The Nether Scroll

12

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

Druhallen awoke with water dripping onto his face. The gods knew how long the drops had been striking his forehead. He couldn't guess; puddles were everywhere, and his clothes were as soaked as they'd been when he'd surrendered the watch to Rozt'a.

Rose-gold clouds floated in the east, but the sun hadn't risen and the camp was quiet. Rozt'a, on watch, acknowledged Dru with a nod, nothing more, when he sat up. The goblin was still asleep with his arms flung over his eyes, and Tiep was with the horses. There was no eye contact between them the first time Dru walked by, but when he returned Druhallen was ready for the sure-to-be-difficult conversation.

Tiep raised his head. He saw Druhallen coming and chose to look at his feet.

"She told me," the youth mumbled.

Dru hitched up his soggy pants and squatted beside Hopper's hindquarters. The hoof crack had widened overnight. The gelding stood with the affected leg bent and his weight on his other three hooves. He twitched and whickered plaintively when Druhallen ran a hand down the bent leg.

Dru was no ranger or druid. He couldn't heal a horse any more than he could heal himself, but a man who'd lived nine months out of twelve on the road for twenty-odd years learned a few things about horses and their feet, will he or nil he.

He said, "The old man's hurting."

Tiep wrapped his arms around Hopper's neck and supported the horse's head on his shoulder. "It'll get better when it dries. I'll take care of him. Hopper trusts me to take care of him."

"You've earned that trust, and you still have to take care of him. You know what that means. Hopper's about your age. That's young for a man, but old for a horse. Something like this was bound to happen."

"I thought we'd give him to a farmer with a fallow field-"

"And you wouldn't have to be there when the time came to put him down."

Dru stood and met Tiep's hurt-angry stare. He held it until the young man looked away again.

"Isn't there anything you can do? A binding spell to pull the edges together. An enchantment-"

"No."

"What good are you? What good is magic at all?"

Tiep was an expert when it came to returning pain.

Dru swallowed hard and said, "No good at all this morning." He put an arm around Tiep's shoulder and let the youth shrug free. "Did Rozt'a tell you the plan?"

"Bastards," Tiep spat. "Cruel, heartless bastards-both of you."

"That's neither true nor fair. You know Hopper's not walking out of these mountains. You know it, you just don't want to admit it. We could let him go the way Cardinal went or we can endow a feast down in the quarry and maybe-just maybe-that gets us on the goblins' good side long enough to get that scroll on its way to Weathercote. Suppose you ask Hopper which way he'd like to go?"

Tiep shook his head but said nothing.

"You don't have to go into the quarry with us, Tiep. You can stay up here with the gear and the rest of the animals. Gods know we should set a watch-"

"Isn't that the same as giving him to a farmer?" Tiep's eyes were bright, and his voice was thick.

Dru nodded. "Except the farmer's not as unpredictable as those goblins are apt to be."

A weak smile lifted Tiep's lips. "If we're going to sacrifice Hopper to get out of this stink-hole, then I'm going to be there when it happens. The last thing he sees will be me."

"No promises, Tiep. Anything can happen down there. Kicking over a hornet's nest would be less exciting than leading a ton of meat into Ghistpok's camp."

Druhallen draped an arm around Tiep again. This time the youth didn't shrug him off.

"But you-?" Tiep lifted his chin. "You'll do it, won't you, Dru? You left a place for mercy in your memory last night, didn't you?"

He nodded. What Tiep and the others called his "mercy" spell was the simple flame spell he studied most nights. The difference was in the delivery. No one asked him how it felt to cast fire into an animal's skull. They didn't want to know. "The old man won't suffer," Dru said softly; he'd see to that. "Go tell Rozt'a that you're coming down to the quarry with us. See if there's anything she wants you to do."

Tiep gave him a penetrating, slit-eyed stare. "Yeah. Sure. I get it."

Perhaps, he did. Tiep disentangled himself from Dru's arm without another word, leaving Dru alone with the old horse. This wouldn't be the first time, of course-there'd been Cardinal just a few days ago and more than he could readily count in the years previous-but "mercy" was never easy. He leaned into a horse-scented mane and revisited the past until he felt a tug on his sleeve.

