City of the Dead

SIX

Gustin Bone absolutely refused to go into the City of the Dead at night.

"I am not suicidal," he told Sophraea, "and, even in the hinterlands, the tales of the strange haunts occupying Waterdeep's largest graveyard are well-known."

"Nonsense. It's not like that anymore," Sophraea said, with more confidence than she felt. After all, something strange was stirring in the graveyard and, even though she was a Carver, she'd rather not be stumbling around the tombs in the dark. "But we can go in daylight if you prefer."

Not wishing to explain her mild blackmail of the wizard to her family, Sophraea arranged to meet Gustin two days later at the Coffinmarch gate, the largest and most public of all the gates into the City of the Dead. She arrived well before he ambled into view. Nobody paid any attention to the short girl impatiently tapping her toe against the cobblestone.

Sophraea fidgeted in place, fussing with the linen cloth covering the contents of her shopping basket. As always, they were out of something needed at Dead End House. That day, it was dried fruit for a sweet loaf that Reye wanted to bake. Sophraea had stopped at the fruit seller's shop, certain that the old lady's careful measuring and weighing of the contents would make her late..

Instead, she was on time and the wizard was missing.

Gustin strolled casually up the street, waving a cheerful greeting at her.

"You're here bright and eager and early to go ghost hunting," he said.

"Shh!" said Sophraea. "I don't want to give my business to the entire street. And, besides, I don't know that it was a ghost."

"Oh it has to be a ghost," replied Gustin, walking beside her to the gate. "Everyone visits the City of the Dead to see the ghosts, hunt for treasure in the tombs, and marvel at the monuments."

"Hunt for treasure! Where did you get such an odd idea?"

"It isn't true?" Gustin reached into his tunic and withdrew a small battered book. "I'm sure it says something in here about treasure in tombs…"

"Anyone caught looting in the graveyard would be severely punished by the City Watch,'" Sophraea said firmly.

"But if they weren't caught?"

Alarmed by this line of questions, Sophraea' stopped in the middle of the walk, ignoring the'exclamation of a fat dwarf who nearly trod on her heels. The dwarf sidestepped into the gutter and splashed past them. Sophraea shook her head severely at Gustin. "Don't even think about stealing from a tomb. There are other guardians besides the Watch!"

Gustin shrugged and then grinned at her. "I never liked stealing. It too often proves less rewarding than you'd think. Every time you take something, odds are that you'll end up cursed, pursued, or just plain unlucky."

"I thought you were a wizard, not a thief," said Sophraea, wondering if she should go strolling through the City of the Dead with this outrageous young man.

"Absolutely, I'm a wizard. But magic is not the most lucrative of careers, at least not for me. I like to eat every day, several times a day if I can," said the tall and very thin Gustin Bone.

"So you tell lies about stone statues?"

"I give people an entertaining story and if they choose to give me coin in return, I'm happy to have it. Nobody is hurt by the exchange and I can pay for my meals.'*

A true child of Waterdeep, Sophraea couldn't argue too much with Gustin's desire for gold in his purse. Fortunes rose and fell all around them, as certain as the waves in the harbor, and many in Waterdeep did not hesitate to do real harm to others in their pursuit of wealth. In comparison, Gustin Bone's threat to the citizens' purses was rather mild.

The usual winter drizzle limited the number of people wanting to explore the pathways inside the City of the Dead. Even the members of the Watch on guard had retreated as far under the wall's overhang as they could and still remain at their posts. All of them were well-wrapped in their cloaks against the cold.

"There are better places to take your girl," said the tallest one with a wink at Gustin.

"Drier," mumbled the shorter fellow trying to huddle deeper into his cloak. ¦¦

"I wouldn't give much for a man who took me walking in such a gloomy place," added the woman, who looked at Sophraea with sympathy.

With an indignant sputter, Sophraea started to explain that she wasn't out walking with the wizard, at least not in the romantic sense of the word. Gustin just tucked her arm through his, smiled sweetly at all three Watch members, and said, "Well, I thought about a stroll through the Sea Ward, but you know the ladies. Some of them find monuments quite moving."

"I never said any such…" But Gustin dragged her quickly away from the Watch.

"Do you want them trailing after us?"

"No, of course not."

"Then smile at them all and come along."

After a turn in the path hid them from the Watch, Sophraea reclaimed her hand. Tucking it firmly through the handle of her shopping basket, she said, "We need to go north. I saw the light first there. Somewhere near the old noble tombs.'' "Old nobles?"

"The families who were buried inside the walls. Only the oldest nobility kept their monuments on the grounds. The rest were moved long ago, and anyone who dies now, unless they belong to one of the old noble families, is buried in the newer sites."

"I thought there was only one graveyard, in Waterdeep."

"Within the walls, yes. But we use the portals to go to the others like Coinscoffin or the Hall of Heroes. A lot of the richer, older families have small markers, a statue or a plaque, for their private portals to their own gravesites."

"I'm sorry," said Gustin, "but did you say portals?"

"Certainly."

"Real portals, little pools of magic that move you from one place to another?"

"Of course, how else would they manage it?"

"It really is a city of wonders," whistled Gustin. "The guidebook didn't lie."

"Don't they have portals to move bodies wherever you come from?" Like most who were born in Waterdeep, Sophraea had never thought much about how others lived outside the city. Although, if she did think about it, she would be forced to express a certain conviction that they didn't live half as well organized as those fortunate enough to dwell in Waterdeep.

