by Ed Greenwood
Thickly, around the blood, El managed to shape the trembling words, “My usefulness lessens … the more ye … ruin my body.”
Nergal threw back his head and guffawed, even as tentacles lengthened into deft darts of slimy flesh and surged forward.
El clenched his teeth and shook his head in a vain effort to keep them at bay. The archdevil merely thrust them in through El’s nostrils instead, down and in. There was a clawing, a horrible wrenching—and more blood. The archdevil tossed aside the bloody gobbet that had been Elminster’s tongue, dealt El a slap that spun his head around, and stanched the welling, choking blood in his mouth at the same time.
“Ruin it? Why, what need have you for a tongue when we can converse in your mind? I can gouge out your eyes and tear out your every organ—even dine on your liver, say, with sauce and salt—and then restore you with my magic. You think small, man! This is Hell, and here archdevils can do anything!”
El struggled—successfully—to raise a disbelieving eyebrow.
The eyes looking into his blazed up in fury, and tentacles rose in a menacing array. Rose, surged forward, and sank back again.
Nergal gave his captive a nod of rueful agreement and a wintry smile. “Well, then, let us say ‘anything another archdevil does not manage to prevent,’ hmm?” The tentacles set Elminster down against a rock as sharp as jagged glass. The Old Mage slid a little, wincing despite all his other raging pains, and fetched up in a sitting position.
Nergal paced back and forth, something catlike and yet serpentine in his stalking. “There are a dozen of us outcasts, eight among us with power enough to challenge, say, Mammon, if the battle were between two, alone, without armies to call on. We are not friends, one with the other, and Asmodeus sees that our regard for each other remains fierce. As rivals, we lurk in the caverns and mountain rifts of Avernus, pursuing our individual plots against the ruling devils—and avoiding the patrols, for even stinging insects have the power to weaken and annoy.”
The tentacled archdevil came to a halt close by his slumped captive, looming up dark and tall. Barbs and claws rose out of his flesh like the fins of cruising sharks and ran down his tentacles in a hungry cycle. Teeth that seemed long enough, now, to be called fangs flashed in a less-than-pretty smile.
“Men and devils are not so different that you’ll be unaware of what we outcasts hunger after: power. We are always seeking it, armed with our magic. Devils with minds of their own can grasp and work magic as readily as men breathe. We have one other weapon that the Lords of the Nine can never have: time to spare. With my time and magic, I watch your magic-rich Toril.”
Nergal crossed arms that swam with a glistening array of small, blinking, human-seeming eyeballs, and bent their manifold gazes on Elminster.
“Beings of power interest me, from the puny masters of your thieving guilds to the dragons and lich lords of Faerûn who wield almost a tenth of the spell-might they think they do.” With a grin too wide for human jaws, the archdevil began to pace again. “So I use my spells to spy on Faerûnians of might who may prove useful. I’ve been watching you for a long time, Elminster Aumar. You are the key, I’ve long thought. Not because you’re half so mighty as you think you are, or even a match for a spinagon in a fair battle, but because you are my road to gaining Mystra’s power over magecraft. She works through you very strongly, and what she has, when suitably modified, could thunder just as strongly in Hell … giving me control over all magic, and in some measure those who work it!”
Nergal laughed again. “This tumult over Shade captured my attention at just the right time and has delivered you to me. Now all I need do, to gain the powers of the lady you serve, or at least the ways of calling on and controlling it, is master your mind.”
Tentacles plucked Elminster from the rocks again and held him with casual tenderness. Another tentacle stabbed down, bursting the Old Mage’s left eye like a raw egg. After a momentary chaos of swimming brightness, Elminster could see once more—albeit dimly, through a blood-red haze.
“See? You can’t even die on me,” Nergal purred into Elminster’s face, as tenderly as a lover. “Understanding your wits will deliver to me control of the silver fire, all your other little powers and favorite spells, and your storehouse of memories. That last alone is the key to ruling Toril with magic and making it my own realm. A Hell away from Hell, as it were.”
Fingers as hot as fire irons took hold of Elminster’s cheeks. The archdevil’s forked tongue undulated hungrily forth as he bent his head to kiss the helpless wizard, tentacles tightening suddenly into chains that held Elminster immobile.
