The Nether Scroll (30 page)

"Where is he?"

"Good sir kneel. Good sir before Beast Lord. Alho-o-o-oon!" The goblin's wail blended into
the keening. "Alho-o-o-o-on eat mind. Good lady not care. Good lady not care goblins, not
care good sir. Good lady care only scroll. Sacrifice!"

Sheemzher hoisted up his spear and took a tottering step forward. Tiep lunged and
grabbed him before the goblin took another. He could see Dru now, on his knees before the
Beast Lord, those ghastly tentacles sliding around his face like snakes.

Mind flayers. Mind flayers didn't eat minds, they ate brains. He could hear the Beast Lord,
beyond Druhallen's spell and his own immunity—it was like the otio-whatever, the dung beast that
had grabbed him a few nights back with its hunger, hunger, hunger radiating into his mind, but the
Beast Lord was vastly more powerful and vastly more hungry. The Beast Lord wanted Dru's life—his
loves and fears, his knowledge and hopes. The Beast Lord would share those delicacies with his
minions as he consumed them.

The last thing Dru had told Tiep was "Don't worry about me," but Tiep couldn't do it. There
was a clear path out of the pool chamber. Tiep reached behind his back.

"You take this back to Weathercote ... to your good lady."

Tiep couldn't keep the bitter sarcasm from his voice as he offered the shirt-wrapped
bundle to Sheemzher.

The goblin folded his arms and shook his head. "Not leave. Sheemzher not leave. Galimer
not friend. Good lady not friend. Good sir friend. Sheemzher not leave. Sheemzher kill god.
Sacrifice. Tiep leave, yes? Tiep have other life, yes? No sacrifice."

"No, damn you—No!"

Druhallen's spell was cracking from inside. Tiep drew his sword; Sheemzher pressed his
spear's tip against Tiep's bare chest.

"Wait. Alho-o-o-o-on strong mind. Alho-o-o-o-on blind just once. Touch mind once—"
Sheemzher stuck his finger in one nostril, a disgusting gesture at an inappropriate time. "Alho-o-o-o-
on blind. Wait. Wait, yes? Sheemzher give sign."

The flint pressure on Tiep's chest increased. Sheemzher—the runty, warty, dog-faced
goblin—would kill him on the spot if he gave the wrong answer.

"I'll wait," Tiep said, and added, "You planned this. You and your damned bug lady."

"No good lady. Good lady not care." The goblin withdrew his spear, and Tiep breathed
easier. "Sheemzher make plan; Sheemzher do plan. No other people care. Ghistpok not
care. Maybe too late. Sheemzher care. Sheemzher plan. Sheemzher kill god. Sacrifice."

It was Tiep's turn to threaten his companion. "Not Dru. Not on your worthless life."

He was bigger than Sheemzher, considerably longer in the leg, and the goblin was injured.
Tiep was going to reach the Beast Lord first and slam his sword into the middle of the Beast
Lord's rib cage—assuming an alhoon had ribs and kept its vital organs within them; and also
assuming that it could be killed with an ordinary Zhentilar's sword.

Tiep charged across the pool chamber, but stopped a few feet short of plunging his sword
through the Beast Lord's fancy cloak. For one thing, the alhoon's presence grew stronger the
closer Tiep got. For another, he could see better and understood what Sheemzher had been
trying to tell him when the goblin stuck his finger in his nostril. Only three of the Beast Lord's
four tentacles were writhing over Druhallen's head; the fourth was pressed rigid against his
cheek. Its tip disappeared into Dru's nose and there was blood streaming over his mouth and
chin.

Damn Sheemzher who couldn't string a proper sentence together! How was he supposed
to know the right moment to attack? The Beast Lord hadn't noticed that there was an armed
human standing an arm's length from his back. He wouldn't notice two feet of steel protruding
from his chest, either, until it was too late.

Sheemzher arrived at Tiep's side. He held up one hand, palm-out, a sign all the races
knew meant stop! The goblin's injuries were apparent in the brighter light around the pool.
The right side of his face was bloodied—Tiep couldn't see Sheemzher's right eye for the blood and
didn't know if it was even still there. Sheemzher had a wound on his right side too. It wasn't bleeding
badly. All the damage must have been inside because the goblin was paralyzed from the wound down
on that side of his body.

