The guard crooked his head, gesturing them through the gate. Three more men stood close behind him. All were heavily armed and Sophraea noticed none took their hands off their sword hilts.
With that escort, they passed through the outer and inner courtyards, all filled with even more armored guards, eventually climbing the shallow steps to the main entrance of Stunk’s mansion.
Inside the vast hall, they were seated side-by-side on a long, bare, and very hard bench. Two of the guards remained to watch them while two others followed a well-dressed servant to a closed door. More knocking and whispered instructions ensued. The first two guards disappeared through the door while Sophraea and Gustin waited.
The guards left with them moved down the hall, stationing themselves at the base of the stairs so they had a clear view of the front and back entrances. Stunk’s bodyguards exhibited no more interest in the pair left sitting together on the cold marble bench.
“Didn’t you say that Stunk just built this house?” Gustin whispered to Sophraea.
“Less than three years ago,” she whispered back, understanding the wizard’s raised eyebrows and look of comical confusion.
To give himself an air of ancient ancestry, Stunk had stuffed every nook and cranny of his long entry hall with relics of Waterdeep’s past. Ancient stone statues, suits of armor, portraits of pale ladies and supercilious lords, enormous tapestries, shields painted with heraldic devices, and other monuments to Stunk’s wealth could be seen everywhere.
Above them hung not one but three greatglories, the extravagant chandeliers burning brightly with candles set amid their crystal drops, despite the murky daylight streaming through Stunk’s tall windows at either end of the long hall. The staircase leading out of the hall to the upper rooms was twice the size of the one in Lord Adarbrent’s house. Every step was covered with a rich woven carpet.
“I think there’re bits of gold in the floor tiles,” said Gustin, staring down at puddles formed from his dripping boots. He sounded slightly awed.
“Look at the gleam of that carpet on the stair. More than half the weave is silk,” whispered back Sophraea. “And those tapestries. They’re ancient.”
Like Lord Ardabrent’s house, this entrance hallway was cold. But it was not the cold of ancient neglect and decay. Rather it was the chill of ostentatious display, a place meant to impress rather than welcome any guest.
Sophraea shivered in her damp cloak. “How long should we wait?” she whispered to Gustin. “How long will your spell hold?”
“Shh,” he said, “they’re coming back.”
Two guards reappeared in the hallway and indicated that Gustin and Sophraea should proceed through the black door. As they followed, Sophraea heard running boots again. She felt Gustin’s hand on her back and didn’t turn completely but lowered her head and glanced to the side. Three men in rough clothes and heavy boots rushed out of the back of the hall and out the front entrance.
The guards led Gustin and Sophraea into another massive room, decorated with even more rare artwork. Stationed not so discreetly around the room were more guards.
Rampage Stunk was ensconced in a thronelike chair, near as possible to a roaring fire in a vast cavern of a fireplace. The fat man watched their approach with his head cocked to one side and a narrowing of his cold black eyes. His face was bright red and sweating under hair so black and stiff that Sophraea wondered if the corpulent merchant wore a wig.
A pair of gigantic slavering guard dogs with brass-studded collars and enormous teeth crouched at Stunk’s feet. The dogs growled as Gustin and Sophraea advanced closer to the merchant.
Sophraea was ready to retreat, but Gustin’s spine straightened in front of her and he flashed an enormous smile.
“My lord, my lady,” he said, bowing both to Stunk and to the thin woman seated in the shadow of a screen that shielded her face from the direct heat of the fireplace. “I have come to perform miracles and wonders, the banishing of ill luck, the turning of curses, the expulsion of ghosts, and any other infestation that may mar your fair home.”
Gustin Bone’s voice flowed up and down, a singsong accent quite unlike his usual cheerful tones and, to Sophraea’s ears, quite unrecognizable as the optimistic wizard who frequented the Carver’s courtyard. Gustin also refrained from waving his arms around as he usually did. Instead, he kept his hands crossed over the illusionary paunch of his belly.