"Good woman sad. That one sad. Good sir sad. Sheemzher ask, why sad. Sheemzher show way. Way good. People good. Why all sad?"

Dru looked down and tried not to resent the interruption. "Hopper's cracked a hoof. It started on the way into Parnast. We should have had him shod as soon as we got there, but never got to it. Rock like this is rough on their hooves at the best of times and Hopper's an old man among horses. All the rain we've had, especially last night. Standing in all that water the way he was, it got worse in a hurry."

The goblin clutched his hands behind his back and crouched to examine Hopper's injury. "So little?"

"That's all it takes for a horse. You could hop, or use a crutch, but Hopper needs all four legs, all the time. If we were somewhere else, maybe we could nurse him along, but he'd stay lame, and we're here, not somewhere else."

"Sacrifice, good sir? That one says, we're going to sacrifice Hopper to get out of this stink-hole. Sheemzher understand stink-hole. What be sacrifice, good sir?"

Druhallen pushed damp hair back from his forehead. He studied the risen sun and the crystal flecks in the nearest gray boulder. "Sacrifice is doing what hurts in the hope that everything will turn out right in the end."

"Hurt good sir or hurt Hopper?"

"If the good sir doesn't hurt, Sheemzher, then it's not much of a sacrifice."

Sheemzher reached up to scratch his head. They both noticed he was carrying a somewhat soggy chunk of bread.

"For you, good sir. Good woman says, That damn sack leaked again and we lost two loaves. Eat it quick or it'll go to waste."

Dru took his breakfast. The first bite tasted about as good as it looked. "Tell her, Thanks. Now. Tell her now."

The goblin gave him the same look Tiep had given him and went off to brighten Rozt'a's morning. Dru ate the bread-no telling when he'd eat again, except it wouldn't be down in the quarry.

They were ready by the time the sun was an hour above the eastern mountain crest. Druhallen thought they'd have trouble getting Hopper out of the gully, but they took it slow and Hopper placed each hoof, even the cracked one, with exquisite care. He wasn't the brightest horse ever foaled, nor the strongest, nor most handsome, but he was steady, reliable, and above all else, he trusted them completely.

Hopper balked at the top of the spiraling quarry steps. Dru had worried about them, too, but the steps had been carved ages ago by dwarves, not goblins. Considerably wider than they were high, the Dekanter steps were proportioned so that legs and feet of many sizes-dwarves, goblins, men and even horses-could find a comfortable stride.

Midway down the first stairway they were noticed by the goblin camp. The same high-pitched keening that had heralded the hunters' return yesterday echoed off the granite. A column of perhaps twenty goblins snaked out of the camp. They met the column at the bottom of the third-tier steps.

Their escort was made up entirely of male goblins, all toting spears and all lean to the point of emaciation. Amarandaris hadn't been exaggerating about the food situation at Dekanter. The Parnast refugees had more flesh on their bones than Ghistpok's elite. The refugees were better dressed, too-which said something about Parnast charity but wasn't truly surprising. Goblins weren't craftsmen. They might weave a reed basket or two, but not cloth. Goblin society, such as it was, depended on trade, raid, and outright theft. When Amarandaris backed away from Dekanter, he'd destroyed its prosperity and condemned it to dwindling rags.

Dru had calculated pure, physical hunger into his strategy, but he'd underestimated the effect that leather boots and whole cloth could have on desperate minds.

Grimy hands tugged his sleeves. One bold fool reached for his belt. He swatted the pest away and told them all firmly to keep their distance.

"Lead us to Ghistpok. We've come to talk to Ghistpok."

The goblins squabbled among themselves, and one whose rags were a bit more extensive, if in no better overall condition, barked goblin language at Sheemzher.

"That one," Sheemzher said, pointing at Druhallen. "Speak that one."

The escort leader brandished his spear a handspan in front of Sheemzher's nose and shouted more goblin-speak. Dru couldn't understand a word, but he got the meaning easily enough. Ghistpok's goblins didn't speak the Heartlands' dialect, or, more likely, they wouldn't speak it.

