gates were locked tight and she sensed additional members of the Watch stood outside each one, looking in, wondering as she did which members of the noble dead roamed abroad.
The branches overhead shook with a rattle of leaves. Sophraea gasped, startled out of her trance, then muttered, 'Look at me, panicking at a breeze.'
The breeze turned into a quick gust and blew out her candle.
She stood absolutely still, not blinking, not breathing. And then she heard footsteps, very quiet ones, barely crunching on the gravel of the path, and knew that someone was sneaking up on her. Moving silently, she pulled the snuffed candle out, dropped it into the basket hooked over her elbow, and tightened her fist around the top of the metal holder. It was a heavy candlestick with a wide base.
As the footsteps moved nearer, she raised her arm above her head.
She could sense him now, a presence behind her, something breathing, not a ghost. tfWDHIfllll JUTIbU
As she felt rather than saw him reach toward her, she swung around. A hand grabbed her other arm and she bent forward to retain her balance, then kept swinging. The candlestick collided with solid flesh.
And a familiar howl sounded in her ear.
'Gustin?' Sophraea whispered.
The wizard staggered away from her. He gasped and doubled up, his arms wrapped around his waist. 'Gustin, what are you doing here?' 'Getting my ribs broken,' he rasped.
'Why did you sneak up on me? Oh dear, I'd better take you back to the house and wake Myemaw. She can bind them up.'
She heard him catch his breath. His voice shook but he managed to say, 'No, I am quite all right, Sophraea.'
'But what are you doing out here?' she asked.
'Following you. Someone is using dangerous magic to stir up the dead. You shouldn't be out here at night by yourself. It's not safe. I thought we agreed that we would only come here in broad daylight.'
'But we haven't found anything so far in broad daylight, and it's not really night, it's practically morning,' she argued, 'and I heard the gate shatter last night. And, just now, I heard something else. Oh, there it is again!'
From the distance she heard thin screeches of laughter and the sound seemed to be coming closer.
'Come on, we shouldn't stand out in plain sight,' she said and led him deeper into the City of the Dead until they reached the Honor Garden. When she saw the stone tree trunk, she pulled Gustin behind it.
'Who are we hiding from?' Gustin whispered.
'If I knew that, I might not be hiding,' she whispered back. 'Gustin, when did you follow me here? I didn't see you in the yard.'
'I heard you open the outer door,' he said. 'There I was, nice and warm in a clean bed, then one of your mad cats came dashing through the room, leaped right in the center of my stomach and, once I was awake, ran off.'
Sophraea almost chuckled. 'You should latch your door.'
'I think your cats can walk through walls,' muttered Gustin. 'But being awake, I decided to get up and go looking for something to eat. I was in the kitchen when I heard the door open. And I thought, who would be fool enough to go out before it was light?'
Suddenly, the odd laughter grew nearer, a loud mingling of moans and insane giggles. She could hear shuffling, as though a small army approached. Clutching her candlestick, Sophraea leaned out to squint into the dim pre-dawn light. At first all she saw was empty path.
Then they came floating, twisting, dancing by, feet occasionally touching the ground, ghostly hands beating out a rhythm, heads swaying to some music that Sophraea could not hear.
They were dressed in flounces and tatters and spiderweb trimmings, faded velvet and dulled silk. Some had faces of shadows and starlight. Others were worn down to bones gleaming white under the waning moon. They moved in a swirl of cold air that smelled vaguely of mold and perfume and death.
Sophraea pressed back against Gustin. If they saw her, those ghastly remnants of the dead, what would they do? She was torn between fear and pity. She d reacted the thought of being dragged along in their company. But more, she felt so sorry for them, wandering like that, unable to rest quietly in their graves.
Night gave way to the first weak rays of sunlight. The damp clean smell of wet grass replaced the faint scent of decay.
Leaning close to Gustin, she breathed with relief, 'Dawn.'
They both watched and kept silent, not daring to say more. hardly daring to breathe, until they saw the last of the dead revelers disappear into the morning shadows.
'You can come out now,' a clear voice said.
FOURTEEN
The wizard jumped, so startled by the disembodied voice behind them that he bumped into Sophraea and almost knocked her over. Her own heart raced and she was hard pressed not to scream. 'It's early for you to be here,' said their unseen companion. A shifting of green shadows tugged at Sophraea's extra sense of the graveyard surrounding them.
'Briarsting, is that you?' Sophraea demanded, looking around. 'Where are you?'
Leaves rustled in a hedge behind them. In the shadows, the topiary dragon blended with other more motionless shrubbery. The thorn gestured from under the shelter of the topiary dragons' belly. 'The dead will be back in their mausoleums, tombs, coffins, and graves in a moment.'
'You could have told us you were there,' she complained, the beat of her heart settling into a less panicked rhythm.
After patting the leafy dragon's neck, Sophraea and Gustin slid out from behind the stone tree trunk and around the bristly beast. Above them, the sky turned dull gray as the early morning sunlight tried to penetrate the cloud cover. The main gate would be open to Waterdeep's Watch. Patrols would go through the pathways to see what disturbances had occurred in the night. Soon the City of the Dead would also be open to the public, if the City Watch decided it was safe.
'When did it start last night?' Sophraea questioned Briarsting. The little man scratched his nose and then shrugged. 'Just after moonrise. I was dozing but the shrubbery here woke me.'
The topiary dragon waggled its ears at them. 'Straight down the paths and through our gate?' She thought she knew the answer but she had to ask. Briarsting nodded. 'Just as before.'
'And then off to haunt Rampage Stunk.' Sophraea sighed. More threats and sensation stories were sure to appeat in every broadsheet in Waterdeep. The ptevious day's Blue Unicorn had been bad enough. She still had it in her basket because she couldn't bear to show it to her family and worry them even more.
'Was the same ghost leading them?' Sophraea asked the thorn.
'The dancing lady? Yes, I saw her clearly.' Briarsting had been their spy in the cemetery at night, as worried as they were about the constant disturbances, and more than willing to give what information he had. But the thorn and his shrubbery friend could do nothing to stop the constant escape of the dead from their tombs.
'I saw your father too,' he added.
'My father? When was that?'
'Last night. From sunset until almost midnight, sitting on the ground with his back against the gate.'
That made no sense to Sophraea. Surely he was mistaken. She had seen her father in the house last evening, going over plans for a strengthened gate with her uncles. 'Are you sure it was my father?' she asked.
The thorn turned a brighter green from annoyance.
'I haven't seen him in many a year, but I must tell you, young miss. He hasn't changed a bit. Looks exactly the same as he did thirty years ago,' he declared. 'I know Astute Carver when I see him.'
'He's gone gray,' she said, frowning. But Briarsting seemed so sure, she didn't want to upset him. 'Probably the dark. If you saw him in daylight, you'd know he's aged.'
'I have excellent eyesight,' Briarsting huffed.
Muttering about missed breakfasts and curses, Gustin stalked along the paths toward the two small tombs
