The Nether Scroll

"Sorry we're late," the lad said brightly. "But two Anauroch caravans in one day! I got distracted. You wouldn't believe what they pulled off those camels." He stirred, then ignored, his stew. "You remember those sandalwood boxes Old Maddie sells in Scornubel? I saw boxes like that, only twice as big and half the cost. I was talking to a trader—negotiating— when Rozt'a said you were all waiting on me. The trader says I can have the lot for three blue-eyes with Cormyr mint-marks. The boxes have got to be worth ten blue-eyes in Scornubel—at least ten. I said I had to talk to my partners first."

Galimer scowled and Tiep spooned up a mouthful of stew. Dru waited for Rozt'a's version of events. Her lips were set in thin, pale lines, but she said nothing, so the lad's tale might be true. Trading three Cormyr coins in Parnast for ten in Scornubel was worth consideration, but didn't mean their other suspicions were wrong.

If Tiep suspected he was marching toward a cliff, he hid it well throughout dinner and the sunset walk between the charterhouse and their room. He was the first to speak after the door was shut.

"So, what do you think? I've got one blue-eye set aside. Will you advance me the other two? I'm telling you—Old Maddie will pay us at least eight, or we can peddle the boxes ourselves. I'll give you four for two. It's a sure thing—"

Dru had heard enough. "I had an unpleasant conversation with Lord Amarandaris this afternoon, Tiep."

The lad sobered instantly without taking on a guilty aura. "Problems? Anything I can do to—?"

"I'm more interested in what you've already have done."

"What you might have done," Rozt'a corrected. "By accident—because you trusted someone you shouldn't have."

Tiep's eyebrows pulled together. "It's just boxes—"

Galimer leapt into the growing confusion: "We may have been remiss in—er, aspects of your education, Tiep. Flattery, at the wrong time—You might have been tempted to trade confidences with someone—a woman—a girl—"

"Manya? What's Manya got to do with sandalwood boxes—or some stuffy Zhentarim?"

"That's what we were hoping you could tell us," Dru answered.

Tiep straightened. He'd grown this summer; there was no more looking down on him. They'd come to a serious crossroads. If Dru couldn't trust Tiep the way he trusted Galimer and Rozt'a, the young man was on his own. Worse—if he, Galimer, and Rozt'a couldn't agree on the lad's trustworthiness, then Dru himself might be alone. He continued, "Lord Amarandaris had a notion of why we were headed for Dekanter and what I'd hoped to do when I got there. I think he could only have gotten that information from talking to one of us—or talking to someone who had talked to one of us."

"He hasn't talked to me about Dekanter," Tiep replied quickly. "And I haven't spilled anything to Manya, either—not that she'd tell Amandis even if I had. She says he's nothing but slime with legs and hair."

"I trust that you and she were clever enough not to say that where you could be overheard?"

Tiep nodded. "We were with the geese. Geese're almost as good as wards—" A thoughtful expression formed on his face. "Our wards. Maybe someone busted your wards, Dru?"

"My wards are—" He stopped speaking. His wards were suddenly fire in his mind. "A stranger's breaching them right now."

Rozt'a flattened beside the door. She drew her knives. "Amarandaris?"

"Can't tell," Dru admitted. In all his years of setting wards around their camps and rented rooms, he'd had only a handful of opportunities to study what happened when they were breached by uninvited guests. "I don't sense a threat."

"Manya!" Tiep lunged for the door.

Dru whispered the word that lifted the wards. He sagged against the wall when the wasted magic rebounded inside his skull. Stone blind and half deaf, he faintly heard Galimer say—

"Mystra's mercy, who are you?"

Dru pulled himself together, pinched a cold ember from the placket of his shirt sleeve, and thought of flames. When his vision cleared, he'd be ready to hurl fire.

"Sheemzher, good man."

Sheemzher's voice was reedy and foreign. Make that more than foreign as Tiep asked: "What are you?"

"Sheemzher serve good lady. Good lady Wyndyfarh."

Dru didn't recognize the name. When he opened his eyes, he didn't recognize Rozt'a either, though it seemed likely that she was the larger blur slamming a smaller blur against the closed door.

"Who sent you?" she demanded.

In plain terror, the reedy voice shrieked, "Sheemzher alone. Come alone, not sent!"

Another thud shook dust down from the ceiling.

"No harm!" Sheemzher gasped. "No harm, good woman! Sheemzher give thanks. Sheemzher give reward. Good sir save child."

"It's a goblin!" Tiep shouted. "It's a godsforsaken goblin dressed up like a little man."

Dru ground his knuckles into his eyes. "If it's a goblin," he said to Rozt'a, "let it go."

"You jest?" she replied, giving Sheemzher another slam for good measure.