The Nether Scroll (23 page)

They'd come up to another intersection, which Dru had to study before leading them
straight ahead. He forgot that he'd left his story unfinished.

Tiep wanted to hear the rest. "So the goblin made the scroll disappear. Then what
happened?" He got another sigh for an answer. "What now? What did I say this time? He
loosened it, didn't he? And that wrecked the magic, right? And now it's gone. Bully for
Sheemzher—he didn't save a goblin or one of the damned bugs, and if it's really gone, how're we
going to get Galimer back?"

Dru walked a little faster.

"Druhallen!" Rozt'a called sharply. "He's made a good point—what are we going to do?"

"Yeah, that's all I want to know. I don't care about the goblin."

"We'll go back. It's there. The scroll's still there. I can sense it—see its shadow when I look
for magic. It's been displaced in time."

Feeling bold after Rozt'a's support, Tiep asked, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You've heard the expression: He got kicked into the middle of the next tenday? Well,
that's where the scroll is. Not as far as the middle of next tenday, though, maybe midnight, or
dawn. It's already drifting backward. The Beast Lord wasn't surprised that it was missing.
Maybe the scroll gets displaced every time it uses the athanor."

"You keep saying 'it,' Dru," Rozt'a said as soon as he'd finished talking. "Isn't the Beast
Lord a he? Wyndyfarh said 'he.'"

"The Beast Lord's some sort of mind flayer, Rozt'a."

Tiep had heard of mind flayers before, but not from any of his foster parents. His mates in
the Berdusk alleys used to whisper about mind flayers every time someone disappeared. As
if it took big scary monsters to make a kid vanish from the streets.

"What sort of mind flayer?" Rozt'a asked in a serious voice.
"I wish I knew. The pieces don't fit together—it's alone, renegade, and using magic. The one
thing I'm sure I do know about mind flayers is they don't touch magic. I'd almost pay good money to
see Amarandaris's face when he realizes he's not dealing with a minor beholder."

"Is that what the Zhentarim think they've been trading with?" Rozt'a shuddered. "I'd rather
take my chances with a beholder. What about Lady Wyndyfarh. She said the Beast Lord was
a nuisance. What do you suppose she thought he—it—is?"

"That's just the question I want to ask Sheemzher here when we bring him around."

Tiep was satisfied. The dog-face didn't have a prayer if he'd crossed Dru. There were
some nasty spells written inside Dru's wooden box, spells he never memorized unless he had
to. Galimer once said that Dru could make the dead sit up and answer questions. He could
unravel a goblin's secrets without half trying.

Of course, Sheemzher was sitting on a few secrets Tiep didn't particularly want Dru or
Rozt'a to hear, which meant Tiep was in favor of necromancy. According to common
wisdom—the only sort of wisdom Tiep laid claim to—dead folk answered only the questions they
were asked. If the goblin were dead and Dru didn't get around to asking, specifically, What do you
know about Tiep and Zhentarim? then Tiep's secrets were safe.

Not that Tiep, himself, didn't want to know how the goblin knew the Network had its hooks
in his hide.

Damn Sememmon, anyway. Why couldn't the Dark Lord just have killed him when he'd
made his one, admittedly huge, mistake on the streets of Scornubel three winters ago? But
no-o-o-o, Sememmon had led Tiep back to a warm, comfortable room and offered him dark
red wine—which Tiep prudently hadn't touched.

You've got a talent, boy, that deep, silky voice had purred. It would be a shame to waste
such a talent. I could use that talent; and then I might forget how I discovered it.

Tiep had cut his teeth in the streets. He'd had no illusions about Sememmon's offer but
he'd kept his pride and his honor. He'd told the Dark Lord that if the Zhentarim wanted him to
betray his foster parents—if they wanted to use him to put pressure on his foster parents, then Lord
Sememmon should kill him where he stood, because he'd never do it.

Sememmon had listened, smiled, and said: I don't want you to betray your foster parents,
Tiep—and I warn you, the day you betray them will be your last. From time to time, the Zhentarim
have need of men and women whose hearts are good and who do not know our faces. Druhallen
of Sunderath, Galimer Longfingers, and the woman who calls herself Florozt'a are such folk,
but you're not like them, are you, Tiep?

Tiep wasn't. He'd never been, never would be, and he did "favors" for Sememmon. Not
many. Not often. And never anything that he wouldn't have done on his own. He'd never
drawn blood, directly or indirectly—at least as far as he knew. He'd been offered rewards for his
services—which he hadn't taken. Sememmon's memory of a midnight indiscretion on the Scornubel
streets remained as sharp as ever.

The Dark Lord would never forget that night. Tiep had understood that much after he'd
completed his first "favor" a week after that first meeting. He'd been too ashamed to tell Dru,
Galimer, or Rozt'a what had happened. The shame had only grown as the months passed
and he'd continued to do Darkhold's bidding—the last time in Parnast. He hadn't stolen the myrrh;
he'd won that exactly the way he'd claimed. He hadn't stolen anything in Parnast.

