by Ed Greenwood
The eyes of the queen of Aglarond narrowed. Her magic was dwindling fast, and there were too many foes here to fight. It was time to use the Blood Ring.
She shuddered, her eyes locked pleadingly on the gloating gaze of the pit fiend that descended to her. It lazily shook out the links of a barbed chain crusted in old blood. The Simbul's will bore down on distant creatures… and her magic took them.
There was suddenly something in the air in front of the pit fiend. Something spherical and floating that sported a wide, smiling, many-toothed maw, a central eye that was wide with rage and fear, and.above this, like a wriggling crown, a writhing forest of eyestalks.The pit fiend stared in amazement, then sneered at what had to be a desperate illusion. No beholders roam free for long in Hell. Many eyes trained their gazes on the winged fiend.
"Very clever, human!" it jeered-just before the eye tyrant's magics reached it.The pit fiend struggled in midair ' j for a moment, caught in those gazes. It stiffened, turning dark… and began the slow, stony fall to a shattered death ' J on the rocks below.
It had been only one of many foes. Lemures tumbled and slithered down into the dell. Hamatula stalked to the gaps in the flames. Fiends filled the air.
Other creatures suddenly appeared beside the kneeling sorceress. Two human mages looked around in astonishment and mounting terror and snatched wands from their belts. Neither seemed to see each other or the Simbul, only | devils, devils everywhere.
In their midst, the sorceress closed her eyes and bade the beholder strike at the other two pit fiends before she bent all her will to calling one other creatures. Yes: the dragon…
It had taken decades of daring and careful acting and pain to craft the Blood Ring. Every creature linked to it had to have some of her blood within it, lingering in some cyst ;| or scar tissue or body fat, thrust there by the Simbul during bloody battle. If she survived this foray into Hell, it might take her centuries to rebuild the ring. Of course, that was a large "if" just now….
Erinyes swooped down thickly. Ravaedrin of the Zhen- | tarim whimpered aloud at the sight. Desperately he shouted a spell that made one of the columns of flame into a geyser of acid. It sprayed in a great plume, dying in a single burst that hissed deafeningly down onto screaming devils.
On the other side of the Simbul, Kaladras Yarlamm of the Red Wizards saw the effects, though not who'd caused them. He abandoned the lightning that he was lashing a fiend with, to do the same to the flames nearest him. Some of the hamatula were only a few strides away, and he'd have to-
Die, screaming, as pit fiend magic sent him staggering into the reach of a barbed devil. It casually tore out his throat and face with one sweep of its talons.
A moment later, a pit fiend burst apart overhead under the magic of the beholder whose eyestalks it was savaging. It vanished too in a swirling cloud of gore and stabbing daggers and shrill shrieks.
The last pit fiend, still writhing from the lightning the Red Wizard had fed it, wheeled in the air and fixed its baleful gaze on the woman kneeling at the heart of the battle. She was the cause of all this tumult in Hell. She was the one they'd been commanded to bring back in chains-or as bloody, dripping fragments. The pit fiend Garauder favored the latter. He sent himself into a dive that would end at her throat.
He never saw the dragon that appeared in the air behind him. It spread jaws and clamped down, sharp fangs shearing away all of Garauder's hates and schemes in blood-drenched oblivion.
Gasping wearily, the Simbul rode the dragon with her will. She bade it smash through the erinyes thrice, then land and roll crushingly over the wounded, shrieking survivors. A hamatula staggered sightlessly past. Lemures squelched and died under the rolling dragon.
The Witch-Queen of Aglarond took stock of her tattered remnants of magic. She was too weak to fight on and survive.
Mystra defend thee, El.
There was no reply to her thought but a pain-laced, feeble flickering-flashing out, just for a moment, from behind a dark, fell awareness. She knew that mind-touch.
Despite herself, tears rose and broke over Alassra Silver-hand's iron will.
"Elminster!" she shouted through tears of pain and rage. "Hold on, love! I'll be back!"
The spell that would spin her back out of Avernus took hold. Mystra's strength cleft a road where the spells of mere mages could not.
