City of the Dead (4 page)

Still, the City of the Dead did look quiet. At least the bit that she could see from where she stood. She put her hand on the latch, the old prohibition against wandering through the graveyard alone,

even at twilight, certainly no longer applied to her. Even her mother Reye had accepted that the shortcut through the City of the Dead was the fastest route for her daughter to use to certain shops in northern Waterdeep. Sophraea had walked the graveyard paths all summer long with no incident at all.

“That’s odd.” Leaplow startled his sister by bending around her to peer at the gate, almost bumping his forehead on the twisted iron bars. “Must be rust.”

“What?”

“That.” Leaplow tapped red marks that showed clearly on curlicues of iron.

Sophraea looked closely at the strange streaks marring the usually dull dark gray metal. Ten slender streaks curled around the bars, five on the left side, five on the right.

Slowly Sophraea put out her own slender hands and twisted her fingers around the bars. When she pulled them away, the marks of her hands remained for a brief moment before fading away. The marks were exactly the same as the red streaks, except reversed.

“Handprints,” Sophraea barely breathed, looking at the marks so plainly visible and so clearly the color of dried blood, the marks of hands that had reached through the gate from the graveyard side.

Leaplow shook his head in a fierce gesture of denial. “Can’t be. They leave us alone. They have always left us alone. The dead don’t bother Carvers.”

“Whatever it was,” said Sophraea, tracing the pattern on the gate with one slender finger and ignoring Leaplow’s protests, “it came from the City of the Dead.”

The rattle of branches scraping together startled both brother and sister. The pair leaped back from the gate. A splatter of rain followed the gust of wind.

As usual, a shift in the wind distracted her volatile brother. He shook the rain off his head and his worries out of his brain.

“I’m for supper,” said the always hungry Leaplow, heading back to Dead End House with a quick stride.

But Sophraea lingered behind. She put her hand on the gate’s latch again, remembering the odd light of the night before. Perhaps she could see something more on the other side. But the shadows shifted in the graveyard and another cold blast of wind hit her face like a warning.

With careful backward steps, Sophraea retreated. Behind her, the bushes swayed, as if someone invisible brushed by them, returning to the center of the City of the Dead.

Everyone told tales of the great duels and the unfortunate spells that had once filled the City of the Dead and spilled into the streets of Waterdeep. And everyone, most especially her ancient relative Volponia, said to Sophraea that those days were gone. The Blackstaff had tamed the wizards, the City Watch kept the thieves from stealing too much, the guards prevented riffraff adventurers from creating unusual trouble for ordinary citizens, and even the young lords and ladies were said to be a much more staid and responsible nobility than generations past. Although the broadsheets were always full of some tale of wicked mischief among the aristocracy and very entertaining to read too!

“Scandals,” Volponia had sniffed one morning, crumpling up an old copy of The Blue Unicorn that Sophraea had brought her, “not worth the ink on the paper. Some dressmaker going bankrupt. Some young lords teasing the Watch into chasing them. Huh! In my day, the misdeeds of Waterdeep’s famous and infamous rocked the heavens, toppled rulers, and changed the very boundaries of kingdoms.”

“Being so much older than the rest of us, dear Aunt Volponia,” said Sophraea’s grandmother Myemaw with the usual touch of acid in the honey of her voice, “you would remember such things.”

“I remember you sashaying through that courtyard below with a berry pie in one hand and a loveknot of ribbons in the other hand, girl,” shot back Volponia, with a snap of her elegantly manicured fingers at Sophraea’s grandmother. “Back before you married my handsome nephew, back when you were the scandal of the neighborhood.”

Sophraea’s granny began to giggle. “Oh, and you in your tall boots, Volponia, stamping here and there and shouting like you were still commanding from your quarterdeck. Oh, we were all the scandals then!”

The two old ladies fell to chuckling over the gossip sheets until Volponia yawned and said, “I miss those days. When the mangiest dogs had a real bite behind their bark. Why even the ghosts of Waterdeep were grander creatures than the colored mists that float through the streets now!”

