Elminster in Hell

[glimpse]

Aha!

[confused images, swift racing]

hah! what was that?

[dwindling down, devil-ridden, to one brightness… of Mystra, long, long ago, in the land of Elminster's youth-]

Eyes that swam with stars stared into his. Ehninster fought for breath as lips that were both fire and ice kissed his throat, moved to his shoulder, and bit gently. Silver fire flowed from that wound. It roiled in the blue- white flame that was her hair, and in her hands, and in a regal cloak flowing endlessly from her.

In the air they drifted, a blue-white star high above Athalantar; El caught a glimpse of its flickering lantern fires far below, as they rolled together.

'Your defiant tenderness, El-aahh, I could drink of it forever. Give, Chosen of mine. Give unto Mystra.'

'Gladly,' Elminster growled, young and shining-eyed and supple.

As they surged amid the fire, memories that were not his own flooded into his mind. Images whirled, crashed, and raced in a welter of toppling towers and dragons locked in biting battle. Earth trembled. Rock shivered and rose into lofty peaks. Haughty mages brightened the sky with spells…

So, her remembrances leak into you when your minds are joined? She must mean to so shark, or you serve a weak goddess indeed….

[weeping, falling from light into darkness, lost and alone]

Oh, stop that! You may have loved a goddess and lived, but if you defy me yor are going to die! Show me more of the silver fire, flowing into you! Yes! Yesss!

[mental probes lancing forth brutally, transfixing bright memory]

[weeping, shimmering tears, yielding]

Soft summer stars shone above Myth Drannor. El drifted thoughtfully beneath, looking down on magnificent, glowing spires. They were soon to fall, if Starym deceit and o'erreaching pride and dangerous meddling went unchecked. All this beauty to be lost…

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 birched 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 long- fallen 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 Faerun. 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, risk. 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 or silver fire. nekgal was proud in hell when athalantak was yet unborn.

[pain pain pain]

[grim satisfaction, Nergal's claim echoing tlirough 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?