V. The Tower of al-Kafiri
"You sure you're all right?" Belle asked. She looked down.
"I'm fine!" Alaira snapped. Of course, it wasn't true, but Alaira felt like
she had a right to be peeved. Lying in a pitch black sewage pipe covered to
her elbows in human waste would tend to put anyone off her game.
"Okay," Belle said, "Whatever you say. It's just that with your hangover
and whatnot, I thought maybe..."
Alaira turned and looked Belle in the eye. "Will you shut up, so I can
concentrate?" she said. "Picking this lock is harder than it looks."
Alaira turned back to the lock and again began to manipulate the tumblers
with a pair of stiff but flexible metal wires. She'd had to lie down in the
tunnel's sludge just to reach the lock, which was bolted to the bottom of
the metal grating that stood between Alaira and her friends and the Tower of
al-Kafiri. Once the grating was out of the way, they could climb into an
even smaller sewage pipe, the one connecting Brega's main sewer system,
where they were currently located, to the Tower's basement latrine. Alaira
had argued against infiltrating through a two-foot tube filled with human
waste for the obvious reasons, but stupid Modor had insisted it would be
safer than trying to go in through one of the Tower's many upper story
windows.
Thinking about it did little beyond making Alaira angry. She took as deep a
breath as she dared amidst the tunnel's stench and tried to relax. Then she
leaned into the grating to try to gain more leverage. If she could just
force her picks a little further into the keyhole...
"Dammit!" she cried.
She slipped forward and only barely avoided landing face first in
unspeakable muck. As she fell, the lock let off a loud click. A small dart
flew from the lock's keyhole into the sludge lining the bottom of the pipe.
It missed Alaira's hand by less than a quarter inch. Had Alaira not
slipped, the dart would have hit left palm dead center.
"That's it. You're done," Belle said. She reached down and grabbed Alaira
by the shoulder. "I'm going back to go get Modor."
"No!" Alaira cried, "I can do it!"
"Do what? Get yourself killed by a poisoned dart?" Belle asked. "I don't
doubt it."
"Why don't you just worry about yourself for change," Alaira replied. "Let
me worry about me." Unlike Alaira, Belle hadn't yet had to actually get
down into the muck to do her part of the job.
"Come on, Alaira," Belle said, "Don't be like that. I was only trying to--"
"Save it. Let's just get this done. It's not even noon, and I already need
a drink."
"Wonderful," Belle said. "Considering how much good last night's drinking
did you, I can't wait to see what the next round will do." She shook her
head. "I told you that you were headed for heartbreak last night."
"Did I look lonely to you this morning?" Alaira asked.
"Fine," Belle said, "Have it your way." She looked back towards where
they'd left Modor and Xarian. "But if you wanna self-destruct, do it on
your own time and try not to take the rest of us with you, okay?"
"I told you I'm fine!" Alaira cried. "Gods! Weren't you going to go get
Modor or something?"
"Glad to hear it," Belle said, "I'll be right back."
Alaira fooled with the lock a bit more while Belle was gone, but after a
while, she knew it was pointless. She wanted nothing more than to simply
close her eyes and put her head down, but in the nastiness of the city's
sewer main, that was completely out of the question. Instead she sat up and
did her best to clean and put away her lock picks.
A few minutes later, Modor crawled up to where Alaira was sitting. She
looked at him and shook her head. "I can't get it," she said.
"Can't? Or don't want to?" Modor asked. His skepticism was obvious.
"Can't Modor," Alaira said. She pointed to the lock. "Look at this damn
thing. This isn't some cheap Bregan City Sanitation Department lock. This
is an expensive piece of equipment. And it was trapped." Alaira pointed up
to indicate the people in the Tower above them. "Those wizards up there set
this here on purpose. They've obviously considered that someone might try
to break in this way."
Alaira shook her head again before she continued, "I told you this was a
mistake." Suddenly she was angry. "And it's gods-damned disgusting, too.
Dammit! I don't even know why I'm here."
"You're here for three crowns and the chance for more," Modor said, "You're
here because--"
Alaira cut him off. "Three crowns!" she cried. "Modor, I wouldn't have
gotten out of bed this morning for three crowns. No, I'm here because you
had to bang somebody else's hussy and got caught doing it. Idiot! So now a
War Master wants to feed you your own balls, and I'm elbow-deep in human
shit! I'm--"
"That's enough, Alaira," Modor said. He put his hand on her shoulder, and
despite herself, she appreciated the gesture. "No one wanted to have to
break in through the toilets, but you know damned well that there's money to
be made here," he said. "But if you really can't pick the lock..."
"Since we're already here, do you mind if I take a look?" Xarian asked. He
shimmied past Modor to get a better look.
