Among Thieves by Douglas Hulick Page A

swag. Clever bastard. Larrios must not have known it was here; otherwise I doubted he would have left it behind. I pulled the object out and tucked it between my back and my belt. Damned if I was going to leave this place empty-handed.
    “Degan?” I called.
    His voice rose up from below. “It’s a short drop. Just let go.” His voice echoed and reechoed.
    I went down to the last peg and hung by my hands. Dropping off into darkness is always an unnerving proposition, but twice so when you’re used to being able to see in the stuff. I was tempted to hang and wait for my night vision to adapt, but I could hear Degan splashing about below. He had no such advantage to wait for; for him, the darkness was there to stay. Every moment I held on was another he had to spend listening and groping and wondering at every sound and sensation.
    I let go and fell.
    Darkness and the rush of air. My feet hit light resistance, then firmer, slicker stuff. Sewage and then the bottom of the sewage tunnel, respectively. I staggered, legs wide, and went to one knee and a hand to keep from falling over completely. The sewage would have come up high on my calf if I had been standing. As it was, I could feel the muck at my hips and past my left elbow.
    The stench! My stomach started rolling over and over within me. I felt my throat tighten, my guts lurch, and I tasted bile. Force of will kept everything else down, but there was no telling how long that would last.
    “Larrios,” I said, gasping, “is a dead man.” I stood and shook off my left arm. “You hear that, Larrios?” I yelled. “A dead man!”
    I heard my own voice echo and reecho down the sewers. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I caught the faintest hint of laughter from far away. It was hard to tell in that place.
    Bastard.
    “You all right?” said Degan from off to my right.
    “Superb.” I spit to clear my mouth, slogging toward his voice. “What kind of idiot has a rabbit hole that drops him into the middle of a sewer?”
    “One who’d rather smell bad than die.”
    “Uhm.” I had taken to the sewers for much the same reason a few years ago, although it had been out of desperation. But the idea of anyone choosing to dig into the streams and pools of filth that ran beneath Ildrecca of his own accord— that was beyond me.
    The thrum of a bowstring and thwack of something striking water came to us out of the darkness. Another whoosh and splash followed moments later.
    “Arrows,” said Degan. “They’re shooting down the shaft.”
    I smiled and put my clean hand to the side of my mouth.
    “Bene!” I yelled at the ceiling. “You just skewered a piece of shit.” Unless we were standing directly beneath the shaft, there was no way they could hit us.
    “Then we got you!” a voice called back.
    I barked a laugh. “Come down and try me, Eriff.”
    The sound of voices drifted down. Another arrow hissed through the darkness into the slop. If they were dumb enough to follow us down, we could wait beneath the hole and cut them down as they landed. I doubted they were that stupid, but one could always hope.
    “Another time, cousin,” called the voice from above.
    There was a dragging sound, followed by a thud. They had put Fedim’s “door” back in place.
    “Well?” said Degan.
    “Almost,” I said.
    We stood in the darkness. To my right, I could hear Degan breathing through his mouth, just as I was. It only helped foil the smell a little, and I knew we would start tasting the air after a while. I didn’t want to be down here that long.
    I stood still and let my eyes slowly roam the blackness around us, looking for the first hint of amber that would mean my gift was beginning to work. It was not long in coming.
    The first thing I picked out was a jutting brick in the far wall, showing dark red against the black. Next came the crimson and yellow flecked surface of the sewage, sluggish in some spots, fluid in others. I had forgotten how strangely serene it could