Read Gary Gygax - Dangerous Journeys 3 - Death in Delhi for Free Online Page B

ship, the two tossed their gear into it and then followed, springing down and landing in the rocking barge without difficulty.
    Before either of the two oarsmen in the row-boat could protest, Rachelle had her sword out, its point threatening one fellow's chest. At the same time, Inhetep held forth a pair of silver coins, their metal plain even in the first dim light of morning. "Take your choice," the amazon said slowly in Trade Phoenician. The men shrugged, one took the coins, and both set to work rowing. They bent their backs, and the little craft cut through the dirty water of the harbor, so that it was in a section of ramshackle buildings and old piers, well away from the Blue Cloud, when the edge of the sun finally pushed over the horizon to the left.
    The magister had no idea as to where the rowers were going, but this place was as good as any for Rachelle and him. "There," he said loudly enough for both men to hear. "Steer the boat to the end of that small pier just ahead, and we'll leave you to your business." The rowers complied, evidently glad to be rid of the extra weight and potential danger their unasked-for passengers imposed.
    "I haven't the slightest idea Where we are," Setne confessed to Rachelle as they left the waterfront behind and began making their way along the filthy lanes and twisting alleyways. "We'll need to buy some native garments, then find a place where we can have privacy for a bit."
    "Let's do find somewhere more suitable, Setne.
    These claptrap buildings and hovels are probably alive with rats and lice, and the odor is disgusting!" What she said was true.
    In part, it was the odor of exotic cooking: the strong smells of strange spices and odd oils. But there was more, worse. Around them were dilapidated structures in various states of disrepair and decay. The sprawling city stank. It was bad enough at the water's edge, but here, away from that handy disposal medium, the refuse was piled everywhere. Rotting garbage combined with excrement and who knew what else to produce something perhaps suitable for a nethersphere but incredibly offensive to the human olfactory sense "Poor, I can understand," Rachelle said with disgust, "but never filthy!"
    "They haven't access to any subterranean channels," the magister said tersely as he led her on toward their right, walking up a sloping back street already beginning to fill with incurious people going about their daily routine. That included the defenestration of slops and nightsoil. so he was careful to see that they stayed in the center of the brick-paved way. "What else can they do?"
    "Cart the stuff away!"
    "They haven't means, Rachelle, and their governor has no interest in what it's like here. He lives in a grand palace surrounded by bios-soms and parks, with a high wall to keep this sort out."
    "Oh," Rachelle said in a small voice. She considered what the wizard-priest had told her. As did so many of Yarth's folk grown accustomed to the convenience, Rachelle seldom, if ever, thought about the labyrinth beneath the ground. Subterranean ./Earth was a vast, unmapped network of natural and artificial places which, as far as anyone knew, existed under all the continents of the world. Perhaps they even linked, delving down to the hollow interior. Rachelle didn't know, and she thought nobody else did, either. The underground was too alien, too dark and filled with vicious things to invite even the daring to attempt extensive explorations. Those humans who actually inhabited parts of the maze weren't interested in cartography, at least not for the benefit of those who dwelled in the sunlight above. In most communities, there was some access to the upper portions of the subterranean honeycomb. Into crevasse, abandoned mine shaft, or sinkhole went all that humanity aboveground wished to be rid of. Runoff water, sewage, street sweepings, garbage, castoffs of any sort, even corpses not honored by burial or burning were consigned to those deep places. And