City of the Dead

by Rosemary Jones

  “Of course not. I have never heard such a thing in my life. Where did you hear it?” Sophraea snapped, still cranky that she couldn’t have all of Stunk’s servants locked up in some dungeon deep beneath the castle or pounded in the head by some of the younger Carver males.

  “I read it. In my guidebook to Waterdeep. See!” exclaimed Gustin reaching inside his tunic and pulling out a small book. The cover was stained leather, sloppily stitched onto the pages, obviously replacing a much older cover that had been torn off and lost long ago. A crude map of Waterdeep, printed in faded inks of brown, green, and blue, unfolded from the back.

  “This must be older than Volponia,” said Sophraea, taking the book from him and frowning at the creased and crumpled page. “This map is all wrong. This street, for example, doesn’t run into this alley. There’s a building there. A big storehouse.”

  “What’s a storehouse or two?” Gustin asked as he retrieved his book, folded the map correctly so it lay flat inside the back cover, and gently turned the pages to the beginning. “There are wonderful descriptions in here. Essays on all sorts of marvels. And see, right here at the beginning, it promises ‘high adventure and dark dearlings’ to any who come to Waterdeep.”

  Sophraea stopped in the middle of the pavement to lean over Gustin’s arm and read the line that his long finger traced for her. “I’m sure that was a mistake. Some printer’s error,” she said, shaking her head. “There’s no such thing as dark dearlings.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Gustin with a funny little smile. Sophraea peered up at him, wondering what made him grin so. Rain began to splatter in larger and larger drops on the cobblestones.

  “Here, you’ll get all wet,” the wizard said, reaching out to pull up the hood of her cloak and cover up her black curls. “Dark dearlings … Yes, it still seems very accurate to me.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  In Sophraea’s troubled dreams that night, a lady walked. She was a very young lady, very pale, and her face was hard to see beneath the high-piled curls and fine lace hood she wore.

  The lady’s dress was spangled with brilliants, and her little feet glittered in gold brocade shoes. She danced through the paths of the City of the Dead, hurrying as if to a great ball. And behind her, in long lines, they came. The noblest of the dead, the revenants of the great families of Waterdeep, all dressed in the richest robes and most elegant costumes of the centuries.

  In crimson lace and sapphire wool, in tawny leather and gilded armor, they came. Rows upon rows of the noble dead followed the dancing lady out of the City of the Dead and into the sleeping streets of Waterdeep.

  A terrible crack, like the breaking of a bell, woke Sophraea from the nightmare.

  After lighting a candle and pulling on a pair of slippers, she ran down the staircase in her nightgown. She was certain that the noise was real, although she grimly hoped that the rest of the dream was just nonsense stirred up by her worries.

  Around her, the rest of the house slept in its usual rumble of snores and grunts.

  She reached the courtyard door and pulled aside the locks. Drawing a deep breath to give herself courage, she twisted the handle.

  “Sophraea?” the whisper came from behind her.

  She spun around, one hand hard against her thumping heart.

  A tall thin shadow slid down the staircase. “Sophraea?” whispered Gustin. “Is that you?”

  With a cry of relief and annoyance, Sophraea fell upon the wizard. “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

  “I heard this noise, something breaking. It woke me up,” he said. Then, almost reluctantly, he admitted, “It’s more than that. Sort of a feeling that I get. When I let off a spell or someone lets off one near me. This was really strong and unpleasant. Then I heard you go running past.”

  “How did you know it was me?”

  “Your brothers do not run that lightly down the stairs.”

  “True.”

  She danced impatiently from slippered foot to slippered foot. Gustin was right, there was a tingle in the air, a disturbance that was more than winter drafts and bad dreams. It was like being in the City of the Dead, she decided, and knowing that there was a grave open just behind you. One wrong step could tumble you backward into the embrace of the dead.

  “Why are you here?” Gustin whispered, interrupting her troubled thoughts.

  “I heard something too,” she admitted. “And I dreamed the dead were walking past the Deepwinter tomb toward our gate.”

