City of the Dead

by Rosemary Jones

  “Hush,” said Sophraea, still sitting very straight on her uncomfortable chair because she didn’t know what else to do. “Someone will hear you.”

  However, she had to acknowledge that there was a peculiar smell permeating the mansion, a sharp tang just under the usual old house smells of damp, cold, and dust. Perhaps Lord Adarbrent needed a cat, a good mouser like the ones who lived in the Carver workshops. She could always bring him a kitten.

  The thought of the Walking Corpse of Waterdeep with a kitten caused Sophraea to giggle. Gustin turned away from rearranging the seashells lined up on the mantelpiece and asked, “Care to share the joke?”

  Sophraea shook her head, hiccupping a little as she tried to regain control, and then relented, saying, “I was just thinking that I could give Lord Adarbrent a kitten.”

  “One of that fluffy black-and-white set living under your father’s workbench?”

  “Yes, can you just imagine a kitten here?”

  “Not very well,” admitted Gustin with chuckle. “Those drapes would be in shreds on the floor by morning.”

  “But it does seem appropriate,” said Sophraea, giving away to laughter, “for a nobleman who lives …”

  “On Manycats Alley,” Gustin guffawed.

  The stately clatter of boot heels across the bare marble floor of the hallway outside interrupted their laughter. Lord Adarbrent appeared, dressed very much as he always did for walking the streets of Waterdeep, the long rusty black coat with its oversized pockets hanging past his knees. Only his broad-brimmed hat and slender black cane were missing.

  The old nobleman blinked a few times at their presence in his waiting room.

  Blushing and hoping very much that he had not heard their joking, Sophraea rose from her chair and curtsied.

  “Dear child,” Lord Adarbrent addressed her as he usually did in her father’s yard. He bowed deeply. Upon spotting Gustin standing by the mantelpiece, he bowed again. Gustin hastily replaced the seashell that he had been fiddling with and bowed in return.

  “Visitors. How … unus … ah … how pleasant,” Lord Adarbrent faltered, rubbing his chin in a gesture of puzzled contemplation.

  Sophraea wondered when the old gentleman had last entertained guests in his house. Given the condition of the room and his own state of surprise, she guessed it may have been a few years. Actually, given the state of the debilitated curtains, a few decades might be an even better guess, she thought.

  “Lord Adarbrent,” she said, speaking quickly to fill up the awkward silence, “this is the wizard Gustin Bone. He very kindly escorted me here today as I wanted to ask you—” She stopped, uncertain how to say “we found a shoe, we think it came off a corpse, do you think the deceased nobility are roaming in the City of the Dead?”

  Luckily, Lord Adarbrent seemed to have overlooked her incomplete sentence and was bowing again to Gustin. “So nice,” he said in his careful style, “to meet a young man with the manners to know that a young woman should not go unescorted and unprotected through the streets of Waterdeep.”

  Sophraea was about to point out that a great many ladies and women of other classes walked abroad alone and were perfectly capable of protecting themselves. Except she realized that Lord Adarbrent meant it as a compliment to the wizard and there was no point in distressing the old gentleman.

  “My lord,” she said instead. “We recently noticed some disturbances in the City of the Dead.”

  “And underneath it,” added Gustin.

  “And, knowing of your great interest in the history of the place, were wondering if you could make some suggestion about this?” she asked, withdrawing the little golden shoe from her wicker basket. “We found it near the Markarl tomb.”

  “Almost directly under it,” added Gustin again, despite Sophraea’s frown at him. She really didn’t want to start explaining how they had been in the tunnels the previous evening. Especially as she was sure that Lord Adarbrent, who didn’t believe ladies should go unescorted through the public streets, would not approve of her traipsing underground in the sewers.

  Lord Adarbrent was very gentle in his handling of the shoe, turning it over with a sigh. “Such a pretty thing,” he said, “I remember when I was young, all the ladies wore such finery to the great balls.”

  Since neither Sophraea nor Gustin could imagine Lord Adarbrent as a young man, they made no comment.

