When she tipped his head back, he blinked at her, looking somewhat cross-eyed.
Squatting down beside them, Feeler patted Gustin's arms and legs. His tentacles waved around his head, a sure sign that the big man was a bit upset by all the magic that had been whirling through the basement. To Sophraea, however, he spoke in his usual mild deep tones, 'Nothing broken. Perhaps a bruise or two in the morning. He'll be fine.'
Relieved but unwilling to show it, Sophraea asked Gustin sharply, 'What was all that about?'
'Why did you grab me?' he countered. 'Don't ever do that again! That's dangerous!'
'You were attacking my friends.'
'I was just trying to give you some light. You dropped the candle.'
'What sort of light makes a hole in the ceiling!'
Gustin shook the plaster dust out of his brown curls, wincing a little at the movement. 'It's a wand with several uses, that's what it is. But you can't break my concentration or I lose my grip on it.'
'What kind of wizard are you?' she demanded.
'Fairly good, by all standards,' replied Gustin evenly as he crawled around on his hands and knees, patting the floor in front of him. With a grunt of satisfaction, he located his lost wand, tucking it back up his sleeve. 'But this little item isn't all that reliable. It likes to slip out of its user's hand.'
'Then why do you have it?' Sophraea asked as she climbed to her feet.
'Payment for a job. Never take magic items from another wizard. The cheap ones always cheat by giving you trash,' said the young wizard with casual condemnation of his profession. 'That's why I prefer to make my money in other ways.'
Aware of Feeler and Fish listening carefully to every word that Gustin was babbling, she stopped him before he could say more about his schemes and introduced the two gravediggers to him.
'So,' said Gustin with a cheerful grin, as if he had not just knocked a hole in their ceiling, 'you live down here?'
'People don't bother us here. It's quiet,' said Feeler while Fish nodded and lit another candle. Fish rarely spoke in front of strangers, Sophraea knew, because of the odd lisp created by his two rows of teeth and split tongue.
'I am sorry about interrupting your supper,' said Sophraea.
'Not to worry,' said Feeler, 'you're welcome any time.'
'We just need to use your door,' she explained.
'YoUr parents know you're going into the tunnels?'
Sophraea gave the type of a shrug that might be taken for a 'yes' in dim light. Feeler appeared skeptical'and Fish pursed his mouth in a disapproving frown. ¦ 'I'll watch out for her, saer,' said Gustin.
To Sophraea's frustration, Feeler looked straight over her head at the wizard. 'You wouldn't want to know how deep we could bury the body that harmed this child,' he said.
'No, saer,' said Gustin sincerely. 'I'm sure I wouldn't.'
'I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself,' asserted Sophraea. Really, just because the gravediggers had given her rides on their shovels when she was a baby, that didn't mean that she couldn't protect herself now. 'It's not like I haven't been in the tunnels before!'
'With a pack of your brothers and cousins,' said Feeler. 'Not alone. That's different.'
'He is a wizard. With a wand,' Sophraea pointed out because she had a feeling that would impress them more than her usual argument that she was fully grown and quite able to navigate the tunnels on her own. 'And we're only going a short way. I just want to show him something and then we'll come right back.'
With a heavy sigh, Feeler agreed. 'But take our lantern with you. Candles blow out too easily.'
'But there're lights in the tunnels.' Sophraea picked up the lantern even as she protested.
'But that's magic,' Feeler said. 'And, as your young man pointed out, some magical items are not always reliable. I know you won't get lost, but there're things out there that you don't want to meet in total darkness. What if you stumble across those sewyrms everybody keeps seeing down here?'
Sophraea started to tell the gravediggers that Gustin wasn't her young man, but realized that would plunge her into even more lengthy explanations. Instead, she nipped quickly out of the door that Fish opened, promising that she and Gustin would return shortly and keep a sharp eye out for reptiles and other threats. Gustin lingered in the doorway. 'Sewyrms?' Gustin said to Feeler.
The man held his two hands far apart, indicating the size from nose to tail tip. 'Big ones,' he replied. 'Some say that there's even a great albino sewyrm, down in the darkest, deepest sewers, living off the garbage. That it's grown so big that it can't even move through the tunnels anymore.'
Sophraea snorted. 'That's just story! Albino seawrym in the sewers of Waterdeep. Like nobody has ever heard that one before!'
'Well,' the wizard began. 'I don't think that I've…'
She grabbed Gustin's sleeve and tugged him through the door.
'We're just going a little way,' she said over his shoulder to Feeler. 'Just beneath the graveyard. It will be dry as dust and twice as safe as above ground.'
'Come back quickly,' the gravedigger prompted.
'We will,' Sophraea promised.
The door shut firmly behind them. Sophraea nodded in approval as she heard the latch'click down. It would never do to leave Dead End House defenseless on the lowest level, a lesson drilled into her as soon as she started to beg her mother to be allowed to accompany her brothers through the tunnels leading from the basement to the upper streets of Waterdeep. And, although she would never admit it out loud, it was a little comforting to know that Feeler and Fish would wait by the door until they returned.
She gave a quick glance up to the dark outline of the door's watcher. One stony wing was folded halfway across its horned head and its bearded chin was tucked firmly into its shoulder.
'That has to be the ugliest statue that I've ever seen,' remarked Gustin, holding the lantern a little higher to cast a light into the niche above the Dead End door.
Sophraea looked upon the ugly creature with affection. She could just make out the slightly notched left ear. Bentnor had jumped up on a bet with Leaplow to pat the watcher's paw. And, of course, once Bentnor did that, Cadriffle had to get high enough to tweak its nose. And once the twins had done that, Leaplow had to best them by twisting the left ear a bit askew. No wonder it kept its wing extended over its head after that!
She opened her mouth to explain the watcher to Gustin and then shook her head at her own foolishness. Such knowledge should only be shared with members of the family and the others who dwelled at Dead End House. No matter how friendly Gustin was, he could not be considered family.
'Come on,' she said instead. 'We don't have much time.'
'So where exactly are we?' Gustin asked as Sophraea hurried down a short dark passageway.
'Into the old sewer tunnels, heading directly under the City of the Dead,' she said. She paused for a moment, waiting for the special tug that signaled she was passing under the walls of the City of the Dead. 'This is an access tunnel used mostly by the cellarers' and plumbers' guild. If you go the other way, it turns south toward Coffinmarch.'
She went a few steps farther in and immediately knew exactly where they were.
'Good, there's the Deepwinter tomb,' she glanced up but nothing could be seen in the lamplight except the dull masonry holding the earth above them. It was all instinct that guided her, but she was certain that they were directly below the big mausoleum.
If she closed her eyes, the tunnels around them disappeared. She could picture herself standing on the gravel path twisting through the rain-soaked shrubbery around the tomb's north corner.
'We'll need to turn at the next branching of the tunnels to reach the spot that we want,' she told Gustin, opening her eyes and looking up at the wizard.
'Are your eyes blue?' he asked her.
Surprised, Sophraea shook her head. 'No, brown, like the rest of my family. Why do you ask?'
Gustin tilted his head to one side, staring at her. 'It's gone now. But, just for a moment, there was this flash of blue.'
'Trick of the light,' Sophraea guessed, heading into the tunnel that led them past the Deepwinter tomb and deeper under the City of the Dead. 'Everything always looks a bit strange down here.'
