Free City of the Dead by Rosemary Jones Page A

the others like Coinscoffin or the Hall of Heroes. A lot of the richer, older families have small markers, a statue or a plaque, for their private portals to their own gravesites.”
    “I’m sorry,” said Gustin, “but did you say portals?”
    “Certainly.”
    “Real portals, little pools of magic that move you from one place to another?”
    “Of course, how else would they manage it?”
    “It really is a city of wonders,” whistled Gustin. “The guidebook didn’t lie.”
    “Don’t they have portals to move bodies wherever you come from?” Like most who were born in Waterdeep, Sophraea had never thought much about how others lived outside the city. Although, if she did think about it, she would be forced to express a certain conviction that they didn’t live half as well organized as those fortunate enough to dwell in Waterdeep.
    “I’ve heard talk, everybody has heard stories about portals, of course, but people don’t just use them for… well… for everyday business.”
    Sophraea pondered this for less than a moment. “But what would you use them for?”
    “Descending into demon realms, visiting the gods in their
    palaces, that sort of thing. Not carting coffins to their final resting place.”
    “Why would you want to go to a demon realm?” She couldn’t see the sense in that. Demons were supposed to be unfriendly creatures with unpleasant habits.
    “I didn’t say that I did.”
    “Well, the City of the Dead’s portals go to very specific places,” said Sophraea resolutely. “It’s all down in the family’s ledger. I can show you if you want.”
    They rounded another monument, one carved with a frieze of flowers with tightly furled petals. Sophraea paused to trace the stone petals with one hand. “That’s one of Fidelity’s carvings,” she said to Gustin. “He was my great-grandfather. A flower still in bud meant a youth had died, one fully in bloom indicated a mature person.”
    “And for the really elderly, did he do a bare twig?”
    Sophraea giggled and shook her head. “No, a sprig of evergreen, usually, or one of the herbs that grant long life.”
    “And do all the carvings have a message?”
    “Most do. But the meanings change with the generations. That’s why we keep the ledger, so we remember why a family asked for a particular decoration and who carved it. And you should avoid tombs like that.” She pointed out a grave marker that was set flush into the ground. Above it, a cage of iron was mounted, with the bars sinking into the earth.
    “Why?”
    “It’s a dead safe,” explained Sophraea. “Judicious came up with the design. It keeps the restless ones from leaving their graves and roaming through the City.”
    “Do corpses walk much around here?” Gustin glanced over his shoulder. They were the only ones on the path, surrounded completely by monuments.
    “Not as much as they used to. But a particularly unquiet grave
    sometimes needs something extra like that. Most of the dead safes aren’t within these walls, but out at the other graveyards.”
    As they walked on, the pathways became more overgrown. While not derelict, the tombs were obviously smaller and less visibly kept up than the more important public monuments in the southern part of the City of the Dead.
    When Sophraea made a turn to the left, she told Gustin, “This should cut through to the place where I first saw the light.”
    When Gustin questioned Sophraea about her sense of direction, she realized that he didn’t know about the family talent.
    “All the Carvers can just do that,” she finally said, “those of us born into the family always know where we are in the City of the Dead. Some of the aunts and sister-in-laws seem to have the talent rub off on them too. Perhaps it comes from working here all the time.”
    “But you don’t work in the family business. You’re a dressmaker or will be soon.”
    “Odd, isn’t it? Maybe it is because I was born a Carver. Anyway, we just can’t get