Murder in Cormyr - Chet Williamson [42]
"No apologies necessary, Captain," my master said. "I understand." He looked at Lindavar and me. "Be my eyes, gentlemen. Mark everything well and let me know in detail what you observe. Farewell, and it was very good to meet you, Mr. Darvik." This with a bow to the gnome.
"The pleasure wor all mine, sor," the gnome said, bowing solemnly. Then he caught himself as Flim had. "Well, not a pleasure, perhaps, circumthingies bein' as they are…"
Benelaius smiled as we filed out of the cottage, and I heard him say to Tobald, "Very well, Lord Mayor, please disrobe and I shall examine you."
"Disrobe? But, Benelaius, it's just my great toe…"
"What affects the toe may have its source in other parts of the body. The great physician-priest Odum once stated that…"
Then the door closed, and we were on our way to the Vast Swamp.
20
Darvik rode behind Flim, I took Jenkus, and Lindavar rode Tobald's mount, a mild and amiable mare. We headed west, passing the Swamp Rat, which, at that hour of the day, appeared to be deserted. A half mile farther, and we were at the spot where I had seen Dovo as the ghost, and where his body had been found.
To my surprise, we turned off the road and trotted down the embankment, riding the same path we had made earlier through the marsh grass and muck. I saw two horses hitched to a dead tree that stood at the swamp's edge.
"This is as far as we can ride," said Captain Flim, dismounting and tying his horse to the tree. We did the same.
"Back in there?" I asked, pointing to what looked like impassable swamp.
"Aye, sor," said Darvik. "Ye'd be surprised, ye would, but ye can step through this swamp even if ye weigh a near ton. Just so's you know where to step."
The little gnome sounded confident, but it was with some trepidation that I followed. Darvik led the way, then Lindavar, me, and Captain Flim bringing up the rear, his hand on his sword hilt. Even though it was daylight, the Vast Swamp was still the Vast Swamp.
We had left our cloaks with the horses, for as soon as you entered the swamp itself, the temperature rose at least ten degrees, the result of all the rotting, all that vegetable death. I could feel the sweat break out on my skin, and hoped that the fluid flowing out of my pores would prevent any of the stench of the swamp from flowing into them.
As nasty as the Vast Swamp is, the worst thing about it is the smell. The reek of decaying vegetation-and other rotting things you'd rather not think about-hangs in the air as heavy mist, and goes up your nostrils and into your sinuses like snakes dipped in acid. It permeates your clothes and your hair as well, even your skin. After a trek through the Vast Swamp, you want to live in the bathtub for a week.
The feel of the swamp beneath your feet isn't too pleasant either. Even the rocks are covered by a shallow layer of marshy soil that your boots press down. When you move on, the footsteps fill up again in seconds. The place was filled with nature's dangers, patches of quicksand and sucking pits that could make a person vanish forever.
All the trees looked dead, even the living ones. Their bark and leaves were black. I wondered if their buds in spring were green, or if even those were black, tinted by the foul sediment pulled up through the roots. Moss festooned their branches, but there was no sense of gaiety in the hangings. They seemed rather to be strips of green, pocked flesh, dangling from decaying corpses. Marsh-reeds picketed the surface, and cattails thrust up like fingers of the drowned. And everywhere the mist drifted, clung, hung, surrounded and claimed us.
"Watch this tree up ahead here, sors," said Darvik softly. "A thornslinger it is. Just move slowly by it, and speak not…" I didn't know what a thornslinger was, but its name gave me an idea, and the foot-long thorns that extended from its white, spidery branches gave me a further clue. Needless to say, I did as Darvik suggested.
Suddenly, we came into a large open space, and I looked across what might have been a half mile of sodden marsh, but