it be strong enough to resist a full assault?'
'There's another portal along here,' said Feeler, hurrying them down the long tunnel. 'It comes and goes with the tide.'
Fish made a gulping sound, a glugging deep in his throat.
'Tide's on the turn,' said Feeler. 'We should be able to slide past, but if Stunk's bullies follow, they won't like it.'
'They'll be sucked in?' said Gustin with a lively tone of interest.
'It's not real obvious,' said Feeler. 'When it comes up, it just looks like a mud puddle stretching across the tunnel floor.'
Sophraea stared uneasily at the damp mud under her feet. 'Are we close to it?'
'Almost there.' Feeler stopped and signaled Fish to go forward. 'If the tide is in, better that he steps into it than us. He can breathe underwater.'
'Where does this portal go?' asked Sophraea, who disliked Stunk's guards intensely but didn't necessarily want to murder them.
'Most turn up outside the city walls, on the beach,' said Feeler. 'I've known some halflings to jump in to escape the City Watch, but they say it isn't pleasant, you're usually up to your knees in muck and seaweed from the drop. And there's been talk that one or two landed far out in the water and had to swim in.'
Sophraea took a deep breath. 'I can swim if I have to.'
'I haven't ever been through a portal,' Gustin murmured. His eyes were wide and shining in the lantern's light. He stirred the mud with his foot. 'It's just the sort of adventure that the guidebook promised that you'd find in Waterdeep.'
'There are pleasanter portals,' Sophraea told him. 'And I'd rather not end up in the bay.'
'We have a little time,' Feeler assured her. Fish had cleared the perilous part of the passage and waved them forward down the long tunnel, signaling that it was still safe. Sophraea could barely see his lantern bobbing far ahead of them.
As they ran toward the scaly gravedigger, the ground began to hum and shiver under their feet. The wet earth sucked at their feet, as if reluctant to let them proceed. The air reeked with the smell of salt water.
'Faster,' said Feeler, stretching out his legs. 'Tide's coming in.'
Gustin snapped off some rattling words, grabbing at Sophraea with one hand and Feeler with the other. Their magical speed created a breeze that made Sophraea's skirts and curls stream out behind her.
She heard a loud shout and then a howl echoed down the passageway.
'Stunk's bullies are in the tunnel!' she warned the others.
As abrupdy as it began, Gustin's burst of speed ran out. Sophraea felt the power drop off immediately. Suddenly her feet seemed incredibly slow, as if she struggled through glue. Each step took enormous effort. Each time she lifted a foot, she heard the mud beneath her soles give a popping sound.
'Come oh, come on,' Feeler cried, lunging toward Fish.
The other gravedigger stretched out his arms, ready to snatch them to safety.
With a leap, Gustin cleared the steps leading up to the solid rock floor. He hauled on Sophraea's arm and Fish caught her other hand. She felt her toes touch mud, sticky and thick, holding her back. Fish and Gustin yanked. Pain shot through her shoulder joints. And then between them, the two swung her to safety.
Sophraea sank to her knees with a gasp.
Behind them, the tunnel began to glow with aquamarine phosphorescence. Stunk's startled men could be clearly seen. Already the floor beneath their feet was shining wet and the tang of rotting seaweed filled the tunnel.
The mud stirred and then parted, and something huge and white and scaled swam momentarily both across the floor and in the floor. Then the salty scent of the open sea filled the air.
Stunk's men tried to turn and run, but the mud caught them. The air shimmered around them. With an awfulgioop, fighter after fighter was sucked down into the open portal.
The surface rippled with their passing and then was smooth and still, gleaming wetly under the luminescent glow ofthe tunnel walls.
Only the werewolf escaped being pulled under. Faster than the armored men, the beast raced through the tunnel and launched himself into the air at Sophraea.
From where she kneeled on the solid stone step, still gasping for breath, Sophraea saw a mouthful of huge teeth bearing down on her. The gigantic paws reached for her. Behind her, she heard Gustin and the others shout. Light flashed on the outstretched claws.
Her heart pounded. Her breath stuck in her throat. She sat back on her heels and tried to stand but her legs felt too numb. She'd never make it, never get to her feet in time to run. Her damp fingers dug into the wicker handle of her basket. For an endless moment, she stared, horrified. And then she reacted.
With her own yell bouncing off the walls, Sophraea swung the basket loaded with bricks. It smacked into the terrible beast's nose.
The werewolf tumbled back onto the quicksand floor of the tunnel.
Another gioop and he was gone.
Absolutely breathless, Sophraea turned to face her friends. They stared back with an expression akin to awe or maybe it was surprise.
'The women of Waterdeep are amazing,' Gustin finally said with great conviction.
'Let's go back under the Markarl tomb,' she panted.
'What?' asked Gustin as he caught her hand, holding it in a hard clasp as if he was afraid she'd fall back into the portal shining brilliantly blue behind her. 'I thought you wanted to get home. I think we should go back to Dead End House. You'll be safer there.'
Rosemary Jones
City of the Dead
'We've got to end this,' Sophraea argued, but she made no move to pull her hand free. There was something reassuring about Gustin's warm fingers curled around hers. 'We must put the shoe back where it belongs. Once we get the dead settled, maybe Stunk will listen to reason. Or we can get Lord Adarbrent to help. But we can't keep running and fighting.'
She didn't add that carrying a basketful of bricks was slowing her down and wearing her out. Those bricks had saved her too often to complain about them.
With a reluctant nod, Gustin helped her to her feet and they started running again in the direction that she indicated. Feeler and Fish trailed after them.
'I think it would be safer to go back to the house,' Gustin said. 'We could fetch some of your brothets or cousins.'
They could, and then she could watch Stunk's guards or the noble dead attack her family. Look at what had happened already! The less family members involved, the better, she decided.
'No,' said Sophraea out loud. 'I started this curse by carrying off the shoe and I'm going to end it.'
At Rampage Stunk's mansion, the angry fat man questioned a battered and bruised doorjack. The man nursed a bloody and broken nose, but managed to tell Stunk about how he'd been tricked into following the girl and the wizard underneath the City of the Dead.
'It was a trap,' he mumbled through his hands clamped over his hairy face. 'We got down in a tunnel and then it filled with mud and sucked me in. I thought I'd drown, couldn't breathe, couldn't see. Though I was almost dead, I managed to fight my way back up to the surface and I wasn't in the tunnel anymore. I was in the harbor staring back at Waterdeep.' 'So you lost them!' said Stunk.
'But I recognized her,' growled Furkin in his mostly human form. 'I thought she didn't smell like any moon elf. She's the stonecutter's daughter. The one we saw outside Lord Adarbrents mansion.'
'Sophraea Carver,' sputtered Stunk, who had an excellent memory for names. 'Gather the guards. We're going to Dead End House. I have had enough of the Carvers and their alliance with that old man!'
TWENTY
