The Nether Scroll (31 page)

She stirred the soup for her answer and dribbled a cascade of meat back into the pot.

"Get some sleep," Dru suggested. "You're tired. I'll take the watches tonight."

"I dozed. I'll be fine—read your scroll, if you can, Druhallen. I know better than to come between
a magician and his magic. This way you won't have to divide your attention."

He mumbled his thanks and retrieved the cloth-wrapped bundle from his gear. Midnight
had passed hours ago. Dru could glance at the words of his light spell, cast it a moment later,
and know he'd get another chance when midnight returned. He was impressed by the
precautions Tiep had taken to protect the scroll with his shirt—

The better to impress Amarandaris and the unknown Zhentarim contact in Yarthrain?

Druhallen sighed. Though his anger was real and justified, he knew Tiep's slide into the
Network fell short of conscious betrayal. Somewhere in one of the cities they visited or in
Scornubel—which was more likely—the youth's luck had run out. He'd crossed a line that couldn't be
crossed. Since the beginning in Berdusk, he, Rozt'a, and Galimer told their youngster to come to them
when he got in trouble and tell them about his mistakes before they became flash point crises.

It was a rare boy who took that advice to heart. Dru thought of himself. He'd never willingly
admitted an error to his father—why volunteer for a thrashing? And after he'd left Sunderath, when
his situation with Ansoain hadn't been so very different from Tiep's, he'd have died before risking the
future with an untimely confession to his foster parent. Of course, he'd also bent over backward to stay
out of trouble.

He was a carpenter's son. Both his grandfathers had been carpenters, too. He was an odd
seed in Sunderath, but he knew his roots. The gods knew what Tiep had for ancestors, and
they weren't telling.

With a sigh, Druhallen unrolled the layers of shirt and scroll. The first, most obvious, thing
he noticed was that scroll wasn't parchment backed with gold-leaf, as he'd expected, but gold
throughout and polished to a sheen that sparkled in his light spell and hurt his eyes. He
noticed the script next. Dense columns of Netherese script that floated on the gold. Dru could
read the letters, but not casually, not without concentration, and there was no guarantee he'd
make sense of the words. His dark glass disk slipped out next, warmer than it had ever been
before.

Odd that it was the object which had brought him to this forsaken corner of Faerun only to
become uninteresting once he'd arrived. Dru was almost certain now that the disk had
nothing to do with Thayan circle-magic but, instead, had something to do with hiding
objects—people—in plain sight. He guessed now that the Red Wizards had held onto it tightly until
they were ready to begin their ambush, then they'd thrown it down. Why they hadn't retrieved it was,
and might remain, a mystery, but a minor one compared with the meaning behind the words in front of
him.

He picked the disk out of the grass and returned it to its silken sack and snug
compartment within the folding box. There might be a use for it, yet. Amarandaris had told
him to name his price. If the offer held, he could think of something the Zhentarim could
return to him.

When the box was folded shut, Dru once again looked at the scroll. Twilight was passing
quickly on this crisp, cloudless night and he'd had to dim his light spell. Dru wasn't sure he
could trust his eyes, but yes—by means and magic he could not explain, the floating words on the
scroll had become rusty marks across the back of Tiep's homespun linen shirt.

Too bad the boy didn't dress in silk as Galimer did. A more finely woven fabric would have
recorded the ancient words more clearly, but they could still be read, albeit as reversed
mirror-writing. Arc—Arcan—Arcanium—? The shirt's script was imprecise. Far easier to look at the
floating script. The gold made its own light. Druhallen squelched his spell entirely and found the
Netherese letters instantly clearer.

Arcanum Fundare Tiersus: Of fundamental or basic magic or mystery, the third lesson or
chapter.

Druhallen translated the first line of the first column: Things are not as they seem.
Seeming is illusion. Illusion is change. Things change.

He was disappointed: the wisdom of millennia reduced to a schoolboy's truism. Then it
came to him that all magic was illusion and, more than that, a reagent was the illusion of
magic: a thing that was not what it seemed to be. A spell was the destruction of illusion. A
spell was the ultimate revelation of truth.

A spell was naked truth!