They were a sorry lot: a naked woman, a wizard with his brain about to be devoured, a
wounded goblin, and a bumbling thief with a sword he didn't know how to use. It was a
miracle they'd gotten this far, a fool's miracle.

Then the keening stopped, and all of the Beast Lord's tentacles went rigid against Dru's
face. Tiep didn't need a signal from Sheemzher. He let out a yell and pointed the sword at the
spot where a man's heart would be vulnerable, if an alhoon were a man.

The sword began to vibrate inches away from the cloak. Tiep hung onto the hilt with both
hands, willing the tip forward, but it was no use. Plain steel couldn't penetrate the Beast
Lord's defenses. It did get his attention.

The Beast Lord turned to face Tiep, unwrapping its tentacles from Druhallen's head as it
moved. Dru collapsed on the stone. He might have been alive; he might have been dead.
Tiep couldn't tell by looking at him. A heartbeat later, he couldn't tell anything at all. His world
was white eyes with neither pupils nor irises and four blind serpents reaching for him. Dru's
spell couldn't protect him from the Beast Lord's direct attention. Tiep felt his life's memories
flowing away from him and a hideous cruelty that put Sememmon to shame.

The first tentacle touched Tiep's face. He screamed, and his tormentor consumed his fear.
The second tentacle traced an arc over his eyes, across his cheek, and thrust violently into
his nose. Tiep couldn't breathe. He gulped air through his mouth, fighting for life when his last
wish was to die quick. The Beast Lord was laughing inside his skull.

There was darkness.

And there was light again.

Tiep was still alive, still standing in the Beast Lord's pool chamber. The sword had fallen
from his hand and his body quaked with the aftershocks of sheer terror, but aside from the
blood streaming from his ravaged nostril, he was unharmed.

The Beast Lord, who still stood so close that Tiep could see the tiniest wrinkles in its
tentacles and the shiny membrane covering its eyes, had lost interest in feasting on his fears.
Tiep couldn't move, except to breathe and breathing took all his concentration whether he
tried breathing through his mouth or, by mistake, through his nose. Between labored breaths,
Tiep looked for his foster parents and found them. Dru hadn't risen from the stone, but he
was breathing. The Beast Lord blocked Tiep's view of Rozt'a, but he could see the top of her
head beyond a cloaked shoulder and hoped that meant she was still alive.

Tiep couldn't see Sheemzher; the angle was wrong. He couldn't hear the goblin, either.
They hadn't succeeded in killing a god. They hadn't even come close, but Tiep forgave the
goblin because Sheemzher had tried.

The goblin keening hadn't resumed. The pool chamber was dead quiet, except for a few
humans trying to breathe. It didn't take long for Tiep to wonder what had caused their
reprieve and how long it would last. If he couldn't find the strength and skill to get his feet
moving, whatever distracted the Beast Lord's attention had simply postponed the inevitable.

After an eternity of silence and breathing, Tiep heard a swordswinger howl, and then he
heard that howl cut short. He strained his eyes, searching the portion of the chamber he
could see. There were shadows beyond the pools, moving shadows, but he couldn't see what
made them. Something was out there, though, stalking the swordswingers. Another one
howled and died immediately after, and from the same place in the darkness, there was a
loud, faintly liquid sound, like a fish or frog being smashed against a wall.

Tiep squinted, desperate to see what was happening. His neck moved! Not enough to
improve his vision, but he'd moved! He could breathe without concentrating on every breath
and he'd moved! Tymora—to whom he'd forgotten to pray—hadn't forgotten her prodigal.

There was hope!

Tiep was concentrating on flexing his toes when he saw the cause of his hope: another
mind flayer... two of them... no, three ... four. He counted six, but there were surely more
gliding around the pool chamber. He couldn't turn his head, couldn't see what might be
sneaking up behind him.

