Book 2, Chapter 18

It was a five-minute walk through the dark to reach the first intersection. I’d have probably broken my neck tripping over rubble if not for my light spell. Tanner sucked in a breath when he saw it, but otherwise just nodded and started walking. I noticed he kept one hand on the wall anyway. Maybe it was just a habit for him, or maybe it was to help with his balance. There was more rubble in the middle, where a channel ran through the dried-up sewer tunnel, but the path wasn’t completely clear at the edges either.

Tanner paused for a moment once we reached the intersection and studied something carved into the stone. It was a series of lines pointing in different directions, each direction with a different quantity. I got the impression that it was meant to be read blind, just by touching the wall. The grooves were deep and big, spread out to be easier to read.

Light was a novice tier spell. Even non-mages could learn to cast it easily. In most cases, it was getting new spells to not leak light that was the problem. Doing it on purpose was so trivial that it was the accepted starting point for any mage beginning their training in conjuration magic. Even a child would be able to cast a light spell with basically no training.

Instead, someone had taken the time to carve quarter-inch deep grooves in solid stone, as if that were the easier way to navigate down here. It was ridiculous. It would have been much, much easier to light the place up, or failing that, just clear the rest of the rubble out of the way so that people could walk in the dark without tripping and breaking their necks.

“This way,” Tanner whispered, beckoning me to follow him as he went right.

“Why are you whispering?” I asked.

“Don’t want to disturb anything living down here,” he said. “This section is sealed off from the rest of the tunnels, so the light’s probably fine. Just habit, I guess.”

“What kind of things could possibly live down here that would be dangerous to us?”

“I don’t know. Those are just the rules for using the tunnels.”

It was certainly possible for some sort of subterranean animals to be using the tunnels to nest in, but if they were, I couldn’t imagine keeping quiet was going to do anyone much good to avoid them. The kinds of creatures that lived underground tended to be extremely sensitive to vibrations, and not just in the air. It was incredibly difficult to hide from those types of predators without the aid of magic.

They probably weren’t monsters, at least. If they were, they’d have all starved decades or more ago back when the mana disappeared. Even then, I struggled to come up with any sort of monster that lived underground but which could be fooled by a lack of light and tip-toeing around. I supposed there were a few weak ones that lived near the surface but burrowed underground to form their homes, but if those were what was living in the tunnels, they would be making regular trips up to the surface for food.

Tanner led us deeper into the tunnels, but after another two intersections, we climbed back up to street level. This time, we emerged through a hole that had been dug, rather than formed as a result of a natural disaster. It was inside a wide, squat building that reminded me of a factory floor, all open with evenly spaced pillars holding up the roof.

There were some people not too far away sitting in some sort of living space complete with some stone benches and chairs that had been dragged into a circle. They barely glanced up at us as we climbed up out of the sewer before going back to their own business.

“Ignore them,” Tanner said. He pointed to a set of double doors that were somehow still intact. “The exit is over here.”

“And how much longer until we get to the right section of the tunnel to get under the wall?” I asked.

“Well, that depends on how fast we walk and whether or not any of Hyago’s people notice us. We might have to sneak in.”

Ah, there was the complication that had been missing from this plan. I’d thought it felt too easy. Just walking over there after killing a bunch of people would have been anticlimactic, though I’d admittedly been mentally preparing more for a bunch of enforcers showing up at an inopportune moment. Getting caught by some street gang just as we were about to go in was probably more likely at this point anyway.

“What do you know about Hyago?” I asked.

Tanner paused and shuddered. “He knows magic, too. I think he moves stuff for someone in the inner city. That’s why the tunnel exists.”

A rogue mage turned smuggler wasn’t the craziest thing I’d heard. If he really was a mage and he wasn’t actually part of the cabal, he might be someone I could work with myself. Undoubtedly, he’d have a better understanding of the inner city than Tanner did.

“These seem like details you should have mentioned a few days ago,” I said.

“I told you I knew where the tunnel was and I’d show you how to get there,” Tanner said, his shoulders hunched defensively. “I never said it would be easy.”

“What else haven’t you told me?” I asked.

He pushed open the door, letting in the noise from outside, and mumbled something that got drowned out. Before I could say anything, he darted out into the street. I took a moment to remind myself that Tanner was an actual child, unlike me, then followed him.

“What did you say just now?” I asked.

“That, uh… You know, that the tunnel probably has some people watching it.”

“Why would there be anybody guarding a smuggling tunnel under a wall? The whole point of smuggling is that people don’t know you’re doing it. It’s supposed to be hidden when it’s not in use.”

