Holding the rune out in front of him, Vidar closed his eyes to focus. Bits and pieces of the event down in the sewers were flashing before his inner eye. His state of mind when triggering the broken rune was not one he could replicate offhand. Even if he could, that was not the task before him. Gentle, Alvarn had said. Vidar needed to be gentle. The goal here was to trigger the thing, not push too much into it and break it. He’d be in deep shit then.

  He tried to find that balance, tried to remain calm.

  “Trigger,” he whispered, careful not to wake the others.

  Nothing happened.

  Vidar narrowed his eyes and breathed out, trying to imagine essence going from himself and into the rune, specifically the runic symbol etched into the wooden disc. Again, nothing happened. Not at first. Vidar pushed again. The trick was to will his essence into the rune, not to force a triggering. There was a difference of mindset in Alvarn’s explanation Vidar hadn’t understood at the time.

  The rune could not trigger itself. That was what he’d been trying. Now, instead, he willed whatever essence his body stored to flow from the tip of his finger touching the etching and into the runic symbol itself.

  “Trigger,” he whispered again. This time, it was a command.

  Brilliant light filled the small shack. It shone with far less power than the one he’d set alight down in the sewers, and for that, he was grateful. If it’d been that powerful, he’d have surely been blinded. Going from pitch black to staring right into the light as the rune triggered was painful enough, and spots swam in his vision. The fingers on his hand tingled, that was all.

  Some of the boys grumbled and stirred, but they did not wake. Vidar suppressed a cry of celebration and instead clenched his free hand into a tight fist. He’d done it. He’d really done it. He wasn’t useless after all.

  Wanting to conserve the light for the next day and his second journey into the sewer system, Vidar focused again. This time, he attempted to draw essence from the already triggered rune, figuring that would render the rune inactive.

  When Vidar couldn’t quite make it work, he shifted his attempt to instead push essence into it, thinking it would allow him to then reverse the flow. To his amazement, it actually worked almost right away. Essence drained from the rune and into himself. At first, it was only a trickle, then the floodgates opened and far too much flowed into him, more than he’d anticipated. A lot more.

  No matter what he tried, the flow would not stop. Not until he dropped the rune, cutting the physical connection. Vidar threw open the door to the shack and stumbled out before falling to all fours. He vomited again and again. His body trembled and shook, and his heart felt like it would explode in his chest at any moment.

  Several minutes of Vidar lying on his side in the snow, dry heaving, and whimpering followed, before the feeling of being overwhelmed with essence subsided somewhat. For the first time since being a small child, he was grateful for the cold snow. The chill soothed him.

  He wasn’t sure how much time had passed by the time he made it back into the shed, but he barely managed to find the light rune again before the need to sleep overwhelmed him, and he fell into a blissful slumber.

  Most everyone was more jovial the next morning, having slept better without hunger pangs chasing their dreams. The lack of proper valuables from their heist hadn’t affected Ida’s mood either, and she was unusually chipper, even for her.

  “Want to try another house tonight?” she whispered once they were seated and eating.

  Siv looked up, horrified.

  “You’ve already found another?” Vidar asked, forcing down a watery gruel with suspicious dark spots in it.

  “Well, no…” She grinned. “But I’m sure we’ll be able to find an empty one.”

  He thought back on the uncertainty and anxiety he’d been holding at bay for most of the night before, as they made it through an unknown family’s house.

  “No, I have a previous engagement I have to keep. I don’t think that sort of thing is for me. It’s too dangerous.”

  Siv nodded vigorously as she gestured something to Ida.

  “That’s ‘no,’” Ida said, nodding to Siv. “She has her own finger language so she can nag at me.”

  Ida repeated the gesture.

  “If you’re too good for a little theft with your previous engagement,” she said, trying to emulate the nasal voice of a noble, “then I’ll go alone. The rush last night was something else, I tell you. Next time, I’ll actually get some good stuff too.”

  “Be careful,” Vidar warned.

  Embla kept her stony expression but could not fully hide her surprise when Vidar produced the new light rune. He’d triggered it in his coat pocket without anyone seeing and now held it up for all to see. After receiving a new map with locations for more blockages, Vidar set off to once again enter the underground waste and water system.

  Before that, however, he searched the alleyways near the Rats’ Nest for a place to hide his things. With the paints and the inks, along with the padlock and letter opener, his pockets were far too full for comfort. Also, he didn’t want to lose anything down there.

  An old shipping crate in an alleyway surrounded by others like it made for the perfect hiding spot. It was old and half-rotted, so no one would be coming for it. With another crate on top of it, and one under, it was decently protected against the snow. Well enough for Vidar’s purpose, at least. Moving the top crate gave him direct access to the middle container through a small, rotted-out hole. When he was satisfied the crate wasn’t infested with rats, he lowered his prizes, gathered in the cloth bag from the night before for extra protection, and returned the top crate to its original position. His things would be safe here. After some consideration, he kept the coins and the knife on him. You never knew when those might come in handy.

