The Nether Scroll (14 page)

"Please don't argue with her," Rozt'a pleaded. No telling what Wyndyfarh had put into her
mind. "We're talking about Galimer here. He'd go to the ends of the world for you, and you
know it. If she wants us to avenge one man or one hundred, don't bother her with questions.
Just say yes."

Druhallen had just decided that Lady Wyndyfarh was mostly hawk in her natural form, but
now the face she showed him wore such a satisfied expression that he'd swear she was part
cat.

"A wise woman speaks," the lady purred, "but it is neither one man nor one hundred that
you must avenge. Save for Sheemzher, my servants are all insects whose minds I have
awakened with magic. Many of them fell victim to a great and ancient evil. You will bring me
proof that it can no longer harm them."

Bugs! She was sending them off to collect butterflies! Perhaps it was just as well that
Ansoain was dead and her son a prisoner. Dru would never live this one down otherwise.
"We'll bring them back in a gilt cage," he muttered glumly.

That brought another laugh from the otherworldly woman. "If any of them yet survive—and
I doubt very much that any do—they will fly to me faster than you can walk. Bring me the golden
scroll that defiled them. The Beast Lord who rules at Dekanter was beneath my notice before he found
that Nether scroll. Now he has become a threat. I am not a god, Druhallen of Sunderath. You are
wrong there, but I have sworn an oath to Faerun's goddesses of magic. I may not leave this glade.
Bring me the golden scroll of Netheril and you will have done more good than you can measure and I
will restore your weak friend to you."

Dru bristled. Never mind that he knew Galimer's faults better than he knew his own and
had on more than one occasion hung the same "weak" label on him, but he wouldn't stand for
anyone else belittling his friend.

"Galimer Longfingers is worth more than ten of your Netherese scrolls. Just tell us what we
need to know about it and well be gone—the sooner to be back."

"You know everything that's essential," Wyndyfarh replied with the indignation of a woman
unaccustomed to criticism. "Sheemzher knows the Greypeaks and Dekanter. He'll answer
your questions."

Druhallen started to say something about not wanting to rely on a goblin, but that was the
sort of remark that had gotten Galimer's mind separated from his body. Likewise, Dru stifled
the perfectly logical question: If Sheemzher had all the answers, why wasn't he the
instrument of Wyndyfarh's vengeance? Rozt'a stepped into the awkward silence.

"How long do we have? How much time before—?" Her head turned toward Galimer and left
the question incomplete.

"No harm will come to Galimer while he is with me."

Dru considered that good news, Rozt'a heard it otherwise and, taking a backward step so
he could see both her and Wyndyfarh together, Dru understood. Rozt'a had never been a
beauty and life on the road was taking a toll on her appearance, as it had on all of them. Her
attractiveness— and Druhallen could personally attest that it was considerable—sprang from her
competence and spirit. She was at her best in mercenary leathers, with a sword at her hip, and she
would have looked ridiculous with long hair, or in a flowing white gown.

But leave her husband in the company of the dangerously beautiful Lady Mantis, a woman
of enchanting beauty and wizardly might? That prospect struck fear in Rozt'a's bold heart.

"C'mon," Dru said, prying her attention away from Galimer with a touch. "If we head back
to Parnast right now to get our gear and horses, we'll be on our way this time tomorrow and
back before the moon turns—"

"Not to Parnast," Lady Mantis interrupted. "The village is too dangerous for you right now. I
have sent word. All that you need will be waiting for you outside the Wood. You'll be within
the mountains by sunset. Those who pursue you think only of roads, they will not look for you
in the mountains between here and Dekanter."

Pursuers? From Parnast? Well, surely Amarandaris knew they'd slipped through the
palisade without their promised second meeting. The Zhentarim lord could have translated
their absence into a beeline journey to Dekanter. He'd be ahead of them, unless somehow he
knew they'd gone into Weathercote Wood first. How or why might Amarandaris know that?
What was the trade between the Zhentarim and Weathercote Wood? What was the alliance
between Wyndyfarh and the village? Dru sighed; he might never know the answers to those
questions.

For now, all he needed to know was that the Network would be looking for him until they
found him in Dekanter or elsewhere. The pool of acid in the pit of Dru's stomach grew deeper
than he'd believed possible, then he realized that Wyndyfarh had been staring at Tiep when
she mentioned pursuit.

