Gustin and Sophraea retreated with haste through the black door leading to the great hallway.
Once outside the heavy door and out of earshot of Stunk and his guards, Sophraea turned to Gustin. "You were wonderful," she said. "I couldn't have stayid so calm. Not with him staring like that!"
"Calm," moaned Gustin as he sank into an uncomfortable but obviously antique stone chair. "I am terrified. All I wanted to do in Waterdeep was see the sights, enjoy a small adventure or two, and make a little coin, not gain an enemy like that evil fat man!"
SIXTEEN
Once out of sight of Stunk, Sophraea felt her natural courage return, but she had no desire to linger in the merchant's mansion. "Since we only have today," she said to Gustin, "the practical solution is to go in opposite directions. I'll look downstairs and you go upstairs. That way we can search the place twice as quickly. And then leave."
Although the greatglories still burned brightly overhead, the light dimmed in the great hallway as black storm clouds darkened the sky outside.
"We should really go before the storm gets worse " she added. "We do not want to be on the streets in the dark."
Gustin raised his head from his hands. "What is it? What are you feeling?"
Puzzled, Sophraea stared at him.
"I caught it again. Just now. Same as the tunnels," he said. "And in the City of the Dead." "What?"
"Your eyes. Just the quickest flash of blue. What are you feeling, Sophraea?"
"The dead," she admitted. "The City of the Dead. But I don't know why. It's never happened outside the cemetery walls before. But it's like I can see a straight path running from here directly back to our gate and into the City of the Dead."
"The curse laid on Stunk," said Gustin. "We are right, you know, it made a path for the dead to follow here. Made a path that they have to follow. The shoe has to be here."
"Then we had better find it," said Sophraea, settling her basket more firmly over her arm. "You go up"-she pointed at the great staircase leading out ofthe hall-"and I'll go down."
Halfway up the main staircase, Gustin turned around and called over the banister, "Why do I feel like this was a bad idea?"
"Piffle," said Sophraea, trying to convince herself that the shivers running through her body were caused by her wet cloak, "it's still broad daylight and this is the well-guarded house of a wealthy man. What could hurt us here?"
The rumble of thunder shook the house. A crack of lighting illuminated the windows for a brief moment causing the statues and the suits of armor to cast strange and twisted shadows across the floor tiles.
"You don't think that was a sign from the gods?" asked Gustin.
"Go on, hurry up," said Sophraea, "I'll meet you back here."
She set off toward the back ofthe hall, certain that she would find the traditional "servants' stair" there. One guard, standing stiffly at attention, marked the top of the stairs.
A guard on the servants' staircase, thought Sophraea. That shows an unusual amount of distrust on Stunk's part. She was glad that she didn't work for the fat man.
Downstairs, Sophraea found the cook, a friendly soul who obviously ruled the kitchen, and the various female servants clustered around the warm fire were the usual bevy ofWaterdeep gossips. All were perfectly willing to chat with a nice young elf who offered to help them to peel the vegetables for the evening meal.
"Although, dearie, I have to say," the cook remarked, "I didn't think your kind was quite so domestic. Why you ply that little knife so quick and clever that I'd have taken you for one of Waterdeep's own."
Sophraea shrugged and turned the conversation to odd spaces under the house, the sort of place that she thought the shoe might be hidden.
"Well, there're some rooms below," answered the friendly cook. "Although why you'd want to go poking around in that muck, I don't understand."
"The wizard." Sophraea paused. She couldn't remember the name that Gustin had given the door guards. "My master, the wizard," she recovered and stumbled through an explanation, "is creating a great protection spell." She rummaged in the basket hooked as always over her arm. "I need to take certain charms to the lowest levels of the house."
All she really had was a basket full of bricks. But she waved it around, trusting that Gustin's illusion held and the servants would just see a moon elf gesturing with a velvet bag that could hold magical charms.
None of the women surrounding the table looked. at all interested. The laundress folding clean napkins just nodded and said, "That's nice but the ghosts haven't bothered us. They rattle the upper windows something fierce, and some of the servants upstairs have had a hard time, but they don't seem to care about those of us working down here."
Well, they wouldn't, thought Sophraea, but did not voice it out loud. After all, the dead haunting Stunk were all the most noble revenants of Waterdeep's past. In life, they had probably paid no attention at all to kitchen maids, laundresses, and cooks. It was unlikely that they should change their attitudes in the afterlife, she thought.
"Door to the lower rooms is over there," said the cook, gesturing to a little door set by the corner of the chimney. "Watch yourself on the stairs. They are steep. Take a candle with you, for those rooms are dark as well as mighty dank."
Picking up a tallow candle in a tin holder as the cook indicated,
Sophraea lit the wick from a taper. She then proceeded down the dismal stairs leading to Stunk's lowest basement.
The stairs were steep, each step twice the height of a normal stair. Hooking her basket on the crook of her elbow, she held up the candleholder with that hand and pressed her other hand against the stone wall. There was nothing like a railing. One step at a time, she inched her way down. She felt as if the least misstep could leave her a broken heap on the floor below.
Once she reached the bottom, Sophraea discovered that a rich man's basement could be just as full of cluttered jumble as anyone else's. At the very base of the stairs, someone had stacked a few crates and some broken bits of chairs. Cobwebs lightly festooned the pile.
But farther into the cavernous room carved under the warm kitchen, empty barrels and discarded pallets leaned together like drunken ores. Something squeaked when Sophraea's pale candlelight fell upon it. A skinny tail whipped around "a cracked wooden tub and disappeared under a pile of boards.
Sophraea frowned. Stunk could easily afford rat catchers. Undaunted, she pressed forward, resolutely ignoring the scrabbling sound of small claws burrowing away from her. Her steps sounded hollow as she crossed the wooden floor and, with some dismay, she realized that there must be another chamber under this one. Some Waterdeep mansions might have as many as three or four underground floors, dug down into the city's own deep layers.
Where the brocade shoe might be found, she had no idea. However, the night that the phantom lady had danced across the floor of Dead End House, she remembered a pale trail of glowing footprints had been left behind. Perhaps a similar sign of ghostly invasion could be found here.
Raising the candle high above her head, Sophraea peered into the far dark corners of the room. Off to one side, she thought she saw something glint, the faintest twinkle of gold.
Sophraea rushed across the room. A large stack of lumber was heaped against the wall. Between the cobwebbed sticks and broken slats from old crates, she could make out the glimmer of something gold. Setting down her basket and candle, she began pulling the wood aside.
Behind her, a heavy tread sounded on the stair leading up to the kitchen. "Well met!" cried a man. "What are you doing there?"
She froze. Had he come by the women in the kitchen? Had they told on her? No, he must have seen her go into the kitchen. When he followed and found her gone, he'd guessed she was in the basement. But why follow her at all?