by Ed Greenwood
***
I hear, devil. By Atystra, how I hear.
Call. Not to her, eiminster! I know your game, now. You must have speels ready and seek to awaken them by recalling their triggers. Try all you like-you'll fall, believe me-but remember this: my patience is not endless.
[mental lash; pain]
Yes, recall away, little man!
Longer, my memories must be longer-but each I call on is spent forever….
Aye, yielded to me and lost to you forever! Not so mighty are we now, hey?
[echoing storms of diabolic laughter]
Aye, I've known better days-and nights. Much better nights.
Chapter Four
TO LOVE A GODDESS
The stench was unbelievable. Bones and blood-blood welling up from the ground and flowing In rivulets over the sharp rocks, as foul gases drifted over everything. A figure moved amid the tattered vapors: a lone, naked human crawling painfully down a hillside, like a shattered crab, headed he knew not where.
Elminster's fingers were bleeding stumps, torn by dozens of razor-sharp rocks, but the mental lashings kept him crawling, aimless and trembling. Stingfly after stingfly landed on his trembling flesh and drank deeply of his blood before leaving its eggs under the wizard's skin. With but one arm to lean on, the Old Mage had no way to dislodge them. Not that he could do more than groan and fling himself over on his back. He crushed one buzzing, squalling stingfly that way, but the others all sprang clear- to pounce on El's belly instead, ere he could right himself.
Ahead, the land fell away in a field of tortured rock to a gorge out of which rose darkly boiling plumes of smoke. Maggots as long as three men and as sinuous as snakes fell from some of those drifting clouds, to flop and slither across the rocks. Most seemed able to smell where the blood was strongest and glided thence, to a place where pale, amorphous bulks moved. Lemures, glistening palely, fed from a small pit of maggots-oblivious to the fact that other maggots burrowed into their own rear extremities.
An inspiring sight-not that Elminster cared much where he went in this land of death and cruelty. Perils loomed or lurked everywhere. Firebursts bloomed over distant mountains. From time to time spinagons and worse rose on flapping wings to cross the air above the gorge and glare hungrily at the struggles below.
Lower to the ground undulated something that looked like a lacework of odd jaws and claws and eyes, joined by ropes of mauve flesh. A hooked spear reached up to tug it brutally down to a waiting devil below. The fray that followed was brief ere the weird flying thing rose into the air again, larger and heavier than before.
It rose, drifted Elminster's way, and veered at him, descending in a swift dive with its many-toothed mouths swiveling to the fore. Lower it rushed, jaws agape, knowing its prey had nowhere to run.
The Old Mage watched it grimly. Would Nergal manifest power through him to defend the body he'd so shattered… or just let him be torn apart and devoured-salvaging only his head?
The many-jawed creature swept down, very close, trailing streams of green saliva. Dozens of black and gold eyes met his, gleaming with hungry anticipation. Well, his answer would not be long in coming…
Back and forth I go, Elminster, over the memories you how up before me like shields and yet find nothing of what I see. Where are the secrets or silver fire? Where are the spells and spellbooks and hidden rings and scepters and all, glowing with power I can use? Well?
The archdevil rummaged again, clawing aside memory' after memory. He shouldered impatiently through the dark, vaulted caverns of Elminster's memories.
An elf queen stands atop a cliff. The tatters of her sword-hewn, blood-drenched gown flap in the evening breeze. As she looks grimly out over a land the sun sets on, her arms cling to the broad, armored shoulders of a grim dwarf. He clutches her and weeps into her stomach. His bloody axe dangles by its war strap from one hairy, weary arm…
Gahh! You've centuries of such dross! What care I for mortals now dust and realms long fallen?
