by Ed Greenwood
There was fear on many of the faces along the walls now. When the Tantran ambassador saw that, his nerve broke. With a raw wail that would have done justice to a banshee plummeting down a long, long well, the purseroyal whirled and fled for the door.
As his despairing cry rose to its height, the Simbul looked up—and froze, astonished. The throneroom was almost deserted, with only a few of her most faithful retainers trembling by the door. Their eyes were on her, their faces white and set.
“Whatever—? Oh,” the Witch-Queen said, stopping in midsnarl as she caught sight of her image in one of the tall, narrow mirrors on the throne room walls. Silver fire licked forth from her eyes and her mouth. Blue lightning crackled from her fingertips.
“Mystra,” she murmured aloud, “but this is serious. Either grave matters are stirring, somewhere—trying to reach me, I’d say—or I’m finally going as mad as folk say. Well, one way or another, El will tell me soon enough.”
She moved her hips restlessly and laughed and waved reassuringly to the sorceresses by the doors. “I’m growing to need him,” she announced, “and that’s a weakness I cannot indulge further. Thorneira! Phaeldara! Fetch back that screaming Tantran fool, and soothe and clean him up if he’s no longer presentable! Bring me envoys and treaties and wrangles to settle! It’s not nearly time to take ease and dine yet!”
With uncertain smiles, her apprentices scurried to obey. After they’d gone, the Simbul stood alone amid deserted splendor and frowned down at her empty palms. The lightnings were gone now, but fire still surged and roiled just below the surface.
What—or who—could have brought on that troubling touch? It was so distant, so … strange, like a horn-call from Hell.…
Shaking her head, the Witch-Queen of all Aglarond went back to her throne, and to the decanter of mint-water that rested beside it on a bed of ice. Well, if it was like all the other troubles that had flailed her with thorns all her life, ’twas a stone cold certainty that if she ignored it now, ’twould come back to smite her all the harder soon. And “soon” would become “right now” whenever its arrival would be most inconvenient.
* * * * *
Elminster threw back his head and screamed again as the imps tore away all of his fingernails and began gnawing on the bleeding ends of his fingers.
MORTALS WHO PRESUME TO WASTE MY TIME SHOULD EXPECT TO PAY FOR THEIR EFFRONTERY.
Nergal’s mind-voice seemed almost to hold a sigh or a yawn. His rage amid El’s memories, this time, had been brief, leaving behind a fiery headache. Blood still ran from El’s ears and nose and welled up in his throat … but at no time in this last torment had he lost awareness of who and where he was.
No, he’d been spared that blessing. The endless brawl and slaughter that was Avernus raged around him unabated. El and the swarm of imps were writhing together on a rocky height whose stains and scattered bones attested to its usual use as a feasting-perch. From this height he could see far across the land of tortured rock. At least three dragons were flying across the blood-red sky, surrounded by swarms of winged devils that sought to slay the wyrms even as they savaged and devoured devil-flesh.
THEY’LL HAVE YOUR TOES NEXT, THEN YOUR HAND AND FEET. I THINK THE DISOBEDIENCE OF EVEN THE GREAT ELMINSTER MAY BE TEMPERED BY A LITTLE TIME SPENT CRAWLING AND DRAGGING ALONG ON RAW STUMPS.
El did not bother to muster his will for a mental reply. He was too busy spinning a maelstrom of remembrances to deceive his captor into thinking his sanity was failing—to hide the slow seepage of healing silver fire he was releasing, oh so gently, within himself. El had to keep the pleasure of its healing relief out of mind, so Nergal wouldn’t see it and pounce on what he so hungrily sought.
Something large and dark and terrible suddenly rose over the edge of the rock. The imps fled with frightened squeals. Naked and holding up bloody stumps in futile array, Elminster faced the pit fiend. Nothing but the vapors of Avernus separated them.
A slow, cruel smile quirked around man-rending fangs. Dark eyes flickered with mirth. Curse of the Nine, it wants to play. Mayhap I’ll be torn apart slowly.
With an almost lazy flap of its wings, the hulking devil lifted itself over the lip of the rock, tail curling like that of a cruel cat, and landed before Elminster, as light as any feather.
Nergal, Elminster cried, putting all the fear he could find into that shout, aid, and swiftly—or your toy will be gone, silver fire, memories, and all—and whoever sent this fiend will know of your scheming!
