by Ed Greenwood
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 birthed 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 longfallen 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 Faerûn. 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, RISE 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 OF SILVER FIRE. NERGAL WAS PROUD IN HELL WHEN ATHALANTAR WAS YET UNBORN.
[pain pain pain]
[grim satisfaction, Nergal’s claim echoing through 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 BRED 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 CRAWL! 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 LITTLE 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! SHOW 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 th
e 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.
“Leave us,” the Royal Magician snapped, “and close the doors behind you.”
He did not bother to look at the hastening courtier, and did not move a muscle until the huge and heavy bronzed double doors boomed closed behind him … and he was alone with the thing.
The thing that should not have been there.
His predecessors, generations of War Wizards under their command, and a rare few visiting mages deserving of such trust had cast spell after crawling and flickering spell on the walls, floors, and ceiling of the hall and the rooms surrounding it. Defensive magics, all, designed to foil each new method of scrying or translocation or other means of access. Growing thus over the centuries, they formed a complicated web that no man alive knew or could unravel without months of work and considerable personal peril.
Vangerdahast himself had overlaid the existing magics with several subtle misdirections designed to foil all but the most exacting users of wish spells. He had also cast far less subtle backlash enchantments that would twist intruding spells—unless preceded by a secret key—into paralysis, feeblemind, and smashing-blow effects against their casters. He would be loath to send even a magic missile at the thing protruding from the floor right now, lest each of its pulses come back at him.
The Royal Magician let out the breath he hadn’t until then noticed he was holding. He took a few cautious steps to one side and peered at the mystery that had appeared in the hall.
A convulsed male human hand—long-fingered, bereft of the rings that had left pale bands of flesh, and with a few dark hairs adorning its back—protruded from the glossy-smooth marble of the vault floor. The forty-foot-square slab weighed many tons. It seemed that the owner of the hand was now entombed in that slab, for the hand did not look severed.
Vangerdahast had a sudden urge to give it a good kick to make sure, but royal magicians of Cormyr don’t grow old and fat by undertaking stupid acts. Wherefore he did nothing more than peer around the hall until he was sure nothing else was out of place or missing He circled the hand, which hadn’t moved in the slightest, and grew no wiser.
The Royal Magician let himself out. He sternly ordered the anxious Keeper and the ring of stone-faced Purple Dragon guards clustered outside to clear this entire wing of the palace, and then take themselves as far away as the Chamber of the Brazen Fool. He stood silently, waiting until the echoes of their obedient movements faded.
Vangerdahast spoke a quiet word. It awakened guardian magics that would reveal any hidden, lurking spy. He received with complete lack of surprise the lore that no such intruder existed within range. Making sure he was standing on a specific floor tile, he touched one of the rings on a hidden chain around his neck and spoke a word he’d hoped never to have to use again.
There was suddenly a taller, black-robed man standing on an adjacent tile, rubbing his beard and looking less than happy. “Yes?” he snapped.
Vangerdahast bowed slightly to his guest. “My apologies, Lord Khelben. Be welcome in the royal palace of Cormyr, in Suzail.”
“Oddly enough, Vangy,” Khelben growled, “I know where the royal palace is. I’ll even accept that apology. The honor of your hospitality overwhelms me. It will do so even more if you unfold the reason for my summoning.” The edge of his mouth curled. “A sufficiently interesting answer may even blunt Laeral’s wrath at my abrupt disappearance. Note that ‘may,’ and speak accordingly.”
Vangerdahast drew in a deep breath as their eyes met. “We stand outside the Hall of Scrolls and Ledgers. You had a hand in casting some still-active defensive spells here. Something has appeared therein; it’s my hope that you can identify it and explain its appearance.”
The Blackstaff raised one dark eyebrow, turned to face the massive double doors, and made a twisting gesture with one hand.
There was an instant of singing silence. Then the doors collapsed into shards and dust with a roar that swelled and shrank away to nothing again. The torrent of falling metal had vanished, swallowed up by thin air just above the floor tiles the two men stood on.
“How—?”
“One of the spells I cast, long ago. No door in this palace can stand against me.”
It was Vangerdahast’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Oh? Why did you do that?”
Khelben shrugged. “We all have our own ways of doing things.” He pointed across the mirror-bright floor of the Hall to the human hand jutting so improbably out of the smooth marble. “This, for example, is Elminster’s work.”
“What?” the Royal Magician snarled. “You’re sure?”
