image [https://i.imgur.com/7KOmj8Y.jpg]

The river curved due west when we passed Belden. Even though it faced the wind, we moved downstream, so the crew reefed in the sails, making the trip considerably less noisy. The flatboat’s gentle creaking and groaning lulled us to sleep. I hadn’t set my interface alarm, so I woke with a contentment I hadn’t felt since Charitybelle left. The smell of dew hung in the air, and sunrise brightened the sky. Beads of water covered the boat’s deck, glittering like jewels.

Beaker spent the entire trip with me beneath the canvas, and I must admit my fine feathered fluff ball kept me comfortably warm.

I opened my map interface. We headed south and over halfway through the 100-mile stretch between Belden and the coast. We seemed less than a day from mighty Arlington, and the topography had also changed. The cliffs grew rockier along the river, answering why Arlington hadn’t developed an agricultural base. The soil looked arid.

We passed fortifications that guarded nothing but the wilderness while we ate breakfast. Without towns or homesteads, they looked out of place.

I caught Fletcher’s attention. “What are those?”

“They’re guarding Arlington’s aqueducts. The river directly supplies the canals and the Dark Harbors, but Arlington’s fountains and feed channels open here. They guard it to keep it sanitary.”

Fletcher pointed out a series of sluicegates next to a castle structure. “Those gates feed the aqueducts.”

Blane and Bernard pointed at the castle’s stonework. I couldn’t hear them speaking, but I gathered that the work impressed them, even by dwarven standards.

“I guess they’re serious about protecting themselves.”

Fletcher snorted and waved his hand. “Bah. They’re showing off and looking for ways to spend money. I look forward to when Arlington realizes they’re losing their trade monopoly. The entire continent will cheer us on while we do it. They won’t be able to do a thing about it.”

“Really?”

“Oh, they might send an assassin or two. Perhaps sabotage the city in retaliation, but they can’t do anything that leaves fingerprints.” Fletcher’s nonchalance wasn’t comforting.

The river measured half a mile across, but I discerned no current. It felt as if we floated on a lake. A long stone bridge spanned its breadth. Dozens of flatboats moved to and fro, while others remained anchored in the slow-moving water.

Lloyd pointed to the right bank. “Those starboard bulwarks are the city’s outer edge. The river forks here. Past the bridge is rough water, ending in a waterfall called White Edge. A copper fence beneath the bridge stops water traffic from going that way.”

The flatboat turned into a broad canal with masonry banks. Up ahead, channels disappeared into several tunnels.

Lloyd pointed above the archways. “Above the tunnels is Arlington proper. These brickwork caverns are what the locals call Dark Harbors. Parts are beneath the city, but some sections open up to the sky. That’s where all the lifty-rigs and cranes unload cargo. Everything heading for blue water goes through the canal system down that way. It takes boats so long to reach sea level, crews disembark and let the harbormasters navigate them through the locks. The drayage fees for transferring cargo are how the city makes her coin. The process tarries crews long enough to empty our pockets in the cantinas and casinos. They figured it out, alright.”

As our boat drifted into a tunnel, I marveled at the engineering behind it. “Charitybelle would love this.”

Lloyd nodded. “The utility canals are down yonder. Topside canals are only skinny passenger chutes for the gentry, merchants, and landlubbers who like to show how clean they are.” Lloyd pointed his weather-beaten finger toward the cranes unloading cargo. “But down here, Cap’n, this is the real Arlington. Just wait ‘til I shows ye around!”

I looked at Lloyd. “We’re above sea level now?”

“Most assuredly, sir. Massive sea walls and natural breakwaters prevent tidal events from smashing the harbored oceangoers to smithereens. I’ll show you from topside.” Lloyd pointed to the ceiling of the tunnel.

“Wow!” Fabulosa yelled into my ear, making me realize Lloyd had been shouting the whole time. A dull, distant roar advertised the waterfall’s proximity. “It’s a shame this wasn’t our newbie zone. Belden seems like such a backwater. I did not know any of this existed.”

“Me neither.” I shook my head and wondered how my game would have gone had I started in Arlington. Part of me suspected the scale of it looked too massive for newbies. Maybe we all began in small burgs around the continent like Basilborough and Belden. I wondered how many other gamers had gotten this far.

Our flatboat moored to an alcove smelling of mold and rotting produce. Fish darted about the canal. “I’m surprised the water is clear. There’s no garbage either.”

Lloyd grinned. “The water isn’t stagnant, and they swab the garbage out with straining filters. What pours into the blue is clean, so the offshore hatcheries keep a regular harvest.”

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As we disembarked, I turned to Lloyd for guidance. “Where to first?”

“They can hoist us to the surface in a lifty-rig, or I can shows you the Underworks entrance. It’s nearby.”

Lloyd wanted to revisit his childhood playground, so I suggested heading for the Underworks. No one objected.

The tunnels we traveled through often opened to the sky, and we admired the shafts of masonry yawning above us. We passed storefronts and buildings, and the cries of seagulls echoed off the structural walls. We passed a healthy mix of burly workers, clerks, and families, though no one wore fancy clothes. Fabulosa appeared to be the best-dressed pedestrian.

Our passage bridged over another canal, and Lloyd pointed at a dark shape in the water. “Yar, there! See ‘em? That’s what Arlington has for rats—big as bulldogs, some of ‘em. They get bigger in the Underworks too. There’s a chief, they say, deep inside calling the shots with the ratfolk.”

Fabulosa and I exchanged looks, and she mouthed the words, “boss fight,” causing me to grin.

Part of me wanted to peruse this wondrous city until we passed a storefront Lloyd called the debtors’ prison. It looked like any other business out front. No bars covered the windows or guards stood outside.

