Even outsiders, strangers to Waterdeep like Gustin, could wander the paths in the daylight hours with no fear of attack.
But nobody had ever warned her about wolves. Such a creature didn't belong in the City of the Dead. She couldn't have seen a wolf.
Drawing a deep breath, Sophraea concentrating on using that peculiar sense that let her see throughout the City of the Dead. And, there, right behind a memorial urn, she distinctly perceived something with four large paws, an even bushier tail, and, oh dear, numerous sharp teeth!
Before she could warn Gustin, Sophraea caught a glint of metal behind the wolf. A very large man in a helmet crouched behind a gravestone that wasn't quite large enough to hide him fully.
In her vision, the wolf dashed around the urn and dived under a nearby hedge separating one family's plot from another's.
'Gustin!'
The wizard halted beside her, seemingly unaware of her concern. With a shake of her head, Sophraea tried to see the graveyard as Gustin would see it. Dripping hedges close to the path, a few tombs, no sign of life at all. Their pursuers were still too far away and too well hidden for Gustin to see them. Of course, that must mean that their pursuers couldn't see them either. At least she hoped that was true. Then she remembered that wolves tracked by scent.
Trying to keep her voice calm, Sophraea asked Gustin, 'Do you have any spells against wolves?'
'Nothing particular,' he answered. 'Why?'
'How about men in armor?'
'I have that one I used during the street fight that makes weapons slippery.' Gustin looked over his shoulder. 'What do you see?'
'Don't turn,' she said as she started quickly down the path.
Her odd double vision setded more firmly over her. In one sense, she was still firmly anchored to the Sophraea scrambling down the gravel path in the graveyard. But another Sophraea seemed to be floating high above the tombs. That disembodied Sophraea clearly saw the slinking gray wolf tracking them along the wet path and, to her dismay, more than the one armored man behind it. There was an entire group of Stunk's bullyblades tagging along behind the beast.
'They followed us,' she warned Gustin. 'Stunk's men.'
The wizard quickened his pace and didn't look back.
'How many?' he asked as a crackle of white lighting sparked off the tips of his fingers. He kept his hand low and close to his chest so their pursuers could not see.
'Half a dozen, not more. One is a wolf.' Sophraea stumbled along, her double vision causing her to feel slightly dizzy. For one wobbly moment, she felt as if she trod on the bronze roof of a nearby mausoleum as well as by Gustin's side.
'To my right or to my left?' Gustin asked.
'What?' Now one Sophraea jogged around a corner while the other, the floating Sophraea, danced unseen above the head of the gray wolf. The beast snarled below her phantom toes, snapping left and right at the empty air, the hair clearly rising on the back of its bristly neck. The creature couldn't see her phantom above it, she decided, but somehow it knew she was there.
One of the armored fighters yelled at the wolf, his mouth moving silently as apparently her expanded senses didn't extend to hearing. But from the man's angry gestures, Sophraea could tell that he was urging the group on.
'Stunk's men. Are they on my right or my left? Can you tell?' Gustin asked again.
She blinked. Before her, two tall evergreens marked the entrance of a grotto. Her other sight showed the same trees rising behind a long colonnade memorializing the fallen heroes of a long-forgotten war. Stunk's men used the marble columns to hide their approach, but they were almost level with the two people hurrying toward the evergreen grove. With a start, Sophraea realized that she was seeing herself and Gustin.
'On your right, on your right!' she cried and pointed to the columns.
Gustin whirled and flung the spell over Sophraea's head. It cracked through the air, a whip of raw energy. Someone yelled. A red-haired goon leaped up from his hiding place, shouted to see the wizard staring directly at him, and dived back behind a column.
'Stone, stone,' Gustin muttered, his eyes burning emerald bright. 'Those columns are all stone, yes?'
'Pure marble,' Sophraea agreed. That particular memorial had been built by her great-great-grandfather and had been more recently polished and repaired by her uncles. It was supposed to be one of the greatest examples of that period's monuments. Uncle Sagacious, in particular, often took his sons there to show them what 'fine carving truly meant.'
'Get behind me.' Gustin pushed at her. 'If one moves, the rest should fall. But get clear.'
'What are you talking about?' She shifted down the path. With all her attention centered on the wizard, Sophraea suddenly realized that she could no longer see through phantom eyes. Her sense of where Stunk's men were hiding disappeared.
Gustin pulled out his guidebook to Waterdeep and opened it to the center. Once more the ordinary words and woodblock illustrations began to melt into new and stranger shapes as the young wizard held the book high in one hand. With his free hand, Gustin traced corresponding symbols in the air.
Sophraea saw the nearest column wobble and then sway on its base.
'Jump, jump,' commanded Gustin, both his hands now waving up and down.
The column began to rise and then abruptly fall, a weird hopping motion that went higher and higher. Each time it fell back with a shuddering crash against its base.
The third time, a huge crack in the base appeared. The column smashed back in place and then toppled to one side, striking the column next to it. That struck its neighbor and so on, until the entire colonnade hurtled to the ground, encircling Stunk's surprised men in a high wall of rubble.
Sophraea stared, speechless with shock. The marble columns, what had Gustin done to them? What would her uncles say?
A pair of gray ears and enormous paws popped over the top of the debris. Gustin sent another ball of magical energy zinging past. With a yelp, the wolf dropped back behind the barricade.
And Sophraea realized that all her uncles would say is, 'He saved our Sophraea's life. Well done!'
'We better run, that last spell was more show than damage,' Gustin said.
'Come on,' she said. 'We need to get to the Dead End gate!'
With a last whip of energy back at Stunk's men to discourage them, Gustin followed Sophraea as she twisted off the main public path and raced down the little used way to the maze known as the. Thief s Knot.
Shouts and a wolfs howl sounded behind them.
Nobody ever visited the maze, Sophraea reasoned in her head. Most of the maps of the City of the Dead didn't even show it. She could slow down their pursuers there and take the back path to Dead End House.
And once they were through the Dead End gate, they would be safe. Stunk's men wouldn't be able to find it or use it to exit the City of the Dead.
They pounded down the path. Sophraea concentrated hard on only seeing the ground in front of her feet. She could hear the wolfs panting and the pursuit of their enemies quite clearly behind her.
EIGHTEEN
Through complicated twists and turns, Sophraea raced into the memorial maze planted in the City of the Dead to honor a particularly wily leader of the thieves' guild.
The tall hedges closed around Gustin and Sophraea. With a quick hop, she sidestepped a revolving stone meant to trip up the unwary. She yanked Gustin out of the way of a branch that whipped by their faces.
'Look out,' Sophraea pushed the wizard back before he could trip a set of bells cleverly concealed behind a small piece of garden statuary with a pointy hat, which was noted in the Carver's ledger as an exact copy of the Master Thiefs most revered opponent. Time and weather had softened the famed thiefcatcher's stern features and
