Lynn Abbey - The Nether Scroll

"You tell her what you've told me," he whispered to Tiep as he walked past the sullen, shaking youth, "and be quick about it, or you'll wish you'd never been born."

"I've wished that for years."

He didn't say anything while Rozt'a steeped the bitter herbs or when she handed them each a steaming mug. Tiep emptied the mug in three gulps; Dru had never seen anyone gulp Wyndor's. The stuff was as potent as any brew this side of magic. His was cool by the time he finished it, and by then the herbs were starting to take effect. He said he'd take the first watch-he thought he could fight the seediness until midnight, hoped he could memorize a spell or two before the shakes and nausea overwhelmed him.

Rozt'a put her hand on his shoulder and guided him to his knees. "Sleep it off. You can stay up all night tomorrow."

Dru's thoughts were an unholy amalgam of Amarandaris, Tiep, and the Beast Lord as he slipped into delirium. He lived the rest of the night and all of the next day in a twilight of dreams and memories. In his few moments of lucidity he craved water, which Rozt'a gave him, and raved about the pain from a spike driven upward through his skull.

He was clear-minded, though empty-minded, when he sat up at sunset. The taste of death and rot thickened his tongue. He'd hawked and spat before he'd considered the wisdom of the act. Pain set him on his back again, but it was nothing like the pain before Wyndor's. He touched his face and the crusted cuts around his nose. The herbs had done their work-his body had done a week's worth of healing in a day. He had the appetite to prove it.

Rozt'a's cook pot called him as flowers called bees. She ladled something pale and lumpy into a bowl. He was ready for more before he asked what he was eating.

"Frog soup."

Dru looked at the lump in his spoon and swallowed it down without hesitation. He'd collected his thoughts by the time he'd sated his hunger. The edge was off his memories of Dekanter, as well, but not his last conversation with Tiep. He asked about Sheemzher first, because he'd spotted the goblin lying under a tent rigged from their blankets.

"Same as before. I'd've given him Wyndor's, if I didn't think it would kill him. The wound hasn't festered; that's a good sign. They're tougher than us, I guess, when it comes to disease."

"They'd have to be," Dru replied, and asked the harder question, "What about Tiep? Is he awake? Talking?"

Rozt'a shook her head. "I gave him a smaller dose-what I'd give myself. He should have come through before you. It's as if he's fighting something. Reliving it. I've lost track of the number of times he's called your name."

"No sign of trouble, though? No visitors?"

She stirred the soup for her answer and dribbled a cascade of meat back into the pot.

"Get some sleep," Dru suggested. "You're tired. I'll take the watches tonight."

"I dozed. I'll be fine-read your scroll, if you can, Druhallen. I know better than to come between a magician and his magic. This way you won't have to divide your attention."

He mumbled his thanks and retrieved the cloth-wrapped bundle from his gear. Midnight had passed hours ago. Dru could glance at the words of his light spell, cast it a moment later, and know he'd get another chance when midnight returned. He was impressed by the precautions Tiep had taken to protect the scroll with his shirt The better to impress Amarandaris and the unknown Zhentarim contact in Yarthrain?

Druhallen sighed. Though his anger was real and justified, he knew Tiep's slide into the Network fell short of conscious betrayal. Somewhere in one of the cities they visited or in Scornubel-which was more likely-the youth's luck had run out. He'd crossed a line that couldn't be crossed. Since the beginning in Berdusk, he, Rozt'a, and Galimer told their youngster to come to them when he got in trouble and tell them about his mistakes before they became flash point crises.

It was a rare boy who took that advice to heart. Dru thought of himself. He'd never willingly admitted an error to his father-why volunteer for a thrashing? And after he'd left Sunderath, when his situation with Ansoain hadn't been so very different from Tiep's, he'd have died before risking the future with an untimely confession to his foster parent. Of course, he'd also bent over backward to stay out of trouble.

He was a carpenter's son. Both his grandfathers had been carpenters, too. He was an odd seed in Sunderath, but he knew his roots. The gods knew what Tiep had for ancestors, and they weren't telling.

With a sigh, Druhallen unrolled the layers of shirt and scroll. The first, most obvious, thing he noticed was that scroll wasn't parchment backed with gold-leaf, as he'd expected, but gold throughout and polished to a sheen that sparkled in his light spell and hurt his eyes. He noticed the script next. Dense columns of Netherese script that floated on the gold. Dru could read the letters, but not casually, not without concentration, and there was no guarantee he'd make sense of the words. His dark glass disk slipped out next, warmer than it had ever been before.

Odd that it was the object which had brought him to this forsaken corner of Faerun only to become uninteresting once he'd arrived. Dru was almost certain now that the disk had nothing to do with Thayan circle-magic but, instead, had something to do with hiding objects-people-in plain sight. He guessed now that the Red Wizards had held onto it tightly until they were ready to begin their ambush, then they'd thrown it down. Why they hadn't retrieved it was, and might remain, a mystery, but a minor one compared with the meaning behind the words in front of him.

He picked the disk out of the grass and returned it to its silken sack and snug compartment within the folding box. There might be a use for it, yet. Amarandaris had told him to name his price. If the offer held, he could think of something the Zhentarim could return to him.

When the box was folded shut, Dru once again looked at the scroll. Twilight was passing quickly on this crisp, cloudless night and he'd had to dim his light spell. Dru wasn't sure he could trust his eyes, but yes-by means and magic he could not explain, the floating words on the scroll had become rusty marks across the back of Tiep's homespun linen shirt.

Too bad the boy didn't dress in silk as Galimer did. A more finely woven fabric would have recorded the ancient words more clearly, but they could still be read, albeit as reversed mirror-writing. Arc-Arcan-Arcanium-? The shirt's script was imprecise. Far easier to look at the floating script. The gold made its own light. Druhallen squelched his spell entirely and found the Netherese letters instantly clearer.

Arcanum Fundare Tiersus: Of fundamental or basic magic or mystery, the third lesson or chapter.

Druhallen translated the first line of the first column: Things are not as they seem. Seeming is illusion. Illusion is change. Things change.

He was disappointed: the wisdom of millennia reduced to a schoolboy's truism. Then it came to him that all magic was illusion and, more than that, a reagent was the illusion of magic: a thing that was not what it seemed to be. A spell was the destruction of illusion. A spell was the ultimate revelation of truth.

A spell was naked truth!

Dru sat up straight, stunned by the insight sweeping through his mind, changing the way he thought about magic. The sky was black, the stars were brilliant jewels; midnight had come and gone since he'd translated the first line. There were a thousand lines or more floating on the gold. He did the math then started on the second line. The words were there, but the magic-the truth within illusion-was not.

Some things did not change. Reading the Nether scroll was like studying spells. He could read or study at any time, but true learning happened only once each day. Disappointment singed Dru's spirit. In a few days time he would-he definitely would-trade the scroll for Galimer. Before then, he'd read another line, perhaps two more, not more than four. A far cry from a thousand.