  The markings on the map were numbered this time in order of priority, according to Embla. Not surprisingly, the top one was not in the poorer districts. After quite a trek to a part of Halmstadt named Gamletull, he found the entrance in the ground. It wasn’t far from the wide but tranquil river running near the inner wall separating the richest part of the city, and the keep, from everyone else.

  He shut the hatch above him without issue before starting his descent. This time, he was ready for the dark. Once down, with his feet firmly planted on the stone, he brought out the wooden disc with the runic symbol for light, kenaz. Triggering it was easy now that he’d succeeded a few times. To conserve its essence, he’d stopped its light after showing it to Embla.

  With the night before still fresh in his mind, he’d changed his approach somewhat, only giving the essence in the rune the gentlest of taps to close the gap. In his mind, he saw a circle of essence surrounded by a thin border, with the runic symbol in the middle. When he triggered a rune, he imagined poking a tiny hole in that border to let the essence flow out. In this case, it provided light.

  Conversely, to render the rune inert again, Vidar restored that border in his mind, using the essence flowing from his body. It used even less than triggering a rune did, and being able to both trigger a rune and then render it inert after only a few tries was immensely satisfying. Finally, he’d found something he was good at.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Water surged through the underground canal in the middle of the corridor, overflowing and spilling out onto the walkways. A few seconds of standing there was enough for his shoes to get wet and for his toes to freeze. The roar of the water told him he was close to an intake. It wasn’t quite as powerful as the cacophony near the sea, and he realized the water must be coming from the river. Designing and building this place underground must have taken years and years. Strange that he knew so very little of the system before all this.

  With only water flowing, it didn’t even smell. Well, it did have a smell to it, but nothing too bad. The air was heavy and humid, and a slight scent of the sea still lingered. Curious, he bent down with his free hand cupped. The water tasted fresh and clean.

  Vidar stood with a groan. The sound was quickly washed away by the roar of the water, but the aches in his shoulders, back, and legs did not disappear with it. These last few days had seen him a lot more physically active than all his years prior, with the night before taking the ordeal a whole step further. Climbing houses was not something his body was used to. This constant cold did little to help.

  As Vidar walked down the path that would take him to the blockage, he dreamed of the day he’d make himself a whole pile of sowilo runes to keep beneath his clothes and even in his shoes. That way, he’d never have to be cold again. The mere thought warmed him somewhat, despite the freezing water soaking through his shoes and now even his trousers.

  He shone the light down on the floor. The water level steadily rose as he headed farther down the walkway. When it reached his knees, Vidar stopped and held up the light in front of him to try to get a better look. The light hit a wall not much farther in, so he continued. He gasped as the water reached a particularly sensitive part of him, but he soldiered on.

  Something soft and mushy blocked the water from flowing freely down what felt like a hole similar to last time. He pushed and kicked at it until the hole made a slurping sound, sucking the whole thing in. Vidar didn’t know what it’d been, and he didn’t want to know.

  Suddenly, with the water’s path no longer blocked, it began to pull on him. The strength of that pull was much stronger than he’d anticipated, and he felt his boots slipping. With nothing to grab on to, he started panicking.

  Vidar looked around, cursing. The stone wall was not entirely flush, with some stones jutting out a little. Unfortunately, the humidity made it next to impossible to hold on to them. Each breath he expelled created a small cloud in front of his face as he dug in his nails with a clawlike grip around a stone that provided the tiniest bit of grip. Heart racing, he turned so his back was against the left wall of the walkway, and then dropped the light rune into his pocket to free up his other hand. Using both, he was able to stabilize himself enough to wait out the water draining away. When it only reached up to his knees again, he allowed himself a moment to relax.

  He hadn’t fallen into the water again. Small victories.

  Vidar pointed at the trench in the ground through which the water flowed and laughed. “Take that, hole! You didn’t get me!”

  The words echoed through the corridor, and for a moment, Vidar was afraid he’d jinxed himself and the intake would collapse, allowing the river to flow in freely to drown him. Nothing happened. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  Bringing the light rune back out, he examined the map. Two more spots were marked. One was far off, but the other wasn’t too bad. If he was reading the map correctly, there should be a way to get there without having to go back up to the surface.

  In his drenched, freezing state, Vidar did not want to surface in the same spot where he’d descended. The cold would surely put him at death’s door again. So, he decided to take the underground route to the next spot. It wasn’t dotted on the map like this first blockage had been. Instead, it ringed a large area.

  He briefly wondered how the people who provided these maps to Embla figured out where these blockages would show up, and why they were sometimes able to pinpoint an exact location and other times only knew the general area. Perhaps he’d meet these people someday and get the opportunity to ask them. If not, it didn’t matter too much. All Vidar needed to know was where to go.

