City of the Dead

SEVEN

Sophraea squirmed under the leafy paw holding her effortlessly down. The pressure was firm on her back but not painful. She pushed her hands into the muddy ground and shoved back. Twigs and branches curled around her, flipping her over effortlessly.

Sophraea blinked at the long and definitely draconic face looming above her. "Let me up!" she commanded.

The creature curled up its long neck and twisted its head to one side. Large and leafy ears waggled back and forth. Sophraea found herself staring into a bright red berry eye.

"Go on," she said in as firm a voice as possible when sprawled on the ground and pinned down by a bush. "Get off me!" The eye blinked but the paw did not shift and she was held fast by the creature. "Please!" The nostrils twitched and the head dropped. Long slender vines sprouting on either side of its mouth tickled under her chin.

"Oh, how perfectly ridiculous," said Sophraea, recognizing this gesture as something similar to the way that the baker's dog begged to have its ears scratched.

"You're a very nice bush, a good shrub," she said. "Now, get off of me!"

The creature rustled its leaves in a pleased manner but kept Sophraea pinned to the ground.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sophraea saw Gustin stalking forward. Something burned between the loosely closed fingers of his hand. His eyes were blazing emeralds under his long black lashes.

"Don't set it on fire!" Sophraea yelled. She hated to think of this beautiful if inconvenient creature being destroyed.

"This should just sting a little," Gustin said, neatly leaping over another sweep of the long spiky tail. "But cover your face." "No!" cried Sophraea.

"Stop!" the shout reverberated through the clearing. "Leave the guardian alone."

"Not if it keeps holding her," responded Gustin, lifting his arm to throw his spell.

"Stop! At once!" A tiny green-skinned man sprang forward, stabbing at Gustin's knee with a long thorn that he wielded like a sword. Although he only came up to the wizard's waist, this diminutive fighter obviously had no fear of the bigger man. He lunged again, attempting to stab Gustin.

The wizard yelled and jumped to one side, narrowly avoiding a skewered knee. Sophraea swatted her basket at the nose of the creature holding her down. "Bad bush!" she scolded, no longer willing to coax it. Gustin was under attack and needed her help.

The leafy head swung up. Sophraea's basket missed it and flew through the air to hit the little man in the back.

"Ouch!" he cried, tumbling to the ground. He dropped his sword, which Gustin scooped up and held high above the little man's head.

"By the vine and twisted bramble, I hate big people!" cried the small but ferocious warrior, kicking out at Gustin's ankles.

"Let her go!" Gustin dodged this way and that, trying to fend off the little man while Sophraea yelled encouragement from where she was trapped.

"Only if you promise not to hurt the guardian," huffed the little man.

"Absolutely. Certainly. Just let her go."

The little man whistled three notes in a descending trill, more like a birdsong than any language, and the leafy paw lifted from Sophraea.

With a sigh of relief, the girl scrambled up, grabbing her basket and shaking the worst of the mud off her skirt. Around her, she could feel that heavy silence that meant somebody or more likely several souls were listening hard. The usual almost unnoticeable whispers were gone. ¦

"Give him back his sword," she gestured at Gustin. "Quickly." Out of the corner of her eye, Sophraea noted that the stone hand of the warrior woman had shifted slightly, so she was no longer weeping but peeping at the small group assembled before her.

"I beg your pardon? And have this mite hamstring me?"

"I am a guardian of the tomb," declared the little man.

"You heard him, they are guardians." She turned to the small warrior. Now that she wasn't lying under a bush, she could see that he was clothed from head to toe in dark green leaves, overlapping each other in the same manner as a warrior might wear armor. Brambles curled around his wrists and waist as further protection. With his green skin and dark brown hair, he blended perfecdy into the shrubbery around them.

"I apologize, I should have known better than to go so close to that monument. Have you been guarding it long?" Sophraea asked.

"You're a Carver, aren't you?" The litde man retrieved his thorn sword from Gustin. He made quite a flourish as he sheathed it by his side. "One of Fidelity's?"

"Great-granddaughter."

"Realty. Fidelity was the last one that I spoke to, but that has been more than a few seasons. So Fidelity's great-granddaughter? A short one like you. Who'd have thought it?" The little man pointed a thumb at Gustin. "And who's the long shanks? He's too skinny to be a Carver and your line never ran to magic."

"I've either been insulted or complimented," observed Gustin.