Inspired by this memory, Sophraea hurried upstairs to talk to Volponia about the strange light that she’d seen the night before and the bloody handprints on the family gate. The rest of the Carvers were still in-a buzz of argument over Stunk’s visit and his proposal to tear down tombs within the City of the Dead, but the old lady would listen to her.

When a firm voice told her to ‘“hurry up and enter,” Sophraea slipped around the door into the great room that filled three-quarters of the top floor of the tower.

With three sets of windows facing north, west, and south, even the usual pearly light of a cloudy Waterdeep twilight was sufficient to reveal every knickknack teetering on the dozens of small tables and shelves cluttering up Volponia’s boudoir.

Volponia’s bed was covered with embroidered silk quilts and had a canopy of tapestry curtains protecting the occupant from stray drafts. The bed also stood closest to the south window. The previous evening, when Sophraea had paid her last good nights to Volponia, the bed had been shaped like a wooden sled, covered with red woolen blankets and azure furs, and been positioned closest to the north window.

How or why Volponia changed her bed quite so literally, nobody knew. The old lady still owned a number of trinkets purloined from faraway places during her days as a pirate captain. Some, like the

crystal bell that was always close to hand, kept her well-supplied with the comforts that she craved and made her a very light charge upon the family’s resources.

The only demand that Volponia ever made was that the other turret bedroom, the one that shared the same floor with hers, “not be occupied by one of those great galumphing male Carvers. I love my nephews, my grandnephews, and my great-grandnephews, but they all take after my brother. He snored loud enough to wake every soul in Waterdeep and I have enough trouble sleeping without listening to such thunder every night.”

So, as the only girl born in two generations and a silent sleeper, Sophraea occupied the other bedroom and received regular doses of Volponia’s advice growing up. Also a fair amount of criticism as in “well, why are you standing dithering in the doorway. Step in or step out, but don’t make a draft!”

Whisking her skirts around the tippy tables and wobbly china and crystal mementos with the ease of long practice, Sophraea hurried to the bedside and kissed Volponia’s parchment dry cheek.

“I came to ask about a glowing light in the graveyard, not to be scolded,” she said with mock severity as she plopped down upon the bed. The mattress was very firm, probably stuffed with horsehair, Sophraea guessed.

“A light in the graveyard?” said Volponia, hitching herself higher on her satin-covered feather pillows. “What was it?”

“I don’t know,” said Sophraea, “but it moved around the City of the Dead, from far to the north along the paths to our gate.”

“Well, I can’t see the City from my windows. Just a bit of the wall and watchtower. A dark night, last night, and a stormy one. I barely slept with all the rattle of the wind and rain. I’m sure I would have noticed any light if it had moved around the house.”

“The rain woke me too. That’s why I saw the light. It was definitely inside the City and never passed the gate.”

“Perhaps it was the Watch upon patrol.”

“No,” Sophraea could be just as firm as Volponia. “I’ve seen the Watch chasing thieves through there before. Lots of torches and shouting, lots of lights. This was just one light, and it seemed to move around on its own.”

Volponia frowned. “A haunt?”

“It didn’t look like a spirit,” replied Sophraea with the sophistication of a seventeen-year-old who had grown up in Waterdeep. “At least not the sort of ghost that you usually see. It was brighter, or moved differently. The things you see on the streets, the mists, they tend to float around. This looked like it went where it intended to go.”

“Magic, perhaps?” Volponia speculated with a frown. “But it would take an unusually brave wizard to be casting spells in the City after dark. There are things buried there who don’t like disturbances. And I can’t see the Blackstaff being all that kind to anyone who meddled with magic inside the graveyard. Perhaps you should tell your father. He can always get a word to the right ear.”

“Perhaps,” agreed Sophraea, “if I knew what to tell him. It was just one light, and rather small. But there were these handprints on our gate today. Leaplow thought it was rust at first…”

“But?” asked the shrewd Volponia.

“I thought they were handprints, dark red-brown handprints, from somebody reaching from the City’s side.”

“The color of old blood?” Volponia spoke with the relish of a former pirate captain. “Just the sort of trick that ghosts like to play. Or those who mean you to think the dead are making trouble. You should talk to your father; Astute’s no fool.”

“He’s busy. Stunk came today.”

