The Nether Scroll (9 page)

Rozt'a slammed the door shut. "All right. What's your plan?"

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

Parnast, Weathercote Wood

He can scream himself blue before I let him in, Rozt'a had sworn last night before Tiep left
the rented room.

She'd been even more emphatic after midnight when he'd returned from a tryst with
Manya.

No way, she'd growled as she'd usurped Dru's place at the threshold. No way beneath the
sun or stars that I'm doing anything on a dog-faced goblin's say-so. I'll show him the flat of my
sword first.

Tiep had been in absolute agreement. He'd gone to sleep confident that there was no
chance whatsoever that he was going off on some early-morning hike into a forest that
Manya swore was home to dire and magical creatures. So why was he trudging through dead
leaves and treacherous roots behind Druhallen, Galimer, and the dog-faced goblin, with
Rozt'a bringing up the rear?

Because Rozt'a had had a dream, that's why. The most reliable, least superstitious among
his adults had had a dream in which she met a tall, pale-skinned woman with white-and-
brown striped hair and the woman—Lady Mantis—had whispered: I'm waiting for you. Come
quickly.

Rozt'a had awakened them all and shared her dream before it was cold in her memory.
Then she announced, We're taking Sheemzher's offer. We're going into Weathercote Wood
to meet with Lady Wyndyfarh.

Suddenly both the goblin and the wizard-lady had had real names again and Tiep hadn't
needed lamplight to see the determined look on his foster-mother's face. Galimer was shrewd
and Druhallen could be downright scary when he was casting a spell, but Rozt'a was the
warrior among them, the brawler who backed up her words with her body. When she lowered
her voice and her eyebrows, you knew you were in for a fight.

Rozt'a had pitched her voice so low that Tiep had known for certain that her eyes had
disappeared.

He'd lain very still then, praying to Tymora, the notoriously fickle goddess of luck, that one
of his foster-fathers would challenge Rozt'a's declaration. Tiep thought Tymora was on his
side when Galimer demurred, saying he had merchants to meet and arrangements to make,
if they were going to get out of Parnast without paying court to Amarandaris. Tiep thought
that was reason enough to stay out of the woods, but Rozt'a disagreed.

One day. One day, that's all I'm asking. The rest of our time belongs to you—

When Galimer fell silent, Tiep had pinned his hopes on Druhallen. Rozt'a tended to back
down from confrontations with Dru, but Dru said he'd take a walk in Weathercote Wood with
Rozt'a, with or without the goblin, and regardless of the path or the light. What he'd said didn't
make sense, but nobody argued with Druhallen and Rozt'a.

When dawn came and brought the goblin with it, Tiep had pretended that he wasn't
awake. He'd hoped that Galimer would stay behind with him. It wasn't fair, but the desert
trader would give gold-haired Galimer a better price for the carved boxes than he'd give a
mongrel like Tiep. But his fantasies of profit had suffered total defeat when the goblin
announced that he'd lead them all to his lady's glade or he'd lead none of them.

No problem, Galimer had said cheerfully. We'll go with you, Roz—as long as we're back
tomorrow. We can be back by then, can't we?—Good. Give me a few moments at the charterhouse. I'll
be back before you get the youngster woken up.

Tiep had clenched his fists beneath his pillow then and he clenched them behind his back
now. When they'd given him a partner's share this spring they said his opinion mattered, not
as much as theirs, but enough so he'd no longer feel like a child tagging along behind his
parents. Tiep had never had the luxury of parents. He'd been making his own decisions as
long as he could remember—including the one that took him to the Berdusk temple when he'd
heard that a sick lady and her moon-eyed husband were mourning an unborn child and likely to adopt
an orphan if an orphan presented himself.

Dru and Galimer were always talking about how Ansoain had died on the Vilhon Reach
and Rozt'a described busting her captain's face as if nobody had ever stood up for
themselves before. Well, Galimer had been full-grown when his mother died and busting
someone's face wasn't worth mentioning unless that someone was twice as tall as you were
and four times as heavy. None of Tiep's adults understood that he was older than all of them
together. Lately, they'd been whispering about cutting him loose because his notion of risky
was bolder than theirs. Maybe he should just leave before they got the chance to slam the
door.

Maybe he should have left before they started hiking through Weathercote Wood.