Nergal’s lips were like ice—a searing cold that raged through Elminster’s ruined mouth and nose. He tried to murmur, tried to pull away … but could do nothing until the archdevil released him with a gloating smile.
“Taste my mindworm, mage. A magic of my own invention, devised to take your memories, to learn how you call on and control Mystra’s power and what you know of things and beings of power in Faerûn that I can snatch and use myself. Of course, each memory I gain will be lost to wise old Elminster. In the end, there’ll be naught left of you but a lurching, drooling half-wit, remembering only that you were once mighty … once, before you met Nergal.”
The archdevil roared with laughter, and darting tentacles touched Elminster here and there, sending smaller spells through him until the naked, exhausted man could stand once more. In a shuffling stagger that made him gasp in wordless pain, he struggled away. Tentacles whipped his still-raw flesh, goading him into movement.
Leaving a bloody trail, Elminster tried to hasten beyond the reach of those cruel tentacles.
GO, Nergal’s mocking voice said, deep in his mind. THE GLORIES OF AVERNUS AWAIT. I SHALL RIDE WITH YOU, SEEING WHAT WOULD FLEE OR HIDE FROM ME … AND LYING WITHIN YOU, AS A SURPRISE FOR THOSE WHO’D DO YOU ILL. SO WANDER WHERE YOU WILL, MIGHTY WIZARD.
Elminster shuddered. Broken he might be no longer, but pain still racked him from a hundred lesser hurts. He was powerless to use his magic or contact Mystra or anyone else. Everything he did would be revealed to the devil riding his mind. He was doomed, just as soon as Nergal finished reaming his memory … and Toril would be doomed with him. He was free to drag his husk of a body around Avernus, if that could be called freedom. He’d felt enough of Nergal’s questing thoughts already to tell himself the devil who’d violated him delighted in ruining minds.
So he stumbled away, uncaring, up a bare rock ridge. As he went, the ground trembled under him. A gout of flame spat up into the sky, sending an abishai squalling into frantically flapping flight.
Wincing at sharp stones underfoot, El reached the top of the ridge and looked out across a wasteland of rock. There, spinagons and abishai slunk and snarled at each other. Beyond loomed a high cliff where devils gathered.
A PATROL. THROW YOURSELF DOWN.
Elminster stood unmoving, peering this way and that. Now was a good time to test Nergal’s control over him.
Without warning, his body surged sickeningly, as if an eel or snake were moving inside him. He crashed down hard onto unyielding stone, bouncing once with the force of his fall.
OBEY, GREAT WIZARD BE AWARE THAT THERE ARE MORE PAINFUL WAYS OF TAMING YOU.
El shuddered. In his fall, he’d driven his hand into a tangle of thorns. As he struggled to pluck them out, weeping at the pain, he wondered how anything survived in this bleak realm of rock. What did devils eat? Each other, perhaps, but how did they ever birth enough to feed these hosts of …
THE WHORLSPELLS SUSTAIN US.
The what?
HELL’S LITTLE SECRETS. WANDERING, CAST BY NO ONE. THEY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN—LITTLE WHIRLPOOLS OF SNATCHING MAGIC THAT STEAL WATER, CREATURES, AND THINGS FROM OTHER PLANES, SPILLING THEM DOWN RIFTS IN THE ROCK? FOOD COMES TO US FROM THE WHORLSPELLS, AND TREASURE.
Elminster sighed, shook his head, and tried to get to his feet. He made it as far as his hands and knees before he felt the crawling sensation again. He p
itched forward onto his face, scrabbling at the rocks with bleeding fingers.
STAY DOWN AND GO THIS WAY.
So much for wandering. El sighed—it came out as a hoarse gurgle—and started to crawl. A ball of fire roared across the sky, and the ground shook again.
He was standing on the wind-scoured battlements of a castle that no longer existed, watching something in the snow-covered garden below stir and suddenly rise, throwing off a thick cloak of ice, and reaching out a scaly claw—
Into a dark, dim hall where skeletons sat slumped in tall, arch-backed chairs, wan glows flickering about their bone fingers as the enchantments in the rings they wore finally died, letting loose spells that had been cast before Alaundo had been born …
The probing force in his mind faltered, and he was back in Avernus again. An angry mental roar echoed through him: BY THE SEARING FIRES! YOUR MIND IS … UTTER CHAOS.
