The Nether Scroll

He was still thinking about raptors when an insect about the size of a bumble-bee but glowing like a pigeon's blood ruby alighted on Lady Wyndyfarh's shoulder. It quickly disappeared within the curtain of her striped hair. A heartbeat later a heavy flying beetle rumbled past Dru's ear. It, too, was jewel-colored—pale aquamarine, rather than ruby—and after settling on the lady's opposite shoulder, it also vanished into her hair.

Lady Wyndyfarh blinked and Druhallen dared a sideways glance. There were many insects buzzing about the grove. Not all of them were living gemstones, but many were. A pair of sapphire flies circled an arm's length above Galimer's head. While Dru watched, one flew toward the lady and the ruby bee rejoined a companion in Rozt'a's hair. Rozt'a did not seem to notice the insects, a final confirmation—as if one had been needed—that the bugs were not entirely natural.

A good many wizards and all half-elves could establish rapport with a familiar creature. Druhallen had tried it twice: once, before Ansoain entered his life, with the family cat and a second time—when he'd doubted the honesty of a merchant who'd hired them—with the man's caged parrot. Neither experiment had proved satisfactory. The cat was easily distracted and the parrot thought only of itself. Dru would grant that Lady Wyndyfarh was a better wizard than he, but not that she could extract useful information from the pinprick mind of a bumblebee.

That she seemed to be doing so deepened the glade's mystery.

When an aquamarine beetle swooped past Dru's nose, he briefly contemplated capturing it—briefly, because it had no sooner disappeared behind his back when Sheemzher got between him and the lady. The goblin, who did not appear to have a pair of insect outriggers, dropped to his knees and raised clasped hands above his head. Lady Wyndyfarh, whose hair still concealed Galimer's blue fly and who knew what else, wrapped her own elegantly pale hands over the goblin's warty, red-orange ones. There was no mistaking, now, that the lady's slender fingers were a knuckle too long or that her dark and sharply tapering nails had more in common with a hawk's talons than his own broad fingernails.

In a more ordinary place, Dru might have been able to sense magic's flow from mistress to minion and back again. In the glade, with its abundance of magic beyond his comprehension, Druhallen knew only that there had been communication and that when she released the goblin's hands Lady Wyndyfarh was once again staring directly at him.

"This man," Sheemzher asserted quickly, scrabbling backward and clasping Dru's left wrist as he spoke, "this man good man, good sir man. This man not compelled. This man chose path. This man risk life, save life. Sheemzher reward this man. Sheemzher use coins. Good lady's coins. Pretty coins. Old coins. This man keep old coins."

The goblin was breathless and sounded worried. Druhallen steeled himself for something unpleasant when the pale woman smiled.

"So, you've heard of Netheril?" she asked in a voice that was both deep and lyric. "You know its history?"

"A little," Druhallen replied, as breathless as the goblin.

The lady laughed and said, "A little is all anyone knows about Netheril." Her eyes gave the lie to that assertion.

Dru's breath caught in his throat. He had always assumed—even the scryer at Candlekeep had assumed—that the ancient empire had been built and ruled by men, by human men and women. Little of Netheril's culture had survived its collapse and even less in its original form. Imagining Netheril from what few fragments remained was akin to imagining a palace from the ashes after it had burnt. When he'd visited Candlekeep, the scholars had shown him one of their greatest treasures, a broken slab of plaster depicting the face of a dark-haired youth with tattooed cheeks and haunted eyes. A prince of Netheril, they said. Princess had seemed more likely to Druhallen's eyes; but he'd taken the portrait's humanity for granted.

The fragment had not included the royal hands.

Lady Wyndyfarh cleared her throat. Dru blushed with shame. Bad enough to get caught with his attention wandering, worse to wool-gather in front of a mind-reader.

"You have left quite an impression in my young friend's mind," the lady said when their eyes met again. "He does not often think of kindness or honor when he thinks of your kind."

My kind? Dru thought despite an intention to keep his mind blank. Was that a confirmation of his ill-timed musings or a taunt? His confusion grew thicker with each passing moment. The lady's speech was faintly, unplaceably accented, but well-constructed, unlike Sheemzher's fractured speech that possessed neither accent nor grammar. Yet she had called the goblin her friend, rather than her servant or familiar; and, though Sheemzher was anxious, he was not afraid.