The invaders were different from the Beast Lord. Tiep remembered Sheemzher relaying
the question the bug lady had asked him: Is its flesh slick and shiny or dry? The Beast Lord
was definitely dry. The invaders were definitely slick and shiny. Between the Beast Lord and
the invaders was a choice of nightmares with no chance to wake up.
Tiep's fingers moved. He made a fist with his left hand.

Something whizzed past his right ear. He never saw what it was, but the Beast Lord
flinched. Then it moved. Like a burrowing snake, it moved out of Tiep's sight. Maybe he'd
seen creatures move faster, but he'd expected that the alhoon would move slowly and wasn't
prepared for its speed, or for the speed of the invaders when they dodged streaking fire that
looked and smelled for all the world like the spells that Druhallen cast.

Tiep couldn't be sure how successful the Beast Lord was against its attackers, but hit or
miss, fire was falling on the prostrate goblins. He saw it fall on fat Ghistpok. The goblin
couldn't move to swat the flames that swiftly lit him up like a candle. It was horrible death to
watch, and Tiep felt no pity at all.

He'd made and opened a right-hand fist. He could yawn and wriggle his toes.

The invading mind flayers fought with invisible spells unlike any that Druhallen cast. One
of them struck the Beast Lord. Tiep could see only the effect. For a moment the Beast Lord
was hidden in an inky black cloud and the air through the pool chamber crackled like pine
boughs in a hot fire. Then the cloud was gone and one of the invaders became a living torch.

Tiep bent his right knee and straightened it again before he lost his balance. If he lived
another minute, he'd be running for shelter. Better than that—far better than that—Druhallen had
pulled himself into a crouch and was getting his legs under him. Rozt'a hadn't moved yet, but she
would, once Dru got to her.

He did, but not before fire came dangerously close to all three of them and one of the
invading flayers ran between Druhallen and Rozt'a on its way to attacking the Beast Lord with
its longer tentacles. When the flurry ended, one of the invader's tentacles flopped and flapped
on the stone, the Beast Lord was oozing from a mangled shoulder, and Druhallen had his
arms around Rozt'a.

She was still groggy when Dru got to Tiep. They were all too exhausted for joy or relief or
anything more than Dru's hoarse, raspy question:

"Got it?"

To which Tiep replied with a nod. Through it all he'd been aware of the shirt-wrapped
bundle against his back.

Druhallen pushed them all toward the wall and safety. Tiep pushed back.

"Sheemzher."

They looked, even Rozt'a, and saw the goblin in a heap some ten feet away, his spear at
his side. Dru pushed again. Tiep shoved free. Sheemzher had been hurt before and wasn't
moving at all, but they weren't leaving him or his damn spear behind. He hoisted the goblin
onto his shoulder and used the spear for balance.

Dru offered to carry Sheemzher when they were all together again. Tiep just shook his
head and Dru guided them all toward the wall. Druhallen's expression was more unreadable
than usual on account of his bloody face; Tiep supposed he looked the same. He couldn't
look at Rozt'a, not without her clothes.

The Beast Lord took out another of the living mind flayers, but there were still several left,
weaving through the chamber, lobbing their invisible magic and cutting down any
swordswinger alert enough to attack them. They'd never know if this was a battle in the war
the Beast Lord was fighting with its Underdark neighbors, but if it was, then it was likely to be
an important battle—the last battle if the Beast Lord lost.

Tiep could pass that along to Horace when they got to Yarthrain.

An explosion shook the pool chamber just before they reached the tunnel that lead to
safety. The irresistible pull of curiosity stopped them all and turned them around. The Beast
Lord was gone—vanished, maybe dead—and the living mind flayers turned their white-eyed
attention to the three of them. For a moment, Tiep was back in the grip of the Beast Lord's
tentacles with cold, alien thoughts nibbling at his memories. He learned a word,
cephalophagy: the consumption of a living brain, thought by thought, emotion by emotion.
The word would always be with him, on the edge of nightmare.

Then he was free. They were all free. Another mind flayer had fallen. The Beast Lord was
gone from the chamber, but not from the battle. The living mind flayers had their choice to
make and they made it, turning their backs on the humans.

"Let's get going," Dru said. "Whoever wins this duel is going to be hungry when it's over."

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

Dekanter

One foot in front of the other ...

