The thief lunged at Sophraea, grasping her wrist and pulling her to him. Gustin, just as firmly anchored on the other wrist, pulled her toward the open door.
Feeling like the battered ball in one of her brothers' games, Sophraea let out a shriek higher than any since earliest childhood, when Myemaw had said "That child is small but she has champion lungs!"
All the men winced. Sophraea took advantage of the thief s momentary distraction to stamp hard on his instep with one pointed heel. He gasped and for a moment, froze with shock. Sophraea twisted around, turning as much as possible with the two men still hanging onto her wrists. A second kick, with her equally sturdy and pointed boot toe, caught the thief on the side of the knee, where his armor didn't cover the side of the tender joint.
The man let out a yell, much as Leaplow once did when a younger Sophraea had shown him the maneuver taught her by Cadriffle.
Dropping Sophraea's wrist, Gustin secured a firmer hold on her waist and lifted her away from the thief, even as the frustrated and furious man swung down his sword.
Feeler came flying out of the door to tackle the thief. The blade missed Gustin's head by a breath as he ducked and rolled away, but the pommel clipped his crown.
Sophraea and Gustin rolled together into the center of the basement.
The thief fought free of Feeler's grasp and sprinted away.
Once again sitting in a tangle of the wizard's long limbs on the basement floor, Sophraea found herself being examined in a concerned way by Feeler and Fish.
"Are you all right?" asked Feeler.
"Fine, fine," said Sophraea as she started to scramble to her feet, but stopped when Gustin swayed against her. She dropped the shoe that she had clutched so tightly throughout the chase to steady the young man.
"He hit my head," said the wizard in a blurry tone. Blood trickled down from the brown curls. "It hurts," he confided to her.
"Oh no," said Sophraea, recognizing these symptoms all too clearly from various mishaps in the Carver household. She waved one hand in front of Gustin's glazed expression. "How many fingers do you see?"
"Pretty ones," replied Gustin and promptly passed out on the cold floor of the gravediggers' room.
NINE
The first thing upon waking any morning, Gustin always noticed the smell of his room. Long before he cracked his eyes open or stretched one hand out from under the covers to grope for his boots (he kept them under his pillow in a cheap tavern or under the bed if the door had a good lock), the scent of his current resting place would worm into his nose.
In Cormyr, his room stank like a stable, more specifically like the part of a stable usually carted away in the early morning. Not surprising as that room overlooked a large pile used for fertilizing the inn's vegetable garden.
" In Waterdeep, his room on Sevenlamps Cut always reeked of fried fish, which was odd as the tavern owner never fried anything, as far he knew. That man preferred to boil his stews until everything was pale, mushy, and tasteless.
On the road from Cormyr to Waterdeep, when Gustin could find a room and didn't have to sleep outdoors in the back of the carter's wagon (which always smelled damp and just a bit moldy under the canvas), his various rooms had smelled of unwashed travelers.
But this room in Dead End House! Ah, he took another deep sniff even as he snuggled under the feather quilt. This room smelled wonderful. Clean linen on the bed, beeswax polish on the chair by the door and the table set under the window, and, oh truly fantastic, the whiff of something baking straying up from the kitchen. This room smelled exactly the way that he always thought a room should smell in the morning.
Gustin Bone sat up quickly so he could get a better sniff of whatever his first meal of the day would be. His head swam and he clamped his mouth shut to hold back a moan. He tenderly probed the three expert stitches that Reye Carver had sewn in his scalp the night before.
His memory of the previous night was confused.
Going up the stairs out of the basement remained a bit of a headachy blur, his clearest recollection being a too close, upside down view of Feeler's tentacles after the big gravedigger had slung him over his shoulder.
In the kitchen, there'd been lots of chatter. Lots and lots, so he had let his eyes slide out of focus and slumped in the-chair where Feeler had dropped him, waiting for the noise to subside. At some point, he heard Sophraea babbling on about how she just opened the basement door a crack to show Gustin the tunnels and this horrible man had tried to break in.
