City of the Dead

by Rosemary Jones

  “I saw you go through that little gate in the wall,” Gustin continued, “and I thought … I mean, the big houses in Cormyr, they have gardens walled off where people grow their herbs and vegetables.”

  “We have a solarium on the second floor of the house for herbs,” Sophraea informed him, still only paying half attention to the young man. “And we buy our vegetables in the market.”

  Gustin slowly spun in place, taking in the multitude of tombs, the memorial statutes, the ornamental and somber shrubbery, and the urns stuffed with flowers weeping shriveled petals onto the ground below. On the roof of the closest tomb, grotesque carved figures hung over the edge, peering down on the pathway.

  “But this is the famous City of the Dead!” he exclaimed. “Aren’t all the gates guarded by the Watch? And aren’t the gates into it bigger?”

  “The public gates are very large and guarded, of course. But this is our gate, the Dead End gate. It’s just for the family,” said Sophraea marching back toward their gate. “To bring things through. It would be a terrible nuisance if we had to go all the way to the Coffinmarch or Andamaar gates just to take a marker to a grave.”

  “And what were you bringing here?”

  “Nothing. I was trying to catch …” Sophraea skidded to a stop and scowled at Gustin. “It’s none of your business. What are you doing here?” She emphasized the “you” in the exact same suspicious tone as Myemaw used when saying “And what are you boys planning to do tonight?”

  Gustin reacted just like her brothers. He shuffled his feet and mumbled, “Nothing … I just saw you and …”

  “Oh, come on,” said Sophraea. “If you want to see my father about your statue, he’s in his workshop.”

  “Of course,” said Gustin briskly. “That’s why I’m here. To see your father.”

  Sophraea shut and latched the Dead End gate. “He started your statue this morning,” she said, “selecting the stone and roughing out the shape. My brothers Leaplow and Runewright will do the preliminary work under his direction and then he’ll add the fine details later. It’s a handsome stone he picked. I think you’ll like it.”

  “I do want to see it,” said Gustin following her to the workshop. “I have heard that he’s very good at his work.”

  “The best in Waterdeep,” said Sophraea with no small pride. “All of the Carvers are. Well, except Leaplow, but he can be good when he thinks about what he is doing. But my father and my uncles are the most skilled. They know how important their craft is. It’s the last gift the living give the dead, a box to house the body, a stone to mark their passing, so they make their work beautiful.”

  “I never thought of it like that. And what do you do?” Gustin Bone asked.

  “I’m not in the business. I’m going to be the first Carver to leave Dead End House and become a dressmaker.”

  “Gifts that the living give the living.” The young man dodged around a stone cherub with a broken wing waiting for repair and a stack of lumber seasoning for spring coffins. A Carver cat curled atop the lumber gave him an inscrutable look as he passed by.

  Sophraea giggled as she pushed open the door of her father’s workshop. “I guess you could call it that.”

  Inside Astute Carver and her uncle Perspicacity were pouring over some long scrolls. Rampage Stunk’s scruffy knave was still there, leaning insolently against Astute’s workbench and cleaning his nails with a long thin dagger. Sophraea could clearly see the stiff black hairs sprouting on the back of the man’s dirty knuckles.

  “We should have Myemaw look it over too,” said Perspicacity, “but I think it is legal.”

  “I am afraid that you are right,” agreed Astute. “But who would have thought that a family could sell off their deeds like that?”

  “It’s property,” said Perspicacity. “Just like a house or any land, I suppose. And it’s not like this one was close to them or would even remember who was lodged inside. The seller is a fourth cousin on the distaff side, I think. I’d have to look at the ledger to be sure.”

  “Well, they do say Waterdeep is changing and changing fast. But who would have thought …” Astute noticed his daughter and the young man close behind her. “I am sorry, saer, but I am just finishing some business here. Give us a moment more.”

  “No rush, no rush at all.” Gustin bowed slightly in the direction of all the men in the workshop. Stunk’s servant ignored him but Perspicacity gave the younger man a friendly nod. Gustin turned away to examine Astute’s chisels and mallets, all neatly hanging from rows of hooks set into the rough plaster walls.