Peculiarities aside, Sheemzher spoke the Heartlands' dialect well enough and without Wyndyfarh's faintly foreign inflection, which implied that he'd learned humankind's common language here, in Dekanter. As Sheemzher should have learned it in Dekanter. A race could scarcely be called sentient if it didn't teach its children a useful dialect of humankind's trade language. Humankind shared Toril with many sentient races but outnumbered all of them together. There were sentients who didn't speak the trade-tongue, but Druhallen was quite confident that Amarandaris hadn't stooped to yips and snarls when he told Ghistpok to stop the warfare and raiding.

Of course, Ghistpok hadn't stooped either.

Before he started lording himself over Ghistpok's goblins, Dru wisely remembered that these scrawny ragpickers had survived the loss of at least three Zhentarim groups. Amarandaris had shut down Dekanter's slave market and relocated the Dawn Pass Trail rather than lose more men… or take the sort of revenge for which the Zhentarim were justly infamous.

Dru caught himself staring at the goblin who shouted at Sheemzher and asking himself if the ragged stranger's eyes were a little too large and red, his fingers a little too long? And could those marks on his face be scales, not scars?

"Sheemzher, your relatives don't seem to want to speak to us. Have we got a problem?" he asked when the tirade showed no signs of ending. "Should we take our gifts and leave in a hurry?"

He watched the Dekanter goblins, looking for signs that they understood what he'd said. The signs were there: hands moving along a spear's shaft, quick glances exchanged between goblins, and longer glances at Hopper's flanks. They understood what he'd said, and they'd stopped speaking to men. Were they angry that the Zhentarim had disbanded the slave market, thereby depriving them of whatever goblins called luxuries?

Were they angry enough to kill? Amarandaris hadn't implicated Ghistpok's goblins in the massacres, but was believing Amarandaris any wiser than believing goblins?

Probably not.

The strongest wind blowing through Dekanter was confusion-the breakdown of goblin life as it had been lived for generations. Sheemzher confirmed Dru's perspective when he said. "Many changes here, good sir. New people. New ways. Sheemzher listen, learn. No problems, good sir. No hurry. Sheemzher follow Outhzin. Good sir, all follow Sheemzher. Ghistpok soon."

The goblin with the biggest rag collection was Outhzin and Outhzin led them across the quarry bottom. Dru had the sense that Outhzin thought he was in command. Outhzin could perhaps count twenty spears against three swords and was entitled to his opinion. Dru thought otherwise, but wasn't about to prove it; though he had fire, blur, and his pall of gloom literally on his fingertips.

The procession was quiet as long as they were on the steps, but once they reached the quarry bottom Ghistpok's goblins formed a circle around them and with words and obscene gestures made clear their fascination with Rozt'a.

The harassment came to a head when one of them-the same goblin who'd reached for Dru's folding box-darted into the circle and grabbed at Rozt'a's thigh. She backhanded her attacker, lifting him off his feet. By the time he stopped moving, he was on his rump and nearly six feet from where he'd started.

The procession stopped as half the goblins laughed and the rest leveled their spears. Rozt'a drew her sword.

"Druhallen-?" she called, making sure he was ready to back her up.

"I'm ready," he replied and brushed his right hand along his left sleeve, plucking a cold ember from the cloth before he drew his sword partway from its scabbard.

The fallen goblin bounded to his feet. He snarled something at his companions that quieted them, then he pointed his spear at Rozt'a's gut.

"Tell him, if he takes one step toward me, I'll kill him. Tell him he needn't worry what happens next, because he'll be dead."

Sheemzher dutifully translated and added, "That one young, good woman. That one claim good woman. Good woman belong that one. Mistake, yes?"

"Belong to him!" Rozt'a sputtered. "Is he out of his mind?"

"Sheemzher not know, good woman."

"Well, you tell him-you tell all of them that I've got a good husband and a bad temper."

Some of the goblins chuckled before Sheemzher translated a word, confirming Dru's suspicion that they understood the language they wouldn't speak. The instigator goblin wasn't laughing, or lowering his spear.

"When you're done with that, Sheemzher," Dru said loudly, "tell everyone that I'm her husband and that my temper is worse."