The second night of the dust storm, when he'd been heading home from Manya's,
Zhentarim henchmen had accosted Tiep and marched him upstairs above the charterhouse.
Amarandaris gave him a sealed blue bottle—the kind ladies used for their perfumes—and
instructions to put it in a certain saddle bag at a certain time. Tiep hadn't asked questions and he hadn't
gone back for his reward, either. He'd been careful—doubly, triply careful the way he'd learned to be
when he was doing Zhentarim "favors."

Tiep wasn't worried about getting caught by any town or guild's law. He worried about his
foster parents finding out that he'd fallen deeper than they imagined possible.

Gods! In Weathercote, when Dru and Rozt'a had blamed him for Galimer's imprisonment
and he'd thought they were going to turn their backs on him right there, it had almost been a
relief. Tiep wasn't ashamed of stealing the lady's amber in Weathercote, or even of smashing
her bug.

Sheemzher had set them all up and tricked him specifically. The goblin could die right now
and Tiep would dance a jig on his grave.
But somehow Sheemzher had known about him and the Black Network.

"I don't know, Dru," he said, trying desperately to sound like Galimer. "Sheemzher's spent
a lot of time with that bug lady. She's probably tangled up his mind. It's not his fault; he's just
a goblin, but you can't trust anything that he says. I don't think it would be worth asking him.
His answers would only make you mad and crazy."

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

The Greypeak Mountains

"You're probably right," Druhallen agreed before shifting Sheemzher's unconscious weight
to his left shoulder. "But I plan to ask him all the same."

It was ungentlemanly—unfatherly—but Dru suspected he might see something other than
compassion in the young man's eyes and until he shifted shoulders, Sheemzher's head blocked the
view. It wasn't like the youth to smooth the goblin's road, though he and Rozt'a had been urging Tiep
to do just that since they'd left Weathercote Wood. Lately Tiep was like a weathervane in a
thunderstorm: pointing first this way, then that, and very likely to burst into flames at any moment.

"I doubt that Lady Wyndyfarh has been any more honest with her goblin than she has with
us," Dru continued. "But it will be interesting to learn what she has told him about herself.
Sheemzher's got a good memory—have you noticed that when he tells you what someone else has
said, he gets it exact, right down to the accent?"

"I knew a rag-picker whose parrot squawked in couplets. Didn't make the bird a poet."

Dru heard resentment and saw fear in Tiep's eyes. "It told you something about the man
who taught the parrot, didn't it?" he asked gently.

"The rag-picker didn't teach the bird anything. Some woman taught it; it squawked with a
woman's voice."

"I'd say you've won my point for me," Dru said softly through a not-completely repressed
grin of triumph.

Tiep grumbled something Dru chose not to hear and fell back to walk beside Rozt'a where
he complained loudly about sarcastic wizards who'd forgotten what it was like to be a young
man. Rozt'a shushed him with a hiss and they walked on in grim silence.

Dru shifted the goblin again at the next intersection and gave him a thump on the back for
good measure. They'd returned to the dwarven tunnels. The overhead carvings were familiar
and Dru was confident that the next intersection would be the last one before they hauled
themselves out of the mountain. He'd be relieved to see the sky again but wasn't looking
forward to squeezing himself through that tiny hole in the ceiling.

Sheemzher had promised to lead them out by another route—

"C'mon, little fellow, wake yourself up!" He thumped the goblin's back again. "Tell me if this
other passage leads to the surface."

Not a squeak or twitch.

"Do you want to try another way?" Rozt'a asked with cold enthusiasm.

"No—but you're going to have your hands full getting me out of here."

She did and so did Tiep who pushed from below. The passage wasn't as bad as Dru had
anticipated, perhaps because a steady rain had made the granite around the hole slick.

They'd been underground long enough for the sun to set. Dru's light spell functioned in the
rain, but not well. He kept it throttled so it wouldn't draw attention from Ghistpok's goblins in
the quarry, but that meant more shadows than light reaching the ground as they picked their
miserable way back to the horses. Rozt'a fell and Dru came down one rock face on his rump
with the goblin upside down in his lap. A more traditional wizard would have lost more than
his dignity, but Dru favored leather breeches. His dignity and more remained intact.

Who'd ever have thought that a mountain range could be as wet as a seacoast marsh or
the fabled jungles of Chult?

