Druhallen translated the first line of the first column: Things are not as they seem. Seeming is illusion. Illusion is change. Things change.

He was disappointed: the wisdom of millennia reduced to a schoolboy's truism. Then it came to him that all magic was illusion and, more than that, a reagent was the illusion of magic: a thing that was not what it seemed to be. A spell was the destruction of illusion. A spell was the ultimate revelation of truth.

A spell was naked truth!

Dru sat up straight, stunned by the insight sweeping through his mind, changing the way he thought about magic. The sky was black, the stars were brilliant jewels; midnight had come and gone since he'd translated the first line. There were a thousand lines or more floating on the gold. He did the math then started on the second line. The words were there, but the magic—the truth within illusion—was not.

Some things did not change. Reading the Nether scroll was like studying spells. He could read or study at any time, but true learning happened only once each day. Disappointment singed Dru's spirit. In a few days time he would—he definitely would—trade the scroll for Galimer. Before then, he'd read another line, perhaps two more, not more than four. A far cry from a thousand.

Dru picked up the shirt and held it close. Things are not as they seem ... The words, not the magic. Would the magic be there tomorrow? He folded Tiep's shirt carefully, separately from the scroll which rolled up tighter than his little finger. Then, because for a wizard thwarted curiosity hurt worse than any wound, Dru opened his folding box to the compartment where he kept powdered sulfur.

Light was a fast kindling spell that consumed its red or yellow reagent when he committed it to memory. Usually he balanced a bit of powder on a fingernail that had been black since he left Sunderath. Tonight he left the powder in the compartment and, rather than read the writ from the wooden panel, Dru closed his eyes and remembered it while holding a harmonic thought—the reagent is the illusion, the truth is light.

The power was in his mind. After decades of practice, Druhallen knew when he'd learned a spell after midnight. He remembered his simplest flame spell which had always required an ember before it would kindle. Like pure light, flames appeared in Dru's mind. It felt different, as if the ember were there also. He had to know ...

A flaming streak shot from Druhallen's hand. It brought Rozt'a at a run.

Dru was exhilarated. He'd cast a spell by will alone, without literal study, reagents, or a kindling gesture. Reading—learning—a single line from the Nether scroll had ushered him across the threshold that separated good wizards from great ones.

Rozt'a was in a panic, fearing that the mind flayers, dead and alive, had returned to finish their feast. She had harsh words for a wizard who'd terrified her out of curiosity. Dru endured the tongue lashing, which did not dent his enthusiasm.

"One look at the Nether scroll and I've learned what a spell is. I've been collecting spells as if every one were different. That's illusion; Rozt'a, spells are all the same. They're all a path through illusion to truth. One look, and I've seen the fundamental truth of magic."

She narrowed her eyes. "All spells are the same? That's the fundamental truth of magic?"

"You'd have to see it from your mind. And if you could read the Netherese script, you would. This scroll—" He held it up "—could turn even you into a wizard."

The prospect did not delight her. She snatched the scroll from his hand. "One look you say, and you're casting spells from your mind. If you're not stark, raving mad then forget your glass disk. This is the thing that could unhinge Faerun. You say there are a hundred of them?" Rozt'a swore by Helm and Ilmater, her god of last resort.

She had a point. "Even though there were only fifty, legend says Netheril was founded on two identical sets of golden scrolls. Both were lost before the Empire fell."

"And good riddance. Magic shouldn't be easy."

Another point. Dru purged his wild enthusiasm with a sigh. "We're exchanging it for Galimer."

"Solving our problem and giving the world a bigger one."

"I doubt it. I don't think there's anything in that scroll that the bug lady doesn't already know."

Rozt'a glowered at the scroll before handing it back. "I'm glad for you, Druhallen, if you've seen the truth of magic, and I pray to all the gods that you're right, because we are exchanging it for Galimer."

"No question," Dru agreed. His excitement rekindled the instant his fingers touched the warm, shining gold. He was a boy again, freshly apprenticed to Ansoain and she couldn't teach him fast enough. "Sit with me a moment. I want to try something."

"Druhallen ..." her voice was ominous, distrusting.

"I'm not going to open the scroll. I'm not going to touch it. Here, you can hold it."

She took it reluctantly. "Druhallen, what's going on in your mind?"

"I came—We came all this way to cast a single spell, and I didn't cast it. I never found the time, never found the place, and when it came time to leave, it never even crossed my mind. I still have all the reagents—the dragon's blood, the mummy's bone, the perfect pearl. They're going to waste—"

Rozt'a opened her mouth, then shut it.

"Rozt'a, I want to cast the Candlekeep spell on the scroll. I'm going to cast it, but it's the kind of spell that's safer with an anchor, someone to keep an eye on things and stop the magic if it goes awry."

"How will I do that?"

"Just take the scroll away. You'll be holding it. It won't be difficult."

She was skeptical, but eventually agreed. Dru committed the spell to memory, then made the preparations.

"You're sure I can just walk away?"

"It's a passive spell, Rozt'a. Nothing happens here."

Dru sat outside the circle with a clear view of the scroll and spoke the words that Candlekeep's blind scryer had taught him, meaningless words that belonged to no language he could name. Nothing happened at first, and he suspected the ultimate irony: After all this, he'd gotten some minor aspect wrong and the spell would not kindle. Then Druhallen's thoughts let go of time.

Slowly at first, but soon with dizzying speed, Dru's awareness moved against time's flow to the beginning—the very beginning—of light, heat, and majesty. The time stream caught him and carried him on a lightning bolt through the scroll's history. Druhallen had visions of huge sparks and larger explosions, none of which had meaning to him, except that the scroll was old. Its history was older than humanity, older than Faerun and when the lightning bolt carried him through those moments, it was moving too fast for him to collect any impressions of Netheril, Dekanter, or his own past. It was traveling too fast to stop and carried him into the future, where no mortal mind should travel but where the scroll had place and presence.

He'd perceived a return to pure light, pure heat, and majesty when it ended and he was sitting in the grass beside an abandoned trail, staring at an empty circle in the dirt. "You were getting weird," Rozt'a said from behind his back. "Your eyes were starting to glow. I figured it was time to stop. Are you yourself?"

Dru turned around. "Of course I—"

Rozt'a had her sword drawn, ready to lop off his head. "You're absolutely sure?"

"It was a scrying spell, Roz. Like reading a book or looking at a picture—except I couldn't understand the words and the pictures didn't make much sense either."

She lowered the sword and laughed at him.

Each of the next two sunrises Druhallen unrolled the Nether scroll and read another line. His second and third readings were not as insightful as the first had been, but they expanded his horizons and gave him peace—the only peace he got those days. Tiep had awakened shortly after Dru had cast his Candlekeep spell. The youth had sucked in his gut and told Rozt'a the truth before breakfast.