It was enough to make a man wish he were on better terms with his gods.

Dru felt a tug on his tunic. He looked down into the goblin's smiling face.

"Good sir not worry. Sheemzher take good care, good people. Sheemzher knows
Greypeaks, Dekanter. Sheemzher born Dekanter. Sheemzher marry Ghistpok daughter."

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

The Greypeak Mountains

If the Weathercote Wood had been an odd, unpleasant place for a city-bred man named
Tiep, then the interior of the Greypeak mountains was ten times worse. Two days out from
Lady Mantis's grove, Tiep found himself wishing that the bug lady had cast her spells on him
rather than Galimer. The life of a mindless statue couldn't be worse than following a dog-
faced goblin on the back route to Dekanter.

At least the bug lady had kept her word about their gear. Their six horses, saddled and
packed with their gear and a generous supply of food, had been waiting late yesterday when
Sheemzher led them out of Weathercote—not at the little wooden bridge where they'd entered it,
but at another spot, farther east of Parnast. A pair of ratty goblins had been waiting with the horses.
Both had run off the moment they spotted company coming.

Tiep suspected magic and he'd refused to climb into Hopper's saddle until Dru and Rozt'a
had each applied their specialist's eye to horseflesh and gear. They assured him than nothing
had been tampered with. If Tiep couldn't trust his foster-parents, then there wasn't anyone he
could trust. He'd lived without trust when he was younger and had no nostalgia for old times.
He'd considered splitting while he could still find his way back to the village last night, when
Dru was studying his spells and everyone else was asleep.

Manya's kin would give him a roof and meals until he could put something else together.
However, abandoning the quest to free Galimer from the bug lady was too craven for his gut
to tolerate. For Galimer's sake, Tiep swore an oath to Tymora. He'd follow the dog-faced
goblin to Dekanter, even if it got him killed along the way.

He half-expected death with every step Hopper took.

There were two kinds of traveling in the Greypeaks: treacherous and weird. The rocky
trails were the treacherous part. Little more than glorified ledges, the trails weren't much
wider than a horse's rump. They left Tiep riding with one stirrup banging into the mountain
and the other hanging out over a whole lot of nothing. Worse, the trails weren't clear. Say
what you would about the Zhentarim, if they claimed a trade route, they sent crews out to
keep it clear of rock falls and water cracks. Here in the Greypeaks, when Hopper planted a
hoof, there was no telling whether the ground would slip or stay firm beneath it. The horse
was lathered from nerves, and so was Tiep.

Still, he'd rather be up on the ledges than down in the valleys. The valleys were the
weirdest part of their traveling. Tiep had never set foot in anything like the Greypeak valleys.
Neither had Dru or Rozt'a, nor any of their horses. The goblin had a name for the place, in his
own language, of course. The word sounded like a cat getting sick; a human tongue couldn't
hope to pronounce it. The best Druhallen, who knew the name of almost everything under the
sun, could call it was bog and forest.

Bog because, once they started seeing the valleys for what they really were, they could
see that the Greypeaks were a huge bowl, ringed with mountains and part-way filled with
water. The water had rotted some of the inner mountains, turning them into a mare's nest of
broken spires and spines. Where the water should have become a lake there appeared to be
solid ground. Solid, that was, until Hopper set his hooves on it, then trees as tall as ten men
standing together started quaking. The floating forest swayed like reeds in the wind when six
horses moved through it.

Tiep had thought nothing could be more sick-in-the-gut scary than the shifty ground—until
the dog-faced goblin announced that there were giant leeches under the bog. The dragons that
Sheemzher said dwelt in the unbroken clouds sounded better than giant leeches. He heaved a sigh of
relief when the goblin led them onto the rocks again.

They climbed in earnest after that, crossing the spine of a dead mountain in the middle of
the bog. They'd cleared the crest and were on their way down to the bog again when
Cardinal—the gelding Galimer usually rode—lost his footing. In less time than it took to scream, the
chestnut had fallen into a dry ravine. Bones stuck out of his forelegs. With a safety rope tied between
his waist and his horse, Druhallen scrambled down and put the animal out of its misery.

"Helm's mercy," Rozt'a said, with one hand on the rope and the other on Dru's horse. "Be
grateful Cardinal carried our gear and not Galimer."