  “My lord, I’m very worried about the disturbances in the City,” said Sophraea. “Rampage Stunk has ordered two tombs removed for the building of his own monument. And I think … well, I think that the dead are upset. It is possible that the dead are walking. I would go to the Watch or to the Watchful Order, only I really don’t know who to speak to.” And, she added silently, I really don’t want to explain that my family built an unprotected gate into the City of the Dead several generations ago that everyone has overlooked and that may pose a great danger to Waterdeep.

  “There is no reason to involve the City Watch or the Order,” said Lord Adarbrent. “Rampage Stunk’s activities”—he paused and smacked his lips as if trying to clear a bad taste out of his mouth— “Stunk’s plans are known and approved, by the highest authorities, as I have been repeatedly told.”

  Looking at the deep and angry lines on the aged nobleman’s face, Sophraea fancied whoever had told Lord Adarbrent had had an unpleasant task.

  “Stunk holds the deeds to those tombs, sold quite legally to him by the last foolish remnants of two once great and very noble families,” Lord Adarbrent concluded with a scowl. “If he chooses to make other arrangements with that property, it is well within his rights as a citizen of Waterdeep. Or so it was explained to me.” The last sentence ended on a note perilously close to a snarl.

  The old man patted Sophraea’s hand where it rested upon the handle of her wicker basket. “It was very good of you to come to me, dear child, but your father and his brothers already made the same inquiries once they realized where Stunk meant to build his tomb.”

  “Oh,” said Sophraea, quite dismayed by this revelation. “I didn’t know.”

  “But, do the dead of Waterdeep respect the same laws, my lord?” asked Gustin. “We certainly saw some signs of magic around those tombs the other day.”

  Turning to the wizard, Lord Adarbrent said, “I think you are somewhat new to our city?”

  “I arrived a short time ago.”

  “Ah, well, you will learn. Waterdeep is a very old city, with magic sunk into its foundation stones. I doubt there is anywhere that you could walk in this city and not see some mark of a past spell or incantation.”

  Lord Adarbrent handed the little tarnished shoe back to Sophraea and she tucked it back into the basket without a thought.

  “Thank you for the visit,” he said, showing them out of the room. The servant waited at the already open door leading to the courtyard, making it clear that the visit was at an end.

  Sophraea curtsied, Gustin bowed, and Lord Adarbrent waved off these gestures of respect with a murmured, “No need. Such nice manners, always a pleasure.”

  As a further courtesy, the old nobleman escorted them across the courtyard, tutting under his breath at the state of his fountain and muttering something about meaning to have the dwarves take a look at it.

  Outside the great door, standing on the stairs leading to the pavement, they saw a group of men clearing the furniture out of a fine but rather dilapidated house a little farther down the street.

  “Rampage Stunk,” Lord Adarbrent growled in much stronger tones than he had used inside. “The dowager isn’t dead more than five days and he’s already bought the house from her heirs. He will sell it for a fine profit to one of his fancy friends and I’ll have more jackanapes pretending to be noblemen living on my street. No manners, no breeding, no sense of tradition …”

  Startled, Sophraea saw the old man’s hands clench into fists and then deliberately relax.

  “Ah well,” muttered Lord Adarbrent, lifting his hand to his nose to hide his
expression from them. “It is his right, as a citizen of Waterdeep. Good day to you.”

  The great door swung shut behind him with a definite slam.

  “Well,” Sophraea said to Gustin, “I can see now why some people call him the Angry Lord.”

  “Actually, I thought he would be more upset by your news,” mused Gustin. “I thought a lord of the city would worry that the dead were leaving their graves to haunt the streets. In Cormyr, there would be war wizards stalking about and reporting to the king if such a thing happened.”

  “Lord Adarbrent is right, this is Waterdeep. Odd things happen all the time,” explained Sophraea, hooking her arm through Gustin’s in a friendly fashion. “Look, I think it’s going to rain. Let’s go back to the Andamaar gate and cut through the City of the Dead. It will be faster that way.”

  “You just don’t like walking down streets where living people are wandering,” teased Gustin.

  “It’s not that,” said Sophraea. “But on the way here, you kept stopping and staring at everything and asking me if this is where that battle was fought or where this wizard made his stand.”

  “Aren’t you interested in the history of your city?”

