By Moonlight Wrought (Bt Moonlight Wrought) (21 page)

         “I could probably slit my own throat and
they’d continue their frivolity,” Selric said.  Cinder laughed so hard at the
word frivolity, that she fell out of her chair and Fiona bent forward, hitting
her head on the table, which caused Melissa to laugh, pounding her fist on the
table and spilling her drink.  The beer spread quickly, running over the edge
and onto Dirk’s lap, this causing Selric to laugh.

         Dirk was befuddled:  he couldn’t remember
hearing anything even humorous, but everyone at the table acted as if he had
sprouted daisies for hair.  He stood up, brushed the beer from his pants then
looked around.  Everyone in the tavern was laughing, staring at Dirk’s table. 
He picked Cinder up off of the floor, who was still laughing raucously, and
carried her outside into the fresh air.  Her laughter seemed as loud as a fire
bell on the quiet street.  He kept holding her, and slowly she relaxed then
stretched up, kissing him deeply and for a long time.

         “Do we ever go out without you getting as
drunk as a bum?” he asked.

         “No,” was her soft, childishly whispering
answer, her eyes sparkling at him.  The other three came out, still laughing,
though not so helplessly.

         “Well, I don’t know where this night is
going,” Dirk said, berating them.  They all fell silent, looking somberly at
him.  His satisfaction was short lived as he felt Cinder jiggling in his arms. 
He looked down:  she was covering her mouth and laughing at the sour look on
his face.  When he saw that, she erupted into full laughter, followed by the
other three.  Dirk threw his head back and screamed his frustration, at which
they laughed harder.

         “Go ahead, laugh.  Get it out, you stupid
fools!” he yelled, and they did, lying in the street, or leaning against the
wall.  He put Cinder down and went around the corner, waiting for them to calm
down or sober up.  Each time their laughter died down, he stepped out and again
they roared, to which he would throw his hands up in the air.

         “Fine, get it out.  Get it all out.  Why
do I feel like you’re laughing at me?”  This happened several times and as he
sat in the alley, he heard a scraping sound come from the alleyway behind the
hall.  He went around to the back and saw a manhole cover sliding slowly into
place.  Dirk ran back around front and this time, strangely, they did not
laugh.

         “Come on!” he said excitedly.  “Hurry!” 
When he drew his sword, they sobered up, except for Cinder, who they left
sitting dumbly on the wooden walk, blinking her eyes in wonderment at where
they were all going.  Selric was off the walk, around the corner, sword out,
and right next to Dirk before the husky deliveryman knew it.  Fiona trotted
into the alley next.  Melissa got an early jump, but spilled half her arrows
and had to stop to pick them up.  With her athletic stride, she soon caught up
and they all reached the back alley together.

         “Look!” Dirk said, pointing at the sewer
entrance.

         “A manhole cover.  Quick, kill it,”
Selric said. 

         Fiona chuckled.  “Stop it,” she
whispered, nudging him.

         “No!  I saw it slide back into place. 
Someone went down in the hole,” Dirk insisted.

         “You can’t go in there,” Selric said.
“Especially without light.”

         “If we don’t go now, they’ll get away,”
Dirk said.

         “The sewers are a dangerous place, Dirk. 
You don’t even know who it was,” Selric cautioned.

         “Come on,” said Melissa, walking out into
the alley.

         “Wait,” said Selric, “I’ll get some
torches.  Don’t go anywhere.”

         “You won’t catch me in there,” came a
sober voice behind them.  They turned and saw Cinder standing there, staring at
the hole.

         “Then stay here, we’ll be right back,”
said Fiona.

         “Don’t go in there,” Selric said as he
ran off around
The Unicorn’s Run
.

         “I’m not waiting,” said Melissa, handing
her bow to Fiona.  “Here,” she said, walking to the nearest lamp post. She
climbed up and at the top she lifted the heavy lamp from its hook and brought
it down.  Dirk had the sewer cover off and was looking for Selric’s return. 
Then the four of them peered down into the black. 

         After several moments, Melissa spoke. 
“I’ll go first. He’s not coming back anytime soon.”  Dirk grabbed her shoulder.

