The Nether Scroll - Lynn Abbey [41]
Tiep didn't want to meet her.
"Sheemzher call good lady. Sheemzher find knife after. Knife belong, yes?" The goblin held out a familiar knife. "Yours?" he added, the word was unusual for him and he pronounced it wrong.
"Mine," Tiep agreed sourly and took the knife without a hint of thanks. He made a point of wiping it before sliding it into its sheath. "Now, go away."
"Good lady not here. Good lady in glade. Go now. Go there," Sheemzher persisted. "Beyond path here. Beyond good lady. Reaver not belong good lady. Reaver not obey good lady. Retribution. Trees not belong good lady. Trees belong path."
Was that an assurance that Lady Mantis wouldn't mind if he helped himself to an amber keepsake? It wasn't a question Tiep could ask, but one he had to answer for himself. He pulled himself up to the branch where he'd hidden and the marker that was in reach above it.
There was a thumbnail-sized bug squatting on the amber. It didn't fly off when he waved his arm over it and brandished nasty claws when he tried to flick it away with his fingernails, so he smashed it with the flat of his second-best knife and wiped the blade on his breeches before using it to free the marker.
The goblin was grinning when Tiep's feet hit the ground again.
"Valuable, yes? Valuable outside?"
"Yes, and mine. Just like the knife. Don't go getting any dog-face stupid ideas."
"No stupid ideas," the goblin agreed, still grinning like the fool he was.
***** Sheemzher assured them, again, as they left the killing ground, that they were merely an hour from his lady's glade. He was lying, of course, but closer to the truth than he'd been. They hadn't gone far before
the forest thickened and cooled around them.
Dru announced that they'd successfully passed through someone's warding.
"Good lady dwells here. Good lady Wyndyfarh. Sheemzher belong here," the goblin
replied proudly.
Tiep had never encountered green in such variety and intensity. The trees were clothed in green, but so was the ground. Moss grew everywhere-even the rocks and tree bark were cloaked in living velvet. Though birds flew overhead, the moist, heavy air hushed their songs. Tiep felt obligated to speak softly when he asked the wizards, "Is everything here magical?"
"Everything and nothing," Galimer replied, also whispering.
"What kind of answer is that?"
"The truth," Dru said, and ended the discussion.
They climbed a moss-covered stairway carved into the side of a small, steep hill. Rozt'a was in the front, right behind the goblin. She gasped when she reached the top. Tiep understood why when he stood beside her. The hill was the outer boundary of a water garden that was like no part of Faerun he'd imagined possible. The water in a pond at the base of the hill sparkled-truly sparkled-in the sunlight. The flowers glowed with subtle light and the countless butterflies were brighter than a queen's jewelry. There was a waterfall on the opposite side of the pond and a small, round building beside it. Tiep judged the building a temple, because it had no walls, just white-stone columns and a blue-green metal dome, and it looked like the sort of place where a god might rest his feet.
He'd barely begun to consider the implications of what he saw when a woman appeared in the temple-she must have emerged through the waterfall, though she wasn't dripping. She was tall and thin. Her face was pale and her hip-length hair was cross-striped with white and dusty brown. Even at this distance, her fingers appeared unnaturally long and when she pressed her palms together in front of her, Tiep had no trouble recognizing the Lady Mantis whom Manya had described.
"She's deadly," he heard himself whisper to Druhallen. "She could kill us as soon as look at us."
Dru nodded. "Deadly's not