A shining-eyed young sorceress delights in her first great casting. Her face glows as brightly as any lamp. She sweeps the brown-withered, skeletal body of her lich master into an enthusiastic embrace, showering his crumbling lips with kisses…
Always an eye for beauty, eh? Now to me, weakness is beautiful-a chink to he thrust through, a good grip on a we to be used. Yesss…
Grim-faced warriors lean on their axes and broadswords. Flat menace fills their eyes as they watch wizards walk past, Elminster among them. One bladesman stirs too much. A cowled figure whirls to fling up an open hand. A green, glowing sigil bursts into being right in front of the snarling warrior, freezing him in midswing. The mages walk away, and the warriors glower silently…
Here Nergal wandered, and there, rummaging through dusty darkness where small things scuttled and large things slept. The devil growled as he came on. El's lurking awareness stole away before him, ducking here and crouching there in mind shadows, memories like cloaking webs in his wake.
Answer me, human! Do you think you can hide in your own mind?
A world away, fangs bit and claws pounced, raking and clutching. El screamed, or tried to, sagging back as red pain flared in the dark vaults.
Nergal made a sound of irritated impatience, and lines of blue fire raced here and there through the darkness. There were singing sounds and echoes of what might have been snarls or shrieks. The claws and jaws were gone again.
Dimly, El felt himself collapsing onto sharp, uncaring stones.
Answer me, elminster! Heed my call, damn you!
Damned am I, indeed. Cringing here with my memories flowing away from me like water, slipping between my fingers to be gone, gone forever…
Indeed. Weep and wail, wizard! Weep and wail.
[sudden vicelike mental probes, closing like claws]
But first, show me Mystra sharing these memories with you. How came they into your mind? How? Let me see! show me Now!
Dark eyes swim in dreams. Visions flood in, jolting a drowsing Old Mage awake. He sits bolt upright in wonder in his bedchamber, his eyes leaking blue-white fire. The flames reflect in the eyes of the one beside him-smiling Storm in early days, and later the fiery Witch-Queen of Aglarond. Her hair stirs around her slender shoulders like silver blades hungry for a foe, since…
Yes, yes. Women you've had and to spare! let me in, wizard!
Not watching your face after she mind-touches you! Show mb.'
[blinding, blue-white fire]
Aarggh! You dare?
[mind lash red pain black agony dripping purple ruin]
Stop your screaming! Think you're the only self-important mortal i've mind-readed?
[reluctant healing]
There. Stop your gaaies, or taste worse.
No game. Ye wanted to see Mystra's mind-touch, and that's what I showed ye. The fire undying.
She comes only in dreams, and you see the memories she umts only when she's gone? Bah! Deceive me not! She must impart directly or leave you uncontrolled.
Aye, so she does, most of the time. When we speak directly, I gain images of the moment, not memories worth sharing.
Nothing more? Ever?
[glimpse]
Aha!
[confused images, swift racing]
hah! what was that?
[dwindling down, devil-ridden, to one brightness… of Mystra, long, long ago, in the land of Elminster's youth-]
Eyes that swam with stars stared into his. Ehninster fought for breath as lips that were both fire and ice kissed his throat, moved to his shoulder, and bit gently. Silver fire flowed from that wound. It roiled in the blue-white flame that was her hair, and in her hands, and in a regal cloak flowing endlessly from her.
In the air they drifted, a blue-white star high above Athalantar; El caught a glimpse of its flickering lantern fires far below, as they rolled together.
"Your defiant tenderness, El-aahh, I could drink of it forever. Give, Chosen of mine. Give unto Mystra."
&
nbsp; "Gladly," Elminster growled, young and shining-eyed and supple.
As they surged amid the fire, memories that were not his own flooded into his mind. Images whirled, crashed, and raced in a welter of toppling towers and dragons locked in biting battle. Earth trembled. Rock shivered and rose into lofty peaks. Haughty mages brightened the sky with spells…
So, her remembrances leak into you when your minds are joined? She must mean to so shark, or you serve a weak goddess indeed….
[weeping, falling from light into darkness, lost and alone]
Oh, stop that! You may have loved a goddess and lived, but if you defy me yor are going to die! Show me more of the silver fire, flowing into you! Yes! Yesss!