It wouldn't have been so bad if they'd been riding. Tiep was used to being astride all day
and each of their horses was a sensible creature that took care of itself and its rider on the
roughest road. But, no—the dog-face said horses weren't allowed on the Weathercote paths and
that was that. Horses had four legs, one at each corner. When a walking horse stumbled, it
still had three feet left on the ground to keep it from going splat! in the leaves. People had two
legs and when people got tripped up by roots lurking beneath the leaves, people went down.

Tiep had fallen twice already when he felt his toes catch beneath another root. Flailing like
a tethered hawk, he managed to land on his rump instead of his face.

Rozt'a offered her hand. "It's your own fault. You insist on scuffling your feet. Pay attention
and you'll stay upright."

Tiep accepted the boost, rejected the advice. "I am paying attention," he insisted, testing
his abused ankle. It was sore but held his weight. "That's the whole problem. We're being
watched. The trees are staring at us. I'm about ready to jump out of my skin. We should hie
ourselves back to Parnast before it's too late."

She gave him a lethal look. "Don't start with me. You can spend tomorrow with Manya and
tell her how brave you were in Weathercote, but until then, don't carp about shadows. Quit
being a sulky brat and try to enjoy this. Look over there—have you ever seen a more beautiful
tree?"

Tiep had never paid much attention to trees. They were all green in summer and a few
stayed green in winter. They made shade when they were growing and fire when they
weren't. What more did he need to know? But it was wiser to sight down Rozt'a's arm than to
argue with her. His eyes came to rest on a tree that was shorter than its neighbors and
speckled with sky-blue flowers, each about the size of his open hand. For a tree, he
supposed that it was beautiful. Beyond doubt, he'd never seen another remotely similar and
mentioned this to Rozt'a.

"There's magic here," his foster mother explained with exaggerated patience.

"That's not a good thing, Rozt'a, not for the likes of you and me. Last night, I told you what
the Parnasters say about this place: folks go in but they don't come out, sometimes for years,
sometimes never."

Rozt'a scowled. "I'm sure you didn't say that."

"You weren't listening," Tiep lied. "Tymora's tears! I never thought you'd be the one to cave
in. You were going to smack the dog-face up if he showed up, remember?"

"I had a dream—more than a dream. I saw her ... I didn't cave in, Tiep. I'm getting closer to
something I never thought I'd find in this life."

Before Tiep could ask what that might be, they both became aware of the goblin hurrying
toward them.

"Call out if you need to rest," Sheemzher said, as if it were perfectly normal for a goblin to
give orders to humans.

Sheemzher had added a thrusting spear to his blue and green costume. The weapon was
a bit longer than the goblin was tall and its gnarled shaft had been oiled so much that the
wood was glistening black. Beads, tattered feathers, and strips of fur hung from the cording
that lashed the flint point to the shaft. The ornaments rattled with the goblin's every move and
effectively drew Tiep's attention from the point.

A single goblin, even one with a nasty spear, was a joke, but a horde of spear-toting
goblins was a different matter. Tiep glanced at the trees. He did feel they were being
watched. Goblins weren't tree-climbers; at least that's what he'd heard in the cities where
he'd harvested most of his education. Before Parnast, he'd never seen a goblin that wasn't a
pet or a slave. Such goblins wouldn't have dared to look at Tiep the way Sheemzher did, all
impatience and calculation.

"I wasn't resting. I stopped to look at that tree over there," Tiep said before Rozt'a could
say anything at all. "The one with the big blue flowers. It's some kind of magic tree, isn't it?"

Sheemzher fussed with the brim of his hat and cupped his hands around his eyes. Like
elves and dwarves, goblins could see clearly through the darkest night, but unlike those
races, goblins paid a price for their night vision. When the sun shone bright, they had to strain
to see half of what humans saw.

"Sheemzher not remember. Good lady tell Sheemzher, but Sheemzher not remember.
Ask good lady. Good lady Wyndyfarh never forget anything. Good lady remember name,
magic."

Druhallen and Galimer joined them. "What's the problem?" they asked with one voice.

"Nothing. I was just going to pick one of those blue flowers so Lady Mantis could tell
Rozt'a and me the tree's name."

