Elminster in Hell

how much pain besets you-and I've had enough of your keening, faster than I'd thought I would. Wherefore, he still.'

Elminster suddenly found himself silent, though his throat still rippled in midshrick and his body trembled with its aching effort to spew forth blood.

Nergal gave him a merry smile. 'That's better' the archdevil cooed, as if addressing a favorite child. He drew himself up, tentacles rising above him in a soaring, peacock flourish, and spoke like a king declaiming proudly from his throne;

'Outcast and exiled here, I am yet the mightiest of all-aye, overmatching even Tiamat the Many-Mawed-who call Avernus home. Too proud and too accomplished to serve the Reigning Serpent, but too mighty to be slain. Dispater is no greater than I, nor Baalzebul… and therefore I am useful. Some day, Asmodeus might have need of me.'

Tentacles caressingly lifted their broken burden. Human skin fell away in strips as Nergal drew what was left of Elminster close, so their eyes stared into each other across a very small distance.

'And on that day,' the gleeful outcast devil added in lower tones, 'it will be my distinct pleasure to defy the lord of Nessus in his hour of need. Defy him with power enough to shatter his throne, and over his shrieking bones bring war to Hell. And you, little cringing human, shall be my way to some of the weapons I'll need.'

Tentacles tightened, and El spat blood involuntarily.

'I-ugh! Uh! Aagh!' was all he managed to say, struggling for breath through the blood choking him. Then the moments allowed him were over. Silence settled icily over his throat again.

Tin glad you agree so eagerly,' Nergal purred. 'Hearken and learn, little tool. I'm but one of those, both great and wretched, who lurk in the shadows of Avernus awaiting the day we all know will come. Archdevils may be slain, but it's not easy to destroy us forever. The lord of Nessus must burn away some of his power to bring about such a doom. He's done it, yes-but only in punishment for the most deadly doing that could be launched against him; archdevil lying with archdevil to have offspring they hide from Asmodeus, to bring to Hell an archdevil the Lord Below knew not,'

Tentacles thrust Elminster down firmly on a spine of rock. Unyielding sharpness jabbed into raw flesh. Staring at the blood-drenched sky, El arched and writhed in silently screaming agony, A tentacle thoughtfully lifted his head so that he could look along his body… and sec the bloody spire of rock standing amid a glistening welter of his organs, ' He stared at it, too racked with pain to cling to his frayed memory of Mystra's face.

Nergal loomed over his captive and explained almost merrily, as if telling a fancy tale to a child reluctant to drift off to sleep, 'Lucifuge was but a puling thing when Asmodeus devoured him-literally, growing his teeth into fangs to do it. I saw.'

Slithering tentacles plucked the Old Mage from the rock-gods, the tearing pain! — and held him aloft in front of Nergal's face once more. The archdevil's eyes were a bright blue-red now.

'He gave Lucifer and Batna the final doom for having that child.' Nergal added excitedly, 'executing them as Baalzebul, fiercest of Lucifer's foes, watched, Baalzebul he plucked from his palace and snatched across the Hells to hold in thrall-just to show us all that he could burn a prince and princess of Hell to nothing whilst he racked another prince, despite their struggles, all three. He gave Malbolge to Baalzebul purely to torment Lucifer in his last moments-and tore it away again later, to elevate another to the greatness that should have been mine!'

Nergal's voice rose into a roar, and brutal tentacles shook Elminster like a rag doll. 'That will be mine, and only a small part of what's mine, in time to come,' The archdevil's voice lost its rage as he added, 'Sooner, now, than before you fell into my hands.'

A many-toothed smile broadened. 'I should thank Mystra. Years she meddled with you, shaping you into a meddler in turn… all to make you useful to me. You see, old Elminster, you're going to be important after alt What do you say to that?'

Thickly, around the blood, El managed to shape the trembling words, 'My usefulness lessens … the more ye… ruin my body;'

Nergal threw back his head and guffawed, even as tentacles lengthened into deft darts of slimy flesh and surged forward.