Khelben strolled over to a certain spot on the floor and murmured a word. The air glowed for a moment, he raised his hand into the glow, and when the radiance faded, the Lord Mage of Waterdeep was holding a large, ornate decanter.
“Unmistakable. I’ve seen this spell before. Someone sprang one of his traps—probably cast on a spot where he meets with the Simbul.”
“So, that’s a Red Wizard,” Vangerdahast mused. “Or … was.”
Khelben nodded, sipping from the decanter without bothering with a flagon.
Vangerdahast looked at the decanter rather unhappily. How many more hidden surprises did the hall’s web of spells hold? He asked rather hesitantly, “And to get rid of it?”
Khelben licked his lips and raised the decanter again. “I’m sure you know how to call on him,” he replied. “Even if you don’t want to.”
Vangerdahast winced, as if something painful had struck him. Stepping reluctantly out through the entrance that the doors no longer guarded, he lifted one hand and murmured something.
Khelben watched, not quite smiling.
Abruptly a ring of light glowed on the floor tiles. A moment later, someone stood in its center.
She was tall and slender—some would almost have said bony, for her ribs showed clearly as she spun around. Unruly silver hair writhed about her like a nest of roused snakes. She faced her summoner. Vangerdahast swallowed.
The angry eyes of the Simbul, Witch-Queen of Aglarond, were barely three paces from his. She wore nothing and did not look amused.
“Vangerda—” she began, her voice dangerously low and soft. Blue motes of magical fire gathered above her left palm, and she turned to look into the hall.
Her face changed. She crowed in delight and raced across the floor on silent bare feet to where the hand reached up from the floor.
Bending over to peer at it—both men stared a moment, looked away, cleared their throats, and turned again to regard her—the sorceress clapped her hands and hissed happily, “Adrelgus, yes! Foolish enough to try to slay me!”
She spun around to regard the two wizards, planted her hands on her hips, and bubbled, “This is what El meant by my ‘little present, reaching for me’!”
She clapped her hands, muttered something. The hand was abruptly gone, the marble floor as smooth and unbroken as if it had never been there.
The Simbul gave them a cheery wave, tossed her hair in a defiantly alluring pose, and snapped her fingers—whereupon she vanished too.
Inevitably, the two men stared in unison at where she’d stood, cleared their th
roats, and slowly turned to look at each other.
“If you’re ever captured,” Khelben said in a very dry voice, “try not to let it be by a woman … or at least, not that one.”
Vangerdahast glanced involuntarily back to the floor where the hand had been. It bore no trace at all of ever having held a Red Wizard.
“How many palaces, vaults, and castles across Faerûn, which their owners think are secure,” he asked, looking sick, “can be breached so readily?”
Khelben smiled with only a corner of his mouth. “Oh,” he said quietly, “you’d be surprised.”
NO, NO! [ripple of rage] NOT MAGES YOU TAUGHT OR NOW TAKE TO BED! EARLY DAYS, I SAID!
BAH! IF MYSTRA DIDN’T BREED YOU OR CREATE YOU, SHE CHOSE YOU? TAKE ME BACK, BEYOND YOUR BIRTH, INTO WHATEVER MEMORIES SHE GAVE YOU OF YOUR CHOOSING … AND LET’S SEE WHY.
STUPID WIZARD.
* * * * *
The Royal Magician of Cormyr looked up into Queen Filfaeril’s eyes and found them just as sparkling with anger as he’d expected. Thank you, O watching gods.
“You were right to send for me, Highness,” he said gravely.
The queen nodded, face frozen, and began pointing—at the door guards, her ladies-in-waiting, the two war wizards behind Vangerdahast, and finally, the door.
“R-royal Lady?” one of the guards dared to ask, earning himself a regal scowl and an imperious gesture toward the door. That was enough to start the hasty, wordless migration.
Vangerdahast stood motionless, facing the queen, until the stream of swift, quiet bodies was gone, and they were alone.
“Lady?” he asked, not bothering to hide his sigh.
“Vangy,” the queen said with an exasperated sigh of her own, “call me Faeril or Fee or even ‘stupid bitch,’ but stop looking at me as if I’ve singlehandedly doomed the realm! What could you have been doing that can possibly be more important than uncovering another plot against the throne?”
“Lady,” he said, stepping forward to clasp her hand, “I know not. I was on my way here, in answer to your call, when I—I remembered something.”
The queen let her incredulous eyebrow speak for her.