  “Tell your master that we will begin the work as soon as the materials arrive,” Astute instructed the servant.

  “He will be displeased by any delays,” growled the man.

  “He would dislike hasty work done with shoddy materials even less,” replied the unruffled Astute. “Stunk only wants the finest, and that takes time, as any good craftsman knows.”

  The servant shrugged one shoulder. “Very well, I will give him your message.” He stowed his dagger in his shirt. Passing by the Carver’s open ledger, he paused to read a page.

  “That’s a curious book,” he said, flicking over the pages much more quickly than Lord Adarbrent. “A lot of old names. My master likes old histories. He might pay you something for this.”

  “It is not for sale,” Astute said with great finality and, turning his back on the hirsute doorjack, began to chat with Gustin about the stone that he had selected for the young man’s statue. Perspicacity joined the two men in their discussion.

  Only Sophraea noticed the servant tug sharply at a page in the ledger, digging in his yellow fingernails.

  “Stop that!” she cried, attracting everyone’s attention. “You will rip it!”

  The hairy man backed away from the book, his hand snaking toward the dagger in his shirt as the two big Carver men advanced upon him. Behind them, Gustin’s eyes glowed like twin emeralds.

  “Leave me alone,” whined the servant. “I didn’t do anything.”

  Astute snapped the covers of the ledger closed and put the book away on a high shelf. “Go on. Your business is done here.”

  The servant hurried to the door, barking in a whisper to Sophraea as he passed her, “Meddling girl, you’ll be sorry.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  If she had been asleep, the sound of sobbing would have woken her. As it was, Sophraea was already awake, staring at the ceiling of her room and thinking of what she would say to Lord Adarbrent. She was sure that he would sign the letter, but what if he said no? And what if the dressmaker didn’t think the Walking Corpse was quite the right type of reference? Of her own ability to do the job, Sophraea had no doubts. She was as gifted with a needle as her father was with a chisel and awl. And there was always good work available for a girl who was a clever seamstress, given the enduring passion of the Waterdeep nobility for the latest cut of the sleeve or the newest style of embroidery to decorate the collar, and the equally lasting obsession of the richest merchants to dress their own families in the style of the oldest blood of Waterdeep. But, ever since she’d seen those gilded chair legs, she’d really had her heart set upon working in that shop in the Castle Ward.

  Still, nobody would believe that Lord Adarbrent knew anything about fashion of the current year, much less the past fifty years. His full coats and wide-brimmed hats matched the styles of her grandmother’s youth. But he was definitely a lord and a well-known lord, given his constant muttering perambulations throughout all of Waterdeep.

  Preoccupied with her plans, Sophraea first thought that the faint sobbing sound filling her room was just the moaning of the wind outside. But as it rose in intensity, and then faded away, only to come back again, the girl realized that something more than the wind cried in the City of the Dead.

  With a strong feeling that she had done this before, Sophraea pushed back her blankets, slid out of bed, and padded across the cold floor to the window. Having latched the window tight earlier, she
now had to wrestle with the bolt. Shoving hard against the casement, she finally banged it open and thrust the window wide. The wind caught it and slammed it hard against the outside wall to the ominous sound of cracking glass.

  Sophraea decided she’d blame all damage on the storm. Leaning all the way out of her bedroom window, she could see the same strange light swirling along the boundary wall that separated the courtyard of Dead End House from the City of the Dead. The ball of light seemed to hesitate and then stop in one spot. In the dark, Sophraea wasn’t sure but she thought that it might be a little farther along the path to the Deepwinter tomb and not quite at the family gate.

  The light continued to bob in one place and then suddenly flashed brighter. Leaning so far out the window that she was forced to grab the edge of the window frame to keep her balance, Sophraea peered into the rain and the wind. She thought she saw another light, more yellow and dimmer than the first one, and this light was on the Dead End House side of the wall.

