and the fleas away if you'd like.'
The man growled, 'I am a servant of Rampage Stunk, the greatest man in all of Waterdeep.'
'Well, that's a bit of a stretch,' whispered Sophraea to Gustin. 'He's rich but he's not that well known.' ¦
The servant twitched his head to look straight at her. 'He will be, little miss, he will be. And your family should be very grateful for his patronage. And grateful to his servants too! After all, my master and my master's friends are planning many new tombs in the fancy graveyard there. And if the Carvers don't want the work, somebody else will,' he gloated.
'There isn't room inside the City of the Dead for that many new tombs,' protested Sophraea, thinking if the noble dead were disturbed already by the changes in the Markarl and Vesham tombs, more changes were sure to bring disaster.
'There will be room,' boasted the servant. 'My master will make sure of that.'
TEN
The fact that a nobleman of Lord Adarbrent's stature lived on a street called Manycats Alley caused Gustin to snicker. 'It's a very grand neighborhood,' explained Sophraea. 'Only the finest families of Waterdeep have mansions here.' The mansions along Manycats had been remodeled in the newest style, with the old gatehouses and courtyards now completely enclosed, so anyone entering from the front would not be plagued by Waterdeep's perpetual rain. Stairs with beautifully wrought iron rails ran up from the street's pavement to a gleaming polished door that had replaced the old and more open gate of a century ago.
Sophraea climbed the eight steps leading to Lord Adarbrent's great door.
'You'd think they'd give this street a better name,' snorted Gustin as Sophraea swung the bronze knocker shaped like a ship's anchor. 'Like what?' she countered.
'Rich Dogs Avenue, Highbred Cats Boulevard,' suggested Gustin.
She giggled and then glared at him. 'Don't. This is serious.'
The creaking door of Lord Adarbrent's mansion opened. A pale old servant in the livery of Waterdeep's past listened politely to Sophraea's request.
'Follow me,' he said finally.
The servant led them, very slowly, through the enclosed courtyard past a long dry fountain. Another two steps led into the mansion's great hall, with its cold marble floors and long bare benches where petitioners would have once waited for the lord of the house. A broad staircase disappeared into the gloom of the upper rooms. No candles burned despite the lack of light from the narrow windows facing the courtyard. The fireplace grates, one at each end of the hall, were swept clean and bare.
A few faded maritime flags hung limply on the walls. The formerly bright colors muted by time into pale reminders of the family's once great shipping interests.
'I think it was warmer in the tunnels,' muttered Gustin.
'Shh,' said Sophraea.
The servant opened a small black door near the back of the hall, motioning them forward. The little waiting chamber was just as cold and gloomy as the great hall, but it at least had a few ancient chairs rather than bare benches. This was obviously where the better class of petitioners would have waited for the former Lord Adarbrents.
After wrestling with the stubborn silk draperies covering the long windows of the room, the servant pulled back the curtains to allow a narrow view of the damp winter garden outside. No fire burned in this grate either, only a trace of cold ash lay scattered across the hearthstones.
Once the servant left to inform Lord Adarbrent of their presence, Gustin sprang up from the rickety chair where he had been seated by the servant. He took a quick turn around the room, examining the smoky dark portraits of former Adarbrents decorating the walls. One portrait bore a mottled brass plaque engraved with the family's founding patriarch 'Royus.' The grim fellow in the painting looked as if he'd just swallowed something extremely bitter.
'I don't think Time just stopped here. I think Time curled up behind the wainscoting and died,' Gustin said, staring up at that particular long-dead member of the Adarbrent family.
'Hush,' said Sophraea, still sitting very straight on her uncomfonable chair because she didn't know what else to do. 'Someone will hear you.'
However, she had to acknowledge that there was a peculiar smell permeating the mansion, a sharp tang just under the usual old house smells of damp, cold, and dust. Perhaps Lord Adarbrent needed a cat, a good mouser like the ones who lived in the Carver workshops. She could always bring him a kitten.
The thought of the Walking Corpse of Waterdeep wjth a kitten caused Sophraea to giggle. Gustin turned away from rearranging the scashells lined up on the mantelpiece and asked, 'Care to share the joke?'
Sophraea shook her head, hiccupping a little as she tried to regain control, and then relented, saying, 'I was just thinking that I could give Lord Adarbrent a kitten.'
'One of that fluffy black-and-white set living under your father's workbench?'
'Yes, can you just imagine a kitten here?'
'Not very well,' admitted Gustin with chuckle. 'Those drapes would be in shreds on the floor by morning.'
'But it does seem appropriate,' said Sophraea, giving away to laughter, 'for a nobleman who lives…'
'On Manycats Alley,' Gustin guffawed.
The stately clatter of boot heels across the bare marble floor of the hallway outside interrupted their laughter. Lord Adarbrent appeared, dressed very much as he always did for walking the streets of Waterdeep, the long rusty black coat with its oversized pockets hanging past his knees. Only his broad-brimmed hat and slender black cane were missing.
The old nobleman blinked a few times at their presence in his waiting room.
Blushing and hoping very much that he had not heard their joking, Sophraea rose from her chair and curtsied.
'Dear child,' Lord Adarbrent addressed her as he usually did in her father's yard. He bowed deeply. Upon spotting Gustin standing by the mantelpiece, he bowed again. Gustin hastily replaced the seashell that he had been fiddling with and bowed in return.
'Visitors. How… unus… ah… how pleasant,' Lord Adarbrent faltered, rubbing his chin in a gesture of puzzled contemplation.
Sophraea wondered when the old gentleman had last entertained guests in his house. Given the condition of the room and his own state of surprise, she guessed it may have been a few years. Actually, given the state of the debilitated curtains, a few decades might be an even better guess, she thought.
'Lord Adarbrent,' she said, speaking quickly to fill up the awkward silence, 'this is the wizard Gustin Bone. He very kindly escorted me here today as I wanted to ask you-' She stopped, uncertain how to say 'we found a shoe, we think it came off a corpse, do you think the deceased nobility are roaming in the City of the Dead?'
Luckily, Lord Adarbrent seemed to have overlooked her incomplete sentence and was bowing again to Gustin. 'So nice,' he said in his careful style, 'to meet a young man with the manners to know that a young woman should not go unescorted and unprotected through the streets of Waterdeep.'
Sophraea was about to point out that a great many ladies and women of other classes walked abroad alone and were perfectly capable of protecting themselves. Except she realized that Lord Adarbrent meant it as a compliment to the wizard and there was no point in distressing the old gentleman.
'My lord,' she said instead. 'We recently noticed some disturbances in the City of the Dead.'
'And underneath it,' added Gustin.
'And, knowing of your great interest in the history of the place, were wondering if you could make some suggestion about this?' she asked, withdrawing the little golden shoe from her wicker basket. 'We found it near the Markarl tomb.'
'Almost directly under it,' added Gustin again, despite Sophraea's frown at him. She really didn't want to start explaining how they had been in the tunnels the previous evening. Especially as she was sure that Lord Adarbrent, who didn't believe ladies should go unescorted through the public streets, would not approve of her traipsing
