To trace the source of the underground flood, Nessa Vale unrolled an ancient thick parchment drainage map drafted during the reign of King Alden the Second. Her finger traced the official storm sewers: two four-foot brick barrels running east toward the river, safely fifty yards clear of the cathedral foundations.
“According to the town plans, this crypt should be bone-dry,” Nessa said, tapping the parchment. “There are no legal channels within forty paces of Pier Four.”
“Then the channel is illegal,” Tomas replied.
He picked up a heavy eight-pound sledgehammer with his right hand, wading through the knee-deep black water toward the western retaining wall of the crypt. Sile followed with his hooked pruning blade, using the heavy iron beak to scrape thirty years of green slime and stone crust from the brickwork.
Behind the slime, three courses of brickwork were stained a deep, unnatural reddish-purple. The telltale chemical signed name of madder-root dye used only by the master weavers of the High Noble Quarter.
“Listen,” Sile said, pressing his ear against the wall.
Beneath the stone, a muffled, hollow roar rang through the stonework—the sound of thousands of gallons of rushing water cascading through an underground channel.
Tomas stepped back, braced his boots in the flooded mud. Then he swung the sledgehammer with his right shoulder.
