Stalking Darkness

The less circumspect players were soon wi

Seregil gave him a slight bow as they rose to divide their wi

"Well played. I'm Lord Seregil, as you may have gathered. And you?"

"Rythel of Porunta, my lord." His hand was hard in Seregil's, but not as stained and roughened as he'd expected. The man had obviously taken pains to hide his current occupation.

"Porunta? That's down near Stoneport, isn't it? What brings you so far north this time of year?"

"I'm in commerce there, my lord, in a modest way."

Rythel paused, giving Seregil a disarmingly open smile. "I must confess, some of the ventures you've mentioned tonight interest me."

"A man of vision, eh?" Seregil said with a knowing wink. "I'm a great admirer of ambition, and our brief partnership tonight didn't do my purse any harm. Perhaps you'd like to discuss things further over a bit of supper?"

"I'd be honored, my lord," Rythel replied, just a hint too eager.

"Anyplace in particular?" Rythel shrugged. "No, my lord. I've no plans for the night."

Damn, thought Seregil.

Looks like we'll spend the evening plying each other with drink and fishing for secrets.

A harsh, clear dawn was breaking when Seregil returned to the Cockerel. Alec was asleep on the couch, legs stretched out toward the ruins of a fire.

He awoke with a start when Seregil flopped wearily down beside him.

"Well, how did it go?"

Seregil shrugged, ru

"The Feather? That's quite a comedown from Eirual's."

"The same thought occurred to me. Either he was putting on an act for my benefit, or his fortunes fluctuate considerably from week to week. It's something to keep an eye on. At any rate, we parted company there a few hours ago and I followed him down to Sailmaker Street. He didn't go out again."

"Sounds like a wasted evening."

"As far as this sewer business goes it was. Still, you can't spend a whole evening drinking and whoring with a person and not learn something. He's passing himself off as some well-heeled merchant and, to tell you the truth, he carries it off so well that I wonder if some of it isn't true. I'd say he's Skalan born, and has done a bit of this kind of work before-a small-time noser. The Plenimarans know how to find that type and use them."

Alec gave him a wry grin. "So do you."

"It's too soon to tell with this one, though."

Seregil stretched wearily. His night at the Feather had left him feeling gritty and in need of a bath. "Although Lord Seregil clearly made quite an impression on him. I let a few details slip about privateers and suddenly he was my boon companion. I passed on a few rumors; it'll be interesting to see where they pop up later. How'd you do?"

Alec pulled a flattened roll of parchment from inside his tunic and waggled it triumphantly.

Carrying it to the table, he pi

"What happened to you?"

Alec shrugged, avoiding his eye. "It's nothing."

"Nothing?" Grasping his friend's hand, he pushed the torn sleeve back. A rough bandage was tied around the boy's forearm and stained through with a circle of dried blood the size of a two— sester piece. "Nothing doesn't usually bleed like that."

"It's just a scratch," Alec insisted.

Ignoring Alec's objections, Seregil drew his dagger and cut away the dressing. A shallow, jagged cut began at a puncture just below his elbow and ended dangerously close to the delicate tendons just above Alec's wrist.

"Illior's Fingers, you could get blood poisoning with a cut like that!" he gasped, fetching brandy to clean the wound. "What happened?"

"I just slipped going over the roof to his window,"

Alec admitted with a grudging sigh. "I figured that would be the safest route in, but it was a little steeper than I thought, and the slates were really slick—"

"Ever heard of rope?"

"By the time I realized I needed one, I was already up there. Anyway, my sleeve caught-a nail sticking out of the gutter—"

"The gutter?" Seregil sputtered, feeling his stomach give a little lurch. "You went over the edge? It's a forty-foot drop to stone paving! What in the name of Bilairy's—"

"Actually, there's a shed right under his window," Alec corrected. "It would've broken the fall—"

"Oh, so you had it all carefully pla

Alec shrugged again. "Learn and live, right?"

Illior's Light, that must be the same look I give Micum or Nysander when they're berating me for surviving some stupid escapade!

Shaking his head, Seregil turned to inspect Alec's work, a crude, gridlike drawing done in charcoal and smudged here and there with blood.

"This is a copy of a map I found in a hollowed-out post of Rythel's bed," explained Alec, frowning down at it. "It's not very good, I know, but I knew I'd never remember any of it unless I marked it out somehow."

"You didn't steal this parchment from his room?"

"Of course not! I remembered what Parin said about drawings in his room and thought I might need to copy something. I took all the materials with me."

"Except a rope."

At first glance Alec's map, done in a feverish haste by an unpracticed hand, seemed little more than a meaningless scrawl of lines.

"I think it's a map of the sewers," said Alec.

"There wasn't any writing on it, just marks here and there, but it looked a lot like those plans we found at Kassarie's, remember?" He pointed to a circle near the bottom of the sheet. "I'd say this represents the outlet where they're working, and this is probably the top of the cha

Seregil nodded slowly, then tapped a spot just beyond where a number of lines radiated out from a single terminus. "Several large cha

"I think so, but I didn't get all of it. It was really complicated and I was jumping at every noise. Finally I did hear someone coming, so I just grabbed what I had and rabbited. Sorry."

"No, no, you did well," Seregil mused, still puzzling over the layout. "This is solid grounds for arresting him, but how in hell did he get this much information?"

"Could the Plenimarans use it to attack the city through the sewers?"

"Not a mil-scale attack, but they could cause plenty of other mischief-enemy sappers opening gates from inside, assassins popping out of the royal privies, or anywhere else in the city, for that matter." Straightening up, he thumped Alec proudly on the shoulder. "Good work. This is more than I came up with."

Alec colored, gri

"That's the real question, isn't it? Exploring and mapping out all these tu