The Nether Scroll (11 page)

Pathetic, Tiep thought. Detestable and Not worth killing raced through his mind also, then
he felt a tingling at the base of his neck—Magic, immanent magic on a scale Tiep had never felt
before, not even that ill-fated night in Scornubel when he'd tried to rob a disguised Zhentarim lord. He
looked up and saw nothing but branches and clear, blue sky. He looked to his right, toward the beast
and the battle, and watched in disbelief as Dru's unbound hair fanned out from his scalp. Tiep's hair
began to rise a heartbeat later. For an instant the air smelled bitter, then everything became dreamlike.

In Tiep's dream there was dazzling light and noise so loud he heard it in his stomach
rather than his ears. A great hand circled his waist, lifting him up and tossing him backward.
The dream ended when his shoulders struck the ground. He lay still a moment, wondering if
he were awake... or dead.

"Tiep! Say something! Can you move at all?"

Rozt'a. Tiep recognized his foster-mother kneeling beside him. She had a cut on her
forehead and a big, black smear across her cheek, but her hands were strong as she helped
him sit.

"What hap—?"

An important part of the answer was obvious before he finished asking the question. The
beast was dead—burnt to a smoldering crisp in the middle of a charred circle some ten paces wide.
Galimer and Dru were examining the corpse, gleaning it the way magicians did. All wizards were
scavengers at heart. The more magical or unfamiliar an object, the more samples they collected. The
dog-faced goblin didn't approve. He tugged at their sleeves as they worked.

Rozt'a interrupted Tiep's curiosity with a hug. "You fell out of your tree, that's what
happened."

Tiep knew better. He remembered dropping out of the tree and going after the goblin's
spear, which was back in the goblin's possession. He remembered, too, that he hadn't
collected the amber marker. If it was all right for wizards to indulge their curiosity, Tiep didn't
see why he shouldn't put his knife to good use—

His knife.

It had been in his hand before he'd sailed backward; now it was missing. There was
another in his boot cuff, but the missing blade had been Tiep's favorite. Considering where
the spear had wound up, he suspected the goblin and vowed a reckoning.

With a shrug he freed himself from Rozt'a's embrace. She looked uncomfortable with her
arms wrapped around her own waist and Tiep felt a little guilty, though he'd never been one
for hugs. When he'd been younger, he'd endured them but now that he was older and
thinking about women himself, he loved his foster-mother best at arm's length.

"What else happened?" he asked, hoping to blunt the silence.

"The Lady Wyndyfarh saved our hides. Druhallen calls it a 'bolt from the blue'—a one-ended
bolt of lightning. I call it a miracle. Can you stand? The goblin says we've got to move quickly. He
says reavers are the hounds of Weathercote and we'll have a pack on our trail until we reach his lady's
glade."

Tiep got to his feet. He was lightheaded, but the wooziness faded before he needed the
arm Rozt'a offered. The idea that they owed their survival to a dog-faced goblin burnt his gut
and the displeasure apparently showed on his face.

"Sheemzher saved us," Rozt'a chided him. "Maybe you couldn't see, but the three of us
weren't getting the better of that reaver. When I put my sword into him, it was like slicing mud
and about as effective. If Sheemzher hadn't invoked Lady Wyndyfarh, it would have had us
all, maybe you, too. At best you'd be alone. You owe him."

Tiep shook his head which was honest, but foolish. Suddenly he needed Rozt'a's arm to
stay upright.

"Try," Rozt'a advised. "I know your head hurts and you never wanted to come, but, please,
try not to be so hateful—"

"I came with you, didn't I?" he grumbled. "I'm not turning around and going back alone, am
I? I lost my knife when I fell out of the tree. I need to look for it before—"

"I'll help—"

"I can find it myself

Tiep didn't dare look at Rozt'a before he stalked toward the leaves where he last
remembered standing. The knife wasn't there. Proof, as far as Tiep was concerned, that the
goblin had lifted it. But Tiep wasn't really looking for his knife. He wanted amber and he could
dig that out with his boot knife. If anyone asked what he was doing—

He looked over his shoulder. Galimer, Rozt'a, and Dru had their heads together, probably
talking about him. They wouldn't notice, but the damn goblin was trotting his way.

"You want; Sheemzher has. Sheemzher give."

