The Nether Scroll (3 page)

Dru considered the possibility. "Did you see the robes they were wearing when they first
appeared?"

"That was the last thing I did see. Their robes were red."

"Red robes. Red-robed wizards. The Red Wizards of Thay. They pool their magic and one
wizard casts the spells for all of them. Nobody—nobody—knows how they do it. Until now."

Druhallen fumbled with his folded magic box. It would have been easier to manipulate with
both hands, but he'd designed it for single-handed work. As the hidden locks opened, the box
unfolded, increasing in size and complexity. Reagents filled the revealed compartments.
Dru's traveling spells were etched into the compartment dividers. With the third unfolding, he
found an empty compartment large enough to hold the disk.

Galimer squirted the disk into the empty compartment. "Being cold and dark, it's more
likely a device for controlling the undead."

"It's the circles." Dru clung to his opinion as if it were one he'd held for a lifetime though,
before today, he hadn't given more than ten thoughts to Thay in the last year. "Anyone can
control the undead. You or I could, if we chose to learn the art. But only the Red Wizards rely
on the undead, because their circles make it feasible to control whole bone-yards. The
arrogance! They descend from nowhere, take what they want, leave everyone for dead, and
don't even bother to collect their trash."

"Is it trash? How can you be sure? It didn't feel spent to me."

"It's cold and dark," he snapped. "If it's not spent, it's useless."

"Not useless," Galimer countered thoughtfully. "We can use it to prove that we were
ambushed by the Red Wizards. That ought to put the wind in the Zhentarim."
"Mind what you say," Dru said, sobering quickly though he had had similar thoughts a few
moments ago. "Or we'll get caught between the Black Network and the Red Wizards." He
folded the box and let it hang against his hip. "When we get to Elversult, we tell the Network
that we were ambushed, but that we never saw what hit us. And we don't tell them about
finding the disk."

"Mother ..." Galimer protested. "The girl, the captain and his men, the damn carters ...
We've got to tell the truth, Dru. There won't be justice without the truth."

"What justice is there between Thay and the Zhentarim? We'll need a lifetime of luck just
to clear our names of this disaster. Talk about red-robed wizards won't help us do that, and
neither will a lump of rotten glass—"

"I can't accept that, Dru. Not for her."

"You don't have to. We'll avenge her ourselves. I swear to you right now and forever: We'll
hunt those wizards down. We'll go to Thay, if we have to. We'll find out how they beat us, and
well use their secrets against them."

28 Eleasias, the Year of the Banner (1368 DR)

West of the Dawn Pass

Druhallen leaned against a rough-plank wall. Fifteen years after Ansoain's death and the
thought of her could still set his wrist aching. Especially in a Zhentarim village like Parnast, on
the rump of the Dawn Pass Trail, when the natural heat of a northern summer met the
unnatural heat creeping off the nearby Anauroch desert.

The breeze coming through the open window was moving heat. The shade where Dru sat
was dark heat. The air burned with the yellow dust of Anauroch. A storm was coming—
possibly from the desert, certainly in the rented room he shared with his partners.

"I'll lodge a protest. There's law in this town," Galimer fumed as he paced the room's not-
considerable width. "They've forfeited their earnest money, that's given."

"Wonderful! I'm sure they cared about their earnest money!" Rozt'a shot back.

Florozt'a had come into Dru and Galimer's lives a few years after Ansoain's death. They
were all younger then and she'd been new to the journeying life. She'd sold her sword to a
Zhentilar captain who'd only pretended to value her fighting skills. When he'd tried, one too
many times, to demonstrate what he did value from women, she'd left him writhing on the
ground.

It had been a short-lived victory. Rozt'a had quickly found herself without a contract and
stranded on the empty road east of Triel with no more than her sword, the clothes on her
back, and a leaking waterskin. The gods knew what might have happened next if Druhallen
and Galimer hadn't been riding magic with the next eastbound caravan. They'd both
remembered the striking woman and her boorish captain, and judged that he'd deserved
whatever damage she'd done to him, maybe more.

Riding double behind Galimer, she'd said that wizards who journeyed the Western
Heartlands should hire their own bodyguards and not rely on someone else's muscle to
protect them when the going got rough. Dru and Galimer, who scarcely needed words to
exchange ideas, then or now, had hired her on the spot, more from pity than need. But Rozt'a
fit comfortably between them, and by the end of that season they were a threesome.

Rozt'a's hair was a few shades yellower than Galimer's and cropped ragged just below her
ears. She was tall for a woman. In the sun, with her hair standing wild, she was nearly as tall
as Druhallen and broader across through shoulders, in any weather, than Galimer. She and
Galimer could pass themselves off as siblings. From behind, with her weapons and leathers
about her, Rozt'a passed for the brother.

When her temper was blazing as it did in the rented room, a wise man kept his head
tucked low.

"What's a bit of earnest to the likes of them?" she ranted. "If they cared about their
precious earnest, they'd have waited for us. They were in one damn hurry and we're three
full, forsaken days early ourselves! Helm's eyes! One nose-full of trouble and they ran with
the first Zhentarim spend-spell who admired the shine in their purses. I tell you, this has
nothing to do with Dekanter or the Beast Lord—those dogs meant to betray our faith from the
start."