Rampage Stunk also crossed his arms, but held them higher up, a barricade resting against his broad chest. The glare of his expression did not change throughout Gustin’s long recital of his experiences in Cormyr as a banisher of ghosts. Once or twice his eyebrows twitched up in a patent gesture of disbelief but no other expression crossed his broad and frighteningly blank face.
Finally, Gustin’s speech fluttered into silence in the face of Stunk’s stony regard.
“You sound more like a charlatan than a wizard,” pronounced Stunk in his deep and ponderous tones. “I’ve had some of Waterdeep’s finest in this house over the past three days. Why should I take a mountebank damp out of the gutter?”
“If the finest in Waterdeep were unable to solve your problems,” proposed Gustin boldly as the nearest guard dog sniffed his boots and licked its fangs, “perhaps the best of Cormyr is the solution. And, truly, you’ll find no other wizard like me in Waterdeep.” The second dog joined its fellow, making rumbling sounds deep in its throat. Gustin ignored both dogs, never letting his gaze drop from Stunk’s face.
A faint smile twitched Stunk’s lips. His own eyes dropped momentarily to the dogs creeping on their haunches closer to Gustin.
From her seat in the shadows, Stunk’s thin and aristocratic wife spoke up.
“Those others did nothing for us. Hire this man. If he succeeds, pay him. If he fails, send him away,” the lady said in her high nasal voice. “I am sick of seeing corpses at my window every evening and having revenants of long dead relatives appearing outside in the courtyard each night.”
“But none ofthe dead have actually entered the house?” Sophraea spoke up, too curious to stay silent any longer.
“Not yet,” admitted the lady, “the protections on our home are formidable. My husband paid for the very best. But none of our guests can enter nor can we leave after dark without encountering the dead outside. And certain incidents”—she emphasized the last word heavily while looking at her husband—“have increased. Flowers wither as soon as they are brought inside, fruit decays in the dish, and wine turns bitter in the glass.”
“There are ghosts who can play such tricks,” Sophraea told the lady.
“I am not pleased by such antics,” she replied.
“That’s a strong spell if they have such an influence just standing outside,” Gustin said.
“We are searching the city for the wizard who brought about this curse,” responded Stunk, snapping his fingers to bring the guard dogs back to heel at the foot of his chair. “I will find him and I will break him. And the one who I know is behind him!”
“You have been hunting for days,” said Stunk’s wife, “and if you do not do something soon about this haunting, I will have to abandon my air of noble calm and succumb to strong hysterics. And then who will host your endless dinners?”
Stunk growled, “Very well.” Gustin started to speak but Stunk raised one hand, palm turned toward the wizard. “Don’t talk. Don’t interrupt. I’ll tell you exactly what I expect. You will have only this one afternoon to make your examination of the house and set up what protections that you deem wise. If the dead return tonight, I will consider you a failure and you would be wise to avoid me in the future. If my lady is undisturbed tonight, you may collect your payment from her in the morning since she desires your services.”
Stunk’s wife simply pursed her lips at the beginning of her husband’s rude but succinct summation, but did not speak until her husband was done. She then added: “I am not a merchant. I do not haggle like one. If I have a quiet night, you may present whatev
er bill you please to my servants. My word on it that you will be paid promptly.”
Gustin bowed over his folded hands as the lady rose from her chair. “I am more than satisfied with the bargain.”
Stunk’s lady wife tucked her skirts tight against her legs, sweeping neatly around her husband to exit via a smaller, red lacquer door set in the far corner of the room. Trailing after her was a previously unnoticed retinue of three maidservants carrying various workbaskets and other household items. The three had been seated as far away as possible from the fireplace and Stunk in his great chair. They all rose in unison from the shadowy corner where they sat when the lady of the mansion passed in front of them. The last one out the red lacquer door closed it behind her with a definite disapproving swish of her skirt and a sharp snap of the latch.
Stunk watched his wife and her maids go with the slightest of sneers on his heavy face. Then he turned back to the pair in front of them.