He had heard men's voices outshouting the women's protests.
"We'll get the rat, twist his scrawny neck!"
"Leaplow, I don't like that language in my kitchen."
"Sorry, Mother. All right, come on, we'll catch him and then decide."
"I know what you'll decide. And you know he'll have an army of his friends down there by now," answered Reye Carver. — "So we'll clear them out!"
"And start a war in the tunnels? I think not!" That had been Myemaw, Sophraea's tiny grandmother, the one that made him laugh at supper with her descriptions of what people actually ate in Waterdeep.
"So what do you want us to do?" Leaplow shouted and the floorboards reverberated under his feet as he danced up and down. Like his sister, Leaplow always seemed to be moving fast, impatient for the next step. Only, he went thud, thud, thudacross the floor rather than the distinct tap, tap, tap of Sophraea darting away to get him a towel in cold water.
Gustin distinctly remembered hearing their mother Reye sigh and then say in aweary tone, "I would like all of you out of my kitchen. If you have nothing else to do, go sweep up the courtyard."
"At night? You want us to sweep at night?" Leaplow and his cousins exclaimed together in a way that made the pots rattle on the shelves.
"Just make yourself useful somewhere else!" Myemaw scolded.
Sophraea had draped the cold towel across his head and water had dripped into his ear and down the back of his neck. He'd drooped a bit lower in the chair so she'd lean over him and shield him from all the noise that several truly enormous Carvers in the kitchen were creating.
And then another male voice had said, "Come on, boys," and it sounded to Gustin like an army of boots tramping out of the room.
Unfortunately, he had recognized Leaplow's voice saying, "I think I'd better stay here. I want, to know why he was in the basement with my sister."
Gustin slumped into the position of a remarkably harmless fellow. He really hadn't felt up to facing an angry brother.
But it had seemed a pretty unlikely tale that Sophraea told to Leaplow, something silly about wanting to show him the foundation stones laid by the first Carver. As if he'd leave a warm parlor to go looking at a foundation! And he'd been about to say so when Sophraea's soft little hand was clamped tightly over his lips and she had whispered in his ear, "Just moan and don't say anything. We'll get out of this faster."
Then Reye and Myemaw replaced the cold towel with cloths soaked in hot water and a very sharp needle, and moaning was an incredibly simple thing to do.
After all that, when Myemaw had slipped a nice cup of a hot spicy drink into his hand that eased the sting on the top of his scalp,
Leaplow said, "What are we going to do with him? Leave him in the chair all night?"
And Sophraea had protested and said something nice about him being so brave (which was true, he now realized, recalling the fight with the thief, even though she hadn't spoken any other word of truth in the kitchen that night).
Then Reye Carver said in her quiet voice, "He deserves a room of his own tonight so he can rest. We will give him Fitlor's, he certainly doesn't need it anymore."
While wondering vaguely what had happened to Fitlor and why he wouldn't want such a splendid room, Gustin pulled the covers a little higher around his shoulders and prepared to enjoy a short snooze before finding something to eat.
Just as he started to settle back into the warm and comfortable bed, a horrible thought occurred to him. This room wa
s perfect. It smelled perfect. It felt perfect: It was exactly what he had been seeking ever since he ran away from the dull little farm smelling of despair and ruin where he had grown up. And it was only his on a temporary basis.
Once the Carvers figured out that Sophraea had fibbed, one of her enormous brothers or cousins or uncles was going to kick him out of this room, right back into the streets of Waterdeep, where he would wake up every morning smelling fried fish but only finding watery boiled vegetables to eat.
After a few anxious moments, Gustin's usual optimism overrode his black mood. It might be days and days before the Carvers decided to drop him into the gutter. Until that time, this room, this soft bed, this magnificent clean linen, were all his to enjoy. With a sigh of contentment not unlike a cat's purr, the wizard slid under the feather quilt and buried his nose in the pillow. He would sleep just a little longer and then sample whatever was baking in the kitchen for breakfast.
