The Nether Scroll (16 page)

Tiep pulled off his shirt but left his breeches alone. He started for the heap they'd made of
their gear. Sheemzher, spear in hand, side-stepped to block his path. Tiep decided he could
bear the smell a bit longer and was glad he'd stayed when Druhallen started thinking aloud.

"Not caves. Not just caves, anyway. The Mines of Dekanter. Dwarves built 'em, the
Netheril mages expanded them, and sure as water flows downhill, there's drow living in them
now. Ever see the drow, Sheemzher?"

The goblin lowered his spear when Dru looked their way. Tiep could have made his
escape, but he lingered.

Sheemzher shook his head. "Demons. All demons. Sheemzher not know demons. People
not go under Dekanter. People fight demons; fear demons."

"No demons, Sheemzher. We've got dragons overhead and the gods know what under our
feet, but no demons." Dru walked toward them. "Let me get back to the camp. Maybe I can
still catch the tide with my spells."

Tiep realized they didn't know he and Sheemzher had been outside the camp when the
otiyo—or whatever Dru had called it—crawled out of the bog. There hadn't been time for Sheemzher
to make accusations ... yet. Tiep gave the goblin a nasty look, but it was hard to intimidate someone,
even a dog-faced goblin, when he had a spear and you stank like an open sewer in summer.

Rozt'a tossed Dru's rag into the bog. "You can't be sure, Dru. Remember what
Amarandaris said about problems he couldn't fix or control in Dekanter. Demons would be a
damn good reason to move the trail."

"He'd have told me if it was demons. Anything to get my sympathy."

Dru stepped aside to let Rozt'a go ahead of him. The goblin followed Rozt'a. That left Tiep
alone with his foster father.

"Thanks. Thanks for saving my life. I was a goner."

"Thank Sheemzher. I woke up when I heard you screaming, but Rozt'a and I, we'd have
wasted precious time looking for you, if he hadn't been right there pointing the way with his
spear. What were you doing out here?"

Sheemzher had gone ahead, but he hadn't gone far. He could probably hear everything
Dru had said. The beggar understood their language better than he spoke it.

"Noises," Sheemzher answered before Tiep could think of something appropriate and
innocent. "Smell. Terrible smell. Wake Sheemzher—people noses keen, very keen." He tapped
the side of his. "Bad eyes; good noses. Sheemzher tell this one—look together, yes? Sheemzher think
horses; find demon."

Tiep and the goblin looked knives at each other. Thank all the gods, Dru was looking the
other way when he said:

"Yeah, well—it worked out all right, but it could've gone the other way. Horses aren't worth dying
for. That's why we line 'em up away from where we sleep. You remember that— both of you. That
spear's a good weapon, but it's thrust only, and you, Tiep, you used up a lifetime's worth of luck
tonight."

Tiep didn't need anyone to telling him about luck. Rozt'a was waiting with the medicine
chest. She put another dose of second-skin on Tiep's ankle—after he'd stripped, sluiced, and
dressed in clothes that didn't stink. She'd patched up the goblin, too, never guessing that Sheemzher
hadn't taken his damage from the beast.

Debts were mounting. There'd have to be a reckoning soon.

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

The Greypeak Mountains

Druhallen felt human when he woke up, a sure sign that his companions had let him
oversleep. The sky had brightened before he'd abandoned his attempts to re-memorize the
spells he'd expended in the dung-beast battle. He had expected to be exhausted as well as
empty-headed all this day. One out of two was better than nothing, but he'd rather have had
the spells than the sleep. The way things had been going here in the Greypeaks, he felt
certain he'd wish he had a full complement of fire in mind before midnight rolled around
again.

His body was rested, but Dru's bones ached from sleeping on the stone ledge. Two
blankets beneath him wasn't enough any more. He needed a layer of loose dirt, sand, or
moss and preferred a horsehair mattress; he was getting old. The thought of settling down in
one place had become thinkable for Druhallen. He had enough on account with the
Scornubel goldsmiths that he'd never have to return to Sunderath. He could buy himself a
small shop in a well-run town and live out his days selling spells to merchants and lovers.

It would be a predictable life. After the last few days, Druhallen had an new appreciation
for predictable. Dull and boring wouldn't be bad, either. Maybe he'd marry, have children of
his own. The world was ripe with men who hadn't thought about families until they'd plucked a
gray hair or two from their beards.

More than gold, Druhallen had the spells to make his daydreams come true. Ansoain's
library, carefully preserved and protected back in Scornubel, contained true copies of
Luvander's Prime Enchantments and Illusions of the Heart. He'd studied both volumes and
there weren't more than three spells between them that he couldn't cast comfortably. Most of
them were well within Galimer's range, especially if they weren't fielding surprises.

They'd joked about it—two wizards in their dotage casting spells on candles and wine cups. That
had been before Rozt'a, when neither of them knew the meaning of tired or aching.

Or love.

Or fidelity.

Rozt'a had her back to Dru's blankets. She was talking to Tiep who was looking at his feet
instead of her face. The youth was probably in a mood, but Druhallen wouldn't have wanted
to be looking into Rozt'a's eyes just then. He'd face ten dung beasts with no fire at all before
he'd tell her that he'd caught himself thinking about settling down, marriage, and children.