The fall hadn't hurt the blankets and bean sacks they divvied up among the survivors, and
Tiep didn't object when Rozt'a decreed that they'd all walk, leading the horses, from there on.
Two feet were steadier than four, even in the bog.

Dru and Rozt'a each led two horses, Tiep led Hopper, and the goblin took the point alone.
They were in the bog, not all that far from the ravine where they'd left Cardinal, when they
heard the hooting and hollering of scavengers. Tiep told himself he wasn't going to look back
over his shoulder once they were back on stone and above the quaking tree-tops, but Dru
called a halt and he succumbed.

Big mistake. They had clear sight on the ravine and poor Cardinal. The scavengers were
more than beasts, less than men. They'd butchered the horse on the spot and were eating
him raw. Tiep wanted to say that the scavengers were Sheemzher's kin but the truth was that
though the size was about right, the scavengers were uglier than any goblin and odd. Most of
them were gray, like the mountains, rather than red-orange like Sheemzher. Some of them
had faces that thrust out like a bear or weasel's. One had a long furry tail, another, a ratty
one, and one had what looked to be an extra arm growing out of its left shoulder. That extra
arm didn't have the joints an arm should have, but whipped about like a serpent with a hand-
shaped head.

"What are they?" Rozt'a demanded before Tiep could loosen his tongue from the roof of
his mouth. Her words dashed Tiep's hope that his eyes were deceiving him.

She'd directed her question at Druhallen, but the goblin intercepted it with, "Demons!"

Sheemzher immediately pulled his hat low over his eyes, as if what he couldn't see
couldn't see him either. He scampered ahead to the trail's next bend where he tried to hide
behind a rock that was too small by half. "Hurry! Hurry!" he pleaded.

Rozt'a made her way to the black mare, Ebony, and the bow she kept lashed to the mare's
saddle. "I'm going to put a little fear into those beasts, whatever they are," she muttered.

"Let it rest," Druhallen told her, kindly but firmly. "He's meat now, nothing more, and you
don't have arrows to waste."

"They're not natural creatures, Dru. They shouldn't be tolerated."

Dru had removed the ring he used to ken strangers and held it up to his eye. He squinted
through the opening.

"Who's to say what's natural and what's not?" he asked cryptically when he'd finished his
examination and returned the ring to his finger.

Tiep would have given much to ask Dru what he'd meant by that remark, but there were
four horses between him and the wizard. They paid their final respects to Cardinal and
headed toward Sheemzher.

It was rock and bog, bog and rock after that. Somewhere above the thick, gray clouds,
morning became afternoon. The air heated up, the light breeze died, and breathing got
difficult, especially on the bogs. Then it started to rain: a fine, steady rain that threatened to
last all day and most of the night, too. Sheemzher's hat looked good enough to steal as Tiep's
soaked hair stuck to his face and streams of water ran beneath his clothes to his boots. In no
time at all, he had blisters like mushrooms on his heels and toes.

Tiep tried limping, but limping didn't help when both feet screamed. Rozt'a noticed he was
lagging and asked what was wrong.

"We've got Galimer's kit. When we stop for the night, I'll mix up a batch of his second-skin
lotion and you'll be good as new by sunrise."

"I'm slowing us down. I'd keep up better if I were up on Hopper's back," Tiep replied,
angling for a reprieve.

Rozt'a held firm, "The going's worse now that it's wet. We'll hold the pace down. Slow's
best in the rain, anyway."

Slow or fast didn't make half the difference that up or down made, with downhill being a lot
worse than up. Tiep was sure his toes bled with each downhill stride. He thanked Tymora
when the rain stopped. Then the bugs came out and he knew Tymora had abandoned him to
Her sister, Beshaba, Maid of Misfortune. The bugs were worse in the bogs. Man, woman,
horse, and goblin, they were all surrounded by buzzing, stinging, biting clouds.
They were in a bog when a dragon flew overhead. Tiep didn't actually see the dragon, but
he heard its bellow.

There was no mistaking that sound. It awakened primal dread in a human heart and sheer
terror in a horse. Bandy, the big mare that toted their heaviest gear, panicked at the sound.
Her front end went up, carrying Dru with it, while her hind legs sank into the bog.

