'Manya? What's Manya got to do with sandalwood boxes-or some stuffy Zhentarim?'
'That's what we were hoping you could tell us,' Dru answered.
Tiep straightened. He'd grown this summer; there was no more looking down on him. They'd come to a serious crossroads. If Dru couldn't trust Tiep the way he trusted Galimer and Rozt'a, the young man was on his own. Worse-if he, Galimer, and Rozt'a couldn't agree on the lad's trustworthiness, then Dru himself might be alone.
He continued, 'Lord Amarandaris had a notion of why we were headed for Dekanter and what I'd hoped to do when I got there. I think he could only have gotten that information from talking to one of us-or talking to someone who had talked to one of us.'
'He hasn't talked to me about Dekanter,' Tiep replied quickly. 'And I haven't spilled anything to Manya, either-not that she'd tell Amandis even if I had. She says he's nothing but slime with legs and hair.'
'I trust that you and she were clever enough not to say that where you could be overheard?'
Tiep nodded. 'We were with the geese. Geese're almost as good as wards-' A thoughtful expression formed on his face. 'Our wards. Maybe someone busted your wards, Dru?'
'My wards are-' He stopped speaking. His wards were suddenly fire in his mind. 'A stranger's breaching them right now.'
Rozt'a flattened beside the door. She drew her knives. 'Amarandaris?'
'Can't tell,' Dru admitted. In all his years of setting wards around their camps and rented rooms, he'd had only a handful of opportunities to study what happened when they were breached by uninvited guests. 'I don't sense a threat.'
'Manya!' Tiep lunged for the door.
Dru whispered the word that lifted the wards. He sagged against the wall when the wasted magic rebounded inside his skull. Stone blind and half deaf, he faintly heard Galimer say 'Mystra's mercy, who are you?'
Dru pulled himself together, pinched a cold ember from the placket of his shirt sleeve, and thought of flames. When his vision cleared, he'd be ready to hurl fire.
'Sheemzher, good man.'
Sheemzher's voice was reedy and foreign. Make that more than foreign as Tiep asked: 'What are you?'
'Sheemzher serve good lady. Good lady Wyndyfarh.'
Dru didn't recognize the name. When he opened his eyes, he didn't recognize Rozt'a either, though it seemed likely that she was the larger blur slamming a smaller blur against the closed door.
'Who sent you?' she demanded.
In plain terror, the reedy voice shrieked, 'Sheemzher alone. Come alone, not sent!'
Another thud shook dust down from the ceiling.
'No harm!' Sheemzher gasped. 'No harm, good woman! Sheemzher give thanks. Sheemzher give reward. Good sir save child.'
'It's a goblin!' Tiep shouted. 'It's a godsforsaken goblin dressed up like a little man.'
Dru ground his knuckles into his eyes. 'If it's a goblin,' he said to Rozt'a, 'let it go.'
'You jest?' she replied, giving Sheemzher another slam for good measure.
'No.' There was one last thud as the goblin fell to the floor. 'I rescued a goblin on the way back from my meeting with Amarandaris.'
'Why?' Galimer asked, and after a pause, 'From what?'
'From men-Zhentarim thugs. They were going to tear it apart. I don't know why.'
Dru rubbed his eyes some more. They burned horribly, but he could see again-or thought he could. Sheemzher was the strangest creature he'd seen in year. No doubt he was a goblin-nothing else under the sun was quite as scrawny in the arms and legs, quite as jut-jawed ugly, or quite that red-orange color-but he was indeed masquerading as a man in cut-down blue breeches and a fitted, bright-green jacket. Sheemzher even wore boots; Dru couldn't remember ever seeing a goblin wearing shoes, much less black boots with brass buckles. Or a broad- brimmed hat which the goblin scooped from the floor and brandished before him as he bowed.
'Sheemzher reward good sir. Good sir keep generous heart,' the goblin said. 'Good lady say: May your chosen god bless you with fair fortune.' He tamped the hat tight over his nearly bald head.
