The Nether Scroll

It was Ansoain's custom to quiz her apprentices whenever the spirit moved her. Galimer always strove to be first with an answer while Dru usually wanted more information before he'd commit himself.

"A fruit tree, in flower."

Dru nodded. "Stripped of the flowers and leaves, the branch could become a divining rod. And the flowers could be put to use in the dryad variation for making pure water."

"Not fair!" Galimer complained. "If there were a real stick, I'd see that it was in flower. You said stick, so that's all I imagined!"

"I said 'branch,' but you're right, Longfingers, you would have seen the flowers. You're both right." Ansoain tried to be fair; it wasn't easy. "Dragonfly's wing," she challenged, inspired, no doubt, by the insect flying between them and the cart.

"What kind of dragonfly?" Galimer demanded.

"Blue-green." The now-disappeared insect had been blue-green.

Dru didn't know any spells that required the wing of a blue-green dragonfly. He didn't know any that called for any specific part of any color dragonfly. He knew of a few spells that required the jewel-like carapaces of rare jungle beetles and another that needed scales from a true dragon's wing. None of those were in his head nor etched into the wood of the magically folded box hanging from his belt. An apprentice with access to his master's library usually knew more spells than he could actually cast.

Even Galimer knew more spells than he could cast, and frequently got them confused. Dru looked beyond Ansoain. Years of observation had taught him to anticipate Galimer's answer from the shape of his lips. If Gal's answer looked to be correct, then Druhallen would hold his own tongue, but if, as so often happened, it looked like Galimer was about to make himself appear foolish, Dru would speak up quickly and loudly—

"A blue-green wing would satisfy a spell that required only an insect's wing and, maybe, an affinity could be drawn to spells requiring feathers—function, form and color would give a threefold congruence—but it would be a far stretch to make a dragonfly's wing stand for any part of a true dragon."

Galimer's face showed indignation, then relief. Ansoain never let on that she suspected her foster's game—though she was usually careful to position herself so that Dru could see Galimer's face when she quizzed them.

"Good enough. Now, what is the writ for a dust shield?"

"Dust. What else?"

Sometimes Galimer spoke too quickly for Dru to save him.

"The writ!" Ansoain snapped, "not the reagents. How much dust, and how do you seal the spell in your mind? What trigger will call it out when you need to cast it?"

A dust shield was one of Galimer's more reliable spells. He rattled off the answers correctly and without hesitation.

Ansoain peppered them with other reagents and writs as the afternoon sun grew warm on their backs. When their stomachs began to churn in anticipation of supper, she lectured them on tactical shortcomings of the adversaries that journeying mages might encounter in Faerun's Heartlands.

"Fumarandi are drakes. Their weapon is charcoal smoke, and they make their homes above the trees in mountain forests. They can be claimed as companions ..." Ansoain claimed that she never forgot a lesson or a nightmare. It was the latter that kept her on the road. As long as she was moving, the worst of her dreams couldn't find her. In winter, when they went to ground in Scornubel, Ansoain rented rooms by the night and fought her nightmares by the keg. Winters had been hard for Dru and Galimer until they were old enough to rent rooms for themselves and worse, in a way, since Galimer had taken over their finances. Every publican in Scornubel knew Galimer would cover his mother's debts.

But when they were on the road and spending their nights beneath different trees, no one had a clearer mind than Ansoain. She shared her knowledge of the world and magic with her sons.

"Wyvern gall," she called out after she'd told them everything there was to know about the fumarandi.

Galimer's lips didn't twitch; he hadn't a clue. Druhallen inquired: "Fresh, powdered, or ossified?"

"Ossi—"

She didn't finish the answer. Her gray eyes scanned the forward horizon, then closed while she sought the wisdom of her mind's eye. Dru felt the disruption also: a slight, yet profoundly ominous change in the ether, that strange, intangible stuff where magic held sway.

"What the—?" Galimer demanded.

Ansoain commanded silence with a snarl, the raised her hand in a curious gesture. Bits of ash—spent reagents—blew away from her palm. The spell carried her words directly to the ears of the captain and his men. Druhallen and Galimer didn't hear a sound.