The horses welcomed them and welcomed the grass nets more. Tiep volunteered to fix
their supper, reminding Dru that adolescence was temporary and the youth was their best
cook. Rozt'a volunteered to help him, which was an extraordinary event and not a good omen
for digestion. She'd been subdued since emerging from the Beast Lord's compulsion; losing a
slice of memory must have cut deep. Tiep could reassure her about what she'd missed and if
words weren't sufficient, Dru could unfold his box down to its bottom and study the spells
written in the compartments that held sprigs of rue, hemlock, and lashes from a blind man's
eye.
He was going to have to dig down that deep anyway, if Sheemzher didn't bestir himself.

They'd laid the goblin out on the only dry patch of stone in the hollow and examined him as
thoroughly as he and Rozt'a knew how. He had a lump on his head and burns on his palms,
which they'd slathered with second skin, but no other visible injuries. Rozt'a had uncorked a
bottle of aromatic spirits. Though the restorative was potent enough to get a reaction from the
horses standing ten paces away, it had no effect on the goblin.

Druhallen knew a spell that would create forced rapport. Ansoain had said it would bridge
between a wizard and any sentient mind. He and Galimer had cast it successfully on each
other, but rapport with your best friend could hardly be called forced and some authorities
questioned goblin sentience It was a complicated spell, too, and would cost him a fair amount
of firepower if he committed it to memory after midnight.

He knew another spell that would turn a pair of Rozt'a's leather gloves into gauntlets
sturdy enough to hold a piece of the sun if it happened to be stuck in the top of a huge brass
egg. Tiep's ill-gotten myrrh from Parnast made that one possible, but it, too, would leave a big
footprint in his mind and a hole after he cast it. He'd rather enchant the gloves than force a
rapport with their goblin.

Everything would be easier if Sheemzher would just wake up, but prudence dictated that
Dru make himself familiar with the rapport spell's logic and ritual before he convinced Rozt'a
to give him a pair of her sword-handling gloves. He was lost in contemplation, when he heard
Rozt'a calling his name.

"We've been talking," she said and indicated Tiep who stood beside her in the rain and
faded light spell; Sheemzher was still unconscious. "We've put together some conclusions
about what's going on—Tiep has, actually. He's thought things through. I think you should listen to
him."

Dru realized he was hungry enough to eat two suppers and that Rozt'a's hands were
empty, as were Tiep's. Whatever the two of them had been up to, it hadn't involved the
preparation of food. Disappointment stung and soured. "When don't I listen to you, Tiep?"

The youth's lips rolled and tightened. "It's about the Beast Lord and how he's really a mind
flayer—"

—" 'It,' Tiep. Mind flayers are hermaphrodites."

"Herm-what?"

"They're all built the same. Maybe they mate, maybe they don't, but they're all the same:
no males, no females. Can't tell 'em apart."

Dru winced when Tiep blushed. Some men sounded like their fathers; he sounded like
Ansoain. Rozt'a touched Tiep's arm, but only made the blush worse.

"Right—" Tiep's voice chose that moment to crack. He cleared his throat several times while both
Dru and Rozt'a tried not to look at him, then he tried again. "Well, I watched what went on at that pool
with the light in it and I think I've got it figured out. Those ugly critters that butchered Cardinal and
tried to butcher us a couple nights ago, they're not demons, they're goblins who've been put through
the Beast Lord's egg. Those swordswingers, they started off as goblins, too, but the Beast Lord mixed
them up with the bug lady's bugs, so they're cleverer than goblins."

It wasn't the way Dru saw events unfolding, but Tiep's view had merit. "Could be that way,"
he admitted. "My problem is that there's never just one mind flayer. They're supposed to be
like ants or bees. They live in colonies and take orders from something called an Elder Brain.
Just like the queen bee in a hive, once the Elder Brain establishes a colony, it never leaves. It
can't. Its whole body has been transformed into a huge brain that floats in brine instead of
blood—"

"The pool!" Rozt'a declared. "The pool was empty. What did you say after you came back
from seeing Amarandaris—the Network pulled out because there'd been war under Dekanter? I'd
say the Beast Lord's lost its Elder Brain and now its losing the whole war."

Dru shook his head. "Sheemzher's never said Beast Lords, not once. It's always Beast
Lord, by itself. Even Amarandaris talks about trading with a single beholder."

"But if they all look alike—?" Tiep made a nauseated face. "Who'd want to look close enough to
see if today's mind flayer is the same one you saw last year?"

"Good sir, Beast Lord not mind flayer."

Rozt'a, Tiep, and Druhallen all focused their attention on Sheemzher who'd propped
himself up on one elbow.
"What is it, then?" Dru asked, expecting a familiar answer.

The goblin howled, "Alho-o-o-o-on!"

Dru rubbed his forehead wearily. Sheemzher wasn't stupid, no more than a young child
was stupid when it thought that size—bigness—determined the value of a coin. But, like a young
child, Sheemzher saw the world on his own terms. "That may be the word that goblins use," he
explained, "but men say 'mind flayers'."

"Goblins say nothing, good sir. Good lady say: alho-o-o-o-on!"

