The Nether Scroll (27 page)

"What have we got to lose?" she challenged. "Maybe the water's already drowned the
alhoon."

He returned the challenge. "Can you drown the undead?"

He followed her down a corridor that ended over a seemingly dry hole in the floor. The
hole was about as wide as Dru's arm was long. A free-spinning stone ring had been carved
out of the granite beside it.

"Down now, good sir. Egg smell very strong, good sir."

Dru insisted they drop something down the shaft. Pointing at the ring, Tiep suggested tying
off one end of the rope they carried. When completely uncoiled, the thirty-foot rope struck
neither water nor bottom. Druhallen produced a handful of agate pebbles from his folding box
and dropped them down the shaft. He'd counted to three before the pebbles clattered against
stone.

"Egg smell very strong, good sir," Sheemzher repeated himself.

"Look at the ring, Dru." Again Rozt'a supported the goblin. "It's obviously meant to anchor
a rope."

Two of Ghistpok's goblin's were already shinnying down the rope.
"Get proof, good sir. Get scroll. Get friend."

Dwarves had hollowed the shaft out of the granite mountain. They could have easily
clambered through it, with or without a rope. If anything, the chimney shaft was easier for
goblins and not terribly difficult for a wiry youth or a slender woman. Druhallen conceded it
was wider than the hole where they'd begun yesterday's exploration, but not by much. He
prayed, as he'd seldom prayed before, that he didn't have climb up in a hurry.

The light spell revealed that they'd come to the oldest part of Dekanter—the twisting tunnels
dwarf miners had made as they chipped out veins of metal and gems. The tunnel beneath the shaft
stretched in two directions. Sheemzher sniffed the still air and swore the egg smell was stronger in one
direction. He led the way.

Goblins could stand tall in a dwarf-cut tunnel, but humans had to scrunch their necks and
shoulders if they wished to see where they were going. They hadn't gone far before Dru's
muscles were aching. He was thinking about pain and futility and not paying particularly close
attention to anything when his eyes caught a flicker of reddish light in the passage ahead of
Sheemzher. He seized the goblin's neck and inhaled his light spell.

"See anything?" he asked.

"See dark, good sir. See stone." Sheemzher replied anxiously.

"Anything else?"

"Only stone, all same stone. See anything, good sir?"

By feel and memory, Dru pinched a bit of enchanted beeswax from a candle-stub in his
folding box. He exhaled a spell across the wax then flicked forward. Around him, humans and
goblins uttered their favorite oaths as a spider-web ward popped into view a mere ten feet
ahead.

"Boundary wards," Dru concluded after a moment's study

The Beast Lord's enemies weren't in the quarry, they were deep in the mountain. The first
explanation they'd heard in Parnast was that the Dawn Pass Trail had moved because the
Beast Lord was at war with the Underdark, that shadowy realm beneath Faerun's surface.
The Underdark was real, of course, but many of the catastrophes rumored to have their roots
there had much simpler explanations—Zhentarim, Red Wizards, earthquakes, or plagues.
Druhallen had dismissed the Parnast rumors when he first heard them and had discounted them ever
since, especially when Amarandaris's conversation had focused on the Red Wizards, not the drow.

Even when he'd laid eyes on the Beast Lord and learned what it was, he'd resisted the
rumors. Mind flayers were part of the Underdark world, but alhoons were exiles from mind
flayer communities. What better place for an alhoon to establish itself than in an old mine that
was underground but not Underdark? Finding wards here, far below the quarry, supported
the idea that the Beast Lord, at least, believed it was not completely isolated from its former
haunts.

"Can we get through it?" Tiep asked.

Druhallen replied, "Not without breaking it. If the Beast Lord's paying attention, it'll know
something's loose down here." He turned to Sheemzher. "You've done your best, but this isn't
going to work. We've got to turn back and wait until that passage we used yesterday is dry."

"No proof, Ghistpok not believe. Ghistpok not believe, no tomorrow. Go forward, good sir.
Go forward, find proof—"

"No tomorrow?" Tiep broke in. "What's this 'no tomorrow' nonsense? Did you forget to tell
us something, dog-face?"

