Stalking Darkness

companion’s lightwand. Kneeling in front of the door, Seregil probed the keyhole with a hooked pick, soon producing a succession of grating clicks. The door swung in on blackness. Gathering their gear again, they slipped inside.
    Alec tacked a square of heavy felt over the grate, then looked around the little entrance chamber. In front of them, stone steps led downward through an arched passage and out of sight. The faint stench already permeating the air left no doubt they were in the right place.
    “Here, we’d better put these on now.” Seregil pulled vinegar-soaked face rags from a leather pouch and handed one to Alec. Leaving their cumbersome cloaks, they lit their torches with a firechip and started down, Seregil in the lead.
    “Why did they build it so big?” Alec whispered; the arched passage was nearly ten feet high.
    “For safety. The poisonous humours that can collect down here rise. The theory is that this design lets them collect overhead, with good air below. Keep an eye on the torches, though; if they burn blue or gutter, the air’s bad.”
    The stairway led down to a tunnel below. Narrow walkways bordered a central channel, full to the brim now with a swift, evil-smelling stream.
    Turning to the right, they followed the tunnel for several hundred feet. The recent rains had swelled the flow, and it had overflowed whole sections of the raised walkway, forcing them to wade ankle deep in the foul, frigid waters.
    Suddenly they heard high-pitched growling and squeaking coming from the darkness ahead. Seregil edged forward, torch held high, until they came to an iron grate fixed across the width of the tunnel.
    The lower ends of the vertical bars extended down into the channel and the body of a small dog was caught against them, held there by the pressure of the stream as it flowed through. Dozens of fat, snarling rats swarmed over the carcass, tearing at it and each other. Others paddled down the channel toward the feast or perched on the crosspieces of the grate. They paid little attention to the human interlopers as they fed, beady eyes glaring red in the torchlight.
    “This one is gated,” whispered Seregil, driving off the closestrats with the burning torch. “It’s locked up, but it’s nothing we can’t manage. Want to do the honors?”
    “Go ahead,” Alec rasped, not wanting to have to squeeze past his companion in such a narrow place.
    Jiggering the lock, Seregil swung back a narrow section of grate on protesting hinges and stepped through, Alec close on his heels.
    There were more rats beyond, rats everywhere. The chuckle of the flowing water and the sounds of the rats echoed in the silence as they paused at a sort of crossroads where another channel flowed into the one they were following. Leaping the four feet to the other side, they continued on to a second hinged grate. Beyond this the way began to slope downhill noticeably.
    No other tunnels intersected theirs and finally they came to a fixed grate. The ironwork was new and of the same design Alec had seen at the work site. The broad flanges set at the four corners of the grate rested against stone knees jutting from the walls of the tunnel and were held in place by thick iron pins set in holes drilled into the stone.
    “Here we are,” Seregil whispered, setting down his bundle. “Light your torch from mine and go check that side.”
    “What are we looking for, exactly?”
    “I don’t know, so be thorough. It could be some fault in the iron or the stone.”
    Alec jumped across the channel and began his examination of the ironwork, looking first for something as obvious as bars sawn through. They seemed sound enough, however. The sockets for the pins had been sealed with rivets hammered in hot and the lower flanges, which bore the weight of the grate, rested solidly against the stone knees.
    “Let’s try moving it,” said Seregil.
    Grasping two crosspieces, they braced their shoulders against the bars and lifted. The grate lifted an inch or two.
    “Push!” Seregil grunted, shaking his side of it.
    But the grate was solidly held in place by the pins. Giving up, they let it fall back into place with a dull clank.
    “I thought maybe he’d sawn off the lower pins,” Seregil panted, flexing his arms. “I guess not.”
    “It did move, though.” Alec squinted up at the flanges overhead. It was impossible to see anything from this angle, so he climbed the crossbars for a closer inspection, torch in