Red rage flared in the back garden of his mind. YOU DARE—?
OH. GABBLE, MAN. QUAVER, SCREAM—AND THEN MOVE YOUR HAND AS IF WHELMING A SPELL. FLEE NOT!
Instants became long minutes of frenzied thought—flash and shimmer among the dark inner pillars—as Elminster did all of those things enthusiastically. Nergal shouldered forward through the wizard’s ravaged mind, gathering his own strength for what was to come, and his captive saw much.
Deep rage calmed Elminster and fed him, rage at this ultimate violation. Nergal must be utterly destroyed. Not for the satisfaction of a certain mage of Shadowdale but for the memories the archdevil had already rummaged through and taken. Nergal now knew far too much about far too many people for civilized Faerûn to survive. A Nergal free to play could now manipulate important folk and, with them, entire realms.
Nergal must be destroyed, before anyone else can learn what he now has or read the stolen memories … but how?
That question rang through Elminster’s mind again as the pit fiend pounced. Magic so great that it left the wizard sick and shaking swept through him, laced with Nergal’s triumphant laughter. It rode Elminster’s bloody spittle down the fiend’s gullet, to explode within.
El arched over backward, tumbling through the air, cloaked in a shield of Hell-magic as blast after wet, spattering blast heralded Nergal’s triumph over the hapless fiend. Spells upon spells resounded, enough to shatter even the rock upon which they’d been standing and leave ashes of the mighty devil. Elminster meanwhile tumbled unscathed out of the wrack.
Nergal must be destroyed. But how?
Seven
NIGHT COMES TO TAMAERIL
Panting, in pain, the half-healed worm that was Elminster, weary beyond the power of pain to keep awake, now, swaying …
AYE, FALL DOWN! WHAT CARE I THAT YOUR FACE BE UNBROKEN OR NOT? BUT KEEP ME WAITING NO LONGER, WIZARD? YOU LIVE YET FOR THE MEMORIES YOU YIELD TO ME—SO SHOW ME MORE? MIND YOU’RE NOT WASTING MY TIME AGAIN, THOUGH? I FIND YOU’RE TEACHING ME ONE THING ALL TOO WELL? IMPATIENCE.
[shimmering of many images, shifting and tumbling like black silk scarves blown aside in a bright breeze …]
It was the fourth of Flamerule, in the Year of the Harp. In the clear night sky over the great city of Waterdeep, a sky the color of royal-blue velvet, stars glittered like tiny, far-off torches. A warm breeze slid gently past the spires and stone lions of the city rooftops. On a certain high balcony, doors of copper and black bone had been left open to let it in.
There came a sudden stirring, a movement at the balcony rail. A shadow rose, blotting out starlight, to glide forward with silken speed into the dark room beyond.
A vigilant watch-eye floated silently in the soft gloom of the bed-canopy. It saw the shadow. Peering, the eye perceived more clearly in the near-darkness. The intruder was a man in smoky gray leathers, gloved and masked, who carried a long, slim sword naked in his hand. Moonlight gleamed down its steely length as the intruder turned this way and that in a cautious search about the empty bedchamber.
All was still. Whatever he sought was not here. The masked man listened at a door and silently drew it open. Darkness hung beyond, in a room lined with clothing hanging on pegs like bats in a cave. Not what he had come for.
The intruder closed the door with slow care and crossed the room to a larger, grander one. There was a tingling about this portal, a tension that grew as he laid a gloved fingertip on its dark surface and eased it ajar.
From where
he stood, a broad stair descended into a high-domed, cavernous hall. Darkness reigned save for the faintest of steel-blue glows. It came from a full-armored guard who stood in front of the door. He faced away from the masked intruder and grasped a great blade.
Stood? Nay, floated. No feet joined the dark greaves of that armor to the stone step below. No flesh joined its gauntlet to its fluted elbow and shoulder guards. Moonlight shone faintly between the helm and the high collar of the back plates beneath it.
Behind the intruder, moonlight grew. The guard’s floating helm turned slightly, the blade rising.
With a small, silent shiver, the masked intruder drew his fingertips slowly back, letting the door close. His own blade rose, ready, as he backed two cautious paces, and waited.
