The water was hot and filthy, and Kairu plunged into it headfirst. He squeezed his eyes shut and thrashed his arms vigorously, surfacing with a gasp, sputtering and coughing as he broke through the surface. He inhaled… and immediately choked on the stench that filled the air. The air was stale and hard to breathe. He slowly began swimming, feeling around to see if there was solid ground he could climb onto.

  Finally, his hands found a stone wall and felt along the top edge. Kairu pulled himself up and silently thanked fate, and the city’s builders, for creating narrow, solid walkways along the drainage channels. Crawling onto the stone, he sprawled out, and couldn’t hold it back anymore: he vomited copiously at his feet. The place was stifling.

  Something splashed loudly nearby. Instinctively, Kairu drew his sword, but then realized it was Woody, judging by the spitting and snorting noises. His eyes were gradually adjusting to the darkness, which wasn’t total. There was a light source, even though they were underground, in a place where no human had set foot in many years. Mainor’s sewer system had long fallen into neglect, and the light was coming from the water itself—a faint, sickly green glow that barely dispelled the darkness, only outlining the bends in the canal through which the sewage flowed toward the river.

  Woody was turning in circles, trying to get his bearings.

  "Kairu!"

  Even his whisper sounded like a shout in the eerie silence, broken only by the steady lapping of the water.

  "I’m here!" Kairu called back quietly. Woody turned, swam closer, bumped into the stone ledge, and Kairu helped him climb out.

  "You alright?"

  "Barely," the thief grumbled, shaking the filth from his clothes. "Ugh, this is disgusting!"

  "You said it. Still, breathing this is better than not breathing at all, like ending up in a noose or under the guillotine."

  They stood on a wide stone ledge. To their right was the water, to the left a solid wall. The underground flow was encased in stone on both sides. On the far end of the chamber was another ledge just like theirs, but several dozen feet of glowing water lay between. Kairu had no desire to dive in again. The hall stretched far ahead, its end lost in the misty gloom. The ceiling was high; a pipe jutted from the wall about twenty feet up.

  Woody stood up, water pouring off him. Hopping on one foot, he squeezed out his boots. Kairu, grimacing at the smell, thought that at least it was warm down here.

  "You remember which way to go?" Woody asked.

  "I think it's one of the side tunnels, heading east, and it leads where we need to go… We should hurry. It was past midnight when we got in, and now it must be past one. I don’t know how long the assault will last. And I’ll be damned if I can remember all the turns and forks. We’ll have to go by instinct."

  They moved slowly, keeping a hand on the wall. They spoke little, their voices echoed through the tunnel, eerily bouncing off every corner. Kairu moved cautiously, ready to draw his sword at a moment’s notice, casting suspicious glances at the water flowing just feet away. More than once he could have sworn he saw ghostly shapes flitting through the yellowish mist, or that enormous, round, plate-sized yellow eyes were watching him from the canal’s depths. Maybe they were fish, long adapted to darkness, feeding on each other. Or maybe something older, more dangerous had crawled from the earth’s depths, waiting for victims in the bowels of the great capital...

  Several times, side tunnels branched off from the main one, but they were engulfed in darkness—even the water there didn’t glow—and the stench was far worse. Then the ceiling suddenly dropped lower, and a wall appeared ahead. Tunnels branched off to the right and left, narrower than the main one. Across the canal, another ledge was visible, and beyond it, an iron grate sealed a passage. Farther down the corridor they had to follow, another fork awaited.

  The ceiling now loomed just above their heads; only because of their short height did Kairu and Woody avoid bumping into it. A long cross-tunnel intersected the corridor at a right angle, with narrow, fragile bridges linking the ledges on either side.

  "It’s a real labyrinth!" Woody whispered excitedly. "I had no idea the sewers were this huge! So, east again?"

  "Let’s go," Kairu agreed, stepping first onto the bridge to the right. The stone creaked ominously under his feet, and something splashed in the quiet water. Woody, cringing in fear, quickly followed.

  The glow beneath the water gradually faded, and they moved almost blindly, straining to make out the shapes of new forks and crossings in the ghostly dimness. The ceiling rose again. Pipes jutted from the walls here and there, leaking dark, rusty water. Warm droplets fell from the ceiling onto the fugitives’ heads, making Kairu flinch each time. A soft gurgling echoed beyond the walls. Oppressive silence surrounded them; the walls seemed to close in, threatening to crush the two intruders who dared enter this realm of shadows.

  Either the water had risen, or the ledge had sunk, because the yellowish tongues of the underground stream now lapped at the stones beneath their feet. Bit by bit, the slippery walkway was submerging. Kairu’s boots were ankle-deep in the filthy muck when they came upon another wall. In its center was an arched iron grate, through which the stream flowed further into the darkness, toward the sound of a waterfall. To the right and left, two corridors branched off again, the opposing ledges once more linked by bridges.

  "So, where now?" Kairu asked quietly.

  "No idea," Woody grumbled. "I’ve totally lost my bearings down here. You’re the leader, you decide. Just hurry up—these walls are closing in. I’m gonna end up with claustrophobia. It’s like the builders wanted someone to get lost down here, or get eaten alive by whatever lives here."

