'I need to see the deeds,' said Astute finally. 'We cannot start such work without the proper papers.'
'You shall have them,' said Stunk. 'And I will have my monument exactly where I have said.'
The fat man turned and walked with his rolling gait out of the yard, not bothering with even the slightest gesture toward a courteous farewell.
'What do you make of that?' Leaplow asked his sister. The pair wandered away from the muttering conversations of their older brothers, uncles, and father, toward the little gate in the wall that opened into the City of the Dead.
Sophraea peered through the — gate at the tangle of bushes and trees overshadowing the path leading to the northern tombs. Was it the breeze that trembled the branches or was it something else?
'I think it is trouble,' she finally said. 'How are they going to react if we start tearing things down?'
'We're Carvers,' said Leaplow with his usual brash confidence. 'They don't bother us.' Then, obviously remembering his trouble last spring, he added, 'Well, not usually. And never Father or the uncles.'
'Because we maintain the tombs, not destroy them.' As soon as she voiced that thought, Sophraea knew exactly the same idea would have occurred to every member of the family. No wonder her uncles were still in a huddle, tugging at their beards and rumbling their doubts at each other.
Still, the City of the Dead did look quiet. At least the bit that she could see from where she stood. She put her hand on the latch, the old prohibition against wandering through the graveyard alone, even at twilight, certainly no longer applied to her. Even her mother Reye had accepted that the shortcut through the City of the Dead was the fastest route for her daughter to use to certain shops in northern Waterdeep. Sophraea had walked the graveyard paths all summer long with no incident at all.
'That's odd.' Leaplow startled his sister by bending around her to peer at the gate, almost bumping his forehead on the twisted iron bars. 'Must be rust.'
'What?'
'That.' Leaplow tapped red marks that showed clearly on curlicues of iron.
Sophraea looked closely at the strange streaks marring the usually dull dark gray metal. Ten slender streaks curled around the bars, five on the left side, five on the right.
Slowly Sophraea put out her own slender hands and twisted her fingers around the bars. When she pulled them away, the marks of her hands remained for a brief moment before fading away. The marks were exactly the same as the red streaks, except reversed.
'Handprints,' Sophraea barely breathed, looking at the marks so plainly visible and so clearly the color of dried blood, the marks of hands that had reached through the gate from the graveyard side.
Leaplow shook his head in a fierce gesture of denial. 'Can't be. They leave us alone. They have always left us alone. The dead don't bother Carvers.'
'Whatever it was,' said Sophraea, tracing the pattern on the gate with one slender finger and ignoring Leaplow's protests, 'it came from the City of the Dead.'
The rattle of branches scraping together startled both brother and sister. The pair leaped back from the gate. A splatter of rain followed the gust of wind.
As usual, a shift in the wind distracted her volatile brother. He shook the rain off his head and his worries out of his brain.
'I'm for supper,' said the always hungry Leaplow, heading back to Dead End House with a quick stride.
But Sophraea lingered behind. She put her hand on the gate's latch again, remembering the odd light of the night before. Perhaps she could see something more on the other side. But the shadows shifted in the graveyard and another cold blast of wind hit her face like a warning.
With careful backward steps, Sophraea retreated. Behind her, the bushes swayed, as if someone invisible brushed by them, returning to the center of the City of the Dead.
THREE
Everyone told tales of the great duels and the unfortunate spells that had once filled the City of the Dead and spilled into the streets of Waterdeep. And everyone, most especially her ancient relative Volponia, said to Sophraea that those days were gone. The Blackstaff had tamed the wizards, the City Watch kept the thieves from stealing too much, the guards prevented riffraff adventurers from creating unusual trouble for ordinary citizens, and even the young lords and ladies were said to be a much more staid and responsible nobility than generations past. Although the broadsheets were always full of some tale of wicked mischief among the aristocracy and very entertaining to read too!
'Scandals,' Volponia had sniffed one morning, crumpling up an old copy of The Blue Unicorn that Sophraea had brought her, 'not worth the ink on the paper. Some dressmaker going bankrupt. Some young lords teasing the Watch into chasing them. Huh! In my day, the misdeeds of Waterdeep's famous and infamous rocked the heavens, toppled rulers, and changed the very boundaries of kingdoms.'
'Being so much older than the rest of us, dear Aunt Volponia,' said Sophraea's grandmother Myemaw with the usual touch of acid in the honey of her voice, 'you would remember such things.'
'I remember you sashaying through that courtyard below with a berry pie in one hand and a loveknot of ribbons in the other hand, girl,' shot back Volponia, with a snap of her elegantly manicured fingers at Sophraea's grandmother. 'Back before you married my handsome nephew, back when you were the scandal of the neighborhood.'
Sophraea's granny began to giggle. 'Oh, and you in your tall boots, Volponia, stamping here and there and shouting like you were still commanding from your quarterdeck. Oh, we were all the scandals then!'
The two old ladies fell to chuckling over the gossip sheets until Volponia yawned and said, 'I miss those days. When the mangiest dogs had a real bite behind their bark. Why even the ghosts of Waterdeep were grander creatures than the colored mists that float through the streets now!'
Inspired by this memory, Sophraea hurried upstairs to talk to Volponia about the strange light that she'd seen the night before and the bloody handprints on the family gate. The rest of the Carvers were still in-a buzz of argument over Stunk's visit and his proposal to tear down tombs within the City of the Dead, but the old lady would listen to her.
When a firm voice told her to ''hurry up and enter,' Sophraea slipped around the door into the great room that filled three-quarters of the top floor of the tower.
With three sets of windows facing north, west, and south, even the usual pearly light of a cloudy Waterdeep twilight was sufficient to reveal every knickknack teetering on the dozens of small tables and shelves cluttering up Volponia's boudoir.
Volponia's bed was covered with embroidered silk quilts and had a canopy of tapestry curtains protecting the occupant from stray drafts. The bed also stood closest to the south window. The previous evening, when Sophraea had paid her last good nights to Volponia, the bed had been shaped like a wooden sled, covered with red woolen blankets and azure furs, and been positioned closest to the north window.
How or why Volponia changed her bed quite so literally, nobody knew. The old lady still owned a number of trinkets purloined from faraway places during her days as a pirate captain. Some, like the crystal bell that was always close to hand, kept her well-supplied with the comforts that she craved and made her a very light charge upon the family's resources.
The only demand that Volponia ever made was that the other turret bedroom, the one that shared the same floor with hers, 'not be occupied by one of those great galumphing male Carvers. I love my nephews, my grandnephews, and my great-grandnephews, but they all take after my brother. He snored loud enough to wake every soul in Waterdeep and I have enough trouble sleeping without listening to such thunder every night.'
So, as the only girl born in two generations and a silent sleeper, Sophraea occupied the other bedroom and received regular doses of Volponia's advice growing up. Also a fair amount of criticism as in 'well, why are you standing dithering in the doorway. Step in or step out, but don't make a draft!'
Whisking her skirts around the tippy tables and wobbly china and crystal mementos with the ease of long practice, Sophraea hurried to the bedside and kissed Volponia's parchment dry cheek.
'I came to ask about a glowing light in the graveyard, not to be scolded,' she said with mock severity as she
