Dahl considered the shifting inks. “Never mind.”
What if I guess? the Book said. Might it be that you … know someone, someone who had been sworn to the Binder’s church? But who has been unceremoniously cast aside?
When Dahl didn’t answer, the voice chuckled. There’s few enough who realize that gods like Oghma have paladins in service to them. Fewer still who realize even a god as … fickle as Oghma has rules.
“I said ‘never mind.’ ” Dahl started to follow the aisle back to the camp at the center.
I think I have your answer.
He stopped.
Eight rows on, follow the shelf to your left. You’ll cross two paths and find a column with a rune carved onto it.
Dahl turned. “Go on.”
The rune holds the power to a trap that guards the shelf you need, the Book said. You need to destroy it before you go any further. Once that’s done, go around the column and down the path there. There’s a narrow set of shelves, and the volume you want is a slim one, bound in blue cloth. It chuckled again. That whole shelf is probably something that woman who led you here would like to see. I’ll let you be the one to tell her, though.
You should know better than to hope, Dahl told himself as he crossed the cavern and came upon the column. It was one of the few, he noticed, that seemed to reinforce the ceiling.
The rune shimmered halfway up the limestone column. It was some language older than Loross, older than Draconic perhaps. Add it to the list, he thought, digging through his pockets, of things I do not know. Right below runic magic.
He found what he was looking for: a leather bag of a powdered, potent acid collected from basilisk droppings. He poured a measure of water from his canteen and tied it quickly shut. He counted to twenty, and just as the rehydrated powder had dissolved and started to eat through the leather of the pouch, Dahl hurled the pouch at the column so that it burst across the rune. The sizzle of the acid ate into the stone column and destroyed the rune.
“Right,” Dahl said, trying not to be too pleased with himself. He passed the column and found the short path the Book had mentioned, the narrow shelf. He moved with caution, but the trap didn’t spring. Well done, he thought.
The volume the Book had suggested turned out to be a handwritten text … a diary, it seemed. Dahl pulled another book down, and another-all the same. Personal journals.
Not spellbooks, he noted. Though they were marked up with notes on spells being created or broken down in between the long stretches of day-to-day tedium. Perhaps worth mentioning to Mira anyway …
The diary in his hands had belonged to an arcanist by the name of Emrys, and the dates-gods’ books, five thousand years past-made him a contemporary of Tarchamus by Mira’s estimates. Magic slicked the pages, somehow, even after all the years and all the powers of the Spellplague. The entries began in the summer, focusing on Emrys’s successful execution of a spell that brought a storm of ice to earth.
The potential for defense is extraordinary, it read. Let us see that fool Arion “accidentally” unleash his winds on us again; we shall see! Have warned Sadebreth repeatedly that he has a poor grip on his council, but to no avail. The ice shall be my own warning. Tarchamus is terribly amused, in his fashion, says preemptive measures are appropriate. I do not agree, but the thought of Arion waking up to find his city encased, that false look of perpetual surprise genuine for once, did keep me laughing.
Dahl frowned. Not only a contemporary, but a friend, it seemed. And a powerful wizard. He skimmed ahead.
The pages that followed painted a world where the arcanists wielded astounding powers over the ordinary Netherese who lived under them-often literally, beneath their floating cities. A world where the wizards bickered like gods, tormented apprentices, and stole wildly from one another. Emrys, as it was his own narrative, came off a bit better than others. As did Tarchamus.
Until Dahl turned past the center of the diary. It was autumn then, a few years on.
Sadebreth has finally granted me audience, Dahl read. After the disaster that brought Tenish to ground, how could he refuse? It did not take much to convince him that censure is not enough for Tarchamus. He will convince the council to come together and work spells to block Tarchamus’s access to the Weave completely.
Dahl’s stomach tightened. Not a simple thing. Magic had changed in so many ways since then, but … to block access to the Weave, they might have needed the goddess of magic’s intercession to keep Tarchamus from reaching her Weave. To teach him a lesson. To rein him in.
No god would have done that, he told himself.
I must regretfully confess, the entry went on, I struggle with the probable fallout-not only the possibility that Tarchamus will manage to carry on with his planar magic, but also the precedent this sets.
He closed the diary, the very notion of what the Book seemed to be suggesting intolerable. That couldn’t be what happened to Dahl. It would be too simple. And who would have done such a thing? Not Jedik, surely. Jedik had never made an example of him like that …
But others … others had. If nothing else, it was a possibility he hadn’t considered. He tucked the book under one arm to read later on.
The last of the texts the Book had sent Farideh to find was perched on a shelf high over her head, past the big rune Havilar had mentioned and on the other side of a little courtyard around a statue of a wizard. It was a thick tome bound in green brocade that looked like nothing so much as the sort of robes she’d seen for sale in Waterdeep-and she said a little thanks for that. It was easily spotted at least. She set the other scrolls on the ground and hauled herself up, climbing the shelf like a ladder. Just this last one, and the Book said it could help her construct a ritual. Her outstretched fingertips hooked the top of the book.
“Well met? Do you need a hand?”
Mira’s sudden presence surprised Farideh, and she yanked the book down. Mira caught it before it hit the ground, and Farideh managed to catch hold of the shelf again, before she lost her balance.
“Many thanks,” Farideh said, coming to the ground again. Mira handed back the book. “I suppose … I haven’t really searched this section yet.”
Mira waved her off. “Look when you can. We have time.”
“Do we?” Farideh gathered her remaining scrolls from the floor. “I know I don’t want to be here if …” She didn’t even want to say Rhand’s name. “If the Netherese are on the way.”
Mira shrugged, unconcerned. “They haven’t come yet. I have something for you.” She pulled a rolled sheaf of parchment from her jerkin and handed it over. It was a copy of a ritual-the protective circle.
“Heavens knew Dahl wasn’t going to show you,” Mira said. “And it sounded to me as if you wanted it rather dearly.”
“Thank you,” Farideh said. “That’s very kind.”
Mira bobbed her head as if it was and it wasn’t. “Consider it a gesture of friendship,” she said.
Farideh looked down at the scroll. “Thank you,” she said again. “I need to get back.”
“Of course. I’ll come with you.”
Farideh would rather she didn’t. She wanted to read what she could of the texts she’d gathered before she got back to the Book. But Mira fell into step beside her regardless.
“You know,” Mira said, “I’ve been considering taking on an assistant. You have a good eye, a sharp mind, and”-she nodded at the pile of scrolls in Farideh’s arms with a smile-“a bit of an interest. You also have a little ritual magic, which should come in handy. I could help you find whatever it is that you’re looking for.”