by Ed Greenwood
TONGUE OF ASMODEUS, HUMAN! YOU ALMOST MAKE ME WANT TO—
Remember her lips, her silver hair lashing and then caressing …
YES. OHHH, YES.
Recall her embrace, her murmured promises, her—
YES. YES! THIS IS THE ONE FOR ME!
Aye, see that memory again, as we—
Are hurled back again, Hell crashing and quaking around us, as the scepters that the Simbul had plunged into her own flesh like daggers boil away with the last of their power exhausted and are gone. She shudders, going to her knees amid the flames of strewn devil-corpses and shattered stone citadels, and we want to reach out to her, to draw her close and comfort her, to heal.…
Eyes look up and catch flame once more. “You!” Her growl rises into a scream that spits raw, snarling power out of her. Nergal knows pain.
AARGHH! NESSUS TWIST YOU, BITCH! I—I—
Love thee. Love thee more than all the fires of Hell.
YES! [slaying bolt hurled wide] YE—NO! FANGS, HUMAN, WHAT ARE YOU doing to me? GET OUT OF MY HEAD!
The Simbul’s next spell rains bright knives of flame down in a hissing cascade of death upon rippling diabolic thews. She spins like a dancer to send the same fury down the throats of the devils now converging on her across the broken rocks of Avernus.
Black and red flesh convulses. Screams rise in a ragged chorus of woe.
Nergal shudders and catches hold of a nearby horn of rock to steady himself, gasping at the pain.
I CANNOT SMITE HER! SHE’S SO BRIGHT, SO BEAUTIFUL! I MUST HAVE HER, I MUST—ALASSRA, HERE I AM! HERE!
The Lord to Come of All Deep Hell bounds into the air, tentacles become mighty wings, arms spread in welcome.
QUEEN OF ME, HERE I—
The bolt that shocks out of the Simbul is so fierce that it plucks her from her feet and hurls her backward. As she falls, she sends her will riding along the beam, to pierce the mind of her foe even as the bright lance of her silver fire stabs him.
[In a brief glimpse across Avernus, a lone human female rises into the air like a beacon, her hair a halo of flame around her. Devils everywhere wince and roar and cringe. Distant mountains erupt in smoke and flame.]
Silver fire crashes into hot darkness, roiling …
*El, I am come.*
I live, and love thee. I am in this devil, all of me. Mystra, but ye are magnificent!
[amusement] *But of course.*
Nergal, roaring in torment at the fire raging in him, the Simbul ruthless in her scorching and searing, leaving him a broken sHell that lives only because her Elminster is trapped within it, only to fade as her fire does, fade away …
No, leave me not!
NO, LEAVE ME NOT! FADE NOT FROM—WHAT AM I SAYING?
OUT, HUMAN WORM. OUT OF MY MIND! YOU INFECT ME, YOU—GET YOU GONE!
[Nergal summons all of his power, a black-and-red wave, dark and swift enough to shatter even the Simbul’s fury. He thrusts. Images whirl in insane chaos, brightness like shards of shattering glass, memories and tears and laughter all together, into the thing in the offal pit. A naked human retches and squirms as Hell is torn apart around him.]
NOW, WITCH, IT’S YOUR TURN!
[Red-and-black bolts howl out of the great winged devil, cleaving the blood-red sky like reaching fingers.]
Crash, stagger, bright beauty still standing …
Bloody lips twist. “Is that the best you can do, devil?” Slender fingers point, and fire surges forth, a little wearily now …
Burst of blue-white fire, Nergal screaming …
[frantic red lightning, and flight]
THIS HAS GOTTEN OUT OF HAND! WHERE IS ASMODEUS? WHERE ARE THE HOSTS OF HELL? IS SHE GOING TO BE ALLOWED TO KILL US ALL?
FIRES OF THE PIT, SHE CAN STRIKE AT ME THROUGH YOU!
[mind bolt, dark and huge, sent to slay, roaring through the vaults …]
[… and rebounding back through the darkness to slap down Nergal]
* * * * *
Sobbing and convulsing, the tentacled devil rolled in darkness, his chain melting away.
“Sorry,” said the naked, filthy man beside him. He waved stumps that were his arms. “We’re too closely linked now, devil, for that to work.”
