The Nether Scroll

Rozt'a didn't often speak about her life before the road. The youth swallowed hard and tucked his chin down so he didn't have to meet her eyes.

"Manya didn't say anything about that—and she was the one who started talking. There was a bunch of goblins out behind the stable, beggin' and all when she was just trying to get to the charterhouse. I saw that she was scared, so I grabbed a pitchfork an' chased 'em off. What was I supposed to do? Turn my back? How would those brothers and fathers feel if I didn't—"

"All right!" Dru snarled. He wasn't in the mood for Tiep's logic. "Rozt'a didn't say you'd done anything wrong! What we're all saying is that we're likely to be in Parnast longer than we planned, so you've got to be extra careful. If you see something lying on the ground, just leave it there and don't cross the locals or their daughters. Amarandaris has the first and last word in justice here, and I'm not going to risk our lives or livelihoods to save yours."

"Sheesh! I've got the point. Gods, it was only a kiss, and it was her idea, to thank me for chasing those goblins away."

Rozt'a had closed the door and the room was stifling with raw emotion. Tiep and Galimer exchanged anxious glances. They were alike in important ways: they both valued peace more than victory. Dru wasn't surprised that Galimer broke the tension.

"Other than goblins and girls, how was your afternoon?"

"Did you rasp down their hooves?" Rozt'a added before Tiep could answer.

He knew whose questions came first. "All but Ebony's—she wasn't having anything to do with me around her feet an' it was too hot to argue with her. I'll get her in the morning when she's still sleepy. I got everybody else: Cardinal, Bandy, Fowler, Star and Hopper. Hopper's cracked his left rear hoof. I was going to say we'd have to find a smith and get him shod, but if we're not going anywhere for a while, maybe we can wait an' see if it'll grow out on its own."

Larceny notwithstanding, Tiep was a conscientious youth. He took good care of their animals—especially Hopper, the elder statesman among their horses—and was a better cook than the rest of them combined. This past spring, before they left Scornubel and at Druhallen's suggestion, they'd given him a one-tenth share of their profits.

It had been time to make him a partner, but it had taken away the one threat that always worked with Tiep: the threat of leaving him behind.

With a grin Tiep offered Dru a small, rag-wrapped parcel. "I found this for you."

Warily, Dru accepted the parcel which unfurled in his hands. A lump of black, waxy stuff released its scent into the crowded room.

"Myrrh," Dru muttered when enough of the mournful aroma had hit his nostrils. A small fortune in myrrh. "Tiep, tell me you don't expect me to believe that you found this just lying about."

"In the stalls," the lad replied quickly, too quickly for Dru's taste. "Those Zhentarim hostlers, they don't clean the stalls near good enough."

"Tiep!" all three adults spoke as one.

"All right. All right. I won it. I won it fair and square from a hostler. An' he said he did find it in the straw after some merchants left yesterday. I figured it was the bunch that ran out on us, and that they owed us, so I made sure I won the bet—"

"You admit you cheated?" Dru challenged. Discipline fell to him. Galimer didn't have the stomach for it, and Rozt'a left bruises when she tried.

"Never!" Tiep replied emphatically. "I don't cheat! The guy said he could throw double- three five times running. I let him make his throw four times, then I dared him—my ring for his myrrh—to throw his fifth double-three with my dice."

Of course Tiep had had a pair of dice with him.

Rozt'a reached for his shoulders again. "That ring's not yours to sell or game away."

Before they'd set out from Berdusk, Druhallen had enchanted the ring to help them find the boy, if he'd ever truly gotten lost, and to pass him through the wards Dru routinely set around their rooms and camps. In the process they'd discovered that Tiep had another talent beside thievery: he shed simple magics and was particularly hard on enchantments. His talent wouldn't save him from a fireball, but it had forced Dru to enchant an expensive gemstone ring rather than a plain silver band and it had made it impossible for Tiep to follow in his foster fathers' footsteps.

"There was no way I was losing my ring."

"Then you were cheating," Dru corrected.

"No way! My dice are absolutely pure, honest, all-around square." Tiep placed his hands over his heart for dramatic emphasis. "The hostler was cheating. No way he was going to try to make his throw with square dice. And it wasn't as if the myrrh really belonged to him. He didn't even know what it was—he was going to smoke it. Can you imagine how sick he'd be right now if he'd tried smoking myrrh? I saved that hostler from a really bad night."