Between Two Darknesses

Rishi reached Erik’s house just after dawn, with Maeril’s sketch folded inside his Order papers. Erik was at the kitchen table, tightening a strap above his braced knee. A workman’s hook leaned against his chair.

Rishi put the sketch beside Erik’s untouched breakfast. “We think the people holding Lysaerra are using Kolat Towers. There is an invisible barrier around the buildings. Maeril can follow it above the street, but we need to know what is beneath it.”

Erik drew the paper closer. “You want a cellar.”

“Or a service passage. Somewhere we can reach the buried part without entering the towers.”

Erik studied the lines, then moved his plate onto a corner to hold the sketch flat. “Rivenbeam has worked under those streets. Some of the old drains were left when they changed the roads. I can ask which ones are still open.”

“I need your judgment. I can do the lifting.”

Erik looked at him. “You will need more hands than that. Let me see who is fit to come.”

He reached for the hook. Rishi moved it within his hand and took the rolled measuring cord from the other side of the table.

By the time the shops opened, two survivors from Erik’s crew had joined them with lanterns and tools. Rishi recognized one by the dressing still tied around his forearm. The man shifted his bundle before Rishi could offer to carry it.

“I can take the poles,” Rishi said. “You will need that hand.”

The man glanced at Erik, then passed them over.

Their first descent was through a yard into an old drainage run. Erik went slowly, leaning on his hook at the turns. Rishi stayed behind him on the steps, close enough to help without crowding his feet.

Beyond a low arch, the passage ended at a wall of old brick.

One of the workers raised his lantern toward the joint between the arch and the wall. “That would put us nearer the towers. The arch looks sound.”

“Keep back from it,” Erik said.

Erik scraped mortar from a seam, then struck the brick with the end of an iron tool. The hollow sound carried farther than Rishi expected. “Bad fill behind it. Open that wall and the street follows. We try the next run.”

Rishi looked up at the crown of the arch. “Can it stay as it is?”

“For now. Mark it for repair.”

The worker chalked a warning at the entrance. They carried the tools back into daylight.

Near noon, a service passage brought them to a disused cistern beneath a warehouse in the Southern Ward. The basin was dry except for a dark seam along its foot. An old outlet had been stopped with rough masonry; above it, the vault rested on thick stone piers.

Erik sat on the lowest step while one of the men stretched a line across the basin. Rishi held the lantern for him to compare the measurements with Maeril’s sketch.

“This brings us beside the foundations,” Erik said. “We can cut from the old outlet and keep clear of what carries the warehouse.”

“How much would we need to dig?”

Erik marked a short line. “A few yards to the old service cut. After that, we find out what the wizards built over it.”

Rishi crouched beside him. “We may be bringing a woman back who cannot crawl.”

Erik’s pencil stopped. “You will not carry her upright down here.”

“Then I need room to turn her without pulling on her arms. Enough to support her head.”

Erik looked across the basin and added a wider mark at the turn. “We clear this bend first. Bring strong cloth and straps. If we have to draw her through, we make something she can lie on.”

Rishi took the pencil when Erik offered it and marked the wider place on his own copy.

One worker lifted a sack from the bundle. “Where are we putting the spoil?”

“Sack it here,” Erik said. “Nothing loose goes up the stairs. We take it out with the warehouse refuse.”

“If the keeper lets us.”

“Sella is speaking to him. He already wants the damp repaired. She is asking for the cellar key and space for a covered cart.”

Rishi glanced toward the stair. “And the Watch?”

“She knows who handles inspections on this street. She will tell him we are shoring a cellar. We are shoring a cellar.”

He pressed the heel of his hand against his wrapped ribs and waited before standing. “We wait for her word before bringing the timber. No one sneaks a beam past a bored Watchman.”

Rishi put the lantern down and offered his forearm. Erik took it, rose, and kept hold until his bad knee had accepted the weight.

They spent the next hour clearing the turn. Rishi carried broken brick to the sacks while Erik directed the placement of the first supports. At the old outlet, the worker with the bandaged arm lifted his pick.

“Small bites at the mortar,” Erik said. “If anything moves above your hand, stop.”

The first fragment came away into a folded cloth. Rishi held the lantern close to the opening. Beyond the brick was earth, dark and packed hard.