Sophraea slid the bedroom door open a crack. The wizard wasn't snoring, at least not in way the Carvers snored, more a satisfied snuffle coming from somewhere under the blankets. All she could see of him was a few brown curls sprouting out of the top of the huddle of covers.
Relieved that he was apparently fine, she dropped Bentnor's second best shirt and Leaplow s only decent pair of pants on the chair by the door. And, since both her cousin and her brother were a good deal wider than the slender Gustin, she added a spare belt to the pile.
Upstairs, she rapped on Volponia's door.
"I'm awake," came the spirited reply. "What else can an old lady be in earliest hours of the morning?"
Sophraea noted the bedstead was woven from wicker and a high canopy of gauze with brilliant silver spangles swayed above Volponia's head. Rain lashed against the windows but the bedroom smelled of warm spices and the sharp tang of citrus blossoms.
"Tired of winter already?" asked Sophraea as she curled up on the overstuffed silk cushion of the bed big enough for four or five more people.
"I'm tired of all seasons," said Volponia, warming her hands around a steaming stone cup carved so fine and thin that the pale winter light glowed through it. "But never tired of your stories. I heard there was another rumpus last night, a thief actually tried the basement door all by himself?"
Sophraea gave a half shrug and the true story to her oldest living relation. "We were down in the tunnels, and the thief came after us. He grabbed me, I kicked him."
"Caught him where it hurt?"
"Side of the knee. I could see he was wearing an armored codpiece."
"That's my girl, always look for the spot they've forgotten to protect." The old pirate captain chuckled as she sipped her morning brew.
"Gustin, he's the wizard that I mentioned finding, pulled me away."
"Men, they always look out for each other."
"No, no, he was trying to help. And he got clipped on the head so Mother and Myemaw sewed up the wound and put him to bed in Fitlor's old room."
"Well, it's not like Fitlor's going to need it any time soon."
"Absolutely. And Gustin seems all right. Which is a relief. Because I didn't mean anyone to get hurt. I just wanted to find out what's going on in the graveyard."
"And did you find anything?" Volponia asked when Sophraea's breathless explanation had wound down.
"Just this." Sophraea pulled the little gold brocade shoe out of her apron pocket and dropped it in Volponia's lap.
"A lady's dancing shoe," said Volponia, turning it over with her long fingers. "Obviously not new."
"Gustin thought it was off a corpse."
"Quite possibly. It was something of the fashion once if a noble maid died young to dress her in a ball gown and her best dancing shoes for burial."
"Truly?"
"During the dark era," said Volponia, referring to those long and bitter years after magic changed and the world rearranged itself in a manner not altogether expected. "I suspect it was a way to wish her brighter and happier times after death."
"So somebody was disturbing the corpses near the Markarl tomb," guessed Sophraea. "Or," and this was a more troubling thought, "the dead are starting to walk."
"If they are, then trouble is coming," Volponia told her. "The
City of the Dead had been quiet for a long time, the Blackstaff and the Watchful Order did their best to make the wards strong along the wall, but when I was very young, the ghosts used to get out and cause some real harm. And sometimes the more intact corpses walked and other trouble too."
"Ghosts appear everywhere in Waterdeep and spirit mists too," Sophraea pointed out.
"I'm not talking about those feeble shadow shows and their prophetic nonsense. That's just leftover magic from the Spellplague," said Volponia and then sketched the symbol in the air that the very elderly tended to make to ward off another coming of that terrible blight. "The old ghosts of Waterdeep were different. They were much stronger and much more terrible. When the dead walked, they were substantial," she said in an echo of the warning that Sophraea had heard earlier from the thorn, Briarsting.
"But why disturb us?" Sophraea said. "Why try our gate? We've always been respectful of the City and its residents."
"The Dead End gate, the Carvers' own special entrance into the graveyard," Volponia mused, handing the shoe back to Sophraea. "Well, that's the answer to the question, isn't it?"
"I don't understand."
"All the gates into the City of the Dead are well-guarded by the „City Watch and well-warded by the Blackstaff. Aren't they?" the old pirate asked Sophraea.