Sheemzher hung his head. "Egg smell strong, good sir. Very strong."

Rozt'a added her thought, "Are you sure you can't take it down quietly? If we can get
Ghistpok's goblins to the egg chamber, Sheemzher says we'll have our proof. Once we've got
that, we can wait until that other passage is dry."

"Ask him what he means by 'no tomorrow,'" Tiep pressed. "And make some more light so
we can see his lying face when he answers."

Druhallen said nothing to Sheemzher, but he did cast another light spell and held it at a
single candle's brightness. He drew the sword he'd taken from yesterday's swordswingers
and approached the shimmering ward.

Rozt'a reminded him, "A goblin spear is longer."

"But this is the Beast Lord's sword. There's a chance it won't bring the Beast Lord down
around our heads."
And, anyway, Dru didn't plan to be holding onto the sword when it pierced the ward. He
envisioned hurling it like a javelin, but such heroic moves demanded years of practice. The
sword tumbled after Druhallen threw it. Ghistpok's goblins chuckled at his awkward effort; he
should have asked Sheemzher's help, at the very least. The sword struck the warding
lengthwise and the resulting flare blinded them all.

"You meant to do that?" Tiep asked when they'd once again adjusted to the dim light of
Dru's spell.

"I meant to clear it."

Dru's voice was shaking and so was his hand as he picked up the sword. The hilt was
charred, the steel blade was pitted. The warding had been more potent than he'd imagined.

"Why here?" Rozt'a asked. "Why here in a spidery tunnel when there was nothing around
the egg or the empty pools?"

"Yesterday we were above the Beast Lord. It doesn't worry about attacks from above.
Ghistpok's goblins worship it and act as wards—a sentience shield. The enemies it fears—the
ones it wards against—come from below."

"What would that ward have done if you hadn't broken it?"

"Killed the first man foolish enough to touch it." He fished out a larger bit of beeswax and
shaped it around the sword's tip. A basic spell for the detection of magic was enchanted into
the wax, not Dru's memory. The spell needed only the warmth of his breath to kindle. "Come
on, Sheemzher. Let's keep moving. We've tripped the Beast Lord's wards. If it's paying any
sort of attention, it should send someone to investigate—or come itself."

With Sheemzher at his side and the wax-tipped sword thrust before them, Dru led the way.
The warding got thicker quickly—every ten steps they stopped and Sheemzher threw rocks
discarded by long-dead dwarves into the webbing.

"He's hung enough stuff to stop an army,"

Tiep made the comment, but the truth, which Druhallen kept to himself, was that any
army—any serious, sentient enemy with a halfwit's understanding of defensive strategy—would be
doing exactly what he and his companions were doing: moving slow, tripping the wards before they
did any damage, and giving the Beast Lord ample time to track them down. He was almost relieved
when the tunnel ahead of them lit up with a burst-ward flare.

"Company's coming," Rozt'a said. "Get ready for swordswingers." She drew her own
weapon and tested the range of movement she'd have between the tunnel's walls.

Dru plucked an ember from his sleeve. "Don't make assumptions—it could be anything, even
the Beast Lord itself."

Rozt'a reminded her partner of an obvious constraint: "Not unless it chooses to fight from
its knees. It was at least a foot taller than me."

Rozt'a proved prophetic. They faced eight swordswingers, guided by a light spell and
armed with a bit of fire magic. The best defense against the swarm of fiery streaks headed
their way was a ball of flame Druhallen used to clear the tunnel. It consumed their arrows but
was largely spent by the time it reached the swordswingers. There were a few screams, not
as many as he'd hoped. The survivors charged, howling as they approached.

Druhallen expected Ghistpok's goblins to turn tail and run. He'd forgotten the antipathy
between Sheemzher and Outhzin, and Amarandaris's assertion that the goblins would fight to
the death under the right conditions. The insults Sheemzher hurled at Outhzin created those
conditions. Ghistpok's goblins howled and surged in front of the humans, meeting the
swordswinger charge with their spears.

"Not much of a sentient shield," Rozt'a shouted from her unaccustomed place in the rear.

"Not much sentience," Dru shouted back.