Lloyd spat on the ground. “Poor devils. The city holds scores of them here to be rented out for labor ‘til they worked off their due. Most of them came to the city looking for work anyway, so no one topside sheds a tear for ‘em.”

Fabulosa and I shared a look, and I could tell we considered the same idea. We’d inflated our camp to a town by freeing dwarves. Buying debt might do the same, but I wouldn’t say I liked the idea of filling the coffers of opportunists. And busting them out of Arlington seemed unlikely, given how slowly flatboat traffic moved upstream. The narrow walkways’ and frequent chokepoints offered fugitives no escape routes.

Fabulosa stopped outside the door and turned to Lloyd. “Slavery is supposed to be the goblin’s racket.”

Lloyd shrugged but said nothing. He surprised me by climbing into a drain pipe no wider than a trash can. “I remember this being much bigger when I was a lad. Sorry about the headroom.”

We climbed on our hands and knees after him. Thankfully, the pipe inclined as we crawled forward, so it contained no still water.

After a minute of crawling, the pipe opened to a cistern. Sunlight illuminated the area from a ceiling drainage shaft, and a gigantic, half-submerged, horizontal tunnel provided the only exit.

“Don’t worry. This is rainwater and excess from an aqueduct’s spillway. Clean as you please!”

Fletcher held up his hand. “Pap. Hold on. Before we dive in, maybe we can settle into an inn. Maybe get some vittles before we explore.”

I almost agreed with the old sailor. Lloyd looked eager to explore his old stomping grounds, but after nearly a week of hard travel, I felt ready for some time off. Besides, I wanted to read what Winterbyte had to say in her letter.

Fabulosa touched Lloyd’s arm. “Don’t worry. We want to see what’s down here, but first, we need to eat, take a bath, and relax.”

We backtracked out of the sewers and reached the surface with a lifty-rig—a caged elevator pulled by chains. Nearly everyone except Lloyd looked nervous in the contraption. The three-story lift to Arlington’s upper levels was, thankfully, anticlimactic.

Arlington didn’t have quite a steampunk vibe without dirty steam engines. I would call it hydropunk, but the phrase doesn’t roll off the tongue exactly. Arlington’s streets were narrower than Grayton’s, although, without vehicles, “alleys” more accurately described them. Aside from handcarts, it seemed as if they prohibited vehicles and mounts. The narrow buildings and crammed plots of land wasted no space on yards or gardens—evidence of high property values.

Someone painted the copious metalwork in colorful hues, like most buildings, which showed no signs of weathering. We passed decorative fountains of Romanesque proportions, drinking spigots, and public baths—and canals reached everywhere. Suspended water chutes crossed lower sections like bridges, and gondolas gently drifted across them.

I marveled at the streets, whose cobblestones and brickwork blazed in red, blue, and yellow hues.

Fletcher noticed my gaze. “They import the cobblestone and brickwork. It’s more colorful than the bleached sandstone surrounding the city.”

“This is the cleanest place I’ve ever been.”

Fabulosa grinned. “It’s like Disneyland, except people actually live here.”

Fletcher pointed out odd brass fixtures along the streets. “It doesn’t rain often. And you see how hydrants are at the highest point on the streets? At night, they’ll douse them and wash the debris into the sewers.”

Lloyd nodded. “Other cities spread out, but Arlington is layered, like berths in a crew’s stateroom. They carved the city from living rock, and it’s too vertical to cover the place with stairs, so that’s why they use lifty-rigs. Besides, who wants to plod up and down all day with free water power?”

Lloyd tipped the lifty-rig operator who opened our cage into a thoroughfare of pedestrians. Narrow water channels stretched alongside the walkways.

“You’ll see no horses, ‘cept the constables. And the only vehicles allowed are gondolas.” Lloyd gestured to a logjam of boats moving in one direction.

The gondolas weren’t the decorative, elegant watercraft one would expect to see in Venice. The hull and seats used thick and clunky woodwork, and patina-covered brass rimmed the gunwales. They reminded me of the floating duck game on the Atlantic City boardwalk, where tourists plucked out plastic ducks to see if the numbers underneath corresponded to prizes. The empty boats moved just as fast as those occupied. No gondoliers propelled them.

“What makes them move?”

Lloyd winked. “They follow the current. There are several channels for the gondolas. They’re mainly for getting from one district to another.”

“You can’t control where you’re going?” I assessed the boats. I had doubts about them, but they looked too heavy to tip over.

Fletcher reassured me with his hand on my shoulder. “You feel silly sitting in them at first, but they’re faster than walking, and they’re free.”

Fabulosa raised her arms. “Well, what are we waiting for? Which do we take to find a good inn?”

Lloyd leaned back with his hands on his hips and thought. “I cannot rightly say. I’ve never paid to sleep anywhere.” Without looking, he gestured to a canal. “This one goes through the Two Towers. It’s a district with posh inns.”

Fabulosa raised a fist. “Perfect. Patch and I will take care of the room and food. They’re a Hawkhurst expenditure.”

Everyone’s shoulders relaxed.

Bernard reached the first vacant boat. “Well, then. The first and last round is on ye! And all the buybacks between!”

The gondolas drifted through streets and beneath dozens of footbridges before arriving in the Two Towers district. Bernard and Blane occupied the first boat, spending most of the trip craning their necks to see if we got off without them.

Everyone else, including Beaker, who sat on my lap, watched the passing cityscape. The griffon clucked and cooed as we went under bridges while I telepathically reassured him when things passed overhead. “Don’t worry, Beaker. You’re okay. Everything is fine.”