With a sudden, furtive movement, Elminster raised one arm to touch what was tangled in his hair. He said in his mind, cold and crisp and hard, By the will of Tanthul and my need, let it be my bone shards, yonder—and let it be now.
Nergal had just time to dart a look at his mind-slave before the bone fragments in him expanded into duplicates of the larger bones they’d been a part of—and the archdevil’s body burst apart with a deep, wet roar.
[song, mad music wild and screaming, red fire and staring, disbelieving diabolic eyes, fading to darkness … oblivion]
Alone and maimed in a cavern deep in Avernus, Elminster went to his knees and sobbed bitterly. The mind that had ridden his for a seeming eternity was stilled and gone.…
It’s a dark thing to lose any being one knows so well.
* * * * *
[red, writhing pain, drifting back so slowly through torment, at last to the light …]
“Fires take all,” Nergal muttered, as weak and sick as he always was when coalescing back from tattered smoke and essence to solidity once more. He glared around blearily at the offal-choked cavern and the small, round black stone that was always there when he cheated death. More mighty contingency magic spent, wasted because of carelessness.
“That was a near one,” he whispered, not yet strong enough to growl. “I’ll never reign in Hell if I go on underestimating humans.”
“Too true,” a voice said sweetly, from behind him.
Nergal, rightful Prince of Hell, whirled around as quickly as he could on rubbery limbs. He stared into the smiling face of the Witch-Queen of Aglarond, who floated less than an arm’s-reach away.
Her smile was as wide as that of a wolf, and her eyes were two dark flames.
“Go down forever, devil,” she hissed—and spread her hands. Holy water that was afire with blue-white and silver flames burst over him in a torrent. The last thing Nergal ever heard was the Simbul snarling, “For what you did to the one I love, I just wish I could slay you again and again!”
* * * * *
A dark, scaled hand set down a goblet that smoked and bubbled green in the gloom. “How amusing,” Asmodeus observed from his throne of linked, living she-devils, and meant it.
Idly the Lord of Nessus reached out. Slaying magic built and snarled darkly up his arm and filled his cupped hand. When his palm was full, he’d flick his wrist and sent it to Avernus. There it would slay the exhausted, sobbing human sorceress whose image floated above him. She even now embraced the ruined, armless body of a man in a hidden cavern, all her attention bent to pouring her vitality into him.
Asmodeus started to smile. Ah, sweet irony …
* * * * *
In a void of drifting stars, Mystra drew the howling man from her breast. She held Halaster out to face a whirling vision—the greatest devil of all smiling as dark fire filled his hand. She whispered urgently, “Now!”
Halaster Blackcloak broke off a slobbering sound that was half-howl and half-giggle, drew himself up with dark eyes blazing, and snapped, “Asmodeus! Bow down!”
The Lord of Hell turned his head in astonishment—and across the voids and spheres and drifting chaos, their eyes met.
With a crooked smile Halaster Blackcloak said the word of the spell Mystra had taught him. All his raving madness roared out into Asmodeus, jolting that elegant body.
Those amused and sinister eyes rolled up and leaked golden fire. That quirked mouth parted in a cry of astonished agony. The fire of that titanic spell raged through the devil’s mind.
As Mystra firmly closed the link between void and Nessus, Asmodeus blinked at the gloom all around and took another sip from his goblet. Now, what was it he’d been going to do? Something amusing …
* * * * *
M
ystra laid down the black-robed wizard like a little doll on his own bed deep in Undermountain, patted the heads of his guardian deep dragons, and turned back to the void and the waiting arms of Azuth.
As they floated together, she sighed, smiled, and said, “I do love happy endings.”
Before he kissed her, Azuth frowned and said gently, “That might well prove a problem in the future.”
* * * * *
In Avernus, the black flames that had been Nergal died down. A lemure sniffed and flowed hungrily toward the smell. The fury that had blazed here, scorching rocks that had been scorched so many times before, was spent. For now.
Twenty-Four
BRIEF EXCITEMENT IN AGLAROND
“May I present,” the Masked One said in amused tones, handing the lovely gowned lady forward with a flourish, “Thorneira Thalance, now Acting Crown Regal of Aglarond.”