[mental probes lancing forth brutally, transfixing bright memory]
[weeping, shimmering tears, yielding]
Soft summer stars shone above Myth Drannor. El drifted thoughtfully beneath, looking down on magnificent, glowing spires. They were soon to fall, if Starym deceit and o'erreaching pride and dangerous meddling went unchecked. All this beauty to be lost…
As Netheril before it, said the thrilling voice in the depths of his mind. Blue-white fire kindled in the air around him. It is the way of things, most precious Chosen.
"Holy Mystra," Elminster whispered. The fire deepened and darkened to a blue-black scattering of countless tiny stars-her most private self. "I am most glad to see ye. I have been mournful and lonely."
I, too. Those eyes he could fall into, forever, opened in the air before him, dragging him in. Let us comfort each other, bodies and minds.
Silver fire coiled within the floating man, leaping up in quickening excitement to meet the greater flame that had birched it. Stars shaped slender arms and lips, trailing away in dark glory as the flow of images began. Mind met mind. Silver fire rose and rushed back and forth, swifter and swifter. With a gladsome cry like a proud trumpet, Elminster Aumar shouted his own name aloud to cling to himself… Aye, aye, it came…
[fire, white and furious, overwhelming all, soaring up to bright, blinding glory]
Abruptly the fire was gone, and Elminster was wincing on rocks beneath a blood-red sky. A raw, wordless scream shredded the air of Hell behind him.
Lesser devils whirled up into the sky like bats flooding out of a cave at dusk. They winged toward the sound of shrieking agony, eager to see the mighty fallen.
Weak and sick, the one-armed old man rolled himself into a crevice. He pulled the ashen bones of some long-fallen devil over him. Its grotesque horned skull grinned at him with its eternal stare. If fair fortune or the grace of Mystra were with him, he'd now have no Nergal to protect him against the talons of passing baatezu.
Aye, it had come to that-rejoicing at the possibility of lying unprotected and alone in Avernus.
Closing his eyes, Elminster wrapped himself in that wry thought and descended again into the dark vaults of memory, seeking Nergal in his mind. The outcast devil had already shown himself to be a brute, with wits scarce swifter than a cunning sellsword of Faerun. If a mere memory of Mystra's mind-touch caused him such pain, perhaps he was weak enough that a Chosen of Mystra-even a weak and exhausted one-might wrest free of him.
Cautiously El skulked through his mind, seeking the place that was a purple ruin-the part of his mind that was forever gone. The ruin was spreading-
There, amid a blood-red glow, and riven shards of memories, he found Nergal. Hulking shoulders, barbed and mottled gray, tentacles stiff with still-fresh pain, great taloned hands fumbling blindly….
[Pain-fury of the Nine, what pain! So that was what goddesses could do… and deceitful wizards…]
Cautiously, El knelt. He called forth the tiniest amount of silver fire. With one fingertip, he traced a line on the worn and dusty stone. The line smoked as he seared his way across the floor of his memories, yielding yet more remembrances so as to keep well away from his shuddering captor. Around this pillar of things best forgotten, and this one, of regrets, then quickly down this dark way, soft and swift…
What befalls? Mortal, what are you doing?
Now across this chamber, answering not, and down the steps beyond, hurrying, with walls trembling to the left, where the archdevil stirs…
What are you doing?
Answer not, but race now, trailing silver fire in a bright and rending line, down more steps and left here, threading through the pillars and into the arch beyond-blast, but it grows light, red and bright ahead, and he's waiting-Close hand on silver fire, will it down, sink into the stones, become dark and silent, a statue in this hall of statues. Brood, cold and silent. Be stone. Be not there. Be lost and forgotten.
Archdevils tread and slither both. Slow slither and footfall. Heavy, not hurrying. He comes. Footfall. Closer. Be stone. Slowly he comes. Slowly and carefully. Wary now, are we, Most Mighty of Avernus?
Footfall. Scrape of talon on stone.
Elminster, risk. I know you.
Stone silence. Pain will come no matter what, so be stone, and let rage blind him.
[ice-cold probe, slow and sharp and deliberate, thrusting home]
[writhing, twisting agony] yes. deceive me not, little sneaking creature or silver fire. nekgal was proud in hell when athalantak was yet unborn.