“Right, that makes sense. But, uh, in this case, the entrance is kind of inside Hyago’s main base.”

I should have let this little shit die when that first enforcer caught up to him yesterday.

“Have you ever seen the tunnel?” I asked. “Do you actually know that it exists, or were you just planning on getting what you wanted and then screwing me over?”

“No, I’ve seen it!” Tanner said.

“You’ve seen the secret smuggler’s tunnel inside the base of a mage who controls a district in the outer city?” I asked. I didn’t make any effort to hide the skepticism in my tone.

“A few months ago, he hired us to do a smash and grab on some merchant. I was the one who had to deliver the box with the stuff he wanted, so I got to go inside. I saw them loading things up to go in the tunnel.”

“How do you know the tunnel goes under the wall? It could go anywhere.”

Tanner shook his head. “Hyago’s base is right near the wall and the tunnel was facing north. It has to go to the inner city.”

Every time Tanner opened his mouth, this plan got worse. It had started as a smuggler’s tunnel, presumably safe only because its location was hidden. As long as I didn’t run into the actual smugglers while I was using it, everything would have been fine. Except now it was located inside a street gang’s hideout and it might not even go where I needed it to.

This was my fault, really. Tanner was a kid, and not a particularly smart one. I was the fool who’d believed his claims. The worst of it was that I couldn’t even safely scry it from here to see if it was worth sneaking in since the hideout belonged to someone who could apparently do magic. I’d need to actually get to the building itself to determine if it had any wards first.

The odds that I was chasing a dead end seemed high, but I needed to stay out of the eastern part of the city for a while anyway. I could either see this through and maybe find a way under the inner wall undetected, or I could find a random spot to relax in and wait. It wasn’t worth going back to defend my current hideout, not when chances were that no one would find it and, even if they did, there was nothing there but a pile of mostly dull leech stones.

“Alright, let’s go have a look at it,” I said. “But I swear, if it turns out we can’t access the tunnel, or if it doesn’t lead past the wall, the deal’s off.”

* * *

Hyago’s home base was a warehouse of some sort, not unlike that factory floor we’d come up out of. There were two ways in, and the first wasn’t really a feasible option. That was another chunk of sewer tunnels that took a winding route from about six blocks over, which was the easy way in, except that it was bound to be guarded. Even Tanner admitted, once I’d started pressing him for information, at least, that he’d had to go through a checkpoint at the end of the sewer where it connected to the building.

The other way in was to crawl through another partially collapsed building right next to Hyago’s base. This one was even bigger than the first one we’d gone through, and Tanner did not know a route through. As long as we didn’t disturb anything, it probably wasn’t too dangerous to go crawling around in there, but that did not guarantee we’d find a way through, or even that one existed.

He explained all this to me with some trepidation in his voice. It was obvious that Tanner hadn’t even begun to think this plan through. When he said he could show me where the smugglers’ passage was, he’d been thinking something like point me in the right direction and let me figure out the rest. Probably, he expected me to get caught and killed. No wonder he’d wanted his payment first. In his mind, he was sending me to my death.

I stood next to the boy, a block away from the warehouse that had no visible entrance on the ground, and shook my head. “You really tried to screw me on this,” I said. “My fault for believing you. You know what? Get out of here. Our deal’s off. I’ve already given you enough of my time and mana.”

“But-”

“Not to mention saving you from those enforcers,” I added. “You got the better end of this, you lying little bastard. Unless you want to see exactly how I infiltrated that tower to save you, I suggest you make yourself scarce.”

Tanner glared at me. His fists clenched at his side, but for once he did the smart thing. Instead of taking a swing at me, he spun on his heels and marched off. Part of me wondered if he was going to go run straight to Hyago to tell them I was coming. If he did, would they believe him?

It didn’t matter. By the time he got to that sewer entrance and made it back here, I’d already be done. The warehouse had no windows, possibly by design. It wouldn’t do to have every passerby getting an eyeful of a secret smuggling operation. That meant I could walk up to it without worrying about anyone inside spotting me. The most I’d need to deal with was hidden sentries on the street, but with no quick way in, they were going to have a hard time signaling anyone inside.

They would, unless this Hyago guy was a better mage than I was giving him credit for, but I doubted they could hide the mana usage from me. If some sentry hiding nearby did report me with a divination spell, it would still tell me something important about the mage’s capabilities.

I walked around the block, approached the warehouse from behind between the houses, and used a spider climb invocation to scale the wall. It took me less than twenty seconds to reach the roof, where I paused in surprise.

“Huh,” I muttered. “Wasn’t expecting that.”