"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 left the stone gnome with almost an expression of amusement.
Gustin's bright eyes widened as he sidestepped the alarm. Sophraea realized that his earlier illusion of disguise was fraying. His eyes were clearly green and he seemed thinner. She wondered if she continued to look like a moon elf or if she had reverted to Sophraea Carver. Glancing down at her basket, still weighted with the bits of broken brick, she saw that it seemed to waver between velvet ribbons and wicker handle on her arm. The sight made her almost as dizzy as her double vision earlier.
"Where are we?" Gustin stuck close to Sophraea, matching her almost step for step as they followed the curving briar hedge. His quick walking pace was the same as her running stride.
"The Thief s Knot," she answered. "We used to come here as children on hot days. It's always shady here. Leaplow and the twins loved jumping out at the rest of us and trying to make me scream."
Another twist of the path took them by the perpetual flame, burning to light the way of any thief lost in the eternal night.
Then they passed under the arch carved with copies of evety piece of jewelry that the Master Thief had ever stolen. The decorative gems had long ago been looted by his mourners, but the stonework still marked the entrance to the center of the maze. The center was perfectly round and felt hushed. Even the wind couldn't penetrate the tall hedges. Once Sophraea had rather liked the silence and even come here to escape the noises of the household and workshops.
"Now!" someone shouted and broke the peace.
She and Gustin froze, staring wildly at each other. Someone else was in the maze, quite close, and whoever it was sounded angry.
"Try it now! Come on, you coward, get up, there's no one here to help you!"
Gustin started to push her behind him.
Sophraea sighed. "Don't bother," she said, "I know rhat voice!"
Then she shouted, "Leaplow!"
Marching between the hedgerows of the maze, she turned a corner and stopped.
Her youngest brother stood with his feet apart, straddling a lump of twisted coat and cap. A thin trickle of blood ran from his nostril and the flesh atound one eye was turning purple. When he saw her, he lowered his clenched fists, grinned and said, "And who would you be, little elf girl?"
His victim rose on one elbow, looked up through streams of blood that covered his face. He looked terrible but at least he was alive.
"Are you going to kill that man?" she demanded.
Leaplow shook his head. "Of course not. We are settling a wager. As soon as he pays me, I will help him back to the Coffinmarch gate."
The soft hair, the wide shoulders, the familiar grin, oh dear, no wonder Briarsting thought he saw Sophraea's father, still a young man, in the City of the Dead the night before.
"Have you been patrolling the graveyard?" she demanded.
"Moon elf, do I know you?" Leaplow said.
"Why were you roaming the City of the Dead at night?" she insisted.
Leaplow scratched his head. She could see the bruises on his knuckles. "Last night, after the dead passed through our gate, I heard a noise. So I went into the graveyard. I thought I could catch whoever was stirring things up. And then there was this girl, I know she's dead, but she's a fine dancer and I thought if I saw her again…"
"Into the City of the Dead at night!" Sophraea exclaimed and flung up her hands, interrupting Leaplow. Didn't her stupid brother know how dangerous that was! Well, of course, she'd gone following the dead into the graveyard at dawn. But that was different and Leaplow didn't need to know about that anyway.
"This afternoon, I caught this one with his companions, trying to climb over the graveyard wall into our courtyard," Leaplow went on. "And I chased him all the way to Stunk's house and then I chased him all the way back here. Well, a few of my brothers and my cousins were with me, and a few more of Stunk's men were with him."
The fighting in the streets in the North Ward, thought Sophraea.
"I should have known it was you!" she said out loud.
Not hearing her, Leaplow continued, "So we had a small scuffle, not much of a fight at all, the others ran away and my cousins ran after them. This one ducked into the City of the Dead to hide and I caught him and dragged him here, because the Watch never patrols in here. And he started blustering and making threats, so I told him that if he could win in a fair fight against me, I'd show him how to get out of this maze for free. And if he lost, he could pay me properly to lead him home. Besides, he works for Stunk. Anyone who works for Stunk is in need of a beating."