The Nether Scroll (26 page)

More goblins came out of the camp to meet them, mostly children, all of them boys. The
goblin women stayed behind knee-high walls on the midden mound. A wearier collection of
mothers and daughters Druhallen had never seen. Rozt'a fell back to walk beside him.

"This place turns my blood cold," she whispered. "The slave market hasn't closed. They've
only stopped selling their women to the Zhentarim."

"They never sold their women to the Zhentarim," Dru whispered back. "Count them. There
are more males than females, but a lot more boys than girls."

She did the arithmetic. "There must be another camp."

"I doubt it."

"What—?"

"Shsssh. Later."

Dru suspected that if they knew where to dig, they'd find too many tiny burials—or maybe
the goblins didn't bury the daughters they chose not to raise. His own five brothers notwithstanding,
sentient populations tended naturally to balance themselves between males and females. It took con-
siderable intervention to create the disparity here in Ghistpok's camp. The brutal and ultimately self-
defeating irony was that the same goblins who'd go to any length to enlarge their harems would reject
their daughters. Women tended to be scarce when women were despised, and a race or tribe where
men outnumbered women never camped far from brink of extinction.

The Dekanter goblins dwelt near that edge. They were still abandoning their daughters—
witness the preponderance of boys running loose—but they were missing many of their adult males.
The survivors—the goblins pointing their spears at the tallest woman they'd possibly ever seen—might
think they were better off than their fathers, but Dru had studied trade and history; he knew better.
Ghistpok's gender-skewed tribe was the strongest evidence he'd see to support Amarandaris's notion
that there was a war going on in the Greypeak Mountains. Quite possibly a war of annihilation
rather than one of conquest.

Suppose the Beast Lord was fighting a war, not with the Zhentarim nor with the goblins nor
with anything above ground. Suppose it worked its athanor every day, hatching out
swordswingers to protect its slaves and empty pools. Suppose it, too, needed something like
a sentience shield to keep its enemies away. If it were fighting a war under Dekanter, the
Beast Lord needed bodies—and what better way to get them than from its worshipers?

Dru's concentration lagged as he considered the questions he'd posed to himself. Outhzin
had led them into the camp. They were walking across the midden mounds, following a rutted
track that wound around the low walls and up to the abandoned Zhentarim headquarters. The
stench was astonishing; it overwhelmed concentration and compassion. Animals didn't live
so poorly. Squalor on this scale required sentience.

With every step and breath, Druhallen resented the idea that the meat off Hopper's bones
would wind up in these stomachs. Tiep was right, honest Hopper deserved something better,
but their course was set now.

Outhzin signaled a stop within the headquarters' morning shadow. Female goblins
watched them from broken, gaping windows. Their faces were a little fuller, if not cleaner than
those they saw behind the low walls. There was some benefit, then, to being part of
Ghistpok's harem.

It certainly wasn't Ghistpok. Only one word could describe the Dekanter chief when he
appeared in the doorless doorway: grotesque. He wore nothing, but could hardly be called
naked. In a colony where everyone else was starving, Ghistpok was huge, though even he
was not the man he'd been. Empty folds of flesh hung from his bulging belly, his upper arms
and legs—wherever he had once stored his fat. His face resembled a melting ball of wax. When he
raised his arms, flesh fell back from his hands like too-long sleeves.

Tiep and Rozt'a both turned away. Druhallen held his ground but he had to look elsewhere
when Ghistpok lifted a flap of dirty orange flesh to scratch a maggot-ridden armpit.

By chance, Dru found himself gazing at Sheemzher. The goblin who'd first appeared in
their Parnast room dressed like a town dandy was pale and trembling. His disappointment
and contempt were palpable: This was not the Ghistpok he'd expected to find.

But this was the Ghistpok with whom they had to negotiate—with whom Sheemzher had to
negotiate, because the Dekanter chief would not speak to a human nor admit that he understood their
language. After an exchange that wasn't cordial, Sheemzher followed Ghistpok into the abandoned
headquarters. Outhzin and three other warriors joined them.

Druhallen and his companions were left standing outside the stone headquarters,
surrounded by goblins who were as hostile as they were curious. The overbold goblin who'd
assaulted Rozt'a paced a circle around them, snarling and shaking his spear at any other
male who got too close. His spear did nothing to deter another drizzly rain shower or the
huge mosquitoes.