He was being unfair. The goblins were as clever as they needed to be, and their thick-
shafted thrusting spears were better suited to close-quarter fighting than swords. Rozt'a
never raised her blade. He and Tiep never unsheathed theirs.

Ghistpok's goblins were scavenging the swordswinger corpses as Dru, Rozt'a, and Tiep
moved unnoticed through them toward Sheemzher, who stood alone and aloof where the
swordswinger charge had begun.

"Did you get hurt?" Rozt'a asked.

"Sheemzher not hurt, good woman," he replied, which seemed true enough where blood
was concerned, but the goblin was clearly troubled by something.
"What's wrong?" Dru demanded.

Sheemzher sighed and turned away without answering—a degree of defiance he hadn't
displayed before and one that raised alarms in Druhallen's mind. But before he could probe for
answers, Ghistpok's goblins erupted with distinctly fearful shouts.

The five were gathered around a single corpse. One of the scavengers clutched his hand
to his breast as if it had been burnt. The others were pointing at the corpse which, to Dru's
eyes, looked no different than any of the other athanor-hatched swordswingers.

He repeated his unanswered question "What's wrong?"

"Grouze!" Outhzin answered. "Grouze!" He thrust his spear at the corpse but was careful
not touch it. "This demon, once Grouze."

"He recognizes the corpse? Is that what he's saying?" Dru asked Sheemzher and
Sheemzher nodded.

Rozt'a indulged her curiosity. She leaned over the corpse-in-question and got four spears
shaken in her face for her boldness. Still, she retreated with satisfaction.

"Scars. Old scars along the ribs. He must have had them when he went into the egg and
had 'em still when he came out. If they're looking for proof, I think they've found all the proof
they need."

"Is this sufficient, Sheemzher? Will this convince Ghistpok that the Beast Lord's not the
god for him?"

Sheemzher hadn't stopped nodding since Druhallen's last question.

"You knew what the Beast Lord was doing, Sheemzher. You knew it yesterday." Dru
raised his voice, hoping to snap the goblin out of his trance. "You saw it yesterday—a goblin
and a mantis go into the athanor, and a swordswinger comes out. There are no demons, Sheemzher, the
Beast Lord transmutes living things to make these creatures and the misshapen creatures of the bogs.
That's what we've come down here to prove to Ghistpok. I didn't think we still had to prove it to you!"

He chose his words for a wider audience—Ghistpok's goblins, who'd demonstrated that they
did, indeed, understand the Heartlands trade dialect. And it was a good thing that he did, because
Dru's speech had no effect on Sheemzher. The goblin was locked inside his thoughts until
Rozt'a sheathed her sword and knelt before him. "Elva—That was her name? You're thinking
about Elva?"

The rhythm of Sheemzher's nodding changed. Rozt'a had correctly guessed the goblin's
fears. He took a tentative step toward another corpse and seemed almost grateful when
Rozt'a held him back.

"Don't look," she advised. "Tell yourself she died years ago and don't look down now."

"She probably did die years ago anyway, Sheemz," Tiep said in a tone that was almost
sympathetic.

None of the goblins would touch the swordswinger corpse that had once been Grouze.
Druhallen had to hoist the body onto his shoulders and climb the rope last because none of
the goblins, including Sheemzher, would touch anything the corpse had touched, including
the rope and the walls of the chimney shaft.

"I could remind them that the swordswingers patrol these corridors," Tiep said nastily when
the humans were able to stand up straight again. "Everywhere they step a demon's stepped
there before. That would be fun to watch—"

"You open your mouth," Dru warned, "and I'll tie your tongue to your belt. The Beast Lord's
done something Ghistpok can't forgive. The whole colony will be up in arms. We get our
sentience shield, we get the golden scroll, and we get out of Dekanter no worse off than we
are right now. Understand?"

Tiep nodded.

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

Dekanter

Tiep remembered a riot in Berdusk. He didn't remember it coherently—he couldn't have been
more than six at the time—but what he did remember was vivid. First, everyone had raced toward the
market with sticks and rocks and torches. Then he recalled people screaming, horses crashing through
the crowd, and flashing steel as everyone tried to get away from the market. He'd seen his first corpse
that day: a woman who'd fallen and been trampled during the retreat.