Druhallen of Sunderath told himself that as he pushed his companions through the empty
tunnels of Dekanter. They had the scroll, they had one another—even their goblin whose
heartbeat was weak but steady whenever he checked it.

As for the other goblins, Ghistpok's goblins—Ghistpok was dead, seared in his own fat, and his
starving tribe was doomed. Its doom, though, had been sealed long before this chilly night, long before
the obese Ghistpok took command. Perhaps the tribe had been doomed from the moment the alhoon
claimed the mines for its own. Certainly they'd been doomed once it found a golden scroll from
Netheril.

The eastern Greypeaks were brightening when the survivors stumbled through the great
dwarf-carved gate. Sunrise and dimmed stars had never looked so beautiful. The driving
need to be gone from this place relaxed for a moment. Dru raised his eyes, as if heavenly
light could heal his face or his memories of this night.

Only time and distance, mostly distance, could dull the remembered agony, the sense of
violation and helpless rage he'd felt when the Beast Lord had overwhelmed his spirit. This
night, Druhallen of Sunderath had experienced cruelty, hunger, and degradation on a scale
he'd not imagined possible; he was not grateful for the lesson, which was worse in reflection
than it had been in reality. Were it not for Rozt'a, Tiep, and the goblin he carried on his back,
Dru would not have returned to the light.

"The horses, Dru," Rozt'a whispered. "Get the horses."

She'd reclaimed her sword belt on the way out. Shortly after that, she'd rediscovered her
voice. Dru didn't know what she had endured in the last hour and would never ask. She was
shivering now, from cold and memory. He would have held her close, if his arms hadn't been
locked behind his back supporting the goblin.

Tiep walked a bit apart from them and added distance as the sky grew brighter than the
light spell—a feeble effort, ruddy with desperation—that had guided them away from the pool
chamber. Dru owed his life to Tiep. If the youth hadn't risked everything in his brave, senseless
attempt to slay the Beast Lord, Dru would be a fading part of the alhoon's memory. Tiep's reward had
been the Beast Lord's embrace.

Druhallen didn't know what to say to his bloodied foster-son; he didn't know what to say to
himself.

They reached the carved steps to the High Trail, which, like many stairways, were higher
and steeper going up than coming down. Dru's legs were jellied halfway through the third tier.
He called a halt when they reached the top.

Dekanter's clouds were reassembling in the north and west. There'd be rain in the quarry
by mid-morning, but for now it was sun-streaked and quiet. Nothing moved on the mounds or
showed its face at the gaping mine entrance. He didn't particularly want to see the remnants
of Ghistpok's tribe and suffered a visceral fear when he imagined the Beast Lord or its living
kin, but the silence spoke of tragedy, at least for the goblins who were guilty of no crime other
than being born in Dekanter.

Their horses were restless with hunger. Tiep went to work spreading the last of the grass
they'd brought up from the bogs while Rozt'a ransacked her gear for clothing and Dru settled
Sheemzher on the rock. The goblin's left eye fluttered open.

"Sky," he murmured.

"We made it out of there," Dru assured him. "All of us."

"People, too?"

Dru dodged the question. "Save your strength, little fellow. We'll take care of you."

Sheemzher closed his eye and appeared to sleep. Rozt'a came over. She'd dressed
herself in layers of everything. Her movements were calm and confident as she washed the
goblin's wounds with water from the run-off.
"He's lost the eye," she said, bandaging it. "And a lot of blood. A hole like that—" She
indicated the thrust wound in Sheemzher's right flank."—Is beyond my skill."

"Wyndyfarh will heal him."

It was the least Lady Mantis could do.

The very least she would do after they delivered the golden scroll and reclaimed Galimer
Longfingers from her behind-the-waterfall glade.

"How will we get there? Which way should we go? Back through the rocks and bogs? Or
the other way?"

The other way was back to the High Trail, down the steps, and across the quarry to the
eastward gorge. Did they want to take their chances with the Zhentarim on the Dawn Pass
Trail? Or with the gods-knew-what on the bogs?

"We'll go faster astride on the trail."

Rozt'a looked east. "If we get that far."

