Realms of Magic - Brian Thomsen King [1]
As he had expected, the door was open, and Volo proceeded upstairs without impediment. Knowing Justin, he thought, his office has to be on the top floor.
Four floors up, just beyond an unmanned reception desk with an office overlooking the busy thoroughfare below, sat a tall, bespectacled, and almost entirely bald rogue. The publisher was nattily dressed in the most fashionable attire gelt could acquire for his unathletic form. He took to his feet immediately to greet his star author.
"Volo, my boy, how long has it been?" he enthusiastically hailed.
"Longer than either of us would like to remember," the gazetteer responded, adding, "and since when have you become an early bird? I almost doubted that the message was really from you."
The publisher hesitated for a moment and then jibed, " 'Tis the early bird that catches the wyrm, in business as well as in dungeon crawling, I'm afraid."
Volo chuckled at the fellow's response, thinking to himself, Justin has never seen the inside of a dungeon in his life, let alone crawled around in one. Still the old coot is a queer bird, if not an early bird at that.
Justin motioned to a chair for the house's star author and quickly returned to his place behind the desk.
Volo took a seat, kicked it back on its rear legs, set booted feet against Justin's expensive desk, made himself at home, and asked absently, "So, how's business?"
"Couldn't be better," the publisher replied.
"Any new hot titles coming up?"
"Sure," Justin replied, pausing for just a moment till he had located a mock-up cover from the top of his desk. "We've got a really hot new book on Cormyr coming out. Here's the proposed cover."
Volo looked at the handsome illustration of a purple dragon against a mountainous landscape, framed at the top by the title and below by the author's name.
"Cormyr: A Novel," Volo read aloud, "by Greenwood Grubb. Don't you think the title is a little dull?"
"Not at all, my boy," Justin replied with a smile that bespoke all of the sincerity of an orcish grifter. "Besides, the editor-in-chief and the author picked the title. I picked the art."
"I see," said Volo, surprised at the hands-off manner the controlling rogue seemed to have adopted.
"Still," the publisher added, "I did just fire the editor-in-chief. Maybe 1 should reconsider…"
"Why did you fire him?"
"You mean her," Justin corrected. "She was a ninny and a bit of a flake, even for a gnome, if you know what 1 mean."
"In what way?" the author asked, realizing that editors, good or otherwise, might truly be the most endangered species in all Toril.
"She kept changing the spelling of her name. I was going to go broke if I had to keep printing new letterhead and business cards for her."
"I see," the gazetteer replied.
"She also kept trying to take credit for books she had nothing to do with. Once she even claimed to have discovered you, and signed you up for your first book. Of course, I knew she was lying, but everyone else didn't. When I pressed her to clear the matter up in public, she claimed she had meant that she landed Marcus Wands, also known as Marco Volo. Ever hear of him?"
"On occasion," Volo replied, wishing that the scurrilous scoundrel would change his name and avoid this ongoing confusion, which had already caused him much inconvenience.
"Needless to say, Marco Volo is no substitute for the real Volo, Volothamp Geddarm."
"Of course," the gazetteer replied, glad his publisher was taking the time to butter him up.
"But enough of this chitchat," Justin said. "What wonderful new volume do you have for us today? I want a good strong title to follow up on our expected success with Volo's Guide to the Dalelands,… like, maybe, Volo's Guide to the Moonsea. Ever since that big blowup at Zhentil Keep, the market has just been clamoring for information."
"Moonsea is already in the works," Volo replied confidently, "in fact, I'm on my way to Mulmaster after I finish my business here in Waterdeep. I figure a few more months of research,