He wouldn't let himself think about such notions again, at least not until they'd gotten back
to Weathercote and pried Galimer from Lady Mantis.

Dru grabbed his blankets with one hand and headed for the horse line, a path which, not
coincidentally, took him close to Tiep and Rozt'a. They spotted him and fell silent.

"Problems?" he asked, on the forceful side of polite.

Neither answered. With his head still down, Tiep turned and walked away. He limped a bit,
but he'd been in worse shape yesterday, before Rozt'a slathered his blistered feet.

The one who looked like death in the morning was Sheemzher. One of the goblin's red-
orange cheeks was a dull, swollen brown and he held his spear close against his flank for
balance. No way he'd be able to walk and maintain any sort of pace. They'd have to put him
up on one of the horses—which wasn't so bad, except Dru couldn't remember the otyugh getting a
blow in on the goblin.

"There's something strange going on between Tiep and Sheemzher," he said to Rozt'a
without looking at her.

"Maybe."

"Is that what you and he were talking about just now?"

"No."

"He seemed sulky—"

Rozt'a grimaced and Dru decided not to ask her if she was feeling sulky also. The answer
was obvious, and so was the explanation. After yesterday, Rozt'a had to be wondering if
she'd ever see her husband again. Without a censoring thought, Dru wound his
unencumbered arm over Rozt'a's shoulders and pulled her gently against his chest.

"We're not dealt out of this game, not by a long shot."

Their eyes met and Rozt'a gave Dru a lethal stare before shrugging free of his one-armed
embrace. He folded both arms beneath his blankets.

"Let's get moving," he stammered.

Rozt'a nodded and walked away without saying a word.

That pretty much set the tone for another day of trekking up over stone and down through
the quaking bogs. From his perch on Hopper's back, Sheemzher urged them to pick up the
pace. They panted and sweated but didn't argue, especially when they were crossing rock.

The sky was no bluer than it had been yesterday, but the thick clouds had lifted somewhat.
They could see more of the dark gray mountains, and dragons. Druhallen had counted eight
dragon sightings, two of them simultaneous, both full-grown and deep red. Even one red
dragon was too many for a party of four.

Around noon they arrived at a ledge that was black, rather than dark gray, and glassy, like
the sealed entrance to Lady Wyndyfarh's cave. This was no magic cave. A red dragon had
fought here and blasted its prey with fire more intense than any Druhallen could summon.
The dragon had been killing, not hunting. Whatever had drawn its wrath would have been
reduced to powder and ash.

Dru didn't know if his companions read the same story from the scene. No one was talking
and he didn't volunteer the information. Ignorance was bliss, so long as one of them knew
what they were facing. He had to wonder, though, what Rozt'a saw and kept to herself, or the
goblin who swung his feet in the stirrups and was the first away from the ledge.

"Hurry," Sheemzher said, the first word anyone had spoken in hours. "Bad place. Evil
place."

They hurried and made palpable progress toward the tallest mountains that formed their
horizon—until the clouds fell again. Not much later, when they were striding carefully through one of
the spongier bogs they'd encountered, the clouds opened up. Today's raindrops were smaller than
yesterday's, cooler, too—bespeaking autumn rather than summer—and pushed sideways by gusty
winds.

Dru laced himself into his cloak and pulled the hood up. He could see the goblin's back
from the waist down and Hopper's from the tail up—not a sight to inspire any man. Hard to
believe that only a few days ago he and Galimer had been looking for someone who knew the way to
Dekanter. Everything looked different—better—when you were pursuing your own dreams and not
trying to appease some over-powered, bug-and-goblin befriending, magic-making woman who'd
turned your best friend into a mindless pet.

If there was a lesson to be learned from the last few days, it wasn't about amber. Large
chunks of his conversation with Amarandaris lay heavy in Dru's mind. He'd wasted so much
of his life learning things the Zhentarim already knew. When they got to Scornubel, Druhallen
promised himself that he'd sell the glass disk and let the Zhentarim deal with the Red
Wizards however they chose.

The path curved upward, promising another exposed rock gully. Bugs didn't fly in the rain,
maybe dragons didn't either. Dru could hope; a man should be careful with his hopes. It
wasn't dragon-fire that struck them from above, but fist- and skull-sized stones that fell with
the rain. He pinched embers from his sleeve—Dru had a little fire left in his memory—but
looking up he didn't see anything that looked like a target.

"Stay close!" Rozt'a shouted. She gave the orders when they were under attack. "Do
something, Dru."

He guessed at the location of their attackers, cast fire in that direction, and for a few
moments only cold, hard rain pelted their faces. Then rocks came down again.

"A shield!" she shouted, herding them against the sheer stone at the back of the ledge.
"And quick."

The horses shied and whinnied. They were bigger and taking the worst of an attack that
smacked of opportunity, not skill.

Druhallen knew a spell to thicken the air and slow an arrow by half, so a quick-thinking
man could bat the shafts down with his forearm. If their attackers had been throwing the
stones, the spell might have helped his family, but they were dropping them instead. A simple
shielding spell—the best he could manage under the circumstance—wouldn't stop the falling rain and
do less against a falling rock.