"You've got to burn this place," Tiep snarled as he slapped and flailed. "The whole world
needs you to—"

"Quiet!" Dru had retreated into himself and reacted slowly to the sound of Tiep's voice.
"They understand. They might not know you're just making noise."

"But you can—"

"I said, 'Quiet!'"

Rozt'a grabbed the youth and whispered in his ear. Tiep made a one-step retreat,
astonishment written large across his face. With luck, the goblins hadn't figured out they were
entertaining a wizard.

Inside the Zhentarim headquarters, the goblins exchanged heated words. Druhallen
couldn't be sure if Sheemzher had made allies, but he and Ghistpok weren't the only ones
raising their voices. Outhzin and his three peers appeared in the doorway to glower and
glare. Each time Dru got a sense of what slaves might have felt when Dekanter's market
flourished. He'd have led Rozt'a and Tiep away, if there'd been anywhere else to go.

At last, Sheemzher emerged, looking grim and without his shirt which had become a
turban atop Ghistpok's head. Druhallen expected bad news, but the goblin insisted—

"Sheemzher settle good. All done. Ghistpok not all believe, believe enough—Ghistpok
curious. Sheemzher, good sir lead people. Show people slaves, egg. Beast Lord make demons! Yes?
People see; people believe. People return, Ghistpok believe. Sheemzher settle good. Make sacrifice,
yes? Big feast after sacrifice. Big feast after Ghistpok believe. All people get scroll after big feast.
Good sir say, sentience shield. Sheemzher settle good, yes?"

If Druhallen were writing the script, he'd have the Nether scroll and be on his way to
Weathercote Wood before Ghistpok's goblins plunged into their feast, but he wasn't writing
the script. Dru told the goblin, "Sheemzher settle good, yes," and cringed when he realized
he was repeating the goblin's words.

While Ghistpok's elite gathered their spears, Druhallen led Hopper to the charred pit where
the goblins prepared their food. No need to ask what they used for fuel, and it wasn't wood.
He'd hoped for privacy but had an audience. In a moment or two, the goblins would know
what he was.

Dru began by scratching the tip of Hopper's nose. He working his fingers up the side of the
gelding's head to his ears. Hopper sighed and rested his chin on Dru's shoulder. Trust never
wavered from his brown eyes. One instant there was life, the next—when Dru crushed the
kindling ember against bone—life was gone. Hopper's legs buckled; he went down with a dead-weight
thud.

Tiep had stationed himself where Druhallen couldn't help but see him once Hopper was on
the ground. The youth's expression was confused and unreadable—identical, perhaps, to his
own. A month ago, Dru had believed he was a man beyond change; for good or ill, he was the man
he'd always be. A week on the Dawn Pass Trail had proved him wrong.

If—When Druhallen left Dekanter, he'd be a different person, and so, too, would Rozt'a and Tiep.
He could see the changes already on their faces.

A cold wind blew through Druhallen's thoughts; it whispered Galimer's name. Since
Sunderath, Dru had shared everything that mattered with Galimer, even a woman's love, but
they wouldn't share Dekanter ... or the glade in Weathercote Wood.

If Weathercote changed Galimer as the Greypeaks were changing him—?

Dru realized he could give Wyndyfarh the damned scroll and receive a stranger in return.

The risk had to be taken.

"Let's go," he said, walking away from Hopper's carcass.

He strode toward the main entrance to the Dekanter mines. Tiep caught up first.

"You did what you had to do," the youth said in hushed, thick tones.

Dru said nothing.

"I'm not angry with you anymore."

Dru shook his head. "You've grown up."

"Yeah. I guess."

Rozt'a joined them, Sheemzher, too. The goblin had acquired another spear which he held
off-side in his left hand. With his right, he grasped Dru's hand as a child might. Dru endured
the sympathy without comment.

The mine entrance was as old as the quarry. It was almost directly below the rim where
they'd first looked down on the goblin colony, which was why they hadn't seen it from the
High Trail. Like the steps, the entrance had been carved by dwarves and they'd outdone
themselves with inscriptions and low-relief portraits. The inscriptions were mostly Dethek
runes, but the portraits were humans, each surrounded by Netherese letters.