"I've heard talk, everybody has heard stories about portals, of course, but people don't just use them for… well… for everyday business."

Sophraea pondered this for less than a moment. "But what would you use them for?"

"Descending into demon realms, visiting the gods in their palaces, that sort of thing. Not carting coffins to their final resting place."

"Why would you want to go to a demon realm?" She couldn't see the sense in that. Demons were supposed to be unfriendly creatures with unpleasant habits.

"I didn't say that I did."

"Well, the City of the Dead's portals go to very specific places," said Sophraea resolutely. "It's all down in the family's ledger. I can show you if you want."

They rounded another monument, one carved with a frieze of flowers with tightly furled petals. Sophraea paused to trace the stone petals with one hand. "That's one of Fidelity's carvings," she said to Gustin. "He was my great-grandfather. A flower still in bud meant a youth had died, one fully in bloom indicated a mature person."

"And for the really elderly, did he do a bare twig?"

Sophraea giggled and shook her head. "No, a sprig of evergreen, usually, or one of the herbs that grant long life."

"And do all the carvings have a message?"

"Most do. But the meanings change with the generations. That's why we keep the ledger, so we remember why a family asked for a particular decoration and who carved it. And you should avoid tombs like that." She pointed out a grave marker that was set flush into the ground. Above it, a cage of iron was mounted, with the bars sinking into the earth.

"Why?"

"It's a dead safe," explained Sophraea. "Judicious came up with the design. It keeps the restless ones from leaving their graves and roaming through the City."

"Do corpses walk much around here?" Gustin glanced over his shoulder. They were the only ones on the path, surrounded completely by monuments.

"Not as much as they used to. But a particularly unquiet grave sometimes needs something extra like that. Most of the dead safes aren't within these walls, but out at the other graveyards."

As they walked on, the pathways became more overgrown. While not derelict, the tombs were obviously smaller and less visibly kept up than the more important public monuments in the southern part of the City of the Dead.

When Sophraea made a turn to the left, she told Gustin, "This should cut through to the place where I first saw the light."

When Gustin questioned Sophraea about her sense of direction, she realized that he didn't know about the family talent.

"All the Carvers can just do that," she finally said, "those of us born into the family always know where we are in the City of the Dead. Some of the aunts and sister-in-laws seem to have the talent rub off on them too. Perhaps it comes from working here all the time."

"But you don't work in the family business. You're a dressmaker or will be soon."

"Odd, isn't it? Maybe it is because I was born a Carver. Anyway, we just can't get lost inside the City of the Dead," she told him.

Skirting around a large and rather foreboding marble tomb, the roof overhung with grim gargoyles carved from dark red granite, they came upon a memorial statue of a woman in full armor, weeping into her hands. Sophraea stared into the little basin of clear water at the statue's feet. An old memory stirred. "I know this place," she said.

The long-legged wizard twisted around. "I swear that bush over there moved," he said.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"No, it moved, it changed position."

"What?"

Gustin cocked his head to one side. "Interesting. See, it was all bunched up there. Now it's longer, with a pointy bit at the very end over there. Sophraea?"

"Hmm?" She knew, in that strange way that she'd always known exactly where she was in the City of the Dead, that they were too far south of the place where she had first seen the light. That was more north and west of their present location, near that small tomb where she first met Lord Adarbrent. "Brick and mortar," said Sophraea out loud, fixing the location in her mind. "With a bronze door."

"Sophraea," Gustin sounded much more insistent. "Do you see shapes in bushes?"

"What are you talking about?

"Shapes in bushes, like you see shapes in clouds?"

"I don't know. Sometimes you see faces in the shrubbery here, shadows of things that have gone. Ignore it."

"No, I mean that bush really looks like a tail, a big long twitching tail and that bit… that round big bit… that looks like a hind leg ending in a large clawed foot."

Sophraea glanced over her shoulder at the dark green hedge surrounding a round memorial, a simple pillar polished and carved to look like a storm-blasted tree. The hedge obscured the carving, but Sophraea pushed aside the leaves to look at details, she could see the stone cut in the shape of bark and broken branches protruding from the trunk.

"This is really old, probably one of Fidelity's, for somebody famous, I just don't remember the name," she said to Gustin, circling the hedge to find an opening. When she came to an open place, she crossed the winter-browned lawn to examine the stone tree more closely. A druid, she thought, the family used to carve tombstones like this for druids but there weren't many inside the graveyard walls.

"Sophraea, I think the bush is moving again," said Gustin.

"It's just a hedge, they used to plant hedges like this around certain gravesites, mostly to keep people from getting too close," said Sophraea, moving closer to take a better look. Moss covered a metal plaque set halfway up the trunk of the stone tree.

"I swear that bit looks like a snout, a dragons snout," said Gustin.

"Where?"

"That bit hanging over your head."

Sophraea looked up. The wizard was right. The long leafy branches overhanging her head looked amazingly like a long nose. Whiffs of mist clung to the branches, giving the impression of smoke curling up from a dragon's nostrils. Smooth, curved thorns resembled fangs. The longer she stared, the more teeth seemed to appear, rather as if a large mouth was opening wide above her head.

"Sophraea!" Gustin yelled. The wizard rushed forward, only to be swatted aside by the twiggy spikes of the creature's tail.

Sophraea leaped away from the hedge as the giant jaw snapped closed above her. As she stumbled. backward, a leafy paw sprang out and caught the edge of her cloak. She tripped. and fell. The shrubbery pounced on her like a large cat on a very small mouse.