City of the Dead

by Rosemary Jones

  Once the Carvers figured out that Sophraea had fibbed, one of her enormous brothers or cousins or uncles was going to kick him out of this room, right back into the streets of Waterdeep, where he would wake up every morning smelling fried fish but only finding watery boiled vegetables to eat.

  After a few anxious moments, Gustin’s usual optimism overrode his black mood. It might be days and days before the Carvers decided to drop him into the gutter. Until that time, this room, this soft bed, this magnificent clean linen, were all his to enjoy. With a sigh of contentment not unlike a cat’s purr, the wizard slid under the feather quilt and buried his nose in the pillow. He would sleep just a little longer and then sample whatever was baking in the kitchen for breakfast.

  Sophraea slid the bedroom door open a crack. The wizard wasn’t snoring, at least not in way the Carvers snored, more a satisfied snuffle coming from somewhere under the blankets. All she could see of him was a few brown curls sprouting out of the top of the huddle of covers.

  Relieved that he was apparently fine, she dropped Bentnor’s second best shirt and Leaplow’s only decent pair of pants on the chair by the door. And, since both her cousin and her brother were a good deal wider than the slender Gustin, she added a spare belt to the pile.

  Upstairs, she rapped on Volponia’s door.

  “I’m awake,” came the spirited reply. “What else can an old lady be in earliest hours of the morning?”

  Sophraea noted the bedstead was woven from wicker and a high canopy of gauze with brilliant silver spangles swayed above Volponia’s head. Rain lashed against the windows but the bedroom smelled of warm spices and the sharp tang of citrus blossoms.

  “Tired of winter already?” asked Sophraea as she curled up on the overstuffed silk cushion of the bed big enough for four or five more people.

  “I’m tired of all seasons,” said Volponia, warming her hands around a steaming stone cup carved so fine and thin that the pale winter light glowed through it. “But never tired of your stories. I heard there was another rumpus last night, a thief actually tried the basement door all by himself?”

  Sophraea gave a half shrug and the true story to her oldest living relation. “We were down in the tunnels, and the thief came after us. He grabbed me, I kicked him.”

  “Caught him where it hurt?”

  “Side of the knee. I could see he was wearing an armored codpiece.”

  “That’s my girl, always look for the spot they’ve forgotten to protect.” The old pirate captain chuckled as she sipped her morning brew.

  “Gustin, he’s the wizard that I mentioned finding, pulled me away.”

  “Men, they always look out for each other.”

  “No, no, he was trying to help. And he got clipped on the head so Mother and Myemaw sewed up the wound and put him to bed in Fitlor’s old room.”

  “Well, it’s not like Fitlor’s going to need it any time soon.”

  “Absolutely. And Gustin seems all right. Which is a relief. Because I didn’t mean anyone to get hurt. I just wanted to find out what’s going on in the graveyard.”

  “And did you find anything?” Volponia asked when Sophraea’s breathless explanation had wound down.

  “Just this.” Sophraea pulled the little gold brocade shoe out of her apron pocket and dropped it in Volponia’s lap.

  “A lady’s dancing shoe,” said Volponia, turning it over with her long fingers. “Obviously not new.”

  “Gustin thought it was off a corpse.”

  “Quite possibly. It was something of the fashion once if a noble maid died young to dress her in a ball gown and her best dancing shoes for burial.”

  “Truly?”

  “During the dark era,” said Volponia, referring to those long and bitter years after magic changed and the world rearranged itself in a manner not altogether expected. “I suspect it was a way to wish her brighter and happier times after death.”

  “So somebody was disturbing the corpses near the Markarl tomb,” guessed Sophraea. “Or,” and this was a more troubling thought, “the dead are starting to walk.”

  “If they are, then trouble is coming,” Volponia told her. “The City of the Dead had been quiet for a long time, the Blackstaff and the Watchful Order did their best to make the wards strong along the wall, but when I was very young, the ghosts used to get out and cause some real harm. And sometimes the more intact corpses walked and other trouble too.”