Phaeldara looked up from the throne. “Not for another three breaths, she isn’t. And didn’t the Crowned Fury say to just call ourselves regent now, and abandon all these titles that give envoys and heralds such fits?”
“That’s why I do it,” the Masked One replied with a chuckle. “Three breaths, my right haunch! You should have been up off there at least two breaths ago!”
The courtiers and envoys ranged along the walls leaned closer so as not to miss a moment or nuance of merriment.
Phaeldara rose, tall and elegant, and said plaintively to Evenyl, who sat on a lounge floating nearby, “Was ever a woman so wronged?”
The fourth sometime-regent looked up with an innocent smile and held up her hand with fingers spread to use for counting items off. “Oh, let me think. There was—”
A flash and rumble shook the throne room. The regals whirled around as courtiers gasped and murmured along the walls. They all fell silent at what they saw.
The Witch-Queen of Aglarond stood in the center of the chamber, as naked as the day she was born—naked, battered, and entwined.
Her hair swirled and writhed around her shoulders as if it were alive as she glared around the room. Her eyes were two dark and deadly stars. If wearing nothing but smears of soot and dung and blood bothered her, she showed no sign of it.
Her arms were around the waist of a bony, bearded, filth-covered old man with stumps where his forearms should have been. He was sagging, bent over limply like a child’s broken doll; it was clear only her grip kept him from falling. Firmly she caught hold of his hair and laid his head back over her shoulder. Then she smiled down the room into the astonished faces of the regals.
“To coin a phrase,” the Witch-Queen of Aglarond said dryly, “We’re back.”
As if in reply, explosions of black-tinged fire burst into roiling existence behind her, amid shrieks from the watching courtiers. A brimstone reek filled the room. Grinning devils strode forth from the flames, long-horned and bat-winged, tusked and terrible. Their talons stretched out to snatch the Simbul and the man in her arms.
“Geryon, Overduke of Hell, sends us,” one of them said smugly, “to fetch you back to your deaths—in long, long torment!”
The Simbul whispered a word. Lightning raged from the tiles under the devils’ hooves to the ceiling high above and back again. There were faint cries—then nothing but empty tiles and the oily smoke of diabolic bodies collapsing.
The Witch-Queen smiled through those remnants.
Another rank of devils emerged from the flames. They wore rather smaller smiles.
“Did you really believe seizing me in my own lair was going to be easy? Here I stand not alone.”
A tongue of blue-white flame leaped up from her empty hand. Behind her the regals, with set, determined faces, held out their own hands to cup more feeble blue flames.
“Neither, witch,” said a courtier loudly, lifting his own hand and letting swirling magic fill it, “do they!”
“Aye,” said another, farther down the hall, throwing aside his cloak. “For Thay!”
“Yes,” came a third voice, hard and cold. “Let the queen and Aglarond fall together, for the greater glory of Thay!”
Eyes blazing, an old courtier snatched a dagger from his belt and thrust it into the throat of the revealed Red Wizard beside him. The room erupted in shouts and spells.
The doors by the throne burst open. Thaergar of the Doors strode in with a bright new sword drawn. He stared open-mouthed at the tumult, then snatched and hurled a dagger from his belt—straight back out the door at the alarm gong.
He charged forward, raising his blade. Red flames burst out of the air in front of him, hurling him to the floor. He glared up at that dark magic in time to see a huge, ruby-red devil stride out of it, fork in one hand and barbed whip in the other, to loom over Phaeldara, foremost of the regals.
“Pretty meat,” it gloated, reaching for her.
Thaergar of the Doors and Phaeldara stared at the pit fiend, the Red Wizards and charging devils beyond, and deadly magics singing and snarling everywhere.
“Oh, dung,” they gasped in unintentional unison.
* * * * *
The air above a table commenced to shimmer. Tiny silver and blue sparks whirled out of thin air to race around each other in a small, tight sphere.
Their radiance made a head snap up, and two eyes glared at them in astonishment and alarm.
A moment later, a chair went over with a crash. The man who’d been sitting in it crossed the room with surprising speed for someone of his age. He snatched down two crossed, rusty daggers from beneath a shield on the wall. In his hands they twisted and became a wand and a scepter. Pointing them both at the whirling lights, the Royal Magician of Cormyr snarled, “How, by all the whims of Holy Mystra, did that get through the wards? And what is it?”