When he thought about it now, Tiep supposed the riot had been about the cost of food and
the fear of starvation. His grown self understood that riots had underlying causes; usually the
cost of one thing or the fear of something else. And riots had flash points, they didn't just
happen—though that was the way he remembered the Berdusk riot. One moment, he must have been
doing something he couldn't remember, and the next he'd been running with his mates, a cobblestone
in each hand and a howl in his heart.

He remembered that the riot had been exhilarating, until he saw the corpse.

She'd been the baker's daughter and Tiep had never known her name, but she'd given out
bread crusts from the back door of her father's shop and sometimes let him and his mates
warm themselves by the oven in winter. The baker had shut his shop after the riot. He hadn't
really had much choice in the matter. The mob had burnt it clear down. Tiep remembered
going cold and hungry more often after that—hardly a surprise to his grown self, but at six, he
hadn't made the connection between the High Sun riot and winter's discomfort.

He'd been a child then, and children didn't string events together. He'd run to the market.
He'd run away from it. The baker's daughter gave him food. The baker's daughter was a
corpse. The baker's shop was gone. He'd gone hungry and cold. There were no connections,
no causes, no reason not to riot with the mob.

The goblins were like the child he'd been—maybe that was why he despised them so. They ran
toward Dru when they saw him carrying a dead "demon" on his shoulders. They ran away when they
found out that the "demon" was someone they'd known as "Grouze." They pushed and shoved and hurt
one another—mostly the real goblin children—when they ran.

Ghistpok, the fat, old goblin they called their chief, couldn't control them. His house
withstood the mob because the Zhentarim had built it, and say what you would about the
Zhentarim, they knew how to build a stone wall. A handful of the flimsy goblin hovels got
trampled.

When the goblins who'd been tending the hearth and stew pot caught sight of the mob
headed their way, they threw up their hands and ran. Bad enough that Tiep and his friends
had to sacrifice Hopper to get on Ghistpok's good side, but watching the rampaging goblins
overturn the pot in their hysteria was more than Tiep could bear to watch. He wanted badly to
unsheathe his sword and kill a few, in the old gelding's name.

Ghistpok's tribe didn't deserve to live; they didn't have enough sense. The hearth fire
would have spread through the camp if it hadn't been raining again. The swordswingers the
Beast Lord put together underground were smarter than all of Ghistpok's goblins put
together. Which said a lot about the bugs Lady Mantis cooked up back in Weathercote.

Then Druhallen did something with his voice and made himself sound like a thousand men
all shouting from the top of the quarry.

"Stop your running. Stop your screaming. Come back to the old headquarters."

The goblins stopped. Every one of them understood plain language; they'd just been
pretending that they didn't. They hung their ugly orange and red heads and looked ashamed
as they filed back to the clearing in front of the stone house. Ghistpok climbed up to what
remained of the Zhentarim roof; that was a sight from below that Tiep hoped never to see
again.

"Listen to me." Dru's voice boomed through the quarry. "We went into Dekanter to find the
truth about the demons, and we did find it. We've brought it where you can see it and judge
for yourselves."
Tiep was impressed. He'd hadn't guessed that Druhallen could charm so many minds.
Galimer had assured him Dru didn't cast any sort of charm spell; charms and enchantments
were Galimer's specialty—because so few of them were cast on the fly.

That was Dru, letting everyone think there was something he couldn't do so Galimer could
seem to be the expert. Wizards were sneaky folk, and Druhallen was one of the sneakiest
because he seemed so straightforward.

Last night, after the storm died and Dru huddled up with his magic box, he hadn't said
anything about being prepared to charm the goblins, but he was. Had he memorized the spell
last night because he'd guessed that the goblins would be unruly? Had Dru been carrying the
reagents around all summer, the way he'd been carrying around the reagents for his
Candlekeep scrying spell?

And they complained about Tiep keeping secrets!