“A troublesome man, from all that your grandmother has told me,” said Volponia. Although the old lady never left her bed as far as the family knew, she liked to hear the news and Myemaw was her major source of information.

“I don’t like him,” admitted Sophraea.

“If you really want to know what that light was, you should ask a wizard,” Volponia stated.

“I don’t know any,” Sophraea replied. Then she thought of Gustin Bone, but she wasn’t sure what he was. Did making all the laundry jump on the line make him a wizard ? Maybe he was just an adventurer with some type of magic ring or conjuring piece. Such things were not unknown in Waterdeep.

“There’s that old woman down on Coffinmarch, but everyone says she is crazy mad witch,” Sophraea added, because she did know where Egetha kept her shop and she had no idea at all where Gustin Bone had come from or where he went.

“That’s just your brothers’ opinion of Egetha and that’s just because she caught them sneaking around her back windows, trying to watch her conjure. But Egetha never did much more than sell beauty charms to old maids and protections for young men with mischief on their minds.”

“Really, I didn’t know that.”

“Exactly how old are you? I keep losing track with your generation.” “Seventeen.”

“That’s still too young for me to be discussing most of Egetha’s stock with you. Go ask your mother if you’re curious.” Volponia fidgeted in her bed, obviously dismissing the topic to the disappointment of Sophraea’s curiosity. But her next words caught the girl’s wandering attention.

“The quality of magic may have sadly deteriorated from the days of my youth, as have a great many other things,” said Volponia, “but there must still be a place where you can find a decent wizard for hire in Waterdeep.”

“I’m sure I don’t know where, Auntie,” said Sophraea, “and I’m certain that I wouldn’t know how to pay one if I did find him.”

“When I was still captaining my own ships, you went to Sevenlamps Cut if you wanted a wizard, especially the cheap kind whom nobody would miss if they drowned or were eaten by sea serpents.” Volponia sniffed. “If you asked around, you could find someone to hire out on the streets.”

“Well, wizards cost money and I don’t have that much.”

“Promise to pay with a kiss.” Volponia actually smirked. “Used to work for me when I was your age.”

“I’m not going to kiss some smelly old wizard, you wicked thing!”

“That’s the problem with your generation. No imagination.” The old lady rooted with one hand under the covers of her bed and pulled out a tarnished brass box, decorated with strips of faded green ribbons. She shook it and listened with a frown to the tinkle of the contents. Twisting one end of the box open, she emptied a single silver ring onto her covers. Handing it to Sophraea, she said, “There’s probably half a wish still left in that ring and that might interest the right type of wizard.”

“I don’t know. A wizard might be more trouble than he’s worth,” Sophraea answered, still thinking about the twinkle in Gustin Bone’s bright green eyes.

Fidgeting with Volponia’s gift, she slid it on her middle finger. A plain ring, a little tarnished, with no fancy marks or flashing gems, it looked like one of those trinkets that the foolish bought in the cheaper parts of the Dock Ward. It was hard to believe that it contained any magic at all.

“Maybe I shouldn’t worry about the City of the Dead,” she said to Volponia. “After all, Leaplow is probably right, the dead don’t bother Carvers.”

“Especially if Leaplow restrains himself from punching them in the face,” chuckled her ancient relative. The tale of Leaplow’s misdeeds last spring had risen quickly to the old woman’s chamber.

“But if someone is stirring up trouble, shouldn’t I find out who?” Sophraea continued to twist the ring on her finger, but she kept looking out of the closest window, wondering if the light would reappear in the City of the Dead that night.

“Well, if you do make up your mind any day soon,” Volponia said with a shrewd glance at Sophraea’s wrinkled and rather worried forehead, “do let me know. It will give me something to fret over. I have so very few distractions at my age. It may be some time before Leaplow creates another scandal.”

Sophraea smiled and slid from the bed. “I’ll let you know if I decide to investigate, I promise. Do you want me to bring you anything?”

“No need,” said Volponia, reaching for her crystal bell. “I’ll ring up whatever I want later. And your grandmother will be along once her supper is done for a little chatter.”

“Don’t tell too many good stories without me,” said Sophraea on her way out the door.

Volponia called her back. “Weren’t you going to talk to Lord Adarbrent? About that letter of recommendation?”