There were new words for fear written on her face. Druhallen imagined similar words were
written on his own beneath the blood and swelling.

"We'll get through while the sun's shining. They're creatures of the Underdark. They won't
come into the light."

Clouds were thickening in the north and west.

"We'd best hurry," Rozt'a concluded.

"I'll get the gear loaded while you patch him up as best you can."

"What about you?"

He wasn't ready to think about his own wounds. "Later. Talk to Tiep. Help him if you can.
He's young enough to care what the ladies think about his nose. Me? As long as my mother
can recognize me when I'm hung—"

"Druhallen, it's been twenty-five years since you've seen your mother. She wouldn't know
you if she fell over your corpse!"

Rozt'a sounded like her old self when she mocked him. He tried to return the favor with a
laugh, but turned away, wincing as the effort opened the lacerations.

Sheemzher was unconscious and rust-colored when Rozt'a finished binding his wounds.
The horses were saddled and packed, but there'd be no riding until they got down the quarry
steps. They rigged a blanket-sling over Dru's shoulder to leave his arms free for leading a
horse while he carried the goblin.

The quarry remained deserted with a wall of clouds a few shades lighter than the
mountains themselves squeezing down. Rain fell before they reached the bottom, a hard rain
with heavy wind behind it and lightning, too. They mounted and headed east, glancing north
and west over their shoulders until they were out of the quarry. By mid-afternoon they'd
ridden from rain into warm sunshine.

It was like waking up from a nightmare.

Sunset found them on the abandoned portion of the Dawn Pass Trail. Sheemzher had
stirred twice during the day. They'd given him water both times and told one another that he
was holding his own against his injuries, which was a lie. Tiep's ravaged face was swollen
and purple. He'd shut both eyes and ridden blind. Dru was tempted to do the same before
Rozt'a called a halt.

"We've gone far enough," she said.

Druhallen's lips were too big and sore to argue. He handed Sheemzher down—let him drop
into Rozt'a's arms, if the truth were told—and flopped out of the saddle like a top-heavy sack of grain.
A season's worth of grass grew trail-side. Dru hobbled the horses in it and made rough sheaves to form
a pallet for Sheemzher before hauling their empty waterskins to a brook on the low-ground side of the
trail.

Glancing west, Dru saw clouds towering over the Greypeaks. It was raining in Dekanter as
it did almost every day, but their campsite was dry and the brook was seasonably low. He
had to climb down the bank and rearrange some rocks before he could fill the skins. The first
skin was bloated, tied, and sitting atop the bank and he was working on the second when
Rozt'a shrieked.

Drawing on a reserve of strength he hadn't suspected, Dru leapt the bank and raced
across the trail, looking for trouble as he ran. The trail was clear of monsters and Zhentarim,
but Tiep was in the midst of a seizure. The youth was sprawled on the ground, his heels
pounding the ground and his arms flailing through the air. Druhallen dropped to his knees to
help Rozt'a restrain him and took a fist on the nose. The pain was exquisite and for several
moments he could do nothing at all. When his muscles unlocked, Tiep was lying quiet.

"Are you all right?" Rozt'a asked.

He didn't bother answering as blood leaked from his nose and tears burned his cheek.

Rozt'a brushed her hands vigorously as she stood. "That's it. I'm steeping Wyndor's herbs
for both of you."

Dru winced. Wyndor's herbs were a last resort, a very bitter last resort that tortured a man
as they healed him. "If you do that, we'll be stuck here until tomorrow night plus the day after
if we wait for the sun to ride."

"If I don't, you might be dead," Rozt'a countered as she flipped open their medicine chest,
"or too sick to drink it."

That was another problem with Wyndor's—if the patient were too far gone, the herbs would kill
before they healed.

"We've got to keep moving, Roz. As little as I wanted to bump into Amarandaris before, I
want to see him even less now when we're traveling with that golden scroll. It's a miracle he
hasn't caught up with us before this. We used up our miracles last night."

"That's why I'm steeping the Wyndor's. Don't argue with me, Druhallen. You're in no
condition to win. Did you leave the skins by the stream?"

He stood up. She was right about his condition but he hadn't reached the point where he
couldn't haul two waterskins back to their camp.