The charm began to wear off. Ghistpok was among the first to recover. The goblin chief
wasn't pleased to see his tribe listening to Druhallen. He waved his arms and hopped from
one foot to the other while shouting goblin words. Tiep held his breath and prayed that
Tymora or some other god would give the fat goblin a little shove toward embarrassment if
not oblivion, but the gods had done enough for one day. Ghistpok commanded his tribe's
attention, finished his tirade, and clambered uneventfully down from the roof.

Dru picked up the swordswinger's corpse—which Tiep hadn't noticed on the ground while
Ghistpok was ranting—and carried it into the stone house. Ghistpok and five or six male goblins
followed Dru. That left maybe forty or fifty goblins, including children, standing around in the rain. It
took a while, but eventually a few of the females went off to reconstruct the soaked, scattered hearth.

He watched the females wrestle the huge stew pot onto an iron tripod and empty smaller
pots of rainwater into it. Then, while one of them struggled to coax fire out of the sopping
embers, the rest gathered the meat that had spilled out when the stew pot overturned.
Without hesitation, they tossed the chunks back into the pot.

Tiep was suddenly cold. His knees trembled and the ground wobbled beneath his feet. He
would have fallen, but the thought of landing in the mud was so horrifying that it kept his legs
moving until he was off the mounds and standing on the quarry stone. Gasping and sobbing,
he doubled over, clutching his gut. It had been hours since Tiep had eaten. There was
nothing left in his stomach and that only made the retching worse.

His throat was raw before Tiep had regained control over his body and thoughts. The
stairway to the High Trail beckoned through the late afternoon shadows, but so did the
eastward gorge leading out of the Dekanter quarry. For the first time Tiep noticed a pair of
Zhentarim-built houses just inside the gorge. Their roofs were gone, and soot stained the
gaping holes that had been their windows and doorways. As shelters, neither would be better
than standing out in the open, but once Tiep noticed them and the charred remnants of a
wooden gate between them he forgot about the rain.

Druhallen will not listen to reason, Amarandaris had told him the night before they left
Parnast. I've told him not to leave Parnast, but if he does—if he slips away and you go with him,
then you will be my eyes in Dekanter. Watch him. Watch everything he does; remember everything he
says, especially when he casts that spell he got from Candlekeep. But more than that, keep your eyes
open for an iron box as long as your arm and half as high. Men died protecting that box. Look for it
beneath the walls of the gatehouse. Leave it where you see it, if you see it, but when you get to
Yarthrain, pay a visit to a man called Horace, the cooper behind the Black Buck Inn. Tell him
everything—give it to him in writing, if you can. A reward will be waiting for you when you get to
Scornubel.

The best part of everything Amarandaris had said was that the odds were against the
Zhentarim showing up here in Dekanter. The bad part was that Tiep couldn't tell Druhallen
not to worry. The worst part, until now, was that he hadn't seen anything that might have
been a gatehouse.

With renewed strength and purpose, Tiep strode to the gorge and across the threshold of
the northern gatehouse. The interior had been burnt and looted months ago. Charred wood
was rotting fast. In the dim light Tiep couldn't easily tell the difference between roof-beams
and furniture. There was nothing that looked like an iron box, but plenty of rubbish lay heaped
up against the walls. He kicked the nearest pile.

"No talk. Go away."
Tiep leapt straight up when he heard words coming from the rubbish behind him. His heart
had stopped and restarted at violent speed before a shred of intelligence let him know he'd
heard that voice before.

"Sheemzher?"

"Go away."

One trash heap was more blue and green than sooty black.

"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be back with your brothers and sisters, getting
ready for the big feast and celebration?"

"Sheemzher not eat. Sheemzher not celebrate. Not talk. Go away."

"Sorry, Sheemz, I've got work to do. You're not sitting on a iron box, are you?" Tiep knew
better than to provoke the goblin when they were hung on tenterhooks waiting to get back to
the egg chamber, but when he was fighting guilt and anxiety, Tiep couldn't resist the
temptation to pick on an easy target. "Did you see Ghistpok up on the wall? Didn't you marry
his daughter? Did she look like him?"

The goblin said something guttural in his own language.

"You want to repeat that in a language that sentient races can understand?"

