by Ed Greenwood
“Stuck with her?” Tarth echoed, not understanding.
“Aye. She owed Nerndel six services, and the first he set her to do was to train him. The second was to undertake a certain ritual. It trapped her in the form of a staff, while her first task lay incomplete. She is not free of the web of spells he laid until she completes the training—of ye, since ye are Nerndel’s heir.”
“Me?” Tarth asked, dumbfounded. “But what then?”
Elminster shrugged. “That is between the two of ye. She has served ye these past few years, willingly, even if ye knew it not, and I think likes ye. Thy ways may well run together a long time yet.”
“Together,” Tarth said wonderingly, looking up at the ceiling. “But how should I treat her? What do I say to her? Should I try to make her do me the services that remain? If I try, what will she think of me? Need I fear her—ah, attacking me?”
Elminster smiled slowly and spread his hands. “In this, ye must be your own guide. Ye have already shown that ye can take the proper course, alone.”
Tarth stared at him. Then his eyes narrowed suddenly. “You did agree to teach me until the passing of the next moon. Tell me, then, what I want to know!”
Elminster nodded. “I agreed, aye. Yet I fear I can help thee little, Tarth. I know not the answers to any of thy questions.”
“You are said to be the wisest of living sages, in most fields!” Tarth protested. “One who knows all the answers!”
They heard a light step upon the stair. Tarth turned and stared at the Lady Nimra, who smiled at him. Tarth looked deep into her clear blue eyes and was lost.
“Only fools know all the answers,” Elminster told him quietly. He silently vanished, the dust swirling up around him.
“And so, Master Tarth,” Nimra said softly, as she sat where the Old Mage had been, “your questions are your own to answer, and your choices your own to make, and you must live out the results. That is what being a mage is, after all.”
Tarth nodded, and cleared his throat. “Ah, uh—well met!” he began brightly.
She started to laugh.…
THAT’S YOUR “POWERFUL MAGIC”? YOU CLAW TOO HARD AT MY PATIENCE, LITTLE WIZARD!
HOW DOES IT FEEL WHEN I DO THE SAME TO YOUR CHAIN? AND MAKE IT TAKE FIRE AT THE SAME TIME! HEY? EH?
[screaming, raw and wild and in vain, dying away]
OH, NO! NOT THAT EASILY! A LITTLE HEALING AND A JOLT AWAKE, AND YOU’RE READY TO TASTE TORMENT AGAIN!
[roaring diabolic laughter, screams rising]
Sixteen
FOR THE LOVE OF AN OLD MAGE
Tentacles reached angrily toward the dirty, naked chained heap that was a man … then, reluctantly, drew back again.
I REMAIN SOMEWHAT BEWILDERED AS TO WHY SOME OF THE MEMORIES YOU’VE SHOWN MEARE OF LASTING INTEREST TO MYSTRA—OR TO YOU. WHY IS THIS IN YOUR MIND, ELMINSTER? DOES MYSTRA PLACE THERE ONLY WHAT SHE WANTS YOU TO SEE, OR ALSO SOME THINGS YOU DESIRE TO SEE?
Out of love and grace, the Lady I serve gives to me memories of things I could not witness but desire to. The doings of Mirt, for example—I felt the need to understand the character of this man, as a fellow Harper.
AH. JUST AS I WATCHED YOU FROM AFAR, YOU WATCH OTHERS. [growl] I’LL NOT TRY TO HIDE FROM YOU, MANLING, THAT RAGE RISES IN ME AS I SCOUR YOUR MIND AND SEARCH OUT MEMORY AFTER MEMORY, AS IF I’M SEEKING ONE STONE IN ALL THE ROCK THAT IS AVERNUS, AND FIND NOTHING OF THE MEMORIES OF MAGIC I SEEK. MEMORIES I NEED.
YET YOU MUST HAVE THEM, OR YOU COULD NOT BE WHAT YOU ARE PERHAPS MYSTRA IS THE KEY? I DO NOT THINK SHE REACHED OUT TO CHANGE YOU, IN HER BRIEF VISITATION HERE … I WOULD HAVE FELT THAT? SO YOUR MEMORIES MUST SURVIVE—AND FINDING THE ONES SHE GAVE TO YOU MUST BE WHERE THE TREASURE LIES.