El found himself grinning fiercely, and tried to send a firm, clear thought back at the wandering sentience within him.
Of course. I am a wizard.
A wordless slap came back at him out of the darkness of his own mind. It sent Elminster tumbling in a wet flow of what might have been tears or blood. He found himself screaming, or trying to, and shaking a head he did not have.…
Desperately, in the innermost cloak of comfort he’d fled into, he turned over a rock close to his heart and warmed his hand, just for a moment, on the silver fire lurking beneath.
Then, calm once more, he rose within the velvet darkness of his mind and went on, parting veils until he saw the blood-red sky of Avernus once more. Near the distant horizon streaked another ball of flame.
WHAT DID YOU—? THE FIRE—YOU USED MYSTRA’S FIRE! GIVE IT TO ME!
Crawling, Elminster kept silent, trying to get over the ridge before the awful compulsion to turn and look back at Nergal’s glaring face overwhelmed him.
The outcast devil stood with arms folded and eyes like flames. His tentacles rose above him, trembling to strike. YIELD TO ME, MAN! The voice roared in his mind. SHOW ME HOW YOU CALL ON THE SILVER FIRE!
El crawled on, blind to Avernus once again as he struggled to think of all-cloaking darkness, of nights spent stumbling along dark forest trails, of moments lost wandering in wet, dripping tombs.…
There was brightness behind him, and shrieking cacophony. Nergal was coming, clawing through El’s memories, tearing aside one after another until he unearthed what he sought in the dark, labyrinthine caverns of a wizard cursed to forget all too little.
Banners aflame, in a battle under bright sunlight long ago …
Elminster snatching aside rocks, turning them over to reveal fire beneath—the fire of smoking dragon’s blood, spilled moments before in a spell duel that—
NO! NOT THAT REMEMBRANCE! THE SILVER FIRE, YOU PULING WORM!
Silver fire. Spilling through his fingers, amid tears, on another battlefield with a dying elf woman in his arms. Her head fallen back and her magnificent throat working, as silver fire spilled forth from her like glowing smoke, drifting down, running from her fingertips to blaze and gutter in the grass around them both …
YES! MORE! SHOW ME SILVER FIRE IN USE!
Silver fire, raging, roaring up hungrily …
YES! SHOW ME MORE! SHOW ME!
Silver flames whirling past a hundred disbelieving faces, screaming skulls as eyes melted and sizzled away and flames consumed all … hands reaching vainly for aid amid the roaring fire … slender, long-nailed, graceful fingers closing on nothing …
A SLAYING? USING MYSTRA’S FIRE? SHOW ME!
Though I hate to lose anything of my beloved, I can live without her remembrance of Orlugrym, aye.…
SHOW ME, WIZARD! SHOW ME!
Whirling, snarling helices of silver flame around a thousand turrets and tumbling dragons and one grim and regal female face …
[mental chaos clearing]
She passed in a swirl of skirts.
The Red Wizard smiled. Like an eager shadow, he stepped out from behind the pillar. The Simbul might be half a world away, but this apprentice of hers would do. Oh, yes.…
Again he felt that soft sighing in his mind. A fluttering, almost a caress—not like any probe or mind-smiting spell he’d ever felt. No, this was altogether something else. Something that felt … satisfied. It was withdrawing, now, fading away.
A probe, sent by this lone, hurrying lass in the dark gown? Surely not.
She’d never paused or shown sign of wariness … or any awareness of what was around her. She strode away from him along the narrow passage, brow furrowed in thought, hugging herself as she hastened. Doubtless on some self-important mission.
Not one to match his. Steal something from the private quarters of the Witch-Queen of Aglarond. Well, why not the gown right off an apprentice’s body?
Orlugrym smiled a velvety smile. She was pretty, this one. He could have some fun first.
He held up one hand and murmured a different spell than the one he’d been planning to use. Ahead of him, the apprentice stiffened and froze, the skirts of her gown whispering to a halt.
“Turn,” he told her softly as he stepped forward, “and offer yourself to me.”
Emerald-green eyes held amazement and fear as they met his. He tensed for a scream or a snapped spell, but she regarded him mutely for a moment, her eyes very large, before swallowing visibly and gliding forward. She lifted her face to him as she came, and her trembling fingers went to the laces of her bodice.