  “Oh,” breathed Gustin, looking dismayed.

  “It was probably just a dream.”

  “I sincerely hope so,” said the wizard.

  “I’m going outside,” said Sophraea, drawing herself as tall as she could, “to see what is there.”

  “Do you really think that is a good idea?”

  “Probably not, but I don’t think I have any choice.”

  Taking a deep if slightly unsteady breath, Gustin nodded and said, “I’m coming with you.”

  “You know,” said Sophraea, patting his arm to reassure him and herself, “I do think that you are very brave wizard.”

  “Right now,” said Gustin, unlatching the door and opening it for her, “I agree with you.”

  The courtyard was completely empty. Nothing stirred in the shadows, not even one of the Carver’s many cats.

  “There’s nothing there,” Gustin stated the obvious.

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve never had any dealings with the dead,” said the wizard. “You’re the expert there.”

  “I’m a Carver and I am not afraid,” said Sophraea with greater bravado than truth, advancing into the courtyard, the candle held high in one trembling hand. “The dead don’t bother us. We take care of them. They leave us alone.”

  “I’m a friend of a Carver, I don’t want to bother the dead, I absolutely want to be left alone by the dead,” Gustin stated as he followed her. Then he whispered to Sophraea, “Do you think that will do any good?”

  With a cry of dismay, Sophraea stopped short of the Dead End gate. The iron bars were shattered in half, the pieces of the gate now hanging open from the lock and hinges.

  “Something did come through here,” she said. Then she started down the mossy steps into the City of the Dead.

  “Wait,” said Gustin, grabbing the back of her fluttering nightrobe and pulling her into the courtyard. “Where do you think you are going?”

  “Maybe I can find Briarsting,” she said. “He could rouse the guardians within the City of the Dead. Maybe they can bring the ghosts back before anyone finds out. Our family is going to be in such trouble if anyone finds out they came through here!”

  “Sophraea, it is quite literally the dead of night,” Gustin argued. “We have no idea what went through here or what is still stirring on that side of the wall. You cannot go into the graveyard in your nightrobe!”

  Then the wizard let out a low moan.

  “What is it?” Sophraea said, struggling to pull free from his grasp.

  “This is your nightrobe, isn’t it?” he moaned again, still clutching a handful of her skirt. “What you sleep in?”

  “Of course,” she said, finally tugging the sturdy confection of quilted silk and lace out of his hands. “What else would I be wearing?”

  “Well, I got dressed,” pointed out Gustin, taking Sophraea by the shoulders and steering her firmly back to the open doorway of Dead End House. “Of course, that’s because I don’t have … No, I am not having this discussion with you and I am not being found with you in your nightrobe.”

  “You’re not in my nightrobe,” Sophraea said, thoroughly confused by the conversation. “I am.”

  “Don’t make it sound worse,” said the young man, shoving her up the stairs and into the house. He was slightly hindered by the fact that he was trying to keep his eyes directed at a point somewhere above her head.

  “Gustin, what are you talking about?” she ex
claimed. “We have to do something about the noise we both heard.”

  “Sophraea,” said the wizard firmly. “There is absolutely nothing we can do until morning. Not safely. In the morning, we can look for Briarsting and see what can be done. But now, for my sake, please, please go to bed, before one of your very large male relatives wakes up and catches me with you in your nightrobe.”

  “You know,” she said mounting the stairs, secretly relieved that she wasn’t in the middle of the City of the Dead, “you’re not as brave as I thought you were.”

  “I am willing to face any number of the dead,” whispered Gustin as he slid back into his room, “before I face your father, or your brothers, or your equally terrifying large uncles and cousins. Or, what’s probably worse, Myemaw and her carving knife.” He shut his door with a decisive click.

  Sophraea stood there, tapping her foot against a floorboard, wondering if she should take just one more look at the shattered gate.

  Gustin’s door popped open again. “Besides, you do not want to encounter ghosts at night,” he whispered, “not when they are at their strongest. Go to bed, Sophraea.” His door clicked shut again.