SHOW ME A MEMORY FROM MYSTRA. IT DOESN’T MATTER WHICH ONE; I CAN TASTE THE DIFFERENCE NOW AND FOLLOW THE TRAIL YOU LEAVE ME. MAKE IT TOO LONG, AND I’LL GIVE YOU MUCH PAIN. LEAD ME TO WHAT I SEE, AND YOU’LL LIVE LONGER. A SIMPLE BARGAIN, EH?
Clear enough.
I HEARD YOUR TONE. REMEMBER THIS: I HOLD YOU IN MY HAND. I DECIDE THE TERMS … AND THE PUNISHMENTS. FORGET THAT NOT.
Oh, I’m unlikely to. Believe me.
HUMAN, DO YOU DARE TO THREATEN ME?
I never threaten, devil. I promise.
[growl] I HAVE A PROMISE FOR YOU. WHEN I HAVE WHAT I DESIRE, YOUR SUFFERING WILL BE LONG.
DO YOU DARE TO HAVE ANY PROMISES FOR ME?
Not yet.
[smoldering diabolic glare, whirl about, plunge into vaulted darkness once more, scattering images like forlorn stars …]
* * * * *
The sky was gray over Aglarond—slate-gray and cloudless, like a vast sheet of armor plate. The Simbul scowled up at it from her favorite balcony. She set down a goblet of something she’d cast spell after spell on in a vain attempt to make it taste like a certain ancient vintage El had spell-stored from fallen Myth Drannor. The bracer that was all she wore had begun to glow, telling her the seneschal had lost patience in stalling envoys and courtiers and wanted the afternoon throne session to begin.
The Simbul strode back through her chambers. Snatching a robe from the nearest hook as she passed—a rich purple and cloth-of-gold affair of many entwined dragons that would have been better given to someone who’d admire beautiful garments a trifle more—the Witch-Queen of Aglarond shrugged herself into it. She strode along a back passage, vaulted over a railing in front of a carefully impassive guard, landed on a harlounge, bare inches from a sleeping cat, marched away heedless of its spitting wakefulness, and found herself crossing the last few paces of carpet to the side doors of the throne chamber. Without a sash, her grand robe billowed open around her.
The guard by the doors had served her for a very long time. He looked at the Simbul’s face and down at her bared body for just an instant. He set aside his glaive and unbuckled his sword belt with frantic haste, stepping forward to hold it out to her in one gauntleted hand in time to receive a dazzling smile from his queen. Her whirling embrace spun him around in the passage.
She murmured, “Buckle me.” During another turn in her arms he did. She saluted as they parted, thrust the door wide, and was gone.
Only then did he stoop to retrieve his breeches from the floor, recall that he’d worn his second-best sword belt, and cringe at the thought that the Witch-Queen of all Aglarond was even now striding to the throne with not only a sword and a dagger bouncing at her hips, but a bag of dice, a bit of string knotted around some cheese with which to entice a pet mouse out of its hole to visit him, and an undone pouch with his best deck of air solitaire cards in it—the ones with the unclad beauties of Thay on the backs, guaranteed to float in the air for at least three breaths after being released.
With a grin, Thaergar of the Doors decided that if his queen noticed, she’d probably be greatly amused. Thank the gods.
Or at least, so he hoped.
* * * * *
So I have called, and my friends come not—or cannot reach me, through the legions of Hell. I am lost. It is cruelty on my part, sheer vanity, to drag down with me others who can live on in Toril and serve it as I have. I must fight this battle alone.
And fight it will be, for I shall not go down in gentle surrender. I will fight. Mind to mind, I cannot hope to stand against Nergal—for he can diminish my will in an instant by visiting physical pain on me. He is a swift, reckless, overconfident intellect—a willful child, in some ways—and cannot hope to match my store of memories or experience … for all his long years, he has done the same things over and over and seen far less than certain old human wizards.
Yet he knows this. It is why I still live now. I am more than an idle plaything to him, more than a trophy other devils do not have, or a lure to bring rivals to where he can smash them. I am a storehouse he longs to ransack, the fount of magical lore he craves—and the source of something else he refuses to admit: the memories of sensation and beautiful sights, terrible moments and acts of kindness … a life, all that he lacks. If I ent
ertain, he suffers me to feed him memories he knows will not yield him mage-lore, or silver fire, or secrets of Mystra. He needs them.
I would give them freely, to make an archdevil more human, to give one being in Hell greater understanding of Toril—were it not for his mindworm, which takes what I share and strips it from my mind.