Silence. Moonlight grew slowly brighter in the bedchamber. The intruder cast a last look around the room, stooping to peer beneath the canopied bed from afar. No one hid there, and nothing moved. His straining ears heard no sound but faint music from the night outside.
Away, then. In three swift strides, the masked man regained the balcony, to rejoin the night shadows outside. There would be blood enough to spill elsewhere.
THIS HAD BETTER SHOW ME SOME USEFUL MAGIC AT LAST, WORM OF A WIZARD—OR I’LL BURN YOUR MIND LIKE A TORCH AND BE DONE WITH THIS TIME WASTING!
Ye’ll see magic, Nergal—and blood and cruelty, too, enough to suit even ye.
DO YOU SEEK TO GOAD ME OR APPEASE ME?
[silence]
COY HUMAN! SHOW ME MEMORIES, OR DIE FORTHWITH!
[images, whirling in profusion]
Laughter floated softly up to her from below. Distinct words, and the magic that some words release, could not penetrate her spell wards, but Tamaeril could hear the murmur of speech. The servants seemed happy tonight.
Tamaeril half-rose to open the door and listen—then sat back in her high-backed chair and smiled wearily. Hadn’t she heard enough talk in her years? Whispers in alleyways, clack and clamor in the bazaars, and cold debate in the mercantile offices of the noble house of her birth. She’d heard more high words these past nine winters through the masked helm of a lord of Waterdeep as she sat in judgment, her name and face secret.
Perhaps some of the younger sons of the Bladesemmer blood had returned early from the pleasure barges and the lantern-lit dancing parties in the streets of North Ward.
If they had come back to Bladesemmer House this early, little doubt they’d be chasing the maidservants. Later returnees often entered the forecourt hall on litters carried by menservants of the house. Snoring or moaning out the sickness in their stomachs, such sons had had too much fiery wine and too little sense.
In earlier days, when sterner Bladesemmer men had ruled the House, no such unruly merriment would have been permitted. Time changes all things, and its unending march had carried away those stern brothers, uncles, and cousins, Tamaeril’s husband among them. The younger folk laughed more and grudged less. They cared less about piling up gold coins and grimly holding to old traditions and old feuds. So the world turned again, and who was Tamaeril to stop it?
A lady of a noble line, yes, and a lord of great Waterdeep to boot, though her lordship was a secret to all but a few. Still, age had relegated her to these spell-guarded chambers and a role of dispensing advice, approval, and disapproval that went gently unheeded alike.
Tamaeril sat back in her chair and remembered parties and suitors long ago. She reached for the tall, slender drinking jack on the table beside her. Its sinuous silver-sheathed length caught the candlelight. She raised it in age-dappled hands and looked thoughtfully at her gray-haired reflection.
Not four nights ago, Mirt had spoken to her of mounting one last adventure. “One last toss of us old dice.” He’d been restless in his lord’s chair a long time and had said such things before, but never had she felt such quickening, eager excitement at Mirt’s talk. Perhaps …
There was a sudden flickering of cold, white light beyond the drinking jack—light where there should be none. Tamaeril lowered her wine to look.
An expanding oval of white, shifting light stood in midair, flickering as if it were a ring of flames that gave off no heat. A gate! A portal to span distance, perhaps even to link this plane with another, stranger one. Danger enough, and an effect that should not be able to form here, within her wards!
Tamaeril set down her jack and shifted to rise. Her hand went to the ornamented knife at her belt—but she was old and slow.
Too slow for the slim, gleaming blade that leaped at her out of the flowing flames of the gate, driven by an eager gloved hand. It slid into her soundlessly, with shocking ease. Its kiss was so cold that all the breath went out of Tamaeril’s old lungs. Half-disbelieving, she felt the shock of the blade’s tip biting into the chair behind her.
She stared at the masked face of her slayer—a young one, a man by his scent and build, gloved and clad in gray shadow-leathers. He smiled down at her fiercely, a smile cold with hatred.
Letting go of the sword that pinned her to the chair, the man reached with his sword hand to the cuff of his other glove, where several small pieces of silver gleamed.
“Don’t you know me, Lady Tamaeril?” he asked in a soft, almost purring voice. Tamaeril knew she’d never heard it before. “I’m surprised. Ladies, by and large, seem to know nothing—but you are both lady and lord. And lords of Waterdeep—or so I’m told,” he added mockingly, “know everything.”
