The Nether Scroll

"Speaking of trouble, Roz, where is Tiep?" Dru asked. "Shouldn't he be back by now?"

"I left him grooming the horses. I told him to scrape and rasp their hooves while he's at it. Six horses, twenty-four hooves—I figured it would take him the rest of the afternoon. He's due before sundown; and I reminded him that we hadn't forgotten what happened in Llorkh."

Dru raked his hair anxiously.

"He'll be all right," Galimer interceded. "The problem in Llorkh was that he got lost and asked the wrong people for help. Parnast's smaller. There's only one street, one stable, one tav—"

"Tiep's never gotten lost in his life," Dru shot back. "Tiep gets distracted and then Tiep gets in trouble. The boy is nothing but distraction and trouble wrapped up in skin."

Rozt'a looked out the front door as she said, "He's sixteen. He'll grow out of it, the same way we did when we were sixteen."

No mother could cherish a child more than Rozt'a cherished Tiep. The boy had shown up in the Chauntean temple of Berdusk while she was recovering from her fevered pregnancy. Scrawny as a nestling bird and just as hungry, Tiep had been the perfect target for Rozt'a's thwarted instincts. The priests guessed he was about seven, meaning he was about sixteen now. Druhallen suspected that he was closer to twenty; starvation had a way of stunting a child's growth both in body and in conscience.

With his swarthy skin, curling sable hair, and startling blue eyes, Tiep had the look of a foreigner wherever they traveled. Though charming and graceful, he had the defensive nature of someone always under suspicion, but he'd been clever enough to see a better life for himself when he first saw his reflection in Rozt'a's eyes.

From the start, Tiep had tried to earn his keep through chores and charm. He had his bad days—rather more of them lately than there'd been for several years—but mostly the boy was good company. Unfortunately, he was also an incorrigible thief.

Together, Dru, Rozt'a, and Galimer had been unable to erase the lessons Tiep had learned in the alleys of Berdusk. They gave him all that he needed and more besides. He repaid their kindness with stolen gifts. Folk who made their living by guarding the wealth of others couldn't safely shelter a thief, but there was no sticking place in Tiep's memory for the moral lessons they tried to teach him.

"He's got to be careful in Parnast," Dru said after a moment's silence. "He's gotten too old for mercy. Amarandaris will hang him if he gets caught stealing here."

"I see him," Rozt'a said from the doorway. "He's walking beside a girl."

"Gods have mercy," Dru swore.

He surged to his feet but Galimer beat him to the doorway.

"It was bound to happen," Rozt'a whispered.

Predictably, Galimer saw the situation in its best light: "At least he won't get caught stealing."

Tiep made a fool of his foster-father as he wrapped the girl in a surprisingly mature embrace and kiss. She ran away the instant he released her. If Tiep was disappointed by his light-o-love's bolt for freedom, he hid it well. When he realized he'd had an audience, he add a swagger to his grin.

"Her name's Manya. Her poppa's a farmer here, and her brother's joined the garrison. She tends the geese every morning, but comes into—"

"We're travelers, Tiep." Dru cut the lad short. "And this is a tiny village, a tiny Zhentarim village. The fathers and brothers who live here won't take kindly to travelers paying court to their young women. You'll wake up in a ditch, minus your most valued parts."

"I wasn't doing anything. I wasn't even thinking about doing anything."

"You kissed her." Rozt'a planted her hands on Tiep's shoulders, and he froze beneath her. "Where I come from, that was enough to get you betrothed—or run out of town, if she was already spoken for."

Rozt'a didn't often speak about her life before the road. The youth swallowed hard and tucked his chin down so he didn't have to meet her eyes.

"Manya didn't say anything about that—and she was the one who started talking. There was a bunch of goblins out behind the stable, beggin' and all when she was just trying to get to the charterhouse. I saw that she was scared, so I grabbed a pitchfork an' chased 'em off. What was I supposed to do? Turn my back? How would those brothers and fathers feel if I didn't—"

"All right!" Dru snarled. He wasn't in the mood for Tiep's logic. "Rozt'a didn't say you'd done anything wrong! What we're all saying is that we're likely to be in Parnast longer than we pla

"Sheesh! I've got the point. Gods, it was only a kiss, and it was her idea, to thank me for chasing those goblins away."

Rozt'a had closed the door and the room was stifling with raw emotion. Tiep and Galimer exchanged anxious glances. They were alike in important ways: they both valued peace more than victory. Dru wasn't surprised that Galimer broke the tension.

"Other than goblins and girls, how was your afternoon?"

"Did you rasp down their hooves?" Rozt'a added before Tiep could answer.

He knew whose questions came first. "All but Ebony's—she wasn't having anything to do with me around her feet an' it was too hot to argue with her. I'll get her in the morning when she's still sleepy. I got everybody else: Cardinal, Bandy, Fowler, Star and Hopper. Hopper's cracked his left rear hoof. I was going to say we'd have to find a smith and get him shod, but if we're not going anywhere for a while, maybe we can wait an' see if it'll grow out on its own."

Larceny notwithstanding, Tiep was a conscientious youth. He took good care of their animals—especially Hopper, the elder statesman among their horses—and was a better cook than the rest of them combined. This past spring, before they left Scornubel and at Druhallen's suggestion, they'd given him a one-tenth share of their profits.

It had been time to make him a partner, but it had taken away the one threat that always worked with Tiep: the threat of leaving him behind.

With a grin Tiep offered Dru a small, rag-wrapped parcel. "I found this for you."

Warily, Dru accepted the parcel which unfurled in his hands. A lump of black, waxy stuff released its scent into the crowded room.

"Myrrh," Dru muttered when enough of the mournful aroma had hit his nostrils. A small fortune in myrrh. "Tiep, tell me you don't expect me to believe that you found this just lying about."

"In the stalls," the lad replied quickly, too quickly for Dru's taste. "Those Zhentarim hostlers, they don't clean the stalls near good enough."

"Tiep!" all three adults spoke as one.

"All right. All right. I won it. I won it fair and square from a hostler. An' he said he did find it in the straw after some merchants left yesterday. I figured it was the bunch that ran out on us, and that they owed us, so I made sure I won the bet—"

"You admit you cheated?" Dru challenged. Discipline fell to him. Galimer didn't have the stomach for it, and Rozt'a left bruises when she tried.

"Never!" Tiep replied emphatically. "I don't cheat! The guy said he could throw double- three five times ru

Of course Tiep had had a pair of dice with him.

Rozt'a reached for his shoulders again. "That ring's not yours to sell or game away."

Before they'd set out from Berdusk, Druhallen had enchanted the ring to help them find the boy, if he'd ever truly gotten lost, and to pass him through the wards Dru routinely set around their rooms and camps. In the process they'd discovered that Tiep had another talent beside thievery: he shed simple magics and was particularly hard on enchantments. His talent wouldn't save him from a fireball, but it had forced Dru to enchant an expensive gemstone ring rather than a plain silver band and it had made it impossible for Tiep to follow in his foster fathers' footsteps.