So it must be war between us. It is a war Elminster cannot win but must win. With every remembrance, Elminster is less—a little emptier, more of a mumbling sHell—and Nergal is a little more. A little more Elminster. Somehow I must fight him through the memories that go into him. I must worm my way into his mind and fight him there.
Yet, to do that, I must surrender what I have been so closely guarding. Everything. Mystra, no!
On the other hand, saith the juggler, why not? He will have it all in the end, anyway. I cannot stop him, only steer him as to what I yield, and when. My battle—and any slim chance at victory I might have—can only lie therein, in the pattern of my yielding.
Is this not what captive women have done to men who seized them, for centuries? Sought to master their captors by the manner and pacing of their yielding?
I am armed and armored in greater weakness. Well, then, I salute my foe—and the battle goes on.
I must think more on this. I need time. Let me yield another memory given me by Mystra and win some time to plot. I shall go to my tent and confer with my generals, who are all Elminster.
I hope we can agree on something.
* * * * *
Phaeldara was standing before the throne, facing the usual glittering throng. Gems gleamed in her sweeping wave of purple hair. She drew herself up to her full, dignified, darkly beautiful height and said, “Lords and ladies, patience is a virtue more should cultivate. Especially in this palace. I—”
“How now, beloved sister of Aglarond? Are the people unaware of my tasks?” The Simbul made her voice merry, ignoring the sigh of exasperation from the far corners of the throneroom. “Or my … restlessness?”
With a smile of relief, Phaeldara turned to meet her and murmured as they embraced, “Hardly. I’m sure fools in red robes in Thay can feel that. Go and see your Old Mage for a few days, and … assuage your hungers.”
The queen grinned. “Going delicate on me now, Phaele?”
“No,” the sorceress warned her, something grim in her dark eyes. “This morn, after you brained Lorn Thorvim with that platter, I-I tried to farspeak Elminster to bid him visit you. He … I could not reach him.”
The Simbul stiffened. Phaeldara drew carefully back as the queen’s eyes went blank. The air around her slowly began to crackle. Those cracklings grew as the ruler of Aglarond poured more magical power into her questing. The little lightnings turned silver in hue.
A murmur of fear and consternation rippled through the watching courtiers. Something was very amiss.
The sword and dagger the queen was wearing began to smoke in their sheaths. The buckle that held them suddenly burst into sparks and was gone. The belt fell away with a crash—only to be whisked far across the floor by the undulating fury of the robe that followed it. The woman who ruled them stood alone, clad only in racing silver flames.
“Oh, goddess, no,” they heard her gasp. Then her face tightened, and she asked pleadingly, “Oh, Mystra, may I?”
Long silver hair lashed bare shoulders as if a wild gale was blowing. A proud head was flung back to stare unseeing straight up at the vault so high above. Suddenly, the crackling arcs fell away to the floor in a fading wave of sparks, and the Simbul was moving.
“Thorneira! Evenyl, to me! Seneschal, fetched the Masked One! Phael, I’ll need your gems—all of them!”
The tall sorceress immediately began running long fingers through her purple tresses, combing out handfuls of gems that all glowed with stored spells. “H-here, Lady Queen,” she stammered, holding them forth.
The Simbul cupped them carefully, gliding close to kiss Phaeldara on her cheek without ceasing her hawklike glaring about the room.
“That man,” she snapped, pointing. “Evenyl, slay him; he’s a Thayan spy!” Without waiting to see what befell, she turned and stabbed her finger at another man. “He comes to make a false claim against a rival; deny him our royal intercession. Phaele, the throne is yours this time—but if Thayan envoys come in force, yield to the Masked to sit here and speak for me, while you go to Rashemen and fetch their envoys to come and bear witness.”
“Lady Queen? You’re quitting the throne?” a courtier was bold enough to ask.
The crack of his head jerking to one side was loud enough, even over the building Thayan spells and the carefully rising shields of the motherly Evenyl, to echo around the room.
The courtier’s cheek blazed red, just as if he’d been slapped directly. The queen gave him a look that had death in it and said slowly and coldly, “Thorneira, Thalance, Phaeldara, Evenyl, and the Masked One speak for me at all times, and they will do so during this short absence of mine. Obey them as eagerly and as fearfully as you would me.”
She did not have to add “or else” aloud; everyone in the room could hear it. Whatever reply the trembling courtier might have tried to make was lost in the booming of doors flinging themselves open, all around the chamber.
