After two weeks, I'm running out of places to look for my secret entrance to the catacombs.  I’ve gone through every place on Prince Akharos’s list to no avail, but I'm not giving up hope.  I still have some ideas in my back pocket.

There’s one spot that’s been nagging at the back of my mind since about halfway through the list.  I haven’t checked it out yet, because I think there may be a good chance that I could drown if I open the wrong door, but since I’m running out of options, it looks like the time has come to weigh my curiosity against my self-preservation.  Unsurprisingly, my curiosity wins by a landslide.  I don’t want to make the decision for Rhys, though, as he’ll have to come along with me, so I check with him before I go.

“You think we could drown,” he repeats.  “As in you’re not sure?”

“I have no clue,” I admit.  “It’s possible that the chance of drowning is actually zero, but I just don’t know enough to say either way.”

“Well that’s not really a lot to go on, but if you’re still just looking within the castle, I don’t think there are many places where you would drown by opening the wrong door.  I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

Rhys has been looking at me differently since the incident in the dungeons.  I can't tell if it's fear, respect, or even distaste I see in his eyes – he can be a little hard to read.  I hope he doesn’t think less of me for threatening someone in a cage.  I doubt that’s it, though, since he most likely would have done the same thing if I hadn’t reacted first.  He probably would have threatened the man just for trying to touch me, let alone insulting and spitting on me.  Maybe he’s unhappy that he didn’t have the opportunity.

He’s been very good about humoring me in my search, and I’ve appreciated his company on what is quite likely to turn out to be nothing more than a wild goose chase.  He does whatever I ask of him, helping me push on walls, move bookcases, lift grates, and scour rooms for hidden switches or gaps in the walls.  I hope this isn’t boring to him.  I’m finding it a bit tedious myself, and I’m the one who actually wants to do it.  He never complains, though, and I’m grateful to have a companion in this strange errand I’ve undertaken.

After leaving the great hall one morning, getting confirmation in advance from Khysmet that he has plans that don’t involve me this afternoon, I head off to continue my search, Rhys following behind.

The place to which I’m leading us is somewhere I learned about somewhat early in my stay here, after asking one of the chemists about the castle plumbing.  I was confused how we could have running water despite being above the highest point of the mountain.  She explained to me that one of the castle towers, the northernmost one, is actually a sort of water tower.  It’s a huge, hollow tube of stone, paved with a special mortar designed to withstand extreme pressure without cracking, built directly above an underground spring.  The spring constantly fills the tower, and pipes lead out of it at various heights, taking water to every floor of the castle.  Any excess is diverted at the top of the tower down an external aqueduct that leads into Dimos to provide running water to other parts of the city as well.

So, I’m going to the northern tower.  I figure that if it’s built around an underground spring, there might be a doorway nearby that leads underground.  I have no idea how it’s constructed, though, or if there’s any exposed water somewhere that one of us could fall into, or if I might accidentally hit a switch that empties the tower or something.  Really just going in blind, here.

First I head outdoors to walk around the outside of the northern tower, to see if there are any external entrances.  We walk around it a couple of times just to be sure, but it doesn’t look like it’s accessible from outside.  So, I take us back inside, and go on the ground floor to where the northern tower should attach to the castle.  All I see here is featureless wall, though it’s curved outwards, confirming we’re in the right place.  I ask Rhys if there’s a lower floor in this part of the castle, and he confirms it and leads us to a nearby staircase down into darkness.  Rhys lights the lamp we brought, then we head down.

There are floors below the ground floor in some parts of the castle, but not all.  This section of basement is relatively small.  It’s really only the hallway beside the northern tower, and I only see three doors along the wall, and none of them lead into the tower.  I think it’s strange that Prince Akharos didn’t mention this place on his list.  Once I start opening doors, though, I see why.  None of them are very big, and they seem to basically be supply rooms.  One of them is full of nothing but sealed buckets.  Another is full of tools that I don’t recognize and many different sizes of wooden boards.  The third seems to be a sort of disused chemist’s lab, but without the usual wide variety of ingredients that labs typically contain.  There’s just a few large covered vats and some equipment.  None of these rooms seem to have any secret entrances.

I turn to the curved wall of the northern tower.  I don’t see a door, but I can sense that if there is one at all, this is where it will be.  I start running my hands over the wall, combing over every inch of it for secrets.  I get all the way to the opposite side of the wall with no luck and am about to lose heart, when I see it.  At the end of the curved wall, right where it meets a perpendicular wall at the end of the hallway, there is an indent in the stonework.  It’s a vertical slit that leads a short distance in before it stops.  I put my hand in the slit and find that it leads to a second indent perpendicular to that, forming a handle in one of the stones.  My heart rate jumps through the roof.

I turn to Rhys.

“This is the part where we might drown,” I say.  “It’s a door into the water tower.”

He blinks at me in confusion.  “Water tower?”

“Water tower,” I confirm.  “I think this door opens toward us, though.  If there were water right behind it, a door that opens out probably wouldn’t be able to handle the pressure without being forced open, so I don’t think we’re really in any danger.  Are you ready?”

He stares at me for a second, eyes wide, then nods.

I pull on the handle.  A large door, previously flush with the stone wall, swings out towards us.  The space behind it is rather well lit from an unidentified light source.  Clearly visible are another curved wall, seemingly with a smaller diameter, and a stone staircase sandwiched between the curves leading down to the right.

I giggle like a schoolgirl and jump up and down with unfettered glee.