"Of course, I was just through the Coffinmarch gate myself. Three members of the City Watch and the wards very clear to see."
"Where's the Watch below your window then? Where's the ward on the Dead End gate?" the old lady tapped one lacquered silver nail against her cup's rim.
"But our gate isn't a public gate. No one uses it except the family."
"Exactly. Nice respectable family, the Carvers. Make the coffins, carve the headstones, arrange for the graves to be dug, and polish up the tombs when needed. So if they go and carve themselves their own private gate into the City of the Dead, what's the worry?"
"Are you saying our gate isn't protected?"
"Well, that gate was here, just a part of the yard and house, for as long as I can remember," said Volponia. "Just one of those odd bits of Waterdeep that most people don't even know about and, more disturbing for us, that somebody or something has remembered. If I wanted to go out of the City of the Dead and I wasn't allowed out, I wouldn't march up to one of those public gates. I'd go here. To the tradesman's gate with no wards or City Watch."
"I tried to tell them downstairs," said a worried Sophraea, "but they just all say that the dead don't bother us."
"Some of the men have heads as thick as the stone they carve!" Volponia stated firmly. "No, the Carvers always are too comfortable with the City of the Dead. Since they haven't had any real trouble in a generation or two, they've largely forgotten about the precautions they should take."
Volponia peered into her cup, as ifshe could see the past and the future swirling together in the steam. For all Sophraea knew, perhaps the old pirate could. Unexpectedly her ancient relative asked, "Did you ever get that letter from Lord Adarbrent?"
"No," Sophraea admitted, quite astonished to realize that she'd literally forgotten about the letter still sitting in the other pocket of her apron. But she had been so busy, with topiary dragons and chases through tunnels, that securing a dressmaker's apprenticeship seemed… well… not exactly important, she compromised to herself.
Downright dull, whispered back an inner Sophraea to her dismay.
"Waterdeep is getting a bit like the Carvers," said Volponia, "a little too complacent about the City of the Dead. Lord Adarbrent is old enough to remember what real trouble can be, never mind his constant muttering. He sees more and understands more than most people think." "Are you sure?"
Volponia nodded briskly and made a shooing moti
on with her hands. "Go to the Walking Corpse," she said, "because there is nobody in all of Waterdeep with a better understanding of the dead. All his family and friends perished long ago."
Downstairs, Sophraea ran into Gustin, who was sliding out of the kitchen, munching a roll dripping with honey.
"Well met!" he said upon spying Sophraea tripping down the stairs. "Your grandmother suggested I go watch your father work on my statue."
Eyeing the roll, Sophraea returned, "Probably because she wanted some food left in the kitchen for lunch."
"O, unkind maiden," said Gustin, thumping his heart with the hand holding the roll and leaving a spot of honey on Leaplow's second best shirt. He licked a finger and rubbed it out. "I'm sure that she was just trying to add to my education."
"I hope you didn't add to hers and tell her what you're planning to do with that statue."
"I really don't understand why you think your family wouldn't approve. Nice petrified hero stumping through the streets of Waterdeep, searching for his long lost love. It's just the sort of story most folk find very touching." He grinned at her, his green eyes sparkling under his long black lashes.
"Right after which, you empty their purses." All right, he had a nice smile, she was willing to admit that to herself. But that didn't mean she was going to let him twist her around. She'd grown up at the tail end of a pack of mischief makers, Leaplow being as big a flirt as he was a fighter, and she knew the breed when she saw it.
"Your family doesn't work for free and the animation of stone requires some costly ingredients," said the young wizard with too much personal charm for her peace of mind continuing his argument. "And this is one way to make magic pay. Which is what a wizard is supposed to do."
"I'm not sure the Watchful Order sees it quite that way."
"Organized labor, governmental types. They do tend to look down on us poor freelancers."
Years of being teased by older brothers made Sophraea doubt Gustin's sincerity. "Do you even believe half of the nonsense you spout?" she asked him.
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