  “Ghosts appear everywhere in Waterdeep and spirit mists too,” Sophraea pointed out.

  “I’m not talking about those feeble shadow shows and their prophetic nonsense. That’s just leftover magic from the Spellplague,” said Volponia and then sketched the symbol in the air that the very elderly tended to make to ward off another coming of that terrible blight. “The old ghosts of Waterdeep were different. They were much stronger and much more terrible. When the dead walked, they were substantial,” she said in an echo of the warning that Sophraea had heard earlier from the thorn, Briarsting.

  “But why disturb us?” Sophraea said. “Why try our gate? We’ve always been respectful of the City and its residents.”

  “The Dead End gate, the Carvers’ own special entrance into the graveyard,” Volponia mused, handing the shoe back to Sophraea. “Well, that’s the answer to the question, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “All the gates into the City of the Dead are well-guarded by the City Watch and well-warded by the Blackstaff. Aren’t they?” the old pirate asked Sophraea.

  “Of course, I was just through the Coffinmarch gate myself. Three members of the City Watch and the wards very clear to see.”

  “Where’s the Watch below your window then? Where’s the ward on the Dead End gate?” the old lady tapped one lacquered silver nail against her cup’s rim.

  “But our gate isn’t a public gate. No one uses it except the family.”

  “Exactly. Nice respectable family, the Carvers. Make the coffins, carve the headstones, arrange for the graves to be dug, and polish up the tombs when needed. So if they go and carve themselves their own private gate into the City of the Dead, what’s the worry?”

  “Are you saying our gate isn’t protected?”

  “Well, that gate was here, just a part of the yard and house, for as long as I can remember,” said Volponia. “Just one of those odd bits of Waterdeep that most people don’t even know about and, more disturbing for us, that somebody or something has remembered. If I wanted to go out of the City of the Dead and I wasn’t allowed out, I wouldn’t march up to one of those public gates. I’d go here. To the tradesman’s gate with no wards or City Watch.”

  “I tried to tell them downstairs,” said a worried Sophraea, “but they just all say that the dead don’t bother us.”

  “Some of the men have heads as thick as the stone they carve!” Volponia stated firmly. “No, the Carvers always are too comfortable with the City of the Dead. Since they haven’t had any real trouble in a generation or two, they’ve largely forgotten about the precautions they should take.”

  Volponia peered into her cup, as if she could see the past and the future swirling together in the steam. For all Sophraea knew, perhaps the old pirate could. Unexpectedly her ancient relative asked, “Did you ever get that letter from Lord Adarbrent?”

  “No,” Sophraea admitted, quite astonished to realize that she’d literally forgotten about the letter still sitting in the other pocket of her apron. But she had been so busy, with topiary dragons and chases through tunnels, that securing a dressmaker’s apprenticeship seemed … well … not exactly important, she compromised to herself.

  Downright dull, whispered back an inner Sophraea to her dismay.

  “Waterdeep is getting a bit like the Carvers,” said Volponia, “a little too complacent about the City of the Dead. Lord Adarbrent is old enough to remember what real trouble can be, never mind his constant muttering. He sees more and understands more than most people think.”

  “Are you sure?
”

  Volponia nodded briskly and made a shooing motion with her hands. “Go to the Walking Corpse,” she said, “because there is nobody in all of Waterdeep with a better understanding of the dead. All his family and friends perished long ago.”

  Downstairs, Sophraea ran into Gustin, who was sliding out of the kitchen, munching a roll dripping with honey.

  “Well met!” he said upon spying Sophraea tripping down the stairs. “Your grandmother suggested I go watch your father work on my statue.”

  Eyeing the roll, Sophraea returned, “Probably because she wanted some food left in the kitchen for lunch.”

  “O, unkind maiden,” said Gustin, thumping his heart with the hand holding the roll and leaving a spot of honey on Leaplow’s second best shirt. He licked a finger and rubbed it out. “I’m sure that she was just trying to add to my education.”