Dru sat up straight, stunned by the insight sweeping through his mind, changing the way
he thought about magic. The sky was black, the stars were brilliant jewels; midnight had
come and gone since he'd translated the first line. There were a thousand lines or more
floating on the gold. He did the math then started on the second line. The words were there,
but the magic—the truth within illusion—was not.

Some things did not change. Reading the Nether scroll was like studying spells. He could
read or study at any time, but true learning happened only once each day. Disappointment
singed Dru's spirit. In a few days time he would—he definitely would—trade the scroll for
Galimer. Before then, he'd read another line, perhaps two more, not more than four. A far cry from a
thousand.

Dru picked up the shirt and held it close. Things are not as they seem ... The words, not
the magic. Would the magic be there tomorrow? He folded Tiep's shirt carefully, separately
from the scroll which rolled up tighter than his little finger. Then, because for a wizard
thwarted curiosity hurt worse than any wound, Dru opened his folding box to the
compartment where he kept powdered sulfur.

Light was a fast kindling spell that consumed its red or yellow reagent when he committed
it to memory. Usually he balanced a bit of powder on a fingernail that had been black since
he left Sunderath. Tonight he left the powder in the compartment and, rather than read the
writ from the wooden panel, Dru closed his eyes and remembered it while holding a harmonic
thought—the reagent is the illusion, the truth is light.

The power was in his mind. After decades of practice, Druhallen knew when he'd learned
a spell after midnight. He remembered his simplest flame spell which had always required an
ember before it would kindle. Like pure light, flames appeared in Dru's mind. It felt different,
as if the ember were there also. He had to know ...

A flaming streak shot from Druhallen's hand. It brought Rozt'a at a run.

Dru was exhilarated. He'd cast a spell by will alone, without literal study, reagents, or a
kindling gesture. Reading—learning—a single line from the Nether scroll had ushered him across
the threshold that separated good wizards from great ones.

Rozt'a was in a panic, fearing that the mind flayers, dead and alive, had returned to finish
their feast. She had harsh words for a wizard who'd terrified her out of curiosity. Dru endured
the tongue lashing, which did not dent his enthusiasm.

"One look at the Nether scroll and I've learned what a spell is. I've been collecting spells
as if every one were different. That's illusion; Rozt'a, spells are all the same. They're all a
path through illusion to truth. One look, and I've seen the fundamental truth of magic."

She narrowed her eyes. "All spells are the same? That's the fundamental truth of magic?"

"You'd have to see it from your mind. And if you could read the Netherese script, you
would. This scroll—" He held it up "—could turn even you into a wizard."

The prospect did not delight her. She snatched the scroll from his hand. "One look you
say, and you're casting spells from your mind. If you're not stark, raving mad then forget your
glass disk. This is the thing that could unhinge Faerun. You say there are a hundred of
them?" Rozt'a swore by Helm and Ilmater, her god of last resort.

She had a point. "Even though there were only fifty, legend says Netheril was founded on
two identical sets of golden scrolls. Both were lost before the Empire fell."

"And good riddance. Magic shouldn't be easy."

Another point. Dru purged his wild enthusiasm with a sigh. "We're exchanging it for
Galimer."

"Solving our problem and giving the world a bigger one."

"I doubt it. I don't think there's anything in that scroll that the bug lady doesn't already
know."

Rozt'a glowered at the scroll before handing it back. "I'm glad for you, Druhallen, if you've
seen the truth of magic, and I pray to all the gods that you're right, because we are
exchanging it for Galimer."

"No question," Dru agreed. His excitement rekindled the instant his fingers touched the
warm, shining gold. He was a boy again, freshly apprenticed to Ansoain and she couldn't
teach him fast enough. "Sit with me a moment. I want to try something."

"Druhallen ..." her voice was ominous, distrusting.

"I'm not going to open the scroll. I'm not going to touch it. Here, you can hold it."

She took it reluctantly. "Druhallen, what's going on in your mind?"

"I came—We came all this way to cast a single spell, and I didn't cast it. I never found the time,
never found the place, and when it came time to leave, it never even crossed my mind. I still have all
the reagents—the dragon's blood, the mummy's bone, the perfect pearl. They're going to waste—"

Rozt'a opened her mouth, then shut it.