Tiep, whose eyes had opened during his exchange with Rozt'a, wobbled up and followed
him.

"You don't have to worry about Amarandaris," the youth said from the top of the stream
bank.

Dru braced the skin in the cool water and, while the water flowed into it, bathed his
throbbing face. "You know something about him that I don't?"

The youth didn't answer right away. Dru worried he might be having another fit, but what
he saw when he looked up was worse: guilt, deep and old.

"He pretty much told me I was on my own. He figured you'd find a way out of Parnast
before he was ready to leave. Told me what to look out for, with you and the goblins and all,
and told me to leave a written message in Yarthrain. He wouldn't have given me the name of
someone in Yarthrain if he thought he'd catch up with you—us—before we got there."

Druhallen let the waterskin slip through his ankles. "You think that, do you?"

Tiep nodded.

"How long you been working for them?"

"Two, maybe three, years."

Anger quickened Dru's pulse; his lacerated face burned. "Come on, Tiep. I'm not a fool.
What is it? Two years or three?"

"I tried to tell you! I've tried every time they ask me a favor. I knew how you'd react so I
didn't dare—until now. It's safe to camp a day or two. Safer than on the main trail. No one's coming
here."

"Amarandaris isn't—if I believe you. That doesn't say no one's coming."

The youth bolted for the camp. Dru let him go. He tied off the waterskin and hoisted one to
his left shoulder, opposite the pain, the other under his right arm. Rozt'a had a fire going and
was waiting with a pot for the water to steep Wyndor's herbs. He had half a mind to tell her to
prepare half the amount she'd measured out, but that would mean that he'd be telling her
what Tiep had been up to, and he wasn't feeling that generous.

"You tell her what you've told me," he whispered to Tiep as he walked past the sullen,
shaking youth, "and be quick about it, or you'll wish you'd never been born."

"I've wished that for years."

He didn't say anything while Rozt'a steeped the bitter herbs or when she handed them
each a steaming mug. Tiep emptied the mug in three gulps; Dru had never seen anyone gulp
Wyndor's. The stuff was as potent as any brew this side of magic. His was cool by the time he
finished it, and by then the herbs were starting to take effect. He said he'd take the first
watch—he thought he could fight the seediness until midnight, hoped he could memorize a spell or
two before the shakes and nausea overwhelmed him.
Rozt'a put her hand on his shoulder and guided him to his knees. "Sleep it off. You can
stay up all night tomorrow."

Dru's thoughts were an unholy amalgam of Amarandaris, Tiep, and the Beast Lord as he
slipped into delirium. He lived the rest of the night and all of the next day in a twilight of
dreams and memories. In his few moments of lucidity he craved water, which Rozt'a gave
him, and raved about the pain from a spike driven upward through his skull.

He was clear-minded, though empty-minded, when he sat up at sunset. The taste of death
and rot thickened his tongue. He'd hawked and spat before he'd considered the wisdom of
the act. Pain set him on his back again, but it was nothing like the pain before Wyndor's. He
touched his face and the crusted cuts around his nose. The herbs had done their work—his
body had done a week's worth of healing in a day. He had the appetite to prove it.

Rozt'a's cook pot called him as flowers called bees. She ladled something pale and lumpy
into a bowl. He was ready for more before he asked what he was eating.

"Frog soup."

Dru looked at the lump in his spoon and swallowed it down without hesitation. He'd
collected his thoughts by the time he'd sated his hunger. The edge was off his memories of
Dekanter, as well, but not his last conversation with Tiep. He asked about Sheemzher first,
because he'd spotted the goblin lying under a tent rigged from their blankets.

"Same as before. I'd've given him Wyndor's, if I didn't think it would kill him. The wound
hasn't festered; that's a good sign. They're tougher than us, I guess, when it comes to
disease."

"They'd have to be," Dru replied, and asked the harder question, "What about Tiep? Is he
awake? Talking?"

Rozt'a shook her head. "I gave him a smaller dose—what I'd give myself. He should have
come through before you. It's as if he's fighting something. Reliving it. I've lost track of the number of
times he's called your name."

"No sign of trouble, though? No visitors?"