         “No, I’ll go,” and he went down, holding
the lantern as far down as his arm would hang, needing to put his sword away to
hold onto the ladder.  He expected to see the eyes of a gigantic crocodile or
the slimy tentacle of some horrible creature slither out of the disgusting
water and wrap itself around his leg.  He saw neither; just a large, well-kept
sewer tunnel with a wide walkway leading off in both directions into the
impenetrable dark.  Fiona dropped down behind him, then Melissa, who took her
bow off her back and strung an arrow when she reached the bottom.

         “Don’t shoot me, whatever else you do!”
Dirk warned.

         “Don’t worry,” she snapped, insulted.

         “Which way?” Fiona asked.  Any answer was
cut off by Cinder’s voice, piercingly loud.

         “Bye!” she yelled.  “Be careful!” she
said, as if they were three blocks away.

         “Shhh,” they hissed in unison.

         “Okay.  Bye.  I’ll be waiting inside.
Don’t fall in the yuckers,” she whispered.  Dirk picked the direction and
started out, handing Fiona the lamp.  They walked on, always straight, passing
a few small tunnels leading off to the sides.  Each of these side passages
meant a jump of four feet over a moat to continue the walk along the main
passage.  The smell was smothering and terrible.  Not only was there human
waste, but the majority of the sludge was food waste and unwanted garbage. 
Every so often, Fiona saw the gleam of bones, but she refrained from telling
the others, and wondered if they too saw them.

         After what seemed an hour, the tunnel
came to an end where there was a pile of garbage nearly three feet high.  As
they neared, they saw that it was a mound of rags, canvas, and shattered
crates.  Melissa noted, too late, that it seemed nest-like.  As Dirk poked into
the junk with his sword, a huge insect, the length of a man with two great
pincers and long antennae, came scurrying over the pile, snapping at Dirk.  It
would have snatched his leg had his sword not been thrust forward into the
heap.  It held his blade and Dirk was defenseless.

         “You’d better duck,” he heard Melissa
say.  Thinking he might be shot, Dirk fell to the cold, damp stone.

         “Get down!” Fiona screamed as she pulled
on his pants.  The twang of the bowstring followed by a “crack” as the arrow
pierced the pincer shell, echoed in Dirk’s ear just as he hit the floor.

         “Now,” Melissa yelled.  Dirk stood up and
pulled his sword from the shattered claw and with all his might, shoved it down
into the creature’s back with a snap.  He heard the tip scrape the stone
underneath the monstrosity, but it was not dead.  Dirk looked up just in time
to see its tail flashing forward.  He turned aside just as the stinger flashed past,
reaching full extension mere inches from Fiona’s chest, then retracted. 
Melissa took the opportunity of Dirk being to the side, and shot it again.  
This time, it quivered and lay still.  With his sword, Dirk slid the dead
monster into the muck.

         “Good thing I’m not built like you,”
Fiona said to Melissa, looking at her breasts.  “I’d be dead.” 

         Melissa stuck her chest out proudly. 
“I’d have moved,” she said plainly.

         “I doubt it.  It would take a while to
get those in motion,” Fiona mused.  Melissa made a coy expression but no verbal
reply.

         “Look,” said Dirk, lifting up a tattered
pouch.  He opened it, looked in and saw the glint of metal and gemstones
inside.  He thrust his hand in, but quickly withdrew it with an “ouch” to
reveal that two of his fingertips were bleeding.  Fiona took the pouch and
dumped the contents out onto the walkway:  coins, gems, and shards of glass
from a broken vial whose contents had long ago seeped away.

         “Good job,” she said sarcastically.  “Big
brave Dirk.”  She took his hand and locked his arm into her armpit so that he
could not flinch.  Dirk felt jabbing pains.

         “Ouch,” he screamed again.

         The women were looking strangely at each
other.  “You’re weird,” Melissa said to Fiona and Dirk pulled his hand back.

