City of the Dead

by Rosemary Jones

  “What are you doing there?” Sophraea asked.

  “Waiting for you two. You left some trash in the City of the Dead last night,” the thorn replied. “We’d consider it a favor if you’d get it out.”

  “Stunk,” said Sophraea.

  “And others,” answered Briarsting. “A few of his guards made it as far as a public gate last night, and the City Watch dragged them out this morning. But Stunk and a couple of others are still up in the north end.”

  “We’ll help,” said Sophraea, her always troublesome conscience pricking her to find the fat man and lead him out of the City of the Dead.

  “Best we come with you,” said Judicious, when she explained to her uncles why she needed them to open the gate just after they had gotten it hung to their satisfaction.

  “I’ll go with you too,” said Gustin.

  “Do you have any spells today?” she asked him.

  “Lots,” he said, sending a spark flying off his fingertips. “I had a wonderful supper last night, a good sleep in a soft bed, and a fine breakfast complete with your grandmother’s rolls!”

  “I noticed you managed one more than Leaplow,” Sophraea teased as they went down the stairs into the City of the Dead.

  “I felt I deserved it,” answered Gustin without shame.

  Great drifts of snow still decorated the tombs in the City of the Dead. The place was hushed and subdued after all the excitement of the night. The guardgoyles perched on the edges of mausoleums had tucked their heads beneath their wings. The weeping warrior once more covered her face with her hand. The perpetual flames burned low and steady while the fountains burbled softly under their crusting of ice.

  Sophraea let her vision expand until she could see all the City of the Dead. Wherever she looked, she saw only peace and stillness. The noble dead were quiet and content at last.

  “It’s really a pretty place,” observed Gustin as they crunched through the snow.

  “It’s beautiful in the spring,” answered Sophraea. “When the trees bud out and the new leaves appear. And summer, well, in the summer, it’s the coolest and most lovely place in all of Waterdeep. Families come in the summer, just to walk along the paths and admire the flowers.”

  “You know, I still haven’t seen the monuments at the south end,” Gustin said. “The famous ones that everyone is supposed to go look at.”

  “I’ll take you,” Sophraea promised.

  “Good,” said Gustin, tucking her hand through his arm.

  The topiary dragon bounded up to the party, sending sprays of snow over all of them with enthusiastic sweeps of its tail.

  “Call it off, call it off,” sputtered Sophraea, wiping snow off her face for the second time.

  “Sorry,” said Briarsting. “The old boy had an exciting night and he hasn’t quite calmed down yet.”

  Sophraea’s uncles were inclined to pause and admire the shaping of the topiary dragon.

  “Didn’t Fidelity work on this one?” Judicious asked his brother.

  “Think so. There’re sure to be details in the ledger. I’d forgotten that there were any left in the graveyard. Thought that they’d all gone to seed long ago,” answered Perspicacity. “Nice to see that this one survived.”

  Sophraea urged everyone on.

  “We should find Stunk,” she said.

  “If you say so, pet,” answered Perspicacity.

  Following Briarsting’s directions, they discovered Rampage Stunk at the far north end of the City of the Dead. He lay curled against a tombstone and whimpered when Sophraea placed a gentle hand upon his shoulder.

  Although he had only been lost for one night, the fat man’s ruined physique bore the marks of magical mischief.

  “Not everyone was completely in their graves when he blundered past them,” explained Briarsting. “Nothing deadly, but the ghosts never did like him trying to empty out those tombs.”

  Rampage Stunk’s once black hair had been stripped of its glossy dye and was completely white. The merchant’s face bore numerous small scratches, as if he’d been dragged through bushes. Most strange of all, he appeared to be half his original weight, and apparently he had aged by many years.

  “Saer, saer, can you get up?” Sophraea tugged at the merchant’s clothing, only to have the rich cloth tear away under her hands. Looking closer, Sophraea saw that all of Stunk’s clothing was as rotted as if it had been buried for several years.

  “I don’t think he knows us,” said Gustin, peering closely into Stunk’s face. The merchant mewled under his examination, turning his head away and hiding it in his hands.