Sheemzher howled again and Dru had great difficulty imagining that the keening sound
had originated in Wyndyfarh's slender, elegant throat. He'd never heard of an alho-o-o-o-on,
either, and it was simply inconceivable that Ansoain would have failed to acquaint him and
Galimer with such an unusually named beast.

When the goblin finished his howl, he added, "Mind flayers alive living things. Alho-o-o-o-n
dead living thing."

Dru, who'd been leaning against the rock, trying to stay as much out of the rain as
possible, literally leapt forward and to his feet. "Undead? The Beast Lord is an undead mind
flayer? Mystra's mercy—that explains the rest." His initial burst of excitement and satisfaction faded
fast. "You knew," he said. Disbelief kept Dru's anger in check. "You knew what was down there. You
knew, and you led us down there without a word of warning ..."

"Good sir not ask Sheemzher. Sheemzher not clever men. Sheemzher not know what
clever men know. Sheemzher quiet. Men never listen not-clever goblins, good sir;
Sheemzher keep quiet. Not ask, not answer."

"Sweet Tymora! I'm going to—"

Tiep lunged at the goblin, but Tymora gave her blessing to Druhallen, who caught him
before any harm was done. "You're not going to do anything."

"You heard him! He led us down there to die. Him and his damn lady. We were headed for
that damn egg, that athan-thing you keep talking about."

"Athanor. Alchemists use them to transmute base elements. It's our fault—my fault: I didn't
ask the right questions."

Tiep swore with creative passion, which Dru took as a sign that the goblin was no longer in
serious danger. He glanced at Rozt'a, who'd shut her eyes and stood still like stone, blaming
herself, as he did.

Dru spoke for himself and her: "What's cut stays cut," he told Sheemzher, who'd pulled the
blanket over his head. "I'm asking now. When Lady Wyndyfarh told you that the Beast Lord
was an—" Imitating the goblin's howl was more than Druhallen could ask of himself. "Sheemzher, do
you remember what you said and what your lady said when she told you what the Beast Lord was?"

The goblin stayed beneath the blanket. "Good lady says, Is its flesh slick and shiny or dry?
Sheemzher says: Not shiny. Not get close. Not know slick, not know dry. Good lady says:
The Beast Lord of Dekanter is an undead illithid magician, a lithilil—an illithil—ilthili—"
Sheemzher abandoned memory. The blanket fell away from his face as he threw back his head and
howled: "Alho-o-o-oon ... alho-o-o-o-on."

Rozt'a walked away. They were all soaked to the skin, but she'd started shivering. They
could hear her teeth.

"Now look what you've done!" Tiep snarled and made another lunge for Sheemzher's
neck.

The goblin scrambled while Dru wrestled with Tiep. He got the youth pinned upright
against wet rock. "What's wrong with you?" he demanded, his mouth a finger's breadth from
Tiep's nose. "Haven't we got enough trouble without you going off like a rabid dog every other
moment?"

Tiep opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it and kept quiet. Dru
released him and retreated, staring at his own hands and wondering how they'd gotten to a
point where Tiep was assaulting a much-smaller goblin and he was doing the same to Tiep.

"We all need to back away from each other for a while," he muttered, though what they
really needed was Galimer. Galimer did more than negotiate their business, he kept the
peace. When this was over, Dru swore silently that he'd find the words to thank his friend.
Right now, a wall of frustration separated his shame from an apology.

Tiep straightened himself up. The youth didn't appear any worse for the encounter, for
which Dru was grateful.
"You forgot to ask Sheemzher about the bug lady."

Dru's nerves were so raw he couldn't tell if the boy meant to be troublesome or was
actually trying to be helpful. "Not now."

"Good lady very good, very kind. Good lady crush Beast Lord like this—" Sheemzher ground
his right fist into his left palm. "—If good lady come here. Good lady not come here. Good lady
cannot leave forest."

Though he hadn't wanted the conversation, Dru couldn't let it end without answers.
"You've said that before. Why can't Lady Wyndyfarh leave Weathercote Wood?"

Sheemzher looked behind both shoulders and up at the dark, leaking clouds before
whispering: "Good lady not belong; good lady watcher only. Very great magic lady get very
great angry if good lady leave forest. Very great magic lady send all Weathercote ladies, all
Weathercote lords away." The goblin leaned forward. "Good lady say, No sense giving
Mystra a reason to make a mistake. Not now when she's adjusting to new eyes."

They'd all heard tales of the recently ended Time of Troubles in which gods died and—in
some versions of the tales—mortals had replaced them. The deaths of Bane and Myrkul were all but
confirmed. Their priests were impotent and their temples abandoned, but a new Mystra, a fallible,
born-mortal Mystra? No. It was inconceivable; Dru had refused, until now, to conceive of it.