Murder in Cormyr - Chet Williamson [3]
I didn't have to worry about light here. The coals from a dying fire on the hearth lit the large room with a dim red glow, and although the absence of insect songs indicated no windows were open, the temperature was comfortable, as if the muggy warmth were commanded to remain outside.
In the weak light, I could make out several pieces of what looked like large, overstuffed furniture. On them, and on the floor near the fire, were dozens of what looked like round or oval cushions. On many of these I saw what I took to be metal or glass buttons reflecting the red coals' light. Here, I thought, was an old man who liked his comforts- wall to wall cushions so that he could plop his tired body down whenever the desire took him.
One of these cushions, I realized, would be the perfect thing to take. There were so many that one would probably never be missed, and therefore there would be no pursuit. Yet a cushion was a personal and homely enough thing to offer as proof to my friends that I had indeed breached the wizard's sanctum. I selected a particularly fluffy-looking one on the outskirts of the fire's glow, where its absence would not be noted, and reached down and grabbed it, sinking my fingers into its puffy depths.
The scream that ensued was even louder than my own. The pillow twisted and writhed in my hand, and grew teeth and claws that savaged the soft flesh of my palm and fingers and wrist.
I shook my hand desperately, and the creature dropped to the carpet, where it made one final, blood-drawing slash at my ankle and retreated, its eyes still on me, its back arched, and the fur along its spine standing straight up. Its hiss was swallowed up by the deep, throaty growls that filled the room as thickly as what I had mistaken for cushions.
Every one was a cat, a cat that had been curled and resting, but with one or two glasslike eyes open, watching the interloper foolish enough to enter their master's home. Dozens upon dozens of cushiony cats, that now uncurled their bodies as one, their eyes and fangs glaring, hundreds of razor-sharp claws unsheathed to slice to ribbons the stranger in their midst.
I could not move, and, aside from my first shriek of horror when the cat had come to life in my hands, could not utter a sound. If the door at the far wall hadn't opened, I think those cats and I might still be there, growing old together.
But the door did open, and a blinding glare of light fell through it onto the cats and me. In the center of that light, his round body casting a great shadow on the floor and at least a dozen spitting cats, was the wizard, in the company of still more cats, one perched upon his shoulder, and one in his arms, too happy with the stroking it was receiving to take notice of me.
The wizard took notice, however. In a voice as rich and plummy as a pudding, he chuckled, then said, "Well, I see we have a visitor, my friends… a welcoming committee, mayhap?"
His furry feline friends eased up on the spitting and hissing. I thought I even heard a few purrs due to his presence, though I noticed in the brighter light that the cats' claws remained dangerously unsheathed. The wizard went on.
"As you see, 0 stranger, I bear no weapon. Yet"-he gestured with his petting hand to the cats-"I have nearly a hundred at my beck and call. If you give me your word you shall neither fight nor flee, I shall ease their suspicious minds."
It took me several tries to get out the words. "I… I swear."
"That is quite decent of you," said the wizard, and then he looked at the cats, just looked at them in a not particularly stern or demanding way, but it was as though I were suddenly one of the family. The growling ceased on the instant, and I was nearly knocked off my feet by a multitude of fuzzy backs and legs rubbing up against my ankles, one of which still oozed blood.
"They seem to be good judges of character," the wizard said, still patting the cat in his arms, "despite