El clenched his teeth and shook his head in a vain effort to keep them at bay. The archdevil merely thrust them in through El's nostrils instead, down and in. There was a clawing, a horrible wrenching-and more blood. The arch-devil tossed aside the bloody gobbet that had been Elminster's tongue, dealt El a slap that spun his head around, and stanched the welling, choking blood in his mouth at the same time.

'Ruin it? Why, what need have you for a tongue when we can converse in your mind? I can gouge out your eyes and tear out your every organ-even dine on your liver, say, with sauce and salt-and then restore you with my magic. You think small, man! This is Hell, and here archdevils can do anything!''

El struggled — successfully-to raise a disbelieving eyebrow.

The eyes looking into his blazed up in fury, and tentacles rose in a menacing array. Rose, surged forward, and sank back again.

Nergal gave his captive a nod of rueful agreement and a wintry smite. 'Well, then, let us say 'anything another archdevil does not manage to prevent, hmm?' The tentacles set Elminster down against a rock as sharp as lagged glass. The Old Mage slid a little, wincing despite all his other raging pains, and fetched up in a sitting position.

Nergal paced back and forth, something cat like and yet serpentine in his stalking. 'There are a dozen of us outcasts, eight among us with power enough to challenge, say, Mammon, if the battle were between two, alone, without armies to call on. We are not friends, one with the other, and Asmodeus sees that our regard for each other remains fierce. As rivals, we lurk in the caverns and mountain rifts of Avernus, pursuing our individual plots against the ruling devils-and avoiding the patrols, for even stinging insects have the power to weaken and annoy.'

The tentacled archdevil came to a halt close by his stumped captive, looming up dark and tall. Barbs and claws rose out of his flesh like the fins of cruising sharks and ran down his tentacles in a hungry cycle. Teeth that seemed long enough, now, to be called fangs flashed In a less-than-pretty smile.

'Men and devils are not so different that you'll be unaware of what we outcasts hunger after: power. We are always seeking it, armed with our magic. Devils with minds of their own can grasp and work magic as readily as men breathe. We have one other weapon that the Lords of the Nine can never have: time to spare. With my time and magic, I watch your magic-rich Toril'

Nergal crossed arms that swam with a glistening array of small, blinking, human-seeming eyeballs, and bent their manifold gazes on Elminster.

'Beings of power interest me, from the puny masters of your thieving guilds to the dragons and lich lords of Faerun who wield almost a tenth of the spell-might they think they do. 'With a grin too wide for human jaws, the archdevil began to pace again. 'So I use my spells to spy on Faerunians of might who may prove useful. I've been watching you for a long time, Elminster Aumar. You are the key, I've long thought. Not because you're half so mighty as you think you are, or even a match for a spinagon in a fair battle, but because you are my road to gaining Mystra's power over magecraft. She works through you very strongly, and what she has, when suitably modified, could thunder just as strongly in Hell… giving me control over all magic, and in some measure those who work it!'

Nergal laughed again. 'This tumult over Shade captured my attention at just the right time and has delivered you to me. Now all I need do, to gain the powers of the lady you serve, or at least the ways of calling on and controlling it, is master your mind.'

Tentacles plucked Elminster from the rocks again and held him with casual tenderness. Another tentacle stabbed down, bursting the Old Mage's left eye tike a raw egg. After a momentary chaos of swimming brightness, Elminster could sec once more-albeit dimly, through a blood-red haze.

'See? You can't even die on me,' Nergal purred into Elminster's lace, as tenderly as a lover 'Understanding your wits will deliver to me control of the silver fire, all your other little powers and favorite spells, and your storehouse of memories. That last alone is the key to ruling Toril with magic and making it my own realm. A Hell away from Hell, as it were!'

Fingers as hot as fire irons took hold of Elminster's cheeks. The archdevil's forked tongue undulated hungrily forth as he bent his head to kiss the helpless wizard, tentacles lightening suddenly into chains that held Elminster immobile.