  “Not nearly as much as I am in getting home before it pours,” she tugged Gustin down Manycats Alley, past the spot where Stunk’s servants were loading boxes and bags into a big dray wagon.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t get the answers you wanted,” Gustin said.

  “I’m just fussed, I guess. That’s one of Myemaw’s expressions,” Sophraea told him. “After all, spirits appear quite frequently in the City of the Dead, and elsewhere too. And they are mostly harmless. Maybe I shouldn’t worry.”

  “Oh,” said Gustin, smiling down at her, “you strike me as the sensible sort. You don’t worry without cause. Something odd has been going on around those tombs. And in the tunnel last night, something frightened those thieves, long before that one decided to attack us.”

  Peculiarly pleased by being called a sensible sort, Sophraea started to reply when they were interrupted by a shout.

  “Well, if it isn’t the little rude bit from Carver’s yard,” Stunk’s hairy doorjack strode across the street toward them. His shout brought the other Stunk servants sidling around the dray wagon and into the center of Manycats Alley. The two red-haired louts with their cudgels laughed to see Sophraea pull Gustin back from the hairy doorjack’s advance.

  Gustin shook off Sophraea’s hand. “I did tell you that I was a wizard, didn’t I?” he asked the big man bearing down on them.

  “Like I’m afraid of some street charlatan,” the servant replied.

  A twist of his arm and his wand appeared in Gustin’s left hand. Beneath his long lashes, his green eyes sparkled. “Didn’t ask if you were afraid,” he crowed, grinning. “Just wanted to make sure you understood what kind of fight you were getting.”

  Looking at the growing semicircle of Stunk’s men surrounding them, Sophraea took a firm grip on her wicker basket. “You should let us pass,” she said as calmly as she could. “You know my family. You don’t want to start a fight with the Carvers.”

  “Carvers, what are Carvers?” said one of the redheads. “Bunch of fancy gravediggers.”

  “We’re Stunk’s men,” said the other. “Nobody crosses us. Nobody hits us with buckets and brooms.”

  “When did we?” started Sophraea.

  One of Stunk’s men slapped the other on the back of the head and said, “Shut up you fool.”

  “It was you!” shouted Sophraea. “You were the ones breaking into our workshops! Thieves!”

  “Shut her up!” yelled the thin nervous servant who always lurked in the back of the group. “Stunk will kill us if he hears about this!”

  “Great balls of flame,” muttered Gustin as he swung his wand above his head. “Why can’t I do enormous balls of fire when I need them!”

  Nevertheless, his spell zinged through the air. Half the men shouted and dropped the makeshift weapons they were carrying, lifting their hands to their mouths as if their fingers stung.

  Unfortunately, the other half still retained their weapons and charged the wizard. Gustin whipped off Bentnor’s oversized cape and enveloped the closest man rushing at him, tripping the bully onto the street.

  Sophraea screamed loudly and swung the wicker basket underhand with deadly accuracy at one of the louts intent on hitting Gustin. Not protected by an armored codpiece, this lout went down with a sharp cry of pain.

  But more came on, and Sophraea found herself lifted bodily from the street even as Gustin fell with a shout beneath two men struggling to keep the long-armed wizard from casting another spell.

  Hairy hands locked around Sophraea’s waist and tossed her into the outstretched hands of another sour-smelling creature. With her feet off the pavement, she kicked wildly. She felt her shoes connect with solid flesh and heard the howls of rage.

  Another shout sounded from farther up the street. Sophraea screamed again for help. The doorjack grabbed her, trying to stifle her cries.

  “Curs! On my very doorstep! You dare!” Lord Adarbrent exclaimed, charging down the steps of his mansion into the street, swinging his long black cane with deadly precision.

  The redheaded bully lifting a cudgel to brain Gustin gave a cry of pain as the black cane smacked across the back of his hands. He dropped the cudgel, right onto Gustin’s shoulder, and beat a hasty retreat.

  Seeing who it was who attacked them, the other servants scrambled to the wagon. They climbed up on it, crying out “it’s that old lord, best go, Stunk is going to kill us!”

