The Nether Scroll

Dru thought of the Weathercote dots, but now was not the time for curiosity or interruptions.

"Suddenly, we've got refugees—goblin females with their children. The farmers made room at first, but a few became many became the plague you see around us now. Three years ago I went down to Dekanter myself to have a word with Ghistpok. I'd have had a word with the Beast Lord, too, if I could have found him. End the raiding, stop the warfare or else. Ghistpok groveled good, and a month later, our garrison got slaughtered as it slept and two cart trains under our protection never got to Yarthrain. You may imagine I suffered the loss personally. I went down to Dekanter with forty men and a taste for vengeance.

"Ghistpok swore it wasn't him, that demons came out of the ground. They hauled away half his men and all the garrison. He said he prayed to the Beast Lord but by the time the Beast Lord showed up, it was too late. Then he hauled out the last of my men to back him up. The poor fellow was half-dead, but he said the attack was undead and magic. Zombies and ghouls came out of a black fog and left the same way. I put him to the test, to see if his story held up, because zombies aren't demons and my man didn't know why there were no corpses or graves. The test killed him, but the story held. You recognize parts of the tale, don't you, Druhallen?"

Reluctantly, Dru nodded. "Red Wizards. They used a black fog on Vilhon Reach. There were corpses, though—parts of them."

"I thought so, too. I rebuilt the garrison, even armed the goblins and paid tribute to the Beast Lord. The next year they caught a passel of Red Wizards red-handed. My man in Dekanter sent a messenger up the trail with the good news. I went down to do the interrogation myself. This time there were corpses—parts of them. Ghistpok swore my men had turned on one another until not one was whole or standing. The goblins had looted the garrison, of course, but they'd left my dead alone.

"They're a strange breed. Ghistpok's goblins. They said my men had become demons before they died. Goblins are always starving; they'll eat anything, including their own dead, but not anything they call 'demon.' They won't touch a demon, not even to bury it. It's a cult thing, something to do with transformation and deformity. The Beast Lord doesn't tolerate imperfection."

"What about the Wizards?" Dru asked.

"We found bits of them mixed in with the rest. Tattoos, you know. If I believed Ghistpok, whatever possessed my men to kill each other possessed the Wizards, too."

"And did you believe Ghistpok?"

Amarandaris stared into his goblet. "Not until I'd lost another garrison and two more cart trains. I cut my losses and moved the trail. Didn't help with the goblins. They're still descending on us. I interrogate them—or have my men do it for me. Interrogating a goblin is like asking a four-year-old who stole the cream. They're still talking about demons and how Ghistpok's tribe raids everyone else. They're taking males and females now. The gods know what they're doing with them, because there's no slave trade at Dekanter any more."

"Sounds like you've had some difficult explaining to do down in Darkhold," Dru said after a sip of wine.

"Not yet." Amarandaris's smile was thin and anxious. "As I said, it's been a bad year, especially at Zhentil Keep. You're not hearing me say this, but Manshoon and the Council have upped stakes and moved to the Citadel of the Raven, northwest of Zhentil Keep. The dust hasn't settled, but it will and in the same patterns as before."

"Good for the Black Network, bad for you."

Another anxious smile flitted across Amarandaris's face. "That caravan outside is the first of two that will arrive today."

When Dru raised his eyebrows, Amarandaris pointed toward a window where a polished spyglass was mounted in a splendid brass-and-wood frame.

"Another the day after tomorrow, and two the day after that. I don't mind mules and I don't mind oxen, but I tell you, two camels is one too many and several score of them is insanity. I'll be busy, but in, say, a week everything will be sorted out. The camels will be gone, mules will be headed west, and carts will be rolling south. You'll be with the carts, and so will I. We'll travel together—you and your partners, I and all the men I can spare. When we come to the turn-off, the carts will go down the new trail while the rest of us will take the old one to Dekanter. There's no other way to get there, Druhallen, not for you when I have to guarantee your safety to my superiors."

Dru uttered an oath he'd learned from his eldest brother.

"Perhaps that fate awaits us all," Amarandaris replied without blinking. "But not by my will. Not by the will of my lord at Darkhold. I only want the results, Dru." Amarandaris spread empty hands on the table. "Keep the spell. Just let me share what you learn when you cast it. Give me something useful to take to Darkhold."

"Can't help you, Amarandaris. My advice is, Get a necromancer if you want to know what's been killing your muscle." Dru stood the goblet on Amarandaris's desk. He headed for the door. "Thanks for the warnings though. I'll tell Galimer Longfingers what you've said and that I think we should leave Parnast the way we came."

Amarandaris looked as if he'd just found half a worm in his apple. "I've made you good offers, Druhallen. Think hard. We'll talk again before you leave." Druhallen marched down the stairs with his heart pounding in his throat. Although Dru's conversation with Amarandaris had touched many sensitive subjects and proved that the Zhentarim had been watching over their shoulders for a good many years, Druhallen was convinced they'd gotten their best information from someone who should have known better. Dru poked his head into the commons, hoping to see Galimer alone at a table, but his friend was elsewhere. From the porch, he sca

Druhallen was behind the stables by then and rather than wade through the throng a second time, he took the long way home, following the timber palisade and rehearsing the words he'd use to recount his conversation with Amarandaris and his suspicions regarding Tiep.

The palisade path was shadowed and empty. Dru walked quickly, his mind on other things, until a squeal of dire pain halted him. The sound was repeated, louder and more des- perate. A pig meeting the butcher, he thought. Parnast had absorbed one caravan since sunrise and another was on the way. The kitchen kettles would be hungry.

He continued a few steps, but the shrieking continued. A butcher wouldn't let an animal suffer; it soured the meat. Druhallen detoured into a maze of sheds and alleys. There was laughter, now, with the squealing. He'd loosened his knife and composed his mind for spellcasting before he came to a wide spot where a handful of men—most of them yellowed with the dust of Anauroch—had gathered at the open door of a chicken coop. The squeals came from within the coop, but no bird made them.

"What's happening here?" Dru asked the nearest man.

"Caught the bastard red-handed."

Never mind that he'd been pla

Not Tiep. Not Tiep.

With the dust and feathers and shadows, Druhallen couldn't be sure what the men were doing but their prey was smaller than Tiep. And, if it wasn't Tiep then, strictly speaking, it wasn't Dru's problem. Some of the men around the coop—perhaps all of them—were Zhentarim of one stripe of the other. With Amarandaris making veiled threats, Dru didn't want or need to get involved with Zhentarim justice. A man couldn't fight every battle or right every wrong—