The Nether Scroll - Lynn Abbey [13]
The seer's "simple spell" was more subtle than any spell Druhallen had learned before or since. It had taken him three years to collect the reagents necessary to cast it and another year-not to mention the lion's share of the reagents-to master it. Until this morning, he'd believed he was less than a week's journeying from unraveling a triad of mysteries with a single spell: the history of a polished disk of Netherese glass, the specific role it played in the ambush that led to Ansoain's death, and the more general role it played in Red Wizard spell-casting.
In the Parnast room Dru rotated the disk until it angled sunlight onto the floor between them all. "The Netherese wizards destroyed themselves, their Empire, and very nearly the
world." He recited a lesson he'd learned from the Candlekeep seer. "When Great Ao saw the price of their foolishness, He commanded Mystra to thread a new strand through the Weave, the strand of fate that limits the power of our spellcraft-because the nature of magic is recklessness and self-destruction. That thread has held tight against good, evil, and all that lies between-until now. I'm sure the Red Wizards are trying to recreate the forbidden spells that brought the Empire down."
Galimer shook his head. "It doesn't follow, Dru. It hasn't ever followed. Yes, the Thayan circles are dangerous and we don't know how the Red Wizards create them. And, yes, their zulkirs are madmen, worse than the Zhentarim. But madmen fueled with Netherese artifacts? Look at a map, Dru-there's half of Faerun between Thay and Dekanter. It's not as if they can just appear and disappear-"
The gold-haired mage stopped himself, and Druhallen savored a long-awaited victory.
"That's exactly what they did on the Vilhon Reach," Dru said without gloating. "Why not do it at Dekanter? Everything does follow. I'd just as soon go the rest of the way by ourselves-the old trail must still be there and it's not as if we'd be looking for a fight with anyone-although, have you considered the possibility that this supposed war below Dekanter is actually the Red Wizards establishing themselves above?"
Dru watched Galimer's eyes narrow with thought, and he feigned a philosophical retreat.
"You plot our course, Longfingers. If you say we go to Llorkh, then we head east to Llorkh. Gods willing, I'll get back here some other year."
Galimer, still narrow-eyed and thinking, said nothing.
Rozt'a began her opinion with a groan, followed by, "Spare me! Mystra's got nothing on you, Druhallen, when it comes to weaving mismatched strands. Both of you would like nothing better than to be cooped up for the winter with nothing to do but pore over a spellbook. Gods know, Parnast isn't big enough for real trouble-"
It was an afternoon for misstatements-and not about a wizard's capacity for boredom.
Their trio was, in fact, a quartet and their fourth partner was loose.
"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