  Not completely ignoring the wizard’s advice, Sophraea stayed within the walls of Dead End House, just creeping through the lower rooms, looking out the windows facing the City of the Dead to see if she could see anything.

  Outside, the fitful moonlight revealed nothing. Eventually the clouds totally hid the moon, so outside was complete blackness. All she could see was the pale reflection of her own face peering into the darkened glass.

  After one last restless circuit through the lower floors, checking to see that doors and windows were tightly bolted, Sophraea acknowledged she was exhausted. She went back to the main staircase.

  At the bottom of the stair, Sophraea spotted her wicker basket, the one that she took to Lord Adarbrent’s house. With a murmur of annoyance, she recalled the letter of recommendation lying completely forgotten at the bottom.

  “I never gave it to him,” she scolded herself. “Well, we had some distractions,” she forgave herself a second later.

  Pulling aside the cloth covering, she rooted for the letter. It crackled under her fingers. But something else was missing.

  “The shoe!” exclaimed Sophraea. The brocade shoe, she was sure that Lord Adarbrent had handed it back to her. Yes, he had given it to her and she’d tucked it right down in the basket. Had it fallen out in the fight with Stunk’s servants?

  No, she was just as certain that she had checked the basket as they’d hurried back to Dead End House. And she remembered tucking the shoe a little deeper under the linen napkin she used to keep the contents dry. She hadn’t wanted the Watchmen on the Andamaar gate to ask her about it.

  After they’d gone through the Andamaar gate, they hadn’t stopped, because it was dusk and Gustin kept making remarks about not wanting to be stuck in the City of the Dead after dark. As if she could miss a turn or not get them to the Dead End gate in record time!

  Perhaps the shoe had rolled out after she dropped the basket in the corner by the stair. There’d been the usual scuffling crowd of Carvers all trooping into the house at the same time, intent on finding a hot supper. Bentnor, Cadriffle, and Leaplow had even started some nonsense with Gustin, shoving back and forth, about who had the right to go up the staircase first.

  She hadn’t been paying much attention then, just trying to get her cloak hung up and ignoring a sister-in-law’s impertinent questions about “how are those language lessons going? Isn’t it odd that you need to do so much studying while walking around the city with the young man?”

  Sophraea lifted her candle high, hoping to see the glitter of the tarnished brocade. For some reason, she was certain that it was important the shoe be found.

  Farther down the hallway, she glimpsed something shining against the dark wood of the floor. In the light of her candle, Sophraea saw very clear footprints, the footprints of a lady dancing in circles. The footprints glowed with an eerie light and then disappeared.

  Behind her, Sophraea heard soft footsteps. She whirled around, but there was nobody there. The candle shook in her hand, sending the shadows quivering across the paneled walls.

  A distinct chill nipped her cheeks and Sophraea remembered Gustin’s warning about ghosts being strongest at night.

  She felt something brush her shoulder. Her candle blew out! Shivering in the dark hallway, she smelled a blend of melted candle wax and the thin drift of smoke from the wick. There was something else too. She stood very still, her breath shallow while she tried to recognize it. Yes, there was another scent, a mix of old brocade and the faint scent of rose oil.

  Sophraea sprinted up the stairs, leaped into bed, and very firmly pulled the covers over her head.

  Yet, even with her ears muffled under the pillow, she could still hear the dancing steps of the dead and their dreadful laughter as they made their way to a ball.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A ball was underway at Rampage Stunk’s home, a very splendid party full of wonderful music, extraordinary food, and exceptional wines.

  The fat man smiled to see so many rich guests under his roof, especially since he had hundreds of schemes to lighten their purses and make his own heavier.

  Along the edges of the ball, there were a number of the shabbier nobles of Waterdeep, the kind with long lineages and very little coin. Rampage was glad to see them there too. They may not have wealth but they did have property, either houses in Waterdeep, or estates in the country, or even neglected family tombs in the City of the Dead.

  Rampage knew that ready coin would part these nobles from their old family holdings. Most would not even guess at the true value of what they were selling. That made the fat man smile even more and even tap his feet in time to the sprightly tune being played by the very expensive band he had hired.

