Akstyr puffed his chest as he said the foreign term, no doubt proud he knew a Kendorian word.
Basilard signed a response, hands and fingers moving in a series of curt gestures.
“What?” Akstyr asked.
“Basilard is Mangdorian, not Kendorian,” Amaranthe said. “And he doesn’t know that word you just used.”
Basilard inclined his head her direction.
“Huh?” Akstyr asked. “Oh. Well, whatever. Only the empire is so backward that it…”
Amaranthe returned her attention to the map. Even if those two were talking about something else, they would eventually notice they were standing still. Unfortunately, the channel she wanted to take was the one not there. Only a flat brick wall waited in that direction. Maybe if they turned left, they could loop back around and-
Basilard tugged at her shirt. Akstyr had a hand on the wall, his face toward the ceiling, and his eyes distant and thoughtful.
“Find something, Akstyr?” she asked after a minute passed without him moving.
He blinked, then pointed down the channel to the right. “No, wait.” He pointed left. “Er.” He shrugged and lifted his arms.
“Something odd with the intersection?” Amaranthe asked. Maybe there was a reason they were lost.
“I don’t know. It’s just…strange.”
Sicarius appeared at Amaranthe’s shoulder. Startled, she took a step, and her heel slid on a slimy patch. A quick arm flail kept her from toppling into the channel or falling against him, but it was anything but graceful. She attempted to turn the movement into a casual lean against the wall. Basilard’s eyebrows lifted, but Akstyr was still puzzling out the channels and did not seem to notice her lack of suaveness.
“So, Sicarius.” Something moist fuzzed the wall beneath Amaranthe’s hand. She gave up the pretense, slipped a kerchief out of her pocket, and wiped off the mildewy residue. “Find anything interesting?”
“No.”
“Find anything boring?” She smiled.
Sicarius favored her with his usual humorless face.
“I wanna check something,” Akstyr said.
He backed up for a running start and leaped across the channel to the other side, the side where a flat, bland wall stood instead of the fourth passage the map said should be there. The ledge was only a foot wide, and his momentum smashed him into the bricks, but he managed to keep from bouncing back into the water.
“Something over there?” Amaranthe asked.
“The wall is solid.” Akstyr massaged his hand where it had mashed against the brick.
“You don’t sense anything odd about that spot, do you?”
“The wall?” Akstyr asked. “No.”
Sicarius was watching her, probably wondering at her string of questions. She showed him the map, which he studied briefly.
“An error,” he said.
She had feared he would simply say she had led them the wrong direction and was glad he thought it a problem with the map.
“Akstyr thinks this intersection is odd,” Amaranthe said. “Do you sense anything?” He had far more experience with the Science than she did and likely more than Akstyr as well.
Sicarius considered the passages. “No.”
“Really? Is it possible his nose for magic is better than yours?”
She meant it as a simple question, not an insult, but his expression grew chilly.
“In their eagerness to practice their craft, neophytes learning the mental sciences often sense things that are not there.”
Akstyr scowled at him. “You think I’m imagining things?”
Sicarius turned the chilly gaze on him. Akstyr’s chin lifted mulishly, but he looked away first. A resentful curl remained on his lips.
“Basilard, why don’t you and Akstyr explore that direction?” Amaranthe pointed to the right. “Our goal is still to find the source of those bodies, so check manholes and access points along the way, but if Akstyr senses anything more, feel free to veer off to investigate.”
“A waste of time,” Sicarius said.
Amaranthe gave him a nudge toward the channel on the left. “Sicarius and I will explore this direction.” She dug out a pocket watch. “Unless you find something worth exploring, meet back at the pumping house in two hours, and we’ll investigate the gambling joint.”
Basilard nodded and led the way down the indicated tunnel. Akstyr, hands stuffed in his pockets, slouched after him.
As Amaranthe and Sicarius headed the opposite direction, she clamped down on her tongue to keep from bringing up his lack of tact and the problems inherent in offending people. It would sound like nagging, and she did not want to alert him to her hunch that Akstyr did not seem the sort to forgive insults. Suggesting he might be a threat one day would only get him a knife in his back. Besides, she hoped, amongst comrades who cared, Akstyr would grow into a better man.
Water spilled out of a massive pipe in the far wall. Amaranthe eyed it as they passed, still suspicious of that side of the channel. Maybe the old waterway had been bricked in and the flow diverted to this exit point. If so, why would the map not have been updated?
She thought of investigating it, but the channel had widened around the pipe, creating a pool too great even for Sicarius to jump.
They continued onward until they reached a ninety-degree turn. Amaranthe halted on the corner.
“This is supposed to be a T-section,” she said.
The waterway was narrower here, and Sicarius hopped the six-foot channel as if it were a puddle. He probed the wall on the far side. “If it ever was, it’s not apparent. The bricks and mortar are aged.”
“Odd and odder.” Amaranthe took out the map and marked the missing passage. “If we had the construction blueprints, I could understand if there were differences in what was actually dug out down here and the original plans, but this is the as-built drawing from the pumping house for this section of the city aqueducts. It should have been completed after the construction and updated anytime there was an expansion or alteration.”
“The pumping house has mediocre security,” Sicarius said. “Perhaps only dummy drawings are kept there.”
“To what ends? If something breaks, city workers need accurate maps to fix the problem.”
“There’s no machinery that would need repairs out here.”
“Just miles and miles of brick passages, huh?”
Though Sicarius had inspected the wall, Amaranthe felt the need to look herself. She pocketed the paper, considered the mildew-fuzzed bricks on the ledge, and found a spot that appeared slightly less treacherous than the others.
She lunged across the channel. Her foot skidded on the narrow ledge. Sicarius surprised her by catching her elbow and keeping her from thudding into the wall.
“Thank you.” Amaranthe arched an eyebrow. “Though I’m not sure why I deserve the gentlemanly treatment here, after you let me scrape the skin off my belly button climbing into that loft last night.”
He released her elbow. “I didn’t want you to drop the lantern.”
“Ah, so I merely appeared less competent and more in need of assistance today.” Amaranthe set the lantern down and ran her fingers along the damp bricks.
“There is nothing here,” Sicarius said.
She continued probing. Maybe Akstyr’s mulishness was contagious. Or maybe she just relished the idea of finding something when he had searched and discovered nothing. She took her sword out and tapped on the wall with the hilt, thinking she might hear hollow clanks that suggested a secret space behind. Alas, none of her banging sounded unnatural, and running her hands along the wall revealed nothing but slimy and slimier bricks.
“Let’s go back to that pipe,” she said.