"I don't want anything from you. Go away," he shouted back.

He did want his knife, but he wanted to pound it out of the goblin's red-orange hide, not
take it politely from his warty hands. In principle, Tiep didn't care if Sheemzher watched him
pop the amber marker loose from the tree. The word of a human was always worth more than
that of a goblin. Everyone knew that goblins lied and goblins couldn't be trusted, except this
goblin had successfully invoked Lady Mantis.

Manya said the white lady was one of the powers of Weathercote Wood. As Lady Mantis,
she had the power to heal the sick, but mostly she dealt justice to villainous men and visited
the dying to collect their final breath. That was how she'd gotten her name—a tall, thin, and
pale woman leaning over a dying man with her arms bent in prayer and an inscrutable expression on
her face.

Tiep didn't want to meet her.

"Sheemzher call good lady. Sheemzher find knife after. Knife belong, yes?" The goblin
held out a familiar knife. "Yours?" he added, the word was unusual for him and he
pronounced it wrong.

"Mine," Tiep agreed sourly and took the knife without a hint of thanks. He made a point of
wiping it before sliding it into its sheath. "Now, go away."

"Good lady not here. Good lady in glade. Go now. Go there," Sheemzher persisted.
"Beyond path here. Beyond good lady. Reaver not belong good lady. Reaver not obey good
lady. Retribution. Trees not belong good lady. Trees belong path."

Was that an assurance that Lady Mantis wouldn't mind if he helped himself to an amber
keepsake? It wasn't a question Tiep could ask, but one he had to answer for himself. He
pulled himself up to the branch where he'd hidden and the marker that was in reach above it.

There was a thumbnail-sized bug squatting on the amber. It didn't fly off when he waved
his arm over it and brandished nasty claws when he tried to flick it away with his fingernails,
so he smashed it with the flat of his second-best knife and wiped the blade on his breeches
before using it to free the marker.

The goblin was grinning when Tiep's feet hit the ground again.

"Valuable, yes? Valuable outside?"

"Yes, and mine. Just like the knife. Don't go getting any dog-face stupid ideas."

"No stupid ideas," the goblin agreed, still grinning like the fool he was.

Sheemzher assured them, again, as they left the killing ground, that they were merely an
hour from his lady's glade.

He was lying, of course, but closer to the truth than he'd been. They hadn't gone far before
the forest thickened and cooled around them.

Dru announced that they'd successfully passed through someone's warding.

"Good lady dwells here. Good lady Wyndyfarh. Sheemzher belong here," the goblin
replied proudly.

Tiep had never encountered green in such variety and intensity. The trees were clothed in
green, but so was the ground. Moss grew everywhere—even the rocks and tree bark were
cloaked in living velvet. Though birds flew overhead, the moist, heavy air hushed their songs. Tiep felt
obligated to speak softly when he asked the wizards, "Is everything here magical?"

"Everything and nothing," Galimer replied, also whispering.

"What kind of answer is that?"

"The truth," Dru said, and ended the discussion.

They climbed a moss-covered stairway carved into the side of a small, steep hill. Rozt'a
was in the front, right behind the goblin. She gasped when she reached the top. Tiep
understood why when he stood beside her. The hill was the outer boundary of a water garden
that was like no part of Faerun he'd imagined possible. The water in a pond at the base of the
hill sparkled—truly sparkled—in the sunlight. The flowers glowed with subtle light and the countless
butterflies were brighter than a queen's jewelry. There was a waterfall on the opposite side of the pond
and a small, round building beside it. Tiep judged the building a temple, because it had no walls, just
white-stone columns and a blue-green metal dome, and it looked like the sort of place where a god
might rest his feet.

He'd barely begun to consider the implications of what he saw when a woman appeared in
the temple—she must have emerged through the waterfall, though she wasn't dripping. She was tall
and thin. Her face was pale and her hip-length hair was cross-striped with white and dusty brown.
Even at this distance, her fingers appeared unnaturally long and when she pressed her palms
together in front of her, Tiep had no trouble recognizing the Lady Mantis whom Manya had
described.

"She's deadly," he heard himself whisper to Druhallen. "She could kill us as soon as look
at us."

Dru nodded. "Deadly's not dangerous, if you keep your wits about you and your hands at
your side. Is that clearly understood?"

