“Can you open it?” he asks James, gesturing to the wall.
“Open what?” Lord Pytherian asks.
“There’s a secret door here that we came through,” he replies as he begins to examine the wall. When he doesn’t find any sort of loose stone or anything, he says to Miko, “See if you can move that torch sconce there.”
Miko moves to the torch sconce on the wall across from the secret door and begins attempting to move it. He wiggles it first one way then the other. Suddenly, the sconce slides down and the wall begins to move to the side.
Once the opening is wide enough, they file through. A minute later, the door begins sliding closed once again, leaving the orb as the only source of light.
They descend the stairs to the next level and then down one more to the bottom level. Going through the doorway, they move down the passage until they come to an open door. Moving into the room, the smell of the sewer becomes strong.
Lord Pytherian sees the trapdoor there and asks, “The sewers?”
“If you don’t mind milord,” James says.
Smiling, he replies, “Not in the least. I prefer it over my last accommodations.”
Jiron moves past him and goes down the ladder first, with James taking the rear. He closes the door to the room before descending the rungs. Once he’s gone down far enough, he closes the trapdoor as well then climbs down the rest of the way.
At the bottom, the others are waiting for him and once he’s down, Jiron sets off the way they’d come. It doesn’t take too long before they’re once again at the thick iron bars blocking the passage.
James come to the fore and Lord Pytherian watches in amazement as the bars begin to move, making a hole large enough for them to squeeze through.
When they’ve all passed through to the other size, James again lets the magic flow as the bars move back to their original position.
“Hopefully they’ll spend hours looking for us in the Keep before realizing we are not there,” James says as he turns back to the others.
“If they do, it will give us enough time to get out of the city,” Jiron figures.
“I doubt if the city will be open,” Lord Pytherian states. “As a matter of course, they’ve most likely sealed the gates and put patrols on the streets, even if they believe we’re still in the Keep.”
“Then we’ll need to be most careful,” James says. “Let’s try to follow the sewer as close to the eastern gate as we can.”
“Why the eastern gate?” Lord Pytherian asks.
“There’s help there,” replies James. Then he looks to Jiron and says, “If they haven’t gotten impatient and done something stupid.”
“You never know,” adds Jiron.
As they move along the ledge next to the flow of the sewer, Lord Pytherian asks, “Who’s waiting?’
“Someone by the name of Miller,” replies James. “Do you know him?”
A smile comes to him as he nods and says, “Yeah, I know him and this is just the brash thing he’d try.”
They follow the sewer tunnel for several minutes before they come to where another large sewer tunnel joins the one they’re in. “Which way?” asks Jiron.
James looks to Lord Pytherian who shrugs, “I don’t know, I’m all turned around. Maybe we should move to the surface so we can be sure of heading to the eastern gate.”
“Alright,” agrees James. “That might be a good idea.”
They backtrack to where they passed the last set of rungs going up. Jiron climbs them as the others wait below. Several minutes pass before he climbs back down again. “We are still within the inner wall,” he tells them. “We need to continue further before we’ll be past.”
Lord Pytherian says, “Okay, then let’s go.”
Jiron leads them further down the sewer tunnel, and when they return to the branching tunnel, he passes it as he continues down the one they’ve been following. He moves past three sets of rungs before stopping before the fourth. “I think this should do it,” he says. “Wait here a moment.”
They watch him as he climbs up into the darkness above. A minute later they hear him call down, “Come on up, we’re past the wall.”
Lord Pytherian goes first with James again taking up the rear. As James climbs out of the sewer exit into the room, he can tell they’re in a building’s basement. Jiron is over at a doorway, fiddling with the lock.
As James gets closer to him, he returns his knife to his belt and slowly pushes the door open. On the other side, a short flight of stairs leads up to another door.
The others wait while Jiron moves up to the door where he puts his ear against it and listens for a moment. He waves the others to come on up as he slowly opens the door and peers around to the other side.
Opening it up further, he passes through and the others follow him, finding themselves in what looks to be a chandler’s shop. Upon various tables are goods for sale, one having cloaks and other travel gear.
They each take one of the cloaks and canteens, as well as other equipment they might need. James removes a gold piece from his pocket and places it on the counter. When he catches Lord Pytherian looking at him, he whispers, “I don’t want to be counted a thief.”
Nodding his approval, Lord Pytherian moves to a window overlooking the street. He ducks to the side as a patrol of ten soldiers pass by outside. Once they’re gone, he looks out again and turns back to the others, “It looks like they have put extra patrols on the streets.”
“That’ll make things interesting,” Jiron says as he looks out of another window. Seeing the street clear for the moment, he turns to the others and asks, “Ready?”
When he gets an affirmative from them, he moves to the door and opens it as he passes out into the street.
Chapter Twenty
Once out on the street, they keep to the shadows as they make their way to the eastern gate. Jiron remembers which way they’d come from the southern gate in relation to where the Keep stands and is able to maintain a general eastern heading.
They duck down alleys to avoid the patrols roaming the streets, none of which seem very concerned about finding anyone. They seem more in the ‘patrol just to keep our presence visible’ mode than actively searching for them. This just leads them to believe that the powers that be believe them to still be within the Keep.
As they move from street to alley and back again, they notice that only the soldiers are on the street. James figures there must be a curfew in effect while they’re on the loose. So with the lackadaisical patrols the soldiers on the street are doing, it’s fairly easy to make it all the way to the eastern gate unnoticed.
Jiron brings them to a halt at the end of an alley which looks out upon the gate area. Twenty soldiers stand guard there in the courtyard before the gate with a dozen or more crossbowmen lining the walls above.
James catches his breath when he sees a brown robe there with them. For a world that doesn’t have many mages, the Empire sure seems to have more than their fair share!
Jiron notices the brown robe and glances to James who says, “I see him too.”
“What do you plan?” Lord Pytherian asks.
“Another distraction?” asks Jiron.
“Distraction?” says Lord Pytherian, glancing at James.
“May not have much choice,” replies James. Sighing at the inevitable, he turns to Lord Pytherian and says, “You and Miko stay here while Jiron and I arrange for some of the guards to be drawn away.”
“What are you going to do?” he asks.
James looks him in the eye and says, “You’ll see.” Turning back to Jiron he asks, “Ready?”
Giving him a mischievous grin, he replies, “You bet.”
To Lord Pytherian, he says, “We’ll be back in a few minutes. No matter what you may see and hear, don’t move from this spot. Understand?”
Lord Pytherian nods his head.
“Let’s go,” he says to Jiron as they head out.