Chương 9: Chapter 10: Where the River Learns Your Name- Part- II

The eastern district is only beginning to wake as we make our way toward the waterworks. Shopkeepers lift shutters along narrow streets while laborers push supply carts through the morning fog gathering low between the buildings. Several residents pause when they notice the armed group moving downhill toward the older runoff districts, though most quickly pretend not to stare once Garrick notices them looking. The river clergy walk quietly near the center of the formation.

Unlike the soldiers, they pay very little attention to the streets around them. Their focus remains fixed on the city beneath the city instead. I can feel it in the way they move, subtle pauses near storm drains, small shifts in expression whenever we cross older stonework carrying water beneath it. One of the younger guards eventually notices it too.

"They've been doing that the entire walk," he mutters quietly beside Garrick.

"They're listening," I reply. The guard glances toward the nearest drainage channel uneasily.

"To what?"

"The flow beneath the streets."

"That answer somehow clarified nothing." The eldest river cleric overhears him and speaks without slowing her pace.

"Water speaks constantly," she says calmly.

"Most people simply build loud cities and stop hearing it." The guard decides not to continue that conversation. Good choice. As we move farther downhill, the city changes gradually around us. The buildings grow older near the eastern runoff districts, their foundations carrying water stains and mineral streaks from decades of flooding. Moss spreads between cracked stones along the roads here and several drainage channels run openly beside the streets instead of beneath them.

The grove's roots reach this far already. I can feel them moving beneath the district through the connection resting quietly at the edge of my awareness. Thin strands for now, following moisture through old soil and abandoned water lines. And somewhere beneath them, the corruption notices the intrusion. The sensation brushes against the roots briefly before retreating again testing and watching. I keep my expression neutral and continue walking. Garrick notices anyway.

"What changed?"

"The corruption felt the roots." That immediately sharpens the attention of everyone close enough to hear. One of the engineers adjusts the rolled tunnel maps beneath his arm uneasily.

"Can it actually do that?"

"It's adapting to resistance," I reply.

"Anything connected to the water eventually brushes against it."

"That sounds deeply unpleasant," the engineer reply.

"Yes," I say flatly. The river clergy exchange brief glances at that. One of them finally speaks.

"The currents near the southern channels changed again before dawn." Garrick looks toward her immediately.

"How?"

"They slowed." That earns silence from nearly everyone in the group. Rivers slow naturally; aqueduct runoff slows naturally; underground channels clog and shift constantly beneath old cities but not all at once and certainly not deliberately. The waterworks appear ahead shortly afterward, built into the eastern slope beneath the city like a wound carved directly into the stone. Thick iron gates cover the main runoff entrance while older support tunnels disappear deeper beneath the hill beside it.

The stone surrounding the entrance carries dark stains from centuries of water flow, and even from the street above, I can smell damp moss and mineral-heavy runoff drifting upward from below. The workers stationed near the upper gate straighten immediately when Garrick approaches.

"Captain." Garrick nods once.

"Status." One of the workers wipes both hands against his coat before answering.

"No new cave-ins since yesterday. Lower runoff pressure keeps fluctuating though." He hesitates briefly before continuing.

"And the noises started again before sunrise."

"What kind of noises?" one of the guards asks. The worker looks visibly uncomfortable answering that question in front of the group.

"Sounded like movement," he says finally.

"Water shifting where it shouldn't. Thought we heard people talking farther down the maintenance tunnels too." He pauses.

"Nobody went looking." The river clergy move toward the runoff entrance almost immediately after arriving. One kneels beside the thin stream of water flowing beneath the outer grate while another closes her eyes briefly near the tunnel mouth. The youngest priest watches them uncertainly.

"Are they preparing a ritual?"

"Probably," Garrick replies quietly. The priest tightens his grip on the iron reliquary hanging at his side.

"I'm unsettled by how normal that sounds now."

"You're adapting," I say. He considers that briefly before sighing under his breath.

"I would prefer not to."Top of Form The eldest river cleric rises slowly from beside the runoff channel and looks toward the tunnel entrance beneath the city.