Tiep grumbled that it was and with his thumbs hooked under his belt followed his elders
and the dog-faced goblin toward the temple.

1 Eleint, the Year of the Banner (1368 DR)

Weathercote Wood

Druhallen took his own advice as they descended into Lady Wyndyfarh's grove. The rocks
and water were natural enough, but everything else—the trees, the thick moss carpet, and
especially the unseasonable array of flowers—bespoke a wizard with time and spells to spare. The air
itself was magically charged, and Dru felt vitalized as he had not been since his visit to Candlekeep
years ago. Now, as then, a wise inner voice warned him that casting spells in such a place would be the
ultimate foolishness.

Dru dearly wanted to cast an inquiry or two. He had a hunch that some of these plants had
sprouted in other forests far removed from the Greypeak Mountains, far removed, perhaps,
from Faerun and Toril itself. He would have given much to know where Lady Wyndyfarh had
been born. The cabinetmaker's son was by nature a prudent man, a man who lived by his
conscience and accepted the disappointments of wisdom. As Sheemzher led them around
the waterfall-fed pool and across a flat-stone ford, he was content with what his eyes could
see.

When Lady Wyndyfarh had first emerged from her sanctuary and Dru had studied her
appearance from the hilltop, he'd judged her an elf. As they came closer to the circular
marble building where she waited for them, he had second thoughts. True, the lady was of elf
height and slenderness, but elves were, overall, a lean, angular race who frequently seemed
in need of a few hearty meals. Lady Wyndyfarh had a softer silhouette in the dappled light
and her coloring, though very pale, was distinctly unelvish. In Dru's experience, pale elves
were moon elves with ash-blue, wintry complexions. Lady Wyndyfarh's pallor had a warmer,
faintly russet tone.

The lady's hair, which descended unbound below her hips, was dead straight and wispy in
the gentle breeze. It perfectly matched her skin, except where it was striped in a crosswise
pattern with darker russet shades. She wore an unadorned, high-necked gown with sleeves
that flowed past her fingers. Dru was no expert where it came to cloth, but he'd overheard
enough to guess that the fabric was the finest silk and masterfully dyed to blend with the
lady's face and hair. Then again, maybe Wyndyfarh's gown hadn't been woven or dyed at all.
At a five-pace distance, Dru couldn't say exactly where the gown stopped and the lady
began.

Whether by enchantment or nature, Lady Wyndyfarh was a beautiful woman without being
either an attractive or approachable one. Her beauty was ageless, which was to say she was
almost certainly older—considerably older—than she appeared and a woman of considerable power.

Any man who practiced magic or traveled Faerun's far-flung roads three seasons out of
every year heard stories about strange lands and the stranger races, but Druhallen had never
expected to meet someone whose race he could not name. Lady Wyndyfarh reminded him of
nothing so much as a goshawk or falcon, an impression fostered by her piercing black eyes.
He'd swear there was no colored iris to separate the pupils from the narrow, white sclera.
When her gaze landed on him, Dru knew what a rabbit saw when it beheld the hawk.

He was still thinking about raptors when an insect about the size of a bumble-bee but
glowing like a pigeon's blood ruby alighted on Lady Wyndyfarh's shoulder. It quickly
disappeared within the curtain of her striped hair. A heartbeat later a heavy flying beetle
rumbled past Dru's ear. It, too, was jewel-colored—pale aquamarine, rather than ruby—and after
settling on the lady's opposite shoulder, it also vanished into her hair.

Lady Wyndyfarh blinked and Druhallen dared a sideways glance. There were many
insects buzzing about the grove. Not all of them were living gemstones, but many were. A
pair of sapphire flies circled an arm's length above Galimer's head. While Dru watched, one
flew toward the lady and the ruby bee rejoined a companion in Rozt'a's hair. Rozt'a did not
seem to notice the insects, a final confirmation—as if one had been needed—that the bugs were
not entirely natural.

A good many wizards and all half-elves could establish rapport with a familiar creature.
Druhallen had tried it twice: once, before Ansoain entered his life, with the family cat and a
second time—when he'd doubted the honesty of a merchant who'd hired them—with the man's caged
parrot. Neither experiment had proved satisfactory. The cat was easily distracted and the parrot
thought only of itself. Dru would grant that Lady Wyndyfarh was a better wizard than he, but not that
she could extract useful information from the pinprick mind of a bumblebee.