He drew the sword and held it the way he'd have held one of his axe shafts. The stance must have been convincing. The instigator stood down, and they were moving again.

More goblins came out of the camp to meet them, mostly children, all of them boys. The goblin women stayed behind knee-high walls on the midden mound. A wearier collection of mothers and daughters Druhallen had never seen. Rozt'a fell back to walk beside him.

"This place turns my blood cold," she whispered. "The slave market hasn't closed. They've only stopped selling their women to the Zhentarim."

"They never sold their women to the Zhentarim," Dru whispered back. "Count them. There are more males than females, but a lot more boys than girls."

She did the arithmetic. "There must be another camp."

"I doubt it."

"What-?"

"Shsssh. Later."

Dru suspected that if they knew where to dig, they'd find too many tiny burials-or maybe the goblins didn't bury the daughters they chose not to raise. His own five brothers notwithstanding, sentient populations tended naturally to balance themselves between males and females. It took considerable intervention to create the disparity here in Ghistpok's camp. The brutal and ultimately self-defeating irony was that the same goblins who'd go to any length to enlarge their harems would reject their daughters. Women tended to be scarce when women were despised, and a race or tribe where men outnumbered women never camped far from brink of extinction.

The Dekanter goblins dwelt near that edge. They were still abandoning their daughters-witness the preponderance of boys running loose-but they were missing many of their adult males. The survivors-the goblins pointing their spears at the tallest woman they'd possibly ever seen-might think they were better off than their fathers, but Dru had studied trade and history; he knew better. Ghistpok's gender-skewed tribe was the strongest evidence he'd see to support Amarandaris's notion that there was a war going on in the Greypeak Mountains. Quite possibly a war of annihilation rather than one of conquest.

Suppose the Beast Lord was fighting a war, not with the Zhentarim nor with the goblins nor with anything above ground. Suppose it worked its athanor every day, hatching out swordswingers to protect its slaves and empty pools. Suppose it, too, needed something like a sentience shield to keep its enemies away. If it were fighting a war under Dekanter, the Beast Lord needed bodies-and what better way to get them than from its worshipers?

Dru's concentration lagged as he considered the questions he'd posed to himself. Outhzin had led them into the camp. They were walking across the midden mounds, following a rutted track that wound around the low walls and up to the abandoned Zhentarim headquarters. The stench was astonishing; it overwhelmed concentration and compassion. Animals didn't live so poorly. Squalor on this scale required sentience.

With every step and breath, Druhallen resented the idea that the meat off Hopper's bones would wind up in these stomachs. Tiep was right, honest Hopper deserved something better, but their course was set now.

Outhzin signaled a stop within the headquarters' morning shadow. Female goblins watched them from broken, gaping windows. Their faces were a little fuller, if not cleaner than those they saw behind the low walls. There was some benefit, then, to being part of Ghistpok's harem.

It certainly wasn't Ghistpok. Only one word could describe the Dekanter chief when he appeared in the doorless doorway: grotesque. He wore nothing, but could hardly be called naked. In a colony where everyone else was starving, Ghistpok was huge, though even he was not the man he'd been. Empty folds of flesh hung from his bulging belly, his upper arms and legs-wherever he had once stored his fat. His face resembled a melting ball of wax. When he raised his arms, flesh fell back from his hands like too-long sleeves.

Tiep and Rozt'a both turned away. Druhallen held his ground but he had to look elsewhere when Ghistpok lifted a flap of dirty orange flesh to scratch a maggot-ridden armpit.

By chance, Dru found himself gazing at Sheemzher. The goblin who'd first appeared in their Parnast room dressed like a town dandy was pale and trembling. His disappointment and contempt were palpable: This was not the Ghistpok he'd expected to find.

But this was the Ghistpok with whom they had to negotiate-with whom Sheemzher had to negotiate, because the Dekanter chief would not speak to a human nor admit that he understood their language. After an exchange that wasn't cordial, Sheemzher followed Ghistpok into the abandoned headquarters. Outhzin and three other warriors joined them.