  The sound of a woman sobbing faded away or maybe it was only the wind still murmuring in the gables. But Sophraea heard something else, a scraping sound, like an iron file on a steel lock, coming from the courtyard.

  “Thieves!” she exclaimed. Thieves were trying to steal into the workshops. It had been years since anyone had been so foolish, but there was always some idiot adventurer attracted by tales of the stockpiles of materials that the Carvers kept in their workshops.

  Not even pausing to grab her slippers, Sophraea flew down the stairs, banging on the doors at every landing, screaming at the top of her lungs, “Up the house! Thieves! Thieves!”

  Behind her, the rumble of regular snoring was replaced by snorts and grunts and deep bass cries of “Waaa … What?” and, from her aunts and mother, “Get up! Get up! Roll over so I can get out of bed, man!”

  Tripping over one of her brother’s mallets left in the hallway, Sophraea hopped on one foot for a moment, waiting for the throbbing of her stubbed toe to subside. On the ground level, she paused at the door leading into the courtyard. Behind her, but still a couple of floors above her head, she heard the thump of big bare feet hitting the floorboards and more shouts of “Aarrgh, that’s cold!”

  She eased open the door. The wind blew the rain from the outside to the inside, splattering across her cold toes and making her think longingly of her warm fur slippers five flights of winding stairs above her.

  In the yard, a dark shape was crouched over the lock on the door of Astute’s workshop. A lantern sat on the cobblestones next to him, creating a small pool of amber light in the middle of the dark courtyard.

  Seeing it was only one man, Sophraea grabbed the abandoned mallet and snuck across the courtyard. The thief was trying to pick the lock open with an iron file, obviously unfamiliar with the complexity of the locks built by Uncle Judicious to foil tomb robbers and other adventurers. Of course, the workshop lock was only an early model, but it still would take more dexterity and skill than displayed by the man worrying it with a bent file. The thief sniffed and licked his lips, a small growl escaping from his throat as the file slipped out of the lock.

  Sophraea raised the mallet high and brought it down with a smash on the man’s head.

  Being considerably shorter than the thief, Sophraea’s aim was a little off and she just caught him between the neck and shoulder. The man gave out a tremendous howl. Another pair of masked bravadoes appeared in the courtyard, sliding in the public gate from where they had been keeping watch. The customer bell started to clang but one of the men reached high and ripped it out of the wall. Suddenly faced with three very large and masked bullies, Sophraea let out a screech of her own.

  She was answered from inside the house by a dozen deep yells as the Carver men poured out the door in various states of nightwear and semi-dress. More than a few swore and skipped as their bare feet hit the slick cold cobblestones.

  What ensued was hardly a fair fight. It was a dirty, sprawling, brawling kind of battle with lots of yelping and thumping and a couple of cries from younger Carvers of “It’s me! Your brother! Get off, you idiot!”

  Another masked man rushed in from the street-side gate. He dodged the Carver cousins and didn’t seem inclined to fight. Instead, he grabbed at the arms of his comrades. “Come on, let’s go!” he bleated. “He’ll kill us if we get caught by the Watch.”

  Somewhere in the charging back and forth, the lantern got kicked over and then extinguished with a howl from Leaplow as he trod with bare feet across the burning wick.

  Sophraea was carried out of the center of the fray, still kicking and screaming, by her uncle Sagacious. He dropped her on the front doorstep with a strong admonition, “Stay here, poppet, before one of us hits you by mistake.”

  Then Sagacious and his wife Catletrho rushed back into the fight. She wielded a broom, he swung his fists, and the bullies fled howling before them.

  Later, the women claimed that the brooms had won the day, chasing the bullies out of the courtyard and down the street.

  It was the boots, added the men, that let the bandits get away.

  Almost all the Carvers had extremely bruised toes from where the bullies had stomped down on their bare feet and made their escape. Leaplow also had a fine burn on his instep which Myemaw later insisted on smearing with butter and binding with a big white bandage, much to his embarrassment.

  But at the height of the fight, the family raced down the street in pursuit of the thieves, leaving Sophraea and Myemaw forgotten on the front doorstep.

