The Nether Scroll (10 page)

Sheemzher scurried between them. He'd dropped his spear and clawed at his neck. "Path!
Safe-passage path. All watch."

The goblin freed a golden necklace from his striped shirt and displayed its nut-sized
pendant for close inspection. The lumpy stone was polished, not cut, and about the same
color as the goblin's red-orange skin.

"Good lady Wyndyfarh show path. All watch. All look."

The red-orange pendant glowed in the sunlight. When it was ember bright, similarly
colored specks in trees they'd passed and in trees they approached became visible.

"See? See?" the goblin asked. "Safe-passage path. Good sir safe, good man, good lady,
even that one—" Sheemzher pointed at Tiep then he pointed at the blue-flower tree where no ember
glowed. "See no path, no safe passage. Tree there not safe. Tree there not belong good lady. Good lady
say: 'Stay on my path, Sheemzher. Don't bother the others. Leave them alone. Don't start trouble.'
Sheemzher listen. Sheemzher follow path. All follow Sheemzher, yes? No flowers. No petals. Not
safe. Not belong good lady."

Druhallen asked if he could examine the pendant and, after a moment's thought,
Sheemzher handed it over. As long as the goblin's knobby fingers touched the necklace, the
pendant and the markers glowed brightly. The pendant went dark the moment Dru touched it.
The markers faded, too, but not so much that Tiep couldn't still distinguish them.

"Interesting." Dru held the pendant to the sun. "Amber—it's warm to the touch—but this color
is new to me, and it's remarkably clear."

Interesting was, well, interesting, but amber—clear amber—was rare and, therefore, valuable.
Much too valuable to be hanging around a dog-faced goblin's neck. Tiep tried to catch Galimer's eye—
to see if they were both thinking about profits—but Galimer's attention was on the pendant. Rozt'a's,
too. With all of them distracted, Tiep considered popping a marker out of the nearest tree, but decided
to resist temptation—for now. After they'd taken care of Rozt'a and her dream, he'd make the chance
to fill his pockets with amber.

Tiep was imagining the expressions on his adults' faces as he told them what the
Scornubel jewelers had paid for Weathercote amber when the markers brightened.

"Not belong good sir!" the dog-face protested, fairly climbing into Druhallen's arms to
retrieve the pendant.

"Belong Sheemzher. Good lady give. Belong Sheemzher, not good sir."

"Not mine," Dru agreed and replaced the chain around the goblin's scrawny neck. The
markers winked out like blown candles. "Interesting. Yesterday morning an old man warned
me not to enter the Wood unless the light was right and I stayed on the path. I didn't know
what he meant then, but I do now. Can you still see the path, Sheemzher?"

Tiep recognized Dru's patient-parent voice, but the goblin fell for it. He tapped his temple
where a few wisps of ratty black hair escaped his hat. "Sheemzher knows way home. If
Sheemzher forget, gift show path. Sheemzher never lost here. Good lady not alone here.
Others different. Others not welcome Sheemzher, visitors. Stay on path. Safe passage.
Always safe passage. Never lost. Stay on path."

"Good idea," Galimer agreed. "And let's get moving along the path ourselves. How much
farther is Lady Wyndyfarh's glade anyway? One hour? Two? A half?"

"One hour," Sheemzher answered, returning to his place at the front of their line.

Sheemzher's hour was endless. They walked until the sun was high above the Wood. Tiep
had taken Rozt'a's advice to heart. He walked lightly between the trees; the thrill of stirring up
the leaves was long gone. There was shade aplenty in the forest, but the heat was
oppressive and the only breeze came from the cloud of buzzing, stinging insects that
accompanied them.

They'd filled their waterskins at the bridge. Tiep's was empty by mid-morning. His mouth
was sour leather before the goblin lead them past a cool-water spring. No one said a word
while they drenched themselves and refilled the skins. Rozt'a looked particularly grim and
guilty.

Tiep's mind had gone numb. One foot after the other, he watched the ground and paid little
attention to the forest. He hadn't noticed that there were fewer trees, more gray boulders until
a noise that sounded like a man screaming jolted him out of a hazy, instantly forgotten
daydream. His companions had heard the same thing. They were stopped and staring in the
same northerly direction.

"What was that?" Tiep asked.

"Sounded like a big cat," Druhallen answered. He turned to Sheemzher. "Are there forest
lions in here?"