"His name is Gustin Bone. And yours?" asked Sophraea, ignoring the wizard.

"Briarsting."

Sophraea walked up to the leafy creature that had retreated to curl around the monument. "It's a topiary dragon," she told Gustin, gently stroking the quivering long branches that served as the creature's whiskers. "I thought these were all destroyed long ago."

"This one is the last," admitted Briarsting. "We used be a full' Honor Garden, a complete thirteen of petals, thorns, and topiary beasts. But now there's just this old boy and myself."

"Do you know what he is talking about?" Gustin asked Sophraea.

"Some tombs, important ones, have guardians. This one must have been very special, a memorial garden filled with more than just the usual shrubbery."

"She was a great hero," said Briarsting, looking at the stone tree that once marked the center of the Honor Garden. "And died in the defense of Waterdeep. But she was a druidtoo, and it was thought a living memorial was more fitting than an ordinary tomb. So we came, and the elves set such magic here as to give us both a task and good living."

"I'm sorry that we disturbed you," said Sophraea. "I didn't think that there was a topiary beast left in the City of the Dead."

The little man seemed mollified and even inclined to chat. "We don't have any visitors these days," he said. "Just the odd person wandering by and looking for something else."

"Have you seen any wizards here lately?" Sophraea was almost certain that the lights that she'd seen in the City of the Dead were signs of magic, although she couldn't imagine why a wizard would want to venture into the graveyard after dark. The dead tended to punish those who cast spells near their graves. And the Blackstaff took an even dimmer view of unauthorized magic in a place so prone to peril.

"Haven't seen any wizards where they shouldn't be. Other than him." The thorn pointed rather rudely at Gustin, who made a face back at the little man.

Sophraea settled herself comfortably on a memorial bench set near the topiary dragon. She rummaged through her basket, pulling out a little of the dried fruits to share with both Briarsting and Gustin. "I've been seeing a light in the City of the Dead, usually in the middle of the night. Perhaps it's the dragon or another guardian."

"It's not us," Briarsting said. "He doesn't glow in the dark and I don't light fires near him. Too many dry leaves this time of year." The dragon sat back on its haunches and waggled its ears as if it knew they were talking about it.

"How about ghosts?" asked Gustin.

"They don't usually glow that brightly," started Sophraea only to be interrupted by Briarsting.

"It might be one of the more substantial dead," said the thorn. "Two tombs were opened recently. The remains were removed to other parts of the graveyard. And the dead can take offense at such actions. Especially if the removal is being done by amateurs."

"Amateurs?" Sophraea asked. "If a family requests a removal, it's usually us or one of the other funerary families."

"Why would anyone move coffins and urns?" asked Gustin, pinching a little more of the dried fruits and nuts out of Sophraea's basket.

"To make room," said Sophraea, with the certainty of one raised in the funeral business. "The old tombs are all full. Sometimes, when a new family member dies, somebody has to be… well… shifted to another location."

"First come, first removed. Last come, last interred," joked Gustin.

"It's not something that is done lightly!" Sophraea said. "You wouldn't believe the arguments that some families get into about who should go and who should stay. And if the dead decide to get involved in the decision, then it can be a real quarrel."

"The dead do that?" Gustin paused, a handful of fruit halfway to his mouth, and looked over his shoulder at the seemingly peaceful tombs.

"Sometimes, the dead want to travel," Briarsting informed him. "Sometimes they don't. But I don't think it was anything like that. With those kinds of removals, the difficult kinds, you get Carvers, for one thing, supervising the opening and the closing. And I didn't see any of your lot around."

"No, we haven't done anything like that for ages," Sophraea began.

"Didn't a Carver open up something in the south end last spring?" asked Briarsting.

"Leaplow," sighed Sophraea." "That was not official. And that's been all properly sealed since." Then she remembered the fat Rampage Stunk. "There's a client now who'd like a couple of tombs opened, but nobody has started any work yet."

"Didn't think I'd seen your lot around here. Where there's Carvers, there's always a nice funeral afterward, with the new resident being laid to rest and all, everything done just right," concluded the thorn, snatching the last of the fruit out of the basket before Gustin could get to it.

Sophraea resigned herself to stopping at the fruit seller's place on the way home.

"Still, there have been workmen nearby," Briarsting said, settling back on the bench. "Amateurs. Clearing out a tomb, like I said."

"Which tombs were opened?" Sophraea asked.