Tiep hadn't taken two strides toward the blooming tree before Sheemzher was in front of
him, flapping the spear. Rozt'a drew her sword—Tiep knew the sound. Dru prepared to cast a
spell. There wasn't a sound, though Dru kindled most of his spells with a spoken word. Tiep simply
knew when magic was immanent; it was a taste in his mouth, a scent at the back of his nose, a tingle
that raced down his spine and up again.

In the beginning, Druhallen and Galimer had hoped his premonitions meant he had
spellcasting talent; they hadn't. Tiep's talent was a minor jinx: some simple spells didn't affect
him, others went awry in his presence. Dru was good enough at his craft that the jinx didn't
matter; he'd fry the dog-face, hopefully before that spear penetrated Tiep's ribs. With Galimer
it was different. Galimer's command over his magic was chancy at best and worse when Tiep
was nearby, though Tiep privately suspected that his jinx got blamed more than it deserved.

Sheemzher was clever—for a dog-faced goblin. With his eyes on Dru, he lowered his spear and
retreated.

"Stay on path," he said in a childish sing-song manner. "Stay safe. Tree there not on path.
Tree there not safe. Tree there not belong good lady. Remember! Ask! Stay on path!"

Tiep hadn't cared about the tree, but he wasn't going to be bossed around by a goblin.
"Tymora's tears," he complained, sidestepping the spear point. "Who's going to miss one
lousy flower? The ground is crawling with dropped petals already."

Sheemzher matched Tiep's sidestep and shoved his spear forward. The sharpened flint
pricked Tiep's skin through his shirt. He held his breath, waiting for Druhallen to do something
magical.

"It's not the flower, Tiep," Dru said and the sense of immanent magic faded. "It's the path."

"What path?" he demanded.

"Path here! Sheemzher follow path. Follow Sheemzher!" the goblin snarled through his
too-big, too-sharp teeth.

He prodded Tiep with the weapon and despite his mind's determination to stand firm,
Tiep's body retreated.

"What path?" he repeated. "There's no path, no road. We're just slogging through leaves,
trusting a goblin, which has to be the dumbest thing we've ever done." He glimpsed Rozt'a's
darkening face and knew he'd said the wrong thing. "The dumbest thing I've ever done."

The attempt to mend his fences failed: Rozt'a turned her back to Tiep. Frustration boiled
over and he seized the spear. They wrestled for control: a sinewy, dog-faced goblin against a
larger, heavier, smarter human. Sheemzher kept his weapon, but only because Tiep flung
them both toward the flowering tree.

He had to admire the goblin's consistency. When Sheemzher found himself closer to the
flowering tree than to his precious, invisible path, he yelped and scrambled hand over foot to
rejoin them. He collapsed an arm's length from Rozt'a, shaking and clinging to his spear with
his shifty eyes squeezed shut.

The spear had shed a ratty, white feather. While everyone else's attention was on the
panting goblin, Tiep surrendered to temptation and tiptoed across the leaves. Holding the
feather by its tip, he called—

"Lose something, dog-face?"

Tiep's words and gestures might have been a spell for their effect on Sheemzher. The little
goblin's eyes popped open, then he brought his weapon to the ready and would have
charged—if Rozt'a hadn't seized his collar and lifted him off the ground. His booted feet churned in
the air. Tiep began to laugh.

"Get yourself back here ... now!" Druhallen shouted.

Dru had almost as much weight on Tiep as Tiep had on the goblin, so Tiep didn't waste
time standing with a feather dangling from his fingers. "I was just trying to be helpful," he lied
as he obeyed.

"You're headed for trouble," Rozt'a scolded.

She released the goblin who grabbed the feather and whimpered as he reattached it to the
spear.

"Yeah? Well, I'm not alone, am I?"

Rozt'a replied with a flat slap of her sword against her palm.

"Both of you—and you, too, Sheemzher—settle down!" Galimer raised his voice so seldom that
Tiep scarcely recognized it. "We're here now. We're committed to visiting this lady Wyndyfarh and
returning to Parnast before dark. There's no time for nonsense. If the goblin wants us to stay on the
path, then we stay on the path. Is that clear, Tiep?"

"What godsforsaken path?" Tiep fumed. He wouldn't win, but defeat had never kept him
from fighting. "I don't see any godsforsaken path."

Galimer looked at Dru who shrugged. "Don't ask me. I've been following you and the
goblin."