Druhallen and his companions were left standing outside the stone headquarters, surrounded by goblins who were as hostile as they were curious. The overbold goblin who'd assaulted Rozt'a paced a circle around them, snarling and shaking his spear at any other male who got too close. His spear did nothing to deter another drizzly rain shower or the huge mosquitoes.

"You've got to burn this place," Tiep snarled as he slapped and flailed. "The whole world needs you to-"

"Quiet!" Dru had retreated into himself and reacted slowly to the sound of Tiep's voice. "They understand. They might not know you're just making noise."

"But you can-"

"I said, 'Quiet!'"

Rozt'a grabbed the youth and whispered in his ear. Tiep made a one-step retreat, astonishment written large across his face. With luck, the goblins hadn't figured out they were entertaining a wizard.

Inside the Zhentarim headquarters, the goblins exchanged heated words. Druhallen couldn't be sure if Sheemzher had made allies, but he and Ghistpok weren't the only ones raising their voices. Outhzin and his three peers appeared in the doorway to glower and glare. Each time Dru got a sense of what slaves might have felt when Dekanter's market flourished. He'd have led Rozt'a and Tiep away, if there'd been anywhere else to go.

At last, Sheemzher emerged, looking grim and without his shirt which had become a turban atop Ghistpok's head. Druhallen expected bad news, but the goblin insisted "Sheemzher settle good. All done. Ghistpok not all believe, believe enough-Ghistpok curious. Sheemzher, good sir lead people. Show people slaves, egg. Beast Lord make demons! Yes? People see; people believe. People return, Ghistpok believe. Sheemzher settle good. Make sacrifice, yes? Big feast after sacrifice. Big feast after Ghistpok believe. All people get scroll after big feast. Good sir say, sentience shield. Sheemzher settle good, yes?"

If Druhallen were writing the script, he'd have the Nether scroll and be on his way to Weathercote Wood before Ghistpok's goblins plunged into their feast, but he wasn't writing the script. Dru told the goblin, "Sheemzher settle good, yes," and cringed when he realized he was repeating the goblin's words.

While Ghistpok's elite gathered their spears, Druhallen led Hopper to the charred pit where the goblins prepared their food. No need to ask what they used for fuel, and it wasn't wood. He'd hoped for privacy but had an audience. In a moment or two, the goblins would know what he was.

Dru began by scratching the tip of Hopper's nose. He working his fingers up the side of the gelding's head to his ears. Hopper sighed and rested his chin on Dru's shoulder. Trust never wavered from his brown eyes. One instant there was life, the next-when Dru crushed the kindling ember against bone-life was gone. Hopper's legs buckled; he went down with a dead-weight thud.

Tiep had stationed himself where Druhallen couldn't help but see him once Hopper was on the ground. The youth's expression was confused and unreadable-identical, perhaps, to his own. A month ago, Dru had believed he was a man beyond change; for good or ill, he was the man he'd always be. A week on the Dawn Pass Trail had proved him wrong.

If-When Druhallen left Dekanter, he'd be a different person, and so, too, would Rozt'a and Tiep. He could see the changes already on their faces.

A cold wind blew through Druhallen's thoughts; it whispered Galimer's name. Since Sunderath, Dru had shared everything that mattered with Galimer, even a woman's love, but they wouldn't share Dekanter… or the glade in Weathercote Wood.

If Weathercote changed Galimer as the Greypeaks were changing him-?

Dru realized he could give Wyndyfarh the damned scroll and receive a stranger in return.

The risk had to be taken.

"Let's go," he said, walking away from Hopper's carcass.

He strode toward the main entrance to the Dekanter mines. Tiep caught up first.

"You did what you had to do," the youth said in hushed, thick tones.

Dru said nothing.

"I'm not angry with you anymore."

Dru shook his head. "You've grown up."

"Yeah. I guess."

Rozt'a joined them, Sheemzher, too. The goblin had acquired another spear which he held off-side in his left hand. With his right, he grasped Dru's hand as a child might. Dru endured the sympathy without comment.

The mine entrance was as old as the quarry. It was almost directly below the rim where they'd first looked down on the goblin colony, which was why they hadn't seen it from the High Trail. Like the steps, the entrance had been carved by dwarves and they'd outdone themselves with inscriptions and low-relief portraits. The inscriptions were mostly Dethek runes, but the portraits were humans, each surrounded by Netherese letters.

