'You use these tunnels much?' Gustin moved easily at her side, his long legs easily covering twice the ground as her shorter, quicker steps.
'We all do. Feeler and Fish the most, because it's the quickest way in and out of the graveyard, and many of the portals that they use are below ground these days. The rest of us use the tunnel to Coffinmarch for a shortcut if it's raining too hard to go by the upper streets. Lots of families have entrances in their basements that lead to these tunnels.'
She didn't try to explain to him how she felt like she was walking in two places at the same time, one Sophraea in the City of the Dead above them, the other Sophraea in the tunnels below. It was a slightly disconnected, somewhat floaty feelings but not altogether unpleasant.
As they rounded another turn, passing by a shadowed doorway, Gustin remarked, 'I'm surprised they don't get more unwelcome visitors in their basements. This looks like the perfect arrangement for housebreakers.'
'The underground doors are well guarded by stout locks and magic. Besides, we're under the graveyard here. That door just leads into the old Narfuth crypt. There's nothing there worth anything.'
'Magical protections on the doors, really? I didn't feel anything in your basement.'
'That's because you entered from above, as a friend of the family. The Doorwatcher would have known that and let you alone. Although'-a gleam of amused speculation lit Sophraea's dark eyes-'I suppose that could be why your spell rebounded so spectacularly on you.'
'Can't wait to meet this Doorwatcher,' said Gustin, but he sounded more intrigued than aggrieved.
'You already have,' Sophraea started but then they rounded another corner. Huddled around a couple of torches, shadowy figures blocked the way. Gustin pulled Sophraea into an alcove and shuttered the lantern, leaving them in darkness.
'Best wait until they pass,' Gustin whispered in Sophraea's ear, tickling her dark curls with his breath.
'Probably just some neighbors heading home from a party. The City of the Dead's gates would be locked by now and they are using these tunnels instead.' But her explanation sounded weak to Sophraea. Most folks avoided going anywhere near the graveyard after nightfall, even underground. Something about how the group scurried together, hands clutching their dagger or sword hilts, and the constant glances back over their shoulders did not suggest a late evening party of revelers.
'I thought that halfling said that she would lead us to treasures,' whined a slender man clad in black silk from head to heel. He passed close enough to where Sophraea and Gustin hid that they could hear the whisper of his trousers.
'Who would have thought her hands would be so cold,' answered his female companion, a well-rigged fighter bristling with knives, sword, and even a short shield. Another tall man stalked at her side, well-armored and with a hint of ore in his scowling features.
The fourth man, more drably dressed than the others, stopped and stared back into the darkness. He looked straight at the alcove where Sophraea pressed back against Gustin. She held her breath. Gustin's hand tightened on her shoulder.
Then the swarthy bravo shrugged and turned to follow his companions, saying as he left that section of the tunnel, 'Well, if there are not treasures to be had tonight, I'm for hot wine and a warm bed. Let's go.'
The sounds of this odd quartet died away, leaving the tunnel empty and silent behind them.
Gustin eased out of the alcove, keeping a hand on Sophraea's shoulder to hold her back. He listened for a few cautious minutes and then unshuttered the lantern.
'So this is basically a highway for thieves as well as honest folk,' he observed.
'I don't suppose the officials like it,' said Sophraea with a shrug, 'but you see worse on the streets above. Besides, thieves don't bother people like us.' She made the last statement with more ferocity than veracity, but they were so close to the tomb that she couldn't bear to turn back. Something was pulling her, something like that odd sense of direction that she had within the City of the Dead, but stronger.
She knew she would find an answer just about… there.
Sophraea stopped so abruptly that Gustin nearly ran her over, flinging out one long arm to catch himself against the tunnel wall.
'What is it?' he said.
'The Markarl tomb,' she said, 'or just outside of it.' With that queer double vision that had haunted her through the tunnels, she saw the little brick-and-mortar tomb that stood directly above them. But the always locked bronze door? Was it a litde ajar?
'So now what?' Gustin raised the lantern, casting a wider circle of light. At the very edge of the yellow glow something glittered.
Sophraea darted forward, finding a tarnished gold shoe. She picked it up, holding it high so Gustin could also see it clearly in the lamplight.
It was very small and obviously made for a lady. Fashioned in a style popular long ago, the shoe's brocade fabric was badly frayed along the edges and the thin vellum soles decayed.
'Where do you think it came from?' she said out loud.
'A corpse,' muttered Gustin.
She clutched the little shoe in one hand, reaching out her other hand to touch the walls. Solid stone met her hand, dewed with the usual dampness encountered in that part of the tunnels.
Sophraea continued poking around the edges of the muddy passageway, which smelled more like sewer than crypt, not that it was easy to tell the difference.
'I don't think there would be a body this deep,' she said. 'This is a storm drain, only full in worst rains, but they'd never risk a body washing out from here. That's why the tombs and portals are above. The water is supposed to drain down and then out.'
'So somebody dropped it passing through. Or the water did carry it here? And, by the way, how hard was it raining today?' Gustin peered at the dank walls, as if expecting water to suddenly come pouring in.
'Not that hard.' Sophraea shook her head at a newcomer's lack of knowledge of Waterdeep's precipitation. 'Something like that would take a true downpour. Not that mizzle we're getting right now.'
The passageway seemed even more shadowed and dank. A cold and clammy feeling settled with a shudder upon her bare hands and face. As they retraced their steps to Dead End House, Sophraea felt compelled to look back over her shoulder. The tunnel remained empty behind them.
She glanced at the wizard beside her. He seemed completely unconcerned by the shadows flickering along the walls that made her start and stare. Of course, he was a wizard, one of those adventurers who had roamed everywhere from what little he had told her. Sewer tunnels under a graveyard wouldn't bother him. And, she thought, raising her chin and holding her head a little higher, she wasn't worried either. He needn't think just because she was younger, and shorter, and had never been outside the walls of Waterdeep, that a few thieves passing them in the tunnels or some oddly shaped shadows swirling across the ceiling above them would frighten her.
Then she heard the soft exhalation, like a woman trying to muffle a cry.
'Do you hear something?' Sophraea whispered to Gustin, resisting the impulse to clutch at his arm.
'My teeth chattering,' he answered back. 'It's freezing cold all of a sudden.'
The damp cold of the tunnels intensified. Sophraea felt like one of the Carver cats on the days that the wind blew from the north. Something was making her skin prickle and she fought an urge to whip around and stare again into the shadows. In the same odd double vision that let her see where they were in relationship to the City of the Dead, she thought she could see something following them out of the passages. At the very edge of her hearing, she heard something like the soft light footsteps of a woman. Sophraea was sure of it.
'Stop,' she hissed at Gustin, tugging at the edge of his sleeve.
'Not here,' he hissed back as they reached the intersection with three tunnels, the shortest passage leading to the Dead End door. 'There's somebody ahead of us.'
She heard a sob.
'No,' Sophraea insisted, 'there's somebody behind us.' They were directly below the Dead End gate. In her double vision, Sophraea could see the iron bars shake. The sound of a woman sobbing echoed in her head, somewhere above, somewhere behind. Her sense of direction gone dizzy, Sophraea tugged again at Gustin's sleeve. 'We need to stop.'.
'Not yet,' said Gustin, grabbing Sophraea's hand and dragging her toward the Dead End door.