  “I hope you didn’t add to hers and tell her what you’re planning to do with that statue.”

  “I really don’t understand why you think your family wouldn’t approve. Nice petrified hero stumping through the streets of Waterdeep, searching for his long lost love. It’s just the sort of story most folk find very touching.” He grinned at her, his green eyes sparkling under his long black lashes.

  “Right after which, you empty their purses.” All right, he had a nice smile, she was willing to admit that to herself. But that didn’t mean she was going to let him twist her around. She’d grown up at the tail end of a pack of mischief makers, Leaplow being as big a flirt as he was a fighter, and she knew the breed when she saw it.

  “Your family doesn’t work for free and the animation of stone requires some costly ingredients,” said the young wizard with too much personal charm for her peace of mind continuing his argument. “And this is one way to make magic pay. Which is what a wizard is supposed to do.”

  “I’m not sure the Watchful Order sees it quite that way.”

  “Organized labor, governmental types. They do tend to look down on us poor freelancers.”

  Years of being teased by older brothers made Sophraea doubt Gustin’s sincerity. “Do you even believe half of the nonsense you spout?” she asked him.

  The wizard smiled broadly at her and popped the last of the roll into his mouth. “Half of it, certainly, at least half the time. Of course, depends on who is paying for the beer. I’m just as happy to argue the other side too. Magic must be carefully regulated, spells only taught by the best master to the best pupil, that’s the only way to regain the trust of the populace after the Spellplague, and so on and so forth.”

  “So is that what you truly believe?” she asked.

  Gustin gave a long rolling shrug of his shoulders. “I believe that there are wizards happy to point fingers at those marked by the Spellplague and mutter about how they wouldn’t be caught dead working with them. And others who envy those powers so much that they seek the same down dangerous paths. Some look for new forms of magic in faraway places and some stay forever in the same place trying to recreate spells that their grandfathers cast and nothing else. The world has changed, everyone agrees on that, but none of the wizards that I’ve met can agree on how to live with those changes or without them. So I try not to worry about such things. I’ve taken my learning where I could and used my magic as best I could. And that’s good enough for me.”

  Blinking a little at this sensible speech from the irrepressible Gustin, Sophraea hung her apron on a peg by the door. She removed the golden shoe from its pocket and dropped it into her wicker basket.

  “Where are you going?” asked Gustin.

  “To see Lord Adarbrent,” she replied, taking her rain cape off another hook and swinging it around her shoulders. “I want to ask him about this shoe.”

  “You know,” said Gustin, casually borrowing another rain cape from the hall pegs. “I don’t think I have ever seen the inside of a Waterdhavian nobleman’s house.” The cape was Bentnor’s and fell in great dark blue folds around the wizard. “I’ll be happy to escort you.”

  “I don’t recall asking for an escort.”

  “Well, I could go watch your father at his carving. But I might start chatting to him about where I was last night, out in the tunnels, under the City of the Dead.”

  “That might be more painful for you than me,” pointed out Sophraea, trying to keep her expression calm. No one in the family would ever harm her, and all would fly to her defense against any outsider, but the discussion of her behavior would go on for days! And her mother would look disappointed, and her father would sigh, and she would want to sink into the floorboards.

  What was worse, they’d all think that she’d done it to flirt with this wizard and nobody would listen when she’d try to explain about the dead wandering inside the graveyard or in the tunnels below.

  “Still, you have to admire my fearless honesty in the face of great personal danger,” Gustin continued to tease. “Especially considering the stories that those Watchmen wanted to tell me about your brothers.”

  “Oh, come along then!” She exclaimed and walked into the yard, only to halt at the sight of Rampage Stunk’s hairy doorjack standing there. The man sniffed at her and licked his tongue across his large yellow teeth.

  “Ugh,” said Sophraea, waiting for the man to move out of her way.

  “I’ve orders from the master for your father,” the servant said to her.

  “He’s in his workshop,” she said, suddenly glad of the tall form of Gustin Bone behind her.