  “Will he be all right?” Sophraea asked. She had not meant for so terrible a vengeance to fall upon Stunk.

  “There’s healing for such things,” said Gustin, straightening up. “But it will take some time. He’s still alive and that’s a greater mercy than he was prepared to show Lord Adarbrent or your family.”

  “There’re some others over here!” called Briarsting.

  Poking under snowy bushes and peering around tombstones, Sophraea discovered the remainder of Rampage’s thugs in various states of distress. Although not as bad as Rampage, they were all relieved to be found.

  “Can you show us the way out of here?” asked one redheaded goon in a very small voice.

  “Yes, yes, not to worry,” answered Judicious. “Just help us carry this poor fellow away.” He heaved Stunk up on his shoulders.

  “We’ll take him home,” Judicious said to Sophraea. “And explain to his lady what has happened. I know her. We’ve built coffins for her family for years and done all their burials. She did not marry well, but she is a lady for all that.”

  “I’ll go home,” said Sophraea, “and let the others know.”

  “Do you want me to go with your uncles? I might be able to make some suggestions to the lady for her husband’s care,” said Gustin.

  “We can go with them as far as the gate,” Briarsting called from the back of the topiary dragon.

  “That would be best,” Sophraea said. “I can find my way home easily enough.”

  Sophraea retraced her steps toward Dead End House. A sudden impulse drove her to take the path leading to the Markarl monument. She was not surprised to find Lord Adarbrent sitting on the snowy step of the little brick-and-mortar tomb. Behind him, Gustin’s stone statue stood firmly against the door, keeping watch across the other monuments.

  Lord Adarbrent acknowledged Sophraea’s approach with a formal nod of his head. The old man was dressed as always in black from head to toe. All that was missing was his sword cane, shattered in the previous night’s fight.

  “Who was she?” Sophraea asked Lord Adarbrent. “The lady in this tomb?”

  “My first love, my dearest love,” the old man whispered. “Vyvaine. She died so young. Her family has long since gone too. I’m the only one left in Waterdeep who even remembers her name.”

  “Was she beautiful?”

  He shook his head. “I remember her on the way to her first ball. I was her escort for that evening, some family connection that made her father ask me to take her. Vyvaine came down the stairs to the carriage.” He sighed and murmured, “A plain girl in a fine dress with little golden shoes on her feet. She wasn’t beautiful at all. She was better than beautiful. She was unforgettable.”

  The old man stood up with a sad smile, absently brushing the snow from his coattails.

  “What happened to her?”

  “Summer fever. A bad year that year. They died by the hundreds in the South Ward. Many fled the city.”

  “But you stayed?”

  He nodded. Sophraea saw, as she had seen the night before when he faced his ghostly grandfather, the fierce gleam of pride and strength in his steady stare. “Waterdeep needed me. There was work to be done.”

  Lord Adarbrent looked over his shoulder at the tomb as if he could see past the stone paladin standing guard against its door. “I should have sent her away. But she wouldn’t go. She said the city needed
her help too. And I did not want her gone. We were to have been married that fall.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “After she died, I could not bear for them to take her away. Not far away through the portals. The family still had this vault and I persuaded them to leave her here.” Lord Adarbrent stood up. “I would never have touched Algozata’s spellbooks except that evil Stunk bought my poor girl’s tomb for himself. I knew when he started to empty the tomb beside this one that she would be next. They would move her some place far from me.” And then abruptly, he said, “Do you know where I am going to be buried?”

  “Not in the Adarbrent mausoleum?” she asked thinking of the ghost’s proclamation of the previous night.

  “It was a very mild punishment,” replied the nobleman with his wheezing chuckle. “I have had far different plans for years.”

  Lord Adarbrent pointed at a small marble casket, standing on four lion’s paws and almost touching the Markarl tomb on the south side. “There. It took some years searching through your family’s ledger but I found one small bit of land left unclaimed in the City of the Dead, right next to the Markarl tomb. Your father carved that casket for me many years ago.”