[pain pain pain]
[grim satisfaction, Nergal's claim echoing tlirough a shattered mind, mortal mage writhing and drooling, rising up in Avernus like a grinning idiot, shedding bones]
An abishai loomed, claws outstretched, fanged mouth grinning, black wings and certain death-
Red and purple fire blossomed in the fiend's gaping jaws, and its head exploded, spattering Elminster with wet foulness and shaking him to full awareness of Avernus around him. He stood in the crevice he'd sought to hide in. The headless body of the abishai flopped on the stones in front of him, muscles still trying to make it fly. Beyond, a huge dragon flew through the sky, black and terrible. It snapped at fleeing spinagons like a shark racing through a shoal of silverfin. Fire rose from the side of a black crag off to his left-
One less abishai to tear apart my toy. Be grateful, wizard. I've not slain you yet.
I made no attack on ye. When ye seize on my memories, they are what they are; I cannot change them. Ye felt what I did, then.
Impressive. No wonder you stand and defy me.
Elminster was very careful to keep still and silent in the crevice and in his mind.
A joining of minds, and memories shared deliberately. It binds your loyalty anew and imparts ecstasy, until you become addicted to the divine touch and will do anything to feel it again.
Elminster bowed his head. That's one way of seeing it, aye.
[grim grin] can't you simply say i'm right, little man?
Mystra would see it differently, El said with as much mental dignity as he could muster, [image of arms crossed, body drawn up, chin lifted]
She certainly kred defiance into you, or chose you because of it. Which makes you both fools.
[sudden mental probe]
[wince]
[bright image, after image, after image]
So, no such unions with she who is Mystra now.
Shared thought: Which means no trace linkage remains that might let Mystra reach through her Chosen and do harm in Hell.
[relief] So, little man, let's get to that silver fire.
Sharp pain, and then numbness. Elminster reeled in the crevice. A maggot taller than he had reared up and sunk its fangs into his left shoulder. Its glistening body was undulating across his chest as it gnawed its way into him…
Writhing in pain, he tried to claw at it, but Nergal's laughter was all around him now.
Maggot-ridden! Suits you, treacherous mortal! Now, up out of that crevice and craw! yes, that's it!
Staggering, El found himself walking across broken rock again, the weight of the maggot that was now wrapped around him-and questing its way hungrily inside him- forcing him to lurch and falter.
My magic will keep you alive, honored guest. However,
i regret to announce that you will suffer. [gusts of laughter]
adventure, little man, is where you find it. My venture will be on through your mind, more cautiously than before. Yours will be a litter stroll through hell.
Fear not. I'll keep you alive. I want that silver fire.
[pain, pain falling sharply, spreading pain, maggot tearing and thrashing]
Up, little man. There… Magic's a wonderful thing, isn't it? Now, let us seek your own early days, creature of mystra.
And adventure there. Show me an early time when you worked with others, so that i can see mystra's hand at work shaping you.
[friends' faces, castle battlements, a scudding moon, dark alley and drawn sword…]
There. Snow me, Elminster!
[different battlements, different faces, one swimming to the fore: a bearded wizard, fat and frowning, lurching along full of importance…]
Yes, that one will do! Show me!
Hear me, Vangerdahast. For the love of the Lady we both serve, hear me.
Stop mind-muttering, mage! Show me!
[images, whirling up brightly, unfolding…]
"Th-through here, Lord Mage M-most High," the mouselike Keeper of the Vaults quavered.
"Yes, yes, yes," Vangerdahast replied irritably. Strangely enough, having laid his own share of protective enchantments on the Hall of Scrolls and Ledgers, albeit years ago, and being the only court official to often consult its contents, he did have a fair idea of where so vast and central a chamber was. As if he hadn't enough important worries right now, what with-
He stopped and stiffened, his mouth dropping open at what he saw. A moment later, he firmly closed it… far too late to escape the notice of the Keeper. The little man didn't quite dare to let a smirk show on his face but couldn't keep it out of his suddenly triumphant eyes.