  "The builders aren’t to blame," Kairu muttered. "No one’s come down here in centuries. That’s why it all fell into ruin, perfect for eternal darkness and whatever underground and underwater beasts lurk here. They don’t like us, we don’t like them, and both sides are unpleasantly surprised to learn the other exists…"

  "Well, I’m not surprised," Woody replied. "I doubt Mainor’s the only place like this. Every city that had the brilliant idea of dumping waste into the river probably looks just as bad. Normal people just dig a latrine pit behind the house. Worst you’ll get there is flies. Did you see how those things looked at us from the water? Gave me the chills. So, have you decided?"

  "I think so," Kairu said. "Where the river meets the sewer, it should be cleaner. The left tunnel doesn’t smell as bad, let’s go that way."

  He moved cautiously across the footbridge. Once on the other side, he sighed in relief—the crossing had seemed extremely unreliable. It wasn’t just the walls and the silence that oppressed him: the light coming from beneath the water seemed strange and dangerous. Kairu feared it, feared falling into the water and seeing whatever it was that emitted that light; he walked, trying not to look at the smooth surface of the underground river. Behind him came the quiet curses of Woody, who was swearing at the water.

  Then Kairu stopped abruptly, as if he'd hit an invisible barrier, his whole body trembling. He cursed himself for his carelessness and took a deep breath, trying to calmly assess the situation. The ledge they had been walking on had ended. The tunnel continued deeper in, but the river spanned wall to wall, darkened, stopped glowing, and vanished into the gloom. Woody almost ran into him.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "Whoa," he said, looking ahead. "Well, would you look at that! Looks like we're going to have to take another swim. Come on, Kairu, I'll follow you. Let's keep telling ourselves we’ll rest in Asternia…"

  "Yeah, right," muttered Kairu. "First of all, rest is so far from here it feels like some kind of fantasy. And second," he jerked his head toward the dark tunnel, "there is no way I'm going in there! I’ve had enough. At first, I thought the ancient Nocturn shrine was the worst. Now I realize I was wrong. Let’s just go back."

  "And who was it just now talking about fresh air?" Woody asked gloomily. "No, we’ve got to finish what we started. All right, hold my hands. If I don’t feel the bottom, you pull me out, and we’ll go back."

  He gripped Kairu and slowly slid down, but then snorted and let go of his hands.

  "It’s only waist-deep," he said. "Come on, let’s see if we can make it through here."

  Kairu hesitantly climbed down after him. He shuddered with disgust—the bottom was slimy and filthy, but Woody had been right: it wasn’t very deep. They moved forward slowly, keeping to the wall. The water seemed to grow shallower, or perhaps the bottom was rising; soon they were only knee-deep in muck, which no longer glowed. Darkness surrounded them, and then ahead, a light appeared. Cold and grim like the water’s glow, but much brighter. The corridor turned at a right angle, and from around the bend came a greenish beam, like a spotlight.

  "See? I told you we’d get somewhere," Woody said cheerfully, quickening his pace, overtaking Kairu, and stepping around the corner. The green beam illuminated him, and Kairu saw him recoil, shielding his eyes with his hand, then freeze in place as if paralyzed.

  "Woody!"

  He ran up and looked into the new corridor, instantly feeling his blood run cold.

  Ahead was a new junction of two tunnels; dark corridors branched off in various directions. But blocking the passage was the massive body of a creature that stretched from floor to ceiling. It was impossible to describe in words. It resembled an enormous, semi-transparent, slimy gray-green jelly in the shape of a giant sphere, sitting atop a grotesque tangle of thick, ugly tentacles with suction cups. Through its thin, pale, slug-like skin, internal organs could be seen; the tentacles on the floor stirred sluggishly, lazily intertwining in even more tangled knots. But Kairu’s eyes weren’t on them. He was staring at a single, enormous eye, about two feet in diameter, located in the center of the body, its elongated pupil casting a deathly light throughout the corridor.

  For several moments, they stared at each other. All thoughts vanished, leaving only raw, animal terror. Then Kairu found the strength to grab Woody’s hand and yank him back, fleeing at full speed. Filthy water splashed beneath their feet. A clear thought flashed: for some reason, the creature either couldn’t or wouldn’t move. Which meant they still had time to get away.

  The light grew distant. They ran as if a pack of rabid dogs were chasing them, though in truth, nothing followed. Kairu stopped, barely aware of himself, only once they’d reached the rocky ledge and scrambled onto it, collapsing in exhaustion. Woody leaned against the wall and muttered:

  "Holy crap… My heart just froze. Aktos, save and protect me… To hell with this! I’m never going into the Mainor sewers, or any other sewers ever again. What the hell was that thing?"

  "I don’t know and don’t want to know," Kairu croaked. His throat was dry. "It’s probably been lying there since the dawn of time… Actually, now it makes sense why the water was gone from that corridor. Must be a blockage in the main channels, caused by that thing’s bulk."