The gloved hand was approaching her breast now, reaching over the blade that transfixed her even as the numbness of death crept swiftly outward from it. Helplessly Tamaeril watched it bring a small silver pin toward her, a pin in the shape of a harp.
A harp? He was pinning it to her gown now, gently and delicately, taking care not to prick her with the pin. Tamaeril smiled at the irony of that, even as she felt strength ebbing away. Blood slid into her lap and down her thighs, ruining her favorite gown.…
“Why are you smiling, Lady Tamaeril?” came that soft voice again, this time with an edge of rising anger in it. “Do you find me amusing?”
There was a brief silence as Tamaeril swallowed and found she could not speak.
The masked man seemed to master himself. When he spoke again, his voice was once more soft and controlled. He stepped back a long pace to study her, wearing the pin, and seemed satisfied with what he saw.
“Know, Lady, that you must die to atone for the shame done to my family. You had no hand in it, true, but you are a lord, and you could have undone it. You did not, and so you die. More sudden than I would have preferred, perhaps, but I’m still learning this ‘revenge.’ As the bards say, it’s rather sweet.”
The gloved hand went out again as he approached. “They tell me that you were once beautiful,” he said almost approvingly, as he picked up her drinking jack and swirled the wine left in it. He stepped back again, toward the cold fire of the portal, and added, “You look pretty now, with your color back. My apologies for the gown … but you wouldn’t want anyone else wearing it after you’re gone, would you? No common born or outlaw”—his voice went momentarily steel-hard—“should be seen in the streets in Lady Tamaeril’s fine gown!”
Tamaeril’s murderer sipped her wine thoughtfully. “I’ll stay until you’re quite dead, of course. Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”
Tamaeril sat helpless in her high-backed chair, strength failing. A venturesome ribbon of blood was sliding coldly down her ankle now. Talk … hadn’t she grown weary enough of talking? And yet—you are a lord, and could have undone it. She was no more powerful than any other lord, and—I’m still learning this revenge. This one would slay as many lords as he could!
Most lords had Art or strength or skill at blades far more than her own to command, yes, but most were old or very busy or both. They were apt to sleep soundly when they retired to chambers warded against magic and guarded with loyal swords. How many would he kill before he was stopped?
A tiny, chilling voice asked withi
n her, Would he be stopped? One last adventure, Mirt had urged. Well, she had not chosen it, but it, the Lady of Luck willing, had chosen her … both the “last” and the adventure.
Tamaeril smiled wryly, even as the drowsiness of her last great slumber stole up behind her eyes. Spells she had still, though none to harm this one or anyone. She must use them, for the sake of Mirt and Durnan and the others, even young and stern Piergeiron.…
Tamaeril worked her lips to speak, even as she exerted her will in a silent command. A door she could not see, behind her chair—a door she would never see again—swung open by itself, in answer to her will.
“Wh-who …?” she managed to say, as the blood poured down her ribs more slowly.
The masked man lifted the drinking jack again.
Her night hound smelled the blood and the unfamiliar man and Tamaeril’s fear all at once and came through the door in a silent bound. The shrieking howl of warning and battle rage was still rising in its throat as its jaws opened wide to tear out the intruder’s throat. Borgul’s front paws raked down the arm that the man threw up to ward off those jaws.
They fell together in front of Tamaeril. She tried to raise her hand to the blade that held her there. Her hand trembled and fell back. Numbly she bent her will again, to the crystal stopper of the wine decanter on the table beside her. It shifted, just a breath. Yes!
Borgul’s jaws closed on the drinking jack, thrust between them for the crucial instant as he and the masked one rolled together on the floor. The intruder hissed one word. Many small lights pulsed, and Borgul stiffened without another sound. The man he’d sought to kill rolled free and found his feet.
The great hound lay spread and still as the masked man, breathing heavily, faced Tamaeril. “Have you any more pets, Lady? Anything else I can slay before your eyes? Well—can you no longer speak?”
Tamaeril turned weary eyes to him. “Young man,” she said, raggedly, breast rising and falling with the effort of breathing as blood filled her lungs, “I would know who you … are … and … why—why—” She coughed, a racking agony that forced her head down and made her eyes flood with red tears.