“You have your instructions. Do not waste my time,” he said ponderously, dropping one hand down to pinch the back of a guard dog’s neck. The beast snarled under Stunk’s heavy hand, black lips pulling back to reveal pointed yellow fangs.
Gustin and Sophraea retreated with haste through the black door leading to the great hallway.
Once outside the heavy door and out of earshot of Stunk and his guards, Sophraea turned to Gustin. “You were wonderful,” she said. “I couldn’t have stayed so calm. Not with him staring like that!”
“Calm,” moaned Gustin as he sank into an uncomfortable but obviously antique stone chair. “I am terrified. All I wanted to do in Waterdeep was see the sights, enjoy a small adventure or two, and make a little coin, not gain an enemy like that evil fat man!”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Once out of sight of Stunk, Sophraea felt her natural courage return, but she had no desire to linger in the merchant’s mansion.
“Since we only have today,” she said to Gustin, “the practical solution is to go in opposite directions. I’ll look downstairs and you go upstairs. That way we can search the place twice as quickly. And then leave.”
Although the greatglories still burned brightly overhead, the light dimmed in the great hallway as black storm clouds darkened the sky outside.
“We should really go before the storm gets worse,” she added. “We do not want to be on the streets in the dark.”
Gustin raised his head from his hands. “What is it? What are you feeling?”
Puzzled, Sophraea stared at him.
“I caught it again. Just now. Same as the tunnels,” he said. “And in the City of the Dead.”
“What?”
“Your eyes. Just the quickest flash of blue. What are you feeling, Sophraea?”
“The dead,” she admitted. “The City of the Dead. But I don’t know why. It’s never happened outside the cemetery walls before. But it’s like I can see a straight path running from here directly back to our gate and into the City of the Dead.”
“The curse laid on Stunk,” said Gustin. “We are right, you know, it made a path for the dead to follow here. Made a path that they have to follow. The shoe has to be here.”
“Then we had better find it,” said Sophraea, settling her basket more firmly over her arm. “You go up”—she pointed at the great staircase leading out of the hall—“and I’ll go down.”
Halfway up the main staircase, Gustin turned around and called over the banister, “Why do I feel like this was a bad idea?”
“Piffle,” said Sophraea, trying to convince herself that the shivers running through her body were caused by her wet cloak, “it’s still broad daylight and this is the well-guarded house of a wealthy man. What could hurt us here?”
The rumble of thunder shook the house. A crack of lighting illuminated the windows for a brief moment causing the statues and the suits of armor to cast strange and twisted shadows across the floor tiles.
“You don’t think that was a sign from the gods?” asked Gustin.
“Go on, hurry up,” said Sophraea, “I’ll meet you back here.”
She set off toward the back of the hall, certain that she would find the traditional “servants’ stair” there. One guard, standing stiffly at attention, marked the top of the stairs.
A guard on the servants’ staircase, thought Sophraea. That shows an unusual amount of distrust on Stunk’s part. She was glad that she didn’t work for the fat man.
Downstairs, Sophraea found the cook, a friendly soul who obviously ruled the kitchen, and the various female servants clustered around the warm fire were the usual bevy of Waterdeep gossips. All were perfectly willing to chat with a nice young elf who offered to help them to peel the vegetables for the evening meal.
“Although, dearie, I have to say,” the cook remarked, “I didn’t think your kind was quite so domestic. Why you ply that little knife so quick and clever that I’d have taken you for one of Waterdeep’s own.”
Sophraea shrugged and turned the conversation to odd spaces under the house, the sort of place that she thought the shoe might be hidden.
“Well, there’re some rooms below,” answered the friendly cook. “Although why you’d want to go poking around in that muck, I don’t understand.”
“The wizard.” Sophraea paused. She couldn’t remember the name that Gustin had given the door guards. “My master, the wizard,” she recovered and stumbled through an explanation, “is creating a great protection spell.” She rummaged in the basket hooked as always over her arm. “I need to take certain charms to the lowest levels of the house.”