"Rozt'a, I want to cast the Candlekeep spell on the scroll. I'm going to cast it, but it's the
kind of spell that's safer with an anchor, someone to keep an eye on things and stop the
magic if it goes awry."

"How will I do that?"

"Just take the scroll away. You'll be holding it. It won't be difficult."

She was skeptical, but eventually agreed. Dru committed the spell to memory, then made
the preparations.

"You're sure I can just walk away?"

"It's a passive spell, Rozt'a. Nothing happens here."

Dru sat outside the circle with a clear view of the scroll and spoke the words that
Candlekeep's blind scryer had taught him, meaningless words that belonged to no language
he could name. Nothing happened at first, and he suspected the ultimate irony: After all this,
he'd gotten some minor aspect wrong and the spell would not kindle. Then Druhallen's
thoughts let go of time.

Slowly at first, but soon with dizzying speed, Dru's awareness moved against time's flow to
the beginning—the very beginning—of light, heat, and majesty. The time stream caught him and
carried him on a lightning bolt through the scroll's history. Druhallen had visions of huge sparks and
larger explosions, none of which had meaning to him, except that the scroll was old. Its history was
older than humanity, older than Faerun and when the lightning bolt carried him through those
moments, it was moving too fast for him to collect any impressions of Netheril, Dekanter, or his own
past. It was traveling too fast to stop and carried him into the future, where no mortal mind should
travel but where the scroll had place and presence.

He'd perceived a return to pure light, pure heat, and majesty when it ended and he was
sitting in the grass beside an abandoned trail, staring at an empty circle in the dirt.
"You were getting weird," Rozt'a said from behind his back. "Your eyes were starting to
glow. I figured it was time to stop. Are you yourself?"

Dru turned around. "Of course I—"

Rozt'a had her sword drawn, ready to lop off his head. "You're absolutely sure?"

"It was a scrying spell, Roz. Like reading a book or looking at a picture—except I couldn't
understand the words and the pictures didn't make much sense either."

She lowered the sword and laughed at him.

Each of the next two sunrises Druhallen unrolled the Nether scroll and read another line.
His second and third readings were not as insightful as the first had been, but they expanded
his horizons and gave him peace—the only peace he got those days. Tiep had awakened shortly
after Dru had cast his Candlekeep spell. The youth had sucked in his gut and told Rozt'a the truth
before breakfast.

She'd swallowed her rage—a terrible thing to watch—and shut him out of her life. Rozt'a didn't
rant or vent her frustrations on helpless trees and bushes, she simply treated Tiep as if he weren't there.
If he spoke, she didn't hear. If he got in front of her, she turned the other way. Dru had tried talking to
her.

We said we'd always understand, that we'd always be there to help him. He didn't believe
us. He was right.

Damn straight he was right. He's gone over, Dru. First Weathercote, now this. Or have I
got it backward? First the Zhentarim, then Weathercote. He's out of my life.

Not until the four of us are together. We can't decide without Galimer.

Tiep or me, Druhallen. If he goes into Weathercote Wood, I don't.

Dru had tried to reason with her; at least he'd thought he was using reason. The Nether
scroll hadn't given him any new insights into women, especially Rozt'a. When he'd refused to
judge Tiep immediately and send him on his way to Yarthrain at the junction of the old and
new branches of the Dawn Pass Trail, she'd turned her back on them both. Add one delirious
goblin and he had all the reagents necessary to conjure disaster, which was exactly what he
foresaw once the green trees of Weathercote Wood lined their horizon.

Rozt'a was adamant, Tiep was forlorn, and Sheemzher was useless as their guide through
the treacherous forest. Dru solved one problem when he removed the amber pendant from
the goblin's neck. The red jewel sparkled when he warmed it between his palms.

"We're here," he whispered. "Sheemzher's hurt. If you want him and your scroll, you're
going to have to show us the way."

The amber went cold but, in the distance, red light winked in the trees.

"We're on our way," he said, kneeing Fowler off the trail and hoping Rozt'a and Tiep would
follow quietly.