Elminster in Hell

Wherefore the answer to his whereabouts lay somewhere in that little turret-top room, almost certainly hidden by a magic older and greater than his own. To find out what that might be, the Royal Magician of Cormyr needed to talk to someone who'd remember Amedahast alive- how she talked, how she'd thought, how she'd lived.

The wizard sighed again and ran his fingers through his beard. Like it or not, he could think of only one person yet alive who, if the gods smiled, might have known her well enough….

A rug in the comer flickered, rippled, and reared up from the floor like some sort of menacing monster. Vangerdahast blinked wearily at it for a moment, whirled away from the speaking-stone, snatched up a wand from his workbench, and aimed it grimly at die rippling pillar of cloth.

The rug blinked back at him reproachfully, and then fell away to reveal a tall, gaunt, white-bearded man in worn robes. With one hand on his hip and an eyebrow raised, he regarded Vangerdahast. Even a slate-cutter in the westernmost reaches of Cormyr could have identified the visitor: the Old Mage of Shadowdale, Elminster.

'Thy wards need a little work,' Vangerdahast's onetime tutor observed in a dry voice. 'I could reach through them without difficulty, having so used this rug before.'

Vangerdahast's eyes narrowed. 'You did? Why?'

Elminster raised his other eyebrow. 'To visit Amedahast, if ye must know,' he said, with what was almost a grin. 'Yon nig lay beside her bed.'

The Master of the War Wizards rolled his eyes, 'I might have known,' he snapped, starting to pace. He brought himself to a halt, drew in a deep breath, wrestled down the anger that always gripped him when he faced Elminster's easy smile, and said abruptly, 'We-I-need your aid. There's been a disappearance.'

'Heir? Crown jewels? Azoun's second-best codpiece? Or is it serving maids again?'

Vangerdahast gave Elminster a dark look. 'A War Wizard,' he said quietly. 'A good man. Come.' Without a backward glance at the rug or the speaking-stone, he set off toward the doors, striding hard. Elminster shrugged and followed.

A long time to the magic, little wizard. What are you up to?

Trying to call up memories for ye, devil. There are many, buried deep. But there's magic enough in this one. Watch and see.

On his second circuit of the little room, El bent over, sniffing. He dropped to his hands and knees and prowled, like a boy playing at being a stalking wolf. His snuffling became constant, his beard trailed along the floor, and his eyes narrowed. 'D'ye have much trouble with rats?' he asked the stones.

'Running about? No. Or do you mean dead rats in the walls?' Vangerdahast frowned down at the crawling wizard. 'There's naught but air outside these walls… why? What can you smell?'

'Rotten meat. Decay. Very faint.' El sprang to his feet, his prowling done, and asked sharply. 'The lass said the rug was different?'

Vangerdahast nodded.

El nodded back at him, the barest grim beginnings of a smile playing about his lips. 'No doubt, no doubt.'

The Cormyrean wizard's eyes narrowed. 'What do you know, or suspect''

'A trapper on the floor, who ate the rug atop it along with your War Wizard and his papers. His bones, ink bottles, and such will pass through it soon. Lurker-beasts give off such stinks at will.'

'A trapper? I'd have found it,' the Royal Magician of Cormyr said sourly, waving at the floor, 'and it's not there now. I took care to make sure that nig was just a nig. Spin another dream, Old Mage.'

'The murderer put it in here before your Bolifar arrived, and took it out again after the lass ran out of here to come looking for ye.'

'Someone who can carry lurker-beasts around like carpets or bid them follow like pets? You strain credul-'

Vangerdahast stopped speaking in midsnap, and left his mouth hanging open. The color drained slowly out of his face.

'Kaulgetharr Drell,' he said, very slowly. 'Master of the King's Beasts. He has a trapper; I've seen it devour butcher scraps and the like. When he casts the right spells, it follows him about like a hunting hound.'

El smiled and spread his hands. 'Well then,' he said briskly, 'I've work of my own waiting, back in Sh-'

Even as he raised one long-fingered hand, Vangerdahast barked, 'Wait!'

The Old Mage raised an eyebrow again, and the Cormyrean wizard said hastily, 'My scribe Sardyl spell-locked this door! Drell couldn't have just-'

The rest of the color left his face. Vangerdahast looked suddenly very old, as yellow and as brittle as crumbling parchment.

'Sardyl,' he murmured. 'Is she in it too?'

Elminster shrugged. 'Mayhap… but she needn't be. That's not the way the trapper and its handler came in.'

He waved at the map on the wall. 'That's one of Amedahast's portals. All of her maps are. Have ye never known?'

Vangerdahast gaped at him.

'Ye can also see and hear through them,' Elminster added with a tight smile. Turning to look at the map, he drew his fingers inward like a crone's grasping claw. He seemed to beckon or to pull something unseen toward him.

The map shimmered. Out of it stumbled a man in a rich, open-front shirt and tasseled leather boots and breeches. The newcomer's face was twisted in a snarl, and he lunged atop Elminster. One arm-the one that held a gleaming dagger-rose and fell in a blur. Blows thudded as hard as galloping hooves as he stabbed the Old Mage repeatedly.

Elminster raised his other eyebrow. 'Are ye done?' he asked calmly, watching the blade pass into and out of his chest, as harmless as smoke.

The dagger-wielding man stiffened. His blade fell from trembling fingers, struck the toe of his boot, and clinked its way to a tumbling halt along one wall.

'Baerune Cordallar,' Vangerdahast said in a voice of doom from just behind the man's ear, 'surrender your person and the truth your tongue can speak to me, now, or face everlasting torment in beast-shape!'

The motionless noble could move only his eyes.

Elminster stepped forward almost lazily, touched Cordal-lar's forehead with one long finger, and murmured, 'Three others with features like these-one a woman. His kin. And a caiel man with fine features and a goatee. Two others- one of Arabel, one of Marsember-with ambitions but only slight involvement, to be used as dupes later. The woman's thoughts have shaped the plot, but this one was to be the chief instrument. He is to have wed the Princess Alusair… then brought about the death of her elder sister, Tanalasta.'

Vangerdahast growled, a low rumbling that rose in growing fury. Baerune's eyes became desperate. He struggled to speak, face quivering, but managed only whimpers, like a muzzled dog.

'How many plots against the crown has it been, this tenday?' Elminster asked almost merrily. 'Now I really must go.'

Vangerdahast drew in a deep breath and said simply, 'Thanks. This is one more I owe you.' He raised an eyebrow of his own. 'How did you know about the maps?'

Elminster smiled. 'If I were a gentlesir,' he told his onetime student mildly, Td not tell. Amedahast was… very beautiful. I'll take care of your beast-master, ere I depart; this map leads to the one in his chambers, in the back robing room.'

'You can see that, through the map?' the Royal Magician of Cormyr asked curiously. He strode forward to peer at Amedahast's drawing of the kingdom. in the wizard's wake, Baerune Cordallar was jerked along helplessly, stiffly upright and unable to do anything but move his eyes about, which he did wildly.

'No,' El replied sweetly. He stepped forward and melted into the map. 'I recall where the matching map hangs. That robing room used to be mine.'

It seemed to Vangerdahast that the last he saw of the Old Mage of Shadowdale wasn't the airily waved hand but that old sardonic smile. As always.