Dru sounded out the words—Raliteff, Noanar, Valdick, Efteran, and others—all names he'd
learned at Candlekeep, all Netherese wizards. For decades he'd dreamt of standing before the Dekanter
mines, on the threshold of forgotten history and magic. A thousand times or more he'd imagined how
the moment would feel; none was remotely accurate.

Seven goblins, including Sheemzher and Outhzin, accompanied Dru into the entry
chamber.

Rozt'a hadn't been listening when Sheemzher came out of the headquarters, or she'd
misunderstood what he'd said. "Where is everyone?" she asked. "We need the whole tribe,
the women and children, too, if we're going to distract the alhoon with a sentience shield,"
she explained.

"Later. People here convince Ghistpok. Ghistpok convince all people. Get scroll after
feast."

"Wonderful," Rozt'a replied. "You agreed to this, Dru?"

"It's the best Sheemzher could do."

"Wonderful," she repeated and fingered her sword.

They left sunlight behind. With their keen noses and heat-sensitive eyes, the goblins didn't
need light to find their way through the mines, but they didn't object to Dru's light spell when
he let the freshly cast spell drift above them.

Light revealed aspects of Dekanter that scent and heat could never detect. The dwarves
hadn't stopped their carving at the entry portals. The walls and high ceilings of several
chambers of the mines were covered with inscriptions, portraits, and scenes from forgotten
epics, many of them painted. One goblin, on seeing a remarkable likeness of a red dragon
that incorporated the natural contours of the rock beneath its paint, dropped his spear and
raced back to the light.

"Wait until they see the Beast Lord," Rozt'a mused bitterly.

For the moment, the Beast Lord was the least of their problems. Last night's torrential
rains had penetrated the mines. Sheemzher complained that the smells were different—
fainter—than they had been, but more worrisome were the puddles and the water seeping through the
walls. Dru knelt and examined a damp line a handspan above the floor.

"This tunnel flooded last night," he decided.

"We had more water pooled around our feet in the rocks," Tiep joked.

"And that water's still flowing through this mountain," Dru countered, then added, "We're
out of our minds. Only fools would walk into a mountain after a rain."

Rozt'a was unimpressed. "Then we're fools. The Beast Lord lives in this mountain and so
do its slaves. If they can survive, so can we."

The passages were unfamiliar at first, but soon enough Druhallen recognized intersections
by their Dethek runes. He began to relax about water and worry, instead, that they might
encounter a beefed-up swordswinger patrol. Dru listened for voices, boots, and the clank of
metal; what he heard was different.

"There's water ahead, Sheemzher," he told the goblin. "A lot of water."

"Much water, good sir," Sheemzher agreed. "No danger. Egg smell strong."

Perhaps it was. Dru had stood in front of the athanor without noticing any scent emanating
from it, but before they'd gone a hundred feet into the next tunnel even a human nose was
aware of a damp, stony tang in the air and the breeze that carried it toward them. They
followed the wind to the next intersection.

Sheemzher forged straight ahead. "This way before, good sir," he said when Dru
hesitated. "This way now, yes?"

The goblin was retracing their steps, but he was also leading them toward water. Against
his better judgment, Dru let himself be led down a corridor past the point where damp
became wet. Yesterday, he'd nearly succumbed to panic when he'd felt the mountain bearing
down on him. Today, knowing there was a storm's worth of water working its way through the
tangled passages, the pressure was worse. Druhallen knew there was danger and knew no
way to avoid it, except by leaving the mines.

"We've got to turn around," he announced. "There's no telling where the water's been or
where it's going. This tunnel could flood in an instant."

They argued with him, Rozt'a and Tiep included, until water seeped through the seams of
their boots and covered their toes. Backtracking to the previous intersection, Sheemzher
declared that he'd made a mistake—

"Egg smell strongest this way!" He pointed down the right-side path, a down-sloping path
where the stone was dry and the air was still. "Come. Come, good sir," Sheemzher tugged on
Druhallen's sleeve. "Be brave, good sir. Trust Sheemzher. Sheemzher follow nose now, not
memory."

Dru backed away and found himself face-to-face with Rozt'a.