Dru sounded out the words-Raliteff, Noanar, Valdick, Efteran, and others-all names he'd learned at Candlekeep, all Netherese wizards. For decades he'd dreamt of standing before the Dekanter mines, on the threshold of forgotten history and magic. A thousand times or more he'd imagined how the moment would feel; none was remotely accurate.

Seven goblins, including Sheemzher and Outhzin, accompanied Dru into the entry chamber.

Rozt'a hadn't been listening when Sheemzher came out of the headquarters, or she'd misunderstood what he'd said. "Where is everyone?" she asked. "We need the whole tribe, the women and children, too, if we're going to distract the alhoon with a sentience shield," she explained.

"Later. People here convince Ghistpok. Ghistpok convince all people. Get scroll after feast."

"Wonderful," Rozt'a replied. "You agreed to this, Dru?"

"It's the best Sheemzher could do."

"Wonderful," she repeated and fingered her sword.

They left sunlight behind. With their keen noses and heat-sensitive eyes, the goblins didn't need light to find their way through the mines, but they didn't object to Dru's light spell when he let the freshly cast spell drift above them.

Light revealed aspects of Dekanter that scent and heat could never detect. The dwarves hadn't stopped their carving at the entry portals. The walls and high ceilings of several chambers of the mines were covered with inscriptions, portraits, and scenes from forgotten epics, many of them painted. One goblin, on seeing a remarkable likeness of a red dragon that incorporated the natural contours of the rock beneath its paint, dropped his spear and raced back to the light.

"Wait until they see the Beast Lord," Rozt'a mused bitterly.

For the moment, the Beast Lord was the least of their problems. Last night's torrential rains had penetrated the mines. Sheemzher complained that the smells were different-fainter-than they had been, but more worrisome were the puddles and the water seeping through the walls. Dru knelt and examined a damp line a handspan above the floor.

"This tunnel flooded last night," he decided.

"We had more water pooled around our feet in the rocks," Tiep joked.

"And that water's still flowing through this mountain," Dru countered, then added, "We're out of our minds. Only fools would walk into a mountain after a rain."

Rozt'a was unimpressed. "Then we're fools. The Beast Lord lives in this mountain and so do its slaves. If they can survive, so can we."

The passages were unfamiliar at first, but soon enough Druhallen recognized intersections by their Dethek runes. He began to relax about water and worry, instead, that they might encounter a beefed-up swordswinger patrol. Dru listened for voices, boots, and the clank of metal; what he heard was different.

"There's water ahead, Sheemzher," he told the goblin. "A lot of water."

"Much water, good sir," Sheemzher agreed. "No danger. Egg smell strong."

Perhaps it was. Dru had stood in front of the athanor without noticing any scent emanating from it, but before they'd gone a hundred feet into the next tunnel even a human nose was aware of a damp, stony tang in the air and the breeze that carried it toward them. They followed the wind to the next intersection.

Sheemzher forged straight ahead. "This way before, good sir," he said when Dru hesitated. "This way now, yes?"

The goblin was retracing their steps, but he was also leading them toward water. Against his better judgment, Dru let himself be led down a corridor past the point where damp became wet. Yesterday, he'd nearly succumbed to panic when he'd felt the mountain bearing down on him. Today, knowing there was a storm's worth of water working its way through the tangled passages, the pressure was worse. Druhallen knew there was danger and knew no way to avoid it, except by leaving the mines.

"We've got to turn around," he announced. "There's no telling where the water's been or where it's going. This tunnel could flood in an instant."

They argued with him, Rozt'a and Tiep included, until water seeped through the seams of their boots and covered their toes. Backtracking to the previous intersection, Sheemzher declared that he'd made a mistake "Egg smell strongest this way!" He pointed down the right-side path, a down-sloping path where the stone was dry and the air was still. "Come. Come, good sir," Sheemzher tugged on Druhallen's sleeve. "Be brave, good sir. Trust Sheemzher. Sheemzher follow nose now, not memory."

Dru backed away and found himself face-to-face with Rozt'a.

"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.