“Are you now lecturing me on strategy and tactics?” his father snapped. “I took this city with under a thousand men. I routed Eddar Olin’s northward thrust with barely twice that, and I hammered this empire back together with a handful of rivets. Do not dare to question that I have this situation in hand.”

“Besides,” Hierem added, “you don’t know that it is coming here at all, Prince. It seems to have come from nowhere, probably it will return there.”

“That’s a stupid assumption to make.”

“If it comes for any part of the Empire, we will be ready for it,” the Emperor said. “You will not chase after this thing. That is my last word on the matter.”

The tone was final. Attrebus glared at his father and the minister, then, after the most perfunctory of bows, he spun on his heel and left.

He sat outside on the steps for a few moments, trying to cool off, get his thoughts together. He was almost ready to leave when he looked up at approaching footsteps.

It was a young man with a thin ascetic face, freckles, and red hair. He wore an Imperial uniform.

“Treb!”

Attrebus stood and the two clapped each other in a hug.

“You’re thin, Florius,” he said. “Your mother’s not feeding you anymore?”

“Not so much. It’s mostly your father doing that now.”

Treb stepped back and regarded his old friend. “You made captain! Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“I should never have let my father have you,” Attrebus said. “You should be riding with me.”

“I should like that,” Florius said. “It’s been a long time since we had an adventure together. Do you remember that time we snuck off into the market district—”

“I remember my father’s guards dragging us back by the ears,” Attrebus said. “But if you want to arrange a transfer …”

“I’ve been assigned to command the garrison at Water’s Edge,” Florius said. “But maybe when that assignment’s done.”

“I’ll come looking for you,” Attrebus said. “Divines, it’s good to see you Florius.”

“Do you have time for a drink?”

He paused, then shook his head. “No—I need to see to something right now. But I will see you in future.”

“Right, then,” Florius said, and the two men parted company.

Attrebus nodded to himself and went to meet Gulan. He found him near the gate.

“How did it go?” Gulan asked.

“Gather everyone at my house in Ione. We can supply there and be on our way by tomorrow. Be quiet about it.”

“That well, eh?” He shifted. “You’re going against the Emperor’s wishes? Are you sure you want to do that?”

“I’ve done it before.”

“Which is why he’s likely to suspect, and have you watched.”

“Which is why we’re being discreet. Disperse the guard as if I’ve given them a holiday, and have them come individually to Ione. You and I will take the way through the sewers.”

Gulan looked doubtful but he nodded.

Attrebus clapped him on the shoulder.

“You’ll see, old friend. This will be our greatest victory yet.”

TWO

“You’re the new skraw,” the man said. It wasn’t a question.

Mere-Glim nodded, trying to size the fellow up. He looked more or less like one of Annaïg’s race, although with a noticeable yellowish cast to his skin and eyes. He had a long, doleful face and red hair. He was wearing the same black loincloth that Glim now wore.

“My name is Mere-Glim,” he offered.

“Yeah? You can call me Wert. And what are you, Mere-Glim? They say you don’t need the vapors.”

They’d been walking through a stone corridor, but now they entered a modest cave. Water poured from an opening in the wall, ran in a stream across the floor, and vanished into a pool in the middle of the chamber. Several globes of light were fixed to the ceiling, nearly obscured by the ferns growing around them. The rest of the cave was felted in moss. Mere-Glim found it pleasant.

“Eh?”

Glim realized he’d been asked a question.

“My people call ourselves Saxhleel,” he said. “Others call us Argonians. I’m not sure what you mean by vapors.”

“You didn’t come out of the sump,” Wert said. “Nothing like you has ever come out of the sump. Which means you ain’t from Umbriel, ain’t that so?”

“It is,” Glim replied.

“So I reckon you’re one o’ them they was searching for, down below.”

“They found us.”

“Makes you—well, there ain’t no word for it, is there? A From-Somewhere-Elser. Well, then, welcome to the sump. Lovely place to work.” He chuckled, but that turned abruptly into a nasty cough. He covered his mouth with the back of his hand, and Glim noticed it came away bloody.

“Vapors,” Wert explained.

“What are they?”

“Well, see, I’m told you can breathe down there. But none of us can, not without the vapors. We go to the yellow cave, and we breathe ’em in for a while, and then we can stay under until they wear off.”

“How long is that?”

“Depends. A few hours, usually. Long enough to get some work done.”

“So what do we do?”

“Well, I’m to show you, I am,” Wert said. “That’s where we’re on to right now. I’ll go take the vapors—I won’t be back here, because if I don’t get in the water right away, I’ll suffocate. So you just swim out and wait for me. Don’t wander by yourself. And please don’t try to run away. You won’t make it, and I’ll pay the price.”

He watched Wert go, then walked over to the pool and lowered himself in, letting the mild current take him along. The pool bent into a tube, and he could see light ahead. A moment later he emerged in shallow water, just about as deep as he was tall.

The sump spread out before him, a nearly perfectly circular lake in the bottom of a cone-shaped cavity. Umbriel City climbed up and away from him in all directions. Some of it hung above him. He thought that if crows could build cities, they would look something like this—vain, shiny, lopsided, brash, and bragging.

A few moments later Wert’s head appeared a few yards out. He gestured for Glim to follow.

The shallows teemed with strange life: slender, swaying amber rods covered in cilia, swimmers that seemed like some strange cross of fish and butterfly, living nets composed of globes propelling themselves with water-jets and dragging fine webs between them, centipede-things as long as his arm and little shrimplike things no bigger than his thumb-claw.

He stopped when he saw the body. At first he saw only a thick school of silver fish, but they parted at his approach. It had been a woman with dark skin and hair; now bones were showing in places and worms clustered on exposed organs. Shuddering, he turned away, but then he saw another, similar swarm of fish. And another to his right. He started at something in the edge of his vision, but it was only Wert.

“They drop the bodies from above or send them down the slides. This is where they start.” His voice was weird, thick with the water in his lungs.

“Why were they killed?”

“What do you mean? Most just died of something or other. I suppose a few mighta been executed. But this is where we all end, ain’t it—in the sump.” He waved his hand vaguely. “We collect a lot of stuff for the kitchens here. Orchid shrimp, Rejjem sap, Inf fronds. Other things we fish for deeper, especially shear-teeth. You’ll learn about that, but mostly you’ll work in the deep sump. That’s perfect for you. So come on, let’s go to the Drop.”

They swam on, with the water getting gradually deeper at first. He didn’t have to be told what the Drop was—he knew it when he saw it. The sump became a steeply curving cone that drove deep into the stone of Umbriel. And at the very bottom, in the narrowest place, an actinic light flashed, like a ball of lightning.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“That’s the conduit to the ingenium,” Wert said. “The sump takes care of our bodies—the ingenium takes care of our souls and keeps the world running. I’d stay well clear of the conduit, if I was you. Or me, now that I think of it.”