When the goblin didn't immediately answer, Galimer offered his opinion: "That roar didn't
come from any cat."

Rozt'a drew her sword. "What's dangerous around here?"

"No danger here," Sheemzher insisted. "Safe passage." He hunched his shoulder and
made the tree markers glow. "Stay on path. No danger."

The goblin resumed walking. He hadn't taken two steps when the sound repeated itself,
louder this time, maybe closer.

"Go to ground, Tiep," Rozt'a whispered.

That was his place when trouble blew in. Tiep was neither muscle nor magic and his
adults didn't want to be worried about him when they had work to do. Sometimes he resented
it; not this time, not after a third scream. The boulders promised some shelter, but the trees
offered more.

"Path!" Sheemzher shouted as Tiep bolted for a tree whose branches were both reachable
and sturdy. "Safe passage. Stay safe. Stay on path!"

"I'm not leaving your damned path!" Tiep shouted as he made a standing leap for the
lowest branch. "This tree's got a marker on it."

Tiep didn't believe the dog-faced goblin's assurances about the path. His faith lay in the
damage he'd seen Dru and Rozt'a create with their chosen weapons. They'd triumph over
anything a forest could throw at them—and he'd pocket an amber marker on his way back to the
ground.

A long silence reigned after the third scream. Rozt'a lowered her sword. When she
sheathed it, Tiep was clear to rejoin them. He was calculating the best way to snag the amber
when Galimer shouted—

"There!"

Branches blocked Tiep's view. He climbed higher and almost wished he'd stayed put. The
screamer wasn't any familiar sort of animal. Long-legged and horse high at the shoulder, it
had a short neck and forward-looking eyes. Its snout was short, too, and framed with
overlapping tusks that showed pale against its nearly black fur. Tiep guessed it was some
sort of overgrown pig, then it raised a front leg and he saw that it had paws, rather than
hooves.

Tiep couldn't name any ordinary animal that had tusks and paws. Pigs didn't have paws.
Lions and bears were built closer to the ground and didn't have tusks. With the education
he'd gotten from Dru and Galimer, Tiep reckoned that some wizard somewhere or when had
transformed this beast into being.
When great wizards conjured creatures, they didn't often pay attention to what lay inside
their skulls. With mismatches between their minds and bodies, magical creatures tended to
be cranky or crazy, and were often both. Hidden though he was, Tiep held his breath. He
didn't dare a quick prayer to Tymora. You never knew what a magical creature might be
sensitive to, or what might set it off. Smart folk concentrated on blending in with their
surroundings. Tiep filled his thoughts with branches and leaves.

The beast reared and screamed. There was magic in the sound. Terror waves washed
over Tiep and the trees. He wrapped his arms tighter around the branch and made himself
breathe deeply, evenly. That helped against ambient magic, but not against gut-born fear
when the beast set its front paws on the ground and shambled directly toward their
supposedly safe path.

Rozt'a raised her sword; Druhallen, his arms. His lips moved and a globe of fire leapt off
his fingertips. Dru didn't miss. Tiep clung to the branch but kept his eyes open. The tree
shuddered when the fireball exploded.

Flame consumed the dead-leaf carpet and tasted the trees. Smoke billowed quickly and
hid the yowling beast. Tiep allowed himself to believe that Druhallen had slain the creature
with his first spell, until it charged out of the smoke. It had a clumsy, rocking-chair gait, but it
moved quickly, too quickly for Dru who needed a few moments of recovery before he could
kindle another spell. Galimer tried ... and succeeded with a fiery streak that ringed the beast's
neck without doing noticeable damage.

The wizards fell back at the last moment. Rozt'a took a swing at the creature's muscular
neck as it charged past. Her sword bit deep; Tiep saw the blade disappear in flesh. She
would have slain a horse or ox with that stroke, but the Weathercote beast shook her off
without breaking stride. She landed on her back with the sword still firmly in her grasp. Tiep
noted that the blade was clean—not a smear of blood anywhere along its length. Rozt'a noticed,
too, and shouted a warning to Druhallen and Galimer—

"It's sorcerous!"

Their replies were lost in another roar.