With her last magic, the Simbul snatched the dragon and the surviving wizard back out of Hell. She returned them whence she'd brought them.They did not deserve to die here, trapped and in torment. They did not deserve Elminster's fate.
Hah! So much for her loyalty-and your hope! Your little bitch-queen's gone, fled away back to the lands of bright day, leaving her little elminster here in torment.
You're going to break, mage.
You're going to show me everything you know and remember, and beg me for the release of death. You're going to plead for my mercy, plead in vain, knowing always that negal is your doom!
[wild, diabolic laughter]
In the meantime, human, show me some magic-something worthwhile-or i'll eat a limb or two off you right now, keeping you aware and in full pain throughout! Show me!
Aye, but this will be a long showing.Ye must be patient and see all, so as to understand whatye're seeing….
Yes, yes. I understand all too well that again and again you've tricked and cheated me, promising great revelations of where magic is hidden and how to cast this or unleash that… Only to show me all sorts of romance and moral preaching and other useless dross. Give me magic, and live- cheat me again, and die. Simple enough?
Indeed. Let us begin, then, when night comes to Tamaeril.
Whenever. Just choose the right road for once, mage: your most recent meaningful meeting with Mystra, remember. It's your last chance.
[images spiraling, flashing up to spread glory before the mind's eye]
The little pattern of twinkling lights shifted to hang beside his right cheek. "I confess you make me more than a little uncomfortable, Elminster," Mystra said.
"I can tell," the Old Mage said, not slowing in his magical flight. "Please, Lady, set aside all hesitancy. Have no worry for my emotions-speak freely. Ye cannot offend me."
The rushing lights drifted a little nearer and seemed to sigh. "Well, then. You are the lover of she who held this name and power before me. She intended you to be my guide and teacher, and you have been. Admirably. The proud, willful, and empty-headed Midnight is no more."
The lights were all around his head now, brushing his skin with what felt like dozens of soft, swift caresses. 'Yet-you trouble me, awe me… frighten me. Repel me, a little. I've little desire to shape a body and join with you, as she often did. I've done it, yes, but behind the thrill is the feeling of her watching me and judging. Your watching me and judging. Elminster, old and wise in her service and with her memories.
"The old ways awaken a restlessness in me. The Weave stirs, and other magic crawls around and within Toril. I am not the old Mystra. I am… humbled by what you have done for me and for she who came before me-and when you seem in danger, she awakes within me, and I desire you and rush to protect you and hold you more precious than all others. I want you always to be my trusted servant-more than that, my friend. Yet I can see how twisted you've become in the service of Mystra, down the centuries. Trust in you comes hard to me. It would be easier, I think, if I stripped away all of the great secrets you hold, all the memories of my power. No one else could learn them from you in time to come, and I'd not feel you were judging me disapprovingly. I–I must do this."
There was silence for a moment, but for the wind whistling past. She spoke again, as anxious as a mother who knows her words wound a favored child. "How does hearing this make you feel?"
Elminster stared into the night sky ahead of him and said, "A little sad. Relieved more than that. Not angry, nor unwilling. I swore to serve Mystra long, long ago when I could have become king in Athalantar. I am nothing if I break my oath. I have had centuri
es more to taste and smell and see and do than most humans, and regret none of it. If your need or even whim snuffs out my existence in a moment, or changes me to a stone to spend the centuries to come, I am content. If taking memories gladdens you, it pleases me to yield them. I will do whatever you desire, eagerly, and with love."
He smiled. "So do your best to me, Lady. You always have."
He'd never heard a swarm of enchanted motes of light weep before, but then, most wizards never do.
Chapter Twenty
PRAYERS AND PLOTS
Ncrgal the Mighty was not happy. He restlessly prowled the shadows under his favorite overhang, wondering what fancy-dance his human mind-slave was leading him on this time. The goddess told him she would pillage his mind of everything useful to greedy archdevils? What good was that?
But then, what good were wrinkled old noblewomen being stabbed in the human city of Waterdeep? How much useful magic had he gained?
