The Nether Scroll

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.