That she seemed to be doing so deepened the glade's mystery.

When an aquamarine beetle swooped past Dru's nose, he briefly contemplated capturing
it—briefly, because it had no sooner disappeared behind his back when Sheemzher got between him
and the lady. The goblin, who did not appear to have a pair of insect outriggers, dropped to his knees
and raised clasped hands above his head. Lady Wyndyfarh, whose hair still concealed Galimer's
blue fly and who knew what else, wrapped her own elegantly pale hands over the goblin's
warty, red-orange ones. There was no mistaking, now, that the lady's slender fingers were a
knuckle too long or that her dark and sharply tapering nails had more in common with a
hawk's talons than his own broad fingernails.

In a more ordinary place, Dru might have been able to sense magic's flow from mistress to
minion and back again. In the glade, with its abundance of magic beyond his comprehension,
Druhallen knew only that there had been communication and that when she released the
goblin's hands Lady Wyndyfarh was once again staring directly at him.

"This man," Sheemzher asserted quickly, scrabbling backward and clasping Dru's left wrist
as he spoke, "this man good man, good sir man. This man not compelled. This man chose
path. This man risk life, save life. Sheemzher reward this man. Sheemzher use coins. Good
lady's coins. Pretty coins. Old coins. This man keep old coins."

The goblin was breathless and sounded worried. Druhallen steeled himself for something
unpleasant when the pale woman smiled.

"So, you've heard of Netheril?" she asked in a voice that was both deep and lyric. "You
know its history?"

"A little," Druhallen replied, as breathless as the goblin.

The lady laughed and said, "A little is all anyone knows about Netheril." Her eyes gave the
lie to that assertion.

Dru's breath caught in his throat. He had always assumed—even the scryer at Candlekeep
had assumed—that the ancient empire had been built and ruled by men, by human men and women.
Little of Netheril's culture had survived its collapse and even less in its original form. Imagining
Netheril from what few fragments remained was akin to imagining a palace from the ashes after it had
burnt. When he'd visited Candlekeep, the scholars had shown him one of their greatest treasures, a
broken slab of plaster depicting the face of a dark-haired youth with tattooed cheeks and
haunted eyes. A prince of Netheril, they said. Princess had seemed more likely to Druhallen's
eyes; but he'd taken the portrait's humanity for granted.

The fragment had not included the royal hands.

Lady Wyndyfarh cleared her throat. Dru blushed with shame. Bad enough to get caught
with his attention wandering, worse to wool-gather in front of a mind-reader.

"You have left quite an impression in my young friend's mind," the lady said when their
eyes met again. "He does not often think of kindness or honor when he thinks of your kind."

My kind? Dru thought despite an intention to keep his mind blank. Was that a confirmation
of his ill-timed musings or a taunt? His confusion grew thicker with each passing moment.
The lady's speech was faintly, unplaceably accented, but well-constructed, unlike
Sheemzher's fractured speech that possessed neither accent nor grammar. Yet she had
called the goblin her friend, rather than her servant or familiar; and, though Sheemzher was
anxious, he was not afraid.

With so many questions whirling through his mind, Dru lost track of more important things
and was taken by surprise when Lady Wyndyfarh extended her right hand, palm down, as a
noblewoman might, for a kneeling vassal to kiss. Dru was a freeborn man, obligated by
contracts, not blood. He didn't bow to anyone, not for politeness' sake or his life. He hooked
his callused thumb beneath the lady's and repositioned her hand before clasping it firmly and
pumping it once.

Lady Wyndyfarh's all-black eyes widened slightly, but she accepted Dru's initiative. Her
flesh was cool and dry. Her grasp was uncommonly strong. Druhallen was not tempted to use
his ring to measure the strength of her magic. When the lady's grip relaxed, Druhallen
withdrew his hand quickly. Lady Wyndyfarh's smile broadened. He glimpsed blunt teeth
before she turned toward Rozt'a.

"Florozt'a—I know you already."

Rozt'a had no qualms about bending her knee to this strange woman. Somehow that
surprised Druhallen. He'd always thought they shared an artisan's aversion to the privileges
of nobility. Even more surprising was the worshipful look in his erstwhile lover's eyes when
she raised her head. The women gazed silently at each other, and in those moments Dru's
judgment hardened. He couldn't believe that Rozt'a would surrender her independence so
easily. Then again, Rozt'a did not seem to realize there were two fat and gorgeous
bumblebees nestled in her wild hair.