"Markarl and Vesham."

"Those certainly are Carver-built tombs. Old ones too. Both are down in the ledger. A bit north and east of our gate,"

Sophraea said. "That would be close to where I saw that light the first time."

"They're working there right now," said Briarsting.

"Then we should go take a look," Sophraea said to Gustin. "I don't understand why Father or one of my uncles hasn't reported this to the Watch. They know it's not safe to trespass here. There're laws for a reason. And only Carvers should work on Carver tombs."

The bronze door on the Markarl tomb was locked tight but the Vesham tomb stood wide open.

Two burly men wrestled a marble urn through the door with grunts and some groans. The piece was heavy and the wide curling handles had to be angled precisely to fit through the door.

"Smash it into pieces," grumbled one man. "That would make it easier to clean out!"

Sophraea started forward to stop such vandalism, but the topiary dragon caught her skirt on its thorny teeth and dragged her behind the evergreen hedge that marked the boundary of the plot nearest to Mairgrave.

"What are you doing?" she scolded the bushy beast.

"Shh," said Briarsting, laying one green finger against his lips. "It's the City Watch."

Gustin, who was almost bent double to hide behind the low hedge, added, "The little man says that the Watch has been coming by on regular patrols and they know all about those tombs being open."

"Well, they can't approve of this," Sophraea stated firmly. She popped up to peer over the branches at a trio of sturdy men in armor rounding the corner. Two were tall and rather young, but the third was an older man with a huge salt-and-pepper mustache clearly visible beneath his helmet. She waited for outcries and the scuffle that usually occurred when thieves clashed with Waterdeep's defenders.

Instead, to her surprise, one of the men hauling on the urn simply said, "Oh, you're back. Give us a hand then. It's heavy."

"Shift it yourself," replied the mustached Watchman with a frown. "We're not here to help you. We're only here to make sure that you do not take more than you are allowed. And that you take proper care of what you remove."

"Like we want an enormous stone vase full of old ashes." With another grunt and shove, the workmen finally freed the urn from where it was caught in the doorframe. They staggered onto the path and set it down with a thump.

"Careful," warned one of the younger Watchmen. "Any damage will earn you a fine. That's been explained to your employer."

"Not even a nick," replied the insolent worker.

"That can't be right," said Sophraea, practically up on tiptoe to see clearly over the hedge, despite the combined tug on her skirts from the skulking Gustin and Briarsting.

The youngest Watchman saw her bobbi rig up and down behind the hedge, trying to pull free her skirt from her companions. "You, girl, what are you doing there?" he challenged her.

With a last firm jerk to set herself loose, Sophraea stood straight. "I'm Sophraea Carver," she said. "I was just showing my friend some of the tombs my family worked on." She grabbed Gustin's collar and hauled him upright beside her.

"Amazing detail, even on the feet of that memorial bench," the wizard added smoothly, even as he twisted out of her grip. Sophraea stepped out from behind the hedge in front of the Watch.

"I didn't know Carvers came so small and cute," said the youngest man, ignoring Gustin following her.

"She's Leaplow's sister," hissed another guard to his companion. "The one that Kair tried to flirt with."

The impending grin on the first guard's face faded and his look grew decidedly blank. "Oh, well, then, we wouldn't want to delay you on your business," he said to Sophraea. "Give our best to your brothers."

"And your cousins," added the second young man. "To say nothing of your uncles."

"Do I know any of you?" Sophraea asked the Watchmen.

"No, but you let our friend Kair carry your basket home from the market," said the older one with a large bushy mustache.

Sophraea had a vague memory of a nice Watchman who once walked her home, only to be met at the door by Leaplow and Runewright. They'd probably shown him a shortcut through the City of the Dead, she decided with a sigh.

"Do you know my brothers?" she asked, just to be sure.

"We've had a few wrestling matches with Leaplow," answered the youngest Watchman, rubbing his neck at the memory, "and those twins who go around with him."

"Bentnor and Cadriffle," Sophraea supplied. "They're my cousins."

"That's them," the youngest one confirmed with a wince of remembered pain.

"Cleaned up a few taverns behind your brothers and your cousins too," added the leader of the group.

"Can't mistake a place that the Carvers have passed through," chimed in the third.

"Ah," Sophraea said. "You do know my family."

"So he's a friend' of yours?" asked the youngest Watchman, finally nodding at Gustin.