He set Maeril’s sketch on the dry step, beyond the falling dust.

That afternoon, Maeril followed Elisa through Renaer’s house with her spellbook under one arm and the hawk clinging to the back of her other wrist. The bird had refused the offered perch in the entrance hall. She could hardly blame it; the stuffed owl above the stairs was an unfriendly choice of decoration.

Renaer opened a door onto a long workroom. Light fell across a sewing table, rolls of cloth, and drawers with brass handles. Firemind had already cleared one end of the table. Chime hovered above a dish of pins.

“You may use the room,” Renaer said. “I would like the table returned with the same number of legs.”

“How attached are you to the finish?” Maeril asked.

He looked at Elisa.

“I will find something to cover it,” Elisa said.

Maeril put the hawk on the open window’s sill and laid her book on a spare piece of felt. Her left shin ached from the walk. She drew a stool close enough to rest that foot beneath the table and spread out her notes from the towers.

Firemind moved a bowl of buckles out of her way. “Anything useful in the barrier?”

“A very satisfactory absence of gaps wherever I could reach.”

She turned the sketch sideways and began a view of the ground beneath the buildings. “Erik needs to get me beside it. I want to see whether the field ends, bends, or continues below anything we can dig through.”

“Would the earth hold it in place?”

“I would be delighted if it needed the earth’s permission. I have not found that requirement.”

Firemind watched her extend the line below the foundations, then placed a short measuring rod beside the drawing. “Mark where a probe stops. Several heights, same distance from the wall. That should tell you whether it slopes.”

Maeril picked up the rod. “And tell Erik how much ground he would have to move. Yes. I will need the measurements before I get enthusiastic.”

She made the note and opened her spellbook. The workings she knew were familiar beneath her fingers. The conjuration she had sensed beyond the towers remained a few uncertain lines on a separate sheet.

Elisa returned with a length of plain cloth and drew it over the unused half of the table. “Can you prepare for that crossing here?”

“I can prepare to examine it without putting my hand through first. What it opens onto will have to wait until we reach it.”

She set aside the incense she would need to read the magic, checked the stitching along her warded cuff, and began wrapping the more fragile components. The hawk flew from the window. For a moment she felt the lift of air beneath its wings before she let her attention settle back into her own hands.

Across the table, Firemind had drawn a circle with an empty center.

“Is that the machine?” Maeril asked.

“That is how much I know about the machine.”

Chime lowered over it. “It has an unpleasant sound. We do not yet know which unpleasant sound.”

Maeril pulled the blank sheet nearer. “Then Thorvin can begin with what it was supposed to do before it began doing something else.”

“If he agrees to speak to us.”

“My message is on its way,” Elisa said. “The woman who brought bread to the Manor knows a brazier near the Castle Ward market. He repairs her ovens. She has asked him to lend us his workshop tomorrow morning.”

“For a meeting with Xanathar’s engineer?” Maeril asked.

“For a private meeting. I did not put Thorvin’s name in a message someone else had to carry.”

Firemind nodded. “I have sent word to the engineer who passed on his warning. Thorvin comes up for supplies. If he can spare an hour to discuss what is going wrong, we can be there.”

Maeril looked again at the empty circle. “I would like to be there too.”

Before Firemind could answer, footsteps stopped at the open door.

The dragonborn standing beyond it was dark green, with nearly black scales along his jaw. A heavy cloak covered one shoulder. Vials and small clamps lay flat against his chest, and his bare claws rested at his sides. He had no visible weapon.

Elisa rose so quickly that her stool caught the edge of the cloth. “Hazarak. Thank you for coming.”

“Your message said you needed help.”

His gaze moved to Firemind and stayed there.

“There is a longer explanation,” Firemind said. “I would prefer to give it after you decide whether to sit down.”

Hazarak drew out a chair. He sat facing the door, leaving enough space behind him for his tail.

Maeril moved a roll of cloth before it touched the scales. “I am Maeril.”

“You were on the road with Erik.”

“Yes. He is helping Rishi find a way beneath the towers now.”

Elisa laid the sewer map between them. “We need to enter Xanathar’s lair. Firemind will have doors and mechanisms to work on. I need someone who can keep danger away from him, and give me room to help if anyone is hurt.”

