Draka

There was one problem I needed to solve urgently. Fortunately, I had one idea and two fallbacks.

The problem was that I needed somewhere to sleep. Even for naps I needed somewhere hidden, preferably somewhere dark, where I wouldn’t be disturbed. My first fallback was the cellar of the Wolves’ burned out warehouse, but that wasn’t a sure thing. I didn’t know how intact it was, for one, or how actively it was being repaired, for another, but despite those two problems it might be worth checking out.

My second fallback was to simply leave the city. I could fly back home, or to the edge of the forest if I wanted to save half an hour, or I could use one of the sea caves I’d discovered during my first ill-fated flight along the coast. All of those had the problem of removing me from the city during the day, when I couldn’t cross the wall without a very real risk of being spotted. Which I could deal with, but I’d rather not. Not until it was on my terms.

My preferred solution was something I intended to spend the night investigating. During that same first flight I had discovered that the city had a functioning sewer system, and where it emptied into the sea. During my time on the streets I had also seen several storm drains, which made perfect sense if they had the infrastructural know-how to make them work. The island of Mallin, or at least the central eastern part that we were in, was mostly all or nothing when it came to rain. There had been one or two light rains during my months there, but generally it had been weeks of drought punctuated by torrential downpours. I hadn’t actually seen the city during such a rain, but with its wide, sloping streets I couldn’t imagine that it was pretty. Thus, the storm drains.

So, my plan was to become a sewer dwelling monster. Interestingly, I didn’t find myself baulking at the idea. As long as I could stick to the stormwater parts of the system, I should be fine. The sanitary parts… I would rather not, if I could avoid it. My nose was off when I shifted into shadow form, but unfortunately I had yet to find a way to maintain that while sleeping.

Finding a storm drain was easy. Finding one that met my criteria was hard. First, I’d prefer it close to the inn. While there were a few, this being an affluent area, they didn’t meet my second criterion: accessibility. In shadow form I could thin and stretch myself, but there were limits. And finally, if at all possible, the drain should be in shadow as much of the day as possible. That was the hardest part.

I never did find one that met all three criteria, but I got two out of three with some cheating, which would have to do. The drain I found wasn’t in sight of the inn, but at least it was quite close. It was a hole in the ground covered by a grille, located in an alley in a dip between two small hills and towards which two larger streets sloped. By the way the alley lay it should be in shadow almost all day except noon, so that was one of three. For the one where I cheated, well… I got frustrated, and I yanked the grille out of the mortar that held it in place. Being able to open and close it would have to do.

The well under the grille was barely large enough for me, but with a little bit of contortion I fit. My wings, with their long, thin bones, were the worst, but I managed. Slinking in and pulling the grille in place above me before anyone might come to investigate the rather loud racket I’d made, I shifted and began my exploration of the storm water system.

The tunnels I was in were long and straight, narrow and currently mostly dry. They were infested with rats and bugs, but those couldn’t bother me in shadow form and would probably count more as snacks than nuisances even if I did choose to shift back. The system was extensive. There were a couple of main tunnels which were wide enough for me to walk in if I shifted back, as long as I kept my wings tightly tucked in. Then there were many more smaller tunnels that drained into the main ones. Of those, most were too narrow for me to even try squeezing in without shifting, and some were just pipes, openings two or three inches wide in the walls of the tunnels. I wondered how they’d built them. Some parts were carved directly into the rock, and others were lined with stone brick, but that included tubes narrow enough that no one could have gotten in there to cut or line them. The ones that went through stone, I thought, must have been done with some kind of magic.

Exploring the tunnels and pipes I found plenty of openings to the surface in interesting areas, some of which were, if even just barely, wide enough for me to squeeze through. Sadly most of those would take a lot of effort in the form of bringing darkness with me if I wanted to use them during the day, but it was still good to know. Of course, I’d probably only remember half of them if I was lucky, but that was still much more than I’d known that evening.

I did also find a few places where the storm water and sewer systems connected. If I understood the construction correctly, which was far from likely, it looked like it was built so that the sewer should be able to overflow into the storm water system, but not the other way around, which seemed sensible to me. Nobody wants their… waste water backing up, after all.

I resolved to try and find a path to the sea. If all the sewers drained there it shouldn’t be too hard; just follow the muck downstream. But I didn’t know that that was the case, and I’d rather not get stuck in the stinking tunnels on my first night in the city. Perhaps I could start from the other end. Some other time, though. Some other time. I had already spent several hours exploring, and I needed to give myself time for a nap. At that moment it was enough to know that I had a hidden place to sleep comfortably… as long as it didn’t rain too hard.