  Lord Adarbrent raced after them, moving more swiftly than a man half his age, slashing right and left with the cane. Each blow fell with wicked accuracy, causing great cries of pain.

  The thin nervous servant grasped the reins and clicked to the horses. Another slash on the hindquarters of the lead horse and a fierce yell from Lord Adarbrent caused the startled cob to lift its neck with a bugling cry and begin an awkward gallop. The wagon rocked and rolled down the street, bits of baggage dropping off in its hasty departure.

  Too stunned to move by the swift turn of events, the hairy doorjack still grasped the kicking, shrieking Sophraea. She flung her head backward, knocking his chin up and causing him to bite his tongue.

  “Yow!” he cried. “You witch! I’ll break your neck.”

  Turning sharply on his heel, Lord Adarbrent pulled the wood sheath of his sword cane off and revealed the long, sharp, and deadly steel blade. He pressed the point against the hairy doorjack’s throat.

  “You will release the lady, gently.” He commanded. “Or I skewer you like the dog you are.”

  Other shouts could be heard from the entrance of Manycats Alley and the pounding run of many armored men.

  “Quickly,” said Lord Adarbrent. The ancient nobleman’s eyes burned with a bright fierce light and anger flushed his wrinkled cheeks. But his hand was steady and the steel blade never quavered a hairsbreadth from the hairy doorjack’s pulsing vein. “Or I let the City Watch take your corpse from my doorstep.”

  With a growl, the hairy man dropped Sophraea, not too gently, back on the cobblestones. She pinwheeled her arms to maintain her balance and managed to clip him on the side of his head with her basket.

  With a yelp of pain, the hirsute doorjack turned and loped off, following the lurching wagon and his fellow servants racing down the street.

  Gustin struggled to his feet, rubbing one shoulder. “Ah, well,” he said in his usual cheerful tones, “at least they didn’t hit me over the head.”

  He wiped the smears of mud and blood on his hands against the back of his tunic. Sophraea tutted at this, pulling a clean handkerchief out of her pocket. With years of practice from cleaning up Leaplow, she dabbed at the scrapes on Gustin’s face and hands.

  A trio of burly Watchmen thumped up to them.

  “Saers,” one commanded. “Lay down your weapons.”

  He seemed a bit disconcerted to find
only the ancient and very well-known Lord Adarbrent leaning negligently upon his cane, a small young woman with ruffled curls clutching a wicker basket, and a tall, thin young man picking up a large rain cape.

  “We heard an affray,” began the one Watchman in stentorian accents.

  “Nothing of importance,” said Lord Adarbrent, looking down his nose.

  “Actually,” began Sophraea, ready to report Stunk’s servants to the City Watch. Lord Adarbrent turned and gave her a stern look.

  “Nothing of importance,” he repeated to the City Watch. “I am simply bidding good-bye to these two young friends, who will now go straight home.”

  “If you say so, my lord,” said an older Watchman, who gave one of those shrugs that said so clearly “We know you are lying and you know we know, but what can you do in Waterdeep?”

  “I appreciate, as always, the City Watch’s discretion,” Lord Adarbrent bowed and retreated up the steps to his door, which swung quickly open at his approach. It closed just as definitely behind him.

  “High adventure and dark dearlings, just like the book promised,” chuckled Gustin as he slipped his wand back into his sleeve. He tucked his hand around Sophraea’s elbow and guided her away from the Watch. The three men stood stiff and silent, watching the wizard and the girl walk away. “Even a duel in an open street with a nobleman and timely intervention by the City Watch.”

  “High adventure? That was just a street brawl. My brothers spent most of their youth with my cousins in just such fights. Leaplow still battles with everyone he can find,” said Sophraea, momentarily distracted from her wrathful muttering about impolite things that should have happened to Stunk’s men. She considered telling her brothers and cousins. Declaring war on Stunk’s men had considerable appeal—Leaplow would love it! She bit back the thought. If she did such a thing, she would never hear the end of it from her mother.

  “And dark what? What was that word you used?” she continued as the wizard’s earlier statement finally sank into her mind.

  “Dearlings,” replied the lanky wizard. “Isn’t that the local term for a sweetheart?”