In obliging answer, the whirling lights sank a little and unfolded themselves downward to the floor in a cascade of silver. They formed a wraithlike figure: a female elf of tiny, nigh-perfect beauty, who looked perhaps nine years old—except for her eyes, which were as old and wise as those of a goddess … or at least a Chosen who has seen many centuries.
Vangerdahast lowered his wand and scepter. “Who … are you?” he asked hoarsely.
“Most call me the Srinshee,” she replied. “You and I are both needed, right now, in the throneroom of Aglarond.”
“Aglarond? Why?”
“Elminster is there, embattled and in urgent need of us both—and Mystra bids us come,” she said simply, and held out her hand.
Vangerdahast stared at her for a moment. An almost fierce joy flashed across his face. He ran across the room like an eager young man. “Yes!” he snarled, eyes bright. “Oh, yes!”
* * * * *
Men shouted, ran, and snatched out swords in the throneroom of Aglarond. Spells crashed and devils pounced. They also reeled, screamed, and died.
Blistering fire burst among shrieking courtiers. Men who’d been enthusiastically plunging daggers into a Red Wizard vanished into crackling columns of ash.
Among the terrified sprinting and shoving, a servingmaid let fall her silver tray with a crash as a devil’s talons clawed at her bodice. Thrusting a slender arm, she drove her hand right through the grinning pit fiend. It vanished with a roar of blue flames and a terrified shriek.
A Red Wizard stared at the maid in astonishment as she reached for the next nearest devil, her eyes aglow, and snapped, “This is quite enough.”
There was a double flash this time. Maid and devil vanished together … but where Mystra had been, nine silver stars floated, tracing an upright circle around a blue flame.
There was barely time for all the color to drain out of the Red Wizard’s face before that flame died and the stars rushed to the floor and vanished. Where each touched the tiles, a startled being suddenly stood, staring around at the raging battle.
“Khelben Blackstaff,” the Red Wizard gasped, eyes bulging, “and—the Seven! All of them!” He was to be forgiven for not announcing the arrival of the mages Vangerdahast and a wraithlike lady elf, where
the last two stars touched down.…
A moment later Khelben lashed three devils with howling bolts of lightning. A certain Red Wizard, caught in the wrong place, ceased to care about anything ever again.
Rage blazed on the face of the Lord Mage of Waterdeep. With a growl, he tossed his black staff into the air. It hung there, motionless and horizontal, crackling with magic. Many of the beams and bolts snarling across the room veered to it and blazed in harmless spell chaos.
That left the air clear enough for everyone to see the Simbul, on her knees shielding Elminster. She thrust up her hand to send silver fire out to all of her sisters. In turn from each of them a beam spat forth, vaporizing any devil it touched.
“Sister,” Dove gasped, “what’re you doing? Mystra forbids—”
“Not now she doesn’t,” the Witch-Queen of Aglarond snapped grimly. “Behold!”
Her hand this time pointed to the shimmering air above Khelben’s staff.
The trapped, roiling spells were rapidly being transformed into a shining spider web of magic. Glowing, ever-shifting lines of power rapidly filled the air. The ghostly form of the Srinshee raced along and among them. The web winked as it swiftly grew, and was already almost too bright to look at.
“The Weave!” the Simbul snapped. She swung her arm around to point to the entry arch, where shadows gathered. “And our foe!”
No, not shadows—a web of dark lines that mirrored the Weave. Strangers were entering through the archway below it: mages wielding wands and staves, who chanted, “Shar! Shar!”
“An anti-Weave?” one of the older courtiers gasped. “Can there be such a thing?”
A dark-robed courtier beside him gave the gaping man a snakelike smile—and slapped a tentacle around the elder man’s neck, snapping it with casual ease. “Indeed there can,” he remarked almost merrily to the toppling corpse. “And some of us who walk in shadows see our bright future in it!”
All down the chamber men and women and devils were dying as spell wrestled with spell. Magic slew with terrifying speed. Three devils pounced on the Simbul, trying to wrench her head off. One frantically thrust talons into her mouth to stop her shouting spells.