“Son of a bitch…” Rhys mutters in awe beside me, leaning into the open doorway and looking around.

“What, did you doubt me or something?” I tease.

“Maybe for a split second,” he admits sheepishly.  “I’ll be sure not to make that mistake again, Miss Catarina.”

I take a step through the doorway.  When I look up, it’s clear that the light is coming from the sun, filtering down between the slats of a lattice high above.  From what I can see before the space between the walls curves off to the side, there are several floors of ladders and wooden scaffolding climbing all the way to the top, probably circling the whole tower.

I start down the curved staircase eagerly, Rhys following closely behind.  It seems to lead all the way around the northern tower in a long, lazy arc.  The outer wall is made of cobbled stone at first, but that quickly makes way for a smooth expanse of solid rock, as though it was carved directly into the earth.  Not long before the staircase loops around on itself completely, the outer wall of the tower opens abruptly into a large cavern.  The sunlight reaches into the cavern, and though it’s much dimmer, the whole space is still clearly visible.  It looks like the inner circle extends all the way to the cavern floor.

As we reach the bottom of the staircase I run my hands along the center wall.

“I think I get it,” I say, thinking aloud.  “The center part is the water tower, leading all the way down to this cave, where the spring is coming from.  And the space between it and the outer tower is probably for maintenance reasons.  Like, if it were ever to spring a leak, you could climb the scaffolding to patch it.  And if there’s a serious breach, instead of just exploding straight out of the walls into the castle or the open air, the water would have somewhere to go.  Like a backup tower.”

Rhys is wandering the cavern, staring in amazement.  I ask him to walk in one direction and call out if he sees a tunnel, and I’ll go the opposite way and do the same.  I keep my eye out the whole way around, but I don’t even see an indent in the wall big enough for a person to fit into.  We meet again on the opposite side of the cavern.  He didn’t have any luck either.  No tunnel.

I sit down on the floor and put my head in my hands, trying to think.  I tap my fingers against my temples.  There must be something I’m missing here.  I guess I can just go around pushing on the walls again.  It’s a big cavern, so it’ll take a while, but I don’t really know what else–.

“Hey…” Rhys starts hesitantly, interrupting my train of thought.  “If this is supposed to be where the water goes when the tower leaks… Wouldn’t that mean that somewhere down here, there would be a drain?”

I blink.  Then look up at him and blink again.  Then I scramble up to my feet so fast it makes him jump.

“You’re a genius, Rhys!” I shout, and almost move to hug him before I remember how uncomfortable that would make him and stop part way.  “Let’s see if we can find a part of the room that’s lower than the rest.  There isn’t a lot of standing water here, even though it would at least get wet from the top of the tower during the rain, so it must be well drained.”

Together we wander the cavern, observing the floor to check for any slight slope to the ground.  Between the two of us we manage to triangulate the lowest point of the floor.  There, in the wall, is a small hole, oblong in shape and low to the ground, that neither of us noticed before.

“Is that it?” he says.  “That’s the drain?  It’s pretty small.”

“I have an idea,” I say.

I walk up to the section of wall directly above the hole and push.  A section of stone wall swings inwards slightly.  I let go of the wall and it swings back until it’s once more flush.

I push it in all the way and look through the opening down the long, sloping, honest-to-god, motherfucking tunnel, leading as far as I can see straight into total darkness.

This time I can’t stop myself from hugging Rhys.

He goes rigid while I squeal and rock back and forth.  I keep it short, though, and let go of him in favor of running around the room victoriously, whooping and pumping my fists in the air.  I run until I start to get out of breath, then go back to the hidden door and push in again.

“Okay, Rhys, can you give me the lantern?” I say.

“You’re going in now?” he asks incredulously.

“Just really quick,” I say.  “I need to see if it’s possible to open the door from the other side.  You stay here in case I can’t.”

“Um.  Okay.”

He hands me the lantern, and I take a couple steps into the tunnel.  I turn around to see that he’s keeping the door open, looking at me with a degree of concern.

“Come on, I trust you to let me out,” I say encouragingly.  “I’m only going to be in the dark for a minute or so.  I’ll be fine.”

He stares at me for a minute, then reluctantly nods and slowly lets the door close.

The darkness is somewhat mitigated by the drain hole near the ground, and more so by the lantern, but it is still soul-crushing.  I feel the narrow walls squeezing in on me immediately.  I silently remind myself that there's plenty of air in here, despite how stale and earthy it tastes, and try to breathe normally. 

The section of wall in front of me certainly doesn't look like a door, and I thank the gods that I came through from the other side, because if I was wandering a tunnel and came up to this door, I would assume it was a dead end and turn around.  Fortunately, though, since I know what I'm looking for, it doesn't take long to discover an indent that forms a handle and lets me pull the door open from this side. 

Rhys looks absurdly relieved, considering I wasn't out of sight for even thirty seconds.  It suddenly occurs to me to ask him a question.

"Hey Rhys," I say, "can you smell if there's been anyone in this cavern recently?"

He cocks his head as though wondering why I'm asking, but doesn't ask before flicking his tongue experimentally.

"No one's been down here for a long time," he says.  "I don't even know how long.  There's not even a stale scent of a single other living being down here.  It just smells like dirt."

I hum in contemplation.  "So whoever is meeting in the catacombs is not getting there through this tunnel.  Worse than that, we don't even know that this tunnel leads to the catacombs at all."

He cocks his head.  "Where do you think it does lead?"

I grin at him wickedly.

"Guess we'll just have to find out."