Looking as serious as she had ever seen him, Gustin said, 'I've been thinking about that. I've been thinking about it ever since this began. I don't meddle with the dead. I have nothing in my very limited spellbook that even comes close.'
From a distance that sounded deep within the cemetery, Sophraea heard a thin cry. She glanced at the other two. Neither made any sign of hearing what she heard.
'But you do have a spellbook? You understand magic,' she continued. Wizards, her tone implied, should be prepared for anything, even a graveyard full of restless corpses intent on bringing trouble to her family's doorstep.
Gustin reached into his tunic and withdrew the guidebook to Waterdeep that he'd shown Sophraea earlier. Once again he carefully unfolded the crudely printed map bound into the back, laying it flat on the bench between them. He tapped one corner of the map and the streets and buildings swirled together in a rainbow of colors, then faded away to show line after line of tiny writing.
There it was again, a scream that strangled away. Neither Briarsting nor Gustin seemed to notice it. A soft nudge against her shoulder made Sophraea start and clamp her mouth closed to keep from gasping. She felt soft leaves brush her neck.
When she turned her head, her eyes looked straight. into one of the dragon's red berry eyes. It was wide open. The greenery of his brow drew into a deep wrinkle of worry. So she wasn't imagining the cry. The topiary dragon heard it too.
'All my spells,' Gustin said, still looking down at his book. 'All learned in bits and pieces, here and there. Animation of stone. That ritual is especially mine, but how is that going to help? Some defensive spells, which are not nearly as powerful as a good offensive spell. A few illusions, which work well. One spell that lets me run away from danger very fast. I'd be happy to use any of these in your service. But I don't see how it solves your problem.'
Sophraea didn't see either. Round and round her finger, she twisted the ring that Volponia had given her. 'There's a half a wish in this,' she finally said, pulling the ring off and handing it to Gustin. 'Could that stop this curse?'
'Half a wish?' He echoed, juggling the ring in the palm of his hand. 'I doubt it. Wishes are magic based on hope. A half-hearted hope, like a half a wish, probably isn't enough to trump a good solid hate-filled curse. And the one thing that I can tell about this curse: whoever unleashed it really hates Rampage Stunk.'
He gave the little silver ring back to Sophraea. She slid it on her finger with a sigh. It didn't seem right that a curse, one not even directed at her family, could create such havoc. But all Waterdeep knew that Stunk was seeking whoever had loosed the curse against him. No one had ever accused the fat man of being fair-minded. He was sure to blame the Carvers and even if they could drive off his bullies or appeal to the City Watch for protection, it would mean days or even tendays of disruption. And Stunk well might hire his own wizards. Dead End House had its protections, but Sophraea still worried about how much the family could withstand before somebody was seriously hurt.
The sound of booted feet crunching heavily down the gravel path propelled Gustin and Sophraea off the bench.
'Is it the Watch?' Sophraea asked as Briarsting leaped to the shoulder of the grieving stone woman overlooking the pool. From there, he hopped to the roof of a mausoleum.
'No,' the green-skinned man called down. 'It's a dwarf!'
The deep orange of the stout dwarf s waterproof hat and cloak marked him as a member of the cellarers' and plumbers' guild. In one hand he clutched a rake for clearing storm drains.
Sophraea started to murmur a polite greeting. The dwarf stared at her blankly.
'Do I know you, young lady?' he said slowly. 'Forgive me my haste but I have urgent business at the Plinth. There will be a jump tonight.'
Gustin stepped aside to let him pass. Sophraea watched the dwarf march steadily away from them. There was something odd about the sturdy hammerpipe, the faintest twinge of that same sense that always told her where she was in the City of the Dead.
If she narrowed her eyes and stared really hard at the dwarf, she could see the shadow of a much taller figure marching steadily away from them.
'I thought the Plinth was destroyed,' remarked Gustin.
With a start, Sophraea broke her concentration on the dwarf. 'Oh, yes, the Spellplague took down the Plinth.' The dwarf had disappeared around a corner of the path. 'But the dead don't always know current history.'
'That was a dwarf. Not a corpse.'
'That was a possessed hammerpipe,' she corrected him. 'There's no reason a member of the guild would be aboveground looking for a long-lost temple.'
'Are you sure?'
'Come on, I want to see where he came from.' Sophraea headed north on the path, following the clear footprints of the dwatf. She stopped at a leaf-clogged grate and the puddle stretching across the path. 'I don't know any hammerpipe who would pass by something like that. No, some ghost has grabbed him.'
'Shouldn't we do something?'
'You know exorcism spells?'
Gustin admitted he did not.
'They'll catch him at one of the gates,' Sophraea said to soothe both Gustin and her conscience. 'Or the City Watch will pick him up on their patrol. It will give them something to do.'
Another turn of the path showed an open storm grate and a pile of tools lying next to it, obviously where the dwarf had been working. Sophraea took a hard look at the tomb nearest the grate and the family name carved deeply into the granite.
'One of the Lathkule,' she said. 'That explains it. A restless family and notorious possessors. This ritual has stirred up too many of the dead.'
A gnome's head suddenly popped up from the open sewer line.
Like the dwarf, he was dressed in the orange of the cellarers' and plumbers' guild.
'Here! You, young person,' shouted the gnome. 'Have you seen my friend? We've found the problem down here.'
Sophraea blinked in surprise at seeing this ordinary worker in the middle of the City of the Dead. 'I think your friend went down that path,' she pointed in the direction that the dwarf had taken.
The gnome scrambled the rest of the way out of the hole, then leaned back to call down. 'Firebeard has gone off again. Can you get the clog up by yourselves?'
More muffled shouting could be heard from the hole.
The gnome cast a grimy eye over Sophraea and her companion. He tossed the end of a rope to Gustin Bone. 'Haul on this, will you, tall guy?' he said. 'Faster we get this cleared, the faster we can get out of here.'
With a good-natured shrug, Gustin began pulling on the rope. Slowly, like an exhausted fish being hauled into a boat, a bundle of cloth and bones emerged from the hole. The richly dressed skeleton was followed by a contingent of gnomes and dwarves, all dressed in dark orange. One of the gnomes wore the additional trappings that marked her as a cleric of considerable rank.
'Don't call it a clog,' scolded the cleric. 'That's not respectful.'
'Caused a back-up all the way to Wall Way, didn't it?' said the first gnome in unrepentant tones. 'That's a clog in my book. But we got it back here. Now what do you want to do?'
'We need to settle these bones,' said the cleric. The skeleton stirred in its muddy finery. With a shake of her head, the cleric reached into her pocket for a vial of glowing liquid. With a murmured prayer, she shook the holy water over the skeleton, which collapsed back on the ground.
Sophraea leaned over die bones to take a closer look. The heavily embroidered robes wrapped around the skeleton incorporated a number of heraldic devices that she recognized as decorating the nearby Irlingstar monument. Another deceased member of an ancient Waterdeep family had been wandering, she realized. Once the body had no doubt been bathed with perfumed water and wrapped with herbs tucked under his burial robes. Now his funeral clothes smelled of the sewers.
'It was kind of you to bring the bones back here,' she told the collected members of the guild.
'It's the guild's rules,' explained the cletic. 'If something washes out of the City of the Dead, it has to be