"I'm new to Waterdeep," Gustin said, flourishing the small book that he removed from his tunic's upper pocket. "Sophraea very kindly offered to show me some of the antiquities of this graveyard. I'm very interested in antiquities, being in possession of a very fine but unusual statue…"

His story trailed off after a sharp poke from Sophraea.

"Well, isn't he the brave one," whispered one Watchman to his companion. "At least they won't have to take him far to do a walk through the graveyard."

"I'm sorry?" said Gustin.

"Ignore them," said Sophraea, not wanting to go any further into that discussion.

"Hoi!" yelled one of the forgotten workmen. "You lot coming with us or staying here to chitchat with the skirt?"

The oldest Watchman turned and directed a stern frown at the men waiting for them. "Get on with your business. We'll be right behind you."

"Should they be doing that?" asked Sophraea, watching the workmen stagger away with the memorial urn.

"They have permission," said the oldest Watchman. He gave a curt order to the younger men who seemed to be inclined to stay and chat with Gustin about the girl that was standing next to him and her ridiculously large number of male relatives. The two younger watchmen gave Gustin sympathetic punches on the shoulder as they bid him farewell.

"But should they be doing that?" Sophraea repeated to their retreating backs. A chill breeze touched her cheek. Her sense of direction in the City of the Dead seemed to swell and expand, almost as if she could see the whole City from above. In that odd vision, the pools of shadow that marked the doorways into ancient tombs seemed blacker than ever before. There was a disapproving stillness, an echo of emptiness that muffled her hearing. And something more, a cold and growing anger that was spreading through the City, a fury barely contained, that burned like ice laid across her fast beating heart.

"Sophraea!" Gustin shook her shoulder lightly. "Sophraea, what's wrong?"

With a start, the girl came back to herself. "I don't know," she told him. "But it doesn't feel right here. It feels strange. Spooky."

"It is a graveyard," the young wizard pointed out. "It's the famous City of the Dead. Isn't it supposed to be haunted?"

"But it's never felt like that to me! Not to any Carver."

"Felt like what?"

"Threatening."

But she couldn't explain it better and finally gave up trying. Instead she led Gustin to the open doorway of the Vesham tomb. Inside, the niches, where the urns and caskets should have been displayed, were swept clean.

Outside, clear tracks in the mud showed the workmen had visited both tombs repeatedly. Equally solid bootprints on the edges of the main path bore witness to the City Watch's careful observation of the work.

But it took Sophraea two more circuits of the plot, trailed by the curious Gustin, to realize where she truly was.

"This is where Rampage Stunk plans to build his monument," said Sophraea slowly, staring at the two small tombs sitting close together.

"How do you know?" asked Gustin.

She pointed at the marker stakes surrounding both of the little tombs. "That's the shape of his colonnade. He's been talking about it forever with my father."

Gustin murmured some words that Sophraea didn't understand and sprinkled a little powder on the ground between the two tombs. The ground fizzled and sparked wherever the powder had landed.

"Somebody has been letting off spells close by," stated the wizard.

"Can you tell what they were doing?"

He shook his head. "My ritual just shows magic happened here. It might be something that happened a long time ago or just yesterday. And I can't tell what type of spell it was."

Further examination of the earth around the tombs showed some disturbance, odd bumps in the lawn nearest the little brick-and-mortar tomb.

"But I can make some guesses," said Gustin after getting on his hands and knees in the wet dirt. "This looks like something happened underneath here."

"Underneath?" Sophraea stared at the ground between her boots. In her head, she was paging through the family ledger, trying to remember what tunnels would run under this section of the City of the Dead.

"A magical explosion?" speculated the lanky wizard. He stood up and beat the mud off his knees. "The ground was definitely pushed up from below."

"Rodents? Lizards?" Briarsting ventured. "Anything can be digging down there."

"No," said Sophraea, turning about to take a hard look at the close packed tombs on every side. "Not here. Spells would have been laid down when these tombs were built to keep out any vermin."

"Well, then," said Gustin, "that's the magic that my spell detected."

"No," Sophraea said with a shiver, remembering the icy anger she felt near the empty tomb, "I think you were right the first time. Something is happening. Something new. Something underground."

With one final pat on the topiary dragon's nose, Sophraea and Gustin took their leave of Briarsting. The thorn promised to come to the Dead End gate if he heard or saw any more unusual activity in the City.