  A part of the area between himself and the next blockage was filled in with diagonal lines with an arrow pointed to it. Next to the arrow was a short note. The letters danced around each other no matter how much he focused or tried to relax his vision. The runic symbol for the light rune, kenaz, sat still in the middle of the note, like a firm anchor in a roiling sea. Something about that area, and a long corridor leading off in a completely different direction, would affect, or be affected by, the light rune. Either that, or you needed a light rune to go there. No, that couldn’t be it. You needed a light rune wherever you went down in the sewers, if Embla’s knowledge wasn’t flawed.

  With no answers to be gleaned from the note, Vidar shrugged and put the map away. His ability to read was getting worse by the day, it seemed. Either way, he’d find out when he got there.

  The journey across different walkways, straight corridors, and crossing bridges was not particularly arduous, but it did take time to make progress. Not wanting to jump across, Vidar often needed to trek quite far up or down a corridor to find one of the bridges, then go all the way back and pick the right corridor. Even with the clearly marked map, it took some doing finding his way.

  At least the light rune kept its steady, bright shine to show the way. Until he reached the marked area, that was. That was how he realized he’d walked into it. The light from the rune flickered. Another step made it flicker even more and when he stepped back, it shone steady once again. Confused, he held it out in front of him until he found the exact spot in the corridor.

  It looked no different. Nothing about it stood out in relation to every other stone floor, wall, or ceiling in this place. Nevertheless, the rune was somehow affected.

  Vidar groaned and sat down to think. No water, or waste for that matter, ran in that particular corridor, so it was mostly dry and the floor was unnaturally warm, just like everywhere else.

  The most sensible thing would’ve been to go back up and then descend closer to the second blockage, bypassing this area altogether. Unfortunately, he’d have to wait for his clothes to dry first. That would take hours. He really needed to get his hands on some sowilo runes to combat the freezing temperatures. Spring was still months out.

  Not wanting to wait, Vidar closed his eyes to focus on the kenaz rune in his hand. In his mind, he saw a perfect circle filled with tranquil essence slowly moving toward the opening he’d made at the top. That energy leaving the circle made the kenaz rune produce its light. Holding that image in his mind as he opened his eyes proved difficult, and doing so while standing up was almost impossible. Instead, he sat back down right near the line where his rune would start to deteriorate. He scooted forward and saw before his inner eye how essence began draining from the circle. It was only a little at first, but once he moved farther past that invisible line, it quickened, and he saw the bright light flicker through his closed eyelids.

  The solution to the problem before him was simple. Vidar needed to add essence to the rune while he made his way forward. Hopefully, the area affecting his rune did not extend far. With that idea firmly set in his mind, Vidar executed it.

  First, he stood. The circle wavered, but he held on to the idea of it. Drawing essence from himself and then pushing it into a second opening at the bottom of the circle worked almost right away, but doing so while walking was like balancing an inkpot filled over the brim without spilling. Ever so carefully, Vidar moved one foot forward and shifted his weight.

  Essence drained from the circle, but the kenaz rune did not flicker this time. Vidar’s idea worked. Since he was adding essence at the same rate as it was taken from the rune, it kept glowing. The painfully slow walk meant the essence Vidar himself spent to keep the rune going started to add up. At first, the tips of his fingers tingled, then grew cold, and finally numb. That feeling then traveled down his fingers, then his hand. Before he’d made it more than a couple of steps, it’d already reached his arm, and he had to prop it up with his other arm to keep the rune from falling from his numb fingers.

  The rising panic did little to help his concentration, and the image in his mind wavered even more. At one point, when he spotted a corridor shooting off to his left, the whole barrier around the circle dimmed, allowing the essence inside to leak out in all directions. The numbness immediately traveled to his shoulder and began spreading into his chest.

  Vidar hurried his steps. The image in his mind wavered even more and almost crumbled, but he felt the unseen draining effect lessen. That was enough for Vidar to regain some semblance of control, but the damage was already done, and he dropped the rune, no longer able to keep his fist closed around its base. The image in his mind blinked away that instant and the numbness stopped its forward crawl through his chest.

  Swearing, he got down on hands and feet to search the floor in complete darkness. If this one broke too, he’d never, ever return to the sewers without at least ten of them. Even with only one hand, it didn’t take long to find the rune. Rather than triggering it again, he inched forward through the dark, careful not to repeat the mistake that saw him plunging into ice cold water last time.

  Once he judged himself to have moved sufficiently far from the offshoot corridor in the middle of that draining effect, Vidar once again triggered the rune.

  His control grew each time he imagined the circle in his mind. The rune brightened the entire corridor before he carefully scaled back the opening he’d just created, effectively lessening the essence flowing out from the kenaz rune.

  Breathing took some effort with how far the numbness reached into his chest, but it didn’t take too long for it to withdraw to his shoulder, then his arm. Holding up the rune, Vidar saw the shadow that was the other corridor. The draining effect was more powerful around that opening. He wondered what lay down that path but resigned himself to never knowing.

  If the alternative to staying in the dark on that question was walking through literal darkness, then he’d rather not know.