"The water knows fear down there," she says quietly.

"And something below knows us already." The morning air suddenly feels colder around the gate. Nobody speaks for several moments after that. The runoff gate stands open beneath the eastern slope of the city, iron bars slick with moisture and dark mineral stains left behind by decades of flowing water. Lanternlight from the workers above reaches only a short distance into the tunnel beyond before the passage bends downward and swallows the light completely. The engineers move first.

They begin checking support braces near the entrance while unrolling older tunnel maps across a crate positioned beside the gate. One marks several sections with charcoal while quietly explaining runoff routes and maintenance passages to Garrick. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"The upper channels remain stable," he says, tracing one line downward across the map.

"The older eastern tunnels are the problem. Water pressure shifted there repeatedly during the last month." His finger taps a darker section farther below.

"Most disappearances happened near these maintenance corridors." Garrick studies the markings carefully.

"And the sealed sections?" The engineer hesitates briefly before answering.

"Some of them stopped staying sealed." That earns a few uneasy looks from the soldiers. The river clergy remain near the runoff channel while the priests begin murmuring low blessings over the equipment stacked near the entrance. The words echo strangely against the stone around us, distorted slightly by the constant movement of water deeper below the city. I crouch near the edge of the runoff stream and dip my fingers briefly into the current, unnaturally cold.

The water carries a pressure beneath it now, subtle but unmistakable. The corruption spreads through the deeper channels carefully, threading itself through the aqueduct system instead of flooding outward recklessly. It wants the city functioning. That realization settles uneasily in my chest. A corrupted forest consumes everything nearby eventually. Rot spreads openly because forests can survive devastation longer than cities can. Water behaves differently; it travels; it waits; it reaches everyone eventually.

The current shifts faintly against my fingers. I pull my hand back slowly. Garrick notices immediately.

"What did you feel?"

"The corruption has settled deeper into the system than I expected."

"How much deeper?" I look toward the dark tunnel descending beneath the city.

"Enough that it stopped behaving like simple contamination." The words leave the group quieter afterward. One of the guards adjusts his grip on the spear resting against his shoulder while staring into the tunnel mouth ahead.

"You think it understands we're coming."

"Yes." The eldest river cleric rises slowly from beside the runoff stream and wipes damp fingers against her robes.

"The lower currents are resisting each other," she says.

"Part of the water still follows the natural flow. The rest keeps circling back toward something deeper below."

"An anchor," I murmur. Her eyes shift toward me immediately.

"You felt it too?" I nod once. Something beneath the city is holding the corruption in place deliberately, not containing it completely, but guiding it. Feeding it through repetition and pressure until the water itself begins carrying the pattern naturally. That takes time. Which means whatever waits below Fallowspire has been growing there longer than anyone realizes. Garrick rolls the tunnel map closed and looks toward the group gathered near the entrance.

"Lantern order stays tight once we descend. Nobody separates from formation unless I give the order personally." His attention shifts toward the soldiers.

"If something moves in the dark, you hold position first and react second." No one argues, good. The priests finish securing their reliquaries while the river clergy gather near the front of the group beside the runoff channel. One of them removes her boots entirely before stepping into the shallow water flowing through the entrance tunnel. The younger engineer stares openly.

"You're walking barefoot into that?" The cleric looks down at the current around her ankles.

"If the water changes suddenly, I would rather feel it before it reaches my throat." Nobody has a response to that. The city sounds farther away now. Morning hustle bustle still moves through the eastern district above us, but the noise reaches the waterworks faintly through layers of stone and distance. Down here, the sound of moving water dominates everything else. I rest one hand briefly against Nemain's hilt before forcing myself to let go again, not yet. Garrick notices the motion but says nothing.

After a final inspection of the tunnel supports, the captain steps toward the runoff entrance and draws his sword in one smooth motion. The sound rings sharply against the stone corridor before fading into the dark below.