She got Dru's attention with that last remark. Any time Rozt'a uttered the words "love",
"betray", and "faith" in close order, she could count on Druhallen's full attention.

It had been nearly nine years since she accepted Galimer's marriage proposal and,
despite occasional outbursts, their union endured, but—make no mistake about it—the gold-
haired mage hadn't been Rozt'a's first choice.

Dru had missed all the signals. Galimer had been smitten with Rozt'a from the start, and
what woman would be interested in a carpenter's burly son when she had the likes of Galimer
Longfingers waiting on her every wish? Of course, he'd valued her company. Of course, he
would have liked more—but the carpenter's son didn't poach, not on Galimer, not on his true friend.

Then came the night when Rozt'a had ambushed him with a not-at-all-friendly kiss. He'd
muttered something about honor and she'd replied that she was in love ... with him. Galimer
gallantly proclaimed that he couldn't be happier than to see them together. She began to talk
of marriage, of children, and settling down in one place. The problem was that, as attractive
as Druhallen found Rozt'a, he didn't love her as she loved him and talk of marriage, children,
or rooting himself in the ground like a tree turned his blood to ice.

Druhallen had kept his reservations to himself for over a year. He came up with excuses—
good excuses—to postpone the wedding until they reached Berdusk, on their way home to Scornubel
for the winter, when Rozt'a announced that they'd be having a child come spring. The announcement
was more of a surprise than it should have been and Dru would go to his grave knowing that he'd
reacted poorly.

Very poorly.

They'd had a row that awakened the entire neighborhood. When the guard came to the
door, Dru had walked out, leaving Rozt'a in tears and Galimer standing beside her. By spring,
when guilt dragged him back, Rozt'a and Gal were married ... and childless. The baby who
would have been Dru's daughter had died in Rozt'a's womb and nearly killed her.

Galimer had taken Rozt'a to Berdusk's Chauntean infirmary where priests had kept her
alive with prayers and rare medicines. The newlyweds were deep in debt and desperately
glad to see Druhallen of Sunderath.

I've lined up enough journeywork that we'll have everything paid come autumn, but it
would be a blessing if you rode with us, Dru. I can handle the steady magic—wards, scrys, and
deceits—but I'm nervous in the pinch.

Nervous in the pinch! Since his mother's death, Galimer hadn't cast a single spell from
horseback and his mind blanked at the least surprise. He could line up the work, but he
couldn't deliver it. Dru could, and backing the newlyweds for a season was the least he could
do.

We'll ride together, Dru had said to his friend, while Rozt'a stays here and rebuilds her
strength. Come autumn, you and she will be ready to start your own family ...

Not at all, Galimer had replied. The Chauntean priests had been explicit: fever had put an
end to Rozt'a's dreams of motherhood. Their future lay on the road, as it always had, with
him. What had been cut could be made whole again, if he'd consent.

Dru had been speechless; Galimer and Rozt'a heard silence for consent. They'd left
Berdusk together and found ways to remain that way.

"I'm telling you that it was a good contract," Galimer continued the dispute with his wife.
"Yes, they were strangers. We didn't know them, they didn't know us, and neither they nor us
had ridden the Dawn Pass Trail before, but they knew our references and I checked theirs. I
made concessions—we're the ones who wanted to stop at Dekanter for three days when the usual
layover is one ... was one. None of us knew what was going on up here, but we'd bargained
fair and—because we were strangers—we deposited the earnest money with an Acolyte of Law—"

Rozt'a snorted, a clear sign that she was losing control over her anger and disgust.
"Unless he was wearing the Network's jewels, my sneezes have more power than your
Acolyte has in these parts."

"As a matter of fact, she was—"

Dru paid close attention to the wooden planks beneath him and the activity of a spider.
The Zhentarim in all their guises were a chronic irritation in the Heartland, but they claimed
the Dawn Pass Trail for their own and there was no one who could gainsay them. Honest
folk—and Dru considered himself, Galimer, and Rozt'a to be honest folk—could survive, even thrive,
in the Zhentarim shadow. The Network, itself, preferred to do business with honest folk; it was both
cheaper and safer. But when a deal soured on the Dawn Pass Trail, honest folk were vulnerable.

In Parnast, the little village where Galimer had arranged for them to meet a merchant-
adventurer coming off the Anauroch desert, the Network was openly and utterly in charge.
Zhentarim cant echoed in the charterhouse and Zhentarim trade-marks were burned into
every piece of wood, including the one Druhallen stared at after the spider disappeared.

The local Zhentarim lord, a human named Amarandaris, took a tenth of everything that
passed through the palisade gate, and his armed cohorts made certain that nothing failed to
pass through. The cohorts seldom had to use force. The Zhentarim were notorious for other
means of persuasion.

