The Nether Scroll - Lynn Abbey [113]
He didn't have to pretend for long. The drummers and singers kicked up a sudden racket. Dru gave both him and Rozt'a a gentle shake to awaken them.
"Ghistpok's come outside. They're all headed down to the chalk circle. We're under way."
For a man who hadn't slept, Tiep was both stiff and groggy. He yawned mightily but couldn't get enough air into his lungs to shake off the lethargy.
"You can stay behind," Rozt'a suggested when she saw him struggling.
They were always suggesting that, as if he were still a child and not up adult responsibilities. "I'm coming. I'm ready."
"Then keep moving. Sheemzher, what are they singing about now?"
The goblin song had changed. It had words, now, though it was still mostly drone and entirely sour.
"People calling Beast Lord, good sir. People say, Beast Lord wise, Beast Lord good, Beast Lord come-" Sheemzher lapsed into a bit of goblin so-called melody.
"That's enough," Dru chided.
Starlight revealed an easy path from the Zhentarim headquarters to the chalk circle. Dru didn't have to waste a light spell, if he had one to spare. The goblins had arranged themselves on the chalk: males surrounded by children, then females. Those males with the largest family rings clumped closest to the black standing stone. Those with fewer, sat farther away.
If Sheemzher had had only Elva and six children, then Sheemzher had sat on the circle's very edge.
While Ghistpok anointed the stone with various oils, wineskins the size and shape of rats were passed from one harem to the next. Everybody took a sip, even the children. The males took several, but nobody got as much as a goblet's worth. Within minutes, they were on their feet swaying and droning again.
"Doesn't take much to get a goblin drunk," he commented.
"They're smaller," Rozt'a chided.
Dru had a different perspective, "They could be adding something to their wine. Mushrooms. I imagine they get quite a crop of mushrooms. There are mushrooms that will have you looking at the sky and seeing green."
When all the goblins had had their wine and mushrooms, and all of them were swaying together, the drumming started again. If there was a rhythm to their pounding, Tiep couldn't detect it, though something kept the goblins moving together rather than crashing into one another as their dance grew steadily wilder. The trick Tiep had used earlier-deep breathing to thwart the drumbeat rhythm-failed against this new assault. His heart pounded, and he found himself gasping for air.
Sheemzher was completely gone, hopping about and waving his arms like the rest of the goblins. If the goblin was only pretending to be drunk, he was doing it very well. Slowly it occurred to Tiep that the goblins weren't particularly inebriated or performing a traditional dance, they were entranced and imitating perfectly the moves and gesture their chief, Ghistpok, made as he circled the glistening black stone.
He shared his insight with Druhallen, to whom it came as no surprise. Maybe it was the noise and the heart-stopping irregularity of the drumbeats, but Dru seemed a bit entranced himself. When Ghistpok stiffened and started screaming in goblin, Dru didn't seem to care. Rozt'a was the one who shook some sense back into Sheemzher.
"What's he saying?" she demanded of the glaze-eyed goblin.
"All well now. All mistake. Grouze mistake," Sheemzher crooned. "People wrong, all wrong. Beast Lord say, come, come now, see the truth. No egg. No bugs. No slaves. Come see. Ghistpok come. People come. All come to Beast Lord. All worship. All learn."
Tiep saw what was happening. "The wine and the drumming gets them all thinking the same, and then the Beast Lord gets all thinking the way he wants them to. This isn't going to work!" He was shouting at Rozt'a who was still shaking Sheemzher.
"It's still our best chance," Dru countered. He seemed to be himself again, though his face had the look of someone with a serious headache. Maybe he was doing