ship, through closed castle gates, plate-armored guardsmen, and all. In a moment or two he might be blasted by the Witch-Queen of Aglarond in one of her fits of destructive fury- or as some folk called it, 'insanity.'
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 purse- royal 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.
'Mysira,' 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 tlirone, 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, it would 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.
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.
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.
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.
Red rage flared in the back garden of his mind.
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 Faerun 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
Chapter Seven
Panting, in pain, the half-healed worm that was Elminster, weary beyond the power of pain to keep awake, now, swaying…
[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.
