Deep underground where the hidden mechanisms of a clock-worked city clacked and clanged, a young girl floated on her back in swirling waters. Everyone in Eisen knew about this city built upon a river, its fast flowing waters powering the countless gears and levers above. But only Olen Marine had sniffed out this pool room with its own crashing waterfall. The twelve year old was supposed to be cleaning with her sisters, but she had once again found chores impossible to do while an entire underworld demanded exploring. She kicked an arc of water high into the room.
The city was Millthrace, and she floated far below the boardwalk of the wealthy borough known as Uptown. Girls like her were not welcome upriver, but she was not in Uptown, she was underneath it. Sunlight poked through the slats of the boardwalk high above and muted footsteps echoed below as rich folk meandered above in hoof-heeled shoes, with no particular place to go and in no great hurry to get there. She pulled herself along, her arms slow churning waterwheels, also in no great hurry to be anywhere but here.
City engineers called this dark underside the Escapement. Olen wasn’t sure what that word meant, but it seemed to make sense because it was both a basement and an escape. She and everyone else just called it the Scape.
She swam to a ladder-like iron pylon that rose to the boardwalk and pulled herself onto the first riser. She stood on the wooden plank that spanned the pylon’s legs. The iron was gritty with red rust that coated her palms. Her mother would want her to be clean, so she splashed her hands in the pool. She dove back into the swirling pond, kicking and pulling herself along before letting the waters wash her back to the pylon. She had told her sisters about the room with the waterfall, but it had not mattered. Even Clara, always eager for a little mischief, refused to enter the Scape. She had believed the rumors of the ghouls that haunted the sewers, waiting for wayward young to enter their dark burrow. All Olen had ever seen down here were rats, and all you have to do to them is kick them aside. Rats learn pretty quickly in the Scape.
She pulled herself back onto the riser and climbed higher this time, diving right back in. The water smacked her forehead, and she surfaced quickly, rubbing her scalp. Higher, she thought playfully, and climbed up to the third riser in the dark chamber.
The room was a forgotten vault. A derelict of bad construction. She had discovered it three weeks earlier after exploring a recently repaired brick sewer she had named Big Boy. The back wall of the room was the blasted face of the Rückraadt Mountains with the waterfall and an occasional wayward trout flowing over the top. It was also the back end of Uptown, the borough highest up the mountain. Atop the waterfall there was a gap between the boardwalk and the cliff. Iron waterwheel fins churned in the stream casting spray below. To her left and right stood mortar and stone walls, windowless, and forever drenched and covered in greenish brown lichen. The shorter fourth wall behind her was not a wall at all, but a series of tunnels flowing downriver, including the only one she could pass through without crouching: Big Boy.
She stood on the edge of the pylon and dared herself to dive. Three levels high. She had never jumped in from this height before, and her forehead still stung from the last dive. She was halfway to the ceiling and much too high. She could be knocked silly and drift senselessly into the drains, tumbling through the Millthrace sewers, either a floater or bungplug. Bungplugs were the unlucky folk who not only fell through one of the many chutes and wells above, but whose bloated corpses stopped-up a narrow drain, backing up the river. The people of Millthrace had no regard for bungplugs who flooded their shops and homes with sewer water. No one mourns a bungplug, the Lowtowners said. She would rather be a floater. Floaters simply passed right through the Scape until their lifeless bodies flowed out by the Barrens of Lowtown like drowned rats. She imagined her father finding her, and falling to his knees—
“Dammit!” a man shouted above the boardwalk, halting her morbid daydream and sending her wobbling on the beam. Chance swears from above meant one thing only: an Uptowner had dropped something through the uneven boardwalk and into her world. An offering to the Mechanic, as they said. The louder the swear, the more valuable the offering. And that was a rather loud swear. A quick glint and a tiny splash. It had dropped right into the plunge pool below the falls.
Standing higher than she had ever been before, the small girl curled her toes over the edge. “Sorry Mom. Sorry Dad,” she said, and dove straight into the falling waters.
Olen’s forehead slapped the water, lightning flashing in her eyes. The crashing falls thrust her straight to the silty bottom as she twisted and fought the current. She reached blindly through the sludge, frantically sweeping her palms over the mud, hoping for any unusual touch, water continually crashing over her. She had to find it on the first try or it would be lost forever, whatever it was. A rupture of air escaped her lips and the falls again pushed her against the silt. She kicked aside and palmed the muddy base, fighting the urge to inhale. Needles tapped her temples. Her ears were bass drums pounding. Her lungs quivered and ached. She had to give up. As she turned to rise, her hand skimmed a small object. She clasped it tight and shot to the surface.