  Sophraea looked at the stone casket. It was quite small, only built for one corpse to occupy.

  “So you were always planning to be buried here?” she asked.

  Lord Adarbrent smiled.

  “I never thought that it would stay empty for so long. In some ways, I suppose I’m no better than Stunk, rearranging this graveyard for my own selfish desires.” The old man shrugged.

  “Ah,” she murmured. She simply didn’t know what else to say.

  “After all, I am the last of my family. Who will care where I am buried? When Waterdeep no longer needs me, I will rest near my dear unforgettable girl. In my own place at last, where I want to be.”

  “We will care,” Sophraea answered him, her voice a little hoarse but her words as fiercely stated as ever. “And we will remember you. Always. You have been a good friend to us. To me.” She sniffed and straightened her shoulders, adding briskly, “Most of the time. Just, no more rituals cast in the City of the Dead.”

  “I promise.” Lord Adarbrent bowed deeply to her, as deep as he had bowed to Volponia. “You always were a good girl, Sophraea Carver, and I think you will be an amazing woman in the years to come. As long as there are those like you in Waterdeep, my burdens are much lighter.”

  Blushing at his praise, Sophraea left Lord Adarbrent to his memories. She crossed the path and circled past the Deepwinter monument. She slipped through the Dead End gate.

  “It’s a funny name,” said a voice above her head.

  Sophraea latched the gate and looked up. Briarsting was sitting cross-legged on the snow-covered wall. The topiary dragon peered over the thorn’s shoulder at the girl. One brown leaf fluttered down over a bright berry eye in a friendly wink. The big leafy ears waggled back and forth in a topiary greeting.

  “What’s wrong now?” Sophraea asked the pair.

  “Nothing, nothing at all. Your uncles carried Rampage Stunk out with no problem. We just wanted to make certain that you reached home safely. But I was thinking Dead End House was a peculiar name for your house,” Briarsting replied.

  “Dead End House? It’s always been called that. It seems very appropriate to me.”

  Briarsting glanced at the courtyard filled with Carvers. The younger boys had swept the remaining snow into large piles. Someone had fetched the battered leather ball from the barn and so most of Sophraea’s brothers, cousins, and nephews were knocking it back and forth according to their own loudly shouted rules.

  Leaplow kicked the ball straight through a pile of snow, incurring either a penalty or a goal, and certainly earning a pile-up of bodies all flung on top of him.

  Her uncles Vigilant and Sagacious were lined up watching, their arms resting on each other’s shoulders. Sophraea’s father shouted nonsensical instructions to his buried son while the beards of his brothers quivered with laughter. Out of the windows, screaming just as many instructions and laughing even harder, all the aunts shook their heads over the boys’ game.

  “See,” said Briarsting, standing up and brushing the snow off his seat in an unconscious imitation of Lord Adarbrent, “there’s nothing dead to be found on that side of the wall. Not an end that I can see. It’s too full of life, too fond of beginnings, that house of yours.”

  He swung up to the neck of the topiary dragon. The pair turned and headed back into the snowy quiet of the graveyard.

  “I’ll visit you soon,” Sophraea called through the gate. Briarsting gave a wave over his shoulder. “I promise!”

  Then she turned and plunged into the game occupying the yard, kicking the ball right out from under the nose of a startled brother and sending it sailing over a pile of snow with a whooping cry of triumph.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Gustin sat on a block of marble in the courtyard. It was a clear, cold day, the sun sparkling on the icicles dripping off the edge of the roof. Two Carver cats basked in the warmth on the top of a newly polished coffin.

  After three days of freezing cold, Sophraea’s half wish was melting away. Waterdeep was sliding back to its usual warmer wet winter weather. The stone man was permanently stuck in front of the tomb. Gustin’s repeated attempts to reanimate it had failed, Algozata’s old curse being far stronger than any ritual that he knew.

  Sophraea’s father joined Gustin in the yard.

