Murder in Cormyr - Chet Williamson [2]
'To walk up to his door and bid him good day?" I said. "Why would I want to do that? There's no profit in it. But to enter his house by stealth"-I nodded sagely-"there's a real thrill."
I was proud of my halfling blood, you see, and, although I had done no more mischief than most young men my age, I allowed my friends to think that I was the scourge of Cormyr, burgling manor and merchant alike with my halfling skills. Why they should have believed this, since I was as impoverished as any other slop boy, I'll never know. Perhaps they only humored me. But this time Cedric was going to put me to the test.
"All right then," he slurred, the smell of cheap beer on his breath. "Let's go out to this old bloke's house, and you can prove what a great burglar you are once and for all."
And take me for a turnip if I didn't agree to do it. I had fantasized about the romance of thievery for so long that it seemed to me a chance to realize my destiny.
We waited until night, then rode out, two to a mount, to the edge of the Vast Swamp where this wizard had had his cottage built. To me, the location was another sign of addlepatedness, since the dangers of the Vast Swamp were all too real. I was more concerned about what might be lurking in the darkness around the cottage than in the dwelling itself.
But we made the ride unscathed, and left the horses a good quarter mile from the cottage. I was to go the rest of the way on foot, break in, take something to prove it, and return to my friends, who, if they had been real friends, wouldn't have let me do such an idiotic thing in the first place.
3
A sickly, gibbous moon pushed its weak rays through the thick mist that lay over the ground like a mildewed blanket I could barely see my feet in front of me as I crept toward the spot where I thought the cottage would be.
Despite the drought, the ground near the swamp squelched underfoot, so that my worn shoes made a soft sucking noise with each step, a sound impossible to prevent. Although the time of summer's fading had come, the heat near the swamp was oppressive, and I imagined the Vast Swamp as a huge graveyard filled with dead things, the heat caused by their slow, miasmic rotting.
With such pleasant thoughts in my head, I was almost glad to see the outlines of the dwelling I was supposed to break into. In truth, it looked more like a large farmhouse than a cottage, but I thought that might have been a trick of the night and my imagination. No light shone through the windows of the two-story structure, and I went around to the rear of the house, which unfortunately looked out upon the swamp.
I paused for several minutes, looking into the darkness in the direction of the Vast Swamp. Seeing nothing and hearing only the sounds of night insects, I turned my attention back to the cottage. A back door that I assumed led to the kitchen was locked. But a window had been left slightly open. The opening was not large enough for a full-grown man to get through, but it proved no obstacle to a spindly young man with halfling blood.
In a trice I was in a small room in which I could vaguely make out several baskets of apples and shelves with jars of food. Again I listened for sounds of alarm, but heard nothing. I thought of taking a jar and scuttling back out the window but was sure that Cedric would mock me, suggesting that I had merely rifled an outbuilding. Besides, my presence in a place where I most definitely should not be emboldened me, and my heart pounded in an ecstasy of fearful and excited joy. I had to explore farther. I was a rogue, a thief, a night stalker.,.
An idiot.
A small kitchen, as I had guessed, lay beyond the open doorway, and I felt