At last, the immense city wall rose above the woods. We were almost home, with time to spare, thanks to the dragons.
“This way,” Stef said, and she led us toward Midrange Lake—or what was left of it.
Now the lake was a wide, sloping hole in the ground with decaying plants and animals at the bottom. The rotting stink rose up, almost unbearable when mixed with the sulfuric tinge that colored every breath in the center of Range. Everyone groaned and covered their faces with scarves, but that hardly seemed to help.
“The only good thing about the lake being drained,” Stef said, “is that since there is no way into Heart from the surface, we can get into Heart from below. The wall only extends so far beneath the ground, which is the only thing that enabled us to build a sewer system and aqueducts from the lake. If the lake were full, we wouldn’t be able to get into the city.”
First, we had to descend into the pit of the lake.
“Do we go now?” I asked. Clouds hung low in the sky, heavy with the threat of more snow and another cold night. I couldn’t see the position of the sun, but it felt late. We’d been walking for hours.
She nodded. “We might as well. We’ll be in shadow. It will be harder for anyone to see us, and I don’t want to go down there in the dark.”
The sylph went first, forming a line of blackness down the bank. Brown plants flared bright and burned away as the sylph searched for the opening to the aqueduct.
“I sincerely hope this is big enough for us to walk through.” I watched Whit and Stef start down after the sylph, then lowered myself until I found a foothold. Icy mud squished around my boot, and I wanted to be sick as I sank a little. The lake might have drained, but the earth was still damp and gross. The sylph’s passage had only made it worse, warming the mud.
Sam shot me an amused look as he climbed after me. “It’s pretty large. A million people consume a lot of water. Just be grateful she isn’t taking us through the sewer.”
I gagged and followed the others, my boots sucking and slurping as we descended into the bowl of the lake. Muddy walls rose all around.
Metal and shadow caught my eye ahead. A huge pipe protruded from the side of the lake, a thick grille and mesh over the front of it. Weeds dripped off the rusted hinges, then sizzled away as the sylph worked to burn off anything that might get in Stef’s way. She already had her tools out.
The pipe was big enough for me to walk inside, but anyone taller—everyone else—would have to duck their heads or hunch. Finally. A real benefit to my lack of height. Of course, I would need a boost getting inside, since the bottom was at my waist.
“This is the intake pipe,” Stef said, prying off the grille. Whit and Sam stepped in to help. “It pulls in water when the tank inside the industrial quarter is low. The water is strained for large particles here, but there’s still a lot of cleaning to be done before we can drink it.” She grunted, and the metal mesh followed the grille onto the bottom of the lake.
“Of course,” Whit said, “all this is new within the last few thousand years. At one point, we drank straight from the lake. Then we got smart enough to carry the water in and boil it.”
“Gross.” I hid my flute case inside my coat and tightened my backpack straps, then let Sam and Whit boost me into the dark hole of the pipe. When I turned on the lantern Sam handed me, I saw only damp metal, algae, and lots of darkness beyond.
This would be the opposite of fun, but it would be better than trying to walk into the city through one of the arches. Leaving through a normal route hadn’t gone very well, after all.
“Are you sure there’s a way out of this?” I asked. “A way that’s not one of the purification tanks, that is.”
Stef grinned. “There’s a hatch we use to put cleaning drones into the pipes. I swear I’ll get you through this safely.”
“Okay,” I muttered, tapping Sarit a quick SED message to let her know to meet us. Then I helped the others in as best I could, and stood aside so Stef and Whit could lead. Sam followed behind me.
The pipe wasn’t comfortable to walk inside. I’d never thought I minded small spaces before, but the walk underground took forever. We headed down, then up again, and I tried to recall all Stef’s assurances that this was safe: they’d been careful to direct the pipe only where the ground was thick enough to support it, and coat it with heat-resistant material so that if something shifted, the pipe would be unaffected.