Waterborn

upon the good intentions of the rope. True to her trust, the braided hemp did not fail, and Tsem's thick hands received her, lowered her gently into the noisome muck at his feet. She stared down, appalled, at the viscous liquid that stood up to her ankles. It was barely moving. That meant that the overflow from the fountains was not feeding this part of the sewer— confirming what her map said. Despite the horrible smell, Hezhi felt a little spark of elation. It was real; the things she had worked out on paper, in the library—they were real.

'Move up the tunnel a bit, Princess, so I can pull the rope down.'

She complied, taking the lamp back from Tsem and stepping out from under the sink, farther down the sewer duct itself. Behind her she heard Tsem cursing as he yanked this way and that trying to dislodge the bar braced across the opening. Meanwhile, she examined the sewer.

It was not as large as she expected. She had to stoop a bit in it, which meant that Tsem would have to go on all fours. It was plenty wide enough for either of them, however. Tsem would not get lodged in it, like a stopper in a bottle.

Behind her, Tsem's low curses were punctuated by a sharper one, as the poker finally fell and presumably hit him.

'Tsem? Are you all right?'

'Oh, I will be, Princess, as soon as I'm down on my knees in this muck.'

Hezhi stifled a giggle. 'Sorry, Tsem.'

'You carry the lantern, Princess,' he replied dolefully. She nodded and began making her way down the low passage, in the direction of the water flow.

Fortunately for Tsem, it wasn't long before they joined a larger tunnel. They passed beneath another sink, and after that the duct sloped more steeply downward, flowing into a central passage. This was vaulted, easily rising high enough for Tsem to stand upright. Hezhi had read that these larger tunnels were designed to return vast amounts of water to the river in the event of a flood. The passage seemed capable of that to her, being easily as wide as one of the halls in the palace. Better yet, the edges of the passage were raised above the channel of the sewer itself, making it possible to avoid actually being in the water. This was fortunate; she couldn't tell how deep the channel was, but she suspected that it would be over her head. A constant sound of trickling water surrounded them, fountain overflow joining the stream. Unlike the first, narrow shaft, here the water was actually flowing with some force.

'Which way now?' Tsem asked from behind her.

'Left,' she replied. She had memorized as much of her map as possible to avoid having to consult it constantly.

The ledge was comfortably broad, even for Tsem. At his insistence, he went first. Hezhi began to protest, but at the limits of the lantern light she noticed something that changed her mind: a plethora of minuscule lights, the shining eyes of rats staring at the lantern. She relinquished the light to her bodyguard, and they continued on.

The larger tunnels were less noisome than their entryway. The air moved a bit more readily here, helped by the sinks and storm drains they occasionally passed beneath. Twice they heard people near these openings, conversing about this or that, and she felt a little thrill of excitement. It was like being invisible, able to see and hear others but not noticeable herself. In fact, however, she realized that they were in a great deal of danger of being detected, if anyone happened to be glancing down one of the shafts when the light of the lantern passed beneath them. But this didn't happen, and her fantasy of invisibility remained intact.

'We'll enter the Second-Dynasty sewers soon,' she whispered excitedly to Tsem. 'They are below these and lie atop the buried city.'

'Second-Dynasty sewers,' Tsem grumbled. 'My heart is filled with joy.'

Up ahead, water muttered angrily, cascading more loudly than the constant background gurgle of inflow through the small ducts. The crashing increased as they approached it, and soon the two stood peering down into the depths of yet another hole. This one was very large, white limestone blocks set along its rim. The stone below it was limestone, as well, but it was a different color, seemed older somehow.

'See?' Hezhi commented. 'This hole was cut down to the old system. Everything below this is Second Dynasty or older.'

Tsem just sighed and uncoiled the rope, keeping any further comments to himself. The cataracts fell downward perhaps fifteen feet. There was nothing to brace their trusty poker against— the hole was much too wide. Tsem cast about for something to tie the rope to. He stopped when Hezhi tapped him on the arm.

'What?' he asked. She pointed.

'Engineers have to come down here periodically to make sure nothing important has collapsed,' she explained. 'We don't need a rope.'

A series of steel spikes were driven into the side wall of the shaft. They were almost certainly intended to be used as a ladder.

'Ah,' Tsem replied. He approached the spikes, reached down, and grasped one. He pushed hard on it, gradually shifting his full weight to bear upon it. The spike remained firm.

'Seems sturdy enough,' he commented, and after a slight hesitation, he began clambering down the questionable ladder. He yelped when the fifth spike down tore from the stone under his enormous weight, but maintained his hold.

'Several of them are loose now,' he called back up, when he had reached the landing at the base of the wall. 'The stone is more rotten the farther down you go.'

'I'll be, careful,' Hezhi promised. In a few moments she stood on the landing next to the half Giant.

'Well,' she said, scanning what she could see in the lamplight. 'Second-Dynasty sewers look remarkably like Third-Dynasty sewers.'

'I have no opinion,' Tsem commented, 'lacking your informed judgment.'

The lower tunnels were a bit narrower than the upper, and now and then the two were forced to leap crumbled places in the ledge. More often, they were forced to step over side passages en-tering the channel. Many of these seemed absolutely still and stagnant. Hezhi gave out a little gasp when she saw something up one of them, something large, moving beneath the surface, visible only by its ripples.

After that they saw ghosts, many of them. Most were as insubstantial as the one in her room, points in the atmosphere that caught the lamplight and twisted it up. The majority fled from their lamp, though a few more curious ones actually approached. There was one, however, that seemed quite solid. It was a man— she could tell that much—and he stayed just ahead of them, at the fringes of illumination. The dark hollows of his eyes were unreadable, but Hezhi still had the impression of intense concentration, as if the ghost were studying them in some way.

'If we meet a real ghost down here,' Tsem muttered, 'like the one in the Hall of Moments…' He did not finish.

'I have part of a broom,' Hezhi whispered.

'What?' Tsem turned to face her, his eyes wide, shocked.

'I took part of an old broom from one of the shrines,' she explained.

'You stole from the priesthood?'

'Well,' she considered, 'I don't know that stealing is the right word.'

'I don't believe this.' Tsem sighed. 'My days are certainly numbered.'

'Hush, Tsem. Besides, I did a bit of research on ghosts. Monsters like the one in the Hall of Moments are rare and usually asleep. Hopefully we won't wake any.'

'Hopefully.' Tsem snorted.

Whatever strange, dead thoughts their onlooker might entertain, he continued to back away from them, made no move to attack.

Not much farther along, the passage suddenly widened, and they found themselves crossing a room. The channel cut on through, and they could easily see, across the room, that the tunnel continued on. Above them the roof rose perhaps a span more than the roof of the sewer, and it was vaulted. In the dirty stone they could see numerous cracks, and a dense mass of gnarled and groping tendrils punched through the fractures.

'Roots,' Hezhi remarked. 'We must be beneath one of the gardens.'

'What is this? This looks like some of the buried rooms we used to explore under the old palace.'

'It's the same architecture,' she replied.

'I thought the buried city—First Dynasty—was still below us.'