'Who did you say sent you?' Dru asked after a silent moment.
'Sheemzher serve good lady Wyndyfarh. Good lady in Wood. Good lady not send Sheemzher, good sir. Sheemzher come alone. Sheemzher give reward. Few big men save people.'
The goblin dug into a leather shoulder-pouch and withdrew a smaller sack sewn from patterned silk and knotted with silken cord. He offered the smaller sack to Dru who hesitated before taking it. A civilized goblin-a goblin who could meet human eyes without flinching was as extraordinary as his hat. Dru's first thought was that the creature was ensorcelled. He readied the same magic ring he'd used on Amarandaris earlier in the day.
'I'm grateful for your thanks,' he said, striving to match the goblin's simple formality. The goblin-kin weren't known for their cleverness. 'Your thanks are sufficient. I need no other reward for saving a child.'
He wove his fingers past the offering, which he didn't want under any circumstance, and clasped the goblin's empty hand. Druhallen had never taken the magical measure of a goblin before. It was difficult to interpret the sensations that raced up his arm, but they didn't have the signatures he would have expected from a mage in disguise.
The goblin grasped Dru's hand in return and tilted his head up. 'Not accept reward, good sir? Not good? Not right? Sheemzher sorry.' Ugly as he was, Sheemzher could have taught Tiep a thing or two about pleading. Which was another odd thing as goblins weren't known for their empathy. 'Sheemzher give all for child.'
Dumbfounded, Dru asked, 'I saved your child?'
As hard as it was to accept the hat, boots, and bright-green jacket, it was harder to imagine that Sheemzher was the father of the malodorous creature Dru had rescued from the chicken coop.
'No, good sir. Sheemzher not father. Mother, daughter not belong Sheemzher. Mother, daughter from Greypeaks. Mother, daughter hungry. Mother, daughter make mistake. Big mistake. Sheemzher helpless. Sheemzher pray. Good sir come. Good sir save child. Sheemzher give reward.'
Dru shook his head. 'Give this to your gods, Sheemzher. I acted for myself.' He freed himself of the goblin's hand and the gift.
'Keep it, Dru. We could use a little reward about now,' Galimer suggested.
'Yes, good sir. Keep reward. Open reward?'
Rozt'a sheathed her knives. 'Oh, go ahead and get it over with. I don't know which is harder to believe: that you rescued a warty runt or that one's come to reward you for doing it. I haven't seen so much color since we left Llorkh.'
'Lady Mantis favorite colors. Sheemzher wear favorite colors.'
Rozt'a's hands went back to her knife hilts. 'Lady Mantis? That's not the name you gave before. You said Windy-something before.'
The goblin stiffened and clapped his hands together. 'Lady Mantis same good lady Wyndyfarh. Good lady Wyndyfarh same Lady of the Wood. Sheemzher serve good lady. Sheemzher proud.'
Dru ceased fumbling with the knotted silk. 'Weathercote Wood?'
'Yes, good sir. Good lady Wyndyfarh lives Weathercote Wood. Weathercote Wood magic wood. Weathercote Wood many wonder wood. But good lady Wyndyfarh most wonder, good sir. Most, most wonder.'
'Is your lady a wizard?'
'Good lady Wyndyfarh great lady, good sir. All Weathercote people great people. Great, good sir, not wizard. Good sir wizard, yes?'
Without dwelling on the goblin's distinctions between good, great, and the practitioners of magic, Dru reminded himself that if Sheemzher had seen him rescue the child, then he'd probably seen him cast the gloomy spell.
'Please, good sir, open reward?'
Before Dru finished with the knots, Tiep found his voice. 'You've seen Lady Mantis?'
Tiep's voice broke as it hadn't in years. His normally dark complexion had gone sallow. Lady Mantis must have quite a reputation among the Parnasters.
'Sheemzher serve good lady Wyndyfarh. Good lady same Lady Mantis.' The goblin answered Tiep's question but didn't honor him with a 'good sir' nor even the 'good man' he'd hung on Galimer.