She burst out of the water, sucking in breaths. Fresh blood pounded in her temples, and her eyeballs ached. Quivering muscles fought to keep her afloat as she coughed and spat. Dizziness faded and her senses returned. She shook her fist in the stream, washing away silt. The object was flat and round, heavy for its size. Like a coin. Her most prized possessions were the items clumsy people above had let fall into her world. Some she had found just lying on the ground, like a lady’s hair pin and some small tools. Others she had retrieved from the shallow waters, like a rusted barrel key and a carved ivory button. But beyond all of that, her greatest treasures were the three copper pennies she had scoured out of the dark sewers of the vast underground Scape. She pulled her hand out of the water and opened it. It was indeed a coin, but it was not a copper.
“Silver!” she cried out and slipped back under, swallowing a mouthful.
She kicked back to the surface and paddled herself to shore, keeping her open palm out of the wash. A silver honor, she thought, and despite her severely-patched clothes laying on a dry stone, she believed herself to be wealthy. She stood on the shore and shook off the water, then she ran to a large stone that had been blasted away from the mountainside. In a nook below the granite boulder she brushed away the sand and pulled out a palm-sized tin box. Here were some of the few objects she had collected in the streets, and the random offerings that had fallen from above. She dumped them out and set aside the three copper pennies. She placed the large silver coin next to them and marveled at it. It was freshly stamped and shone brightly. The coppers alone would get one a couple rides on the Skywheel and a bag of red rock candy, but this was a silver honor! Second only to the gold manor as the greatest coin in Eisen. She had no idea the coin’s actual worth, but she knew it was great.
She held it up again. The honor glinted in the checkered sunlight. In her mind she was already telling the story to her parents. They would marvel at how high she had climbed, how deeply she had dove, and the great wealth she had won. She titled the story “The Silver Honor” and added it to the pile of adventures she would tell them someday. When she found them. She kissed the coin, and placed it and everything else in the tin.
She dressed on the sandy shore, but her mind kept returning to her tin box. Those three coppers had sat unused for too long. They seemed small now, unimportant next to the silver. They were expendable. Spendable. She popped back open the tin and dug out the pennies. She had never purchased anything with money before. Children like Olen got things via more creative means. But she had coins to spare now, and she knew just what her first purchase would be. She stuffed them in her pocket and ran back into the Big Boy sewer, kicking aside a wet rat.
Olen wore a patched brown skirt with a much-abused white apron at her hips. A tight black vest was tied crisscross over a faded white top. She had rolled her shirt sleeves up to her shoulders, uncovering coffee-colored arms. Her skin was most eager to darken in spring, and least willing to lighten in the cloudy winter. While many of Millthrace avoided this change by donning wide-brimmed hats and long sleeved shirts, even on the warmest noons of summer, Olen bared her face, neck, and arms; welcoming the sunlight even as the autumn breezes turned cool. She clomped through the sewers in black boots two sizes too large, her raven braids flopping as she went.
This red brick tunnel she had named Worm because of its slimy walls. She raced ahead through the darkness of Worm, keeping her hands and elbows tucked in. A vibration, as large stone slabs slid unseen overhead, told her she was nearing the granary, one of the busiest parts of the city. The arced roof of Worm lay damaged and open here. She leapt to the brick overhang and climbed out of Worm and onto the damp soil. She dashed across the ground, leaping over rough stones and a crude flotsam bridge. She jumped into the sewer dubbed Quickwater and dropped onto her backside. One long joyous shout later and the tube elbowed. She seized netting hanging over the side and pulled herself out. From here she stepped into the rancid brown-water tube she despised, and had given a name she dare not say out loud. She covered her nose, stepping widely as she travelled down the chute.
She came upon a wide beam of light from above. It was a vent up to the Midtown section of the city. She paused just out of sight as baritone voices rumbled on about city politics. As the voices faded away she leapt up high, grabbing an iron railing and scurrying to the top. Then Olen Marine pulled herself out of the dark sewers and into the sunny and populous streets of Millthrace.