Galimer's blue-fly guardians were buzzing above his head when his turn came to measure
and be measured in return. Galimer might not be able to reliably conjure water in the rain, but
he was ease and courtesy personified among strangers. His bow was a precise compromise
between subservience and mutual respect, and the sweeping gesture with which he raised
the lady's hand was so smooth and quick that Rozt'a herself couldn't have said whether her
husband's lips had actually touched another woman's skin.

Tiep was the last. He'd folded his arms tight over his chest and retreated as far as
possible. Another step and he'd be in the pool. There were no gemstone guardians that Dru
could see buzzing around the young man's skull or camped out on his clothing. Belatedly,
Dru recalled that Tiep and magic sometimes produced unpredictable results. He sidestepped
and draped his arm around the youth's shoulders.

"There's nothing to worry about," he assured Tiep as the lady approached.

Sheemzher also took the necessary strides to intercept his mistress.

"This one not understand. This one sees, takes. This one not ask. This one thinks alone."

Lady Wyndyfarh paused. Her hands disappeared within the too-long sleeves of her gown.
She brought her arms together in the posture of Lady Mantis. "What have you taken?"

Druhallen's ears were certain he'd heard the lady speak, though his eyes hadn't seen her
lips move. Beneath his arm, Tiep began to tremble.

Mystra's mercy, what have you done? The accusation raced through Druhallen's mind and
died unspoken: They'd know soon enough. In the meantime, Tiep's nerves had failed and he
needed help to stay upright.

Sheemzher placed his hand over his heart. A hundred bits of amber hiding in the trees and
moss came to life. Tiep trembled a moment, clinging tightly to himself, before his arms
uncoiled. Looking down, Dru could see firelight shining within the young man's shirt.

"Oh, Tiep," were the only words Druhallen could whisper.

"He said no one cared because we weren't anyplace that belonged to anyone, and that
there'd be retribution for what had happened to us—I took retribution of my own, for all those
trees that were spying on us—"

Lady Wyndyfarh seemed not to hear him. "You killed," she said in a soft and terrible voice.
"You murdered. You defiled." This time Druhallen was certain that her lips had not moved.

Moved by instinct as old as fatherhood, Dru opened his mouth, "We were attacked—"

He got no further in his explanation. The white-clad woman muted Druhallen with a glance
that was charged with magic at cross-currents to any magic he had hitherto known. His eyes
remained open and his mind was sensible, though time itself seemed to shatter. Lady Mantis
extended a wickedly clawed finger toward Tiep's throat. The young man's knees buckled, and
he went down like falling water. Rozt'a drew her sword partway but stepped backward, rather
than forward. A sparkling black jewel appeared on the lady's knife-sharp claw. It sprouted
insect legs and scuttled up her arm. Dru saw it weave through the curtain of her hair and
climb into her ear.

At least, Dru thought that was what he'd seen and the order in which it had unfolded,
though even as his lungs expelled an ordinary breath, he judged it odd that his mind was
filled with crystalline images and no sense that he had blinked or turned his head to capture
them.

He could turn his head. The notion that Lady Mantis had paralyzed him when she stifled
his words was mistaken. He could still speak, if he chose, or raise his arm in defense of the
cowering lump of human terror at his feet. The woman's finger still extended toward Tiep, its
dark claw had begun to glow. Defense was needed.
The tide turned in Druhallen's lungs. Air, energy, and purpose flowed inward. He folded his
arms and retrieved a cold ember from his sleeve. It would be his last fire spell until midnight,
but there'd never been a better time to exhaust himself.

Streams of latent flame rushed toward Druhallen. The fireball would be ready when his
lungs were full and Lady Mantis would know she'd made an enemy—

"You believe a goblin over a man?" Galimer's outrage reached Druhallen's ears as
Galimer himself lunged for the woman's throat.

If he'd taken a moment for pragmatic thought, Dru would have known that his fireball stood
little chance of breaching Lady Wyndyfarh's protective spells, but Galimer's desperate and
purely physical attack had even less hope for success and it placed the gold-haired wizard in
the path of Dru's burgeoning spell.