bit more isolated… All right, tucked on the rump side of the Greypeak Mountains with the Anauroch desert for a neighbor, it was hard to imagine a more isolated village. The Dawn Pass Trail-the sole reason for Parnast's existence-was unusable for half the year. As soon as the late summer dust storms ended, the mountain blizzards began and lingered until the spring thaw produced a certainty of mud from Llorkh to Yarthrain.
Winter in Parnast would be winter in prison.
'I don't know,' Galimer answered. 'I've made a few inquiries. We've only been here an afternoon, and we haven't established our reputations. The problem isn't just that they've moved the trail to the east of Dekanter. Something's seriously wrong at Zhentil Keep. Apparently nothing's come west for months, and traders who usually head east have chosen to go south instead. I've got to wonder when the Network's own trade chooses a Cormyr passage. Amarandaris must be wondering the same thing. Word is that he's Sememmon's hand-picked man-'
'You hadn't mentioned that! It just gets worse!' Despite her assurances, Rozt'a was shouting at her husband. 'Dru!' She turned her attention to him, as he'd feared she would. 'Dru-talk to this man! Tell him what to do before he gets us all killed!'
Druhallen took a deep breath. 'It's not Galimer's fault. The Zhentarim are as good at keeping secrets as they are at spreading rumors. I'm inclined to think there's something rotten at Zhentil Keep, and at Dekanter as well, though whether they're related… that I can't begin to guess. If there's blame, put it on me. I'm the one who wanted to be here. I thought a contract to escort myrrh resin into the south was ideal. I would have shaken hands and called it done. Galimer had the sense to insist on earnest and Acolytes. I laughed at him, if you remember. Well, I've stopped laughing. Blame me for this, not him.'
Rozt'a wouldn't blame Dru for anything. Her temper would take her to the brink of a confrontation with her onetime lover, but never across it. They talked, as two members of a trio had to talk, and sometimes at great length but when discussion grew heated, Rozt'a became a woman of very few words.
Dru, who was their partnership's nominal leader, took advantage of her-and his own-unwillingness to confront what had-and had not-continued to exist between them.
'We're not trapped yet,' he continued patiently. 'The locals say the dust storms don't usually start until after the Eleint full moon and not always then. Last year the storms were bad, and the year before. The old woman who sold me bread swore there'd never been three bad years in a row. She said, too, that this past spring saw any number of merchant-adventurers head out to trade with the Bedine. Surely some of them will make it back. If they won't hire us as extra magic, then we'll pay our own way. Safety in numbers, Roz, just as you said.'
'What about Amarandaris?' she persisted. 'What price are we going to have to pay to him? Is this the season when we sell ourselves to the Network?'
There'd been no Zhentarim in Sunderath. Druhallen had grown up without ever seeing a Network trade-mark or cringing in the face of Network brutality. Rozt'a had been less fortunate and harbored a mistrust that bordered on hysteria.
'If Galimer says Amarandaris is a Darkhold man, then I believe him. He and I have dealt with Sememmon and his vassals since we were boys in Ansoain's shadow. They're honorable villains, for what it's worth, and know the value of honest trade. If worse comes to worst, we can go down the new trail with Amarandaris and live to tell the tale.'
Rozt'a folded her arms beneath her breasts. 'I don't share your faith where Darkhold is concerned. I got a look at this Amarandaris while I was scouting the resident muscle. I've seen warmer eyes on a snake.'
'Why not go up the Dawn Pass?' Galimer interrupted. 'They've got sixty mules in the stables right now, that's thirty more than they want. There'll be a mule train headed back to Llorkh tomorrow or the day after. We can go with them. I can keep our noses clean with the Zhentarim, but something's got the goblin-kin riled. Sweet Mystra- didn't you see them camped outside the palisade as we came in? Something's put real fear into those little beggars. Dwarves, maybe, or Underdark races who'd kill us as soon as they'd kill a goblin. If Amarandaris pulled the Network out of Dekanter, Dru, I'm telling you I'm not eager to get one step closer than I already am.'
'Vengeance,' Dru countered. 'Your mother's vengeance.'
'We've gotten vengeance. There were thirteen Red Wizards on that hilltop. We've learned all their names and slain three of them without going to Dekanter. We'll slay the rest when we can, if we can. Going to Dekanter won't get us closer to any of them. All Dekanter gets us-gets you-is a chance to cast that scrying spell you've been cooking up for years. All right-suppose you do scry something about the glass disk? Suppose you see a red-robed wizard carry it out of the mines, then what? You've never been able to answer that question for me, Dru. Are you going to start excavating with strangers around-Zhentarim strangers? Sweet Mystra, you've always said, 'Don't let the Network know we think there's a connection between Ansoain's death and the Red Wizards'! If you ask me, it would be easier if we were traveling with Amarandaris. At least then we'd know the thief-'
'Strangers! Red Wizards! Zhentarim!' Rozt'a erupted. 'Gods! Take your pick and the Pit take them all. We're all born little people and if we're clever well stay little people, beneath the notice of the mighty for good or evil. You find what you're looking for, Druhallen, and our troubles are just starting.'
Dru defended himself: 'If I'm right and the Red Wizards are kindling their spell circles with Netherese magic and Netherese artifacts, then the rest of Faerun's got to know before the Weave is torn. The Netheril Empire came down in a day because wizards got greedy.'
'The Weave's not our responsibility. I've said it before: She was my mother!' Galimer shouted. Galimer never shouted, but the heat and frustration had gotten to them all. 'You've spun a yard of conclusions from a single strand of suspicion, Dru. I say, sell that damned disk and be done with it.'
Dru opened his folding box-a different one than he'd carried on the Vilhon Reach-and removed the disk. He held it up in the summer light.
The disk had not yielded its secrets easily. Ansoain had been dead for two winters before Druhallen knew the inscription was written in the language of the ancient Netheril Empire. Another seven winters passed before he'd taught himself enough of that forgotten language to attempt a translation… Those who see me see darkness, while he who holds me casts the sun.
In his heart Druhallen believed that the first part of the inscription described the disk's function as a vault where several wizards could pool their potential magic; and the second part described the might a wizard wielded when he unleashed that pooled potential. But other interpretations were possible. There was no definitive concordance of Netherese with any modern language. In other contexts, the word Druhallen had translated as darkness meant death or blindness; and at least one elven authority insisted that casts the sun was a metaphor for insanity.
Galimer and Rozt'a agreed with the elves and so, five years ago, Druhallen had spent the winter at Candlekeep, where for a hefty price in gold a blind seer had plunged into a trance. She'd vindicated a few of Dru's cherished suspicions. Before it fell into the grass on the Vilhon Reach, the disk had belonged to a red-robed necromancer from Thay who commanded the potential magic of twelve other wizards less skilled than himself. But the Candlekeep seer had been unable to determine what precise role the disk had played in casting the spells that slew Ansoain and so many others that day, or how a Netherese artifact had wound up in a Red Wizard's hands.
Go to Dekanter, the seer suggested when her trance had ended. Go to the Mines of Dekanter in the Greypeak Mountains. The Netherese mages congregated there after the metal played out and the dwarves had moved on. They developed their most potent spells and artifacts in those mountains, away from the floating cities. There is a distinct pattern to objects forged at Dekanter-a taste of darkness, the scents of depth and weight. Go to Dekanter. Your disk was born there, lost there, and found there not so long ago. A century or two, at most. If you can find the chamber where the disk was fired, I can teach you a simple spell that will show you the rest.
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-