All she really had was a basket full of bricks. But she waved it around, trusting that Gustin’s illusion held and the servants would just see a moon elf gesturing with a velvet bag that could hold magical charms.
None of the women surrounding the table looked at all interested. The laundress folding clean napkins just nodded and said, “That’s nice but the ghosts haven’t bothered us. They rattle the upper windows something fierce, and some of the servants upstairs have had a hard time, but they don’t seem to care about those of us working down here.”
Well, they wouldn’t, thought Sophraea, but did not voice it out loud. After all, the dead haunting Stunk were all the most noble revenants of Waterdeep’s past. In life, they had probably paid no attention at all to kitchen maids, laundresses, and cooks. It was unlikely that they should change their attitudes in the afterlife, she thought.
“Door to the lower rooms is over there,” said the cook, gesturing to a little door set by the corner of the chimney. “Watch yourself on the stairs. They are steep. Take a candle with you, for those rooms are dark as well as mighty dank.”
Picking up a tallow candle in a tin holder as the cook indicated, Sophraea lit the wick from a taper. She then proceeded down the dismal stairs leading to Stunk’s lowest basement.
The stairs were steep, each step twice the height of a normal stair. Hooking her basket on the crook of her elbow, she held up the candleholder with that hand and pressed her other hand against the stone wall. There was nothing like a railing. One step at a time, she inched her way down. She felt as if the least misstep could leave her a broken heap on the floor below.
Once she reached the bottom, Sophraea discovered that a rich man’s basement could be just as full of cluttered jumble as anyone else’s. At the very base of the stairs, someone had stacked a few crates and some broken bits of chairs. Cobwebs lightly festooned the pile.
But farther into the cavernous room carved under the warm kitchen, empty barrels and discarded pallets leaned together like drunken orcs. Something squeaked when Sophraea’s pale candlelight fell upon it. A skinny tail whipped around a cracked wooden tub and disappeared under a pile of boards.
Sophraea frowned. Stunk could easily afford rat catchers. Undaunted, she pressed forward, resolutely ignoring the scrabbling sound of small claws burrowing away from her. Her steps sounded hollow as she crossed the wooden floor and, with some dismay, she realized that there must be ano
ther chamber under this one. Some Waterdeep mansions might have as many as three or four underground floors, dug down into the city’s own deep layers.
Where the brocade shoe might be found, she had no idea. However, the night that the phantom lady had danced across the floor of Dead End House, she remembered a pale trail of glowing footprints had been left behind. Perhaps a similar sign of ghostly invasion could be found here.
Raising the candle high above her head, Sophraea peered into the far dark corners of the room. Off to one side, she thought she saw something glint, the faintest twinkle of gold.
Sophraea rushed across the room. A large stack of lumber was heaped against the wall. Between the cobwebbed sticks and broken slats from old crates, she could make out the glimmer of something gold. Setting down her basket and candle, she began pulling the wood aside.
Behind her, a heavy tread sounded on the stair leading up to the kitchen. “Well met!” cried a man. “What are you doing there?”
She froze. Had he come by the women in the kitchen? Had they told on her? No, he must have seen her go into the kitchen. When he followed and found her gone, he’d guessed she was in the basement. But why follow her at all?
Heavy boots banged down the steep staircase, and then she saw who it was.
Stunk’s hairy doorjack stood at the bottom of the steps. His eyes widened and he threw his head back to take a large sniff of air. “You’re that wizard’s elf girl,” he said.
Sophraea bobbed a quick curtsy. He stood directly in her path, no way around him if she wanted to flee back up the stairs. “I’m here with the wizard,” she agreed pleasantly while bending down to take a firm grip on the basket’s handle. “Setting protections for the house.”
“You’re poking and prying,” answered the servant moving toward her. “Stunk wouldn’t like that. He doesn’t like elves much, either.”
He was a good bit taller than she was and heavy with muscle along his shoulders and barrel chest.
“Stunk knows I’m here,” she said, sidestepping a bit so the candle wasn’t directly behind her. No need to be any clearer a target than she was.
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