Above them hung not one but three greatglories, the extravagant chandeliers burning brightly with candles set amid their crystal drops, despite the murky daylight streaming through Stunk's tall windows at either end of the long hall. The staircase leading out of the hall to the upper rooms was twice the size of the one in Lord Adarbrent's house. Every step was covered with a rich woven carpet.
"I think there're bits of gold in the floor tiles," said Gustin, staring down at puddles formed from his dripping boots. He sounded slightly awed.
"Look at the gleam of that carpet on the stair. More than half the weave is silk," whispered back Sophraea. "And those tapestries. They're ancient."
Like Lord Ardabrent's house, this entrance hallway was cold. But it was not the cold of ancient neglect and decay. Rather it was the chill of ostentatious display, a place meant to impress rather than welcome any guest.
Sophraea shivered in her damp cloak. "How long should we wait?" she whispered to Gustin. "How long will your spell hold?"
"Shh," he said, "they're coming back."
Two guards reappeared in the hallway and indicated that Gustin and Sophraea should proceed through the black door. As they followed, Sophraea heard running boots again. She felt Gustin's hand on her back and didn't turn completely but lowered her head and glanced to the side. Three men in rough clothes and heavy boots rushed out of the back of the hall and out the front entrance.
The guards led Gustin and Sophraea into another massive room, decorated with even more rare artwork. Stationed not so discreetly around the room were more guards.
Rampage Stunk was ensconced in a thronelike chair, near as possible to a roaring fire in a vast cavern of a fireplace. The fat man watched their approach with his head cocked to one side and a narrowing of his cold black eyes. His face was bright red and sweating under hair so black and stiff that Sophraea wondered if the corpulent merchant wore a wig.
A pair of gigantic slavering guard dogs with brass-studded collars asd enormous teeth crouched at Stunk's feet. The dogs growled as Gustin and Sophraea advanced closer to the merchant.
Sophraea was ready to retreat, but Gustin's spine straightened in front of her and he flashed an enormous smile.
"My lord, my lady," he said, bowing both to Stunk and to the thin woman seated in the shadow of a screen that shielded her face from the direct heat ofthe fireplace. "I have come to perform miracles and wonders, the banishing of ill luck, the turning of curses, the expulsion of ghosts, and any other infestation that may mar your fair home."
Gustin Bone's voice flowed up and down, a singsong accent quite unlike his usual cheerful tones and, to Sophraea's ears, quite unrecognizable as the optimistic wizard who frequented the Carver's courtyard. Gustin also refrained from waving his arms around as he usually did. Instead, he kept his hands crossed over the illusionary paunch of his belly.
Rampage Stunk also crossed his arms, but held them higher up, a barricade resting against his broad chest. The glare of his expression did not change throughout Gustin's long recital of his experiences in Cormyr as a banisher of ghosts. Once or twice his eyebrows twitched up in a patent gesture of disbelief but no other expression crossed his broad and frighteningly blank face.
Finally, Gustin's speech fluttered into silence in the face of Stunk's stony regard.
"You sound more like a charlatan than a wizard," pronounced Stunk in his deep and ponderous tones. "I've had some of Waterdeep's finest in this house over the past three days. Why should I take a mountebank damp out of the gutter?"
"If the finest in Waterdeep were unable to solve your problems," proposed Gustin boldly as the nearest guard dog sniffed his boots and licked its fangs, "perhaps the best of Cormyr is the solution. And, truly, you'll find no other wizard like me in Waterdeep." The second dog joined its fellow, making rumbling sounds deep in its throat. Gustin ignored both dogs, never letting his gaze drop from Stunk's face.
A faint smile twitched Stunk's lips. His own eyes dropped momentarily to the dogs creeping on their haunches closer to Gustin.
From her seat in the shadows, Stunk's thin and aristocratic wife spoke up.
"Those others did nothing for us. Hire this man. If he succeeds, pay him. If he fails, send him away," the lady said in her high nasal voice. "I am sick of seeing corpses at my window every evening and having revenants of long dead relatives appearing outside in the courtyard each night."
"But none of the dead have actually entered the house?" Sophraea spoke up, too curious to stay silent any longer.
"Not yet," admitted the lady, "the protections on our home are formidable. My husband paid for the very best. But none of our guests can enter nor can we leave after dark without encountering the dead outside. And certain incidents"-she emphasized the last word heavily while looking at her husband-"have increased. Flowers wither as soon as they are brought inside, fruit decays in the dish, and wine turns bitter in the glass."
"There are ghosts who can play such tricks," Sophraea told the lady.
"I am not pleased by such antics," she replied.
"That's a strong spell if they have such an influence just standing outside," Gustin said.
"We are searching the city for the wizard who brought about this curse," responded Stunk, snapping his fingers to bring the guard dogs back to heel at the foot of his chair. "I will find him and I will break him. And the one who I know is behind him!"
"You have been hunting for days," said Stunk's wife, "and if you do not do something soon about this haunting, I will have to abandon my air of noble calm and succumb to strong hysterics. And then who will host your endless dinners?"
Stunk growled, "Very well." Gustin started to speak but Stunk raised one hand, palm turned toward the wizard. "Don't talk. Don't interrupt. I'll tell you exactly what I expect. You will have only this one afternoon to make your examination of the house and set up what protections that you deem wise. If the dead return tonight, I will consider you a failure and you would be wise to avoid me in the future. If my lady is undisturbed tonight, you may collect your payment from her in the morning since she desires your services."
Stunk's wife simply pursed her lips at the beginning of her husband's rude but succinct summation, but did not speak until her husband was done. She then added: "I am not a merchant. I do not haggle like one. If I have a quiet night, you may present whatever bill you please to my servants. My word on it that you will be paid promptly."
Gustin bowed over his folded hands as the lady rose from her chair. "I am more than satisfied with the bargain."
Stunk's lady wife tucked her skirts tight against her legs, sweeping neatly around her husband to exit via a smaller, red lacquer door set in the far corner of the room. Trailing after her was a previously unnoticed retinue of three maidservants carrying various workbaskets and other household items. The three had been seated as far away as possible from the fireplace and Stunk in his great chair. They all rose in unison from the shadowy corner where they sat when the lady ofthe mansion passed in front of them. The last one out the red lacquer door closed it behind her with a definite. disapproving swish of her skirt and a sharp snap ofthe latch.
Stunk watched his wife and her maids go with the slightest of sneers on his heavy face. Then he turned back to the pair in front of them.
"You have your instructions. Do not waste my time," he said ponderously, dropping one hand down to pinch the back of a guard clog's neck. The beast snarled under Stunk's heavy hand, black lips pulling back to reveal pointed yellow fangs.