  "And those tentacles! Brr!" Woody shuddered. "Actually, I think I know where that beast came from and why it’s not moving. You were going the right way, just made a wrong turn at the last fork. Above us is Kared Etel, a small district on the edge of the slums, right up against the east wall. We only had a little farther to go. It was evacuated early in autumn, just in case. No one’s been dumping water or waste there, so it's dried out. That horror thing must have crawled in back when there was still a lot of water, went into hibernation, and now can’t get out."

  "I don’t care where it came from, I don’t even want to think about it," Kairu said nervously. His heart had calmed a little, and he took a tentative step toward a wide passage. "Let’s try a different tunnel?"

  "Sure," Woody agreed without much enthusiasm.

  They trudged slowly over the stones. Soon they returned to the fork and crossed the footbridge into the southern corridor. Kairu hesitated before entering the tunnel—the smell still bothered him—but there was no other choice, so he moved forward.

  The water glowed more intensely here and seemed deeper. The tunnel brought them to another junction, and they randomly chose the eastern corridor. The stuffy air and lack of oxygen overwhelmed Kairu; he was terribly tired of wandering the sewer maze. At last, the damp, dark tunnel turned left, and they emerged into a wide chamber, where the flow disappeared into a pipe in the wall. A stone staircase led up to a metal door set in the ceiling. To the right of the pipe, steam rose from a rusty grate in the floor. From somewhere below came a muffled noise and banging, like machinery working.

  "Look at that!" Woody whispered, ducking his head and pointing at two dark shapes lying in the shadows beneath the stairs in a black puddle. They were the source of the foul, rotten stench. The fugitives came closer and saw two strange beings. Their bodies vaguely resembled human ones, but with thick gray skin and long ears. They had thin, long legs and arms with knobby, grasping fingers, large round eyes, and long dirty fangs. Both were dressed in rags and some hideous parody of jewelry. Both had died from slashing weapon wounds.

  "Goblins," Woody said louder, once he was sure they were dead. His voice showed no fear, only deep revulsion.

  "Goblins? How do you know?"

  "I’ve run into them before…" Woody snorted. "Disgusting creatures. As far as I know, they come in two kinds: wild ones, who live even in Aktida, in caves and sewers—and the civilized kind. Those ones consider themselves important, don’t talk to humans, hardly trade at all. They have an enclave somewhere in the east, in the deserts, there they build cities, mine stuff, grow things, claim to be advanced, and say we’re way behind. As for these two—savages. All they know how to do is dress in trinkets, eat garbage, forge crude weapons, and form clans to survive. They live off robbery, though I don’t get who they could be robbing here…"

  "Us, for example," Kairu said quietly, climbing the stairs. "Better keep quiet. No telling what else is down here. If there’s a whole gang of those freaks, we’ll have to run. I bet they haven’t seen such a lucky break in ages—two reasonably well-fed soldiers with good blades and decent clothes. Let’s go. I think we’re on the right track."

  They stood up, opened the door, which gave way with a creak and a clang, and stepped into a narrow, low corridor. Pipes frequently crossed their path, running from one wall to the other. They had to climb over them. The passage led them into a small chamber. Vents were visible under the ceiling, and through them, the fugitives could see the dark, starry sky. The distant sound of battle echoed faintly. Low side tunnels branched off in various directions, but Kairu saw only a large stone basin filled with dirty water, into which pipes flowed.

  Running up and peering into it, Kairu felt his heart start to race. The water was murky, but through it, he could make out a wide pipe leading from the basin into the wall, disappearing underwater.

  "Woody! This is freedom!" he nearly shouted, then immediately froze, listening to the multiple echoes of his own voice. "Come on! On the count of three: one, two…"

  Kairu drew a deep breath and dived in. The water was cold; to keep warm, he paddled with all his might, heading straight for the pipe. Woody swam right behind him. Kairu swam with broad strokes, rushing forward toward life-saving air.

  But the pipe turned out to be longer than he had expected. Kairu hadn't even made it halfway when he felt his strength running out, just like the air in his lungs. He chose not to take the risk: this was just a trial run. Turning around, he saw Woody swimming toward him and waved his arms, signaling that they should turn back. The thief understood, turned around, and swam back. Kairu was completely exhausted; it took all the air he had left to escape the deadly grip of the pipe, rise to the surface, and collapse onto the stones, shivering from the cold.

  Then he found the strength to get up. Woody was already sitting nearby, trembling from the cold, gulping air like a fish thrown ashore and chattering his teeth. Kairu tried to still the trembling in his body and said:

  "It’s fine. Everything’s okay. We’ll get out, I know it. We just need to conserve our strength… Woody?"

  "Do you hear that?" the thief asked quietly.

  "What?.." Kairu's heart was slowly calming, his breathing recovering. He froze, listening. From afar, as if from underground, came the beat of drums. Woody gripped his sword.

  "I don’t know who it is," he said. "Let’s rest, and then we swim. I want to get out of this place as fast as possible."

  Kairu nodded.

  "On the count of three," he said, automatically touching the hilt of his father’s sword. "One, two…"