sense giving Mystra a reason to make a mistake. Not now when she's adjusting to new eyes.'
They'd all heard tales of the recently ended Time of Troubles in which gods died and-in some versions of the tales-mortals had replaced them. The deaths of Bane and Myrkul were all but confirmed. Their priests were impotent and their temples abandoned, but a new Mystra, a fallible, born-mortal Mystra? No. It was inconceivable; Dru had refused, until now, to conceive of it.
'Mystra doesn't make mistakes where magic's concerned,' Dru said firmly. 'You can tell your lady that, or I will. If the Beast Lord's a threat to the Weave-'
He paused and considered what he was saying. Could the Beast Lord actually be a threat to the Weave? Mind flayers weren't exactly common-for which he and countless others were grateful-but there were enough that Dru strongly suspected the Beast Lord wasn't the first of its race to walk the dark path to lichdom. Though a lich of any kind was more than he cared to confront alone, he could name a score of notable wizards, priests, and paladins who could crush the Beast Lord, fist against palm, without upsetting Mystra.
If an undead mind flayer wasn't the threat, then what about the athanor it had constructed? The egg was the largest alchemic device Dru had ever seen or heard of, but mad wizards had been cobbling creatures together for millennia-since Netheril itself. What made this athanor different, this undead mind flayer a danger to the Weave?
Things started changing about seven years ago What started the changes?
Six years ago, the Beast Lord's athanor had been smaller. It had transmuted Sheemzher's wife into a Taker but the misshapen goblins of the bogs were demons to Sheemzher's eyes. The swordswingers they'd fought underground were demons too, but the creatures who'd led Sheemzher's wife to the small egg were Takers. The misshapen fought with sharpened sticks. The swordswingers with swords. Sheemzher hadn't said if the Takers carried weapons. It was tempting to think that the Takers would have carried spears and then construct a progression of 'improved' demons emerging from the Beast Lord's athanor.
The big change-the big 'improvement' had come between the misshapen and the Takers. Sheemzher's wife had been transmuted in an egg which she shared with one of Wyndyfarh's mantis minions. Was that the change- take one goblin and add a jewel-eyed insect already touched by potent magic? Or was the change the power that merged the two together? Power that came from a Netherese scroll?
Sheemzher had as much as said Lady Wyndyfarh was an exotic from another plane… a watcher. What was she watching? Illithids. Mind flayers that lived in colonies and were guided by an Elder Brain. By itself and without an Elder Brain, the undead Beast Lord was a nuisance… until it acquired one of Netheril's golden scrolls of magic.
Dru cleared his throat and started again. 'Sheemzher, what else do you know about the golden scroll we're supposed to bring back to Weathercote Wood? What has Wyndyfarh told you about it?'
Sheemzher began, 'Good lady say-' and got no farther. He gasped once and began to choke. Choking became trembling and he collapsed on the rock, hitting his head hard. The convulsion deepened. Foam and spittle appeared on the goblin's lips.
'Damn her!' Dru shouted and tried to protect Sheemzher's head as his body thrashed on the wet stone.
'What's going on over there?' Rozt'a shouted.
'Dru asked Sheemzher about the Netherese scroll and now he's having a fit.'
Rozt'a raised her voice in ironic prayer: 'All hail the gods, what's next?'
'Don't tempt them,' Dru advised.
The tremors were subsiding. Sheemzher's back relaxed, his arms and legs went limp a few heartbeats later.
Tiep asked, 'Is he-?'
'No, he'll come around in a moment or two.'
'That was a lot of geas to put on a little body.' Rozt'a observed. 'Somebody doesn't want him talking about that Nether scroll in a big way.'
'Not somebody-Wyndyfarh.'
'Can you get around it?'
'In a month, in Scornubel with all Ansoain's books open in front of me, if I got lucky, stayed lucky, and didn't kill him by mistake.'
