Lynn Abbey - The Nether Scroll

Six years was a long time. Even ordinary mountains changed in that time, and Druhallen remembered what Amarandaris had told him about the futility of maps in Dekanter. Druhallen supposed the goblin had made an innocent error, but the rockslide had reignited Tiep's suspicion of all things goblin.

At least the youth was behaving like his usual self again.

Sheemzher found another path. The humans judged it prudent to send him and Rozt'a ahead to check for rock slides. They were back sooner than Druhallen expected.

Rozt'a was nearly breathless. "You're not going to believe this, Dru," she said.

"Another rockslide?"

"No-the mines, the ruins-I was expecting a hole in the ground, but nothing like this. There's a hollow mountain up here. You could fit Scornubel inside the ruins and have room left for a village or two."

But the path she and Sheemzher had followed was too steep and rocky for the horses. Tiep said he'd stay behind.

"Who's interested in a hole where goblins live?"

Druhallen didn't try to explain. He scrambled ahead of Rozt'a and was breathing hard when he emerged from another rockslide ridge. The ruined mines took his breath away. All the conflict, loss, hardship, and deception that had brought him to this moment faded to insignificance-though he wished Galimer were beside him to share the sight.

Like Rozt'a, he'd expected ruins-true ruins: heaps of rubble left by miners and magicians alike, and dark doorways to the underground standing empty like so many blind eyes. Nothing could have been further from the truth. He'd forgotten that the dwarves had quarried stone from Dekanter as well as metal ore. In rough shape, Dekanter was an amphitheater; in size, the theater had been built for giants. Five receding tiers-each at least twenty feet high and twenty feet wide-rose from an irregular plain Dru judged to be a half-mile wide and slightly longer. Zig-zag patterns etched the tiers. Dru looked closer and realized they were ordinary stairways.

On the opposite side of Dekanter-across the narrows to the eastern side of the quarry-a gorge had been cut through all five layers of dark gray granite. The gorge curved and disappeared. Dru guessed it led to the Dawn Pass Trail, though in days past, surely it had been the western end of a road that wound into Netheril's heart.

Dekanter's great tiers weren't perfect. Here and there the rain, frost and snows of countless winters had shattered the quarry's deliberate structure. Streams of paler rock spread onto the lower levels. The untouched debris looked as if it could have fallen yesterday. With a shake of his head Druhallen dismissed his eyes' conclusion. Dekanter was ancient; even the scars of its abandonment were ancient.

Yet Dekanter wasn't abandoned. Ghistpok's goblins-Sheemzher's relatives-dwelt on the rubble-strewn plain at the bottom of the quarry. Their colony was a black-and-green smear across a small portion of the granite plain. Gardens, Dru thought-marveling for a moment that goblins would have the sense or skill to grow vegetables. Then common sense reclaimed his mind. The green patches weren't gardens-at least not deliberately planted crops. Ghistpok's goblins weren't farmers, they were merely living atop their garbage. What he'd taken for gardens were weeds erupting from the trash.

Dru rough-counted forty huts on the midden and one larger, stone-built structure. From their vantage, in the crease between the rectangular tiers and naturally irregular stone of the untouched mountains, the goblins were little more than dots between the huts. The stone building was as crude and ugly as any of the huts, but had the squat solidity of Zhentarim construction. He'd bet it was where the Network's minions lived while the slave trade flourished; and he almost pitied them for the stench and filth they'd surely endured.

There were more dots around the stone building than anywhere else. If power and status had run true to form, the goblin chief, Ghistpok, had moved in once the Zhentarim left. Sheemzher might blame Takers for goblin slavery, but there'd never been a slave-trade that didn't rely on the cooperation of some element within the enslaved population.

There were two other landmarks on the plain. One, slightly north of the goblin colony, was a water pool so perfectly circular that it couldn't have been natural-and couldn't have been carved out of the stone by the goblins either. The second area lay some distance south of the colony. At first glance, it resembled a wizard's conjure circle painted white on the stone, but conjury required a measure of intelligence Dru would not grant any goblin, even Sheemzher standing silently at his side.

A black spire-stone jutted out of the white circle. The Greypeaks were, as their name implied, a study in shades of gray, without a trace of pure black or white. Both the stone and its circle were out of place, ominously out of place.

"What is that?" Dru asked the goblin.

Sheemzher had been staring at his own feet and raised his head slowly. His eyes were red and watering. He didn't like sunlight, even on an overcast day, and had suffered since losing his hat, which left Dru wondering about how many goblins the nearly shadeless colony contained. Surely more than he could see among the huts.

Cupping his hands around his eyes, Sheemzher peered out across the plain.

"Beast Lord, good sir."

Just when he thought he was getting a measure of goblin intelligence, Sheemzher would utter something unbelievable. "The Beast Lord is a black stone?"

"Sheemzher never see Beast Lord, good sir. Ghistpok say drink wine. Ghistpok say dance. Ghistpok say sing. Ghistpok say Beast Lord come. Ghistpok say not-look, never-look. Sheemzher look once. Elva go away. Sheemzher not-see Beast Lord. Sheemzher see black stone. Sheemzher see Takers."

Was the stone a teleportation focus? Dru asked himself and asked Sheemzher, "Did the Takers come out of the stone? Did your wife vanish in a flash of bright light?"

"No," Sheemzher answered, a touch of exasperation in his voice. He calmed himself. "No, good sir. Takers under Dekanter. Takers walk. Elva walk into darkness, walk into mountain." The goblin tapped his foot on the stone. "Sheemzher tell already. Good sir forget, no? Sheemzher follow Elva. Here. Below. Into mountain. Sheemzher follow. Sheemzher find egg. Sheemzher tell already, good sir."

"You've been told," Rozt'a chided. "Pay attention to what he tells you from now on."

Dru didn't know if she was joking. "Do I understand that there's an entrance to the old mines at the bottom of the quarry? Do we have to climb down these tiers to reach it? Do we have to meet Ghistpok? You said that wouldn't be necessary."

He'd been paying attention when Sheemzher assured them they didn't have to meet Ghistpok in order to steal the scroll.

"Many ways in, good sir. One way all rocks, no good. One way below, yes. Other ways. Many other ways. Sheemzher find. Not worry, good sir."

A strange sound filled the quarry. It started soft, grew louder, and as hard as Druhallen listened, he couldn't decide if it came from an animal or some kind of horn, and, if an animal, whether from a single beast or many. He was thinking magic when Rozt'a slapped his arm and pointed to the southern tiers. About twenty goblins were marching down the zigzag stairways. His imagination rebelled. Goblins couldn't make such a noise and twenty of them couldn't fill the quarry with echoing sound.

Then Sheemzher added his note to the chorus. The goblin's eyes were shut and his head was thrown back. His lips shaped the sound which he made in the depths of his throat.

"Sheemzher! Stop! Quiet!"

Sheemzher didn't obey. He didn't appear to have heard Druhallen's words. He opened his mouth wider; the sound deepened in pitch. Dru felt it beneath his ribs more than he heard it in his ears.