The Nether Scroll Read Online Free

pain, Galimer swept the
grass with his hands.
    "Sweet Mystra!" the gold-haired mage swore as he clutched, then dropped, the glass.
"Cold's not the half of it!"
    "Aye, but what is that other half?"
    Galimer pinched his fingertips to the scripted edge and lifted the disk carefully. "How about
a way to control their undead minions?"
    Dru considered the possibility. "Did you see the robes they were wearing when they first
appeared?"
    "That was the last thing I did see. Their robes were red."
    "Red robes. Red-robed wizards. The Red Wizards of Thay. They pool their magic and one
wizard casts the spells for all of them. Nobody—nobody—knows how they do it. Until now."
    Druhallen fumbled with his folded magic box. It would have been easier to manipulate with
both hands, but he'd designed it for single-handed work. As the hidden locks opened, the box
unfolded, increasing in size and complexity. Reagents filled the revealed compartments.
Dru's traveling spells were etched into the compartment dividers. With the third unfolding, he
found an empty compartment large enough to hold the disk.
    Galimer squirted the disk into the empty compartment. "Being cold and dark, it's more
likely a device for controlling the undead."
    "It's the circles." Dru clung to his opinion as if it were one he'd held for a lifetime though,
before today, he hadn't given more than ten thoughts to Thay in the last year. "Anyone can
control the undead. You or I could, if we chose to learn the art. But only the Red Wizards rely
on the undead, because their circles make it feasible to control whole bone-yards. The
arrogance! They descend from nowhere, take what they want, leave everyone for dead, and
don't even bother to collect their trash."
    "Is it trash? How can you be sure? It didn't feel spent to me."
    "It's cold and dark," he snapped. "If it's not spent, it's useless."
    "Not useless," Galimer countered thoughtfully. "We can use it to prove that we were
ambushed by the Red Wizards. That ought to put the wind in the Zhentarim."
"Mind what you say," Dru said, sobering quickly though he had had similar thoughts a few
moments ago. "Or we'll get caught between the Black Network and the Red Wizards." He
folded the box and let it hang against his hip. "When we get to Elversult, we tell the Network
that we were ambushed, but that we never saw what hit us. And we don't tell them about
finding the disk."
    "Mother ..." Galimer protested. "The girl, the captain and his men, the damn carters ...
We've got to tell the truth, Dru. There won't be justice without the truth."
    "What justice is there between Thay and the Zhentarim? We'll need a lifetime of luck just
to clear our names of this disaster. Talk about red-robed wizards won't help us do that, and
neither will a lump of rotten glass—"
    "I can't accept that, Dru. Not for her."
    "You don't have to. We'll avenge her ourselves. I swear to you right now and forever: We'll
hunt those wizards down. We'll go to Thay, if we have to. We'll find out how they beat us, and
well use their secrets against them."
     

2
     
    28 Eleasias, the Year of the Banner (1368 DR)
     
    West of the Dawn Pass
     
    Druhallen leaned against a rough-plank wall. Fifteen years after Ansoain's death and the
thought of her could still set his wrist aching. Especially in a Zhentarim village like Parnast, on
the rump of the Dawn Pass Trail, when the natural heat of a northern summer met the
unnatural heat creeping off the nearby Anauroch desert.
    The breeze coming through the open window was moving heat. The shade where Dru sat
was dark heat. The air burned with the yellow dust of Anauroch. A storm was coming—
possibly from the desert, certainly in the rented room he shared with his partners.
    "I'll lodge a protest. There's law in this town," Galimer fumed as he paced the room's not-
considerable width. "They've forfeited their earnest money, that's given."
    "Wonderful! I'm sure they cared about their earnest money!" Rozt'a