The creature was more agile than Tiep would have expected; something—perhaps—to do
with having paws, not hooves. Druhallen pelted it with a different sort of fire as it turned. It circled
wide and away from Tiep's tree. (Thank you, Great, Kind, and Good Tymora!) But the beast was riled
now and wouldn't be driven off. When it had shaken off Dru's second spell as it had shaken off the
first and Rozt'a's sword, it squatted back on its haunches and leapt at Rozt'a like the lion Dru had
guessed it was.

She danced a retreat, placing herself between Galimer and Dru, keeping herself the
primary target while they readied more magic. That was according to plan—when they all in
danger, she was pure muscle—a bodyguard and no one's wife. What wasn't according to plan was the
dog-faced goblin with his bright-silk garments and stone-tipped spear darting between Rozt'a and the
beast.

While Rozt'a cursed louder than the beast's roars, Sheemzher launched himself and his
spear into harm's way. If the goblin had been aiming at the beast's nose, then his aim had
been perfect; and if he'd had the sense Great Ao had given an ant, he'd have let go of his
precious spear when the creature began tossing its pierced head. But Great Ao hadn't spared
sense for goblins and so the fool hung on, even when the beast sat down like a dog and
brought its forepaws into play.

Rozt'a ran at it with her sword slashing. She got what should have been a tendon-severing
slice across the paw it used to swat at Sheemzher but, as with her first stroke, she scored no
lasting damage. In his tree, Tiep recalled that there were some creatures—some men, too—
who simply couldn't be harmed by ordinary weapons. Rozt'a's sword bore a small enchantment that
maintained its temper and kept it free from the ravages of rust, but it bore nothing that could split the
hide of this nameless beast.

Dru shouted for both Rozt'a and Sheemzher to back off and leave him a clear line. Rozt'a
obeyed; the dog-faced goblin stayed glued to his spear. As Tiep saw things, Druhallen should
have gone ahead and kindled another fireball. If it roasted the goblin and the beast together,
so much the better. But Dru tended toward the high road. Galimer saw the situation Tiep's
way, but his spell failed either in his mind or against the beast's magical armor.

Rozt'a moved in to thwack the beast for the third time and grab Sheemzher as she
retreated. The damned goblin put up a fight. She couldn't get him to abandon the spear, but
their combined weight was enough to wrench it free, giving Dru the clear line he'd wanted. He
got off one of his better fireballs—a huge sphere of yellow flame with heat that reached all the way
to Tiep's perch. Tiep started counting; he reached twenty before the fire died.

The beast had risen to its four feet, angrier than ever.

Ominous thoughts rained through Tiep's mind: though none of them was hurt, they were in
serious trouble.

Druhallen couldn't cast an endless series of fireball spells. Depending on what he
expected to be up against on any particular day, he could cast three, maybe four, before his
concentration gave out. Not that his fire was denting the monster. Galimer's magic wasn't as
potent as Dru's, and Rozt'a's sword might have been a feather for all the damage it had
caused. So far, the only lasting damage had come from Sheemzher's spear: the beast's nose
leaked a steady trickle of steaming, black fluid.

Death by nosebleed ... unlikely.

If the beast didn't get bored it would pick them off. Tiep was in favor of sacrificing the
goblin, then beating a fast retreat to Parnast, but he couldn't make his opinion heard and,
even if he'd been on the ground among them, he knew his adults well enough to know they
wouldn't listen. Already, Dru and Galimer had closed ranks with Rozt'a. She'd managed to
pass them her fighting knives and they were ready to stand as one to their deaths. According
to plan, when they closed ranks like that, Tiep was supposed to try to escape.

Little as he liked the idea of dying, or watching them die, Tiep wouldn't—couldn't—run
away. He had a knife, a little knife better suited to carving fruit than monsters, and the will to use it.

After whispering another prayer to Tymora, Tiep dropped out of the tree. The first thing he
noticed once he'd picked himself up was Sheemzher backing away from the fight. The
damned dog-face could run away—no one expected honor from a goblin—but he wasn't taking
that spear with him.

The goblin must have heard Tiep sneaking up on him and guessed why. He tossed the
spear away and with his eyes still on the beast, fell to his knees. Tiep headed for the spear
which had landed perilously close to one of the fires Dru's spells had kindled in the leaves. As
he retrieved it, Tiep heard the goblin whimpering—

"Safe passage ... Safe passage. Hear Sheemzher, good lady ... great lady. Sheemzher
on path! Help Sheemzher, help all, great lady, gracious lady."