         “There,” Fiona said.  “I got the glass
out.  Let me wrap it.”  He gingerly gave her his hand and she took it, placing
the two bleeding fingers in her mouth and sucking the blood off.  Dirk felt her
tongue racing over his fingers.  “That would sure feel good...no, I won’t think
about that because she’ll see it in my...” then he looked up at her.  Fiona
took out a silk handkerchief and wrapped his fingers, but she did not watch her
work, her eyes, instead, studying his face:  she had been the entire time. 
Dirk grew angry, seeing her smile slyly.  He bent down to pick up the coins and
three gemstones.

         “Now,
there
was a bit of
adventure,” he said happily, swinging his sword bravely about, having finally
used it to strike an actual living target.

         “Yes, but not the person who came down
the shaft,” said Fiona. 

         On their walk back the way they had come,
the three ventured down the smaller side passages, but not one of the tunnels
went very far before coming to an end.  Down the third one, they found a small
opening in the wall where the brick had either fallen out or had been knocked
away by some unknown subterranean beast.  Dirk was too large too squeeze
inside; even Melissa’s shoulders were too wide.  But Fiona, after shedding her
leather shirt, was able to slide through the two foot thick wall.  Inside there
was another nest-type pile; this one more human.  There was a ratted old
blanket, an empty lamp, a pouch of stale bread and cheese, a nearly empty
bottle of wine, and what seemed to have once been a stuffed bear, now ragged
and sagging for lack of stuffing.  After sifting through the belongings, Fiona
took the bear and climbed back out.  “Look,” she said, holding it up.

         “I wonder what that’s doing in there.”
Melissa said.

         “Isn’t it sweet?” Fiona said.

         “What did you bring it for?” Dirk asked,
sounding almost angry.  Truthfully, it reminded him of the only toy he had had
at the orphanage; the bear found with him in the basket as he lay upon the
church steps.

         “I don’t know, I just...”

         “Come on,” said Dirk, grabbing the bear
and stuffing it in his belt.  After a short distance, at the edge of their
light rounding the corner to the main passage, they saw a small form, a boy,
who quickly raced off into the dark.  Melissa was in front and leapt after him,
both figures disappearing into the darkness.  Fiona tried to follow and keep
light on them, but they were soon gone.  Up ahead, Fiona and Dirk heard a
splash, followed by a scream from Melissa and they ran up.  Melissa came
trudging back into the lamplight, her bottom half sopping wet and her pant leg
torn to reveal that her knee was scraped and bleeding.

         “I caught the little bastard,” she said,
hauling by his shirt, a dirty, wet and small boy as young as nine, as old as twelve
perhaps.

         “Hi, I’m Fiona,” she said, kneeling down
near him.

         “What about it?” he snapped.

         “Was that your bed we found?” she asked.

         “Maybe,” he said.  “What’s it to you?”

         “Maybe,” Dirk said, “you want this.”  He
held up the ragged bear.

         “I don’t want that stupid thing!  Maybe
when I was a baby.”  The boy softened and looked as though he might cry.  Dirk
felt like a villain, worse yet, a bully, and immediately tried to give it to
him, but Fiona took it.

         “First answer some questions then I’ll
give you your friend, sweety.”  She said with a kind smile.  The boy looked
over his shoulder, not at Melissa, but around her, as if looking for something;
something he was afraid of.  “What?  What is it, dear?”

         “Nothin’.  Nothin’,” he said, turning
slowly to gaze at her and a look of young determination came over his face. 
“What do you need to know?  I usually charge for info.” 

         Fiona could not keep from smiling at his
candor, saying, “Not this time.  The bear’s your payment.  Now, did you just
come in the entrance by
The Unicorn’s Run
?”

         “I don’t want that kid’s toy,” he said. 
“But, yeah, I came in there.”

         “Do you know anything about the people
who have been robbing the temples?”

         “A little.”

         “Tell us,” Fiona said.  He sighed
impatiently, then something fell, or jumped, into the water somewhere far off
in the tunnels and the boy flinched then regained his composure.

         “Well first,” he said obstinately, “he
doesn’t live down here, he travels the rooftops.  Geez!”  The three looked at
each other, feeling stupid.