The Nether Scroll Chapter 11: Sheemzher's Burden and Druhallen's Breaking Point
Book: The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 (Forgotten Realms) ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8
Chapter 11 is where everything breaks down and gets rebuilt. Everybody’s secrets come out, everybody hits their lowest point, and by the end, they actually have something resembling a plan.
But first, Druhallen has to lose it completely.
The Beast Lord Has a Name
Back on the surface, in the rain, Sheemzher finally wakes up. And when Tiep shares his theory about the Beast Lord being a mind flayer, the goblin drops a bombshell.
“Beast Lord not mind flayer.”
Everyone turns to look at him.
“Alho-o-o-o-on!” the goblin howls.
An alhoon. An undead mind flayer that practices magic, which regular mind flayers supposedly never touch. Lady Wyndyfarh told Sheemzher what it was. The word comes out as a howl when a goblin tries to say it, and Rozt’a later pronounces it calmly as “alhoon.”
And the gut punch? Sheemzher knew this the entire time. He just never volunteered it because nobody asked. “Men never listen not-clever goblins,” he explains. “Not ask, not answer.”
Dru doesn’t blow up at this. He blames himself. He didn’t ask the right questions. And he’s right, which makes it worse.
What Dru Figures Out
With the alhoon piece in place, Dru starts connecting everything. Mind flayers normally live in colonies guided by an Elder Brain, a massive brain floating in brine. That’s what the empty brine pool under Dekanter was waiting for. But this Beast Lord is alone. A renegade.
The athanor makes more sense now too. The misshapen goblins are failed experiments. The swordswingers are successes, goblins merged with Wyndyfarh’s mantis creatures. The progression tracks with Amarandaris’s timeline. Things started changing seven years ago. The alhoon found the Nether scroll and started building.
But when Dru tries to ask Sheemzher about the scroll itself, the goblin starts choking. His body convulses. Foam appears on his lips. He collapses.
Wyndyfarh put a geas on her servant. A magical compulsion that physically prevents Sheemzher from sharing certain information. And this one nearly kills him.
“That was a lot of geas to put on a little body,” Rozt’a observes quietly.
Druhallen’s Breakdown
So here they are. Rain pouring down. Sheemzher too geas-locked to be useful. The scroll displaced in time. An undead mind flayer wizard between them and their only way to save Galimer.
And Druhallen cracks.
He pulls out the glass disk he’s carried for fifteen years. The artifact connected to Ansoain’s death. The thing he’s been chasing meaning in since his teacher died. And he starts shouting into the rain about how he’s killed Galimer with his pride, how his determination to find meaning in Ansoain’s death dragged them all to Dekanter, how the gods are laughing at him.
It’s raw and messy and very human. He doesn’t suddenly find resolve. He just breaks, shouts at the sky, admits he was wrong. He tries to smash the glass disk on the ground.
And the disk floats.
In fifteen years, the thing has never done anything magical. Wizards at Candlekeep tested it and found nothing. But now, when Dru tries to destroy it, it drifts down like a feather and glows brighter than his light spell. When it lands, Tiep says he can’t see it at all, but Dru can see it just fine.
That’s new. That’s very new. And it’s just enough strangeness to make Dru put the disk back in his box instead of leaving it on the ground.
Rozt’a’s Plan
Then a mountain storm hits. Wind from every direction including straight down. Lightning so constant their eyes adjust to the brightness. Water rises to their ankles. Sheemzher gets swept away and latches onto Tiep who latches onto Hopper’s tail.
After the storm passes, there’s more bad news. Hopper’s cracked hoof is done. They’re going to lose another horse. Rozt’a knows it before Dru can find the words to tell her.
But Rozt’a has been thinking. She tells Dru about a job she took years ago, clearing an alhoon out of a Cormyr lord’s gold mine. The tactic was a “sentience shield.” Forty brawlers armed with green wood sticks and straw, marched ahead of two priests and a wizard. The alhoon tried to control all those minds at once, got overwhelmed, and the wizard took it down.
“An alhoon isn’t invincible, Dru.”
He pushes back. They don’t have forty brawlers or two priests. And Rozt’a grins her predatory grin.
“We’ve got forty men, Dru, maybe more. At least a hundred, if the women come too.”
She’s talking about Ghistpok’s goblins.
Dru hates this idea. These goblins worship the Beast Lord. But Tiep points out that should make them eager to meet their god, and Sheemzher adds that goblins don’t eat people (though he wrinkles his nose at Tiep and notes “people get sick” eating that one).
The chapter ends with Dru accepting the plan. He’ll enchant Rozt’a’s gloves to protect whoever grabs the scroll. They’ll use goblins as a sentience shield. And they’ll march back into Dekanter one more time.
“Make sure your magic works,” Rozt’a tells him. “That’s all I ask.”
This chapter could have been just plot mechanics. Figure out the monster, make a plan, move forward. But Abbey strips every character down to their core instead. Dru’s pride and guilt. Tiep’s hidden loyalty. Rozt’a’s practical courage. Even Sheemzher’s impossible position, bound by magic that nearly kills him when someone asks the wrong question.
They’re not heroes. They’re a mess. And that’s why I keep reading.