  “Huh,” said Sophraea, who was still clutching Leaplow’s old mallet. “I could have fought them off.”

  “Yes,” answered Myemaw in her practical way, “but why bother when you’ve got so many tall relatives who are having so much fun.”

  Sophraea’s grandmother stood in the doorway throughout the fight, well-wrapped in a warm woolen robe. She had lit a candle in the hallway so the open door was clearly visible if the family needed to retreat. Obviously prepared for anything, Myemaw carried her knitting bag looped over her arm, with the extra long steel needles sticking out of the top. Even more deadly than the needles was the black ball of yarn that Volponia had given Myemaw years ago. At Myemaw’s command, the yarn ball could entangle a dozen rambunctious adolescents, or any robber, and drop them trussed to the ground.

  As was the family’s emergency plan, Myemaw guarded the door throughout the fight, ready to use the yarn and needles on any intruder who dared to invade the house.

  “But they always set me out of the way,” grumbled Sophraea.

  “Only because they love you and because Reye yelled so much every time your brothers brought you home with a black eye or some other interesting scrape.”

  “Piffle,” sighed Sophraea. “It’s just because I am short. They all think I’m as fragile as Volponia’s china ornaments. If I was taller, then I could be in fights and Mother would not fuss.”

  Myemaw did not argue. She just handed Sophraea her extra slippers. “Brought them with me,” said the old lady. “Figured that you would have forgotten to wear any.”

  With a grateful hug, Sophraea slipped the warm sheepskin slippers over her cold feet.

  There were still yells and other noise on the other side of the wall bordering the street, but no one was left in the dark and silent courtyard.

  “I’m going up to the kitchen,” said Myemaw, apparently satisfied that Dead End House was no longer in immediate danger of invasion. “Everyone will be too excited to go to sleep when they get back. So I might as well stir up the soup pot and see if we have any wine to heat.”

  “I’ll help you in a moment. But I want to check the graveyard gate and make sure it’s latched and locked.”

  The old lady fetched a candle from the hall table and lit the wick from her own candle. She handed it to Sophraea. “Go on, but take that mallet with you too.”

  “Thank you for trusting me out on my own,” her granddaughter replied.

  With a smile wickedly reminiscent o
f her friend Volponia, Myemaw said, “I was always the shortest one until you came along, and it took a few years before those big Carvers learned exactly how well I could take care of myself and my family. You’ll do just fine on your own. I’ve never doubted that. But don’t do anything too rash. We only need one Leaplow in this family.”

  Sticking the mallet through the belt on her nightrobe, Sophraea sheltered the flickering flame of the candle with her curled palm as she stepped into the night wind.

  As she walked to the graveyard gate, a memory niggled at her mind. There had been something familiar about the first thief, something about the way he sniffed the air. “He acted like that hairy doorjack of Stunk’s,” Sophraea said to herself.

  But why the servants of such a rich man would bother stealing from a tradesman workshop, especially one filled with fine materials bought by their master, was a puzzle that Sophraea couldn’t solve.

  She found the graveside gate still locked. Peering through the bars, Sophraea could see no marks upon the mossy steps or the path revealed in the candlelight. The rain had stopped and the wind died down a little. Beyond her own small circle of light, the moon revealed a swirling white mist that clung to the bare black branches and blurred the edges of the tombs.

  As she stared, Sophraea could make out pale shapes in the fog. But everyone saw shapes in the mist in Waterdeep. They were harmless mirages, nothing to worry about.

  Except, one shape was a bit more solid than the others: a man carrying a lamp, that’s what it looked like. A man in a broad-brimmed old-fashioned hat and long coat carrying a hooded lamp that only cast a dim light. A man leaning on a cane and looking directly at her.

  Sophraea blew out the candle with a quick breath and drew back into the shadow of the wall.

  The man lingered for a moment more, then walked away from the gate, following the path that led around the Deepwinter tomb and farther north into the City of the Dead. Another pale figure, glowing slightly around the edges, drifted through the fog and followed his dark shape away from the Dead End gate.