When I woke up and called it quits on my tunnel-ratting, there was still an hour or two left before dawn. I spent some of that time just wandering the streets near the inn. I was in shadow form, so it was more like drifting around, but it had the same feel to it. Part of it was that I was checking for anyone suspicious hanging around near my humans, but by then even the ladies of the night and the would-be muggers had gotten to bed. It felt like I had the city to myself. Like it was mine, and mine alone. I liked it. It felt right.

* * *

I stuck around the inn, lurking in whatever dark places I could find, until Mak came out shortly before twilight. Knowing me well by that point, she started looking for likely hidden, shadowy places. There were a few people on the streets by then, moving hurriedly in the chill pre-morning air, some of them dragging carts of boxes or barrels. Mak got a few odd looks, but nobody lingered. I was on a roof at that point, but it was easy enough to intercept her as she stuck her head into an alley.

She seemed to sense my presence, turning to look in the direction of my shadow before I even materialised. She looked a little anxious as she said, “Good morning, great and mighty one,” in a grave voice. “Do all dragons love filthy alleys,” she managed before her facade broke into a grin, “or is it just you?”

I was a little taken aback by that. Surprised, but amused. Mak had so rarely joked with me, even before she became mine. It took me a second to find a reply. But finally I decided that, fine. If she was in a good mood, I’d play along.

“Oh,” I said, matching her initial tone, “does my lowly servant find it appropriate to judge my choices?”

“Not at all,” she said, and at that point she had stopped even trying to be serious. “This one only wishes to know if she should find a nice garbage heap for you to rummage around in later in the day.” She broke into a short, sharp fit of laughter. “I am glad that you enjoyed that. I was a little worried.”

“Herald’s suggestion?”

She nodded. “I was not sure, but she knows you better than I do, so…”

“She does. But, really? A garbage heap?”

“Lowly servant?”

“... fair. How did it go with the kids?”

“They are terrified, but it is too late to convince them to stay silent about this. The boy confessed that he told anyone who would listen to him about the dragon he had seen, after the last time. No one believed him, of course. For now they are convinced that you can find them wherever they go, and that you will eat them if they go against you. Not that we said anything like that. Herald actually tried to make you sound kind. But they are children who were just faced with, well, you. So we told them that if they help you, you will be most pleased, and they drew their own conclusions.”

“I can accept that, I suppose.”

“We thought so. In the morning they will lead us to the man they report to, a thug called Kosh. We were not intending to confront him, only to see who he is and where he can be found.”

“Good. See if you can get any help from Ardek. The Wolves will not be able to help us, from what Garal said, but if you can keep them in the inn for extra safety, that might be for the best.”

Mak nodded. “Garal has already arranged a room for Rib and Pot. Ardek can stay with us.”

“And Kira?”

Mak stopped and blinked a few times. “Kira? She is not coming, is she?”

“Is she not?” That was news to me.

“She… what can she do? She hates violence, and she cannot fight. She can heal, but… We thought it best to leave her.”

“With the northerners? She does not speak their language!”

“No. But she is a kind soul, and she can help with many tasks. They already like her, there, Ardek made sure of that. She will be fine. And we told her to work on her Karakani, which she will have little choice but to do.”

I thought about it. What would Kira be good for in the city? Healing? Then we’d need to bring her with us everywhere, and she’d be dead weight, hopefully all of the time. No, this was the right call.

“I knew I could count on you two. Well done,” I said, giving her a nod, and she beamed at my praise.

Right, I reminded myself. She was linked to me much more deeply that she had been, than anyone had ever been, really. She had bound herself to me. She could read people’s intentions, but with me she could straight up feel my emotions, even when we were far apart. She had made a choice to make me important to her. My praise was not just words to her, it affected her in a way that I needed to make myself remember.

“Well,” she said happily, “I should return. The sun is coming up and the others will wake soon, as will the city. Where can we look for you if we need you?”

I gave her a quick description of the alley with the drain I’d chosen, and she said that she knew it. It turned out that she had a pretty good mental map of the area around the inn, the harbour, and the Adventurers’ Guild in general, which made sense. Once a method of contact was established – throw something noisy down there and see if I show up – I sent her off, sending my love to Herald with her. She returned to the inn while I returned to the alley, drew back the grille, and descended back into the tunnels.

