Murder in Cormyr - Chet Williamson [7]
But the volume that I most delighted in was the one that my master most scorned. It had been left behind by a visiting mage "in his dotage," Benelaius insisted. "Why else would he have read such drivel?"
I found the drivel fascinating. It was a thin book bound in cheap felt called The Adventures of Camber Fosrick, written by Lodevin Parkar. In it were half a dozen thrilling tales of the great "consulting cogitator," Camber Fosrick, who could solve any mystery, bringing the darkest corners of crime to blazing light through his brilliant deductive reasoning. The stories of robbery, smuggling, and even murder held me spellbound, and I read them over and over again, enchanted as much by the character of Camber Fosrick as by the intricate plots he successfully worked out.
"You'll rot your brain with that tripe," Benelaius said whenever he saw me with the book.
"On the contrary," I argued, "this is quite good stuff, master. Deductive reasoning, logic, using disparate clues to come to a reasoned conclusion-the same sort of thing found in Trelaphin's Thought and Its Processes."
"Theft, rapine, and slaughter!" thundered Benelaius as best as a man practically wider than he is tall could thunder. Needless to say, this was one literary subject on which we did not see eye to eye.
But I did as he said, and continued to read and learn, and after I had been with him the better part of a year, I began to yearn even more for my freedom. With the knowledge I had accrued from his lessons and books, I was sure I could make a grand start for myself in the world, perhaps as a scribe, for my writing and my method of expressing myself had increased a hundredfold under his tutelage. So I couldn't wait for the year to be up and my indentureship to come to an end.
Benelaius occasionally hinted at what my future plans might be, suggesting that perhaps I might like to stay with him, at a slight increase in salary. But my pursed lips and slight smile told him unmistakably that I wanted to be his servant no longer, no matter how much he had come to depend on me. There were other potential slop boys about, and I was sure he would be able to lure one into his service. I was bound for the great world of Faerыn, to see all the things I had only read about, and to seek my destiny.
5
My heart was growing lighter this Eleint, despite the drought, the ghost, and the secret agents populating the land. For in only four more days I would be free. Still, my time was not yet up, and I had decided to serve Benelaius faithfully to the end. For one reason, he had always treated me fairly, and for another, I did not want any slippage on my part to warrant his demand of a legal extension of my services due to some loophole in our agreement. I simply did as I was told, served him well, and waited for my deliverance.
So when Benelaius gave me two golden lions and told me to go into Ghars to get a cask of clarry, I sprang to my task, despite my discomfort at having to return in darkness. "I'm sorry to make you go out now," he said, "but I just realized that I had no spirits at all for Lindavar's visit on the morrow, and he was terribly fond of clarry back in Suzail." He slipped me an extra half falcon. "Have something for yourself as well, but don't drink enough to prevent your return sometime before dawn, yes?"
I knew he was joking. I cared little for spirits, though perhaps if I had had more familiarity with them, things might have been different. You don't become a drunkard on one silver falcon a month. A pauper perhaps, but not a drunkard.
My master had two horses in his small stable. Jenkus could be saddled