn breaks.”
“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 sat up wearily and scooted over to the side of the bed. He reached out for his boots and began to tie them on.
“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.”
At that, Gideon quickened his pace. Once his boots were on, he walked up to the armoire and opened it, quickly throwing on his armor and claymore. When he was ready, Len looked him up and down before giving him an approving nod.
“Get going, and keep a careful eye out along the way.”
Gideon nodded back, and they both exited the room. They walked together until they reached the stairwell, but instead of descending with Gideon, Len entered Edea’s room without knocking.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” he said, shutting the door behind him.
Gideon scoffed quietly as he descended the stairs.
He didn’t even knock. Just walked right the fuck in.
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.
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 to him.
A day ago they were eyeballing me as I walked by.
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 her hair in a tight bun and she was wearing her armor.
“Mornin’.”
Surelin gave Gideon a wary look, but said nothing.
“Hey,” Vesryn smiled. “The princess was just telling me about that mercenary you killed in Kenan.”
Gideon was taken aback. “She was?”
“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 peace 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 under fences and other random obstacles. The cats disappeared into the shadows whenever Gideon and Surelin happened to come too close.
An awkward silence hung in the air between them as they entered the market street. He wanted very badly to apologize, but couldn’t seem to find the right words.
“I’m really sorry,” he eventually blurted out. “For, uh…yeah. Sorry.”
Surelin briefly studied him with a frown before looking away.
Dread settled like a clump of heavy iron in Gideon’s stomach, and he wondered anxiously if the damage he’d done would end up being permanent. He’d undergone a change since meeting Surelin—one that he didn’t completely understand but that he valued very highly—and he felt deeply ashamed for thoughtlessly placing another burden on her shoulders at the worst possible moment.
I’ve already received something good from her. I shouldn’t expect anything else.
As they walked side by side through the shadowy market street, Gideon’s dread was slowly replaced by determination.
Alright. It’s time to help her bear her burdens.
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. I think we will.”
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 and dangling over her chest. She wore a splendid gown that was painted in a kaleidoscope of colors, though only a few 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 from remaining hidden in the shadows of the 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, 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 and terror passed 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 light 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 around 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 around to beckon them. The back to back surprises left Gideon somewhat stunned, and he watched as Surelin stepped into the opening past him. She turned around, urgently waving him inside, and once he’d obeyed the blonde woman shut the wall behind them.
“Who’re 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.
“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 and follow me. A handful of the 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 caused Gideon to feel 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.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
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 next to 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?”
He shook his head. “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 after settling down for sleep.
We’re totally cornered down here. Hiding helplessly in a room for an entire day is 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 pulling 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's eyebrows raised with surprise as Mirellen’s gaze locked onto her. Everyone looked on as 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.”
Surelin accepted the parchment with a look of deep concern.
“Do not fear,” Corrina said. “The Capellas will eventually 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.
“Yeah.”
“Good,” Len said, then looked around at the Forelians. “Get prepared. We’re leaving.”
The Forelians walked back to their bedrolls and began to get ready. 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 as she left the room.
…She just knows I’m on point. That’s all.
Unsettled, Gideon knelt down by the manhole as everyone finished their final preparations. When everyone 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. The Forelians 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 buildings 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 sounded unusual, though he sometimes stopped even without hearing anything just to be cautious. 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, 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 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. Len nodded to him and drew his sword, as did everyone else.
The room was small, and empty aside from a few puddles. As they crossed it, 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 the lantern, and suddenly the room on the far side of the tunnel was filled with weapons, armor, and light skinned faces.
Hussars!
A man bearing a tall shield stepped into the mouth of the tunnel and raised it.
“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 give way. He heard his lantern clatter to the ground somewhere by his feet.
“Push!!!” Gideon roared. “Push!!!”
A confusing cacophony of shouting, grunting, and rushing footsteps echoed off the walls of the tunnel as the Forelians applied their strength to Gideon’s back. He pressed all his might against the shield, and the man holding it 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 like he was being crushed in a grape press. He was squashed between the combined efforts of the Forelians behind him and the hussars behind the shield.
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 put 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 next to him as he was being squeezed to death.
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 head 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 joined by the 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.
When he came too again, 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 were standing 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 tried to release him, but they quickly 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 five man 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 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 spreading 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 nothing but 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, with a bitterly disappointed Gideon bringing up the rear.
Help her bear her burdens? Fuck’s sake…I’ve just become one.