Brimming with energy, and with my sleeping pattern well and truly ruined by that point, I only napped for a few hours. The sun came in bright and strong through the drains I approached, the light coming through in negative to my shadow vision and reducing my world to a series of tubes that terminated in patches of infinite darkness.

Not content to sit and wait in case the girls wanted me – and I could sense Mak’s direction anyway – I continued my exploration. I had avoided the tunnels that sloped upward to the northern and eastern parts of the city simply because I’d only had so much time the previous night and needed to limit myself, so that was where I went.

It didn’t take long before I found the first of two interesting things, which was evidence that the tunnels were being used.

That didn’t really surprise me. Here I had a series of tunnels, large enough for me to walk through and which ran all under the city. The average citizen probably never thought of them, only having a vague idea that the waste must go somewhere and knowing that there were holes in the street where most of the rainwater went, but with no obvious way in, why should anyone worry?

Or maybe they were as obsessed with the idea of sewer-dwelling monsters as the average Western kid. I’d have to ask Herald.

Either way, as I went north I found a place where the stone brick had been torn out, high on the wall, and a tunnel had been dug to a chamber the size of a fairly large studio apartment. The chamber was empty but the dirt floor was scuffed. I noted the location and moved on. Further up the tunnel I found another, much more interesting chamber. There I found a table, a chair, a hook for a lantern to be hung, and some other simple creature comforts. And, more interestingly, a ladder leading to a trap door in the ceiling. I tried it, of course, but it wouldn’t budge easily, and I didn’t want to deal with the possible consequences of busting it open just yet. With how close it was to the harbour the whole setup screamed smugglers’ den, and if I stayed around for a while I’d have to keep an eye on it in case anything interesting happened. And I’d have to see where that trap door led, of course.

The rest was more of the same tunnels that I’d started to get used to. Then, a few hours in and after I had started exploring the eastern parts, I discovered something important. To call it a game changer would be an overstatement, but what I found was a possible solution to some of my problems.

There was a wide passage, complete with carved steps, dug from the storm-water tunnels down to a natural cavern. And not just any cavern. A sea cave. Much like the one under the Blossom’s prison-house, it was complete with a dock and a small boat with two sets of oars, and I could see a slight brightness in the water where a currently submerged opening connected it to the sea.

The cave was spacious and, while it was humid from the sea water, the connection to it sloped first upward and then down from the storm-water tunnels, in a kind of inverted U-bend. There was no risk getting flooded out in case of a heavy rain, like there was in the tunnels. The cavern was connected to the sea, if I dared to risk an attempt at swimming, and the chambers I’d found in the eastern part told me that there were connections to the surface. I just had to find them.

I had, if I wanted it, the makings of becoming a real subterranean monster. I could set up a small lair here to operate out of when I didn’t want to leave the city, with access for my friends and allies, and the only stumbling block was that I’d probably have to deal with some smugglers or other criminals at some point.

A few criminals wandering the darkness of the tunnels? I was not concerned. In my mind the place was already mine. All I had to do was to claim it.

I was sorely tempted to celebrate with a well-deserved nap. I already had a likely alcove picked out, wide and flat and well above the high-water line. In the darkness and with my wings covering me, I’d be invisible. But instead I decided to do the responsible thing and return to the harbour area, near the inn, where I’d told Mak that they could look for me.

At that point it was sometime in the afternoon. I was getting sleepy and peckish, but nothing I couldn’t handle. As I moved west from my new cave I could sense Mak ahead of me, and as I got closer and closer I felt a sneaking suspicion that I knew where she was. As I approached the agreed upon spot I was proved right, as I heard a distant tinkling of bells. I came to the narrow pipe connecting the drain in the alley to the tunnels, and as I watched a bunch of bells tied to a thick string plummeted onto the stone, making a ringing racket, and then being pulled up jerkily, jingling and jangling all the way.

I shifted, pushed the darkness ahead of me, and emerged into the short shaft beneath the grille. I shifted back just in time to get half a pound of brass bells in the face.

“Ow,” I said flatly, staring up at Mak above me, who jerked with the same mix of awe and fear that she always displayed when I shifted. Memories of the prison and the first time she’d seen me do it, no doubt. “What is it?”

“Thank the gods, I thought you wouldn’t show up!” Mak said, looking around herself and then crouching to get a better look at me. There was no worry on her face, only excitement. “We thought you should know, and we may need you along. We’ve got a lead!”