Murder in Cormyr - Chet Williamson [8]
As Jenkus trotted toward Ghars, I wondered what else Benelaius might have forgotten that Lindavar required. The young mage had never visited Benelaius, though they corresponded frequently. A week seldom went by without an exchange of letters between the two, and from the thickness of the envelopes that I carried back and forth to the messenger service in Ghars, they were quite long.
Lindavar was Benelaius's handpicked successor in the College of War Wizards. My master confided to me that his former pupil was having some "problems of a professional nature," and that was the reason for the visit. I confess that I felt only indifference for Lindavar's plight, and looked on his visit as primarily an inconvenience, although my extra busyness would help keep my impatience for freedom at bay.
But as I rode west toward Ghars, the Vast Swamp on my left growing more and more distant, I thought about neither Lindavar nor my freedom, but of Fastred's ghost, and prayed that I would not be confronted by the sight of it as I returned home that evening. A great many people around Ghars had seen it, and it seemed to haunt the northwest swampside. It was, if the stories were true, easily seen from the road that connected the farms on the swamp's north and west with each other and Ghars.
Farmers returning home late from market had spotted it, as had weary drinkers leaving the Swamp Rat, a tavern recently opened to quench the thirsts of those farmers who didn't like having to ride all the way into Ghars for an ale and companionship. Unfortunately, the Swamp Rat's business had fallen off severely after the appearance of Fastred's specter. Even Mayor Tobald himself, coming back from a dinner with the Rambeltook family, had come across the threatening revenant.
Even though no one had claimed to see the creature in the daylight, I still breathed a sigh of relief when I struck the fork in the road. I turned northwest toward town, and saw no one on the southwest road that led to the farms on the west of the swamp.
Another twenty minutes brought me to Ghars. The first thing an approaching rider noticed was the large cistern that had been built once the drought had gained its dry and dusty foothold. This was nothing more than a gigantic barrel on stilts, really, but it was the tallest edifice in town, and water from every producing well in the area was brought to it.
I rode past Aunsible Durn's smithy and stables, and saw him still at work, banging away at something on his anvil. Whether he was making horseshoes or plowshares, or one of the more impractical products of his calling, I couldn't tell. Once Durn brought his impressive skills to Ghars, many of the local squires took a fancy to outfitting their farmhands with Durn's sturdy pikes and halberds, and themselves with fancy armor, just in case we should ever be invaded, you see. I've always believed that the squires, vain fools that they are, just liked to wear the armor on wedding and feast days.
I didn't see Dovo, Durn's large but less than breathtakingly brilliant assistant. Well, it was nearly six. Maybe Durn had let him off early. Or maybe he had just got tired of Dovo's idiotic presence.
The Bold Bard was the only place to purchase clarry. The Swamp Rat was much closer, but its inventory was limited to ale, beer, cider, and table wine fit only for cleaning paint brushes. The Bold Bard was surrounded by other buildings in the heart of Ghars, and I saw that it was already bustling, with merchants and farmers going in and coming out its door. The coming out was a bit more unsteady than the going in, a tribute to the power of the tavern's spirits.
I tied Jenkus to a stout post of the colonnade and went in to the common room. There I bought the cask of clarry and had Shortshanks, the dwarven owner and proprietor,