flattery ever would. 'We've got forty men, Dru, maybe more. At least a hundred, if the women come too.'
'No.' He'd figured out where Rozt'a's logic was going and didn't want to follow. 'No, not Ghistpok's goblins, for pity's sake. They think their Beast Lord's a god.'
Tiep offered his opinion, 'Then they should line up with bells on for the chance to meet him.'
'If they don't eat us first.'
'People not eat people, good sir.'
In the heat of absurdity, Dru had forgotten they had a goblin listening to their discussion.
'People not eat good sir, not eat good woman,' Sheemzher continued. He wrinkled his nose at Tiep. 'People not eat that one; people get sick.'
Dru clenched his teeth, biting off the words he would have spat out. What was the point of chiding Tiep for his prejudice against Sheemzher when it was so obviously reciprocated? The pair deserved each other. They all deserved one another, and Dekanter, too.
Wind came down the mountain, gathering up buckets of rain to hurl in their faces. Possibilities-likelihoods- occurred to Dru as he swallowed cold water. They weren't going to steal the Nether scroll, they weren't going to get back to Weathercote Wood, and most of all, they weren't going to redeem Galimer from Wyndyfarh's glade. The way the rain was starting to flood around their feet, they were simply going to drown.
Something snapped inside Dru at that moment. He felt it go like a flawed pot left too long in the fire.
'It's not going to succeed,' he said. His voice was calm; the rest of him was shaking. 'Whatever we try, it's not going to succeed.' He pawed beneath his sopping shirt, found his folding box and tried to open it with hands that trembled from exposure and anger. 'Whether it's a sentience shield or an alliance with Ghistpok, it's not going to succeed. Since we got to Parnast, it's been one unpleasant surprise after another. All of them pointed here, to Dekanter, and all of them added another burden to our shoulders.'
Dru's thumb flicked a hook-shaped clasp and broke it, then he cracked one of the spell-etched wooden panels. How many years had he had the box without so much as scratching it? Ten, at least, maybe a few more. His mind was so churned he wasn't sure how old he was or how many years had passed since Ansoain had died.
The compartment he'd been groping for finally opened. A disk of glass colder than the rain slipped into his hands.
'We didn't come here to clean out the mines or destroy an alhoon or free slaves or solve any of the problems plaguing this damned place. We're not even here to steal a golden scroll. We're here because I'm a fool. I needed something to hang my life around. I couldn't live from one day to the next, so I lived for this.' Dru brandished the disk above his head. 'I've killed him!' he shouted, seeing Galimer and nothing more in his mind's eye. 'Me and my pride. Me and my determination that there had to be something larger, something powerful and mysterious behind Ansoain's death. If it was big enough and powerful enough, then there'd be some point to it. We wouldn't all live and die for no reason at all. The gods laugh at us… at me. They're laughing right now! Listen to them!'
Of course, there wasn't any laughter, only wind and rain on the mountain side. Dru knew that. He hadn't lost his grip on truth and reality, but things were getting slippery.
Dru wasn't the sort of man who lost control very often, and he was inexperienced at regaining it afterward.
On the verge of tears he'd never shed, Druhallen shouted. 'You were right, Galimer! You were right! There was never any meaning to it! We were bought and sold, just like the bride!'
Tiep, Rozt'a, and Sheemzher were staring at him with their mouths open. The goblin and Tiep were speechless, but Rozt'a had been merely waiting for him to breathe.
'Quit hoarding the guilt, Dru. You didn't get us here all by your lonesome.'
The fight went out of Dru's heart, the air went out of his lungs, and in his mind's eye he saw a desperate, foolish man standing in the rain, waving a lump of ancient glass over his head.
'It's finished. No more vengeance. No more meaning,' he said wearily.
Dru hurled the glass disk at the ground with force enough to smash it to splinters, but it might have been a feather for the way it fluttered and drifted-a magical feather that shone brighter than his light spell.
Rozt'a spoke first: 'Dru-? What's happening, Dru?'
'In fifteen years, I swear it's never done anything like that. They put it to the test at Candlekeep and swore there was more magic in flour, yeast, and water.'
The disk completed its descent, losing its glow when it settled on the wet stone.
'I can't see it anymore. It disappeared!' Tiep exclaimed.
The remark puzzled Dru, who could see the disk as clearly as he could see anything else through the rain and his light spell's illumination. He picked it up-the glass was icy, but that was no change from the first time-and displayed on his open palm.
Tiep touched it lightly with an extended finger. 'Weird…'
Dru made a fist around the glass, absorbing the cold and irony-he'd finally mustered the will to get rid of the disk and in that very instant, it displayed properties that justified returning it to its compartment in the folding box. He'd barely gotten it tucked away when another cold, wet, wind-gust slapped them hard. Lightning lit the mountains with flickering silver light. They waited for the thunder, which was a long time coming, but loud and long when it arrived.
'Everything tied up tight?' Dru asked his human companions, a reminder more than a question. He had a different question for the goblin. 'How bad can the storms get around here?'
'Very bad, good sir.'
'What do you do to keep yourself safe?'
'People hide, good sir. People pray.'
'Wonderful.'
Tiep and Rozt'a packed their gear while he moved the horses to the highest part of the gully. The animals were balky and Hopper was lame on his cracked hoof. By lightning-light, Dru examined the damage. Barring a miracle, they were going to lose another horse-another loyal friend-but that was a problem for after the storm.
He'd guessed it would be bad-everything else had been-but all Dru's years on Faerun's roads didn't prepare him for the fury of a mountain storm. The wind came from every direction, including straight down, and pushing walls of rain with it. Thunder became a continuous full-body assault and the lightning strikes came so fast and bright that Dru's eyes adjusted to their brilliance. He saw his companions as statues that moved with jerky motions. Conversation was, of course, impossible, and thought itself was difficult as the weather waged war over their heads.
They had one bit of luck-their gully drained well enough. Water came off the rocks in torrential streams. It rose to their ankles, but no higher. It was high enough to sweep Sheemzher away from Dru's side. Between one lightning flash and the next, the goblin latched onto Tiep and Tiep latched onto Hopper's tail.
Dru's relief was short-lived as a rock the size of his skull glanced off his shoulder. It would have crushed Sheemzher if the flood water hadn't moved him first, and they'd all have been flattened if it had been the herald of a larger rock fall such as they'd seen from the High Trail above the goblin camp.
As they lived it, the storm seemed to last forever. When it had ended, reason said no more than an hour had passed. The danger would linger until the mountains above them shed their water, which might be hours or days- Dru didn't know mountain weather well enough to choose. He was checking Hopper's hoof again and bracing himself to give Rozt'a and Tiep the bad news when Rozt'a squatted down beside him.
'We're going to have to put the old man down before we leave,' she whispered, telling him before he'd found the words to tell her.
'Does Tiep know?'
'He thinks it's not as bad as it looks.' She sighed. 'It'll break his heart.'
Dru's mind was empty; then he found the words, 'I'm ready for that scroll-shop in Scornubel with a hearth behind and a bedchamber above.'
Rozt'a leaned against him. 'Whatever you say, as long as it gets us out of here.'
Druhallen patted Hopper's leg then stood up, giving Rozt'a a hand as he did. 'We'll try the sentience shield,' he said, making the decision on the spot. 'Give him grain-all the grain he wants.' He scratched Hopper's long, damp forehead. 'They're always hungry; that's what Amarandaris said. We'll be welcome if we come leading enough food to feed every mouth in sight. Don't panic when you come up one pair short when you're counting gloves. I'm borrowing them.'