It would have been a tight fit under the best of circumstances, but with all
of their equipment, it was more than tight. It was impossible. Though
Xarian was nowhere near as tall as Modor, he'd had an even more difficult
time getting into the sewer tunnel because of the huge pack he carried in
addition to his massive blunderbuss. But that didn't mean that the tunnel
was an easy fit for Modor. Modor was still enormously tall and wide, a
reality made worse by the fact that he had come dressed for war. He wore a
heavy suit of black half-plate armor along with both his swords. Though
Modor rarely left the group's shared flat without his bastard sword Fang, he
only took Claw, his massive six-and-a-half foot claymore, when he thought
there would be real, wholesale killing. But while that meant that Modor was
ready to fight, it also greatly restricted his mobility in the sewers. Plus
Modor had also brought his tower shield. Alaira shook her head yet again.
Xarian's blunderbuss was bad enough, but she had absolutely no idea how
Modor was going to get up a two-foot pipe with all of that gear.
Once Xarian was in position and had had a moment to look things over, Modor
asked, "Think you can blast it?"
"I doubt it," Xarian replied. He frowned. "Even if I'd brought that much
powder, I don't think the tunnel's ceiling would survive the concussion.
Plus, the noise would certainly alert the Tower."
"Yeah," Modor said, "That won't work. Even if we could fight past all their
guards and wizards and whatnot, it still wouldn't accomplish the mission.
We have to keep this quiet. Anything that could potentially lead back to
the Stone Priest is a non-starter."
No one said anything for a few moments. At last, after a few moment's
thought, Xarian pulled off his pack. Without a word, he started rummaging
around inside, eventually emerging with a thick rubber-stoppered bottle.
"I haven't had a chance to try this yet," he said, "and I have no idea how
well it'll work on iron..."
Modor looked curious but said nothing. Xarian unstoppered the bottle with
obvious care and dripped a few drops of its liquid onto the lock's heavy
iron hasp. He then replaced the stopper and returned the vial to his pack.
"Now what?" asked Modor.
"Now we wait."
The next quarter-hour wasn't pleasant. Modor didn't like waiting, but he
didn't have any choice. He kept glaring at Alaira as if to remind her that
it was only because of her failure to simply pick the lock that they were
forced to wait in the first place. Alaira knew that Xarian didn't like
waiting, either, but at least he didn't glare. He did, however, look
manifestly uncomfortable resting on his hands and knees in three-inch-deep
sewer slime. The only group member who didn't seem overtly hostile was
Belle. But Belle had been acting like a self-righteous bitch since the
prior evening, so her presence was hardly reassuring. Eventually, Alaira
turned away from her friends, deciding instead to stare at the wall. It
smelled bad, but at least it wasn't angry with her.
Stupid Modor, she thought.
A few more minutes passed. At last Xarian said, "Okay. Try it now."
"Finally!" Modor exclaimed. He reached for Fang.
"Gods! Don't use your sword!" Xarian cried. He fussed in his pack and
emerged with a two-pound hammer and a small crowbar. These he handed to
Modor. "Here," he said, "always use the right tools for the job."
Modor growled. Looking more than a little skeptical, he placed crowbar into
the lock's hasp and held the hammer as though to strike. "Like this?" he
asked.
Xarian shook his head. "Just get on with it."
Modor turned back without replying. He struck the crowbar gingerly with the
hammer.
"God of Fire!" Xarian cursed, "Not like that. Put some ass into it."
Modor glared dangerously, but Xarian returned his gaze without flinching.
After a moment, Modor turned back to the lock. He raised the hammer and
then dropped it thunderously onto the crowbar. The hasp shattered.
"Finally!" Xarian said, making fun of Modor's earlier exasperation. He
pushed past and opened the gate, and then he held it open with a flourish.
"After you," he said.
* * *
Modor led the way up into the shitter. It was a more than tight squeeze
through the foulest space imaginable, but it was the best - and according to
War Master Orisis, the only - way to get into the Tower undetected. Modor
tried not to think about what else was in the little tunnel with him. And
he tried not to breath.
The stench was the worst of it. Thankfully, there were few actual objects
blocking Modor's ascent, but that didn't change the fact that Modor was
crawling through others' urinations and worse. The connecting pipe was just
over a dozen feet long, gently sloping from the main sewer line up to a
larger space with three holes cut in the ceiling. Those three holes were
the actual toilets, Modor realized.
The collective space under the toilets was made of stone and had rungs set
into the walls. Modor used these rungs to pull himself up out of the pipe,
avoiding the worst of the toilet pit's foulness. He didn't hesitate for
even an instant but instead stuck his head up through one of the toilet's
seats.