A good distance across Avernus, he'd spell-snatched the wizard away from that cavern. He didn't want an army to find him-or even Malachlabra, who'd escaped by the very graze of a horn.
Elminster was free again, to stumble where he willed- which seemed, right now, to be down some steep, rocky hillside. He seemed to be healing himself again, and Nergal was keeping a sharp watch over him. For all his pretended weakness and helplessness, the human was calling on his silver fire in some way Nergal couldn't catch him at.
Two abishai sprang up from a rift, snatched a passing spinagon out of his flapping flight, and tore him apart. With a yawn, the outcast turned away to stride along the overhang one more time.
The maddening little mage was leading Nergal on another lengthy mind chase. Useful magic, my left smoking buttock! This time, however, he'd follow the trail of memories to the end as doggedly as any Hell hound, surprising the Old Mage and perhaps, just perhaps, breaking the human's mind at last. He might as well; his attempts to search the wizard's mind without Elminster as a guide had failed utterly. Humans had minds like cesspits.
Stars twinkled softly and endlessly on the ceiling above her his creations, of course. Another spell she'd meant to ask him about, and never remembered to. Another magic and secret that'd be lost forever with him if he perished.
Lying alone on the round bed in the topmost room of Elminster's Tower in Shadowdale, the Simbul stared unhappily up at the stars so close above her until they melted and glimmered in a fresh flood of tears.
"Mystra," she whispered into the darkness, "preserve him! Oh, goddess, if you love me-!"
Somehow she'd moved from the table to her knees on the hard floor beside it, worn fur rugs thrust out of the way against the wall. Two old, thick candle stubs stood here, stuck to the floor by their own melted, puddled wax… evidence of a long-ago prayer to Mystra. Elminster must have knelt naked between them just as she was doing now to make his plea to the goddess.
Sobbing, Alassra Silverhand made fresh use of the candles. She lit them by the smallest of cantrips and by the fire of her will. As their flames rose up, she held herself so that her tears dripped into each flame, and then said fiercely,
"Mother Mystra, Lady over and of all who work magic, hear my prayer, I beg of you. I will do anything you command- anything.yielding my life, my magic, my realm, my health or looks or wits, anything, if you'll give me magic enough now to rescue my Elminster. Oh, Mystra, hear me!"
Suddenly, without a sound or a trace of smoke, the candles both went out. The fine hair all over the Simbul's body stood on end as sudden power awakened within her and flowed through her.The only light in the darkness was a flickering blue flame-coming from her own mouth. Her breath was afire.
Warrior of the Seven, the voice of Mystra said out of the darkness all around her, I am here, and heed your cry. Hearken to what we both must do…
***
Something moved ahead, among rocks and stunted trees. Their boughs had been broken off repeatedly by passing devils for moments of sport, and they bristled with thorns.
Elminster was whole again, though he took care to shuffle along slowly, hunched over, and slump into motionless-ness whenever a devil flew past. He was somewhere on Avernus, he knew not where-but it was far from any of the gates out of Hell he knew of. Almost all of them were in large, closely guarded fortresses. Of the two out in the desolation of Avernus, one was behind a bloodfall-a waterfall of blood, somewhere in Artkan's Rift-and the other was atop Tabira's Spire, where of old an erinyes had been impaled for disobedience and died pleading for mercy. Her bones still clung to the shunned rock, and the gate out worked only for someone touching one of them and saying the right words.
At least he remembered those. Now all he had to do, naked and bereft of spells, was find the bloodfall or the spire, elude whatever guardians or malicious wandering devils saw him, and-
Something moved again in the rocks ahead. It might have been a woman-if human women had been twelve feet tall, ruby-skinned, and had horses' heads instead of breasts. Those strange-looking appendages snapped their teeth at him as their owner stepped out to block his way. Her shapely legs ended in cloven hooves, a slender barbed tail curling in her wake. Her bat wings folded into a huge single sail of flesh rising high above her head. That head looked human except for the delicate fangs and pupilless eyes like two white flames.
Her voice was low and husky as she raised her arms in warning-arms that sported rows of cruel barbs-and asked sharply, "Who-no, what are you?"