"It will be good to be on patrol again," the little man said to Sophraea. "It gets a bit lonely out here in the winter with only the Walking Corpse wandering through on occasion."

"Lord Adarbrent?" asked Sophraea, remembering the last time that the old nobleman disappeared down the pathways in the City of the Dead.

"He's got family close by," said Briarsting. "Big mausoleum, the Adarbrents have."

"Green marble, iron door, two memorial urns in the shape of sailing ships flanking the entrance, and the name picked out in gold leaf above, " said Sophraea, without even thinking.

"Bit unnerving how the Carvers all do that," remarked Briarsting to Gustin. The wizard nodded.

"Lord Adarbrent has been visiting us for years," said Sophraea. "He and my father discuss it all the time. One of the urns cracked during a heavy freeze and we replaced it. Lord Adarbrent wanted it to match the broken one exactly. He wants everything to always look exactly as it did."

"Not a man fond of change?" ventured Gustin as they walked away.

"No," said Sophraea, with a last wave to Briarsting and the topiary dragon. "He's very famous for his resistance to change. Lord Adarbrent is always marching around the city and muttering at people about the history and the importance of this bit of Waterdeep or that bit. Or telling them that there are forces out to change Waterdeep all together."

"Sounds like an absolute terror."

"Oh no," argued Sophraea. "He's always been very kind to me. When he notices that I'm there. Just, well, changes upset him."

As they walked along the path toward the Coffinmarch gate, Gustin kept up a steady stream of chatter, asking Sophraea about the nobles of Waterdeep. She barely heard him, she was so lost in her thoughts. Could someone really be rash enough to raise the dead with magic? For that was what she was sure she had felt. Not the usual comfortable wandering of one or two ambulatory spirits. No, this was something darker, angrier, rousing even chose dead who wanted to be left alone.

But she didn't know exactly what was going on. She wanted to talk to her family but she did not know what to tell them. That she stood in the middle of the City of the Dead at the start of winter and felt cold? They'd pat her on the head and probably buy her a warmer cloak. Oh, and her mother would remind her to take one of her bigger brothers with her when she went walking through the graveyard at twilight.

She needed to know more. She needed to understand what she had felt so she could explain it properly. And, if it was magic, she needed a wizard to help her.

"So, if we want to tell what was really going on, we need to go under the tombs," mused Sophraea out loud.

"I'm not going to start digging up the ground here. Who knows what spooks that would raise!" responded Gustin with an exaggerated wave of his hands.

"There were other ways to get under the City of the Dead," countered Sophraea, "but we'll have to go through the house. There's no help for it. I will have to introduce you to my family."

"But I've already met your father and your uncle and at least a couple of other Carvers…" said Gustin as Sophraea steered him back toward the Coffinsmarch gate.

"That's not quite the same as being approved by my mother, and my aunts, and my grandmother," replied Sophraea, "but I can't take you through the house without somebody seeing you. We need to think of a good explanation of why you were visiting me other than courting."

Gustin's mouth dropped open. "Courting!"

"It's the first thing that they will assume," said the exasperated Sophraea. "I know. I'll say that I found out that you were a language teacher and I need to brush up on my… noble Cormyr… to get the job in the dressmaker's shop."

"But I don't know any noble language of Cormyr," protested Gustin. "I'm not even sure there is one."

"Just don't tell my family that!" said Sophraea.

"And just think of all the grief that you've been giving me about my statue," huffed Gustin, trotting alongside the girl. "At least I'm not telling fibs to my family!"

Rosemary Jones

City of the Dead

"No, you just tell them to the entire city at large!" she retorted. Sophraea blushed a little, because she really didn't approve of telling falsehoods, but anything was better than her mother, her aunts, and her grandmother making assumptions about a young man visiting her. And, what would be more painful for Gustin, telling those assumptions to the Carver men.

Sophraea convinced herself that this one small lie was just a strategy necessary to get to the bottom of the strange doings in the City of the Dead.

Still arguing, Sophraea and Gustin left the City of the Dead, completely missing the tall, thin, and very elderly man standing in the shadowed doorway of a green marble mausoleum.

Once they were gone. Lord Adarbrent walked quickly to the Mairgrave tomb. He unlocked the bronze door and addressed the pale ghost standing inside.

"It will be well," he promised in his slow and formal manner. "They know nothing about our revenge and they may even prove useful."