West of the village, the Dawn Pass Trail was a six-day stretch of rock-slides, washouts,
and hairpin curves through the Greypeak Mountains to the town of Llorkh. The trail was wide
enough for a single sure-footed horse or mule. Merchants provided the goods, the gold, the
horses, and whatever magic they thought their goods deserved; the Zhentarim provided all
the muscle and pack-mules for a price that was almost fair. Usually there was a thirty-mule
train forming in Llorkh, another in Parnast, and one in transit on the trail.

Just east of Parnast, the Dawn Pass trail split into two. A southern branch, wide enough
for four-wheeled carts, skirted the foothills of the eastern Greypeaks, including the ruins at
Dekanter, and rejoined Heartland trade routes farther south in Yarthrain. From Parnast to
Yarthrain, merchants provided the goods, the gold, and the magic while the Zhentarim
provided muscle and ox-carts the size of freighters.

The northern branch of the eastbound trail disappeared into Anauroch where the Bedine
traded, raided, and steadfastly resisted Network ambition. The Anauroch routes were the
fastest between Zhentil Keep on the inland Moonsea and their western dominions. Cross-
Anauroch traffic was steady, but woe betided a merchant-adventurer whom the nomads
caught depending on Zhentarim protection. Of course, worse befell a merchant-adventurer
who arrived in Parnast without Zhentarim camels to exchange for Zhentarim mules and ox-
carts.

Dru and his companions had come from Llorkh, keeping underpaid eyes on grain destined
for the stomachs of mules, camels, and oxen. They'd planned to meet their Anauroch
adventurer and ride magic for his south-bound trade-goods. It had seemed so simple, so
clever, so certain, and it had fallen apart a few hours ago when they'd ridden into the village.

"I did what I could, Rozt'a," Galimer defended himself. "I arranged the contract right after
we decided that the Year of the Banner would be the year Dru would finally get to Dekanter.
We agreed that we should reach the ruins at the end of the season, on our way back to
Scornubel. That meant Llorkh to Parnast and Parnast to Dekanter, Yarthrain, and then on to
Scornubel for the winter. Mercy, Rozt'a, how was I to know—how could anyone have known—
that Amarandaris would chose the Year of the Banner to declare the ruins off-limits and move the
whole damn trail a half-league to the east?"

"I'm not blaming you, Gal. I blame those dog merchants who wouldn't wait until the
contract date, and the damn Zhentarim. You think the Llorkh Network didn't know what we'd
find here before we left their town? But, no—better to strand us here and make us beg to join one
of their caravans south. Demons loose in the Greypeaks! Nonsense! Bloodbaths and murder at
Dekanter. War with the Underdark. We've heard it all since we got here. Do these fools take us for
fools? Zhentarim driven out of Dekanter? Not damned likely, I tell you. Zhentarim don't let go of
anything. They mean to deceive us, each of us: you, me, and you, too, Druhallen—don't pretend you're
asleep; I know better."

Druhallen looked up but said nothing as Rozt'a continued her tirade.

"I don't give us a morning's journey, if we tried to leave this village right now. There's
safety in numbers when you're dealing with the Network. The whole idea of waiting until the
end of the season was to link up with the Anauroch traders so we wouldn't be alone with the
Zhentarim in Dekanter. The way they've got it set now—" a stray thought stopped Rozt'a cold.
When she spoke again, her tone was deeper and more anxious. "We could be stuck here—stuck in
Parnast—for the whole winter!"

Parnast was a typical village in most respects, not unlike Sunderath where Dru had been
born. True, it was a bit more isolated ... All right, tucked on the rump side of the Greypeak
Mountains with the Anauroch desert for a neighbor, it was hard to imagine a more isolated
village. The Dawn Pass Trail—the sole reason for Parnast's existence—was unusable for half the
year. As soon as the late summer dust storms ended, the mountain blizzards began and lingered until
the spring thaw produced a certainty of mud from Llorkh to Yarthrain.

Winter in Parnast would be winter in prison.

"I don't know," Galimer answered. "I've made a few inquiries. We've only been here an
afternoon, and we haven't established our reputations. The problem isn't just that they've
moved the trail to the east of Dekanter. Something's seriously wrong at Zhentil Keep.
Apparently nothing's come west for months, and traders who usually head east have chosen
to go south instead. I've got to wonder when the Network's own trade chooses a Cormyr
passage. Amarandaris must be wondering the same thing. Word is that he's Sememmon's
hand-picked man—"

"You hadn't mentioned that! It just gets worse!" Despite her assurances, Rozt'a was
shouting at her husband. "Dru!" She turned her attention to him, as he'd feared she would.
"Dru—talk to this man! Tell him what to do before he gets us all killed!"

Druhallen took a deep breath. "It's not Galimer's fault. The Zhentarim are as good at
keeping secrets as they are at spreading rumors. I'm inclined to think there's something
rotten at Zhentil Keep, and at Dekanter as well, though whether they're related ... that I can't
begin to guess. If there's blame, put it on me. I'm the one who wanted to be here. I thought a
contract to escort myrrh resin into the south was ideal. I would have shaken hands and called
it done. Galimer had the sense to insist on earnest and Acolytes. I laughed at him, if you
remember. Well, I've stopped laughing. Blame me for this, not him."