"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
II nderneath the City of the Dead, Sophraea's odd sense of place II and direction surfaced again. With unerring steps, she led them to the exact spot where she had first found the brocade shoe.
Replacing the shoe in the center of the passage, she backed away from it.
Gustin frowned as he studied the battered focus of the ritual that had stirred up the noble dead ofWaterdeep. "Well," said Sophraea, "now what?"
"That's just it," the wizard replied. "I don't feel anything here. It's not like it was when we were above ground. I could feel magic there."
"And here?" the exhausted girl asked him. The events of the day had finally worn her down. She wanted to collapse in a corner, perhaps sleep for a few days, or maybe just go back to Dead End House and let her mother and Myemaw fuss over her. Outrunning Stunk's men, battling the werewolf, and even trekking so far through the cold and dark tunnels made her sympathize with Gustin's oft-spoken desire to sit in the kitchen next to Myemaw's soup pot.
Nearby, Feeler and Fish waited patiently to escort them back home.
But first Gustin had to reverse the ritual and send the dead back to their graves.
Sophraea asked again, "What now?"
Gustin shrugged. His face reflected the same frustration that she felt. "There's nothing here," he said.
"But we found the shoe here," Sophraea protested.
"We did," he agreed, "but this is not where the curse began. I wish I could explain it better. It's just what I feel-like the way that you know where we are right now."
"We have to do something," Sophraea said.
Gustin nodded, "I'll try a reversal. But, without a specific starting point, I don't know if this will work."
His eyes gleamed under his long lashes as he pulled out his guidebook and his wand. His motions were quick and efficient, none of the large gestures he normally made. A flickering red light gradually outlined his lanky frame. Even Sophraea could feel the crackle of magic in the air as Gustin opened his book and raised his wand above his head.
An agitated Feeler backed farther away from the wizard, his long tentacles sticking straight out from his head as if electrified by the energy of the wizard. Fish gawped at them, his split tongue flickering over his double row of shark teeth. Each lick of his tongue sent a shower of sparks dancing out of his open mouth.
The red light brightened around the wizard. For a brief moment, it appeared as if Gustin Bone was on fire. Then, just as quickly, the light winked out, extinguishing not only the spell but also other sources of illumination. The usual pale glow of the tunnel walls disappeared and even the gravediggers' sturdy lantern flared and then went out, leaving them all blinking in total blackness.
Out of the darkness came Gustin's voice. "That's the first time that ever happened!" he exclaimed.
Sophraea put out both her hands and stumbled toward Gustin, going in the direction of his voice. Each step was terrifying as she wajked blindly forward. She lost all sense of where she was, how far away the walls of the tunnel were, or even whether the floor was slanting up or down. Dizzy in the darkness, Sophraea groped with slow steps toward where she hoped to find the wizard.
"Gustin!" she called.
"Here!" he answered but she couldn't tell if he was directly in front of her or just a little to her right. "My tinder won't wotIc," called Feeler. "Gustin, what did you do?" Sophraea said with feeling. "Extinguishment," the reply came.
She was certain now that he was standing a little to her right and adjusted her creeping course accordingly.
"I didn't think that ritual would be quite so complete," complained the wizard. "I've put out everything it seems."
"For how far?" asked Sophraea. "Maybe we could back down the tunnel until we reach an area with light."
"I don't know how far," admitted Gustin. "Maybe it is just this section. Or maybe it has spread. It felt like it was spreading at the end."
"Spteading!" She had visions of Waterdeep plunged into deep twilight and more terrible night as every source of light went out. A ritual like that would throw the city into chaos. And what would the Blackstaff do to the wizard who had cast it? Gustin would be lucky if they let him out of the dungeons in time to celebrate his first century.
"You've got to stop it," she urged him.
"I'm trying," came the slightly testy sounding voice of the wizard, now definitely closer to her right hand. Sophraea snatched at the sound of his voice and grabbed a handful of cloth. She heard a muffled, "Hmph, let go of my shirt, you're pulling it against my throat, I'm choking!"'
Ignoring Gustin's complaints, she threw both arms around the wizard, anchoring herself in the disorientating darkness with a hard hug to his ribs. The wicker basket swinging from her arm banged against his back.
Gustin coughed and sputtered, "I appreciate the sentiment." A few quick pats landed on her head. "But I have to free my arms. I need to use them."
"Just don't move away from me," Sophraea commanded. "If this doesn't work, we need to find Feeler and Fish and lead them out of here."
"We're close to you," Feeler called, a slithering noise undercutting his words. It sounded as if the tunnel was being crisscrossed by snakes sliding over each other. Sophraea sincerely hoped it was just Feeler's odd tentacles waving on top of his head.