Dru could have used some help getting himself and Bandy steadied, but Rozt'a had her
hands full with two frightened horses while Tiep had put his extra arm to work grabbing
Fowler's lead when that gelding broke free from Dru and Bandy. Sheemzher was useless.
The horses didn't much like his smell at the best of times. All together they burned a year's
worth of luck before order was restored. Bandy was gray with sweat and Druhallen didn't look
much better, but they were both standing steady, both whole.

"I've had enough for one day," Dru said once he'd caught some breath.

Tiep wasn't going to argue, not the way his feet hurt. Sheemzher said they'd be safer on
the rock than on a bog, and that wasn't worth arguing with, either, though it meant staggering
onward. The goblin eventually got them to a ledge—call it a very hard beach on the shore of a
tree-covered lake—that he said was safe.

"Sheemzher make safer," he continued. "Sheemzher go now. Sheemzher back quick."

The goblin and his spear disappeared into the bog. Tiep wanted to follow, but his sore,
bleeding feet were glued to the ledge. It was Tiep's regular chore to set the nightly picket line
for the horses and, mindful that some might blame him for their misery, he got to work looking
for a good place to tie off the rope. Rozt'a took pity on him.

"I'll handle the horses. You find yourself a place to sit. And get those boots off before your
feet fester."

Beshaba's mercy—Tiep hadn't considered that possibility.

His feet weren't as bad as he feared. He'd lost a slab of callus from his left heel, and the
big toe on his right foot was bloody; nothing a slathering of second-skin lotion couldn't handle.
Rozt'a dragged their medicine chest over and mixed the lotion in a brass bowl. The most
important ingredient went in last: a few drops of sickly green oil from a silver flask
embellished with a rose-colored Lathandrite agate. Tiep counted five drops in all and flinched
in advance, knowing how badly the potion-drenched cloths would sting when Rozt'a wrapped
them around his feet.

"You'll survive," Rozt'a assured him.

Tiep didn't trust himself to answer. He couldn't nod without sending a stream of tears down
his cheeks but he only yelped once, when Rozt'a squeezed his big toe, making sure that the
lotion worked deep.

Druhallen scrounged wood from the bog-forest—no great challenge there—and got a fire
going, which for a competent wizard was no great challenge, either. The wet wood smoked vigorously
and the smoke was foul, but it got rid of the bugs. They were glad to have it, at least until Sheemzher
returned.

"No flame! No flame!"

The dog-face thrust his spear into the fire and battered it apart. Dru's eyes narrowed and
his fists clenched in a way that usually meant a fireball was due. Sheemzher saved himself
with a single word and a gesture toward the clouds.

"Dragons."

"What kind?" Dru asked, because it made a difference.

"Big!" Sheemzher replied, which meant, probably, that the Greypeaks weren't home to one
of the more benign dragon species.

The bugs came back—with a few thousand of their closest friends. It was a struggle to eat their
cold supper without catching a few buzzing specks in each mouthful. Doubly difficult for Tiep
because his feet hadn't stopped throbbing and he couldn't escape his bugs, even temporarily, by
moving about on the ledge. He'd peeked beneath the cloths a few times: the second-skin oil was living
up to its name. Tiep's feet felt like they were on fire, but the swelling had already gone down and
the raw skin on his left heel was toughening.

Night came sooner than it would have out in the open as the clouds and mountains
combined to stifle the sunset. Tiep braced himself for absolute darkness, then discovered that
the bog made its own eerie light: lazy will-o'-the-wisps rose from the ground. They swirled
higher and higher until they bumped into the clouds where they dissipated slowly.
The result was enough light to see shadows and movement, enough light to watch
Sheemzher open up his striped waistcoat—it looked bedraggled now, though the dyes were good
and the colors hadn't run together. He fished out something that hung from a cord and writhed. A rat,
Tiep realized just before the goblin snapped its neck. He impaled the freshly-killed rodent on his
spearhead then used the bloody weapon to draw a perimeter around their camp.

"Do you think that will keep the dragons away?" Rozt'a asked.

"Demons, not dragons. Sheemzher know. Sheemzher remember. Demons not cross
blood."

Dru overheard and chortled, "That's a new one!"

Rozt'a silenced him with a well-aimed hiss, then added, "Do you want to draw straws for
the first watch?"

"No—I'm awake until midnight anyway. This place isn't what I expected, so I need to make some
changes in what I'm remembering. We need to be able to hide as well as fight. I'll wake you when I'm
done, and you can keep your eyes open until dawn."