“As you did for me.”

Elisa kept her hand on the map. “That is not why I sent for you.”

“We know how you work,” Firemind said. “We need someone who will hold a passage when the rest of us cannot.”

Hazarak looked from one to the other. “You followed my quarry under the cellars. Firemind closed its way back to the sewers. You kept me standing until the hunt was finished.” He set one claw beside Elisa’s hand. “You both helped me when you could have left. I still owe you.”

“I am asking for your help, Hazarak,” Elisa said. “You can refuse.”

“I heard you. I will go once, and the debt is answered. Tell me what we are taking from it.”

Elisa told him about the Stone and the creature that had reached the Trade Way. Firemind showed him the marked stair and the uncertain passages beyond it. Hazarak followed the drawing without interrupting until Firemind’s finger reached the smaller circle.

“What is kept there?” Hazarak asked.

“A goldfish. Sylgar. Xanathar’s attachment to it is one reason we think the Stone might be close by.”

“We have been warned to leave the fish alone,” Elisa said.

“Then we leave it alone.” Hazarak drew his claw back from the paper. “Where do you stand while he works?”

The question was for Elisa. She leaned over the sketch. “Close enough to reach him. Away from the door itself, if there is room.”

“Leave him somewhere to fall back. Do not fill the space behind him.”

Firemind shifted his pencil mark to one side of the passage. “You watch the way we came.”

“And above us. The thing that owns those halls does not have to walk.”

Maeril looked at the small spaces between Firemind’s circles. She had been thinking about the mechanisms in their walls. She wrote a question about ceiling height beside the passage. “That is a useful distinction.”

Hazarak glanced at her drawing. “Usually before it bites.”

By dusk, Maeril had cleared enough of Renaer’s table to set a lamp between her spellbook and the two maps. The hawk had returned to the sill. Elisa came in with a key, and Firemind followed carrying a folded note.

“The brazier agreed,” Elisa said. “His workshop opens into a yard, with one door and high windows. He will leave it to us until noon.”

“Thorvin will come after the morning market,” Firemind said. “He expects another engineer with an interest in the machine.”

Maeril looked up from her book. “He will have one.”

“He may decide that is all he agreed to.”

“Then we need to settle what happens when he asks to leave,” Elisa said.

Firemind put the note beside the lamp. “We keep him. He knows the lair’s defenses, and he will know we mean to cross them. I will not send him back to decide which of us frightens him more.”

Maeril read the note. It gave a time and the workshop address, nothing about how long the meeting would last. “We need his corrections to this map, the door controls, and what he actually observed at the machine. I can ask about the magic. You will hear where his account of the machinery stops making sense.”

“And Hazarak can keep the door.”

The dragonborn, still seated at the far end of the table, lifted his head. “If you want him unhurt, do not make everyone grab him at once.”

Maeril set the note down. “We also need somewhere to put him when we have finished. I refuse to take turns watching a prisoner while Rishi waits under a street.”

Renaer had stopped in the doorway with a tray. He set it on the clear end of the table. “I take it you need more than the workroom.”

Elisa went to meet him. “Can you hold him here while we go below?”

“For how long?”

“A few days, if necessary,” Firemind said. “Long enough that he cannot get ahead of us.”

Renaer looked at the map, then at the workshop key beside it. “There is a room on the ground floor with a barred window. Two of my guards can watch him. I trust them.”

“Search him for tools. Small ones.”

“I have watched you empty your pockets. They will be thorough.”

“He will need food and somewhere to sleep,” Elisa said.

“He will have both. I will speak to him myself before any decision about releasing him.”

Maeril drew the blank sheet for the machine toward her and weighted its corner with a cup. Firemind began marking the places on the route where his sources disagreed.

A household servant brought a second note before the lamp needed trimming. Maeril recognized Rishi’s hand beneath a smear of clay. Sella had secured the cellar key; the first section was braced. They had begun clearing the old service cut. He would send for Maeril when they reached something the tools could not explain.

She wrote back that she would be at the brazier’s workshop in the morning and here afterward. Then she added a line asking him to sleep before he mistook exhaustion for another useful skill.

She folded the reply around the measuring rod and gave both to the waiting servant.