  “I’m sorry,” said Gustin. “I just don’t have enough coin to pay the remainder of what was owed on the statue. And I haven’t quite come up with a scheme to make any more. Give me a day or two, though, and I’ll think of something. I usually do.”

  Astute shrugged. “I’m not worried,” he said. “You can pay me back with magic.”

  “Magic?”

  “Rituals. Whatever you want to call it. That trick that you do with stone, making the statue walk. That would save us a lot of hauling.”

  “That one works best for me,” agreed Gustin, rubbing the back of his neck. “Besides working off a debt, any chance for a little more?” Gustin just had to ask.

  Astute crossed his arms and appeared to ponder the question for a long moment. “You keep your room, you continue to eat free meals, and I don’t ask you about sneaking off with my only daughter into the tunnels beneath the graveyard and who knows where else.”

  “Ah,” he mumbled. After once again assessing the truly amazing breadth of shoulders possessed by Sophraea’s father, Gustin indicated that this was a fair deal indeed.

  The bell on the public gate jangled and Lord Adarbrent appeared in the entry.

  “My friends.” He bowed slightly in the direction of Astute and Gustin.

  “It is good to see you as always, my lord,” Astute answered. “What news?”

  “The rumors appear to be quite true,” Lord Adarbrent said. “Lady Ruellyn will take over her husband’s business while he recuperates.”

  “How is he?” asked Sophraea, running down the house steps to greet Lord Adarbrent.

  “No great change,” Lord Adarbrent replied. “She has called in healers to make him comfortable. I hear Rampage Stunk now spends most of his days dozing in front of the fire.”

  “The lady may find a docile husband much to her liking,” Gustin observed.

  “Quite,” said Lord Ardabrent with a quelling look. “Such speculation would be rude, however.”

  “And the others? Those guards that we found in the City of the Dead?” Sophraea asked.

  “Well enough, as far as I know. And a certain hairy individual has been persuaded by the City Watch that Waterdeep is not the best city for his residence,” the old nobleman told her.

  “Oh,” said Sophraea.

  “Your father mentioned that the doorjack had caused you some distress. I thought you would not mind a very small intervention on my part,” said Lord Adarbrent.

  “Leaplow said something about looking for him
and walking him through the City of the Dead,” Sophraea revealed.

  “Your brother’s most recent black eye is still quite evident. This seemed a simpler solution.”

  Sophraea exchanged a quick glance with Gustin. The wizard realized that she’d acquired yet another protector or, given the family’s long history with Lord Adarbrent, the old man had always been one of Sophraea Carver’s champions. It truly was incredible that he’d survived that first kiss, he decided. Still, life was dull without challenges, Gustin thought to himself, and one of these days he would talk her into a second kiss. Then he could worry about how to avoid being crushed by Leaplow or her other enormous male relatives. That would be an exciting challenge and, looking at his own personal dark dearling of Waterdeep, one quite worth it.

  “But what about the old ladies?” Sophraea asked Lord Adarbrent. “The ones that Stunk cheated out of their homes?”

  “For those still living, Lady Ruellyn is making reparations,” said Lord Adarbrent. “After all, she is a lady and not a merchant.”

  “I’m still surprised that we didn’t have the City Watch or the Blackstaff here, asking questions,” Sophraea said.

  “My influence is not inconsiderable,” returned Lord Adarbrent. “And I was able to persuade certain people that the fewer questions asked the better. After all, the Carvers are known to be a reputable family who provide an invaluable service to Waterdeep.”

  In short, thought Gustin, the Carvers actually do know where the bodies are buried and, more importantly, will make sure in the future that the finest of Waterdeep will continue to be buried exactly as they wish.

  Lord Adarbrent pulled a stiff piece of parchment out of his pocket.

  “I believe that you wanted this,” he said, presenting it to Sophraea.

  With wide eyes, she unfolded the letter of recommendation.

  “Oh,” she said. “How did you know? I never remembered to ask you for this.”

  “Captain Volponia mentioned your ambitions to join the sartorial trade. I must say,” he continued, “I agree with her that it seems a rather tame outlet for your talents.”