  The fat man did not dance, although he could see his tall and elegant wife passing easily through the figures, nodding to her noble kin as she completed each movement. Well, that was why he married her, to draw even the most snobbish of the lords and ladies to his table and his influence. Family ties still bound this city together, and he would use any rope to twist a ladder for his own rise to power in Waterdeep.

  More platters of steaming delicacies were circulated among the guests and taken to the gamesters playing for fortunes in the long tables clustered at one end of the ballroom.

  “By the gods’ bounty,” cried one excited gourmet. “Isn’t that roast cockatrice?”

  All the best for his guests, Rampage Stunk believed, as he intended to take the very best from them. He grabbed a succulent bit from a tray passing him by and popped it into his mouth with a greasy chuckle.

  At the very edge of the room stood Lord Adarbrent. As always, the old nobleman was dressed in black from head to toe and leaning on his slender dark cane, a deep scowl of disapproval drawing angry lines in his ravaged face.

  Rampage Stunk smiled and nodded at him too, calling, “Good evening, my lord!”

  That gentleman’s scowl deepened, but his nod was civil enough. That was the man’s weakness, Stunk thought, noble to the core and never rude in someone else’s house.

  Stunk knew his servants had been foolish enough to be caught in a fight outside Adarbrent’s manor and he had whipped the instigators soundly for it. The old man hated him. It wouldn’t do to give the Walking Corpse any more reasons to complain.

  Not that anyone paid attention to Lord Adarbrent’s complaints. Rampage Stunk had poured enough gold into the right hands to stop any ears that might be willing to listen to the Angry Lord’s diatribes.

  He was helped, of course, by all the recent events in the city. There was a certain amount of chaos among the Watchful Order. Not that they were to be ignored or trifled with, but the whole wizardly organization was a bit consumed with internal affairs. And the City Watch and the guards had their own problems to deal with, including some quite obvious threats to Waterdeep�
�s safety and future security.

  In such momentous times, Rampage Stunk found, very few cared about the occasional changes of property between the old nobility, now considerably diminished in wealth, and the rising merchant class, so nicely endowed with spare coin from the flourishing trade flowing through Waterdeep’s streets.

  Nobody cared in fact but one very cranky nobleman, who wandered the streets of Waterdeep, raging against the deals struck by Rampage Stunk. And nobody listened, really listened, to the rantings of Lord Dorgar Adarbrent. The fat man laughed and signaled for another glass of wine.

  Rampage Stunk knew Lord Adarbrent had accepted his invitation simply to see who supported Stunk and who was likely to sell their family heritage to him. Very good, let the old man realize exactly how powerful Rampage Stunk had become. There was nothing that he could do.

  Somewhere on the dance floor, a woman shrieked. Unlike the shouts and shrieks earlier in the night, this was a very shrill cry, one tinged with fear.

  Stunk frowned, turning ponderously in his place to spot the cause of that cry. He hated to see his guests disturbed from the pursuits that would eventually benefit him. Stunk peered into the crowd, looking for a troublemaker. Was it one of the younger blades? Some of the half-elves had disturbing ideas of proper behavior at times.

  Another cry, this from a man by the lower tone, and just as startled. Then another, and another.

  “Look, the windows!” shouted someone from the dance floor.

  Stunk swung his clumsy body around, knocking a wine glass from someone’s hand.

  Behind him a voice said, “Oh dear, I am so sorry,” and so he knew he had bumped into someone of no significance. Without bothering to check, he clumped toward the windows.

  All along one side of his magnificent ballroom, Rampage Stunk had installed great windows that ran from floor to ceiling. Earlier in the evening, they had let in the dying sunlight, sparking fire in the long mirrors that ran the opposite length of the room.

  In summer months, of course, they could be pushed open, to allow the dancing to continue onto the long terraces of his garden. In winter, once the darkness set in, his marvelous windows served as second mirrors, dimly reflecting back the glowing candles and the shimmering costumes of his guests.