“Y-yes,” she whispered, as they came together. “Yesss.”
Orlugrym’s smile tightened as she swayed back at her hips and pulled away the dark cloth, thrusting her bared breasts at him. His eyes fell to her soft skin—only to find it ablaze with shimmering silver. Silver that was suddenly blinding.
He staggered back, and found himself looking into a face that was melting and flowing, into … wild hair writhing like a basket of snakes … blazing eyes he knew—all Red Wizards knew.
“Why, Orlugrym, so inconstant?” the Simbul asked gently, not a trace of mockery in her voice. “You were so sure of your intent a moment ago, your mind empty of all schemes beyond this bold foray. Be bold, then: Embrace me. Something few of your ilk can boast of doing. Come.”
Orlugrym trembled as he stared full into the face of his doom. Slender arms spread to encircle his own. Deadly lips parted as they moved to meet his, murmuring, “All you need do in life, Orlugrym, if you’d cling to it, is hold onto yourself—if, that is, you know who you are.”
Their breasts brushed together—and his world became roaring, rushing flames of searing silver, flowing up and over all. Orlugrym’s last memory was of her lips, floating disembodied amid the silver fire, and advancing to meet his, parted and eager.…
El sighed. It had been Alassra’s memory, shared with him, and never his own—but to lose it and know it was gone still hurt. It fled from his mind, now, leaving him no longer knowing just what it had been. He’d felt such dazed emptiness before, long ago, and where was that recollection?
Ah, here. Archdevil, enjoy the show.
Silver flames and drifting darkness, like cloaks tumbled by lazy waves from which the sun had fled …
WHAT?
Elminster could feel the amazement in Nergal’s voice … no, bafflement.
Bafflement. Aye, give him bafflement, over matters of magic and silver fire and Mystra herself … Mystra, now: three snippets of divine memory that had leaked into his own mind in a moment of shared passion. Memories of Khelben and of silver fire.
Roaring, ravening silver …
YES SILVER FIRE! THE MYSTERIES OF THE SILVER FIRE! YIELD TO ME, ELMINSTER AUMAR! REVEAL ALL!
Darkness drifted away like the great black billowing robes of the Lord Mage of Waterdeep, windblown in his wake. He soared like an ungainly carrion crow over the spires, turrets, and rooftops of that proud city. His salt-and-pepper beard curled in the wind of his journeying. His dark eyes were as hard as dagger points as he searche
d for another flash of the magic misused below.…
Shrugging, he plummeted like a vengeful arrow at a familiar turret below: Blackstaff Tower. There Laeral waited, her eyes holding that sparkle that was for him alone.…
Come another night, years later …
Khelben and Laeral lay abed in Waterdeep, talking quietly in each other’s arms of the day’s deeds and plans to come. They looked up at summer stars overhead. The Lord Mage of Waterdeep had few conceits; one was the domed ceiling of their bedchamber. It twinkled with a thousand stars, mirroring the clear night sky overhead even when fog, snow, or cloud hid the real sky from view.
They both were restless tonight. Itches and tinglings sprang up in their bodies and shifted about, roiling inside them. Khelben frowned after a particularly violent surge of discomfort. They snarled in irritation, scratching furiously.
“Much power is moving this night,” he said, staring about in the darkness. “Mystra’s power—or Art that affects her, at least. What d’ye make of it?”
“Something is happening to our Lady, I am sure,” Laeral said. “Look at us.” She caught his hand and held it up between them. In the darkness, both bare arms glowed with a ghostly blue radiance. As they watched, it seemed to pulse, grow brighter, fade again, and then grow. The stirrings within them matched its changes.
“Should we try to speak to the Lady?”
Khelben was rarely indecisive, but he was puzzled and unsure now. His lady shook her head, long hair stirring and curling about her shoulders of its own accord, moved by the awakening Art within her.
“No,” she said, “we might disturb her will at a dangerous time. She’ll touch us, should she need us.”
She pursed her lips and set her head on one side, thoughtful eyes on his. “But what if we reached to my sisters or to Elminster?”
Khelben shrugged. “Perhaps a good thing. Yet no doubt they feel what we do and know little more. Perhaps dangerous, if we are linked when the Lady calls on our power, or shifts power into us. I know not what to do … I have never felt this much—tumult—of Art before.”