The Caste - On Hold, major edits and title change.

Chapter Two *Edited*

Corvus made his way down into the pipe of the old sewer line. With each bend and curve, he was thankful that he was lean. If he were any bigger, he would get stuck in the pipe's slight bends. 

He pulled himself along on his elbows, crawling like a commando through the length of the old metal with ease.

The sound of footsteps on the floor above him shook the pipe. His chin smacked into the metal as the pipe bounced. He stopped crawling. Corvus figured he had traveled to the middle of the tower floors, deep inside its mass. He struggled to pull the blueprints out of his pocket. He heard the sound of paper tearing as he fumbled, and turned to his side as much as he could in the tight pipe. He got the blueprint out of his pocket without destroying it.

He reached up to his face and removed the mini flashlight he had between his teeth. He shone the light on the blueprint, studying it. By his estimation and with the drawing, Corvus believed he had traveled four floors below the study. The lab was in the tower's basement, and he hoped the diagram was accurate. If they were, his trip down wouldn't take too much longer. He was getting too hot in both his hoodie and trench coat not to mention the stench of rot and decay was getting to him.

"Well, if I hit the water, I have gone too far," He whispered longing to hear Ardelia's voice in reply. He folded the blueprint up and put it back into the top pocket of his trench coat. He gripped the mini flashlight tightly in his teeth and continued his descent down the pipe.

"There is a problem in the slums down by the Joe Lewis Arena, my Lord," The disembodied voice of a man boomed out above Corvus.

Corvus stopped to listen; he lived in that slum. In fact, Ardelia was in that slum waiting for him to come home.

"Of course, James, we have a problem in the slums. We have poor people living in it." This grating voice was familiar to Corvus. He had heard it over loudspeakers more times than he would like to remember. It was Lord Crum'ump's voice.

"Worse than that, my Lord. There have been reports of a non-Noble mage living there," James disclosed. His voice had become singsong in almost a mocking tone to Corvus' ear.

The silence that followed the report was deafening. Corvus felt tears trickle down his face; a sick feeling built up into his stomach. The Caste hunted and killed non-Noble mages without a trial. Only Nobles and the Caste could have magical abilities or practice magic. Occasionally, one of the poor children in the slums were born with magical abilities and quickly euthanized by the Caste.

Crum'ump shattered the silence as the sound of his fist hitting a wooden table echoed through the floor and into the pipe. "Then we will have to destroy them one by one until we weed out the heretic, shouldn't we?"

"Wasn't that the goal with the slum extermination, my Lord, destroying them all?" James asked.

"Yes, and we shall, tomorrow. Double the enforcers, check everyone. Start with the females; leave the young and breeding aged alive. Slaughter all the men and boy children starting with the first area. People will start talking and tell us who the mage is. Humans will give up their own families to save their own lives," Crum'ump responded. "Once the mage is named, destroy the rest. Leave no one in that eyesore of an area alive."

"Yes, my Lord." Corvus heard heavy footsteps walk above him, shaking the pipe. The footsteps disappeared into the distance as a door slammed shut.

Corvus lay contorted in the pipe, unable to move. He knew who the heretic mage was. Innocent people would die because of one individual in their midst, a person they all knew well. They had taken him in without question. They have no idea their new friend had hidden a big, deadly secret from them all.