"Sheemzher say, better sacrifice that one, not Hopper. Not miss that one."

The goblin's voice was forlorn, yet defiant, as though he knew he couldn't win but wouldn't
back down from a fight, either. It was a trait Tiep knew well and one that blunted some of his
own anger.

"Hopper had cracked a hoof. It was just a question of where and when Dru would use his
mercy spell."

"Not mercy, sacrifice. Sacrifice. Good sir say sacrifice. Good sir not ask Hopper."

Tiep kicked another rubbish heap. He'd have hurt himself if the iron box had been within it,
but the heap collapsed without incident.

"Dru's in charge. He makes the decisions because he's the one who does the lion's share
of the work when we're on the road. He's right, too, most of the time. We've got to have
Ghistpok's cooperation. If—If—Look, it wasn't as if Dru said, Let's slaughter Hopper. We left
Cardinal behind, and you remember what happened to him. That was pointless. This is—this is better.
We're getting closer to that scroll your bug lady wants, and closer to getting Galimer back. That's what
sacrifice is all about."

Sheemzher made the sound of a bladder bursting then said. "Not eat. Not celebrate.
Ghistpok—" He made the bladder-bursting sound again. "Good sir not ask Hopper, not ask
Sheemzher. Sheemzher say no sacrifice. Not right. Ghistpok not right. All not right. Good sir say,
sacrifice hurt. How? Hopper not sacrifice good sir."

"Animals don't sacrifice people, Sheemzher. People make sacrifices because people—"
Tiep had to think for a moment—"because people are cleverer than animals. People see consequences
and complications. They're sneaky. They make a sacrifice here, so something they want will happen
over there."

Tiep waved his arm at the empty door way as a way of indicating that it was a long reach
between Hopper's death and getting Galimer out of Weathercote. Sheemzher didn't get the
point, though. The goblin just stared out the door, looking for something that wasn't there.

"People," Sheemzher said softly, reminding Tiep that the word meant one thing to him and
another to the goblins. "Some people clever. Some people not clever. Some people gods.
Gods sacrifice people, yes?"

Tiep went back to kicking rubbish. "You're talking to the wrong person, Sheemz. I don't
have anything to do with gods—except Tymora, of course. Lady Luck." An ironic thought crossed
his mind. "Everybody makes sacrifices to Lady Luck, but gods do what they want. Rozt'a says the last
thing she ever wants is the love of a god; it's sure to turn out bad for her, however it turns out for
the god. She's probably right. A good friend is worth more than any god. Look what
Druhallen's putting himself through for Galimer."

"Good sir eat, yes? Good sir celebrate, yes? Good sir forget Hopper, yes?"

"Yes, no—how in blazes should I know what Dru remembers or forgets? And people—humans—
sometimes we do what we have to do and spend the rest of our lives regretting it." The way he
regretted everything he'd done for the Zhentarim since that fateful night in Scornubel. "I don't know
what Druhallen would do if he had to chose between saving Rozt'a or Galimer. I don't know what I'd
do."
Tiep looked up. The goblin stared at him with unnerving intensity.

"It's just talk, Sheemzher. We didn't really sacrifice Hopper. We're not gods or priests. Just
forget the word ever came up."

The goblin didn't listen. "Good sir save Tiep?" he asked, the first time he'd recognized Tiep
by name. "Or, good sir sacrifice Tiep?"

The questions cut close to the bone. Tiep spun around in a ready rage. "Be quiet! Be quiet
and stay quiet! Leave me alone!"

Tiep stormed out of the northern gatehouse and into the southern one. He kicked rubbish
until the sting of Sheemzher's questions had dulled to a familiar, guilty ache. The iron box
remained hidden, if it still existed, but he found a sword buried in the ash. Burnt, rotting
leather notwithstanding, the hilt of the sword Tiep found in the gatehouse mud fit his hand
better than the hilt of the sword he'd taken off the swordswinger.

He'd keep the swordswinger's weapon; the buried blade was rusted beyond redemption.
The blades were similar, though—very similar. He carried them both to the open doorway where
the light was best and compared the forge marks hammered into the steel. The marks were clear and
identical.