The Nether Scroll

Amarandaris clamped his fingers over Dru's wrist. "Upstairs."

Druhallen had the physical strength and, perhaps, the magical strength to escape. He gri

"I was told to expect a stubborn man," Amarandaris said, pushing Dru ahead of him.

That wasn't anything Dru wanted to hear from a Zhentarim wizard—and he didn't think of himself as particularly stubborn. Cautious. A man who was honest and wise needed to be cautious when dealing with men like Amarandaris. If Dru had been a stubborn man, he would have insisted that Amarandaris precede him up the stairs.

Amarandaris's retreat covered the third floor of the charterhouse, a level that could not be seen from the ground.

From its porch, Amarandaris could see the Greypeaks, Weathercote Wood, and the distant yellow haze of the desert. Two human men sat with their backs to a wall and their faces toward the stairway. They were on their feet with their weapons drawn when Dru first noticed them.

At a word from Amarandaris, they sat again on benches flanking a single door. Dru stepped aside—he would get stubborn before he'd open the door to another mage's private quarters. Amarandaris flashed another grin, released the latch, and pulled the door open.

"Be welcome."

The Zhentarim lord lived comfortably above the charterhouse: upholstered furniture, plush carpets, an abundance of colored glass, gold, and silver. Maps hung on every wall, more detailed than most Dru had seen and speckled with knowledge the Zhentarim rarely, if ever, shared. He squinted for a glimpse of Weathercote. The Wood was speckled with yellow and black dots whose meaning wasn't obvious.

Sheets of parchment covered Amarandaris's ebony desk. Three abacuses, each one with a different arrangement of wire and beads, sat on the parchment. A checkered counting cloth was folded in one corner and a set of inkwells sat in another. The inkwells were gilded and sat in a crystal base, but they were functional and well used. Amarandaris worked as hard as any honest man.

On a side table a sparkling sphere kept the air moving and kept it fresh as well—no desert grit rasping Amarandaris's throat or disrupting his sleep. Beside the sphere was an enameled tray with a matching ewer and two exquisite blown-glass goblets.

Amarandaris filled a goblet with wine from the ewer. He offered it to Druhallen.

"Sit," the Zhentarim suggested, indicating the largest of his upholstered chairs. "Make yourself comfortable."

Dru accepted the goblet without drinking from it and refused the invitation to sit. Amarandaris filled the second goblet and tapped its lip against Druhallen's before repeating his request:

"Sit down, man."

"What do you want?" Dru grumbled as he sat in a different chair. He sipped the wine. It was sweet, fruity, and definitely not local. Poisoned? Not likely; Amarandaris wouldn't be going through his gracious-host rituals if he'd had poison on his mind.

"Word is that you want to go to Dekanter."

That was hardly a secret. The merchants they'd failed to meet could have told Amarandaris that much.

"Until this year the Dawn Pass Trail did wend that way."

"Last year," Amarandaris corrected. He settled in another chair, a twin to Druhallen's except that it stood behind the desk. "Why Dekanter? It's far from the roads you've been working—the roads you worked with Bitter Ansoain."

Druhallen shrugged. He'd never heard that epithet before, but remembered how Ansoain would rant after she'd had too much to drink. It fit, and failed to intimidate him. "Why Dekanter?" he repeated, mimicking Amarandaris's tone. "Why not? It's old. It's our history, not dwarves or elves."

"Yes." The word flowed slowly out of Amarandaris's mouth, like the hissing of a large snake. "Very human. One never knows what will turn up at Dekanter. I hear you're looking for something very specific."

Despite himself, Dru stiffened. "An answer: How did she die?"

"Oh, come now, Druhallen. We all know how Bitter Ansoain died. You and Longfingers made sure of that. And we know that the Red Wizards killed her; don't tell me you don't know that, too. Would you like to know why?"

Dru forced himself to relax with another shrug. "There was more to that bride than we knew—or something in her dowry. Or her Hlondeth suitor changed his mind."

"Let's say he'd incurred debts of a most unpleasant kind, and that he kept his side of the bargain."

Air escaped Dru's lungs. So the Zhentarim named Galimer's mother Bitter Ansoain. So they knew more about her death than he'd been able to learn after all these years. So they'd kept track of him and Galimer and passed that knowledge along to a man like Amarandaris in a village like Parnast, where Dru had never been before. So what? Ansoain herself had said: Assume the Zhentarim know everything that happens and live your life accordingly.

"I pity the girl. May I assume there was a girl? We never saw her."

"A pity," Amarandaris agreed. "You're not looking for her, are you? Not thinking that you can rescue a fair, ill-fated maiden?"

Dru shook his head. "We weren't headed for Thay."

"But you're looking for Thay at Dekanter, yes?"

That was, of course, exactly what Druhallen hoped to find, though he'd scarcely admit it. "For treasure ... Netherese artifacts."

"A glass disk? A focusing lens? Something that might explain how the Thayans ambushed you or how they control their minions while they're casting spells?"

Their eyes met and locked. To be sure, Druhallen had talked about the disk since arriving in Parnast, but only in their room where he'd laid a ring of wards. He wasn't fool enough to think his wards were proof against Zhentarim spying, but Dru did believe that no one could have compromised his wards without his knowledge and he knew, even as he sat staring at his wine, that his spells were intact.

Of course, his intentions need not have been discovered by magic. Any one of his partners might have talked out of turn. Dru suspected only one of them. If he'd had the power to be in two places at once, the second place would have been in the corner of the courtyard where Tiep gambled, and he would have thrashed the boy without mercy. If Dru had had that power, which he didn't. He was rooted in one place, in Amarandaris's place, and the Zhentarim with the unmemorable face was asking close-to-the-bone questions.

"If you know to ask the question, you know the answer."

"I don't suppose you'd sell it to me?"

Dru set his goblet on the desk and shook his head.

"At least allow me a look at it. I know Dekanter, Druhallen. I know what's been found there in the last two decades ... and I know who's found it."

"If you knew everything that's been found and everyone who found it, there'd be no need to buy my disk."

Amarandaris refilled Dru's goblet. "I'm prepared to pay quite handsomely. We're prepared, that is. A year's profit, I'd say; a year for all three of you." He held the glass out.

"Then it must not be important. I've never heard of the Zhentarim paying handsomely or otherwise for anything you truly wanted."

"Stubborn," Amarandaris repeated and set the goblet down. "Very stubborn. Name your price, Druhallen. Walk out of here with something to show for your efforts."

"My life?" Dru stood up. "My friends' lives? If you know so much about me, Amarandaris, you know I'm not going to bite your bait. I walk out of here with what's mine, or I don't—and I'm not talking about an antique."

"Sit, Druhallen. Sit down. Nothing's going to happen to you or your partners."