"Formation forward," he orders quietly. Then we descend beneath the city. The tunnel slopes downward immediately beyond the runoff gate. Water runs through narrow stone channels carved along both sides of the passage, flowing steadily toward deeper sections of the aqueduct beneath the city. Moisture clings to the walls in pale streaks while moss spreads thickly between older cracks in the stonework. The air carries the scent of wet earth, mineral runoff, lamp oil and something older lingering beneath all of it.

The deeper we descend; the quieter the city becomes above us. Bootsteps echo carefully through the tunnel while lanternlight stretches across curved walls worn smooth by centuries of flowing water. The engineers walk near the center of the formation beside Garrick, quietly marking intersections against their maps whenever side passages appear branching into darkness. The river clergy remain near the front with me. I understand why after only a few minutes underground. They feel the changes before the rest of us do.

At the first major split in the runoff channels, one of the clerics slows abruptly beside the waterline and raises her hand slightly. The formation halts almost immediately behind her.

"What is it?" Garrick asks quietly. The cleric crouches beside the current flowing through the left channel and lowers two fingers into the water. Her expression tightens almost at once.

"The flow changes ahead."

"How?" She listens for several moments before answering.

"The water continues moving forward, but pressure beneath it keeps pulling sideways." Her gaze lifts toward the darker passage beyond the left tunnel bend.

"Like another current is moving underneath this one." The engineers exchange uneasy looks.

"That shouldn't happen here," one mutters.

"Yet it does," Garrick replies. We continue deeper after that. The architecture changes gradually the farther we move beneath Fallowspire. The upper runoff tunnels carry cleaner masonry and straighter support lines, but older sections below them curve unevenly through the earth as if later builders simply adapted around structures that already existed. The corruption becomes easier to feel there not visually at first.

The water thickens slightly around the edges of the channels, moving with subtle hesitation before correcting itself. Small patches of dark residue cling to lower stones near the runoff lines. Several roots pushing through cracks in the ceiling have swollen strangely around the water dripping across them. The grove reacts through the connection beneath my ribs every time we pass one, uneasy recognition. Garrick notices me watching the roots overhead.

"You've seen that before."

"Yes."

"Corruption?" I nod once.

"Water carries influence into living systems faster than soil does. Roots absorb it before most plants understand the danger." The captain studies the darkened roots silently while the formation keeps moving. One of the guards near the rear shifts his shield higher against his shoulder.

"Feels wrong down here." Nobody disagrees with him. The tunnel widens ahead into an older maintenance chamber supported by thick stone columns rising from the runoff channels below. Water gathers deeper here, flowing through a central basin before disappearing through iron grates set into the floor farther ahead. The sound changes too. The current no longer resembles steady runoff moving through controlled channels. The water echoes unevenly around the chamber, carrying deeper vibrations beneath the surface rhythm.

The river clergy hear it immediately. One of them stops beside the basin while the others spread outward slowly along the waterline.

"It's listening," she says quietly. The chamber grows still around those words. The guards tighten formation instinctively while Garrick steps closer to the basin itself. Lanternlight flickers across the surface water, revealing faint distortions moving beneath the current before vanishing again.

"Can you tell where it's coming from?" he asks. The eldest cleric shakes her head slowly.

"Lower still." I crouch beside the basin and rest my fingers lightly against the stone edge. The corruption answers immediately. Pressure rises through the water beneath the chamber in layered pulses, slow and deliberate, like breathing carried through underground rivers. The sensation spreads through the connection tying me to the grove above and returns carrying the same instinctive warning. The water beneath the city has started reacting to us directly. I withdraw my hand slowly.

"It knows we entered the tunnels," I say. One of the younger guards' swallows hard beside the rear formation.

"How can water know anything?"

"It doesn't," one of the priest's answers quietly before I can speak. His attention remains fixed on the basin while the reliquary in his hands glows faintly in the lanternlight.

"But something inside it does." That lands heavily in the chamber and the water shifts just once. A slow ripple crosses the surface basin against the direction of the current before disappearing into the deeper runoff channels below. Then something knocks softly beneath the grate.