As startled guards peered into the room, objects began to sail in through those opened doors: girdles and boots, bracers and breastplates, circlets and rings, and tumbling wands, some of them winking with aroused power. The room crackled with their magic, and courtiers crept away from the end of the room where the Simbul stood.
Bare and beautiful, the queen of Aglarond spread her arms wide as her summoned arsenal of magic flashed up to clasp and clothe her.
“I go to rescue a man who’s worth more than all of you,” she said, her voice suddenly wavering on the edge of tears, “and far, far more than me.”
With a whirling of silver flames and blue-white racing stars, she blazed up into formlessness and was gone.
* * * * *
The doors opened, and the sorceress Phaeldara strode grandly forth. Thaergar of the Doors snapped to rigid, arch-backed attention, carefully expressionless. He was astonished when she spun on one foot to face him.
“These are, I believe, yours,” she said crisply, holding out his pack of cards. The little piece of cheese, a little the worse for wear and lacking its cord, was perched atop the tattooed belly—he could not help noticing—of Salambra the She-Wolf of Surthay. He kept still, unsure of what to do.
“Take them, man,” she said in a low voice that had a quaver in it he’d never heard before.
Startled, Thaergar looked directly into her eyes. They were full of tears.
“Take them, and pray for our queen,” she whispered, thrusting the cards forward.
Dumbly, Thaergar did so.
The sorceress broke into a run down the passage, her robes whipping out behind her like line-drying cloaks caught in a tempest.
Thaergar watched her go, and then sighed. This was turning out, it seemed, to be one of those days.
He stood for a moment at attention—then took two quick steps, bent down, and carefully pushed the cheese into the mouse’s hole, in case he was called away to fight for Aglarond and came not back to his post. Ever.
* * * * *
WELL, WELL, WHAT HAVE WE HERE?
You seem in better humor, Lord Nergal.
I’M SEEING MAGIC AT LAST, WIZARD. BE SILENT, WHILE I PLUNGE IN AND ENJOY!
[images flaring bright]
The crawling, ever-changing flame runes of the last page challenged her, silent and yet somehow mocking.
Laeral Rythkyn, called “Laeral of Loudwater” to keep her disentangled from the Laeral who was Lady Mage of Waterdeep, had been working through the crumbling tome with her usual patience. Her excitement grew with every passing day and each new page. Patience and care had made her one of the youngest mages of power in the North. Patience and care made her methodically read, practice, master, and improve on every spell in the book.
Each page of the tome held a single spell—all of them unfamiliar, useful, and quirky in components, phrases or casting. They felt old.
As she’d gone through the thick book, each spell had been more powerful than the last. The last page of all was written in flame-red, spell-cloaked runes that shifted slowly when gazed upon, indecipherable and beckoning. They must hold a special spell indeed.
BEARD OF ASM—AHEM, TALONS OF TASNYA … AM I GOING TO BE SHOWN MAGIC AT LAST?
Hush, devil, and see sooner.
[growl] SHOW ME. SHOW ME NOW.
The spellbook had lain in a shattered tomb in the cellars beneath Everlund for at least an age. Laeral had found it while helping Harper friends destroy wraiths in those dark, cobwebbed ways. It had sat neglected on a table in her study all winter.
Laeral had been busy training her apprentice, Blaskyn, to master the smiting spells that made a sorcerer a power to be reckoned with. Blaskyn had done well, showing promise in devising his own incantations and adding his own twists. Soon he’d be ready to walk his own way in the Realms. Wherefore Laeral had set him the necessary tasks of practicing precision in casting and creating a new spell all his own.
Meanwhile, she took up the book to further her own studies.
SO NAMES AND PLACES AT LAST—AND MAGIC, IT SEEMS, TOO. CONTINUE, WIZARD.
[images wearily unfolding]
Laeral stared at the runes for perhaps the fortieth time that day, frowning a little, teeth gnawing thoughtfully at one side of her lip. Blaskyn had said they looked like little leaping flames, these runes, and so they did—hmmm. In one long, lithe stretch, Laeral leaned over the purring cat beside her and plucked a small, battered handbook from a shelf. She sought a cantrip from her own days as an apprentice.
There it was. A simple little trick of Art, known to half a hundred wizards this side of Waterdeep. It shaped flame to form illusions or words if one had a candle, campfire, or torch to work with. Laeral hissed gently in excitement, slid a certain protective ring on her finger, and worked the cantrip, bending her will upon the page.