  The servant’s eyes flicked over the wizard. His nose wrinkled and his upper lip pulled back from his teeth as he snarled, “Magic-user.”

  “Oh, whenever I can,” Gustin replied with a wave of his hand. The silver wand popped out of his sleeve and sent sparks flying into the air. “I could probably provide you with a nice little charm to keep the hair off your back and the fleas away if you’d like.”

  The man growled, “I am a servant of Rampage Stunk, the greatest man in all of Waterdeep.”

  “Well, that’s a bit of a stretch,” whispered Sophraea to Gustin. “He’s rich but he’s not that well known.”

  The servant twitched his head to look straight at her. “He will be, little miss, he will be. And your family should be very grateful for his patronage. And grateful to his servants too! After all, my master and my master’s friends are planning many new tombs in the fancy graveyard there. And if the Carvers don’t want the work, somebody else will,” he gloated.

  “There isn’t room inside the City of the Dead for that many new tombs,” protested Sophraea, thinking if the noble dead were disturbed already by the changes in the Markarl and Vesham tombs, more changes were sure to bring disaster.

  “There will be room,” boasted the servant. “My master will make sure of that.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The fact that a nobleman of Lord Adarbrent’s stature lived on a street called Manycats Alley caused Gustin to snicker.

  “It’s a very grand neighborhood,” explained Sophraea. “Only the finest families of Waterdeep have mansions here.” The mansions along Manycats had been remodeled in the newest style, with the old gatehouses and courtyards now completely enclosed, so anyone entering from the front would not be plagued by Waterdeep’s perpetual rain. Stairs with beautifully wrought iron rails ran up from the street’s pavement to a gleaming polished door that had replaced the old and more open gate of a century ago.

  Sophraea climbed the eight steps leading to Lord Adarbrent’s great door.

  “You’d think they’d give this street a better name,” snorted Gustin as Sophraea swung the bronze knocker shaped like a ship’s anchor.

  “Like what?” she countered.

  “Rich Dogs Avenue, Highbred Cats Boulevard,” suggested Gustin.

  She giggled and then glared at him. “Don’t. This is serious.”

  The creaking door of Lord Adarbrent’s mansion opened. A pale old servant in the livery of Waterdeep’s past listened politely to Sophraea’s request.

>   “Follow me,” he said finally.

  The servant led them, very slowly, through the enclosed courtyard past a long dry fountain. Another two steps led into the mansion’s great hall, with its cold marble floors and long bare benches where petitioners would have once waited for the lord of the house. A broad staircase disappeared into the gloom of the upper rooms. No candles burned despite the lack of light from the narrow windows facing the courtyard. The fireplace grates, one at each end of the hall, were swept clean and bare.

  A few faded maritime flags hung limply on the walls. The formerly bright colors muted by time into pale reminders of the family’s once great shipping interests.

  “I think it was warmer in the tunnels,” muttered Gustin.

  “Shh,” said Sophraea.

  The servant opened a small black door near the back of the hall, motioning them forward. The little waiting chamber was just as cold and gloomy as the great hall, but it at least had a few ancient chairs rather than bare benches. This was obviously where the better class of petitioners would have waited for the former Lord Adarbrents.

  After wrestling with the stubborn silk draperies covering the long windows of the room, the servant pulled back the curtains to allow a narrow view of the damp winter garden outside. No fire burned in this grate either, only a trace of cold ash lay scattered across the hearthstones.

  Once the servant left to inform Lord Adarbrent of their presence, Gustin sprang up from the rickety chair where he had been seated by the servant. He took a quick turn around the room, examining the smoky dark portraits of former Adarbrents decorating the walls. One portrait bore a mottled brass plaque engraved with the family’s founding patriarch “Royus.” The grim fellow in the painting looked as if he’d just swallowed something extremely bitter.

  “I don’t think Time just stopped here. I think Time curled up behind the wainscoting and died,” Gustin said, staring up at that particular long-dead member of the Adarbrent family.