Sheemzher coughed out phlegm and bile. He tried to sit but couldn't lift his shoulders. 'Sheemzher hurt. Sheemzher not remember.'
'Your good lady doesn't want you answering certain questions of mine.'
The goblin tried again to sit. He still couldn't manage it on his own. Rozt'a offered her hand. Sheemzher ignored it, groping at his sides instead. 'Spear? Where Sheemzher spear? Sheemzher not Sheemzher without spear.'
Panic gave the goblin a drunk's strength and coordination. He struck both Dru and Rozt'a in his efforts to find the missing spear. The blows were hard, but not hard enough to prevent Dru from spreading his hand across Sheemzher's chest and forcing the goblin to lie back on the stone.
'It was you or the spear,' Dru explained, which wasn't the complete truth. He could have carried both and he had looked for the spear, but he hadn't wasted much time in the search.
Sheemzher hung his head and hugged himself. He'd lost his spear and his hat-possessions which he'd clearly prized-his bright-colored garments were dirty and sodden, and his good lady had tagged him with a geas that had fallen just short of killing him. A man in his place might be feeling pretty well abandoned by now. And a goblin? Dru laid a hand on Sheemzher's shoulder.
'We'll look for it when we go back underground.'
'We're going back down?' Tiep asked, a mix of relief and surprise in the question.
Dru nodded, but not before Rozt'a answered, 'Of course we are. I don't care what Lady Wyndyfarh is or what she's done-we're getting that scroll. We're getting Galimer out of Weathercote Wood. One alhoon isn't enough to stop us.'
She named the Beast Lord's breed without howling. The word was almost familiar.
Rozt'a caught him staring. 'Just because I didn't ride with Ansoain doesn't mean I grew up in a garden, Druhallen,' she told him indignantly. 'There were others before you, and not all of them were bastards like the one in Triel. When I was just starting out, I hired on with a Cormyr lord who wanted to reopen the family gold mine, which meant cleaning out a couple centuries' worth of squatters, the worst of which was an alhoon. There were about forty of us-a sentience shield, the lord called it. He armed us with green wood sticks and bundles of straw, no steel allowed, for our own safety, he said. We marched ahead of two priests and a wizard, all laying low, pretending to be common.
'A few of the veterans had shivs in the their sleeves; one wrapped his long sword in straw. When the alhoon started grabbing minds, setting us against each other, blood flowed bad, but the wizard popped up quick and pasted it good. Like as not, we'd have all walked out of there if we'd stuck with the sticks and straw. Easiest five lions I ever earned.'
Tiep took advantage of a pause to ask, 'Why didn't you say something, then, when I told you what the Beast Lord looked like? Those things hanging off his face. It's not like anything else anywhere ever looked like that!'
Rozt'a shrugged. 'Forty brawlers in a mine tunnel-I was way toward the back and never saw what we were supposed to be distracting. By the time our priests and wizard were done, the alhoon was soot. The undead, they go fast in a holy fire. After Sheemzher howled, I started thinking about what I felt that day and what happened a little while ago. I call it a close enough fit. An alhoon isn't invincible, Dru.'
He had difficulty meeting her eyes. 'If you've got forty hired brawlers, two priests, a wizard, and a Cormyr lord.' She started to scowl. 'Don't get me wrong, Rozt'a: I like the idea. A sentience shield. You couldn't do it with a mind flayer colony; they could suck up as much sentience as you could throw at them. But alhoons are apparently solitaires. The Beast Lord would become a juggler with too many balls in the air and have nothing left for defense when magic started to fly.'
'I've watched you throw fire around. You're better than the wizard we had with us.' Rozt'a flung flattery with a shovel. 'You wouldn't need two priests.'
'Or the Cormyr lord,' he agreed. 'It's the shield, Rozt'a. Bodies. We'd've done better to join in with Amarandaris. He'd loan us forty men… if we let him have the scroll afterward.'
Rozt'a narrowed her eyes and flashed her predatory grin, which made Dru far more nervous than her scripted