Unless—

Weather made a difference with magic. Dru's fireball spells burned hotter in the summer
and longer when the air was dry. This rain wasn't merely falling, it was driven sideways by the
wind. If the wind was affecting the rain—throwing it—then his shielding spell might slow the rain
and the ensorcelled rain might slow the stones. Moreover, he could cast the spell on a moving target—
himself and his party. If it worked at all, it would travel with them, maybe as far as the next bog.

And if the spell slowed either the stones or the rain, neither would it make their situation
worse.

At least it shouldn't make their situation worse.

Dru paused, reconsidering his conclusions.

"Now, Dru!"

He reached inside his cloak and clutched the folding box. The box could be opened in any
of a dozen ways. Dru found the clasp that revealed the compartment where he kept sprigs of
virgin goose-down. With a few of the tiny feathers pinched between his thumb and forefinger,
he spoke the words that kindled the shielding spell. The feathers vanished and he drew his
next breath in a far-less-gusty wind.

"Let's go!" he shouted to the others.

Rozt'a took the lead, but the path was too treacherous for great haste and rocks continued
to fall. One struck the black mare, Ebony. The mare lunged and broke away from Rozt'a
distracted grasp. Another step and she'd have been over the edge and into the bog, no better
than Cardinal. Tiep intervened; he caught Ebony's rein and, shouting her name, put his full
weight against her panic.

Tiep got through to the horse and the attackers got through to him. A stone the size of a
baby's skull clipped the youth on the forehead. Blood gushed, as it always did with a head
wound. Druhallen allowed himself to believe that the wound wasn't serious, but the lad stood
stock-still, making an attractive target of himself after the mare's rein slipped from his hand.

Their unseen overhead attackers responded with stones that were definitely thrown. The
shielding spell interfered with their trajectories, but Tiep swayed and staggered whether or
not the stones struck him. Druhallen dropped the reins he held and caught the youth's sleeve.

Two more stones struck home, one against Dru's shoulder, the other against Tiep's. Dru
acknowledged the blow with a groan, but Tiep seemed not to notice. Dru pulled him close
and got a glimpse of vacant eyes in the process.

"Tiep's dumbstruck!" Dru shouted. "He can't walk."

The last was an exaggeration. Tiep kept his feet moving under him as Dru hauled him
back to relative safety closer to the rock-face, but there was no sense in his movements. Dru
slapped Tiep's wet, bloody cheek and shouted in his ear, each to no avail. The youth blinked
without comprehension.

Rozt'a yelped. A stone had gotten her. The goblin had climbed down from Hopper's back
and was hidden among the restless horses.

"We can't stay here!" Rozt'a shouted. "Throw him over a saddle."

That was easier said than done, and no safer for Tiep were Dru to succeed at the task.
"We've got to stand where we are."

"Impossible!" Rozt'a replied.

Dru was already fumbling with his box. He thumbed a different catch and thrust a rain-
dampened forefinger into a compartment filled with ordinary ash. Leaving Tiep to stand alone
like a statue, Dru risked the drop-off edge. He thought he had a better idea now where the
enemy hid itself, and with his eyes squint-focused on that spot, whispered the Auld Thorassic
words for gloom and misery as he rubbed his fingers together.

The stuff of magic flowed away from Dru, confounding time and space. He had a vision of
scrawny, misshapen creatures, at least twenty of them, half with tossing stones and the other
half shuttling ammunition. The vision faded as the spell completed itself. By design, it worked
best on a conscious mind and a mind of conscience. Humans were a good target; elves and
dwarves were better. But the mind of a beast, especially a misshapen beast, might not be
susceptible at all.

Rozt'a shouted his name and not, by her tone, for the first time. "Are you mad?"
The rock fall slowed, then stopped. Keening moans and wails poured down the
mountainside instead.

"I don't know how long that will hold them. Let's move quick."

"What about Tiep? The goblin?"

Between the rain and the horses, it was easy to lose track of a head or two. Sheemzher
shouted that he was ready for anything. Tiep hadn't snapped out of his vacant-eyed trance.
Dru slapped and shook him again. This time the youth whimpered when he blinked and
raised a hand to his cheek.

"Walk, lad!" Dru challenged. He gave Tiep a half turn before shoving him forward. "Walk
for your life."

He kept one hand knotted in Tiep's shirt, steering and prodding the youth toward such
safety as the next bit of trail offered. Around his other hand Dru wound the reins and ropes for
three horses, none of which were eager to walk forward. With his arms stretched out and his
sleeves hanging like wet sails before the wind, Dru made an easy target, but his spell held
and none of the enemy accepted the invitation.

Dru congratulated himself for a job well done; he praised himself too soon. The same
scrawny enemy ambushed them in the next bog. Against all expectation, they made
Sheemzher their primary target, pulling the bedraggled goblin from Hopper's back.
Sheemzher had his decorated spear and put it to good use against the more primitive sticks
the enemy wielded, but he was badly outnumbered. Rozt'a and her sword would eventually
even the odds, but not—to Druhallen's eye—in time to save the goblin.