Rise of Empire (The Riyria Revelations #3-4)

“No,” Arista said apprehensively.

The woman studied Arista, her old eyes slowly moving over her body as if she were memorizing every line of her figure and every crease in her dress. “You have an odd way about you. The way you walk, the way you sit. It’s all very … precise, very … proper.”

Arista was over being startled now and was just plain irritated. “You don’t strike me as the kind of person who should accuse others of being odd,” she replied.

“There!” the woman said excitedly, and wagged a finger. “See? Anyone else would have called me a mannish little whore. You have manners. You speak in subtle innuendo, like a … princess.”

“Who are you?” Hadrian abruptly intervened, moving between the two. Royce also appeared from the shadows behind the strange woman.

“Who are you?” she replied saucily.

The door to The Laughing Gnome burst open and uniformed imperial guards poured in. Tables were turned over and drinks hit the floor. Customers nearest the door fell back in fear, cowering in the corners, or were pushed aside.

“Arrest everyone!” a man ordered in a booming voice. He was a big man with a potbelly, dark brows, and sagging cheeks. He kept his weight on his heels and his thumbs in his belt as he glared at the crowd.

“What’s this all about, Trenchon?” Ayers shouted from behind the bar.

“You would be smart to keep your hole shut, Ayers, or I’ll close this tavern tonight and have you in stocks by morning—or worse. Harboring traitors and providing a meeting place for conspirators will buy you death at the post!”

“I didn’t do nothing!” Ayers cried. “It was the kid. He’s the one that started all the talk, and that woman from Kilnar. They’re the ones. I just served drinks like every night. I’m not responsible for what customers say. I’m not involved in this. It was them and a few of the others who were going along with it.”

“Take everyone in for questioning,” Trenchon ordered. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. I want the ringleaders!”

“This way,” the mannish woman whispered. Grabbing Arista’s arm, she began to pull the princess away from the soldiers toward the kitchen.

Arista pulled back.

The woman sighed. “Unless you want to have a long talk with the viceroy about who you are and what you’re doing here, you’ll follow me now.”

Arista looked at Royce, who nodded, but there was concern on his face. They grabbed up their bags and followed.

Starting at the main entrance, the imperial soldiers began hauling people out into the rain and mud. Women screamed and children cried. Those who resisted were beaten and thrown out. Some near the rear door tried to run, only to find more soldiers waiting.

The mannish woman plowed through the crowd into the tavern’s kitchen, where a cook looked over, surprised. “Best look out,” their guide said. “Trenchon is looking to arrest everyone.”

The cook dropped her ladle in shock as they pressed by her, heading to the walk-in pantry. Closing the door, the woman revealed a trapdoor in the pantry’s floor. They climbed down a short wooden stair into The Laughing Gnome’s wine cellar. Several dusty bottles lined the walls, as did casks of cheese and containers of butter. The woman took a lantern that hung from the ceiling and, closing the door above, led them behind the wine racks to the cellar’s far wall. There was a metal grate in the floor. She wedged a piece of old timber in the bars and pried it up.

“Inside, all of you,” she ordered.

Above, they could still hear the screams and shouts, then the sound of heavy boots on the kitchen floor.

“Hurry!” she whispered.

Royce entered first, climbing down metal rungs that formed a ladder. He slipped into darkness and Hadrian motioned for the princess to follow. She took a deep breath as if going underwater and climbed down.

The ladder continued far deeper than Arista would have expected, and instead of the tight, cramped tunnel she anticipated, she found herself dropping into a large gallery. It was completely dark, except around the lantern, and the smell was unmistakable. Without pause or a word of direction, the woman walked away. They had no choice but to follow her light.

They were in a sewer far larger and grander than Arista had imagined possible after seeing the city above. Walls of brick and stone rose twelve feet to a roof of decorative mosaic tiles. Every few feet grates formed waterfalls that spilled from the ceiling, raining down with a deafening roar. Storm water frothed and foamed in the center of the tunnel as it churned around corners and broke upon dividers, spraying walls and staining them dark.

They chased the woman with the lantern as she moved quickly along the brick curb near the wall. Like ribs supporting the ceiling, thick stone archways jutted out at regular intervals, blocking their path. The woman skirted around these easily, but it was much harder for Arista in her gown to traverse the columns and keep her footing on the slick stone curb. Below her, the storm’s runoff created a fast-flowing river of dirty water and debris that echoed in the chamber.

The corridor reached a four-way intersection. In the stone at the top corners were chiseled small notations. These read HONOR WAY going one direction and HERALD’S STREET going the other. The woman with the lantern never wavered, and turned without a pause, leading them down Honor Way at a breakneck pace. Abruptly, she stopped.

They stood on a curb beside the sewer river, which was like any other part of the corridor they had traveled except a bit wider and quieter.

“Before we go further, I must be certain,” she began. “Allow me to make things easier by guessing the lady here is actually Princess Arista Essendon of Melengar. You are Hadrian Blackwater, and you’re Duster, the famous Demon of Colnora. Am I correct?”

“That would make you a Diamond,” Royce said.

“At your service.” She smiled, and Arista thought how catlike her face was, in that she appeared both friendly and sinister at the same time. “You can call me Quartz.”

“In that case, you can assume you’re correct.”

“Thanks for getting us out of there,” Hadrian offered.

“No need to thank me. It’s my job and, in this particular case, my happy pleasure. We didn’t know where you were since leaving Colnora, but I was hoping you would happen by this way. Now follow me.”

Off she sprang again, and Arista once more struggled to follow.

“How is this here?” Hadrian asked from somewhere behind Arista. “This sewer is incredible but the city above has dirt roads.”