"What I appear to be," El answered her. "A human."
An eyebrow lifted, and a slender, barbed tongue licked those dainty fangs eloquently.
"No," the Old Mage told her, gathering silver fire within him in case he'd need it very soon and very swiftly, "ye don't want to do that. I am-I belong to Nergal, and any attack on me will draw him to this place.That's not worth a few mouthfuls of raw, tasteless human."
His captor's name had evoked a hiss.The she-devil drew back between the rocks once more.
El went on down the hillside and was two steps past the rocks when the outcast devil's voice came again."You have no magic?"
Elminster turned around slowly, and spread his empty j arms. "No. Do I look as if I do?"
"I am so hungry," the voice came back plaintively. "Nergal will just have to get over your loss."
And the devil sprang.
El sat down abruptly, feet together, then sprang off to one I side in a frog-like hop.The pouncing devil crashed onto the rocks beyond and skidded to a spitting, snarling halt.
The hillside was steep and bare.The only cover was the cluster of rocks and thorn-trees where the devil had been. Grimly El leaped and trotted toward it. Wings clapped behind him, and he sprang to one side again, dodging around a sparlike boulder.
The she-devil hissed close by his ear as she passed by again, missing with her reaching hands. "Stay still, human, and I'll make your death less painful!"
"Now that's an enticing offer," Elminster replied mockingly, spinning away from another grab. "Almost had me with that one!"
Snarling, the she-devil bounded into the air and glided after him.
He ducked into the devil's lair-a dark cleft between the rocks where the floor was littered with old, gnawed bones. Tumbled rocks formed a roof of sorts. Once he was inside, and she followed, there'd doubtless be no way out that her body wasn't blocking.
On he went, into stinking darkness.
With a little laugh of triumph the outcast devil folded her wings and fbllowed."Now you're mine," she breathed.
El had backed as far in as the narrowing rocks would let him.The only light came from the white flames of her eyes. The horse heads of her bosom snapped at him as she advanced, arms spread wide to prevent his escape.
"To raise a very original question," El said calmly, "Who and what are ye?"
"Marane is my name," she said, drawing closer. "Marane the Hungry!"
Elminster tensed, bending low. He had to unleash silver fire fleetingly when a spell-scrying Nergal wouldn't be able
to get a good look at what he was doing, so their bodies had to be pressed almost together. Somehow he had to avoid those fangs above, and those snapping jaws lower down. A stone rolled under his foot, and he stumbled and almost fell.
Marane hissed again, but no jaws closed on him.
El looked up-and saw faint glows above and behind him. They illuminated the body of the outcast devil, as she arched over him to reach the stone and set it back in place.
"What're those lights?" he asked, feigning wonder, as he ducked low and turned so his shoulder brushed against a shapely devil leg.
"Things of magic," she snapped, "seized from other prey down the years. A pity you carry nothing to add to it.But enough!"
Marane turned then, extending a long-nailed hand like a claw right at his eyes-
El thrust his hand up along her leg and gave her silver fire.
"Quite so," he agreed coolly, as her entire body con-vulsed and sprang upward, smashing her head on the;J rocks overhead.
Smoke curled out of Marane's mouth. She tumbled limply to the floor, and her eyes went dull. Something moved in Elminster's mind, and he kept the image of Marane's reaching talons vivid in his thoughts.Trying not to think or look at what he was doing, he clawed blindly. at the stone until he felt it roll. He thrust his hand in amid the cold glows beyond.
Something among them felt like a wand. He snatched it, let its fading enchantment tell him its triggering word and nature-a lightning-wand, thank Mystra andTymora both-thrust it into Marane's gaping mouth, gathered silver fire to keep himself alive if need be, and activated it.
Blue-white fire howled around the tiny lair. Diabolic limbs flailed bruisingly as the reek of cooked devil-flesh rose strongly to take hold of his throat. Marane slumped and began to shrivel.
Ho, no! magic! must have it!
Nergal's mind bellow was almost deafening. El smiled grimly and raked through the magic with both hands, letting the chaos of command words and purposes and powers wash over him as he sought something-anything-useful.